Episode 193: How to Quickly and Easily Reduce Stress with Dr. Greg Hammer
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, where we dive deep into the topic of coping with stress and overwhelm. We are joined by Dr. Greg Hammer, a (recently retired) professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, a renowned mindfulness expert, and the author of the book “GAIN Without Pain”.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Understanding burnout, identifying the symptoms and recognizing when you’re experiencing it
Managing patience, self-regulation, and peace in collaborative parenting amidst daily stress and challenges
Dispelling myths about starting a regular wellness practice
Building resilience and finding peace through a quick mindfulness practice outside challenging parenting moments
Supporting children’s resilience and mindfulness without being pushy
Fostering acceptance and fairness without dismissing children's feelings
If you’re looking to connect with Dr. Hammer and learn more about his work, visit his website greghammermd.com, Facebook @drgreghammer, and Instagram @greghammermd.
Resources:
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about how to cope with stress and overwhelm with Doctor Greg Hammer. Doctor Greg Hammer is a recently retired professor of medicine at from Stanford University and he is an expert in mindfulness. I have his book here Gain Without Pain and in it, he teaches a really quick and approachable method for bringing more mindfulness into your everyday life and recovering from stress. And so I'm really excited to have Greg here on the show, Greg. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself? You know who you are, what you do and then we'll drive it, dive into talking a little bit about how we can cope more and recover from stress that most parents are experiencing.
Dr. Greg: Sure. Well, first of all, it's really great to be with you, Laura. So, you know, I'm grateful to be on your, your podcast. I grew up outside of Chicago. I was very interested in star gazing and planet gazing as a kid I had my telescope out at the end of my driveway offten when the skies were most clear in those winter months where it was often below zero. I was, I was worried my eye, my face was gonna stick to the eye piece of the telescope. And I followed that into, you know, my university years, but also got, became a vegetarian and got interested in nutritional science and ended up majoring in that and then going to medical school to kind of further my interest in human biology and nutrition. During medical school, you know, we do rotations in all the various specialties. And I found that I really felt a kinship to people that worked with children. It wasn't really my love for children, but I loved the practitioners in pediatrics. So I did a residency in pediatrics, fell in love with intensive care medicine, decided to do another residency in anesthesiology and then fellowships at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and pediatric intensive care and pediatric anesthesiology.
And I've been in Stanford for decades, just retired at the end of December doing pediatric cardiac anesthesiology and intensive care and research in in developmental pharmacology. And along the way, I got very interested in burnout in medicine. Stanford convened a group called Well MD to address the issue of burnout. I think Stanford is on the leading edge of many things and, and wellness being one of them. So I, I joined that group and, you know, it sort of took a deep dive into what is burnout. And what are some of the, what are the drivers of course, and what are potential remedies? And got asked to give a talk about that and then another talk and another talk and then I had some sabbatical time and by this time I was sort of refining what I thought were the real essentials of, of physical and mental and spiritual wellness. And how embracing various practices can really reduce stress and therefore burnout. Burnout is just the mental and physical fatigue we experience due to chronic stress and.
Laura: Okay, next I have a question about burnout.
Dr. Greg: Of course.
Laura: I feel like burnout is a buzzword that's having a moment out in the world. But I think it's something that humans have been experiencing for a long time. Right? Can you talk to us a little bit about what, like what burnout is, what it looks like and how to know if you're experiencing.
Dr. Greg: Sure. Well, you know, very interested in human physiology, including what we call the acute stress response. Tthe sort of fight or flight response which evolved in humans for a reason so that we could be physiologically better prepared to either stay and fight or flee when encountering an actual threat like from a predator or a foe. And this acute stress response is I is really an elegant way to prepare us to deal with that acute threat. Unfortunately, those physiologic changes associated with acute stress can become chronic. And unfortunately, acute stress itself actually is, is most commonly now triggered just by our thoughts. So it's not triggered by an actual threat we're not facing, a bear chasing us or somebody that wants to bite us. We're, we're thinking of something acutely stressful.
