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Something You Should Know
How to Get the Best Sleep of Your Life & How to be Gracefully Assertive - SYSK Choice
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- [00:01]
Mike Carruthers
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- [01:47]
Eric Prather
There's one thing that I could tell people to get their sleep back on track. It's actually to maintain a stable wake time, seven days a week that is really critical. You know, setting your circadian rhythm and making things more predictable for your body.
- [02:01]
Mike Carruthers
Also, why employers should be handing out a lot more praise and compliments. And if you ever wish you could be more assertive but have trouble speaking up, I have some great advice.
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Randy Patterson
When you're noticing that there's something pulling you away from being assertive, you identify what exactly is it that I'm afraid is going to happen. And sometimes when you do that, you realize, oh gosh, that's never going to happen.
- [02:28]
Mike Carruthers
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- [03:38]
Eric Prather
Something you should know.
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Randy Patterson
Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today.
- [03:47]
Mike Carruthers
Something you should Know with Mike Carruthers.
- [03:51]
Eric Prather
Hi there.
- [03:52]
Mike Carruthers
Welcome to SOMETHING you should know. You've probably noticed when you buy a pillow or a mattress or a cushion, there's always a tag on it. And somewhere on that tag is a warning about removing the tag. Now for years the warning used to say do not remove under penalty of law. So how did removing a tag become a federal crime? Well, it all started when mattresses were a potential host to vermin and disease carrying materials. Dealers were required to attach labels listing the contents and the federal government added that warning to discourage dealers from removing it. It was never intended to be a warning for consumers and in fact, today, while the tag is still on there, the language is a lot softer than it used to be. It reads something like this tag may not be removed except by the consumer. So go ahead if you want, remove the label and the feds won't show up at your door. And that is something you should know. I can't imagine anyone who hasn't had trouble sleeping from time to time. And you've probably heard the conventional advice, don't drink coffee before bed, get off your phone or computer because the light from the screen messes up with your sleep. But sleeping well and sleeping enough is a little more complicated than that. And when you understand some of the complexities, you can really set yourself up to be a better sleeper. And here to explain how is Eric Prather. He's a world renowned sleep scientist and author of the book the Sleep seven Days to Unlocking youg Best Rest. Hey Eric.
- [05:42]
Eric Prather
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [05:43]
Mike Carruthers
So do you think in general people have a good understanding of how important sleep is and what having a good night night's sleep does for you, that kind of thing?
- [05:53]
Eric Prather
I feel like over the last, since I've been doing this type of work, you know, some of the collective consciousness around sleep and its importance for health and wellbeing has changed. There has been a shift, and I think a lot of it comes from kind of hearing it in the media and kind of what we're learning in sleep science. But despite that, you know, there's still a dramatically high number of individuals that are getting insufficient amounts of sleep and struggle with their sleep. And so it makes me think that, you know, maybe there are things that are getting in the way, barriers or kind of the way that we live our lives. But also I think that there may be some gaps in our knowledge about what to do when we're not able to sleep. Well with that. That kind of perpetuates these chronic problems of insomnia or insufficient sleeping.
- [06:45]
Mike Carruthers
Do you have a sense, I don't know if you've looked at the numbers, but in terms of how many people have trouble sleeping and how often they have it, is there any sense of how big a problem this is?
- [06:57]
Eric Prather
Yeah, I mean, the literature certainly varies, but, you know, when we think about insomnia symptoms, so that's sleep disturbances, problems in falling asleep or staying asleep or waking up too early. You know, that seems to range, you know, a little bit above, you know, 30 to 40% of the population in the United States reports insomnia symptoms. And so, you know, that's nearly 100 million people in the US when people.
- [07:25]
Mike Carruthers
Have trouble sleeping, why. What. What is it that happens? Is it that they're. They can't stop thinking about something? Is their mind racing or is there. What's preventing them from just falling asleep?
