Today’s guest is Dr. David Spiegel. He is Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine all at Stanford University School of Medicine. 

Dr. Spiegel has more than 40 years of clinical and research experience studying stress and health, pain control, sleep, hypnosis, and more. He’s published thirteen books on these and other topics. 

In this interview, we talk about Hypnosis. Why are some people are more susceptible than others? What’s the difference between hypnosis and self hypnosis? How can we use hypnosis for sleep, stress, anxiety, depression, stress, phobias, pain or trauma?

When I asked him for a simple definition of hypnosis he said "hypnosis is simply a state of highly focused attention. It's like looking through the telephoto lens of a camera, what you see, you see with great detail, but you're less aware of the context."

I found his insights and the tools he offered extremely interesting…in fact I tried some of them for sleep and pain on his Reveri app. He’s an incredibly skilled and interesting guy.  

Resources: Reveri App.

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Guest Interviewer: Ariel Garten. Encore episode.

Could “energy healing” be real? Do phenomena like manifestation really work? If it does, could we possibly understand how?

Dr. Shamini Jain, scientist, and clinician at UCSD, shares her amazing studies of the biofield, and the evidence she and other colleagues have that demonstrates that this might be more real than we thought.

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Todays guest is Hersch Wilson, an Interesting guy with many passions, but none more important than being with and learning from the dogs in his life. His new book, Dog Lessons: Learning The Important Stuff From Our Best Friends shares his insights on the powerful presence of dogs in our lives and the transformative lessons they can teach us about love, loyalty, grief, and more. 

Along the way, he was also a volunteer firefighter and wrote an award winning book called "Firefighter Zen, A Field Guide for Thriving in Tough Times." 

He considers Dog Lessons a meditation on the truths dogs can teach us. From universal values like loyalty and curiosity to practical lessons on napping, playing, and avoiding a serious fight. It’s all pretty darn good advice.

One of his big messages is that dogs help us remember that life is short and we must celebrate it wherever we can. They often help us find refuge, quiet and peace in this very complicated world. 

This is a bit different from our usual untangle interviews, but I couldn’t resist since I’m a dog person myself…and living with the love and challenges that come with my little pup.

Resources: Herschwilson.com

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Today’s encore episode is with Martha Beck, a PhD, Harvard-trained sociologist, world-renowned coach and New York Times bestselling author. She has published nine non-fiction books, one novel, and more than 200 magazine articles.

She’s also known as Oprah’s Life Coach . Her most recent book, The Way of Integrity, Finding Your Path to Your Your True Self, is an Oprah book club selection and a NY Times best seller. 

In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a process that anyone can use to find a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a way to be free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us— negative habits and patterns, too much people pleasing, staying in stale relationships or careers— happen because we are out of touch with our true nature. This signals a split from integrity — which very often is unconscious and fueled by cultural norms and traditions that lead us in directions that aren’t, in fact, right for us. Getting back in sync with what is true for us brings us into alignment and this is where we become our best selves. Meditation has been a huge part of her own process in bringing her life into integrity. 

Resource: marthabeck.com

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Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University. She was also recently appointed as Dean of NYU’s College of Arts & Science. 

In her book, Good Anxiety, Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, she used new and established neuroscience to share how we can harness our fears to feel better, think better, and do better. We discuss why anxiety is so misunderstood and how we can turn it into a superpower. Much of it is pretty darn practical. 

Her other book is called Health Brain, Happy Life, here she discusses how we have the power to activate our brains. 

Her favorite line: Exercise is the most transformative thing we can do for our brain today. 

Her major research interest continues to be brain plasticity. She is best known for her extensive work studying areas in the brain critical for our ability to form and retain new long-term memories. More recently her work has focused on understanding how aerobic exercise can be used to improve learning, memory and higher cognitive abilities in humans. 

Resources: wendysuzuki.com

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Guest Interviewer: Ariel Garten, Muse Co-founder. Encore.

Dr. Adrian Owen, a renowned neuroscientist, discovered that individuals in a persistent coma could still communicate- and he went one step further and listened to what they wanted to say. He’s also performed the largest sleep and cognition study in the world, and demonstrated why brain training apps are bunk, and what we can do to sleep better and improve our own conscious function.

