Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what is it true that we
Speaker 1: really only use a small portion of our brain? Is
Speaker 1: that a myth?
Speaker 2: No? I think it's mostly a myth. I think the
Speaker 2: way to think about it is that if your brain
Speaker 2: were the United States is a country. You need all
Speaker 2: those roads, you know, to get from one place to
Speaker 2: the other. So you and a lot of the places
Speaker 2: of your brain are roads. You're not actually in cities
Speaker 2: at that time. You're just traveling one place to another,
Speaker 2: and you need those roads. We use ten percent of
Speaker 2: our brain ninety percent of the time. It's probably how
Speaker 2: you live in your house. You may spend most of
Speaker 2: your time in your living room or your kitchen. Probably
Speaker 2: if you're like our house, that's where you know. We're
Speaker 2: always aggregated in the kitchen. That's kind of how we
Speaker 2: use our brains. You have other rooms that maybe you
Speaker 2: don't spend nearly as much time and every now and then,
Speaker 2: but not that much. So we use our whole brains,
Speaker 2: but a very small percentage.
Speaker 1: Most of the time. My guest today is one of
Speaker 1: the smartest people I know, doctor Sanjay Gupta. He's a neurosurgeon,
Speaker 1: an Emmy Award winning journalist, an author, and a husband
Speaker 1: and father. He's been a medical correspondent for CNN since
Speaker 1: two thousand and one and has spent two decades providing
Speaker 1: us all with thoughtful, approachable insight into the biggest stories
Speaker 1: in medicine. Like many of you, I turned to him
Speaker 1: during the COVID nineteen pandemic and was always impressed by
Speaker 1: his calm, demeanor and unparalleled intellect. Since twenty twenty, he's
Speaker 1: hosted the podcast Chasing Life, where he digs deep into aging, mindfulness,
Speaker 1: and everything you don't know about the human brain. I
Speaker 1: loved chatting with him and left our conversation feeling smarter
Speaker 1: and more empowered. So here is doctor Sanjay Kutta. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Oh it's my pleasure, Broke. I've really been looking forward
Speaker 2: to this. Do you remember that we've actually met once before?
Speaker 1: It is you too? Concert you remember? Oh? Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course I do. You're not very forgettable. You know that
Speaker 1: it's a great conversation. I remember I was standing up
Speaker 1: really high chatting with you, and that was a highlight
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: Oh well, my highlight. I still talk about it all
Speaker 2: the time. And I'm a big fan of yours book
Speaker 2: in many different facets of your life. So just wanted
Speaker 2: to tell you that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And you have you have three daughters.
Speaker 2: Right, I have three daughters, three teenage daughters.
Speaker 1: When are you going to be an empty nester? Because
Speaker 1: I'm that's looming for me.
Speaker 2: So my youngest is fourteen, so we have fourteen, sixteen,
Speaker 2: and eighteen. She's a ninth grader, so I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: four years we just sent one off to college.
Speaker 1: How did your wife do with that?
Speaker 2: You know, I think in some ways she did. She
Speaker 2: did better than I did. I think in part because
Speaker 2: she's so process oriented.
Speaker 1: She's a lawyer, right, she's.
Speaker 2: A lawyer, yes, And I think just just the mom
Speaker 2: part of her, you know, with all the process of
Speaker 2: moving into the dorms and you know, making sure everything's
Speaker 2: all settled. There were just so much process and I
Speaker 2: got to sit back, I think a little bit more
Speaker 2: because I'm very lucky that I have. You know, Rebecca
Speaker 2: just takes on so much. But I think as a
Speaker 2: result that was very emotional for me. I kept reflecting
Speaker 2: on her as a young kid, and you know, just
Speaker 2: you know, saying that thing that I always hated hearing
Speaker 2: when I was a new dad that the years fly by.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear that.
Speaker 1: The days are long, the years are short. That's what
Speaker 1: I was told exactly, but you know it is true.
Speaker 1: Like I got. I was I was dealing with the
Speaker 1: room and the linens and the bedding and setting up
Speaker 1: the desk and setting up so I was able to
Speaker 1: sort of stay busy. But then when I saw her
Speaker 1: in the ugh, you get choked up in the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror. I my husband said to me, He's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I have one question for you. He said, when when
Speaker 1: you are crying, would you rather cry in an airplane?
