The Power of Self-Soothing

What is self-soothing and what does it have to do with women and stress? Anney and Samantha chat about the science behind comfort habits.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
Never told you a protection if I heard you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And today's episode is based on my current life status.
Any things are not wonderful here in Sandland. Just to
be real, honest, your girl is on arthritis meds. I'm
as due to some type of contact related infection. Y'all
have been able to wear my contacts and my glasses
are odd and everything's a little blurry and a little

(00:38):
too intensive. Evering's fine, And yes, I have isolated myself
for a few weeks now. My partner has been gone
doing family emergency things, so I am really alone, and
my physical and social outlet is a temper is temporarily
on the hiatus because other people want to go on vacation. JK,

(01:01):
I'm proud of them. You do you go on that
vacation anyway, So it feels a bit bleak over here.
And again, sam Land this, I know this is starting
to sound like a btin wine, but it isn't. I'm
promised I'm going somewhere with this actual episode. You know,
how we do we get some things at a little
more research. This is not as heavily researched as a

(01:22):
typical episode because we are still reeling from the dragon
con Birthday, holidays, holidays, and then more chaos as it goes.
But I thought I would talk about what I just
went down, this little rabbit hole of how women may
handle stress and then also self soothing and comfort habits.

(01:44):
Now I am bringing in this term self soothing and
comfort habits, I'm going to enterchange those words and terms,
and I'm not necessarily being completely scientific when I'm talking
about these things. And we are more talking about the
habits or rituals as opposed to like stemming or fidget
tools and all of that. So we're not going into
that route, which I think we should come back and

(02:04):
talk about, because I did have an interesting video pop
up in a woman talking about I think like she's
celebrating her one hundred and fifty days of not self harming,
and then also about stemming and about that little cause
of pain, whether it's like flicking with a rubber band
or like the stemming is like has pokey things that
you can actually squeeze to get a little bit of

(02:26):
that sensation. I do want to come back to that
because I do find that phenomenon something that we should
talk about especially at the time of stress and kind
of self soothing as it is related to therapy, the
both negative and positive. But we're not necessarily talking about that.
We're going to get a little bit into that, as
in like research into that, but not those techniques or

(02:49):
ideals because also it's becoming a marketing thing and I
feel like, again we should talk about it, but this
is not that episode. We're going to talk more about
like habits such as waited blankets, or habits about watching
movies or me isolating myself and watching right it too
for the fifteen hundred times, or now Kate Pop Demon

(03:10):
Hunter for the one hundredth time. That's become my name thing.
But anyway, so with that, I thought we would talk
a little bit about that. And I know again we
talked about this before rewatching the same shows, eating the
Food from Childhood, et cetera. But I was also thinking
about the desire to dig into something, whether it's a
new hobby of you know, punch datelying. By the way,
I'm getting back to that because the holidays are coming

(03:32):
and some people are gonna give some homemade things. I
feel like Katie rejected my coaster and I'm a little
hurt by this. I'm just kidding. She didn't y'all, but
I did leave that out and she left it behind,
and I was like, oh, okay, I'm gona hold on
to this, but that is coming back Annie, because you
know who doesn't love homemade coasters that kind of resemble something.

(03:55):
And then even the nostalgic revisits of childhood class, which
we did last month, and I still think about a
lot of those because I started to see videos about
still Magnolia's It was like, oh, yeah, and you've never
seen this, right, No, wid I find interesting. But anyway,
moving in fact again, So we just had an episode yesterday,

(04:19):
but we're recording it in the same day about all
the things that you saw at Dragon Cot in your
experience and the things I saw again. I saw many
like throwbacks, whether it was Ghostbusters, lots of Ghostbusters. I
saw Teletubbies, whether they're creepy or not, the Mummy, back
to the Future, and I know Christopher Lloyd was there,
so I wonder if that was an ode to him.
But I saw a lot of back to the future

(04:39):
there and I was like, ah, huh.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I saw Christopher Lloyd, did you Yes? No, he doesn't
know who is you.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Guy, he doesn't care. He knows people who don't know
who they know him, he doesn't know them. Like that's
the thing you could say, hi, and also again reminiscing
with the actors who you loved as children. During Dragon Cot,
I saw like many actors, did any of the Lord
of the Rings people come through? I thought I saw
maybe they were coming through, And I thought I saw
some people from Buffy coming through.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
David Boran was saying there was a big Bones contingents.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, he's not That was not my thing.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Me either, but I know that he was there more
for Bones, oh and for Angel. Simon Peg was there,
and he was there for a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Simon Peg was there. That's big.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah John the names, Yeah, artist by from the Mummy.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, definitely. People were oh yeah excited.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Also I have to say I saw some less unicorn
oh and merchandise.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's interesting. So yeah, just brought me back to these
things like where childhood things feel comforting and yeah, it
all came back to how the older generations have made
new habits for self soothing or comfort and I just
thought to wonder, what is this actually? What does it
look like on the gender line, What does it look
like when it comes to just reminiscing and how is

(06:06):
it healthy or unhealthy? So I will say right here
we do mention obesity and eating habits. I don't think
we go into anything specific. There are some technical terms
that I'm gonna struggle through, but nothing big, but just
so you know, and drug use an alcohol just mentions.
We're not really getting into it. So before we get
into alt that, let's talk about what self soothing is.
And this is from the Oxford language, outside of its

(06:28):
reference to children, which we'll kind of mention here in libit,
but it is enabling a person to comfort themselves when
unhappy or distressed. So it's very simple. Essentially, it's a
way to find a way to be okay. Right again,
from the show Havenpsychology dot Com. They kind of go
into it deeper, saying self soothing refers to any behavior

(06:50):
and individual uses to regulate their emotional state by themselves.
Self soothing behaviors are identifiable across the lifespan. So as
mentioned above, a majority of the conversation around self soothing
is about children or infants, with the idea that they
are self soothing as a habit again introduced to infants,
for example, the use of pacifiers or sucking on their thumbs,