- [07:40]
Eric Prather
Yeah, that's a. That's a really great question. The most common model for insomnia is called the 3Pmodel. And so each P stands for a different part of the thing that leads to insomnia. And so there's the predisposition, right? There are some people that are kind of anxious folks and, and are more likely to have difficulty falling asleep. These are the. The people that say, you know, I've had my whole life, I've been a bad sleeper. And then there is a precipitating factor that's the second P. And usually that's some sort of stressor that happens out in the world and, you know, can make it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. And that's, of course, an adaptive response. I mean, we're built to kind of withstand lack of sleep, to kind of get things done. I mean, talk to any parent of a young child. And it's certainly we can survive that. But then the final P is the perpetuating factors. And that is what is really ironic in how insomnia develops. Because what happens is that people tend to make a lot of choices that in the moment, make a lot of sense. Things like, if I have a bad night of sleep, I'll try to make up for it by sleeping in a few extra hours in the morning, or I'll take a nap during the day, or I'll get in bed really early because I don't know when sleep's going to happen. And those types of things, though, they make sense in the moment, actually undermine how sleep works naturally. And then it kind of feeds forward to becoming what, you know, what we know is kind of chronic insomnia or insomnia disorder.
- [09:26]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it's weird when you think about it, because not sleeping isn't doing something. It's not doing something. But if people are not sleeping, then what is it they're doing? What is it that goes through their mind or what is it that they're doing that keeps them from sleeping?
- [09:45]
Eric Prather
I mean, I think the unfortunate thing is in the middle of the night when we're awake, it's not like our mind is filled with the best things happening in our life. It's not like, oh, how great is tomorrow going to be? Or this wonderful experience I've had. It's always these kind of negative things. It's things that like, you know, worries about what we're doing tomorrow, you know, ruminations about things that you wish had gone differently, or, you know, as you mentioned, worrying about the fact that you're not sleeping. And like, what does that mean? What, you know, how are you going to feel tomorrow? What happens as the minutes tick by and you're still not asleep that really ramps up that anxiety, that ramps up our stress response, which is incompatible with sleeping. And so it's. It's often kind of a mixture of those sorts of things that happen when people are kind of in the quiet of the night and your brain kind of fills that vacuum of space with just busy, often negatively valence thoughts.
- [10:44]
Mike Carruthers
I imagine everyone has heard the warnings about the connection between screens and sleep. That the blue light from your, your TV or your iPad or your computer or your phone, that if you are looking at those things before you go to bed, that that will interfere with your sleep. Can you talk about that?
- [11:05]
Eric Prather
Absolutely. So, you know, one of the key pieces of our sleep regulation is our circadian rhythm. Okay. And when the sun goes down and it gets close to bedtime, your brain starts releasing melatonin, right? Like lots of people have heard of melatonin, it's often a supplement that people use, but we make it, and it's released from our pineal gland in our brain. One of the things that happens when people are exposed to blue light, that frequency of light, is it can actually shut down the release of that hormone. And so the thought is that, you know, when people are exposed to that, it actually makes it difficulty, difficult to fall asleep because you don't have this melatonin release. And there's some. Some kind of compelling science to suggest that that can happen physiologically. And some people might be more sensitive to that than others. My concern is that there is a lot of focus on the blue light. And so, you know, devices have now have night shift filters where we can kind of filter out that, or there are glasses that people can wear that will protect them from that. But when it comes to sleeping, it's often the content that people are consuming that is actually engaging their brain and keeping them from falling asleep. So even when the blue light is taken out of the equation, people have difficulty falling asleep when they're on social media, when they're on their computer working, when they're watching engaging shows. I mean, I certainly have engaged in those sorts of things. And, you know, it can be difficult to fall asleep. And part of it is, or a big piece of it is that, you know, particularly when it comes to the Internet and social media, it's developed and designed to keep you engaged. Right? It activates that reward system in your brain that keeps you coming back. And that experience is, you know, the enemy of sleep. Right? Sleep is something about kind of letting go and not engaging in those sorts of activities. And so it's not just about blue light. You know, there is certainly some evidence to suggest that it can get in the way and it certainly can downregulate your melatonin release. But if I had to put my money on a thing to work on when it comes to those types of activities, it would be around the content.
- [13:43]
Mike Carruthers
I've often thought that when people have trouble sleeping, they kind of approach the problem the wrong way in the sense that they think about, what am I doing wrong, what's the thing I need to avoid in order to sleep better, rather than look at the question of, okay, if I really want a good night's sleep, what are the things I need to do to facilitate a good night's sleep? So what are they?
