Finding Purpose and Final Thoughts

Hey, it's friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robins podcast I'm just gonna take a while guess and assume you feel exactly like I do right now 're overwhelm You're thinking about all the things that you need to get done. You're worried about someone in your family. You feel this constant pressure at work. Every day, the things that pop up that you have to deal with are endless plus You're carrying what feels like the weight of the world with you Because the headlines are horrible And you have no idea what to do about the problems you see in the world I feel the exact Same way So I reached out to one of the world's leading medical experts on stress and resilience to give us both advice on what to do at a moment like this And she's going tell both of us whatever is going on right now. You can handle it thingsings will get better. You're not going to go through this alone And you were built to be resilient So whatever it is that you're going through I want you to know you're in the right place You're listening to the exact thing you need to hear and you're going to get the support you deserve You're about to learn research backed tools that will help you dial down your stress And our expert will walk you step by step through exactly what you need to do when life feels like this She'll even prove to you that yes, it's even possible to find moments of joy, meaning, and purpose while you do Because the fact is you can handle this. And after listening today You will Here on this podcast, we talk a lot about tools, tools for solving things that are expected or maybe things that aren't Here's a tool to keep your schedule together Take five oil change. The moment your oil light comes on, head to take five. They check everything, exxplain what you need, what you don't, and you're done in about ten minutes Don't let an oil change interrupt your schedule. Visit take five dot com slash podcast and save up to thirty percent Support for this podcast and the following message come from MIDI Health. Women's midlife health issues have been trivialized and ignored. It's time for a change. It's time for MIDI. MIDI is covered by major insurance, making expert care accessible. Clinicians provide one on one consultations, listen to your unique needs, and offer tailored data driven solutions MIDI works to make you feel seen, heard and prioritized. Visit joinMIDI d. com to book your virtual visit. MIDI, The care womomen deserve Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robins podcast. I am so excited that you're here. It's such an honor to spend time with you and to be together and if you're a new listener I want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robins podcast family I cannot wait for you to meet today's guest, Dr. Tara Narula because she's here to teach you How to handle the stress and pressure of life right now and become more resilient Dor Nilula is a board certified cardiologist and director of the Women's Heart Program at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York City. She's been practicing medicine for over two decades. She's a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hostra. Dr Narula. is also an Emmy Award winning medical journalist who is the chief medical correspondent for ABC News Dr. Narula earned her bachelor's degree at Stanford, her medical degree with the highest honors from the University of Southern California completed her residency at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital and her cardiology feellllowship at Wild Cornell Medical Center Narula is also a fellow of the American College of Cardiology And the New York Times bestselling author of the book The healing power of resilience Please help me welcome Dr. Tara Narula to the Mal Robins podcast. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, thank you for writing this extraordinary best selling book, The Healing Power of Resilience. I cannot wait to dive into the research, the tools But I want to start by having you explain to me How could my life be different and feel different. If I really take to heart everything that you are about to teach us today And I apply it. Yeah. You know, Melal, we have one precious life, one. And in the time that we're here on Earth, everybody wants to be able to take the most out of every moment, every experience, every day. I know that's what I want, that's what my family wants. That's what my patients tell me they want. is that quality of life. The problem is that, as you know, during life, things happen, things go wrong, things go bad, we face challenges. And so for many people, that challenge, that traumatic event, whatever that may be, a divorce, a financial loss, a medical diagnosis, it stuns us. and we get frozen and stuck and we're not able to really take all of the things out of life that we want And so you know, resilience is really about findinding your way to that space where despite what happens to you in life, you can still call and glean and take everything amazing from your experience in life and not let life take over you. And you know I obviously have so many examples of resilience that I've seen in my life as a doctor, as a journalist, as a friend I think about often a friend of mine actually from college. we met Stanford, our interine year, She's from Massachusetts. and she was single. She wanted to have a child for many years. and she finally went through IVF preregnant And about three months into her pregnancy, she called me and told me she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Oh my God. So if you can imagine, waiting and pushing and struggling so hard to have a baby, finding out during your pregnancy, you have ovarian cancer. And it was one of those moments where I mean, she had a choice, right? Where do you go at this unimaginable moment And she was resilience personified. She finished her pregnancy. She delivered her beautiful baby. She lived those last two years that she was alive with her daughter And she wrote about her journey. she was present for her daughter. She made plans for what would happen for after. She passed It was this incredible, beautiful story, my friend, Kaz, as we called her, of resilience despite the literally unimaginable happening. And so that's what I want for people No matter what I get hit with or slammed with, I can still enjoy my life. I can thrive. That is the word that I think about just in that story of your dear friend Kaz, I think every one of us can think of somebody in our lives or somebody that we've seen as they've had tragedy their lives, they somehow seem to be able to rise to the moment and meet that moment in an extraordinarily inspiring and kind of in some ways jaw dropping way And yet you wonder personally, I don't think I could do that. Like if that were me, I would be breadcrumbs on the floor. Exactly. And yet we are all one phone call, one diagnosis. That's right. O accident, one tragedy away from having life. run you over And I love in that story how you combine the medical piece, the hope and aspiration of getting pregnant and going through IVF, the devastating news, and the fact that despite, and I thank you for saying the word despite despite all that There is still this well of strength, this fight that can be brought out inside you when this happens. And when I started to dive into