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The cost & courage of caring - stories that spark resilience.
Welcome to this week's episode of
the Caregiver's Podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Mark Ropolesky, and you can call
me Dr.
Mark.
Caregiving has always demanded a
lot from people.
It asks for patience.
It asks for judgment.
It asks for emotional steadiness
in moments that can feel
uncertain, exhausting, and deeply
personal.
But now there's something else in
the room with us all the time.
The phone, the feed, the news, the
endless scroll of fear, outrage,
uncertainty, conflict, and noise.
And for many people, it's no
longer just background.
It's shaping mood, shaping
thought, shaping family
relationships, shaping what we
believe is true,
and shaping how much of ourselves
is still available to the people
who need us and who rely on our
care.
So today, we are asking a bigger
question.
What does it mean to try to care
well in a media environment
designed to keep us distracted,
divided, and emotionally
activated?
Our guest today is media
psychologist Dr.
Pamela Rutledge.
And this conversation is about
what that environment is doing to
us.
why is it so hard to resist, and
how we can stay informed without
losing our clarity, our
relationships, or ourselves.
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It's totally free, and it helps us
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Plus, it means you never miss an
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We appreciate you listening.
Dr.
Pamela Rutledge, welcome to the
Caregiver's Podcast.
We're so happy you're here, and
we're really looking forward to an
amazing discussion today.
Thank you so much for having me.
It always breeds a certain
excitement at the beginning as
we're about to delve into an
amazing conversation,
and there's nothing I ever want to
do more than jumping right in.
So, Pamela, tell me, what happens
to us psychologically when we live
in a media environment designed to
keep us interrupted, hooked, and
just engaged all the time?
I think a lot of things go on, but
one is that our brains are wired
to be interruptible, right?
That was how we survived.
We paid attention to things that
moved.
We paid attention to things that
were dangerous.
So, anything that interrupts us,
we have to pay attention to
instinctively.
So, it takes a lot of intention to
recognize that we're no longer on
the savanna with saber-toothed
tigers,
that we're in a modern environment
that our brains weren't quite
created for.
So, it's a question of maintaining
your awareness of your behavior,
which is, of course, really hard.
But, it's really essential in this
media environment to be aware of
what you're doing and how the
media engages you.
It isn't just you engaging it.
It's an active participant in that
relationship.
Absolutely.
And I think we're going to explore
that a little bit further.
There's a difference between
hearing a rustle and leaves
wondering if there's a predator
there
to now hearing pings and
notifications and hearing about
likes and comments.
And, I mean, this is next level.
How do we understand that
conceptually, psychologically?
Well, the first thing I think
people need to realize is that not
all engagement with media is bad,
right?
That there's positive uses and
negative uses.
But what those pings and all of
those things are telling us is
that it's a social engagement,
right?
Those pings are because a person
liked us or because there's
something related to people.
And it's very hard for us to
resist social engagement.
That's one of the primary needs of
a human being, right, is to be
connected with others.
We saw that through all of the
research on attachment theory by
Bowlby.
And all of these people who, you
know, throughout the sort of
history of psychological research
and have shown how important
feeling connected to other people
is in terms of our general and
physical well-being, not just our
mental health, but, you know, how
we thrive physically.
So, recognizing that these are
proxies, as it were, little
symbols of people can help us
understand
why we're so reactive so that we
can take steps to make, you know,
make judgments about how much we
want to engage.
You know, for someone who's
already carrying the emotional
load of caregiving,
what does it do to the nervous
system to spend hours each day
cycling through what may also be
fear,
outrage, conflict, urgency, and
just short-form stimulation
constantly?
Right.
Well, you know, people like to
call that doom scrolling, right,
where you're scrolling
continuously
and you can't set it down and
you're looking at negative news.
But I want people to understand
also that sometimes just scrolling
through social media
leaves you feeling unhappy or
upset or distressed, right,
through social comparison or
whatever.
So, recognizing that what matters
is how it makes you feel, not the
content per se, right?
But so, when we're in an
environment where we're getting
all this negative information,
where people are angry, where
they're outraged, where things
that are making us afraid,
and right now everything's very
frightening out there in the
world,
it amplifies our own sense of fear
and our sense of vigilance.
Now, for caregivers, that's like a
double whammy, right?
Because you're already talking
about people who are in a position
where they have to pay attention
to the needs of someone else.
They're actually trying to
forecast what's going to happen in
the future
because that's how they provide
the best care, what's someone
going to need.
Have they taken their medicine?
Do I need to, you know, help with
this thing or that thing?
So, it's like taking somebody
who's already on hypervigilance
and ramping it up
so that they are in almost,
the brain at a certain point is
just going to say,
I'm checked out, right?
Where your brain just goes numb,
which means you're not only not
doing the job that you want to do,
but you're distancing yourself
from the relationships around you
that provide you with support.
I mean, some of it I could even
see going one step further
as, you know, there's more and
more awareness
that caregivers need to find space
to take care of themselves,
that you get that next level angst
that comes from the fact that
you're realizing,
I have not that much time for
myself
and all of these reels are telling
me
I need to be doing all these
things to be successful
and meet the tick boxes
and that just sort of leads to
next level cortisol surges
and almost compounding just the
to-do list of caregiving.
Well, it compounds, I think it
compounds everyone's,
but I think caregivers are really,
you know,
really in the target there.
And what we should, you know,
there's all kinds of interesting
research
that, you know, started with the
stress research, right?
About how once you're sort of
amped up,
it's very hard to go back down,
right?
Our neurotransmitters or our
neurons
are sort of hypersensitive to
stress and anxiety.
And we don't just like instantly
go back to normal.
So you've got all these people now
that are hypersensitive to threat,
right?
And that could be negative news.
It could be somebody, you know,
outraged about, you know,
something going on politically or
socially.
It could be somebody in your
family.
I mean, it doesn't have to be on
media,
but you are now overreactive,
right?
Which means you've got cortisol
running.
So it's not only bad for your
relationships,
it's bad for your health, right?
In other words, it makes it harder
to do all those things that we
want to do,
like get a good night's sleep.
Get some exercise and some quiet
thinking
and without thinking about the
whole world
and you just have a moment
to maybe think about nothing and
be in the moment.
Does dopamine at one point no
longer factor
and is it all just cortisol
driven?
So we always think about how we
turn towards
some of the, you know,
the effects of the reward of
dopamine.
But when you're already in such a,
stress state,
does dopamine not even factor into
it anymore?
And is it just all the stress
hormones
that take over?
Well, I think, you know,
it obviously depends on what
someone's doing.
And as you all well know,
that these neurotransmitters
aren't discreet.
It isn't like you get this one
and not this one.
This one, it's a very complex
relationship.
So if you get a ping that you
think is coming from
one of your social media accounts,
then you might get a little
dopamine,
you know, sense of reward
because you think that's, you
know,
someone reaching out to you.
