{"id":44306,"date":"2025-01-24T04:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T04:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alternative-medicine\/finding-joy-and-peace-in-the-midst-of-challenging-circumstances-with-dr-greg-hammer\/"},"modified":"2025-01-24T04:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T04:04:15","slug":"finding-joy-and-peace-in-the-midst-of-challenging-circumstances-with-dr-greg-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=44306","title":{"rendered":"Finding Joy and Peace in the Midst of Challenging Circumstances, with Dr. Greg Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><b>In this episode, we discuss:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our current environment of heightened stress and polarization<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to understand and cultivate resilience<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choosing between resistance or acceptance<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to navigate pain and suffering<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The importance of intention and present moment awareness<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to practice non-judgment and discernment<\/span><\/li>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Show notes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"RHR: Finding Joy and Peace in the Midst of Challenging Circumstances, with Dr. Greg Hammer\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UmX-V3iHgr0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" title=\"Libsyn Player\" src=\"https:\/\/chriskresser.com\/finding-joy-and-peace-in-the-midst-of-challenging-circumstances-with-dr-greg-hammer\/about:blank\" width=\"100%\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-rocket-lazyload=\"fitvidscompatible\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/33016547\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/4c9494\/\"><\/iframe><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" title=\"Libsyn Player\" src=\"https:\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/33016547\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/4c9494\/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey everyone, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of <em>Revolution Health Radio<\/em>. I think it\u2019s fair to say we\u2019re living in pretty stressful times, between the recent pandemic, the political discord, the growing polarization and divisiveness, multiple wars happening around the world, and our increasing exposure to all of it through social media and the 24\/7 digital culture that we live in. We see rates of anxiety and depression skyrocketing and people just feeling like they\u2019re overwhelmed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, I\u2019m really excited to welcome Dr. Greg Hammer as my guest. Dr. Hammer is a recently retired professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, a pediatric intensive care physician, [and a] pediatric anesthesiologist. [And] more relevant to the conversation that we\u2019re going to be having today, [he\u2019s] a wellness and mindfulness lecturer and the author of <em>Gain Without Pain, The Happiness Handbook For Healthcare Professionals<\/em>. Now, this conversation we\u2019re having is not unique to healthcare professionals; that\u2019s just the context [which] Dr. Hammer has mostly applied his wellness and mindfulness work in. But we are going to talk about tools and approaches that everybody can use to find joy and peace in the midst of a really challenging set of circumstances. We\u2019ll talk about how to overcome divisive thinking and polarization, how to build resilience, how to deal with uncertainty, the importance of cultivating non-judgmental awareness, the importance of acceptance and the difference between acceptance and approval and submission, the role that gratitude plays, and many other important topics that are really crucial now than ever.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I enjoyed this conversation [and] I think you\u2019re going to get a lot out of it. So, without further delay, let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Dr. Greg Hammer, welcome to the show.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Great to be with you.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>So, times are challenging right now. It feels like [we\u2019re] living in a pressure cooker, with the election coming up and the increasing polarization and level of hostility, and media and social media, and even in families and friends being torn apart by all the recent events. I know several people in my family and my friend network are expressing that they feel like they\u2019re kind of in a vice, and the vice is tightening more and more all the time. So this conversation is timely, and this is something I know you write and think a lot about. Let\u2019s start with how we can work with this increasing divisiveness and polarization that has really come to characterize the media and digital media environment that we live in.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Current Environment of Stress and Polarization<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Great question. First of all, I believe that the past five years or so have been perhaps more stressful than any other five-year period, within my lifetime at least. The causes are well known to all of us. [One is] the COVID pandemic, which is still going on, actually, but the repercussions [of it]. I\u2019m finishing a book on mindfulness for teenagers, and our teens are still suffering from the effects of COVID. Not just physically, although they do have a percentage of those who are infected with the virus [that] do have long COVID, just like adults, but [more so] emotionally [and] psychologically, because of the important developmental period in their lives that was changed so dramatically by the pandemic, where they were trying to learn remotely and were deprived of all the important social interactions that trigger their healthy social development, etc. But I think we\u2019re all still functioning in the shadow of COVID. And in fact, there\u2019s still a lot of virus around. It keeps mutating. I know that I had COVID about two months ago for the first time [and] was pretty sick for a couple [of] weeks, and I\u2019m still not back to normal. So that\u2019s a stress for everyone. I think many people lost loved ones under horrible circumstances during the peak of the COVID pandemic\u2013 people who were beloved, who were in their hospital rooms, isolated by themselves, etc. So that\u2019s one source of ongoing stress. Then, of course, [there are] the wars going on around the world, which seem to always be going on, but I think more recently the wars in Israel and Gaza, north of Israel, and also in Ukraine have certainly not only been sources of great stress but [also] polarization. Particularly, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a huge source of polarization [between] people in the United States.