How to Better Regulate Your Emotions | Dr. Marc Brackett

A lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not what it is. It's just having another relationship to it. I've had anxiety or live with it for a lot of my life, but sometimes I just say hello to it. It's like, "Hey, how you doing today?" And it goes away pretty quickly or it just sits there. I think that's the other thing about emotion regulation that people kind of misunderstand. They think it's like, "I got to check in with how I'm feeling all day long and then regulate. Check in regulate." Like you'd become psychotic if you did that all day long. Most of the time our emotions are in the background. You know, like if you thought about your feelings all day long, you wouldn't be able to do this podcast. Like that's unproductive. Emotions matter when there's a shift in our environment or the relationships, you know. If you said something that offended me, boom, I'm activated. I'm feeling angry or kind of shocked. Then I have to make a choice in that moment, like how do I manage it? That's where the magic happens. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast where we discuss science [music] and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Marc Brackett. Dr. Marc Brackett is a professor of psychology at Yale University where he is also the director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He's an expert in the science of emotions and how to apply that to improve communication and relationships and performance in school and work. One common problem around discussions of emotions and emotional intelligence is that they are often vague and frankly somewhat soft and cliche. But not when Marc Brackett explains emotional intelligence as he does today because he talks about the practical tools that emerge from the science of emotional intelligence that you can use to improve your emotional life both with yourself and with others. And he's not just going to tell us to feel our emotions more deeply. While that could be important in certain settings, his His in and out of the laboratory is really focused on the small things that we can all do both in moments of emotion, but also on our own that can greatly increase our ability to understand what we're feeling, communicate it effectively, and to be better listeners, especially in moments that would otherwise create tension or confusion. In fact, what he shares today are life skills, the sort of life skills that make everything, school, friendships, romantic relationships, professional life, and family life far more effective and enriching. So, I'm confident that you'll come away from today's episode with Marc Brackett knowing what to do and when to use the tools that you'll learn, and they are indeed very powerful to improve your life. Before [snorts] we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Marc Brackett. Dr. Marc Brackett, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be back. So much to discuss today about emotion regulation, about the kids, the future. Are the kids all right? They could be better. Mhm. And our obligation, our generation, other generations in you know, providing a world where kids can thrive and where everyone can thrive. It's It's a bit of a mess out there, but you're going to put some clarification on things for people. You're doing amazing work to give people tools for emotion regulation and more. So, let's start off and define emotion regulation. What is that? Yeah. Well, I think the simplest way to define it is using your emotions wisely to achieve your goals in life. It's a little bit too broad. And so, it's funny. As I was writing my book, I decided, I need a formula. And so, my formula is ER, which is emotion regulation, is a set of goals and strategies. So, it's ER {parentheses} G + S. And that equals a function of E + P + C. >> [snorts] >> You know, made me feel smart. Emotion Mhm. person, context. Mhm. So, what I mean by that specifically is that it's a goal-oriented process. You have to want to regulate. You can prevent unwanted emotions. I have an acronym for that, too. It's PRIME. You can prevent unwanted emotions. You can reduce the difficult ones. I think people forget the I, initiate emotions. Like, when you're teaching or leading or presenting, like, you want to create an emotion in the room that's upregulating. You can maintain an emotion. Like, you know, what? I'm having a good day. Going to avoid these things to just keep it going. Savor the moment. And then there's enhancing, which is kind of boosting an emotion. So, that's PRIME. That's the goals. The strategies we can talk about for hours. Um, we'll get into that a little bit later. And then I think what most people misunderstand is that like, what we regulate are emotions. And like, what I do, for example, to deal with my anxiety is really different than my anger than my worry or other emotions. And that it's a function of the emotion you're feeling. It's a function of me as an individual, you know. I am on the neurotic side. Uh, I'm on the introverted side. And so, my strategy selection would be influenced by that. And then the context. Like, right here, right now. Like, I know you're into fitness and like, running and, you know, all this kind of stuff. I'm like, Andrew, you know, I'm really nervous right now. Like, do you mind if we take a break and I go for a run? You're like, you know, it's a little weird, Mark. So, context matters. You got to You're like, right now, if I were anxious, it's like, Mark, you got to use some cognitive strategies or breathing work. I can't go anywhere, so I'm stuck. And I think people need to see that kind of full spectrum. I feel like there's a close tie between emotion regulation and self-awareness. Yeah, but I feel like there's a tension between self-awareness and being able to experience and enjoy life. For instance, if I'm feeling anxious, I I'm thinking about how I'm appearing, how I'm sounding, that it's uncomfortable. Uh but if I get totally outside of that and just be in the experience that I'm in, uh then there's the potential to say the wrong thing, or you know, uh offend somebody, or who knows. So, when we talk about emotion regulation, what's the best approach to that that doesn't keep us in a subtext in our mind and and sort of out of the room? Because when we're alone, it's quite a bit different. We can we can breathe, we can use whatever self-regulation tools we want. Or ruminate, uh or write, or you know, or text or call a friend, whatever it is, but when we're at work, at school, uh on a podcast, if if there's that subtext, like, uh I'm I'm not locked in here, I'm not in the experience completely, I'm I'm I'm self-regulating or paying attention to myself, that can be very uncomfortable in its own right. It's work. Yeah. It's effortful. Uh and not always the best effort if it's going down the rabbit hole. I think that you're getting at, which is this mindset piece, that the first step is our mindset about our feelings. So, let me ask you, what's your mindset around anxiety? Mhm. Um I Well, I have assumptions around it. I was telling someone the other day, if because I spend a lot of time alone, and I'm fairly introverted, but if I go into a crowded environment, for the first 5 6 minutes, I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed, like, "Wow, it's is crowded in here. There are a lot of people." And I I actually feel like I have a bit of a uh social interaction disorder for those first few minutes. But then after about 20, 30 minutes, I'm in that experience and I'm feel like I very comfortable. So, I have this mindset that social anxiety is something that um is like wading into water. It's always a little bit too cold at first or usually it's a little too cold, but over time you acclimate. All right, you didn't answer the question. Okay. >> [laughter] >> So, let's try to rephrase it another way. What's your relationship to anxiety? I hate it. Okay. There you go. See how your automatic was like, "I hate anxiety." I did too for most of my life. And then I was with a friend who is a neuroscientist about anxiety and she said to me, "Mark, tell me all the things that make you anxious." I said, "Well, I'm anxious about fundraising. And you know, I got to raise the money to keep the research going. I'm anxious to make sure I want to make sure that like everything we do is high quality." And I went on and on. And then she asked me another question. She said, "Well, what do those have in common?" I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And then I thought about it and I said, "Well, those are things that are important to me." And so she said, "So, why would anxiety be a bad thing?" And I think that we have to learn how to adopt a mindset around emotions that there are no bad emotions. It's what we do with our emotions that makes them harmful or difficult for us to live our lives. But anxiety is a good thing. It's saying there's perceived uncertainty around the future. Like, "I'm anxious about how I'm going to act in this environment or how I'm going to be perceived in this environment." It's not a bad thing cuz you want to be perceived well. But if you automatically assume it's bad, then it's going to put you on the path to dysregulation. So, if we accept the idea that all emotions are okay. Yeah. But that the expression of all emotions is in every context is not okay. That it should be context specific. >> Yes. Um I actually think that provides some freedom. I can feel that freedom. Like it's okay to be super angry. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to be anxious. Uh but how that's expressed is what's critical. Uh it makes good intuitive sense. I think that what's hard to know is what to do with the emotion if there is no outward expression of it. Like like where should it go? Well, it doesn't have to go anywhere sometimes. Sometimes it can just be. Mhm. And that's a big part of regulation, which is that a lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not what it is. It's just having another relationship to it. Like I've been I'm 56. I've had anxiety, lived with it for a lot of my life. But sometimes I just say hello to it. It's like, "Hey, how you doing today?" And it goes away pretty quickly. Or it just sits there. I think that's the other thing about emotion regulation that people kind of misunderstand. They think it's like, "I got to check in with how I'm feeling all day long and then regulate. Check in regulate." Like you'd become psychotic if you did that all day long. Most of the time our emotions are in the background. You know, like if you thought about your feelings all day long, you wouldn't be able to do this podcast. Like that's unproductive. Emotions matter when there's a shift in our environment or the relationships, you know. If you said something that offended me, boom, I'm activated. I'm feeling angry or kind of shocked. Then I have to make a choice in that moment, like how do I manage it? That's where the magic happens. But on a day-to-day basis, thank God we're not, you know, we wouldn't want to do that. I would like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Joovv. Joovv makes medical grade red light therapy devices. Now, if there's one thing that I have consistently emphasized on this podcast, it's the incredible impact that light can have on our biology and our health. Now, in addition to sunlight, which I've talked about a lot on this podcast, red light, near infrared, and infrared light have been specifically shown to have positive effects on improving numerous aspects of cellular and organ health. These include faster muscle recovery, improved skin health, wound healing, improvements in acne, reduced pain and inflammation, improved mitochondrial function, and even improvements in vision. 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I'd love to poke at some of the assumptions that I know I have, but I wonder if other people have as well. >> My dad's from South America, and I remember long ago he said because he went to formal schools, um he said that he was raised with this terrible idea. He called it terrible. That um if somebody was happy, and they smiled a lot, that they were stupid. And I said, "What is that about?" And he said, "Well, that came, in his words, from the British school system where uh the idea was that you were supposed to be um skeptical of things. And that if you were happy or happy-go-lucky, and you weren't drinking, that people would assume that you were an idiot because you weren't bothered by the problems in the world, and you were accepting of the things that you heard and were told. In other words, you're an idiot." And my dad's a very happy person now, and he has talked about, you know, having to break that mold, that like it's okay to wake up and take a walk and and be happy. That it's okay to be happy and so I That's just one thing that I I think I grew up thinking, too, and maybe not to that extreme, that that if especially in academia, like if you're not just like to be happy is to not be discerning. It's a totally false, right? >> Of course. And now, we're a long way from England right now. Um uh and that's probably something more of my dad's generation than mine, but I think the idea nowadays does seem to be that if you're happy-go-lucky and you're feeling good, that you must not be thinking about all the terrible things going on in the world, or that it's insensitive to those that are suffering, etc., etc. I'd love your thoughts on this this idea that we don't give ourselves permission to feel as good as we might feel because of some social pressure or assumptions that we've internalized. Which is all learned. And so this is these are learned phenomenon. And it's sometimes outside influence. So talk about happiness. You know, as I was writing, and I was doing the chapter on mindsets around emotion, and talking about this relationship with different emotions. And you know, we could play around with this all day long. I could say, "What's your relationship to anger? What's your relationship to happiness and contentment?" And all of a sudden you start realizing, "Wow, I have a complicated relationship with my emotions." And I was thinking about it with happiness, too. And for me, what's interesting, which is different completely from your dad's, is because of my kind of tough childhood and a lot of bullying, is that I would go to school one day and I would be happy. And I'd see the bullies, and all of a sudden they'd say things like, "You know, what are you so happy about today, Bracket?" And I didn't realize that until I was writing. And then I would get on stage and give a I do a lot of public speaking. And I'd be standing there like feeling really good with my speaking. And then I'd get the applause at the end, and I would start kind of looking down. And I started realizing, I'm uncomfortable being happy. Like I'm I'm waiting for something to go wrong because, you know, in my childhood, like happy meant like, you know, we're going to bring you down. We all have these kind of developmental um connections, for lack of a better term, to our different emotions. And I think that it gets back to the phenomenon. There's no good or bad emotions. Life Firstly, some of it is genetic and biological, you know, our proclivity to experience certain emotions. The regulation piece is all learned. Like you're not born with a you know, a pocket full of evidence-based strategies to regulate >> [laughter] >> Like you know, I don't know about you growing up, you know, my father was very different. My father was the angry guy and he'd say, "Son, you got to toughen up." I'm like, "Dad, look at me, you know, come on. Let's move on. It's not happening." And you know that I have a 5th degree black belt, I became the tough guy that my father wanted me to be, but nevertheless, you know, what does that even mean? But, you know, growing up when I was struggling, my parents missed a lot of the cues. Come down the stairs, I didn't have my father say, "Son, I'm noticing a shift in your emotions today. Your posture's different. Your facial expression is different. Let me give you a research-based strategy to help you regulate your anxiety, stress, pressure, fear." No, it was just There was no It wasn't even a construct. I mean, I don't know, but did you grow up with a a concept of emotion regulation? Definitely. You did? And it >> was There was a big gender split. In my home, I had the sort of belief uh based on the context that women could express their emotions, big or small, and that uh men weren't supposed to lose their temper. Men weren't supposed to uh be angry. That's interesting. It's kind of counter to the way people think about it nowadays, right? >> Oh, yeah. The men are like the more power you have, the more anger you can express. >> Oh, the complete opposite of that. In fact, and I don't think he'll mind, my dad's been on this podcast and we have a great relationship uh now, and um and we've done work and it's been awesome. I mean, it's really it really has. I mean, uh and I remember when I was a kid, if he got angry, he would blink. And I And now I know that as like behavioral suppression, you know? Um he was like blinking, but I can't ever remember my dad having an outburst ever. So I just internalize this idea like okay, you you don't have outbursts. But I have a certain side of my family that my extended family that's from New Jersey. Oh, okay. Yeah. Where words are sometimes used as weapons. Okay. >> And [clears throat] anger is a bit more