 Dudes and Dudes. Welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is episode number 167167. Today we're going to talk about mornings and morning anxiety. I have been asked to talk about morning anxiety for a very, very long time. I've been asked in my Facebook group. I've been asked on Instagram over and over and over. And I cannot believe that I've not done this topic before, but I have not. So today we're going to do it. Today's podcast episode is all about morning anxiety. You know what dawned on me this morning is I was like getting ready to record. I never say who I am. Now after seven years, I assume most of you know who I am. But for those of you who are new to the podcast, I am Drew Lincellata. I am the creator and host of The Anxious Truth. This podcast that has been going on for the last seven years, I'm also the author of multiple books on anxiety, anxiety disorders and recovery, including a third one that's about to come out very shortly called 7% slower. But anyway, that's who I am. I have to start making a habit of that because that's like podcasting 101. And I have failed that class in a major way. Anywho, thanks guys. I appreciate you coming by and spending your time with me as always. Let's talk about morning anxiety, right? So I get asked about this all the time. And a lot of times when the topic of morning anxiety comes up, now first of all, before I get into that, let me just let you guys know I mornings were the hardest time for me too. Now people are different. People either fall into the mornings of the most difficult time for me anxiety wise or the evenings of the most difficult times. It's about evenly split. I'm pretty sure. Although my gut tells me it might be a little more skewed toward the morning. But I have no hard data on that. But I was a morning anxiety person in a big way when I was struggling with the worst of my anxiety, my anxiety disorders, the mornings were by far the worst times for me. So I get you if you have morning anxiety and when you wake up, you are you are anxious as all get out in the mornings. I feel you because I was you. So it's such a common thing. And so many people want to talk about morning anxiety that we should really probably take a look at it today. But if you've if you listen to the podcast or follow me for any length of time, you probably already know what this podcast is going to kind of sound like. And the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you cannot treat morning anxiety as it's some sort of special anxiety. It's not. So you're really anxious in the morning. Other people get more anxious as the day goes on into the evening. It doesn't matter, right? Morning anxiety is not a special kind of anxiety. It's the number one piece of advice that I could give you in this podcast episode is that if your mornings are your most anxious time of the day, you are feeling the physical sensations more than you do any other time, you're feeling that that pit in your stomach, that sense of dread, the doom, the fear, or you have a tendency to feel a little bit low in your mood and then you have that dread and just sort of like, what's the point feeling most strongly in the mornings, you're not alone and any and any way shape performance incredibly common, like I said, and I used to experience that. But it's still not a special kind of anxiety, right? It does not deserve its own special treatment. Probably doesn't even really deserve its own podcast episode. But I've been asked about it so many times that I figured well, I better do one. So here's the deal with morning anxiety. I know when people bring up morning anxiety, they want to try and figure out why like why am I more anxious in the morning? Why is this? Why is this? And inevitably left to its own devices that discussion will trend toward cortisol and hormones and trichadian rhythms and things of that nature. Am I going to dismiss those things? No, hell no, I'm not because those are real things, right? So it's true. You know what? I cannot say that it's true because I have not done this reading myself. Admittedly, I've not done this reading myself. I will. I will check it out after I'm done recording here. But I am told over and over and over and over that a lot of the data shows that the cortisol cycle peaks in the morning, we are we have the most cortisol in our blood in the morning. Okay, fine. That's true. Cortisol is a stress hormone. But that's not really the point. Like that that's fine. You take 30 seconds and acknowledge like, okay, there are likely physiological reasons why our hormone profile in the morning is different than it is at night. And yes, hormones change the way you feel acknowledged. Now let's move on from that. Because it's not cortisol that is your problem. It is simply not morning anxiety is not a cortisol problem. I mean, in the absence of some sort of endocrinological endocrinology, I can't say it, it gives some kind of problem with your endocrine system, right? An actual hormonal problem. Well, I really flubbed that in a big way, but I don't edit these. So there you go. In the absence of some sort of real physiologic issue that's impacting your hormone profiles, which is pretty rare, right? It's pretty rare, because I know that like eight zillion people with panic disorder and agoraphobia and associated anxiety disorders are convinced that they have some sort of hormonal and or endocrine problem, but they wind up not having it, right? So it's pretty rare. But in the absence of an actual physiological issue, your body is the same as everybody else's, right? So everybody's cortisol levels are higher in the morning. Everybody's, you know, everybody goes through those trichadian rhythms and I know everybody kind of settles into their owns, but we all have similar looking rhythms, regardless of how they may be time shifted throughout the 21st