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I don't have control over those

1:37

thoughts that bubble up from time to

1:39

time. What I do have control over

1:41

is how I engage with those responses.

1:43

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome

1:46

back to Rethinking, my podcast

1:48

on the Science of What Makes

1:50

Us Tick with the TED Audio

1:53

Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist, and

1:55

I'm taking you inside the minds

1:57

of fascinating people to explore... new

2:00

thoughts and new ways of thinking. My

2:02

guest today is Ethan Cross, a

2:04

psychologist and neuroscientist at the University

2:07

of Michigan. His first book, Chatter,

2:09

was a bestseller on how we

2:11

talk to ourselves. He delves into

2:14

how to harness our inner voice

2:16

and overcome what's been called monkey

2:18

mind. You know, jumping from thought

2:21

to thought, like monkeys jumping from

2:23

one tree branch to another. Now

2:25

Ethan's new book, Shift, is about

2:28

another vital aspect of our inner

2:30

life. Emotion regulation. And he doesn't

2:32

shy away from challenging conventional wisdom.

2:35

There's research on this, which shows

2:37

that in some cases, avoiding

2:39

your emotional experiences can actually be

2:41

a tool that helps you cope.

2:44

Hey, Ethan. Adam, long time coming. I

2:46

have to start by telling you that

2:48

for years, people have been telling

2:50

me about their monkey minds, and

2:52

I have no idea what they're

2:54

talking about. What they're talking

2:56

about what they're talking about.

2:59

And I've been trying to make

3:01

sense of this and your book

3:03

chatter helped me a lot with it.

3:05

And then one day my wife

3:08

Allison was telling me about hearing

3:10

the characters in her head when

3:12

she reads a book and my mind

3:14

was blown. I have never heard a

3:16

sound in my head when reading. And

3:19

I couldn't imagine that

3:21

anybody would hear anything when

3:23

they read and I posted about

3:25

it. And at least from my

3:27

Instagram audience. I'm the outlier.

3:29

It turns out almost everybody

3:32

hears the words in their head as they

3:34

read. Can you make sense of this

3:36

for me? I cannot even begin to

3:38

wrap my mind around why you would

3:41

hear words that are written on a

3:43

page. The inner voice is a kind

3:45

of Swiss army knife of a human

3:47

mind. It is a multi-purpose tool that

3:50

lets you do many things. Some people

3:52

do. benefit from having back and forth

3:54

inner dialogue with themselves. Some people don't.

3:56

But at the other end of the

3:59

spectrum, we were just talking a little

4:01

bit about our favorite football team.

4:03

And there's a slogan, a phrase

4:05

that attaches to that team, is like,

4:08

Avengers assemble, but for Michigan football,

4:10

what is it? Do you want

4:12

to repeat it for everyone? Hail

4:14

to the victors. Hail to the victors. If

4:16

I asked you to just repeat that

4:18

phrase silently in your head right now,

4:20

could you do it? Of course. Yeah, you've

4:22

just used your inner voice. Your

4:24

inner voice refers to our ability

4:26

to silently. use language in our

4:28

minds. And like that function that

4:30

you just activated is a critical

4:33

function. I have an inner voice that

4:35

I use deliberately, sometimes to play

4:37

out a conversation, sometimes to play

4:39

back something I want to remember. The

4:41

part that's strange to me about it

4:43

is hearing voices that are not under

4:45

my control. The automaticity of having just

4:47

chatter going in the background. Yeah. My

4:50

head is silent unless I choose to

4:52

hear something. It seems like most people

4:54

when they read, they can't... They can't process

4:56

the word without hearing it and

4:58

it's just automatically activated in their

5:00

head. What's the term for this?

5:03

Is it subvocalization? Subvocalization, that's right.

5:05

There are two primary paths to

5:07

reading. One is you see the

5:09

word and then you instantly decode

5:11

its meaning. Like when I see

5:14

a pencil and the sight of

5:16

the pencil activates what we call...

