EP #99- Principles of Behavior Change and Deidentifying From Your Emotions with Jennifer Huberty, Ph.D., Fractional Chief Science Officer and Former Head of Science at Calm

(gentle music) Happiness comes from inside. You know, you're never gonna be happy when. You have to be happy first. Like nothing else is gonna make you happy. You get to choose to be happy. So it's like the thoughts that you have and how your emotions, how you respond, you know, emotionally to those thoughts and then doing something about the process that's happening there so that you can be happy with right now, right here, versus when I get there. Welcome back to another episode of "Everyday in Dorfins," a mental health podcast that focuses on the importance of finding joy and happiness and daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stepnopoulos, and this week I wanted to explore the theory of behavior change and how meditation can play a really integral role in emotional regulation and how that actually impacts the way in which we behave and regulate our stress. So this week I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Jennifer Heberti, who received her PhD in behavioral science. She was also formerly the head of science at COM, which is a very popular meditation app, and she now serves as a fractional chief science officer to many digital health companies and as an advisory board member contributing to scientific thought leadership. In this episode, Jennifer discusses actionable steps towards changing our behavior and implementing healthier choices. She also shares the power of de-identifying with our emotions through meditation and other types of practices. The relationship between happiness and behavior change, how our behaviors can really influence our own happiness and vice versa how our happiness can also influence our behaviors. And she also talks a little bit about what her role was as head of science at COM and how through her role she was able to really identify and utilize scientific research that is now super foundational to the app itself. I'm super excited to get into this interview, but before we dive in, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform we prefer and follow along everyday endorphins on Instagram and TikTok to stay up to date with episodes, future podcast events, and more. - Hi Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. - Sure, I'm happy to be here. - The field of behavioral science really fascinates me because when we think about leading a healthier and happier life, I think a lot of it comes down to our decision-making and the behaviors that we exhibit. So in your field of research and your areas of expertise, can you talk a little bit more about really what the field of behavioral science is and specifically where some of your research areas have focused? - Yeah, so I mean, behavioral science, I guess to me, is the science of behavior and how and why people do things. I've been studying physical activity as a behavior for 20 years now and moved into complimentary approaches midway through my career, but I guess I would say that physical activity is really a complimentary approach as well. That would include like yoga, meditation, other ways to manage health, but yeah, so behavior is something we do, something we participate in. I've been doing it a long time with a number of populations. - When we also think about behavior and the decisions that we make, I think when we think about behavioral science as a field, there's a lot of research out there. I think it's hard for maybe someone who's not directly in the science field to apply those areas of research or findings into their daily life. So can you talk a little bit about how some of the like areas of behavioral science can kind of map onto your own life or how you can use this field of study to be better informed with the decisions that you're making? - It really depends on obviously the behavior that you want to change. So you first have to have a behavior that you want to change or something that you want to do. For behavioral health, you know, I guess it's going to be something that's hopefully going to improve your mental or physical health. So like the basics of behavior change, one of the very basic premises is like, are you ready for change? Then it's like, okay, if you are or are not ready, what stage of readiness are you in? And then what are the strategies that are most likely going to help you be successful at changing your behavior? One of the strategies that's across the board no matter what stage you're in is the confidence in your ability to change a behavior. So if you can say you're confident about your ability, then you're more likely to do it. So if you're someone who wants to start an exercise program, you would say, how confident are you in your ability to participate in, you know, let's say walking every day? But then it's like, okay, what about when you're sick? What about when the weather's not in your favor? What about when you don't have childcare? Like all those things, you know, play a role in that. So it's teaching strategies and helping people get a better grasp on, you know, their self-efficacy and their ability to change a behavior. And there's so many strategies that you can use. And there's so many theories. And the theory I'm talking about is basically a transceoretical model on the stage of change that you're in. And it's like there's lots of scientists who would say, it's dated, it's old, it's not really a thing anymore. And other scientists would say, oh, yeah, it's tried and true. It's been around forever. Because there's so many behavioral theories that bring in so many different aspects. Like self-determination theory is about, you know, it has a component of autonomy and being able to choose. And