cycle. So you can't look at morning anxiety from a physical standpoint, like, well, what can I what can I eat at night? Or what can I do at night? Or what can I eat first thing in the morning? Or what can I drink? Or what can I do to bring my manage my cortisol level? That's that's not it at all. That's not it at all. Morning anxiety is not a physical problem, just like the rest of your anxiety disorder is not a physical problem. You feel it physically, right? We always acknowledge that you feel anxiety physically podcast episode number one all the way back in 2014. Anxiety is physical anxiety disorders are cognitive, right? So I'm in no way discounting the fact that you literally do feel more anxious on a physical level. And along with those physical things come all of those feelings of dread and the fear and all that stuff, I get that that is real, you do feel it more strongly in the morning. However, it doesn't make it a body problem or physical problem. The story with morning anxiety is that it starts to become a self fueling thing, right? And so when you go to bed at night and this was me, and this is an almost universally told story, you begin to dread the morning, right? You dread the morning. For me, I can describe my own experience was I would wake up and my sleep patterns. I'm a terrible sleeper as it is. But in those days, my sleep was really a mess. Excuse me. And I would kind of go to bed at night and I would, you know, I would doze off and I'd sleep a little bit here and there and it was broken and it was crappy sleep and all that stuff and no problem. But you know, that's that's the way it was for me. And but I would dread the morning. Like when I fell asleep finally, it would be like, Oh, please just let this last for a while. Right. Just please let me sleep all the way through. Then I would open my eyes. It would be like two, three o'clock in the morning. I would struggle to get back to sleep. It was rough. And then as I laid there, and you know, I might doze off a little and wake up again, the anxiety would begin to build and build. And this may be a familiar story to me to you guys, right? So this was my experience. It may be familiar to you too. I've heard this story from many, many people. The anxiety would begin to build the sensations, the dread that the twist in my stomach, all of that would begin to build as those wee hours of the morning, you know, kind of moved on. And then it was 3am and then it was 4am and it was 5am and we're starting to get a little closer to like the time that you're supposed to really wake up and start your day and go to work and all that stuff. And I would get more and more anxious. So we get more and more anxious. And then I would have to drag myself through the day. And what I started to notice as I was doing my recovery work is yes, it was true that as soon as I hit like the early afternoon, I would begin to feel those things less in an intensity, not go away, not go away, but it would begin to lessen. And by the time the evening rolled around, my anxiety level was lowered, noticeably lower, not gone, but noticeably lower. So that was my rhythm. That was my rhythm. But I was feeling it also in a big way because then came late night, which was really my time and still is I'm a late night person. When I would hit the late night period, I would begin to dread that the cycle was ending and it was going to start again. So I was convinced that like, I'm so screwed here. And I really, I really would fuel it. So at night before I went to sleep or tried to go to sleep, I would already be priming the pump of oh my God, tomorrow is going to be terrible. I can't I hate the mornings. I hope I maybe some miracle will happen. I won't feel anxious when I woke up. I would go through all of those things. And I tried a bunch of different rituals. Now some of them were sleep related. I did magnesium powder at night. I did a sleep mask. I did binaural beats. I did. I mean, I did about 15 different things to try to like wake up feeling calmer or not as anxious. And none of them worked like zero. None of them worked. I was convinced that a bunch of them worked for a while. I thought wearing a sleep mask was the thing, man. Like I bought a sleep mask. And I was like, this is it, man. This is it. It's light. I know it's like as if I if I see any light, like even through my closed lids, that's what's ruining me. Yeah, that turned out not to be it. The binaural beats, I would put my head, my ear buds in and like listen to binaural beats, you know, and you can you could Google that if you really want B I N A U R A L binaural beats. You could Google it if you want. It's not a thing. It's just not a thing. And maybe you're going to disagree with me. Go ahead and do that. But I'm telling you it's not a thing. I thought that would do it. I would listen to white noise to try to go to sleep or anything I could to try to get myself to go to sleep and not wake up anxious and none of it worked. None of it. So here is that here is the deal with morning anxiety. It just is it's not a special kind of anxiety. It just is anxiety. That's it. Like you're experiencing anxiety and that's the way it goes. Trying to dig to figure out why it's like that in the morning. I must know I'm the type of person that must figure it out. You're going to have to abandon the I'm the type of person to figure it out thing because you're not going to figure it out. If you're listening to this podcast is not because you're sort of mildly anxious once in a while in the morning. It's because you got a serious anxiety problem in the morning. That's why you listen to this podcast and so you know the hanging on to like I got to figure it out. I'm going to research it. I got to know like why is it it's cortisol. How can I micromanage that like what different foods can I eat. No you're going to have to drop