The Real Reason Stress Is Hurting You | Kelly McGonigal

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Yeah. So I do try to avoid the language of like, if you think about stress the wrong way, it will kill you. In part because I actually came to regret that I had done a lot of teaching and speaking and writing about how stress itself can kill you. So, you know, because I'm a health psychologist, I was trained to view stress as the enemy. And if you look at the science, you can find evidence that stress increases your risk of everything people don't want, from, you know, heart disease to depression, all of it. But almost 10 years ago, I came across this study that made me really rethink stress. And it was a study that tracked about 30,000 adults for almost a decade in the US. And at the beginning of the study, they asked people, first, how stressful is your life? And then also, do you believe that your stress is harmful? Do you believe that stress is bad for your health? And so they followed them to find out, like, is it true that stress kills? And what they found is that for the subset of people who had a very stressful life and most strongly believed that their stress was harmful, they had a 43% increased risk of dying from any cause over the next decade. But the people who had the most stressful lives and did not strongly believe that stress was bad for them, they were the most likely to be alive at the end of the decade. And, you know, this study caught my attention because, first of all, it suggests that stress is not always the enemy. At least it's not always a risk factor in the way that we think about it. But then also, it was making me think, like, how many of those deaths was I personally responsible for by going out there trying to convince people that stress was bad for their health and that, you know, the stress will kill your brain cells and eventually kill you? So that was kind of like a wake-up moment for me to start to want to investigate, is it possible that how you think about stress can interact with stress to help you avoid some of the consequences we don't want and maybe even something good about stress worth embracing? So that your mindset could help you harness some of your personal strengths, help you harness the strength in your community to get some positive outcomes we maybe don't usually associate with stress. So I think I'm trying to shy away from the idea that, like, stress isn't bad unless you believe it is, which is sometimes how my work gets summarized. That's not the case. I mean, like you said, I'm a scientist, so, you know, I understand data. Stress is a paradox. Stress is not something that we often get to choose. So it's not like even if you had a wish list and you could say, I want this much stress and this type of stress, it's not like we have that opportunity. So what I'm really interested in is this idea that we now call it the stress mindset effect, that there are ways of thinking about stress that can make your body's response to stress healthier, that can change what happens in your brain in moments of stress, that make you braver, more resilient, more willing to accept help from others, and that these mindsets basically change the trajectory of how stress affects you. That's the big idea that I hope to share with people.

When do we know that we are experiencing good stress versus bad stress?

Yeah, no such thing as good stress or bad stress, I want to say. That is, again, another, I think, a big misconception around stress. Because, you know, people will say things like, "Oh, good stress, it's like the stress of getting a promotion or the stress of winning the lottery or the stress of doing something really exciting." that you're good at. You know, like that's good stress. Bad stress is all the stuff we don't want. It's the pain, it's the suffering, it's the loss, it's the uncertainty, it's what we actually mean when we say we're stressed, it's all of that. So I, you know, forget good stress, bad stress, 'cause it sets us up to think that if we're experiencing what all of us will instinctively say, didn't want this, like the bad stress, That's the real stress for most of us. And again, most of us don't get to choose how stressful our lives are, how stressful the world is. I mean, this— the time we're living in now is a perfect example of that. And if you label things good stress, bad stress, it can lead to things like believing— let's say you're trying to homeschool your kids right now, and it's enormously stressful, and you're feeling like a bad parent and a bad teacher, and you can't figure out how you're going to get through today, let alone tomorrow.

You're—

if you believe that's bad stress, you're going to believe, I'm not cut out to be a parent, there's something wrong with my kids, there's something wrong with, you know, my life. And I just like, let's— no, here's the, here's the distinction that I like to make. Life can be difficult, so that good or bad, but stress is what arises in you when something that you care about is at stake. So it's your thoughts, it's your emotions, it's your biology, it's the stress hormones, it's the adrenaline. It's your desire to reach out to others. It's sometimes a sense of outrage and anger. It's all the stuff that emerges to help you meet a moment that matters. And so what I like to focus on is in moments of stress, some of those instincts are going to be healthy and helpful, and others are not. So rather than, like, stress being good or bad, it's about learning more about your stress responses, the repertoire that's available to you, and how do you get good at stress? So that you can tell in a moment of stress, is this a moment that requires slowing down and going within? Or is this a moment that requires being vulnerable and asking for help? Is this a moment that requires ignoring everything else and rising to the challenge? Because it's an emergency and I need that adrenaline, so let's do it. There's a lot of different ways to be good at stress. And that's the good that I like to focus on.

Yeah, I'm a big believer that our life is an interpretation. And the language we use dictates the way we think and feel. And the more we say, "I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed," any word that we use after "I am," we start to manifest more in the mind and the body, and they connect, and we create that. "I'm sick, I'm not feeling well." The more we say these things— now, we should be aware of these things and not just act like it's not there, but I think when we use language, and almost eliminating the word stress or overwhelm and reframing it can be a powerful thing as well. What is your thoughts on how we use words around our stress, anxiety, loneliness, depression? How should we be using words and language during that time?

There are a lot of examples that I can go into, but I want to start from an overview. This is where that improv idea of yes, and can be really helpful. Because, and I know you've talked with other guests about this too, sometimes there's a tendency to want to be so positive that we ignore reality. And, you know, one of the things is, one of the reasons that I'm drawn to the research that I do and the topics that I talk about is because it is not in my nature to be positive, right? So anytime I—

You're a negative person.

Pessimistic, anxious, overwhelmed, existential dread, terrified by life. From birth.

The world is against you, yeah.

Yeah, and like, not because necessarily life experiences that have shaped that worldview. I mean, I believe a lot in genetics also. So I think like that's my temperament. So I'm drawn a lot to these ideas of like choosing positive emotions, reframing things, because it's the antidote to my habits that can become destructive. So I think like part of this is that's another way, You could introduce me to somebody who needs to seriously come to terms with the reality of suffering, and I'd push them in the opposite direction. And, you know, "Oh no, I'm never stressed. Oh, everything happens for a reason." I want to be like— I would want to ground them in the opposite that is also true. So, but let's get back to the idea, because there is some truth to positive language and mindsets. A really simple example: we know that the physiology of anxiety and excitement are really similar in your body and in your brain. And if you were to take someone who's feeling really anxious, measure their heart rate, look at the ratio of stress hormones that are coursing through their bloodstream, and you look at someone who's really excited, they're almost identical. One of my favorite studies was actually they had people jumping out of airplanes, and some people were terrified and some people were like, "This is what I live for." Physiology looked exactly the same, right? The only difference is the story that they were telling themselves about this experience. Experience, you know, whether they felt capable of it. And so there's research suggesting that in moments of anxiety, even if truly you're anxious, you're not excited in that moment, if you say to yourself, "All right, well, my heart is pounding. This means my heart is in it. My heart is giving me energy to meet this moment," and you could try saying to yourself, like, "I'm here for this," or whatever your version of— if saying "I'm excited" feels like too far, just, I like to say my heart is in it, which is a step from anxiety towards excitement.

Yeah, it's not about lying to yourself or faking it till you make it. It's about saying, okay, my body is getting ready for this. I can feel my body in this moment. So let's roll, you know.

And what we know is that as soon as people do that, it starts to subtly shift their physiology in a way that actually is a little bit healthier than like a fight-or-flight response.

Yeah.

So, you know, more in their favor against them. Yeah, it's, yeah, you get more energy, less inflammation in your body. You're starting to move towards a stress state that really is just helping you have energy and courage and enjoy the moment. And it also increases positive emotions like, like confidence and enthusiasm. It makes you better able to connect with other people too. I mean, there are studies that do a similar kind of mindset reset for people who are about to enter a stressful conversation. And like, you know, one of my favorite studies that found that people made more eye contact and they were more likely to mimic the other person's body language in this really natural way that helps build rapport, just by reframing their anxiety as energy that they could harness, as a sign that they care. So that's one example. And that's a far cry from something like saying, "This is good for me, therefore it is." There's something— these resets are pretty specific because they're grounded in biological reality. I'll give you one other example. One of the biological things that often happens when we're stressed is changes in our brain and in the hormones in our body that make us lonely. And you can start to feel really alone. And what most people don't recognize is that is your— just like when your heart is pounding, it's your body trying to give you energy to act. When you feel lonely, that's your brain and your body trying to get you to connect. It is making you hungry. For support, for connection, for allies, for teamwork and cooperation. And so it produces like a hunger for social contact and community. And too often, people feel that loneliness, and what they think is, "It's because I'm alone. It's because no one understands. It's because I'm the only one." And they mistake what the signal is, and they tell themselves a story that actually makes them further withdraw. So that's another type of like stress signal. That when you understand what's happening in your biology, you can embrace it and say, this is a sign to reach out.

