​MindHack

#096 - Brian Sachetta - Engineer Your Calm: Debugging Mental Loops

• Cody McLain • Episode 96

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MindHack's Latest Code Drop: We unpack a groundbreaking approach to mental wellness with former software engineer and author, Brian Sachetta. Brian reveals how to 'debug' your mind, treating anxious thought loops and mental overwhelm like 'rogue software' that can be systematically reprogrammed.  

Discover his powerful IRA framework: Interrupt, Reframe, Anchor, a concrete algorithm to halt anxiety spirals and transform stress into 'rocket fuel' for enhanced performance. Learn actionable strategies to optimize your mental operating system, tackle imposter syndrome, and cultivate profound resilience.  

Tune in to engineer your calm and unlock a sharper, more focused mindset.

ℹ️ About the Guest

Brian Sachetta, the visionary former software engineer and founder of Get Out Of Your Head. Brian uniquely applies tech-inspired solutions to mental wellness, helping us debug our minds. His powerful books, including 'Get Out of Your Head: A Toolkit for Living with and Overcoming Anxiety' and 'Navigating the Abyss of Depression,' offer concrete strategies to reprogram anxious thought loops and cultivate profound resilience.

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Brian Sachetta: [00:00:00] My body is preparing for something that is novel, uncertain, gonna require a lot of energy, gonna require a lot of focus, and so the fact that I'm going into this heightened state right now, which I'm calling at the moment, anxiety is actually not a cause for concern. It's actually what my body is designed to do.

And if I leverage that heightened state properly, it actually could benefit me. When we change the narrative there and we say instead of it being a sign that bad things are afoot. It's actually a sign that my body is preparing me to perform well. If I utilize that, if I leverage that in a positive fashion, I will perform better.

Cody: Mind Hack is a podcast about the psychology behind performance, behavior change, and self-op optimization. Each episode explores how to think clearly, work smarter and live intentionally through insightful conversations with leading entrepreneurs, scientists, and experts, and human behavior.[00:01:00] 

Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Mind Hack podcast. I'm your host, Cody McClain, and well, you know that feeling when your mind has too many tabs open and everything starts slowing down. Well, today's guest figured out how to debug that. His name is Brian Chea. He is a former software engineer turned mental health author and founder of Get Out of Your Head.

A unique platform that tackles mental wellness through a tech inspired approach. Brian's books, including his popular two volume series, get Out of Your Head, resonated Deeply because they offer more than just the usual generic advice. Instead, he applies software engineering principles to mental health, giving us concrete tools to debug our anxious thought loops, tackle that imposter syndrome, and overcome the decision fatigue we often face as entrepreneurs, creators, and high performers.

And this conversation, we will [00:02:00] unpack exactly how Brian translates software debugging into practical mental health strategies. We'll also explore some powerful concepts from his work and dive into his personal journey from coding complex systems to helping people optimize their mental operating systems.

So let's dive in. Please welcome Brian Scheta. Brian, welcome to the podcast. 

Brian Sachetta: Hey, Cody, thanks for having me. 

Cody: So you've said that anxiety is a lot like rogue software loops that eat up your system memory. I, I love that analogy. So, so what was going on in your life when you first started seeing your own thought patterns show up that way?

Brian Sachetta: Yeah. Most of my anxiety has always centered around relationships and social interactions. So kind of in that social anxiety flavor, right? What was going on at the time when things came to a head was me being a teenager [00:03:00] trying to figure out my own dating life. And I actually was on a date with a girl when I was, I was either 17 or 18 right on that line, and I had a panic attack in front of her.

Um, and that really arose from a few things, right? Was. I was nervous in general, and I think that was because I didn't have a lot of experience on the relationship front. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. And then also, right, relationships are an uncertain thing. And so when you find yourself in a situation that is uncertain and it's important to you, that is kind of a breeding ground for anxiety, right?

Anxiety thrives off of uncertainty. If you knew how everything was gonna go, you probably wouldn't be anxious. You might feel some other emotion. You might be bored, but you certainly wouldn't be anxious. And so in those situations, what was going on in my mind was I was turning over all sorts of scary thoughts and ideas and asking myself scary questions.

And what was also difficult for me at that time was [00:04:00] because I didn't have a lot of experience, right? I saw my body reacting in a certain way, right? So maybe my heart was racing, maybe I started sweating on my forehead. Maybe I didn't know what to say or I lost the ability to talk momentarily. And when you don't have much experience and you experience those things and you then you say to yourself, oh goodness, why is this happening?

Am I maybe having a heart attack? Am I going into some sort of spiral? Whatever, right? Those questions breed more fear and more doubt and more uncertainty. And you get kind of caught up in this anxious cycle that becomes hard to break out of. And so, uh, you know, talking about debugging the mind a little bit, I often say that like anxiety is something like a recursive function, right?

It will call itself again and again and again. And you almost need to, before you, you know, before the anxiety hits you, you need to come up with this playbook to say, okay, when the anxiety becomes recursive, when it starts calling itself, and I get [00:05:00] all worked up. I need my breakout conditions, right? I need to be able to say, when I have the awareness that I'm doing that thing in my mind, I will then go do some other, you know, I'll enlist some task tactic that helps me calm down a little bit.

So, you know, often, right? It's like if you're writing a recursive function, like the Fibonacci sequence or whatever, you eventually get down to the Fibonacci of one or the Fibonacci of zero, right? And those return specific values that don't call that recursive nature yet again. So when you're feeling anxious, you wanna say to yourself.

If you can get that awareness right, I'm doing that thing right now. I'm being recursive. My anxiety has become recursive. Rather than allow it to continue to call itself, I need to take that awareness and say, now here's my opportunity. Here's my invite to go do something else. Right? Maybe that's, do some Brock box breathing, get up and go for a walk.

Those are the kinds of things that you need to put into your mental health, uh, toolkit or your tool belt, if you will, [00:06:00] and pull those out when you're feeling anxious. I wish I knew all that when I was 17 and honestly for probably the next decade or so, but, um, it's things that you learn along the way, and I think what's really helpful is then when you find yourself in those situations and you reassure yourself, you're like, okay, I've been through this before.

I'm not having a heart attack, and you can talk to yourself. In a more calm and composed manner, you prevent that anxiety from becoming recursive, from spiraling and getting worse and worse, right? So all these tools and tactics are things that we're gonna build up over time, become better with, and then eventually the management of anxiety becomes a little bit easier.

Cody: So, so to clarify, you're talking about acute anxiety. That anxiety that shows up if we're about to give a speech or, uh, I have, I have yet to meet somebody who smoked weed and not had a panic attack, you know, because it seems so common. And so it's that anxiety that that builds up where your heart starts racing.

[00:07:00] Maybe you're starting to sweat and you feel like the you're gonna die, or some terrible thing's gonna happen. And that's, that, that's that acute anxiety that rises up based on the, the environment. Maybe it's, again, it's giving a speech, um, or any number of things, whether it's, whether it's going on a date.

So. What, what can we do? So I, I wanna go from acute anxiety to the, the long-term anxiety, but before we do that, I would love to know what is your go-to diagnostic tool when it comes to these, these acute kind of panic attacks? Um, and are you referring to, to just like the everyday thing, uh, or no, like the once in a while thing if we're gonna give a speech or are you referring to somebody who seems to be having them on a regular basis?

Brian Sachetta: Yeah, that's a really good call out. So, just to clarify, in my previous answer, I was talking about more of the acute flavor, the prolonged, I guess prolonged is probably the best word for it, the lower grade, but prolonged version of anxiety that can [00:08:00] be really hard to deal with. I would honestly say from personal experience, it's probably the hardest version to deal with because it doesn't seem as though there's like some obvious and immediate problem, right?

The anxiety is the problem. And so your body. Is sending you these signals and you're like, what the heck? If I was going to give a speech, I understand why I'm anxious. If I was going, you know, on a job interview for a job that I really want, I would also understand that I'm anxious. But if I'm just anxious, because you know, when I'm sitting on the couch or walking down the street, that's where you get real scared, right?

Because then all of a sudden you start telling, it becomes harder to reassure yourself in those situations, right? Because you don't have that thing to latch onto. So I guess we can talk about the prolonged stuff longer, but, um, it's a, it's a difficult subject to address. I'm gonna open up a little bit of a can of worms with this answer, but you know, a lot of the [00:09:00] research, what it shows there is saying that like your body, when you're having these prolonged episodes, or you're having the lower grade anxiety that persists continually, right?

Your body is sending you some message, and the difficulty is that usually there is some trauma or some difficulty or some problem that we have suppressed in our lives, right? We've said, I don't want to deal with this right now. I'm not gonna think about it. I'm gonna push it down. Eventually the body and the nervous system kind of say like, Hey, we can't go on, like this thing is killing us from inside.

We need to deal with it. And rather than ex explicitly saying to you, Hey, here's the issue, and I'm giving you these symptoms, so that way you confront the issue, this thing is kind of pulling the strings from inside of you, like in the shadows, right? It's lurking, and you're like, I don't understand what the problem is.

What's really difficult about that kind right of [00:10:00] anxiety is one that in your face problem is not there. It's not apparent. So you really have to do some digging. Soul searching to be like, what is going on? Why is my body reacting in this fashion? And then you have to do the difficult work of resolving those things.

That's where therapy can be super helpful. 'cause often those issues are not apparent to us, right? They've, we've suppressed them into our unconscious mind. And somebody like a a, a good therapist who asks probing questions is gonna help us peel back the onion and get to the root of those issues, uh, and bring them back out into the light so that we can deal with them.