all that stuff on the floor because it's not going to help you and it's just going to fuel the frustration of why can I figure this out and get away from it right been there done that so about a zillion other people trust me they've been there. They've done that and they own many of them personally who are podcast listeners and members of my social media community who have figured out that they have to stop trying to figure it out and that is starting to get better for them over time. So as you progress in your recovery overall your morning anxiety situation will get better. Now why will it get better because you're you're somehow knocking down the sensations and symptoms and thoughts that come with anxiety in the morning. No not really but you are becoming better at relating to them and not declaring disaster. So here is how you deal with right everybody's going to how do you deal with morning anxiety. I just it's just so terrible how do I deal with it deal with it handle it overcome it like everybody wants to deal specifically with morning anxiety. Here is the deal here is how you can deal with morning anxiety. Make yourself a morning routine like it is the best advice I could give anybody that is dealing with morning anxiety. It's it's one of the foundational parts of recovery in general morning anxiety or otherwise like whenever I you know get asked I'm going to tell you build a morning routine. So if you're listening to this podcast and morning anxiety feels crippling to you when you're trying to wonder you're wondering like what is it why can I how can I get rid of it how do I overcome it how do I handle it how do I deal with it. Get yourself a pen and a piece of paper or whatever you want to do when you're done listening here and build yourself a morning routine and that morning routine is the way you're going to start the day tomorrow no matter how you feel and now that morning routine I think when I say that a lot of people think like oh well oh I might have to get up I have to work out I got to lift I got a yoga I got to know this idealized morning routine and if you go and Google morning routine right now you'll find like a zillion like oh my goodness he's the CEO of whatever and this is his morning routine or she built a giant blogging empire this is Arianna Huffington's morning routine and it always seems so idealized I wake up and do my morning studies and I journal and I drink my tea and then I do yoga and then I greet the sun and okay maybe that could be your morning routine that's fine but I'm telling you right now that your morning routine does not have to be glamorous idealized or even anything in particular let me tell you what the good components of a morning routine are if you're dealing with morning anxiety going to the bathroom washing your face brushing your teeth dragging a brush or a comb through your hair putting on something that isn't like the t-shirt that you slept in drinking a glass of water having an orange or a banana or something to eat feeding yourself sitting upright instead of laying back down again maybe taking a walk outside and sitting on your front steps or walking around your garden like does any of this sound like you know some sort of life-changing advice or some idealized like oh I journal and I do yoga no like it doesn't have to be that I would tell you that if you're dealing with morning anxiety the very first thing you have to do is resolve to just be resolved that you will feel that way tomorrow morning that's just the way it's going to have to be this is how I feel in the mornings right now but I don't have to be ruled by that anymore I don't like it it's not pleasant it doesn't make my mornings easy but it does not have to be debilitating in the morning you allow it to be that right so you're going to have to drop that stuff on the floor my morning anxiety is debilitating all I could do is lay in bed and that's not true I used to think that too until I realized that laying in bed dreading the day dreading the day dreading the day was part of what was really amping up my morning anxiety dreading the day was a really big part of my morning anxiety then most people when they start to do this work and they look back they say oh yeah that that was it it had nothing to do with cortisol I mean cortisol is part of the equation that's not news but my morning anxiety was not fueled by some sort of malfunction in my cortisol system it wasn't at all like what was fueling it was dreading the morning anxiety itself the night before and then laying there just ruminating and marinating in how I felt and just being entirely focused inwards and how I felt and how horrible it was and how I hated it and dreading the things that I knew were ahead of me in the day which at the time were just very basic like I just kind of lived my life and it felt impossible so that was fueling absolutely fueling all that morning anxiety way more than any physical underlying physical concerns about the morning and what makes the morning special physiologically so I made a morning routine I'm gonna urge you to make a morning routine and this is helpful in all of recovery for people who are already even anxious in the morning the thing you cannot do is to simply lay there do not lay there do not just ruminate on it do not dread the day do not marinate in how you feel that is so passive and it doesn't have to be and declare yourself crippled and debilitated so when I would wake up the first thing you have to do is say I'm gonna feel this way that's the way it's gonna have to be but I will not be controlled by it anymore I will start the day by accomplishing some things and I don't care how small those things are they need to be accomplished and it will start to make a difference so for me my morning routine was literally sitting upright and sitting there for like 10 or 15 seconds and