Running Man Self Regulation Skills Project

Ep 172. Why Stress Makes You Believe Things That Aren't TrueHave you ever been absolutely certain about what someone meant, what they intended, or why they behaved a certain way—only to discover later that your interpretation was wrong?Perhaps someone gave you an unexpected look.A conversation felt uncomfortable.A message went unanswered.Or an ordinary social interaction suddenly seemed threatening, disrespectful, or personal.In that moment, what you believed you were seeing may have felt unquestionably true.But what if your stress response was influencing not only how you felt, but also what you believed?In this episode of the Running Man Human Stress Model, we explore how stress can influence perception, attention, judgment, assumptions, and the stories we create about other people.Every day, we move through environments that require us to interpret information and make decisions.We work, provide for our families, interact with strangers, maintain relationships, and respond to circumstances that range from enjoyable challenges to difficult and sometimes threatening experiences.Throughout these interactions, our physiological state is changing.Sometimes we experience positive excitement or manageable challenges.At other times, we experience distress, uncertainty, urgency, or fear.These states can influence what we notice, what we overlook, and how we interpret the people and events around us.Under significant stress, attention may narrow toward information that appears most relevant to a perceived threat.Our ability to consider alternatives may become less flexible.We may place greater confidence in an immediate interpretation without recognizing how much information is missing.And we may begin constructing explanations that feel complete even when they are based on only part of the situation.Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, these are important conditions for the development of stress-borne beliefs.A stress-borne belief is an interpretation formed or reinforced during physiological activation that may feel compelling despite incomplete or uncertain evidence.Someone disagrees with us, and we conclude they are against us.A person does not respond, and we assume rejection.An unfamiliar expression becomes evidence of hostility.A misunderstanding becomes a judgment about someone's character.And what began as a momentary interpretation can become a story that influences how we communicate, behave, and relate to others.The danger is not simply that we make assumptions. It is that we may mistake those assumptions for established facts.Assumptions can be useful.Human beings regularly make rapid predictions from limited information, and these abilities can support efficient decisions and protective responses.But the same tendency can create difficulties when we treat an incomplete impression as a final conclusion.Especially when we are stressed.The Running Man Human Stress Model encourages us to recognize this relationship between physiological state and perception.Through the Three Rs of Stress—Recognize, Regulate, Recover—we can develop a more deliberate approach.Recognize the signs of activation and the sudden certainty that may accompany an emotionally intense interpretation.Regulate the physiological state when circumstances allow, using practiced skills involving breath, posture, grounding, and awareness.Recover the ability to consider additional information, alternative explanations, and the possibility that our first interpretation may not be the most accurate one.This is also where the Action Gate becomes important.Before acting on an assumption, there may be an opportunity to recognize that the intensity of our certainty is not the same thing as the quality of our evidence.That opportunity can influence how we respond to a colleague, a loved one, a stranger, or someone with whom we disagree.It can help us ask a question rather than make an accusation.Seek clarification rather than assign blame.And preserve a relationship that might otherwise be damaged by a conclusion reached too quickly.The goal is not to eliminate assumptions or second-guess every decision.It is to become more skillful at distinguishing what we observed, what we interpreted, and what we actually know.Because the world we experience is influenced by the state in which we encounter it.And sometimes the most important self-regulation skill is recognizing that what feels unquestionably true in a stressful moment may deserve another look.Recognize the state. Question the assumption. Recover the possibility of a more accurate understanding.Take care and walk well.  #StressAndTheBrain #CognitiveBias #EmotionalRegulation #SelfRegulation #RunningManHumanStressModel Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 171.  