BITESIZE | Do This Every Morning to Reduce Stress and Anxiety | Dr Joe Dispenza #473
Dr. Joe Dispenza, a New York Times best-selling author, speaker, and researcher, discusses the three types of stress and how chronic emotional stress impacts health. He shares practical strategies to break free by understanding the mind's power to change personal reality.
Deep Dive Analysis
9 Topic Outline
Rethinking the Root Cause of Ill Health
The Impact of Chronic Stress on the Body
How Thoughts Alone Trigger Stress Responses
Addiction to Stress and Past Traumas
The Three Types of Stress Explained
Personality's Role in Creating Personal Reality
Becoming Conscious of Unconscious Patterns
A Morning Practice for Mental Transformation
Embracing Curiosity and Self-Experimentation
3 Key Concepts
Altered States of Consciousness (Stress Emotions)
Emotions like aggression, anger, hatred, fear, anxiety, and depression are not normal human states but rather altered states of consciousness derived from the hormones of stress, indicating the body is in an emergency mode.
Addiction to Stress
Individuals can become addicted to the arousal and energy rush produced by stress hormones, leading them to unconsciously seek out or perpetuate problems in their lives to reaffirm this chemical dependency. This can result in an addiction to one's own thoughts and a life one dislikes.
Personality and Personal Reality
Dr. Joe Dispenza's model posits that an individual's personality, defined by their thoughts, actions, and feelings, directly creates their personal reality. To create a new personal reality, one must fundamentally change their personality.
7 Questions Answered
While lifestyle is important, the way we think, our mental well-being, and our happiness are even more fundamental, as they influence our lifestyle choices and how our body responds to the environment.
Living in chronic emergency mode diverts the body's vital resources and energy into chemistry for perceived threats, leaving no energy for growth and repair. This leads to the immune system dialing down, digestive system becoming out of phase, and changes in hormonal, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems.
Yes, we can activate the primitive nervous system and stress response simply by thought, such as thinking about problems, imagining worst-case scenarios, or reliving bitter memories.
People can become addicted to the arousal of stress hormones and their own thoughts, needing problems to reaffirm this addiction. Additionally, remembering past traumatic events repeatedly produces the same chemistry in the brain and body as if the event were occurring, reinforcing the trauma and making it difficult to break free.
The three types of stress are physical (trauma, injuries, accidents), chemical (viruses, bacteria, pollutants, toxins), and emotional (family tragedies, financial worries, single parenting), with emotional stress often being the most difficult to manage.
The first step is to become conscious of your unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. By naming and observing these patterns, you can prevent yourself from unconsciously returning to the same self.
Before starting your day, take time to become present. Remind yourself of the thoughts, behaviors, and emotions you no longer want to embody, and consciously review and rehearse how you do want to think, act, and feel, practicing until you can feel those desired emotions on command.
10 Actionable Insights
1. Transform Personality for Reality
To create a new personal reality and change your life, you must change your personality, which is comprised of how you think, act, and feel.
2. Daily Mental Rehearsal & Awareness
Before starting your day, identify thoughts, behaviors, and emotions you no longer want to embody by writing them down and becoming conscious of them. Then, mentally rehearse and emotionally teach your body how you do want to think, act, and feel, practicing until you can evoke these desired states on command.
3. Identify Unconscious Thoughts/Behaviors
Become deeply conscious of your unconscious thoughts, behaviors (e.g., complaining, blaming, judging), and emotions (e.g., guilt, sadness) by naming them, to prevent reverting to old patterns.
4. Prioritize Mental Well-being
Focus on changing your thinking and approach to the world, as this is more important than lifestyle changes and will naturally lead to better lifestyle choices.
5. Minimize Chronic Stress Emotions
Avoid prolonged states of aggression, anger, fear, anxiety, and other stress-derived emotions, as living in emergency mode drains vital resources and impairs bodily functions like immunity and digestion.
6. Cease Reliving Past Events
Understand that repeatedly remembering past traumatic events produces the same stress chemistry in your body as if they were happening again, and that your recounted memories may be inaccurate or embellished to avoid change.
7. Focus on Future, Not Past
Cease constantly recounting the story of your past, especially if it’s miserable or inaccurate, and instead begin to ‘romance’ and fall in love with the story of your desired future.
8. Overcome Stress Addiction
Be aware that the arousal from stress hormones can be addictive, leading people to subconsciously seek problems to reaffirm this addiction and become accustomed to a life they dislike.
9. Cultivate Curiosity for Growth
Approach your life with curiosity, asking what it might be like to feel differently and exploring what lies beyond your limited thoughts, familiar emotions, and habitual negative patterns.
10. Treat Life as an Experiment
View your life as an experiment, making the effort to change your thinking and practice new mental skills, as there is no downside to trying to improve.
9 Key Quotes
No organism can live in emergency mode for an extended period of time.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
The chronic long-term effects of the hormones of stress down-regulate genes and create disease.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
We can turn on that stress response just by thought alone.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
You become addicted to your own thoughts. And number two, you become addicted to the very life that you don't even like.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
Your personality creates your personal reality.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
Nothing changes in your life until you change.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
95% of who we are is a set of unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
Stop telling the story of your past and start telling the story of your future.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
Make your life the experiment.
Dr. Joe Dispenza
1 Protocols
Morning Practice for Conscious Change
Dr. Joe Dispenza- Wake up in the morning before reaching for your cell phone or starting your routine.
- Ask yourself: 'Who do I no longer want to be today?'
- Mentally review or write down the specific unconscious thoughts (e.g., 'I can't,' 'This is horrible'), behaviors (e.g., complaining, blaming, rushing), and emotions (e.g., sadness, fear, anxiety) you want to become conscious of and change.
- Commit to becoming so aware of these patterns that you won't go unconscious and return to them.
- Then, ask yourself: 'Who do I want to be?'
- Review in your mind how you do want to think, how you do want to act, and how you do want to feel.
- Rehearse these desired thoughts, behaviors, and emotions mentally, practicing feeling them over and over until you can feel them on command.