so it's like, you know, pick your weapon. It doesn't really matter as long as you're teaching the skills of like, OK, this is a behavior. And there are specific strategies that you can use to help people participate in behaviors. Yeah, I love that you mentioned self-efficacy because that's exactly what came to my mind when you had mentioned, you know, the ability to make a behavior change firstly does come from whether or not you look confidence in your ability to implement those changes. And I think something that's really difficult for a lot of people, whether it be trying to stick to New Year's resolutions or build new habits or make a change in their diet is that they don't feel that sense of confidence and a sense of like empowerment to do so. It feels like this lofty goal or something that's kind of out of reach. Well, and I think some of the reason, too, is like people are doing these things, these making these statements that they want to change their behavior for the wrong reasons or they don't even have a real, like I would say, they don't have an intrinsic reason. So like we're about to come, we're 15, 16 days away from New Year's resolutions. It's like, OK, everybody's going to grasp on this thing that they think they need to change. But it's like, says who? So is it something that you really want to change because you have this inner desire or is it something that society's telling you need to change? So like you could be overweight middle-aged woman and you could be very fit and you can exercise. You could stand on your head and yoga. You can do all those things. But it's like for you to be a certain size or for you to have this desire to lose weight or all those things is that coming from who you really are, what you think you need to appear like, right? So again, it's just like where are we getting this motivation from? A lot of times as women, the motivation comes from the physical side of ourselves, like what we look like and how we feel about our bodies and the truth is there's so many other ways to value ourselves and take care of ourselves. So that's also a big deal. It's like, where is this concept of this behavior needing to change come from? Is it intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated? And so the extrinsic motivation, for example, wanting to look a certain way or feeling like your body needs to look like a certain image, for example, would you say that those types of motivations actually make it more difficult to feel confident to make those behavior changes? I mean, it's great for people to get something started. Extrinsic motivation is good short term, but long term you want to switch to more of an intrinsic motivation. I mean, when I've worked in behavior change programs for women, I would always talk about, are we doing this for physical or are we doing it for like, ourself? Where is this coming from? Is it coming again internally or externally? And so if you do something, bring external reason and you don't see change, what's the motivation to keep going? But when you're doing it because you're intrinsically motivated and you just want to feel good and you want to have, you know, your endorphins going and like all those kinds of things, like again, you can feel those things, right? Very different than like, did I go down a pant size, right? Or did I lose five pounds? Or so it's just thinking about, you know, or I want to do this because I want to live a long healthy life so I can be active with grandchildren or whatever it is, right? Those are more intrinsic versus extrinsically focused. And so especially in women, if we go and get on a scale and we don't see the scale change, why are we? doing this and then we stop. So it's like linking it to something else. I also feel like a lot of people equate feelings of happiness and endorphins like getting that from maybe having these extrinsic motivations. But what it sounds like you're saying is that really those feelings of happiness and fulfillment come from more the intrinsic motivations like turning back with it. Yeah, I mean, if you're just talking about happiness and you're not talking about health behaviors, happiness comes from inside. You know, you're never going to be happy when you have to be happy first. Like nothing else is going to make you happy. So it's like the thoughts that you have and how your emotions, how you respond, you know, emotionally to those thoughts and then doing something about the process that's happening there so that you can be happy with right now, right here versus when I get there, right? Like, so yeah, it's a whole other bad worms. Well, let's talk a little bit about that because I think there's something to be said about like the victim mindset, for example, it's shown that when you're stuck in that cycle of thinking that, you know, it's typically called the victim mindset, like, oh, like pitting yourself or oh, this happened to me, that isn't really a productive way to kind of process emotions and it doesn't lead to sustained happiness when you have that victim mentality. So as far as, you know, the ability to approach our emotions, like, what are some principles of behavioral science or like findings that you've seen around, like the way in which we can more productively approach our emotion so that we can learn how to shift that mindset to happiness first rather than something that I will be happy. Yeah, I think the biggest thing and like, I'm not a science of emotional regulation or like, I don't study emotions per se, but I do study mindfulness and I guess I would say the first thing is you have to identify the emotion that you're having. And so we're very quick to go, how are you? I'm good. I'm happy. I'm sad. That's the extent of it. But like, if you really think about the emotion that you're having