Micro Moves That Beat Burnout (E.307)

“We have an epidemic of comfort.” – Dr. Eric Recker

Brief Overview of the Episode

Regan Robertson, Dr. Chad Johnson, and Dr. Maggie Augustyn sit down with Dr. Eric Recker to unpack practical ways to push back against burnout in real time. From defining what you’re actually chasing to using two-minute resets between patients, you’ll learn how to take control of your attention, your breath, and your pace so the day stops running you. Dr. Recker also demonstrates box breathing on-air and shares simple anchoring phrases that keep your head from spinning when the pressure spikes.

What This Episode Reveals

• Why “comfort creep” makes stress hit harder and how to build resilience with intention
• How micro resets beat marathon escapes, especially for busy practice owners
• The power of naming “there” so you stop running without a finish line
• A two-minute box breathing routine that reliably lowers the temperature fast

What You’ll Learn

• A five-level reset ladder: weekend, day, half-day, two hours, two minutes
• Box breathing made simple: inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4
• How to switch from running away to running toward by setting intention
• A recentering phrase you can use anywhere: “I am here, right here, right now.”
• How interval thinking at work prevents all-out sprints from turning into crashes

If This Sounds Familiar

• Your pulse spikes with every schedule hiccup
• You “relax” by doom-scrolling between patients
• Vacations feel like pressure cookers, not recovery
• You keep adding more so you’ll finally feel “enough”

Next Steps

1. Try box breathing before your next patient for two minutes
2. Write your recentering phrase on a sticky note at your workstation
3. Define “there” in one sentence and filter today’s to-dos through it
4. Share this episode with a colleague who needs a doable reset 
   

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Regan Robertson: Listeners, do you ever feel like you have to be everything to everyone, and because of that, nobody gets your best, especially yourself. For me, when that happens, it’s annoying, right? If you’re stuck in the tug of war between being everything to everyone and yourself. This episode is for any of you that have asked that question, how do I keep on giving my best without losing myself in the process?

[00:00:29] Regan Robertson: Our guest today is Dr. Eric Rucker Rucker. He is a, uh, a previous offender, our podcast, he was a really, really, uh, excellent episode. We got a lot of downloads and, um, Dr. Rucker is on a mission to help really high achieving professionals. I say that because they often suffer the most, um, help them push back against burnout and rediscover purpose in their own work and their life.

[00:00:54] Regan Robertson: So if you caught our previous episode, which will be in the show notes, you might remember Eric’s [00:01:00] powerful dam analogy, a visual, and it was a way to understand how, um, that constant overdrive and what unprocessed stress. Can do to you and how it can quietly erode your foundation. So today we’ve invited Eric back yet because surprise, the world is still stressed out and the world isn’t a really interesting climate.

[00:01:21] Regan Robertson: I know, and I bet that Eric has learned some things along the way as of all of us. And we would love to dive in and take a deeper look at this and find out how Eric is still managing to bring, uh, light to the fight for balanced joy and. Meaning. So welcome everyone. First and foremost, welcome to my cohost Chad and Maggie.

[00:01:43] Regan Robertson: Nice to see you both here and not Dtic Sting.

[00:01:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: That’s right.

[00:01:49] Regan Robertson: Uh, and Eric, welcome to our show.

[00:01:51] Dr. Eric Recker: Thanks for

[00:01:51] Dr. Chad Johnson: having me back. It’s

[00:01:52] Dr. Eric Recker: great to be here.

[00:01:54] Dr. Chad Johnson: We love having board Uncertified Dam engineers that [00:02:00] those are the best. So thank you for joining us today.

[00:02:05] Dr. Eric Recker: I’ll do my best.

[00:02:06] Dr. Chad Johnson: Hey Maggie, you, uh, before we hit record, you are kind of, uh, on the hunt of framing our idea.

[00:02:15] Dr. Chad Johnson: Go for it.

[00:02:18] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Well, I thought Reagan did an outstanding job framing an idea, but, um, yeah, so see you give of yourself, right? When is it your turn or is it your turn? Or when is it appropriate to put yourself first? But one of the things that I actually, I, I really wanted to talk to Eric about was, uh, there was a point at which I was reading a book or listening to a book, and it talked about how we live our lives and the fact that people who run.

[00:02:42] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Like run, like for exercise, there’s some trauma stuck in them. Okay. That they’re actually running away from facing their problems. And that’s why people run like that. This is psych psychology. Um, and. It really [00:03:00] stuck with me because, you know, sometimes you just wanna be devil’s advocate. I could never run.

[00:03:04] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I could never run. Um, and I always wanted to. So whenever I came across somebody that could, I, I had a lot of respect for them and what, what for what their human body could do. And Eric is one of those people. But why can’t there be a counter thought to that? Why do you have to run away from something?

[00:03:23] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Why can’t you be running towards something? And then as I was, um, kind of. Eric kept popping up on my social media. I saw that he had moved and now he was climbing, right? So now he and, and he always has been climbing, but he was climbing. And then again, like this other, this saw came. Are you, why are, why do we climb?

