In short
How to “reset” stress quickly and change your long-term relationship with stress using science-backed cognitive, body, and behavior strategies (mindset reframes, interoceptive exposure for panic, and TIPp-style “control-alt-delete” tools).
Guest
Dr. Jenny Taitz is a clinical psychologist and assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at UCLA. She completed a psychology fellowship at Yale School of Medicine and is board-certified in CBT and DBT. Her work has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review.
Key claims
- Stress isn’t inherently bad; the belief “stress is killing me” is linked to worse outcomes (including premature mortality).
- Reframing stress and emotions can lower cortisol and improve goal completion.
- “Calm down” advice can be wrong for panic; interoceptive exposure is the gold-standard treatment.
- Stress responses and beliefs are contagious; aim to be a “thermostat,” not a “thermometer.”
- Benzodiazepines may help in crisis but prolonged use can be problematic; education/tools can reduce reliance.
Notable examples/tools
- “TIPp”: temperature (ice face bath/dive reflex), intense exercise (60–90 seconds), paced breathing (down to ~6 breaths/min), progressive muscle relaxation.
- Turning “knots into bows” (e.g., stomach knots as a sign you’re doing well).
- Singing thoughts to diffuse rumination; “name that emotion.”
- “Opposite action” and taking a walk outside to break rumination.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding the Impact of Stress
0:45 to 3:40
Discussion on the prevalence of stress-related illnesses and its effects on health.
“And as of now, as of this recording, we have so much data on the impact of unmanaged stress and how it can accumulate in our tissues, in our brain.”
Introducing Dr. Jenny Taitz
3:40 to 4:32
Introduction of guest Dr. Jenny Taitz and her qualifications in psychology.
“Jenny Tates is a clinical psychologist and an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles.”
Perception of Stress and Its Effects
4:32 to 5:50
Exploring how our beliefs about stress can affect our health outcomes.
“People are stressed out, as you know, and we have the one and only Dr.”
Transforming Our Relationship with Stress
5:50 to 8:02
Dr. Taitz discusses strategies to improve our mindset about stress.
“And so one of the things that I really want to do is help people improve their mindset over stress.”
Interoceptive Exposure Technique
8:02 to 9:10
Introduction to interoceptive exposure as a treatment for panic and anxiety.
“And John, we're such interesting creatures.”
Stress Resets and Quick Solutions
9:10 to 12:00
Discussing quick stress resets and coping strategies to manage stress effectively.
“And so this isn't something like I've always thought this and we need to in tandem, you know, we need to work on our beliefs around stress, but also what do we make of emotions?”
Practical Techniques for Stress Management
12:00 to 14:00
Exploring practical techniques like TIP for managing stress in the moment.
“What a difference it would be to like have a welcome mat for uncomfortable sensations rather than like stress about stress in your body.”
Employing Physical Stress Resets
14:00 to 16:40
Learn techniques like ice immersion and quick workouts to manage stress.
“You could pick one to stack them if you want.”
The Contagion of Stress
16:40 to 18:48
Discover how personal stress levels can impact those around you.
“who might've had a temperament to, because sometimes people don't even know the difference if they've just been exposed to you in a certain way.”
Changing Responses to Stress
18:48 to 22:42
Understand alternative ways to interpret stress responses positively.
“automatically regulating but and i've been told i don't know what it's called there's like a technical name for it, that pilots are trained during turbulence to speak in a calm voice for this reason.”
Show all 31 chapters
Changing Responses to Stress
22:47 to 23:50
Understand alternative ways to interpret stress responses positively.
“Now, it's based on some of the most vitamin C dense real superfoods that have ever been discovered, including acerola cherry, amla berry, and the vitamin C superstar of superstars, camu camu berry.”
Addressing the Stigma of Medication
23:50 to 25:56
Discuss the balance between medication use and emotional education.
“pros and cons and perspective with all of it, but we want to have treatments like that when they're necessary.”
Mind Resets for Stress Management
25:56 to 28:00
Explore quick resets to manage stress in everyday situations.
“So you have a couple of categories of the stress resets.”
The Ripple Effect of Stress
28:00 to 29:10
Learn how stress can impact our behavior and relationships.
“just to double down on this point, like one morning, my husband was like pouring a bottle of milk for my toddler at the time.”
Mind Resets for Managing Stress
29:10 to 30:40
Explore effective mind resets to help regulate emotional responses.
“And so mind resets are things you can do in those moments.”
Meditation and Self-Awareness
30:40 to 32:20
Discover how meditation can improve self-awareness and detach from thoughts.
“I was just so attached to them that the thinking was just happening and I was just a part of it.”
Using Humor to Diffuse Stress
32:20 to 33:40
Learn to change your relationship with thoughts through humor and creativity.
“It's so liberating to know yourself and know that the 6 ,000 thoughts a day that you have are not all factual or helpful.”
The Power of Singing Your Thoughts
33:40 to 35:00
Understand how singing your thoughts can lighten their emotional weight.
“They go from like scary and stressful to humorous and like playful.”
Strategies for Dealing with Catastrophizing
35:00 to 36:30
Learn techniques to avoid making situations worse through overthinking.
“Like, come on, we're trying to get this stuff done.”
The Importance of Naming Emotions
36:30 to 38:20
Explore how naming emotions can help in managing and regulating them.
“But what if you just like create a rap of I'm not going to school and it becomes like a joke, you know?”
Body Resets to Combat Stress
38:20 to 40:40
Discover physical techniques to reset your body and manage stress.
“through multiple, there are many paths to the goal.”
Harnessing Facial Expressions for Well-Being
40:40 to 42:01
Learn how subtle facial adjustments can influence mood and mindset.
“And people like you probably see this more than I do.”
The Power of Strength Training for Resilience
42:01 to 43:36
Learn how strength training can build mental and physical resilience.
“I'd even call them like ugly face exercise, like lateral raises for some reason, and just like you tense up, but you're also training your body.”
Identifying Frequent Flyer Thoughts
43:37 to 44:29
Discover how to recognize and reframe negative recurring thoughts.
“See them act different than what they want you to do.”
Identifying Frequent Flyer Thoughts
44:55 to 45:06
Discover how to recognize and reframe negative recurring thoughts.
Reframing Questions for Empowerment
45:07 to 47:58
Learn how to turn negative questions into empowering ones.
“And so it's really based on the questions that we're chronically posing ourselves.”
The Benefits of Nature Walks
47:59 to 49:51
Understand how walking in nature can enhance health and creativity.
“He was a police officer and he was offered full retirement, all his benefits, and he decided to go back to work.”
Using Sound as a Healing Tool
49:52 to 52:55
Explore how music can serve as an effective tool for stress relief.
“And so folks that were facing a task, and what we tend to do is like, we keep hitting our head against the wall, trying to figure something out.”
Building Your Own Hope Kit
52:56 to 55:59
Create a personalized kit of uplifting items to foster positivity.
“So your mind's not trying to like figure out what's next.”
The Power of Reflection and Memory
56:01 to 57:20
Learn about the importance of remembering positive moments and the role of personal journals in managing stress.
“I immediately thought about this picture of my grandmother hugging me on my wedding day.”
Behavioral Stress Resets
57:21 to 58:21
Discover various evidence-based strategies for resetting stress and building resilience.
