Outsmart the pain podcast

[00:00:00] ..Pain is some serious business. It ain’t everyone who knows what to do about it. Now I hear there’s a podcast just about this. It doesn’t talk of pain alone, but other interesting things distracting the mind from it. So I suggest you tune into Outsmart the pain and listen to what Karsten has to say about it. Get ahead, get it done. Listen to the podcast and maybe change your life or someone else’s.

Karsten: It is a great pleasure, and I’m really excited about this podcast episode, because I have the great opportunity to talk to you Hedvig Söderlund professor in psychology. Very, very welcome to this show today.

Hedvig: Thank you so much. It’s really fun to be here. I have not done a lot of work myself on pain, [00:01:00]

Karsten: Okay.

Hedvig: so its a new angle for me. So it’s a lot of fun for me too.

Karsten: Some of the episodes actually don’t talk about pain at all. We just distract the mind from it. Talking about psychology would be great. But to start actually, you are a professor in psychology and for people who don’t know it : what does a professor do?

Hedvig: a professor is someone who has spent a lot of time at the university. And it takes a lot of things to become a professor. There are several things you do research and that means that you’re doing different kinds of studies to examine various questions that you have scientific questions and related to this you apply for grants to get money, to do the actual research. It’s key to know how to do that. That’s a big part of the work.

And then you’ll also teach, you teach classes and tell the students about various things in psychology, for example. Also supervise students on different levels. So as part of the research, you usually [00:02:00] have grad students that are training to get a PhD in psychology. You can also have undergrad students do administrative as part of the department,you usually take part of making decisions for the department making decisions for the university as a whole.

Also it’s important to spread knowledge that you have to, the bigger public .

Karsten: So we’re looking into the academic part of psychology where you know a lot about current research what’s actually been proved to work and what’s not and all those things.

So, apart from being a professor, you started a company called Brain of Sweden – excellent name! What does this company do?

Hedvig: What I’m doing is to write books on one hand, I’ve written one so far, and I’m hoping to write [00:03:00] others. To give talks and lectures . My focus in my research is the brain and memory. Various aspects of memory, like how alcohol impacts memory, how aging impacts memory, sex differences in memory and the brain, various things like that. And also to write journal articles, not necessarily scientific articles, but you know, little pieces focused on aspects of psychology and memory.

Karsten: So it’s a fantastic, really interesting subject. I mean, the brain is very, very big. It contains a lot of different subjects that you could actually talk about. I have a short podcast about alcohol and pain. Do you have anything to say about alcohol and your research?

Hedvig: in memory research, we talk about encoding and retrieval. So encoding is when you learn something, something happens and you encode it in your memory, in your brain. And then there is the retrieval [00:04:00] which is remembering your troubles . One thing that we know now in memory and alcohol research is that for example, people say sometimes that they drink to forget about all their troubles but alcohol mostly effects encoding. it’s not that we don’t usually have trouble remembering things that happened while we were sober . Instead, we have problems, you know, encoding the things that happened, while we were intoxicated or drunk. And the extreme obvious thing is blackouts so much that you don’t remember a single thing and how on earth did I get home and why am I wearing a rabbit suit?

Karsten: Another thing that you often hear is that we only use 10% of the brain, is that true?

Hedvig: Well, no, absolutely not true. And it’s [00:05:00] even laughable almost for brain scientists. And here I have a little anecdote . When I studied neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet, like 20 years ago, long time ago, there was a famous brain scientist who was teaching a class and one of the students asked this very question, is it true?

And then the, brain scientists said to him, “maybe it’s true for you”. It was mean. It was clever. And funny, but it was very mean anyway, very salty. So no, our whole brains. When you scan someone in the MRI scan, and you can look at the activity while the person is doing something or not doing anything.

people aren’t supposedly doing something in the scanner, still the whole brain is lighting up, the whole brain is active all the time.

I’m exaggerating, but pretty much. Of course you can train your brain, you can become better and use it more efficiently, but is not like we have [00:06:00] 50% of the brain in a hidden closet and just like “oh my goodness, I’m not even using this. And I’m going to study Chinese now and I’m going to use this “

Hedvig: You know, use it or lose it, for example .sorry, I’m getting excited showing you now with my hands, which isn’t very useful in a pod, but I’m doing it anyway. All the body parts are represented in the brain. The more you use it, the larger it gets, There is a classical study on violinists where they’ve seen that professional violinist have larger areas of the various fingers in their brain like the index finger and the larger it has become in these violinists players in the brain. So the more you use it, the larger it gets, there’s also results in the other direction. Not that you’re losing it, but that the brain is becoming more efficient.

when you’re performing a task and you see an area in the brain light up, if you practice this task over and over and over the area and the brain sometimes gets smaller because you’ve learned to do it more [00:07:00] automatically, you could say, and you don’t need to recruit as large of an area anymore.

