Talking About Happiness

What is happiness and how do we find it?

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-happiness-4869755

Athletic Greens

https://athleticgreens.com/partner/d35ctoffer-nutrition/en?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=emerging_d35ct__a3878__o27&utm_term=cac__a3878__o27&utm_content=sport__a3878__o27

 

Transcript:

you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:21 welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here with mr brett newcomb good morning 0:27 how are you i am so happy it hurts i was just going to ask you 0:32 what kind of things make you happy hmm time to travel do you have a good books 0:38 to read friends to be with a little bit of alcohol to drink 0:44 humor and loving people do you like loving people 0:53 i think so okay but i don't like a lot of people 0:59 i don't like like hypocritical loving people like some of the religious people i know are pretty damn smart yeah yeah 1:04 you know they love everybody right but uh well i don't like them and and 1:10 i would agree you don't like a lot of people yeah and so the people that you're not that into it 1:19 really wouldn't matter if they were loving right because you it wouldn't be like oh if somebody was 1:24 so you're attempting to go a whole lot deeper than i was planning but yeah you know one of my conceits 1:31 has always been that i can be acceptable in almost any group of people right 1:36 which requires some skill levels 1:42 of engagement of attending of conversation of reading the signs 1:49 warning signals but above and beyond and aside from all of that i i generally like people 1:57 although individuals i make specific judgments about yeah 2:02 uh global category i've always uh 2:08 tried to cultivate and even curate my own chromogen 2:14 personality just because you try to imitate me well maybe i don't know my my family 2:20 says i've been that way for as long as they've known me oh okay but uh so i've always said oh i don't like 2:27 people and my wife has always said oh that's ironic given what you do for a living and i've always said you don't 2:33 have to like people to do therapy would you agree with that no no i think you have to you think you have to i think 2:39 you have to have an investment and i think if you don't invest but what uh what i really think is if you spend time 2:45 getting to know somebody then you will find things exactly so there may be an initial 2:51 reserve right or resistance but if i invest in paying attention to someone 2:57 and learning about their hurts and their losses and their goals and their desires 3:04 and their character i find the human condition to be incredibly strong and incredibly attractive 3:11 and i find something then to care about everybody that i'm working with 3:16 or i don't work with well right right everybody every year they don't work with me everybody that you're working with so so this is what i would say is 3:22 that you know mother teresa probably walked down the street and saw 3:28 everybody and thought oh that's a wonderful person and 3:33 i would love to get i don't think anybody can do that okay i don't i think 3:39 and and so i as a rule wouldn't do that walking down the street but when i do 3:45 therapy you're absolutely right i deeply genuinely care for everybody that i've ever worked with 3:51 so i am very human and i find the human condition to be 3:57 judgmental and i look at people and i make judgments and i don't like that about 4:02 myself and i fight it hard but my unconscious voice is looking at 4:08 somebody i don't even know somebody at the grocery store or somebody driving down the highway somebody walking on the street and i'm like why are they dressed 4:16 like that oh my god they're so fat whatever whatever triggers me 4:22 and i really fight myself comes from your shadow i understand that yeah but i'm saying i 4:28 think it's part of the human communication so one of the things as a clinician that you must learn to do in order to be good 4:35 at what you do is you need to learn to corral that and park it somewhere oh yeah and it's a 4:40 deliberate conscious choice and skill so when i'm not on duty when i'm on 4:46 autopilot i hear that voice in my head that i'm disrespectful of i don't trust it i don't like it 4:51 judgmental uh and like well who are you to say that about those who you don't know you know 4:57 you haven't walked in their shoes you don't know what's going on in their lives you don't know what they're dealing with but that part of me that human condition 5:03 part of me that i don't like uh says you got to work better on being perfectable here you got to work better 5:09 on being the person you want to be instead of the person that you are right and i can honestly say i don't know 5:16 uh that i've ever experienced that really doing therapy i 5:22 mean i experienced it on the on the street all the time yeah yeah yeah i think i've been with you absolutely but but i heard that 5:29 yeah i know that that that we've talked about and we talked about in school 5:35 that you have to learn how to be able to like people even people that you might not like on the street but when i've 5:41 done when you say that that sounds artificial to me michael you have to learn how to like somebody i think what 5:47 you learn is a level of openness a level of receptivity how to position yourself 5:54 it's just