Soothe Stress in Minutes - Life Kit - NPR

“Soothe stress in minutes - Life Kit – NPR”
Podcast: Life Kit
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARIELLE SEGARRA, HOST:
You're listening to LIFE KIT...
SEGARRA: ...From NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle. You ever just get completely overwhelmed? The
phone is ringing nonstop. You've got dozens of unread emails just from today.
Your kids are fighting over a toy. You open the mail, and you've got a huge,
unexpected bill from the doctor's office. Oh, and you're hangry, so that doesn't
help anything. The stress, you know, sometimes it just reaches a fever pitch that
can feel terrible in our bodies.
JENNY TAITZ: For some people it's very physical.
SEGARRA: Jenny Taitz is a clinical psychologist, and she says stress also shows
up in our thoughts and our behaviors.
TAITZ: So if I'm feeling really angry, that usually includes some sort of
judgment of that was really unfair. In my body, I may be feeling really tense and
scowling, and my behavior may be to send an aggressive text or say something
really rude or yell.
SEGARRA: In these moments when we're overextended, it's hard to carve out a
path forward. Jenny would like you to try something, though, called a stress reset.
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Podcast: Life Kit
TAITZ: Stress resets are quick ways to improve how you feel in minutes, and
that allows you, ultimately, to do things that will help you solve problems rather
than make things so much worse for yourself.
SEGARRA: Jenny wrote a book called "Stress Resets: How To Soothe Your
Body And Mind In Minutes." And on this episode of LIFE KIT, we're going to
give you a whole bunch of resets for your mind, your body and your behavior.
You'll pick what works for you depending on what your stress feels like and how
it's showing up.
SEGARRA: Jenny, in the book, you outline different types of stress resets for
your mind, for your body and for your behavior. How are these different?
TAITZ: So mind resets specifically target thinking in ways that don't serve us.
Body resets really target our physical experience of stress and behavior resets
really are meant to improve our behavior so we don't act in ways that just makes
stress skyrocket.
SEGARRA: So how would you know that you might need a mind reset?
TAITZ: When you are really, really stuck in overthinking, thinking the worst and
lacking clear perspective, and you're thinking in ways that don't inch you closer
to problem solving, but you feel like you're drowning in worst-case scenario
thoughts.
SEGARRA: Yeah. I've been there. I guess we all have.
TAITZ: We all have.

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Podcast: Life Kit
SEGARRA: OK. So let's walk through a few of the mind resets from the book.
I'll tell you a few of my favorites. One was name that emotion. Tell me what that
one is.
TAITZ: Naming your emotion, just taking a step back and observing and
describing your emotion to notice I am feeling sad and then labeling its intensity,
maybe you're feeling sad at a three on a zero-to-five scale, loosens the grip of
sadness because when you're able to observe your emotion, this allows us to not
be engulfed by them but to see them with distance and openness. And naming
them technically kind of disrupts activity in your limbic system, which is the
emotional part of the brain, and allows you to engage your prefrontal cortex,
which is the more reasonable part of your brain. So even if this sounds very
simple, it actually, physiologically, makes a really profound difference.
SEGARRA: I find that it helps, too, if I say, you know, what am I feeling, and
then it might be, for instance, fear. Sometimes I'll journal this and then I'll be
like, of what? And then it helps just to write down what I'm actually afraid of
because sometimes looking at those things, I'm like, well, those are very unlikely
to happen. Or if they do happen, I am able to handle that.
TAITZ: I love that. And I also love simply thinking, like, if I'm feeling sad, it's
pretty likely that I am a magnet for sad thoughts. And so rather than taking them
very seriously, being really aware that my thinking is governed by sadness rather
than the reality at hand.
SEGARRA: Yeah. OK. Another one I really liked. Another mind reset is sing
your thoughts. What is this one about?
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Podcast: Life Kit
TAITZ: So singing your thoughts really gets at the concept of cognitive

