Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Stressed Out & Maxed Out

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Parents are stressed. And often how we deal with it has a bigger impact on our body than whatever is stressing us out in the first place. Clinical psychologist, Jenny Taitz, joins Dr. Becky to discuss her new book Stress Resets: How to Soothe Your Mind and Body in Minutes. Listen in as they go over the tools you need to lead a less stressful life.For more on Jenny Taitz and her book Stress Resets visit https://drjennytaitz.com/books/stressresets/Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/48QP2UMFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcastTo listen to Dr. Becky's TED Talk on repair visit https://www.ted.com/talks/becky_kennedy_the_single_most_important_parenting_strategyToday’s episode is brought to you by Garanimals: Garanimals is the original mix-and-match clothing brand for babies and toddlers in sizes newborn to 5T. Each Kid Pack contains carefully curated tops and bottoms that easily mix and match. Pick any top and any bottom, and voila! Instant outfit. And with up to a month’s worth of outfits in just one box, Garanimals’s Kid Packs take care of a whole lot of outfit planning. You can find all their fun mix-and-match styles from their new spring collection in Walmart stores and on Walmart.com.

I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. Parenting is obviously so stressful. There's endless demands and unpredictable days and moments and limited time. I just want to acknowledge that parenting is really hard. We just structurally don't have the number of resources that we need in place for it to be easy. And so I don't want anyone to think that stress is their fault. Stress. You have it.

I have it. Every single parent I know has stress. And actually, how we talk to stress, how we cope with stress, ends up having a bigger impact on our body and how we feel than the original stress itself. I'm so excited to have an important conversation about managing stress with Dr. Jenny Tates. She's a clinical psychologist and author of the brand new book,

Stress Resets, How to Soothe your mind and body in minutes. We'll be back right after this. If you're anything like me, mornings can be a real struggle. Between making breakfast, prepping lunches, and making sure our kids actually brush their teeth, the last thing we have time for is a kid having a meltdown about what they're wearing.

This is where garranimals comes in. Gouranimals is the original mix and match clothing brand for babies and toddlers in sizes newborn to 5T. They're easy to pair and fun to wear styles, empower kids to dress themselves, boosting their self confidence and independence. Not to mention making mornings power struggle free for parents. Now that's a win-win. You can find all of their fun Mix and Match styles from their new spring collection in Walmart stores

and on walmart.com. So here's to easier mornings, confident kids, and parents reclaiming their sanity. Here's to Garanimals. reclaiming their sanity. Here's to Granimals. This is a really important conversation. I'm so excited that you're here. And truly, as you know, I read your book before it came out.

And to me, it was everything I want in a book. It's like, give it to me straight, give it to me simple. We all need more coping skills. And nobody wants to read like long paragraphs. You're like, just give me the thing, make it digestible and make it short enough that I don't feel overwhelmed and just close the book. And I don't know if that was on your mind. I mean, I know you have this full private practice, but I just did that in such an amazing way. That means so much. And that's exactly what I wanted to do.

I wanted people to realize that in a matter of minutes, you can reset how you feel. No long meditations, medications, martinis required. And these are things we can all do, no matter how bad things feel. So I just want to say, back to you and for everyone listening, you are able to teach people coping skills to manage,

stress, anxiety, these really difficult feelings. And it doesn't involve, I just want to repeat back those three Ms you said, meditation, medication, or martinis. And to know that we have things in our back pocket that fit into none of those categories and can be really quick and accessible to me is very, very powerful. And I'd actually love to go over just a few of them today because I know listeners will, you know, we always want something to use. And then of course, we all need to increase our coping skill kind

of tool belt. So before we jump into that, I would just love to hear like the types of things you were seeing in your practice or thinking about that led you to write this book. Have you seen an increase in stress and anxiety? Have you noticed, oh, parents need so many more tools. There's so many tools for kids out there. Hello, what about the adults and the parents in the room? What led you to do this? There was a lot happening at once.

