1KHO 669: Happiness Lives in the Present Moment | Dr. Greg Hammer, The Mindful Teen

Summary

The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Episode 669: Happiness Lives in the Present Moment | Dr. Greg Hammer, The Mindful Teen
Date: January 4, 2026
Host: Ginny Yurich
Guest: Dr. Greg Hammer

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ginny Yurich welcomes Dr. Greg Hammer, a Stanford physician, bestselling author, and mindfulness expert, to discuss his new book A Mindful Teen and his signature GAIN approach (Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, Non-Judgment). Together, they explore the mental health challenges facing today’s teens—including technology, comparison, perfectionism, and burnout—and share practical advice for cultivating resilience, presence, and happiness in families through mindful practices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Hammer’s Path to Mindfulness

(00:55–04:49)

• Dr. Hammer shares how, through his work on physician burnout at Stanford, he developed an interest in resilience and mental health.
• He explains the GAIN acronym as the distilled essence of personal resilience across spiritual and philosophical traditions: Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Non-Judgment.
  • “I came up with gratitude, acceptance, intention, and non-judgment as really being part of almost every spiritual and philosophic tradition in one form or another.” (03:05, Dr. Hammer)
• Motivation to write A Mindful Teen: teens today face unique stressors—social media, gun violence, political divide, eco-anxiety—prompting a mindfulness resource for parents, educators, and teens.

2. Technology, Over-Protection, and Teen Challenges

(04:49–09:41)

• Discussion on smartphones as “Swiss army knives” giving access to limitless information—and, by extension, stress and pressure.
• Reference to The Nation of Wimps and The Coddling of the American Mind:
  • Over-sanitizing children’s experiences (peanut allergies analogy) leads to increased vulnerability rather than resilience.
  • “We’ve created a generation, in part at least, of people who can’t hack it in the real world.” (08:13, Dr. Hammer)
• Teens crave novel experiences, yet overmanagement stunts identity formation and skill at coping with failure.

3. The Power and Practice of Gratitude

(09:41–15:25)

• Gratitude as a daily, practical practice—especially crucial for teens susceptible to comparison and overwhelm.
• “Happiness lives in the present moment. How can we do that? …That’s the idea behind the elements of GAIN, and gratitude starts with gratitude.” (12:47, Dr. Hammer)
• Our brains’ negativity bias and tendency to dwell on regrets or future worries heighten anxiety and depression, but can be rewired through intentional gratitude practice.
  • Memorable metaphor: Focus shifts from a sore knee in the morning to the “miracle” of our functioning bodies.
  • “When we focus on that for which we’re grateful… we’re actually increasing our resilience and happiness.” (14:42, Dr. Hammer)
• Neuroplasticity: Practicing gratitude strengthens positive thought pathways in the brain.

4. Modeling Gratitude in Family Life

(15:25–24:16)

• Adolescents learn most from observing adult behavior, not lectures.
• Practical family advice:
  • Express gratitude aloud at family meals.
  • Redirect conversations toward gratitude—even when teens express negativity.
  • “If we don’t embody those same principles [as parents], they’re going to think, ‘Oh, well, that’s kind of hypocritical.’” (21:24, Dr. Hammer)
• Research links gratitude, optimism, and mindfulness to greater well-being—including even the preservation of telomere length (i.e., slower aging).

5. Healthy Aging, Social Connection, and Outside Time

(24:16–28:22)

• Discussion of “Blue Zones”: societies with many centenarians share traits of positivity, purpose, social connection, and outdoor physical movement.
  • “Centenarians are very likable people… There’s not a grump in the bunch.” (26:54, Ginny, via Dan Buettner)
• Connection to nature and being outdoors underpins resilience and happiness.

6. Acceptance, Resilience, and Reducing Suffering

(31:18–38:12)

• Acceptance is at the heart of GAIN and core to both surface-level annoyances (e.g., quirky relatives) and deep suffering (e.g., loss of a child).
• “Suffering equals pain times resistance. The pain is there, but if we lower our resistance, which means accepting, then our suffering is decreased.” (33:01, Dr. Hammer)
• Practice: When meditating, deliberately bring painful experiences “into your heart,” breathe, and ask, “Can I live with this pain forever?” Eventually, the answer becomes yes—acceptance leads to less suffering.
• Dr. Hammer’s personal journey: Pediatric intensive care exposed him early to suffering, prompting him to actively choose acceptance over emotional distancing.

7. Perfectionism, Comparison, and the Pitfalls of Judgment

(38:12–47:52)

• Modern teens face extreme perfectionistic pressures, often reinforced by family, schools, and social media comparison.
  • “Perfectionism reduces playfulness… Success hinges less on getting everything right than on how you handle getting things wrong.” (40:37, Ginny paraphrasing The Nation of Wimps)
• Important distinction: discernment vs. judgment. Discernment is choosing wisely; judgment is tinting reality with biased labels.
  • Practical story: Dr. Hammer catching himself judging a stranger looking at their phone instead of nature, using that moment as a mindfulness practice to drop judgment and connect positively (45:00).
• Non-judgment and self-compassion: Teach teens—and ourselves—to respond to imperfection with kindness rather than criticism.
  • “Self-kindness means that we respond to our own imperfections, mistakes, and apparent failures with gentleness, care, and compassion.” (46:59, Ginny quoting Dr. Hammer)
  • Mindfulness interrupts the harsh self-talk that amplifies anxiety and shame.

8. Parenting Strategies for a High-Pressure World

(48:29–52:14)

• Discussion of parenting approaches: Ginny shares a story of a teen paid for grades, and Dr. Hammer weighs the psychological impact.
  • “I think that is sort of… giving money for grades is positive reinforcement… but on the other hand, you’re negatively reinforcing anything less than an A.” (49:08, Dr. Hammer)
• Modern children face high pressure—not just in grades, but in every area.
• A Mindful Teen and GAIN Without Pain offer frameworks for building secure attachment, empathy, forgiveness, and mindfulness in the family context.

