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- [00:01]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
This episode is brought to you by F's the Beauty Official Podcast Join host Evan Ross Katz on the official podcast for FX's hottest new series, the Beauty, taking you behind the scenes with its amazing stars as they discuss the show's most jaw dropping moments. Featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Isabella Rossellini, Jessica Alexander and Ari Grayner. Search FX is the Beauty Wherever you listen to podcasts, the world moves fast. Your workday even faster pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot can't women multitask and men can?
- [01:01]
Naima Raza
Is that a myth? Like what?
- [01:02]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That's a myth?
- [01:04]
Naima Raza
Nobody can or nobody should.
- [01:06]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Even though 100% of us think we're excellent multitaskers, only 2% of human brains can effectively multitask. You might be one of the 2%.
- [01:15]
Naima Raza
I'd rather be in this 2% than in the other like 1% they keep talking about. I want to be in this 2%. Smart girl, dumb Questions Can I change me and Is the Internet changing my brain? Neem I'm Neymar Raza. This is Smart Girl, Dumb Questions and today my guest is Dr. Aditi Narokar. She's a physician on faculty at Harvard Medical School and she's really an expert on stress and resilience and the wiring of our brains and our bodies. She's also the author of this book, the five Rewire your brain and body for less stress and more resilience. Dr. Aditi Nirokar, thank you so much for being here.
- [01:50]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It is such a pleasure to join you.
- [01:52]
Naima Raza
I want to talk about stress. I want to talk about habit formation. It is the new year, so I want to talk about New Year's resolutions and why they seem to expire by February. I really want to start, though, with this idea of wiring and rewiring. The subtitle of your book because I have this feeling like the Internet and social media and my time on my phone is rewiring my brain. Is that actually happening?
- [02:15]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Absolutely.
- [02:15]
Naima Raza
Physiologically, our brains are changing.
- [02:18]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Your brain changes every day. It takes about eight weeks for you to build a new brain circuit. It simply means that your brain is a muscle, just like Your biceps. So in the same way that you train your biceps to get stronger, you can do the same with your brain. But the real premise of neuroplasticity is that yes, you can change your brain and rewire it, but everything that you do, everything that you see when you're scrolling and engaging in the world, whether digital or in real life, it is actively rewiring your brain.
- [02:45]
Naima Raza
You're more neuroplastic when you're a baby than when you're a 80 year old, correct?
- [02:49]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Well, your brain, there was a really fascinating study, Naima, that just came out that, you know, we used to think that your brain back decades ago was like the brain you had at birth is the brain you got for life. It's a real grab bag. But now we know that in the science of brain rewiring, that your brain is continually evolving, changing and growing based on internal and external stimuli. So while your brain does develop like this prefrontal cortex area, this area right behind your forehead that's responsible for things like memory, planning, organization, strategic thinking, that area, we used to think that it fully forms about age 25. But now, based on this really fascinating study, we know that different parts of your brain continue to evolve all the way up into adulthood and into late adulthood. And so your brain, yes, your brain is always changing and developing in your childhood, but you have the opportunity to rewire your brain at any stage and age of life.
- [03:46]
Naima Raza
So you're neuroplastic always, but you're more neuroplastic when you're young.
- [03:50]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Different parts.
- [03:51]
Naima Raza
Different parts are more neuroplastic at different parts. Okay, got it. You know, my real introduction to the brain world was a few years ago. I had a concussion and I had it in a way that's actually funny. So if you're listening or watching, you can laugh at this. Even though it was not funny at the time, which is a guy at Barry's boot camp accidentally hit me in the head with a 35 pound dumbbell.
- [04:14]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Oh my God.
- [04:14]
Naima Raza
Was it 30 or 35 pounds? It was leg day. My doctor, I went to see the giants concussion doctor, Dr. Tina Shetty at hospital for Special surgery and she had me sleep 14 hours a day. Not use my, like all of these things to basically help my brain get back into function in eight weeks.
- [04:33]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Your brain is a muscle. And so when you do something like get a traumatic brain injury, you do need to rehab your brain the same way. Like, you know, an athlete gets injured and maybe has a calf tear or a shoulder pull or whatever it may Be. So in the same way, you had to do some massive rehab and it worked.
- [04:49]
Naima Raza
I think I'll never be as clever as I was on that Tuesday at 2pm in Mike Espinosis class. No, actually, I think afterwards, you. After you have these setbacks, you actually become better at forming habits and keeping consistent.
- [05:01]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I found there's also a concept called post traumatic growth. And so it's this idea of, you know, you go through a challenge and you feel really down, and then you get through that challenge and your sense of personal agency increases and it builds your resilience. And then you have something called post traumatic growth, which is this feeling of, wow, I went through something really difficult, I came out of it, and now I can look back with some distance, both emotional distance, an actual distance in time, and then feel like, wow, I went through that and I grew as a result of it.
- [05:31]
Naima Raza
I want post traumatic growth. Thank you cards from all of my former boyfriends. I feel like they, you know, they went through a difficult experience, they learned from it. Like, where are the cards? Okay, I love that. I love that term. But the question I originally asked you is, is the brain? Or like, is the human physiology changing from screens and the Internet? So I recently ran into Jonathan Haidt, professor at nyu, wrote the book Anxious Generation, very much a Cassandra, about social media and the impact on particularly adolescent minds. And he was telling me about the ABCD studies that they're doing on adolescent brain development. There must be a C in there. I know you focus on adults, not children, but do we have any data on how the world around us is changing our brains?
- [06:14]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Absolutely. So the ABCD study is the largest study in children all the way up to. To adulthood. And so the data will start coming out, you know, different stages, but when it comes to adults, there was this really interesting piece done in the Financial Times. What's happening right now is that most of us, all age groups, but particularly young people overall, there's been a sense of decreased conscientiousness, increased neuroticism, and a whole host of other things that have happened because we are engaging so much with our digital devices. And there's this phenomenon called popcorn brain that I talk a lot about, coined by a psychologist named David Levy. And it's this. This societal phenomenon of your brain. It feels like your. Your brain is popcorning. Now, that's not actually happening where your brain is.
- [06:58]
Naima Raza
No, it's actually happening to me as you're saying this.
- [07:00]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes. Or popcorning. But it's that feeling, that overstimulation of Spending too much time online. And so it is hard for you to adjust offline and where life moves really slowly, you know, at a really calm and even keeled pace. So when you are engaged in your devices and you are scrolling and we can talk about why that happens, it's actually not your fault. And. And it is very different from Internet addiction. So people ask me like if there's a connection or am I addicted to online scrolling or am I addicted to the Internet? Internet addiction is an actual criteria you have to fulfill a bunch of different things. It's like part of a clinical syndrome and an actual diagnosis. It is exceedingly rare. It starts influencing your everyday life. But popcorn brain is ubiquitous with everyday life.
- [07:47]
Naima Raza
Yeah, I think when you say that term popcorn brain, I think I know exactly what you mean by it. I feel it. And not just on screens. I feel it in life in New York, actually. Like my schedule is often like give an evening. I have like three things I need to do or I'm taping three things I'm running around and I feel that, yeah, that volatility, like that kind of like popcorn energy in my brain. And I'm curious actually, if I look around the room at my producers and Johnny, our engineering mixer here, and Dusta, Mel, what do you guys. Do you guys feel popcorn brain? Do you know? Yeah, we have 100% popcorn brain experience in this room.
