Why So Many People Have Allergies & Why You Keep Doing Things You Shouldn’t

Sometimes a great idea doesn’t come from thinking harder — but from shifting your body. Research suggests that posture can influence how creatively and flexibly you think, meaning the position you’re in during a brainstorming session could actually affect whether you have that “Eureka!” moment. Listen to how that works as we open this episode. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27992759 It feels like everyone has allergies these days. But do they really? And what exactly qualifies as an allergy in the first place? Dr. Zachary Rubin, a double board-certified pediatrician and allergist/immunologist in the Chicago area and author of All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More (https://amzn.to/401KdW5) explains why allergies appear to be on the rise, why many people think they have allergies but don’t, and what’s really happening inside your immune system when a true allergic reaction occurs. Have you ever agreed to something you didn’t want to do, apologized when it wasn’t your fault, or stayed silent when you knew you should speak up? These patterns can feel automatic — almost out of your control. Kati Morton, licensed marriage and family therapist and author of Why Do I Keep Doing This?: Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy (https://amzn.to/3ZDmcV3) explains why these self-sabotaging behaviors form, why they repeat, and how to finally interrupt them. One of the main reasons people exercise is to lose weight. It seems logical: burn more calories, lose more fat. But the science tells a more complicated story. Exercise is incredibly important for health — but when it comes to shedding pounds, its impact may be far smaller than most people believe. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3925973/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS QUINCE: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠⁠⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://Hims.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠ for your free online visit! SHOPIFY: Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠ DELL: Dell Tech Days are here. Enjoy huge deals on PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. Visit ⁠⁠⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠⁠⁠ PLANET VISIONARIES: We love the Planet Visionaries podcast, so listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, why coming up with a great idea could depend on the position of your body. Then, understanding allergies, why we get them, what to do about them, and why some people who think they have them actually don't.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Allergies in general, whether we talk about allergic rhinitis, eczema, food allergies, asthma, medication reactions, it's one of the most common chronic diseases that affect millions of people, and it's just not talked about enough.

• 2:14Mike Carruthers?

  Also, if you want to lose weight, just how important is exercise? And why do we do things to please other people that we know aren't good for us?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  The most common, I can't take credit for this quote, but lighting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Essentially, you know what your needs are, but you meet someone else's first. I find that incredibly common.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:43Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:27Mike Carruthers?

  find what you're looking for, and track your orders all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with a thousand chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Have you ever noticed what position you're in when you come up with a good idea? There may be something to this, as we will discover as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm Micah Ruthers, and I am glad you're here. So if you've ever noticed that your best ideas come when you're lying down, that may not be a coincidence. Research in psychology suggests that body posture can influence how we think. When we're standing up or sitting upright, our brains may be in a more focused vigilant mode, good for detail-oriented tasks. But when we lie down or recline, we tend to relax, which can promote broader, more associative

• 5:07Mike Carruthers?

  thinking. That shift may make it easier to connect unrelated ideas and arrive at creative solutions. So the next time you're stuck on a problem, changing your posture might change your thinking and give you a better idea. And that is something you should know. It seems like everyone today is allergic to something, whether it's pollen in the air or certain foods, medications, even pets. But what is an allergy really? And once you have an allergy, are you stuck with it for life? And here's something really surprising.

• 5:47Mike Carruthers?

  Up to 90% of people who claim they're allergic to penicillin actually aren't. So how does that happen? How can so many people be wrong about something so important? Well, if you've ever wondered whether your symptoms are a true allergy, or why allergies seem more common today than ever, or whether they can disappear by themselves over time, well, you're about to get some very clear answers. My guest is Dr. Zachary Rubin. He's a double-board certified pediatrician and allergist immunologist at Oak Brook Allergists in the Chicago area. He's also author of a book called All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More. Hey, Doctor?

• 6:31Mike Carruthers?

  Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 6:34Mike Carruthers?

  So walk me through an allergy. Like, what happens when it happens? And using an example of... Because, you know, everybody claims, you know, I have allergies. I think I have allergies, you know, to the stuff in the air because my nose gets stuffy at certain times. And I assume that's an allergy.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Well, it may be or maybe not. So, the reality is, is that when you experience nasal symptoms like a runny, stuffy, or itchy nose chronically, that's rhinitis. That's inflammation of the nasal passages. And the underlying trigger of that could be allergic rhinitis or non-allergic rhinitis. In other words, you could have the immune system responding in a way that creates protein tags known as IgE antibodies that, when you have subsequent exposure to something like pollen, cats, dogs, or mold, it can create histamine release and other chemicals released from the immune system to cause those symptoms that we talk about. If you have non-allergic rhinitis,

• 7:37Speaker 01

  that means there's a different pathway that your body is abnormally responding to nonspecific triggers like changes in weather, cigarette smoke, air pollution, getting sick. And so, the actual treatment is different and you technically don't have allergies when you have non-allergic rhinitis, but the symptoms are essentially the same.