outward sometimes at least in that side. And then I have a South American side where things are more you know, formal and boxed away and and I think I internalized a bit of both and and so I have all sorts of constructs around who's allowed to express emotions and what extremes but now I didn't observe a lot of uh anger or maybe a little suppression. Lots of suppression. Lots of suppression. >> regulation. It just Yeah. Not the adaptive kind usually. Right. Right. And I you know, I probably averaged two you know, in my own life. But in terms of happiness, I I think uh the same thing now that I I think about it that um so okay for women to be fully expressive and for men to be you know, it's a bit more of the you know, it's kind of the 1950s model was that was very present in in my home and in my mind. In my mind. Yeah. Yeah, I can think with happiness as with any emotion it's about like the time and the place for happiness. Like you can't we have research that shows that people who strive to be happy all the time actually are more miserable. Because it's hard to live up to that all the time. You know, people who strive for more contentment in their life actually seem to have greater well-being. Um and so I just think again, it goes back to these mindsets around emotions that there's no good or bad emotion. Anger is fine. Obviously if it's too intense and it's lasting too long, it's probably not going to be good. Happiness is something that we should, you know, experience, but you know, if we're attached to it, it's going to be problematic because every day is not a sunny day. There are rainy days, too, and you got to be comfortable with the rainy days. And the important thing also is not just our feelings about our feelings. It's also about our mindsets around our capacity to deal with those feelings. Like, do I believe I am capable of managing my anger? Do I believe I'm capable of dealing with the disappointment? And we find a distribution of scores for that, too. Like, going back to my dad, we have very different fathers. My father would say things like, "Son, this is where I deal with my anger. You're going to have to get used to it." You know, I would say now, like, "Sounds like you got a fixed mindset, dad. Like, there are other options, you know, to to deal with your anger." But he was sort of like, "This is the way I am. You're going to have to deal with it. No learning interests." Whereas nowadays, I hope to help people see, "Wait a minute. Is that emotion working for you in your relationships or not? If it's not, there are alternatives." We were talking about boys and men quite a bit already here. So, maybe we just continue in that in that direction, even though we will touch on um uh girls and women and uh emotions as it relates to them, too. I I hear a lot nowadays [clears throat] about problems for boys and young men in emotion regulation, in defining masculinity. Um I'm obviously interested in this, but I also acknowledge that I'm Gen X. I was born in 1975. Things were very different, and I and I know I have a giant blind spot to their experience, right? I just do. I acknowledge that because I don't really have a finger on the pulse of of what life is like for a 15-year-old or 12-year-old or 20-year-old guy out there. What are the pain points and what's going right? Yeah, there's a lot going on and I think probably the big issue here with gender is vulnerability. That historically, this is not just now, this is going back to when we were kids, when our parents were kids, you know, go back to other periods in you know, in the in time is that vulnerability, especially for men, is weak. You got to be tough. You you're the, you know, the person who has to, you know, make the ends meet. You're the, you know, the hunter-gatherer. And obviously times have changed and what we find is that the thought today for many boys and men to be emotional, firstly emotional alone has a connotation of feminine and out of control. That's just the way people think about it. >> Still? Yes. Really? Wow. When you say, "Don't be so emotional." It's considered to be a negative thing. It's considered to be feminine and it's considered to be like a hysterical. Um that's why we I call emotions skills, not emotional skills. >> [snorts] >> That's anyway. So, vulnerability is a a big piece of it. Let's This is going to be a great conversation between two guys. So, what's your relationship to vulnerability? Totally context dependent. Okay. I mean, there are people who um not afraid at all to cry in front of. Mhm. And there are contexts and people that I would never cry. I mean, I've cried on very public podcasts, too. Mhm. Maybe three. One here, when Martha Beck came on, she really she uh she wasn't trying, but uh you know, it was happening. And then on Steven Bartlett's podcast, I think perhaps on another and it was tough. I mean, it was I I didn't want to watch those clips, but I'm glad I did it. Um Uh so it's totally context-dependent. Yeah, and that makes sense. What I'm really pushing for is like around emotion and about talking about feelings. Mhm. And so what we find is that boys generally feel more inhibited just saying how they feel, especially when it comes to kind of the sad, disappointment, you know, ashamed emotions. It's much easier to express the anger, you know, and the outwardly expressive emotions, but the deep ones that are self-conscious, you know, that make you vulnerable, um tends to be tough. And uh and the question is why is that the case? What are your hypotheses? Why would it be that so many boys feel like they're going to be perceived as feminine if they say they're disappointed or sad or ashamed? What immediately comes to mind is that somehow it is linked with the word incapable or incapability. Exactly. There's an incredible video of David Goggins breaking down crying on stage. Um and he was celebrated for that. But David Goggins did a lot of things beforehand. >> And no one denies his capability. >> Yeah. His ability. Uh so when he cried it was like, "Awesome. He's willing to go to this really hard place." Yet another difficult thing that David can do that most people can't do. >> And you just go like, "Awesome." And he's owning it. And I step back from that and realize that we already knew former Navy SEAL, went from 300-plus pounds to this fit individual, like you know, Goggins. He's a verb, an adjective, and and a you know, and a pronoun, right? So it's like you know, if someone else just breaks down on stage, you know, okay, of "I hope this guy can make it in life." That's the the narrative. >> like weak. You worry sometimes for people like that. I don't worry about David Goggins. Because he's a superstar and we have a different mindset around him again. And so he has the permission to do whatever the hell he wants. Yeah, that permission thing, if you'll forgive me, but this this notion of earned the right, I mean, there are people like James Cameron who wrote all these movies, most famous for like doing all these super difficult things, and then a few years back was like claiming that testosterone poisoned men and that his testosterone was the worst thing and everyone that liked his movies said, "Hey, [clears throat] listen, easy for you to say now. You built that career on some of that." So, it wasn't, in my opinion, taken that seriously. He may not like it if he hears this, but like I'm like, "Pff, that's like when our colleagues are like, 'Oh, I'm no longer going to publish in Nature and Science. I'm going to go to these like, you know, these [snorts] open-source journals.'" Like, you got in the National Academy on Nature and Science papers, so like, you're not kidding anybody. Well, that you're making an important point, which is that once you, you know, I always find it interesting with celebrities, once they become super famous, I can now disclose, you know, I've been depressed or I've been anxious or I've been overwhelmed, but for some reason, you know, they didn't want to take that risk when they were younger in their careers because again, the perception is like, "Oh, anxiety, depression, whatever it is, that's weak." And so, that's the point. The point is is that we raise kids, boys in particular, to believe that these feminine type emotions, which are not feminine by nature, they're just human emotions, are weak. And therefore, that means I'm going to be perceived as not only weak, but potentially homosexual, and that's also a stigma. And so, what do I do? I suppress. I deny. I ignore. Interestingly enough, for women, what the research shows is that much less likely to suppress or deny, much more likely to ruminate. A couple of things. First of all, I I feel like, and I could be wrong, but I feel like the the stereotype of gay men being feminine has fallen away somewhat. You know, I grew up as you know, in the skateboarding community, there's Brian Anderson. He had this big expose in the not expose where they exposed him where he voluntarily, you know, came out in the New York Times. And he's like he's one of the most aggressive, you know, you know, skateboarders out there. Aggressive in the skateboarding, right? So, and he's big dude, you know. So, I feel like that stereotype is kind of shifted a bit where people assume that there's a range. I think you're ambitious there. I think you're right. I mean, we know So, being gay is still Yeah, for sure. Hm. Okay. I mean, if you ask 100 people to uh run like a gay man, they're still caught in the Revenge of the Nerds. >> Yeah. They're going to They're going to show you someone who's, you know, more feminine or, you know, kind of stereotypically feminine, to be honest with you. So, while there, you know, we know, I mean, certainly I remember um when I was 18, I went to a gay bar, and I I I grew up in New Jersey. It was very homophobic. The only gay person I really knew was my mother's hairdresser, who was very flamboyant. And then I went to this gay bar, and I was like, "Oh my god, there's like Wall Street executives here. You know, there's football players there." It was a total, you know, um shift in my perception. Nevertheless, if you ask the majority of people, it's still considered to be, you know, the mindset is feminine. Got it. Yeah, I guess if you um grew up training in gyms, which I did, you're around a lot of like very strong uh physically strong >> Yeah. um gay men. Cuz they're the they were kind of early to the gym culture, you know, as a uh so so maybe my my lens on that is a little distorted. There's something interesting around this notion of um showing emotion and boys. And we earlier we were talking about the movie Stand by Me, movie I absolutely love. And it's just like a perfect story. It's a Stephen King story, right, turned into a movie. Um I think Rob Reiner wrote that movie. Um uh and what's interesting about that movie is the transition be cuz that happens right around puberty and between junior high It's right before junior high school or Oh, it's between junior high and high school. I can't remember. Some some transition and the kids are at different developmental stages. I feel like this is a big part of it where like let's say a kid is um a little bit more emotional, a little more um coddled at home, perhaps. This is I'm making a lot of assumptions here. And cries in front of a group of boys when you're in the seventh or eighth grade. Some of those boys are are because of their stage of maturation, they're not really little kids anymore. They're like, "Dude, what are you doing?" And then you've mixed all those kids together and because of the way that schools and social dynamics are, that can stay with a kid for a long time. Like being sort of having an emotional expression that can stick with you for like two, three years of school, right? So I feel like some of this stuff comes about that way, which is very different than like an um just I guess like a hypothetical scenario uh an adult male um in the business place. Maybe he's new at you know, where there's things tend to uh equalize a bit in terms of maturational stage. And so these are two different things. Boys crying versus young men crying versus grown men cry. >> Again, this is all nurture. So if you go to schools that do our work, I just interviewed a bunch of teenage boys actually. It'll blow your mind. They have a whole different perception of emotion. I I ask them these questions about men and boys and you know and their responses are like huh? Like what's wrong with crying? Like if you feel like crying you cry. Like are you sure? You know, even I No no ridicule. No ridicule. I said, "Well, what if you get into a fight? Can you like talk to the kid about what happened and like tell them how you felt when they left you out?" And they're like of course, that's what that's how we grew up. That's But they grew up in a school that took emotion seriously. They gave them the skills and the resources to do it. It reminds me actually, I never forget this. You know, since we're on this topic of boys and men, I was in the beginning of my career doing training in emotional regulation in London. Outside of London in a a very kind of rough and tough neighborhood. And uh the headmistress, as they call it back then, of the school, she looked at me and she's like, "You know something, Mark? This program's going to turn the boys into homosexuals." I'm like okay, like where'd that come from? You know, like I'm thinking to myself like you need a lot more training than just emotional intelligence, but I'll put that aside for a minute. Anyhow, I said, "You know, I'm here. So can we just go and do it? Let me let me demonstrate it." Not a problem. They go in like a fishbowl. Here I am like the teacher in the middle of the room. I have like 25 teachers around me and like 20 kids in the middle. And I start sharing a story about my life, whatever it was. I was about probably feeling discouraged. I think it was one of when I first got into the martial arts, you know, it was tough. I was not a tough boy and I was afraid of my shadow and I had been then had all this bullying and abuse and you know, going to a karate studio was a big shock for me. I happen to have an amazing teacher who transformed my life and became a career of mine in martial arts. Anyhow, I told the story about that about how I failed my yellow belt and I just I hated myself and like not only was I bullied, but I couldn't even get a freaking yellow belt. Discouraged, hopeless and he's everybody's looking at me like where's this going the teachers. The kids were like glued. They loved hearing the story. And then I said, I'm just curious. Has anyone else ever felt the way I felt? And I said just raise your hand if you've had that kind of feeling. Every freaking kid in the classroom raised their hand. And of course I look over at that headmistress and I'm like, you know, let's let's talk later. Kids are dying to express their emotions, boys and girls. We had we we've just socialized it and it the socialization piece is really important because even the way fathers talk to their boy children, you know, is different. You know, it's the toughen up. It's the da da da use more feeling words with their with girls than with boys. We're not born that way. We are socialized into, you know, having these complicated relationships with sharing emotions, but it's not something that can't be modified with good instruction. You're saying this I'm realizing I internalized so many things that skew my perspective on this. I guess I should say I'm relieved to hear that expression of emotions among boys is more accepted now. I think that's The generation that's going through this work, the kids who are growing up in places that are not taking emotions seriously are growing up in a more or with a more stereotypical way of viewing it. It's got to be infused into your life. You got to have these conversations. You got to be in situations where like in our work, just to give you an example, like we're really rigorous about teaching this stuff. This isn't just sort of like Kumbaya sitting in a circle. This is like all right, everyone, we've got a problem here. There's, you know, the gaga pit, which is in these, you know, this thing in schools, you know, there's a kid who nobody is, you know, allowing to participate. That kid feels awful. What's our obligation? What are we supposed to do to handle that? Imagine you're that kid. Imagine you're the one that nobody wants to be, you know, part of the game. Now we're going to get into groups and we're going to think about A, what are the feelings? B, what are the solutions? What do you do for yourself? What do you do for the other person? And it's like rigorous conversations around the techniques and they got to role play it. And then we ask questions about the role plays like, well, what if it goes wrong? What happens if you say this and they say go blank yourself? What do you do then? And that's the kind of complex, you know, muscle building we're giving kids in terms of dealing with emotions. