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How To Handle Constant Exhaustion (Without Blaming Yourself) | Jay Michaelson
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- [00:00]
Jay Michaelson
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Dan Harris
This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, here's a question. Do you feel constantly exhausted? Not just under slapped, although many of us feel that too, myself included, but also generally fried? Today we're going to hear from my friend Jay Michaelson, an incredible meditation teacher, author, lawyer and more about how to deal with this general sense of fatigue being frazzled. Jay's got tons of practical strategies and not just the obvious stuff. We get into self compassion, which he takes beyond mere cliche or bland exhortation. We talk about the disutility of feeling shame about using modern technological devices, which most of us need. We talk about something called micro naps and then something I had never heard of called brain machines. By the way, Jay is our Teacher of the month over on 10% with Dan Harris, my new meditation app. That means he's crafting guided meditations for the app and also participating in some of our weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions which we do every Tuesday at 4. And you should join us. If you want to check out the app. You can head ON over to danharris.com there's a free 14 day trial and if you can't afford it, just hit us up@supportanharris.com and we'll give it to you for free. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we will be right back with Jay Michelson in conversation with the executive producer of this show, DJ Kashmir. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Sometimes it can feel like everybody else has it all together in their love lives, whether married, dating or single. The truth is, many of us are still figuring it out and finding our way. And no matter where you are in your life, romance journey therapy can help you find your way, help you determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some of the pressure off yourself. This issue of our romantic lives, or lack thereof, can be particularly a fraught in February, which is full of flowers and candy and stuffed animals and lots of talk about relationships and dating. And therapy can be a great way to work out your issues, whatever they are. I have found that individual therapy and couples counseling can be extremely helpful for me personally. Better BetterHelp has quality therapists who work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. They give you a short questionnaire to help identify your needs and preferences and then their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment Rate means they typically get it right the first time. And if you're not happy with your match, you could switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com happier that's betterhelp.com happier. Right before I recorded this ad, I was in my closet looking around for what I was going to wear tomorrow. I've got a family lunch and I was a little disappointed to see that my face Favorite pair of pants. Literally my favorite pair of pants for two years. Now they're unavailable. I think they're still in the laundry. You know who makes those pants? Quince. Quince has the everyday essentials that I love. Quality that lasts. Organic cotton sweaters, Polos for every occasion. Lighter jackets that keep you warm in the changing season. The list goes on. Quint works directly with top factories and cuts out the middleman. So you're not paying for brand markup, just Quince quality clothing. Everything is built to hold up to daily wear and still look good season after season. Hence the fact that my black pants from Quints are still my favorite pair of pants after all these years. I've also got a bunch of sweaters from them and socks and underwear. I got a lot of Quint's stuff. I like their stuff a lot. Here's the other thing. They only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for both craftsmanship and ethical productions. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quints.com happier than for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q I n c e.com Happier free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com Happier.
- [04:31]
DJ Kashmir
Jay Michaelson, welcome back to the show.
- [04:33]
Jay Michaelson
Great to be here.
- [04:35]
DJ Kashmir
So today's question is about just being exhausted. How to handle just this constant whether it's a low hum or whether it's a little louder than that. There's this constant feeling that so many of us have and so many of us in our virtual community that we're building have of just being fried seemingly all the time.
