1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,280 Speaker 1: When we positively associate with a song, a person, a face, 2 00:00:03,320 --> 00:00:06,680 Speaker 1: an object. We don't just benefit from those activities based 3 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:09,239 Speaker 1: on the effects of those activities. It's also what we 4 00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:12,720 Speaker 1: believe about those activities. Combine and the release of dopamine 5 00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:15,520 Speaker 1: makes you more capable of then leaning into life and 6 00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:18,000 Speaker 1: going and doing other things. The effect of a small, 7 00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:21,080 Speaker 1: even you know, half a percent increase in dopamine transmission 8 00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:23,920 Speaker 1: in the brain is the difference between feeling like your 9 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,520 Speaker 1: life is bleak and you can completely attack the day 10 00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:38,199 Speaker 1: in the positive sense. Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose. 11 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:40,800 Speaker 1: I'm so grateful let you come back every single week 12 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,519 Speaker 1: to listen, learn and grow. And I am so excited 13 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:47,040 Speaker 1: to be talking to you today. I can't believe it. 14 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:50,640 Speaker 1: My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out and 15 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:53,600 Speaker 1: I cannot wait to share it with you. I am 16 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,720 Speaker 1: so excited for you to read this book, for you 17 00:00:56,760 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 1: to listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If 18 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 19 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:05,720 Speaker 1: eight Rules of Love dot com. It's dedicated to anyone 20 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love. 21 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 1: So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, 22 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:14,839 Speaker 1: or struggling with love. Make sure you grab this book 23 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:17,160 Speaker 1: and I'd love to invite you to come and see 24 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:20,880 Speaker 1: me for my global tour Love Rules. Go to Ja 25 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:26,360 Speaker 1: shettytour dot com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, 26 00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:28,960 Speaker 1: and more. I can't wait to see you this year. 27 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:31,000 Speaker 1: And you know that the podcast for me is just 28 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:33,840 Speaker 1: an opportunity to reach out to people that I'm inspired by, 29 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:36,319 Speaker 1: people that I feel are changing the world, people that 30 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:39,160 Speaker 1: I feel have amazing insights that I can learn from 31 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:41,520 Speaker 1: and want to share with you. And today's guest is 32 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:43,280 Speaker 1: someone that I've been connected with for a while, but 33 00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:47,120 Speaker 1: I'm so excited to finally have him in the studio 34 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:52,520 Speaker 1: because not only is his insights having a huge impact 35 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,440 Speaker 1: on how we live, how we think, just the energy 36 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:57,480 Speaker 1: that I felt from him in the first couple of 37 00:01:57,480 --> 00:01:59,880 Speaker 1: moments that I've met him, I can already tell that 38 00:02:00,160 --> 00:02:02,160 Speaker 1: it's all in his heart too. And so to meet 39 00:02:02,240 --> 00:02:05,880 Speaker 1: someone who's super strategic, super scientific, has an incredible mind, 40 00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:08,400 Speaker 1: but has a beautiful heart in person, that's my kind 41 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:12,480 Speaker 1: of person. And today's guest is none other than Andrew Huberman. 42 00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:16,200 Speaker 1: He's a neuroscientist and tenant professor in the Department of 43 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,520 Speaker 1: Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has 44 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,200 Speaker 1: made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, 45 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:28,280 Speaker 1: brain function, and neuroplasticity, which is the ability of our 46 00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:32,560 Speaker 1: nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills, and 47 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:36,560 Speaker 1: cognitive functioning. He also is a McKnight Foundation and Pew 48 00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:41,239 Speaker 1: Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Kogan Award in twenty seventeen. 