Dr. Owen is a Professor at The Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, Canada and the former Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging.

His research combines neuroimaging (MRI and EEG), with cognitive studies in brain-injured patients and healthy participants.

His lab studies patients who have sustained brain injuries that result in disorders of consciousness. They also study patients with neurodegenerative diseases in order to understand more about the causes and consequences of the memory, perception and reasoning problems that many of them experience.

Finally, he develops web-based tools for the assessment of cognitive function, both in healthy participants and in patients with disorders of the brain.

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Todays guest is Mitra Manesh. She is a senior mindfulness educator at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, best known for her storytelling and innovative teachings. 

Mitra is also the creator of the Mindful Attentionist Coaching (MAC) program — an inside-out deep dive into what she calls a life of choice and wellbeing. In this interview, she’s shares her wisdom on everything from how to be an attentionist to how to be in relationship with others. 

A little definition to get started: She defines Attentionism as an awakened way of believing, feeling, and living. It's about taking charge of your attention and learning how to use it intentionally.

She says there are three steps that can help you become an Attentionist—

Decide where you want to place your attention. 

Notice when your attention has wandered away.

Bring it back and place it where you intended to be. 

More about Mitra @ mitramanesh.com

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Today’s guest is Dr. Ellen Hendriksen. This is her second appearance on Untangle to share her expertise on all issues related to anxiety. She’s a clinical psychologist who focuses on releasing anxiety so that you can be more of your authentic self. Ellen serves on the faculty at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and is the author of How To Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Oprah Magazine and many other media outlets. 

She defines anxiety as a close cousin to another familiar emotion, which is fear. Fear is immediate. Fear is when the snarling dog is running at you. Fear is when the bus is barreling down the road at you. Anxiety is also fear, but it’s fear cast to the horizon. It’s fear out in the uncertain future. 

And she discusses social anxiety. 

It’s not surprising, she says, that at the heart of social anxiety is perfectionism and perfectionism is a little bit of a misnomer because it's not really about trying to be perfect. It's about never feeling good enough. And that ties right into the very definition of social anxiety; feeling like there's some flaw that we need to cover or hide, or else people will judge and reject us. She presents a number of tools to work with our anxiety, whether we want to deepen our relationships, build confidence, face our social fears in a more supportive way or challenge your own perfectionism standards.

Good news! She also talks about the superpowers of anxiety. 

Resources: Ellenhendriksen.com 

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Guest Interview with Ariel Garten.

Did you know that the way you breathe can energize or relax you? That a simple hack can help with snoring and sleep apnea? That your lung volume can relate to your longevity, and that your lung volume can be expanded with simple exercises? James Nestor takes us on a fascinating trip into the breath, explains how and why different breath techniques work and will transform each breath you take for the better.

His Book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art explores the million-year-long history of how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly and why we’re suffering from a laundry list of maladies—snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease, allergies—because of it. James ended up traveling the world in an attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Encore.

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Today’s guest is Ian Andersen, cofounder of the Sunnyside app, 

Sunnyside is an app designed to help individuals discover and adopt a more mindful approach to drinking so they can reach their own personal goals. 

It’s focused exclusively on moderation and mindfulness, not sobriety. Ian and his business partner, founder Nick Allen started this company because they wanted to support people to find a balanced approach to drinking. One that would help them be healthier and more aware. In this interview, we discuss this moderation based approach, along with how and why this makes a difference in our mental and physical Health. 

Sunnyside is partnering with Muse for Soberish October. This joint initiative wants to support individuals seeking mindfulness in their drinking habits. Again, balance….not sobriety. Visit choosemuse.com/sunnyside to learn more about how you can participate in Soberish October and win some great prizes. Again, what makes this approach different is that it’s not an all or nothing approach to drinking. It’s moderation and mindfulness based, a middle path so to speak, with some pretty great habit changing tools to help. It's about setting your own personal goals, making a commitment, tracking, connecting with others, texting with human coaches if that's your jam, and measuring your progress.

Resources: Sunnyside.co

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