Managing nerves, anxiety, and burnout | Jonny Miller (Nervous Systems Mastery)

1. 0:00 – 7:19

   Jonny’s background

   1. JMJonny Miller0:00

      I have this idea that I call the- the feather, brick, dump truck phenomenon and basically what that means is when we are showing early signs of burnout, our body will give us feedback, usually in subtle ways in the beginning. So the feather might be waking up in the morning and feeling a little bit tired, a little bit, maybe a little bit exhausted. The brick, you know, maybe you ignore that or you don't notice it and then three or four weeks later you, you have like a fight with someone, or an argument, or you just, you just feel frustrated and terrible and you- you- you lose your, lose your cool. And then maybe the- the dump truck is a month later or even a year later, there's like a full-blown health crisis or you develop type 2 diabetes or, you- you know, there's a whole range of things. Or maybe you get fired. Like, ideally you want to notice when it's the feather and then make adjustments or shift then and not have to wait until you experience the- the full-blown pain of the, of the dump truck, which unfortunately is what happens to a lot of people, especially when they experience burnout for the first time.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:00

      (instrumental music) Today, my guest is Jonny Miller. Jonny teaches courses and does one-on-one coaching with tech professionals, helping them with something he calls nervous system mastery, which is essentially a set of tools and techniques for cultivating calm, upgrading your resilience, and increasing your aliveness. If you can get better at dealing with stressful situations, avoiding burnout, and being more confident in meetings and big presentations, it becomes a superpower and a huge advantage in both business and in life. I actually read a post by Jonny about a year ago and it totally changed the way that I think about nervousness and stress and I still apply many of his lessons today. In our conversation, we dive deep into Jonny's key insights. We talk about why the best way to stay calm in stressful situations is to focus on the state of your body and not your mind, how to create calm and confidence by changing the state of your body through breath. Jonny shares a bunch of very specific breathing exercises for creating calm and also for creating energy that we actually try out on the podcast. We also get into a bunch of advice for how to tell if you're seeing early signs of burnout, how to release emotional debt that you may be feeling, also why feeling the feels gives you a competitive advantage in business, also a practice called APE which reminds you to focus on your awareness, your posture, and your emotions that I've started practicing ever since our chat, and so much more. If you enjoy this chat, definitely check out Jonny's full course at nsmastery.com/lenny. If you use that URL, you actually get $250 off the course. With that, I bring you Jonny Miller after a short word from our sponsors. This time of year is prime for career reflection and setting goals for professional growth. I always like to spend this time reflecting on what I accomplished the previous year, what I hope to accomplish the next year, and whether this is the year I look for a new opportunity. That's where today's sponsor, Teal, comes in. Teal provides you with the tools to run an amazing job search with an AI-powered resume builder, job tracker, cover letter generator, and Chrome extension that integrates with over 40 job boards. Teal is the all-in-one platform you need to run a more streamlined and efficient job search and stand out in this competitive market. There's a reason nearly one million people have trusted Teal to run their job search. If you're thinking of making a change in the new year, leverage Teal to grow your career on your own terms. Get started for free at tealhq.com/lenny. That's tealhq.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate your growth. Thousands of fast-growing companies like Gusto, Calm, Quora, and Modern Treasury trust Vanta to help build, scale, manage, and demonstrate their security and compliance programs and get ready for audits in weeks, not months. By offering the most in-demand security and privacy frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and many more, Vanta helps companies obtain the reports they need to accelerate growth, build efficient compliance processes, mitigate risks to their businesses, and build trust with external stakeholders. Over 5,000 fast-growing companies use Vanta to automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC 2 and these other frameworks. For a limited time, Lenny's podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Go to vanta.com/lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash Lenny to learn more and to claim your discounts. Get started today. (instrumental music) Jonny, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

   3. JMJonny Miller4:37

      It's great to be here, Lenny.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky4:39

      So I read this post that you wrote, I think it was over a year ago at this point, it was called The Operating Manual for your Nervous System. And first of all, it blew my mind when I read it. Second of all, I always think about it when I get nervous or anxious in a situation. It's like really stuck with me and I know that people in the workplace often get nervous and anxious doing all ha- presentations, meetings, performance reviews, all the things. So I thought it'd be awesome just to dive into the stuff that you've kind of uncovered about how we can become less nervous and less anxious. Before we get into the meat of it, I'd love to just spend a couple minutes just getting a sense of why you got into this stuff. What actually got you to spend so much of your energy and life force trying to understand how the nervous system works, how to get people to be less nervous and anxious?

   5. JMJonny Miller5:27

      My story starts in, I- I was kind of have a background in tech. I had a startup. Um, we went through TechStars back in 2012. About five and a half years into that experience, I went through burnout, which is, you know, pretty common in the, in the startup world, but that actually wasn't the trigger for me. Um, I find that usually people that get into this type of work, there's some kind of catalyst or some kind of challenging life event and for me, that was, uh, October 23rd, 2017 and my fiance at the time had an anxiety attack and she took her own life. ... and that kind of completely just, just destroyed me at the time. And I realized that I'd been so disconnected from my body and my emotions, um, and it kinda sent me on this, this five-plus year journey to, uh, to, to kind of discover all of this, this inner landscape that I'd, I'd been numb from the neck down. And I, I went into breath work, meditation retreats, uh, did, you know, hundreds of breath work journeys, researched with a breath lab over in Bali, and basically just tr- kind of directed all of my focus and attention onto understanding this, this inner landscape that I'd been pretty much oblivious to. And since then have been, you know, working with founders, executives, running courses and, and teaching what I'm learning and h- hopefully still researching at the same time as well.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky6:52

      Wow. And I imagine the thinking was that if your wife had these skills, she would have had another path.

   7. JMJonny Miller7:00

      Yeah. That was, that was definitely part of it. Yeah. And, and also just since realizing how many people are struggling with, with anxiety, depression, all of this kind of constellation of mental health challenges, both in the workplace and, and at home as well. And yeah, it's been a very rewarding journey.

2. 7:19 – 9:42

   The bottom-up approach to nervousness and anxiety

   1. JMJonny Miller7:19

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky7:19

      All right. This, this episode's already gotten very heavy and, uh, and I'm sucked in. I'm excited to learn all these things that you've uncovered, so let's just get into the meat of it. Just talk about this kind of general method that you've found for how to help people become less nervous and anxious.

   3. JMJonny Miller7:37

      Yeah. So I, I find this, um, kind of top-down, bottom-up distinction to be incredibly helpful. Most people when they try to calm down their... they use kind of tactical reframes or maybe mindfulness or maybe, you know, reframing the situation in a positive light. There's lots of different practices that people use which do have some effect, but in my experience, working with the physiology, using what's known as a bottom-up approach, primarily using the breath, although there's also other approaches that you can use, it's, uh, just such a, like, rapidly more effective way of shifting your state. And to kind of give a little bit of context and- and maybe some science as well, we have, uh, what's known as afferent and efferent neurons kind of going up, up and down our body, and there's four times more afferent neurons going from the body to the brain as from the brain to the body. So you can almost imagine this, like, a superhighway of traffic, of information going up to the brain and much less, four times less going from the brain to the body. And so by learning how to kind of pull on the levers of our physiology, we can rapidly change our state, and then from there, by changing our state, that impacts the thoughts and feelings that we have. Um, so, so instead of kind of trying to change the story or trying to fix something or trying to solve something, which is what, you know, most people do by default, myself included in the past, if you change your state first, then there's a cascading effect which changes your, your thoughts and feelings.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky9:06

      Okay. Amazing. Yeah, and just to, like, share how I felt when I was reading this and trying to understand this approach is whenever I get nervous there's always this, like, "Oh, my body's starting to feel anxious," and then I think of a reason. Like, oftentimes I don't know why it gets nervous, why my body's starting to create this feeling of anxiety, and then I often realize, "I'm just now trying to just explain why it happened. Oh, I have this, like, big meeting coming up, or I have this podcast episode I'm nervous about, or I'm not gonna make a deadline for my newsletter." Like, I often experience this where it's just like, "Oh, something feels nervous" and then, "Okay, here's the explanation."

3. 9:42 – 11:47

   The power of breath in changing states

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky9:42

      So maybe just along those lines, what else is there that might be helpful for people to think about in this context?

