what is up everybody this is Chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the
problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel my channel is
all about mental health so if you got mental health stuff that you're trying
to improve like myself make sure you subscribe and ring that notification
bell and yeah I thought about this for a little bit and I want to do a series of
videos because if you like me all this coronavirus stuff being everywhere makes
you a little anxious so those are you who don't know me I've been diagnosed
with a generalized anxiety disorder and every single day it is a challenge
managing that anxiety right like I'm a father so I have my son I have parents
and you know older people are the ones who are most susceptible to like the
coronavirus being potentially fatal right but we also have a lot of people
who are panicking right now and so many of us are struggling with anxiety and I
know it's not doing a lot of us any favors so I wanted to do a series of
videos kind of discussing managing your mental health wall this stuff is going
on these videos don't get monetized but it's whatever I'm gonna make a playlist
just so anybody if you need to you can go check them out but anyways I've been
having some back and forth with people on Twitter because like somebody like me
should be freaking out right now I should be losing my mind on a daily
basis but I'm not alright and I don't want to minimize what's going on right
now but for somebody like me who deals with
anxiety on a regular basis and it's important for me to manage it all right
and I think we gotta find this this middle ground between freaking out and
minimizing it you know more than we should and I think this segment from
John Oliver from last week tonight this little clip right here it explains it
very nicely at this point you might be wondering how scared should you be and
the answer is probably a bit a bit no I don't want to be alarmist here but I
also don't want to minimize what we could be facing it's really about trying
to strike a sensible balance basically if you're drinking bleach to protect
yourself right now you should probably calm the fuck down
if you are say licking subway polls because you're certain nothing can hurt
you maybe don't do that so yeah anyways I want to discuss eight books that I
suggest you read if you are having a lot of coronavirus anxiety alright so the
first one is the power of bad by Roy Baumeister and John tyranny okay so Roy
Baumeister he is a psychologist he originally started in philosophy but
then he got into psychology and his research is cited a lot in a lot of the
books I read but anyways his brand-new book the power of bad with John Tierney
just came out I think like the last day of 2019 or earlier this year and I'm
actually gonna reread it along with a lot of these books on this list just to
help with my anxiety anyways the power of that it is all about our negative
bias alright most people know that our brains have a negative bias we are
genetically and evolutionarily predisposed to focus more on the
negative than the positive like positive events they just slide off our our
memory like Teflon and with negative events it's like velcro right and this
can be an issue when we're seeing all this coronavirus news so I highly
suggest that you check out the power of that and this book as well as the rest
of the books on this list these are going to help you in a wide range of
different mental health aspects aside from just the coronavirus anxiety all
right so book number two is good reasons for bad feelings by Randolph Nessie okay
this is one of my favorite books I've ever read in my entire life and I can't
wait to reread it again this book is all about the evolutionary psychology of
mental health issues alright primarily depression and anxiety
but he also talks about you know addiction schizophrenia bipolar disorder
but anyways it talks about evolutionary reasons and like this book is so
important because it helps you understand that there's nothing wrong
you like if you're experiencing anxiety right now because of the coronavirus
there's nothing wrong with you that's completely normal but this this author
does a great job explaining why we get anxious about certain things and not
others right why our mind has a natural response for getting anxious around
certain things right so for example for example one of the reasons that the
anxiety around the corona virus is so huge whereas it's not as huge around
other issues that are killing tens of thousands hundreds of thousands or
millions of people each year like it explains why we get anxious about one
but not the other right because I keep thinking about this we are a very
resilient species right we have made it through a lot okay so when this thing
passes we're gonna be stronger because of it but anyways like the corona virus
the reason it causes so much anxiety is because it's this this infection this
virus right and that's something that we are biologically designed to fear okay
so these next two books are from Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner all right and
the first one is freakanomics a lot of you have heard of this book some of you
have read this book this is like a huge best-selling book but the reason why
this book is so important like this book is a lot about economics but not that
traditional economics that you're thinking or that we traditionally think
of this is all about you know different statistics over the years and how we
thought it was this way but it was really this way right um and it helps
you just kind of switch the way you look at situations and that's what helps me
