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A father and daughter discuss life across their generations. Science, medicine, music, and whatever else they choose to discuss are on the table.
Aubrey
00:00
Like, cause obviously progress is never gonna be linear. Like you're never going to always just be on the up and up constantly. Welcome back to Generations. I'm one of your co-hosts, Aubrey.
Peter
00:24
And I am your other co-host, Peter.
Aubrey
00:26
So, how's it going?
Peter
00:28
It's great. Yeah. Aubrey, happy birthday.
Aubrey
00:31
Thank you.
Peter
00:32
Happy birthday. We're here together in person. We've been together most of the week. Yep. You guys have been out here from Wisconsin. And uh how you been doing?
Aubrey
00:44
I've been pretty good. It's real summer here, that's for sure.
Peter
00:47
It is nuts.
Aubrey
00:49
It is tropical.
Peter
00:51
Like yesterday, Christmas Day, it was in the 50s. Yep. The grass is still a reasonable degree of green. Yeah. Like Like I don't know what I find more disturbing if it's this the the temperature itself or if it is literally walking outside and seeing barren trees. Right. But still greengrass.
Aubrey
01:15
Still green grass, yeah. And I even brought like my fold-down coat from Wisconsin.
Peter
01:20
Yeah, you haven't needed that.
Aubrey
01:22
No, nope, nope, nope. Definitely Definitely not. It's like a light jacket.
Peter
01:26
Yeah.
Aubrey
01:26
Or nothing. Sort of weather. Which is crazy. It was really freaking me out.
Peter
01:31
It it really kind of is a it is an unusual winter. We had early in December, we had two days where it snowed. There were two days where I got out. I shoveled before I went to work. By the time I got home from work, I realized I had wasted my time. shoveling it was unnecessary and then yeah we've had nothing since then yeah I mean we've had rain right it has rained but that's all which is also
Aubrey
02:04
Weird too, because it feels like it's rained like three times since I've been here and it's a desert.
Peter
02:11
Yeah, it is just it it is It is a weird one to be sure, and I am a little worried that if something doesn't change, we're gonna have real problems. Um In the summer. Yeah. I mean it's it this last summer m most summers here will do well until sometime in August. And then at some point in August we'll end up with a lot of um a lot of smoke and it's it's smoky, you know, it'll there'll be times where even towards the end of August or something where It'll cool off enough at night that the the desire is to open the windows.
Aubrey
02:51
Yeah.
Peter
02:51
You cannot. You cannot because it will reek of wildfire smoke. Yep. We had not had that very bad this last summer. It was awesome. Um, I mean, I think of maybe one day where I I went outside and I was like It's a little smoky. I feel like I'm smelling something.
Aubrey
03:07
Yeah.
Peter
03:08
But but that was it. And I am really afraid that 2026 is going to be bad. Like all August long. Yeah.
Aubrey
03:19
Mm-hmm. It's just the air quality and like the people who already have hard time breathing, you know, like the sensitive groups. Yep. For like they just can't even go outside. that point. It's like just don't even bother.
Peter
03:33
It's gonna be, I don't know. We're gonna see. It's supposed to cool off the next few days, but there's not a lot of moisture in the forecast. So It's gonna get cold, but it doesn't look like we're still gonna actually get that snow.
Aubrey
03:45
Yeah.
Peter
03:46
I mean you can look because of the rain, you look at the tops of like Scout Mountain and stuff and you'll see some snow up there. Right. But it's it's bad. I don't know. Have you seen um I've seen all these videos of people posting pictures of them on ski lifts and it's just rocks and brush. You know, and it'll say something to the effect of it's like are non refundable.
Aubrey
04:12
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so bad. Real bummer. Yeah. But it's been fun to be here with everybody and be able to see the fam 'cause I mean, we haven't I haven't been able to see you guys since the wedding. So you know.
