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NPR. Hey,

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everybody. It's Marielle. We

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had an episode recently about what to

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do in the moment when you are

0:29

feeling completely overwhelmed. You need

0:32

to stop the racing thoughts and slow

0:34

your racing heartbeat. But one

0:36

thing we learned was that while it's really important

0:38

to ground yourself in these moments, that's

0:40

not where the work ends. Because if

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you're constantly having these days where your

0:45

fight-or-flight response is triggered, there's probably

0:47

a reason. Some underlying cause of your stress.

0:49

It could be your health or the health

0:51

of someone you love. It could be a

0:53

relationship that's falling apart. Or the fact

0:55

that you can't pay rent. Or a fear for

0:57

your safety. These are things

0:59

that never quite go away, so that

1:02

fight-or-flight response is always on at a

1:04

slow hum in the background. That's

1:07

Dr. Aditi Nurukar. She's an internal medicine

1:09

physician at Harvard, and she wrote a

1:11

book called The Five Resets. The

1:14

Five Resets has been laid out to be a roadmap.

1:17

A roadmap to recovering from chronic stress.

1:19

Because stress doesn't just make us feel

1:21

terrible in the moment. It can also

1:23

have ongoing effects on our bodies. It

1:25

puts us at higher risk for heart

1:27

disease, high blood pressure, and strokes. And

1:29

it can also increase inflammation in our

1:31

bodies and weaken our immune systems. NPR

1:34

health correspondent, Ritu Chatterjee, talked to Dr.

1:36

Nurukar. And on today's episode, they're going

1:39

to walk us through these five resets

1:41

and how they can help you live

1:43

a healthier, less stressful life. leading

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not a bank. Listening to the news

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can feel like a journey. The 1A

3:01

podcast is here to guide you beyond

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the headlines and cut through the noise.

3:06

Listen to 1A, where we celebrate your

3:08

freedom to listen by getting to the

3:10

heart of the story together. Only

3:13

from NPR. Aditi

3:18

says a key part of lowering

3:20

one's stress is finding ways to

3:22

rest and recover. Rest

3:24

and recovery are not just nice

3:27

to have luxuries. They are essential

3:29

for our brains and bodies and

3:31

particularly for the biological features of

3:33

our brains and bodies to thrive.

3:35

Now if you're already stressed and overwhelmed,

3:37

you might be thinking, I have

3:40

no time for rest and recovery. Or

3:42

the idea of adding one more thing on

3:45

my plate, even if it's to ultimately lower

3:47

stress, makes me feel even

3:49

more overwhelmed. Well, that's exactly

3:51

how most of Aditi's former patients felt

3:53

when they came to see her. Take

3:56

for example a patient she calls

3:58

Wes. This is a

4:01

single god as three. He works

4:03

two jobs and his doctors had

4:05

told him that it's important for

4:08

him to lose weight because he

4:10

has high blood pressure, is slowly

4:12

starting to develop high cholesterol and.

4:15

May develop diabetes down the road. She

4:17

says West knew he had to change

4:19

his diet, that he just couldn't do

4:22

it because he was living in survival

4:24

mode. He would wake up early in

4:26

the morning. Take. Care of

4:28

his children which was his first priority.

4:30

He would rush out the door. He

4:33

would get to this first job. And. Then

4:35

between jobs he needed to eat. And.

4:37

So should swing by. A drive through on

4:39

his way to his second job and grab a

4:41

burger and fries and it was. Easy, fast,

4:44

and cheap. And he would

4:46

go on to his next job and he

4:48

would finish that and he would come home

4:50

exhausted city. Having

4:52

done the best he possibly could. He

4:55

would go to sleep, he would wake up, and

4:57

he would do it all over again. West.

4:59

Is like a lot of people, He circumstances

5:01

were tough. He didn't have the money or

5:04

the time to join the gym or take

5:06

long vacation. Although. I'm sure he'd have

5:08

enjoyed that, but a Dps reset

5:10

and small adjustments to people's daily

5:13

lives that have been shown to

5:15

lower stress levels. So she began

5:17

helping West with her first reset

5:20

which is also offers take away.

5:22

It's called finding your most goal

5:24

most. As an acronym, M O S.

