GAIN Your Way to a More Mindful Life

In this episode of the #8 ranked stress podcast Greg Hammer, MD, Stanford School of Medicine professor, physician, best-selling author, and mindfulness expert shares tips to become more nonjudgmental and explains the benefits. With practices that you can easily try today, he guides us through his GAIN acronym, making it easy to remember the 4 steps to letting go of judgment. Of all the episodes I've recorded this is one of my very favorites because it describes the core practices & benefits of mindfulness in an accessible way and as you know, I want nothing more than for mindfulness to find it's way into your world to help you live a life with less stress.

Greg Hammer,  MD is a Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, pediatric  intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist, mindfulness  expert, and the  author of GAIN without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals. A member of the Stanford WellMD initiative, Dr. Hammer is currently the Chair of the Physician Wellness Task Force for the  California Society of Anesthesiologists.  He has been a visiting professor and lecturer on wellness at  institutions worldwide and teaches GAIN to medical students, residents,  and fellows at Stanford. Dr. Hammer’s  clinical focus is in pediatric cardiac anesthesia and pediatric  critical care medicine. His research is in developmental pharmacology  and immunology,  and he has an active laboratory with multiple ongoing studies in these  areas. He has published widely on topics related to pharmacology and  perioperative care of children undergoing cardiac and thoracic  procedures as well as organ transplantation. Dr. Hammer is a health enthusiast and meditator, utilizing a non-duality and mindfulness-based approach, including the GAIN method. Learn more about Dr. Hammer and get his book on his website: www.GregHammerMD.com

Your host Lindsay Miller is a kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To download Lindsay’s Mindfulness At Any Age Guide click here. To rate the podcast click here. Thanks for listening!

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.

Transcript

Lindsay Miller  0:07  
You're listening to The Stress Nanny podcast and I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family stress levels. In our fast paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults. When it comes to stress, we have two choices we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it. Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both. When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life. I'm so glad you're here. 

Hey there! This is Lindsay, thanks so much for joining me after the holiday break was a little longer than I anticipated. But I'm glad to be back and so grateful you're here to this episode is hands down one of my favorite episodes ever. We're pushing 150 episodes here on the podcast and this one with Dr. Greg Hammer has so many real life insights, honesty, authenticity, as well as just Yeah, actionable wisdom that you can take from this episode and apply tonight. Tomorrow, you know in your life. So I'm so excited to share it with you. And I would love to hear what you think. And now on to the episode. 

Welcome to The Stress Nanny podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. And I'm so delighted you're here today for this conversation around non judgement with Greg Hammer. Greg Hammer MD is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, a pediatric intensive care physician, a pediatric anesthesiologist and the author of gain without pain, the happiness handbook for health care professionals. Dr. Hammer, thank you so much for joining me today.

Greg Hammer, MD  1:54  
It's really a pleasure to be with you, Lindsay.

Lindsay Miller  1:58  
I'm looking forward to this conversation. Because your perspective on this is so unique, I love the focus on non judgment. Can you help me understand how that's weaved its way into your practice as a physician?

Greg Hammer, MD  2:10  
Sure, I think it is extremely important for all of us no matter what job we're doing. And even if we're not at work, to be as present as we can be. And unfortunately, our brains have been wired over 10s of 1000s of years of evolution, to be very distracted by the past and the future in ways that are maladaptive. Of course, it's it's important and necessary to think of the past and the future to some degree, but we overthink both. Another way that our brains have evolved is to have this negativity bias. So we tend to remember the negative and forget about the positive, as far as ways to be present more. And I should say that the present moment is where happiness lives. So whenever possible. If we are really fully aware of the present moment, we will be happier or simply happy. And one way to do that is to have the daily practice that I call gain. And gain is really a mindfulness method, if you will. And Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn, who's one of my heroes, and really one of the founders of modern mindfulness practice, define mindfulness as awareness of the present moment. Purpose, non judgmentally. So it's awareness of the present moment that is bringing our focus to the present moment and our present experience, which is really the only experience we ever have on purpose. And the purpose is the I am gay and the intention. And the reason we need to do this purposefully is that if we relax into our default mode and way of thinking, for which our brains are wired, we will simply be back to living in anything other than the present moment will be focused on something we did that we regret or feel ashamed of, or will be casting our thoughts into the future and feeling fear and anxiety. So we need to be intentional or purposeful. And the last element of what Dr. Kabat Zinn, how he defined mindfulness, being aware of the present moment on purpose, non judgmentally. So here we get to the non judgement. When we judge we see the world or that object of our judgment really through a tinted lens, if you will, so we're not seeing things exactly as they are, we're casting our own. This is good, that is bad. Quality, over the observation are really seeing things truly as they are and So we can go into more detail, of course. But I think that non judgement, intention or purposefulness, and bringing our focus to the present moment are really the keys to happiness.

