Wendy Suzuki: 2 Powerful Tools To Use When You Feel Stressed Out (This Will Lower Your Anxiety in 1 Minute)

26:36It's not an easy thing. It's a metabolic load. It is an effort to build new pathways. But that's what we're doing when we're trying to focus and connect for longer periods of time than we were used to. Okay, so it's okay if it hurts. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's supposed to hurt. Right. It's almost like you're walking through a path that doesn't exist yet. Yes. And so you're having to pave that way. Exactly. So you're the first person walking it. Yeah. There's nothing ahead of you. You're chopping down the trees and leaves in front of you. Exactly. You're building the bridge, the pathway. Yes. And that's why it hurts.

27:09And it's so interesting when you think about it that way. Yeah. Because you go, oh, okay. So every time I walk over that bridge, it will become stronger. Yes. And every time I step on that step, that path becomes clearer. And now it's going to be easier for me every time. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating to me just how everything that's good for you seems hard and everything that's bad for you seems easy. Well, yes, I think at a certain point of the journey, that is absolutely the case. But at a different point of the journey, when you've cut down those trees with your machete, it feels glorious to be able to have these deep conversations with your friends.

27:56and build that habit with your friends and your loved ones and build that habit of first thing in the morning, no phone and meditation. And you know how much better you're going to feel. And that is the part of the gratitude. Yes, I have a gratitude practice. It is that. It's like being grateful for all those good habits that I have been forming and throwing those away that I don't and being grateful that I threw that away. Yeah, I talked a lot about going back to your point around monks' brains. I talked a lot about the science behind monks' brains in my first book, Think Like a Monk. And I remember a simple practice that we used to do when I lived as a monk that was really helpful to me.

28:39So we would often meditate on beads, like prayer beads. And we were always told because we'd be meditating on those beads sometimes for two hours at a time, four hours at a time, even more. And so we were always told when you hear the word two hours, you're just like, God, how am I going to get through two hours? and we're always told just focus on one bead at a time, one mantra at a time, just one at a time. And all of a sudden it became so much easier where it was just like, it's just about this bead. It's just about this mantra. It's just about this step. It's not about two hours. And I think sometimes when we're thinking, oh gosh, I've got to build this new habit.

29:14I've got to work out five days a week and I've got to, it's like that just feels so insurmountable. Why does the brain work better with small steps and habits and changes? That's such a great question. I think that it is part of the effort that goes into something new, the novelty of preying on a single bead and kind of fighting away that instinct is like, oh, I didn't get through 100 beads. I'm a failure. That's a lot of cognitive noise. And I always say for exercise and meditation, those two things that could immediately decrease your stress and anxiety levels, it's great. In fact, I tell you, I tell everybody to start small.

30:02Ten minutes of walking. Don't even have to change your clothes or your shoes. Just a minute of deep breathing. Just put your phone on, you know, just the clock and just so you know how much that minute is. And just doing that is good enough. and the effort comes in batting away all those feelings of failure and the difference between your one minute and 10 hours that you really wanted to do. Definitely. What's the difference between everyday anxiety and then having an anxiety disorder? Yeah. So anxiety is a normal human emotion. Everybody has anxiety. I think it's been kind of clinicalized. Oh, I have anxiety.

30:45Yeah, Everybody has anxiety, but anxiety exists on a very, very large spectrum. So we all have anxiety. And yes, the highest levels of anxiety that prevent you from doing the everyday things that you need to do in your life and having a job and having relationships and going out and doing things, that's clinical. And it is just kind of going down that rabbit hole of anxiety and needing more help, clinical help to get you out with cognitive behavioral therapy, so many different techniques that you could use. So it's all part of a spectrum, which, you know, I hope that makes people feel better because you can come back.

31:27Everybody has it. Let's just pull you back from that highest level and let you take advantage of, I think, one of the things I love the most from my book, Good Anxiety, is that it's not about anxiety is so bad, let me just tell you the tools to get rid of it in your life. It is the acknowledgement that anxiety is a protective mechanism. My invitation is, can I invite you to try and use your anxiety to help protect you, to actually give you some gifts or superpowers? Because there's a lot that we can learn from our anxiety and all our uncomfortable emotions. I think when people hear that, they may think, oh, that's cool, but I don't believe it.

32:15Like, how could I believe that anxiety could be my superpower? How do I do that? How do I make that switch from going, I'm scared to actually unprepared? Yeah, yeah. So I start with, I think, the easiest to implement. So this one is the superpower of productivity that comes from a very common form of anxiety that everybody has, which is the to-do list that comes up at In opportune times, it's like, oh, you get overwhelmed. For me, it comes up right before I'm going to go to sleep. And so it prevents me from going to sleep. So annoying. And so the flip for that is to take the to-do list. And first, I want you to notice that all of these things are things that you care about doing well.

33:00They're usually about your job or your relationship or money, money things. things, all good to be concerned about them. The trick is to take that what-if list and turn it into a to-do list. And so for me, I don't do it in the middle of the night. I wait till the next morning, but I've trained myself that I'm going to take care of each one of those worries and do something active. If there is an issue at work, I'm going to talk to three people about it and try and get input for that. There's something active that you can do for every single one of your worries. And the more people you talk to about it, you realize that very productive people are already doing this.

