Can Anxiety Be a Super-Power? Science Says Yes…ish. | Dr. Wendy Suzuki [best of]

Most of us treat anxiety as a malfunction to be fixed or medicated away, and the neuroscience points somewhere stranger. There is a narrow band, a razor’s edge, where the same emotion stops running you and starts fueling you.

Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at NYU and the incoming Dean of its College of Arts and Science, a leading authority on neuroplasticity, and the author of Good Anxiety and Healthy Brain, Happy Life. Her TED Talk on exercise and the brain has been viewed more than 55 million times. What makes this one land is that she doesn’t teach anxiety from the outside. She has lived with social anxiety since she was a kid at birthday parties, still feels it walking into a cocktail party, and built her science around it.

In this Best Of conversation, you’ll explore:

If you’ve spent years trying to get rid of the feeling, this is an invitation to stop fighting it and start setting the volume.

You can find Dr. Wendy at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

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photo credit: Matt Simpkins Photography

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Episode Transcript:

Wendy Suzuki – FOR LINDSEY.mp3

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:00] So almost everyone treats anxiety as a malfunction, something to silence or white knuckle through. But the emotion may be doing exactly what it evolved to do. And the real challenge isn’t that we feel it. It’s the volume it exists at and our inability to transform it into fuel by turning that volume down and then harnessing the energy behind it. So how do we do that is where we’re headed today. Our guide is acclaimed neuroscientist doctor Wendy Suzuki, professor of neuroscience and psychology at NYU, Dean of the College of Arts and Science, and author of Good Anxiety. So in this conversation, you’ll discover the half of your nervous system almost nobody talks about, and the single lever that you can consciously pull to switch it on, especially in the face of anxiety. You’ll hear what to do in the morning after a 3 a.m. anxiety spiral that turns worry into forward motion, why ten minutes of walking works and the timing detail that really matters. And the surprising thing, your oldest, most embarrassing form of anxiety has been training you to do for other people. So excited to share this best of conversation with you. I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. And we’ll jump in right after this short break.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:21] If you’ve had this really fascinating focus on anxiety and what happens in the brain, how that affects us, and you make a really provocative claim. Also in your recent book, Good Anxiety, which is that this thing that something like 90% of people experience and want nothing but to never experience it at all, can in fact, explore differently, be turned into something of a superpower. Now I want to dive into that. But before we get there, let’s just actually talk about the word anxiety and the phenomenon of anxiety, because I think there’s a lot of ambiguity around it. So when when we’re talking about anxiety, what are we actually talking about?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:02:03] Yeah. So here’s something that it’s really a huge take home message that the emotion of anxiety is not a disease. It is a normal human emotion. Every single human experiences emotion. I don’t know how many people have come up to me and said, oh, I have emotion, I have anxiety, I have it, oh no, well, that just means you’re human. And, um, I, the premise of the book starts with is that evolutionarily, the emotion, the normal human emotion of anxiety and that underlying physiological stress response that comes with it. You know what it feels like? Sweaty palms, butterflies in your stomach, uh, heightened heart rate, uh, sweats all over. Um, that evolved to protect us from danger. Okay. Oh, that sounds good. I want to be protected from danger. And so how did it work? Well, it was obvious 2.5 million years ago when a new mom was walking around with her little baby trying to gather food, and she hears the crack of a twig. And that could be the meaning, you know, the difference between life and death, the crack of a twig. And what does she feel? And what is that? Is that is that is that a raccoon or is that a big mountain lion? And so her body physiologically, like our bodies got her ready to either fight the, uh, the bad animal or run away. And that is why we are here today. And so people can usually say, okay, I get that. That sounds good. I buy that, but still, I’m not feeling protected. One itsy bitsy little bit from my anxiety. And the answer is no, we’re not. None or very few of us are because the volume of our anxiety is turned up way high. So we’re not quite at that. It’s actually quite a razor’s edge of the level of anxiety where you can get the positive energy, where you can get that protection. And so a big part of the book, Good Anxiety, is about providing science based approaches to turn the volume down, not to get rid of it. Again, it’s normal human emotion, but to start to turn it down and we can start from there.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:20] Got it. So I want to go a little bit deeper into this. So you draw a connection between this state of anxiety, this feeling of unease, of discomfort. Yeah. And what you described without using the the phrase as what I’ve often heard as the fight or flight response, or I guess every few years they add a word to it, fight, flight or freeze, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It seems to be expanding indefinitely at this point. But there is this there is something that happens in our nervous system. Yeah. That literally creates the feeling of psychological and physical unease. Tell me a little bit more about that pathway. I’m curious how that works. And then how does that actually connect to this thing we call anxiety?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:05:01] Yeah, that’s a great question. So that physiological pathway is again an ancient pathway. We know its components. Um this is the autonomic nervous system, our natural kind of on one hand there’s the fight or flight response. And on the other hand, uh, thank goodness there’s the natural rest and digest part of our nervous system that nobody ever talks about. We’re going to get to that in a second. So you asked me about fight or flight that is controlled by part of the nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. It is controlled in our central nervous system by cells in the hypothalamus, but those cells connect to a wide range of different body areas that control why your stomach starts to feel funny. That actually stops your digestion, why your heart rate goes up, why your Respiration goes up. So the hypothalamus is connecting to all of those respiration cardiac centers. It’s connecting to the part of the nervous system that controls digestion. And that is what’s happening also controlling blood flow. So what happens in fight or flight is that all your blood is going from your digestion and reproductive organs. Because when a line is chasing you, you don’t have time to ovulate. Sorry, no time for that. You need to run. And so all that blood goes to your muscles to be able to do that.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:06:22] And what goes with that? Running, fighting, increased heart rate, get the get that blood pumping into those muscles. Increased respiration. Your pupils dilate because you need to see lots of different things. And that’s what we all experience in this in this state of anxiety. You asked the relationship between anxiety and fight or flight. So so, um, anxiety is triggered by, uh, lots of different things. Every individual knows their triggers for anxiety better than I do. I know my own very well, and these are outside experiences that sometimes have been developed over years and years and years. I happen to have. I still have a slight fear of a cocktail party. Like, what am I going to say? Oh God, what am I going to say? Um, and so that, that just, you know, invitation to cocktail party could trigger this. Um, it’s, it’s cognitive anxiety because I know that that cocktail parties can be anxiety provoking for me. I start to feel that anxiety and that that is, uh, naturally projected to the hypothalamus that starts to, uh, start all of these fight or flight, you know, my stomach starts to feel funny and I start to sweat. So, so, um, those are the kind of steps that typically take place, but I want to come back to the other half of this autonomic nervous system. Half of it is the fight or flight system.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:07:48] But every single one of us has another part of the nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system, or rest and digest part of the nervous system. And this is the part of the nervous system that naturally, in an appropriate situation, not when the lions coming at me, but oh, it is Saturday afternoon. I don’t have to do anything until Monday morning. And so what is this part of the nervous system do in this environment? Oh, it slows my heart rate down. It slows my respiration. My pupils are not dilated anymore. It’s like, oh, I’m going to lay down and, and watch Netflix for a while. And blood can rush back to our digestion and reproductive organs because that’s what we can do in, in times of relaxation, we can eat, we can digest, we can have sex, all of that. It’s it’s an ancient system. And a lot of what I talk about is a book in the book is reminding people that you have this system. And we have we know there are known ways to activate that system. So what if you start to kind of work on your activation of your own parasympathetic rest and digest system, and as a natural way to turn that volume down on your fight or flight on your anxiety responses?