We all respond that way.
That's, you know,
that's not an abnormal response.
But when you then go on
and now you're seeing negative
things
instead of positive things
or you're seeing somebody
having this fabulous vacation,
you know,
someplace where you'd really like
to go.
And so you're feeling left out.
You're feeling all these things.
Then you're bringing that back
into the world with you, right?
You've sort of created that
cortisol thing.
And to make matters worse,
you're now back in the real world.
You just wasted 20 minutes
watching somebody else's vacation
that sort of annoyed you.
And now you're not,
you didn't do your job
like you like to do it.
So you not only have the stress
of whatever happened,
but you have the
self-recrimination
because most people who are
caregivers
are very giving and empathic
people, right?
They want to do a good job.
And one of the challenges,
I think, of caregiving
is that a lot of it
is hard to find the reward
unless you're really looking for
it.
In other words,
sometimes progress
is the absence of decline.
Or sometimes progress
is making someone's life better
even under the worst of
circumstances.
And sometimes it's incredibly
rewarding.
It's just someone who needs help.
But I think we have to recognize
that caregivers in general
are people very empathic
and very sort of internally
responsible,
wanting to do a good job
in an almost impossible situation.
So, you know,
one of the things
that I like to think about
is how can we take
all those thoughts
that we're having
and, you know,
they're not alone
in having, you know,
self-recrimination.
I mean,
I can self-recriminate
with the best of them,
but how do we recognize
when we've got
that internal voice going
so we can do something about it?
And convert
some of that negative energy
to maybe a little bit
of self-compassion
as a caregiver
or grace
in the moment
and presence
in the moment.
So has short-form media
really reshaped
our attention spans?
And if so,
what is it actually doing
to our ability
to reflect,
self-regulate,
and think critically?
Well, you know,
there's,
the research is pretty
conflicting on that.
And right now,
we're sort of
in a massive moral panic
about social media
in general
and how it's,
you know,
destroying Western civilization.
But we've actually
been through
that moral panic
with video games
and the radio
and books
and all back
through history.
But I think
that we just need
to realize,
first of all,
that this is a unique
period in time
that there is
a huge amount
of information
available to us.
And I think of it
a little bit like
going to a buffet,
right?
If you go to a restaurant
and you have a few things
to order from the menu
and then you order
the turkey leg
and then you get
the turkey leg,
right?
But if you go to a buffet,
there's all of these
choices that you have.
You can taste them all
so your instinct
is to say,
okay,
I need to taste
all these things
and figure out
which ones I really like
because there's
an opportunity cost
in picking the wrong thing,
right?
In a much different way
than if you don't
have many choices.
So what we're faced
with is this
buffet of information.
So the initial response
for anyone
is to run all around
and, you know,
see what's out there
and try all these things.
most people
after experimentation
will then start
to curate their behavior
and their engagement
to the ones
that matter to them.
Those aren't always
the most positive ones
but people do tend
to narrow down
their engagement.
I'm not sure
that you could call
that influencing attention.
I don't think
that it's fair
to judge
the most effective way
to navigate
this environment
by old standards.
I think it's really important
to recognize
that what we learned
before social media
is important
but this is a completely
different environment
and we have to figure out
what's effective
and adaptive
in this environment
not just what is
different from before.
So I haven't seen
evidence that
attention spans
are diminishing
as much as
that people
are trying to manage
too much information.
Well, it's that notion
of the buffet, right?
If you haven't tried
everything
or you haven't gone back
multiple times
you may not be getting
the value
out of the experience
and with so many options
out there on social media
and so many feeds
you could see
where that sort of thinking
might
parallel.
but what about
self-regulation
and actually being able
to think critically
when you're getting
you know
so many quick hits
coming in
it seems like
that capability
might be eroded
by the current
social media schema.
Yeah, I think
it's an interesting question
whether it's
been eroded
or whether we're
an environment
that shows
the weak links
in our
abilities.
In other words
you know
this is about
the time
I haul out
my soapbox
and say
how come
we've got
this incredibly
powerful tool
and we haven't
been teaching
people how to
use it.
You know
we aren't
investing
in teaching
people
how their
brain works
or the
vulnerabilities
so that
they recognize
these things
in the same way
that we would
recognize
other behaviors
that we want
to control
so that
kind of
awareness
is something
that we
haven't
invested
a lot
in
so I
don't know
that if it's
whether or not
we have lost
the ability
to self-regulate
or whether
it's a muscle
that we
haven't strengthened
to the degree
that we need
it right now.
You know
there are
certainly lots
of instances
where people
have trouble
self-regulating
and there's
no media
involved at all
so it's
not exactly
you know
something where
we're like
oh what a
surprise
you can't
self-regulate
you know
it's a
genuine
issue
in terms
of balancing
our
near-term
goals
with sort
of our
longer-term
goals
or our
near-term
desires
with our
longer-term
goals.
