Episode 203
Gary Sprouse:Why Antidepressants Are the Wrong Answer for Most Overwhelmed Women
Gary Sprouse:
Why Antidepressants Are the Wrong Answer for Most Overwhelmed Women
Dr. Gary Sprouse, a retired primary care physician turned author, joins me to discuss his revolutionary approach to stress management through building your "happy place." We explore how human skills like envisioning the future create stress as side effects, and Gary shares practical tools for compartmentalizing overwhelm and transforming worry into productive planning.
First Aired on: Aug 4, 2025
Episode 203
Gary Sprouse:Why Antidepressants Are the Wrong Answer for Most Overwhelmed Women
Gary Sprouse:
Why Antidepressants Are the Wrong Answer for Most Overwhelmed Women
Dr. Gary Sprouse, a retired primary care physician turned author, joins me to discuss his revolutionary approach to stress management through building your "happy place." We explore how human skills like envisioning the future create stress as side effects, and Gary shares practical tools for compartmentalizing overwhelm and transforming worry into productive planning.
First Aired on: Aug 4, 2025
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Introduction
Dr. Gary Sprouse is a retired primary care physician who practiced for 38 years before transitioning into stress management and mental health. He's the author of "Highway to Your Happy Place: A Roadmap to Less Stress" and co-authored a bestseller with Jack Canfield. In this episode, Gary joins me to discuss his unique approach to stress management by helping people identify and build their "happy place."
Episode Highlights
The Problem with Traditional Stress Management
Gary explains why conventional approaches to stress fall short and how his medical background led him to a different perspective on helping patients.
- Most stress books focus on major stressors but miss the underlying mechanisms
- Traditional medicine treats symptoms with medications that have side effects
- Patients often don't know where they want to be - only that they want less stress
- Need for a destination and better tools beyond generic advice like mindfulness
Human Skills Have Side Effects
The revolutionary concept that our greatest abilities as humans come with inevitable side effects that create stress and anxiety.
- Humans can envision the future - an amazing skill that also enables worry
- A 1-year-old and an 85-year-old with dementia can't worry because they lack this skill
- The goal isn't to eliminate the skill but to manage the side effects
- Worry can be transformed into planning when you remove the fear component
The Architecture of Your Happy Place
Gary's framework showing that while everyone's happy place is unique, they all have the same fundamental "rooms" or components.
- Contentment: How you feel in general, heavily influenced by mindset
- Pleasures: Both big moments and thousands of little daily pleasures we often miss
- Gratitude: The tool for finding and appreciating those little pleasures
- Anticipation of pleasure: Using our future-thinking ability positively
- Fulfillment: Made up of learning, giving, and having purpose
The CASH Model for Emotional Wellbeing
An acronym representing the essential psychological needs that form the foundation of our happy place.
- Connected: Feeling linked to others and community
- Accepted and appreciated: Feeling valued and important
- Safe: The fundamental need for security and stability
- Hope: Belief that life can get better, preventing despair
From Overwhelm to Organization: The Shoebox Method
A practical strategy for managing stress by compartmentalizing problems instead of letting them blur together into overwhelming lumps.
- People "lump" all their problems together, creating paralyzing overwhelm
- Imagine 100 shoe boxes scattered versus neatly stacked - same amount, different impact
- Compartmentalizing allows you to address one issue at a time effectively
- Prevents problems from bleeding into each other and multiplying stress
The Modern Stress Epidemic
How social media and constant news exposure amplify our natural threat-detection systems beyond their intended purpose.
- Humans are wired to scan for danger, but our "world" now includes global events
- Social media presents every possible bad outcome without balance
- We see plane crashes but not the million safe flights daily
- Need to consciously choose to focus on positive outcomes and good news
Redefining Common Mental Health Issues
Gary's perspective on how many people diagnosed with depression are actually just overwhelmed and need different tools.
- Many "depressed" patients are overwhelmed, not serotonin deficient
- Primary care doctors lack time for psychological interventions
- Patients more comfortable seeing primary care than mental health specialists
- Medications can help but don't address underlying overwhelm patterns
Notable Quotes from this Episode
Do not resign yourself to being stressed out. There are so many things out there, so many resources... Do not sit in your cave in a dark cave thinking, I can't get out. There's ways out you can get better.
Dr. Gary Sprouse
Your car can go 120 miles an hour, but not forever. It starts breaking down. And that's what I see... we have people that are living their whole life in one giant anxiety response.
Dr. Gary Sprouse
Planning is looking at the future and figuring out something without fear.
Dr. Gary Sprouse
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Gary Sprouse
Connect with Gary Sprouse
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Gary Sprouse:(Teaser Intro) my 1-year-old grandson and my 85-year-old demented patient cannot envision the future. They don't have that skill.
So guess what? They can't worry. How freaking awesome is that?
Julie Michelson:(Intro Bumper) Welcome back to The Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and today we're joined by Dr. Gary Sprouse, a retired primary care physician who practiced in Maryland for 38 years. He graduated from George Washington University Medical School in the top 10% of his class, and he is a member of mens.
Dr. Sprouse is extremely passionate about bringing happiness into people's lives. Through humor, compassion, and understanding, he's committed to helping people improve their mental health. He's taken everything he's learned about stress reduction and crafted his book Highway to your happy place, A roadmap to Less stress and reading.
