Stress - the major health issue for parents in our 'culture of comparison'.

Rachel Richards: 0:25

Hello and welcome to teenagers. Untangled, the award winning audio hug for parents going through the teen years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, parenting coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.

Susie Asli: 0:36

Hi there. I'm Susie Asli, mindfulness coach, mindful therapist, musician and mother of three teenagers. Two of them are twins,

Rachel Richards: 0:44

Susie, when was the last time you felt stressed?

Susie Asli: 0:47

Oh, yesterday. It happens a lot. Yeah, it's just, I think it's part of life. Stress is good. Stress is good, some of it.

Rachel Richards: 0:56

But with today, we're going to talk about a report called parents under pressure by Murphy, who's the US Surgeon General. It says 41% of parents and caregivers say they are so stressed they cannot function most days, and nearly 50% said their stress completely overwhelms them. Gosh, I know this is America, but I'm seeing it. Yeah, I'm seeing it everywhere. Now, I know we've talked about pressures of parenting before, but I thought it worth revisiting this issue, because I want parents to understand it's not just you, no. And I think that's the problem. We're all at home alone looking around, going, Oh, they seem to be handling it so well. We're all struggling, okay? And ways in which stress, yes, and we can reduce the pressure, and we can do this. So let's quickly do some reviews.

Susie Asli: 1:37

Yeah, I've got a lovely one here from Philippa. Absolutely fantastic. Hi, Rachel. Firstly, I have to say, I've just started listening to your podcast, and they're absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for all the insights. Even if I retain a small amount of the huge knowledge you and Susie kindly share for my tweens, I will be truly thankful, and no doubt be revisit revisiting the podcasts over the years to come.

Rachel Richards: 1:59

Oh, thank you, Philippa, that's amazing. Thank you How wonderful. I'm an avid listener of your podcast. I am so glad I stumbled across this when my eldest daughter went to secondary school as the teenagers seems so overwhelming. They push for more and more independence. The topics covered have been really insightful, and I especially love the episodes you do with one of your daughters. Ah, thanks, Michelle, this this feedback is really great because my daughter hasn't done much of this, and she's and she's brilliant. Yeah, she's enjoying it, so that's great. Nice courage. Now, Susie, what about a nugget? Have you got one? Yeah, I have it's we've talked about it before,

Susie Asli: 2:36

but I noticed over the summer that there were lots of things going on, as there always are out there, and I found myself falling into going up and down with one of my children's emotions as there were various things going on, very logically explained, and there was lots going on. And I found myself kind of going up and down the roller coaster with them, rather than trying to stay regulated and and also regulation doesn't doesn't mean that we should be calm all the time. That's nonsense. That's a myth. It just means that you are aware of what's going on, and that you are able to to bring yourself back when you when you when you get dysregulated. So I just found myself suddenly noticing that I was doing this and and trying to then step back and watch it happening, which is how I work the awareness. The awareness and mindfulness is all about the awareness of things that are happening. So, ah, that's this is happening. I'm observing that I'm going up and down with with my child, and that when, when you now have that information, you can then step back and make a choice as to how you want to pay the next time. And also the knowledge that, oh, this is just an event and it will pass. So I fell into it a few times, and it was a repeated pattern. And part of it was also that I was really tired. Oh, well, the tiredness has

Rachel Richards: 3:55

got you. The problem with the tiredness is it's very hard to do the step back and the things you know you're supposed to do because you're too tired, yeah, but it's practice, yes. And it's like having to go to bed when you're too tired and you know that you should go to that you should go to bed, but you're too tired to go to bed

Susie Asli: 4:07

all that stuff. And the nugget is the kind of like, you know, we think we've done it, oh, I've got that. And then, oh, I've fallen in again. Maybe the learning, you know, the noticing is quicker next time. And blah, blah, blah, yeah.