5:27

T M for motivating or for

5:29

objective and miserable As for small

5:31

and p for times. Something you

5:33

can accomplish within a couple of

5:35

months. So stop thinking about what

5:38

it is. About you stressed out

5:40

overwhelmed life you want to change and

5:42

why. Is there something

5:44

you can look forward to when

5:46

you make that change and are

5:48

feeling less overwhelmed? Ask yourself what

5:50

matters to me. Most studies have

5:52

found that when you focus on

5:54

what matters to you most, it

5:57

can help you increase your sense

5:59

of self. and

6:01

self-efficacy is your sense and ability

6:03

to feel like, hey, I can

6:06

do that. Aditi says Wes wanted

6:08

to get healthy so he could be around

6:10

for his kids for the long haul. That

6:12

was his M, the motivation for his goal.

6:15

So Aditi helped him find ways to

6:17

make little tweaks to his daily routines.

6:20

The stuff that makes up the rest of

6:22

the most acronym, the objective, small and

6:24

timely things that Wes could do right away.

6:27

Things that could lighten his load within

6:29

a short period of time, like buying

6:31

healthier foods at the grocery store and...

6:33

When he was packing his three children's

6:35

lunch the night before, he would do the

6:37

same for himself. Once he started to

6:40

do that, he started eating fast food for lunch,

6:42

and he started to use those 20

6:44

minutes between his two jobs to take a

6:46

walk at a nearby industrial park. That

6:49

20 minute walk helped him so much in terms

6:51

of creating a habit

6:53

of daily movement. He

6:55

was able to decrease his stress. It

6:58

created a stopgap measure for him because

7:00

it helped him create a bookend between

7:02

one job and the other. All of

7:04

which began to lower his daily stress

7:06

levels and exhaustion. So when

7:09

you're thinking about your most goal, try to

7:11

think hard about why you want to have

7:13

less stress. Maybe like Wes,

7:15

you want to have more time for your

7:17

kids or other family or friends, or

7:20

perhaps you want to make room in your life for

7:22

something else that brings you joy. If

7:25

you figure out that why, it

7:27

will make it easier for your

7:29

already exhausted, overwhelmed brain to start

7:31

thinking about those other little changes

7:33

you can make in your daily life to

7:35

get to your goal. Our

7:37

second takeaway, Aditi's second reset,

7:39

is all about finding quiet in

7:41

a noisy world by changing your

7:44

relationship with technology. Because most

7:46

of our lives these days are filled with

7:48

so much noise and information coming at us

7:51

all the time from our devices, especially

7:53

our smartphones. Studies Show

7:55

that on average people spend more than

7:57

four hours on their phone each day.

8:00

That's more than twenty eight hours a

8:02

week. surveys of a show that over

8:05

fifty. Percent of respondents grab their

8:07

phones within fifteen minutes of waking

8:09

up, about fifteen percent doing this

8:11

as. Soon as they wake up. They are

8:14

scrolling through the headlines or social media

8:16

or their email. Think about what that

8:18

is doing to your brain and your

8:20

body. Think about what that's doing to

8:22

your stress. A Dt also writes about

8:24

a phenomenon that researcher. David Levy

8:26

called popcorn. Bring think about

8:28

what happens when he said don't read

8:30

a book and then grab your phone

8:32

to look up a word and then

8:34

check messages on social media updates that

8:36

urged to constantly bounce. From tasked

8:38

to task when we're online.popcorn.

8:41

Bring. Our brain circuitry

8:43

starts to pop from that extended

8:45

time spent on minds, and it

8:47

makes it increasingly difficult to leave

8:50

offline. Because a piece. Of

8:52

life of line is much. Slower

8:54

than the online one and needs

8:56

more. Time and attention. A

8:59

good way to counter that sensation of

9:01

a popping brain circuitry. A D P

9:04

says his by setting boundaries with your

9:06

phone. Limits. Scrolling to twenty

9:08

minutes a day. One thing that can

9:10

help you get there is by limiting

9:12

the push notifications and alerts on your

9:14

phone. During the day she suggest putting

9:16

your phone away in a drawer or

9:18

if possible ten feet away so it's

9:21

easy to resist that. urged to grab

9:23

it all the time. At night she

9:25

suggests keeping the phone far enough see.

9:27

Can't reach for it first thing in the morning.

9:29

So. When you open your eyes give your. Body.