Wow. So when we feel lonely, we shouldn't continue being lonely. We should actually reach out and create connection and not say, no one's going to understand my pain right now, so I'm going to stay in my bed for 2 weeks and watch Netflix alone and get more depressed. That's not the solution.

Yeah.

Often the— you know, it's interesting. I mean, this is sort of speaking more broadly as a psychologist. I often find that the beliefs that people tell themselves that are most painful are almost always— it's just telling you what you care about. Like, if you— when you're telling yourself a story about being alone and lonely, what you're actually revealing is, like, you know, people care about you and you need to reach out. Like, you need your people, you need your community.

No one's really thought— I've never really thought about that way and saying, like, if I feel lonely, it means people care about me. And I need to reach out because they want to get connected too.

Your body and brain, they aren't stupid. If nobody cared about you, you wouldn't actually experience a desire for community and contact. The brain is very interesting. It's like, you know, it's funny with depression, often one of the most insidious things about it is depression will actually start to lie to you and it will start to tell you there's nothing you can do and there's nobody who cares and you actually have a very suppressed stress response. And I don't mean you're not suffering, but stress is, you know, it's a physiological thing, and it often involves hormones and energy and brain activity that is trying to push you in the direction of meeting life. And when you're depressed, you actually stop feeling like there's anything that you can do to meet this moment, or that there are other people who could help you and support you. And like, that's, that's what's so insidious and ugly about depression, is it's a lie. If you're not in that state, you can really start to read a lot of these signals that we experience as difficult emotions or annoying physiological symptoms of stress as actually pointing you to the strengths that you have and, uh, and how you can respond and what you need in this moment.

What's the reason for depression for human beings? Why do we— why does it happen to so many people? When it doesn't feel like there's a good purpose for it? What is that reason?

There are a lot of theories about this. I won't say that I know any of them to be better than other theories, but I do subscribe to the idea that you wouldn't see something in humanity that has no purpose. So a lot of the things that we experience as not, like not something we would choose for ourselves, things like grief, anxiety, depression, anger, they serve a function. So one of the thoughts is that depression in its sort of initial form is meant to help you conserve energy and withdraw from reactivity and giving away of your energy and attention so that you can kind of pull back, slow down, pause, and process what's happening in your life. And that's, you know, psychologists sometimes call that like reactive depression. It's normal. It's typical when things in your life are difficult.

And you feel completely overwhelmed, completely stressed.

People don't understand you and you're just like, "Okay, I need to take a break to actually reflect on what's happening in my life." Almost in the way that if you were, you know, if you were running an ultramarathon, you get tired and your body and brain work very hard to convince you to slow down and take a break. Because it's in your best interest. Now, so that's one theory. Another theory, which I find very plausible, is that depression is the equivalent of what you see in animals called the defeat response. And this is if you are an animal in the wild and you experience so much rejection from your community, your family, your group, so you've been ostracized, you have very little access to resources on your own, you can't, like, find a way to survive on your own, you will see these changes happen in the brain and body that— they're called the defeat response, but it's this biological cascade that basically convinces animals to crawl away and die, to give up on life. And so, like, if you stress out a rat enough by, say, putting them in a cage with a bunch of rats that bully that rat incessantly, and the rat can do nothing to escape, and you're not giving it resources, and it's got no purpose in life, you will see changes in the— that rat's brain and biology that then if you throw the rat in a bucket of water, it doesn't even try to swim. It just gives up and drowns. So I think that a lot of what we experience as depression and why depression is an epidemic in so many cultures right now, so many societies, is that a lot of people are experiencing kind of the equivalent of being in a cage and being bullied and not being clear about what can I do to improve my circumstances? Who cares about me? Who can I— how can I contribute to the world?

Yeah.

And I'm not saying it's necessarily true. I mean, you can feel that way. Even when something is possible, right? That, that, um, it's part of how, like, and sometimes it actually is true. Like, sometimes you really are in circumstances that can trigger a defeat response. I think that's another reason why depression might exist, in which case it's doing nothing for you. And that's— I mean, it's worth knowing that depression can make your brain turn on you because the depression is not thinking about your well-being.

No, that's crazy. What do you think are the 3 or 4 things that can help us get out of a depressed state of being whether it's been for weeks, months, years, or moments?

Yeah, well, here I will go to both the science and my direct experience. One of my big interests in life is helping people who find themselves in circumstances they would not have chosen for themselves, and grief is a big one. Yeah, or trauma. So what the science says, and what I have seen in people's lives and in my own life, is if you're on a do-it-yourself path— so first of all, let me say Obviously, you use whatever resources are available to you therapeutically and medically. Now, that's not my role, so I don't write prescriptions. I don't do therapy. So I'm not out there in the world sharing that with people. But obviously, everything from antidepressants to, you know, new treatments like deep brain stimulation and magnetic stimulation of the brain, therapy, group therapy, one-on-one, all of that stuff. Obviously use that, and, and, and I believe in the power of sort of all of the evidence-based treatments. Okay, but I don't know how to do it, so I'm not out there sharing it. So if you're on a do-it-yourself supportive pathway, in addition to or instead of that other stuff, exercise, number one. And I know how that sounds to somebody who's depressed. I know because I've actually been in the state where where it was so hard to move, I would have punched someone who told me to exercise if I had the strength to punch someone who told me to exercise. So I understand what it can be like to be in a physical state of depression or grief, where every cell in your motor system is saying, "Don't move," making it impossible to even get to put one foot in front of the other. That said, there is nothing else you can do that more dramatically and profoundly changes your brain chemistry immediately and in the long term to relieve depression, whether we are talking about the brain chemistry that kicks in, the adrenaline and the dopamine that just gives you a little bit of energy, even if you're depressed, that tends to kick in immediately, to over time, as your brain learns how to benefit from exercise, you will start to get an exercise high that, you know, gives you high levels of endocannabinoids and dopamine and endorphins that, that just transform your outlook. On like the day that you exercise, and then 6 weeks, 8 weeks, months later, you see changes in the structure of the brain that can only be compared to what you see from the most cutting-edge neurological treatments for depression, things like deep brain stimulation. Really? So yeah, the exercise actually changes your reward system, the structure and function of your reward system, in ways that can help it recover from depression or addiction, which can absolutely wreak havoc and the brain's ability to experience joy and anticipate pleasure and stay motivated. Depression, grief, and addiction are all— it's like they all have a very similar effect on the brain's ability to experience positive motivation and take joy in everyday life. And exercise is, as far as I can tell, because I looked for it in the research, as far as I can tell, it's the only thing that you can choose to do that has that kind of impact on your brain in the long term.

Wow.

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That's number 1. I could keep going, but you want to—

That's number 1.

Give me a couple others.

Okay. Number 2, this is going to sound super cheesy, but I believe this is find a way to be of service to others. I mean, the research really supports this as well. But if you think about, you know, we talked about depression, as being possibly, for some people, it's like a defeat response, where you've had experiences in life that have misled you into believing that you don't have value or that you aren't cared about, or there's nothing you can do to make a difference in your life or in the world. And the fastest way to get contradictory evidence is to volunteer to help someone. There have been a couple times in my life when I was struggling, where I re-engaged with not just like donating money when I can, but to show up to a place and help people. First was when I was in graduate school and was working in a food kitchen and preparing food and serving food. And then later on, starting to work as an adoptions counselor for animal rescue organizations, where I would actually go and adopt out animals who otherwise might be homeless or even euthanized. When you do that, the thing that's so great about helping others or volunteering is people see you differently in that role. There already was in you that good. Like, whatever good is in you, often when you're in a situation of being able to help others, it just gets reflected back to you. And the same thing is true for me in teaching as well. I always feel like my students like me so much more than like, my family members. There's something about a role where you're trying to help others, where they see you differently.

They appreciate you more.

It's such a gift if you have a voice in your head that says you have nothing to offer, nobody cares about you, there's no good in the world, because there's— you get this sort of reciprocity where you tap into your desire to do good. You see, first of all, that you aren't the only one suffering. That's another great thing about helping others is it makes visible what might otherwise have been invisible, as you see how many other people are struggling with food scarcity, how many other people are struggling with addiction, whatever capacity you're able to volunteer or serve in, you start to realize you aren't alone. Even if that struggle is different than your own, you see the common humanity of it. And again, that people see the good in you. So that, I'm sure that sounds cheesy, but I'm gonna stand in the truth of that. And then the third thing—

And there's science that backs service.

Yeah.