like uh to do meditation you have to learn how to get yourself to a centered spot and you say you don't 6:01 have to learn you just have to open yourself to that that's so you're saying that that's a different that we all immediately already know the best 6:08 myself in listening to you with neutrality and accuracy and empathy 6:15 i will discover things about you that i like and admire exactly no i think we're 6:20 we're both on the same page absolutely and and and and that's why i just phrased it differently that's what yeah that's what i'm saying i don't think 6:26 i've ever had that experience doing therapy where i was judgmental for exactly the reasons that you just 6:33 defined because if you listen to somebody openly genuinely non-judgmentally then you're not going 6:40 to do those things that we do when we're on the street 6:46 i remember having a client that was a convicted pedophile he was referred to me by his work 6:52 he had to come he didn't have the option he was very 6:58 unhappy about that and he came in first couple sessions we were gandy dancing around how are we 7:04 going to do therapy what's this going to be like and i said to him at the very beginning 7:10 you have to understand that i have no tolerance no acceptance for your desires 7:17 i will work to be able to hear you and discuss with you whatever about what 7:25 we need to do to help you understand and control your behaviors but if i ever am made aware that some 7:32 child is at risk because of you i will report you in a heartbeat and he said oh i don't think i like that 7:39 and i said i don't think i care it's only going to work my way and so i will 7:45 invest in spending time with you and trying to find out what makes you tick and how to protect you so that we can 7:50 protect children but i'm not ever going to even pretend to be 7:56 okay with what you want or what you have done and if i find out that you're still doing it i'll put you in jail 8:04 so he came to see me for about six months and and he tested it and i mean you have to draw very very firm 8:10 boundaries if i come to know this i will report it 8:16 so he came in one day and told me about a situation and he said that oh this came up and 8:22 my wife called dfs and they came out and they did a report and there's nothing to it and so you don't need to worry about 8:29 it i said i need to see the report from dfs and he said i'm not going to show it to 8:34 you i said okay i'll call him so i called him and he said he called me names he gushed me out i said we're not going any 8:40 further with this you can't come back unless i know that child is safe and has 8:46 been determined by others to be safe and if you can't come back can't go to work it's up to you we'll either do this 8:53 now all right and he's still hot so i called dfs and said i need i need to report 9:00 and when was him sitting there when you were working with him yeah did you like him 9:06 i found things about him to be uh 9:13 sympathetic uh he'd had some real trauma in his life he was a human being he was suffering 9:20 uh he was a smart man he was a manipulative dishonest man uh i i found him to be 9:27 fascinating in a way but almost like uh uh snake hypnotizes a bird 9:34 and there was a constant level of um did you feel like he was a puzzle 9:39 yeah yeah yeah yeah and i can totally see that and and you could like that you could like 9:46 he could be engaged yeah yeah well most pedophiles can be engaging i mean 9:51 that's why they're successful yeah so okay then let's switch gears if 9:57 somebody comes to therapy and says i want to 10:03 learn how to be happier is that a 10:09 realistic goal of therapy and 10:14 a larger metaphysical question people say that the the goal of life is to be happy is that 10:21 true i don't know yeah life just is 10:26 it comes with waves there are storms and there's sunshine they're good people in your life and bad 10:32 people i i don't have a single global answer and the terminology 10:38 is is difficult to uh deal with it's difficult to parse when 10:44 when somebody says teach me how to be happy i don't even begin to know what that means 10:49 and so my first question back would be like explain to me how it is that you're not happy you know what are you aware what 10:55 do you feel what's going on in your life that you define it as an unhappy life and then 11:01 take those one at a time how can we address that if you are unhappy with uh 11:06 the people in your life are we open to talking about how to change the people in your life 11:12 where do you find other people or new people and how are the people in your life impacting you 11:18 and what choices do you have what power do you have to make a different choice and what would that cost you you know 11:23 for instance if you decide my family's really sick and dysfunctional and they're contaminating my life and making 11:30 me miserable are you prepared to walk away from them right do you have what that takes do you understand what that might mean right 11:37 or are you open to trying to see them differently same people but understand them with more compassion 11:44 for instance when when people come down with alzheimer's and they begin to 11:50 deteriorate one of the things that regularly happens at a certain point of that deterioration 11:56 is they become angry and hateful and when that happens if you have if 12:02 we've talked