48: How to Reduce Stress and Worry: Tools That Calm the Nervous System with Dr. Gary Sprouse

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Stress doesn’t show up randomly... it’s often the unintended side effect of our greatest strengths. We plan ahead, weigh risks, and care deeply—then get stuck in worry loops, catastrophizing, and overwhelm that feel impossible to escape. With retired primary care physician and author Dr. Gary Sprouse, we dig into why midlife amplifies this tension and how to flip fear into action using grounded, practical tools you can apply today.

We start by redefining worry as future-thinking plus a present fear response, then move into realistic optimism—hope paired with preparation—so your brain can stand down while you take smart steps forward. Dr. Sprouse shares the “worry organizer,” a simple structure that pulls spirals out of your head and onto paper, showing likelihood, impact, prevention, and contingency in one view. We unpack why overwhelm is so often mislabeled as depression, and how the empathy wall and shoebox method help you care without carrying everything or lumping every problem into one heavy pile.

From there, we explore “stress reducer loops,” when the thing that calms you starts creating its own chaos—alcohol after tough days, doomscrolling, overfunctioning, even self-sacrifice for approval and control. You’ll learn to spot loops in chemicals, behaviors, and coping styles, and swap them for healthier regulators that don’t boomerang. We close with the blueprint for a personal “happy place” built from shared rooms—gratitude, everyday pleasures, anticipation, contentment, fulfillment through learning and purpose, and the CASH essentials: control, acceptance, connection, appreciation, spirituality, safety, humor, and hope.

If you’re navigating midlife stress, caregiving strain, or constant “what ifs,” this conversation offers a clear map to resilience and relief. Listen, take notes, and try one tool this week—then tell us which shift made the biggest difference. If the episode helped, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us.

Fine Dr. Gary Sprouse HERE:

Website: https://www.thelessstressdoc.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Midlife Stress Framed

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey beautiful friend, it's Marnie, and welcome back to Life is a Delicious. Today we're diving into a topic that almost every one of us feels addressed, but in a way that gets beneath the surface. We all know that the stress shows up at a different point in our lives, but for many of us, especially in midlife, it can feel heavier, more confusing, and harder to shake. There's this stress of responsibilities and transitions. There's a stress of change and uncertainty. The stress that comes from our physical bodies changing in a way that we don't always understand. And sometimes it just feels really unsettling. My guest today has been decades helping people not just manage address, but understand where it really comes from and how to reduce it at the root. He's a retired primary care physician and author of the book Highway to Your Happy Place, a roadmap to less address. He's become known as the Lass Adress dog. And after nearly four decades in medicine and a lifetime of learning about how stress shows up in our minds and bodies, he's developed tools that help people break free from worry, overwhelm, and the patterns that keep them static. So if you're interested in learning about how you can interrupt some of the stress loops in your life, then stick around because Dr. Gary Sprouse, the less stressed dog, is here in the house today. And we're exploring the different kinds of stress that we face in midlife and how stress actually impacts our well-being. And he's also going to offer some practical steps that we can take to create more peace, clarity, and joy in our lives. So pop in those earbuds because you're not going to want to miss this. Welcome to this episode of Life is Delicious. I'm Marnie Martin, and I'm so glad you're here. And if this is your first time here, welcome to the Life is Delicious Family. This podcast isn't about surviving midlife. It's about crafting your next chapter life, overflowing with purpose, joy, and delicious possibilities. Listen, midlife doesn't have to be a crisis. It can be a beautiful invitation to remember who we are, to rediscover a new version of ourselves, or to completely reinvent our life to reflect who we are becoming now. So if you're tired of being exhausted, living life on autopilot and putting everyone else first, then you are in the right place. Each week we'll bring you thought-provoking ideas and practical strategies as well as inspiration to help you prioritize yourself again. It's time to take back your joie de vive. So grab a notebook and pen and pop in those earbuds and let's go get it. I don't know about you, but for me and a lot of my friends, I noticed that we are all just a little more sober curious than we used to be. And if you haven't met me, I am a true wine lover. And I still love to drink wine. But as we get older, our bodies just don't metabolize alcohol as effectively as they used to. And for me, I'm really trying to be a bit more mindful of what I'm putting in my body. So I recently discovered Kensho cocktails. They are delicious, premium, non-alcoholic, and ready-to-drink cocktails that are crafted by the RSRV collective. And I love that the meaning of Kensho is self-discovery in Japanese. And it really reflects the brand's dedication to crafting cocktails with the nuance of traditional mixology while remaining gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, low in calories, and free of alcohol. Kensho cocktails were recognized by Bevanat as one of the best 2023 non-alcoholic beverages. They're crafted with premium botanicals, natural citrus, and spices. And each cocktail offers a distinct and sophisticated experience. Botanica is inspired by gin and tonic, orana mimics the best of an old fashioned, and Amari channels an Italian apertified. These ready-to-drink beverages can be found at www.rsrvcollective.com. And my listeners get an exclusive 30% discount. Be sure to use my special link at Delicious2025 to get 30% off your purchase. Kensho cocktails are a fun way to enjoy responsibly with sophistication and great taste. That's www.rsrvcollective.com with a discount code Delicious2025. Welcome, Dr. Gary, to the Life is Delicious podcast. I'm so grateful to have you here. And I think just the whole idea of the book that you've written called The Highway to Your Happy Place is a perfect fit for my audience, and I'm super excited to chat about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Well, Barney, thank you so much for having me on here, and I'm looking forward to helping at least one person who's listening today.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Oh, that's that's all we can ask for, right? So tell me, um, I know you have a pretty extensive medical background and you're retired now, but tell us a little bit about how you got started in this particular work and where your inspiration for the highway to your happy place, where did that originate? How did that come out?

