Artwork for podcast The Plant Yourself Podcast
The Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back: Why We "Lose It" Part 1: Dr Howie Jacobson on PYP 615
Episode 61530th January 2025 • The Plant Yourself Podcast • Dr Howie Jacobson
00:00:00 00:35:12

Share Episode

Shownotes

Join me on a morning walk as I provide a stream of consciousness introduction to my latest book project while dodging traffic and pitying looks from people noticing me talking to myself with two mics attached to my jacket.

The book is about triggers — what causes us to behave in ways we don't like, out of alignment with our goals and values. Like breaking our food rules or buying sh-stuff we don't need or losing our temper with family members and colleagues.

This is the first of four episodes on triggers, and in it I cover the concept of allostatic load.

That's the build-up of stress in our nervous systems, which can turn even the most benign or insignificant glance, comment, or traffic delay seem like a life-or-death struggle.

I discuss the science of stress — how and why it occurs, and how and why it subsides — and how our big brains and modern lifestyles have colluded to turn us into constantly stressed-out beings on the verge of exploding.

And I briefly cover some strategies for reducing allostatic load, so we can be more resilient and composed in the face of the inevitable stressors that come at us all the time.

And here are some photos of the construction in La Plana, which explains some of the ambient noise that you'll hear during the episode.

Want more of this type of show? Got questions about triggers? Let me know in the comments.

Transcripts

[:

Hey, you and I are going on a walk this morning, and during that walk I'm going to talk through a little bit, uh, stream of consciousness about the book you. that I'm starting to write. It's either one book or possibly three. I haven't figured it out yet. Um, but I figured it will help me kind of hear myself think and explain things, and I think it'll help you because these are concepts that I think are really, really important.

So basically the, the book that I And what I am working on is designed to help people answer the question, How can I act in alignment with my values and goals? And the thing that stops us is, uh, you know, I don't know, myriad things. But think about all the times you've behaved in ways that you don't approve of now.

And maybe you've [:

I'm walking through, I'm going to keep talking about the environment too. I'm walking through this new neighborhood in my town. It's called La Plana. Uh, and there's all these big, giant new houses going up. They're all, they all look very similar. They're very boxy, sort of white concrete. And, uh, given that this is a country where homes tend to be small, a lot of, you know, especially in cities, people live in small apartments.

, These really are mansions. [:

So, The question is, you know, so why do we do things that we don't want to do? Why do we behave in ways? So, so like I was saying, interpersonally, we could, uh, snap at people. Here's somebody walking the dog answering their phone. Um, we can, you know, lose our temper. You can interrupt. You know, I work a lot in organizational corporate settings, and like one of the key Problems.

ther people are behaving and [:

And so there's no ability to, uh, to engage in productive conflict to come up with the best ideas. So it's a very big. question that I'm asking, and it's not a new question, um, but I kind of wanted to write about it from my perspective because I have gone through many different, uh, incarnations in terms of the kind of coach and teacher I have been.

ay know, around their health [:

And when one of the first things we do is we figure out what their goals are, what their resources are and what their plans are, what they want to do in order to accomplish their goals. And so people are pretty clear, okay. You know, this is how I'm going to eat, this is how I'm going to shop, I'm going to make, you know, it could be more or less granular, like exactly like a meal plan, like Tuesday, you know, oatmeal with cinnamon and chopped apples in the morning.

Or it could just be sort of much more, you know, here's basically what I eat and here's what I have in the house and, and that sort of thing. Okay,

iggers the behaviors that we [:

Because we, you know, we tend to think that those come from inside us, when in fact, it's likely that external forces can play a big role in, triggering good behaviors as bad behaviors. So, I'm going to talk about four, and, and, and the book may end up being a generalized book for just sort of everyone. Um, I'm also thinking, you know, using, I also want to use it to, uh, you know, grow and expand my consulting and coaching practice here in Europe.

And I've been going back and [:

Is it four? Is it three? Is it five? But I'll kind of give you what I've got right now. Uh, It's today's January 30th, so it's about a week after the, uh, tech world has been rocked by DeepSeek, the new, uh, Chinese based, uh, AI chatbot. So I gave it a try a couple days ago, and I asked it, um, to kind of help me come up with a metaphor for, uh, behavior and behavior change.