   2. JMJonny Miller9:47

      I mean, I think it's helpful to, um, understand the process by which by changing the way that we breathe, for example, it shifts our physiological state and changes our nervous system. So if you're, if you're listening to this, maybe you, Lenny, you can try this as well, if you-

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky10:03

      Yeah.

   4. JMJonny Miller10:04

      ... if you start breathing into your upper chest, um, shallow, um, fairly, fairly rapid, maybe even through the mouth, that will then... there, there's a part of your brain called the insular cortex which is basically constantly spying on the way that we're breathing and it will register that change. It will then send information to activate the, the endocrine system which then creates shift in our, in our blood chemistry. The sympathetic nervous system gets activated and that increase in adrenaline and cortisol, you know, starts to flood, flood your body. Everyone's probably very familiar with that feeling. And then that will then have a, a cascading impact on the thoughts that you're having and the way that you feel. And so like, like you, like you just shared, we have a tendency to kind of confabulate or make up stories that match the state that we're, that we're in. And so that's, that's kind of what happens when we're breathing in that way, and then you can also consciously change your breath to breathe in a different way which has the reverse effect which, which I can go into, but I'll, I'll pause there.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky11:05

      Yeah. So I think one of the big actionable takeaways here the- here is that instead of trying to convince yourself, "No, this t- talk is gonna go great. I don't need to worry about how I'm gonna look in this meeting," basically instead of going top down trying to calm your body through thought, your advice is calm your body first 'cause then your mind will notice, "Hey, I'm actually not as nervous as I thought. Maybe things are gonna be okay." Is that right?

   6. JMJonny Miller11:29

      Yeah. Precisely. And, um, I mean, I've used this myself many times before presentations. I, I gave a TEDx talk a few years ago and I was like my entire body w- I was just terrified and I did, you know, 15 minutes of, of this breathing practice before and walked on the stage kind of almost cool as a cucumber. It's- it's very effective.

4. 11:47 – 13:56

   The concept of state over story

   1. JMJonny Miller11:47

      (laughs)

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky11:47

      Sounds too good to be true, but we're gonna do-

   3. JMJonny Miller11:49

      (laughs)

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky11:49

      ... some of these exercises for people. Before we get into it, why- why is it that breath specifically is so powerful? It feels like such a strange thing to work so well, just this idea of breathing in a different way. You talked a bit about this, uh, I forget what you called it, that kind of ma- watches how you're breathing, but I guess what else can you share about just why is breath so effective in changing our state?

   5. JMJonny Miller12:10

      Sure. Well, it, it's one of the few things which happens automatically, but we can also control it consciously. And so what, uh, scientists have discovered that when the exhale is twice as long as the inhale, it has a calming effect, and when the inhale is either more intense or twice as long as the exhale, it has an activating effect. So you can kind of think of this as like, uh, like an up or down lever on the nervous system.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky12:36

      You also have this really clever way of describing this system. You call it state over story, essentially focusing on the state of your body versus the story you're telling yourself. Is that the way-

   7. JMJonny Miller12:46

      Mm-hmm.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky12:46

      ... to think about it? Can you just talk about that concept?

   9. JMJonny Miller12:48

      Yeah. So it's basically a shorthand for, for what we've just been talking about, which is most people tend to approach the problem or try to solve things on the level of story. So th- there's multiple ways you can do that, through the breath, as we just talked about. You can also de-focus your, your gaze and kind of relax your eyes, and that has a similar effect. You can expand your awareness and kind of bring your awareness to behind you, and to the, and the sides of you and below you. Or you can breathe in, in these ways which emphasize the exhale. And so when we breathe in a way with, say, the, the exhale twice as long as the inhale, that part of the brain, the insular cortex then sends signals to the parasympathetic nervous system, which then has the cascading effect on our endocrine system and calms us down. And, and what, what I usually find as well is that they, the, the kind of reactive thoughts and feelings that we have when we're in that kind of anxious loop, they can be self-reinforcing. And so, you know, if someone has a thought of like, "Oh, no, I'm, I'm nervous before this important presentation," then that exacerbates the breathing pattern, and then the whole thing just goes into this spiral which can end up in, like, full-blown pa- panic attacks if it's not... if there's not an

5. 13:56 – 15:01

   Personal experiences with nervousness

   1. JMJonny Miller13:56

      intervention of some sorts.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky13:57

      Yeah. That's what I find with my nerves. Like, I hate talking on stage. I, I get nervous before every podcast. Like, this is not my natural state.

   3. JMJonny Miller14:04

      Interesting.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky14:05

      Yeah, and the people... I hide it well. (laughs)

   5. JMJonny Miller14:07

      Is that st- is that still the case, uh, with podcasts today?

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky14:09

      Absolutely. Um...

   7. JMJonny Miller14:10

      Oh, wow.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky14:11

      And it's, like, different levels of nervousness, but it's always just like, "Oh, here we go." Like, I'm not a performer person, even, like, I kinda push myself to do this podcast as a way to get better at this, to be honest.

   9. JMJonny Miller14:21

      I love that.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky14:21

       And so it's still a thing that I think about. And what I find is the nervousness comes from exactly what you described. It was the nervousness of being nervous. It's lot... Like, I don't know. There's no reason specifically to be anxious, but it's, I don't know how I'll be once I do the thing. So it's, like, nervous of what it might look like or act- end up being like. So that's exactly what I run into.

   11. JMJonny Miller14:41

       Yeah. And, and, and there's, there's obviously, you know, people who say mindfulness meditation, things like that, that, that can increase the, the psychological space between stimulus and response, and that is something that obviously does help over the long term, but it's, in my opinion, no- nowhere near as kind of rapid and effective and efficient as just changing the way that you're breathing.

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky15:00

       Awesome.

6. 15:01 – 20:40

   Breathing exercises to calm you down

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky15:01

      So let's c- let's get into it. Let... I know you have a couple exercises specifically for this and then, and then we'll go from there.

   2. JMJonny Miller15:06

      We can stack a few of the exercises in. I'll try and keep it to, like, a minute or so. Um, so yeah, if you wanna get comfy in your chair, let's sit up straight. Feel your, your butt on the seat. And I find it help- helpful to kind of be aware of the space behind you and above you as well, kind of expanding your awareness so that you are, you are aware of the space behind, to the sides, and above.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky15:29

      And should we close our eyes?

   4. JMJonny Miller15:31

      Yeah. And close your eyes down. If you're listening and driving, obviously don't do that, but yeah, closing, closing the eyes down for sure helps. And now we're just gonna do simple breath. Gonna inhale in through the nose for four. We're gonna hold the breath at the top for four, and we're gonna exhale for eight, and then we're gonna repeat. So let the breath go. And inhaling through the nose. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold the breath, two, three, four. And exhale, eight. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold the breath, two, three, four. And exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And now you can let go of the breath completely, and we'll end with, with one round of humming, which is, um, surprisingly effective at calming as well. So take a full breath in, and humming through the nose all the way to the end of exhale. Mm. (humming) Ah. Let out a sigh if that feels good, and open up your eyes.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky17:01

      I feel extremely calm.

   6. JMJonny Miller17:03

      (laughs)

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky17:03

      I should do this every, every podcast episode before we start.

   8. JMJonny Miller17:08

      And on, on the, the humming, it also releases nitric oxide, which is a vasodilator, and that helps to create that kind of calming effect, and it also reduces eye tension as well. So I'll do it if I've been looking at a screen for too long. It's really good for kind of reducing eye fatigue as well.

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky17:24

      And there's also, like, a vagus nerve component to it 'cause your body's vibrating? Is that true?

   10. JMJonny Miller17:28

       Yeah, precisely. So it, it kind of tones or stimulates the vagus nerve, which stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky17:35

       What's your advice for doing this? Is this, like, before you go into a big meeting or a presentation? How do you apply this?