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35:12Yeah, I really like that. And one thing that's really helped me is I always look at my anxiety as revealing to me a skill I haven't yet developed. Yes. And I really believe that. It's like a muscle that you need to develop. So I go, okay, if I'm anxious about going to this event and having to do small talk, it's because I haven't built the skill to be able to do small talk. So maybe if I read a book or I spoke to someone or I sat down with an expert or I listened to a podcast with an expert on how to have good conversations, all of a sudden now I know what questions to ask and at least it makes me feel comfortable.

35:44or if, hey, I'm nervous about the fact that I've been asked to do something at work and I know nothing about it. Hey, let me go and take a course on it or a class on it. And I feel, I always look at anxiety as just a sign of what's a skill I don't have, a quality I haven't developed, an ability or a priority I haven't made. And now let me do that. It could be the skill of having tough conversations, the skill of learning to say no, the skill of setting boundaries, whatever it may be, it's just this one skill away to not, not that I won't feel that anxiety ever again, but that I can actually better manage that anxiety when it arises.

36:18Right. I love that because you've just created a new superpower of anxiety, which is the love of learning. So, so can you turn your anxieties into the next learning project that you have and, and then get better at small talk or whatever you're, you're anxious about? I love that. Yeah, no, it's, it's the only thing that's ever helped me for so many years subconsciously of just, I've always experienced anxiety, but I've found that it just got less and less and less as my skills developed. And developing those skills was hard and that took time and effort and it wasn't easy. But as those skills grew, now it was just like, oh, I can manage this.

36:58I know I can deal with this. And of course, there are always going to be things that surprise you. And then you go, oh God, I have no skills for this one. And that's okay too. But even if the skill is resilience, or even if the skill is learning to develop how to deal with grief, I feel these are all skills and muscles. And if they're looked at that way, we can deal with them better. Absolutely. I mean, those anxieties are really telling you what you hold dear in your life. And think, wow, that sounds good. I want to know what I hold dear in my life. Because the flip side of your anxiety and the flip side of grief is deep love.

37:36And so I think that all of these more difficult emotions when seen in that light can be embraced in a new way instead of trying to kick them out the door and never experience them again, that is not a full life if you don't have grief because it suggests you didn't have that deep love that turns into grief when something goes away. Not that I'm wishing people grief, but that helped me so much in my periods of grief to realize that that grief would never be so deep that I could never even imagine it before it happened unless the love for those people were so deep in the first place. And it's like, wow, I loved them more than I even realized, which was a gift to realize that and pulled me out of my grief.

38:31Wow, that's so beautiful. Could you share more on that from your perspective of how you actually got to that realization? Yeah. And how was it before you felt that way? So that realization really, really defined the way I wrote this book, Good Anxiety, because I started the book before these events, and it was going to be a neuroscience-based book on anxiety, and I was going to explain the science of it so everybody could understand, and it was going forward in an exciting way. And then my father passed away, and he was 85, and he had dementia, and he had a sudden heart attack. And it was just so, so sad.

39:13And I remember being so grateful that my brother did the eulogy because that has been my biggest fear in life, to have to do a eulogy and have to stand up and talk about somebody who's just passed without crying uncontrollably. He did such a beautiful job. But the next tragedy was that three months later, my brother, who's two years younger, also passed away of a heart attack. He was the most fit person that you would ever know. And that was devastating to lose both of them of the same thing within three months. And I was trying to go through it and I stopped writing the book because I couldn't because I was grieving.

40:02Then I realized I had to do his eulogy because there was nobody else left. It was only me. And so a lot of soul searching. What am I going to say? How am I going to get through this? And it was in that search that I realized that that grief was coming from a good place. And it actually was inspired by a workout that it was doing where the instructor said, trying to get us to work out harder, she said, with great pain comes great wisdom. And I was like, oh, my God, that's what I need to know right at this moment. What is the wisdom that's coming from this huge pain that I've never felt before? And I realized that the wisdom was that the deep grief was showing me how much I love them.

40:58And so it was still the hardest thing I've ever done to write this eulogy and stand up. But I basically invited everybody to cry along with me at the one point that was hardest to get through. And I got through it that way. But it allowed me to approach grief in a very different way. and I want to say I'm almost thankful for that experience because it made me search for the beauty that comes from the pain in our lives in a brand new way. Thank you so much for sharing that and I'm so sorry for that period in your life. I can't imagine how challenging and stressful that is, talking about stress and anxiety.

41:52And I really appreciate how you connected the dots for us because it's one thing, you know, you're this incredible researcher, professor, you have so much amazing insight, but then to apply it in real life in extreme cases is so hard. What did you learn about the brain when going through that, that you didn't know already? I learned that my brain was more resilient than I thought it was. I expanded the range of my emotions that I had experienced in my life, which is a good thing. I think that relativism is beautiful. That dark feeling of deep grief helps me appreciate the joyous moments better.

