This book is about stress and how to overcome it. It's very actionable, down to earth, and it is now in my "everyone should read this" list.
It is structured around 5 Resets and 15 Techniques. The following are my notes and interpretation of each reset and technique.
What I use the most are the Rule of 2, the STOP-BREATH-BE, and Catalog Your Gratitude techniques.
The Rule of 2 states that the brain can handle up to two changes in routine at once. However most of the times, stress is related to more than two sources in our lives. Trying to fix everything at once is a mistake and it will end up in even more stress.
I have a personal story about that, years before I've read this book. I was a smoker, and I knew it was time to stop. I've attempted to stop before, but it didn't go well. But at that specific moment, I felt it was the time to do so. I had that feeling while I was smoking a cigarette. I even threw it half-finished. Then I decided that I needed to stop doing anything that triggers my smoking cravings. That was almost everything. I eliminated meat and alcohol from my diet, I started running and I even went completely vegan. What followed was ugly. I was a mess. I had even more anxiety. Panic attacks started to happen. Now I know why... Rule of 2!
The STOP-BREATH-BE technique (read below) helps me transition between tasks or activities. It's like decompression. My mind feels lighter and actually, and I'm more present. I no longer feel that endless flow of everyday life. Now, every task,activity, or moment has a start and an end.
As for the Catalog Your Gratitude technique (read below), even though I've had tried it before with not much results, I decided to give it another go. I thought that since I started following the book's advice, it would be something like a one-two punch. Well, it works. It works because when I'm having a good moment, whatever that might be, like an afternoon walk with my partner, a run with my dog, or admiring the beautiful colours of the sky, I now stop to notice it and say "that will go in my gratitude book tonight."
Resets
- Get clear on what matters most
- Find quiet in a noisy world
- Sync your brain and your body
- Come up for air
- Bring your best self forward
Techniques
- MOST Goal
- Backwards Plan
- Find Your Buried Treasure
- Cure Your Popcorn Brain
- Get The Sleep You Deserve
- Stop-Breathe-Be
- Breathe Easy
- Take Twenty
- Let Your Gut Lead The Way
- Follow The "Goldlilocks Principle" For "Just Right" Stress
- Learn The Magic of Monotasking
- Fake Your Commute
- Activate Your Sticky Feet
- Catalog Your Gratitude
- Express Yourself
Reset 1: Get clear on what matters most
"[...] the First Reset is about identifying and making a plan toward less stress, while at the same time giving you something to look forward to every day."
TECHNIQUE #1: Uncover Your MOST Goal
MOST Goal = Motivating, Objective, Small, and Timely
A MOST Goal is about putting you in motion. To do that you need to know your "why." Once you've identified it, set a MOST goal. A MOST Goal is not about big changes, it's about small increments that pushes you and puts you in action mode.
We each hold within our minds a mental picture or idea of the best version of ourselves. You’re reading this book because you’ve realized how much unhealthy stress has diverted you from that image. That best-self you envision may seem unattainable at this moment, but that’s your stress talking. The resilient you, which is still in there, knows the reason “why” you’re ready and willing to change. Your “why” helps tell you what matters most to you in your near future.
Once you identify your MOST goal, you will have the clarity and purpose to move forward.
I just keep the Objective word/definition for clarity. All other words are self-explanatory.
O: Objective— Objective changes that you can regularly monitor for progress, no matter how tiny or incremental, will help propel you forward through the process of moving toward your MOST goal.
TECHNIQUE #2: Make a Backwards Plan
The point of this technique is to visualize how you will succeed getting to your goal.
You set a roadmap by starting from the end-point and go step-by-step to figure out what's the previous step, until you reach the beginning. That is, now.
TECHNIQUE #3: Find Your Buried Treasure
Find what brought you joy when you were young and start doing it again. It doesn't matter what it is, riding the bicycle, playing the piano, painting, or anything else. Do it at least 10-20 minutes every day. Set a habit streak (calendar, app, or whatever).
The point is to get into FLOW.
Every day, after doing the activity, congratulate yourself for doing it. You're rewiring your brain for happiness.
Reset 2: Find Quiet in a noisy world
"Selma learned to protect her mental bandwidth using the techniques in the Second Reset. She found her quiet in a noisy world. She incorporated the elements of the media diet to overcome her primal urge to scroll, and reclaimed her brain and body’s need for rest and healing in the process. Since she no longer felt depleted, she was able to use her mental bandwidth to build meaningful connections through her soccer league. By focusing on disconnecting online, Selma found connection and a sense of belonging, and fun, offline."
