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- [00:00]
Unknown Host
This is an I Heart Podcast. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed Let your imagination take flight with an AI powered PC from Lenovo. Whether it's creating digital art, designing new software, or building a portfolio for a Future career, their PCs are powered by Intel Core Ultra processors to help students unlock smarter learning and unleash their creativity. That's the power of Lenovo. With intel inside, all you have to do is choose the one that fits your passion. Head to lenovo.com to shop AI PCs and find your perfect companion. Plus get 5% off when you create an education account. I truly don't think I have ever had as many events as I do right now and Nair's shower cream has been not just a lifesaver but a time saver as well. Because I don't know about you, I just can't be bothered with shaving anymore, especially as I've been trying to move house and do a million other things. Nair is the number one hair removal brand and their body and shower creams. Firstly they actually smell delicious whilst working so well to get rid of all of my hair. When I'm tight on time I use the shower cream infused with coconut oil and it's also so gentle on my skin. I feel so silky afterwards and it's free of dyes, parabens, phthalates and sulfates. So get ready for summer Buy now at all major retailers.
- [01:59]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 24th. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like Kraft Mac and Cheese, Celsius energy drinks, Quaker Chewy bars and sparkling ice flavored water. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go, pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [02:29]
Unknown Host
Foreign and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of your 20s. Have you ever looked at your life, or maybe the life of other people around you and thought, is it always going to be this busy? Is it always going to be this chaotic? Do we ever get a break? Or is it just this constant drum in the back of your head of drama, of overwhelm, of things to do? You're always on the go. You're always reacting, always just a little bit on maybe, just maybe, there is also a part of you that thrives on it, that feels most alive, shall we say, when the stakes are really, really high, when the deadline is tomorrow, when the relationship is on the brink. I know I've definitely had those moments. What we're talking about today is chaos, the nature of chaos. The kind that isn't accidental, but sometimes almost invited. The kind that makes you wonder, am I addicted to this? Am I? The problem is the reason all my friendships have failed, the jobs didn't work out. I feel behind, I feel on edge. Is that maybe my tolerance for chaos and the fact that I always feel like I need to crash out or explode my life for it to be entertaining? Now, I don't mean when I say this that we are all out here actively trying to sabotage our lives and cause drama. Most of us are, I think, consciously striving for peace and stability. But if we're honest, sometimes unconsciously, we do our best in a state of urgency. That hum of drama, that static ness, feels normal, even exhilarating. How do we break that habit? How do we break the curse of feeling addicted to chaos and feel comfortable in stillness and comfortable in peace? This is something that I've been thinking about a lot, especially after receiving a few messages from you all, who basically shared the same sentiment. How can I tell if I'm the problem? How can I break out of this pattern? So today we are diving headfirst into the question, are we addicted to chaos? We are going to investigate why we might inadvertently be drawn to situations that are fraught with tension and that have a sense of urgency. We're going to look at how this plays out in our relationships, why we may crave excitement and anxiety over safety in our romantic relationships. Our personal lives, our careers. And we're going to get into the often hidden, deeper reasons why we might cling to this tumultuous state or might unconsciously sabotage our efforts for peace. And crucially, what do we do about it? What are the small mental shifts that we need to take to embrace stillness, to embrace the discomfort of standing still without feeling like our lives aren't moving in the correct direction? And so much more. So, without further ado, let's explore whether deep down we are addicted to chaos and what to do about it. Okay, let's cut straight to the chase. Why does chaos, or rather the resolution of chaos, sometimes feel so freaking good? What's really happening here is a bit of a neurochemical roller coaster that in subtle ways makes us addicted to urgency. Not because of how good it feels in the moment moment, but because of how good we feel afterwards. When you're facing a crisis, such as a looming deadline or relationship argument or an unexpected problem, your body kicks into