- [08:22]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Me too. I know all the science and I.
- [08:24]
Naima Raza
Still get popcorn brain really just about screens. It can just happen if you're a person who multitasks. And I know you have a whole theory on multitasking. Oh my God, she's giving me a face like don't multitask.
- [08:35]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You know, popcorn brain was specifically designed, the term was coined for spending a lot of time online. But this idea of multitasking is also really connected to this popcorn brain phenomenon. So first is that popcorn brain, you have a greater risk of it happening when you are feeling a sense of stress because you have a primal urge to scroll. So when you think about your brain and how it functions, we talked a little bit about the prefrontal cortex. If you put your hand on your forehead here, it's the area right behind your forehead. So it does things like memory planning, organization, strategic thinking, forward thinking, things that when you're not feeling stressed, you're really, you know, that's your domain. But under stress, your brain is governed by another part called the amygdala. And it's like a small almond shaped structure deep in your brain focused on survival and self preservation. And when you are feeling a sense of stress, that amygdala is what drives that train. It's the stress center. And then you feel a sense of stress and then you have this primal urge to scroll. You know, like evolutionarily when we were all caves people, you would have a night watchman and the tribe would sleep and the night watchman would scroll for danger and now rather scan for danger. And now we've all become our own night watchmen. So the modern day equivalent of scanning for danger is scrolling. And that can increase popcorn and scrolling.
- [09:53]
Naima Raza
Like is the amygdala is like their flight or fight flight or fight response. Right? So it's scrolling like flight or is it fight or is it.
- [10:00]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It's both. So it's just turned on. So you know your fight or flight response. Evolutionarily you would see a tiger in the forest and you would either fight the tiger or you would run away. So there's a certain biochemical cascade that happens that your pupils dilate, the blood moves from your vital organs to your muscles. Your heartbeat starts going quick because you're trying to get oxygen in the blood to various parts of your body. Your breathing becomes quick and shallow. That's why when you're feeling a sense of anxiousness or anx, when you're feeling stressed, you probably breathe quicker. You have rapid shallow breathing. We call it thoracic breathing in your chest. And so when you're scrolling, what happens is because of the news and you work in journalism, I do too. You know what that's like, because it's about capturing people's attention, right? And so as you're scrolling and you're consuming different things that are happening in other parts of the world, what happens is that your amygdala gets turned on and it lights up.
- [10:53]
Naima Raza
So earlier you said the prefunction, the prefrontal cortex, it evolves. We used to think it was until age 25. Now we know that the prefrontal cortex evolves beyond age 25. Does the amygdala ever evolve or is it still like the same little being that's existed from our great, great, great, great, great grand cave parents?
- [11:12]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Ooh, what a good juicy question. Your amygdala, in science, we call it your reptilian brain. It's the limbic system. And the reason we call it reptilian brain is because that part of your brain has the way the other parts of your brain evolve. And so that amygdala has that same cave person mode, the same that you had when we were all Sleeping in caves, you know?
- [11:36]
Naima Raza
So there's two ways that I understand that. If you cut open my brain. Please don't. You probably cut because you're a doctor, but don't do it. If you cut open my brain, you cut open a brain of a caveman from a hundred years ago. Hopefully, my brain would be different in all these good ways, but the amygdala would look pretty similar.
- [11:51]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It's less about how it looks and more about how it functions.
- [11:53]
Naima Raza
Okay, it functions pretty similarly. And then you're saying, like, if you look at my amygdala when I was five and you look at my amygdala when I was 35, it's the same, essentially the same.
- [12:02]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
But you can actually influence the amygdala and its response. So you can dial down the volume. So while you might have that initial spark and that fight or flight response, you know, you see something happening, you're scrolling, you're engaging in the world, and that we're all at a heightened sense of stress. I mean, when you look at the data, 21 out of 30 people right now are struggling with at least one feature of stress and burnout. So if this is you.
- [12:25]
Naima Raza
Wait, say that again.
- [12:26]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That 70% of people, 70 to 74% of people have at least one feature of stress and burnout. That's like saying in a room of 30 people, 21 people are struggling with stress or burnout at any given time. So when you are in a room. Yeah. Whether it's a zoom room or a boardroom or a classroom, and you are looking around thinking, it's just me. I'm the only one feeling like this. That's also the stress paradox, where you feel a sense of isolation because you're struggling with your stress. But in fact, when you look around, just know that data, that 21 people are struggling too. You know, there's so much taboo still about stress and burnout in mental health.
- [13:01]
Naima Raza
I mean, there's another part of this conversation I want to have with you in a moment where I asked Dr. Ellen Vora, who came on the show as a functional doctor. I asked her, like, if everyone has anxiety, does anyone have anxiety? And there's a part of me that's like a little bit like, well, maybe this is just, you know, biological. Another thing I'm thinking right now is that what we needed was for, you know, great, great, great cave Daddy to have Dr. Aditi Nirokar, so he, like, he could have evolved his amygdala and then epigenetically, all of our Generations could have this, like, en chef's kiss. Yeah, but that didn't happen. And. But there must be a reason, right, that we have stress. Like, if everyone has stress, there's good stress, right?
- [13:39]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
There's good stress and there's a reason. So, like I say, your amygdala is doing nothing wrong. It's just functioning exactly as it was intended. And so that's one of the biggest misconceptions. So when you and I started this conversation, we're using the word stress. We're throwing it around. That is bad stress. So there's actually two kinds of stress, and not all stress is created equal. So there's good, healthy stress that we don't really talk about. And in pop culture, we talk an awful lot about bad, unhealthy stress. And that is called maladaptive stress. In science, that causes all of the mental and physical health manifestations that you may already think of, like anxiety, insomnia, feeling irritable, hyper vigilant. In these trying times with the constant fire hose of headlines, you feel that sense of hyper vigilance all because you're.
- [14:21]
Naima Raza
I'm not just let go. I'm kidding.
- [14:22]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
But yeah, yeah, that's a great stress response too, right? Yeah, that's the Delulu fight or flight or freeze.
- [14:29]
Naima Raza
Oh, yeah, that's the third. We never really talk about that.
- [14:32]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
And so you have that part of your brain, you know? So what's happening to you as you're going through this experience, living in this era, is that you are continually having that stress response, and you are veering towards the side of maladaptive stress. So when I share that data of 21 out of 30 people are struggling with stress or burnout, it's the bad stress. It's the maladaptive, unhealthy stress. But there's also good stress.
- [14:54]
Naima Raza
So good stress is what, like working out? VO2, maxing so good stress.
- [14:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Examples of healthy, positive stress. Things that move your life forward, give you a sense of forward momentum. You and I meeting today at a certain time to do this interview. Healthy, positive stress. So getting a promotion, falling in love, having a baby, rooting for your favorite sports team, planning a trip. All of these are examples of good, healthy stress. They move your life forward. And so the goal of life is not zero stress. It's actually biologically impossible to do that. It's to live a life of healthy, manageable stress that serves you rather than heart. So it's like, if you think of stress on a spectrum, most of us are to the far Right. We're really feeling a sense of deep maladaptive stress. It's about getting back to the middle where you feel this sweet spot of stress, where it's fueling you moving your life forward in a positive direction because everything good in your life was actually created because of a little bit of healthy stress.