And not only that, you know, I mentioned this in my TED Talk. So of course, you can always find studies showing that stressful life circumstances are bad for your health. So if you lose your job, if you get divorced, if you experience trauma, could that increase your risk of physical health problems, diseases, new mental health challenges?

Yes.

But there are all these studies showing that if you are someone who regularly volunteers or you have a caregiving role that is not in and of itself a major source of stress— I mean, there are caregiving roles that are enormously stressful— but if you're able to give care in a way that is not that extreme, that those events don't take the same toll on your physical or mental health. You know, like, there are studies showing that literally you can, you know, get fired or get divorced, and you would expect it to cause all sorts of problems for your health and your mental health, and that trend or that effect disappears from the population of people who are regularly giving back to their communities or providing care to others. So there is lots of great research.

It's powerful.

And then the third thing I will say is— you and I were talking about this before we went live— is rescue an animal, because one of the only things that can really help again, beyond like get on the right antidepressant medication if that's for you, but one of the only things that you can choose in any given moment that is incredibly helpful for depression or grief or trauma is to have a relationship with an animal who depends on you and who you can have that success experience of providing the care that they need. And actually, in like in many of my books, I've written about the research studies done with groups of people who are healed through their relationships of providing care to animals. Wow. You know, people who experienced enormous childhood trauma and came to view themselves as essentially, like, broken or unlovable, rejected, and then to then go out and adopt or train an animal who was going to be euthanized because it was violent or it was rejected or it was abandoned.. And that you, you know, in providing that care and you see the enormous beauty and wonder in that animal and they see it in you.

Wow.

That's your 3 tips.

You know, it's interesting. Would you have a 4th one?

So I can tell you what my own research has looked at in the past decade is meditation. You know, I'm somebody who found meditation initially as a tool for dealing with physical pain and anxiety. And eventually I came to study the benefits of a particular form of meditation that develops compassion and empathy and kindness. And that's been sort of the primary focus of my own research. You know, I feel like meditation is an interesting thing because unlike, say, getting a pet and volunteering, I'm not sure that it's for everyone. I'm not the kind of evangelist. I think meditation, it meets a lot of people at a moment and provides something really valuable. And the thing that I love about meditation, when it's the right fit, is we know that there's something about the quality of attention and intention that you can develop through contemplative practices that changes how you experience difficult moments in life when you really need qualities like courage or acceptance or hope. So I'm not somebody who thinks like you meditate to relax. I think you meditate so that in moments when everything is falling apart, suddenly you have the mental ability to hold on to hope or focus on what matters.

That's interesting you say that because when I meditate, I have a practice for about 12 to 15 minutes in the morning that I actually learned when I went to India to study, uh, to become a meditation teacher. Actually, I, I've been meditating in different forms since I was probably 16, 17 through like sports psychology training and sports and visualization, things like that. Mental imaging, seeing the future, all these different things. When I meditate now, I actually, I visualize everything going the way I want it to be. I visualize peace and love and happiness and accomplishing my goals and being in service and helping others heal, all these different things. But there's a moment in my meditation where I think about what if everything goes wrong today? What if something happens here and something happens there and I get, you know, I get injured or this and that, you know, everything goes wrong. How will I respond? Will I react and say the world is falling on me or will I respond with a sense of peace and groundedness to manage it all? Because I think how we respond to stress really matters. Sometimes more than the actual stress itself is what I'm hearing you say. It's like how we respond and show up, because stress and challenge is going to happen. Difficulty is going to happen. We don't live in a perfect world.

Absolutely. I mean, maybe it's the pessimist in me, but this is— I always encourage people to imagine how things can go wrong, because then when it happens, you can actually say to yourself, honestly, this is what we trained for.

Exactly. And I think Navy SEALs do this and it's all about coming back to like, okay, you have a mission, but we know the out. Okay, if everyone dies, what are you going to do? If this happens, what are you going to do? If someone loses a leg, what do you know? When every— the plan never goes to plan. So you have to have the backup plan for everything, I guess, is kind of— and I try to do that when I go on stage. I think about, okay, what if the lights shut off? What if the video doesn't play? What if the slides don't work? What— how am I going to improvise as opposed to being caught off guard?

Yeah, absolutely. So funny. So I actually teach a public speaking and communication class to graduate students at Stanford, and we do this whole exercise where I have them imagine their absolute most dreaded worst-case scenarios. We figure out what you could do, and we do it collectively because I know it's going to happen to somebody. And what I want people to have is not just the memory of like, okay, I trained for this, I've thought about it, but also in that moment to feel like the support of our whole group and community behind them saying, you've got this, like, we've got your back. But yeah, there's so many applications to this. And when it comes to things like behavior change too, that like if you, you have a goal for yourself, we know from the literature, one of the most important things you can do is pay attention to and then predict how you're going to be pulled away from that goal. So when I, you know, when I used to teach this class called The Science of Willpower and everyone had a willpower goal in the class and the very first assignment, first week is don't change anything right now. I want you to pay attention to how you are not doing whatever it is you say your goal is. I want like a process map of it. What do you say to yourself? What distracts you? What gets in the way? What do you give your time to instead? What are the emotions that trigger the behavior you're trying to change? I want you to get all that data and then you start planning for it rather than say just starting from a commitment, I'm going to do this and hope for the best.

Yeah, I think it's all about having that game plan, the backup plan when things go wrong, when they don't go the way you want them to go. I'm curious about, you know, you talked about these 4 ways to kind of overcome depression on your own without medication and therapy and things like that, kind of the do-it-yourself Yeah, and I'm actually not a big fan.

I'm always a fan of do it together. I mean, I think there's also something empowering in knowing that there are choices you can make, even if you don't have access to the latest and greatest brain stimulation techniques, like that going for a walk in nature has the same effect on your brain as the brain stimulation. That's, to me, that's really empowering. But at the same time, I'm not like a DIY, like, drink herbal tea instead of get treated for cancer person.

Sure, sure, sure. It's interesting because I was interviewing Dr. Laurie Santos, who's a happiness researcher at Yale, and I asked her, you know, what are the 4 scientific ways to become happier? And she said exercise, gratitude, service, meditation. And I go, you know, it's like, it's to overcome depression.

We're not geniuses. It's just the data.

Right. And I go, so you're saying all this woo-woo stuff that people in personal development have been talking about for for decades is actually now scientifically backed. Gratitude, exercise, these things are like now being studied at Stanford and Yale.

Let me tell you something about gratitude because I have very specific beliefs about how to make this effective. So gratitude is also something that I've done some, some work around. And here's the most effective way to use gratitude for your own well-being. It should focus on human interdependence, not things or circumstances. So, you know, at the end of the day, one of the exercises that I will often do is I think about the people who played a role in supporting me that day, known to me or not known to me. So a package was delivered this morning, so I'll imagine— I didn't see who it was who delivered it, but I know that somebody did, and I have an experience of gratitude to that person and the work that they're doing. Gratitude to my husband, gratitude to anyone I interacted with. One of the reasons that gratitude improves well-being is not because it makes you feel better. That's the mistake a lot of people think about gratitude. They think it's like an exercise that will boost their mood and then they can fall asleep at night. I'm so grateful for my health. I'm so grateful for my whatever. The reason that gratitude can have enormous effects on your well-being is because gratitude is a social emotion and the primary biological reason human beings have the capacity for gratitude is to strengthen your social network and improve relationships. So every time you experience a thought of gratitude towards someone in your life, you are strengthening that relationship and that social network. And we know that—

Just thinking about it.

Just thinking about it. And then you interact with that person differently. And gratitude has been shown to elicit more support from other people. That your experience of gratitude makes you more willing to ask for help when you need it. Gratitude builds trust. It enhances your social relationships. So that's why I really encourage people, if you're going to do gratitude practice, don't think about trying to make yourself happy by thinking about things that you're grateful for. Think about truly instilling a mindset of interdependence, of recognizing that there are people in your life who you can rely on. You know, you start with what's true, and then people in your life who support you in ways that they might not even know they're supporting you. And here's the great thing is this is where you get to when this is a mindset you really understand, is you come to understand the same is true for you too. And then it becomes easier to receive gratitude from others. It becomes easier to recognize the value that you bring to different situations. And that comes, you know, full back to when we were talking about depression, that opening to feeling gratitude for others is also a way of opening to receiving gratitude and compassion from others. And that's really hard for a lot of people.

Why is it so hard to receive acknowledgement, gratitude, compassion, compliments from others? And what are we saying to ourselves and to the world when we block or deny compliments, compassion, gratitude, acknowledgement.