Stop Chasing Happiness: How to Find Joy in the Present MomentWhat if the joy you have been searching for is not waiting somewhere in your future?What if it is something you can experience in the present moment, without first accomplishing another goal, solving another problem, or reaching another destination?We spend much of our lives preparing for what comes next.The next responsibility.The next challenge.The next achievement.The next moment when we imagine life will finally become easier, more comfortable, or more fulfilling.But while we are anticipating the future, we may overlook something profoundly important about the human experience.Joy is not always found by arriving somewhere. Sometimes joy becomes accessible when we allow ourselves to be fully present where we already are.In this episode of the Running Man Human Stress Model, we explore the relationship between joy, stress, mindfulness, self-regulation, and our perception of time.As human beings, we continually interact with the environments in which we live.Our bodies receive and respond to signals of safety, uncertainty, comfort, challenge, and potential danger.These experiences influence our physiological state, our attention, our emotions, and the meaning we give to the unfolding events of our lives.Sometimes those experiences are stressful.Sometimes they are enjoyable.And sometimes our expectations about what might happen next influence our experience of what is happening now.This relationship between the body, the environment, and our interpretation of events is central to the Running Man Human Stress Model.But there is another dimension worth exploring.What happens when we stop trying to get somewhere else and begin experiencing the moment we are already living?We often pursue happiness as though it exists at a future point on a timeline.When I finish this task.When I reach this goal.When my circumstances improve.When the stress finally ends.Then I will be happy.Yet joy can also arise through simple experiences of presence.The warmth of sunlight.The sound of someone we love.A moment of laughter.The sensation of breathing.The quiet appreciation of being alive.These experiences do not require us to reach a distant destination.They invite us to notice what is already available.Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, self-regulation can help create conditions in which these moments become easier to recognize and appreciate.By noticing our physiological state, working with our breathing, releasing unnecessary muscular tension, and returning our attention to the present environment, we may become less dominated by the urgency of stress.Our attention may broaden.Our experience of time may change.And we may recover access to aspects of life that become less noticeable when we are preoccupied with threat, obligation, or anticipation.This is not about forcing ourselves to feel joyful.Nor is it about denying pain, uncertainty, grief, or the genuine difficulties of living.It is about recognizing that our experience of life is influenced by the state in which we meet it.And that sometimes the most skillful action is not another action at all.Sometimes it is the deliberate practice of non-doing.Allowing ourselves to breathe.To notice.To appreciate.To simply be.In the Running Man Human Stress Model, we often speak about the Three Rs of Stress: Recognize, Regulate, Recover.Recognize the physiological state.Regulate what is available to regulate.Recover access to awareness, perspective, flexibility, and the self.But recovery offers more than relief from discomfort.It can also support our capacity for connection, gratitude, appreciation, and joy.The objective is not to live permanently free from stress.It is to become increasingly skillful at returning to a state in which we can participate more fully in our lives.Because life is not experienced somewhere in the future.It is experienced in the unfolding present.And perhaps one of the greatest gifts of self-regulation is not simply learning how to endure difficult moments.It is learning how to remain available for the beautiful ones. Joy is not always something we arrive at. Sometimes it is something we become available to experience when we stop rushing toward the next moment. Take care and walk well.  #FindYourJoy #Mindfulness #PresentMoment #SelfRegulation #RunningManHumanStressModel Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 170.   10 Essential Self-Regulation Skills to Stay Calm Under PressureWhat happens when life suddenly demands more from you than you expected?You are driving home when a tire goes flat.A difficult conversation unexpectedly becomes confrontational.A child or family member needs immediate assistance.An ordinary day at work becomes a series of urgent problems.Or you find yourself in a situation where safety, uncertainty, and rapidly changing circumstances require your attention.In these moments, the human stress response may activate before we have fully understood what is happening.Our heart rate may increase.Our breathing may change.Our muscles prepare for action.Our attention may narrow.And we may experience a compelling sense that something must be done immediately.But feeling an urgent need to act does not always mean that immediate action is the most useful response.Sometimes action is necessary for safety.At other times, the stress response itself may intensify our sense of urgency, making a difficult situation feel more threatening or overwhelming than it actually is.This is where self-regulation becomes an important life skill.Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, self-regulation is not simply an effort to remain calm.It is the development of practical, repeatable skills that help us recognize our physiological state, respond to changing circumstances, and preserve greater access to awareness, flexibility, judgment, and choice.In this episode, we explore 10 essential elements of self-regulation and their role in helping us meet the everyday challenges of life.From work and family responsibilities to unexpected emergencies and difficult interpersonal encounters, the ability to recognize stress and work with our physiology can influence how we experience and respond to demanding situations.We examine the importance of recognizing environmental stress signals, identifying the body's early signs of activation, and understanding how physiological arousal can influence attention, perception, and decision-making.We also consider how breathing, posture, grounding, situational awareness, and repeated practice can help develop more reliable self-regulation skills.One of the central ideas of the Running Man Human Stress Model is that physiological state influences the possibilities available to us.When our stress response becomes intense, the world may appear more threatening, time may feel compressed, and our choices may seem increasingly limited.Recognizing this relationship creates an opportunity to respond more deliberately.This connects with the Action Gate, the threshold at which regulation may help us preserve access to alternatives before activation becomes behavior.The objective is not to eliminate the fight-or-flight response.It is not to deny genuine danger.And it is certainly not to guarantee that every difficult situation will have a favorable outcome.The objective is to become increasingly skillful at recognizing what is happening within us while remaining appropriately responsive to what is happening around us.Through the Three Rs of Stress — Recognize, Regulate, Recover — we can develop a practical approach to understanding and working with our stress response.Recognize the circumstances and the signals of activation.Regulate what is available to regulate while maintaining awareness of safety and changing conditions.Recover access to perspective, flexibility, and the capacity to respond in ways that better reflect our intentions and values.These skills are not developed simply by knowing about them.They become more accessible through familiarity, repetition, and practice.And that is the larger purpose of the Running Man Human Stress Model: helping us develop skills that can serve us in the moments when life becomes demanding, uncertain, or unexpectedly difficult.The goal is not to control every circumstance. It is to become more capable of regulating the person we bring into those circumstances.Take care, practice your skills, and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 169. Why Everything Feels Like Too Much: The Science of OverwhelmHave you ever reached a point in your day when even the smallest additional demand feels like too much?Another responsibility.Another conversation.Another unexpected problem.Another decision.Another interruption.And suddenly, something that ordinarily would not bother you feels overwhelming.You may become impatient, distracted, frustrated, confused, or unusually reactive.Your heart rate may increase.Your breathing may change.Your thoughts may become less organized.You may experience a sense of pressure or urgency without being able to identify one particular event responsible for how you feel.What if these experiences are not simply signs of poor time management, but signals that your available capacity is being exceeded?Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, understanding our personal threshold for overwhelm is an important part of developing self-regulation.Modern life places continuous demands on our attention, energy, physical capacity, and ability to adapt.We manage work.Relationships.Family responsibilities.Financial obligations.Physical health.Social interactions.And the countless decisions that fill an ordinary day.Each demand may seem manageable on its own.But demands accumulate.And our available resources are not unlimited.Overwhelm is more than having too much to think aboutWe often describe overwhelm as cognitive overload.Too much information.Too many decisions.Too many responsibilities.But overwhelm can also involve the body.Physical pain demands attention.Insufficient sleep can affect emotional regulation and concentration.Ongoing illness or injury may require additional energy and adaptation.Noise, crowded environments, constant interruptions, uncomfortable sensations, and competing social demands can all contribute to the experience of overload.Our nervous system must respond to more than our conscious thoughts.It continually processes information from our bodies and the environments in which we live.And when demands become excessive relative to our available resources, our ability to respond flexibly may diminish.We may become less patient.Less attentive.Less creative.More reactive.And increasingly uncomfortable.This is where the concept of a personal stress threshold becomes useful.Recognizing your thresholdThe threshold of overwhelm is not necessarily one dramatic moment.Sometimes it develops gradually.A difficult night of sleep.Persistent discomfort.A demanding morning.An unexpected obligation.Several difficult conversations.And eventually, one more seemingly minor event becomes the moment when everything feels like too much.But that final event may not be the whole problem.It may simply be the demand that arrived when our available capacity was already heavily committed.This distinction matters.Because without recognizing the accumulated demands, we may mistake our reaction to the final event for the entire cause of our distress.We may blame ourselves.Blame someone else.Or make decisions while experiencing a state of heightened physiological activation.The Running Man Human Stress Model offers another approach.Recognize the state.Notice the early signs of overload: impatience, muscular tension, narrowed attention, changes in breathing, increased urgency, indecision, and reduced tolerance for