Why we all need to practice emotional first aid

I grew up with my identical twin,

who was an incredibly loving brother.

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

at spotting favoritism.

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

And clearly, I wasn't starving.

(Laughter)

When I became a psychologist, I began to
notice a favoritism of different kind,

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

I spent nine years at university earning
my Doctorate in Psychology,

and I can't tell you how many people
looked at my business card and said,

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

as I it should say that on my card.

(Laughter)

This is the favoritism we
show the body over the mind.

I see it everywhere.

I recently was at a friend's house,

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

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

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

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

got back on the stool and reach out
for a box of band-aids

to put one on his cut.

Now this kid could barely
tie his shoe laces,

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

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

We all know have to maintain
our physical health

and have to practice
dental hygiene, right ?

We know it since we were five-years-old.

But what do we know about maintaining
our psychological health?

Well, nothing.

What do we teach our children
about emotional hygiene?

Nothing.

How is it? We spend more time
taking care of our teeth

than we do our minds.

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

than our psychological health?

You know we sustain psychological injuries

even more often than we do physical ones,

injuries like failure or rejections,
or loneliness.

And they can also get
worse if we ignore them,

and they can impact our lives
in dramatic ways.

And yet, even though there are
scientifically proven techniques

we could use to treat these
kinds of psychological injuries .

We don't.

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

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

Can you imagine say that to
somebody who broken a leg,

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

(Laughter)

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

It's time we make them more equal.

More like twins.

Speaking of which, my brother
is also a psychologist.

So he's not a real doctor, either.

(Laughter)

We didn't study together though.

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

is move across Atlantic to New York City
to get my doctorate in psychology.

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

and the separation was
brutal for both of us.

But while he remained among
family and friends,

I was alone in a new country.
We miss each other terribly .

We missed each other terribly,

but international phone calls were
really expensive then

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

When our birthday rolled around,

and it was the first we wouldn't
be spending together.

We decide to splurge, and that week,

we decided to talk for ten minutes.

I spend morning passing around
my room, waiting for him to call.

And waiting, and waiting,
but the phone didn't ring.

Given the time difference, I assumed,

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

There were no cell phones then.

But he didn't.

And I began to realize, after
being away for over 10 months,

he no longer missed me
the way I missed him.

I knew he would call in the morning,

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

I woke up the next morning.

I glanced down the phone, and
I realized I had kicked it off the hook

when pacing the day before.

I stumbled out off bed,

I put the phone back on the receiver,
and it ringed a second later,

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

(Laughter)

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

Now I tried to explain what
happened, but he said,

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

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

He was right. Why didn't I call him?

I didn't have answer then,
but I do today,

and it's simple one: loneliness

Loneliness creates a
deep psychological wound,

one that distort our perceptions
and scrambles our thinking.

It makes us believe that those around
us care much less than they actually do.

It make us really afraid to reach out,

because why set yourself up
for rejection and heartache

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

I was in the grips of real
loneliness back then,

but I was surrounded by people all day,
so it never occurred to me.

But loneliness is defined
purely subjectively.

It depends solely on whether you feel

emotionally or socially disconnected
from those around you.

And I did.

There is a lot research on loneliness,
and all of it is horrifying.

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

I am not kidding.

Chronic loneliness increases your
likelihood of an early death

by 14 percent,14 percent.

Loneliness causes high blood pressure,
high cholesterol,

It even suppress the functioning
of your immune system,

making you vulnerable to all kinds
of illnesses and diseases.

In fact, scientists have concluded
that taken together,

chronic loneliness poses as
significant a risk

for your longterm health and
longevity as cigarette smoking.

Now cigarette packs come with warning
saying, "This will kill you."

But the loneliness doesn't.
and that 's why it's so important

we prioritize our psychological health.
we practice the emotional hygiene .

Because you can't treat
a psychological wound

if you don't even know you are injured.

Loneliness isn't the only
psycological wound

that distorted our perception that misleads us.

Failure does that as well.

I once visited daycare center where I saw
three toddlers

play with identical plastic toys,

you have to slide the red button,
a cute dog would pop out.

one little girl try pulling
the purple button, then pushing it,

then she just sat back and looked at box
with her lower lip trembling.

The little boy next to her, watches
this happen, and then turn to

his box, and bust it out
without even touching it.

mean while, another little girl tried
everything she could think of

until she slid the little red button

and the cute dog pops out,
and she squealed with delight.

so three toddlers with identical
plastic toys

but very different reactions to failure.

The first two toddlers was perfectly
capable of sliding the red button,

the only thing that prevent them from

succeeding was their mind tricked them
into believe they could not.

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

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

whenever we encounter frustrations
and setbacks, are you aware

how your mind reacts to failure?
you need to be.

Because if your mind tries to convince
you that you are incapable of something

and you believe it, like those
two toddlers,

You begin to feel helpless, you
stop try it too soon or

You won't even try it at all.
then you will be even more convinced

that you can't succeed. You see,
that's why so many people

function below their
actual potential.

because somewhere along the way,
sometimes a single failure

convinced them they couldn't succeed,

and they believe it.

once we become to convinced of something,

it's very difficult to change our mind.

