Re-Air - Grace Helbig: Comedy from Home Beats Anxiety

Revisiting our very first episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown with Grace Helbig! As we head into the holiday season, we’re bringing back a special episode to keep you company during your travels or downtime. Comedian Grace Helbig dives into the complexities of anxiety—why we have it, how it impacts us, and how she learned to navigate it in her own unique way. She explains why she why she chose to become a "comedian from home" and shares hilarious (and relatable!) stories about managing anxiety, relationships, and having tough conversations with loved ones. Plus, she puts on her doctor hat to help Mayim and Jonathan navigate their own struggles. This episode with Grace Helbig is the ideal one to revisit as we close out the year as we reflect & recharge. Happy holidays from all of us at MBB! BialikBreakdown.com https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOocPnDh2YQZZwh86K2OxA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mayim Bialik?

  Hey everyone, it's Mayim. Welcome to My Breakdown. This is the place where we break things down, so you don't have to. I hope everyone's having a great holiday season. You know, the end of a year is often a good time for reflection. And in that spirit, we are reflecting all the way back to the start of this podcast, to the very first episode we released almost four years and 250 episodes ago. The world was a very different place then. Many of us were experiencing intense anxiety, unsure what was happening in the world and how the future would unfold. I'll be honest, a lot of those themes from our very first episode are still relevant today. And what was true then is still true now.

• 0:41Mayim Bialik?

  By understanding ourselves better, we can literally make better choices about what kind of future we want and ultimately, what kind of life that we want to live. I do a proper introduction to Grace Helbig later on, but without Grace, we literally might not be here today. She's a very special person to me. She is who inspired me to start my YouTube channel in the first place many years ago. She's a comedian, a bestselling author. She is a wildly popular internet presence with millions and millions of fans and followers. She actually took everyone on her journey through cancer more recently. Incredibly brave, hilarious, and smart woman.

• 1:21Mayim Bialik?

  We really hope you enjoy this stroll down Mayim Bialik's Breakdown Memory Lane with Grace Helbig.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Conversations are not communication, is what I've also learned as an adult. It feels like when I communicate, I'm throwing a grenade and I'm like walking away hoping that like it doesn't cause permanent damage.

• 1:40Mayim Bialik?

  I hide under furniture, Grace. I physically hide under furniture. I'm Mayim Bialik, and welcome to My Breakdown. This is the place where we break down all of the things that make us break down. Today, we're going to break down anxiety.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  It's Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction, one. And now she's gonna break down. So break down. She's gonna break it down.

• 2:09Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm nervous.

• 2:10Mayim Bialik?

  What do you feel like in your body when you're nervous?

• 2:12Jonathan Cohen?

  A little shaky, a little cold, a little tense.

• 2:16Mayim Bialik?

  Your heart racing a little bit?

• 2:17Jonathan Cohen?

  Heart racing.

• 2:18Mayim Bialik?

  Hard to focus?

• 2:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Very hard. What's the difference between nervousness and anxiety?

• 2:24Mayim Bialik?

  Not much. That's my official answer. Anxiety is a clinical term, which I'm going to talk about as we start to break down anxiety. Well, the example that we had thought of for anxiety was all of those features and also diarrhea. Because many people have a nervous stomach, right? We call it a nervous stomach or an anxious stomach. That's actually a physical expression of anxiety. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Not just what anxiety is, but how does your mind touch your body with anxiety in a lot of ways?

• 2:55Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm glad we got bowel movements right off the top.

• 2:58Mayim Bialik?

  Right off the top. Anxiety is something that we're going to break down with someone who I really, really like. Her name is Grace Helbig. I'll talk about her a little bit more, but she's a very, very well-known YouTube personality. She's one of the people who inspired me to enter the world of the internet, as she calls it, comedy from home. And we're going to talk to Grace Helbig in a little bit about what role anxiety's played in her life and her career, her relationships. It's a really, really good one. Let's talk a little bit about anxiety, shall we? But first, let's check in with almost everyone's favorite Canadian, Jonathan Cohen.

• 3:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Hello, Mayim.

• 3:35Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan is my co-pilot and my partner in crime here. Jonathan, what do you got for us today?

• 3:41Jonathan Cohen?

  First, for anyone listening to the audio version of this show, try going to Mayim's YouTube channel and take a look at the shoulders that are being presented today in the gray outfits. This is the episode of the gray outfits, and we got a lot of great shoulder action happening. I'm excited about that.

• 3:58Mayim Bialik?

  Yep, today's a gray day.

• 4:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Leave us a great review, recommend it to a friend.

• 4:03Mayim Bialik?

  And did you say subscribe to my YouTube channel? Because that's where you see the shoulders.

• 4:06Jonathan Cohen?

  If you see the shoulders on the YouTube channel, you should definitely subscribe. And as Mayim likes to remind me, click that little bell

• 4:13Mayim Bialik?

  Ding!

• 4:13Jonathan Cohen?

  for notifications. Back to the reason why you should recommend this to a friend is one in five people struggle with mental health or addiction. We all know someone who's experiencing something where they need some help, even if it's just support or acknowledging that they're going through something. That is one of the core reasons why we're doing this. So please recommend it to a friend, and if there's anything helpful here, pass it along.

• 4:39Mayim Bialik?

  Let's talk about anxiety. We're gonna break it down.

• 4:41Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's break it down.

• 4:43Mayim Bialik?

  If you have anxiety, if you have any experience with anxiety, you know that it sucks. It's very scary and it is a physical thing. It's not just in your head. Where do most people feel anxiety?

• 4:54Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, as you just mentioned, heart palpitations.

• 4:57Mayim Bialik?

  Chest.

• 4:58Jonathan Cohen?

  Stomach.

• 4:59Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, but I said most. I was looking for one. Chest. That feeling.

• 5:03Jonathan Cohen?

  I think a lot of people have an upset stomach sometimes.

• 5:04Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, stomach and chest.

• 5:06Jonathan Cohen?

  Could be dairy. We don't know.

• 5:09Mayim Bialik?

  I would say that most people feel anxiety, most commonly in your chest, as palpitations. It can feel like a fluttering. It can feel painful. A lot of times, it's like, is this a heart attack? Is this what it's like? Isn't a limb supposed to hurt also? Also, a classic feeling of brick in your chest. It might be heartburn. It might just be anxiety. If that's not a commercial, I don't know what is. Shortness of breath also. That usually comes from the increased heart rate, but, yes, also stomach. Some people, do you know anyone, I do, anyone who like literally has to empty their stomach before a stressful event?

• 5:48Jonathan Cohen?

  But also the quintessential movie scene. The hero of the movie is about to do something courageous. They vomit beforehand.

• 5:54Mayim Bialik?

  Ah, another, another kind of purging, as it were. So that's a great example of the mind-body connection, right? Your mind is anxious, nervous, and it has a manifestation in your body. Anxiety also includes what can feel like endless loops of thoughts. Fear that you said something wrong, did something wrong, fearful predictions of outcomes to whatever's going on. Anxiety can feel like excessive, unstoppable worry. It's not fun. And, look, I mean, life gives us many, many reasons to be anxious, both interpersonal conflicts and then add things like, I don't know, a global pandemic, natural disasters,

• 6:33Mayim Bialik?

  many, many unjust and horrific social conflicts and violence, which we've seen just in the last handful of months and years. Some level of anxiety is normal and expected just from being human, but how anxiety impacts us and what we do with our response to it and to try and manage it, I think, needs some breaking down. I think, I know you're wondering about me. I think that I qualified for the diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, as we call it, probably before I was born. Like, it was, that was gonna happen. My mom's been a nail biter and picker her whole life. My dad was a fidgeter, like a supreme, supreme anxious fidgeter. And my mom is a worrier, like, at a gold star level.

• 7:17Mayim Bialik?

  She'll say she isn't, but she is. And given my genetic background, my grandparents fled the pogroms just preceding the Holocaust. I come from people who grew up on the alert. They just were. You might be saying, like, well, that's a circumstance. Yes, circumstances can impact your anxiety levels. It's not just like, oh, do I have the gene or don't I? And then that stuff gets passed down. We'll talk about that in a little bit. So, yeah, I'm a nail biter. I used to also suck the end of my hair, like, pigtails. You know, I, did you just sneer at me?

• 7:49Jonathan Cohen?

  The visual I got was, like, dipping it in a little bit of candy.

• 7:52Mayim Bialik?

  Ketchup. I'm more of a ketchup person than a candy person. I'm that person who can't sit still. I need to create movement in order to feel settled.

• 7:59Jonathan Cohen?

  It's amazing we're doing a seated podcast.

• 8:01Mayim Bialik?

  It's funny you said that because in traditional Jewish learning places called yeshivas, there is a special desk called a shender, a standing desk. There's always that person who cannot sit still and needs to rock. The Jewish educational system for hundreds and hundreds of years knew that there's gonna be that dude in that population who needs a shender. And basically, it's a podium that rolls so that they can give it movement while they're learning and talking. And the movements associated also with Jewish prayer, which we call shukaling, are also a way that we also dispel a lot of energy, you know, when we're praying.

• 8:41Jonathan Cohen?

  That's why I wanted a rocking chair for my desk. It got vetoed.

• 8:44Mayim Bialik?

  It's so hideous. We'll post that on the website, too. I'm the person who picks off labels from beer bottles. Back when we went to bars and people left their homes, every waiter hated me because I would leave a trail sometimes. I had more than one beer. It was a long, you know, evening at a bar. I would leave a trail of, like, the cocktail straws. Even if I wasn't drinking cocktails, I would take them from the Bartender, I would twit like twist like that was my thing. Every beer bottle label, sometimes there were those paper coasters at like, you know,

• 9:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Rip them, rip them to shreds.

• 9:16Mayim Bialik?

  To shreds, like I would leave, it looked like a raccoon.

• 9:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Like your social security number was on there.

• 9:21Mayim Bialik?

  It's, it was like a raccoon had come in, like that's what I would leave in my wake. In addition, a lot of bars would have like those, the fancy plastic toothpicks and like, oh, I would sneak a couple of those, have a real good time. I would leave indents, like it was a mess. I'm that person. I cannot take a straw out of its little paper sheath without twisting and turning it, it turning it into a worm where you put a little water on it, like that's me trying to focus.

• 9:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Side hustle, making animals of that?

• 9:49Mayim Bialik?

  I'm, I'm one of those people, I'm in a constant, really in a constant state of motion, it's very, very hard for me to sit still. The fact that you're making me hold this bobby pin is evidence of that, because if you don't let me like, if you don't give me something to do, I'm gonna do everything.

• 10:02Jonathan Cohen?

  We don't want you to take the desk apart.

• 10:04Mayim Bialik?

  No, idle hands are the devil's playground. Now that I've come mostly clean about my anxiety, let's talk about some other, what we call externalizing behaviors of anxiety, things that we do on the outside, which might indicate that we're doing them to quell or dampen anxiety. Um, smoking, that's a very obvious one. Don't listen to those people who are like, I'm just a social smoker, not for long. There are things that happen in your brain when those, uh, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors get stimulated.

• 10:36Jonathan Cohen?

  Ooh.

• 10:36Mayim Bialik?

