Harnessing the Power of Stress & Anxiety | Dr. Wendy Suzuki

29:01And I think if you create a game or an experiment for yourself and say, you know, I'm just going to do a social experiment around this. I did this with public speaking as well for a year yeah I went every week and it was terrifying yeah I went to a public speaking class yeah I was like I'm gonna do this as an experiment and see what I can prove every week yeah I think if you do that it becomes more we go back to joy how do you create joy around the anxiety yeah how can you make it a fun game not something that's like this terrible fearful thing but how can I make a game out of this yeah yeah for me that has worked wonders by creating experiments, games, and trying to throw some joy in there, even when it's so stressful.

29:41Yeah, yeah, no, I love that idea. I love that idea. And bringing friends in to help you. Absolutely. Because you were saying that you shared these parts of yourself, presumably with close friends. And I had that same thing. I wanted to project. I was that 10 % that said, I'm not anxious. Really? I am happy all the time. Smile on your face. Yeah. And the truth was that I wasn't. And it was fear of, well, if they saw the real me, then they would never want to. And I'd be with fewer friends that I have right now, and that's terrible. But you have to learn how to share your authentic self or else you get inauthentic friends.

30:24That's true. I learned. Gosh, why is it you said that? We both said this. If people actually knew this about me, then they wouldn't love me. or they wouldn't like me or I'd be alone or they wouldn't want to spend time with me. Is that something you think is a fear for a lot of people? If people actually knew this about me, what I was most afraid of, what I'm most ashamed of, what I'm most insecure about, if they actually knew this is how I felt, they wouldn't love me. Do you think that's a common theme in the world? I think every single person, I think that same 90 % that are suffering from anxiety has that about something in their life.

31:02Because it's hard to share even the most, I'm sure Oprah even has things that, although she's obviously shared a lot. Very difficult to do. And yeah, I'm sure everybody has something like that. And I have this vision that people are just searching for the right configuration of friends where they feel comfortable, or family members, where they do feel comfortable enough to let that guard down and let it slip out. It's like, what's going to happen if that really comes out? And it's a yearning that gets suppressed, I think, too much. Yes. It's funny, when I started to reveal the things I didn't like about myself or wasn't proud about myself about eight years ago and started to really incorporate that on a more consistent basis in my life.

32:00And I have this platform where I'm always talking about my insecurities and doubts so my audience knows all my darkness. It gives me, it's funny, the more I started, before I did it, I had so much anxiety and worry and stress thinking about sharing things. Two close friends, family members, and then eventually I started opening up more on my podcast here. But since I've done that, it's like the worry and stress goes away. Because I'm like, oh, I'm still alive. People like me. I have friendships. My family didn't abandon me. And in fact, it brought me closer to people. It strengthened the bonds and connections with my friends, family.

32:44It created new relationships I didn't have because people trusted me more. They could see me better. They could understand and empathize with me. they could, you know, they just felt like I was more real, whatever it might be. And I think that also allows me to sleep better at night. Okay, I am being 100 % authentic to what I am. Revealing myself, opening up, being vulnerable in conversations. It feels great. You know, I feel like, and people still like me. I have great friendships. So what do I need to worry about? People know all my stuff that I don't like about me. And they still like me. You know, it's like, they're my friend.

33:20And the people that don't like me, okay, they weren't meant for me. Yeah, exactly. It feels more peace. Yeah. I don't know. I know exactly what you're feeling, what you're saying. It really opens up this new kind of communication route when you are vulnerable and honest. and it gives permission to the other person to be vulnerable, honest, or just be there to listen, because that's also very, very powerful. One of the experiments that I did in my lab this last year was trying to find the most, the easiest, shortest intervention that we can do with students that would decrease their very high levels of anxiety.

34:11What was that? And so we tested many things just to walk outside, chair yoga, all these things they can do online. This was all virtual. But one of the things that was very effective that I was so excited about is a mindful conversation. So what we did is we didn't go deep. We didn't want to have them reveal some, you know, deep, dark secret. But what we did is my student researchers had a script. They shared a real story about a favorite vacation, why it was favorite. It was real. They were really trying to share this experience with them and then invited the student who they didn't know, who was our experimentee, to share the same thing.

34:55And in that year where everything was virtual and it was, you know, professors just said, okay, now learn this five chapters, go ahead, go do it. And to have somebody there listening to their story, listening deeply and asking real questions because they were, it was only 10 minutes, completely decreased their anxiety. Really? By them sharing and someone listening or by them also listening to someone else's story? You know, I think it was really the sharing and have somebody else listening because the first part, my students always went first. They didn't know what exactly was going to happen.

35:32So that was just to lay the groundwork. And I think the interaction and the good feelings started to develop when they started to open up sharing this story and seeing oh my god somebody is really listening to me they're asking me a question about about this event that meant something to them and that it just shows how powerful social interactions are and even this short 10 minute thing between we were we thought about should we get two friends to try and have a conversation that That was too hard to control, but I could control, we could control exactly the protocol of this stranger student and the kind of interaction they have.

36:17Interesting. Is there any research on if men or women are more anxious? Is there any research around this? Like, if men have more anxiety or stress or women have more anxiety or stress? I think the stat...I should know this. Are we just all messed up equally? I think we're all messed up equally. There's more women with depression. Depression and anxiety are related but have different symptoms. But I think it's pretty equal for anxiety. The reason I'm curious is because when I was studying about masculinity, years ago I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity, which is kind of the mask that men wear to project and protect themselves from showing emotion and showing, revealing themselves.

37:08And when I was on tour talking about it, I would always ask in every city, and about 50 % men and women would show up, and I would always ask, like, okay, for the ladies here, raise your hand if you have a girlfriend or girlfriends that you talk to once a week about your stress, your worry, your challenges in life, your work issues, your body issues, whatever it might be dealing with, that you have someone, one or multiple girlfriends you speak with on a weekly basis. And pretty much the entire room of women raised their hand and said, yes, every week, I have at least one person. And I said, keep your hands up if you do this every day.