42:45And I think about that a lot after this has happened. It really, that was part of the gift that I got. And yes, and it changed the way I looked at, because then I did the eulogy. I came out of it. I was feeling better. Okay, I have to go back to this book on anxiety. But I couldn't write it in the same way anymore. I had to find the gifts or the superpowers that came from anxiety, which I've already shared that with you. But that's the reason why I never would have, like, I don't know what the gifts are. Well, I did learn, not trick, I learned that lesson through that experience. And I applied it to the emotion of anxiety.

43:32And I think it changed the book. Well, I know it changed the book. I wrote it in a completely different way. and I've used those lessons in a different way in my life since that experience. Wonderful. And what did you know about the brain already at the time that helped you get through it? Yeah, as a nerdy neuroscientist, I know all about the mechanisms and the receptors involved in stress. And not that I studied grief per se, but grief is one that gives you a lot of stress when you have grief. I think it, I think my whole life has helped me bring my more academic study of neuroscience to life.

44:14There is the lessons that I could teach and that I do teach to students about what we know about the stress system, the memory system, your prefrontal cortex, decision making, all these fascinating topics. But then there is life that comes in. And I think that what I've been doing more recently in my career, I did a very traditional academic career up to a certain point. And then I started to try and apply kind of life's lessons to neuroscience. And so what does that mean? that means going off book and thinking about, you know, other ways to convey anxiety, not just the clinical part, but the useful part for your life.

45:03So that's how I would describe it. Absolutely. How do traumatic events like that, what you went through over a period of three months, and I know so many friends who've been through similar things and different things that that maybe are not to do with grief in that way, but even grief of a life you could have had, people who've had breakups. How does emotional trauma actually affect the brain? What's going on? Yeah. So, you know, emotional trauma also, there's a relatively simple formula with what happens, which is going back to the stress hormone cortisol. Depending on the actual stressor and the duration of that, it is going to first kind of alert your brains, like, I don't want this to happen again.

45:47It's like, this will not happen again. And that's what it was supposed to do. It's supposed to heighten your senses so you can escape from the burning building. However, in these other life circumstances, a breakup or a death that, you know, the emotional effects linger for a long time, they might actually cause what's called fear memories to develop. These are memories dependent on a structure called the amygdala that, again, are trying to protect you, like, don't have this happen again, and steer you away from events. So I might have been steered away from eulogies or speaking in front of crowds, which I do all the time, but yeah, I would have been steered away from eulogies.

46:36When you have these broader realizations about what's going on, you could actually learn in a deeper way from them. And instead of being steered away, instead of developing a fear memory that is very strong and hard to get rid of, you can have a deeper learning that sharing those very personal, very deep, very difficult emotions to feel, talk about new synapses forming, is a deeply cathartic process that brought me closer to my family and to everybody that was there, including all my brother's friends, many of whom I didn't know. So, yeah. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut.

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48:46Hey, it's Jonas Knox, and Toyota is moving toward a more sustainable future by giving you the freedom to choose from a full lineup of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, regular gas, and 100 % electric vehicles, including stylish cars like the Camry and Corolla, as well as efficient and spacious SUVs like the RAV4 and Grand Highlander, all backed by Toyota's reputation for reliability. No pressure, just possibilities. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Toyota, let's go places. Yeah, yeah. Is it possible to prepare for future trauma or is the only way to be prepared for it to go through it?

49:24Can we build resilience before a traumatic event? Yeah, I think I wouldn't recommend that everybody goes out to try and prepare for trauma, but everybody has some form of trauma. And I think going back to your superpower of anxiety and learning, learning from that, and also realizing, this was another big realization for me, you're not going to get rid of that deep negative emotion. It's there for a reason to warn you against this is a bad time. If you didn't have this warning, you would be walking in the middle of the freeway with no care in the world. So you're not going to get rid of that. But to focus yourself on the learning that comes out of it and that, yes, it might take some time and to give yourself that time.

50:21Maybe what I'm trying to get at is the self-compassion that can come from any trauma that you have and learning to apply that to yourself, I think is a really good thing that you can prepare. Yeah, I think when you lose someone you love, that painful feeling inside is a reminder that life is sacred. Yes. That you should tell the people that are close to you that you love them. Yeah. That you should really value and prioritize time together and moments together. It's a reminder that pain is just pushing you in the right direction, nudging you in the right direction to say, don't make the wrong priorities.

51:02Don't set the wrong focuses in your life. Right. And if it went away, as it does, we also forget that. Yeah. And as the distance grows from when you've lost someone and the distance from that pain, it's not that the pain goes away, but it gets less and less and less. We also forget that. Yeah. And then all of a sudden something else happens again and we've reprioritized, right? Yeah, absolutely. Why do we forget lessons that we learn? Well, if I could answer that, that would be the$64 million question. And actually, part of the answer is the brain evolved to help us remember those lessons around dangerous situations that we have so we don't go in that direction anymore.

51:52Yes, we might forget, but actually our brain has evolved to make those kinds of fear memories or difficulty memories the hardest to get rid of. That is why PTSD is so hard to get rid of. And those you don't want to be carrying around. So I would ask a flip question, which is, how come we don't relive our most glorious memories more often in our lives? And in fact, I think of that because that is my favorite brain hack from good anxiety, which are tools that you can use to decrease your anxiety. And this tool is called joy conditioning. And it is designed specifically to counter fear conditioning dependent on the amygdala.