Peter
04:27
It's been good to have you guys. It's been a lot of fun to have everybody out here. And yesterday morning for Christmas was the first time in a number of years where We kind of had everybody together. Yep. And uh it was it was fun. It was really good.
Aubrey
04:42
Yeah, that was super fun. I'm not looking forward to going back tomorrow because it does mean I have to go back to work relatively soon. Yeah. But luckily 'cause of my job it's like out of school, so I do literally have a winter break. That's true. That's true. So I don't go back till the new year but Still.
Peter
05:03
And see already. On the flip side, I am extremely excited for Monday.
Aubrey
05:09
Oh, because you're off call?
Peter
05:11
So yes, I will be done with call Monday morning, so I'll be ending my ten days of call. Yeah. And usually, you know, I have my partner and I we have two amazing PAs who work with us and they take a lot of first call and help us out. But understandably they wanted some time off. They had vacation days to burn. It was the end of the year. And so I've mostly been on call solo most of these 10 days. And And you know, had basically a full day of work, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, yesterday had to go in. Uh, today went in for surgery this morning. morning. And so come Monday, I'm off call. I have clinic Monday, Tuesday, and then I'm off until Tuesday the sixth. No. That is nice. I am yeah I am looking forward to that.
Aubrey
05:58
Yeah, that'll be nice.
Peter
06:00
But we thought we could talk today about kind of, you know, it's the end of 2025. We're getting ready to start 2026. And anybody who has listened to us knows that we are both firm, firm, firmly opposed to the idea of New Year's resolutions. We are, uh, shall we say, haters. of the idea. Um Aubry Why, why are we haters? You want to give us a recap?
Aubrey
06:24
Yeah, well we are haters of the New Year's resolution because It's stupid. Because the whole thing is that you're trying to set these goals for the whole year. You're trying to like revamp everything that you weren't doing. the year before you're trying to do all these crazy new goals. That's like the trend is to like redo your whole self basically. for the new year.
Peter
06:52
And and one of the things that I notice, and and I will say, I grew up in a home and really what felt like kind of a culture. where this was what was expected. Yeah. Every January we'd do our New Year's resolutions and we would have, you know, family home evenings. The first Monday of every January. It was let's sit down and let's do our resolutions and Hated it so bad.
Aubrey
07:18
Yep.
Peter
07:19
And and the reason I hated that so bad is because I always came into that feeling profoundly guilty.
Aubrey
07:26
Yep. It's kind of just like, how did you how are you currently not where you want to be? But not in a positive way. It's like, right now see where you're failing and then make these goals to improve. yourself for the whole year. So there's these they're of a huge scope. Like these goals are crazy and unattainable because you're kind of seeing how you are not the way that you want to be and you want to fix those.
Peter
07:57
Yeah, well and and the other problem too, again, in the way it it was kind of always presented to me and and you hear this time and again where it's like, well your goals you need to write them down and they need to be very specific. And you know, we talk about you everybody I'm sure has heard of SMART goals. And I don't even remember what the s the acronym stands for because I I I reject it in large part. Yeah. But the problem was is we would sit down at the beginning of January. And we'd write down what were these resolutions, these goals, these things we were going to do different. And invariably you fall off somewhere and it's not Perfect and you you fail to some degree or another. And so then you come back the next January and it's like, well, let's look at our resolutions from last year. And you look at them and you're like, well, I did not actually accomplish a single single one of these.
Aubrey
08:50
Right, right.
Peter
08:51
And so then you feel guilty about it.
Aubrey
08:53
Yep.