- [14:13]
Eric Prather
I think the really important things that in kind of shifting how people think about their sleep is that sleep isn't something that you make happen, right? Sleep is something that happens to you. It kind of washes over you. And so oftentimes the effort that people put in and the angst that they experience to try to make it happen actually really gets in the way of it happening naturally. But, you know, on any given night, there are obviously things that you can do to kind of put yourself in the best position to have a restful night's sleep. The first is, you know, ensuring that you have an ample transition, right? We need to demarcate the time from the day to when you're kind of winding down for bed. And one of the things that I see so regularly is that people treat their brains as if they're their laptop computers where you can just kind of shut the lid and it turns off and then you go to sleep and it turns out that's just not how it works. And so I really suggest that people carve out a good transition time. And this is, you know, range an hour, maybe two hours, where you can really relax and do something, you know, kind for yourself. Things that are positive and kind of low arousal, kind of relaxation type activities, and those can be personal, but it's really important to have those in place as it will cue your body that it's time for rest and you can get the restorative sleep you need. The second thing is that you don't want to go to bed unless you're sleepy. All right? And so it turns out in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which is what we do in our clinic here at ucsf, you know, we often end up putting pushing people's bedtimes back later as a way of trying to increase their sleep drive. The second thing that is really important for regulating our sleep. So I mentioned the circadian rhythm, but our sleep drive is the second one. And so by pushing your bedtime later, it ensures that you have that sleepiness on board so that you can fall asleep quickly and often kind of experience more restorative, consolidated sleep. And so, you know, you want to have the transition and you just don't want to get in bed prematurely when you're not sleepy. And related to that is, you know, the bed is kind of a shrine to sleep. It's not a workstation, it's not a place where you watch television. We always say in our clinic, you know, the bed is for sleep and sex and otherwise everything stays outside of it. And that's important for kind of cueing your body, that this is what happens here, that I fall asleep here. And we have lots of environmental triggers in our lives that tell our brains and bodies what to do, and the bed is certainly one of them.
- [17:06]
Mike Carruthers
We are talking about how to get a good night's sleep every night with sleep scientist Eric Prather, author of the book the Sleep Prescription. So I want to talk to you if you have a lot to do this time of year and also have to hire someone like you really need that to add to your to do list. But if that's the case, really, it's time to try Indeed Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast and without all the busy work and paperwork. And here's what I love about Indeed they walk you through the entire process of matching just the right person to the job opening you have, and they do it really well. In fact, three and a half million businesses worldwide use Indeed to hire great talent fast. So they must be pretty good at what they do in the minute I've been Talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed Data Worldwide. Look, you can try to wing it by yourself or you can put Indeed to work to help you get the right person quickly. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com something just go to Indeed.com something right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, indeed.com something terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed. At this point, I think it's just become common practice that if you have a business and you sell online, Shopify is the way to go. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Whether you're selling holiday gifts or auto parts or gourmet food, it doesn't matter. Shopify is there to help you grow from the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage all the way up to the did we just hit a million order Stage? Here's what I love about Shopify. It's not just a platform. They have these great tools that help you sell more. For example, they have the Internet's best converting checkout 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms. They have this thing, it's the Shopify Bundles app where you can create and sell product bundles with ease. So you sell more. They also have something called the Shopify Collective. You can curate products to sell from other brands, brands you love, giving your customers more variety and your business more sales. Come on, it's time to check out Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.comsysk all lowercase go to shopify.comsysk now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.comSYSK so Eric, I've been places where and been in like hotel rooms or at someone's home and the room itself, something about the room that just makes sleep so much easier. So I imagine that there are a lot of things you could do to your own bedroom to make it more conducive to sleep.
- [20:35]
Eric Prather
These are kind of the things that you constantly hear about as sleep hygiene, but are critical. So the things that I mention in trying to regulate people's sleep don't tend to work unless you also have a really well set up bedroom. And so this is kind of the things like keeping your bedroom dark, keeping it quiet. You know, some people use eye masks, some people use earplugs, some people use noise machines, white noise machines. And then the other one is temperature. Temperature is, you know, our core body temperature has to drop as we sleep. And one of the things that facilitates that is keeping the room cool. And so it seems like, you know, the sweet spot is somewhere between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit. You know, certainly you want to ensure that you have, you know, that you're warm enough and, you know, often layers are kind of the best way to go about this. But, you know, those things combined with not getting into bed prematurely, making sure that you use the bed just for sleeping and ensuring this transition put people in a pretty good position to sleep well. And then there are other things that happen that are not close to the bedtime window that seem to be really critical to help people sleep. The one that I tell everyone, first off, if there's one thing that I could tell people to get their sleep back on track, it's actually to maintain a stable wake time, seven days a week, that is really critical for, you know, setting your circadian rhythm and making things more predictable for your body.
