Transcript
Alex Cooper (0:00)
Hi Daddy gang, it is your father. I am so excited that Caller Daddy has officially joined the Sirius XM family. I cannot wait to talk to new guests and continue to share my crazy personal stories and experiences with you every single week. If you want to hear new episodes ad free, subscribe to Sirius XM podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com podcastsplus to start your free trial today.
Commercial Announcer (0:31)
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Alex Cooper (1:01)
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Alex Cooper (1:35)
Okay, Daddy gang, welcome back to another cozy Sunday session. It is officially fall. I am so so happy that we have finally made it here. This is my favorite time of year. I have pulled out all of my favorite sweaters. I'm basically only wearing the fuzzy Henry Crocs collab. If you guys haven't shopped them, they're actually the coz slippers that you'll ever own. I am drinking tea. I'm re watching Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy. Like life is good. Kind of, kind of. I was thinking about it like I don't know about you guys, but as fun as this time of year is, I feel like once you really hit stride of this time of year, we kind of all go into this full on sprint to the holidays and work just gets crazy. Everyone's trying to get as much as possible done before the new year and we kind of start mentally preparing for all of the family time coming up, which you know, we love. But it's also a lot and I've definitely been feeling it. Also, on top of all of the craziness of life lately, I wanted to talk about something that I have been struggling with which I Usually don't struggle with which is. I have been having the hardest time falling asleep. There is no one that loves sleep more than me. And once I'm in the remote, your girl is gone. But from the moment I lay down, I feel like I have just been tossing and turning for hours. I also try everything. Okay, I'm flipping my pillow, I'm adjusting the temperature, turning on a sound machine, I'm doing breathing exercises. I've downloaded like the calm apps that make you, you know, breathe in for 5 seconds, breathe out for 5 sec, like nothing is helping. And it just feels like as soon as I'm trying to lay down and sleep, my brain suddenly goes into overdrive and it feels like my mind is almost like saving every single worry for that exact moment. My to do list, my work stress, the texts that I never responded to last week. Like even random things in that moment hit me. I'm like, am I being a good friend lately? Like, when is the last time that I called my sister? Like, all of these thoughts are just racing through my head. And then if that wasn't bad enough, then the double anxiety kind of kicks in because now I'm just stressed that I'm not sleeping. And I'm like, I've gotta be up early, I have work in the morning, like I need energy tomorrow. If I don't sleep now, I'm completely fucked. And then I just start spiraling and stressing myself out more. And it is so infuriating because all while this is happening, all while I'm just at peak stress in my life. I turn my head over and. And my husband, the minute his head hits the pillow, this man is asleep. Matt and I have had multiple nights where I'm stressed and we're having conversations and I'm like, no, babe. And like, I just feel blah, blah, blah. And he's like, totally, totally. And I'm like, and you know what? Another thing. And all of a sudden I hear. And I'm like, how is he snoring? We were just mid conversation. He's gone. Matt's gone. He has the easiest time going to bed. I'm like, aren't you stressed? And he's like, yeah, but we'll just like deal with it tomorrow. Deal with it tomorrow. We've got to solve every single problem right now. Or at least what my body is telling me. And this has just been going on for a while. I guess it's always happened in my life, but it's really, I feel like been exacerbated recently. And so Naturally, whenever I'm having a problem, my life, my life, in my life that I can't solve, I usually go to my therapist, right? Because she's smarter than me, wiser than me, and she has all the answers. And so what she said really hit me. And so I feel like I need to share with all of you because I imagine a lot of you are watching and listening to this and saying, oh, baby girl, baby girl. I'm dealing with the same thing, Alex. Like we are one in the same, sweetheart. What's the solve? So my therapist asked me, when during your day do you let your mind cycle through all of these thoughts? And, you know, it dawned on me and I was like, yeah, no, I don't, I don't. During my day, I fill every single second with noise. The first moment of silence I feel like I get in my days are when my head hits the pillow. At night, during the workday, I'm slammed, going from meeting to meeting. And then the second I have downtime, I find myself scrolling on social media or throwing on music or a podcast. My therapist said, yeah, Alex, this is extremely common, which is why I want to talk about it today, because I figured I am not the only one that is dealing with this. So basically what she said is that needing constant stimulation is actually a stress response. It is your body going into avoidance mode. And the way she explained it to me is that in moments where you're feeling anxious or you're feeling overwhelmed, it's easier to just over stimulate your nervous system so that you can avoid those feelings. Which is such a, I guess, an obvious concept, but also sounds so backwards. Like, wait, I'm stressed, so I'm just gonna add a bunch of onto my plate. And it's like, no, it's that all the external noise allows you to put off actually engaging with your own thoughts. Like, let me know if this sounds like you. You have a podcast on when you get ready in the morning, music for your walks, TV running constantly in the background. Even during mundane tasks like you doing the dishes, you have to have some type of background noise on. Or maybe you put off doing the dishes entirely because you lost track of time because you were scrolling. And my therapist explained to me that this is a freeze state. Being in a freeze state usually feels great in the short term because you're just avoiding everything that's stressing you out. But in the long run, it just makes that stress so much