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then we have all of the continuous bad news about global warming and extremes of heat, which has caused suffering for so many people around the world. Here in Northern California, where I live, we\u2019ve been relatively spared, but we had temperatures over 100 degrees for many days in a row recently, which is very unusual. So I think the pandemic, political [and] military strife around the world, [and] eco-anxiety, among other things, have created a tremendous amount of stress, and that\u2019s our baseline. I think those stressors have [put] us in a [situation] where many of us are kind of close to the edge of the cliff even before we start incorporating the political divide. I think that\u2019s the point of departure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Right, and inflation, rising food prices, rising gas prices, [and] people just generally feeling like they have the same jobs, perhaps, but the money\u2019s not going as far as it used to. They\u2019re not able to make ends meet, and that triggers a very primal reaction for most of us because those are just basic survival needs\u2013 the ability to feed ourselves and our family and to make a living.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely, I couldn\u2019t agree more. And that dovetails with the political divide because the reasons for current inflation, how grocery prices have become so significantly increased, [and] other issues related to our pocketbooks are the source of great polarization amongst us. I think one political party or the other gets blamed for things that are really outside of their control, and so one side is defending and the other one is attacking. So, yeah, I think that we\u2019re all stressed out. I think what you mentioned is a significant contributor. Then you get into the political divide. And I think we could talk about some of the reasons why the added stress of the political divide is magnified in our current 24\/7\/365 media news cycle. I think that, unfortunately, bad news sells more than good news. So we\u2019re bombarded constantly with all of the bad news about issues related to the pandemic, issues related to wars elsewhere, though those are truly horrific, finances, global warming, and other aspects of politics. [They] are kind of pitched to us in very polarized and negative ways. You sort of pick your cable news station and you get a point of view that comports with what you want to hear. And that\u2019s a very dangerous situation, where artificial intelligence [is] driving a lot of what gets pushed to individuals in the media [and] is reinforcing our own set of beliefs. You have more and more polarization, where each side is having its own point of view supported by the media to which they choose to be exposed. So, yes, I think these are all really important factors, and I\u2019m glad we\u2019re having this conversation because it\u2019s really important to identify the drivers of our current situation of stress. I think we\u2019ve named a handful of very significant drivers, but until we really identify those, we can\u2019t embrace a strategy to ameliorate or improve the situation.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Understanding and Cultivating Resilience<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely. We\u2019ve talked on this show quite a bit about the role of digital technologies and algorithms on Meta and other platforms and how they have optimized for engagement in a way that has exacerbated the political divide and pushed people further and further to the polarities. I think it is important to identify all these sources of stress, and of course, many people who are listening are probably nodding their heads and saying, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m aware of why I\u2019m stressed out. How do I deal with this?\u201d So, I want to start by talking about resilience. First, [by] defining it [and] how you think about resilience, and then we can talk a little bit about how to cultivate resilience. Because the reality for most of us [is that while] we have some control over some of these stressors, as an individual [I have] a limited impact on climate change, I have a limited impact on the wars in the Middle East, [and] I have a limited impact on gas prices and food prices. The reality is that those things are not in my control to change. What I do have some influence over is how I respond, and this is where resilience comes in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Beautifully put. There\u2019s a formula in my first book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/GAIN-Without-Pain-Happiness-Professionals\/dp\/1951104013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>GAIN Without Pain<\/em><\/a>, that is suffering equals pain times resistance. So, the pain is there. The pain is knowing about these innocent people being killed, people starving, people in poverty, people who are sick with COVID [and] long COVID, etc. Those are examples of the pain. The suffering is a matter of the magnitude of our suffering from that pain, or from those painful stimuli, if you will. [It] depends on how we manage our own physiology and mental and physical well-being. And that is the resistance. Do we resist, or do we accept? So, just kind of taking a step back, my approach to dealing with stress is to have a mindfulness practice, and [the one] which I embrace and practice and teach is called the GAIN practice. GAIN is in capital letters, an acronym for what I think are the four essential domains of stress reduction and happiness\u2013 gratitude, acceptance, intention, and non-judgment. So, with your permission, I can sort of walk through how those apply to the topic in question, which might be the political divide, in the context of all these other stressors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The G in GAIN is gratitude. The next time we find that we\u2019re getting wound up because we\u2019re observing somebody expressing political points of view