Ep. 79 - GAIN without Pain for Teaching Professionals with Dr. Greg Hammer, MD

Greg Hammer, MD, is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

As a pediatric anesthesiologist and an intensive care physician he cares for children and their families during very stressful times.

Burnout is on the rise. This is a problem we cannot afford to ignore. The rising costs of burnout are staggering. Health care professionals AND teachers, sacrifice their health, happiness, and relationships.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Dr. Greg Hammer created GAIN Without Pain so that health care professionals AND teachers can prevent burnout and reclaim happiness.This proven path toward personal resilience can be implemented by anyone, anywhere, in just a few minutes a day. Increased resilience could save your practice, your students, your marriage - or even your life.

GAIN Without Pain is a four-step process toward happiness. GAIN is an acronym for Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Nonjudgment.

"As physicians (AND teachers), we owe our patients(students) two things…our time and our skill. We do not owe our patients (students) our lives.” - Joseph D. Wassersug, MD, bestselling author

Dr. Hammer frequently speaks around the world to share his expertise and philosophy. Greg's website: www.GregHammerMD.com
Book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/7TFzdPT

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mmmm. Welcome back to another episodeof Science three sixty. This is Tim
Stevenson. You your host, andon this episode I have doctor Greg Hammer
and we're going to talk about howto cope with stress as a teacher.
But first some very fitting words wisewords from America's businessman, mister Jim Rome.

(00:23):
How do you handle the coming wintersand the disappointments in the downtime as
well? You can't get rid ofJanuary by tearing it off the calendar.
But here's what you can do.You can get stronger, you can get
wiser, and you can get better. The winters won't change, but you
can. And that's how life changesfor you. See, before I understood

(00:46):
when it was winter, I usedto wish it was summer. When it
was hard, I used to wishit was easy. Don't wish it was
easier. Wish you were better.Doctor Greg Hammer is a professor at the
Stanford University School of Medicine, PediatricIntensive Care, physician, pediatric and esiotologist,
mindfulness expert, and the author ofGain Without Pain, the Happiness Handbook

(01:08):
for Healthcare Professionals. But this isa podcast for teachers, and it wasn't
long before we realized whatever he wroteabout for healthcare professionals applies perfectly to our
profession as well. His book focuseson the four pillars of gratitude, acceptance,
intention, and non judgment to promoteoverall well being and harmony between the

(01:32):
mind and the body. And inthis conversation, doctor Hammer and I get
into the root cause of teacher stressand we go face to face with the
daily stresses of being a high schoolstudent in twenty twenty three. This is
an important conversation to have at atime when teachers are leaving the profession and

(01:53):
students are balancing tenuously on the cuttingedge of stability. At one point early
on, Greg asks me to clarifywhat the stresses are that teachers face.
I talk about being judged, aboutthe pressure of meeting curricular expectations and the
performance of our students. There aretop down pressures that stack all the way

(02:14):
up to the ministry level, whichis causing all levels of education to feel
the pressure of performance. We talkabout reporting, and one thing that I
thought of later that I wanted tosay now is as grades and some jurisdictions
are being replaced by performance skills,the transition is putting more emphasis on the
written comment. I believe that thisis a far better way to convey a

(02:34):
students' abilities, but it does requirethe teacher to put more effort into their
qualitative descriptions of performance. But Ibelieve that changes like this, which require
the teacher to be better, assuggested in that Jim rohneclip, is actually
a good thing. And for methis has lowered my stresses at reporting periods.

(02:54):
I wonder how that sits with you, the listener. However, as
this this episode unfolds, we getto the heart of the solution. There
are physiological actions that we can taketo moderate stresses, and doctor Hammer expands
beautifully on that, and then thereare pedagogical approaches that simply have to be
considered if we're going to reach studentswhose psyche is tenuous at best. I

(03:20):
really think this conversation is going toleave a teacher with lots to think about,
and my hope is that they reflecton these words, allow them to
mold and shape you in a waythat you approach this fine art of teaching.
And when you're done with this episode, be sure to check out a
similar conversation that I had some timeago. With Jessica LeBlanc on episode fifty

(03:42):
four. There's one that I callburning Bright, not Out. It beautifully
complements this episode. These discussions showthat there are ways to cope. Sometimes
they're physiological, sometimes pedagogical, sometimessocial, but there are ways. Teachers,
we aren't alone. There is acommunity out there that wants to come

(04:03):
alongside. There's power in numbers.Don't be an Ireland. Take the time
to practice doctor Hammer's gain method,express gratitude, acknowledge the struggles, be
intentional about your coping mechanisms, andbe non judgmental, both of yourself and
of others. All right, Okay, now let's get onto our discussion.

(04:27):
I think you're going to find thisvery adifying. Well, I guess is
geared towards teachers, particularly. I'ma teacher. I've been teaching for thirty
years. I'm a chemistry junior scienceand an astronomy teacher. I love that,
you know. I did read thatabout you, and I'm I used

(04:47):
to be in astronomy buff I actuallytook several classes in astronomy at the University
of Wisconsin, Okay, answered therefrom Northwestern to study nutritional biochemistry. But
I was also excited about their astronomydepartment, and I was actually thinking of
going into astronomy at one point,but I decided to be more pragmatic and

(05:09):
go into medicine. Well, youknow, the odds are becoming a doctor
versus an astronaut. Are you probablyheavier in favor of becoming a doctor.
But I was interested in studying solarevolution, for example, So you know,
I don't think I ever was interestedin being an astronaut, although you
know, of course I think itwould be very cool looking at the Earth.

(05:30):
I use that in my meditation animage of the Earth, when I
talk about non judgment and ask themeditator to visualize that the Earth these beautiful
NASA images of the Earth suspended inspace, and that the Earth is neither
good nor bad, just the planetthat it is, and therefore we too,
it's only logical to believe are neithergood nor bad. So it's in

(05:55):
the end for non judgment part ofgain. Yeah, we'll have to get
into that game. I really likethat game thing and the whole aspect of
astronomy. If you want to jumpall over the astronomy thing anytime, go
for it. Okay, now I'msure, I could learn from you.
It'd be great. When I kindof got onto the game thing and decided
to write a book, my publisherthought it would be better if I wrote

(06:17):
it for a specific sort of segmentof the population, So that's why it's
the Happiness Handbook for healthcare professionals.But I also thought about what other segments
could I do it for in thefuture. I would have to team up
with somebody who works in that area, and I thought about teachers as the
next I'm writing a book about teenagersnow, so but you know, teachers

(06:40):
maybe next, so I may hityou up as a co author at some
point. I love that, youknow, really, And that's a focus
area of what I wanted to talkabout today, because teaching is teaching is
a tough profession. There's so manypressures on standards and not to the role
of the teacher, but the clienttele that we're dealing with today are there.

(07:05):
They're a different animal than they usedto be, and there's so much
emphasis is being put on to social, social and emotional learning, to UH,
to dealing with the whole person,sort of these soft skills that are
almost more important than the curricular skillsand is the pressure that's being put on

(07:29):
teachers, and admitted least some ofthat pressure is put on the teachers by
the teachers themselves. It's not necessarilyfrom admin coming down, but it's resulting
in teachers taking on the weight ofthe world because not only do I have
to teach the course, but Ihave to teach this student how to cope
with life, and they just don'tseem to have the coping mechanisms that used
to they used to have. Ilove that. Yeah, I love that.