trying to like not feel like I was on a boat because dizzy was you know or not dizzy but disoriented and that sort of disequilibrium feeling was one of my primary anxiety symptoms and so I would lay there in one position in the bed as if I was experiencing sort of inner ear problem which I was not I was did not have room spins I was anxious and I was trying to like just be still so that I didn't have to feel that boat feeling so much but what changed a lot of things for me was the very first thing I would do is when I open my eyes and decided okay I'm I tried to go back to bed I can't I can't fall back asleep I'm getting up now instead of laying there and just marinating in anxiety I would get up put my feet on the floor and it was unpleasant to get up and put my feet on the floor but I did it and I would sit there for 10 or 15 seconds to just sort of get my bearings and then my morning routine was literally getting up and just taking one step at a time toward the bathroom and just taking care a very basic like human hygiene you're going to get up in the morning odds are you have to use the bathroom so go use the bathroom that's that's a goal boom you did it that might sound ridiculous and it has nothing to do with like an idealized morning routine but it matters you got to do it so you do it and instead of like oh my god I barely made it to the bathroom no I went and used the bathroom because that's what human means do when they wake up in the morning I splashed some water on my face that was unpleasant because I was shaking at times right my heart was pounding I felt off balance like you know like I was going to bounce off the walls I was going to fall over I never did so I wasn't truly dizzy wasn't vertigo I was anxious you know my stomach was in a knot all of those things all of those things but I splashed some water on my face I dried my face with a towel I picked up a brush I ran it through my hair didn't look good didn't look good at all I don't have good morning hair no matter what anxious anxiety or not you know I would brush my teeth but what I did is I learned to do I would then drag myself out of the bathroom one slow step at a time and like put on something something and it didn't matter what it was a pair of sweats it didn't matter I just would change so I wasn't just like in my pajamas or whatever whatever happened like I don't wear pajamas but you know a t-shirt whatever it was like it would change I would do that it would accomplish that and then I would you know move myself through the house and drink I would literally drink a glass of water I would sit in my kitchen table and just try to breathe for a little bit and for me I would get out and do my exposure work the very first thing in the morning now that goes beyond the morning anxiety topic it did impact my morning anxiety positively but that's what I did so instead of the morning being a time of dread where I felt like I was being just sat on by the anxiety monster and I would passively sit there and let him do it to me I started taking control of my mornings and tiny little would seem would be like insignificant steps like brushing my teeth brushing my teeth hold a special place in my heart to this day because it was one of the key things that helped me break that morning anxiety cycle so get up when you awake get up Claire Week said rise upon waking right so get up do not just lay there and definitely now Claire Weeks didn't have to write about this because there was no such thing but do not just wake up grab your phone and doom scroll through social media that is not a good thing to do right so get up put your feet on the floor take care of whatever personal hygiene stuff you have to do put some clothes on get yourself into your kitchen make yourself a cup of tea a cup of coffee drink a glass of water leaf through the newspaper listen to me like anybody has a newspaper anymore I'm old sometimes it feels old I really not I promise but accomplish those things make yourself a bowl of oatmeal whatever it is knowing that you will do those things while you feel anxious so the key with morning anxiety is to build a morning routine know what it is so when you go to bed tonight know what your morning routine will look like know what the first 10 or 15 minutes of your day are going to look like and then execute that plan why is it good to have a routine and just execute it because when you are anxious making decisions is not a strong suit at that moment so trying to decide what to do next when your decision making process will be influenced by how you feel is a bad place to be so if you have the routine already mapped out I don't care if you have to put it on a piece of paper and put it on your nightstand that's fine what do I do now now I tie my shoes now I get my coat I literally had to do that now I take the cap off the toothpaste now I put toothpaste on the toothbrush now I put the toothpaste back down on the shelf I literally had to break it down into that right and I ran my morning routine that way and what that did is it gave me some agency in the process I felt terrible while I was doing it but it started to show me that I could be I could feel terrible in mornings and still function I was still functional I was still capable even though I didn't feel so great when I was doing it many times I felt horrible when I was doing it but I did it anyway and with time and repetition the morning still was a more anxious time for me than the rest of the day that's just the way it was for a while but it was much more tolerable manageable handleable navigable and yes over time that then that starts to bleed into the rest of my recovery and then over time I stopped dreading the morning so now the dread of the night before disappears I don't dread it anymore because I know how the morning is going to go it's not some brand new kind of