Your Body is Smarter Than You Think & How to Calm Anyone Down in 90 Seconds

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Episode: Your Body is Smarter Than You Think & How to Calm Anyone Down in 90 Seconds
Date: April 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this rich and multi-faceted episode, host Mike Carruthers explores two central themes: the hidden intelligence and adaptability of the human body, and a practical, science-backed method to quickly calm anyone—including yourself—during emotionally charged moments, in under 90 seconds. Guests Dr. Julia Enders, internal medicine physician and author of Organ Speak: What It Really Means to Listen to Our Bodies, and Doug Knoll, mediator, adjunct professor, and author of How to Calm An Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less, provide expert insights into how listening (to both the body and other people) transforms health, relationships, stress, and conflict resolution.

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Part 1: Your Body is Smarter Than You Think

Guest: Dr. Julia Enders
Segments: [05:34] to [25:59]

1. Food Cravings: A Brain Hack

• [03:07] Tip: To diminish a food craving, look at a picture of the food you crave before eating it.
  • Research finds that mentally simulating eating the food satisfies your brain’s reward system, so you may actually eat less if you indulge.
  • “Your brain gets a preview of the reward before you even start to eat it.” — Mike Carruthers [03:52]

2. Immune System: Not Just a Warrior

• [05:35] Dr. Enders debunks the myth that the immune system is always “fighting.”

  • Most of the time, immune cells are “cruising around asking our body cells, ‘How are you doing?’” — Enders [05:55]
  • Explains that the immune system has a form of “cellular intelligence,” constantly learning to better discern threats and cooperate with helpful microbes.
  • “It is a network…It learns, it gathers a memory over the course of our lives.” — Dr. Enders [07:17]

• Influencing Your Immunity ([08:24]):

  • A “balanced” immune system is more beneficial than an “aggressive” one.
  • Habits like sleep, healthy eating, movement, and stress management signal to your body, “I’m actually doing okay.”

3. Exercise: The Power Is in Recovery

• [10:19] The true benefits of exercise happen after you stop—during rest and sleep.

  • “Muscle growth is initiated, brains cells change, storage for nutrients increases after you finish.” — Enders [10:20]
  • Dopamine and other brain changes are immediate, but most physical gains occur overnight.

• Overtraining Warning ([12:31]):

  • Professional athletes prioritize restoration.
  • “You get stronger by taking relaxation equally as important” as working out. — Enders [12:31]

4. Understanding Muscle Soreness

• [14:12] Some muscle soreness means new growth and adaptation is coming—but chronic overtraining makes you weaker.

5. The Physiology of Breathing

• [15:38] Deep dive into how breath regulates stress.
  • Inhale = heart works harder; exhale = heart relaxes.
  • “If you just breathe out a little longer than you breathe in, the heart can relax a little longer…and you will just have a little bit more of a relaxed time, just for one minute.” — Enders [16:39]
  • Over weeks/months, this habit dramatically lowers risk of stress-related diseases.

6. The Science of Rewards and Dopamine

• [19:30] Not all rewards are created equal. Scrolling on your phone is a “dopamine-only” activity that leaves you wanting more, whereas contentment from food or rest turns off the urge for more.

7. Human Touch: Powerful Medicine

• [21:09]-[25:29] Touch synchronizes physical parameters between people and can calm the nervous system more effectively than some medications.
  • “You can see that the calmer person will calm the more nervous person just by touching their hand.” — Enders [21:45]
  • Even people who don’t love touch benefit, as long as it’s with someone trusted.
  • The brain loves gentle, loving strokes—about 1.5 inches/3 cm per second.
  • Science confirms “interpersonal synchronization” through skin contact.

Memorable Quotes

• “Listening to our body means more than just noticing pain; it means understanding the deep, ongoing conversations inside.” — Dr. Julia Enders [25:30]
• “You don’t get stronger by just overworking the whole time. You get stronger by taking relaxation equally as important.” — Dr. Enders [12:31]

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Part 2: How to Calm Anyone Down in 90 Seconds

Guest: Doug Knoll
Segments: [27:39] to [47:31]

1. The Problem: Escalating Conflicts Everywhere

• [27:39] Carruthers opens with the observation that conversations and disagreements are getting more intense and harder to resolve in today’s world.

2. The Brain Treats Emotional Threats Like Physical Ones

• [30:09] “Your brain can’t distinguish between a saber-toothed tiger and a horrible insult…The methodology for calming is exactly the same.” — Knoll

3. The Science & Origin of the 90-Second Method

• [31:30] Knoll describes his work as a mediator.
  • In a crisis, he instructed a warring couple to name each other’s emotions for 3.5 hours.
  • This led to reconciliation they hadn’t achieved in 25 years.
  • Neuroscience backs this up: naming emotions activates the prefrontal cortex and calms the amygdala (Lab of Matthew Lieberman, UCLA).

