How to Lower Cortisol & RESET Your Nervous System in 90 Seconds | Rosie Acosta

0:00Mindfulness or meditation can be a little intimidating for people because we think, oh, we have to do it for such a long period of time. One of the mental health professionals I met with and I was talking to her about like stress and like just feeling overwhelmed as a mom. And her answer to me was like, you need to sit and meditate for an hour every day. People are equating mindfulness to more productivity. It's our ability to be in the present moment and appreciate life. The connection of mind, body, spirit. Rosie Acosta. From her roots in East LA to coaching Olympians and teaching at Headspace, Rosie Acosta brings a powerhouse blend of science, spirituality, and real world grit.

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2:01Welcome to the Dr. Brighton Show, where we burn the BS in women's health to the ground. I'm your host, Dr. Jolene Brighton. And if you've ever been dismissed, told your symptoms are normal or just in your head, or been told just to deal with it, this show is for you. And if while listening to this, you decide you like this kind of content, I invite you to head over to drbrighton.com, where you'll find free guides, twice-weekly podcast releases, and a ton of resources to support you on your journey. Let's dive in. Most people do not feel like they have time for mindfulness. If somebody has 90 seconds a day, what could they do to drop their stress?

2:42Well, 90 seconds is a very short amount of time. It's really interesting. I think about this often because I get asked to do short takes, right? Like, how can I do this quickly, right? Right. And I feel like that's part of the issue of why mindfulness or meditation can be a little intimidating for people. Right. Because we think we have to do it for such a long period of time or what's the time commitment? 90 seconds feels like, OK, what can I do right now? And I will give you an answer. but the one thing I want to say is that if we create a framework where we could allow for more time I think it's going to serve us better to create a more sustainable practice that being said 90 seconds how long does it take you to take a deep breath do it well you I would say six to eight seconds okay if I'm taking a deep breath you want me to do it yeah

3:47my pants are too tight you know when you try to get your head wasted yeah no it's good for people listening i just flashed the camera in my belly so go to youtube and you can catch a belly shot that was that you were absolutely right that took you about eight seconds so i think for a 90 second practice if you just do a breath focused, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in, do, I don't know, four to five cycles of deep breathing. That in itself is a meditation practice. It's a mindfulness practice and we can get into the definitions of what those are. But I really feel like if that's all you have, you have 90 seconds between appointments or dropping kids off at school or, you know, between meetings just to take that moment and take a big deep breath in, nice long exhale.

4:41If you focus on, I would say a two to four ratio, right? So it took you eight seconds. You said, how long does it take me to take a deep breath? About eight seconds. Then you would exhale for 16, right? So if it takes you four seconds to breathe in, you would exhale for eight. So two to four, right? You just elongate the exhale. It allows you to go into your, you know, parasympathetic nervous system. So you can decrease any cortisol and it makes you feel more relaxed. So if someone's going through this 90 second breathing cycle, I think there's some people listening who are like, I need to know what's in it for me.

5:25What should they experience at the end of 90 seconds, like if you can pause for a minute and a half, what is waiting for you on the other side? Yeah, I think for most of us, when we take a beat, which often, you know, we hear people say like, take a moment. When you're taking that moment, often you're in a exalted state. So at the end of that 90 seconds, the aim or the goal would be to feel more at peace, less tension, maybe a little bit more relaxed, maybe a little bit more anchored in the present moment as opposed to being in a state where you're in an elevated state. If someone was to stack this consistently, like let's say they commit to seven days, what could they hope to experience at the end of seven days?

6:16Yeah, I mean, if you're doing a 90 second daily practice, day one is, it's probably going to be a little challenging, right, to establish any type of practice that you've not done. It's always going to be harder for you to start. But if you're diligent and if you're able to do it, I would imagine by the seventh day after a week, you will have created a new framework, a new anchor point for yourself. And it will give you a little bit more space, that pause that people talk about when you're practicing mindfulness to be more present, more alert to what's happening. I would imagine it would give you a renewed sense of peace and less tension.