“He has a TEDx talk about homework for life, about like literally having a spreadsheet.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Shawn Stevenson:You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more, visit themodelhealthshow.com. Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. What do we do when stress is whooping our ace? What do we do to bounce back, to be more resilient in the face of stress, to handle the stressors that life is constantly throwing at us. Sometimes it can feel like we're spinning a bunch of metaphor plates. Sometimes it can feel like we are a part of target practice and we are itself the target. And as of now, as of this recording, we have so much data on the impact of unmanaged stress and how it can accumulate in our tissues, in our brain.
1:00Shawn Stevenson:And a fascinating report that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that today, upwards of 80 % of all physician visits are for stress-related illnesses. Stress being a major component of the reasons that are taking us in to seek professional help. from variations of chronic and acute to, of course, the psychological diseases that are rampant today. So many of these conditions are growing precipitously, and we negate the fact that stress can be a key ingredient in the manifestation of heart disease, in the manifestation of insulin resistance, in the manifestation of Alzheimer's, in the manifestation of depression, The list goes on and on and on.
1:56Shawn Stevenson:Now, we might get the depression piece a little bit easier because it's related to the psychology of stress. But our minds and our bodies are not two separate entities that are operating despite one another or without one another. It's one. It's all integrated together in that amazing person that you are. and unfortunately we are not given the instruction manual on how to handle all of this stuff because truly so much of what we're exposed to and what we're dealing with is new. We've never been under these kinds of stressors before. We've had different stressors throughout our evolution but today more than ever we need tools we need insights we need a blueprint we need stress resets and I'm so grateful to be able to share this powerful powerful conversation with you today with a psychologist who is sharing a wealth of science-backed strategies to transform our relationship with stress and to help us to overcome or even reset when stress is getting its tentacles into our lives at such a deep level that it is becoming a thing that we are struggling to manage.
3:22Shawn Stevenson:And so when we have those acute issues and we need a stress reset, she's got your back. But the overarching meta perspective, how can we change our relationship with stress so that we're not getting massively stressed out in the first place. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. Dr. Jenny Tates is a clinical psychologist and an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Tates completed her fellowship in psychology at Yale University School of Medicine and achieved board certifications in both cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.
4:05Shawn Stevenson:Passionate about spreading hope and science-based practices to a wider audience, her work has been featured all over major media, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and much, much more. Dr. Tates is here to teach us how to transform our relationship with stress and how to utilize stress resets to soothe our mind and bodies in just minutes. Let's dive in this conversation with the incredible Dr. Jenny Tates. I am so excited to talk to you today. People are stressed out, as you know, and we have the one and only Dr. Jenny Tates here with us. How are you doing today?
4:42Dr Jenny Taitz:I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Sean.
4:44Shawn Stevenson:Of course. It's my pleasure. Let's start off by talking about the impact of stress. You know, this is something that we all obviously experience, but a lot of times we don't have a conscious, intentional relationship with stress. And so for many of us, it is impacting our bodies. It is impacting our life outcomes. So what's the impact that stress can have on our biology if we're not managing it?
5:09Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah, so Sean, you said it well. Stress so far, like stressful is the most commonly used word people use to describe 2026 so far. So people are feeling stressed. And then in terms of the impact of stress on your body, I find it really interesting that a study looking at more than 28 ,000 people found that the combination of stress and the belief that stress was bad actually correlated with premature mortality and dying from stress-related causes. So stress itself isn't bad, but the belief that, oh my God, I'm stressed. What's it doing to my heart? What's it doing to my lifespan? Is it giving me cancer?
5:48Dr Jenny Taitz:That is where the problem with stress lies. And so one of the things that I really want to do is help people improve their mindset over stress. Like what if stress is the price of a meaningful life? You can't have a rich life without some amount of stress. Like most of the things that matter to us do entail stretching our bandwidth and having a lot on our plate. So it's okay to have some amount of stress, but we want to circumvent the stress that we're causing by thinking this is killing me. This is too much. I can't, or doing the things that really stress us out more, like acting on our stress-fueled instincts that kind of hurt us and the people around us.
6:25Shawn Stevenson:I love this. One of my favorite quotes from the book, and you shared this from Dr. Mark Seery, was a history of some lifetime adversity predicts better outcomes than a history of high adversity and a history of no adversity.
6:40Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah.
6:40Shawn Stevenson:So just keeping this in mind that the adversity that we go through, the stressors that we experience, even those things that we feel like this might be too much for me to handle, these can actually create more resilience. It can create more meaning and purpose. And these are some of the things you direct us to. You kind of help us to change the volume on stress in the short-term and long-term in the book. And this is what I really love about it, is that you give short-term solutions because sometimes we can manage stress better than we are, of course. And then oftentimes long-term, if we're changing the way we're perceiving stress, as you mentioned, And it can be a game changer for us.
7:17Dr Jenny Taitz:Absolutely. Yeah. I call these resets, which is like in the moment, like quick control, alt, delete. And also buffers. How do you just increase your coping skills in ways that are meaningful and kind of preventative medicine? Yeah.
7:29Shawn Stevenson:I love this. So let's talk about this perception of stress. As you mentioned, our perception of stress, again, this is something, oh, it's killing me. It's so difficult. I can't make it through this. these kind of oftentimes unconscious beliefs about these stressors in our lives, these do in fact lead to higher blood pressure, higher levels of stress hormones, poor sleep quality, and shorten our lifespan potentially as well. But simply reframing how we perceive the stress can change everything.
8:02Dr Jenny Taitz:Totally. And John, we're such interesting creatures. It's like, we're like, I'm so stressed. I deserve this like totally unhelpful treat, even cigarettes or, you know, junk food. I mean, it's like, we're so stressed about stress and then we go down these, these rabbit holes that don't serve us. It's like paying, you know, an emotional, it's like a high interest credit card emotionally and also physically. But in terms of improving our stress mindset, people, your listeners and people might think this is something I hear from patients all the time. You know, I've thought this for a long time. These are like my beliefs around stress, my beliefs around emotions.
8:35Dr Jenny Taitz:People think those are really fixed, but those are actually incredibly malleable. You know, in looking at first generation college students, if they're exposed to a 30 minute online training that teaches them like stress is okay. Most people feel stressed. You can get through stress with the right supports and your body's stress response, even knots in your stomach is like your body filling with oxygen to support you pursuing your goals. If you learn to accept stress as a construct and accept stress in your body, people that are taught to do this. It's called a synergistic mindset. Actually lower their cortisol and also are more likely to complete college and reach their goals.
9:12Dr Jenny Taitz:And so this isn't something like I've always thought this and we need to in tandem, you know, we need to work on our beliefs around stress, but also what do we make of emotions? Because if you're thinking like, I don't feel that stressed, I just feel really anxious. I just feel really sad. I'm really mad. Also to really realize that like emotions are valid, helpful, can motivate behavior and like stress, they come in waves are transient.
9:34Shawn Stevenson:I want to talk about that because you just said knots as well. So you have a chapter in the book, turning your knots into bows. And one of the things that a lot of people are trying to do when they're stressed or feeling anxiety is to quote, calm down, calm down. And there's like a conflict with that approach to things. Talk about that.
9:55Dr Jenny Taitz:You know, I love that so many patients of mine tell me, I'm like, they come to me and they're like, I've had panic attacks for 10 years and I've tried every breathing technique and I'm so moved by how hard they've tried and also so sad and frustrated that too many people have been given the wrong advice. Can you imagine if you've gone like running and you're short of breath and then you're told to take like a slow, deep breath? It's just physiologically kind of ridiculous. And so rather than calming down what we need to do, people find this really surprising. But the gold standard treatment for panic attacks is called interoceptive exposure.