Just one chapter can change your life. In today's conversation, Dr. Sprouse shares tips and strategies from his work and his book on how we can all create our happy place, and we discuss the skills that we can exercise to manage our stress in a way that supports health and happiness.
Julie Michelson:(Main interview) Gary, welcome to the podcast.
Gary Sprouse: Julie, thank you so much for having me on. I'm super excited to be here.
Julie Michelson: I am as well, and I, I'm excited about what I am. Am presuming is your mission, um, just from the work that you've been doing, uh, and your book and, um, it is, I think. Such an essential part of healing. Um, and so tell us a little bit about your, your shift of how do you go from primary care to this author who's inspiring people to, to find their happy place?
Gary Sprouse: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So as a primary care doctor, I did that for 40 years and as a primary care doctor, patients would come in all the time with these medical conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, all these anxiety disorders, and. They would say things to me like, Dr. Spross, I'm worried that I worry too much.
And I'm like, well then you probably are worrying too much. Right? Yeah. And so I was like, you know, and traditional medicine, you know, there's medicines that we use, but they have their own side effects and you know, there's some addiction issues and there's side effects and sleepy issues and lack of concentration, things like that.
And I'm like, there's gotta be something else going on here. So I started reading some books on stress, and most of the books on stress are set up to say, Hey, here's the top a hundred stresses. Like, you lose your spouse, you lose your job, you know, you get an illness or something like that and you're like, well that's great.
But you know, I know people when they get divorced, they're really happy about it. Like, or you know, their spouse thought plan, God, they finally write. It's like, I'm like, so what is it that makes it so stressful? Right? And it was interesting 'cause two things, they came out of this. First off, here's what I would say to my patients.
So if you weren't so stressed out, where would you be? And they're like. I don't know. Never really got that far. I only thought about being less stressed and I was like, oh, well, so we need a destination. 'cause if you don't know where you're trying to get to, how the heck you gonna get there? Right? So that's when I started talking about Happy place.
And then the second thing was, as a doctor, I'm used to writing a prescription that says, Hey, here's the medicine for your blood pressure. It works great, eh? It might have a side effect, might make you a little sleepy, might make you a little dizzy or something like that. But we'll work on that, right? So, and I turned that on to humanity, right?
So humans have these amazing skills, as an example. We have the ability to envision the future. Yeah. Amazing, right? Yeah. Like we can go, Hey, next week we're gonna do this, or next year, or 10 years, or a billion years from now, this is what's gonna happen, right? But, and here's the key is it has side effects.
So our skills have side effects. And you're like, wait, what does that mean? So if you can envision the future, then that means you can worry about it too. So my 1-year-old grandson and my 85-year-old demented patient cannot envision the future. They don't have that skill. One never hasn't gotten it yet, and the other had it, but lost it.
So guess what? They can't worry. Right? How freaking awesome is that they don't, they don't have the ability to worry 'cause they don't have the skill with the side effect. They're also not very functional either. 'cause we have to keep, take care of them because they can't envision the future.
Julie Michelson: Right?
Gary Sprouse: So then we, we can do is say, well, okay, well let's just get rid of the skill.
So what I hear a lot is, we'll just live for today. And you're like, well okay, that's a nice thought. But first off, it's impossible as human 'cause we spend way too much time in the future. Right? And second off, like, why would I wanna give up my greatest skill? Because it has a side effect. So what I got into my book was like, how do we get rid of the side effect and keep the skill?
Julie Michelson: I love that I, and you know, the, they, that's the first, first step to creating anything, wellness, whatever, fill in the bank blank is envisioning it. So, uh, it's, I love that you, that this idea of, we, you can't just make a change and avoid. Right. So you can't say, okay, I'm not gonna, like, it's, it's the same whether we're talking about, you know, making a diet change or any other habit change is like, you need to have that filler.
Like, where are we going? Um, and I, yes,
Gary Sprouse: for sure. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. I bet they didn't teach you in medical school to ask your patients, you know? Yeah. I took
Gary Sprouse: Happy place 1 0 1. Yeah, there you go.
Julie Michelson: That should be the other. Now I know they're pushing for finally nutri more nutrition training. I, I think, you know, um, also what I love, what I was like excited about as you were talking about this approach is all of those thoughts have a physical.
Impact on the body and mental and emotional and all the things, right? So, absolutely. So just as you know, we feel what it is, anxiety or whatever this, the stress related feelings are, but when we can start to create that happy place, and we're gonna talk about how you help people do that. Um. All of those thoughts are having impact on all of ourselves, and then actual healing can happen.
Gary Sprouse: Well, so here's what I say, like there's a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It's a great book, right? It's 300 pages of all the bad things that happen to you because of stress. And there's a lot of physiological things. And what I talk about is our bodies were designed to have a fear reaction, but it was only supposed to last like five or 10 minutes and then go away.
Yeah. Where we were supposed to get angry, but in five or 10 minutes it was supposed to go away. But we have people that are living their whole life in one giant anxiety response. Yeah. So what I say to people is like, look, your car can go 120 miles an hour, but not forever. Like Right. It starts breaking down.
And that's what I see. That's what I see. And it's one of the reasons I started writing this book was to say, look, we gotta help people. In a different way, like medicines are great and, and what I like about what I'm doing is as a physician, I have all the knowledge of what the medicines are and the physical diagnoses and all that kind of stuff.