7:04I think 90 seconds, you know, exactly what you were saying at the start of this is a lot of people think mindfulness, meditation, it has to be this lengthy practice. I mean, people who have listened to the podcast before have heard my story about the, you know, one of the mental health professionals I met with and I was talking to her about like stress and how I'm just like running low on time and like just feeling overwhelmed as a mom. And her answer to me was like, you need to sit and meditate for an hour every day. And I was like, how long have you been doing this? Like I was like, I immediately am questioning you because if someone's saying that to you, really finding a gateway of like, where can we pause and make space?

7:45Because once you start making that space, you start experiencing the benefit, it becomes easier and easier to carve out more time. I think because you, you know, like anything that feel good, you start craving and wanting more of it. And so you start expanding into that. And I like the framework of like, how can we just start small and build that over time? Because I think with wellness, sometimes it's like, here's the goal, here's where you want to be. And that's all people talk about. And they don't talk about, well, how do you take that first step? How do you actually get to the place that's your ideal?

8:20Yeah, well, I'll be a little controversial and say that I don't agree with that at all with what this person said. It's not controversial. I just questioned her authority. So it's like, I don't agree with that on a lot of different levels. And we can talk about what mindfulness is and what mindfulness isn't. And a lot of the conversation right now in the world of wellness is equating mindfulness to productivity. It's like, how can I be more productive? Which is not, it's not a bad thing. You know, we want to be able to be more efficient with what we do, but asking somebody that, as you said, is already overwhelmed and doesn't have the time to commit to an hour.

8:59And you'll hear these wellness tips that say, oh, just wake up earlier, wake up earlier or do it at night. You know? And it's like these, you, you are like the perfect archetype. Like you're running a business, you're a parent, you're, you know, you're a doctor, you're researching, you're constantly, your schedule is stacked. So how can somebody ask somebody like you to say, hey, you're already doing so much, let's find an extra hour for you to do this. That's not helpful. And I really like this idea of like in nutrition, right? It's crowding out. How do we crowd out the bad stuff? So how can I already infiltrate your, as a mindfulness teacher, right?

9:46I'm like, how can I infiltrate that, you know, Dr. Jolene's busy schedule to get some mindfulness in there? And what I would say is, what activity do you do every day that could bring you a little bit more joy? Like maybe it's listening to your favorite music while you're researching or when you're, you know, playing with your kids or when you get that moment in between appointments where you can just do, okay, I'm going to listen to something that makes me happy, or I'm going to just take a moment and look at the colors around or look at, you know, the greenery as I'm in the car, you know, whatever it might be to incorporate that as your practice.

10:30It's like, that is mindfulness. You being aware is already practicing mindfulness. If you're talking about building a meditation practice, that's a little different, you know, like where can you find that 90 seconds or where can you find that moment of time to just focus on yourself? You know, maybe it's, you know, doing an activity like cooking or cleaning out a drawer. I don't, you know, it's like, it's so different for so many people, you know, and I really think that if we dispel these myths around what mindfulness is, it encourages us to actually practice. Like, if I hear that, that's really discouraging.

11:16That makes me feel like, okay, this is not for me. When in fact, you are like the perfect person that needs to have this add-on into your life to allow you to be more present with everything that you do. I want to get into some of these myths because I think there's a lot that exists, but I want to do this. I'm going to do the take of like two truths and a lie. So for everyone listening, I'm going to read three statements. You jump into the comments. You let me know which ones you think are a lie. We're going to pick winners. You can go to YouTube, comment there. If you get it right, we're going to do a drawing for that.

11:50So I'm going to say these three statements and then we're going to keep going and then we'll come back and identify which is the lie. So firstly, mindfulness can lower cortisol in less than 60 seconds. Meditation must be done for at least 30 minutes to get results. Mindfulness and meditation literally changes the structure of your brain. So everybody listening, you can drop it in the comments. And while you're doing that, I'm going to ask you, do you think mindfulness is becoming toxic? Has the wellness industry, the wellness space turned presence into just another form of hustle culture? Oh, that is good.