  And, um, it absolutely does help with anxiety, also with depression, and also is terrible for your health, but it does serve a purpose. It is a compulsive act. Skin picking also, picking scabs or sores, some people will create scabs, it's a thing, it's an expression of anxiety. Sleep disturbances, this is a big one. So many people who can't figure out why they can't sleep, well, we know that it's anxiety, but a lot of people are like, I can't sleep, I can't figure out why. And then when you talk to them about both their sleep habits, or lack thereof, their sleep patterns, or lack thereof, any ritual or association regarding how they're trying to go to sleep. Once they talk about those things and also what's going on in their life,

• 11:20Mayim Bialik?

  it can become very, very clear, very quickly that anxiety is a huge, huge, huge factor in sleep disturbances. Also, you know, those classic anxiety dreams of being chased, not having your clothes on. What really bothers me is people who like have anxiety and dreams are like, "Oh, that was an anxiety dream." If you've not woken up crying and screaming, do not talk to me about anxiety dreams yet. Actually, that's not nice.

• 11:44Jonathan Cohen?

  It's not a competition.

• 11:46Mayim Bialik?

  It's not a competition because I win. But no, what I was gonna say is that classic anxiety dreams can be very, you know, interesting and textbook. But there's a level of dream that if you're having, could be an indication of a larger problem with anxiety. Those are the kind where you wake up screaming and/or crying. You know that sometimes you fall asleep and you feel like you're falling? You can have a very prolonged sensation of that even when you wake up, and it's often from anxiety dreams. If there's no knife or gun involved, it could be a mild dream.

• 12:17Jonathan Cohen?

  What if you wake up, you're not screaming or crying, but people are trying to kill you?

• 12:22Mayim Bialik?

  So, very, very upsetting dreams can be from a lot of things. But, but yeah, chances are you're, you're acting something out or something's being acted out through you, which dreams are there for a reason. It's not that our, our goal is to only have great dreams. Dreams are very helpful. But if we're at a point where those dreams affect our day and our week, it means that there's something brewing. Trouble concentrating, often anxiety. What about eating, anxious eating? Never heard of it? You're lying.

• 12:51Jonathan Cohen?

  I like to eat all the time.

• 12:52Mayim Bialik?

  Well, okay, so that's also a different issue. But you know that eating you do when you're watching TV and you like don't even realize you've eaten three sandwiches and two bowls of popcorn? Sometimes it's eating out of boredom, but usually it's anxiety. Also, obsessing about anything but yourself is a great way to try and avoid anxiety. So if you find yourself constantly pointing a finger, three of them are pointing back at you. Just keep that in mind.

• 13:18Jonathan Cohen?

  My MB Alex Breakdown is supported by Honeylove.

• 13:21Mayim Bialik?

  Have you noticed that most wireless bras just completely miss the mark? I've tried many, and they either stretch as you wear them, the band rolls up, the straps are always slipping, but... Not a problem anymore because I have the Honeylove X-Balance Bra. It's soft and supportive but without any underwire. It's so comfortable, I don't even feel the need to rip it off the second that I get home. Honeylove is an independent, female-founded brand with products designed by women who actually wear them. They don't just make shapewear and bras either. They have tanks, bodysuits, underwear, all with supportive structure, smoothing fabrics, and premium finishes. Honeylove's got a style for everyone. You can also try their crossover contour bra, which features their best-selling wireless

• 14:04Mayim Bialik?

  crossover bra design, plus built-in molded light foam pads for extra support and a contoured shape. Honeylove's now offering a crossover triple bra bundle. So if you want a refresh on your top drawer, you can get huge savings by buying three at once. Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link to save 20% off Honeylove at honeylove.com/breaker. That's honeylove.com/breaker. After you check out, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

• 14:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Experience new standards and comfort and support with Honeylove.

• 14:37Mayim Bialik?

  My MB Alex Breakdown is supported by AG1. Hey, November is a crazy time. It feels like you're sprinting to the finish line. Now more than ever, remembering your healthy habits can feel almost impossible. That's where AG1 earns its spot. Not when life is easy and you've got time for a whole routine, but right now, when everything's full and something's gotta give. One scoop, cold water, every morning before anything else. Jonathan and I love how AG1 fits into our routine. I like to put it on a little ice, drink it first thing, so it can jumpstart my brain in the morning. One scoop covers what a full stack of separate supplements would. 75-plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, pre- and probiotics, superfoods.

• 15:19Mayim Bialik?

  No cabinet full of bottles, no figuring out what to take when. And it's not just marketing. AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Not "we did a study," but four independent studies with key nutrient levels improved within three months of consistent use. Plus, there's their new AG1 Pro. Same daily drink, now with a performance and recovery layer built in. Five grams of creatine. Premium German-made creatine monohydrate, and one of the most studied compounds in sports science. Plus, CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnecine for gut support. Next Gen is the foundation. Pro adds what your body needs to recover. Honestly, Halloween is where I tend to fall off the healthy habit wagon, but AG1 has kept me on track.

• 16:04Mayim Bialik?

  Starting my day with this easy, health-focused task reminds me to continue to make healthy choices the rest of the day. For a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/breakdown and get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/breakdown. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that MyobioX Breakdown sent you. I've just about named every single thing that humans experience, which is a way of saying anxiety is a lot more prevalent, I think, than than most of us realize. And getting in touch with more of an understanding of anxiety, I think, is important to reveal a lot. How do you know if someone's depressed?

• 16:45Mayim Bialik?

  In the medical field, the way that we know, or approximate, is that there's a standardized set of criteria that you have to meet in order to qualify for a clinical diagnosis of anxiety. You can experience a variety of symptoms of anxiety and not, like, meet that benchmark. That doesn't mean that you're not anxious. It just means that by the clinical diagnosis, you may not meet the criteria for their DSM, you know, diagnosis. But as with most mental health challenges, the questions that that doctors will ask you, how long has this gone on? And how much does it interfere with your life? And those are really, I think, the most important questions when you try and decide, do I need help? Am I getting enough help? How long are we having this? To what intensity, really?

• 17:30Mayim Bialik?

  You know, like, what intensity is going on? And how much is it interfering with your life? Because plenty of people are anxious and they go about their lives and they figure it out. It manifests, or they exercise, and that dispels some of that. But for for some of us, you know, and I've I've had periods like this in my life, it can interfere with your life very significantly. It can change the activities you engage in. It can change your social life. It can change your relationships. Relationship with people even that love you and support you. Much like depression, anxiety is one of those things. It's very, very insidious. Yes, Jonathan?

• 18:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Just want to clarify that what we're distinguishing here is between the medical diagnosis of anxiety, which may require, when we say help, it may require medical intervention.

• 18:11Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 18:11Jonathan Cohen?

  Or a pharmaceutical versus becoming aware of anxiety.

• 18:15Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 18:15Jonathan Cohen?

  In our lives, which may require lifestyle changes.

• 18:18Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. You might also be wondering, why do we have anxiety? Meaning like, why does anxiety have to exist? Why couldn't the universe be created without this? The answer is that anxiety is an incredibly important adaptive feature of our existence on this planet. In particular, our existence as primates. So our brains are wired for, what do I say? Survival. Procreation in particular. And that doesn't mean that if you don't procreate, you don't deserve to exist. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the process by which the DNA in our body tries to make more of itself is one of procreation to perpetuate the species and pass on favorable genes. So our brains are wired kind of for that.

• 19:02Mayim Bialik?

  And it's very fun to be alive and to watch movies and to ride a bike and to bake the perfect sourdough. And our brains, though, are wired so that we can perpetuate the species. And that means making babies or contributing to a society in ways that help other people.

• 19:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Like making podcasts.

• 19:18Mayim Bialik?

  Like making podcasts, right. So anxiety in particular, when you think about anxiety for the purpose of like perpetuating the species, anxiety keeps your brain vigilant. It keeps you aware of what's going on around you. And in the right doses, that's incredibly important. Why? Subtle changes in the environment can be very, very dangerous, especially if you're a primate, a mammal, really any animal. But in particular, we're wired to be anxious, meaning we're wired for the capability to be anxious so that we can perceive threats. That's more important to evolution than you chilling out, maxing, relaxing, all cool. So why are some people more anxious than others? Like, why do we have this variability?

• 20:01Mayim Bialik?

  Well, part of it is genetic, in that some people get more of a genetic load than others. And that's a, it's a term, a genetic load. Anxiety is not one gene. It's not like, oh, I have the anxiety gene, or I don't. Anxiety is a very complicated network and system, and it involves the limbic structures of the brain and prefrontal cortex. It involves a lot of things. We do inherit anxiety from our parents, not just because some of us have parents who shout all the time. You have to shout because they're very anxious, and everybody's anxious, and you're always shouting.

• 20:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Or they tell you all the things that could possibly go wrong in any situation.

• 20:38Mayim Bialik?

  Also, we inherit that from our parents. But what we're inheriting is we're inheriting a notion of vigilance. And when we are raised in a fearful environment, we are taught to be vigilant about things that might happen to us. And that's actually, you know, if you had parents like that, hi, welcome. If you had parents like that, they're not thinking, is this damaging my child's ability to manage anxiety when they become adults? No, they're thinking, I grew up with this constant state of tension, and I have to make them vigilant like me so that we can survive. In addition, Jonathan brings up an interesting point also about our families. So this is just a small example. Eastern European Jews, of which we happen to be two of them.

• 21:23Jonathan Cohen?

  I gotta say it, my dad, his nickname, he's Head of Disaster Prevention. This is what I've nicknamed him with some of my friends, is, should we consult Joel, Head of Disaster Prevention, for anything that could possibly go wrong? And sometimes I get him on the phone on a Saturday, and if we have nothing to talk about, I say, so Dad, let's talk about the potential collapse of the United States, to which he says, okay. And I just, it requires one or two questions to get him going as to why the entire society may potentially collapse.

• 21:54Mayim Bialik?

  So Jonathan and I are of Eastern European descent. And Eastern European Jews are a very small genetic pool that resulted from a population bottleneck somewhere around the 15th century. I actually, I need to, I need to fact check that. And if I am wrong, that it's not 15th century, I'll post that on biologicbreakdown.com. We have a small genetic pool. So what, what happens when you have a small genetic pool for a population is that things that occur are going to occur a lot because we're sharing a lot of the same genetic information. So think like Jerry Seinfeld, think Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller. Do you see a pattern? These are Jewish comedians who capitalize really on a sense of comedy that is really,

• 22:38Mayim Bialik?

  in many cases anchored, you know, around a notion of anxiety. And it's not just something to joke about, like the take home messages and that like Jews are anxious. But for a population like Eastern European Jews, who have been subject to a lot of situations that involve vigilance and fear, really for thousands and thousands of years, anxiety can serve as a protective mechanism for certain populations. And that's because it's just a great example of what it's like to be alive when things are stressful. And think of us as cave people. Very, very stressful to not have houses and buildings and shoes.

• 23:11Jonathan Cohen?

  All of us, very stressed cousins from neighboring villages.

• 23:14Mayim Bialik?

  That's right. So there, there are certain predispositions that we may be born with because of a genetic, you know, kind of luck, luck of the draw. But then an environment that is highlighting a need for anxiety and hypervigilance is, is obviously going to lead to more anxiety in children. So what would we be like without anxiety? Like, why, why can't we take it away?

• 23:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Tell us, tell us about that.