with which we disagree, or we\u2019re talking to a friend or Uncle Joe at the dinner table and we\u2019re hearing views that we object to, and we\u2019re starting to get a stress response\u2013 that is, we can sense that the adrenaline in our body is increasing. We can\u2019t sense some of the other changes associated with acute stress, like the increase in cortisol, for example. But the net of those changes, generally, unless it\u2019s adaptive because we\u2019re running away from a predator or deciding to fight, those physiologic changes associated with stress are maladaptive because they evolved to help us flee from a predator or stay and fight, the so-called fight-or-flight response. But nowadays, stress is triggered mainly by our thoughts. We\u2019re not faced with an actual threat. We think about something that the other political party is espousing, and that elicits the stress response. So when we\u2019re having that stress response elicited in the context of a political discussion or being exposed to some media related to politics, the first thing that I would recommend is [to] go to your breathing. Make sure you\u2019re taking slow, deep, deliberate breaths because that activates our parasympathetic nervous system and counteracts some of this fight-or-flight response.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Think about that for which we\u2019re grateful. We have a highly functioning political system. We tend to, according to our negativity bias, get overly wrapped up in all the negative aspects of our politics. But compared to other countries in the world, we\u2019re fortunate, and can be appreciative that we have a functioning democracy. People\u2019s vote counts, and we have elected officials. We have the opportunity to express our views freely, as long as we\u2019re not being violent about it. Let\u2019s be grateful for all of the attributes of our political system and the idea that we can even engage in this political discourse. So, starting with the breath, and then maybe going to our gratitude. Let\u2019s not forget about all of the positive things for which we have to be grateful. And we can go through the other elements in GAIN if you\u2019d like.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yeah, I think that\u2019d be helpful. I mean, I definitely want to talk a little bit more about gratitude in general as we go through the podcast and some of the other elements of the acronym, but I think it\u2019d be an instructive way of seeing how to apply it to a particular situation to just continue for now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yeah, well, the A in GAIN pertains to what you said a minute ago, which is that there\u2019s little that you can do about many of these things. It pains you to be made excruciatingly aware of deaths in Gaza, for example, and in northern Israel, let\u2019s say, but there\u2019s not much you can do about it. So here\u2019s where the A in GAIN, or acceptance, is so critical to minimizing our suffering in response to that pain. Acceptance is really, like gratitude, I think, embedded in all religious and philosophic traditions.\u200b\u200b The Serenity Prayer, for example, which is, of course, one of the core values of Christianity, teaches us that we will hopefully be able to discern between things we can change and things that we cannot change and have the wisdom and ability to learn to accept those things that cause us pain that we cannot change. So we have to decide, \u201cOkay, do I want to engage in a protest related to what\u2019s happening in the Middle East? Or donate money to the cause in Ukraine, or what have you? Or is this really something that is beyond my scope and my energy and resources are better spent elsewhere?\u201d Once we make the decision through our discerning that [it] is something that we can\u2019t change, or the net is better if we attend elsewhere, then we can work on acceptance. And we do that through, I think, a practice. We have to be intentional about accepting because our natural response to pain is to resist. We exacerbate our own suffering as our sort of default mode of thinking and being, just as our default mode of thinking and being is to be rather negative. There\u2019s a lot of psychology and social science that tells us that we have a negativity bias. We tend to embrace the negative and push away or forget the positive. This is our default mode. So if we\u2019re going to think and be in ways other than this negative, resisting default mode, we have to have a plan. We have to have a purposeful approach.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, we identify the issues, as we\u2019ve been discussing. Identify the drivers, and then purposefully take aim at these and learn to rewire our brains in the way of favorable responses. So, with regard to these painful issues we can\u2019t do anything about, acceptance is a practice. I can tell you that in the GAIN meditation, which can be done in three or four minutes, preferably in the morning after we get up, open the blinds, and do our morning hygiene, we find a comfortable place to sit. We first focus on our breath, slowly inhaling through our nose, maybe to a count of three, pausing to a count of three, and then slowly exhaling to a count of four, breathing into our belly, expanding our body, pausing, and then slowly exhaling. And that, again, will begin to calm us down, lower our heart rate and blood pressure and blood sugar, and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. Then, we go through a self-guided tour of the GAIN elements, beginning with that for which we\u2019re grateful. We identify things for which we are grateful, such as our democracy. That can be a component of our morning GAIN meditation today or tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then acceptance. So, with regard to acceptance, a tool that I like to use and teach is, again with our eyes closed, focus on the slow, deliberate breathing, [and] imagine something painful. The loss of a loved one. I lost my son eight years ago, at the age of 29. That pain is not going away. But through this practice, with my eyes closed, sitting comfortably, slowly, deeply, deliberately breathing, I imagine bringing that pain closer and closer, opening my chest, opening my heart, actually bringing the pain into my heart and residing with it, abiding there, and actually nurturing it and fully accepting it, until I ask myself the question, \u201cCan I live with this pain forever?