So many people say to me, I wish I learned these skills. Like years ago, I wish these skills were taught in school. And also I kept seeing these headlines in the news that there were long waitlists for therapy. And I just kept thinking it's such a shame that therapy for a lot of people is inaccessible and affordable, too time consuming. And it so happened that a colleague

of mine at UCLA mentioned to me during the peak of the pandemic, hey, did you see this study that found that researchers at University of Pennsylvania found that half of these participants before going into surgery, which is a major stressful event, half of these people were offered anti-anxiety medication, half were given the chance to listen to music medicine, which is a relaxing song that has a lot of research behind it. It was developed by sound therapists. And remarkably, the song, Side-Affect-Free, sounds obviously have no side effects, was almost as helpful as improving

preoperative jitters as anti-anxiety medication, which is laced with side effects. And thinking about that just made me think there are so many of these quick, simple things that we just need to know we can do. And so I wrote this article about stress resets, as I call them, that went viral in the New York Times. And I really wanted to expand on that and share a lot more, expand on the number of resets as I call them that went viral in the New York Times. I really wanted to expand on that and share a lot more, expand on the number of resets and also help people see that there are ways to buffer. So ahead of facing something stressful,

you can improve your baseline so you're not just going from stressful event to stressful event. You just used your phrase, I think so much about. So I just want to expand on it for everyone a little bit. You see me, Jenny, I'm closing my eyes because when I think about things often I visualize them. So if we all picture our baseline, I don't know for me, I'm just picturing like a horizontal line. It's nothing that sophisticated. There are moments when the best we can do, the only thing we can do is try to return to baseline. Like often we're in a spiral in that moment. We're really overwhelmed. we're really stressed,

we need something to bring us back to baseline. And I think in your language in the book, Jenny, these are a lot of these stress resets, right? In a moment, in the heat of the moment, what do I do? And then there's another category of things that all of us can do, never in those moments, in common moments, where we can improve our baseline,

or we can reduce the likelihood of getting into as deep of a spiral again. And those two kind of sets of strategies help me return to baseline, separate, help me raise my baseline. We're kind of always toggling between. And then there's a third, which is just like, please, I don't have to think about anything.

Can I just go on with my merry day? That's also totally allowed. And in your book, you really cover those first two. Like what do I do to have a stress reset? I'm stressed. What is a coping skill in the moment, in the heat of the moment? And then, okay, I've kind of done that maybe,

or maybe I didn't, and now I'm out of that moment. Okay, what are other things I can do so I'm just not as vulnerable to becoming so overwhelmed by stress. Is that accurate? Exactly. And I think just for everyone listening, you know, a lot of us, I know for me too,

when it feels like I'm constantly in like fire mode, right? I'm just like fire extinguisher, fire extinguisher, fire extinguisher, which is kind of like those resets, like in the moment, in the moment, in the moment. And I think we gain a lot of like power that we don't even realize when we say, okay, yes, I need to do those things, but if I'm having a series of fires,

like if it was really my house and I had a fire in my house and I used a fire extinguisher to put it out and then the next time, the next time, like I would hope one of my friends would say, wow, it sounds like you're like really crushing the fire extinguisher. Like when there's a fire, you know what to do. Great.

And Becky, why are you having so many fires in your house? You know what's better than getting good at putting out fires? Just having a couple fewer fires. And I always think about that as like fire extinguishing versus fire proofing. And I think that's again, a moment for us to pause and say, okay, which category do I tend to focus on?

And can I just do one little bit and maybe listen to this podcast is going to be the thing because we're going to get to some stress resets and some in your language, any stress buffers or maybe in my language, raising your baseline or fire proofing. So first of all, let's just start with the word stress. And I'm sure you have thoughts about this and feelings about this. What are some of the things people misunderstand about that word stress, or that you would help kind of reframe

around how we think about stress in the first place? Stress is really the mismatch between our resources and our demands. And a lot of people kind of equate stress with anxiety and anxiety is more worry and physical sensations of anxiety, like panic. But the two really can go hand in hand because when we're stressed, when we're overwhelmed by outside triggers,

we can easily start to spin into anxiety. And parenting can be so stressful. There's endless demands and unpredictable days and moments and limited time. And I just want to acknowledge that parenting is really hard. We just structurally don't have the number of resources that we need in place for it to be easy. And so I don't want anyone to think that stress is their fault. That being said, I really want to empower people to feel like they can face stress with

a little bit more bandwidth to make things less stressful because one of the biggest problems with stress is letting it snowball. And I also want to acknowledge that our views of stress really matter. Thinking like stress is bad for me is actually really bad for you. And the belief that stress is bad for you can increase mortality by 40%. So just having the like stress doesn't kill you, but thinking that stress kills you can actually lead to premature mortality.