5:18

my mental representation of a pencil,

5:20

which is my understanding of what

5:23

a pencil does. I don't have

5:25

to articulate out loud pencil,

5:27

writing instrument. I just know

5:30

it. But sometimes we do

5:32

sound outwords, so we subvocalize

5:34

them. And interestingly, that doesn't

5:37

always take the form of

5:39

us reading the sentence to

5:41

ourselves. Take the word permit

5:43

or permit. permit. We will sound that

5:45

out to understand where the emphasis lies

5:48

and that can aid in reading. Just

5:50

to go back to hearing other voices

5:52

though, we do have the capacity to

5:55

hear other voices to simulate them and

5:57

just because you do doesn't mean there's

5:59

any... wrong with you. I right now

6:01

for example can hear my mother telling

6:03

me to clean up my room. I can

6:05

simulate that. Definitely. Just

6:08

heard it right now and it elicited

6:10

all sorts of emotional experiences

6:12

associated with it. But I

6:14

don't hear my mother's voice

6:16

in my head all too

6:19

frequently and importantly I understand

6:21

that I just simulated the experience. There's

6:23

not my mom sitting in my

6:25

head pulling the strings. It seems

6:27

like there are a lot of

6:29

people who hear each character in

6:31

a different voice when they read a

6:34

novel. And many of the people

6:36

who commented on my post said,

6:38

they don't understand how to read

6:40

without subvocalizing. And I just can't

6:43

wrap my mind around this, Ethan. So

6:45

I'm wondering if you can help me

6:47

explain what's natural to me, but apparently

6:49

foreign to a lot of people. Let's

6:52

say I'm reading the word cheese. I don't

6:54

need to hear cheese in my head. And I

6:56

know it's cheese. I think most people are

6:58

actually availing themselves of both of

7:00

these different routes to comprehension. That

7:02

is, we are seeing words and

7:04

instantly intuitiveing their meaning, and sometimes

7:06

we're sounding them out as well.

7:08

There's variability in how much we

7:10

may lean on one modality versus

7:12

another, and maybe you are a

7:14

little bit more extreme on leading

7:16

on just the seeing and recognizing

7:18

and also sounding out. People say,

7:20

I don't have an inner voice. I've

7:23

never talked to myself. Well, you

7:25

may not have talked to yourself

7:27

having this back and forth exchange,

7:29

but have you repeated the grocery

7:31

list in your head or silently

7:33

rehearsed a phrase? Most people are then

7:35

going to indicate that they likely

7:37

have availed themselves of that function

7:39

of it. So I think this

7:41

is an invitation for all of

7:43

us to recognize that the

7:45

mind is incredibly flexible. There

7:47

aren't always these single tracks to

7:49

making sense of the world. We

7:52

sometimes think... in words. We also

7:54

think in terms of images as

7:56

well. So sometimes when I'm imagining

7:59

the future... I'm totally in verbal

8:01

mode, right? Other times I'm having

8:03

very vivid images of things, and

8:05

there is individual variability

8:08

there too. How would you explain what's

8:10

happening to someone who doesn't know

8:12

how to read without hearing the

8:14

sound in their inner voice, or in any

8:16

voice at all? You've associated individual words

8:18

with particular meetings, and those associations

8:20

are activated automatically, and so you're

8:23

not devoting any more effort. to

8:25

decoding the meaning in the same

8:27

way that when looking at a

8:29

basketball hoop, I know what it's

8:32

there for, right? When I look

8:34

at a phone, I instantly know

8:36

it's utility and you would hope

8:38

that all of us have the

8:41

capacity to link words with meaning

8:43

automatically like that. Otherwise, we

8:45

wouldn't be able to read

8:47

fluently. This is why children

8:49

have so much more trouble

8:51

reading quickly when they start

8:53

because they're still not quite

8:55

sure what words mean. For me,

8:57

looking at the phrase basketball hoop

9:00

is the same as seeing a basketball hoop.

9:02

I know it just as instantly. Me

9:04

too. And you don't have to say

9:06

to me, basketball hoop when I'm looking

9:08

at it in my backyard. So you

9:10

also shouldn't have to say it to

9:12

me when I'm looking at the word

9:14

or the phrase. But I guess what

9:16

that makes me wonder is I guess

9:18

I have a hyperactive or sort of

9:20

heavily relied upon verbal system. Is that the

9:22

gist of what you would make

9:24

of that? There's individual differences in

9:27

how much we lean on verbal

9:29

versus, for example, visual. There's also

9:31

a richness to the modalities, right?

9:34

So when you describe your wife's

9:36

experience, hearing different voices as she

9:39

reads, like that to me implies

9:41

a kind of cinematic quality to

9:43

her reading experience that I'm kind of

9:46

jealous of because I often just decode the

9:48

meaning until I hit... a place where I

9:50

need to devote a little bit more effort,

9:52

or if I really want to rehearse things,

9:54

I'll then sound it out. So I go

9:56

back and forth, but I'm more in your

9:58

direction, but the notion the idea of

10:01

being able to link different voice

10:03

attributes to different characters? I mean,

10:05

wow, that sounds like fun. It

10:08

does sound like going to a movie. It

10:10

also, to me, completely ruins the experience

10:12

of being immersed in a novel, though.

10:14

I think maybe it feels like more

10:17

of a flow state to me, that

10:19

it's totally silent. I feel like

10:21

I'm there, and I don't need any of

10:23

the stimuli to add accent

10:25

marks to the experience. When do

10:28

you ever... hear yourself sounding something

10:30

out. Ever? Does it ever

10:32

happen to you? I've been paying attention

10:34

to this. This topic came up as

10:36

I read, which of course interferes

10:38

with reading. But I think the only

10:41

time it ever happens is if

10:43

there's a word I don't recognize

10:45

and it's polysyllabic and it's not

10:48

clear how to pronounce it. I might

10:50

hear it in my head, but even

10:52

then, I mostly would sound it out

10:54

out loud. Dan William has a fantastic

10:56

book that I often recommend on

10:58

the psychology of reading and there

11:00

is discussion about when we will

11:02

lean more on enunciating or sounding

11:04

things out sub-voquially and effort is

11:06

often involved when it's challenging. So

11:08

that makes sense and you may

11:10

be just more in the direction

11:12

of that kind of fluid decoding

11:14

of words instantly pairing them with

11:16

their meaning but as long as

11:18

you don't judge others and don't

11:20

judge them harshly then I think

11:22

we're all good. No judgment here.