[00:03:44] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Why do we move up? Why don’t we stay down here with the rest of the mortals? Right? So, um, so I thought, who would be better to help us chew on these ideas and kind of unpack them, if not Dr. Eric Wrecker. [00:04:00]

[00:04:01] Dr. Eric Recker: Wow, Maggie. Uh, you have just given us enough information for six episodes, so I’m really looking forward to our follow ups that we’ll have after this.

[00:04:11] Dr. Eric Recker: But, so I think one of the biggest ideas that comes to my head as we talk about that is the whole concept of how comfortable we are trying to make our lives. I think we have an epidemic of comfort. And, uh, a book that I’ve read that I absolutely love is called The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. Uh, I’m not sure if anybody’s read that, but basically he has said that we made our lives so easy, uh, that when any adversity hits.

[00:04:42] Dr. Eric Recker: We’re in trouble. I mean, we’re a Starbucks society, right? We want it in five minutes or less. We’re an Amazon society, right when Prime came out. All right? Now, anything that takes more than a day to get there, our world falls apart. We want it quick. We want it easy, and we want it comfortable. [00:05:00] And that’s really scary because we do all of these things to keep us from feeling any discomfort.

[00:05:10] Dr. Eric Recker: I am not. One of those people. I recognized that early on, and to your point, I started running to run away from things I believed, and I think we talked about this in the last episode. I was told I wasn’t good enough for a long time. I bought into that lie so much so that running and triathlon and all of that was a way for me to prove to people that I was good enough.

[00:05:38] Dr. Eric Recker: I was running away from my trauma. Running into this will make people believe that I’m good enough. And all it ever did was get people to say, Hey, what’s the next race? What’s the next thing you have on your calendar? What’s the next thing? And so it just kept, just kept feeding. Uh, but I’d be interested, interested to hear what you guys think about that.

[00:05:58] Dr. Eric Recker: You know, are, are we too [00:06:00] comfortable? Are we trying to pursue lives that we don’t have to face any adversity or difficulty?

[00:06:07] Regan Robertson: I see that all the time. It hits really deep for me. Uh. Inside and outside of dentistry. So in the profess professional, you know, climate, it’s always faster, faster, faster. Cheaper.

[00:06:20] Regan Robertson: Cheaper. Faster, faster. And now with AI being introduced, I see now it’s AI can do everything. AI can’t do everything, but everybody thinks not everybody, people, some people think it can. And um, so much so that it’s, you know, questions like, well just bring in AI for what? I don’t know. We just need to bring it in like that, that mindset.

[00:06:38] Regan Robertson: It, it’s underneath this like. Maybe, and maybe it’s because life is so finite and we know that life goes so fast, so we wanna accomplish as much as we can and, and automate wherever we can. But I, I definitely agree that, that maybe it’s. Having the discernment and the understanding that that not [00:07:00] everything needs to be rushed and not everything needs to be comfortable.

[00:07:03] Regan Robertson: Like there is, there is an an ultimate comfort that can actually come from what can initially feel like discomfort. But you, you’re absolutely right. I mean, if I have to wait more than 10 minutes, I’m sure I’m like, well, let’s go on to the next thing. I noticed it too in movies. When you look at like children’s programming from the eighties and how many seconds there are in between the frame switches?

[00:07:27] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah.

[00:07:28] Regan Robertson: Drastically longer now. I think it was SpongeBob that brought in

[00:07:31] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: SpongeBob is the one that’s been given credit for roofing.

[00:07:34] Regan Robertson: Yes. Second to second and a half changes as, because it

[00:07:38] Dr. Chad Johnson: used to be seven seconds. I mean, you know, and, and that seemed short to people in the eighties and now one or two seconds.

[00:07:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: I think adult shows are even. Competing with that you, maybe not every second, but.

[00:07:52] Regan Robertson: Yeah, so it’s interesting because I’m, I’m wondering what that does to, I’m wondering what that does to our brain chemistry and how that, how, what that does to our [00:08:00] nervous systems even more importantly. And, and Maggie, I love what you said about the, um, the sh that shift in paradigm, the running away to running towards, and I’m, I mean, that’s deep because it is all in perspective in how you frame it.

[00:08:14] Regan Robertson: So. I’m curious, Eric, how did you turn your own life from? I’m running away to, I’m running towards, and what did that look like for you?

[00:08:24] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah, it looked like getting crazy burned out. Crazy burned out because we will, until we address the things that we’re running away from, we will keep running away from, from them.

[00:08:36] Dr. Eric Recker: And the way that I ran away from them was always by adding more. I just kept adding more. ’cause if I had more, then people would think I was good enough. I mean, the amount of energy that I wasted on some of these pursuits, and yes, exercise is great, but my schedule would look like. And, and I, [00:09:00] I don’t think I told this the last time I was on, when I hit rock bottom, I was buying my practice from my father.

[00:09:05] Dr. Eric Recker: I was building the new office. I was training for two Ironman triathlons. I was coaching both of my kids in soccer and I was serving on five different boards.