(07:14):
having a blanket or a toy that they have to
have at all times. I've also seen it in not
to compare, but like dogs when they get overly anxiously excited,
they have something in their mouth at all times to
not overreact. But that's also a form of self soothing
as well. But here we are referencing the acts of
habits such as watching comfort shows again, weighted animals or blankets,

(07:38):
stress balls, fidget gadgets, et cetera, as adults, or habits
or rituals that we have. So again we're not really
talking about specific items like fidgets or stemming. That's a
whole different thing.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Again.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I think we do need to come back to talk
about especially as we're talking about our mental health. Yeah,
it's not good, Anie, I'm not good. I'm fine, it's
frything's fine.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
How are you giving me mixed messages?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
I think that is also a part of self serving, right,
pretending like everything is just fine. Yeah, as like Egene
Carroll told us, it's okay, laugh, laugh through it, am
I right?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, And I think there's a part of the at
least for me, things can feel very small. So like
one of the things I'll do is I'll put on
like really comfy socks and I'll read fan fiction, and
I there's a part of myself that has to tell
me like this is the best thing ever, like I'm

(08:42):
having the best time, and I am having a great time.
But a part of it is kind of hyping it
up to like everything's fine. I forgot my soft socks,
my fan fiction, It's okay, We're okay, we are.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
All okay, like whispering really violently to yourself. But yeah.
But again, the self soothing idea, I think it's been
more correlated in the past with children infants, teaching them
to like be okay, that whole like crying it out
type of thing, which, by the way, back and forth
I've seen different. I'm not a parent, so I don't know,
but there's a lot of debate in that. But it

(09:16):
does have a lot of reference to infants in childhood.
And maybe this is why when we talk about comfort
habits or self soothing it could be seen as feminized
maybe or because of its association again with children and infants,
a way of feeling infantilized through these habits. And again,
some of our self soothing is loving something, being a
fan of something, finding a moment to maybe find that fanfic.

(09:39):
If you are huge into k pop. There's a lot
of people who really like what pad, which I did
not know was a thing until you referenced it, and
then friend Marissa for another show was like, yeah, a
lot of capop fin fiction happens there, like what, And
I've seen that in reference, But like that can be
an way of self soothing, Like you were trying to

(10:00):
go into a fantasy world and something that you love,
and a lot of it feels infantalized when we like
make jokes of it or say, oh, these are these
girls all these things? Again, it's interesting, and you know,
we're not the only one. We talked about this repeatedly.
Here's a quote from Hofstra Chronicle dot com and she
talks about her love of different fandoms in different things

(10:20):
that she thinks are great. She says, societally feminine interests
are tied to vanity, emotion, and excess. Watching women fall
in love in beautiful dresses is one of my favorite pastimes,
whether it be in a Jane Austen novel The Bridgeton
Series fantasies filled with princesses getting trolled in marble halls,
or the sound of music. My love for artists like
Taylor Swift and the joy of find in decoding her

(10:42):
song lyrics, analyzing her fashion moments and scream singing in
the card does not detract from my intelligence. In society,
soft femininity is judged to be weak. We've talked about
this repeatedly, recently too, because we talked a lot about fandoms.
Of course, with all that, it is interesting that women
being interested in something or liking something is thought of

(11:04):
as childish. So when we talk about collecting dolls versus
collecting action figures, Am I right?

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Ye?

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Little bobbleheads versus a doll, Barbie doll which probably worth
thousands of dollars if you have the right one from
way back when. But it also can be seen that
women's habits when it comes to stress is seen as
different as well. In a research paper written by Frank
Rena and Andrew Julius about gender differences in self soothing,
they write this, gender differences and coping styles have long

(11:34):
been documented, with research consistently demonstrating that males and females
exhibit distinct preferences in how they regulate stress and emotional discomfort. Historically,
females are more likely to engage in emotion focused coping strategies,
while males gravitate toward problem focused or distraction based approaches.
I don't know if it's me. I'm going to do both.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, I feel like I go through I have spurts
where I want to like actively physically do something right
and it makes me feel better. Yet they're not. I
can't depend on them. They kind of come out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
I feel you're more better at that than I am,
because at least you are like productive when you do that.
As where I start something and just look at it
and I don't like this anymore. You finish it out.
I'm like, ah, I quit. But anyway, They go on
to talk about how the two genders. Yes, this is
very much heteronormative research here, binary apologies, but we're going

(12:34):
with what we have and they are likely to do so. So,
they write, Empirical findings suggest that females are more likely
to engage in self soothing behaviors than males, particularly those
involving emotional self talk and seeking internal reassurance. These behaviors
align with the broader emotional socialization of girls, who are
often encouraged to be introspective and emotionally expressive. The SCCS

(12:58):
data show that female participants score higher on indices of
cognitive self soothing, including self validating thoughts and visualizations of
emotional safe spaces and then to continue. Males, on the
other hand, may favor more physical or action oriented self
soothing techniques, such as engaging in repetitive motion e g. Pacing, fidgeting,

(13:20):
physical withdrawal, or non verbal gestures. These behaviors often reflect
a cultural discouragement of overt emotional expression in boys and
a preference for behavioral over cognitive or verbal processing of emotions. Notably,
boys are often less likely to label these behaviors as
coping or emotional regulation, contributing to their underreporting and self

(13:42):
assessment studies. This whole level, like, we need a whole
conversation about how men don't participate even though they're asked more. Yeah,
they're focused more on but they like that I don't
want to be And the underreporting or not even understanding
what they're reporting.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious how video gaming might come
to play in this because I know we're gonna talk
about it more later, but that that's one that I

(14:22):
find that I go to when I'm stressed. But I
know for a lot of people it's the opposite. But
I just feel like a lot of men in my
life it's almost kind of a turn off my brain,
physical thing that they do. So I'm just curious.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Now you say that my partner will be like after
a hard day's work, is like, I'm just I'm just
gonna play a little of so and so.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, because it does. It does like kind of
involve a lot of times almost a fidget yea or
something like with your fingers type of response. So yeah,
just curious.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
That is interesting. But as we as this article above says,
I'm thinking for men, I don't know, emotional regulation is
for the weak to marginalize. Is that what I'm hearing?
But I guess with all that it's actually a very