You know, I love that you frame it that way. So one, because I've had to work on this myself, receiving sincere gratitude or receiving the kindness of others, receiving true sympathy or empathy, it's a moment of intense intimacy and vulnerability. Where people are seeing you. And sometimes what's really vulnerable about that is they're seeing that you care and that you tried. They're seeing that you suffer. They're seeing that you're weak or that you're human, that you have pain. It's this incredibly heightened intimacy. And that's why it's so hard for a lot of people. It's not just like, oh no, it's, it's not like it's necessarily about humility. Or not wanting to be a burden on others. I mean, sometimes that's part of it, but it's the— you shut down because there's so much rawness in that moment of being seen, either for your good or for your vulnerability or your suffering. So, um, that's, that's one of the reasons why it's so hard for people, is because we typically just don't walk around raw. And there's something about that shift that happens when someone is sincerely offering you sympathy, sympathy, or sincerely thanking you. I blush often when that happens. I just like feel the heat come in and I almost want to like hide. So the way that I worked with it is, you know, all the research and my direct experience that people will say that like the most meaning in their life comes from either being able to help other people. So who am I to say, nope, I don't want your help. I don't need your help. Can't help me.

Like, who am I?

You're robbing someone the gift of feeling alive and fulfilled.

Like, you know, when my mother says to me, when you listened to me last week, that really helped me deal with this crisis. This is something that actually happened. Like, wow. I was like, nothing else needs to happen today. I'm so— I'm like, wow, that I'm so glad that I was able to do that. It was so meaningful to me. To think that then I would be reluctant to give her the same opportunity to support me. Like, that's, that's not how this works. It only really works if it's a full cycle and we're open to both offering and receiving kindness and gratitude.

So how do we learn how to accept the compassion, gratitude, support, uh, acknowledgement of others and not block it? How do we learn that practice?

So there's a very specific way that, that I teach it that's related to my research. So we have this whole program called called the Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training Program. It's this whole 8-week thing where we use things like meditation and one-on-one interactions to practice this. So, you know, I'll give you— I'm not saying people need to go home and try this with their pet right now or their partner. But so, for example, one of the things we do in this context is we learn this meditation called Tonglen, where you imagine breathing in awareness of whatever stress or pain someone else is going through, and you imagine breathing out support, hope, strength, compassion, kindness. So it's a sort of— you learn to be this vessel to connect with the strength of your compassionate heart that allows you to open, to actually being with, to witnessing and receiving and acknowledging someone else's pain and suffering., and in that moment to connect to the intention to care and support. And it's this meditation you do, and we do it as a partner exercise where we have a conversation. You know, I would share with you something difficult that I'm going through, and you would share something difficult you're going through with me, and then we would practice this exchange where I'm imagining I'm breathing in awareness of your stress and sending you compassion, and you're breathing in my stress or pain and breathing out compassion. And then I like to flip it, and then you just imagine you're breathing in what the other person is sending you and allowing yourself to receive it.

Wow.

Now that's super woo-woo. I'm not saying that that's for everyone, but it's powerful in the right context.

But when it works, it works, right?

Yeah. And I think that even if that whole idea is like your nightmare, there's still the idea behind it is that one of the skills you have to learn is not falling apart in the presence of pain or suffering. And there's a lot of ways to do that, you know, human—

How do we not fall apart when we're in our deepest suffering?

Yeah, like exercise, by the way, is another really good way to do it. So one of the—

By keeping your body strong.

Yes. And like, what do you do when you're— so I have a saying when I work out, when I'm lifting weights, don't have an opinion about it. Either your legs can do this or they can't. And I'm doing a squat and I will literally say to myself, don't have an opinion about this. You're either strong enough to do this or you aren't. And it's okay if you're tired. It's okay if there's some message in your brain that says, I want to stop. You check in with reality. And if you can do this next, next rep, you do it. And there's, there's something that you learn in exercise that is about, okay, I'm a, I'm a container that can hold a lot of things that can feel difficult and that I have an instinct to run away from. And so exercise can be another way to train your capacity to stay in the presence of your own discomfort or somebody else's pain and stress.

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Is there any research or science around people who have been through constant trauma, constant stress, deep levels of suffering for many, many, many years where they either live a long life or they actually don't live a long life because because the body had too much trauma and stress. Is there research around this that's actually having more trauma could potentially be beneficial if you interpret it differently?

Mm, that's probably not how I would phrase it. And here's why. In my experience, so many people are used to having their own suffering or trauma minimized that if you start talking like that, No matter what data you have, in a way you're like suddenly re-traumatizing people. Like, ah, you're traumatizing people.

Right, right, right.

You're not acknowledging my trauma.

Yeah.

You're just not doing it right. Like, that is not— so here's how I would put it. First of all, there is interesting research that adverse life experiences and trauma can change your biology in ways that are helpful if you stay in that environment, so things like increasing inflammation, changing your brain in ways that help you detect threat, that if you stay in an unsafe environment, these are really helpful changes in your brain and in your body to keep you alive. So it's not like you're broken. But if you're no longer in that environment, it can take a while for your brain and body to catch up. And so you can end up being at increased risk for things like heart disease or depression. Because of the sort of the long-term toll of some of those changes in your brain and in your body. Like, the reason that stress and trauma have these negative consequences is that we learn from experience, and trauma is a big experience that basically opens your capacity to be changed by life's experiences. So we're biologically primed to be changed by life. Your brain and body are always waiting to be changed by experiences.

Really?

And trauma is a big one. It basically opens up this window of plasticity. And a lot of times we get changed in ways that we end up not loving. Like PTSD is a perfect example of your brain and body learning from experience, learning a lot of useful things, but it doesn't feel useful when you're being triggered by sounds or you can't sleep at night, or you feel like nobody understands what you've been through. It doesn't feel useful, although, you know, technically your brain and body are trying to protect you. Particularly if you're still in an environment that caused the initial trauma. So, so the thing that I like to focus on is not that, like, trauma can be good for you, but that our ability to be changed by life's experiences can be good for you. You are still plastic in that sense. And so when we look at people who have, who flourished despite trauma, often it's because they put themselves in other life experiences that are both positive and increase plasticity. And there are also, there are like biological events in your life that increase plasticity. So when you become a parent, it doesn't matter if you gave birth to the child.

It's a very traumatic moment, right? It's like, it can be beautiful and traumatic.

It does.

Even if you're adopting, even if you are, you know, the father who did not go through pregnancy, that it actually, your brain changes in ways that make you very receptive to learning. And to being changed by that experience.

It's kind of like when you rescue an animal, it's on a smaller level of having a child, obviously, but you have to observe your surroundings and make sure things are cleaned up so the animal doesn't, whatever, trip or—

Your brain recognizes big transitions and your brain gets you ready to change in ways that support that transition. So I was going to say falling in love is another one too. If you are in a really bad relationship or good relationship, man, is that a window of plasticity. That can deeply change how you experience life, how you think about yourself, your physical health. So I'm— I think that if you understand that, that even if you have been traumatized in ways that are not great for your health or your happiness, to appreciate that often it's the people who are most strongly affected by negative events, you are also most sensitive to positive events. There's actually like— there's genetics behind this. The people who are most negatively affected are also the most positively affected, not by trauma, but by positive experiences. That means that you can start to find a way to move forward. You look for those life experiences that hold meaning for you. You look for a way to make this a turning point and a transition to re-engage all that capacity for change. That's the thing I would highlight more. And the other thing I will say is when I was writing my book on stress, I talked to a researcher who has studied the impact of traumatic and adverse life events on all sorts of outcomes. And he usually talks about this being like a curve. And I've stopped talking about this because I feel like people then think like you need just the right number of traumatic events to be happy and resilient. But the idea is like, you know, if you look at the general population, if you've had no trauma or adversity in your life, you are not a resilient person. You start to have some negative life experiences, and you start to seem to be more resilient. Like if somebody stresses you out, you have conflict, you experience a failure, you're more likely to continue to thrive, to learn from it, to persevere. And then what you see this curve is, okay, you had a lot of adverse experiences in your life, that may not be so great. But I said, okay, what about the people who've had—

Some.

Oh no, a lot, a lot.

A lot of trauma. A lot of adversity.

Like, they're not on that bell curve. We're not talking about the difference between, like, 2 traumatic events in your life and 3, but 2 and 20, 30 years of being in an abusive relationship. Some of that, like, where are they on this resilience chart? And what he said to me was, God, some of those people are doing really, really well. There's— those people are super interesting. What he wants people to know is you are not doomed by your past adversity or trauma. That that's what those people demonstrate to him. When he has studied people who have had extraordinary trauma in their lives, they, they're just off the charts in all sorts of interesting ways and not always the things, the adverse outcomes. So I love that. That's the idea that I really appreciate.

