Thought Blocking for Better Sleep; Beware Reconnecting with Your First Love; Benefits of a Big Booty; The Rise of the Relationship Contract; The Yawning Psychopath Test

In this episode, we discuss:

Thought Blocking for Better Sleep

The Dangers of First Loves and Their Lasting Impact

The Benefits of a big... booty.

The Yawning-Psychopath connection

For more information, and to sign up for our private coaching, visit tesh.com

Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
Oh, it's the sound of the podcast. Oh yeah,
John Tesh with Gib Gerard, andwe are ready to podcast you with
the stuff. I just had one ofConnie's meatballs and so like,
Okay, let's get rid of that. Iwant to talk about a lot of
stuff here, Gib and see what youthink thought blocking is the

(00:23):
first thing. I had not heard ofthis. And it's a it's a sleep
piece. If you want better sleep,you you just have to master the
art of this thought blocking. Itcomes from one of our favorites.
It's a term that sleepspecialist Dr Christopher winter
uses for turning the negativethoughts that tend to keep you
awakened to positive thoughtsand help you find solutions, or
at least make you feel lessstressed. I did a long interview

(00:44):
with Dr winter. He's a greatguy, really, really smart. He
just, he's a neuroscientist. Hejust, he just studies his it,
and it's, it's wild, because youand I have talked about this
before on the coaching call,where, if you don't get your
sleep right, itall falls it all falls apart.
Your metabolism is shot. Yourhormones are shot. If your sleep
is wrong, you're you're wrong. Ifind that when I can't sleep,

(01:06):
you know, in addition to the lowenergy and bad food cravings and
the not being motivated to workout and not being able to focus
all that stuff, I just, youknow, my big thing is, is
exactly what this piece istalking about, which is I start
to ruminate, and it creates thiscycle of not being able to see
it. Because then I ruminateabout not sleeping. I start to

(01:28):
think, Okay. I start to thinkabout, you know, issues in my
life, and then those issues inmy life turn into, now, I'm
worried that I'm not gonna getenough sleep. And I watch the
clock tick over and it goesfrom, it goes from like 11 to
midnight and go, Okay, I can geta solid six hours, and then
midnight turns to two, and I go,Okay, I could, I could just get
the four hours. And then, youknow you're just I keep thinking
about how much sleep I couldpossibly get, and before you

(01:50):
know it, I'm exhausted, and Iknow you're a mess. I know I
don't have insomnia all thetime, but I have it sometime.
Well, this is for you, and I'vegot ever since, okay, now it's
my turn. Ever since I had allthose surgeries when I beat
cancer, I got all my organs arelike in different places. And so
I wake up every hour and, youknow, and my body has figured it

(02:11):
out. So I wake up every hour andpee, and then I go back sleep. I
wake up every hour and goanother hour, that kind of
stuff. So, TMI, anyway, so Drwinters says, and then I'll turn
you loose here. This thoughtblocking thing is especially
useful for people who say theyjust can't fall asleep because
they can't, like you said, can'tturn off their brain, yep. So a
lot of times, people become soobsessed with trying to fall

(02:32):
asleep that their thoughtscreate stress and that keeps
them awake. Yep. Dr, wintersays, if you have an active mind
in bed, stop stressing about it.
Oh, great. Don't think aboutpink elephants.
Embrace it next time. Ah, okay,here we go. So he says, focus on
how comfortable you feel layingin bed, and think about all the
things you have to be gratefulfor, and then try turning any

(02:54):
negative thought that crossesyour mind into something
positive. So he says, instead ofthinking I'm so stressed about
the project that's due at worktomorrow. Think this, I wonder
what else I can do to make thatproject better before I turn it
in tomorrow. Dr, winter sayspositivity. He says, the less we
actually think about fallingasleep by actively practicing
thought blocking, the moresuccess we'll have with falling

(03:15):
and and staying asleep. Whatelse works for me, as you and I
talked about this before, islistening to a boring book on
tape.
Yeah. Except I just don't havethe I don't have the bandwidth
to find boring books. I end upgetting into those books. But I
think this kind of underscoressomething that we tend to do,
which is, when you're when youtry not to think about
something, it's impossible tonot think about it. And this is

(03:38):
a good technique for any kind ofanxiety that you're feeling, not
just around sleep, where youacknowledge the thought, even if
it's an anxiety inducingthought, you have to be present
with it. You can't just fight itoff. If you try to just fight it
off, you're you're going to beyou're going to create more
stress in your body. And itdoesn't actually work. So I love
this idea. You embrace thethought, you think, you ruminate
about how you're going to makethe situation better become

(04:01):
solution oriented, as opposed tojust doom and gloom, thinking
about things that are issues.
Yeah. And, you know, I looked atto the the data of the last like
20 podcasts that we've done, andthere are three of them that
have big, big sleep pieces inthere, and those are the ones
that are the most popular, themost downloaded, nobody's
sleeping because nobody's Yeah,nobody's sleeping. The other

(04:21):
thing that we've talked aboutbefore on the radio show, Dr
winter didn't talk about it thistime, that that I really love
doing, and I started gettinggetting regular with this is, is
I keep a piece of paper, or evena journal, little, a little, and
I write down the things that I'mworried about. You know, I can't
compartmentalize. I think you'repretty good at that, actually.

(04:42):
But I if I'm negotiating acontract or something, or if I'm
worried about finances orwhatever it is, I will, I'll
just ruminate like crazy. But ifI write it down and I write
three solutions, then I'll go tosleep.
So you're just thought blocking,but on paper, which is, I think,
even more effective. Differentbecause you are physically
releasing it from your brain.
For me, that works with to dolists, it works with all kinds

(05:04):
of stuff. To physically writesomething down, makes a huge
impact on my ability to process.
So let's move on to thispsychologist, Jeff singer from
Connecticut College. He hasstudied first loves, okay, and
he poses the rhetoricalquestion, you know, what is it
about our first love? And assoon as I said that, everybody

(05:25):
just thought about their firstlove, right? What is it that
sticks with us, sometimesforever? And he says, Jeff
singer says it's the air ofinnocence that surrounds our
memories. It's he is. He says,rekindling an old flame and
reconnecting with the first loveis just intoxicating. Being with
them or hearing from them,brings us right back to a time

(05:46):
when life was good. You weren'tdamaged or jaded by love, and
neither were they. You didn'thave the emotional baggage that
you carry with you from youryears of failed relationships
and struggles. Wow. So beingwith the first love, he says,
feels pure again. This is fromstudying dozens and dozens of
couples. It's why he says it canbe so strong and we have
stronger memories of ourexperiences between the ages of

(06:07):
15 and 26 because our brains,the psychologist says, are
gelling and solidifying, andwhat we remember tends to be
more positive. So he says it'sfine to reconnect with an old
flame. If you're single, ifyou're in a relationship, don't
even think about don't even lookat them. I know some people who
have done this have ruined theirrelationships, right? They've

(06:29):
ruined their marriages becausethey they were reaching out to
their to their first love. Ifeel this way about like music I
listened to when I was that agewhere i i Even if I've moved on
and my musical tastes havechanged. I go back and listen to
those bands with a muchdifferent level of nostalgia.
But every time we do these firstlove like high school sweetheart
pieces, I think back, and I haveI've run into, I've run into the

(06:54):
My most serious high schoolgirlfriend. We have the same
pediatrician. I remember. We'verun into her on vacation, and I
and look, I think she's great. Ihave no ill will towards her,
but there's no part of me that'slike, Oh man, what if I don't
think about that at all? And Ihear about all these people who
do, and I it sounds, it soundsexhausting, and I understand
that there's a there's, I don'tknow what it is. I don't know

(07:15):
why this doesn't I don't feelanything like this when when I
see her, but I know you stillhold on to resentment from some
of your breakups when you werein high school, middle school,
well, Iwas, you know, I, I had some
gnarly friends in Garden Citywho I would go start going out
with a girl. And my, you know,more handsome buddy would be
like, you know, thinking, wow,she's, she's cute, and I got to

(07:38):
know her because of Johnny. Letme just steal her. And that
happened to me a couple oftimes. That's awful. It is.
That'snot the first love though.
That's your terrible friends. Imean, it's, it's average, both
of them takes two to tango, butat the same time, like, geez
Louise,I'm very busy playing, playing
music and studying so you didn'thave, actually, you didn't date

(07:58):
as many people. Yeah. I mean,you got married. How old you got
married? 23 No,24 Oh. So much different. So
much different.
Your face was crazy. Now, whatare you talking about? Are you
crazy? Yeah. So, yeah, okay,yeah. So, I mean, like, I think
that's a big part of it too,right? As a it wasn't that long
after my first big relationshipthat I met I married

(08:21):
your mom when I was 39 Okay,okay, so psychologist Nancy
Kalisch interviewed 1000 peoplewho had at least one face to
face encounter with the firstlove while they were married. Of
these people, to your point,Gib, a shocking. 82% of them had
extramaritalaffairs with their only 2%
that's incredible. Halfwent so far as to divorce their
current spouse for their formerlove. Dr Kayla's advice is

(08:43):
predictable. Just don't gothere. Just
don't, just don't I, it's noteven the my it's not even a
temptation. But I this is, Imean, I know, I know at least
one that I'm thinking of rightnow that where this has
happened, where, you know, itwas rekindling with a high
school sweetheart and left herspouse for for for the

(09:06):
boyfriend. And it's, I mean,it's, yeah, it it tears people
apart. It's, it's so it justdon't do it. Don't have that
coffee. You think it's coffee.
It's still, don't do the coffee.
If you, if you won't bring yourhusband with you, or you won't
bring your wife with you? Don'tdo the coffee. Yeah,
absolutely. All right, next,we're going to talk about big
butts.

(09:27):
Okay, sir, makes a lot.
It's basically, it is the whythe location of body fat on our
body so. So the question is, howoften do you feel stumped by
finding a response to thisquestion, Does my butt look fat?
From now on, you should saythis, no, it doesn't look fat.
It looks awesomely healthy,because a new study in the

(09:49):
Journal of Obesity, can writethis down if you want, folks
found that people who carryextra weight around their hips,
thighs and backside aresignificantly less likely to
develop chronic health issues,including heart disease and
diabetes in. Cancer compared topeople who carry extra weight
around their belly. This is whywe make this distinction all the
time between belly fat andoverall BMI, according
to the Mayo Clinic, lower bodyfat traps harmful fatty

(10:12):
particles and preventscardiovascular disease. My
oncologist told me this.
Remember fetus logo, fetusthat's a guy, that's a doctor.
It also increases certainhormone levels that have anti
inflammatory, anti diabetic andvascular protecting properties.
It's amazing. Those big musclesjust gobble up glucose. Yes,
so I mean, again, lower bodymass is is fine. It's when the

(10:35):
it's when you have extra weightthat you're carrying in your
midsection, where you're puttingpressure on your organs. We call
it visceral fat, or belly fat.
That is, that's the one that'sreally unhealthy. So some
people, some people,genetically, just carry their
weight, like the, for me, thelast bit of weight that I lose
if I'm really on a cut, meaningI'm really eating lean and I'm
trying to get my body fatpercentage down, like, maybe a,

(10:56):
maybe I'm in a movie, and Igotta, I gotta, you know, take
my shirt off or something. I thelast place that I lose fat is in
my lower belly, right? That'sjust, it always is there. But
there's other people wherethat's the last place that they
gain weight, and it's all intheir hips and thighs. And
that's, that's, it turns out,it's just a, it's a genetic

(11:19):
anomaly, but you're better offand you're going to be healthier
if that's where you gain yourweight. For the rest of us, for
those of us that gain the bellywe gotta, we have to be more,
you know, focused on makingmaking sure we don't have that
extra little bitof weight. So the wrap up from
Mayo Clinic is for those peopleworrying about their curvy
backside and whether it makesthem fat, this study shows your
body shape is a sign of ahealthy brain and a resistance