But it's very challenging. 'cause to us, we're like, I, I don't understand what the problem is. The problem appears to be the fact that I'm having, you know, anxiety attacks or panic attacks all the time. And yet, like I'm not in front of some scary tiger that's about to maul my face off, you know? That is kind of the high level answer that I would give in terms of the prolonged anxiety.

Um, but you know, I I, I did kind of say earlier, I [00:11:00] alluded to earlier, I was like, we could have hour long discussions about that kind of thing. So lemme just pause and see, see how that sits. 

Cody: Yeah. What you said earlier about the fact that, that we can have anxiety that lives within the body. That reminds me of, of the book The Body Keeps Score by, I, I believe Dr.

Gaba Mate, which is a great book that shows that if you have negative feelings, thoughts, or, or anxious fe uh, anxious feelings, that can often be associated with a deeper trauma that you perhaps have to work through because they can end up, um, kind of uncoupling themselves and presenting themselves in situations in which you feel anxious, but you're not sure why.

And so that's definitely an important aspect to anxiety itself. Um, what I'm, uh, I'm kind of curious to, to jump to is. When, uh, so, so there's different ways that we can try to deal if we're just gonna stick with acute anxiety for a sec. You know, you, you mentioned box breathing. Um, [00:12:00] and I, there's another popular one that I'm, I'm curious what your perspective is on it, um, which is the idea of reframing anxiety.

And so I know I've been up on stages and I, I give talks, and to be frank, I don't think I'd ever give a talk again without taking a beta blocker because it completely blocks that anxious feeling that heart racing. Um, which inevitably, uh, I feel like even, even if you do it so often, it's, it's possible that you might, might still have that feeling.

Um, but what I'm curious is this common advice is that you can reframe anxiety to say that instead of feeling afraid, I'm feeling excited. I'm curious, do you think, does that actually work? Um, and what other strategies would you recommend to somebody who's going through, I wouldn't say like in a, like a severe panic attack, but some kind of, uh, anxiousness prior to something, whether it's an interview or whatever.

Brian Sachetta: Yeah. I mean, I. Love, you know, the idea of reframing anxiety. I have a, uh, a little framework that we can jump into later, [00:13:00] uh, which I call the IRA framework. It is not the same thing as the Inflation Reduction Act. Uh, i, I, it stands for interrupt, reframe, and anchor. Um, and there's also like a bunch of other things I could talk about on this subject, right?

So, uh, I think the paper that came out originally around this subject labeled this concept, uh, anxiety reappraisal. So as you said, Cody, right? Instead of saying to yourself, I'm fearful, I'm anxious, I'm nervous, you say, Hey, maybe I'm excited, right? So looking at the feelings in your body in a different way, and the physiological like explanation behind that is, you know, you feel a lot of the same things when you are excited as when you are scared, right?

So your heart starts racing, you start sweating a little bit. Um, maybe a little bit of tunnel vision. The difference is, so you have those physiological changes. Uh, the difference is the mood or the, the affect, right? The feeling in the brain. You can say to yourself, I don't like this, right? I'm [00:14:00] nervous, I'm fearful.

Or when you're excited. And again, there, it's sometimes right when you just make the shift mentally and tell yourself one thing, it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. Maybe you can change, um, you know, the way that you're feeling just by changing your thoughts. Uh, and then I guess another thing to cover here, right, is like, so this is sort of like the basis of co a cognitive behavioral therapy, which is, uh, like a, you know, sort of a form of treatment where we look at the relationship between, um, our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions.

You end up getting this little triangle diagram, which basically says that, you know, the way that you think impacts the way that you feel and the way that you feel impacts the way that you act, and so on and so forth, like in both directions, right? So, uh, as you feel better, you're gonna think a little bit better.

As you act better, you're gonna get better results, you're gonna think better, so on and so forth. So, reframing is super important, and one of the things that I, I guess one of the last ones I want to touch upon here, right, is like this idea [00:15:00] of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? The way that we talk to ourselves, um, can often, like, we then manifest those very feelings and experiences in our bodies.

And so what's, what I find really helpful is to look at the way that you talk to yourself, to look at specifically the words that you use, the lexicon that you use, that kind of thing. So for example, if when you're going into some scary environment or some uncertain environment and you say to yourself.

Oh my goodness, this is the scariest thing I've ever done. I feel like I'm gonna faint. I feel like this is gloom and doom. I'm, this is gonna be one of the worst things that's, that's ever happened to me. Versus, and, and I'm not trying to be, you know, rainbows and unicorns here. Like, I understand, like these situations that we feel scared about.

We, we feel that way for a certain reason. And just saying to ourselves, it's amazing. Like, that's, you know, that's not gonna work. But at the same time, like if we can learn to take some of those large and scary [00:16:00] and, uh, I guess kind of just weighty words out of our vocabulary and, and replace them with softer things, right?

So instead of saying to yourself, I'm about to give this speech, and oh my goodness, this is the scariest thing I've ever done, you say to yourself, okay, and, and obviously we started this, this, uh, you know, back and forth with the notion of saying, Hey, maybe I'm excited right now. If you can't get to that idea or that place of telling yourself that you're excited, what you could do is you could just say to yourself.

I'm a little bit nervous right now, and I'm a little nervous because of this specific reason, right? And then when you can put your finger on it and you cannot place as much weight onto that feeling, all of a sudden, like you're giving your, your mind implicit instructions to respond in a certain way, right?

So if we say, this is so terrifying, this is so horrible. The message that we're sending to our brains is sound, the alarms, and let's you know this is an emergency. Let's get the heck outta here. When we instead use softer terms, like, again, if we say [00:17:00] that we're a little bit nervous on edge, a tiny bit unsure as to what might happen, right?

It's not that we've removed the uncertainty entirely, but we have not given our brains as much of a reason to panic or to go into that fight or flight or emergency mode. So I think it's important to remember that when we talk to ourselves, you know, our subconscious minds and our, you know, the structures in our brains are picking up on those words and they're reacting in kind.

So if you are constantly saying to yourself, this is horrifying, this is terrifying. This is the worst thing on earth, the fear center of your brain, your amygdala is picking up on that, and it is then saying to the rest of the body, you know, cue those alarms and let's get going. We gotta get Brian, we gotta get Cody out of this dangerous situation.

When instead you reframe it and you say, Hey, maybe this is a speech that it's a little scary, but I want to give it, I'm, you know, passionate about this subject. Again, it's not like we're saying we're taking out all the uncertainty, but we're giving our brains less reason to react with that [00:18:00] monumental response.

Right? And then in turn, we can then interpret that latter response and say, okay, my heart is not racing quite as much. I'm then gonna feed my brain even more reassuring self-talk and so on and so forth, right? It becomes this ping pong in either direction of negative thoughts, turn into negative, uh, experiences in the body and so on and so forth.

Or positive experiences and positive thoughts, uh, reinforce one another and we go in the opposite direction. So I love the idea of reframing. I think it's super important. And to be honest, like I think it's one of the, one of the most vital tools that you can put in your toolbox. 'cause you know how you talk to yourself, right?

You're, you are always, there's always a little chatter going on in your mind, and if that chatter is constantly negative, that's gonna contribute to the prolonged anxiety that you may or may not experience. So it's important to, you know, become a little bit more of a good friend to yourself, a good ally, uh, and talk to yourself in a more reassuring fashion.

Cody: Yeah, I think that that's what you said [00:19:00] there is, is super important, super powerful. Um, I've, I've. It's, it's something that I've looked at personally for a, a long period of time where I, I used to be somebody that was negative towards myself. I told myself I needed to, to, to do better. I needed to, to work harder, and I would be so hard on myself.

And what I learned in time is that when you're hard on yourself, you're actually kind of holding yourself back. You're using up this mental energy telling your, putting yourself down, and nobody is going to love yourself as much as you can love yourself. And if you aren't able to show up for yourself, then you can't expect to reach your ambitions or the, the goals that you set for yourself.

So, uh, there's, there's that aspect of rumination that if you go down that, that rumination too far, then that's, that's how depression shows up, right? And so it's super important to understand what is going on in the back of your mind, what is going on in that subconscious. And [00:20:00] what I'm curious about is, uh.

How do you, what's the difference between say, uh, rumination and, and presence? I mean, how do you teach someone to shift from, from one to another in a moment of panic? 

Brian Sachetta: Yeah, it's really, it's a great question. I will say that it's difficult because even though they are very different things in our minds, the, the line is kind of thin.

And what I mean by that is we can think to ourselves, Hey, I gotta be present. I am present. I'm doing presence, right? That kind of thing. When in reality we're actually inside our heads trying to create presence. And so what I would really say is that presence is more of a byproduct of doing certain things that engage us being around people that, you know, we like to be with.

All of those kinds of things. So the challenge, right, is like, and I think the example that I would give [00:21:00] is. So people will say, oh, you know, we see all these pictures on social media. Or you know, you go on a trip with your family to the Grand Canyon and everybody is on their cell phone taking pictures the whole time.

Nobody is actually present. They need to get off their phones. They need to just enjoy the experience of being at the Grand Canyon. And while I would certainly agree with that, the difficulty that you can run into in that situation is you put your phone away and then you say to yourself, I'm gonna be present.

