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This podcast is focused on challenges that are routinely encountered by men aged 50 - 70, but
not often discussed. Although targeted to them, this is also applicable to older / younger men
who are looking for ways to age differently, as well as the women that are involved in their lives.
Stress, relationships, male friendships, diet, mindfulness, aging with vitality and dying are just
some of the many topics that are covered. A rotating series of guest speakers join the podcast
to provide insights and wisdom relating to other relevant topics such as EMF radiation,
emotional intelligence, mindfulness and hair health.
(upbeat music) - Welcome everybody, I'm Darius and I'm 50 years old. - And I'm Peter and I'm 70. - And we invite you to have a listen into this meaningful conversation between men.
Peter, good to see you. - Good to see you, Darius. - How's the day going for you today? - It's been great, it's been wonderful. It's always days and moments I've learned and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of your day.
something to be grateful for. Absolutely. During our last podcast, we talked about relationships between men,
and today we're going to switch gears a little bit and talk about something that everyone on this planet encounters on a daily basis, the insidious beast that we call stress.
Yes, yes. yes. A topic that is very much on my mind all the time because of the work I've been doing over the last decade,
the work that I continue to do with individuals and groups that mindfulness is intended to affect. This isn't about mindfulness. This episode is about stress.
stress. And stress is present regardless of whether or not you have mindfulness. And it's insidious. We're designed to use stress to our benefit.
But with modern civilization, modern stimulation, modern distractions, stress is because become something that negatively affects each and every one of us in this modern world.
It just seems to be almost apocalyptic moment to moment. Yeah. So I think we probably should take a step back and define stress so that people understand what stress is and then talk about about the pathophysiological reactions that occur in the body and the mind as a result of stress.
I'd love your thoughts as well on the long -term consequences of stress. And then I think most importantly, like we try and do in all of our podcasts,
is bring it home and give people tangible things that they can do in response to stress. I mean, we're trying to cover a lot on this one. Well, this is a topic that can't really be covered in a 30 -minute podcast.
We'll do our best to highlight concepts, experiences, maybe some tools and techniques that our audience might use and give them information,
maybe a little bit more knowledge that could be helpful to them if they change. That's an inside joke,
by the way, for the audience, if you choose. We'll get into that in more detail. So, Peter, let's start about defining stress because you hear about it all the time.
It's one of those words that is ubiquitously used. You hear about it every day. What is stress? Well, the definition that commonly is used is the response of an organism to demand or pressure.
To me, that doesn't fully cover and doesn't really get into what is stress. For a human being, it's the activation of your sympathetic nervous system in response.
And I use this word. word instead of demand and pressure because I think it makes it more visual. It makes it more tangible. It's a response to the perception of a threat.
Okay. We're hardwired for it and it helped us survive as a species. A lion, a bear, stalking us. We either would...
would fight or run away flee or we would hide. And in order to do that, we needed to be at our optimum. And so our physiological mechanism is designed to generate necessary chemicals,
cortisol, adrenaline, so that we divert the performance capability. where they're most needed.
We don't need it for our digestion at that point in time. We need it for clear cognitive functioning and optimum physical muscular performance.
And so that's what the sympathetic nervous system does. It activates those aspects of our physiology. So from an evolutionary perspective, our response to stress was very healthy when we were in a life set life -threatening Situation we had the strength to fight The energy to flee or we're smart enough to know we needed to freeze I guess that's kind of like those stories you hear of a parent whose child is in imminent
danger Lifting up a car or moving something off of them. Yes doing things that are virtually super human human. When in actuality, maybe that just kind of further shows we have capacities we're not aware of.
- But as I think about it, I agree with that. It doesn't seem, I can see in my 50 years, I've never once encountered a lion or a tiger out picking berries.
I've never had that kind of life -threatening situation presented to myself. I've had that kind of life -threatening situation like it's been hijacked for lack of a better word. It has, that's a great word.
It's morphed, it's mutated into an adaptation that kind of corrupts the beneficial aspects of stress and what it was designed for.
It takes it to a level where everything, many things are perceived as imminent threats. Think about this for a second. The email, the text, the social media posting.
Those are perceptions, those are judgments that are made that this is threatening to my well -being, but it's not really threatening to your physical well -being.
It's just something that we have become conditioned, but habituated to in the future. interpreting as threatening to our overall well -being Some of it makes sense,
you know Because we've adapted the social norms of our cultures and so financial well -being, right? Having a roof over your head a place to sleep some of that makes sense But think about this for a second Darius.
We've moved from this is a survival technique, to now this is a reactive experience to something we perceive.