And so I like to really help people reframe stress is almost like a workout for your values. Like what are you doing to flex and lift weights because values in theory aren't really, you know, a strength and endurance test, but it really approaching stress in your life is like, this is the price we all have to pay for a life that matters to us, but how can we not judge the stress

and how can we not make it snowball, which really makes us spin out of control? Yes, and I think that matters so much, right? Stress is normal. Like stress is an inherent part of the lives that we live. And this is not to say, you know, it can't get to a place where it's too extreme. We all know there's times in our life and suddenly I was just talking with a friend about it, feeling like this recently, where we were saying it feels like we're on a treadmill,

where it's at two levels above where, you know, you can run, but like you kind of can't get off. And we have moments like that. And the way we talk to ourselves about our stress and starting with just, okay, like I can't remove all the stress, I can't always avoid stress, stress isn't herring in my life, and there are real coping skills I can develop. So the stress doesn't kind of take over me or take over my life in such

a kind of violent, all-encompassing way. Okay, so let's get to some of these stress resets. In your book, you have three categories, and I love subdividing things. It helps me keep them organized in my brain. Mind, body, behavior. You have mind resets, body resets, and behavior resets, right? So can you just describe each category? And then maybe after that, we can actually give an example

like one or two to bring it to life. Sure, so stress can easily be fueled by our thinking, I can't cope with this, this is too much, this is terrible, I'm gonna have a terrible day, this thing that happened to me is, I can't cope with it. Catastrophic thinking is a real exacerbant to stress. And stress is also in our bodies. So we also have these, you know, it can be that our mind leads

to the body sensations or it can be that the body sensations creates a landscape where we start thinking the worst. But when people really break it down, often there's some sort of catastrophic interpretation that leads to a body response like your heart racing or muscles clenching. And then there's a pull to act in a certain way, like yelling or avoiding totally procrastinating from doing the things that matter to you. And these three, this trifecta really exacerbates because when we need to approach something difficult, thinking more realistically rather than the worst

is so imperative. And knowing that we can change our physical sensations, and also we can allow our physical sensations. Again, we don't wanna catastrophize. This is kind of the way that panic builds is having normal bodily responses and hyper-focusing on them and trying to make them go away. But if we sort of know that we can allow ourselves to feel

certain things physically and also we can change those things. And then also really key is changing our behaviors. Because again, and I tell this maybe to bring this to light, I also share a quick story that I have permission to share. But one morning when my youngest child was really young, my husband started trying to pour some a gallon of milk from the fridge, and he literally spilled a gallon of milk.

He aggressively, because he was late, he starts aggressively cleaning it up, thinking like, I can't deal with this, and then he's aggressively cleaning it up, and he ends up cutting his hand on the kickplate of the bottom of the fridge. Then to make matters worse, we didn't have bandages in our house.

He runs to the local drug store where he gets into fender bender. I mean, you cannot make this stuff up. But stress is really like this spilled milk was one thing, but the whole I can't deal with this, and the tension and then the minor car accident, it really grew so much. But simply doing things like one of the things that I teach in the mind reset specifically is like, stop, slow down,

take a step back, observe, proceed mindfully. Like we can slow down, we don't have to get into this tornado, taking something that's stressful at a five. I want you to model that again, right? Because stop is an acronym. Exactly. Is that right? Yes. Okay.? I want you to model that again, right? Cause stop is an acronym. Exactly. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so I'm going to challenge you.

I'm going to give you like a hypothetical situation that may or may not be true for me. Okay, so I'm thinking I have soccer signups. I have to get soccer signups done tomorrow. I realized, oh my goodness, I didn't do the permission slip I was supposed to do and my kids already at school. I am on my way to work and my subways leave and I'm sitting there just spiraling about all of the things I have to do, all of the

things that are undone, all of the things I made a mistake on, I wasn't a present parent and oh my goodness, I wasn't there. Okay, how would I use stop in that exact situation? And how will I remember to use it? Can you help me with both of those? Yeah, so simply taking a step back, noticing. Like literally, like because I actually, like would you recommend I'm like at the subway station and would I be like stop Becky and like literally take a step back just to change my body position or no?

