Why Am I Like This?!
We are a therapist and a psychiatric nurse practitioner and we want to share a simplified view of these complex concepts that are often misunderstood, avoided, and even feared.
This is a podcast about being human, adapting to life, and learning from our unique experience.
We try to provide the answers to question: Why am I like this?
Why Am I Like This?!
Why Do I Procrastinate So Hard?!
Why do we procrastinate even when we know it's hurting us? In this episode of "Why Am I Like This?", we unravel the complex relationship between procrastination and emotional dysregulation. By examining the various factors like fear of failure, lack of motivation, and low self-efficacy, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of why postponing tasks becomes a coping mechanism. With personal anecdotes and insights, we also discuss how procrastination intertwines with mental health conditions such as anxiety, ADHD, and depression, making it a far more intricate issue than mere laziness.
Procrastination doesn’t just mess with your deadlines—it messes with your health too. Chronic delays can spike your stress levels, leading to severe physical ailments like heart disease, diabetes, and gastrointestinal problems. We dive deep into the psychological toll, from disrupted sleep patterns to a weakened immune system. To counteract these detrimental effects, we share practical strategies centered around intrinsic motivation and cognitive-behavioral techniques. Learn how breaking tasks into manageable steps and using grounding techniques can not only improve productivity but also significantly reduce stress.
Ever felt like mundane tasks are an insurmountable mountain? You're not alone. We discuss how establishing routines and practicing mindfulness can transform these daily drudgeries into manageable activities. Through personal stories and practical advice, we explore how not being too harsh on ourselves for occasional lapses can foster resilience. From the benefits of social engagement to the power of music and dual attention strategies, find out how you can enhance productivity while boosting your emotional well-being. Join us as we reflect, share gratitude for our listeners, and encourage everyone to keep the conversation going.
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This show is sponsored by:
Benavieri Counseling & Coaching
www.benavieri.com
Active Healing Psychiatric Services
www.activehealingpsych.com
Hello and welcome to. Why Am I Like this? The podcast for those who didn't get enough hugs as a child? I'm Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist.
Michaela:Hi and I'm M Beaver. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Laura :So, M, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela:I'm so glad you asked. We want to help you understand yourself a bit better, how the things you learned about yourself and the world and childhood are still affecting you today. We want to know why are we like this, those random things about ourselves that we might wonder about, like why am I so jumpy? Why am I so anxious? Why do I take everything personally? Why are my thoughts so negative? Why do I feel like I have to fix everything all the time?
Laura :Yeah, and today we're talking about procrastination. So we're going to try to answer the following questions what is procrastination, what causes procrastination and what strategies can help me get things done right away? So let's get into it. What's procrastination?
Michaela:Okay, so I think that procrastination is putting off tasks even though it could cause problems for you or other people.
Laura :Okay, which is kind of reminds me I just this occurred to me right now that addiction is doing a task, even though it can cause problems for yourself and for other people. So I wonder if that's the same mechanism. But we can get more into that later. I think procrastination is to put off till tomorrow and to do something against our better judgment.
Michaela:Okay.
Laura :Yeah, those are sort of the words that created the word procrastination, so I think you know. For me, though, procrastination is an avoidance strategy. That's what I think of everything. It's a it's a strategy to cope with dysregulation or potential dysregulation. So what I mean by that is we put something off in order to avoid a certain feeling, and so if we're trying to avoid the feeling of being disappointed, or the feeling of being overwhelmed, or the feeling of trying to of being sad, or bad experiences, we're just putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, and I think a lot of the time, that's subconscious.
Michaela:Yeah, I could see that. I don't know. I think that sometimes we don't really even understand why we don't want to do the thing that we don't want to do, or maybe it's just that, like, it's just doesn't seem like fun and I'd rather be doing something that I do want to do, I want to be having fun and enjoying things, and that doesn't sound like fun.
Laura :Yeah, I think that's a big one too is we want to do enjoyable things. We don't want to do things that are not enjoyable. We want to do things that make us feel productive and fulfilled. So like, for example, I'll procrastinate unloading the dishwasher because when I unload the dishwasher I'm just taking it from one place to another and my kitchen looks the same, so I'm not getting anything out of it.
Michaela:Sure, I don't unload the dishwasher because I'm distracted by a hundred things.