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, and I've been taking it every day since. The reason I started taking it, and the reason I still take it, is because AG1 is to my knowledge the highest quality and most comprehensive of the foundational nutritional supplements on the market. It combines vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, and adaptogens into a single scoop that's easy to drink, and it tastes great. It's designed to support things like gut health, immune health, and overall energy. And it does so by helping to fill any gaps you might have in your daily nutrition. Now, of course, everyone should strive to eat nutritious whole foods. I certainly do that every day. But, I'm often asked if you could take just one supplement, what would that supplement be? And my answer is always AG1, because it has just been oh so critical to supporting all aspects of my physical health, mental health, and performance. I know this from my own experience with AG1, and I continually hear this from other people who use AG1 daily. If you would like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a special offer. For a limited time, AG1 is giving away six free travel packs of AG1 and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drinkag1 with the numeral one {dot} com {slash} huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription. There is a hardwired bias towards rough-and-tumble play in males of all of all species including ours. I think what you're talking about a little bit is a capacity also for kind of rough-and-tumble verbal and emotional exchange, which is not necessarily like FU and this and that like but some of that is can be in jest. Some of it can be really damaging. There's a something interesting that I learned a long time ago it even in academia. He's now dead, but there was a a very famous neuroscientist. I'll never forget. Uh I went to my first McKnight meeting. I was so like excited to be there and he came over. He was you know, he's pretty large guy and he grabbed me. He grabbed me and he and he goes, "So, where are you I was picking between laboratories between this place and that place. He goes, "Where's it's going to Where's it going to be?" And then he had gave me his advice. And then and that was a very comfortable exchange for me cuz like I grew up with a lot of physical interaction. Usually guys not putting their arm around me and and like tell me like, "So, what's it going to be?" kind of thing. But often times, you know, if I interact with somebody that's kind of like an old friend or something, there's they'll grab my shoulder. You know, just walking by. There's a lot of just kind of physical interaction that just happens. It certainly doesn't feel weird or averse. >> Sure. And I could see if somebody for instance was not used to like just a lot of physical interaction uh with other people that that could feel like a lot. And so I'm wondering nowadays where where are things with respect to sort of just the amount of physical interaction between kids? Are they like just feeling and voicing their emotions, but they're like at at a physical distance? Or are they uh you know, seeing one another in like handshakes and hugs, what's up? And you know, or like you know, just friendly, the kind of physical banter. I think it's cultural. It's there's a lot of there's a lot going on there in terms of, you know, the type of school and, you know, where it is in the United States or in the world. You know, touch is a is a cultural thing. But I think, you know, what I want to say about what you said is that rough and tumble is fine. Of course, you know, rough and tumble. But there's when it becomes a power over, that's when it becomes a problem. When you have no concern for the emotional life of the other. That's bullying. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah. The dialogue that sort of establishes hierarchy, I guess is what if I'm really blunt about it. I just feel like that just sort of just happened naturally in my friend group when I was a kid. Like there were some kids who were more developed and more athletic or better at this or better at that. And we just kind of all fell into place. It wasn't necessarily about being at the apex or being at the bottom. >> There's no intention to harm. Yeah, we we we sort of formed a a team where you understood that yeah, this kid was fast and this one was strong and this one was clever and this one was creative. And actually there was a goofy kid on our street who was always the comedian. I think later he actually tried to become a comedian or became a comedian. And everyone just kind of like was like, all right. You didn't expect him to be like the other kid and you didn't expect yourself to kind of check off all boxes. I wonder uh the extent to which young males in particular nowadays feel the need to check off all the boxes of what it is to be a guy. Play a sport, be good in school, be you know whatever. Well, that's again the developmental thing. And I think what happens is that and you know, you watch kids play in kindergarten, they're not thinking about this kind of stuff. Although it's it's it's it's sinking in or it's seeping in, what's the word? Um I was in a school recently uh and a boy raised his hand that he was in the blue quadrant of our mood meter and he was feeling down or sad. And I said, "Do you Do you need anything right now?" And he said, "No." And I got I got kind of like taken by surprise and I said, "You know, you sure you can talk about it?" He's like, "I don't want to bother you, sir." And that was a eye-opener for me. You know, that already like his emotions were a nuisance. And that's what I want to make sure that we address. No one's emotion should be a burden. A kid should be able to talk about it and deal with it. We want that kid to be a good learner. We want that kid to be a good friend. And if he's already suppressing, denying, ignoring, you know, in kindergarten, it's not going to be a pretty ride. And those things change developmentally. Um kids are much more comfortable talking to each other about their feelings in elementary school and middle school, you know, it starts getting you know, you got to look around and again with the homophobia piece and then in high school you see um less and less touching, you know, or you know, kind of the the the kind of friendship kind of stuff that you might have seen early on. And that goes back to the you know, the things that we were kind of chatting about, toxic masculinity, kind of this manosphere. And again, you know, my hope is that we rethink child development. We have spent so much time thinking about some of the unnecessary things. You know, reading and writing and arithmetic obviously are important. But if you don't recognize that how we feel and how we deal with our feelings is going to drive the quality of your relationships, your well-being, your ability to deal with life's ups and downs and the harsh feedback you're going to get in life, um and ultimately, you know, having your dreams come true. You know, it's interesting as someone who works at a university where everyone has perfect SAT scores. Everyone has grade point averages that are better than mine were. Everyone plays an instrument I never heard [snorts] of before. Everyone has done everything to get into this place. And so, I have like 700, 800 students right there. And I look at them all and I'm like, "Guess what? Your SAT scores have no predictive validity." None. You can't Remember, it's range restriction. Mhm. It's like basket All basketball players are tall. The height is not going to make or break your your basketball performance. Same thing applies in a room filled with people with, you know, high academic performance. And then, all right, well, what is the predictor? Well, obviously, it's going to be something else. And then we start thinking about, well, what are the attributes that employers are looking for? Right now, it's not technical skills as much as it used to be. Right now, it's like, "Can this person like take feedback well? Can this person, you know, lead a team and people will want to be around that person?" I found in my research, for example, that managers and leaders who are good coregulators, that for example, during the pandemic, I did this longitudinal study, and I found that in schools in particular where I do a lot of work, that when a teacher perceive their leader as both self-regulated and who was good at co-regulating. So, what that means is that like I'm looking at you right now and thinking, "Okay, you know, it feels like the world's coming to an end. Are you going to fall apart or are you going to make it?" That's number one. Number two is are you going to be there for me? Are you going to be able to support me and deal with the chaos that I've got to deal with? And what we found in our research is that highly predictive of the culture of a school, highly predictive of burnout, highly predictive of job satisfaction. Frustration levels were 40% lower in schools where there were leaders with these skills. That's what people are looking for these days, more so than anything else, you know, more so than beforehand. I feel like the word that comes to mind is is calibration. And in anticipation of today's discussion, I I I was speaking to a friend and I said, "You know, where are you at with uh kind of um men expressing emotions?" You know, and and you know, she said, "Well, I've seen you cry." And I was like, "Yeah." You know, she said, "And it can be beautiful." Like, you know, the You hear that, right? It can be beautiful. And I said, "But when is a man expressing emotion um a problem for you?" Like, assuming it's not like outward anger or abuse or you know, his sadness. Okay, was the example I gave. And she said, "If he gets very sad about things that happen a lot, it makes it hard to imagine that uh how he would hold it together if really big stuff happened." And so, it's it's exactly what you described in the workplace, right? This notion of calibration. So, uh let's say I'm okay with people expressing their emotion, crying when they're sad, etc. But if that's happening a lot under everyday conditions, I could imagine, let's say you're in a work or a relationship with this person and then think, "Well, goodness, like people die, right? You know, more I'm 50 now and I people die as you get older, more and more people die. That's just kind of the way it works." What's going to happen then? I think there's this underlying question, which is are you going to be available for all the other things we depend on each other for? And this could be romantic relationship, it could be in the workplace. So, I I do wonder whether or not people are trying to work out So, what people are calibrated to. They're trying to understand somebody's I don't want to say emotional set point, but when they're able to you know, just pack it down and deal with it on their own later, or whether it really needs to become the focus. Like just uh to just quickly layer in another example, I have a friend who runs a big scientific laboratory. Their laboratory gathered together and did a presentation for this lab director and had created a statistical bubble map of their experience of being in the lab. And there was a giant bubble in the middle that just said, "Stress." And they invited someone from HR, and the whole idea here was to let the boss know that they were really stressed out. And I said, "Let me guess, you were probably thinking he came up in a very, very hard branch of science." And I said, "Let me guess, you're probably thinking, what happened to science?" And he said >> Uh-huh. He said, "For a little while, and then I figured, well, this is the next generation. I have to work with this." So, they were calibrated to different set points. And I could imagine that's hard across generations, but even within that's got to be really, really tricky. So, you're all about measurement, Mhm. creating actionable tools. Is there a language around this? Is there a way that we can, yes, learn to process and deal with our emotions, express our emotions in a more healthy way? Also understanding of other people's emotion calibration point. A couple of things. One is that going back to the kind of partner-leader position is I think the confusion that people have, well again going back to vulnerability and emotion dysregulation, is that me being vulnerable or me sharing that I'm anxious or overwhelmed or afraid means that I'm weak. And I think what leaders need to do is recognize like during the pandemic, I never forget this like wait the university shut down everything was freaking out. I knew my team was freaked out. They were stressed out about their jobs. They were dealing with being parents and also employees and working from home and all that stuff. Here I was like the head of the emotional intelligence lab and like how you doing Mark? And I'm like great. Everything's fine. And meanwhile I'm like I hate my life and I hate everybody around me. You know I had this my mother-in-law, you know that story? She was stuck with me. And um and then I realized one day like I'm being a terrible role model. I'm not being authentic. And I'm not demonstrating the skill. So I decided to be really honest and say I'm going to be frank. It's tough right now. But here's what I'm doing. I'm going for that walk every day at 5:00. I can't go to my hot yoga class but guess what? I'm I found new workouts online that I'm doing and doing X, Y, and Z. So the point is is that I think vulnerability that's like sharing and like you know you know spewing out all the fears that you have is not helpful. When it's not accompanied by the strategy. And that's the key is that I'm feeling this way but here's what I'm doing about it. That's what a role model is and that's what a parent needs to do. A parent, you know, has to come home and say, you know, I can imagine this like you're a a dad and you're trying to be a role model for your kid. And my here's my dad. I my dad would have a hard day at work. Daddy, let's play. Son, leave me alone. Done. Like that was the end of it. As opposed to Dad comes home. Daddy, let's play. Son, you know, you have to realize I have to just tell you something. I just had a really rough day at work. I actually got into a fight with a colleague of mine. Didn't go well. And I said something that I really feel bad about. And so Daddy just needs a little bit of time to just process that. To just think about what I can say tomorrow to kind of help my relationship. And if you don't mind, I need that time right now. I love you and we'll play later, but right now I'm just not in the right space for it. Okay, son? Okay, Dad. All right, let's stop there. What did I just teach my son or daughter about feelings? All right. I'm a dude. I'm a dad who has feelings. I am someone who makes mistakes. I say things that I regret. I reflect on the things that I make mistakes about. I problem-solve about the things that I make mistakes about. I need time to, you know, recoup, you know, my energy and then I can come back and be with you. How much time did that take? Seconds. >> Yeah. But how many of us, you know, are around people that can process emotion that way, that have the capacity to say I'm in a dark place, things didn't go well, I made a mistake, I feel bad about it, I need to strategize, and then we'll come back and be together? What happens to most of us? We're activated. Like I'm pissed off at the person at work and I project it on everybody else that's, you know, in my next situation. And the power of emotional self-awareness, going back to what we started with, and the power of emotion regulation, is that I notice that there's a shift. I notice that I'm feeling this anger, this frustration. I'm about to go into a new environment with my family. And I know, because I'm emotionally intelligent, that it's not going to be pretty if I don't process that emotion before I move into the next situation. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to take what I call a meta moment. I'm going to pause. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to think about the best version of Mark, the father I want to be, the husband I want to be, and then I'm going to open the door and arrive through that lens. That's what this work is about. It's what people need to learn. Uh I'm fascinated by time perception, and I feel like the human brain is so incredible at being in the moment and also getting ahead and thinking behind. And what you're really talking about is projecting into the future in a healthy way, not not future tripping as they call it, but in a healthy way. And I think that I mean, broadly speaking, I'm almost embarrassed to say this as a neuroscientist, uh but you know, the more limbic uh we are, so to speak. I realize it's not really a thing, but the more limbic we are, um the more in the moment we tend to be. And and it's harder to get that version of ourself. When we're relaxed, it's very easy to be like, "Well, I'm going to remember this time." Or I'm going to project into the future. So, to some extent, healthy recognition of one's emotions, it seems, healthy expression of one's emotions is the ability to with feel, but also split off from the present enough to get perspective. That the time perspective. I mean, it's all in or shift in the time domain. You know, like, "I'm going to go to this you know, this island in the Caribbean for a moment." Although that might be a good useful tactic. But that ability to tolerate stress and and segment a piece of one's mind and emotions and go, "Okay, that's all happening, and I'm going to get like right over here." That is a skill. So, the way I like to think about it is that we have to move from automatic, habitual, unhelpful reactions to deliberate, conscious, helpful responses. Because we become more automatic when we're flooded with our emotions, we rely more on habits and usually bad habits. And so to build that space between the stimulus and response, like the question always people say, "What is that What do you do with that space? How long is the space?" And you know, some people say, "I don't need a meta moment, which is one of our tools. I need a mega moment, you know?" And maybe you do. Maybe you need to take three loops around the house before you walk into the door to get your kind of parasympathetic nervous system where it needs to be. That is the key to emotion regulation right there. We had um Richie Davidson on the podcast and he talked about this myth about meditation that it's supposed to clear the mind and make you relax. And he said it's it's actually really about stress tolerance. You're supposed to sit there and resist the temptation to get up and move. Like it's really stress inoculation, which I think is a really beautiful way of thinking about and different way of thinking about meditation. So, do you recommend that people meditate in order to become better emotion regulators? 