Peter
08:54
And then you end up making new resolutions. And a lot of times you're just repeating the same old resolutions. because you didn't do them last year, maybe this year for some reason is going to be different. And you're going to be able to do it. And and you often aren't. And and so Like you you you make these very specific goals that then become very restrictive. in the ways they allow you to improve as a person. For example, let's say you say, my goal for this year is I want to get be healthier. Right. But then somebody's gonna be like, well that's not specific Specific enough. You gotta get, you know, okay, so what am I gonna do? Well, I'm gonna never eat a single carb all year. Well, of course you're gonna flub that up and you're gonna fail. Or you could say, well, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds. Now, let's say you work really hard that year and you lose 18 pounds, or you lose 10 pounds, or you lose five pounds, or you lose zero pounds, but in the quest to loot to try and lose that weight. You've changed habits. You you do eat better. Maybe it's not all the time. Maybe it's but but you've cut out a few things here. Or, you know, you're exercising more. You're more active. You've done positive things. you're still a failure.
Aubrey
10:08
Right. You still didn't make the goal that you set for yourself. So you still are failing.
Peter
10:12
And that's stupid. That's absolute bullcrap. Yep. So w one of the things that I know I adapt and I think even if we don't use the exact same term for it, I think we think about this very similar. And so what I like is a number of years ago listening to the Cortex podcast, they talked about their yearly themes. And they actually make a paper themed journal. And I've I've bought it and I've used the paper themed journal. I'm I don't know where I am on my paper versus paperless journey in life right now. I'm trying to use paper as little as possible. So I do have, you know, a number of different tablet, e ink, whatever devices to replace that. But needless to say. The idea behind this is you choose a an overarching theme for the year that then as you think during that year about how do I want to try and improve myself this year. you you ask the question, well, okay, well, is is doing X, Y, or Z, is that in line with my theme? And if it is, then great. And you work on it. And if it's not, then you say, okay, well, can I can I do something different? Should I be doing something different that really aligns with my theme? And the nice thing about the theme is you can't fail it.
Aubrey
11:24
Right. Because it's a theme. Correct.
Peter
11:27
It isn't something where you're hitting specific targets or specific marks. Right. It's a Here's how I am going to direct my choices and my actions for the following year.
Aubrey
11:41
Yep. And it's just like a light guidance. Like it's just to kind of guide your goals so that that you are you have some sort of end goal, I guess, but it's not like there's things that you need to be checking off for the theme that like if you don't check off these things, you fail. The theme at the end of the year.
Peter
11:59
Right. And so I I don't know how have you found that mindset to be to impact, to be effective to whatever in in your own life.
Aubrey
12:11
Yeah, I mean it's it's always just more like the point of it is to be more positive than negative. Like rather than beating down on yourself and failing these weird you know, like these tasks that you set for yourself instead it's just like a a positive nudge, like it's just kind of trying to guide you on a path to kind of reach an end. state of being, I guess. Like an and like everyone's trying to improve themselves. Everyone's trying to, you know everyone's trying to do some sort of self-improvement and so I feel like it's it's just so much better for me and for my mindset to feel like like because obviously progress is never gonna be linear like you're never going to always just be on the up and up constantly.
Peter
12:59
Like there's gonna be. I feel like progress is a sine wave and you just hope that You hope that the central line of that sine wave is gradually trending up.
Aubrey
13:08
Right, exactly, exactly. Right. Like and it the theme just kind of allows for that to be a natural way that things go, you know? It just like allows for the ups and the downs without the guilt. Correct. You know, which I which I just think is so much better for mental health in general.
Peter
13:27
I agree. And I think, and it is absolutely better for mental health, but I think that it's more, it's so much more productive. Yep. Because it's easy if you It's too easy for me at least. And I'm sure that there are other people who are who for whom much more specific goals work. And great. Yep. I'm glad for them. But I actually think that that is a small minority of people. Yeah. I think that they are the outliers and not kind of the general. And so as we think about kind of what's going to work well for more people, it is something that is a little bit more relaxed in that There aren't failures or successes. Yep. There's assessment. Right. There's that ability to look at the end of the day, week, month, quarter, year and say Okay, my actions, were they more in line with this theme or were they not as aligned? And and it gives you a chance to maybe sit back and say, uh you know, in this way, this This thing that I've spent quite a bit of time on is not really in line with my theme. Let me readjust. Right. But there's no, oh, you're bad, you failed, you suck, because you didn't. you were doing this other thing, it's just it's again, it's a it's a way to sort of course alter. And I don't want to say course correct, but more course alter.
