Running Man Self Regulation Skills Project

Armando Dominguez PhD Health Psychology, Educator, Martial Artist, Researcher
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

Understanding Stress, Anxiety, and Decision-Making: Unveiling Your Paleo-Caveperson Wiring Explore the fascinating interplay of stress, anxiety, and pain on our ability to think, choose, and act in modern life through the lens of our paleo-caveperson wiring and survival programming. Discover why we sometimes exhibit socially inappropriate behaviors under stress and find it challenging to make sound decisions in tense situations. Gain insights from psychology, neuropsychology, physiology, sociology, biology, and social dynamics, explained in everyday language without overwhelming scientific jargon. Tell me what you would like to hear on the podcast and your feedback is appreciated: runningmangetskillsproject@gmail.com Book Link for the Running Man Resiliency in the Face of Fight or Flight on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Running-Man-Resiliency-Fight-Flight/dp/B0H6YGJ4WJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BOI7ZY2912AF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PCsHx0Q_bb1rbtF4Vdy8-Q.KiSLfzdnqigm6wCU3kvtrKmnfGdICRvwM8WLVhfpx8Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=running+man+resiliency+in+the+face+of+fight+flight&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1783315890&sprefix=running+man+resil%2Caps%2C305&sr=8-1  rogue musician/creator located at lazyman 2303 on youtube.     Music intro and outro: Jonathan Dominguez  You can Support the running man self regulation skill project at:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support

  1. 8h ago

    Your Body Survived the Stress—But Did It Come Back?

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

    Your Body Survived the Stress—But Did It Come Back?

  2. Sep 27

    When Everything Feels Out of Control: Regulate Yourself, Protect Your Agency

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

    When Everything Feels Out of Control: Regulate Yourself, Protect Your Agency

  3. Sep 22

    The Placebo Effect Is Real: How Belief Changes the Brain and Body

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

    The Placebo Effect Is Real: How Belief Changes the Brain and Body

  4. Sep 14

    The 3 Rs of Stress: Recognize, Regulate, Recover

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

    The 3 Rs of Stress: Recognize, Regulate, Recover

  5. Sep 6

    De-Escalation Begins With You: The Nervous System Skill Most People Miss

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

    De-Escalation Begins With You: The Nervous System Skill Most People Miss

  6. Aug 30

    The Action Gate: The Moment That Can Change Everything

    Ep 162.  The Action Gate: The Moment Between Reaction and ChoiceWhat if one of the greatest opportunities to change your life exists in a space so small that most of us never recognize it? Every day, something happens. Someone says something. A conflict begins. An unexpected problem appears. We experience rejection, pressure, fear, anger, uncertainty, or sudden change. Our nervous system reacts. And then—we act. But between what happens to us and what we ultimately do may exist a critical opportunity. Within the Running Man Human Stress Model, I call this the Action Gate. The Action Gate is the transition between activation and action—the place where awareness and self-regulation may increase our capacity to move from automatic reaction toward deliberate response. This distinction becomes especially important under stress. When fight-or-flight activation rises, urgency can increase. Attention can narrow. Old beliefs, learned patterns, assumptions, and practiced behaviors can become increasingly influential. Our available choices may begin to feel smaller. Sometimes reaction is necessary. Genuine danger may demand immediate action. But much of modern life does not require an instantaneous survival response. A difficult email isn't a charging predator. A disagreement isn't necessarily an attack. A stressful meeting isn't automatically a threat to survival. Yet our physiology may begin mobilizing before our deliberate reasoning has fully evaluated what is happening. This is why learning to recognize the Action Gate matters. It is not about becoming passive. It is not about suppressing emotion. And it is not about endlessly thinking before acting. It is about becoming sufficiently aware and regulated to recognize when another response may be available. Activation does not always have to become automatic action. Within that small space lies the possibility of self-regulation. A breath. A change in posture. A widening of visual attention. Recognition of our physiological state. An interruption of an old behavioral pattern. A moment in which another option becomes visible. And sometimes that moment changes everything downstream. The Running Man Human Stress Model teaches that regulation can help restore access to choice. And choice restores agency. We can move from: Trigger → Reaction toward: Trigger → Recognition → Regulation → Choice → Response That transition is the Action Gate. And like every meaningful skill, our ability to use it can be practiced. We practice recognizing activation. We practice returning toward center. We practice creating enough internal space to see alternatives. Eventually, something that once required tremendous conscious effort can become increasingly familiar. This is where the Running Man Transformation Path becomes important: Knowledge → Insight → Embodiment First, we learn that the Action Gate exists. Then we begin recognizing it within our own lives. Finally, through practice and repetition, we become increasingly capable of accessing it when pressure is real. This is how transformation becomes more than an idea. It becomes embodied. We can adapt. We can overcome. We can become. And sometimes profound change begins within an extraordinarily small space: The Action Gate. Recognize the moment. Regulate the state. Recover the choice. Choose what happens next. Take care and walk well. Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the show intro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303.  New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at runningmangetskillsproject@gmail.com and I will forward him the contact.  Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance.  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support

