Today on Something You Should Know, your friends can make you fat and unhappy, or just the opposite. Then, have you ever felt stuck in your life? We all have, and there's a way to get unstuck.

Everyone has the same first question, Why am I stuck? And that's not a helpful starting point. You don't walk up to a burning building and ask, Why is this building on fire? So when people start with, Why am I like this? They render themselves even more stuck.

Also a simple way to slow down your eating so you eat less. And how simple even woo- woo things can affect your health, like music, massage, visualization, even kindness.

Kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress? I often ask people, What do you think is the opposite of stress? Almost everyone says it's peace, it's calm, it's relaxation. But those things are the absence of stress, not its opposite.

All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to something you should know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's what something you should know was all about. I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called Ted Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on something you should know have done Ted Talks. Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hugh. She goes beyond the headlines, so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like Ted Talks Daily, and get Ted Talks Daily wherever you get your podcast. Something You Should Know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life.

Today, Something You Should know with Mike Carruthers. Hello there. So if I make the statement, Happiness is contagious, that sounds about right, right? It's easier to be happy when you're around other happy people. But did you also know that obesity is contagious? First, the happiness thing. Your odds of being happy increase 15% if your friend is happy. They increase another 10% if their friend is happy, and another 6% if their friend's friend is happy. You're happier if your friend and your friend's friend are happy. Now, these are the results of a study by the Gallup organization, and here's what else they discovered. That social circles, your friends, have a direct impact on your physical health. You're more likely to be healthy if your friends are, and the reverse is also true. If your friends are unhealthy, you're more likely to be unhealthy. In fact, there's a thing called second-hand obesity. That means if your friend is obese, it increases your chances of becoming obese by 57%. They also discovered that a good marriage is good for healing. 42 couples were studied, and it turned out that it took almost twice as long for physical wounds to heal if the couple reported having hostility in their relationship.

Human beings are social creatures, so to be happy and to be at our best, we need about 6 hours a day of social time. That is something you should know. Hard to imagine going through life without feeling stuck at times, and it doesn't feel very good. You want to do something, you want to make a change, tackle a goal, but it just never seems to happen. You're stuck. So how do you get unstuck? Well, that's what Brit Frank is here to discuss. Brit is a therapist, a trauma specialist, adjunct professor at the University of Kansas, and author of the book, The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to find your path forward. Hey, Brett, welcome.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

As someone who works with people who are stuck, what does it mean from your point of view? What does it mean? What does it mean to be stuck?

I find stuck as knowing what you want, having the resources to carry it out, and then not doing it for whatever reason.

Bingo. Who hasn't felt that? It makes you wonder, if I have everything I need, and I say I I want to do this and it doesn't get done, why doesn't it get done?

Yes. And as a therapist, I hear every day from people, The reason I'm not doing what I want to do and what I know to do is because I'm lazy, because there's something wrong with me because I lack motivation. And none of those things are actually accurate. I'm a big fan of take accountability and take ownership over your life. However, we are biological organisms. And if we don't know that our brains have an automatic mechanism that responds to our environment, we're going to get stuck, and we're not going to know why. It would be like your car running out of gas and blaming your car for being lazy. It's not lazy, it just needs gas to run. Similarly, our brains need certain things in order to get us off the couch, or we're all going to get stuck watching Top Chef for nine hours. Or is that just me?

But some might take issue with what you said. We have the word lazy because it describes some people. Some people are lazy, and It sounds like you're excusing them.

It does, doesn't it? And it's so funny to me that people think lazy is the excuse, and it's not. Knowing the explanation for our inertia doesn't excuse it. And this is where people think that excuse is synonymous with explanation, and it's not. Knowing your car is out of gas doesn't mean it's okay to sit and park for the next year. It just means we need to know what's going on for the purpose, not of excusing it, but explaining it. Most of the time when we're not doing the things we're supposed to be doing, it's either because there's some real or perceived threat happening now or coming from the future, an untended to pain point from the past that we've never dealt with, We're somewhere in there where we're not being honest. And I'll also say what other people call lazy, I just call energy conservation. A great example is a parent who's taking care of a 25-year-old, giving them all of their food, all of the money, all of their things, and that 25-year-old is doing nothing. It's not because they're lazy, it's because why would they? All of their needs are being met. They are not properly incented to get up off the couch and go do something.

