Episode 5 - Rethinking Quality Of Life

What if quality of life has nothing to do with upgrades, and everything to do with the words you say to yourself when no one is listening? We unpack how stress sneaks into daily life through overload, comparison and a steady drip of negative self-talk—then show how small, precise shifts can restore calm and contentment.

We start by reframing happiness from the inside out. Rather than chasing gadgets or status, we focus on responsibility, gratitude and clear thinking that doesn’t trigger the body’s stress response. Choice overload, tech fatigue and endless scrolling steal attention and sour relationships, so we explore practical ways to simplify inputs and deepen focus. Along the way, we contrast nostalgia for “less but enough” with actionable steps you can use now, without pretending the modern world will slow down for you.

The heart of the conversation is language. Words like “can’t,” “hate,” and “that winds me up” quietly train your brain to expect threat. We explain the Red Mind and Blue Mind model—how repeated thoughts move from conscious choice to subconscious habit—and why reframing “I can’t” to “I’m unable to at this moment” or “I don’t want to” reduces the internal alarm. This isn’t forced positivity; it’s healthy, accurate thinking that protects your nervous system and frees energy for what matters.

If anxiety or depression is weighing you down, seek support now—help accelerates progress and keeps you moving when motivation dips. Press play to learn simple reframes, focus your attention and rebuild quality of life from the inside. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. Which word will you change today?

Transcript

Caz 0:02

Stress is the biggest killer in the world.

D 0:05

Welcome to DStress with D and Caz. Both have crowning achievements for not ending in lives. So we're talking about mental health.

Caz 0:16

Too many of us are suffering silently. So go grab yourself a cup.

Defining Quality Of Life

D 0:21

And let's get real and raw because you are worth so much more. Hello and welcome back to another episode. I'm D And I'm Caz. Welcome back. This week we are going to be discussing quality of life and what it means. What it means to us and what we're about, but also what the majority of people seem to think quality of life is about. So Caz, shall we start with you?

Caz 0:53

I know that quality of life for me is about being happy, feeling good, and about positivity, not about the material things that surround me, about my my heart and my inner soul, and how happy I feel.

D 1:10

Yeah, that would be good, wouldn't it, if that's actually what it meant to everybody. Because most people seem to think quality of life is about what you've got, what you possess, where in the material world you sit.

Caz 1:22

And um who's got the best gadget, the nicest car.

D 1:26

Yeah, and let's face it, we all know people that have got everything and don't have an ounce of quality of life. Because all they do is blame everything for what they're feeling, when they're feeling it, if it's not in the zone of happiness that they're they're they're after, basically.

Caz 1:45

Well, they also make themselves um victims by blaming other people and not taking any responsibility.

D 1:54

Yeah, but they don't really know about that yet, do they? No. Most people.

Caz 1:58

But we're gonna help people.

Happiness Beyond Possessions

D 1:59

Yeah, that's why we're here. That's why we're here. So quality of life, um, if I use my own example, I had everything on the surface to the outsider. But when it hit, I realised that I didn't have one iota of quality of life because of the way that I felt. So for me, it's now I completely understand that quality of life is how you feel on the inside, because even if you don't have a lot, but you still feel really okay on the inside and content, then you know you've got quality of life, really, because you're not waiting for something to come along to make you happy. Yeah, and not a lot of people have got that.

Caz 2:46

Especially in this day and age.

D 2:48

Exactly. Today is even more difficult for people to acquire quality of life. They think that they can buy it, and you cannot. You cannot, no, you really cannot. So, one of the things that we focus on um with regards to what we do is is quality of life.

Taking Responsibility Over Victimhood

Caz 3:05

You cannot buy happiness, yes, you can buy things that make you happy, but then that soon just becomes broken or needs updating. You know, happiness is within your soul and your heart, and you own it, it's free.