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:02] Yeah. So I mean, it’s interesting also because of the way you’re describing it, you know, I think most people experience anxiety as a, a psychological or an emotional state without really realizing that it’s a physiological state. Also, we tend to feel physically uneasy. I know when I’m anxious, you know that old phrase? Well, I feel it in my gut. I very it’s not just a phrase like I actually feel my stomach like clamping down. I feel my muscles tighten up. I feel like my shoulders rise up to my ears a little bit. This is, you know, I think it’s interesting because I think we think it’s it’s something that we experience in our head. But but it’s, it is a full body phenomenon.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:09:42] It is absolutely, Absolutely. And everybody experiences it in slightly different ways. More stomach, you know, butterflies or more sweating, but it’s all part of the same system and all controlled by the same parts of our, our nervous system. But you’re absolutely right. It’s a full body kind of response to these environments. And remember, this is a protective response. You’re anxious about things that are important to you, your work, this project that’s coming up, your relationship with your family, with your boyfriend, with your girlfriend, um, money issues, these are all things that are, are very important to you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:23] That makes so much sense to me. I often think about anxiety as I think a lot of people I’ve had a conversation like basically they say, well, like as uncertainty increases, that’s what leads to anxiety. And I don’t think that’s actually it for me. It’s more about uncertainty plus stakes if I have a high level of uncertainty, but the stakes are really low, I’m fine. Yeah, absolutely. It’s like, what you just. If I’m reading a book and I have no idea how it’s going to end. Yeah, fine. Yeah. I’m good. But if I’m the protagonist in the book, going through some harrowing thing and the stakes are life or death, like, yeah, it’s it’s not so much the uncertainty alone. It’s the uncertainty plus increasing stakes, which makes me really curious about you mentioned before you walk into a cocktail party and maybe you get a little bit. And certainly so many of us have that experience. You know, I would I would probably raise my hand and say I’m a highly sensitive person. And on the introverted side of the social spectrum, I walk into that room and I feel the same thing. To this day, what’s going on there then? Because I could walk into a room where I really don’t care all that much about this particular experience, and yet still even thinking about it, I will feel my body start to move into that state when we talk about social anxiety. Is this in some way different?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:11:36] I don’t think about it as different. Um, because, uh, I talk about that a lot in my book because it is my oldest form of anxiety. And, um, I do personally link it to, um, my deep, deeper desire, um, not to do well or to be the most popular one at the cocktail party, but to my, um, valuing of the, the relationships and the friendships that I have, which are, you know, the most precious things really in my life. Part of this is historical. So maybe, you know, you don’t care about these people at the party, but you’ve been worried. And, and part of that is the memory that I get this feeling when I go to cocktail parties, and it doesn’t really matter. I always have had this since I was a little kid going to the birthday parties. Right. Uh, it it becomes part of our personal histories and our, sometimes our memories are good when we, even when we don’t want them to be good in that way. And part of that is, is the memories coming up. But to get back to the core of at least my social anxiety, it is this deep desire to connect and the fear that, oh, maybe, maybe it won’t happen. Maybe maybe I won’t, you know, expand my, my, not, not the superficial friendships, but, but the deep ones that I really, truly care about. And, um, that is true. I’ve always had this kind of fear of not having that strong friendship network. And so it comes out in these situations where, you know, you can, you do have the possibility of, of making friends and connecting with people. It’s a demonstration of something that I really, truly care about. And that’s kind of easier to, to interpret in my own behavior. So I see that as, as very similar to many other forms of, of anxiety.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:38] Yeah. I remember having a conversation with Ellen Hendrickson a couple of years back. And, and as we’re talking, realizing that I had created a coping strategy for those situations without even realizing it, that made me feel at ease, which is that if I was at a at a dinner party, at a friend’s house, I would find myself in the kitchen almost invariably helping out. I like I assigned myself the helper role. Yes. And then it was like I had a job to do. Right. And that was like. So my primary job was no longer socializing. It was actually like helping out and socializing just kind of happened around that. Right. It was an interesting hack around this. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So when we experience anxiety and these days, I think people certainly know the feeling of having not just a single point where it’s coming from, but it’s coming from all, you know, it’s coming from health concerns, it’s coming from the pandemic, it’s coming from social, it’s generalized, it’s job concerns. Its is the experience of this similar to like stacking um, one on top of the other on top of the other on top of the other. Like, is there a compound effect when we have multiple contributors?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:14:48] Absolutely, absolutely. Just gets gets worse and worse. And there’s a feeling of drowning that comes, you know, I just can’t get a, I can’t get to a stable, a stable place, which is why having those mechanisms that work for you, I, I talk about as many as I could pull together from the science articles because I know not all of them work for everybody, but, um, but some of them one or, you know, a handful will work for everybody in this, in this set of examples that I provide and I’m a big proponent of self-experimentation. I happen to be a scientist, so I know how to experiment, you know, officially as a with my scientist hat on. But I’ve spent years and years experimenting on myself systematically looking at will I do it? Let’s say I find that, you know, marathon running is so great for something in my life. Well, that’s too bad because I’m not going to marathon run. I don’t I don’t like running. I know myself that well, but I do love in terms of things, um, fun things that I do around anxiety. I call my funniest friend. I went to high school with her. She always makes me laugh uproariously.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:16:03] And, uh, all it takes is a quick phone call. Okay, I just, I need something funny. Say something funny. Noreen. And, uh, that’s a good one. Netflix specials of of stand up comedians love that. I mean, I don’t know how many stand up specials I watched over the pandemic. They, they got me through late night, late night comedians love them. All those things find those things that that bring joy, that make you feel good. Exercise is one I’ve, I studied and I do a lot as well. It’s not all sweat and work related things. Um, breath meditation, meditation and mindfulness, um, are also very, very powerful. I’ve been working with a wonderful breath meditation teacher and has been showing me all these different breath approaches, ancient approaches. That’s not just for calming. Some are calming, some are energizing, some like it’s just wide range of different patterns that are so fun to learn about. And, and I like that. So I, you know, I glom on to that, but it may be different for you. So, so get comfortable with a little bit of exploration, but use the techniques that have been shown, you know, from with scientific approaches to be effective.