Running Hot: Understanding and Managing Adrenaline Overload

Good afternoon. This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps with Mind Pilot. I'm glad you tuned in today. Today, we're going to talk about running hot.*INTRO SONG* And let me explain what that means. We heard a little bit of that from Dr. Sharps, and I probably mentioned it here and there. But one of the problems with adrenaline and cortisol is that it heats up the system, which is fine if you're in a crisis or if you are having to respond to a call, if you're a first responder or if you're in the military and you're in the middle of some kind of combat zone, it's not so fine when you're sitting in your living room and suddenly you're wound really tight and your wife or significant other spouse walks in and says something to you and you blow up and they say something like, Why are you yelling at me? And you say something back like, I'm not yelling, What the hell's the matter with you? Why are you always saying I'm yelling? And then the fight is on. See, the problem with adrenaline and cortisol is it tells our brain that there is a problem. It tells our brain that there is an emergency situation, which is great if there is an emergency situation. However, if you're sitting there watching TV and there's no emergency situation but you got heated up, meaning you poured a lot of adrenaline and cortisol into your system, then suddenly you're looking around for the threat. And if there is no threat, then the threat becomes the person that you love or your two year old or the dog or the cat or whatever happens to be going on the the neighbors yelling, whatever. And so it's really important for you to understand adrenaline and cortisol. And I know Dr. Sharps talked a lot about it, but let's talk about how this is transferred to behavior, because that's really important to understand. So let me give you an example. And this is where self-talk becomes extremely important. Let's say you're laying in bed and you're about ready to go to sleep and then something pops into your brain like, Oh my gosh, tomorrow I got to remember to do X, And you think, Oh gosh, I got to remember to do that. How am I going to remember to do that? Now, one of the things I suggest to people is leave a pad of paper by the side of your bed if you have a really busy life with a lot of details. If you are thinking about something, write it down so that your brain can let go of it. But let's say you don't do that and you sit there and you think, Oh my gosh, you got to remember to do that. And now as you're saying that your body is responding to a crisis situation, now, is it really a crisis? No, but your body is going to respond that way because you just release a whole bunch of adrenaline and cortisol. And so now it's looking around for the threat. There is no threat, but it's going to find one, remember? And so then it's going to say, oh, and I got to remember to do that and oh my gosh, what am I going to do about that situation? And oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And this person's mad at me and how am I going to deal with this at work? And I've got to deal with this employee. And pretty soon you've gone down, I don't know, 15 or 20 rabbit holes. You're completely adrenalized. You have a ton of cortisol in your system. You're wide awake, nowhere to go, nothing to do, and it's now two in the morning and you look at the clock and you go, Oh my God, I got to get up at six. I'm not going to get any sleep, and then I'm going to feel like crap all day. I'm only going to get 4 hours of sleep. And every time you say that to yourself, you release a little more adrenaline and a little more cortisol and you get a little bit more heated up and now you can't go to sleep for the rest of the night because every 10 minutes you're looking at the clock going, Oh my God, it's now 10 minutes later and I'm still not asleep and get to sleep.

00. Then the alarm clock goes off at six and you feel like you've been hit by a truck and this happens to so many people. So let's talk about what do you do when your mind wants to go wherever it wants to go? The first thing is learn to work with your brain, not against it. And I'll explain what I mean about that in a second. But also it means that you have to be aware when you're heating up and when you know you're heating up, you need to take immediate action to cool yourself down. Don't wait until you're a towering inferno full of adrenaline and full of cortisol. As soon as your system begins to heat up just a little bit with what if this or what are we going to do about that? Or Oh my gosh, I forgot that as soon as that happens, if you have to write something down, write it down, but then take immediate action. I don't know what that means for you. There's a lot of literature that says, do this or do that. Don't don't watch TV or don't look at your, you know, phone or don't read a book or don't do this, don't do that. You're going to have to play around and find out what works for your body, because what works for you may not work for somebody else. Most people, if they look at the cell phone, the cell phone happens to have a very bright light and it will hit your retina and tell your retina that it's daytime and you need to wake up. Which is why a lot of times some people look at their cell phone now they're really wide awake. Now. That doesn't work with everybody. And here's I don't know why, but here's the thing. I have known people that are playing a video game on their cell phone and fall asleep as a phone in their hands. So clearly, this isn't what happens to everybody. You have to find out what works for you. Sometimes people go in the other room watching TV that works for some other. As soon as they get out of bed, they're wide awake for the rest of the night. You know, some people can read a book and you know, they read a chapter and they're fine and they're falling asleep. Other people that wakes them up. You're going to have to find out what works for you. But I will tell you this. Whatever it is, you have to change the channel. You can't let your brain go and do whatever it wants to do. So let's talk about what I mean by that. As Dr. Sharps was