Speaker 1: You know, like a flight or would you rather drive
Speaker 1: and cry in the car? And I said, I can't
Speaker 1: be around people. I was like, I need to cry
Speaker 1: a car for eight out.
Speaker 2: You guys drove back.
Speaker 1: We drove back. Yeah, you does. Does your one daughter
Speaker 1: who's in college have any idea what she wants to study?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she does. So she's at UT Austin and there's
Speaker 2: a school there that's called the Moody School. So the
Speaker 2: college is made up of a bunch of different schools,
Speaker 2: different you know, things that they cover and specialize in,
Speaker 2: and the Moody School is sort of marketing and advertising,
Speaker 2: and that's that's what I think she's really interested in.
Speaker 2: You know, she's eighteen.
Speaker 1: How are you supposed to know?
Speaker 2: You don't? You know that you don't.
Speaker 1: Well, you can talk to the brain. You can talk
Speaker 1: about what the brain can and cannot understand at that age.
Speaker 2: I remember a long time ago I read this book
Speaker 2: by Eric Erickson and he talked about the fact that
Speaker 2: most adults probably shouldn't make major life decisions until early thirties.
Speaker 2: And he was talking about profession and marriage and just
Speaker 2: big life decisions and part of it, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't He didn't say this in the book. But part
Speaker 2: of it is that, you know, our brains, to you
Speaker 2: to your question, don't don't really fully develop until mid
Speaker 2: to late twenties, and so we're asking kids to make
Speaker 2: these huge decisions about their lives at a very young age,
Speaker 2: and it's it's it's wild, you know, and you know
Speaker 2: they're going to change their minds, and that's good. It's
Speaker 2: part of the reason we wanted her at a big school,
Speaker 2: just to have, you know, lots of things to see
Speaker 2: and options to choose from. I mean not I know
Speaker 2: this is your podcast, but I mean you raise such
Speaker 2: an interesting point. I mean, did now at this point
Speaker 2: in life do you reflect and say you would have
Speaker 2: chosen something different.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine doing anything different. But it took me
Speaker 1: a while to find what I love within this industry,
Speaker 1: and that's comedy. And I think I knew that in
Speaker 1: one way or another from the time. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have a picture of myself at two and I am
Speaker 1: trying to make my daddy laugh. And I could always
Speaker 1: do that. I could do it from the time I
Speaker 1: was a little kid, and I would I just for
Speaker 1: some reason, there was something intuitively clownish about me. Part
Speaker 1: of it was a defense mechanism. Part of it was,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, a million different things, but that wasn't the
Speaker 1: way my career went. Yeah, but I do. But I
Speaker 1: find that I can't imagine not being a performer in
Speaker 1: one capacity. And then I read that you were very
Speaker 1: musical when you were in school. Were you like a
Speaker 1: theater kid as well?
Speaker 2: Me? Oh, yeah, no, I interestingly enough, I played the
Speaker 2: accordion I took.
Speaker 1: That's perfect, sounds great, It's no. I know.
Speaker 2: It's a source of comedy for sure, But.
Speaker 1: You have to be so agile. You have to use
Speaker 1: both sides of your brain, right.
Speaker 2: You have to use both sides of your brain. You
Speaker 2: have to use both your hands in a blinded way.
Speaker 2: You can't really see your fingers at all, you know,
Speaker 2: especially on the left hand, unless you really lean over
Speaker 2: the instrument. But I'll tell you the funny thing is
Speaker 2: is my parents, both immigrants, big Bollywood fans. They if
Speaker 2: you listen to Bollywood music, there's a lot of accordion playing,
Speaker 2: especially in older Bollywood songs. So when they came to
Speaker 2: the States, you know, and they had their first son,
Speaker 2: they were like, he will play the accordion? Yes, And
Speaker 2: there is no Bollywood accordion playing there. So I was
Speaker 2: mainly playing pokas and stuff like that for ten years,
Speaker 2: and it was just it was a very discordant scene
Speaker 2: because a little Indian kid from rural Michigan playing the
Speaker 2: accordion with mostly like these Polish festivals and things like that.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a Bollywood movie. Tell But so you
Speaker 1: were from Michigan and what were you like as a kid.