Stress As Side Effects Of Human Skills

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Well, so as a primary care doctor, I was seeing patients for their hypertension and their diabetes. But here was the interesting thing. Like, because I was their primary care doctor, we had a long-term relationship. So they felt very comfortable telling me about some of their psychological issues and their marital difficulties and their job-related problems. And what I was realizing was the stresses that these were causing were affecting their medical problems. So I was in practice long enough that patients would be seeing me for their high blood pressure, and then they would retire, and all of a sudden they didn't need any blood pressure medicine anymore. I'm like, wait, something's going on here. This psychological stuff is causing a lot of problems with their physical problems. And so as a doctor, I was like, okay, I can decide either I can send people to psychiatrist knowing that most of them aren't going to go, or I can start to do this myself. And so I took that route. And so I started doing some reading and looking into the books on stress that are out there. And the problem that I found with the books were they all talked about the top hundred stresses, and like the top one is losing your spouse or losing your job. And then they would go, okay, that's really stressful, and here's a prescription for some generic meditation or exercise or go to church or whatever. And I'm like, there's gotta be more to it than this. And so as a doctor, I'm used to writing a prescription that says, hey, take this medicine for your blood pressure, and it works really well, but it could have a couple side effects. And so when I took that idea to our skills, our human skills, so we have these amazing skills because we can envision the future, we can use language, we can say right and wrong, good and bad. But what I realized was all those skills have side effects. So what that means then is I can envision the future. So I can say, hey, next week I gotta make sure that I got enough money so I can pay my bills. But the side effect is then I have to worry about it, like, oh, what happens if I hurt my back and I couldn't work and then I wouldn't have the money? And uh, what happens if some some other bill came up? And so what I so psychologists tell us will just live for today. And you're like, well, that's a nice thought. But as a human being, you cannot live for today. We spend way too much time in the future. My grandson does what psychologists tell us. He's one year old. So he can't, he doesn't have that skill yet of envision the future. So he lives for today. And he is happier, I'll tell you that. He's really happy. He doesn't sit at his breakfast table and going, Dad, how are we gonna pay for college? Because it doesn't, he doesn't understand that, right? So what I wanted to do then was go, well, how do we keep our skills? Because living for today means giving up my skill of envisioning the future. How do we keep the skill of envisioning the future and lose the side effect of worrying about it? And so that became the theme of the book. And what I really did was write the second half of the book, which was okay, like I got this skill, here's the side effect, how we get rid of the side effect. But now, instead of just giving you this generic prescription of exercise and meditation, and not that those don't work, but now I give you specific tools like realistic optimism and worry organizers and things like that. And so they're much more, I think, much more efficient and much more effective because they're dealing with the problem as opposed to just this generic treatment.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I love that so much. And I know what you talk about is that the majority of our human stress is a side effect or a downside to this amazing skills that we have. And you touched on that briefly, but there's so much more to it. So let's dig into that a little bit more and talk about maybe some of the skills that we have and what could be some of the side effects of those.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Sure. All right, so we do we talked about worry, right? So so here's what I found. I would say to patients, patients would come to me and say, Dr. Sprouse, I worry that I worry too much. I'm like, well, then you probably do, right? And I'm like, well, tell me what worry is. And they would look at me like, yeah, I got this, and then they would stumble because it's not she not that easy to figure out what it is. So I had to come up with a definition because when you understand what it is, then it's a whole lot easier to fix it, right? So worry, my definition is worry is using our amazing skill of envisioning future, but then focusing on all the bad things that can happen. And then the last piece, which is probably the most critical one, is having a fear reaction right now. So now you're having fear reactions to what ifs, and oh, that could happen, or the right. So now you're just thinking of something and having a fear reaction. And so the problem we get into is our body was set up to have a fear reaction, right? Do we if we're out in the woods and we hear a rustle, we're like, ah, I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna run away. And your body goes instantaneously into runaway mode. I'm gonna figure out, I'll think about it later, but I gotta run away right now. But once you run away, then you're designed to just go back and relax again. The problem we get into is we keep thinking, oh, what happens if that? What if that? What if that? What if that? So we keep setting off the fear reaction over and over and over and over again. It wakes us up at 2 o'clock in the morning, it keeps us from eating, it's it's right, we can't concentrate at work because the fear reaction's gone off, on and on and on and on. And so I I liken it to if you have your car, your car will do 120 miles an hour for a while. But if you keep running your car 120 miles an hour, eventually it starts breaking down. And your body is the same way. If you keep having this fear reaction over and over and over and over again, eventually your body starts breaking down. And then you have to come and see me as the primary care doctor, going, hey, my blood pressure's high, my sugar's off, I got infection again, and you're like, Yeah, these are all consequences of that adrenaline and cortisol that goes off of your fear reaction and it's too much.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And sometimes the fear, well, quite often, if you're worrying, I always say worrying is about dreaming about things that you don't want, right? And so I think often we're having a fear reaction to something that isn't even real. And when that goes on for a long time, our body starts to not even know the difference between what's real fear and what's perceived fear.

Worry Defined And The Fear Reaction

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Oh, that's that that is the essence of the problem because most people, when they're worried, are not worried about something that's real, they're worried about something they I so one of the books I'd read, he calls it a what if. So most of the worry is about what ifs. What if that happened? What if this happened? What if that? And you here's what happens. Like through our brain just kind of thinks a lot, right? There's ideas floating through our head all the time. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. But what happens is as you're as your mind is wandering around and it hits on a bad one, you're like, whoa, there's that bad idea. Ah, and then it focuses on that bad idea, and then it sets off the fear reaction. And so in this book, what he talks about is you gotta ride the surf, you gotta be a surfer and ride the wave of your thoughts. So suddenly you're looking around like, oh yeah, there's a bad one, oh yeah, there's a good one, and just kind of ride the waves because they're all what ifs, they're all concepts, they're all thoughts, they're not real. And so instead of stopping and paying attention and then focusing on that and then having that chronic fear reaction, you just ride the waves and kind of go along with it. And I think that's probably the best advice that I can give people. Instead of focusing on those bad things, just ride the way, right? And recognize that it's a concept and it's a thought that it's not real.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I your book is really fascinating, and I started to read um the chapter on the stress and give us um a a bigger breakdown because you talk about the difference between, and we touched a little bit on it earlier, but the difference between how babies don't have the ability to envision the future and how that goes to the opposite end of the spectrum with, say, dementia patients. And let's talk about that because that's really kind of fascinating when you think about it from that place.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Oh, dementia. So I I didn't say this, but dementia patients have the same problem that infants have. They don't have the ability to envision the future. So they literally, if you can't envision the future, you literally cannot worry. Because worry has involves looking at something that might happen. So you so dementia patients can't do that. Dementia is one of these illnesses that people have that most people fear dementia more than they fear death. Like, because when you have dementia, you lose, you're losing all your human skills. You're starting to lose the ability to feel right and wrong and guilt and regret and revisioning the future, and and that is scary to people. They do not like that idea, and they grieve that. And it's like you see people when their parent is demented, they're literally grieving the loss of their parent because now what they have is a human organism, but they don't have any of the human skills. They also have a lot less stress, so they can wear plaids and stripes together and they don't care. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

They don't uh sweat the small stuff anymore. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