Yeah, that's interesting. It's funny, I was —did an interview with the professor and researcher Jordan Peterson. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work, but he talks about how, as a parent, you shouldn't be protecting your kids. Obviously, you want to protect your kids, but he's making a point that you shouldn't want them to be totally safe in every environment, have pads on every wall, and make sure you're watching every move. Like, you want them to experience adversity because that will make them be able to stand on their own as an adult. And the more adversity they face as a child, the greater they can learn and start to appreciate and everything like that. And you don't want them to be, um, so soft all the time. You want them to have some toughness. And it takes not protecting your kids all the time in order to develop some of that, I guess, attitude of overcoming adversity, I guess. The training. Because if you don't have the training from 0 to 18, how are you going to take on adversity when life happens?

There's a— so there's a lot of research on this. This is a very popular view among developmental psychologists and educators too. And I like to put it in some context as well. So the most important thing for helping children become resilient and thrive is to have a positive relationship with an adult that creates a secure attachment. So, you know, if you're the parent or you're the caregiver, your number one job is to make sure that that child believes that you will care for them and care about them, and it is not contingent on a whole lot of other things, like that you yourself are managing to be sober, you know, one day a week, and that's what it's contingent on, or that your child has to achieve a certain level of success in some domain. That, like, so that is the number one job of a parent, is that secure relationship where a child is confident that you will care for them and about them. Then, if that's in place, the experience of failure, setbacks, all that stuff is typically positive in a child's development, in part because they know that they're not going to lose access to the most important thing, their the one who cares and loves for them. Love. They're not going to lose love. Right. And then also, if you cannot protect your child from the suffering you really want to protect them from, you can't change the world, you can't erase whatever the circumstances are, you know, when you can't fix the world for them or protect them from things that truly a parent would love to do. I would love my child to never experience violence. I'd love my child to never experience heartbreak. Of course you want that, but you can't control that. And the research shows that if, if a child has both that caring, trusting relationship with adults and some previous experience of moving forward despite adversity or pain, then they're so much better prepared to deal with the stuff that you, like, you would love to protect them from, but you just can't. Yeah, it's interesting.

There's two examples that came to mind as you're saying that from interviews in the past I've done. One with Sara Blakely, the youngest self-made female billionaire in America. She said that every night for dinner, when she would come to the dinner table as a kid growing up, her father would ask her, "What did you fail at today? What was the thing that didn't work out?" And she had to always have something to come up with to say, "Well, this didn't work out," or, "I tried this thing at school," or whatever it might be. And he would celebrate her and still love her based on whatever failure she had that day, small or big. And so she was celebrated and loved no matter what. It was in the effort of actually, at least you went for it, you tried this, that's great, you took a risk. And then when I interviewed Kobe Bryant, he said that the first year he really got into basketball, he was in like a summer camp for the whole summer and he didn't score one point the entire summer, this whole league. And I said, what was it? What were you— how were you able to kind of get through it and keep going? And he said, because my dad loved me no matter what. He didn't care if I scored. He just celebrated the effort. He celebrated me. And he said, I don't care if you win or lose, I'm going to love you either way. And he said that that gave him the courage and the confidence to say, okay, let me just keep going. And if I fail, I'm still going to have that parental support, right? Which is what you're saying is the most important thing. Thing. And knowing you have somewhere at least to go and lean on if something happens. So it's an interesting point of conversation for sure. You mentioned a few minutes ago about the runner's high. And I wanted to ask you a question about that as it came to my mind, talking about sports right now. And you said the run— exercise high, excuse me. But what I've always heard people say is the runner's high. Can you break down what the runner's high or the exercise high actually does for the body or the mind scientifically?

Yeah. So I know it's called a runner's high, but I'm not a runner. So I have to get my high from other things. Workout high. So what the runner's high is, is it's this reliable change in your brain chemistry that happens when you engage in continuous movement for about 20 minutes or so and like a moderate intensity. So I always tell people, if you know your heart rate is getting up, you're breathing more deeply or more quickly, and you're using some of your muscles, it's probably it's going to get you to that place. So, you know, yoga, weightlifting, riding your bike, swimming, dancing, all of that stuff. And the changes. Um, so first of all, if you ask people to describe it, um, one of the things that stood out to me when I was like, I was all over Reddit, like the Reddit threads, like what does a runner's high feel like? Or looking at the scientific literature. I mean, people have written whole dissertations just asking people to describe a runner's high. Two things stood out to me. People feel powerfully optimistic. So there's something about whatever happens in your brain chemistry that makes you feel hopeful about your ability to engage with life. That was interesting. And the other thing is, people kept using the word— the words loving and connected. I feel like I'm in love with everyone I see. I feel connected to everyone in my life and everything in the universe. And so I got really interested in like, what could be happening in your brain that would make you feel powerfully hopeful and also loving and connected? And then I came across the research that it's not primarily the endorphin rush that people usually think the runner's high is. To get an endorphin rush from exercise, a really powerful endorphin rush, I'll just give you like a spoiler. If you want a powerful endorphin rush, because it definitely amplifies the pleasure of exercise, You need music, you need other people, or you need intensity. Those 3 things, that's what gives you like an endorphin rush. Music, moving with other people, or more intensity than what is required to get a runner's high. You don't have to work that hard to get a runner's high. Anyways, so the brain chemistry is actually endocannabinoids primarily in combination with dopamine and adrenaline. And endocannabinoids, which of course lots of people know, that's the brain chemical that cannabis mimics. And endocannabinoids in their natural function in your brain, they basically turn up good stuff and turn down negative states. So endocannabinoids, they interact with systems of your brain that produce pain, stress, worry, negative rumination, anger. They take those systems of the brain and they're like, shh, quiet down now, not the time for that. And then that would be great. Like, I think a lot of people would love that it was it, but natural levels of endocannabinoids also strongly enhance all reward and pleasure signaling in your brain. So reward system is what makes you feel motivated, hopeful, optimistic, confident, and then you've got the pleasure system that means like, oh, that sunset's so beautiful, "oh, it feels really good to, you know, to move my body," or, you know, "this cake tastes delicious." Whatever is good already, endocannabinoids make it even better.

Heightens it. It's like steroids.

Right. So some people have experienced that with cannabis as well, but here is the thing that is most interesting about exercise-induced endocannabinoids is they seem to selectively enhance social pleasures. So it's not just this cake tastes better, but when it's naturally working in your brain from exercise, it means that you enjoy interacting with other people. All the pleasures you could get from a hug or a high five, from eye contact feeling like connection rather than intimidating, the warm glow you get from working hard to solve a problem with someone else, or the warm glow that you get from helping someone else, the way it feels good to share in laughter or listen to someone tell a story, all of that stuff, the stuff that bonds relationships, endocannabinoids enhance your comfort and your pleasure from all of those activities. And like that's— so think about it. That is the neural signature of exercise, is to set you up to be a more social version of yourself, a more optimistic version of yourself. I just like— that's one of the reasons why it's so good for depression.

That's one of the reasons why, you know, when you enter into a team as an athlete and you play a sport, a team sport, it's got some of the greatest benefits in my mind to eliminating negative states, suffering states. Anytime I would go to school, I was pretty much suffering all the time because I was horrible in class. And I just felt like it was confirming how ignorant and stupid I was every time I tried to read and I couldn't comprehend every math class, whatever. I was just like, I suck as a human being. After school, you get a 30-minute break and go into 3:30, and now it's got 2 hours of fun, goal-setting, teamwork, connection, moving your body, exercise. I always felt like, ah, I'm not the dumbest person alive because there's this community, there's this— I feel better. We're working towards a common goal, we're learning lessons, we're overcoming adversity together. And that kind of teamwork mentality while working out is one of the greatest feelings in my mind. And that's why a lot of athletes get depressed after they retire, after their senior year is up and they don't make it to the next level. They go through deep states of depression, anxiety, overwhelm, and a lack of purpose because they're so used to a certain type of lifestyle that they no longer have. You have to find ways to find— group fitness classes are some activities to get that.

Races, training for events, coaching. I know I see this all the time, and it's, you know, it's funny the way you were describing the role that sports played for you when you were young. That's how I ended up teaching group exercise and yoga, is I had that same experience coming to graduate school. My first year as a graduate student, I had some big setbacks, made a bunch of mistakes, thought about dropping out, felt like a total failure, inadequate, don't belong here. But I started teaching yoga and dance through the aerobics program. And literally, like, the couple of hours a week that I had that positive experience with other people ended up becoming enough of a sort of a reserve, right, well-being to let me stick with something that was important, even though I'd had all these failure experiences. And, you know, I wasn't sure that I was up for it.

