How to Better Regulate Your Emotions | Dr. Marc Brackett

A lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not what it is. It's just having another relationship to it. I've had anxiety or live with it for a lot of my life, but sometimes I just say hello to it. It's like, "Hey, how you doing today?" And it goes away pretty quickly or it just sits there. I think that's the other thing about emotion regulation that people kind of misunderstand. They think it's like, I got to check in with how I'm feeling all day long and then regulate. Check in, regulate. Like you'd become psychotic if you did that all day long. Most of the time our emotions are in the background, you know, like if you thought about your feelings all day long, you wouldn't be able to do this podcast. Like that's unproductive. Emotions matter when there's a shift in our environment or the relationships. You know, if you said something that offended me, boom, I'm activated. I'm feeling angry or kind of shocked. Then I have to make a choice in that moment like how do I manage it? That's where the magic happens. Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Mark Brackett. Dr. Mark Brackett is a professor of psychology at Yale University where he is also the director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He is an expert in the science of emotions and how to apply that to improve communication and relationships and performance in school and work. One common problem around discussions of emotions and emotional intelligence is that they are often vague and frankly somewhat soft and cliche. But not when Mark Brackett explains emotional intelligence as he does today because he talks about the practical tools that emerge from the science of emotional intelligence that you can use to improve your emotional life both with yourself and with others. And he's not just going to tell us to feel our emotions more deeply. While that could be important in certain settings, his research in and out of the laboratory is really focused on the small things that we can all do both in moments of emotion, but also on our own that can greatly increase our ability to understand what we're feeling, communicate it effectively, and to be better listeners, especially in moments that would otherwise create tension or confusion. In fact, what he shares today are life skills. the sort of life skills that make everything school, friendships, romantic relationships, professional life, and family life far more effective and enriching. So, I'm confident that you'll come away from today's episode with Mark Brackett knowing what to do and when to use the tools that you'll learn, and they are indeed very powerful to improve your life. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Mark Brackett. Dr. Mark Brackett, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be back. So much to discuss today about emotion regulation, about the kids, the future. Are the kids all right? They could be better. Mhm. and our obligation, our generation, other generations, and you know, providing a world where kids can thrive and where everyone can thrive. It's it's a bit of a mess out there, but you're going to put some clarification on things for people. You're doing amazing work to give people tools for emotion regulation and more. So, let's start off and define emotion regulation. What is that? Yeah. Well, I think the simplest way to define it is using your emotions wisely to achieve your goals in life. It's a little too broad. And so, it's funny. As I was writing my book, I decided I need a formula. And so, my formula is ER, which is emotion regulation, is a set of goals and strategies. So it's e r parenthesis g plus s and that equals a function of e plus p plus c. You know made me feel smart. Emotion, person context. So what I mean by that specifically is that it's a goal oriented process. You have to want to regulate. You can prevent unwanted emotions. I have an acronym for that too. It's prime. You can prevent unwanted emotions. You can reduce the difficult ones. I think people forget the I initiate emotions like when you're teaching or leading or presenting like you want to create an emotion in the room. That's upregulating. You can maintain an emotion like you know I'm having a good day. I'm going to avoid these things to just keep it going. Savor the moment. And then there's enhancing which is kind of boosting an emotion. So that's prime. That's the goals. The strategies we can talk about for hours. Um we'll get into that a little bit later. And then I think what's most people misunderstand is that like what we regulate our emotions and like what I do for example to deal with my anxiety is really different than my anger than my worry or other emotions and that it's a function of the emotion you're feeling. It's a function of me as an individual. You know I am on the neurotic side. uh I'm on the introverted side and so my strategy selection would be influenced by that and then the context like right here right now like I know you're into fitness and like running and you know all this kind of stuff and I'm like Andrew I'm really nervous right now like do you mind if we take a break and I go for a run like you know it's a little weird Mark so context matters you got to like right now if I were anxious it's like Mark you got to use some cognitive strategies or breathing work I can't go anywhere so I'm stuck and I think people need to see that kind of full spectrum. I feel like there's a close tie between emotion regulation and self-awareness. Yeah. But I feel like there's a tension between self-awareness and being able to experience and enjoy life. For instance, if I'm feeling anxious, I I'm thinking about how I'm appearing, how I'm sounding, that it's uncomfortable. Um, but if I get totally outside of that and just be in the experience that I'm in, uh, then there's the potential to say the wrong thing or, you know, uh, offend somebody or who knows. So, when we talk about emotion regulation, what's the best approach to that that doesn't keep us in a subtext in our mind and and sort of out of the room? Because when we're alone, it's quite a bit different. We can we can breathe. We can use whatever self-regulation tools we want, ruminate or or ruminate or write or, you know, or text or call a friend, whatever it is. But when we're at work, at school, uh, on a podcast, if if there's that subtext like, uh, I'm I'm not locked in here. I'm not in the experience completely. I'm I'm I'm self-regulating or paying attention to myself, that can be very uncomfortable in its own right. It's work. Yeah, it's effortful. Uh, and not always the best effort if it's going down the rabbit hole. I think that you're getting at which is this mindset piece that the first step is our mindset about our feelings. So let me ask you what's your mindset around anxiety? Um I well I have assumptions around it. I was telling someone the other day because I spend a lot of time alone and I'm fairly introverted. If I go into a crowded environment, for the first five, six minutes, I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed, like, who wa it's really crowded in here. There are a lot of people. And I I actually feel like I have a bit of a social interaction disorder for those first few minutes. But then after about 20 30 minutes, I'm in that experience and I'm feel like I very comfortable. So I have this mindset that social anxiety is something that um is like waiting into water. It's always a little bit too cold at first or usually is a little too cold, but over time you acclimate. All right, you didn't answer the question. Okay, so I got to frame it another way. What's your relationship to anxiety? I hate it. Okay, there you go. See how you automatically were like, I hate anxiety. I did too for most of my life. And then I was with a friend who's a neuroscientist about anxiety and she said to me, Mark, tell me all the things that make you anxious. I said, 'Well, I'm anxious about fundraising and you know, I got to raise the money to keep the research going. I'm anxious to make I want to make sure that like everything we do is high quality. And I went on and on and then she asked me another question. She said, "Well, what do those have in common?" I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And then I thought about it and I said, "Well, those are things that are important to me." And so she said, "So why would anxiety be a bad thing?" And I think that we have to learn how to adopt a mindset around emotions that there are no bad emotions. It's what we do with our emotions that makes them harmful or difficult for us to live our lives. But anxiety is a good thing. It's saying there's perceived uncertainty around the future. Like I'm anxious about how I'm going to act in this environment or how I'm going to be perceived this environment. It's not a bad thing because you want to be perceived well. But if you automatically assume it's bad, then it's going to put you on the path to dysregulation. So if we accept the idea that all emotions are okay, yeah, but that the expression of all emotions is in every context is not okay. That it should be context specific. Yes. Um I actually think that provides some freedom. I can feel that freedom. Like it's okay to be super angry. It's okay to be frustrated. it's okay to be anxious. Uh but how that's expressed is what's critical. Uh it makes good intuitive sense. I think that what's hard to know is what to do with the emotion if there is no outward expression of it like like where should it go? Well, it