• 7:59Mike Carruthers?

  But what would be the difference in the treatment? It seems like you would take, you know, Claritin or Flonase or something, regardless of which one it was.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Right, so actually, that's not the case. So, if you have allergic rhinitis, yes, something like Claritin or an antihistamine helps because one of the main chemicals released from your immune system is histamine. So, you take an antihistamine to block those effects. But if you have non-allergic rhinitis, there's a lot less histamine being released. So, taking an antihistamine is not quite as effective. So, we have to rely on other treatments like nasal sprays that contain steroids that can help just decrease the overall immune response locally in that area to treat those symptoms. Antihistamines are great for sneezing and runny nose and even potentially some coughing or post-nasal drip. But if your nose is really stuffy and there's a ton of mucus production,

• 8:52Speaker 01

  then a steroid is going to be more effective when you take that topically, like a Flonase or Nasocort.

• 8:59Mike Carruthers?

  And so can I tell the difference? Or do I have to go to the doctor to tell the difference?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  You would need to go to an allergist to get formal testing to be able to tell the difference. It's not something that I can figure out clinically without testing. So basically, what happens is either they will order a blood test or a skin test that's trying to measure for that IgE antibody, either on your skin or blood, to the specific substances in the environment. If it's a positive test, you have allergies. If it's negative, we call that the non-allergic rhinitis.

• 9:29Mike Carruthers?

  Is there a sense as to, because so many people complain of those symptoms, as to how many people have allergies versus how many people have the non-allergy version?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  It's not entirely clear because we aren't able to skin test everybody in the United States. We kind of have to extrapolate it. More people have allergies in general, but as you get older, it tends to turn into this non-allergic subtype. There are a lot of elderly who have just a constant runny nose, as an example, and that has nothing to do with pollen. It's something that constantly happens, and we treat that with different nasal sprays to try to dry up the nose, as an example. But allergies in general, whether we talk about allergic rhinitis, hay fever is another term for that, eczema, food allergies, asthma, chronic hives, medication reactions.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  It's one of the most common chronic diseases that we face in the United States that affect millions of people, and it's just not talked about enough.

• 10:33Mike Carruthers?

  So you just mentioned medications. Like, you know, people say, "Well, I'm allergic to penicillin." Is that really an allergy to penicillin? Or is that some sort of intolerance to penicillin?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  So roughly 10% of Americans believe they're allergic to penicillin. But if you test them out, we estimate that about 90% of those individuals don't have a true penicillin allergy. And so it could be that they have a parent who has a penicillin allergy and were afraid to give it to them when they were a kid. So they just had the label. That's one example. Another is, as a baby, you had an infection. The doctor- Gives an antibiotic and you get a nonspecific rash. That's not necessarily a severe allergic reaction. It could actually be a response from the virus or bacteria infecting you and creating a rash. And it gets confusing to figure out, is this truly from a medication or from the infection itself?

• 11:28Speaker 01

  There are a lot of what we call viral exanthems where you develop rashes naturally as your immune system's fighting off an infection. So it can be difficult to truly verify whether it's an allergic reaction or not. And even if it was, we estimate that most people with a true penicillin allergy outgrow it. If you abstain from that medication for at least 10 years, the majority will lose that sensitivity over time and they get lost to follow up or there's difficult issues related to having physicians test this out because it's not always covered by insurance. There's a lot of issues related to the resources that go into doing this type of testing. And so this is something that many allergists are trying to figure out ways to streamline

• 12:13Speaker 01

  this process of delabeling penicillin allergies on people's medical charts. Because if you carry that label, you're at a higher risk of developing severe complications while you're in the hospital, longer hospitalization stays, and even potentially higher mortality rates by having that label because you can't take a highly effective medication that has less side effects. You end up having to take these different antibiotics that are more expensive, potentially more side effects, and may not be as effective.

• 12:41Mike Carruthers?

  When I was growing up, I don't remember hearing people talk about food allergies that, you know, little Johnny could, could die if he's exposed to a peanut. I mean, I just, I'd never, ever heard that.

• 12:58Mike Carruthers?