- [22:15]
Mike Carruthers
What else is it that people do, maybe unknowingly, unwittingly, that actually sabotages their sleep?
- [22:23]
Eric Prather
You know, one of the things that's critical and is really part of the foundation of what feeds insomnia is people's tendency to spend excessive amount of time in bed not sleeping. And this is really hard, right, because you. You want to be asleep. You're, like, waiting for this to happen. You're kind of, like, on the edge, and you think that, you know, if I wait another 10 minutes, I'm going to fall asleep. But what happens for a lot of people is, you know, 10 minutes turns into 20, turns into 40 turns into two hours. And they're kind of, you know, trying to fight this experience of their active mind. And what that does is it actually fractures the relationship your body has with the bed. Your body gets confused, and it actually develops into something called a conditioned arousal. So, you know, I hear so often in our clinic, patients say things like, you know, I was feeling really sleepy, and then I got in bed and my brain woke up. And that can happen both when you go to sleep, but also in the middle of the night. And it. It changes the experience. And so what you need to do is actually get out of bed. And it's. It's challenging. No one. No one loves doing this. But it's important because once you get out of bed, you do something quiet, relaxing, and then you want to get back in bed and. And try to go to sleep again. And what that will do is it will repair the relationship of kind of sleepiness and the bed, and over time, will help you sleep more soundly.
- [23:57]
Mike Carruthers
How big a problem is it when you mess up a night's sleep? People worry that, oh, I'm not going to be able to function, it's going to be terrible. I'm going to be, you know, prone to accidents because I didn't get my eight hours. And we did a thing here the other. Not long ago on an episode, a quick thing about placebo sleep, that if people think they slept well, they tend to do better, and if they think they didn't, they tend not to. But what's the damage done from a bad night's sleep?
- [24:28]
Eric Prather
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, and that's a great point. Around placebo sleep, certainly at the extreme end of sleep deprivation, it's clear that our faculties are damaged cognitively, our reaction time, all of those sorts of things, our mood is impaired. But oftentimes, you know, people do better than they think. And that. That. That's a really important part of helping people with insomnia is kind of tracking the data on, you know, when you had a bad night of sleep, like, how'd you do during the day? And when you had a good night of sleep, how'd you do during the day? And it turns out, if you track that over time. You know, our sleep doesn't necessarily play a huge role in our functioning during the day, just in kind of normal day to day things. Um, so, you know, that, that, that can be really important evidence for people that they, not, they don't need to be so distressed about a bad night's sleep because they're common, they happen to everybody and we're actually really resilient against it. And that's just an important point to, to have people understand.
- [25:32]
Mike Carruthers
And does it work that if you have a bad night's sleep, does that maybe help the next night go better because you're much more tired because you didn't sleep the night before? Or does it actually make it worse because you're now developing like a pattern of not sleeping at night?
- [25:50]
Eric Prather
Yeah, it's definitely the former. I mean, our body is really good at compensating for lost sleep. So for instance, if we deprive someone in the laboratory, which we do here, and they don't get to sleep the next day when they sleep, when we allow that their sleep, they go into deep sleep much more rapidly and their sleep is more consolidated because your body's trying to make up that, that lost amount. I think that the challenge is oftentimes that people are having bad nights of sleep consistently and then they are able to sleep the next night. They don't want to go to bed prematurely. Right. You don't want to kind of like go to bed several hours earlier, typically because you can only make so much sleep. And so if you go to bed too early, your sleep is likely to be fragmented or you're going to, you know, you're going to wake up way earlier than you wanted to because when you lose sleep, you don't necessarily. Your body doesn't make up the same amount the following night. Right. Just the quality has changed.
- [26:49]
Mike Carruthers
So there are little rituals people have when they can't sleep. Drink some warm milk or whatever they are. Is there any sense that those are effective or not?
- [27:01]
Eric Prather
Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of great data on that to understand how much of that is placebo. My guess is that it's. There may be a little bit of an active ingredient, but just the rituals seem to be really important for people to let go and be able to sleep more soundly. Caffeine, however, we do know quite a bit about, you know, caffeine certainly can increase alertness, but it's in our system for a long time. And so, you know, caffeine has a half life of about six hours. And so that means that, you know, after six hours, half of it is still in your system. So if you have a double espresso at 4pm at 10pm you still have a single espresso in your system. We know that that can keep people alert. It can make it difficult for them to fall asleep. And if they fall asleep, their sleep is often lighter or more fragmented and so the quality seems to suffer as a consequence.