Rachel Richards: 4:20

And we're humans. We are absolutely humans. I tied my daughter's room while she was away festival. Yeah, well, it's probably more accurate to say that I cleared it, and it's not something I do because she doesn't like it. But I also moved the bed and the bedside table into different positions and set up everything with a kind of better workflow. So I just thought I kind of did a Feng Shui, but not, I'm not trained. I just kind of thought, oh, it looks better that way, and I like that, and I put everything in organized little tubs. And, you know, just really thought it through. And I was a little bit anxious when she came back, because I thought she might not like it, and she was very tired, so she just staggered upstairs. She went, I don't know what my room's going to be like, staggered up, just staggered up to stairs to bed, and the next day, she thanked me. Oh, and she, she has kept it way tidier since now. The reason I'm saying this is because I said to her, I sort of noted that she'd been keeping it more tidy and organized. And she I said to her. Maybe it's not the you are not a tiny person. You can't keep things organized. Maybe it's that the space didn't work for you and it didn't feel good to you. And I think when we feel good about things, we're much more likely to pay attention to them and do them better. And my other daughter overheard this, and a day later, she came to me and she said, Mommy, I think that's what's happened with me, and I said, What do you mean? She said, she I had noticed her room getting less tidy. And I think teenagers are like almost like snakes. They need to shed their skin as they're going through the years. And sometimes that involves a refurbishment of the bedroom. It doesn't need to cost anything. It can be about changing the bed around. It can be about removing things. It can be about changing your closet. Everything is up for grabs, but I think enabling and we work together. My other daughter and I on she said the wardrobe was too big, so she took that out and just had a rail for clothes and just things that weren't expensive, but that really made a difference to the way the room felt and tallied more with her more teenage, sort of older teenage look. And so all I wanted to say was, I think, as that's one thing that we can do, rather than go, Oh, you're just really bad at being organized and tidy. Maybe it's like my kitchen now I'm much, I'm much organized, more organized and tidy with it because it's been redone. Yeah, you

Susie Asli: 6:41

have the structure in place, right? Yeah. I

Rachel Richards: 6:42

think, I think, I think we need to understand that with our kids, it can make

Susie Asli: 6:46

a difference. Yeah, nice. Yes,

Rachel Richards: 6:48

it was hard work, but hey, right, let's come back to that report. 41% of parents and caregivers said they are so stressed they cannot function most days, and nearly 50% said their stress completely overwhelms them. What's happening and what's changed? Now, I love a comment I read in response by someone called Tim Carney to a piece in the free press, and what he said was, when his parents were doing the job, there wasn't massive tutoring. Nobody was playing us Mozart when we were newborns, I don't think Parenthood was thought of as this deliberate, intentional, massive thing that we decided to undertake. So we need to, so we need to undertake it, right? I think it was more thought of as adults are going to get married and married people are going

Susie Asli: 7:32

to have kids. The bar is so much higher now it's ridiculous.

Rachel Richards: 7:37

I'm getting nosebleeds. It's ridiculous. It's,

Susie Asli: 7:40

I mean, I think the root of most dissatisfaction is expectation, and if our expectations are really high, then then it's going to be stressful. But I think it's also worth saying, and I'm sure we've said this before, that not all stress is bad, like stress gets labeled as a big, black, big, bad guy. And you know, stress is a survival response, that if you don't run out of the road when a car is coming because you're stressed, then you're going to get hit by it. Yeah, that's good. So short term stress exactly good for us. It's a survival thing. The bad guys long term stress, and they're very different, but we label them as both bad and actually, short term stress is really useful, but long term stress is bad for us, and that's the one that accumulates and makes us sick. That's

Rachel Richards: 8:23

it. There's a book called I read years ago, called Why zebras don't get ulcers, stomach ulcers. That was it, okay? And it's all about that. Yeah, it's because I

Susie Asli: 8:31

was studying nutrition. And then animals shake it off as well. We don't,

Rachel Richards: 8:34

and exactly, and I and that, that whole, you know, when it's when it's it can energize you when you need to solve something, yes, but when it's constant, yeah, it's

Susie Asli: 8:41

the long term, drip, drip, of never being good enough. That is, you know, toxic, yes.