Karsten: We will actually have podcast with professional classical musicians.

Hedvig: No way! Oh wow!

Karsten: And they will talk about their field and some have connections with pain and some not.

I heard a neurologist say that they had done some study about the myelinated nerve fibers, they have a sheath that makes the nerve signal go faster and that professional musicians had a thicker sheath. Have you heard about that?

Hedvig: I haven’t. I haven’t, but that’s amazing.

Karsten: that could actually be true.They don’t know if they’re born with it and therefore become better violinists or if they work it up.

Hedvig: Huh. That’s fascinating. I think they work it. up, but I don’t know. It’s not hopeless, it’s not because you don’t have a hidden stash of brain tissue that you can’t learn new things.

On the contrary, the brain is extremely plastic. You can increase the size and you can change the connections in the brain. Not hopeless at all on the contrary.[00:08:00]

Karsten: You said that you have published a book and maybe more are coming. Of course I know the Swedish title of the book, and it will probably be translated to English. I hope. Tell me what would be called in English you think?

Hedvig: So my working title for the book is “Burnout! My life as a female brain scientist- facts, data, the path to healing.” it’s my personal story of burnout. Being a scientist because that’s the part of the whole thing. also being a female scientist because the book has a, maybe a feminist angle is a strong word, but it’s a very much about why it’s so many women amongst the people who are burnt out in Sweden, 80% are women. Why is that? that’s a big part of the book. It’s my personal story, [00:09:00] but then I’ve also looked up studies and data and, statistics . This was actually a lot of fun for a scientist. As you know, when we publish scientific papers, it has to be very and strict and no emotions. Now I’ve actually taken stuff from the internet, from Twitter, stories I’ve read about in the newspaper. They’re all true. I verified all of them, it’s been a lot . so it’s been a very creative, process in a way. been a lot of fun to write that.

Karsten: We have talked about interesting things so far with the brain and memory and even alcohol. Now it’s getting really, really exciting because you are like the brain scientist, you know about stress, you educate people and you get burned out. How is that possible? Tell me.

Hedvig: big sigh.Well, sometimes life happens and there are certain things that you can’t do anything about that you can’t control. So I had a very busy [00:10:00] life. I had my own lab, my own research group with several grad students, assistants. I was teaching giving classes, this and that. Both of my parents are a bit older. they were both getting sick in various ways. My dad actually passed away last year . I was taking care of them a lot, like a lot. And, I lived in Uppsala at the time and my parents lived in Stockholm. So there was a lot of driving back and forth and exhausting.

So I never really got to rest and I never really got any time for me.

And in combination with all of these stressful things, the board or the leadership at work, weren’t very, what do you want to say? I want, do you want to call that they weren’t, they weren’t very understanding they certainly didn’t care about me very much.

 When you’re a professor you’re supposed to teach and we’re all supposed to teach a certain amount, I was told to take on this new thing, this new thing, this new thing. I said to him like, I’m sorry but, I’m on my knees here. Like I was falling down, you know, I was [00:11:00] halfway there.

And I said, I can’t take anymore this because he knew that my parents were unwell. And he said, well, that’s your problem, your parents aren’t getting any better.

I was going to give this new course graduate course. So it was supposed to be on a high level biological psychology. And normally that wouldn’t be a problem. I know this topic and it’s what I love. Now when I was already down on my knees, it felt impossible. And one day. I just, it all just burst .You know, like I was walking in the street in Stockholm. I was talking to my cousin on the phone and she asked me how I was doing, you know, like you do. And I just, boom, started crying like crazy. Things have been going against me so to speak I’m getting goosebumps here when I talk about it, because it’s all coming back to me now,

I couldn’t control things. Even though I told them, I’m hitting the wall here. They didn’t care about me. They were treating people very differently, depending on whether you were [00:12:00] close to them and a friend, or if you weren’t. There was a lot of nepotism going on and I wasn’t part of the crowd.

Karsten: I don’t think that there’s a genetic predisposal that women get burned out, but it’s surrounding environmental cultural thing. Do you have any figures on male burnout? Do we know anything about that?

Hedvig: We know that 20% of the people that are burnt out are men. We also know that men who live in more equal relationships where they’re doing more household work than other men who don’t, they tend to get more burnt out.

And I almost started laughing there because I don’t want to tell men, like, doing the housework guys. Like you don’t want to get burned out. So if people who are doing a lot, a lot, a lot of work, both at home and at work, get burnt out.

Then maybe we’re not supposed to work as we do. I mean, that’s the only conclusion I can come to.