- [15:49]
Naima Raza
I feel like these days people on the political left are very much on the far right of their stress levels. Is that a fair assertion?
- [15:57]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That is very fair.
- [15:59]
Naima Raza
So while you're talking about stress, I also, it's, it's bubbling up in my popcorn brain. Cortisol. What is cortisol? What does it have to do with stress? And is, does cortisol go up with good stress and bad stress?
- [16:12]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Cortisol is your stress hormone. The challenge with cortisol for many people. People do all sorts of testing to check, you know, what is my cortisol level? The challenge with cortisol, it's diurnal, meaning it is fluctuating throughout the day. It goes up, then it goes down. Anytime you check your cortisol at any given point in the day, it might be a certain level, but you don't really, really know what because it's always in flux.
- [16:34]
Naima Raza
Do we have like a, like a constant glucose monitor? Like, do we have a constant cortisol?
- [16:38]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You can check cortisol levels, you know, salivary or urinary. There's various ways that you can check cortisol for a long period of time, like a 24 hour stretch. Cortisol spikes at certain times. So there's a spike early in the morning, sometime between the hours of 4am and 6am and then it tells your body, okay, it's time to get up. And so you wake up a few hours after that, ideally. And so what happens when you are continually scrolling and feeling this sense of, of maladaptive stress and that amygdala is firing? You have a chronically elevated level of cortisol. And so the challenge right now, people often ask me, right, like, what is different now than it was when we were all caves people with the amygdala and the fight or flight response? When we were all caves people, you came back to baseline. So you might have faced a tiger in the forest, but then you, you know, fight or flight response kicked in. You either fought the tiger or you ran away. And then you went back to baseline.
- [17:30]
Naima Raza
Yeah. And someone else was the night watch.
- [17:31]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah. But now there is no baseline and these tigers are all around us all the time. So we are dealing with financial constraints, relationship problems, climate Anxiety, political anxiety. So it never really goes away, that sense of chronic stress, it's ongoing in the background at a low hum, your amygdala.
- [17:50]
Naima Raza
But have we gotten softer? Because, I mean, a tiger is a tiger. Can tigers kill you? Yeah, tigers can kill you, right? I don't know. They're so pretty tigers. Seems scarier than like, I feel stress when I open my mail.
- [18:03]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That's right, same response.
- [18:05]
Naima Raza
But I mean, come on, this is a paper tiger at best, when I open my mail. But I do feel it.
- [18:11]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah, it's the same biological response. No, it's just that your brain, the reptilian brain, your amygdala, it's the stressors, it's on or off. And so what you want to do in your daily practice with various brain resets and different things is that you can actually rewire your brain to turn down that volume so that it's not just, you know, you open up your phone or you check your email or you go on your Slack channel and it skyrockets.
- [18:34]
Naima Raza
There's something about like paper mail, like admin that just really sends me into the freeze response. I'm like, I just. Can this not exist?
- [18:40]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Don't talk to a doctor about paperwork.
- [18:42]
Naima Raza
Yes, that's the bane of our existence. You have like an actual tiger of paperwork. So two things I want to cover before we go. One, Jonathan had told me that in the ABCD study, in the early data that's coming back, they're seeing that kids who use social media more are seeing enhanced parts of the brain that deal with reward systems. Does that have anything to do with stress?
- [19:03]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I focus mostly on adults and not kids. But I can tell you what is.
- [19:07]
Naima Raza
The part of your brain that deals with rewards.
- [19:08]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It's the reward pathway and the dopamine. And so when you are engaging in your devices and scrolling, etc, it triggers your dopamine and your reward pathway.
- [19:18]
Naima Raza
And that's good or bad?
- [19:20]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Because rewards sound good, rewards sound good, a little bit is okay. But unfortunately, you know, it's a slippery slope. And then you continue to scroll and scroll some more and scroll some more. There is a phenomenon called revenge bedtime procrastination that I think your viewers might really be interested in. And so.
- [19:36]
Naima Raza
Yeah, tell me.
- [19:37]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
So you know, the real ideal for decreasing your popcorn brain is to create some digital boundaries. Think about at the end of the day, kids are fed, kitchen is clean, you're finally, you know, emails are done and it's 9pm and so what do you do? You sit on the couch and you Might, might not be married, might not have any children, might not have a partner, but your obligations for the day are finished. Around, let's say 9:00pm, you sit down on the couch, big sigh of relief, you're like, oh my God, finally some me time. Maybe you turn on the tv, Netflix and chill or just relax and what happens is you have every intention. Because the gap when you're thinking about stress or burnout or any of our daily behaviors, we all know what we need to do to feel better. The gap is actually in action. And so you tell yourself, I'm going to go to bed early tonight, I've had a rough day. Or it's been a rough stressful week. And so you, you know, you say I'm going to go to bed at 10 o', clock, 10:30 and then you start scrolling and before you know it, it's 12, 12 and you're thinking, oh wait, what just happened? That is called revenge bedtime procrastination. We are all guilty of it. Even me knowing all of the science. And so what is it? It's when you don't give yourself any me time during the day because we have competing priorities on our attention, our time, our resources, our boss, our colleagues. It some we're doing something for someone else and so we never get any me time. And so that 9pm sweet moment of sitting on your couch, big sigh, first me time that you've given yourself and so your brain decompresses and so you scroll and scroll and then the primal urge to scroll kicks in and your popcorn brain.
- [21:09]
Naima Raza
So this is by the way the bad type of Netflix and chill. This is not the well advertised part of Netflix and chill. But if someone does a lot of self care, can they fall asleep at 9pm?
- [21:18]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It depends on what kind of self care you have. It also is like a case by case basis. So if you do something that you know is very helpful to you so it doesn't have to be a lot of time, even that's also a myth. Like you need hours and hours of self care to finally sleep well at night. You might only need five minutes in some studies, like a study from the NIH of brain scans found that even 10 seconds makes a difference. Or in one Microsoft study, taking frequent 10 minute breaks can make a difference. So that's a real myth that you need more downtime or breaks to actually create a difference for your stress at the end of the day. Because we all know that we go to bed way later than we really should, right? Then you wake up and you're thinking, oh, my God, I should have gone to bed earlier. It's like we should all over ourselves instead of just going to bed earlier. I know.
- [22:03]
Naima Raza
Whose revenge is it?
- [22:05]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It's our revenge on our own time.
- [22:08]
Naima Raza
Yeah. Revenge bedtime procrastination. Rbp. It's like resting face, but worse. Worse. Much worse.
- [22:13]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You're so quick. And it happens more in women. And it's the science.
- [22:18]
Naima Raza
Or a reverse bedtime procrastination. No comment on the first. Okay.
- [22:24]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Well, you know, I've been told I have resting betrays, by the way. Really, as a. When I was younger, you know, like, people would say that I don't think you. Now I'm just. I'm over it. You think? I do. Cool. It doesn't matter. Revenge bedtime procrastination. Again, the science shows that, you know, that you. In fact, you know, when you look at the data and parse through the data, the people who are engaging in it, including me and you and all of us, we know better. We just don't do better. And that is simply because you don't give your brain a break. And so when you craft a couple of moments in the day, it doesn't have to be this big thing. It can just be 5 minutes, 10 minutes throughout the day. The science also shows that it changes your brain. Rest is not a luxury. It is a biological necessity for your brain and body, particularly when you are feeling a sense of stress.