What the
media does
do however
is it
makes it
very difficult
I think
to get
to
intentionally
step past
these
near-term
desires
in other
words
they're all
just right
right in
your face
front of
you all
the time
and so
you actually
have to be
very thoughtful
and think
about what
is it that
I'm trying
to do here
in you know
in my life
or in this
day or in
this week
or in this
job
and is
this behavior
going to
get me
there
and that's
the one
skill that I
think we're
really lacking
is identifying
goals and
how our
behaviors even
on a daily
basis are
fitting into
those
kinds of
things
well I'm
glad you're
here to
teach us
and to
follow up
on what you
just said
and we
certainly have
lots of
caregivers
listening and
if ever there's
a population
that could
benefit from
that learning
I think it's
caregivers
so on that
same point
then why do
people keep
going back to
platforms that
may even
sometimes leave
them feeling
worse after
they've engaged
with them and
after they've
deleted the
apps from
their phones
and then they
swear they're
done but there
they are back
again
well I
think any
behavior I
firmly believe
has a payoff
right in other
words we're
doing something
because we're
getting some
kind of benefit
out of it
now it's a
positive benefit
it may not be
positive in our
you know the
life scheme
but there's
some kind of
payoff so if
someone can't
stand to be
away from
some app or
some group
then you have
to say what
was that group
providing was
that group
providing a
sense of
belonging was
that you know
if I'm if
I'm you know
and I know
there are
different kinds
of caregivers
there's some
people who
choose this
intentionally and
this is you
know their
life's work and
there's some
people who
have for one
reason or
another been
put into the
position where
they are a
caregiver and
it might not
have been their
first choice or
they're doing it
to support the
family or they're
doing it for
some other
reason so
there's all
kinds of
opportunities for
resentment to
build and
especially for
people who
have a kind
of caregiver
personality it's
very easy to
have an other
focus and and
sort of wonder
why no one's
thanking you
right in other
words you're
doing all this
stuff silently
you're managing
all this emotional
load you're
doing all of
this internal
work that's not
visible to
anyone and
and a common
thing for people
like that is
to is to not
know how to
ask for help
and to not
and to be sort
of waiting for
people to to
thank them
right I mean
it's kind of
like raising
teenagers right
if you're waiting
for your teenager
to thank you
you've got to
you know
you've got to
wait
but it doesn't
mean you're not
frustrated in the
near term and
so sometimes
these groups
are an outlet
for anger
or frustration
where people
validate those
feelings
now it doesn't
necessarily make
the feelings
better sometimes
it makes them
worse you know
it's kind of
like you know
god damn it
you know why
don't you see
me and
where you know
they could be
getting that
kind of connection
through a more
positive way but
if someone is
keeps going back
to something that
ultimately doesn't
make them feel
good then it's
really important
to step back
and say what
is it that's so
compelling what
am I trying to
do and if I
really need
support maybe I
should find a
group that's
positively supporting
not just gonna
make me more
angry now granted
that takes a
certain amount of
self-reflection
and so what I
hope is that that
the caregivers are
able to find
groups that allow
them to talk
about these things
in a positive
way right not
everyone can
afford a therapist
or has the time
to you know go
to you know see
a counselor or a
life coach but
there are all
kinds of groups
of people stroke
you know sort of
dealing and struggling
along with these
difficult questions
where they can
help you focus
on the sort of
meaning and
purpose of the
occupation even if
that means it's I
mean we all know
it's not always fun
but it's okay for
something to be
not fun and
still have meaning
and still have
purpose and that
you recognize that
there's this duality
it isn't all or
nothing and I think
that's a really
important thing to
to to think about
when you're frustrated
is that frustration
is normal but it
doesn't negate the
value of what you're
doing I think I
kind of went off road
there but well no
no not at all and
certainly I think a
crisis of meaning is
something that's really
at the forefront of a
lot of discussions
these days and it's
been popularized by
Arthur Brooks recent
work and that whole
notion that social
media may actually not
allow that part of the
brain that can seek
meaning and develop a
sense of meaning to
function as it's being
consumed by all of the
by a lot of short
feeds and quick
moments but I'd like to
change gears a little
bit because behind
all of this is an
engine and and the
engine's not designed
accidentally that the
media business sort of
the model depends on
attention capture and
emotional activation and
identity reinforcement in
certain circumstances but
if the business model is
to keep us engaged at all
costs are our fear
outrage and conflict and
online fighting part of
the product or do they
actually make us the
product that's desired
well first of all we
are the product so
who anybody out there
who thinks social media
is free it's not
right your attention
your data is how you
are paying for that
service right so you're
making a trade-off and
you know it may be that
that the problem with
these business models is
that it should be a
business model that
charges us actual money
and keeps it let us
keeps our data or you
know gives us that kind
of choice but the
idea that this is free
means people are a
little bit not paying
attention or unaware of
what they're really
paying in terms of
attention in terms of
giving someone attention
because on the other
side of that somebody's
making money off of
that there's more to
yeah yeah so what oh
no what do we pay
attention to things that
are emotional right that's
the biggest sticky goo of
of the internet is
anything that heightens
our emotion and you
see this a lot with we
with I mean the
structure is built like
that but you see this a
lot with influencers
right they'll they'll do
something that's a little
crazy and then they have
to do something a little
bit crazier and a little
bit crazier because they
keep trying to get
attention because it's the
eyeballs on their account
they're allowing them to
make money or allowing
them to get brand
subsidies so there's all
these levels of
monetization that
somebody's benefiting
from but you're not
getting a dime in the
mail so just be aware
that you're supporting
this income stream with
where you look and how
much you spend your time
online but you know
there's also there's
there's higher or higher
costs involved that maybe
we don't consider but
when every issue has to
be reduced to a three
second hook to win
attention of the viewer I
what gets lost in how
people actually understand
complex realities or
actually formulate their
opinions if you're relying
on three seconds
well I think people don't
formulate very much I
think it's it's it's a
problem of all of that
information that people are
not able to synthesize that
amount of information so
the solution to that for
most people is they
curate based upon what
feels right so if I'm
making judgments about who
I want to listen to I'll
pick somebody who agrees
with me because that feels
much better so it's a very
different information flow
than when there were
limited you know media
channels and there was
like ABC NBC and Walter
Cronkite and that was sort
of your menu to now where
you have infinite choice
which means that you
aren't exposed to as
broad a range of ideas
unless you make the
effort which means you're
not at doing what you're
talking about which is
thinking through things oh
that doesn't agree with
that well I wonder why
that is what else is out
there that will help me
understand this disparity
between these two people
all of this conflict has
has caused people to be to
sort of go down to a
little sort of you know
information bubbles right
little silos right that
that reinforce their
beliefs and it's being
socially promoted these
kinds of tribes in other
words it's how you show
your allegiance now
politically it isn't based
on facts it's like what
you sort of subscribe to is
an indicator of what group
you're in right so it's it's
it's almost become
antithetical to thinking
is how you interpret and
distribute information so
the problem isn't just the
media the problem is that we
have a social structure right
now that is taking advantage
of that that discrepancy between
information and fact
absolutely and the flip side is
that if you hear something
that you disagree with or
doesn't fit with your schema
you're going to shred that
you're not going to you're not
going to think about
alternatives or you're not
going to listen you know in
our 30 episodes in it's
amazing how one clip can
decide what a 90-minute
discussion is all about in the
opinion of some and it's a
it's it's been a it's been
fascinating as a host to to
witness some of that so when
news has to compete then in
an attention economy that
rewards outrage fear
division all of these things
does it actually stop informing