Speaker 2: You know, pretty pretty bookish kid. You know, I have
Speaker 2: one brother, he's ten years younger than me, so, you know,
Speaker 2: the up until whatever fifth grade or so, I was
Speaker 2: sort of an only child sixth grade and and really
Speaker 2: small town in Michigan, pretty pretty rural.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: My parents both worked for the auto industry, and so
Speaker 2: that's that was the Michigan connection.
Speaker 1: How did that? How does that work? They come their
Speaker 1: immigrants from India? Your mom from Yes? Was she Pakistan
Speaker 1: or so?
Speaker 2: My mom was a what's called the partition child. She
Speaker 2: was born in the subcontinent of India before it was
Speaker 2: subdivided into India and Pakistan. And then during the partition,
Speaker 2: which was in nineteen forty seven, she was five years
Speaker 2: old and she fled, you know, with her family to
Speaker 2: what is now India, and for the first twelve years
Speaker 2: of her life lived as a refugee in these camps
Speaker 2: outside of really outside of Mumbai. And I tell you
Speaker 2: all that because you know, during that time as a refugee,
Speaker 2: she became really fascinated with with engineering and the idea
Speaker 2: that she could one day be an engineer. Even you know,
Speaker 2: imagine being in a refugee camp in India and saying
Speaker 2: I want to be an engineer, mostly being told there
Speaker 2: are no women engineers.
Speaker 1: But she was the first ever engineer at female engineer.
Speaker 2: She was the first female engineer Ford.
Speaker 1: And that's groundbreaking and what an example and how amazing
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: It's totally amazing. And we grew up with it, you know,
Speaker 2: and and and it's certainly part of our family's story.
Speaker 2: It never stops being amazing, like when we think about it,
Speaker 2: you know, and even in today's world, the idea of
Speaker 2: just overcoming those sorts of challenges and becoming the first
Speaker 2: at something it was hard back then. You know, it's
Speaker 2: still hard now to do that. I will tell you, Brooke,
Speaker 2: it is interesting growing up with a mom like that,
Speaker 2: because there's no I can't do something right, you don't
Speaker 2: get to say that you can't do that, Like I
Speaker 2: was a refugee in a camp in India and I
Speaker 2: traveled by boat and you know, all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: And so she's a really she's a really remarkableman, great grandmother.
Speaker 2: Now she has five granddaughters. My brother has two daughters.
Speaker 2: We have three. And it's just it's it's remains amazing.
Speaker 1: And fund that was that a source of pressure or
Speaker 1: encouragement for you? That's a kid.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I I it was, it was
Speaker 2: a It was a healthy pressure. I would say it
Speaker 2: was definitely definitely a I mean, I think that if
Speaker 2: your parents have sacrificed that much to live in this country,
Speaker 2: to try and make the best that they can have things,
Speaker 2: you feel a certain sense of obligation I think as
Speaker 2: an immigrant's immigrant family's child to live up to that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't overt That's why I say it's healthy. It wasn't. Hey,
Speaker 2: we sacrifice so much, therefore you have to do X
Speaker 2: y Z. But you felt it.
Speaker 1: But it's so interesting because I do feel like our
Speaker 1: family's experiences really do they shape us? How can they not?
Speaker 1: But your mom also she had I mean, she experienced
Speaker 1: trauma as as well, right, I mean just the trauma
Speaker 1: of did she did she have siblings?
Speaker 2: Yep? She has, she has three seven links. She had
Speaker 2: other siblings that were older than her that didnt that
Speaker 2: did not survive. So she yeah, there's Look, there's there's trauma,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's funny. One thing, Brooke and this,
Speaker 2: this still surprises me about my mom is that she
Speaker 2: would rather not talk about that stuff and and and
Speaker 2: that's not that surprising. But what is surprising, I think
Speaker 2: is it almost a sense of embarrassment about it. Like
Speaker 2: it's almost like, you know, I don't want to show
Speaker 2: you my dirty house or invite you over my my
Speaker 2: you know, dirty laundry. It's just it's like the person
Speaker 2: who falls down the stairs and pops right back up.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm fine, nothing, I'm good, I'm It's kind of
Speaker 2: like that, but extended to her her life in a way.
