 So if you speak with doctors today in this year of human existence or alternative medicine practitioners and you ask them, what do you see your patients struggling with the most that are causing the most problems in their life? You tend to hear two things. The first one is diabetes being overweight, the culture of inactivity and too many available calories. But the second is stress. The problem is that you rarely hear what to do about the latter, which is stress because there are all these general platitudes about doing less and moving slower, but there's not a lot to address the psychological roots of stress. And I want to share one very important thing in this video here. Hey, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, Chinese Medicine Doctor, author of the health book Master the Day and Chinese Herbal Formulas Specialist. And I've included two very important links right below this video. The first link is if you would like to become a patient of mine, either locally or via telemedicine, that's all the information you need to book with me or learn what conditions I treat. The second is for this free guide on four daily rituals that can help you add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. You can check those both out right below this video. So let's discuss what the psychological roots are. The philosophical roots behind stress because you hear these cute trite phrases like just take it slower, meditate and use the headspace app, but none of these get to really the psychological root cause. So when you think about it, burnout and stress underneath them, there is this belief that if I stop controlling life, then everything will come crashing down around me. If I stop micromanaging my kids, my job, my finances, my finely tuned diet of only kale, my meticulous schedule and my morning routine, if I stop being control freak, everything will come crashing down. Now look, I know this all too well. I'm not here preaching to the choir. I'm not a guru. I'm not someone here who has figured it all out. I have previously in my previous life been a business owner. I was trying for so many years to have that kind of success that I really wanted, meaning I tried to do work that was really filling to me and I would work my nine to five and would come home and work for three or more hours in my business. I did that seven days a week for three and a half years before I made enough money, just barely enough money to be able to quit my job and then go full time into something that I was more passionate about. And the sheer amount of stress and the anxiety of why is this not happening? Why am I always out of money? Why can I not just do what I want and be successful at it? Why do I feel like I'm working all the time and I'm not getting the results I want? Just why isn't my life working? Eventually took such a physiological toll on my body that I had half a dozen health symptoms that took years to go away, ranging from heart palpitations to indigestion and acid reflux every day to sometimes such severe insomnia that I couldn't even sleep at all the entire night. So I drove myself to that breaking point. I know what it's like first hand experientially in my body to be the person that stresses themselves out from rushing and fearfulness to the point where the whole body is breaking down. So I'm not here preaching to you, I've lived it. So a lot like probably 50 million entrepreneurs in the United States alone, I know the experience of if you never have enough money, why would you take time off? Why would I take evenings off when I'm barely paying rent? Why would I take weekends off when I can barely keep my business open? Why take any time off to rest and recover and recharge? But why would I ever do that? Because underneath that I had the subconscious psychological belief that if I take my foot off the gas, everything will come crumbling down. But it was a belief and just a belief. Now part of my recovery and part of my healing process involved making little bets. So I started to spot that belief a little bit and then I did a little, just a tiny experiment. So let's see what happens. If I just take off Sunday or if I just take one week off vacation, what would happen to my business? Like maybe there'll be something crazy a new fire to put out, but maybe there won't. I should test. So at first it started with just, just take Sunday off. Go drink a cup of tea in a cafe, read a book, go walk the dog, go see your family for dinner. Guess what? My life didn't fall apart. My business didn't fall apart. My relationship did not fall apart. And then I learned, wow, okay, one day off, let me try taking two days off and then two days became, well, maybe instead of working 65 hours a week, I could do like 45, three less hours a day. Holy crap. Lo and behold, my business did not explode. My life did not come crashing down. My health was still fine. Everything was good. And in fact, I was feeling a lot better because I just gained 20 hours of life back. And then when I got to 45 hours a week, I found that I could reduce that to even half or less than that. My business was still fine. It was the same. And in fact, over the next year, it only grew. And so as it began this, my version of a surrender experiment, I learned that humans have this philosophy behind stress, which is really that the psychological and emotional root of stress is fear. And behind this is this neurotic, white-knuckled grip we have on life, that if you cannot let that go, will inevitably drive you to the burnout that is usually health problems. So it was around this time that I began stumbling upon this concept of letting go, of surrender, of the surrender experiment as a great book by that title is called. But I had this interesting problem because when I would coach other people or when I would see patients, we would talk about surrender. And some people think that surrender or letting go means you just sit on the couch and eat potato chips. So people would say, you know what? I'm surrendered. I'm letting go. I'm chilling out. I'm not being a neurotic freak, but I'm not getting the results that I want. I still need to lose weight. I still need to earn more money. I still need to get out of debt. I still need to work on my relationship. So it came to me that there is surrender, which is an inner process, an inner philosophy of life. But surrender by itself doesn't mean you just surrender and sit on the couch. So if I'm going broke, it doesn't mean I just surrender this stressful process of I need to earn more money, you need to earn more money, but then you don't work. If your relationship is going horribly, it doesn't mean you just say, don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. And then let that go. And then don't change how you show up in a relationship or in life. If you're in debt, it doesn't mean you just release the reins on my $180,000 student debt, but don't do anything. So you need two essential pieces to both feel well and get the results that you want. Now in my mind, the process that I had to work through and I still am working through and the process that I go through with patients is trying to find the highest intersection of letting go and the kind of daily habits that excite you the most towards reaching that goal. So if you are massively in debt and that has been the thing that keeps you up at night, it choose your stomach raw. It gives you anxiety. It makes you indigested. The surrender process is the acceptance and letting go of the struggle. I have $180,000 in debt. Maybe that's my reality right now. I accept that I'm not going to kill myself paying it off. But then what actions do I need to do? Maybe I do need a second job and I don't need to work 80 hours, but maybe it's going to be a 55 hour work week for the next couple of years to pay that off. And maybe I can find a fun secondary job. Maybe there's a fun, excited way to do that, right? If I'm single and I've had so much anxiety after my divorce and I'm trying to find a way I really want to date or be married again, the letting go process is the acceptance that that's where I am now. I'm not going to white-knuckle it. I'm not going to force someone at gunpoint to be my new spouse. I'm going to just let go and just chill out a little bit. And then I am going to be more social. I am going to work on getting my personal life together. So I am more desirable. I am going to actually do the daily rituals and actions that will make that happen. And if I am feeling really depressed or really anxious, I'm not going to sit there in my head all day. You know, maybe I'm never going to be normal. Maybe I'm just going to feel this way forever. I'm just going to accept that, you know what, right now, this is what it feels like. I really don't know how long I'm going to be in the state, but I'm going to do my best daily to go get acupuncture or Chinese medicine, go see my physician, do a retreat, practice meditation, go through dealing with trauma, whatever the healing journey looks like. I'm going to accept this as where I am. And I'm also going to do the work daily to get there. So this fused approach creates this nucleus, this letting go and this I'm still taking action every day. It's a kind of relaxed, a little bit more positive action towards getting the results that you want. This is a really important topic. It's not easy to do, but I think for so many of us who have illnesses that come from stress, this nebulous, intangible concept, how do you fix what you can't see? It's this one part psychological process, the way we view our life and difficulties and our goals, and it's one part a tangible habit oriented process of taking that action aligned with who we want to become or where we want to be. And I think if you can do both, you'll not only get the results, but you'll feel well in the process. And that is not always an easy thing to do. So I hope that helps. That is my sermon for today. And again, if you'd like, if you'd like to become a patient of mine, the first link below this video will help you figure out how to find my clinic and or book a telemedicine appointment. I've also included this free guide, which is Li Qingyun's four daily rituals to help you add 10 years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. There's a very long lived man 100 years ago in China, and it's an amazing case study. Check it out right down below the video. And before you go, I have two related videos for you right here.