Rachel Richards: 8:47

So just pulling apart, what the key point is, of the research was parents are working longer hours in total. And I'll keep all these details as we go through childcare costs have soared beyond even some college tuition in America, but it's happening here. Saving for tuition sometimes feels hopeless given the rising cost of everything. There's a surging young mental health crisis in America. There are threats outside their control, which we don't have to deal with, thank heavens, like school shootings, yes. And there are also harms and risks in social media and technology, which I think should actually be much higher up the list, because I think that this is something that's completely changed, and we don't really know what we're doing. No,

Susie Asli: 9:26

I mean, a lot of those can induce, you know, trauma, those things, and

Rachel Richards: 9:32

Vivek Murthy calls it the culture of comparison. So, you know, the social media creating unrealistic expectations about celebrating milestone events. And it's just this is way beyond the Keeping Up with the Joneses that our parents had, you know, where they'd had competitive dinner parties, so that would be the like, the worst thing that you'd have to suffer at times. And I think our perceived parenting standards have been fueled by social media. You know, our perceive, our perception about how our homes should look, fueled by social media. Are children who are, you know, the Sephora generation of young girls who seem to think that they need to have retinol and, you know, six stage cleaning regime when they're 10. This is a lot of it's coming from that, and I think it causes parents to feel lonelier because. Don't feel that they're living up to something that's a mythical standard. Yeah? And

Susie Asli: 10:26

we have project kid, don't we? You know, it's, it's a big, big part of our but part of our lives. I'm not saying that us as kids weren't a big part of our parents lives, but it was very different. Yeah, the bar was a lot lower. Yeah.

Rachel Richards: 10:38

And Murphy says that in his conversations with parents and caregivers across America, he's found guilt and shame have become pervasive, often leading them to hide their struggles, which perpetuates that vicious cycle where stress leads to guilt, which leads to more stress.

Susie Asli: 10:51

And really good point, there's a loop, isn't it? There in a loop circle of I feel really stressed and I can't tell anyone, so therefore it gets worse and worse and I'm more stressed. That's how that's really toxic. Yeah,

Rachel Richards: 11:01

and I want to talk about this because I want everyone to go. It's not just

Susie Asli: 11:05

me. I'm feeling stressed just hearing me all of this making me breathe funny. Yeah,

Rachel Richards: 11:09

so work, childcare, parenting roles. So in the last decade, childcare costs have increased in America by about 26% across the US, they've also increased here. I don't know what the numbers are, but I'm sure that this is happening in other countries too, and one in four parents struggle to meet basic needs like affording groceries and paying their rent or mortgage in America, which is unbelievably stressful, unbelievably stressful, and things like healthcare and access to mental health, again, we have a national healthcare system try and get a therapist, yeah. I mean, the way to try and get help, yeah? And all of these parents who've got kids who are neurodivergent who need some support, everybody tells me it's incredibly stressful and very, very difficult, and you feel isolated because you don't know who to talk to, and you have to suddenly become an expert overnight on something that you really would rather not know about, right? So in his stats, he said mothers dedicated 28% more time to employed work than they did in 8019 85 men worked 4% more. So we're working more, and that's despite the longer hours and sometimes taking on multiple jobs. Parents with children are fretting about finances at nearly twice the rate of other adults. So it's actually the parents who are finding this more stressful than other adults. We're doing more as parents, so we're devoting way more time engaging our children. And because you've mentioned this before, and you know, physical care, educational activities for mothers, the jump has been 40% since 1985 fathers 154% Well, it was a very bloke.

Susie Asli: 12:51

And that's, that's incredible, yeah,

Rachel Richards: 12:53

and gun deaths, you know, this heightened parental concerns. I won't dwell on that, because that's a very specific American thing. But I, when I say that, that I think in South Africa, they've got problems. Sweden has now become the murder capital of Europe in gun crimes. One in five children has a special healthcare need, including those that are at increased risk of chronic physical development. And you know, these behavior things, and those parents, when they were interviewed, were much more likely to report fair or fair or poor mental health. Obviously, I think, and the US. Surgeon General released an advisory last year on a phenomenon known as the loneliness epidemic, which goes far beyond feeling left out, and according to Murphy, the sense of isolation has extraordinary health impact, a mortality impact akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. See, the smokers would say, if you smoked, you'd be outside on the cold pavement, there'd be other people there with you, and it's a way of connecting. That's actually, you know, when I went traveling with my friend before I went to university, she was a smoker, and she said, I'm gonna give him up smoking while I'm away. We were in India. It was so cheap to get cigarettes, and every time we bumped into people, people would be bumming cigarettes off each other. I felt super left out because I didn't smoke. So you know, this is just an obvious way where we're