   12. JMJonny Miller17:42

       I kind of like to sh- like to share building a toolkit of different practices that are appropriate for different contexts. So something like the, the four-four-eight breathing you could do pretty much anywhere without anyone necessarily noticing. Humming is slightly more obvious, but, you know, if you're about to jump on a Zoom or something, you can, you can totally do it with your eyes closed. Things like expanding your awareness or bringing your awareness down to your feet and your hands, which creates a kind of grounding, calming effect, that also you can do if you're in a busy room. Maybe you have social anxiety. E- even orienting and kind of labeling things that you're hearing and feeling, kind of bringing the...... awareness and attention back into the body, that also has an effect. And then there's longer practices for, say, uh, non-sleep deep rests, belly breathing, things that you can do if you have 10, 20 minutes and you're at home and, and you want to downshift. So I, I like to kind of give people a, a big toolkit to see what works for them, and then cherry-pick which ones are suitable to different situations. And, and a- another way that I, that I think about this is, I, I call it if this, then breathe. So it's like, if I feel overwhelmed, then I do the humming. If I feel anxious, then I do 4-4-8 breathing or alternate nostril breathing. And kind of having my own little, like, recipe set that I have for different contexts is, is really helpful. And I work with people to kind of build those toolkits themselves.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky19:04

       This sounds like, uh, it needs to be a website where people can go with the- these lists of if this, then that. Is there a place that we could send people in the show notes? And if not, you should make one before we go live.

   14. JMJonny Miller19:13

       There is not currently. It, it's part of the curriculum in, in the course that I have, but it's, uh-

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky19:17

       Okay, great.

   16. JMJonny Miller19:18

       ... I can, I can may-

   17. LRLenny Rachitsky19:19

       A link to that.

   18. JMJonny Miller19:19

       ... maybe see if I can spin one up as well, but yeah.

   19. LRLenny Rachitsky19:21

       Okay, cool. We'll link to the course if nothing else. Amazing.

   20. JMJonny Miller19:23

       Okay.

   21. LRLenny Rachitsky19:24

       On this line of, uh, calming breath exercise, Huberman also has a different version, which I've tried and I'm gonna do both now, of you breathe in fully and then you breathe in a little bit more. I imagine you've seen that piece of advice.

   22. JMJonny Miller19:37

       That's also fantastic.

   23. LRLenny Rachitsky19:38

       Oh.

   24. JMJonny Miller19:38

       It's, he calls it the physiological sigh.

   25. LRLenny Rachitsky19:40

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JMJonny Miller19:41

       And it, um, it's both very effective, especially if you just have, like, you know, five seconds and you just take a, take a full sigh. It's great. It, I'd, I'd also add that the sigh happens naturally as a result of doing these downshifting practices. So if you notice after you do, let's say the 4-4-8 breathing, at the end you might naturally just wanna let out a sigh and that's a signal that your body is naturally downshifting. Or if you're, if you're with a friend and you feel just, like, comfortable and, and, and relaxed, then your body might sigh. And it's, it's something that we do a lot. And as you say, you can consciously do it and that, that will help as well. That's another one of the practices.

   27. LRLenny Rachitsky20:18

       Awesome. So a link to that. And I think throughout this episode, as you said, we're gonna give people a bunch of tools that they can use. And it feels like some are, like, in the moment, "I need to feel calmer right now, here's a thing you could do." And then there's things you can do ongoing that build... I guess another way to think about it is just make your body more calm as a baseline, a practice to work on there.

   28. JMJonny Miller20:38

       Yeah, precisely.

   29. LRLenny Rachitsky20:39

       Awesome. Okay.

7. 20:40 – 25:44

   The “espresso” breath exercise to give you energy

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky20:41

      I think the other breathing exercise we're gonna do is, uh, the opposite, gets you all excited. Is that right?

   2. JMJonny Miller20:46

      Y- yeah, sure. Let's, yeah, we, we can do that as well. I call this espresso breath. So this is the opposite, this is very activating. Um, I would only recommend this if you're feeling lethargic. Or maybe instead of drinking a coffee in the afternoon, you could do this for a minute or so. In the, uh, in the scientific literature it's, it's bellows breath or breath of fire, and it basically looks like a series of rapid exhales through the nose. I like to keep it through the nose only 'cause if you do it through the mouth, it can be very, you know, too activating and it can kind of overwhelm people. Obviously there's the Wim Hof practice that I'm sure many people are familiar with. So this is, like, a, a more gentle version of... If Wim Hof is, like, Red Bull, this is kind of like a, uh, a, a small coffee (laughs) .

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky21:29

      Mm. I like that. Uh, and you call it the espresso breath, ex- espresso, right?

   4. JMJonny Miller21:33

      Espresso breath, yeah.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky21:33

      So yeah, that's a good metaphor there.

   6. JMJonny Miller21:35

      Yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah. Let's, let's do it. So again, kinda sit up straight and this time you, you wanna be pumping the breath from your, from your lower belly.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky21:45

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JMJonny Miller21:45

      And you pump the breath on the exhale. So I'll demonstrate it briefly. It's like bre- breathe in (inhales) . Okay. So yeah, take a full breath in (inhales) and begin (inhales) . And let go (exhales) . And full breath in and sigh on the exhale (exhales) . I already feel a little bit tingly.

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky22:25

      I'm energized. Let's do this.

   10. JMJonny Miller22:27

       (laughs)

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky22:27

       Go, go, go, go. Mm, that was great. Okay, look at that, we're back to where we started. The full circle-

   12. JMJonny Miller22:32

       (laughs)

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky22:33

       ... of energy. That was great.

   14. JMJonny Miller22:34

       Up and down, yeah.

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky22:35

       And then how long would you recommend doing that one for?

   16. JMJonny Miller22:38

       So, um, it kind of depends on how activating you find it, but I usually find 30, 30 breaths per round and then t- kinda take a breath, have a long pause on the exhale, and then if you want to, do another round or two.

   17. LRLenny Rachitsky22:50

       Amazing. And the cases where this might be helpful is maybe you're about to give a big talk. Like, I guess in a talk you both want energy and you want calm, so that's kind of complicated.

   18. JMJonny Miller22:58

       You can certainly, especially if you're, if you're, kind of meetings early in the morning and you haven't quite got going yet, you can do the espresso breath to begin with and that activates you, and then do some of the downshifting practices to kind of ground and stabilize that, that aliveness.

   19. LRLenny Rachitsky23:12

       Are there any other tactical breathing exercises that are worth doing real quick? I know we'll get into some longer practices and deeper stuff, but is there anything else that would be helpful here?

   20. JMJonny Miller23:21

       No, um, I think we've covered kind of the bases. I, I don't wanna overwhelm people too much.

   21. LRLenny Rachitsky23:25

       Just as a takeaway, there's kind of these two techniques. One, to help you get more calm when you need to be calm in the moment. The other is to get energy. And then I guess is, are these things that you recommend doing ongoing to build this muscle in your body? Or are these mostly for you need this now in the moment and it's not worth just doing a few times a day even when you're fine?

   22. JMJonny Miller23:47

       Yeah, great question. So I like to kind of recommend both a morning practice particularly to kind of build the, the muscle of just, of just doing it and getting used to it. So, um, you know, maybe five minutes in the morning before you start work, um, before breakfast, something like that. And then you're more likely to remember that you kind of have access to that in the moment, 'cause y- usually the challenge is that when someone is kind of in that, like, flustered state, remembering to do the practice is often the last thing that comes to mind. So by kind of having a deliberate practice for, you know, at least kind of seven to ten days-... and s- and so that you get, get the hang of it, then it feels much more natural to do it when you're feeling... Like you- 'cause that, that's kind of like playing the game on hard mode when you're, when you're really stressed and anxious. It's like that's when you need it the most, but it's also when you're least likely to remember to do it.

   23. LRLenny Rachitsky24:36

       Awesome. Okay, so the first exercise to calm you down is essentially breathe in four seconds, hold it for four seconds, s- s- like breathe out slowly for eight seconds, and do that for about 30 seconds. Is that right? Or for a minute?

   24. JMJonny Miller24:48

       Yeah, I, I'd say for at, at least a minute or two. We kind of did a short- shorter version. Um, I'll also add that the important thing is that the exhale is twice as long as the inhale, so if exhaling for eight is too long, you could do three, three, six or even two, two, four or even five, five, 10 depending on your, your lung capacity essentially and your CO2 tolerance.

