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I grew up with my identical twin,

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who was an incredibly loving brother.

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Now, one thing about being a twin
is it makes you an expert

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at spotting favoritism.

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If his cookie was even slightly bigger
than my cookie, I had questions.

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And clearly I wasn't starving.

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(Laughter)

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When I became a psychologist,

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I began to notice favoritism
of a different kind.

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And that is how much more
we value the body than we do the mind.

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I spent nine years at University
earning my doctorate in Psychology,

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and I can't tell you how many people
look at my business card and say,

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"Oh, a psychologist,
so not a real doctor."

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As if it should say that on my card.

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(Laughter)

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This favoritism we show
the body over the mind,

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I see it everywhere.


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I recently was at a friends' house,

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and their five-year-old
was getting ready for bed.

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He was standing on a stool
by the sink brushing his teeth,

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when he slipped, and scratched his leg
on the stool when he fell.

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He cried for a minute,
but then he got back up,

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got back on the stool
and reached out for a box of Band-Aids

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to put one on his cut.

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Now this kid could barely
tie his shoelaces,

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but he knew you have to cover a cut,
so it doesn't become infected,

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and you have to care for your teeth
by brushing twice a day.

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We all know how to maintain
our physical health

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and how to practice dental hygiene, right?

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We've known it
since we were five years old.

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But what do we know about maintaining
our psychological health?

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Well, nothing.

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What do we teach our children
about emotional hygiene?

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Nothing.

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How is it we spend more time

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taking care our teeth
than we do our minds?

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Why is it our physical health
is so much more important to us

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than our psychological health?

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You know we sustain psychological injuries



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even more often than we do physical ones.

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Injuries like failure or rejection,
or loneliness,

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and they can also
get worse if we ignore them.

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And they can impact our lives
in dramatic ways.

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And yet, even though there are
scientifically proven techniques

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we could use to treat these kinds
of psychological injuries, we don't.

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It doesn't even occur to us
that we should.

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"Oh, you're feeling depressed,
just shake it off, it's all in your head."

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Can you imagine saying that
to somebody with a broken leg,

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"Just walk it off, it's all in your leg."

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(Laughter)

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It is time we close the gap between
our physical and our psychological health.

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It's time we made them more equal.

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More like twins.

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Speaking of which,
my brother is also a psychologist.

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So he's not a real doctor, either.

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(Laughter)

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We didn't study together, though.

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In fact, the hardest thing I've ever done
in my life

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is move across the Atlantic
to New York city

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to get my doctorate in psychology.

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We were apart then,
for the first time in our lives,

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and the separation
was brutal for both of us.

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But while he remained
among family and friends,

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I was alone in a new country.

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We missed each other terribly,

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but international phone calls
were really expensive then,

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and we could only afford
to speak for 5 minutes a week.

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When our birthday rolled around,

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it was the first
we wouldn't be spending together,

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we decide to splurge,

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and that week
we would talk for ten minutes.

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I spent the morning pacing around my room,

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waiting for him to call,

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and waiting,

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and waiting,

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but the phone didn't ring.

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Given the time difference, I assumed

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"OK, he's out with friends,
he will call later."

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There were no cell phones then.

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But he didn't.

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And I began to realize,
after being away for over ten months,

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he no longer missed me
the way I missed him.

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And I knew he would call in the morning,

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but that night was one of the saddest
and longest nights of my life.

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I woke up the next morning,

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I glanced down at the phone,

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and I realized
I had kicked it off the hook

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when pacing the day before.

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I stumbled out of bed,

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I put the phone
back on the receiver,

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and it rang a second later,

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and it was my brother,
and, boy, was he pissed.

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(Laughter)

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It was the saddest and longest 
night of his life as well.

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I tried to explain what happened,
but he said,

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"I don't understand,
if you saw I wasn't calling you,

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why didn't you just pick up the phone
and call me?"

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He was right.

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Why didn't I call him?

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I didn't have an answer then,
but I do today, and it's a simple one.

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Loneliness.

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Loneliness creates
a deep psychological wound.

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One that distorts our perceptions

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and scrambles our thinking,

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It makes us believe

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those around us care much less
than they actually do.

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It makes us really afraid to reach out,

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because why set yourself up
for rejection and heartache,

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when your heart is already aching
more than you can stand?

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I was in the grips of real loneliness
back then,

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but I was surrounded by people all day,

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so it never occurred to me.

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But loneliness, is defined purely,
subjectively.

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It depends solely on whether you feel

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emotionally or socially disconnected
from those around you.

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And I did.

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There's a lot research on loneliness


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and all of it is horrifying.

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Loneliness won't just make you miserable,
it will kill you.

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I am not kidding.

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Chronic loneliness increases your
likelihood of an early death

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by 14 percent.

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Fourteen percent.