(15:24):
mature response to be able to regulate. Again, from that
same paper, they say the adaptive potential of self soothing
is evident across genders. Studies have shown that individuals regardless
of gender who actively and consciously engage in self soothing,
report better mood regulations, improved sleep quality, and higher resilience

(15:45):
in the face of chronic stress. Gender specific training and
soothing techniques tailored to comfort with certain types of behavior
could therefore enhance coping capacity for both males and females.
So this is one of those things of like a
it's not bad emotional regulation. Wow.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, I don't know why we've felt the need to
turn it into a weakness.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
But yeah yeah. And as an added side point, they
also talk about the facts males are more likely to
participate in negative self soothing or external behaviors like aggression
and drug use when their self soothing tactics are not working.
So I've seen this throughout the different articles and columns
talking about drug use as a self soothing technique as
well as use of alcohol. And they're using this as

(16:36):
if it's two separate things, So they are definitions of
self soothing. It's definitely along the lines of like calm down,
talk to yourselves, give yourself a pep talk. But that's
not always what we're seeing. But with that, men are
more likely to do the more aggressive things, and women
who quote employ verbal and introspective forms of self soothing.
They have higher levels of emotional literacy. Again, I would

(16:59):
call it at maturity, yep, just mature. Might just be
oversimplifying things, but I think that's the other part that
we don't talk about emotional literacy and we're not getting
into this here and what that lists like and how
that is really beneficial in life.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yes, and your relationships with other people.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's very helpful, which we need apparently I don't believe that,
but you know whatever. Moving on, So again, we've previously
talked about some of our anxious habits and whether or
not they're actual trauma responses as well. We're not getting
too deep into that, but btdubs they are some of
these things. They are, they are, and they do overlap.

(17:49):
I'm not gonna get into all of it, but they
talk about how we react to things. So whether it's
being uncomfortable with the door knocks, I am not opening
that damn door. I'll talk to you through the ring
and tell you to leave. An I have a great
loud dog to help me with this. She is because
she sounds fierce, she does, but like, like that's our

(18:11):
trauma response. Yeah, it is being too close to people
being around too many people not want to see with
your sit in a restaurant with your back exposed. I
hate that. M M so. There's a lot of things,
but one of the things they talk about in this
as well as a trauma response, but also, you know,

(18:32):
whatever is about comfort foods and overeating, that does not
all go always go hand in hand. And I feel
like that needs to be said. But a lot of
the research does kind of overlap it, because when we
talk about stress eating and binging versus comfort foods, there
are different levels, obviously, but they do have that as
an overlap of response to trauma and stress and anxiety.

(18:57):
And I have several foods I call comfort foods. I
have this weird taco salad that my mom made as
a kid. Thanks Riceeroni for this recipe. I'm pretty sure
it came from a back of the box of a
Rice Eronni because you add Riceeronni to it. Not a
sponsor Peak Doves. I made you this before.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
It's so delicious, Like it doesn't make sense how good
it is. But I like this. I guess it's like
Mexican rice and.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, it's fird. White people talking salty, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Cheesy, get some tomatoes and salsa and greens all up
in there. It's really good. Then I call something my
country hodgepodge that I grew up eating, and that's a
family thing, which is a mess of green beans, cream corn, macaroni, cheese,
and corn bread and just goop it up and it
just it sounds goofy, by the way. It's like, it
makes that goopy sound. But it's delicious and it.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Makes me very happy.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
But it reminds me a little bit of like the
old school days when I was first learning to love
country food because that was not my typical foods. And
then my I go to rice with kimchi or rice
and soy sauce and that's it.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's greatly delicious. But these are combor foods to me
where I feel like over stressed and I just want
something familiar, right. And then when it comes to do
you have any any what are your food I don't
you have ritual foods that's different from comfort foods.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, And I feel like mine kind of I go
through phases. That's with a lot of stuff we're going
to talk about. But macaroni and cheese is pretty high
up there. Uh, And right now ramen is my big one.
I can't tell if it's because it's easy to make, like,
I don't know. I did enjoy ramen as a kid.

(20:43):
I've always loved rob But right now I'm in some
kind of Ramen face.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
You know. I love ramen, and I loved it as
a kid as well. My parents were getting very upset
because my chunky self eating all the pasta that are
like you, you know, the whole like Atkins diet was
coming out. Then everybody's like down. But I would eat
like my friend and I would eat it in so
many different ways. And two of our favorite ways were
when we would drain most of the water out, crunch

(21:10):
it up, crunch it out the hell out of it,
and then just put a mess of cheese and it
was just and then and then the seasoning packet and
that's the entirety of the meal.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Oh wow, so you didn't cook it.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
You did cook it, I'm sorry, Sy, you cooked it,
drained out the water like then then you'd mixed the
seasoning and not all the seasoning either, by the way,
because there was too much without the water. And then
a lot of lots of cheese and that was the
entire meal.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
That's one of my favorite things about Ramen. Oh kinds
of stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
And then we thought we were being real chefs when
we took instant rice and put it at the bottom
and then put the noodles on top of it. Carbs
upon carbs upon coh.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
No, I think I think you were onto something.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I'm just saying, like we thought we were doing real,
real chef culinary.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Arts right here, Wait till someone hears about this.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Asian people do it anyway to get the saucer anyway.
Whatever I was relaying then, But yeah, there's a lot
to that with comfort foods like this is some things
that I remember and yes I still eat. We talked
about Chef boy Ard that became a comfort food for
me with all the cheesiness. I got to go for
it not too long ago. So I can't eat it
right now, but I'll probably come back to it. And

(22:24):
again when it comes to comfort foods being actually comforting.
Theirs research papers on this, In fact, so many, ranging
from the obesity levels to stress levels to social levels
of comfort foods, and many also talk about how mood
affects the food. High stress could equal more sugar or
processed foods. Soft serve is my weakness. When I feel sad,

(22:50):
I just want soft serve. I just had an incident
in which the soft serve fell into my hands because
it was not frozen enough, and it just it was
one of those said e or moments. It just wopped
over and I just stared at it, and I was like,
do I cry, not cry?