TECHNIQUE #4: Cure Your Popcorn Brain
Your smartphone is stealing your brain power. If you want it back you need to minimize your interactions.
Aim for half an hour or less every day. Disable all notifications and keep the phone away from sight. Even when disabled, if it's in view, the brain uses brain power for the POSSIBILITY of getting distracted.
When detoxing you'll get withdrawal symptoms. Be prepared, find other ways to distract you when you feel the urge to pick up the phone.
TECHNIQUE #5: Get the Sleep You Deserve
You already know what to do here.
Sleep early, before 11. No screens a couple hour before sleep time. Try reading a book, listen to relaxing music, or do some breathwork. Keep the phone and the TV outside of the bedroom.
Reset 3: Sync your brain and your body
"Lauren had found a way, through her Rule of 2, to slow down her runaway stress in spite of nothing else changing in her external environment. She still had the same challenges at home and at work, but she was able to better manage those life stresses. Lauren’s success was due to her progress, not to perfection.
Lauren needed something to help her self-soothe and cope with difficult emotions. [...] By addressing Lauren’s emotions gently and with compassion, through an exercise program, food log, and gradual dietary changes, she was able to reset her stress. Lauren had learned to sync her brain and her body."
TECHNIQUE #6: Stop–Breathe–Be
One of my favorites from the book. Whenever you're about to start a task that kicks in your anxiety thoughts (usually repetitive tasks but not necessarily) STOP. Take a deep breath. Feel the air going in and out. Get back in touch with your body. Then go on with the new task.
It reminds me of the taxing effect of context switching and the breathing technique Huberrman shared on his podcast.
Context switching, in escense, is about the brain power is required when the brain switches to a new task. That is why it has to readjust, find context and find the appropriate circuits to use. You might not feel it when it happens, but even when switching apps in your phone, your requesting to your brain to readjust. And this is a heavy load.
Huberman shared a breathing technique [find the podcast] in his podcast that research found is the most effective and quick for instant stress reduction. You take a deep breath and at the top of your lungs, take another short quick breath so you maximize the air in your lungs. Keep it for a few seconds and exhale slowwwwwly (longer than inhaling).
TECHNIQUE #7: Breathe Easy
3 breathing techniques that instantly (and in the longterm) reduce stress levels:
Diaphragmatic Breathing, 4-7-8 Breathing, Heart Centered Breathing.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Very simply, make sure that when the breath goes in, the belly expands (deep breathing). This activates the parasympathetic system and is the first step to calm down. In the inverse, the first step to induce stress is shallow breathe. That is when the breathe goes in, it stays at chest (shallow breathing). You can do this anytime. I do this when exercising, between intense rounds, and whenever I'm feeling my stress levels rising.
4-7-8 Breathing
At the core of this technique is that, if you exhale for more time than you inhale you lower your stress levels. So, inhale slowly for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 7 seconds, and exhale slowly for 8 seconds. Do it for 3-4 times. Take a break and do another set.
Easiest way to sleep.
Heart-Centered Breathing
For extreme moments of sadness or stress, use this technique to calm down. It's the same as the 4-7-8. Better to lay down, have on hand at your belly and the other at your heart. Inhale slowly for 4 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds. No need to hold. You'll feel your heart reacting to your breathing and it will ground you.
TECHNIQUE #8: Take Twenty
This technique is to set you in motion in an easy way. Whatever is going on with your life, taking a short walk helps to reduce stress, get in touch with yourself, and clear the mind.
When you're out there walking, try not to distract yourself with music, podcasts, photos, etc. Notice how your body walks. How with each step your feet hit the ground. Notice how you breathe, how your hurt pumps, how the air feels.
TECHNIQUE #9: Let Your Gut Lead the Way
When you're stress, you crave for high-fat and high-sugar foods. Keep an eye on your diet, even when you're not in stress mode. Processed/unhealthy foods can be stress inducing.
We now know about the microbiome and how it affects our body and mind. We even know about the special troops of the microbiome who are dedicated to alter our psychology based on what we ate a while ago. They're the psychobiome.
Reset 4: Come up for air
"Your life is filled with demands and obligations. Every minute is accounted for, and you’re being pulled in many different directions. Your brain makes it all possible. But it needs rest and recovery to function optimally; it needs to come up for air. The four techniques in this reset—honoring your breaks with the Goldilocks Principle, learning to monotask, creating a fake commute, and activating your sticky feet to keep your mind present where your feet are—can all help support your brain to be the best it can be for you and for everyone else who depends on you."