people but just merely keeping
them angry and afraid and just
addicted to the cycle
yes
short answer yes if it and it
goes back to the question of
intention right and it's sort of
like you know on tv you have
choices right you have and
and you have to make those
choices but with social media
somehow we are not transferring
that model of choice you know
some people people will say to
me oh you know this person on
facebook or instagram really
makes me mad and blah blah blah
and i'll say well block them if
you were at a party and someone
was annoying and you wouldn't
stand next to them why why would
you do it on social media but we
haven't transferred these um sort
of social skills of boundary
setting which are hard you know
on the best of times uh to an
online environment um and so you
know it's it makes it very
difficult when we aren't
exercising intention to combat the
people who take advantage of the
fact that that the human brain is
lazy
so when when people say that
this feels like programming or
propaganda what is actually being
exaggerated in that language and
what's actually true about how
repetition and framing and
platform
design shape beliefs in the end
well when someone says that's
propaganda that means this doesn't
agree i don't agree with this
these
days and you know propaganda was
really a term that we used to talk
about information that came from
the
other side right that you know the
enemy like that you know the first
propaganda stuff was world war ii
and
it was you know planes yeah well
in
trying to combat the story the
story
they were telling versus the story
that
we're telling and and you know
from
both sides the other guys the
information was propaganda and you
know with good reason because when
it's
our side we tell you the stuff we
want
you to know that makes us look
good and
we don't tell you the stuff that
we
really you know where we kind of
stepped in it so you know
propaganda
has become you know whether you
call
it misinformation or fake news or
whatever you want to call it it's
now
information that we don't agree
with
and because it's become so
attached to
identity when there's information
that
we don't agree with we tend to
write it
off rather than investigate
whether
there's any validity to it we
don't stop
and say well you know well what
would
that do or what would that policy
mean we
just go oh the guy's crazy you
know he's
you know he's whatever and you
know we've
resorted to name calling as a form
of
argument which is kind of an
all-time low
it seems to me but I suppose
during the
yellow journalism and all that
stuff back
in the day back back in the day
that you
know this isn't this isn't new
news but
we've lost the ability to have
conversations
about conflicting ideas which I
think is
is very sad because we don't learn
if we
don't have something that
challenges our
way of thinking it's foundational
to
all relationships you can see back
when
when those initial times when you
were
referring to you had two sides and
you
had a lot of people on each side
now it
seems like the propaganda machines
viewed
from one person to another
person's
opinion or to maybe a collective's
opinion but it's all I mean it
it's it's
so it's brought down to such a
micro
interactional scale compared to
the
original two camps that played off
each
other if you will yeah that's an
interesting byproduct you know
when we
know when the internet was first
got went
public and people are were really
excited
about the idea that it was giving
voice to
people who didn't have a voice
before
right but now we have an
environment
where we're sort of where the
loudest
voices are making us think that's
you know
common opinion and it it goes back
to what
you mentioned a minute ago about
frequency our brains rely on
certain
patterns to make sense of the
world
right and and always have and this
is you
know maybe maybe we need to have
some
kind of evolutionary adjustment
there but
when something we hear something a
lot
when it's something that agrees
with us
you know when it's something with
a little
bit of emotion in it all of these
things
increase the likelihood that we'll
take
something as a fact you know a
fact of
life you know whether or not it's
an
actual fact
so now we're in this position of
of
believing things that are just
frequently said rather than rather
than
researching and you know and which
leaves us in the position of not
want of of
you know claiming the other guy is
wrong
because if he's right then i'm
wrong and
then you know and now i have some
kind of
ego attack right they're attacking
me
because i'm wrong and so it makes
it very
difficult to to come to any
discussion it just seems like the
pace is
what's taken over and that you
when you
need to reflect you actually need
time
and you need to think of a couple
of
situations or a couple of
perspectives but
now when you're getting micro
bombarded with
all of these ideas quickly and
your
positioning depends on an
immediate
reaction quickly you can see where
the
whole process just falls apart
there is
no time afforded to for
deliberation and
self-reflection to come up with
opinion let
alone put your opinion out there
and risk
it getting um annihilated that's a
great
point because our initial response
is of
course always going to be
emotional because
that's the part that triggers
first
you know when social media was
first out
my nephew who was at that point in
middle school he really liked it
because
he was very shy and so when
somebody
would text him he liked having the
time
to think about a response but i
think as
you point out most people are
responding
instantly based upon their first
reaction
which is you know 90% of the time
an
emotional one not a thoughtful
cognitive
one so we're being activated but
not
necessarily informed right we're
going to
take a little break folks and be
back
shortly with our guest pam
rutledge so you
know as as someone who has been
making
content and producing content for
almost
20 years now when i started social
media
was positioned as something that
was going
to bring us together it was
something that
would you know democratize the
ability to
share opinions and there wasn't
like
suddenly the gatekeepers that
controlled
who got to you know sit in front
of a
camera microphone disappeared and
it felt
good initially to be part of that
and i've
just from for myself even though
we're
producing a show that's about
supporting
caregivers and bringing really
important
topics to you know to people and
to
audiences i still i still i've
started to feel
like over the last couple of years
that
i'm almost working for like you
know big
tobacco because i'm aware of i'm
aware of
how toxic it is in general so even
when
you're trying to as a creator put
something
good into the world i still feel
like i'm
working within a system that is
corrupt and
and toxic a lot of the time and so
what's
your perspective on that like like
we were
almost forced into working for
these
platforms by creating this content
and we
know that you know it's not good
for kids
and this platform is you know
countries are
looking at banning this platform
for like
under 16
what's your sort of thought in
participating
in this even when you're trying to
do
something positive
okay well you know so first of all
a lot of
this reaction that you're talking
about you
know we don't know that it's good
for kids
that's actually not true the
research
doesn't really support that in a
kind of
broad way what the research says
is like we
were talking about early it can be
good or
bad depending upon how you're
going to use
it right and so while i agree with
you that
this system is set up to reward
the kind of
content that gets people's
attention it
isn't the only kind of content
that people
listen to right so it's one of
those things
where you i would say don't
abandon you
know the good fight right and
don't don't
just say okay well you know you
jerks can
have it all you you say this
matters and this
is something i put out there i'm
sure that
the people who listen to you know
your
podcast aren't you know looking
for the
thing that's going to be the most
scintillating they want some real
information they want a sense of
connection knowing that there are
other
people out there dealing with the
same
kinds of things that they're
dealing
with that's an incredibly valuable
emotional validation right and so
maybe
it's only 10 000 people instead of
million people those you know it's
in the
years that i was was doing therapy
which
was brief before i went back to
studying
media because it's a lot more fun
is that recognizing that if you
change
someone's trajectory just a little
bit it's
like shooting for the moon right
you aim for
the moon and you go that way you
move it a
little bit and you are completely
out
there someplace right so you don't
need
to make a lot of change for people
you
need to shift their thinking just
a little
bit to have that make logarithmic
change
down the pike and and so i think
that's
why you know why i agree to do
these
podcasts why you are doing these
is
because you're trying to put out
something of a positive nature in
an
environment that while it doesn't
necessarily
reward that is accessible to
everyone
right so someone who wants to hear
it can