But now I've added this whole other part where it goes, Hey, here's the psychological things and this is what I talked about. So I was this, there's something that makes losing your spouse so stressful. What is that? And what I realized was, and one, I was on somebody else's podcast, and what they said to me is.
Your book tells us the ingredients of what makes it stressful. Mm-hmm. So the reason losing your spouse is so stressful is because they're, they're worried or they feel guilty, or they're regretting, or they're low self-esteem, or they're overwhelmed and all the, and I can't fix that. You've lost your spouse.
Right. But I can fix that. You worry too much or you feel guilty or you regret. Those are things I can do something about. And those are universal. So every man, woman, and child who has a mind has those skills, which then means they have those side effects.
Julie Michelson: Which is, is amazing, you know, because you're giving people the tools.
They, you know, I mean, we, it's not new information that, it's our response to stress, a stressor, not the actual stressor, you know, and that's where we get stuck. Um, so let's, let's you, I know you taught, you go through a lot in the book. Um. Ha. Let's just kind of run us through this idea of. Building the happy place, you know, back to I can and like literally see that kind of blank look in your patients' faces when, when you ask.
Yes. Because I get, when I ask clients what brings you joy and, and it just breaks my heart that these are, you know, adults that just go blank. Mm-hmm. Like, oh my god, I don't know. You know, I haven't thought about that in Yes. 20, 30 years. Um, so. Let's, let's talk a little bit about this. How, how we build. You say that the, the architecture is the same for all of us, right?
I do, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's walk us through that. Um, and I don't, I like the words that you're
Gary Sprouse: using. I like the architecture. That's a good word. Right. So here's what I found like. Everybody. So first off, I had, like when I was writing my book initially, it was all about stresses and how to get less stress and how to reduce some of the side effects.
But then I started going, wait, I gotta figure out where we're trying to get to, right? So that's when I started identifying a happy place and I'm like, but everybody's happy place is different. But as I started doing some research and doing some thinking and I was like, wait, everybody's happy place has the same rooms.
So like I was just in Germany on a vacation and I went to this big giant castle, right? Beautiful castle. And I'm like. So the castle still had a kitchen, right? Still had a dining room, still had a living room, had a bedroom. It didn't have an indoor bathroom. I'll give them that. Right. But they all have the same rooms, right?
So they have the same rooms as we have. So what I realized was everybody's happy place has the same rooms. Mm-hmm. But they decorate 'em differently. So some people have a big kitchen, some people have a small kitchen, some people paint a blue, some people have artwork. So everybody's happy place has their own variation, but the rooms are the same.
So then what's the rooms? Right? So then you gotta know what the rooms are. 'cause when you know what the rooms are, then you go, oh, you know what? I can do that. Yeah. That's not their bed. So when I go through the rooms, here's the rooms. So the first room I talk about is contentment. And contentment is like, you know, how you feel in general.
Like how, what's the, the, the sum of your good and bad that's gone on in your life. And what I found with that is mindset makes a huge difference. So one of the books that I got involved with is called Mindset Matters, is of Jack Canfield. And I was a co-author with it became No One Bestseller. Yay, yay.
But in that book, what we talk about is mindset and each author gives their own deal of how mindset changed their situation. Mindset is just something I can change today. Like it's how I think about it, right? So I've met plenty of rich people who are miserable and plenty of poor people are really happy with their life and really contented.
So, oh one is, here's a study that I brought up. They took people that had won the lottery, won a million dollars. Oh, and then they took people who had become paraplegic from a car accident, and they looked at 'em in one year. And guess who was happier?
Julie Michelson: It's wild. I would, I'm imagining the para,
Gary Sprouse: you couldn't tell who's happier outta one year from somebody who won a million dollars to somebody who became a paraplegia.
Like, wait, what mindset, man, that makes a huge difference, right? Yeah. The second thing is then pleasures. And we all need pleasures. And so we talk about big pleasures, like my nieces graduating from high school and gone to college and you know, my, you know, I, my friend just his just had a grand kid, right?
And it's like we have these big things that go on. But I was just reading this book and what he talked about, this guy named Sterling. He goes, what we were meant for was having all these little pleasures every day, all the time. He said it came down to like, something tastes better than you thought. Well, that should give you pleasure.
Or you found something to eat, or you found something to drink, or you were safe and you didn't get hurt today. And it's like, you know, I, I play basketball on Thursday nights and I'm like, my goal is to have fun and not get hurt. Right, right. So I get done. Yeah. I didn't get hurt today. Yeah. Right. So we're supposed to have these thousand little pleasures every day.
We're so busy and we're so miserable that we like totally ignore all that. Right,
Julie Michelson: miss? Yeah, absolutely.
Gary Sprouse: Right. So that brings me to the third one, which is gratitude. Gratitude is how you find all those little pleasures. Because what I see is that we don't, we take way too much for granted, even when we're trying to be grateful heart.
So again, I was in Germany, right? So I'm in this castle. I'm like, wow, this is a really nice castle. Right? But I'm like, wait, this castle doesn't have air conditioning. He doesn't have a phone, he doesn't have a stove. It doesn't have windows. Like, wait, what? And it's like my little house has way more stuff than the King of Germany had 500 years ago.