in the moment, so it's like, I remember one time I was in the, at the hospital and I had to be checked in for a colonoscopy. I think it was, it was wonderful things that we have to do. And I remember they were running late and she kept telling me my appointment, like, I was going to be up in a minute and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I started to feel like crying. And my, my gut was like, or I was just feeling, you know, sad. And I said to myself, God, I'm, you know, I'm not sad. What is this emotion I'm having? Right? Like, it's not sadness. Even though that what's coming up is crying, what's the emotion? That doesn't mean you're sad. It was like, I'm frustrated. I'm angry. I'm impatient. Like, these were the emotions that I was having. And so then as soon as I could identify them, I could say, okay, well, I'm not a frustrated person. I'm not an impatient person. Right? I'm not an angry person. So it's like, okay, right now, what's happening? Right? Like, I'm reacting to this situation. But this is not who I am. It's an emotion I'm having. Right? And so do you identify from that? And then saying, okay, well, this is where I am right now. This is, you know, and, and putting my focus on something else, basically, it makes me feel better. And can you, can you talk a little bit more about the power and de-identifying yourself from the emotion that you're experiencing? I guess it's just like, you are not your emotions. It's just something that you experience. And so it's like, attachments to things like in yoga, you know, they talk about non-attachment and, and suffering is related to attachment. And so like, I remember when I was going to yoga teacher training, they were like, you know, go around the room. Who are you? And I was like, I'm a mom. And the teacher was just like, well, no, that's not who you are. And I remember being so angry. Obviously, that I was this is at the beginning of my journey. But I was like, what the heck? Like, you know, I didn't want to cuss on your podcast. But like, what the heck? Like, why? Why would she say that to me? I am a mom. Like, that was, that was, and I, you know, if I'm honest, I'm completely attached to being a mother. I love being a mother more than anything else. It's the best thing ever. I'm very fortunate that I get to be a mom. And so I was very upset. But if you think about it, God forbid, if my kids were to go away, I'm still Jennifer Huberty, right? Like, I'm still this person on the inside. You know, being a mom isn't who I am, being a research scientist or a fractional chief science officer, that's not who I am, right? Like, it's like really thinking about the fact that, you know, you have to separate yourself and non-attachment. Yeah, I also got my yoga teacher training. And that was a big part of some of the lessons we've learned in, like, the philosophy of yoga and how it's so, like, culturally tied to Buddhist principles and Buddhist philosophy. I don't think we did that exercise during my teacher training, but an anecdote that I can share is I had the opportunity to get to travel to Indonesia to do my teacher training. And I went at a time where I had just graduated college and I have not started my job yet, which I had like a four month summer. So in those few months where I was in Bali doing my teacher training, like, I went alone and everyone that I met had no idea who I was. They didn't, all they knew was my name when I introduced myself, but they didn't know where I was from or what schools I went to or what I studied. Like, I got to kind of not recreate myself. That's not really, I guess, where I'm trying to get at this, but more so, like, the opportunity to meet someone kind of like as a blank slate. And then in that process, you start to realize how you can de-identify yourself from the things that you typically attach to yourself. Like, I am a college graduate or I am now starting a job in this place. Like, that was, that wasn't even, that those students didn't have weight on them. And so it left me to think a little bit about like, okay, well, who am I? And I think something that one of my instructors had said was, I am that. I don't know if that was something that you would heard on your yoga teacher training, but he kept repeating that statement, I am that. And it's still a bit complex and difficult for me to fully comprehend to this day. It's like very spiritual and kind of hard to articulate. And I'm sure he could do it better than I can, but I think that statement kind of ties into what we're talking about right now, like the power of not identifying yourself with your emotion or like, you know, having these labels have so much weight on, on, you know, who you are. Yeah, I think, I think we do do that. And it's easy to do in our society too, because we are so focused on status quo. It's really quite sad. It's like, I know there's this kind of random, but it's in the news right now is Twitch. I used to watch that show. I watched the very first season and he was on it. And I think he was like the runner-up or whatever, but then he went on Ellen and I've been following him ever since. And the reason I've been following him is he's so inspirational. And he was so like, I loved it. I loved his smile. I loved everything about him. Plus I watched the whole show. So I, you know, what you get to know of someone on a show, their personality, but he was just awesome. He was funny. And I'm only bringing this up because it's like the way society is in our attachments and what we think makes a person and doesn't make a person. It's like, here you have this guy who's like, he appears to be living the dream, right? Like he's dancing. He's in love. He has, you know, three, four beautiful children, three beautiful children. I think he was on the Ellen show for