- [23:13]
Naima Raza
Interesting. I think about it like, because my soul for this, when I feel like, oh, and I'm obviously not a doctor. I'm also a night person. Like, I don't know, you might say that also is a myth, like multitasking. I feel like you're gonna tell me everything I do is wrong, but you're very validating in the meantime. So I appreciate it. I feel like I do really productive work between midnight and 2am and I've always been this way, and I've always justified myself in it because I've read books like Vincent van Gogh used to paint. And it's like I podcast like he painted. Not really, but I justify that as a lot of creative people I know are also doing those hours. But one thing I found really helpful for when I'm revenge bedtime procrastinating beyond that hour is to take my phone and keep it very far away from my bedroom. And I have another phone that only has an alarm clock. And that's basically it. And then to which Jonathan Haidt told me when I saw him at that holiday Party. He's like, you know, they do make alarm clocks that are not on phones. I seem shocked, but that, like, why? Why is the answer to rest during the day versus to get rid of at night?
- [24:18]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It can be both. So it depends on what works for you. So I keep my phone. When I'm doing deep work, I keep my phone in, you know, I sit at a desk and I have a small little area of drawers, and I put it far out of reach. Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to get out of amygdala mode, shut off that primal Urcha scroll, and let your prefrontal cortex get back online. And so I keep that out of reach during periods of deep focus, I switch my phone to grayscale. Game changer for me.
- [24:43]
Naima Raza
I do that too. It's so boring. And then you're like, this is why nobody reads newspapers anymore.
- [24:48]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
And I do it at night, too. So at around 9 o', clock, I just switch my phone to grayscale. And that way I'm scrolling for, you know, 30 minutes. And then I'm kind of bored and thinking, what am I doing? I should just go to sleep. And then at night, what I always do is I keep my phone off my nightstand. And that's really great. Some of the pushback I get from these suggestions is like, well, I'm a doctor and I'm on call, or I have ailing relatives that I'm taking care of. Great. Then I'm not saying, you know, put it out of your bedroom. Just keep it off your nightstand. So right as you're going to bed, you're not checking. And again, because none of this is mindless, right? It actively changes your brain. It primes your brain from more stress. The data shows that 80% of people, first thing in that morning, before your second eye is even open, they are scanning, they're scrolling for danger. It primes your brain for the rest of the day with all of the headlines, especially this week, I have had to put my phone not even off my nightstand, on the other side, on the carpet. But in my closet, I have a little bed that I make for my phone, and I put it to bed and I go to bed. Otherwise, even in the middle of the night, if I were to wake up, I do reach for my phone. It might not, you know, it might be on the other side of my nightstand, but I will get out of bed and check because of that primal Ursha scroll. So I have to physically create even.
- [25:56]
Naima Raza
Greater distance, like a Disney scene from Beauty and the Beast. Like, you make a little bed for your phone and you put it away.
- [26:01]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah, it's a step stool in my closet, but I have a designated area where I put it. You know, when you have a good day, you have good nights. And so if you're not having good days, you're not gonna have good nights.
- [26:10]
Naima Raza
And the reason you say this week is because the week that we're taping that there's been a number of tragedies that have unfolded.
- [26:15]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah. And I think one of the things that's really important to remember, and I mentioned this right now, is that none of this is mindless. So we feel like, what are we doing? Not doing anything. We're just scrolling. Right. Like, there's nothing. You do this. And. But in fact, data shows that this is so disturbing. But I interviewed a woman named Dr. Silver, a psychologist in California, for my book The5 Resets. And what she told me has stayed with me for years. You know, she started her work with Columbine way back and has said that she studies these calamities in the world and what happens to the human brain when we engage in graphic imagery or videos. And especially now, more than ever, there is this burgeoning of videos. Right. That you can see things that happen on the scene in real life. And your amygdala doesn't know the difference, by the way, of something happening thousands of miles away or in your backyard. It feels that same stress response. And so her data has found that when you engage in scrolling and, you know, your amygdala gets primed and you keep going down that rabbit hole, that rabbit hole. Phenomen all fight or flight. It increases your personal risk of ptsd. Even if you weren't physically there and present, just engaging in that visual graphic content can increase your personal risk of PTSD years later. And so I take this very seriously in my own life, and I recommend it as well. Keep your phone off your nightstand as often as possible if you can. This week or any, you know, periods of time when you feel like the world is so heavy and there's so much happening. Scroll less, do other things. When I advocate for digital boundaries. Digital boundaries. You want to be an informed citizen. This is not about censorship.
- [27:57]
Naima Raza
If you just, like, turn off all the tigers that are on your screen, you might have real tigers in real life that are dangerous. Like, you don't want to be a tuned out citizen from the world.
- [28:04]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes. More than ever. Right. Like, we have to be informed citizens, but not at the expense of your mental Health.
- [28:10]
Naima Raza
Hang tight for a second. We'll be right back. So I want to take a break now from digital and talk more broadly about stress in life. Because I kind of think there are people in my life who I feel like, oh, that person is just like, so immune to stress. And there are other people, my producers, actually, both Desta and Mel asked me me, can you be addicted to stress? So first of all, I should ask you, should I be worried about my producers? And two, can they be addicted to stress? Or like, about what? Whatever is. I think they're good inviting. No, but should I be worried that people are working with me and they're addicted to stress?
- [28:52]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Like you're like, what does that say about me?
- [28:54]
Naima Raza
Exactly. But it's not about me. What can people be addicted to stress?
- [28:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Addicted is a word that I don't really throw around. Right. Because that means a whole host of things in the medical lexicon. When you say that there's an addiction, that's like a real thing. But you can certainly have stress in your life and want it and kind of move towards it because of lots of reasons.
- [29:19]
Naima Raza
People say they thrive in stress. Like, I think I thrive in uncertainty, which is maybe a step away from thriving from stress.
- [29:25]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Everyone has a different threshold when it goes from. From healthy stress to unhealthy stress. And so you might really do well in uncertainty because you shore up those internal reserves. You know, you're a journalist by training. These pressure cooker situations is where you really come alive. And that's wonderful. But over time, when you continually put yourself in pressure cooker situations or periods of uncertainty without coming back down to baseline, that is really the problem.
- [29:50]
Naima Raza
Yes. And I think probably for me, it's like growing up in different countries that that's actually like, the familiarity of uncertainty is natural for me.
- [29:57]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
A lot of it is like nature versus nurture.
- [29:59]
Naima Raza
Ye.
- [30:00]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
And that's the thing with neuroplasticity too, that you might have had certain experiences in your childhood that might have been difficult or challenging, but you have the power to rewire your brain for less stress and more resilience.
- [30:11]
Naima Raza
So. And we'll get to the rewiring. I know I can tell you when I get there because I keep saying rewiring. But how are some people immune to stress in the other direction? Like, there's some people who are just so chill.