Right, right. So, but, so I had this thing, I called 50 point wake up and I wake up in the morning, like 10 points I'm alive, 10 points, I got food, 10 points, I got water, 10 points I'm safe, 10 points my wife's safe too. Yay. Great. 50 points just by going open to my eyes in the morning. Yay. Yeah. Another day. And it puts you in that mood of being grateful for what you have.
'cause patients will come in and say, doc, I'm falling apart. I'm like, really? I said, do your eyelids closed? And they're like, well, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I have patients that they don't. So take that. Don't take that for granted. Right. Thank God that your eyelids closed. Right. Yay. Right. So then the next one is then I call anticipation of pleasure.
And this is where our ability to envision a future comes in. So we can look into the future and go, oh, that's gonna be nice. So I'm getting ready to go on another vacation soon, and I'm like, oh, oh, oh. And in my mind, yeah, I get all the same pleasurable sensations as if I'm on the vacation and it goes on for months and months.
And in my mind, the vacation's perfect. Like the chi doesn't go flat. The reservations all work, right? Yeah. The place is all amazing when I go there, right? So these are all cool things that go into the next room is what I call fulfillment or, and fulfillment is made up of three things. One is learning.
'cause turns out learning curiosity are very pleasurable activities for most people. Two is giving. And so we're a communal organism. So when we're giving to other people, we really like that, right? It makes us feel good. And the last one is purpose. And what this is one of the things that I've seen with people is that we run, we.
Finding, like for, you know, cavemen, finding food and water and being safe, that was enough to fulfill you. But nowadays that's so easy. We don't even, it doesn't count. We don't get that. So we have have to find other things to fill. So you've become, you know, a functional, uh, counselor and it's like, that fulfills you.
I can see that. Right? Right. And so not everybody has that luxury. So they, some people have to find what it is that fulfills them and that it's not always, and sometimes it changes.
Julie Michelson: Too. Yes.
Gary Sprouse: And it changes. That's exactly right. So my, my purpose used to be, Hey, get up in the morning, take care of patients.
Now it's, hey, get up and try to get people into their happy place. Right? Yeah. And then the last room is one I call cash, and it's an acronym and it stands for a couple things. So it stands for being connected and feeling in control, being accepted, and feeling like you, you're appreciated. Feeling safe, which is really big deal.
And then having some spiritual feeling. And then last one is, is having hope. And it's like what I see is when people get into a place where they think my life's miserable, which is a lot of people, right? Mm-hmm. But when they add and it's never gonna get better, that's when they
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Well, they're putting a stake in the ground.
Um. If you think you're, I, I liken it to, again, back to the power of our thoughts, right? When I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I was told You will decline. We'll keep you as comfortable as we can for as long as possible, and we'll try to slow that decline. We'll, shocker that I spent the next 11 years declining.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: right. Because that was the my expectation. It did. It wasn't even in my, in the realm of possibility in my mind that I could do anything but decline.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: You know? And now here I am, however many, 20 years later doing You look pretty
Gary Sprouse: good for declining Right? Doing,
Julie Michelson: yeah. Doing way more than I was doing 20 years ago.
You know, PainFREE like it. And I say to people all the time, like, I'm not spec, I mean we're all special in our own way, but we are designed for healing. We are designed for joy, connection, pleasure, all the, all the things on your list. Um, I think, yeah, so that,
Gary Sprouse: that book I read by Sterling, one of the things he talks about, he said, we talk about homeostasis, where what's basically, you have a, a blood pressure and your body's doing everything to keep it in that range.
Mm-hmm. What he talks about is called allostasis. Allostasis is, he goes, your body's trying to predict what's gonna happen. So when you spend your life being anxious, your body goes, Hey, you're really anxious. So we gotta keep that blood pressure up. 'cause apparently there's something dangerous trying to happen.
Something's
Julie Michelson: about to happen.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah. Well I'm gonna do everything I can to keep it up. 'cause I know what's coming down the road. So by treating all the little things that make your blood pressure go up, it'll go down, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem, which is your body's gearing up to be ready to fight or flight.
Julie Michelson: It's interesting. I had a, you're a, you're a dog guy. I, I had a border collie, uh, rescue, who is the last border Collie I'll ever have. So he just, but his whole problem, people were like, does he bite? No. Did he, he didn't chew, he didn't go to the bathroom in the house, but the poor dog spent his day trying to anticipate my next move.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: And. He just, he lived in that anxiety I had kitchen cabinets. I wasn't allowed to, to touch because, you know, the, the metal mixing bowls were in there and they make a noise. Like he was just hypervigilant all the time. Interesting. And he's like the perfect example of how unfortunate it can be when we get stuck in that state.
And I find you see this a lot. Like people will be like, well, I'm not stressed. And then they list. Oh, they don't, yeah. They're, they're like, they're so stressed. They've lost, you know, it's like having a pain point that eventually you just don't feel the pain anymore.
Gary Sprouse: No, I, well, it's when I was in school, I lived in, in a, a suburb of Washington, DC and tr and commuted into DC when there was no traffic, it took 15 minutes when there was traffic, it took an hour.
And when there was bad weather or an accident, it took two hours. Right? Yeah. And you're like. You, it just became so a part of you that you didn't even pay attention. But now I live in a rural area that's a couple hours outside of dc and when I get to DC and I get into travel, I'm like, I feel, I mean, now I can feel it.