hear it and they can hear it for
free well
with their internet feed but you
know it's
the the fact that it's not getting
the most
clicks i mean that should tell you
actually
that's a good thing so i mean in
an iron ironic
kind of way well thanks for that i
feel
better about uh showing up for the
good fight
each day now
but i agree with you that's what i
thought
too
back to the show we're back from a
break
we're here with pam rutledge media
psychologist and expert in the
field
pam i have this question that i've
been
thinking about a long time are we
now
almost living in a fractured
reality where
different media ecosystems whether
it's fox
or cnn or the online worlds built
around
them aren't just shaping opinion
but
they're constructing entirely
different
versions of the world around us
yeah i think that's true to some
degree that
that if we aren't willing to
recognize the
bubble that we're in if we aren't
willing to
look for challenging voices then
we are in
danger of creating one of these
filter
bubbles one of these realities
that where
our view is not going to mix with
the view of
the person next to us and you know
it's
obviously causes conflict
politically but
i would also encourage people to
recognize
how that mindset of you know my
way or the
highway of this is my reality is
very also
a very difficult in relationships
in other
words if you have that have the
habit of
thinking that you know your
reality is the
only way or your perspective is
the only
way it translates to all of the
aspects of
your life so it's really important
to
that to evaluate you know if
you're willing to
accept other people's reality even
in a
partnership or even in a caregiver
situation
or from a you know a boss to a you
know an
employee that everyone has their
own
perspective and so it's by
understanding that
point of view that allows you to
have an
actual relationship to meet a
common ground
now you know maybe you don't want
to have a
relationship with some of these
people
but for the most part having that
a point of
view where you're saying well
isn't that
interesting that's not how i see
the world
so tell me how you see the world
you know can be very helpful in
breaking down
barriers you know husband and wife
you know
partners mothers and children i
mean we see
it a lot where the technology
changes so fast
that there's a big difference
between the
parent generation and the child
generation
you know and that was a very
interesting
thing to me about all the initial
video game
research is that nobody asked the
kids what
it meant to them everyone was just
absolutely
certain that you know certain
types of video
games or certain types of content
was doing
something to the kids point of
view but nobody
asked the kids in it and it
reminded me of a
time when i was early in in my
career and i
was uh i was doing clinical work
and i was
working at an eating disorders
clinic and
everybody was on the rampage about
barbie at
the time poor barbie anyway you
know so i i have
middle schoolers and i like to my
daughter it's
like you know does do dolls like
barbary ever
bother you do they make you think
you're less
than right and and my daughter
looked at me like
i was out of my mind she goes mom
it's a doll
right it's like you know why is it
that you think
somebody who has you know feet
that you know
smaller than her hands why that's
going to
influence my body image and i
thought that was
so revealing i mean i know that's
not true of
all kids but asking kids what
these things have
meaning you know what have meaning
it has for
them is really important so asking
people
what is their reality what do they
see as the
reason things are happening or
their truth or
however you want to say that is a
really
important step in building you
know closeness and
intimacy and you know i don't mean
sexual i just
mean you know being able to share
you know in a
meaningful way so i think that's
the real
downside of of all of these
realities is losing
that habit of listening we hear so
much these days
about the crisis of isolation and
the crisis of
loneliness and that could mean
your strict
isolation from your neighbor who's
got a
different opinion for you or the
person who lives
two doors down and what a shame
that is if you
can't actually speak and
understand and
find the middle ground or at least
explore it
together what happens to society
when politics
stops being just a set of beliefs
but really
starts functioning as identity
tribe and almost
of religious proportions
boy um you know i i i know there's
going to be some
historical um evidence that that
shows that we
you know we sort of we can make it
through this and
as my husband always says it's a
big country and it
takes a lot of killing um but i
think that it's it's
very detrimental to
the way we approach each other and
the way we make
choices because we don't we don't
think about well if
we don't like this then where's a
common ground right in
other words we seem to have lost
the middle now what i
hope is that people become
disenchanted with the extremes
enough to find the middle you know
the silent majority i
mean there's an awful lot of
people out there who aren't
making noise who aren't
particularly happy right on both
sides so what i hope is that that
that shows up
someplace else and you know
preferably the voting booth
um it doesn't need to be on social
media
and and i think the question is
and this speaks to something
um brought up earlier the question
is how do you
balance what you're hearing on
social media with a somewhat of
more reasonable voice how do you
bring
you know help social you know
validation to people who are doing
what your caretakers are doing how
do you
acknowledge that you see the
challenges that they face
when it's not sexy or you know
antagonistic or um or any of those
things and but you do right you
keep bringing that
out and i think that's one of the
reasons that
podcasts have become so popular is
that people are a little bit
fatigued by you know insta
information
and you know well you know you
know it's it's a little bit
different if you're a
teenager right because your whole
developmental task as a teenager
is trying
to figure out how to navigate your
social world so having lots of
pictures of
lots of people doing things is
kind of you know helpful right
because you're
like oh more of this more of that
like i should wear that that yeah
yeah so you're
you're you're you're operating at
a completely different level but
i'm
encouraged to see people
listening to podcasts i hear it
more and more people oh i listen
to podcasts or you
know that they're listening to
people discuss things now
sometimes it's you know
celebrity things and sometimes
it's it's you know useful and
valuable things like
you all are doing but people are
taking the time to sit with a
conversation
and you know it's it's sort of the
new talk radio right i mean it's
it's allowing
people to take an idea and develop
it and no matter how frivolous
that idea is in
some cases the fact that you're
with it and developing it is a
good cognitive exercise
i mean maybe we just need to
reinvent the echo chambers because
certainly you know one question
always comes to mind is like how
do the media echo chambers
actually deepen the process of
identification and the tribalism
almost by just constantly
reinforcing what people already
believe
and rewarding them for staying in
that space
well they have you know these echo
chambers have the advantage which
is that
people are innately driven to be
feel like they're part of
something right they want to have
social
connection and if you go back to
some of the theories like
self-determination theory people
you know that's one of those core
needs being connected feeling like
you're agentic like you have
choice
and so you go into these groups
that reaffirm your sense of self
and if in fact society is feeling
disconnected and we know that you
know there's less community
engagement and all of those kinds
of
things and if people are feeling
um disconnected then those kinds
of environments supply a genuine
need
and and so the question is how do
you supply that need and and still
allow people to not
have such a narrow worldview and
and i think that's that's a hard
one
i mean what has to happen
psychologically for someone to
break out of an ideological echo
chamber when
changing their mind no longer
feels like updating a belief but
rather you know risking their
identity
relationships and sense of
belonging yeah i think that you
know this is one of those things
where
i think if people had you know we
have we have all these regulations
about you know banning this and
banning that and keeping kids from
here none of these regulations or
efforts legislative efforts
fund digital literacy in the
schools none of them right but if
you know that there are these
problems
then when it happens you can see
it it's sort of like pre-bunking
you know that whole theory about
if you give people some
misinformation so they recognize
it then they're less likely to
believe
it so if you give people the tools
of critical thinking and you say
well who is this benefiting who
sent me this message you know
what's what's going on here then
you're going to have less of that
it's much more difficult once you