So lazy is either energy conservation or a reasonable response to a threat or a reasonable response to unaddressed pain. None of it's an excuse. All of it is an explanation for the purpose of getting us moving forward.

I've always suspected that when people say they want to do something, but they never seem to get around to doing it, that it's more because they don't really want to do it. They say they want to do it, they want to write the great American novel, or maybe they want to start a podcast, but they don't because they don't really want to?

We are all, as humans, pretty much masters at the art of self-deception to a degree. And so when people say, I want to start a podcast or write the next American novel, and they don't do it, one of two things is happening. One, they don't actually want to do it. They want to want to do it. They think they should want to do it, but they actually don't. Or they desperately, desperately want to do it, but they're afraid. And there are a lot of reasons that we stay stuck, including we don't have to risk failing. We don't have to risk social rejection. We don't have to risk financial resources. But we all lie to ourselves when we say, Well, it's just because I'm lazy. It's not because you're lazy, it's because you don't want to fail. Fine. We can deal with that. If we If we don't accurately name the problem, we're not going to be able to change anything. The language we use to describe our stuff has a great deal in shaping how we can manage or change or improve.

What you said a moment ago just hit me. I know so many people who want to want to do it. They don't want to do it, they want to want to do it, but they disguise it in, I want to do it. But wanting to want to do it and wanting to do it are really different.

They are totally different. And I'll use myself as an example because I wasn't always a therapist with this shiny resume. I was a drug addict and a smoker. And I'll use smoking cigarettes as a great example. Anyone who has ever been a smoker knows there is a period where you know you should want to quit, but you don't. You do not want to quit. You want to want to quit. But if you lie to yourself and you say, oh, my gosh, I desperately want to quit. Self-deception is the number one factor in our stuckness. So now when I work with people who are trying to break bad habits, we have to start with, You don't want to change today. And that's fine. It's not where we're going to stay. It's not fine to set up camp here forever. But we have to start with what's true. If you don't want to do a thing, let's name it. And then let's find some momentum elsewhere. Let's pivot to something that you can get going. We are systems. We are biological organisms. If we change one thing, everything changes. As soon as you get a few wins under your belt, then it might be safer to want the thing that you actually want.

Or decide you don't want it.

Or decide you don't want it, exactly.

Because it's such a relief, I think, when people say they're going to do something like write a book or do a podcast or whatever, and then decide, You know what? I'm not going to do it. The relief of that and the weight off your shoulders of deciding it's okay to let that go. I didn't really want to do it in the first place.

And what happens when people start to come to terms with what's true, the first response is generally shame. And what we know from Dr. Brené Brown's body of work, nothing will put us into a state of stuck faster than the affect of shame. Shame is completely paralyzing. So what we need to do is give people permission to want what they want. It takes Dr. Bessel-van der Kolk, who's the trauma authority in my field, he says, It takes a great deal of courage to let yourself know what you know. And again, I'll use myself. I actually have no desire to ever start a podcast. I love them, and I love speaking on them. But I've been told so many times, Brit, you should. You should want to do a podcast. And if I believed that and I invested my resources in doing it, I would feel anxious, I would feel cranky, I would probably not be a nice person to work for. And it all starts with what's true about you and what do you actually want? Not what you should want, not what you think you want to want. What is it that that is true for you about you?

That's a great starting place. Nobody stays stuck if they're starting with what's true.

What's your favorite podcast?

Yours, of course.

Good answer. People also say, and I think you touched on it a moment ago, that the reason they don't get whatever it is done or the reason that they feel stuck in their job or stuck wherever they're stuck at is they lack motivation. And you say, No.