11:25

One other question that a lot of people

11:27

asked, actually, the first people to ask it

11:29

were a couple of friends from childhood who

11:31

are like, wait, is this why you read

11:34

faster than I do? And, you know, I

11:36

pause to think about it. I'm like, I

11:38

cannot even imagine slowing down enough in

11:41

reading to be able to understand like

11:43

the words separating in audio. Yeah. When I

11:45

read a book, I kind of process a

11:47

sentence. at a time as opposed to a

11:49

word at a time. And it feels like

11:51

my reading speed is at least 5x my

11:54

listening speed. And even if you could get

11:56

rid of the chipmunk factor, it would be

11:58

too hard to parse the sentences. Is

12:00

subvocalization a constraint on reading

12:02

speed? Or is learning to

12:04

read quietly a way to

12:06

accelerate your reading without losing

12:08

understanding? The research that I'm

12:11

familiar with actually suggests that

12:13

subvocalization is not always a

12:15

detriment to reading speed. This

12:17

was certainly an aha when

12:19

I encountered this work because

12:21

subvocalization is different from... reading

12:24

out loud an entire sentence.

12:26

It is placing the emphasis

12:28

as you're reading very quickly

12:30

on particular parts of words,

12:32

and the research that I've

12:34

read suggests that it does

12:36

not slow us down. That

12:39

is a myth, which is

12:41

fascinating. It's the reason why the

12:43

research is needed, because sometimes our

12:45

intuitions are not correct. I

12:47

want to go back to

12:49

something that you said, though,

12:51

to start off this conversation. You'd

12:54

mentioned that you had heard people

12:56

talk about monkey mind. You

12:58

never quite understood what that

13:00

meant. And so I'd love to

13:02

know how you define monkey mind

13:05

because my guess is in the

13:07

way that some people talk about

13:09

it, you may have some orangutangs

13:12

inside there. So how do you,

13:14

when you hear that term, what do

13:16

you think about? I didn't understand what

13:18

people were talking about when they talked

13:21

about it often in the context of

13:23

meditation, that they were trying to quiet

13:25

their monkey mind. I was like, I'm

13:27

sorry, what is a monkey mind? I

13:29

think the most common response I got

13:31

was, well, my monkey mind is like

13:33

that voice that's always chattering in the

13:35

background. Sometimes people call it the obnoxious

13:37

roommate in their head. It's kind of

13:39

like a running monologue of like things

13:41

I have to do or things that

13:43

I'm ruminating about. I don't have any of

13:46

that. I've never heard it that I

13:48

can remember anyway. So tell me what's

13:50

the Arangutan that I might be missing.

13:52

I'm going to guess that you do

13:54

worry about things from time to time

13:56

or experience anxiety. Everyone does. What form

13:59

does that take? It doesn't have sound

14:01

is the first thing. So it's more visual

14:03

based. I don't see anything either. I just

14:05

know it. The same way that I know

14:07

a word when I'm reading it. I don't

14:10

even know how to describe it

14:12

because it's so obvious. It's like

14:14

a fish saying it's in water.

14:16

It's so obviously uncomfortable. When I

14:18

was extremely nervous about giving my

14:20

first head talk, I found myself thinking

14:23

about what are the things that could go

14:25

wrong. And I'm not seeing or hearing

14:27

anything. I just am kind of... playing

14:29

out thoughts about scenarios. What if I

14:31

forget my lines? And then I would write down

14:34

a plan for what to do. If a joke

14:36

bombs, okay, I'm going to deal with that

14:38

like I did when I was performing

14:40

as a magician and find the one

14:42

person who laughed and say, thanks

14:44

for the courtesy laugh. I guess

14:46

it was anticipating scenarios and then

14:48

problem solving through them. There's not

14:51

a monkey-like quality to it because

14:53

I'm choosing what I want to focus on

14:55

and how to respond. And also, there's no

14:57

chatter. I don't hear it or see it.

14:59

So I don't know how to describe it

15:01

more than that, but maybe you can help

15:04

me. Well, I mean, the way you've just

15:06

described it captures the phenomenon for a lot

15:08

of people. It's this tendency to engage this

15:10

remarkable hypothesis-generating machine that we

15:12

all possess that start going in

15:14

the what-ifs. I've heard about a

15:16

lot of people's what-ifs. Like, it

15:18

never ends. You could come up

15:20

with all sorts of worst-case case

15:22

scenarios of worst-case scenarios for things

15:24

for things. what you were doing

15:26

there, how you became aware of

15:29

it in terms of your subjective

15:31

experience. That seems a little bit

15:33

hard to pin down. It seems

15:35

like you just were aware of

15:37

the fact that you were thinking

15:39

about these what-if worst-case scenarios. Maybe

15:41

it wasn't verbally mediated, maybe it

15:43

wasn't visual, just this sense of

15:45

knowing in a very abstract way.