additional demands.Regulate the physiology.Use familiar skills involving breathing, posture, grounding, muscular relaxation, and environmental awareness to work with the stress response.Recover the self.Where possible, reduce unnecessary demands, create opportunities for rest, recover attentional flexibility, and reconnect with the perspective and choices that may become less accessible under significant stress.These are the Three Rs of Stress: Recognize, Regulate, Recover.And they become particularly useful when practiced before overwhelm reaches its most intense expression.Your capacity changes from day to dayAn important part of self-regulation is understanding that our available capacity is not identical every day.What feels manageable after restorative sleep may feel exhausting after several difficult nights.A task that seems simple when we are physically comfortable may require considerably more effort when we are experiencing pain.An interaction that feels ordinary when we are rested may feel intensely personal when we are already overloaded.The demand may be the same. Our available capacity may not be.Recognizing this is not an invitation to withdraw from life.It is an invitation to participate more skillfully.To recognize the signals.To respect our limits without assuming those limits are permanent.To practice recovery.To make more deliberate decisions about where we invest our finite attention and energy.And to understand that adaptability includes knowing when additional demands are becoming counterproductive.The objective is not to eliminate every stressful circumstance.Nor is it to remain permanently comfortable.It is to develop greater awareness of our changing state and a more practiced ability to respond before overload unnecessarily determines our behavior.Because self-regulation begins with recognizing what is happening within us, not merely reacting to what is happening around us.Pay attention to your threshold.Recognize when your capacity is becoming limited.Practice returning toward center.And remember that the ability to recover is part of the ability to perform.Keep safe, take care of yourself, and walk well.#FeelingOverwhelmed #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #SelfRegulation #RunningManHumanStressModelHey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 168. Why Stress Makes Everything Feel Urgent (And How to Take Back Control)Have you ever experienced a sudden rush of anxiety, fear, or stress that made everything around you feel immediately threatening?Your heart begins racing.Your breathing changes.Your muscles tighten.Your thoughts accelerate.And suddenly, something that might ordinarily seem manageable feels urgent, personal, overwhelming, or even dangerous.Your nervous system has sounded an alarm. But does the situation actually require the response your body is preparing you to make?Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, understanding this distinction is one of the most important skills we can develop.When the fight-or-flight response activates, the body begins mobilizing resources to meet a perceived challenge or threat.This is an adaptive survival response.But physiological activation can also change how we experience the world.Our attention may narrow.Uncertainty may feel threatening.Ordinary disagreements may become intensely personal.Our sense of urgency may increase.And the immediate need to do something can begin to overshadow our ability to consider what would be most useful.The intensity of a feeling does not necessarily establish the accuracy of our interpretation.These experiences can occur almost anywhere.At work, during a difficult conversation.At home, during conflict with someone we love.In public, when an unexpected event catches us by surprise.Or privately, when our own thoughts and expectations activate a stress response even though no immediate external danger is present.The experience can be uncomfortable and disconcerting, particularly when it arrives suddenly.And sometimes our greatest difficulty is not the initial activation.It is what we do while activated.We may speak harshly.Make unnecessary decisions.Withdraw from relationships.Misinterpret another person's intentions.Or act with an urgency that the situation did not require.Later, when our physiological state begins to settle, we may look back with regret, remorse, or confusion.How could something that seemed so urgent a few moments ago look so different now?The answer may lie partly in the relationship between physiology and perception.The Running Man Human Stress Model offers a practical approach through the Three Rs of Stress:RECOGNIZE the state.Notice the early signs of activation: changes in breathing, heart rate, muscular tension, attention, emotional intensity, and perceived urgency.REGULATE the physiology.Use familiar, practiced self-regulation skills to work with your breathing, posture, muscular tension, grounding, and environmental awareness.The objective is not to force the body into calm or deny genuine danger. It is to support a more adaptive physiological state while remaining appropriately responsive to circumstances.RECOVER the self.As activation decreases, recover access to broader perspective, personal values, judgment, flexibility, and deliberate choice.This is where the Action Gate becomes particularly important.Between activation and action, there may be an opportunity to recognize that what feels urgent does not necessarily require an immediate reaction.And sometimes that opportunity changes everything