WEBVTT - A neuroscientist on best habits to protect your dopamine 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:01.000 Welcome to healthy Ish. 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.720 Thanks for joining us on the podcast of From Body 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:07.400 and Soul. I hope your new year is buzzing along. 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.039 I'm the host of Felicity. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:09.360 Harley. 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:11.840 My guest today came all the way from the UK 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:17.120 and has a nifty acronym dose to help us all 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:22.079 distress our minds, energize our bodies and restore mental health. Yes, 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.800 please to all of the above. TJ Power is a 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.600 neuroscientist and author with a very impressive social following, and 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:47.160 he joins me to explain the dose effect. TJ Welcome 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.200 to healthy Ish, Thanks for having me, and welcome to Australia. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:51.639 I'm excited to be I. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.440 Feel like we could do a whole separate podcast on 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.120 the story of why you are in Australia, but we'll. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.080 Leave that for another time. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.520 Now, Happy New Year and give us one healthy is 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.000 resolution for this year, something that you want to. 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.120 Achieve me personally, say I'd recommend to other Well you 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.160 all right? Say the biggest impact I have on my mind. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:14.640 The biggest factor that has a big impact on my 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.720 mind is how frequently I open social media apps. I 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.720 obviously speak a lot about dopamine and I've tested a 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.360 few times throughout this year, the idea of only being 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.520 allowed on Instagram at ten o'clock in the morning, three pm, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.080 and then eight pm. And it is phenomenal how much 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.280 it changes my mental health when I stick to it. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:33.920 And I'll do it for a week or so, and 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:35.800 then I'll lose the pattern, and then I'll start going 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.720 on it more frequently. And twenty twenty five, that's the 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:40.679 year I'm going to make that like a really stable 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:41.600 part of my life. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.480 So just three times a day. Is there some neuroscience 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.280 behind the three times a day thing? 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.400 Or Yeah? Effectively, Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, whatever your 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.520 platform might be, is very overstimulating for the dopamine system. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.640 It raises it to a very unnatural level, causing it 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.040 to crash out. When it crashes out, we feel kind 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.080 of low mood and get really kind of depressed and demotivated. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.440 It's not a very nice feeling. If you reduce the 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.160 frequency of activation of that dovemin system from the quick 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.160 dove mein of social media, you're not going to burn 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:10.600 out the system as much. You're going to feel a 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.960 little bit more motivated and positive in your brain. And 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.200 that's where I want to be in twenty twenty five. 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.160 Don't we all? And how do you stick to it? 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.720 You just have to be focused on your boundaries and 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:23.600 quite militant about it. Really. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.520 Yeah, it's one of those things I like the idea 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.320 of like balance and not being too ridiculous about these things. However, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.520 with social media, for me, if I don't have a 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.720 really clear structure in place, it then just gets into 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.520 that loop where you're just opening it all the time. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.160 And because of how dopamin works, it drives our behavior. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.040 The more you open it, the more you then open 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.840 it more and more often. So for me, I use 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.160 an app so that when I click Instagram, it does 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.080 take about ten seconds for the app to open. It 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.720 like comes up with this annoying animation that's smart, which 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.239 I find really helpful because then it gives me ten 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.840 seconds to think about is it actually in my slot 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.600 where I can have my social media moment. And the 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.680 other part of it is just being really discipline. I've 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.480 actually found that saying to other people I'm going to 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:05.440 do it really helps. Then they're like, you said you 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:07.520 weren't going to go. Like if I say to my girlfriend, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:09.120 I'm doing ten three and eight or if I get 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:10.720 them trying to do it with me, then it can 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:11.560 help me stick to it. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.200 Well, good luck, hey, and I think you all just 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.400 made us feel seen. You know, you're an expert in 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.200 this area and you still struggle with it. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.200 It's so hard. This dove me stuff is so hard 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.040 for the modern brain. Like our brain has craved dove 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.920 mean for hundreds of thousands of years. Originally it could 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.360 only access it from things like hunting and building and 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.520 foraging for fruit. And now it can just get it 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:33.919 that get our finger tips at any moment, and it's 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:35.480 very difficult for our brain to manage. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.280 Let's talk more about domain in a minute, but first 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.400 just set us up with what the dose effect is 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:41.920 all about. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:42.880 What does it stand for? 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.080 Yeah, so dose is this acronym for these four primary 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.240 brain chemicals. We have dopamine, which is the super famous one. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.000 It creates all of our drive and motivation. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.520 So hot right now that this one isn't it? 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.640 It needs to be hot, Like, it's so relevant to 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.080 how humans are feeling. I actually think it's the main 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.800 main factor impacting the whole of society s mental health 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.720 is the disruption of dopamaine as a chemty. We then 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:05.800 have the O, which is oxytocin. That's the one that 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.120 connects humans together. We have serotonin, which is responsible for 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.880 our mood and our energy levels. And then endorphins, which 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.200 is a very useful chemical that can de stress our brain. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.320 And what are the benefits of activating dose into our life? 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:20.560 How can it help us? 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.640 For the majority of human history, these chemicals were extremely 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:26.360 high and it led to our brain being in a 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.880 much more positive, motivated, and connected state. And if you 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.000 look at, for example, hunter gatherer tribes that are still 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.599 operating today. And the reason I speak into that idea 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.680 is the whole of our research at Dose Lab is 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.880 focused on this thing called evolutionary mismatch, which is the 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.480 idea our brain spent three hundred thousand years running around 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.960 in a forest developing these chemicals. We didn't just develop 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:47.600 them in the last twenty years when we found out 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.120 about them. They've been our brain a long time. And 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.080 if you go and visit these hunt to gatherer tribes 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.279 and ask them or try and explain to them the 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.680 ideas of depression and demotivation and poor attention spans and 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.200 lack of connection, their brain ligy cannot comp this experience 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.960 taking place because they're still living. How our brain is 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.560 evolutionarily designed and we don't have to go back and 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.320 live like hunting gatherers. But there are certain actions when 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.080 you learn about the dose effects that you can add 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.640 to your life that lead to our brain feeling much happier. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.479 I mean, we're kind of stuffed. We've stuffed ourselves in 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:17.560 many ways, haven't we. 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.440 If you go back to, you know, thinking about how 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.640 we used to leave versus the world today and surviving 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:24.880 and thriving. 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:30.080 Let's talk about dopamine. Tell us more about this chemical. 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.400 Effectively evolved in our brain to make us enjoy the 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.480 experience of hard work. And if you take the example 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.520 of them having to hunt for hours and hours to 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.360 find food, like it would have been a hard thing 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.239 to do to successfully find that food, and this chemical 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:44.800 motivated us to do it and then gave us a 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.920 really pleasurable experience when we successfully access food, so that 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:49.320 we think that was fun, so we would do it 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.480 again and again and we would survive. As a specie 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.120 in the modern world, an example of earning your dove 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.839 mein effectively would be something like changing and washing your bedding, 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.159 which is a very niche example. But we all wake 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:03.560 up in the morning one day and we look at 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.360 our bed and the sheets are a bit crinkled and stuff, 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.440 and we think I'd probably washed my bedding today, and 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:09.040 then about a week later we're like, oh, yeah, actually, 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.000 definitely need to wash my bedding. Now. We go through 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.400 the hell of unbuttoning that douve do you guys call 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.000 it a duvet and don dona, So you un button 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:17.600 your doner. You go through the hell of jamming all 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.720 in the washing machine, washing it, getting it dry, putting 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:20.560 it all back on. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:22.800 Eventually, and it's a nightmare to get. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.200 You find yourself that evening, nine ten o'clock at night 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.159 getting into your freshly washed bed, and you have that 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.920 really enjoyable experience. You've never got into your freshly washed 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.240 bed and thought, I really regret the fact I to 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.279 wash my bedding today. It's this pleasurable experience. And doveman 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.719 just evolved as a chemical to reward us for effortful 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.440 actions that would help us as a human being. We 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.360 do still do things that are effort in our modern world, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.680 but we've now invented a lot of ways to hijack 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.280 that elevation of dove me through social media and sugar 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.719 and alcohol and so on, and these are then causing 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.440 that chemical to break down effectively and not operate as well. 