No. Our brains are always... And again, this is not an excuse. This is not like, Oh, well, Bert said this, therefore I don't have to do anything. It's a misnomer to say we're unmotivated. Our brains are motivated 24 hours a day, and they are either motivated by energy conservation and survival, which is an automatic process. We don't get to say that's a function of our autonomic nervous system, or our brains are motivated to make logical, conscious, rational, cognitive choices. So we are either motivated by energy conservation and survival or by choice. So to say you're unmotivated gets us nowhere fast because it's not biologically accurate. If I'm laying on the couch watching Top Chef for hour nine and I say, Oh, I'm feeling so unmotivated. That's not true. That's a lie. The truth is, I am more motivated by comfort than I am by getting up and doing something because it's scary to work on my business? What if it fails? It's scary to go put myself out there in a social situation. What if I get rejected? So again, you can only be radically honest with yourself so many days in a row before you get thoroughly sick of what's happening, and you will make changes much faster when we start with using accurate language.

You're always motivated. You're motivated by conservation or by choice.

Well, I've been motivated at times when I wasn't motivated before. Not too long ago, I decided to lose weight. I've always thought, Oh, I could lose a few pounds. I'm sure so many people go through this. But one day, and I don't know what it was, I really don't know what it was, I just said, Okay, today's the day. I don't know where it came from, and I lost 25 pounds. That's awesome. Not that day. I didn't do it that day.

It took a while. The weight loss is a great one, right? And not everything requires a deep dive analysis into New Origin. Sometimes the switch just clicks, and that's fantastic when that happens. I'm so glad that was your experience. Doesn't always happen for everybody. And if you can do an automatic click, and now I'm ready to hit go, that's great. For a lot of people, there's a lot of spinning. For some people, losing weight is incredibly threatening because now they're going to become more attractive, perhaps. And if they're more attractive, sex will be a factor. Or if you lose a lot of weight, what relationships will have to change? What's your identity that you might have attached to that will now have to change if you lose a lot of weight? So there are all these very, very powerful factors that if we don't name, we're going to end up spinning our wheels and not knowing why. I want to lose weight, and every time I try, I sabotage. Well, is it really sabotage, or is it a unconscious suboptimal effort at self-preservation and self-protection?

Yeah. Well, and you talk about the hidden benefits of staying stuck, and I've seen that so many times where people are stuck. They say they want to change, but they never change. But it does seem that there are benefits to staying where they are, because as you say, I think relationships, friends are invested in who you are, not who you want to be.

And the expression Misery Loves Company is very true. It is astounding to me how many people will want to join someone in their misery. But as soon as someone starts are getting successful, when their business takes off, when they make their first million, when they lose 25 pounds, when they have the amazing relationship, all of a sudden, their friends go away, and they look around and they go, Wait, what happened to everybody? If we're talking finance, doing a cost-benefit analysis on whatever the habit is you want to change, everyone can name the costs. Oh, it's bad for my health, and it's bad for this, and it's bad for that. But no one wants to look at the benefit column. And if we don't look at what the benefits are to our state of being, whatever the habit is, we're going to stay there because we only change when the cost outweighs the benefit.

We're talking about feeling stuck in life and how to get unstuck. My guest is Brit Frank, author of the book The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward. So, Brit, I have found whenever I feel stuck, and I think this has got to be true for most people, that feeling of stuck, which is So uncomfortable. You just don't know what to do or where to go or what to... But once you start doing anything towards that goal, anything, that somehow that primes the pump.

Yes. And we minimize those small steps. And again, I hear this every day. I want to lose 30 pounds and I want to run a marathon. I took a walk around the block. Big deal. Whatever. It's not like I ran a mile. If we minimize our small wins, we're never going to get to the big ones. Those teeny tiny small wins compound very quickly if we bank them. So you get to bank all of the things that you say yes to, whether it's you walked for five minutes or a mile or 20 miles. It doesn't matter. Say yes to one thing and boom, no longer are you stuck. Say yes to something else, now you've got two. And then exponentially, those things pile. And then before you know it, you're back in motion. It really is amazing how quick we are to minimize, invalidate, and deny our wins if what we think are too small.

So when you talk to someone who is stuck and they want to get unstuck, so what's the map look like? What's the step one, two, and three to help you feel like there's a way out?