[00:09:17] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And that wasn’t enough to tell you that you were good enough,

[00:09:21] Dr. Eric Recker: right? Because nobody was gonna tell me that, right. No matter what, nobody was gonna sit me down and just shake me and say, what in the heck are you doing?

[00:09:33] Dr. Eric Recker: Because I just figured out how to manage it all. Wednesday mornings, we’d be up at three. The alarm clock would go off at three, we’d start running at three 30 so we could get done by six 30, so we could do the other things we had to do. I know, Chad, you’ve been through seasons like this of training where it’s just.

[00:09:51] Dr. Eric Recker: Insane the amount of hours you spend on it, right?

[00:09:54] Dr. Chad Johnson: The part-time job. The second wife. Yeah.

[00:09:59] Dr. Eric Recker: [00:10:00] Yeah. Yeah. They say, they say it’s, uh, it’s cheaper than therapy, but I know what I’ve spent on bikes and I would not say it’s cheaper.

[00:10:07] Dr. Chad Johnson: I know debatably. Yeah.

[00:10:10] Dr. Eric Recker: Um, but yeah, nobody’s, nobody is ever going to just grab you and shake you and say, Hey, I think you need to slow down.

[00:10:19] Dr. Eric Recker: But if we, if we listen to our bodies, the signs are there. They’re always there. It’s not normal to have heart palpitations when you get stressed out. It’s not normal for you to get chest pain when you get bad news. It’s not normal for you to. Have the slightest thing go wrong in your practice or in your life, and you get a splitting headache.

[00:10:44] Dr. Eric Recker: It’s not normal for you to have panic attacks. It’s just not, and when those things start happening, you have to slow down and you have to usually get help from somebody else who will ask you the right questions because we’re not good at asking [00:11:00] ourselves those questions.

[00:11:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: So why? Why, why? Yeah, why are we not good at asking?

[00:11:05] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’m just asking why. Why are we not good at asking those questions? Because we’ve avoided ’em.

[00:11:11] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: We avoid from them.

[00:11:13] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah.

[00:11:15] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Do they not hit you when you’re running though?

[00:11:17] Dr. Eric Recker: What’s that?

[00:11:18] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Do they, do those questions not hit you when you’re running?

[00:11:24] Dr. Eric Recker: No, not much. Else hits me when I’m running.

[00:11:26] Dr. Chad Johnson: Oh, do you? You have to remember, we’re six foot 4, 240 pounds.

[00:11:30] Dr. Chad Johnson: We’re thinking about every step. Not like joy, joy, joy. It’s. Left, right. Left.

[00:11:37] Dr. Eric Recker: So, so there are, there are multiple types of runners, but there are runners that are out there that make it look effortless. We’ve all seen people that are just in cruise control.

[00:11:49] Dr. Chad Johnson: 140 pounds.

[00:11:51] Dr. Eric Recker: Yep. And, and they’re probably singing and doing whatever, um, smiling that is, that is not Eric Reer.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Dr. Eric Recker: When you see me running, I, it does not look like that.

[00:12:04] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: So Li so do you wanna look like that though? So that right. Like it, because when, like, I started swimming, right? I can’t, I can’t turn my brain off. It just freaking won’t shut up. I keep analyzing and re-analyzing, right? Like I keep climbing, whatever it is.

[00:12:19] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I keep sw swimming towards something. I want it to shut off.

[00:12:22] Dr. Chad Johnson: Do you know what my thought is? You haven’t swam enough. Um. Eric, I seem to think, I see, I seem to think when I’m swimming for the first half hour, but, uh, when, when I get around 2000 yards, I think I’m zoned in or out or something like that, and I’m done thinking.

[00:12:39] Dr. Chad Johnson: So

[00:12:40] Dr. Eric Recker: you wanna know how I broke that, Maggie from swimming? I started praying while I was, uh, while I was doing my strokes. So I would ha, I would like, I’d say the Lord’s Prayer over and over. I’d be like our father who are in Heaven Hall, and I’d just do that and I’d do it over and [00:13:00] over and over again. And then after I did it, maybe five or six times I’d kind of check in, and then if my head wasn’t spinning anymore, then I’d just swim for a while.

[00:13:09] Dr. Eric Recker: If it started spinning again, I’d, I’d maybe. Say Psalm 23 or some of the other things I had memorized, but I would get something because I wanted to, I wanted to enjoy that. I didn’t want it to just be another time that my brain was going nuts in the background, and so I, I had to use some, uh, some distraction techniques for that.

[00:13:31] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: But back to the question, I’m like the runner, right? You may, you, you said you’re not that type of runner where you’re just like running around and singing and I don’t know. Um, I guess there’s different kinds of runners that I wasn’t aware of. They just all really fit. So. Do you have a choice on what kind of runner you are?

[00:13:51] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I, I realize this is somewhat not about the podcast, but also everything about the podcast, right? Like, what are you choosing while you’re running and [00:14:00] what’s the reason for which you’re running? Do, do these play into the decisions on what kind of runner you are?

[00:14:06] Dr. Eric Recker: Well, that’s a great question. I think genetically, some people are just gonna look like they absolutely know what they’re doing.