- [04:59]
Jay Michaelson
My first immediate response is both coming from me and a bit of dharmic advice, which is compassion, self compassion. Like the first step. I have noticed myself that I can blame myself for being tired. Like I should somehow be better at it. Especially because now there's like a whole industry of of sleep advice and sleep counseling, which is good, right? But then if you're not succeeding at it right, that must be your fault or you're not being disciplined enough or you're just whatever you're wired bedly, whatever it is. And then when I get tired, I think when most people get tired, we're not at our best cognitively, right? So even if we've absorbed a lot of good tips and meditations and stuff like that, we don't use them because we're depleted. Right. Back when I was a lot younger, I used to run marathons. You know, like you're a different person at mile 20 than you are at mile 2, right. It could be a little bit of a moment of insight to what we mean about non self and impermanence. Right. You just change the conditions that you're under and you become different. Right? You're a different person if you're you know, like halt, hungry, angry, lonely or tired or all four, if you can manage that. And if people don't know that, just the halt thing is also really helpful for being in relationship and self regulation. Like you check in and if you're feeling one of those four things, you might consider halting. Right? And not taking that step, not writing that email. So again, you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired because you're just not at your best. So when we're not at our best, I may be telling you right now, self compassion is good, but you're not really going to feel that necessarily in that moment. So that's my first, like the first response I would say is okay, here's where it is and is it pleasant? It's definitely not pleasant. All right. I like feel a little self compassion for this being and maybe that gives you a little bit of comfort just in that. Right. And self compassion is not self pity. It's not like going into a story about oh, it's this fault, it's that it's the other. It's just like, okay, this current moment situation has a little bit of suffering in it. The second thing I would say, and it's gonna like shape the way I wanna talk about this is what I think is like a really important oscillation in mindfulness practice. And it's the oscillation between being with a difficult thing on the one hand and seeking an antidote on the other. And there is no like perfect recipe for which of those two is right at any moment. It just has to be. You learn how to do a bit of discernment over time and that's how you it. So let's say if you're in meditation, you know, you're sitting still and you know you Got a bunch of pain coming up, let's say like knee pain or something like that. So generally what you want to do is try to practice with it, which means can you just be present with what's happening? You feel it, you notice if it's changing. You do all those kinds of things, but you don't want to do that if that's all you're doing. You're just in agony, or certainly not if you're at risk of injury. So at some point in there, you switch over. You switch from being with the difficult thing to getting an antidote for the difficult thing in regular life. I think we more likely just reach for the antidote right away, which is fine. That's how. That's what we're wired to do. If you poke a microorganism, it'll recoil. Like, it's not going to sit there and be present with the feeling of being poked. It's going to try to get out of there. So it makes sense that we do that too. It can really be helpful though, to try to do that two step, do that oscillation. Like, can I be with what's happening right now? Sharon Salzberg, a friend of the show has said, you know, said one time, it's not what's going on, it's how you relate to it. So tiredness, feeling exhausted, feeling burned out or drained, like those are not pleasant things. Right. But you can still relate to those sensations in a way that is mindful, self compassionate, attentive and wise. Like you can grow wise even in relationship to the difficult thing. So what might that look like? So part of it is just, okay, here's where I'm at. This is what's true. I'm not denying it. I'm not running away from it. Another, you know, key teacher of mine, Sylvia Boorstein, sometimes says that this isn't what I wanted, but it's what I've got. Not as a, oh, this is terrible. I didn't want this and I got it. It's like, okay, but this is what I've got. That cliche. It is what it is. This is what it's pointing to when it's not a cliche. This is what's happening right, right now. It's like this right now. There's feelings in the body, feelings in the mind. And you could even if you have a moment to do it, do a little bit of mindfulness of what's really happening. So, like, what's happening in the body? What are the feelings that you're feeling. Is it in the muscles? Just in the eyes? Is it. Part of this is, like, diagnostic. Like, you might notice that you're dehydrated, for example, and go get a drink. So it's like the two sides work together, but part of it's just investigating what is and building metacognition around these sensations. That's the whole enchilada of meditation, right? If you can just. All right, I can be present with these difficult feelings. Whether, again, body or mind, emotional, whatever they are, I can be present with these difficult sensations. Then maybe I can be present with other difficult sensations, like when someone says or does something hurtful, or when I really, really, really want something, and I may act in a way that's not so skillful or that could cause harms to others. That's what I mean by the whole enchilada. Like, after the Buddha's enlightenment, he still got stung by mosquitoes all the time. If you ever want to go down a fun Buddhist rabbit hole, there's now concordances of all of the texts, and you can just look up bugs. And they have a lot to say. They didn't have, like, bug spray in. In the 6th century BCE in northern India, and they sure had a lot of bugs, right? The point being, like, bad stuff still happened, right? And obviously I chose a trivial example, like mosquitoes, right? But real bad stuff happened, too. People died. There