Like I'm walking down the hall and I'm gonna meet with my boss and I don't know why he or she wants to meet with me and I feel my heart rate go up and, and these other changes associated with stress. And I call resilience, Laura, the ability to neutralize the acute stress response when it is no longer adaptive. In other words, acute stress means an increase in adrenaline, an increase in cortisol in the blood. And those may serve a useful purpose acutely, but we don't want them elevated for very long once the threat subsides. And so our ability to neutralize that acute stress is called resilience. And if we're not sufficiently resilient, then that acute stress becomes chronic and that leads to burnout because chronic stress and there's a number of physiologic explanations and contributors to this, but it's exhausting, right?
Laura: Yes.
Dr. Greg: So you feel physically exhausted and we feel mentally exhausted too and that's from chronic stress and that's called burnout. And we, we kind of know when we are experiencing this, it's of course it's not a on or off switch or a yes or no or black and white. I mean, it's a, a matter of degree but, you know, often at work, many of us, sort of, by the end of the day we're getting a little bit, you know, our, our patience is bearing a little bit thin, let's say, and then when we start to get burned out that that happens earlier and earlier in the day, you know, so that sort of, I want to get out of here. I'm losing my patience. I'm getting a little short with my colleagues or what have you. That starts happening instead of five o'clock at three o'clock at one o'clock at eleven o'clock. And, you know, pretty soon we just show up at work and we're feeling like exhausted from it already.
Laura: Yes.
Dr. Greg: So, you know, that's sort of one manifestation, but there are many others as we experience at home with our spouse, with our kids, you know, our patience is, is getting less and less and less and, and we just feel that our heart rate rises and, and, you know, we feel not control, sort of flooded with emotion, which is really probably adrenaline and cortisol mediated.
Laura: Okay. So let me bring this home for my audience. So, so many of the people who are listening to this podcast are attempting to parent in a very different way than they were parented themselves. They're attempting to meet their children where they are, see their children's underlying needs. Understand that behavior is communication and really work collaboratively with their kids as opposed to using more traditional and punitive forms of parenting, that takes a huge amount of patience, it takes a huge amount of self regulation. And so as you were describing the person who at the office who's getting, you know, starting to lose their patience earlier and earlier in the day, that exact thing happens in the homes of so many parents that I work with and that listen to this podcast, not because they're doing anything wrong, but because their days are stressful.
So I'm kind of curious about what do we do then if we are starting to notice this about ourselves or we are just not like, you know, maybe we're not even getting super crispy by the end of the day where we're super short and short tempered, but we just want to not have to kind of white knuckle through it so much. We want to be able to be at peace, be calm, be present with our kids, even when they're having a hard time without it having to be so hard and so stressful. I really liked what you said too that a lot of our acute stress comes from our thoughts. I think that's going on a lot in the brain inside the brains and minds of parents. Oh, that was a long kind of roundabout question, well yes.
Dr. Greg: Absolutely. Well, you know. Yeah, I mean, you know, parenting is definitely stressful and um you know, I think first of all, Laura, our baseline level of stress just setting parenting aside for the moment is elevated compared to any other time in my life. I, you know, I just think the last few years have been incredibly stressful. Obviously COVID created a whole set of stressors and, you know, many of those persist now, even though there aren't so many sick and dying people all around us. But we also have this intense political divide and, you know, we just get less and less patient listening to what we hear on, on, on the news and in the published media, we also have just heart rendering things going on in the world.
Laura: Absolutely.
Dr. Greg: Heartbreaking things where innocent people are being injured and killed in Gaza and in Ukraine and, and elsewhere. And then we have social media related stressors that certainly affect our kids, but in many case ourselves as well, the stresses that affect our kids affect us, of course. So, you know, I, I, I, you know, I, I imagine that some teenagers are thinking, you know, should I wear a bulletproof vest to school today? Am I a boy or a girl? You know, I'm being bullied online. So there are so many stressors that I never even thought about when I was a child, teenager and, and when my kids were young. So I think our baseline level of stress is elevated to begin with and then you add the inevitable stressors of being a parent.
Laura: And I just say that it feels really good to have that validated. But, you know, I, I think that there's a, it's true that things that, you know, that humans have always had stress in their lives, but you're right. It is, it's a hard time to, to be doing this thing called living right now. And I think it probably feels really good for others to hear, hear you say that it's, it's valid, but there, there are a lot of stressors on our plate right now.