\u201d At some point, the answer will be yes. So we\u2019ve linked this to our slow, deep breathing, and this is part of our GAIN practice. Notably, the exercise in learning acceptance, [and] learning to be more adept at [and] more automatic at accepting painful thoughts and experiences that we cannot change.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Wonderful. I\u2019d like to linger here for a little bit on this topic because I\u2019ve found that it\u2019s ripe for confusion sometimes. Even just the word acceptance itself is pretty loaded and subject to different interpretations, so I like to differentiate between acceptance and submission. Sometimes, when I have this conversation with people about acceptance, the response is, \u201cI can\u2019t possibly accept what\u2019s happening in Gaza,\u201d for example. \u201cIn the Middle East, I can\u2019t accept that people are dying In these wars. Why should I accept that\u2019s happening?\u201d And, of course, acceptance is just the recognition that it is happening in this moment. It\u2019s not a stamp of approval. It\u2019s not agreeing to never try to do anything about it, to make any changes, [or] to be active in making that change. But I think it can be tricky. I\u2019m curious how you think about that and talk about that with folks. In my experience, that can be an obstacle\u2013 that gap in understanding can be an obstacle for people when we talk about acceptance.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Resistance or Acceptance<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>I think you nailed it, actually. You have to go through that thought process and take a logical approach to it. Let\u2019s just go downstream with this notion of, \u201cI cannot accept this.\u201d What does that actually mean? I cannot accept what\u2019s happening in the Middle East, notably in Israel and the Palestinian lands. Okay, I can\u2019t accept that. So what are my alternatives? My alternatives are either, just simplifying and taking a logical approach, [that] I can try to do something about it, or since I can\u2019t really do anything about it, if that is my conclusion, I\u2019m just going to resist this whole process. The opposite of acceptance in this context is resistance. If we want to be mathematical, acceptance equals one over resistance, or is proportional to one over resistance, so suffering equals pain times resistance becomes suffering equals pain divided by acceptance. If the acceptance is big in the denominator, then suffering is reduced.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what are my options? My options are to actually get up and do something about it\u2013 maybe I can march, maybe I can try to donate money to whichever cause I think appropriate. But absent the ability to do something about it, my only other option is to resist, to agonize over it, to get into arguments about it, [and] to magnify my suffering because I just don\u2019t accept it. So there you go. What I\u2019m doing as an alternative to acting toward a solution is simply magnifying my own suffering. That\u2019s really the end point of this process of, \u201cI cannot accept it.\u201d I can\u2019t do anything about it, and I can\u2019t accept it, so what I\u2019m actually doing is just magnifying my own suffering. I think you really have to look at it in that way. It\u2019s a very simple but logical approach. And I think one has to be circumspect about how we engage with others in presenting that point of view. But I think that\u2019s basically the bottom line here.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Right. And it\u2019s worth pointing out [that], in that situation, resisting and not accepting didn\u2019t do anything to change the situation itself. All it did was add more suffering. Namely, your own suffering, and possibly [the] suffering of others, if you\u2019re externalizing [and] projecting that resistance outward in the form of unpleasant or hostile attacks against other people who don\u2019t share your views. Which, of course, we do see happening all the time, every day, all day long, on all of the social media platforms and other forums as well.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Oh, you\u2019re absolutely right. I think basically what we\u2019re talking about, in part, is our negativity bias. We often choose to be negative. Given the choice of being negative or being pragmatic, we often choose the negative option that leads to an increase in our suffering. The reason that I can\u2019t accept what\u2019s happening in the Middle East is because I love people, and it\u2019s a hugely painful experience that people are suffering [and] people are being killed, etc. It\u2019s because I love my brothers and sisters on the planet that this is so painful to me. So am I going to get into arguments with myself and manifest resistance and get into arguments with other people, some of whom I love especially, and alienate them because I\u2019m so vehement in my opinions? All I\u2019m doing is magnifying the suffering, as you said, and creating a negative situation and actually decreasing my ability to express my love for my friends and family and decreasing their ability to express it to me because I\u2019m not receiving it, because I\u2019m resisting their points of view if they\u2019re different than mine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you get into this whole realm of negativity, and that\u2019s a choice. We\u2019re not going to only focus on gratitude and pretend that everything is a bowl of cherries, because it\u2019s not. That\u2019s why the second letter in the acronym is acceptance. We have to acknowledge that there\u2019s pain in the world, that there\u2019s loss, that there\u2019s uncertainty, that there\u2019s insecurity, that there\u2019s all the other things that contribute to our pain, and we\u2019re going to actually take that on. We\u2019re going to have a plan to be able to cope with the pain in life. It\u2019s intrinsic to life itself.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Navigating Pain and Suffering<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Let\u2019s talk about that a little more, because something else you said earlier when you were talking about acceptance is related to that, which is [that] when we accept, we open to the pain. I think it\u2019s often the case that when we resist, it\u2019s because we don\u2019t want to feel the feelings that will inevitably come when we accept whatever it is that we\u2019re faced with. And I think that fear is a basic human response, because we\u2019re afraid of being so overwhelmed by the enormity of the pain, especially like with the death of a loved one [or] somebody very close to us or something that\u2019s deeply meaningful to us. We fear that if we accept and open to that pain, then we\u2019ll never come out of it. So there\u2019s that wall and the resistance that goes up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So before we move on to intention, maybe we can talk a little bit about practicing with pain and how to navigate that, when it feels like the pain can be potentially overwhelming or shattering.