high gear. This is your sympathetic nervous system taking over, initiating the very famous fight or flight response. As a response to that, your brain is going to release adrenaline, it's going to release cortisol, the primary stress hormones. Your heart rate goes up, your senses sharpen, you have this burst of energy. This is obviously used as a primal survival mechanism. It's meant to be designed. Well, it is designed to help us quickly react to danger. But here's the kicker. When you resolve that crisis, when you escape the danger, when you survive, when you meet the deadline, when you clear your inbox, there's a drop in those stress hormones. And often as a response, your brain releases dopamine, it releases dmt. And that feeling of relief is what we're actually after, is what we actually crave. Your brain, being the incredibly efficient learning machine that it is, actually starts to associate this crisis resolution, dopamine hit cycle with reward rather than with the stress and the anxiety and the panic that came before. So the chaos itself is uncomfortable, but the payoff of getting through it is so rewarding that that's actually the thing we start to chase. If it feels counterintuitive, is it's not just that we want stress, we get used to the reward. The same way that people love scary movies, love endurance sports, all those kinds of things, the reason they love them is because of the secondary emotion and the secondary reaction that comes with living through them. This can be explained by principles of operant conditioning, where a behavior so engaging with or creating chaos is reinforced by a positive outcome. The Dopamine rush of resolution so that we continue to engage in it to get the reward. Of course, in this situation, some of the wires have kind of been crossed. But regardless, this underlying dopaminegenic principle is why this practice and these patterns of behavior do feel so addictive. Beyond the pure neurochemistry, there is also, of course, a psychological draw to novelty and intensity. Our brains are wired, hardwired to pay attention to new, surprising, intense stimuli. In fact, one of my favorite studies ever conducted actually found that having more novel and new experiences actually creates the illusion of more time in our days and therefore our lives. So our brain is really looking for that newness, calm, consistent, predictable routines. Whilst they're healthy, they don't necessarily provide the same kind of immediate sensory and emotional stimulation or sense of expansiveness compared to this constant flux and unpredictability. And this is the deeper problem, is that we start to equate chaos to the sense of being alive and truly experiencing things. It's the opposite of boredom. And for many of us, especially in our 20s, where we are constantly seeking out new experiences, we are pushing boundaries, we don't want to miss out on anything critical and fun and exciting. Avoiding boredom, avoiding plainness, can be a powerful motivator. Research on sensation seeking, which is this trait where we really seek out newness and novelty, shows that individuals with high needs for varied, novel and complex sensations might actually unconsciously gravitate towards more chaotic and stimulating environments. So in these studies, they were the ones who ran towards the fire, essentially, they were the ones who got involved in the drama. And on this point of novelty and intensity, it is also worth touching on adhd. For individuals with adhd, there is a known difference in how your brain processes and regulates dopamine and also its counterpart, norepinephrine, which you need dopamine in order to release and for your brain to understand. The brains of people with ADHD have an imbalance of dopamine, specifically, notably, normally lower levels of dopamine in certain brain regions. But also there is research that's beginning to support that they also have fewer dopamine receptors and more of this protein that actually cleans up dopamine on the synapse, meaning that dopamine messages will remain available in your brain for less time, so the happiness fades quicker. All of this basically means that they can really struggle with maintaining motivation, because dopamine is not just the happy chemical. It is responsible for motivation. It's responsible for feeling, feeling aligned with something, wanting to do something. It also means that their Threshold for the positive feelings is a lot higher. So have to experience more to get to a point of enjoyment or exhilaration compared to someone who doesn't have this irregulation. So this can lead to the drive for novelty and high stimulation as the brain seeks to achieve optimal arousal and a consistent flow of dopamine because of how the system may not be working. So if you have adhd, for those of you with adhd, constant demands, shifting priorities, the rush of last minute deadlines, and that actually can feel pretty safe for you. That actually