downstream.We also need to recognize the importance of other people.A calm, trusted, and appropriately responsive person may help us regulate during distress.This is called co-regulation.Their voice, posture, presence, pacing, and willingness to remain grounded can provide supportive social cues while we recover our own regulatory capacity.This does not mean another person can simply switch off our stress response.It means that human connection can sometimes help create conditions in which regulation becomes more accessible.And there is a longer-term opportunity.Physical fitness, adequate recovery, and practiced self-regulation can support our capacity to adapt to stress.Heart rate variability, or HRV, provides one window into autonomic regulation, although it is not a simple measure of how calm, healthy, or resilient a person is.The larger objective is physiological flexibility.The ability to activate when necessary.Regulate when possible.And recover when the challenge has passed.Because an uncomfortable stress response does not have to determine our next decision.Recognize the alarm.Regulate the state.Recover your perspective.Preserve the choice.The body may be sounding an alarm, but we can learn to become more skillful at determining what that alarm requires of us.Take care and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 167.  Return to Baseline: Why Recovery From Stress Is a SkillLife sometimes requires us to rise.A sudden problem.A family crisis.Financial pressure.Conflict.Pain.A deadline.An unexpected threat.Or an event serious enough that hesitation could carry real consequences.In those moments, the human stress response is not necessarily our enemy.Our physiology mobilizes resources to help us meet increased demands. Attention changes. Energy becomes available. The body prepares for action.Sometimes we need that activation.But there is another part of the stress response that receives far less attention:Coming back.After the challenge has passed, can we return toward the state we recognize as ourselves?Can the body release unnecessary tension?Can vigilance decrease?Can attention broaden?Can we rest?Can we think creatively again?Can we reconnect with other people?Can we experience ease without continuing to search for the next threat?This is the importance of recovery.Human beings continually regulate internal conditions while adapting to changing environments. Homeostasis describes the body's regulation around viable physiological ranges, while the closely related concept of allostasis describes adaptation through change.The problem arises when adaptation becomes chronically expensive.If stressful demands are frequent, prolonged, or repeatedly anticipated, the systems designed to mobilize us can remain heavily recruited. Over time, that repeated physiological burden can contribute to what researchers describe as allostatic load.Research also demonstrates an important relationship between psychological stress and heart rate variability, or HRV, an indicator influenced by autonomic regulation.But HRV should not be reduced to a simple score where “high is always good” and “low is always bad.”The larger principle is flexibility.A healthy adaptive system needs range.The capacity to mobilize.The capacity to regulate.And the capacity to recover.This is where the Running Man Human Stress Model becomes practical.The goal is not to remain permanently relaxed.That would not be adaptive.The goal is to become increasingly skillful at moving through states appropriate to the circumstances—and returning toward baseline when the circumstances no longer require heightened activation.Rise when necessary.Respond when necessary.Recover when possible.And through practice, become increasingly familiar with the pathway home.Because chronic stress can create another problem:Activation itself can begin to feel normal.Tension feels normal.Urgency feels normal.Scanning feels normal.Irritability feels normal.Being unable to sit quietly feels normal.The absence of stress can even begin to feel unfamiliar.This is why returning to baseline may require practice.Recovery can become something we train.We learn to recognize activation.We regulate what is available to regulate.We allow unnecessary activation to diminish.We recover access to broader attention, creativity, flexibility, connection, and rest.And through repetition, we become increasingly familiar with ourselves outside the stress state.This connects directly with the Three Rs of Stress:RECOGNIZE the state.REGULATE the physiology.RECOVER the self.Recovery is not weakness.Rest is not failure.And returning to baseline does not make us less capable of responding to the next challenge.Recovery is part of readiness.A nervous system that can rise but cannot effectively come down has lost part of its adaptive range.The objective is not perpetual calm.It is flexibility.The ability to meet the world when necessary—and return home to ourselves when the moment has passed.That return supports quality of life.It supports relationships.It supports creativity.It supports clearer thinking.And it gives us an opportunity to encounter tomorrow's challenges without unnecessarily carrying all of yesterday's activation into them.Like every Running Man skill, this becomes more available through familiarity.Practice the return.Become familiar with ease.Recover your range.Return to yourself.Take care, return toward center, and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 166. The Illusion of Control: What You Can Actually Control When