Laura :That's another reason. So just a general lack of organization, distractibility, a general lack of structure and routine, like those things can make us procrastinate too. But in general we're just putting something off. We're just simply saying like I'm not motivated to do this right now, like low self-efficacy rating at that moment, like I think, oh, I just I can't do it, it's too hard, so I'm going to put it off. Or I'm afraid of what other people might think of me. Sometimes, like a fear of judgment is a reason to procrastinate dealing with something Maybe. That's I don't want to communicate with someone, or I don't want to, you know, go to class because I didn't submit my paper and the teacher is going to judge me, or I'm going to look stupid in front of my classmates, so I'm going to avoid it, I'm going to procrastinate like even going and dealing with it at all.
Michaela:Sure, I think that this is a really interesting conversation and it's not something that I actually really considered. I kind of always have categorized it oh, we are a procrastinator, like it's either anxiety or it's like, you know, it's tied to like ADHD or something. But I think that this goes really way deeper and so I think about like an experience that I had with my kiddo the other night and he was doing this extra credit homework assignment and we're like making it fun, making it enjoyable, but the minute that he wrote one answer wrong, he was done. And I know that this isn't like procrastination, but I think that this is a driving force for what. What drives procrastination is that we want to avoid that feeling I'm going to make a mistake, I'm not good enough, I'm not, I'm not going to do it, right, right. And then it's like, oh, I can't do that anymore because I I'm not good enough.
Laura :Yeah, I think when we notice that we're avoiding something, we might think to ourselves. We can kind of identify why we're avoiding it by thinking to ourselves what does this say about me? So there's something that I'm avoiding, maybe, and I'm procrastinating it because I don't want to be a failure, like I'm not good enough to get this done, I'm irresponsible for having waited so long, or any other of these negative cognitions, and then we kind of loop in them, and so procrastination is really connected to rumination, which can be connected to depression and which can be connected with low motivation. So it's sort of this cycle of like rumination, negative thoughts, like depression, and not really being motivated to get out of it.
Michaela:Well, and I was reading something that kind of talked about like the stress response system and how this is highly correlated with procrastination, and so it's kind of one of those things that it's twofold so stress can cause or lead to higher rates of procrastination and procrastination is going to inevitably create more stress. Because we have, like it's like this subconscious like thing. Even if we're not thinking about it, we have this list of things in our head that we know that we need to do or that are left undone. And as that list grows and grows and grows, we, we kind of feel that and we feel more stressed, even if we're not thinking about all of those things. We just know that there's all this stuff to do and it gets. It just makes us feel overwhelmed and stressed and we don't know what, we don't know where to start and we don't know how to get move forward with that.
Laura :Yeah, I think that's right. I think we are going to get more stressed and we don't know how to cope with our stress, and so we're overwhelmed and so we don't deal with it at all and we totally avoid it. And then we get more stressed and then we don't know how to cope, and then we get overwhelmed and then we don't know. So it's this cycle. I think, about the overwhelmed feeling all the time of like I have too much on my plate. I have to put this off, like I have to prioritize different things. I was reading an article where I felt really called out because it was talking about how people some procrastinators believe that they like thrive under pressure, but that's not really the case at all. It turns out that you're just overly stressed out, you're doing probably not as good of a job when you do it at the end, and then you're actually like seeking out this, like reward response of, like feeling like you've beat the odds.
Michaela:Yeah, but why do people who procrastinate it's like they need that that time crunch to perform? It's like I can't do it until it's five hours before it's due.
Laura :I think it's that lack of intrinsic motivation. I think sometimes it's having the. The motivation is that reward, the response that I'm getting when I finally get it done and I did it in a short amount of time. And now that dopamine hit is like oh, I did this like and I did it in a short amount of time. And now that dopamine hit is like, oh, I did this like and I did it quickly and I still was successful or whatever.
Laura :I think also perfectionistic tendencies make us put stuff off right, because if we have, and if we have five hours to get something done, well, when it's done, it's done. There's no like tweaking it or tinkering with it or finishing, you know, redoing it, redoing it, redoing it. Whereas like, if I have five days to get it done, I can get part of it done and then rethink it and then want to start over and then start over, and you know what I mean. I can kind of get stuck in this cycle of like perfectionism where it's not done, it's it has to be perfect, whereas if I only have five hours, like done's done, it's good enough.
Michaela:Right.
Laura :And so it helps me avoid that sense of like I could have done a better job.
Michaela:That makes sense and that sounds overwhelming to be worrying about it for five days. But I'd also think that, like, by not doing it, you're still worrying about it for those five days. You're just not having to start it over and over and over again.
Laura :Yeah, I think that's a fair argument there's no win in that scenario Right.