[00:14:12] Dr. Eric Recker: And most of those people are, um, there’s some people that are, that are my height and Chad site that, that look pretty, pretty graceful, but they don’t have the weight on that we have on. They’re 180, 190 pounds. Um, and extra weight, uh, you know. I guess it’s beneficial in some things, but

[00:14:33] Dr. Chad Johnson: body solving people

[00:14:34] Dr. Eric Recker: with all the pounding on the pavement, it’s, it’s not very beneficial and it’s a big part of the reason why I’ve switched more to, to hiking or rucking, uh, instead of, instead of running or if I run now, uh, it’s intervals.

[00:14:50] Dr. Eric Recker: So I’ll run for three minutes. Walk for five. And I think there is, there is huge translation from [00:15:00] that into our lives. Like most of us, as if we’re practice owners, um, or, or even if we’re dentists, we’re running, we’re running hard, we’re working hard, we’re learning new things. The pace is picking up. We’re.

[00:15:18] Dr. Eric Recker: We’re going, going, going. And the thing that I love about, about intervals is it gives my body a break. So I’m running at a decent clip for that three minutes, but then I allow myself to, to slow down, let my heart rate slow down, my mind slows to a different, is in a different place at that point. And I know I’m gonna do it for a finite amount of time so that when I start running again, I’m ready to run.

[00:15:43] Regan Robertson: I’m curious, I wanna go back to one piece that you had mentioned, and it was asking, asking the right questions. So finding someone that, that can support you and be that mirror and help ask those questions. What are some of those questions that you would ask? [00:16:00]

[00:16:00] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah, I, I love to ask people what they’re chasing.

[00:16:04] Dr. Eric Recker: Like when you get there, what does there look like? Because we haven’t defined where there is, then it’s an infinite run.

[00:16:15] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Chad, do you wanna be our, um, our pretend coaching client right now?

[00:16:19] Dr. Chad Johnson: Okay. Sounds good.

[00:16:22] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Okay, so what, what’s there look like?

[00:16:26] Dr. Chad Johnson: Um, I’m healthy enough to do whatever age appropriately that I want to.

[00:16:31] Dr. Chad Johnson: I sleep well and I can eat what I want.

[00:16:36] Dr. Eric Recker: Wow. Okay. That, that’s there, that’s, uh, that’s too abstract.

[00:16:44] Dr. Chad Johnson: I need, you need to tell me more. So I want to have the whole pizza and I want to have unlimited amounts of Pepsi with that pizza. I want to be able to someday. Chad, what’s that? That’s

[00:16:59] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: bad for your

[00:16:59] Dr. Chad Johnson: heart.[00:17:00]

[00:17:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: It’s not if I’m running,

[00:17:03] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: so then my, so then my question is, do you want to want less?

[00:17:10] Dr. Chad Johnson: No. No. Do I want less pizza?

[00:17:13] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Do you? No. Do you want to want less pizza?

[00:17:17] Dr. Chad Johnson: No. I’m happy. But that’s the problem with coaching is if you’re content, it kind of ruins. Uh, the need for coaching. So, so, uh, that might be where it ends.

[00:17:32] Dr. Chad Johnson: So I, there’s a side lesson there. Finding contentment is, uh, a, a game changer. Uh, a game breaker, like, it, it, it gets you off of the wheel. It’d be like this, how fast can you run? It’s like, how about if I hop off the treadmill? I don’t run at all, like running aside from the analogy, but you know, like if it’s like how fast do you wanna run?

[00:17:55] Dr. Chad Johnson: How far do you wanna run it? It’s like, what if actually I hopped off the treadmill and was happy with [00:18:00] where I am and who I am. Then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, okay, well then I guess you don’t need to train to run anymore, do you? No. So do you get where I’m going with that like I

[00:18:11] Dr. Eric Recker: do and in the pursuit of contentment there?

[00:18:14] Dr. Eric Recker: Yes. See very, very few people who get there. Yes. Very few people who get there. So that’s, that’s going back to the question of, of where is there, like what, what are you trying to get to? Yes. And give me tangible things where you will feel like you would allow yourself to run a little bit slower.

[00:18:40] Dr. Chad Johnson: Okay, well let’s, let’s redo it because maybe I broke the system when I answered, so let’s pretend again because like with my three answers, one of ’em is to be able to, you know, hang with my grandkids someday, you know, like to be able to move around with my kids and stuff like that.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: Lately, even, um, I’ve done better in my running form. So my knees don’t hurt as much as they did like 10 years ago, believe it or not. I, my, my knees don’t hurt like they do did when I was in my late twenties, um, from heel striking for those runners that care, you know, like I switched to a midfoot strike and.

[00:19:19] Dr. Chad Johnson: Now when I’m working in my greenhouse, like I’m squatted down and, and caulking, uh, this morning I was caulking along the outside of my greenhouse, uh, to winterize it and stuff like that. And I was like, man, it feels good to squat down here and I don’t hurt. And like, how cool is that? Like I was like 15 years ago I couldn’t do that.