God's sake. Like he was on the show, you know? And, and, you know, for whatever reason he was hurting on the inside, you know? You know, you think about these things with like yoga, like we learned in yoga about suffering and how we attach to things. And it's just like how do people get in the space where they're just so so so depressed, you know? And not even in it's not evident to the social eye, you know, who knows? But like, it's just, it really, yes, to me, when I found out it is shaken, shook, it shook me. And I had been like really weird feeling uneasy ever since, just that that's happening to so many people. And it's like we were talking about happiness as a choice. And, you know, it's your emotions. But it's like, if you're in the depths of depression, there is no, there's no outlet to get to that space where you can be aware that you can think about the thoughts and how your thoughts are impacting your emotions. You're so deep down in it, you know. And then we have these things that we're attached to and these things where we have to be a certain way and change the way we are and change who we are and change our behaviors and all those things. So I don't know, just kind of comes around full circle in a way that all these things, you know, besides COVID and social media and contributing to all this, you know, this mental health and disarray, if you will, and so many people. And he represents one person and there's so many people that are just like him that aren't famous and aren't wealthy and aren't, you know, or are, I guess, you know, but it's just kind of crazy. Yeah, it's a great point that you bring up and it kind of reminds me of something I had discussed in an earlier podcast episode around like looking at mental health, specifically anxiety and depression kind of on the spectrum. Like some people have more anxious tendencies than others. Some people have generalized anxiety disorder. Others just feel anxious here and there. Some people have like really bad chronic depression and other people maybe experience bouts of depression here and there. I think it's probably easier to someone who's on the lower end of the spectrum to kind of say, oh, just it's really about thinking more positive thoughts or it's about reframing your thoughts, doing cognitive reframing or really like being intentional with this idea that we're speaking about on a de-identification. But that might not be as easy for someone to implement when they're kind of in the depths of it like you're mentioning. So, you know, I know there's a lot of different types of therapies out there, whether or not you're doing cognitive behavioral therapy and also on medication or pursuing one or both whatever it might be or alternative forms of treatment and therapies. But, you know, what would some of your advice be to those who are really struggling and kind of in that the depths of their despair for a lack of a better phrase? Of course, we know that being very cognizant about how we shift our self-talk and change our behaviors can be really beneficial to our mental health. That might not be as easy to achieve for everyone. So, if it's not as easy to do, what would your advice be to still try to kind of practice those techniques for cognitive reframing? Yeah. I mean, cognitive reframing is just like, and again, like I don't want to be pretend to be somebody I'm not, right? Like I guess I serve as a fractional chief science officer right now. So, I grew the science at the Mobile app com. I was there head of science for five years grew their entire program and science. All of their evidence, I think there's like 40 publications all I wrote with a team. Well, for four years, it was just being one other person. But I left com, you know, about three months ago and I'm a fractional chief science officer now for a few companies. One of the companies, the name of the company is Curio. It's joincurio.com. Anyway, they are practicing sci-git-allix at home. So, in this case, it's ketamine, oral doses of ketamine at home. There aren't too many companies doing that. There's very little science on it. But plant-based medicine and psychedelics are a hot sexy topic right now, even though we've been using them for years and years in different capacities. But I'll only say that there's so much promise to some of these more alternative measures, I believe, if we can get the integration right. So, what I'm saying is like, if you're in the depths of despair of depression, you can't even think about meditation. It's like, it's like almost insulting that we even assume that someone whose depressed is going to meditate. It's like, gosh, you know, but the thing is, is that these psychedelics, you know, they take you out of your logical mind. They help you get in touch with like your inner being who you really are. It takes you out of this logical brain thought. And so, does some, you know, I don't know the exact science on it, but it's like this rewiring almost. And again, in some cases, only for 24 to 48 hours, in other cases a month, right? Like it depends, and there's science that says a bunch of different things about all the different medicines. But the point is, is that reframing, whether it's short lived or long lived, allows you to get out of the depths of despair. So you can actually grasp onto something like, I could try this, I could journal, I could, I could walk, I could be in nature, I could, you know, so, so, again, I'm not an expert in that area. I am advising science at the company. They're going to do big things. But it's so rewarding to be able to be involved in a company like that because number one, there's a black box or so much we don't know. And number two, that it's this innovative, if you will, or alternative, maybe is a better word to help people who have tried being on