WEBVTT

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Hello everyone.

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As a graduate student
at Stanford University,

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and also now a psychologist
and research scientist,

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I've been continuously amazed
by the beauty of the campus,

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the sun that bathes the campus every day,

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and the amazing scholars that surround us.

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However, I've also been dismayed
by another fact:

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I often see that the students
are miserable, they're anxious;

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there's so much stress.

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My first year as a graduate student there,
there were three suicides on the campus.

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So in response to this,
my colleague, Carole Pertofsky,

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Head of Health Promotion, and I
started a Science of Happiness class

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with the hopes of increasing
well-being in some way.

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One day, one of the students
came up after class to Carole and said,

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"I have to drop out.

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This class goes against
everything I've ever learned."

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Carole asked, "What do you mean?"

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The student said, "My parents told me
I needed to be very successful.

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And when I asked them,
'How do I become very successful?'

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they said, 'You must work
very, very hard.'"

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When the student
went back to them and said,

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"How do I know
when I'm working hard enough?"

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her parents said, "When you're suffering."

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(Laughter)

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It can seem very shocking,

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and yet we've all bought into
this misconception to a certain degree.

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There's a misconception out there
that in order to be successful

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we have to sacrifice
or at least postpone our happiness.

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In particular, there's this idea

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that you cannot have success
without stress,

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and I think you'd probably agree with me
that that idea is out there.

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My field of research is the science

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of happiness, of well-being,
of fulfillment, and also of resilience.

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The more I dove into the literature,
the more I saw that we have it all wrong.

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While we certainly cannot control

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the amount of stress
that's coming our way,

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we can't control the pressure
that's coming our way,

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whether it's professional
or whether it's personal,

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we will all face life stressors.

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We all have, and we will
continue to do so.

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There's not much we can do about that.

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However, there's one thing we can control,
and that is the state of our mind.

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I've worked with arguably the most
stressed individuals in our society -

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veterans coming back from Iraq
and Afghanistan with trauma.

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These young men and women,
as you most probably have heard about,

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live in a constant state
of fight-or-flight.

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It's as if that stress response
hasn't been turned off.

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As a consequence, they cannot sleep.

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They have nightmares
if they actually do manage to get a wink.

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During the day they have flashbacks.

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They could be in their car
driving on the highway

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and have a flashback
of being back in combat.

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They have difficulties
in their relationships with other people,

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and they have a hard time
holding onto a job,

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let alone going to school.

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One thing that we're seeing
in the literature is

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that therapy and the pharmaceutical
interventions being offered to them

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in many cases do not work,

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and in many cases
are not acceptable to the veterans

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who don't like the side effects
or who don't like the treatments.

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So what we wanted to do
was do something completely new,

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and that's how we fit into
this TEDx theme of "What's New,"

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yet it's also very ancient.

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In fact, it's something you're doing
right now: breathing.

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Breathing is the only autonomic function
that you actually have a say over.

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It's harder to control
- for example, your heart rate -

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but your breathing
is something you can control

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at your own volition, if you like.

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When you inhale,
your heart rate increases,

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and when you exhale, it decreases.

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When you inhale, you feel energized,
and when you exhale, you relax.

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If you deepen your breath,
if you slow your breath,

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and in particular,
if you lengthen your exhales,

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your heart rate decreases,
your blood pressure decreases,

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and you're tapping into
your parasympathetic nervous system,

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the opposite of fight-or-flight:
the rest-and-digest nervous system,

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calming your whole system.

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Another really interesting fact
about the breath

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is how closely linked it is
with our emotions.

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You've probably noticed
on days you feel very anxious,

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your breath might be
very short and shallow;

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the same happens when you're very angry.

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If you look at someone who's very happy,

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like little kids running in the sprinkler,

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you can just see
how deeply they're breathing,

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you can practically see
their abdomen moving.

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Other examples are sobbing and laughing.

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Those are some very obvious ways

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in which our breath
is linked in to our emotions.

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A psychologist named Pierfilippo
ran a very interesting study.