worse. I feel like Sundays for me are a perfect example of this issue. Like, all week you tell Yourself. Okay, I'm gonna have the perfect Sunday reset day to just get everything done. I'm gonna clean out my closet. I'm gonna call back. I'm gonna finally get my car washed. And then Sunday rolls around and you're exhausted from the week. So instead of doing all this, you just rot. And, you guys, I think rock culture may be ruining our lives. We spend countless hours on a Sunday on the couch, and we'll have three screens going at once. Instagram on your phone, a show on the tv, and online shopping on your laptop. We convince ourselves that this is resting. I'm relaxed. I'm in heaven right now. But what my therapist has now pointed out is that we are actually just overstimulating our nervous system and making ourselves more anxious again. In the short term, it doesn't feel like we're anxious. But later, down at night or whenever it hits you, because it always hits you, you're like, why am I so anxious? And it's like, babe, because you're overstimulating yourself, honey. And then when Sunday night hits, yeah, the Sunday scaries are going to really sink in because you've wasted your whole day. And then Monday comes around, and instead of feeling refreshed, you feel so much worse, if anything. So we're all like, okay, this is not helping me, Alex. I'm getting anxiety right now. Listen, I asked my therapist for tangible help to break this cycle, and she gave me a challenge, which I love, a challenge. She basically said, put one task on my to do list and complete it in silence. And so I would say now, for the past two months on my Sundays, I have been cleaning out my closet in complete silence. And I'll be honest, normally on those Sunday activities, I will. First of all, I usually end up just skipping it and rotting. Or I'm doing it with extreme external, like, stimulation so that I can kind of zone out, right? Like, I will literally be on tick tock, scrolling, fixing my closet, and then walking back and then scrolling again. Because the tick tock I've listened to five times because I was in the middle of folding something, and I'm like, oh, my God, I need to go to the next thing. And it's like, why don't you just turn off your phone and keep it moving and just clean your closet, Alex. And I'm not gonna lie. At first it was really tough. My brain was craving noise, and I definitely had the urge to just, like, put on a TV show and listen to music and be scrolling on tick tock. And once I Pushed through that something. It. Yeah, it did shift. And I realized I was actually present with what I was doing. What a concept. My mind actually started to cycle through all the thoughts that usually hit me when I lay down in bed at night. But I actually began to process the stress that I had been unconsciously avoiding. And then I was cleaning my closet, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I have to respond to this person. I'm gonna do that after this. And then I started actually making a to do list while I was doing that. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm being so productive. Like, when you stop pumping your brain with constant simulation, you give your nervous system a chance to rest. And at first, it's uncomfortable. Boredom creeps in. All of us that are grown up on the Internet are just like, when's my next hit? Like, I need to. How many people have literally opened Instagram or open Tick Tock? And then you close it, and then you open it five seconds later, and you're like, wait, wasn't I just on this app? It's like, all of these apps are obviously making us feel like we need to constantly get that dopamine hit, and it just keeps your anxiety looping, and it just kicks on and your mind starts to wander and to race and be like, oh, my God, I need that constant hit, hit, hit. But if you stay with it and you realize slowly that when you let yourself get off of that train, your brain is starting to slowly catch up. And at first you're, like, tweaking out because you're like, oh, my God, I need my hit. But then it's like, no, keep sitting in silence, Keep cleaning in silence, Keep relaxing, whatever it be. And then all of a sudden, you're giving your mind a chance to actually clear itself out. And so after I now clean my closet, weirdly, I feel calm. And then I. I remember one of the first times that I did this where I cleaned my entire closet with no other simulation, just my thoughts on. And then I ended up avoiding social media altogether for the rest of the day because I wanted to continue to feel that good and that lack of anxiety. And I knew the minute I opened social media, it would all just start again. And when I laid down in bed that night, it felt so much easier to fall asleep. And I have now been doing this for a little bit. And I will literally tell you guys, my life has changed. And so if this is something that you've been struggling with, you don't need to do a total life overhaul. Daddy Gang, you have to just start with, like, recognizing the next time you're doom scrolling. Say to yourself, I'm not actually relaxing right now. And just accept that nothing about social media is relaxing. Maybe, maybe if you're watching the ASMR videos where it's like AI and they're like cutting, like, random stuff, but other than that, it's so overstimulating, you're not actually relaxing. And so my therapist also suggested finding little moments of quiet throughout the day where you allow your thoughts to surface. So, for example, maybe you're going to do your makeup without music next time. Maybe you can eat a meal without turning on Netflix or having your face in your phone while you're eating the entire time and you're scrolling or. What a crazy concept because I know I am the first offender of this. Maybe you can brush your teeth without scrolling on TikTok. No, you guys, every time I'm brushing my teeth in the past, I'm like. And it's like, stop. Just stop it. Life without overstimulation starts to feel so much better. I'm telling you, it feels horrible at first, and you're like. And then all of a sudden, like, mundane tasks stop being things to zone out and to get through, and they actually become moments that you're able to be actually present with yourself and your thoughts. I've been doing this for a while now, and I'll be honest, I have never felt more clarity. I feel smarter.