4. The “You Feel…” Technique: How to Calm Anyone

• [34:35]
  • The core technique: “You feel…” + emotion labeling.
  • Example:
    • “You feel really angry and pissed off, you’re frustrated, you feel completely disrespected…” (Knoll rapid-fire lists feelings—[34:37])
    • Use direct statements, not questions or hedges.

5. Absolutely Don’t Problem-Solve First

• [35:27]
  • “That’s the worst thing you can do.” — Knoll
  • The brain’s thinking centers (prefrontal cortex) are offline when emotions are high.
  • “De-escalate, then problem solve.” [36:07]

6. Real-Life Examples and Effects

• [36:30] Story of mediating for a billion-dollar company:

  • Once all parties labeled each others’ emotions, mistrust dissipated and real conversations began.
  • “People started crying in relief…and at the end…they had a plan for moving forward to save the company.” — Knoll

• [39:58] Example for couples or friends:

  • Instead of defending yourself, name the other person’s emotions: “You’re really frustrated right now…You feel unheard…Unappreciated…Worried…Unloved…Sad…Anything else? No? Okay, how should we solve this problem?”
  • “That’s the conversation. How long did that take? 45 seconds. That’s about how long it usually takes.” — Knoll [41:35]

7. The Long-Term Impact: Builds Emotional Intelligence

• [43:26] Practiced over time, this method helps children, prisoners, and adults develop self-awareness and self-regulation.
  • “We took people who were below baseline…for whom violence was the only method of conflict resolution…We watched them become emotionally intelligent human beings.” — Knoll

8. Why “You Feel” Is Key—Not “I Think” or “It Seems”

• [45:45]
  • Don’t use “I think…” or “It seems like…”—use direct “You feel…” statements.
  • “Their brains can’t process that, so they’ll give you pushback and it won’t work. Always use you statements.” — Knoll

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On immune system intelligence:
  “It is a network…It learns, it gathers a memory over the course of our lives.” — Dr. Julia Enders [07:17]

• On calming an angry person:
  “You literally are lending your prefrontal cortex to this angry, upset person for the 90 seconds it takes for them to reboot.” — Doug Knoll [33:23]

• On conversational transformation:
  “The reason arguments get loud is all the loudness is, is a call to be heard. Please listen to me! Meet that need, and everybody quiets down.” — Knoll [38:20]

• On “You feel” vs. “I think”:
  “When someone’s prefrontal cortex is offline…don’t use I statements. Their brains can’t process that…it won’t work.” — Knoll [46:09]

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Key Takeaways

• Your body is a sophisticated “conversation” of systems—a harmonious balance, not just a battle.
• Real performance gains from exercise (mental and physical) happen during recovery, not during the workout itself.
• Simple practices—prolonged exhale breathing, restful sleep, healthy touch—activate powerful health benefits, both immediately and long-term.
• The most effective way to calm anyone (including yourself) when emotions run high is simply to name and validate their feelings, using the statement “You feel…”
• Trying to solve problems before emotions have been heard and recognized is ineffective—de-escalate first.
• This approach changes brains and relationships, building trust and emotional intelligence in the long run.

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Important Timestamps

• Food cravings brain hack: [03:07]
• Immune system as “curious network”: [05:55]
• Physical gains come after exercise: [10:19]
• Restoration is essential for growth: [12:31]
• The impact of exhale-focused breathing: [16:39]
• Dopamine reward dynamics: [19:30]
• Mechanics and power of touch: [21:45]
• Doug Knoll on emotional de-escalation: [27:39]–[47:31]
• The “You feel…” method in action: [34:35], [39:58], [41:35]
• Why not “I think…” or “It seems…”: [45:45]

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This episode is packed with practical wisdom—from better understanding your body to transforming relationships, one breath and one conversation at a time.

Transcript

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[Mike Carruthers]

Today on something you should know how to crush a food craving in a surprisingly satisfying way. Then the fascinating workings of your body, from the immune system to the benefits of human touch and what it means to breathe correctly.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

So if you just breathe out a little longer than you breathe in, the heart can relax a little longer. People who have this ratio of breathing out a little bit longer than they breathe they have a way reduced risk of stress associated diseases like heart attack.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, what you didn't know about the importance of lifting weights and how you can calm down any person in less than 90 seconds.

[Doug Knoll]

And that's what I teach how to do that. It's really simple and I got forced into it because as a professional mediator I get paid big bucks to calm people down and I had to find a way to do that and I

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Mike Carruthers]