about okay your grandmother's gonna be like this and you see it coming 12:07 can you position yourself to a perspective that can tolerate that or encompass it 12:13 with your greater caring for how is she surviving physically is she she getting baths is she getting food 12:22 their heat in her house uh that she need to go to the doctor even though she's going to be hateful to you and say 12:27 hateful hurtful things to you can you not take that personally at your core identity 12:33 and we can discuss that and we can plan for that and we can picture that and maybe give them some tools for surviving 12:41 it right without destroying that relationship with her memory and so for me that's i i think that what 12:48 you're talking about is really one of the the points that 12:54 are on the horns of the bull that i struggle with which is if you have life circumstances that are 13:01 such that you don't have any good choices then how do you even talk about being 13:08 happy but then i struggle with it because then i'm like okay should the goal be 13:13 to say okay given the life choices that you have select 13:18 one and then we can talk about how to be happiest 13:24 within that life choice and i really struggle with that is that what does that 13:30 what does that mean i think ultimately it comes down to the individual right what does the individual want and how do 13:35 they want to live within the choices i think it comes down to 13:40 patterns and framing uh i know when you're working with people that are chronically 13:46 clinically depressed and they feel trapped and they just sit 13:51 in a chair and stare at the wall or they cry all the time and they they don't they can't do anything i mean 13:57 i talked to a couple people i can't even get out of bed or let him take a shower and brush my teeth 14:02 they feel powerless so one of the ways to attack that is to 14:08 give them some things that they can see concretely that they have power to do 14:15 and so you you start with simple five-step things three-step things 14:20 five's too many start with once for instance oh yeah brush your teeth right every day i yeah 14:27 and write it down i brush my teeth today make a checklist make a chart x all you have to do is make an excellent piece of paper 14:34 but if you can do that then we can say here is 14:40 concrete information that says you can do something that you choose to do 14:47 and so then can we build on that is that a foundation we can build on so tomorrow can we do two things right 14:53 and i've had clients and and people may not believe this but 14:59 i can guarantee you this has happened more than a couple of times where i've done exactly that and they will come 15:06 back weeks later and say i feel horrible about myself 15:11 given myself credit for brushing my teeth that's so ridiculous that i have to give myself credit for brushing my 15:17 teeth and i would say to them but did you brush your teeth and they'd be like yeah and i said did it make you feel better and they're like yeah but it 15:23 makes me mad that something so benign 15:28 as brushing my teeth is something that i have to give myself credit for and i'm like but you're just 15:34 this is a process you're working the process if you work the process it will 15:40 get better but if you tell yourself i can't work the process or i'm a bad 15:46 person because i have to work the process you're just digging the hole deeper there's no value in that but it's 15:52 really hard for people to be able to accept something like what we're talking about just brush your teeth and give 16:00 yourself credit for it it is hard for them to do that and they're using 16:05 every skill that they have to fight getting better to stay sick 16:11 it's a flight called a flight into sickness so you have to learn how to point that 16:16 out you know you have some strength the strength of your resistance to getting better right is strength 16:23 we have the strength it's like gas in a can you can put it in the car you can put it in the lawnmower 16:28 you have it you where you're putting it in the wrong machine you're putting it in service of the wrong action so let's do something 16:36 different and what i tell people is the part of you that wants to stay sick is a real part 16:42 of you and it has a life the same as the part of you that wants to get better and the 16:48 part of you that wants to stay sick doesn't want to get snuffed out and so it's going to fight back 16:55 and you have to be able to gird yourself against that so if you have been able to develop a relationship with them 17:02 then that's part of the dance of that relationship and you're able to say i see honestly 17:08 see real strength in you that you possess control over 17:14 i see that it's misdirected i'm challenging that's good you're redirected even marginally even if 17:20 something is because you never start at the core you never make progress where you need to 17:26 make it uh if you uh if you're agoraphobic and you can't go 17:33 out of the house you're trapped and i can get you to go on the front porch and drink a soda and stay out of the 17:40 front porch for 10 minutes set an alarm clock stay on the porch for 10 minutes and then this week all we do is get you 17:47 on the front porch for 10 minutes next week we get you to go out to the mailbox and check the mail and come back 17:53 we make incremental change