Stress Resets, the Ultimate Mental Health Hack | Jenny Taitz | TED

0:03 Let me invite you into my house.

0:06 It probably looks a little like yours.

0:09 So one morning, rushing to feed our crying toddler,

0:14 my husband Adam drops a gallon of milk.

0:17 He is so mad, he starts aggressively

0:21 cleaning and cuts his hand under the fridge.

0:24 He's bleeding, hates blood, and we're out of bandages.

0:29 So he drives to the pharmacy.

0:31 On his way home, He rear-ends an Uber.

0:35 All before breakfast.

0:38 That's stress.

0:39 It’s a little hilarious but mostly heartbreaking.

0:44 When what we're facing feels like too much, spilled milk becomes a flood,

0:49 a headache at work spills into heartache at home.

0:52 Stress doesn't just happen.

0:54 It's something we easily co-create, then spread like the flu.

1:00 But here's the good news.

1:02 If you can create stress, you can also learn to reset it in minutes.

1:07 No long meditations, medications or martinis required.

1:14 Just shifts in your mind, body and behavior.

1:19 I call these pivots stress resets, and I love them so much,

1:24 I wrote a book highlighting 75 of my favorites.

1:28 We will cover them all— I wish.

1:31 As a clinical psychologist,

1:33 I've taught thousands of people how to ease intense emotions in crises,

1:38 helping clients transform from wanting to die to building lives they cherish.

1:44 And I rely on these tools myself,

1:46 whether I'm trying to get my three young kids to bed,

1:50 a live-action version of Whac-A-Mole,

1:53 or when I'm struggling to find the words to write

1:56 a eulogy hours after losing one of my closest friends.

2:00 Of course, stressing over spilled milk isn't worrying that AI

2:06 will hijack your career or facing a cancer diagnosis.

2:10 A reset won't turn awful into awesome,

2:13 but it will let you ditch hopelessness and bring the best of you forward,

2:17 sparking that priceless feeling of knowing you can count on yourself.

2:23 The secret?

2:24 Practicing stress resets in ordinary moments allows you

2:28 to reach for them when life feels unbearable.

2:31 You might be wondering:

2:33 Can you even feel better if your challenges aren’t disappearing?

2:37 Absolutely.

2:39 Stress is less about what you're facing and more about believing you can cope.

2:44 This isn't positivity.

2:45 This is regulating your nervous system,

2:48 framing stress as an opportunity for growth and accepting sensations,

2:53 even knots in your stomach, lowers cortisol and allows you to persevere.

2:58 What moves me most is research finds

3:01 even refugees and asylum seekers grappling with being

3:05 forcibly displaced can improve their mental health

3:08 by learning strategies similar to ones we'll cover.

3:12 If peace of mind is possible in political limbo,

3:15 it's definitely possible in your daily hustle.

3:18 Yet we create fender benders.

3:21 Short on money, we shop online.

3:24 Big deadline, we bounce between procrastination and perfectionism.

3:28 Tired and lonely, we scroll at midnight.

3:33 Why?

3:34 Because when emotions spike, clarity vanishes.

3:38 We want relief now, so we turn to habits

3:41 that hurt or reach for substances like alcohol,

3:44 cannabis or Xanax that shrink our ability

3:46 to think when we deserve to be our sharpest.

3:50 To bypass suffering, normalize your feelings.

3:54 No matter how hard things seem, emotions and urges are waves.

3:58 They'll pass without you escaping in ways that undermine you.

4:02 You know if you scroll TikTok, you can tear up, then smile within seconds.

4:09 The problem isn't feeling, it's ruminating.

4:11 Taking a two-minute interaction and replaying it for days,

4:14 turning stress into a chronic problem.

4:17 Ruminating was my specialty before I learned to reset.

4:21 And you can too, with three stress resets to reclaim your resilience.

4:26 One: learn to play with your thoughts.

4:30 Let's say you just experienced rejection.

4:33 That's disappointing enough.

4:35 Then your mind has the nerve to send the emotional equivalent of spam,

4:39 "You're gonna die alone." (Laughter)

4:42 Almost everyone has repetitive negative thoughts,

4:45 and life is too precious to take all

4:47 the 6,000 thoughts we have a day, literally.

4:50 So rather than letting your spam sap your brainpower,

4:54 try seeing it like you'd see blimps in the sky

4:58 or singing it to your favorite upbeat tune.

5:04 It sounds silly, but when you play with your unhelpful thoughts,

5:07 you loosen their grip.

5:09 If you want to be more all encompassing,

5:11 do you remember that song, "What is love?

5:14 Baby, don't hurt me." Can we all please join together at the count of three,

5:18 singing "What are thoughts?

5:19 Thoughts can't hurt me." OK.