Speaker 1 (23:08):
That is rough that you needed your comfort soft serve
and it fell.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Oh no, They made it right and got me another
one and put it in a bowl this time. But way.
But of course, with all of that, when it comes
to comfort, it's more complex than this when it comes
to food, when it comes to food and eating disorders
or just eating in stress. There's a lot more to this,
of course, And here's a bit from adventurewoman dot com.

(23:36):
They write one comfort food study notes that these culinary
preferences lie at the intersection of taste, nostalgia, and loneliness.
Another research project looking into comfort foods describe how comfort
food what brings up associations of positive relationships and make
us feel less lonely. The emotional satisfaction of comfort food

(23:56):
ties into our attachment styles, or the ability to form health,
the emotional bonds as well as the positive emotional association
we formed as children. That is, a grilled cheese sandwich
tastes good and reminds us of a happy childhood, and
chicken soup makes us feel loved and care for. And
I think that's kind of what we're talking about, what

(24:17):
I'm talking about. When it says what I'm talking about
comfort food, there's a lot of it is nostalgic, a
lot of if it was yearning or missing something and
then today remembering something. So I've talked about my connection
with food and my connection with Korean culture and not
remembering much, but my taste buzz remember it and after

(24:38):
I process the traumatic moment of remembering it, wanting more
of that. And I think that's something that they this
article talks a little more about, and I think that's
something that we kind of miss when all we see
is obesity.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Right, yeah, yeah, And it just makes sense. I remember
during the pandemic, we had a whole episode on we
weren't maybe being able to hang out with people and
share these meals with people and missing those those things.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
That you just have maybe once a year. But it does.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
I mean, I think that's like spot on of the
It reminds you of this time in your life when
somebody was caring for you or made this for you,
or if it felt simpler in a way, or something
that makes complete sense to me.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
And it makes sense to me a lot of times.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
On the other podcast, I do savor whenever we talk
about the pandemic. So many what I would call kind
of traditional comfort foods were selling more during the pandemic
whecause people were wanted that, they wanted the comfort of that,
and so they were Yeah, they're buying more mac and cheese,
they're buying more chef warrity.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely with that. Yes, there is that negative
the adverse of food as well. There was another research
paper written by A. Janet Tamiyama, Mary F. Dolmen, and
Alyssa S. Eppel in which the research had a whole
level of detail with obesity and stress eating and why
this is a thing and to put it simply, those

(26:16):
with the highest stress eight more. They write, quote, we
found as hypothesized that the high stress group had significantly
greater BMI and sagital diameter and reported greater eating after
stressful events. In response to acute lab stressors to high
stress group showed a blunt cortisol response, lower diurnal cortosol levels,
and greater suppression in response to dexomethisone aka being stressed

(26:41):
out and eating too much can be unhealthy, but again
so are other types of stress related activities. So yes,
we have often talked about stress eating and all of
these things, but also could it be a look at
what we see as bad versus good in food and
any day excessive is bad?

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, And I think this is interesting because
I completely believe this is true. But in my case,
when I get stressed to eat less, but it's it's
still unhealthy, right because I'm not getting enough vitamins and
when I do eat, I'm eating ramen, which I love,
but it's you know, salt and ultar process. So that's

(27:25):
also part of it too, right.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
And there's this level of conversation in like bipolar disorder,
even when people are on specific levels that some people
eat binge eat and some people stop eating. So there's
extremes of that in that all like one diagnosis, which
is very as much a spectrum spectrum when it comes
to that as well. But it's interesting in that conversation

(27:47):
as well, because it's all about control. So whether it's
overeating or not eating enough, it's still a conversation of
control and stress. And I do the same thing. Actually,
I don't eat when I'm upset. If I'm depressed, I'm
not going to be eating. You have to force me
to eat. If I'm sad, I'm definitely not eating. And
if I'm upset, my stomach is tore up. I actually
have a lot of stomach issues when that happens. If

(28:09):
I'm bored, I'm eating.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
If I'm with people, that's my best bet. I will
eat around people.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yes. Again, as the Adventure Women article talks about, they
talk about sharing comfort foods or traditions. It's also a
way to bond and share your traditions, family stories. Like again,
I have shared my foods specifically because I think it's
interesting and it's weird, and I always preface it with
this is a not odd recipe, but I love it.

(28:38):
You should try this with me, and they do, and
you do. I may I have people come over for
Chinese New Years Lunar New Years, so I can share
Korean traditions that I want to remember or I want
to bring into my own life because I've already missed
so much of that and I want to do that
with people I love. I'm very stressed out during that time,

(28:59):
but I get really also, I don't eat a lot
when I'm around people and make the food is weird.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
My mom's that way.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
She gets so like hung up on I should have
done this, or I should have done this, or you know,
I didn't add enough salt or all of that stuff,
which makes complete sense.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, I'm that way, but yeah, but it is. It's
about sharing my culture, my comfort, my need for you
to see a part of me in that food, as
well as remembering some things that I feel like I
missed when it felt simpler, even if it was traumatic,
there was moments that it felt simple in that vine.
So I think that's a lot to what comfort food is.

(29:48):
But you know, another way that I don't do, but
I know someone else does, is the need to cry
or to be heartbroken. So you watch sad movies. That
is your comfort habit. Adie. I absolutely equit this to
you and now Marissa, to be honest, because I was like,
what is happening? Because our soup in sadness at Festival

(30:10):
for your specific birthday was quite funny to me, and
I need to know why.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
I. I guess I like it in a controlled environment.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
I like knowing.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
That it's coming and that I can kind of prepare myself.
And I like having that moment of I know I've
said it before, but a lot of times I feel
like I can go to a funeral I won't cry
at all, But when I watched like a sad movie
or playing a sad game, than what I didn't cry
at that funeral, I can cry during that.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everything you say does get hit
spot onto the research essentially, so this is some of
the benefits from very well minded dot com. They say
experience you get to experience sadness without anxiety. So they
talk about how studies show exploring responses to sad stories.