Laura :Either way. It's on your mind, it's on your body, it's creating. You still are experiencing that stress response because you're overwhelmed by it. And so the procrastination is a response to that stress and overwhelm of feeling like I'm not going to be able to do this well, or I don't know what I'm doing, or I'm going to fail at this. And if I think I'm going to fail, then I'm going to put it off and I'm going to do something. I'm going to focus my mind on other things that don't make me feel like that.
Michaela:Yeah, when I think that you know, from a top-down approach, thinking about like these negative cognitions and like these maladaptive thoughts and things like that, like if we have a lot of them, then we're going to be more likely to procrastinate, right? But people who had a lot, who have better like internal, like control of being like oh, I worked really hard, and because I worked really hard, they have these like positive cognitions surrounding it, right, like surrounding it, like they're thinking like oh, I worked really hard and that's what's leading to me getting a good grade, and the people who have a lot more of those positive thoughts surrounding the work that they're doing, focusing in on, like how, like their internal control, I think that they have less procrastination. And it was interesting. I don't remember what this study was or like.
Michaela:I think it was just like a conversation that I had with my brother about this, and so he was something he read and he was saying that like there was this study that was done with with kids and the kids got feedback from the teachers and was like, oh, you're so smart, good job, you're so smart. And then, as the content got harder and harder, the kids that that they told you you're so smart, they felt like they were dumb, and so then they did worse on things, right? But the kids that said they said and said oh, you're such a hard worker, hey, you're doing such a great job. You're such a hard worker, right? And those kids who heard your hard work was what made you do well, internalize that instead of I'm smart, and when it got harder, they worked harder, and so then, instead of I'm smart, and when it got harder, they worked harder, and so then they didn't shut down and then they did better.
Laura :That's very interesting. That's an example of, rather than negative self-talk. It's positive or neutral self-talk. Sometimes our self-talk is good enough at neutral. It doesn't have to be amazing, right. You don't have to be like, oh, I'm the hardest worker in the whole world. I can just be like, oh, I work hard, that's a positive, that's a good thing, that's a strong thing. Like, I can do it, I can do hard things, I can work through this, I can figure it out, I'm capable. Those are some neutral sounding self-talk. You know options that we can use.
Laura :I think one of the things that can go against the negative self-talk is also self-compassion too. You know having compassion for yourself and recognizing that you don't have to be stressed out all the time. You deserve to put this task, you know, to bed and be done with it and you know move forward from it. And you know you don't have to wait until the last second. You can tolerate negative emotions. You don't have to avoid negative emotions. Sometimes the negative emotion isn't as bad as you think it will be. Sure, I think. A lot of the time we think that this negative emotion is going to be like the worst thing ever, and so we put it off and put it off, and put it off, but what we're really doing is we're engaging with it and we're keeping it on our plates longer and so, by quote unquote, not dealing with it, we're really just experiencing it a lot more.
Michaela:Right, well, and I just wonder, like I'm guessing that some people are kind of born with some of these traits, right, and sometimes I think that, like there, it's like that what wires together, fires together, thing, like how much of this is getting created in us as children, like this is what we learn, and the more that we strengthen those, that network right, the more we strengthen that network, the more that that's what fires, I think. And so, like, as we, as we try to, you know, learn from this, I think we know that we're going to experience some discomfort as we try to push through engaging with these things, but the more that we strengthen that connection, the easier that that becomes as well. And so, whatever we, whatever strategy we use I think that there's, you know, we can strengthen that by just working through it and creating a different pattern.
Laura :Yeah, we can rewire, and that takes a lot of energy and effort and intention. So when we think about autopilot, that's our history, autopilot is our history, that's our automatic wiring, that's what we've been, you know, that's what we've created throughout our lifetime.
Michaela:Yeah, rewire, that is hard work but it sounds like it could be worth it. Not be able to put that off, right? I know I think back to you know writing papers in college that was like my oh the worst. I hate writing papers, but you know when you put it off to the last minute it doesn't feel very good Cause you know that you're not doing your best.
Laura :Put it off to the last minute, it doesn't feel very good because you know that you're not doing your best, yeah, and studies show that people who procrastinate, don't do like, tend to not do as well in school. They tend not to do well as well at work. They tend not to have as much fulfillment in their lives. You know, internal motivation, intrinsic motivation, comes from purpose, autonomy and mastery. We have to be able to assign ourselves the purpose of I can do this, I'm capable, I'm going to get this done. I have these goals, I'm important enough to do this thing. This goal is important enough for me to reach right. I think we have to have that sense of ourself, enough to decide that it matters enough to do this thing, especially when we procrastinate about our health.