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Sure, I think that\u2019s really such a key and important point. I\u2019ll tell you a little bit about my own story as it pertains to that. When I was a university student, I was very interested in astronomy, but I also got very interested in nutritional science and human biology. [I] decided to go to medical school, and as a medical student we do these rotations through all the different specialties. I found that when I was on my pediatrics rotation, I felt more kinship to the other people practicing medicine, nursing, respiratory therapy, etc, in the pediatric domain. They sort of didn\u2019t take themselves too seriously. They didn\u2019t have [as] much ego as I found in some of the adult medicine areas [and] in surgery. So I decided to go into pediatrics, which I did. When I was a pediatric resident, I did my first rotation in the intensive care unit and I loved it. And I realized that I was not going to be having an office practice, seeing 20, 30 patients a day. I wanted to really take care of the sickest of the sick. At that time, anesthesiology and critical care and pediatrics were a good combination. And still are, but less commonly now. So I decided to do a residency in anesthesiology and then fellowships in pediatric anesthesiology and intensive care. And again, this is something I was passionate about. I loved the specialties, and I knew I would be taking care of a lot of very critically ill infants and children, many of whom would die in my care.\u00a0 I knew I would be dealing with a lot of death and dying. And somebody told me, \u201cDon\u2019t get too close to your patients, because when they have a bad outcome, when they die, your heart will be broken.\u201d And that just did not resonate with me. I want to be close to my patients and their families. That, to me, is part of the joy of being a provider in this area. So I realized [that] if I\u2019m going to be able to cope with death and dying in my patients and the repercussions in their family, I better really think about this and open my heart to it, and dwell in that domain of death and dying, come to an understanding about our mortality, including my own in the process, and learn to really be accepting. And it was a process. There is no destination. I don\u2019t fully accept or reside happily in the knowledge of my own death or the death of others that I care about. But I\u2019ve certainly made a lot of progress, and that\u2019s through an intentional practice of bringing the pain in, [and] really learning how to open my heart to the pain. I found that, progressively, during my career, I\u2019m able to sit with these families. Sometimes they have all the medical science information they need, and the thing that I can do for them the most is just to be fully present with them. Fully mindful, if you will. Being fully aware of the present moment as part of mindfulness, and [listening] to them without having a response formulated, without having an agenda of what I want to tell them, but just at some point, at some stage in this process of taking care of a family with a child who\u2019s in the process of dying or very, very critically ill, listening, residing, [and] abiding. And that involves opening my heart to the pain [and] being fully exposed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve found that this is one of the most rewarding components of my practice over the last 35 years, and I\u2019m so grateful for the fact that I had the opportunity to serve in this way, and that I had the wherewithal to really embark on this journey. So that\u2019s an example of what you just importantly pointed out\u2013 that it\u2019s not something that\u2019s our default mode, to be able to sit in that room and be mindful and listen and be able to stay in the room. It\u2019s uncomfortable. It\u2019s a potentially very uncomfortable situation where I have really nothing more to offer other than my own presence and listening. That can be a very uncomfortable situation, but if we take an approach of acceptance, it can also be a very rewarding circumstance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote tweet is-style-tweet is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Feeling overwhelmed by today\u2019s challenges? Tune in to Chris and Dr. Greg Hammer as they discuss the GAIN practice for finding peace and joy in turbulent times. Learn practical tools for resilience and mindfulness in this episode of <em>Revolution Health Radio.<\/em> #Wellness #Mindfulness #Chriskresser<\/p>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>So let\u2019s talk about intention, the next letter in the acronym. And you\u2019re welcome to relate that to the political climate we\u2019ve been talking about, or just how it shows up overall in this process of building resilience, dealing with uncertainty, and finding some joy and peace in the midst of incredible suffering and difficulty.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Intention and Present Moment Awareness<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Our default way of being, as I think we\u2019ve discussed a little bit, is to be rather negative and also to be very distracted. It\u2019s very hard for us to dwell in the present moment. I love <span lang=\"EN\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jonkabat-zinn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn\u2019s<\/a> <\/span>definition of mindfulness, which could be, I think, [the] definition of happiness. Which is all that about 8 billion of us want, is to be happy. And that definition was being aware of the present moment on purpose, non-judgmentally. So there are the GAIN elements of purpose, or intention, and the N in GAIN being non-judgment, which we can get to. But the reason that he said being aware of the present moment is because that\u2019s where happiness lives. Yes, we can have happy memories thinking of the past, and yes, it\u2019s adaptive also sometimes to think about the future [and] to plan happy times. But I think for most of us, if not all of