5:23 (Singing) What are our thoughts?

5:25 Thoughts can't hurt me.

5:27 Thank you, that was amazing.

5:29 (Laughter) Even if you don't actually sing,

5:33 changing your relationship with your insulting inner soundtrack and replacing

5:37 dead ends with next steps will let you live more harmoniously.

5:41 Good luck ruminating while you're singing, right?

5:45 Two: try a half-smile.

5:49 Dialectical behavior therapists prescribe subtly smiling

5:53 even when you don't actually feel happy.

5:56 See, your face doesn't just reflect how you feel.

5:58 It shapes your emotional experience.

6:01 Research shows that Botox that prevents scowling improves mood.

6:05 (Laughter) No need to freeze your forehead.

6:09 Half-smiling is your free and natural version.

6:13 Try being miserable or battling road rage with a resting Buddha face.

6:19 (Laughter) Seriously, it primes you to accept whatever is,

6:26 preventing you from adding a tension

6:28 headache to everything else you're carrying.

6:31 To be clear, this is not about faking happiness when you're legitimately upset.

6:36 It's about letting your physiology boost your bandwidth.

6:40 Plus, it can help foster connections with others,

6:42 especially if your face otherwise looks like a big Do Not Disturb sign.

6:46 (Laughter) Let's give half smiling a try.

6:51 Anybody feeling more serene?

6:54 Now turn to the person next to you, and give them a little smile.

6:58 You guys have such nice half smiles.

7:00 How does that feel?

7:02 (Laughter) Your body is a walking pharmacy if you know how to use it.

7:10 Three: act opposite to how you feel.

7:14 Notice how when you’re anxious, you avoid.

7:16 When you’re depressed, you lay low.

7:18 When you’re angry, you yell?

7:20 Acting exactly the way you feel when you’re totally

7:23 overwhelmed amplifies negativity and piles on guilt and shame.

7:27 If you want to upgrade your mood, and how you live your life,

7:32 the third tool is to notice your emotion-driven urge;

7:36 ask yourself if acting on it is ultimately helpful.

7:40 If not, do the opposite.

7:43 So if you're grumpy and want to send a hostile text,

7:47 how about either sending a nice one

7:49 to someone who needs it or stowing your phone?

7:53 Anybody procrastinate,

7:54 you've got pressing to-dos yet suddenly it's time to empty your inbox?

7:58 That’s pseudo-productivity or procrastivity.

8:02 The opposite action, lovingly bringing your full attention to the task

8:06 that matters most, again and again.

8:09 Opposite action isn't superficial.

8:12 It changes the way you see yourself.

8:15 What's the ultimate mental health hack?

8:17 Regularly practicing opposite action.

8:20 It improves depression and anxiety in weeks.

8:25 If stress tries to convince you opposite action is impossible action,

8:30 or insists that you're just not the karaoke type,

8:33 keep a Hope Kit, a collection of items that elevates your mood within reach.

8:38 It can have anything in it that propels you forward.

8:41 These are shown to generate real hope.

8:45 This is mine.

8:46 As you can see, it has pictures of my grandparents

8:49 holding me as a little girl, cards from clients,

8:52 a playlist with some dance-worthy Drake music

8:55 and a note to myself to always be a light.

8:58 What belongs in yours?

9:01 After savoring these reminders, consider:

9:04 hope isn’t just a feeling, it’s a behavior you spread,

9:07 touching the lives of the people you love and anyone you encounter.

9:12 Stress doesn’t have to scar you, and you don't have to spill it onto others.

9:17 Spilled milk or something stickier, stress isn't what happens.

9:21 It's what you do next.

9:23 Creating perspective,

9:25 finding calm within you and doing what matters will reset your stress,

9:30 your life, and maybe the world.

9:32 Thank you.

9:34 (Applause) Joey Katona: How's my half smile?

9:39 JT: So beautiful.

9:40 (Laughter) JK: Jenny, if stress is something that we co-create, as you say,

9:46 what's just one behavior that you would urge us all

9:50 to stop doing tomorrow so that we stop passing it on?

9:54 Jenny Taitz: I love this, and I love acronyms.

9:56 So one of my favorite acronyms is STOP.

10:00 Slow down.

10:01 Take a step back.

10:03 Observe.

10:04 And proceed mindfully.

10:06 We can create so much damage if we're going 100 miles an hour,

10:10 but so much less if we're going five miles an hour.

10:12 When our emotional mind is on fire, it's so hard to think clearly.

10:17 But we're so good at getting better with the right tools,

10:20 and STOP is like a quick one.

10:21 Like nothing happens if you slow things down, less happens.

10:25 JK: Another round of applause for Dr.

10:27 Jenny Taitz.

10:28 (Applause)