Speaker 1: We can really contribute to the well being of other
Speaker 1: people in very profound ways, sometimes with very simple actions.
Speaker 1: But we can also really create a significant physiological burden
Speaker 1: for another person, really without trying very hard. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett,
Speaker 1: who was among the top one percent most cited scientists
Speaker 1: in the world for her revolutionary research and psychology and neuroscience.
Speaker 1: She's a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University with appointments
Speaker 1: at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr
Speaker 1: Barrett was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Neuroscience in two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. She's the author of many books, including the
Speaker 1: one discussed on this episode, Seven and a Half Lessons
Speaker 1: about the Brain. Hi, Lisa, Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me on your podcast. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: such a pleasure to have you back on. I didn't
Speaker 1: look at the date from when we had you on,
Speaker 1: but it's been two or three years, probably at least,
Speaker 1: so very happy to have you back on. We're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing your latest book, which is called seven
Speaker 1: and a half Lessons about the Brain. But before we
Speaker 1: do that, let's start like we always do with the parable.
Speaker 1: There is a grandmother talking with her grandson, and just
Speaker 1: is in life, there are two wolves inside of us
Speaker 1: that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second. He looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandmother says, well, Grandmother, which one wins, and
Speaker 1: the grandmother says the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. It means that you should always surround yourself
Speaker 1: by people who allow you to be your best self.
Speaker 1: That's very straightforward and yet so powerful. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things will talk about, I'm sure, is the
Speaker 1: fact that we have a predicting brain and that really
Speaker 1: as we cultivate experiences for ourselves in our lives, what
Speaker 1: we're doing is we're constantly cultivating the past in order
Speaker 1: to have more control over who will be in the future.
Speaker 1: And so the parable has a very real life scientific
Speaker 1: meaning in that if you create experiences for yourself, or
Speaker 1: put yourself in situations, or create environments for yourself that
Speaker 1: allow you to be your best self, then that's what
Speaker 1: your brain will wire itself too, and that's who you'll
Speaker 1: be in the future. Yeah, you have a line in
Speaker 1: the book that really struck me from less than five
Speaker 1: about talking how our brain really works secretly with other brains, right,
Speaker 1: how they correspond to say, the best thing for your
Speaker 1: nervous system is another human. The worst thing for your
Speaker 1: nervous system is another human. I was really struck by that,
Speaker 1: and how powerful or how destructive our relations with other
Speaker 1: people can be. Well, we are social animals, and what
Speaker 1: that means is that we regulate each other's nervous systems.
Speaker 1: And we don't usually think about our interactions that way.
Speaker 1: We don't think about every hug we give or every
Speaker 1: insult we bear that way, but that is actually what's happening.
Speaker 1: And we regulate each other really automatically, typically not you know,
Speaker 1: deliberately or on purpose, but we do it in all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways, you know, with sights and sounds and
Speaker 1: smells and and so on. Our brains are reacting to
Speaker 1: each other or or actually not so much reacting, but
Speaker 1: sort of taking account of each other in these various channels.
Speaker 1: But humans also regulate each other with words, and that's
Speaker 1: because the parts of our brain that are important for
Speaker 1: understanding language and speaking are the same parts that regulate
Speaker 1: the systems of our body, our heart and our lungs
Speaker 1: and our immune system and our metabolism and so on.
Speaker 1: And so we can really contribute to the well being
Speaker 1: of other people in very profound ways, sometimes with very
Speaker 1: simple actions. But we can also really create a significant
Speaker 1: biological physiological burden for another person really without trying very hard.
Speaker 1: And so it's important to understand that you are, in
Speaker 1: some way, you know, the caretaker of the nervous systems
Speaker 1: of the people around you. Even if you don't think
Speaker 1: of yourself that way, or you don't really like that idea,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. That's just really how it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like that phrase, the caretaker of other people's
Speaker 1: nervous systems, you know. And it's obvious we want to
Speaker 1: be clear about where sort of, you know, our responsibility
Speaker 1: ends and others begins, but it is so clear how
Speaker 1: strongly we affect each other, you know. I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to say that nothing in the universe works
Speaker 1: in simple, single causes. The fact that you are more
Speaker 1: responsible for other people than you might like does not
Speaker 1: in any way mean that they are not responsible for themselves.
Speaker 1: It's not a zero sum game. I think that's really
Speaker 1: important to say. And you know, we live in a
Speaker 1: culture that privileges individual rights and freedoms, and that's great.
Speaker 1: I like living in that culture too, but it does
Speaker 1: present a particular quandary for us because we we are
Speaker 1: social animals and we can make each other healthier or sicker,
Speaker 1: and we might not like that, we might not believe it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter what you believe, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter whether you like it or not. It just
Speaker 1: actually is the case. So who do you want to be?
Speaker 1: What kind of a person do you want to be?
Speaker 1: If you think of yourself as somebody who has more
Speaker 1: responsibility for other people, for the fellows around you, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're letting them off the hook or
Speaker 1: that you're not expecting them to have personal responsibility for themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really important and true. It's not a
Speaker 1: zero sum game. We are both responsible for others and
Speaker 1: responsible for ourselves. Makes me think of another line in
Speaker 1: the book that you say, you're talking about responsibility and
Speaker 1: you say, sometimes we're responsible for things not because there
Speaker 1: are fault, but because we're the only ones who can
Speaker 1: change them, And you're talking about the impact I believe
Speaker 1: at that point in the book that our early patterning
Speaker 1: has on us, the way that we are raised, what
Speaker 1: it does to us, and how prominent that is. But
Speaker 1: I love that idea because oftentimes when we say you're
Speaker 1: responsible for what happened, people think that the word that
Speaker 1: gets translated in mind is fault. It's my fault. And
Speaker 1: I love the way you say that we're not responsible
Speaker 1: for things, not because there are fault but because we're
Speaker 1: the only ones who can change them. And that is
Speaker 1: really true. We're the only ones who can, and very
Speaker 1: often we're the only ones who will. There's a distinction
Speaker 1: that you can make between responsibility and culpability. You can
Speaker 1: be not culpable for something, meaning it's not your fault,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't really necessarily absolve you over the responsibility
Speaker 1: to change it. And sometimes we are responsible for things
Speaker 1: because we're really the only ones who can change it,
Speaker 1: even if we're not culpable for being in the situation
Speaker 1: that we're in. I first said this during a TED
Speaker 1: talk and I wasn't really sure how it would go over,
Speaker 1: and millions of people literally have responded extremely well to
Speaker 1: this idea. I think it gives people hope and energy
Speaker 1: too maybe take a little more charge of their life circumstances,
Speaker 1: even if life has not dealt them an easy hand.