the most like a lot of these books have helped me just look at things from
different angles that I would have never looked at them before okay freakanomics
like if you get any book on this list you need to get these two books from the
Steve 11 and Stephen Dubner the other book that I had to read
right after I finished for economics let's think like a freak okay because I
was so fascinated intrigued with how they look at these different you know
these different things that have happened throughout you know history and
how we got them so wrong like a lot of this is people got it wrong
the experts got it wrong right and I'm like okay well how how do you do that
like what's that thought process and they wrote an entire book to help you
start looking at these situations in a different way
so that's think like a freak like the best thing I can relate it to is rebt
rational emotive behavioral therapy a lot of these books will help you with
that um by anyways like even if you're not in therapy like rational emotive
behavioral therapy which is one of my favorite forms of therapy that I I do
with my therapist it helps you think rationally alright and I think some of
these books helping you look at things from different angles and understand why
you feel the way you feel and kind of understand why the public is doing what
they're doing like I think it's really important to be able to look at these
from different angles alright the next one is hive mind by Sarah Cavanaugh and
I've been really fascinated with like groupthink and kind of like tribal
mentality mob mentality for a long time now and this book came out hmm I think
fall of 2019 but anyways Sarah Cavanaugh is a professor as well and this book
will will help you understand you know this the kind of mass the mass hysteria
and panic around this thing why groups act the way they do this book as well as
like the power of bad will help you understand why the media focuses so much
on the negative how that spreads and goes viral on social media and all of
that alright and there's also some sections in there about conspiracies and
you know and things like that but anyways it helps me understand
like when I'm on social media and I see all these things going on the people I
interact with and understand and I'm like you know how come they're not
noticing these things and you know and a lot of it has to do with that that group
think and mentality of being in a group all right the next book is a book I'm
currently reading right now which you need to get like you need to get it
right now it's called how we know what isn't so by Thomas Gilovich all right so
I was recently reading a book one of my other favorite books is called the
righteous mind and the author Jonathan hi referenced work from Thomas Gilovich
and when I hear like a psychologist who has a really interesting study or some
research on like huh I wonder if they've written any books and this book actually
came out just came out on in 2019 but I absolutely absolutely absolutely love
this book so far and basically what it's about is like understanding why our
brain has so many biases that we don't even recognize right like it's easy it's
easy to sit here and be like oh I know you know I know all about confirmation
bias and all these other things and da-da-da-da-da right but this book has
done such a great job pointing out things that we we don't notice right um
a chapter I just finished was like about relationships and why our relationships
make us you know focus on these negative things rather than the positive things
but it's also important to understand why we're focusing on some aspects of
the coronavirus news and not others so check that book out the next book is
super forecasting now I highly recommend you read this book for me personally
there was only so much that I could relate to myself and my own mental
health but the reason we all need to read this book is because the author
Philip tetlock he is referenced and just about all of the books I've listed
Philip tetlock is referenced in almost every single one almost every
single one why is that it's because he did the longest study the longest study
I believe a spans two decades okay and what he did was he gave dozens
of experts things to predict right about the stock markets about Wars about all
these things I think he even had him do forecasting about predictions with like
pandemics like SARS and h1n1 and what he's found through his research like
listen to me very carefully what do you found in research is that
experts experts are no better predicting than your average person experts are
correct they're accurate roughly 50% of the time something he talks about in
this book and one of the reasons he had to write this book is because like one
specific line of his research has been just used everywhere everywhere and it's
true because like I said these other books references research but they say
part of his research said like experts predicting outcomes is no better than a
chimp throwing darts at a dartboard right but anyways he dives deeper into
this he actually has discovered who's better at forecasting who isn't like
they have found that super forecasters what he calls them is actually better at
predicting things then like the CIA like that's nuts so although a lot of
examples in this book are talking about like um like global conflicts and Wars
and predicting things I think it's important to read this book because
right now there's a lot of experts and I don't mean to discredit them in any way
like we need them to tell the truth we need them to explain what's going on and
why why we should be worried or aspects that we shouldn't be worried about I've