   25. LRLenny Rachitsky25:08

       Okay, good to know. And then the espresso breath when you need energy where you just kind of pump air out of your belly through your nose, and you do that for how long would you recommend?

   26. JMJonny Miller25:18

       Two to three rounds of 30.

   27. LRLenny Rachitsky25:20

       Okay, amazing.

   28. JMJonny Miller25:21

       30 kind of pumps, yeah.

   29. LRLenny Rachitsky25:22

       And again, the reason this is effective and powerful is coming back to your original big insight that the, our state is driven by what our body is doing and our mind often explains what we're feeling based on what our body's doing so that if you can change the state of your body and become less nervous in your body, your mind will be like, "All right, everything's fine."

8. 25:44 – 34:47

   Interoception and the A.P.E. framework

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky25:44

   2. JMJonny Miller25:44

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, and, and maybe something that we haven't touched on yet but I think is important to add in is this idea of interoception or somatic awareness. And the reason I bring it in is because if you, you do this practice but you're not really aware of your body and how you feel, then it'll be less compelling to you. But if you're kind of tuned into, like, sensations in your body, what's going on, you're more likely to notice the difference in the shifts.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky26:09

      Great, so let's get into that. That was something I definitely wanted to touch on here, this awesome acronym to help you with this process of introspection. So talk about what that is and then how to actually go about becoming better at being aware of what your body's doing.

   4. JMJonny Miller26:22

      Yeah, so it's, it's this, this idea of interoception, which is, um, known as, like, our, our sixth sense, and basically it's our ability to kind of sense, track, and feel our internal landscape. And I like to use the metaphor of a chef. In the same way that you, you train your flavor palate for kind of sweet, spicy, umami, things like that, you can also train your in- interoceptive palate and become more aware of the, the internal sensations, whether that's your breath, whether it's tension, whether it's moods and emotions, whether it's the quality of your awareness, the quality of your thoughts. And the more kind of in tune with that you are, the more likely you are to notice the kind of early warning signs of something like anxiety, because usually, certainly a panic a- a- attack doesn't come out of nowhere. There will be a s- a kind of cascade of subtle things that happen in your body that eventually result in, in anxiety. Um, so if you can catch those things early and kind of, like, like nip them in the bud and, and do one of these practices, then you can avoid the kind of 10 out of 10 worst case scenarios.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky27:25

      Okay, awesome. So I know that there's also specific things you recommend people pay attention to to understand what their body is doing as process of inter-

   6. JMJonny Miller27:33

      Interoception, yeah.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky27:34

      Intra... Okay. What is it?

   8. JMJonny Miller27:37

      Interoception.

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky27:38

      Interoception.

   10. JMJonny Miller27:39

       As, as opposed to exteroception, which is awareness of all the external stimuli.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky27:44

       Got it. I guess before we even get to that, so you mentioned that it's like another sense we have, and I think that's a really important point that I think maybe people didn't catch. So we have these five senses, obviously taste and smell and vision and, uh, touch, but your finding and research show basically this is another sense people don't really know we have. Is that right?

   12. JMJonny Miller28:02

       Y- yeah, e- exactly, and, and it has been studied, you know, quite, quite a lot, especially in the last decade or so, and, and there's a number of interesting kind of findings from the research that I've found, one being that, um, ADHD tends to correlate with low levels of interoception, as does if, if people have PTSD or trauma, again, interoception is lowered. And I'd certainly say for myself, you know, for the first 25 years of my life, I was fairly numb from the neck down. I was not very aware to what was happening in my body in real time. I was also reading a book recently called the, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, which looked at, uh, Wall Street traders and they correlated higher degrees of interoception with basically making more money and making better decisions, and, and I, I think the, the thesis was that by tuning in to what their body was doing in certain moments, they, they could pick up on things, on, on, like, more intuitive decision making essentially.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky28:55

       So I think there's, like, a specific list of things that you recommend people pay attention to, their posture, their breath, things like that. What is that list and then how do we actually do this better?

   14. JMJonny Miller29:06

       Yeah, so I, I simplify this to APE, which basically is an acronym which stands for awareness, posture, and emotion. So, uh, to kind of go through each one by one, awareness is, uh, to gi- give an example, like, I could narrow my awareness and become re- kind of really focused and just, you kind of tense up and it also, it's, it's quite activating sometimes. Or you can relax and expand your awareness and be aware of, like, the space above me, the space behind me, the space below me, and that is generally kind of a, a calming thing. Posture is fairly self-explanatory, but again, our posture affects kind of how we, how we feel. (laughs) I see you shifting there.

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky29:44

       Yep. Yep.

   16. JMJonny Miller29:45

       Um, and then, and then emotion, um, which I include kind of somatic or body-based sensations which arise, so both kind of what, what is the overall mood and the flavor or the texture that I, that I'm feeling. Like right now, maybe it's, it's, like, excitement. Maybe there's, there's some joy. I'm noticing some, like, there's some, like, heat in my belly probably from the breathing. Yeah, there's, like, a little bit of tightness in my lower back from working out yesterday. So just kind of sense, kind of mapping that, um, landscape of sensation, and, and for most people it's almost like it's, like a, like a terra incog- incognita. Like, you have those maps of, like, here be dragons, and for a lot of people there's just these big kind of blind spots in their body.

   17. LRLenny Rachitsky30:30

       And the advice here is... So there's this acronym APE, and the advice is think about this- these three things when you're feeling something that you may not... like basically something's going on/just often come back to this, I imagine just like whenever you can think of, oh, APE. Uh, awareness, posture, emotion. Is that h- how to use this?

   18. JMJonny Miller30:51

       Yeah, exactly. So again, it can be something that you do kind of before you start your day maybe, like w- with a cup of tea.

   19. LRLenny Rachitsky30:58

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JMJonny Miller30:58

       I s- I like to drink tea and just kind of do like a, like a body scan essentially, and just check each of those three areas. And it's also, it's, it's really valuable, particularly if you're, if, you know, you're having racing thoughts or something doesn't feel quite right, that ju- instead of just tackling the problem on the len- the, the level of the mind, kind of dropping down into the body and, um, bringing that kind of int- into the picture as well, I find to be really helpful.

   21. LRLenny Rachitsky31:26

       Basically, as often as you can and generally when things are feeling a little off, just remember APE. Where's my awareness? How's my posture? And then-

   22. JMJonny Miller31:36

       Mm-hmm.

   23. LRLenny Rachitsky31:37

       ... what am I feeling? Am I feeling sad? Am I feeling happy, excited, angry? Things like that. I think you also talk about breath. Like you have a list you wrote about this of other things that you might wanna pay attention to.

   24. JMJonny Miller31:49

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LRLenny Rachitsky31:49

       Actually finding, paying attention to my, my breath is doing is really powerful too.

   26. JMJonny Miller31:53

       Mm-hmm.

   27. LRLenny Rachitsky31:53

       So I'm gonna try a, like a BAPE, BAPE version of this-

   28. JMJonny Miller31:57

       (laughs)

   29. LRLenny Rachitsky31:57

       ... where I'm gonna try to think about what am I, where's my breath coming from? What am I feeling there?

   30. JMJonny Miller32:02

       Yeah, so, so the, the, the breath, the breath and sensations are two other ones that are really helpful. The breath in particular, often people will, thes- there's an idea of, of like email apnea when people are checking their emails, they will, without noticing it start to hold their breath, which is, uh, generally a very activating thing to do. Or as I mentioned earlier, if your breath is through the mouth and shallow and into the upper chest, that will also be very activating versus is your breath through the nose? Is it kind of into the belly and into the sides of the rib cage? And does it feel easeful basically, like breathing without tension is, is ideal.
9. 34:47 – 37:40

   The “feather, brick, dump truck” phenomenon

   1. JMJonny Miller34:48

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky34:48

      When you wrote about this idea of interoception, you connected it to burnout, and I think you talked about how this is one of the best tools to avoid burnout. Is that, is that right? Am I remembering that right? And if so, how do you think about this and burnout and avoiding burnout in general, something a lot of people experience?