[00:19:40] Dr. Chad Johnson: And now I’m 50% older than I was at that point, and I’m, I am feeling better. So that’s cool. Like for example, is just to be able to move how I would want to age appropriately and not be just a sitting on a rocker. Grandpa someday. You know? [00:20:00] Does, could you work with that, Eric? That

[00:20:02] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah. I love that. I love that because you’ve taken it from something that’s, that’s abstract.

[00:20:08] Dr. Eric Recker: Yes. To making it more specific. Yep. And so much of what I have to do when I work with clients is get them from these big, grandiose ideas. Yes. Let’s, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You want to, we need to get more clarity because clarity is kindness. And when we know exactly what we want, then we are more likely to be able to achieve, achieve it.

[00:20:35] Dr. Eric Recker: So then we start looking at the different things you do and we ask, does this support that goal? Which kind of

[00:20:44] Dr. Chad Johnson: brings.

[00:20:46] Dr. Eric Recker: Oh, go ahead.

[00:20:47] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Which brings us a little bit back to Reagan’s idea at the beginning of how much do you have to give and when is it time to think about you? And here you are talking about you like Chad [00:21:00] is talking about himself, um, being there for his kids.

[00:21:04] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: So he has to give of himself right now by running or doing whatever in order to be able to give to others. Not just today, but in the future.

[00:21:17] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah. Yeah. It, it always, it always starts with us and not in a selfish way, but we are givers. We are service providers, we will run ourselves into the ground so that at the end of the day, everybody still likes us and none of our team is gonna leave because they’re grumpy at us and our family’s gonna be okay.

[00:21:43] Dr. Eric Recker: And then we’re shot, right? It all starts with us. It all starts with the things that we do. Uh, we have to be a little bit selfish so that we can be selfless. What, what is one we have to be able to ask ourselves every single day, [00:22:00] what is one thing I’m gonna do for myself today?

[00:22:03] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Has that ever felt selfish to you, Reagan, or Chad?

[00:22:07] Regan Robertson: Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that I, yeah. Absolutely. It’s, it’s feel, it felt really weird at first. I’ve gotten better at it. I can’t say I don’t fall back into my patterns. I feel like it can be an addiction at times. Like you always have to be aware. Um, I’ll say, I mean, for me, for taking on like too much or saying that I will, like, we’ve all known like there’s multiple episodes on it at this point where I, I, I talk about that, but it felt I’ve gotten a lot better at, at saying I need to do something for me.

[00:22:36] Regan Robertson: And putting in that place and not feeling bad about it. I definitely have felt in the past, not, not good. So it felt counterintuitive at first, but then I finally realized so many people will shout at you and they will say it and don’t think I haven’t heard it. From so many different, you know, authors and very intelligent people that, that say you have to take care of your first, yourself first before you can take care of others.

[00:22:58] Regan Robertson: It’s on the airplane [00:23:00] when you’re flying. You have to put your oxygen mask on and, and I’m not sure that I have an answer, maybe Eric does of what? What could actually really get that, that change through your head so you understand, oh, I really do matter. And I, I do think coaching though, for me anyway, was a absolute key.

[00:23:16] Regan Robertson: I had to have somebody outside of myself and outside of my family, or my colleagues that could ask those questions and force me like it was in a safe environment and I could reflect on it and really think deeply. Only then. Did I even entertain? I think, uh, the option of, of taking care of myself and asking myself, what’s something I can do for me every day?

[00:23:38] Dr. Eric Recker: Yeah. And I think people who are really struggling with that, I’m not talking about just taking off to the beach by yourself for a week. I’m not talking about that. I, I talk, we all have a lot on our plates and so I remember the pressure that I used to put on a one week vacation. [00:24:00]Right. Have you guys ever put a lot of pressure on a one week fix?

[00:24:03] Dr. Eric Recker: Right? And how many of those do we get a year? Maybe a couple, maybe three. Chad gets like seven. Seven. Yeah.

[00:24:13] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: On his yacht in Hawaii. On my yacht,

[00:24:16] Dr. Eric Recker: yes. Yeah. You call it, what do you call it, big Johnson.

[00:24:20] Dr. Chad Johnson: Uh oh. Or Maui, either one. Well, whatever you call it. Like I call the island Big Johnson. ’cause that’s where I am most of the time.

[00:24:26] Dr. Chad Johnson: Most, most of my life, you know, just are in there. You can edit a bat out if you want. I just,

[00:24:32] Regan Robertson: no, it’s going on a t-shirt. I

[00:24:33] Dr. Chad Johnson: love it. It’s good. Gonna be on a big Johnson t-shirt. Are we back in the nineties? Or Mark side too? Those, those big Johnson shirts that say Poker in the rear and big and something in the front.

[00:24:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: You know?

[00:24:47] Regan Robertson: I’m gonna call you. That’s, I’m changing the contact in my phone right now. Big jump. There you go.

[00:24:52] Dr. Chad Johnson: Hey, hey, hey. Hold on. Uh, this is an Iowa reference, but, um, the periodontist at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry, [00:25:00] um, uh, from North Carolina. Um, and he was trying to think if he was head of the department and he always had a southern drawl.