us, the most profound times of happiness are when we are fully present. I\u2019m walking through the forest, I\u2019m appreciating the footfall on the soft forest floor covered with pine needles, I\u2019m smelling that pine, I\u2019m enjoying the oxygen-enriched environment produced by all of the plant life and I\u2019m seeing the sunlight filtering through the canopy 100 feet above, and I\u2019m just totally present, and I\u2019m happy and I\u2019m at peace. And I often feel under those circumstances, \u201cIf I die right now, I\u2019m okay with it. Just bury me out here, or cast my ashes out here, because I\u2019m present and I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think we get that same thing from listening to a beautiful piece of music. We\u2019re sort of fully present. Or making love with a partner. There\u2019s moments of really being purely present and feeling blissful. Happiness is in the present, yet our brain\u2019s default mode is to be very distracted. If we close our eyes and just try to pay attention to what\u2019s going on right now, whether it\u2019s the pressure of the chair against our body, or the tingling on the soles of our feet, or hearing a car or an airplane go by in the distance, our minds will very quickly start focusing on what we have to do when we\u2019re done doing this, or perhaps tomorrow, or the list of things that we have to get home to do, or our brains will go to something we said or didn\u2019t say yesterday that we\u2019re embarrassed about. It\u2019s very hard for us to stay present, but that\u2019s where happiness lives for the most part.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If we want to be present and if we want to be more positive and pragmatic, it\u2019s not our default mode. That means we have to do something other than just sink into our default mode, and that means we have to have a plan. As you and I have discussed, we have to identify what the drivers are of our current state of unhappiness, and then we have to have a plan as to what to do about it. And here\u2019s where the I in intention really comes into focus. I think that the first thing we can do is rewire our brains. Fortunately, our brains, though we\u2019re wired to be negative and distracted, also are wired to have this wonderful quality called neuroplasticity. We can actually change the way we think. So how do we do that? We\u2019re here in our GAIN meditation, we\u2019re breathing slowly and deeply, we\u2019ve slowed our heart rate and lowered our blood pressure, we\u2019ve gone through a tour of that for which we\u2019re grateful, something painful that we\u2019re learning to accept. We get to the I, while we\u2019re breathing slowly and deeply and deliberately, [and] focus on our present experience. At first, maybe we can only be there for five seconds. The pressure of the chair against our body, the tingling of the soles of our feet, the sound of a bird or a dog barking next door or a car going by in the distance. Let\u2019s just breathe in and abide in that present experience. Maybe it\u2019s five seconds today, maybe it\u2019s 10 seconds next week, maybe it\u2019s 30 seconds a month from now. That\u2019s part of our intention, to learn to be more present. When we identify with that lightbulb moment, [where] we\u2019re agonizing over something that hasn\u2019t happened yet, we\u2019re thinking about tomorrow, and with our negativity bias we\u2019re thinking about something negative tomorrow, we\u2019re catastrophizing, we\u2019re generating a lot of fear and anxiety, a lightbulb goes off and we use these tools to bring ourselves back into our present experience and drop the anxiety about what hasn\u2019t even happened yet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re exercising our brains. We\u2019re rewiring our brains to be more present, and that is through this intentional practice. Then we may transition to thoughts of, \u201cWhat are my other intentions?\u201d To be more generous, more loving, more kind, more patient, more grateful, more accepting, more non-judgmental. Again, we\u2019re linking this to the slow, deep breathing during this phase of what can be a very brief practice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yeah, so important, and increasingly difficult in the modern world that we live in, where [many of us are] connected to screens throughout much of the day. These companies who manufacture these technologies are incentivized to reap as much of our attention as they can, because that\u2019s the medium that they sell advertising against. We\u2019re the product, as Tristan Harris pointed out in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/title\/81254224\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Social Dilemma<\/em><\/a>. If you just go with the flow these days, then your attention will, by definition, be scattered. Let\u2019s say you have 40, 50 apps on your phone and they all have notifications and you haven\u2019t turned any of those notifications off. Just the notifications of those apps all day long, beeping and flashing, are going to be enough to distract you completely from whatever is happening in the present moment. So I love the I in intention, because the only way now to have moments of solitude and moments of present moment awareness is intention. If you don\u2019t have that intention, you will not just stumble upon that, unless there\u2019s an [electromagnetic pulse] (EMP) or, like, the cell networks are down and all of a sudden, none of those devices work. I think intention is powerful there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We do, for example, a multi-day river rafting trip with our family every summer. And one of the reasons we like to do that is because nothing works. None of the digital devices work, and you are completely off the grid with other people who are also off the grid. It\u2019s one of the few environments I know of where you can do that and just have a week of time with nobody on a screen, nobody checking their email, nobody responding to text messages, etc. For me, it\u2019s really important just to recognize that we are in a battle for our own attention, and there are forces that are trying actively to secure our attention. So we all have to be very intentional about our attention, and very, I would say even, guarded about where we spend our attention, because it\u2019s our most precious resource. If we don\u2019t have our attention, there\u2019s no hope of us dwelling in the present moment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely. Our life is really just a series of present moments, and we will miss our own life if we are constantly attending to the future and the past. And, again, I consider what is adaptive and what is maladaptive. It\u2019s adaptive to reflect on happy times, [to] think of the past in that regard, or to learn from our mistakes. Sometimes we do have to identify mistakes that we\u2019ve made that caused us pain and caused us suffering and we have to learn how to accept those. It\u2019s adaptive, with regard to the future, to plan to put bread on the table and plan events with friends and family. But beyond that, our default mode is to ruminate over the past, to overthink the past, and overthink the future. And when you blend that with our negativity bias, overthinking the past results in depression, shame, regret, [and] imposter syndrome. With regard to overthinking the future and our negativity bias, we generate a lot of fear and anxiety.