Just simply even just noticing. Like the act of noticing is key. We move things from like right in front of our face where we can't see anything beyond that to, you might be missing the trainer getting on the wrong one. And so literally like slowing down, just slowing down, noticing like literally noticing what is going on in our minds observing.

There's again such power to just the act of noticing rather than being one with, inspiring, and this is such a key part of stress. So much of stress is like thinking about things that we can't immediately solve. And so just taking a step back, observing, proceeding mindfully, like, okay, there's a lot of things I need to do. I need to get to that permission slip. I need to get to the signups. I'm here right now. I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and get on the bus and I'm going to put on my slow breathing app that will really help me realize that like, this isn't a catastrophe. I will get to this and I don't deserve to suffer in this

moment. And another skill that kind of goes in tandem with that is they act of anchoring. So maybe when you get on the bus, literally placing your feet on the floor, and then continuing to just do a three point check, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What do I feel compelled to do right now? You know, maybe text someone and say,

I can't believe I messed this thing up, or call someone and say, I'm like the worst mom in the whole world. But really like coming back to the demands of this moment. Hey, Good Inside listeners. So sometimes with parenting, a podcast does the trick. And sometimes with parenting, we need a bit more. And I wanted to be sure you knew that we're set up to help you in those trickier times.

The Good Inside membership platform is your parenting encyclopedia, coupled with a community of parents and experts you trust. Which means that no matter what you're going through, we've got you covered. And then we take it a step further. Because I know that we're people who don't just want to solve a problem and return to baseline. We want to raise our baselines, right? And this is what we really do together. Reduce triggers, learn to set boundaries, and access that sturdy leader that I know is inside all of us. It's all there when you're looking for that next step. And until then, please do check out

goodinside.com slash podcast. Scroll down to the Ask Dr. Becky section at the bottom and let me know what you want to talk about in future podcast episodes. First of all, I'm just going to put out there is that when I hear people say, just take a step back, okay, which is so useful. And I know I said this, but I'm going to double down. I actually do find it really helpful in my own life because I did this to literally take a step back, okay?

Because to me, when our body is like spiraling and out of control, for me at least, sometimes going right to my mind to try to help that, like, what am I supposed to do? I'm noticing, like, I need something in my body to, like, I don't know, like, get me out of this, like, kind of spiral I'm in. And to me, sometimes a shift in position can, like, really do that, right? It's like a very somatic, you know, intervention. And so, I'm picturing myself in the subway station going through all this in my mind and you're right. Like I probably would get on the wrong subway or I would like stay on it the whole time and

be like, oh, I ended up in like a different borough. Like now I'm really stressed, you know, kind of like what you were saying in your story is taking a step back helps me get kind of a little bit out of that spiral. And then yes, that kind of then I'm a little more able to observe, I'm a little more able to say, whoa, it's almost like instead of the stress, I always say like being in the driver's seat, like I'm a little bit back in the driver's seat, the stress is a passenger.

Like we all want the stress to be out of the car, news slash, not possible, but the stress being a passenger instead of the driver's seat, it's like a massive difference. Massive. And that's the best, is that, it's like kind of the best it gets, right? Yeah.

And I love even just reminding yourself, I mean, another mind reset is just even calling it a term that I use in my practice that comes from dialectical behavior therapy, it's a motion mind. Just realizing when you're starting to feel really overwhelmed, the nicest thing you could do for yourself is say like, I am not thinking reasonably, I'm in emotion mind, like emotions are, I love the way you said it, emotions are in the driver's seat.

Yeah. And as soon as you notice that, just, and I know you know this Jenny before everyone listening, there's a massive difference in our body when we're experiencing something versus we're noticing that we're experiencing something. Taking a step back helps you notice. Saying to yourself, this is the passenger and on the driver helps you notice because as soon as you notice something,

you're in a relationship with it. When you're not noticing something, there's no relationship. It just is you. And something being you versus, and you can't all see me, Jenny Hanne, but I almost like move my body to the side and look at my hand as my hand is just like, oh, hey stresser in your language,

hey emotion, mine, like there you are, okay. And as soon as you can do that, you have your feet on the ground, which leads us to another one of your strategies, anchoring. Can you explain that more for people because there's a real physicality to that, right? Yeah, there's something so powerful of literally digging your heels into the floor.