12:32Yeah. Well, it goes back to what I was saying before about how people are equating mindfulness to more productivity. creativity um yeah of course i think it's being marketed in in a way that's i mean look i'm a big fan of practice when you can practice at any time it's like when people ask me what is the best time to practice meditation i'm like when you can do it that's the best time this idea that that mindfulness is packaged as, you know, like a, a hack. Um, it bothers me because I feel like it's so much bigger than that. You know, it really is, um, the connection of, of mind, body, spirit, right?

13:21It's, it's our ability to be in the present moment and appreciate life. Um, Um, Sharon Salzberg, who is, uh, somebody that I, I look up to and has been, uh, a mentor in, in my journey. She, she talks about this story about the definition of mindfulness. And she brings up this example of, uh, going to, uh, there was a, a teacher who was teaching mindfulness at this school in Oakland, you know, for under-resourced kids. And when she asked one of the eight-year-olds, you know, what is mindfulness? Like, they've been practicing now for a couple of weeks. And he says, mindfulness is me not punching somebody in the mouth.

14:13And I'm like, oh, okay, yeah. I mean, that is impulse control, which is one of the benefits of mindfulness. And it is something that most men struggle with until like 30. So even though the prefrontal cortex has finished developing at 25, it doesn't mean they're using it. So I think that is tremendous to hear an eight-year-old boy being like, yeah, like I've developed impulse control. Yeah. And I feel like when we look at it from just the practical standpoint of not even practical. I feel like that's an elevated wise standpoint to say, okay, so mindfulness is me resisting or having a hold of my emotions or my impulses and being able to create a framework for my daily life where I am building resilience, essentially is what it is.

15:04It's our ability to build resilience, to build tolerance, to incorporate compassion, to be able to create a sustainable practice for ourselves, you know, whatever that may be. And I mentioned the spiritual aspect of it because, and look, I'm like a researcher. I love the science. I'm really into the neuroscience of the benefits of mindfulness and its effect on the brain. And also, I feel like it's part of this idea of interconnectedness, right? How can we care for ourselves so that we can continue to care for others? One thing I hear from women all the time is that they're struggling with symptoms like hot flashes, sleep disruptions, and brain fog, but aren't sure where to turn to for help.

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16:46Plus, you'll get$20 off your first order today. That's M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y.com, code Dr. Brighton. I appreciate you saying that and bringing up the spiritual aspect of it because I think at the root of mindfulness, meditation, becoming part of hustle culture, becoming part of like productivity is what the West always does when it co-ops practices from the East where they say, oh, wow, yoga. Okay. How do we make it like endurance yoga, hot yoga, like fitness yoga, like, you know, we want to burn fat, right? And you lose the plot. And it's the same thing that I see happening with like mindfulness meditation, where I think the neuroscience is fascinating.

17:34And I absolutely love when science validates what basically ancient principles and teachings have been saying, but it almost becomes this ego of science has validated it. Therefore, we only see it through this lens and that is its only value. And yet there's so much more to it and there is this spiritual aspect. And I think it does a great disservice to the people who created this, the people who came before us when we are reductionistic, which is just what science is. Yeah. Science is very reductionistic. Love science. However, we have to also have the humility that we don't understand everything and science cannot explain everything because it was designed very specific.

18:19I mean, science can't even explain most of women's health issues because it was designed for men and it was designed to examine men. So when we start to unpack it in that way, oh, you guys do have to watch this. The little things happening behind the scenes. And, you know, as you brought up talking about like the whole productivity thing, I mean, it makes me think a lot about how people talk about women's cycles and women's hormones. And that becomes very much of like, how do you produce more? When do you schedule your meetings? When do you do all these things? And I'm like, firstly, your intuition trumps any protocol that's saying like, based on these days of your cycle, and also that whole framework is assuming you ovulate on day 14, which isn't even true for the majority of us.

19:02But for people to stand back and recognize their intuition matters more than this external pressure to always be doing everything just to be productive and having to leverage everything just to be productive. Yeah, no, I love that you're saying that. And I love the tie-in to the hormone cycle because it's true. But that's what we're marketed. We're marketed, oh, here's this really perfect thing that has worked for centuries and that we've been doing forever. And here's how we're going to package it and sell it to you because you can't have access to it unless you get it through this. And it's like, okay, so if that's the case, then how, how then can I create a sustainable model for myself?