9. Meditation, Executive Function, and Play

(50:38–52:45)

• Meditation literally increases brain volume in regions (prefrontal cortex) crucial for executive function—a benefit especially meaningful in a distracted, reactive age.
• Playful, immersive activities function as a form of meditation for young children; lack of play, over-scheduling, and chronic stress compromise developing brains.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dr. Greg Hammer:
  • “Happiness lives in the present moment.” (12:47)
  • “Suffering equals pain times resistance. The pain may not change, but the suffering is diminished [by acceptance].” (33:01)
  • “When we focus on that for which we’re grateful… we’re actually increasing our resilience and happiness.” (14:42)
  • “Perfectionism… it’s self-judgment.” (46:17)
  • “Let’s be grateful that we have a family, especially now, this time of year, that we can sit around the table and enjoy each other’s company.” (34:18)
• Ginny Yurich:
  • “Already teenage years seem a little bit like not coinciding with being super grateful. And then you throw on social media and comparison.” (10:42)
  • “I love what you wrote… Self-kindness means that we respond to our own imperfections, mistakes, and apparent failures with gentleness, care, and compassion, as opposed to criticism that generates shame and regret.” (46:59)
  • “Centenarians are very likable people… There’s not a grump in the bunch.” (26:54, relaying Dan Buettner)
• On non-judgment & mindfulness in daily life:
  • Dr. Hammer describes catching himself judging a stranger looking at their phone in nature: “Maybe a light bulb will go off… Let’s get a little dopamine hit and have a laugh to ourselves about our judgmental nature and drop that judgment.” (45:00)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Dr. Hammer’s background & GAIN origin: 01:01 – 04:49
• The challenges and vulnerabilities of teens today: 04:49 – 09:41
• Practical gratitude for teens: why and how: 09:41 – 15:25
• Modeling gratitude as parents: 21:24 – 24:16
• Blue Zones, social connection, and outdoor time: 24:16 – 28:22
• Acceptance and reducing suffering: 31:18 – 38:12
• Perfectionism, judgment, self-kindness: 38:12 – 47:52
• Mindfulness, parenting strategies, meditation: 50:38 – 52:45
• Final reflections & favorite childhood memory: 53:00 – end

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Takeaway Messages

• Happiness is found in the present moment, and can be cultivated through daily practice—particularly by focusing on gratitude and acceptance.
• Teens today need intentional support in developing resilience and managing pressures magnified by technology, over-scheduling, and social comparison.
• Parental modeling is key: verbal lessons have little impact without the lived example of mindfulness and gratitude.
• Acceptance—of others, realities, and oneself—reduces suffering and enhances connection, clarity, and joy.
• Mindfulness practices, including gratitude, non-judgment, and meditation, boost well-being at every age and are especially vital in today’s stressed, fast-paced culture.

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For more: Explore Dr. Greg Hammer’s books A Mindful Teen and GAIN Without Pain for further guidance on practical, research-backed well-being strategies for teens and families.

Transcript

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[Jenny Ert]

To the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Ert. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I'm so excited and honored to have Dr. Greg Hammer with us. He is the author of A Mindful Teen and also Gain Without Pain, a physician, bestselling author and mindfulness expert, and also a Stanford University School of Medicine professor for more than 25 years. Welcome, Dr. Greg Hammer.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Great to be with you, Jenny.

[Jenny Ert]

So can you kind of talk through the process of narrowing down? Like as a physician, you're dealing with.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

All sorts of people.

[Jenny Ert]

As a professor, you're dealing with all sorts of people in all sorts of topics. The world of medicine is a very large one and people specialize in all sorts of different areas. What was your path? And you have this approach called gain, and you really focus on mindfulness. And now this new book is called A Mindful Teen. Helping Today's Teenagers Thrive through Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Not Judgment. That's giving gain. That's the acronym. How did you narrow your focus down to the topic of mindfulness?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

