Welcome to episode 270 of Live Happy Now.

This is Paula Phelps, thanking you for joining us again this week.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, psychologist Dr. Lisa Van Susteren was noticing a new phenomenon.

She saw a growing number of patients who were plagued by worry, disturbing and

intrusive thoughts, sleep disruptions, grief, and more. She identified this trend as a

condition she calls emotional inflammation, and then, along with award-winning health writer

Stacey Kalino, wrote a book by the same name. As it turns out, emotional inflammation, discover your triggers, and reclaim your equilibrium

during anxious times is exactly the book we need for our current situation.

This week, she talks about how the pandemic has only heightened our emotional inflammation

and what we can do about it.

Lisa, welcome to Live Happy Now.

Thank you for having me, Paul.

You have written one of the most interesting books you could have written for right now.

And it's interesting that it was actually written before, obviously, the pandemic started.

So I think to start with, can you explain to us what you mean when you say emotional

inflammation? Yes. Emotional inflammation, we're all familiar with physical inflammation,

something that is after an injury or some other kind of illness or disease. We can have a joint

or some other part of our body red and inflamed and it

hurts and it means that we can't really function the way we would ordinarily or what we would

like to. And so it's sort of the counterpart is an emotional inflammation where we're also raw

and on edge hurting, not able to function the way we would

want to because of some assault or some state of mind that is unnerving us.

...