doesn't have to go anywhere sometimes. Sometimes it can just be. And that's a big part of regulation, which is that a lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not what it is. It's just having another relationship to it. Like I've been I'm 56. I've had anxiety or live with it for a lot of my life, but sometimes I just say hello to it. It's like, "Hey, how you doing today?" And it goes away pretty quickly or it just sits there. I think that's the other thing about emotion regulation that people kind of misunderstand. They think it's like, I got to check in with how I'm feeling all day long and then regulate. Check in, regulate. Like you'd become psychotic if you did that all day long. Most of the time our emotions are in the background, you know, like if you thought about your feelings all day long, you wouldn't be able to do this podcast. Like that's unproductive. Emotions matter when there's a shift in our environment or the relationships. You know, if you said something that offended me, boom, I'm activated. I'm feeling angry or kind of shocked. Then I have to make a choice in that moment like how do I manage it? That's where the magic happens. But on a day-to-day basis, thank God we're not, you know, we wouldn't want to do that. I would like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, JWVE. JWVE makes medical grade red light therapy devices. Now, if there's one thing that I have consistently emphasized on this podcast is the incredible impact that light can have on our biology and our health. Now, in addition to sunlight, which I've talked about a lot on this podcast, red light, near infrared, and infrared light have been specifically shown to have positive effects on improving numerous aspects of cellular and organ health. These include faster muscle recovery, improve skin health, wound healing, improvements in acne, reduce pain and inflammation, improve mitochondrial function, and even improvements in vision. Nowadays, there are a lot of red light devices out there. 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This is why I use the continuous glucose monitoring app from Lingo by Abbott. Lingo provides minute-by-minute glucose data directly within the app, showing you how your glucose responds to food, exercise, and stress. This information can help you make smarter choices to support your health both now and in the long term. The CDC estimates that more than one in three American adults has pre-diabetes and that many of these people don't know they are living with pre-diabetes. Visibility about how your diet and activity affect your glucose can be the first step toward informed conversations with your doctor and making smarter daily choices. If you'd like to try Lingo, Lingo is offering Huberman Lab listeners in the US and UK 10% off a four-week plan. Just visit hellolingo.com/huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellingo.com/huberman. I'd love to poke at some of the assumptions that I know I have, but I wonder if other people have as well. My dad's from South America, and I remember long ago he said because he went to formal schools, um he said that he was raised with this terrible idea, he called it terrible, that um if somebody was happy and they smiled a lot, that they were stupid. And I said, "What is that about?" And he said, well, that came in his words from the British school system where uh the idea was that you were supposed to be um skeptical of things and that if you were happy or happy golucky and you weren't drinking that people would assume that you were an idiot because you weren't bothered by the problems in the world and you were accepting of the things that you heard and were told. In other words, you're an idiot. And my dad's a very happy person now. Sure. And he has talked about, you know, having to break that mold that like it's okay to wake up and take a walk and and be happy that it's okay to be happy. And so that's just one thing that I I think I grew up thinking too, not and maybe not to that extreme that that if especially in academia, like if you're not disc like to be happy is to not be discerning. It's a totally false. Right. Of course. Now we're a long way from England right now. Um uh and that's probably something more of my dad's generation than mine. But I think the idea nowadays does seem to be that if you're happy golucky and you're feeling good that you must not be thinking about all the terrible things going on in the world or that it's insensitive to those that are suffering etc etc. I'd love your thoughts on this this idea that we don't give ourselves permission to feel as good as we might feel because of some social pressure or assumptions that we've internalized which is all learned and so this is these are learned phenomenon and it's sometimes outside influence so talk about happiness you know as I was writing and I was doing the chapter on mindsets around emotion and talking about this relationship with different emotions and you know it play around with this all day long. I could say, "What's your relationship to anger? What's your relationship to happiness and contentment?" And all of a sudden, you start realizing, "Wow, I have a complicated relationship with my emotions." And I was thinking about it with happiness, too. And for me, what's interesting, which is different completely from your dad's, is because of my kind of tough childhood and a lot of bullying, is that I would go to school one day and I would be happy and I'd see the bullies and all of a sudden they'd say things like, you know, what are you so happy about today, bracket? And I didn't realize that until I was writing. And then I would get on stage and give a I do a lot of public speaking and I'd be standing there like feeling really good with my speaking and then I get the applause at the end and I would start kind of looking down and I started realizing I'm uncomfortable being happy like I'm I'm waiting for something to go wrong because you know in my childhood like happy meant like you know we're going to bring you down. We all have these kind of developmental um connections, for lack of a better term, to our different emotions. And I think that it gets back to the phenomenon. There's no good or bad emotions. Life firstly, some of it is genetic and biological. You know, our proclivity to experience certain emotions. The regulation piece is all learned. Like you're not born with a, you know, a pocket full of evidence-based strategies to regulate. And it's just like like you know I don't know about you growing up you know my father was very different. My father was the angry guy and he'd say son you got to toughen up. I'm like dad look at me you know come on let's move on it's not happening. And you know that I have a fifth degree black butt. I became the tough guy that my father wanted me to be. But nevertheless you know what does that even mean? But you know growing up when I was struggling my parents missed a lot of the cues come down the stairs. Because I didn't have my father say, "Son, I'm noticing a shift in your emotions today. Your posture is different. Your facial expression is different. Let me give you a research-based strategy to help you regulate your anxiety, stress, pressure, fear." No. It was just there was no it wasn't even a construct. I mean, I don't know. But did you grow up with a a concept of emotion regulation? Definitely you did. And it there was a big gender split in my home. I had the sort of belief uh based on the context that women could express their emotions big or small and that uh men weren't supposed to lose their temper. Men weren't supposed to uh be angry. That's interesting. It's kind of counter the way people think about it nowadays, right? Like oh yeah, the men are like the more power you have, the more anger you can express. Oh, the complete opposite of that. In fact, and I don't think he'll mind. my dad's been on this podcast and we have a great relationship uh now and um and we've done work and it's been awesome. I mean it's really it really has. I mean uh and I remember when I was a kid if he got angry he he would blink and I and now I know that as like behavioral suppression you know um he was like blinking but I can't ever remember my dad having an outburst ever. So I just internalized this idea like okay you you don't have outbursts but I have a certain side of my family that um my extended family that's um from New Jersey. And um where words are sometimes used as weapons. Okay. And anger is a bit more outward sometimes at least in that side. And then I have a South American side where things are more um you know formal and boxed away and and I think I internalized a bit of both. and and um so I have all sorts of constructs around who's allowed to express emotions and what extremes but now I didn't observe a lot of uh anger or maybe a little suppression lots of suppression lots of suppression which is regulation it just not the adaptive kind usually right right and I you know I probably averaged the two you know in my own life but in terms of happiness I I think uh the same thing now that I I think about it that Um so okay K uh for um women to be fully expressive and for men to be you know it's a bit more of the you know kind of the 1950s model was that was very present in in my home and in my mind in my mind. Yeah. Yeah. I can think with happiness as with any emotion. It's about the time and the place for happiness. It's like you can't we have research that shows that people who strive to be happy all the time actually are more miserable because it's hard