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.920 You know what, you just validated that clean shape thing 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.080 because I have my joy list, as I call it, 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.000 crawling into clean sheets. It makes me feel amazing, like 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.680 a nice experience. And it's actually a joke in our 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.280 family because my sisters are the same. We all love 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:12.840 clean sheets and we want to stay in a hotel. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.280 We just kind of it can be rustic, but as 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.720 long as it has clean sheet. So talk to us 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.440 about the symptoms that lower dopamine or how do we 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.600 feel and how does low dopmine show up in our lives. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.440 Yeah, so if we were doing the effort for actions, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.680 you'd find that you're waking up in the morning, you're 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.240 super motivated and doing effortful things like making yourself a 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.680 nice breakfast, a healthy breakfast, going out for a walk, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.040 going to work. It doesn't feel that challenging. You just 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:41.960 kind of do it with these. If you're waking up 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.160 and you're pretty low in dove, mean, everything is going 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.000 to feel super hard. So the idea of even making 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:48.880 your bed or trying to stay off your phone, or 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.320 cooking food or doing xcess. It all feels like, oh, 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.680 you can't be bothered. It's so much effort. That's the 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:55.520 initial stage of low dose mean is like and I 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.840 can't be bothered type mind. If we get really really 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.000 low and dose mean, that's when we can feel quite depressed. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.760 Then we get into that state where doing anything feels horrible, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.280 even like showering or seeing people, whatever it might be. 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.520 So you're saying the main causes of low dopmine in 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.239 our society today are things like one, social media. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.000 Yeah, social media is definitely number one because of the 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.800 immense frequency of interaction with it. It's not necessarily like 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.000 it doesn't spike dopamine more than say alcohol, for example. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.440 But we're not all just like sipping alcohol all day 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:27.520 every day. We might be, but that's quite rare if 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.000 you're sipping alcohol all day every day. Whereas social media, 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:31.720 it's from the moment we wait, the moment we're sleep. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:33.840 A lot of us are opening these apps at fifty 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.880 to one hundred times a day. That over activation through 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.560 the social media is definitely the number one factor. And 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.200 then sugar and also alcohol big factors. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.040 And you also said you've got porn in there. I mean, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.320 you've got a quite bold I saw on your Instagram 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.040 where you admitted that you used to watch porn and 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.800 then definitely you switched it off. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.960 Porn was something like I grew up and I remember 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.640 googling like a few words when I was like a teenager. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.280 And thinking, like many other men out there, yeah. 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.320 I wonder what things like that look like without clothes on, 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.600 And then came to discover as a teenager, oh wow, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.600 you can watch that video versions of these things that 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.960 were in my imagination. And then for like ten years 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:10.680 that was just something I interacted with. I had no 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.960 idea it was necessarily bad for my brain. All my 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:14.960 friends around me were doing it. All my friends around 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:16.600 me still do it now. Like I don't know anyone 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.000 as a man that doesn't watch it. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:19.599 To be honest, I've got a twelve year old and 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:20.360 that horrifies me. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.200 Yeah. I sorry to say, he may have seen the 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.640 which is sad, or he may in time. I think 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.400 in the UK at the moment, the average age that 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:30.800 a boy has seen its nine years. 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:31.120 Yeah. 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:32.960 It's in Australia, which is wild. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.160 So it is something that you kind of when you're 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:37.400 growing up as a boy, you don't think, oh, it's 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:39.520 that bad for you. But when I came to really 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.120 study neuroscience and when deep ins this research, I realized 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.320 that this is really overactivating the system. And you experience it, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.120 particularly as a man like you watch it, it's very pleasurable. 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.920 During afterwards, you very rapidly feel pretty deflated and almost 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:53.840 like a bit of like a shameful guilt feeling just 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.760 like comes over you. And it is something that over 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:58.400 the last few years I really tried to cut out 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.280 of my life and it has been phenomen or how 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:01.600 big of an impact I actually had. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:03.880 Yeah, and good on you for speaking out about that. 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:05.800 Thanks. I think it's one of those things that's having 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.240 such a huge impact that it has to be talked about. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.120 Like I didn't grow up thinking, oh, I really want 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:11.800 to be that guy that goes and talks about poor 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.200 and that wasn't really in the game plan, but it 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:15.160 feels like it just has to be. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:16.200 Yeah, no, good on you. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.160 So talk us through some actions, as you call them, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.360 things that we can implement in our lives regularly that 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.840 will help. Now when it comes to open what do 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:27.520 we want to do? What's the approach. Do we want 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.120 to regulate it? Do we want to rise it and fall? 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:31.320 Like? 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.640 How do we what's the ideal that we're aiming for. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.040 You want to have in your mind the idea of 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.440 earning it. Basically, you want to earn pleasure. That example 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.480 of changing and washing your bed, and you're earning pleasure. 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.599 None of it is enjoyable until the moment. 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.920 You get I might do that every day now, Yeah, just. 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.920 Rapidly changing and watching your bed, even if you take 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.240 something like an easier example waking up and then making 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.520 your bed really nicely and make sure it is all nice. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.439 And if you don't have lots of nice pillows and stuff, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.440 like making your bed a nicer thing to make so 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:00.400 you have a bit of effort. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:01.680 I love that example. 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.079 That is a good example. The big thing, first of all, though, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.920 for doping is this idea of phone fasting. Fasting from 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.920 food is obviously like a massive phenomena now, and our phone, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.160 we really need to develop the relationship with it whereby 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.720 we find it okay to be separate from it. I 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.640 think if society could become comfortable with separating from our phone, 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.960 it's like it would be a massive beneficial thing for 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.800 mental health. And when we wake up first thing in 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.199 the morning, avoiding the phone is like the number one 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:27.959 thing if I could change one thing about the world, 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:29.520 if I could put like a law in place that 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:31.920 everyone had to follow to try and improve mental health, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:34.840 it would be wake up in the morning, not snooze 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:36.600 your alarm, as tempting as it is, but that really 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.080 depletes the dopamine. And then you get out of bed, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.000 You go and brush your teeth, you flash cold water 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:42.920 on your face, you make your bed, and maybe you 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.320 step outside for a few minutes, not even for very long, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.720 just so your brain's seen some sunlight, and then go 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.760 into the phone. That's so different for your dopamine pathway. 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.400 What is there any timeframe that you should be off 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:54.880 your phone of a morning. 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.319 I would say a minimum goal will be fifteen minutes. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.680 That would be incredible. If you could wake up that's not. 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.240 Very minutes before I was thinking going to stay an hour. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.560 That would be a good thing to work towards over time, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.680 Like if it was within your eMate to be able 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.880 to wake up, do a little bit of that morning stuff, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:11.280 brushing your teeth and so on, and then go for 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.280 a walk and have the whole walk before you come 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:15.720 back on your phone. That would be incredible for your brain. 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.439 The beneficial effects of also having the nature and the 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.920 movement and the sunlight would be phenomenal. But if you 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.200 started with fifteen minutes and then kind of built from there, 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:23.839 that would be the goal. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:25.640 What do you do in the mornings? How does a 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.080 neuroscientist approach the mornings? 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.800 I do take my mornings like pretty seriously. To be honest, 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.120 I think how your morning begins has a humongous impact 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:35.480 on how the rest of the day is going to go. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.199 And it's really clear in the neuroscience that wherever that 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.080 first source of dope mean is from, it really our 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.240 brain really craves in that direction for the rest of 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:45.920 the day. So if effort is what it gets doping from, 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.559 it's going to pursue effort. If easy, quick pleasure is 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.880 what it gets its doping from, you're heading in that direction. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.920 So this morning, for example, like I had this today, 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.920 I wanted to feel good today. I woke up, I 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:58.679 really want to snooze alarms when I wake up, so 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.800 I kind of forced myself when along goes off to 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:02.480 just sit on the side of the bed. My girlfriend 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.040 finds it kind of weird. I kind of sit there 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:05.720 with my head in my hand, just so I don't 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.719 go back to sleep. I go to the bathroom and 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.400 brush my teeth, cold water on my face, and then 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.599 go downstairs. I step outside for like two minutes, and 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.679 then when we have enough time, Like we had enough 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:16.320 time this morning, so we woke up a bit earlier. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:18.400 We went out for a walk for maybe like an 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.160 hour or something. We did actually quite a good walk. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.040 We actually saw a brown stake as well. 