10:29Dr Jenny Taitz:I am not like the most arrogant person, But if you've got panic attacks, like I got you, this is something that's so treatable. And so what is interoceptive exposure? It's like, let me write down, what do you feel when you're super anxious or really stressed? Maybe you feel short of breath. Maybe you feel sweaty. Maybe you feel dizzy. Maybe you feel like you're hyperventilating. Let's write those down. Let's literally give you a recipe. Let's spin you in a wheelchair for 30 seconds, 60 seconds. Let's help you hyperventilate. you know we could do that for 60 seconds together why don't we practice welcoming these stress related sensations so when they come out you're like bring out the welcome mat I got this because a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress is the combination of what our body is doing and what our mind is telling us and so if our body is revved up because we got a good workout in we're like cool, this is great success.
11:24Dr Jenny Taitz:Like that was a great, great, like hour of my time at the gym. But when it comes to anxiety or stress, when we feel things and we're like, oh my gosh, it's getting worse. I can't like deal with this. Maybe I should like look online. What does this mean? Is that a heart attack? Obviously, if that's seems like, you know, if you're having exact symptoms of heart disease and you struggle with cardiac challenges, that's a different scenario. But for many people, if you fear your body's stress response, recreating those exact physical sensations before the stressor allows you in those moments to kind of think, it's okay, welcome.
12:00Dr Jenny Taitz:What a difference it would be to like have a welcome mat for uncomfortable sensations rather than like stress about stress in your body. And the chapter called, you know, turning knots into bows sounds so silly, but people told on the way to take a GRE exam, which is like the entrance exam for graduate schools, which is pretty hard to get. You know, if you're told that like knots in your stomach are actually a sign that you're doing well, that's great. People told that actually do better and are less stressed than people that are trying to make that go away. And so I'm all about breathing exercises.
12:31Dr Jenny Taitz:Those are great, but those are more like preventative medicine in those moments, I think, to reframe some of the discomfort in a more adaptive way. It's almost like those Chinese finger traps. The more you fight, the more you're stuck, but the more you kind of lean in, the more it let's go.
12:48Shawn Stevenson:This is awesome. This is awesome. And this is just kind of speaking to, there's this, there's this kind of revolution happening right now with people choosing stress, like ice baths, for example, you know, doing the cold plunge or adding in time-tested breathing strategies, like the breath of fire or chaotic breathing and things like that. I actually did it this morning after I did some reading in your book and then I did some chaotic breathing. And this is something that actually helps me to calm down. Like I do the chaotic breathing and then I just fall, my mind gets very quiet, you know? And so, but these are things that if somebody didn't expose me to these ideas, I just wouldn't have known.
13:26Shawn Stevenson:And I wouldn't have known how quickly I can get myself to calm down. But ironically, I'm doing something that you would think is like an even bigger stressor.
13:36Dr Jenny Taitz:Exactly. No. And that makes me think of a tool in the book that people love. It's an acronym called TIP, T-I-P-P, temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. And my big sell is like everything takes like five minutes and is rooted in science. And so if you're like, oh my gosh, I love that idea of like in that moment, I would love a control-alt-delete. How do I do that? What is my control-alt-delete? This is one and you don't have to do the whole set of four. You could pick one to stack them if you want. But literally taking a salad bowl full of ice water, holding your breath, setting a timer for 30 seconds, taking a deep breath, putting your face into the ice water activates your dive reflex.
14:18Dr Jenny Taitz:We all have this incredible mammalian dive response where a human body without oxygen submerged in cold water, your blood flow is redirected from non-essential to essential organs. If you're wearing an Apple Watch, your heart rate would quickly come down. good luck thinking like no one cares about me while your face is in cold water it's really hard to be like in a mental spiral when you're so physically grounded and so that's the temperature and again people are like i don't have money for an ice bath you don't need an ice bath no one necessarily maybe you do need an ice bath but um but uh from a mental health perspective like the ice face bath is sufficient it's totally an intense exercise if you know you're about to go into a really stressful situation with a loved one or a boss, you know, taking 60 seconds, 90 seconds to do some burpees, squat jumps, pushups, whatever it is.
15:08Dr Jenny Taitz:Like you don't, it doesn't mean 90 minutes at the gym. It's 90 seconds of something that will kind of change your physiology and then pace breathing. We often breathe about 18 breaths per minute, but if we could get it down to six breaths per minute by breathing in and out for five through our nose, we could do this
15:30together.
15:32Dr Jenny Taitz:Doing that for five minutes lowers your blood pressure, as you can imagine. And then progressive muscle relaxation. It's so nice to get a massage, but you can be your own masseuse. You could literally tense your forehead, release it. I don't even like to do this because when I start to tense, I get stressed, but just even trying to relax, like noticing is there tension in my face release it even in your jaw shoulders bring them down you know going through head to toe tense and release each muscle group um kind of makes you aware and so in just literally five minutes between the cold water the kind of energy that you get from the exercise or attribution of like of course i'm short of breath because i did some squat chumps and then slow breathing and a little self-guided relaxation you could change this moment and change someone else's moment because a lot of times our stress is so contagious.
16:22Shawn Stevenson:That part too. That was another big revelation that you pointed out in the book is that you doing these practices yourself and being able to have these stress resets and just managing yourself better, it absolutely influences the people around you. Especially if you're going from somebody who might've had a temperament to, because sometimes people don't even know the difference if they've just been exposed to you in a certain way. But if you've been more of like a stress ball yourself, and then suddenly you start to have these practices and your stress thermostat changes, it helps to calm the other people around you as well.
16:59Shawn Stevenson:It's so powerful. We were talking about this before we got going about as of this recording, we've got the NBA championship going on and the Knicks and the Spurs and New York City is crazy right now. You know, like they're saying if they win, they're going to tear down the Statue of Liberty and carry it across the city, put Jalen Brunson's face on it. They're saying the Statue of Liberty is going to get pregnant. They're saying, you know, it's just it's crazy. It's going to go crazy. Cats and dogs are going to start getting together. um but with that being said we all have these very powerful um deeply embedded in our genes to connect and to mirror each other right we have these uh recently discovered mirror neurons but then we have the entire like social brain that's kind of been um uh diagnosed or like pointed out and with this being said we deeply influence each other and we hear these things like in personal development, like you're the five people that you, you know, all this stuff, but truly we cannot help, but be influenced by the people around us.
18:06Shawn Stevenson:And so this is encouraging me to encourage myself and others to be more of a thermostat rather than a thermometer.
18:16Dr Jenny Taitz:I love that.
18:16Shawn Stevenson:You know, and like you can set the tone in the room and the energy and bring it to it rather than just kind of be at the mercy of what's going on around you.
18:26Dr Jenny Taitz:Love that. No, there's research coming out of university of san diego university california san diego where managers that have good mindsets around stress that like stress is okay emotions are transient you don't need to worry if you feel really anxious it will come down their whole team members are more able to regulate their emotions and so our beliefs around emotions are contagious our stress response is contagious and we know this if you're super stressed and there's like a calm person that's automatically regulating but and i've been told i don't know what it's called there's like a technical name for it, that pilots are trained during turbulence to speak in a calm voice for this reason.