[00:25:09] Dr. Chad Johnson: And, um, and he’d, he’d call on me and he’d say, big City Johnson. ’cause he knew I was from West Des Moines. Which wasn’t true, but in his mind I was from West Des Moines, which is a big city. So he’d say Big city Johnson. What do you think the answer is to this dhi Here? The, the DHI essence. Dhis, yeah. What was his name?

[00:25:29] Dr. Chad Johnson: Benny. Benny Hawkins. Hawkins, yes. Dr. Benny Hawkins. And, uh, and he, he just had the greatest, I smirk on his face when he’d get to call me Big City Johnson. And I’d be like, I’m from the east side. And he’d be like, oh, you’re from West Des Moines. You’re big City Johnson. I think he was just harassing me. He just had fun.

[00:25:51] Dr. Chad Johnson: Dr. Hawkins? Yes. Oh yeah.

[00:25:54] Dr. Eric Recker: Oh, but you know, the whole, the whole vacation thing, like we put so much pressure on it and here’s [00:26:00] what happens. We coast into fumes on vacation, right? ’cause we’ve done everything to get everything just perfect before we leave. And, and then we finally get to go and we’ve put so much pressure on it and it takes us about four days to get uncorked.

[00:26:16] Dr. Eric Recker: ’cause we’re so tight and we’re so stressed. And then we finally get uncorked and we have. One or maybe two good days, and then it’s time to go home. And we go home and we didn’t rest and all of the things. So I like to talk to people about, okay, so we don’t have a whole week. What can we do to right the ship to take care of ourselves in a weekend?

[00:26:42] Dr. Eric Recker: Okay. I’m too busy. I don’t have a weekend. Okay. How about a Saturday? What could you do on a Saturday to take care of yourself? Maybe you don’t have that. What can you do in a half day? What can you do in two hours? What can you do in an hour? Five minutes, two minutes, even two minutes? [00:27:00] You can just sit at your desk instead of picking your phone up, and you can do some box breathing.

[00:27:06] Dr. Eric Recker: Breathing. Breathe in for four seconds. Hold for four. Let it out for four. Hold for four. Do that for two minutes. See, the thing is we think that we overthink the taking care of ourselves and think it has to be these big things. And that’s what I think the stumbling block is. I want us to figure out really small things, micro resilience, things that we can do to take care of ourselves.

[00:27:32] Dr. Eric Recker: If we always pick up our phone and always bow to notifications and always let our brain spin, then we’re just gonna keep getting drained. If we can find out what to do, you know, maybe in between patients we just go sit in our office for a couple minutes instead of checking on whatever, or maybe we stand in front of the window in a Superman pose and just look out the window.

[00:27:57] Dr. Eric Recker: These are things that we can do that are [00:28:00]small deals, but they have big results. So those are the kind of things I think we start with. And then. You know, sometimes we do have to take a little bit more time for ourselves. Maybe that’s even as simple as, you know, it normally takes me 15 minutes to drive home, but I’m, I’ve had a day.

[00:28:22] Dr. Eric Recker: Maybe I need to take the 20 minute drive home tonight. Maybe I need to take just a little bit longer, or maybe I don’t feel like I have enough time to get ready for the day on my drive to work. Maybe I, maybe I take a little bit longer drive to work. It’s just these little things that we can start to do that can have such a big difference.

[00:28:41] Regan Robertson: I think we should box. Breathe. Let’s, I mean, let’s box, breathe. Like it’s, what did you say? It was two minutes

[00:28:48] Dr. Eric Recker: here. I mean, you can do it for two minutes, but I’ll, I’ll lead us through it. Okay. So the, everybody’s listening. Poly fast.

[00:28:56] Regan Robertson: Do it listeners, like two minutes. You were, if you’re driving, you can do this [00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: and hold on.

[00:29:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’m gonna tie it in. Dr. Rucker to, we talked, uh, last week about nasal breathing. I mean, so be intentional about inhaling through your nose. ’cause we were talking about mouth taping. Reagan, did you get your mouth taped? I did and it’s great. Good. It’s not as brought that up, I forgot that. Yes. It’s not as suffocating as you think.

[00:29:20] Dr. Chad Johnson: So when you breathe in, don’t you know, like gulp through your mouth? Unless you can’t breathe through your nose, fine. But I just thought I’d point out. Nasal breathing is gonna increase the nitric oxide in your cardiovascular system. It’s actually in this, that two minute exercise going to reduce your blood pressure.

[00:29:36] Dr. Chad Johnson: No lie.

[00:29:38] Dr. Eric Recker: Okay. All right. So, okay, Eric, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll set a timer for two minutes. Okay. Okay. And then I will lead us through the first two rounds of it, and then we’re going to, do we wanna do a full, the full two minutes? Yes. Okay. So I will start us and Yes, just like Chad said, we’re gonna do this [00:30:00] nasal breathing, inhaling and exhaling.

[00:30:02] Dr. Eric Recker: Okay. Let’s just get used to that. Okay.

[00:30:04] Regan Robertson: Nasal inhale. Nasal exhale.