can feel quite normal. It can make you feel focused, it can make you feel engaged, even productive in a way that calmer, more predictable environments don't. And it's not that ADHD causes an addiction to chaos. It's that the underlying neurological differences can make chaotic environments feel more engaging, or even feel more comfortable, feel more right for some individuals, making it harder for them to step away from this intensity. So it's very important to understand this distinction between our addiction to chaos as a learned habit versus as a symptom of a brain that is wired just a little bit differently. However, for those addicted to chaos as a learned habit, many perceive there to be positive side effects of chaos. And that acts as the primary hook for this pattern. People who thrive in these environments, they often are incredibly effective in a crisis. They think quickly on their feet, they can problem solve under immense pressure. They get things done when others might freeze. So it does feel like an asset. You do feel quite competent. You can go where no one else can go. You can do things that other people might not be able to do. And so in a period where we're forming our identity and our self concept, the fact that we are good at doing this, at putting out fires, can feel quite validating and powerful. There's a certain thrill in being praised for this last minute performance or for constantly proving people that you can overcome a challenge. Let's also not forget a crucial element to this, which is perceived control. Humans want to be in control. We want to feel like we matter. We want to feel like we can create change, we can do things, we can manage our environment, that we have a say. Whilst chaos might seem like the opposite of control, sometimes by creating it artificially or deliberately, we reclaim a sense of agency because we create just enough chaos that we can feel in charge. This can be particularly appealing if you feel like you lack control in other areas of your life. So if your career progression is slow or major life decisions feel out of your hands, then the manageable chaos of a relationship or of going out all the time, or of crashing out on the weekends or doing like, insane stuff can almost feel productive. It can feel exhilarating. It can feel like you have something to do. The problems emerge when controlled chaos becomes uncontrolled, unmanageable and maladaptive. Hopefully I've made this clear that this isn't about some grand conscious plan to live in constant turmoil. And we like throwing things up in the air and seeing where they land. It's actually our brain's quest for reward. It's our brain's quest for stimulation. It's our brain's quest for competence, self efficacy, to feel like we can manage the problems thrown at us. Okay, we're going to take a short break, but when we return, let's talk about some of the ways this manifests in our lives, why you may end up regretting decisions made in the heat of the moment, and most importantly, how to actually crave peace, stillness, stability over the comfort of urgency. So stay with us. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed hey, it's Ryan.
- [16:20]
Ryan Seacrest
Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through June 24th. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like Dove ice cream bars, Chips Ahoy cookies, Arrowhead bottled water and Charmin bath tissue. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online. For easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [16:48]
Dexter Thomas
Are there any pictures of you online? I'm not just talking about Google. I'm talking anywhere.
- [16:53]
Unknown Guest
Clear View scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.
- [16:59]
Dexter Thomas
That database is now being used by police departments all across the country to match criminal suspect photos. And sometimes it makes mistakes.
- [17:07]
Unknown Guest
So in this one case, two of their search results that I think were in the top 10 of the search results were Michael Jordan, just a picture of Michael Jordan.
- [17:14]
Dexter Thomas
But cops are still using it to make arrests.
- [17:16]
Unknown Guest
Police, they are trusting this software to lead them to the right suspect. But you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.
- [17:27]
Dexter Thomas
This is not Minority Report. This is happening right now. People are getting arrested and doing actual time in jail after being picked out by a computer. I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, where every Wednesday we explain the right now of living in the future. You can turn off the computer, but do not let the computer turn you off. Listen to Kill Switch in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:49]
Unknown Guest
OpenAI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry where we're breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you happen to get your podcasts.