that i keep track of because i want to point it out to you look 18:00 your internal monologue is saying you're trapped and can't do anything that life sucks and you're screwed 18:07 but my record keeping says you chose to do this you chose to do this 18:13 and you chose to do this yeah so could you choose right somebody's got to keep 18:18 a record of it that's really important yes and if this client won't then the therapist needs to and the client won't 18:24 other than mentally now obviously we would like to get the client to the point where they're able to do that so 18:31 that's one of the down the road steps right i've been tracking this for you and asking you about it every week same thing you do with a suicide contract you 18:38 make a suicide contract well i'm just going to go kill myself he said well i need you to promise me that you won't do that this week or do anything about 18:44 doing it this week uh until or till you come back whenever your next appointment is ten days out 18:51 um and then when they come back you gotta ask them did you keep the contract right i mean obviously they're sitting 18:57 in the room so they did but then you ask them to extend it yeah okay so now we're gonna do this to the next week because 19:03 if you don't ask them they internalize well you've given me permission you don't care that matter you know i'm gonna do this so then they go home and 19:09 do something it's it's a very complex dance and that's what the clinician has to learn 19:16 the skill to dance but they can't be they can't take the power they can't 19:22 issue commands they have to encourage and persuade and give accurate empathic reflection i have 19:30 to reflect back to you i hear you i see this in you but i i see it differently 19:36 you may wear color black i see pastels let me tell you that's a pastel shirt 19:43 you're wearing now you need to trust me or not but you can't see that color i can see 19:48 it so so let's take a break and when we come back we're going to talk specifically 19:54 about some of the things that we would do we know that work yeah yeah you know if you've gotten this far into 20:00 the show then obviously you find the show to be worthwhile 20:05 beneficial maybe even helpful and so i just wanted to say if you've gotten this far into the show 20:12 and you want to help us out even if you don't want to help us out just do it anyway go to 20:17 apple podcasts and rate us and leave a review that is super helpful subscribe 20:24 to the show on youtube and hit the bell icon so that you get notifications when 20:29 new shows drop that stuff is really really helpful for us and i know that mr 20:34 brett agrees absolutely reviews are positive uh positive reviews are more positive than 20:40 the negative ones are as well because it helps you decide what how to focus and how to how 20:47 whatever you're attending to say is being heard and the secret is the algorithm doesn't care whether the 20:52 review is positive or negative as our friend mike norton says regularly feedback is a gift 20:58 if it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and and and so first i 21:04 just have to do a tangential thing so that the duck 21:09 came back and i have the window of the psych with mike 21:14 library open and i actually didn't know if that was a duck outside or if that was a duck 21:20 yeah so i was like where's that duck uh but i think that at this point so up to this 21:28 point we've been talking about trying to break people out of their 21:34 malaise if they're really really stuck in a rut but if somebody is 21:40 has an idea about wanting to try and be happier however it is that 21:48 they define that so the first thing that i would want to do would be to define what does that mean i mean if 21:54 you're telling me you want to be happier is there a way to uh you know 21:59 observation define your terms yeah to to to measure that because otherwise 22:04 how do you know if you're gonna if you're making progress so that's the first thing but then if somebody says okay yes i want to be 22:11 happier and i want to engage in behaviors that are going to make me healthier and happier what are some of 22:17 the things that we would do to try and help them along that road 22:24 well it sounds a little sanctimonious sometimes but doing something for somebody else 22:31 is the thing that makes you feel better so if you see someone that needs help if 22:37 it's like i was at lowe's the other day with my wife we were browsing for something and 22:42 went out to the car and the guy that parked next to me had bought this big lawnmower it was on one of those big 22:48 flat beds and he and his wife were trying to put in 22:53 the back of the car and i walked up and said would you like some help with that and his wife said oh thank god because i don't think i could 22:59 lift this end and he didn't say anything yeah he was like you're a strange man you come out of my car what are you doing i 23:06 just said would you like some help because to me that's what people do as if they have an opportunity and they 23:12 see something that needs to be done or see somebody needs some help you offer to help 23:18 offer to help you know what a lady lives next door off to go to the grocery store for her offer to bring her groceries in 23:24 when she goes to the grocery store do something for someone else 23:29 and that will make you