get people into a tribe you know
it's a little bit like a cult
right there's a payoff to them in
in terms of how they feel about
themselves and their acceptance in
the group and groups are vicious
in reinforcing membership because
if somebody leaves then they
have to question their own
membership so it isn't just about
me being there it's like i need
you to
be in it too because you being in
it makes me feel like i'm doing
the right thing so how does that
constant reinforcement than an
exposure to the whether it's
partisan media or um certain
beliefs
and compound that with the
algorithmic reinforcement how does
that reshape how people see and
relate to
those who actually disagree with
them including maybe even friends
family or the person they're
caring for
i mean you can see where there's a
big backlash potential yes yeah
and i think that's that's a real
um problem with these with these
tribes is that is that we hear all
the time about people who
you know they won't visit their
family anymore because their
family doesn't vote the way they
do or they
and and so this is one of those
cases where you where if you're
talking with someone you have to
say well
what are you losing by taking this
position right people are very
loss averse right that's we don't
we know
that from you know the all the
work by kahneman tversky and all
those people that that people
don't like to
think about loss and so what are
they what is this costing them to
take this stand and is it worth it
and how
how could you get back to the
middle ground but you know it's
it's not one of those things
that's going
to magically happen i mean i think
it that somebody is sort of like
alcoholism somebody has to want to
change before they actually change
and if they're getting payoffs
from being part of the group then
the
only thing that will change that
is having that group fall out of
favor and they have to look for a
new way of
being and so it will be very
interesting to see if these
political swings result in
more conflict or with people
scurrying about looking for new
tribes well imagine if the
algorithms actually
somehow figured out how to keep
that sense of loss aversion
subdued and that there was some
way of just
having the churn keep that
fleeting moment of loss a sense of
loss just subdued so that there's
no
aversion at all that ever creeps
into the decision process or the
engagement process that would that
would be wild if it's programmed
to that level of granularity well
it's it's it's programmed to the
level where it will try and keep
you engaged no matter what right
which is why when we've you know
very first started talking about
doom scrolling why you have to
make some intentional decisions
and boundaries about how you're
going to use media right so all of
these things we're talking about
are sort of society level things
but if you're an individual and
you're sort of awash in your
social
media and i you know and it's very
understandable that someone who
you know is doing a very difficult
job
might want to escape into you know
some other thing you know like
whether it's instagram or tiktok
or
whatever um in the evening to
relax is is to recognize how much
you're doing it and to keep track
of how
it makes you feel and people can
do this just over a few days
there's just jot down i did this
and then i felt
that um so that they understand
their own patterns because like i
said not all of it's bad some of
it
watching funny cat videos is very
healthy right it changes your body
chemistry makes you smile
but listening to somebody rant on
about you know somebody that they
think did something wrong or
something
political just ends up making you
more anxious more outraged and
less agentic it makes you feel
like
you're a victim because there's
nothing you can do about it right
not sitting there watching tiktok
for
heaven's sakes right but so you
end up feeling worse so
recognizing those patterns and
then saying okay
you know i'm going to use you know
instagram for 15 minutes and i'm
set my alarm you know so after 15
minutes i know that's when you
know it's sort of enough um and
and what i tell people about doom
scrolling is pay attention to the
point where the information is
repeating you're not getting more
information you have enough to
understand whatever is out there
that's understandable your goal is
comprehension not volume and at
the point when something comes by
again you're like okay it's
kind of like doing a literature
review at the point when you start
seeing the same articles over and
over
it's like okay i'm done right that
you you aren't getting more
information and so what you're
risking now
is your peace of mind and say okay
now it's time to stop so you make
these before you start using any
media you make rules i'm going to
watch two episodes i'm going to do
that for 15 minutes i'm going to
something right and if i find
myself in one of these negative
news wormholes i'm going to
intentionally
look for something happy right
after that i'm going to go listen
to goats scream like people or i'm
going
to you know i'm going to you know
i'm going to do something that
makes you giggle something that
makes you
laugh so that you are offsetting
the negative motion now the
trouble with being a caregiver i
mean you
know among many i'm sure and don't
mean to diminish this but is that
you your job is to look for
trouble
right so doom scrolling is a
natural response to that instinct
of making sure you can control
everything
and everything's going to be okay
but in fact you can't control the
news and it will make you feel
worse
not better if you aren't just
staying caught up but you're sort
of deep diving into the worst of
it
and you know and letting your
emotions you know sort of play to
your emotions rather than to your
understanding of what's happening
in the world so pam how does this
new media reality then begin
to actually erode our ability to
care for each other to give to
each other inside our own families
even
well it it doesn't have to but but
like all things it means that you
have to make choices
and the media has what came so
quickly and and relatively
speaking so compelling compared to
anything else that we'd
experienced that people were in
the deep end of the pool before
they even knew it
was time to swim so it means
actually making intentional
choices about how you want to live
your day and and using whatever
structural tricks you know the
same way we we trick ourselves
into
getting up in time to go to work
we set the alarm right because we
really can't count on waking up
automatically all by ourselves
right so we have a structural
support for doing something that
we need to
do or that we want to do right but
it's the same way with if if media
is taking us someplace where we
feel
like we are not in the driver's
seat then you say well what
structural supports can i have
that will allow me to reclaim my
control over my you know over my
life or my car or my hour or my
day
um you know and some of that is
okay i'm going to instead of
picking up my phone automatically
at the end of the day i'm first
going to have a cup of tea
and sit for a minute right so you
create rituals associated with
habitual behaviors
or you say okay i'm going to
decide that
my you know bed is a tech-free
zone now i realize that's hard for
those of us who also use our phone
as
our alarm clock but you know
figure it out right get alarm
clock right but to establish
boundaries
that support the kind of behavior
that you want to have because most
people do not feel good about
themselves when they realize they
just wasted an hour on facebook
you feel horrible right but it's
entirely preventable if you
recognize that once you get into
facebook you have a hard time
remembering to
blog off so you set an alarm the
same way you would to get up or
end a nap or you know or
you know and it's not a sign
you're weak it's a sign you're
strategic
yeah and and that's what i want
people to know this isn't your
fault right this is how our brain
is wired
right so you have to make choices
based upon your own
vulnerabilities
so that it you know so you're in
charge so that you can take
advantage of those innate
responses not
you know meta
so what happens inside a family
when an older adult spends six or
eight hours a day inside
a media stream that just keeps
reinforcing fear and grievance and
ideological certainty
you know a couple things happen
the first is that in a family the
children
will observe the parents behaviors
right in terms of media use
so the best way to get kids to use
media responsibly is to use media
responsibly yourself
so there's sort of that element
that's the sort of behavioral
the other is that the act of being
on media for that much
removes you from the group in
other words you you might be
sitting there in your chair but
your
brain is elsewhere right so
there's distance so you've now
created distance between the
relationships
and if your point of view is
different from the people in your
family you've created another kind
of difference because now there's
all kinds of things you can't talk
about it's like my sister
says at thanksgiving no politics
and it's which is funny because we
pretty much all agree um but she