the research psychologically, what fascinated me was exactly what you said that I think a lot of people think, if I get hit with something, I'm going to fall apart. And when I interviewed psychologists and they said to me, no, that that is actually the small of people that develop PSD in the setting of trauma, the majority of people are going to be okay when something happens. And I thought, why don't we tell people that? That's actually really empowering to know that no matter what happens, I'm going to be okay. And then the second thing they taught me, which is that resilience is a skill. It is something that is not just fixed. You either have it or you don't. It is something that you can absolutely strengthen and build Just like a muscle. And again, it was like, here's something that's really powerful information that people don't know. And so it was really important for me to kind of tell people both of those things. You have this real amazing gift inside you, but also you can practice it, you can grow it, you can build it. And that's a really important empowering thing for people to understand. Well, doctor Narula, maybe where we should start is what is resilience? Like how do you define it Yeah. and that's another interesting question. And I think when you listen to or read the psychology research They all have different definitions.. And so for me, it was important to kind of cultivate my own definition. And what became clear to me was what we just talked about, which is resilience is the ability, in my opinion, to retain your wonder, joy, excitement, investment, engagement in life despite what happens to you. So you are not ever going to go back to where you were. You're going to move in a different direction. And this again comes out of my clinical experience. You know, when I am telling someone who has no idea they have heart disease that they have coronary artery disease or plaque in their arteries and they thought they were completely healthy, or I'm telling someone, your heart function is twenty percent, not fifty percent. You have heart failure. The look that I see on their face mell is the same every time. It is kind of a look of and paralysis And they ask me, when am I going be myself again? That's what they wan to know. What do you say? And I say, you will never, ever be yourself again. I don't want that answer. What are you tell me? You will never be yourself again. But and here's the big thing, you can be a beautiful, different version of you. Your life can be an incredible different version or chapter And you know I think a lot about the quote of Michelangelo, which I used in the book, about how he said he carved the marble to set the angel free. He saw the angel in the marble and he carved until he set the angel free. This idea that you we are this piece of marble and life is sort of changing us and we're evolving, but there's still something beautiful that can come out of it. And I just thought that's such a beautiful visual image If we could just think of our lives that way that change is inevitable, adversity is inevitable, bad things are going to happen. but we can still emerge this beautiful creation? Well, if you hold ono that vision that there is an angel inside you to be set free, It is very empowering. Right. And what I also love about the way that you're explaining this, is that you're not saying that you deserve to have this happen. You're not saying that you needed to have this happen. Like I hate it when people are like, everything has a reason. And I'm like, well Sometimes things happen because it's just really horrendous. what's happening. you didn't deserve it You have to find a reason to keep going despite what happened. I want to read to you from your best selling book. This is in the introduction And you talk about resilience. You say resilience is not the capacity to return to the same place you began after trauma or tragedy. Neither our minds nor our bodies are built like rubber bands We do not bounce influenced and affected, we recover, we grow, we change. this, I believe is what the core of resilience is the ability to embrace Ses constantly being shaped by our experiences change affecting the composition as a whole, even as we remain ourselves We are the marble. And We are The angel Exactly, or're both. It's so beautiful. Because oftentimes I think when you hear the word resilience and it's kind of thrown around loosely a lot I always just thought it was the ability to bounce back Or to not feel to just put my head down in the sand and keep going forward without processing what's happened, you know? Yeah. Just keep moving. And you're saying no, inside you is the ability to adapt to the change and not lose yourself, but to remember how to and to learn how to still find joy and wonder and connection despite all of what's going on. It's a different version of you.. Beautiful. And then, you know what I also love about our conversation today is that you have very specific skills that you're going to walk us through a bunch of them that will help you adapt and change when this happens. Can you give me some examples smaller moments like maybe that happen to kids in school or that happen at work when you get an email, or just like the little things that are also quietly building resilience in you? Yeah. I mean, Mllet's everywhere, right? And so the common denominator and again, the reason it was important for me to talk about this is stress So our lives are full of stressful events. Now you're a cardiologist. Yes,. Could you medically explain to me what stress is? Because I think you know, we talk about stress and it's like, I feel stress. I feel stressed because of the headlines. I feel stressed because of what's happening to my kid at school. I feel stressed because, you know, I'm mad at my spouse right now What is stress actually? Stress in and of itself is not a bad thing. We all need some stress in our lives. Why? Stress can be positive? Because it can push us. it can push us to evolve and change. Okay. The point is that there's a tipping point where the stress then becomes negative. One of my favorite professors from Stanford, Robert Sopolski wrote a book called Why Zebras don't Ulcers And he studies primates and studies the stress response and you know talks very openly about this idea that our stress response is meant to be a place or a function for us to survive. so that if we're escaping a lion in the wild, we turn it on, our heart rate goes up, our blood pressure goes up, our respiratory rate goes up, we turn off all the non essential functions, our digestion, our reproduction, our growth So we can live The issue is that when you're in the wild and you're escaping an animal and then you escape, your stress response goes off. In our current day society, we turn on the stress response for all those things you just talked about. We get a bill in the mail that's difficult to handle. We hear something at school. Our friend says something to us, We feel bullied, We go to work and our boss is tough on us. Every little insult during our day causes a stress reaction. And you can imagine how damaging this can be to our bodies on the inside. So the point is, even though we have this stress response, guess what? We are not victim to it. We can mount a resilient response. We can actually turn it off. Dial it down and counteract it, right? That's the