  Now you hear it a lot.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yes, and when I was a kid, I had a milk allergy that I outgrew. And I knew one girl with a peanut allergy, and that was it. And part of that is recognition. There are many accounts of people who would have what we would now consider to food allergy, that it just was not talked about or recognized. That actually has existed. There's even documentation from the Middle Ages of dignitaries who had food allergies and potentially used it for political gain. As a possibility of saying that somebody was trying to poison me, but they likely had a food allergy. These things did exist, but they were poorly understood.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  And since the 1990s, not only has the recognition increased, but we have seen diagnosis of food allergies rapidly increase, where the rates have more than tripled over the past 20 to 30 years. And why would that be? That is the billion-dollar question. So I'll give you some factors as to why this may be the case. One, which you may have heard about on the news, which is, we used to recommend delaying introduction of highly allergenic foods like peanuts until later in life, like two to three years of age, depending on the food. But that was meant for only high-risk individuals, like children who have eczema, as an example.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  We then learned, a study called "Learning Early About Peanut," or the LEAP study. It randomized kids to either consume peanut protein before they turned one regularly, or wait until they turned five. And delaying the introduction significantly increased the risk of those children developing peanut allergies. If you introduced it before one, there was about an 80% less likely chance of that happening. Not 100%, but something that we recognize now, that we've changed the guidelines over the past 10 years or so, and we're starting to see a slow decline in food allergy rates, especially for peanut allergies, as an example. There's also associations between C-sections, early antibiotic use, and early antacid

• 15:09Speaker 01

  These are all issues related to the gut microbiome. That's the bacterial milieu that helps process foods and present it to our immune system. And so if you take antibiotics early in life, that could kill not just bad bacteria, but good bacteria. If you're born through C-section, you're not exposed to the birth canal and the bacterial flora that is present. If you take antacids, that could also disrupt the gut microbiome. We also have increases in eczema prevalence. Eczema is a chronic itchy skin condition characterized by a disrupted skin barrier. So when any foreign substance comes into contact with a disrupted skin barrier, your

• 15:51Speaker 01

  immune system in your skin recognizes that material as foreign and could create an allergic response to it. And that is what we call the atopic march, or allergic march, where someone who is born early on develops eczema, they're more likely to develop hay fever, food allergies, and asthma later in life because they're all interconnected. There could be issues related to how food is processed and prepared. There could be a pollutant. We don't really know, but I can guarantee you it's not one particular issue. As most complicated chronic diseases are, it's multifactorial.

• 16:27Mike Carruthers?

  We're taking an important look at allergies, and my guest is Dr. Zachary Rubin. He's a double-board certified pediatrician and allergist immunologist and author of the book, All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.

• 17:22Speaker 05

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• 17:33Speaker 06

  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 18:15Mike Carruthers?

  So Dr. Rubin, my sense of allergies used to be that they were something very treatable, not benign, but not life-threatening. But now you hear about peanut allergies or nut allergies, and people dying. And I don't understand that. I don't, how do you die from an allergy?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  So what happens unfortunately is if you have that abnormal immune response, it can present in a multitude of ways. It could be mild. It could be severe and potentially life-threatening. And no testing I can offer can determine the next time you eat something, if you're allergic to it, if it's going to be a mild, moderate, severe, potentially life-threatening situation. It's how the immune system responds to it, what chemicals are being released, where are they being released? And does it trigger a cascade of events towards something called anaphylaxis? That's a continuum where your immune system, if it leads towards shock, could cause your blood from especially the periphery in your arms and legs to pool out.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And it causes the blood leaving your vital organs, like your heart and your brain. So in rare instances, if you develop anaphylactic shock, your blood pressure drops, and that can cause a heart attack, stroke, or even death. It's not common, but you hear about it on the news every so often. Even if you give epinephrine, which is the first line of treatment, anybody experiencing a severe allergy reaction should carry that with them at all times. But if you delay use of it, or there's potentially some underlying issue going on, in very rare instances, even with epinephrine use, we have had tragic cases where people have passed away just from eating a food that normally would sustain us, but it actually can cause

• 20:03Speaker 01

  significant harm to a small group of people. And that's very hard for people to understand, but that's why we have to take food allergies seriously.

• 20:12Mike Carruthers?

  I know a lot of people, I don't know, I actually don't know that a lot of people, but it seems like a lot of people have seafood allergies, shellfish allergies. And generally, what are the symptoms of a seafood allergy?

• 20:25Speaker 01

  It's quite variable. I can't predict based off of testing what it is. Any type of food allergy could be mild, where you get itching or a mild rash. It could be severe vomiting, potentially diarrhea. It could be wheezing, difficulty breathing, swelling of different parts of the body. The concerning aspect would be like the tongue or your throat could swell. You could have a combination of those symptoms that I just mentioned, or the dreaded anaphylactic shock, where blood pressure drops, you feel faint, you turn pale and potentially blue. And some people report the sense of impending doom, like they feel like they're going to die.