And that's the insidiousness of stress. Well, actually, that's just the beginning of it. The real insidiousness of it is that every time we have one of these spikes of cortisol and adrenaline, the body activates.
And the physiology gets really active and ready for danger. danger and to react, to fight, flee, be at optimum ready.
But then nothing happens. There's no lion, there's no tiger. So what happens to these chemicals we've generated? So I can give you an example, a couple of spring to mind.
One is I think about public speaking. Public speaking is a major stressor for you. for many people. I had a friend in public school who was absolutely terrified of public speaking,
and I sat beside him, and in grade four or five we had to do orals, three or four minutes on the topic of your presentation. I watched him for the hour leading up to his presentation as his pathways got activated,
and his pathways that was activated was flea. He didn't freeze, he didn't fight, but he had flea and it started with his hands. I could watch the sweat dripping off of his hands as he was nervous and then he was clenching and moving them like this and then rocking in his seat a little bit.
By the time he got up to speak, he was so wound up to get out of there. there. The words that came blurting out of his mouth were ajarable.
Nobody could understand them. And he had to stop and go back and try again because that healthy pathway had been triggered and he was responding with flea,
but he couldn't flee. And so that spiral just went out of control. Yeah. That's what happens. And yet... yet, we tend, our society,
our culture perceives, believes that stress is a good thing in some instances, and one of them is public speaking.
Oh, you have to explain that to me. Well, if all of your optimal performance capabilities can get activated, in particular,
clear thinking. thinking, focus, which stress does, then it can serve you in certain instances, like when you're getting ready to speak in public before an audience and you're feeling this trepidation,
you're feeling this fear, you know, you want to make sure that you stand up there and be clear, but what's happened, we'll talk about that for a second. The other area is competition.
especially competitive sports, where activating your stress mechanism, again in theory, is intended to bring you to optimal performance.
You're ready to go. Here's a challenge in modern times. It comes these days, I perceive, I believe, my experience in the field with a certain emotionality.
And that emotionality, let's take, for instance, fear, fear of failure. It works for a while, but then the mental capacities begin to erode.
You're not focused, you're not clear anymore. You're more in fear than you are in active, optimal performance. I've seen that a number of times. Have you? I just think back to going back to the public speaking example.
There's three pathways. And if my fight pathway gets activated, that may be helpful. May. If my freeze pathway gets activated,
that's clearly not helpful. And I've seen that, unfortunately, where people get up to deliver something and the deer in the headlights look takes over. Yeah. If their flea pathway gets activated,
that's even worse because every step, even getting out on the stage, you can see is a constant battle for these people. I've done a lot of public speaking. And early on,
I became cognizant that I have a crutch. I can't sit still when I'm speaking. I have to move because I have the fight pathway. pathway has been activated and I have all this energy.
And if I sit still, I get jittery and I can't focus. I remember I was doing a pitch once and my boss, I was moving around and doing a good job, my boss leaned over and said,
if you move your feet one more time, I'm going to the store and I'm going to get a hammer and some nails. I'm going to nail you to the ground. I'm in the middle of a great pitch. So I stood still for three minutes and every started to unravel.
I couldn't answer basic questions because all I was so focused on was keeping my feet there. And so after three minutes, I realized the ludicracy of the situation. I leaned him and said,
"It's time for you to go to the hardware store and get that nail." And I started moving again because that stress pathway had been activated, and I can tell you, Peter, my response to it for years,
it's not there. I don't feel it. I ignore it. Let me just push that down and I'll get through it and it'll be gone.
Yeah, I wonder how many people, how many men in our audience do the same thing. You ever think about that? Do you ever witness that with your friends or acquaintances or colleagues?
Oh, absolutely. Stress doesn't exist. Why do we tell ourselves this? Do you have any ideas? any experience with it? Not a lot. If you admit that stress exists,
part of you thinks you're weak. Yeah. Part of you thinks you're incapable of handling it. You're not independent. You're not confident. Versus what I've come to learn, it is so powerful to acknowledge that stress,
to name the stress, to say how you're feeling, to embrace it and then to either let it flow and move on or to In turn not internalize it, but to really capture it and Manifest it so that it because it doesn't become resident in the body.
Yeah, because if I think about stressors There's financial stressors There are stressors with interpersonal relationships my parents partners kids friends There are physical stressors There's one of the greatest stressors that I see every day when I get behind the wheel of a car.