Lindsay Miller  5:14  
Yeah, that was such a succinct explanation. Thank you for, for sharing that perspective. I think that one of the things you brought up that's really important to highlight among many, was the idea that like, we naturally tend toward that negative negativity bias, right, we naturally tend toward that past or future thinking. And I think sometimes we can beat ourselves up for it, like, I'm so negative all the time, or someone tells us we're really negative or, you know, there's a tendency to take that on, like, as a persona maybe. And I think it's so helpful the way you pointed out that like, this is actually just like a brain function. And like, there was a time when it served a perhaps more evolutionary purpose. But in our current modern society, with all the things we could worry about, and all the past and all the future, it's really gotten to be like you said, maladaptive to the point where it's just a matter of noticing it, right? Like Be aware that this is a tendency and don't get lost than in the second spin of like, I'm so I can't believe I'm so negative, I'm always so negative this is so you know, this is so characteristic of me. But just like you said, bring that non judgment piece in right then and say like, and this is just what brains do?

Greg Hammer, MD  6:27  
Absolutely, I think, when we have a daily practice, preferably, whereby we acknowledge that for which we're grateful, that which is painful that we must accept, intentionally being present, and being non judgmental, when we live and think in ways other than that gratitude, acceptance, intention, and non judgement, a light bulb will go off. And it will remind us, I'm being so ungrateful, you know, think of all the wonderful things for which I have to be grateful, or I'm just letting my mind drift into this negativity bias, let me use my intention, to bring it back into more positive way of thinking and being or, you know, I just did my gain meditation, I'm pledging to be less judgmental, or more non judgmental. Now I'm driving to work and this guy who's in the right lane, changes lanes into my lane without using his turn signal, and cuts me off. And I immediately start thinking, all of these negative, judgmental things about that person, and oh, a little light bulb went off, I'm just going to let go with that thought, and embrace this driver, whoever they are. And when we do that, we really can refocus our thoughts, and our being actually into a way of experience experiencing the present and way of being happier, which is really the only thing that any seven of the 7 billion of us want, right? We just want to be happy.

Lindsay Miller  8:12  
Yeah. Yeah, I am so excited to get into your acronym, because I think it's such a powerful way to conceptualize those key skills, right. And I'm grateful you pointed them out there to practice the gratitude, to have the acceptance for things that are painful that we can't change, to set our intention, and then to practice non judgement. I like the idea that like a light bulb goes off in our heads when we're contrary to that, like when we're we're specifically focusing our attention on those things, our brains recognize moments when we're not kind of on that track. And I think that's a really powerful thing to note. Because in any in any circumstance, like you just mentioned, we can, you know, kind of shift out of that, that lane of gain, like you said, and we can find ourselves like in a different mindset that really does take a toll on the level of happiness that we we feel. And so yeah, it's such a powerful way to think of it. When I when I teach the idea of gratitude to kids this month in my kids coaching, we're doing a gratitude challenge. And we talked about it like word search. So similar to how you described it. Like if you're looking for the things every day that you're grateful for, it's kind of like when you're doing a word search, and you're looking for that one word, and your brain kind of like sift through all the other letters till it finds the word that you know you're looking for. And so when you find that your brain kind of lights up, like there it is, and the other stuff can exist at the same time, but it's not what you're focusing on. And gratitude is like that, right? If throughout our day, there's a million other things we're not going to be grateful for. But if we put our perspective like in mind, at the outset of the day to focus on the things we're grateful for, we're going to highlight our brain is going to be like, oh, there it is. Let's find it, you know, but I hadn't thought of it in the off because that way, like you said that when we're kind of like in the weeds over here and trying to look at these other letters that don't make any sense, our brains like meaning, you know, this isn't what you're looking for shift over this way. Talk to me about how this kind of acronym came to you or how you, you consolidated your mindfulness practice your teachings, and your learnings around mindfulness into this into this acronym and tell us a little bit more about it.