Speaker 1: People experience it as the way that I meant it,
Speaker 1: which was to be supportive but also too sort of
Speaker 1: nudge people in the direction of trying to take more
Speaker 1: control in their own lives. Yeah, I mean, so much
Speaker 1: of my background is in the recovery community, addiction recovery,
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely true that one of the biggest predictors
Speaker 1: of addiction is having suffered trauma for which you are
Speaker 1: not at fault for. And yet it's also absolutely true
Speaker 1: that one of the pillars of recovery is suddenly going,
Speaker 1: I am responsible for changing my relationship to my substances,
Speaker 1: you know, And so both those things are true at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, I mean, I think that trauma,
Speaker 1: you know, an adversity, particularly if it visits you as
Speaker 1: a child, you're victimized twice. Really, you're victimized the first
Speaker 1: time because of what happens to you, which is not
Speaker 1: you're doing. And then you're victimized in a sense the
Speaker 1: second time because who's going to clean up the mess?
Speaker 1: It's only you, my friend, And that feels unfair, and
Speaker 1: it is unfair, but it's just how it is. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. And once you realize that, there's a certain power, actually,
Speaker 1: there's a certain empowerment in realizing that. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's certainly been my experience. Let's circle back to some
Speaker 1: of the basics here of your work and some of
Speaker 1: these seven and a half lessons, And I want to
Speaker 1: start with really kind of where you start, which is
Speaker 1: what is the brain? For? The typical idea we would
Speaker 1: have is the brain is for me to think and
Speaker 1: for me to learn things and for me to figure
Speaker 1: things out. And you're starting in a very different place
Speaker 1: than that. Why do I have a brain? Some people
Speaker 1: might argue that I don't, But let's assume I do.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go with the assumption I do. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: why question is really hard to answer, But I think
Speaker 1: the better question, or maybe the better question for a
Speaker 1: scientist is really what is your brain's most important job?
Speaker 1: It's fair, you know, for that we can look back
Speaker 1: to in evolutionary time to a time when the creatures
Speaker 1: really in the ocean didn't have brains. But like you,
Speaker 1: I was really interested. I actually what partly got me
Speaker 1: started was the question of why do we even have
Speaker 1: a brain? Brains are really expensive organs. So your brain
Speaker 1: costs you something like twenty of your metabolic budget every day.
Speaker 1: That's the most expensive organ you have. And so what
Speaker 1: is a brain good for exactly? And why do we
Speaker 1: have it? And you know where did it come from?
Speaker 1: So those are the kinds of questions that it were
Speaker 1: really intriguing me. And the answer is both, I think,
Speaker 1: really surprising and then also mundane at the same time,
Speaker 1: which is that your brain's most important job is not thinking,
Speaker 1: it's not feeling, it's not even seeing or hearing. Your
Speaker 1: brain's most important job is running the systems of your body.
Speaker 1: So right now, as we're talking to each other and
Speaker 1: as our listeners are listening to us, inside each of
Speaker 1: us is a whole drama unfolding inside our bodies, and
Speaker 1: you can't really, I mean, I hope you can't access it.
Speaker 1: If you do, you have my sympathies. But the way
Speaker 1: that I talk about it, the metaphor that I use,
Speaker 1: is that your brain is running a budget for your body.
Speaker 1: It's not budgeting money, it's budgeting glucose and salt and
Speaker 1: water and oxygen and other chemicals and nutrients that your
Speaker 1: body needs to stay alive and keep well. And you
Speaker 1: can think about your actions as withdrawals. So when you
Speaker 1: learn something new, or when you exercise, when you move
Speaker 1: your body in any way, those are withdrawals from your
Speaker 1: body budget. And then you can make deposits into your
Speaker 1: body budget. You can you know, sleep and you can
Speaker 1: eat healthfully, and you can exercise, which is a withdrawal.
Speaker 1: It's like an investment in a future healthy brain and body,
Speaker 1: so you know, you can think of that is sort
Speaker 1: of an investment that you expect to get a return on.
Speaker 1: And being around other people can add a little tax
Speaker 1: to your body budget, or it can give you a
Speaker 1: little savings in your body budget. You can make things
Speaker 1: a little cheaper to run, and you can think about
Speaker 1: addiction really or think about something simpler like having a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee. You can think about caffeine as borrowing
Speaker 1: energy from tomorrow to use today. And if you start
Speaker 1: to run a deficit in your body budget, you don't
Speaker 1: experience that directly as sensations in your body. You experience
Speaker 1: it as unpleasant feeling. So when you feel like crap,
Speaker 1: it's usually because you have expended energy that you haven't
Speaker 1: replaced yet. You've made a withdrawal that you haven't replenished yet.
Speaker 1: These simple feelings, which are not emotions, feeling pleasant, feeling unpleasant,
Speaker 1: feeling comfortable or uncomfortable, feeling worked up, or feeling calm,
Speaker 1: these are simple feelings that tell you something about the
Speaker 1: state of your body budget, and you can use them.
Speaker 1: They don't tell you what's wrong, but they do tell
Speaker 1: you something about you know, whether your body budgets running
Speaker 1: a deficit or whether your flush and your body budget
Speaker 1: is solvent. And in this way, your brain is always
Speaker 1: budgeting for your body, and your body is always sending
Speaker 1: sense data back to your brain, and your brain is
Speaker 1: always experiencing this as these simple feelings, which you can
Speaker 1: call mood or scientists call affect. And this goes on
Speaker 1: really for your whole life. So you don't experience your
Speaker 1: brain regulating your body usually, you don't experience your life
Speaker 1: as as if that's your brain's most important job. But
Speaker 1: that actually is your brain's most important job. And so
Speaker 1: what you think and what you do and what you
Speaker 1: see even really is in the service of managing that
Speaker 1: body budget. Yeah, there's so many things in what you
Speaker 1: just said that I could choose to go with. One
Speaker 1: that I'm going to go with is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite lines from your previous book, which has stuck with me.
Speaker 1: I do one of these weeks, so it's hard for
Speaker 1: things to stick with me a lot of times. But
Speaker 1: you basically are saying if your body budget gets out
Speaker 1: of whack, then you're going to feel crappy. No matter
Speaker 1: what self help tips you follow. It's just a matter
Speaker 1: of which flavor of crap. And I love that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's so true that at a foundational level,
Speaker 1: there are these foundational things that we have to do
Speaker 1: to take care of ourselves or we're going to feel bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it really does sneak up on you. Eric. That's
Speaker 1: the funny thing to what I would say, is that
Speaker 1: think about new exercise. I know when I exercise, I
Speaker 1: exercise every day, and you know, when I'm usually about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes in, as I'm hitting my ventilatory load and
Speaker 1: building up carbon dioxide, it's harder to keep pushing, you know,
Speaker 1: forward with the exercise. I start to feel really uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and I want to stop. And actually, this is the
Speaker 1: point at which a lot of people stop. But you
Speaker 1: shouldn't stop. You should keep going. But why is it
Speaker 1: that this happens. It happens because I need more oxygen.