19:02Dr Jenny Taitz:Imagine if you were on a plane and there's tons of turbulence in there, it would sound really like panic rate, and that's not great for the energy of the plane. And so - Keep it to yourself. No, so they literally are trained. There's a specific name for it. It's not coming to me, but - Wow.
19:16Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, that's great. I want to circle back really quickly to calm down and this kind and command, we'll try to get ourselves to calm down and turning knots into bows. There's another perspective to take, which is instead of calm down, get excited. Yeah.
19:32Dr Jenny Taitz:So research by Alison Wood Brooks, who's at Harvard, finds that when people are told to calm down, let's say before singing karaoke, which can be stressful for some people that are more socially anxious or less adept at singing, being told to calm down doesn't work as well as being told, get excited because it's a similar physiological response, how you feel when you're excited versus anxious, but the interpretation, the appraisal is more positive. So can we make it more positive? A lot of people tell me when they start dating, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. Actually, you're actually really excited.
20:04Dr Jenny Taitz:This is like, you're nervous because you care, because you finally met someone that you feel a chemistry with. Like we can call that excitement or if you're going for a job interviewing, it really looks like the perfect fit and it would be a dream next move. We can call that excitement versus like, I'm so anxious. I'm so anxious. I mean, I think to reframe it, these are the things that matter to us. And the thing about excitement is it allows for the physiology. It's like a good workout versus the like, I need to somehow, and if you're too calm. And one of the reasons for writing this book was seeing so many patients and so many people that I care about over lean on benzodiazepines, medications like Xanax, this was like a big subplot in the last White Lotus season.
Read the full transcript
20:46Dr Jenny Taitz:But this idea that like, oh my gosh, I'm too revved up. I need to take a pill. When you take a medication like that, that's heavily sedating in high stakes moments. It's like, how can you win the next game if you're like on a medication that makes you so sleepy and like we need to win in our lives. And so we need to kind of normalize, like let's get, let's accept the energy, but let's channel it in a healthy direction.
21:10Shawn Stevenson:One of the most important nutrients for human health, and this should be of no surprise, it should be written in the sky, it's vitamin C. It has so many benefits from supporting our immune system function to supporting our sleep quality and even supporting our mental health. Vitamin C is believed to be a bona fide stress buster and reduce stress by supporting the adrenal glands and allows a person to bounce back more quickly when under stress. In a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial published in the journal Psychopharmacology. Looking at the stress of public speaking and other stressors, scientists found that those who received vitamin C supplements experienced less stage fright, maintained more balanced blood pressure, and had a faster recovery of their cortisol levels.
21:57Shawn Stevenson:What don't you do, vitamin C? It's so special. Now, here's the rub. And what most people don't know, this is not written in the sky. is that most vitamin C supplements are made from genetically modified corn syrup and cornstarch. These are not ideal sources of vitamin C for our tissues, for our brain, for our biology. And so we want to make sure that we are sourcing our vitamin C supplements from bona fide science-backed sources. And for that, the vitamin C supplement that I've been using for years is the Essential C Formula from Paleo Valley. Go to paleovalley.com forward slash model right now.
22:46Shawn Stevenson:You're going to get 15 % off of their powerful Essential C Complex. Now, it's based on some of the most vitamin C dense real superfoods that have ever been discovered, including acerola cherry, amla berry, and the vitamin C superstar of superstars, camu camu berry. It's all organic with no binders, no fillers, no synthetic ingredients, plus it has a 60-day 100 % money-back guarantee. So if you aren't absolutely thrilled with it, you'll get your money back, no questions asked. So again, you've got nothing to lose for better health to gain by utilizing paleo valley's essential seed complex head over to paleovalley.com forward slash model right now for 15 off that's p-a-l-e-o-v-a-l-l-e-y.com
23:41Dr Jenny Taitz:forward slash model for 15 off store wide and now back to the show yeah thank you for this this is
23:49Shawn Stevenson:of course we've talked about this over the years and you know what's there's there's obviously pros and cons and perspective with all of it, but we want to have treatments like that when they're necessary. But the way that things are kind of constructed now is that, you know, just the hyper medicalization of emotions without giving education around our emotions and what they are, what they're doing. And so many people are coming in, just feeling like a victim and just looking for a solution. And so a physician wants to help to provide relief and the person wants relief. So why not? The problem is the addictive quality, obviously.
24:30Shawn Stevenson:And the problem is not getting to the root cause. And so we kind of get in this vicious circle. And this is what I, another reason why I love this is that we are so powerful. Well, another quote from your book that I love, this was from Dr. David Jobes, is that people are really good at getting better if you give them the right tools. I love that so much.
24:53Dr Jenny Taitz:And I just want to say that that David Jobes is a pioneer in suicide prevention. And that is his mantra. Like, even if you are suffering so much that it feels like your life isn't worth living, if you give them the right tools to get them through the night, they can build a rich life. And so, and I just want to come back to what I had said. I am for psychiatric medications in certain situations, but benzodiazepines are a specific category. Prolonged use leads to cognitive decline, issues like dementia. So that's something that's a little trickier. And kind of the mindset is like, I don't want to feel anxious.
25:27Dr Jenny Taitz:Let me get out of it. But maybe people in crisis moments might need those. But generally speaking, some of these tools can work just as well if you're able to access them. And this is why I wrote this book, because people might think like therapy is really expensive. It takes a lot of time. I don't have the time or the money. Like give me something fast that works. And you don't need to take something. You could do something. You could learn something. And again, people are good at getting better with the right tools.
25:53Shawn Stevenson:Let's talk about some of these tools.
25:55Dr Jenny Taitz:Yes.
25:56Shawn Stevenson:All right. So you have a couple of categories of the stress resets. So you have stress resets for intense times. So like this is like on the spot treatment. Yeah. And then you have stress resets for building resilience as well. And so let's focus in on, I need some help right now. And you broke this down into three different categories as well. We have stress resets that are targeted towards the mind. So the mind resets. So let's talk about a couple of these. Yeah.
26:30Dr Jenny Taitz:And Sean, before we get there, just like a way to frame this, if you're thinking like mind, body behavior, you just think about a recent time that something was like a little stressful. People, unfortunately, tend to make things a lot worse when things are a little stressful. We tend to like take something small, make it really bad. And so, you know, someone was just telling me like they found out that a friend of theirs, a good friend had a party and they weren't invited. And so they automatically go to no one likes me. No one's ever liked me. No one will ever like me. I will never be part of a group.
27:00Dr Jenny Taitz:I work so hard and no one cares. And then they feel really sad, heavy. They're totally procrastinating on their work, isolating, not picking up the phone when it's ringing or text messages are coming in. So that's what we do. We take something upsetting and then we make it so much worse. What ended up happening? The person's other friend planned the party and like did a pretty poor job of going through a thorough guest list and didn't know her. And so it was a totally innocent mistake. and this person apologized. But it's like, we do this. It's like something's like someone calls you out of the blue and you're like, oh no, what happened?
27:35Dr Jenny Taitz:And it's like, someone just wants to say, hey, like, how are you? And, and so, and so we need to kind of intervene. We create this stress cycle of, you know, thinking the worst, tensing up, acting in stress-fueled ways. And so I want to interrupt at each point in the cycle and also like exponentially improve how you cope along the way. Because if you think more flexibly, you're not going to be doing the hard stuff. And I tell a silly story in my book, which I just retold in my TED talk, but just the smallest things, just to double down on this point, like one morning, my husband was like pouring a bottle of milk for my toddler at the time.