(07:53):
Are you sure we're not using thisbecause I think this is a great
discussion. I really love love thatpoint that you made about how teachers have
the way of the world on theirshoulders and what the expectations are from the
students and the parents of the students, no doubt, and the school.
And it's sort of uncharted territory,right, I mean, what are the

(08:16):
expectations of teachers among others? Youknow, So I'm a teacher. Also,
I don't teach in the classroom much, but you know, I'm a
professor at Stanford and I teach inthe medical school. I teach primarily in
the operating room and intensive care unit. Medical students residents and fellows, and
I also give lectures to those groups. But I have a dear friend who's

(08:41):
a teacher, and I know severalteachers, and I think we have something
in common, and that is teachingyoung people, younger people. Whether it's
in the classroom or in some otherenvironment, it's it's what is the teacher
student relationship and what of the studentexpect out of that? And you know,

(09:03):
I think that has become a littlebit ambiguous in some ways. And
therefore, you know, and Ithink teachers have to be very careful about
trespassing the students' expectations of them.And since those expectations are kind of vague

(09:24):
in some ways in the softer areasas you put it, you know,
I think that a lot of teachershave probably gotten in trouble not for anything
they did that would have historically beenconsidered inappropriate by any means, but you
know, as we sort of getinto these vague areas, you know,
what is the relationship? If youknow, should we be very friendly and

(09:48):
informal with the student? And mightthat mislead the student as they might expect
something more scholarly and perhaps formal,And might they a misinterpret a friendliness or
an informality. I just think thatthe potential areas of trouble are several at

(10:11):
least. Yeah, and students thesedays, almost because of the nature of
the way they transitioned to sort ofa more delicate psyche, they thrive.
I think more on can we justtalk at a less academic level and a
more social level. And what Ifound works well at this point in my

(10:37):
teaching career is that if I firstapproach the student on a level that they
can relate to, then they're moreopen and receptive to learning more academic things
that I'm kind of required to teachin the curriculum. I guess the expression

(10:58):
I've coined and started to use moreis that a teacher needs to first teach
to the heart, and if youget the heart, you'll get the mind.
But there was a time in teachinghistory where we would teach to the
brain, only thinking that this iswhat we needed to do, but leaving
out the heart. And it mayhave worked twenty or thirty years ago,

(11:20):
but today that doesn't work, andI think that we find greater success if
we approach the student at a heartlevel first. You know, the old
expression I don't care how much youknow until I know how much you care.
No, I haven't heard that,but I like it. That's a

(11:41):
good one that one's been around fora while. But teachers are stressed out,
and you know that because they're leavingthe profession. And I wonder,
what is it that you know,if we're wanting at a very practical level,
can you offer what I mean interms of dealing with the day to

(12:03):
day's stress of a very difficult jobbut a very very rewarding job. What
do we do to help teachers copewith these stresses and keep them in the
profession. What do you think arethe main stressors? I mean, you
talk about teaching to the heart orapproaching the heart primarily, and I love

(12:24):
that certainly. When I was astudent, I didn't expect that. And
you know, I went to mybiochemistry class, for example, and I
just wanted to learn the biochemistry.Yeah, you know, and if the
teacher was articulate and there was aflow and a logic to the progression of
concepts that were being presented, thenI was pretty satisfied with that. I

(12:48):
felt like the learning was largely upto me. In other words, I
didn't really expect the teacher to spoonfeed me. I just wanted them to
clarify things that I was expected totake the initiative to learn. And I
think that, you know, it'spretty much true across the board, not
only in the hard sciences. Imean certainly in English and history and the

(13:11):
more liberal arts. There. Youknow, there's some expectations of how do
you make this fun and exciting andotherwise of course, you know, the
students aren't really going to pay attention. But yeah, I think that when
I was a student, and whenyou were a student, at least this
is my recollection, I feel asthough the student had the primary responsibility.

(13:33):
And I think, you know,and and I love your opinion on this,
it seems to me that things haveshifted a bit that now the teacher
has more responsibility for engaging the student, and so I think there's a there's
a subtle shift toward you know,what is the active and what is the
passive element here? And I thinkthat you know, forgive me if i'm

(13:58):
you know, correct me, ifI'm wrong, I should, but I
feel that the students have become alittle bit more passive, They expect a
little bit more you know, spoonfeeding is a little bit pejorative. I
don't mean it to be, butthey expect the teacher to be, you
know, have greater responsibility for thatconnection. Well, Stanford itself put out

(14:18):
a brilliant campaign maybe three or fouryears ago, and one of the slogans
was it's it's not your major,it's your mission. And I thought that
was brilliant because it took it tookkind of the emphasis off of let me
just learn a bunch of stuff andthey all go get a job. One
of the things I like to sayis, in those days that you know

(14:41):
we went to school, the storywas get get your best, you know,
get the best marks you can get, Get into a good university,
get yourself a good degree and agood job. Find yourself a job where
you can get a pension, andthen work at it for thirty five or
four years and retire and enjoy lifein Florida for the next ten years until

(15:05):
you die. And that's life there. It is. But a lot of
these messages that we got, maybefrom our parents, was when you achieve
all these things, then you'll behappy. And these days, I think,
probably whether by necessity or by justevolution of humanity. There's a need

(15:26):
to start with happy instead of finishwith happy. And in school, I
think the stress in teachers is comingfrom a point of view whereby especially among
the younger generation of teachers, they'reteaching in a way that they feel they're

(15:48):
expected to. Perhaps they're teaching astheir teachers taught them, or perhaps they're
teaching as the university taught them toteach. And so there's the way I
see it, as they're really tryingto squeeze a square peg into a round
hole. They're trying to take athirty year old paradigm and force it upon

(16:11):
a modern day student that is very, very different than it was thirty years
ago. And then they conflict andas a result, you get stressed because
the students don't respond the way theywant them to. They wonder, well,
why aren't you studying, Why aren'tyou doing the homework? Why didn't
you do the reading? Why didn'tyou, you know, do those that

(16:32):
worksheet? Because students today don't careabout those things. They care about they
care about where it matters. Andmy messaging to as many teachers as I
can get to is stop worrying aboutabout hitting all the fine points of your

(16:52):
curriculum and start focusing on why itmatters. You know, the old question,
when are we ever going to needto know this? Like I'm leondering
it, you know, in thein the US, you're you're in the
US. The one of the commonexpress uh, you know, kind of
the jokes the mitochondria is and howwould you finish that? Oh, perhaps

(17:15):
the energy factor of the cell.Yeah, yeah, the energy factory,
the powerhouse. That it's almost likea joke because it's like, oh,
yeah, that's that's what we alwayslearn. As long as you learn that
the mitochondria is the powerhouse of thecell and that a square plus b square
equals C squared, don't worry aboutwhether you'll ever use a quadratic formula.
That doesn't matter. Just learn it. Whereas today's student needs context, purpose,