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:24] Yeah. And I do want to dive into some of those techniques in more detail. But before we get there, yeah, I think we need to bridge this gap. So we’ve been talking about anxiety, what it is, how it affects us, how it stacks up on us and how we feel it. And, and a lot of that is like, this is just like explaining why we feel so bad when we feel this thing called anxiety. Mhm. But then your, your invitation is to say two things. One, that anxiety experienced at a certain level actually comes with a myriad of benefits. And then how do we get to that place where like at the, at a certain level where we actually can experience those benefits? Yeah. So I want to dive into what some of those benefits are right now, because I think a lot of people listening to this are probably saying, I cannot imagine how you could tell me this thing that I like. All I want to do is not feel it right. Actually has a whole bunch of benefits. Yeah. Let’s explore some of these. One of the things that you talk about is anxiety. One of the benefits is actually increased motivation. Yes. How does this work?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:18:19] The word that I like to use for this particular superpower of git or gift of anxiety is productivity. Did you ever because I love using that word because usually people think, oh, anxiety just shut me down. I can’t, you know, I’m, I’m done for, for the rest of the day. But it comes from the idea that the anxiety that we’ve been talking about since the beginning of this podcast is really a form of energy. It’s a form of activation energy. Because again, remember evolutionarily, it’s getting you ready to do something. You’re going to fight the line, you’re going to run away. That is energy. It’s cognitive energy. It’s physical energy. It’s like, oh, well, that could be, I could kind of start to see how that could be good. So here is how the superpower of productivity works. So this, um, uses a very, very common form of anxiety that most of us have, which is the what if list. It strikes us at different parts of the day and for different, you know, projects like, oh, what if I, what if I didn’t send that email and it wasn’t written in the right way or I didn’t send it the right person or, you know, all these, what if, um, it happens to hit me. Still to this day, right before I’m going to try and go to sleep and I. Sleep is coming and oh God, I just remember all the what ifs. And so here is it. And that is your anxiety, you know, rearing its head. So here is how to transform that. For me the next morning, I don’t do it at night because I still try and fall asleep. But the next morning I can still remember all those things that that woke me up for that for that moment.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:19:54] Each one of those, I write those down. Note none of them are about watching Netflix or similar things. They’re all about important things that you need to or you want to do. And after each one of those what ifs that you write down, you put an action on it, you do something about it. You ask somebody, you reread your email, you rewrite your email, you ask five people to rewrite it for you. You put an action on it. I must give credit where credit is due. This gift came from a lawyer that I met at a birthday party who, when told that I was writing a book on anxiety, she said, ooh, I’m a high paid lawyer, that I am New York City lawyer because of my anxiety. And this is the approach that she told me about. And I I’ve since hired her, actually, because she is a great lawyer and I’ve given her credit for, you know, you, you created the first superpower that I always tell everybody because it’s so easy to grasp. And literally everybody out there, your your call to action is do this anxiety hack today, turn your what if list into a to do list. Do it and see what that does for both the the feeling of anxiety because it should go down putting in action on those worries rather than just sitting there. It’s like, oh God, what’s going to happen? But doing something for it helps relieve that anxiety. And I find it so powerful. It’s doable. It’s understandable. And so I’m glad you started with that one.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:26] Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting to me also the way that you sort of like you say, it’s almost like the alchemy part here, you know, like you’re transmuting it from anxiety into actually output, right? Yes. Um, but it also occurs to me, as you’re saying this, you know, that anxiety is largely it’s an anticipatory experience. I think this might, this negative thing might happen. Yes. Um, and by doing it, you effectively take yourself out of the future tense and put you into the present moment where you’re actually just, you’re making the thing that you’re concerned happen, or at least you’re testing your hypothesis in real time. And once you can respond to actually like fact and doing, it makes it harder to then spin about the future because now you have sort of like your current experience to counterbalance it. Does that make sense?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:22:10] Yeah, it absolutely does. Ten minutes of walking will decrease your anxiety levels. Did you know that that is my, my, my biggest tip of anti anxiety tools. Ten minutes of walking. You don’t even have to change into your sneakers. Just just walk with whatever shoes you have on that will turn it down.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:29] One of the other benefits that you talk about is increased creativity. And again, this feels so counterintuitive to me. And, and I’m wondering as I’m thinking about some of the other benefits, I don’t want to talk to you about some of them as well. If part of the counterintuitive part is that when we are at a state of maximum anxiety, none of this feels accessible to us. But it sounds like what you’re saying is, if we use some of these other tools that you talk about, we can sort of downregulate the level of anxiety to this more manageable level. And once we’re at that space where we’re not on complete overwhelm, right? That is sort of like this. There’s like a sweet spot where there’s a lot of benefit that comes from it. So before we even get into creativity, is that assumption, right?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:23:15] Yes, you, you hit it on the head. It’s, it’s exactly right. There is this combo of learning how to turn it down. Being able to step back a little bit. And that is a really important key. Creativity. And it is counterintuitive because anxiety kind of nixes usual creativity flow is gone. Sorry, no flow, no creativity for you. Um, but, but again, if you have some of these techniques, and here’s the other thing that people don’t realize they’re there. It’s like, oh God, what anxiety is going to come come at me today? Well, I think you can predict, uh, 80 to 95% of your anxiety because you, you know, our lives are not that uncertain. We know this person gives us anxiety. We know that situation gives us anxiety. They’ve given us anxiety for years, or at least several times before. So we can predict what that is. And so in a moment where you’re not in heightened anxiety, here’s where it becomes a wonderful tool to test your creativity. This just comes from, you know, typical approaches to diffusing difficult situations are, are there more than one way to approach this person or interact with this person that always gives you anxiety? I mean, just, just, just the name of the person will, will spark anxiety. Well, are there, are there other approaches? Maybe you approach them with another person. You put a third person in there to help buffer that. Maybe you prep that conversation in a different way. Maybe you get a lot of information about that person’s opinion so that, that, you know, more difficult kind of confrontations are minimized because you know, much more and you hadn’t bothered to prep some meeting or encounter before.