were wars. There were. Right. But because he had done what he did and got to be all enlightened and stuff, he was able to be a little less reactive or not at all reactive to it and have that spaciousness. So that's what I mean by the whole enchilada. Can we be present with the difficult stuff, the difficult aspects of our experience with not wallowing into them, but not pushing them away either? Okay, but that was one side. At a certain point, it does become skillful to reach for the antidote. So, like the general. I'll pause after this to see if you have a question or anything, but just notice, like, the goal is not to just sit there and grit your teeth and be some kind of superhuman who can be present with anything. It's just like, try that for a while. Get curious about this feeling of exhaustion. It might even be, you know, again, it might be something else. It might be hunger, or it might be dehydration or something like that. But just like, seeing, where is it in the body? What's happening? What's my feeling tone? What's the mind? Is the mind really, like, dull? Which it often is. Sometimes I'm also. I'll also notice I'll be feeling sad and then I'll look inside and I'm actually really tired. And if I don't do that, I can go off into long stories about why I'm sad. Right. Which usually don't end well because they're sad stories. And I can go down a whole rabbit hole of self psychoanalysis, which is generally not a good practice anyway. And then only later realize, oh, actually I was tired. There's this great line in A Christmas Carol by Dickens where Scrooge sees the first ghost that comes to him on Christmas Eve. And he says to the ghost, you are a piece of undigested meat. In other words, I'm having a nightmare because, like, I'm having a digestive problem. That's what you are. Like, it would be great if I could do that, if we could do that. Whenever that happens, right. I'm feeling bad and aversive and lousy. And you train the mind to look inside. Maybe it's not even that. Maybe it's just a piece of undigested meat. Maybe it's actually just feeling tired or again, yeah. Hungry or angry.
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DJ Kashmir
Okay, so before we get to the antidotes, you've already laid out two really helpful moves we can make. One is to start with self compassion. The other is when it's feasible is to be with what's happening, investigate it a little bit before trying to fix it or solve it. On the first point, the self compassion point, we've talked about this on the show for years and years and I would just say, like, for me personally, it wasn't until several years worth of those episodes that I even started to dip a toe in those waters. Can you just say a little bit about the actual move? What is the move, the self compassionate move to make if I'm whatever it is, walking down the hall and dreading the bedtime routine because I want to be going to bed myself, for example, what is the self compassionate move there?
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Jay Michaelson
That's some really good hashtag relatable content.
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DJ Kashmir
I just pulled that out of thin air.
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Jay Michaelson
Jay, I don't know where you got.
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DJ Kashmir
That's not from every day.
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Jay Michaelson
Yeah, my daughter goes to bed late. And so I have even a different story when it's, I can't wait for bedtime to happen actually, so I can be free because like she goes to bed so late. I only get like an hour of like time to myself and in the evening. So, yeah, I think I forget which guest it was that Dan had many years ago about self compassion. Just talked about the fierceness of compassion. Oh, yeah.
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DJ Kashmir
Kristin Neff, probably.
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Jay Michaelson
Yeah. Kind of like reframing it a little bit, I think, even without gendering it in a way. Like, we have this, like, association of compassion with, oh, that's touchy feely or that. And sometimes it can be. And touchy feely is great. I like hugs, I like blankets. That's fine. But it can also be seen in a different light. I'm not going to. Yeah, I can curse now, right? I'm not going to fucking let these stories that I've inherited from my culture or my family or whatever own this mind. Like, you. Like, I'm not. It can. Compassion can look like that. It can really be like, I get. Here's this long story that I internalized when I was 9 years old or whatever, and I'm going to stand up to it and it can actually feel like that. It's not like, I don't have to get, like, too far on that side where it's like war and battle or whatever, but it can be bravery and fierceness. And it's like, no, this situation sucks. There are other situations that suck more. I'm not playing the Olympics of suffering, right? Like, you're having to put your kids to bed is not as bad as some person in prison somewhere. But okay, that we're not playing that game. We're just saying, like, this situation sucks. And that's all I'm recognizing. And just like one of the moves that is classic in self compassion is like, imagine it's someone you care about, right? Who's feeling that? Like, how do you feel toward that person? Of course you'd see someone you love or a family member, friend, whatever, and they're suffering. You would feel. Feel. Unless you're like a horrible sociopath who might be the president of the United States, you're gonna. You're gonna feel compassion for that person. And so likewise, you just practice it that way and then just turn it on yourself. This is another line that teachers say a lot. Imagine if you talked to other people the way you talk to yourself. Right? They would leave. Right. You would never do that. Right? And so now imagine if you talk to yourself the way you would talk to another person if you got a text or something from a friend who's like, oh, my God, I'm so exhausted all the time. You wouldn't be like, buck up, loser. So imagine like, you're talking to yourself the way you would talk to a friend who you really care about. Those are a couple of the ways the move could really look like.