Michaela:Yeah, it can definitely be detrimental to our health. I'm glad that you brought that up. I was thinking about this, you know, and there are physical consequences to procrastination, right. So one we have high stress and what we know is that, being in a state of fight or flight or high stress, you have extra cortisol hanging around. You know we're going to have natural consequences of that, which leads to glucose metabolism issues, right. So, leading to diabetes and heart disease, high blood pressure, right. So we have hormone dysregulation.
Michaela:You know there's a lot of different factors that kind of go down that pathway that are contributing factors. Then we have less adaptive coping strategies because we're, you know, not dealing with the things. We have poor health behaviors, right. So we're probably not exercising, we're probably not taking care of our bodies, we're probably putting off going to the doctor, right. We don't probably have as good of quality of sleep, right. We have all these things on our mind. We're probably like, oh man, I forgot to do that. Oh, I forgot to do that. You know, at the end of the day we're kind of mulling over what we didn't do, and so then there's greater consequences for physical illness, and I think you know that's. Those are kind of some of the consequences that I think of when I think about this high level of stress from procrastination.
Laura :Yeah, and the insomnia from it, the rumination that you're thinking about all night, like you said, like I've got all these things that I didn't do, that I didn't take care of, and that's increasing your stress level and decreasing your immune function. It's decreasing your ability to fight infection and to process your food and to do all of the things. So it can lead to gastrointestinal distress and can lead to, you know, getting sick more often because you're tired and you're run down and you're feeling overwhelmed all the time.
Laura :You can relate to some of those feelings. You know, I think, I think I probably can, definitely.
Michaela:And yet we? We may know all of these things, and yet we still manage to avoid things.
Laura :I know, isn't that funny. We're doing all these things even though we know it's not good for us, we know it's against our better judgment and it's not in our best interest, but we're doing it anyway. What is our addiction to avoidance?
Michaela:Well, and I think that you know it's probably very depleting of our energy too. So I think about like, um, oh, I'm just going to throw the cup in the sink or I'm just going to, I'm not even going to move the cup, I'm just going to leave the cup on the table, Right, and I'm not going to, I'm going to ignore it. I'm not, I'm just going to look. I can like almost see through it, Like it's not even there, Right. I walked past it a hundred times, even on my way to the kitchen. I couldn't grab it Right.
Michaela:And then all of a sudden, now, instead of just having one thing to do, you have 50 things to do, and so then you're stressed and you're trying to get all these things done, and it would have taken two seconds to do. But if you just did the one thing right away but yeah, we can't get ourselves to just think, oh, I should just do it right now It'll be really easy. We think, oh, I don't have time, Like, oh, I don't have time, and it's that thought process that leads us to ignoring things. Instead, if we just you know, I noticed that that top-down approach. Maybe we have to do some body up stuff first. But that top-down thinking, you know, using our brain to tell ourselves it'll take two seconds, it's not that hard, versus being like oh, I'll get it later.
Laura :Absolutely, as you were describing that. I was thinking about how this is very cognitive behavioral. This is very cognitive behavioral and this bottom up version of that is to take a second to get regulated. Take a second to use a grounding skill, get present, then you can change your thought, so you can change your state of regulation, and then, with a new state of regulation, you can change your thought and with a new thought, you can change your behavior. And that's what we can see.
Laura :Like I have a personal example of this. I'm not a super tidy person. I'm like I'll leave my dishes in the sink, like I'll do it tomorrow morning or whatever. Like I don't have a problem going to bed with a sink full of dirty dishes. Like people are like I can't tolerate that. Like I don't really care. So this bothers me, right? I'm a world-class procrastinator. I don't want to be a procrastinator.
Laura :I just moved into a smaller house so I downsized, so a dirty kitchen looks a lot worse in this house than it did in my other house. I had a big kitchen. So I'm like okay, I'm going to do better and I'm going to teach my kids to do better and we're going to do things right away. So yesterday it's like 10 o'clock at night and I'm wanting to go, I'm like yawning and I'm ready to go to bed, and I look at the sink and I'm just like I'm not going to do these dishes, like I don't want to do these dishes, I can just leave it. I'll do it tomorrow, it's fine. And then I was like you know what? No, because I saw this TikTok one time and it was like, before you go to bed, you know, put all the dishes in the dishwasher and run it and, you know, wipe down the counters. And it was just like these basic human behaviors that everybody needs to do in order to keep a clean house. And so I thought of that video and it like gave me the cognition that I needed to just be like, okay, I'm just going to do it. Guess how long it took me Like one minute, literally like one minute. It was so not a big deal. There was like 10 dishes from dinner or whatever. I cleaned them, I put them in the dishwasher, I ran the dishwasher. So now today we'll have a clean sink with clean dishes and no worries, and I could wipe down the counter and I did all the things and it took me like maybe three minutes tops to do the whole thing, because I had to unload the dishwasher to get the dishes in the dishwasher in the first place, right, and so that's been my new thing.