And the prompt I gave it was like, let's let's think about this like if these are forces acting on us, pulling us in one direction or another. So I gave it the problem, let's, let's, let's pretend this is, uh, the same as tug of war. So what, what are the metaphors that we can learn from tug of war that can help us figure out how to maintain our footing and not get pulled in?

, unwanted directions in, in [:

But that's a, that's a digression, that's an aside. So, for the rest of this walk, I want to talk about these four different approaches to, um,

one has to do with something [:

Uh, here's some sort of front end loader or back end thing, uh, dumping. Digging, digging a big hole and dumping it into the back of a, of a big dump truck. I guess they're, maybe they're, looks like they're building a new foundation for a new, new building that's going to go up here. They can, uh, put in the, the sewer and gas lines and whatever.

nt walk. Okay. So stress and [:

ave those in built in would, [:

So that's the, that's the, the basics of stress. Now I'll talk about allostatic load, which is sort of how much stress has your body been accumulated. So stress, the stress response in humans is meant to be acute. So if you, if you think about like a Discovery Channel or National Geographic special about, uh, you know, animals in Africa, you'll see, you know, the lion or the, or the leopard chasing after the zebra and the zebra spots the predator and has the stress response.

o increasing heart rate, um, [:

And then it will return to grazing or drinking or grooming or sleeping, as if nothing had happened. And that's how our, uh, our equipment is meant to work. So for a brief period of time, there's high High stress, everything gets moving, all these chemicals and hormones get dumped into the body, and they get used up.

reat, is basically a, uh, an [:

That's how it's supposed to work. And one of the reasons it works that way is it seems like most animals, we don't, we don't know what their cognition is like. So we're just, I'm just gonna. I say what it seems like that most animals seem to live in the present. That if something's not present, they're not thinking about it.

ss, whatever. Whatever their [:

That, of course, can be, you know, limiting. If you can't think about anything that's not there, it's hard to, let's say, create art, or design computer chips, or build rockets, or create governments. You know, you're kind of limited in what you can create, um, which is, you know, why humans have done all those things, and, you know, And, you know, chimps and, uh, bedbugs haven't, but it comes at a cost, and the cost is for human beings, our minds can remain fixated on stressors that are no longer even there, and that they can extrapolate from, from, from events that are themselves not lethal.

Let's say [:

And if I'm in a particular mood, my mind will go to what did I do wrong. How bad is this going to be? So, so this human capacity for, uh, for imagination, for representation, for representational thought, um, is, contributes to this, this, uh, this quirk that we have that we can get stressed out by things that aren't here, now.

never happen, and we can get [:

depending on its, you know, [:

But for humans, we can get woken up by an alarm clock, which immediately causes a little bit of a stress response. Alarm clocks very jangly. That's the point to wake us up. And so. You can start your day with like a little tick up of stress, and then you immediately think, what have I got to do today? Oh my God, I'm late.

Oh, I don't want to go to that board meeting. You know, I wonder if I have to, you know, whatever I got to do. And we're already sort of humming along at a three or a four. And then throughout the day, you see someone you don't like in the office. Someone cuts you off in traffic. you read a the newspaper and you continually get more and more stressed out.

[:

So that's the point, like say 10 is the point at which you lose conscious control, and the stress system, the fight or flight system, the threat response, this system, takes over completely. So if you're already at an 8 or a 9 throughout the day, and then someone, makes a little comment or you're walking past the little Debbie's end cap at the supermarket and your body goes, you know, all right, fight or flight time.

ry attractive. You might not [:

makes future plans, and is, [:

We, when that part goes offline and all we're doing is trying to survive some situation. And for humans, 99. 9 percent of the time, at least in, uh, sort of, you know, industrialized countries where there's not a war going on, most of us are not under immediate lethal threat. So allostatic load can build up throughout the course of a day.

And then maybe you go to sleep at night, you watch some Netflix, you, uh, you read something, maybe it comes down, you, uh, you take the edge off with a, a doobie or a couple of glasses of wine or some other ritual or a pint of Ben and Jerry's. And then you wake up in the morning and it's back to three or four, but the process repeats day after day.

[:

So kind of think of it like that. Like you're always on the verge of a nervous system hijack. By the way, I just, uh, I finished walking through, uh, uh, La Plana and now I'm on, uh, the, a big road, so you'll hear some, some traffic. I'm gonna head to a circle and cut left and then go up into the, into the hills of the, the, I'm go to the, the, the three German stores that are here in town, the Lidl, uh, and Aldi, two grocery store chains.