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DJ Kashmir
Love it. And then the second piece, and we'll talk about antidotes. A bit of really just noticing what's going on before trying to fix it and maybe investigating a bit in order to free up space to deal with it differently. I mean, there was a. It brings to mind for me just a couple days ago, my wife and kids and I were at like a family party that was in a hotel ballroom.
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Jay Michaelson
And I'm already triggered. I've already imagined how loud it is.
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DJ Kashmir
It was loud.
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Jay Michaelson
Yeah.
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DJ Kashmir
Yeah, it was loud. And this is an annual thing. We knew it was going to be late, so we got a room in that same hotel to stay in so that we wouldn't also have the drive home afterwards. And we don't usually sleep, all four of us in the same room. And so I just didn't get very much sleep. The kids were in the bed next to our bed and tossing and turning and noise in the hotel. And when I woke, I can't even say when I woke up. Like when the morning came and I was awake again. My two kids, 6 and 3, they're obviously up first. The second an ounce of sunlight leaks in and they're doing this thing where they're like whispering to each other and trying to not wake us up, but would forget that every couple minutes. And I just remember, like, there was a moment where I was like, okay, like, this is it. You're not falling back to sleep again. You didn't sleep well last night either. You're going to be really exhausted. And then just. Just making a different choice. Like, literally. I was like, but it is pretty cute that they're sort of kind of trying to let us say. And yeah, I just, I just sort of reoriented. And I was like. I knew we had another long day ahead of us. We had one of my kids birthday parties. Like, literally that day, like, it was just going to be a lot.
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Jay Michaelson
You know what I just said about the Prussian Olympics? You win.
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DJ Kashmir
I won. I won, I won. But anyway, this is. The story got way too long. But the point is that, like, in that moment of realizing how tired I was and how tempting it was to go down the cranky, tired, exhausted path, like, I just grabbed for a different story, a different orientation later on, you know, that afternoon, I'd had a pretty good day for how tired I was. And there was no becoming less tired. That just wasn't on offer. But I could orient to it differently. And I Mentioned to my wife that I'd made this decision when we woke up, and she was like, yeah, I was confused why you weren't more cranky.
- [18:45]
Jay Michaelson
I thought maybe you were on drugs. Yeah, no, that totally tracks. I forget. I think it's one of Joseph Goldstein's early books about insight meditation. Calls it, like, the practice of freedom. Freedom, right? That is that freedom. And just that moment, even without the consequences, which were really positive, just the moment of freedom where you're like, I can make this choice, right? And I find that's true even just in the moment of mindfulness, of being tired, right? There's. Oh, okay, there's. I'm hanging out. I'm with the tiredness. But, like, the part of me that's active right now is like this witness, right? This witness consciousness that's aware of the tiredness. And in that moment, I'm still tired, but I'm not, like, soaked in the tiredness. Like, I'm not exhausted. In that moment, there's that space of freedom. That space can feel really good, right? Like, it's actually a positive sensation. And sometimes it's not there because you're just that exhausted. But when it is there, there's that little bit of space. And that is a little tricky when we talk about happiness, Right. Cause a lot of times, certainly in the classical Buddhist sources, but even just now, in. In secular mindfulness, like, happiness doesn't always mean happy, right? It's like the happiness of. There's a freedom from suffering, even if it's just momentary. There's the joy that comes from the capacity to be mindful and being with the witness instead of just in the sensation, the dreck, the dirt, the tough sensation. And then it led to all those positive consequences. Like, you had a pretty decent day. Maybe you were a little less reactive. Whatever. Like, you got through it. For me, I would just have more coffee. But to each their own. And that's what I wanted to bring out. Like, yes, the consequences. And even without them, like, just that moment of freedom when you're, like, lying in bed, you know, that connects, well, I think, to that attitude I had toward compassion. Right. There's a little bit of fierceness in that. Yeah. I mean, I know exactly how to be grumpy, right? I can just push autopilot or whatever, and it's going to go, and I can do that. But actually, like, yeah, I'm going to do this weird thing, which maybe doesn't feel as natural, and I'm not going to be. Always look on the bright side of life, but I can be just a little bit more mentally awake in a certain way.