Speaker 1: I'm not expelling enough carbon dioxide fast enough, and I'm
Speaker 1: burning through glucose and water and other nutrients. So I'm
Speaker 1: starting to feel like crap. Basically, to echo, myself. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily mean something's wrong in the larger sense. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes we feel like crap because we're just working really
Speaker 1: hard at something, and then we can replenish. So when
Speaker 1: I'm done exercising, I might have a protein shake, or
Speaker 1: I might drink some water, or you know, I might
Speaker 1: make sure that I have to get enough sleep that night,
Speaker 1: what have you. When you're working really hard at something,
Speaker 1: when you're learning something really hard, when you have to
Speaker 1: really really make some kind of metabolic investment, it can
Speaker 1: feel really uncomfortable. But sometimes feeling bad isn't necessarily a
Speaker 1: sign that anything's wrong. It might be a sign that
Speaker 1: you're just burning through resources really quickly and you need
Speaker 1: to replenish. But I guess I should back up and say,
Speaker 1: what is stress? Stress is just your brain preparing you
Speaker 1: for a major metabolic outlay. You know, Cortisol is not
Speaker 1: a stress hormone. It's a hormone that gets glucose into
Speaker 1: your bloodstream quickly because your brain believes that you have
Speaker 1: a big metabolic outlay to make, whether it's getting out
Speaker 1: of bed in the morning, or giving a talk to
Speaker 1: the members of your team, or taking a test, or
Speaker 1: even just talking to somebody on a podcast, right, maybe
Speaker 1: it's even listening to a podcast and sending to ideas
Speaker 1: that are really new and frankly counterintuitive to you. All
Speaker 1: of these things cost glucose and can make you feel unpleasant,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily mean that something's wrong. What it
Speaker 1: means is that you just need to replenish the energy.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you feel stressed, when you're
Speaker 1: in a stressful situation, so your brain is preparing you
Speaker 1: for battle, right and you don't need it, or you
Speaker 1: don't get en asleep, you don't eat healthily, or you
Speaker 1: don't exercise on a regular basis, or you're on social
Speaker 1: media too much. Because one thing that's really expensive for
Speaker 1: a human brain is ambiguity and uncertainty. For example, COVID
Speaker 1: for the last year, full of Uncertainty has been a
Speaker 1: real body budget drain for a lot of people. You
Speaker 1: see reports of people anxious and they're depressed and they're
Speaker 1: really struggling. Why is that. It's because we didn't even
Speaker 1: enter COVID with balanced body budgets to begin with. We
Speaker 1: live in a world of casual brutality. We do all
Speaker 1: kinds of things to tax our body budgets all the time,
Speaker 1: and then it was with this level of depletion that
Speaker 1: we entered into COVID, you know, which has been a
Speaker 1: year of uncertainty and real angst for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And so the point that I want to make here
Speaker 1: is that each time you spend too much, or you
Speaker 1: spend but you don't replenish, you pay a little metabolic tax.
Speaker 1: It's really really small, but each time you pay a
Speaker 1: little tax. And these taxes add up over time, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it can take years for them to add up.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of like water dripping on
Speaker 1: a pipe. You know, the first drip isn't going to
Speaker 1: do anything, the second drip isn't gonna do anything. But eventually,
Speaker 1: if it keeps going on, that water is going to
Speaker 1: bore a hole through that steel pipe. And your metabolism
Speaker 1: kind of works in the same way. And this is
Speaker 1: why adversity in childhood is a major predictor of physical
Speaker 1: illness in adulthood and middle age. You know, there were
Speaker 1: a number of studies done called viral challenge studies, which
Speaker 1: were done uh ten fifteen years ago, where they took
Speaker 1: people volunteers and they put them individually in hotel rooms,
Speaker 1: and they controlled what they ate and how they slept
Speaker 1: and so on, and then they put a virus exactly
Speaker 1: the same amount of viral load in every person's nose.
Speaker 1: And actually one of these studies actually used a coronavirus
Speaker 1: and only people developed symptoms. That means six people who
Speaker 1: were exposed to the virus didn't get sick. That means
Speaker 1: that a virus is not the sole cause of illness
Speaker 1: because many people were exposed to the virus and didn't
Speaker 1: get sick. The other cause that's nest assary but not sufficient,
Speaker 1: that you need in order to get sick is a
Speaker 1: compromised immune system. So your brain has to be in
Speaker 1: a particular state in order for you to get sick.
Speaker 1: And you know what was the biggest predictor of who
Speaker 1: got sick childhood experiences exactly now why is that? It's
Speaker 1: because the seeds of metabolic inefficiency are planted really really
Speaker 1: early in life. And so your brain as a child
Speaker 1: wires itself to its world. And part of your brain's
Speaker 1: world is your body and the world that other people
Speaker 1: create for you. So if you have a brain that
Speaker 1: wires itself to adversity, to deal with adversity, you're paying
Speaker 1: an extra tax, and you just keep paying that tax
Speaker 1: and paying that tax, and that makes you more vulnerable
Speaker 1: two stressors later in life. I've often wondered about why
Speaker 1: exercise remains a challenging thing to do sometimes. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is, I think every single time
Speaker 1: I've exercised, and that's been thousands of times, at this point,
Speaker 1: when I'm done, I go, I'm really glad I did that.
Speaker 1: That was really wonderful. And yet you would think with
Speaker 1: that sort of consistent positive reinforcement, I would hop up
Speaker 1: and be ready to run to exercise. Is it just
Speaker 1: the fact that it's such a withdrawal that it sort
Speaker 1: of violates the principle of conserving energy, that there's just
Speaker 1: a natural resistance in there. Do you think that could
Speaker 1: be part of it? I just it's a phenomenon I
Speaker 1: don't fully understand, because again, I would think that the
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement being so strong would make it always something
Speaker 1: I want to do. And it's not that it's hard
Speaker 1: to do necessarily sometimes, but but it's certainly harder than
Speaker 1: turning on the TV. Well, first of all, I don't
Speaker 1: think that conserving energy is really what nervous systems are
Speaker 1: about I think nervous systems are really trying to optimize
Speaker 1: energy input and output. So many people love novelty. Some
Speaker 1: people love novelty more than others. But most people don't
Speaker 1: like to eat the same food every day, and they
Speaker 1: don't like to wear the same clothes every day, and
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily like to do the same things every day.