I learn that lesson the hard way.

When I was a teenager
with my brother

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

when the police car stopped us.
they had a robbery in the area,

they were looking for suspect. The
officer approach the car,

and shooting the flash light on the
driver, and my brother in

the front seat, and then me,
his eyes open wide,

and he said
where I seeing your face before,

(laughing)

and I said in the front seat.

(laughing)

but that made no sense
to him what so ever.

so he thought I was in drugs.

So he dragged me out of the car,
he searched me, he marches me

to the police car, Only when he
verified I don't have a police record.

and I show him I had a twin
in the front seat,

but even we were driving away,
you could see

by the look on his face, He was
convinced

I was getting away with something.

Our mind is hard to change once
we become convinced,

so it might be very natural to feel
demoralized and defeated

after you failed.

But you can not
allow yourself to be convinced

that you can't succeed.

You have to
fight this feeling of helplessness

You have to gain control over the situation,

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

Our minds and our feelings,
they are not the trust worthing

friends we thought they were,
They are more like a

really moody friend.
Totally support one minute,

and really unpleasant the next.

I once work with this woman who
has twenty years marriage

end extremely ugly divorce was
finally ready for her first date,

She has met this guy online,
he seems nice and he seems successful,

and most importantly, he seems
really into her.

She was really excited,and she
bought new dress, and

they met at upscale New York
city bar for a drink,

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

I'm not interested and walks out.

Rejection is extremely painful.
the woman was so hurt,

she could't move. All she could do
is call her friend,

here's what friend says, well,
what you expect,

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

why would a handsome successful
man like that

ever go out with a looser like you.

shocking why a friend would be so cruel.

but it would be much less shocking
if I told you it wan't a friend

who said that, It was the woman
said to herself.

and that's something we all do.

Especially up to a rejection, We
all start to thinking of

all our faults and all our shortcomings
what we wish we were,

what we wish we were to be called
ourself's names,

Maybe not as harshly, but
we all do it.

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

why would we want to go
and damage it even further.

Why? we wouldn't get physical injury
worse on purpose .

We wouldn't get cut on your arm
and decide,

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

But we do that with our psychological
injury all the time.

Why? Because poor emotional hygiene.
Because we don't priotize our

Psychological health. We know
from dozens of studies,

When your self-esteem is lower,

you are more vulnerable, distress and

to anxiety that failures and
rejections hurt more,

and it takes longer to recover
from them.

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

yourself's esteem, not join fight
club and beat it into a perk.

when you are in a emotional pain,

treat yourself with same compassion
you expected to make truly good friend .

We have to catch our un-healthy
psychological habits and change them.

One of un-healthiest most common is
called Rumination.

To ruminate, means to chew over.
It's when your boss's yells at you,

or your professor makes you feel stupid,
In class, you have big fight

with your friend, and you just can't replay
the scene in your head for days,

sometimes for weeks then. Now ruminating
about upsetting event in this way

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

Because by spending so much time
focus on upsetting, negative thoughts,

You are actually putting yourself
at significant risk for developing

clinical depression, alcoholism, eating
disorders and even cardiac vescular

Cardio vesicular disease. The problem
is the urge to ruminate can feel

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

I know this for a fact. because
little over a year ago,

I developed the habit myself.

You see my twin brother was diagnosed

with stage III Non-Hodgkin's lymphomaďź

his cancer was extremly aggressive ,

He has invisible tumors all over his body.

and he has to start harsh douse
of Chemo-Therapy,

and I couldn't stop thinking about
what he is going through,

I could't stop thinking how much
he is suffering. Even though

he never complained not once.

He has this incredible
positive attitude.

His psychological health is amazing.
I was physically healthy,

but Psychologically i was a mass.
but I knew what to do.

Studies tell us, even a two minutes
distraction is sufficient to break the

break the urge to Ruminate in
that moment.

So each time i had worrying and upsetting

negative thought, I force myself to concentrate
on something else

until the urge passed,
and within one week,

My whole outlook changed, and
became more positive and more helpful.

Nine weeks after he started Chemo-Therapy,
my brother had Cat-scan,

I was by his side
when he got back his results.

All the tumors were gone. He still has
three more Rounds Chemo-Therapy to go.

But we knew he would recover.

this picture was taken two weeks ago.

By taking action when you lonely,

by changing your response to failure,

by protecting yourself esteem,

by battling negative thinking,

You won't just heal your psychological
wound,

you will bulid your emotional resilience,
you will thrive.

You know hundred years ago,
People began practicing personal Hygiene,

and life expectancy rates rose by
over fifty percent in

just matter of decades. I believe
our quality of life

could rise just as dramatically if

we all begin practicing
emotional Hygiene.

Can you imaging, can you imaging
what the world would be like

if everyone was
psychologically healthier,

if there were less loneliness,
and less depression.

If people knew how to overcome
failure,if they feel better

about themselves,
and more empowered,

if they were happier, and more fulfilled,
I can, because

That's the world I want live in,
and that's the world

my brother wants to live in as well.
If you just become informed,

and change a few simple habits, well

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

Thank you very much.