- [28:00]
Mike Carruthers
Well, I think everybody has beliefs about sleep and what works for them. And, you know, it's certainly a universal experience. We all have to sleep. But it's good to hear from, you know, a sleep scientist about the science of sleep and what works and what doesn't in getting a good night's sleep. I've been talking to Eric Prather. He is a sleep scientist and author of the book the Sleep Prescription. Seven Days to Unlocking your Best Rest. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Eric.
- [28:30]
Eric Prather
Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
- [28:33]
Mike Carruthers
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- [30:02]
Eric Prather
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- [30:19]
Mike Carruthers
Sorry.
- [30:20]
Eric Prather
So you're playing Bingo Blitz.
- [30:22]
Mike Carruthers
Now that's a bingo step for a world of excitement.
- [30:25]
Eric Prather
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- [30:28]
Mike Carruthers
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- [30:31]
Eric Prather
Now that's a bingo.
- [30:36]
Mike Carruthers
How many times have you looked back on some interaction with someone and said to yourself, I wish I'd stood up for myself. I wish I'd been more assertive? So what does it mean to be assertive? How do you assert yourself without being aggressive or obnoxious? And what are the benefits of being assertive? Well, someone who knows a thing or two about assertiveness and has researched the topic pretty thoroughly is psychologist Randy Patterson. He's author of a book called the assertiveness how to express your ideas and stand up for yourself at work and in relationships. Hi, Randy. Welcome.
- [31:17]
Randy Patterson
Oh, glad to be here, Mike.
- [31:19]
Mike Carruthers
So I think everyone knows what assertiveness is when they see it in someone. But what is it exactly? How do you define it?
- [31:27]
Randy Patterson
Assertiveness is essentially the act of controlling your own behavior in the dance between you and another person in such a way that you're controlling yourself. You're not controlling the other person. That's more of an aggressive stance. They're not controlling you. That's more of a passive stance. But you are able to state what it is that you need. You're able to set boundaries and you're able to defend them.
- [31:56]
Mike Carruthers
And why is that so hard? Why? Why do people have such a problem standing up for themselves and doing and doing what you just said?
- [32:05]
Randy Patterson
Well, there's so many different reasons. One would be stress. The stress response is also known as the fight or flight response. Fight leads us into aggression. Flight leads us into a more passive way of responding. Sort of an avoidant stance, the passive stance. And so the more anxious we are in these situations, the less able we are to be properly assertive. A second is other people. We've often been setting up other people to expect that we have no boundaries for our entire lives. And then when we set them, they think, oh, my gosh, what's going on here? And they try to get us to change back. And a third major area is all of our beliefs about assertiveness. We think that it's impolite to be assertive or that it's aggressive to be assertive, or that all assertiveness is watered down aggression. A variety of different beliefs can keep us away from simply stating what we think, what we want, what we're willing to do, and what we're not.
- [33:08]
Mike Carruthers
There are people, though, you're probably one of them. There are people who seem to nail this, that seem to be very assertive, you know exactly where they stand. And they tend to be people we admire. They tend to be people that seem confident and assertive, but yet we have trouble doing that.
- [33:30]
Randy Patterson
Yeah, it's mostly a matter of rehearsal. And in fact, I would say that I'm not a natural. I don't think anybody is really born with this. Some people might have been born with more of a tendency toward it than me. But I've often said that when you're, when you're learning from someone, you don't want to learn from a natural because they'll just say things like, well, you know, just do it. It's easy, it's perfectly straightforward. Right. You want somebody who actually had to learn. But you're quite right. I mean, when we think about assertive people, we. They're often people we admire. And so one of the tricks is indeed to think of those individuals like, who is it that I admire? Not because they're so hard edged and nasty, but because they're able, in a kind, compassionate, clear way, to set their boundaries without, you know, being grossly offensive all the time and without it being deadly serious. John, I need you to understand my boundary around who steals the pencils from my. You. It doesn't have to be like that.
- [34:37]
Mike Carruthers
You can be much more casual by saying what. Like that example. What would you say differently?
- [34:46]
Randy Patterson
John, I can show you where the pencils are in the storage cupboard if you'd like. Might be a perfectly assertive thing to do. Another would be I need the pencils, so do leave them here.
- [34:58]
Mike Carruthers
Oh, I like that. But you don't really address the issue of that. He's stealing your pencils.