I'm gonna enjoy this. Isn't this great? Aren't we all having fun? You are running another loop in your mind and preventing yourself from being present. So in a, the reason I say it's difficult is when you're present, you're almost not doing anything. And it's often very hard for us to not do anything right.

We've been trained to always be on, technology is always pinging us. Our phones are always sending us new notifications. And so it's a difficult thing to be able to truly be present. I would say the, the real [00:22:00] judge, the, the real hallmark of presence is not being in our heads, not asking questions, not thinking too much, just kind of enjoying whatever is in front of us.

And that's why I say it's more of a byproduct, right? So there's a, a popular book called Flow, um, and that is backed by some research by, uh, you know, the person, the psychologist who came up with, uh, the i the concept. So that's Miha. Chik sent Mehi. He writes about flow and says basically that flow emerges as this byproduct when we are doing things that are a little bit stimulating, a little bit challenging, but not too challenging, right?

But also not boring. And so an example that I give in my first book is I, I like to play basketball. Granted it's been a little while I moved, I used to live near a basketball court. I don't anymore. And I would just go to the court, I'd throw in some headphones, I'd start shooting. Like a half hour would go by and I'd kinda look down at my watch or my phone and I'd be like, wow, where did that hour go?

And [00:23:00] the challenge there right, is you almost say to yourself like, wow, I, I kinda lost that hour. But that is the beauty and also the curse of presence, right? Is time just disappears and we don't even notice. But it's those nice feelings that you get when you're in the, the experience of flow that we are after.

And that's, you know, where we wanna be when we are in our heads and when we're anxious and when we're in those moments saying to ourselves is, am I having a good time? Uh, you know, isn't this enjoyable? Whatever, we're not really attuned to what's happening around us. We're more inside of our heads. So it's a thin line.

It's also, um, you know, developing or cultivating presence can be challenging. But what I would say to folks is. The reliable way to do it is to, you know, pick up some of those activities that excite you, that are somewhat challenging, that are interesting to you. You know, make time for those things on your calendar.

Uh, engage in those things and then see how you feel in the long run. Sometimes, right. Kinda it becomes a stress relief and maybe, uh, it might [00:24:00] alleviate some anxiety over the long run, but, uh, pick it up and see how you feel. 

Cody: Yeah. That, that's, that's great advice. Uh, I think the, you, you kind of speak to the idea of meditation in a way, because that's all about presence and all about living in the moment and notice, noticing what's going on.

And I know that, uh, it's, it's so commonly talked about. We don't have to go down the road with benefits of meditation. It's, uh, but uh, I do think even if you feel like you don't have time to meditate. There's so many small things that you can do. And I know in Tim Ferriss's book Tools of Titans, he noted that so many of the high performers had some form of a mindfulness routine.

And I, I think even for me, I, I don't meditate. I don't get to meditating every day. I do try. Um, but one thing I do have, have as a backup is, you know, there's an iOS, a little meditation notification that you can enable. Um, and it can be annoying. It's like one minute it'll just pop up. And I don't necessarily click on it and actually do the meditation.

But what [00:25:00] I'll do is have that be a reminder about trying to be present, taking, taking a few seconds just to feel what's going on in my body, what am I feeling right now? Um, and sometimes I'll, I'll go down this rabbit hole of just gratitude and I'll feel so much love for myself and the life that I live and the people that I know.

And it's so beautiful to be able to have those little scattered moments throughout your life. Because we get so stuck on those negative thought patterns, right? We are built as a species to look at what's in our environment, what's in danger. And so we're always focused on the negative. And if you're somebody who's already prone to anxiety, then you're going to go into these ballots of rumination and potentially depression.

And that's just a, not a great place to be. And so one of the things you mentioned in your, your first book, get Out of Your Head, you introduce this 10 step process for managing anxiety, and I'm wondering if you can [00:26:00] kind of explain this process and, and perhaps even who should use it. 

Brian Sachetta: Yeah, for sure. So, um, the 10 steps to getting outta your head is, as you alluded to, right?

It's this framework that I, uh, pitch in the first half of my first book, and it's designed to help folks back, walk back, fear amid that acute form of anxiety, right? And, you know, sometimes the. More prolonged version, but it's, it's, it really is meant to be more in the acute situations, right? If, if you have been struggling with anxiety for, you know, months or, uh, and, and I mean this on a, like you're anxious every day and you don't really know why it is harder or it won't apply as well, like the 10 steps to getting out of your head won't apply as well.

The, but um, you know, the thought right is, okay, so you've got that job interview coming up, you've got that public speech coming up. You've got this scary and uncertain thing on the calendar, and when you think about it, when you go there mentally, all those feelings of fear and [00:27:00] anxiety and doubt and uncertainty come up.

And so for me, right, how the 10 steps really came, uh, you know, into form was I was going through, as we all do, right? Going through some anxious situations in my own life. And I was. Really saying to myself, okay, you know, day in and day out, I'm experiencing anx experiencing anxiety. Um, and it was, even though it was prolonged, it was over one specific stressor.

And so I was like, all right, I need a bunch of tools for myself to be able to look at this stressor and say, not necessarily it's no big deal, but say to myself, okay, like when this thing comes up, when I think about it, when I'm fearful, when I'm anxious, what can I do to feel a little bit less anxious, a little bit less fearful?

And so, uh, if you want the full story, right, it's, and I know this is shame, a shameless self-promotion, but it's the, the fir the full stories. In my first book, uh, I essentially, right, was to give you a little, you know, pull the curtain back a [00:28:00] little bit. I had been seeing this girl who. For one reason or another, kind of fell head over heels.

And, uh, she went to, uh, Europe for the summer and I was just so anxious about the relationship and where it would go. I didn't have a lot of good experience with relationships, or I should say most of my relationships did not go well. So it kind of became this thing for me where I was like, here we go again.

Here's another uncertain and scary situation where I, you know, if I'm being honest, I fear that I'm gonna have another, uh, situation on my hands where things don't go well. Right. I think at the beginning of us talking, I, I had said how I experienced a panic attack, uh, in high school with this, this girl that I was on a date with that happened a couple times in my life.

And so, you know, those strong experiences stick with us. Right. You mentioned the book. Uh, the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel VanDerKolk, like you have a panic attack in, in a scary and uncertain situation in. In front of someone that you like, and you know, by, by virtue [00:29:00] of that, it is a quote unquote, important situation that's gonna stick with you.

And that might, you know, drive the bus a little bit moving forward if you don't deal with it. So for me, I was like, here I am in another situation, uh, where I fear as though, like, when we next see each other, I'm gonna have a panic attack, or this relationship is just gonna go south real fast. Right? And so while she was away, it was multiple months.

And I mean, you know, looking back, I'm like, I wish that, uh, for one reason or another, I'm like, I wish that I gave other relationships a, uh, more of a chance. It's not like we were officially dating or anything like that. It was just a pursuit. Uh, I wish that I, you know, leaned into other opportunities and didn't focus in so much on this specific one, but at the same time, it's kind of like what's done is done, right?

So in that situation, I was like, okay, day after day for many months, I'm rehashing and ruminating over this situation, right? I'd wake up and I'd be like, I'm anxious yet again. And I know it seems a little crazy, but like, that's mental health for you, right? [00:30:00] It is. Like we, uh, we do things that are not, that don't always make a hundred percent sense.

Even though, for example, uh, you know, this girl would not return home from her vacation for many months. My mind wanted to fixate on this thing and figure it out and stomp it out and just be like, there's no uncertainty and everything's gonna be good. Uh, or at the very least, like, just figure this thing out.

And that's what the brain is designed to do, right? We talk about, uh, the brain's negativity, bias. We're always on the lookout for things that could go wrong because, you know, you roll the tape back many, many years, you know, hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. And it was like, if you were slow to react to threats in your environment, you could be dead, right?

And so dying is a lot worse than, you know, finding some little excitement, some little happiness boost down the road, right? The. It's kind of an asymmetric payoff curve, if you will. So getting back to the story itself, I'm waking up day after day saying to myself like, I really want this relationship to happen.

But [00:31:00] she's off in Europe, to be honest. Like sometimes the conversations were, you know, not going as well as I wanted them to. And it was just an anxiety provoking summer. And so I showed up day after day to, to my company's office and I'm just like so far inside my head, so anxious, don't know what to do with myself.

And I had been reading a lot and kind of just like, you know, doing introspection and all that kind of thing. And one day I had a little bit of an epiphany and I said to myself, okay, if I want to feel less anxious, I'm calling this an acute episode, right? Even though it is prolonged, like I know that it's over a specific stressor if I want to feel less anxious right now.

And then also when she comes back and, you know, God willing we go on a date or whatever it is, um, I'm gonna have to develop some tools for myself. And so I sat down, I was at my client's office. I just started writing down a bunch of different tactics and being like, okay, if you're feeling anxious, you gotta do this, you gotta do that.

And what I eventually did was I took those ideas that I came up with, curated them a little bit, like, you know, made them a little bit nicer and [00:32:00] easier to digest. And then those eventually became the 10 steps to getting outta your head. And I'll be honest, I used them a lot both back then and still today.

And so the idea, right, is like, whatever the tactics are, whatever the strategies are, you just need something that you can reliably go to in that moment. And I think what's also really important, right, is like the more that you stick with these strategies or whatever, whichever tactics you find most helpful, the more that you lean into them, the more readily accessible they're gonna be in those moments of fear, right?