Speaker 1: So things that are predictable are much cheaper metabolically speaking
Speaker 1: than things that are novel are unpredictable. That being said,
Speaker 1: you know we still like novelty. So why is that?
Speaker 1: And the answer is, you know, we don't just go
Speaker 1: sit in a dark room and waste away. And the
Speaker 1: answer is because for living creatures, I don't really think
Speaker 1: we're trying to not spend. I think we're trying to
Speaker 1: spend efficiently. And I think the question that you're asking
Speaker 1: is a really good question. And it's a question that
Speaker 1: plagues me, honestly, because every morning I drag my ass
Speaker 1: out of bed and I procrastinate to go exercise, even
Speaker 1: though I know I'm going to feel better at the end.
Speaker 1: But to get to that end I have to get
Speaker 1: I have to go through some significant discomfort and sometimes
Speaker 1: even when I'm in it, I'm happy to make the
Speaker 1: discomfort worse by peddling harder or lifting more or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's just getting myself to that point. It's you know,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing this for more than twenty years
Speaker 1: at this point, and still, you know, every morning is
Speaker 1: a struggle. But I guess I would say obviously we
Speaker 1: have learned something because despite the fact that we know
Speaker 1: it's going to be unpleasant, we still do it. We've
Speaker 1: talked about out the last time, you know that I
Speaker 1: was on your podcast, and I'm sure we'll talk again. That.
Speaker 1: You know, brains predict they don't react to things, and
Speaker 1: so your brain is always predicting what it expects to
Speaker 1: happen next, and next can be in the next moment,
Speaker 1: or it can be in the next ten minutes, or
Speaker 1: it can be in an hour from now, after you've
Speaker 1: run a couple of miles and you're in the shower.
Speaker 1: What you're asking me is a really interesting question that
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer for, because I don't think
Speaker 1: we know the answer to how a brain makes decisions
Speaker 1: about what the immediate outcome is versus what the outcome
Speaker 1: is going to be in an hour from now or
Speaker 1: in a year or ten years from now, because what
Speaker 1: you're asking me really is the same kind of question
Speaker 1: as how can I get myself to not spend money
Speaker 1: now and put it away in my retirement savings accounts
Speaker 1: so that I'll have money later when I retire in
Speaker 1: you know, X number of years. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: you need to do it, and you know you'll be
Speaker 1: happy if you have money at the end of your
Speaker 1: life where you can retire and live well, and you
Speaker 1: probably don't need the shiny new thing that you want,
Speaker 1: or you don't need to go out to a restaurant,
Speaker 1: or you don't need to do whatever it is you
Speaker 1: want to do in the momentum to spend that money on.
Speaker 1: But yet it's still a struggle. You know, some people
Speaker 1: experience what's called the pain of paying This is a
Speaker 1: scientist at Carnegie Mellon came up with this phrase, which
Speaker 1: means the discomfort that you feel after you've spent money
Speaker 1: and you know you really shouldn't have um, but yet
Speaker 1: people still do it. So I don't have an answer
Speaker 1: for you. All I'm trying to say is it's a
Speaker 1: pervasive phenomenon, and it's a really interesting question that you know,
Speaker 1: economists have tried to answer in psychologists, but I don't
Speaker 1: really think there's a terrific answer to that question because
Speaker 1: I think that certainly the further off the reward is
Speaker 1: from the act itself, the harder it becomes. I know,
Speaker 1: for me, exercise became a lot easier to do when
Speaker 1: I realized, like, the payoff for me is in twenty
Speaker 1: minutes or thirty minutes, because it's in how I feel
Speaker 1: versus trying to go well. The payoff is in three
Speaker 1: months when I look better, or twenty five years when
Speaker 1: I don't have heart disease. Yeah, that's fair, But I
Speaker 1: have to tell you that the payoff for me sometimes
Speaker 1: is an hour later when I'm in the shower. But
Speaker 1: sometimes it isn't. I remember when I gave birth to
Speaker 1: my daughter, and you know, people tell you all these
Speaker 1: things about how beautiful and wonderful it's going to be
Speaker 1: when you nurse your daughter or your child or whatever.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something, it hurts a lot for many, many,
Speaker 1: many months, and yet women do it. And so why
Speaker 1: do they do it. You're not even doing it for yourself.
Speaker 1: You're doing it for this other little creature, which is
Speaker 1: like completely dependent on you. I mean eventually it stops hurting,
Speaker 1: you know, after four months or something. But it's actually
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable at first. And when I mean uncomfortable, I
Speaker 1: don't mean psychologically and from what I mean physically uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But yet you do it, and you do it willingly,
Speaker 1: and you do it happily. So it's really hard to
Speaker 1: answer the question of how this works. But what I
Speaker 1: will say is that when your brain is predicting, part
Speaker 1: of what it's doing is it's not some abstract thing.
Speaker 1: Your brain is actually changing the firing of its own
Speaker 1: neurons to anticipate what the sensory consequences will be in
Speaker 1: a moment from now of whatever in your brain is
Speaker 1: preparing you to do. So, if your brain is gonna
Speaker 1: stand you up, it's gonna also raise your blood pressure
Speaker 1: so that you don't faint, because that would be metabolically costly.
Speaker 1: You have mechanisms basically that will raise your blood pressure
Speaker 1: as you stand so that oxygen can get to your head.