    The Action Gate: The Moment That Can Change Everything

  7. Aug 23

    Stress Is Making Choices for You—Here's How to Take Back Control

    Ep 161.  Choice Under Pressure: How Stress Shapes the Decisions That Shape Your LifeEvery day we make choices. Some are small. What will I eat? Where will I go? What will I say? Others can change the direction of our relationships, careers, health, finances, safety, and lives. But there is something important about decision-making that we rarely consider: We do not make choices independently of our state. We make choices through our state. At home, at work, and during everyday interactions in public, our decisions emerge from a constantly changing combination of desire, necessity, emotion, belief, perception, experience, and stress. And when pressure rises, the way we choose can change. Stress can alter attention, increase urgency, influence judgment, and change the options we perceive as available. Something that seems obvious when we are relaxed may look completely different when we are afraid, angry, anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, or under severe time pressure. This is the stress lens. And we are often unaware that we are looking through it. Our beliefs influence what we notice. Our physiological state influences what feels important. Our perception of time influences how urgently we believe we must act. Our environment influences whether we feel safe enough to consider alternatives. Together, these forces can quietly shape a decision before conscious reasoning has fully entered the moment. This is why choices made under pressure can sometimes become costly. We react too quickly. We assume. We narrow our options. We say something we later regret. We commit when we should wait. We hesitate when we should act. Or we mistake the intensity of a feeling for the accuracy of a conclusion. But pressure does not have to completely determine the choice. Self-regulation creates space. Space creates awareness. Awareness creates options. And options increase the possibility of making a more skillful decision. The Running Man Human Stress Model teaches a physiology-first approach to recognizing stress activation before attempting to reason our way through it. We learn to recognize the body. Recognize the state. Recognize the narrowing of perception. Recognize urgency. Recognize when our internal experience may be influencing what we believe is happening externally. And then regulate. Not so that we become passive. Not so that every decision becomes slow. But so that when circumstances permit, we recover enough physiological and perceptual flexibility to choose rather than merely react. This is where aplomb—grace under pressure—becomes a trainable capacity. The objective is not perfect decision-making. The objective is greater access to ourselves when decisions matter. Through recognition, awareness, deliberate practice, and skilled self-regulation, we can become increasingly familiar with maintaining center while pressure rises. And familiarity matters. Because the skill we repeatedly practice during lower-stakes moments becomes increasingly available when the stakes become real. Over time, better regulation can support better choices. Better choices influence better outcomes. And repeated outcomes participate in shaping the life we ultimately live. Recognize your state. Create space. Recover your options. Choose skillfully. Take care and walk well. Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the show intro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303.  New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at runningmangetskillsproject@gmail.com and I will forward him the contact.  Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance.  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support