Greg Hammer, MD  10:25  
Sure, we'll go back to the question you originally asked me about non judgment and my my medical practice. But, you know, I, like many of us have studied various philosophies and religions in the past, I studied Buddhism as a university student. And I had a hard time trying to remember the 10 steps of this, or the 12 ways of that, and I've read Deepak Chopra, who's absolutely wonderful, and he has the seven ways of being and so on. And that was too many for me to remember. So I thought, well, acronyms are good. We certainly embrace many of them as medical students. And subsequently, we try to remember all of the cranial nerves, for example, which are 12, in numbers. So there are a variety of acronyms for that. But I thought, you know, maybe seven is too many for me to remember, two or three may not be enough. Let me really try to boil this down to its essence, what are the absolutely essential ingredients of happiness. So gratitude is clearly one, you can be poor and happy, you can be physically challenged and happy, but you'll never see somebody who's ungrateful and happy. And I think just from our empiric our experience, we know that gratitude is essential. And that's why will people like you have it as part of your teaching toolbox. Let's be grateful. That's a path toward happiness. Acceptance, so I, I think we need to be non judgmental, but we also have to acknowledge that there's pain in life, we have all lost people we love, we have all said and did things we may feel ashamed of. We, you know, have events that occur in our lives, I think, especially having gone through COVID. And now just being in the world, and in the as COVID is sort of becoming a more low grade chronic issue. It still has a lot of detritus, in its aftermath, if you will. Plus, we have this awful war in Ukraine, we have global food shortages and hunger, we have some anxiety about the future of the planet. You know, I'm writing a book about teenagers now. And just imagine being a teenager and wondering whether the earth was going to survive the next couple of decades. So we have things that are painful in our lives. So how do we deal with that? And, and again, I think this is sort of a universal principle in in all or most philosophies and religions that as the Serenity Prayer would have it, we have to discern between things we can change and things that we cannot change. And those things that are painful, that we cannot change, we must accept. So I want to create a pathway that is just as though life is a bowl of cherries, I think we have to focus on things that cause us pain. So that's the A and accept in gain is acceptance, because it's actually a practice for visualizing bringing this painful experience closer and closer and actually opening our chest and opening our heart and bringing it into our heart and bracing it there living with it. And asking ourselves whether we can live with us forever when the answer is yes, we have acceptance. The I think is another essential ingredient in happiness. And you know, we go back to Dr. Kabat Zinn's elegant definition of mindfulness and looking at the way our brains have evolved over 50,000 years or so. We have to be purposeful because our brains are wired in ways that will lead us down these little distracting distracted pathways, which which make us unhappy and negative and the non judgement. I think, again, that's certainly key. Because if we want to experience the present moment, we have to see and embrace our experience as it is we have to see things as they are and when we judge, we are not actually able to see the object of our judgment clearly and so If it resonated with me that these four elements were all essential, we can't leave any of them out. And every other thing that I can think of adding to the mix, in terms of the ingredients for happiness and presence practice was already kind of embraced by one of these other four elements in the acronym. So there is your answer, I suppose it's just been a long process of trying to really get at what is the essence of our being and the essence of happiness?

Lindsay Miller  15:34  
Yeah, that again, was a really astute description. And I appreciate your perspective, especially around the pain piece, because I think sometimes it can be. I don't know if easy is the word, but it can be a tendency that we have to like, look on the bright side and make everything like it's all okay, and kind of gloss over it, or I think even in some different religious perspectives, we can say, like, Oh, we're not gonna worry about that, because it's later on, it'll get fixed, or you know, and I think being present with some of the hard things, it's, it's something that we really do have to practice. And so as a physician, I imagine that, like in your work with other physicians and your work with families, and the kids that you treat, there are so many moments where that practice is just a very daily event for you, and you're just engaging with it from this place of true presence. And like honoring and accepting the pain you might feel in a situation as well as being able to hold space for the pain that a patient or family or co worker is feeling. And that's powerful, right to be able to sit with someone in that space, of like acceptance of a painful moment, whether it's individual or global.