Speaker 2: And it's something I don't think I realized until I
Speaker 2: was much older myself about her and and could think
Speaker 2: about things more I think from her point of view,
Speaker 2: Like I asked her about some of these things, and
Speaker 2: she'll say to me, is this something that you're gonna
Speaker 2: tell the girls? Meaning my daughters, and I say, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think that they should, and she's like,
Speaker 2: I don't. I just don't think you should tell them
Speaker 2: this stuff. And and so it's not that there is
Speaker 2: a some for some people, there's a badge.
Speaker 1: Of cultural Is it cultural or is it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's cultural? I mean I do know other partition
Speaker 2: folks from around her age group that talk about it
Speaker 2: quite openly. But I think I think it's more personal.
Speaker 2: Like my mom had cancer several years ago and she
Speaker 2: didn't want people to know that either. I think there
Speaker 2: is this. I think if you've lived the life of
Speaker 2: a refugee where so much of your life ends up
Speaker 2: having to be transactional, I mean that's how you survive
Speaker 2: in a refugee camp, then you you don't you're you're
Speaker 2: you're a little reluctant to show those vulnerabilities about yourself.
Speaker 1: I call this podcast now What because it's about pivotal
Speaker 1: moments in our lives. Yeah, you know, it's about those
Speaker 1: moments where you ask yourself, oh my god, now what
Speaker 1: do I do? And I'm faced with this and they're
Speaker 1: pivotal moments. And I'm fascinated by why some people stay
Speaker 1: laying down, lying down, I did go to college or promise,
Speaker 1: and others bounce right back up. And is there an
Speaker 1: element in the brain that you've seen that's consistent as
Speaker 1: to why people become allow themselves to see themselves as
Speaker 1: victims versus see themselves as survivors or warriors.
Speaker 2: I absolutely think there is, you know, and this is
Speaker 2: something that I've thought a lot about. I mean, I
Speaker 2: would maybe widen the aperture a little bit, and to
Speaker 2: say that, I think there are some people who, when
Speaker 2: confronted with the daily events of our world and just
Speaker 2: all the stuff that's going on, there are some people
Speaker 2: who are just crushed by that, seemingly paralyzed by that,
Speaker 2: whether or not they see themselves as the victim, it's
Speaker 2: over whelming. And there are other people who are almost
Speaker 2: strengthened by it, like you would if you were to
Speaker 2: think about it metaphorically, like going to the gym and
Speaker 2: getting a good workout, and yes, it was hard to
Speaker 2: push the weight or whatever you were doing, but now
Speaker 2: you're stronger as a result, if you were to think
Speaker 2: of the brain that way. And I think the core ingredient,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people have written about this, is
Speaker 2: this idea of resilience of the brain, and to expand
Speaker 2: on that to say, the redundancy in the brain. Do
Speaker 2: you have more redundancy to be able to handle these things?
Speaker 2: And I think that makes a big difference. And it's
Speaker 2: not that you necessarily need to keep going through trauma
Speaker 2: and build up some tolerance to the trauma. It is
Speaker 2: if your brain is a brain that is doing lots
Speaker 2: of different things, you tend to build more brain cells
Speaker 2: and have more redundancy and thus more resilience. And when
Speaker 2: you're confronted with something, you're not crushed by it. You
Speaker 2: may even be strengthened by it.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to become a brain searching.