Laura :Where this is, my rewiring is every night I'm making sure that the dishwasher is unloaded and I can load the dishes from that day, right, and this seems like such a small thing, but for me, who is notoriously just not like a Johnny on the spot get this done right now kind of person, this was like represented the gigantic change in my personality and I had to really stop myself and regulate and think about it, and I probably took a break before I even I probably like was thinking, oh, I'm tired, well, I don't want to do these dishes, but I also know that I have to do these dishes before I go to bed. So let me go, like watch a show, or let me read this last article, or let me play another round of Candy Crush. So I probably did procrastinate, but only for a couple minutes instead of for the whole entire day, and then not did it until today, after I work all day long and then I have to what clean the dishes before I make new dirty dishes. Why would I want to do that? Don't.
Michaela:And it's annoying. I don't know about you, but I don't have enough knives or something, or forks. I have to run my dishwasher every night because otherwise there's nothing.
Laura :Yeah, we run out of spoons.
Michaela:Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with us. Well, I kind of wonder if my three-year-old's throwing them in the garbage on accident or like you know. So that's a thing, but anyways, um no, I think that, right, I've seen it happen. Um so, but this is how I felt about like the cleaning of my house. You know, there's like this thought like, oh, I just don't ever have time, Like I just don't, I don't ever have time, Like I just feel like I can never get it done Right.
Michaela:And my mom's like, oh, just every Sunday I do, I do this. And I'm like, oh, that seems pretty easy. And now for probably two years I've been every Sunday, I do the things that I do, and I always have a clean floor. I always have, you know, the, the, the bathrooms are always clean every single week. And it's like, oh, I just needed to like have a routine. I had to create structure into my day so that I knew this is what I needed to do and when I needed to do it. And then it becomes so much easier and then, if you, then you just have to stick to it long enough that you just keep sticking to it and it doesn't seem like it's that chaotic anymore.
Laura :And the other thing with that is when you've stuck to it and you know that you can return to it, and you know how quick and easy it is to get it done, you don't have to beat yourself up about skipping it, right? So I think that's another thing that happens is when we are, let's say, I'm telling myself I'm going to exercise every day and then one day I don't exercise. That can throw me off my whole entire thing and I might not exercise again for weeks because I thought, oh well, I didn't exercise that day, so I'm a failure. I didn't, I'm not good at it, like I didn't do the right thing or whatever. I think that language, that thought process of like I missed one day of this routine and so now my whole thing is thrown off and I no longer am on track. But that's not true. If you skip a Sunday or you're out of town, just do it the next week, right, and you can get right back on track.
Michaela:You can. I love that. Well, and I think that too it's important to know, cause some people might be thinking, well, I don't have that thought, Like I don't know, like I just stopped, I just stopped doing it, and it's like, well, sometimes these things may not be fully like conscious awareness, like oh, I'm having this negative thought because there thought, because they become so routine that we really don't have the thought so much. Sometimes it's just the feeling like oh, I messed up, like nope, I'm really just feeling it in my body, and then my thought is I don't want to.
Laura :My thought is I'm not going to do that right now. I'm going to do something else right now. Yeah, then what feeling are we feeling that is leading to that thought? Right, sometimes I think it can be boredom, sometimes it can be disappointment. Yeah, if we feel over I keep using the word overwhelmed I think overwhelm is a real driver of procrastination is too, because it's like I have so much. It's a freeze response.
Laura :So when we go back to our stress responses. We have fight, flight, freeze. Overwhelm creates a freeze response a lot of the time, and so we just don't do anything.
Michaela:Right, we have so much on our, and so we just don't do anything Right.
Laura :We have so much on our plate, and so we just do nothing instead.
Michaela:Right. I also think about denial like oh, this isn't working. Oh, that's not for me, right? This isn't going to work, so I can't.
Laura :I might as well not do it, yeah, or something bad is going to happen to me anyway. So I might as well just skip this, Like I might not. I might as well not even try because I can't lose weight anyway. Or I might as well not even try because you know I'm not going to be able to stick to it.