49 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:45,000 Speaker 1: Work from the Huberman Laboratory at Stanford School of Medicine 50 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:49,519 Speaker 1: has been published in top journals including Nature, Science, and Sell, 51 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:54,280 Speaker 1: and has been featured in Time, BBC, Scientific, American Discover, 52 00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:58,160 Speaker 1: and other top media outlets. In twenty twenty one, doctor 53 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:00,920 Speaker 1: Huberman launched The Huberman Lab Parts, which I'm a huge 54 00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:03,320 Speaker 1: fan of and I know you are too. The podcast 55 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: is frequently ranked in the top twenty five of all 56 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:08,799 Speaker 1: podcasts globally and is often ranked as the number one 57 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,040 Speaker 1: in the categories of science, Education, Health and fitness. Please 58 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,000 Speaker 1: welcome my new friend and someone that I'm a huge 59 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,960 Speaker 1: fan of an admire Andrew hu Woman. Andrew, thank you 60 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:23,480 Speaker 1: for doing this, thank you for being here, and honestly, 61 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:24,840 Speaker 1: thank you for what you do in the world. I 62 00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:29,560 Speaker 1: think it's been brilliant to see someone bring so much 63 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:34,480 Speaker 1: heart into science and science into heart. And I know 64 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:36,320 Speaker 1: that people who listen to you and hear from you 65 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,440 Speaker 1: and communicate with you, and even I've really meant it 66 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: a few moments we just spent right now. I love 67 00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:48,320 Speaker 1: that combination, and I wonder how you whether you even 68 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:51,440 Speaker 1: see it that way, whether you don't. But I'm fascinated 69 00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: by Is that how you've always lived? Have you been 70 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 1: fascinated by the heart and science for a while. First 71 00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:57,760 Speaker 1: of all, I just want to say thank you for 72 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,640 Speaker 1: having me here. We've known each other through some mutual 73 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:02,920 Speaker 1: contacts for a while and it's a delight to be 74 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,680 Speaker 1: here an admirer and a fan of all you do 75 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 1: and the way you approach it. So heartfelt. Thanks for 76 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:13,560 Speaker 1: having me here in terms of you know, how things 77 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:18,480 Speaker 1: have evolved to where they are now. You know, I 78 00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:21,040 Speaker 1: don't have much of a mission statement, but I suppose 79 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:22,920 Speaker 1: if I had to pick one, it's to share the 80 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,640 Speaker 1: beauty and the utility of biology. Since I was very young, 81 00:04:27,240 --> 00:04:30,000 Speaker 1: I've been obsessed with learning, and I've also had a 82 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:33,040 Speaker 1: compulsion to share what I've learned, especially when I think 83 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,640 Speaker 1: that the information can be of use to people. So 84 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:38,000 Speaker 1: the little six and eight year old and ten year 85 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: old version of me wouldn't shut up. I was just 86 00:04:41,279 --> 00:04:43,560 Speaker 1: constantly talking about all the stuff I had been reading 87 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:46,360 Speaker 1: about on the weekends, and over time I just made 88 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:49,600 Speaker 1: sense to become an academic for that reason. And then nowadays, 89 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:52,560 Speaker 1: with the advent of podcasting, I have this wonderful opportunity 90 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:55,159 Speaker 1: to share things that I think are useful in terms 91 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,599 Speaker 1: of the heart and the mind. You know, I can 92 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:00,760 Speaker 1: only frame it by saying that, you know, our nervous 93 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,440 Speaker 1: system is our brain, our spinal cord, but of course 94 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:05,240 Speaker 1: all their connections with the organs of the body and 95 00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:07,919 Speaker 1: back again, and so we really can't divorce any of 96 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:10,400 Speaker 1: the organs of the body from our thinking and feeling 97 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:13,279 Speaker 1: and action and vice versa, as you very well know. 98 00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:16,600 Speaker 1: And then from a more personal standpoint, you know, I've 99 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:20,239 Speaker 1: had the great benefit of training with mentors in science 100 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:23,840 Speaker 1: who really lived and breathed their science, but also had 101 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:27,320 Speaker 1: a deep sense of humanity. Each one of them had 102 00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:31,400 Speaker 1: an ear, an ear towards things that were relevant to them. 103 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:35,760 Speaker 1: In one case, one with a particular interest in mental 104 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,200 Speaker 1: health and the struggles around mental health and mental illness. 105 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 1: The other just a person who just loved animals and 106 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: the natural kingdom. And then my other advisor was a 107 00:05:46,760 --> 00:05:50,480 Speaker 1: very strong advocate for scientists of all kinds and backgrounds. 108 00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:53,520 Speaker 1: And so I was so blessed to be weaned by 109 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: people who really instilled in me a love and a 110 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,760 Speaker 1: desire for learning and sharing and doing research, but also 111 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:04,000 Speaker 1: understood that how one shows up to the conversation means everything. 