TECHNIQUE #10: Follow the Goldilocks Principle for “Just Right” Stress
But too much stress, sudden or prolonged, is harmfull.
The simplest thing to do in the day is, when changing tasks, meetings, or whatever, take a few minutes to reset. Take a few breaths, feel your body, look outside the window, stretch a little. This gives the mind time to reduce the stress levels, and even more so, to consolidate the data you've been giving it.
This is actually how we learn and the core truth of creativity. The more breaks (real brakes, not flicking through your phone) you take, the more time you give your brain to consolidate all the information it currently has. This way it can create new connections and make meaning of all this new information you've been giving it.
TECHNIQUE #11: Learn the Magic of Monotasking
Focus on doing one task at a time. Try to get into flow.
Find your limits, where your mind is focus and is not wandering. Is it 10 minutes? Try expanding to 15 minutes. is it 30 minutes? Go for 40-45 minutes. But don't overdo it. Take breaks. Do some breath work in between. Move the body.
TECHNIQUE #12: Fake Your Commute
If you work from home, you should incorporate time before and after work.
Before work, the mind needs some time to get prepared to switch to work mode. You could go for a walk and think/plan the day ahead. Go grab a coffee or something.
After work, it needs time to decompress. Again, do something outside your house.
TECHNIQUE #13: Activate Your Sticky Feet
Stress and anxiety are very much related because they're induced by the same part of the brain. The amygdala.
To combat anxiety, and the endless what-ifs it comes with, try this mindfulness technique.
Everytime you get the chance, try imagining your feet grounded to floor. Imagine them as sticky webs or tree roots.
If you catch yourself spiralling into the what-ifs, say "be where my feet are."
Reset 5: Bring your best self forward
"As you’ve learned in this Fifth Reset, words and imagery can be powerful tools to help you bring your best self forward during periods of maladaptive stress. That’s because humans are primarily visual learners, so most of us learn best when we have visual cues to rely on. As you embark on your journey to less stress, consider using that information to your benefit. Try incorporating visual cues and messages of self-love into your everyday life to help you move forward.
Display your MOST goal and the Backwards Plan to get there in plain sight on your fridge, so it’s easy to see every day. Create a daily reminder in your calendar for your walk or gratitude practice. Put up a weekly checklist with your Rule of 2 where you can see it; when you make it through each day, add a big checkmark and spend a few seconds basking in your sense of accomplishment. Use as many visual reminders as you need to remind yourself that you are stronger than your stress. And each morning, make a choice to choose yourself over your stress."
TECHNIQUE #14: Catalog Your Gratitude
Keep a notebook close to your bed and before sleep, write 5 things you 're grateful for.
It won't be always easy, and other times it you'll want to write a lot of things. Keep it simple. No need to write an essay, 5 bullet points and a few words are more than enough.
It is proven that it works, but you need to give it time to work. Over time negative thoughts will disappear or at least be very weak and you'll be calm and centered.
TECHNIQUE #15: Express Yourself
Writing helps processing of difficult situations, overcoming trauma, depression, uncover buried thoughts and worries, and many other benefits. For this technique, you need to go all-out. Hold nothing back. No one needs to know about what you wrote. You can destroy the paper after the exercise.
Here are clear instructions on how to practice expressive writing in Pennebaker’s own words:
I would like you to write about your very deepest thoughts and feeling about an extremely important emotional issue that has affected you and your life. In your writing, I’d like you to really let go and explore your very deepest emotions and thoughts. You might tie your topic to your relationships with others, including parents, lovers, friends, or relatives; to your past, your present, or your future; or to who you have been, who you would like to be, or who you are now. You may write about the same general issues or experiences on all days of writing or on different topics each day. All of your writing will be completely confidential. Don’t worry about spelling, sentence structure, or grammar. The only rule is that once you begin writing, continue to do so until your time is up.
Some Book Highlights
Stress is a whole-body phenomenon. We get waves of negative emotion, the familiar feelings of reaching a boiling point and experiencing doom and gloom. Whatever your sensory experience of stress might be, the origin of stress starts in the same place—the brain. Specifically, stress starts in an area called the hippocampus in the brain’s limbic system, according to scientists at Yale University. The limbic system is your emotional center, and the hippocampus is responsible for learning and memory.