Something you should know with Mike Carruthers. You know that feeling you get when you're craving something sweet or salty? Well, what if there was something you could do to resist that urge to eat it? Well, there is, and we're going to start this episode of something you should know by telling you what it is. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thank you for taking the time to listen today. So if you're craving something salty or sweet and you don't want to give in to that temptation, here's a strange but effective trick. Look at a picture of that food you're craving first. Research suggests that just seeing images of a food can take the edge off your craving. That's because your brain starts to simulate the imagining the taste, the texture, even that first satisfying bite. And here's the surprising part. Even if you decide to indulge and have some of that food, when you first mentally consume it, you may actually eat less of it. In experiments, people who repeatedly imagined eating a specific food ended up eating less of it afterwards. It's as if your brain gets a preview of the reward before you even start to eat it. So when you do indulge, you feel satisfied sooner. What's interesting is people think that looking at pictures of food makes you hungrier, but actually it could help you eat less. And that is something you should know. I'm sure you've heard the advice to listen to your body, but your body is actually talking a lot more than you realize. Beneath the surface, different systems are constantly sending signals and coordinating and even negotiating to keep you healthy. Most of it is happening without you ever noticing until something goes wrong. So what exactly is your body saying and how should you respond? Well, here to explain it is Dr. Julia Enders. She's a resident physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology, and she is star of the Netflix show Hack youk Health. She's author of a book called Organ what It really Means to Listen to our bodies. Hi, Dr. Enders. Welcome to something you should know.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Hello.

[Mike Carruthers]

So let's start by talking about the immune system. Because my sense, my understanding of the immune system is that it's a defensive thing within the body, that it's always looking for trouble and fighting off trouble. That it is, it's a warrior of sorts that keeps you healthy.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

It is true for some little parts, but for the most part, like every second now that we're sitting here talking to each other and we're both not sick right now, it is actually most of the cells from our immune system are just like cruising around asking our body cells, how are you doing? How's it going over here? How are the cells of the eyes, how are the cells of my toes? Just being curious and really having some self knowledge and actually educate themselves more and more over the course of our lives. And then with that knowledge they will decide, will they attack a virus that sits in the nerve of the eye? Because if they do, we might go blind. So our immune system actually is very smart and oftentimes will not attack something in the, in the visual nerve, which it would attack somewhere else, let's say in the skin or in the throat. It would easily just attack themselves. But it doesn't because it has all this self knowledge and curiosity and it will cooperate with good bacteria, for example, in the gut, and tolerate bacteria that just don't do anything horrible. So there's much more to it than just a defensive system.

[Mike Carruthers]

That is really surprising to me. But I don't understand when you say it's really smart, how can your immune system be really smart? It implies that it has its own intelligence.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Intelligence is just a network. And an immune system can also build exactly that, a network out of cells. And they will have direct conversation with each other. They will be, you know, coordinating each other and having multiple networks and connections, just like a neural network can. And so it is actually scientifically correct to say it is a network that has a kind of intelligence, not the cognitive kind, but a cellular kind of intelligence. And also, you know, it learns, it gathers a memory over the course of our lives, so that when we are older, our immune system will be very different. It will already know many like germs, and maybe not get as sick from them as it got when we were little children. So there's a lot to that that actually makes it correct to say there's a form of intelligence here.

[Mike Carruthers]

And is there any way that we can communicate with our immune system or make it work better or perhaps make it work worse by our behavior or anything. Or it just, it's an independent system that does what it does.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Yes, it is independent to some degree, but we can definitely communicate and influence our immune system. Oftentimes we just think it as the immune system, as this army. And we need to strengthen it, you know, take all the supplements, take all the things. But then, you know, when you look at it more as a curiosity system, just stimulating it to be super aggressive is not so good. If you're just angry the whole time, you can't be curious in a smart way. You can't always make the best decisions. So we want a balanced immune system. We don't want the immune system to just always be in fight mode and be super strong. We want it well balanced. And that means different things. It means all the typical things your mom already told you, like get enough sleep, eat healthy, have some movement, deal with your stress as well as you can, you know. But then it also means other things that now are given us all these to do things we have social media telling us, you know, do, do meditation, do etheric oil therapy, do, you know, this kind of sleep schedule and this kind of diet and all of these. If you just want to get some, you know, orientation and really understand them a bit better and not just be bombarded with these to do things, all of them aim at telling your body and your immune cells, I'm actually doing okay. I'm smelling some nice oils, I'm being relaxed, I'm having a good meal. So that your immune cells know. Oh, actually the body cells seem pretty well, maybe even a bit better than yesterday. Maybe we can be relaxed right now and that will then, you know, help us with having not an overreactive, but a balanced immune system.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I've never heard the immune system explained that way before. It's. It works very differently than, than the way I thought. And so let's talk about exercise, because you say that the best part of exercise is what happens after the exercise is over. So explain that.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Yes, and also really nice, isn't it? Because it means we're actually not mistaken when we sometimes find sports so horrible. Because most of the things during the exercise and sports, like getting sweaty, becoming really hot, your heart jumping, beating fast, they are actually not so nice. They are quite similar to being sick, to be honest. But after that, when the body actually realizes we're not sick and it can relax and like really come to rest quite quickly also, that's when all the nice things happen. That's when the muscle growth is initiated, when we have more storage for nutrients, when we actually train our heart or our lungs to be a bit more powerful for the next day or the next exercise to come. And also like all the mental effects that there are many brain cells changing just because of exercise, all of that happen afterwards, right?