So I think the most important first step, and everyone has the same first question, why am I stuck? Why do I feel like this? Why is this happening? And that's not a helpful starting point. It's a really important question. However, you don't walk up to a burning building and ask, why is this building on fire? You get the people out of the building. You put the fire out. We'll figure out why and the contributing factors and who is at fault. We'll figure that all out later. So when people start When they start with, Why am I like this? They render themselves even more stuck. So let's start. Step one, take away the why. Forget about the why. Let's start with step one. What are your options right now to make this change that you want? And of those What are those options? What can you say yes to today? Because we get very focused on solving a huge problem when we have no resources. What are your options right now? If you want to lose weight, great. Forget about how you feel. What are your choices today? Of those, what can you say yes to?

Then we can figure out the benefits and the origin story and why this came to be. But explaining why something has happened does not change it as fast as saying, What are my choices and what will I say yes to today?

Yeah. Because how many times have people felt stuck? Like, why can't I lose weight? Why can't I get in shape? Why can't I quit smoking? From what you're saying, that's just the wrong question to ask. It's the wrong question to start with.

I'm a psychotherapist saying, Forget your feelings and forget the why. I love the why. I love diving into the abyss of the human family system and figuring out why things happen. But knowing why something happens doesn't excuse it, and knowing why something is happening doesn't change it. So let's start with, What can we do now? Let's change it, and we'll figure out why later. Why is question number 4 or 5?

Very often, though, I think what happens is even when people do that, as soon as trouble rears its ugly head a little bit down the road, it derails the whole process. One failure and we're done.

Isn't that amazing how that happens? And again, the one failure and we're done It generally happens because A, we lack information about why we failed and what happened to our brain that created the stopping point, or as we move along, we start to see all of the changes that are coming up the pipeline. If we continue achieving, we get scared and we stop. There's no such thing as self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is just a very suboptimal way to preserve and protect. So it's so important to know if you have that failure and you hit the wall and all of a sudden you're back to square one. It's not because you're lazy and it's not because you can't do this. There are reasons, and we can still change. So anytime you hit your head and you fall, fail forward instead of thinking that you have to start at square one again. You can't really go back to square one. That's not how time works. Time moves forward. So if you mess up, if you completely fall on your face, fall forward, get up, dust off, and let's figure out what are your choices, what are you going to say yes to today?

And then there are the people in your life who can seemingly screw things up for you. If you want to lose weight, but if everybody in the house is packing the cupboard with donuts and ice cream in the freezer, it's going to be harder, but because not everybody's doing what you're doing.

That's right. And again, this goes back to we want to orient towards homeostasis. We like things balanced. We don't like change. We want things just as they are. And this happens in families of addicts and alcoholics. As much as the family member wants their addicted loved one to change, as soon as they start healing, the whole family becomes out of whack, and people will unconsciously enable because we want to go back to what's familiar, even if what's familiar is damaging to us. So if you're in a family system or in a relationship where you're not getting the support that you want, that's going to be another unpleasant truth to contend with. Okay, my partner is not on board. Great. Then it goes back to knowing this, what What are my choices? What am I going to say yes to? And then knowing that we may have to set some boundaries and have some really uncomfortable conversations is also part of this game plan. We don't like conflict. Well, some people don't. And we want to avoid upsetting the apple cart, so we don't. But being willing to have an uncomfortable conversation is a much faster path out of stuck than pretending like that's not happening.

When you work with people, where is the point at which the light bulb goes off? What is the one thing that people, maybe we've already discussed it, but the thing that gets people to go, Oh.

I think from my experience, when people realize that there's no such thing as a good person or a bad person, and that we are so complex. We are systems. There are a million parts of our personality, just like there are a million parts of our cells, organs, and tissues. And that one decision, one thought, one belief, one action One doesn't define the entire thing because we were really taught as little kids to divide the world into the good guys and the bad guys. So if I make a bad choice, suddenly I'm a bad person, and now I'm locked down in shame. And because of that, I'm making more bad choices. The light bulb turns on when people have permission to seek wholeness rather than, I want to be good. Forget about being good. Try to be whole. Try to be authentic. Try to be genuine. Trying to be good is very limiting, and it's not actually possible. So as soon as we can toss that out, we have lots of room to play.