diffusion, which means playing with your thoughts rather than taking them so
seriously. And one of the funnest ways to remember this is if you know that you
have a recurrent thought that's simply not true and not helpful but something
that's likely to come up when you're feeling emotions intensely. Let's say you're
feeling lonely on a Saturday night, and your mind tends to berate you with the
thought that I'm a loser, rather than, you know, telling yourself you're not or
trying to convince yourself, really seeing that for what it is. It's just noise. To
remember that if you did something like saying I'm a loser to the tune of "Do
You Believe In Magic" or - one of my clients taught me this, and I think this is,
like, the best way to apply this - is even just thinking what are thoughts, like, to
the Haddaway song, "What Is Love" love can't hurt me no more, you know, what
are thoughts? Thoughts can't hurt me no more. So if your thoughts are more like
Play-Doh rather than cement, they can't hold you back in your life.
SEGARRA: Yeah. I will say there's one that I find pops into my head - the
repeating thought, like, nobody likes you. But it also sounds like just a - such a
silly thing to sing. Like, I was just listening to "Build Me Up Buttercup," you
know, so maybe something like that. Like, (singing) why does everyone,
everyone hate me so much? (Laughter).
TAITZ: That's perfect because now you're - you can't sing that without laughing.
So that automatically puts your inner wisdom in the front seat and your irrational
thoughts where they belong.
SEGARRA: OK.
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Podcast: Life Kit
TAITZ: Yeah. That's such a powerful way for people to realize if this is working
or not. If you have a sense of humor rather than a sense of defeat, then that's a
good clue that you're on the right track. And this is not for thoughts like I need
to get my work done. This is for thoughts that are downright unhelpful and
ridiculous.
SEGARRA: OK. All right. So the other mind reset that I really liked was make
a pie chart of your life. Can you explain this one?
TAITZ: Yes. So making a pie chart is really a way to remember all of the things
that matter to us. And so if we take a step back and we write down with a pen
and paper all of the various domains of our lives that matter - let's say our health,
our career, our friendships, our hobbies - and then visually representing them so
their relative weight is aligned with how much they matter, so maybe health is,
like, 30% and hobbies is 20% or, you know, you need to really do some soul
searching and come up with the numbers that represent what's truest for you.
And making a pie chart of our lives is such a essential way to gain perspective
when something disappointing happens because it's so easy if you're doing
something like interviewing for a job you really want to think that everything is
terrible if you don't get that role. And of course, it's a huge disappointment, and
I don't want to minimize that at all. But I also want people to realize that even if
something feels like it's everything, there are a lot of other things that matter.
SEGARRA: You say it's kind of like zooming out to see the full picture.
TAITZ: Exactly.
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Podcast: Life Kit
SEGARRA: Got it. OK. Let's talk about body resets. When would you know that
you might need one of these?
TAITZ: If you are feeling really physically stressed - if you're really tense, if
your shoulders are up to your ears, if you're finding that you're short of breath, if
you feel really distracted by your body, like you can't sit at your desk because
you feel so restless or overwhelmed, physically.
SEGARRA: OK. All right. So one is move your body in short, quick bursts. What
might that look like?
TAITZ: If you're feeling very revved up, a lot of times, people just use that as
evidence that something's really wrong. And so if you, instead, do something like
do some jumping jacks, and then you can attribute your physical symptoms of
stress to the exercise you're doing rather than something that you're
catastrophizing and feeling afraid of.
SEGARRA: Another one is expand your gaze. And I have to say, I tried this the
other day when I was feeling really stressed out, and I was out to lunch but
thinking about and overthinking about something, and this really worked. Can
you talk about what it means, expand your gaze?
TAITZ: I'm so happy this really worked for you. Yeah. A lot of times, as part of
our stress response, we hyperfocus or we zoom in on what it is we're stressed
about. And so simply zooming out to adopt a more relaxed view. So you might
notice three sights. Maybe you notice three sounds. Because when we're stressed,
our pupils tend to dilate and we narrow our attention. This is part of our fight-or-
flight response. But when we literally relax our gaze, it's a little easier to just
realize that there's so much more than the narrow focus of our stress.
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Podcast: Life Kit
SEGARRA: Yeah. I was sitting at a restaurant, the weather was still nice enough
that I could be sitting outside, actually, and I had been looking at my phone, but