medication, who have tried all the things. And, but I say, again, the integration is going to be the piece. And what is integration? Full circle back to the very first question you asked me, it's behavior change. You have to change your behavior. You have to start to shift your thoughts. You have to start to get in touch with the emotions that you're having. You can't do that from a state of numbness, right? You have to do it from a state where your why your your wiring is working. And so this is going to allow people to do that. But if we don't teach with the use of psychedelics about how to integrate like, what does that mean? I just realized something about myself, about my life, about my inner being, about my soul. What do I do with this information? How do I execute on this? How do I ignore this? What do I do with this? And when it comes up for me in different places, what do I do with it? And so the practices like journaling the practices like meditation, the practices like exercise, having a coach or a therapist or someone to talk therapy, if you will, like those are all good integration strategies. You just have to do it, which means you have to make a commitment, which means you have to overcome barriers, which means you got to set goals, which means you have to build up yourself confidence, yourself, advocacy. So it's like full circle. That's all part of those things. Yeah. The area of psychedelics in in research and helping with chronic depression and other mental health illnesses is really fascinating to me. So I'm excited to see how that's going to continue to evolve in the next few years. I know you mentioned that you were, you know, the head of science at COM. And I love COM. I also love meditating and it was so nice to get to just meditate like every morning on the yoga teacher training. Like I feel like I never have the time now, which I know is you gotta make the time. Exactly. It's a something that we all say, like I don't have the time. We'll get to it tomorrow and there's ever tomorrow. So something that I'm trying to do is like get back into a better meditation routine. But can you talk a little bit more about, you know, what it was like being the head of science at COM. And what that really means, like what your day to day looked like and how you helped to really develop the science that was foundational to the app. When I started working there, one of the biggest things this was a while ago was, you know, they were doing COM sleep stories. And they're very popular for that. And a lot of celebrities read sleep stories. They were just a hit, you know, everybody loved them. And people were falling asleep. And anecdotally, it sounded amazing. Like women were just like, oh my gosh, I can go to sleep listening to Matthew McConaughey any day. Like I don't even need my husband. So it was a popular thing. But then I said, you know, look, yeah, people are saying they sleep better, but do they sleep better? Like shouldn't we measure that in some way, shape or form? So that's an example of, you know, okay, let's do a randomized control trial with sleep-deserved adults and let's see if they actually do sleep better. And so we did and we published it and adults did sleep better. So that's just an example of like some of the things I was doing is just like, what are you, and I actually, you know, to take it out of just one company is like, that's what I do now. It's like, this is what we do for our customers. Okay, are you sure? Yes, I'm sure. Okay, let's test it and make sure you do. And there's so many ways to do that. I posted something on LinkedIn yesterday about revenue generation where everybody's like, so worried about generating revenue with science and can you do that? And yeah, you can. All you know, that's what science is for. It's not direct, but it's for that. And so that's what I was helping calm do. That's what I'm helping other companies do is evidence for what they're doing. Curio, you know, and the psychedelics, all that stuff. What's been one of the most surprising things that you've seen out of the work that you're doing now, like helping to basically prove. the efficacy or the mental health and health benefits that are coming out of these companies that you're working with. I mean I would say it's very rewarding working with different companies because you know there's start-ups and the CEOs are like super pumped about their ideas they're so driven they're so motivated. I guess what I would say is surprising is that so many companies want to need my services. That's you know I wasn't sure how I was going to go but it's going quite well so I would say that's surprising but it's really it's really inspiring to get to work with all these CEOs who like love what they're doing you know I'm working with a company who is improving mental health for adolescents and kids using a measurement-based collaborative care model it's called Bend Health and it's amazing you know they're they're helping helping parents with their children and they're helping adolescents feel better and it's a thing right like it's a thing yeah it's very rewarding. Yeah I can imagine especially when you're working directly with CEOs and the founders of these start-ups who are just so passionate about helping to solve these problems and just create like a healthier and happier world I think we're seeing a lot of mental health start-ups and companies in this like technology ecosystem so how can people really determine if certain products or companies are like actually backed by science? Well I mean you can look on their websites and you can see if they have any science and if they do they usually publicize it many companies rely on other people science so you'll have like you know let's say a supplement where it's like this supplement's gonna