- [30:22]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
We all have different personalities and different threshold for stress. So I can say that, you know, for me, I've had to do a lot of inner work. I was a stress patient, patient before I became an expert in stress as a doctor because I went through a really difficult time. And my doctor told me, it's just stress, try to relax. And so I put on my scientist hat and found my own way out of stress so that I when I found my way out, then I vowed to become the doctor I needed at that time. And so my level of stress, I've figured out how to manage it. And I walk the talk now, but I have to do an awful lot of things to keep even keeled my husband. And a bodhisattva is just rolls with it so mellow. Anything happens, you know, and so it's like, is it yin and yang? Who knows?
- [31:07]
Naima Raza
Do you think that, like, people who are high stress should date people who are not? I have this theory. A friend of mine told me in dating, which is like a stock, should date a bond. Somebody who has like a really variable career, goes up and down and volatile, should date somebody who's just like in a really stable ladder of life.
- [31:23]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Do you think that my father gives me that advice?
- [31:25]
Naima Raza
Oh, really?
- [31:25]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah. My dad has always said, you know, if you're interested in doing this creative work and writing and you need to be with someone who's really stable.
- [31:33]
Naima Raza
Can two high stress people work well in a relationship?
- [31:35]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
It depends on their relationship. I'm not a relationship expert, but I have set up, I think I told you offline, I've set up 10 couples and nine have all 10 have dated seriously, and nine have gotten married. To this day, they are still married.
- [31:47]
Naima Raza
Do you think I'm gonna be lucky number 10? Smart girl, smart question. Opportunistic question. No, but do you feel as a doctor who's treating patients, patients who are stressed, does that stress you out?
- [32:00]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You know, there are moments early in my training where I had to really learn to create boundaries. So I used to take home all of these stories with me, and it really would affect me. I remember once I was a medical trainee, either a medical student early in my career, and I had a patient with end stage aids. And I was taking care of this patient, and they had Candida. So thrush all the way down their esophageal.
- [32:25]
Naima Raza
A yeast infection.
- [32:26]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeast infection. Esophageal meaning like all the way down their food pipe and they were having difficulty eating and drinking and had lost lots of weight, were on lots of medications. And I, you know, felt early morning, they had a scheduled procedure called an egd. It's like when they put a camera down the throat to really confirm. Is this really what's happening? And I was up all night at home. I wasn't in the hospital on call, but I was up all night thinking about this patient so worried, worried sick that something was going to happen. And I went in the next morning, 4:30 or 5 in the morning to check in on this patient. Fast asleep was like, doc, I had the best sleep of my life. I felt great. It made me laugh. I thought, wow, I really need better boundaries. I need to do a little bit of self care. And so we in medicine, we have to learn how to create that. Because you know, I went into medicine because I really, I care about the human being. But you have to be able to, to be able to do good work and show up every day, you do need to create some boundaries. And so yes, stress, you know, is it contagious? There's different things that I do. I used to pretend when I would wear that white coat that it would be like a shield. I'm that person who, when you're, I'm on a train or I'm on the bus, someone will turn to me. I don't even say I'm a doctor. I'll say, you know, I've never told anyone this before, but oh my gosh. So I'm always happy.
- [33:40]
Naima Raza
Don't have resting face that people with resting bitch face do not get that kind of next door neighbor.
- [33:45]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
And so I always get those. And so then I have to do lots of things. But there, there is this, I've never been able to corroborate this, but someone told me early in my medical training that the human heart has an electromagnetic field that extends 15ft. And I loved that. When I heard that, I thought, wow, what a nice thing. So you feel those vibes from people, Like I feel your vibes, you know, and there's something really good about that.
- [34:11]
Naima Raza
Could imagine it going both ways. I could imagine like spending time with a lot of people who are really stressed. Like, it's like sometimes when I'm with people that are really stressed, I'm like, wow, I'm so chill. And then I convince myself that like I'm a type B person. I'm so like, you know, whatever. And then when I'm people with people who are really unstressed, I'm like, what's wrong with me? Or like what is it about them? Stress can, I think, manifest relatively.
- [34:31]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
There's some people, they never have any mental manifestations of stress or like I feel great, but they might have chronic abdominal pain or, you know, and the first thing is if you're having any, like, physical symptoms. I didn't have any mental manifestations. My stress struggle was I felt a stampede of wild horses across my chest. Then I finally went to go see a doctor, and that doctor did the full medical workup. I was convinced, convinced it was my heart. It ended up not being my heart. And the doctor said it's just stress. And in fact, 60 to 80% of all primary care visits in the US have a stress related component. So you might have abdominal pain, back pain, headaches, fatigue. Oh, the list of symptoms is endless. You go to your doctor, you get the full workup, nothing's wrong, all good. And then they say it's probably just stress, and you go home. And so stress can show up mentally and it also can show up physically.
- [35:20]
Naima Raza
There's a huge amount of conversation right now about malaria, millennial work culture. And there's also this sense that hustle culture is dead. But how does work and this hustle culture and like the peer pressure professionally of stress manifest, Particularly in the data when you look at things like burnout.
- [35:39]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Ooh, what a good question. There's so many ways that we could take this. So first is that, you know, we can talk about multitasking and hustle culture. Toxic resilience.
- [35:49]
Naima Raza
Don't take my multitasking away from me, okay? Toxic resilience.
- [35:52]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Okay. Toxic resilience and this new kind of burnout. So we'll start with talking about this new kind of burnout. When you think about someone with burnout, you probably imagine someone who is really disillusioned, not very motivated, bored, not really engaged. Classic features of burnout. But increasingly, we are seeing a new face of burnout and this modern day burnout. In one study, 60% of people had an inability to disconnect from work as their main feature of burnout. And so if you are someone who is constantly engaged, unable to unplug, everyone.
- [36:25]
Naima Raza
In the room is looking at each other right now. Okay.
- [36:31]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
In addition to being unable to unplug, if you have some other features, like you are feeling fatigued, you're really feeling that sense of burnout, and you're saying, I'm not burned out because I'm completely engaged and I can't shut off work, you might have that new kind of burnout.
- [36:46]
Naima Raza
But what if you love what you do? It's like so charging for you. How can you tell the difference between just loving what you do or being burnt out?
- [36:54]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Great question. So, you know, you can think of yourself, think about where, how you were maybe in 2018. Right. So we're not really going to talk about the pandemic because people are over it. But the effects of the pandemic, particularly the mental health effects, have stayed with us. Because your brain is a dam.
- [37:11]
Naima Raza
I like to think of my brain as a castle, but it's okay. It's a dam.
- [37:16]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes, your brain is castle. You are the exception.
- [37:19]
Naima Raza
I'm teasing.
- [37:20]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Okay. You know, so in 2018, think about how your. How you felt about your work and did it light you up and it motivated you? And now it might be a little bit different, you know, so you might feel like, yeah, my work really motivates me, but I also have this, like, lingering feeling of just feeling really fatigued, and I'm just really not that into it, but I can't shut off. That is the kind of experience I'm talking about. If you are motivated with your work and you can shut off, you can, you know, sleep well, and you wake up and you're feeling good again, that's okay. There's like a really fine line between hustle culture and then saying, oh, I don't need to sleep. I'm good. I can just keep working. Because your brain is a muscle, and just like any part of your body that's a muscle, it needs a little bit of rest and recovery, right? Just to get back to going again. And so I think that kind of idea of this new kind of burnout in your thinking, thinking, could this be me? Based on the data, 70% of people are struggling with at least one feature of stress and burnout. And so if you're wondering, like, could this be me? Do I. Am I burned out? Do I have stress? It's most likely that you are the rule and not the exception. And this is not your fault. Again, it is not a personal failing. You're not weak. Your brain is not broken. It is truly just how your brain is designed. You know, as you're talking about, like, I love what I do, and I don't really want to take a break. And you didn't say those exact words. But for the. Those people who are thinking that or saying to yourself, I can't be burned out. I'm resilient. I used to also say that until I learned what toxic resilience was. And so if you think about pre pandemic, if someone said to you, you're resilient, Naima, or if someone said to me, I would feel, like, really proud and say, like, thanks, because it had a positive connotation, right? And now we bristle at the word. It's totally cringeworthy. I have a visceral response when someone's like, oh, be more resilient.