15:48

Does that capture it? It does.

15:50

Did you ever start looping that

15:52

those what-ifs over and over? to

15:54

fuel the anxiety or are you

15:57

very scientific about it? I'm scientific

15:59

to a fault. Reasoning and logic

16:01

are where I go. I think

16:03

the probably the worst moment of

16:05

it was sitting backstage and just

16:08

feeling the physiological sensations

16:10

of anxiety and thinking

16:12

to myself, okay, I can feel like

16:15

the shortness of breath, I can

16:17

feel, you know, my hand shaking,

16:19

that's anxiety, what am I gonna

16:21

do about it? It's funny you describe

16:23

it that way. I have a

16:25

way of dealing with that right

16:27

now. That's very effective. I reframe

16:29

that and I interpret that as

16:32

that's my body rising to the

16:34

occasion to prepare me for this

16:36

really important experience. I love your idea

16:38

of that's my body rising to the

16:40

occasion because what that then leads me

16:42

to is like, I don't need to

16:45

rise this high. I actually already have

16:47

plenty of energy, and I've also done

16:49

the prep. My body's an overdrive here.

16:51

It's giving me tools that I don't

16:53

need. And it's going to lead me to

16:56

talk too fast. It's going to lead me

16:58

to sound way too high energy as

17:00

opposed to actually talking to my audience

17:02

and varying my pitch and my inflection.

17:04

And so I think that's a great

17:06

lead in to say, okay, this is

17:09

what my body is doing to try

17:11

to prepare me. But actually I'm already

17:13

prepared. Totally and I think

17:15

this gets at the real puzzle

17:17

of our emotional lives, which is

17:20

we have these responses that we

17:22

experience, often in the appropriate situations,

17:24

these emotional responses that are functional,

17:27

even the negative ones, the quote-unquote

17:29

negative emotions, like they serve a

17:31

vital function. Anxiety in the right

17:34

proportions is actually useful. When I

17:36

think back to the worst talk

17:38

I ever gave, it was a

17:41

talk where I felt nothing before.

17:43

Nothing. So there was no response

17:45

within me that cued me to

17:47

pay attention and prepare. And as

17:49

a function of that, I was

17:51

flat. So emotions in the right

17:54

proportions are really useful, but

17:56

they often are not experienced

17:58

in the right proportions. them

18:00

too intensely or too long. And

18:02

that's where the challenge of emotion

18:04

regulation really comes into play. And,

18:06

you know, the good news, and

18:09

I mean this without any exaggeration,

18:11

is that there are so many

18:13

tools that we have at our

18:15

disposal for calibrating those responses, using

18:17

the tools that you described or

18:20

I'd or countless others. There's a

18:22

lot of hope for helping us

18:24

master that that challenge that

18:26

sadly we don't often learn about.

18:28

Well, this goes to the heart of

18:31

your expertise on emotion regulation and picks

18:33

up on some of what I thought

18:35

were the big aha moments and shift.

18:38

So let's start with the idea that

18:40

a shocking number of people believe

18:42

they can't regulate their emotions.

18:44

Why do people think that

18:46

emotions are completely beyond their

18:49

capacity to manage? One of the most

18:51

powerful ways of helping... me

18:53

understand this was a talk

18:55

I heard by the Princeton

18:57

neuroscientist Jonathan Cohen when he

18:59

described the the itch reflex.

19:02

Can't always predict or control

19:04

when you're going to experience

19:06

an itch. Fair to say? Fair.

19:08

Right? And you experience that itch.

19:10

It's a powerful emotionally tinged response.

19:12

What you can control and we

19:14

are unique among species in our

19:16

capacity to control is whether we

19:18

scratch that itch and how we

19:20

scratch it. I think that's a

19:22

great way of making sense of

19:24

the facets of our emotional lives

19:26

that we can and can't control.

19:28

We cannot control the thoughts and

19:30

feelings that bubble up in our

19:32

awareness from time to time throughout

19:34

the day that generate emotions. I'll often

19:37

do an exercise with my classes, and I'll

19:39

ask them to just tell me about the

19:41

darkest thought. that you've experienced within the past

19:43

few days. And I have them do it

19:46

anonymously, but I have them tell me what

19:48

those dark thoughts are. They are some really,

19:50

really dark stuff. I do all the time,

19:52

and I consider myself a reasonable human

19:54

being just to put that out there for

19:57

those who are listening. And I'll give you

19:59

an example. of what I mean, and maybe

20:01

this will help. When I go to the

20:03

gym, I will often have the thought bubble

20:06

up into my head as I'm walking across

20:08

the gym floor. I'm carrying a massively heavy

20:10

dumbbell. That's a joke. It's not that heavy.