19:48How can I learn about these topics and, and integrate them or, and, and integrate them into my life in a way to create a healthier life and a more connected life? And I, I love that you're saying that because I feel like that's, it's probably one of the biggest obstacles that we face as women, right it's like we have to do we have to do the hot yoga we have to have the wake up an extra hour early with my already busy schedule to do the meditation practice and then and then i have to do another workout and then i have to be a good parent then i have to be a good partner and i have to be excellent at my career and i have to you know do all of these things it's like at what point do we allow ourselves to have the space to reevaluate what is important to us and how can we learn what we need to learn about ourselves so that we can then be a more kind and more compassionate, a more present human being.

20:51I love that. I want to go, I want to, I want to talk to you about what is like your morning ritual look like. Cause I think mornings are the stickiest point for so many people, but we got to reveal the lie first. So let me read the statements. Okay. So you tell me true or false. Mindfulness can lower cortisol in less than 60 seconds. That's true. Okay. Why? Because it goes back to our fight or flight, right? We have the parasympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous system is what's involved in fight, flight, freeze, bond response. You know, when we're elevated, all our blood goes to our central system so that we can do all of those things.

21:35The parasympathetic nervous system is part of our rest and digest. And so it's shown that, you know, in a short amount of time doing exercises, like what I just said earlier, like the ratio two to four, inhale for two, exhale for four, an elongated exhale, it stimulates the vagus nerve which is you know helpful for our parasympathetic nervous system to to calm down and it it it alleviates the tension so that's that's how in broad strokes you want to hear something cool about the vagus nerve yes tell me yeah it innervates it ends in the cervix yeah you you talked about this yeah so in is this normal i talked about this and i i wrote like okay because the myth in gynecology based on absolutely no science is that the service has no nerve ending so we don't have to do pain management for women um yeah that's a whole conversation for another day um i wrote about it in this normal but it wasn't until i was recently having a conversation with dr anna sierra who is like the world's top uh neuropelviologist and so she's like if you're gonna have nerve surgery in your pelvis like this is your girl she can dissect it out so she's an expert in this area and she was talking about like no the vagus nerve innervates there and then we were talking about breathing and I was like hold up like like mama nature does not get things wrong and like to think that the vagus nerve is innervating it's going from the brain to the heart to the gut to the cervix and then we just treat uteruses like they're expendable if you don't want a baby and I'm like we need to pause here because there is a very important like parasympathetic activating and also feedback systems.

23:18So people, I will link to the episode that's all about the vagus nerve, but I just find that fascinating. And I'm like, if we want better pelvic health, so all the organs down there, breathing, stimulating, accessing the vagus nerve is absolutely essential. Like we have to be doing that because of just the way the nervous system is communicating through the body, which also means that statistically speaking, a lot of women have had trauma in their pelvic area one way or another, right? There's a whole level of trauma. I mean, just going to gynecologist can be traumatic. Falling on the monkey bars at school can be traumatic.

23:55Like there's all these different types of trauma that like, if this has affected the vagus nerve, how has that set the tone for your life? And so with saying all this, everyone, this is even more reason why this podcast is so important in practicing mindfulness and meditation. Can I ask you a question about that? What happens if somebody has their uterus removed? So that's a big question mark because we just didn't bother to study the female body, full stop. We just haven't even bothered to study that. I mean, we know that the uterus is connected to the immune system. We know even if you retain your ovaries, but if we take your uterus, you're going to go into menopause sooner.

24:30The uterus is really important, but medicine has been like, the only reason that differs from a man is because a baby goes there and periods happen. And it's like, there's so much more going on that like, I hope in my lifetime, I get to see the research on it. But yeah, it's a big question of like, what actually happens when we remove this organ as it, as we see this innervation of the nervous system. And some, you know, when you have a hysterectomy, sometimes the cervix is left behind. So it just depends, but it still is like, what happens? Like beyond, you know, sometimes a hysterectomy is necessary.