52:43Joy conditioning is dependent on another structure called the hippocampus, which allows us to form and retain our everyday memories for events. And so joy conditioning is simply using all the tools that we know about neuroscience that make those kinds of memories stick, which is reliving them. I just went on a beautiful week-long yoga breathwork. It was actually not yoga, breathwork retreat. And I completely unplugged. And so what I'm practicing my joy conditioning on is what it felt to be in that circle every day, every morning, every afternoon. I remember that the ocean was so loud. We were right by the sea.

53:25The heat was so hot. the food or the fruits were so amazing, just the flavor of the fruits. And those are the things that revivification of the what, where, why, when, the taste, the smells, the sounds, that's what strengthens the memory. I am strengthening this joyous memory. And I do that consciously. And I invite everybody to do this, to kind of counteract all those negative memories that are hard to get rid of. Let's fill our brains with all the most joyous, funny, fun memories of our lives. Yeah. I love that. Joy conditioning is such a great hack and habit. There was, when I went on tour last year, we went to nearly 40 cities across the world.

54:14And at the end of them, I'd lead a meditation. And I didn't have a name for it, but that's exactly the meditation I do. I ask everyone to go back to a moment where they experience the most love and joy in their life. And to relive it in the feelings. And I was thinking about earlier this year, you reminded me as you were talking about your breathwork retreat. Earlier this year, I visited Bhutan. And I'd never been before. And for anyone who doesn't know, Bhutan is this tiny, beautiful country landlocked between India and China, right in between. And it's got a beautiful culture. They're famously known for measuring GNH, not GDP.

54:53And GNH is gross national happiness. And so it's the culture of Bhutan is very, very much mindful and being present. And I was asked to lead a session there. And I remember we'd gone inside one of these old Bhutanese buildings. It was, we're in this beautiful courtyard surrounded by candles. It got really, really dark where even though I was giving a presentation, no one could see me, they could only hear me. And before it got dark, when it was just, the sun was about to set, I asked everyone to take a mental picture. And I always loved that technique, the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. And so I asked everyone to look at five things they could see, four things they could touch, three things they could hear, two things they could smell, and one thing they could taste.

55:37And I was like, this is how we take a mental picture. And now literally, if I close my eyes, I can go back there right now to that moment because I took in the colors, like you were just saying, took in the shade of the sky, took in the shapes of the Bhutanese architecture. Oh, wow. Like all of these, and as you were describing, the fruits and the colors and the breath. Yes, yes. And I just feel like if we all, I love what you're saying because I do think we have so much joy in our lives. Yes. But we relive the negativity more. Too much. And if you had a tough journey coming here, or I did, we would talk about how tough it was the whole day.

56:16Yes. But if we had the most beautiful journey coming here, we wouldn't talk about it once. Exactly. And we just ignore it and feel like, well, that's normal. Yeah. But what's become normal is us repeating our challenges. Right. When does talking about our problems and our anxiety actually help our brain versus hurt our brain? I think it depends on how you talk about your anxiety. And I think, again, going back to this learning process, can you talk about your anxiety as what it brings you, what you learned from either the fantastic way you handled your anxiety or the non-optimal way? And then think about, well, how will I do that differently the next time?

57:02That is the classic growth mindset. and if we can learn how to talk about our fear, our anxiety that way, that is beautiful. In my meditation this morning, actually, it was an auditory, you know, I was listening to a guided meditation. They asked me to think about four things, and I just loved it. I didn't know this was coming up. It was, what do you fear? What scares you? What brings you joy? and what brings you hope? And I thought, wow, what great things to ponder. And it really kind of brought things into focus for me. When I did the first thing that came to mind, what do I fear? Who do I fear?

57:51Losing more people. What am I scared of? And there it was, you know, I get scared of people's opinions about myself. What brings me joy? All the friends that bring me joy? And what do I hope for when I want to build in this world? So it's about approaching, and there's anxiety in that list that everybody will do if they choose to do those four things. But again, anxiety is pointing you towards what you hold dear. And all of those questions point out what you hold dear and what your aspirations are. So to summarize, mindset is so critical as we are living, even as we're talking about our bad day, you know, our bad parking experience or driving experience.

58:44Is it to learn or is it to commiserate or just to, you know, or, or you're not realizing you are focusing too much on a negative thing. Mindset and awareness. Yeah. I, and, and also what you're saying is this overamplification as well of something that actually was quite insignificant. Or if it was significant, you're talking about looking at our challenges or talking about them in a way that takes accountability and future accountability. And that's what I love, this idea of, well, let me talk about what went wrong today and maybe I shouldn't take that route to work anymore. Or, you know, maybe let me talk about what went wrong in this conversation with someone I love and maybe I've got to set better boundaries.