And otherwise sane, rational, kind human beings become maniacs. - Yeah. But all of those responses, have you noticed,
they're kind of like learned behaviors based on perceptions and judgments. - They are. - Like being in traffic for a long time. instance. Why do we interpret that that's a threat?
Now, if somebody's not driving well, yeah, there's the possibility of an accident. I agree with that, I understand that. But in all instances, and are we elevating the threat?
That's another example of what I'm talking about. And when it comes to stress, and stress, and starting to mitigate it and manage it, first identifying it,
yes, which you just highlighted, and then second, understanding its context. What is the situation and why is it being perceived as a threat?
And I believe that this is one way to start. start, again, mitigating, managing stress. Because once you've done that, then you can say to yourself, "Well, why am I choosing to view it as a threat to me?" Is it based on the current circumstance?
Think about driving for a second. The accident hasn't happened. Just because somebody is driving slow or somebody cuts you off on the road. road doesn't mean that You're going to have an accident.
There are many moments before that happens, but yet you're already emotionally engaged with fear and anger and so Being aware and conscious of how you're feeling What you're perceiving what you're judging all of those things are incredible ways to start managing stress So if I think about a stressful situation how it manifests in me My breathing becomes more shallow.
Yes, okay. I feel a little bit of a tingling in the pit of the stomach and Interestingly enough my peripheral vision. I feel it narrow a little bit that passes Rather quickly,
but I'm curious What are the long term? -term effects of what I used to do, which is either not naming it? I would have all the sensations I just chose to ignore them. What are some of those long -term effects?
How does the body respond over the next hours, weeks, days, weeks, months? What happens? Well, fortunately or unfortunately,
we're not like the zebra who, after being hunted, hunted and escaping can stop. I think most herd animals do this and kind of just violently shake and vibrate and kind of like shake off the adrenaline.
Let it go. Let it go. We don't do that. And so what happens? The adrenaline continues to reside within the body. And science is now replete with everything.
that stress, whether it's acute, chronic, post -traumatic, it manifests in disease,
heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, migraines, emotional disorders, mental disorders,
eating disorders. disorders, autoimmune disorders. I mean, I can go on and on and on, but the science is pretty complete at this point in time. You want to explain something to me?
I think it would be helpful for our audience to hear about how we are like a magnet as we go through. You want to explain that one?
And we're not going to get on the topic of electromagnetic radiation. Not today, not today. but I think that'd be really helpful construct. Yes I have come to explain stress in this way,
especially chronic stress Especially the stress that sees so many things as a threat There's two ways I describe it and the first way is that every one of these stressful Experiences is like a little shard of magic metal or a piece of metal that attaches to your body.
So if you could imagine millions of moments in your life where you've felt anxiety or stress, whether you admit it or deny it, here comes another shard, another piece of metal,
shrapnel attaching to your body. And yeah, immediately, at the first instance not a big deal I can kind of get over this stress I can handle this I have to handle this I'm a man but after time and especially all that time that you have been ignoring it just like a magnet to which all these metal shards could attach they attach to you and they start to weigh you you down,
start to wear you out, your body physiologically, also mentally we've learned. The other way I describe it sometimes is like every one of these incidents of stress is like a razor cut.
Some of them are deep, some of them are shallow, but it doesn't take much to understand that after years. or millions of moments,
it just gets to be too much for the body. So I think that's a good way to kind of look at stress and why I look at it as insidious and maleficent. And if we were to adapt it as it was intended,
of course it has benefits, but it's been maladaptive at this point in time, I believe, I see. So, how? how do we start to reframe the brain to more appropriately respond to those day -to -day stressors that we are all going to encounter?
They're not gonna go away. - No, they're not, no they're not. But you said it earlier, first we have to enable ourselves to identify, I'm stressed, I'm anxious. And if you care not to conclude or bring yourself to accept,
"I'm stressed," ask yourself, "Am I irritated? Am I agitated? Am I aggravated?" Because those are steps that lead up to anxiety and stress. And if you're experiencing those,
or one that I've heard quite often, if you tell yourself, "I'm frustrated." frustrated. But frustration isn't an emotion. I had a professor in business school who would yell,
"There's no such emotion as frustration." It's a state of being. Yes, it is. It's not an emotion. You can be angry. You can be sad. You can be despondent. You can be upset.
But frustrated, and I'll never forget this man, Craig Pender was his name, it's a state of being where an outcome that you are striving to towards is blocked. Oh, wonderful definition.