Greg Hammer, MD  16:49  
Absolutely, I mean, we experience I think the resonance of pain that is historic, I think that the way we treated our African brothers and sisters, you know, as we grab them out of their homes and their culture, and put them in holds of ships, and brought them to the United States, and treated them terribly, hundreds of years ago, and even up to perhaps 100 150 years ago. This I think still resonates, it still causes us pain. And there are a lot of ways to resist pain that we might not think of as resistance. But there's a formula in that first book, which is that suffering equals pain times resistance. We love formulas and medicine as well as acronyms. So suffering equals pain times resistance, the pain is the immutable element, we can't eliminate pain from our lives. But can we mitigate the suffering that's associated with the pain through acceptance, and acceptance is the inverse or the opposite of resistance? So the formula could be suffering equals pain divided by acceptance, if you will. So the bigger our acceptance, or the smaller our resistance, the less we suffer. And as you suggested, thinking that oh, I'm just going to be looking at the world through rose colored glasses, if you will. Even that sort of positive spin, or judgment on that which we experience and observe is a form of resistance. Not thinking about it, or as you said, Oh, I'll deal with that later. Well, if it's really causing you anxiety and pain, you don't want to overthink it, but you do. You know, when that little light bulb goes off, that I'm experiencing this pain is discomfort, then maybe it's time to sit with it. And you know, of course we have to discern we have to decide, is it something I can change or not? Is this the right time to sit with it? Obviously, we can't sit with every painful experience we've ever had all the time. But we can kind of work on, let's say the thing that has sort of bubbled up to the surface, and it's really causing us this sort of pain in our chest. And it could be for example, the loss of a loved one. And then, you know, during our gain practice, we've gotten in touch with our breathing, we've eased into a contemplation of that for which we're grateful. And then we transition to acceptance. And as I said, we can actually visualize this pain, visualize our chest opening, our heart opening, and this pain coming closer and closer until our heart is really embracing it. And we just sit there, let that resonate. And we usually realize that it's not as bad as we thought when it was more distant. And we can in fact, live with this. And it's a really beautiful thing is to accept the pain in life that it accentuates our experience of that which is beautiful in the Life? Yeah,

Lindsay Miller  20:02  
it's so well put. And I love that equation around resistance. Because do you find that once people aren't expending the energy of resistance, and they can shift that energy into acceptance that, like you said, the process can have a smoothness to it that maybe you didn't anticipate before?

Greg Hammer, MD  20:19  
Absolutely, you know, I sort of sometimes think of Christ on the cross with his wrists and ankles nailed to the cross and how much pain he must have been having. On the other hand, I also envision that he was enlightened to the point where he could drop all of his resistance to that pain. And if resistance goes to zero, then suffering goes to zero. And so I think of that as one example of how an individual and we all have this capability, I don't think there was anything magical about Christ, or the Buddha or any other great spiritual figure, I think we all have the ability to lower our resistance except fully and diminish or eliminate our suffering.

Lindsay Miller  21:13  
Severely beautifully put, again, what do you feel like are some of the key ways that we hang on to resist you mentioned that like, we might surprise ourselves the different ways that we kind of push away or, you know, fight accepting, what are what do you notice, as some of the key ways that we do that, though, we may not be aware of

Greg Hammer, MD  21:32  
a couple of them you brought up? Well, I'll deal with this later. Or I'm having this negative painful thought or experience and just saying, Well, you know, it's okay, it's fine. It's, you know, everything's fine. Without really sitting with it. Other ways of resistance are, well, if it's a person that we had a conflict with, and we're feeling pain from that relationship, and that interaction or interactions that we had, we often tend to D personalize the other person, oh, they're just this or that it's a it's a way of D personalizing or judging. We sometimes look at other people, and we just judge them in a way that makes us feel better, you know, we can say, well, they're not as smart as I am anyway. So I can discount this interaction that we had. So those are some more examples of resistance. I think probably most commonly, we just try hard not to think of it. But I think there are times when we need to sit with these painful experiences if we truly want to be happy.