[Mike Carruthers]

Afterwards or it's over the course of time or how does it work?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Both. So we see some changes right afterwards. For example, dopamine receptors in the brain, so cells that are responsible for giving you a motivated, rewarding feeling, they will actually change highly after just one hour of aerobic exercise. And then we see more long term changes like starting to build muscle differently, starting to a bit more capacity in your lungs. And those usually happen during the night because that is when we sleep, when our cells are being replenished and when everything's being, you know, getting ready for the next day and when the last day it experienced, oh, so much stress, so much movement going on, then it will get ourselves ready for the next day with a bit more capacity for movement, so more muscle, more lung capacity and so on. So a few things happen right after and then a majority of the things in the muscles and physically body, what is happening during sleep and given what

[Mike Carruthers]

you know about that, what does that tell us about how we exercise? And if we're doing, doing it the most efficient way or the best way, given what the body does with it afterwards?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

I think, well, it does two things. For once. I take restoration or like relaxation time more seriously. And like professional athletes already do this. They plan their exercise schedule after how well they replenish, how well they, you know, relax. And if they don't have sore muscles, then they go full strength again. And people who overdo it, who will train even though their muscles are still aching from yesterday, if they do this over a few weeks or even months, the phenomenon is that they get weaker, which is a phenomenon called over training. And the second thing I take from this is sometimes I sit down and I'm a bit inspired by that from my body, from my life. I think, how serious do I take restoration, relaxation in my work life, in my work day, do I take it serious enough so that I actually can be more most effective with my body or do I always just think about working, getting everything done? And that is a sort of like burnout movement that is very similar to over training in athletes. You don't get stronger by just overworking the whole time. You get stronger by taking relaxation. Equally as important, I want to ask

[Mike Carruthers]

you about muscle soreness because everybody knows what that feels like. When you work muscles you don't normally work or you do exercise more than you normally do, you can sometimes have muscle soreness the next day. And some people say, well, that's good, that's a good thing. And other people say, well, you know, I mean, pain, if your muscles hurt, that pain is telling you something's wrong. So what's going on?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

So when you have this aching muscles, it just means, oh, you challenged it a bit more than what it was capable at that point. And that can be good because it means it'll try to provide you with more muscle, more resources for the next day. So if you want to build muscle, being sore, having some sore muscles is not a bad thing, necessarily. Overdoing it, that might be a bit on the edge and just training when you're sore again, that doesn't get you very far.

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[Mike Carruthers]

Julia Enders is my guest. She is author of the book Organ what It really Means to Listen to Our Bodies. So we've all heard about the importance of breathing, but I don't know that I really understand it all and what it does and what it doesn't do and how to do it and all. So can you dive into that?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

I think the aspect that I like about the whole breathing topic is that, well, many people already know that it's kind of good to do breathing exercises or have, you know, had some yoga and instructor telling them 6 seconds of breathing in and then 8 seconds of breathing out or something. But the part that's fascinating to me is how easy it can be explained. And I always like that so much when I don't just get a to do thing, but I also really understand it. So when the heart actually gets a fresh load of oxygenated blood because we've just breathed in, then it will be in a bit more of a hectic mode so it'll pump a bit faster and that Makes the heart a bit less relaxed. So if we breathe out, then it has a more of a relaxed time. It has an easier job, you could say. And so there is actually a direct impact on the ratio of how long we breathe in and how long we breathe out on the heart, on the nerves around the heart and the stress hormones. So if you just breathe out a little longer than you breathe in, the heart can relax a little longer. And when you do this for just one minute, very focused on that, let's say, then you have measurably less stress hormones in your blood, your heart rate will actually reduce a little bit and you will just have a little bit more of a relaxed time, just for one minute. And what does this do? Not much. It's just one relaxed minute. But over the course of weeks and months, people who have this ratio of breathing out a little bit longer than they breathe in show that over the course of their lives they have a way reduced risk of stress associated diseases like heart attack or, you know, burnout.

[Mike Carruthers]

Does it have any like immediate effects for the next 20 minutes or an hour or. It just. It's for that one minute. That's all. That's what you're doing. And then those minutes accumulate over time.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Both. It has an immediate effect. And actually special forces from like US military and German police, they use these techniques in high stress situations. We know midwives use these techniques to alleviate symptoms of pain and stress during childbirth. And when we look into history and cultures, it's always been used when we sing, we breathe out way longer than we breathe in. And singing calms our nerves. You know, we have chantings and all kinds of religions, so we already kind of know. But this is the funny thing. During these high technology digital times that we're in, we forget. We forget simple things about our bodies. We don't use them anymore and. Or we have to have them explained to us in a new way to actually make use of them again.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, that is so important, especially when people talk about how stressed they are. But the only time you hear about or the only time I hear about breathe out longer than you breathe in is like during meditation, you know, those kinds of things. I don't hear this as like my doctor has never told me this.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Well, usually doctors have so many other things to take care of, but those things are coming more and more into like regular western medicine. And actually one of the teams that researched this so well is a medical team from the University of Harvard. So I think it just always takes a little bit of time until it trickles to all the places.