still has that rule um but you
also
you also now are intractable which
means that any question a child or
another adult wants to ask you
they're not going to ask you
because you're not listening
you're telling
and you know if if there's any
rule in parenting it's listen
first
right and then you know hold the
lecture right no teenager wants to
hear a lecture
um so it's it's very damaging and
guilty as charged what listening
and lecturing before listening
yeah
it's a skill it is it is but i
find you know with all this media
that the kids experience is so
much
different that if you know and
some things that just seem to us
crazy it's like well explain to me
why you follow that influencer you
know what is it that you like
about them and
and it and it's very likely going
to be something that you didn't
notice
you know it like or maybe a
different value system which we're
not attuned to
but just yeah completely different
i used to joke that well you know
i would show a picture of a
living room to my husband i would
say isn't that a pretty room and
he'd say i don't like that couch
and i was like no i meant the
colors right so we see different
things and so it's anytime that
someone else likes something it's
it's worth taking the time to say
why is that matter to you
why is what's the value there and
help me see it and then once they
tell you it it then you can say
well you know what worries me
about those things because you're
owning that you're not saying well
that's
really stupid don't you see that
something you're saying what
worries me is xyz does that worry
you
um and it's and it's remarkable i
don't think we give kids enough
sorry i don't think we give kids
enough credit for being thoughtful
about this stuff because they're
very insightful about a lot of
this especially once they've been
made aware of how it works these
relational interactions are so
so important and not just in in
partnerships but in in families
yet i think that's something
that's being
tuned away from engagement i mean
i'd love to know what you think
about this but because has the
media
just become an arms dealer for an
endless ideological war almost
like supplying both sides with
outrage
gotcha lines moral ammunition
because conflict is what's keeping
us engaged not reasonable
discussions
relational commentary um you know
respectful questioning and
disagreement well there's that's
certainly an element of what's
going on but if you you know but
some people go online to see what
people are wearing or how to learn
to knit or how to churn butter or
you know you know how to repair
their carburetor you know so there
there are all other kinds of other
ways that social media and
internet
access um provides opportunities
to connect with other people or to
learn about things or you know we
wouldn't have met if it weren't
for the internet so so i think
it's important not to forget the
upside and
to recognize that we we want the
tyranny of the minority right that
all of these loud voices are
not the whole and and the only way
to battle is to say i'm going to
keep doing the good stuff
funny story my mom who's 86 just
moved from her house of 50 years
into a
a uh condo in a senior's residence
and the um the weather this year
in montreal has been pretty rough
and
she didn't make it out for a
couple of weeks and when i got
there uh recently i had car
trouble so
ended up ubering to her place from
about 50 miles out and um there we
were just ourselves for the
weekend and she says i have no
food i have barely anything in the
fridge and i i looked in the
fridge
and then this recipe i saw on
tiktok came to mind and i made
dinner for mom and um so to that
you know
a funny story just to sort of
capture the fact that if if you
self-curate a little bit
there is a valuable place for it
and little things can be learned
little things can be learned and
you
know and you know with when my dad
uh was in a retirement community
he used facebook to keep up with
what all the the grandkids were
doing you know because they were a
college hither and yon and and
and so when he when the family got
together the holidays it wasn't
like well what have you been up
to son it was like i really
enjoyed your choral performance
right he wow you know he was able
to sort of
see what and they you know and the
kids use facebook just so grandpa
would know what was going on but
but it was the glue in between
these relationships that matter to
these people but they didn't have
other ways of regular contact
because you know pretty much no 19
year old is going to spend a lot
of time on the phone with their 90
year old grandfather so it was
really important
as a as a means of providing that
kind of emotional glue
that's wonderful you know we've
all become so much more alert to
the risks of social media and
you've
alluded to children earlier but
are we all equally vulnerable to
sort of the capturing effects of
media or
or do older adults even face other
risks just because they're so used
to the world having
started with there only being
three tv channels and now all of a
sudden uh they're faced with
endless
short-form content being bombarded
at from every direction well so
the first question are we all
equally
vulnerable yes we are all equally
vulnerable people who are in
positions like caregivers who are
in
in stressful positions you know
and this is first responders all
of these kinds of people where
they're on high alert a lot of the
time are going to be more reactive
to the negative emotions and so
that's where it's important to
sort of you know take some
self-care and there's all kinds of
self-care
you know one is taking a hot bath
and another is turning off your
phone so you know it's it's sort
of recognizing
recognizing recognizing
recognizing that um i've lost my
train of thought um
ask me the question again i'm
sorry but just alluding to how
maybe even older adults who are
used to having three channels of
uh you know media input uh now are
suddenly just bombarded from every
direction and are they themselves
vulnerable and not just kids yeah
right and i'm sorry i just i know
where i was
going with that and i just it just
went off um one of the difficult
things about being old right is
that
we're used to the world in a
certain way and so there's this
presumption that something on the
media
has some kind of validation right
because initially if you made it
onto abc nbc or whatever
you must have been important right
because you made it through this
tremendous gauntlet
of you know and you know whether
or not you know that meant you
were sensible is an entirely
different
question but there was a level of
authority conferred on appearing
in the media
and so take any kind of anyone can
be of course online these days but
it's very difficult if you have
that
mental model of being on the media
confers authority to remember that
it doesn't and so someone
appearing
who looks sensible especially if
they were like wearing a doctor
coat or something right you know
it's
can be additionally believable if
you're holding that mental model
the other thing that makes older
adults vulnerable is that they are
at a period of life where they are
in fact more
vulnerable in all kinds of ways
right which means they are more
sensitive to fear so they're going
to be
much more vulnerable to scams
right you know maybe they don't
quite understand how the computer
works
or maybe they just are worried
that you know they're going to
lose their social security but
they are much
more vulnerable to information
coming in whether it's on the
phone or the computer and not
checking
so you know is that the fault of
the media no but it gives it gives
bad actors a lot more access you
know they were always there but
now they just you know have a
bigger rolodex as if that were
still a thing
it sounds to me like the answer is
not withdrawal but really
understanding how the system works
how we can
ration our attention ration our
attention ration our choices uh
protect our own attention span
um as you say setting limits that
let us
function care give do a whole lot
of things without being totally
consumed so you know what do
people
really need to know to understand
how media and platforms work if
they want to stop being
manipulated
by the very platforms and systems
they rely on to understand the
world like what are some of the
key tools that we should carry in
our back pocket just to sort of
keep ourselves framed in the right
context well the first is remember
that you are in charge of you you
have the remote you have the phone
you
have the off button so you know
it's sort of like just because the
phone rings doesn't mean you have
to
answer it and so you can make
choices and and all of those
choices are part of how you
establish personal
boundaries there are all kinds of
ways to turn off your
notifications you know silence
your phone make
tech free periods of the day all
of these tools are available once
you decide what it is you want to
do
so really the first thing is to
decide what it is you want to do
and the second is to then figure
out how what you're doing affects
you
and then once you know those two
things then then you can make
adjustments but
maybe the third thing is to
recognize that this is not a