(17:40):
relevance. Tell me why I needto learn it, and if you
give me a good reason why Iwill learn it. If you can't tell
me what that tim would be.And when people ask me about, you
know, my interest in astronomy andmy interested in medicine, I would say
that, you know, I firstwas interested in astronomy when I was a
little kid, I remember when well, standing with my telescope on the end

(18:03):
of my driveway outside of Chicago inthe middle of winter, when the skies
were clearest, when it was probablyyou know, below zero fahrenheit, and
you know, having my eye stickto the eyepiece. And the thing about
astronomy that really turned me on wasreally the inter relationship between everything between the

(18:26):
micro you know, sub atomic level, quantum level, if you will,
and the macro the more Newtonian realm, and how beautiful the micro constituted the
less micro and so on and soon, until you had galaxies and the

(18:48):
universe. And I when I startedstudying biology, I had the same sense
of excitement about what happens in thehuman body. For example, is that
these little sub celluler particles, ifyou will, you know, relate to
each other much like the sub atomicparticles do when we're interested in you know,

(19:11):
planetary movements or solar evolution, andhow these little micro particles form subcellular
components like the mitochondria and the roleof the mitochondria in the cell, and
how everything that's happening in that cellis so interrelated, and that the way
cells develop from stem cells into moredifferentiated cells, what are the signals,

(19:36):
how are they talking to each other? And again you have this sort of
inter relationship from the micro to themacro till you get to the entire body.
So if I were explaining the roleof the mitochondria, and I would
explain it in that context and relateit to more of a you know,
a cosmological view, if you will, So that would be where I would

(19:57):
start if I was teaching at ratherthan just taking it completely out of context
and talking about ATP production, yeah, and electron transport. But I think
there's something, you know, sortof a larger picture here, and you
know, I would really like,you know, beside the sort of square

(20:19):
object in a round whole stress.What do you think is stressing teachers out
primarily these days? And why arethey leaving the profession? And you know,
my sense is that it goes backto the beginning of our conversation regarding
what the expectation of the teachers isand what the teacher student relationship is,

(20:40):
and how we've gotten into this sortof shift in the expectation. This is
my view of things from my ownposition as a professor at Stanford in the
medical school. You know, Ithink the responsibility in some ways has shifted
more toward the teacher and away fromthe student. The expectation of the students
is in some ways become a bitunrealistic. And you know, I don't

(21:07):
know if this is your impression ornot, but that's part of what I
think has changed in the teaching profession. So what do you think are the
major stressors for teachers these days?If you get sort of like rolling up
your sleeves and down to the nittygritty of it, I think it's partly
an expectation that of judgment. They'reworried perhaps that if their classroom isn't rolling

(21:36):
perfectly, the students aren't responding exactlyas they expected, they feel that pressure
that I must be doing something wrongbecause look at my class those kids aren't
paying attention, those kids are ontheir phone, that group didn't do their
homework, And so they feel like, gosh, if principal ever walked in
right now, and how do Iget these students who are just a little

(21:59):
bit squirrely to to buy into whatI'm trying to do here? There there's
there are also a lot of there'sa lot more in my experience anyway here
in British Columbia of kind of topdown type expectations from administrators and even senior

(22:22):
administrators too, to teach aspects ofculture within my science class that maybe I'm
not familiar with. There's expectations onhow I report. What I say in
my reporting has to meet certain standards, and if they're not those standards,

(22:48):
then the administrator walks into room saysthat you got to rewrite all these things,
and they're, oh, I justspent three hours on that. Now
I got to rewrite stuff. Ithink that's happening. However, I do
I think that's a change from fromyou know, twenty thirty years ago.
Is there's more administrative responsibility on theteachers. Yeah, there, I think.
So there's there's more responsibility on theadministrators from the ministry as well.

(23:14):
It's sort of trickling all the waydown and we were never asked to you
know, for instance, at theend of the school year, we might
if a person passed and got agood mark, we might just say,
have a great summer. That's yourcomment, y of a porker. You
never get away with that today.Now you got to come up with something
quite teacher esque, you know,and they describe that for me, Tim,

(23:40):
what do you mean like, Imean, there is a phenomenon where
you know, everybody gets a metal, everybody gets a prized. You know,
ninety nine percent of students are aboveaverage that sort of thing. Is
that in part what you're referencing orare you talking about something different? No,
I don't think so. There's there. There is, though, a
lot of pressure not to fail asstudent. And in a way I can

(24:10):
almost understand that because these students thatare on the cusp of failing are not
likely going to end up at StanfordUniversity anyway. What they need is to
get through the program and get intothe workforce and start to become independent.
Holding them back for one more yearof grade nine science may not be in

(24:33):
their best interest. So that's beena bit of a change. But I
do think though that this aspect ofreporting is a part of the pressure.
I think the majority of the pressureteachers feel is that daily stress. Sometimes

(24:55):
I think of it like you're puttingon four or five one hour show a
day, and what you want isa five star review for all of them,
and if you don't get that,you start to feel that and that
you know, in your school yearis one hundred and eighty days long,
one hundred and eighty school days long. And if I'm getting reviewed four or

(25:15):
five times a day for one hundredand eighty consecutive days, I'm feeling the
pressure. And I know that onlygoes to what I pointed out about my
view of the expectations. So ifyou know the students are sort of reviewing
you, if you will, andI have the same thing. You know,
my trainees write evaluations on me,and you know, it's become very

(25:41):
tricky because if I for the goodof the trainee, So I have a
resident in anesthesiology or pediatrics, ora fellow in pediatric antithesiology and or a
fellow in pediatric intensive care medicine,and I'm with them for a day or
a week or a month, andI see that they there's really areas where

(26:03):
they really need to focus and improve, and I write that in their evaluation.
In other words, for their benefit, I point out their areas of
weakness, which is what an evaluationis, right, It's not supposed to
only be glowing and all of thegood points. And you know, if
I feel somebody needs to read morethey're not really keeping up with their peers

(26:25):
in their base of knowledge, whichobviously in medicine, especially my areas of
medicine, is critical. Literally ifI write that, and you know,
I would reference something, you know, as a specific example, when the
trainee reads my evaluation of them,they'll know who wrote it, even if
it's supposed to be anonymous, andthey may retaliate and write a negative review

(26:48):
about me. Oh, you know, he was you know, left me
alone in the room, or wasoverbearing, you know, didn't let me
make any decisions, or what haveyou. And then this, you know,
is harmful to my annual review withmy chair for example. So I
think partly this review process as you'redescribing, and I think does get to

(27:10):
what the expectations are, what doesthe student expect from the teacher? And
I do get back to this thiscomponent whereby years ago, the responsibility was
with a student, and I thinkit shifted toward the teacher, And so
I think that students expect certain thingsfrom the teacher that may not be realistic.