[Mike Carruthers]

Can you talk about how the reward system in the body works? Because I think this could be. Well, it's really interesting, but also helpful for people to understand how that works.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

What we see with the reward system in the brain is that there's actually multiple cells releasing different substances when we have a positive, rewarding, good feeling. And oftentimes people know a little bit about dopamine, but that is really not all there is. We see that there's also cells that give us this, this nice, I'm full but I don't need any more food feeling, for example, or oh, I did sports and it feels so good to lay on the couch. And that is a rewarding feeling, but not a rewarding feeling that makes you want more. You won't go, I want to do four more hours of hiking now? No, because you're good, you know, and learning to differentiate lure rewards. Like, let's say you're scrolling but you don't really feel, ah, this is wonderful. I can stop now. You always will just feel like, I want more. Next, next, next, next. And this is because it activates only one type of cells, the dopamine ones that will then release dopamine and then it will fall down again. And this falling down, nice feeling. So what do you do? You constantly, you know, click the next scroll down because it doesn't give you a nice, ah, and for example, just knowing this about yourselves, it gave me a little bit of empathy because I realized, oh, I'm draining my dopamine cells. They have to squeeze out another dopamine, another dopamine, and that's actually not so nice. They will get tired after a while. Just like when you hear your favorite song over and over again, you don't like it so much at the 20th time. So this is when you exhaust them a little. And so knowing these things sometimes just changes a little bit the way that you behave.

[Mike Carruthers]

What about touch? I know there's been a lot of talk and research about human touch. How does that fit into this conversation?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

The interesting thing is that we oftentimes feel like we have to get things from a pill or from some medication when we don't feel so well. And one well discovery that science has made with the skin is that it can actually provide effects that are very similar to some pills to calm your nervous system, for example, just to touch. And one of the nice experiments experience for this was about personal synchronization. So people will lay in a tube and someone will hold their hand that they know and like very much. And after a while you see that their heart rate will be very similar, their skin conductivity, which stands for, you know, nervousness. And yeah, being a bit stressed, for example, this will get to a nicer lower level and even, you know, their blood pressure. And so you can see that the karma person will calm down the more nervous person just by touching their hand. They don't even see each other or hug. And this was one phenomenon that was proven again in following experiments. So it's actually, you know, quite a solid thing to state now that there is such a thing as interpersonal synchronization. And we also see these effects from other things like preterm born babies, people that have ADHD or autism that don't like to be touched necessarily so much. But when someone hugs them or touches them that they know and feel okay with, then you can also see that it's physically very good for them. So we have in all different settings also patients on intensive care units seen these effects from just touch, from just, just skin on skin that are very calming and very healthy and sometimes do more than just swallowing a pill.

[Mike Carruthers]

And do we know why, what it is about touch that makes it so, or it just makes it so?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Well, we have some hypotheses. We see that there are some sensors in the skin, some neural cells that are just there to perceive nice touch, calming touch, like emotional touch. We didn't know that, but this was there before we thought, you know, it just analyzes how much pressure, how much friction. But no, no, there's also these cells that specifically react towards nice loving touch with a certain velocity. And actually the velocity when you stroke someone's arm, for example, that they love the Most is about 1 1/2 inch per second. So in German metrics this would be 3 centimeters per second. And this is a velocity of touch and you know, movement on this, on your skin that those cells really get activ your brain. Someone's giving me like a hug or stroking my arm or going through my hair at a speed that is so loving. And these signals will then calm down our brain.

[Mike Carruthers]

Isn't that interesting. And it does seem, I mean, I know people who are very, you know, affectionate and seem to like touch. And then there are people who don't, who aren't affectionate and don't seem to like touch. So both. But does it work even if you're somebody who says they don't like touch?

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Yes, and we see that it does that for people, for example, with ADHD or people with autism spectrum who are on the autism spectrum. Those people generally don't necessarily like being touched so much, but if someone who they trust and feel okay and comfortable with touches them, you can measure and see that it really does them well. Well, and we can also see this effect on people who have stress for very different reasons. Not even because they're alone, maybe, but because they are stressed on an intensive care unit by all the noises and, you know, examinations that are being performed on them. It doesn't help so much when you just turn off the noise or don't do the examination enough because they're already stressed now. But what immediately helps is just touch, like a nice good massage, massaging the hands or the feet or the back. This will alleviate the stress immediately and not actually eliminating the source of where the stress came from in the first place.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I really like how you explain things and reveal the inner workings of the human body and how it talks to other parts of the human. It's really fascinating. I've been speaking with Dr. Julia Enders. She is a physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology. She's star of the Netflix show Hack youk Health and author of the book Organ Speak what It Really Means to Listen to Our Bodies. And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. And Julia, thank you. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Well, thank you Mike for having me. I really enjoy talking to you and thank you for having me on right

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[Mike Carruthers]

It's hard to get through life without disagreements with family, friends, co workers, even strangers. And lately, it feels like those disagreements are getting more intense and more personal. You see it everywhere. Conversations escalate quickly. People dig in. Small conflicts turn into big ones, and instead of resolving anything, it often just makes things worse. And that's not just frustrating. It can damage relationships, affect your work, and create stress that follows you everywhere. So the real question is, when emotions start to rise, how do you calm things down? How do you de escalate a situation before it spins out of control and maybe even turn it into something productive? My guest says there's actually a method to doing that, and it can work faster than you might think. Doug Knoll is an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University's Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution. He's a professional mediator and author of the book how to Calm an angry person in 90 seconds or less. Hey Doug, welcome to something you should know.