(31:19):
They discovered that participants experience just as much sadness when
recalling a tragic personal event as when they watch tragic
TV and movies. However, there's one noteworthy difference between recalling
a personal tragedy and watching a fictional tragedy. Participants experience
significantly more anxiety when they recall the personal tragedy than

(31:40):
they did when they watched tragic shows and movies. This
may be key to our ability to enjoy sad fictional stories.
If a sad event happens in real life, is often
accompanied by anxiety because we know that we'll continue to
deal with the impact of that event. On the other hand,
we aren't anxious about consuming a sad story because emotions
we experienced through it won't continue to have an impact

(32:04):
on us after we're done watching, reading, or listening. So
it's being able to have that moment without the prologue.
Oh my god, what do I do with the aftermath?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Right? Like, oh, I have to deal with all of
this fallout right now, and said, it's here, I go
have this cathartic moment and how I can close the
chapter on whatever it was, or you know, continue to
think about the last of us and how much I'm
sad about it, but in a way that doesn't like
impact my life and the serious I have to make

(32:38):
a decision about X, y Z.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Way. Yeah, but it's also scientific, like these these things
are not just the psychological benefits, but scientific physical evidence.
It says, it really helps to let those tears out.
So here's our Refinery dot com article written by Maggie's
how she's just talking to. Psychologist Nancy Scarno points to
a study that found watching traumatic films can potentially boost

(33:02):
pain tolerance and feelings of group bonding to simplify that
a little consuming depressing content can actually make you feel
good because of increased endorphins. Who would have thought, she says,
So when we're wanting to consume it traumatic content, when
we're in a low mood, our brains are essentially chasing
those feel good in doorphins. And it further explains in

(33:23):
psychologyspot dot com that these increased endorphins actually can help
endure pain and the afternoonmath is that stress relief, that
euphoria are calm, and how you can let it end
with that movie or if you're any start the process again,
go again, immediately, Let's do it again, let me do

(33:45):
it again. And honestly, I try to find a reason
a person like me actually can't emotionally take this type
of pain. I remove myself pretty heavily in these shows,
but I wasn't able to find something really readily available.
Perhaps I'm not looking for it correctly, but I did
find something that did explain a bit in relation to

(34:07):
horror and violent movies, which I'm okay with those actually,
but it felt like it kind of answered my tragic.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Right, your version, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
My aversion to tragedy. So one of the reasons they
write in High Sensitive Refuge dot Com is that being
able to let go of that feeling after the film
is really hard for me to do. So they say,
quote HSP or highly sensitive people are and I'm not
necessarily saying that I'm that, but they're just explaining these
types of reactions are likely to feel the emotional effects

(34:42):
for a long time. We may even find ourselves feeling
those painful emotions years later when something reminds us of
the movie we watched. Everyone else might be ready to
move on to another activity, dinner after the movie, you know,
stuff like that. But the HSP still feels those lingering
thoughts and emotions. And I will say for many shows
that I even love like that are not that are

(35:04):
not like Sad Parks and RECU, which again is one
of my comfort shows, which we're talking about a minute.
I can't watch the ending of the final episode without
feeling like I'm feeling abandoned or being abandoned. I do
that with many many shows. I will not watch the finale.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
It traumatizes me when and he didn't tell me a
whole world dies and everybody dies. I had to put
that on Baus because.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
I was like, wait, no, no, you can't get me
like this, because it's like watching and emotionally fraught movies
like this, I feel like this emptiness, and I feel
this way for hours and sometimes days, if not years,
if not, like I still am haunted by Land before time.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
How dare you leave me in this emptiness with this
dude trying to find his family. I'm gonna cry about
it now, I'm thinking about it. Okay, it's not good
in sad land, like they feel. If I don't like
watching an emotionally fraught movie again, does that same thing
I cannot let go, or of the feeling of grief.

(36:14):
It's scarring, so I don't Again. It's not the horror movies,
and not even violence. There are moments that are like
I can't watch this violence if it's set in, especially
if it's set in realistic scenarios, things that I may
have experienced that are too similar, especially so I can't
have Uh. I could never watch the Wire beg go

(36:38):
was during the time that I was working with teenage
kids in scenarios like this just in rural Georgia or
like Subarbia, Georgia or Atlanta, Georgia. You know, like things
like that. Just it was too close, so I would
have to have people tell me, now, you can't watch that,
it's gonna get you. And again I didn't find much
about because they're tell giving all the Great Nations to

(37:00):
watch sad movies and I'm like, no, thank you. How
dare you that horror movie? I was like, how dare you, Annie?
How dare you not tell me what was gonna happen
with this good I was that one too well?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
I have in defense of me, I was expecting you
to procrastinate and I had never seen that.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
Before, watched that before I got to tell her, I
didn't know you were gonna have thoughts about it.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
And I was like, why would you do this to me?
Y'all have a lot of feelings, a lot of feelings.
I'm traumatized, But yeah, I find that interesting that the
two different levels of like, because sometimes I do enjoy
a good cry. Mmmm, it has to be really calculated.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, I feel like in my group, I usually get
made fun of as the one that likes angst, so
it's interesting to me that there's so much research about
that kind of it.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Then the positive note, Yeah, it's like the positive note
more than anything else.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Right, I have to say though, like I don't know
what the correct word for this is, but I maybe
this isn't this isn't it. But I like to feel
the feelings. So after like after the last of US
two ends, I've played it a million times, it stays
with me for like a day. Yeah, it doesn't go away,

(38:27):
and I kind of like it's miserable, but I kind
of like it because I get to sit there and
be like, wow, that was real, sad.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I feel like you also like to be alone, so
you can really steal in it.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
I do because I don't.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
I mean, you've seen me cry, you've seen me sob
but I don't like to completely let go in front
of people when it comes to like let me cry
in my heart out. Sometimes it does happen anyway, but
I think like the hardest I ever cried at the
last of US two was when right after people left, and.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Then I really let it go.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, yeah, you do. That's the thing I was like,
I know she needs to be alone when she says
she's gonna have to take time alone, like, all right,
she needs those moments unless you've been bulling and then
you come up and be like, hey, what's going on?