100%. Especially because if you can't be still, it's going to be hard to access the good strategies. It's a necessary but insufficient strategy. I know that we're obsessed in our world right now with breathing and mindfulness and it's great. Um but it's not enough. You at the end I'm going to have to have the difficult conversation and and regulate during that conversation. I can't be in my room by myself meditating. I always joke with my, you know, I open my book with that story of my mother-in-law and I would take a breath. Ah, it's even clearer why you have to get the hell out of my house. Right? So, like the breath may help you deactivate, but it doesn't necessarily shift your perspective. Mhm. That's the mindfulness work. Mhm. And I want to jump in now because I think even the taking the moment to recognize you need to take this meta moment is a mindset piece. It's saying emotion regulation is important. I'll be a better version of myself if I don't walk into my house in this angry state and project it onto everybody else. But that's we've only gone through one of like eight domains that I think are important. The next is like you got to know what you're feeling because the feeling, as I said in my formula earlier, is going to drive the strategy selection. So that labeling piece is really important and I find that people's vocabularies is just awful. People I'm fine. Okay, I'm upset. Yeah, I don't think we did this last time, but if I were to push you anxiety versus fear versus pressure Um Um >> versus stress. Uh I've thought about these before, so it but it ends up being hairsplitting. And then I go into scientific operational definitions, so yeah, you know, anxiety kind of a a generalized state of too much sympathetic arousal, you know, stress is one or usually I'd add to that, you know, one or several things that I can pinpoint as kind of a source of that elevated level of arousal. Um you know, panic would be if it if you gotten so far outside the um time domain perspective like that the physiology overtakes and overwhelms. Like I get into my scientific definition >> interesting because a lot of people well, some most people by the way say it's all the same Mhm. They it's all one big Yeah. >> Yeah, you're you know, technical. You're like, well, this is cortisol and this is, you know, epinephrine and this is this. And that's all good, too. But in the end what you're regulating often times is the underneath the emotion. And so anxiety uncertainty around the future. Right, I get anxious when I can't predict. That's really what deep anxiety is. I want everything to be exactly the way I want it to be and I can't control that. So, oh. Stress is having too many demands and not enough resources. Pressure or something at stake is dependent upon your behavior. Fear is immediate danger. So, when I give you those kind of what we call in psychology the core relational themes, the appraisals that are part of those emotions. Does it make you see how your strategy choice might be different? Yeah, definitely. Um and speaking of, you know, I doubt it's just two bins, but I've heard once that, you know, some people need to learn to externalize and or to talk about their feelings more, other people probably less. I've heard this. >> Uh-huh. For sure. >> I'm I'm I'm friends with a couple and one of them says she's a She calls herself an external processor. So, if something's bothering her, she has to externally process it. And then her wife is an internal processor. And so, this obviously they've worked this out and it's pretty cool to see how they do it, but but I was like, is that really a thing? External processor, internal processor? And then, of course, my gender biases show up. I go, well, you're two women, so like that maybe that language is used but like in in heterosexual relationships it's different, you know. Sure. And we laughed about it and they explained like, no, cuz actually one of them turns out to be a therapist. So, she's like, no, I have actually many male, female couple clients. So, she's a couples therapist. So, I got flipped on my back with that one. The thing that I I find that I I keep projecting into everything I'm hearing. And and I want to put the little asterisk here and say that the reason I share these like things that are happening inside is I like to think that they're perhaps a proxy for what some people are thinking. Um or not. But it's that we really at least in in the United States, we really are not a culture that's clearly defined its terms, let alone its ways of being around emotions. >> Mhm. Like this is not like my dad growing up in Argentina in a certain era where sure there was a range but um the culture was fairly clearly defined. I mean here we've got it all like I do men expressing anger. Some people call that passionate depending on what it's about. Other people call that scary and disregulated. >> Mhm. It goes back to your relationship with anger. And so, you know, we construct these emotions in our brains based on our experiences. So, I grew up with a dad who had, you know, you know, pressed lips and red face and look like he was going to like take his belt off and whack me. And so, my perception of anger is probably different than your perception perception based on our upbringing. And that's just we have to acknowledge that. Now, I could be over reacting to anger, which is not going to be helpful in my life. So, I've got to learn to realize not everybody's like your dad. Some people can be angry and not aggressive. But that's that's the emotional intelligence journey of learning. If I had no cultivating of skills, I would just assume that's anger. Mhm. And that's not anger. That's one way of expressing anger that I learned. And I think people get caught up in that. They get attached to what they learned early in life and don't realize there's a there's another way. It's kind of why people often times get stuck with trauma. Because they they are fixated on that experience that they had. And they haven't learned how to reframe or haven't learned how to compartmentalize that particular experience in their lives. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. 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I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So, if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. So, thus far we've highlighted at least one thing that can be very useful for emotion regulation, which is the, you know, some short form of meditation for stress tolerance that can give somebody a a create a gap or a an opportunity in a moment to at least take some time and regulate a bit. >> Mhm. I'd like to layer on something else which I'm hearing, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that I'm hearing which is we should all know our assumptions or our presumptions based on our upbringing. >> Correct. Like we need to do this for ourselves. No one can do it for us. No single article is going to spell out the full array of ways that one conceptualizes anger or sadness for men, for women, for straight people, for gay people. Like, but this space is actually worth thinking about, right? Uh right now there's a there's a little bit of a battle against introspection. This is not introspection, I want to be very clear. Um that's a separate matter, but this is really just what any really good scientist would do is to know your assumptions before you generate a hypothesis. I mean, it is introspection. I mean Okay, fair. >> But just like anything over introspection leads to rumination. Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> And so, we're not recommending like I don't want you, Andrew, to like be obsessively, compulsively checking in with how you're feeling all day long. That is unhelpful. It's bad, bad, bad. Some people would say that's I need to do more of that. Maybe you do. I I I don't. I don't think so. Emotions matter when they're going to either help or interfere with our performance. That's when we have to check in. Most of the time, thank goodness, they're in the background. Yeah. You know, when you're driving, you know, you're not thinking, "How am I feeling? How am I feeling?" It'd be weird. Like that would just be weird. And you don't want to do that. But checking in with one's assumptions based on our upbringing, I think would be very useful. >> Very. Well, that's the point. >> And has that been formalized into a You know, people love questionnaires. I I think if it hasn't been done, I think it'd be amazing. About 8 months ago, I had this wild experience where I realized I had this massive assumption worked into my framework. So, I had these friends and I was visiting them and they called me upstairs and there was a bird flying around and it was like flying into the windows. >> Mhm. And I was like, "Oh my god." You know, I had birds growing up. Kiwi and Sugar Ray Leonard were like my life before I hit puberty and birds were my life, you know, I loved birds. I loved animals of all kinds. And I I was looking up there and this bird's just flying into the window. It's not going to make it out and it's just doing immense damage to itself. And one of them said, you know, oh, he keeps flying against the window. I was like, okay, and I tried to get him out and I I couldn't get him out. Really high ceilings. We didn't have the right thing. And I said, you know, I'm just going to open the windows, go downstairs, come back, and check and and I ended up going back. And um they said, "What Is he okay? Is he okay?" And I'm like, no, this this is some like this idiot bird is like flying into the window. He's like this is going to kill himself. He got out eventually. And about 2 weeks later, one of them called me and said, "Listen, I really need to talk to you about something. It's really been on my mind." I was like, okay. And uh and she said, "You know, I was really disturbed how you reacted." >> Mhm. I was like, what do you mean? I was like, I was like trying to help the bird. Like, you know, I love animals. I mean, I really do. I mean, one of the reasons I like doing the work I do now instead of what I used to do is I don't have to work on animals anymore. I hated it, honestly. Um you know, I understand why it has to be done in many cases, but I hated it. So, she said, "Well, just you're talking to this bird like he's an idiot." And I realized in that moment, I was like, oh, I was like, if you had said, "Oh, that poor girl, she's she's flying against the window." I've been like, "Oh, the poor thing. Like, she really needs it." You know, and I immediately realized this like strong sex / gender bias that I had that if a that if a female animal is somehow damaging herself, like, "Oh, my god, help her, save her." And with with him, same if it's a boy, same thing. I want to help. But then my my assumption was, "You idiot." Like, you idiot. Like like I would, you know, and I realized I grew up in a big pack of dudes. When someone does something stupid, you're like, "Dude, you're an idiot. Like, what are you doing?" But it's a it was actually to me it was a it was a motive affection. I'm sure I I upset some people by saying this, but in full disclosure, I just had this massive assumption. And I've actually had to pay attention to that going forward. But I didn't realize I had that really strong bias. I guess this is all going to that mindset area of emotion regulation. I mean, parents have that with their kids. I can't tell you how many kids, you know, you observe a parent with their son or daughter, it doesn't matter, and the kid is trying to um like climb a rock, and the parent, because of their own fears, you know, "Oh my god, honey, be careful. Be careful. Be careful." And all of a sudden the kid is losing their self-confidence to climb the thing, as opposed to a parent who's skillful, you know, who checks their assumptions, you know, "I'm nervous. Okay, fine, you're nervous. You know, you're probably your kid's probably not going to get hurt. Take a deep breath. Take a breath." And maybe say something like, "Honey, gosh, that looks like it's really hard. I'm pretty confident you're going to get there. Let me just come a little closer to be there just in case something goes wrong, but I really do think you're going to make it." What do you think that's instilling in the kid? Totally different way of thinking about it. And so that parent's assumption that person parent's fears is being projected. If they're a more skilled at coregulating and recognizing my job is to instill resilience in my kid. My job is to help my kid feel like they can do it on their own, cuz that's what this work on coregulation I'm doing, which I think is so important, is this intentional You're being super intentional about supporting other people in managing their emotions, but they the whole goal of it is to support the other person in being capable of regulating on their own eventually. Not codependent, not coddling, but actually instilling the belief in the other person that they can do it. I love that. I I guess what I'd love to know is is there a formal process or questionnaire, etc., to learning to understand one's own kind of the word bias is so loaded. The word bias is biased, but to really parse like, oh, this is how I conceive the world in and around emotions, gender gender specific emotions cuz I think that'd just be very useful. Because then it allows somebody to do what you just described and really know the difference between helping somebody get to the point where they can manage their work with their emotions on their own versus projecting our own beliefs around, hey, this is the way it's supposed to be done. Exactly. Yes, there are plenty of surveys actually. In my book I even give people a list of them. You can play around with that and just look at your mindsets and attitudes about them and you'll see patterns. I had no cognitive awareness that I had this weird relationship to happiness until I did my own exercise. And it was eye-opening for me. And it's actually I've set goals for myself. It's like, Mark, people want when they're applauding you, when you're giving your speech, let them enjoy it. They're If they're applauding, it means it was good. Don't be like, uh, you know, like breathe, be present, and take it in. And actually it works. It's a beautiful phenomenon. The awareness of our programming can liberate us from so many painful things. >> Yeah. We spent a lot of time on this, which is interesting cuz I don't usually spend so much time talking about these assumptions and mindsets and beliefs. We spent some time talking about the vocabulary words, which is very important. You got to be self-aware. Anger is not the same as disappointment. Envy is not the same as jealousy. Happiness is not the same as contentment. Anxiety, stress, pressure, and fear, and overwhelmed are all different. And I know people listening might be like, oh my god, you're overwhelming me, but you know, we have our app that you've seen, the How We Feel app, to give you that vocabulary. And it really does matter. It matters for communication. It matters for getting your needs met. It matters for choosing the strategy. But again, it's not enough. So you got to know how to breathe and you have to do your mindfulness work to bring the temperature down, to still your mind. I mean, think about our minds nowadays. I mean, they're just the ability to process information has dwindled completely. Just to give you one example, we used to do like 2 and 1/2 minute videos for trainings. People won't get through them. 30 seconds. And this is why people aren't learning anything anymore, cuz you How you going to teach an emotion regulation strategy in 30 seconds? It's like an Instagram post. Of course, that's driving me crazy, too, cuz so many influencers are My favorite one recently was this very famous influencer teaching about emotion regulation. And she said, you know, I've decided to throw away my anxiety. And so, she's in the car, and she opens the door, and she's like, "Goodbye, anxiety." And I'm thinking to myself, like, that door is going to hit you so hard in the face. But yet, 3,000, 5,000, 25, whatever likes, and people are like, "Oh my god, I'm throwing away my anxiety." It's like, you can't throw away your anxiety. It It doesn't It doesn't work that way. The quick fix thing is an issue. Then we got to learn how to rethink our feelings. That's the programming we have to do. We have to learn some of the things that you've spoken about another podcast here, whether it's the cognitive reappraisal, whether it's the reframing, whether it's the distancing, whether it's you know, having gratitude