20:12

But I'm carrying a dumbbell, right? I'm

20:14

carrying a dumbbell from one side of

20:16

the gym to another. And I see,

20:19

for example, a person sitting on a

20:21

yoga mat doing an exercise. I will

20:23

imagine dropping that dumbbell on the

20:25

person's face. That sounds terrible. What kind

20:27

of human being have you invited on

20:30

your podcast? Why am I experiencing this?

20:32

Exactly what I was wondering right now.

20:34

Right? There you go. So what's happening

20:36

here? Well, it's likely my mind simulating

20:38

a potential worst case scenario. And what

20:41

does it lead me to do? Well,

20:43

I switch hands. I hold the dumbbell

20:45

and the opposite hand. I squeeze it

20:47

a little bit tighter because I don't

20:50

want to harm anyone. Many parents often

20:52

report experiencing these kinds of dark thoughts

20:54

of dropping their babies or ill-befalling

20:56

them. Not because there's anything

20:58

wrong with them, but again,

21:00

like me because the brain is

21:03

helping you simulate worst-case scenarios. to

21:05

prevent them from actually happening. So

21:07

to go back to your question,

21:09

why does so many people think

21:11

you can't control their emotions? I

21:13

think it depends on what part

21:16

of the emotion generation

21:18

timeline you are thinking about. If

21:20

you ask me, can I control

21:22

the emotions that just automatically bubble

21:24

up? No, it's automatic. I don't

21:26

have control over that, but I

21:28

do have control over how I

21:30

push those emotions around. Great. Okay. So

21:32

that goes then to the question of

21:35

what do you do once you've identified

21:37

an emotion that you think is counterproductive

21:39

or inappropriate for the situation at hand?

21:42

I know we've both been reading over

21:44

the years the Brad Bushman research on

21:46

venting where, you know, if you hit

21:49

a pillow or if you scream, that

21:51

actually makes you matter. It raises

21:53

your emotional temperature as opposed to

21:55

lowering it. And earlier, actually a

21:57

couple months ago, I posted... a

22:00

meta analysis that I

22:02

think really clearly documented

22:04

that effect and people

22:06

freaked out. Stop telling people

22:08

to suppress their emotions. That's

22:10

a recipe for denial and

22:12

PTSD. I was like, who,

22:14

who, who, I'm not saying

22:16

suppress your emotions. I'm saying

22:18

not all emotions need to

22:21

be expressed and sometimes letting

22:23

them out actually amplifies them

22:25

as opposed to calming them

22:27

down. And this was, I discovered, a

22:29

completely foreign idea for a lot of

22:31

people who don't read psychology for fun.

22:34

Yes. Can you help me with this?

22:36

I'm sorry you had that experience, Adam.

22:38

You should have called me and learned

22:41

from the moons that I've incurred over

22:43

the years. Have you also stepped on

22:45

that landmine? Absolutely. What was your version

22:47

of it? telling people that venting doesn't

22:50

help them work through emotions. This is

22:52

something that feels viscerally wrong to many

22:54

people because we have such a strong

22:56

desire to vent our emotions to

22:59

others. Venting our emotions, so

23:01

expressing them to other people,

23:03

for example, this can be

23:06

really good for strengthening the

23:08

friendship and relational bonds between people.

23:10

It is good to know that

23:12

there are other people who are

23:15

willing to take the time to

23:17

listen to us, to just empathically

23:19

connect with us. You probably felt

23:22

good a few seconds ago when

23:24

I said, I feel your pain,

23:26

I've been there, right? Like, we

23:28

are connected now. So that's an

23:31

important part of coping with negative

23:33

experiences, establishing those kinds of social

23:35

and emotional connections. The problem is

23:37

if all you do is vent about a

23:40

problem. in a conversation with someone

23:42

else, you leave the conversation feeling

23:44

really close and connected to the

23:46

person you just spewed it all

23:49

out to, but you haven't done

23:51

anything to actually work through that

23:53

experience to cognitively reframe it to

23:56

put it in a different light

23:58

that just might actually... allow you

24:00

to work through it in ways

24:02

that muffle it. So there's a

24:05

place in our emotionalize for both

24:07

of those processes. But you also

24:09

touched on one other really important

24:11

topic. I call it a myth

24:14

and shift that we always have

24:16

to confront our feelings and that

24:18

avoiding them is always toxic. There's

24:20

research on this which shows that

24:22

in some cases, avoiding your emotional

24:25

experiences can actually be a tool

24:27

that helps you cope. Now, we're

24:29

not talking about unhealthy forms of

24:31

avoidance, like drug and alcohol abuse,

24:34

nor are we talking about adopting

24:36

a coping style that we call

24:39

chronic avoidance, where you off the

24:41

bat, just de facto avoid

24:43

everything. But sometimes, I have experiences

24:46

where I am triggered, and I

24:48

deliberately decide to avoid dealing with

24:50

it for a certain period of

24:52

time. I will immerse myself in

24:54

work or have a conversation with

24:56

someone else about something engaging. And

24:58

then when I come back to

25:01

the problem, I find that I

25:03

can think about it in a

25:05

much more constructive way. If there's

25:07

one message I really hope to

25:09

get across and shift, it is

25:11

this idea that there are no

25:13

one-size-fits-all solutions when it comes

25:15

to managing our emotional lives.