    Stress Is Making Choices for You—Here's How to Take Back Control

  8. Aug 16

    Why You Keep Repeating the Same Patterns—and How to Break Them

    Ep 160.  Pattern Recognition: The Hidden Survival System That Can Change Your LifePattern recognition is one of the most powerful abilities of the human brain. We often think of pattern recognition as the ability to observe someone's behavior, recognize familiar situations, predict what might happen next, or make better decisions at work, at home, and in our relationships. But pattern recognition is much older—and much more important—than that. For our ancestors, recognizing patterns could mean the difference between life and death. A pattern among leaves might simply be vegetation. Or it might be the camouflage of a venomous snake. A movement in the distance might be meaningless. Or it might signal opportunity, danger, predator, prey, friend, or foe. The human nervous system became extraordinarily skilled at detecting patterns because prediction improves survival. But there is another side to pattern recognition. We don't only recognize patterns around us. We create patterns within ourselves. From our earliest years, we learn by observing. We watch caregivers. We listen to language. We imitate behavior. We absorb assumptions about relationships, safety, success, failure, conflict, money, love, trust, fear, and even ourselves. Before we are old enough to critically examine these beliefs, we may already be practicing them. In childhood, imitation serves an important function. The adults around us provide food, protection, shelter, belonging, and guidance. Learning their patterns helps us navigate the environment upon which we depend. In the simplest terms, survival can sometimes look a lot like: Monkey see. Monkey do. But children eventually become adults. And some of the patterns that helped us navigate an earlier environment may no longer serve the life we are living today. A behavior may have an underlying assumption. An assumption may conceal an underlying belief. And a belief repeated often enough can begin shaping behavior automatically. This is where pattern recognition becomes one of the most powerful tools for personal transformation. Instead of only asking: "What am I doing?" we can begin asking: "What pattern is underneath what I am doing?" Awareness gives us the opportunity to see the pattern. But awareness alone does not complete transformation. We must also develop the capacity to envision another possibility. What do I want to do differently? How do I want to respond? Who am I practicing becoming? This is where belief, intention, imagination, and repeated action begin working together. The Running Man Human Stress Model teaches that many of our fastest reactions occur before deliberate reasoning has fully entered the moment. That is precisely why lasting change cannot depend exclusively upon deciding that we will "do better next time." We must practice something different. Repeated experience builds familiarity. Familiarity creates greater access under pressure. And deliberate practice can gradually transform a new response from something we intellectually understand into something we can actually embody. This connects directly with three stages of transformation: Knowledge → Insight → Embodiment Knowledge allows us to understand the pattern. Insight allows us to recognize the pattern within ourselves. Embodiment allows us to practice another response until it becomes increasingly familiar. Modern habit research likewise emphasizes that durable behavior change involves repeated behavior, environmental cues, reinforcement, and identity—not simply willpower. This means your past patterns are influential. But they do not have to become your permanent future. What you repeatedly witnessed may have shaped you. What you repeatedly heard may have influenced what you believed. What you repeatedly practiced may have become automatic. But awareness allows the pattern to become visible. Practice allows another pattern to become possible. And embodiment allows change to become increasingly natural. No magic. No instant transformation. Recognition. Awareness. Practice. Repetition. Embodiment. You can recognize the patterns that no longer serve you. You can challenge inherited assumptions. You can practice different behaviors. And you can participate consciously in the person you are becoming. See the pattern. Interrupt the pattern. Practice the alternative. Become. Take care and walk well. Hey folks, let me know what you think about the Running Man Podcast. Let me know where you're from and how you are doing in your little part of the world! Support the show intro outro music for episodes 1 through 111 done by Jonathan Dominguez Rogue musician. He can be found on youtube at Lazyman2303.  New musical intro and outro music created by Ed Fernandez guitarist extraordinaire.  To get in contact with Ed please send me an email at runningmangetskillsproject@gmail.com and I will forward him the contact.  Donations are not expected but most certainly appreciated. Any funds will go toward further development of the podcast for equipment as we we grow the podcast. Many thanks in advance.  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support

    Why You Keep Repeating the Same Patterns—and How to Break Them
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Understanding Stress, Anxiety, and Decision-Making: Unveiling Your Paleo-Caveperson Wiring Explore the fascinating interplay of stress, anxiety, and pain on our ability to think, choose, and act in modern life through the lens of our paleo-caveperson wiring and survival programming. Discover why we sometimes exhibit socially inappropriate behaviors under stress and find it challenging to make sound decisions in tense situations. Gain insights from psychology, neuropsychology, physiology, sociology, biology, and social dynamics, explained in everyday language without overwhelming scientific jargon. Tell me what you would like to hear on the podcast and your feedback is appreciated: runningmangetskillsproject@gmail.com Book Link for the Running Man Resiliency in the Face of Fight or Flight on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Running-Man-Resiliency-Fight-Flight/dp/B0H6YGJ4WJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BOI7ZY2912AF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PCsHx0Q_bb1rbtF4Vdy8-Q.KiSLfzdnqigm6wCU3kvtrKmnfGdICRvwM8WLVhfpx8Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=running+man+resiliency+in+the+face+of+fight+flight&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1783315890&sprefix=running+man+resil%2Caps%2C305&sr=8-1  rogue musician/creator located at lazyman 2303 on youtube.     Music intro and outro: Jonathan Dominguez  You can Support the running man self regulation skill project at:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2216464/support

Information

  • Creator
    Armando Dominguez PhD Health Psychology, Educator, Martial Artist, Researcher
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    167
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Running Man Self Regulation Skills Project
  • Show Website
    Running Man Self Regulation Skills Project