I never really understood that, Try to be genuine idea. What does that mean? I don't know what... Everything I do is genuinely me or I wouldn't be doing it. So what does it mean to be authentic or genuine? I've never really grasped those terms.

That's fair. And that term, genuine and authenticity, tend to get taken to a strange place where suddenly people feel like they need to disclose everything about themselves to everyone around them. Being genuine and authentic just means, are you honest with yourself about who you are, about what you want? Are you doing the things that you say you want? And if not, are you clear on what's going on? And if so, are you willing to make the choices? Anytime we are lying to, or one exercise I do with clients in this, what's genuine, what's authentic, at the end of the day, make a list of 10 lies that you told either to yourself or to other people. And initially everyone says, I don't lie. I'm an honest person. We all tell little lies, even if it's something minor. How's your day going? It's fine. That's a lie if that's not actually true. And this isn't about shame. It's about how honest with you with How honest are you with yourself about yourself? And it's an internal authenticity that I'm talking about, not about what you say to other people necessarily.

Something that I noticed a long time ago, and I think people tend not to look towards it too often, is the effect of self-talk, that what you tell yourself all day long is going to drive you wherever you're going.

Our brains and our bodies are always listening to what we say. And again, I'm not suggesting that you give yourself a pass if you're making poor choices, but to beat yourself up and to say, I'm a horrible person, and I'm so lazy, and I'm so stupid, and why did I do that? That's not going to fuel the change process. That's like draining your gas tank. So there's a degree to which you can be accountable while not beating yourself up. Self-compassion is not the same as self-permission. And I think some people confuse that, that if I'm compassionate with myself, then I'm just cosigning on my behavior. No, you're not. You're saying, This is not a great choice. I am not a bad person, and I can make changes, and I can make choices. But if my bad choice equals, I am now a bad person, I'm a I'm a stupid person. I'm a lazy person. We're going nowhere quickly. So self-compassion is not the same as self-permission. And self-compassion sounds mushy and woo- woo and saccharine. And it's crucial to speak to yourself, at least with the same courtesy that you would speak to a friend.

I think when people feel stuck, there's this sense that you're the only one, that everybody else seems to be going along and doing just fine, but you're stuck and you feel so alone. So it's nice to get this subject out in the open and talk about it and get some insight into it. I've been speaking with Brit Frank. She is a therapist, adjunct professor at the University of Kansas, and author of the book, The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path forward. There's a link to the book in the show notes. Thanks, Brit.

Thank you so much.

There are a lot of what you might call alternative treatments, things like aromatherapy, Visualization, meditation, being in nature, or even crystals, things that are often referred to as woo- woo, which I've always taken to mean iffy, unproven ideas, which may not do a lot of harm, but the benefits are hard to prove. Now, some people swear by them, but skeptics will say there just isn't much evidence that they work. I know I tend to be skeptical, so I was originally going to pass on this interview that you're to hear. But when I looked a little deeper, I thought, maybe there is something here. So meet Dr. David Hamilton. He is a writer, speaker, and author of several books, including Why woo-Woo Works. Hi, David. Welcome.

Oh, thank you very much for having me. I'm so looking forward to our chat.

So explain why woo-woo works, because as I just said, there isn't a lot of evidence for some of these things, and that's why we call it woo-woo or alternative. So what's your take?

Overall, these types of practices place the body in what you might call a restorative state. And that's when the nervous system is, rather than being in a fight or flight state, it's the exact opposite of that. And when the body is in a restorative state, some of these systems are able to work more optimally. So for example, Well, the immune system is able to work a little more optimally. Even pain management systems can work a little bit more optimally. And also even the body's repair systems, like cellular repair and even muscle repair after strenuous exercise or even injury, that types of thing. So these types of systems are able to work a little bit more optimally, which is really why you find that these types of practices give better results from things like managing pain and even improving people's mental and physical health. Sorry, mental health, I would say more than physical.

So in other words, these practices tend to put the body in a relaxed state, and the body does better in a relaxed state as opposed to being in a stressed out state. But isn't it also just a lot of placebo effect going on here? It works because you believe it works.