Yes. Yeah. But it's not, not stress. It's not stress. And it's not the emotions that no are part of this triangle of stress,
the triangle being your physiology, your body, the thinking that's going on in your head, the perception, the judgments, the emotions that are fueling or vice versa.
accumulating, and it's just a triangle that continues in movement, continuous, all of which activates stress. Some of it unconscious,
autopilot. I think big chunks of it are unconscious. Learn behaviors, beliefs that you have. When X happens, I'm supposed to get angry. I'm supposed to respond this way.
- Yeah, yeah. And that's what happens, and I think often, especially in our roles as providers and protectors, men often feel like they have to assume higher roles of responsibility and obligations in taking care of the household without fear,
without anger, and without acknowledging that it stresses you. you or makes you anxious, which is the case. It happens. It happens to all of us.
It's happened to me repeatedly. Yeah. One of my warning signs now is when I'm stressed and I'm not acknowledging it, I'll usually look for someone to make the problem and to take it out on versus looking internally.
Yeah. Definitely one of my, not one of my favorite character traits, but something that I've become cognizant of and I am working on,
right? Looking in the mirror, okay, why am I behaving like this? What is going on that is causing me to act this way? Because I'm clearly not the way I normally am.
So there's something here that is stressing the system. Yeah. So what is it? You mentioned identifying that you're feeling this way.
Let's say we don't give it a name. We just say I'm feeling this way. Not frustrated. Not frustrated. Once you've done that, maybe you can ask yourself, "Well,
what's my behavior as a result of it?" And am I behaving this way because this is how I've behaved before in similar circumstances?
circumstances. And maybe whether you call it irritation, agitation, anxiety, stress, you start looking at the pattern of it, and whether you're doing the behavior consciousness,
or if it's just on autopilot, you do it unconsciously, just every time you're in a similar situation, or, and I hope I can emphasize. this Feeling like you're in a similar situation.
Yes I'll repeat that feeling Like you're threatened although you're not once you've done that then you can maybe pause and Choose consciously Do I want to behave this way or do I want to just keep reacting?
the way I always have? And it's recognizing, I think what a lot of people, definitely in my experience, myself, don't recognize and own the role that they play in that stressful situation.
What do you mean? Because you can be on autopilot. Because you could have learned patterns. Because you could have beliefs that may have served you well when you were eight years old or eight.
that didn't no longer serve you well. And yet you are acting with those same beliefs and those same patterns. And what you're essentially doing by not choosing to take a look is you're perpetuating the stress cycle because that's what you've become conditioned to.
- Yes, I'm gonna ask you to repeat that about the beliefs and the patterns. - I wish I could remember what I said. - That's all. So I'll try again. Beliefs that you have when you're eight and we've talked about this.
Those beliefs can come from anywhere and they get wedged in your body and in your mind. And those patterns, those learned behaviors that you have that may have made sense when you were 12,
15, 20, those beliefs and those patterns no longer. make sense and taking that step back and looking at yourself within whatever dynamic it is to see how you are potentially contributing,
exacerbating or heck in many situations in my life, creating the stress. Yeah. And I think about how many times you've had a bad day and you've picked a fight with somebody because you didn't want to look at the stressor.
Or you've had a bad day. day or you've had a day with an incident that caused fear and anxiety and you get into a depressive state.
You want to hide away from the world. And I want to challenge the audience today and ask yourself if you or anybody you know because of COVID and the incidents in the time since and the fears of global war and the fears of terrorism.
if you're not feeling a little bit depressed these days and if it's not being caused by a certain amount of stress that you're feeling about life, your safety,
my invitation to you is if you are in that moment, if you acknowledge you're feeling stressed, just take a moment and take a breath and look around you.
Look around you and just kind of try to notice, are you safe right now? Are you okay right now? Are you in physical jeopardy? Yes. And if you're not, at least for the moment,
maybe no need to stress and you can choose it or not. And I don't think either one of us is here to tell people what to do because at the end of the day it's what each of of you out there in the audience decide for yourself to choose So we've talked about identifying and becoming aware That you are stressed.
Mm -hmm. We've talked about looking at the patterns and Taking a step back to make a conscious choice What else if someone is in that stressful situation that sympathetic nervous system has been activated What else do they need to do to help?
Regulate or to come through it in a more healthy fashion There are a number of Practices and techniques that might be helpful One of them I just mentioned which was just pausing mm -hmm and taking a breath and Being conscious of your current environment,
your current experience, but more important, being conscious of the emotion you're feeling. If you're feeling fear, you might ask yourself here,
if you wanna delve into it, what am I afraid of at this moment? Did I learn this perception of fear? somewhere? Or let's say you're angry. We were talking about in traffic.