D 3:21

Oh, selling it to me. I want some. So, yeah, quality of life is something that the vast majority of people are still confused about, and and ultimately taught by the best. Oh, stop it, giving it to me like that. Um, yeah, so how can people get quality of life, Caz, in your opinion?

Caz 3:44

Taking responsibility, stop playing the victim, stop blaming people, um, thinking, poor me, how can I change? This is how you change.

D 3:57

Um, focusing on what you do have and seeing the best of everything that you can, which again is an art form.

Caz 4:06

It's about gratefulness as well, empathy, compassion.

D 4:10

Yes, all of those things that we're all being told all the time to do, which is where the problem lies.

Caz 4:17

However, we seem to forget if a sparkly new gadget arrives, all of the most important, powerful things that we already own. The quality of our life. Hmm.

Why Modern Life Feels Worse

D 4:29

Quality of life is something that's sold to us, isn't it? With every gadget that you buy, for example, or every product that you buy, wherever it's coming from, whichever part of your life. But really, deep down, if you are unhappy and you have too much stress in your body as a result of changes, challenges, and threats you've experienced, then all of those external products, for example, are not going to change the quality that you experience in your life. So for the vast majority of people, it's something that's actually a million miles away. They don't feel that they can grasp it because let's face it, we do know so many people with everything who do not have the happiness and the contentment that we experience in life.

Caz 5:20

And that and that they deserve as well.

D 5:23

Yeah, everybody deserves to have quality of life, but it's not something that everybody has access to.

Caz 5:30

Not everybody wants to admit that evil, or they don't choose to go, you know, to acknowledge and take responsibility and think, actually, I am struggling. I do need a bit of help, and that's why I'm so pleased that you're listening to us today, listeners. Because you've actually taken that step. I am struggling. I do need some help.

Overload, Choice, And Tech Fatigue

D 5:54

And even if you're not struggling that much, it's really important to hear this sort of conversations to know that you can, even if you feel okay, still improve on that and still make things better. So, quality of life is one of the concepts that we actually focus on people attaining with what they learn from us, and over the next few days, weeks, months, years, decades, I don't think we'll last centuries. But you know, every time we might do on a podcast. You what do you know what? That's the thing today, isn't it? You can live forever on these things, it's never going away. No, so you've got to be really careful what you say and what you publish and what goes out there.

Caz 6:42

She's looking at me as if you say, Caz, do not swear.

D 6:45

Daggers. Daggers. So, okay, then. So quality of life. A lot of people are in need of improving their quality of life, and they don't even realise it because they've become so conditioned to accepting that what they've got is their lot and that's all there is. There isn't anything else, but there truly is. And it's purely back down to not really understanding how much stress they're carrying in their body and what they can do to alleviate the unnecessary stress that they're they're experiencing because that is the biggest dampener of quality of life that exists on this planet.

Caz 7:21

And I think they also see it as a challenge to maybe change this kind of behaviour and not realise how you teach things D is going back to basics, and it really is very simple.

D 7:36

So, Caz, let's talk about why the quality of life that we humans are experiencing is reducing. Too many choices, too much confusion and contradiction.

Caz 7:49

Nothing is straightforward anymore. Whether we want to go and buy something or you want to watch on TV, there's there's too much choice.

D 7:57

Yeah. You think you're getting more, but you're actually losing more. Yeah. So the more technology there is, the less quality we actually have.

Caz 8:09

Trust me, I spend more time TV TV surfing with my remote than I do actually watching a program these days.

D 8:15

There you go. So much information out there, you just don't know where to look. So that in itself is a great portrayal of how your time searching for things to look at and watch is actually just using your energy and resources and minimising the quality that your life could have if you'd just found one thing that you focused on and watched or listened to. So, you know, that that's a pretty simple example. Very simple. But at the same time, the more we have, the less we are able to enjoy life.

Caz 8:56

Who would have thought that our TVs and our TV remotes could make us feel overwhelmed? Yeah, exactly. And that's about everything else that we every minute of the day.