That's a good question. Back in around 2012, Stanford convened a group called WellMD in response to what was perceived to be a rising incidence and prevalence of burnout among physicians. And it turns out it's quite costly if Stanford loses a physician. And burnout is associated with physicians retiring early, leaving, doing something else, whatever, so we can convene this group. And came up with a rubric for burnout, which is really physical and mental exhaustion due to chronic stress, which to some extent I think we all experience, especially teens these days. One of the areas of focus was on personal resilience, which has been an area that I've been interested in for a long time. And that really involves to me our physical health as well as our mental health. And so I got engaged in this process of developing guidelines, et cetera, at Stanford. And then I had a sabbatical and I decided to write a book about what I had been talking about. And we love acronyms. That's the book, Gain Without Pain. We love acronyms. In medicine, if you came on rounds in the intensive care unit, you probably wouldn't understand a word we said because it's mostly acronyms. And, you know, I was trying to identify what are the essential ingredients with regard to personal resilience as it pertains to burnout among physicians at that time. And I came up with four that I thought were universally embraced. And I thought, well, if I add a fifth, it's going to be an acronym that's too long. I won't be able to remember it. Three, I'm probably leaving something out. So I came up with gratitude, acceptance, intention and non judgment as really being part of almost every spiritual and philosophic tradition in one form or another. And so, you know, I modified my meditation practice personally to focus on this particular method. And I had some time and I thought I would write a book since I was getting asked to talk about this increasingly. So that was the first book, Gain Without Pain. And then I think, really since that came out right before COVID or kind of like during, I guess, the beginning of COVID the COVID pandemic. And it has occurred to me, or did occur to me since then, that teens are really suffering perhaps the most because there are unique challenges that they face that I never faced. Social media issues we can talk about in more detail. Gun violence in schools, political divide whereby families are, you know, members of families are not talking to each other practically or in reality. Eco anxiety. Is there going to be an earth that's habitable for my kids and grandkids? And so, yeah, I was prompted to write another GAIN book, essentially. And this one is really, as you know, for parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, school counselors, those who care for teenagers.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, what a wonderful resource. So that came out in September of 2025. This is a newer book, fantastic one, like you said, for anybody who's working with children, you talk a lot about the smartphone. The smartphone is equivalent to the Swiss army knife and just gives kids an access to almost a limited amount of. I just talked to this woman and she wrote a book called the Nation of Wimps in 2008. And one of the things that she focused on, because that was before the iPhone. You know, when you talk about the teenagers in America are in crisis, there really are so many factors, because you're talking about online bullying and the things that are coming out of this situation of having access to unlimited information. But she was talking about even as early as the early 2000s, since the globalization of society and now with AI, that everyone is really afraid and so they're micromanaging, like they're micromanaging, micromanaging the experience of their children. And so then that's like affecting identity formation and ability to take risks and ability to deal with failure. And so to your point, these kids are up against a lot and it is almost exclusively things that we didn't have to deal with.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Exactly. And I'm not familiar with that book, but I did read another book called the Coddling of the American Mind and I think the theme sounds similar and an interesting analogy that the authors of that book brought to the fore is related to peanut allergy. That may seem like what's the relationship between those two ideas, coddling of the American Mind and peanut allergy. But the idea is that at some point in the 70s it became popular to as there were some reports of life threatening reactions to peanut antigens in young children, it became popular to sanitize the environment for kids and eliminate any source of peanut antigen, peanut butter, et cetera, other products that many people didn't even know had peanuts in them. Lo and behold, over the subsequent decades, things like allergies to other antigens in the environment, things like asthma, which is essentially an allergic disorder in most cases, became much more common. The idea is that we've taken something that is, for almost all people and kids in particular, harmless, that is peanut antigen, and we've eliminated it from the environment. And unbeknownst to us at the time, we've actually created more harm than good. So you know, it turns out that with regard to allergies in general, the highest incidence is in kids who don't have pets. And the lowest incidence is in children who live on farms where there is a lot of antigen exposure to grasses, haze animals, etc. So early exposure to things that are sources of allergies later in life actually helps reduce the incidence of those allergies. And so the analogy is that we've taken a lot of things out of kids environment, like you know, the, the agony of defeat as the old ABC sports show used to feature. We've taken that out of the environment where everybody gets a ribbon and you know, 99% of kids are above average and so on. And lo and behold, we've created a generation in, in part at least, of people who can't hack it in the real world.

[Jenny Ert]

The nation of whims. That's a book I read. It was so good, I read Coddling of the American Mind as well. I actually had on Dr. Marty McCary, who is, I think the head of the FDA, which I never totally know, like, the actual wording of what it is. But I had him on before. He was part of that. Wrote a book called Blind Spots. And it's. A lot of it is about peanut allergy. And he's like, one of the things that we talked about is that we. We put this information out in the world, and it's like, a really big deal. But then we don't walk it back to the extreme that it was presented to the world, like, all this fear about the peanuts. And then it was determined that, like, it really was probably the wrong advice, and it's caused all these allergies. But then there's no, like, campaign on the other end of it to, like, make sure that people really know how to make things better. But it's these exposures to small stressors that really help these children, teenagers, and then adults, to be more robust in the world. You wrote, teenagers are driven toward novel experiences that push them out of their comfortable nest of their childhood and provide them with new opportunities and the rewards their brains crave. So it's like they need this little bit of push. So one of the premises of the book is it premises.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

I think both are correct.

[Jenny Ert]

Okay.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

All right, you're covered.

[Jenny Ert]

All right. There we go. You say it's a central tenet.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I'll use your.

[Jenny Ert]

