Manage stress and build resilience, with Dr Sam Akbar
Age Better with Liz Earle
Liz Earle
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Want to build a life full of meaning? Clinical psychologist Dr Sam Akbar joins Liz on this episode of the podcast to reveal the tools you need to go from just surviving to absolutely thriving.
Sam shares how she helps patients struggling with trauma, explains how being more open with emotions can help you to become resilient to stress, and walks Liz through an experiment to learn what happens when you push feelings away.
Liz and Sam discuss why our thoughts don’t define us, why values are the secret weapon of wellbeing, plus how to set goals for a 'better second half'.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let's say I'm playing out something that happened. I had a really difficult argument with someone. |
| 0:05.3 | Yeah, we had a really difficult conversation. I'm playing it over in my head in an unhelpful way. |
| 0:09.4 | You can project it onto a cinnamon screen and imagine yourself just watching it. There's the distance there. |
| 0:15.0 | You could imagine it on your phone and you swipe it away. |
| 0:19.0 | The point is not whether it's real or not. The point is, can you play with the properties of that image? |
| 0:25.4 | So that your brain doesn't respond to it in a way that says this is happening. |
| 0:30.4 | And then your body doesn't go into this state of stress. |
| 0:34.4 | And it might be this thing really happened. Or maybe it might be quite likely to happen. |
| 0:39.4 | Not the point. The point is, it's not helping you to fall inside this image. |
| 0:47.4 | Well, that's the voice of Dr Sam Ackbar and she is a clinical psychologist who has the tools to help us go from just surviving to absolutely thriving. |
| 0:59.4 | Well, welcome to the Lizzo Wellbeing Show, the podcast helping us all to have a better second half. |
| 1:05.4 | I'm Lizzo and it's my mission to find ways for us all to thrive in later life by investing in our health and our wellbeing today. |
| 1:13.4 | Well, a clinical psychologist, Sam specialises in treating refugees with PTSD. |
| 1:20.4 | Now these are people who've been tortured, survived war or sexual violence. |
| 1:25.4 | She also teaches and trains other clinicians from UCL in London to the Middle East. |
| 1:31.4 | Now she has written a handbook, brilliantly named Stress Iliant, which really does do what it says on the tin. |
| 1:39.4 | And in it, she shares accessible tools and techniques for managing stress and building resilience, even when we're not in a war zone. |
| 1:46.4 | Well, they perhaps it might feel like it's some days. And I guess something that we could all do with, really. |
| 1:51.4 | You know, just so many of us feel stressed in our daily lives. |
| 1:55.4 | And perhaps lacking the ability to respond to life's hurdles. |
| 1:59.4 | Now we can't always change the stresses around us, but we can affect how we react to them. |
| 2:05.4 | So how do we better manage our minds, handle our emotions and concentrate on building a life full of real meaning? |
... |
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