28:09He's now seven, but he's literally pouring a gallon of
28:13Dr Jenny Taitz:milk, spills some milk. He gets like really into cleaning. He's like cleaning aggressively. He's in a rush. He's like cleaning, like he's on the floor of the Knicks game. And he ends up cutting his hand on the kick plate of our fridge. He's thinking like, how could this happen? Like, like I'm in a rush, like what the hell? And then he is so tense. We don't have any bandages in our house. He ends up going to the drug store. You cannot make this up. He literally got into a fender bender on the way home. Like that is what we're all doing. And like the poor Uber driver, that is like our stress is contagious.
28:47Dr Jenny Taitz:Like this is like what turned into milk is like a fender vendor. And it's, we all do this in different ways where someone hurts us and then we hurt them back. And then it's such a big, such a big thing. And so we need to intervene. And so a mind reset is a quick way. Like what can that person do in the moment when they weren't invited to the party or my partner do in that moment when he's like, my life is unfair. It's like, your life is fair. Like your life is pretty good. You know, what can we do? And so mind resets are things you can do in those moments.
29:18Shawn Stevenson:Want me to share some? Of course. Yeah. So if you got one.
29:21Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of mind resets, I try to give people a full buffet, different things work for different times for different people. One mind reset that I like is even noticing your state of mind. Are you an emotion mind? Are you in reasonable mind? We all metaphorically and somewhat literally have different states of mind where time, there are certain times that we're governed by emotion. Automatically when we're rejected, we are in emotion mind. Probably first thing in the morning, if you haven't eaten, maybe you're in emotion mind. And so to even just create this own internal spam filter, I'm in emotion mind.
29:57Dr Jenny Taitz:Like, let's not like get into the weeds of what I'm thinking. Let's like cut it before we get too deep in the torture that our mind can easily create. Thank you, emotion mind. And so even just calling out emotion mind, I think also anchoring, like taking a quick moment to ground yourself, feel your feet on the floor. What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I about to start doing? Because if you're going five miles an hour, a lot easier to do some damage control than if you're going a hundred miles an hour. And we tend to go pretty fast in stress-fueled moments.
30:26Shawn Stevenson:Can we stay here for just a moment? Because you're talking about thinking about our thinking. And I know from just life experience that there was a time where I was my thoughts. I was just so attached to them that the thinking was just happening and I was just a part of it. And then for me, it was meditation where I was able to start to witness the thoughts. And then I'll start to like be able to choose the thoughts or to conversate or associate with the thoughts in a different way, right? And so for many of us, we're in that same kind of loop where our thoughts are happening and we are at the mercy of these thoughts.
31:09Shawn Stevenson:We are the thoughts. And so you're talking about thinking about our thinking, anchoring ourselves in and starting to ask simple questions.
31:16Dr Jenny Taitz:Change our relationship with our thoughts. Yeah.
31:17Shawn Stevenson:Just like, what am I thinking right now? So self-assessment and kind of self-awareness.
31:23Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. When we were talking earlier about where we were from and background, and I mentioned that I lived in New York for a number of years, I have this vivid recollection. I went to grad school in the Bronx at Einstein. And I literally day one, I'm like all excited. I just graduated college. I'm like starting my doctoral program. The dean of students says this really inspiring thing, which is like 20 % of you will not make it till second year to second year. Like there's a 20 %
31:48Shawn Stevenson:fail rate for first year or whatever. People don't make it.
31:51Dr Jenny Taitz:I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do next year? Like, what am I going to do next year? It's like, and then like, you know, first series of exams, like, oh my gosh, I failed. Like, you know, and at a certain point, It's like, thank you, mind. This is just like, this is what my mind does because I care. And so it's so different to have a playful, humorous relationship. Can I see that as Susie from Curb Your Enthusiasm coming to tap me on the shoulder in an annoying voice rather than taking that so seriously of like, shoot, what are the jobs for someone that has half a year of psychology training?
32:23Dr Jenny Taitz:It's so liberating to know yourself and know that the 6 ,000 thoughts a day that you have are not all factual or helpful.
32:30Shawn Stevenson:yeah wow oh it's so crazy that you said curb your enthusiasm because when we were talking about the knicks earlier i thought about larry david and seinfeld were on course side we're connected we're connected right here um so i want to ask you about another one of these which again the ability to self-assess and just to think about your thinking just to slow down as you mentioned is so powerful but again and it could just take a minute just a minute to do that and instead of catastrophizing and making things worse and worse and worse and worse. But also, I mean, again, you have so many tools in here.
33:07Shawn Stevenson:And I think what's going to happen when people read this is something's going to jump out like, ah, that's, that seems like it's for me. I want to try that. And there's some that are interesting that I never thought about before that I've done just low key, like, and I've never talked about before. One of them is to, for a stress reset, is to sing your thoughts.
33:29Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah, so this is getting at the same idea of cognitive diffusion. It sounds a little silly, but when you take your thoughts from like right here to kind of get some working distance and play with them, you change your relationship with them. They go from like scary and stressful to humorous and like playful. And so, and all of this, I should just say, is getting at this thing, which is one of the biggest causes of stress. One of the key causes of chronic stress is actually not having a stressful life, which unfortunately a lot of people have, but it's rumination, getting stuck in your thoughts, overthinking something bad happened.
34:02Dr Jenny Taitz:You're thinking about it for hours later, days later, weeks later, constantly replaying, talking about it. So this interrupts rumination. So singing your thoughts, if you have a constant thought that bothers you, I'm not good enough. People don't care about me. What if you sing that thought? Like, what if you sing, I'm a loser to the tune of do you believe in magic? I'm a loser is not a helpful thought. Like if you could quickly notice that thought saying, you know, I'm a loser, it kind of loses its edge. Or I learned this from a client, um, changing your whole relationship with thoughts itself.
34:35Dr Jenny Taitz:Like what are thoughts? Thoughts can't hurt me to the tune of Hataway's what is love, baby, don't hurt me. Um, you know, what are thoughts? Thoughts can't hurt me.
34:45Shawn Stevenson:I love that. There's multiple.
34:48Dr Jenny Taitz:What's what,
34:48Shawn Stevenson:what are your uh i mean i'll just if there's something i this is like one of the things that my family does we make up these jingles a lot you know especially me and my wife let me say that and they're so sticky like we'll make these little jingles they usually happen at night like when it's time for bed and somebody will start saying something and i can't recall any of them because anyways but it'll be like for me and even if i'm by myself and like something maybe is going wrong or I made a mistake on something I'll just like you know stop trying to be mad at me because I can't you know I can fix it I don't know I'll just start like making up stuff and kind of talking to myself or rapping to myself or singing to myself that this silly thing like just you know um let me think about something I'm very big on efficiency yeah and so even if I take an extra trip in the kitchen.
35:41Shawn Stevenson:I'm just like, bro, you blew it. Like, come on, we're trying to get this stuff done. And I could, if I wasn't as healthy as I am, I could see myself having a little bit of OCD or whatever. But just having a little more space as well. And so being kinder to myself and kind of what I'm doing when I'm singing these songs, I'm kind of making fun of the silliness of me getting upset about something that is usually not worth it.
36:09Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. And we could do this with ourselves. Obviously it's so helpful and it's so liberating. And we can also do with other people. Like my son, my son has this thing where he's like, if you don't give me Starbucks, I'm not going to school tomorrow. And just to like laugh at it and not even respond to it. Like you could easily go down like a whole rabbit hole of like, you have to go to school. What are you saying? Don't threaten me. Like this isn't, you know, I'm the mom, you're the kid. But what if you just like create a rap of I'm not going to school and it becomes like a joke, you know? And, and obviously you could have a longer conversation about if you want Starbucks, you could earn it.