And then [:

raw bars some, sometimes. So for, uh, for going on hikes or, or when I want to carry something in my bag for finishing a workout. So that's, that's where we're headed. It's uh, it's almost 10. Most of the stores here are not yet open. Uh, anyway, so back to, excuse me, allostatic load. And so one, one of the reasons.

o close to being in full out [:

Uh, that we literally do not. It's almost like if you're, you know, you're driving a car and all of a sudden you find yourself in the passenger seat and well, somebody almost ran me over there in a little van. I had right away though, zebra crossing. Um, It's almost as if now you're, you're in the passenger seat and someone's telling you turn the steering wheel, step on the brake, step on the gas, and you're like, dude, I can't.

I literally can't. I don't have the resources to make this vehicle go. I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a passenger. I'm a prisoner. And sometimes when it gets really bad, it can feel like you're, you know, zip tied and duct taped. in the trunk and the thing is just going everywhere without you and there's nothing even you can do about it.

So [:

Um, there was a time when I thought each one was the answer, and one of the reasons I'm writing this book is that, as you'll see, that a lot of self help, and even professional, is, is based on like your, your model of what the human being is and what behavior is, and so it tends to limit itself to just one or two of these.

ower of triggers to actually [:

You know, you could shrug off someone cutting in front of you in traffic. You're much, you're much more resilient and robust. So a lot of the book is going to be about how do you lower your allostatic load? What can you do? And this is, I'm not going to go into too much about what, you know, what, what the solutions are.

So just to give you one, one [:

and you're increasing your heart rate. When your exhales are longer than your inhales, you are signaling relaxation. So you could try it right now. Imagine, uh, breathing, let's say, for a count of 10 total, in for four, out for six. And you may notice

g or having a body or having [:

Alright, do you ever notice, like, say you're in a movie theater, you're really engaged in what's on the screen, and then you realize, oh, my arm fell asleep, or my leg fell asleep, or I'm really uncomfortable here. And it's the noticing that allows you to change. So you, so the same thing with stress. When we notice, when I ask people to do a quick body scan, just, so take a breath, Notice your body supported by gravity.

Somehow, I assume you're not, you know, in a space station. You're not floating. You're Some part of your body is in contact with the earth. Could be feet, could be lying down, could be sitting, where you can feel the backs of your legs and your back against if you're driving in a car. And just notice your body.

You'll already start to [:

So sit up straighter or relax the shoulders or unclench the jaw or, you know, most of us hold a lot of tension in our foreheads. So, if you want to get rid of that tension, try opening your eyes real wide, like you're trying to increase the creases. And then, ah, let it go. And you might notice that that could help your, uh, your forehead relax and release a little bit.

nsion to release tension is, [:

on. And, so that's basically [:

So doing these practices on a regular basis. to kind of fortify the nervous system to regulate its activity that can help you

somebody just stopped so I could cross the street very, very nice that was fun um, so that'll that'll help you with a lot of triggers that, if you're at an 8 already Are are going to be too much to handle, right?

/

p in becoming a trigger free [:

I notice as I'm walking, people are walking past me, noticing that I'm speaking. I also have these two microphones on a, uh, with the, with the little fuzzy muffs, uh, because we don't call them dead cats because I'm a vegan. And then they look and they see I don't have earbuds in and then they, they think maybe, maybe he is just talking to himself.

Uh, at least that's, that's my projection. I obviously have. So I'm approaching the, uh, C 32 underpass. So the, you know, the, the cheap real estate here, where the big box stores are, is kind of out. So it's, you know, this far away. And there's the, there's the highway. And the other side of the highway, I guess, was all this cheap land.

right now. So I'm gonna, uh. [:

ife that are Would otherwise [:

Alright, you know what? I think this is enough for now. So, well, thank you for joining me on this walk. I hope this has been helpful. So know that at least I got three more podcasts coming up where I talk about the other three aspects of this first part. Of the book about triggers or freeing ourselves from triggers or trigger free human trigger free leadership Hey, and if you have good ideas for like titles and subtitles Uh or anything else I would love I would love to hear it.

annoying um for my for my uh [:

Of course, I'm going to continue doing, you know, the usual format of interviews with, uh, fascinating people. Um, but that's about it for today, so as always, be well, my friends.

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube