Thought Blocking for Better Sleep; Beware Reconnecting with Your First Love; Benefits of a Big Booty; The Rise of the Relationship Contract; The Yawning Psychopath Test

Transcript

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Oh, it's the sound of the podcast. Oh yeah, John Tesh with Gib Gerard, and we are ready to podcast you with the stuff. I just had one of Connie's meatballs and so like, Okay, let's get rid of that. I want to talk about a lot of stuff here, Gib and see what you think thought blocking is the first thing. I had not heard of this. And it's a it's a sleep piece. If you want better sleep, you you just have to master the art of this thought blocking. It comes from one of our favorites.

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It's a term that sleep specialist Dr Christopher winter uses for turning the negative thoughts that tend to keep you awakened to positive thoughts and help you find solutions, or at least make you feel less stressed. I did a long interview with Dr winter. He's a great guy, really, really smart. He just, he's a neuroscientist. He just, he just studies his it, and it's, it's wild, because you and I have talked about this before on the coaching call, where, if you don't get your sleep right, it all falls it all falls apart.

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Your metabolism is shot. Your hormones are shot. If your sleep is wrong, you're you're wrong. I find that when I can't sleep, you know, in addition to the low energy and bad food cravings and the not being motivated to work out and not being able to focus all that stuff, I just, you know, my big thing is, is exactly what this piece is talking about, which is I start to ruminate, and it creates this cycle of not being able to see it. Because then I ruminate about not sleeping. I start to think, Okay. I start to think about, you know, issues in my life, and then those issues in my life turn into, now, I'm worried that I'm not gonna get enough sleep. And I watch the clock tick over and it goes from, it goes from like 11 to midnight and go, Okay, I can get a solid six hours, and then midnight turns to two, and I go, Okay, I could, I could just get the four hours. And then, you know you're just I keep thinking about how much sleep I could possibly get, and before you know it, I'm exhausted, and I know you're a mess. I know I don't have insomnia all the time, but I have it sometime.

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Well, this is for you, and I've got ever since, okay, now it's my turn. Ever since I had all those surgeries when I beat cancer, I got all my organs are like in different places. And so I wake up every hour and, you know, and my body has figured it out. So I wake up every hour and pee, and then I go back sleep. I wake up every hour and go another hour, that kind of stuff. So, TMI, anyway, so Dr winters says, and then I'll turn you loose here. This thought blocking thing is especially useful for people who say they just can't fall asleep because they can't, like you said, can't turn off their brain, yep. So a lot of times, people become so obsessed with trying to fall asleep that their thoughts create stress and that keeps them awake. Yep. Dr, winter says, if you have an active mind in bed, stop stressing about it.

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Oh, great. Don't think about pink elephants.

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Embrace it next time. Ah, okay, here we go. So he says, focus on how comfortable you feel laying in bed, and think about all the things you have to be grateful for, and then try turning any negative thought that crosses your mind into something positive. So he says, instead of thinking I'm so stressed about the project that's due at work tomorrow. Think this, I wonder what else I can do to make that project better before I turn it in tomorrow. Dr, winter says positivity. He says, the less we actually think about falling asleep by actively practicing thought blocking, the more success we'll have with falling and and staying asleep. What else works for me, as you and I talked about this before, is listening to a boring book on tape.

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Yeah. Except I just don't have the I don't have the bandwidth to find boring books. I end up getting into those books. But I think this kind of underscores something that we tend to do, which is, when you're when you try not to think about something, it's impossible to not think about it. And this is a good technique for any kind of anxiety that you're feeling, not just around sleep, where you acknowledge the thought, even if it's an anxiety inducing thought, you have to be present with it. You can't just fight it off. If you try to just fight it off, you're you're going to be you're going to create more stress in your body. And it doesn't actually work. So I love this idea. You embrace the thought, you think, you ruminate about how you're going to make the situation better become solution oriented, as opposed to just doom and gloom, thinking about things that are issues.

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Yeah. And, you know, I looked at to the the data of the last like 20 podcasts that we've done, and there are three of them that have big, big sleep pieces in there, and those are the ones that are the most popular, the most downloaded, nobody's sleeping because nobody's Yeah, nobody's sleeping. The other thing that we've talked about before on the radio show, Dr winter didn't talk about it this time, that that I really love doing, and I started getting getting regular with this is, is I keep a piece of paper, or even a journal, little, a little, and I write down the things that I'm worried about. You know, I can't compartmentalize. I think you're pretty good at that, actually.