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:25:09] Lots of different ways that, you know, 100 different ways. And so you start to get good at, oh, actually, maybe there are ten different ways that I’m not doing to do this. And you start to go through it, and then you start to learn what works better, what works worse. Maybe you’ll find one that works worse, that that happens sometimes too. But then you know, never to do that. But you start to get this more systematic, um, approach to your own anxiety. Coming back to this concept of self-experimentation and what are you doing? You are being very creative in coming up with different. That is very hard to do because we are creatures of habit. We, we go into these situations, you know, I think of conversations with parents, uh, our longest relationship, except for the relationship with ourselves. And I’m always a little 13 year old girl when I go into that conversation with my mom, I don’t know what’s going on. Well, maybe I come to that conversation as a 50 something year old adult and see, what would I say if this wasn’t my mother? But it was, you know, just a another person that I’m having conversation with that that is a creative kind of exercise that everybody can do. But guess what? It helps our situations of anxiety. And the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:24] Yeah. So when you’re talking about creativity, it sounds like I’m making a translation to problem solving in novel or different innovative ways. You also make this interesting distinction in sort of like under creative models or creative processing models between spontaneous and deliberate. And, and, and I think I’ve heard different language for this, you know, like Danny Kahneman’s system one, system two or in the creative domain, you know, the impulsive or intuitive or analytical or rational versus intuitive. Are these all sort of like different names for a similar phenomenon, or are you talking about something really distinct?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:26:59] These are different styles of creativity. It’s yeah, they’re all creativity, but there are well-described different styles where, where, you know, one is more maybe I’ll call it touchy feely, where you just go in and be open and just see what comes out. And you have no plan and others very, very systematic and come with a set of tools to help create whatever piece they’re going to do. But I do see them as quite different. And I like that they’re different because people’s minds work in a different way, and it lets more people kind of glom on to a way to approach a problem with creativity.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:42] Right. So what then does what happens in the brain? Assuming that we’ve got anxiety down to this manageable, you know, like it’s there, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s not controlling us, but it’s there. What makes the brain function differently than in a creative aspect than it would without it? That makes it better at this process of creativity when you’re slightly anxious.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:28:04] Yeah. So, you know, a couple of things that I tried to emphasize in, in, in the book. One is that, uh, People with what I call everyday anxiety. Not not the clinical kind, but the kind that everybody has have more of an opportunity to practice this kind of creativity, to get around and to get through their forms of anxiety. And for me, practice makes perfect more opportunities to practice. This craft of creativity around my own forms of anxiety makes you better and better. Um, so that’s one way where creativity is enhanced. The other way is kind of the example that I always start with, because I do a lot of public speaking and I for a long time, even though even before I wrote this book and I kind of articulated it more, even in my own mind, I knew that the best talks that I ever gave were those talks where I was a little bit nervous, sometimes more than a little bit scared like I there was one talk I gave and I talk about it in the book I talk. I was at Olympic Stadium in in Moscow, Russia, and my talk was being translated from my English into Russian. So I was worried that all my jokes would not be funny at all in Russian and that they wouldn’t like me.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:29:23] And. And also, I was scared because in this stage, every speaker that came on, they had these fireworks that went off in the front of the stage. I’m like, oh my God, you know what? I’ve never had fireworks on the stage before I came on. And, um, so I, I was, I was really nervous, but, uh, I give her, I, I used that energy. Remember I talked about the idea that that fight or flight is cognitive energy. It’s physical energy. I used it, I was walking around the stage, I had a drummer that come out. So I made everybody stand up and move and, and I just used that energy. But that energy came from my fear and my anxiety about nobody’s going to like my talk, and they’re not going to understand it when it’s translated into Russian. And so that’s, that’s the other reason why, um, at the right level, I’m not talking about debilitating anxiety. Right. If I got it to the right level, I knew my talk, I knew what I was going to say, I was ready, I was just scared. And that helped boost it gave me this little booster shot of of energy. And that was one of the best talks I’ve ever given.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:32] Yeah. And I’ve had that same experience speaking before. And in fact, at this point I almost get concerned if I’m, you know, like in the green room or backstage before I’m about to speak and I don’t feel anything because it’s almost like I’m wondering what’s going on here, you know, and maybe that’s the state where you’re supposed to aspire to be or just feel like completely at peace and calm and you walk out there and you’re good. Yeah. But I’ve always felt like you described that, that just very, very low level of anxiety or even fear. It’s like, it’s, it, it also is, it’s an energetic potential.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:31:06] It is.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:07] You know, that you bring with you out to the experience, and that I feel it internally. It just lifts me a little bit more. And I feel like those, whether it’s, you know, a, a giant stadium or a theater or a boardroom or just, you know, like a couple of people that others feel that, um, you know, it’s perceivable. So motivation, um, creativity, you know, one of the other things I thought was kind of fascinating is you make this link between this sort of like manageable anxiety state and decision making. Because again, this is counterintuitive because I think a lot of people feel like, and I think the counterintuitive part that we keep going back to is people just immediately say anxiety is bad because the only way that they associate being in an anxious state is when it’s at its peak. And that is can be like very dysfunctional. Yeah. But when we just keep reminding people like, no, actually, if you can dial it down to a manageable level, it has this benefit or potential benefit. You know, certainly when I’m super anxious, my decision making goes out the window. But if I’m kind of on edge a little bit and I’m anxious, I’m really not sure how things are going to end. You’re saying that there’s a potential benefit in the quality of your decision making there as well?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:32:18] Yeah, absolutely. And it goes back to this idea of heightened energy. You know, one of the things that happens classically in a classic, you know, physical danger, fight or flight. And people have heard stories about, you know, the mother in a burning, uh, burning building will, will spot her child and go right there, pick her up. You know, uh, pick up a ten ton thing and rescue her child. Why? Because senses are heightened. And that’s also what happens. Your your your physical, your, your, you know, vision, your, your attention can be heightened again, not in debilitating anxiety, but in anxiety where you’re able to channel that that energy And that is that is the extreme example of. Okay, so maybe going into a burning building wasn’t the best decision, but saving your child is, is the ultimate decision that that, you know, you make is the positive decision for a parent. And so there is a lot of benefit to, again, channeling your own anxiety and learning at what level that is that is useful. I often come back to this example of everybody can understand the difference of energy of Saturday afternoon laying on the couch just watching Netflix because you don’t have anything else to do versus, you know, in the middle of a, of a busy, busy work week. And I want to have that level of anxiety and kind of vision about what’s going on when I make my important decisions, if I’m too relaxed, too nonchalant, I’m not confident in my in my decision making. So it it comes back to that, that level of energy activation and channeling that to help you make the best decisions. And this is a razor’s edge too, because too high anxiety and your decision making processes and your prefrontal cortex stop working. Well, that has been shown from neuroscience studies, but at, at, at this razor’s edge area that we’ve been kind of circling all, all the conversation, that decision making process can be better because all your senses are heightened, your energy is focused on this and that. That is very helpful for decision making.