- [20:53]
DJ Kashmir
Love it. Okay, so we've talked about starting with self compassion. We've also talked about bringing some awareness to maybe even some investigative energy to this feeling of exhaustion. What is it? What's the story? Where is it in my body? How am I relating to it? How might that be different? But then there is this third piece of. There are things we can do to be less exhausted over time. And you know, you gave the important caveat already that in a cultural moment of optimization around sleep and every other phenomenon, it's a slippery slope to talk about antidotes because it can quickly lead to self blame. I knew the sleep hygiene rules and I just didn't follow them and I suck or whatever. But with that caveat, what comes to mind for you is some of the best practices for being with that exhaustion, but also trying to transform it a bit.
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Jay Michaelson
Yeah. I want to quickly add one other caveat which is like there are also social conditions that cause this exhaustion, some of which are well beyond our individual agency and control. Right. And you know, you and I are still relatively privileged people. Right. And we still experience a lot of exhaustion. Now imagine you had to take a second job because there's not a livable wage in this country and you can't get health insurance. I forget there was a teacher who we worked with who you might remember which. Which one it was. I'm blanking at the moment, but who's like, let's not let our capacities for self care get in the way of critique of an unjust society. You and I are maybe not the most egregious victims of that injustice, but like, we do suffer as a result of it. We do live in capitalism. We do have this sort of. So they're like, that's just the second caveat. This doesn't solve anything. Yeah. But it's just an awareness of. And that also, I guess it can solve one thing. Right. It can address that self blame. Right. There's a meme that's around or something like it's natural to be unhappy in a society that's structured the way that ours is. That's like draining your dopamine all the time if you're online, you know, and it's driving us to work ever harder, this or that. And yeah, we don't want to just inhabit a victim space like all the time. But also we want to recognize, yeah, some of this is larger than me. Right. And likewise the stuff we're not going to talk about, like, sometimes it does, like the end of that poem by Rilke. Like, you have an experience and you realize you have to change your life. You may actually realize that something has to change on a larger scale. We're not going to talk about that now because we're talking about like immediate antidotes in the situation that you're in. But often it's taking a look at that situation. Yeah. Okay, so, all right, those. That was a long caveat. I thought it was worth making. And I, I think also, like, we do know I'm not going to spend a lot of time here on get more sleep and make sure to have square meals. And so yes, of course you should be doing that. There are some you might think about, like small incremental steps that mindfulness can help with. So, for example, just screen hygiene, right? Not having the phone in the bedroom, like, things like that. I know people have heard this stuff before, but where I think it's helpful, again, it's like inserting the mindfulness lens into that situation. It's just a very natural, animalistic thing to want to stay on your phone and do something like. That's why it works, right? There's a lot of really highly paid people who are designing this thing to be as addictive as possible, and that's how they get paid. So, like, you don't stand a chance, right, if you know it a certain way. So, like, where you can stand a chance is just recognizing that in the moment where there's that desire to like, check the social media feed or scroll on TikTok for one more time, just see what's happening in that moment, take the mindfulness and be like, okay, yeah, I see what's happening. I see that I want to do this. I also know that that want those basic desires again, for a dopamine hit or whatever it is, are being instrumentalized by a very large corporation. And in that moment there can be a little strength, right? But mindfulness can provide that bit of spaciousness to have that thought. Because if you don't have the thought, you're just already in there. So that's the only place where I'll talk about screens and sleep and stuff like that from a mindfulness lens because I think that the lens does add something to it. One thing I've been playing with again, now I can tell you it gets easier as the kids get older, but I've been playing with a lot of micro, micro naps. And I've noticed that if I. Even if I'M at my desk chair and I'm working and I notice I'm really tired and it's not yet time for my 2pm cup of coffee because I'm a, I'm an 8am and a 2pm person. So I can just start meditating and I can fool myself into thinking I'm meditating, but really I'm actually allowing myself to fall asleep. So I'm not like taking a nap, which I also strongly recommend. But if possible, if your life and work life allows for it and if anyone is still carrying around nap shame, you could kiss that baby goodbye. We don't need that garbage. That's pure garbage. There are plenty of cultures that have created their structured their entire days around having a siesta in the middle of the day. So it is pure culturally constructed to like have any negative thoughts about taking naps. But I'm going to talk about this micro, micro nap. Like I've noticed if I can even get one moment of sleep consciousness where like you start having a dream and some association that doesn't make sense. Oh that I must be falling asleep. Even if I just get that moment and meditation is how I do it, that can actually really help. And sometimes it might be more than one moment. Sometimes it might be a one minute micro nap