That's absolutely part of it. Yeah, 100 %. And I think we can say the same for pretty much everything. I'm a big advocate, actually, for that type of thing, what we call the placebo effect. I mean, for example, if you believe in something, the belief itself actually altars your brain chemistry. For example, if I believed that a pill was a painkiller, but it was secretly a placebo, then my belief itself would cause my brain to produce its own natural painkillers, which would contribute to any pain killing effect. So that type of placebo effect, we can't really extract that from anything. So I think in all of these types of practices, there's absolutely a placebo effect. But the placebo effect isn't the only thing that's happening, because as I say, the body tends to be in these types of practices in a restorative state, which in and of itself, with the placebo effect, is a beneficial thing. It's why we recover more, for example, when we're sleeping rather than when we're awake, because the body is even more so in a restorative state.

How do you know this? Where's the evidence that this stuff really has some long-lasting effect or any effect other than the placebo effect, which granted is a real thing. But if you have crystals in your room, there isn't a whole lot of research that supports the fact that those things do anything.

No. As far as I understand, there's no research on using crystals in any therapeutic setting. But things like Reiki, for example, which is a type of technique where a therapist might lay their hands either on or close to a person's body in a variety of different positions. Well, there's randomized control trials on Reiki and even statistical analysis of randomized control trials, which show that it's beneficial for managing pain and even for supporting people's mental health by reducing things like anxiety and depression, particularly in palliative care, towards end-of-life care.

I don't practice a lot of this stuff, but I've had a massage. I know it, and It is. It's a nice sensation. You're in a room, there's music playing, and so it's very calming and very stress-free. But I don't know that it's a whole lot more than that, or is it?

I think you nailed it there because the fact that it's a relaxing setting and it feels relaxing and the music's played, these are all contributing to a wellness effect. For example, if you didn't have that massage, then you wouldn't be quite as relaxed. So one of the things I've When I'm talking about woobu subjects, I'm not arguing for a mystical, magical energy phenomenon. I'm really morely talking about the cumulative effects of different things like the relaxation the relaxing effect of music, the effect of an environment, even the effect of a therapist showing empathy. For example, in a family doctor's consulting room, research shows that if the doctor shows empathy, then that actually has quite a phenomenal effect on the patient. In fact, here's an example, 175 prostate cancer patients who later, when asked to assess the level of empathy shown by the family doctor, when the doctor was scored high on empathy over a particular number score they gave, three months later, those patients had far higher levels of a very important immune cell called the natural killer cell than people whose doctor showed them low empathy There's lots of research that show if a person is, say, recovering from an operation, if they're given earphones playing nice music versus earphones playing white noise, then their pain levels are substantially lower.

So these are the things I'm arguing for, not for a magical, mystical energy, but the natural physiological effects of a number of different things, all of which contribute to an overall well-being effect.

Well, it's interesting what you say about the proof that putting our bodies in a resting, relaxed state is good for our health. And yet it does seem today, perhaps more than ever, that people are not resting and relaxed. They're stressed out and running around, and that's maybe not a good thing.

I talk about actually to help people to relax is to be kind because believe it or not, kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress. If ever you're feeling stressed, then if you... One of my books, actually, I talk about this extensively, that if you look at what happens in the brain and in the body when you feel the feelings induced by kindness, whether you're the giver of the kindness, the receiver of the kindness, or even the witness to an act of kindness, what that does is it actually produces some little interesting hormonal changes in the brain and in the body that really produce the opposite effects of stress. So sometimes I often ask people, what do you think is the opposite of stress? Almost everyone says it's peace, it's calm, it's relaxation. But those things are the absence of stress, not its opposite. To generate the opposite effects, it's not an act of kindness itself, It's how kindness feels. Just like stress isn't a situation. It's how that situation feels to you. So this is why a lot of my work and a lot of the things I talk about really has an undercurrent of just be kind, because it's probably going to have a positive effect at the end of the day.

Well, and certainly, I think a lot of people have gotten the message about meditation and mindfulness as being something that can really bring that on.