Aubrey
14:58
It's just shifting. Like it's just a shift to be you know more aligned with that theme or whatever.
Peter
15:04
Yeah.
Aubrey
15:05
Yeah.
Peter
15:05
Did you have a theme last year?
Aubrey
15:08
I'm pretty sure I did and now I can't remember. remember what it is. Which is so funny. That's like just ironic. I feel like if we went back and listened to the episode, I would totally have one. But I can't even remember I think I think the theme was like something along the lines of just trying to survive because it was gonna be such a crazy year. I think that sounds familiar. Yeah, that sounds familiar, which I mean, I consider that a success. I'm on the other side.
Peter
15:34
You're on the other side.
Aubrey
15:36
I graduated, which honestly was kind of the only thing, was like successfully graduate so that the other thing can happen so that I can move across the country so that I can do these other things. So I call that a success.
Peter
15:51
I under I um my theme last year was I titled the year of conscious action. Uh the year before was the year of growth. Uh, the year of growth was really, I think, one of the first times I made a really big sort of like I actually made a theme for myself. Yeah. And I I think it was a little too big. Okay. Uh I think that your year of growth was too too big. I thought it wasn't going in. I thought that last year, the year of conscious action, was a little bit more realistic and reasonable. I think I did okay.
Aubrey
16:43
Okay.
Peter
16:44
I there were definitely places where I look at and say, uh, I wish I had been more Conscious about what I was doing in these times. But again, the the idea is yes, I was more regular in journaling, in focusing it on things like, okay, have I been Have I been intentional? Have I been really conscious of the actions that I took? And and having ways to reflect on that. Yeah. And it was it was definitely a more positive experience.
Aubrey
17:15
Yeah.
Peter
17:16
Yeah. What about this here? Do you have any ideas going into 2026 now that you're in a new place and you've you've got a job and you've applied to grad school?
Aubrey
17:26
Yeah, I kind of am am thinking more along the lines of A year of peace this year, because it is not expected to be a chaotic year. And with me just having crypto I was kind of talking to my therapist the other day about my job and she was like, I think that this is like like your masterclass on anxiety. I think this is like, this is your chance to use the tools that you know that you've learned that you have in your toolbox and actually use them for your day-to-day life and just because there's things about the job that you know have made me anxious and things that are just weird and whatever you f have to figure out those things. Um and she was like, I think this is your shot. Like this is this is gonna be you mastering over your anxiety. And I kind of Not that mastering my anxiety needs to be the theme because that's never gonna happen. Right. Per se. But if I can just align the things that I'm doing, if it is bringing more peace into my life or helping me be able to create my own peace, you know, if that makes sense, just because Most of my anxiety is most all of my anxiety is in my head, obviously. That's the point. But it also stems so much from just me creating the anxiety, like creating. scenarios in my head that then make me anxious and then creating things that don't even exist that they're that are then making me anxious. And if I can do the things that I know help me feel more peaceful and then I'm able to to just go out the rest of my life in just a happier light. Like I don't want to have happiness be my theme because that feels crazy. That feels like a scale that's like Isn't that what life is about? That's like a lifelong theme, not like a yearly theme. Correct, correct. But if sort of like peace and calm can kind of be my theme Because again, last year was crazy. Last year I was graduating and moving and getting married. But this year I'm kind of like we're we're settled in Wisconsin. If I get into grad school, I get into grad school. If not, I'm just chilling. working, you know. And so I feel like this is kind of it's a good time to really dive into why I get anxious. about these things, how I can master my anxiety, how I can just just doing those things. Because almost any goal that I ever create for myself kind of has to do with like bringing me more calm. Like exercising helps with anxiety. Like meditating obviously helps with my anxiety. Eating right also helps with my anxiety. Like all of those kind of basic things. And I kind of when I do my goals, I usually have like three sections like I have like my physical like fitness goals and then like my mental health goals and then my like learning goals um and like almost like basically every single one of those could align with helping me bring more peace peace just in my own brain. It's not even like make my whole life be more peaceful because there's things obviously like things are gonna be chaotic, but it's just if I can feel peaceful within myself. Yeah. If that makes sense. I need to find my inner I think is the theme.