purpose of the resilient response. But I think it's important to understand how negative and destructive stress can be. And I hear it from my patients. all day long that they're stressed Dr. Nula, how can a person tell the difference just like normal everyday stress of modern life and stress pressure that is becoming a problem. Yeah. Well, the stress is there all the time every day. And so it's really again, our reaction to it. So if you are able to you know, take on the stress and then within a few minutes, you feel the same way that you did, it's probably not an issue. But that's not how it works for most of us. And so for most of us It is that that stress response stays on. We sort of feel our muscles clenched We're not breathing as much. know, ourur heart rate is a little bit faster. Our mind continues to cycle and think about it. So it's when that's happening over and over again throughout the course of the day that it becomes an issue. And I will say this, Mel. I mean, there is such a thing as a stress induced heart attack from an acute stress. Women tend to be more prone to this than men So even acute stress can cause problems. But yes, we think more about that chronic, low grade, constant stress that's happening day after day couple of hours during the day, on and off on and off. So I always tell people, you need to find time to turn your stress response off. And whether that is a walk, music, meditation, exercise, breathing exercises, meeting a friend, like those moments where you're dialing it down from ten to zero, that is going to help your body on the inside be able to move through the stress Dr. Nurula, I would love to have you speak. to the person listening and to me who not only just feels the pressure of their own life and the stress of getting through the day and dealing with things going on in their family But the ongoing pressure and stress all the events going on in the world, all of the global unrest this tremendous pressure that comes from a sense of hopelessness and a lack of power and an inability to feel like you can do anything to change Why Is this paying attention to your resilience? Why is it critical in a moment like now. becausecause you can't change the world around you, right? You cannot stop what's happening around you from happening. change those stressors. I tell people, you know, maybe you can't leave your job that's stressful. You just can't. You can't, you know, get out of the situation. We don't have control over that. What do we have control over? We have control over how we respond the stress, right? It's not the stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it. What do you think is a really great just first small way to think about the stress that so many people feel about the state of the world. Like what is one recommendation comes to something that you see going on, whether it's in your community or the world at large that's really bothering you. Well, I think one is you don't have to take it all in, right? So for a lot of my patients, I'll say, don't I mean, I'm on the news, donon't turn the news on, you know? I mean, if that means it's going to give you that peace, like you're entitled to not watch morning television if you don't want to. right. I think also finding ways that you can make those small changes. So maybe it means like going out and marching for something you believe in. You know, mayaybe it means writing an essay and you again, have agency and power to cause change in the opposite direction, even those small little steps. So there's so much, I think we can do. We just need to give people like the ability to do it. back to your friend Kaz. Yeah. Terrifying and horrendous set of circumstances. and still that's right. She said, this is horrible and I have a choice about how I respond to it. Crect. Well, one of the things that you write about just right in the introduction, and we're going to unpack all of the skills, but one of the first one is getting to a point where you accept your current situation. And on that note of acceptance, right? because It is one of the stages of grief to just be in denial of this can't be happening. How could I possibly have ovarian cancer? I just got pregnant. This can't be happening. We live in the United States. How is this happening here? This can't be happening. I work so hard. How am I losing my job? What do you mean that there are layoffs Acceptance doesn't mean you're giving up Right? What does it mean? Yeah. And this you know in laying out the book and figuring out what skills, what blueprint did I w to give people, acceptance had to be the first one. It had to be the first tool because you can't do anything else until you've accepted what happened. And one of the women that I interviewed for my CBS newews story, who also feature in the book is Lucy Hoone, who is an incredible resilience researcher of her own right She studies resilience, She writes about it, She talks about it. Her twelve year old daughter died in a car accident. And suddenly the resilience researcher had to use the skills that she had learned to move forward. And she's given one of the most watched Ted talks in the country. and the first thing she says is adversity doesn't discriminate And I think that is such an important thing. We're all going to get hit. At some point in time, something bad's going to happen, but we can't change that. We have to accept it. And so to your question, when I was in medical school, I had my own experience where I had to learn acceptance. I was in my second year of medical school. I was in the lecture hall, started to see colored lights in the bottom part of my right eye when they would dim the lecture hall lights didnid't know what was going on, went home to Miami over Christmas break, and suddenly discovered through a battery of tests that I had a visual field loss in the bottom part of my right eye I was a healthy twenty three year old and suddenly was blind. In the bottom part of my ee, nobody knew why. They told me I might have had a stroke. I might have multiple sclerosis. So I went back to medical school thinking, I might have multiple sclerosis. I might not be able to walk, see, finish medical school. It was now the absolute worst, most scary moment in my life. becausecause again, I had fought really hard to get to medical school. I was excited to be there. and now I thought the whole trajectory of my life is gonna go in a different direction. And my mother sent me on a card in the mail, the Srennity Prayer And the first line is God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference And I read her words and she called me, She said, you can spend every day the next two years of your medical school worrying about what might happen and wasting that time or you can Imagine it might never happen your worst thoughts and just put one foot in front of the other and go day after day. And that advice really saved me. and that is advice I give many of my patients when things happen to them is put one foot in front of the other. This happened. Now we're going to move forward day by day by day. And the farther you get away from the event, the further the pain and the fear becomes Just a few weeks ago, I had a patient who went in for a routine surgery sort have been in and out, something went wrong in the operating room and he came out seventy percent blind. And I saw him