37:47You call a girlfriend on the phone, you have lunch, you're just talking about something for a few minutes. And I go, how does it make you feel to be able to talk about these things? It feels great. to be able to share this. And say, okay, for the men in the room, raise your hand if once a month, you get together with a guy friend and you talk about your vulnerabilities, your insecurities, your body issues, your challenges at work, and you really open up to this other male friend. Maybe one or two guys out of hundreds would raise their hand. And I would say, you guys are part of a church group, right?

38:19Where you meet once a month and you start for an hour and you do these things. And you're like, yes. and I say okay I go back to the ladies in the room I say ladies imagine not being able to do this once a month only doing this once a month how would it make you feel they're like I feel more anxiety more stress and I go imagine these men who never do this in the room they never share these things I'm not saying all men but a lot of men don't feel like they have one guy friend they can open up and reveal to and I feel like maybe there's another symptom maybe it's just like they just wall themselves up and don't share emotion and there's other internal factors or physical elements that they're caused from that stress.

38:59But I think it's, yeah, either way, I think it's important for everyone to learn how to share these things. And based on that study you did, I think it's when we share, whatever it is, even if it's five, 10 minutes, it decreases the stress and the anxiety, it seems like it goes down. And I feel like we've got to create better friendships or relationships or therapists or whatever that we can connect to and have that consistent communication stream. Because otherwise, when we hold on to it, just bad things happen. Yeah, yeah. Bad things happen. Absolutely. So how does that work? What is the change that we need in raising boys and talking to boys?

39:45This is a whole, I mean, this is a dynamic. I mean, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I was born in 83 and it was just not accepted to show emotion in elementary school, middle school, high school. It wasn't acceptable, especially as an athlete growing up in Ohio. It just wasn't maybe in some, you know, part of Beverly Hills, you know, or some like posh school in New York City. I don't know. Maybe in pockets, there's some more acceptability of younger boys showing this type of emotion. I don't know what it's like in 2021, but I just know that you were laughed at, you were made fun of if you cried, if you showed emotion.

40:23I remember wanting to put my arm around like guy buddies of mine and them pushing me away and saying, don't be gay, you know, or just don't be a little girl. Don't be whatever the term is that was associated around something negative for them. And so you learn in order to fit in, to wall yourself or to not share the things that people won't like about you. And I'm not saying that's okay. And we all have our responsibilities. But as young boys growing up, when we're conditioned that way, it was hard to break that for me personally. And it took me a long time until I realized like, wow, this isn't working for me.

41:03I have more stress and anxiety. It was really decades of stress and anxiety and not being able to sleep at night. That was the thing that the catalyst that you talked about that was like enough is enough. Maybe for you as a social anxiety, but finally as a teacher like, okay, I've got to show up differently to not stress all the time. And so eight plus years ago, I finally started to reveal myself. I was just like, okay, I can't live like this anymore. So everyone can know everything about all my shame because I'd rather that happen and be alone because I feel so much stress all the time. And then it gave me a lot of peace.

41:42And then I learned the process of healing and therapy work and workshops and all that stuff, but, and just healthier relationships in general. I don't know the solution. I don't know the solution, but I know I'm trying to be a better model for other men to witness. I'm trying to bring other men on and have these types of conversations. so that younger men could see like, oh, okay, here's someone that maybe I like what he does or what he's, he's an athlete and I can understand and relate to that. Yeah. Hopefully I can start to do this with my own life or maybe with my girlfriend or my guy friends.

42:15Try to have some of these conversations, but I just think it's challenging in general. Yeah. It's challenging when you're younger and you're trying to have a few friends and they don't accept it. Yeah, exactly. That's tough. Yeah, yeah. Because no kid wants to be alone. No, no. They want to just hang out and go on the playground and just be with their buddies. So it's really challenging. I don't know. Do you have kids? No, I don't have kids. I don't have a solution to that. But I think as a, you know, I don't have kids either. But if I was a parent, I would just encourage showing emotion with my sons or daughters and be the example, be vulnerability with them.

42:55Allow myself to feel, allow myself to cry if I'm watching a movie or something happens in my life when I'm feeling it to not wall up, but to allow myself. I mean, we're going up another topic here. We're going up another topic here for another conversation. But as an academic, as a neuroscientist and a study of psychology and the brain and all these things, you've come from a very academic approach to your research. But a year ago, you unfortunately lost your father and your brother around the same time. and while you were writing the book. And so you had to kind of shift some of the stuff writing the book because you were experiencing on an emotional level what you were kind of researching.

43:36Yeah, yeah. Can you share more the biggest lessons you learned from these types of losses for yourself and how you emotionally had to navigate it when maybe you didn't have the answers? Yeah, yeah. And what did you learn from that experience? Yeah. So it really was the week that I was about to dive in and start writing the real chapters of this book, Good Anxiety. And that was when my younger brother passed away completely unexpectedly. Younger brother. My younger brother. Just three months after our father had passed away. So we were just healing, still raw, from losing my father, our father.

44:21And then he had an unexpected heart attack. Really? And so first, just that pain and grief that I was experiencing. It's not the same as anxiety. It shares some of those negative emotions. This was just... Loss, grief, sadness. Loss, grief, sadness. It was so painful. like how how could this happen it it feels like a different reality everything looked the same but it just felt so interesting different and and and it it forced me to explore these feelings that I'd have had inklings of in the past but never to this extent and kind of in this wave of first my dad and then my brother. And I slowly came back from it, and I used some of the tools that I talk about in the book that were already in place for me.

45:18Morning meditation. So I do a morning tea meditation. Tea meditation. A tea meditation, which I describe in the book, which is a meditation over brewing and drinking tea. For me, that was the magic bullet for meditation meditation because there's a sequence for brewing tea. You boil the water, you put it in the tea leaves, you let it seep, and then you pour it out and then you drink it. And that kind of sequence kept my meditation going. I always had something to do. I was waiting for the tea to brew. I get to drink the tea now. I get to be mindful about how does the tea feel? How hot is it? How does it taste?