So if stress is born in the same place as learning and memories are made, stress can be considered a learned response. And as with any learned response, it can be unlearned and retrained in a better way. That’s the first premise of why your brain can be rewired for less stress.
The second scientific principle behind rewiring your brain for less stress is based on one of the greatest discoveries in brain science: neuroplasticity. Before your eyes glaze over with this doctor-speak, it’s just a fancy word for your brain’s ability to change. It turns out that your brain is a muscle that grows and changes on the basis of the ever-changing conditions of your life. This applies to different parts of the brain, the connections between areas of the brain, and even among individual brain cells. If your biceps can get stronger by doing bicep curls, you can also train the muscle of the brain. It’s like pumping iron, but in this case pumping neurons. Your neurons, or nerve cells, make connections with each other to carry and transmit updated and new information between areas of the brain and throughout your body’s entire nervous system. They are good at finding the quickest route between two points, but it takes a number of trips to really establish a solid new connection. The brain is always establishing new routes and, the good news is, for the most part you can choose to strengthen the helpful ones through repetition. The more you engage in a new habit, the stronger that brain pathway becomes.
When it comes to how your brain responds to change, even positive change registers as stress to your brain. You may have the best of intentions to improve yourself, like Adam did, but you can make only two new changes at a time if you want those changes to last and be sustainable. Anything more than two at once and your system has a higher risk of overload. It wasn’t Adam’s fault that he couldn’t keep up with his plan. It wasn’t a lack of discipline or motivation. It was his biology.
Perhaps you’re thinking “I don’t know where to begin.” That’s not uncommon. Stress and burnout have jumbled your navigation tools and left you adrift. So the very first step is to shift your brain circuitry from survival mode into a healthier mental state of psychological safety and self-trust. Together, we’ll cover three techniques—Uncovering Your MOST Goal, Creating Your Backwards Plan, and Finding Your Buried Treasure—to help you crystallize your goals for less stress.
You may have heard of the Comfort Zone. But there are three other zones that we move through when we’re faced with an acute stress or unexpected circumstances that push us out of our Comfort Zone: the Fear Zone, the Learning Zone, and the Growth Zone.
The three zones are a gradual, progressive journey we all take during setbacks. First, there’s the unexpected change that causes acute stress (Fear Zone). Our brains then move past survival mode and we gradually learn ways to adapt to this change (Learning Zone). Finally, we gain a new perspective from the experience (Growth Zone). One way or another, we learn something new from what we’ve been through. It doesn’t have to be an acute physical stress, such as Jeanette’s stroke. It can be a wide scope of unexpected changes: a job loss, having to move, the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, a dramatic change in finances, or discovering that a long-held belief isn’t true. What causes acute stress for one person can be very different from what causes it for someone else.
To get out of this habit of negative self-talk, ask yourself the question that will help you silence your negative self-talk and get you into the Growth Zone: instead of asking “What’s the matter with me?” ask, “What matters most to me?”
We can only make changes that align with what matters most to us.
I’ve found that for most of my patients there’s often a gap between knowing something and doing something. My job is to figure out how to close that gap. A lot of the work I do with patients is based on the foundational principles of motivational interviewing, which is a technique used in the medical setting to help patients overcome their barriers to change and close the gap. It’s a way to meet patients where they are to help them figure out what’s most important to them. Three of the most vital elements of motivational interviewing are having empathy, curiosity, and a lack of judgment when understanding how to close the gap between knowing and doing. You can’t do motivational interviewing on yourself, because it needs a trained practitioner for it to work. But you can lean into your own empathy, curiosity, and lack of judgment to help you figure out how to close the gap for yourself.
Future planning relies on your prefrontal cortex, which doesn’t function optimally when stressed. This is one reason why you’re prone to forget simple things like your keys, wallet, or phone during rushed and stressed mornings.
What changed in Wes’s mindset to make change possible? He had discovered what mattered to him in the short term and created what I call his MOST goal.
Knowing what matters most to you is a powerful catalyst for change. Sometimes, it takes a little thought. If you’re having trouble coming up with what matters most to you, work on discovering your MOST goal.
Happiness doesn’t help you get any closer to your “why” because happiness is a vague and moving target. We all want to be happy; it’s a universal yearning shared by every human being on the planet, but research has shown that we’re not very good at predicting what’s going to make us happy. For this reason, it’s important for you to get very specific about your endgame and MOST goal and those all-important steps of your Backwards Plan. They are concrete and tangible, whereas happiness isn’t.
