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I wanted to be a psychologist
since I was a teenager,

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and I spent years pursuing that one goal.

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I opened my private practice
as soon as I was licensed.

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It was a risky move, not getting a day job
at a hospital or a clinic,

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but within one year,
my practice was doing quite well

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and I was making more money
than I ever made before.

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Of course, I was a full-time
student my entire life.

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(Laughter)

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I could have worked at McDonald's

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and made more money
than I ever made before.

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That one-year mark
came on a Friday night in July.

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I walked home to my apartment

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and got into the elevator with a neighbor
who was a doctor in the ER.

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The elevator rose,

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then it shuddered
and stalled between floors.

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And the man who dealt
with emergencies for a living

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began poking at the buttons
and banging on the door, saying,

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"This is my nightmare,
this is my nightmare!"

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And I was like,
"And this is my nightmare."

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(Laughter)

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I felt terrible afterwards, though.

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Because I wasn't panicked

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and I knew what to say to calm him down.

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I was just too depleted to do it,

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I had nothing left to give,
and that confused me.

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After all, I was finally living my dream,

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so why wasn't I happy?

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Why did I feel so burned out?

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For a few terrible weeks,

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I questioned whether I'd made a mistake.

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What if I had chosen the wrong profession?

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What if I had spent my entire life
pursuing the wrong career?

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But then I realized, no,
I still loved psychology.

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The problem wasn't the work
I did in my office.

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It was the hours I spent
ruminating about work

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when I was home.

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I closed the door
to my office every night,

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but the door in my head remained wide-open

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and the stress just flooded in.

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That's the interesting thing
about work stress.

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We don't really experience
much of it at work.

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We're too busy.

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We experience it outside of work,

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when we are commuting,

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when we're home,

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when we're trying to rejuvenate.

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It is important to recover
in our spare time,

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to de-stress and do things we enjoy,

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and the biggest obstruction
we face in that regard is ruminating.

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Because each time we do it,

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we're actually activating
our stress response.

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Now, to ruminate means to chew over.

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The word refers
to how cows digest their food.

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For those of you unfamiliar
with the joys of cow digestion,

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cows chew,

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then they swallow,

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then they regurgitate it back up
and chew it again.

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(Laughter)

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It's disgusting.

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(Laughter)

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But it works for cows.

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(Laughter)

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It does not work for humans.

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Because what we chew over
are the upsetting things,

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the distressing things,

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and we do it in ways
that are entirely unproductive.

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It's the hours we spend
obsessing about tasks we didn't complete

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or stewing about tensions
with a colleague,

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or anxiously worrying about the future,

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or second-guessing decisions we've made.

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Now there's a lot of research
on how we think about work

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when we are not at work,

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and the findings are quite alarming.

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Ruminating about work,

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replaying the same thoughts and worries
over and over again,

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significantly disrupts our ability
to recover and recharge in the off hours.

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The more we ruminate about work
when we're home,

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the more likely we are
to experience sleep disturbances,

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to eat unhealthier foods

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and to have worse moods.

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It may even increase our risk
of cardiovascular disease

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and of impairing
our executive functioning,

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the very skill sets we need
to do our jobs well.

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Not to mention the toll it takes
on our relationships and family lives,

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because people around us can tell
we're checked out and preoccupied.

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Now, those same studies found

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that while ruminating
about work when we're home

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damages our emotional well-being,

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thinking about work in creative
or problem-solving ways does not.

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Because those kinds of thinking
do not elicit emotional distress

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and, more importantly,
they're in our control.

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We can decide whether
to respond to an email

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or leave it till morning,

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or whether we want to brainstorm
about work projects that excite us.

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But ruminations are involuntary.

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They're intrusive.

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They pop into our head
when we don't want them to.

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They upset us when
we don't want to be upset.

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They switch us on
when we are trying to switch off.

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And they are very difficult to resist,

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because thinking of all
our unfinished tasks feels urgent.

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Anxiously worrying about the future
feels compelling.

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Ruminating always feels
like we're doing something important,

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when in fact, we're doing
something harmful.

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And we all do it far more than we realize.

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Back when I was burned out,

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I decided to keep a journal for a week

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and document exactly how much time
I spent ruminating.

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And I was horrified by the results.

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It was over 30 minutes a night
when I was trying to fall asleep.

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My entire commute,
to and from my office --

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that was 45 minutes a day.

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Totally checked out for 20 minutes

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during the dinner party
at a colleague's house.

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Never got invited there again.

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(Laughter)

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And 90 minutes during
a friend's "talent show"

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that, coincidentally, was 90 minutes long.

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(Laughter)

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In total, that week,
it was almost 14 hours.

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That's how much "downtime" I was losing

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to something that actually
increased my stress.

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Try keeping a journal for one week.

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See how much you do it.

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That's what made me realize
that I still loved my work.

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But ruminating was destroying that love

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and it was destroying
my personal life, too.

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So I read every study I could find,

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and I went to war against my ruminations.