Michaela:So those thoughts of self-defeating, you know those self-fulfilling prophecies, really really Well and I think, like going back to what your your example about the dishwashing, and like playing on Candy Crush and, um, you know, watching the Tik TOK, right? I think that there is so much more accessibility for those types of distractions that we can procrastinate a lot easier, because we have a lot of things that we can do instead that give us a lot more dopamine.
Laura :It's so easy to distract and procrastinate I have to call the car dealership that I've been procrastinating this all day.
Laura :I'm not going to get it done today, because by the time we're done with this it's going to be closed, and so I missed my window.
Laura :But I've been procrastinating contacting the car dealership because I have a light on or whatever, and I need to figure out what's going on. But in my head I'm like well, I'm just going to have to call them, and then it's going to take a long time, and then I'm going to have to switch out my car, and then I'm going to have to like I'm not going to be able to. You know, maybe it's going to take a week or whatever, right? Or I'm not going to be able to get a loaner car or all these scenarios, these like negative, worst case scenarios, are swimming around in my head, right? So instead I don't call them at all, and I literally had this conversation with myself today. I'm like so is not calling them helping speed up this process that I was just worried is going? No, it isn't, it sure isn't. So I'm like I might as well call them, get the process started and then, once the process is rolling.
Michaela:It'll take as long as it takes and he talks a lot about, like this ant therapy, right, and it's like the first question is can I know that this is true? Can I know that it's gonna take a hundred years? Can I know that something bad is gonna happen? No, can't a hundred percent know that that thing is gonna happen and doesn't make it feel good. So, the cognitive behavioral therapy, let's swap it out for a different thought. Let's just like what you did. You're like no, this isn't helping me call.
Laura :Right, this isn't helping me and I also. I often play the worst case scenario game, like with my clients and with my friends and with my family, like, okay, let's do it. What's the worst case scenario? Um, I have to take my car in and they don't have a loaner car and I have to ask someone to, like, pick me up, or I have to take an Uber, or you know what I mean. Like these are not that bad of problems. Like this isn't. This worst case scenario is not the end of the world. I need to just get it done.
Michaela:Yeah, no, the actual worst case scenario is not the end of the world. I need to just get it done. Yeah, I know the actual worst case scenario is your engine blows up.
Laura :That's the worst case scenario. If I keep procrastinating, I'm trying to make a case for I'm trying to make a case for actually doing the task. That I'm that I'm avoiding. If I was going to make a case for not doing the task, that would certainly be my worst case scenario is that my engine blows up and then then I'm really out of my car and it's really going to take a long time, and then I have a lot bigger problems and it's going to cost more money.
Michaela:So I'm like, oh, that's way worse than calling.
Laura :That is way worse than calling. You're absolutely right, so that is my plan. I will be calling them tomorrow as first thing in the morning. I'll be taking care of business.
Michaela:I love that for you. I also feel like I put a lot of that on Phil, like I don't have to do a lot of that stuff Like he's. He's like oh, the engine looks like it's getting a little hot. I can see that there's something really like. There's no check engine light, nothing's happening. He's already figured out that the engine looks like it's getting a little hot, so he's not a procrastinator, he's like a notice it and take care of it like a hyper-focused kind of person. Right, that's fantastic, great for some people right.
Laura :Yeah, I think that's awesome. You have that balance at home. My son, one of my kids, is a notice it and take care of it, and then my other two kids are major procrastinators and so I don't know how my notice it and take care of it son got his way, but he has figured out life and it is remarkable. And then I've I'm over here like I guess I should do the dishes today and, you know, make sure that my kitchen's clean before I go to bed. I think, um, one of the things that motivates me is actually teaching my kids to notice it and take care of it, because I do admire that quality in people. I know I do too.
Michaela:I do admire that quality in people I know I do too.
Laura :So that's a way to get more motivation too. It's like I'm going to assign that as my purpose. I'm going to be more of a notice it and take care of it person, because that's part of my values. I value that, that quality, I value that in an individual and that makes me feel proud. That makes me feel right. So now I'm going to seek out all the positive feelings that I get from doing the thing that I'm not getting by avoiding the thing Right, because the sense of relief from getting it done before your engine blows up is not quite the same as the sense of pride of getting it done right when you noticed it and took care of it, and that's a change for you and that feels better. So we can notice that when I do this I feel better and it's much better than the possibility of feeling bad. So I avoid it forever and by avoiding it I'm really just holding on to that underlying feeling of bad. I'm just holding it kind of close to me. You know, what we resist persists, right.