help you sleep let's go back to sleep this is gonna help you sleep it's like oh it is where's your science oh well this ingredient helps with this and this ingredient helps with this thus it's gonna help you sleep it's like no that's not how this works you have to actually test it and you actually have you have to have a placebo or you know a usual care or some kind of a control group to make sure it does so you can see other companies lean on other science because they don't have their own so that's something to be to be thoughtful of or some companies use what we call UX research where they just like they talk to people like a very small number of people and apply it to larger sets of people and you know it serves the purpose but it's not evidence for something and now a lot of your work is focused on really integrating science and business and technology why do you think there's a need for that right now to have this integration well I mean it's not now it always has been but I think you know with mental health specifically and digital health solutions the market is very saturated that's one thing but in the case where it's not you know the sales is happening at the B2B business to business and healthcare markets and in order to get a big box company to license let's say something to all their employees or a health care company to offer it as a benefit you have to have data to show its impact on health not just how much people use it and if they come back it's like is it actually working and even if you can return on investment is super important so that's why you know science is more so being integrated in businesses days right and then also if you look at the other side of it just seeing a greater amount of companies that are specifically focused in the mental health space and wellness and health in general I think there's a need now also from like the consumer side to have products basically right at their fingertips to better manage their health and well-being because now we've moved to such a digital tech virtual world in a sense and I think it also goes back to what we were talking about with COM using an app to assist with your meditation practice and can be helpful and sometimes even more helpful than just sitting down to do like a breath work or a traditional meditation so it's exciting to see how technology can play a really beneficial role in helping to bolster our mental and physical well-being. Switching gears a little bit I want to talk more about your perspective on health and happiness given the field that you're in as a behavioral scientist so as we wrap up this interview a few of my questions here are going to be focused more on health and happiness but first I wanted to ask how is your perspective of health and wellness shifted or adapted over the course of your life? Well my mom was a aerobics teacher for Richard Simmons in Los Angeles California that's where I grew up and I would literally after school my mom would pick me up and we'd go to Richard Simmons it was called the Richard Simmons Anatomy Asylum in the 80s and I'd go to the gym and I'd go to the the child care because I'm you know I'm an elementary school or younger and my mom's teaching like two aerobics classes in a row with her bag of records Madonna and Michael Jackson all those things anyway so it started being exposed to fitness and exercise at a young age but my mother never really was like you need to work out or whatever and I remember I was like in eighth grade and I started to feel like I was gaining weight like more so than like a normal kid and so I said to my mom like I think I'm gaining weight and she was like well you could come exercise with me and so I was like okay but keeping my my mom was like really healthy in terms of like eating really healthy we ate this diet called predicate diet was so disgusting so I started working out taking my mom's aerobics classes and then in high school I ran cross-country but not competitively it was I was there more for like the exercise and then I took up running and so I was a runner for years and I don't know everything was very much exercise focus I really didn't care about what I ate I wasn't meditating or doing any of those things I mean I had no clue about that and that's really how most of my life went until I was in my mid-30s I was an avid exercise or I mean I have a PhD in exercise physiology for a reason right I love exercise and I'm 47 now and I exercise every day I have one day off a week and I do not care what's happening I always exercise it's like I have friends that you know meet me to exercise it it's like nine like I would say you know half the time they don't make it right because and I'm by myself which is fine anyway but then I had a significant event happen in my 30s I had a full-term stillborn child my second child was still born on like two days before her due date and she obviously changed my life and I went to talk therapy for a while and I couldn't get anything out of it it was miserable it was like ripping a band-aid off and so I started going to yoga and I'll never forget the day I the first day I went to yoga because I went to 24-hour fitness right before and did the stair master for 45 minutes because I knew yoga wasn't going to be good exercise and I was so exercise physical focus you know and I go to yoga and I was like holy crap this is hard number one it was a power yoga studio there was no music you had to hold these poses for really long time and I was like I did not sign up for this I could not do a chaturanga I did not have the strength to reach out or runga I could do I could maybe do a push-up but I couldn't do chaturanga that's a whole other level so I started practicing yoga and and then I started practicing meditation when I got pregnant with my third child my