9:32

And brain the ability to open. The

9:35

other i in chess arrest in the

9:37

moment. For. Thirty seconds for

9:39

one minute doesn't have to be long

9:41

but just aca me to the morning

9:44

a light and then you can check

9:46

your phone the giving yourself that little

9:48

moment of pause. Of grounding at

9:50

the start of your day can be a game

9:53

changer. Or third, take

9:55

away a disease. Third reset is about

9:57

ways to tap into. the mind body

10:00

connection to lower stress. The

10:02

mind-body connection, it might be a new

10:04

phrase to you, but you have been

10:06

operating with the mind-body connection in the

10:08

background your whole life. Butterflies in your

10:10

stomach when you fall in love, your

10:12

heart racing before a big interview, or

10:15

your muscles feeling tight and achy after a

10:17

long, stressful day at work. All

10:20

examples of the mind-body connection. Your

10:23

mind and your body are

10:25

in constant communication and inextricably

10:27

linked. What's good for your body is good

10:29

for your brain and vice versa. And she

10:31

has a number of ways to harness

10:34

this connection to our benefit. For example,

10:36

regular deep breathing exercises, like

10:38

one exercise called Stop, Breathe,

10:40

Be, that she's used for many

10:43

years. When I had a busy clinical

10:45

practice and I was a medical resident in training and

10:47

I would see 30 patients a day. And

10:49

so my task was as I

10:51

would knock on the patient door

10:53

before entering the next room. And

10:57

I would stop, breathe

10:59

and center myself and just be. It's three

11:01

seconds. And I would say this to myself

11:03

under my breath, stop, breathe and be. Abiti

11:06

says this technique can be particularly useful

11:08

before you do something stressful. Say a

11:10

work meeting that you've been dreading. It

11:13

only takes a few seconds, but when repeated

11:15

many times over the course of the day,

11:18

it can have a dramatic effect on

11:20

stress levels. Daily movement can

11:22

also help with that. That

11:24

only is movement good

11:26

for the brain and the body, but in

11:29

fact, not enough movement or

11:31

rather no movement being sedentary is

11:33

in fact bad for the brain

11:35

and body. And so try finding

11:38

ways to sit less and

11:40

move more. Maybe you take five minute

11:42

walks a few times a day or

11:44

maybe like Aditi's patient Wes, you

11:46

do one 20 minute walk

11:48

every day. Our

11:51

next takeaway, the fourth reset in Aditi's

11:53

book is about the benefits of doing

11:55

tasks one at a time and

11:58

taking regular work breaks. Most

12:00

people these days don't take breaks

12:02

at work, and multitasking has become

12:04

the norm. The Slack channel,

12:07

the email, is everything going at once,

12:09

multitasking. It is something

12:11

that all of us do because it's part of

12:13

modern working life, and we are required to multitask.

12:16

But she cautions that even if we think

12:18

we're good at multitasking, studies show

12:20

that only about 2% of

12:23

people can effectively do it. We know

12:25

that multitasking is a scientific misnomer. There

12:27

is no such thing. When

12:30

we are multitasking, what we

12:32

are actually doing is task

12:34

switching, doing two separate tasks

12:36

in rapid succession. Aditi

12:39

says that's taxing on the

12:41

brain. Multitasking, or rather task

12:43

switching, weakens our prefrontal cortex,

12:45

weakens our cognition, our

12:48

memory, our attention, and, ironically,

12:51

our ability to be productive. What can

12:54

help, she says, is a technique called

12:56

time blocking. Essentially it means

12:58

doing one task for, you know, you start

13:00

at five or ten minutes, and then you

13:02

take a short break, and then you do

13:05

another task for five, ten, twenty minutes, and

13:07

take a short break, and then do the

13:09

next task. She says doing just one task

13:11

at a time is better for the brain,

13:13

and so are regular breaks throughout the day.