They don't go, oh, I got the scar on my face. They don't care, right? They need to be taken care of. Same thing with one-year-olds, they need to be taken care of because they don't have all those human skills. And so, what the book's about is how do we keep the skills and lose the side effects? And so, when to this the two I've talked about, the two tools that I use for worry are one is the thing called realistic optimism. So, when I talked about envision the future, what the part of worry is you and you start focusing on all the bad things that can happen. Well, you have a choice. That's one of our other skills. We can choose to focus on the good things. So here's an example. Like uh I got a letter from the IRS saying I'm gonna get audited. So you could focus on all the bad things that could happen, and you'd be like, oh no, I'm gonna own a lot of money, it's gonna be painful, it's gonna take months. It's like, ah, right? And that can go on until the audit happens and you get the results. That could go on for months. So if you use realistic optimism, what you say is, you know what? I did all the things I was supposed to do, so this audit is gonna go well. And when you think that, you're like, oh, shoot, that's gonna be great. I I tell a story in the book where my uncle got an audit and I got an audit, and he's freaking out, and his hair's falling out, and he's drinking too much alcohol, and he's not sleeping, and I'm gone, hey, this is gonna work out. Now, that's the optimism part. The realism part is you gotta be realistic. You can't just go, oh, everything's gonna be wonderful and rosy and just ignore things that could go bad. So realistically, I said, Alright, well, I'm gonna call my accountant, I'm gonna make sure he does all the things he's supposed to do, I'm gonna make sure I get all the forms filled out for them, right? And so you put all that together. So then at the end of the audit, we get a letter that says, You owe$10,000. And I'm like, oh, but now I have plenty of energy because I've had months of like not worrying about it. My uncle was freaking out because he'd had 10 months of freaking out. So when he gets a bill, he's like, no. Well, then the next day we get a letter that says, Oh, our bad, you actually get a 5,000 refund. And I'm going, woo-hoo, right? My uncle's so exhausted that he can't even enjoy that he got a$5,000 refund because he's been worried for eight to ten months and freaking out. So he can't even enjoy that he got five thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah, it's really all about where we choose to put our energy, right? And so often we choose to put our energy on the things that don't serve us or the things that suck the life out of us. And then we wonder why we're exhausted all the time.

Babies, Dementia, And Worry’s Origins

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, that's funny, because apparently my friend just called me the other day. Eight o'clock in the morning. She's like, I have to go pick up my daughter, I have to go to work, I have to go pick up my friend who's at the hospital, I have to do this, and that. And I'm like, she's like, I'm exhausted. I'm like, it's eight o'clock in the morning. You haven't even done anything yet, you're exhausted already. And it's exactly what you just said, because it's that she's worried about stuff and running around in fear, which zaps out your energy. But here's what I'll say to you there's a reason why we tend to pay attention to the negative. It's sort of built into us as an organism because every organism is out there trying to keep themselves safe. So the problem that humans have gotten into is for my dog, like her environment is what she can see and hear and smell. So if she's laying on the rug, hanging out, playing, you know, just hanging out, and a big dog comes in her yard that she can smell, she's like, and like she's all jumped up and her hair sticking up and she's growling and right. But as soon as that dog goes out of the yard, she's back to laying on the rug. Right? For humans, we're sitting there going, oh, what happens if she comes back? What if that dog comes back? What if I was outside with my grandson, blah, blah, blah. Right? So our environment now doesn't just include where we are, which is what it does for my dog. Our environment includes the future too. Oh, but because of social media, now our environment includes the whole earth. And because of our movies and our books, oh, our environment includes the whole universe because who some alien might come and get us, or some asteroid's gonna run into the earth. So we have an environment that includes the earth, the universe, and forever, that's the environment you're trying to keep safe. You're like, whoa, that's a lot of environment to keep safe, which is why people worry a lot.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, and it's really, you know, it's always that, and there are, you know, I think I mean you would know better than I do, but it seems that there are some people that tend to catastrophize on a regular basis and tend to constantly look at the worst case scenario. And that's just gotta be the most exhausting way to live your life.

Realistic Optimism In Practice

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. Well, that's why I've developed that other tool called the worry organizer, be just for that reason, right? So I'll give you an example. So I had a a lady called, she was 18 years old and she was gone to high school and she'd gotten sick and been out for two or three weeks. And so she was worried about going back to school. And I'm like, she's like, Dr. Brauss, I don't want to go back to school. I'm freaking out, I know I'm gonna get sick and die, or whatever, right? So she was sort of catastrophizing, like you said, right? So we filled out this worry organizer. So here's the worry organizer. The first thing you have to do is write it down because what I find is when people are worried, it's because it's rolling around in their head over and over and over and over again, there's nothing to make it stop. So it's not very efficient. It's quick, but it's not very efficient. So when you write it down, it takes a little more effort, but then it's down and it's written on a piece of paper. So here's what we did. So I go, so what are you worried about? That's the first column. And she said, I'm worried that I'm gonna get sick again. And you're like, number two column, well, why are you worried about that? Well, because there's been a flu running around the school and and my immune system I don't think is as good as it should be. And you're like, all right, those are reasonable things. Then the third column is, well, how likely is it that you're gonna get sick? Slash, how bad would it be if you got sick? So she was actually pretty realistic and she said, Well, it's probably about a 50% chance that I'll get sick. And I go, well, that's true. So that also means there's a 50% chance you won't get sick. And I go, and if you got sick, how bad would it be? And she goes, Well, probably I'd be fine, like 90% likely I'd just be fine, and I'd get a cold and go and I'd be fine, right? And you're like, Yeah, that's exactly right. And so when she stopped and she saw those numbers, she was like, Wait, what? Because she's like, maybe I should wait till next week. And I'm like, Well, do you think those numbers are gonna change next week? And she goes, No, not really. I'm like, well, okay, well, then I don't think staying away from school is really the answer here. So then the next column is, well, what can I do to make it not happen? So she could wear a mask, she could take vitamin C, she could take airborne, she could do all these different things, stay away from people who are sick, right? And then the last column is, okay, worse happens and I get sick, what do I do? Well, go to the doctor, you go to Walking Center, you take some antibiotics, you you know, you take cold medicine, you take off a couple days. So when she filled out the sheet, she's like, okay, well, I see why I'm worried, but that's not gonna change in the next week, so I might as well just go to school, which is what she did, and everything was fine. So by but by filling out the sheet, her anxiety level went from a 10 down to about a three that she could tolerate. When it was at a 10, she couldn't call it tolerate it.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I love that. I think that is so brilliant because it diffuses all of the worst-case scenario situations and allows people to go, well, okay, well, what if you had the worst case scenario? Like, how bad is it really gonna be? And I think a lot of times we envision it to be way worse than it actually will be, and so that's such a great exercise.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Well, that's why I like the numbers. So, like if someone says, I'm afraid I'm gonna fly, but flying on a plane, it's gonna crash. Well, here's what I see. And I will say that women tend to worry more than men. Men meant to be minimizers, women tend to be warriors. So the woman's gone, what if the plane crashes? And here's the husband, it's not gonna crash, honey. And she's like, You don't know that, right? Because he's gone, it's zero. And she's gone, no, that's not true, because a plane just crashed last week in India or whatever, right? And so, so that's where they get into trouble. But when we write down the numbers and you go, Well, how likely is it that it's gonna happen? And you start writing one in a million, or one in two million, or one in ten million, then you're like. Oh, but so then the second column is like, Well, how bad would it be if it crashed? And the answer is bad, right? You're gonna die. Probably, right? But that's getting to that last. So now you go to the last column. You go, So if I died, what would happen? And you're like, Well, I'm dead, so what do I care? But what you can do is go, Well, I gotta make sure my will's in place. I gotta make sure that my sister signs up to say she's gonna take care of my kids if something happens to me. I gotta make sure, right? I got a knockbox or whatever, right? So now you can start, and here's the word you can plan for the future, but without fear. So now when you get on the plane, you know it's only gonna be one in two million chances that it's gonna crash. But if it did crash, you're prepared for the worst that could happen.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