36:42Dr Jenny Taitz:But, but in those moments, yeah, yeah. But in the, in the moment, it's like so many people get stressed out by other people's stress. If you could diffuse their stress, it again, creates this positive ripple effect.
36:54Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Uh, let me ask you about, and you mentioned this too. This is one you talk about is catch yourself catastrophizing. and this is one again i highly recommend people checking out that portion because we are all susceptible to that one and one of the things that i was a continued thread through the book was oh my god just things even can be difficult they can be quote bad but we don't have to make it worse you know and some of us are very gifted at making things worse when we don't have to. So I just want to mention that point and definitely check out that section. But another one in it, you had this great little wheel with it is to name that emotion, because I think sometimes we can get caught up in emotions and just not even know what it is like.
37:41Shawn Stevenson:And so just being able to slow down, check out that wheel of fortune, name that emotion so we can better relate to it.
37:49Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. It's like I, it's like you automatically enter reasonable mind instead of emotion mind when you name your emotion. It's like when you kind of categorize it, you can get some working distance from it rather than being steeped in the deep end of the pool. Yeah, name it to tame it. It sounds like, oh, it's so simple, but that actually activates the parts of your brain that are essential for regulating emotions.
38:10Shawn Stevenson:Amazing, name it to tame it. So these are mind resets. Then you have body resets as well. And I think, again, we can enter into a reset through multiple, there are many paths to the goal. Yeah. And we're going to influence the whole system, no matter which route we're choosing. So what are some of these body resets? Let's talk about that.
38:31Dr Jenny Taitz:So body resets are anything to change your body.
38:34Shawn Stevenson:So this would be like the tips.
38:36Dr Jenny Taitz:Tip totally is a body reset. Even half smiling, you're sitting in traffic, your air conditioning is not working well. Like it's so tempting to start to make faces that don't help you and that make you maybe more impatient and frustrated and prone to rumination. But if you can ever so slightly relax your face into like a quarter of a smile, like a Buddhist smile or a Mona Lisa kind of smile, that automatically kind of primes you to be in a more accepting state mentally and physically. Like it's hard to imagine like having that face with like this in your shoulders. And so just, yeah, taking a moment to your really stressed half smile, even in a conversation with someone, someone's really stressed coming at you.
39:14Dr Jenny Taitz:Can you respond with a half smile? It will probably make you more equipped to respond better.
39:18Shawn Stevenson:Smiles are contagious too.
39:19Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah.
39:20Shawn Stevenson:You know, so, but what is it about a smile?
39:23Dr Jenny Taitz:So there's something about facial feedback. And so if you can subtly relax your face, that kind of quiets your mind, makes you more primed to accept whatever is. There's some studies, I'm not prescribing this, but there's some studies that people who get Botox injection are, it improves their mood because a part of our experience of sadness and anger has to do with making those angry faces and sad faces. And so even like just learning to become your own Botox administrator with your face. There's that piece. Then on the other side, though, with, you know, kind of the addiction with Botox and
40:01Shawn Stevenson:fillers, it can distort.
40:02Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah. My whole thing is I could give you what you want. No cost. No side effects. Yeah. I'm not prescribing Botox. I just want to be clear. If you are upset with someone because they legitimately hurt you, that is not a time for half smiling, your face is a powerful form of communication, more powerful than words. But if you're sitting in traffic and the cars aren't moving or you're sitting at your desk and you're struggling to complete something, relaxing your face could be like an inroad towards continuing to be able to sustain that goal in a way that's a little bit more compassionate and effective.
40:39Shawn Stevenson:Wow, it's so powerful. over time you know even babies obviously babies smile as well when they're happy this is some very uh what fires together wires together as well like how we've been trained our mind and body and so that subtle smile starts to activate different nerve pathways so we're literally changing potentially the neurochemistry what our hormones are doing just by taking control of our facial expression. That's so interesting.
41:12Dr Jenny Taitz:And people like you probably see this more than I do. Maybe we both see it. But, you know, when I'm exercising, if I'm doing weights and I'm intentionally half smiling, the person that I work with is like, oh my gosh, it's not hard enough. I'm like, no, it's hard. But I think it's easier with a smile. You know, I don't know why we have this mindset that like if we're doing something hard, we really have to like fight it. It's like, no, I'm so grateful that like my body's able to do this. And I have this moment to do this and the music's nice. and I got stronger from two months ago. And like, why not?
41:41Dr Jenny Taitz:Why do we need to be so tense? And if we think about scrolling on our phone, maybe we're like not half smiling, but like if we can face our life with more of a half smile, that opens up a lot of space for gratitude and connection and acceptance.
41:55Shawn Stevenson:What a great place to train your smile and your disposition in the gym, you know? Because there's certain exercises that, you know, I'd even call them like ugly face exercise, like lateral raises for some reason, and just like you tense up, but you're also training your body. And there's a sense of aggression there too, which again, there's a place for that. But also we can kind of encode our bodies. We're encoding ourselves, even with the music that we're listening to, to replicate or kind of automate certain programs. And so this is a stressful environment. And there was some research done at Harvard looking at strength training and how this helps to build resilience because you are challenging yourself in a controlled environment and that will bleed over into your day-to-day life.
42:42Shawn Stevenson:So what if we're training our body? Our mindsets. Through pain, like we are more able to do things.
42:48Dr Jenny Taitz:We have more flexibility and ability.
42:51Shawn Stevenson:Come on, this is awesome. So you're just providing, again, just something that listeners and people who are watching might already be doing. You might already be working.
43:00Dr Jenny Taitz:And try this, like, don't just listen. like right now, can you try a half smile? The next time your mind sends you a really annoying spam thought or call, like, see it, sing it. You know, don't, yeah, try these things.
43:12Shawn Stevenson:That reminds me of something else you said in the book. You said frequent flyer thoughts.
43:16Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah.
43:16Shawn Stevenson:What is that?
43:17Dr Jenny Taitz:No, I think we all have like certain thoughts that come up over and over again. Maybe they're tied to core beliefs, the ways we fundamentally see ourselves. I'm not good enough. I'm an imposter.
43:29Shawn Stevenson:or, you know, I'm not worthy.
43:32Dr Jenny Taitz:Notice those, like rather than every time they come really get sucked in, just call them out. See them act different than what they want you to do.
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44:49Shawn Stevenson:Again, just go to wildpastures.com forward slash model to take advantage. That's W-I-L-D-P-A-S-T-U-R-E-S.com forward slash model to take advantage right now. Head over there, check them out. Now back to the show. Yeah, I love that. This reminds me of something that within that same context of a frequent flyer thought, it's often rooted in obviously our identity, how we see ourselves and the power of, there's a process the brain just automatically does called instinctive elaboration. And so it's really based on the questions that we're chronically posing ourselves. So what is that frequent flyer question we're asking?
45:32Shawn Stevenson:So when I was like struggling with my health back in the day, it was why me? Why is this happening to me? Why won't somebody help me? And reframing that to how can I feel better? Or how can I feel more energetic today? Or even reframing, even a question like why me could be based on my perception, something empowering. Why me at that time was I'm by myself, my life conditions, I've been through all these terrible things in my life. But today, if I was to pose myself that question, why me? It's because I am strong enough to overcome this. And not only that, I'm going to be a bigger blessing to the world because I'm going to have gifts and insights to share based on what happened, right?