Speaker 1 (39:16):
That was an unfortunate coworker and friend of the show
have been bowling accidentally walked in when I was in
the midst of my like I need to be a
little cry one time.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
But you know, and we're not going to talk about this.
We've talked about it before because we over here love
some horror movies and we've talked about that. We've talked
about horror tropes and all of these and how it
also get those endorphins going. I do enjoy good horror movie.
I definitely have to see those through because I need
resolution and it can't be haunted. It will or it
will haunt me just the possibilities of And then some

(39:48):
of those movies haunt you anyway because they're just don't
have conclusions or they'll make you confused. But at least
I need to see the end, so I don't feel
the same way about that unless it involves like killing
dog are for animals, y'all do too much with that, which,
by the way, I do want to hear if you
go see a Good Boy Good Boy, because I'm traumatized already.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
I'm very interested to see that movie, which listeners, if
you don't know, is a horror movie told from the
point of view of the dog, so you know, like
when the dog starts sparking at something and you don't
see anything kind of that that whole deal. I'm very
interested to see it because they have to know that
if they spend a whole movie getting you to connect

(40:35):
with this, dog.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Will burn down.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
I just I mean maybe knock on wood. I just
don't think they're gonna kill off the dog.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
I would. What also gives me in this though, is
when I see a dog's perspective or a pet's perspective
of losing a human and they're waiting for that human.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Tune up again. I'm gonna cry an episode that has
nothing to do in this episode, but also it gives
me too.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah, now I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
That is miserable. That is really miserable.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
So I will.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Report back. I probably would never will, but you will
report back. But coming back to Comfort series and Comfort movies.
I thought we would talk about series specifically and watching
movies because we're not talking necessarily about crying all the time,
because I think that is an interesting perspective of that
is a way of self soothing. Is so many emotions happen,
so you need an excuse to be able to connect

(41:32):
your emotions to a fictional ideal. Uh. But also just
like the use of comfort movies to calm you down,
for me, I have my go to movies. I feel
overwhelmeder sets again, Ratitude's always been there parts and Rex
New Girls. Supernatural was there for a little while. I
cannot watch the finale on that one, not because it's
it leaves me, indeed it does, but also it was

(41:54):
bad in my opinion, my opinion. But now Capop Demon
Hunters has now become a part of that as well
on my list. And I think these are really really
like just effective and distracting. But what are your types
of comfort shows that are not just for crying?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Well, like comfort foods, they kind of rotate, I would say,
since the pandemic, Star Wars is that's a steady that
one's there, the original trilogy. Anything else outside of that, No,
but the original trilogy very comforting. I know it changed
the Last of Us and Last was too. Not the

(42:33):
show the game, yeah, because I know where the game goes.
I think I know where the show is going to go,
but I don't know for sure. So that's kind of
a level of tension that the game doesn't have for
me right now. SpongeBob, it used to be how to
Train Your Dragon for a while, but now it's Spongebobungebob.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, I'm loving it. I haven't watched Bungebob in a
long time, but having a grand grand ole time.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Is poker Face going to be on your list?

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I do love poker Face. I've watched poker Face so
much like Rewatch because I'm trying to like well back
when I was trying to guess who it was and
so the same thing happened with only murders in building.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I would rewatch and rewatch and watch.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
I also rewatched Adolescents a ton, which I don't know
what that says about me, but I guess I kind
of like the the puzzle pieces and trying to figure
out things that distracts me. That's a really good distraction
for me.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Okay, yeah, that makes it. That could be a whole
conversation about like true crime as well. Those two going,
but that's another episode that we can do. We're palling
in some episodes here that I won't remember. But so
why do we do this? So, according to psychology dot com,
there are so many reasons. Maybe it's about reliving treasured
moments or a time, so I do have those moments

(44:00):
of like I remember watching this this time and it
was a good time. I remember watching Supernatural finding something
that I actually liked and was invested in and had
a long time to do so, but I did it
very quickly during the pandemic. Was a delight. But or
it could be that it's familiar and you know what
to expect, and I say that a lot. I'm like,

(44:21):
I know, even though even if it's dramatic. So I've
done this with a lot of K dramas, because K
dramas just put in random murders and kidnappings for no
reason in a sitcom and you're like, what is happening?
I know, I can I can fast forward it because
I know what's coming m hm. And so that has
become a new thing for me. And there are several
K dramas who are on my list too. I just
didn't like it, but you know it's there, or I

(44:42):
know when I can get up and do things without
being interested in so that that it is something for me,
or even what they call the mister Rogers effect, And
I wanted to include this so again this is from
psychology dot com because I've never heard of this, and
I was like, huh, so this says again. The article
is called why we watch the same shows over and
over again? That's the title, and I'm like, yeah, that's

(45:03):
about right. They say at the beginning of every show,
mister Rogers went through the same routine of changing into
his cardigan sweater and around the house sneakers while seeing
the same reassuring words. He did this to provide the
necessary stability and comfort to his young viewers. According to
research by Cristelle Antonio Russell and Sidney Levy, repetition works

(45:24):
for adults as well. Knowing what will happen bestow's order
and safety, especially during times when our lives feel uncomfortable
and less controlled. Mister Rogers, you really were something. Yeah,
we love you, rip. And they go on to list
so much more, including seeing how we've grown since we

(45:47):
first watched this, So again that kind of like developing
in the show, whether it's you're figuring that our going
back to be like oh yeah, or finding something new
or remember what this felt like and now I'm here
a type of conversation again, not wanting to choose. I
think that's an interesting one. There's too many things, and
I've seen this. I don't know. I don't know what
I want to want to judge. Oh never mind, I'm