- [39:05]
Naima Raza
It's like a prophylactic to be. To become stressed or to allow yourself to have bad things happen to you because you can just absorb them and move on.
- [39:12]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah. And it's more like, what's happened now that healthy, true resilience? What is true resilience? The scientific definition. It's your innate biological ability to adapt, recover, and grow in the face of life's challenges. And true resilience needs a little bit of healthy stress. It's like the relationship between swimming, when you first learn to swim, and the coach. The coach would say, say, like, keep going, keep going. That was your healthy stress. And then resilience is your ability to keep your head above water while your arms are flailing. And over time, you kind of learn to swim and glide through the water. Right. Similar concept. And so true resilience honors your human limitations. We've talked a lot about needing breaks and how your body and your brain. This is not a luxury, but a necessity. It really celebrates your ability to say no. It leans into this idea idea of self compassion, because self compassion, in fact, dials down the volume of your amygdala. But toxic resilience is something altogether different. That's when you have that cringeworthy. When you're like, oh, resilience. Because that word has morphed. It's no longer true resilience, it's toxic resilience. What is toxic resilience? It's like mind over matter, mindset. Productivity at all costs. All systems go all the time. It's in the us, the Energizer Bunny in the uk. Keep calm and carry on. So that is toxic resilience. And so a lot of hustle. It's a manifestation of hustle culture.
- [40:35]
Naima Raza
And then the third thing, you want to take away my multitasking. Oh, so what is this? Because I feel like, can't women multitask and men can? Is that a myth? Like, what? Nobody can or nobody should?
- [40:47]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Only even though 100% of us think we're excellent multitaskers, only 2% of human brains can effectively multitask. You might be one of the 2%.
- [40:56]
Naima Raza
How do you find out?
- [40:59]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I don't know how you find out. I don't think there's a scientific test for it, but there really should be.
- [41:04]
Naima Raza
I'd rather be in this 2% than in the other, like 1% they keep talking about. I want to be in this 2%. But sometimes I don't know if I can do it. But I do do it and I.
- [41:13]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Think we all do it.
- [41:14]
Naima Raza
And I think sometimes it's to the detriment of relationship. I think it's really like Esther Perel and I talk about this a lot. And she has this great thing where she says when you're on the phone with somebody and then somebody says, uh huh, and you just know that they're up to something else. And I'm guilty of that. I've definitely done that to people I love and I hate that I always think of that. So that's definitely one thing. But the second is I actually worry that by multitasking and like this multi screen on my phone, I'll be like listening to an audiobook, figuring out the directions somewhere, walking somewhere, going to get something. And I feel like I'm like, wow, wow. I might be like mentally 100 years old because I'm cramming in multiples of my life into one day, so.
- [41:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Well said. And you're not alone. Multitasking is actually a myth. I hate to break it to you, but the word is a scientific misnomer. In fact, there is no such thing. Because your brain is wired to do one thing at a time. When you are multitasking, right? Air quote quotes. What you are effectively doing is doing two separate tasks in rapid succession. So one right after the other. But because your brain is really only wired to do one thing at a time, multitasking. In fact, the way we think of it, it's called task switching in science. But multitasking weakens that prefrontal cortex, so it weakens your cognition, your memory, your attention. Ironically, it makes you less productive. You know, even though we do it to be more productive, it also decreases your ability to solve complex problems. And the world right now is filled. It's filled with complex problems that need to be solved. So we really can't afford to multitask, though all of us do it. And so I'm a recovering multitasker. I am fully a monotasker.
- [43:03]
Naima Raza
Multitasker is anonymous. Only one meeting at a time.
- [43:06]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes. You are just so quick and clever. Obsessed with you.
- [43:12]
Naima Raza
Thank you. Okay, my new year's resolution is to be going. Going to be to try and stop multitasking.
- [43:18]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Oh, I love it.
- [43:19]
Naima Raza
We're going to check in three days a week.
- [43:21]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Great. You can just stop doing multitasking in the mornings or say after, you know, until noon. I'm not going to multitask and wake up Late.
- [43:29]
Naima Raza
That's a little bit cheap.
- [43:30]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes, maybe you start small.
- [43:33]
Naima Raza
So I want to talk about New Year's resolutions because we are in January when people are listening to this. I feel like there's so much in this word resolution and I was comparing it to the word you use in the title of your poetry book, the Five Resets. What is to you the difference between a reset, a habit, a resolution and a revolution in one's own life?
- [43:56]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Amazing, amazing question. I would say that first off, a reset is the spark or the catalyst for how you want to live your life. And then the habit is when you continue the reset again and again and again, it becomes a habit. Your brain needs to about eight weeks for a habit to form. That's how habit formation happens in the brain. For a new brain pathway to be created and falling off, getting back up and falling off and getting back up is part of the habit formation process.
- [44:25]
Naima Raza
Part of the eight weeks.
- [44:26]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Part of the eight weeks. It's kind of like you can think about building a new habit, like a dirt road. And then with time it becomes, you know, a two lane road. And over eight weeks it becomes a highway. It's fascinating the science of New Year's resolutions and why so many people fail. And so when I talk to my patients or even before I knew about the science, you know, I would have a list of like 10 or 15 things, like all the things I'm going to achieve this year. And by February, there's a particular date. I think it's February 8th. If I'm not mistaken, there's a date that like by, by this time, most people, it's dj. Most people have said, forget it, I can't do it. Because your brain even. Positive change. Right. So what are our new initials?
- [45:04]
Naima Raza
This is very bad for people's Valentine's Days. I have to say. This explains why there's so many breakups around Valentine's Day.
- [45:10]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Because you couldn't keep your years resolution.
- [45:12]
Naima Raza
Exactly. I loved him, but he couldn't keep up his fitness habit. I don't know why. But okay, so February 8th, what happened?
- [45:20]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I don't know if it's. I need to go back and look at the science of like, which, what day is it? Because some say it's January, some say it's February. But you know, the thing about New Year's resolutions, the reason they fail is because we take on too much all at once. Because your brain, when you are bringing something new in your life, like what is a nearest resolution? It's a positive change. That you're trying to make in your life. Right. But even positive change is a stress on your brain. And so you can only manage two changes at a time. If you want those changes to stick, anything more in your system gets overloaded. So pick two things. You know, you can make a list of 10 or 15 things you want to achieve. Pick two of those, do them for eight weeks. Weeks when it becomes a habit and becomes automatic in your life, then add two more. And that is how I would approach New Year's resolution.