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You also said in an interview with Sean Stevenson, a buddy of mine, that exercise makes your brain more sensitive to pleasure, which you were just alluding to right there, that the more we exercise, the more we actually are stimulated by pleasure in a lot of different ways.

It actually changes the structure of your brain. This is something that, you know, this goes back to why exercise is so good for depression. And it's funny because it's in contrast to a lot of the other things we turn to when we want to feel better. So, and again, this is— when I share the science, I always worry it's coming across as judgmental, but, you know, one of the things that I've done a fair amount of work around is addiction, and one of the things that makes me so upset about why addiction is devastating is because a lot of the substances that initially bring people relief or reward, whether it's alcohol or any other substance, that initially, it really is giving you a reward and relieving an inner suffering, and then it turns on you and it starts destroying your brain's capacity to experience reward or relief from anything other than that substance. Wow. When you see it in the structure of the brain, your brain literally becomes unresponsive to anything other than the thing that you developed an addiction to. It's just, it's cruel. And exercise seems to be one of the only things that makes us feel good in the short term that teaches the brain to become more responsive to every other kind of reward in life. Wow. And whereas a lot of the things that we get addicted to in a negative way actually undermine your capacity for joy. And you can, you can get addicted to exercise too, but for most people, it's this kind of positive dependence where they realize that it's actually, it's keeping their brain in a state that supports their ability.

Makes them happier. Meaning, yeah, there might, there might be some extremists who train way too hard where it's negative effects on the body and the mind because they're working out. Yes, too much stress. They're too addicted to like body dysmorphia or whatever it might be, then that's an issue. But if you're going to be addicted, we're all addicted to something. And if you're going to be addicted to anything, it might as well be to healthy habits and service. Because if you're doing good for yourself and doing good for someone else, then those are good addictions.

And I know, so, you know, I first started, I got hooked on exercise when I was a kid because I discovered that exercise and I was doing like aerobics at home with VHS tapes. I discovered it was one of the only things that actually helped me manage my own inner anxiety as a little kid. There is a real genetic vulnerability in my family to addiction. And I am sure that if I hadn't somehow, like, by miracle gotten hooked on exercise at that early age, I would have absolutely been hooked on things much more destructive than that. So yeah. So if you're going to pick something to get addicted to, exercise.

Exercise and service, I say, are the two best addictions.

Yeah. Or rescuing animals, although that can be a bad addiction.

That could be a bad addiction. When you've got 70 cats, poop everywhere. You know, it's interesting. Okay, so what takes us to your next kind of topic of expertise, which is self-control and willpower. When we know that exercise and these positive habits and routines do good for us, but it's so hard for us sometimes to get motivated and stay consistent, or it's hard for us to resist the distractions, resist the addictions, the sugar, the candy, the alcohol, whatever it might be. How do we develop willpower and how much willpower can we have before we break down?

Is there a threshold? Yeah. Well, so I define willpower as the ability to make choices that are consistent with your most important goals and values, even when some part of you does not want to. So when some part of you has another desire, agenda, whatever.

So it's when we have a vision— an important vision that we really care about. But if we don't have an important vision backed by like a strong foundation of meaning, then we're always going to be breaking our willpower is what I'm hearing you say.

And then it's not willpower. So I'm not somebody who says willpower is defined by you never— and then fill in whatever behavior you judge. I'm not even going to fill it in because I don't want to go there. Like a lot of people define willpower as don't do this, don't do that, always do this, always do that. Like, it's like there's a tablet somewhere that said like the commandments of being a good human being, and that's it. That's what willpower is. You must never eat gluten. I don't know, whatever it is. No. Willpower is about being in control of your choices that reflects who and what you care about. So absolutely, part of willpower is you have to get clear about your values and your goals. The roles and relationships that matter. I don't, I don't consider it willpower if you're able to suppress every desire or you're able to force yourself to do stuff you don't really want to do because you think that you should. That's something completely different. And then, and then once you're clear about what you care about, then you get to play with all of these sort of psychological tricks and tools to support you, like lowering your standards. So too often people think, if I'm going to— let's say you want to change what you eat in a certain way that you believe will make you healthier or give you more energy or, you know, prevent the recurrence of cancer, let's say. You've got some data and you've got some ideas and it's really hard. You don't have to change everything tomorrow. You make one choice today that is consistent with your overall vision.. And it is amazing the upward spiral you can create when that's the standard you set for yourself, that you look for opportunities to make any choice that's consistent with your goal or your value, and then you, you start to experience the benefits of it, the actual payoff. You feel a sense of pride or gratitude to yourself. It changes how other people see you, and they start creating situations and environments that support support your goals. So that's like one thing that you can do. I mean, there's so, you know, there's so much behind this idea of habit design. You can make your environment support your goal so you can stop thinking about it in terms of I have to have control all the time. And like we were talking about planning ahead for the worst. Imagine you're going to be the most tired you've ever been. You've had a really hard day. You are—

There's cookies in front of you nonstop.

You feel like the weakest version of yourself. How are you going to support that person? And you take care of them in advance. You know, you might not want to, but you know you're going to be that version of yourself at some point. What can you do for them? Invest in them and like create an environment that makes it harder to fall off track or easier to do what supports you.

And you said at one point that willpower is a biological mind-body response, not a virtue. Yeah. Explain what that means. Yeah.

So, so in part, I mean, like, so willpower has a lot of different components, but I think the most underappreciated is that we have an instinct that slows us down. That is in contrast to fight or flight. So a lot of people know the fight or flight instinct where like you panic and you are ready to defend yourself or escape a burning building. Right. So that's like an instinct we have. We have another instinct that if you know what your goals are, right, that it requires that, and your mind recognizes you are in a moment that is pulling you away from your goals and your commitments, you are tempted, you are distracted, you are self-doubting, and your mind recognizes that, it can actually kick in a biological instinct called pause and plan that actually, it decelerates your heart rate, it increases your focus. It activates areas of your brain that help you remember your goals and your values in a way that's actually pretty different than fight or flight. Fight or flight often shuts down those systems of the brain and amplifies the sort of the immediate short-term survival gratification systems of the brain. So when you know that you have that instinct, again, it's part of why training your goals and your values really does work. It sounds— I think a lot of people think Well, okay, but like, I have no power over whatever my temptation is. Well, part of the reason you feel like you don't could be because you're not triggering that pause and plan instinct, that your mind is not clear enough yet. That if I've made a commitment to being like a certain— have a certain presence with my family, and I'm tempted by my device going off, right? If that moment, my mind needs to recognize This is a threat to my relationship. Wow. My partner, my child. So you have to train that so that your body and brain will show up and help you.

Constantly training our minds. I'm a believer that self-doubt is the killer of dreams, and it doesn't matter how talented or educated or skilled we are at something. And if the world believes that we are the chosen one to accomplish something If we don't believe in ourselves, it's not going to happen. And I'm also a firm believer that it doesn't matter if the world doesn't think you can do anything. If you are the one that believes you can, then you can. And my mission is to really help people eliminate self-doubt and learn to believe in themselves more. I'm curious, what are some of the things that you've learned as a psychologist on how we can eliminate doubt and build self-belief and confidence?

That is truly not my mission. I think it's interesting, like, self-doubt can also be a gift. So, um, and it doesn't— I don't know, I don't really want to have an intellectual argument about it. I think that in general my orientation to life is it's really hard to eliminate a lot of the things that we don't like or that, um, reflect sometimes the not-so-helpful sides of human nature. And so one thing I'm really interested in is, okay, let's— what if we started from the assumption that I might never be able to convince you to have no self-doubt? Maybe you can do it, but let's say that they didn't find you yet. So I'm, I'm going to be here helping someone, hasn't worked yet. How in a moment of self-doubt can you draw on something bigger than yourself so that you feel willing to step outside your comfort zone, even if there's part of you that doesn't believe you can do it. I mean, I felt that at every stage of anything in my life that has mattered. There's some part of me that wonders, am I adequate to this moment? And for me, rather than try to convince myself that I am, what works for me is to think about the best possible outcome if this turns out okay. Like, who I could help, what I could contribute, how I might grow, what joy or meaning I might experience, and to say I'm willing to take a risk.