Dr. Greg: Yeah, for those of us that have been around for 60 years or so. You know, we do have that perspective and I, I do feel that this time is unlike any other in my lifetime. So we're talking about yes, parenting being stressful and, and parents experiencing acute and then chronic stress related in part to parenting. But I just think, you know, we're a lot, parents are a lot closer to the edge even before we start to consider all the factors related to parenting, right? And we all are. So I, yeah, it is validating. And you know, I think our brains are wired in ways that set us up for this. We have a negativity bias. We tend to hold on to negative thoughts and, and memories and, and dispense with the positive ones. And again, this is something that our brains are wired this way. So anyone who's listening, who thinks it's their dirty little secret that they're negative and maybe a little depressed and kind of get mired in all this negativity. No, we're all like that.
Okay. So we're all stressed. We all have a negativity bias. We are all obsessed unduly with thoughts of the past and the present. Excuse me, the past and the future in ways that are maladaptive. So we know that happiness and peace are in the present moment. So the good news is our brains have this wonderful quality as you know, called neuroplasticity. So though our brains are wired to be negative, distracted and stressed, we can change that. But they became, our brains became this way over millennia. We're not going to change them overnight. So we have to have reasonable expectations, but we can begin to rewire our brains. I deal with a daily practice. That's what the game practice is. And I think we have the ability to respond to acute stress with resilience and bring those acute stress responses back down to baseline rather quickly. And we can learn to do this and become more adept at it over time if we have a practice that uh we do on a regular basis.
Laura: Okay. So I think probably we've all heard that having a practice that we do on a regular basis is good for us. It also feels like for so many people that it's gonna be overwhelming that it's gonna be 20 minutes sitting on a cushion that they just don't have. The idea of getting started is, is just so much. Can you dispel some of those myths for us that can make it so hard to start?
Dr. Greg: Sure. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I wonder why we don't, we, we, we seem to be kind of reluctant Laura to do things that we know are good for us. Why is that?
Laura: I’m not sure.
Dr. Greg: Even if they don't take a lot of time, you know, I don't know whether that's, I mean, you're the psychologist and, I wonder whether sometimes it's that we feel we don't deserve to be happier. I don't know if that's correct, but that sort of resonates with me, but we do. That's again a negativity.
Laura: There's a worthiness problem for sure. Yeah.
Dr. Greg: Yeah. So we, we do deserve it and, and I think it is in a way our natural condition to be present and happy. We just kind of embraced layers and layers of other behaviors and thought processes and, and now we're kind of stuck with those. So, no, I think, let's just call it mindfulness practice. I, I, I don't really like that word. It's kind of a excessively used, but we might call it relaxation practice or distressing practice or just resilience. So there are ways to have a resilience practice that are, don't take any time at all. I'm gonna give you an example about how it's been scientifically shown and you probably are aware of additional literature, but scientifically shown that we can rewire our brains with a simple practice that really takes no time at all. And that is a practice called three good things. So this is I think an ongoing study out of Duke University where the short version is people sign up online, they take a quality of life survey and then they pledge to simply think of ideally journal and submit online. But even just thinking of three good things that happened during the day as they prepare to go to bed. So I'm fast forward, I'm going to sleep tonight. I'm thinking, wow, I met this really cool person. Laura, it's a beautiful day here in California. I've got my two little dogs. We had a great hike in the forest.
So thinking of three good things, at least that happened during the day as you prepare to go to bed at turning down the bed linens, whatever, no time involved. And what the investigators have found with these serial quality of life surveys is that just thinking of three good things before you go to sleep, helps you sleep better and leads to greater happiness. And you know, that's basically a gratitude practice and it's something that simple that really takes no time and then maybe repeating that in the morning,, which was not part of the study but, or doing a, you know, having a breathing practice where you just simply sit and focus on deepening and slowing the breath, maybe inhaling through the nose to a count of three and pausing to a count of three. And then slowly letting the breath go through the nose or mouth to account of four. And just doing that slow, deliberate breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve. And this is exactly counteracting and neutralizing the acute stress response, which is a sympathetic nervous system response that adrenaline and cortisol that get secreted during the acute stress response. When we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, we're, we're bringing those back down to baseline. We're, we're learning to let go of that stress response that results in these physiologic changes that are usually undesired that, that increase in adrenaline and cortisol.