you know six months ago in the aftermath of that, and he was sort of broken. I mean, he didn't he was as anybody would be. And then I saw him a couple weeks ago and there was a lightness to him and he was smiling. And I always said to him, you know, how did you get to this point? You know, it's been six months and you seem so different from where you were. And he said to me two things. He said, onene was acceptance. I couldn't change what happened and I had to learn to accept it. And then he said, social support and his friends, those two things. But acceptance is the beginning of your journey It is the opening of the door to everything else. So for somebody who's listening right now And You have felt so much pressure. You've been under stress. You can't even remember a time when you weren't stressed. Maybe you're caring for aging parents, Mbe you've got the new class of stress, which is parenting young kids. That's me. Yeah, you know, maybe like there's just You don't even remember a time is what you're about to teach us for that person and can you person who doesn't even remember life when they didn't feel pressure It is for everyone. You know, what I'm gonna to tell you is for everyone. The resilience is something we can all use and it is so critically important because we have stress at every angle, at every point in our life. Caregiver stress is real. And again, it's something I see, especially in a lot of my female patients, in the last month, I had three female patients who are married to male patients of mine, talk to me about the stress that they are having because they're caregiving for their husbands Kids. and everyone else in their life. I had one whose husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's and she's trying to manage his failing health and dementia that's developing, another one whose husband had a stroke is not no longer who he was And the third one was a woman who said her husband had his own mental health issues the last six months. And so all three of these women were talking to me about the massive stress that they were facing being caregivers And we talked about how to manage that stress and how to handle that stress and the fact that they needed support and help in order to continue to be caregivers to their spouses, but also to protect their own health. Why do you think it's so hard when you're in the caregiving role to really understand the critical nature taking care of yourself Because you're so overpowered and overwhelmed by the care and love and empathy and responsibility that you feel for another human being. And so that's an amazing thing, right? too have so much love for someone that you're giving up everything, but you can't, you know, we have to take care of ourselves in order to be able to be there for someone else You have to. Why? Because it is critical to your survival And it's going to be critical to the survival of the person that you're caring for. Because if you decompensate, if your health declines, it's game over, right? And so again, I think people just think of stress as this invisible force that we don't really understand. But Mel, I mean, I will tell you from a cardiovascular perspective, a whole cascade of events happens inside your body particularly in your cardiovascular system, which are all negative. And cardiovascular disease is already the leading cause of death for men and women. And I'm telling you, I'm seeing it every day in my exam rooms. I'm hearing it. This is so important and we are not talking about it. We're not educating about it. We're not helping our patients manage it. We are totally living in you a world where we have a divide between psychology and clinical medicine. We got to do a better job We cannot have a siloed world of psychology and clinical medicine and no one bridging this gap. You know, I'm just so grateful that you're here. I'm already feeling better and a little bit more resilient, frankly, because I feel like I have some tools this early into our conversation. I know that you're feeling the same way I think everyone would feel better if they listened to this. We all deserve to know how to be more resilient and we're just getting started with the tools. When we return, we're going to continue walking step by step through exactly how to move through a moment like this in your life. Stay with me Picture this It's eight PM on a school night and your child tells you they have a presentation tomorrow and they need a post reward for it And maybe some markers Did they mention It's due tomorrow Life as a parent gets chaotic fast, but doorash can help bring a little sanity in the moments you need it most. Doorash delivers everyday essentials like meds, diapers, groceries, and supplies. It's not just for meals So when you're juggling sick kids, forgotten supplies, packed schedules, and emotional overload. Let Doorash deliver a little bit of breathing room It can help in the messy moments of real life and handle the small things before they become a big stress Whenever I'm in our Boston studios to record the Mel Robins podcast Days are long, things move fast. 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As we all know Care feels really different when it's personal That's why United Healthcare is all about putting care at the heart of your health insurance behind the phones, screens and services are real people care about helping when it matters most. That human connection is what makes United Healthcare different. They make benefits, costs, and care options easier to understand, while helping you connect to doctors, clinics, and specialists in your community. Learn more at uhc d. com slash care Welcome back at's your friend, Mel Robins. Today, you and I are getting to learn all about resilience, the ability to adapt to change that is hardwired within you and the people that you care about. from Dr. Tera Narula, and I just w to jump right back in. So I'm glad you're here. Dr. Narula. On the topic of resilience, I was curious about this Can you talk more about the role that resilience plays in your overall health What's fascinating about resilience is it's not just a tool for healing whichich the book is called the Healing Power Resilience, but it is a tool for prevention. So the more that you practice this tools of resilience and utilize this blueprint and this roadmap, the more likely you are to not go down the road of developing chronic disease because you are going to be less stressed and have less inflammation and have your lower levels of cortisol, less vascular reactivity of your blood vessels You are going to do those things we talked about that are going to keep you healthy, like exercising and eating well and sleeping well. So it really is both prevention in terms of chronic disease and also a way that you can move out of a diagnosis or a disease process. Well, that's why you're here, Dr. Narula. And I want to just bring back that beautiful image that you talked about both as we've been speaking and that you write about in your book, that If you are under this chronic pressure, you are both the block of marble and the angel within it. And you talked about the first step being acceptance, accepting that you are in this chapter of your life. You are in the role of a caregiver or you are under the gun of severe financial pressure in order to pay off debt or whatever it may be, there's