to live up to that all the time. You know, people who strive for more contentment in their life actually seem to have greater well-being. Um, and so I just think again it goes back to these mindsets around emotions that uh there's no good or bad emotion. Anger is fine. Obviously, if it's too intense and it's lasting too long, it's probably not going to be good. Happiness is something that we should, you know, experience. But, you know, if we're attached to it, it's going to be problematic because every day is not a sunny day. There are rainy days, too. And you got to be comfortable with the rainy days. And the important thing also is not just our feelings, about our feelings. It's also about our mindsets around our capacity to deal with those feelings. like do I believe I am capable of managing my anger? Do I believe I'm capable of dealing with the disappointment? And we find a distribution of scores for that too. Like going back to my dad, we have very different fathers. My father would say things like, "Son, this is the way I deal with my anger. You're going to have to get used to it." You know, I would say now, like, "Sounds like you got a fixed mindset, Dad. Like, there are other options, you know, to to deal with your anger." But he was sort of like, "This is the way I am. you're going to have to deal with it. No learning interests. Whereas nowadays, I hope to help people see, wait a minute, is that emotion working for you in your relationships or not? If it's not, there are alternatives. I mean, we're talking about boys and men quite a bit already here. So, maybe we just continue in that in that direction, even though we will touch on um uh girls and women and uh emotions as it relates to them, too. I I hear a lot nowadays problems for boys and young men in emotion regulation, in defining masculinity. Um, I'm obviously interested in this, but I also acknowledge that I'm Gen X. I was born in 1975. Things were very different. And I and I know I have a giant blind spot to their experience, right? I just do. I acknowledge that because I don't really have a finger on the pulse of of what life is like for a 15year-old or 12year-old or 20-year-old guy out there. What are the pain points and what's going right? Yeah, there's a lot going on. And I think probably the big issue here with gender is vulnerability. that historically this is not just now this is going back to when we were kids when our parents were kids you know go back to other periods in you know in the in time is that vulnerability especially for men is weak. You got to be tough. You're the you know the person who has to you know make the ends meet. You're the you know the hunter gatherer. And obviously times have changed. And what we find is that the thought today for many boys and men to be emotional. Firstly, emotional alone has a connotation of feminine and out of control. That's just the way people think about it still. Really? Wow. When you say don't be so emotional, it's considered to be a negative thing. It's considered to be feminine and it's considered to be like a hysterical um that's why we I like to call it emotion skills not emotional skills. That's anyway. So vulnerability is a big piece of it. Let's this is going to be a great conversation between two guys. So what's your relationship to vulnerability? Totally context dependent. I mean there are people I'm not afraid at all to cry in front of. Mhm. There are contacts and people that I would never cry. I mean, I've cried on very public broadcast two. Maybe three. One here when Martha Beck came on, she really she uh she wasn't trying, but you know, it was happening. And then on Steen Bartlett's podcast, I think perhaps on another, and it was tough. I mean, it was I I didn't want to watch those clips, but I'm glad I did it. Um uh so totally context dependent. Yeah. And that makes sense. What I'm really pushing for is like around emotion and about conver talking about feelings. And so what we find is that boys generally feel more inhibited just saying how they feel especially when it comes to kind of the sad disappointment, you know, ashamed emotions. It's much easier to express the anger, you know, and the outwardly expressive emotions, but the deep ones that are self-conscious, you know, that make you vulnerable. um tends to be tough and uh and the question is why is that the case? What are your hypothesis? Why would it be that so many boys feel like they're going to be perceived as feminine if they say they're disappointed or sad or ashamed? What immediately comes to mind is that somehow it is linked with the word incapable or incapability. Exactly. There's an incredible video of David Gogggins breaking down crying on stage. Um, and he was celebrated for that. But David Gogggins did a lot of things beforehand. And no one denies his capability. His ability. Uh, so when he cried, it was like, awesome. He's willing to go to this really hard place. Yet another difficult thing that David can do that most people can't do. And you just go like, awesome. and he's owning it. And I stepped back from that and realized we already knew former Navy Seal went from 300 plus pounds to this fit individual, you know, Gogggins, he's a verb, an adjective and a you know, and a pronoun, right? So, it's like [ __ ] you know, if someone else just breaks down on stage, you go, okay, like I hope this guy can make it in life. That's the the narative it's like weak. You worry sometimes for people like that. I don't worry about David Gogggins because he's a superstar and we have a different mindset around him again and so he has the permission to do whatever the hell he wants. Yeah, that permission thing, forgive me, but this this notion of earned the right. I mean, there are people like James Cameron who wrote all these movies and was famous for like doing all these super difficult things and then a few years back was like claiming that testosterone poisoned men and that his testosterone was the worst thing. And everyone that liked his movies said, "Hey, listen, easy for you to say now you built that career on some of that." So, it wasn't, in my opinion, taken that seriously. He may not like it if he hears this, but like I'm like it's like when our colleagues are like, "Oh, I'm no longer going to publish in nature and science. I'm going to go to these like, you know, these open source journals." Like you got in the National Academy on Nature and Science papers. So like you're not kidding anybody. Well, that you're making an important point which is that once you you know I always find it interesting with celebrities once they become super famous I can now disclose you know I've been depressed or I've been anxious or I've been overwhelmed but for some reason you know they didn't want to take that risk when they were younger in their careers because again the perception is like oh anxiety depression whatever it is that's weak and so that's the point the point is is that we raise kids, boys in particular, to believe that these feminine type emotions, which are not feminine by nature, they're just human emotions, are weak. And therefore, that means I'm going to be perceived as not only weak, but potentially homosexual. And that's also a stigma. And so, what do I do? I suppress. I deny. I ignore. Interestingly enough, for women, what the research shows is that much less likely to suppress or deny, much more likely to ruminate. Couple of things. First of all, I I feel like, and I could be wrong, but I feel like the the stereotype of uh gay men being feminine has fallen away somewhat. You know, I grew up, you know, in the skateboarding community. There's Brian Anderson. he was big expose in the not expose where they exposed him where he voluntarily you know came out in the New York Times and he's like he's one of the most aggressive you know you know skateboarders out there aggressive in the skateboarding right so he's big dude you know so I feel like that stereotype has kind of shifted a bit where people assume that there's a range I think that you're ambitious there I think you're right I mean we know so being gay is still [ __ ] yeah for M okay. I mean, if you ask a hundred people to uh run like a gay man, they're still caught in the Revenge of the Nerds. Yeah. They're going to they're going to show you someone who's, you know, more feminine or, you know, kind of stereotypically feminine to be honest with you. So while there you we know I mean certainly I remember um when I was 18 I went to a gay bar and I I grew up in New Jersey. It was very homophobic. The only gay person I really knew was my mother's hairdresser who was very flamboyant and then I went to this gay bar and I was like oh my god it's like Wall Street executives here you know football players. It was a total you know u shift in my perception. Nevertheless, if you ask the majority of people, it's still considered to be, you know, the mindset is feminine. Got it. Yeah. I guess if you um grew up training in gyms, which I did, you're around a lot of like very strong uh physically strong Yeah. um gay men. They were kind of early to the gym culture, you know, as a uh so so maybe my my lens on that is a little distorted. There's something interesting around this notion of um [ __ ] showing emotion and boys and we earlier we were talking about the movie Stand by Me movie I absolutely love and it's just like a perfect story. It's a Stephen King story, right? Turned into a movie. Um I think Rob Reiner wrote that movie. Yeah. Um, and what's interesting about that movie, it's the transition be that happens right around