So, just sitting and breathing deeply and deliberately for one minute, can actually be a way and, and then this practice becomes more accessible to you during the day. You're driving somebody changes from the right lane into our lane without using their turn signal, maybe a little bit close. We get the acute stress response and then we just a light bulb goes off. We recognize we're getting stressed, we just do slow, deliberate breathing and usually this will kind of bring us back down to baseline. We may realize we got stressed unnecessarily and get a little laugh to ourselves, get a little dopamine hit instead of that adrenaline cortisol hit. So just even having a, a very simple gratitude practice or a very simple breathing practice or, you know, something simple like the game practice, which is a three or four minute practice we do in the morning, gratitude, acceptance, intention, non judgment, contemplative 3 to 4 minute period, linked to slow, deep breathing. All these things can be embraced and, and help reduce stress.
Laura: I love that you're making it so accessible that you can do it in the car when you're experiencing a flash of road rage and that's beautiful. When we do a loving kindness, meditation in the, in the car, whenever somebody cuts me off or does something, you know, we wish them well on their way. I like doing that out loud with my kids so that they are, you know, used to hearing things like this. Okay so tell me you mentioned gain, I would really love to have you break that down a little bit. So you said it's a 3 to 4 minutes, you do it in the morning. What does that look like? Because 3 to 4 minutes feels accessible. That feels like something people can do.
Dr. Greg: Yeah. Well, you know, I, I used to tell my residents and fellows you know, just, you know, gonna do your gain meditation. I give them a copy of my book and say, you know, start with your set, your intention the night before or set your alarm clock three minutes earlier than you would otherwise. So, if you're gonna get up at 5:30 set your alarm for 5:27 if you're gonna go to bed at 10 o'clock, go to bed at 9:57. So you're setting your intention the night before. So you get up in the morning, open the blinds. Maybe there's light, which that blue lights sort of activating. It kicks off our circadian rhythm, wakes us up. Maybe it's still dark, but it's good to know that the outside world is still there. Do our morning hygiene thing and then find a comfortable place to sit,, and just close our eyes and begin this deep breathing practice slowly in through the nose to a count of three, pausing to a count of three, exhaling effortlessly and slowly to a count of four. If each one of those counts is one second, 3, 3 and four is 10 seconds.
So for each breathing cycle is 10 seconds, we're breathing six times a minute and this activates the vagus nerve, our parasympathetic nervous system. We actually get a little bump in our cortisol just getting out of bed. Which I've noticed when I do my, I, I have a continuous glucose monitor that I do for two weeks at a time. Periodically just to monitor my blood sugar. And I noticed that it goes up a little bit just by getting out of bed. And then when I just do the deep breathing part of the game practice, it goes back down. So we do our deep breathing.
Laura: Fascinating.
Dr. Greg: We, we do that for 30 seconds or so. And then we just do a self guided contemplation of the G game first. That for which we're grateful. I'm, I'm grateful for my health. I got up this morning and I, I peed my kidneys are working. My heart's pumping blood to my organs, including my kidneys. I'm grateful for the health that I have, albeit potentially imperfect. I'm grateful for having a roof over my head and living in this wonderful place unlike that, which many people in the world are experiencing. So I feel very fortunate. I'm grateful for my loved ones, my community, my work, interacting with others. My two little dogs, I feel so grateful and I'm linking this experience of gratitude to my breath. I transitioned to the A and gain because the A is acceptance. Life does not always comport with our wants and needs. So, you know, there are uncomfortable and painful experiences. I lost my son almost eight years ago at the age of 29. So that comes to me often and linked to my slow, deep breathing. I sort of bring that experience those feelings closer and closer. I open my chest, I opened my heart, I bring this experience into my heart and linked to my deep, deliberate slow breathing. I sort of abide and just relax my body into this experience. And it's a little uncomfortable at first.
But eventually we learn that we can live with this feeling and then we transition to the Iron Game, which is intention because again, we tend to be very distracted by thoughts of the past and future. And with our negativity bias, those thoughts of the past lead to a lot of shame and regret and low self esteem, the imposter syndrome, depression, and our excessive thoughts of the future with negativity lead to a lot of fear and anxiety. So here in the iron gain, with our slow deep breathing, we just focus for 15 or 20 seconds on our present experience, the pressure of the chair against our body, the slightly sweet smell of the air, we're breathing the expansion of our chest and abdomen, maybe the sound of an automobile or an airplane going by in the distance, our current experience and we link this to our slow deep breath. And then we transition this to the an in game which is non judgment and we're always judging the world others ourselves often negatively. So here we just picture, for example, uh the earth apparently suspended in space. One of these beautiful NASA images and it's clear to us that the earth is just a planet. It's beautiful but it really is neither good nor bad. It's just the, the planet that it is.