The Earth is supporting you. You're not alone. You're supported by the Earth. You're getting grounded in the current reality rather than spinning into the future or past or worst case scenarios that will never even happen. Even just literally physically digging your heels in and then checking in with yourself, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?

What do I feel like doing? And then coming back to the present moment, because then again, you have this window, you can access this trifecta of like thinking more flexibly, allowing or relaxing physical sensations, and then acting different than how you feel. And those three things, exponentially, will improve how you feel. Yes. And I saw this so much in my practice, too. And I think initially, people say, okay,

like, I notice thinking about all the things I didn't do. Like, there you go, Dr. Kennedy. Like, hope you're happy. I don't know why that helped me, right? And it sounds odd, but let's like break that down. Why is that so powerful to say, I notice I'm thinking, I notice I'm feeling, I notice I have the urge to do blank? Versus just the stress state. What's the difference?

What's the difference you would say? Cause I think it sounds, for anyone new to this concept, it sounds like, okay, it's like just semantics. Like it's the same thing, but it's a really different thing, right? To say, I notice I'm thinking, I notice I'm feeling, I notice I have the urge to blank as opposed to just thinking and feeling and having those urges. Yeah, I like to think about this almost as if you're seeing like skywriting in the sky. Like if I had, you know, worse mother in the whole world written in skywriting,

that's such a different relationship than in your voice, in your mind, with no perspective, no release. You're so like fused with it versus you have some distance and can see like, this is just what my mind does when I make a human error that in this relationship with my child. I love that image. And I actually would encourage everyone listening to this relationship with my child. I love that image. And I actually would encourage everyone listening to come up with some image.

So the thoughts you have when you're stressed, right? Exactly. If you can kind of have some image attached to them, they're writing in the sky or you picture them in like Crayola blue marker. It doesn't really matter. But as soon as you have some image of it, you're right. Jenny, like it lives outside of you.

It's this thing you're noticing versus this thing that becomes you. Right? And that's really what happens when we spin. And all of these things have such physical manifestations. If you think about that term we use, oh, I'm spinning versus, oh, I'm grounded. Okay. Well, think about that. If you're spinning, you're not connected to the earth.

You're, you know, you can't locate someone who's spinning. You're spinning down, you're spinning away, being grounded. Literally, it's like my feet are pressed into the ground. And when you're not feeling grounded, using an anchoring technique, one of those stress resets to say even, I say this to myself, my feet are on the ground, just over and over, my feet are on the ground, I'm pressing my feet into the ground.

And it really competes with that tendency to spin. They're a little antithetical, right? And it really helps the spinning slow down. Absolutely. I love this. And this is the key because, again, like when we're going 100 miles an hour, we have, we've lost control. But if we're going 10 to 15 miles an hour, we have a lot of room to change the course.

I love that image too. When we're really, really stressed, our car is so much faster than we can safely drive. And all of these stress resets, it doesn't bring us to a zero. But you're right, cars that are going 15 miles an hour are under a lot more control. They can make decisions. Where a car going 100 miles an hour is not really making decisions.

It's like you're just gripping on for dear life when you're inside, right? And that's, I think, what that difference feels like. And tell me about the behavior reset. I think this is new to some people that you can interrupt a stress kind of cycle. I'm so stressed. Okay. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to think this way. But sometimes our behavior can be the start of a more virtuous, positive cycle.

Can you give an example of a behavior reset? You know, one of the biggest things that I teach all my clients is the problem is, is when we're stressed, we act in ways that stress us out. We shut down, we do things that we indulge in ways that don't serve us, we snap at our kids. Those behaviors, like it's like we think that we're angry and then we yell, but really yelling is perpetuating the anger. It's a bi-directional relationship where the more you yell, the angrier you feel.

It's not cathartic. And so we need to realize that all emotions have corresponding behaviors. But we can change the course of the emotion by changing our action. And so a quick label for this is opposite action. And so part of anxiety is avoiding. Part of sadness is retreating or curling up in bed.