talking about, you have different parts of the brain and the part of your brain that worries is is a much more primitive part of your brain. And it will tend to just go anywhere and everywhere, even if it's not in your best interest. Have you ever wondered why you could have an argument with yourself? Who the heck are you arguing with? You're arguing with different parts of the brain. Have you ever been sitting on the couch thinking, Oh, I should clean out the garage? And another part of your brain goes, No, I don't want to clean out the part of the garage. And you're other part goes, Yeah, you really need to clean out the garage and you end up at war with yourself, who you were with. Are there two people in you? Well, yeah, kind of, actually. There's probably three or four, but it doesn't mean possession. It just means that different parts of the brain have different ideas of what you should be doing. The part of the brain that anxiety stems from it wants to climb into it all over the place. So that's what I mean by rabbit holes. Let's start thinking about this horrible event and let's think about this and let's think about what if this happens? And then let's think about what if this happens? And pretty soon you're, you know, fully adrenalized feeling like crap and not able to see that part of your brain needs to be calmed down. So as soon as it starts to go into what if this happens? What if that happens? We got to remember to do that, you need to figure out a strategy of reining it back in. I have found that most people, the way they train, rein it back in is by chastising themselves. It's almost like a parental response. You know, you just need to go to sleep. Why the hell do you do this every night? I can't believe you're doing this again. You need to be asleep. You know you need to be asleep. You're going to feel like shit tomorrow. Well, if you do that, you're going to release more adrenaline and be even worse. And so around and around the cycle goes. Try self calming that part of your brain. Now, what does that mean? It means saying things like, I'll deal with it tomorrow. There's nothing I can do about it at midnight. It's going to take place tomorrow. I wrote it down. I'm aware it's got to be done, but I can't do anything about it right now. So right now I'm going to think about something pleasant or I'm going to do a relaxation method, or I'm going to go read a chapter of a book. I'm going to relax my body, and then I'm going to go to sleep. So hoping that part of your brain to calm down, if your brain does “what Ifs”, then a lot of people get stuck in “what Ifs”. And a good friend of mine years ago said, Jana, you can“what If” yourself into a corner? And I think that's true with a lot of people.“what Ifs” are an incredible waste of time most of the time. Now, if you're a first responder, if you're in the military and and in a combat situation, you probably need to be thinking about whatever. You need to think about contingency plans. But if you're thinking about what if I don't know, your friend gets mad at you three weeks from now because you've got, I don't know, an assignment at work and they didn't. That hasn't happened. You don't know that it's going to happen. You can't do anything about it at midnight. And so you need to calm your brain down and go. If that happens, I'll take care of it when it does. Right now, at midnight and it's three weeks away, there is nothing I can do about it. So I'm going to go and do the best job I can when that happens. And then whatever happens happens again. Give yourself a couple things that you can say to your brain that calms it down. One of the comments that I use as my own brain is. Jana you can only do what you can do and that's all you can do. Or you know what? That isn't my responsibility. I feel bad for that person. But ultimately they're in charge of their own life and they're going to have to take care of it or you know what? I will take care of that event if and when it happens. I have no evidence it's going to happen. I'm just worried about it. So at the moment, I'm not going to waste my mental energy thinking about it. I'm going to think about something that is healthy or happy or restful because right now I want to relax. You know? So those are the kinds of wording I use. You can develop your own, but it's really important to get a hold of it before you're a burning inferno. And that's true if you're sitting on the couch and you're starting to worry or you're starting to have, you know, thoughts about hold calls, bring your brain back to the present, there is a technique called grounding. I'm going to probably keep bringing it up because it's very effective. You know, if you're sitting on your couch, you can touch the side of the couch and go, I'm in my own home. I am with my family, I am safe, I'm okay. That event is long ago. It's now over. Whoever was at that event is no longer there. That event no longer exists. I'm okay. That event is never going to happen again. And I'm going to be all right, you know, or whatever you need to say to yourself to bring yourself back to the present moment. Because so often we either live in the past or we worry about the future and then we never get to live. We raise all this mental energy on things that may never happen or things that are long over. And so think about where are you spending your mental energy? Are you spending it in the moment to make good memories? Are you spending it in the moment to enjoy the people that you love or the life that you're having? Are you spending it on things that may never happen or on things that are long gone? You get to choice. You get to choose where you spend it. Choose wisely because you deserve to have a happy life. You deserve to enjoy your day. You deserve to have a good night's sleep. And so think about working with your brain, calming it down, cooling the system down before you go down a bunch of rabbit holes, going to waste a lot of time and a lot of energy, and then you don't get to go to sleep. So figure out how you're going to spend your time and your mental energy. And I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you for joining Mind Pilot. I hope you join us again. Have a great day.