And it's only logical for us to think. I too am just a person. I'm neither good nor bad. I am neither good nor bad. I simply am. And then we link this, I am this to our slow, deep breathing. And then we just focus again on our breath as we did three minutes prior, slowly in pausing, slowly out and then we slowly open our eyes and we're ready to go out in the world. And you know, the more we do this, the more we have those light bulb moments when we're driving in the car and we start judging someone else or we start feeling ungrateful or resisting something uncomfortable instead of learning to accept it, or obsessing over something that happened yesterday, instead of being present. And so then when we do those things, a light bulb goes off and again, we can have a little laugh to ourselves and, and just focus on our slow deep breath again for a moment. And again, we get a little hit of dopamine instead of a little hit of adrenaline and cortisol.
Laura: I, Greg, I love what you're saying. And I really just want to pull out the, the piece of this that I find so important because I think so many parents come to me wanting to know how can I get a pause, in the midst of a challenging moment? They wanna learn how when their kids are having a meltdown or they're, you know, refusing to do what they need to do to get out of the house in the morning, how they can get that moment of like that present moment, peace and what you just so beautifully illustrated is, is that, that moment is not gotten in that moment. That, that pause, you don't get that in the moment first, you get it by practicing it outside of the moment, right? So having this a dedicated practice where you're building that flexibility, the resilience, the neural capacity and rewiring the brain. So that in the moment when that stressor does happen, then you have access to, to a tool or a function. And it, I think it's, it's hard to convey that sometimes that if we want that pause in the moment, we have to be practicing outside of the moment. You know?
Dr. Greg: Well, we have to have the I and gain, we have to have intention, right? We have to actually purposefully do this practice and then invoke the elements that allow us to have resilience that is to neutralize the acute stress responses when they arise in a maladaptive way. And you know, it's not unlike having intention or a plan with regard to our physical shape. You know, we have to train, we have to exercise if we want to be able to hike 10 miles we have to practice, you know, we have to train our body to do that. It just doesn't happen, sleep if we want to have good sleep and we're having difficulty. We have to be intentional. We have to have a plan of practicing good sleep hygiene.
Laura: Right.
Dr. Greg: Start really darkening and cooling the room. Start going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. Stop using our screens proximate to the time we try to go to sleep, stop having that cup of coffee or tea with caffeine in the afternoon because caffeine has a very long half life and it's affecting us at 10 or 11 o'clock in the evening. So we have to have a plan if we want to have the best quality of life possible and, and certainly our, our mental and spiritual processes are no different than our, our physical processes.
Laura: Yes, absolutely. So I, I in your experience teaching this this process to, to practitioners and to folks how lo how long does it take to start seeing a, a noticeable change in yourself to start feeling like actually this is doing something. So I think that's something else that in this day and age, we kind of expect instantaneous results. And if we don't get the feedback that something is working quickly, we might drop it. Do you know what I mean?
Dr. Greg: I think as I do know what you mean, I think it takes about five minutes So I think that if you, if you do the game practice once and then you have your cup of coffee and then you're driving to work and you have that experience where somebody kind of cuts you off. You might just at that moment start to get riled, start to develop an acute stress response. But then a light bulb goes off. You just did your gain meditation. The end is for non judgment And here you are casting all these judgments on this driver. So I think it can happen very quickly. But you know, it's it gets started the first time you sit and do this and then it gets reinforced and stronger and more immediate, more automatic every day that you practice it. And I, I kind of liken it, let's say to the three good things practice.
When I started having a gratitude practice. As I was about to go to sleep, I noticed that Laura the first night, you know, I, I thought of three or more good things that happened during the day as I was putting my head on my pillow and then I sort of abided these nice thoughts as I fell asleep instead of recapping all the things that went wrong during my day, which might have been my custom. So I think you can start to get benefits really right away. But they, they get more and more significant over time because we have to retrain rewire our brains, our brains naturally are rather negative, rather distracted. And nowadays, especially full of acute stress, even if we don't have children. But having them, of course, especially when they're young. Maybe no matter how old they are depending, adds to that stress. So that's the way our brains are wired and we can, we can begin the process of rewiring them rather quickly, I think.