tons of ways that people find themselves in a state of chronic stress. Maybe you're dealing with a long term diagnosis yourself for chronic pain. But acceptance that this is the way things are and I can't change that fact right now is step one In your book, you also talk about a flexible mindset being the next step That flexibility of saying, you know, I thought my life was going down this course, but now it's going down a different course or direction. and I'm okay with that. But I'm not okay with that. that's the problem with the flexible mindset. Like part of it is, I don't want this. I know. And that's where you know acceptance commitment therapy and CBT therapy and other forms of mindfulness and meditation can help. And truly,, again, referencing back to Lucy Hoh, who I talked about earlier, you know, she gave a great analogy of imagining you have these goal posts in front of you, you're kicking the ball in a certain direction through the goal. And she said she realized when her twelve year old daughter died and she still had her husband and sons, like she had to live for them. She had to keep going. So she picked up the goal post and moved it somewhere else. So this and I thought that was such a great easy to understand image. You can still have a goal, you can still aim for it. It's just in a different place, right? And I see this a lot in medicine. You know, there are patients where I can't give them back the heart cells that have died. I can't give them back the movement of their arm when they've had a stroke We can't go back. but we can still help them find a different path towards meaning in their life if they have that flexible thinking. I thought I might be able to do this. Okay, I can't do that, but I'm gonna shift and I'm gonna to do this. And so really that flexible thinking is sort of the second key to remodeling, reshaping the vision for what you thought your life was going to be into something else. And that's okay. But the point is you, whatever life hits you with, if you can pick up that goalpost and put it somewhere else and know you can still move forward towards it image can be life saving. Dr. Narilla I personally feel that the image of the goalpost probably gonna cause the single biggest change. in people's lives that listen to this And as you're listening, I want you to think about just in your own life, are you still trying to aim for a goal post that's no longer there Because you can see how if you're looking at a goal post that's no longer there You're not going to find joy. You're not going to find meaning. You're not going to find all the things that you deserve in your life if you keep moving in that direction So from a medical perspective How does choosing to change the goal post. accepting that You have a different life now. How does that help you get through a challenge it's like the lighthouse that draws you forward. It pulls you forward. And that kind of goal, we all need that. We all need something to continue to strive for that gives us meaning in life, right? We all have our different meanings for why we're here. but I think when you lose that, Meaning you lose that sense of like, I don't know why I'm here It's like kills you on the inside And so and you feel stressed But when you say, okay, I thought I was here for this reason But now here for this reason It's like a light that turns on inside And so it's just a reframing and reshaping of what, again, the marble and the Angel, It's a reframing and reshaping of who you thought you were, what your life would be, and recognition that like, no, life is change It is constantly changing. If something in your life has changed, somebody's died, you didn't get into the dream school, you lost your job, the divorce has happened. like here's the diagnosis. Your kid's really struggling You are so stubborn or scared or whatever, that you continue to look at the old life that you wanted, you're creating more stress for yourself. That's right. That' you're resisting What's actually happened? You're resisting the change. You're fighting against it. So you know, we use the analogy in the book of Be the river, not the rock, right? You have to flow with life to the most out of life, right? That malleability, that flexibility is really critical. One of the exercises that one of the psychologists I interviewed told me about, which again, I loved because it was very visual was the identity pie. He said he has this patients draw circle and cut into the circle pieces of a pie. I am a mother I'm a writer, you know, I'm a dog owner. I'm an athlete, you know, I'm a baker And a small slice of the pie is their medical diagnosis. And when you look at that and you see, that's right, I am not My diagnosis, I am so much bigger than that. I am so much more than that. And again, it lets you see, my life is so much more full It has so much more meaning. It has so much more direction for where I can go. I'm not stuck in that vision of being a victim of my disease process. That's really helpful because you're right, kind of like the goal posts that when something happens, we kind of laser focus on that thing and you forget there's all these other aspects to who you are and what your life contains. That's right and what your life can be. You have to see that, right? Now what happens? you talked about the the river. Don't be the rock in the river, resisting everything. Just kind of, you gott to learn to go with the way that life is taking you. What effect does that have? on your stress and on the kind of physical impact in your body when you really start to accept and you have a flexible mindset And you use some of these tools like the identity pie to say, well, I'm more than this diagnosis. I'm more than this moment. I'm the kind of person that can get through something like this. Yeah. Well, two things. I mean, when we turn off the stress response, it means that we are using our parasympathetic, for example, nervous system, so the one where we lower our blood pressure. So does accepting And does kind of wing these tools like help you turn on the parasenticad response you turn on the par not intectual. It's not just an intellectual.. But also you're not then activating the stress response. So there is a clear pathway. When we activate a stress response, you know, our amygdala, this very basic structure in the brain that senses threat and fear is kind of the signal that sends a signal to the hypothalamus in our brain, these deep structures that then send signal to the pituitary and the adrenal glands. that whole cascade where you're essentially then releasing cortisol, the stress hormone from your adrenal glands, Epinephrine, you know adrenaline or epinephrine, That's all turned on when you're under stress But if you counteract that, and that's where things like therapy and meditation and mindfulness can come in or your thought process, you're not allowing that pathway to turn on. You're turning it off, number one. Number two, when you're not living in a state of stress, you're actually making lifestyle choices, which we haven't talked about, that help you live a healthier life. So you are exercising, you are eating healthier, you are getting more sleep, you're not missing your medical appointments You're not maybe using substances. So it all kind of goes together. what's happening on the inside, know, you're dialing everything