Life Gets HardControl is something we negotiate every day.We seek control over our schedules, careers, relationships, environments, health, finances, decisions—and sometimes other people.Much of that is necessary.Building a meaningful life requires curation, stewardship, boundaries, change, and sometimes elimination. We continually decide what belongs in our lives, what needs our attention, what needs to change, and what needs to be released.But something changes when stress rises.When circumstances become uncertain, chaotic, emotionally charged, or dangerous, our sense of control can begin to deteriorate.And sometimes the harder we try to regain control, the more we discover an uncomfortable reality:Not everything is ours to control.Current discussions about control and stress repeatedly make this distinction. Attempts to control uncontrollable circumstances can themselves become a source of stress, while directing attention toward available choices and influence can be more useful. Insights HubBut the Running Man Human Stress Model adds another question:What happens to the person trying to exert control when that person becomes physiologically dysregulated?Because before we attempt to control the environment, influence another person, solve the problem, or determine an outcome, there is another variable present:Our state.Under significant stress, our physiology can change.Our attention may narrow.Urgency may increase.Our perception of available options may shrink.We may become increasingly reactive.And the desire for control can itself become part of the stress response.This creates an important distinction between:CONTROL OF THE WORLDandREGULATION OF THE SELF WITHIN THE WORLD.Self-regulation does not give us control over everything that happens.It does something potentially more useful.It helps us preserve greater access to awareness, perception, choice, adaptability, and personal agency while events are unfolding.That means the question changes.Instead of:“How do I control this?”we can ask:“What is actually available for me to influence right now?”My breathing?My posture?My attention?My words?My next action?Whether I escalate or de-escalate?Whether I remain or leave?Whether I react immediately or recognize the Action Gate and create enough space for another option?This is where self-regulation becomes practical control.Not control over reality.Stewardship over our participation in reality.That distinction becomes increasingly important as the stakes rise.At home, it may preserve a conversation.At work, it may improve a difficult decision.In relationships, it may prevent unnecessary escalation.In performance, it may preserve execution under pressure.And in a genuinely dangerous situation, preserving awareness, adaptability, and access to trained responses may become especially consequential.This gives us a useful hierarchy:CONTROL what is genuinely yours to control.INFLUENCE what you can responsibly influence.ADAPT to what you cannot control.REGULATE yourself throughout all three.Self-regulation is therefore not about controlling every thought, emotion, or physiological reaction.It is about developing greater capacity to work with your state so that stress does not unnecessarily take possession of your choices.Because the greatest illusion of control may be believing that safety comes from controlling everything around us.Sometimes greater agency comes from something very different:Knowing what is yours to manage—and remaining sufficiently regulated to manage it when it counts.You cannot control every event.You cannot control every person.You cannot guarantee every outcome.But you can train your capacity to meet uncertainty with greater awareness, adaptability, and choice.Regulate the state.Preserve the choice.Protect your agency.Take care and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 165. The Placebo Effect: How Belief Can Change What the Body ExperiencesWhat if the placebo effect isn't evidence that nothing happened?What if it is evidence that something happened without the mechanism we expected?For generations, placebo has sometimes been casually described as the fake treatment used to determine whether a medication really works.But the placebo response itself is not necessarily fake.Modern research has demonstrated that expectations, previous experience, conditioning, social context, and learning can influence how we experience symptoms—particularly pain—and can engage measurable neurobiological processes. That raises a fascinating question for the Running Man Human Stress Model:If expectation can influence how the nervous system experiences treatment, what role might our expectations and interpretations play in how we experience everyday stress?We don't simply encounter the world.We continually interpret it.Safe or dangerous.Possible or impossible.Friend or foe.Hopeful or hopeless.Temporary or permanent.Those interpretations can influence what happens next.This does not mean that illness, injury, pain, or adversity can simply be wished away.Nor does placebo mean that medical treatment is unnecessary.Instead, placebo research reveals something subtler and perhaps more useful:What we expect can become part of what we experience.Research on placebo analgesia has found that expectations can influence pain through both pain-related and broader affective and learning systems in the brain. Conditioning and previous experience can also contribute, sometimes beyond verbal suggestion alone. And there is another side to this phenomenon.The nocebo effect describes