Your wording. One of the central tenets of this book is that we are more likely to. To succeed living according to our intentions if we take small bites or baby steps. You talk about this small things often that Gottman would talk about. So when you think about something like gratitude, I mean, it seems a little floofy, you know, but you really. You're like, these small things often. And so you talk about how gratitude and goodness, I think, especially for teenagers and like, teenage years to me, are not super synonymous with gratitude. They're kind of synonymous with, like, comparison and overwhelm. Even before these smartphones where you could see what everybody else's life is like, someone was talking the other day, actually about how kids show. I don't know if you know this or not. They'll show, like, their Christmas haul. Like, it's this book called all is Calmish. And this woman was talking about the holidays and all the pressure that goes along with holidays and that many kids, some kids, I don't know, will show everything they got for Christmas, like, on their social media. I thought, gosh, that's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure for the kids. It's a lot of pressure. For the parents. So already teenage years seem a little bit like not coinciding with being super grateful. And then you throw on social media in comparison. Uh, but can you talk about why, especially for teenagers, this practice of gratitude, I mean, you talk about so practically. Can we talk about three, you know, three things you're grateful for? Can you keep a journal, how that can be so impactful for the quality of their life?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Sure. I think one of the other theses in my books and in my general understanding is that we have a negativity bias. So we tend to remember the negative and forget the positive. And I can attest to that as, you know, being an attribute, attribute of the way my mind works. As I look back on my career in medicine, I remember the bad things to a much greater extent than the good things, if you will. I remember the negative outcomes that I might have been able to change had I known what was going on even a few minutes beforehand. So we have a negativity bias. And the other thing about the way our minds work, and this is, I think, another evolutionary phenomenon, is that we have a very hard time being present. Our minds typically wander to the future or the past. And when you combine that with our negativity bias, we have a lot of shame and regret. And this goes for teenagers and the rest of us as well. When we focus on the past in a negative way, we said something that embarrassed us, or we wish we hadn't said or did, or we should have done something instead of not doing something. And then we focus on the future. With our negativity bias, we generate a lot of fear and anxiety. And so anxiety and depression are, you know, to the two major health issues, mental health issues that we face. What's the remedy for this? And the good news is that we have this amazing quality called neuroplasticity. So it can actually change the way we think through a practice. And that's the ion. Gain is intention. You have to have a practice if you want to change the way you think away from this negativity and distraction, if you will, because happiness lives in the present moment. How can we do that? Well, I think that's the idea behind the elements of gain and gratitude starts with gratitude. So when we're feeling, oh, poor me, you know, all this negative cross, you know, cross talk going on in our. In our heads. One of the remedies for that is to wait a minute. You know, I'm. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm feeling very negative. Let me actually refocus on all of the wonderful things I have in my life. So one example of this is we get up in the morning. Maybe we strained a ligament in our knee the day before, and our knee is kind of sore and stiff, and we're not even out of bed yet, and we're thinking about our maladies, including our stiff, sore knee. And we get up and, yeah, my knees are. We focus on that. You know, we focus on the. On the negative experience that we're having. We don't focus on the miracle of the fact that we kept ourselves alive all night and our heart was working well and our lungs were working well and our kidneys and other organs were working well. What a miracle that is. It still blows me away, actually, personally, how human physiology is so miraculous. And Einstein said, you know, there's two ways of looking at the world. One is that nothing is a miracle, and the other is that everything is a miracle. And I'm definitely in the latter camp. So when we focus on that for which we're grateful, and let's face it, we all have much for which to be grateful. Look around the world at what's happening in other areas of the world, and here we are with running water and a warm place to reside and sleep, et cetera. Food on the table.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

So by redirecting our thoughts to this more positive, grateful way of being, we're actually increasing our resilience and happiness. So positive thinking begets positive thinking. If you think about the structure of our brain, and, you know, we have 85 to 100 billion neurons in our brain, and each neuron connects with as many as a thousand other neurons. So we have 85 or 100 trillion synapses, these neural connections. When we have thoughts, we're actually exercising these connections and these specific pathways. So the more negative thoughts we have, the more negative thoughts we have.

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

I was a resident. This may be not related to anything, but it just popped into my head. The later you stay, the later you stay. So the idea is that your post call and you're so good focusing on all these things you have to do and you're staying in the hospital when you should be going home and new things come up and that just keeps you there longer even though you haven't slept in, you know, more than 24 hours. So anyway, the fact is that thoughts of gratitude beget more positive thoughts and the more we exercise these neural pathways that relate to gratitude, acceptance, intention and non judgment, the more positive and more happy we are.

[Jenny Ert]

I really like that. I'm so glad you said it. The later you stay, the later you stay. We've been trying to like not work one day a week and you know, I, we're entrepreneurs so it's, you know, or you're an author. Like whatever you do, the more you do, the more there is to do, there's always more to do. So the later you stay, the later you stay. Oh yeah, I think that's really relatable and really.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Yeah, no, that, you know, that applies more broadly to other walks of life. You know, you stay in the office. If you're in an office environment when it's time to go home. And then the phone rings and then another thing comes up and pretty soon you miss dinner with your family.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, that's right. I want to read a couple of the things in this book. Now this is coming out of a mindful team, but a mindful teen also echoes gain without pain. So either would be really helpful for your family. But you talk about how gratitude is the foundation of happiness. Gratitude is essential to our well being and central to our experience of happiness. It is possible to be happy and poor happy and blind happy with chronic pain. On the other hand, it does not seem possible for a person to be happy and ungrateful. So then you talk about how we re, we rewire our brains in small increments. This is something I think, you know, as adults. Like, I've got a little gratitude journal. There's this man named Neil Patricia, who, who sells one. It's like you put in a couple of things every day, but it's definitely not top of mind for me to really walk through that with our teens. And after reading your book, I was like, oh, I should be more explicit about this, but can you talk about how that might work in a home with teens or tweens?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Well, first of all, the idea is that our children, including younger children and teenagers, are watching us and they're, they're taking a page, if you will, from our actions and our words to some extent. But we can't just teach them with verbiage. Yeah, right. We can't tell them what to do, how to think, how to behave. I mean, we can, but if we don't embody those same principles, they're going to think, oh, well, that's kind of hypocritical. So if, you know, on the other hand, if we as parents, you know, we sit down at the dinner table and we have a moment of gratitude before we eat. I have a dear friend, Fred Luskin, who's written a lot about forgiveness, for example. But the fact is that when he and I have our every other month lunch together, we pause, as is his practice before we eat, and just give gratitude and grace to the fact that we have this beautiful food in front of us and you know how much we have for which to be grateful. And so if we as parents are not exhibiting this and we're telling our kids, oh, you know, don't complain, look at what you have. But we're not acting in a way that reflects that way of thinking and being. Our kids aren't really going to take A lead from our words. So basically, you know, there's so many opportunities we have to exhibit gratitude as adults. We can do it when we're, you know, before they're driving on their own perhaps when we have one on one time with them in the car, ask them how they're doing and they might bring up something negative and we can acknowledge that, understand how they're feeling, but we can also steer them in a new direction of well yeah, that, that is true and I understand and that feels bad, but think of it in this way and something for which we have to be grateful. And we sit down at the dinner table and granted, you know, we have fewer dinners as a family than we used to generations past, but we still have opportunities to bring gratitude into our daily life with our teenagers. And in general they're watching us interact with each other and other family members and the world and we can behave in ways that reflect our gratitude. And the same with the other three domains in the gain, mindfulness, practice, acceptance, intention and non judgment.