• 21:04Mike Carruthers?

  Ooh.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Luckily, it's rare, but it happens from time to time. And knock on wood, I have yet to see a child in my practice experience that level of shock. It's something that usually is more common in adults. And it has to do with the physiology of how the body works when you're a young child versus as an adult changes. So this risk of shock is usually much higher in adults.

• 21:28Mike Carruthers?

  Is there a good understanding of how you acquire an allergy? You had mentioned peanut allergies, maybe it's because you weren't exposed to peanuts. But what about other allergies? Is it passed down? Is it all environmental? Some or both? I don't know.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so most of these allergy diseases, it's a combination of genetics and environmental factors. So if you have a parent with asthma, as an example, their child is significantly at higher risk of developing asthma, which that's, that's an airway disease that's chronic, usually diagnosed in children, but can happen in adults. And it's often triggered by a lot of these things we talked about earlier in terms of pollen, mold, different environmental triggers, or pollutants, irritants, exercise. All those things can be triggering to an extent. Asthma is a significant risk factor for developing asthma. So that's, that's one example. The exposures make a difference.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Air pollution, as an example, is a significant risk factor for developing asthma. Or if you are in housing that's very old and has a lot of dust and mold, those early exposures can be problematic. And, and what's interesting is recently we've had studies seeing strong associations between somebody who has a, a gas or wood burning stove in the house and developing asthma. Because when you're burning that in your home, you are releasing a lot of volatile organic compounds like nitrogen dioxide, which can really cause inflammation in your lungs. And you don't necessarily smell it, but it causes that. So if you don't, if you don't have an electric stove and you're using gas, you gotta make

• 23:13Speaker 01

  sure you put on the, the fan on your stove, as well as opening up windows whenever you're cooking, to reduce the amount of exposure that you have to those irritating substances.

• 23:26Mike Carruthers?

  Is it safe to assume that the most common allergy is air, things in the air? Pollen, whatever is in the air that makes people sneeze, and that's the most common?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Right. So, so pollen's one of the most common environmental allergens, whether it's from trees, grasses, or weeds that are wind pollinated, not, not the, the fresh cut flowers like roses. When you have, when you sneeze with that, that's from the fragrance, not the, the pollen, because you don't get exposed to that regularly. So that's your seasonal allergens. The most common indoor allergens is typically dust mites, which are found anywhere where there are human skin cells in humidity, like in your bedding is the main one, or carpeting is an example.

• 24:08Mike Carruthers?

  And do allergies tend to go away? You had said some of them do, but do most of them eventually disappear, or most of them don't?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Usually, it's pretty persistent. If we're talking about environmental allergies, there is a shift that happens later in life, where it goes from kind of this allergic rhinitis to non-allergic rhinitis, where the antibodies that cause the reaction start to fade over time, but you still have similar symptoms. That happens with food allergies. If you've got egg, milk, wheat, or soy, that can be outgrown usually. But if you have something like peanut, tree nuts, or seafood, that's usually not outgrown. It's more persistent. We don't understand why that's the case.

• 24:56Mike Carruthers?

  I want to get your, lastly, get your thoughts on, because I have what I assume are airborne allergies, and I get stuffy when, in the spring and all that. And I use a neti pot, which I discovered not that, all that long ago. And I find it amazing. But what's your sense?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Oh, those devices, whether it's a neti pot, a saline rinse bottle, anything that uses saline water to clean out the nasal cavities is very helpful for most people. It can be a little hard to tolerate when you're first using it. But the concept is, is that as you're breathing the air, constantly you're being bombarded by these allergens and irritants that will stay there, because you have mucus that acts as a first line of defense. It's like a wall that's sticky, that traps all of these things, and it stays there. But it can create swelling and inflammation that leads to all the symptoms that we're experiencing. So by using these devices, and rinsing your nasal passages once or twice a day, it'll

• 25:59Speaker 01

  help you breathe a lot better, more naturally than having to rely on medications. Or if you use nasal sprays, rinsing your nose first, then blowing your nose, and then using it, it's much more effective, because you're putting the medicine on the actual tissue. So it's really, really effective to use those devices. ...mind, though, that you should never use tap water unless it was previously boiled and cooled. It's just easier to get distilled water in a jug to use because there is a rare, but actual complication that is reported pretty much every year, very rare, but pretty much universally fatal, which is the brain-eating amoeba called Nichlaria foularii. You could get infected with that with tap water.

• 26:42Mike Carruthers?

