Enthusiastically Spiritual

Mindfulness, Meditation & Gratitude with Dr. Greg Hammer

January 24, 2023 Teresa Shantz Season 2 Episode 74
Enthusiastically Spiritual
Mindfulness, Meditation & Gratitude with Dr. Greg Hammer
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Show Notes Transcript

One cannot truly be happy if he or she does not have gratitude. If you’ve ever wondered how can you embrace more gratitude in your life, then this episode is for you. Teresa talks with Dr. Greg Hammer about mindfulness, the pursuit of happiness, and the GAIN method. The GAIN method (gratitude, acceptance, intention, non-judgment) is a meditation technique that helps people be more present and thus happier in their lives. Pair this with mindfulness and you might just learn the secret of living a happy life. 

Greg Hammer, MD is a Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, pediatric intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist, and the author of GAIN without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals (May 15, 2020). Dr. Hammer is a health enthusiast and meditator, utilizing a non-duality and mindfulness-based approach, including the GAIN method. 

In this episode you’ll learn: 

  • The importance of being non-judgmental. When you notice yourself in a moment of judgment, catch it and bring yourself back to the present. Course correct and move out of the judgment zone. Now instead of a potentially negative experience, it is a neutral experience and perhaps even a positive one. 
  • We can rewire our brains. We have a natural negativity bias that affects our thinking. Luckily our brains also have neural plasticity, which allows us to rewire our brains away from a negativity bias. By practicing a meditation method such as GAIN, we can rewire our brain one decision at a time. 
  • Many people believe meditation is sitting still for 30 minutes without moving, without thinking. This is not necessarily true. There are many ways to meditate. Explore and find what works for you. 

Connect with Dr. Greg Hammer:

Episode Transcripts

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Hi! I’m Teresa. I have created this podcast to support "unseen" aspects of your life. You can call this the spiritual side. The podcast offers interviews of authors, healers, and thought leaders, for a positive higher spiritual perspective. Including ourselves! Our mission is to stimulate your inner wisdom, meaning, and enthusiasm for your unique journey.

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00:00 

However, we can all notice that when we're sitting and relaxing into the present moment, there is a tendency for our brains to drift elsewhere. Oh, what's the list of things I need to do today? Oh, what happened yesterday, I hope they're not angry with me, and is a very strong tendency to be hyper focused on the past and the future. Happiness, on the other hand, lives in the present moment. If we contemplate all of the most happy times in our lives, we were not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. We were right there right then. 

00:56 

Welcome back to enthusiastically spiritual, I'm your host Teresa. mindfulness, meditation and gratitude are three of the hot subjects on the list in the world of spirituality and self care. But how to embrace those words in your life and some of the outer realms seem to be all about fear, anxiety and stress. My guest in this episode is here to share what he has put together around them, and how you can embrace more gratitude in your life. His name is Dr. Greg hammer, and he is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, pediatric intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist and the author of gain without pain, the happiness handbook for healthcare professionals, a member of the Stanford well MD initiative. Dr. Hammer is currently the chair of the physician wellness task force for the California Society of anesthesiologist. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer on wellness at institutions worldwide, and teaches gain to medical students, residents and fellows at Stanford. Dr. Hammer hammer is a health enthusiast and meditator utilizing a non duality and mindfulness based approach, including the gain method. Welcome, Dr. Greg hammer. 

02:14 

Great to be with you, Theresa. 

02:16 

Okay, so the first question, what makes you enthusiastic about getting out of bed in the morning? 02:26

02:26 

So many things. Well, let's dive into that. 

02:30 

Opening the blinds and seeing the beautiful light, which is generally present here in Northern California. We talked about being from the Midwest, which I am as well as where you're living, although a little further away from Iowa. I'm from the Chicago area, the sky was never as blue as it is here. So opening the blinds and seeing the sky is one thing. And, you know, just being alive, actually, you know, it's another day of life on the planet. And so that's enough to get me out of bed. 

03:06 

I feel Yeah, yeah. It's like it. That's that's a big gratitude right there, right? Yes, absolutely. So how did you arrive at this place of supporting others with mindfulness and finding gratitude in your life? 