circumstances in which negative expectations and contextual information can contribute to worse symptom experiences. Placebo and nocebo research therefore gives us a window into something Running Man repeatedly examines:Interpretation can influence state.And state influences what comes next.Our attention.Our physiology.Our behavior.Our expectations.Our willingness to act.Our perception of possibility.This makes imagination more interesting than simple fantasy.Human beings can mentally represent events that have not yet occurred. We anticipate conversations. Rehearse threats. Imagine failure. Remember pain. Visualize success. Prepare ourselves for events that exist, at that moment, only within the mind.Sometimes those simulations prepare us adaptively.Sometimes they repeatedly activate stress around events that never occur.The skill is not simply positive thinking.It is learning to recognize the relationship between:Expectation → Interpretation → State → Experience → BehaviorAnd then becoming more deliberate about what we repeatedly rehearse.Placebo research even contains a social dimension. Observation and interpersonal interactions can contribute to placebo and nocebo responses, suggesting that expectations are shaped not only privately but through the people and environments around us. That fits remarkably well with the Running Man principle:State → Presence → Influence → Outcome.Our minds and bodies do not exist independently of context.We learn from experience.We learn from other people.We anticipate.We interpret.And our nervous systems respond.So perhaps the deeper lesson of placebo isn't:“It's all in your head.”Perhaps it is:What happens in the mind can become part of what happens in the body.The challenge is learning to work with that capacity responsibly—without magical thinking, without denying genuine illness, and without confusing the influence of expectation with complete control over biology.The mind is powerful.Expectation matters.Meaning matters.And learning how those forces influence our experience may give us another tool for adapting more skillfully to stressful lives and changing environments.Take care and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 164. The 3 Rs of Stress: Recognize. Regulate. Recover.Have you ever been under intense stress and thought:"That wasn't me."Maybe you said something completely out of character.Reacted more strongly than you expected.Became angry, frightened, defensive, withdrawn, or overwhelmed.And when the moment passed, you were left wondering:"Where did that come from?"Stress, threat, surprise, fear, and pain can dramatically change our physiological state. As activation increases, attention, perception, emotion, and behavior can change with it.Sometimes the person who emerges under intense pressure feels unfamiliar even to us.And afterward can come another painful cascade:Shame.Guilt.Blame.Confusion.Regret.We may begin judging ourselves by behavior that occurred during an extraordinary physiological state.But there is an important distinction:A stress state can influence your behavior without defining your identity.Current nervous-system discussions increasingly explore this relationship between survival states, behavior, and identity, including the experience of not feeling like oneself during prolonged or intense stress. The Running Man Human Stress Model offers a simple framework for navigating these moments.I call it:The Three Rs1. RECOGNIZE the StateThe first skill is recognition.What is happening inside me?Has my breathing changed?Has my heart rate increased?Am I physically bracing?Has my attention narrowed?Do I suddenly feel urgency?Am I thinking in absolutes?Am I preparing to fight, flee, freeze, submit, or otherwise protect myself?Recognition creates awareness of something enormously important:My state has changed.And recognizing the state gives us a better opportunity to work with it before automatically identifying with everything it produces.2. REGULATE the PhysiologyOnce activation is recognized, we work with the body.This is where the Running Man model remains deliberately physiology first, psychology second.Rather than immediately trying to reason our way out of an activated survival response, we begin by influencing the physiological conditions from which reasoning must operate.Breathing.Posture.Grounding.Visual awareness.Muscular tension.Orientation to the environment.The objective is not to eliminate emotion.It is to recover enough regulation to increase access to perception, judgment, and choice.That matters because nervous-system regulation is increasingly being discussed not as permanent calm, but as greater flexibility and capacity to move through changing states. 3. RECOVER the SelfThis may be the most important—and most overlooked—step.After significant stress, people sometimes confuse:"How I behaved while highly activated"with"Who I am."Those are not necessarily the same thing.Recovering the self means allowing the survival response to recede sufficiently that we can again access the broader person underneath it.Our values.Perspective.Judgment.Compassion.Responsibility.Relationships.Sense of humor.Wisdom.Choice.And importantly, recovering the self does not mean avoiding accountability.Quite the opposite.Understanding the physiological conditions that influenced our behavior can help us examine what happened without collapsing into shame or defensiveness.We can say:That behavior occurred.I am responsible for what I do.And I can learn what state contributed to it so I can become more skillful next time.That is a far more useful foundation for lasting change than either self-condemnation or denial.Recognize. Regulate. Recover.Three simple words.But with practice, they can become a map for navigating difficult moments.Recognize what state you are in.Regulate the physiological reaction.Recover access to the person you want making the next decision.Because survival responses are part of you.But they are not necessarily the entirety of you.Learn the state.Train the response.Recover yourself.Take care and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel

Ep 163. De-Escalation Begins With You: The Skill Most People ForgetWhen we hear the word de-escalation, we often imagine dangerous confrontations—an angry person, a volatile encounter, or a situation moving toward violence.But de-escalation is happening around us every day.At home.At work.In relationships.In public.With strangers.During disagreements.Whenever human beings bring different emotional and physiological states into the same environment, there is potential for either escalation or regulation.And one of the most overlooked elements of de-escalation is not what we say to the other person.It is the state we bring to them.Before verbal de-escalation begins, our nervous system is already communicating.Our posture.Facial expression.Movement.Distance.Breathing.Eye behavior.Voice.Prosody.Cadence.Volume.All can contribute to how another person experiences our presence.This is why effective de-escalation begins with self-regulation.Current conflict research and practice increasingly recognize this connection between nervous-system activation and communication. Recent programs explicitly emphasize that escalation changes how people communicate and that regulation can influence whether an interaction moves toward greater conflict or resolution. The Running Man Human Stress Model takes this one step further.You cannot reliably offer calm that you have never practiced inhabiting yourself.Reading about de-escalation is useful.Learning verbal techniques is useful.Memorizing phrases can be useful.But when stress rises and fight-or-flight activation begins, intellectual knowledge alone may become harder to access.This is why de-escalation must become an embodied skill.Practice it.Experience it.Become familiar with it.Learn how your own physiology changes under pressure.Learn how to return toward center.Because when another person begins escalating, your own nervous system may be tempted to join them.Their voice rises.Yours rises.Their movements accelerate.Yours accelerate.Their threat response activates.Yours follows.Now two nervous systems are contributing to escalation.But another possibility exists.One regulated person can change the trajectory of an interaction.Not by magically controlling another human being.Not by guaranteeing safety.And not by pretending danger isn't present.But by refusing to unnecessarily add another source of activation to an already escalating environment.That is a very different understanding of power.Your calm becomes functional.Your voice becomes a tool.Your presence becomes information.Your awareness allows you to observe changes in the environment while simultaneously monitoring changes within yourself.And your self-regulation helps preserve access to the Action Gate—that threshold between activation and action where another response may still be available.This gives us a powerful progression:SELF-REGULATION → PRESENCE → COMMUNICATION → DE-ESCALATION → SAFER OUTCOMEVerbal de-escalation is extraordinarily valuable because words, tone, listening, boundaries, distance, and respectful communication may help resolve an encounter before physical intervention ever becomes necessary.Current de-escalation training similarly emphasizes active listening, tone, body language, emotional awareness, boundaries, rehearsal, and learning when to disengage or seek additional help. And that last point matters.De-escalation is not submission.It does not mean tolerating abuse.It does not mean remaining in an unsafe environment.And it does not guarantee that another person will calm down.Sometimes the safest decision is creating distance, leaving, seeking assistance, or contacting appropriate emergency resources.Self-regulation isn't about making yourself passive.It is about helping preserve your capacity to perceive accurately, choose skillfully, and act appropriately.When verbal de-escalation works, diplomacy succeeds before physical conflict becomes necessary.When it does not, maintaining awareness and regulation can still help us recognize that the situation has crossed an important threshold and that our priorities must change.This is why self-regulation belongs at the foundation of de-escalation training.Not merely as theory.As practice.As familiarity.As embodiment.Because the most important moment to discover whether you can remain centered is not while reading about conflict.It is when conflict arrives.Regulate yourself.Bring presence.Lower the temperature.Preserve the Action Gate.Choose what happens next.Take care and walk well.Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the showintro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303. New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at [email protected] and I will forward him the contact. Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance. https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support#SelfRegulation #StressManagement #NervousSystemRegulation #CalmUnderPressure #RunningManHumanStressModel