46:17Shawn Stevenson:So thinking about your thinking and what is your dominant question? Like what is the question that you're chronically asking yourself? And jumping in and grabbing the steering wheel on that and maybe start to reprogram that question.
46:29Dr Jenny Taitz:And I talk about this in the book. If you tend to ruminate instead of why, why, why, Why switch into how thoughts? Why did this happen to me? How can I make today better than yesterday? How can I do this the way that I would want to lead by example? Yeah.
46:45Shawn Stevenson:So we have the mind resets, body resets, which is really you covered very strongly with the tip, the tip drill. And I want to move on to behavior resets when we need them. and one of them is, and this is, again, this don't miss with the simplicity, take a walk outside.
47:07Dr Jenny Taitz:So much happens. I mean, literally that affects longevity, blood sugar. I mean, you know, all the things, I mean, even just being outside as like a perspective shifter, you need to be smart. I mean, you need to like, when you go for the walk, don't be looking at your phone and replaying the frustrating thing that happened earlier, or like really be on the walk, but doing something so simple expands your viewpoint, maybe gives you an opportunity to feel grateful, changes your, you literally change, like there's so much research about just walks and longevity and health. And I just even like the stance of like taking a one, putting one foot in front of the other is so empowering.
47:44Dr Jenny Taitz:And one of my favorite tools in the book is opposite action. Do the thing that's opposite. If you feel stuck, like instead of like doom scrolling or doing something passive that you won't feel good about later like one foot in front of the other let's want like opposite action i interviewed for the book uh um someone i met once on vacation i met this guy i was like you're so cool can i have your number and i'm going to call you sometime to interview for a book at some point and he's like i'm pretty private but i guess you could you could call me and i'll see if i want to so this guy was crazy he was actually shot in the face and he went back to work.
48:19Dr Jenny Taitz:He was a police officer and he was offered full retirement, all his benefits, and he decided to go back to work. And I was like, how did you go from the hospital to going back? And he said there was like a 5K that he did every year since he was like 13, 15 years old. And he was like, I just kept thinking I'm going to like do whatever it takes to get back to that 5k. And so like, even if that, you know, my PEEP-T exercises, my, and so just doing something like one foot in front of the other can seem like a small thing, but paves the way to doing something that most people can't do.
48:57Shawn Stevenson:That's amazing. It's symbolic one foot in front of the other, you know, like a simple walk.
49:01Dr Jenny Taitz:And seeing more than, yeah, and seeing more and, and things happen, right? Like you see a cute puppy, you, you know, you bump into someone you haven't talked to. Yeah.
49:09Shawn Stevenson:I love this. Okay. So just again, and everybody's experienced this, simply getting out of your environment, wherever you were possibly ruminating or, you know, going through a struggle moment, going outside and just changing that environment. And also it tends to bring you a little bit more to the present. If you're present, like you said, not walking and staring at our phone or whatever the case might be. And these, also these natural inputs, humans today, as of the latest data, the average American spends 90 % of their time indoors over the course of a year. But some, depending on where you live, that could be upwards of 99%.
49:45Shawn Stevenson:Not to mention your time in vehicles. We need these natural inputs. That's the only time really we're getting exposure to natural light inputs. Even if it's coming through a window, of course, like it's filtered, the UVA, UVB, that the content of those rays from what allows life on the planet, most of us are never really getting any consistent inputs from that fresh air which air quality indoors is five to upwards of a hundred times you know worse and so we're getting all these inputs yes but simply it's really a state change just immediately because your brain knows like i'm literally changing locations and i remember this incredible study uh some researchers did at stanford and and looking at creativity and problem solving.
50:34Shawn Stevenson:And so folks that were facing a task, and what we tend to do is like, we keep hitting our head against the wall, trying to figure something out. This is this one way to do it. I got to figure out this one way. And simply going for a walk, like 15, 20 minute walk led to a 60 % increase in creativity and something specific called divergent thinking. So thinking outside the box and creative ways to solve this thing that you were just looking for this one solution. Yeah.
51:02Dr Jenny Taitz:And coming back to mindset also, I love that. There's also something about you seeing yourself. It's like, I take good care of myself. I choose like real self-care and self-compassion rather than staying miserable. I know things are really hard, but if you can be part of like pivoting towards what will actually help, that's a really powerful shift.
51:20Shawn Stevenson:That's great. All right. Let's go to be your own DJ and get weightless. so this is seems a little silly but there is a song called waitlist that was designed with sound
51:34Dr Jenny Taitz:therapists that is so sedating you're not supposed to listen to it while you're driving so if you have insomnia or if you have a loved one with insomnia this is great um and so i was really one of the inspirations for this book like i mentioned was seeing so many people struggle with leaning on things outside themselves like medications that can have serious side effects down the line, especially if they're used over time. And I was struck by a study at Penn that found that people that were about to go into surgery, half of the people, it was a study, half the people got like a benzodiazepine medication, half the people listened to this song.
52:10Dr Jenny Taitz:And literally the song had almost the same anti-anxiety properties as the medication. And so we think like, this is so stressful, I need something big, but literally songs can be soothing, they're side effect free. And so we think again, like the song is just one example, but we think things are really hard. There's so much that's challenging. I need something big, but actually small things, it's like little wheels on a suitcase, like small solutions that are inexpensive and accessible can be game changers. Wow.
52:40Shawn Stevenson:We've got to put that in the show notes. It's called Weightless.
52:45Dr Jenny Taitz:Weightless by Marconi Union. And there's like a a long version if you want to like nine hour version, there's a, you could listen to a shorter version. There's all this stuff about it. It doesn't have lyrics. The song is a little unpredictable. So your mind's not trying to like figure out what's next. Yeah.
53:01Shawn Stevenson:This is, it was, unfortunately it's just now kind of emerging as far as medicine, but it's been something humans have utilized for thousands of years and really looking at sound as medicine. And of course there are places where it's used in medicine today, like ultrasounds, for example. But when we are experiencing that, you know, whatever this particular song or any kind of auditory input, this is changing our brain chemistry instantaneously. Right. And so we are creating, you know, it's, it's a frequency and we're literally, our cells are all, our trillions of cells can't help but be impacted.
53:41Shawn Stevenson:It's such a powerful thing if you think about it. And we don't use this to our advantage. We're mostly again at the mercy of what's going on in the world around us because we all we have an external sounds but we also have our internal sounds as well and our internal voice this is why even of course we know that humming right and the sound of humming can help to be relaxing or change the state but even if you think about humming if you're just sitting quietly and you're thinking about yourself humming you're getting a lot of that same neurochemistry and it's so powerful. So I love this, having this asset that we can tune into, but this leads me to this other one, which this could be a part of maybe like a toolkit that you have ready for yourself.
54:27Shawn Stevenson:And in another behavior reset, you talk about building your own hope kit.
54:34Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah. So building your own hope kit is literally collecting objects that mean something to you or playlists that are powerful. A lot of times when we're down, we want to listen to music that's mood congruent that's similar. It's like, you know, you're watching a sad movie. There's a sad soundtrack going on with it. We don't want to do that in our lives. If we want to feel better, we need to change the input. And so having a hope kit, a few things, whether cards people left you, songs that uplift you, actions you could do, go like count how many like cute babies you see on your way to the park, you know, doing something to actually fill yourself with hope actually creates hope.