• 23:36Mayim Bialik?

  Well, leave it to many, many years of mean scientists to figure out. Because if you take many furry, sweet, loving animals.

• 23:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Not that you've done this.

• 23:44Mayim Bialik?

  I have not done this. But, but yes, a lot of the research that has been done about fear is based around a region of the brain called the amygdala. It's kind of like right in the middle, lower third. You can remove the amygdala and you can remove essentially fear and with it most, most anxiety. Usually. Animals that don't have fear get killed very quickly because they don't know to

• 24:08Jonathan Cohen?

  To be afraid.

• 24:09Mayim Bialik?

  They don't know to be afraid. So you can manipulate brain structures and chemicals that are, that we have literally, we now know are responsible for anxiety. Animals will also skin pick. They will skin pick until all of their fur comes out and they're a bloody mess. If anyone has ever owned a bird, birds, when they are anxious, will pluck their feathers out. They will make a mess of themselves. That's anxiety. Also, animals will, will attack and circle their cages aimlessly. They, they do a lot of the behaviors that we do when we're anxious. You know, I'll pace for two hours and be in a cold sweat during a conference call because that's the only way I know to get that anxiety out. It's not that different from when you, when you manipulate and stimulate fear and anxiety in a rat and they will circle their cage for hours and hours until they drop dead.

• 24:53Mayim Bialik?

  Anxiety really helps us with two things. It helps us with fight and with flight. So if you think of yourself as an animal, which you are, and you're in the jungle or the forest, really wherever you'd like to picture your animal self. If something seems not quite right, it could be a sound, it could be a smell. Animals who handle fluctuations in comfort are more likely to pass on their genes because they're going to survive. Because they'll be like, oh, that doesn't sound good. I'm gonna get away from that. That's how it works. The, the way that your body does that, the way that your brain does that, is it sends out distribution of, of blood and, and important chemicals, blood carries oxygen, to the parts of the body that are needed to handle the situation. So when we want to run, what do we need? We need oxygenated blood going to our legs. Like, that's how it works. You need your lungs to be pumping, you need your heart to get going

• 25:37Mayim Bialik?

  so that you're not like, eh, right? All those things that happen, that's the, the system of anxiety that affects your body. So you can imagine, as a human, if that system gets stimulated, you're gonna get all that blood flowing, all those places, but you don't need it to. And it's because we exist in this complicated, amazing world that we have to learn to manage those discrepancies between what our brain is programmed to do and what our environment really demands of us.

• 26:04Jonathan Cohen?

  And that's when you hear people explaining that when you're in a hyper vigilant state all the time, your body's resources are going to fight or flight instead of to repair. And if that goes on for a long Period of time.

• 26:15Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. Well, and I think the global pandemic is a great example of a sustained situation of tremendous uncertainty, anticipatory anxiety is what we're essentially all living in. You know how sometimes, I mean, at least this is my experience, there are some days during the pandemic where I kind of like forget and I'll be like, oh, I gotta go pick up that thing. Like, it's because I've allowed myself to forget because I cannot constantly process what's going on. Namely, that I'm very anxious about what's gonna happen next year with a vaccine. Like, that's anxiety provoking for me. Also, we've had an election and a country divided, like really, really divided. Also, very anxiety provoking.

• 26:56Mayim Bialik?

  Many of us are on high alert and honestly, for good reason. So, when we don't find ways to manage our anxiety, what happens? Well, did you know that your immune system can take a hit with prolonged anxiety? Did you know that anxiety dumps a stress hormone called cortisol into your system? It messes up with your T cells and your ability to fight off even minor sickness. It messes with your sleep. It causes wear and tear. And for me, one of the indications I had that my anxiety was truly, truly out of control, I was getting sick all the time. And I know people are like, I don't get sick. She's wrong. Okay, some people may not get sick, but some people may. And this is a factor. So, what else

• 27:38Mayim Bialik?

  about anxiety? It progresses. And what happens is you can see that behaviors that started as anxious behaviors, they start growing. You might add new ones to those behaviors. You can have anxiety attacks, which are acute combinations of symptoms, which are physiological symptoms. Sweating, increased heart rate, confused thinking. These can last for minutes. Anxiety attacks are very, very debilitating. They're very, very scary. But I'd like to distinguish them from panic attacks. Panic attacks is one of those things that people say a lot, like, I'm having a panic attack. Panic attacks are different from anxiety attacks. Panic attacks come from technically what's called panic disorder. And panic attacks often make you end up in the hospital because...

• 28:22Mayim Bialik?

  You think you're dying. And whereas an anxiety attack is like, oh, my gosh, this is so uncomfortable. This is horrible. I'm sweating. Where am I? What do I do? A panic attack is very, very different in that the train of thought is such that you lose the ability to really track real time and cognitive processing of what's going on. Yes, I've experienced panic attacks, in case my description isn't specific enough. What a panic attack feels like is, I think I need to go to the hospital. I need to pull over the car. I cannot drive right now. I gotta go to the hospital. And sometimes it's like you start feeling sensations that must indicate that you think you need to go to the hospital, but the level of disorientation and dissociation is incredibly

• 29:05Mayim Bialik?

  debilitating. And panic attacks are distinct from anxiety attacks in that panic attacks include with them the fear that you will get another one. And while anxiety attacks can make you think like, boy, I really don't want to get another one. That would be terrible. The panic attack loop is such that the fear that you may get another one can bring them on. And it is a very, very dangerous, scary loop for which you are usually given a sedative.

• 29:30Jonathan Cohen?

  So the difference for people following along at home is the degrees of severity.

• 29:36Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 29:37Jonathan Cohen?

  And so a lot of people who are using panic attack and really having anxiety attack, it feels intense to them, but only because, or not only, but potentially because they haven't experienced the full-blown, like, I'm gonna die sensation of a panic attack.

• 29:52Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. And again, it's not a competition because I win. No, but it's not a competition, but it is important to note that people like me, scientist types, do get very persnickety about words because they matter and they have meaning. And it helps people understand their own mental state when we learn to correctly identify what's going on. It's helpful for speaking to practitioners. It's helpful for speaking to yourself. If you're experiencing the kind of things we're talking about, yes, start keeping track of them. Absolutely. Print up from the interwebs, you know, print up a calendar for a month and mark off what happens on any given day regarding these kinds of symptoms. This feels like the right time to introduce Grace Helbig.

• 30:37Mayim Bialik?

  Because she knows all these things about anxiety. And she's an awesome person. And Grace is someone that I got to know through Will Wheaton. When I was wanting to start a YouTube channel many years ago, I said to Will Wheaton, who was on Big Bang Theory, and we were close, and we are close. I said, I don't feel like people understand me. I don't feel like I, why should I be on YouTube? He said, you have to talk to Grace. She's hilarious, she's brave, she's quirky, she's very smart. One of the first podcasts I was ever on was Grace's. She also has a best friend, Mamory. And I was on their show. I'm obsessed with Mamory's dog, Beans, which we'll talk about with Grace. Grace has always been a really active and vocal supporter of authenticity as a public person. She really has inspired me to put myself out there. And she's really why I'm talking to all of you.

• 31:21Mayim Bialik?

  So Grace is a comedian, she's an actor, and she's a YouTube personality. She has, yeah, almost 3 million subscribers and 329 million views on her channel, It's Grace. She's also done movies. She hosts the podcast, Pile It On, with Elliot Morgan. She's written two kind of tongue-in-cheek self-help books. Grace's Guide, The Art of Pretending to be a Grown-Up, and Grace and Style, The Art of Pretending You Have It, both of which are New York Times bestsellers. Let's welcome Grace Helbig.

• 31:54Mayim Bialik?

  Welcome, Grace.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 31:56Mayim Bialik?

  Hello.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. I'm very excited.

• 31:59Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you. Your podcast was actually one of the first that I ever did.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 32:05Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, and I remember, it was a lot of fun. And I posed with a weird baby doll when we were done.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes. But, yeah, in these times, that baby has been put away for a bit. No one gets to touch the baby these days.

• 32:19Mayim Bialik?

  If I had a nickel.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 32:23Mayim Bialik?

  You were one of the most prominent women, really, in the space that I wanted to enter. I really just, I'm so appreciative of your presence and your ability to be yourself in a public way.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 32:36Mayim Bialik?

  And so I thought you would really be such a wonderful person to talk to about anxiety in particular, but also just about kind of your journey with what it's like being public and being you. So just to kind of orient people, maybe just talk a little bit about kind of like where you grew up, you know, what your parents' life was like, meaning like, what'd your parents do? And what were you like? Like, what was Grace like as a little kid?

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, I grew up in the beautiful state of New Jersey. Absolutely lovely. It has a lot to offer. And I was very, very shy growing up, super, super shy. My parents were divorced when I was younger and I grew up with all brothers. So my brothers were very into like Monty Python. They're very into SNL. And so my two older brothers especially, or my older stepbrother, my older brother, they loved comedy and I always had like a deep desire to impress them. And so I got very interested in comedy, interested in making people laugh. And so when I went to college in northern New Jersey,

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I studied just standard communications and I kind of developed a taste for comedy there. I started getting interested in improv comedy and taking classes in New York City at the time. And that really kind of burst me out of my shell a little bit, gave me kind of a voice and an outlet to be able to express myself. And then moved to New York City after I graduated college and got interested in the internet because still I had a very shy, introverted child inside of me. And so going out and performing improv comedy in New York City was so fun, so cool, very anxiety inducing. And so when this opportunity to be able to do comedy from home

• 34:24Speaker 01

  and be able to connect and make people laugh from the comfort and solace of my own apartment in Brooklyn came up, I really kind of latched on to that. And so started doing YouTube videos, worked for a company for a while, created a series called Daily Grace, not knowing anything about exactly what YouTube or the internet world was like at all. Met a lot of really wonderful friends through that that were also in that world. And we all sort of like forged forward trying to figure out what we were doing. And yeah, that's the, that's the long and short of the start of my, my YouTube thing.

• 35:02Mayim Bialik?

  I didn't know this about you and, and brothers, but a tremendous part of sort of my attraction to you as a comedian and, And as a public person is that this is not a space where a lot of women live. It really is a, it really is a kind of a male dominated, you know, kind of world. And a lot of times the opportunities for females are specifically geared around like, can you be sexy and do what you're doing? Because that's really important. And, and I think that there's something that's really inspiring to me about the kind of woman that you are in that you do have a very like Monty Python SNL kind of comedy energy about you, but also you're, you're still, you're still a woman. There's still things about you that are, that are definitely aligned with, you know,

• 35:46Mayim Bialik?

  a lot of heteronormative female things.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, um, it's interesting. I am, I am a woman. And so I, in my kind of like naive upbringing, I was always, I was very into sports when I was in high school. I did track and tennis. I was interested in the more like feminine qualities. I was really into, you know, 17 magazines and, and watching the Style Network and, and makeover shows and all of that stuff. But I had no one to kind of commiserate on all of that with growing up. And my, my friends, I had a very small group of friends because I was shy in high school. My friends were also more on the tomboy side, more into sports and comedy.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  And so it just never was part of my DNA growing up. I mean, my mom is a very sweet feminine woman, but she's also, you know, not thriving on her sexuality in any way, shape or form. And so when I got into comedy, that question started to come up a lot of like, what is it like being a female in comedy? And I very naively had never really considered it like that. I'd always considered myself a person in comedy. And I felt like at the time, like this is 2000. Eight, nine, ten. Like, it felt very limiting to kind of see myself as a woman in comedy, to put sort of like a restriction on myself,

• 37:12Speaker 01

  or a barrier, or obstacle on myself before I even got started. And, at the time too, like, I was kind of an anomaly, because the females in the comedy space were few and far between, that we were actually getting more opportunities to get on stage, getting more opportunities to audition for things. So I always kind of felt like, thank God, I'm not a straight white guy right now. I wouldn't get any opportunities. That this female thing is working in my favor right now. But, when I first started, all of the auditions for like Sexy Housewife, or like Very Confident in Her Body Mistress were coming in all the time. And I had to really...