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Now, habit change is hard.

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It took real diligence to catch myself
ruminating each time,

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and real consistency
to make the new habits stick.

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But eventually, they did.

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I won my war against ruminating,

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and I'm here to tell you
how you can win yours.

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First, you need clear guardrails.

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You have to define
when you switch off every night,

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when you stop working.

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And you have to be strict about it.

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The rule I made to myself at the time
was that I was done at 8pm.

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And I forced myself to stick to it.

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Now people say to me,

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"Really? You didn't return
a single email after 8pm?

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You didn't even look at your phone?"

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No, not once.

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Because it was the '90s,
we didn't have smartphones.

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(Laughter)

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I got my first smartphone in 2007.

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You know, the iPhone had just come out,

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and I wanted a phone
that was cool and hip.

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I got a BlackBerry.

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(Laughter)

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I was excited, though,

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you know, my first thought was,
"I get my emails wherever I am."

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And 24 hours later,

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I was like, "I get my emails
wherever I am."

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(Laughter)

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I mean, battling ruminations
was hard enough

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when they just invaded our thoughts.

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But now they have this Trojan horse,

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our phones, to hide within.

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And each time we just look
at our phone after hours,

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we can be reminded of work

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and ruminative thoughts can slip out

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and slaughter our evening or weekend.

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So, when you switch off,

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switch off your email notifications.

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And if you have to check them,
decide on when to do it,

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so it doesn't interfere with your plans,

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and do it only then.

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Cell phones aren't the only way
technology is empowering rumination,

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because we have
an even bigger fight coming.

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Telecommuting has increased
115 percent over the past decade.

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And it's expected to increase
even more dramatically going forward.

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More and more of us
are losing our physical boundary

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between work and home.

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And that means that reminders of work

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will be able to trigger ruminations
from anywhere in our home.

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When we lack a physical boundary
between work and home,

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we have to create a psychological one.

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We have to trick our mind

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into defining work and nonwork
times and spaces.

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So here's how you do that.

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First, create a defined
work zone in your home,

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even if it's tiny,

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and try to work only there.

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Try not to work on the living room couch

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or on the bed

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because really, those areas
should be associated

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with living and ... bedding.

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(Laughter)

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Next, when you're working from home,

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wear clothes you only wear
when you're working.

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And then at the end of the day,

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change clothes,

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and use music and lighting
to shift the atmosphere

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from work to home.

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Make it a ritual.

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Now, some of you might think that's silly.

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That changing clothes and lighting

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will convince my mind
I'm no longer at work.

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Trust me, your mind will fall for it.

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Because we are really smart,
our mind is really stupid.

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(Laughter)

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It falls for random associations
all the time, right?

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I mean, that's why Pavlov's dog
began drooling at the sound of a bell.

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And why TED speakers begin sweating
at the sight of a red circle.

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(Laughter)

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Now those things will help,

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but ruminations will still invade.

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And when they do, you have to convert them

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into productive forms of thinking,
like problem-solving.

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My patient Sally is a good example.

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Sally was given
the promotion of a lifetime,

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but it came with a price.

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She was no longer able
to pick up her daughter

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from school every day,

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and that broke her heart.

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So she came up with a plan.

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Every Tuesday and Thursday,
Sally left work early,

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picked up her daughter from school,

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played with her, fed her,
bathed her and put her to bed.

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And then she went back to the office

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and worked past midnight to catch up.

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Only, Sally's rumination journal indicated

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she spent almost every minute
of her quality time with her daughter

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ruminating about how much
work she had to do.

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Ruminations often deny us
our most precious moments.

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Sally's rumination,
"I have so much work to do,"

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is a very common one.

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And like all of them,

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it's useless and it's harmful,

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because we'd never think it
when we're at work, getting stuff done.

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We think it when we're outside of work,

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when we're trying to relax
or do things that we find meaningful,

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like playing with our children,

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or having a date night with our partner.

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To convert a ruminative thought
into a productive one,

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you have to pose it
as a problem to be solved.

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The problem-solving version
of "I have so much work to do"

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is a scheduling question.

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Like, "Where in my schedule can I fit
the tasks that are troubling me?"

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Or, "What can I move in my schedule
to make room for this more urgent thing?"

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Or even, "When do I have 15 minutes
to go over my schedule?"

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All those are problems that can be solved.

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"I have so much work to do" is not.

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Battling rumination is hard,

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but if you stick to your guardrails,

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if you ritualize the transition
from work to home,

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and if you train yourself
to convert ruminations

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into productive forms of thinking,

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you will succeed.

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Banishing ruminations
truly enhanced my personal life,

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but what it enhanced even more

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was the joy and satisfaction
I get from my work.

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Ground zero for creating
a healthy work-life balance

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is not in the real world.

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It's in our head.

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It's with ruminating.

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If you want to reduce your stress
and improve your quality of life,

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you don't necessarily have to change
your hours or your job.

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You just have to change how you think.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)