- [35:04]
Randy Patterson
I'm dealing with the behavior and the behavior rather than the person. One of the tricks with assertiveness is that you don't address the person's character at all. You don't say things like, I want you to be more respectful. I want you to be smarter. It's, what do you want them to do? Leave the pencils here, please.
- [35:26]
Mike Carruthers
But what if it's a case of you want to assert yourself about something because the other person agreed to do something and isn't doing it. So I want to be clear, you're not doing what you said you would do. And now I'm addressing the person, not the behavior. Well, I guess I'm addressing the behavior, but you know what I mean. There is something about the fact that somebody says they're going to do something and then they don't do it, it's time to talk about the person.
- [35:57]
Randy Patterson
Yeah. Although even in a situation like that, and this is where, you know, it can be a little bit tricky to figure out, okay, how am I going to address this? And why? It's often important to think it through before you're in that situation. But it might be something like, John, you were going to get that report done by the 22nd. Here we are, it's the 22nd. And what can you tell me about the progress of that report? Or, John, it seems like when you sit estimates as to when work will be done, it tends not to happen. How can we change that? You'll notice that my responses tend to be quite brief. We can get into a discussion later, but it tends not to be a long speech.
- [36:37]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah, that's probably an important point because one of the things I think. I mean, just I can think for myself here, that being assertive is going to require that you really explain yourself. And it's going to get real heavy and deep here. And I like your way of just make it brief.
- [36:57]
Randy Patterson
I think the idea behind a lot of people is if the other person comes back with something, I don't know what they're going to come back with. So I'd better have a whole script in advance and deliver the whole thing before they have a chance to say anything, really. It's going to be a dialogue, probably, and you're going to have to do a little bit of improvisation, you know, so you're going to have to come up with your point, know what your point is before you go into the encounter. Make your point clearly, briefly, let the other person speak and then be able to follow up.
- [37:34]
Mike Carruthers
In addition to the words you say, when I think of an assertive person, I can see that person. There's a body language, there's a way they carry themselves. Is that part of it as well, do you think?
- [37:47]
Randy Patterson
Absolutely. In nonverbal behavior is really important. One of the things that I encourage people to do is go to a dog park and look at the dogs and you can tell which are the alpha dogs and which are the beta dogs, if you like. And we're not after alpha aggressiveness, you know, so we're not after the, you know, sneering, masterly person. I'm sure we can think of examples from public life, but we're after something that's kind, clear and as though we are treating the other person like an equal. But the passive behavior, you can really see it in somebody when they're giving it off. They're making themselves small. They may be rotating their shoulders inward slightly to in effect decrease their width. They may be decreasing their height by hunching down and turtling their neck a little bit. They may be looking up from under their eye, under their eyebrows. An aggressive person of course may be leaning in, making themselves look large as though they're dealing with a marauding cougar or something and spluttering. Or they may be pulled back. My perfect example of this is Severus Snape from the Hogwarts movies, the Harry Potter movies. This Mr. Potter, could you please manage to do your job? That's all that I'm really asking you to do. It's quite, you know, pulled back, fluent and icy. So these nonverbal styles, both in voice, so it sounds like that would be verbal but in fact it's non verbal. It's not the words, it's the way that the voice comes across. But also your posture really communicates things.
- [39:39]
Mike Carruthers
Do you think Professor Snape is assertive or aggressive?
- [39:43]
Randy Patterson
No, no, that's icy aggression. So there's a sort of hot aggression and cold aggression. And Snape is a great example of cold aggression. He's probably the one that more people are familiar with than anything else. I'm trying to think of a good example of hot aggression. That sort of the red faced spluttering person who begins losing their facility with the language. And, and how do we refer to those aggressive people? We say that they've lost it. It? What it? What's the it? The it is control. They've lost control over the situation, they've lost control over themselves. Even though the point of aggression is to gain control, it actually loses it. The assertive posture is much more relaxed, look much more casual. You'd look at co workers and if you had the volume turned down on a video you'd think, oh these are two friends talking about something.
- [40:39]
Mike Carruthers
You know what's really interesting to me as I hear you talk is I think one of the reasons that people are afraid of being assertive is that they haven't been. And so because they haven't been with a particular person or in a particular situation, there's been a lot of water under the bridge and now there's some anger and some aggression, aggressive feelings. But if they had been assertive in the very beginning it would have been easier.