Lindsay Miller  22:43  
Yeah, yeah, and my I have experience with this too, in my own life, just that that tendency to, to push away or to not want to, like, kind of experience it fully. And I love how you brought up, you know, sometimes there's a time and a place. And sometimes like, we maybe don't have the resources or capacity to sit with something. And we maybe need to get additional support, or we need to get to a different space where we can. But I love I love the idea of being willing to being willing to engage with things from a space of like, what do I have the capacity to accept right now? What am I resisting? Like? How am I? How is resistance manifesting for me? And then how can I go about decreasing the resistance to increase my acceptance? Let's talk about let's go to non judgement again, because I think this one, again, is one that can be so tricky, because if we if we're stuck on wanting to kind of force outcomes, and we're still kind of working on acceptance, non judgement can be hard, because we're really trying to like maneuver or get ourselves like if I was just this, then I wouldn't be able to do this right? It was just more this than this wouldn't be happening to me. What do you think are like some of the key benefits that people realize when they start practicing non judgement more consistently? What changes for them?

Greg Hammer, MD  24:03  
Well, that's a great question. Let me just talk to you for a minute about one aspect of the teaching of gains. So we've we've contemplated gratitude, acceptance, intention, and now we shift to non judgement. Here's one way we can drop our judgments. And as you said, we are definitely most self judgmental, I think with our negativity bias, and for whatever reason, we are definitely hardest on ourselves. So that the non judgement or the an end gain as part of our practice, we actually can while we're remaining, aware of our breath and the magic of the in breath, pause the slow out breath. Maybe we see a picture of the Earth, one of these beautiful NASA images where the earth is apparently suspended in space. case. And it's beautiful. And that is a judgment. Let's just consider it with a degree of benevolence. But indifference The Earth is simply as it is, the Earth is neither good nor bad, there may be a lot of stuff going on the surface, here's the planet, the planet is clearly neither good nor bad. It's just suspended there in space. And it is exactly as it is, then we turn our attention to ourselves. And if this planet is simply as it is, and is neither good nor bad, it's only sensible that I to as a human being, I am neither good nor bad. I am simply the person that I am. And we can link this I am this to our breath. And just let that percolate a little bit, I am neither good nor bad. I am simply the person that I am. I'm simply what I am, I am, I am. And then we return to our breath, we gently open our eyes, and we're ready to go out into the day. And we've set that little circuit up. So when we start to judge ourselves, or others, that little light bulb is going to go off. And we're going to bring us back ourselves or our thinking, our experience back to that image of the earth and space. And it will just remind us that we don't have to judge ourselves at all, we simply are a human being. And I think this recognition is extremely powerful, and enlightening and uplifting. And this applies to all of us. So all of us, human beings are simply human beings, we are neither good nor bad we have, you can talk about the way we treat each other, we have our flaws. But this is just who we are. We're human, after all. And I think just the recognition that we're neither good nor bad, and that we all share this quality. It's actually quite beautiful. And so I think this is a really powerful way of experiencing who we are, in particular when that light bulb goes off, and we find ourselves very harshly self judgmental.

Lindsay Miller  27:30  
Yeah, what a beautiful practice, as we visualize the earth and then conceptualize ourselves on it with the same level of neutrality with which we just viewed the earth. I love the phrase I am and you mentioned earlier, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and then teachings of Buddha, and I think this is one space where I just love like the intersectionality of those teachings, because that I am phrase comes up, you know, in biblical passages. And it's also that sense of just presence and non judgment has such a strong tether to Buddhist tradition. And I just love the, the space that we can kind of inhabit when we start to think more globally about these teachings. And again, your work in that regard is so beautiful in the ways that you can pull insights, you know, from the the perspectives that you've studied, to bring in this sense of like neutrality around ourselves, like, I'm not going to judge myself in this moment. And then, in my experience, I'm interested in your perspective here. You know, I've spent a lot of my early adulthood trying to not judge other people. And like trying really hard to be non judgmental toward other people. What I found was, when I started practicing non judgement toward myself, the non judgement just flowed from me everywhere else. It was me that was the sticking point in most of the scenarios. What's your take on that?