[Doug Knoll]

Hey Mike, I just so honored to be here.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, it's great to have you. So we live in a world where people argue, they disagree, they have different viewpoints, and they express them. And sometimes that's good. And sometimes arguments get out of hand. And lately, maybe it does seem that arguments are getting more out of hand. So what are you trying to do about this?

[Doug Knoll]

What I'm trying to do is introduce some ideas and skills that reverses all of that. That teaches you how to restore humanity without giving up any power or any authority. How do we listen each other into existence without giving up our values or beliefs? And even in the face of strong

[Mike Carruthers]

disagreements, to de escalate requires something escalate in the first place. And it would seem be better if that didn't happen in the first place.

[Doug Knoll]

And that's what I teach how to do that. It's really simple. And I got forced into it because as a professional mediator I get paid big bucks to calm people down. And I had to find a way to do that. That and I did.

[Mike Carruthers]

But doesn't it depend on who you're trying to de escalate and what you're all upset about in the first place?

[Doug Knoll]

It does not. The human brain is the human brain and it treats all threats the same. Your brain can't distinguish between a saber toothed tiger and a horrible insult. It's going to react in exactly the same way. A social threat is the same as the physical threat threat. And the methodology for calming that nervous system is exactly the same. And it works every single time. Because every human brain on the planet is hardwired to react this way.

[Mike Carruthers]

And so the way that you're about to tell me how to do this, this is to de escalate something that's already on its way to getting out of hand or is this a way to prevent, prevent it from ever getting out of hand?

[Doug Knoll]

Both. And on top of that, what I'm going to about to explain is it is if you need to build trust or safety or make people feel like they matter, this is what you do. If you need to build a relationship or intimacy, this is what you do. And it works every, every single time. Because as I said, this is how we're made up.

[Mike Carruthers]

So this idea of how to de escalate where you're going to tell me, where did it come from?

[Doug Knoll]

The way I developed this was by happenstance. I was a trial lawyer for 22 years and mid career I went back to school to earn my master's degree in peacemaking and conflict studies because I wanted to become a peacemaker. And I did that. And then I left the practice of law in 2000 and for five years I mediated very high end cases involving a lot of money and a lot of emotions. But I didn't have a really good way to calm people down. I got confronted with a difficult mediation in 2005 between ex spouses who had spent $50,000 each in attorney's fees trying to destroy each other. And they were screaming and yelling at each other and I was sitting there, what the heck am I going to do with this? And the thought came to me, listen to the emotions. So that's what I had them do. I had them. I forced them to name what the other person was feeling, not what they were saying. And we did this for three and a half hours. And at the end, the ex husband looked across the table to his ex wife and said, with tears streaming down his cheek, that's the first time you've listened to me in 25 years. That was pretty stunning. And they walked out holding hands, settling the case. I mean, that was a stunning result. And I knew what I'd done, but I didn't know what I had done. And so I started looking around and two years later read a study coming out, a brain scanning study coming out of Matthew Lieberman's lab at ucla. And what Lieberman and his colleagues found was that when you name emotions, emotions, it calms or inhibits the brain centers associated with negative emotion, while at the same time activating the part of the brain responsible for emotional self regulation, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. So you literally are lending your prefrontal cortex to this angry, upset person for the 90 seconds or so it takes for them to reboot and come back online. So now I had the science to support my observations and my practice. I began teaching. It got a lot of pushback. And then in 2009, my colleague and dear friend, Laurel Coffer, read me a letter she received from a woman serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in the largest, most violent women's prison in the world. And that woman, Susan Russo, was asking if we would come in and teach the women serving life sentences how to become peacemakers to stop prison violence. Eight months later, we found ourselves in that prison in front of 15 women. And what we discovered was teaching them how to name emotions was absolutely unbelievable in what it did. The foundational skill we teach when we're training lifers how to become mediators and peacemakers is how to listen to and name emotions. What I call listening other people into existence. And for 10 years, that's what I did, did, worked in maximum security prisons, training inmates in these skills and watching these amazing transformations.

[Mike Carruthers]

So teach me, teach me how to

[Doug Knoll]

do this really simple two words, you feel, and then follow it with an emotion. So, Mike, you feel really angry and pissed off, you're frustrated, you feel completely disrespected. Sometimes you don't feel heard, you feel invisible, and you don't feel appreciated or supported. And it really worries and concerns you. And you just are kind of disgusted by this whole situation. And you're a little embarrassed and shamed because you know you shouldn't be acting this way, but you're sad and upset and distressed and at the end of the day you feel completely abandoned, rejected and betrayed. You're all alone. Alone and feel unloved and unlovable. That's how you do it.