Jonathan Fields: [00:34:47] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Some of the other benefits that you talk about performance benefits, which is kind of referenced, you know, it’s really a lot of it is about harnessing this excess energy in a way that puts it to work, that actually makes us operate at a higher level. And we keep circling around this term, like sort of like, how do we but how do we not get down to that level? What is that razor’s edge? How do we get it down so that we have this feeling, but it’s manageable. And you’ve talked about a couple of these things. One exercise, and as you shared earlier, ten minutes a day is enough. And I think a lot of people would hear you say that and kind of be like, really ten minutes a day.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:35:31] I wouldn’t say ten minutes a day. Ten minutes of walking immediately after will decrease your levels of anxiety. So you might have five anxiety provoking things. Got it. Then I would recommend that you walk for ten minutes, five times before those anxiety provoking things, or right after those anxiety provoking things to decrease that anxiety level. Because I study the effects of exercise. Everybody just wants to know how little exercise they need to do to get any of these benefits. So finally, I have this answer. So it’s not ten minutes a day to solve all your problems. It is. Ten minutes has been shown to turn that volume down. So use that in your life because it’s doable. You don’t have to go to the gym and just dress up in spandex. So so that is that is the take home that people, people should have. And the other thing is, is breathwork, meditation very, very helpful immediately. I mean, here are two things I’ve just told you. They’re both free and they both have immediate benefits on your, your exercise and, and both of them, you can find over 100 free videos on YouTube to, to give you an example of, well, you don’t need an example of how to walk, but breathwork would benefit from a little bit of guidance. And there’s so many to choose from. So those are that’s why I start with those two.