Greg Hammer, MD  28:58  
Oh, that is absolutely true. And we are definitely hardest on ourselves. And exactly why that is? I don't know. But it's clearly true. There's a wonderful cognitive behavioral approach to self criticism and self judgment, whereby we imagine as we have these thoughts of self doubt, and even self loathing, that we're talking to a good friend, and they are describing exactly the same feelings and self judgment that we are embracing at the moment. How would we talk to them? Would we say, oh, you're a terrible person? No, of course not. We would say things like, this is human. We all experience that pain. We all say things we wish we hadn't said we all do things we later may regret. This is just human. And if you were talking to a good friend, you would be so reassuring. And so if we can Just start to gradually bring that into our own self awareness, it's going to be extremely powerful, I think it's very important to remember that our brains developed their neural connections, all these synapses and circuits in our brains developed over 10s of 1000s of years. So we're not just going to flip a switch and change the way we think. If we focus on baby steps, and we're happy with baby steps, we're on a path we're on, you know, we're embracing this practice. And we're just going along very slowly. That's, that is perfectly fine. You know, we have to have no expectations. But these are all, you know, these game principles. I think, as you said, they're all They're so fundamental, they're really represented in in every philosophy and religion, just the basic truths. And, you know, I think this non judgment and self non judgement is difficult for all of us. So, maybe that's just a little bit of relief. Acknowledging that everybody, all of us, we all feel this way, we all do this, we are all way too hard on ourselves. So that's a bit of a relief, and then baby steps, if we can just start to bend that curve, a little bit forward, self acceptance, one little baby step at a time each day, then I think we can be quite settled and happy with the way things are going the direction in which we are moving.

Lindsay Miller  31:44  
Yes, yeah, that that's such a great point that you make, and I'm glad that you pointed it out. From your perspective, as a highly educated individual in the realm, you know, of these these topics and practices. It feels so validating, to hear, right, because if someone's listening right now, and says like, oh, my gosh, so far along, like, I have no hope of being at a point where I could accept this pain that's in my life. Right? You know, what, what's being described right now is so challenging, there's no way I could not judge it. I think what you just described is such a good reminder, it's changing the trajectory. And then it's not, it's not about getting from point A to point B, like tomorrow, you're gonna be like Dr. Hammer, if you read his book, right? It's about like, okay, from the space you're occupying, moving in a direction that you want to go, that's going to like bend your happiness curve. I love that toward additional happiness, instead of taking you in a direction that's moving you away from happiness. That's really powerful.

Greg Hammer, MD  32:43  
And believe me, Dr. Hammer is not there. They're there. No, there's not. It's just, this is just the process. And we need to view it in that way.

Lindsay Miller  32:54  
Yeah, definitely. Well, and as we, as we talk about it in the realm of like, these tiny baby steps, I think one of the things about mindfulness that can be challenging is people can feel like the practices themselves are so simple, like, how could this possibly make a difference? You know, and one of the reasons I brought up that idea of me practicing, like, taking all this energy and effort to practice non judgment toward other people was that like it was it got so much easier to just take a few minutes a day to practice non judgment toward myself. And like the net gain on that investment was massive, right. And I think most people who practice mindfulness in these ways and the practices you've described here, and I would love if you want to share a few more before we close, these practices are not going to take a lot of time. They're not going to seem like a really hard thing. But they can help with some of the hardest things that we face, right?

Greg Hammer, MD  33:51  
Yes, I mean, basically, what we're talking about is rewiring our brain. The good news is that our brains have this wonderful quality called neuroplasticity, that means that we can actually change the way we think if we're purposeful about it. And the gain practice can be as little as three minutes in the morning. So we get up, we open the blinds. There's nothing like that sunlight or even if it's overcast, that the natural lighting, and we do our morning hygiene routine, whatever that is. And then we just find a comfortable place to sit for a few minutes and we close our eyes, we get in touch with our breath, the magic of our breath. And then to me when as soon as I start focusing on my breath, I feel gratitude. I feel gratitude for this breath. Because not so long ago, I wasn't sure I would still be here at this moment. I happen to be diagnosed with a form of leukemia about 10 years ago and I thought I might not be alive at this age. So every breath is something for which to be grateful. Then we transition our attention through gratitude, acceptance, intention, non judgement, return to the breath, and slowly open our eyes. And you're right it. This is designed to be a very short practice three or four minutes. And you can sit with it longer if you'd like. But the point is to start to lay the groundwork for that rewiring of the brain taking advantage of that neuroplasticity, knowing that we can gradually baby steps repeated daily, if possible, we can begin to rewire the way we think. And therefore we can begin to reprogram our experience in the right direction.