03:17 

I think that what got me to where I am now is initially, my long history of health, enthusiasm, as you put it. You know, I've been longtime physical fitness enthusiast, longtime meditator. I had an undergraduate degree in Nutritional Science, I've always been very interested in human biology and nutrition. And within the last 10 years or so, what has happened in the healthcare profession is that due to chronic stress and a litany of changes in the industry, if you will, the stress level and rate or prevalence of burnout has really increased among physicians and other health care workers. So Stanford convened a wellness program, which I joined. And then I was asked to give a talk at a meeting and national meeting based on my experience with our wellness program on burnout and how to prevent it and treat it. And I found that I was doing one talk after another and then I had some sabbatical time, and I thought, well, what's the best use of time for the next six months? And I decided that in addition to speaking about wellness, I would write a book about it. So I did, and really, the book embraces what I think are the core principles of happiness and in the process, reduction of stress. And, you know, we can talk about what my theses are in terms of what I think comprises happiness what leads us to happiness, why we're not happier. But as I've gone along this path of life, I have had several light bulbs go off along the way. And, you know, most recently about 10 or 12 years ago when I sort of stumbled on to a way of thinking called non duality, went to a spiritual retreat, and have been following that teacher ever since. And I think that just the truth, that is common to all philosophies, and religions, has become more clear to me. And so I'm, I'm enthusiastic about radiating that. And those principles that really contribute to peace and happiness. I 

05:46 

love to hear that, especially around the health care facility, and the people that are out there doing health care, because I know it's declined, especially in the last couple of years. And we need more and more people, you know, coming forward, and being able to really be mindful and really have self care as they move through and helping others because as we know, and you know, my being mindful

is that it all begins with me. And it begins with you as a person and soul. And then from there, you can radiate. You can radiate out that enthusiasm, that wellness, that mindfulness, and then helping others outside of that. 

06:17 

Absolutely true. Yes, it starts with the individual. And I'm currently writing a book about teenagers. And I think one of the main points is that for parents to raise happy teenagers, the parents themselves must find peace and happiness. And I think that's really the place of origin for influencing young people today. 

06:43 

Without a doubt, start at home, right? Absolutely. So let's talk a little about your book and gain. So what is that? 

06:52 

Gain is an acronym for what I think are the four real pillars of being present and therefore happy. And the letters G A I N, represent gratitude, which I think we can all agree is fundamental to happiness. We can be poor and happy, we can be physically challenged and happy, but you'll never see somebody who's ungrateful, unhappy. The A and gain is acceptance. And this is an acknowledgement that there is pain in life, inevitably, as there is joy, and how do we deal with this pain. So as the Serenity Prayer would happen, we first must discern between, that we can change and that we cannot change that's causing us discomfort or pain. And for that, we, which we cannot change, we must accept, if we want to be happy. So there's a formula in the book, which is suffering equals pain times resistance. And you know, in medicine, we love formulas. And you know, the pain is there, it's inevitable. It's our resistance to it that causes and amplifies our suffering. So acceptance is an extremely important principle, the eye and gain stands for intention. And we can get into this in more detail. But I think that our brains have developed over 10s of 1000s of years, in ways that have led to circuits, brain circuits, synapses, neural pathways, that that facilitate our thinking in ways that veils our happiness. And so if we are to be happy, we need to change the way we think. And fortunately, our brains have this wonderful quality called neuroplasticity. So the good news is that we can actually change the way we think, but we have to be purposeful or intentional about it. And that's the eye and gain for intention. The end is for non judgment. And again, I think this is one of the four parts of a foundation of being present and happy. And that is that we tend to see the world and our experience through tinted lenses. And so we're not often seeing the world and its people exactly as the elements of the world and people we experience are, we see them as something a little bit different, colored by our judgment. And so non judgement really is an acknowledgment that things do not have to be rendered good or bad. They simply are the way they are. And one of the ways our brains have developed I think that interferes or fails our happiness interferes with our happiness is that we have a negativity bias we tend to hang on to the negative and forget about the positive. And so when this negativity bias is applied to our own self judgment We are our own harshest self critics. And, you know, this has been shown in, in many studies to be the case that we're much harder on ourselves than we are to others. And so by practicing non judgment and gradually rewiring our brain to be less judgmental, in general, we can begin to drop the self judgment, which is really key. So I think these

four elements of gain gratitude, acceptance, intention and non judgement are universal principles I think they embrace as far as I have experienced all of the important principles of right living, right thinking and happiness. 

10:45 

Yeah. And it seems to me like because I'm all about making spirituality practical. And so it seems like that's about making life practical. 

10:52 

Yes, exactly. That's certainly one way of looking at it. 

10:56 

I mean, well, those key components, I mean, of course, there's a million other components too. But being those the key foundational components, it's like, yeah, if you're, if you're accepting, if you have non judgement, if you're, you know, intentional, and you know, you're doing creating, having gratitude in your life. I mean, that's just like, that's like the main plate to me. I mean, it seems pretty apparent. 