(11:40):
to chronic disease. It'salso very trendy and popular to
have that now. I mean, eversince Sir Mix A Lot, you know,
song in the 90s or late 80s,early 90s, you know, Baby Got
Back. It's, it's been verypopular, and the Kardashians
have only increased thepopularity. Yeah. Okay, no
comment. No, I just thoughtplenty of comment. But it's just

(12:04):
like, do I want to send us downa wormhole that I just I can't
get out of? You know? All right,let's talk about about
relationships. Because this isinteresting. More couples are
now signing relationshipcontracts. So more and more
couples are are doing this. Thecontract, uh, lays out
everything from rules on publicdisplays of affection, fighting

(12:26):
styles that are off limits andpersonal quirks. Couples who
sign a relationship contract saythe contracts encourage
boundary, setting, fair,fighting that's good and
compromise. Sure. Therapists saythey love these contracts. They
love these contracts. They saythey good for couples because
they lay the groundwork for ahealthy relationship by setting
expectations. So listen tolicensed marriage counselor Lisa

(12:48):
Thomas. She says, quote,negotiating difficult situations
up front before they become abig, big problem is what these
contracts are great for100% but I not to quote Mitch
Hedberg, but there's no need tobring ink and paper into this.
You could just have theconversation. You don't
necessarily need to write itdown and sign a contract, but at
least if you have a formcontract to sign where it's

(13:09):
like, hey, you know, I watchedmy when my mom and dad argued.
They both, and I know you hadthis experience, they would just
shut down, and they wouldcompletely ignore each other for
the next, like, two months,right? And seeing that I can't,
I can't handle that kind ofpassive aggressiveness. So, you
know, taking that and making itoff limits, making certain
comments off limits, I thinkthat is absolutely the sign of

(13:30):
preparing yourself for healthyconflict. Because any healthy
relationship is going to haveconflict. The difference between
the relationships that last theones that don't, is how you
manage that conflict in ahealthy way. And I think this
sets the groundwork for doingthat. And it can be as granular
as you want. It can be like, youknow, you do the dishes at least
three times a week. You you buythe groceries at least once a

(13:51):
week, all that kind of stuff.
You know, if I was going to doone of these contracts with,
with, with my wife, Connie,oh, don't even open that can of
worms. Too late now, 33 years ofmarriage.
I think what I would, I thinkwhat I would say is, when we're
having it, when we're having awe're bickering, you the words

(14:13):
you always cannot, Oh, yeah. SoI think, I don't think she would
sign that.
No, there's no way you'regetting that, yeah, she always
will never say,yeah, it's you ladies are so
hard to figure out. You just,you just really are. But we'll
write it down in a contract,yeah? Write it down in a

(14:33):
contract. Good luck with that.
Yeah, how that goes? As always,this stuff looks great on paper,
yeah, but there's always a, youknow, it's like, it's like, it's
like, the Olympics, right? Andso it's like, what? Okay, you
watch diving, yeah. And it'slike, okay, so, oh, this guy
just did this diving. He was, itwas, he didn't make a splash. It
was amazing. But what was thedifficulty factor of that? Die

(14:55):
sure it wasn't good enough. Sohe's not gonna get a high enough
score, right? But if he hadlike, four flips and then a
back. Back thing and then atwist, yep, but he he popped up
a little more water. Thedifficulty factor is going to
give him a better a betterscore, sure. So in relate,
you're like, Where the heck ishe going? I
have an idea. Go ahead. Oh, Ithink you're going to say that
just being married to an Italianincreases your difficulty

(15:16):
factor. So even when you guyshave conflict, you're still
getting more pointsexactly because that's a big
splash.
I should not even appear on thisshow. You could just say, John
would say, All right, what'snext? Okay, let's do, let's do
something about how to how totell if your partner is a
psycho. Oh, great, yeah. I justsort of jumped into that, since
we're talking aboutrelationship, yeah, there's a