 And I do think [00:13:00] however that women are treated more poorly in many situations, like we get worse treatment. I don’t want to say that to you. You’re a doctor, but …

Karsten: Just hit me I will edit it out. It will never be aired.

Hedvig: Yeah, that’s good. No, but there are studies that show that women have to report higher levels of pain for it to be noticed in their files men have to do. So I think it’s not genetic, I think it’s societal.

Karsten: I was thinking, there are a lot of courses and there are articles in magazines where it says, this is how you become a better boss. I have always thought that the people who read those are people who already know what’s going on and the people who we really want to stick that article under their noses, they don’t, they don’t think it belongs to them.

[00:14:00] Do you have any suggestions to either the boss who thinks that he or she is just a Superman or a -woman or, the person who feels that they’re not treated right. Well, can we help someone out there? That’s my question. I think,

Hedvig: In this case, obviously I’m, I’m relating it a bit to myself. I think it’s really important to listen to your staff and take them seriously. If it’s someone seems to be a high-performing person, who’s working hard an engaged person, and that person tells you, this is my limit, I can’t do anymore. I think you should listen to that person and take them seriously. They’re probably telling the truth because the thing with burnout is that usually the people who get burnt out are the people that really don’t want to be on sick leave.

Because they’re working so hard important for them to perform well or a lot. Overall, I think it’s important to let your staff feel free as can, obviously they [00:15:00] can’t do whatever they want, not to micromanage them. And to say like, you have to do this.. they’ve seen in studies that the more liberty that the employees feel at work the better their health. They will feel more productive, more creative, instead of the boss coming in, and micromanaging everything that they do.

I think that’s important. I also think another thing that I did not experience at my work was to get some positive reinforcement for the good things that you do. I don’t want to brag, but I have to. No, but I’m good at writing grants.

I know that that’s my kind of skill and I did get several big grants, but my employer didn’t care at all about all.

All she wanted me to do was to teach like that was the only important thing for me to do. But when other people got grants, it was like, “Bravo, that’s amazing. Look at this guy.”

Like he’s so talented. I think it’s important to encourage your staff and show appreciation for their work. We’re children in [00:16:00] the end, we want our parents to tell us that we did good. It sounds a little childish but I think it’s important even for adults, to get recognized for what they’re doing. I think that’s a very, important thing.

Karsten: For someone who does not understand this at all, a manager or someone who is in charge, I can say this, look at this in a very pragmatic view. If someone tells you that they can’t work any harder, if you keep them working, they will quit and you will need to get a lot more job done on finding a new one.

So it’s less work for you if you try to make it easier on them right now.

Hedvig: true. That’s a very good point. it’s finance, like it’s a short term. financial loss maybe, but it’s a long-term gain because like you say, you have to put down time and money.

Karsten: Sometimes I think about women getting pregnant and right after they have gotten a new place to work, because now they have like a safe place to work and everything.[00:17:00] Maybe you hear that “oh, that was so typical that they got pregnant now”. And I think, well, that’s, that’s just a proof that it’s a very good workplace that you feel safe and you will get someone back who has another experience in life with children, for instance, if that’s it.

Hedvig: Oh, my goodness. Yes, we do. You’re warming my heart. The kind of workplace that I had, was really toxic and bad. So I did try to go to my or at least the person who was handing out the teaching and say that I couldn’t do more than I was already.

And that didn’t work obviously. I just got burned out instead. When you’re a professor, theoretically you do have a boss, I’m not used to asking my boss for advice or anything like that.

So I think you need to try and talk to your employer about all of this and if they don’t listen or don’t care and you notice that the situation is just unbearable, it’s just going to get worse and worse. You have to consider quitting. That might be really hard and it was extremely [00:18:00] hard for me in the academic setting, getting,a tenure job, like a permanent position, It’s so hard.

so it took me years to come to that decision that I was actively going to quit. Cause I did quit. I think you have to think about that. Is this workplace going to change? Is my work situation going to change? If it isn’t life is too short to have a bad time at work and life is too short to get stressed out by your work. So you have to really think about yourself and listen to your body. If your body is going at work with stress,

Karsten: We hear a lot of interesting things and maybe you think that, I don’t remember everything and do I need to listen to this many times? I do have something I called Insights where I take episodes and think about my own thoughts about our conversation.

And I would really [00:19:00] suggest that you listen to that it comes one week after the episode. So listen to the Insights with Hedvig. And I will tell you in conclusion, what we talked about and what I think about it. So head on to that episode, right?

 Who should read your book?

