Hello everyone and welcome to therapy in a nutshell. I'm Emma McAdam, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

And this is the podcast where I condense mental health skills into bite-sized nuggets of health.

When you change how you think, you change how you feel.

In this video, you're going to learn about neuroplasticity, how you can change the structure and the chemistry of your brain by changing how you think.

Now, imagine this scenario.

You're hurrying to work, you're running a little late, but you know that it's your co-worker's birthday today, and she loves donuts.

So you decide to make a

quick stop to the best donut shop in town to pick up some donuts for the office. If you hurry,

you'll make it just in time for your first meeting with a few minutes to spare. So you go to the

store and it smells delicious and there's only one guy in front of you. You start planning out your

order, but the guy in front of you is taking forever.

He can't seem to make up his mind. And he keeps asking dumb questions like, what's on that donut?

Which donuts have cream inside? Do you have any donuts with sprinkles? Okay, the donuts are right there in front of him. And if he just looked at them,

and if he just looked at the signs, he would know what was in them. As your frustration mounts,

you start to feel worried about the time. You're probably going to be late. What is taking

him so long, you think? Why can't he just pick out some donuts? Now he's asking if they

have any strawberry donuts. They are right in front of you. You silently scream inside of your head.

Okay, so now you're angry. What's the matter with these people? At the very least, he could see

that I'm waiting and step aside while he tries to

decide. You start thinking, he is so rude and he's stupid. This is so irritating you start

thinking. You're furious, right? With the help of the worker, he finally fills his box and he turns

to pay. And that's when you see that he

...