Jonathan Fields: [00:36:48] Yeah. And I love that. I love the fact that it’s sort of like widely accessible to a lot of people. Um, and even if exercising, even if you have mobility challenges, breathwork, you know, like we all actually have to breathe all day, every day to sustain ourselves. So in some way, shape or form, you know, it is an extraordinary level of accessibility. I was first exposed to breathwork over two decades ago when I became involved in the world of yoga, actually in New York City. I owned a yoga studio for seven years and taught yoga and meditation and pranayama, you know?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:37:17] Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:18] And I was blown away in the early days because there was really it’s sort of like you feel this way, here’s a way of breathing that will help bring you back to baseline or help you as you describe. Some of it is very calming. Some of it is very enervating. Yeah. You know, like there’s like a couple of breathing in yoga is a style of breathing where, you know, you literally feel like you’re vibrating after it. Yeah. Which would not necessarily be the thing you want to do if you’re really anxious.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:37:45] Right.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:46] But what is the pathway between breathing and being able to sort of downregulate this experience of anxiety?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:37:54] Yeah. So, you know, um, The way I describe it is that going back to that parasympathetic nervous system, that natural rest and digest. So what happens is when we our bodies recognize this, oh, this is a relaxation time, nothing, nothing on the calendar. And it will naturally just in situations of danger that fight or flight takes over. Well, in situations of relaxation, rest and digest will slow your heart rate down slow and deepen your respiration, and then start to bring blood from your muscles towards your digestion and reproductive organs. And the wonderful thing there is, while I cannot control my heart rate where it’s higher or lower, I can’t control where my blood is as it’s in my muscles or is it in my stomach? I can’t, as you know, yoga teacher, I can control my breath very, very precisely. And with the slow and deep breathing that all breath meditation, you know, um, practices offer for that relaxation breath that is basically mimicking and, and helping to stimulate that parasympathetic mode of activation. And that’s the only way we have to do it kind of consciously. I can’t do it with my heart rate, I can’t do it. But it’s a really powerful when you think about it that way, at least me, the physiology nerd, I get really excited. Like, thank goodness we have a conscious way to break in to that system because that is, that is what we’re doing. We’re not doing that with with exercise, with exercise, we are stimulating the release of neurotransmitters that help decrease anxiety. Dopamine is going up. Serotonin is going up in that ten minute walk. Very different pathway for the breathwork. You are stimulating, you are stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and getting all of that to kind of kick in. And so another very powerful way.