And knowing that you don't have to do the action, especially when the action is not aligned with your long-term goals. If the action is not helping you or aligning with your ultimate values, this is probably the biggest thing that I would say to someone. If someone said to me, like, what is the one thing that, how is being a psychologist changed your life? Or what's like the one tip you

have for the world? It's like opposite action. If you want to change how you feel, change your behavior. And it needs to also have your mind on board because like, you know, speaking kindly to your child while thinking like they're such a brat is not going to feel cathartic or natural. It's like doing the splits. You need both your mind and body on board. But to realize that stress is not just a feeling, it's a behavior. And in this moment, what can I do? How can I choose to respond? What would I do if I wasn't stressed? Maybe it's just small. Maybe it's like taking, you know, when you're on that bus, just like smiling at the person next to you or focusing on your breath or putting the phone away

rather than clenching and texting your partner, I can't believe you didn't remind me about this. And so really just slowing down and changing your behavior because it's so liberating to realize that our feelings again, like coming back to the metaphor used are not the pilot, like they can, our emotions can sit in the trunk and our inner wisdom can be in the driver's seat. Yes. And then I just want to add to this.

That seems obvious, but I actually, when I started thinking about it, I found it very not obvious. Okay. Just because we don't want to do something doesn't mean we're incapable of doing it. Now, let me explain. Sometimes we don't want to do something and that's something we should listen to, right?

It's aligned with our values, there's reasons. But when you're really stressed, let's say you're really stressed and you're right, you don't reach out to friends, or you're stressed from an argument with your partner, and you're thinking like, I need them to apologize, even though part of you knows like, it doesn't really matter who goes first.

One of us has to have a bid to connect instead of pull away. Let's take that example. The natural resting state in that moment is like, I don't want to do that.. One of us has to have a bid to connect instead of pull away. Let's take that example. The natural resting state in that moment is like, I don't wanna do that. I just don't wanna do that. Like I really don't wanna do that. And what I think is powerful to say to ourselves,

like, of course I don't wanna do that. Now that will perpetuate the stress cycle and the awful cycle, right? Not doing it. And to be able to say to yourself, I totally don't wanna do this. And I am capable of doing things that will help me, even when short term, I don't want to do them is a really important reminder.

You're not going to want to get up early to work out if, you know, that hasn't been the habit you're in. And still you might say, it's okay, if I don't want to, I can do it anyway. You might not want to smile at someone and you can say to yourself, I totally don't want to do this can do it anyway. You might not want to smile at someone and you can say to yourself, I totally don't want to do this and it's worth the experiment. And I think that is so liberating when we validate that we don't want to do something.

And we remind ourselves we're still capable of making like long-term good decisions for ourselves. Absolutely. And the reset that I call this is willingness. I mean, even just labeling, am I being willing or am I being willful? And willingness is kind of like doing what's needed and what's going to help you. And willful is like kind of digging your heels in a way that's not serving you.

Yes. I want to ask you a little bit about stress buffers. So again, stress resets, I'm in a moment of stress and then there's stress buffers. So this is out of a moment of stress and then there's stress buffers. So this is out of a moment of acute stress and how can I make myself less vulnerable to that same type of stress response? So I'm a little bit more resilient. Can you just give an example of like what's your go-to or your, if you had to pick your favorite, like, you know, your favorite stress buffer, what would it be? I have a couple, but I will share one that's less intuitive. So often when we're struggling, when we're mad at our kid or we're exhausted,

we latch on to judgments of like, this is terrible, I'm going to have a terrible day or, you know, it's getting worse and like game over basically before the day started. And I love to do this exercise with clients where I show them like two minute video clips. One clip is designed to make you cry. One clip is designed to make you afraid. One clip is designed to make you incredibly angry. One clip will make you happy.

And for people to realize that emotions truly come in waves, so I think a really powerful buffer is repeating the mantra like emotions come in waves. Your kid just threw something at you or just threw like, you know, a whole bowl of rice all over the floor. Emotions come and waves this idea that like, because again, this really feeds in nicely to acting different than how you feel and being willing because you know that like,

this thing is just a wave in the ocean and it will pass. I don't need to like get in there. I could choose my behavior and know that it will have been flow. It's not gonna stick. It's not going to stick. It's not like I'm going to gracefully sweep up the rice and I'm going to still be angry. It's going to be gone by the time you've done it willingly.