D 9:06

And yet you would have been sold, no doubt, in the day when these things arose or became available that it would improve your quality of life.

Caz 9:17

Yeah.

Then Vs Now: Contentment And Waste

D 9:17

But we are so overwhelmed, and we have so many choices now that it's actually reducing it rapidly to the point of so many people now being depressed and anxious and irritable and having mood swings and difficulty with their relationships as a result of it.

Caz 9:36

People dissociating, going in themselves, people not going out.

D 9:42

Yeah. I mean, the more there is, the less we are actually enjoying this life. Yeah. So it's um it's a bit of a catch to any.

Caz 9:51

The more we're given, the less we take, less we get.

D 9:54

Yeah, that's a perfect way of putting it. But it's difficult to actually make that clear to the kinds of people that we are aiming to support and guide because you know it's always that struggle to just try and make things the more the more you've got, the the better it's gonna be. But yeah, that's just so not the case. You must have less, take on less, have less confusion, less activity. It's like having 24 radio stations playing at once. You only need one because all of those at once are gonna confuse.

Caz 10:31

All you need is one.

D 10:32

Yeah, you just need to listen and be guided in the right directions to be able to focus on what it is you want. So when you think back to our parents, for example, then, and their experience of quality of life, what was it? You've gone further and oh a bit far away from the man. So when you think about like in the 60s, the 70s and 80s, quality of life seemed so much better.

Caz 10:58

Yeah, happiness was so much better, family time, exactly, talking, or just mentioning it, it really does bring it back, doesn't it?

Get Help Early And Often

D 11:07

How there was so little to um the desire. Yeah, because people were happy with their lots, they were actually really content. It was only when it was this oh, you know, make make life better and more enjoyable by having more. Think about when I say that, I'd all I can think of as plastic and how many more plastic gadgets and toys and rubbish. I mean, it's just so ridiculous the amount of rubbish that's produced in order to produce happiness. Yes, and all it ends up doing is clogging our world and making our environment unhealthy because of waste it or or getting rid of it. What do you what do we call it? Um, recycling. Recycling. All of that, and even that's not even working in the way that it's supposed to now, is it? I mean, listen, we're not specialists in recycling at all, but it it's just another example of how Unnecessary, how unnecessary thing things are being produced that we don't actually need or require to improve our quality of life. And that starts within and with yourself, and an education, yes, and an understanding, yeah, and every and everybody else out there providing information because there are lots of people providing the information. So if you're in a position where you realize perhaps depression or anxiety is a problem for you or somebody you love, we are the first people to say go and get help. Don't wait, don't wait for even us to get to the stage where we're giving you more advice, just go and get the help now. Don't don't wait. Yeah, absolutely. Reach out, please. Don't don't wait for anybody, just go and get the help. But bottom line, it's there are solutions. There are always solutions to improving your quality of life. And the first thing is getting to know how you tick, you know, what's going on in your brain and how your mind and body communicate. And that's what I mean about going to get some help. Yes, we can provide that for you. Yes, we are going to do that for you. It's early days, but if you're in desperate need now, let's just make it clear we are urging you to go and get help now.

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Caz 14:07

One of the first things that I realized coming to see you and how you changed my pattern was listening to my own internal world, listening to my brain, the chatter in my brain was all very negative. I can't do this because of that. I can't do this. Oh, I'm stuck here, or I need to do this, or I'm just completely overwhelmed that ended up actually doing nothing. So it was just about you teaching me how to listen to myself, about the negativity and self-sabotaging, really. How would you sort of explain that to our listener?

D 14:44

So I could answer that question in one sentence. Understand how your mind and body communicate, and that is understand what it is that's going on in your own brain in terms of your thought processes. Most people have no idea from an unconscious point of view that they're constantly switched on to the negative pathway, and and they just don't realise.