(27:30):
And I'd love to have your inputon this as well, because I
just I'm writing a new book aboutteenagers and it's called a mindful teen.
So it's really about mindfulness approach tobe embraced by parents, teachers, counselors,
school administrators, therapists when they're dealingwith teenagers, to really highlight what

(27:55):
the issues I see with teenagers are. And I'm teaming up with a PhD
in psychology who treats teenagers with amindfulness based approach. But the list of
things that teenagers deal with now thatyou and I certainly didn't have to deal
with. You know, the theextreme divisiveness in our culture. You know,

(28:15):
the should I wear a kevlar vestto school today? Am I a
boy or a girl? Which bathroomdo I use? How do I spend
an average of three and a halfhours a day engaged in social media and
still do an extracurricular activity and domy homework? You know, the list

(28:36):
goes on. The cyber bullying,you know, the other aspects related to
social media that can be challenging orworse. So, you know, I
think as a result of some ofthese things, I think and the other
thing is that these you know,kids now are growing up in a point
and click culture. I think thatthey expect to get somewhere in a hurry,

(28:59):
and they look at these gazillionaires whowere you know, started Google and
Amazon and Facebook, and how wealthythey are and how young they are,
and they are less aware of theten thousand hour rule that you know,
these people got there by putting intheir ten thousand hours and it's a bell
shaped curve and you're looking only atthe very extreme end of the spectrum.

(29:23):
Look at all you know, thepeople who failed, you don't read about
them. And the students. Ithink young people expect, with this sort
of immediate gratification, to get fromA to Z in a quick period of
time. And I think that,you know, the teachers are partly responsible
for getting them there in some ways. So I'm doing a lot of field

(29:45):
research and online research about the issuesthat teenagers face, and I see all
of these things kind of coming tobear on the teacher student relationship. So
I'd love to hear your thoughts onthat. Well, they this this whole
thing about all these things you mentionedare are think I think, are the
reasons why students are less inclined towardsthe bare bones curriculum. That how do

(30:15):
I take all of those things thatyou just said, which are in a
way unavoidable, Like, when whendoes society stop being so divided? I
mean, hopefully today, but Idon't think it's going to happen. You
know, when is social media goingto stop being a three and a half
hour a day addiction. It doesn'tseem like it's going to. So it's

(30:36):
it's almost like we're this is,this is these are the cards we've now
been dealt. So so how howare we going to deal with it?
And and then and then how then? How does the teacher compete with all
of those things? Sometimes I watcha Marvel movie at the theater, and
I watched the incredible animation and thework that is put into this visual demons,

(31:00):
and I think, no, amI supposed to compete with that?
That? I can't. I can'tbe that to every kid in the classroom.
So to deal with it all,knowing full well that the student's mind
is in a hundred different places whileI'm teaching them, I have transitioned to

(31:23):
a teaching style that has in factlowered my stress and allowed me to cope.
I've walked into the classroom and I'llspend the first who knows, five
minutes, sometimes ten minutes, juststopping at kids' desks and saying, Hey,
how you doing, how was thatperformance last night? Or did you

(31:44):
get that job? Did you passyour driver's test? You're telling me about
that last week, and having thesesort of conversations eases us into the class.
And then what I'll do is focusthen my lesson not on facts and
figures. Memorization worksheets don't exist inmy classroom. But I've learned to take

(32:07):
the content and mold it into almostlike a story. I collect stories.
I collect stories of the people whomade the discoveries. Kids like that.
I've allowed the students then to kindof morph around the curriculum and learn the

(32:28):
aspect of it that strikes the chordwith them, rather than everybody answered this
question. Here's seventeen questions on thetopic we've been learning about. Which one
do you find most interesting that you'dlike to learn more about? And giving
them that choice has allowed them togo after with great zeal the topics that

(32:51):
they want to learn. So they'relearning because they want to, not because
they have to. And I've hadthat, I still have to know the
other sixteen things. No, okay, no, So you don't necessarily have
a curriculum and they have to youknow, they're expected to be to learn
and be tested on well, no, I do, but say, taking

(33:15):
a junior science class, the curriculumhas really changed a lot as well.
I think it's done. I thinkin British Columbia, where I live,
I think the curriculum has changed ina positive way. Rather than an itemized
list of all the multitude of pointsthat students are required to know by the

(33:37):
end of the year, they've becomewhat we call big ideas, and within
that big idea you can kind ofgo whatever direction you want. Even in
my Grade twelve chemistry class, thereused to be oh I think it was
seven pages of bullet points of itemsto cover. It's now five big ideas.

(33:59):
So how how do you want toteach that? So, for example,
when it comes to the acids andbases unit, yes, I'm going
to have to teach them that acidityis based on the concentration of the hydronium
ion. I will teach you thatthe negative log of that will give you
the pH and we'll go through allof those nitty gritty things that are required
to fully understand. But then we'regoing to go after where in the world

(34:22):
is acidity an issue, And there'sa couple I'd like to hit. I'll
focus on the one is it's inthe oceans. If you start to show
images of coral reefs and the degradingof the quality of the ocean marine life,

(34:42):
that draws sort of on an emotionalfront, and the students are like,
WHOA, that's that's not good.Yeah, that's caused by acidification.
So I can show you a calculationto and which is very an academic mathematical
thing. I can show you acalculation to show you that a drop from
a pH of eight point two daypoint one is actually a thirty percent increase
in hydronium I own. Do youwant to learn that? Well, yeah,

(35:05):
because that sounds bad, you know. And now the kids you're kind
of hooked onto something. And whereasI would never have I would have focused,
you know, years ago on let'sjust do a titration of a certain
concentration of acetic acid will turn determineits pH Yeah, oh, I love
that. I mean I certainly,first of all, I'd love to come
up and sit in on your classsometime. Come on, sounds like fun,

(35:30):
you know. I certainly I've alwaysfelt that relating things to real world
phenomena is critical. And one thingabout the high school and you know,
even potentially college curriculum that I stronglyfeel should change is during high school,
for example, the emphasis on math. I think math is overly emphasized.

(35:53):
I think instead of you know,because you know, I do pharmacology research,
so I do use a bit ofcalculus. I don't use algebra or
geometry. And you know, asyou just said about teaching your students,
the importance of the HYDROGENI and innature is critical. How do we apply

(36:14):
geometry and algebra to that? Likewhen is the last time somebody actually had
to solve an equation three x squaredplus one divided by why equals seven point
five. I mean, you know, that's not a practical matter. It's
pretty hard to relate that to anythingthat is, you know, related to
life skills. So instead of that, you know, I would advocate for

(36:36):
deemphasizing math and using the space freedup by that directive to focus on mindfulness
in schools, to focus on howdo we de stress. I'm not sure
if you and I were supposed totalk about this tim or if it was
were we going to talk about thevegas nerve. Yes, So I would

(37:00):
actually love to teach kids about thatand about how accessible utilizing their autonomic nervous
system, how accessible it is tothem, and what the benefits of activating
the parasympathetic side of one's nervous systemmight be. And you know, I

(37:21):
would start my class, my lifeskills class where I would teach you know,
I'd have a section on sleep,a section on exercise physiology, and
a section on nutritional science or nutritionalbiochemistry, which was my undergraduate major.
But first I would have an introto mindfulness and how do we deal with

(37:45):
the chronic stress that all of usexperience in life? How do we deal
with our negativity bias? Why isit that we have eighty percent of our
thoughts are negative and twenty percent onlyare positive. I teach them too about
the Bell curve and how everybody's differentand there are extremes, but the majority
of us are in this middle periodwhere we have this very weighty negativity bias.