- [41:11]
Randy Patterson
You're absolutely right. It would be easier if we could set these things out at the beginning. But, you know, for a lot of us, you know, we've been in the same family, the same marriage, we've had the same kid, we've had the same parents, we've had the same boss, we've had the same coworkers for years. How do you change it now? Well, one of the emotions that we associate with the passive style is fear. Of course, it's fear of counterattack, fear of other people's aggression. But the hidden emotion is indeed exactly what you say. It's resentment. Because, you know, these people, they keep dumping work on my desk on Friday afternoons. I can't believe that they're so inconsiderate. This is such a toxic workplace, and so on and so on, that that resentment gets in the way of doing anything. Assertive.
- [42:01]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah. Because if you don't tell people what your boundaries are, well, then how are they going to know what they are? And also, it seems that the longer you're not assertive, the harder it is to be assertive. That people kind of peg you as well. He's a passive person, so I don't really need to worry about him.
- [42:23]
Randy Patterson
Yeah. I mean, the resentment comes from wishing that people were different, wishing that people would respect our boundaries despite the fact that we've never told them what our boundaries. And we need to recognize that, yeah, expressing this anger is not going to have any utilitarian purpose whatsoever. It's not going to help in any sense. And that really, why is it that the people around me are using me? It's probably in large part because I allow myself to be used. And so as understandable as the anger is, spraying it outward toward them probably is not going to lead us forward. We need to sort of swallow it, maybe beat up a pillow somewhere else, deal with it in some other way. But in this relationship, changing what we're doing, I need to adopt a more assertive style, which is much more calm and much less emotive.
- [43:25]
Mike Carruthers
I think I would imagine one of the things that keeps people that holds them back from trying to be more assertive in any situation is fear of. Fear of what will happen if I do this. What will the other person, how will they react? How will I react to their reaction? What will the whole thing get out of control? And if I just stay passive, then no waves are made and everything stays nice and calm.
- [43:54]
Randy Patterson
Yeah. Well, one of the things we advocate is that when you're noticing that there's something pulling you away from being assertive, you identify what that fear is. It's very hard to let go of a thought. And thoughts are predominantly what drive fears. It's hard to let go of a thought until you know what it is, because who knows? You haven't looked inside the box. Like, is it a valid thought? So really use your fear and use that almost like the thread on a fraying sweater. And pull on it and pull on it and pull on it and see if you can get at the thought. What exactly is it that I'm afraid is going to happen? And sometimes when you do that, you realize, oh, gosh, that's pretty unlikely. That's never going to happen because you can use your critical faculties on it now that you can actually see what you're thinking.
- [44:52]
Mike Carruthers
It also seems that underlying a lot of the lack of assertiveness is the thinking of, well, what's the point? If I bring this up, it's going to cause all kinds of problems. Just why bother? It's just not worth it.
- [45:07]
Randy Patterson
Yep. And if you were in my consulting room, I'd say you are exactly right. It's going to take so much time, so much effort. You're going to have to think through exactly what to say. I'm going to advocate you rehearse it in front of a mirror. I'm going to have you imagine that this person reacts in seven different ways, and you, you figure out how you're going to respond to each of the seven different ways. It's what, for a movie? Give me a break. It's so much easier just to give in this time. But are you going to be happy giving in in this way every time for the rest of your life?
- [45:45]
Mike Carruthers
Do you find in working with people that the more they do this, the easier it gets? Or is it really always a bit of a very conscious hard effort?
- [45:59]
Randy Patterson
Yes. And yes. Learning assertiveness is very much like learning any other skill. It takes you out of your comfort zone and the first little while that you do it. And frankly, with assertiveness, often for quite a while, it feels unnatural. And it doesn't feel like it's just flowing smoothly out of you. You need to actually plot it out a little bit. And I think that's how we learn anything. That feeling of being outside my comfort zone, that's the feeling of my life growing.
- [46:32]
Mike Carruthers
What about when you want to be assertive with someone who is also being assertive back at you and your assertiveness is, don't mesh. So now you're kind of in an assertiveness struggle.
- [46:49]
Randy Patterson
Yeah, well, that's an ideal situation. In fact, if both people are using an Assertive stance. Typically, what it means is that they're both remaining calm. They're both figuring out what it is that they actually want. They're both defining the limits on their own behavior. And so actually, conflict resolution becomes much, much easier. It's much harder if one person is being assertive and the other one is being aggressive. So generally speaking, these things tend to go better. But it may be that in setting your own boundaries, you realize that there is some kind of fundamental disagreement with the other person. And at that point, you have to figure out what you're willing to do. I've been using this silly movie example. It is very low wattage example, I realize, but it might mean, well, I'm going to go see this movie, and you can go to whichever one you want. In other words, I'm going to control my own behavior and not yours.