45:56and I really I really came to appreciate that there is this moment and yes everything on the outside of my meditation feels like it's different but this moment still feels like every other moment that I enjoyed my tea meditation so that that helped me help me come back to I am alive I'm so lucky to be alive. Yes. Perspective. Yeah. So lucky to have the family that's still with me. Yes, yes. And exercise, my first book, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, was all about the transformative effects of exercise on the brain. So after I meditate, I do my workout in the morning. And it was really one day I was doing my workout.

46:41It's a video workout. And the trainer said, it was a hard workout. And she said, you know, in working out with great pain comes great wisdom. Oh, I love that. And I was like, oh, my God, that is what I need to hear, not just for working out. I have just gone through the worst pain in my whole life. And I do have more wisdom. That wisdom is based in the love that was left behind. Yes. And not just left behind. That sounds like it's leftovers. The love that is here, that's still here from my brother and my father. And that's when I started to think about this book, Good Anxiety, in a different way.

47:31Because anxiety is an everyday kind of pain and suffering that we all go through. And what if that leads to wisdom? What does that look like? And I needed as much wisdom and power that I needed. And so the book became searching for the power and the wisdom in everyday anxiety. It never would have been that if I hadn't had this event happen. And so that's where the six superpowers or gifts of anxiety came from. I needed them to be superpowers. We ended up calling them gifts, but same thing. And yeah, so that is the real origin story of this book. That's crazy. I always talk about the importance of experiencing some type of structured pain on a daily basis.

48:30And for me, that's just a workout. It's like something that makes you uncomfortable. That's like, I don't want to do this, and I don't want to push a little harder. But when we do that, I feel like every day healthy pain is going to help you long-term, be happier, healthier. What are the positive effects on the brain when we deal with physical healthy pain? Dr. Yeah. So physical activity, and we know the most about aerobic activity, any activity that gets your heart rate up. The best way I know how to convey this is that every single time you move your body, it's like you're giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals.

49:13Really? Yes. Those neurochemicals include dopamine, serotonin, neuroadrenaline, growth factors. And the dopamine and serotonin, what does that do? It makes you feel good. It makes you feel rewarded. That's why just going out for a walk outside when things are going up to here and you can't handle it anymore, it immediately makes you feel better. The growth factors that get released in your brain with every workout doesn't necessarily do something immediately, but it leads to one of the biggest wows that I have to this day about the effects of exercise on the brain. So growth factors that you are releasing every time you work out, It helps brand new brain cells grow in your hippocampus.

50:00Did you know that all of those workouts that I know you've done all your lifetime is actually growing you a big, fat, fluffy hippocampus? Hippocampus. Not a brain, but a hippocampus. Hippocampus. And there's only two brain areas where new brain cells are born in adulthood. One is the olfactory bulb that helps with smell, and that doesn't grow with more exercise. exercise. But the second is the hippocampus, critical for your long-term memory function. That grows, new cells grow with more growth factors that come with exercise. And it's not going to cure aging, it's not going to cure neurodegenerative disease states like Alzheimer's, but it'll give you the biggest, fattest hippocampus that you could have when you get to that age where the neurodegeneration might start happening if it's in your genes.

50:52So it'll take longer for the enough brain cells to... Interesting. Okay. So working out how many times a week helps you with the hand mechanics growth? How many is there... Yeah. So here's what I've found in my lab. So for low-fit people that haven't started their regular workout, I took low-fit people and I found significant improvements in mood, in their prefrontal function, and hippocampal function with just two to three aerobic workouts a week. It's not nothing. It will make you sweat, and especially if you're just starting, that is a challenge. But that is the minimum that I found that will give you the more long-term improvement in your hippocampal function.

51:38Let's say you're somebody like you. You work out, I'm sure, very, very regularly. And so what we found is, first First thing to know, your regular workouts have improved your brain. You have a bigger prefrontal cortex, you have a bigger hippocampus. The prefrontal cortex is bigger because the synapses, there's more connections, not because there's more cells. And your circulatory system, you're actually stimulating the growth of new blood vessels in your brain with every workout. And that is fantastic because the brain is the number one user of oxygen in the entire body. The brain is. The brain is.

52:15Overall muscles and the heart and everything, right? Way, way more. Blood or... The brain is the number one user of oxygen and both the blood, you know, brings oxygen. And so, I want my brain to have as much oxygen as possible so it works the best. And so, that's what you're doing. So, working out brings more oxygen to the brain. Working out will stimulate new blood vessels that, yes, bring more oxygenated blood to the brain. And if we don't work out on a consistent basis, what does that do to our brain? Yeah. So you don't get any of those benefits. You don't get the burst of good feeling from serotonin and dopamine.

52:54You don't get the big hippocampus. You don't get the blood vessels. And then the next question that everybody asks me is, how long of a vacation can I take, you know, without working out so that I don't lose it? And, you know, what comes up goes down. It's true in the brain. True in muscles, you know, how long do I don't lift those weights so that my bicep goes down? There's a timeframe. We don't have the exact amount of time. We know that it takes between three and nine months for these new hippocampal cells to grow with regular workouts. And yeah, if you go on a two-year vacation, it's... Dr.

53:33Yeah, it's not going to... Yeah, it's going to be hard. What are some of these...so there's six superpowers, is that right? Dr. Yeah. Can you explain these superpowers? We've already talked about a couple of them, but can you explain the rest of them? Sure, sure. The first one is resilience. Yes. And that really comes, I started the superpower book with that origin story that we talked about. Being resilient, yes. Being resilient. Because that is one of the first things that I realized came from that terrible experience. Yeah. that I had to write and give a eulogy for my brother. My brother is the social butterfly of our family.

54:15There were 200 people and more that wanted to come. We had to keep down his celebration of life to just 200. Not that, I mean, I speak to large audiences, but it was his eulogy. It made me definitely anxious to know that all his friends and our family were there. and um where did the anxiety stem from you did it you don't want to mess it up you don't want you want to make sure you did him justice with his life i wanted to make sure that i did him justice and there was a lot of guilt there because it's like i wasn't a good enough sister how come i didn't how come i didn't visit him more how come i didn't um how come i didn't talk to him on a more regular basis and talking about vulnerable conversations.

