Dr. Majid Fotuhi

I have two daughters in college and my younger daughter has, and both of my girls come to my lecture sometimes ever since they were little.

My younger daughter was in second grade

and she was supposed to read a simple book and write a review about the book, second grade.

And I realized that two days later, the book was due, her homework was due and she hadn't started working on it.

I said, sweetie, you haven't started reading the book, it's due in two days.

And she said, dad, you're stressing me out and that's not good for my hippocampus.

And I think that's a good way to look at things.

Is the stress that happening to you worth this damage in your brain?

Are you, can you diffuse the situation?

Can you lower the expectation?

So that's one mindset.

The mindset that stress is bad for me, and I'm gonna take care of my, I'm gonna take ownership of my problems, and I'm gonna try to reduce my stress as much as possible.

Obviously, there's a leak in the basement, there's a car accident, you know, family members with medical problems.

There are real, the house is on fire.

There are real stresses.

I'm not saying there's no stress.

but

I would argue that more than 80% of stresses that people feel on a daily basis are self-generated.

Their own mind generates the stress they're experiencing.

There's a much easier way to say, I'm not gonna stress about this.