And I'm like, right. I'm like, oh, I, I felt that every day. Just didn't even know it. Right,
Julie Michelson: right. You just weren't even aware of it, you know? Um, and those are some of the things. I love that you brought that up, because people don't, yeah. You can go down the list of the major life stressors. Um, but it, it's.
That you talked about, you know, we're meant to have this stress response, you know, or feel an emotion and then return to baseline. And it is the, it's the big things on top of the little things that just drive our body doesn't know the difference between traffic's really bad and I'm gonna be late versus, you know, there's a tiger chasing me down.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Well, and that's, this is where worry comes from, right? So worry. So, so what I said is, okay, here's your happy place, and once you identify it, you go, wow, I can get there. Right? That's not even that tricky, right? You just have to pay attention. But then you go, well, but there's things that are keeping me from that happy place, and that's where the stress has come in.
So when I talk about worry, one of the things that I would say to people is like, okay, well tell me what worry is. And they'd get that same look like, well, I got this one. And they're like, well wait and, and then they find that it's actually not so easy to define. Mm-hmm. And what I found as a doctor, like 300 years ago when we diagnosed somebody with diabetes, we said, oh, your sugar's too high.
And so our only. Advice was, we'll eat less sugar. Right? So when we started learning, oh, it has to do with insulin and your pancreas and your liver and your stomach hormones and dah, dah, and insulin transplant, well then we got way better tools. So now our treatment of diabetes is so much better. It was just when I started treat practice right?
Sure. And so what I found with all these stress things is I think our definitions have been way too superficial. So our treatments have been very generic. It's like, we'll do mindfulness or do yoga, or do whatever. Right? And it's like. So when you make a better definition, then you can get better tools and you get better results, right?
And so, so I ended up defining worry as, Hey, I'm using this amazing skill that I can envision the future, but I'm using this skill to focus on all the bad things that can happen, which then sets off a fear reaction right now. But because the fear reaction is to an idea. Not to a thing, there's nothing to make it stop.
'cause anytime I think the idea, it sets off the reaction. So like my dog, I use her as an example. Like if a big dog comes in my yard and she can smell it or hear it, she furs off and she's right. But then as soon as the big dog goes away, she's laying back down, hanging out. Right. I'm sitting there going, ah, what would happen?
My grandson was here. Ah, what if I was outside? What? Right. So it's like I, I can think a whole bunch and I found the smarter you are, the more things you can think of,
Julie Michelson: right?
Gary Sprouse: And this is why social media has caused so much increase in our anxiety. So even though our life is so much better, because of all the things that we have available to us, our stressors are gone up because social media on it.
Minute by minute basis is presenting us with every bad thing that anybody could think of. And it's like, so you see a plane crash crash in India? Yeah. But they don't give you the balance of like a million planes landed safely yesterday. And it's like, yeah. And so we're, so we get, ah, like we go, oh, Iran just got bombed.
Ah, Gaza, oh, Ukraine. Ah, like, and it's like la. Like we hear all these things over and over and over and over again, which as you say, sometimes we don't even pay attention to how stress it makes us feel, right? Because it's sort of like that baseline. We don't even realize there is something below the baseline.
So,
Julie Michelson: yeah. And I love that you used the word skill. Because I think so many people when it comes to their own personal psychology of like, just they, I, it's almost the same for me as a diagnosis. Like, don't we identify, we just like slap our labels on, right? Like, I'm a worrier, I'm a. You know, and I've done it.
I'm, I'm a Jewish mama from the East coast, you know, like it's our identity. You but it, but once you realize that, that changing your thought patterns is a skill, right. And it's a skill we all have, like, yes, aware, you know, I, I am aware of how I used to live and, and now even my daughter just said to me two days ago, something about like, oh my gosh.
I don't know how you're staying so calm. And I'm like, well, 10 years ago I might not have, you know, it was a, a family situation, family drama thing, you know? And I'm like, 'cause I'm learning. I'm constantly learning. To be aware of my reactions and to make choices.
Gary Sprouse: Yes. I mean, I, I spent some time going, Hey, I've, I was feeling hungry today.
What does that mean? Like, what is it? What signals were going off? That made me say, oh, that was hungry. And what I found is a lot of people, the anxiety think they're hungry. Yeah. And so they eat something, but they still feel that same sensation. So then they eat some more something and then they eat some more something and all of a sudden now they're overweight and now, and it's like, no, no.
You were misinterpreting the signals.
Julie Michelson: Right. I love that. Do you, do you have a tip for listeners on how, because I'm in, right? Like I'm, I, I love the, the information you're giving people and, and what you walk people through in the book and I'm, I'm there. I've been working on this stuff for a long time and I, I see it help people, you know, even specifically healing their autoimmune journey.
The, I mean, the more joy and, and less anxious we are and less stressed we feel, um, the better people we become, right? We're, we're better partners, we're better caregivers, we're better fill in the neighbors, and, and the world does become a, a better place.
Gary Sprouse: Yes, be well. So here's what I found, is that people wanna feel like they're in control.
They want to feel like they're accepted and they want to feel important, and they want to feel like they're appreciated. And all those things when you're, and they want to feel safe, which I think is one of the over, yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing out there. So when people go, money's the root of all evil.