59:26It's always about a solution-oriented growth focus, as you said. But so many of our conversations today, especially about anxiety and stress, are victim-based. And how do we make that switch? Because when you feel like the victim, it feels so real to you. And you do feel so hurt that if someone said, well, what could you do differently? You'd be like, nothing. I did everything the best I could. So how do we open up that switch from anxiety to growth? Yeah. So I think that something that has really helped me is to pay attention to who you are talking to, who is feeding you information in your life.

1:00:07And if it's too negative, and if you know this person is the best complainer in the world, and you join in, because it feels good to complain with a friend about something, step back. And instead choose somebody who has that growth mindset that can open up other possible ways to think about that. Do it yourself. Think, okay, you can do an exercise. Do the complainer mindset on yourself, by yourself, and then do the growth mindset. And ask yourself, how does that feel? What does it feel if I just go down the road of the complainer versus what if like, oh, I actually like that idea. What if I do that next time?

1:00:53Can you inspire yourself? So many different routes and coaches, therapists, they're experts at doing this as well. So that's another route to go. But podcasts are another route. This is a common topic in podcast world these days. Definitely. What does healing actually look like in the brain from trauma, like from a chemical perspective? Like what's actually happening when we're healing? I must say, I'm more of an expert not on healing from trauma, but on growth in the positive direction. And so here's what growth can look like based on the things that we've already talked about. So we talked about the fact that moving your body can have an immediate positive effect on your anxiety, also on your depression, decrease your stress response.

1:01:44what's happening there. Every single time you move your body, you're releasing a whole bunch of neurochemicals in your brain. I like to call it a neurochemical bubble bath for your brain. I love that. And so you're giving yourself this bubble bath. What's in that bubble bath? Well, you've heard some of these neurochemicals before. Dopamine. I know you love talking about dopamine. You and so many other people talk about dopamine in such interesting ways. Serotonin, noradrenaline, endorphins. That's what's being released in this bubble bath. And so not surprisingly, you feel better after you walk.

1:02:18That is why you're feeling better. But the other thing that gets released is growth factors. Growth factors get released and they go to the hippocampus and they actually build new brain cells in the hippocampus. They help new brain cells grow in the hippocampus. Now you want as many shiny new hippocampal brain cells as you can get, which means that, and they don't pop up like mushrooms. It takes a while. You need to keep up that physical activity. And for that, the best way to get high levels of growth factors in your bubble bath is to do an aerobic workout, any workout that increases your heart rate.

1:02:55Now, this gives you lots of options. You like to dance, go dance. Like to take your dog for a walk, go take your dog for a power walk. Like to walk? Go for a walk. Anything that gets your heart rate up, I don't care what it is, will help with this. But keep it up. And it's like, I picture a watering can with growth factors going on your left and your right hippocampus, making it big and fat and fluffy. And that is one of the harbingers to great brain growth. The other brain area, which I'm sure is huge in you, is your prefrontal cortex. Living a life of a monk and doing that deep practice of focusing your attention, keeping it there, makes your area 10, which is right behind your forehead, enhanced, enriched.

1:03:45Not because of new neurons, but likely because of new synapses. And so basically what a healed brain looks like is a bigger, fatter, fluffier brain that is kind of flush with good neurochemicals and is building new synaptic connections. That is kind of the beautiful picture of what I call positive brain plasticity. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz, download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer.

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1:05:22No pressure, just possibilities. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Toyota, let's go places. You make it sound so simple in terms of what we need to do. When you talk about breathing and moving, it's as simple as that. What if we're doing breathing and moving and we're still not feeling positive benefits? What could be at play there? Well, you know, I think that sometimes it's hard to appreciate what's going on. It could be that you're not moving quite in the same way. I think it's easy to get in a habit of moving. And so sometimes you need to push yourself a little bit more.

1:06:00If you're doing 10 minutes of walking, maybe try 15 minutes. And there are some pillars that not just me, but so many neuroscientists have shown are so important for brain plasticity, which is actually what my undergraduate advisor discovered as she was a young neuroscientist in the 1960s at UC Berkeley, Marion Diamond. And so exercise was one of the pillars. Stress reduction that comes from meditation. Social interaction. We are social beings. I'm sorry. Social media does not count. Person-to-person interaction. That is what humans were evolved to do. Sleep, which we haven't talked about, but is so critically important.

1:06:46And the fifth pillar is good nutrition. Social interaction, sorry, I need to add that social interaction doesn't mean just conversations. I include love there. Having love in your life is something that neuroscientists don't often talk about, but it is absolutely critical for the health of your brain. And how do you define love from a neuroscience perspective? Well, so you can study the neurobiology of love and compare the brain areas that get active when you look at the picture of an acquaintance versus the picture of somebody that you might have. What would you see? You would see reward areas lighting up.

1:07:31But other areas, social interaction areas as well. And one of the most interesting findings that I love from that neurobiology of love, fMRI study of love literature, is that they've also started to look at how does the brain response to your loved one change from the first throes of romantic love when you can't get enough of each other to a relationship that has evolved to something stable, but very, very loving. And what happens is it goes from just lots of dopamine and lots of reward areas and kind of a suppression of the amygdala and kind of the fear. You're fearless when you are first in love.