  What's your take on nasal sprays like Flonase? A lot of people say they really help. What do you say?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  If people use nasal sprays, they often don't know how to use it correctly. I tell folks, if you're snorting it and taking a deep breath in when you use it, you're likely going to taste the medication. But if you're tasting it, that means you're wasting it. It's not going in the right part of your body. When I teach my patients or when I talk about it online, the light bulb goes on and people don't realize that they weren't taking it properly. When they do it, it makes a huge difference.

• 27:13Mike Carruthers?

  I don't know anybody who's not affected by allergies. They either have one, or two, or three, or they know someone or live with someone who does. And it seems like there's a lot people don't understand, so I appreciate you clearing it up. Dr. Zachary Rubin has been my guest. He's a double board certified pediatrician and allergist immunologist in the Chicago area, and he is author of the book called All About Allergies: Everything You Need to Know About Asthma, Food Allergies, Hay Fever, and More. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Doctor, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 28:21Speaker 04

  Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 28:26Speaker 05

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 29:25Mike Carruthers?

  Have you ever promised yourself, "I'm not going to do that again", and then you do? You stay too long, you drink too much, you say yes when you mean no, you stay quiet when you know you should speak up, and then afterwards, you're not just frustrated, you're confused because it's not like you didn't see it coming. So why do smart, self-aware people keep repeating behaviors that make them unhappy? It turns out, these patterns are not random. They're learned, reinforced, even rewarded in subtle ways. And until you understand what's driving them, willpower alone probably won't fix them. Licensed marriage and family therapist Katie Morton has spent years helping people uncover

• 30:10Mike Carruthers?

  the hidden reasons behind their self-sabotaging habits. She's the author of "Why Do I Keep Doing This? Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy", and she's here to explain why we get stuck and how to stop. Hey Katie, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.

• 30:31Mike Carruthers?

  So start by throwing out some of these behaviors that you're talking about. I just mentioned a few, but give people a flavor of what you mean.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Like me saying yes when I mean no, because I don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Or I want to please someone, make sure they're happy first. It could also be, another example of why do I keep doing this is why do I think that everything has to be perfect? And I keep doing something over and over and over, hoping that this time I'll think it's finally good enough. It's kind of the patterns in my life where I find myself trying to shrink to fit spaces I don't belong.

• 31:09Mike Carruthers?

  And do you think when people do those things, they know it's a problem? Or that's just the way they do things?

• 31:17Speaker 02

  I think it depends. I ultimately believe that we all know it's a problem because it doesn't feel good. But I think for a lot of us, myself included, we were raised a certain way. And so it's almost like it's all that we know. And so, I mean, I ended up in therapy, feeling super stressed out and wanting to talk about my stress reduction. And like, how do I manage all that I'm doing? And over talking with my therapist for many weeks, she was like, I think this might have to do with people pleasing, or I think this might be part of, you know, what you think your role is in life. And it was, it's getting down to more the patterns of it, rather than just the one-off examples. Because I think for all of us, we can have those one-off examples and think like, oh,

• 32:02Speaker 02

  you know, I really wish that this had turned out differently. But until we see it, it's almost like if we pull ourselves out, bird's eye view, then we can see like, hey, I keep doing this same thing. And it can take a minute for that realization or that awareness to come to be.

• 32:18Mike Carruthers?

  And so where do these things come from? These are patterns, you say, but, but patterns had to start somewhere, one day, how?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Great question. When we're being raised by parents, a close family, whomever's around us the most, we

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Are picking up on all of the different behaviors, how people engage in conflict. How do people show that they love each other? How do people make up after a fight? All of the different patterns of behavior we see expressed by our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles. And we slowly kind of draw the blueprint for life and how we're going to engage in it. And that's usually where these types of patterns come from, for better, for worse, right? We might be like, hey, our family's really good at like getting over a conflict and coming back together and repairing. Yay. So we grow up with that blueprint. Or it could be, hey, my family's really good at pretending everything's okay, even when it's not.

• 33:14Mike Carruthers?

  In order to address it, though, you have to realize it's a problem. If you don't think it's a problem, then there's no problem. So do people have a tendency to to say, I know I do this and it's causing trouble? Or do people say, I just, this is, this is me?

• 33:31Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people, especially more recently, think it's a problem and realize it. But it's not just, aha, oh, my, oh, my God, I hate that I do this. I don't think the realization is so clear like that. I think it's more like, I feel tired and I don't know why, or I'm super stressed, or I feel anxious. It kind of comes out in other ways, because if if you think about it, if we're always putting everybody else first, then that means that our needs aren't getting met and we might find ourselves exhausted or unable to sleep at night, or even getting sick a lot. There can be a lot of different ways that it can come out. And I feel like it's through the repetition of those kinds of symptoms that we then realize like, oh, my God, this, what's happening? Like, why is this happening to me?