112 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:06,280 Speaker 1: And so you know, I just feel very blessed to 113 00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:08,080 Speaker 1: have had that, and I'm just trying to do right 114 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,080 Speaker 1: by them. I love hearing that, like I had no 115 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:14,360 Speaker 1: idea that that was a part of how you were 116 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:18,119 Speaker 1: mentored and guided. And I mean, I'm sure they feel 117 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:21,400 Speaker 1: very proud in seeing that you continue on and pass 118 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,880 Speaker 1: that legacy and so beautifully. But I think what I 119 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:28,200 Speaker 1: find even more intriguing about that is so many of 120 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:32,640 Speaker 1: our early learning experiences are not necessarily that way. And 121 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:34,839 Speaker 1: you said that you loved learning and you love sharing. 122 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:37,599 Speaker 1: I think most people that I know, are at least 123 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:40,080 Speaker 1: that I talk to or I hear from in comments 124 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 1: or podcasts, would say school was not an exciting place 125 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:46,359 Speaker 1: for them. Maybe they went to college or didn't go 126 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:49,880 Speaker 1: to college, but they necessarily didn't have a positive experience. 127 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,760 Speaker 1: Maybe it was filled with fear or doubt or judgment 128 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:56,880 Speaker 1: or criticism, or maybe there was a lack of confidence. 129 00:06:57,200 --> 00:06:59,200 Speaker 1: That could have been not only from teachers in the 130 00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:01,799 Speaker 1: school system, it could have been from friends or bullies 131 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:05,720 Speaker 1: or people in that environment. So what I'm fascinated by 132 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:11,400 Speaker 1: is our relationship with learning, because when I look at 133 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:17,640 Speaker 1: my relationship with learning too, I remember starting off having 134 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:23,200 Speaker 1: that buzz and spark, then almost feeling like I was 135 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:26,200 Speaker 1: forced to believe there are only certain ways you could learn. 136 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:30,160 Speaker 1: I grew up believing I didn't like reading because we 137 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:33,480 Speaker 1: were only encouraged to read fiction books, and even till 138 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:35,400 Speaker 1: this day, I don't like reading fiction books. I have 139 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:38,040 Speaker 1: no interest in reading fiction books. I love reading nonfiction. 140 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,120 Speaker 1: And today I can read nonfiction books every day, every week, 141 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,160 Speaker 1: every month, every year, and I'm fully engrossed and immersed. 142 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:47,320 Speaker 1: That's why I'm excited for your book one day. And 143 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,640 Speaker 1: I think that is something that I learned that I 144 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:52,840 Speaker 1: do love reading. I do love learning, but I was 145 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,440 Speaker 1: never introduced to that form until my father gave me 146 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,160 Speaker 1: a biography when I was fourteen years old. And so 147 00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:02,600 Speaker 1: how do you think our relationship with learning has been 148 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:05,520 Speaker 1: formed over time? Hearing from your own as well. I 149 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:08,840 Speaker 1: think it was the great physicist Max del Brooke who 150 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:12,840 Speaker 1: said that, you know, when teaching, assume zero knowledge and 151 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: infinite intelligence. I try and keep that in mind. I 152 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:18,720 Speaker 1: think that we are all innate learners by virtue of 153 00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:21,440 Speaker 1: the fact that this thing, this nervous system as it's called, 154 00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:25,760 Speaker 1: is really a map of our experience, and it's there 155 00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:29,120 Speaker 1: to form itself. It's unusual among the organs in that 156 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,000 Speaker 1: it shapes itself right, Unlike the kidney or the liver 157 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:35,200 Speaker 1: there doesn't constantly update its own form and function in 158 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,040 Speaker 1: the same way. The nervous system is there essentially to 159 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:40,480 Speaker 1: educate itself so that it can operate better in a 160 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:43,720 Speaker 1: given environment. And once one understands that, you start to 161 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:47,040 Speaker 1: realize that the forms of learning are many. So, for instance, 162 00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:55,080 Speaker 1: you know math, or I suppose in the UK's maths, maths, 163 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:58,680 Speaker 1: you know, could be learned by way of different using 164 00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:02,320 Speaker 1: different types of examples, movement of trains or bartering systems, 165 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:05,280 Speaker 1: or on paper just simple long division and multiplication. But 166 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:07,720 Speaker 1: in the end, what you're really trying to find anytime 167 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:11,000 