Developing Resilience to Stress for a Fuller Life

Introduction to Resilience and Stress 0:00

A lot of people start off by saying that's going to be difficult, or I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. You're already sending yourself down the negative path, right? And these are habit patterns. But habit patterns can be changed with a growth mindset. So I invite people to start paying attention to how they talk about what goes on in their life. If they're talking negatively. To start catching yourself and going, no, okay, that's a boundary. As we just talked about, no, I'm not going to go in that direction because it uses up more energy.

It causes more tension in my body. I'm going to come over here with a more positive perspective how this might turn out. Okay. If it's possible, then I want to focus on the possibility. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors.

If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions, you've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. If you find yourself spending too much time worrying about a potential disaster or some thing happening in life, stop! You are going to love this episode rather than worrying about what might happen. You're going to learn how to develop more resilience.

Welcome to vitality Made Simple. This is the podcast that equips you to feel better, look better, and to enjoy better relationships. And I'm Doctor Debbie Osment, your host. It's my pleasure to welcome Doctor Stephen. Sit her off, who's a professor at UCLA, and he is an expert in resilience. Welcome, doctor. Sit her off. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, Debbie. Well, I know you're part of the College of Medicine. Tell us more about you. Well, you know, what's so important to me is living every day as fully as you can.

In one of the ways that we can do that is by understanding our relationship with stress and our stress response. It's such an important aspect of life that you want to get it right, and by getting it right, we have to realize that there's some things working against us in our in our lives. If you think about your day. So let me start off by saying we have two branches to our nervous system. One branch, the sympathetic, prepares us for danger, threat, uncertainty. It activates our nervous system.

And the other part, the parasympathetic, helps us recover. And what are we recovering from? We're recovering from all of the resources of our body that we use up as we prepare for a stress. So you activate for a stress and then you want to shift into recovery. But think about your day. If it's anything like my day. I go from one stressful situation to another to another, to another, and I don't have the time, just like everybody else, to say, wait a second now I want to recover from the last two stresses.

In fact, we have many stimuli that activate threat danger. But how many stimuli in your day signify it's safe? You can relax now.

Stress Response, Balance, and Recovery 4:20

I don't have any. So that's what we're up against. That's why it's so important to think about and deal and and find ways of restoring balance in your body and in your lives. So that's the first message I want to give to your audience. Is that we're set up for the imbalance. We're set up for what I refer to as autonomic dysregulation. Okay. So we have to be thinking balance. We have to be thinking of finding some time in our day to practice some form of relaxation, recovery, meditation, biofeedback as part of our lives, to build it into our day, build it into our lives.

Because when you're in this place of balance, that's when your body functions at its best. From a performance perspective and from a health perspective. And so from cognitive functioning to to physical functioning, we want to find ways of staying in this place of balance. So I wanted to make that the first and most important point for everybody is that when you want to be resilient, you have to have the intention to do some kind of a practice that keeps you in this place of balance. Now that's a great starting point, doctor sitter off.

And I want to just tell people about your book. It really, gives strategic integrative strategies for developing that resilience, sort of like putting money in the bank. You know, we spend, spend, spend with our, stress response. We use up, you know, all the reserves in our body. But your book is all about building back that savings account of resilience. Now, you've sort of redefined the word stress and resilience. Please tell us about your new definitions. Sure, absolutely. So to begin with, we want to get this straight.

Stress is not good or bad okay. We think about stress is bad or I have too much. And that's the problem. Only having too much of it. But stress helps us prepare to perform at our best. If you think about every one of your successes in life, I'm sure they've all been associated with stress. So that's the good news and the bad news. The good news is that stress and stress response mobilizes us. It helps us focus better. It helps us performance better, perform better, but within certain boundaries.

When we talk about chronic stress, this is where we begin to get into trouble. So if you think about, increasing the activation of your body and we think about increasing stress, so that low levels of, of activation, low levels of stress, we don't perform at our best. We're not motivated. We are in the relaxed state, which is not bad. But when we want to perform, we have to gear up our the activation of our body, the stress response, and we get to this optimal level of activation where we perform at our best.

But if we keep pushing the stress beyond that, both performance and health drop away. And so we want to find what I referred to as, stress sweet spot. What's that level of stress where we perform at our best and we're at the healthiest. Now, the interesting thing about resilience, and this is so important, is that I'm showing you this curve, right? Performance curve. When we are resilient. What actually happens is we have a different curve where we can actually keep performance at a high level at higher levels of stress.