The challenge with anxiety specifically is that your amygdala, the fear center of your brain, if you will, hijacks you, it hijacks your prefrontal cortex, which. Is the part of the brain that allows you to think, uh, critically and plan for the future and regulate your emotions and all that, right? So the anxiety comes up and all of a sudden you're like, uh, uh, uh, I have no idea what to do, right?

But if you have practiced these tactics that, you know, maybe they're the 10 steps to getting out of your head, maybe they're something [00:33:00] else. If you've practiced them again and again and again, eventually you're gonna get into that heightened state and you're gonna say to yourself, okay, before I freak out, take a breath.

I know that I have my steps. Let me go pull those out. Let me go try those on for size. Um, I wanna pause there 'cause that's a lot of information, but we can definitely dive into some of the specific steps themselves, if that would be helpful. 

Cody: No, I think you, you, you said a lot and so, I mean, why, why don't you go ahead and, and go through just some of those steps.

I'd love to, love to hear about them. And then, uh, I have a question on the flip side. 

Brian Sachetta: Sweet. So, uh, another quick primer Here I am in the middle of a, uh, updated edition of the first book. So, you know, the 10 steps are still in there. They are largely the same. I think I might have changed one of them. Um, but what I've done is I've tried to break it up into sections a little bit to make it more actionable and a little bit easier to digest.

What I mean by that, and I'll give a little callback to earlier in the episode, is right, [00:34:00] like if you are anxious, uh, as I just alluded to, if you are anxious and you're getting that amygdala hijack, like you don't really have time or the wherewithal to remember 10 different tactics. Uh, nor do you necessarily need 10.

Um, obviously like if you were to write your favorite tactics on a list of paper, uh, a sheet of paper, you could pull them out and be like, I'm gonna run through them all. And that could be great, but again, sometimes you don't need all 10. So what I've done in the updated version of the first book, which will be out, uh, let's say by the end of the year, we hope, um, is just kind of categorized, uh, the.

The 10 steps, if you will. Right? So I talked about, uh, the IRA framework. So this is the interrupt, reframe, and anchor framework. And all I've really done is I've taken the 10 steps and I've put them into these three different buckets. So the logic right, is when you get that amygdala hijack and your brain, your yeah, your amygdala takes over from your prefrontal cortex and your ability to think clearly and regulate your [00:35:00] emotions is hindered.

The first order of business is you need to, you know, sever that tie between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Or at the very least, like put a different way, right? You need to get control of your prefrontal cortex back. How do you do that? Right? That is the interrupt piece. So you're gonna interrupt that amygdala hijack, uh, a few ways that we can do that, that, and that when these are part of the 10 steps to getting out of your head.

Uh, so. The first one would be, you know, you move your body, or if you can't move your body, if you're in a meeting or whatever, you move your eyes. Uh, research will show that, whether it's the body movement or the eyes itself. Uh, when the, the brain detects that we are moving or the eyes are moving, right? It sends a calming message back to the amygdala, sort of giving it like an all clear message, or at the very least, like a Hey PayPal, like, come down for a second kind of thing, right?

So we wanna make sure that when we're feeling anxious, the first thing that we do is we get that, uh, I'm gonna just say [00:36:00] severance, if you will, right? We, we break that bond a little bit, so we go for that walk. Uh, maybe, maybe run around the block, maybe just move our eyes back and forth at our desks. Uh, another thing that we can do to interrupt the anxiety spiral would be to do some deep breathing.

So we talked about box breathing, you know, a minute ago, or at least we just kind of threw it on the table. Um, the idea there, right, is when you're anxious, when you're nervous. Your sympathetic nervous system, your fight or flight nervous system has revved up and we need to comet back down, right? We need to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of our autonomic nervous systems that helps us rest and digest.

One of the reliable ways that we do that is we do deep breathing, but specifically we get a deep exhale and that activates the parasympathetic. Once we've done either of those things, right, we start to interrupt that anxiety spiral or the amygdala hijack a little bit, and then from there we are able to, you know, proverbially slide our foot through the door and say, [00:37:00] Hey, if that amygdala is not hijacking me as much anymore and I have the awareness, let me go move on to my other steps in the list.

So I'm not gonna go through all 10 'cause that would take us a little bit too much time. But just to show you how this framework, um, you know, basically plays out, right? So you've got the i, the R and the A, which is interrupt, reframe, and anchor. So this is how I've been using it recently, right? Is like I deal with OCD, which is a form of anxiety.

Um, and with the OCD right, you get intrusive thoughts. And so I may get an intrusive thought about, say, you know, somebody in my family getting sick, right? And I will say to myself, okay, let's IRA this thing. So first we start with, I, I get up, I move my body, I do some deep breathing, and then I go to the R and I say, let's reframe this threat.

And one of the ways that I do this is to say, look, you've had a billion intrusive thoughts throughout the course of your life. Uh, you've read a lot of content [00:38:00] to know that intrusive thoughts don't actually have a lot of real meaning to them. They're kind of just random. The issue is that you get attached to them and then they get stuck in your body, and then you're like, oh goodness.

Now that I've put this emotional weight on it, it feels even more real. I don't wanna let it go. So I reframe by just saying it's an intrusive thought. It's, it's, it's really nothing, you know? Then I go over into the last piece, which is anchor into calm. Uh, and this is actually the 10th step in the 10th steps to getting outta your head.

Uh, and it's, remember this too shall pass, right? So if I'm having that an anxious reaction to this intrusive thought that I'm getting and I'm like, oh goodness, I feel so horrible. I feel awful, I feel anxious. I say to myself, look, I felt anxious a million times in my life. I've felt awful a million times in my life.

And every single one of those experiences and those emotions as sticky as they can sometimes be, they eventually pass, right? And so it's just a reassuring way of saying like, I'm gonna get through this. The anxiety is gonna [00:39:00] fade and I'm gonna get back to my normal life. So however, you essentially put the IRA framework together, right?

You can stitch one different strategy from each of the categories, maybe you say to yourself, right? Let's do one other quick one. Uh, real quick is to say, okay, do that deep breathing. That's the interrupt. Then we say to ourselves, uh, evaluate the potential outcomes of the situation in front of you and recall the one that you want.

Sounds a little bit simple, right? But when you are really anxious, your brain, right, that negativity bias is looking out for all the ways that things could go wrong. And sometimes when we're so anxious, we lose sight of that one positive outcome that we actually want. This one doesn't work every single time.

And to be honest, most tactics in psychology don't work for everybody. But let's just say you're going to a job interview and you're like, you're so anxious that you're gonna completely mess up. Make a fool outta yourself that the anxiety has hijacked you into thinking solely about those negative [00:40:00] outcomes.

You turn to yourself and you say, look, I actually want this job. I'm gonna think about that for a hot second. Hopefully that makes me feel better. If it doesn't, I keep moving. Right. But often it, it can, or it does. Uh, and then finally, the anchoring into calm, right? Let's go with, uh, you know, this, this, uh, other step I'm gonna pull out there, which is just to recite a powerful mantra.

So you come up with whichever, you know, positive phrase or sentence that, uh, resonates with you. Maybe it's like different for each situation. Maybe you say to yourself, this interview is gonna go great, or I'm gonna perform as best I can, or everything is gonna go as it's meant to be. Right? Uh, you walk through that, you do those three steps real quick, and then you look at your anxiety and you say to yourself, how am I feeling now?

Right? And then you kind of just act as a pilot, right? You have your, your gauges and your knobs and levers and all that, and you're turning, uh. Some of these devices and just trying to figure out like, if I do a little bit of this, does my anxiety go up or down? If I do a little bit of that, does my anxiety go up [00:41:00] or down?

The idea right is essentially you come up with, um, your favorite tactics in the 10 steps to getting outta your head. You enlist those when you're feeling anxious and then you ask yourself, how am I doing? And then you repeat the process if you need to. I find that it's very helpful and especially, um, you know, it gives you something to focus on other than your fear, which, uh, can be it.

It sounds simple, right? But again, back to that amygdala hijack. The problem is that the negativity, uh, not only like in the situation, but also our negativity bias has us latch onto everything that could go wrong. And if you just do something as simple as give yourself something else to focus on or recite or what have you, um.

That gives you a nice distraction from your anxiety and it becomes a little bit like a baby's rattle, right? You're crying, you're crying, you're crying. You get the rattle, you get the pacifier, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I don't know what I was crying about previously. Obviously it's not always that simple, but I think you understand the metaphor.

So that's kind of how it goes. I'll pause there. 'cause again, [00:42:00] that's, that's a lot of content, 

Cody: Todd. I think that that was a great explanation and it seems really that when you, when you have these, these moments of anxiety, the important part is to actually stop and pause and reflect in different ways, and that can help ground you, anchor you, and prevent yourself from going down that rumination rabbit hole.

Because it's often we have our limbic system that can cause this, this fight or flight system, and then we have a prefrontal cortex. And if our, our prefrontal cortex, our thought patterns are going down these negative rabbit holes, it's just gonna pull us further and further deeper into the, that rabbit hole.

And so your strategy really shows that if you can just kind of take control of, of your thought patterns, then eventually that, that Olympic system that your cortisol is gonna drop and you're gonna be able to feel like you're, you're finally floating instead of drowning. And I think that's a really important concept and, and a great tool for anybody to have in their toolbox.

And so now I'd like to talk about the flip side is [00:43:00] that anxiety is generally thought about something as being bad and negative. And yet we, we do need cortisol. You know, uh, there is, uh, there, if, if you, uh, if you take something like ashwagandha, which is, uh, herb, that's been growing, getting a lot of attention, if you take too much ashwagandha, you know what you get.