• 37:56Speaker 01

  I don't stand up for myself very often, but I had to make it clear to my manager over and over and over again, that like, hey, I think this role is cool. I know what I enjoy playing, and I don't think this is gonna work out for me. I appreciate this coming down the line and having an opportunity, but I just know so many other females that could do this so much better than I could. And I'm gonna waste a casting director and my time trying to take a subway into the city and do something that I'm so wildly uncomfortable with. So, it worked in my favor, and the internet thing coming up just gave me this opportunity to really be myself and to be appreciated for it. And so every time I did end up going to an audition like that,

• 38:41Speaker 01

  I had just this thought in the back of my mind that, oh my God, I get to go home and put sweatpants on and be completely myself on the internet. That is the most relieving, wonderful thing. And so that was kind of my driving force, without knowing that at the time, that was an interesting quality for people to latch on to. I was just like so thankful that I had a space to be creative and still like dress like an eleven-year-old boy all the time.

• 39:08Jonathan Cohen?

  Confident in her body mistress is our next podcast episode.

• 39:11Mayim Bialik?

  Confident in her body mistress.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  I know. But the other thing too is like, all those things that you kind of repress about yourself, you find and project and are interested in. So I'm obsessed with Real Housewives. I'm obsessed with all of these shows about women that are so like, exuding their sexuality because it's just like so, I think, repressed in my everyday world. So I'm fascinated and I think it's so wonderful when a woman is like, you know, that confident and can be that way. I mean, my best friend is Mamri Hart, who is the polar opposite of me in that capacity. It's pretty obvious why I'm so like, in awe of her all the time.

• 39:49Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. Well, she's also got that dog that I'm obsessed with.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. She, when I told her that I was doing this podcast, she was like, I gotta go on Beans's account. I gotta update it because my mom is really into Beans and I haven't been doing my job.

• 40:00Mayim Bialik?

  I'm obsessed with that dog.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I mean, she's the true female icon.

• 40:05Mayim Bialik?

  Yes. Hairless with like the tongue hanging out. It's a whole thing.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh. So comfortable in her own body.

• 40:11Mayim Bialik?

  Um, so it's funny that you bring up stand-up. And also I wanted to say, Eliza Schlessinger once said to me that like, she never thought of herself as the hot girl until she started doing stand-up because there were so few females. And the focus became so much about like, you're a female. But that sort of adds to my question that I was gonna ask you, like, improv and stand-up, like, those are two very, very specific branches of comedy that are the most anxiety-producing because you are flying without a net. And the ability to be quick, to be quick-witted and to be sharp and funny is, has nothing to do with the skillset that is involved

• 40:52Mayim Bialik?

  with getting up in front of, you know, essentially a room of strangers and seeing what will land. And I'd like to know, I don't know, you know, if and when you first had a notion of like, I'm an anxious person or I feel anxiety. Just hearing you talk about even the notion of anyone doing improv, like, makes my heart start climbing up my throat. Because that's something I cannot do. And when I try, I have a classic anxious reaction. I start crying and not in a good way. So talk a little bit about that anxiety with that particular form of comedy.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, first of all, I don't do stand-up. And I think I would have a very different and hardened perspective if I did stand-up, because that world is terrifying to me. You, like you said, are flying without a net, but you're completely by yourself. Improv was a little bit of a safer playground, because you are flying without a net, but the entire foundation of it is working with a team to build something together. And so you are always supported, no matter what. You're never out there by yourself unless you're in a bad show with a bad group of people. But the whole foundation of it was, you know, we are all working together. We are supporting each other. And that felt much more fun to me. I have so much respect for stand-ups.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  It's just a world that I, obviously, am very terrified in. But the world of improv, when I first started taking classes, I, every week, would have the thought of, like, talking myself out of doing this class and having, like, full, full-body, like, heat surge panic every time I had took the train into the city to take another class. But then, the joy that happened in class, the moments of, like, breakthrough or the moments of pushing yourself past something that was blocking you, I mean, saying yes, following your fear, or all these, like, diatribes that the whole industry has, that were super helpful for me

• 42:50Speaker 01

  as a recent college graduate, like, trying to figure out myself in this world. I was also younger than the average age of people that were participating in that and that I was on teams with. So I think I really skated by on the getting sexualized in any sense there, because I think I exuded, like, younger sister vibes. I had been a younger sister my whole life, so I was really good at playing that role in that world. But people like Eliza, yeah, they, the stuff that they have to deal with that is not even associated with, like, the actual work that they're trying to put forward is wild, and it's only gotten crazier. But that, I loved improv.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Because it felt like a very safe, supportive environment in that way. And when you get into comedy, entertainment in general, you start to realize that like, everyone's a little kooky. Like, everyone's got their anxieties and everyone's got their ish going on. And so you do feel like you've kind of met a good tribe, in a sense. And all these like, thoughts that you have that feel very isolating and very lonely, suddenly become more normalized because everyone's working through their stuff. And so I felt very comfortable being uncomfortable in that environment.

• 44:09Mayim Bialik?

  Mm-hmm. So, and that's sort of, well, first of all, I loved your description of what anxiety feels like. One of the main like, purposes of this podcast is also to try and introduce, not like, the notion of mind-body, you know, in sort of a colloquial way, but to really try and communicate to people that our bodies receive a lot of information about what's going on in our minds. So you described some of my favorites, like that hot, you feel like that hot, hot flush. What else did you say? You said something else that was so right.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  You get, I get very itchy, I get very hot, I get, like, I have to shake my hands out a lot. I have long limbs, so my circulation is naturally, even at my most comfortable state, not great. So when I'm extra, like, riled up, there's a lot of cold fingers going on. The hard part for me in the beginning with improv and the whole whirlwind of it being so exciting, is that I couldn't, I had a hard time separating like, the anxiety from the excitement of it. And because you're taught that improv is about following your fear, you put one foot out and then you put the other foot out, that you are accidentally conditioned to like, keep pushing through your anxiety

• 45:20Speaker 01

  and not necessarily like, listening and being patient with it and spending time trying to figure out like, where it's coming from. So... I've been out of improv for years now and it's, I'm starting to try to understand more of the mind-body connection, more of listening to the signals that your body is giving off, because it definitely gives off signals constantly if you listen to them.

• 45:44Mayim Bialik?

  Sure. Well, and I think this just became me asking you advice, because I'm about to do it right now. So here's what happens for me. And I have friends who are Groundlings company members, which Groundlings is, you know, it's like Second City, it's UCB, it's, you know, a very well-known, it's where Will Ferrell came out of and all those people. So when I try and do improv, meaning the Groundlings has, you know, well, back before the quarantine and COVID, they used to have like a celebrity guest, and sometimes the celebrity guests are very, very good at improv. That's not this celebrity guest. So what they tell you before is like, "We're super supportive, you're gonna do great."

• 46:28Mayim Bialik?

  And this is the thing that actually kills me, is when people tell me, "You're gonna do great." And in my head, I can't decide if it is just like me not having enough confidence. I'm like, "They may be wrong, but I'm wondering, maybe if I think they're right, I'll do fine." I've tried it both ways. Here's what happens. I get it. And if you give me like an improv game or something, where it's a very discreet, distinct thing, like, "We're gonna come up with names of peanut butter." Okay, fine, that I can do. But if it is an open improv, for example, like, long form, how about a long-form 20-minute improv? And the topic was Harry Potter, which I've never seen or read.

• 47:10Mayim Bialik?

  And I'm on a stage, and I cried myself to sleep that night, is the PS. But I'm gonna tell you what happened.

• 47:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Is that different than most nights?

• 47:17Mayim Bialik?

  That is different than most. It was a different cry myself to sleep than the other nights.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  It was a different cry.

• 47:21Mayim Bialik?

  So here's, but here's what it feels like. Like, if you were my teacher, like my improv teacher. What it feels like is complete paralysis.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:30Mayim Bialik?

  My, my brain stops. It stops being able to take in or give out information. And I get, it's usually like a tingly flush. You know, and it starts usually in my belly. And it moves its way up and it constricts my throat. And that feels like, and I'm a neuroscientist. It feels like the constricting of the throat is the constricting of the brain, which isn't a thing. But that's what it feels like. And it's like time slows down in that. One second of silence feels to my body like I've been standing there for a minute. And I'm able in that moment to process everyone's collective disappointment with my existence on the planet.

• 48:12Mayim Bialik?

  So what, when people are like, just say yes. Even when I say yes, you know, because you're supposed to say yes in improv. What it sounds like is this, yes. And that may as well be a no. It's probably funnier just to say. So this is the kind of thing also where I feel like, and, and as women especially, especially raised the way that we are. It's like, you can do anything. You can learn anything. You could do this. This is a thing that I would like everyone to collectively accept that I can't do and that's okay.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:44Mayim Bialik?

  But, but I guess this is my question, like, am I just missing? Am I missing something? Or is this just like, that's not for you?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  I moved out to Los Angeles eight, eight years ago. And so I haven't done improv since I've been out here. And I think the further that you get away from it, obviously the more horrifying the idea of it is.

• 49:05Mayim Bialik?

  I'm 44 years away from it because I've never done it right.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  No, you describing that just gave me a bit of anxiety surge of like remembering how removed I am from it. No, it's, it's incredibly difficult. At the time that I was doing it, you're, I was doing it so frequently that it was a like, you know, running, like exercise, your muscles are attuned to this. You're like ready to go and you're in it and you're with a group of people and you've all been, it's like training for a marathon, like runners that wake up on Sunday mornings that go out together. That you're like, oh. We're all athletes in this world and we are prepared for this. I did Ask Cat out here like a few years after I moved out here and I was away from improv. It was the most horrifying thing to me. I, and all you have to do is monologue. I didn't even have to improv. I just had to go and give a couple.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  No, no pressure. There's no expectations because all of the amazing improvisers are going to make you look good by taking your story. I still felt exactly like that, that they'd be like, here the suggestion is shoes. And I'd be like, I've never worn shoes in my life. I have no idea what these are. I have no stories about any of this. And it was, but that as soon as you, that like little barrier in your brain like shuts, it's like impossible to reopen that door again. And like you said, if I were able to like change or pivot the energy that I'm able to have in the moments of panic, thinking about everyone's disappointment in me to just doing anything on stage, I would probably have a very different outcome and I wouldn't

• 50:38Speaker 01

  have to cry myself to sleep that night. But it's, it's incredibly difficult. It's also like, I try to rationalize because I've had those nights where I've had terrible shows and I've gone home and it's like consumed me and I'm so disappointed in myself and I feel like I've lost it. Like whatever magic I might've like held on to is gone forever and there's no getting it back. I try to remember like the reason that I'm so disappointed is because I care about this, because I want to do well at this. And that's kind of cool. I don't know where to go with that necessarily, but if I could start to like be more gentle with myself in my disappointment, because I just, I really care about it. That helps a little bit. But yeah, it's, it's insane.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  I, I'm so fascinated right now because we've been in quarantine for eight months, how improvisers are faring right now. They're so used to being on stage that I'm like, where are they playing Zip Zap Zap? Where is this happening?