11:17 

Yes, I completely agree with you. And if we look to a variety of spiritual and religious traditions, I think we find that these principles are really at their core in their pure form, of course. Religions in particular may have been interpreted differently in ways that are not necessarily consistent with these principles. But I think the the pure nature of spiritual and religious traditions, fully embraces and embodies these four elements of gain. 

11:51 

So this book was written for healthcare professionals, correct? 

11:55 

Yes, it was, but the principles are really universal. And so you know, I'm continuing to talk several times a week with people like you two years after the book was published. And so I would say that almost all of the interviews, television, radio podcasts that I'm doing are peripheral to the healthcare sector, if you will, because they're just human principles that all of us can benefit from applying it to our lives on a daily basis. 

12:29

Yeah, it sounds like to me it sounds like I mean, because that's really very specific for a specific group people. But this book is for every single person out there. 

12:37 

I think so. Yes, I agree. 

12:40 

Maybe you might want to change the title a little bit. I know you can't now. But, um, so in doing this book for healthcare professionals, have you noticed people that have gone through that are going through school, or they're out in the, you know, out in the practice? has this helped shift people or brought a new, you know, awareness to people that maybe they didn't have before? 

12:59 

Well, I certainly hope so, you know, it's hard for me to really have my finger on the pulse as it were for other people. But I've had a lot of very positive feedback, reviews of the book people discussing how they've benefited from it, I can certainly attest to the fact that I personally continued to grow and benefit from sitting with these four principles. So I that is my daily practice, actually, of excuse me doing a brief, contemplative meditation each morning based on gain. And so I think this can be a spark for all of us. You know, Teresa, when we begin our day, sitting with these ideas, we are in the process beginning to rewire our brains. So the more we get in touch with our gratitude or acceptance, intention, non judgment, the more we start to think, in ways consistent with gratitude, acceptance, intention and non judgement. So, you know, what happens is that by just doing this three or four minute contemplative meditation in the morning, when we find that we're being ungrateful, or we're resisting something uncomfortable, or we're sort of lapsing into our default way of thinking and not being purposeful about the way we think, when we're being judgmental, a light bulb will go off. And, you know, I'll give you an example. So excuse me, this is a story that I tell in the book, I do my gain meditation in the morning, to start with the breath. Really focusing on the magic of the breath, the the in breath, the pause, the slow exhalation, slowing the breath down really decreases the amount of adrenaline and cortisol in our body lowers our heart rate, our blood pressure, and then we begin a simple contemplative of meditation considering that for which we're grateful. And so this is easy for me because for example, I was diagnosed with a form of chronic leukemia about 10 years ago, and I was treated with an immunotherapy drug, and I may be cured, there's no sign of it in my body anymore. And I feel great. So it's easy for me to be grateful for every breath. And you know, originally 10 years ago, I wasn't sure I would be alive now. But we all have much for which to be grateful, loved ones in our lives. Living in a relatively safe place, you know, we can go down the list that we I think most of us share, then transitioning to acceptance. And like everyone else, I've had very painful events in my life, I lost my son at the age of 30, about five years ago. So it's pretty easy for me to come up with something painful to think about. But we all have conflict, we all have a disagreement with a friend or family member or something that hurt us, that we can easily access as we sit in touch with our breath and progress through these four elements. Intention. So I start by allowing my attention to relax into the present moment. So all of my senses, perceptions really are based on what I'm hearing, feeling the tingling on the bottom of my feet, the pressure of the chair against my body, my breath, sounds that I may hear an airplane going by in the distance. And I try to sit there in that present moment for as long as I can. And then I shift to my intention to be positive and present, more

and more. And then I transitioned to non judgement. And what I've practiced many times, many mornings, and what I teach is to imagine a, an image of the Earth, one of these beautiful NASA images where the earth is apparently suspended in space. And consider that the earth is neither good nor bad. The Earth does not have qualities of good or bad, it simply is what it is. And so it's only logical for ourselves to think of our being, as neither good nor bad, I am neither good nor bad, I am simply the person that I am, I am, I am, and focusing on the breath and then slowly opening my eyes, and I'm off. So I'm riding my bike to work. I'm very fortunate to have a home on Stanford campus, I generally ride my bicycle to work. I'm passing through a narrow lane, the sun is coming up. It's just above the horizon, that magical sunlight filtering through the canopy of tree tops above, kind of a brisk feeling in the air. And I'm very centered and very present. And then as I'm riding along the path, I see there's a person ahead of me who's walking in the same direction that I'm riding. And as they get closer, I see Well, they're kind of in the middle of the path. So it's going to be hard for me to get around them. And I start to make a judgment about why not walk on the side and be more considerate. And then I see that as I get closer, they have buds in their ears. And they're looking at their screen. And I'm thinking, what a beautiful place, what is so important about what's on your screen right now. And so I begin to make judgments about that. And then that little light bulb goes off. And I'm reminded that I just sat with this non judgement, and embraced the principle of non judgment. And here I am beginning to judge this person. And so what happens is that I laugh to myself. And as I ride by the person, I look at him or her and I smile, and they smile. And I'm off, and I get a little dopamine hit. And lo and behold, this potentially rather negative interaction morphs into a smile, and a little hit of dopamine or oxytocin or serotonin or all of the above. And that's just an example of how when we sit with these principles, light bulbs go off when we find that we're not living consistently with those concepts. And this is an example of how we actually you know, I was rewiring my brain a little bit right there both in the morning game session and on my bicycle and clearly for the better. 