Speaker 2: You know it? Nobody in my family is a doctor
Speaker 2: or a brain surgion. Most of my colleagues that was
Speaker 2: sort of their their trajectory. They had, you know, people
Speaker 2: in their parents or somebody. But for me, my mom's
Speaker 2: dad got sick when I was around thirteen years old,
Speaker 2: had had a stroke, and we're very close and I
Speaker 2: would spend a lot of time with them on the
Speaker 2: hospital at that point, and I think it was the
Speaker 2: first time I sort of realized that, like going into
Speaker 2: medicine could be a good profession. My parents are both engineers,
Speaker 2: and so the expectation my dad's a mathematician, was the
Speaker 2: expectation was that I'd go into engineering or some math
Speaker 2: or something like that. Going into medicine, to be honest,
Speaker 2: was pretty expensive, you know, to make that commitment to
Speaker 2: go to medical school and everything. So but I think
Speaker 2: around that age I sort of thought about it for
Speaker 2: the first time, and with my grandfather and the stroke,
Speaker 2: I became very interested in the brain. You know. He
Speaker 2: had this really interesting thing that happened to him during
Speaker 2: his stroke, which is that he could he could write fine,
Speaker 2: he could speak fine, but he could not understand. In fact,
Speaker 2: he could write something and not read what he just wrote.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, like, even as a pretty you know,
Speaker 2: a teenager at that point, that that's wild that the
Speaker 2: brain does that. And I think it was it sort
Speaker 2: of ignited a little bit of something in terms of
Speaker 2: just trying to read a lot about the brain and
Speaker 2: becoming increasingly interested in it. I didn't think neurosurgery was
Speaker 2: going to be the path initially, you know, because it
Speaker 2: seemed too intense, to be honest with you, seven years
Speaker 2: of training after medical school. But as I got closer
Speaker 2: and closer. I thought to myself, you know what, I
Speaker 2: think I could do this.
Speaker 1: And I guess a stroke. My mother had a stroke
Speaker 1: as well, or she'd like sort of a series of
Speaker 1: mini strokes, and she started not being able to really
Speaker 1: her verbal communication changed, but she started singing, oh interesting
Speaker 1: in this like kind of beautiful, almost like a falsetto.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, of course it was creepy
Speaker 1: to me because she would call me and sing and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, you're creeping me out, mom, But that
Speaker 1: was it was such an interesting shift in her that
Speaker 1: I find. You know, that was sort of when you
Speaker 1: talked about your grandfather. What do you think that the
Speaker 1: most I mean, what have you discovered as the most
Speaker 1: interesting aspect or striking thing about operating on a brain?
Speaker 1: Actual brain, like you're holding it.
Speaker 2: It's wild, it's the it's the brain is the most
Speaker 2: enigmatic three and a half pounds of flesh in the
Speaker 2: known universe. And I think about it every time I
Speaker 2: operate on it, because you know, going back to sort
Speaker 2: of this idea of being process oriented, when you're operating,
Speaker 2: you have a you have a thing that you're trying
Speaker 2: to do, you know, remove a brain tumor or put
Speaker 2: a clip around an aneurysm or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: But when you sit back and just look at the
Speaker 2: brain sometimes I think, you know, one of the things
Speaker 2: that still strikes me about the brain is that it's
Speaker 2: it's so delicate, like I I, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, we're used to like the very
Speaker 2: important things in our life. We're gonna like really make
Speaker 2: tough and protect it. So like when you actually touch
Speaker 2: the brain, it feels like like a piece of shrimp cocktail.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's so soft and and.
Speaker 1: I may never eat shrimp cocktail again.
Speaker 2: Sorry, thank you for that allish allergies out there, surgents,
Speaker 2: But you know, it's just you think it would put
Speaker 2: up more of a fight in some ways to protect itself.
Speaker 2: But it's it's it's still I I love doing it
Speaker 2: performing brain surgery. I think there's a real you know,
Speaker 2: you go to school for a long time, but there's
Speaker 2: also sort of a real physical component to it. You know.
Speaker 2: I have one a daughter who's a dancer, and she's
Speaker 2: just so focused on her dancing moves, and she's so
Speaker 2: good at that sort of stuff. I had. I'm I'm
Speaker 2: not naturally, so so you know, I had, I had
Speaker 2: to practice a lot with my hands, but I love
Speaker 2: that physical aspect of it as well, and not still
Speaker 2: is a source of great joy for me after all
Speaker 2: these years.
Speaker 1: How do you develop the instincts that you need to
Speaker 1: make those very difficult decisions that.