puberty and between junior, it's right before junior high school or oh, it's between junior high and high school, I can't remember. Some some transition and the kids are at different developmental stages. I feel like this is a big part of it where like let's say a kid is um a little bit more emotional, a little more um coddled at home perhaps. This is I'm making a lot of assumptions here. and cries in front of a group of boys when you're in the seventh or eighth grade. Some of those boys are are because of their stage of maturation, they're not really little kids anymore. They're like, "Dude, what are you doing?" And then you've mixed all those kids together and because of the way that schools and social dynamics are that can stay with a kid for a long time like being sort of having an emotional expression that can stick with you for like two three years of school right so I feel like some of this stuff comes about that way which is very different than like an um just I guess like a hypothetical scenario uh an adult male um in the business ice, maybe he's new at, you know, uh where there's things tend to uh equalize a bit in terms of maturational stage. And so these are two different things, boys crying versus young men crying versus quote unquote grown men crying. Again, this is all nurture. So if you go to schools that do our work, I just interviewed a bunch of teenage boys actually, it blow your mind. They have a whole different perception of emotion. I I ask him these questions about men and boys and you know and their responses are like huh like what's wrong with crying like if you feel like crying you cry like are you sure you know even no no no ridicule no ridicule I said well what if you get into a fight can you like talk to the kid about what happened and like tell them how you felt when they left you out and they're like of course that's what that's how we grew up that's but they grew up in a school that took emotion seriously. They gave them the skills and the resources to do it. It reminds me, actually, I never forget this, you know, since we're on this topic of boys and men. I was in the beginning of my career doing training in emotional regulation in London, outside of London, a very kind of rough and tough neighborhood. And uh the head mistress, as they call it back then of the school, she looked at me, she's like, "You know something, Mark? this program is going to turn the boys into homosexuals. I'm like, okay, like where'd that come from? You like I'm thinking to myself like you need a lot more training than just emotional intelligence. But I'll put that aside for a minute. Anyhow, I said, you know, I'm here. So, can we just go and do it? Let me let me demonstrate it. Not a problem. Go like a fishbowl. Here I am like the teacher in the middle of the room. I have like 25 teachers around me and like 20 kids in the middle. and I start sharing a story about my life, whatever it was. I was about probably feeling discouraged. I think it was one of when I first got into the martial arts, you know, it was tough. I was not a tough boy and I was afraid of my shadow and I had been had all this bullying and abuse and going into a karate studio. It was a big shock for me. I happened to have an amazing teacher who transformed my life and became a career of mine in martial arts. Anyhow, I told a story about that about how I failed my yellow bell and I just hated myself and like not only was I bullied, but I couldn't even get a freaking yellow bell, discouraged, hopeless. And these everybody's looking at me like, "Where's this going?" And the teachers, the kids were like glued. They loved hearing the story. And then I said, "I'm just curious. Has anyone else ever felt the way I felt?" And I said, "Just raise your hand if you've had that kind of feeling." Every freaking kid in the classroom raised their hand. And of course, I look over at that head mistress and I'm like, you know, let's let's talk later. Kids are dying to express their emotions. Boys and girls, we had we we've just socialized it. And the socialization piece is really important because even the way fathers talk to their boy children, you know, is different. you know, it's the toughen up. It's da da da. They use more feeling words with their with girls and with boys. We're not born that way. We are socialized into, you know, having these complicated relationships with certain emotions. But it's not something that can't be modified with good instruction. You're saying this, I'm realizing I internalized so many things that skew my perspective on this. I guess I should say I'm relieved to hear that expression of emotions among boys is more accepted now. I think that's the generation that's going through this work. The kids who are growing up in places that are not taking emotions seriously are growing up in a more or with a more stereotypical way of viewing it. It's got to be infused into your life. You got to have these conversations. You got to be in situations where like in our work, just to give you an example, like we're really rigorous about teaching this stuff. This isn't just sort of like kumbaya sitting in a circle. This is like, "All right, everyone, we've got a problem here. There's, you know, the gaga pit, which is in these, you know, this thing in schools. You know, there's a kid who nobody is, you know, allowing to participate. That kid feels awful. What's our obligation? What are we supposed to do to handle that? Imagine you're that kid. Imagine you're the one that nobody wants to be, you know, part of the game." Now, we're going to get into groups and we're going to think about A, what are the feelings? B, what are the solutions? What do you do for yourself? what do you do for the other person? And it's like rigorous conversations around the techniques and they got to roleplay it. And then we ask questions about the role play. It's like, well, what if it goes wrong? What happens if you say this? And they say, go blank yourself. What do you do then? And that's the kind of complex, you know, muscle building we're giving kids in terms of dealing with emotions. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, and I've been taking it every day since. 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If you would like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a special offer. For a limited time, AG1 is giving away six free travel packs of AG1 and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drink AG1 with the numeral one.com/huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your subscription. there is a hardwired uh bias towards rough and tumble play in males of all of all species including ours. I think what you're talking about a little bit is a capacity also for kind of rough and tumble verbal and emotional exchange which is not necessarily like f you and this and that like but some of that is can be ingested some of it can be really damaging there's something interesting that I learned a long time ago it even in academia he's now dead but there was a a very famous neuroscientist I'll never forget like went to my first Mcnite meeting I was so like excited to be there and he came over. He was, you know, he's pretty large guy and he grabbed me. I grabbed me and he and he goes, "So, where are you?" I was picking between laboratories between this place and that place. He goes, "Where's it going to where's it going to be?" And then he kind of gave me his advice. And then and that was a very comfortable exchange for me cuz like I grew up with a lot of physical interaction. Usually guys not putting their arm around me and like telling me like so what's it going to be kind of thing. But often times, you know, if I interact with somebody that's kind of like an old friend or something, there's they'll grab my shoulder, you know, just walking by, there's a lot of just kind of physical interaction that just happens. It certainly doesn't feel weird or aversive. And I could see if somebody, for instance, was not used to like just a lot of physical interaction uh with other people that that could feel like a lot. And so I'm wondering nowadays where where are things with respect to sort of just the amount of physical interaction between kids? Are they like just feeling and voicing their emotions but they're like at at a physical distance or are they uh you know seeing one another and like handshakes and hugs, what's up and you know like you know just friendly the kind of physical banter. I think it's cultural. It's there's a lot of there's a lot going on there in terms of you know the type of school and you know where it is in the United States or in the world. You know, touch is a is a cultural thing. But I think, you know, what I want to say about what you said is that rough and tumble is fine. Of course, you know, rough and tumble, but there's when it becomes a power over, that's when it becomes a problem. When you have no concern for the emotional life of the other, this is bullying. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. the dialogue that sort of establishes hierarchy, I guess, is what, if I'm really blunt about it, I just feel like that just sort of just happened naturally in my friend group when I was a kid. Like there were some kids who were more developed and more athletic or better at this or better at that. And we just kind of all fell into place. It wasn't necessarily about being at the apex or being at the bottom. Was intention to harm. Yeah. We we we sort of formed a team where you understood that yeah this kid was fast and this one was strong and this one was clever and this one was creative and actually there was a goofy kid on our street who was always the comedian. I think later he actually tried to become a comedian or became a comedian and everyone just kind of like was like all right you didn't expect him to be like the other kid and you didn't expect yourself to kind of check off all boxes. I wonder the extent to which young males in particular nowadays feel the need to check off all the boxes of what it is to be a guy. Play a sport, be good in school, be, you know, whatever. Well, that's again the developmental thing. And I think what happens is that in, you know, you watch kids play in kindergarten, they're not thinking about this kind of stuff. Although it's it's it's seek it's sinking in or it's uh seeping in. What's the word? Um I was in a school recently uh and a boy raised his hand that he was in the blue quadrant of our mood meter and he was feeling down or sad and I said is do you need anything right now? And he said no. And I got I got kind of like taken by surprise and I said you know you sure you we can talk about it. He's like I don't want to bother you sir. And that was a eye openener for me, you know, that already like his emotions were a nuisance and that's what I want to make sure that we address. No one's emotion should be a burden. A kid should be able to talk about it and deal with it. We want that kid to be a good learner. We want that kid to be a good friend. And if he's already suppressing, denying, ignoring, you know, in kindergarten, it's not going to be a pretty ride. And those things change developmentally. Um, kids are much more comfortable talking to each other about their feelings in elementary school and middle school. You know, it starts getting, you know, I got to look around and again with the homophobia piece. And in high school, you see um less and less touching, you know, or, you know, kind of the the the kind of friendship kind of stuff that you might have seen early on. And that goes back to the, you know, the things that we were kind of chatting about toxic masculinity, kind of this manosphere. And again, you know, my hope is that we rethink child development. We have spent so much time thinking about some of the unnecessary things. You know, reading and writing and arithmetic obviously are important. But if you don't recognize that how we feel and how we deal with our feelings is going to drive, the quality of your relationships, your well-being, your ability to deal with life's ups and downs and the harsh feedback you're going to get in life. Um, and ultimately, you know, having your dreams come true. You know, it's interesting as someone who works at a university where everyone has perfect SAT scores. Everyone has gradepoint averages that are better than mine were. Everyone plays an instrument I never heard of before. Everyone has done everything to get into this place. And so I have like 700, 800 students right there. And I look at them all and I'm like, guess what? Your SAT scores have no predictive validity. None. You can't remember it's range restriction. Mhm. It's like b all basketball players are tall. Height is not going to make or break your your basketball performance. Same thing applies in a room filled with people with, you know, high academic performance. And then all right, well, what is the predictor? Well, obviously it's going to be something else. And then we start thinking about, well, what are the attributes that employers are looking for? Right now, it's not technical skills as much as it used to be. right now it's like can this person like take feedback well can this person you know lead a team and people will want to be around that person I found in my research for example that managers and leaders who are good co-regulators that for example during the pandemic I did this longitudinal study and I found that in schools in particular where I do a lot of work that when a teacher perceived their leader as both self-regulated and who is good at co-regulating. So what that means is that like I'm looking at you right now. I'm thinking, okay, you know, it feels like the world's coming to an end. Are you going to fall apart or are you going to make it? That's number one. Number two is are you going to be there for me? Are you going to be able to support me and deal with the chaos that I've got to deal with? And what we found in our research is that highly predictive of the culture of a school, highly predictive of burnout, highly predictive of job satisfaction, frustration levels were 40% lower in schools where there were leaders with these skills. That's what people are looking for these days more so than anything else, you know, more so than beforehand. I feel like the word that comes to mind is is calibration. And in anticipation of today's discussion, I I I was speaking to a friend and I said, you know, where are you at with uh kind of um men expressing emotions, you know, and and you know, she said, "Well, I've seen you cry." And I was like, "Yeah, you know," she said, "It can be beautiful." Like, you know, there you hear that, right? It can be beautiful. And I said, "But when is a man expressing emotion um a problem for you?" like and assuming it's not like outward anger or abuse or you know his sadness okay was the example I gave and she said if he gets very sad about things that happen a lot it makes it hard to imagine that uh how he would hold it together if really big stuff happened and so it's it's exactly what you described in the workplace right this notion of calibration so uh let's say I'm okay with people expressing their emotions crying when they're sad, etc. But if that's happening a lot under everyday conditions, I could imagine, let's say you're in work or a relationship with this person, and you think, well, goodness, like people die, right? You know, more I'm 50 now. People die as you get older. More and more people die. This just kind of the way it works. What's going to happen then? I think there's this underlying question which is, are you going to be available for all the other things we depend on each other for? And this could be romantic relationship. It could be in the workplace. So I I do wonder whether or not people are trying to work out so what people are calibrated to like trying to understand somebody's I don't want to say emotional set point but when they're able to you know just pack it down and deal with it on their own later or whether it really needs to become the focus like just to just quickly layer in another example. I have a friend who runs a big scientific laboratory. their laboratory gathered together and did a presentation for this lab director and had created a statistical bubble map of their experience of being in the lab. And there was a giant bubble in the middle that just said stress. And they invited someone from HR. And the whole idea here was to let the boss know that they were really stressed out. And I said, "Let me guess. You were probably thinking he came up in a very, very hard branch of science." And I said, "Let me guess. you're probably thinking what happened to science he said he said for a little while and then I figured well this is the next generation I have to work with this so they were calibrated to different set points and I could imagine that's hard across generations but even within generation that's got to be really really tricky so you're all about measurement creating actionable tools is there a language around this is there a way that we can yes learn to process and deal with our emotions express our emotions in a more healthy way. Also, understanding of other people's emotion calibration point. A couple of things. One is that going back to the kind of partner leader position is I think the confusion that people have again going back to vulnerability and emotion dysregulation is that me being vulnerable or me sharing that I'm anxious or overwhelmed or afraid means that I'm weak. And I think what leaders need to do is recognize like during the pandemic, I never forget this, like we the university shut down. Everything was freaking out. I knew my team was freaked out. They were stressed out about their jobs. They were dealing with being parents and also being employees and working from home and all that stuff. Here I was like the head of the emotional intelligence lab and like, "How you doing, Mark?" And I'm like, "Great. Everything's fine." And meanwhile, I'm like, "I hate my life and I hate everybody around me, you you know, I had this my mother-in-law, you know, that story, she was stuck with me. And um and then I realized one day like I'm being a terrible role model. I'm not being authentic and I'm not demonstrating the skill. So, I decided to be really honest and say, I'm going to be frank. It's tough right now, but here's what I'm doing. I'm going for that walk every day at 5:00. I can't go to my hot yoga class, but guess what? I'm I found new workouts online that I'm doing and I'm doing X Y and Z. So the point is is that I think vulnerability that's like sharing and like you know spewing out all the fears that you have is not helpful when it's not accompanied by the strategy. And that's the key is that I'm feeling this way but here's what I'm doing about it. That's what a role model is. And that's what a parent needs to do. The parent, you know, has to come home and say, you know, I can imagine this like you're a dad and you're trying to be a role model for your kid. And here's my dad. I My dad would have a hard day at work. Daddy, let's play. Son, leave me