Susie Asli: 14:22

not encouraging people to make up smoking, just to be really clear,

Rachel Richards: 14:27

now, according to this new advisory from Murphy, about 65% of parents and caregivers surveyed reported social isolation and a lack of social supports, and this is this. So it's 65 for parents or caregivers. 55% for non parents and for single parents, 77% so all you single parents out there, you really, really need support. We know you need support, and we're going to talk about this in a minute, but it's hard and you've been a single parent, right? Really stressful.

Susie Asli: 14:57

That's the loneliness part. Yes, all,

Rachel Richards: 15:01

exactly, and parents report technology and social media made their jobs harder. Of course, mental illness and mental health conditions. I mean, I, you know, I'm getting very depressing anyway. So, so what can be done?

Susie Asli: 15:14

So we get to that bit.

Rachel Richards: 15:16

So Murphy's advisory emphasizes the need to value and respect time spent parenting the same as we value and. Expect the time spent in a paying job. How do we do that? Because I do that, if we still got to pay the bills, we still have to pay the bills. And you know, this was a calling. This was a cry of feminists, way back where they'd say, you know, we're doing all this unpaid labor. If you actually priced our time, you know, this would be a very different equation. And so one of the things that I helped me, I'll start with, is being a single Tasker. And every time I come back to this, I think, Ah, okay, that's much easier. So I literally only do one task at a time, and I know that the way I get very stressed is when I try and do lots of different things, because I've got so much in my head. But when I do one task at a time, I find that I clear the task. It calms my brain, because I'm not juggling lots of tasks. And I get to the end of the day and I say, that was all I could achieve,

Susie Asli: 16:16

yeah. I mean, there is this still a Myth of Multitasking, isn't there? Like we're almost to it. You know, no one does it. Well, the research shows that we way worse that it things if we multitask. But there is still a myth that you are a superwoman if you can multitask women,

Rachel Richards: 16:30

women can't do it any better than men. It's just we were forced to do it. But it's true. They've done all the research we do. It's not true, truth,

Susie Asli: 16:37

yeah, but to intentionally and consciously just do one thing at a time, you're more efficient than on Yeah?

Rachel Richards: 16:42

And every time I slow down and do that, and then I get to the end of the day and say, I did everything mindful, and I did the tasks, and the ones I did were really good. Yeah, I noticed

Susie Asli: 16:51

when I when I get too busy and I flick between things, like half finished stuff all over the place, it's

Rachel Richards: 16:56

really same, you know? And you leave things around the house. Oh, I'm on the way upstairs to go and take some laundry back. And then I noticed some cups. So I collect the cups, so I collect the cups, and then I drop the laundry in the wrong place and whatever. So here's another one. Identify when you're hearing judgment or fear. Is it an internal, external stressor? What do you think? Because you know that whole thing, find out whether it's true. Like is, yeah, and Where's this coming from? Is, you know, when you get judged. And I used to feel judged all the time. I really struggled, really struggled, and I realized where it was coming from. And when I said to myself, it's not that's just someone else thinking that that's not actually a value to me,

Susie Asli: 17:37

no, that's Wow, then you can get then you can Yes, and it can diffuse it, yeah, noticing. I mean, that's a core of mindfulness, noticing our thoughts, noticing the judgment, because we judge again. That's like stress. It's a survival mechanism. We see the world through the lens of safe, unsafe. We have to judge to keep alive. But noticing that we are judging and why and where it's coming from is really, really valuable. And I think the external judgment can then we can internalize it. So stuff that we did originate as being external usually do, because none of no babies are judgmental. It's, it's, it's external stuff that we internalize, then it becomes our own narrative, and we need to just Whoa, hang on a minute. Do I need to be having these high standards? Do I?