sitting in a chair. Usually it's not. Usually it's like really short because I'm actually sitting still involved in what I'm doing. And I work at a desk so it's easy for me to do. It'd be harder if I was a bus driver. But not recommended if you're driving a vehicle. I can do that little kind of micro nap. So just sort of pretending to meditate I think can be something that's really helpful. So again, and these are antidotes like I want to spend that time being with what is. I want to just see it for what it is. It's a set of sensations. And now I'm like, okay, but I do need to do something about this because I'm feeling really shitty and this doesn't. Or I'm not being able, I'm not able to work at my best or whatever it is or I have to go pick my kid up at the bus. There's not a lot of, there's not choice to sit there and be mindful all the time. So the MicronAP is number one. Number two, I am pretty sure that nobody on the show has ever suggested this before. I am a big fan of brain machines. The one I use is put out by a company called Mindspace. And it's called the, it's called for advanced meditators, the casino, which is a Buddhist meditation object, which is cute that it's called that. It's one of those things that like flashes. You wear these kind of goggles, you lie down, you wear some goggles. And what seems to happen is this process of entrainment where your brain gets used to like the rhythm of the lights basically. And it can go then be adjusted up or down. So brain machines come with a variety of like pre programmed patterns. So you can do ones that energize you, you can do ones that help you fall asleep, that help you meditate, that help you relax. And it's funny because I haven't really talked about this ever before, but I've been thinking about it because it is part. It's not my daily thing but like when it's the middle of the day and I am really tired, but I'm also really stressed. Right, so you're tired and wired. I can't just take a nap. And I will actually reach for the casino, the Mindspace casino, and do a session which could be 15 minutes sometimes that'll just lead to sleep, right? Which again, if I was stressed out before and couldn't get a nap, I'm very happy with that result. Sometimes it'll just be a certain kind of like hypnagogic state where you're like half asleep, half awake and I can wake up from that refreshed again. I'm pretty sure no one's recommended that before. I don't know why these devices aren't more popular. Mine is really cool. I don't get a commission, I don't have a referral code. Although maybe now they'll advertise on the show now that they've heard it hyped by me. But it's a tool that's in my toolkit that as a parent in particular has been so useful. And there are so many of those times where I just remember even as a baby I'd be sitting there rocking the thing and just like desperately wishing I could sleep right. It's like what you want more than anything. And you can see why. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture by regimes that torture people. It's rough, right? And I am really reluctant to take medication for sleep. Not I'm not stigmatizing it in any way, but I've just noticed in my body like I'll often when I've tried it, like I wake up with a little bit of a hangover or something. So again, if those work for folks, I don't want to like say anything bad about it. Just for me personally, I've chosen not to use them because like I haven't. Maybe I just haven't found the right one for me that doesn't lead to a hangover. So I will reach for pretty much anything to help get sleep where I can get it.
- [29:28]
DJ Kashmir
I love that. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to Google that when we jump here. I also don't get a commission and I have no idea what the scientific backing is, but I recently started using an app called Endel E N D E L. And it's like a soundscape app. And primarily I use it for the sleep soundscape. It's like a, I don't know, fancy white noise. But there are all of these other options in there too that I've found have been helpful around just like calming or pulsing or focusing or whatever. And it's just, it's interesting to think about these different ways that we can have these like exogenous inputs on the nervous system. It doesn't all have to be us fixing it all the time.
- [30:09]
Jay Michaelson
Yeah. And I think from a sort of for people into meditation, sometimes these can feel like cheating a little bit. But I would just like to step back from that for a moment and say if we just picture any day that you and I have and contrast it with any day that any human being ever had for the first 10,000 years of our species evolution, we are no longer living in some state of nature. I don't want to say that's impossible. I have friends who live off the grid and they do live a very low tech life. And that is great. Right. They've made a choice that works for them and that's great. I've made different choices. Probably if people are listening to this, they've also made different choices. So we should like let go of this quasi romantic self shaming thing of. Oh, but it's so bad that I do. It's so crazy. I have to use technology to make myself feel better from technology. Well, yeah, or you can stop using technology. Like you could do that. But if you're gonna be in the world that most of us certainly listening to this are living in, I just don't see that objection as being very valid because it just. I've also noticed I struggle Seasonal affective disorder in the winter right when I'm not getting enough sunlight. I had an injury last year that Disturbed my sleep for a while. Like, it was very difficult to get through the night. And it's like really obvious to me, like, the difference that either having something like enough sleep or not makes in my everyday. And short of that romantic notion of I'm going to go live in a cabin in the woods, I think we should take the steps that work.