(38:08):
And we also have this distraction withthe past and the future. And
when you combine those, our obsessionwith ruminating over past things we did or
didn't say, or may have doneor not done, and how we beat
ourselves up over that and we're ourown harshest critic, and why we feel
sad and have low self esteem.And then with regard to overthinking the future,

(38:34):
what are adaptive and maladaptive ways tothink about the future, and is
it maladaptive to overthink the future,And understanding how our negativity bias creeps in
and causes us to catastrophize and generatea lot of fear and anxiety, because
these are things that all the studentsare experiencing. They're experiencing issues of low

(38:55):
self esteem. I mean, Ithink that's why most of us wouldn't want
to be a teenage again, becauseof how we constantly compared ourselves to the
to our peers and they were alwaysbetter looking and better athletes, and smarter
and taller and so on. SoI would teach it. I would teach,
you know, perhaps a section firston the human brain and why we're

(39:17):
hardwired the way we are, andhow is it that we're hardwired? And
why are you having these thoughts andfeelings and how do these color your experience?
And then I would go on tomaybe some you know, physiology of
those sleep, exercise, nutrition,components. But that was a long winded
way of saying. If it wereup to me, if I were king
of you know, high school curriculum, I would de emphasize math, and

(39:43):
I would I would emphasize life skillsand how to cope with the chronic stress,
which is more relevant during the teenageyears than ever I think. I
mean, the you know, thekids that missed so many experiences during the
pandemic, so many you know thatthat development they experience with interpersonal connections and

(40:07):
relationships that really only take place whenyou're together in a room or together you
know, on the school grounds orattending school related events after school. And
then all of these other issues wetalked about, you know, which bathroom
do I use? And my genderfluid Maybe not so much in British Columbia,

(40:27):
but in the US, should Iwear a bulletproof vest to school?
Today? Social media? You know, I'm being bullied. I'm even more
exposed than ever to these sort ofidealized versions of what a teenager is and
what a human being is and whydon't I measure up? And so on.
So I would really go to allthose areas, and you know,

(40:50):
but I'm not king of the schools, and and here you and I are
having a conversation about why teachers areso stressed. But if you were a
biology, a grade twelve biology teacher, or for that matter, in our
school we have a psychology course,kids can take ap psychology. I'm sure
in those courses which I don't teach, but I'm sure that the topic of

(41:15):
brain and behavior comes up. Youmentioned the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system
and the vagus nerve. All ofthese things are are fair game their their
brain anatomy. I could either teachthe twelve nerves of the their twelve nerves,

(41:36):
twelve cranial nerves. I could teachthose they memorize their the tests on
Tuesday. Or what would you dothat would be fitting for a student population
that's inundated by all these stresses youjust described. Well, I still want
them to learn what the twelve crannialnerves are and have all these acronyms for

(41:59):
those which you know are across thespectrum of acceptability and getting a little bit
on the blue side. In medicalschool, those were our favorites. But
no, I'd expect them to justyou know, I would focus again on
how these sort of involuntary responses thatare modulated by the twelve cranial nerves affect

(42:22):
us in life, so you know, affect our ability to see and our
facial expressions, and what happens whenwe're anxious and stressed and why is that?
So you know, I would goback to the autonomic nervous system as
well. So yeah, I mean, I would certainly like to make all
of that much more accessible and talkabout the interface between the anatomy and physiology

(42:47):
and what you are experiencing in thismoment and while you're experience something negative,
while you're plugged into social media andso on. So yes, I understand
that in those as those ideas aretaught. I would just like to see
a little bit more time and emphasison these life skills and teaching about why

(43:12):
it is you feel the way youdo and so on. And I would
like to take, you know,the first five or ten minutes to do
some mindfulness exercises, you know,and that's how I think students would feel
good about putting their phones down andmaybe even turning them off, and you
know, we're going to focus onwhat's happening, what your current experience is

(43:35):
right now. So now they're goingto lean into the conversation instead of leaning
out, because you're drawing them inwith a practical application of so you can
tell me why I'm feeling this waylike that would be very interesting to me.
And so there's two things I'd likeyou to touch on. Actually,
one of them is a little lessonon the vagus nerve and how it relates

(44:00):
to how we respond to the worldaround us. And then the second thing
is, let's focus in on yourgain acronym and how that could be utilized
by both teachers and students to maybecope in a better way. Sure,
well, as you know, wehave various components of our nervous system.

(44:23):
Obviously, we have our motor nervoussystem that controls our muscular movements coming from
our brain, primarily other than thosethat are spinal reflexes, like if somebody
taps on your knee, your legis going to move. You don't have
to think about it. But whenyou reach for something, obviously you're activating
your motor nervous system, which isguiding your muscles in a very complicated and

(44:45):
very cool way. And you haveyour sensory nervous system which modulates touch,
differentiating hot and cold pressure, vision, You know our sensations and perceptions physical.
And then you have your autonomic nervoussystem, which is the unconscious area

(45:08):
of your nervous system, and thathas, like most physiologic aspects of the
human body, has two opposing sides. So just like our blood sugar is
regulated by insulin which lowers our bloodsugar, and glucagon, which elevates our
blood sugar, those two hormone systemsare in balance to give us sort of

(45:30):
a resting blood sugar, which maybe disordered or not. In the autonomic
nervous system. Similarly, we havethe sympathetic nervous system, which people associate
with the fight or flight response.So when we are suddenly scared, or
we hear a splash in the pooland a toddler fell in the pool,

(45:52):
our heart rate goes up, ourblood pressure goes up, our blood sugar
goes up. These are all sympatheticnervous system responses that heighten our ability to
jump in the pool and rescue thattoddler right away. There's an emergency,
and there's the parasympathetic nervous system,which keeps the sympathetic nervous system in check.
So when activated, the parasympathetic nervoussystem, largely through the vegus nerve

(46:16):
slows our heart rate, lowers ourblood pressure, lowers our blood sugar.
And this balance between parasympathetic and sympatheticis extremely important. And when we're chronically
stressed and feeling like we're sort ofout of balance, our sleep is disturbed,

(46:37):
we're fatigued, we're too tired toexercise, or exercise regimen kind of
falls by the wayside, and wehave all the other adverse manifestations of chronic
stress, which we're all experienced,I think, perhaps more than ever,
although maybe every generation has said that, But this is an imbalance in our
autonomic nervous system. We're having excessactive of the sympathetic nervous system, and

(47:01):
so you know, our blood vesselsare a little constricted, our blood pressure
is a little high, our heartrates a little high even at rest,
and we have many other adverse physiologicconsequences of chronic stress. So it turns
out that we can actually although theseautonomic nervous systems, the parasympathetic and sympathetic