[00:30:06] Dr. Eric Recker: Yep, yep, yep. All right. So. When I say go I’ll, I’ll tell us what we’re gonna do. Okay. So we’re going to, I’ll walk us through first, we’re gonna take four seconds to breathe in, and then we’re gonna hold that for four seconds, and then we’re gonna take four seconds to breathe out, and we’re gonna hold that for four seconds, okay?

[00:30:28] Dr. Eric Recker: Okay. All right. Ready? And go Breathe in. 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Inhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, [00:31:00] 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, two. Three, four. Now you’re on your own.[00:32:00]

[00:32:27] Dr. Eric Recker: All right,

[00:32:31] Dr. Eric Recker: so what else could you have done with that? Two minutes? Watched six Instagram videos, maybe sent back one email, maybe done something else that escalated life, but instead we brought calm. Instead we brought decreased blood pressure. Just like Chad said, we brought decreased cortisol. We brought. One thing that’s not measurable, but it’s one of my favorite things, [00:33:00] and I would just call that it is well with my soul.

[00:33:04] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: So, so I’m gonna push back on you and I’m gonna say, well, maybe you did right? Like when you were counting, it was easy. As soon as you stopped counting. It was like a, a clearance sale on, what am I gonna do next in my head. Right. Like instead of when you were counting, it was very zen. Right. I’m, I’m going like, you’re telling me to, I’m thinking about nothing.

[00:33:32] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: I’m listening to your voice. I’m moving. As soon as you stopped counting my mind. Was given permission to go wherever it wanted. Right? And it didn’t stay with counting in my head, although later I told myself, okay, you gotta start counting when he’s not counting. ’cause then everything else is gonna shut up.

[00:33:50] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: But, so that’s when people say, how do you meditate? How do you do any of this? ’cause I can’t stop my thoughts, right? This is part of that. You can tell someone, this is me [00:34:00] pushing back on you. You can tell me, go to your office and sit for two minutes and don’t touch your phone. You can handcuff me to the desk.

[00:34:06] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You can handcuff me to this chair if you want to, but, but my mind will do what my mind is gonna do because that’s all it’s ever known. It’s to process information. Fast forward, give me the next thing that I’m gonna do. So instead of resting for those two minutes, I’m sitting here making a list as soon as the two minutes is done.

[00:34:24] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: When is it done? When is it done? When is it done? I got shit to do.

[00:34:31] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: So

[00:34:32] Regan Robertson: do you. Okay, wait. But you said that, that, you said that when he was, uh, when he was telling us and guiding us. That was helpful. Have you, have you ever had, um, I, I totally get where you’re. Because you’re saying your brain wants something to anchor, it needs something to focus on. Do you have a metronome?

[00:34:48] Regan Robertson: Do you have, I don’t know if you’re a musician or if you have like any musicians in your family. We have a metronome here and that is, uh, that is so unbelievably helpful. For example, Maggie, like if I try to meditate on my own without anything. [00:35:00] Around me. It can be difficult for me to do. I do guided meditations because I solely focus.

[00:35:05] Regan Robertson: So when you were doing that and thinking in it and we had our quiet time to breathe, I was looking at Eric and so I was trying to remember to count, but I was watching his chest go up and his chest fall down and that was telling you, okay, so I was still using you. Sorry about that. As a guide in it to kind of remind myself.

[00:35:23] Regan Robertson: That, that one I was, I was, you know, following the tempo and the timing right. But also so that my mind wouldn’t start thinking about, I’ve got this text that just pinged over here. I’ve got a Slack message that pinged up over here to stay locked in. Maybe something like a Metro note would, would help. And I think

[00:35:39] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: there’s the apps for that too.

[00:35:40] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You

[00:35:40] Regan Robertson: there? There are.

[00:35:41] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Mm-hmm. Or YouTube videos.

[00:35:43] Dr. Chad Johnson: I have two recommendations. One, if you ever have ever had an aura ring, um, the Aura app has guided breathing meditations. And so like you choose a two minute or a five minute or a 10 minute, whatever. It’ll say on this one, I want you to breathe this [00:36:00] way, and I’m gonna, you know, like once a minute, check in with you on your pace or whatever and stuff like that.

[00:36:06] Dr. Chad Johnson: So, um, it’s got the, the guided ones and then also, uh, like if you’re actually picturing the box, and I think that’s. Part of why it’s called box breathing is that you’re picturing, um, boxing and I think seasoned swimmers, uh, are probably okay with this just because there needs to be a rhythm to your breathing.

[00:36:28] Dr. Chad Johnson: And on the seventh one you flip, turn and then, you know, and stuff like that, and you get used to whatever your, your cadence is. Uh, but those were just a couple. I mean, considering we’re called everyday practices, those were just a couple nuggets of ideas that I have.

[00:36:45] Dr. Eric Recker: I was gonna, I was gonna say the metronome as well, that you said, said Reagan.