Speaker 2: Can be one of the most challenging parts of things
Speaker 2: you write, Brooke, I mean, I think in some cases,
Speaker 2: to operate or not operates very clear. You know, someone
Speaker 2: has had a recent trauma and now needs to decompress
Speaker 2: their brain, or a type of tumor that can be
Speaker 2: resected that could you know, dramatically prolong their life. All
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff is very clear, But sometimes it's
Speaker 2: not as clear. You're not sure that someone's going to
Speaker 2: have a good outcome. And you know, having those conversations
Speaker 2: with your patients in a very honest and hopeful way,
Speaker 2: you can balance hope and honesty. You know a lot
Speaker 2: of times, you know, the idea of hope is is
Speaker 2: I think, given short shrift. But people who have hope,
Speaker 2: they tend to do better, you know, they tend to
Speaker 2: have better outcomes. But finding that balance, and I will
Speaker 2: tell you that, you know, I train residents and medical students.
Speaker 2: They're younger than I am. I have three teenagers, I
Speaker 2: have parents who are in their eighties. Now I think
Speaker 2: I have a different worldview. I truly imagine, like, my
Speaker 2: mom's a very healthy eighty year old. A lot of
Speaker 2: times you hear, oh, person's coming to the hospital eighty
Speaker 2: years old with such and such, and you think, oh,
Speaker 2: eighty years old, that's old. Well, if that were my mom,
Speaker 2: she's driving, she's totally independent, she has a really play
Speaker 2: shuffle board, has a really joyful life. Like I would
Speaker 2: totally operate on that, Whereas the instinct might be, you know,
Speaker 2: is there should there be an age cutoff? I'm just
Speaker 2: using that as an example. Yeah, But I think as
Speaker 2: you get older, as I've been doing this a long
Speaker 2: time now, that judgment that you're asking about, I think
Speaker 2: ends up becoming probably the most important thing because the
Speaker 2: surgical skills, you know, I did seven years of training,
Speaker 2: I did a year of fellowship. I've been doing this
Speaker 2: for the last twenty years. All the time, you know
Speaker 2: that part is less of a concern than it is
Speaker 2: just the judgment.
Speaker 1: Do you have any now what moments yourself in or
Speaker 1: an era or times where you've just really said, Wow,
Speaker 1: what am I positive or negative? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think I've had a lot, you know, I think
Speaker 2: on a professional level, I think this idea of straddling
Speaker 2: two worlds of medicine, which is still my first and
Speaker 2: truest love professionally and then the media world and saying
Speaker 2: is this something that I could could add to that
Speaker 2: or do as well? I think was a really significant
Speaker 2: moment I came to that sort of mid life or
Speaker 2: mid career I should say. You know, I was in
Speaker 2: my early thirties at that point, and so to add
Speaker 2: something that I had never done before to your life
Speaker 2: and also have it be something that is that is
Speaker 2: very public, like you know, you know, I was in
Speaker 2: again an Indian kid living in rural Michigan who you know,
Speaker 2: really did not have ever had those kinds of experiences
Speaker 2: or interactions with people. To do television, that was a
Speaker 2: that was an interesting pivot. And when I started, I
Speaker 2: thought I was going to be mainly talking about health
Speaker 2: policy because I had written a lot about health policy.
Speaker 2: And I started in August of two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: brook and three and a half weeks later, nine to
Speaker 2: eleven happened, And so they just hired a guy to
Speaker 2: mainly a doc to do health policy commentary, probably mostly
Speaker 2: on the Sunday shows. And now they said, hey, we're
Speaker 2: probably not going to be talking about that for a while,
Speaker 2: considering what's happening in the world. But now you're a
Speaker 2: doc working at an international news network in the middle
Speaker 2: of this. And then and then all the things, you know,
Speaker 2: I covered the war in Afghanistan, covered the Warner Rock,
Speaker 2: you know, anthrax, covered just about every major conflict that
Speaker 2: has happened over the last twenty one years, and natural
Speaker 2: disasters and pandemics, and that was never sort of the
Speaker 2: original plan. So I think that now what moment when
Speaker 2: they first said this, you know, you know, also I
Speaker 2: had this new practice in eurosurgery. You know that I
Speaker 2: was and can you do this? And I had and
Speaker 2: I and I was, you know, had young children, so
Speaker 2: you know, all of that was sort of happening at
Speaker 2: the same time. But I think professionally that was it.