Speaker 1: At the same time, certain parts of your brain are
Speaker 1: preparing other parts to have the sensory feeling of standing up,
Speaker 1: of having your feet against the floor and your back straightened,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Now, if you've ever
Speaker 1: had a song going through your head that you cannot
Speaker 1: get out of your head, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like that. Or you know, sometimes I'll ask people to
Speaker 1: imagine an apple in their head. You know, can you
Speaker 1: imagine a red Macintosh apple, you know, in your mind's eye.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine grasping that apple in your hand? Can
Speaker 1: you imagine taking a bite out of that apple, sinking
Speaker 1: your teeth into the apple, and hearing the crunch of
Speaker 1: the apple and tasting the apple. Many people can do this,
Speaker 1: you know. They have a ghostly image of an apple,
Speaker 1: they can hear the crunch, they can taste the apple,
Speaker 1: they start to salivate. Sometimes this is literally your brain
Speaker 1: changing the firing of its own neurons to be prepared
Speaker 1: to taste an apple and see an apple, and hear
Speaker 1: an apple and feel an apple even though there is
Speaker 1: no apple there. And this is what your brain is
Speaker 1: doing all the time. But when your brain is trying
Speaker 1: to predict something in the longer term future, it's harder
Speaker 1: to simulate, which is what this is called. This changing
Speaker 1: the firing of your own neurons to prepare for sensory
Speaker 1: changes in the next moment. Your brain just has a
Speaker 1: harder time doing that. So I can tell you that
Speaker 1: if you turn up the heat a little more, or
Speaker 1: you turn up the air conditioning a little more so
Speaker 1: that you're a little more comfortable. Now, that's going to
Speaker 1: have a cost in terms of climate change later which
Speaker 1: will make you much more uncomfortable. It's harder to simulate
Speaker 1: that change later on, and so it's less potent of
Speaker 1: an experience to control your actions. So let's go into
Speaker 1: this brain prediction piece a little bit, and I'm about
Speaker 1: to wander into territory I have no business wandering into,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to do it anyway, Which is, how
Speaker 1: do we know that our brains are doing this sort
Speaker 1: of prediction? So, just for listeners to be clear, what
Speaker 1: neuroscienists are saying now is that our brain is predicting
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. And so if I'm looking out
Speaker 1: the window, there's actual sense data coming back to me,
Speaker 1: but my brain is also predicting and correct me anything
Speaker 1: I'm going to get something wrong here. But my brain
Speaker 1: is also predicting what it expects it's going to see
Speaker 1: out there. And if those two things match up, then
Speaker 1: that sense data doesn't even necessarily ever reach different levels
Speaker 1: of the brain, right, it just gets discarded because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: prediction matched. Now, if there's a difference in the sense
Speaker 1: data and what my brain predicts, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: different things my brain can do, and we can talk
Speaker 1: about that. But from reading your book and other books,
Speaker 1: it sounds like this is what the brain is doing
Speaker 1: all the time, and very predominantly, And I don't understand
Speaker 1: how we know that. And again I'm wandering into a
Speaker 1: whole realm of not knowing how we know. But is
Speaker 1: that a question you can answer succinctly. I can answer
Speaker 1: any questions succinctly, and that's a that's a big assumption. Well,
Speaker 1: when you say how do we know, I guess I
Speaker 1: can say how scientists know? Um, scientists know because there's
Speaker 1: just an overwhelming amount of evidence that this is the case.
Speaker 1: So we know because of how brains are structured, that
Speaker 1: parts of your brain that are supposed to be sensory
Speaker 1: parts that are supposed to be taking in information from
Speaker 1: the world, like primary sensory region in your cerebral cortex
Speaker 1: called primary visual cortex, which is supposed to be the
Speaker 1: part of your cerebral cortex that receives visual sense data
Speaker 1: from your eye. Of the neurons that connect to primary
Speaker 1: visual cortex come from other parts of your brain and
Speaker 1: not from the part that is bringing the sense data
Speaker 1: from your eye. So that's one way we know. Another
Speaker 1: way we know is that we can study animals, non
Speaker 1: human animals, and we can look and see watch the
Speaker 1: flow of information from neuron to neuron. And actually we
Speaker 1: can now do this even in some humans who are hospitalized,
Speaker 1: and we can measure that changes in neurons when they're
Speaker 1: in the hospital. We can do experiments to see at
Speaker 1: this point, probably over a thousand papers that have been
Speaker 1: peer reviewed, you know, measuring neurons either directly or measuring
Speaker 1: brain imaging. You know, for humans, when we brain image humans,
Speaker 1: we don't directly measure neural activity. We're measuring blood flow
Speaker 1: changes which are related to neural activity. But there are
Speaker 1: many many studies that directly show the prediction signals in action.
Speaker 1: There are you know, anatomical studies which provide the same evidence. Actually,
Speaker 1: what ended up convincing me that this was a really
Speaker 1: viable hypothesis is that at the same time I was
Speaker 1: reading work on electrical signal processing. Because neurons are electrical units,
Speaker 1: they function with electricity. Actually that's partly how they communicate
Speaker 1: with each other. And I was reading that literature, and
Speaker 1: I was reading an anatomical like anatomy brain anatomy, and
Speaker 1: I was reading some work on experiments with non human animals,
Speaker 1: and all of them we're pointing to exactly the same hypothesis.
Speaker 1: But these literatures don't speak to each other. They were
Speaker 1: just all converging on the same idea. But I would say,
Speaker 1: what usually convinces people is not data, it's their own experience.
Speaker 1: And so I'll just say, for example, have you ever
Speaker 1: had the experience that you are really thirsty and you
Speaker 1: drink a big, tall glass of water and then your
Speaker 1: thirst is quenched immediately. But it's like a mundane thing
Speaker 1: that we do every day, except it's really really fascinating
Speaker 1: because it actually takes twenty minutes for any water that
Speaker 1: you ingest to make it into your bloodstream to get
Speaker 1: back to your brain to tell your brain that there's
Speaker 1: enough water in your system now, So how is it
Speaker 1: that your thirst is quenched immediately even though it takes
Speaker 1: twenty minutes for that information to make its way to
Speaker 1: the brain. And the answer is I assumed it was prediction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's prediction. What's your favorite food? Era, pizza, pizza? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm having pizza for dinner. Actually, what is your favorite pizza.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a plain cheese kind of guy. We're
Speaker 1: having margarita. Yeah, margarite pizza with fresh mozzarella, thin crust.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about your simulate your favorite pizza,
Speaker 1: do you start to salivate? Yeah? Right, And in fact,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you sit down for dinner or for lunch,
Speaker 1: you might even start salivating a little bit beforehand. But
Speaker 1: why is that happening. That's prediction. Your brain is actually
Speaker 1: preparing you to ingest food because it's metabolically efficient to
Speaker 1: predict and correct. It's not at all metabolically efficient to
Speaker 1: react back to things. For example, if you're a coffee
Speaker 1: drinker and you have coffee every day at the same time,
Speaker 1: and then one day you just don't have coffee at
Speaker 1: that time, you get a headache. A lot of people
Speaker 1: have this experience. Why do you have a headache? Why
Speaker 1: do you get a headache? The answer is because your
Speaker 1: brain basically is learned that every day, at a certain time,
Speaker 1: you are going to drink coffee, and caffeine will cause
Speaker 1: vascular constriction in the blood vessels of your head, and
Speaker 1: your brain really needs constant blood flow. That doesn't change.
Speaker 1: So what it does is it dilates it's blood vessels
Speaker 1: right around the time when you're supposed to be drinking coffee,
Speaker 1: because the coffee is going to come and it's going
Speaker 1: to constrict those blood vessels. So the net result will
Speaker 1: be no change. But if one day you don't drink coffee,
Speaker 1: your blood vessels dilate and you have a headache. Prediction
Speaker 1: is why people become addicted to drugs, because your brain
Speaker 1: starts to predict that those chemicals will be there, it
Speaker 1: adjusts the chemicals it makes to keep that level constant.