(47:22):
nervous system, are largely involuntary they'renot completely involuntary. They can be modulated
by the conscious part of our brain, the cerebral cortex, and so we
can activate through cerebral cortical activity theseautonomic nervous systems. We can actually think
of scary, stressful things and ourheart rate will go up. Of course,

(47:45):
we all know that, you know, we experience this all the time,
and this is sort of at theroot of chronic stress. In many
ways, it's sort of self imposed, right. We have this negativity bias.
We worry, we overthink the future, we catastrophize, we become anxious.
That's all really modulated by the cortexhaving dominion over the sympathetic nervous system

(48:09):
and activating the sympathetic more than theparasympathetic nervous system, and so things get
out of balance and we have adverseconsequences of chronic stress. On the other
hand, we can do things toactivate the parasympathetic nervous system, which has
a lot of benefits. So whenwe have activation of the parasympathetic nervous system,

(48:30):
as I said, you know,our so called vital signs improve,
Our heart rate is lowered, ourblood pressures lowered, our blood suggers lowered.
We have other favorable hormonal changes.But there's also a something called,
for example, heart rate variability,which if you look at somebody's EKG tracing
over a period of time, youcan see how the heart rate is somewhat

(48:52):
variable. You can measure these intervals, and that's associated with cardiovascular health.
We want a certain amount of heartrate variability, so that actually improves with
activation of the parasympathetic nervous system inthe vegas nerve. Our executive brain function
improves, the blood flow to ourbrain improves with parasympathetic activation, and there

(49:15):
are a number of other benefits associatedwith parasympathetic activation. So how do we
activate the parasympathetic nervous system through thevegas nerve largely, Well, you know,
you can take an ice pack andput it over your face. That
tends to activate the vegas nerve.It's not necessarily very practical, but if

(49:35):
you have excuse me, if youhave a certain cardiac a rhythmia where your
heart is going too fast, andyou have something called supermintricular tachycardia, ice
to the face may actually break thatby activation of the vegas nerve, which
slows the heart rate. Take onthe cheeks or the forehead, or you
can do it over your whole face. You can actually put pressure over your

(49:59):
eyeballs. You know that can bedangerous when when you have a child who
has SVT or superventricular taccardia. Wedon't advocate putting pressure on the eyeballs for
obvious reasons. We can injure thechild. But it's something that you can
do as an adult that will activateyour vagual nervous system. But a more

(50:20):
practical way of doing this is throughcontrol breathing. So, and you know
you asked about the game meditation method. It starts with getting up in the
morning, opening the blinds, doingyour morning hygiene, finding a comfortable place
to sit, closing your eyes,and focusing on the breath. And we
slow the breath down, so weexercise through our cerebral cortex some control over

(50:47):
what's normally an involuntary thing, whichis breathing. And we deepen the breath
and we slow it down, sowe may, for example, breathe slowly
through our nose to account of three, pause to account of three, and
then exhale effortlessly but slowly to accountof four. So in through the nose
to account of three, pausing toaccount of three, exhaling in a controlled,

(51:10):
effortless fashion to account of four.If each count is a second you
now have, we'll go to maththree plus three plus four equals ten.
So the breath cycle is ten seconds. And since there's sixty seconds in a
minute, we're breathing at a rateof six per minute, which is slower
than slower than we normally breathe.But we're taking deeper breaths. So beside

(51:36):
the benefit of activating the vegus nerveand our parasympathetic nervous system, we're actually
opening those little air sacks in ourlung because we're taking intentionally slow, deep
breaths. The slowness and the deepnessactually both work together to get air into
those little air sacks called alvili,and some of them are collapsed, especially

(52:00):
when we're stressed and we're tense.We tend to tense our chests and abdominal
muscles and don't breathe deeply, andwe get more of this alvealer collapse,
which we call adalecticis, And thoselittle closed air sacs don't take part in
gas exchange when we're breathing so blueblood is going into the lung being pumped
by the right side of the heart, and when that blood passes a closed

(52:23):
alvelus, it doesn't turn red,it doesn't get oxygenated, and so blue
blood is going back to the heartfrom the lung and out to the body,
and so that decreases our oxygen saturationand lowers the oxygen concentration in our
blood. So by slow deep breathing, we're actually opening these alveoli. We're
increasing the oxygen concentration in the blood, but we're more importantly increasing our heart

(52:46):
rate variability. We have other benefitsin the brain and other organs, and
this is something that is accessible anytimeI'm walking down the hall and I'm feeling
stressed. I'm going to meet withmy boss, you know, I want
to ask for a raise. I'mfeeling very stressed about it. And so
I recognize I have a little lightbulb moment because now I'm practicing controlled breathing

(53:12):
in my daily practice during my gainmeditation, and when I actually notice my
breath more now because of this practice, and so when I'm stressed I'm not
taking deep breaths, a little lightbulb might go off and I recognize that
my torso is kind of contracted andI'm not breathing deeply, And as I'm
walking down the hall, I justfocus on my breath. I slow down

(53:34):
the inspiration or inhlation through my nose. I pause, I slow the exhalation.
By the time I get to myboss's office, I'm feeling a lot
more relaxed. My oxygenation is improved, my heart rate variability is improved,
my executive brain function is improved,and I've gotten rid of all those adverse

(53:54):
effects of sympathetic nervous system activation that'sstress, that fighter flight response, and
so this is you know, we'retalking about the vegus nerve, we're talking
about the parasympathetic nervous system. We'rediscussing how we can actually exert control over
our parasympathetic nervous system and what thebenefits of that are. So that's how

(54:16):
we start the game meditation. Inoticed that my Apple watch has got the
breathe functions. Do you wear anApple watch? I don't. It's got
this breathe function and you can setit up so it'll come on at random
times in the day and it'll saytime to breathe. And it has a
graphic that comes up and kind ofabout probably that same three second four second

(54:39):
and if you follow the image.I do know of one teacher, great
guy, Andy Miller. He's inmy school and he he he when it
pops up on his watch, hegets his whole class Okay, everybody,
it's time to breathe, and hesays, it actually really calms the room
down. Yeah. Well, Iwould start the class that way, you

(55:00):
know, So I would. Iwould say, you know, we're going
to spend five minutes on a mindfulnessbased exercise, and it would start with
you know, I might do thegain practice. So the rest of that
practice, so we sit with oureyes closed, we're focused on the breath,

(55:20):
we slow it down, we spendyou know, maybe we do five
or six breaths that way. Ifthis is going to be as little as
three minutes, then we'll spend maybethirty seconds focusing purely on our breath.
And then we go through a contemplativemeditation of these four gain elements, which
are gratitude, acceptance, intention,and non judgment. And we're going to

(55:45):
actually, you know, people thinkthat meditation is you've got to sit still
for at least thirty minutes, possiblyin an uncomfortable position, with your legs
crossed and yes, exactly in yourin your hands and fingers posed. No,
you can do a wonderful meditation inthree or four minutes. And people

(56:06):
also think that meditation means you banall thoughts from your mind, and that
is yeah, that's impossible. SoI'm going to give you a meditation which
involves sitting in a comfortable position foras little as three minutes, and I'm
going to actually propose that you focuson your thoughts. So we focus on