[Mike Carruthers]

But don't you need to solve the problem or.

[Doug Knoll]

No, that's the worst thing you can do. That's what everybody does. They go to problem solving first. You can't problem solve with somebody when their prefrontal cortex is offline and their prefrontal cortex goes offline. When they have the slightest bit of emotionality, the PFC completely shuts down. So the mantra is de escalate then problem solve. When you, when somebody's coming at you, your natural instinct is to want to defend or justify or rationalize or explain. Don't listen to them first. Reflect their emotions with you. Feel when they calm down, which is going to take about 90 seconds, then you can go into problem solve solving. But the mistake everybody makes is to try to approach conflict as if it's a logic problem when it's really a nervous system leadership problem.

[Mike Carruthers]

So can you give me a real life example of, you know, people in a room and having a problem and walk me through this?

[Doug Knoll]

Sure. A couple months ago I was engaged by a very large, over a billion dollars private company where the stakeholders, basically the owners of the company, had extreme mistrust and couldn't get along and they were facing a problem. Either figure that out or get a divorce and divide the company. So they brought me in. The first thing I did, there were 20 people in the room. You can imagine this, 20 people, all high type A personalities. And I had each person talk about his or her story. Why are we here? What is this conflict all about? How did it break down? I just wanted them to start telling stories and then I would pick somebody else out in the room and I would say, you're in charge of listening this person into existence. You're not going to repeat their words, you're going to simply tell them what they're feeling. But as soon as we started listening to feelings and emotions rather than trying to fix the problem or listen to the words, the transformation occurred. Actually, there were a lot of tears. People started crying in relief and you know, just feeling the emotions come up when they were validated. And at the end of the three days, we'd rebuilt trust, we'd rebuilt safety, everybody mattered and they had a plan for moving forward to save the company and be profitable again. And all we really did is spend the time listening to each other. What I call Listening other people into existence.

[Mike Carruthers]

But it seems, I mean, I get that that de escalates the situation, that calms people down, gets them to see each other as people. But how does it fix the problem that started the whole thing to begin with?

[Doug Knoll]

It fixes the problem because in every single argument, every single conflict, what people need is to be heard. Think about it. When you see an argument between a couple and it starts off quiet and then in a few minutes it's getting louder and louder and louder and louder. The reason that these arguments get loud is all the loudness is, is a call to be heard. Please listen to me. You're not hearing me, so I'm going to shout louder. And it goes back and forth and each person starts yelling at the other and all it is, is a call to be heard. Meet that need and everybody quiets down. It's counterintuitive and it's counter normative, but that's the way our brains are hardwired.

[Mike Carruthers]

Okay, but so I get that it quiets it down and the yelling stops. But people are still ripping off the company and people are still not trusting you.

[Doug Knoll]

It turns out, it turns, it turns out, out that that wasn't happening at all. When we finally get the stories out about what really happened and people feel safe to talk about what really happened, we found out there was massive, massive misinformation, communicated or non information. And all of a sudden people start to settle, saying oh, I didn't know that, nobody told me that. No one explained it that way to me. And then they, and then we got into a conversation, well, how do we prevent this from happening again?

[Mike Carruthers]

So how does this work with just say two people, like in a couple or people at work, you know, friends. How does it work there?

[Doug Knoll]

It's a lot easier. You know, you're working with two people instead of 20. All one person has to say is you feel. So let's say that, let's, let's take it with you. At home, you're with your wife or your partner.

[Dr. Julia Enders]

Partner.

[Doug Knoll]

And your wife or your partner says something to you that's a little accusatory, a little upsetting. Typical response is to go into defense mode. Now that's not what I said at all. Or you're not listening to me or you know, you never, you always accuse me of this. You know, that's the typical response. Getting defensive. Instead of getting defensive, listen to what they're feeling. Typically it's going to be anger, frustration, disrespect, not being heard, not being appreciated and feeling Worried. And just say you're really frustrated right now and wait and pause and they'll say, yeah, I am. And you're really angry. Yeah, I am. And you feel like you're not being heard and you're invisible. Yeah, exactly. And you feel unappreciated and unsupported. Yeah. And you're really worried. Worried. Yeah. And you feel unloved. Yeah, I do. And it really makes you sad. Yeah, it does. Okay. Anything else? No, that's it. Okay. How should we solve this problem? That's the conversation. How long did that take? 45 seconds. That's about how long it usually takes. So notice that he didn't ask the question about solving the problem until I got the. Anything else? No, that's good. Thanks for listening to me. And then I know that's my signal, I can go in. Okay, let's figure out how to solve the problem. And this is what everybody misses. They're going to go right to the. They're either going to go into defense mode. No, I didn't do that. No, that's wrong. You're accusing me of this. You're absolutely wrong. I did not do that. Or you always do this to me whenever you get upset. You always accuse me of this. I'm tired of it. That's the normal response. The better response, the one that works, is to label their emotions. What are they feeling right now? Listen them into existence, validate them, calm their brains down, regulate their nervous systems. Then you can have a calm conversation about what needs to change. If anything sounds too easy, it is so simple and it's so effective. But here's the problem. We are not used to telling people what they feel. And we have a strong cultural bias against emotions. Emotions have no place in business emotions. We're rational beings and so we have all this bias against emotions. So naming somebody's emotions can be scary and difficult and seems like it's violating a lot of cultural rules. And so it takes a little bit of courage to do this, but once you've done it and you've seen the results, you will never go back. And that's the word that I'm spreading.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I understand that how to use this in the moment, but what about the long term effects of this? I would imagine if you do this multiple times, whenever there's trouble, that it has a longer effect because I mean, this is kind of a first aid approach. When somebody's really angry, we de escalate it. But what about the long term?