had a lot of people recommend the Joe Rogan podcast recently where he had a
infectious disease expert on there and there were some things on that I didn't
know for example um healthy children are pretty much not not a risk they are not
contracting this and having as severe symptoms and it's not as deadly for
children and they don't know why right as a father that's very helpful but
reading super forecasting it helps me listen to the experts but also listen to
them with caution because some of these other books that I've mentioned discuss
all the different biases that we have and one of the biggest misconceptions
that we have is that experts are not bias experts are completely objective
right and that's not the case all experts have their own biases and unless
they are working very very very very hard to acknowledge those and you know
talk to their peers and get in groups something that's part of this super
forecasting group their biases are going to get the best of them and their biases
which they are unaware of can influence the way they are speaking to the public
you see what I mean so that helps chill my anxiety out because I can sit there
and say okay how accurate are the predictions how how many different forms
of bias are affecting what they say and it helps me chill out a little bit and
take what they're saying take it in and then start adjusting my life around that
alright so the last book on this list is thinking and bets by Annie Duke this
book was recommended when I watched a video from dr. Mike it's actually how I
discovered the other author I mentioned Jonathan height but thinking of that's
by Annie Duke I am really into books not only about psychology and mental health
and all that but again like rational emotive behavioral therapy I love books
that help me think better right because a lot of a lot of mental health issues
are psychological okay so you have the biopsychosocial model you have your
biology right your genetic chemical imbalances and all that yeah
social how things are happening in your life different events different
circumstances who you're hanging out with but then you have the psychological
model okay this is one of the reasons why therapies like cognitive behavioral
therapy rational emotive behavioral therapy dialectical behavioral therapy
they help you think better okay like and that's why I love thinking and
best by Annie Duke a lot of this is about making better decisions
recognizing your biases recognizing almost like the title of that other book
like why you think you know what you really don't know you know what I mean
and I really want to reread this book too because it helps me look at things
from different perspectives and one of the best things that we can do for our
mental health is look at things from different perspectives anxiety for
example it is this intense fear of what hasn't happened yet you know what I mean
we we call it future tripping we are freaking out right and like we learn
from super forecasting is a lot of our predictions of the future are inaccurate
they're blown out of proportion so thinking and bets I think is a good
book if you are struggling with coronavirus anxiety all right there
anyways those are the eight books down in the description below I'll have all
the the books late I would appreciate if you use the links down the description
down in the pink comment those are affiliate links so although videos like
this are not being monetized when you use those Amazon affiliate links a
little bit comes back over a very little bit comes back to help us support the
channel alright and to wrap up this video we're gonna read a comment from
the last video and then I'm gonna ask you a question to comment on down in the
comments below alright so this one like my last video was about love is blind
and I got a bunch of random comments I get this comment a lot so I thought I'd
just talk about it real quick so it says damn your views have dropped lmao it
must be wild going from 80 to 100 K to not even being able to get a thousand
views of yes it is wild or should I say it was
wild so another reason I read these books is ice I start to understand human
nature right the human experience and something is hedonic adaptation okay we
are always going to adapt we are always going to adapt if you get a million
dollars tomorrow you're gonna adapt to it and that million dollars is not gonna
feel as good as when you first get it same thing happens with losses losses
are gonna hurt but over time they hurt less okay so it's been a year since I've
stopped getting as many views and everything like that doesn't affect me
as much Kodama cabinet adaptation is one of our
best friends and worse enemy at the same time so thank you wildflower for leaving
that comment but anyways for this video down in the description below I want to
hear from you what are your favorite and mental health books if you have any
books about anxiety or if you have any books that you think might be beneficial
for people struggling with coronavirus anxiety personally I am always looking
for new books to read so let me know down in the comments below and you might
be in the next video where we read a comment alright so anyways that's all I
got for this video if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up if you
know make sure you subscribe and bring that notification bell and a huge huge
thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you're all
amazing as well as everybody who buys my mental health books from the rewind so
calm and who supports the channel by getting the reward sold merch you are
all amazing alright thanks again for watching I'll see you next time
you