1:08:16And I know, you know, I felt fearless. I don't know if in a good way, but we feel fearless. And it starts to evolve into a pattern that looks like the maternal or paternal pattern that is that protective element. And we can't see everything from fMRI, but I thought that's such a beautiful pattern to think about. That, yes, I can't sustain that first flush of love for the rest of my life, but that deep love that you do feel for a child, that is what comes with long-term commitment. Wow, I'd never heard about that from a neuroscientist. That's so interesting. Yeah. That's so interesting, that romantic love.

1:09:02Yeah. But the way it looks afterwards is more paternal and protective in that sense. Yes. Not in every single, you know, parcel, but when you look at the relationships that you admire, you know, those long-term relationships, there is the devotion that is there that of course you see for, you know, protection for your young child. It's not identical, but that devotion is beautiful. That's what's moving about those kinds of relationships. Yeah. And I feel like today it's become harder and harder and harder, even just in how people gather. Like I feel like I was just watching, what did I just see?

1:09:38Gladiator 2. And I remember watching Gladiator 1. And I was just, while I was watching it, I was just thinking about the fact that the Roman Colosseum was so big and that people would gather every week. I mean, they'd gather for the worst reason whatsoever. But the idea that so many people would gather every week, or I think at one point it was every day. And I'm like, first of all, what is everyone doing in their spare time? But so many people would gather, so many people would be together. Of course, if we look at whether it's community centers, churches, temples, the places of gathering. Today, we have less and less places of gathering.

1:10:14Even though there's millions of people going to listen to this episode, they're not in the same place listening to it. And I know that if we did have a million people here right now, even if we had a portion of the people that listened to the episode here, they could then talk about it and discuss it and exchange it. And they could look at each other's eyes and be like, oh, you feel that too? Oh my gosh, I went through that grief. And how amazing would that be? And we're losing that. And so the ability to create love and connection is becoming harder and harder and harder because our places of similar value are now digital.

1:10:49Right? if this is a place, I know everyone who listens to us has similar values, cares about similar things, but they're not meeting each other. And, you know, we're trying to do that by, when I go on tour, that's really one of my biggest goals. Because I'm hoping when everyone walks out, they're all going to just talk to each other and ask each other questions. Should we be forcing ourselves to have places together of similar value? Like, should we make that a priority? Absolutely. And I immediately think of the university. and that is a natural place of gathering. In-person universities, you're gathering every single day, multiple times a day.

1:11:29But sometimes I see the stress and the worry of, do I, you know, am I smart enough, you know, in this room, pushes people apart and then they go and they go on their phone and it's more comfortable to do that. That is what I'm trying to shift so that we take full advantage of this person-to-person place of gathering at our university, that they feel connected to each other. They feel like they belong there for whatever thing that you want to promote. I, as dean, want to promote the joy of learning. That is what I want to teach them. That is what I want them to feel like. And so, yes, all of you university professors out there, you have this power to make your place of gathering one of these places where people are talking and interacting.

1:12:23And of course, we all try that. It's harder because of the pandemic and we're not used to being together as much in society or, you know, in our growing up. So the answer to your question is yes. It's our responsibility to do that. How can we do that more? Yeah, I love that example. I read a study that said 80 % of us pull out our phone in a crowd just to avoid conversation and contact. And so I love what you're saying about building it on a college campus. And I think the same applies inside a corporation. If people are coming to work, even if they're coming to work three days a week. As a dean yourself, how do you do that when you've got targets?

1:13:03I'm sure there's results you have to get to. You've got deadlines you have to meet. You've got a ton of stuff on your plate. as does a CEO of a major corporation or an organization. How do you prioritize a love for learning and belonging and connection? Yeah, yeah. Not just as nice things that you say, but actually to do. How do you do that? Because I see it as very genuine from you. It's real. Yes, absolutely. And so how do I prioritize it? I just make it a priority and I decide the actions that I'm going to do to get to that goal. So for example, I am literally strategizing about how I could get in front of as many of those 9 ,000 students that I have multiple times during their four years with us.

1:13:50I see them all. Every single first year student I see, every single one graduating I see. There's a lot of time between that. What can I do to have a meaningful, should I go on tour just like you do, but talk to the first years, the second years, The third years, I loved my college experience because I was imbued with the love of learning. And so I do that through the coursework that I provide for my students. That is, actually, I'm trying to develop it right now. It is an online class, but with an in-person component so that I could kind of gut up to scale. The first time I did it, it's called the Fluffy Brain course.

1:14:32So I want to give all the students in this course a fluffy brain, teaching them a lot about what we've just spent the last hour talking about. But there's always going to be an in-person component. And the goal of this class is to inspire them to do personal, not inspire them, it's part of the class. That's a great thing about a class. I could assign things to you. So your assignment is to do a personal experiment about exercise. How are you going to up your exercise for the next week? But first, you're going to just notice your mood, your regular mood state. So that self-awareness. And the next week, you are going to propose something, do it, increase your exercise, and then self-reflect about that.

1:15:13And we will explore that and talk about it together. I love that. They have to do it. They have to do it. Yeah. I'm really happy that you're saying this because I do think as leaders in different institutions and organizations, there's such a, there's a responsibility, but there's also just a vision for what an amazingly happy, fluffy brain community looks like. And when I think about it coming from college, it's hard because people are coming from so many different motivations, right? Someone's coming there for the best job in the world. Someone's coming there for an amazing social experience.