Rachel Richards: 18:22

And also, if you hear it, went, try and tune into when you hear judgment, because sometimes we don't notice it. Once, once I start noticing it, then I can say to myself, I'm not listening to that. Yeah. Or that's not valuable to it's not true. It's not true. And, and, and it gives you a safer space, absolutely,

Susie Asli: 18:39

if we can really unpack it and go, What is exactly? What is it? What's the little narrative I'm telling myself, and then, usually, at the bottom of the noise, the same is the same stuff, and it's usually our own little mantra, which is, I'm not good enough, or I'm not lovable, or I'm not smart, or one of those, you know, really insidious things that we've taught ourselves. And we can, if we can unpack that and question that, then a loss of the judgment is much softer. Yeah, I completely agree that's a longer,

Rachel Richards: 19:09

longer work. No. And I think one of the really interesting things is rationing your exposure to negative thoughts and negative media, and we keep letting the world in. The way the world works now is we're online, and there has been research showing that after a very brief exposure to negative emotional content, people tend to pay more attention to upsetting images, threatening words and negative feedback, right? And that activates the stress circuits. But we can use the same thing happens when you focus on kindness and social support. So if you are feeling this kind of stress and negativity, actually, first of all, to switch off the stuff that's like, literally, just don't look on social media. Don't look at the news. Things that are making you unhappy. Looking at a picture of someone smiling can actually have this impact.

Susie Asli: 19:59

It's amazing, isn't that amazing? We have this with narratives, and we've that we have to keep up with all of this. We don't, don't,

Rachel Richards: 20:06

nothing's going to change, and we feel less threatened when we reflect on caring, helpful behavior of others as well. And one of the things I found really helpful is when I you know, if I'm going for a dog walk, I just always say hello and smile to people. Now, and it just, I just feel happier because people smile and say, say hello back, yeah. So when I'm going around town, it just, and then you start thinking, Oh, this is a nice community. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, obviously not everyone's living in a nice community, but where you'd feel safe.

Susie Asli: 20:38

Smile does make a difference. Gratitude makes a huge difference. Practicing gratitude. We've talked about that a few times. It really does release happy chemicals in your brain. And it doesn't have to be, you know, weird and, oh, everything's amazing Pollyanna, because that would be pukey, but just being grateful for a couple of things at the end of every day. And it could just be that, you know, you've got water in your tap. Have you had water in your tap? Or, I don't know you, you're healthy, if you're healthy, you know, just stuff like that. And the, really, the big stuff, yeah, that was the

Rachel Richards: 21:11

thing I was taught by my auntie June, who wasn't really my aunt, but she was the woman I used to go and see when I was in South Africa. And it's, it's made me a positive person through my whole life, because she just said to me every day, you know, you need to thank God for three things that you felt were good,

Susie Asli: 21:26

yeah. And it does make us completely and it they've measured it all now, you know, it releases chemicals in your brain that are akin to those in antidepressants, yes,

Rachel Richards: 21:36

and lean on your village. Now I'm what I mean by this is, many of us are like, Well, hang on, where's my village? I don't see it, and I want to try and encourage people to feel more confident about saying, Oh, I'm feeling this, or I've noticed this. Because it's almost like when you're in a classroom and you didn't understand something, and everyone's looking around thinking, Well, I can't put my hand up, but when you do, what's really amazing is other people often say, God, yeah, that's the same for me, yeah.

Susie Asli: 22:05

Or if they don't, they go, I'd like to help you. And that makes them feel great, too, exactly.