Speaker 1: you're teaching or learning is you're trying to find a 168 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:13,880 Speaker 1: universal algorithm of how the brain works. And what I 169 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:16,120 Speaker 1: mean by that is that you know, all these nerve cells, 170 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:19,080 Speaker 1: they only can communicate through chemicals and electricity. You know, 171 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,640 Speaker 1: it's really just meat in there, I believe it or not, 172 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:26,480 Speaker 1: but there are algorithms that are universal. So whether or 173 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:30,080 Speaker 1: not one learns better verbally or visually, or whether one 174 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:33,640 Speaker 1: has a propensity for math or for verbal subjects, what 175 00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:36,200 Speaker 1: is true for all of us is that the brain 176 00:09:36,559 --> 00:09:39,920 Speaker 1: is they're always asking questions and trying to make predictions 177 00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:42,000 Speaker 1: about its environment. And I think what happens is when 178 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:46,560 Speaker 1: we're children, we are learning passively all the time. As 179 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:48,440 Speaker 1: we get older, and especially as we get to our 180 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:51,320 Speaker 1: mid in late twenties, it takes an immense amount of 181 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:53,840 Speaker 1: focus and energy in order to learn. But of course 182 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:56,720 Speaker 1: the nervous system can still shape itself well into adulthood, 183 00:09:57,240 --> 00:10:00,400 Speaker 1: almost certainly for the entire lifespan. But that focus and 184 00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:03,839 Speaker 1: energy feels almost like an agitation. And I think that 185 00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:07,120 Speaker 1: as children, we don't necessarily experience that agitation, because we 186 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,880 Speaker 1: can for better, for worse. We can experience and change passively. 187 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:14,480 Speaker 1: Neuralplasticity just happens by way of pure experience. As we 188 00:10:14,760 --> 00:10:18,160 Speaker 1: get older mid twenties, early thirties and so on, that 189 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:23,280 Speaker 1: threshold of agitation for people feels like it's something to 190 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:26,560 Speaker 1: back away from. But if we can learn to approach 191 00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:29,679 Speaker 1: that and understand that that agitation is actually the circulation 192 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:33,800 Speaker 1: of chemicals, which is the brain and nervous system telling itself. Aha, 193 00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:37,079 Speaker 1: now I need to pay attention and change. We can 194 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 1: start to actually modify the way that system works. So 195 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:41,640 Speaker 1: it's a bit of a convoluted answer to your question, 196 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:43,880 Speaker 1: but I think that at the heart of our nervous 197 00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:47,520 Speaker 1: system is this ability, these algorithms by which it can 198 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:51,200 Speaker 1: change themselves. And it's on all of us to understand 199 00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:54,120 Speaker 1: that that bit of agitation and discomfort need not be 200 00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:58,960 Speaker 1: interpreted as discomfort. That's the edge where learning is beginning. 201 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:03,400 Speaker 1: So confusion and being perplexed, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the 202 00:11:03,400 --> 00:11:06,360 Speaker 1: amount of information, that's actually the stir of chemicals that 203 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:08,240 Speaker 1: are queuing the nervous system to change. Because if it 204 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:10,839 Speaker 1: can do something easily, there's no reason for the nervous 205 00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:13,440 Speaker 1: system to change. Now, in terms of different styles of 206 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:16,280 Speaker 1: teaching and learning, I think that many of us experience 207 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:20,680 Speaker 1: that agitation early on, and we, for reasons that are understandable, 208 00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:23,559 Speaker 1: we backed away from learning anymore. So, for instance, I'm 209 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:27,480 Speaker 1: musically I can't. I'm musically deficient. I love music, but 210 00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:29,880 Speaker 1: I can't play music to save my life. And I 211 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:33,160 Speaker 1: think that's entirely because as a kid, every time I 212 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,320 Speaker 1: would try and play music, it just sounded terrible. Everyone cringed, 213 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:40,280 Speaker 1: the dogs, dogs literally howled, So I stopped right But 214 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:42,959 Speaker 1: knowing what I know now, that would be the queue 215 00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:47,040 Speaker 1: to that. The agitation, the stress, the embarrassment is actually 216 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:49,440 Speaker 1: the cue to the nervous system that it's about to 217 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,440 Speaker 1: rewire itself. So I think if people just understood that 218 00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:57,920 Speaker 1: children and adults would lean into learning more regularly and 219 00:11:57,960 --> 00:12:02,000 Speaker 1: hopefully with more ease overall. Yeah, definitely, I mean even 220 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:05,959 Speaker 1: now when what sparks from that