as opposed to resentment and envy. I mean, I I never had anyone help me practice cognitive regulation. Nobody ever taught me there was even a I never knew there was a thing called reframing. And it's saved my life as an adult, because again, we go in with the assumption about other people, too. And if you can say, "Wait a minute, Mark. Is there another way to look at this? Is there another story you can be telling yourself around this?" This goes back to something we talked about earlier. We want to be careful about that cuz in abusive relationships it can become gaslighting. Right? Honey, you know, you're too sensitive. No, you're a jerk. I'm not too sensitive. You're trying to make me feel like, you know, bad about the fact that you're lying to me all the time. Not helpful. And that can be that's also reframing, but it's a form of deception, you know, where another person is trying to define your reality for you. Super scary. And we can do that to ourselves, too. We can trick ourselves into believing things that way. Reframing is playing with this idea of telling yourself a new story, but you have to always be a scientist about it. And that's the one thing about all the strategies is that you have to come back as a scientist and ask yourself the question, is this helping me live the life I want? Am I in a better relationship? Am I better able at managing my anxiety applying these kind of strategies or these labeling strategies? I find psychology fascinating. Uh the reason I became a biologist, however, is because um I got confused by psychology. >> Uh-huh. And It's too big of a field. Well, and the field wasn't as evolved as it is now, as structured as it is now. But I remember thinking, okay, you know, I could see the argument, maybe even the experiment for healthy expression of emotion allows that emotion to move through, allows us to be healthier physically and mentally. I can also probably find a manuscript that shows that the longer for every minute longer we focus on being angry that our anger grows, and I don't know what the answer is. I I um I sense it's that's probably not the case, but I just remember being very afraid of the contradictions. Absence makes the heart grow fine fonder. Out of sight, out of mind. It was like, which one is it? And of course it's both, right? I mean >> And that's the complexity of the human mind. So, I decided to think about cells and circuits instead. And um served me well in my career. I probably in my life I I remain intensely interested in the sorts of issues we're talking about. >> Mhm. Now, including these generational differences. And And here's my question. Typically, most work, school, and other environments are hierarchical in the sense that the older people have more seniority and more power. >> I sense that nowadays there's an understandable concern and interest in young people's emotions and emotional processing. But I also get the sense from my peers that there's this kind of fear of the younger generation, like they're actually in control. I just got through doing three 2-hour long trainings cuz Stanford understandably has you do like harassment training and workplace safety, workplace violence, you know, you have to learn what the rules are. >> And I was very surprised to realize that all faculty and staff and some postdocs take this training. Students don't take it. Meaning, you have two completely different views of what the rules are. And this is not unique to Stanford. This is unique to a lot of big organizations. >> Mhm. And um it's not even a criticism. I I'm sure like everything at Stanford there's a rationale. But it's kind of interesting. You would hope that there would be a universal at least nomenclature. Sure. Just like we know what mitochondria are here and in Nicaragua. It'd be nice to know that >> you know, anger and disappointment, while those words are spoken differently in two different countries, that there's sort of a a basic universal understanding of what emotions are, what they're not. How much comes from our past, how much is about our physiology, and kind of how to work with them. And I'm not saying this is going to solve all the problems in the world, but a lot of the problems that I see out there are misunderstandings about where the line is. >> Mhm. That's No, that's healthy emotional expression. Okay, that's anger. No, that's passion. That person's a narcissist. No, that person just isn't spending a lot of time thinking about their own thoughts. And on and on and on. I'm certain that one of the reasons your work and your colleagues work is so important is because we need a universal nomenclature. We need a an agreement that there's at least a way to understand and navigate this stuff. This is why the work I do in schools it's not like a teacher comes to a training and does it in their classroom. It doesn't work that way. I learned this the hard way. It's got to be a systemic approach. The leaders, the teachers, the students, and the parents need all the same language to describe the work we do on emotional intelligence. It makes a huge difference. The superintendent can go into the kindergarten room and have that same conversation. We all know what these emotions mean and we're all thinking like scientists around emotions. I want to just go back though because something you said I think is important to address. And I wish I only wish that there was the correct answer to how we should feel and what we should do with our feelings. It just doesn't work that way. A funny story about this. So, I'm giving a speech to 1,500 police officers who I don't think were told in advance that some guy from Connecticut was going to be giving a speech for 3 and 1/2 hours about feelings. And so, I walk into the room. It was like out of a freaking movie. And all of a sudden it's like, "And we're welcoming Mark to talk about emotions." And all of a sudden you can >> [laughter] >> see these facial expressions. And like some of the I mean, these guys are sitting People who can't see me right now are like slouching in their seats. Like, you know, with their guns in their pockets. I'm thinking to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" And so, I start, you know, playing around. I'm telling them jokes. I've got to figure out how to meet these this group. And the thing that struck me that I haven't forgotten was one guy just stood up. And he's like, "I'm not sure I'm interested in this." I said, "Okay." He said, "But I am I do want to know one thing, Doc. What's the only strategy that works?" And I said, and of course, I'm a psychologist, like, it doesn't work that way. There's many strategies. It's an emotion by person by context phenomenon. And I people are so desperate for the right answer. I think the beauty of it is that it's messy. The beauty of it is that it's a journey. The beauty of it is that it's a process. The beauty of it is that we have to ask ourselves questions over the course of our development, is how I'm living my life working for me or against me to achieve my goals. And we have to check in with other people, like our partners and our friends and our kids and whoever else and our colleagues. And I hate to say that, but the people who, you know, are dying for the correct strategy, there is no correct strategy. Every you know, I worked as a fitness instructor for 10 years of my life while I taught martial arts. I saw so many people use exercise as a way to escape their reality. They just wanted the treadmill for 10 hours a day with an eating disorder who were thinking, "This is, you know, my healthy strategy." and they were ruining their lives. Same thing with food, the same thing with you can trick yourself into believing things. The goal of this work is to help people pause, consider ideas, and then you have to go back and say, "How is my life? How are my relationships? How's my work going?" etc. And that's where the the real beauty comes out of the learning. I'm using my checking back into my uh developmental biases as a way to uh ask questions that I hope are relevant to everyone and now especially. And one of the things that I've observed is that there seems to be a broadening of the context in which broader ranges of emotions are allowed. Online is a really good example of all of it. All of it, right? And I think that the the judgments about, well, this person is losing their cool, and then someone say, well, you know, so-and-so stepped in front of his motorcycle, for instance. You know, maybe these are the debates that reflect all these develop- mental biases. And in some cases there's a legal line. And those legal channels, by the way, are very interesting. Um there's a great channel. Um It's a little too Hollywood in cuz the guy worked in Hollywood, but he's a lawyer, and it's called The Legal Beef. I don't know him, but he does these everyday cases of like if someone says like, "It's illegal to film here. You can't touch my camera." Or, you know, and then he goes, "Well, that's the legal beef." Tells you, and he gives you exactly what the law says. And so, I think we tend to like that. I certainly like that. Like where I like thick black lines, clear operational definitions. But it is true that, for instance, growing up, I I wasn't of the mind that, you know, it's not okay to cry. I just but was definitely certain places, certain times. >> Yeah. It does seem like the workplace and school and online, it's become either more accepted or it just happens that people are bringing more of their own stuff. And I think one thing I worry about, I'm showing my age here, but the one thing that I worry about as people think about their emotions without having really good strategies to work with them is that they lose the ability to be effective. I agree. Because time is running. And I hear from a fair number of friends whose kid is struggling because they're dealing with depression, or they're dealing with anxiety, or they have a cannabis use disorder, or they're Time's ticking. And developmental milestones are real. And so the question I have is how should people think about evolving their own ability to work with their emotions cuz you said it's a process, it's a dance, it's a takes time with the need to really show up and get things done in life. Yeah. >> Cuz you and I are two people who are degreed and have steady jobs and and it's we have space to think about this stuff. >> Well, we do. And I always tell people that like for example, there's a school, I won't mention its name cuz this is not a good story. Uh post the election, this past election, wrote a note to every student and said, "We recognize that some of you may be feeling overwhelmed by your feelings and if you need to take the day off, it's okay." I almost had a conniption about that. I was the that's my father speaking, conniption. But I was like I cannot believe this is happening. They weren't what it was school that I work with. I wanted to call on the head of that school and say like this is the worst advice you can give people. People have to learn how to live with difficult feelings. And if we're going to give excuses to people to like, you know, they can just like I'm just overwhelmed by what's happened and not get to process it and manage it and move forward in their life, we're going to create a generation of very weak people. So I couldn't agree more. And that's not what this work is about. Like that's the confusion. It's been politicized in many ways sometimes and there's groups of people now that say this is you're making kids fragile by having them talk about their feelings. And I say it's called emotional intelligence, emotion regulation. We're not letting them like sit in their feelings all day long. We want them to recognize is that feeling helping or hurting them achieve their goals. If it's getting in the way, you need to strategize. And the goal is to move forward, not to be stuck in. I think that's a huge huge issue right now. And the same thing with discomfort. Like it's okay to be uncom- I mean my whole career is built upon being uncomfortable. People saying, "I don't like your work. Your Your program's going to turn kids into homosexuals. I don't want to talk about feelings, you know. You're this >> psychologist, but you recreate your childhood with the public. Yeah. There you go. Sublimated. Um but, you know, I love that feeling. That discomfort. I sit with it. I don't try to push it away. And I think, Mark, what's your creative solution? That to me is like the beauty of the work. I don't get it If I were If I just got paralyzed, you know, by that, I would Where would I go in life? I would be frozen. We don't want kids to be frozen. We don't want anyone to be frozen. We want people to be able to live their lives, experience the full range of emotions, regulate effectively, and achieve their goals. I'm no psychologist. I've said that four times. Uh but, I have the strong feeling that your martial arts training prepared you to be public-facing, cuz it is a relationship, right? And I'd like to talk a little bit about that relationship specifically, because you've been this amazing ambassador for emotions, what they are, how to work with them in a healthy way, and to also still show up in life, to not necessarily take the day off, right? I mean, if you lose a close family member, it makes We would all say like, of course, stay home, take a day, take what you need, right? But eventually come back. You know, that's an important piece, too. It's an important piece, too, to not um as one scientist I used to work with say, you know, dissolve into a puddle. He used to say when someone's paper came back, he said, "And if it gets Before you look, if it gets rejected, don't dissolve into a puddle of your own tears." It was that kind of old-school harsh thing, but I think it came from a place of care, cuz you're like, "Listen, it's not the end of the world." And there have been graduate students who have killed themselves on the basis of their PhD not going well. I I know stories about this, sadly. You have taken some heat for both being a champion of this process, but also by not giving in to this idea that we're all just supposed to take the decade off. >> Yeah. Um and so you get it from both sides. You're in a unique position. Um and I feel for you because some people will say, "Hey, listen, you're teaching people to be soft and clearly that's not what you're um advocating for. And people have also said, "Hey, you're pushing us to like push our feelings away and there's a lot that we're really angry about in the world and how can you be talking about this when fascism is taking over, there's a war, this and you know, and and on and on and on and on and on and on. So, how have you, just personally, if you're willing, how have how has that landed and how have you decided to respond to that? I love challenge. And so, you know, I wrote this piece for Time magazine. It was and of course, you probably know this, but when you're writing an op-ed, the publisher decides on the title. And they like to be provocative, so they called it the overreaction epidemic and I got slammed for it. You know, we're overreacting, we're not overreacting, the world's coming to an end. And it does feel like for many of us, you know, between wars and everything else happening, political polarization, you know, it does feel that way for many on both sides. And I say, "Yes, but running around yelling and screaming at people, how is that helpful? Like where is the benefit to you and to the other person to move forward?" And so, to me it just makes me think more creatively about the work I do. And the other side, you know, where people have said that I'm now making people fragile because I'm getting kids and boys to talk about their feelings and it's going to make them more fragile. Um as a matter of fact, I saw somebody said recently that this work >> [snorts] >> causes kids to have mental illness. And I was like, "Wow, that's a good one. And again, this stems from misunderstanding of the concepts. A, I'm a big stickler, like you said, operational [snorts] definitions. I want to be super clear about what I'm teaching. I'm not teaching la la la la. I'm teaching you how to be emotionally self-aware. Would you agree that it matters to be clear about what you're feeling? Yes. Thank you. Okay. So, when you're clear about how you're feeling, and if that feeling is disrupting you from being a good student or being a good partner or being a good manager leader, do you think that you should use techniques to help you figure out how to manage it? Yes, absolutely. Perfect. That's what we teach. It's really clear. When you have conceptual clarity, I think there's less confusion. What happens that people it's gotten politicized, you know, it's confusing around going back to what we spoke about earlier that this is obsessive checking in, this is prying into kids' personal lives. Here's the deal. A kid comes to school with feelings. We all have feelings from the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, even when we sleep. Have you ever been irritable in the morning? Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. >> And have you ever noticed that we call it incidental leakage. It's not a great term. But like you're irritable, you really haven't processed it and you get maybe to the studio here and then maybe people are trying to interact with you but and you're not like the best version of you. Definitely. >> Yeah. That's what happens. And so that happens to a kid who's gotten bullied on the bus or had a fight at home and you want that kid, like every parent does, I want my kid to be a good learner, you know, have good friends, etc. All right. So, now I'm teaching you a process, Andrew, that before you walk into the studio, I want you to take 30 seconds, maybe 20 if you get good at it, to just check in. Take a breath. How you feeling? Gosh, I'm pissed off at that phone call I had or I'm annoyed at this. Okay. How do you want to be seen and talked about and experienced in that studio today? Oh, wow. But it's a whole Did you see how like I even saying that like it makes you like stand still and like reflect? Well, I want to be this cool dude who's, you know, compassionate and um creative. Okay. Well, what do you need to get there? And then you walk in. And all of a sudden, you have attributed the emotion to its actual cause, which is that stupid phone call or whatever happened, and you're no longer going to displace that or project it or take it out on somebody else. Do you think that would be a useful process for kids, couples, leaders to use? Definitely. How long does it take? Seconds. There you go. This is not obsession with feeling. This is not You know, this is at at opportune moments. You know, when I come home from work, I'm I work long hours and I'm tired and I'm irritable a lot of the time. I just am. I got to switch my mindset to be the best version of myself as a husband. So, that's what we're trying to help people do. And I don't want people to be confused by that. I want people to be super I want real clarity. It's articulating what your experience is, recognizing that it may be helpful. If it's helpful, you got nothing to do. Congratulations. If it's not going to be helpful, you need to think about those strategies. Is it labeling it? Maybe. Is it taking the breath? Maybe. There have been times I've taken 15 deep breaths and I'm still irritable. I need a new strategy. I need to call a good friend. I need to say, "Hey Doug, can you like I'm really struggling with this right now. Do you have some thoughts? Not a problem. Getting social support is not weak. It's smart. Maybe I need to take another walk around the block to just decompress. Maybe I got a really shitty night's sleep and I just need to recognize that I'm never going to be the best version of myself, no matter how hard I try, cuz I haven't replenished, you know, the resources of my brain to be the best version of myself. It's an unfortunate reality, but tap water often contains contaminants that negatively impact our health. 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In fact, I consider it a welcome addition to my kitchen. It looks great, and the water is delicious. If you'd like to try Aura, you can go to auraring.com/huberman and get an exclusive discount. Again, that's auraring.com/huberman. I love it, and I've two reflections I'd love your reflections on. The first one is positive states and emotions that are also dangerous. When people are feeling over-affiliative, over-comfortable, they sometimes say things that get them into real trouble. They either disclose things or they make jokes that later they pay the the price for. This is I think maybe not as common as anger and sadness and anxiety, but given that some very prominent uh very very smart people I've seen completely destroy their careers by it used to be called tweeting. You go, "What this is crazy. This person actually a chair of psychiatry, I'm not going to beat around the bush here was fired for saying something that was totally it was actually inappropriate and lame and stupid. You just go, "But this person is clearly intelligent. They're the chair of a of a Ivy League school in psychiatry. And you say, "Well, what happened?" And what was interesting to me were the tweets leading up to it. You could say he was showing his true self, but there was this sort of like ease and comfort around joking. And there's certain jokes you just don't make. And so I think what you're describing is equally important for not overstepping, not um you know hurting oneself or other people. Activation is activation. So your heart rate and your you know different chemicals get released when you're super excited and when you're anxious. Activation might be the same. The psychology of it is different. Right, one is like anticipation of like positive things, one is anticipation of you know the negative things. And of course emotions drive our thinking, our decision making, everything. So you know, how many of us have made a mistake when we were too excited, when we were young? You know, we won't go into those stories now. Excitement without regulation is not helpful. It's funny cuz you tell that then I'm going back to the school situation. And that's a big problem with a lot of teachers. They're like, "The kid is so excited. They just They're going to see grandma after school and they can't stop talking about it all day long and it's driving me crazy." So positive emotions can be a pain in the butt, too. And but they're afraid that they don't want to squelch the kids' excitement. And I say, "Well, let's talk about it. What do you think?" I mean, this is like the easiest solution I I came up with on the spot. I said, "What's the challenge?" He just can't stop talking about going to see his grandmother. I said, "Well, he must love his grandmother. That's a great thing. Have you given him an opportunity to stand up in the front of the class and just tell everybody how excited he is and just let him get it out." "What do you mean? You want me to give him the like give him like the throne?" I said, "Yeah, I want you to try this out. I want you to let him when he's like He can't stop talking about wanting to say, 'Johnny, I'm going to give you a minute to get up and tell everybody how excited you are, but then we're going to go back to math. We're going to go back to science.' And let me know how that works." And of course, 2 weeks later I go back and visit. She's like, "You're a magician." I'm like, "I'm not a magician. He just needed an outlet for his emotions. Give the kid the 1 minute to just tell everybody how excited it is, but also let him know that the expectations that I have for you are not changing. Just because you're excited about going to see grandma doesn't mean you have to focus. That's the magic of the work. Be a channel, not a dam. There you go. I didn't make that up. I learned that when I was a camp counselor in Yosemite. You get a kid that you know, back then we didn't have concepts of ADHD. Yeah. >> You had a kid that back then you would just be like, Mhm. >> "This kid is he's out of control." He wasn't harming anyone. He was just like would not settle down. You can't like just say, "Hey, sit down." Or I mean, that kid would always be getting in trouble, get sent home. So, you give them an opportunity to do something. Mhm. But then you have to like let them settle down. Likewise for the kid that was more creative and less physical, if your entire bunk was a bunch of kids who were super physical, that always would happen. But then you find out this kid who was like had some some something of value to share with the other kids and then it would establish his place in in this group. There's a very weird thing happening lately online. Which is this obsession with the '90s. Um, I grew up in the '90s. So, I tuned in the '90s. What do you say? >> [clears throat] >> And there's an example that I saw recently that I think is really relevant to what you're describing. It was a picture of a classroom sitting around listening to a radio. I remember doing this. It was an actual picture and it said when the Challenger space shuttle blew up, we all listened to it with our teachers cuz we were listening to that space shuttle launch. And then afterwards, we went back to our lesson plan. We didn't process it for weeks and weeks. And someone said, "Gosh, I miss the '90s." Now, at my school it was a little bit different. I actually remember the teacher going around the room the next day and asking people if they had anything they wanted to share. And people would share their thoughts and then like one kid said like I heard they found a foot, you know, and then she was like, "Okay, Garrett, you know, like settle down." You know, like some kids were being a bit morbid and stuff. Maybe she shouldn't have done that. I don't know. But there was an opportunity. But I think that was the last it was ever discussed. And we witnessed with our ears. It's not the same as seeing it, but we witnessed with our ears um a bunch of people blowing up. And it was true. It was like, "Okay, this happened. This is tragic. We're going to talk about it for a bit and then we're not going to talk about it anymore." Love your thoughts on the picture I just laid out. What happened? What's happening now? This kind of emphasis on let's get back to when things were not as coddled. Um I'm just curious what your thoughts are. You know, we were talking about this a little while ago. The world that kids are growing up in now is different. It is a different world. I was not thinking about climate change when I was a kid. I really didn't worry about who is president or not president and the whatever's going on politically. I wasn't thinking about, you know, wars as much as people are thinking about right now. Um I wasn't thinking about artificial intelligence and technology is going to take over my career. So, there are real concerns that high school kids tell me they're feeling and it's really causing them a lot of stress. We haven't created solutions. We're not teaching them how to manage it. We're going to have to learn how to manage it in this world we're living in. So, I do think it, you know, the challenge is there. I just want to say one thing that's related, which is this artificial intelligence piece that is obviously prominent right now in society, which people are freaked out about for some reasons and thrilled about for other reasons. The thing that I'm most concerned about is this is that about 20% of adolescents now report using technology AI as a therapist, you know, as a companion. Now, do I think you can get advice from AI about like stress? Definitely. Do I think um it's going to help a little bit. Do I want people to be in relationship with a chatbot? Absolutely not. And here's the deal. When I was a kid who was being bullied and like spit on in the bus and my head being banged in the windows and I came off the bus, what I needed was a human being to say I love you. A human being to grab my hand. A human being to say, "We're going to get through this together." There's no way the technology is going to replace that. And I would argue that this this obsession with technology to solve our emotional problems is a symptom of the thing we started talking about from the beginning, which is this fear of intimacy, this fear of connection, this fear of being present with people's emotions. It's so scary for parents to be with their kids' emotions. They're I never learned how to deal with my anxiety. I can't deal with my kids' anxiety. I'd rather not know that they're feeling anxious. And then I said, "Do you want your kid married to a chatbot?" And so, the real issue, in my humble opinion, is that we are cultivating more and more disconnection. And I think about this, you know, developmentally. And I don't think, you know, in general, you know, I was stressed out as a kid. And I was I was at the age where video games were becoming popular. And I got that first little football game. I could spend 10 hours a day on that. That was my way of not being in the real world, of not dealing with my challenges, of my parents not connecting with me. Then I got a Walkman. And then the internet came. And then I got email. And then I got social media. And now it's AI. This is just an endless trajectory of outside influences that are pulling us away from being in relationship. And uh I think I wouldn't say this I would say I wouldn't say this publicly. This is a podcast. Is that I never thought evolution can move so quickly. But I do feel that way all of a sudden with what's happening now, this chronic disconnection. And kids are preferring to text instead of to communicate with their friends. There's research, you know, anxiety, stress, and depression are increasing consistently. And it comes back to connection and strategies. Yeah. A good friend of mine who's a geneticist said, "It's You know, it takes a very long time to evolve a species. It doesn't take very long to de-volve a species. You can crash a species very quickly." In terms of people feeling overwhelmed and saying, "I can't do anything right now because of what's happening in the world." Uh I remember when I was an undergraduate, the '90s were pretty peaceful time. I mean, we had Gulf War and things like that. But relatively speaking. And the professor whose lab I worked in told me this was in Santa Barbara where they burned the bank down during the Vietnam War protests. But he said that in the early 70s uh very early 70s and and late 60s that you'd be giving a lecture, he was a young professor, and students would just stand up. What about the war in Vietnam? And he's like, this is a physiology class. We're talking about this. And they'd say, what about And the students would start protesting. So this is not a really new phenomenon. >> I agree. I mean, this was happening. People feeling overwhelmed, people feeling like the campus was theirs. They're going to make noise. I'm not justifying unlawful protest. I'm not I'm certainly not justifying any kind of protest where certain students are being restricted. I'm fundamental out going right. I'm fundamentally opposed to that. But this notion that people are feeling overwhelmed and young people are full of energy, you know, and they want people to know how overwhelmed they feel and how angry they feel. But in the backdrop the line's moving for the conveyor's moving forward. I agree. But I think that in order for people to feel like and this comes from the article that was written by you, uh you quoted a comment someone said, we're not overreacting, we're under reacting. So in order for people to feel heard, I want to double click on that comment. But in order for people to feel really heard and and understood in their reaction I think it's also important that our society just can't sit around protesting all day and and and we can't collapse into we can't dissolve into a puddle of our own tears. And I do want to talk to you about the ways to that you're formalizing this work because one thing that I think is wonderful that's happened in the last 10 years or so is that we've moved from the language of consciousness and mindfulness, which I think are great terms >> Of course. to long exhale breathing to the notion that stress can be adaptive, Ali Crum's lab, it can make us better, To an understanding that there's a way of working with your physiology to be stronger and yet acknowledge your physiology. I'm feeling stressed. Now I need to bring my stress down. I'm I'm exhausted. I need to figure out a way to have more energy. Work on sleep, etc. etc. I don't think it's happened yet, but I think it's starting that psychology needs the same kind of organizational principles so that people can move past narcissism, gaslighting, claiming everyone that they don't like is is being abusive. And there's been a sort of psychological I don't want to say collapse, but I don't think people know how to navigate this space. Whereas I think mindfulness, consciousness, and the idea that we need to take care of our sleep, we need exercise, we need sunlight, you know, I and others have worked very hard to try and get people to understand like you need to work with your body. You're not trying to conquer your body, but you do need to nudge it and sometimes push it. You don't want to be that person 10 hours on the treadmill who's suppressing everything. And I think where psychology has been a little bit self-defeating is that there's a lot of language. Mhm. And it can start to feel like, "Ugh, this is a lot. I got to do." So, along those lines, if you are told, you know, "So-and-so's gaslighting me. They're a narcissist. They you know, uh fascism is taking over and like you expect me to not be outraged." Quote, "We're not overreacting, we're underreacting." You're a martial artist. You're a very staid guy. Where do you start? What do you say to that person? Well, I think we have to ask them if they're being effective. And so, is whatever you're doing leading to the change that you want it to have? And if they know about emotions, you know, I don't know about you, but when someone is yelling and screaming at me, I shut down. I'm no longer present. And so, they're actually not getting their goal achieved. >> If they're asking me to do something different, or they're trying to help me understand something, if they can't communicate in a way that I can understand it, and I want to actually listen, it's not going anywhere. So, I think that people need to recognize that I'm a person who is both and. So, just to give you a concrete example, our program RULER, which is the school-based work that we do, is in all the schools in one district of Harlem, New York. 21 schools, thousands of kids, the teachers, the leaders, the deputy superintendent Don is my former student. They're facing food scarcity. These are really troubled families in many instances. They're facing, obviously, racism. They're facing poverty, you know, home insecurity. Of course, I want to solve for that problem. I would do