Speaker 2: And then personally, I mean, you know better than anyone,
Speaker 2: I mean, having kids is I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people who are nursing never have families. You know, you
Speaker 2: spend most of your life during your formative years training,
Speaker 2: you know, and back then it was one hundred hours
Speaker 2: a week, so you know, trying to put another person
Speaker 2: or people through that with you is a big ask.
Speaker 2: So that was that was a you know, like, wow,
Speaker 2: I have children now that that was sort of an
Speaker 2: amazing I for a good chunk of my life did
Speaker 2: not think that was going to happen, and here we.
Speaker 1: Are, and then you get three girls girls. Yeah, oh
Speaker 1: my god, yes the track.
Speaker 2: Whenever I say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are honestly the most. They bring me to
Speaker 1: my knees more more often than not. And then they
Speaker 1: surprise me with their capacity for love and caring and
Speaker 1: and all of that. Switching a little bit, you are
Speaker 1: in your seventh season of Chasing Life. Yes, can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the premise of that show?
Speaker 2: And so Chasing Life actually originally started during the pandemic
Speaker 2: and it was more of an opportunity to the podcast.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how how much prep time you
Speaker 2: got when you started your podcast, but I was called
Speaker 2: on a Friday and said, can you start Monday.
Speaker 1: Wow. I have a wonderful producer who keeps it, keeps
Speaker 1: me abreast, so to speak, of things that I can
Speaker 1: that I can do while I'm traveling and get as
Speaker 1: much because I love homework. So I'm a big, you know, homework,
Speaker 1: homework person. But maybe that's the maybe that's the way
Speaker 1: you thrive, you know, clearly thrive on your feet.
Speaker 2: I would I would have liked a little bit more time,
Speaker 2: to be totally honest. But I love podcasting. I love podcasts.
Speaker 2: I listened to podcasts. I think there's a real intimacy
Speaker 2: about it. The basic gist of Chasing Life is that
Speaker 2: kind of wish you were talking about. The body is
Speaker 2: this amazing thing. It can heal itself really well, and
Speaker 2: it can be optimized in ways that we haven't fully appreciated.
Speaker 2: A lot of the reason we're not optimized is because
Speaker 2: we do things to our bodies that are bad as
Speaker 2: opposed to not doing things. So it's as much about
Speaker 2: seeing these cultures around the world where people live these
Speaker 2: really healthy, happy, long lives, what we can learn from them,
Speaker 2: and you know, traveling around the world and really immersing
Speaker 2: myself in those cultures. That was a lot of Chasing Life.
Speaker 2: This season, I've decided to in some ways go back
Speaker 2: to my roots all about the brain, and every episode
Speaker 2: is something blank brain, meaning the motivated brain, the attentive brain,
Speaker 2: the depressed brain, whatever it might be, and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out, like, with what we know now about the brain,
Speaker 2: which is a lot more than people realize, with what
Speaker 2: we know now, how can you create a more attentive brain?
Speaker 2: And that's what I really wanted to focus on, and
Speaker 2: selfishly whenever, Like you, I love homework and so I
Speaker 2: learn a lot. Even though I'm a neurosurgeon, how to,
Speaker 2: you know, protect my brain against some of the daily
Speaker 2: challenges we were talking about earlier, how to make the
Speaker 2: more resilient brain. There's real information out there that I
Speaker 2: think can be helpful to people.
Speaker 1: One of the things I love about your podcast is
Speaker 1: that you interviewed your parents and you ask them what
Speaker 1: advice that they would give to their twenty five I
Speaker 1: think it was your old selves. So I would just
Speaker 1: like to ask you that question, what advice would you
Speaker 1: give your twenty five year old self?