- [46:09]
Naima Raza
So instead of having eight New Year's resolutions, should I have two quarterly resolutions every quarter?
- [46:16]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Amazing. Yes.
- [46:17]
Naima Raza
Like a corporation. It'd be like an earnings report.
- [46:20]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Q1, yes.
- [46:21]
Naima Raza
Donald Trump's trying to take it from three months to six months, which I think is not necessarily a bad idea, but yes. Okay. So every quarter set. And that actually gives me enough time because then I have the eight to 12 weeks to really instill that habit.
- [46:32]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Love it.
- [46:32]
Naima Raza
But even when I've had one year resolution, I don't know that I've kept it up.
- [46:38]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Habit formation is really difficult. And also knowing that you fall off and get back up, that should ideally keep you going. Because so often when you're trying something new and you're like, oh, I've lost motivation, forget it, I'm not going to do it. Instead telling yourself, okay, this is part of the process. I'm going to get back up and back on the horse and try again.
- [46:55]
Naima Raza
Yeah, that's really reassuring to know that lapsing is part of the muscle building of like, it's like taking a rest or repair day. But I also wonder if something is like, we set these New Year's resolutions in this lull of the busy times of our years, and so we're like, oh, I have all this time. I always think, like, I made so much space in the pandemic for new habits. But then when the world came back, I didn't have like the time of my day or the space in my apartment to keep like the trampoline that every. Between every meeting, I'm going to do 10 minutes on a trampoline like a crazy person. I did that. Like, I just didn't have the space for that. That in my life after.
- [47:31]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That's right.
- [47:32]
Naima Raza
And I kind of feel that that's also a dangerous thing about making a resolution. In this window.
- [47:36]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
A framework that I use is called a most goal. When you are feeling a sense of stress, you may say to yourself, what is the matter with me? Why can't I achieve this or why can't I do that? Instead of asking yourself, what is the matter with me? Ask yourself what matters most to me? And most is an acronym. So any M, is it motivating? O, is it objective? S, is your goal small enough to virtually guarantee success? And T, is it timely? Is it something that you can achieve in about eight weeks knowing the science of brain and habit formation? And so motivating objective, objective, small and timely.
- [48:13]
Naima Raza
And timely.
- [48:14]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
What do I need to do in the next couple of months that will help me with my stress? The next step is to operationalize it. So how do you do that? You create a backwards plan.
- [48:23]
Naima Raza
We didn't get to revolution, but the revolution is like instead of having your eight New Year's resolutions for January 1st that you're going to drop the ball on, then instead have two most goals every quarter. And maybe we set them at the end of January instead of the beginning of January so we don't have this dulu sense of how much time and space and energy we have to actually commit to these things.
- [48:46]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah, it's arbitrary, right? Like January 1st. Who decided? No, but data shows that about 80% of people by February are no longer doing their New Year's resolutions.
- [48:57]
Naima Raza
It's D day. It's quitting time. Okay, so I wanna do a lightning round before you get out of here, which is some of the bad habits that people might be trying to break around New Year's or maybe, I don't know, a particular host of a particular podcast is trying to break. Okay. There's some cycles that I think are really unhealthy. One is a cycle. I get into snacking, feeling guilty about snacking, swearing I'll never do that again, cutting sugar out, snacking again, finding myself back in a cycle. What is this loop?
- [49:26]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That is your amygdala when you are feeling a sense of stress. It's called emotional eating. You crave high fat, high sugar foods because your brain thinks, oh my gosh, we're entering a famine. So you eat calorically dense food. So it's not you, it's just. It's a. You know, it's the donut that are the doughnut phenomenon. And so you have to ask yourself, what am I hungry for? Is it more certainty, more rest, more connection, and give yourself that instead.
- [49:51]
Naima Raza
Okay, so that's the escape valve. The escape hatch is. Ask yourself a question. What do I actually hungry for? We talked about doom scrolling and the scrolling habit already. But what about shopping? There's something that happens to me. The revenge bedtime Procrastination for me involves Zara and a basket of goods that I don't need. And I often am, like, shopping at like, 1:30 in the morning. Morning.
- [50:12]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes. Again, it's that brain break. You're like, oh, let me just rest and relax and do online shopping. There's also a real gamification element to this. Right. Like, so when you switch your phone. I did this. I switched my phone to grayscale and I went shopping and I lost all interest because I couldn't see the clothes, I couldn't see the colors. Add to cart. Did I add it? Did I not check out again? There's a whole gamification process. Like when you're on Amazon and you're ordering something from Amazon prime, you feel that, right? That buzz. It's like there's a. There's a game element to all of this. And then you get it, and you get it at home. You get your Zara package, you try things on. You're like, I don't like it. You return it for the next day. You're so icky.
- [50:48]
Naima Raza
Like, you're like going to. You're like, I hate carrying this box to the store to return it. It's such a cycle.
- [50:52]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Then you get it again and you're like, what am I doing? It's like a game.
- [50:55]
Naima Raza
I know. Sometimes I've ordered the same thing and I'm like, I returned that thing.
- [50:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You didn't even remember you ordered it.
- [50:59]
Naima Raza
Yeah, I don't know if that black, that grayscale thing is going to work for, like, the millennial, the minimal Gen Z millennial. Girlies on the Internet who are, like, only wearing black, white neutrals. They're still in danger. They need something.
- [51:11]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You'd be amazed. Like that grayscale.
- [51:13]
Naima Raza
Yeah.
- [51:13]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You, you, you know, people are like, I'm gonna do it all day. You can't.
- [51:16]
Naima Raza
No, I know.
- [51:17]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Grayscale is not solved.
- [51:18]
Naima Raza
Grayscale is a solve. And turning it on, like a triple click is good.
- [51:23]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah, I have it auto on my. Yeah, whatever that's called. The side button. Action button.
- [51:30]
Naima Raza
What about the procrastination cycle? Procrastinating, Feeling panic, doing the work, swearing you'll never do it again. Doing it again. How do you. What's the escape hatch on that?
- [51:39]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
So procrastination is a coping mechanism. It's a stress response. It's like you save it, and then right when your stress is at a boiling point, you do the thing and then you. Ideally, there's this expression, which I love. It's eat the frog first. Have you heard of that? That it's like, do the difficult thing first. So ideally in a day, instead of like keeping it for the end of the week or the end of the day, just like, try to do the difficult thing first. What will happen is that often you will increase your sense of personal agency. I think we started our conversation talking about agency, which is like this ability to feel like, oh, I can do that, I can do it again. Same.
- [52:15]
Naima Raza
Okay. Okay, great. And then final thing, like, if I have good habits, am I going to be happier?
- [52:21]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yes. This is the thing. Your brain, because of neuroplasticity, it always goes back to the brain, right? When you do better, you feel better. And so even the process, while the process might not be very sexy or cool and kind of boring, like to say, okay, I'm going to go to bed early, I'm going to, you know, try to do a little bit of movement every day. I'm going to stay off my phone as much as possible. Your brain responds through the process of neuroplasticity. So you will notice. Notice that you will feel happier, calmer, less reactive. You probably sleep better, which then has a whole host of things that happen. Right. It's a ripple effect.