Laura: Okay. And so speaking of those beautiful children that we might have in our lives are there ways that we can s, you know, before we started recording, we were talking about how gosh, how we wish we had known these things earlier in our own lives and how glad we are that kids are gonna have access to this earlier. A lot of the parents that I work with are interested in um helping their kids develop more resiliency, some of these practices, is there anything that we can be doing as parents to, to support our kids in developing some of these practices without being too pushy?
Dr. Greg: Well, I think? Yeah. No, I think the, the first way to do that is to model it right that you were saying, you know, you're driving and someone is not a very proficient driver ahead of you, let's say, and you know, you invoke this love and kindness meditation, let's call it, it could be verbal or non verbal. You do that yourself. I mean, you probably do that when your kids are not even in the car.
Laura: True. Yes, yeah.
Dr. Greg: So I'm sure because you have this intention of embracing these principles of being present and grateful and accepting, intentional and nonjudgmental. Even without labeling them as such, you're modeling those behaviors for your chi your children. So, you know, I, I, we talked about the fact that I'm writing this book called A Mindful Teen for parents and teachers and social workers and school administrators and others. And I think the first message is, you know, our kids are watching and we can model those behaviors for them. I think that's the first thing. And you know, it's, it's pretty hard, you know, your kids are just, they're so smart, even at a very young age.
Laura: Yes.
Dr. Greg: You can't BS them, right? You can't tell them that this is a good way to think and behave on the one hand and then you are obviously behaving in a different way.
Laura: They can smell hypocrisy of from a mile away.
Dr. Greg: Yeah, They are just. Their sense of smell is just amazing.
Laura: Yes, yeah.
Dr. Greg: They're like, you know, like my dog, you know, so yeah, they, they will, they'll call us out right away. So we have to begin to learn to embrace this practice or these practices ourselves and model them for our children. Model them in the way we, you know, we are when we're dealing with our spouse or talking to someone on the phone or the way we are with them when they're not being particularly well behaved, you know, so we have to have a plan and we have to invoke the plan ourselves. I think that's the first step and, and that's probably half the battle.
Laura: And then anything else for actually like teaching kids these practices besides models. Did we get a preview on your book?
Dr. Greg: I think that, well, the book is kind of also based on the gain principles. I think that, you know, we can t teach our kids to be grateful, right? I mean, we can actually reinforce how fortunate they are and when they receive a gift or what have you, you know, how lucky they are to be even getting a gift in the first place. And, you know, talking about uh less fortunate children and, and people in general around the world and what's going on not to give them nightmares, but to some extent to facilitate them, appreciating what they have and being grateful, we can teach them acceptance. So when they're obviously thinking and behaving in, in ways that are resisting what is true and what is scary, you know, we can, we can actually teach them that the world does not always comport with their wants and needs.
Laura: Okay, right.
Dr. Greg: And their sibling. Pardon me?
Laura: Can I ask a question? So.
Dr. Greg: Yeah.
Laura: Everybody growing up heard. Well, the world's not fair when we were little and we don't want to say those things to our kids. So how can we actually do that for our kids help them come to that place of acceptance when they're disappointed or they're seeing, you know, sensing injustice between a sibling without dismissing their feelings.
Dr. Greg: Yes. Well, I mean, we always have to ourselves accept their feelings and so we don't want to dismiss their feelings, but we can, you know, teach them that not everybody can win the race, we can teach them, you know, that there are things that they may not like. And we have to think to ourselves and we can talk about it. Is this something that I can change? Well, if I can't change it, you know, if I'm not as tall as my friend or, you know, there are other things I don't particularly like that. I'm gonna have a temp temper tantrum over sometimes. You know, we can teach them well, let's, let's kind of stop and think about this. Is this something that we can do something about? Is this something we can change? And if we can't change it, let's kind of learn to, it's okay. Let's learn to accept it sometimes be upset about it. That's okay. We can accept that too. So there are ways to teach gratitude, acceptance, intention. We can teach our kids that nobody gets ahead or nobody achieves their goals in life without working at it. You know, that this takes practice, this takes a plan, this takes intention and there's a variety of ways that are age appropriate. I think that we can teach that to our children.