Lindsay Miller  35:43  
Yeah, yeah, it's so. So well said. And just the the idea to that long standing patterns, like you mentioned, I mean, the brain itself has been evolving for so many years. And in our short, relatively short lives, we've created some neural patterns, neural connections that maybe haven't served us the way that they could. And by taking advantage of simple practices like this, and again, three to four minutes, there's a significant difference that occurs when we start to rewire. And I love seeing that in kids, because I think if we can set them up on this trajectory, when they're little, it's, you know, so much the better because they can access it for the rest of their lives. Talk to me, can you share one story about someone who has tried this practice, and you can share more of your own story, if you'd like someone who has kind of tried this practice and seen, you know, seen a difference and seen the impact that it can have?

Greg Hammer, MD  36:39  
Well, I receive a lot of grateful messages from other people. I don't know if I can go into their story, I can really only go into mine. I mean, I am a perfect example of somebody who's been through much of their life, very driven, very discerning, but also, in some ways judgmental, and most harshly self judgmental. And this practice, and I've been a longtime meditator off and on. I think I really didn't, I thought meditation was something other than what I now think it is, at least when I refer to it. You know, many people think meditation means you have to sit in an uncomfortable position for 30 minutes without moving or scratching an itch and banish all thoughts from one's head. And know that is not what meditation is. And there are lots of different forms of meditation. I think the game practice is a contemplative form. So people think they're not supposed to have any thoughts. That's not true, I'm actually going to give you things to think about while you're in touch with your breath with your eyes closed. So for me, you know, my story is that I'm an example of somebody who has been very driven, very harshly, self judgmental. And since I really started embracing this practice myself several years ago, I can't even describe what a difference it's made in my life. Clearly, I'm not, there is no destination. And if there were, I would not claim to be at it. I've arrived to process so I like everyone else. It's a work in progress. But since I've really embraced this practice, I find that I can take a breath outside of a patient's room. sort of go through the game practice just in a couple of, for Focus on one thing like acceptance, okay, this family has a child who's dying. They've been through every medical procedure and lab test and being in the intensive care unit. They know what's going on. They don't need more information from me, what they need from me, is to stand beside them, see if they have any questions if they don't just listen, and be present. And this game practice has really enabled me to do understand that in a way that I did not, you know, 15 or 20 years ago.

Lindsay Miller  39:18  
Yeah, thank you for sharing that example. In that story. It's really powerful to hear from your perspective. What are what are some of the ways people can connect with you? I know as we're talking, I'm hearing you know, phrases and like anyone in the health profession that I know I'm like, Hang this book for a holiday or a birthday. Talk to us about the book and where people can find more of your work.

Greg Hammer, MD  39:44  
Probably the best way is to go to my website. It's Greg hammer md.com gr E G H j m m er md.com. And there's a lot of information there the conversation that you and I are having Lindsay may be on there. In a few weeks, I suppose but there's a lot of media, there's a lot of recordings and so on and a link to the book as well, which is on Amazon and elsewhere.

Lindsay Miller  40:11  
Great. Thank you so much for your time. I've loved this conversation and your perspective. Yeah, it's broadened my own significantly, and I'm sure listeners have benefited as well.

Greg Hammer, MD  40:22  
Thank you so much, Lindsay. It was fun. And I'd love to do it again sometime.

Lindsay Miller  40:26  
I would too. Let's chat again when your book for teens comes out. Okay, done. I hope that after listening, you have some specific ideas on how non judgement can become a bigger part of your world, or some specific ways you're going to invite gratitude to kind of moderate your thought processes, you know, and find that trigger, like Dr. Hammer talked about. When you're out of gratitude, you know, to invite yourself back in, I'd love to hear what you took from this episode, what your favorite parts were and how it impacts your life going forward. As always, you can reach me at Lindsay at thestressnanny.com 

You've just finished an episode of The Stress Nanny podcast. So hopefully you feel a little more empowered when it comes to dealing with stress. Feel free to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. As you go back to your day. I'm so glad you're here. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support. It really means the world to me. If you're new, I'd love to have you follow the podcast and join me each week. And no matter how long you've been listening, please share this episode with someone who is stressed out. If you enjoyed the show, would you please do me a favor and go to ratethispodcast.com/thestressnanny and leave a review. The link is in the show notes. I'm so grateful for all my listeners. Thank you again for being here. Until next time!

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