(56:27):
the breath, and then we transitionto focusing on gratitude that for which we're
grateful, and there's a long listof things we might include. For me,
I always express to myself gratitude forthis day. You know, as
my friend Doug would put it,I'm on the right side of the grass
today, so I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for my health. You

(56:52):
know, we often get out ofbed, and especially at our age tim
you know, our back's a littlestiff, or maybe our knees a little
bit sore, and start our dayfocusing on these aches and pains that we
have, and that sort of kickstarts our day into this negativity. We
don't think, for example, andwe've been talking about, you know,
human biology and physiology a little bit, what a miracle it is that we

(57:15):
wake up, you know, maybeeven we go to the bathroom, and
you know, our kidneys have donethis amazing work, and we're now just
sort of liberating that perfectly well balancedfluid into the outside world, and we're
able to move our arms and legsin an organized fashion and all the miraculous
elements of the human body. Wedon't think about that. We think about

(57:37):
the fact that our back's a littlestiff. So I think about that every
day. And then I look outsideand I see the color of the sky
contrasting the color of the trees.I just love that. And there's some
wifty clouds going across. I justlook at that in marvel at the beauty
of and I'm grateful for those things. I honestly think about those things every

(57:58):
morning. Well you know that's whyyou're, you know, an optimistic,
pragmatic, forward looking guy, becauseyou take the time to notice those things.
But so we go through a contemplationfor thirty or forty seconds about that
for which we're grateful I'm grateful formy health. I'm grateful for this day.
I'm grateful for my community. I'mgrateful for my little dog. I'm

(58:20):
grateful for my friends, my family, Grateful for the opportunity to do the
work that I do to help otherpeople. Then we transition to the A
and game, which is acceptance.And I think we really need to acknowledge
that there's pain in life. Painis as present in life as joy.
And you know, I lost myson at the age of twenty nine six

(58:42):
years ago, so that comes tome first in many cases. And so
I actually bring that discomfort, thatpain as I'm still sort of focused on
the breath. I'll bring that incloser, and I'll imagine opening my chest
and opening my heart and bringing thatfeeling, that experience in to my heart
and enveloping it with my heart andnurturing it with my heart and sitting with

(59:05):
it. And so we all haveuncomfortable experiences. Maybe that's too painful something
like that for some people to contemplate. So take something else, an uncomfortable
interaction I had with a student ora family or a friend yesterday. Let
me sit with that. Let mesit with that and link it to my
breath. And what we find isthrough this acceptance is sort of allowing this

(59:29):
relaxing into that experience that really it'snot so bad as we as we imagined
when we were resisting it. Sothere's a formula in the book, my
first book, suffering equals pain timesresistance. So you know, we love
formulas in medicine, as we doin your areas. Suffering equals pain times

(59:49):
resistance. The pain is there,but when we resist it rather than accept
it, we increase our suffering.And so acceptance maybe thought of as the
opposite of resistance. We open ourhearts, we allow we relax into it.
So we spend thirty or forty secondson that, and then we transition
to the eye and gain, whichis intention and intention is so important in

(01:00:14):
life. We have to have aplan. You know, I talked about
our negativity bias. The good newsis our brains have this wonderful quality called
neuroplasticity, and so if we havea plan, we can actually rewire our
brains through a very simple daily practice, for example, to be more present
instead of this overfixation on the pastand future, being present with that blue

(01:00:37):
sky experience, being present, withthat feeling of closeness with another person,
et cetera. But we have toexercise intention, we have to have a
plan. So in the eye portionof the meditation, we spend thirty or
forty five seconds, first maybe noticingour current sensations, the pressure of the

(01:00:58):
chair against the body, the tinglingon the soles of our feet, maybe
I hear something of an airplane goby in the distance, Focus on my
current sensations, and then transition fora few seconds to my commitment to look
at the bright side of things,to be more positive. And I'll have
an example of two in my thoughts. And then I transition to the end

(01:01:19):
in gain, which is non judgment. And this is an acknowledgment of that
our brains are constantly evaluating everything inour environment, including other people and ourselves,
and with our negative view, weoften judge things negatively, and especially
with regardless to ourselves. We're ourown harshest critic. So here we might

(01:01:42):
have an image of the Earth,as I said, apparently suspended in space.
It's a beautiful planet. We thinkof its oceans and the land and
the wispy clouds on the surface thatwe see with our visuals, and we
know that the Earth is beautiful,but it's really neither good nor bad.
Intrinsically, things don't have to begood and bad, and so it's only
logical for me to think I amneither good nor bad, as the Earth

(01:02:06):
is just the planet that it is. I'm just the human being that I
am. I'm just the person thatI am. I'm neither good nor bad.
And we might sit with this Iam no for ten seconds and then
focus again purely on the breath aswe did to begin with, and then
we open our eyes and we're readyto go out in the world. And
you know, this practice is reallyjust taking baby steps every day to rewire

(01:02:30):
our brains and be more positive andpresent. And compare and contrasts that to
what happens typically in a school whereyou're in a classroom learning history or geography
or English for an hour. Bellrings, You enter a hallway filled with
hundreds of other kids. You're alreadyfeeling judged and you're having these pressures of

(01:02:53):
social media and whatnot. You walkinto the next class, you sit down
with another group is students, anotherteacher, and teacher starts with come on,
kids, come on, sit down, sit down, open up your
books. Please come on, we'regonna get this last and start now.
You be quiet over there. Heydid sit down, and it's just elevating
everybody's stress. But whereas you said, why don't we start a class with

(01:03:17):
a little bit of a mindfulness?I wrote in my book that if a
student walks into the classroom I ama few minutes late, I'm not going
to snap at them. I don'tcare if that student came in a little
bit late, because one of twothings I believe either they're there and that
in itself is a victory. Andso I'm just pleased to welcome them into

(01:03:39):
the class because I know that they'restruggling with all kinds of stuff and the
last thing they need for me isget out in the hallway. I'll let
you win when I'm getting ready.Or they're never late, and they happen
to be late that one day,and they're probably is a very good reason.
Traffic their mom couldn't get them.Who knows what it was. Maybe
the last teacher held them. Andso rather than anything confrontational, I just

(01:04:03):
say, hey, look glad you'rehere. Welcome. We're just in the
middle of talking about such and such. Join join in with us. And
you know, I just think thatall of those sort of approaches coupled with
your strategy of starting the class.And I think even if you don't start

(01:04:25):
the class every single day with amindfulness exercise, once in a while you
do, but every single day youenter the class, come the students come
in, and you say, hey, look, glad to see it,
Welcome here. This is going tobe a great class. I got some
fun things I'm gonna teach you today. You won't believe what I've learned last
night, and I'm gonna tell youall about it today. And I was

(01:04:45):
in charge of that classroom, Iwould start, you know, you have
to model the behavior, and ifyou're not in that mindset, if you
will, how can you expect yourstudents to be. So I would start
while that, you know, betweenthe finishing bell from the last class and
the starting bill for the next class, I would do my own little gain