Peter
20:58
You know, this world would be a better place if more people would find their inner zen.
Aubrey
21:03
Yeah, I think so.
Peter
21:04
If they're if the way they tried to deal with their mental and emotional health issues didn't involve destroying the lives of other people. Right. Right. So yeah. Well that's a really good one.
Aubrey
21:15
Yeah.
Peter
21:15
That's a really good one.
Aubrey
21:16
Yeah. It feels like pretty it feels pretty vague, but I feel like it's vague enough. And I also feel like it's speci Enough to guide.
Peter
21:24
Well, and that's the beautiful thing about the yearly theme is does it work for you? Yep. That's all that matters. Right. If it works for you Then it works.
Aubrey
21:33
Full stop. Exactly. Yep.
Peter
21:35
So cool.
Aubrey
21:36
What about you? What's your theme?
Peter
21:38
Well, so one thing I'm going to mention about themes, and this is for anyone who cares. And if you don't like this idea, cool. All right. Great. I got no problem with it. I am I'm a tech nerd. Everybody who knows me knows this. And I do use some of the artificial intelligence tools fairly regularly. Claude, ChatGPT, ChatGPT, Google Gemini in particular. Haven't played around with any of the other ones because I just don't. want to go down that rabbit hole. Yeah. But where I you know, and and I know that there's people who have very, very strong violent reactions against Those AI tools. And I think that's okay. I get it, I understand it, because there are certain things about them that I really don't like. Uh I think that it's fun. Let's say the image generation, I think it's kind of fun if you're just using it for your own stuff. If you're using it and then commercializing it instead of you know, finding people who are actually talented artists, well then I think that's wrong. Right. And the same with like music and the videos and stuff. Like I I every once in a while, probably about once or twice a month, I'll open up Open Sora, the the open AI. Yeah. The, you know, the video thing. Yeah. And I'll look at it for like two or three minutes and I'm like, Oh my gosh, these are bad. Yeah. These are so bad. So bad. But that is to say, I don't ever let the air the AI tools write for me. I I write a lot, whether it's scripts, whether it's newsletters, whether it's actually creative writing, things like that. But I've given all of these things instructions of don't ever rewrite something for me. Yes. If I give you something, you can make suggestions, you can point out grammatical errors, you can say things that would clarify, or maybe make suggestions of what would hit harder. Ac But don't ever rewrite it for me because I don't want that. I want it to always be my own work. my own voice and and I'm all I'm looking for is like a little bit of a critical eye eye from them.
Aubrey
23:35
Right.
Peter
23:36
But they're actually really, really good at incubating ideas. Yeah. And so that's kind of what I do. And This year, just like last year, I've used these tools and I'll start off and say, okay, here's here's my idea. And the good news is that all these things, because again, they've probably stolen everything from the internet everywhere, they know all about the idea of a yearly theme.
Aubrey
24:00
Right.