And I I think that's really valuable information. And I think when you can live your life from that place of, okay, let's take all of the fear out of the everyday what-ifs, then we have a lot easier way to be able to navigate the hard things when they show up.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Here's one of the weird things. Like so, what I've learned is that that women in general think that worrying shows they care. They equate worry with caring for somebody. And what I tell them is no, worry is that fear reaction, and fear actually turns off the thinking part of your brain. So when you're trying to worry about somebody else, really what you're trying to do is solve a problem for them. And when you turn off the thinking part of your brain, it's harder to solve the problem. So worry isn't actually helping them. Solving their problem is what's gonna help them. Having that fear reaction isn't really showing you care. It solving the problem is what shows you care. And so what I find then is if you can take away that idea that worry is a good thing that shows I care and say, no, no, solving the problem was shows you care, then you don't need all that fear running around inside of you to help the other person.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Yeah. Sometimes it's not our our uh problem to fix anyway, right?

The Worry Organizer Tool

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Uh well, when I talk so one of the things that I see in our society nowadays is that many more people are feeling overwhelmed. And they feel overwhelmed because they got a whole bunch of worry and they feel some guilt and there's some regret and they got some self-esteem issues, and they got all these different problems going on, and they get overwhelmed. And it's like when you're overwhelmed, you're like, Why? You don't even know where to start. You got problems one and two and three and ten and sixteen, and oh yeah, I forgot about twenty, and you throw them on top of the heap, and now you have this giant black heap of crap that you don't even know where to get started. And so people get overwhelmed and they get diagnosed with depression because they come in going, oh, I can't sleep, or I can't eat, or I eat too much, or I can't focus, and I want to just stay in my room. And the doctor goes, Oh, those are all the symptoms of depression. So I'm gonna give you medicine that's gonna fix that. And the problem is they do feel a little better, but it doesn't fix the problems that got them there to begin with. So what I found was that the majority of people who get diagnosed with depression really are overwhelmed. And so when you start dealing with their overwhelmed, then you actually fix the problem. And so I had a patient come in who was an elderly gentleman whose wife was getting some dementia, and he was angry and he was frustrated, and his arthritis was acting up, so he couldn't do things, and his balance was off, and his kids were on him, and he was yelling at his wife, and whatever, and so they brought him in, going, We think dad's depressed. And he came, I'm not depressed, I'm not saying right. And I'm like, No, no, I think you're just overwhelmed. And when he heard that, he's like, Oh, that's exactly right. He goes, I just got too much crap. So then here's what we did when he was overwhelmed. Instead of going, okay, here's a medicine that's gonna fix this, I go, okay, let's figure this out. So you're grieving the loss of your wife because she's getting dementia. You're grieving the loss of your independence because as your arthritis gets worse and you can't do stuff, you have to rely on other people to do it. So as we started dealing with the issues, then you could see that he calmed down and he he had a better insight into how to address the problem.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, that's a such that's such an important thing, and a lot of my audience is mid-life and beyond. But I mean, I think a lot of us in that midsection of life, whether we're dealing with elderly parents or grown kids that maybe aren't out of the house yet, or maybe they are out of the house, but you're still kind of you know tethered to them, and there's just a lot on your plate, and so the overwhelm is is a real thing. And I actually watched my dad go through that when my mom started to decline in her health, and and there was a moment where I really thought my dad was starting to get dementia, and I was quite concerned. But what it truly was is he was completely overwhelmed to a place where his brain just had kind of checked out because he was so exhausted and he couldn't remember things and couldn't function, and then all of a sudden, once we started to get some care in place and we started to get some of the really big challenges handled, it just all came right back. And I went, Wow, that's just fascinating that the brain just shuts down and it's to protect you, but it just is it's a similar situation and sign of like a dementia situation.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

And so yeah, it's kind of no, and that's so the problem is doctors are in a hurry, and so they're not taking the time, they'd rather just give you a pill and say, Okay, well, hey, I gave you the right label, and here's the pill to treat that label, and come back in a couple weeks and I'll see you then. Because that's way faster than going, hey, let's figure out how to figure out how to help you with your wife and how to help you with your arthritis, and da da da, right? So so one of the tools I talk about is an empathy wall. So the empathy wall is it has to be a wall that's thick enough to protect you from all the things that are going on around you, but it has to be thin enough that you can be empathetic with people. So, what I had to learn when I was a young whippersnapper doctor, I was gonna fix everybody. By lunchtime, I was overwhelmed, right? Yeah. So what I had to learn was look, everybody else's problems are a five. They're not a zero, they're a five. So I'm here to help you. I'm gonna do the best I can, but it's not my job to fix you, because you are the only one that can fix you. All I can do is show you how to go, what would be a better way, what's been shown to be a better way, how do you eat, how do you take this meta, da da da, do this test, get this exhaust. Right? I can guide you, but you're the one that has to do it. And so my job then becomes to give you the most accurate advice I can give you in a way that you can use it. And so I can get better at those skills, but I can't fix you. And once I figured out I can't fix people, all I can do is guide them, and their stresses are a five and mine are a ten, yeah, then life got a whole lot more manageable. So, but I wasn't like when people came in, their problem wasn't a zero, because I've seen doctors like that too, where they go, yeah, whatever, you got diabetes, here's a script, I'll see you later. No, they want somebody who cares, but you can't care too much or else you get into trouble. And it's like that's that's that wall that I saw. I I call it an empty wall that you have to build around yourself. And the other tool I use is called a shoebox, which I got from a good friend of mine. And so if you walk into a room, so the so what I talk about is when people are overwhelmed is that they're lumping. So when I I find myself doing this every once in a while, like, oh, I got this and that and this and that, and then and and my wife will go, you're lumping. I'm like, Oh yeah, you're right. Okay, putting all these problems together. So the more separate you keep them. So the word is compartmentalization. The more compartmentalized you are, the better off you are. Because no one of these problems is overwhelming by itself. It's only when you let them merge together that you get into trouble. So the visual for that is shoe boxes. So if you walk into your room and there's a hundred shoeboxes and the bottom's here, and the left's there, and the right, the shoe's up here, and the left shoes over there, and you're like, a hundred, you're like, ah, this is crazy. I don't know, right? But if you walked into the same room and the bottom was and the left and the right were inside, and the lid was on top, and they're all stacked up nice and neat in the in the closet, that's still a lot of shoe boxes, but it's not overwhelming. And then you just take down one shoebox at a time and look at it, put it back up. Take a second one down, look at it, put it back up. And my wife will say to me, Well, look, you know, some of these problems are linked, you know, they they go together, and life doesn't just come at you as a shoebox. And you're like, Well, I get that, but the more compartmentalized you are, the less likely you are to get overwhelmed.