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, here's some really interesting research. If you practice mindfulness, and for people who've never heard of mindfulness, think of this as mindfulness 101. Let's suppose you were breathing, which I hope you're doing right now. But let's suppose you breathe But then you notice that you're breathing. Well, in the noticing that you're breathing, you're now mindful of the fact that you're breathing. You're actually working out a portion of the brain that's just above your eyes. It's called the prefrontal cortex. And when I say working out, it's not that much different from what happens if you work out a muscle. So if you go to the gym and you work out, let's say, a bicep, then two things happen. The muscle becomes firmer and the muscle becomes larger. So when you work out a region of the brain, something very similar happens. So the area we work out becomes more powerful. And that's why mindfulness practices are associated with improvements in mental health, better ability to concentrate.

Talk about nature and the importance of being in nature, seeing nature, and what that does.

The human body benefits greatly from nature. Studies show that hospital patients recover faster if they're in a hospital room that has a window that offers them a view of nature. And the reason for that, whenever we experience nature, the human nervous system begins to tend towards that natural restorative state. And what that itself does is it allows someone of the body systems, like the immune system, for example, to work a little bit more optimally. So there's lots of research now. In fact, in the UK, the NHS, National Health System Service, now have a big forest project where they're actually opening up NHS-owned land to develop forests and to allow patients and visitors to experience more natural because the evidence for this thing is now growing quite substantially.

What is it How about some of these things? Well, it sounds like what you're saying is that a lot of this has to do with just putting the body in a resting state as opposed to a stress state.

Yes? Very much so. I think Everything that can help a person's body into a relaxed state will have some beneficial effect. I think what underpins a lot of alternative and even spiritual practices, that plays a big role in them, just like it does, I think, even in a doctor's surgery, when a doctor shows you kindness and empathy and you feel more relaxed, even that itself also has a positive effect over and above any medication that's prescribed. So I think one of my main messages is if you can help a person to relax and even feel good, then surely that's got to be a good thing at the end of the day. It might not cure a person of a serious disease, but it might help them in some way, whether it's in their mental health or whether it's even by allowing the nervous system just to do what it needs to do a little bit better than it was before when they were stressed.

Well, it's interesting that some of the things you've been talking about that do seem to have some positive, if effect, get lumped together with things that don't work, that have no positive effect in the category of woo-wu. We call them woo-wu. And that seems to have a negative, Yeah, we We don't think this does very much, which maybe that's not fair.

I think you got it absolutely right. We lump a lot of these things together. In fact, there is a dictionary definition of woo-wu, and I think it goes something like unconventional beliefs, regarded as having little or no scientific basis, especially those relating to spirituality, mysticism, and alternative medicine. And I think we do lump a lot of things in together. But within those, I think a lot of these things do have a lot of evidence. For example, when I was an R&D scientist in the pharmaceutical industry, and now I recall very vividly first bringing up the topic of the placebo effect with my colleagues. And back then, this was back in the late '90s, my colleagues, all of whom were professional scientists, all of whom were PhDs, as far as they understood, the placebo effect was just all in the mind. And this It was just going to happen anyway. These people would just feel a little bit better anyway. And so the idea of a mind-body connection, some of my friends thought it was humorous that I had an interest in this thing. They weren't being unkind to me, I have to say that. It was just jocular.

We were just friends having a couple of beers in the pub, but they thought it was funny that I had an interest in this idea of a mind-body connection. But even then, scientific evidence existed that showed that belief or expectation, which is what What pushes the placebo effect, actually causes chemical changes inside the brain such that the brain does what it has to do to meet a person's expectations, obviously within reason.

So what's another example of woo- woo that works, in your opinion?

People often refer to the idea of visualization as woo-woo. But yet, Harvard researchers, Harvard neuroscientists got people to play notes on a piano for two hours every day for five days, and they measured physical change in brain structure in a particular region. But they asked a separate group of people to imagine playing the notes on the piano. And here's the key. They had to imagine as if they we were playing them. And imagine what that was like. It's called kinesthetic imagery. And what that means is you imagine what it would feel like if you really were plunking these notes with your fingers. Now, they also did that for a couple a couple of hours on five consecutive days, they also had their brain scanned every day like those who actually played the notes. Do you know, after the five days, when you put the brain scan side by side, you cannot tell the difference in brain changes between those who played the notes with their fingers and those who played the notes with their mind. Both sets of scans had shown substantial changes in brain structure, and that led a number of scientists to conclude that in a number of very important ways, the brain doesn't really make a distinction between whether something is actually happening or whether you're imagining that happening.