[00:36:50] Dr. Eric Recker: Um, I think a lot of what we’re trying to do with this is about setting intention. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:37:00] and that’s a lot of what meditation is. It’s uh, it’s not, we’re, we’re never gonna get perfection with it. Um, we’re setting an intention for that time. And Maggie, I get it. My, my mind was like that too when, when COVID hit and practice was closed and there were all of those flipping webinars and everything that we thought we needed to watch and all the stuff we needed to learn.

[00:37:25] Dr. Eric Recker: And it was just such a crazy time. I committed to 30 minutes of quiet a day, and I have that head like yours that spins relentlessly. And I had to come up with a recentering phrase because the first time I tried to be quiet for 30 minutes and I looked at my watch the first time thinking we had to be close.

[00:37:49] Dr. Eric Recker: It was 43 seconds into it, 43 seconds. That’s about how much time I could do it, and my mind drifted about 39 times during [00:38:00] that 43 seconds. But I set the intention. Then I stuck with it the next day and I stuck with it the next day. And I kept my, my recentering phrase was, I am here, right here, right now.

[00:38:15] Dr. Eric Recker: And I had to say it, and I had to say it, and I had to say it, and I had to say it. And it eventually got to the, got to the point where I could get through chunks of time where my mind would just be, be still. Uh, and, and so. I found a lot of improvement in that, but it was continuing to be intentional, continuing to try, trying to bring myself back to that present moment so I can a hundred percent relate with what you’re saying.

[00:38:46] Dr. Eric Recker: Uh, I’d be more than happy to record a two minute video of me doing breathe, 2, 3, 4. I could do all that for you if, if that helps. But I do think maybe using a metronome or just. Or just sticking [00:39:00]with it. And, and I know you are not this person at all, Maggie, um, but I think the temptation for many people is to say, oh, I’ve tried that.

[00:39:09] Dr. Eric Recker: That doesn’t work for me. And I always like to say a follow up question. Well, how many times did you try it? Because if you try something once and it didn’t work, that just means, it means it didn’t work that time. So I think a lot of this stuff that we’re doing is about, is about intention. Does that make sense?

[00:39:36] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: It makes all the sense in the world. And I mean, I have always admitted to all the mental illness that. I suffer with or suffer from or whatever. And I’m not supposed to be saying those words out loud, but one of the things that I always thought I believed, or I did believe this, was that I had no control over my thoughts.

[00:39:54] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That it was my thoughts that were making me sick and that I had no way to [00:40:00] direct them or to control them, or, you know, and through therapy and all kinds of other things, including meditation. Prayer, walking in nature, time off. A lot of time off, you start to realize that you absolutely have control over your thoughts.

[00:40:17] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You ha you, you’re, you’re, you’re the actor in this story. You’re the director in this story. You’re the producer of this story. You’re the author of this story. You have the ability to control that thought. Accept. If you’ve never done it, it’s really hard to do. So everything you said about intention, right?

[00:40:38] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Like, I could sit here and my brain’s kind of like spinning in one direction. I have a choice. I really do. And, and, and it’s, and some of it is, how often have I exercised that choice?

[00:40:49] Dr. Eric Recker: Hmm. One of the great pearls that my mentor gave me is he just said, use the word stop. [00:41:00] You know, as the noise gets louder, as the ring, the ears gets louder as the voices and everything.

[00:41:05] Dr. Eric Recker: Sometimes he just has to yell, stop. And he said, it’s gotta be pretty crazy for my neighbors because they know I live alone and I don’t tend to have a lot of guests. But, uh, for them to hear me just say audibly loud, stop. And, uh, so yeah, I hope that’s helpful for somebody who’s listening out there who has a problem with that because we tend to be the people with spinning heads, high achievers have busy minds.

[00:41:33] Regan Robertson: I think you’ve, I, I think you’ve hit a hack here. I think you’ve done a hack and, and really bridged where we are today as a society and a culture in that constant need for, for not just comfort, but also like instant gratification and not having a big attention span with these micro moments. So these little micro things, because the reality is.

[00:41:54] Regan Robertson: We’re gonna get off the podcast and life is still there to live. There’s still a thousand things on the to-do list. There’s still a thousand [00:42:00] tasks undone, uh, messages unread. So finding these little tiny two minutes really is realistic. Anyone can do it and, um, you know, do. Creating some calm throughout that day.

[00:42:11] Regan Robertson: I have, uh, parting thoughts for you. How can people learn more about you? Um, we didn’t even talk about the damn analogy book, but what, where, where are you living right now so people can get more Eric Rucker. Hey,

[00:42:25] Dr. Eric Recker: I said this was gonna be six episodes. It may take us a long time to record ’em, but I think we’re good to get there.

[00:42:31] Dr. Eric Recker: Um, yeah, my website, uh, eric wrecker.com is a good place. Uh, I’m on Instagram, Facebook, and, uh, LinkedIn. I just try to post things that help people. That’s pretty much what I do. Uh, shoot me a dm. I’d be more than happy to have a conversation to see if I can help.

[00:42:51] Regan Robertson: Well, thank you so much. Love having you on the podcast as always. And thanks for box breathing us into a slightly calmer state [00:43:00] except for Maggie.

[00:43:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: Uh, thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us.