Michaela:Yeah, I think that that's really important and I think that you know, another thing that I think of is like doing more mindfulness. I'm part of the strategies to helping us be more connected with the present, with our bodies, and, and I think that if we can be more present, I think that that that helps to connect areas of the brain that are tied to procrastination. Right, Like, I think if we can, if it can help, it will help with connecting that frontal lobe with the rest of the brain. That's, you know, it's it's kind of connecting things and helping you have that good executive function skill because you're living in the present moment versus thinking that's for future me's problem, that's not present me's problem, that's future me's problem. But if you're in the present moment and you just take care you can, I think you're going to be more likely to just take care of things and not procrastinate them and try to distract.
Laura :And you're going to recognize your capabilities and capacity in the present moment. Right, Because when you're thinking about future me's problem, you're not recognizing that present. You can do it right now and present day. You is going to be able to get it done and it's only going to take a couple minutes. So that mindfulness strategy is a really good one. Another strategy that I use is often just like okay, I'm going to do this for three minutes, yes, I'm just.
Laura :I'm just going to do this for three minutes and see how far I get, and then if after three minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes however good you get at this game but I'm just going to do this for a short period of time and then I can take a break, and then if my three minutes in I'm on a roll, well, I'm just going to finish it, Otherwise I can take a break and then I can come back to it, and so time boxing your activities can be a really good strategy to help get things done right away.
Michaela:Yes, I love that. And then I think to like, um, breaking it down into smaller chunks? Right, you don't have to. I talk about cleaning our room and there's a basket of laundry and there's, you know, just like stuff everywhere. You've now created a pile and you have all this stuff everywhere. Right, it feels overwhelming to even think about looking at that, much less trying to figure out where things go right. But that's not today's. You don't have to solve all of the problems today. But you, you know, if you're just like time boxing, you're like 10 minutes, I'm going to work on that. I'm going to just chunk it down. I'm going to just going to try to get the laundry taken care of. I'm just going to put that away, and I'll feel really good about myself if I just can put that, that piece away, you know, and start chunking it down so that you're not having to unpack every single box. If you just moved, right, you don't have to unpack every single box today.
Laura :You know you can do it over a little bit over time. That's very helpful advice because I am staring at boxes and it is very distressing because I'm like I need to get rid of all these boxes. So I thought to myself I'm going to unpack one box per day, or per weekend day, I mean, you know I don't always do it during the week, but like one box per day off work I'm going to unpack and that's it, and it'll take as long as it takes. And if that means it takes, you know, 10 weeks to get this done, then it takes 10 weeks to get this done. But the reality is most of the time, once I get that one box unpacked, I'm like, oh well, that wasn't so bad, let me go ahead and unpack another one, and so in one day I might get three or four boxes unpacked, and so now I'm down to just a handful left and so you can start to see that progress.
Laura :The other another strategy that can be helpful is social engagement. So have a friend who's going to like, cheer you on and like when I first started unpacking, I would text my mom and I would text my boyfriend, or I would text my friends and I'd be like I just unpacked six boxes in like 13 minutes, you know, and then they're just like cool, right, like thumbs up, but it's like it makes me feel good to like share that. It's documented. I did that thing. And so if you have like close friends where you've got your group chat or whatever and you know that people are going to be excited for you, you can like put that out there and just like say I just did all of my laundry that has been sitting there for six weeks. Or you know I just reorganized all the shoes in my closet. Or you know I just donated, you know, 10 pairs of shoes to like the local shelter or whatever Like you can like socially engage in a way that you feel seen and validated.
Laura :And then people are like, oh wow, that's awesome Because, like, everybody's going to be excited about that, you know, and even though it seems kind of silly, that you know, and even though it seems kind of silly, it's not silly.
Michaela:I think that's great. I also think, like how can we become more tolerant of our negative emotions, like if we know that charting makes us feel stressed because it's boring and not fun or like whatever, how do we become more tolerant of those negative emotions surrounding that thing, that task?
Laura :The first thing I thought of was put on music while you do it, because it's like dual attention. So in EMDR we use dual attention to kind of maintain one foot in the present and one foot in the past. And the past that we're referring to in EMDR is like trauma work, like a negative or distressing memory or event. Well, you can add dual attention in real time when you're doing a negative or distressing event, like charting or dishes, putting on music, adding something to your brain, that's putting that foot in the present of like the fun stuff, in the present of like the fun stuff. So you're adding a layer of. It's like putting on gloves. When you're dealing with something hot, like I'm not going to directly touch the hot thing, I'm going to add this, this glove, so that it protects my hands. The music is like protecting your psyche from having to like fully engross yourself in this distressing task or event.