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Loneliness causes high blood pressure,
high cholesterol,

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it even suppresses
the functioning of your immune system,

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making you vulnerable to all kinds
of illnesses and diseases.

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In fact, scientist have concluded
that taken together,

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chronic loneliness poses
a significant a risk

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for your longterm health and longevity
as cigarette smoking.

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Now, cigarette packs come with warnings
saying, "This could kill you."

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But loneliness doesn't.

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And that's why it's so important

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we prioritize our psychological health.

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That we practice emotional hygiene.

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Because you can't treat
a psychological wound

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if you don't even know you are injured.

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[Pay attention to emotional pain]

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Loneliness isn't the only
psychological wound

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that distorts our perceptions
and misleads us.

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[Failure]

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Failure does that as well.

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I once visited a daycare center
where I saw three toddlers

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play with identical plastic toys.

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You had to slide the red button,
and a cute doggy would pop out.

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One little girl tried pulling
the purple button, then pushing it,

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and then she just sat back
and looked at the box

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with her lower lip trembling.

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The little boy next to her,
watched this happen,

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then turned to his box,
and burst into tears

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without even touching it.

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Meanwhile, another little girl
tried everything she could think of

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until she slid the red button,

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the cute doggy popped out,
and she squealed with delight.

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So three toddlers
with identical plastic toys

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but with very different
reactions to failure.

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The first two toddlers were perfectly
capable of sliding a red button.

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The only thing that prevented them
from succeeding

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was their mind tricked them
into believing they could not.

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Now, adults get tricked this way
as well all the time.

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In fact we all have a default set
of feelings and beliefs

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that gets triggered whenever
we encounter frustrations and setbacks.

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Are you aware of how
your mind reacts to failure?

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You need to be.

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Because if your mind tries to convince you

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you're incapable of something

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and you believe it,

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then like those two toddlers,
you'll begin to feel helpless,

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and you'll stop trying too soon
or you won't even try at all.

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And then you will be even more convinced
you can't succeed.

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You see, that's why so many people

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function below their actual potential.

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Because somewhere along the way,
sometimes a single failure

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convinced them they couldn't succeed,

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and they believed it.

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Once we become convinced of something,

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it's very difficult to change our mind.

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I learned that lesson the hard way.

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When I was a teenager with my brother.

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We were driving with friends
down a dark road at night,

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when the police car stopped us.

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There had been a robbery in the area,
they were looking for suspects.

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The officer approached the car,

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and he shined his flashlight
on the driver.

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Then on my brother in the front seat,
and then on me.

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And his eyes opened wide, and he said,

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"Where have I seen your face before?"

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(Laughter)

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And I said, "In the front seat."

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(Laughter)

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But that made no sense to him whatsoever.

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So now he thought I was on drugs.

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(Laughter)

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So he drags me out of the car,
he searches me,

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he marches me over to the police car,

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and only when he verified
I don't have a police record,

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could I show him I had a twin
in the front seat.

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But even as we were driving away,
you could see by the look on his face,

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he was convinced
I was getting away with something.

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Our mind is hard to change
once we become convinced.

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So it might be very natural to feel
demoralized and defeated after you fail.

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But you cannot allow yourself
to become convinced you can't succeed.

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You have to fight
feelings of helplessness.

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You have to gain control
over the situation,

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and you have to break this kind
of negative cycle before it begins.

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[Stop emotional bleeding]

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Our minds and our feelings,

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they are not the trustworthy friends
we thought they were.

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They are more like a really moody friend,

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who can be totally supportive one minute,
and really unpleasant the next.

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I once worked with this woman

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who after 20 years of marriage
and an extremely ugly divorce,

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was finally ready for her first date.

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She had met this guy online,
he seemed nice and successful,

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and most importantly,
he seemed really into her.

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So she was very excited,
and she bought a new dress,

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and they met at an upscale
New York City bar for a drink.

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Ten minutes into the date,
the man stands up and says,

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"I'm not interested", and walks out.

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[Rejection]

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Rejection is extremely painful.

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The woman was so hurt,
she could't move.

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All she could do is call a friend.

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And here's what the friend said,
"Well, what do you expect,

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you have big hips,
you have nothing interesting to say,

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why would a handsome,
successful man like that

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ever go out with a loser like you?"

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Shocking, right,
that a friend could be so cruel.

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But it would be much less shocking

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if I told you it wasn't
the friend who said that.

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It's what the woman said to herself.

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And that's something we all do.

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Especially after a rejection.

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We all start thinking of all our faults
and all our shortcomings

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what we wish we were,
what we wish we weren't,

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we call ourselves names.

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Maybe not as harshly,
but we all do it.

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It's interesting that we do, because
our self-esteem is already hurting.

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Why would we want to go
and damage it even further?

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We wouldn't make a physical injury
worse on purpose.