feel better about yourself and there's even biology 23:35 about that so that's pro-social behavior yeah and that's what we call it in psychology and we know that engaging in 23:43 pro-social behavior raises the levels of oxytocin in your body and in the body of 23:49 the person that you do a kindness for and so oxytocin is a positive hormone 23:56 that makes you feel less stressed and it it it makes the it reduces the levels of 24:02 cortisol the stress-related hormone in your body and so we know biologically 24:08 that that actually works not just for you but for the person that you do the kindness for as well so there's an 24:15 article in this month's atlantic magazine about 10 concrete are specific steps 24:21 that you can do to improve your general level of happiness that 24:27 frame you to be in a happier place and the first thing on the article is the one that we're talking about invest 24:32 in family and friends and by that investment what we're saying is do something for someone else 24:39 but there's there are nine more and before we run out of time let's run through what they are these are 24:45 suggestions that this particular psychologist has done some research on and is saying 24:51 these are the concrete things that i would recommend that you try and so part of the dance that he does with his 24:56 clients is try to encourage them facilitate them empower them to try some of these things 25:03 so the second one is join a club join some kind of club it doesn't matter what it is but it's a group of people 25:11 with similar interests at that moment in time who come together to do something it could be a 25:17 remote aircraft uh a radio-controlled aircraft club and you 25:22 can go and watch you can go and buy your own plane you can go and fly the plane my dad other people fly remotely but you 25:29 find a community of kindred spirits or common interests 25:34 i have a friend that belongs to a scotch tasting club and they they dress up in kilts and 25:41 they're like scotsman and they bring out all these different brands of scotch and they sit and debate 25:47 which of these breweries are better which product is is more likable why is it the pahini flavor is it from the isle 25:54 of you know they get into all that stuff and then i have other friends that belong to a bridge club they go and they 26:00 play they build bridges they play duplicate bridge charles goran type four no trump bridge card game 26:08 uh i've not you just said a bunch of words oh i know you don't know but it's a club a chess club 26:16 a club at church uh i have another friend whose husband committed suicide and she's going to a 26:22 club it's a suicide support group for families of people who have family 26:28 members that kill themselves and she says it's very helpful very beneficial 26:34 to go and she feels less alone less 26:39 misunderstood not understood so join a club is a second 26:44 suggestion any kind of club make yourself go i mean so he goes through all 10 of these 26:50 things then he kind of summarizes the main point i'll run through some more of these things but i want to make sure we summarize the main point yeah the main 26:56 point is that you have to have intentionality and a pattern 27:02 so if you select two or three of these things to try it can't be hit or miss it can't be once and it doesn't work and so 27:08 i'm not going to do it again you have to invest in the progress and so it becomes a patterning exercise 27:16 and really psychotherapy for the most part every single issue 27:23 that we talk about is at its core is really about consistency yeah consistency is always 27:29 the key if i offer you and some kind of behavioral change 27:36 that i can tell you will work for whatever your issue is that's true as long as you apply it 27:43 consistently but if you only do it one time then you feel better you have 27:49 catharsis but you don't get better you don't have cathexis or you don't feel better because you tried 27:56 it and it didn't work yeah which sometimes is an agenda i was going to say that can be a self conclusion in 28:02 services yeah so let's go through these other ones mental and physical activity 28:08 you have to be active you have to do something read a book do your times tables memorize the 28:14 presidents in order and recite them do something physically walk around the block take a shower do 10 push-ups i 28:22 mean we can find a specific example for someone to attempt based on their physical capacity if you can't start if 28:29 you haven't done anything physically you can't run 10 miles you have to build up you have to do five setups today 28:36 10 setups day after tomorrow 15 setups three days from now 28:42 you have to build you have to do it every day that's right and you in a month out you're like hey you know what 28:47 i can go up that flight of stairs and i'm not winded uh but it doesn't just happen so mental 28:53 and physical activity is required if you just sit on the couch and watch tv 28:59 in a receptive posture you're not getting better your life is not going right 29:04 practice a religious perspective a religious belief or religious program and that's not to say 29:11 any given church or religion but the 29:16 contemplation of uh something larger and 29:22 ethically more meaningful that you can internalize as a check against your own 29:30 meaningless and impracticality so not advocacy