Before that drop was so resilience we when we're more resilient, we can withstand higher levels of stress before we start to have either performance problems or health problems. And when I work, I've done some work with people forming athletes, elite athletes, Olympic athletes. And this is why I'm helping them with resilience. Because when they're under pressure and the stress is greater, they can perform better because they're resilient. And it's based on my nine pillars of resilience. Yes. That's so important to build that up before you actually need it.

I mean, that's I think the big thing that people don't do is the use it, use it, use it, and then suddenly need resilience when something happens. But don't have it. Now your you have these nine pillars. Your third pillar is, spirituality. I really appreciated that. I, as far as being part of the anti-aging world, doctor, are off. I think people, just focus so much on anti-aging. Anti-Aging. And they're very afraid of death. And I believe that that fear of death, that not not addressing our spiritual side is a very big, stressor, chronic stressor.

Not not, you stress, not the good stress. Could you speak to that? You did a good job in the book.

Redefining Stress and the Resilience Curve 10:20

Talking about that. Sure. Sure. So my first three pillars have to do with relationship. The first one is our relationship with ourselves. Okay. How do we treat ourselves? Are we critical, judgmental, or are we loving and accepting? Okay, most of us grow up learning to be judgmental and critical of ourselves. Learning. So when we make a mistake, we put ourselves down. Okay? Our first relationship at first pillar, our relationship with ourselves is really the idea of treating yourself in a place of love, compassion, acceptance, support, er and joy so that you have a positive, loving relationship with yourself.

This is what leads to greater resilience. The second is relationship with others. Setting good boundaries but also, establishing good, healthy, loving relationships. And the third pillar that you're talking about is relationship with something greater. And that is spirituality. Having certain having spiritual beliefs that connect you to the larger community and the universe, but it's also having purpose and meaning in your life. And in fact, I wrote an article for Psychology Today where I said, purpose is the ultimate in use it or lose it, and that when you have a purpose, you're literally sending a message down to your cellular level that we have to stay alive.

We meaning the community of of cells in my body. I'm a community of cells, and I'm sending a message to that community. We have to stay alive because I have a purpose. And this purpose is very important. And we now know from studies and research in epigenetics that we can literally through intention and purpose, we could literally change the, the, not the not our DNA, but the epigenetics, the the messages that control our DNA. And I'm suggesting to people that when you have a purpose in life, when you have a spirituality that connects you to the the larger universe that you're sending messages directly to your body.

Let's stay alive. There's good reason to be alive. And so, yes, the the third pillar of resilience is so important because it literally and in have an effect on the health of your body. Yes. And, you know, I just believe that's so key. I'm coming from the perspective of a Christ follower in the Bible, so clear about, the power of life and death is in the tongue. So I, I've seen that just among my clinical patients who are very negative in their cellular structure sort of follows that negativity, whereas people that believe they can get well, then their actions follow that, but also their cells follow that.

Now, in your book, you talk about that. We're really taught survival of the fittest. I loved your book because it's very much relationship. I think all nine pillars really build relationships. Doctor are off. You know, we're taught survival of the fittest, but you say no, that leads to isolation. Let's think more in terms of the golden rule. Do unto others as you've had them do unto you. So, in your experience, what have you seen when people shift from that isolation? Isolation is thinking to a broader thinking of helping other people?

Yes. Yeah. So one of the ways I look at this is I, I say that in life we either come from our hearts or we come from protecting our hearts. And too much of the time, too many people, live their lives where they're protecting their hearts. And when you're protecting your heart, it's hard to get close to other people. And intimate, loving relationships are so important for resilience because they give us emotional nourishment. You know, we need food and sustenance, but we also need emotional nourishment.

It's one of the keys to a long life is having relationships in which when you're with another person, you could let down your guard, which allows you to take in that emotional nourishment. If you're guarded, it doesn't go in, you can't take it in. And much of the time we walk around very guarded in our lives. Now, part of the second pillar relationship with others is being able to discriminate relationships that are healthy, loving, safe, and relationships that are toxic, judgmental, critical. Okay, so part of the the goal is to spend more time in loving relationships and less time in judgmental and critical relationships so that you can spend more time with your guard down.