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:53] Yeah, I love that. Um, there’s a third way that is pretty much free for everybody also that you explore. And that has certainly been a practice of mine pretty much daily for over a dozen years now, which is mindfulness or meditation. Yes. Um, and it’s interesting because this is one of a lot of people, if you say go for a walk for ten minutes, if you’re feeling anxious, sure, raise my hand. I can do, I can figure out how to do that. Yeah. You know, if you’re like, okay, so take long, gentle, slow, extended exhales for a couple of minutes after I can do that. Mhm. So do a mindfulness meditation. The vast majority of people like you’re giving me anxiety by telling me to do this thing that I kind of feel like I am absolutely going to be a failure at. Talk to me a little bit about this.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:40:36] Yeah. Mindfulness meditation. Well, meditation is such a wide range breath. Meditation, as you know, is the oldest form of meditation. So I focus on that breath meditation and it’s linked to the parasympathetic system. But other forms of meditation have also been shown in scientific studies to significantly decrease anxiety levels. And this is mindfulness meditation. It’s not all it can include breath a little bit, but it is about the neuroscientists in me thinks that thinks about it like working your prefrontal cortex. Can you build more muscle in your prefrontal cortex to be able to say, you know what, I am just going to focus on how my breath feels as it’s going into my nose and out of my nose. And yes, I will have thoughts that come through like, what’s my next appointment? What time is it? But I will, I will let those thoughts go by because I am really trying to focus on this. And, and it takes like anything else, um, it takes a little practice and, um, like everything else, it’s very similar to exercise. You know, people also have motivation. Okay. They could walk for ten minutes, but you know, more aerobic things are challenging.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:41:52] And the trick is. And I’m sure you’ll agree. Start small. Don’t go to the our meditation class. Don’t go to the 30 minute meditation class, try it for 30s and then build up from there and you start to realize that, oh, actually, I can do it. Oh, actually that 45 seconds didn’t seem like 45 seconds. And it’s little by little, step by step, but it is learning to focus where you want to focus. And that is the tool that you can use to then apply when you have huge anxiety. Oh my God, I got a weird email from my boss in the middle of the night that says they want to meet with me first thing in the morning. Ah, um, can I focus on something else? Can I focus on what I want to find out from this meeting, how that meeting is going to go out, rather than focusing on the fear that is the outcome of the practice of mindfulness meditation. It is using your your ability to control where you are focusing and making decisions about that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:43:03] Yeah. So it’s not yet another pathway, you know, like exercise is one pathway. Um, breathing is one pathway. Mindfulness is another pathway, which are different ways in like, as you were talking about, like someone’s going to feel better for some people and some not so much. Um, I know mindfulness for me has been a, a huge game changer in my ability to sort of manage it. One of the other things that you talk about, which I loved is, um, music. So I was a club DJ in a very, very past life and in college and, and so I was behind turntables at a club until three in the morning in my own world for four hours. And no matter how bad my day was, no matter how freaked out it was no matter if I was coming into finals, no matter what was going like, how anxious I was in my life. Yeah. Um, when I was just immersed with music that I loved. Yeah. Um, and to this day, you know, it is such a powerful intervention for me. Yeah. Um, talk to me more about music and how this actually works in the context of countering anxiety.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:44:09] Sure. So music we know is a powerful, um, generator of positive emotions. Of course, if you choose the right music, it could also be be a source of anxiety if you choose the wrong kind of music. But, you know, people have studied. A colleague at Montreal Neurological Institute, Robert Sartori, who’s an expert on the neurophysiology of music, did an experiment that I love, which is he asked his subjects in an fMRI brain imaging experiment to come in with that piece of music for them. That gave them positive goosebumps every time they listen to it. Everybody has one. It can range from, you know, punk rock to Bach. Everything in between. Everybody will have a different one. And he imaged their brains when they were listening to that music that did that for them. And what did he find? A very similar network, despite the different music choices, a very similar network of reward related brain areas that get activated. With that telling us that music is a wonderful reward, uh, generating, kind of evoking, um, stimulus. So you were basically rewarding your brain for all those four hours that you were DJing. And that’s, that’s why people, you know, spend so much time finding their, uh, and curating their own playlists. It is a form of self-care. It is a form of, uh, providing self joy because we are, we’re visual animals, but we’re also auditory animals. And, and the music business is such that they’ve found these ways to, you know, worm into our reward system and make us feel really good. And, um, luckily it’s neither illegal or it’s a little bit addicting in a positive way, but it’s a perfectly healthy way to increase joy and decrease anxiety at the same time.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:03] The one other thing I want to ask you about before we come full circle is, um, in terms of, again, under the category of things that let us just kind of like get to more of a manageable state is the notion of like altruism playing into your experience of anxiety.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:46:17] Yeah, yeah. So that is my favorite superpower that comes from anxiety. I call it the superpower of empathy. And I really kind of came about and discovered this superpower thinking about my own as we’ve been discussing my own old anxiety of social anxiety and this form of social anxiety that, that I think about still a lot is the social anxiety of raising your hand in the classroom and asking a question. And I had years and years of anxiety. Oh, I wanted to ask a question, but maybe if I say something stupid, everybody will think I’m stupid. Everybody thinks that. And so it took me many years to realize that everybody thinks that and I should just ask the question. But now I’m at the front of the classroom and, um, I realized that those years and years and years of struggle and, and, you know, dealing with that gave me a superpower of teaching, which is I know there’s ten times as many questions out there than are actually people raising their hands. And so I really try and go out there and answer questions and get them to ask me things.