(46:08):
not gonna pick anything new. I'm not sure about this one.
I'll just go back to this, right.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
I guess we all do that because we're like, oh
my god, what are these bad choices? It's just the
remake of remake of remake anyway, that sound really crotchety
just now, I hope you did okod Or maybe it's
the connection you feel to the characters. And this kind
of goes back to our own episodes about fandoms and
parasocial relationships and fandoms and kind of like whether it's

(46:35):
good or bad, but you do feel like you have
an established relationship because you know their personality, you know
them like no one else does it within the same show.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yes, yes, and as I've discussed before. I can relate
more easily through a fictional character that I feel like
I know than I can through my own self because
I'm like, well, they're so strong and if they're feeling
this week, then are not weak because I know they're strong.
I have all this proof and all these other characters

(47:07):
that think so yes.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
And I was thinking that we could put in a
moment where we talk about when we lose those characters,
whether it's because the real life people or the writers
or such are horrible turn out to be horrible because
I used to love Glee like there, because like I
love singing, and I love musicals and I love all
those things. But it's so bad to me. It's like haunted,

(47:32):
hauntingly tainted. I don't know how else to put that,
But like when what happens when you lose those and
what happens when you're trying to like reconnect And for
some people, we know that they can separate the character
from the people. I cannot do that for the life
of me. If something is ruined, it is forever ruined.

(47:55):
But we're not going to get into that. That's the
whole different gigs, because like, what do you do when
you're self doothing is the low soothing. That's a whole
different conversation. But being able to return to my favorite
characters who get into these sealy hijinks, it is comforting.
It is comforting to know that their goofiness, they're over
the topness, like it is able to be like, uh,

(48:16):
you're a goofy. I like you.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, it's nice, it's nice. You know it's coming.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I'll laugh at the same joke I've seen a million
times because I know it's coming, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
that's so.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
And something you mentioned earlier that we're not getting into
because I kind of because it's not like it is,
and it isn't in my world in this level of
like it should be because I do it often. It
was gaming you were talking about that earlier as a
form of self soothing, and whether or not it's very gendered.
We already know because we talked about the world of
gaming when it comes to marginalized people and how often

(48:48):
times they are ostracized, but at the same time they
make their own communities and we love it. We I
do eventually need to come back and coming to have
a conversation about cozy gaming and how it's kind of
been so commercialized that it's being ruined by industry and
not allowing for enough independent artists to come in as
well as still feminizing and fantilizing what it is, and

(49:15):
the gaming industry is doing that as well. The corporates,
not necessarily the individual, but the corporations. They're like, we'll
just make it a cute game that has nonsensical things.
They'll be enough, which is not true that which is
not what people want necessarily. Sometimes yes, most of the
times no, but that's the whole thing. But what were
your thoughts on using games as a self sooth?

Speaker 1 (49:38):
I find it incredibly self soothing. I know we've talked
about it before. A lot of my friends would veheminently disagree,
but I just feel like it gives me a task
and I can complete it. And this is where I
know a lot of people get hung up, but I
feel like I'm pretty good at it, so it makes me.

(50:01):
It distracts me, and then I have to focus on
I have to kill the zombie before it kills me.
It kind of takes me out of everything else because
I'm legitimately a little scared and don't want to die
on this game, die in this game, so I have
to focus on it. And so it is a really
good way of kind of turning off all of the

(50:23):
other things that are making me panic. But also, you know,
if I'm playing a good survival horror game, then you're
getting that feeling of, I think, releasing some of those
tensions that you have pent up. So I mean even
when I was a kid, I really liked it because
it is something you sort of have to I think

(50:44):
for me, it's something I have to focus on. I
know some people use it in almost the opposite way,
where it's like you can turn off your brain and
just do do something. But I like that, like I
have to focus on it, and it gives me something
to do with my hands, and it gives me a
sense of sadness faction, like I'm accomplishing something.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah. Well, so because you did mention that, I was like, oh,
we didn't really talk about it. And again, this probably
could be a whole other episode in itself. But looking
up a very well minded dot com, they talk about
how video games can relieve stress and they compared it
to meditative interventions. So here's what They say, one study
compared the stress were living effects of playing a simple
casual video game to the effects of participating in a

(51:25):
mindfulness meditation session. Both groups experienced significant reductions and stress
following the interventions. So that's really interesting to me that
they actually decided, hey, what if we took two things
that seemed to be opposite mm hm, you know, and
because like what we think of the games and like
having to do all these things, that that actually could
be one and the same. In the stress reliever, they say,

(51:49):
while participants in the mindfulness meditation group experienced a slightly
greater stress relief, the researchers suggested that the effects were
very similar. Given the popularity of video games, researchers suggests
that these two can be effective interventions for people coping
with stress. So, of course it's not gonna be one
on one, it's not going to be the same, but
the fact that the effects are pretty similar says a lot,

(52:10):
because we know more people are going to see gaming
as a legit activity as where meditation is crunchy, right.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Right, yeah, yeah, And I mean I do it's almost
hard to describe, but I do think that's true, especially
if if you've got if you've played the game multiple times,
then you're you just know what to do, like you're
not thinking about it almost you're just doing it. And
in my favorite cases, you're getting a beautiful story of

(52:41):
while you're doing it.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yes, And then they even talk about co op games
and I'm like, I could see that, but I also
see the fights.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah that's a that's an interesting one.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Stress levels. But at the same time, yeah, I can.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
See that one.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
But yeah, So with all of that, there are great
benefits and these types of self soothing that we've talked
about that was also negatives, so that they can be
along the lines of self care, new hobbies, and can
be wonderful with help of therapy like DBT or dialectical
behavior therapy, which they do talk a lot about with
self soothing and different other forms of therapy in general. Again,

(53:34):
and we're not talking necessarily about stemming or fidget toys,
which have now been put into practice for many people
with maybe ADHD, autism, bipolar, any of these things. They
are really useful and it actually can be really helpful
for specific timing. So they had this example from positive