1:15:51Someone's coming there to compete with everyone else, right? You've got all these drivers and to kind of take everyone's drivers and point it in one direction is one of the hardest things to do in the world because everyone's got their background and their walk of life. And I remember in the monastery, it's similar to what you said, our senior most monk would always talk about three qualities above all qualities. And it was humility, tolerance, and compassion. That was it. And so if you went to one of his lectures, that's all he was going going to talk about. And what you realize slowly was that, at least for me, I found that those became qualities that I aspired for because I recognized they were most valued in this place, even though I may have come from a different set of values before.

1:16:36I would have come from like ambition, drive, whatever it was. And all of a sudden it's humility, tolerance, compassion. And then you saw those who accepted and those who rejected it as well. There were some people who just went, oh yeah, whatever, who cares? And then there were some that went, no, that seems to be the truth. And so what do you find is the healthiest way to encourage people in the right direction? Because people don't want to be told and people don't want to be preached to. So how do you do it in a way that actually the brain digests? So I start with the official greeting of the College of Arts and Science, which is, Jay, you have a beautiful brain.

1:17:15And so I invite all the students when they see me on the street to come up and say, you have a beautiful brain. And of course I will say it back to them. And, and I love starting from there because that is the truth, the neurobiological truth that every single one of the brains of my students is beautiful. Your brain is beautiful. My brain is beautiful. And no matter what your motivation for being in this space with me. It has a beautiful brain. And from there, we go from, which hopefully provides a sense of belonging, we go to let's share. Let's share what you have to give from your beautiful brain because your brain has something to give that is different than what my brain.

1:18:02And let's just provide a situation and an environment that's open to all of that sharing. and talk about the fact that, no, it's not about competition. It's not about getting the highest mark. It's learning the deepest for whatever class you are. And I know these are hard priorities, but I'm building them over the last two and a half years. And it's really a joy to be able to do that.

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1:19:21Hey, this is LaVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Toyota is moving toward a more sustainable future by giving you the freedom to choose from an incredible lineup of trucks. Now available in both gas and hybrid models, including the legendary Tacoma and the powerful Tundra. Both available with the i-Force Max Hybrid powertrain and backed by Toyota's legendary reputation for reliability and value. In fact, for 2025, Toyota is the best resale value brand for the fifth year in a row. According to the Kelly Blue Book, KBB.com with Tacoma ranked number one, holding the highest projected retained value of any vehicle.

1:20:07Choosing Toyota means having more options and less compromise. So visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Vehicle's projected resale value is specific to the 2025 model year. For more information, visit Kelly Blue Book's KBB.com. Toyota. Let's go places. They're so lucky to have you. They really are. That's such a, you know, to leave college with that mindset, with a love for deep learning, I think will set people up for so much more success than just a great job that eventually may end up being the job that they don't want to be in and a career that they don't enjoy.

1:20:48And then when you realize that and you don't have a deep love for learning, that becomes really, really hard. And that's kind of what I I feel like I speak to a lot of people who kind of got the job that they thought they want out of college. And then five years in, maybe even quicker, they're like, it's actually not what I wanted. And now I'm trying to find meaning in life. But the problem is I didn't have that deep love for learning. And so now I have to build it later on. So it's so lucky to have you. Oh, thank you. It's really amazing. I wanted to ask you, when you say that affirmation, I love that you have a beautiful brain.

1:21:19Does positive thinking and positive affirmations, do they actually work? Absolutely. I mean, there are studies showing that if you take a group of people and have them do positive affirmations, not just saying them a certain number of time every day versus people that don't do those positive affirmations, their affect is better. It's higher, you know, less negative affect and more positive affect. Yes, it does have an effect, which makes sense. Our brain takes in everything that's happening to us. So, you know, this is why we talked about looking at the people that you are, that's feeding you information.

1:21:56Are they cynical? Are they negative? Or are they giving you a growth mindset? Are they giving you interesting new possibilities to go to? Very important to ask yourself that. I wanted to ask you, Wendy, if it's okay, a couple of questions from your first book about memory. Yeah, sure. Because I just think it's such a fascinating subject. and when we think about the brain and memory, I think there's just, there's so much connection there that I think would fascinate people. I wanted to ask you, why is it that we can remember different things about the same event when we were there with the same people?

1:22:28Why does that exist? Yeah. So, sorry to say, but our memory does not work very well, generally. We think, oh, I'm young, I have a great memory. No, our memory is not great. And so the reason why two people at the same event remember different things is that we are focused on these different things. And let me just go over the four things that makes memory stick. This works at all ages based on the neurophysiology and biology of this hippocampus that we talked about critical for forming and retaining new long-term memories. So what makes memory stick? Repetition. So you and I might be at the same event and you're focused on one thing and it's the same event, but event is big.