- [18:20]
Unknown Host
Let'S get real about how this plays out in the daily fabric of our lives, especially for us in our 20s. Once you start looking for it, you'll see that chaos isn't just about external events. It's a pattern of thinking and a pattern of behavior that slowly weaves its way into everything, specifically, the thing that's closest in orbit to us. The thing that often matters more than anything are relationships. And it manifests in relationship drama. We've all seen it, we've all experienced it. Maybe we've even unconsciously participated in it. The breaking up, getting back together, the explosive fights, ignoring someone when you know it's not healthy, the two that you know to and throwing, like the back and forth. For some, a relationship feels boring or stale without a certain level of intensity. This can be fueled by that neurochemical rollercoaster, of course, that we just discussed. But for other people, it can also be that calm relationships feel uncomfortable and feel boring. If you are used to unhealthy love, sometimes healthy love can be equally, if not more, challenging because you have to adapt to a new way of communicating, a new way of problem solving, and your Love isn't constantly being proven through the resolution of conflict. So you have to create that conflict to feel the same excitement or anxiety that you're used to. Individuals with an insecure attachment style, of course, are more drawn to this, see this happening more often, and might unconsciously, unconsciously gravitate towards drama because it mirrors familiar patterns of attention and connection from earlier life, from your childhood. Even if those patterns, you know, they are unhealthy. There's another phenomena attached to this, something that I actually talked about in my book quite a lot. It's called repetition compulsion. Repetition compulsion is a psychological pattern whereby we unconsciously recreate familiar emotional experiences from our past, often ones that are chaotic or painful, in an attempt to gain control or resolution, in an attempt to gain mastery, to break the internal cycle. In relationships, of course, this looks like gravitating towards partnerships who bring up drama, who bring up instability. Not because we want to suffer, but because it mirrors a very comfortable emotional landscape. And we say to ourselves, if I can make it out this time, if I can fix this, if I can bring this under my control, if we can make it work, well, then that means that in all these other situations, it wasn't my fault. In all these other situations, it wasn't me. It can be this unconscious effort to get it right this time, to finally receive the love, validation, stability that we were denied before. Before. The irony, of course, being that instead of healing, we end up stuck in cycles that actually repeat and deepen the original wound. So we pick fights, we go hot and cold. We even think about doing things like flirting with someone else or cheating on our partner. It's a way to feel seen. It's a way to get attention, because attention feels like love. It's a way to. What we think is, build intimacy through conflict, because we think that intimacy is born from volatility. This really connects to this very interesting concept called the drama triangle. It's a concept from something called transactional analysis, which is a psychological model essentially developed to describe destructive relationship patterns. And how it goes is that the triangle outlines three roles. Three roles that people unconsciously adopt in conflict. The victim, who feels power flawless and seeks rescue. The rescuer, who tries to fix others and fix their problems. And the persecutor who criticizes or controls to feel superior. These roles are fluid, and people often shift between them within the same interaction. A chaos addict, though, might constantly find themselves in one of these roles, perpetuating drama. The average person, hopefully isn't in the triangle at all, but. But if you're addicted to chaos. You may find yourself creating situations where you need to be rescued. You may find yourself in situations where you are allowed to rescue someone else, where you get to be the problem solver. You may find yourself stirring the pot. It is a way of being constantly engaged, constantly relevant, even if the engagement comes from negative interactions. There is of course a cost to this conflict. Resolution might create a big dopamine hit. It might make you feel like you've won and you've pushed through some issue. But perpetual drama will erode trust and intimacy 100% of the time. Partners and friends, they love you, they care about you. They also hopefully care about themselves and may get tired of that emotional rollercoaster. They might also feel like they're being used as, I guess, props in your personal drama. They're exhausted. They're in a constant state of crisis themselves. Research on relationship dynamics consistently shows that stable, secure relationships, they thrive on predictability, they thrive on emot or safety, not constant upheaval. And genuine connection really does require that we are calm and regulated and that we can co regulate together. So if there's a constant urge to find chaos and to find drama, that's not going to necessarily compute or fit. That's the consequence for relationships. An addiction to chaos will also obviously impact things like our career. This is massive for our 20s. We are often juggling multiple roles, immense pressure, a glorified need to seem busy. How many of us secretly thrive in that environment where there is a last minute deadline? You procrastinate, you let the pressure build, maybe because of perfectionism, then you pull out an all nighter and you do something brilliant. This is called an urgency addiction. If you find that you can only really get stuff done at the last minute or under a crunch, it may be because you have become reliant on this adrenaline rush. You've become reliant on stress hormones to