Dr. Ethan Kross
speaker
968 appearances
6 recordings
6 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard May 2025
Dr. Ethan Kross’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
barrage that barrage of insults and there are things that you can do like i get asked all the time do i ever struggle with my emotions yes i am a human being like last time i checked of course i do but what i am really good at is the moment i get triggered in some way anxiety sadness rejection whatever envy i have tools that i go to immediately i don't have to stop and think uh i
What should I do? And at other points in my life, I did stumble through it all. Didn't quite know what to do. But now because I understand how these work, I go right to them. They don't work every single time. 60% of the time, the first plan, the first three tools that I'll automatically implement, they get the job done. What about the other 40%? Well, I go deeper into the toolbox.
I go to layer on a few other tools. That may nudge me up to 80%. What about the other 20%? Well, there's always room for prayer. I'm kidding. But it's not foolproof, but it's pretty good. Because I have plans, I know what to actually do. And that's just not something that I think a lot of people have. And I think that's the opportunity here for really having impact. I think that was...
Okay, so sensory shifters focus on the senses, hearing, sight, sound, touch. Those are some... Smell, those are some of the big ones. These are all levers that you can strategically pull to... push your emotions in another direction. We talked a little bit about how music can do it.
You know, in terms of just blindness, I will say I was totally blind to the power of sensation prior to doing some research in this space. And now that I know it, it just changes the way I operate on a daily basis. Like here's my little emotion regulation machine that I keep in my pocket and It is loaded up with playlists to push my emotions in different directions.
I have been listening to music since I'm five years old. I've said this during previous interviews, so I don't know if you've heard this or not, but do you want to guess, if you don't know, what my first tape was? This was a cassette record. Profile me. It's fine. What do you think? Stevie Ray Vaughan. MC Hammer, you can't.
Well, but I've always been very eclectic because after that, it was Madonna's Immaculate Collection. And I'm all over the place. I love lots of music. But I've been listening to music all my life, and I never thought to use it strategically as a tool to push my emotions around until I have this experience with my daughter. I'm coaching soccer several years ago.
I look forward to this every weekend. It's like my release. Not because I'm an obnoxious soccer dad, mind you. It's just very different from my day job. And this one morning, she's just in a I think I could say it without hurting her feelings. She'd admit that she's in a foul mood, right? She just doesn't want to go play. She's moping around.
I do everything I can to break her out of this funk unsuccessfully. I succumb. I'm like, all right, this is going to be a long morning. We get in the car. As we're driving on the way to the soccer field, one of my favorite songs comes on the radio, Journeys Don't Stop Believin'. I start jamming out. I'm like bopping my head. I'm leaning into the song.
And normally when I do this, she will look at me with disdain because I'm embarrassing her. But I look at her in the rear view mirror and I see she is, she's kind of getting into it as well. This song had rerouted our collective experience in that vehicle. She went on to score a ton of goals. It was a great day. Since that moment,
This is one of the first things I will do if I find myself moving in a direction I don't want to be moving. Now, what's really interesting to me about music, we often use this tool to regulate ourselves, but in a way that is not consistent with our goals. And what do I mean by that?
You ever get sad and find yourself, rather than listening to Journey, you go to... Well, Journeys Don't Stop Believing, you go to another one of their songs, or you go to Adele or some other music to just kind of bring you down a little bit more. Lewis Capaldi is my go-to, yeah. Okay, so now... We talked earlier about there being a functionality to sadness.
And if your goal is to stay in that emotional state because it's serving you well, it's helping you reframe things in ways that are ultimately productive, great. Keep listening to that music. But if your goal is to not feel sad, Don't go listen to that song. Go in the opposite direction. So, you know, that's a little insight into how sensation can work.
But all of the sensory channels can be leveraged to shift your emotions. You don't want to abuse them because they are so powerful. We often reflexively go to them. There are obviously some unhealthy forms of sensory experiences that we can engage in that can push us in the wrong direction. Emotional overeating as an example.
So you want to be aware that this is a tool and you want to wield it carefully. Probably the easiest low effort tool that exists in our toolbox are these sensory shifters. And that's just one category. Um, should we shift to another one?
I do one of those. I do a fist bump. I mean, it just it signals that there's someone there who's on your team. Right. And I've not gotten any HR complaints from doing that just yet. But like, you know, an innocuous fist bump, it's just like it's like shaking a hand almost right without the concern about transmission of germs. Right.
But certainly where it is touch used most in my life, it's with my loved ones, my friends. Like if I see my wife is dealing with some stuff, like I'll go over to her and I'll just kind of rub her back and I'll do the same for my kids. And I value when they do that for me.
Yeah, there's some work suggesting that soothing sensory experiences of the sort that you're describing can have benefit as well.
I don't know studies that have compared the different kinds of sensory experiences, but if you ask me for my professional opinion, yes.
We've got to get you in the PhD program.
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