• 51:36Mayim Bialik?

  With their cats, dogs and spouses.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:39Mayim Bialik?

  So this brings up something, again, I'm not done with using you as my therapist. This is really helpful.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 51:44Mayim Bialik?

  So I grew up in a house. With, both my parents are, are very artsy and they were both English teachers. My dad was a drama teacher and my dad was a, um, he was a writer and a poet, a frustrated artist, you know? You know, I grew up with these parents who were like, almost too supportive, like, you're so amazing, but... They were the most critical human beings, like, that ever walked the face of the earth. So, on the one hand, I had this notion of like, I'm so supported and like, I can do anything. But the way that they, and I'm not just saying necessarily like, bad critical, I'm saying their attention to detail of humans was so keen that I don't know why I should be exempt from that criticism from them.

• 52:25Mayim Bialik?

  Meaning, even if they didn't say to me and pick me apart, if that's how they deal with ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine-nine percent of the universe, why should I think that I'm immune from that level of criticism? So, I'm gonna ask you a really simple question, like, do you think we get anxious from that kind of, I mean, obviously anxiety is a very complicated thing, but I can't help but think that if, if they had been more quiet about how critical they were about everyone else, I might not have assumed that everyone's walking around that way. And maybe not everyone was as critical as my parents, but as a child, that's all you know, right?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, that is super true. Yeah, if you're, if that's what you're raised in, of course, your unconscious has now picked this up and carries it along with you, whether you know it or not, it comes to your consciousness at some point and then all of a sudden it's everywhere in your consciousness. The, I had also very supportive parents, but my family were like, classically, very in our heads a lot, and so they were sweetly supportive. The cool thing about the internet is they had no awareness of what it was, or what a job on it was, and so they could be supportive, but they truly didn't know how to specifically be supportive. Like now, it's a little uncomfortable because they do listen to my podcasts and watch my videos

• 53:50Speaker 01

  and know how to find all of this stuff. And my stepmom likes my Instagram posts and it's like a whole- I feel I feel very blessed in the beginning not having having a little bit more of a private world there and not having them there. My parents were a bit in the blissful ignorant category of it. So they were like, as long as you're safe and happy and you're good and we're here for you. That's wonderful. We have no idea what you're doing, but you seem like you're doing okay. So that's great. But yeah, if you're if you are raised that way, obviously it's going to affect.

• 54:24Mayim Bialik?

  Right. We're from the other the other side of the river of New Jersey.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:27Mayim Bialik?

  Where where people don't hide their feelings or have those things. You also said something really interesting about when you were just when you were reflecting on sort of the way I described that like physical sensation of like having, you know, your your chest, throat and brain feel like they're contracting. And one of the questions I wanted to ask you, because I really enjoy kind of following, you know, also your relationship with your boyfriend, which you've been, you know, public about in that, you know, you have videos and you've talked about it and there's a dog and it's adorable. But one of the things I was thinking about is that when when you were describing sort of what it would be like to let that kind of floodgate open, I instantly thought about relationships. Because I think for a lot of people who are who are anxious or who struggle in a lot of different ways,

• 55:09Mayim Bialik?

  what I described on stage is what people can feel like emotionally in a relationship, where it feels like I know the thing I'm supposed to do, or I know the thing that I want, but I feel stuck or I feel paralyzed and like I don't, you know, like what is love? Like I've literally, I remember my therapist once asked me to define love. This was many years ago. I mean, after my divorce. I've been divorced eight years, nine years. And it was as if the word love was like from a different language on a different planet that I didn't even know existed. And it was like just getting my head around like, gosh, what what are these sets of feelings? So I wondered if if there's any place that, you know, in your relationship or even when you, you know, were in your years of dating,

• 55:51Mayim Bialik?

  you know, if there was ever a time when there felt like parallels, you know, between kind of the kind of either anxiety, either about performance or delivery, or being funny or being right, you know, I described being an actor a lot as like, where are you happy with what? I do because I'm not, you know, as a writer, I get to write my own thing. But when someone gives me a script, my job is to make them happy. It's to make the director happy, it's to make the casting person happy. And I think, again, this just became therapy with Grace Helbig. I feel like my approach to relationships is often similar, right? What can I do to make you happy? Is that right? Oh, I'll try something else.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  So I'm the same way. I, it's so, it's such a strange contradiction because, you know, when you are in entertainment or when you are in comedy, you're constantly communicating thoughts, ideas, observations, et cetera. In relationships, I am awful at communicating, awful. And I've only learned this in my adult world that you have success or whatever it might be in this entertainment world. And so you think like, oh, I can handle anything, you know, I'm an adult, I'm having conversations. Conversations are not communication, is what I've also learned as an adult. And similar to you in that like, I'm such a people pleaser, like I will sacrifice my

• 57:12Speaker 01

  own needs and wants to make sure that someone else is comfortable and happy. And I think that's because when I was younger, I was always very scared and very shy. And I felt like people didn't necessarily like reach out to me to make sure I was comfortable. And so now I have this like hyperdrive need to make sure that people are comfortable. I think one of the coolest things someone can do is like scan a room, find a person that is, you know, out of place and try to make them feel like they're, they belong. And that's obviously can map over why the internet is such a cool place because people get the opportunity to feel like they belong if they feel like an outsider. Also, my family is very British, my grandmother's from England.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  And so talking about feelings just didn't happen growing up. And so I thought, not until like, you know, a few years ago, working with a therapist and talking about like, it's okay to communicate what you want. Like someone's not going to run away because you have.

• 58:12Mayim Bialik?

  That's what you think, Grace.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  I know, trust me. This is. Well, easier said than done. I still don't fully believe her, but I, this is what I've been told is okay and good in adult relationships. But my boyfriend now is also very into, uh, we're both really into psychology and we're both like into comedy. And so we have much more in-depth conversations and it's like the first adult relationship where I've been really able to communicate with, communicate, but still it feels like when I communicate, I'm throwing a grenade and I'm like walking away hoping that like it doesn't cause permanent damage.

• 58:48Mayim Bialik?

  I hide under furniture, Grace. I physically hide under furniture.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I haven't fully accepted that communicating is a two-way street because what I, I want someone to tell me what they feel, what they need, what they want, so I can provide, you know, uh, that for them. So why wouldn't it work the other way? Why wouldn't I, uh, accept that someone else could want me to say what I need and want?

• 59:14Mayim Bialik?

  I got a million reasons why.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 59:16Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Again, easier said than done, but this is what I've been told works.

• 59:19Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, I, I like this. And also, this, no one expected for this to come out of my mouth, but it's going to. No, this is, I think, part of why I wanted you to be one of the first people that I got to speak to because I'm learning how to even like exist, you know, in this format. And the reason that I, that I was forced to start a YouTube channel at all was by one of my closest friends, Emu. And he noticed that from my writing and my existence as an actor, I constantly felt misunderstood. Like, or that people didn't really get me. And he said, he's younger, he's your age. And he said, there's this thing called the internet where you can find your people. And I was like, what are you talking about? I don't have time for this. And he said.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  And you're like, that's a religion, right?

• 1:00:05Mayim Bialik?

  So I started this YouTube channel, which however many years later, we're almost at a million subscribers. Like, people want to hear me speak. But what's interesting is that he wanted, this friend of mine who, you know, we worked, we worked on this YouTube channel for years. He wanted it to fix me. He wanted me to no longer feel ultimately like cosmically alone. And he was very, he was very surprised. That it didn't, meaning, of course, I, I love, I love that I've found more people who want to hear what I want to say. I always was told I was annoying, too much, obnoxious, like, I was the little sister who was like, the door slammed in my face because like,

• 1:00:46Mayim Bialik?

  he wanted to be alone and read comic books. And I was like, engaged, love me. So, you know, I, I always felt too much, you know, as a loud woman, as a, you know, like, whatever woman, I was always not right. So absolutely, I love this space. However, it doesn't take away, like, all the parts of me that are me. And when you were talking, this is gonna sound so weird, when you were talking about, like, the things that can help and that your therapist has, like, helped you see, the first thing I thought was like, I need sugar. I need to order something right now that is sugar. And there is a connection between it. And what I wanted to ask you about is like, the, the other places where you see,

• 1:01:29Mayim Bialik?

  you know, anxieties, like, for me, I'll turn to food, I'll turn to sweet, like, I want to soothe it. So it's like, oh, a million people's not enough, this car's not enough, a house isn't enough. It's never kind of a, not, I don't mean enough in terms of greed and capitalism. It, there seems to be a hole of anxiety, and I keep trying to, like, fill it, you know, like, I'll, I'll throw sugar, I'll throw sex in it, like, throw anything in there, but it's still there. What, so I want to know, where do you find it? You know, are you addicted to Real Housewives? Is that what you do all night? Like, what's your, where do you put it?

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  There, well, this is also something I'm really fascinated by. I don't know that I have any answers.

• 1:02:09Mayim Bialik?

  Someone order me a tea. Jonathan, order me a tea. Okay, we're almost done. They're gonna tea, sorry.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  The, uh, no, I'm fascinated by this too, right? Because I, I've been watching The Vow and Seduced on Starz, which I think Seduced is way awesome, if you haven't watched it. Uh, it's going into stuff that The Vow didn't touch on. But I found my, my boyfriend and I were watching it, and at one point, we're watching it, and they're talking about how they keep ascending to all these levels, they're getting new scarves, they're, they're paying more money for this intensive and that intensive, and then they're They're starting DAS and they're starting the Protector Society or whatever. And I just said out loud, like, when are they done? Like, when are they at the final self-actualized enlightened point? And they're not. Like, it's an ongoing process.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  But I think the false advertising of something like that is that you will find completion, find wholeness, find whatever it is that you're empty of. And that's the thing with YouTube. The, I was just talking in a memory about this yesterday. The slightly misguided thing is this wonderful platform that affords you all these opportunities to make connections, to feel less alone, to understand yourself and the world in ways that we could never do before. But at the same time, it tests your boundaries. And that's the thing I've learned in the last 10 years of doing it, is that one of the things that is not advertised, that is a byproduct of being so public and out there on the internet, is that your boundaries dissolve.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  And you see a lot of people in crisis because everything's out there. Everything's so public. So even when they want to have any sense of privacy to handle whatever mentally they might be going through, an audience is hungry and hungrier and hungrier for more and more. And that can truly wear on you. And they're hungrier for, like you're saying, is it a subscriber count? Is it this number of views? Is it, what is it? Unless you take time to be kind of like clear and map out like what you intend to get from this interaction with this platform, you can find yourself lost in the sauce of being like, when am I happy? And I think that happened for me a few years ago of just feeling like, I've been doing this for a while. I've made a lot of amazing friends.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  I've had incredible opportunities. I've been able to write books and make movies, but I still feel like something's missing and I can't figure out what that is. And so you keep creating and pushing through to try and think, hopefully, maybe along the way, something will click and I'll go, did it? Okay, great. I accomplished this mystery goal that's been like buried in me and why I'm doing all of this. And I don't know that that- That's true for people unless you do have a specific goal. And that's where I think the danger is. Like also watching, I'm obsessed with documentaries. So I watched The Social Dilemma and all of that. So I do think all the benefits, you know, what goes up must come down. And all the rewards have consequence in some regard.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  And so I'm currently going back to school right now. I just started a master's program a couple of months ago.