motivate you. It does actually lead to a false sense of productivity because you feel busy and you feel rushed and you feel exhilarated. Even though you're not actually being necessarily efficient or productive. You're not strategically moving forward, but you are fueled by the thrill. This is a classic example of procrastination cycles being reinforced by the relief of completion, even if the overall process is inefficient, efficient and stressful. Research by psychologists who are studying chronic procrastination consistently shows that the short term relief can overshadow the long term costs. And let's be real, in a world that is praising hustle culture and Praising the grind. It is easy to mistake exhaustion for effort and constant, very high level urgency and activity for actual progression. But what are you actually doing to your body? Busyness is such a status symbol. You're always over scheduling, you never have downtime. You're jumping from one project to the next. And so you may conflate being overwhelmed with being important, with being valuable, with being interesting. It's like a badge of honor. And I've done it. I've done it so many times. I was so guilty of this in university. People would want to hang out and I'd be like, oh no, I'm so busy, I'm so busy. Like I've never been busier. I've, I've just constantly got all these things on my plate. And it was this weird thing where eventually I had to ask myself, what do I have to prove? What do I have to prove to these people by allowing them to assume that I am, you know, I don't know. By allowing them to assume that I've constantly got things on, by letting them assume or believe that I am the busiest person in any room. What am I trying to prove? I'm trying to prove that I'm important. I'm trying to prove that I can work hard. That's really what this is. The most obvious cost of this all is, of course, burnout. Constantly operating in a high stress, high adrenaline mode is unsustainable. Your body is designed for short bursts of stress, not a stress marathon. Chronic stress of this kind will elevate cortisol levels. That will create sleep problems, a weakened immune system. You will get sick more easily, Digestive issues, increased anxiety, even an increased risk of depression. You feel perpetually exhausted. You feel irritable, you feel disconnected. Even if you think you're okay, even if you think you haven't really had enough, you don't deserve to be burnt out. Your body doesn't care if you feel like you deserve to be burnt out. If you're burnt out, you're burnt out and you're going to feel terrible. And there's no ignoring that. Your body will adapt for as long as possible and then it will collapse. And as soon as you feel a little bit better, you might feel the instinct to push again and then you'll collapse. And can you see what kind of toll this takes on you? You're not a machine where we can go out and buy another part. I can't go out and buy a new battery for my body. I can't go out and buy a new System of organs that are going to sustain me if I keep putting them under such immense pressure that they collapse. You have to ask yourself, what is your love for chaos costing you in the long run? If you're in your 20s right now, it can feel like you could keep going forever. You can't. One day you will feel the toll and you'll look back and be like, why was I so busy? What was that all for? We also have to consider, my lovely listeners, whether it might this whole thing might actually be a sophisticated form of avoidance and looking away from something deeper. Let's have that conversation for a second. The avoidance of stillness and introspection is massive for people in their 20s. We are often grappling with very big questions. Who am I? What do I want? Am I good enough? What is the meaning of all this? What is my future going to be like? These questions really do require quiet reflection and sometimes sitting with really uncomfortable existential feelings. Because that's how we figure out what we believe in and that's how we integrate hard thoughts, hard things, hard truths into our life. If you're asking big questions like what is the meaning of all this? And you really don't have even a single answer and it's getting louder and louder and louder and you don't know where to start. Chaos provides a brilliant, noisy distraction. Research on avoidance highlights how people often engage in these kinds of excessive, harmful behaviors to escape unwanted internal experiences, even if those behaviors are of course, ultimately unhelpful, the negative consequence of living in chaos, and feels less significant than the negative consequence of internal chaos that is probably taking over. Because once we stop spinning and rushing, you might look around and be like, oh my God, look at this big pile of crap that I have to deal with. This anxiety, this self doubt, this loneliness, this unresolved trauma. This is so uncomfortable. What if I just run back into the fire? What if I just find another problem that takes priority? Then I won't have to think about it. Recognizing those deeper roots is the first step towards breaking free. Congratulations. If you have done it, you're not a bad person for thriving in chaos. You're not a bad person for the things that you have done previously to avoid hard thoughts. But it is time that we shift away from this deeply ingrained pattern. Because you are meant to be present for life. You are meant to want to strive towards things. You will realize that that life does feel easier at a lower frequency. With that in mind, we are going to take a short break, but when we return, I have five tips Just five tips for you to master chaos in your life and turn your pursuit of irregularity and chaos into the pursuit of a regulated nervous system. Internal harmony, inner peace, whatever you want to call it. Stay with us. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love about backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed hey, it's Ryan.