Spirituality, Purpose, and Relationships 16:20

That's when recovery occurs. When your guard is up, you don't get recovery. In fact, we can think in terms of the body has two choices. One choice is to be in protect and defend. The other choice is to be in grow. Heal, recover. Okay. And our bodies are always making choices between where we send our energy. Okay. If if we're in a situation where we're not feeling safe, our energy goes into defend and protect, but our bodies are making a choice. So because we don't have unlimited resources, unlimited energy, so the the body at some point says, okay, I'm going to take energy away from the kidneys, which where where my filtering system for my blood is because I have to defend and protect, because survival is always trumps everything else.

But the more we stay in the survival mode and protect mode, our bodies will start to fall apart because we're not sending the energy to the kidneys that needed the liver that needs it, the heart that needs it. This we're in defend and protect mode. So that's one way of thinking about the stress response. It's pulling energy away from healing maintenance. In fact you know, there's one I mean there are many of these studies, Debbie. But one of them, and this is an older study, you can't do this today.

But they took volunteers and they put a a ten centimeter incision in their skin. And we can do that today. But in the past, we could do those studies. And then they divided the the people into high stress, low stress. And it took the high stress group twice as long for the cut to heal. So we know the relationship between chronic stress and health on many different levels. And so this is why it's so important to find the time to be able to go into the recovery mode. I love, love, love this conversation.

This is so key because doctors are off. So many people almost brag about being stressed and being busy and you know what I'm saying is a badge of courage. We see that a lot. So. So speak to boundaries. Yes, yes. So. Again, what I'm saying is we don't have unlimited resources. Right. Okay. I have to accept my limitations. The people that you just described to brag about, you know, getting getting by on only four hours of sleep or working 16 hours a day, etc.. They're not any different than you and I.

They also have limitations. And when they're working as hard as that, they are borrowing resources from the future, so to speak. Right. You can do it for just so long, but the body is going to break down. Right? And so we all have to recognize our limitations and the different ways of recognizing it. One is to say no. Some of us have great difficulty saying no. But see, yeah, I know. In fact, the more successful you are, the more you have the invitations to do more things. And it is difficult to say no because it's all rewarding stuff, right?

But here's where resilience has to come in. My intention is to live a long, healthy life so that all of what I'm doing to serve other people and to to, to educate, I'll be able to do for a longer period of time because I'm paying attention now to being in this place of balance that we're talking about. And so there are some very easy, clearcut ways we can stay in balance. For example, worry is a waste of energy, okay? Because worry is your body's mobilizing for the stress. But there's no constructive consequence of the mobilization.

So let's talk about my fifth pillar, which is mental balance and mastery okay. So here we're talking about number one having a growth mindset. So if there's a if I notice a deficiency in myself I don't go oh I can't do this or I'm upset that I can't do this. I go, how can I learn to get better at this? That's a growth mindset. It's always looking at any deficit in terms of how can I learn and get better at this. It's also a positive mindset. So you wake up in the morning, a lot of people wake up in the morning and they're on guard for what can go wrong.

They're worried about what can go wrong. They're worried about what might happen. Even if nothing happens, you're already mobilizing for the stress response. You're already wasting energy. You want to wake up in the morning and you want to focus on what can go right. Today you want to think of, okay, how can I make this the best possible day of my life? You want to be sending your. You're thinking in that direction and you want to be carrying yourself. If you notice, you're going here like something we're about to do at some kind of a task.

A lot of people start off by saying that's going to be difficult, or I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. You're already sending yourself down the negative path, right? And these are habit patterns. But habit patterns can be changed with a growth mindset. So I invite people to start paying attention to how they talk about what goes on in their life if they're talking negatively,

Boundaries, Mindset, and Neuroplasticity 23:20

to start catching yourself and going, no, okay, that's a boundary, as we just talked about. No, I'm not going to go in that direction because it uses up more energy. It causes more tension in my body. I'm going to come over here with a more positive perspective how this might turn out. Okay. If it's possible, then I want to focus on the possibilities. I don't want to focus on that. It might go wrong and this has to do with relationships as well. A lot of times we worry about judgments of others and this creates stress as well.

If I walk into a meeting and I'm anticipating someone's going to judge me, or I'm worried that a am I going to do it good, good enough. I'm already mobilizing my stress response. And sometimes it's difficult when you're going into an important meeting not to have some, energy activation around that, but you want it to be as positive as possible. You want to say to yourself, I'm going to do the best possible job I can do, and that's what I'm going to focus on. I'm not going to focus on what might go wrong.