for proselytizing for a 29:36 specific religious interpretation but some sort of 29:41 religious perspective and i just mean i just made a note 29:47 for us to do a show on the difference between religion and spirituality so what i would talk about what you're 29:52 talking about is spirituality right so religion is following a dogmatic path that's already written down spirituality 29:59 is exploring what makes you feel connected to the universe and answers the existential question of why am i 30:06 here or attempts to yeah yeah and and so uh being spiritual is essential to the 30:13 human condition being religious is something that you can do those two things can go hand in hand but they 30:20 don't have to all right yeah physical exercise is the fifth one which to me is a redundancy from the first one 30:27 uh act nicely act nicely you know what that take it till you make it right yeah i was just 30:33 going to say but that's one of the ones where consistency is key if you act nicely one time you might feel better 30:39 because you get a shot of oxytocin if you act nicely act nicely consistently 30:46 eventually that becomes who you are yeah be generous 30:54 it feels good to give people things it feels good to do things for people that you see that they need 31:00 there are many cultures that have histories of say of if someone admires something you have i really like that 31:06 give it to them uh arguments can be made and especially in materialistic societies that that we 31:13 have to accumulate more we have to have more than one that dies with the most toys and obviously having a bunch of stuff 31:19 makes you feel better because you it's a hedge against uncertainty it's a hedge against nature 31:24 i got more stuff than you got so i must be better god or the gods must favor me more that's 31:31 give stuff away my hope for somebody yes my whole premise of why 31:36 christmas gifts are associated with christmas time is because it's actually about the 31:44 giving it's not about the receiving and i think that we have that perverted in our capitalistic society but yeah i i 31:52 think that gifts should always be given without any 31:58 perception of reciprocity well they're not gifts if there's a perception exactly briberies right yeah and i but i 32:04 think there are a lot of people that go around bribing yeah yeah the loved ones in their lives if i do this for you 32:10 you'll like me better yeah check your health 32:15 be aware of your system and how it works it sends you messages it tells you where 32:23 we got to deal with something here you got to listen to it you have to stop and smell the roses right to stop and 32:28 pay attention i had a pain it's caused by something it's a message about something uh inflammation in your 32:36 body is something that is hard to be aware i mean if you have a swollen elbow 32:42 you know that's swollen but you don't know if you have inflammation in your internal system right go to the doctor 32:49 have lab tests done and that's a that's an evolving thing you and i are both at the age where we may not be able to do 32:56 the things that we could do when we were trying to get so mad about that yeah and and if we if you live in your 50s 60s 33:03 and 70s being angry that you can't do the things that you could do when you were 25 then 33:09 you're not going to be a very happy person my wife and i were hiking with some friends in the alps in france 33:15 and show off i was struggling to get to the top of the mountain well but you were in france 33:22 hiking the alps the kids that we were with were running up the damn mountain and i'm huffing and puffing and 33:27 struggling and i was getting really angry because i used to be able to outrun those kids 33:33 and now i'm creaking along at the end of the line and i'm struggling to make it and i pushed myself to get to the top 33:40 and then when i got to the top my blood pressure was up my heart was beating and it was shallow breathing and 33:46 phyllis was like you're gonna have a heart attack yeah and and we're gonna have to leave you here because we can't carry you down right you know sit down 33:52 catch your breath and i was so mad but i it was that thing about you you can't 33:58 run 10 miles if you haven't walked 600 feet a half a mile a mile you have to 34:03 build up to it build your stamina and you have to be aware of your capacity right and your health but then 34:12 at your age you would have been able to take a couple of deep breaths catch your breath 34:19 rest the time that you needed and then look around and genuinely appreciate the 34:25 view that you were witnessing which is something that those kids probably couldn't do 34:32 yeah but i don't know that i mean that's a pretty philosophical point we're talking about uh being a 34:39 i look around at a lot of people my age and older who've lost their balance and their ability to walk they're on 34:46 walk closer they're in wheelchairs they have to use a cane or two canes and i'm like even though it's a struggle 34:52 keep walking as much as you can yeah get up and walk and they say oh i can't i can't walk i said walk 34:59 50 steps walk a block sit down wait till somebody comes to get you but walk a 35:04 block every day and then when you've done that for two weeks try to walk two blocks and and there are 35:11 ways to retrain your proprioceptive senses and it it 35:17 it's an