[Doug Knoll]

What I saw in the prison work Was that we took people who were below baseline, no emotional intelligence, negative emotional intelligence, for whom violence was the only method of conflict resolution. And we watched them become emotionally intelligent human beings. In the first group of women that we trained for the first five weeks, they were like black thorns, really shut down emotionally. And then in week six, we came back and these black thorns were gone. These were beautiful mountain roses. They had all blossomed as human beings. And what we learned over the years is that when you take the time, time to validate what somebody's feeling, you are building up their ability to emotionally be emotionally self aware themselves, which allows them to emotionally self regulate, which then allows them to exercise cognitive empathy or listen to emotions. Listen to a name emotions, it profoundly changes their brains. There are studies that show if you're a parent and you have a young child child and you become their emotional coach instead of their disciplinarian and you name their emotions starting at two and a half, three years old. By the time they're eight years old, their grade levels ahead of their peers academically and have massive emotional maturity that their peers don't have because their emotional brain has matured along with their cognitive brain. If you don't do this, if you do a. What most parents do, which is invalidate emotions, stop crying, don't be a drama queen. Put on your big boy pants, put on your big girl panties. Big girls don't cry. All of that is the opposite of emotional, valid emotional validation. And it teaches a child one thing. Emotions are bad. Emotions are evil. I can't feel or express emotions to anybody because it's not safe. And that stunts emotional maturity. Which is why when people get 40 years old and they get into a fighter argument, you say they're acting like six year olds. Well, because in that moment they are six years old. Because that's the highest level of emotional maturity they've achieved.

[Mike Carruthers]

It would seem a lot easier rather than say you feel and tell someone how they feel, to say it seems like you feel or you know, I perceive. I think what you're feeling is that kind of thing.

[Doug Knoll]

Thing. Good question. So what I've learned using passive voice, so that would be it seems like, or using I statements. What I think you're feeling is that old active listening stuff. It, it doesn't work. And the reason that those don't work is because when the prefrontal cortex is offline and people can't think, you've got to give them data, emotional data that's really easily digestible and accessible. That's why you say you feel or. Or you're angry or you feel angry. Really simple. That's all their brains can process right now. The moment you start getting into passive voice now, you're distancing yourself, because that's what passive voice does. It's a voice of distance. If you start using I statements now, you become the center of the conversation. It's all about you and what you think, not what they think. Their brains can't process that, so they'll give you pushback and it won't work. This is why always use you statements. Don't use I statements. Don't use passive voice. Don't ask questions like, are you angry? Hey, are you angry right now? No, because they can't answer the question. Their prefrontal cortex is offline. Their thinking brain is not thinking anymore. It can't function. They're in reactive mode. They're in threat protection mode. And anything you do to try to solve that problem or ask them to answer a question or use an I statement or passive voice is. Cannot be processed and will not work. And don't take my word for it. Test it.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, this is certainly a very different approach to conflict resolution and calming people down than I've heard before, and I think most people haven't heard this before. It's an interesting approach and one that's worth trying. I've been talking to Doug Knoll. He's an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University's Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution and author of the book how to Calm an angry person in 90 seconds or less. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Doug. Thank you. People who lift weights, and really, we should all be lifting weights, often wonder if how fast you lift makes a difference. Is it better to move the weight quickly or slow it way down? Well, it turns out it really doesn't matter that much. Research shows you can build muscle with a wide range of lifting speeds. As long as you're using enough resistance and really pushing the muscle close to fatigue, that's what really counts. Then your tempo doesn't have to be perfect. A controlled pace about a second or two up and a couple of seconds down works just fine. Where speed does matter is your goal. If you're trying to build strength and power, moving the weight as fast as you can with good form seems to help. If your goal is muscle size, slowing down just enough to really feel the muscle working can be beneficial. So the takeaway is simple. Don't obsess over speed. Focus on good form. Enough resistance and actually challenging your muscles. And now let's roll the credits. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Brennan, Jeffrey Havison and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm micahruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

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