(01:05:05):
practice, focus on my breath,so that when my students came in,
I was feeling calm and grateful.I had just done a gain meditation,
and the gratitude was I'm grateful formy job, I'm grateful for the opportunity
to sit with these kids and influencethem and you know, try to distress

(01:05:27):
them a bit, and the opportunityto teach them. That's my gratitude.
And then I accept the fact thatsomebody may come in late, or some
students may not be paying attention,and I accept the frustration that I may
experience related to that, and sitwith that and link it to the breath
and let it go, accept,allow, and then onward. So yes,
I think that one of the themesin my current book, which I'm

(01:05:50):
writing about teenagers. The book iscurrently called A Mindful Teen. It starts
with the family. You know,the parent have to have the presence and
you know, I really think amindfulness based practice for the parents is crucial
because they have to model that behaviorfor their kids. Their kids are watching

(01:06:10):
them, just like they're watching youas a teacher and seeing how you behave
when you start the day with yousit down, you do this, you
do that, and you know,clap your hands and you know, try
to instill a sense of order.They're watching that and they're being repelled by
that. So yes, I thinkit starts with the individual. It starts
with the adult, starts with aparent or the teacher, can you just

(01:06:33):
explain a little bit further this microvariability of the hurry because going back to
the Apple Watch, it also hasthe function to be able to monitor that.
And I always thought that that wasa bad thing, but I thought
you said that micro variability is agood thing. Yeah, heart rate variability
is a good thing. You want. You don't want the heart to stop

(01:06:56):
for you know, ten seconds,but the variability in the you know,
the beating heart is a beautiful symphonyof coordinated activity which starts with the electrical
system which we can measure on thebody's surface by EKG. It's a beautifully
well coordinated series of contractions of themuscle flowing from the upper chambers of the

(01:07:24):
or the atria down to the lowerchambers or the ventricles that actually eject the
blood to the lungs from the rightventricle and the body from the left ventricle.
So it's got this beautiful rhythm,and you want that rhythm to be
somewhat variable. If it gets stuckand the variability is minimal, that's not

(01:07:45):
a good thing. That correlates withan imbalance in the autonomic nervous system.
So you know, this rhythmic variability. Turns out is healthy. Now exactly
why is that? I don't knowthat we can answer that question, but
it's associated with a lot of goodphysiologic processes. And is that aided and

(01:08:08):
embedded by a regular exercise routine.Oh? Absolutely, I think sleep,
exercise, and nutrition have a favorablerole in all of our bodily functions,
certainly including our cardiovascular system. Andyes, when things are working, when
we're sleeping, when we're exercising,when we're eating well, and those are

(01:08:29):
each like topics for a long discussion, of course, then we have good
heart rate variability among other things thatwe can measure that your Apple watch is
measuring. So I love that thewatch does that. It's you know,
it's quite remarkable what modern technology hasto offer us. You know, it's
a bit of a double edged swordbecause it's offering us too much social media,

(01:08:51):
but it's also giving us the opportunityto just glance at our wrist and
be reminded we need to focus onour breath for a moment, or you
know, look at our heartbate variability. It's so great. So there's definitely
things that a teacher has within theircontrol from your point of view is very
physiological. Perhaps from my point ofview, which I hope is complimentary to

(01:09:16):
yours, is that it's sort ofa pedagogical approach to recognizing that I know
these students are coming in with allsorts of pressures. This is sort of
the a the acknowledgment of in gainright, I'm accepting and acknowledging that the

(01:09:38):
students are loaded with things that theydon't need me to add to. In
fact, what I need to dois take away some of those and give
them an environment, whether that's throughthe lighting in my classroom, the seating
arrangement, just the tone of myvoice, the pace, the welcoming,

(01:09:58):
the sense of I'm recognized, Isee them. I'll even start the class
sometimes and say, who just camefrom a socials class? Three or four
kids? What are you learning inthe socials these days? And what I'm
doing is I'm simply trying to acknowledgethat their world doesn't revolve around my course.

(01:10:19):
And I know full well that they'relearning other things, other places,
and of other demands besides what Ihave put on them, and all of
those things. Those pedagogical approaches andthe physiological approaches we have it within our
control to lower our individual stress levelsand get to a point where here,

(01:10:44):
I'm entering my thirty first year asa teacher, and I don't get stressed
out by back to school sale advertisements. I know a lot of teachers do.
I don't want to see that becausethat means schools starting again. No,
I'm excited to get back because whoam I going to have a chance
has to influence this year? Whatsort of interesting stories are going to unfold
in this school year, What neatthings in space are going to happen in

(01:11:06):
the news that I'm going to getto teach my students about and explain,
help them understand. It gets meexcited to go back. We need more
teachers to do that and to feelthat way, and they can do so.
Maybe what they ought ought to dois they need to pick up a
copy of your book and ignore thefact that it says for healthcare professionals.

(01:11:28):
We just cross that out and sayfor teaching professionals, because I'm sure it
applies to them too. Absolutely,no, it applies to everybody. Really,
the book is about It's really aboutadopting and embracing a daily practice that
will lower our stress and improve ourhealth mentally and physically. Yeah, Are
you getting enough sleep? Are youactually setting yourself up so that you're in

(01:11:51):
bed at a decent time? Youknow? Are you marking papers at one
in the morning, Don't do that, you know. Are you getting up
and having a good breakfast, forinstance, in the morning, or are
you practicing some sort of intermittent fastingthat allows your body to cleanse? And
certainly are you exercising. Because ifyou're not doing those things that are well

(01:12:14):
within your control, and yet you'resaying to me how stressed out you are
and you're thinking about leaving the profession, I'm going to say, wait a
minute, stopped right there, becausethere are things you can do. Your
story isn't yet written, stick aroundlonger, but in doing so, follow
some of these steps, both pedagogicallyand physiologically that you've described, and take

(01:12:35):
part in one of the greatest professionsthere is that can actually affect the future.
I love that, Tim, That'sbeautiful. I'm you know, let
me express my gratitude to you andpeople like you who are really reaching out
and engaging with those in your profession. And it's such a vital, important
profession, you know, who doesn'tlove the teacher, who doesn't remember their

(01:13:00):
favorite teacher from grade school and highschool and university and graduate school. So
yes, I mean you teachers playsuch a vital role in the world,
and I know it's a stressful,difficult job at times, but you know
thanks to people like you who arereally addressing those issues. Well, honestly,
I there's probably one hundred different topicsthat we could go on with,

(01:13:23):
but perhaps for now that's enough.It was a beautiful conversation and it's edifying
and it's encouraging because I know thatthere's things I can do and I hope
people say, yeah, I coulddo that too, And let's just hope
that that happens and it resonates withpeople all over the place. So thank
you very much for coming on andexpressing all of it. You have so
much knowledge and you've shared it withus freely, and I appreciate that.

(01:13:46):
Anytime, Tim, it's really wonderfulto be with you. I really enjoyed
it. This podcast is a proudmember of the Teach Better podcast network,
Better Today, Better Tomorrow, andthe podcast to Get You There. Explore
more podcas podcasts at Teachbetter dot com. Slash Podcasts and we'll see you at
the next episode. Mm hm.