alone. Done. Like that was the end of it. As opposed to dad comes home. Daddy, let's play. son, you know, you have to realize I have to just tell you something. I just had a really rough day at work. I actually got into a fight with a colleague of mine. Didn't go well. And I said something that I really feel bad about. And so, daddy just needs a little bit of time to just process that, to just think about what I can say tomorrow to kind of help my relationship. And if you don't mind, I need that time right now. I love you and we'll play later, but right now I'm just not in the right space for it. Okay, son. Okay, Dad. All right, let's stop there. What did I just teach my son or daughter about feelings? All right, I'm a dude. I'm a dad who has feelings. I am someone who makes mistakes. I say things that I regret. I reflect on the things that I make mistakes about. I problem solve about the things that I make mistakes about. I need time to, you know, recoup, you know, my energy and then I can come back and be with you. How much time did that take? seconds. Yeah. But how many of us, you know, are around people that can process emotion that way, that have the capacity to say, "I'm in a dark place. Things didn't go well. I made a mistake. I feel bad about it. I need to strategize and then we'll come back and be together." What happens to most of us, we're activated like I'm pissed off at the person at work and I project it on everybody else that's, you know, in my next situation. And the power of emotional self-awareness, going back to what we started with, and the power of emotion regulation, is that I notice that there's a shift. I notice that I'm feeling this anger, this frustration. I'm about to go into a new environment with my family, and I know because I'm emotionally intelligent that it's not going to be pretty if I don't process that emotion before I move into the next situation. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to take what I call a meta moment. I'm going to pause. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to think about the best version of Mark, the father I want to be, the husband I want to be, and then I'm going to open the door and arrive through that lens. That's what this work is about. That's what people need to learn. I'm fascinated by time perception and I feel like the human brain is so incredible at being in the moment and also getting ahead and thinking behind. And what you're really talking about is projecting into the future in a healthy way. Not not future tripping as they call it, but in a healthy way. And I think that I mean, broadly speaking, I'm almost embarrassed to say this as a neuroscientist, uh, but you know, the more limbic uh, we are, so to speak. I realize that's not really a thing, but the more limbic we are, um, the more in the moment we tend to be, and it's harder to get that version of oursel when we're relaxed. It's very easy to be like well I can remember this time or I'm going to project into the future. So to some extent healthy recognition of one's emotions it seems healthy expression of one's emotions is the ability to with feel but also split off from the presence enough to get perspective that the time perspective. I mean it's all in a shift in the time domain. You're not like I'm going to go to this you know this island in the Caribbean for a moment. although that might be a good useful tactic. But that ability to tolerate stress and and segment a piece of one's mind and emotions and go okay that's all happening and I'm going to get like right over here. That is a skill. So the way I like to think about it is that we have to move from automatic habitual unhelpful reactions to deliberate conscious helpful responses because we become more automatic when we're flooded with our emotions. We rely more on habits and usually bad habits. And so to build that space between the stimulus and response like the question always people say what is that what do you do with that space? How long is the space? I need a Some people say, "I don't need a meta moment," which is one of our tools. I need a mega moment, you know, and maybe you do. Maybe you need to take three loops around the house before you walk into the door to get your kind of parasympathetic nervous system where it needs to be. That is the key to emotion regulation right there. We had um Richie Davidson on the podcast and he talked about this myth about meditation that it's supposed to clear the mind and make you relax and he said it's it's actually really about stress tolerance. You're supposed to sit there and resist the temptation to get up and move like it's really stress inoculation which I think is a really beautiful way of thinking about and different way of thinking about meditation. So do you recommend that people meditate in order to become better emotion regulators? 100%. Especially because if you can't be still, it's going to be hard to access the good strategies. It's a necessary but insufficient strategy. I know that we're obsessed in our world right now with breathing and mindfulness, and it's great. Um, but it's not enough. You at the end, I'm going to have to have the difficult conversation and regulate during that conversation. I can't be in my room by myself meditating. I always joked when my, you know, I open my book with that story of my mother-in-law and I would take a breath. It's even clear why you have to get the hell out of my house, right? So like the breath may help you deactivate, but it doesn't necessarily shift your perspective. That's the mindfulness work. And I want to jump in now because I think even the taking the moment to recognize you need to take this meta moment is a mindset piece. It's saying emotion regulation is important. I'll be a better version of myself if I don't walk into my house in this angry state and project it onto everybody else. But that's we've only gone through one of like eight domains that I think are important. The next is like you got to know what you're feeling because the feeling as I said in my formula earlier is going to drive the strategy selection. So that labeling piece is really important. And I find that people's vocabularies is just awful. People, I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm upset. Yeah. I don't think we did this last time, but if I were to push you, anxiety versus fear versus pressure. Oh, versus stress. Uh, I've thought about these before. So, but it ends up being hairsplitting. And then I go into scientific operational definitions. So uh you know anxiety kind of a a generalized state of too much sympathetic arousal you know stress is one or usually I'd add to that you know one or several things that I can pinpoint as kind of a source of that elevated level of arousal. Um, you know, panic would be if it you've gotten so far outside the um time domain perspective like that the physiology overtakes and overwhelms like I get into my scientist definition. That's interesting because a lot of people well some most people by the way say it's all the same [ __ ] that it's all one big yeah you know you're you know technical you're like well this is cortisol and this is you know epinephrine and this is this and that's all good too but in the end what you're regulating often times is the underneath the emotion and so anxiety uncertainty around the future right I get anxious when I can't predict That's really what deep anxiety is. I want everything to be exactly the way I want it to be and I can't control that. So, oh stress is having too many demands and not enough resources. Pressure something at stake is dependent upon your behavior. Fear is immediate danger. So when I give you those kind of what we call in psychology the core relational themes the appraisals that are part of those emotions does it make you see how your strategy choice might be different? Yeah definitely. Um, and speaking of, you know, I doubt it's just two bins, but I've heard once that, you know, some people need to learn to externalize and or to talk about their feelings more, other people probably less. I've heard this. Uhhuh. For sure. I'm I'm friends with a couple and one of them says uh she's she calls herself an external processor. So, if something's bothering her, she has to externally process. And her wife is an internal processor. And so this obviously they've worked this out and it's pretty cool to see how they do it. But but I was like, is that really a thing? External processor, internal processor. And then of course my gender biases show up. I go, well, you're two women, so like that maybe that language is used, but like in in heterosexual relationships, it's different, you know. And we laughed about it and they explained like no, cuz actually one of them turns out to be a therapist. So she like no, she has many male female couple clients. So she's a couple's therapist. So, I got flipped on my back with that one. The thing that I I find that I I keep projecting into everything I'm hearing. And and I want to put the little asterisk here and say that the reason I share these like things that are happening inside is I like to think they're perhaps a proxy for what some people are thinking um or not. But is that we really, at least in the United States, we really are not a culture that's clearly defined. its terms, let alone its ways of being around emotions. Like this is not like my dad growing up in Argentina in a certain era where sure there was a range but um the culture was fairly clearly defined. I mean here we've got it all like I do men expressing anger some people call that passionate depending on what it's about. Other people call that scary and disregulated. It goes back to your relationship with anger. And so, you know, we construct these emotions in our brains based on our experiences. So, I grew up with a dad who had, you know, you know, pressed lips and red face and looked like he was going to like take his belt off and whack me. And so, my perception of anger is probably different than your perception based on our upbringing. And that's just we have to acknowledge that. Now, I could be over reacting to anger, which is not going to be helpful in my life. So, I've got to learn to realize not everybody's like your dad. Some people can be angry and not aggressive. But that's that's the emotional intelligence journey of learning. If I had no cultivating of skills, I would just assume that's anger. And that's not anger. That's one way of expressing anger that I learned. And I think people get caught up in that. They get attached to what they learned early in life and don't realize there's a there's another way. It's kind of why people often times get stuck with trauma because they they are fixated on that experience that they had and they haven't learned how to reframe or haven't learned how to compartmentalize that particular experience in their lives. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. 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So thus far we've highlighted at least one thing that can be very useful um for emotion regulation which is the you know some short form of meditation for stress tolerance that can give somebody a a create a gap or an opportunity in a moment to at least take some time and regulate a bit. Mhm. I'd like to layer on something else which I'm hearing. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that I'm hearing which is we should all know our assumptions or our presumptions based on our upbringing. Correct? Like we need to do this for ourselves. No one can do it for us. No single article is going to spell out the full array of ways that one conceptualizes anger or sadness for men, for women, for straight people, for gay people. But this space is actually worth thinking about, right? Uh right now there's a there's a little bit of a battle against introspection. This is not introspection. I want to be very clear. Um that's a separate matter. But this is really just what any really good scientist would do is to know your assumptions before you generate a hypothesis. I mean it is introspection. I mean Okay, fair. But just like anything, over introspection leads to rumination. Mhm. And so we're not recommending like I don't want you Andrew to like be obsessively compulsively checking in with how you're feeling all day long. That is unhelpful. It's bad bad bad. Some people would say that's I need to do more of that. Maybe you do. I I I don't I don't think so. Emotions matter when they're going to either help or interfere with our performance. That's when we have to check in. Most of the time, thank goodness, they're in the background. You know, when you're driving, you know, you're not thinking, "How am I feeling? How am I feeling? It would be weird. Like that would just be weird and you don't want to do that. But checking in with one's assumptions based on our upbringing, I think would be very useful. Very. But that's the point. And has that been formalized into a you know, people love questionnaires. I I think if it hasn't been done, I think it would be amazing. About eight months ago, I had this wild experience where I realized I had this massive assumption worked into my framework. So, I had these friends and I was visiting them and they called me upstairs and there was a bird flying around and it was like flying into the windows and I was like, "Oh my god." You know, I had birds growing up. Kiwi and Sugar Ray Leonard were like my life before I hit puberty and birds were my life. You know, I loved birds. I love animals of all kinds. And I I was looking up there and this bird's just flying into the window. It's not going to make it out and it's just doing immense damage to itself. And one of them said, you know, he keeps flying against the window. I was like, okay. And I tried to get him out and I I couldn't get him out. Really high ceilings. We didn't have the right thing. And I said, you know, I'm just going to open the windows, go downstairs, come back, and check. And I ended up going back. And um they said, "What is he okay? Is he okay?" And I'm like, "No." I'm like, "This idiot bird is like flying into the window. He's like, "This [ __ ] is going to kill himself." He got out eventually. And about two weeks later, one of them called me and said, "Listen, I really need to talk to you about something. It's really been on my mind." I was like, "Okay." And uh and she said, "You know, I was really disturbed how you reacted." Uhhuh. I like what do you mean? I was like I was like trying to help the bird. Like, you know, I love animals. I mean, I really do. I mean, one of the reasons I like doing the work I do now and said what I used to do is I don't have to work on animals anymore. I hated it honestly. And you know, I understand why it has to be done in many cases, but I hated it. So she said, "Well, just you're talking to this bird like he's an idiot." And I realized in that moment I was like, "Oh shit." I was like, "If you had said, "Oh, that poor girl. She's she's flying against the window. I've been like, "Oh, the poor thing. Like, she really needs it." You know, and I immediately realized this like strong sex gender bias that I had that if it that if a female animal is somehow damaging herself, like, "Oh my god, help her, save her." And with with him, same. If it's a boy, same thing. I want to help. But then my my assumption is you idiot. Like you idiot. Like like I would, you know, and I realize I grew up in a big pack of dudes and someone does something stupid. You're like, dude, you're an idiot. Like what are you doing? But it's a it was actually to me it was a it was a mode of affection. I'm sure I I upset some people by saying this. But in full disclosure, I just had this massive assumption and I've actually had to pay attention to that going forward, but I didn't realize I had that really strong bias. Again, this is all going to that mindset area of emotion regulation. I mean, parents have that with their kids. I can't tell you how many kids, you observe a parent with their son or daughter, doesn't it matter, and the kid is trying to um like climb a rock and the parent because of their own fears, you know, oh my god, honey, be careful, be careful, be careful. And all of a sudden, the kid is losing their self-confidence to climb the thing. as opposed to a parent who's skillful, you know, who checks their assumptions. You know, I'm nervous. Okay, fine. You're nervous. You know, you're probably your kid's probably not going to get hurt. Take a bre take a breath and maybe say something like, "Honey, gosh, that looks like it's really hard. I'm pretty confident you're going to get there. Let me just come a little closer to be there just in case something goes wrong, but I really do think you're going to make it." What do you think that's instilling on the kid? totally different way of thinking about it. And so that parents assumption and that person parents fears is being projected. If they were more skilled at co-regulating and recognizing my job is to instill resilience in my kid. My job is to help my kid feel like they can do it on their own because that's what this work on co-regulation I'm doing which I think is so important is this intentional. You're being super intentional about supporting other people and managing their emotions. But the the whole goal of it is to support the other person in being capable of regulating on their own eventually. Not codependent, not coddling, but actually instilling the belief in the other person that they can do it. I love that. I I guess what I'd love to know is is there a formal process or questionnaire, etc. to learning to understand one's own kind of the word bias is so loaded the word bias is biased but to really parse like oh this is how I conceive the world in and around emotions gender gender specific emotions because I think that' just be very useful because then it allows somebody to do what you just described and really know the difference between helping somebody get to the point where they can manage their work with their emotions on their own versus projecting our own beliefs around, hey, this is the way it's supposed to be done. Exactly. Yes. There are plenty of surveys actually in my book. I even give people a list of them. You can play around with that and just look at your mindsets and attitudes about them and you'll see patterns. I had no cognitive awareness that I had this weird relationship to happiness until I did my own exercise. And it was eye opening for me. And it's actually I've set goals for myself. It's like Mark, people want when they're applauding you when you're giving your speech, let them enjoy it. They're if they're applauding, it means it was good. Don't be like, you know, like breathe, be present, and take it in. And actually, it works. It's a beautiful phenomenon. The awareness of our programming can liberate us from so many painful things. Yeah, we spent a lot of time on this, which is interesting because I don't usually spend so much time talking about these assumptions and mindsets and beliefs. We spent some time talking about the vocabulary words, which is very important. And you got