Reorienting his life to pursue more intrinsically rewarding experiences rather than externally validating experiences helped Ryan reset his stress, which had a ripple effect on his sleep and anxiety. The sum of these changes was a balm to his nervous system.
Hedonic experiences have a legitimate and valuable role as temporary circuit breakers for your stress. Distraction is a viable coping strategy for stress after a hard day’s work, and hedonic experiences are wonderful distractions when needed. You just can’t rely only on them for sustainable happiness over time.
I read a quotation attributed to Carl Jung and asked her to reflect on it: “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the secret to your earthly pursuits.”
The HPA axis—the connection between your hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands (see Chapter 2)—is a concrete example of the mind-body connection, because it quite literally connects parts of your brain with your body. One key tenet of the mind-body connection is that what’s good for your body is good for your brain and vice versa. When you do better, you feel better. And it’s all in the doing.
It may only be a short five seconds, but the Stop–Breathe–Be technique packs a long-lasting punch. It activates your mind-body connection because it trains your brain to notice your body and its physical sensations, along with your thoughts and emotions, in that precise moment, rather than mindlessly barreling forward like we all usually do. In that moment, it helps to regulate your stress response by asking you to take a brief inventory, and through your breath, it helps you regulate your nervous system away from stress. A complex biological phenomenon is at play during Stop–Breathe–Be. Did you know that your breath is the only physiological bodily process that is under both voluntary and involuntary control? You’re able to voluntarily control your breathing (like taking a deep breath), but when you don’t pay attention to your breathing, your body takes over for you involuntarily. How cool is that? No other bodily function can do that—not your heart beating, your gut digesting, or your brain thinking. This marvel of your human body is why your breath is the gateway to tapping into your mind-body connection.
While scientists long ago had identified cortisol and the vagus nerve as key players in how your breath is linked to your emotions, they weren’t able to pinpoint exactly what was happening in the brain. Recently, a new study changed that. A group of scientists at Stanford University were able to pinpoint a small cluster of brain cells, which they called the pacemaker for breathing, that is responsible for linking your breath to your emotional state. It’s an important discovery that has been able to give us a much clearer cellular picture of what’s happening in your brain when you breathe deeply, and how your breathing can help you manage your unhealthy stress. Your brain’s pacemaker for breathing is the home of your mind-body connection, and your breath is a gateway to tap into it. The Stop–Breathe–Be technique is incredibly effective at activating your mind-body connection incrementally over time, but you also need a few more tools at your disposal when you’re faced with highly charged and intensely stressful moments.
Studies have confirmed Thompson’s findings. Chronic stress can prematurely shrink your brain through chronically high levels of cortisol. The good news is that brain shrinkage from too much stress is preventable and in some instances also reversible. Thompson offers us hope: “As soon as you know that’s true, you can look at ways of reducing your cortisol. That’s a very easy thing. We can get less stressed by exercising, walking, and taking breaks. There’s a lot of ways that you can take care of your brain.” While stress shrinks the size of your brain, exercise can help certain brain areas grow. Studies show that physical activity can thicken your prefrontal cortex and increase its connectivity and improve its function. That’s why, in part, exercise can help you have better problem-solving skills, attention, cognitive abilities, and memory.
Studies show that certain foods can directly impact your microbiome. In fact, the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry is focused primarily on how foods can affect your mental health, and its foundations lie in the gut-brain connection. Nutritional psychiatry can help guide you in choosing foods that can improve your stress.
Because Holly loved data, I shared a study conducted by Microsoft that compared brain scans of people who were in back-to-back meetings with brain scans of people who took short breaks. The study found that the brain scans in the group taking short breaks showed significantly less stress. Short, frequent ten minute breaks decreased the cumulative effects of work stress on the brain. This helped Holly become more enthusiastic about honoring her breaks.
Another reason why your inner critic is particularly loud during periods of unhealthy stress has to do with how stress impacts your sense of self-efficacy. As we explored in Chapter 3, when you achieve your MOST goal, your feelings of self-efficacy go up, which has a therapeutic effect on your well-being. The reason this is so important is because stress weakens your sense of self-efficacy. Unhealthy stress and its many uncomfortable sensations can make you feel out of control. When you’re feeling a lack of control, it’s easier to start talking to yourself in unkind ways. Your inner critic gets ahold of a megaphone. The voice gets louder, which adds to your feelings of inadequacy and your unhealthy stress. It’s a vicious cycle.