25:22

Support for the show comes

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Ryan Reynolds here for Mint

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plan that I've been enjoying.

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27:16

I'm told it's super easy

27:18

to do at mintmobile.com. One

27:23

of the things that really resonates with

27:26

me about your perspective on avoidance

27:28

is you're not locking the experience up

27:30

and throwing the way the key. What

27:32

you're doing is you're allowing yourself some

27:34

distance and perspective, which is one of

27:37

the big ideas that you've put on

27:39

the map across the different bodies of

27:41

research that you've published is self-distancing is

27:43

a vital skill. And we often struggle

27:46

to solve our own problems because we're

27:48

too close to them. And we can't

27:50

zoom out, and so if I'm

27:52

distracting myself or if I'm delaying

27:54

how I process the experience, I'm

27:56

probably going to come at it

27:58

with some new ideas. One of the

28:00

things that this leads me to is

28:03

another point that you make in shift,

28:05

which is you argue that there is

28:07

value of not always being in the

28:09

moment. Yes. And I was so excited

28:11

to see that. One of the

28:14

studies I was reading recently was

28:16

a study of musicians in the

28:18

early stages of the COVID lockdown.

28:21

The more mindful they were, the

28:23

more distressed they felt. Whereas the

28:25

more hopeful they were, the

28:27

less distressed they felt. If

28:29

you're going through an intensely

28:31

stressful, emotionally difficult time, the attitude

28:34

that's going to help you most

28:36

is not mindfulness. It's actually hope,

28:38

because if you're only living in

28:40

the present, you're going to be

28:42

overwhelmed by the pain of today,

28:44

where you find strength and resilience

28:46

is in thinking about the better

28:49

circumstances of yesterday and then trying

28:51

to anticipate a brighter tomorrow. And

28:53

it sounds like you came to

28:56

a similar conclusion from different data.

28:58

And I'd love to hear your take. There's

29:00

real value that can be had by focusing

29:03

on the moment and your ongoing physiological

29:05

sensations, your stomach going in and

29:07

out, and just using that to

29:09

ground your experience when you find

29:11

yourself worrying about the future or

29:13

ruminating about the past. The problem

29:15

is, like so many other tools

29:17

that are beneficial, we tend to

29:20

just throw the baby out with

29:22

the bathwater and suggest, well, that

29:24

is the key across situations. there

29:26

is so much good that can

29:28

come from mental time travel if

29:30

you do it in the right

29:32

way for neutralizing your emotional experiences.

29:34

I will often time travel into

29:37

the future and ask myself, how

29:39

am I going to feel about

29:41

this tomorrow, next month, next

29:44

year? When you engage in that

29:46

in that little bit of what

29:48

we call temporal distancing, what it

29:51

automatically does is it makes accessible

29:53

the idea. that as bad as

29:55

what you're going through, it is

29:57

temporary. Things will get better.

30:00

Most of the time that is

30:02

true. This isn't just me as an

30:04

expert in this area telling you this

30:06

is true. You as a human being

30:08

have experienced that because

30:11

you've lived your life and

30:13

how many experiences have felt

30:15

awful but then have ceased to

30:17

feel awful as time passed.

30:19

It's amazing how often yesterday's

30:22

burdens become lighter today. Equally

30:24

valuable for me. is time

30:26

travel into the past, which

30:28

is a tool that I

30:30

use to broaden my perspective.

30:33

So I start shift by

30:35

telling the story of my

30:37

grandmother who lived through the

30:39

Holocaust in Poland and essentially

30:41

was fleeing the Nazis and

30:43

their allies for years with

30:45

nothing. So our entire family be

30:47

massacred. when times get tough for

30:50

me and you know sometimes they

30:52

feel really tough and suffocating I

30:54

will mental time travel into

30:56

the past and think about my

30:59

grandmother's life and her experience and

31:01

that has a way of broadening

31:03

my perspective that is really quite

31:06

useful for allowing me to reframe

31:08

what I'm going through and turn the

31:10

volume down. I've gotten in the

31:12

habit I guess of having a

31:14

very quick sort of zoom out

31:16

distancing reaction which is to say

31:18

but Thousands of innocent people are dying

31:20

in wars that don't need to be

31:23

fought. And democracy is in peril worldwide.

31:25

And 45 million people are starving

31:27

and the earth is melting. And like,

31:29

this is a run-on sentence, but in

31:31

the context of things that matter, this

31:34

is really trivial. And guess what? I

31:36

don't care anymore. The emotions melt away.