[Jenny Ert]

I like what you wrote about the benefits. You say a growing body of evidence underscores the that grateful people have higher levels of wellbeing, greater sense of control over their environment, more personal growth and purpose in life, and enhanced self acceptance. And then being optimistic, mindful and grateful is associated with the preservation of telomere length. So this is like helping even with your aging?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Oh, absolutely, yeah. No, no, absolutely. I, I think that when you look at people who have aged successfully, if you will, that is for example, those in the so called blue zones around the world that have an excess number of centenarians compared to other places. Actually, I don't know if you know this, but the number one spot where there are the most centenarians is in Southern California in the Loma Linda area. But in any case, when you look at those who have aged successfully that is not suffered so much from chronic diseases from a relatively younger age. And I'm talking about people in their 50s and 60s, you know, the typical American starts to develop chronic diseases in midlife and as they become older and then just sort of have a gradual decline. Whereas centenarians generally remain healthy physically and mentally right up until the time they die.

[Jenny Ert]

Right.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

And that's the shape of the curve that we want to embrace. And those centenarians and others who have aged, you know, successfully, I would say tend to be very positive. They have deep and strong social connections, family connections, and they take care of their bodies to varying, varying extent. But their mental health is so important and it really is sort of built around a positive way of being, and that includes gratitude. Even though that's not something that's typically written about centenarians, I think that people who age successfully are more positive and grateful and accepting, intentional and less judgmental.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, that's so interesting. I got to interview Dan Buettner, who I'm pretty sure coined the phrase blue zones. And he talked a lot about how that in a lot of these places, they don't have a word for retirement. Like in Okinawa. He said retirement doesn't even exist in their dialect. And he talked about how then they have a purpose for living, which I think would tie into gratitude. Like you wake up and. And you have a purpose for living, a reason for being at all stages of life. And then he also talked to you about how much they move. Often they're walking five miles a day or six miles a day. And when you are, I mean, you're not doing that indoors. No one's walking five miles a day in their house. They're outside. So I would imagine you're seeing the things, you know, seeing those small things that you are grateful for. And there's just a lot more connection, I think, to the earth and a lot vitamin D. And he also said that they're likable. Almost always. Centenarians are very likable people. They make it fun and rewarding to be around them. There's not a grump in the bunch.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

I like that. There's not a grump in the bunch. That's sort of a catchy phrase.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Oh, that's true. Because, you know, being positive is. Is so basic to good mental health. And our mental health and physical health are so interconnected. So you talk about walking. Yes, certainly. And also being outside, as you suggested, being connected to nature. So I'm asked a lot these days about the winter blues and how we can provide some remedies and what are the drivers and what are the remedies? And certainly the drivers include less time outside connected to nature, which, you know, when we're connected to nature, we have this sense of something greater than ourselves.

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

And so when we're outside more, I think we're connected to nature. Like, I don't know when I'm going for a hike in the forest or in the mountains or wherever, and I, you know, maybe in the forest, I appreciate the soft footfall on the pine needle bed below my feet, and I see the sun filtering through the treetops and beautiful canopy of light. I feel like, you know, I Could die right now and just dissolve into this environment, and I'd be perfectly happy. So it's that connection with nature that's so important. And obviously, during the winter, we're outside less.

[Jenny Ert]

Right.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

There's less light, which is another element. Our sleep may be disrupted, which is so core to our. Our physical and mental health. And, you know, we can. We can do something about this. So that's sort of the whole point. What are the drivers and what are the remedies?

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, I like that you sort of kicked us off talking about burnout, because I think anybody today can experience burnout. And especially I think our young people, because they're so pushed, you know, to, you know, you got to get all A's. And they're. They're looking ahead toward college, even at young. Young ages, really. They say it's starting in preschool where they've gotten rid of play, and they're really pushing these worksheets. And so this would help at any stage of life. So the grad attitude, you can model that for your kids. The other thing that Dan Buettner said is he said it's rare to see a sad centenarian.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[Jenny Ert]