• 1:05:16Mayim Bialik?

  Congratulations.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Thanks. You're a big inspiration for that.

• 1:05:20Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my gosh. What, are you studying neuroscience?

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  No, no. I'm studying engaged humanities and depth psychology.

• 1:05:28Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my goodness. That's amazing.

• 1:05:30Jonathan Cohen?

  So you really can have therapy with Grace.

• 1:05:32Mayim Bialik?

  You can have. I'm your first patient.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  There we go. Yeah, this is against any protocol in the mental health industry. But I felt this kind of like, you know, hollow sense of like, I've been creating for so long. What's missing? I'm older now. What do I want? And I haven't worked on my brain for a while. So this feels like it's helping fill a need that I didn't know that I had developed over time. But I do, I think, and I'm also just hyper fascinated with how the internet has peaked and valued over the last few years. And I watch it with content creator friends and colleagues, like the chasing of so many

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  goals and the disappointment in the way that things might not pan out and how people overly identify themselves with their internet persona or their internet content and the downside of that. I don't know what the fix is for that, but I am really curious about trying to learn more about it because I think it's a pretty pivotal time right now that we're going to be watching it happen. Same with just the, you know, traditional media industry. You watch child actors and, you know, young stars figure out themselves for better or worse. And I think it's starting to happen a little bit more in the internet world. And so I'm also just super fascinated with it. I have no. Answers, only more questions and observations.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  But it's, I'm interested to see how it all goes. I have no idea what your original question was, by the way.

• 1:07:09Mayim Bialik?

  I love everything that you, I love everything that you just said. Yeah, I think Jonathan is, has, maybe has things to say. I'm just, I wanna, I wanna move in with Grace, is that a problem?

• 1:07:19Jonathan Cohen?

  No, I think it should be fine, just ask her boyfriend first.

• 1:07:21Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:22Jonathan Cohen?

  It will be a strange three-person comedy about living together with anxiety.

• 1:07:27Mayim Bialik?

  And it's called Comedy From Home.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, that question, I think, started around triggers. You were talking about sugar. And then, what it made me think about was this notion, well, after Grace started that story, it became about what motivates us and what are we motivated by? But it also made me think about what triggers us? And so, when you talked about people pleasing, from what I've heard and my experience of trying to meet someone else's expectations, is that often, we don't know that we've people-pleased in the moment. It's only like afterwards that we're like, wait a second, something feels really wrong and I don't know what that is. And, you know, I'm making a generalization here, but it's something like, oh, I didn't hold on to a piece of myself that I should have, or I didn't articulate that, and then

• 1:08:15Jonathan Cohen?

  we can feel that somatically. And so I guess my question is to both of you, in your experiences, when that might have happened, if you don't realize it in the moment, when do you begin to realize it? Is it that like, oh, I'm-

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  About thirty years later. Yeah. It'll, when you've had a terrible night, you wake up the next morning and you realize a lot of repressed stuff just came up.

• 1:08:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And is it like, oh, I didn't sleep properly, why am I craving that sugar? And then you have to go back and map it, like, oh, I had that. And I think a lot of people are in the process of being like, why do I feel X? Whether it's sleep, whether it's sugar, whether it's I feel so badly about myself. And they're trying to put the pieces together, but because of that delay, it's not always totally evident.

• 1:08:57Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I'll take that one first, just because also, and this is something I was gonna get into and we may touch on it. So, everything you're saying, which I really, really did, I mean, I felt every, every single bit of that, and also, I- I have children, which blows my mind. And they came out of my body and I wasn't even on drugs when it happened. Like, I remember birthing them and still cannot believe that I'm still dealing with all of these things and also have to try and raise these people who are going through their own processes. So what I was gonna say in answer to, and Jonathan, we have a child, this, sorry. We both have a child at the same age. Do we? I don't remember when that happened. We don't have one the same, anyway. No, but what I was gonna say is that

• 1:09:42Mayim Bialik?

  so much of what being a parent, a parent who struggles with mental health, which I am, so much of what I do is not to fix it for them, not to be like, everything that was done to me was wrong, but to be able to say, I don't want you to wait until you have chronic pain in your twenties. I don't want you to wait until your nails are all bleeding because you're picking them constantly. I don't want you to go through what I went through because I didn't know to stop laying myself on the altar for the sake of other people. So to me, like, it is a cumulative process and it's one that I started, I mean, Grace and I have a similar path in that it's one that I started having to really break down as an adult.

• 1:10:26Mayim Bialik?

  But it was after millions of medications, couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, couldn't figure out why I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like there was a gun to my head, couldn't figure out why three different drugs wouldn't fix it. So then I tried this and I tried that and I tried healing and I tried shamans. You know, like, I tried all of these things. And I've, I'm slowly finding what works for me, but ultimately, I have a 12 and 15 year old who I'm hoping, and I think this works whether they're your children or the children of the internet who are watching our videos and listening to our podcasts, what can we offer that shows that you don't have to carry that for other people because it will live in your body?

• 1:11:07Mayim Bialik?

  You, it's, you know, you will be the one who suffers from as good as you're being to other people. Grace, do you have anything else?

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Truly, truly, truly, because like we've talked about already, you don't even realize how much you unconsciously pick up from your parents until you're an adult and you start to connect all these dots that By just being the living example of examining your mental health, I think that's going to have such a profound positive impact on your children, just watching you investigate yourself. One thing, like, I love my parents and they're great people, but they were never taught by their parents to think about mental health as a priority, ever. And so, my brothers and I didn't necessarily know, and we've only like learned as we've gotten older

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  and as it's become more socially talked about, accepted, promoted, that this is something we should be doing. One of the really, I think, reasons that YouTube and the internet kind of took off is because you started to have people like Zoella, this little British fashion blogger in the UK at like 21 years old, talking about anxiety for the first time, when her life from the outside seems like this perfect picturesque situation. And all of these young girls, myself included, were like, "Oh, I identify with that, and you're talking about it like it's difficult for you, but you're talking about it on this platform.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, okay, this is okay to talk about. I had this weird not able to sleep sensation, and that's what this is. Okay, let me start to investigate this." I get a little worried on the internet that because it's become, I don't want to say trendy a bit, to talk about mental health, that I really want to make sure people are focusing on real mental health and not trying to make it a thing that is popular. And so, they're searching desperately for neuroses in themselves because they want to feel like part of a group. But I do think that you, working on yourself, can do nothing but help lead by example. Like, you don't have to have the solution

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  to be able to provide them a great example of what searching is like.

• 1:13:25Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm wondering if the turn, I guess, the reaction or response between feeling triggered and then knowing what's going on gets shorter.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, for me and...

• 1:13:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Instead of that sleepless night, and does it, do you have a somatic experience? And maybe it would be interesting for the audience to hear from you two what those might be, if you're open to it. What is that somatic experience in the moment? And can you begin to identify it in the moment? So it doesn't become that other thing?

• 1:13:56Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I was actually talking about this the other day, that things that used to lay me low for weeks, now will lay me low for an hour. And the, the ability to, to recover from triggers. You know, I'm a person who has very special, you know, special things that trigger me and, and often feel very, you know, physiologically uncomfortable. I'm a, I have a very, very low setting for my startle response, which is very physically uncomfortable. But with things that are kind of like emotional triggers, like if I would hear something, even see something in the news, it would sometimes not leave my brain. And as a neuroscientist, I now know it's because a loop got activated that I, that kept getting fed and I couldn't interrupt it.

• 1:14:39Mayim Bialik?

  But what has happened for me, and, and Grace, I don't know what your experience is, you know, for me with enough practice, and for me, that practice has been classical psychotherapy, although CBT works and a lot of other things work. For me, it is learning to exercise that muscle of constantly being able to say, this is what it feels like when I'm giving something I shouldn't. Or this is what it feels like when something's not right. I'm going to listen to that and I'm going to stop it right now. And usually for me, it just means pausing. Cause I went through life like a freight train. Everything had to happen right now. Every decision, every thought, every feeling, like yes, no. Now I know to pause and in that space, I let all those chemicals of adrenaline and

• 1:15:23Mayim Bialik?

  anxiety, I let them dissipate, because that is a process. I've learned to breathe. I didn't even know, I didn't know how to breathe.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:15:32Mayim Bialik?

  I didn't even know. You breathe all the way up to your collarbones if you do it right. And that has literally expanded the possibility to identify things so I don't keep repeating the same mistakes. And it absolutely has gotten shorter where things that would lay me low, within a day, I call my sponsor, whoever I call, right? I call a friend, I call whatever, I call my therapist. Within an hour.

• 1:15:58Jonathan Cohen?

  That's reaction time, Grace. And I'm wondering if you have an experience of actually mapping, wait a second, I didn't even know something happened and then it hit me like a day later to, wait a second, in this moment, I can have a, you might have a visceral experience where you're like, wait a second, something is wrong. Oh, that thing is that thing that I, oh, that's a similar feeling. And so we talk a little bit on the podcast about like somatic experience. What does it feel like in our body? What is, what are the flags or red flag?

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Let Dr. Grace answer.

• 1:16:29Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay, Dr. Grace.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  No, I, well, two different things. I, when I, same with you, my, I'm like, I was very go, go, go, go, go. Like when YouTube started to take off and opportunities started to happen, it was just like, I didn't even know what was going on. I was just like working, working, working. And it was also fun that you do get a little bit blindsided, that you're like so honored and it's wonderful to have a job that's fun. And then, so you should be doing it as much and often, as often as you can. And then all of a sudden, it'll, it'll hit you. When I was about to move from New York to Los Angeles, I had lived in New York for four or five years at the time, taken subways all the time, done all of that.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  I started to have like anxiety attacks on the subway to the point that I would just get beet red and I'd have to get off the subway, like truly. And then I started having this association with, oh my God, every time I get on the subway, I'm now having an attack. And I would see how long I could like physically make it, how many stops before I'd have to get off. I remember getting off one time at like the first stop in Brooklyn and it was winter and I like ran up the stairs and it was snowing and I just took snow and like held it to my face when there was really. Nothing major going on, but I was about to move to Los Angeles.

• 1:17:45Mayim Bialik?

  That's it.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  I was making a huge, I was moving with a guy I was dating at the time. But I, everything was good on the outside. These were all wonderful things happening, but my body was being like, "Oh, we are panicked about this and we need you to know."

• 1:18:00Mayim Bialik?