anything I could to make sure everybody has a meal. At the same time, every one of those kids is being dropped off at school. And we're expecting that kid to thrive for 8 hours a day in that classroom. How can I not teach that kid skills to thrive? I have to. There's no obligation. There's no There's It's It's my moral obligation to help that kid be the best version of themselves, no matter what their background is, no matter what their circumstances are. It doesn't mean that I'm not also thinking about that. And I think that people in our society today, this is part of that article, is that we're so focused on the big change. Many of us have very little control over the big change. I feel blessed that I have some control over the lives of thousands of kids that are waking up every morning and trying to be the best versions of themselves, but they need help. They need strategies. They need teachers who are well, who can be the best versions of themselves for them. They need leaders who care about the teachers. And so, I think that we have to find, in our own way, I know my way and I sleep well at night thinking I'm doing important work to support people in having well-being. It doesn't mean I don't think about the larger issues. Um, but I do think that the more well people are the better they're able to be at problem-solving around the larger societal issues. I don't think a dysregulated society is going to solve its problems. I agree completely and I'm grateful for the work you're doing. I am I feel like that again, I I just draw the parallel to what's happened around sleep, stress regulation, exercise, nutrition. I feel like there's always resistance at the beginning. Like what is this stuff? Like I don't want a morning routine. I just want to get up and do my thing. Like I don't want to hear that alcohol is bad for me. Like I I mean when I was coming up in academia like alcohol was everywhere. The happy hour is that it was a source of a lot of problems. I was never a big drinker. So for me it was like great opportunity to go do something else, but if you didn't drink with your senior colleagues, it was kind of like people like what's wrong with you or something like that. I think what causes a tide change is when first of all someone creates a structure around things that science shows work. You've been doing that and I love that you're taking this broader through books, through podcasts, uh um into the school districts. We'll talk more about the ways you're doing it, ways people can incorporate some of this. But I think at some point a few or more brave individuals start incorporating a structure like oh wow, maybe Matt Walker's right. Maybe sleep when you're dead is not a good philosophy. And now the mindset is well, if you sleep, you're smarter. If you're smarter, you're more effective. And so the people who are doing best are incorporating a structure. And then I also think inevitably what happens and we're kind of edging up against this now at least in the sorts of things that I teach, is that a pushback. Like, okay, enough structure. Like, we need some freedom. I'm sensing that now. People like, how many things am I supposed to do? And the idea is like, you're not supposed to do them all. You're supposed to do what you need, right? And and I acknowledge that that's happening now. Um that's the contour of sort of the areas that that I've worked in and tried to share. In the area that you work in or trying to share, and I realize there's overlap, I feel like the structure is there. I think great examples of people, kids and adults, who are really not just succeeding, not just getting by, but are like really kicking butt by virtue of doing the things that you're talking about. That's what's going to lead to a systemic change. I think about Steve Kerr talks about meditation. And he's Steve Kerr, so you're like, okay, people who like basketball, like, this guy's a stud and he meditates. And so, meditation is no longer considered magic carpet stuff. Yeah. Right? For every one of these things, that's kind of how it is. It's like, breath work, okay, like, I know Wim Hof. Wim is a little bit eccentric. People are like, oh yeah, breathe, exhale. That's like, everyone does that now. So, no one's going to be like, oh, now we're breathing. And they're like, but how much time do we have to spend breathing? And so, I think with what you're talking about, I feel like it's central to everything. I actually worry about our species if we don't incorporate the sorts of things that you're talking about. You talk about, you know, the idea of regulating is not suppressing. Like, I think the the concepts are critical. And the practices are critical. So, could you give us a couple examples of the concepts that are just core concepts? You We started off this way, but and then maybe a few practical tools so that people can start to think about this in the same way that 10 years ago we might have talked about like, hey, like, you think sleep when you're dead is working for you, but you're actually kind of an idiot when you don't sleep. And you're in a job that requires you to be smart, not an idiot. This kind of thing. Yeah. I think, firstly, you know, in my book I have something called the dealing with feeling wheel. And this goes directly to what you're thinking about. When people are dysregulated, when parents are like dealing with a kid, for example, who's dysregulated, they get desperate. Let's take a deep breath. Breathe, breathe. No, let's go for a walk. No, let's cook together. No, let's play a game. No, let's do this. And you go crazy. That's not helpful. I'll give you an example for myself. For about a couple of months I've been just I have so much work and I have not slept well. The last week I've prioritized going to bed early. I prioritized like real dark, you know, the darkened room. And like to I got like I woke up today at 7:30. I was like, "God, God, this is a miracle." Like 7:30 it's like, you know, it's the middle of the afternoon. And I feel energized today. I feel, you know, and I'm in a good place. And I've I felt that way for like a week now. I recognize I'm building new patterns for my sleep. It's no longer in my wheel a priority. I figured it out. There are some days where my I just feel I can't think straight. I'm like all over the place. I realize that I've been maybe on social media too much. I realize I have like 85 things on my to-do list. And I'm like, "Mark, you got to go back to your mindfulness work. You need some breath work. You need to just sit around. You need to take that space. You need to get to that hot yoga class. You need to do this. You need this back into your routine." There are other days I sit around and think, "I'm so lonely. You know, like I don't talk to anybody anymore. You know, I feel like so like, you know, whatever." And I'm like, "I need connection. I'm desperate for connection." I think that's the way we have to look at it. That there are these components of our well-being and of that are correlated and are the same as what we do to regulate our emotions. There's the self-awareness piece. Am I Am I at all like paying attention to my emotions right now? There's that breath work piece. There's the cognitive work. There's the relational work. There's the biology of it, the sleep, the nutrition, the physical activity. Like for example, one of the things that happened for me in writing this new book was that I became very, very committed to my own fitness. Much Martial Arts was like, you know, that was like teaching 10 karate classes a week. I was younger than I was in the best shape of my life. Then I got like professor dumpy professor syndrome. I'm like, that is not I'm not getting on that stage looking that way anymore. I was like, "Whoa." And I made this major commitment. And one of the things that happened to me was that it became my go-to strategy for my overwhelming stress while writing my book. And I remember saying to myself one day like, "Mark, you may not finish this book, but you're going to be in the best freaking shape of your life." And truthfully, it transformed my life. Now here's why I'm telling you that story. Cuz in the conversation with this friend Marco who is a trainer, we started having these conversations around fitness identity and how it relates to emotional intelligence identity. And I realized something magical. Which is that now at 56, it's been 4 years that I've like done my four workouts a week. I mean, I haven't really missed a workout unless I'm like on a vacation, but I'll still do something else. I cannot not exercise. And this morning just to be, you know, talking about you know, coming on Huberman Lab, I'm like, I woke up at 7:30. I'm like, I got to get there by this time, but like I got I got I can't work out. I have to work out before I go to Huberman. Like, I can't show up not doing my workout. And um I knew I would feel better. I knew I'd be more present. And I did my hour, you know, back workout. But the point I'm really making here is that I identify as a person who exercises I I and I it's like just who I am. My vision for the world is that we cultivate people who identify as well-regulated. Because if you walk into a room thinking to yourself, "I got this. Nothing you can say can trigger me. I can get through this or I can manage my emotions." Life is going to be completely different. And that's why I end my book with this concept that people talk a lot about like be the best self and you everybody's talking about their best selves. But it really does relate to emotion regulation and there's good research to support it. That you asked me for like a concrete like technique. Well, this is that thing we call the meta moment. And I cultivated this technique with my colleague Robin. She was a therapist working with patients in New York City and she's like, "I teach them all strategies and then they go home and they yell at each other." And I'm like, "I'm a scientist working in schools and everybody's like this is boring and then nobody wants to do this." I'm like, "The motivation is not there. People don't see the benefit." People they don't see that their life is going to be better, going to make better choices, have better relationships, etc. So, what's going to make it a difference? Well, as we know between stimulus and response there is space. Okay, so what do I do to fill the space? Well, the first step is I got to sense that something's going on. I got to be aware. Wow, that just triggered me. Wow, that was not cool. My automatic habitual response is going to be who the F do you think you are? Like, don't talk to me that way or whatever it might be. Mark who is identifies as the most well-regulated person in the whole wide world, the feelings master, the emotional guru, he has a process. He automatically takes the breath. He automatically builds a space. He automatically takes a step back. He does not go on that gut. He says there's a better way. But that's not enough. So now I have to think about my best version of myself in my role as a husband. How do I want to be seen? How do I want to be talked about? How do I want to be experienced? In my role as a professor, in my role as a presenter. Different roles, different selves. And I've helped millions of people engage in this process, by the way. And when you build the space to think about your best self, what it does is it pulls you away from the trigger. And it brings you back to your values. And then through the lens of Mark, the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence, like he's a different dude. He's a totally different guy than Mark who grew up in New Jersey being bullied and is triggered. Mark as a center director is like a you know, Oz. You know, the the Yoda of emotional intelligence. Well, well, how would he respond to this moment? This is a beautiful challenge. I love it. And so my point is is that we can do that for ourselves. We can help other people do it. We can do it in a moment. Ideally, we'll do it proactively. So when you go home or when you come into work, you pause, you identify, and you think about the best version of yourself, and you enter into that lens. My favorite story about this was, you know, we teach this in schools. And this one kid, you know, when you know when you when people joke about things, you know they got it. So I'm in this school and this teacher is like, Mark, you know, this stuff is you know, it's really funny. I said, what do you mean? She goes, well, this kid was really really not being kind to someone on the playground, and I called him out on it. And he came over and I said, you know, I need to know exactly what happened. And the kid said, you know, Mrs. Johnson, I'm going to tell you what happened, but I need you to take a meta moment first. Like the kid knew that if he if she were looking at what he had done through the best version of herself, she would respond differently. That's the magic of the work. Well, I think that the language around meta moment is something that I'm going to with your permission, I'm going to help propagate because I do think languaging and labels is very, very important in terms of getting useful tools out more broadly. You know, again, not to knock on the mindfulness meditation work that's gone goes back thousands of years, but you know, it occurred to me at some point like there's there's genuine power for mental and physical health in these practices, yoga nidra, etc. And I had to like have a conversation with myself and go, you know what? I'm going to take some heat for this, but I'm not going to call it yoga nidra. I'm going to call it non-sleep deep rest so more people do it. And I and I apologize, but that's you know, there was a reason. There's a reason to say this is the physiological sigh, you know, eventually now we know you can just do long exhale breathing, right? Um principle's the same, but languaging is so key for people to adopt these concepts and they can't drink from the fire hose. This is also what I've realized. They can't take it all at once, but you're building a curriculum for people and and it's so important. I I also I'm so struck by this the link that you discovered and uh and in clearly embody of internalizing a a a fit person identification. You know, you're a coach of a team, you're not going to be a slovenly coach. You're going to show that you also could you did all this and you could continue to do it if if your students and your players challenge you to, right? Identifying with a certain emotional maturity, regulation level. That that is also key because for myself, I mean, you many years ago I remember thinking, you know, I don't miss workouts. I just decided. I just don't miss them. To the point where sometimes I probably should miss them. I probably overshot the mark at times. Like, you know, and I learned I don't train sick. I now take weeks off every once in a while. So, those are structured around that. So, it's not push, push, push to the point of self-destruction. But with a having an emotional identity that you see in yourself and and can live into. I think that's a beautiful thing. I mean, David Goggins talks about having to have the old Goggins and the new one in order to be the new one because both live inside his head. He sat in the very chair and explained both of them are in here, but he has to take actions to be one and not the other every single day. And I think um as this language around what we're talking about evolves, I do think it's going to go really far and wide. I I have a theory right now. Tell me where it's wrong wrong cuz it's almost certainly wrong. That many people are very in touch with their extreme emotions of anger, sadness, um feeling like they're just, you know, they're too woke, they're too they're a fascist. Like, they're they're just in touch with the emotions. And then we have we're really good at putting labels on other people's identities, right? They're a narcissist. They're a fascist. They're extreme woke. But we don't really think about our own identity as much. >> Yeah. We're kind of lost in the emotions. And that uh political parties people usually know where they stand. But what would this look like to come up like I'm not asking you to do this on the fly, but I'm asking you to do this on the fly. Like like is should we be thinking about emotional maturity, emotional intelligence? Is there a word that that like we can internalize? Like, I'd like to be in shape. I kind of know what that is. I want to be a certain amount of strength, certain amount of endurance, certain amount of I want want able to run for the plane and not cough up a lung. I also want to be able to open the pickle jar. Want to be able to go up the stairs without pain. I know I have a concept of what that is for me. What is a label that works really well that people can start to fill in the bins of what it is to be an emotionally intelligent person. I think it's emotional intelligence because it's again, we need concepts that are clear that can be defined, that can be measured, and that demonstrate predictive validity. And so every one of the skills, I wrote a book on emotion regulation because that was the area that I wanted to focus on right now because that is at the top of the hierarchy. At the end, it's what you do with the feelings. That's the regulation piece. But to do that, you need to recognize your feelings, understand them, label them, decide whether you don't want to you want to express them or regulate it's the ruler framework. Emotion perception, yes, it's