I just put it down and put it in my bag. And then I picked my head up and I looked
at what was happening across the street. I looked at somebody walking their dog.
I looked at, like, a bookstore. Just different things like that. Literally, like,
zooming out the camera lens in my own eyeball, you know?
TAITZ: And I love that because that allows you to naturally experience gratitude.
A lot of people feel like gratitude is something being forced upon them that feels
fake. But when we just look a little wider and bigger, there are so many things
within our periphery that allow us to genuinely experience thanks and awareness.
SEGARRA: Yeah. All right, one more body reset - sigh it out. Now, let's talk
about this one because I do find that this helps. But also, if you're around other
people and you're deep sighing, it can make them feel a little bit uncomfortable
or anxious.
TAITZ: Yeah. And, Marielle, this is the reason that there's 75 options in here,
because different things really work for different people. But to do this, you
gently close your lips, and you inhale through your nose, then take another inhale
through your nose. So - and then an extended exhale. And this is called the
physiological sigh. And repeating it a couple of times is known as cyclic sighing.
And researchers have found that people practicing this for five minutes a day
experienced more positive emotions. And when you intentionally sigh, your
lungs expand and so you release more carbon dioxide. And a lot of carbon
dioxide is associated with anxiety. And so by practicing this, you can kind of
reset your breathing pattern, feel a little bit more relaxed and then doing this can
kind of lend itself to slowing down your breathing in general.
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Podcast: Life Kit
SEGARRA: I get it. So it sounds like this is a very particular kind of breathing
practice. It's not just like all right everybody, deep sigh, like, ah, you know what
I mean? Like, I come from a family of deep sighers is what I'm saying. And it is
often used as a tool to indicate frustration to one's family members. But this
sounds like a different thing where it's kind of a private moment, and you're just
inhaling through your nose and then inhaling again a little bit and then exhaling
long.
TAITZ: Yeah. And it doesn't need to be a grunt. I could do it right now, you
know, two back-to-back inhales and a longer exhale. And that may just seem like
I'm almost, like, recalibrating.
SEGARRA: It does work. All right. So our last category is behavior resets. How
might you know that you need one of these?
TAITZ: When you are acting in ways that are almost, like, the equivalent of a
high-interest credit card, where short term, you might be feeling pretty good, but
long term, your behaviors are going to come back to haunt you. So oftentimes,
stress isn't just a feeling but also a behavior. And it might be helpful to just take
a step back and think about what are your go-to stress behaviors that you want to
improve. Is it being mean to the people around you? Is it canceling plans that
you actually would enjoy because you want to curl up in bed? And so the first
step would be to get really clear on what you tend to do when you get stressed
and know that there are a lot of ways to make this moment better that don't -
aren't going to hurt us long term.
SEGARRA: OK. So some examples from the book are, for instance, to build a
hope kit. What would that look like?
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Podcast: Life Kit
TAITZ: If you're focusing on the negative, it's really helpful to have a way to
quickly lean into hope. And hope isn't just a feeling, but it's a behavior. And
creating a collection of objects, pictures, other sorts of mementos that remind
you of things being better can help keep you going. And if you're someone that
has a really good friend group and you could look at a picture of some close
friends, or if music has always been a really powerful mood boost for you, having
a playlist that you go to. Remarkably, there's an app called the Virtual Hope Box
app, and people that struggle with suicidal feelings who use the Virtual Hope
Box app actually have a reduction in feelings of wanting to die. And again,
reminding ourselves in our hardest moments that we can continue forward and
things will get better and have been better is such a gift to ourselves rather than
predicting and rehearsing all of the ways things will continue to be terrible.
SEGARRA: Yeah. For me, it's often pictures of my family and friends and my
friends' kids and dogs and, like, I'll just pull them out and look at them. Like,
there's even one recent picture of my friend's daughter eating a marshmallow,
and her cheeks looks so big and it's just, like, the cutest squishiest picture ever.
She's a year old. Like, I've been looking at it recently when I have felt down.
TAITZ: I love that. Pictures are so powerful. Like, pictures actually can reduce
our experience of pain. Like, looking at uplifting pictures or pictures of people
that we love. I personally love music, and I love greeting, like, cards that people
have written me that I can keep handy.
SEGARRA: Yeah. That's really lovely. OK. Another behavior reset is to do a