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you\u2019re absolutely right with regard to all the forces that [tend] to knock us off being aware of the present moment [and] sort of knock us off that perch, if you will. But the good news is [that] we can actually do something about [it]. It\u2019s not fundamentally that difficult to limit our screen time [and] limit our social media exposure. It\u2019s simple. Now that [you\u2019ve gone] on this river trip repeatedly, you\u2019ve got it down. You just turn things off and go. It\u2019s not that hard, really, but it\u2019s not our default mode. Our default mode is to kind of get sucked into this. And I think our default mode is to allow ourselves to be distracted to a significant degree because then we don\u2019t have to think about some of the pain in our lives and some of the fear, anxiety, and depression that we suffer from. The bottom line is [that] it\u2019s not that complicated. It\u2019s not that difficult. We just have to decide [that] it\u2019s important, make a plan, [and] focus our intention.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely. Intention can go a long way. And practice, as well. You mentioned neuroplasticity. Neurons that fire together, wire together, right? The downside of that is [that] if we\u2019re accustomed to a very distracted frame of mind, [then] those circuits have been reinforced. The positive side of that, as you pointed out, is that [it\u2019s] not permanent. There\u2019s nothing inherently permanent about that. We can train our minds to be more focused and less distractible. And I think this is where acceptance and compassion come in as well toward ourselves. If you have been in a situation, in a place of a lot of distraction and lack of attention, it\u2019s not going to be an overnight process to reverse that. So, just extending compassion to yourself in that process of change and transformation is probably going to help you along the way, rather than a lot of self judgment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is a good segue into the N, which is non-judgment. [It\u2019s] kind of required in some way, if you think about it, for all of the other letters. All of the letters kind of interact, it seems to me, in really important, meaningful, and myriad ways. [And] non-judgmental awareness is kind of the ground of all of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>I think you\u2019re right. I\u2019ve thought a lot about this. The GAIN elements are very closely interrelated. You can\u2019t really talk about one without talking about the other ones. What you said about using our intention to be more accepting, more grateful, more non-judgmental, again, they\u2019re all interrelated. And I just want to amplify that we are all wired this way. This is the way our brains are wired. This evolution of the way our brains are wired happened over hundreds of thousands of years. So, yes, we\u2019re not going to change the way our brains are wired overnight. But the good news is [that] through relatively simple practice, if we have enough intention, we can begin to rewire our brains so that we are more at peace and happier starting today. We\u2019re not going to totally flip things 180 [degrees], but we can begin to right the ship and begin to point ourselves in the right direction. It\u2019s not that complicated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, yes, the N in GAIN is as crucial as the other three elements. Our brains are not only wired to be negative, they\u2019re wired to be very judgmental. We\u2019re always assessing the world around us, other people, and ourselves. Unfortunately, with our negativity bias, these assessments or judgments tend to be negative. We tend to be negative about the way we look at the world, the way we judge other people, and then most harshly, ourselves. We are certainly our own [harshest] critics, and there\u2019s a lot of psychology science [and] social science to support that. So it\u2019s really imperative that we embrace tools to learn how to drop the judging. And the good news is [that] we have that capability.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Non-Judgment and Discernment<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>In this [current] environment that we\u2019re living in, judgment is maybe amplified. Certainly more than I\u2019ve ever seen it in my lifetime. The increasing divisiveness and polarization and dehumanizing of the other side, I would say, is something that has reached new levels in my lifetime. I remember growing up, my parents had lots of friends who differed politically from them, but they could get together and play volleyball at the beach or hang out together, and they were great friends, and they still had a good time together These days, it seems like that\u2019s increasingly less likely. So I wonder about people who might [confuse] the difference between judgment and discernment. We talked a little bit about the trap of confusing acceptance with approval or acceptance with submission. I think sometimes when we talk about non-judgment, that can be confused with a state of just having no opinions, having no discernment, no ability to identify right or wrong, or make informed choices, or things like that. How do you think about non-judgment in this context?