complicated, but at the end, it's about building relationships. I I can't know how you're feeling about your facial expression. You know that from Lisa's Feldman Barrett's work. But I can make a hypothesis and I can check in and say, "Hey, did what I say land on you well or not so well? Let's talk about it." The intelligence is the courage to engage. The understanding is listen, because of my childhood, I have a different relationship to anger than you do. We learned that today together. I see anger and I I it I have a fear comes in my blood because I knew I was going to get hit or yelled at or screamed or punished. You have a different relationship with anger. Anger still is about injustice. Period. We have to agree that the definition is about perceived injustice. However, my relationship to that and yours is different. Just like whether you're gay or straight or bi or trans, um homophobia to someone who is LGBTQIA is different than to someone who's not. I can't relate if I'm not you, but I can have the the courage to have empathy for your experience. That's the understanding piece. I'm not going to ever be a fully empathic to your life because I didn't live your life. It's your life. So, you can't understand my life. You can relate to pieces of it, but I can be curious about it and not judge it. The labeling piece is having that language, you know, what is really happening here? What is the experience? The expression piece is knowing how and when to express with different people across contexts. It's saying, is how I'm communicating landing well? Is my intended outcome a possibility here? Or is the person going to just, you know, run away? And then the last piece is the regulation, which is in the end, is this emotion helping or hurting me achieve my goals in life? And if it's going to hurt your goals, you need strategies to deal with it. Life is difficult. I don't know about you, but this journey in becoming an emotion revolutionary ain't easy. You know, now I got it's politicized and like we were talking about earlier, it's like, really? All right, come on. Like, what happened? Who was your mother? That's what I want to say. Like, tell me about the relationship you have with your mother. I probably shouldn't have said that, but anyway, I'm okay with that. It's all good. Maybe your father, whoever. The point is is that I feel very confident in that what I teach is easily defined. It's measurable. And I can show you my own and thousands of other studies where these skills predict things that we care about in life, whether it's well-being, whether it's leadership, whether it's decision-making, whether it's um just mental health outcomes. And so, it's I kind of have incontrovertible evidence for the effectiveness of it. And so, you can still say I'm not into it." But you have to be educated first. And once you once you really understand the value proposition, the why behind learning the skills, I can't imagine that every parent in the world wouldn't want their kid to develop these skills. Especially if these skills are going to be the defining skills of who succeeds and who doesn't. I feel like that's when a culture evolves. And I'm just imagining a future not too long from now where the debate around we all know who we're talking about here. One group is saying, "They're all fascists with no empathy." And the other side is saying, "Well, they're so caught up in inclusivity that nothing's getting done and people are being treated unfairly." That's what the Yeah, that's our society. That's the dialogue. And at some point we got to go, "Okay, everyone. Like, we understand your positions. But what are we going to do?" We got we got to move forward. I don't know that there's going to be a meeting in the middle for a while. What is going to happen, I think, is that young people will strive, hopefully, or they'll give up. And I think if the people who strive incorporate these tools and are rewarded for them, then that will become the standard. >> Exactly. >> kind of interesting that the obesity crisis was real. Mhm. And there was also a discussion around inclusivity. And that is now shifted, in part because of the GLP's, but there's now this idea that um you know, being obese is unhealthy. You couldn't say that five, six years ago. I remember during the pandemic a colleague of mine, very senior colleague, said, "We're seeing people dying of COVID and these people who are obese." And he said, "But you can't say that publicly." He told me, Yeah, I remember that. And so now there's this acknowledgement, right? Um that you know, physical health is in is important and people are striving for that more. And I think there's uh that's a I think that's generally a positive shift. It can be taken too far. But I think that there's this weird moment that we're in where the name-calling and the labeling of others, it's not getting us anywhere. The opportunity cost is that we're not actually figuring out like what we're responsible for. And I I'm pointing fingers at both sides. And I'm also pointing fingers at myself because I can sit here and say all sorts of things, uh but I you know, clearly we all have this work to do. Something important about that is that you don't know someone until you know their story. Like I know a little bit about your story now. You know, I want to know more. But, you know, and you know a little bit more about my story. And once you know someone's story, you start having more interest in them, more compassion for them. You know, uh my partner made a movie during the pandemic called America Unfiltered, which was him and his friend. So, it's a gay Panamanian running around with a straight Russian around America for a year interviewing people about what it means to live in America today. And they went to Trump rallies and Biden rallies, and they went into poverty, you know, and they went into all over America, gun shop owners, and black moms whose kids had been murdered by the police, and um people who wanted to become Americans, you know, citizens. And it was a listening journey. And it was a remarkable uh how I did a study on this, actually. I showed people the expressions of people, and I had them judge, you know, would you want to get to know this person? How warm is this person? Et cetera. Before they watched the movie. And what we found was that uh people were very judgmental based on race, based on if they were holding a gun or not. And then you watch the movie and you see the gun shop owner cry when he's talking about his relationship with his father. And that the only way he and his father could bond was over uh you know, with And you start hearing his story and you're sort of like This guy's like a really nice guy actually. And then you we tested people afterwards and we found that people had completely different judgments of people after hearing them and listening to their stories. And that's what we need in our society. We need more curiosity and less judgment. And that goes to, you know, ourselves. We'll be much more regulated. We'll have better relationships. We don't have to agree. I don't want But there's no need to agree. But there is a need to be civil. What you're talking about are standards. Mhm. I think what you're talking about is some standards of emotional intelligence or at least str- standards for striving. Cuz if we say like oh there's standards of physical presence and there's what does that mean? No. Does that mean everyone has to have like eight-pack abs and be perfectly, you know, and then and then you have older people trying to reverse their age and ending up looking like like totally artificial and yeah and it can go too far, right? Um but I think having standards of striving like every kid does physical education because even if you're not going to be a great athlete, it's good to develop a relationship to your body and take care of it. Every kid should do emotional intelligence training if you're even if you're not going to become Mark Brackett. >> You you can learn to regulate better than your parents and if you if you're rewarded We love rewards, right? We're we're obsessed with if we if the promotions and the the money and the status, let's face it, people care about that stuff comes from being healthier physically and emotionally, who wouldn't want that? I agree and it goes back again. I think I'm obsessive about this like being a scientist about yourself. You said this earlier, you know, you based on whatever, you know, you we won't have to go into go into this right now, but like working out is your big thing. But then you realize, you know, like I need a little break. I can take a break. It's okay. It's okay to take a day off. I can go walking on the beach or whatever it is. But that's the reflection process. That's you having that metacognitive ability to say, let me evaluate my life right now. Like, I can have a day like without the gym. It's going to be good. I can go have some fun with some friends. I'm the same way. All of this work that we do is about that level of reflection. I have to ask myself, when I don't do my workout, is this an excuse? Like, what's really Am I really tired or am I just like lazy right now? Um and that's the work. You know, I was thinking about this as we were talking that it's a process. And you know, this I came up with this process for myself as I was, you know, writing which with the workouts. You know, in the beginning you look in the mirror. By the way, I took photos of myself every month. Every month religiously. And the proof is in the photos. I'm in like Sometimes I look at them like, "Wow, Mark, you really did a good job." Cuz I really got out of shape and I was not happy with myself. I was used to being an athlete as a martial artist. And now I have 4 years of photos, you know, front, side, back. Every month. And you look at the day one and you look at today and it's a completely different human being. I have to look at that once in a while cuz I still have weird issues and I look in the mirror and I'm like, "Uh I'm like, wait, the picture tells the truth." But the phases of that are important. The first phase is like, can I get through this? Can I like I can't do four workouts, go from 3,500 calories a day down to 1,800 calories a day. There's no way to do all that. Just like you can't take every strategy in my book and like be obsessive about it. Like, I'm going to breathe, then I'm going to walk, no I'm going to sleep, no I'm going to talk positively, no I'm going to reach out. You'll go nuts. It's a process. This is life's work. Like, the good news you got your whole life to work on it cuz you're going to need it forever. So, that first phase is kind of just a learning phase. Like, what can I like what's the little steps I can take? The second phase is like, you start seeing a little bit of changes. Oh, my life's a little bit better. Feel a little better. I'm sleeping better. My relations are better. I'm more positive. I even during that phase of my workouts, I went through this whole phase of negativity cuz I'm like, Mark, you're married for 30 years. You're 56 years old. Who gives a about your body? And I would I I mean, I would do like deadlifts and like, this is ridiculous like when I'm deadlifting at 55 years old. And I would catch myself every time and like, Mark, this is what you do. You're you are a self-sabotager right now. You got to pause and you got to like, where is this coming from? And how you going to get that self-sabotager self out of here? The best version of you is not someone who does just two sets of those deadlifts. You do all four. But it was so much work, I can't tell you. But the beauty of all that, of like working through the discomfort, is that is that identity phase. Cuz now it's not an option. And so if you just do it and it becomes part of your identity, you don't have those struggles anymore. I love it. And the the parallel between physical fitness and emotional intelligence is not something I predicted before this conversation, but I I love it and I I'm certain that it's resonating with people because it's just physical stuff is just so tangible. It's so concrete. And look, I just want to thank you for making the emotional intelligence piece so concrete and for laying out these steps. We'll obviously provide links to your books. >> I have a I want to play a game with you for a minute though. Okay. You ready? Okay. Because one of my former colleagues and I got together a couple weeks ago about a month ago and we decided like, people are so disconnected. We so we took all the contents of my my books and we made a game. So that you actually when you have your party, it's called the point of connection. And so I did these are random cards. >> And it involve an app or a Wi-Fi connection. >> got to be with people. Awesome. So, uh there's your first card. What's the best advice a mentor ever gave you and how has it shaped the way you live or work? Two pieces. Briefly. The Mike Mentzer, one of the great trainers, gave me the advice to do low volume, high intensity resistance training. >> Mhm. Each body part once a week and train only three times per week, maybe four. Never more than 75 minutes, but to really learn to enjoy training extremely hard. And I followed that advice for 30 plus years and I look forward to workouts. So, I don't work out every day. Um amazing advice. And then the other advice, which is separate from fitness, comes from a guy named Bob Knight, who is a neurologist at UC Berkeley, who said, "Figure out how much work you can do each week consistently and then find some way to reset yourself each week that is not destructive." And I said, "What's yours?" And he said, "Fishing." And I I was like, "Okay, I've done a lot of fishing cuz my mom's side all the men went fishing and I like it. Decent fisherman, but I thought, "What is that for me?" For me it's hiking. Mhm. So, it could for someone else it could be something else, but I taught my lab that and I would teach a career development course at where I would pass that on at Cold Spring Harbor during the summer, which is kind of geek summer camp. And I said, "That doesn't mean drinking." But maybe one or two drinks. Someone said, "Okay, fine." As long as it's non-destructive, find a way to reset every week. And just keep coming back. And so, both of those things were about consistency and intensity. So, two mentors. All right, last one because I think this one is more relevant to our specific conversation. >> right? What's one emotion you've been carrying a lot lately that you'd like to experience less often? Oof. Man. Sorry. What might help soften it? >> [snorts] >> All right. Um I don't know the name of this emotion. Maybe you can help me. I'll try and describe it briefly. Lately I've been having these moments of feeling so much love and affection for someone and it like opens and then I go and then it shuts. But it's not opening and shutting cuz of them. I'm like and I know this feeling because in a different version of it, I'm about to get a new puppy. He's already picked out. He's already he's waiting. And I know the difference between what I just described and you're like and I just let it rip with the with the dog. Two different things, person, dog. I acknowledge there's a fundamental difference. But I feel this sort of like like I shut it down. So what is that emotion of closing down? I guess like shutting off to love. Is that an emotion? Or did I probably just revealed way more than I am? >> Well, love is a feeling obviously and um but I think you know, um we're going to go back to that opening a little bit about that fear and vulnerability. Like just allowing yourself to be with. There's something that's getting in the way there. So what might help soften it? Time? Yeah. Just be with it. Let it let it >> Right. >> [snorts] >> Man. >> [laughter] >> Thank you for that opportunity. Thank you. I actually really appreciate the opportunity. I hadn't thought about that until I read this. Are you willing to answer one? Yeah, sure. You're the guest. I feel like you should speak last. I spoke a lot today. All right. Um I can pick one or you can pick one. How's the game work? You basically you can go in circles and everybody shares and you look for the point of connection. So it's get to know people at a party. You know, in the workplace. Who is one of your heroes and what does that reveal about what you value? Well, as you know from our prior um conversation, my the hero in my life was my uncle Marvin because he helped me get through my very traumatic experience as a kid. And what I value about him now that I think about it more was that nothing I could say could startle him, nothing I could say would make him run away. He would He was just fully present and a listener and a learner and provided steady support. Well, clearly you've internalized that. Um Mark, thank you so much for coming back. Your your work is evolving so fast and uh you're doing such good in the world and uh do come back again. I feel like you're you're clearly on the move. >> There you go. Um and doing amazing things and uh again, I'll put links to your book and your books plural and and other work, but just want to say thank you as a as a co-public educator um and uh somebody who's really doing important work in the world. Thank you. You're a really good man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Marc Brackett. To learn more about his work and to find links to his books, please see the links in the show note captions. 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