55:04The vulnerable conversation that I had with my parents being Japanese American, third generation immigrants, you know, I call us kind of the Japanese American version of Downton Abbey. Very proper, you know, not a lot of hugging. We don't do a lot of, you know, exuberant kissing. Yes. Not affectionate. Not affectionate. And the truth is, even though my brother and I knew that my parents loved us, we never said, I love you to each other. Isn't that interesting? I think a lot of people have experienced that as well. Yeah. And I, at some point, my father had developed dementia and I thought, you know, I, I, I feel like I really want to say this, but it was, I got stuck.

55:46It's like, I don't know if I could actually just start saying it out of nowhere to my parents. That would be really good. Never said it as an adult. Never. Wow. So you said it as a child, but not as an adult. I think I said it as a child. I mean, we got kissed goodnight and stuff, but I don't exactly remember. You know, it had been so long. It's like, but I had this desire to say this to both of my parents. And so I decided I had to ask them permission to say, I love you. And so I... How did that work? Well, I'll tell you. I was living in New York. They live in California. and I spoke to them every Sunday.

56:22And I decided, I built up my courage and said, this Sunday is going to be the big day. The day that - You asked them. I asked them whether I can say, I love you. Oh my goodness. To them. And I know how this happens. My mom always answered the phone and I tell her about my week and then she passes it to my dad and I tell him about all the same stories. And then that's how the telephone call went every Sunday. And so, you know, I called, my mom answered. I told her about my week. And then somewhere in the middle there, I said, hey, mom, you know how we never say I love you at the end of these telephone calls?

57:01What do you say if we start to say that? Silence. Silence. Is this FaceTime? No, no, no. This is just a regular, you know, cell phone call to my mom. Silence. Silence for a long, long, long time. I can't tell how long it was. It felt like forever, probably. It felt like forever. and then she said i think that's a great idea and i'm like i was i was trying to keep it you know keep it light no big deal and i said oh great i've never said it before but yeah whatever yeah so i don't break mom let's let's do that okay so we finished up our conversations but then the moment but then yeah we both are realizing that oh my god it's the end of the conversation.

57:44We're actually going to have to say it. And, and so, and it was clearly, it was like, I felt like there were two lions circling each other. Like, what's going to happen? Who's going to go first? And I, well, I asked, so I thought I need to initiate this. And so I still, I get nervous when I tell the story because I remember the fear. And I said, because my theme was keep it light. I said, okay, I love you. Like big Disney. I love you. I love you. And my mom said, I love you too. And then she went to go get my dad. Dad, Wendy's on the phone. It's over. She, she wanted to get it over. We were both secretly thinking, oh my God, thank God that's over.

58:30That was so hard. And then I talked to my dad and I explained it to him. It was easier. It was harder with my mom for some reason. I knew my dad would say yes. And so he said yes. We said our awkward I love yous. And then we hung up. And I started crying, you know, at the end of that call because I had never said I love you to my parents before. So it felt really good. My father had dementia. The next week I called back and I said I love you to my mother slightly less awkwardly. And, you know, at this point, my father really, he couldn't tell whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas that I was visiting at.

59:11So I was prepared to remind him that we had made this agreement. But he said, I love you first. Oh, that's beautiful. He had dementia at the time. He had dementia at the time. He remembered it. Oh, man, that's beautiful. You know, emotional resonance. We remember the happiest and the saddest events of our life. Yeah. And his daughter had never asked him. Wow. My goodness. Whether she could say, I love you. And he remembered. And he remembered every single week through his entire, including the last time I spoke to him. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So that was really. But I never said I love you to my brother.

59:58going back to the eulogy. And, you know, that was a big source of guilt. It's like, how come I didn't do it? I should have done it. I knew. But it was weird because he was not my parents. He was my brother. And same thing. He's a bro kind of guy. I'm sure he would have said it, but it was really hard to have that conversation with him. So, yeah, lots of things like that going through my mind when I was preparing and getting ready to give this. But I got through it. And it had funny parts in it. It had parts that I made everybody cry, including myself. And I was very proud that I was able to get through it.

1:00:46And that I really, really felt for the first time in my life, if I could get through that, I could get through anything. so that most horrible thing really gave me the most resilience that i've ever felt personally in my whole life and again that's the origin story and and every single time we're able to get through that anxiety even if we get through and we don't feel so good you've gotten through you made it to the next time. And that can help you build your resilience little by little. And that was part of the gift of, and I know that grief wasn't anxiety, but going through these hard times, that anxiety kind of gives us a little bit of a gift of, it gives us lots of challenges to get through.

1:01:42That is what ultimately builds up our resilience. Well, anxiety gives us the ability to experience courage. Yeah, exactly. Because if you didn't have that fear and anxiety, you wouldn't have to bring the courage out to prepare, to show up, to know like, okay, I'm going to cry at some point in front of 200 people. And I'm a shy person. I don't like people seeing me this way. It gives you the courage to become something you've never become before and step into a different version of yourself or step into who you truly are that you've been holding back. Yeah, that's true. So, you know, it's not fun, but it allows us to access certain characteristics and skills that maybe we don't utilize.

1:02:24Yeah. And that courage is a skill that is so beautiful. And, you know, people say, oh, how do I get more courage? How do I do it? And it really is going back to that action. That anxiety and that activation was designed and evolved to put us into action, including to act in that courageous way. That phone call to my parents to say, I love you, was a very courageous act. Huge. It was huge. How many years were you thinking about that? Many months because it was during the development of my father's dementia that it's like it was building up, building up. It's like, no, I don't want to deal with that.

1:03:03That's too hard. And I can't tell you the number of people that have come up to me that said, oh, my God, I don't say I love you to my parents. And you gave me the courage to do it. And a lot of Asian people, because it comes from our culture, but also lots of other cultures don't have that in their natural way of talking to each other. But it taps our social element and our need to express what we truly feel, which is love. So that's the first superpower. I want to talk about love, though, for a second. Where does love play into? overcoming stress, worry, and anxiety. If we have more love in our life with the people connected to us and love for ourselves, does anxiety, stress, and worry diminish?