Overwhelm Versus Depression

SPEAKER_00 30:36

And that's really, I think, a fascinating, you know, like where we talk about how we're having a mental health crisis and how, you know, the way you describe the whole symptoms of depression, where it's probably not always depression. And so it's really fascinating to be able to look at some of the problems that people are facing and some of the overwhelm and you know the guilt and regret and worry that is piling on top that's causing them to be paralyzed and to feel like they have to just completely shut down. Kind of like what my dad was doing, those are all very similar symptoms of depression. Um, but you know, uh talk to us about that. Like, do you think there's like we need a new system, we need a new way to, you know, look at people's problems instead of just putting everybody in that category of, oh, you got depression and here's a prescription.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, well, so I mean, so what happens is as a doctor, you get trained, right? So your training is to say, hey, take a bunch of symptoms, put a label on it, and then treat the label, right? So hey, you come in and you're urinating a lot and your vision's blurry, and you'll go, oh, and your blood sugar is 300, oh you have, you know, you put those things together, you go, you have diabetes, and here's how we treat diabetes. So the problem that we've gotten into is people come in with these symptoms and we slap the label of depression on it, and then we go, oh, so when someone's depressed, here's what we do for that person. We give them these medicines and we do these things, right? And so the training then has to change to say, hey, consider not just these symptoms are for depression, because the symptoms overlap with the symptoms of being overwhelmed. So if you see a guy in a foxhole who's just sitting there because he's overwhelmed and he's shut down, you're like, you don't go, oh, you're depressed, you go, oh, you have battle fatigue or whatever you want to call it. But that puts you in a whole different category. So, like, what happened to your dad? Like, if he had come in to see a regular doctor, they would have gone, oh, you're depressed, here's an antidepressant. And he would have felt a little better, but it would have still had the same issues, right? If you give him that label of, okay, you're overwhelmed, well, then the treatment is very different. And so then you have to treat the problems, and let's get rid of the problems, or at least reduce the problems, or get you better at handling the problems. Now, it's not that I wouldn't use an antidepressant, but what I would say to the person is look, you're not chemically imbalanced in your brain, you're just overwhelmed. But I'm going to give you this medicine so you can feel a little bit better, which will then make it easier for you to handle the problems that you got going on. And once your problems get better handled, then we'll take you off the medicine.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah. I have a quick question in terms of there are people in that I have witnessed, and this isn't a judgmental thing, it's just an observation. And maybe it's just a trained response from a, you know, maybe a childhood trauma or something. But they tend to almost like create dramatic situations in their life on a regular basis, which kind of keeps them in that loop. And I think you and I talked basically about loops, right? And uh let's talk about what a loop is and how people can maybe diffuse that loop because it it often has a lot to do with, say, an addiction situation or you know, all kinds of different things that tend to repeat themselves, whether it's being in an abusive relationship or whatever that is, but those loops tend to keep people stuck in a way that I think is avoidable from you know your perspective.

The Empathy Wall And Shoebox Method

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah. So what I found was when people have stress, so we all have stress, right? So when I define stress, so let me give you my definition because it's a very broad one. So stress comes from our changing world with our changing body, and we're trying to adapt. So our body is literally changing every day, and our environment's changing every day, and we're trying to adapt to that environment, and that's stress. Okay, so you can't get rid of stress ever until you die. Once you're dead, then the stress goes away, right? But until then, so my prescription is not to die. So, what I find is you have to manage your stress, but to manage your stress, you have to know where it's coming from. So if you realize it's coming from uh you know side effects to our skills or from our mindset, those are things I can do something about, okay? But here's the problem. So when you're under stress, people find stress reducers. So, like, I'll go play basketball, or I'll sing karaoke, or I'll jog on my treadmill, or I'll watch TV, or I'll talk with my wife, or I'll go to church, or right? So there's a whole bunch of things that I can do to reduce my stress. But when the stress reducer starts causing stress, or as my friend says, when the stress reducer starts becoming the stress producer, now you have more stress. So what do you do when you're under stress? You do the stress reducer, but that's causing stress, and now you have more stress. So now you end up in this loop. Because so the example I give people is like you have a bad day at work and you stop off at the bar and get a couple drinks, and you're feeling much better because the alcohol was your stress reducer. But as you're driving home, a policeman pulls you over and gives you a DUI. So now the stress reducer, the alcohol, just cause stress. So then you get home, you say to your white wife, honey, I just got a DUI. And she's like, Oh, that's horrible. He goes, Yeah, I'm gonna go get a beer. And she's like, What? What are you talking about? He's like, Well, that's my stress reducer. And she's like, But you just got right, so you can get right, so the stress reducer becomes the stress reducer, and now you're in this loop. And that loop can run around pretty quickly. So some things like heroin, that loop gets formed automatically. Things like alcohol, that can go on for a while before somebody realizes that they're in a loop. But then there's other things, so loops can come in, what I'd say is loops can come in three varieties. They can be chemicals, so it could be alcohol, coffee, could be, you know, cocaine or whatever, right? It can be coming in behaviors. So behaviors could be like what you just said, they could be a drama dramatic thing, or they could be, you know, they're gaming too much, or they're reading books too much. I just saw, I just read an article about somebody who plays pickleball too much, right? And it's like he's yeah, right? And I've my friend, he's not in a pickle, he's that's the word I used to use in the past. He's not in a loop yet, because here's why. So he plays pickleball four hours every day. Okay, but he's retired, so it's okay. And his wife works, so she's fine with him playing. If she retires and she doesn't like pickleball, now that's gonna cause a loop for him because she's gonna go, What the hell? You're spending four hours a day playing pickleball. What about me, right? So you can see how stress reducer, depending on your environment, could go from being a good thing to being a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Can become stress creative again.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, and as you get more stresses, so one like the example was in Vietnam, the soldiers there, like 80-90% were addicted to something. That's the word we used in the past. I want to replace that with they were in a stress reducer loop. They were using something to reduce their stress, but it was starting to cause problems. When they came back to the United States, the military's very worried. They were like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do with these all these addicted people? When they got back, guess what? Their stress level went down, so they just stopped. Like 80% of them just stopped because they didn't need it anymore. They didn't have the same amount of stress that they had back in Vietnam, so they just stopped. So when you find with a stress reducer loop, the answers are very different. When we say to someone you're an addict, what we're saying to them is you have a disease, you're gonna have it forever, there's nothing you can do but try to control it the best you can, you're gonna have to struggle every day, and we've probably found that you got a genetic defect, and you got a brain animality, and you got a psychiatric diagnosis, and you're like, who the heck wants to hear that? What? I don't want to hear that. But in the stress reduced loop model, what I say to them is look, you have stress like everybody else, you found something that worked, but that thing that you found, that treatment, is now causing problems. So the answer is let's figure out a way to have less stress. So read my book, Highway to Your Happy Place, a roadmap to less stress, and find other ways to reduce your stress that don't have the same side effects.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