Caz 15:14

One of the first times I went to CD, um, she counted how many times, I think it was in the space of 20 minutes or 30 minutes, how many times I said the word can't. Yeah. And even if you can just bring that into your world and just recognise how many times you say can't, I think you said I said it about 18 times once in 20 minutes.

D 15:39

And when you understand the mechanics of what that word represents in your brain when you're saying it, from a stress perspective, um, it doesn't take any work at all to correlate the quality of life issue with the content of your thinking. It 100% makes perfect sense when you realise what it is you're actually doing in your brain when you're speaking to yourself or your brain is just talking away on its own, as it were. Probably 70% of the words that you use are negative. Negative. And they're feeding negative files, we call them, or I call them feeding the bear. Um, and every time you do that, consequently, your stress response is engaged. So people don't realise that every single time you say a word that represents a negative force in your brain, your stress response is being activated, which just ramps up your stress levels, again, impacting on your quality of life.

Red Mind, Blue Mind Explained

Caz 16:44

So you taught me not to say the word I can't or can't, or you made me aware every time I said that. So even when I'd come away from a session with you on the way home or throughout the following next few days, I was very aware of how many times I said the word I can't or can't, and changed that with the word I am unable to at this moment.

D 17:10

Or I don't want to.

Caz 17:11

Yeah.

D 17:12

Or I find difficult, or any other term or phrase that doesn't have a negative connotation that instigates a stress response in your brain. That's the issue with the way that we think. That's why the words positive thinking have become very um commonplace, powerful, uh overused term in the world today, because people believe and understand that to think positively is a far better way to be. But it's not about thinking positively because all the telling yourself in the world how confident you are doesn't make you feel confident. Sometimes it just challenges your brain because you're not necessarily believing that, and so it still causes a stress response. So it could get a bit like this conversation going round in circles.

Caz 18:12

We're like a goldfish in a bowl. Yeah.

D 18:15

So basically, the the issue of thinking positively is or positive thinking, which is something that I use the term I used in my work for many, many, many years, until it dawned on me that it's not about thinking positively, it's about thinking in a healthy way and thinking in a way that doesn't instigate the stress response. That's what it is. So when you say I can't handle um going out, for example, I can't handle or I can't stand red cars, your brain is going to constantly remind you that you can't stand these things because you're reinforcing it so frequently without even knowing you're doing it, without being aware and catching it. It's become it becomes a natural conditioned thought in your brain. And sometimes you're not even aware that you're using language. So can't is a really it's my go-to perfect example of negative language in your brain, which instigates a stress response. But there are thousands of words, terms, and phrases that we use often that we are unconscious of the impact that it's having on our quality of life. Can you give us a few more examples? Certainly. Um, I hate. How many things do you hate? How many things I can't stand? Um, how many things are irritating me? How many things piss me off? Yeah, how many things wind me up? You know, that really gets my go. And and you it goes on and on how many things we say that we are so unconscious of creating the stress response in our body, which is minimalizing our quality of life.

Practical Reframes For Daily Speech

Caz 19:57

Without even realizing where we're saying, I hate. This and then where you're repeating it in your brain, you make the file bigger and bigger and bigger as life goes on without actually being conscious and knowing that you're doing it and making the big stress response without realizing 100%, and it's the mechanics of this that we're talking about.

D 20:19

I'll use the word mechanics a lot in this show because it is all about the mechanics. If you don't understand the mechanisms of how something works, you are totally blind to the impact that that thing is going to have on you. So I always look at the mechanisms and show you, and that's what's missing in the world. We're told to do these things. Everyone's told to think positively. Everybody's shown the facts that thinking more positively is healthier for you. But if you don't understand the mechanics of how it works, then really you're going at it blindly and not really understanding it.

Caz 21:01

I really like the way you've, you know, you change that mechanic. You've turned your mechanics into two colours, the most basic form that you cannot forget.

D 21:11

Red mind and blue mind.

Caz 21:13

I love red mind and blue mind.