  And I do wanna, I do wanna give a shout out to what you're describing, actually, and I'm not looking to diagnose you. But panic disorder is qualified by the feature of the fear of it happening again, which the fear itself can bring on an attack, and that is what is distinguished. So it sounds like you went from anxiety attack, straight into, to panic attack. And it is a terrifying feeling because you also lose cognition. And you literally don't know often where you are, what you're supposed to do next, or maybe you should just go to the hospital, is what I usually think.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, and in my, you know, self-sufficient, I can handle everything on my own mentality. I, you know, the worst thing you can do is think, you can think your way out of it. It's impossible. And so, oh, I started at that point, seeing a therapist before I left Los Angeles. I actually tried some anti-anxiety medicine for a period of time. And I didn't love how foggy it made me feel. So, like you, learned to focus on my breathing, learned to actually like, slow down and listen to my body in time. One other thing that I've learned that's really helped me in therapy is there's, you know, everyone's got stuff from childhood.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  I have stuff from childhood that will take over and be triggered in different conversations. And I've learned to kind of, I'm a visual person, to visualize when my child self is driving the car. And, and not to tell her that she can't be in the car. To understand that she's there to protect me for some reason, like she's showing up because there's some unhandled situation. But instead to move her to the backseat, like acknowledge that she's driving and this is what this is. This is a childhood trigger that is popped up. Thank her for being here. Gently move her to the backseat and take over the car. And it's almost like an improv activity in a way. This like visualizing scene.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  And it was really silly at first to start trying to work with. But the more I've done it, the quicker my ability to identify when it's happening has become. And everyone's different, but for me, the visual stuff really helped of like really pinpointing myself at a certain age and like seeing that in my mind's eye. And then being able to kind of understand and connect all the body dysfunction to all of that. And then just being gentle with yourself. I think, again, easier said than done, but because we're all like wanna be high achieving sort of people, we have expectations of ourselves that are sometimes unrealistic.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  And so in moments when your psychology is ruining your ability to achieve in everyday life, you can get really disappointed and hard on yourself. And so I've really tried to become more patient with myself. When I wake up and I have one of those days where I'm just like, oh, God, I'm off today. It's not gonna be a good day. Then I see what I can move around and like allow myself to just have a bit of an off day and let like the feeling move through me instead of trying to push it down and suppress it in some way. Because I got very good at repressing my feelings for... I used to make merch that said, "Dress to repress," thinking that was funny. And then talking to a therapist is like, mm, yeah, this is pretty obvious what I'm doing, huh?

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  And so being able to kind of acknowledge those feelings and sit with them and then hopefully move through them. Again, all easier said than done.

• 1:21:34Mayim Bialik?

  You brought up something that I was actually not gonna circle back to, but since you just mentioned it, and I'm not looking to make you uncomfortable, but you know, one of the things that I remember when I was first told about you, you know, when I was talking to Will Wheaton and I was like, "Will, why am I so weird and like, nobody gets me and there's no women who are like me?" And, and he was like, "You need to learn about my friend Grace." And the first thing I thought when I looked at, you know, when I pulled you up on the interwebs, I thought, "Boy, my insides feel shitty and her outsides look great." Which is absolutely my deficiency, meaning comparing my insides to another person's outsides. But one of the first fears that I had was that someone who looks good, right?

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Mayim Bialik?

  They don't get, they don't have a right, because they don't know how hard it is to be me. And what I've learned from getting to know you through your work, and getting to also like, sit next to you and talk and even do some comedy with you, like, there's a person in there that, I mean, all of us, right? We're people and then we get this, you know, we get an outside that we then present to the world. But I wonder if you could speak a little bit, and I do think that's exceptionally difficult for women, because we are so programmed to be concerned about appearance and the, the standards for what we should, could, you know, would look like are so different. So I wonder if that's something, you know, and for me, it was a very quick transition of like, "Oh, she's a person in there too," and not that you're as miserable as I am,

• 1:23:03Mayim Bialik?

  it's not a competition, but that we all, you know, we all have a right to exist, to have challenges, and it, it doesn't matter, you know, what we look like. And I also love that you don't, you don't lean on what's outside of you to sell anything. So if you could just talk a little bit about kind of the appearance and the difference between what you feel like inside, what you choose to present, you know, like, your eyebrows look better than I think mine ever could. But it's not a problem for me, because it's okay, you know?

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  I was really interested in like the self-help world. So my first book was like this tongue-in-cheek like self-help book. I then expanded into like a style book because I, like I said, growing up, I would watch the Style Network. I was really fascinated with that world and I, you know, it seemed to be where women found value and that sort of thing. And I wanted to be a model when I was in college because I'm five foot nine and I was like, I can do that and that'll make me feel pretty. And it got really bad. I got really obsessed with it. I ended up, and I wrote about this in the book, I had an eating disorder in college and I became very obsessed with my body, obsessed with the idea of beauty, obsessed with trying to find value and encouragement in that world.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  And in doing the very limited like go-sees and shit for modeling in New York, it was so gross. The whole industry was so gross. It was so unsatisfying. It was, it gave me so much anxiety thinking like, it's only my shell when they don't know that inside, I'm struggling so hard to make this outside worthy for these strangers, these most of the time like middle-aged men that are trying to tell me if I, one guy told me that I have to be careful because one of my eyelids is fatter than the other eyelid and that that's not going to show up well in photos. And I was like 19 at the time and I was like, okay, cool.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  And so comedy was this incredibly wonderful thing to discover where you're making fun of your physicality. You're getting to use it as a tool to make fun of yourself and the world around you. When I was writing The Style Guide, I was writing all this tongue-in-cheek stuff about fashion and whatever. And then I got really stuck because I had never really opened up about my own struggles. And when you don't understand that someone has struggled and you only see them making fun of an industry, you think, well, fuck that girl. Like, she's pretty and now she's making fun of this? Like, who gives her the right? She's never had a hard day in her life, all that stuff.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  And, but knowing how long and how deeply I struggled with it for years, I had to like let people know that they were. And alone because it is so relevant and prevalent and like at the time when I was in college, I didn't have the internet to look up things. I'd have to go to like Borders and find a book and secretly read it on the side and try and figure out what was going on with me. And so I have a deep appreciation for people struggling with themselves and because I still struggle every day with it. It's never going away. It's just going to be managed for myself. And I think that's why I opt into a world of comedy where it

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  isn't necessarily it's it's entertainment, but it's the least one valued about how you look, I think. And I found a lot more solace in that world. And it still is a struggle and it's still for everyone. You can be the most attractive person in the world and they're probably wildly insecure. You can be I I find such intimidation from people that are so comfortable in how they look. I think that's like so incredible and something that I'm still chasing. And the feedback that I got from just writing, not even very deeply about it, because I'm still not ready to like fully go there. Eventually, I'd like to, but I'm still figuring out for myself. The feedback that I got from young women

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  was just like so overwhelming to me because that's really what I wanted at that age. I wanted someone to tell me that your body is just the, you know, you didn't get to choose it. So like, it's a weird shell for your personality and the person that's inside the foundations of your personality are the valuable thing. Your body is just keep it working so it can get you from point A to point B. The true value comes from, you know, your your ability to be kind and caring and and, you know, exist in the world in a way that makes sense for you. And I think my mom was my mom is beautiful, but she's never, ever, ever been someone that relies on her looks. If you compliment her in any

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  way, she's very timid and meek and like insecure about it. She was always just Desperate to put her kindness forward. And that, to me, just fully resonated. I think I picked that up unconsciously, probably. But yeah, it's not until you get into the entertainment world that you are forced, whether you want to or not, to analyze every aspect of your physical being all day long, every day. So it's still something I struggle with. And I have a huge amount of compassion for people that also struggle with it. It's pretty wild. It's crazy. And I tried to remember, like, this is literally just the shell that you were given to go around the world in.

• 1:28:33Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you, Grace. That is so, that's so well said. And I really do appreciate you. I'm glad that I asked. I'm glad that I asked that. I really appreciate it.

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, I mean, and that's the thing, too, that I want to learn more about because I'm curious about, like, when I was really struggling, like I said, I didn't have the internet. And now I know there's a lot of toxicity on the internet, especially in the body image world. And so part of me wants to kind of move in that direction a little bit more to help combat how toxic it is over there for young women. I truly can't imagine what it would be like if I were in high school with Instagram right now. I'm really thankful.

• 1:29:12Mayim Bialik?

  I've said, like, you'd have to put me in a hospital and not let me out until I could go to college and like, find the weird hippies like me. Because I mean, I look at my kids, you know, my older one has social media. He's 15 and different for boys, still hard. I would not be able to weather it, you know, I really. And it's terrifying.

• 1:29:34Jonathan Cohen?

  The statistics and the social dilemma of the increase of self-harm connected to the internet are just staggering. And we've, before the social dilemma, we saw it over and over in the news. And, you know, to really start to pinpoint those two connections are a huge aspect of our mental health and in society moving forward.

• 1:29:53Mayim Bialik?

  But I was trying to turn it positive and say, Grace, thank you so, so much for being here. You're so inspiring and just talking to you is so, so awesome. And I hope we get to cross paths in many ways and continue battling the good fight. So, thank you.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:30:10Mayim Bialik?

  I love Grace Helbig.

• 1:30:11Jonathan Cohen?

  Amazing.

• 1:30:13Mayim Bialik?

  She's a very, very articulate, smart, funny, thoughtful person.

• 1:30:18Jonathan Cohen?

  And she's going to be a depth psychologist.

• 1:30:20Mayim Bialik?

  I'd love that. And after this episode, what I think is that people are probably thinking one of two things. Either everyone has anxiety, or no one does, and we should just call it being human.

• 1:30:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Being human sounds pretty good.

• 1:30:33Mayim Bialik?

  But everybody really does have some aspect. I mean, she touched on just about every aspect of anxiety that one can have regarding, you know, worthiness, performance, attractiveness, competence, intelligence. For people who are predisposed to anxiety, it touches everything. It touches everywhere.

• 1:30:51Jonathan Cohen?

  How snow can help you calm down.

• 1:30:52Mayim Bialik?

  I love that, that vision of her. I mean, I've been on many a platform in the snow in Brooklyn, and that notion of like, feeling so suffocated by something that had been part of your normal life. Meaning, it wasn't like this is her first time on a subway, but what she was saying was that when your baseline gets elevated by a move, a relationship, you know, that's breaking up or building up, anything in life that raises that baseline then makes you more susceptible to get triggered. So the subway, which had never been a problem, all of a sudden, when she's ready to move and moving with a guy and all that stuff, the subway is no longer tolerable to her. Fascinating.

• 1:31:31Jonathan Cohen?

  And it's interesting what we attach that trigger to. The fact that it's the subway versus going to a restaurant, and then how we can't get out of that loop once it starts.

• 1:31:41Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I, I think I want to say, you know, if you're rocking your life, and you have no idea what Grace and Jonathan and I were just talking about, that's awesome. And I'm super happy for you. If you feel like in control of everything and nothing bugs you, God bless you.

• 1:31:58Jonathan Cohen?

  If you've never put snow on your face after going on the subway.

• 1:32:02Mayim Bialik?

  If you've never like, taken the covers off because you're so like, eh, it doesn't feel right. All of a sudden, I'm really hot and itchy. Oh, man. And my hands will itch, my feet will itch, my hair will start itching.

• 1:32:14Jonathan Cohen?

  I have that at night sometimes where I'm just like, this doesn't feel okay.