   3. JMJonny Miller35:08

      Yeah. So I, I have this idea that I call the, the feather, brick, dump truck phenomenon. And basically what that means is when we are showing early signs of burnout, our body will give us feedback usually in subtle ways in the beginning. So the feather might be waking up in the morning and feeling little bit tired, little bit, maybe a little bit exhausted. The brick, you know, maybe you ignore that or you don't notice it and then three or four weeks later you, you have like a fight with someone or an argument or you just, you just feel frustrated and terrible and you, you, you lose your, lose your cool. And then maybe the, the dump truck is a month later or even a year later, there's like a full-blown health crisis or you develop type 2 diabetes or y- you know, there's a whole range of things or maybe you get fired, like the- there's a bunch of different things that can happen. But normally depending on how, uh, attuned or depending on someone's interoceptive capacity, like ideally you wanna notice when it's the feather and then make adjustments or shift then and not have to wait until you experience the, the full-blown pain of the, of the dump truck, which unfortunately is what happens to a lot of people, um, especially when they experience burnout for the first time.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky36:18

      This is such an important point and such a good way of thinking about it. Reminds me of Andy Johns in the episode we had there of just how long and rolling through the episode there of just like how all these little things came up along the way and then eventually he just became incredibly unsustainable to live the life that he was living.

   5. JMJonny Miller36:33

      Mm-hmm.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky36:33

      (instrumental music) This episode is brought to you by Miro. Do you ever feel like your projects aren't as organized as you'd like them to be, or it's way too hard for people on your team to find all of the documents and files and context that they need for their project? Miro helps you streamline your workflows, organize information, and get your whole team on the same page. If you wanna see what Miro can do for you, check out my Miro board that the Miro team helped me create, which includes all of my favorite plug-and-play templates like a user journey map, my favorite one-pager template, plus a brainstorming guide. My board also has a place for you to share suggestions for this podcast and also answer a question that I have for you. You can then take my Miro board and easily create your own to see how it feels. Make sure to check out some of my favorite features like the sticky notes, the inline comments and charts, and also their really cool diagramming tools. Check it out at miro.com/lenny. Your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at miro.com/lenny. Find simplicity in your most complex projects with Miro. That's M-I-R-O.com/lenny.

10. 37:40 – 40:47

    Recognizing emotional debt and avoiding burnout

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky37:40

       What are some examples of this feather? So your advice here is just, like, pay attention to these little signs that, like, you're not living a, a sustainable life right now. What are some examples of these kind of feathery signs of, like, hmm, like, maybe I need to change something?

    2. JMJonny Miller37:55

       Yeah. So I, I'll tie this in with a concept that I call emotional debt, which is basically when our, when our nervous system experiences stress, there's what's known as a mobilization cycle and if that cycle isn't completed or we don't get to downshift or relax on the other side, that gets stored in the body as allostatic load, um, which I call emotional debt and over time, that creates fragility in the nervous system. And so what that fragility can look like is anything from being impacted by small things in a kind of disproportionate way, so noticing that you're more reactive than normal, maybe you're a little bit more snappy, maybe you get frustrated by little things, maybe your sleep isn't as good, maybe you, you wake up not feeling fully rested, ma- maybe kind of relationships are often, like, especially intimate relationships are usually a place that this shows up or relationships at work. And so those are kind of the, the classic early warning signs and then as that emotional debt threshold increases in the same way that, say, with technical debt if you're building a product, in the beginning it's fine and it... In fact, it's even necessary in the beginning. Like, it's great that our body can buffer this stress response, um, because it allows us to function. But if we don't pay off that technical debt or emotional debt, then over time it accumulates and it's, um, it can also come out through kind of health crises, health challenges. Um, the... It just gets basically progressively worse until, until that debt is paid off.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky39:25

       I feel like a lot of people listening are like, "Yes, I know exactly what you mean." How does one notice that you're building emotional debt and then how do you start to release this debt and pay off this debt?

    4. JMJonny Miller39:38

       What, what I've seen with, um, some of, some of my founder clients and in, in the research that we did where we, we interviewed 260 leaders, what can often happen is that emotional debt will increase and increase and increase until it gets to a point where we are well outside what's known of, as our window of tolerance. And at that point, there's, like, there's, like a crash. It's almost like the fuse switch blows and there's, there's exhaustion. Maybe there's, like, complete inability to get up off the couch. And for some people, people with, you know, large nervous system capacity, they can keep going for five years, maybe 10 years and they can kind of, like, keep building this up and, and it becomes normalized to kind of live in a way where you're always on and never really relaxing or coming down or, or, uh, what... One really key sign actually is if you're not able to kind of naturally downshift or downregulate your nervous system at the end of a day without something like wine or, or CBD or some kind of, like, external substance, that's a sign that you're... You've kind of reached a certain threshold of emotional debt.

11. 40:47 – 45:26

    Using somatic-oriented therapy for healing

    1. JMJonny Miller40:47

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky40:47

       And then how does one start to pay off this debt if you've spent years just working way too hard, you've had a relationship that just isn't working great? I don't know. Like, I imagine most people go to therapy and just kinda talk through all these things and try to work through their challenges. What do you recommend if you're just like, "Man, I feel like I have this. What, what should I do?"

    3. JMJonny Miller41:08

       Yeah. Well, it's, um... I mean, that, that's a big question. Um, I'm actually... Ugh, I'll probably get some pushback for this, but I, I'm not a big fan of talk therapy alone or at least therapy that doesn't have a somatic or body-based component. And, um, fr- from my understanding of the nervous system and, and how we store this, this stress, just talking about things and keeping things on the level of the intellect doesn't actually address the root of the challenge. What, what we need to do is create a certain sense of, of, of safety to kind of go into those buffered emotional responses and feel them all the way through and allow that mobilization, mobilization reflex to complete. And so, um, to kind of give a personal example, I, uh, when I was living in Bali, I did kind of several hundred breath work journeys where you kind of breathe in a certain way to get into an altered state and then in that place, these, these memories would arise of these, these things that happened, you know, five, 10 years ago and my body would... Like, it would either move a certain way or the anger would come through. Sometimes there would be sadness or grief. Often, there's, there's a lot of, uh, stored emotion that's held in our body that just needs permission to kind of be felt through and, and be released. And so for me, it was a journey of coming into, like, right relationship with my, with my anger and, uh, and my grief and honestly my shame as well. Like, giving myself permission to feel this, like, gunk that had been stored in my, in, in my pelvis. So-I'm not saying you have to go to Bali and do 200 breathwork journeys. Like (laughs) that's definitely not... That's, um, I mean, that- that's- that's a, that's a path. But first it be- it begins with, as I said, cultivating interception and even being aware that there is this tension, there is, there are these things in your body. Secondly, having the practices of self-regulation so that if these things come up, you don't get overwhelmed, you're able to downshift and ground. And then thirdly, it's the practice of what I call emotional fluidity, which is basically creating the conditions of welcoming the full spectrum of emotions as they arise. And often it's very helpful to have a, a guide or, or, or a somatic practitioner. I like somatic experiencing, Hakomi are two modalities I- I'm a big fan of. And yeah, that's, that's a journey and a process and it depends, you know, how many years you've been operating in a, in a slightly numbed way. Um, and it's, it's different for everyone, but it begins by tuning into and listening to the body and then having, honestly curiosity about what is, what is there and just following that curiosity and the body starts to kind of show you what is, what is ready to be seen.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky43:49

       I love that it always comes back to kind of the original place we started, which is that the way we feel is a very bottom up body-based system. It's not we feel something and their body gets nervous, it's our body gets nervous and then they're like, "Oh, here's why I'm nervous." And your advice is just focus a lot on helping your body release the stuff that you built up this debt and then also just when you're nervous in the moment, focus on getting your body to a state versus trying to convince your mind now everything's gonna be okay.

    5. JMJonny Miller44:15

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky44:17

       And specifically on the therapy route, just to touch on that. So your advice there is if you were to work with a therapist and you feel really, you feel a lot of this, uh, stuff that we're talking about is focus on a somatic oriented therapy where it's body oriented, not just thinking about it and talking through stuff, it's actually convincing your body this is gonna be... Here's a way to helping your body release this debt essentially.