good deed. What might you do? What are some examples?
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Podcast: Life Kit
TAITZ: There are so many ways to do good deeds. It could be something big. It
could be something small. Even just noticing someone that might not normally
be noticed. Sending someone a card just out of the blue is a really sweet gesture.
Then, if you want to really commit to this, even finding a volunteer opportunity
could make a really big difference. And this is such a nice way to feel like you
have a say in your life. A lot of the reasons that we feel stressed is because we
feel powerless or we're so focused on all of the things that are going wrong, and
doing something nice is a way to actually feel like you have some ability to make
things better and also gives you a little bit of perspective and helps you feel like
you can live by your values, even if so much is out of your control.
SEGARRA: Yeah. OK. What about take one step forward? I liked this one a lot.
TAITZ: Taking one step forward is about doing the thing that we can do. And so
rather than feeling overwhelmed, really picking one thing that you want to try to
do to move closer to your goals. And so rather than making things feel really
overwhelming by being too ambitious, just being really clear on the one thing
that you can do that will be realistic and within reach.
And it was really amazing, Marielle, for this book, I interviewed someone named
John Moynihan, who is a police officer who was really seriously injured. He was
shot while working, and he was actually shot in the face. It was a very horrific
injury that - and a long recovery. And I asked him how he went from being in
critical care to returning to his life in so many ways. And he really walked me
through. He just - he set one goal at a time. And his first goal, starting when he
was in the hospital, was doing this run that he did every summer since childhood.
It was a seven-mile run in Cape Cod, and that was just his goal. It wasn't how am
I going to figure the rest of my life out, how am I going to fully recover, it was
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like, how do I, like, learn how to walk again so I could complete this run
somehow, even if I'm walking it? And setting that one goal created a positive
cycle where other positive, forward movement came as a result.
SEGARRA: Yeah. And even that goal, I imagine, started with something even
smaller, right? He probably had to go to physical therapy. So it was like make
appointment with physical therapist. And that's today's task, you know, or, like,
do my exercises today.
TAITZ: Yeah. 'Cause it's so easy for us also to then think about the next thing.
But if it's even, you know, call the physical therapist and stand up for one moment
and really celebrating that rather than feeling less than for not having finished
everything in its entirety.
SEGARRA: OK. So these are all really helpful resets that can help us in the
moment when we're feeling overwhelmed by stress. I wonder, what's the work
after those moments, right? What can we do to kind of improve or change our
lives so that maybe we're not experiencing as much stress?
TAITZ: For most of us, mental health is really a series of behaviors, and a lot of
us underestimate that our habits can be as powerful as antidepressants. And so
rather than waiting to be in a really tough situation and trying to get yourself out
of it, there are things we can do in advance. You know, getting a good night's
sleep is a huge way to relieve stress. Exercising every day is a really powerful
antidepressant. Connecting with people on a regular basis is such a powerful tool
that even reduces the risk of getting a cold. And so rather than just leaning on
quick things in difficult moments, we also want to set ourselves up to feel like
our day-to-day life is more enjoyable and more livable and setting us up for
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success. And so I don't want anyone to feel like the goal of life is to build a hope
kit or to sing your thoughts, but doing those things will allow us to unhook from
the things that are holding us back and inch towards the things that we want our
lives to stand for.
SEGARRA: Wow. I feel like I could talk to you about this for days. Thank you
so much. These are really helpful, Jenny.
TAITZ: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. I want everyone to
really realize that a little can go such a long way. It's like small wheels on a big
suitcase. A moment of awareness and a doable strategy can make what feels
overwhelming really doable.
SEGARRA: All right, time for a recap. If your mind is feeling all squirrely, try
a mind reset. Name an emotion. Sing your thoughts. Make a pie chart of what's
important in your life. Or maybe you're feeling like you need a body reset. Try
moving your body, relaxing your gaze or doing some cyclic sighing. Or if you've
been acting out a little bit, maybe you try a behavior reset. Put together a
collection of objects that make you hopeful, do a good deed or just take one step
forward towards a goal. Now, these resets aren't everything you need to know
about mental health, but they will give you some space to figure out what you
need and what changes you'd like to make in your life.
For more LIFE KIT, check out our other episodes. We've got one about dealing
with anxiety in the moment and another about making gratitude a habit. You can
find those at npr.org/lifekit. And if you love LIFE KIT and you just cannot get
enough, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/lifekitnewsletter. Also, we love
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hearing from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share,
please email us at lifekit@npr.org.
This episode of LIFE KIT was produced by Margaret Cirino. Our visuals editor
is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malaka Gharib. Meghan Keane is our
supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production
team also includes Andee Tagle, Audrey Nguyen, Clare Marie Schneider and
Sylvie Douglis. Engineering support comes from Stacey Abbott. I'm Marielle
Segarra. Thanks for listening.
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“Soothe stress in minutes - Life Kit – NPR”

Podcast: Life Kit

MARIELLE SEGARRA, HOST:

You're listening to LIFE KIT...

SEGARRA: ...From NPR.

JENNY TAITZ: For some people it's very physical.

SEGARRA: Yeah. I've been there. I guess we all have.

TAITZ: We all have.

TAITZ: So singing your thoughts really gets at the concept of cognitive

SEGARRA: Yeah. That's really lovely. OK. Another behavior reset is to do a

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