Well, I would reframe it in saying that if we don't have the ability to take the chance to go on stage and speak because we doubt ourselves that much where it cripples us from actually taking the chance, then that's going to hold us back from actually accomplishing anything or learning or feeling or experiencing life at its richness. But you need to be able to have the courage to move forward on your dreams, otherwise you won't achieve them. You won't even give yourself the chance of achieving them. So for me, it goes back to training. Like, at every level of our life, we're going to experience imposter syndrome because we've never done it before. So who says I can do this? But when we reverse and say, who says I can't? And here are other examples of people who did something when they didn't have the experience. They were sexually abused, they had trauma, they had no money and resources, their parents left them. There are models of people that accomplish things when they were an impostor to that and there was no proof that they would actually be able to accomplish that. And it goes back to training for me of saying, okay, how do I get the richness of understanding that I could fail but I'm going to do it anyways? Like Sarah Blakely said, her father said, what did you fail at today? That's going to allow you to have more confidence in actually going with what you want. So for me, I'm not, you know, hopefully I'm trying to reframe it. And I'm not saying we're never going to doubt ourselves, but to have the courage to lean forward in spite of the doubt, as opposed to allowing the doubt to cripple us or become a prisoner of that doubt.

That's my goal. One thing I'm really interested in is, like, I think we're actually, we're both pointing to the same thing. And people need to hear things in different ways. Like, some, there are people who need to hear you say, like eliminate self-doubt. Self-doubt is the enemy of all— like that is going to awaken in them their courage. And then sometimes I'm talking to the person who's like, it's a, it's a— I don't know, like I'm just hanging on. But like I'm telling you, you are adequate to this moment of your life and take it and remember like what you care about and we're gonna do this and you're not alone and you've got all your mentors and your ancestors behind you. Absolutely. Slightly different feeling to it.

And let's say, let's say, yeah, I guess we may never eliminate it. But to be able to have the courage in face of it. Yeah, is the goal for me and have the courage to actually believe in yourself in the face of uncertainty and adversity and doubt.

There's something nice about not knowing, which is that it's like you said, who says I can't? There is, there can be in not knowing, meaning not knowing for sure that I could accomplish this or that. I'm the best person to try. Um, that same not knowing, if you just say, well, I'm going to lean into not knowing, and that includes the best possible outcome.

Yeah. And I think it's also getting to the place where actually accomplishing the dream doesn't— is irrelevant. And it's who you become in the pursuit. That is where the richness is. So you're not attached to the outcome. You're committed to the process. You're committed to the growth, the lessons. And that's where the prize is. It's in the process, not in the result. And so it's having the confidence that you're going to learn what you need in this moment for the next moment of life, and it's only going to benefit you. So where do you struggle the most in your life right now? What is your greatest fear?

What is my greatest fear? My— it's, it's so funny. So I actually have like an answer to this question because I have a teacher, Natalie Goldberg. She's a Zen teacher and a writing teacher. And she actually, she did this talk, the session, where she had people actually say out loud what their greatest fear is. It's so interesting. And I realized, like, having to actually think about what is your greatest fear, there were two things that came up. One of my absolute greatest fears is that people are essentially not good. Like, if I could think of the most devastating thing in the world to either be true or to feel is true, it would be that human beings at their core are essentially not good. The other thing is— would be that I have no value, that there is— that it doesn't matter if I wake up today or not. So those— and I'm pretty like clear— those are my two biggest fears. And I think it's— so it's obviously one of the reasons why things like volunteering and teaching and all of that mean so much to me. Because it's like a, it's a resistance against that fear. But also, I would say, oh, I promised, I told you a cat would show up. I see her. She, I think she knew because I was touching into my deepest fear.

Ah, she's like, I'll come and support you. Got you.

Wow. But the other thing is that fear that like, is it because I'm a psychologist, I know the data, I know the philosophy, I know the human history, there is some good stuff in humanity and there is some dark stuff in human nature. And any way you want to slice it up, from sort of what our biology is, instincts, psychology, whatever, good stuff, bad stuff, um, that one of the things I resist is allowing myself to only pay attention to the things that cause me outrage or despair. Ah, make a real practice of looking for the good and celebrating the good as a stance that I choose to take to preserve myself and my ability to engage with life. And because it is a perspective that I am choosing, that I believe is meaningful.

What happens to us as humans individually when we always see the bad? I understand psychologically there is a protectiveness in our psyche and our psychology of like seeing the fear points of the world and being aware of bad things to protect ourselves. But what does it do to us when, especially during this last 6 months, it's like, is something as bad everywhere you look, something is wrong with society or with COVID or whatever it may be. How does that affect us when we always see as bad and we never say, well, where could the good be in this moment?

Yeah, I mean, this is one of those mindsets that really matters. So, you know, we started out talking about stress mindset and that how you think about stress can have a very big impact on your health and your, your well-being. And it turns out one of the other mindsets that has a huge impact on anything interesting you might want to measure is— they sometimes refer to it as benevolent beliefs, but things like Benevolent beliefs? Benevolent. I know, it's a weird— that's, I don't know, I'm thinking like if somebody wants to do a Google Scholar search. Sure, sure. Like, that's some interesting research. Well, here's the search term you need. It's benevolent beliefs. But here's what it means. To basically to be able to see the good in human nature. So like I could ask you, do you agree that you can trust more people than you can't trust? That might be a question that would be on a scale measuring your benevolent beliefs. And it turns out that if you in general have these more benevolent beliefs about the world, you live longer, you're healthy, really, relationships in every context, except there are some contexts where it's not so useful. Like if you, if you live in a highly corrupt society where there's a— it's actually funny, this is the first time I've talked about this research where I like, is it possible we actually do live in the society where these benevolent beliefs are not always going to be as protective as they usually are? I don't know. But so in some circumstances, you can believe in the good beyond the good that is actually being demonstrated. And it goes back to, like, we talked about how your brain can be changed by trauma. When things are the most difficult and dangerous, it's actually better to be accurate than overly optimistic or trusting. However, in most contexts, to be able to see the good that exists in yourself, in your community, and in others, it, first of all, it gives you the ability to do what matters in your own life with less despair and less hopelessness. It opens you to receiving support where it's available. You become more willing to take help. Yeah, trustworthy. A lot of people now, you know, in this time, at least in our country, in the United States, Right now, a lot of people have had to ask for help who aren't used to relying on help, and it's really difficult to receive help if you have a story in your head about how, like, you can't trust most people and most people are bad. It's interesting, that belief really becomes a barrier to receiving help when you need it. So there are all sorts of ways that choosing to primarily see the negative, which can be true and real, it it then, it can undermine your ability to do what matters most in your own life, in your family, in your community. So like, I mean, you can tell I'm not like a super Pollyanna-ish person. I really believe in holding opposites. Yes.

So having discernment and saying, okay, let me have discernment in this moment and make sure I feel good about it.

So you have to let your heart be broken by the things that are wrong and difficult in the world. You have to. That's a strength. And also a strength is look immediately around you for evidence that that is not all that exists in the world. And then sometimes you choose to be that. If you can't find it, you choose to be it, and then it gets reflected back to you.

It's interesting. So having these benevolent beliefs most of the time, except for when you need discernment and have— making sure you're checking and balancing on things. I'm hearing you say the research proves that you live healthier, you're happier, and you live longer when you have these benevolent beliefs.

Is that accurate? The research is consistent with that. You talk to scientists, you know, we don't like to use the word prove.

Okay.

The research is consistent with the idea that, and again, it's because it's not because of magic. It's because it changes who you are and how you interact with the world. And trust is a really good example of something that is often reciprocated. And also there's some interesting research that people who are the most generally suspicious of other people, the most mistrustful, are the worst at actually discerning people who are manipulative or lying or—

Because they think everyone's lying. Exactly.

So you don't actually know what the real signals are. And one of the things that I feel like to be able to sense, I think the more that you are connected also to your own true pro-social instincts, you can smell when other people are faking it. Yes. We're really good at recognizing in others things we have deep embodied experience with. And so if you know what it's like to care about others, to want to help others, to want to stand up for truth and what's fair, if you have that in you, you just recognize it in others, and you can recognize when people are misrepresenting themselves as that.

Sure. It's funny you say that, you know, I used to always practice this and just say, you know, it might be weird, but I used to always practice this and look for money on the ground. I didn't have any money growing up, but I was just like, I'm going to find money today. I'm going to find it. It's going to come to me. I'm going to find it. And I would just always find a quarter, a dollar, $100, $20. I would just see it on the ground or somewhere that someone left it. It's like I stole it. It was just on the ground in the streets. And I was just like, I see money all the time because I was looking for it and I was allowing for it to come to me. You see this a lot in LA with girls who say there are no good men, there are no good men, they all cheat, they all lie, they all break my heart. And the more they say this and believe in that, the more they're going to see it. It's just, it seems like if you believe in the goodness that, you know what, I've had some bad experiences in the past, but I'm going to choose to believe that there's some great men out there or great women or whatever it may be, then hopefully you'll start to see that and attract it. Yeah.