hell every morning I know how the morning is going to go and I'm in charge of it so in terms of morning anxiety you what you the overall concept here is you got to drop the passive approach stop trying to figure it out and get active in the morning like build a routine know what it is so you can execute it mind-mindlessly without having to make decisions in the morning and then do that I don't care how small those tasks are and how ridiculous they may seem to you they matter like literally putting on a clean pair of socks matters it does like eating a banana matters right we hear about things like self-care all the time sometimes I poo poo it but self-care is a real thing feeding yourself is self-care drinking water is self-care like those are the things you can fall back on and execute those little tiny self-care maintenance tasks because you number one you need to do them and they give you some feeling of agency in the process like I'm not just being like battered by anxiety while I sit there and passively take it I'm doing something and I'm showing myself that I am competent and I start to build confidence over time so that is my advice in terms of morning anxiety when you are anxious in the morning get up and start by running your morning routine and then that might take you a week or so to just get through that and like this is crazy I hate this I okay fine you hate it but but keep doing it I hated it too but I kept doing it and then it starts to become the new normal that becomes the new normal for you as opposed to laying in bed dreading the day marinating in anxiety doom scrolling on your phone not wanting to get up and then you know 10 a.m. 11 a.m. hits you're still in bed and you're and now you hate yourself because I did it again I did it again I avoided if I hit under the covers I'm avoiding I know not supposed to avoid so that is how you deal with morning anxiety you deal with it by getting up when you wake up and taking literally one step at a time now here's an important part of the morning routine excuse me an important part of the morning routine is to do it slowly slowly this isn't a plug for 7 slower although it is a good buck I'm not gonna lie I'm getting better at that aren't I but do it slowly I had to learn to do that at first I was running through my morning routine because I was anxious and when you are anxious you will speed up it is the natural response right when you are anxious you will try to do everything quickly you will you will tense up your muscles and coil your body up like some sort of spring like so you have to practice doing every little tiny bit of your morning routine every step you take toward the bathroom every every stroke of the brush through your hair every up and down of the toothbrush has to be done slowly and you have to keep relaxing relaxing your body relaxing your body you can relax physically even though you are not calm this is a key thing that you have to embrace you can be physically relaxed even though you are not calm relaxation and calm are actually two different things in our context so keep relaxing your body letting the tension out and slow down and honestly the origins of 7 slower the book that I wrote is about to come out came from then I would have to remind myself slow down slow down slow down and I came up with that little mental trick of like trying to go 7 slower because it just kept me focused on the idea of going slower 7% slower can't go 7% slower you don't have a calculator can't measure it but it was just a way for me to remind myself to slow down through my morning routine and when you slow down and relax and engage fully with every last thing I would have to I would literally tell myself all I have to do is brush my teeth all I have to do is brush my teeth all I have to do is rinse the toothbrush all I have to do is put the toothbrush back in the little holder all I have to do is turn off the light I would literally walk myself through my morning routine one task at a time and I would not allow myself to fall back into I'm so afraid I hate this I don't want to oh my god I have to go out no all I have to do in the entire world right now is put on my left sock and then I would do that slowly and as in a relaxed and engaged way as I could and then I would put the other sock on then I would put on a shoe all I have to do now is tie this shoe and I would do that that's how I lived my mornings and it changed things and it changes things for people who do that I had the privilege of seeing that happen every day with people who adopt this the morning routine regardless of the severity of your morning anxiety whether you have it or not in general that is good for your recovery it's very good for your recovery but specifically if you're dealing with morning anxiety that is the way that you deal with overcome handle manage morning anxiety and over time the dread of the morning begins to drop and when the dread of the morning begins to drop and when also at the same time you see that you can start your day in control of some things and show yourself a little bit of competence right and strength and ability and resiliency in the morning well what lies ahead of you during the day doesn't feel quite as daunting and that is the stuff that over time starts to change that anxiety profile in the morning is it changing your quarters all level at 5 a.m. well like maybe it is I guess it is but that doesn't enter into it in the end maybe your cortisol level stays the same just that you don't react to it the same way that you used to when you would claim that you were crippled by morning anxiety so morning anxiety is about becoming active in the process instead of being passive moving behaviorally activating and running that morning routine slowly and here it comes here's the word mindfully because when you stay focused on all the little tasks