1:23:14I'm focused on something else. So you're repeating something that I never saw and I'm seeing something that you never saw. Repetition. Association. We remember things better when they're associated with other things that are in our long-term memory. So we might be easier to remember a friend of a friend that we know really, really well and they introduce us versus somebody that you don't know at all and you're trying to remember them from anybody. Association. Novelty. If it's really novel, you've never experienced this in your life, it tends to be more memorable because our brains are focused on novelty.

1:23:52It's a danger kind of, you know, we have to pay attention to novelty. And maybe there are things at the event that were really novel to you that like I've seen a million times and my brain just completely ignores them. And the fourth thing that makes memory stick is emotional resonance. So we remember the happiest and the saddest points in our life. That's what this structure, the amygdala helps with. It kind of helps those really emotional memories stick better. And again, at this same event, you might be moved by something that either I didn't see or just I wasn't moved by because that wasn't in my life experience.

1:24:28So there's lots of different reasons why two different people will have sometimes very different memories of the same event. Yeah. And I have a friend who is very present, like, you know, in the moment, but if I was to say to them to remember something from one, two years back, even from like 15 years back, they cannot recall it at all. Is that an issue? You know, memory is also, there's a lot of variability. And I remember at, I met somebody with something called highly superior autobiographical memory. I don't know if you've heard of this. They did this great show on 60 Minutes about people.

1:25:10It was actually discovered by colleagues of mine, neuroscientists at UC Irvine. And these are people that have extraordinary memory for detail. So they could remember when they were eight years old, what was on TV at 7 p.m., 7.30, 8 p.m. And this incredible memory, it gets in the way. But there's on one end that form of memory and then all the way to there's actually particularly poor memory in that same vein. I'm not sure if two years ago, memories don't stick as long as the person can, you know, live their lives and they have, you know, regular memory for the things they need to live their lives for.

1:25:54But there, yeah, there's a wide variety of memory levels that can exist in the world. So that's not a sign for dementia or Alzheimer's or like? No. How old are they? No, they're young. They're young. Yeah. So, so many people have this fear of dementia. I have dementia in my family. It's our memories also, here's a tip for everybody. they get worse as we age because we know and we've experienced more in our life. It's called interference. So I didn't know anything when I was in high school. My memory was better because I had nothing to interfere. Now I have so much to keep track of. I give myself some slack when I don't remember certain things.

1:26:39That's why I have an assistant to tell me what I really need to remember. But I'm not worried because there is a lot of interference in my life. and I take that into account. Yeah, and if we want to strengthen our memory, what would you suggest? Yeah, so strengthening your memory is all about being present to what you really want to remember using those four techniques. Now, you can't make something emotionally resonant unless you try and make it funny. So that's actually one technique that I've used. If I really want to try and remember somebody's name or something, I try and create a funny image about it.

1:27:15But sorry, repetition, repetition, repetition. will help your memory. No problem. Association can help. So if you can associate this person or this name or this concept with something that it reminds you of to help those kind of recall lines that you can have to this memory, that can help as well. You can't make something novel if it's not completely novel, but it's not, unfortunately, a magic bullet. Wendy, you've been so kind and gracious with your time today. I feel like I've learned so much. We've talked about absolutely everything. I really hope that everyone goes and grabs a copy of your book, Good Anxiety.

1:27:54It's brilliant. I think there's a need for us to use anxiety in the way you're saying rather than this desire to avoid it. We end every episode with a final five. So these questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. So Wendy, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Your brain defines who you are. Take care of it. Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Put your head down and work as hard as you can until you reach your goal. I'm the one that told me that, that bad advice.

1:28:31I love that. Question number three, what's something you can't wait to discover about the brain? I would love to discover how to enhance joyous memories more easily. I love that. Question number four, what's something that you used to think was true about the brain, but now isn't? Oh, well, we used to think back in the early 1960s that the adult brain had no capacity to change or grow. And my whole neuroscience career has been showing how that could happen, how do you make it happen more, and what are those activities that you can bring into your life to do that beautifully. Why did we believe that?

1:29:19Where did that come from? It came from the point in time we were in neuroscience. There was just no evidence that there were overt changes. We didn't have deep enough microscopes to see the molecular changes, even the structural changes that we can now see very easily with our more powerful tools. And so, understandably, they said, oh, I see no evidence for change. Once you reach adulthood, I see no change. And so, of course, that was the dogma until somebody said, hey, I think let's look at this in a different way. And of course, that wasn't believed at first, but then with effort, that was the concept of brain plasticity.

1:30:02And now we know that so much can change in the brain. Is there an age at which certain things can't change? You know, yes. For certain things, language, there's a language change. What's the age? Yeah. I think it is, don't quote me on this, around 10 years old, it's good to learn the languages before that. That could be a little bit on the low side. Also vision. It's really important to get bilateral good vision. And so if you have amblyopia, it changes your vision. So those are things that change with it. All right. Fifth and final question. We ask this to everyone who's ever been on the show.

1:30:45If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? You must make at least five deep friendships in your life. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. Dr. Wendy Suzuki, you are incredible. That was so much fun. I had a great time with you. Thank you for being so personal as well and open about your own journey with grief. And I hope you'll come back onto the show. I would love to. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain. If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.

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1:32:50Toyota, let's go places. This is an iHeart Podcast.