25:04So the question is, if that's necessary, then how do we support this person knowing what we know about the nervous system? Yeah, exactly. And knowing that the vagus nerve is running from here all the way down to there. Isn't that crazy? What happens? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. No, I'm so, I'm here for it. And again, I love that you were talking about before we started recording, but I love that you're doing this show. It's so important, so much valuable information. And and we don't talk about it enough. We don't study it enough. We don't research it enough. And I find it a very important and valuable topic for us to continue to do research or start.

25:45So let me ask you the next one. Meditation must be done for at least 30 minutes to get results. True or false? That's false. Okay. Tell us why, because there's definitely people out there being like, you know how influencers are like, and let me just say, it's not just influencers, health practitioners. I mean, obviously my person, I was like, just so people are like, why did she tell you to meditate an hour? My whole thing was like, I need to say no more. Like I need to say no more. I need to set more boundaries. I need to talk through why is it sometimes I say yes too often. Like this is why I was meeting with this person.

26:20And they were like, you just need to meditate. And I was like, girl, no. And I was like, I don't think you figured it out either. Because it's a very, I think we spend our entire life trying to figure that out. And then we get into like menopause and then we're like, no, I know who I am. I'm setting boundaries. And I'm always like, how do I get there sooner? Yeah. Well, and the thing too about setting boundaries is we think often that it's a zero sum game and it's not. If I say no to you, if I say yes to me, it means I'm saying no to you. And that's not the case. If I'm saying no to you and saying yes to myself, I have more of me to give, you know, that that's ultimately what we have to look at it as.

27:02And again, I'm a little miffed that somebody is asking you, knowing you and your schedule, what you do in the world to find an extra hour of time to do something that I mean, really an extra three to five minutes scientifically will help. So to answer the question, there's been studies done on the brain, fMRIs that have looked to see how the brain changes with neuroplasticity just after five minutes. So really that's, if you're going to, let's look at it this way if you want to do the most set five minutes aside a day that's the hot take right there because that is absolutely my experience when people will say how are you so productive because i am i will tell you i'm i get a lot done in the time that i have um part of it too is because i'm like i really want to hang out with my kids and that's like i I want to get this done.

28:06But it is make time for your brain to rest, to recalibrate and to get centered because otherwise you're chasing all the things. I think that's so helpful. And I appreciate you also doing the reframe about because the boundaries thing is a big thing for a lot of women. And I think the way you reframed it is really going to help a lot of people who just heard that. So we've identified a lot. We know that the next one's true, but I want to know why. Mindfulness and meditation literally changes the structure of your brain. Tell us what the research says. Yeah, so the research, going back to what I was saying, the neuroplasticity, right?

28:44So our brain does, you know, change. It can change shape. And the studies that I've found show that even in our elder years, within, you know, our 80s and 90s, even, we are still building these neurological pathways, right? So our brain is this mushy, glorious vessel that continuously can grow and change and learn new things. So this adage that an old dog can't learn new tricks is not true, not for the human brain. We can absolutely build.

29:25Neuroplasticity is plasticity, right? So it can build and create new. And so that's the framework to why meditation and mindfulness, when you essentially, if we look at it from the perspective that we were talking about with lowering our cortisol, right, which is the hormone that creates all kinds of issues for us, for our health, and lowering our cortisol, which is the hormone that creates stress in our body. will allow the space for us to, yeah, have more peace, have more calm. It gives our brain an opportunity to build new frameworks. You were talking about the prefrontal cortex, you know, it allows us from that place to react from a more wise place as opposed to being, you know, limbic system reactive.

30:25So when we, I get really geeked out about this because I'm like, I think about things like anger or resentment or fear, things that create cortisol in our system, and how practicing mindfulness or practicing meditation creates an opportunity for us to pause, to respond from a more calm, present state as opposed to a reactive place, which often we, especially right now, right, with everything that's going on in the world, we're so reactive because we're in a constant state of fight or flight. I mean, there is this barrage of negativity, right? And things that we have no control over. So we think, oh, if I continue to think about all of these negative things, it's going to prepare me to deal with the bear that's going to come and fight me when in actuality, it's just exhausting us more.