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You wouldn't get a cut on your arm
and decide,

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"Oh, I know, I am going to take a knife
and see how much deeper I can make it."

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But we do that with psychological injuries
all the time.

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Why? Because of poor emotional hygiene.

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Because we don't prioritize
our psychological health.

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We know from dozens of studies,

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that when your self-esteem is lower,

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you are more vulnerable
to stress and to anxiety,

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that failures and rejections hurt more,

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and it takes longer to recover from them.

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So when you get rejected,
the first thing you should be doing

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is to revive your self-esteem,

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not join Fight Club
and beat it into a pulp.

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When you are in emotional pain,

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treat yourself with the same compassion

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you would expect from a truly good friend.

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[Protect your self-esteem]

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We have to catch our unhealthy
psychological habits and change them.

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One of the unhealthiest and most common
is called rumination.

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To ruminate, means to chew over.

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It's when your boss yells at you,

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or your professor makes you
feel stupid in class,

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or you have a big fight with a friend,

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and you just can't stop replaying
the scene in your head for days,

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sometimes for weeks on end.

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Now ruminating
about upsetting events in this way

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can easily become a habit,
and it's a very costly one.

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Because by spending so much time

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focused on upsetting
and negative thoughts,

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you are actually putting yourself
at significant risk for developing

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00:14:10,580 --> 00:14:13,631
clinical depression, alcoholism,

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eating disorders
and even cardiovascular disease.

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The problem is, the urge to ruminate

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can feel really strong, really important,
so it's a difficult habit to stop.

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I know this for a fact.

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Because little over a year ago,
I developed the habit myself.

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You see my twin brother was diagnosed

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with stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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His cancer was extremly aggressive,

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he had visible tumors all over his body.

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And he had to start a harsh course
of chemotherapy.

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And I couldn't stop thinking
about what he was going through,

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I could't stop thinking
about how much he was suffering.

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Even though he never complained, not once.

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He had this incredibly positive attitude.

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His psychological health was amazing.

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00:15:06,918 --> 00:15:11,345
I was physically healthy,
but psychologically I was a mess.

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00:15:12,014 --> 00:15:13,563
But I knew what to do.

288
00:15:13,563 --> 00:15:16,933
Studies tell us
that even a two minute distraction

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00:15:16,933 --> 00:15:20,867
is sufficient to break the urge
to ruminate in that moment.

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00:15:21,055 --> 00:15:24,305
And so each time I had a worrying,
upsetting, negative thought,

291
00:15:24,305 --> 00:15:28,664
I forced myself to concentrate
on something else until the urge passed.

292
00:15:28,698 --> 00:15:33,263
And within one week,
my whole outlook changed,

293
00:15:33,263 --> 00:15:36,251
and became more positive
and more hopeful.

294
00:15:36,693 --> 00:15:38,505
[Battle negative thinking]

295
00:15:38,505 --> 00:15:42,649
Nine weeks after he started chemotherapy,
my brother had a CAT scan,

296
00:15:42,744 --> 00:15:45,880
and I was by his side
when he got the results.

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00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,497
All the tumors were gone.

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00:15:48,497 --> 00:15:51,654
He still had three more rounds
of chemotherapy to go.

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But we knew he would recover. 


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00:15:54,306 --> 00:15:57,716
This picture was taken two weeks ago.

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By taking action when you're lonely,

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by changing your responses to failure,

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by protecting yourself-esteem,

304
00:16:09,157 --> 00:16:11,649
by battling negative thinking,

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00:16:11,649 --> 00:16:14,957
you won't just heal
your psychological wounds,

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you will build emotional resilience,
you will thrive.

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00:16:19,673 --> 00:16:23,704
A hundred years ago,
people began practicing personal hygiene.

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00:16:23,768 --> 00:16:28,423
And life expectancy rates rose
by over fifty percent

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00:16:28,423 --> 00:16:30,584
in just a matter of decades.

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00:16:30,584 --> 00:16:34,468
I believe our quality of life
could rise just as dramatically

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if we all began practicing
emotional hygiene.

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Can you imagine,
what the world would be like

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00:16:42,182 --> 00:16:44,476
if everyone was psychologically healthier?

314
00:16:44,476 --> 00:16:48,427
If there were less loneliness,
and less depression?

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00:16:48,427 --> 00:16:51,099
If people knew how to overcome failure?

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00:16:51,099 --> 00:16:54,413
If they felt better about themselves,
and more empowered?

317
00:16:54,413 --> 00:16:57,652
if they were happier, and more fulfilled?

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00:16:57,652 --> 00:17:00,826
I can, because that's the world
I want to live in,

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00:17:02,226 --> 00:17:06,021
and that's the world
my brother wants to live in as well.

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If you just become informed,
and change a few simple habits,

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well that's the world we can all live in.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)