    7. JMJonny Miller44:39

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I mean you can, you can understand in, you know, precise detail about whatever the challenge was from 5, 10, 15 years ago, but if you are unable to connect it to the, the correlating like sensations in the body, like usually if, if say, I dunno, if I was to imagine someone shouted at me yesterday, and I, I think about that there's usually a correlating kind of, um, somatic sensation. The, the neuroscientist Damasio calls it a somatic marker. So by tracking the somatic markers and then either on your own just kind of following that sensation and allowing whatever emotion was present at the time to complete, that is the way that we kind of by... We, we slowly pay off that emotional debt, but like one, one process at a time.

12. 45:26 – 48:13

    Telltale signs of emotional debt

    1. JMJonny Miller45:26

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky45:26

       So maybe coming back to this question of say someone is listening and wondering, am I building emotional debt? Am I ignoring things that are these feathers? What are signs and just, I don't know, examples of this, of emotional debt being built up of this trauma, whatever you wanna call it, being built up in the body? I don't know. Is it just like anytime you feel really nervous, that's emotional debt? Is it anytime you push something down that you are pretty sure you should deal with in the moment that's emotional debt? What are just like some examples of what that feels like and looks like?

    3. JMJonny Miller45:59

       Yeah. So it, it's typically different forms of nervous system dysregulation and that shows up as, you know, it could be someone's breathing pattern, like if they're constantly in this sympathetic or hypervigilant state, if they're always, you know, tracking for things, looking for the worst case scenario. Another common one, and this is particularly true in the tech sec- sector, is, um, being very much in the head and living in the thoughts and the mind the entire time and there's a form of disassociation that happens as a kind of protection mechanism essentially, because it's, it's uncomfortable to be with the sensations in the body and because, uh, society tends to reward people for solving problems and being in their mind, that is a, a pattern that continued for many, many years or even decades. Other ones are I, I think the most obvious one for people is emotional reactivity where your response to a certain situation is disproportionate to what- what's happened. So, so like for example, if you said something to me of like, "That doesn't make any sense." And I, and I was like, I f- I freeze maybe... And, and this is another important point that most people have two, two versions of reactivity. Some people will kind of freeze, withdraw, shut down and disconnect, and other people will like become more aggressive, become bigger and attack and like fight back. And kind of knowing which way you tend to orient most for me it's usually shrink and freeze and, and shut down.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky47:23

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JMJonny Miller47:25

       Um, knowing what your pattern is and, and also knowing what the sensations are when this happens, it's really helpful for you to be like, "Oh, that thing's happening. My priority now is to downshift and kind of find a sense of, of, of, of safety basically in the body and then interact, then make the decision, then have the conversation." Because if you can keep going from that place of reactivity, like nothing good happens from that place. No great decisions were made from that place. So again, that's a place where having the interceptive awareness know, oh, this is what's going on. Being able to then downshift your system kind of access a sense of, oh, like I'm, I'm okay that actually this isn't so bad.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky48:04

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JMJonny Miller48:05

       And then moving on from there is, is a profoundly like practical and just useful

13. 48:13 – 50:20

    The competitive advantage of “feeling the feels”

    1. JMJonny Miller48:13

       skill.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky48:14

       Kind of along these same lines you wrote somewhere, uh, this idea that you have a big competitive advantage if you feel the feels is the way you described it. Does that ring a bell? And, and if so, what can you share around that, just why this is so powerful, especially in the workplace?

    3. JMJonny Miller48:28

       Yeah. So I think I wrote about this in one of the Every essays.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky48:31

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JMJonny Miller48:31

       Uh, I think the title was The Best Decision Making is Emotional and I basically wanted to kind of poke at the phrase, I s- I think I saw someone on Twitter say, "Fact over feelings," like, like, "Don't let emotions ruin good decision making." And-... yeah, there's- there's so much that I can say about this. But basically, there was a, um, a landmark study by this guy, Damasio, who's this kind of famous neuroscientist and he studied a patient called Elliot. And Elliot had a tumor in his brain that was removed, and it basically meant that he was unable to feel emotions, so his entire emotional capacity was removed. And Elliot went from being a successful married businessman to divorced, broke, and unable to, like, choose what he could have for lunch. Like, he was un- unable to make the most basic life decisions and it's because he didn't have access to that emotional center in his brain. And so our brain is- is like a prediction-making machine and, as I mentioned earlier, there's this highway of sensory data that's coming up through the body. And if we don't listen to that when we're making decisions, then we're- we're losing out on a lot of information. And what- what tends to happen, i- I see this in clients that I work with, is if they are avoiding feeling a certain way, let's- let's say that they don't enjoy feeling, um, conflict or anger, then they will make decisions subconsciously to avoid feeling that way and it- it becomes a, you know, a huge bias and a huge problem because people make decisions because they're afraid of feeling a certain way. And if you're, on the other hand, able to just, like, welcome and be with whatever emotions would arise on the other side of a decision, you're able to kind of decide clearly, um, instead of being skewed one way or the other.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky50:16

       Easier said than done.

    7. JMJonny Miller50:18

       Yeah.

14. 50:20 – 52:36

    Advice for people overwhelmed by stimuli

    1. JMJonny Miller50:20

       (laughs)

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky50:21

       Do you find there's ever a downside to being too in touch with what you're feeling? I find... Like, I'm actually not, like, a feeler of what I'm feeling kind of person. Like, I'm pretty stable partly because I'm not, like, super in tune with what I'm feeling a lot of times, and maybe this is a huge problem that I need to deal with. But I don't know, it's worked out okay so far. I guess, do you ever find that sometimes it's okay, sometimes, like, you don't need to know exactly every moment anything that's hurting you or causing you pain?

    3. JMJonny Miller50:49

       Yeah, it's- it's a good question. And- and some people do have, you know, a very high interoceptive capacity and that can be overwhelming, in which case I would recommend focusing on the breathing practices to- to build that capacity to downshift so you're able to just function. And, you know, there's- there's definitely people who, um, are overwhelmed by the stimuli of day-to-day life, you know, being out in traffic. Like, they're very easily overwhelmed. And for those people, working on increasing nervous system capacity to kind of hold that amount of stress, maybe it's through sauna and cold plunge or maybe it's through, like, gentle titration of- of stresses and then- and then downshifting. Like, that's actually really valuable. I'd also say that the- the ability to kind of function well or- or... This applies to kind of, like, high, like, a lot of high-functioning people, which is- is probably honestly a lot of your audience, it's- it's very helpful kind of in the moment to kind of, l- let's say something comes up, you- you want to be able to buffer intense emotions and, say, get through the meeting, get through whatever it is. Like, that's... it's a very helpful skill. But if you don't then give yourself spaciousness afterwards to downshift and allow yourself to feel whatever was brought up by that experience, you're going to be adding to this emotional debt over time. And as I mentioned, some people they might only... yeah, it might be a year before there's some kind of breakdown, burnout. Other people it might be, it might be longer. And usually it's more unfortunate in the longer case because it- it creates, like, a long-term health crisis and then no amount of money or time is able to repair the damage that has been done which is, um, can be really tragic.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky52:24

       My chat with Andy Johns is a great example of that happening.

    5. JMJonny Miller52:26

       Yeah.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky52:27

       And-

    7. JMJonny Miller52:28

       Andy's a, Andy's a superb example, and, you know, I- I love his vulnerability and honesty in what he's been through.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky52:33

       Yeah. I think if you're interested in this topic, definitely watch that episode.

15. 52:36 – 55:38

    The NSDR (non-sleep deep rest) practice for emotional release

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky52:36

    2. JMJonny Miller52:36

       Mm-hmm.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky52:38

       Another exercise that you talk a lot about is this idea, it's called NSDR, I think?

    4. JMJonny Miller52:44

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky52:44

       Talk about that and when that might be useful, how to go about using this tool.

    6. JMJonny Miller52:49

       Yeah. So NSDR was a practice coined by Andrew Huberman who you mentioned earlier, and it basically, uh, it's- it's a more scientific lens on the practice of Yoga Nidra which is kind of an- an ancient yoga practice. But I- I'm a huge fan of it and I do it myself most days for kind of 15 to 20 minutes. Basically what it looks like is you- you lie down, put on an eye mask or blindfold and you listen to a guided audio. I can... I- I've recorded some myself so I can share these in the- in the show note links.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky53:16

       Your voice would be so good for these, by the way.

    8. JMJonny Miller53:19

       (laughs)

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky53:19

       I think that this is... you found your calling.