1:03:58Absolutely. I think that is one of the things that we can help balance this anxiety that has gone up significantly since the start of the pandemic. One way is to work on those events that cause you anxiety, which is a great thing to do. And the other thing is to build up the positive emotions to counter anxiety. So we talked about joy conditioning, bringing more love into your life through social interactions. The number one predictor of a long life is the number of positive social connections that you have. Yes. And I thought it's going to be exercise. It's going to be exercise on top because of my first book.

1:04:45But no, exercise is, I don't know, three or four or five. It is social connections. And it doesn't have to be that, you know, girlfriend that you've had since third grade. It can be positive interactions that you have with the barista at your coffee shop. Having that positive banter, giving them, you know, giving them a little punch in the arm and they give it back to you. That counts, which I love thinking about that. So that happiness and joy that you can bring, it costs nothing for you, and it is giving you a longer life. Absolutely. Interesting. So, but love in general. Is there research or science behind what love does for, like, a happy brain, a healthy heart?

1:05:33So love is a natural counteraction to the stress that you were talking about. And, in fact, so the part of the nervous system that is controlling all of those stress responses that we talked about, the blood going to the muscles, the high heart rate, the high respiration is called the sympathetic nervous system. Luckily, we have an equal and opposite part of our nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system, not stimulating love specifically, but it helps calm everything down. It decreases the heart rate. It decreases respiration. It brings blood back into our digestive and reproductive systems.

1:06:12It's called the rest and digest nervous system. Parasympathetic. Parasympathetic. Rest and digest. Parasympathetic, rest and digest. Sympathetic, fight or flight. Okay. So we want to be more in the parasympathetic. Yes. Yeah. You want to be able to control. Yes. Be in that state. Yes. So that when we need to take on something scary, we lean into the sympathetic. But we're not staying in the sympathetic all day long. Right, right. And the best way to lean into parasympathetic when you start to feel that really bad anxiety come on is deep breathing. Yes. Deep breathing. Because that is the only thing in that list that I gave you that we have conscious control over.

1:06:57I can't make my heart rate go down. I can't bring blood into my digestive tract. But I can breathe deep and long. And people would be, if you haven't tried this before, just deep four-part breath where you breathe in for four counts, hold it for four counts, breathe out for four counts, hold it out for four counts, easiest way to bring some of that calm back in because you are actively stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. Dr. Absolutely. Dr. Yeah. But love can also stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system in the sense that it decreases your heart rate. But mainly, it's kind of a different animal.

1:07:42My most popular lecture of all the lectures that I've ever given in my entire 23-year career at NYU, it's called the Neurobiology of Love. It's like, ooh, I want to know. I want to know about the neurobiology of love. Is this online also? Yes, actually it is. You can go to the website. All my lectures for my brain and behavior class were videotaped. And so I get to tell the intriguing story in my Neurobiology of Love lecture about the prairie voles. Have you ever heard of it? Prairie voles? Voles. Prairie voles. I don't know what that is. Prairie voles are these little rodent-like animals that live in the Midwest.

1:08:25I think they live in Ohio. I'm from Ohio. Dr. I've probably seen them. Dr. You've probably seen them. But they're one of the few... Dr. Like a prairie dog or something? Dr. No, different from prairie dog. These are prairie voles. And prairie voles are one of the few mammals that form lifelong pair bonds. Dr. Really? Dr. And the way they form it is fascinating. So they live in large, multi-generational family units. And so all the prairie voles have a particular area, a territory. And a pair bond forms when an almost mature female prairie vole that isn't pair bonded yet is walking down the trail and she smells the urine of a male prairie vole not in her family unit.

1:09:08Well, that is like love potion number nine to her, that urine. And if that depositor of the urine is around, they mate for 40 hours straight. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. It's a lot of energy. Yeah, it's a lot of energy. You know, they have that small body high metabolism. Yeah, exactly. They need it. 40 hours is amazing. And what happens in that 40 hours? Well, in the female prairie voles, oxytocin, that hormone of love and connection, gets released like a tidal wave in their brain. And in the males, it's vasopressin that gets released as a tidal wave in their brain. And you can show in the lab, if you artificially mate them, that if you block oxytocin during this mating period, they will not form the pair bond in the females.

1:10:00And if you block vasopressin, you won't form the pair bond. So is it the case that, you know, what if I mate for 40 hours? Will I form a lifelong pair bond? It doesn't quite work that way. But it identified these key hormones that are those connecting bonds that we know something's happening, right, when we're forming that first connection that keeps us, that, you know, finds us a partner. Absolutely. And so that was the start of the real neurobiological study of love and connection. Because before that, it's like, oh, that's too mushy. We can't study that, right? But now they had a hormone. And they can look at the genes behind that hormone, they can delete the hormone, and they could image people when they were...one of my favorite studies was they imaged a group of people that had just fallen in love.

1:10:55They were in that honeymoon phase of falling in love, and they identified a set, a complex set of structures, of course. It wasn't just one that lit up when they were in love, but reward systems, dopamine systems were very highly activated in love. And interestingly, then what happens after you're together for five years? Does that disappear? Then what happens? Yeah, have you seen the research that shows you can sustain that for decades? It evolves. It evolves. And what happens is that those people that are still in love, that still have a strong relationship, the pattern of activation is different.

1:11:39It's not the same activation as in that honeymoon phase. Which is more what? The sexual attraction, chemistry, the chemicals of the attraction. It's, you know, in the modality that was measured, it was brain activation. So we were just looking, they were just looking at the networks that were activated. But what it comes to evolve into is that kind of activation that you see in parent and child. So that strong family connection, you not only see it in parent and child, but between long-term partners. And it makes sense. Our relationships evolve. I think it would be hard to sustain that honey wound feeling for years and years, 20, 30 years down the line.

1:12:34but it evolves into a different kind of social connection that has a different brain signature. And they've shown that that brain signature is similar across cultures, which is interesting. Is it only in the United States? Or they've done these studies in China, throughout Europe, and it's the same patterns that are quite unique in the early throes of love. and it evolves into something different later on if you stay together. Have you studied a lot of, I guess, the brain science around relationships and love and intimacy long term? You know, that area of research is still pretty new. Okay. And so I always keep an eye on it because I know it's my most popular lecture and I want to update the students.

1:13:25Is there anything you could share around what to look for in a relationship around the neuroscience of a partner? Like meeting a partner, is there certain questions you could ask to see if they have the right brain chemistry? I don't know. Is there anything else you think we could look for from research or studies or examples that you've seen around understanding like, is this a potential good partner? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have one warning from an experience that I had, which was I did an event with the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, the acting school, and we were talking about the neurobiology of emotion and the neurobiology of love, and we were doing it with the graduate acting class.

1:14:14And these are the students that are going to go on to be the Meryl Streeps of our time, and they said, okay, we're gonna do an exercise. Everybody come up. And for some reason I went up on stage to do it with them. So I got partnered up with one of the - An actor. One of the actors. The students, yeah. One of the student actors. And they basically took us through, you know those 36 questions that you ask a stranger to get - To see if you like fall in love or something? Where you like stare in their eyes and you ask the question? Yeah, but no words. They led us through exercises like that. And they led us through things like, now you have a choice.

1:14:51You can step closer to your partner or you can step away. I didn't know this guy. He's like, oh, my God, it became so critical. What is he going to do when it was his turn to make these choices? And I kind of fell in love with this person. Wow. What, like 10 minutes or something? Yeah, it was 10 minutes. And it made me realize that kind of the system can be hacked. Was this, you know, random student, the love of my life? No, I had enough, you know, prefrontal cortex to know that that wasn't going to happen. This 21-year-old is probably not right from me. Exactly, no. But it was such a powerful, powerful experience.

1:15:34And, you know, I had wondered about doing those 31 questions. Like, yeah, you know what? I'm not going to do that because I need to have those questions come up organically to test out other things because... You can almost trick the brain to feel chemically connected. Exactly. When there's no connection there. So that's my lesson. You can quickly have those or I quickly developed very powerful feelings. In minutes. Yes. With a stranger. With a stranger. But there could have been other red flags or values or something that maybe wasn't aligned to you long term, but our brains can create such connection, right?

1:16:19Or our bodies and emotion, everything combined. What happens when someone is sexually connected early on? Say within the first week you have sex with someone, what does that do to the same type of brain chemistry? Is it more powerful than these kind of 31 questions of intimacy and love? That would be an interesting experiment, right, to compare and contrast. But what does that do when you sexually bond with someone, whether you've known them for a day, a week, a month, how does that accelerate the feeling of love and like, we're supposed to be together? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's where we can turn back to the studies of the prairie voles.

1:16:56We know that, well, we don't have exactly the same brain chemistry or brain response. months, there is release of those love hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin, and that does give you that feeling of bonding. The more sex you have, the more kind of physical connection that you have. So I think our goal is to step back and think, do I need more physical connection or do I I need to get to know this person a little better, see what their values are, have more verbal conversations before I get myself bonded to this person. Because it's hard to unbond. It's hard to unbond. You feel more and more connected.

1:17:44And you might oversee certain behaviors or actions because you feel the connection. Exactly. Yeah. I think that's where a lot of problems relate. Not that we're relationship experts here. No, no, no. Definitely not here. But it's just curious to know the neuroscience and the psychology behind intimacy. Whether you're having a dyad in front of someone talking about vulnerable things or answering vulnerable questions, you created intimacy and connection quickly and also sexual connection that bonds people. That's interesting. So you've got to be careful what type of questions you ask someone. You've got to be careful.

1:18:23And it really heightens the importance of your prefrontal cortex, which is that decision-making brain area. You don't want it clouded. And two things we've talked about today can cloud the prefrontal cortex. High levels of anxiety, literally shut it down. We know the neurochemistry and the molecular biology of that. That absolutely happens. And so when you have too high of levels of anxiety, it depletes your decision-making process and you default to the automatic. Just whatever is most common I do in my body, that's what I do because I've lost my ability to evaluate. And similarly, that connection that could happen through sexual encounters can also block off your decision-making processes.

1:19:13I think that lots of people have, it's like, yeah, I think I wasn't making the best decisions there sometimes, right? We've all done that. Dr. Yeah. So, yeah. So, preserve your prefrontal cortex. Dr. Yes. Use that part of your brain. And that is the antidote to my warning there. I think that is a powerful tool in relationships. Dr. And another superpower is about opening the door to flow. What does that mean, enhancing your performance and open the door to flow? Dr. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about flow because one of the things that anxiety does beautifully well is it shuts flow down. So flow...

1:19:54Dr. You can't get into flow when you're stressed. Dr. No, exactly. Dr. You got to be fully in the moment and feel freedom essentially, right? You've got to feel free. Dr. Yes, exactly. And so first of all, I was depressed because I read the definition of flow and it's, you You have to be this world leader and then you have to be at the height. It's like, what? I can never have flow in my life. And then I get stressed about that and then it goes even further, which is why in the book I coined another term, which is micro flow. Look, I may not have the flow that Yo-Yo Ma or Serena Williams gets in that beautiful moment right before they're going to win the prize.

1:20:39However, I can tell you that I do enjoy flow in my life. Going back to my joy conditioning, I have micro flow when I'm in Shavasana at the end of a yoga class. I felt really sweaty. All that sweat is drying. I feel so good. That is flow. For one minute. For one minute. It is flow. And we're talking about building up those positive events in your life. And just the realization that we have many moments of microflow that might flip by. We didn't even recognize them. Recognize them. That is like, oh, I love microflow of having a wonderful cup of tea right before I need it or at the end of the day.

1:21:24It is that appreciation. It is the savoring. Learning how to savor is a wonderful antidote to anxiety. So many moments in the last three months, I just stop and I say, man, what a beautiful moment. What a beautiful moment. I'm just being more aware of my surroundings and the people I'm with and just little moments. I'm just like, what a beautiful moment. When I savor these multiple times throughout the day, I just feel better. And I think that's important you're saying that because a lot of times we're just on to the next, on the next, on the next. We're not thinking about this moment. But let me look in the sky and just be like, oh, you ever imagine like we are in the middle of a, we're dust of sand floating around in an infinite universe.

1:22:15This is unbelievable. You know, just the awe of what this is is amazing. It is. Yeah, that's a moment of micro flow. Right. Just that appreciation. And I found myself, I'm not a good picture taker, but it messes up my micro flow if I try and take a picture of it. I just went, I'm staying with friends, and we took the little girl to her very first day of kindergarten. No, first grade, sorry, first grade today. And it was so sweet to see her. She found a little friend, and so she went skipping down holding the hand of her little friend, and I almost cried. And then I was too late to take a picture, But I got that moment of, that is such a beautiful thing to witness.

1:23:07She's excited to go to her first day of first grade. She's never going to have this day again, never this moment again. That's cool. That's really cool. The micro flow. I love that. The next thing is nurture an activist mindset. What does that mean? Yeah. So this is really about the power of mindset. And we've been talking about it all along. Is this an experience that's going to batter me down because anxiety is out to get me? Or is it a challenge that I can do an experiment, as you were talking about, to see whether I can do it? And it really doesn't matter if I fail, I win or lose. I learn so much from the failure.

1:23:47Okay, I'm not going to do that again. And I do it the next time. And that shift of mindset, I just have to remind myself, and there's so many things that can put you into that bad anxiety. If I'm hungry, if I'm hangry, you know, all those things, it's harder to pull myself out. But reminding myself of what a positive mindset can do, it not only shifts your brain networks, it shifts your whole physiology. It decreases cortisol. The beautiful experiments that the psychologist Aliyah Crum at Stanford has done has shown that all you have to do is tell hotel workers that their level of physical activity and changing the bedsheets, the surgeon general said, is actually above average.

1:24:36You are getting a good workout. When they said, no, I don't work out at all. I don't have time. I'm too busy. I'm too tired. That changed their mindset. It made them lose more weight than the controls that were not told that they were working out. And it increased their job satisfaction. And so that one belief, what is that belief, that idea that will change your day? That is a wonderful thing to ask yourself every day that you go in to a difficult situation or just your regular situation. That is beautiful. And what about, we talked about love and helping you, I guess, eliminate some of the stress and anxiety.

1:25:20What about purpose and having a meaningful purpose in your life? How does that, if you know that you're on a mission to, for a purpose, whether it be three months, a year, or you're, you know, decades, you're on the same mission. Yeah. How does that help decrease anxiety and stress? Yeah. For me, I feel like when you think about your purpose, it's like this tunnel vision. All of these things, all of those obstacles go away. And I feel personally, I was meant to do that. I know I'm going towards that. So let's just see how I get there. And, you know, you can throw anything at me. I got through my brother's eulogy.

1:26:09So I got through that. I can get through anything. And that is a wonderful reminder. And finding your purpose and really sticking to it and being playful with your purpose. So despite the fact that I was always a very shy young girl, I always had this secret desire that I knew would never happen of being a Broadway star. So I wanted to be Julie Andrews. I wanted to be Shirley Jones. I watched all the Hollywood musicals. I dream of myself on stage doing that big number. And it turns out that that secret feeling that I harbored all through my shyness comes out when I teach in front of the classroom.

1:26:59Oh, that's cool. Which, by the way, is on Broadway. So in fact, I am probably on Broadway. That's great. Yeah. It is. And I am a secret performer, and I've used that. And I feel like that is part of my purpose. Like I ended up doing neuroscience, and I have all that science, and I can explain science to people so that they understand it. But I also have this kind of performer's secret desire to break out into song, And it absolutely comes when I get in front of large audiences. And the bigger the audience, the bigger the secret diva comes out. Really? You're like this ultimate performer. Yeah.

1:27:47Something weird happens. And I've discovered it since I did the first book and did more talks and bigger talks. It's like, wow. And that is part of the purpose. It is part of the skill set that I know that I have. that is bringing me towards that purpose. It is that ability, my way of communicating. And part of it is a science, and part of it is that secret Broadway. The art, the performance. The art, the performance, and that love of the talent. I always had this huge appreciation of the talent that it takes to act and sing and dance. Such a talent. Such a talent. So hard. I wish, I wish, if I could only sing, I would have, you know, gone out for the Broadway plays.

1:28:35But sadly, I can't sing. But you had to heal people's hearts and brains instead. Exactly. You had to help people heal. So, yeah. What about alter ego? Alter ego? Have you studied alter egos and how they support overcoming anxiety, stress, and worry, especially being in a performance setting or speaking at a eulogy or speaking on stage or performing at a big event or performing in athletics or speaking in front of a class. Have you done any research on alter ego and developing it for the brain? No, I haven't. But I think that would be a fascinating study. Somebody asked me once, how do you give your talks?

1:29:16What is your process? And for me, it goes back to my science training. Science, it turns out, is all about the story. What is that story that you're going to tell in this science experiment that you did? And I had a very great speaker and a great scientist that was my early mentor that encouraged me to think about that story. What is the story you're going to tell the audience? Because they don't want to hear all those boring details. They want to hear what the origin is, how you got through it, what is that hero's journey, and then what is your conclusion? And so I got hooked on telling the best science story.

1:29:58And then it takes a while to get the next story because you have to do all these experiments and it's really, really hard. But I got really excited about building that next, what is that story going to be and how am I going to tell it? And that has informed, it turns out that that's what storytellers do and that's what actors do to get through their thing. So I came at it in a very different way. But I was always about trying to get people that like, I know you may not be interested in this part of science, but let me try and pull you in and tell you why this is so cool. Because I really have something cool to tell you.

1:30:37That's based on science. So alter egos. Is that an alter ego? That is my strategy. and I guess it's kind of my secret energizer bunny that maybe it comes from my people pleasing natural disposition. It's like, I want you to be as fascinated as I am with this. Let me show you how fascinating, because it is so fascinating. Just give me a second, let me explain it to you. And that's how I always approached my teaching. And that's what evolved into my speaking that I do now. Yeah, I think that's cool. I think there's a, you know, I love studying athletes who have an alter ego. Beyonce has an alter ego.

1:31:22I think it's Sasha Fierce. When she steps on stage, she becomes this persona which allows her to kind of overcome maybe the stress or fear. Maybe she doesn't have that anymore, but when she was kind of rising in fame, that'd be an interesting study to do alter egos and see how that supports people in overcoming anxiety. if they believed they were another person, or if they believed they stepped into something that they had that helped them overcome that anxiety. Yeah. I'm curious. And how it evolves over time, because she does not have the same fear that she had that I'm sure drove her to create that and to have that energy.