31:38

And when I try to walk other

31:40

people through that. They're like, yeah, it's one

31:42

thing to say those things. It doesn't

31:44

help me. I'm like, why not? If

31:46

you have that perspective, the things you're

31:48

worrying about don't matter. What am I

31:51

missing? Well, I think what you're missing

31:53

is the anchors in the future that

31:55

you are finding to be really beneficial

31:57

for you and for regulating your response.

31:59

are not the same anchors that

32:02

work for other people. When I'm

32:04

experiencing some anger or anxiety, I

32:06

will immediately jump into the mental

32:08

time travel machine in the way

32:10

we just described. Like you, I'm

32:12

really good at automatically using different

32:15

strategies, but it is not the only

32:17

tool that I will use. I'll also

32:19

distance in other ways, like I'll try

32:21

to... give myself advice like I would

32:24

someone else using my name to

32:26

do it silently, not out loud.

32:28

Ethan, what are you doing man?

32:30

I find that that's really useful

32:32

for me. I have an exceptional

32:34

group of what I call emotional

32:36

advisors. People in my life who

32:38

are skilled at both hearing me out,

32:40

letting me event a little bit,

32:42

but then also helping me reframe

32:44

things and work through it. Those

32:47

right there, there are three things.

32:49

That's like the go-to. I think

32:51

it's really important for people to

32:53

start thinking about multiple tools. We

32:55

did these two sets of studies

32:57

during COVID, this is a paper

32:59

and press, where we wanted to

33:01

see what are people doing to

33:04

manage their COVID anxiety? And is

33:06

it making a difference? And what we

33:08

found was... On average, people use

33:10

between three and four strategies on

33:12

any given day to manage their

33:14

COVID anxiety, and there was remarkable

33:17

variability in terms of the

33:19

tools that were beneficial. I like

33:21

that a lot. It's a good reminder

33:23

for me not to project my own favorite

33:25

emotion regulation strategies on to others.

33:28

One of the lessons I learned

33:30

early on in my... very loving

33:32

relationship with my wife was

33:34

to not project my emotion

33:36

regulation repertoire onto hers. Hers

33:38

is very, very different than

33:40

mine. And equally, if not

33:42

more effective, she is an

33:45

incredibly well-adjusted individual who deals

33:47

really well with all sorts

33:49

of emotional hiccups. What works

33:51

for her is very different from what

33:54

works for me. So I think

33:56

honoring that variability in life is

33:58

also really useful. found that

34:00

there are some strategies that

34:02

we probably consistently underestimate the

34:05

effectiveness of. And the example

34:07

you gave a minute ago

34:09

with talking to yourself, inner

34:11

voice, in the second person.

34:13

Second or third, you could do either.

34:15

Yeah. The key seems to be breaking

34:17

out of that first person point of

34:20

view and addressing yourself in ways that

34:22

others would address you. So if I

34:24

say, come on Adam, you can do this,

34:26

or we can do this, that's better

34:28

than saying I can do this.

34:30

If the goal is to muffle

34:32

an emotional response and get some

34:34

distance from the experience, then yes,

34:36

that is the case. If you

34:39

want to save or something positive,

34:41

then you want to stay in that

34:43

first person. You have some

34:45

examples of people actually doing

34:48

this consistently as a routine,

34:50

like Novak Jokovich. Yeah, there's

34:52

this wonderful anecdote of Jokovich

34:55

where he was getting creamed

34:57

by a very lowly ranked opponent

34:59

early in the tournament and

35:01

he takes a bathroom break,

35:03

goes into the bathroom, and then

35:06

he comes out like a bad out of

35:08

hell and demolishes the opponent

35:10

and wins the match and he's

35:12

asked, hey, what happened in the

35:14

bathroom? And he's like, I gave myself

35:17

a pep talk, but he used you.

35:19

the entire time to address himself

35:21

like he was addressing someone else.

35:23

We are so much better at

35:25

giving advice to other people than

35:28

we are taking that advice ourselves.

35:30

What distant self-talk seems to

35:32

be doing is allowing you

35:34

to relate to yourself like you

35:36

were someone else. That is certainly one

35:38

strategy that I think is... off people's

35:41

radar. And what I love about it

35:43

is that it is so easy to

35:45

use. The other one that I'd love

35:48

to slip in there is music. When

35:50

you ask people and researchers have done

35:52

this, why do you listen to music?

35:54

Close to 100% say they listen to

35:57

music because they like the way it

35:59

makes them feel. emotions. But then

36:01

if you look at what people do when

36:03

they're grappling with big

36:05

emotional experiences, anger, anxiety, sadness,

36:08

what percentage of them actually

36:10

use music as a tool

36:13

to change the trajectory of

36:15

their emotional response, it's between

36:17

10 and 30%. That is a wild discrepancy

36:20

for me, but now that I'm aware of

36:22

it, I have playlists on my

36:24

phone to push me in

36:26

different directions. And no, these

36:28

are not solving the major

36:31

existential issues I face, but

36:33

they are giving me a

36:35

little nudge at opportune times

36:37

to write the course. I've heard a

36:39

few psychologists and therapists over the years

36:41

say they actually named that inner voice

36:43

to try to create even more distance

36:46

from it. I think one therapist calls

36:48

her inner critic Regina after Regina George.