    10. JMJonny Miller53:22

        Nice. Yeah. It's- it's really fun for me to do. But basically what it involves is a- a guided body scan, so this is also a great way to practice interoception because it's something I didn't mention earlier was that when there's cortisol present in our body, the cortisol basically acts as a numbing agent so it's much harder to kind of tune into those sensations but using this, I- I think it's a 14-minute guided NSDR practice, you're basically lying down, there's a- there's a guided body scan, there's, like, relaxing music in the background and by the end of it you feel- you feel like you've had, like, a two-hour nap. Like, it feels incredible. And particularly for people who, like myself, tend to get tired in the afternoons, if you kind of space this out f- usually between, like, 1:00 and 3:00 PM for me, that will give you a second wind in the afternoon and it'll mean you won't kind of end the day collapsed on the sofa. So I- I think it's great for improving interoception, it's- it's good for allowing your body to downshift and relax instead of being in that kind of high tone sympathetic state all throughout the day so it gives y- gives your body a break and it's just, it just feels really good. Like, ho- honestly it's- it's probably my most played practice of everything that I teach, just people listen- listen to it every day so I'll- I'll share that in the show notes as well.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky54:41

        And I imagine if you feel like you've built this emotional debt, this would be a really good exercise to start to do.Is that right?

    12. JMJonny Miller54:49

        Yeah. It's, it's fantastic. I, I mean most people, there's some people who struggle with, you know, having enough energy to kind of get, get out of bed and function. But again, gen- I, I imagine listeners to your show, people that live in Silicon Valley, their challenge is, is the downshifting without external substances. And so NSDR is a really great way of strengthening that ventral vagal tone, which is our body's capacity to go from like on, kind of go, go, go, to then relaxing. Um, there's a quote from Kevin Kelly that I, I interviewed recently and he said, "If you have a great work ethic, that needs to be matched with a great rest ethic."

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky55:26

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JMJonny Miller55:26

        And I think that, that kind of piece of, of actually training our capacity to downshift after stress is just completely missing from most people's, uh, playbooks.

16. 55:38 – 58:23

    Daily practices for emotional well-being

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky55:38

       I think with a lot of this sort of advice, if you listen to Tim Ferriss and Huberman and everyone's got this like stuff you should be doing every day list and it ends up being so long and there's so many things to do, cold plunge, sauna, uh, what is it that you practice or come back to/what would you recommend people try to do daily that is most impactful, of all the stuff we've talked about?

    2. JMJonny Miller56:05

       First, experiment with a bunch of different practices and see which you enjoy. And, and notice how you feel before and then how you feel afterwards. That's kinda the key 'cause once you, once you know that it feels good, you're not gonna have to like force yourself or motivate yourself to do it. You'll just do it naturally because you know if, you, you'll feel great afterwards. I would recommend starting really simple, so starting with like the, the four, four, eight breathing, um, or humming, doing that in the morning for like, just, just like two minutes. Like two minutes in the beginning is enough. And I would also recommend listening to the NSDR practice at least once or twice. If you work from home, it's, it's pretty easy, you know, after, after a lunch break, something like that. Could also be in the evening when you get home as well. Some people use it to, to help fall asleep. And then the f- the final thing that I would recommend is, is if you're, if you have the resources and you have access, finding a somatic practitioner or a somatic therapist is, is so life-changing. I, I mean, I, I emerged a completely different human on the other side of the kind of 200 breath work journeys. Like I have a different experience of, of life basically, uh, released so much ten- even my voice sounds different. Like if you listen to the podcast episodes I recorded four or five years ago, my voice is, is higher pitched. It's like, um, it's, it's, it just sounds different. It has like a different resonant quality to it.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky57:27

       Wow. Okay. Awesome. So you've kind of summarized, I was gonna try to summarize all the advice you've given, but if you were to do the bare minimum next steps based on this advice, try this four, four, eight slash three, three, six slash two, two, four. Does two, two, four work too if you just like go real-

    4. JMJonny Miller57:45

       Great.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky57:45

       ... fast like that? Yeah? Okay, sure.

    6. JMJonny Miller57:46

       Perfect. Yep.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky57:46

       Okay.

    8. JMJonny Miller57:47

       Mm-hmm.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky57:47

       Um, so do that for a couple mornings, see how that does.

    10. JMJonny Miller57:50

        Mm-hmm.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky57:50

        Try this NSDR practice. You'll link, we'll link to a recording of how to do that.

    12. JMJonny Miller57:54

        Mm-hmm.

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky57:55

        And then was there something else you recommended? Oh, a somatic-

    14. JMJonny Miller57:58

        Yeah.

    15. LRLenny Rachitsky57:59

        ... uh, worker, like basically a, maybe a therapist, maybe not, someone that helps you with your body.

    16. JMJonny Miller58:06

        Yeah. A- and I'd add in the, the eight practice for even, you know, 15 seconds before the breathing in the morning and after, just so that you notice the difference. And if you do the NSDR, that is, uh, basically a fif- a 15-minute interception practice as well. So you're kind of getting two birds with one stone

17. 58:23 – 1:01:26

    Thoughts on meditation

    1. JMJonny Miller58:23

       with that practice.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky58:24

       What's your perspective on meditation? Does that fit into this? Do you find NSDR replaces the need for meditation?

    3. JMJonny Miller58:29

       That is a big topic. Um, I (laughs) I, I, I am an, an avid meditator though I've done, you know, many 10-day silent retreats. I was in a dark room for 10 days. Um...

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky58:39

       Wow.

    5. JMJonny Miller58:41

       With meditation, I think it really depends on what you're training like. It, it's like saying, you know, "What's your opinion on exercise? Well, are you training mobility or stamina or strength?" It's the same with meditation. You could be training love and kindness. You could be training your focus and attention. You could be training spacious awareness. I, I, so I'm a big fan of, of, of embodied meditation practices. So this is often, um, the classic Vipassana body scan is a good example. Again, I mean, that's basically interoceptive practice, right, where you're, you're just moving your attention through different parts of your body over and over and over again for like days on end (laughs) in, in the case of a Vipassana retreat. Um, meditation is helpful for the specific skill of increasing the psychological space between a stimulus and your response. So if you have some degree of meditation practice, instead of getting wrapped up in a certain emotion or, or even believing a certain thought pattern, there's usually an ability to kind of step back a little bit and see it for what it is. So there definitely is a place for meditation, but my, my viewpoint is that we've kind of overindexed for mindfulness and meditation in, in over the last 20 years. Like it's so... there's so many apps. There's so, there's so much, uh, talk about it and we've completely forgotten the, the body-based approaches. So I'm not saying don't meditate. I think meditation for sure has its place, especially if your goal is more, more of the traditional waking up and like seeing through the, the nature of the self. Like that's, that's a different kind of path in my opinion. But if you're looking to, to function more effectively and kind of be more in tune with your body, then there's a whole different category of practices in, in this bottom-up variety that we've, we've touched on today.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:00:27

       On the topic of bottom up, I imagine you're a big fan of this book that everyone always talks about, The Body Keeps Score I think it's called.

    7. JMJonny Miller1:00:32

       Mm-hmm.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:00:33

       Would you recommend that book? Is it connected in large part to the stuff you talk about? What do you think of that, that book specifically? 'Cause I hear about it all the time.

    9. JMJonny Miller1:00:41

       Yeah. It's, it's a good book. Um, it's by Bessel van der Kolk. And there's, there's another, uh, I think Peter Levine says, "The issues are in the tissues," is basically, is basically the concept. And this is the idea that we have these incomplete mobilization reflexes that are stored in our body and often held as tension. It's not strictly true to say that w-... that the trauma is in the body. I- there's actually a, a cortical map in the brain which kind of tracks these things. But f- for kind of practical purposes, it looks and feels as if there is stored grief in my right hip or anger in my solar plexus. Like, that's, that's the experience that we have. And the more that you become aware of these sensations and start to, yeah, develop emotional fluidity essentially,

18. 1:01:26 – 1:01:58

    The Body Keeps the Score

    1. JMJonny Miller1:01:26

       the more that that tension is released and the less reactive you become and the more emotional debt you pay off. So I, I think the body keeps the score. I, I, I think a more accurate way would be the body is the scorecard, i- in a way. I think that's kind of a, a s- a slight reframe. Um, and if you're interested in this, the work of Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger, is kind of th- the seminal book on, on this, like, mobilization reflex stuff that I'm, I'm describing.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:01:51

       I never knew that part of it. And basically it is actually kept in the brain, but it comes across as somewhere in the body.