I'm going to focus on how it can go well. So that positive mindset, my sense killer is always so important throughout our lives because we can't avoid stress, but we can reduce the amount of stress and we can shift stress too. You use the word you stress earlier. You stress is a term coined by, conciliate the person who literally coined the term stress, took it from physics and brought it into human behavior. And here you referred to you stress as positive stress. So stress is still the mobilization.

But if it's positive stress it doesn't take the same toll on our bodies. So if you go into a meeting that's important, but you go in with a positive expectation, a positive mindset, you're going to handle that. That situation much better than if you're worried about what can go wrong. Thank you for bringing up the growth mindset. I absolutely love that. I love reading about that. Carol Dweck is one of my heroes, who talks about mindset. And, you know, we just see that all the time. People forget that they can retrain it.

Just like you talk about in your book. You can, you know, neurons that fire together, wire together and that Hebbian law. One of my favorite dead guys, doctor off is Donald Hebb. And he, he talks about you know, whatever you do repeatedly becomes that deeper rat. And, I know you address that because you really encourage that. People can change no matter where you are, no matter how old you are. If if you're used to seeing the glass half empty, you can start retraining your brain to see it half full.

So from a very, strategic standpoint, if someone if I were sitting right in front of you and saying, help, help, help, what would you tell me to do to retrain? Yeah, well, let's take a step back. By the way, I was very fortunate to have, Donald EB is one of my early mentors. Doctor sitter off. Oh, my goodness, I would love to meet him. So. And, and he was a very good, example of resilience. So I was, he had invited my wife and I, to his home in, of all places, Abbeville. Oh. My head's bill, baby.

Bill in Nova Scotia. Oh, my goodness, that's fantastic. And he took us out sailing. And at the time he was in his he was in his early 70s. And I was like, we're going out into the ocean in this sailboat. And I kept saying, because I had some experience sailing. Don, I can help, you know, I, I got this and he had a boat that had, point to points at both ends of the boat, front and back. And he told me that these boats handle the ocean a lot better. So he said, at my age, I wanted a boat that can handle the the water easily.

And that was his, approach to resilience making sure that he managed his situation so that it made his sailing easier. But, yeah, back to, the the mindset and the positive mindset and the growth mindset. There are two there are two powerful forces that we have. One is the lessons of childhood. And these are survival lessons. These are imprinted in and neural net, default network is based on those early survival lessons. And that's very powerful. Fortunately, the other powerful mechanism that we have is neuroplasticity.

And that's the ability of our brains to literally rewire themselves. So for example, right now, this conversation we're having in all of the audience, new nerve cells are being built based on this one hour conversation. That's how powerful neuroplasticity is. But if you want to rewire your brain, which is so possible, you have to be consistent, right? So for example, say you're you have a negative thinking pattern where you go to what can go wrong. Now you want to catch yourself every time that that that you you notice you're going into that negative mode and you go, no, this doesn't serve me.

I'm better off going into a positive way of looking at this situation. And then you shift into the positive. Or if you were hard on yourself, you're used to being critical and self judgmental. You go, no, and you switch over to coming from this healthy internal voice that I talked about from love, compassion, acceptance. But the key is that you have to consistently do that. You have to consistently say no here to the negative and then shift into the positive. But I guarantee you, if you keep doing that, that you literally will rewire your brain until you get to the point where the positive comes more naturally than the negative.

And that's the power of neuroplasticity. But we have to be consistent and keep following through with that process, not the negative. And shifting into the positive. Okay, well, and that probably goes with boundaries pretty strongly because, you know, we all know that the people we hang out with are the people we become like. So, I think part of that exercise then doctor sitter up would probably be hanging out with positive people that are fun. And, you know, seeing the good in, in the world and, environment is very important.

Environment is very important. So you want to choose the environments that you spend your time. You want to choose the people to be around who are positive, who are successful, who and who treat you in a loving way. Well. And I think that also could mean, any media input is big, I'm sure. I know you've studied that. You have to you have to say turn the turn the TV off, turn the computer off, turn the whatever off. Sometimes. Absolutely. And you know, the messages that we keep hearing in the news or insidious that we don't realize how readily they get absorbed by us.