- [52:57]
Naima Raza
The one thing I want to ask you about, like, as we talk about stress, like, one thing I find is like stress has become an excuse for bad behavior sometimes or self boundaries. Oprah just did this whole thing about how people are, you know, having no consciousness attack with their own mothers or daughters or whatever. And there can be reasons for that, to be sure. But I do think that there's probably in this crowd listening to me right now, some CEOs, founders, directors, or other people who just rely on people in their lives, partners, mothers, whatever, who say people use stress as an excuse out of obligation. People use stress as an excuse out of work. People tell me they're burned out and that's just weak or that's just not committing to me or whatever it is. Like, what do you, what is your response? Do you think that we have heard too much on the side of like, oh, we are giving a lot of grace to stress and burnout? Or are you like, no, we have to. We're moving in the right direction as a society. Some people would say, like, stress is woke.
- [53:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You know, burnout is woke because of the line of work that I'm in as a doctor. I think we're not giving enough, enough compassion to ourselves. We're also not giving compassion to others. You know, there's that famous quote, be kinder than necessary, because everyone is facing a battle you know so little about. I don't know who said it, but I think about that all the time. When I was in my own stress struggle as a doctor, early, early days, one of the teachers that I had, his name is Michael Bain, he said to me, look around the room and every patient that you meet and on the street. I was living in Philadelphia at the time when I was in my medical training. And he said, every single person you meet is having as intense of an experience of life as you are. And so I think about that a lot as a doctor. I have seen stress and burnout in people that you would never even think would have stress and burnout. They are in the waiting room, they are, you know, big shots, and the door closes, and they have that private moment with their doctor, and they break down. And I see that again and again and again. And so, for me, I think that while we have made headway, if there is one silver lining that has come out the last few years, it is that mental health stress burnout are finally out of the shadows, and people are talking about it. But we have so much more way to go to really dismantle the taboo and the shame around these issues.
- [55:17]
Naima Raza
Do you think that because you're a stress expert and a physician who's really focused in this area, both in your practice and in your teaching, that you see stress everywhere, like, more than most of us, or is stress just the, like, most primitive experience of the brain?
- [55:33]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I think it's a little bit of both. And I think what is. You know, for me, it's like I see stress everywhere, and I think we don't have to live this way. And other people might be like, well, this is just life. This is how it is. And you just. You know, my. My dad went through this. I'm going through it. I'm teaching my kid to do it, too. Like, that kind of attitude. And I would say that you don't have to live this way. There is a better way, and it takes very small increments of time. You don't need to move to Bali. You don't need, like, you know, a sabbatical surf. I mean, sign me up for that life plan. It's not in my reality, but I. Elizabeth Gilbert.
- [56:06]
Naima Raza
Yeah.
- [56:07]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Yeah. I'm like. I'm like a closeted surfer who's like a Harvard doctor.
- [56:10]
Naima Raza
I love that. Okay, Harvard doctor. We end every episode of Smart Girl Dumb questions asking our guests, who know a lot about a Lot of things. What they're dumb about. What is the one thing you don't know?
- [56:21]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
One thing that I. It just like, vexes me is when I have a dinner party or have friends over, even leftover takeout, and I want to take those items and put them into a Tupperware. I can never figure out, like, it's. I always get it wrong, can't size it. I'm always, like, messing up. I put it into, like, the. The Tupperware, the thing that I want to put into the fridge to eat later. And then like, half of it doesn't go in. And then I have to get another container. My husband is like a pro. He's like, that it's not gonna fit there. I'm like, yes, it will.
- [56:49]
Naima Raza
See, Because I think that you would think it was stress related because your husband is less stressed. He's better with the Tupperware.
- [56:55]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
I think some people are just really good at, like, the 3D spatial. No, like, even. You know, I'm an excellent packer, so good at packing, but I can't, like, do the transfer. I don't know.
- [57:07]
Naima Raza
Okay, you're good at it. I am actually good at this because I have to. I mean, I don't wanna flex, but I was so good at Tetris when I was a kid that, like, I actually got to 32,800 points and the points started going down and I kept making lines. And I had the person who was taking care of me at the time write an affidavit for my sister because I knew she wouldn't believe me. I had to let myself die because the score wouldn't stay that high. I don't want to show off too much, but I'm just saying, I was.
- [57:31]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Always jealous of people who were good at Tetris.
- [57:33]
Naima Raza
But if you weren't, I would get.
- [57:33]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
That shape in the middle and all the gaps on the bottom.
- [57:36]
Naima Raza
Yeah, I might be Brooklyn instead of the Upper east side, but I can put those sweet potatoes into a Tupperware no matter where I am. Thank you so much for making the time tell people where they can find you.
- [57:46]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
You can find me all over social media. You can also subscribe to my new newsletter, Mental Health Ish on substack.
- [57:52]
Naima Raza
And the book is called the Five Resets. And you have a new book about how AI and technology are shifting.
- [57:58]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
This is going to be a juicy conversation, part two. Okay, my new book is coming out called Bot Brain When High Touch Meets high tech in 2026 with HarperCollins. And it is about AI chatbots, mental health and the human connection, how AI is rewiring our brains and our sense of human connection.
- [58:16]
Naima Raza
I love it. I hope me and my AI boyfriend who you will set me up with would love to have you back on our show for, you know, and you.
- [58:24]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Know, 85,000 people on ChatGPT is my boyfriend on Reddit.
- [58:31]
Naima Raza
Wow. I feel so much less stressed about my stress stress after that conversation with Dr. Aditi Narakar. It is clearly ubiquitous. It's good to know that certain kinds of stress are good stress. It's good to know that 2% of people are great at multitasking and OMG, I'm probably part of the 98%. I entered that conversation a little bit dumb about the physiology of our brains. I actually didn't know where the prefrontal cortex is, but it makes sense that it's in front and stuff. But I also had a lot of doubts about like why is everything about stress? Is everything really about stress? Or is this just a strange stress doctor telling me things are about stress? But actually I left the conversation so much smarter about our physiology and about my great, great, great, great cave daddy's physiology and this role of the amygdala and fight or flight and how that experience is similar or different in a digital world. One of the things that happened right after we taped this interview, my team and I were talking to Dr. Aditi about supplements and various things around stress. And she, she actually said that she only likes to recommend things that are free, solutions that are free, which I thought was so refreshing in a world that we are like constantly packaged and sold, all kinds of medical products and every podcast, et cetera. Maybe even I don't know what ads are running on this one. Maybe on this one. I hope not. But it does happen. And I really appreciate that she is taking such an accessibility approach to helping people think about their stress. I also left a lot so smarter about how to make my New Year's resolutions. I want to know if it helped you with yours. You can drop me a line namearaza101mail.com or better yet, leave me a voicemail 1-855-MYDUMBQ you can call in. You can leave us your dumb questions that you want us to tackle with new guests. You can leave questions for Dr. D.T. nurakar as well. I'm sure she'd love to hear them. And that's it for this episode of Smart Girl. Dumb Questions. I'm Naima Raza. This show is produced with Desta Wonderad of One Wonder Studios and Melissa Lee Gibson. It was edited by Darlena Chiem and mixed and engineered by Johnny Simon. Our theme music is by David Kahn. Special thanks to Healy Cruz and to Claudia Riccardi. And that's it for this week. See you next week on Smart Girl, Dumb Questions.
- [60:41]
Dr. Aditi Nirokar
Sam.