Did you learn to be angry because that's what those around you do as you are growing up, learning to drive, etc. etc. But are you really angry because of what's happening in that moment or something you learned before?
And this happens in microseconds. micromoments. You then have a choice. You're gonna keep acting based on the experience of the past or learned behavior,
the perceptions you are talking about. Or do you wanna consciously choose to behave differently, maybe with less rage,
less anger, take a breath, don't let yourself become overwhelmed with the adrenaline in the cortisol in that moment and That pause gives you that brief space Where you can make that choice and not go off in the direction of reactivity you can actually literally respond and sometimes sometimes the place where that's most evident is when you're in communication with another human being.
When something they've said unintentionally triggers you, activates you, enrages you, not based again on what's happening in that moment, but something you're feeling and now your sympathetic nervous systems,
your stress mechanism are all at high level. level, you're getting angry by the words or the tone and next thing you know you're stressed by it and the communication begins to deteriorate.
So nice place, nice moment, take a breath, make a pause, notice your stress, make a choice, choose consciously and see what happens.
I love that. some of the other things that I do One I focus on my diet. I know that may seem totally counterintuitive with stress but I've noticed there's a correlation between eating properly and Eating balanced and reduced level of stress.
There's a reason people get hangry Right. There's a there's a term for it. You're hungry and you're angry. You're angry I think about and I will now say I am getting hungry and I am cranky because I am hungry.
So we probably shouldn't talk because I'm doing my best not to say something I don't mean. And the other thing that I've done for years and I think it going back to your analogy of getting that metal ball around you and I think it pulls off a couple pieces of metal every time is physical exercise paired with breath.
And it can be the gym, it can be a walk, it can be a run, it can be swimming, it can be yoga, surfing, whatever you physically enjoy doing your body dancing.
I found that if I'm able to physically exercise at a highly stressed level or I'm feeling stressed, I can feel things resetting and the nerves.
system resetting it coming down. I'm glad you're bringing this up because it reminded me that there's one other thing that's constantly promoted as an antidote to stress, but I'm going to take a little different approach to it.
We were talking about identifying and being aware of stress. Maybe we need tools to help with this. And one of the things that I'm going to talk about is that we need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress. We need to be aware of stress.
tools is the practice of paying attention. Paying attention and being aware of each moment, being aware when you're thinking,
when you're distracted, and there's a practice that we know as meditation, and I believe somewhat misunderstood,
that enables the capacity to pay attention, to focus your awareness, to move your field of awareness,
however you need to, in a moment, almost impossible to do if you don't practice it. So that's what meditation is, you're just practicing that. Now it's kind of nice,
you can be calm, you can be soothed, relaxed, but that's a by -product. There are other benefits to meditation, and in the management and mitigation of stress,
it's invaluable. Yeah, there's two other ones I can think of, and we'll kind of weave those into our call to action this week. One is actually having a conversation with somebody about what's going on,
just sharing what is stressing you with your significant other and sometimes just hearing the words come out makes you realize, okay, I'm making more of this situation than it actually is.
Or if it is a very stressful, challenging situation, you've got someone there to help you think it through and navigate those challenges. So I guess called action potentially number one would be if you're going through something stressful,
reach out and have a conversation. with someone and call to action number two. And you were having this conversation earlier today with our producer Alfonso, wonderful guy,
about the difference between self care and being selfish. And there becomes a point in our lives where we need to prioritize self care and self care can be anything.
It can be going for that walk. It can be taking your wife out for a special day. It could be be hiking with the dog. It can be doing something just for yourself like getting a massage that allows you to internalize and reset and bring those stress levels,
levels down. Yes. Yeah. Those are all important points. So as we wrap up another great episode, as always, this is going to be posted on agedifferently .com would love feedback and comments from everybody and we're going to conclude with a.
wonderful poem by Peter. So I invite the audience to perhaps close your eyes if that's okay for you and just reflect on the words I'm about to share.
Reflect how they feel and affect you in this moment and perhaps take it away for moments in the future as well. This being human.
it's like a guest house. Every morning there's a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness. And then there's this momentary awareness that comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all. Even if it's a crowd of sorrows. sorrows that sweeps your house clean of all its furniture.
She or he may have been sent from beyond that dark shame,
that malice, that thought. greet them each and every one of them at your door, laughing.
Welcome difficulty and know the true alchemy that every human knows. The moment that you welcome your troubles, a door opens for you.
Just wonderful, Peter. Thank you. Next episode is going to be aging with the vitality of longevity. Lots to cover in that one, and we're looking forward to speaking with you guys all then.
Thank you.