to be self-aware. Anger is not the same as disappointment. Envy is not the same as jealousy. Happiness is not the same as contentment. Anxiety, stress, pressure, and fear, and overwhelmed are all different. And I know people listening might be like, "Oh my god, you're overwhelming me." But, you know, we have our app that you've seen, the how we feel app to give you that vocabulary. And it really does matter. It matters for communication. It matters for getting your needs met. It matters for choosing the strategy. But again, it's not enough. So, you got to know how to breathe and you have to do your mindfulness work to bring the temperature down to still your mind. I mean, think about our minds nowadays. I mean, they're just the ability to process information has dwindled completely. Just to give you one example, we used to do like two and a half minute videos for trainings. People won't get through them. 30 seconds. I This is why people aren't learning anything anymore because you how you going to teach an emotion regulation strategy in 30 seconds? It's like an Instagram post. Of course, that's driving me crazy, too, because so many influencers are My favorite one recently was this very famous influencer teaching about emotion regulation. And she said, you know, I've decided to throw away my anxiety. And so, she's in the car and she opens the door and she's like, goodbye anxiety. And I'm thinking to myself like that door is going to hit you so hard in the face. But yet 3,000 5,000 25 whatever likes and people are like, "Oh my god, I'm throwing away my anxiety." It's like you can't throw away your anxiety. It doesn't work that way. The quick fix thing is an issue. Then we got to learn how to rethink our feelings. That's the programming we have to do. We have to learn some of the things that you've spoken about on other podcasts here. Whether it's the cognitive reappraisal, whether it's the reframing, whether it's the distancing, whether it's, you know, having gratitude as opposed to resentment and envy. I mean, I I never had anyone help me practice cognitive regulation. Nobody ever taught me there was even a I never knew there was a thing called reframing and it's saved my life as an adult because again we go in with assumptions about other people too and if you can say wait a minute Mark is there another way to look at this is there another story you can be telling yourself around this goes back to something we talked about earlier we want to be careful about that because in abusive relationships it can become gaslighting right honey you know you're too sensitive no you're a jerk I'm not too sensitive. You're trying to make me feel like, you know, bad about the fact that you're lying to me all the time. Not helpful. And that can be that's also reframing, but it's a form of deception, you know, where another person is trying to define your reality for you. Super scary. And we can do that to ourselves, too. We can trick ourselves into believing things that way. Reframing is playing with this idea of telling yourself a new story, but you have to always be a scientist about it. And that's the one thing about all the strategies is that you have to come back as a scientist and ask yourself the question, is this helping me live the life I want? Am I in a better relationship? Am I better able at managing my anxiety applying these cognitive strategies or these labeling strategies? I find psychology fascinating. Uh the reason I became a biologist, however, is because um I got confused by psychology and it's too big of a field. Well, and the field wasn't as evolved as it is now, as structured as it is now. But I remember thinking, okay, you know, I could see the argument maybe even the experiment for healthy expression of emotion allows that emotion to move through, allows us to be healthier physically and mentally. I can also probably find a manuscript that shows that the longer for every minute longer we focus on being angry that our anger grows. And I don't know what the answer is. I I um I sense it's that's probably not the case. But I just remember being very afraid of the contradictions. Absence makes the heart grow fine fonder. Out of sight, out of mind. I was like, which one is it? Exactly. And of course, it's both, right? I mean, and that's the complexity of the human mind. So, I decided to think about cells and circuits instead. And um served me well in my career. I probably in my life, I I remain intensely interested in the sorts of issues we're talking about now, including these generational differences. And and here's my question. Typically most work, school and other environments are hierarchical in the sense that the older people have more seniority and more power. I sense that nowadays there's an understandable concern and interest in young people's emotions and emotional processing. But I also get the sense from my peers that there's this kind of fear of the younger generation like they're actually in control. I just got through doing three two-hour long trainings because Stanford understandably has you do like harassment training and workplace safety, workplace violence. You know, you have to learn what the rules are. And I was very surprised to realize that all faculty and staff and some posttos take this training. Students don't take it. Meaning you have two completely different views of what the rules are. And this is not unique to Stanford. This is unique to a lot of big organizations. And um it's not even a criticism. I I'm sure like everything at Stanford there's a rationale but it's kind of interesting. You would hope that there would be a universal at least nomenclature just like we know what mitochondria are here and in Nicaragua. It'd be nice to know that agree, you know, anger and disappointment, while those words are spoken differently in two different countries, that there's sort of a a basic universal understanding of what emotions are, what they're not, how much comes from our past, how much is about our physiology, and kind of how to work with them. And I'm not saying this is going to solve all the problems in the world, but a lot of the problems that I see out there are misunderstandings about where the line is. That's [ __ ] No, that's healthy emotional expression. Okay, that's anger. No, that's passion. That person's a narcissist. No, that person just isn't spending a lot of time thinking about their own thoughts. And on and on and on. I'm certain that one of the reasons your work and your colleagues work is so important is because we need a universal nomenclature. We need an agreement that there's at least a way to understand and navigate this stuff. This is why the work I do in schools, it's not like a teacher comes to a training and does it in their classroom. It doesn't work that way. I learned this the hard way. It's got to be a systemic approach. The leaders, the teachers, the students, and the parents need all the same language to describe the work we do on emotional intelligence. It makes a huge difference. The superintendent can go into the kindergarten room and have that same conversation. We all know what these emotions mean and we're all thinking like scientists around emotions. I want to just go back though because something you said I think is important to address and I wish I only wish that there was the correct answer to how we should feel and what we should do with our feelings. It just doesn't work that way. A funny story about this. So I'm giving a speech to500 police officers who I don't think were told in advance that some guy from Connecticut was going to be giving a speech for three and a half hours about feelings. And so I walk into the room, it was like out of a freaking movie. And all of a sudden it's like and we're welcoming Mark to talk about emotions and all of a sudden you can see these facial expressions and like some of the I mean these guys were s people who can't see me right now like slouching and there's like you know their guns in their pockets. I'm thinking to myself, what have I gotten myself into? And so I start, you know, playing around. I'm telling jokes. I've got to figure out how to meet these this group. And the thing that struck me that I haven't forgotten was one guy just stood up and he's like, "I'm not sure I'm interested in this." I said, "Okay." He said, "But I am. I do want to know one thing, doc. What's the only strategy that works?" And I said, and of course, I'm a psychologist. Like, it doesn't work that way. There's many strategies. It's an emotion by person, by context phenomenon. And I people are so desperate for the right answer. I think the beauty of it is that it's messy. The beauty of it is that it's a journey. The beauty of it is that it's a process. The beauty of it is that we have to ask ourselves questions over the course of our development. Is how I'm living my life working for me or against me to achieve my goals? And we have to check in with other people like our partners and our friends and our kids and whoever else and our colleagues. And I hate to say that but the people who you know are dying for the correct strategy. There is no correct strategy. Every you know I worked as a fitness instructor for 10 years of my life while I taught martial arts. I saw so many people use exercise as a way to escape their reality. They just were on the treadmill for 10 hours a day with an eating disorder who were just thinking this is, you know, my healthy strategy and they were ruining their lives. The same thing with food, the…

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