I'm like, nah, not sure. Because what, what money does is it buys you those things. It buys you control and safety and, and Right. So it's really, that's what you're looking for. And like if you go, Hey, I got a million dollars, and you're like, yeah, do you really feel safe? You're like, no, I just read an article about some guy who had $10 million and lost it all.
So, no, I don't know if a million dollars is not right. So we never have that feeling of safety because there's so many things out there that could take it away. And that's where people get into trouble. And so what I found was is that when you understand what they are, then it's a lot easier to find it.
It's a lot easier to get it, and now you can start making tools. And what I've seen is by thinking of these stresses as side effects to your skills, what it says is they're never gonna go away as long as I have these skills, but the first thing I have to do is go, isn't it amazing that I have that skill?
Yay. Right? Like, my grandson doesn't have that skill. Right, right. So it's like when you look at it that way, then you're like, oh, okay, well then if I can get rid of the side effects, I can do that. I say to people, I don't want you to stop worrying. Ryan's a good thing, right? Yeah. You're looking at, you're, you're looking at bad outcomes going, Hey, what can I do about it?
What I do want is two things. One is to worry efficiently. I like that. 'cause what I see is people get up in the middle of the night going, oh my, my God, over and over and over again. I'm like, Ooh, no. Okay, we gotta do this efficiently. And two is they can do it without fear. Like you can go into the future and not have fear.
And that's, and that really, when you take out the fear from worry, then you're like, well. We call planning. That's planning, right. So planning is looking at the future and figuring out something without fear. That's the case.
Julie Michelson: I love that. I'm, and you're speaking my language. I am a planner. So, and that's a
Gary Sprouse: good thing, right?
That's how we got to be successful. It's how we got to be where we are.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely. And we,
Gary Sprouse: what I see is when you come from a place where you're feeling safe, where you're feeling secure, where you're feeling in control. You have reserve reserve's a big word that I like to use. Right. When you have extra, then you're people give freely it.
Yeah. It's like, it doesn't even, like I just got involved in the Rotary Club and here's an organization that, it's around the world. It sits on a $2 billion endowment. Everything they do is for free because they wanna give to people. And it's like, that is what most people are like. But when you put them in a stressful situation, then all of a sudden they start pulling back and going, well, I don't know if I have enough for me.
So I don't know if I can give to you.
Julie Michelson: Well, and I, I love to circle back to you mentioned social media and, and the news of the day. You just blurted out all the things that are in the headlines today. We're not the, you know, when was the last time you saw news coverage of something wonderful the Rotary did?
Right? Like it, it's what we're being fed. Uh, sometimes we have to take a little responsibility to look for the good, to, like you said, like how many planes landed safely, right? Like, but that's not gonna make the news so, well,
Gary Sprouse: this is what I, so I wanna change the news, right? I want 'em to say, yeah. They put a, it's fine that I wanna hear about it.
Well, okay, let me stop that. The humans have been designed to look for bad things in our environment. Right. You have
Julie Michelson: skill. Yeah. But what
Gary Sprouse: I say to people is like, if I had 10 people in this room that were trying to gimme a thousand dollars. I'd be like, yeah, that's great. Right? But then there's a guy in the corner with a machine gun.
Yeah, no, I'm paying attention to that guy, right? I fight him first because if he kills me, the other $10,000 doesn't do me any good at all. Right? So we're actually set up to look for this mean our, our eyes, our ears are all been set up to say, Hey, there's something dangerous going on. Be careful. Sure. So when you apply that to our world, 'cause now our world is not just where I'm at in my house, right?
It's my state, it's my country, it's my earth, it's outer space. It's the future. It's the path, right? Oh, I gotta keep all that wonder.
Julie Michelson: Everybody's so stressed out.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah. So it gets tricky.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Gary Sprouse: So you have to really, it, it, you have to change that habit of focusing on bad things. So, and when I do a seminar, I go, okay.
Tell me all the bad things that can happen. And people go and they're like writing away. And I go, okay, tell me all the good things that can happen. They're like, uh, blank. No, that's not gonna happen. Right? And you're like, no, it's just as likely a good thing's gonna happen. That's more likely a good thing's can happen than a bad thing.
So, yeah.
Julie Michelson: And like you said, so much of it, and it is an exercise and a skill. Um, you know, gratitude being on your, on your list of mm-hmm. So many times. When I, I work with clients on, I, you know, I wanna do a gratitude, create a gratitude practice. Yes. And they get offended right away. I am a grateful person.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I wasn't saying you're not a grateful person, but we can enhance that skill, like you said. And then you see. It's, it's shifting, right? The, the old saying of where, where attention goes, energy flows, and so
Gary Sprouse: yeah, absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. You, you want to identify the, the threat and, but don't stay stuck, you know, also identify the people wanting to gift you and, and all of the beautiful, wonderful things, um, you know,
Gary Sprouse: um.
Because one of the things that happens is like, like if I'm in my office, right? And somebody comes in and they're kind of a pain in the butt, right? They're yelling or screaming. Something didn't go right. But then there's 20 other patients that I'm seeing that are going, doc, that was so great. Your staff is wonderful.
Like thank you so much, blah, blah, blah. But when you go home, who do you tell a story about?
Julie Michelson: Right?
Gary Sprouse: You tell a story about the person that was a pain, right? And it's like, stop. Like, my wife just did this the other day. She goes, the traffic, our area sucks. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She goes, well, on Friday we, we live in a, in, in a, a corridor that goes from DC and Baltimore to the, to the shore, right?