Wendy Suzuki: [00:47:22] You know, one on one rather than, um, in front of the classroom. And, um, it really did become, I realized that my own anxiety, social anxiety for asking questions became a superpower of empathy. Now that’s just not for me. It’s for every single person. Because what you can do, and this is your second call to action here, is to think about your most common form of anxiety. You know what it feels like. You know what it looks like. You know the situations where it comes up. And likely so many other people are having that same form of anxiety, even though their mask is saying, hey, I’m cool. No problem. Well, if you notice that and you, you notice somebody’s mask crack. All you have to do is reach out and say a kind word. And I love this one because it is a superpower of empathy and the act of compassion that comes from your own, your own deep understanding of your own anxiety. And I love it because I can’t think of anything that our world needs more today than higher levels of empathy, both for ourselves and for others.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:34] Mhm. I love that it feels like a good place for us to come full circle. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Wendy Suzuki: [00:48:43] Love yourself, love your life, and love others.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:48] Mm. Thank you. So let’s talk about some of the big takeaways. One thing I’m sitting with is Wendy’s razor’s edge. The idea that there’s a level of anxiety where the energy is still yours to use, and the work is getting down to that level rather than down to zero. Three other things that I’m holding on to. The what if list becomes a to do list. You write down the worries that woke you up at three in the morning, and you put one action next to each, then breath as the only part of that system that you consciously can reach. You can’t talk your heart rate down, but slow, deep breathing switches on rest and digest, and ten minutes of walking does the same work through a different door, right before or right after the hard thing. And also the superpower of empathy. The anxiety that you have carried long is the one you’re maybe a little embarrassed by is what lets you notice it cracking through somebody else’s mask. So for this week, tomorrow morning, maybe write down the three what ifs that were circling last night and put one small action next to each one. And hey, before you go, do me just a quick favor. Think of one person in your life who has been maybe white-knuckling their way through this stuff and send them this episode. And if you feel good, also, if this was valuable, go ahead and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. That’s it. It helps us get discovered and brings more people into the conversation. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help By, Troy Young, and Alejandro Ramirez. Kris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven’t already, go ahead and follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

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