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To look at this phenomenon,
he invited participants into the lab,

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and he asked them to evoke
certain emotions within themselves;

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emotions like happiness,
sadness, and so forth.

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He looked at how deeply they breathed,

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he looked at the length of their breath

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to determine whether there was
a certain pattern of breathing

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that corresponded to the emotion.

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Lo and behold, he found
that there was a very unique footprint

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to each one of the emotions
in terms of breathing pattern.

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The more interesting part of the study,
however, was the second part,

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in which he invited completely
different people into the lab,

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and he only gave them the instruction
to do the breathing

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that corresponded to the emotion.

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The breathing patterns he had noticed
in the first part of the study,

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he instructed the participants to do,

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and after that, he asked them,
"How do you feel?"

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You can probably imagine what he found.

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He found that they started
to feel the emotions

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that corresponded
to the breathing pattern.

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This is actually revolutionary.

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We've all had intense emotions,

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and we all know how very challenging it is
to talk ourselves out of those emotions.

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You can say, "Relax, relax,"
or "Don't be so mad; calm down."

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It's very challenging
when the emotion is intense.

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It's even worse when someone else
comes up to you

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and they think they're being helpful
by telling you to calm down.

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(Laughter)

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We invited veterans into the lab,

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and half of them participated
in a week-long breathing program

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called Sudarshan Kriya,
or SKY Meditation for short.

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This week-long program -
they came in a couple of hours a day,

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and they learned a series
of breathing techniques,

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and by the end of that week,

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their anxiety levels had dropped
to subclinical levels.

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They were able to sleep again.

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After the week was over we wanted to see,
"How long does this effect last?"

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so we, again, tested them a month later.

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We found that the benefits had lasted,
they were still sleeping.

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They were still feeling better.

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Again, we tested them one year later,

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and the benefits also had lasted,
suggesting permanent improvement.

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In fact, there's a documentary film
that was made about the study

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called "Free the Mind"

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where you can follow the lives
of two of the veterans,

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and the transformations
that happen in their lives.

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One of them said,
"Thank you for giving me my life back."

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He's now gone on to become an instructor
and is teaching other veterans.

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The fact that we can use the breath
to impact the state of our mind

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means we have a tool at all times,
no matter what we're facing;

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to calm ourselves down,
we just need to tap into it.

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Some of you may have stressful commutes.

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You may not like being in the car,

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it raises that anxiety
or sometimes anger for people.

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Jake was on probably
one of the most stressful commutes

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that you can ever imagine.

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He was the Marine Corps officer
in charge of the last vehicle

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on a convoy in Afghanistan.

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All the other cars
had passed safely ahead of him.

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Yet his vehicle, unfortunately,
drove over an IED -

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an Improvised Explosive Device.

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There was a very large bang.

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When the dust had settled,
he looked down,

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and he saw that his legs
were fractured below the knee.

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In that moment, he remembered
a breathing technique

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that he had learned in a book called
"On Combat" by Lieutenant Colonel Grossman

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for young officers.

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It shared a breathing technique

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whereby you breathe in
for a count of four,

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hold for a count of four,
out for a count of four,

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hold for a count of four,
like a square breath.

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In that moment, he remembered it,
and he started to breathe in this way.

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Thanks to that,
he had the presence of mind

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to check in on his men,
make sure they were all OK.

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He had the presence of mind
to give orders to call for help.

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He had the presence of mind

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to tourniquet his own legs,
to prop them up,

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and only then,
when he had done his duty,

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when he had taken care
of everything, he lay back,

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and that's when he passed out.

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Later, he found out that had he not had
that presence of mind,

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he would have fallen into a coma,
or he would have bled to death.

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Jake attended my wedding, he's a friend.

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He's wearing prosthetics,
and it hurts him a lot to stand.

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Yet, at my wedding I saw him dance.

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If Jake can have the presence of mind,
thanks to the breath,

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so can we.

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It's one of the greatest
secrets out there,

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and I really hope
you take it home with you,

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because I really think
it's an idea worth sharing.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)