You get anon. And you get, uh, you get feelings of, of, of you don't wanna do anything. And so the, what it kind of shows is that if you try to suppress that system too much, you're going to, to, you're, you're not gonna wanna do anything. You're gonna be unmotivated to actually do what you need to do to get things done throughout the day.

And so really the important aspect is having that balance. And I know some people are able to use that anxiety as rocket fuel to help propel them into whatever they're trying to do. I'm wondering if you can kind of explain that, that concept and perhaps how we might use, how do some people use anxiety as, uh, as a means to, to help them get [00:44:00] where they wanna go to?

Brian Sachetta: Yeah. Another great question, I guess I would say, right, is like, let's kind of start with a couple metaphors is let's say you are going to an athletic competition or a job interview, right? And, um, I guess taking things a step back real quick, right? Is kind of to your point on the cortisol, right?

Everything in life, including cortisol, has pros and cons. And I think the difficulty is we want to look at things in this black and white fashion as if there are only cons to anxiety, right? In reality, cortisol, anxiety, maybe even depression, we'll talk about that a little bit later. They all have positive and negative things.

That is not to say that everything is equal or that, you know, we want anxiety or we want depression. It's just to say that when we look for the silver linings, they usually are there or they can be there. And so going back to, um, you know, the example I started of athletic competitions or job interviews, what I would say, right, is like if you showed up to an athletic [00:45:00] competition and you were in a catatonic state, that would not be helpful, right?

And so the opposite of the, the, the opposite of that catatonic state would be, you know, high arousal, anxious, that kind of thing. And obviously like we, we probably don't want to be. In the middle of a panic attack going into anxiety. But we, we kind of pull on multiple threads here and we look back at, you know, the anxiety reappraisal, or as you said, like, can I look at my anxiety as excitement, um, in the, in terms of a, an athletic competition, right?

We might be able to say to ourselves, either I'm excited or, and here's the, the self-talk where it becomes a little bit more helpful, right? You could say to yourself, Hey, my body is preparing for something that is novel, uncertain, gonna require a lot of energy, gonna require a lot of focus. And so the fact that I'm going into this heightened state right now, which I'm calling at the moment, anxiety is actually not a cause for concern.

It's actually what my [00:46:00] body is designed to do. And if I leverage that heightened state properly, it actually could benefit me. And so. In concrete terms, right? Again, going back to this, thinking about this athletic competition, you don't wanna sh like, even though like when you're panicked, you're like, I wish I was just so chill right now and I could do anything I wanted.

If you were in that catatonic state, you would not be able to perform very well. So what you're really looking for, again, kind of like the flow state, right, is you're looking for something in the middle. You do actually want, um, a heightened response in the body because that allows you, um, you know, to perform better, better, run faster, all of those things.

The issue is like we get in our own way, right? And so we feel that anxiety and instead of interpreting it as our body's preparing for this event, we say, oh no, I shouldn't feel this way. This is terrible. I'm gonna do awful. It's a sign. Right? My nervousness, my fear is a sign that bad things are to come.

When we change the [00:47:00] narrative there and we say instead of it being a sign that bad things are afoot. It's actually a sign that my body is preparing me to perform. Well, uh, it becomes, you know, in either direction, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then all of a sudden we look at ourselves and we're like, I'm in that heightened state.

I have more energy, there's more blood cosing through my veins. Guess what? If I utilize that, if I leverage that in a positive fashion, I will perform better. And so, you know, the example that I give in my first book is to say like, of course there are situations where like being jacked up and ready to run through a wall is not helpful, right?

You wouldn't want that if you were giving a speech at a funeral. You know what I mean? Um, but there are certainly situations where it warrants that kind of thing, and you want that activation. So I think the more that we can lean on examples like this and then develop the critical thinking skills to be able to say to ourselves, in this situation, my anxiety is not necessarily this negative thing.

It might be, you know, it might [00:48:00] instead be, uh, this thing that helps me perform a lit little bit better or, uh, act in the fashion that I need to. Right. The anxiety is not only like, I guess it's not only that heightened state, but it's also a heightened sense of awareness, right? If you went into, uh, a really important conversation, and again, if you, not necessarily catatonic, but if you were all over the place and you weren't thinking clearly, like that wouldn't be helpful either.

So it's really looking at each situation and saying, how can this anxiety serve me? Uh, I know it's a little bit polyana like, but when you start doing some of the critical thinking, you will see that a lot of it is there, right? And from personal experience, um, I would say, right? It was like, I was always an anxious dater.

As you know, some of my previous stories, uh, kind of played out. Even though it was very frustrating to be anxious, like going into dates, there was a positive aspect to it, right? Was I would show up on those dates and I was, you know, like [00:49:00] locked in. I would be able to talk, you know, really make conversation, keep the energy high and all that.

Maybe I could say to myself, I'd rather be a little bit more chill. But that's, you know, that was me basically looking at this energy coursing inside of me and saying, what is the silver lining here? How can I use this kind of thing to my advantage? Um, I think it serves us all well to be thinking in that fashion, to say to ourselves like, okay, anxiety is, it's truly not always a bad thing, an evil thing, a sign that something's bad.

So if that is the case, then how else can I look at this thing and how could I get this anxiety to serve me? Uh, and I guess the last piece is maybe as we're, you know, feeling these feelings, maybe we eventually say to ourselves. This isn't necessarily anxiety. Maybe this is that excitement. Maybe this is just a heightened state in my body preparing.

Right? And so it's, it's kind of two different dials there. One is how do I look at the anxiety differently so that it serves me? And then also, how do I [00:50:00] rename it entirely such that I don't have the same reaction in the first place. 

Cody: Yeah. Uh, beautifully said. Uh, I think to, to view your anxiety as something to serve you is super important.

Every time we have an emotion, uh, a feeling come up, it's there for a reason. It's trying to help us. And if you can look at that as something that, that arose as a feeling of trying to help you, then you can kind of flip that on its head and try to actually let that serve you in a positive way. Um, and, and, and there, there there's some, some quote on butchering, uh, that like, like growth is becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So it's only by going through those challenges that are going to give rise to anxiety that you're able to, to go forth and actually become the person that you really want to be. Um, so I think lots of important stuff on that. Um, I, I wanna switch and ask about your second book because you've, it seems like you've, you've had to deal with [00:51:00] anxiety for, for many years, but in your second book you talk about the abyss of being in depression.

And so I'd love that note. Kind of what's the feeling, what's the difference between that feeling of anxiety and the feeling of depression and did you get depression from having too much anxiety or, or, or was it something else? 

Brian Sachetta: Well, uh, there's a lot to unpack there, right? I guess the, the first question that comes to mind is, did I get an, uh, depression from, you know, experiencing too much anxiety?

Um, I would say probably not, but that definitely can be the case in general. There is, uh, a study. I wanna say it was done out of the University of West Virginia, uh, maybe Jefferson Frisbee, somebody, somebody can look that up if they want. Um, there's a study that uses this thing called the UCMS protocol.

It is the unpredictable, chronic mild stress protocol. And the idea, right, is like if you stress rats, mice, and you know, potentially humans, [00:52:00] uh, the study was done on, uh, I believe it was done on mice. If you stress mice enough from uncontrollable sources, excuse me, unpredictable sources. Uh, the stress is chronic as in like there is a lot of stress over a long period of time.

Um, and then mild is, you know, it's not like you're going in killing their entire family. You're just introducing perpetual aggravations and per perpetual things that, that scare them, right. At first, they experience some kind of stressor. So maybe we, uh, you know, we tilt their bed or we introduce, uh, you know, a predator in a different part of the cage and we're not gonna let the mice get killed.

But like, you know, that predator is there at first. The mice run around, right? Their, their nervous system activates, and that fight or flight nervous system kicks in and they're like, I gotta get outta here. I gotta find safety over time, right? When they are exposed to this UCMS protocol over a long period of time, [00:53:00] eventually that anx that anxiety or that anxiety response, that fear response wears off because the thought is not that we can actually talk to mice, but the thought is it becomes something like a learned helplessness.

And we've seen this, um, in Martin Seligman's study with some of his dogs is when you perpetually are hit in the face with stressors and fears, at first you're like, I can run away, I can deal with these. Over time, if they keep coming, you kind of get to the point of saying to yourself like, what's the point of trying to keep up?

Like, I, I can't, you know, so we kind of throw our hands up and say, what's the point? You know? So in terms of, you know, mental health and our mental health, uh, if we abstract that out a little bit, we could say, and, and the study does suggest, right? That anxiety, the constant presence of these stressors, uh, can eventually lead to depression from the sense that we experience enough anxiety again and again and again.

Eventually we kind of just resign ourselves to our situations. [00:54:00] We fall back, throw our hands up, uh, and say, I, I don't know what to do here. I'm basically gonna just lie down and take it, you know? Um, so I think it's important to call that out. At the same time, like, even though I did experience a lot of anxiety, uh, I don't really think, and I, you know, I've worked through this with a therapist.

I don't really think that was necessarily the case for me. Um, let me try to answer and, and I can, I'm happy to go deeper on my own depressive episodes, but, um, for now, right, let me just go a little bit deeper on, um, what does depression feel like and how is that different from anxiety? So, uh, you had said, you know, previously you like to explain things in simple terms.