You know, if you think about the older people that you come in contact with, like, the ones that are really vibrant, like, they're. They're vibrant. They're just vibrant in their whole being. So a lot to think about there and a lot that you can teach your kids about grad. This is in both books, Game Without Pain and A Mindful Team. Learning about gratitude. Okay, I want to talk about acceptance and commitment therapy. Well, really about this one part where you talk about when there's an annoying cousin. So I just think this is a big life skill. My midwife talks about it. Like, she says she made this thing for her boys when they graduated from high school, was called 50 Things I Hope, you know, and it was like, all sort of, you know, I hope you know how to change a tire, that type of thing. But one of them was like, I hope you know how to deal with quirky relatives. And I actually think it is, like, a really big skill. Nick. First of all, we're all probably quirky on our own, so it's like, I hope that people will deal with me. And also in life, you just end up dealing with different types of personalities. So you're talking about this William. You know, you're coming up with a story. So you say, suppose we're hosting a family holiday gathering one evening. There is a cousin William, who Martine considers Very annoying. First, we acknowledge that William does appear to be very egotistical and snobby. We then discuss why William behaves the way he does. Maybe he's insecure and boasts to hide his insecurities. We discuss allowing this during the gathering rather than letting it get under our skin. How can we observe without reacting? By accommodating the behavior without becoming upset, we might enjoy. This is so good. This is like just such. This is only one paragraph. But like such good skills to teach kids. By accommodating William's behavior without becoming upset, we might enjoy other aspects of William's personality. His jokes are pretty funny. We can even appreciate him in some ways. We may even find him likable once we get past the apparently negative aspects of his personality. So can you talk about this acceptance? You say it's acceptance and also self acceptance. And this acceptance and commitment therapy, which is similar to CBT but not the same.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Well, I won't go into commitment therapy very much because I'm, you know, I'm not. I want people to know. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I will say yes. I mean, acceptance, these gain elements are so tightly interwoven. They're really, you know, so interdependent. And so acceptance, for example, you know, it's nothing of my own invention that acceptance is important. There's pain and sadness in life inevitably as much as there is joy. And if we can discern between what we can change, that doesn't appear to comport with our wants and needs and what we cannot change, as a serenity prayer would have it, we're going to be better off. And so let's identify things that annoy us. For example, like William, our uncle. We're not going to change the way he is, right? So let's just think about accepting it. And this goes for any other uncomfortable or painful experience in life. I lost my son at the age of 29, and that pain is not going away. But if I always try not to think about it, if I come up with some depersonalization and explanation for it, it's working against my own happiness. And I'm well served by learning to accept this. So when I do my own gain meditation every morning, that is one of the first things that generally comes to me. So the idea with the gain practice is it starts with slow, deep, deliberate breathing. And once we're in a comfortable place and with our eyes closed, we focus on our breath, activate the vagus nerve, our parasympathetic nervous system. It slows our Heart rate, our breathing rate, our blood pressure, our blood sugar, actually in many cases. And we do a self guided tour first of that for which we're grateful. And then we take an uncomfortable or painful experience. We actually, as we're doing this slow, deep, deliberate breathing, we bring this closer and closer to us. We imagine actually opening our chest, opening our heart, bringing this painful experience into our heart and resting into it, sort of relaxing into it, breathing into it and residing with it, abiding it. And eventually, when we ask ourselves the question, can I live with this pain forever? The answer will be yes. And so learning to accept rather than resist, really, the pain may not change, but the suffering is diminished. So there's a formula in the book, as you may know, suffering equals pain times resistance. So we love formulas almost as much as we like acronyms in medicine. So suffering equals pain times resistance. The pain is there, but if we lower our resistance, which means accepting, then our suffering is decreased. And so this is just so important. So by accepting William for who he is. Yeah, and this is so related to the end and gain non judgment, right?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

And the eye, because we have to intentionally learn to let go of judgment and be accepting. But by just learning to drop the judgment of others, the world, and most notably and perhaps most difficultly ourselves, we will be better off and happier. And so, yes, let's accept William by dropping the judgment just because he has some ideas with which we disagree. And his behavior may not always be in line with what we think is optimal. There are things about him we can enjoy. In fact, let's be grateful that we have a family, especially now, this time of year, that we can sit around the table and enjoy each other's company. I mean, that alone is something for which to be grateful. It involves acceptance. We have to be intentional about it because it's not the way our brains are wired. We're wired to be negative, distracted, and resisting. And then let's also learn to be less judgmental. So there's an actual, you know, I throw in some models of learning how to be less judgmental in the gain meditation practice. But yes, I think those elements are so important, starting with gratitude and then acceptance.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, I mean, in light of losing a child, this is a surface level example, you know, the quirky cousin or the quirky uncle. But it goes to show though that having these skills can help because you just don't know what's going to come in life. 29 is a really young age. Did you have some of the foundation in this already or did you have to learn it after.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Learn acceptance, you mean? Or.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, I learned how. Like how. How you. What do we. What did you say? I can live. Can I live with this pain forever?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Yes. Well, I think that is, you know, I've been a student of advaita, or non duality, and for many, many years. And it's, you know, one of the fundamental tenets is again, that we share our being with everyone and everything. And this is getting a little bit. People may think this is kind of fluffy, but who is that person that seems to be offended or doesn't like what's happening, et cetera. And, you know, I think by realizing that we're part of something greater, we can integrate that information and learn to be more accepting. Because after all, it's kind of like one system in which we live. And again, these elements are so interrelated. But acceptance is key, and I think I've understood that for quite a long time. I mean, when I went into medicine and I decided to go into pediatric intensive care, among other things, I realized I'd be dealing with a lot of suffering, a lot of death and dying.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

And, you know, you can do one of two things. You come to a fork in the road and as Yogi Berra said, you take it. But no, in, in reality, you can either learn to accept suffering, including death and dying, and thereby allow yourself to be close to your patients and families who are undergoing this painful experience, or you can build walls and just not get too close to your patients and sort of not think about death and dying very as any more than you have to. And I chose the former. So this is going way back to, you know, when I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I loved intensive care medicine. I like things coming fast and furious and being able to change the course of things quickly rather than over months and months. And, you know, again, I realized that if I want to be happy in this practice, I need to learn to accept the suffering that's going on around me. And so I think I kind of really focused on that at a relatively early age.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, and you can just see with the unpredictability of life to have these skills to start to learn them in the sort of surface level situations of like that family member's annoying, um, you could see how that would extend into situations that are more serious, like death and dying and pain and things like that. So it was a really great book to read with families, especially if you've got that the teen tween years. One of the things that you talk about is perfectionism. And you say many, many teenagers are perfectionists. And when you're a perfectionist, I mean, that hampers a lot of things. In fact, I talked to this woman. I'm gonna grab it.

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[Jenny Ert]

So in this A Nation of Wimps book I really like, it's like one of my favorite books I've read recently. Okay. She was talking about perfectionism, and she was saying that some weeks I just.

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[Jenny Ert]

We don't like, and what my health.

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[Jenny Ert]

That when you are dealing with perfectionism, it's going to really hamper your life. Perfectionism reduces playfulness, and the assimilation of knowledge over concern about mistakes gives people a failure orientation. The biggest problem with with pushing perfection may be that it masks the real secret of success in life. Any innovator will tell you that success hinges less on getting everything right than on how you handle getting things wrong.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

So that's beautiful.