D 21:15

Yeah. I mean, they are um conscious and subconscious mind. I call it initially when I learned this before Red Mind, Blue Mind came into play, it was um knowledge and wisdom chambers. So our conscious mind is where the knowledge is gained, and our red mind, which is a subconscious, is where our wisdom develops. And the wisdom is an unspoken thing, it's almost like an inner knowingness that you the beliefs, their beliefs, values, morals, attitudes, it's what actually builds up in you from your knowledge. Um, so that a bit like riding a bike. When you ride a bike enough times, you don't have to think about doing it anymore. Your red mind, which is where your files are kept, they're logged and stored, created, logged and stored. So if say, for example, you have a bad experience in life, consciously you're aware of it happening at the time, but then you move on and you get over it and you go past it, but it's stored in your subconscious, which we call the red mind. So the blue mind is where you experience it, and then when that goes off, that experience is logged in your red mind.

Caz 22:29

See, when you first explain this to me when I come to see you, oh excuse me, um, red mind and blue mind, because everybody thinks differently. I would say that the red mind was the naughty side, and the blue mind was the good side. You know, when you almost have sort of like a naughty little devil on one side and an angel on the other.

D 22:50

Because the blue mind is the good mind, and the red mind is the naughty mind.

Caz 22:55

Yeah, so the red mind is the devil, and the blue mind is the angel.

D 23:00

Yeah.

Caz 23:01

On my shoulders. Behave yourself. Right.

D 23:06

So, in order to uh improve or increase the quality of life, your quality of life, uh, one of the things you can do immediately is just become aware of the language that you use.

Caz 23:22

And we're not talking about swearing.

D 23:25

No, not yet. So language that you use is always it's not always, it's often external, blatant to other people, but ridiculously blatant and obvious that it's negative, unhealthy, not very pleasant.

Caz 23:49

And you're maybe unaware of this happening because you see it as you're habitual. Yes, yeah, as your language.

Closing Encouragement And Share

D 23:57

Language is habitual, and until you do become conscious of what you're doing, it's never gonna change. But every single negative word that slips out without you even knowing it, it's feeding a file in your brain that's pumping out stress hormones. Even it doesn't slip out, it stays with you internally. Yeah. So your thoughts, just the words and the language that you use internally to yourself, about yourself, maybe, not just about others. Just try to become aware of how often you are saying things that are going to be causing you less quality of life.

Caz 24:45

Honestly, you'll be surprised how many times you say I can't in your own head.

D 24:50

Or I don't want to, or I hate, or that pisses me off, or any of those words, anything negative that comes out of your mouth that you can become aware of is a start. Or thinking. It's a very good start.

Caz 25:07

So we'll leave that one with you for this week and catch all the negative thoughts and just make yourself aware.

D 25:14

We don't have to catch them all, Caz. Let's be fair. They're not going to catch them all. How long did it take you and I to catch them all? 18 years and I'm still growing. Yeah, that's how many that's how many negative words our Caz uses over there. So, yeah, so quality of life is used to use. No, sometimes we all still do have a little and D does pulling up or now. Absolutely, and me as well. You know, no one's perfect. Um, and that's again according to how much red stuff um have in our systems, and red stuff being unnecessary stress, of course. So the quality of life issue is very much focused on the words and the language that we use and how we reinforce stress responses and reactions unconsciously to keep providing and producing that stress hormone in our body that does not feel good, and that's the absolute dampener for quality of life. So please become or try to become more aware of the language internally and externally that you use, and uh, you will then start to notice wow, I really do have some work to do here, and uh, it's work that's not difficult, as we say. So stick with us, and we will help you improve your quality of life, you lovely people. See you next time. Bye. Stress is everywhere, and it's winning if we stay quiet.

Caz 26:58

If you or someone you know could benefit from hearing our podcast, please follow and share.

D 27:05

Because everyone's breaking these days, and silence can kill