Speaker 2: I think that, uh, you know, it's funny. I didn't
Speaker 2: really think about that for myself. I was thinking about
Speaker 2: it for my parents. But you know, I think that
Speaker 2: what I would basically say is that there are things
Speaker 2: that I paid a lot of attention to that did
Speaker 2: not end up being that important in my life. I
Speaker 2: overtilted towards certain things, thinking that they were going to
Speaker 2: be these huge important things that were going to dictate
Speaker 2: how my life would go, for good or for bad,
Speaker 2: and they weren't. And I probably knew that at the time,
Speaker 2: And there were probably things that I wish I had
Speaker 2: paid more attention to as well. And so it's hard
Speaker 2: to know when you're twenty five. It's hard to get
Speaker 2: yourself in that headspace. If you really sit down and
Speaker 2: think about it, you probably can figure it out. But
Speaker 2: the other thing is that, you know, I have people
Speaker 2: in my life who are sort of frame shifted from
Speaker 2: me about twenty years. You know, my parents are a
Speaker 2: bit older than that. The age gap is a little
Speaker 2: bit more. But I spend a lot of time talking
Speaker 2: to people who are fifteen to twenty years older than
Speaker 2: me and just be like, hey, man, is this my
Speaker 2: overdoing it on this thing? Tell me? And he's gonna
Speaker 2: be like, dude, you're not even going to remember that
Speaker 2: two years from now. You won't even think about it again.
Speaker 2: I guarantee it. And here I am obsessed with, like
Speaker 2: I don't even know what it might be, some simple
Speaker 2: thing you know, whether it be about my kid's school
Speaker 2: or finances, or you know, whatever it might be, and
Speaker 2: just getting that constant perspective. So I would give myself
Speaker 2: that advice. Really reflect on what you think is going
Speaker 2: to be important, to be honest about that and talk
Speaker 2: to people who are older than you and benefit from
Speaker 2: their wisdom.
Speaker 1: Well, I love your podcast, and I'm learning about I
Speaker 1: had very severe postpartum and the one I understood the
Speaker 1: biochemical what was happening in my brain when I looked
Speaker 1: at it from a brain perspective, from a hormonally and
Speaker 1: from the first time in my life, not being able
Speaker 1: to power through something that was what was freeing. So
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things your podcast this
Speaker 1: season in particular is doing is that it's that type
Speaker 1: of information is liberating to people.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I really know. Well, thank you for saying that, Brooke.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember you talking about your postpartum quite
Speaker 2: a bit and I wanted to tell you that, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't Around that time, I thought it was an
Speaker 2: opportunity because you were talking about it, to try and
Speaker 2: educate the audience about these issues. And one of the
Speaker 2: studies that I showed, and this is a long time
Speaker 2: ago now, and we know, I think girls have grown
Speaker 2: right since that time. But one of the studies that
Speaker 2: came out right around that time was a study that
Speaker 2: actually imaged the brain functionally, and it was so fascinating
Speaker 2: because you saw something that we had never seen before,
Speaker 2: and it showed that in someone who was depressed, that
Speaker 2: their frontal lobes of their brain, the judgment areas of
Speaker 2: your brain were completely fired up, okay, and your amygdala,
Speaker 2: which is your emotional center of the brain, was really
Speaker 2: kind of cold, less functional, which meant you were kind
Speaker 2: of like in a cocoon, and and nothing came out
Speaker 2: because the frontal low was basically saying that's dumb, don't
Speaker 2: do that overly judging everything that you did. And what
Speaker 2: was interesting is and people who then were treated, you
Speaker 2: did see functionally within the brain, a change less activity
Speaker 2: in those areas and more I mean. And it was
Speaker 2: so interesting because we had there's no biomarker for depression,
Speaker 2: there's no blood test or anything. That was the first
Speaker 2: time we objectively could see what depression looked like in
Speaker 2: the brain and see objective evidence of it actually being treated,
Speaker 2: which was fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: That was doctor Sanjay Gupta. Go check out his podcast
Speaker 1: Chasing Life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your shows. That's it for us today. Talk
Speaker 1: to you next week now. What with Burke Shields is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner
Speaker 1: is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters
Speaker 1: and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The
Speaker 1: show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.