 There's so many things that we do unconsciously, like every time you're waiting in line for coffee and you reach for your cell phone, or when you're driving and you get stuck in a stoplight and you got to fidget around or play with something. There are so many things that we do just to distract ourselves. And in this video, we're going to talk about the insane results about the psychological study and you probably can relate. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about helping you improve your mental health. So if you're into that kind of stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah, this is a psychological test that I've heard about through a bunch of different books that I've read. And like, I don't know, it just came up in a new book that I'm reading. I'm going to link down my entire mental health reading list. But psychological studies are very, very interesting. Like most of them are just purely insane, like the things that they make people do, like social psychology, like just understanding human behavior and things like that. But today we're going to be talking about a study from 2014 from the University of Virginia. So this is a study that was actually conducted by a psychologist at the University of Virginia and his name is Timothy Wilson. And this test, oh my goodness, this test, it is, I don't know, it really shows you like the truth about the human condition. You know what I mean? Well, you don't know what I mean. Let me tell you what the heck this test is. Anyways, so they got hundreds and hundreds of students to participate in this psychological test. By the way, I'm interested if any of you went to college and you like participating in a psychological test, like make sure you comment down below. I want to hear about them because I'm always fascinated by these tests. So anyways, they did a couple of levels of this test, but anyways, they decided to take this test further and just see, right? Because they were trying to like look at like boredom and things like that and what people do. So basically what they did, they rounded up hundreds and hundreds of students of what they did through this test was they sat them in a room. They sat them in a room by themselves from anywhere from like 10 to 20 minutes, I believe it was. There's nothing in the room. There's just them sitting down at a desk and on that desk is a button that they can push and they are hooked up to these wires. And if you push that button, it sends an electric shock to you. It shocks you. It electrocutes you. Okay. So basically they were trying to see what a person rather shock themselves than just sit alone with their thoughts. So when they sat them there, they said, all you got to do for the next 10 to 15 minutes is just sit in quiet reflection. Just reflect. Just look at your thoughts, see what your brain's doing, right? But if you would like, you can buzz yourself and the results will blow your mind. What they found, what they found was 67%, 67% of men hit that button. Okay. 25% of women hit the button. There was one guy where in a span of 20 minutes, he electrocuted himself 120 times. And when asked about this, why they did it, people would ratherly experience physical pain than just sit there with their own mind. Like, what? What? Like, I don't know if you could relate to this. Like, I'm curious. Like, do you think you would do that? Because one of the reasons I have this channel is because these results, even though they're shocking, it's not even that surprising. You know what I mean? Like, one of the biggest things that I try to get people to do is meditate and practice mindfulness. And so many people can't do it. We are so, so afraid of our thoughts and our emotions. Like, it's nuts. It's nuts. And I get that like this thing up here for most of us is our worst enemy. Like, I hated being alone in my thoughts. That's one of the reasons I was turning to substances for so long. I hated feeling. I hated thinking. I hated all the voices in my head. Just I'm not good enough or things that I should be angry about or the way, you know, people hurt me or the people I liked and they didn't like me back. Just all these things, they drove me nuts. And like, that's just really fascinating to me. Like, why do we try so hard to run away from these thoughts and these emotions? That's why I can't recommend meditation enough for you guys. Like, like meditation, what it does is our brain is in two states constantly. Okay, two states. You ready for this? Not a million. Just two. Okay, either attraction or version. All right, our brain turns towards things that give us pleasure and it turns away from things that give us pain. Okay, but a lot of the times this is emotional pain. You see what I'm saying? So we're constantly looking for things to distract ourselves. Like, is it any wonder that people are starting to develop like technology addictions, like social media addictions, you know, video game addictions, gambling addictions, substance abuse. All these things because we are constantly trying to avoid the pain, right? What meditation does for you, it rewires your brain. There is a reason why my channel is called the rewired soul. You can rewire your brain. The thing is that you have to train it to respond differently to these scenarios in life. Like all of these different types of stresses or anxieties or fears or sadness or anger. What meditation does, it helps turn towards it. It's building up this resilience, okay? So when you meditate for even five to 10 minutes a day, you start to build up this resilience. You're not trying to avoid these things. You turn towards it. And what it does is you start to really feel like a badass if I'm being completely honest. Like I no longer have to run away from my feelings as I can sit and just embrace them and acknowledge them running through my body and what they feel like the physical sensation. Like I remember one of the first meditation teachers I had, they started talking about like rather than noticing the thoughts that are running through your head. Try to notice what anger feels like, right? Try to notice what fear feels like. Try to notice what, you know, anxiety or sadness feels like in the body. You start to notice, okay? Like anxiety kind of feels like warmth in my chest. You know, anger kind of feels like tension in my head. And the beautiful part about that is it's a lot easier to deal with physical sensations than these emotional ones. So when you can start to train your mind to acknowledge the physical sensations, now it's kind of similar to that electric shock. You know what I mean? Like, but you don't have to electrocute yourself to get rid of this stuff. You know, I made a video just the other day that I'm going to link up in the info card about how addiction is everywhere. It's because we're constantly trying to run away from the way that we're feeling. I mentioned in that video the three reasons that people, you know, abused anything, right? I didn't want to say or addicted to, you know, like substances, but anything. We're talking about sex, gambling, food, whatever. The three reasons are to get a feeling, to get rid of a feeling or to have an escape. But when we meditate and we build up this resilience, this emotional and mental resilience, we're no longer trying to get certain feelings or get rid of certain feelings or trying to escape. We're just able to be present and embrace this thing. And we get stronger every time we do it. Science has proven if you meditate for five to 10 minutes a day, you are strengthening your prefrontal cortex. Part of the prefrontal cortex is responsibility is emotional regulation. So simply by meditating, you will have better control over your emotional reactions to your thoughts as well as the circumstances in your life. All right, that's just science, baby. Anyways, I really wanted to make this video. I would love to know your thoughts. Like what do you think? Okay, do you think you're the type of person who would hit that, that buzzer to electrical yourself rather than sitting in your own thoughts? Like leave comments down below. Let's discuss. All right, or let's do this too. Have you tried meditating before? What did you like? What didn't you like? What are your obstacles and things like that? Because I really want to make more videos about how much meditation can help. I even need to make like my own meditation app and things like that. But anyways, leave comments down below. All right, because this is like the thing that completely turned my mental health around a few years ago when I started meditating. So let me know your experience about it down below in the comments. Okay, but anyways, that's all I got for you today. So if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you're new here, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to check out the Rewired Soul Shop, click the top right there. And you should because look, here's that shirt. Me and you can be twinsies. All right. Thanks so much for watching. Start meditating and I'll see you next time.