I saw that you were the founder of UCLA's Stress Strategies program, and I would love for you to also highlight, you know, what have you learned about stress over the decades of research?

I'm happy to, and thank you for inviting me onto your podcast.

And actually, I will go directly to your website for my first comment.

[laughs] I took a look at your website, and one of the things that you say is, "Podcast for people seeking root cause healing." And there's nothing more root cause than how your nervous system is working.

It's at the center of everything.

And so you wanna keep that nervous system in a place of balance.

If it's out of balance, you wanna get it back into balance as quickly as possible.

So in terms of stress, most people will say, "Well, everyone's stressed." Um, how do we know if we're managing our stress well? How do we know if we're dealing with the stress well, and how do we know if it's too much stress and that we should be letting go of certain things that are causing too much stress in our lives?

Yeah.

Where's the danger coming from? So that's a negative mindset that already sets you down the path of more stress in your day.

Or do you wake up in the morning and think, "Oh, I'm looking forward to today.

I'm looking forward to this challenge over here and how I'm gonna handle this challenge." That makes all the difference in the world, that mind- difference in mindset.

Cognitive balance and mastery is also a growth mindset.

If you notice a shortcoming, instead of saying, "Oh, I guess I can't do it," you say, "What do I need to learn so I could do it or do it better?" So these are all part of the cognitive balance and mastery.

If I got a, a negative thought stuck in my head, how easily can I let go of it, or does that kinda command my attention without my having any control over it? The sixth is emotional balance and mastery.

I'm a failure.

and stress responses.

So we have this, the vagus nerve is experiencing and taking in information from the environment, and it's also sending information to different parts of our body.

So we need messaging that goes, that can go to, for example, it innervates the heart and says, hey, you can be slower or faster.

It goes to the lungs for breathing.

deeper and faster or slower.

It goes to the digestive system, the gut, and it can say, hey, everything's fine.