Rachel Richards: 22:09

One other thing, no, I love that exactly. And you can say, oh, you know. And they might be feeling stronger at that time. Or they can feel in they can feel good because some people, some people, their love language is actually helping other people. Always feels good to help other people, yes. Or, Oh, I've seen that problem? Yeah, we love fixing we love fixing people, yes, and so definitely recognize the signs of stress in yourself, and you can almost have a list of things that de stress you, because I think some of us work in different ways. So I need to run. If I run, and my kids know if I'm getting really touchy, they'll go, Mom, do you think you might need to run? Yeah, brilliant. And I know that that's a release for me. And my daughter's got an incredibly stressful time at the moment, and it's very hard to help her de stress. And I keep saying to myself, gosh, I wish I had a better handle on the things that really help her, because we haven't figured those things out properly yet. She's she's very mindful. She knows what she should be doing, but she's a perfectionist, and she really pushes herself hard and gets mouth muscles and, yeah, because she's got to be good and perfect and and it's that's a hard one, but I think constantly going back in and thinking, how can what techniques,

Susie Asli: 23:20

what helps work for her? Because people often go, oh, go and meditate, or go and be mindful. And for some people, that is the best thing. And for some people, it drives them insane, correct? So we need to get, get move our body. Often when we're that stressed, it's a moving body, jumping, doing push ups, or running up and down the road is and then if you want to meditate, then you can do it. But often it's like dissipating that stress energy. It's in our bodies. Animal. Animals do it. They shake, yeah, we can just put on and put on music and dance around and laugh. Laughter is

Rachel Richards: 23:48

really good, yeah. And I think that we can analyze situations ahead of time to take preventative action. And what I mean by that is we talked about this with the Christmas going and visiting your family, and, you know, the uncle who always gets drunk. And yes, you can think. You can think. You can try and think, oh, this thing comes up all the time. This drives me nuts. And we can try and ring fence stuff like, oh, when he brings out the bottle, I'm gonna go for a

Susie Asli: 24:12

walk. Or, Yes, yeah, right, yeah. And the big one that I find for me is, is knowing this, this too shall pass. It just makes such a difference. You sit in a stressful situation, and you think you're going to die and it's going to be like this forever, and it never is. It will pass. It always passes. And I actually think sometimes, you know, if we get very anxious and very stressed, because they're very connected, that, you know, we think we've got to be calm, that the opposite of anxiety is calm and and it's not. The antidote to anxiety is trust, nice. So it's trusting. I mean, calm is brilliant. I teach it all the time. We can have calming tools, and we can want to be calmer, but that's just symptoms. Calming the symptoms, if we're very anxious, learning how to trust in the bigger picture and that they will pass in that, you know, life will It will be okay. We're not all going to, you know, whatever our mind catastro catastrophe, our mind is telling us is going to happen, we can just trust. And then our body goes, Oh, okay. And it's a big shift, actually,

Rachel Richards: 25:19

yes, yes. The other thing that was great was when I. Have a list of my top things, top 10 things I'd learnt while I was making this podcast for the 100th episode. And Tara Wigley, who's a fantastic, brilliant name, food writer, she's great, and she wrote the book toast. You need it if your kids are going to university. It's a wonderful book to give them. And she messaged them straight away and said, Oh my gosh, I love this episode. Here's the thing, you need more me time. And what she meant by that? She said, No. She said, make sure you do at least one thing each day for you and for her. I think it's cold water, swimming, running, whatever, but you know, actually ring fence something that you do for you, because it's the oxygen mask that you've got to put on in order to be okay for your kids. And tell yourself,

Susie Asli: 26:03

I need this brilliant advice, because loved it

Rachel Richards: 26:07

brilliant you guys. I love the listeners who writing with things. Go ahead,

Susie Asli: 26:11

yeah, but we don't. That's the first thing we get rid of, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But actually, if we can see it as an investment, that we need it, and it's then we have to do it in

Rachel Richards: 26:21

a different way, budget more time to get things done. Researchers in Scandinavia report that mothers are more burned by time pressure than fathers, and the women most affected are either highly educated, financially stressed or lacking in social support. And you might think that you can't afford to change the schedule, but that pressure that we put on ourselves by saying, I've got to do this, this, this and this, this, this, and this, this is really problematic and and actually, I realized recently that I, you know, the whole having a diary and planning ahead is so much more effective as a way to live, and I've never been very good at it, but it's actually really much less stressful. And so I'm just going to throw that one in there as something that I used to do really badly and getting better at, and also looking at, and I have lists of things where this can drop off, yes, this can be moved down. This isn't important,