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But I if I'm negotiating a contract or something, or if I'm worried about finances or whatever it is, I will, I'll just ruminate like crazy. But if I write it down and I write three solutions, then I'll go to sleep.

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So you're just thought blocking, but on paper, which is, I think, even more effective. Different because you are physically releasing it from your brain.

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For me, that works with to do lists, it works with all kinds of stuff. To physically write something down, makes a huge impact on my ability to process.

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So let's move on to this psychologist, Jeff singer from Connecticut College. He has studied first loves, okay, and he poses the rhetorical question, you know, what is it about our first love? And as soon as I said that, everybody just thought about their first love, right? What is it that sticks with us, sometimes forever? And he says, Jeff singer says it's the air of innocence that surrounds our memories. It's he is. He says, rekindling an old flame and reconnecting with the first love is just intoxicating. Being with them or hearing from them, brings us right back to a time when life was good. You weren't damaged or jaded by love, and neither were they. You didn't have the emotional baggage that you carry with you from your years of failed relationships and struggles. Wow. So being with the first love, he says, feels pure again. This is from studying dozens and dozens of couples. It's why he says it can be so strong and we have stronger memories of our experiences between the ages of 15 and 26 because our brains, the psychologist says, are gelling and solidifying, and what we remember tends to be more positive. So he says it's fine to reconnect with an old flame. If you're single, if you're in a relationship, don't even think about don't even look at them. I know some people who have done this have ruined their relationships, right? They've ruined their marriages because they they were reaching out to their to their first love. I feel this way about like music I listened to when I was that age where i i Even if I've moved on and my musical tastes have changed. I go back and listen to those bands with a much different level of nostalgia.

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But every time we do these first love like high school sweetheart pieces, I think back, and I have I've run into, I've run into the My most serious high school girlfriend. We have the same pediatrician. I remember. We've run into her on vacation, and I and look, I think she's great. I have no ill will towards her, but there's no part of me that's like, Oh man, what if I don't think about that at all? And I hear about all these people who do, and I it sounds, it sounds exhausting, and I understand that there's a there's, I don't know what it is. I don't know why this doesn't I don't feel anything like this when when I see her, but I know you still hold on to resentment from some of your breakups when you were in high school, middle school, well, I was, you know, I, I had some gnarly friends in Garden City who I would go start going out with a girl. And my, you know, more handsome buddy would be like, you know, thinking, wow, she's, she's cute, and I got to know her because of Johnny. Let me just steal her. And that happened to me a couple of times. That's awful. It is.

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That's not the first love though.

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That's your terrible friends. I mean, it's, it's average, both of them takes two to tango, but at the same time, like, geez Louise, I'm very busy playing, playing music and studying so you didn't have, actually, you didn't date as many people. Yeah. I mean, you got married. How old you got married? 23 No, 24 Oh. So much different. So much different.

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Your face was crazy. Now, what are you talking about? Are you crazy? Yeah. So, yeah, okay, yeah. So, I mean, like, I think that's a big part of it too, right? As a it wasn't that long after my first big relationship that I met I married your mom when I was 39 Okay, okay, so psychologist Nancy Kalisch interviewed 1000 people who had at least one face to face encounter with the first love while they were married. Of these people, to your point, Gib, a shocking. 82% of them had extramarital affairs with their only 2% that's incredible. Half went so far as to divorce their current spouse for their former love. Dr Kayla's advice is predictable. Just don't go there. Just don't, just don't I, it's not even the my it's not even a temptation. But I this is, I mean, I know, I know at least one that I'm thinking of right now that where this has happened, where, you know, it was rekindling with a high school sweetheart and left her spouse for for for the boyfriend. And it's, I mean, it's, yeah, it it tears people apart. It's, it's so it just don't do it. Don't have that coffee. You think it's coffee.

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It's still, don't do the coffee.

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If you, if you won't bring your husband with you, or you won't bring your wife with you? Don't do the coffee. Yeah, absolutely. All right, next, we're going to talk about big butts.

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Okay, sir, makes a lot.

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It's basically, it is the why the location of body fat on our body so. So the question is, how often do you feel stumped by finding a response to this question, Does my butt look fat?

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From now on, you should say this, no, it doesn't look fat.