• 1:32:17Mayim Bialik?

  If you feel like your skin doesn't belong on your body at any time.

• 1:32:21Jonathan Cohen?

  That's a sign.

• 1:32:22Mayim Bialik?

  That's a sign. I have many, many friends and people I have known in my life who have come to me with a set of symptoms, like what we're talking about, and it never... It never occurred to them that they were experiencing anxiety. And that's what's so disturbing, you know, and I really think should be an outrage to people. Like, we deserve to know what anxiety even is, so that we can get help if we're having it.

• 1:32:45Jonathan Cohen?

  Because when you go to the doctor and you say, "I wake up at night and my skin doesn't feel right."

• 1:32:49Mayim Bialik?

  What do they say? You're absolutely right. You go to the doctor, you say, "I wake up at night, my skin doesn't..." What are they gonna tell you?

• 1:32:55Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, I don't tell them that because I know...

• 1:32:56Mayim Bialik?

  You don't go to the doctor. Your average Western doctor will say, "Let me give you something to help you sleep."

• 1:33:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:03Mayim Bialik?

  Because it's important that you sleep.

• 1:33:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Very important.

• 1:33:05Mayim Bialik?

  If you don't sleep, how are you gonna function? And you say like, "You're right, that's a Western solution." "Oh, you're having trouble sleeping? Let's medicate it." They might also say, "Let me give you cortisone, because your skin is having a problem. Let's give it a steroid." Just schmear it all over.

• 1:33:21Jonathan Cohen?

  They might send you to a dermatologist.

• 1:33:23Mayim Bialik?

  They'll say, "They just give you steroids like when you're walking to the hospital, though." They love giving that stuff.

• 1:33:28Jonathan Cohen?

  They're like loot bags.

• 1:33:29Mayim Bialik?

  Some, it's like trick or treat, hydrocortisone. And, and the fact is, cortisone is a very important and useful medication. But so many doctors, especially Western doctors, they are not trained to understand that you can have a skin reaction. You can even have hives, you can have welts, you can have rashes that do not need steroid. They don't need cortisone. What they need is a way for you to move the emotions out of your body and through your body, so they're not coming out of your skin. Eczema's a great example.

• 1:34:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Eczema's a good one.

• 1:34:05Mayim Bialik?

  There's a million creams and potions and things you can schmear, which I do sometimes. But what I have most noticed about my eczema is that it flares up when I'm anxious. When my father, bless his memory, died, I grew an eczema patch on the bottom of my foot. That's right, people. It had never been there. It was itchy, it was flaky. And yes, there are creams you can put on it to make it better. But what it really needed was to simply be and exist and get to move through me with all the other things that I had to do to deal with my father dying.

• 1:34:37Jonathan Cohen?

  I told you about my eczema patch. We will not be posting pictures of this on the website.

• 1:34:42Mayim Bialik?

  I don't even remember which eczema patch you're talking about. You've told me about so many.

• 1:34:47Jonathan Cohen?

  So this was 2009 in doing my graduate degree.

• 1:34:54Mayim Bialik?

  Oh.

• 1:34:55Jonathan Cohen?

  I had my son while I was in grad school.

• 1:34:57Mayim Bialik?

  Already stressful.

• 1:34:58Jonathan Cohen?

  Already a stressful period of time. Trying to exit that two-year degree and get a job and support a kid.

• 1:35:05Mayim Bialik?

  Already more stressful.

• 1:35:06Jonathan Cohen?

  And I got this small patch of eczema, this strange decol- you know, you know what it looks like.

• 1:35:13Mayim Bialik?

  I think that's enough description.

• 1:35:15Jonathan Cohen?

  And it started just on my torso.

• 1:35:17Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:17Jonathan Cohen?

  And over the-

• 1:35:18Mayim Bialik?

  You've got a lot of torso.

• 1:35:19Jonathan Cohen?

  A lot of, well, mostly legs, but I started, and it started to expand. And over the course of about eight months, it started getting little sisters and brothers. And soon, my entire torso was covered in this thing. And I started going to doctors and no one knew what was wrong with it. Two years later, I, over those, course of those two years, I changed my life. I started reducing an enormous amount of stress and it went away.

• 1:35:45Mayim Bialik?

  That sounds like a topic for another episode. How did Jonathan change his life to get the strange family of eczema to leave his torso? And also the title of a children's book, which I'll start working on after we finish recording this podcast.

• 1:35:58Jonathan Cohen?

  Penguin Publishing, get ready, it's coming.

• 1:36:00Mayim Bialik?

  Let's play the you might need help if game. In terms of anxiety, you might need help if you find yourself in a constant state of motion, either physically or mentally. So this is an unusual one. I'm a fidgeter, I'm a leg jostler, I'm a pacer, I'm a picker, and I'm a futzer and a fiddler. I'm a picker and a grinner. I'm a lover. I am a person for whom my anxiety shows in the way that I move my body. It's very, very hard for me to sit still. Always has been. It's something teachers would comment about. It's something that probably might have been diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when I was in school. We didn't have that diagnosis then. It didn't exist.

• 1:36:43Mayim Bialik?

  So if you find yourself in a constant state of motion, either physically or mentally, and by mentally, I mean racing thoughts, persistent thoughts, pressured thoughts, feeling like your thoughts are coming faster than you can even process them, that's a sign that you may be having anxiety. Does it mean you need medication? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Does it mean you need a doctor? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I'm simply trying to introduce this notion that things like that, which a lot of times we dismiss as like, she just likes to move around a lot. Yeah, but also, I'm an anxious person. This bobby pin has been my constant companion for this entire episode. You might need help if you have trouble settling down, trouble falling or staying asleep, or trouble turning off the thoughts in your head because your mind is racing.

• 1:37:26Mayim Bialik?

  Sometimes things happen and certain people are kind of like, oh, that just happened. All right. Sometimes things happen and certain people cannot get over them for a long time. And if something upsetting happens in the news, or you get upsetting news about a family member or something like that, if that takes up a significant portion of days, that's something to take note of. If it disrupts your sleep, even after there's really nothing for you to do about it, or even if there's nothing for you to do about it, and you're unable to center and calm yourself down, also, just something to take note of. You might need help if you tend towards what used to be called oral fixation habits. Nail biting.

• 1:38:11Mayim Bialik?

  I've been a nail biter my entire life, with small periods of being able to stop. But nail biting, cuticle biting, and picking. Skin picking also. People will sometimes like pick other parts of themselves. Smoking is a very, very prominent oral fixation marker that really does feed a lot of anxiety and can make anxiety and depression actually better in ways that are also incredibly damaging to your health. Eating when you're not hungry. Who does that? Toothpick use. Jonathan is showing, Jonathan is a chronic toothpick user.

• 1:38:47Jonathan Cohen?

  Tea tree. These are not a sponsor yet of the show, but maybe they will be.

• 1:38:52Mayim Bialik?

  Anyway, nail biting, smoking, eating when you're not hungry, something many of us do. That's, sometimes it is more than just boredom. It can be an expression of anxiety. You might need help if you think about the future, even things you have no control over, to the extent that it agitates you, meaning physically riles you up, makes you worry even more, or makes you feel unable to think straight. If you don't know what that means, that's great. But if you do know what that means, you might, you might want to think about a broader understanding of your relationship to anxiety. And you might need help if you have physiological signs of anxiety. Those would be, most classically, heart palpitations, that's increased heart rate to the point that it feels like it's gonna jump out of your body.

• 1:39:36Mayim Bialik?

  Breaking into sweats, yes. Getting a rash when you speak or have intense emotion usually starts in the chest area and will work its way up and sometimes cover your whole face. And, and things like hot kind of flushes as distinct from pre or post-menopausal situations.

• 1:39:53Jonathan Cohen?

  What about cold hands and feet? Like Grace was mentioning.

• 1:39:55Mayim Bialik?

  So what Grace was mentioning, I mean, circulation is not necessarily a sign of anxiety, but what Grace was talking about was that you might need help if you have sensations in your body that feel like they can only get better if you physically move that energy out of your body. And what that is, is the bodies, you, you see animals do it. It's the body's natural way to dispel a buildup of chemicals. And some people are more in tune with that. Some people are, I don't want to say better at it, but for those of us who do have physical ways that we get anxiety out, it can be, you know, very, very helpful. Weighted blankets, just gonna say it right now. Weighted blankets are not just for children on the autism spectrum.

• 1:40:39Mayim Bialik?

  They are also for anyone experiencing anxiety. The, the sensation of, of weight can be very comforting. I have a small one that I sleep with. I usually keep it around this part of me. And something about the weight of it is very, very comforting. And, you know, when you, when you think of children with special needs or adults who rock, that is also a dissipation of energy and it can be very, very healing. Spectrum disorders aside, you, you might need help if you have a physical need to kind of get that out. One of the best ways to get that out is exercise, Mr. Basketball.

• 1:41:16Jonathan Cohen?

  You've got to keep moving.

• 1:41:16Mayim Bialik?

  I was a racquetball player. I like very aggressive, violent sports. I do Taekwondo. I did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because I need a physical place to get things out.

• 1:41:25Jonathan Cohen?

  And help might be just to get that movement.

• 1:41:28Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. And conversely, and maybe even paradoxically, learning to sit in your body through things like learning how to breathe, yoga, or even meditation. Don't roll your eyes at me.

• 1:41:39Jonathan Cohen?

  And meditation doesn't have to be sitting only.

• 1:41:41Mayim Bialik?

  Meditation doesn't have to be sitting home, but that's like graduate level walking meditation and things. But conversely, if you are a person who's experiencing these kind of things, you may also need to learn to force yourself really to sit in silence. So if your body is indicating anxiety, please listen to it. It's really your brain asking for help and asking for support. Our website, biologicbreakdown.com, is going to have references that we discussed here and a ton about Grace because she's amazing. She does amazing things in many, many realms of her skill set. We'll also put some pointers for very basic things that can help with anxiety. Learning a little bit, just a little bit, just learn a little bit about sleep. Learning a little bit about sleep can make a huge difference. Talk therapy, classically wonderful for anxiety. Also cognitive behavioral therapy.

• 1:42:26Mayim Bialik?

  People do specifically for anxiety. Also, this is a general shout out. If you are told you need medication for anxiety in particular, that may not be forever. Absolutely may not be forever. That is not like being given a terminal diagnosis that constantly needs pharmaceutical intervention. As Grace said, sometimes medications don't feel good, but there are other things that we can do to change our chemistry that do not involve pharmaceuticals. Sometimes pharmaceuticals are used as a bridge, but absolutely there are ways to manage anxiety. Absolutely. Without necessarily turning to medication. Subscribe. Do all those things. Be our friends in the visual space as well as the audio space.

• 1:43:07Jonathan Cohen?

  Leave a review.

• 1:43:08Mayim Bialik?

  Leave a review, only if it's good.

• 1:43:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Please, we need good reviews.

• 1:43:12Mayim Bialik?

  We need so many good reviews and...

• 1:43:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Recommend it to a friend.

• 1:43:16Mayim Bialik?

  Tell a friend about us.

• 1:43:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Go to the website, submit a question, ask me anything.

• 1:43:22Mayim Bialik?

  Ask me anything. And from my breakdown to the one that I hope you never have, we'll see you next time.