willpower thing this is not you
know a deficiency
of moral values that you're
suckering into instagram right
this is a natural instinct the way
our brains
are worked and the way these
platforms are structured to get
our attention that we have
completely different
goals right our goal is
entertainment or information or
social connection their goal is
they're running a
business and they need to make
money and they're making money off
of your attention right expecting
them to have our best interests is
a fool's game right the only way
we can protect our interests is to
do
it ourselves so the recognizing
that you have the power and then
remembering to give yourself
compassion
and grace about you know if you
are on longer than you meant it's
like okay so next time you know
tomorrow i'll set an alarm learn
from these things anytime that
there's something that goes on and
i
think this is true for caregivers
in general learning how to reframe
these thoughts that you have
because we all beat ourselves up
recognizing it goes wild yeah yeah
the so recognizing the voice of
the
inner critic questioning it and
then reframing it right you aren't
being lazy because you sat down
for a minute to watch instagram
you need a break self-care is
important you can't do your job
without
self-care right you got suckered
into instagram you know you know
that doesn't mean you're weak it
means that
you were tired and you had less
resistance to the way the
algorithms are built so when set
some structural
things like an alarm or whatever
to you know provide you with the
structure that you need but it's
really
sort of taking charge and giving
yourself some grace and compassion
in terms of the whole thing
and being willing to say this
isn't what i want and i need to
make changes
speaking as or if we take the
position of someone who cares
deeply about the world politics
culture
how can you care about those
things without letting the media
and the algorithms pull you into
again
those tribal identity buckets like
that's next layer right compared
to what you just told us about
how do we prevent that from
happening well it is and it isn't
right in other words if you really
care
about those things then you're
following the news right but
you're following the news and
you're
reading different voices and at
the point when you're not getting
more information you stop
right because you know because
what you're doing is you're trying
to be a responsible citizen you're
trying to understand what's going
on from different points of view
so that you can make your own
opinion
right if you care about culture
then actually the internet is a
tremendous boon you can tour all
kinds of museums around the world
in virtual reality on your
computer you can have access to
all kinds of
things you know from musical
concerts to you know literature to
discussion groups all of these
things are
there if you want them so there
are ways of staying engaged there
are also ways of finding group
community
groups that care about those same
things where you can meet you know
with real people in person
um you know and and connect so i
think let's not you know throw out
the baby with the bath water
let's recognize all the benefits
that we can get you know did it
turn out quite like we hoped you
know free
you know bringing us closer to
democracy and every man has a
voice and all that stuff no it
didn't kind
of work out that way but you know
there are also bad actors in the
world who take advantage of
these kinds of systems and the
only way to protect yourself from
that is to develop awareness and
intention
and be very clear about what you
want and think about what what
you're doing is getting you there
so for caregivers especially
listening what are the true real
signs that you would
look for to acknowledge that your
media diet's actually informing
you rather than inflaming you
um well i think uh i like to say
you know evaluate your media use
for a few days
and see and monitor your mood you
know now sometimes things happen
in the world that are just
genuinely depressing right there's
a hurricane and people die i mean
things happen right so it's not
like you're supposed to be happy
every day that you read the news
but where you are getting enough
so
that you feel informed but you
have the ability to step away and
it's that sort of ability to step
away
you know that's enough i don't
need to read anything more about
you know prince harry you know
it's like
where you haven't gone down a
rabbit hole of pointlessness um
and then to remember that
along with the news there are
really fun things out there so
start to look for things that that
do
that are delightful that you know
make you happy and then also take
a few minutes every day to go
outside
you know physical touch of the
environment offsets cortisol and
so if in in especially as a
caregiver
where you're in a stressful
situation having a few minutes to
stand outside breathe fresh air is
a real reset
for your body you know whether or
not you're dealing with the media
or just a really tough day and
then recognize
that you can do meaningful work
even when it's hard and if not fun
right that the the not fun does
not
negate the meaning and purpose of
what you're doing you know i mean
these are the unsung heroes and
it's
very hard for people looking in
from the outside to understand the
weight of the emotional labor that
goes on in caregiving i like how
you allude to the fact that
meaning it shouldn't be so
erodible
by just a little bit of bad news
or the but or a little bit of
tension or that that the meaning
can still stay intact and we're
maybe more resilient than we think
well yeah and the ability to
counteract your negative emotions
with positive actually builds
resilience so it gets easier over
time so you're
not you know if you practice not
beating yourself up by reframing
things pretty soon you won't be
beating
yourself up as much anymore or
you'll automatically start
reframing that so it's it's an
important
practice and the other thing that
i would say to people all people
actually is every day spend a
couple minutes thinking of three
things you're grateful for that
has empirically been proven to
improve your mood your resilience
and your sort of general optimism
so it's it's it's especially
difficult
when somebody's in a hard job and
and they're in a period of
struggle with whoever they're
caring for
but if you can find three things
to be grateful for and it can be
just a cup of hot coffee
but take a moment to be grad
grateful will actually over time
transform your whole point of view
i couldn't think of a more
befitting
way to end our discussion today
but with that thought that you're
leaving us with i really wanted
to thank you today for breaking
things down into a language that
our listeners can understand and
that
restore some agency we hear that
word a lot these days but helps us
feel like we have a little bit
more control over our direction
and our destiny well you're you're
most welcome i think that's
the one thing people remember is
that any act that builds your
agency you know sort of builds the
whole
pyramid i mean that's that's a
really key that wraps up this
week's episode of the caregivers
podcast i'm
your host dr mark thanks for being
here leave us a comment leave us a
review uh share an idea we look
forward to hearing from you pam
what feels so important about this
conversation is that it reminds
us that attention is not a small
thing attention is where we live
it shapes how we think it shapes
how
we feel how we respond to each
other and for caregivers
especially it shapes the quality
of
presence we're able to bring to
the lives of the people who depend
on us if our attention is
constantly
being pulled into outrage fear and
division there's less of us left
for discernment steadiness
compassion
and care so i hope one of the
takeaways from today is that
protecting your mind is not
withdrawal
it's not indifference may actually
be one of the most responsible and
caring things a person can do
pam rutledge thank you so much for
being with us today
before we wrap up i wanted to
remind you of something important
the conversations you hear on this
podcast are here to inform to
support to spark reflection we're
not a substitute for professional
medical advice care therapy or
crisis services listening this
podcast does not create a doctor
patient or caregiver client
relationship between us if you're
facing a medical concern health
challenge a
mental health challenge or a
caregiving situation that needs
guidance i encourage you to reach
out to
a qualified professional who knows
your story if you're ever in
crisis please don't wait call your
local
emergency number or recognized
crisis hotline right away you
deserve real-time help and support
the
views you hear on this show
whether from me or my guests are
our own they don't necessarily
reflect
any organizations we work with or
are part of or have worked with or
been part of in the past
this podcast is an independent
production it's not tied to any
hospital university or health
care system thank you for being
here for listening and most of all
for taking the time
to care for yourself while you
continue to care for others i look
forward to hearing from you