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It looks awesomely healthy, because a new study in the Journal of Obesity, can write this down if you want, folks found that people who carry extra weight around their hips, thighs and backside are significantly less likely to develop chronic health issues, including heart disease and diabetes in. Cancer compared to people who carry extra weight around their belly. This is why we make this distinction all the time between belly fat and overall BMI, according to the Mayo Clinic, lower body fat traps harmful fatty particles and prevents cardiovascular disease. My oncologist told me this.

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Remember fetus logo, fetus that's a guy, that's a doctor.

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It also increases certain hormone levels that have anti inflammatory, anti diabetic and vascular protecting properties.

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It's amazing. Those big muscles just gobble up glucose. Yes, so I mean, again, lower body mass is is fine. It's when the it's when you have extra weight that you're carrying in your midsection, where you're putting pressure on your organs. We call it visceral fat, or belly fat.

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That is, that's the one that's really unhealthy. So some people, some people, genetically, just carry their weight, like the, for me, the last bit of weight that I lose if I'm really on a cut, meaning I'm really eating lean and I'm trying to get my body fat percentage down, like, maybe a, maybe I'm in a movie, and I gotta, I gotta, you know, take my shirt off or something. I the last place that I lose fat is in my lower belly, right? That's just, it always is there. But there's other people where that's the last place that they gain weight, and it's all in their hips and thighs. And that's, that's, it turns out, it's just a, it's a genetic anomaly, but you're better off and you're going to be healthier if that's where you gain your weight. For the rest of us, for those of us that gain the belly we gotta, we have to be more, you know, focused on making making sure we don't have that extra little bit of weight. So the wrap up from Mayo Clinic is for those people worrying about their curvy backside and whether it makes them fat, this study shows your body shape is a sign of a healthy brain and a resistance to chronic disease. It's also very trendy and popular to have that now. I mean, ever since Sir Mix A Lot, you know, song in the 90s or late 80s, early 90s, you know, Baby Got Back. It's, it's been very popular, and the Kardashians have only increased the popularity. Yeah. Okay, no comment. No, I just thought plenty of comment. But it's just like, do I want to send us down a wormhole that I just I can't get out of? You know? All right, let's talk about about relationships. Because this is interesting. More couples are now signing relationship contracts. So more and more couples are are doing this. The contract, uh, lays out everything from rules on public displays of affection, fighting styles that are off limits and personal quirks. Couples who sign a relationship contract say the contracts encourage boundary, setting, fair, fighting that's good and compromise. Sure. Therapists say they love these contracts. They love these contracts. They say they good for couples because they lay the groundwork for a healthy relationship by setting expectations. So listen to licensed marriage counselor Lisa Thomas. She says, quote, negotiating difficult situations up front before they become a big, big problem is what these contracts are great for 100% but I not to quote Mitch Hedberg, but there's no need to bring ink and paper into this.

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You could just have the conversation. You don't necessarily need to write it down and sign a contract, but at least if you have a form contract to sign where it's like, hey, you know, I watched my when my mom and dad argued.

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They both, and I know you had this experience, they would just shut down, and they would completely ignore each other for the next, like, two months, right? And seeing that I can't, I can't handle that kind of passive aggressiveness. So, you know, taking that and making it off limits, making certain comments off limits, I think that is absolutely the sign of preparing yourself for healthy conflict. Because any healthy relationship is going to have conflict. The difference between the relationships that last the ones that don't, is how you manage that conflict in a healthy way. And I think this sets the groundwork for doing that. And it can be as granular as you want. It can be like, you know, you do the dishes at least three times a week. You you buy the groceries at least once a week, all that kind of stuff.

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You know, if I was going to do one of these contracts with, with, with my wife, Connie, oh, don't even open that can of worms. Too late now, 33 years of marriage.

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I think what I would, I think what I would say is, when we're having it, when we're having a we're bickering, you the words you always cannot, Oh, yeah. So I think, I don't think she would sign that.

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No, there's no way you're getting that, yeah, she always will never say, yeah, it's you ladies are so hard to figure out. You just, you just really are. But we'll write it down in a contract, yeah? Write it down in a contract. Good luck with that.

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Yeah, how that goes? As always, this stuff looks great on paper, yeah, but there's always a, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like, the Olympics, right? And so it's like, what? Okay, you watch diving, yeah. And it's like, okay, so, oh, this guy just did this diving. He was, it was, he didn't make a splash. It was amazing. But what was the difficulty factor of that? Die sure it wasn't good enough. So he's not gonna get a high enough score, right? But if he had like, four flips and then a back. Back thing and then a twist, yep, but he he popped up a little more water. The difficulty factor is going to give him a better a better score, sure. So in relate, you're like, Where the heck is he going? I have an idea. Go ahead. Oh, I think you're going to say that just being married to an Italian increases your difficulty factor. So even when you guys have conflict, you're still getting more points exactly because that's a big splash.