- [31:50]
Ryan Seacrest
Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway, now through June 24. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like Dove ice cream bars, Chips Ahoy cookies, Arrowhead bottled water and Charmin bath tissue. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [32:18]
Dexter Thomas
Are there any pictures of you online? I'm not just talking about Google. I'm talking anywhere.
- [32:23]
Unknown Guest
Clear View scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.
- [32:29]
Dexter Thomas
That database is now being used by police departments all across across the country to match criminal suspect photos. And sometimes it makes mistakes.
- [32:36]
Unknown Guest
So in this one case, two of the search results that I think were in the top 10 of the search results were Michael Jordan, just a picture of Michael Jordan, but cops are still.
- [32:45]
Dexter Thomas
Using it to make arrests.
- [32:46]
Unknown Guest
Police, they are trusting this software to lead them to the right suspect. But you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.
- [32:56]
Dexter Thomas
This is not Minority Report. This is happening, happening right now. People are getting arrested and doing actual time in jail after being picked out by a computer. I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, where every Wednesday we explain the right now of living in the future. You can turn off the computer, but do not let the computer turn you off. Listen to Kill Switch in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:19]
Unknown Guest
OpenAI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry where we're breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts Wherever you happen to get your podcasts.
- [33:49]
Unknown Host
Our goal here is not to become a Zen Master Suddenly overnight change never works that way. Our brains don't work that way. It time to build a habit even longer to undo an impulse like our attraction to chaos that has probably been around for some time. It is a worthwhile investment. What we're going to talk about is cultivating awareness, making some really conscious small choices, and just gently, persistently rewiring those ingrained patterns. Here are a few actionable thoughts, things I really want you to consider and maybe even try this week, drawing on all the psychology that we've already talked about today. Firstly, I need you to figure out your personal chaos triggers and what you're actually getting out of it. You might ask yourself the following questions. When do I feel most alive? During calm moments or in a crisis? Where did that come from? What situations or people consistently create drama or stress in my life? Does that stress actually leave me feeling good? Do I ever feel uncomfortable when things are going smoothly? What do I do in those moments or don't do in those moments that I should be doing? What role do I usually play in conflict? Am I the fixer? The victim? The instigator? Where do I sit in the triangle? What reward do I get from chaos? Is it attention? Adrenaline? Control? Distraction? What emotion do I avoid by staying busy, overwhelmed, or in a crisis mode? If peace felt safe and felt rewarding, what would my life actually look like? What would I be able to avoid? What do I need to change to get there? All of this is about mapping your specific chaos cycle and style. And once you do that, you will have a much clearer idea of what you're actually battling next. And this is probably the toughest one, especially if you are wired for intensity, is that you have to try stillness as an alternative. I'm going to challenge you to ignore constant noise, constant stimulation. Don't just immediately put on music when you feel overwhelmed. Don't just watch TV as you make dinner don't just go on your phone immediately after you have a bad thought. Don't try and find things that are chaotic to be interested in. Just give yourself tiny moments where you are allowed to just hold heavy emotions in your hands almost when you're allowed to just experience them for a tiny pocket and then move on. Sit, breathe. Your brain is going to scream at you for stimulation. You will feel restless. You maybe will feel anxious. This is just your nervous system which is used to being on high alert, reacting to an unfamiliar calm. But persist, even if it's just for five minutes, because that is training your brain. It is endurance training for your mind. Five minutes might feel impossible. Do one minute today, two minutes tomorrow, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. You'll start to build a tolerance for stillness. You might even, dare I say it, start to find that those profound insights that you have been avoiding actually are helpful. You might actually like feeling peaceful. It's basically like trying to teach your inner alarm system that not every quiet moment is a sign of impending doom. And that actually a calm, peaceful, still easygoing, low frequency life is incredibly fulfilling and