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Great question. It\u2019s important to underscore the difference between discernment and judgment. I\u2019ll give you an example that might highlight the difference. I have two friends, John and Mary. John is very pragmatic, forward-looking, [and] optimistic. He\u2019s kind of like me, and I really enjoy John\u2019s company. Mary is somebody that I\u2019ve known since I was a child. I\u2019m close to Mary. I value her friendship, but she\u2019s kind of a downer. She tends to complain. She tends to be a bit ungrateful and resisting and judgmental of others. So, I have an hour to have a cup of coffee with one of my friends. I\u2019m considering either getting together with John or getting together with Mary, and I\u2019m going to choose John. I\u2019m going to discern that hour is going to be better spent, in my view, getting together with a guy after which I\u2019m going to be uplifted and it\u2019s going to be a really deep connection. It\u2019s going to be great. With Mary, on the other hand, I\u2019ll probably end up being a little neutral, or maybe even a little bit down from our time together.\u00a0 I\u2019m discerning that I\u2019d rather spend the time with John, but I don\u2019t have to judge either person. It doesn\u2019t mean that John is good and Mary is bad. They are both human beings. They are both, like me, simply the person that they are. They are neither good nor bad.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I would introduce the concept of benevolent indifference. I feel benevolent toward both of them, but in some way indifferent as to their goodness or badness. This is, I think, a model for how to approach one\u2019s view. When we judge, we are employing our own set of biases and we\u2019re really looking at the world and others in ourselves as sort of tinted glasses, if you will. If we just look at the way things are, there is no judgment necessary or appropriate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, back to the GAIN meditation. We\u2019ve really sunken into this slow, deep, deliberate breathing. We\u2019ve gone through that for which we\u2019re grateful. We\u2019ve brought a painful thought or experience into our heart and reinforced the idea of living with it [and] accepting it. We have underscored our intention to be focused on the present moment, and also to be kinder, gentler, [and] more loving, generous human beings. All [of] this is linked to our deep breathing. We get to the N in non-judgment and there are some tools that we can use to rewire our brains, or begin to do so, [and] to let go of judgment. One might be [to] picture an image of the Earth, suspended in space. One of these gorgeous NASA images. So, as we\u2019re breathing slowly, deeply, deliberately, we\u2019re imagining, with our eyes closed, this image of the earth, and it\u2019s a lovely planet, but it\u2019s neither good nor bad. The Earth doesn\u2019t possess qualities of goodness or badness. And this seems fairly clear to us as we take these slow, deep, deliberate breaths. We sort of sit and abide with this idea that the Earth is lovely, but neither good nor bad. And it occurs to us then that we too are just human beings, just as the Earth is the Earth. I\u2019m a human being. I\u2019m neither good nor bad. I don\u2019t inherently possess qualities of goodness or badness. I\u2019m just the person that I am. And we link this to our slow, deep breathing. I simply am the person I am. I\u2019m neither good nor bad.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We reside in this awareness for 30 seconds while we\u2019re breathing in this way, and then we return our focus just to our breath, and then we slowly open our eyes and we\u2019ve completed this three to five-minute practice. Iit leaves us with this sense that, yes, I don\u2019t have to judge things. I can discern, I can decide how I want to spend my time, but I don\u2019t have to convey this property of goodness, badness, too big, too small, etc. I can just observe things the way they are, and eventually we can learn to view ourselves in the same way. And that, really, is so key to happiness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Absolutely. [I] couldn\u2019t agree more, and that\u2019s a good note to wrap up on. Dr. Hammer, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people learn more about your work and check out your book?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Greg Hammer:\u00a0 <\/strong>My website is <a href=\"http:\/\/greghammermd.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GregHammerMD.com<\/a>. There\u2019s a lot of media and other information [on] there, [as well as] a link to the book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/GAIN-Without-Pain-Happiness-Professionals\/dp\/1951104013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Gain Without Pain<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s been a great pleasure being with you, and I\u2019m grateful to you and your listeners.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Chris Kresser:\u00a0 <\/strong>Likewise. And thanks, listeners, for tuning in. Keep sending your questions to <a href=\"https:\/\/chriskresser.com\/podcastquestion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ChrisKresser.com\/podcastquestion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-style-callout has-light-primary-background-color has-background\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-1 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<p><strong>Like what you\u2019re reading?<\/strong> Get my free newsletter, recipes, eBooks, product recommendations, and more!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"13594744693f43cfa7a5f4e3-text\/javascript\">\nsetTimeout(function(){ !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '162088684321454', {\n});\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n}, 3000);\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode, we discuss: &#13; Our current environment of heightened stress and polarization &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; How to understand and cultivate resilience &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Choosing between resistance or acceptance &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; How to navigate pain and suffering &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; The importance of intention and present moment awareness [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11764],"tags":[14231,27287,4438,23688,938,4678,27286,4261],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-44306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-medicine","tag-challenging","tag-circumstances","tag-finding","tag-greg","tag-hammer","tag-joy","tag-midst","tag-peace"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - 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