(15:37):
new study in the Journal ofPersonality and Individual
differences. They said there'san easy way to tell simply yawn
when your partner is around, orif it could be a date, whatever.
So yawning is sociallycontagious, as we all know, when
we see somebody yawn, we feelcompelled to yawn too. It's a
form of empathy that shows we'reon the same wavelength. And the
closer you are to somebodyemotionally, the more likely you

(15:58):
are to yawn when they yawn. Infact, you could your dog will
yawn when you yawn. So accordingto a new study in the Journal of
Personality and Individualdifferences, as I mentioned,
people with psychopathic traitsyour boyfriend are less likely
to catch somebody's yawn.
Unbelievable for the study, herewe go. Researchers at Baylor
University exposed people to asituation that was designed to
get them to yawn. Not know whatthat would be. They found that

(16:19):
people who tested higher on thepsychopath scale were much less
likely to yawn in response toother people yawning. What does
it mean if somebody is apsychopath?
Tell me about the lambs,Clarice.
They dated you in high school.
Thanks.
It means they may be deceptive,narcissistic, unable to form

(16:41):
strong emotional bonds withothers, and don't ever feel
guilty, and because they don'thave an emotional connection to
others, they don't yawn inresponse to somebody else's
y'all, so you gotta walk aroundfaking a yawn.
Okay, so there's everybody in arelationship right now is
thinking about how they're gonnayawn kind of subtly around their
partner when they see each othertonight. This is a useful

(17:04):
barometer. And then you seepeople going, but look, the
whole point of this is that wenaturally mimic the behavior of
the people around us, and wecan't help but do that if we are
empathetically connected tothem. And so a signal that you
are less empatheticallyconnected to them is that you
are not, in fact, yawning. Itmakes sense. I just, I just want

(17:27):
to, if you try this tonight andyour boyfriend or girlfriend
does not yawn, it's not, it'snot license for you to call the
police or start looking for, youknow, knives or old driver's
license for people who've gonemissing in their soccer gaffer
tape. Yeah. It does notnecessarily mean that they're a
psychopathic murderer, you know,but it does mean that maybe,

(17:51):
maybe look for other signals aswell. It's a good, it's a good
jumping off point. Do not letthis be the only test. That's
it. I'm breaking up. You didn'tyawn, yeah.
I, you know, we got some greatcomments on the on the podcast.
I'm sure that after this, it'swe're gonna get Dear John. And
this will be from Rena, an oldgirlfriend, dear John. Love my

(18:13):
kidneys. I loved your, yeah, ohgosh, I got your I listened to
your podcast. I love the thingabout yawning and psychopaths.
So I've noticed lately that myboyfriend, this is not a real
email, guys, I noticed that myboyfriend is yawning and he's
just sold his Mustang for awhite van,
or he's not yawning and just gotan unmarked white van. Yeah.

(18:37):
I mean, again, again. There's alot of red flags in your in this
email that you're talking aboutthis hypothetical email, let the
yawning thing just be thestarting point for a
conversation, not the reason tobreak up.
So some guy, you know, he'slike, he's pulled an all liner
studying, you know, in college,he yawns, and all of a sudden,
the girl just runs out of theroom and it first dates. What's
going on? You yawn? Okay,anyway, all right. I think

(19:00):
that's, I think that's enough.
I need to yawn. Alright, though,that's
it for the podcast. John Teschor Gib Gerard, please don't
forget to subscribe to send thisto your friends. We would, we'd
love for our podcast to be aspopular as what, as popular as
this game. We wanted to be aspopular as as chicken nuggets.

(19:23):
That's what we want. Oh, okay,you realize how popular chicken
nuggets are, yeah, right,especially with the with the
crowd my kids hang out with,yeah. What is your favorite? I
guess I'm ending the show. Well,what's your favorite fast food?
Oh, I like Taco Bell, right?
I love Taco Bell. Taco was likemy favorite. We just finished a
show, yes, and it's late tonightand I'm coming home, but my

(19:44):
favorite fast food is going tobe like, I like to get in and
out with the with the proteinstyle, because I just get that
meat. And I'm so happy. Yeah,we'll see you next time. Okay.