Peter
24:01
And so this isn't a a new thing. And again, no is in air quotes. Right. So this year I I kind of went into Chat GPT. I created a project. Now one of the advantages slash disadvantages you decide about ChatGPT versus the others, especially Google Gemini, I think just goes chat by chat. It doesn't have any memory of anything else. Claude, now as of a month or two ago, you can go into the settings and say, hey, remember everything you know about me, remember what's in other chats and stuff. stuff. ChatGPT has been doing that for a little while. And so it can be really useful if I've between, you know, podcast transcript stuff that it helps me with and brainstorming other you know, newsletters and stuff. It knows a lot more about me. Yeah. And so that's what I decided to use this year. I thought uh it was so one of the things I've never really gotten into on my computers and iPhones and all that stuff is is is automation tools. And one of the podcasts that I listen to, or one of the people whose podcasts I listen to, is on a few different is David Sparks. I find David Sparks a fascinating person because of his career trajectory. So David Sparks was a lawyer for many years. And on the side, he was doing this thing he called Mac Sparky. And he's done field guides where he would like, you know, sell it was sh I don't know how much they are, because since I'm a insider, I always get like half birds. Whatever. But um But it's it'll be here's an application and it's gonna be a bunch of like you know two to 15 minute lessons about that application that take you through how to use it or workflows, things like that. So he was doing that on the side, and a couple, it's probably more than a couple now, but a few years ago, uh, as he was in his early 50s, so You know, maybe like, I think he's probably around not quite 10, more than five, probably somewhere around seven years ish older than me.
Aubrey
26:12
Okay.
Peter
26:13
He decided, you know what? I am sick and tired of being a lawyer. And I'm gonna do this Max Barkey thing full-time.
Aubrey
26:20
Okay.
Peter
26:21
And he has, and then from all outside things, he's been pretty successful at it. And he's the first one to say he doesn't make the same kind of money he made as a lawyer. Yep.
Aubrey
26:31
I mean that makes sense.
Peter
26:32
But he's much happier. So it doesn't mean I want to leave medicine in case your mother. decides to listen to this and worries. Yeah, no. Um because because I while there are many things about being a a surgeon that I truly and deeply hate. Um and it's actually not about being a surgeon, it's just about medicine in general.
Aubrey
26:54
Right, right.
Peter
26:56
The actual practice of urology. When I am just In the office or in the operating room, and I'm just taking care of patients, and I can put all of that other stuff behind me. I absolutely love it. I find it incredibly fulfilling. Yep. But once I'm out of that, I need to be able to leave medicine behind. Yeah. Um, I know a lot of doctor colleagues have medicine side gigs to make extra money. or they spend time doing a lot of social media kind of stuff to grow their medical practices and I applaud them, I won't do that. Yeah. I I don't have the energy. When I'm done, I wanna stop thinking about medicine and I wanna fulfill my life through other ways. Right. Long story short to say, I don't want to leave medicine, but I do like to explore other avenues. And David Spark's journey into that is something that I admire a lot. And Uh again find some parallels in between what he choices he made and at least places where I'm at in life. Yeah. Long way to say He was talking, he talks a lot about automation and ways to use now, especially some of the AI tools, but a bunch of other programs, especially in the Apple ecosystem, because uh that's just there's more developers doing some interesting things there than in on Windows, I think, of cutting out a lot of the busy work in your life. So I started to think about this and I came up with the idea of the year of optimization.
Aubrey
28:22
Okay.
Peter
28:23
And then I workshopped it with ChatGPT. And it knows enough about me and most of my stuff for both my newsletter and kind of my imperfect practice YouTube channel and everything. It like I brainstorm all that stuff through there. So it has all of that information. It knows everything about that since I first came up with it. early in the summer and then workshopped it until I finally started doing it in kind of late summer, early fall. And it actually came back and it was like, you know, I get what you're going for, but that may be more than what you really want. Yeah. And I was like, okay. And then we workshopped it and it made some suggestions and I made counters and I came up with what I'm actually I really, really like it. And I am going, I'm going to call 2026 for me. My theme is the year of gentle refinement.
Aubrey
29:09
Okay, there you go. Yeah. Much better than much kinder than optimization. Correct.