In fact, if you don't want that to happen, you have to say, no, I'm not. I'm not going to accept this piece of information. Otherwise your your brain hears it and you're firing those neurons in your brain.

Presence, Heart Coherence, and Relaxation Practice 32:40

Whether you like the message or not. And we know that the goal of news is to get people watching. And so people watch more if they show fires, they show conflict, they show negative stuff because it's like, the, the red, the red that you hold in front of a bull. It's because we're designed from evolutionary perspective to look for where the danger might be. And so the, the news is always presenting the danger, the problem. And so they're not presenting all the good things that are happening. So, yes, I totally limit the amount of time I watch or listen to to news I'll get I'll pick one source that I trust and a limited amount of time that I do that I listen or or read because it doesn't serve me in any way.

And I don't certainly don't find it entertaining either. Well, and from, you know, gut microbiome standpoint, it actually can change the, you know, the configuration of your gut microbiota. So, so proactive things somebody could do would be to make sure they're, you know, getting a diversity of good bacteria into their get things that produce oxytocin, things that produced, you know, these positive neurotransmitters. And then on the other side of that, limiting things that might trigger a cortisol and the stress response that's going to, make those opportunistic bad bacteria grow.

So it comes back down to intention always. Now in your book, you talked about the importance of being present. I really appreciated that doctor sitter off because, you know, most people are not in the present. They're in the past or in their in the future, and they're not enjoying the moment. You talk about some exercises. The one that I thought was really good is this, I'm not going to say it right, but it's like a one finger pulse. Exercise. Yeah. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but tell me.

Tell our listeners about that. Sure. Absolutely. Well, one of the easiest ways to bring yourself fully present. And we could do it. All right, now, let's do it. Notice what you're seeing. Notice what you're hearing. Notice what you're smelling. Notice what you're touching, feeling and tasting. Now you're fully present because you can't pay attention to what's coming in through your five senses without being fully present. So it's a very quick and easy way to bring yourself present. Now, the exercise that you're referring to has to do with how we stay in a place of balance.

And so we can do that for a moment as well. And this has to do with heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is a function of our hearts. And there is an optimal heart rate variability. In other words fluctuation of heart beat that signifies optimal health. And we also refer to it as coherence. So one of the beautiful things about this heart rate pattern is it links a lot of physiological functions. So when we breathe in, our heart rate tends to speed up. When we breathe out, our heart rate tends to slow down.

Now we can maximize that. And we can literally train our nervous system to go more and more into that optimal pattern by breathing at approximately six breaths per minute. So that's about 10s four seconds in and six seconds out. So now one of the things I suggest is I, I have two different versions of practicing heart rate variability training. Relaxation training one, when we are able to close our eyes and not have any external influences, and I use a one finger thumb of the right hand on the pulse of the left hand so you you find the pulse with your one finger.

But since we're talking now and we have our eyes open, we're going to do the second one, which is a two finger, and it's I use one and two fingers simply to signify using two thumbs, that we're practicing a calm, focused, relaxed process. And I, I do this with peak performing athletes who have to be calm at the same time as they're performing, because their function, they function at their best when they're not overly stressed. So let's do that right now. Take you two fingers of your right hand and put them on the pulse of your left wrist so that you could feel the pulse.

And now let's breathe. At approximately six breaths per minute, four seconds in and six seconds out. So let's start doing that. You know, on the exhale imagine your body sinking, melting into the chair. Feel the pulse. And on the exhale imagine slowing the pulse. And now we're going to add one more thing I want you to imagine as you breathe in, breathing in through your heart. As you breathe in, through your heart, imagine your heart expanding and focus on gratitude. Focus on somebody that you're feeling a sense of gratitude towards.

So breathe in through your heart and sense of gratitude. And on the exhale, imagine your heart slowing down. Breathe in gratitude and on the exhale, allow your body to sink and melt into the chair. Now you might start to notice that on the exhale, your pulse slows a bit. You may notice as you inhale, your pulse speeds up a bit. That's heart rate coherence. That's your respiratory system, your cardiovascular system, your nervous system. And now we in we included emotional system by focusing on gratitude all going into an alignment to facilitate the balance of the nervous system.