Susie Asli: 27:18

right? Yeah, my partner, we did that. He was trying to help me, because I'm not very good at stuff like that. Of you know things that you need to do immediately, things that can wait, and things that you know you actually can get rid of, but categorizing them is super helpful, because I think everything's got to be done today. That's the thing. Then we just check it all out. And

Rachel Richards: 27:38

when we're stressed, we can't calm down enough to think that through. But actually, if we take preemptive like, Just give yourself a planning time advance and just say, I'm just going to plan this out, and then it's going to be so much easier. I'm

Susie Asli: 27:50

bad at that, because I think, Oh, can't be bothered. We want to get there. And then it's more stressful, isn't it?

Rachel Richards: 27:55

So reframing what's happening so that you can take ownership as another thing. So cognitive reappraisal is, is what they did, was they they took students and they talked to a stressful thing and let them talk about their emotions. So when they rehashed their emotions alone, they continued with their stress when they had feedback, which said, um, that's an excellent way of thinking about it that reframed it and then said, now you have tools to manage that better next time, far less stress. So actually, rather than just thinking through the emotions and feeling the emotions, if you then think, Oh, now I've got tools, and I'm going to be better armed next time,

Susie Asli: 28:39

because a lot of stress actually is, is not the event itself or the thing that's going to happen. It's our worry that we don't have the capacity to deal with it. Yes, yes, that's the truth that really freaks us out, and that could be lots of different types of circumstances. So if we have some preemptive things that make us feel more able to cope with whatever it is that's chat to us, then we'll be less stressed. And here's another one,

Rachel Richards: 29:07

empathy. Is it your empathy that's stressing you out? So, you know, we've got kids, we're going to worry about them. There's different types of empathy. There's the effective empathy and cognitive empathy. And effective empathy can cause stress, because what it does is it's women who participate in this there was a study done on women participating in a simulation game where women who had lots of effective empathy got a bigger hit of cortisol when they had to make decisions about distressed, unhappy kids, and They also experience heightened activity in parts of the hippothalamus and amygdala regions of the brain linked with anxiety and stress. Cognitive empathy is where you you recognize what's happening, but you don't get emotionally involved. So it takes another person's perspective imagining what it wouldn't they would need to do to make them feel self feel better is much more cerebral. The mums who emphasize cognitive empathy showed the least stress reactivity during decision making. Gosh, I wouldn't decide that as empathy and the judgment calls were more accurate. Sorry. To interrupt, yeah, no, no, no. I Yeah, because empathy. Well, talk to me. What is empathy?

Susie Asli: 30:21

Well, to me. And I could be wrong, empathy is being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. You don't have to understand or agree with what they're saying, but you need to you're you have the cape, the capacity to understand where they're coming from, emotionally and cognitively, I thought.

Rachel Richards: 30:40

But I think what they're doing is they're saying in both of those situations, you are in their like you are able to put yourselves in their position, yeah. But one of them, you get emotionally involved in their position. The other one is more mental awareness of their position. So you're actually my husband's amazing at this. He doesn't get emotionally involved. He just listens to what I say and goes, Oh, right. And he can see it, and then tries to help me walk through it. And it's he doesn't get, he doesn't get upset about because that's

Susie Asli: 31:10

interesting. I wonder if the ones who get upset then kind of actually not accepting it, because you want to change it, yeah, the ones that Yeah, and that's not really empathy, is it? No, I don't know. Just throwing that out there, because empathy is the ability to see it, respect it, understand it, and then leave it as it is, whereas, if you emotionally evolve, that, to me, why implies that you actually aren't accepting it. There's something in it that you you can't bear and you want to change.