investment i mean it takes a long time and you have to start really small but there are ways to do that but 35:22 we don't do that we don't train elderly people to really be aware of their proprioceptive system their vestibular 35:29 system would give them too many excuses yeah they're not doing it to not do it right we give them a wheelchair or a walker then a wheelchair television and 35:36 everything to sell is a drug right and buy this drug and now and then they say this could kill you it could cause this 35:41 side effect and that side effect and if you're taking these other drugs with it it'll definitely kill you but just talk to your doctor about that yeah but buy 35:48 it first yeah yeah tell your doctor you want it and then talk about all the side effects yeah yeah but but purchase it 35:54 yeah all right so experience nature pay attention to that get out of here 36:00 you know the more civilized our society tech in quotes civilized becomes 36:05 the less contact we have with nature the less we know about is it a full moon is a 36:11 quarter moon is it a waxing moon is it a waning moon uh is it time to plant the harvest is it time to harvest what we 36:17 planted we don't know and we don't need to know we have air conditioning we have running water we have food that comes in 36:23 a can at the grocery store so we don't have to pay attention to that the way mankind has always had to pay attention 36:30 to that and so it enhances your capacity to be happy if you have a level of 36:37 exposure and awareness to some elements of nature go for a walk in the park listen to the birds i just went camping 36:44 last three days at night there was this flock of owls who were talking to each other around our campsite and my wife 36:51 and i sat in our tent and listen to these owls and it's an amazing thing to hear 36:58 so it's a about it's an example of the sound of running water you know 37:03 snow-capped peak there's just so many beautiful things but you have to take the time 37:08 to experience those things and whether it's philosophical or not and to appreciate them you have to mindfully 37:16 participate in that experience sitting around a campfire listening to the crackle of the fire uh seeing the glow 37:23 right of the cult and you can be there with another person and you don't have to be talking you can both be 37:29 experiencing that and that can be meaningful and profound without anybody 37:34 saying a word then the last one of these 10 that this man suggested in his article socialize 37:39 with colleagues outside of work in our society 37:45 we change friendship groups when we change jobs or when we change education levels if you leave high school you 37:53 think oh all these people i went to high school with are going to be my lifelong friends five years down the road most of you 37:58 aren't going to know if you're dead or alive most of that cluster of people right because life moves and people move 38:05 so some of you will have moved away some of you will just lost touch because you have nothing to hold you together 38:15 that happens so you do that in high school you do that in college you do that in graduate school you do that in employment opportunities so when you're 38:22 in a situation where you're in contact with people on a regular basis socialize with them some for enrichment purposes 38:30 make your life better because you have a barbecue you have a birthday party you all go to a concert or you all 38:37 go to some picnic or activity and if you change jobs start that socialization with the new 38:44 people if you can and want to continue with the old people but part of what happens too is you don't fit anymore 38:51 right you don't know the inside you're joking you don't know the personalities the other people rotate and change and 38:56 so you lose that anchor so you need to make a new anchor with your new group 39:02 so try to socialize with people work i worry about that with the movement today 39:07 for working from home absolutely and and the amount of time that even people in our age group spend on 39:16 screens rather than in one-to-one interpersonal communication right yeah so these things that we've listed 39:23 today are things that can make a difference if they are done with intentionality and repetition you have 39:30 to select the ones that you might be willing to try you have to try them you have to have encouragement and support 39:36 from people around you who know that's what you're trying to do and then you have to do it deliberately 39:41 consciously repeatedly if you do those things that way you can expect an improvement in your 39:48 quality of life and consistency is the key amen so hopefully that was beneficial i 39:54 know we ran along today but i think that was a great discussion with lots and lots of information the music that 40:00 appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue i hope you guys are liking some of the new 40:06 things that are happening here at the show and if you do and even if you don't 40:12 uh share the show with somebody and uh let's see those numbers go up because 40:17 that's really gonna help us over the next couple of months while we're struggling to find our place in this 40:23 space of uh advertisement so the music that appears i said that on site with 40:29 mike is random performed by mr benjamin the clue and if it's friday it's cyclic 40:36 [Music]