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Why am I, why do I keep doing this? Why, why do I keep feeling this way? And that kind of curiosity, the wondering of the why, is how we discover it.

• 34:25Mike Carruthers?

  And then when you discover it, how do you start to address it, fix it, get it, get it out of the way?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  I think the best first step in that is honestly just realizing how it shows up for you. One of the first homework assignments my therapist gave me was to notice how often I say sorry. Every day. And for anybody who doesn't struggle with people pleasing, they're like, this would not be a big deal. When I tell you the number was embarrassingly high and I stopped counting midday because it was ridiculous. You know, that was a good place to start. I know a lot of times when we're doing like self-care or self-help stuff, we think like, I want this quick fix or I want these five steps to get better. In the case of, you know, of control and us trying to control things that we can't, it's less about quick fixes and more

• 35:14Speaker 02

  about showing ourselves compassion as we try to act differently. So in that example, like, oh, I say sorry all the time. Instead of thinking like, ah, Katie, why do you keep doing this? It's so, stop it already. Just stop saying sorry. That would be the goal. Sure. But instead I needed to realize like how often I was doing it. What was triggering it? Was it certain situations? Are there certain places I do it more? And then my therapist had me, as odd as this sounds, one of the places I apologize the most is like public spaces, like sharing like a grocery store aisle with people. I say sorry all the time. Or I'm traveling right now. So the airport is also a place where I would do this a lot. And I can always hear my therapist's voice where she's like, you don't have to apologize for taking up space. You don't have to apologize for being here.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  And so that's kind of that first step of work is like, hey, it shows up for me this way. And so I'm going to try to not do that. And I know that's very specific, but if each of us are kind of honest with the patterns that we see, we can also, you know, identify some behaviors that we could maybe shift a little bit. It's not, you know, all or nothing, but apologize a little less when I'm not sorry, when I'm just being a human, sharing space.

• 36:25Mike Carruthers?

  So I I'm curious, like, when you're in the grocery store, what is it you're sorry? What is it you're apologizing for?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  That's a great question. My therapist asked me the same thing. The truth is, I don't know. And I know that makes me sound like I'm losing my marbles. I promise you I'm not.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  That I feel like if, so here's, here's an example and this will kind of help me explain it. Like if, let's say you and I are in the grocery store and I haven't met you before. I don't know you and I, we're both looking at cereal. And you've wanted to cross over where I am looking at cereal because like you want to get to the granola and it's on that side. As you cross my path and I step back to give space to you, I will apologize. And it's not because I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for anything. That was the kind of the next step my therapist said, and she's like, if you can't tell me what you're sorry for, I don't want you apologizing. And tell, like, let me know how that feels. It felt terrible, but I think it's, it's less about what, what it means to say I'm sorry and to apologize.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  And it was more of a like, I am taking up too much space. Like I haven't earned the right to be here. It's, it's a little deeper than I'm sorry and it's more of a, I, other people always come first.

• 37:38Mike Carruthers?

  Doesn't it seem like there's a lot of people like that? And then of course, there's a lot of people who don't have any idea what you're talking about.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yes, I think there are the people like me who apologize and there's people that don't see any reason for that at all. And I think that's the interesting thing about control or this illusion of control. Because it, for me, it shows up like that. That's one of the ways it manifests. And for other people, it might be, you know, more of the perfectionism type of thing. Or, you know, it can show up in totally different ways for different people. That's why that first step is figuring out how it shows up for you.

• 38:15Mike Carruthers?

  So why is it, if we can pick on you and use your example, when you're made aware of that, that, that you're really not sorry and why don't you just stop it? I mean, what, what compels you to continue when you already know intellectually, you're not sorry, you are just as entitled to take up space as anybody else. You have every right to be in that aisle at the grocery store. Why don't you just stop?

• 38:44Speaker 02

  It's a tough, it, it sounds obvious. I should be able to just stop, but it's not just about that. It's like an inner belief. And when we try to shift beliefs about ourself, it's, it's more than just the symptoms. I mean, the first like knee jerk answer to like, why don't I just stop is because it feels uncomfortable. And because I don't think about it, it's a knee jerk reaction. Um, but deeper than that, it's in order, and I talk to my, my patients all the time about this. I'm like, in order to stop this, this outside symptom, right? I like to think of our issues as kind of like trees and for me to just stop saying sorry would be like trimming some leaves off of the end.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  But that doesn't actually, you know, eradicate the tree or get rid of this problem. It just trims a little bit of it, but it's, there's still a lot there. And so in order for me to actually be able to stop saying sorry when I don't mean to and to be like, you can take up space, Katie, this is ridiculous. I have to get to the root. I have to figure out where it comes from. And the truth for me, I mean, this is like kind of spoilers for the book, but not really, because it's every person's on their own journey. Mine is that I thought, or I believe deeply that I have to earn my worth. And I know you're like, but how does that connect? It, it connects in the fact that if we think about like, I feel like I'm a second rate person, like other people's needs come ahead of mine. That means that in order for me to