fun. You know, going to the library and having a cup of tea and going to bed at 9pm, it's not all that bad. It's actually very, very fun. There's still room for you to do like the high energy, high frequency things. But if you're finding that you're using them as a distraction, how can you bring in the alternatives every now and again? How can you provide evidence to yourself that the alternative isn't really as bad as you're thinking that it is? If you feel addicted to chaos as well, chances are that you might not have the strongest boundaries, either with others or with yourself. Chaos thrives where boundaries are permeable. So another element to this is about drawing clear lines in the sand and honoring your no. When someone asks you to do something before just making space or before just permitting them to do it or getting you involved, ask yourself, do I actually want this? Is this actually going to make my day, my week, my life better? When you go to gossip, when you go to engage in drama, when you go to start a fight, when you go to fill up your calendar, Remember, you are what you consume, including the conversations, the social media content, the energy of others. You are what you choose to engage in and what is around you. Is that what you want to be? Is that a healthy energy source? If you constantly feel like your energy is off, if you constantly feel irritated, agitated, what are you saying yes to in life? That is creating this that is having a domino effect on your everyday mood and sense of self. What are you engaging in? What chaos are you allowing? Because you want to stay friends with people you shouldn't, because you can't set boundaries with yourself, because you can't turn away from what is taking from you, think of boundaries as your personal firewall against the constant influx of external chaos. They're not walls to push people away. They're basically like property lines that protect your precious energy, your time, your mental peace. It's a proactive step, really. Getting to know what you do and don't enjoy and why you feel called to do the things you don't enjoy is incredibly important because you're sending a message yourself that says my peace is my priority, even if sometimes peaceful feels boring. As we've spoken about, a huge part of why chaos is so addictive is the amazing feeling we get after the chaotic or stressful period is over. So we also need to create new pathways for dopamine hits from proactive preventative wins. Instead of waiting for a fire to put out to try and anticipate and address potential problems and feel relief then. So we're going to be breaking down our tasks into smaller manageable steps. We're going to be celebrating each small completion. We are going to be planning our weeks. We are going to be feeling a sense of pride when we meal prep, when we do things that make our life easier. When you call yourself out, when you schedule your downtime first, then fill in the tasks. This shifts you from being a reactive, chaos driven individual to a proactive, intentional one. It also allows us to tap into delayed gratification, which is probably the most useful concept in this episode. It's also probably something that you are missing. When we're chasing urgency, we often live in a short term gratification loop. There is an issue resolution is delayed till the last moment, meaning we get instant gratification. But turning your sights to something that will take you longer, like an assignment or a project that you start early and work on slowly, or like rewiring your communication approach to foster a healthy relationship and gives you a stronger, more powerful sense of accomplishment after the fact than if you are just tapping into these short wins. It's so so so much more rewarding. It's like choosing the healthy option over the junk food. Instant gratification junk food. Not always that bad, but not going to make you feel great if you consume it all the time. Long term gratification is something that nourishes you. It's More rewarding because it taps into intrinsic satisfaction rather than just a dopamine hit. When you engage in something over time, whether building a healthy relationship or healing a pattern, or showing up consistently for a project, the payoff isn't just the outcome. It's the identity shift that happened along the way. Because you start to see yourself as someone who is capable, intentional, grounded. That builds self trust. You are not just good in a crisis, you are good all the time. Finally, something that really occurred to me just then and when talking about this, and even when I was writing about it, is that chaos is everywhere. Life will never be short of chaotic, stressful, pressurized moments. Your life can change at any moment. You don't need to be looking out for it or creating it yourself. It will find you, I promise. It will find you in changing circumstances and unexpected challenges, in just the unpredictable nature of being alive. The external world will always present