down, but also you're making choices that are also helping you be healthier and lower your stress response. If you exercise, you're decreasing your stress, right? If you sleep more, you're turning down a lot of these hormones. So it all goes hand in hand You know I talk to my patients about sitting down with a therapist. and many times they say, well, I don't have anxiety or you know, I'm not depressed. I'm just caregiving and I'm under stress. And I say, that's enough, that's enough of a reason to sit down with someone you can just download on, somebody objective who can be there for you so you can just let go of your thoughts because that in and of itself will lower your stress. You are allowed to spend an hour, you know, a week or you know once every two weeks, talking to someone who's in your corner to help you. So therapy can be just to help you through a stressful time. Maybe you don't do it forever, but do it while you're in this period of stress to help you get through the caregiving journey And then people are really surprised when I say theyough like, really, I managed to see a therapist for that? Yes Yes, you absolutely should Let's talk about just like ways to calm yourself when you get that wave, you know, like comes in waves, whether you're like, oh my God, the text that comes in or You know, layoffs are coming. I need to see you in the office tomorrow morning or a million ways you could feel stressed out. Is there something that you love, doctor Marula that you do when you feel the quick wave? I love exercise. So for me, you know, finding a way to get my heart rate up and exercise and move my body is my stress relief. So I find time to carve that out Being outside, I feel like in nature is a very underrated way to feel better. We have a home in Connecticut, which is like very rural, just taking a walk, seeing the birds, you know, seeing the trees gettingting the fresh air, I feel like nature is extremely powerful. And then you know breathing exercises. And I think some of the techniques that I've learned about, you know, kind of taking five breaths in and then letting them out, you know, a lot of these things we can do, the breath workork can actually help sort of again, in the moment, really turn down the stress response I am learning so much today. I feel better just listening to you tell all these stories and walk us through exactly what we can do. All right, don't go anywhere After a short word from our amazing sponsors, Dr. Narula will be back We're going to be talking more about hope. and about purpose and more tools to get yourself through moments like this in life. 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Learn more and join using this show's link Visit functionhealth d. com slash Mel Robins and use gift code Mel for a twenty five dollar credit toward your membership. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel Robins. I'm so thrilled that you're still here with me and Dr. Narula. We're talking about resilience And walking through a step by step simple plan for how you can tap into your ability to navigate change and still find purpose, joy, and meaning regardless of what life is throwing at you. So Dr. Narula, let's go right back into the tools I'd love to talk about neegative and positive self talk and how the way that you talk to yourself in your own head, can compound the stress and make it worse. What did you discover about the way that negative self talk versus positive self talk can increase stress or even have a physiological like do damage to you. Nobody's perfect. We're flawed human beings, but that's okay. And I think the moment we show ourselves the same love and the positive talk that we would show our child or our spouse or anyone else that we care about, that is the moment where we start to kind of become more resilient because we see ourselves in the same way that we would see someone that we're caring for as a caregiver. But that positive self talk is really critical. That's self love. I always tell peoplere I don't know what's gonna to happen, but you're not going to go through this alone and you are capable. Yes of manag this.. Yes. You're so much stronger than you think. And that is really what the book also was about. was this idea that like we are so much stronger than we think. we are. We all have this capacity and we're not going to crumble and fall apart. We can get through it. Ag, if we put one foot in front of the other. Let's talk about social support because it is one of the pillars in the book And I know when I'm stressed out, If I'm going through something traumatic, I tend to become a little bit of a hermit. And what does love and support from other people do And like how do you get it Social support, again, is something that's so underrated, but so easily accessible to all of us. And my friend, my former resident at the Brigham Vivk Murthy, I was his intern, you know he, thankfully, I think, opened our eyes in this country to how negative loneliness can be and how important it is for us to cultivate social relationships for our health The famous study out of Harvard, Robert Waldinger's study that followed men for years. What was it that sort of translated into the best quality of life? It was the quality of their social connections. It wasn't anything else. And so we have just this growing body of data and literature showing the power of social connection. think For a lot of people, you, they think, oh, well, I need to have a big group of friends. And so for a lot of my patients, we talk about it doesn't have to be a large group of friends. It can be one friend that you pick up the phone and call. It can be joining an art class because you love art. And so there's so many outlets that we can explore to find that. I recently told the story of again another patient of mine who retired and he started smoking marijuana and felt very depressed, wondering, where am I going with my life? And one of his friends said, you know, Central Park is right there. They have a group, the Central Park group that goes and picks up the garbage and trims the trees and we meet twice a week. And he joined the group. and he said just that one step of joining that group, and now he does it twice a week for about an hour saved him because it gave him a group of people who he could meet every week. He was outside, and he started to feel so much better about his life. So it's these micro small changes that we can make and all of us can do it every single day It is easy to sit on the couch and feel sorry for yourself. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of the world. It is easy and It's an appropriate response to be shocked by like life when it's not how you want it to be. That's right. But at some point You got to do something and just this social support going to Bingo Night, joining a it seems so dumb. But when you're in the throes of the stress and the overwhelm You don't feel empowered to do it works and that's an example of you putting a deposit in the bank of resilience? It is an investment. you know, and I tell people, resilience, training and the skills we're talking about, it's work. Yeah. It's work just like exercising, I hate getting up at five in the morning and exercising during the week. You know I knew I like to. I don't like you know looking at the nutrition labels to figure out how much saturated fat it is, Do I want this one or this one? But like every single thing we do in life, everything, whether it is, you know for our career, our family, our health, it's an investments And no one is going to say that becoming more resilient is easy. but the investment, the payoff that will come by building this toolbox of skills is so important because the next time something happens, you will reach back in and say, I can do this. I think it's also important to say if you're going through a very difficult time, it is human nature to not want to reach out And you shouldn't have to. But if nobody knows what's actually going on, they don't know to show up to support you and they might be drowning in their own issues. And I know A lot of the times, if you're really struggling, the last thing you want to do because you've been thinking about it all day, you've been talking about it all day, particularly if you're dealing with a diagnosis, you don't want to call a friend. and then have to talk through it all again today And that's really understandable, but also recognizing that if you simply were to text them and to say, I have a lot going on It's exhaustingly sure the details, but I could really use A morning out on Saturday with a friend right now. That's right. That's right. J those small little tiny changes. And you know, speaking to what you said about a diagnosis, that's a wholenother But for patients who've been diagnosed with something, you know, joining a group of other survivors can be really a powerful way to build connection. You know I volunteer for the American Heart Association and go reed for womomen. and you know seeing a community of other female cardiac patients and connecting with them and learning that you're not alone and sharing your struggles, those kinds of you know, community advocacy groups for whatever your concern or health issue is can be really helpful as well. You know, you have an entire chapter chapter nine on the critical importance of finding hope And I'm reading to you from page one ninety one. Sometimes a health event can be so scary that a patient can't believe another day will come Sometimes a diagnosis can be so dire that a patient can't imagine what the next day will look like When we learn, we don't have much future left. Or if what lies ahead looks completely unlike the life we have known so far, what happens next That's when we need hope the most is the foundation that allows us to build a resilient response in the moment. Whatever happens next. What is hope and Why does having hope, especially in moments whether it's the world at large that feels lost and things feel hopeless or something going on in your family makes you feel Like all is lost Why is hope important? and what does it actually mean, Dr. Norilla I had a patient in my office. Again, I told you a wife and a husband, the husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's. and he looked at me, Mel and he said How do I not lose hope? Yes He said to me, how do I not lose hope? And you can imagine as a doctor, that's a very, very hard question to answer. And I'm a cardiologist and this was about a neurologic degenerative condition. It's not my field And But I could see that he was struggling and his wife was in the room with him. And he said, I still have so much I want to write I love my wife so much. I have so much I wantna do with her. I'm getting like emotional thinking about it And and I'm falling apart You know from my disease. And so You know, I just sat there with him and I said, you know, you have to find hope in the small moments of every single day So every day that you wake up and you see your wife and you can say I love you and hear her say I love you, that's hope, right? Every day that you can sit at your computer and still write your book that you're writing, That's hope. It is The fact that there could be a treatment tomorrow that you don't know about that comes down the pipeline for your condition. It is literally finding those small moments of joy and looking for something that you may not know that exists and believing in that, something that is further down the future. That's hope. And I want you to lean into that, I said to him. I want you to kind of fall towards the side of hope and not towards the side of you know despair. You know, one other thing that I think helps a lot or at least this helps me in regard to the state of the world is if I read something that makes me feel despair, I then look for someone doing good. I think you're totally right. And you know, as someone who works in the news, I've had several conversations with the networks that I've been at about how we need to tell more stories of hope. Yes. We need to put that out there because people need to see it. Is there a daily habit that you can practice to help you cultivate this fulness as a skill set and a mindset because I refuse to succumb to the despair And that's not being naive. It's I just choose to believe there's always something you can do So my husband gave me the book, The Secret and the magic. Yeah. 'causeuse he knows I believe in manifesting and dreams and all that sort of stuff. by neuroscience. It's not even believing in it. It's proven. Yeah. So one of the exercises says, you know, in the morning, when you wake up or before you go to bed at night, you think about six things that you're grateful for. And at first when I started doing it, I thought, oh my God, six, that sounds like a lot. I five six things But then you start to think about it and there's small things there, you know, my daughter told me about something that really great happened in her day today. You know, my patient, I helped them, you know, with this, I was able to get up and exercise on the treadmill today and walk because I'm able to use my legs. The subway came on time today and I didn't have to wait ten minutes and suddenly, as you're doing it, you start to realize, there's actually a lot of things that really went well that I'm grateful for and your mindset shifts. Well the way you described it, Dr. Narula, you're intentionally Directing and programming your mind. Yes to notice what's going well which if you notice things that are going well, you naturally start to feel more hopeful. Is that how that works? That's what I'm saying. Yes, exactly. You start to feel more hopeful. I think, you know, putting out, we talked about manifesting, but putting out into the universe the energy that you want to bring back to you. That gives me hope. because you feel control. you feel like I'm putting out this and that's going to help me get what I want. So as a medical doctor and a cardiologist, talk to me a little bit more about using the tools of manifesting, which is really getting intentional about you want to see. We've moved the goldpost. How could you use this? to help you move toward a goalpost that is shifted in your life and to change your own attitude. My kids and everyone, you know talk to me about you're a cardiologist, but you talk so much about psychology. Yes. And that's because they really are, you know intertwined. Do you think it has a health benefit to manifest? I do. I mean, I think again, you anything that gives us a sense of agency over our life I think helps us feel better and less stressed. And so when you feel like you have the power to things that you want by simply believing in them makes us feel