• 40:14Speaker 02

  uh, receive or accept love or attention, I have to earn it. I have to do something for it. I have to like pull myself out from the underdog role into the, you know, the leading role. And that realizing that that core belief was like messing my life up essentially was a huge eye opener for me. And I believe that we all have these false beliefs about self that need identifying and then then that's what we work on. Does that make sense?

• 40:44Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, because I think what, what you're describing about yourself, so many people identify with that, that need to earn your place at the table rather than just feel like you have a place at the table.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 40:58Mike Carruthers?

  Well, stop it.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Easier said than done, right? My therapist's homework, it's funny when you're like, just stop doing it. My therapist is like, I want you to try not saying sorry for a week. I didn't even make it a day, Mike. It was terrible and embarrassing. But it was eye opening, you know, that like, why is this silly behavior like? Why do I keep, why do I keep doing this? And, and I don't want to. Um, and it was because it was bigger than that.

• 41:23Mike Carruthers?

  And so how important is it to figure out the why? Why are you doing it? Is it important to figure that out? Or is it important to change it and you don't really need to know why?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  I think the why is vital. I believe strongly that if, if we just try to, like I said, like trim the leaves off the ends. If we just try to, uh, stop doing certain behaviors. It will either, one of two things will happen. Number one, it will come right back and we'll find ourselves doing it again. And it'll be really frustrating and we'll, we'll feel really stuck. Or number two, we will suppress that one action and it will crop up in another way. Ta-da. It's all tied to the same belief. It's all tied to the same thing. It just comes up in a zillion different ways until I was honest with myself enough or had enough courage to admit that I just didn't think I was worth it. And that that was a really terrible feeling.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  But if I didn't build, work to build my confidence or build my, I don't know if it's faith in self, but rightful place on this earth, just like everybody else. If I didn't fight for that, it would keep coming up.

• 42:34Mike Carruthers?

  So is it lack of confidence?

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Lack of confidence is part of it. It's, it's worth. Because if you think of like, my belief of self is like that I have to hustle to earn my worth. I have to prove to you that I'm worthy of your attention or affection or whatever. Then that means that I'm not good enough as I am, just straight up, just me. And so, part of that is confidence. But for me, it was, it was confidence and it was like self-talk, the way that I, I navigate conversations with myself. And it goes back to, I, I think it's all confidence, even as I try to explain it and tease it out in another way for you. I feel like that's what it is for me, is, is definitely confidence and self-worth. And those are so inextricably linked that all of the things that I've done in therapy to get better,

• 43:20Speaker 02

  come back to that, like talking to myself more kindly, not apologizing for taking up space, being okay speaking up and sharing my opinion. I think all of that is, is tied to confidence and self-worth.

• 43:32Mike Carruthers?

  And what are some of the, well, we, it was my first question, but, but some of the other ways that this kind of thing shows up for other people? For you, it's saying you're sorry when, when you're not and, but, but how do you see it manifest in other people?

• 43:49Speaker 02

  The most common, and I use this, I don't, I can't take like credit for this quote, but lighting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm is probably the most common symptom. And what I mean by that is that I find people tend to do things for others ahead of their own self. So let's say I really need to rest, but my sister needs me to get her from the airport. And so I'm going to stay up late and go get her or something. I know it's a random example, but it's essentially you know what your needs are, but you meet someone else's first. I find that to be incredibly common.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  This could even look like I have another member of my community who shared taking on extra work at it within her job, even though she doesn't get paid more for it and other people could help out too. But she's always the one that does that or like taking extra shifts, you know, always being the one to fill in. And a lot of us could say, well, that's because I'm reliable or that's because I do, you know, I like to be that person. Sure, maybe.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Or is it because that's how you earn your worth? Again, even though my issue sounds very specific, like, oh, I'm hustling to earn my worth. Worth is a big piece, is a big motivator for our behavior. And I think a lot of different people will do different things like, that's why a lot of my friends who are mothers will do everything for their children because they put a lot of worth, a lot of their identity is in being the best mother ever. And so even if they're not doing great, they'll, they'll make sure that their child has everything, you know? Um, and as sad as it is to say, it's like we're leading by example, then the blueprint for their children is that mom's needs don't exist and only kids' needs exist. I'd be curious for you, Mike, if you find yourself in any situation like this where you,

• 45:39Speaker 02

  you have behaviors you don't like that are repetitive, that kind of go down to your worth or your self-confidence?