- [31:42]
DJ Kashmir
I love that.
- [31:42]
Jay Michaelson
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:43]
DJ Kashmir
I think about this all the time. That our lifestyle has evolved much more quickly than our nervous system. We're using these brains that were meant for a different time and place. And what does that mean for what we need?
- [31:54]
Jay Michaelson
And even again, just back to the phones. Right. Like the same instincts that were really useful. Right. Like pattern recognition. You see some little thing and you get activated. Right. Because that might save your life because you won't be eaten by a leopard or something. Right. It's the same very positive instincts that we have that have been, I guess I'll use the word hijacked, but you could say instrumentalized. Utilized, Monetized by tech companies. And it's. It's easy to like demonize the tech companies for that. Tech companies are made up of. They're usually headed by psychopaths, but they're. But they're made up of people who are people just like the rest of us, right? Yeah. Like the profit motive is what it is. And I think it's what we can do as individuals as opposed to as a society. But just what we can do as individuals is recognize that these same capacities of the mind that evolved to save our lives, that's why they're so strong in us and that's why they're so capable of being used for monetary gain. Yeah.
- [32:54]
DJ Kashmir
A hundred percent. I love this. We've done so many episodes on sleep and nervous system regulation and this one went in. Yeah. Unexpected and fresh directions, which was just totally lovely. And we can link to a few of those others in the show notes if people are itching for more.
- [33:09]
Jay Michaelson
I'm going to quick email Mindspace and get a referral code so that I can get a cut.
- [33:14]
DJ Kashmir
Not really doing that has been a total pleasure. And yes, we're midway through the month and you have a few more live sessions and guided meditations that'll be released over these next few weeks. It's just been a total pleasure. Is there anything else you want to point us to just for. For more? Jay?
- [33:31]
Jay Michaelson
Yeah, I mean, I just. On the lives in particular, I'm really. I love doing AMAs. Ask me anything and I'm not going to like, talk about my political work or even my psychedelics work or whatever. But on within the meditation space or the spirituality space, I want to really invite people, even if it's not the subjects of the meditations or our conversations, to bring what they want to bring to it. And just on the regular sleep side, I'm actually going to be publishing some sleep meditations that I've created on my own substack, which is jmichaelson.subsack.com in the coming weeks and months. Let's not forget the obvious stuff too, which is it's good to get a good night's sleep.
- [34:08]
DJ Kashmir
Awesome. Awesome Jay. Thanks for doing this. You're a star. Appreciate you.
- [34:12]
Jay Michaelson
Right on. Thanks dj.
- [34:19]
Dan Harris
Thank you to Jay. Thank you to dj. Great job both of you. Don't forget to check out the new app 10% with Dan Harris. You can get it if you go to danharris.com there's a free 14 day trial if you want to try before you buy danharris.com join the party. Finally. Thank you to everybody who work so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our Executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. How do you measure learning success by courses completed or by real improvements to.
- [35:14]
Jay Michaelson
Skill, productivity and revenue?
- [35:16]
Dan Harris
See, learning isn't about passive consumption. Learning is about doing. Docebo makes it easy to create, manage and deliver learning to every audience across the entire skills journey. Your learners will adapt faster, get more done and grow their skills, organization and careers. Docebo Never stop learning.
- [35:35]
Jay Michaelson
Good sleep is essential to life, health and happiness. And all good sleep starts with the right mattress. With Doctor's Choice from Denver Mattress, you'll find the perfect combination of body cradling comfort and reactive support. And with 10 levels of comfort to choose from, I put my trust in Consumer Reports recommended Doctor's Choice Plush patients ask me how I treat my own back issues and I suggest they turn to Doctor's Choice, a Denver mattress. It's what I did and continue to do to maintain my active lifestyle.