every stroke of the brush through your hair you know the toothpaste the water like this morning I made tea I don't usually make tea but I made tea this morning for whatever reason these are habits that stay with me now in the morning I didn't have any morning anxiety this morning I may have a lot of things in my mind this morning so maybe a little bit more emotional the last two days than I normally would be but that skill that I developed in the morning lives to this day 10 years later 15 years later I can still fall back on those it's automatic so when I made my tea this morning just like when I make my coffee that's there's almost it's almost meditative right so I can sit there in my kitchen and allow my brain to race forward in the day and think of all the things I have to accomplish in my to-do list and the people I have to talk to and oh my god in this and I forgot to do that I'm behind on this project or I can literally just focus on the sound of the water boiling in the kettle and then I could just literally focus on pouring that water into that cup then I could just steep that tea for a minute I give myself a minute to just focus on the tea bag like that's not easy to do in the beginning you have to learn and train yourself to do that but you are literally almost accidentally building the skill of mindful living which is not the end all and be all it doesn't cure your anxiety disorder but it does make things better there's no doubt about that being able to be mindful and engaged in a moment is a nice byproduct that you will learn it's an unintended skill that will come out of this new being active in the morning and running a morning routine now over time your morning routine may get more complex and it may just start to run into the rest of the day so that you don't even really feel like it's a morning routine anymore it's just the way you start the day and it will start to meld into life right so in the beginning everything feels like recovery but then over time recovery becomes life and life becomes recovery I wrote about that in the anxious truth so this is how you do it this is how you do it make yourself a morning routine I don't care how simple it is but plan out those first 10 or 15 minutes of your day and then execute those 10 or 15 minutes slowly mindfully in a relaxed way even though you don't want to and even though it feels crappy while you're doing it you have to show yourself starting first thing in the morning that you know what I'm functional even when I'm anxious and that helps turn the tide away from oh my god all bets are off because of my anxiety all bets are off because of my anxiety you gotta abandon that because that's not helping you it is keeping you glued in the morning anxiety cycle which then starts your day in the shittiest possible way right so when I would just lay there and ruminate and marinate in my feelings and like my anxiety yeah the rest of the day was a lot harder and believe me it started to get to the point where I would open my eyes in the morning and I would literally think to myself well here it is because I was still feeling it in those early days but I knew experience was telling me you know what by one or two o'clock it's gonna start to wane and sure enough it would because that was just my pattern and it was a lot easier to accept that like this is a temporary situation right here and I would move through my morning routine and then I would go out and do my exposures and that's a different story from another time you've heard me talk about my driving exposures in the morning but it made a difference in the day it really did it made a huge difference and I believe firmly that it can make a difference for you too at some scale maybe small maybe really impactful but in terms of morning anxiety that is your strategy you've got to forget trying to figure it out forget the physical cortisol part of it doesn't matter you have to stop being passive stop declaring yourself a powerless victim of this monster and start being active in the smallest possible way they will matter small things add up over time that's the story of morning anxiety at exactly the 30 minute mark which I'm pretty impressed with I didn't plan to do that but here I am all right peeps that is it as always I appreciate you coming by spending the time with me giving my attention maybe taking my advice to heart maybe you do maybe you don't but if you keep coming back I appreciate that I'm going to ask as always and by the way if you want to be able to interact with me if you go to the anxioustruth.com slash links you're going to find links to my Instagram my social media my Facebook group where right now I'm most active is in that group that's most likely we'd be able to interact with me so the anxioustruth.com slash links check it out you'll get all my stuff there to go you want to talk about this sort of thing we're building a new thing too it's going to be really awesome talk about that later and yeah there we go so as always I will ask a favor and that is if you are listening to this podcast on iTunes or any platform that lets you rate or review the podcast leave it a five star rating if you dig it I assume you do because you're listening and then maybe take another minute or so to write a short review even a few lines helps other people find the podcast because you know algorithms and that's why I do this to try and help as many people as I can I will play you out with some music by my friend Ben Drake this is Afterglow which is a song he wrote inspired by this podcast in some way and it has been gracious enough to let us use it so you all know it at this point very familiar you can find Ben online and his website at bendrakemusic.com go check him out he's a good human being and a fine musician guys thanks for coming by I will see you next week and remember this is the way