- [47:49]
Mike Carruthers
What's the connection, do you think, between the lack of assertiveness, the difficulty or inability to be assertive, and the lack of confidence? Are they intertwined?
- [48:05]
Randy Patterson
Yes, they are intertwined. And in many people's minds, what they really need is to develop the confidence and then the assertiveness will come. And what I suggest is that confidence is always an outcome, not a cause. Confidence is the result of setting proper boundaries. It is the result of practicing new skills. Imagine a person deciding they wanted to go swimming. They've never been in. In a swimming pool before. But I'll get into that pool the moment I feel confident. Well, you're never going to get into that pool. You will feel confident after you've been in the pool, unconfident for a while. So confidence and assertiveness are very, very much linked. But if we wait for the confidence, the assertiveness will never come.
- [48:54]
Mike Carruthers
When somebody wants to be assertive in the moment when they're trying, what is it that they should keep in mind about what they're trying to accomplish here?
- [49:04]
Randy Patterson
To control yourself, your own behavior, and in effect, to be giving up on controlling other people's behavior. We often want to change the steps that other people are making in this dance. And what we need to do is refocus on our own feet and change our own steps in instead. It's an ecological system. You change one thing, others will change as a result. You need to change what you have control over. And that's you.
- [49:37]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it's a topic I think everyone has thought about. And I like how you made the differentiation, because I think what you said was that people sometimes think that being assertive is kind of a watered down aggressive. But as you pointed out, those aggression and assertiveness are two mutually exclusive things. I've been talking to Randy Peterson. He's a psychologist and author of the book the Assertiveness how to express your ideas and stand up for yourself at work and in Relationships. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate you being here, Randy. Thanks.
- [50:13]
Randy Patterson
Well, thanks Mike. This has been really fun.
- [50:19]
Mike Carruthers
If you're the boss, you may want to hand out some more compliments. Today there is a study that revealed that employees who receive positive feedback are more successful. For the study, adults were divided into three groups and asked to perform the same task as fast and accurately as possible. Once completed, the first group received praise and compliments individually, the second group had to watch others receive compliments, and the third group was on its own to self evaluate. When asked to perform the test again, the group who had been praised individually significantly outperformed the other two. The researchers explained that the brain perceives that compliment as like a mental paycheck. Most people tend to work harder when they feel valued and that is something you should know. Ratings and reviews for podcasts are kind of like the fuel and we always appreciate more fuel. So please, whatever platform you're listening on, you can probably leave a rating and or review and it would be greatly appreciated. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. There is a fascinating and unique podcast I'd like you to check out as I have. It's called Only One in the Room. A few years back, Laura Cathcart Robbins attended a writer's retreat where out of 600 attendees, she was the only black one. So later she wrote about her experience and the article went viral because people understand what it feels like to be the only one in the room. Only One in the Room is for anyone who has ever felt alone in a room full of people. I bet you've had that feeling. Listen and you'll hear guests like Hilary Phelps, sister of Olympian Michael Phelps, sharing her story of her secret addiction, former Fox News reporter Christine O'Donnell, who was fired after one of her social media posts was taken out of cont context. Only One in the Room was named a top podcast by Reader's Digest, the Manual, and Bustle magazines. Every week, Laura and her co host Scott Slaughter invites you to join them for an hour and lose yourself in someone's only one story. Check out Only One in the Room wherever you get your podcasts.
- [52:40]
Leroy Luna
Buffet, Brawlers, Glory Holes Gone Wrong, Cannibalistic Castration cabins, public poopers. These are just a few of the crazy topics you'll hear covered on Excuse Me, that's Illegal, the pettiest podcast around. Whether you need a break from all that murdery true crime stuff or just enjoy hearing hilarious stories told in a unique way, I got what you need. I'm Leroy Luna, your fearless host chauffeur. So come hop in my minivan and let's go for a ride. I promise you probably won't be disappointed. Excuse Me, that's Illegal is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, basically everywhere you consume podcasts, with new episodes dropping on the 10th, 20th, and 30th of the month.
- [53:26]
Mike Carruthers
Baby.