I really appreciate that um perspective on addiction because I think especially like just like you say, you know, some of the other words kind of tend to have, you know, this meaning attached to them. Addiction is such a like you say, it's very much um a charged word in that if you even use that word, you're you're doomed. You're basically a lifetime of whatever is going on. And I've never really bought into that philosophy because I do think there are people who can become addicted to something for a short term, but it is uh exactly that. It's to solve that place where they just cannot cope otherwise, and so that has been the piece that they use to cope, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's you have like a genetic defect, and I so I really appreciate that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Right. Well, that brings up the third category. So I said chemicals can be a loop, behaviors can end up in a loop, but so can your psychological coping mechanism end up in a loop. So I just finished reading this book and it had been written for a long time ago. I just read it. Was it called codependent? Which I never understood what that term meant, and I thought it was kind of a silly term in that we're all codependent because we all depend on each other, because if there's not somebody figuring out how to, you know, be a policeman or somebody who's gonna figure out how to make electricity, I'm stuck, right? So I'm dependent on them, and they're dependent on me to be a doctor, right? So we're all codependent at some level. So I didn't the term doesn't make sense to me. But in my model, what I say is look, you have a self-sacrificing loop. So what that means then is when you're self-sacrificing, so people we like people who self-sacrifice. We like first responders, we like military people, we like people that are willing to give the shirt off their back for others, right? That's so you get a lot of self-esteem points for that. So we like that. You get a lot of appreciation for that. And so people go, oh, I'm gonna be a self-sacrificer because that makes people like me. That gives me self-esteem points, that gives me appreciation. But the problem starts when they go, someone says, Hey, can you do this for me? You're like, Well, I don't really want to do that. What? You want to be selfish? And you're like, whoa, wait, I can't be selfish because if I'm selfish, then I have to give up that label of self-sacrificing. All right, fine, I'll do it. But now you start building up resentment and you start getting angry because now you're doing things you don't want to do, and so then people go more and more and more, and they know if they just call you selfish, you're like, ugh, okay, fine, I'll do it. So that's where they start to get it. So that the stress reducer of getting self-esteem points and appreciation from doing for others starts causing problems. And the second problem with that comes from that is self-sacrificers like to have control, and the way they get control is by doing it themselves. So, as an example, my ex-wife hated doing the wash. And I said, honey, look, I'll do the wash for you the rest of your life. You'll never have to do the wash again ever. You know how long that lasted? Yeah, it lasted three days because I didn't do the wash the way she did the wash, and she couldn't handle that, so she's back to doing the wash, right? So it there is a form of control there. So, but the problem that paid people that hadn't self-sacrificing loops get into is they get overwhelmed because they're doing everything themselves, because they don't think other people will do as good a job or do it the way they want it done. And so now they start doing everything themselves, and again they start getting angry and bitter, like, why do I have to do the wash for the ever, right? And you're like, Why do why does how why do I have to keep the house clean, blah, blah, blah, right? And it's like, these are things you wanted to do, and it's like these are your control mechanism. And so when they finally realize that, hey, it's my control mechanism, it's my need for appreciation and self-esteem points that's leading me into this trouble, then they can start going, wait, I can say no and still be not and not not be selfish? Yes, that is correct. You can change the meter from I have to say yes to everybody to I can say no every once in a while and still be self-sacrificing. So my kids, when I was when they were younger, they complained to me, they're like, Dad, you're selfish. You go play basketball every Thursday night and you leave us, and we would die, and you probably wouldn't be there. I'm like, No guilt there. But I'm like, you know what? You're right, I'm being selfish for those two hours. The other six days and 22 hours, I'm working my butt off to make sure you guys have a house and go to school and blah, blah, blah. But those two hours, those are for me. And so it's okay to be a little selfish because you'll get to say you're self-sacrificing. And once you realize that you can say no and mean it, and it's okay, then people can relax, they can get out of that self-sacrificing loop.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah, and it's interesting because we talk a lot on my podcast about um overfunctioning and sort of being in that midlife section where you you are. And I just went through a whole phase with my family where I was doing everything and just kind of also came to a burnout space and then realized, like, oh, wait a minute, I don't have to do it all by myself. And and so we talk a lot about the differences about being a martyr and taking things on because we think that it's what we're supposed to do and we're doing it out of love, but we really hate the idea of it, and we're over overwhelmed and all the things. But you know, I think the word selfish, like when you talk about your basketball for two hours, like that's imperative. And and being able to be selfish in those kind of compartmentalized spaces to fill your own cup so you still have something to give to somebody, I think that's not selfish at all. And I think we need to relabel that in some way so that it doesn't sound like a bad word.

Stress Reducer Loops And Addiction

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Yeah, well that's I mean what you're talking about is caretaker burnout, which as a physician I saw a lot. And it's like, yeah, it's bad. Because if you can't take care of yourself, then how are you going to take care of somebody else? You know, the whole picture of, you know, when they when you're on the airplane and the masks come down, you put your mask on first and then you put the mask on your kid because if you can't breathe, you're not helping your kid at all. And so it's yeah you're right. Selfish is selfish sounds like a bad term. But really we're all selfish at some level. It's just it what I do is I put a meter in our head, right? So there is a meter where you're totally narcissistic and your mother Teresa on the other end, right? And we're all somewhere in the middle there, right? So what I find is the self-sacrificers tend to be on that side of Mother Teresa and they go further and so they can say they're at 45 degrees right at 45 they're fine. But now they get married and now they're at 50. Now they're 55 now they're 60 and 70 and they're like now I'm not fine. Like I at first I thought well if I start telling they could be selfish they're all going to be narcissist. Yeah no that didn't happen right so if I could take a 70 and make it a 45 now they're comfortable again.

