Dr. Weil Interviews Dr. Oz

Dr. Weil Interviews Dr. Oz - Emotional Health Center - Everyday Health:
By Andrew Weil, MD, Everyday Health Happiness Editor

Andrew Weil, MD, in conjunction with the release of his new book, Spontaneous Happiness, is talking to
surgeon, Mehmet Oz, MD, about how they define and achieve contentment. 

Andrew Weil: What do you do to maintain your emotional equilibrium?
Mehmet Oz: ...anyone who puts themselves out there feels insecurity, feels a sense of doom and gloom periodically.

... most of my days I spend thinking about worries that could easily get you down. 

... I have learned to develop some equipoise, some ability to understand that it’s never as good as it is or as bad as it is either. 

Find the blessings in the people around you because they’re the ones that support your life. ... 

 ... sense of calm in the middle of a storm.

AW: What are some other tricks in your daily lifestyle that you think help you maintain emotional equilibrium?
MO:   ... I needed automation in my life, some constancy so that I didn’t have to keep making decisions every moment of the day.

If you examine your life, think about all the decisions you had to make today but you didn’t really have to make. 

For example, What am I having for breakfast? What am I going to do after this event is done? All those things force you to expend chi. 

...it’s not about time management, it’s about energy management.  If I lose energy deciding things I don’t have to decide, then I wear down my reserve and I start making poor decisions. 

... multiple studies,  show this is why you get those mid-afternoon downs, because you’ve depleted [energy making decisions] and you need sugar to make additional decisions.
I try to automate my life. I get up in the morning and I do my seven minutes of yoga and my calisthenics. 

...valuable for bringing a sense of calm, because one thing you do control is your body — even if you don’t control things around you. 

... know what you’re going to have for breakfast, you know when you’re going to get into work, the first things [you’re] going to do [when you get there]. 

I don’t change those things ever, so when it gets to midday, I haven’t made too many decisions. I’ve done lots of things, but haven’t made many decisions. 

Then I can use the information that’s coming in throughout the day to guide my decisions more rationally.

AW: ...many people today who are depressed. What are your thoughts on why we’re seeing epidemic depression in our country?
MO: I think we have an epidemic because we have lost the unique art of being comfortable with discomfort. 

And I think about human history. We’ve always had the ability to weather the storms as they hit us. 

If a kid has a tough coach who makes him uncomfortable because he wants to build him up and make him better, or a tough boss in the workforce, they’re thought of as just that — tough, unnecessarily difficult.

Every time we prevent some challenge from coming in front of people ...we prevent them from learning from those challenges. 

...let people be challenged and let it be okay that they’re uncomfortable, because that’s how we will grow.

For more information on Dr. Weil and Spontaneous Happiness, go to 

www.SpontaneousHappiness.com.

Postscript:

Oz likes routine in his life to free his mind to think about the more important tasks he faces everyday.  We all have limited amounts of energy available for living and working.  It is important to take care of our health through good diet and gentle exercise.  We need to manage our lives to maintain our equilibrium and to focus our attention on our priorities.  Don't sweat the small stuff.