answer, which I actually 221 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:10,560 Speaker 1: really appreciated, is the idea that as we get older, 222 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:12,839 Speaker 1: as you said, it has to become more conscious, it 223 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:18,079 Speaker 1: has that tension. It's almost like you have to start 224 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:21,240 Speaker 1: figuring out how you learn based best and how you 225 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:25,600 Speaker 1: process ideas. So for me, I know that I love 226 00:12:25,679 --> 00:12:29,679 Speaker 1: to first dive deep and immerse myself in something, and 227 00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,160 Speaker 1: then I like to create a structured approach to get 228 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:34,760 Speaker 1: there if I enjoy it. So if I want to 229 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:37,600 Speaker 1: learn a new skill, I'll get obsessed with it for 230 00:12:37,640 --> 00:12:40,360 Speaker 1: a weekend. I'll go on the course, I'll read the book, 231 00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:42,800 Speaker 1: I'll watch every video. I just want to dive in 232 00:12:43,160 --> 00:12:45,680 Speaker 1: to really see if I genuinely care or whether it's 233 00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:48,880 Speaker 1: me thinking I care, and to try and separate that 234 00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:52,800 Speaker 1: ego and that true desire for me at least. And 235 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:54,839 Speaker 1: if I do a weekend of something and I realized, oh, 236 00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:56,760 Speaker 1: my ego like that, but I didn't really like that, 237 00:12:56,800 --> 00:13:00,319 Speaker 1: I'm going to step away or actually, wow, this is fascinating, 238 00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:03,120 Speaker 1: then I'll go and build a step by step plan 239 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:06,760 Speaker 1: with small steps and incremental steps that I've learned over 240 00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:11,640 Speaker 1: a long time of learning different things. How can people 241 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:14,360 Speaker 1: think about the best way they can learn? What are 242 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:17,320 Speaker 1: different styles? What are different methods that you think people 243 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:20,000 Speaker 1: can think? If someone's listening right now and they're like Andrew, well, 244 00:13:20,040 --> 00:13:23,160 Speaker 1: I want to learn a new instrument, or I want 245 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:26,319 Speaker 1: to learn a new language, or maybe it's I want 246 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:28,040 Speaker 1: to learn how to start a podcast, or I want 247 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,600 Speaker 1: to learn how to players sport or whatever it may be. 248 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:34,400 Speaker 1: How can someone start thinking about how they should approach learning? 249 00:13:34,679 --> 00:13:37,880 Speaker 1: Terrific question, and fortunately nowadays we can look to studies 250 00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,360 Speaker 1: done in humans that define some very key principles. The 251 00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:44,760 Speaker 1: first principle is that the whole process of neuroplasticity and 252 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:48,800 Speaker 1: learning is really a two stage process. First, there must 253 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:53,040 Speaker 1: be focus and alertness. That focus and alertness is associated 254 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:56,559 Speaker 1: with the release of neurochemicals so called neuromodulators, things like 255 00:13:56,559 --> 00:14:00,520 Speaker 1: a setocline in particular, which sort of acts as highlighter 256 00:14:00,559 --> 00:14:02,880 Speaker 1: pen if you will, for certain connections in the brain 257 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:08,040 Speaker 1: to later be reinforced. And the neurochemical adrenaline, which is 258 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:10,520 Speaker 1: also called epinephrin also depending on if you're in the 259 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:13,959 Speaker 1: UK or elsewhere. A long interesting story not for this 260 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,960 Speaker 1: time about why it has multiple names, also called adrenaline, 261 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,760 Speaker 1: is associated with an increasing kind of agitation and alertness 262 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:23,920 Speaker 1: a pseudocoline. Think of it as kind of a spotlight 263 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:26,520 Speaker 1: or a highlighter pen for certain connections in the brain, 264 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:29,680 Speaker 1: so you need alertness and focus. And then the second 265 00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:32,800 Speaker 1: stage is that it is only during periods of deep rest, 266 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,760 Speaker 1: in particular sleep and something that I call non sleep 267 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,840 Speaker 1: deep rest, which I've given an ACRONYMCA. Scientists like acronyms, 268 00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:41,760 Speaker 1: n SDR, non sleep, deep rest, things like yoga, nidra, 269 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,120 Speaker 1: things like shallow naps, things like forms of meditation that 270 00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:48,920 Speaker 1: don't involve a lot of focused concentration. You're a far 271 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:52,120 Speaker 1: more the experience a meditator than I. So I'm outside 272 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,720 Speaker 1: my wheelhouse when talking about meditation. But it is only 273 00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,720 Speaker 1: periods of intense focus and alertness followed by periods of 274 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:02,320 Speaker 1: deep rest that allow the nervous system to change, and 275 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,480 Speaker 1: there is an abundance of evidence for that. So