better? Well, if you really think about it, stress is the Same thing as manifesting, it's just doing it in the negative. That's right. because you're allowing all of the things that are happening outside of you to become the things you're expecting to have happen that you're focusing on in like an endless loop and thinking about. But is there anything specific that you personally do, doctor Narula as a manifesting practice like to really train your mind I'm serious. know st. I have written down things that I want you know, and put them on a piece of paper and put them up in my home or in my office. Yeah. And then I look at it and I say, this is where I want to be and this is what I want. And there it is. That's it. I'm putting it out in the universe. So when you write something down that you really want and you're signaling to your mind, doctor Narula, like do you is there a specific of year you do it? Is there? No, it's whenever there's something that I want to achieve in my life. Okay. And is there a certain way that you write it down? I just write it on a piece of paper and take a little thumb tack and put it up on the wall. And I have my kids doing it now too. you know. We sit at the dinner table and I'll say, you know, let's manifest that this is gonna happen. You know, We talk about it out loud in my family because I want them to start to do it at this age They're thirteen and nine to believe that they have control and power over their future and what they want. And yes, I agree with you. I think when you're living in a state of constant stress, you can't refocus your. The brain is plastic. we keep saying that. It is plastic. it can change. we can rewire it. And part of the way we do that is by the thoughts we choose to focus on Dr. Narula, can manifesting help even during times of stress Manifesting can help at all times, Mel.. Because again, you're taking your mind and you're taking it from one thought process and you're literally picking it up and putting in another thought process. Oh my Godd, it's like moving the mental goalpost. It's moving your mental goalpost from a negative thought process to a positive, I want this thought process Again, it just, you, the hope is that people start to recognize we have so much more power over our bodies, over our lives, by what we do up here, by how we think, by what we believe, by how we talk to ourselves. We have that ability, which don't teach people to harness it We don't teach people to use that. I agree with you. Even the identity pie which forces you to see that your life is bigger than the current circumstances or the caregiving role or the job that you have. that there are so many different parts of you and taking a moment to remind yourself of that, lowers your stress, it reminds you of who you are, It gives you an access point to start to shift your life in a different direction. And I believe that the intentional act of manifesting and allowing yourself to say, even if you're writing down I am capable of getting through this I want to carve out six hours a week which seems unthinkable just for me. Yeah. I am going to be singing in the choir this fall again Like there are ways that you can grab on to what you're talking about because stress and pressure in the world around us is bombarding us And it's changing the way we think about what's possible. And so I think you need to fight back and this is an important tool. Yes. Yeah. and it's so simple. We can all do it. And it's free. It's free. My daughter's turning ten and last night she took my laptop and she came and showed me and I said, what are you doing? And she said, I made a vision board My ten year old daughter for where she wants her ten year life to go and what she wants to happen. And I thought, okay, I'm doing something right. you're doing a lot right. You're doing a lot more than that, but you're doing a lot right. That's fantastic It was very cute. Why shouldn't she?'s I said I said Otherwise great Society's telling her. That's right. And her friends are telling her, she can have a vision for her life. That' Great job, momom Great job. I want to read you again from your best selling book this page eleven, chapter ten, pursue your purpose. It happens to all of us We find ourselves at a moment when the life we know and are accustomed to is suddenly inulttraably changed It often arises unexpectedly. It may be that we don't get into the college of our dreams or land the job we have been working toward for all of our career, or our partner of thirty years announces that she wants a divorce We're diagnosed with heart disease, and we're told that if we don't alter our lifestyle quickly as soon as possible We were run a high risk of soon having a heart attack or stroke These moments create a sense of great vulnerability Our sense of who we are, our identity is called into question What all of these wake up calls offer us is a chance introspection. to take a closer look at our priorities and our path and to see if they are aligned toward what we might C. are How does Having a sense of purpose you live a happier and more fulfilling life, especially when the world or when life just feels. Really awful. Yeah. I mean, this, as I said, was purposefully the last chapter in the book. becausecause as I mentioned, I call it, your purpose is your lighthouse When things are dark when you can't see how you could possibly be happy or have meaning in your life. Y purpose calls you there. And we all have it. We all have something that really drives us in this life. And for everyone, it's a little bit different. And I think what can happen is when something happens to us that challenges us, that stresses us, it forces us to either reevaluate the purpose that we never pursued. So for a lot of people, they have the purpose, but they were too afraid to go after it. They didn't think they should, they didn't think they deserved it And you know a stressful, traumatic event will open your eyes to saying My life is short and I'm going to make the most of it, I'm gonna go after that purpose. The other thing it can do is really open your eyes to a purpose that you never thought would be your purpose. So we talked about advocacy. So for a lot of people, you, it shows them that they want to become the voice for other people who have survived what they have survived. and that becomes their purpose for living for kind of changing the way other people see whatever the disease process is or whatever the issue is that they're fighting for. And so the purpose is just such an incredibly amazing force. and I think I would just encourage everyone to seek that out inside of them. So Dr. Narula For the person who's listening like I have no idea what my purpose is right now. Do you have any really small examples of how some of your patients might have found a sense of purpose while they're going through a really difficult time that you might overlook Be because I could see a sense of purpose might be, my purpose this year is to take better care of myself while I'm caring for my parents. A sense of purpose might be, I want to be part of the wave of positive change that needs to happen in the world Y sense of purpose might be I don't know, going back to school because you haven't really learned anything new in a very long time. I mean, can you give us just a sense because I think that how that's a big topic. Yeah