Uh, I like to do that too. I think it's very helpful. Right. So, uh, I will say that anxiety is future oriented fear. It's, you know, just like that fear response. It's like being in a haunted house wondering where, you know, the performer is gonna jump out in front of you and scare you. Uh, the difference is that like, we're [00:55:00] not actively in that haunted house right now.

We're afraid of being in that haunted house tomorrow, a week, a week from now, a month from now, what have you. Uh, depression is different in the sense that, you know, simple definition I would say is it is a pervasive state. Of hopelessness and helplessness. It is that reaction, right? Learned helplessness or the proverbial putting up of our hands and saying, I'm not gonna try anymore.

Um, and you used a word earlier that I think is really helpful to call back, which is anhedonia. So there's kind of like people will report two different, you know, ways of experiencing depression. One is anhedonia, so that's the inability to feel pleasure. So essentially they're like, I feel nothing at all.

Um, and then there's also, you know, more of a deep and pervasive sadness or hopelessness. I think both of those, um, like you can experience them at the same time. You could maybe experience one or the other, but those are kind of the hallmarks of depression, right? If you think about the [00:56:00] person who is so depressed that they can't get out of bed, either they're like, I don't feel any pleasure.

I don't feel any impetus to get up and go do things in my life, or. I am so sad that I'm like, holy crap, why would I get outta bed? Why try to affect change? I can't do it. It's not gonna happen. Anyway. So that's kinda like what depression feels like. And the challenge, right, as I often pose on some of these podcasts is we equate anxiety to a, a large degree with the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight nervous system.

When we can get that nervous system to calm down, which it, you know, it is designed to do usually, uh, in short order, then we can often get an alleviation of our anxiety. The difficulty with depression on the other hand is we don't really have a, a specific system in the body, let alone a part of our nervous systems that controls or, you know, uh, becomes a proxy for depression.

And so the challenge [00:57:00] with depression is. It becomes this black cloud that just lingers over us and it becomes really difficult to get that cloud to move or to break into a better mental state. Right. It is a more pervasive, longer term kind of thing. I'm not here to say to folks like, you can never get rid of depression.

That is certainly false, uh, to say that at the same time. Right. It's, it's not the same kind of thing where you're gonna go through your say 10 steps to get out, getting out of your head and be like, I'm not depressed anymore. You know? It takes more time. So, um, I think there's a lot more to unpack, but let's, let's leave it at that for the moment and just see, see what, uh, what questions you got.

Cody: Yeah. I, I think you, you said that really well, that, that anxiety is future oriented fear and that depression is that pervasive state of hopelessness and it seems like there's, there's an increasing amount of people that are having that, that feeling of, of hopelessness. I think there was some statistics, some study that, that [00:58:00] some 8.3% of adults have experienced some kind of major depressive episode in 2021, at least from from COVID-19.

Um, and it seems that this, this, you know, there's like this anxiety crisis that we keep hearing about, that depression and anxiety are on the rise now. Maybe that's from, from too much social media use, uh, or any number of things. I know that there's, uh, a lot of other things that can cause this kind of, that can cause that anxiety.

And perhaps over time that anxiety can turn into depression. Uh, 'cause as you say, it's like you, you feel this sense of hopelessness. And I know in your book you talk about some things like climate change and, and AI and, uh, and perhaps you don't talk about politics, but I think politics right now, the, the current political system that we're in is a huge source of hopelessness for so many people.

And I know for myself, I've just had to, frankly, I I I use the, the, the, the word, uh, disassociate. I just like, I'll, I'll, I'll keep up on the news, but I [00:59:00] just disassociate because what am I gonna do? And otherwise I'm holding on to all of the, the negative things going on in the world, and I'm bringing that inside and that's affecting my mental health and that's gonna affect the mental health of those around me.

And so I'm, I'm wondering how do you address these huge kind of existential fears without being swallowed by them? 

Brian Sachetta: It's a great question. Um, I got a few things I want to talk about. So the first one, like is kind of a little bit of a, uh, a stepping back. Um, you had mentioned Tim Ferriss previously, and I forget if he says it in one of his books or on one of his podcasts.

Um, but a relatable thing where, what I would say right is, uh, when I experienced my last bout of depression, which started in 2018, um, you know, I was working in a specific job. I guess it was a little bit before the depression came on and I didn't like the job. I kind of said to myself, [01:00:00] I'll be happier, or I'll be happy when I'm out of this job, when I'm in a job that is more flexible, when I have more freedom, when I have more flexibility over my schedule, when I'm doing the things that I want to do.

That kind of thing. Right? And so a lot of us, we have this idea and, and not all of us, but a lot of us have this idea in our heads that's really kind of idolized of, we say to ourselves, if I could just be totally free, sit on a beach, do nothing, I will be completely happy. Right? And myself, I experienced this or you know, I came up against this.

And also Tim Ferriss talks about it, and again, one of his books or his podcast is, we think We want that. And so often when we get that, and a lot of people get that, the first thing that comes up is this new crisis, this existential crisis. We start thinking about life itself. You know, large, looming, scary ideas, whether it's like the afterlife, death, uh, you know, [01:01:00] hopelessness over politics and climate change, like big, big topics that, let's be honest, right?

They, they can absolutely be important to us, but like, we're probably not going to be the one who fixes these things. It's not to say that we can't have some kind of impact over them, but like in reality, right? Is like, what does, you know, and I will speak from personal experiences, you know, during this depressive episode, I was so obsessed and so afraid of death and the meaning of life and trying to figure it all out in reality.

It's like I wasn't concerned with this six months ago. And also, what am I really going to do to figure out what the meaning of life is? There have been thousands, if not, you know, millions of, of, um. Philosophers and, uh, scholars who have come before me and tried to, you know, figure out the answer to this question and if, if we're being honest, a lot of people like that's just what we do, right?

He is like, books have been written about it. You've got Moby Dick, you've got all sorts [01:02:00] of titles where like, that is what man tries to do is figure out why he's here. The problem is like these questions, these existential questions, number one, I'm gonna just say for simplicity, they cannot be solved. Or at the very least, like you and I, we most likely are not going to solve them, right?

They become these red herrings, if you will. They say to us, you gotta, you know, give me your attention. Solve me right now. Think about me, obsess about me, figure me out. Right now, the challenge again, one, we can't do it. And number two is they become a bit of a distraction where like there's actually some other issue going on in your life that they are preventing you, uh, from addressing, from looking at, from.

You know, trying to enact some positive change in, so if you relate this back to, uh, OCD, right? So like, it's funny 'cause a lot of people will think of OCD as like just the counting disease, right? Where it's like you or, or the tapping disease, you [01:03:00] tap a certain number of times. And even though a lot of people who experience OCD do that kind of thing, um, OCD is a lot more than that, right?

So if we break the word down and we say obsessive compulsive disorder, you have these obsessions, right? So you have intrusive thoughts that scare the crap outta you, and then you don't know how to deal with them. So you engage in compulsive behaviors, uh, and the compulsive behaviors are thought to essentially prevent you from having to do the scary work that you are hiding, right?

So putting it into this situation and being more concrete is the obsession becomes fear of death, uh, meaning of life. The compulsion is ruminate over this stuff for a long time. If you talk to a therapist, if you work with a psychiatrist, that kind of thing, and they identified this as an OCD pattern that leads to depression, they would say There's something else going on in your life that you are not addressing, and this is kind of becoming the distraction that allows you to not think about that [01:04:00] thing and deal with it and address it.

I would say that the general, um, fix or remedy for this kind of thing is reconnecting to life, if you will. Right? So if we talk about, um, Hey, I want to be totally free. I wanna do whatever I want, I wanna have no commitments. What often happens there is we have no schedule, we have no routine, we're not connected to things that we care about.

We're not, you know, engaged in passionate pursuits and all that. So that is kind of our disconnection from life. Then because we have that disconnection, all of a sudden our brains hit us with these scary ideas and we're like, oh, I need to solve that thing. I need to figure it out. I am completely engulfed by the question of what is the meaning of life?

And you know, if you listen to Tim Ferriss, he encountered this same exact thing and he's like the, you know, the real issue is you, you kind of need to get back on the wagon and do something that excites you, that reconnects you to life, that gives you some meaning and some purpose. [01:05:00] You are looking right at this broad sense of like, what is the meaning of life in general when in reality, um, you could probably argue, I would argue in, in a lot of these situations, specifically in the kind of freedom kind of one is the issue is not the meaning of life in general.

It's a lack of meaning in your own life because you are so free. So unrestrained that you have nothing to do and you're completely bored. And now that negativity bias that normally, you know, makes you anxious and looks out for threats is looking out for the largest kind of threat of all time, which is, what is the meaning of life?

What is the purpose of my existence? Last thing I'll say on this is, you know, I read a book by Leo Tolstoy, uh, during my depressive episode, and he, it's, it's a lot of, uh, it's a lot of content. In the same vein, he basically says he had an existential crisis. He was wondering what the meaning of life was.

He was like, do I just kill myself? Right? Because I feel so horrible and I can't figure out this question. What else do I [01:06:00] do? Uh, you know, he is one of the greatest authors of all time. And how he got through this was to say, I need to just reconnect to life find, and I'm gonna use this term loosely, right?

Is find God in everyday experiences, whatever that means to you. Um, and just look for that excitement and enjoyment once again. Right? So. Going back to Tim Ferriss, he was like, you know, I, you know, sold my company. I was like, I'm gonna travel. I'm gonna sit on beaches. I'm gonna do nothing. And what ends up happening is like, we think we've worked so hard our whole lives to get this, you know, final destination of I can finally relax and do nothing.