So people drive through us to get to the beach, right? Yep. So on Friday night and Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, traffic is horrible and you can't get to the grocery store and stuff like that. And I'm like, honey, seriously, like for five hours on three days out of the week during the summer, the traffic is horrible, but every other time it's just fine.
And it's like. She's like, no, that's not true. Okay. Right. And you live in such an
Julie Michelson: amazing place that, you know, it's the same in Colorado with them anywhere. There's her jersey with the shore that, that Yeah, it, it is. But we do, it's she, I don't know if she feels lucky that she has you to point that out, but
Gary Sprouse: No, she does not.
Right. No, she does not. I like this. 'cause in New Jersey they call it the shore. Yes. Here in, in Maryland you call it the beach,
Julie Michelson: right?
Gary Sprouse: The same continuous sand, but alright, it's, yeah. Same coast,
Julie Michelson: right? Same, same place. Only in, I think only in Jersey. Is it called the shore? Like Yes, absolutely. Because I lived in Florida
Gary Sprouse: speech, so Yeah, you went to the shore, right?
So yeah,
Julie Michelson: I think it was just so that we knew what we were talking about and maybe nobody else. I dunno. Yeah, I dunno. But it, it is the, it is a choice. And it, I I, I'm assuming you sometimes catch yourself focusing on the negative or, you know, we, we talk about this as being a skill. Um, so does that mean that, you know, you've got it nailed.
You wrote the book, so, so yeah. Right. No mic drop.
Gary Sprouse: So here's what I found. Like a lot of people that I see are overwhelmed. Mm-hmm. Okay. And here's the problem that the people that are overwhelmed, they come in and here's their symptoms, they can't sleep, or they sleep too much. Or they eat, or they don't eat enough, or they, you know, they're anxious all the time, da, da da da.
And they get diagnosed with depression. And I'm like, he's not depressed. He's just overwhelmed because given the medicine might make him feel a little bit better, but so does drinking and having a beer make 'em feel better. Right. I mean, it's not, they're beer deficient. Right. So it's like we keep diagnosing them with serotonin deficiencies.
Yeah. And we need to. And you're like, no, they're just overwhelmed because as humans, so your dog and my dog, they get one thing in their head. That's it, right? I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat, I'm, I gotta go to the bathroom, I'm going outside. You're trying to get into a cabinet. They're like, no, don't get in that cabinet.
Don't make noise. Right? So it's like, but we can handle five and 10 and 15 and 20 things at a time. So what happens when you, and here's the word I use, when you lump, like you put it all together. I don't know why humans do this. Think about this like, like when you're lumping, you go, oh, like my doctor said this and my car did that, and dah, dah, dah, right?
And my house did this. And then they're like, oh yeah. And I forgot my tire went flat yesterday. And they add something on top. I'm like, why are you adding, like, you already got enough? Stop adding, right? But when you get this lump of stress, you're overwhelmed and you're like, you don't need, you're past your coping skills.
You have no idea what to do with it, and you're freaking out. And then being overwhelmed becomes one more problem. And it takes away all your energy to try and even deal with whatever you got going on, right? So what I talk about are shoe boxes, and I got this from a friend of mine. Okay? So think about this.
You walk into a bedroom and there's a hundred shoe boxes, and the bottom's here, and the lids here, and the left shoe's there, and the right shoe's there, and there's 200 shoes, and you're st thrown across the room, and you walk in, you're like, ah, all right, you're freaking out. Right? But if you walk into the room and there's a hundred shoe boxes and the box, the lids on the shoes are inside the piece of paper wrapped around her, and they're all knocked, stacked up nicely inside the closet.
Same amount of shoe boxes. Yep. Now it's not overwhelming. You go, man, I got a lot of shoes, but not overwhelming. 'cause now you just take down one shoebox. You look at it, you put it back up. So when people can compartmentalize, so I just did this with a client of mine. She's getting divorced, starting a new business, getting older, trying to figure out what she's gonna do with her life, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, and she's like, you could, she's got a house, this house, and they got another house there. And it's like, you can see she's getting overwhelmed. Mm-hmm. And, and it's paralyzing her. So when we talked about shoe boxes and compartmentalization, you could hear her just calm down going, oh, okay. Yeah.
That problem's not overwhelming by itself. It's only when I let it bleed into the other ones that it starts causing problems. So the more separate you can keep the problems. The more fixable they are and the less overwhelming they are, and then you don't have to take a medication to, to cure depression.
Right.
Julie Michelson: I love that. I, when I was younger, I used to think of people with the ability to compartmentalize as, as like a negative. Um, it's just my own personal. Mm-hmm. Right. It's always perception. And it is a, a, it's a gi it can become a gift. It can be a gift, yes. If it's used to, like you said. I like that, that idea of like, not letting one thing bleed into the other.
Bleed into the, you know, then you're walking around with a thousand pounds on your shoulder. Yes, yes. Um, and, and I like also wanna highlight, and, and listeners know I talk about it often, especially for those. That have been in a chronic illness or autoimmune path. Um, even, most especially pre-diagnosis, right?
When it's like something's wrong, but they don't know what's wrong. Oh,
Gary Sprouse: they, oh yeah. That's the worst.