Peter
29:16
And part of it is optimization in medicine is a weaponized word. Yeah. So there are groups who come and talk to particularly like our office managers and stuff about optimization. And when they talk about optimization, what does it mean? Optimization in medicine means, hey, we're going to talk to you about how you can do your job easier and better, but really if you read between the lines, which I think most of us, especially doctors, are smart enough to do. What we see is optimization in medicine means, hey, let's get you to do more with less. Right. So so it carries with it the word optimization for me carries with it some baggage. And so it was really nice to get rid of that word. Yeah. Um the interesting thing for me is I think that this idea, the year of gentle refinement, plays perfectly into the imperfect practice newsletter and YouTube channel because one of the things I like to do there is Well, let me change a workflow, let me try a new thing, try a different application or a different workflow, that sort of thing. And and my thought is I can use this year of gentle refinement and each month pick one small thing That I can work on refining over the course of that month. Yeah. And and again, there's no failures here. This is just a I'm gonna try this. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't feel like it made the process easier. Well that's why I did it was to learn that. And then I can act that. So As again, anyone who who has seen some of the stuff that I've written and small some of the short videos in particular that I've made. I think we need to embrace the idea of failure as a positive, not a negative. Yeah. And that's the whole point of the year of gentle refinement, is that every failure is actually just a lesson.
Aubrey
31:02
Right. Because you're just learning more things. Like how are you gonna learn how to do what you're doing better if it's working perfectly every time? It's just that's the way that you learn is through is through failing.
Peter
31:15
Yeah. So so that's my theme for the year. And I'm actually really excited because I already know what I'm going to work on. Okay. All right. January is all going to be about refining my nighttime routine.
Aubrey
31:28
There you go.
Peter
31:29
Because I have found that my night night nighttime my nightly routine has just kind of gone out the window. It hasn't been very consistent. And I'm climbing into bed not in a very ready to go to sleep. state.
Aubrey
31:42
Yeah, and where you struggle with sleep and have for my entire life at least, um that feels like a very important thing. to tackle.
Peter
31:51
So that's going to be kind of the first thing that I work on is how can I improve and kind of refine um that that nighttime routine. Yeah. Uh and then see well, what are the benefits? How does that work?
Aubrey
32:04
Yeah. So Yeah.
Peter
32:05
Yeah.
Aubrey
32:06
Yeah. I think a kind of a big hopefully we're not biting off more than we can chew goal that Hayden and I are gonna do. Um we've been listening to quite a few science podcasts about like sleep and um a speci Spi specifically, specifically daylight savings time and how even just that one hour shift um can cause a lot of health issues for a lot of groups. like the risk of stroke is like fifteen percent higher when they switch that hour. Um and whereas I feel tired most of the time Which is ridiculous because why do I feel tired? I don't I work only in the afternoons. There's no reason why I should feel tired. I think what we're gonna do is try and get up at the same time. every day. Mm. Even on the weekends. But I think we're gonna do like an hour like ha a half an hour. Like pick a time and it can be like within the hour after or before that. Sure.
Peter
33:11
Sure. I think that's smart.
Aubrey
33:12
But not Not like getting up at seven thirty during the week and then on the weekends getting up at ten thirty.
Peter
33:18
Yeah.
Aubrey
33:19
And we kind of have gently tried to do that already in the last like two months where on the weekends instead of getting up at ten thirty we get up at like nine, which has already been infinitely better. Like I already feel more energetic and like I I just obviously you have more time in the day. And then I'm tired at a reasonable time at night and can sleep better. And where I had so much trouble sleeping this summer because I was I would just stay up late thinking about how all the ways the wedding could go wrong. Sure. I really, really, really want to focus on getting good quality sleep and just having good sleep hygiene because if there's any way for me to feel less anxious it's to take care of the cave needs. It's like to just keep the baseline level of anxiety low. It's like, have you slept? Have you peed? Have you ean and I need to take care of those three and then all the extra flowery stuff can come after that you know but yeah it's funny I actually made like a little note on my phone that's like an automation widget on my lock screen that if I just click it goes to this note that's my first aid kit for anxiety. Um and literally I was making it with Hayden. I was like what are the things that we know always like calms me down especially Especially when it's I'm anxious about something that is completely irrational, like completely illogical, has no actual stake. And he's like, well, first of all, how about you put drink water? Espe How about you put have you gone to the bathroom? And how about you put have you eaten something? And I was like, you know what? You got me. So yeah, I think we're gonna try that. We'll see how it goes. I don't think it'll be too hard for us in our lifestyle because I get up at the same time with him to go to work every day for him to go to work because if I sleep in late like that's yeah my whole day's cooked.