So this is a good practice for everybody to do. Again you could do it with your eyes open with two fingers. And so now you're rehearsing for

Sleep Routines and Resilience Resources 40:40

using it in everyday life because you have your eyes open. Or you could do it with one finger, with your eyes closed when you're by yourself, and you could totally let go. And that'll allow you to go a little bit more deeply into the calm, relaxed state. But this is an exercise. If people go to my website, Doctor Stevens or Ofcom, they can get a free download of an audio relaxation process. And again, it's everybody's responsibility to find some way, some time during the day to practice this, some form of recovery.

And I appreciate how you talk about it. It's it's part of our responsibility. It seems like there were a lot of good hours in there. Resilience, responsibility, relationships, recovery. But it, it's got to be intentional because as you said, the world is not going to say, whoa, slow down, you know, stop. Take a day off. Now what what is your recommendation as, as a PhD who's studied this, who works in the medical school? What is your recommendation, say, for a bedtime routine? So bedtime routines are, I think, a very important.

In fact, I just, produced a program called Resilient Sleep for some people that want to get a better, more, recovery in their sleep or have problems falling asleep or staying asleep. But I talk about a bedtime ritual about 15 minutes in which you are doing self grooming techniques, perhaps a bath or a shower, but you have this regular routine before bed that sort of telegraphs to your brain. I'm getting ready to go to sleep, so it prepares you so that when you actually get into bed to go to sleep, your brain and body are already prepared and helps you go into a deeper state of sleep.

So I encourage people to be creative and in how they set up their bedroom, their sleeping room so that it feels inviting and comfortable and then create some kind of ritual routine. Putting a moisturizer on, combing, brushing your hair and anything else that supports preparing for bed and do it on a consistent basis. Because what it does, as you start that that process, you're telling your body you're getting ready for sleep and it makes falling asleep much more easy. That's terrific. I've never heard it put like that doctor sitter off.

That's that's really great. Just a 15 minute thing I start makes you start thinking about you know what you do that you do every time. But then sometimes I'll run downstairs and you know empty the dishwasher real fast. Well that shouldn't be in there. You know what I'm saying. Those things should not be part of it. And it also highlights that you don't want to be on any kind of screen, right? Period of time before you go to bed again. You don't want to be doing things that activate when you're getting ready to calm yourself, to go into a deep state of sleep.

Right. Great information. Now, your website has a lot of, terrific resources for our listeners. Tell him about what you offer. Sure. So I already mentioned an audio that people can get and download for free. But another thing that I offer for free is my resilience assessment booklet, and it's available to everybody listening to this, and it describes my model. It describes each of my nine pillars, but it also has a questionnaire that people can take self score to derive their personal resilience profile along my nine pillars.

So it's a great way of getting your baseline. Where am I right now along these nine pillars of doctor sit ups? Model of resilience? What are my areas of strength and which are the areas that I need some further development to become more resilient? So that's available. I have a whole bunch of articles that, you know, I write for Psychology Today, so a lot of those are on my website. You can also get find them looking under my name on Psychology Today. Dot com. Yeah, lots of good lots of good articles.

One in fact folks was in real time. I think it was right during the fires in California. And doctor sitter Roffe talks about flying in and kind of seeing his neighborhood, being threatened there and, and then writing an article about resilience. I mean, you were tested. It was so good. And I love your questionnaire. I enjoyed that, because you want to know if you need to work on it before you need it. Life is going to be full of challenges and, good things and bad things. And so you want to be prepared, kind of like having that little savings account of of resilience.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. This has been so many, great strategies. So, folks, if you, have enjoyed this, subscribe, pass it on to somebody else who could benefit. Check it out. Doctor sitter, office, website. If you're like me, you you love good books. And this is, a real nice, nicely written. You, I like the way you have those kind of boxes that summarize things that it makes it an an easy read, a fun read. And, and, folks, give us a comment, give us some love. And I appreciate you all joining me.

Join me on Instagram. Join doctor sitter off on, his social media. You know, life is all about relationships. And we have to feel good to enjoy the relationships in our life. So thanks again for joining us. Thank you. Doctor sitter off. It's been my pleasure. And I want to emphasize with my book that it's designed for people to use it as a handbook. Because remember neuroplasticity takes time to learn. So you can use my book on a daily basis a little bit at a time, and gradually get better and better at resilience.

Yes, that growth mindset, you can always get better no matter how old you are. I'm 66 and I'm learning every day. I learned so much from you today. Thank you again and thank you to our listeners. Blessings. Until next time, thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w ww di doctor Talksport.com.

Stay connected. Stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.