That technique has now benefited thousands of patients who've had a stroke to help to speed up their recovery, where what they're asked to do after a physical therapy session is If you imagine making movements with their impaired limb. So if a person has impairment on, say, the right-hand side, then they would imagine repeatedly for 10 or 20 minutes at a time, lifting, say, imagining their lifting a cup of water and taking a drink, placing it back down, but making these imaginary repetitive movements. And studies show that these patients recover faster if they do physical therapy plus visualization, faster than if they just did physical therapy as well. But yet that type of idea is still regarded as woo- woo, and it's not because it is woo-woo, it's just a lot of times we call something woo-woo because we just don't know that there's available science. And oftentimes the available science is only known to people who are actively researching that particular field of science. So what I try to do is say, well, there is not to all subjects, but to some subjects, maybe are unfairly labeled in that derogatory sense. I merely look for the research and say, Well, I think there's something in this, and I think there's something in this, and there's something in this, and it's not entirely fair to label that as woo- woo or even to make fun, perhaps, of someone who practices it, where there is actually quite a lot of data available on the subject.

Well, one of the things that I've always thought, whether you're talking about alternative practices or not, is the person who is your doctor, your therapist, your masseuse, there is something to who's doing it that makes it seem to work better.

This is sometimes referred to as the natural healer effect. Now, this is important in a doctor's surgery, and it's also important in any therapeutic setting. And it works a little bit like this. Most people probably haven't heard of a phenomena called the emotional contagion. So Emotional contagion describes how you catch emotion just like you can catch a cold. I mean, you've probably noticed that you feel stressed around people who are stressed or agitated, but you've probably also noticed that you feel calm around people who are generally quite relaxed and calm people. Now, over and above what the person is saying, which really your brain is only processing between 10, 40 % of what they're saying, most of the data your brain is processing isn't what they say, but how they say it through their facial expressions, body language. And it's probably why some people are very good therapists, and some people are very good doctors, like family doctors, but some people are not so good, because even there's lots of research. In fact, there was a big UK study of over 700 patients who went to the family doctor with symptoms of cold or flu.

Now, they were asked to, without the doctor's awareness, to give the doctor a score on an empathy scale, and it was a scale from zero to 10. It was called a care questionnaire, and that means consultation and relational empathy. Now, get this. Those who scored their doctor a 10 One out of 10, they recovered from exactly the same conditions about 50 % faster than everyone else, and their immune response to the same condition was about 50 % higher. Now, the only difference was whether the doctor showed empathy or not. And so this type of phenomena forms part of what we call the natural healer effect. Some people, just by their nature and their presence, have a healing effect because of the way their nature impacts our brain circuitry, but also impacts how we feel. And again, it leads the body into a more restorative state that allows the body's pain management systems to work more optimally, immune system to work more optimally, a restorative cellular repair, muscle repair systems, all of which are able to work a little bit more optimally.

Well, I think this was a good discussion to have because there are those people who think everything under the umbrella of woo- woo is a bunch of nonsense. Then there are people who think, Oh, it's great. It's wonderful. But there is a middle ground here, and it was interesting to hear exactly what that is. Dr. David Hamilton has been my guest, and the name of his book is Why woo-woo Works, and you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. People who eat fast usually eat more, so slowing down can really help you eat less. When a group of people were presented with a big pile of M&Ms, the people who visualized themselves eating 30 of them one at a time ended up eating half as many as those who just dove in without visualizing advertising. Before you're about to eat, imagine yourself eating slowly and deliberately, and you'll probably eat slowly and deliberately, and consequently, you'll eat less. If you eat less, you weigh less. And that is something you should know. Your rating and review is always helpful and appreciated. Go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review.

I'm Micah Brothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. The Bigger Pockets portfolio of podcasts are worthy of your investment. We're having a real conversation as real real estate investors. New episodes available every day.

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