Peter
35:14
But yeah, I uh you know you could always just be broke. like me.
Aubrey
35:19
I could.
Peter
35:20
I don't think I will. It doesn't matter. I'm going to wake up somewhere between probably 4:30 and 5. 30 every Day. Always. No matter what.
Aubrey
35:32
Yep. That's just lovely.
Peter
35:35
But anything else that you uh any other thoughts or plans as we go into 2026?
Aubrey
35:40
No, I mean I kind of feel there's a few things that I know I'll feel I need to kind of if you're repeating the same goals over and over again because you keep not doing the goals, then clearly you need to like change some something about the goal. And for me, I keep trying to do meditating during the day because I'll remember at night. I'll meditate at night and sometimes that will help me like go to sleep. Like doing a sleep meditation. or something. But I've been trying to be like, well, also do it during the day. So you're not just meditating to fall asleep. Like you are also practicing the mindfulness skill. Because it's a little different for me. Um the meditating to fall asleep versus the meditating To just like be mindful. Um, and I keep being like, meditate during the day, and then I don't do it. So that is something I want to revamp. Um because I think obviously we've talked about meditation a lot on the pod before, but there's just so many things it can help with. There's so many benefits and I've seen it in my own life. It's just the fact that I don't I just don't do it. I just can't bring myself to do it. But I've been starting to do some of the walking meditation That Peloton has. Okay. Um, because going for walks, I don't know if you've seen this like meme, but maybe you can bleep this out. but it's like stupid fing walk for my stupid fing mental health. But it's like going for a walk and doing getting the fresh air, getting the sunlight. on you even like my my rule for myself is if it is more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit in Madison I need to go for a walkout outside. Okay. So I will bundle up. I'll go do my walk. I've done I've started doing those walking meditations. Um and I think that's going to be the way to get me. me to meditate more often. So 'cause yeah, and obviously for sleep as well, getting the sun like on you in your face as soon as you wake up obviously is Super good for your just circadian rhythm. Just gotta go back to the caveman, wake up with the sun, sort of thing.
Peter
37:44
Yeah, that's definitely one of the things where My job bites me in the butt at least half the year. You gotta be in the hospital when it's dark. Many days of the week. Yep. Um Only right around, you know, kind of May to July. And then by the end of July, it's already still like the sun's still not up by the time I'm at work.
Aubrey
38:08
surgery on surgery days about yeah yeah yeah cool yeah I don't really have anything else you you were in charge of this one remember I was you started
Peter
38:19
You kicked it off.
Aubrey
38:20
I forgot. You can keep that in if you want. Great. Awesome. Anyways, like, comment, subscribe. Leave us a review. I was just staring at you. I was like, why are you looking at me? I was like, just Close out the pot.
Peter
38:37
Trying not to take over, you know? I want to ensure that both of us are.
Aubrey
38:41
No, I'm just not even awake. It's fine. It's all right.
Peter
38:44
Getting old now. You know, you are and twenty three. And and you're thinking we're gonna say we're gonna say you're just distracted by the promise of uh uh
Aubrey
38:52
uh hibachi at uh at food in the next hour or so the next hour or so yep the famous birthday lunch yep i missed it I've missed it. But anyway, if you like the pod, give us five stars. Because I think we're a five star pod. Leave us, you know, there's the feedback at what is it again?
Peter
39:11
forgotten feedback at generations.
Aubrey
39:13
Yep. There it is. And we be we'll be back in a couple weeks. And we'll see you guys later.
Peter
39:18
Bye.