19:50 

It's funny because um, I think it's having these tools and techniques that can whenever we because we're human, right, I mean, can't get around the fact that we are human. We're in these bodies. We're, like you said And we're experiencing and coming upon all kinds of beings through our day that are in different places energetically, and might throw us off or might, you know, might come into some kind of conflict with us, but having these tools or techniques to be able to I call course correct. Back to being like you said non judging. Okay, so you know, having gratitude, how how can I correct what I'm feeling aside, instead of, you know, going God dammit, move, move out of the way or, you know, like really getting angry about it, because it doesn't take much, especially with the energy that and I mean, I'm sure you're probably as sensitive as I am. Being that you're in a physical body, you're an energy being. So it doesn't take me some time to feel the energy. And I have to really be discerning what I'm feeling in order to come back into balance with you know, who I really am, and I'm not going to judge that or I'm not going to, you know, be angry about that situation. It's really about staying present, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But having those tools and techniques is, is crucial, really, 

20:56 

yes. Because, you know, as we've discussed, our brains are wired in ways that distract us from the present. And I think there are two ways in which our brains have been wired. And I can posit why this might be the case from evolutionary standpoint. But one is, as I've said, we have this negativity bias.

So tell us stories about that in the book in the chapter on that topic. And the other is that we're very distracted by the past and the future in ways that are maladaptive. And so it's adaptive, obviously, to sit with the past to the extent that we savor wonderful memories with our family and loved ones. It's also important to acknowledge our mistakes so that we don't continue to repeat them. But we tend to overthink the past. And so we focus on our mistakes. And this combined with our negativity bias leads us to feel shame, embarrassment, regret. And likewise with the future, it's adaptive, to plan for the future to put bread on the table to plan for wonderful times with our family and loved ones. But we overthink the future and again, our negativity bias creeps in. And this generates fear and anxiety, we catastrophize we think of what's the worst thing that can happen. And it rarely does. Now, in my professional life, as an intensive care physician and anesthesiologist thinking of the worst thing that can happen is adaptive. But in general, in our everyday lives as human beings, focusing on the worst thing that can happen, leads us down a path of unhappiness and unrest. So these two elements of the way that our brains have become wired this negativity bias, and this difficulty being present. An example of the latter is when you sit and you're doing your gain meditation. And you're on the eye, you've gone through your gratitude, your acceptance, and you you are purposefully going to sit with the present moment, maybe for five seconds, 10 seconds, as you as you become more comfortable with this practice maybe 30 seconds or a minute. However, we can all notice that when we're sitting and relaxing into the present moment, there is a tendency for our brains to drift elsewhere. Oh, what's the list of things I need to do today? Oh, what happened yesterday, I hope they're not angry with me. And is a very strong tendency to be hyper focused on the past and the future. Happiness, on the other hand, lives in the present moment. If we contemplate all of the most happy times in our lives, we were not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. We were right there. Right. Then, again, as we walked through the redwood forest and marvel at the majesty of these tall trees, again, the sunlight reaching in our eyes through the canopy of leaves above. We are just right there at that moment. And that's where happiness lives. So if we're going to be present, whenever possible, and therefore happy. We need to have a plan. We need to sit with our negativity bias and begin to change it into a positivity bias. We need to sit with our distraction of the past and future and relax into the present moment. And the good news is because of this hypercloud neuroplasticity, excuse me. We have the capability of rewiring our brains to do just that. 

24:56 

So basically, it has to be up to the individual person to actually Want to change their brain want to access happiness? Now? I mean, that's, for me that's like, hello, that's what I want to do. But I mean, there are people out there that, well, they're kind of confused and they're in their, you know, space and they don't want to access happiness, or at least in the don't appear to want to access happiness. 