36:50

I heard another who actually calls his

36:52

inner critic George and when he has

36:55

a thought or an emotion he doesn't

36:57

like, he'll say, shut up George. When

36:59

I first started talking about this idea

37:01

with my literary agent, you know, and

37:04

I mentioned like the inner critic, he said,

37:06

oh, you mean Marvin? I'm like, oh, this

37:08

is the beauty of the mind. Well, I'm

37:10

putting in my vote for you to

37:12

run that experiment. What happens when, first

37:14

of all, when people name the inner

37:16

critic, and secondly, when they give it

37:18

a funny name? Yes, I think a

37:20

funny name is key. You can't talk to

37:23

Marvin and still feel threatened. So

37:25

Marvin is inherently amusing. We could

37:27

do this study tomorrow, like it'd

37:29

be really fascinating, because the naming

37:32

function here is giving us some

37:34

space. But then by making it

37:36

funny, you are, you are. invoking

37:39

another kind of emotional experience that

37:41

is in contrast to the negative

37:43

one. So you might be getting

37:45

a double whammy there. Support

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$1,000 off. Okay,

40:03

time for a lightning round. Tell me,

40:05

Ethan, what is the worst advice

40:07

people regularly give on either

40:09

emotion regulation or managing their

40:11

inner voice? Just venture emotions.

40:13

How about something you've rethought

40:16

lately? Really the power of strategic avoidance.

40:18

I was raised to always approach things

40:20

head-on, work through them. There's a time

40:22

and place for that, but a lot

40:25

of the time I have found that

40:27

that is not actually useful.

40:29

It doesn't lead to productive. outcomes

40:31

compared to when I take some

40:34

time away. You're like Abraham

40:36

Lincoln writing letters to people

40:38

he was angry with and

40:40

then putting them in a

40:42

drawer. An unpopular opinion that

40:45

you're excited to defend.

40:47

Avoidance isn't always toxic.

40:49

And what's the question you have for

40:51

me? How good do you think you

40:53

are on a scale of one to ten

40:55

at managing your emotions?

40:57

Well, as a diver I have to

41:00

edit to a zero to 10 scale.

41:02

Okay, fair enough. I'm going to say nine,

41:04

largely because I seem to be

41:06

the person that people go to

41:09

for emotion regulation advice, and sometimes

41:11

people ask me if I ever

41:13

a moat. And what do you

41:16

attribute to your ability to not

41:18

a moat, which I don't think is

41:20

true, but to keep your emotions

41:22

in check? Growing up with

41:24

family members who had extreme

41:27

anxiety. I learned really quickly to

41:29

contrast with that. The more

41:31

stressful situation was, the more important

41:33

it was for me to be a

41:35

source of steadiness and calm. And so

41:38

I think a lot of what I

41:40

do, we've talked about in terms of

41:42

distancing and gaining perspective, but the other

41:45

thing I think about a lot is,

41:47

what is my emotional impact on others?

41:49

And when I know that my mood affects

41:51

other people and they're counting on

41:53

me to stay cool, that becomes

41:55

really clear motivation. Well, I

41:58

think that's a perfect message to on

42:00

because what your experience demonstrates

42:02

is that your DNA is

42:04

not your destiny and I

42:06

genuinely think that that is true

42:09

for all of us that we

42:11

can learn to get better at

42:13

emotion regulation if we're both motivated

42:15

to do so because we believe

42:17

it's possible and then if we

42:19

actually familiarize ourselves with the

42:21

with the tools and techniques that are

42:23

out there to do it. Well, you've

42:25

given us some valuable techniques

42:27

and also frameworks for even

42:30

thinking about how we do

42:32

that. You're just such a

42:34

clear communicator. So thank you, Ethan.

42:36

Thanks for giving me the opportunity

42:38

to talk about this. Thanks for

42:41

coming. Ethan makes it clear that

42:43

emotion regulation is not about

42:45

controlling what you feel. It's

42:48

about choosing how you respond.

42:50

Intense feelings don't always demand

42:52

immediate reactions. They often benefit

42:55

from deep reflection. Rethinking is

42:57

hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show

42:59

is part of the TED audio

43:02

collective. And this episode was

43:04

produced and mixed by Cosmic

43:06

Standard. Our producers are Hannah

43:09

Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson.

43:11

Our editor is Alejandro Salazar.

43:14

Our fact checkers Paul Durbin.

43:16

Original music by Hansdale Sue

43:18

and Alison Layton Brown. Our

43:21

team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob

43:23

Winnick, Samiah Adams, Roxanne High

43:26

Lash, Banban Chang, Julia Dickerson,

43:28

Tansika Sungmanivong, and

43:30

Whitney Pennington Rogers.

43:33

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