I love that. Emotions come in waves. And again, the imagery of that is one of the things with stress is when it comes, we do take on the wave sometimes wholeheartedly. Then we act in ways that can make that wave be even longer, versus if you see the wave a little bit like, oh, there's that again,

it will pass all emotions pass. Especially when we stay present with them and don't act on them and don't think the worst. If we're not keeping them afloat, they truly move quickly. Yeah, it reminds me of one of the things I find very helpful in those moments. I think two different mantras, like my go-to mantra in life is like, I'm safe.

This is not an emergency. I can cope with this. So again, I think there's something similar. Like it feels like an emergency and reminding yourself it's not and reminding yourself it's a wave, right? Like, yeah, maybe I'm in the peak of the wave right now, but any wave that has a peak,

I'm gonna now get to use one of my favorite words that I've never said how loud, okay? Has an idea, right? That's like the low point too. So I think reminding ourselves of that is so powerful in the image. You can even picture yourself like a surfer, like whoa, that's like the top of the wave.

And okay, I'm gonna now ride it down, right? As opposed to in some ways like staying at the top level. Totally. What's one more stress buffer that you can share with us? This is so obvious, but so difficult for so many of us to implement. But really we give our kids bedtimes, we need to give ourselves bedtimes.

It is so hard to manage your emotions when you're sleep deprived. And so being really intentional about like, this is the time I'm putting my kid to bed. This is the time I'm going to bed. Because I think it's really instinctive if you have no time for yourself over the course of the day to kind of think this is my time.

Let me really enjoy, live it up, start a bunch of shows tonight. But being really, really thoughtful about the short term and long term pros and cons of that, because it's really, really tough to manage emotions. We just don't think clearly, and we don't feel good emotionally when we're sleep deprived. So ahead of before the temptation rises,

having a clear sense of what is your sleep time, what is your wake time, because it's also really nice in the morning to have a little bit of time for yourself, and so being willing to get to bed on time. Yeah. And just for everyone listening to that, look, I think, you know, going to bed is tricky.

I've learned, and I'm sure you hear about this in your practice too, right? Especially right once you have kids, you're like, no time is mine. No time is mine. I felt poured out to others all day. And then you so crave any moment that feels more pleasurable or more you focused. And so what can happen then is we can end up staying really up really late, kind of in search of that feeling.

And I think actually so many adults, we're searching for that feeling often actually in places that it doesn't come. We're scrolling Instagram and we're like, wow, why am I on here for an hour? We're searching. We're like yearning, we're searching in that endless goal. And one of the things I have found really helpful to get myself to bed certain nights earlier

is just saying to myself early in the day if I can. Like what do I really need tonight? Like what feeling am I really looking for? And often I'll say like, I can. Like, what do I really need tonight? Like, what feeling am I really looking for? And often I'll say like, I need something for me. Like, I really need something for me. It's been work, it's been my kids, it's been everyone else. Okay. And then I'll think instead of trying to search for it

in a way I'm not gonna get it, which will also make me go to bed later and then feel awful the next day. Like, how can I do that in a concentrated dose? So I'll say like, for 10 minutes, can I first make myself a cup of tea? Now, it's not like that's like whoop-de-doo, so exciting. But like sometimes having tea to me feels different than, I don't know, my regular life,

I'm like sitting down, I'm enjoying it. I'm gonna like open up my Kindle and read 10 minutes of like, you know, my book that also has nothing to do with anything I'm learning, just purely pleasurable and enjoyable. And I'll think like for 10 minutes, can I do that? Or 15 minutes, whatever it is. And I do find then the transition to putting myself to bed. Like I'm not fighting it

because I've given myself the feeling and I've actually gotten the feeling instead of staying up longer, looking for it, probably never finding it and then being tired. Couldn't agree more. And that's another buffer is, you know, plotting your joy and having routine little snacks of joy throughout the day and even moments of humor with your kids.

Because again, we shouldn't be deprived. It shouldn't feel like I didn't have a minute and now I have to stay up and kind of sabotage my feeling good tomorrow. But throughout, we need to make sure that we are kind of snacking on joyful moments. I love that. And exactly. They're like snacks sometimes, right? And sometimes that does kind of just like eating snacks. It gets us through.

Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcastatgoodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside membership,

the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like valued parents. It's totally game changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Knapp and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky,

Mary Panico and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.