Michaela:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's why I listen to podcasts or read books. Listen to books while I clean my house.
Laura :Yeah, absolutely. Another thing when I'm doing something that I don't want to do, like unpacking or cleaning or putting together furniture, I'll like call a friend and just chat with them while I'm doing it, and it helps to just have someone with you. Yeah, someone is there with you in that moment that you're doing something. That is unpleasant and that's why, like, the social engagement piece is big.
Michaela:Well, and that's kind of what I told, what I tell some of my clients, when we're talking about school, I'm like you need to find a best friend at school, Like you need to find your school friend who's in your class and then you do school together. Right, Even if you're sitting there doing your stuff on your own, you're doing it with that person. They're helping keep you on task. They're like oh, did you remember? You have this paper due, right? You kind of like help each other with remembering things, but also like you're not feeling alone in that when it's really hard.
Laura :Yeah, a well-regulated nervous system is a socially engaged nervous system. So we can't be in defense mode while we're in social engagement mode. We can't be in both at the same time, and so what wires together fires together. If I'm socially engaged in a pleasant way, then my defense system is not online. It's not defending against danger, because I'm socially engaged and I'm not in any danger. I'm in this like safe space with my friend, and so the same is true, for if you are, you know alone all the time what wires together fires together. If you're alone all the time and you're not socially engaged and you're trying to do everything all by yourself, like your social engagement system being offline makes way for your defense system to be online more frequently, so that isolation can kind of trick you into feeling like you have to be defending against these negative emotions all the time.
Michaela:Sure yeah, and that's probably why, since COVID, we're seeing more problems with you know this because people are doing more remote work.
Laura :And when we're doing remote, like even this recording remotely. You know, our engagement system is lit up differently when we're on a screen than when we're in person, and so we're still engaged and we're still getting that access, but we're not quite getting the same amount of social engagement as we are if we're in person. And if we're actually embodying our experience together, Like if we're sitting at the table we're both sitting across the table from each other and we're in the, embodying the same space and experiencing the same space then our engagement system is lit up even more than it would be than when we're here online.
Michaela:Sure, that makes sense.
Laura :Yeah, can we think of any other strategies that help us get things done right away, anything that we missed so far?
Michaela:The other thing that I think about, too, is like doing the heart rate variability training that I just started doing and so in that, like it's through HeartMath and I'm waiting for my certification still but they talk about like some of the strategies that they use actually will help with regulating your nervous system and actually moving you into coherence and actually taking you. Like you, moving you into coherence and actually taking you like you, you literally look at where you're at on a stress state, right, if we're, what emotion are you having? Is it like you know, high sympathetic or or, um, you know, more parasympathetic, um, is it more stress or cortisol? Is it more like DHEA, like? So you're kind of like looking at where you're at in that and trying to figure out where you want to go and you're picking what emotional state you want to be in some of their strategies and so so you're working on adopting a different emotional state from where you are. That's really cool.
Michaela:So that's another thing that you know we can you can do to work on is like work on that heart rate variability and that's basically you know we can you can do to work on is like work on that heart rate variability and that's basically. You know your heart rate variability is like where you are at the highest point and where you are at the lowest point, and so you do a lot of trauma work.
Michaela:Someone who's in a very traumatic trauma, in four state they're going to have a very little heart rate variability. Someone who's having like very anxious distress, they might have too much heart rate or it's all over the place, right, and so we're looking at that highest heart rate to the lowest heart rate and and you can kind of regulate that. Your heart is sending also sending messages to the brain through the vagus nerve and you can. Your body is telling your brain how you're feeling. Yeah, you can create, you can de-stress your body. Then you can de-stress your brain.
Laura :I love that. So breathing techniques and heart rate techniques can be really helpful in calming your mind, and then you can get to a regulated state, and then you can recognize that you have the capacity to tolerate this distress and then you don't have to avoid it anymore. Yes, I love that.
Michaela:Maybe you can do a demo. Yeah, I would love that All right, let's do it.
Laura :Oh, right now. No, oh, okay. No, not right now. Okay, we'll do it the next time in real life. Oh yeah, I will do that, all right. Well, I think that's a good place to leave it today. Thank you so much for listening to. Why Am I Like this? If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share it with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, laura Wood and Michelle Bieber. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick and Thieves, and a special thanks to Ben of Erie Counseling and Coaching and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring this show.