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I should not even appear on this show. You could just say, John would say, All right, what's next? Okay, let's do, let's do something about how to how to tell if your partner is a psycho. Oh, great, yeah. I just sort of jumped into that, since we're talking about relationship, yeah, there's a new study in the Journal of Personality and Individual differences. They said there's an easy way to tell simply yawn when your partner is around, or if it could be a date, whatever.

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So yawning is socially contagious, as we all know, when we see somebody yawn, we feel compelled to yawn too. It's a form of empathy that shows we're on the same wavelength. And the closer you are to somebody emotionally, the more likely you are to yawn when they yawn. In fact, you could your dog will yawn when you yawn. So according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Individual differences, as I mentioned, people with psychopathic traits your boyfriend are less likely to catch somebody's yawn.

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Unbelievable for the study, here we go. Researchers at Baylor University exposed people to a situation that was designed to get them to yawn. Not know what that would be. They found that people who tested higher on the psychopath scale were much less likely to yawn in response to other people yawning. What does it mean if somebody is a psychopath?

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Tell me about the lambs, Clarice.

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They dated you in high school.

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Thanks.

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It means they may be deceptive, narcissistic, unable to form strong emotional bonds with others, and don't ever feel guilty, and because they don't have an emotional connection to others, they don't yawn in response to somebody else's y'all, so you gotta walk around faking a yawn.

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Okay, so there's everybody in a relationship right now is thinking about how they're gonna yawn kind of subtly around their partner when they see each other tonight. This is a useful barometer. And then you see people going, but look, the whole point of this is that we naturally mimic the behavior of the people around us, and we can't help but do that if we are empathetically connected to them. And so a signal that you are less empathetically connected to them is that you are not, in fact, yawning. It makes sense. I just, I just want to, if you try this tonight and your boyfriend or girlfriend does not yawn, it's not, it's not license for you to call the police or start looking for, you know, knives or old driver's license for people who've gone missing in their soccer gaffer tape. Yeah. It does not necessarily mean that they're a psychopathic murderer, you know, but it does mean that maybe, maybe look for other signals as well. It's a good, it's a good jumping off point. Do not let this be the only test. That's it. I'm breaking up. You didn't yawn, yeah.

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I, you know, we got some great comments on the on the podcast.

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I'm sure that after this, it's we're gonna get Dear John. And this will be from Rena, an old girlfriend, dear John. Love my kidneys. I loved your, yeah, oh gosh, I got your I listened to your podcast. I love the thing about yawning and psychopaths.

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So I've noticed lately that my boyfriend, this is not a real email, guys, I noticed that my boyfriend is yawning and he's just sold his Mustang for a white van, or he's not yawning and just got an unmarked white van. Yeah.

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I mean, again, again. There's a lot of red flags in your in this email that you're talking about this hypothetical email, let the yawning thing just be the starting point for a conversation, not the reason to break up.

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So some guy, you know, he's like, he's pulled an all liner studying, you know, in college, he yawns, and all of a sudden, the girl just runs out of the room and it first dates. What's going on? You yawn? Okay, anyway, all right. I think that's, I think that's enough.

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I need to yawn. Alright, though, that's it for the podcast. John Tesch or Gib Gerard, please don't forget to subscribe to send this to your friends. We would, we'd love for our podcast to be as popular as what, as popular as this game. We wanted to be as popular as as chicken nuggets.

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That's what we want. Oh, okay, you realize how popular chicken nuggets are, yeah, right, especially with the with the crowd my kids hang out with, yeah. What is your favorite? I guess I'm ending the show. Well, what's your favorite fast food?

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Oh, I like Taco Bell, right?

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I love Taco Bell. Taco was like my favorite. We just finished a show, yes, and it's late tonight and I'm coming home, but my favorite fast food is going to be like, I like to get in and out with the with the protein style, because I just get that meat. And I'm so happy. Yeah, we'll see you next time. Okay.

Thought Blocking for Better Sleep; Beware Reconnecting with Your First Love; Benefits of a Big Booty; The Rise of the Relationship Contract; The Yawning Psychopath Test

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