Hedvig: I’m obviously biased because I think that everyone should read it, but I have several readers who did read it and they say that everyone should read it. And I think it’s true because like the title only sounds like it’s about burnout, but it’s actually about lot more it’s about our society how it treats men and women and how some of this differential treatment actually leads to women getting burnt out talk about microaggressions in the book, which is when we’re being, talked to in a certain way, treated a [00:20:00] certain way, maybe touched a certain way.

Each thing in itself is tiny, small and micro aggression. when you have a lot of these, every day, every week, every month a while, you’re like, you know, you’ll go crazy. Cause there are so many I have a neighbor at my summer house. an older male professor and he has read my book twice he said he learned a lot from this and I was so happy to hear this because I was thinking that some men will get angry when they read it, not that I’m complaining, I’m pointing out things that are unjust, and are affecting men’s and women’s health. I think it’s an important book for a lot of people who are interested in human behavior society, the world . Is that modest enough for you?

Karsten: What have the reactions been on your book?

Hedvig: They have been really good. I have to say several people have written to me thanking me for the book they’ve said that it’s helped them to not feel alone in all of this. some [00:21:00] people have said that it’s an eye-opener to several things.

 I’ve been talking about how meetings often work with men and women. A lot of women experience that they’re saying things, no one cares, no one listens. And then a man says exactly the same thing and everyone´s like “Bravo, Bravo” to this guy. And we’re like, “I just said that” .

Karsten: Did you get any bad reactions on your book?

Hedvig: I thought that I would get hate letters. So far nothing. I’m pleasantly surprised.

Karsten: I need to tell you a short story, which is true. I was working at a place as a general physician, and have this, person who wanted sick leave. She was a writer and after the book, she needed to go to a lot of different places and have lectures and travel a lot. It was really bad and she got really burned out and this is ages ago. She did get the sick leave. And after I had worked, I went to a bookshop. And I saw her name and she had a book called “how to avoid [00:22:00] burnout with yoga”.

How do you cope with this now with, because I can see how energetic you are you are really burning for the subject. How will you not get into the burnout phase again?

Hedvig: Yes. You know, that’s such a relevant question. I mean, getting emotional again, because you’re really touching like, you’re so correct here. This is my first book. I thought writing the book would be the hard part. I thought that would, be draining, so to speak, but actually the work afterwards, just like she said, it’s like giving interviews, being on TV, it’s been exhausting.

It’s been a lot of fun cause I love it, but it has actually taken a lot of energy out of me. I’ve noticed that I have, I have to monitor myself I have to monitor my schedule, sure that I don’t have things every day. I’m not that into them high in demand, but, another thing you have to realize that even fun things take energy, especially if you’re on the verge of burnout, if [00:23:00] you’re not then they might just give you energy. But if you’re already exhausted, you don’t have a lot of resources left. You don’t have a big margin or a buffer,even some fun things are going to be very demanding.

 Remember that, sometimes I feel guilty when I don’t have the energy to be social, with friends. Cause they’re like, well, I should be fun to hang with. And I’m like, yes, you are fun to hang with but it’s exhausting for even, even social interactions can be exhausting, you know? So that’s important to remember.

Karsten: So what is your Oasis?

Hedvig: The big thing is nature. I really would say nature, I have bought myself a sup board, you know, stand up pedal board. , it’s a sit down paddleboard in my case.

So I sit down on my paddleboard and I go out in nature, on the water and I have my phone and I take photos. So that’s another thing that I do. take a lot of photos and I live in my own little bubble, you know, if someone calls, I don’t answer it .

I want to be in my own head. Here and now, so that’s something that I bring up in the book, [00:24:00] this mindfulness technique, when you try to focus on here and now don’t think about the past don’t ruminate on bad things that have happened to you, or don’t worry about the future and whatever is coming up there, be here now enjoy the music.

I play the piano myself. I like piano music, and I like Regina spectra. I used to like Tori Amos. Bruce Springsteen is wonderful. Then I listened to classical morning on P2 every morning. Swedish radio and it’s wonderful. It’s so, so relaxing. I love it. Some opera is good too. I like a lot of music by that. I don’t want to say what I don’t like.

Karsten: The brain is powerful.

Hedvig: It’s amazing.

Karsten: Hedvig, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you. Really, I do think that many, many people can change some things or maybe get enlighted by what you have said today. And by reading your book, if you know, Swedish, I would recommend that you actually, get to read Den Utbrända Hjärnforskaren, and whenever the English [00:25:00] title comes, I’m sure that people buy that one too. because it it’s a important in our lives to, understand ourselves and not get burned out. Really.

Hedvig: a good investment in yourself and it’s good investment for society.

Thank you so much. It was a lot of fun.

Karsten: So Hedvig and everyone else out there – Be well and Prosper!