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:25.360 An englishman. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:26.520 It was very small. 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.680 I was imagining this massive show. 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.599 She told me even brownsnakes that small can kill you. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.840 So I was there stressing good. But I thought, well, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.679 this is coming out hunter gathering, so this is actually 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.320 good to have this experience. We went for a walk, 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.200 came home with then did a little bit of breath work. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.240 I think breath work is really cool. It's very good. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.720 I'm someone that struggles with a lot of like overthinking. 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.440 My brain is very rapid and worries about various things, 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.920 and I find that deep breathing stuff you can do 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.640 is really effective for calming the brain. Then I got ready, 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:57.000 went on my computer for the first time. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.600 Do you do any specific breathing techniques. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.480 Yeah, I think there's We have this particular YouTube channel 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.360 we love following called Breathe as Sandy. That's a nice 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.480 shower to Sandy. But it's so good and it's so 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.880 easy to follow, and obviously it's all free, and we 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.880 go on there and it's just basically deep inhalations through 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.200 your nose, big exhalations. You do that for about sixty seconds, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.880 and then we hold our breath for ninety seconds and 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.000 we just kind of cycle around that. And as I say, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.280 like my mind is just like quite stressed out, like 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.680 I just slightly orient towards of mine that's quite like 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.120 rigid like that, and it gives me this huge release. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.480 And for me are someone that was super hooked on 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:34.960 a lot of the quick dove mein that's kind of 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.840 what led me into this world. And the big deep 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.040 breathwork stuff is the thing that I found closest to 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:41.800 the high that the quick dopemin used to give. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:43.520 Mm Oh, I love breathwork. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.920 Talk to us a bit about flow state because I 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.600 know you study this, you need to write fasis on it. Yeah. 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.400 One of my thesis on this on the interaction between mindfulness. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:54.320 And flows regulate dopamine. 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.240 Flow state is like really at the core of exactly 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.360 what dove mean is all about. For our four hunter 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.880 gather ourselves, they spent a huge amount of time in 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.120 deep states of focus. Like if you were hunting, you 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.120 were in the zone for hours. If you were foraging 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.240 for fruit, if you were building shelter, if you were 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.200 making a fire. It was always activities that had us deeply, 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.040 deeply focused. And now it's a lot like kind of 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.800 sitting at our desk working, what's happening, emailing, It's like 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:19.520 so many eating at the same time. It's like so 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.520 many activities at once. And it's really clear that when 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.200 our brain enters these prolonged deep states of focus, it 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.360 builds an absolute ton of dopamine, and evolutionarily that makes 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.320 sense because the more it builds, the more motivated and 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.240 focus you'd become. And in our modern world, what's actually 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.120 happening is a lot of us have things that might 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:37.840 be able to get us into flow state. This could 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.160 be cooking, it could be making music, it could be 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.720 in your work life, it could be something artistic or creative. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.640 And what we've basically found in our research is rather 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.120 than people actually engaging with their flow state a lot 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.480 of the time. Now we're actually watching people on social 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.920 media engage with our flow state instead. And if you 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.200 look at your social media feed, you'll notice there's like 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.880 a pattern or a theme of videos that come up 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.000 quite regularly. It might be cooking. Cooking is often one 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:01.680 that people like to. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:03.160 Watch one skiing snow skiing. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.800 At the moment, yes, like those people are dancing dancing, 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.119 and they're beautiful flow states, and we're kind of vicarious 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.920 the experiencing flow state, but not getting the dove mean benefits. 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.880 We're not actually physically interacting with the activity. And if 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.560 you want to access flow state, if you look at 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.120 your social media feed and have a thing that what 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.520 is really coming up quite often, and then ask yourself 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.680 the question am I actually engaging in this activity? Like 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.560 people love watching cleaning videos for example, cleaning is unreal 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:30.400 for our dopemin and rather than just like getting a 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.960 bit of satisfaction as to watching someone else clean, if 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:34.960 you can clean, then you're actually building it naturally. 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.240 Will be back after the shot break with more from TJ. Power. 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:42.480 One thing I do love about your book, and you've 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.920 explained on this podcast, is just you know, comparing ourselves 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.440