[Jenny Ert]

A good book. It's called the Nation of Whims. I just, I read it last week and I was like, wow. Came out in 2008. I'm like, I've been missing the boat. This is a new thing.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I mean, I didn't.

[Jenny Ert]

I didn't feel like I Had to be perfect. I didn't care when I was a teenager. But there's a lot more pressure today to be perfect. And perfect. Being perfect obviously goes hand in hand with making judgments because you have to judge if something is perfect or not perfect. So again, you talk about the judgment part. You say that automatic judgments, this. The process of making automatic judgments is tiring. It saps our energy and it prevents us from seeing the totality in front of us.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Absolutely. Well, when we judge, and there's a difference between discerning and judging.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

But when we judge, we're looking at the world, others, ourselves, through tinted glasses, if you will. And we're not seeing things for what they truly are. And, you know, we look at another person and we make so many judgments just about their face, their skin color, their nose, their eyebrows. I mean, you name it. And we're not seeing the person for who they are. Obviously, we're prejudging things. Well, this person looks like that, so they must have these qualities. I mean, that's a totally unproductive judgment, if you will. Right. So, I mean, there are areas where there's sort of a gray zone between discernment and judgment, but it's important to discern. So I use the example. I think this is in the book. You know, we have two friends, one, and we've known them for a long time. We love them both as brothers and sisters. And, you know, one of them is sort of complains, is not very grateful for things and, you know, it's kind of a bummer to be around in a way. On the other hand, and they have some weird ideas, but we love this person. We've grown up with them. They're. They're like a brother or sister. And then we have another friend, friend B. If the first one is friend A, friend B is more like, we are more pragmatic, forward looking positive, more present, a lot more fun to be around. So I've got an hour and I can have a cup of coffee with friend A or friend B. And I need to discern, like, who do I want to spend that precious amount of time with? That's limited. Yeah, it's probably going to be friend B, but that doesn't mean I have to make a judgment that friend A is bad and friend B is good. Right. They're both just people. They simply are who they are. And the sooner we learn that, the sooner we can accept ourself. And this is part of the gain. Practice is self acceptance. We are simply the person that we Are so when I get to the end in gain. And here we are sitting with our eyes closed in a comfortable chair, doing our slow, deep, deliberate breathing, we come to non judgment. And we might picture, for example, an image of the Earth apparently suspended in space, one of these beautiful NASA images. And the Earth is a lovely planet, but it doesn't possess the qualities of goodness or badness. So the Earth is neither good nor bad. And so we just sort of breathe and relax into this idea that the Earth is a lovely planet, but is just a planet. It's neither good nor bad. And so it's only logical for me to think, since I am of the Earth, that I too am just the person that I am. I'm neither good nor bad. And we're doing our slow, deep, deliberate breathing as we sort of breathe into these concepts. And you know, lo and behold, the next time we start to judge someone or the way the world is, for example, or ourselves, maybe a light bulb will go off as we've been establishing these or fortifying these positive, non judgmental neural connections. And we realize, hey, I just did my game practice. Now I'm judging this person as I drive to work, who cut me off. Let's get a little dopamine hit and have a laugh to ourselves about our judgmental nature and drop that judgment. Yeah, and when we do that, you know, it's a positive thing. And so I tell a story in the book about riding my bicycle to work. And I'm going down this beautiful lane and again, you know, the sun kind of filtering through the treetops as it's, as it's rising in the morning. And I see a person walking ahead of me who's walking in the same direction I'm pedaling. And as I get closer, I see that person is actually looking at their screen, their cell phone. And I'm thinking, boy, this is such a beautiful spot. Why are you looking at your cell phone? Like, are you looking at a picture of a bird instead of actually looking at the bird in the tree ahead of you? So I start to make these judgments and then as I get closer, maybe I see something else I judge about the person. And then I have that light bulb moment where I kind of laugh to myself, like, what am I doing? Why am I judging this person? I don't know anything about this person and it doesn't matter anyway. So I drop the judgment, I get a little laugh to myself. And as I pedal by the person, I say good morning. And they look up and smile at me. And I again I get a little dopamine hit instead of an adrenaline hit. Yeah. And, you know, this is what being present and non judgmental and at peace and being happy is all about.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Jenny Ert]

Because the judgmental part is tiring, sapping our energy. And then this probably relates to self compassion and helps kids with this culture that they live in that is really pushing for achievement and perfectionism.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, perfectionism, as you said, is judgment. It's self judgment. And, you know, with all the hours of social media that, you know, kids are exposed to every day and these other people that are being portrayed as nearly perfect, it's hard for teens not to compare themselves to others. I mean, even it's hard for ourselves, all of us, not to compare ourselves to others, but especially, I think, teenagers. And this is something that's exacerbated by social media. And so we need to have a plan to kind of help them let go of this self judgment and judgment of others in the world, and mostly in a negative way.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah. I love what you wrote. You talked about how we can be self compassionate. Use the phrase self kindness. Self kindness means that we respond to our own imperfections, mistakes, and apparent failures with gentleness, care, and compassion, as opposed to criticism that generates shame and regret. Learn to be your own good friend. We can practice speaking to ourselves the way that we would talk to someone we love. And then you say, this is how you learn how to go easy on yourself when you get a B. Which I just feel like people used to not really care. I didn't care if I got a B. But, you know, I taught in. I taught high school in the early 2000s, and I had a student whose dad paid her for her grades. So I don't know. I think some people do that, some people don't. I will make no judgments on that. But. But the. What was interesting about it, Greg, was the payment.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Like the.