Laura: Sure.
Dr. Greg: And that, and that, and in pain is non judgment. You know, we can teach them, you know, not to judge just to, and it's acceptance. These are all very closely interwoven principles. But, you know, this is the way things are. They're not good or bad. It's just the way it is and, and it's, it's fine the way it is, you know, that person is, is who they are. They've had, you know, I mean, depending on our child's age, but they may be able to understand a little bit at an older age that, you know, that they, this friend of yours has had experiences that have led them to behave this way. Let's not judge that as good or bad. You know, things have happened that they had no control over, it's not their fault. And so if they're acting out a bit, if they're bullying you at times or this is happening or that's happening, let's not automatically call it good or bad. Let's just not judge others and the way the world is and ourselves, you know, we can teach them not to judge themselves to a degree as well. So I think we can, you know, we can cone in on these principles and beside modeling them ourselves, which is perhaps most important, we can actually, you know, directly, you know, teach them a variety of methods that are age appropriate.
Laura: Yeah, I've been, you know, so my, um, almost nine year old is, you know, practicing for a play that her class is putting on. Every year her school does, you know, each grade does a play and it's kind of stressful. It's exciting. It's a fun time. But they have to learn a lot of lines. They have to have them memorized, they only get, you know, two weeks to memorize everything and stress has been high in her classroom. There's been a lot of, you know, big feelings, a lot of acting out, a lot of unkindness. And so we've been doing a lot of, you know, really talking through these, you know, at the very least the A, the I and the N in game, you know, kind of acknowledging what is, you know, taking a look around at like what's going on for everyone, how they're feeling, what kind of support they're getting at home or lack of support they might have at home, you know, how do you want to be when you are engaging with the play? You know, just lots of this and it, and it doesn't even involve us talking very much.
My daughter does most of the talking. And so it's like a lot more questions like, yeah. And is that something that we can control? No, it's not. Is it? And that's really hard, you know, and you know, how about you, how do you want to show up for your dress rehearsal tomorrow. What do you think you need in order to be able to do that? You know, just lots of those little kind of curiosity and they, they're so wise, these kids, they're so wise, you know, they, they know they, when they just need a little prompting to get quiet and tune inward, you know? I, I love, I love children. I think they're so wise.
Dr. Greg: They are, we just need to give them the space and unconditional love, of course, and, you know, sort of carefully titrated amount of guidance.
Laura: Yes, yeah.
Dr. Greg: You know, but I think we do need to have a plan. Obviously, we need beside modeling, you know, the game elements, for example, we need to be consistent, right? So I think, you know, this is obviously a challenge between mothers and fathers, you know, they may not have the same ideals when it comes to child rearing and, and how to support your kids in the best way. What's okay for them to be exposed to etcetera at certain ages. But I think we need to have consistency. So, you know, I think maybe that's the second principle is, is beside modeling, the behaviors have a, have a plan that you stick to, you know, just the iron gain for us is our intention in terms of how to parent and you know, they need consistency. So I think that's another element, but you're right. I mean, they are, they are smart, little critters and, and incredibly sensitive and, and thoughtful and, and maybe they don't need that much from us. They just need, a good model, consistency and, and just a little bit of guidance, carefully titrated to the circumstances.
Laura: Yeah. Some scaffolding. Right? You know, it's just a little, just the right amount at the right time so that, then they can go on their own. And you know, kids as they grow, they'll face different stressors and they might need different things at different times. I'm really looking forward to your book on teens. I hope you'll come back and chat with us again.
Dr. Greg: Absolutely. I would love to.
Laura: Okay. Well, thank you so much, Doctor Hammer. If people want to find your work and learn more about you and learn alongside you, where can they go to find you?
Dr. Greg: They can go to my website, which is greghammermd.com, greghammermd.com. And there's a lot of messaging and media. Probably this session with you Laura will be on there at some point.
Laura: Great.
Dr. Greg: Access to a link for the book which is on Amazon and elsewhere. So, yeah, greghammermd.com. Thank you.
Laura: Okay. Well, I hope we can stay in touch and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experience, not just with us, but with the world, I, I'm, I was very grateful to have you.
Dr. Greg: Well, Likewise, Laura. A, as I said, I've explored your website and I can see all the wonderful things that you're doing. So keep up the good work.
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