• 45:46Mike Carruthers?

  Well, see, that's, that's the thing. Because like the person that needs a ride from the airport, I like to think of myself as the person who will

• 45:57Mike Carruthers?

  sacrifice what I need to sacrifice because I, you know, I couldn't go back to sleep knowing somebody was stranded at the airport, even though that, you know, they probably find somebody else. But, but where's the line between being a good person and, you know, getting stomped on?

• 46:15Speaker 02

  It's all about balance. I think just like anything, in moderation is great. Like you said, I wouldn't want someone to be at the airport either. Like that, to me, that's not a kind person that would just leave someone, right? However, the behaviors I'm talking about aren't just one-offs or I'm being kind. It's like, this is the only way I know how to be, meaning that like, I, I need to be needed. And if no one needs anything from me, I don't know how to relax. Or if I can't be of use to someone, whether it's work, whether it's school, whether it's friendships, whether it's kids, you know, family. Um, if, if nobody is needing of me, I don't know who I am.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Does that make sense? It's like, it's a deeper thing. It's like, instead of it being just, I'm being a good person and I, I want to show up for people because I believe we all should do that. And that's what, that builds healthy relationships, having people you can count on. However, when that comes at the cost of our own health, of our own well-being, time and time again, that's when it's a problem.

• 47:20Mike Carruthers?

  Time and time again. That's the, that's the key phrase there, I think, is that, because we all, we've, I mean, I like to think I would go out of my way to help somebody, but if I did it all the time, then yeah, that, that would be a big problem.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, then it gets in the way of you being able to do anything else that you want to do, right? Or ways to take care of yourself. We all have things we love to do, hobbies that we want to spend time in. Like, I love to read, and so if I'm always doing for other people, then I'm not going to have any quiet time for myself to do that. And we have to make sure that it's a balance between filling our own cup and filling other people's. I kind of love that analogy in general, like you can't pour from an empty cup because it's so like visual. You legitimately can't, you know? If there's no water or beverage to be poured, you can't pour. And so I think if we're not pouring into ourselves first and only pouring out, that's, you know, that's when it's an unhealthy behavior versus just me being a good human to people in my life.

• 48:20Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I love that phrase, you know, setting yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm, because that, that nails it. I mean, that's the perfect visual, I know exactly what you mean. And I bet all of us, well, not all of us, but many of us have done that and, and then regretted it, you know, or thought, yeah, this, this just didn't work right.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  100%. I, I think a lot of times, you know, it depends on, again, how we're raised and how we think about our relationships, but for almost everybody out there, there have been times when we've been in a relationship where someone is a taker and we're a giver and we overgive, you know? We do light ourselves on fire to keep them warm and Yeah, I love the visual too, and I love that because then what ends up happening and it's kind of like good play on words is then we're burnt out, you know? If we keep doing that, we don't have anything left to give and we, we don't feel good. And the relationship itself, it truly cannot stand, you know, when there's one giver and one taker, there needs to be the ebb and flow.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  So yeah, it's, it's a very common problem. We've all been in situations like that, I feel like at least once in our life, and it doesn't feel good.

• 49:37Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I think an awful lot of people listening can relate to this whole idea of behaviors that you do repeatedly that you really wish you wouldn't. And I admire your willingness to share your journey with what you went through to help other people. Katie Morton has been my guest. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist and she's author of a book called Why Do I Keep Doing This? Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy. And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. If you want to lose weight, you should exercise more. I think most people believe that, and it's not really true.

• 50:19Mike Carruthers?

  The uncomfortable truth is that exercise is one of the least efficient ways to lose weight. Now, it's great for your heart and your brain and your mood and your lifespan, and exercise is excellent at preventing weight gain. But when researchers look at weight loss specifically, exercise alone produces far less fat loss than people expect. Why? Well, it's because the body adapts. When you burn more calories through exercise, you often get hungrier. You may unconsciously move less later in the day, and your metabolism can subtly compensate. In other words, the calories you think you burned off don't translate cleanly into fat

• 51:04Mike Carruthers?

  loss. A major scientific review concluded that physical activity by itself is not very effective for weight loss without dietary changes to go along with it. So, exercise matters, but not for the reason most people think. And that is something you should know. I hope you got something out of this episode, and if you did, you could share it in a review, or at least leave us a rating on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps the show in terms of exposure, so please leave us a rating and review and I'd appreciate it. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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