[Jenny Ert]

The way he did it was she got a certain amount of money for an A. Let's say it was like you get $10 for every A and $5 for every B and a dollar for a C or something like that. Okay, so she. She's got six classes, so she could earn 60 bucks per semester. But if she got all A's, he gave her $200. And I was like, okay. It's kind of interesting. That's an interesting parenting philosophy, because a child who does get all A's definitely has a leg up for college acceptance. Maybe she'll get some scholarships if she's got all A'S So it seems like kind of a good investment of money on one hand.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right.

[Jenny Ert]

Of the $200 from the dad if he has it. But then on the other hand, like, that's kind of a lot of pressure for like a 14 year old.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Oh, that's a tremendous amount of pressure. I'm not going to judge that style either. However. Yes, I think it is kind of fraught with the potential for putting too much pressure on the, on the child. And there's other ways, you know, like we can talk about positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Again, I'm not a mental health professional, but I've got three little dogs. And I can tell you that just like with kids, positive reinforcement seems to work a lot better.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

You know, if you're trying to train your dog to come to you on command and you punish them if they don't, they're just going to want to stay away from you.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Dr. Greg Hammer]

So that is a, you know, an approach that's fraught with counterproductivity. Whereas on the other hand, if you give them a treat every time they come to you, they're going to respond a lot more positively and, and be more obedient. And so. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I think that is sort of. You could say that giving money for grades is positive reinforcement because you're positively reinforcing the A. But on the other hand, you're negatively reinforcing anything less than an A.

[Jenny Ert]

Right.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

So who's not going to want to maximize their financial return in that model?

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, yeah. Yes. So it was just an interesting thing because a child in that instance would be hard on themselves probably if they got 1B because they just went from having $200 to having. What would that be, like $55 or something? He just lost a lot of money. Whatever. Whatever his thing was.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Yeah. And again, you know, we, we have this negativity bias, all of us, so we're going to tend to respond to that model in a negative way. We're going to emphasize, naturally the fact that. Yes, exactly. The downside of that, that we didn't maximize our, you know, the amount of money that we made from. Based on our grade. So we're going to focus on the negative elements of that model. And yes, I don't think that's a particularly healthy way to be.

[Jenny Ert]

And I just think in general, there's a lot of pressure for kids today for their grades and all of the achievements that they're doing. You talk about parenting strategies for the modern age, talk about secure Attachment about helping to our children to feel safe, seen, sued and secure. That's in the book Being Present for our Children. Talk about the nine thinking traps there. It really is a lot in here. And then you go through meditation, what you do, you know, how you do it, but you say there are no rules. But this is good to know. Meditators have displayed increased brain volume in the prefrontal cortex, an area involved in executive function, which. That's really interesting because there's this man named Mike McLeod and he talks about how ADHD should be called an executive function disorder. I guess, I don't know, he's probably like. That's not how I say it, but it's something like that. It's like the executive function is, is maybe late or it's not quite developed as it needs to be. And so you can kind of see the, the reactivity and the high pressure. Pressure, High stress childhoods. They don't have these slowdown parts. They don't have the like meditative play. Like, I think that when you're immersed in play, it's almost meditative, like when you're a little kid, you know. And so, so interesting that the meditators have increased brain folly, brain volume in the prefrontal cortex, which is the area that's involved, which is one of the areas that's involved in executive function. So a lot in this book for today's day and age, talk about parental stress, talk about empathy, talk about forgiveness and mindfulness. Mindfulness leads to compassion. You got a bunch of cool different experiments that you talk about. You talk about pro social behavior. You packed a lot in.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Yeah, I do have to give a shout out to my co authors. And John rutger is a PhD psychologist and, you know, he certainly contributed to that, the psychology portions, if you will. I mean, you could say it's all about psychology in a way, but. And yeah, I think that John is a brilliant guy and added a lot to the book. And Eric Wentworth, likewise, is just a brilliant guy and a very compassionate, wonderful person. So I, you know, I'm grateful to both of them.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah, the. Both books are fantastic. Gain Without Pain, the Happiness Handbook for Healthcare Professionals. But really for anyone who's struggling with burnout, which is a lot of people, and then a mindful teen. What an honor to meet you. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood?

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

That was outside, I think it was. You know, I grew up on a little dead end street with a cul de sac. Actually, we're very similar to where I live now. I'm very fortunate to have a beautiful home on Stanford campus. And I do live on a cul de sac. And there are kids playing in the cul de sac. Cul de sac. And I just remember we had so many kids in my neighborhood that were approximately the same age, give or take a year or two. And we had instant baseball games and capture the flag. And so I have a lot of fond memories in my childhood of playing in the street, if you will. And I realized as an adult, actually, how understanding all my neighbors were because I used to build go karts and little mini bikes, and my dad would occasionally get me a new lawnmower engine from one of his Kinects, and, boy, we made a lot of noise. And I can imagine if I was exposed to that in the street now, it might warrant, you know, some plea to the parents of that kid. So I take my hat off to my neighbors retroactively for being so understanding. But, no, I have a lot of wonderful memories of playing outside in my neighborhood.

[Jenny Ert]

Cul de sacs are so idyllic. You know, you just got that whole space. You can just kind of take over and. What a dad to give you engines. That's fantastic.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

Well, he was an interesting guy. He had his, you know, was neither good nor bad, but I would say that he had his. He had his attributes and ways of being. And that was. That was on the positive side, if you will.

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Yeah.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah. Well, Greg, these are tremendous books and so pertinent for this day and age that we're living in, where there is a lot of burnout and teenagers in America are in crisis. Thank you for writing these books and thank you so much for your time with us today.

[Dr. Greg Hammer]

It's been wonderful being with you, Jenny, and I've really enjoyed the conversation. Hope to do it again sometime.

[Jenny Ert]

Yeah.