And it's not to say that like you have to work yourself to death your entire life. It's just to say that you always need some kind of routine, some kind of meaning, some kind of purpose. And you also need, you know, the ability to feel as though you have agency, right? If you are sitting on a beach all day, every day, not doing anything, not making any change in the world, and feeling terrible every day, like, you're not gonna feel as though you [01:07:00] have any agency.

And you're certainly not gonna feel as though you have any meaning in your life. Or that maybe even life has no meaning, right? So it becomes this red herring where you're like, oh, this is my, my problem that I need to fix. In reality, the problem lies, you know, further down the surface. And when you reconnect to that.

Um, not just like, not just the problem, but also then reconnecting to life and finding joy in everyday experiences that can be a way out of depression. The last thing I want to say on this, and obviously we will talk more about depression, is it's also possible, right? That maybe the, the issue is not necessarily connection to life.

It could be that, you know, there is some deep, deeply seeded trauma in from your childhood or in your adolescence that you have not resolved, you have not dealt with. Maybe that becomes the problem. And the, you know, the OCD is, is a way if, if, if that's how it manifests, maybe the obsessions are a way of you not thinking about this specific thing, right?

It's too [01:08:00] painful to deal with, uh, some horrible tragedy that befall me when I was five years old. So instead, I will ruminate over the meaning of life, right? Often psychiatrists will see that kind of script play out with their clients. So, um, that's one way that depression can arise and manifest in all that.

Um. Let me put a pin in that for now and just, uh, see what you think. 

Cody: Yeah. Uh, you, you articulate this very, very great. Uh, I, I love the way that you talk about this. It is very direct and, and clear and logical and, uh, I think you, you touch on that, that that part of depression. Uh, you know, there was a time in which I, I was really questioning the meaning of life.

And, you know, that I, I've kind of come to, to understand though, that if you're questioning the meaning of life, you're probably in some form of depression. 'cause if you're not depressed, you're typically not questioning the, the meaning of your life. You're, you're going about doing something. You're, you're, you're living the life that at least feels good to you.

Um, and [01:09:00] so, so I, I wonder is, do you think depression or anxiety could pro, uh, could kind of come up as some form of a habit? Uh, and I know that we, we tend to, when we have habits, we try to bad habits, we try to push them away. I know that you've talked about replacing bad habits. I'm wondering if you have any examples or kind of patterns that you've seen and when, when you've coached people about finding these unhelpful patterns or, or habits.

Brian Sachetta: Yeah, I mean, I, I definitely think that both conditions can become habits and, you know, they often say that neurons that fire together, wire together, uh, you know, in concrete terms. That means that if we have constantly run anxious patterns and asked ourselves scary questions throughout our lives, uh, amidst uncertainty and fear, then that is gonna become our go-to, if you will, right?

That's gonna become, uh, this pattern or this, uh, this groove that gets forged in [01:10:00] our brains, in our minds. And then it becomes much easier to sled down that hill, if you will. Right. Uh, you know, when I work with my therapist, he says, it's kind of like, um, you know, what's, what's the poem like? The, I wanna say it's Robert Frost, like the path.

The path not taken or whatever. And obviously there, there may be a different meaning to that exact poem, but he's saying is like, it becomes easy to walk down the path that everybody has walked down that has become downtrodden, right? When you are, when you make the determination that you have run a specific pattern for a long time in your life, and you say, I now, I now realize that I need to make a change.

The realization alone is great, but it's, it's not sufficient, right? You need to walk that path, that untrodden path. A lot of times before it becomes second nature and before you get yourself out of that previous path, that previous pattern that you have run your entire life. And so a lot of what we've talked about, [01:11:00] right, is like when you think about rumination, when you think about the questions that you ask yourself, the way that you talk to yourself, these unfortunately are patterns that we have developed over the course of our lives.

And if we're 30 years old and we have not necessarily made progress with our anxiety or depression or whatever, you know, it behooves us to ask ourselves like, do I need to talk to myself differently? Do I need to ask different questions? Do I need to enlist CBT and look at my problems in a different fashion?

Do I need to, uh, again, talk to myself in a more uplifting fashion that leads to a, uh, more positive, uh, self-fulfilling prophecy? That, that sort of thing. So, you know, on the pattern front, I guess I would just say is like we are pattern recognizing machines. We are also pattern pattern. Uh, engaging machines.

I, I kind of just made that term up, but like, yeah, the more that you do something, the more that that groove gets stamped into your brain and it becomes hard, um, to, to kind of get away from that sort of thing. So the challenge, right, [01:12:00] is understanding that it will take time to change our behaviors, to change our habits, especially when so much of this stuff happens on a subconscious level.

The flip side of that is the understanding that if you're, you know, let's say you pick up some book on anxiety. You listen to a podcast on depression, what have you, if you pick up some of its recommendations and you try them out for a few days or a few weeks, and you're discouraged that they are not yet working, remind yourself that that's, you know, unfortunately for, for better or for worse, that's how the brain works, right?

It takes time to make those changes, especially. When we have been walking that proverbial path our whole lives. So it gives you a little bit of, uh, encouragement to stick with it. Um, and I guess what I would say is in terms of like, you know, what am I talking about of stick with it and all that is maybe it's the, the 10 steps to getting out of your head.

You get into an anxious situation, you pull out a few of those, you try those [01:13:00] on again and again. You go to different anxiety provoking situations. You talk to yourself a little bit differently, so on and so forth. Eventually you add a bunch of these different tactics together. You, you know, you kind of accumulate little wins and you start to rewrite that neural pathway in the brain.

And then eventually you look back over time and you're like, Hey, I have made some progress. Maybe I haven't, you know, vanquished anxiety or depression entirely, but I'm moving forward. And that agency alone makes me feel a little, a little bit better, gives me the encouragement to feel as though I can actually do this thing.

Cody: And, and I know that there, I think. There were some long-term studies that seemed to indicate that having some kind of preventative mental health practice can reduce those moments of crises significantly. And I think often we, we, you know, we, we, we backpedal to our systems. And so having the right systems and habits in place are incredibly important because you're always going to have times in your life when you're going to encounter stressful [01:14:00] circumstances.

You know, there was one point in my life in which I had imagined that, you know, say, say the, the older and more successful that, that I became, that my goal was to create as comfortable of a life for myself as possible. And I've come, come to realize that, that that's not possible. And actually what you should be doing is constantly seeking out discomfort because that's where you find growth from.

That's how you can overcome the, the next crisis that's going to be worse. So I know that we have a lot of strategies, habits that we can try to kind of help ourselves to overcome any form of depression, anxiety. You know, we've talked about box breathing. I know that there, there's a, the vagus nerve, uh, Huberman just recently did a great episode on that.

Um, and there's, there's tons of other strategies. I'm wondering, is there any in particular that stand out to you or, or systems that you found that seem to help the most? Apart from, I know your other systems, like the IIRA, uh, or any other habits that you think could be helpful for somebody listening?

Brian Sachetta: Yeah, I, I think that [01:15:00] sometimes, right, we wanna overcomplicate things a little bit and just getting back to our simple roots can be helpful. Um, there's a lot of research out there that shows that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take on depression for a second. Um, there's a lot of research out there showing that.

Depression and, and you know, to a degree, anxiety as well, right? These are diseases of the modern lifestyle. They are sort of, uh, there's a term evolutionary mismatch, which is to say that, you know, we evolved in a specific evolutionary environment, AKA, you know, the planes of Africa, uh, and our lives are a lot different now than they were back then.

So we evolved in certain conditions, which means that like when we did certain things, we were rewarded, or, you know, we experienced pain or pleasure, uh, and now we're essentially fish out of water. And the fact that we have moved so far away from, you know, what our bodies want and who we are supposed to be, I don't mean that in a metaphysical or, you know, woo woo [01:16:00] sense.

Um, that causes us a lot of distress. A lot of pain can lead to anxiety, can lead to depression. Where I'm going with that is thinking about, you know, okay, so 5 million years ago, 2 million years ago, whatever. Right? You think about. Uh, some of our ancestors, maybe Homoerectus or whatever, like what did they do that allowed them to be healthy?

Uh, and, you know, stay outta harm's way live, you know, not crazy long 'cause life expectancy was short back then, but like, feel good, live a, uh, a, a relatively long amount of time. Um, it's relatively simple stuff, you know, like, uh, there was a book that I read many years ago, and it just reminds me of it, it was called Eat, move, sleep.

And if you think about that, you're like, okay, so eat as in like, eat nutrient dense foods, uh, try to get off some of the processed foods. The issue, right, is like when we're eating a lot of processed foods, the, the intake of vitamins and minerals that we're getting is warped from [01:17:00] nature, right? And our brains and our bodies have adapted to, uh, certain foods that we ate and we found in nature.

And so we need a certain makeup of, you know, vitamins and minerals and it's like. Even though you could take a multivitamin, uh, who knows one, what's in the multivitamin, but also like who knows what the proportions of the vitamins and minerals are. And so if you're eating, you know, more whole foods, more real foods, you're more likely to get those vitamins and minerals and fiber phytonutrients, all that, right?

And that's gonna help you perform a little bit better. Um, not only like physically, but also mentally. You probably will experience a little bit less anxiety, possibly less depression, that kind of thing. Uh, what did I say that was eat? So move, right? Is like, we are a, we've become a relatively sedentary species, at least, you know, in modern society.