    3. JMJonny Miller1:01:57

       Yeah, exactly.

19. 1:01:58 – 1:04:43

    Contrarian corner

    1. JMJonny Miller1:01:58

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:01:58

       Fascinating. I wanna spend a little time on a new segment that we have on this podcast that I call Contrarian Corner. So let's visit Contrarian Corner. I feel like you'll have something interesting here. So the question is, is there something that you have a very contrarian opinion about? Something that you believe that a lot of other people really don't believe?

    3. JMJonny Miller1:02:17

       We've already touched on I'm not a big fan of talk-based meditation, which will probably get me some (laughs) comments, I, I would imagine. Um, I'd say the other one that's worth mentioning is I think that we vastly underestimate the impact of burnout, particularly on a kind of, from a, like, bottom line perspective. There was a research report that I did a couple of years ago where we, we interviewed these leaders and they'd all experienced burnout to some degree and we, we said, "If you were to estimate, like, how much this cost your startup or business, what would you say?" And the, the median response was $100,000, which I imagine is more than most people would, w- would, would think. And y- you know, most people aren't actively investing in burnout insurance. Like, it's not something that's on many people's radar besides meditation practices an- and, and things like that. And, and I think part of the reason that the cost is higher is because there are these second and third order consequences of, of, like, talent attrition, of opportunity costs, lost productivity, you know, you lose great leaders, make shitty decisions in the run up to the burnout itself. There's also this idea of emotional contagion, which, uh, there's some research from Wharton, I believe, and they show that the, the leader of, or the, the CEO has a disproportionate impact, um, or their emotional state has a disproportionate impact on the people in their team. So, um, something I like to say is the, the nervous system of an organization is a reflection of the nervous system of the CEO and so I, I think that's just something which, uh, I would like to see talked about more.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:53

       Just on this idea of burnout, I don't think you're saying don't work really hard if you wanna work really hard, it's that you need to maintain your body and mind and nervous system if you're working insanely hard.

    5. JMJonny Miller1:04:02

       Mm-hmm.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:02

       Like, if you're working long hours, you feel free, but just know you, there's debt you're building up and you need to be doing things to pay off that debt as you're doing that.

    7. JMJonny Miller1:04:11

       Precisely. It's, it's very much like building technical debt in the early days of a startup. Like, it's, it's worth doing, but just do it intentionally. Like, know that you're doing that and that s- let's say you, you work really hard for eight months, you know, give yourself a month or two off to, like, really downshift and y- it's also really worth building that nervous system capacity. Like, it's great to be able to push it really hard and focus and then combine it with that rest ethic as well. So do NSDRs, kind of find a way to downshift so that that way of working

20. 1:04:43 – 1:14:14

    Lightning round

    1. JMJonny Miller1:04:43

       can be sustainable.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:44

       Jonny, we reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready?

    3. JMJonny Miller1:04:48

       Let's do it.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:49

       First question, what are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people?

    5. JMJonny Miller1:04:53

       I actually had a sense this question was coming and I have my books with me here. (laughs)

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:58

       (laughs)

    7. JMJonny Miller1:04:58

       So the first book is, uh, Consolations by, by David White. Um, this is the book that I've, I've gifted most to friends, I think more than any other book. And he basically has 52 definitions of words like ambition is, is I think the first word. And his writing is just... It just blows me away. I, I open this to a random page, r- read the definition and it's just, uh, it's probably affected me more than any other book. So that's, that's one that I love. 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which is, I imagine has come up before in, in your podcast.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:33

       Mm.

    9. JMJonny Miller1:05:34

       Um, this is by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman. They have the Conscious Leadership Group and this is basically... In my opinion, it's, it's the best leadership book that I've come across and it's, it combines practicality with s- a lot of great theory. So this is, this is awesome. And then finally, uh, this is a bit out there, but Recapture the Rapture by Jamie Wheal. Um, big fan of Jamie's work, Jamie's writing. This is, is kind of three books in one. The beginning is, like, kind of addressing the meta-crisis and a lot of, like, the craziness that we're seeing in the world. The second chapter is very related to what we've been talking about. He calls it hedonic engineering and it's basically practices for accessing, shifting, shifting j- just your state of consciousness. And the third is Ethical Cult Building, which I'll just, I'll leave that there. (laughs)

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:06:23

        Amazing. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoyed?

    11. JMJonny Miller1:06:28

        My wife and I love animations and we saw Kubo and the Two Strings recently, which was fantastic. Just so, so great and that and also Wolfwalkers, which was an Apple TV series. Um, yeah, those have been my two favorite movies I've seen recently.

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:06:46

        If you like animated, uh, content, check out Scavengers Reign on HBO.

    13. JMJonny Miller1:06:51

        Oh-

    14. LRLenny Rachitsky1:06:51

        I mentioned it on this podcast before, but it's incredible. It's a TV show on HBO. So I usually ask, do you have a favorite question you like to ask candidates you're interviewing? But I know you coach people, so to kind of turn this question a little bit around, do you have a favorite question you like to ask executive coaching clients that you work with?

    15. JMJonny Miller1:07:08

        I stole this question from a guy, Jerry Colonna, who's, who's here in Boulder and the question is, is amazing. It has, it's so good. Um, it's basically, how are you complicit in creating the conditions that you say you don't want? And so, uh, the word complicit there is key because it's not saying, like, in what ways is it your fault, but it's like in what, in what ways were you complicit in creating th- the conditions for anxiety, for building up emotional debt? And, and just the question kind of opens up the door to ways in which you're, uh, like an active participant in creating these challenges in, in your life. And that's a, it's a really rich general question or a question to explore with, with a friend, co-founder, colleague.

    16. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:53

        I remember him sharing that on the Tim Ferriss podcast many years ago and I, it stuck with me-

    17. JMJonny Miller1:07:57

        Yeah.

    18. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:57

        ... and I often think of it but I, I never am complicit in anything that goes wrong. It's never my fault.

    19. JMJonny Miller1:08:03

        (laughs)

    20. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:04

        It was nothing on me. (laughs) Just kidding.

    21. JMJonny Miller1:08:06

        Ex- excellent.

    22. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:08

        Do you have a favorite product you've recently discovered that you really like?

    23. JMJonny Miller1:08:11

        One is, uh, these blue blocking glasses. Um, these are Ra Optics blue, Blue Blocker glasses. They, they block out 100% of blue light and they are a lifesaver if I'm ever, um, going out of the house basically after dark. I, I'll wear these to drive, I'll wear these to, um, even like dinners with friends sometimes and it basically means that, uh, I'm able to then sleep well that evening. Um, so that's, that's one. And then the other thing I'll briefly share. This i- this came through the other day, you mentioned the vagus nerve earlier and that, that device, I have three devices here that are all vagus nerve stimulation devices. This one is called Neurosym. This one, I believe is Pulsetto and I think this is a Apollo strap. I haven't used them that much yet but they basically work by sending low level electrical s- electrical stimulation directly to your vagus nerve. So this clips on your, your ear 'cause the vagus nerve goes through the, the right side of the neck. Same with Pulsetto. And I'm really curious to kind of compare th- the effect of these versus say breathwork, humming, the other body-based practices. Obviously you can do both at the same time but I am, I'm just interested in, in playing. So I wouldn't recommend them yet, but I think it's interesting that they exist.

    24. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:29

        How cool would that be? We just put these things on, we don't gotta do anything else.

    25. JMJonny Miller1:09:32

        Right. (laughs)

    26. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:32

        We just get up, slap on our device and life is amazing.

    27. JMJonny Miller1:09:36

        Uh-huh.

    28. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:36

        Don't have to meditate, don't have to breathe in a different way. I'm gonna-

    29. JMJonny Miller1:09:40

        Yeah, can-

    30. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:40

        ... maybe do this while I'm on the podcast, just wear all these devices.

Episode duration: 1:14:14