unknown 45:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Right? So they're gonna be some everybody's gonna be a little bit selfish but it's like when you can when you realize I don't have to be 70, I can just be 45 and still be self-sacrificing, then they can relax.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah and I think some of that like martyrdom or self-sacrificing or whatever it is that you call it there is a level of control in that because there is that instead of wanting to say hey I'm you know let you do it imperfectly I I I can't trust you to do that. So I'm just gonna do it myself because then it's easier for me to know what the outcome's gonna be and and then there's resentment in that but it's it's self-inflicted resentment.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Yeah you got it. So one of the things I had to learn as a doctor right I started had I did a lot of work with nurse practitioners and PAs and what you realize is they don't do the same thing I do. And I had to learn to take a step back and go, okay, maybe maybe they're doing 90 what I would do but that's good enough right I mean they're not doing anything dangerous so I'll just keep track and if they do use a different antibiotic than I would use or what right so I had to learn it's okay because that allowed me to take care of more people because I was letting them do some of the work even if it wasn't at the level that I would do it at it was good enough right and that's so I had a teacher once that got into this trouble right she was taking care of she had like she was really an excellent teacher one teacher of the year that kind of stuff right and so the principal started giving her more difficult kids. Well her whole classroom became difficult kids and she was trying to maintain the same skills that she had when she had regular kids and she got burnt out and quit and I'm like well good are you now as a teacher you're a great teacher but you just quit like you don't help anybody and all you had to do is back off and say look I can't have a whole classroom of bad kids can I just have like three or four and then I can help them and I can still be not burnt out and so that becomes where mindset comes in where you go hey it's okay if it doesn't go the way I want it to so I saw this with with wives and husbands because wives usually have a a higher level of cleanliness like I know in my marriage that's the way it is like my wife go the house is filthy and I'm looking around going wait what? Yeah yeah yeah yeah and so here's what happens so she gets mad if if I don't help her keep the house clean at her level I'm like that's your level like that's not my level there are houses that I've been in where they're dirty enough that I'm like oh this house is bad like we gotta clean this right and I'll clean but my house never gets there because my wife's my meter goes off way before mine does. So really what she's wanting is she has a certain level in her head where the house should be that clean but to get there she wants my help which is fine but she has to realize it's I'm helping her get it to her level not we're just keeping the house clean we're keeping the house clean to her level not my level and so there's a different interaction because now you're not yelling at your husband to help you're going hey can you please help me because my level of clean is is more than yours so I know that you think the house is clean but I really would like this done so can you help me out?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Yeah it's all about communication yeah so let's talk about the idea of a happy place.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

If we're on the highway to a happy place what exactly is a happy place because I imagine it's different for everyone so do you have like a tool to help no everybody has the same exact happy place right just kidding right yeah no my I was talking to my wife I was like so where yeah I my happy place is at the beach where I'm hanging out in the sand and smelling the suntan lotion and the sun and the waves right my wife thinks the beach is a big kitty litter box. So she that is not her happy place.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Interesting and that's funny because I think it is different for everybody. So how do we determine like is there some kind of a scale or a few questions or like some tools that we can use to sort of you know dumb down and figure out what is the the core thing of our happy place.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Yep so so you were hitting on all the points that I'm gonna make right so the first thing is that I had too many people come to me go, Dr. Sprouse, I know where I don't want to be but I don't have any idea where I do want to be you're like that's a problem. Like if you don't know where you're trying to get to how are you going to get there? Your GPS isn't gonna help you out if you don't put an address in so that's that's so I wrote the second half of the book first where it's about stresses but the first half of the book was about well where we're trying to get to so then I said well like we got to figure out a happy place. Because here's what I realized that everybody's happy place is different but the rooms to their happy place are the same. So we were just in a German castle and it had 300 rooms but guess what they were all the same rooms that I have in my own little house right they had a bedroom and they had a bathroom and they had a kitchen and that right they were just gigantic right or they had 500 bedrooms or whatever. But right so here's what I realized that all the rooms are the same but the decorations can be different. So everybody's rooms yeah so they might be bigger or smaller they might be pink they might be green they might have pictures on the wall they might have paintings whatever right so everybody's decorations might be different but the rooms are the same so then the question came up is okay what's the rooms of the happy place so I'll give them to you real quick. So the first room that I like is gratitude. And when you have gratitude it's really hard to be upset like so here yeah so we're in Germany and I'm looking at this cast going God this is beautiful the king the king of Germany had such a luxurious life and then I'm looking around like wait he didn't have air conditioning he didn't have central heat he didn't have refrigerator he didn't have a telephone he didn't have an internet he didn't have indoor plumbing he didn't even have windows and I'm like whoa wait a second like yeah it gets cold in Germany right so I'm like whoa so I start how to go I had to be grateful I just did a I have to do a five minute radio show and I was like I'm out shoveling we we just had a big show snowstorm here and I'm out shoveling but I'm feeling grateful because I'm like you know what my electricity stayed on some guy's out there making sure the lines are up like how nice is that there's some guy riding around the ambulance if somebody gets hurt there's somebody you know that's you know so when you're grateful for all the things you have I got heat in my house I got a fireplace man I am grateful for that so it's really hard to be upset when you when you realize all the things in your life that you have to be grateful for.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Yeah you can't be a grateful and sad at the same time it's really hard.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

So the second one is pleasure and so what I see is that patients or people wait for those big pleasures like when I graduate I'm gonna have fun or when I finally get my certificate or when I finally have the baby or whatever right they're waiting for the big thing to finally acknowledge their pleasure. And what I tell people is live your life you're in a puzzle and like you're a thousand piece puzzle. And every time you get a piece together that's a little pleasure like woo I got a piece together and then I got another piece together and then you get 999 little pleasures. And then at the end when it's all together you get a really big pleasure versus somebody who's just like I'm not gonna have any pleasure till the puzzle's done and then you're done you're like okay now I got to do the next puzzle. But if you're getting 999 pleasures every time you put a piece together what?

SPEAKER_00 52:47

How nice is that I love the analogy of that because that is really true. Like we're all a puzzle and and we don't know what the end of the puzzle is going to look like till we get to the end of the journey but it's it's the uh it's what do you call it it's the on the way like the journey is the puzzle.

People-Pleasing And Self-Sacrifice Loops

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yes. Well so like you know there's there's places where I want to be as an author and as a uh a coach and I'm not there yet but I'm enjoying being on a podcast with Varney right I'm enjoying writing a book I'm enjoying right I have to take these little pleasures as I go along because if I had to wait till the end to see where this goes like no that's not good right so we were all we were designed to deal with these little pleasures oh here's an extra berry oh I got an extra fish whatever right and so we just have to recognize that they're there. So then the third one is anticipation. So we my wife and I retired so we get to travel so we're getting ready to go to Italy and we're like oh this is gonna be awesome we're gonna travel around we're gonna ride in our anticipation everything's gonna be perfect we're not gonna get in a car accident the plane's gonna get there our luggage gonna get there we're gonna see all these great things we're still gonna be talking to each other by the end of the trip right these are all really so like now for the next three months I can just pull out of my pocket this anticipation and a pleasurable sensation goes off in my body.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

How freaking nice is that right how great is that I love that I love anticipation. So that's what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

And we need to have something to look forward to so that's another piece right exactly right so then the fourth is is feeling contentment and that's a mindset issue right so I've seen plenty of people who are rich who are not contented and I've seen plenty of people who are poor who are more than contented and it really comes down to your mindset of where you see your life and balancing the good and bad in your life. So if you see life as bad you're gonna not be contented if you see life as good is you're gonna be contented and so then you have when you use these other rooms then you start feeling oh yeah I can be contented because I'm grateful for all these different things. Then the other room is called fulfillment and fulfillment is made up of three things. So it's learning because we're a very curious organism so we like to learn and that gives us pleasure it comes from sharing because we're we're a communal organism so we like sharing and so we like giving to other people it makes us feel good. And then the third thing is having a purpose in life and so every other organism that's out there their purpose in life is to stay alive. But for humans that's too easy like it's too easy for us to wake up in the morning. So what we have to do is figure out something else that's gonna make us excited and feel like we were there's a reason for us to be here. And so I find that there's ways to find that and for some people it's difficult. Like I was easy right as a doctor I was gonna help people be happier and healthier and then when I retired guess what my purpose didn't change. Now I still try to keep people healthier and happier I just use different tools. So like learning what your purpose is becomes really critical. And then the last room is what I call cash. And cash is an acronym it's not just money right so cash is I want to feel like I have some control in my life and I want to feel like I'm connected I want to feel like I'm accepted and I want to feel like I'm appreciated. And then I want to have some spirituality in my life and I want to feel safe and the last one is I want to use humor to get through life and I'm gonna have hope. And when you put all those rooms together what what a freaking nice place that is I love that acronym I love that I'm totally going to steal that steal it I want people to borrow it.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

I'm just gonna borrow it and share it with my community because I love it absolutely right and I think it's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

So I did a lecture the other day and I was asked a room I said so tell me where your happy place is so somebody raised their hand said it's the beach and I go that's awesome I go how many times do you get to go to the beach in a year? And she's like I don't know like three times I was like so what do you do for the rest of the time? You're not in your happy place right and I'm like this happy place with all these rooms you can pull it out of your pocket. You don't have to wait for the end of the workday you don't have to wait for the weekend you don't have to wait till you retire you don't have to wait till you're on vacation it's there in your pocket every day every minute all you got to do is pull it out and use it.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

I love that I love that so much what a great conversation thank you for joining us today so for somebody who might be feeling maybe a little bit lost in their life and you know do you have just like a a quick takeaway for someone and how they can find their way to the highway to the happy place.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Yeah well here's what I do say to people and this is what I've seen too much. First off people tend to be stress blind so like like what I see is like if you go to a cat lady's house has 50 cats and you walk in and there's a huge cat smell and they can't smell it. And you're like it smells in here like smells what? I don't smell right so we're that way with our stress. So our stress levels can be a 50 and that's our baseline and we don't even know that there's 50 right so we only pay attention to the bigger ones. So what I say to people is look around in your life see what stresses you really have right second is don't resign yourself that it's gotta be like this you don't have to be overwhelmed the rest of your life you don't have to feel guilty the rest of your life you don't have to feel regret the rest of your life you don't have to worry the rest of your life there are ways to do that better less more efficient more effective there are treatments for that so you just have but you have to be willing to do something. You're getting an outcome in your life and you might not be comfortable with the outcome you're getting so the only way to get a different outcome is to change the input and the way to change the input is one of the ways is to read my book High With Your Happy Place Road map to less stress the other book that I got involved with is Mindset Matters. Those are things that are in your control but you have to do something. You can't just sit around going oh my life sucks and I don't know what I'm gonna do. No there's things out there that you can do. So what I tell people I implore them do not resign yourself to being stressed out.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Yeah that's a great great piece of advice thanks so much for being here with us today we're gonna put a link to all of your information in the show notes but um if you want to tell people quickly where they can find you and maybe tell us a little bit more about the book that you just recently collaborated on with uh Jack Canfield The Mindset Matters and then we can put a link into the show notes for that as well.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

So what I tell people is you know I have a website thhelustrestdoc dot com and on that website is like you know some stuff like uh like I do these five minute talks that you can listen to there they were made for the radio but you can listen to them. There's a they can download the chapter on how to worry more effectively and there's a link to a course that I give that's in 15 minute little snippets that they can just watch you know listen to or watch it while they're cooking or whatever they want to do, right? But what I sound is when I was writing the book is I don't know who's on the other side of the book. So you have to write the book kind of generically and I'm used to as a doctor being one-on-one. So I what I tell people is email me. It's less stressdock at gmail.com because I can give you these generic ideas about worry but I don't know what you're worried about. So if you want to email me I can help you with your individual worry. And then uh the mindset matter books was I'm I'm a co-author in that and I you know there were some things in my own life where like mindset really made a difference in how I how I approached what happened. And so like the example is a my board like when I first started was saying you guys are under treating pain. And then so I started treating pain more aggressively and then 10 years later they go oh you guys are calling this and everybody be addicts so now what you're doing is bad. Well so now I'm getting in trouble for doing the same things I did that they were praising me for. And so that was very traumatic as a professional to be to have your license threatened and being fined and spent blah blah blah right but my mindset was you know what it made me go back and realize and and examine am I doing things the right way and what I found was yes I am doing things the right way the board is the one that changed and I don't think they changed for the right reason. So I'm gonna do what I'm doing to take care of my patients and so that made my mindset but I also said I was doing my realistic optimism. I think this is going to work out but my realism is hey if something bad happens like they decide you can't do this anymore I got to figure out something else to do. And so it forced me to say hey I got to do something else so my wife and I became real estate investors and I became an author and we figured out other things to do and we said we made this commitment that we're gonna work our butts off for the next couple years to make sure we have enough reserve that if something bad happens we're gonna be okay. And so by that mindset change instead of being oh was me and I'm just gonna stay in my room and cry and pout or I'm gonna quit being no so I continued to be a doctor taking care of my patients the best that I could but I built up this reserve and I found these other identities that I could use. And so then when basically nothing ever happened and I was and then I got to retire and now I now I'm living very comfortably but it was all because of my mindset.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Yeah this is such a it's a master class in resilience is what this was. Absolutely yeah yeah yeah absolutely thanks so much for being with us here today and maybe we'll have to revisit this conversation at another time but we went through a lot today so hopefully we got through a lot yes so I'll make sure I do a a little cliff notes for everybody at the end of the thing just to bring them all back.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

But yes we have to do another show because we have to we did it what we didn't talk about was guilt, regret.

Control, Standards, And Communication

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

I know I had them all on my list here so we'll definitely unpack all those yeah uh thank you so much Dr. Gary I appreciate you and we will uh talk very soon. I hope you enjoyed today's episode I hope it inspired you or motivated you in some way to keep going and to create your very best life. If you did would you take five quick minutes to leave me a review on Apple Podcasts? It's the best way for me to know that you are enjoying the show and it helps other listeners find me as well. And while you're at it head over to lifeisdelicious.ca and sign up for my email newsletter. It's like a warm hug from me every week and not only will you get first access to new episodes I've also put together a free five-day email experience called the Midlife Boundary Reset where you'll get five days of insights mindset shifts and daily journal prompts to help you gently start choosing yourself again and create better boundaries without guilt, drama or burning bridges. I've put the link in the show notes as well and I think you're gonna love it. One last thing if you know someone who would enjoy an episode like this please do them a favor and share it with them. It's the best gift you can give someone that you love. If no one has told you today there is no one on this planet that is exactly like you and this world is a better place because you're here. So thank you for being here. I'll be back next week and I hope you'll join me right here on Life is Delicious.