Um, and when, you know, like, it's funny 'cause people will often phrase it and say like, if there was a pill out there that could boost mood, uh, you know, IM, IM improve sexual [01:18:00] function, improve mental activity, and all that. Like, go on so forth. Uh, I guess what, what else? Uh, improve health, improve, uh, lifes.

Would you take it? And, you know, I guess the, the last piece is like, hey, and guess what? It's actually free. Everybody would take it, it would be a miracle drug. And it's actually exercise, right? There's so many studies that show again and again that exercise, I mean, it obviously helps with our physical health, but it, the, the, the best part about it for this conversation is the fact that it really helps our mental health.

It, it wards off anxiety, wards off depression. Um, it can be a nice reset, right? We talked about, uh, in the IRA process, the fact that you need to get up and move your body and disconnect, uh, you know, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. When you exercise, you get that, you know, just by virtue of, of getting up and moving your body.

So that's a wonderful thing as well. And getting more of that exercise, right? We're looking to regulate our emotions better. And so anxiety and depression, even though they are conditions, they are [01:19:00] also emotions that we experience. So we wanna just make sure that we are moving our bodies and not necessarily.

On the couch all day, every day. And then on the sleep front, right? It's like god knows how many studies have been published and all sorts of scary stories when it's like, if you, if you wanna deprive somebody, or if you wanna make somebody go crazy, you deprive them of sleep for just like a couple days, you know?

And they go completely off their rocker. Obviously most of us are sleeping, but like, are we getting the right amount? And you know, specifically on the anxiety front is when you don't get the right amount, your amygdala and, you know, the, the older structures in the brain that can, you know, lead to, uh, strong emotions, you know, specifically like coming from the limbic system can overpower our prefrontal cortex, our executive function when we don't sleep enough.

And so it's just a reminder to folks is like, if you don't want your emotions to overwhelm you make sure you're getting good quality sleep. You're sleeping in a dark, cold room, uh, and you're [01:20:00] getting, you know, seven to nine hours per night. I think a lot of folks will probably, who are listening will probably be the kind of either biohacker or like quantified self kind of person who has an Apple Watch or an Ora ring or a whoop band.

Um, you can get sleep statistics from those devices and they can show you, right, like what your heart rate variability is and how well-rested, uh, and what your resilience is like. So that way, you know, there's gonna be nights where you need a little more sleep. There's gonna be nights where you can get by with a little less.

So those devices are really helpful. So that's move sleep. Uh, not my framework, just kind of, you know, reciting a book title from a few years ago. Uh, and then I guess the last piece, right, is like, remember that we are social species. We need to connect with one another. Uh, and that's not the same thing as like, go like somebody's tweet on Twitter, right?

It's like, get in a room with somebody on a semi-regular basis. Have a real conversation, have a laugh, feel connected. Tell somebody I love you. That kind of stuff. Uh, when you're getting all four [01:21:00] of those things, and again, these are simple things, right? From the standpoint of like, they're not technologically driven.

Um, our ancestors from many, many years ago, uh, we're getting these same kinds of things and we all need these. That's just kind of how, how they're wired. When we get a healthy dose of these things, we will find that not only our physical health improves, but also our mental health does too, right? We're a, we're better able to regulate our emotions and we experience a little bit less anxiety, a little dis, little bit less depression.

Um, obviously I say that last piece a little cautiously 'cause I'm not here to be like, uh, you know, you'll experience 5% less or 10% less. But the, the idea, right, is like when your, when your mental health is just better, when your brain is working better and you're giving your body what it needs over time, it's gonna be harder for your brain to come up with all those neurotransmitters and stress hormones and.

Chemicals that make you feel bad, right? So you're trying to build a lifestyle almost like the ground floor, the foundation that [01:22:00] supports you, right? And then from there you layer on top with your individual tactics that we've talked about, the IRA process, meditation, stress relief, all that. So, um, I like to look at things holistically to say like, okay, on this front, what can we do on that front?

What can we do? And I think in a lot of ways we've covered a lot of that ground throughout this conversation. Um, but I guess, you know, just to cap this off is basically to say to folks is it doesn't always have to be, um, you know, so complicated. If you think about like, what our brains need, what our bodies need, sometimes going for a walk, getting a little vitamin DA little sunlight, um, can provide us a good boost.

And when we do those things every day, sometimes we look back and we're like, wow, my mood is better, my feelings are better, my anxiety is more regulated, my depression is more regulated. And, you know, that's what would be my wish for everybody who is, uh, listening to this podcast. 

Cody: Wow. W well said. I, I, I think you, you have a brilliant way of explaining these things without getting [01:23:00] lost in the weeds, so to speak.

Um, and, and so I, I'd love for you to talk about kind of your community and kind of what, what kind of resources do you have for people? What are you working on? 

Brian Sachetta: A few things there. Um, I guess like, what I'm working on right now is, uh, mostly kind of like trying to sustain myself, right? I've got a full-time job in software development, hence the, uh, you know, the programming vibes in the books.

Um, I've got a full-time job, so I'm trying to keep the writing and all that afloat. And what I, what I mostly do there at the moment is, you know, social media, marketing, podcasting. Um, I am also working on the updated edition of my first book, so I'm trying to get that out by the end of the year. From there, I don't exactly know where things will go.

I'm, I'm essentially like, you know, at the point where I've got this content, I've got an audience, but it's not like I'm, you know, the biggest author out there on anxiety or depression. Um, I'd like to try to grow that a little bit. I don't know if that requires, you know, [01:24:00] coming out with a new book and doing a, a podcast circuit and having something new to talk about.

Um, but that's like, that's where my mind goes right now is how do I expand this brand? How do I reach more people? How do I serve more people? Um, obviously it's awesome when I hear from folks who are like this specific tool, help me, uh, this book help me, your book help me, whatever. Um, but I want to, you know, kind of pour some gasoline on the fire and try to help more folks.

I always think back to and why I got into this, you know, this role, this mission in the first place was like, I'll be completely honest, like there were so many days during college, post-college. A solid decade and possibly even more where my anxiety, my depression, like at, you know, at various points were just so bad that I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it through this.

I'm suffering so much. Um, and I, you know, I guess brief disclaimer is like, this is not the suffering Olympics. I'm not saying that I have it worse than anybody else or anything like that, but what I would say is like, I know how I felt and I [01:25:00] don't wanna feel that way on a regular basis. And certainly, uh, in the long run, I'd like to minimize the amount of those feelings overall.

Um, I think back to that time period, and I'm like, it was so painful for me. I can only imagine what other folks are going through. And I know a lot of other folks are going through it. Some of the, the, uh, research or the, the, the numbers that you cited, Cody, right? It's like, I think one in five every year deals with a severe mental health crisis or a, uh, moderate to severe health, uh, mental health crisis.

And so I think of all those folks, right? And like to me, I, I say. Those are more folks that I could help. I think about those emotions that those people are experiencing. And I specifically usually go back to like Brian in his dorm room in college. And I think to myself, like I was so beside myself after my second panic attack, which we didn't totally cover here, but I think you would get the gist.

I was like, I don't know where to turn. I don't know if I'll ever be able to figure this out. Live a normal life, you know, get into a [01:26:00] relationship, get married, do the things that I want to do. And when you have those feelings and those doubts and those fears, like that's kind of as almost as bad as it can get.

You know, obviously you can go through tragedies and those are obviously worse, but like, when you have those feelings of just complete despair, um, and, you know, uh, distress, that's, that's a really not a great place to be. So I think of all the folks who encounter that kind of pain, and I say to myself, there are other Brians.

Who are in their dorm rooms right now or at work right now, experiencing the same kind of feelings that I experienced back then. I see that and I say, I want to do something about that. Right. So that's what continues to drive me forward, how that will play out in the future. I don't know exactly, you, you kind of alluded to a community thing.

I'd love to like start, you know, some actual community, obviously. Like some folks use like circle or circles, I forget what it's called, but like, get a space where people can, you know, talk to one another and like sort of like a men's group [01:27:00] kind of vibe. Um, but there's a lot of ideas that bounce around my head at the moment and for now I'm trying to add as much value as I can.

And right now that's kinda like pumping out content via podcast and hopefully, uh, the rewrite of that first book in time. So we'll see where we get. But you know, in, in, uh, at a high level, I'm just trying to impact more people, generally improve the, uh, the, the state of mental health in my communities and we'll see where we get.

Cody: Uh, that, that's very noble of you. Uh, and I I'm wondering if for people that are interested in knowing more about you, where can they go to to learn more? 

Brian Sachetta: Thank you. Yeah. Um, best place would be get out of your head.com. So that's all one word, no dashes, underscores, or anything like that. Uh, on Instagram, uh, the account is, get out of your head as well.

No dashes, no underscores there. 

Cody: And I think that's a, that's a great place to end. So thank you Brian sda, uh, for, for really sharing a lot of these, these really [01:28:00] practical principles, uh, from the tech world and, and even from your own mind, I think to better understand our own mind and our own anxieties because it's clearly something you've thought a lot about.

And I think it's important for us all to have strategies that we can help to deal with the inevitable anxieties and crisis points that could cause depression throughout our lives. So thanks again for tuning into the Mind Hack podcast. I'm Cody McClain. Keep creating, keep innovating, and I'll catch you in the next episode.

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