55:11Dr Jenny Taitz:And even in terminal cancer patients or people that feel suicidal, looking at mementos that actually remind you of past times creates real feelings of hope and positivity. I have one that includes pictures of my grandparents holding me as a baby. Actually photographs are powerful pain relievers, looking at pictures of loved ones. I like music. I love Drake, listening to some Drake. My grandparents holding me as a baby. My marathon medal, I ran the marathon postpartum, And that's like a sign to me, like I can do hard things. I could do anything. Put your mind to it. Doing, yeah, because in those moments, we just are so tunnel visioned.
55:47Dr Jenny Taitz:Emotions love emotions. We get stuck in the same emotional pattern. But if we can have a perspective shifter, something that's kind of like a hug, even if there's no one around, it can be a real nice dose of it. What would be in your hope kit?
56:00Shawn Stevenson:Wow. I immediately thought about this picture of my grandmother hugging me on my wedding day. Oh man, that gets me. that really gets me. And fortunately I get to see that every day. Sometimes I don't pay attention to it, but it's sitting in my office. Definitely. And I'm a vibe guy, you know? So definitely, and my son will tell you, like I've got absurd amount of playlists for different moods, you know what I mean? And so I do access the power of music. And I also have this practice, I have a journal because what this is really about and what I'm hearing from you is that, you know, all of us forget sometimes, you know, and everything that we've been through, we have made it.
56:46Shawn Stevenson:We're still here. And so I have this journal where I've kind of tracked a lot of the magical moments in my life and just a reminder of how powerful I am to affect change and to experience life's magic. Because, you know, again, when you get caught up and the stuff and the stress, you can forget. And so many of the greats, the greatest of the greats of all time, they're just really good at remembering. They're really good at remembering. And this is a capacity that we all have that we can grow and build. So thank you for asking me that.
57:21Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah, no, I love that. My friend has, his name is Matthew Dix. He has a TEDx talk about homework for life, about like literally having a spreadsheet. One column is the date. One column is like what happened. And it really helps you remember like, oh my gosh, like this cool thing happened like five years ago. I probably would have forgotten or this person said this nice thing to me that would never have like stuck. Yeah.
57:44Shawn Stevenson:So having, again, this is stress reset behavioral. We can go to our own personal hope kit.
57:50Dr Jenny Taitz:Yeah.
57:50Shawn Stevenson:Take advantage of that. And again, these are all what we've covered thus far. These are stress resets for intense times.
57:59Dr Jenny Taitz:Yes. And you have many more. All evidence-based.
58:01Shawn Stevenson:And they're all evidence-based, of course.
58:02Dr Jenny Taitz:And minutes, they only take minutes of your time.
58:05Shawn Stevenson:But for more, you also have stress resets for building resilience. And so this is a zooming out, bigger picture things as well. And so I would love to continue this conversation, but we've reached our time together. And this has been so fruitful for me. And already, even, you know, I've had the opportunity to read the book, so I've already made some changes. And for me, it's just more bringing them to conscious awareness and the things that I might've been doing or doing sporadically, but really utilizing those to help to reset stress for myself. So thank you.
58:38Dr Jenny Taitz:That means a lot. Thank you.
58:40Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. So where can people pick up a copy of the book, get more information from you and all that good stuff?
58:44Dr Jenny Taitz:The book should be available wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore. And they could find out more about me at drjennytates.com. And I also just gave a TED talk on a lot of the stuff from the book, some of the stuff from the book, sneak preview.
59:01Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Awesome. So Stress Resets, How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes. Pick up a copy today everywhere that books are sold. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for coming to hang out with us today.
59:13Dr Jenny Taitz:Thank you. This was so much fun. Awesome. I appreciate you.
59:15Shawn Stevenson:The one and only Dr. Jenny Tates, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. We're just adding tools to your superhero utility belt, the most important thing is to take advantage of what you learned. We've got to stop letting stress just jump in and take control of our lives. Yes, stress is a part of our lives. We're not trying to run from stress. We're not trying to get all up in arms. When stressors that oftentimes we feel are unnecessary, that's the thing. It's just like, I don't want this stress. and that fighting against it instead of acknowledging our ability to cope with stress and to handle stress and to metabolize stress is creating more stress.
1:00:01Shawn Stevenson:And so life is just going to happen. It is what it is. We're going to be exposed to stress and dealing with stress. But we have these stress resets in our hands. And also we have the ability to expand our awareness, to transform our perception of stress and to know truly, backed by science, that understanding that we are strong enough and we have the capacity to overcome and adapt to the stressors that we're faced with is the key to making stress something that makes us more health-affirming and to add to our longevity versus to be health-detracting and to burn away that capacity much, much faster.
1:00:45Shawn Stevenson:so the power is in our hands truly and i appreciate you so much for tuning in if you enjoy this share this out with somebody that you care about keep this conversation going and we got some incredible master classes and world-leading experts coming your way very very soon so make sure to stay tuned take care have an amazing day and i'll talk with you soon
From the publisher
Stress is a natural part of life that we all have to navigate. But how you respond to stressors in your life can make a big difference in how you feel and how you operate in the world. On today’s show, you’re going to learn powerful tips and exercises you can do to build your stress resilience.
Today’s guest, Dr. Jenny Taitz, is a clinical psychologist and author. Her newest book, Stress Resets, contains evidence-based techniques for turning the dial down on stress. And today, she’s here on The Model Health Show to discuss practical, proven ways to manage stress for a healthier mind and body.
You’re going to learn how to improve your stress mindset, calm your physiology, and how to build a stress management toolkit that works for your individual preferences and habits. Whether you’re dealing with a small stack of everyday stressors or big life-changing stress, these techniques will help you calm your mind and shift your perspective. I hope you enjoy this interview with the one and only Dr. Jenny Taitz!
In this episode you’ll discover:
What percentage of physician visits are for stress-related illnesses. (1:02)
The #1 word people use to describe the year 2026. (5:11)
How stress impacts mortality rates. (5:25)
What a stress reset is. (7:18)
The importance of improving your stress mindset. (8:23)
How to effectively treat panic attacks. (9:57)
What the acronym TIPP means. (13:37)
The pros and cons of medication for stress-related mental health issues. (25:11)
How noticing your state of mind can help you better handle stressful situations. (29:29)
The surprising tactic that can stop rumination in its tracks. (33:23)
What body resets are and some examples. (38:32)
Why simply taking a walk can improve your stress resilience. (47:08)
The power music can have on your anxiety levels. (51:28)
How to build your own hope kit. (54:35)
Items mentioned in this episode include:
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Wildpastures.com/model - High-quality, responsibly sourced meat—delivered right to your door. Wild Pastures makes it easy to eat clean without overpaying. Get 20% off every box + $15 off your first order.
Stress Resets by Dr. Jenny Taitz - Get your copy of the book right here!
Stress Resets, the Ultimate Mental Health Hack - Watch Dr. Taitz’s Ted Talk!
Weightless by Marconi Union - Hear the song proven to reduce anxiety!
Connect with Dr. Jenny Taitz Website / X / Instagram
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This episode of The Model Health Show is brought to you by Paleovalley and Wild Pastures.
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High-quality, responsibly sourced meat—delivered right to your door. Wild Pastures makes it easy to eat clean without overpaying. Get 20% off every box + $15 off your first order at wildpastures.com/model.