you with a dose of inevitable turmoil. You don't need to worry about life not being exciting, Trust me. You don't need to create the exciting moments. And if that's really what's going on, if you're exploding your life because you're bored, crashing out isn't going to solve a deeper internal dissatisfaction. You need to be having more planned, novel experiences, planning things that are intentionally fun. Getting out of your suburb or your town, challenging yourself instead of waiting to blow up your life every three months when you feel unsettled, settled. What we're really changing here is the reliance on dopamine. From the resolution of an avoidable crisis to a desire for a deeper, soulful state of enjoyment. Long term reward, a calm emotional environment. That's going to mean that when exciting things happen, we can appreciate them rather than feeling like they are going to destroy our sense of self and just set us in a tizzy. It's hard work. Work. It's worth it. So as we wrap up today, I want to leave you with this thought. The chaos in your life, the rush, the constant doing. It might feel like living, but sometimes true living is found in stillness. It is found in intentional moments, in the quiet progress, in just a sense of peace. The more mature you get, the more you will realize how desirable that is. Your 20s are a time of immense, immense building and immense excitement. There's always going to be some fire to put out. Don't create more fires for yourself. The pursuit of peace, if you start it now, will create such a better long term mental state and environment for you. So that you're not 30, 40, doing the same things. I really hope that you did enjoy this episode. I hope you know that I'm coming from a place of acceptance. I was was once this person. I probably still am. And also just an understanding that if you love chaos, if you love drama or excitement, sometimes that's just how you're wired. That doesn't always mean that it's an excuse, and it doesn't always mean that you can't do anything about it. Hopefully these tips have inspired you to just take small little steps. I'm not saying you need to submit yourself to a regular routine life from now until you die. I'm just saying leave space for stillness. Hopefully these tips and just this conversation has encouraged you to see what the alternative might be. Thank you so much for listening. If you have made it this far. Thank you for being such a solid listener. Leave a little pasta emoji down below if you have made it this far. Just for whatever reason, leave one down below so I know that you have made it to the end of the episode. And thank you for sticking around. Make sure you are following me on Instagram at that psychology podcast and that you are also following us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you are listening, leave a five star review. Share this episode with a friend. Maybe even share it on Instagram if you want it to reach other people or you think that other people in their 20s or beyond would get something out of it. Make sure as well that you listen to my new podcast mantra. It will be linked in the episode description. And until next time, stay safe. Be kind, be gentle to yourself. Embrace peace and stillness. Please. We will talk very, very soon. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love about plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed hey, it's Ryan.
- [47:01]
Ryan Seacrest
Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 24th. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like Dove Ice Cream Bars, Chips Ahoy Cookies, Arrowhead Bottled Water and Charmin Bath Tissue then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [47:29]
Dexter Thomas
Are there any pictures of you online? Then you could already be in a massive police database without even knowing it.
- [47:35]
Unknown Guest
Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.
- [47:40]
Dexter Thomas
I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, a podcast about how long living in the future is affecting us. Right now.
- [47:46]
Unknown Guest
Police, they are trusting the software with this magical ability to lead them to the right suspect.
- [47:52]
Dexter Thomas
In this episode, we dive into how cops are using AI and facial recognition and sometimes getting it wrong and putting innocent people behind bars.
- [48:00]
Unknown Guest
So if your accuser is this algorithm, but you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.
- [48:08]
Dexter Thomas
Listen to Kills Switch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [48:15]
Unknown Guest
OpenAI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm gonna tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry where we're breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also gonna be talking with the greatest minds in the industry industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you happen to get your podcasts.
- [48:45]
Unknown Host
This is an iHeart podcast.