Speaker 1: I could keep going baseball. You know, there is no
Speaker 1: sport that would exist that involves any precision with bats
Speaker 1: and balls and stuff like that, sticks and pucks. If
Speaker 1: people did not have a predicting brain, those games just
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist at all because they're all predicated on prediction.
Speaker 1: Let's change our direction a little bit here where there's
Speaker 1: so many great things that we're just not going to
Speaker 1: get to. I feel like we've covered like two out
Speaker 1: of seven and a half lessons. But what I'd like
Speaker 1: to get to is kind of ground us here at
Speaker 1: the end in some practicality of what some of your
Speaker 1: research bears out. And again I highly recommend this book
Speaker 1: the previous book. There is a lot of really fascinating
Speaker 1: science about how our brains actually work to create our experience.
Speaker 1: But I'd like to end a little bit with what
Speaker 1: are some things that we can do. Knowing the predictive
Speaker 1: nature of the brain, knowing the way that emotions are constructed,
Speaker 1: which is a real big part of your earlier book.
Speaker 1: Knowing these things, what does that tell us about some
Speaker 1: things that we can actually do to make the quality
Speaker 1: of our day to day lives a little bit better,
Speaker 1: to make us feel better. Well, there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things I think that are pretty basic. One is
Speaker 1: that we haven't really said where these predictions come from.
Speaker 1: So when your brain is making a prediction, so if
Speaker 1: we stop time, we just fuld time constant. What's happening.
Speaker 1: Your brain has taken stock of what's happening in your body,
Speaker 1: what's happening in the world, and it's going to predict
Speaker 1: what's going to happen next, And how's it making that prediction?
Speaker 1: Because it's using your past experience. It's basically asking itself
Speaker 1: figuratively speaking, the last time I was in a situation
Speaker 1: like this where I was experiencing these things, and I
Speaker 1: just did these things like what what happened next? What
Speaker 1: caused it? What did I do about it? That's really
Speaker 1: what it's asking itself. So it's using your past experience.
Speaker 1: So what this means, as I said before, is that
Speaker 1: in a sense, you're always cultivating your past that your
Speaker 1: brain is going to use later to make predictions. So
Speaker 1: one thing that you can do is you can cultivate
Speaker 1: new experiences for yourself. You can curate new opportunities. These
Speaker 1: are kind of expensive, like they effort, because you know,
Speaker 1: anything which is unexpected is going to be more expensive.
Speaker 1: That's why learning anything new is exhilarating. There can be
Speaker 1: arousal there. Sometimes you constructed into anxiety, but you could
Speaker 1: just as easily constructed into exhilaration or determination. You know,
Speaker 1: get your butterflies flying information. So you can think of
Speaker 1: it a little bit like exercise. You're making an investment
Speaker 1: in a healthier brain, only this time instead of physical exercise,
Speaker 1: maybe what you're doing is you're exposing yourself to a
Speaker 1: movie that you have ever seen before that might be
Speaker 1: really different. Or you might meet someone new who's really
Speaker 1: different from you and has different really views on life.
Speaker 1: Or you might, you know, one day when we can
Speaker 1: travel again, go to a place that's really different from yours,
Speaker 1: where the norms and customs are really really different. Like
Speaker 1: really challenge yourself. You can learn a new language, you
Speaker 1: can learn a new skill. There are all kinds of
Speaker 1: things that you can do that will cost in the moment,
Speaker 1: but you can think that cost like an investment that
Speaker 1: you're making in a healthier brain. And the really cool
Speaker 1: thing is that most skills like this are like driving.
Speaker 1: If you practice making the experience over and over and
Speaker 1: over again, you get kind of automatic at it. Right, So,
Speaker 1: just like driving, at first, it's really hard, but then
Speaker 1: eventually get really good at it. So one example I'll
Speaker 1: give you is when I was preparing to write How
Speaker 1: Emotions Are Made, I have a colleague who studies positive emotions.
Speaker 1: You know, I was kind of skeptical, like, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you know, awe, I supposedly like really good for you? Right, yeah, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, verily skeptical. I'm just by nature, really skeptical.
Speaker 1: That's like, all right, well, okay, I'm gonna try it,
Speaker 1: so let's see what happens. So I'm gonna every day
Speaker 1: for five minutes, I'm going to experience all I'm gonna
Speaker 1: find something. I'm gonna feel like a speck. I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, cultivate a sense of wonder and admiration. It's
Speaker 1: something larger than myself. And so I practiced every day.
Speaker 1: So it might be a little crack in the sidewalk
Speaker 1: and like ugly little weed became a wondrous example of
Speaker 1: the power of nature and you know, humanity's inability to
Speaker 1: constrain it and control it right, or it might be
Speaker 1: you know, so just things like this. It might have
Speaker 1: been the color of a particular flower or taking like
Speaker 1: a dandelion. You could see it as a weed that's
Speaker 1: gonna just like destroy your lawn. But also it's actually
Speaker 1: quite beautiful actually if you look at the structure. So
Speaker 1: I practiced this day and day and day in and
Speaker 1: day out for five minutes, and sure enough, whenever things
Speaker 1: are super stressful, I can take a break just without moving.
Speaker 1: I can take a break. I can just shift my
Speaker 1: attention and cultivate AWE in the moment, and for a moment,
Speaker 1: I'm aspect and that means my problems are respect just
Speaker 1: for a moment. It just gives my nervous system a
Speaker 1: break and it allows me to take some dig deep breaths,
Speaker 1: which is a way of resetting your autonomic nervous system
Speaker 1: and kind of changing the trajectory of the moment, which
Speaker 1: is sometimes all you need. So I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: say that you can just snap your fingers and form
Speaker 1: a couple of little moine tricks and then you'll feel better.
Speaker 1: But I do think that this is one useful thing
Speaker 1: that you can do. Another useful thing that you can do,
Speaker 1: which is going to sound really like I'm being a mother,
Speaker 1: and I am a mother, and my daughter hates it
Speaker 1: when I say this, but it is I'm actually speaking
Speaker 1: to use a neuroscientist. Get enough sleep, Get enough sleep,
Speaker 1: eat healthfully, get enough exercise, and don't be around people
Speaker 1: who are a drain on your body budget unless you
Speaker 1: can replenish. Sometimes people say like, what's the one thing
Speaker 1: I can do to improve my life? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: get enough sleep. Seriously, it's not just that it makes
Speaker 1: you feel better. Your brain doesn't run properly and your
Speaker 1: body doesn't run properly if you don't get enough sleep.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're caring for someone who's sick,
Speaker 1: or you're caring for a little kid, that's major drain
Speaker 1: on your body budget. So be aware of that, make
Speaker 1: plans accordingly. The thing I like to reinforce is that
Speaker 1: you know, not everybody can control everything, but everyone can
Speaker 1: control at least one thing. Everybody has more control over
Speaker 1: their environment than they think. Most of us just don't
Speaker 1: have as much control as we would like. But that's
Speaker 1: not the same thing, right, And I would say it's
Speaker 1: not as niero sum game and not a zero sum
Speaker 1: game as we were talking about before. There's this idea
Speaker 1: in evolutionary biology. I'll use the fancy term. It's called
Speaker 1: niche construction. What is niche construction? Niche construction is the
Speaker 1: idea your niche is the part of your surroundings that
Speaker 1: matter to you, and so animals actively construct their niche.