13:15

Aditi says the breaks don't need to be

13:18

very long, anywhere between three and ten minutes. But,

13:20

she says, be intentional about

13:22

those breaks, and do something

13:25

to de-stress. Whether it means

13:27

getting up and stretching, taking

13:29

a walk, going outside, doing

13:31

something where you are intentionally

13:33

creating a little bit of spaciousness

13:35

in your brain can have an

13:37

impact, not just on feeling

13:40

good, but actually changing the biology of

13:42

your stress in your brain and

13:44

your body. In fact, when you take a break, you are enhancing

13:47

your productivity. Her

13:50

fifth reset, and our last takeaway,

13:52

can help you counter one of

13:54

the most common impacts of stress

13:56

on people's psyches by quieting

13:58

the inner crevice. So

14:01

when there is a negative experience,

14:03

it becomes sticky in your brain

14:05

like Velcro. The same

14:07

amount of good and bad may be happening to you at

14:09

the same time. But when you're feeling

14:11

the sense of stress, you hold on to

14:13

those negative experiences. And there's a

14:15

heightened sense of negativity. She says when you

14:17

stress, the brain uses a part of

14:20

it called the amygdala. Your amygdala

14:22

is focused on survival and

14:24

self-preservation. And your

14:27

inner critic has a megaphone during

14:29

periods of stress because ironically it's

14:31

trying to keep you safe and

14:33

out of harm's way. And

14:36

so when you are trying something

14:38

new or when you're learning something

14:40

new, that inner critic is holding

14:42

that megaphone and shouting from the

14:44

rooftops, you're not good enough, you're

14:46

going to fail, you'll never get

14:48

there. One proven way

14:50

to hush that negative inner critic is

14:52

with a daily exercise of gratitude and

14:55

your journaling. Aditi says every

14:57

night before you go to bed, write

14:59

down five things you're grateful for that

15:01

happened that day. There will be days

15:04

when you'll have plenty to write about and on

15:06

some days it might be hard to find things

15:08

that you're grateful for. But still,

15:10

she says, stick to the exercise, even

15:12

if it's to acknowledge the basic things

15:14

you have. One of those things

15:16

could be, I have a roof over my head, I

15:18

have food in my fridge and my pantry. Over

15:21

time, she says, the practice makes

15:23

the brain less like Velcro and

15:25

more like Teflon to negative stressful

15:28

experiences. And it does

15:30

this through a process called cognitive

15:32

reframing. It shifts your focus to

15:34

focusing on those good things and

15:37

that in turn will change your brain, it'll

15:39

change your brain circuitry and it

15:41

will silence that inner critic and quiet down,

15:44

decrease the volume of your amygdala.

15:48

And now it's time for a recap.

15:51

Our first takeaway is Figuring out your

15:54

most goal, most as an acronym

15:56

and for motivating or for objective

15:58

and measurable. Small

16:00

and P for timely. This will

16:02

help your already stressed and overwhelmed.

16:04

Dream Feel motivated to make changes

16:06

and. Figure out where to start. Take.

16:09

Away number to set boundaries with your

16:11

phone and other devices. keep your phone

16:13

out of reach of night see you

16:16

don't reach for existing in the morning

16:18

and limits crawling to twenty minutes a

16:20

day. Take away Number three: tap into

16:23

your mind body connection to lower strength

16:25

throughout the day. Deep breathing exercises and

16:27

D movement are a great way to

16:30

do that. Take away number for stop

16:32

trying to multitask, focus on one task

16:34

at a time, and take regular breaks

16:37

at work. Take away Number five, Practice.

16:39

Daily Gratitude journaling only takes about

16:41

five minutes with can dramatically rewire

16:43

you bring to be less stressed.

16:46

And more open to positive experiences

16:48

and parts. But. Regardless of which

16:50

of these resets you use or did. He

16:52

advises starting with just two things.

16:55

She calls this the resilience Rule

16:57

of to. The. Resilience will

16:59

have to is how. Your

17:01

brain. Responds to

17:03

change. Change is a

17:05

stressor for your brain,

17:07

even. Positive. Changes

17:09

in your life can be a stress

17:11

for your brains. This is why New

17:13

Years resolutions don't stick because we often

17:15

have be everything that the kitchen sink

17:18

approach and we try to do everything

17:20

all at once. Nothing sticks and sell

17:22

We saw in the towel me say

17:24

l l didn't work. But. Starting with

17:26

just two teams at a time, she says we'll

17:28

make. It more likely for you to succeed

17:31

in your efforts and for those strategies

17:33

to become the. She

17:36

says that you can do. Hadn't tried to

17:39

more changes. That is how we

17:41

work with our biology. Rather than against

17:43

it. That.

17:46

was doctor a d t nauru car

17:48

and conversation with npr health correspondent read

17:50

chatterjee for your life can check out

17:53

our other episodes we have one on

17:55

sleep mats and another on how to

17:57

lift weights you can find know that

17:59

and be npr.org/LifeKit. And if you

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love LifeKit and want even more,

18:03

subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/LifeKit

18:05

newsletter. People love it. I think

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you're going to love it too.

18:11

Also, we love hearing from you. So

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if you have episode ideas or feedback

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you want to share, email us at

18:17

lifekit at npr.org. This episode

18:19

of LifeKit was produced by Claire Marie

18:21

Schneider. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan

18:24

and our digital editor is Malika Greed.

18:26

Megan Kane is our supervising editor and Beth

18:28

Donovan is our executive producer. Our production

18:31

team also includes Andy Tagle, Audrey

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Wynn and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering

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support comes from Maggie Luther. I'm

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