25:18 

Yeah, they might not be behaving in ways that make it appear that they're aiming to find peace and happiness. But I think that the one thing that all 7 billion of us want is happiness, and peace, happiness, call it what you like, a wise person said that happiness is peace in motion. Peace is happiness at rest. And I love that. But I think that really describes what we all actually want. I don't think any of us want to be unhappy. 

25:52 

It's just trying to get by all the stuff out in the world that's trying to not have us be happy. Right?

It's just trying to get by all the stuff out in the world that's trying to not have us be happy. Right? Correct. The media, the neighbors that are upset the people that don't like who they're with, or, you know that, like you said, the person in the middle of the street that may not want to move or I mean, there's countless people and situations in our life that can try to not have us access that happiness. But having a tool like gain in this beautiful book you wrote can be a real asset to step back and go, Okay, let me go back to those acronyms. And let me go back to how I that you know, the meditator the method that I work with every single day that helped me tap back into who I really am as a soul in that calmness. 

26:34 

Absolutely. You know, one of my heroes, Teresa is Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn, who's really the founder of mindfulness as we know it today. And he defined mindfulness as awareness of the present moment, on purpose, non judgmentally. And so there you have acknowledgement that happiness is in the present moment, it's in the present experience, it's really the only experience that we ever have is this one right now. Now, now, all of the other so called experiences are thoughts which come and go, but our present experience is where we find happiness. So being aware of our present experience, on purpose, so again, acknowledgement, that we have to have a plan, because if we relax into our default mode of thinking, we're not going to be aware of the present moment, we have to be intentional or purposeful about it, non judgmentally. He said, and again, if we want to be fully present, then we benefit from seeing the world exactly as it is. And when we cast judgments on other individuals on elements of the world, we're not really seeing the world and others as they are. So again, you know, the good news is that we can do this, but we need to have a plan. And I'm hoping that the gain method is one way that people can embrace a plan to be present and, and happier. 

28:08 

Well, what I like about the gain method, too, is that it's very practical. And it's not it's not complex. 

28:14 

No, I think it's, you know, the truth is the ultimate simplistic experience, you know, it's it's elegant in its directness, and simplicity. And that's why I think it's reflected in all of the religious and spiritual traditions, these these elements, expressed in one way or another. But I, you know, I think, you know, I just am endlessly fascinated by noticing the way I think and the way others think. And what I have noticed, is sitting with this practice every morning, others and I can look back after weeks and months, and really notice how much our thinking has changed. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's a remarkable and yet simple process. And you know, Teresa, that it's true that many people believe that meditation, for example, means you have to sit still for 30 minutes, possibly in an uncomfortable position, not scratching an itch, not repositioning yourself, and that you have to banish all thoughts from your mind. And I don't think that is what meditation is all about. Obviously, there are many, many forms of meditation, but I think it doesn't have to be that you sit for 30 minutes and you're not failing. If you have thoughts streaming through your head while you're doing it. The gain method is a little bit different because it's meant to be very brief. So you don't have to sit in any particular position and you only have to do it for three or four minutes. And I'm giving you or you're giving yourself thoughts to rest on as you progress through the, through the meditation. So it's sort of contrary to try to banish to try to banish all thoughts from one's head. Let's actually focus our thoughts first on our breath,

then on that for which we're grateful. The pain we experienced that we can embrace, having a purposeful or intentional plan and dropping judgments, and then returning to the breath. It's a very simple process. And, you know, I think it's something that we can all practice. 

30:34 

I think we can to Dr. Greg. So I think that it's an awesome book gain without paying the happiness handbook for healthcare professionals and every single listener, and watcher on my YouTube channel right now. Y'all need it. Right. 

30:50 

I think we can all benefit from it. Yes, 

30:52 

I think so. It's been so wonderful having you on today. I appreciate you coming on Dr. Greg. And I will have all the show notes or the links in the show notes for your book, How to Get a hold of you how to see you know, where you're at what you're doing, and, and yeah, all my listeners, get out there and get get this book and let's do it. Let's gain some happiness with this book. 

31:14 

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Teresa. It's really a pleasure sitting with you. 

31:20 

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening in to another episode of enthusiastically spiritual, and I'll thank big thanks to Dr. Greg hammer for coming on today and sharing his amazing gain method with all of you guys and his beautiful book. And I hope that you go out and check it out. Because it seems to me to be an amazing way to really bring everything back to the present moment and access more happiness in your life. So if you've not subscribed to this podcast, please make sure you do so that way you don't miss any upcoming episodes that are released every Tuesday. And until next week. Please remember that life is too short to not be enthusiastic about your unique journey.