Speaker 1: So when I say you're the architect of your experience,
Speaker 1: part of what I'm saying is engage in niche construction.
Speaker 1: What does that mean for a human, Well, it probably
Speaker 1: mean some boring things like don't keep potato chips in
Speaker 1: your house, and don't drink too much caffeine and maybe
Speaker 1: make sure you walk and stretch enough and don't keep
Speaker 1: painkillers in the house or you know whatever. But it
Speaker 1: also means things like, don't be around people who are
Speaker 1: constantly making withdrawals unless of course you're responsible for them
Speaker 1: and you've deliberately chosen that rule. Don't be around people
Speaker 1: who are a drain on your body budget. Engage in
Speaker 1: random acts of kindness. You know. I would say, make
Speaker 1: sure you get a hug every day, but that's tricky
Speaker 1: because of COVID, and it's also tricky now because we
Speaker 1: have to be respectful of each other's bodies and boundaries.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that physical touch is actually really
Speaker 1: important to humans. We have opioid receptors on our skin.
Speaker 1: It's it's important to be touched. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you can afford to get a massage and it's safe
Speaker 1: for you to do that, do it. If you can't
Speaker 1: buy a soft sweater or a soft blanket, use the
Speaker 1: stuff down them all. I mean, there are lots of
Speaker 1: ways that you can get that stimulation. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean to trivialize it, but it is really important, you know,
Speaker 1: being outside, for example, in the sun. You know, make
Speaker 1: sure you wear sunscreen, but being in the sun is
Speaker 1: really restorative. Each of these things, again, like none of
Speaker 1: them is going to have a huge effect, but they're
Speaker 1: all gonna sort of nudge you in the right direction,
Speaker 1: you know. Yep. That's one of my favorite phrases is
Speaker 1: little by little, a little becomes a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: these things they all add up. One of the other
Speaker 1: things that you have talked to fair amount about, which
Speaker 1: I think is a really important one also, and maybe
Speaker 1: this is where we'll wrap up, is really increasing your
Speaker 1: I think the term you use is emotional granularity. Talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what does that mean to increase
Speaker 1: our emotional granularity and what are some practical ways to
Speaker 1: do it. If you think about what your brain is
Speaker 1: doing all the time, your brain is basically making sense
Speaker 1: of the sense data that come from the world and
Speaker 1: from your body. So when you hear a loud bang,
Speaker 1: what is that loud bang, what caused it, and what
Speaker 1: do you need to do about it? Is it a
Speaker 1: car door slamming? Is it a car backfiring? Is did
Speaker 1: somebody drop a box. Is it a gunshot? You know
Speaker 1: what your brain understands, the cause to be will determine
Speaker 1: what actions your brain takes. Right. Similarly, if you have
Speaker 1: a tug in your chest, you know your brain will
Speaker 1: ask what is it? What caused it? You know? Is
Speaker 1: it anxiety? Is it heartburn from eating too much food?
Speaker 1: Is it the beginnings of a heart attack? This example
Speaker 1: actually is not trivial, because when people go to the
Speaker 1: hospital with tightness in their chest, whether they and the
Speaker 1: emergency room physician makes sense of that tug as anxiety
Speaker 1: or as the beginnings of a heart attack can determine
Speaker 1: whether or not that person lives to the next day.
Speaker 1: There are accountable number of mistakes that are made in
Speaker 1: that regard. I know at least three people who lost
Speaker 1: their mothers because the mothers went to the hospital and
Speaker 1: we're told they'd had anxiety and they should go home,
Speaker 1: and they did go home and then promptly died of
Speaker 1: a heart attack. And in fact, this happened to a
Speaker 1: friend of mine whose man and they didn't send him
Speaker 1: home at a time when they would have normally sent
Speaker 1: a woman home, and he had a heart attack right
Speaker 1: in the emergency room. And in fact he had what's
Speaker 1: called a widow maker heart attack, meaning that if the
Speaker 1: cardiologists hadn't been right there standing in front of him,
Speaker 1: he would have been dead. And you know why he
Speaker 1: went to the hospital. He had been feeling had to
Speaker 1: tight chest, had all week. He went to the doctor.
Speaker 1: The doctor did a bunch of tests, said, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with you. It's just anxiety. It's just anxiety. And
Speaker 1: then he went home and he laid down and as
Speaker 1: he was lying there, he remembered that he and I
Speaker 1: had had a conversation because I was on his podcast
Speaker 1: and he read How Emotions Are Made and we were
Speaker 1: talking about this and I was telling him this story,
Speaker 1: and he thought, I'm just gonna go to the hospital. Anyway,
Speaker 1: to the hospital and they did tests on him and
Speaker 1: they said, no, you're fine. You know, you can go home.
Speaker 1: And he said, but I'm not fine. I'm feeling worse.
Speaker 1: And I'm feeling worse. Is getting more painful and more painful,
Speaker 1: and the tightness is getting more and more and more.
Speaker 1: And they were like, okay, just wait here, we'll get
Speaker 1: the cardiologist. And then he did, and then basically he
Speaker 1: had a heart attack right there. Your brain is always
Speaker 1: making sense of the sensations, and the way that your
Speaker 1: brain makes sense of sensations is predictively, as we discussed.
Speaker 1: So it's not like the information comes in and your
Speaker 1: brain goes, oh, what's that. It's that your brain is
Speaker 1: making a guess about what the sensations will be in
Speaker 1: a moment from now, and part of that guess is
Speaker 1: not just what will they be, but also what caused it. Now.