1:32:04She's Beyonce now. Right, exactly. So what do you do? She needs a new alter ego. Yeah. You just become Beyonce. You're driving Beyonce. That's interesting. There's so many other questions I want to ask you, but this has been an amazing couple of hours here. And I want to ask you the final few questions. But before I do, I want to make sure people get the book. You can go pick it up. It's called Good Anxiety, Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion. Make sure you guys pick up a couple copies and give them to your friends. I see you've got my friend Daniel Amen on here as well, who we've had on here.

1:32:38Yes, I saw it. We've got some billiards on here as well. So lots of great people have endorsed this book. Make sure you guys pick up a couple copies. I feel like this is one of the biggest challenges today is anxiety, people dealing with stress, anxiety around many things. The uncertainty of the future, their own identity in life, why we're here, relationships, money, career. Just so much anxiety that people are consumed by. It's one of the things that I appreciated about how I was raised my father wouldn't allow me to watch the news or commercials because he didn't want me to be consumed by Negative programming of okay, you're gonna get sick.

1:33:20You're gonna be unwell So you didn't need this drug you didn't need this thing and I need the solution like always selling something that I don't need so smart and He would mute the commercials or turn them off and he wouldn't let us watch the news because it was always based around fear and conditioning that there's more and more and more anxiety and fear in the world that I need to be consuming. And I am a happier, healthier person when I don't consume storytelling of the worst of moments that are happening in life like it's happening everywhere. It might be happening somewhere, but it doesn't mean it's happening next door to me or when I walk across the street.

1:33:58and so learning to find these moments of joy, learning to find these moments of beauty like you talked about and being in the moment, learning to create the social fabric of great connections with friends and staying in a positive environment for me has been really helpful. And you've got 40 other strategies for making anxiety work for you in this book. So make sure you guys pick up a few copies of this, give them to friends by Dr. Wendy Suzuki. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths question. So a hypothetical scenario. Imagine it's your very last day on earth many years away from now.

1:34:35You get to live as long as you want, but eventually it's the last day. You've accomplished all of your dreams. You've done all the research, the science. You've had all the fun, the joy. Everything you wanted to do, you've done it. But for whatever reason, your work that you've created in the world is no longer in the world. It goes with you to the next place or it goes somewhere else. But we don't have access to your information anymore. Your speeches, your videos, this content is gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things that you know to be true from all of your experiences.

1:35:07And this is all we would have to remember you by. These three lessons or three truths. What would you say would be those three truths for you? For me, it would be that we were evolved to move our bodies. And so learn how to bring movement into your life in a regular basis so that it's not hard, it's automatic, and your life will benefit from that. Number two is that your brain is the most complex structure. It is so unique. It is the most amazing thing in the universe. And so use its powers to make your life better. Use that mindset to make your life and the world a better place. And the third is that social interactions and love is the most important thing to make our lives both longer and happier.

1:36:11So use that statistic for yourself. Oh, yeah, so true. I mean, I was interviewing a doctor who he had mentioned that there were a couple moments in his life where he was going through a depressed state. It was a couple of years of depression or some sickness and some poor health that was happening in his life, different decades apart. And I said, how did you get out of that? Yeah. And he said, love. He said, I met someone and it created this journey for me of feeling better, of healing myself. And love was the anchor that supported the healing, the growth, the peace of mind. And he's like, both times it was love that helped him heal.

1:36:57So I think that's fascinating. It's the love we have with our friendships and our family, the intimate love we have. And those connections I think are extremely valuable. I want to acknowledge you, Wendy, for the commitment. I mean, you've had to this for, what, three decades now? You've been doing this work and putting your life's mission into creating practical, inspiring tools for us to improve the quality of our life. I think it's so valuable that there are people like you in the world who make this your mission because it can seem daunting to overcome anxiety and stress and worry. It can seem like there's no way out for a lot of people.

1:37:36the statistics of people going through deep depression and suicides and just hurting themselves. Addictions are rising. And so for you to make this your mission and to be able to teach it in a way that we can understand it is very inspiring. So I really acknowledge you for your work, for your efforts, and for the growth that you've had to experience in the last few years to put these things into practice, unfortunately. but I think it makes you an even better teacher of these things and more empathetic to the world. So I really acknowledge you for that. And where can we connect with you online?

1:38:10Where do you spend the most time? I guess social media, your website, where can we go? Yeah, my website, www.wandysuzuki.com. You can go there to participate in the great good anxiety social experiment. So you can go and do test your own anxiety and test the effects of different tools, including the ones in the toolbox, on your anxiety. So you can take a quiz essentially to see how anxious you are. Dr. A stress and anxiety experiment, a survey before and after, different interventions that we're testing and you get back the immediate effects of... The tools on how to implement. Dr. Yes. Oh, that's cool.

1:38:52So you can see kind of where in your life you're the most anxious and then which tool to implement for that right now. Yes. I like it. And that's at your website, right? Yes. Okay. Exactly. And what social media are you on the most? I'm on Facebook and Instagram. Okay. Facebook and Instagram. Wendy.suzuki on Instagram. And then Wendy Suzuki, you'll find you as well there on Facebook. Anything else we can do to support you besides the book, the quiz, social media, anything else we can go to? Dr. Gosh, that is... Dr. You can see your videos online. Dr. Yeah, videos online. I'm so excited because that story that I told you about saying I love you to my parents was a moth talk.

1:39:36Dr. Oh, that's cool. Dr. Yeah, so that was such a joy to be able to share with people, but I'm doing another one on good anxiety and it will be out in December. Dr. Okay, cool. So stay tuned for the origin story of good anxiety. Love it. I'm excited. Okay, cool. This is the final question. It's what's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is using your unique brain to its full potential, whatever that means. That is great. And great is so many different things in so many different people. And everybody has a beautiful and different brain. So that's my definition. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

1:40:24Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts, and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you, and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

1:41:08And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.