And actually, it's so funny. One of my Zen teachers, she wrote a book. I'm trying to think what it was called. It was something like, not, not be the person you're looking for, but like, I forget what the title of the book was, but it was basically this idea that not only should you believe that it's out there and look for it, But whatever it is you're looking for, the more you train it in yourself, it's, it is again, it's not magic. It's that other people recognize it in you. And then the whole, like the world conspires to help you find it.

My friend Matthew Hussey, who's a love coach for women. When I interviewed him, I was like, what's the, what's the trick to finding a great partner? Finding whether it's the one or just a great partner, what's the trick? What's the secret? He said, you need to get a piece of paper out and write down a list of everything you want in that partner. Like, write every quality, and then you need to become those qualities and those things, and you'll start to see it. Like attracts like. You'll start to mirror each other, and you'll recognize it because you're being that. You can't expect someone to be smart and funny and successful and financially you know, abundant and all these things, and then you not be those things and attract it, it's just not going to work out typically. So you need to become those things you want in someone else. Yeah, or work, work on them. Great advice. This has been really powerful, Kelly, and hopefully we can have you back on in the future sometime. You've got a book out right now called The Joy of Movement.

Oh, you have it? Of course I have it.

Yes. Which is all about how exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection, and Courage. And you've got a lot of other great stuff online. You know, you've got another book about the, the power of stress, the upside of it, and about willpower as well. Got a great TED Talk I recommend people checking out. We'll link up some of these things in our show notes. People can get the book online or at stores if you're able to go to stores right now. And you're, you're not that active on social media, at least I didn't see on Instagram. But is there anyone—

I know I'm on Instagram, but here's what I use social media for primarily. Besides doom scrolling on Twitter. I was like, I need to quit. But I love just one-on-one interaction. So I'm on Instagram, Kelly Marie McGonigal. You're not going to hear a lot from me, but people who want to interact with me, you know, message me. Send you a message. I like giving people an opportunity to just touch base with me. But you're not going to see that many pictures of my cat every now and then.

So Kelly Marie McGonigal on Instagram, Kelly McGonigal on Twitter. Kellymcgonigle.com. We'll link up some of that stuff in our, in our show notes here. I want to ask you a couple final questions. The first one is what I ask everyone at the end. It's called the 3 truths question. And I'd like you for hypothetically to imagine for a moment that this is your last day on earth. And you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish, you've pursued things you want to pursue, you've served all the cats in the world to find their homes. You've done the things you want to do. You've lived a great life in your terms. And for whatever reason, all of your materials, your books, your videos, your content has to go with you to the next place. And no one has access to your information anymore. But you get to leave behind 3 things you know to be true about all of your experiences. These would be your 3 lessons you would leave behind, or what I like to call your 3 truths. What would you say are your 3 truths?

Okay, so I am probably going to give you an answer you don't like, but I don't know. But so I don't know what the 3 truths are, but here's what I really want to leave behind. First, I want to leave behind the memories that people have had in my dance classes. One of the things that is most meaningful to me after having my classes shut down for 6 months, we just started dancing together outdoors And in the classes that I teach that are outdoors again now, a lot of the people in it are living alone. Some of them are recent widows, and they will talk about what happens when they hear a song that we've danced to in class and they remember the feelings of connection and joy, that it's like a lifeline. I want to leave behind the memories of movement that people have had in my yoga, dance, fitness classes where they felt connected to something bigger than themselves. I want to leave behind those memories. I believe in them, those experiences, and I'm really proud to leave those behind. And the other thing I'll say is, like, in terms of, like, my truths, the great thing about being a teacher— and I've mentored a lot of people in a lot of different contexts— is I have seen people who were my students become teachers. And like I mentioned, that compassion training that we developed at Stanford, and then we train people to do it. And just today on Facebook, I saw one of the first teachers we trained is advertising that she's teaching this program, and I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh!" And she's such a good teacher, and people would be lucky to take this from her. So what I realize is you don't need me around anymore to talk about these truths. There are other voices, and they're new voices, and these truths are going to come through in new bodies, from new faces, in new voices. That are going to meet the moment of people who need to hear them now. And so when I'm on my way out, people don't need to hear it from me anymore. And I actually trust that because these things are true, whether it's things like the value of knowing your common humanity or leaning into interdependence, there are other people who are carrying that message on.

For sure. Yeah. What I got out of that, if I was going to hear 3 truths out of that, I would say that Movement brings something greater than yourself. So make sure you move your body because it connects you to community and something greater and makes you happier. That'd be one that I heard. Number two is that, is that when you, when you learn in your life and you develop skills, pass those skills on to develop other leaders so people don't need you anymore.

Yeah, I like that. So yeah, I endorse that.

So if you had a third truth, what would you say? Adopt an animal. There you go. See, it's so simple. You got these— you got this wisdom inside of you. Adopting it. Someone else said adopting an animal recently. I can't remember who it was.

Well, it's a truth, so hopefully it's coming through many vehicles.

That's great. Which just keeps coming back to— I feel like I need to be getting a cat, and your cat showed up. So I'm going to go on Best Friends website and start looking. Bestfriends.org. Looking at cats to adopt here in Los Angeles. I feel drawn to having a cat.

So you want to be unconditionally loved, get a dog. If you want to learn how to love, get a cat. Different thing.

Oh man, I feel like you find the right cat, you'll get a lot of unconditional love as well.

I know, I know. But the thing is, you earn, you earn a relationship with a cat, and a cat will let you know what you've earned. Whereas dogs, dogs are just, man, They love you. They will love on you. And sometimes that's what you need. Sometimes she's like, "Let's not earn nothing. I am unconditionally deserving of your love." But cats, it's a, you know, it's a special relationship.

Yeah, but I feel like you can travel, you can be a traveling human being with a cat. Yeah, well. It's a lifestyle choice too. Can you get the love from a cat and still leave for 2 days and not have to stress about boarding it and have someone come look at it? Look after it. So adopt an animal, that's your third truth. I like it. I want to— before I ask the final question, Kelly, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, uh, for the beautiful gift you are in the world. And I truly see the incredible wisdom and the soul that you have and the heart you have for teaching, for educating, for helping us. And the amount of research you have done over the decades to be able to give us simple tools is so powerful. And I'm just really grateful for your dedication to finding the truth, finding the answers through something that is painful for so many people and challenging for so many people. So I acknowledge you for being that light of diving into research in the messiness to find those golden nuggets so that we can live a better life.

I really appreciate that. Way so, thank you. And I was trying to practice what we were talking about earlier, like to actually receive it and take it in. I don't know if you noticed, so here's a little practical tip for people. I don't know if you noticed, I swallowed while you were saying that.

What does that mean when you swallow during a talk?

Often it's this parasympathetic surge that happens when people are either moved or are starting to feel sometimes like a little bit vulnerable, but not necessarily in a bad way. And like, if you watch people give speeches or interviews or you're having a conversation with someone, and you notice they pause and swallow, that's a, that's a really interesting sign that there's something, that there's something like deep happening, that this is something that's meaningful to them or they're being moved. And so I often, like, as a psychologist, that's one thing that I'm looking for, and I sensed it in myself. So I was, I was feeling that rawness of, of being receiving, you know.

That's good. You got to practice it. Yeah. My final question, Kelly, is what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, you know, I knew you were going to ask this. And so I looked it up. What's in Webster's Dictionary, the definition? So here's what's interesting, because I was like, I don't know, let's see what the actual definition is, because I'm sure that I'll have a different definition. And I was surprised that it's essentially, it is in comparison to other people. So the primary definitions of greatness in the dictionary are being, being better than or superior. To others. And I thought that was really interesting because that is really not something I'm interested in. So I was thinking, well, let's give an alternative to that, because if you think you have to be superior to others in order to be great, and greatness is an aspiration, man, is that going to set you up for a lot of suffering. Yes. So I was thinking, coming back to that, um, that sort of central conflict in my work of recognizing the complexity of human nature. Human nature has a lot of instincts that are destructive and harmful, and human nature has a lot of instincts that are beautiful and wonderful. I would define greatness, and what I'm personally aspiring to, is making peace with that truth and, and being able to make choices that bring out in myself and bring out in other people the good, the good instincts. That's what I'm striving for. And I think like that's a definition of greatness that anyone can aspire to in themselves. Again, it comes back to the idea you might not eliminate all of this stuff, but like you can choose to be a great human being. Love that.

Kelly, you're an inspiration. Thank you so much for all that you shared.

Thank you for the conversation. Adopt a cat.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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