son who's now 10 I started doing meditation because I had such bad PTSD from my daughter like I was convinced the entire pregnancy that he was gonna die and so it was it was very high stress it was I mean I was just a mess that pregnancy like just always feeling anxious and I know my body was under a lot of stress because it took six six years for me to get my normal hormonal cycle back six years so that's when I started meditating because I was like I got to do something here this is not I'm not gonna make it through this pregnancy and my yoga teacher would sit with me in meditation and taught me how to meditate so that's when I got into meditation I never thought I'd be that much into meditation and so I've had a practice ever since my children are raised in yoga like both of my kids no Sanskrit and can do sunsayatations and all the things they can even make their own sequence like my 13-year-old when he was like eight he did his own sequence for a talent show anyway I'm really excited about that and yeah and so and then since then I've had like this emotional awareness journey right where I've been really tuned in like what emotions and my thoughts and manifestation and the universe and attracting things all that but and then I I really recently had a psychedelic journey to therapeutically, not recreationally, and I'm not promoting that by any means. I don't want anyone to think I'm promoting it. I just had the experience and I can meditate until I'm 90 and I can do yoga till I'm 90, but I would never have gotten what I got out of that experience. But again, I'm doing the integration. I was doing the integration before, so I'm just doing it still. Anyway, so that's really how it's evolved over the years. It's like you have experiences in your life. They work or don't work for you, right? And then you have to do something different to get something different, right? So, yeah, I kept shifting my health and wellness. And like I said, I'm 47. I wake up most days. I meditate, you know, five, six days a week. I go to yoga three to four times a week. I exercise every day. I have a really, really strong weightlifting regimen, a trainer that writes me a program every week. And so, yeah, it's super important. I'm really busy at work and I feel like it's the only way to have balance is like through my wellness. And so, yeah, like at the end of today, I'll probably go to yoga to like close down my day, basically. I loved, you know, every part of that answer was just so there's so much I could feel like I could get out of it. And you know, I didn't even know how much of an avid yoga practice are you or the fact that your kids know Sansa is so cool. Oh, yeah. They don't have a choice. They have to go to yoga once a week. They do not have a choice. They have choices in my home, of course. But I've shared with them that like, this is not something you get to choose. This is something you have to do and that you'll thank me when you're 30. I got into yoga when I was young, actually. I started going with my mom when I was about eight or nine years old, but I had no idea really like the benefits of that practice until I could really conceptualize like how beneficial yoga was for me. Yeah. So I just I love that you share that anecdote because I feel like so many people have such a similar experience. Like once they really take away their their preconceived ideas or assumptions of what yoga might look like for them and really just go into it with an open mind, you'd be surprised what the practice can do for you. I know we're coming up on time here. So the final question that I wanted to ask you, Jennifer, is a question that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast, really focused in on happiness and doorphins and and finding things in life that bring you joy, the central theme of the show. So what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? I mean, 100% like 100% my children, 100%. And then second to that are my three dogs. I got to pick my kids for I mean, my husband too. He's like, you know, but my kids like I, I mean, they're 10 and 13. I am so blessed to have children and like, yeah, 100% would be my kid. I just like I think about them during the day. It's kind of weird maybe, but I think about them during the day. I'm excited for them to come home. It's the best thing about working remotely because I get to be here when they're when they get home from school. I get to be here when they're off to school or take them, you know, just look at watching their faces, engaging with them as they become their themselves. You know, these, these really cool human beings. Yeah, it's the best happiness ever. What a great answer. I've had some parents on the podcast also share their kids and that's just such a lovely, lovely way to close out this episode. Where can my followers and listeners connect with you and stay connected with all the great work that you're doing? Yeah, thank you. I'm on LinkedIn, Jen Huberty and also I have a website, Jen Hubertyphd.com. But those are the two best ways. I'm on Instagram, but it's mostly pictures of Arizona and pictures of my kids. It's not really too much work related, but yeah, Jen Huberty is where I'm at in most places. And I'm just saying, well, thank you so much. It was such a wonderful opportunity to get to have you on the podcast. And I look forward to just continuing to learn more about all the great advancements that are going to continue to happen in this, in the space of technology and science and mental health. So really, it was such a pleasure getting to have you on the show. Yeah, and thank you for asking me. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events, and all things related to mental health, well-being, and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time. [Music]