(53:54):
psychology dot Com of something that happened during the pandemic
because people weren't able to get hugs. So they write
they found that both self soothing touch in the study,
most participants choose to place their right hand on their
heart and their left hand on their abdomen while focusing
on the rising and falling of breathing and receiving a
hug from another person were equally effective at lowering stress levels. Therefore,

(54:18):
when other people are not available to hug, self soothing
touch could be a source of much needed comfort and reassurance.
And then there's also this conversation about the butterfly hug
and then also being a burrito.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
I've heard of that one burrita.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Like it, but like they were using this during a
time where people really felt like they were missing out,
and how it could be really really helpful in these
like interesting, very very typical touch methods, breathing methods and
helping you to cope through not being able to have
physical touch, which some people need. Yeah, well, you know

(54:52):
what I think everyone needs, just some people that need
it a lot more.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Excessive, right, yeah, or just needed a lot more so.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
I said excessively. I guess you know where I land.
But again, with all of that, there can be downsides
when we talk about self clothing, as we talked about
earlier and many times throughout that the beginning of these
habits can be borderline addictive obsessive, such as the unhealthy
eating habits, drug and alcohol consumption. Calming yourself so like

(55:22):
being able to stem, is great, but if it goes
excessive to truly harming yourself, that's a whole different level
as well. And there are several groups who have recommended toolkits,
an actual toolkit that you can get, or you can
create yourself, or you can get with the help of
a therapist that helps self soothe. And here's the suggestion
from University of Miami. They say one way to require

(55:44):
self soothing skills is to create a toolkit. The box
might include objects or reminders of how to soothe all
five senses. Comforting smells such as scented candles, essential oils
or body loution, pleasant tastes such as herbal teas or
favorite snacks. Soothing things to touch such as favorite sweaters,
rap or stress ball, comforting sites such as photos of

(56:06):
loved ones, pets, or favorite places. And soothing sounds as
a favorite piece of music or guided meditation track. When
I was getting really really isolated and getting filling antsy
because I was stuck in the house during the pandemic,
like we couldn't go anywhere. I was like, I would
actually turn on videos of scenic views with bubbling brooks,

(56:28):
very loudly with a window open, Like I had to
do that for myself because I was going to start crazy.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
It's interesting because I remember I read something during the
pandemic which was like, if you're an extrovert, because everybody
was worried about those extroverts during the pandemic, turn on
put on photos of what you used to do.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
That was mistake.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
But what I would say word for me was I
like I would put on like a background, yeah, and
I would put on new music.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
I loved that, and I would try to like make
new foods. So I do think, like, I.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Think this is a great idea, but also tailor it
to yourself, because I think there are some ways that
I remember looking at pictures of me and my friends
and just being like this is not I'm just sad
I can't see them right.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Someone that does not do well. It's kind of like
when I want to plan for a trip, and I'm like,
I want to go to these places and they're like
I can't.

Speaker 5 (57:36):
Yeah, And obviously it's different now we're not in a pandemic,
so I can go see my friends. It doesn't have
the same weight of being like I can't see them
right now. But yeah, definitely take it, tailor it to
your what you need.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Absolutely. Yeah. And there are some other suggestions that they
give you from wondermind dot com in which they say,
make breathing a thing. So we've talked about box breathing,
different techniques and breathing. For me, sometimes breathing too much
as me panic attack. So I don't do that necessarily.
I just take one very deep breath and sigh and
do that weird mummy groan which Annie used to make

(58:09):
fun of before. Yeah, I still do it sometimes. It
came out recently and I forgot take a walk mission.
So they talked about like finding places to go. She
specifically talks about getting yourself, like go find a flower,
go get to this thing, or walk to this part
to get a snack or something. Do it safely. Of
course again blanket burrito mode, I love that. I'd like,

(58:32):
I don't like that because I don't like to be suffocated,
but a lot of people need that space. So you know,
I have you screamed burrito me before when I felt
like I was too anxious and so he would just
roll me up in a blanket. That's weird, isn't it.
That's a weird comment, But you know it worked.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
You know what.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
I saw somebody do this at dragon Con. We've talked
about how Dragon Con can be overwhelming, and I saw
we saw somebody assuming this is what she was doing, but.

Speaker 5 (59:02):
She just wrapped herself up in a blanket like a burrito.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
It's like, Okay, she needs a moment.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
She needs a moment a little buddy, and they talk
about like move in whatever way feels good to you, dance,
don't dance, jump, scream, roll out. Sometimes a good scream
is nice. Do something mindless, a puzzle. A puzzle is
really great, like really've gotten into those lately. There's so
many things that.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
You could do.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
And once again, there is the plus and there is
the negative, in which you have to be aware that
any extreme can be dangerous, and sometimes being too isolated
is dangerous. Yep, they say it's a look upon to space.
Obviously there's a lot to this conversation, and I did,

(59:47):
like I said, interchange the terms of like comfort habits,
which doesn't exist. I made that one up apparently, and
I was like, oh, okay, well it should be. But anyway,
comfort habits and self soothing get it could such a
big conversation when to talk about what that looks like,
what could be dangerous for some people? Taking a walk
could be dangerous for some people. Running we know can
be dangerous for groups of people, but we're not necessarily

(01:00:12):
focused on that. But again, these are so many subjects
that we could talk to. Don't worry, I'm sure we're
going to revisit some of these specific topics at hand.
And of course we would love to hear about your
comfort habits. What do you do? What are your comfort foods?
Have you gotten into making sourdough? Do you love sourdough bread?
Someone tell me how to make a sourdough mix?

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Please, someone tell Samantha to do it, because then I
get to try some hopefully, Yes, listeners, we would love
to hear from you about this. You can email us
at Hello at stuff Onnever Told You dot com. You
can also find us on blue Sky. I'm a stuff
podcasts on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff One Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have a new place to

(01:00:56):
get merch Cotton Bureau, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
to our super producer Christina, Executive us TO and a
contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening
Stuff Never Told You inspection by heart Radio. For more
podcasts in my heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.