Julie Michelson: The, this, the, the first thing, especially women are offered, you know, when they're complaining of fatigue and their labs look fine. Is that antidepressant? Yeah. And it's like, stop. Like we're not, uh, there's a time and a place.
Also, those don't even get me started. The, those are, were meant to be short term, like acute care medications that are now just, you know, it's, it's the bandaid. It's almost like, be quiet. I don't wanna, it's a huge
Gary Sprouse: amount of our population on an antidepressant. Right? Yeah. Like a crazy man, right?
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah.
But I mean, huh. Yeah, I mean, what on things that I've seen physicians, and I'm not saying
Julie Michelson: it's all bad, like I, I don't mean that. I mean, what I've
Gary Sprouse: seen with physicians is they are trained a certain way, right? Sure. And two is that they're busy and their time constraints are more than they've ever been. And so they're looking for something that's fast.
So when they do a bunch of tests and they don't see the answer their first go-to is, well then it must be you.
Julie Michelson: Right?
Gary Sprouse: Yeah. And then they go, oh, if it's you, then you have anxiety, you have depression. Oh, and we have a medicine for that. Here it is, right? Yeah. And you're like, go see a psychiatrist or go see a psychologist or whatever.
And it's like, one of the things that I learned was when you say to when I refer somebody to a psychologist, 75% of the time, they don't go. So I can say, so I gotta sit there in my opposite go. I'm gonna send you a psychologist because I did my job. I sent you a psychologist knowing that 75% aren't gonna go, or I can learn to do it myself, which is what I ended up doing.
And here's what I found. Patients didn't mind coming to the doctor. If somebody said, Hey, where are you going? I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go see my primary care. And then we talked about depression and being overwhelmed and anxiety and dah, dah, dah, right? It was fine because I'm there at their primary care doctor.
If they go, Hey, where are you going? I'm gonna see my psychologist. Like, oh, what's matter with you? Right? So it's like there's this sort of stigma, stigma that goes along with psychological care. It doesn't go with with primary care, but primary care doctors don't have the time that it takes. Sure. To sit down with a patient and go through some of these issues.
'cause they take time,
Julie Michelson: which is why you can get a copy of Highway to Your Happy Place. Yeah. The roadmap. That's a good
Gary Sprouse: book
Julie Michelson: to Less stress iss so amazing for, for people that are listening on the go, where's the best place to find you and or find the book?
Gary Sprouse: Right. So the book is on Amazon, and literally in the next two weeks, the audio book should be coming out.
Yay. And I have a, yeah, I have a, uh, an online course that's gonna be coming out, and you can find that@thelessstress.dot com. Okay. And it'll be on there. It should be coming out in a couple weeks. These have been like a year in the making, right?
Julie Michelson: Always. No year. Here's what I found almost there, like
Gary Sprouse: when you write in as an author, like as a doctor, I would be in the room with somebody and I could see in their face whether they're getting what I'm saying or not.
Mm-hmm. But when you're writing a book, you have to be way more generic and that makes it difficult. So what I say to people is, you know, email me if you want. I'm at less stress. do@gmail.com. Because what I see is like, you know, the book will talk about worry in general, but people have specific things that they worry about.
And so if you need something more specific, just email me.
Julie Michelson: I love that. So we're at the point where listeners are leaning in 'cause they know I am gonna ask you for one thing listeners can do starting today, today, to improve their health, their stress level, their life experience.
Gary Sprouse: Okay. Well, besides buying my book, uh.
Here's what I say to people all the time, do not resign yourself to being stressed out. There are so many things out there, so many resources, Julie, me, all these people are out here trying to help you out. Do not sit in your cave in a dark cave thinking, I can't get out. Do not resign yourself to that.
There's ways out you can get better. You can have a happy life. Spend all your life in your happy place.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. Uh, Gary, thank you so much for the work that you're doing and not to discount all of your years of practicing primary care. 'cause that was very important as well. Um, but we're, we're really, really grateful that you have decided to, to take this message and broader and reach, reach more people with it, because I can tell you that
Gary Sprouse: makes
Julie Michelson: people need it.
That's very
Gary Sprouse: nice.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Appreciate it.
Gary Sprouse: Yeah. And what you're doing is awesome too, from just listening to what you're doing. It sounds great, right? We need more of you. Thank,
Julie Michelson: thank you. Well, we're, you know, you're, I say read the book, listen to the podcast, and make some changes, right? Yep, absolutely. For everyone listening, remember, you can get the links, show notes, and transcripts by Visiting Inspired Living Show.
You'll find a link in there for the book as well.
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Gary Sprouse
Dr. Gary Sprouse is a retired primary care physician who practiced in Maryland for 38 years. He graduated from George Washington University Medical School in the top 10% of his class & is a member of Mensa. Dr. Sprouse is extremely passionate about bringing happiness into people’s lives through humor, compassion, and understanding. He is committed to helping people improve their mental health. He has taken everything he has learned about stress reduction and crafted his book, Highway to Your Happy Place: A Roadmap to Less Stress. Reading just one chapter can change your life!
Best-selling author and motivational speaker Jack Canfield reviewed the book and said: “His ideas and models for stress reduction are life-changing. You will absolutely love this. A must-read.” Dr. Sprouse collaborated on a book with Jack Canfield called. Mindset Matters which is a best-seller.
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