Speaker 1: If you can make many guesses, if there are many
Speaker 1: possible guesses that your brain can make, and it can
Speaker 1: try to fit a guest to the situation, then your
Speaker 1: brain is going to have a better chance of making
Speaker 1: the right guess. But if your brain can only make
Speaker 1: one or two guesses, it doesn't have a lot of options,
Speaker 1: it's just one or two, then the likelihood that your
Speaker 1: brain will make the wrong guess is higher. Granularity just
Speaker 1: means that your brain can make many guesses right, so
Speaker 1: that a tug in your chest or a bang that
Speaker 1: you hear could be many, many, many different things, each
Speaker 1: one with its own situational context. And if your brain
Speaker 1: learns to make sense of sense data in many different ways,
Speaker 1: each one in a specific situation, then you have lots
Speaker 1: of options to know how to respond. So I guess
Speaker 1: another way to say it would be, let's say your
Speaker 1: body budget is is running a deficit and you feel crappy. Well,
Speaker 1: what caused the crappy feeling and what should you do
Speaker 1: about it? I don't know. I mean, you don't know
Speaker 1: because many things that work to add together to make
Speaker 1: that crappy feeling, and it's hard to know what to
Speaker 1: do about it. But if your brain can make meaning
Speaker 1: of the sense data as more than just a crappy feeling,
Speaker 1: but specifically, you know, is it irritation or is it fatigue?
Speaker 1: Or is it I'm dehydrated, or is it I'm anxious.
Speaker 1: It could be emotional, it might be something purely physical.
Speaker 1: It might be, you know, feeling crappy because I'm really
Speaker 1: determined to learn this thing and I'm really tenacious and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let it go until I've learned it.
Speaker 1: The more options you give your brain basically, or the
Speaker 1: more options your brain gives itself, the more you learn,
Speaker 1: and the more options you learn, the more flexibility you have.
Speaker 1: And flexibility is the key to resilience. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's well said. And the example that I use in
Speaker 1: my own life of that is that. I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of years I got in the habit of
Speaker 1: labeling a host of things as a depression. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of granularity in that. It's just like something
Speaker 1: crappy is happening inside and I go, I'm depressed. Not
Speaker 1: only does that not allow my brain to make a
Speaker 1: better decision about what's actually happening and make a better decision,
Speaker 1: it reinforces a conception of what's happening with me, which
Speaker 1: is this thing. And I've really been paying a lot
Speaker 1: of attention over the last six months to what I
Speaker 1: would call depression and how often it's tiredness. Oh, absolutely absolute.
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you this one story and then we'll
Speaker 1: wrap up. A couple of years ago, I went to
Speaker 1: the doctor, new doctor, right, So my doctor retired, so
Speaker 1: now I have a new doctor. And I got the
Speaker 1: doctor and I say the doctor, I'm really really really tired.
Speaker 1: I'm so fatigued. And he says, maybe you're depressed, and
Speaker 1: I say, no, I'm not depressed. I'm just really, really
Speaker 1: really tired. And he says, well, do you have any
Speaker 1: stress in your life? And I'm like, yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, yes. I run a lab it's a large lab.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course I have stressed in my life,
Speaker 1: but I've always had stress in my life. And I'm really, really,
Speaker 1: really tired. And he said, well, maybe you're depressed and
Speaker 1: you just don't know it. And I was like, maybe
Speaker 1: you don't know the d s M criteria. You know
Speaker 1: their criteria for depression. So let's think about what those
Speaker 1: criteria are. Do I have any of those criteria? You know? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not depressed. I'm tired. Okay. As I'm leaving, thinking
Speaker 1: I'm never coming back to this doctor again, the nurse
Speaker 1: says to me, honey, are you perimenopausal, because, unbeknownst to me,
Speaker 1: hormones like estrogen and testosterone are metabolic regulators. Dopamine, Sarah Tonin.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all metabolic regulators. They all have something
Speaker 1: to do with metabolism. So if you start losing your hormones,
Speaker 1: you know, men lose test saucer and slowly over their
Speaker 1: adult life. Women lose their estrogen, you know, over a
Speaker 1: couple of years. You know, she says to me, maybe
Speaker 1: you're tired because you're going through menopause. Here's a book.
Speaker 1: Read this book. You know, she gives me the title
Speaker 1: of a self help book. So I read the self
Speaker 1: help book and then I go get you know, twenty
Speaker 1: articles and start reading them, and sure enough, what is
Speaker 1: one of the major signs of menopause. It's fatigued because
Speaker 1: you're losing your estrogen. Now, the point that I want
Speaker 1: to make is that physician, unbeknownst to him, was attempting
Speaker 1: to construct my experience for me as depression. And what
Speaker 1: if I had accepted that and really felt it. Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing that would have happened is I would
Speaker 1: have started taking antidepressants, which actually could have had the
Speaker 1: effect of driving my body budget into a deficit position
Speaker 1: even though you know it was in that position because
Speaker 1: I was losing estrogen. Second of all, I'd start wondering
Speaker 1: what it is in my life I have to make
Speaker 1: changes about because clearly something is wrong, like in a
Speaker 1: big way because I'm depressed. I mean, it would have
Speaker 1: really been in a trajectory shift for me, and not
Speaker 1: necessarily a good one. I would say. So, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I have been depressed once in my life,
Speaker 1: and it's not an experience that I'm eager to repeat.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it's agonizing to be depressed. But there
Speaker 1: is a way in which you can also understand depression
Speaker 1: as a bankrupt body budget, you know. So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that you can cure depression by just like sleeping
Speaker 1: more and like, you know, getting excidents, but I do
Speaker 1: want to point out that depression is a metabolic illness.
Speaker 1: It is many things that there's I mean, a logical problems,
Speaker 1: but all of these problems, including that really negative mood,
Speaker 1: results from basic metabolic problem. You are bankrupt. Basically, what
Speaker 1: do you do when you're bankrupt in your bank account?
Speaker 1: You stop spending. What does a brain do when it's
Speaker 1: body budget is bankrupt? It stops moving your body and
Speaker 1: it stops you learning. So you are trapped in your head. Basically,
Speaker 1: context insensitive, You're just trapped in your head. Those are
Speaker 1: two major symptoms of depression. So it helps to know
Speaker 1: a little bit I think about not just how to
Speaker 1: make sense of not just how to make fifty shades
Speaker 1: of crap, you know, crappy feelings of all different you know,
Speaker 1: but it helps to also understand something about the biological
Speaker 1: basis of the moods that you experience, because that actually
Speaker 1: adds to your granularity, because it allows you to have
Speaker 1: different action plans that you can take again, flexibility and resilience.
Speaker 1: I could riff on that for another hour because there
Speaker 1: were so many good points in that. But my pizza
Speaker 1: is getting cold. So, but your pizza is getting cold,
Speaker 1: and we are way long so and I don't want
Speaker 1: pizza to get cold. That is a tragedy. So thanks
Speaker 1: so much Lisa for coming back on. I have really
Speaker 1: enjoyed talking with you again. It's always such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me back, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll have a chance to chat again. If what you
Speaker 1: just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a
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