Rachel Richards: 31:41

That's a better way of explaining it. I think you're right. Finally, types of happiness, meaningful happiness seems to block toxic stress from reprogramming our DNA and increasing our risk of stress related disease. By contrast, self gratifying happiness doesn't that's another research thing that I've got all the research notes in. The point does that mean? So self gratifying happiness is something like a box of chocolates, which can be lovely,

Susie Asli: 32:09

it can be really lovely. Can be really lovely,

Rachel Richards: 32:12

but it doesn't necessarily get rid of the toxic stress and block it. And what they're saying is that when you when you experience meaningful happiness about like meaning in life. You give you you give things meaning. You do things with purpose and meaning that's got a much more relaxing impact.

Susie Asli: 32:33

So stuff versus emotion,

Rachel Richards: 32:36

yeah. So being, being bring more meaningful happiness into your life by finding ways to reconnect with experiences, people and goals that really matter to you. So yes, so my daughter's good at this. So when she talks about her birthday or Christmas and I say, Well, what would you like? She says, Oh, I just like to like do something. Yeah. So she's really tuned into that, that if she gets a present, it's not going to make her feel particularly less stressed or happier about life, but if she does something and it connects with something she really finds meaningful. Yeah, she's going to be much happier. So I think that's what they're getting. Yeah,

Susie Asli: 33:08

I think that makes total sense, just describing it badly. No, no, it's just too much stuff. We've got too much stuff, exactly, and the stuff doesn't make us happy. Yeah, we know that sometimes it does, though, and I do think chocolate can make me happy.

Rachel Richards: 33:20

Yeah, for some people, it's buying shoes, handbags. Ferraris, yeah, and we've done a lot of other things in the other one. So you there is another one that where we talked about stress, but I wanted to revisit this because I actually think it's really important. You know, stress busting, effect of nature, exercise, yeah, walking in. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep and not stressing about not sleeping.

Susie Asli: 33:44

Yeah, yes. It's really important to keep bringing these topics up, because it is, it's a killer. It's a killer. Yes, stress is the number one proxy killer. And

Rachel Richards: 33:53

the more we know that this is something that everybody else is experiencing, the more it normalizes it, the more you're going to be prepared to talk to other people about it, yes, and the less you'll feel isolated. Yeah, I think that's really

Susie Asli: 34:03

important. I think I like that point. And that point and the idea that it's shameful to feel stress, because one of the things of being a super parent is that you're supposed to be able to do it or without stress as well. Oh, take that one. So

Rachel Richards: 34:15

as a listener of this podcast, you can act as an ambassador by being who you want to see in the community. Do you like that? I love that when people try to load you with stress, just push back. You know, if you can't remember the research, just send them the podcast and say you might find this helpful, right? So if they're putting this stuff on you, just say, so if you think, Oh, I can't What did you say? I can't remember, just say you might want to listen to this.

Susie Asli: 34:39

That's a great idea. Yeah, I can't remember it. Either, can't remember what I said myself. Yeah. I

Rachel Richards: 34:44

mean, I feel really grateful to be on this journey, because I it made me realize we're not alone, we're not broken, we're doing our best. So if you want to search for other episodes, I'll put the little anything I've mentioned, I'll put in the notes, including that that study do it on the podcast player, www, teenagersuntangled, com. The most powerful way to help the podcast get out there is by sending it to other parents you know. Or you can leave a review on your podcast player. I know it's super hard on Apple, but I'm grateful to every single person who's done that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You can also email. You can send little text messages on the website. You can even leave a voice message no one's ever done it be the flower. Oh, that would be so cool, because I would put it on, sing us a song.

Susie Asli: 35:27

Go on. Okay? No, not you.

Rachel Richards: 35:30

No, no, I'm not about to go. I am not going to inflict that on our listeners. So you can email on teenagers untangled@gmail.com as you can hear, Susie is incredibly knowledgeable on this issue. You can get support by reaching out to her, and she doesn't work with companies, so don't forget that. What's your website again?

Susie Asli: 35:49

It is so all my links on my website there, www, dot, amindful hyphen, life.co.uk.

Rachel Richards: 35:55

Brilliant. That's it for this week. Have a restful, less stressy week. Bye, bye. For Now, bye, bye. You.