that's 276 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,600 Speaker 1: the first thing to understand. The brain actually rewires during 277 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:11,760 Speaker 1: deep sleep and rest, because during deep sleep and rest, naps, yoga, nidra, 278 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,720 Speaker 1: deep sleep, there's a replay of the very same cells 279 00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:18,280 Speaker 1: in the brain that we're active during learning, oftentimes in 280 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:21,640 Speaker 1: reverse for reasons that are still not understood, but at 281 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,960 Speaker 1: a much higher repetition rate. So you're actually getting repetitions 282 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,680 Speaker 1: while you sleep. This is why one will strain to 283 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:30,360 Speaker 1: learn a language or a motor skill, or maths or 284 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:32,720 Speaker 1: something like that over and over and over. Doesn't happen. 285 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,080 Speaker 1: You take a couple of nights sleep, take a break 286 00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:37,160 Speaker 1: from and all of a sudden it's there, it's because 287 00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:39,480 Speaker 1: it happens in rest. Now, there's some other things that 288 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:42,400 Speaker 1: one can do to enhance this process further that are 289 00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:45,880 Speaker 1: arrived to us from good data. First of all, there's 290 00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,440 Speaker 1: a so called alltradean rhythm, which is the ninety minute 291 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:51,720 Speaker 1: cycles during which we can focus pretty well for a 292 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,520 Speaker 1: duration of about ninety minutes. Of course, flickering in and 293 00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:57,360 Speaker 1: out of focus. Nobody really focuses for ninety minutes straight 294 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:00,480 Speaker 1: unless they've built up that capacity or they are very 295 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:03,760 Speaker 1: interested in what they're learning, right, they're just wrapped with attention. 296 00:16:04,160 --> 00:16:06,960 Speaker 1: Usually people flicker in and out, And of course, nowadays 297 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:08,920 Speaker 1: there's a lot of literature and ideas about ways to 298 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:12,320 Speaker 1: maintain focus, put the phone away, limit noise. Some people 299 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:14,560 Speaker 1: like background noise, some people like music, some don't. It's 300 00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:18,840 Speaker 1: very contextual, highly individualized. But ninety minutes is sort of 301 00:16:18,840 --> 00:16:22,960 Speaker 1: the batch of time that the brain can focus really 302 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,400 Speaker 1: hard on one thing before it needs a true rest 303 00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:27,520 Speaker 1: of an hour or two before you can go back 304 00:16:27,520 --> 00:16:30,560 Speaker 1: to learning or working very hard. The other thing is 305 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:35,200 Speaker 1: that there's some very interesting data showing that shallow naps 306 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,120 Speaker 1: or NSDR non sleep deep rest done within four hours 307 00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:39,960 Speaker 1: of one of these ninety minute learning belts can be 308 00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:43,640 Speaker 1: very beneficial for accelerating learning. And then there are these 309 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:47,160 Speaker 1: incredible data on so called gap effects. So there have 310 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:50,480 Speaker 1: been studies of skills that are physical skills, mental skills 311 00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:52,440 Speaker 1: where people will, for instance, try to learn scales on 312 00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:55,600 Speaker 1: the piano or a math problem or a spatial problem 313 00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,560 Speaker 1: or a physical skill, and then at random, every so 314 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:02,760 Speaker 1: offen a buzzer will go off and the person will 315 00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: just be told to do nothing, sit their eyes closed 316 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,480 Speaker 1: or eyes open, and do nothing, just stop the learning 317 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:10,080 Speaker 1: process for about ten seconds and then return to doing 318 00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:12,600 Speaker 1: what they're doing. These are these little microrests. It turns 319 00:17:12,640 --> 00:17:15,840 Speaker 1: out that during those microrests, the hippocampus of brain areas 320 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:17,560 Speaker 1: you know that's associated with learning and memory, and the 321 00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:22,119 Speaker 1: neo cortex, also associated with learning and memory, undergoes replay 322 00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:25,200 Speaker 1: of the thing that the individuals trying to learn at 323 00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:29,280 Speaker 1: twenty times the speed, also in reverse, just as in sleep, 324 00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:32,120 Speaker 1: and that can lead and has been shown to lead 325 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:34,960 Speaker 1: to accelerations in learning. So they're these ways. I wouldn't 326 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:37,320 Speaker 1: even think of them as hacks because the word hack 327 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:39,240 Speaker 1: is a little tricky because when I think of the 328 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,359 Speaker 1: word hack, it seems doing something with an object or 329 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:45,919 Speaker 1: a tool that wasn't designed for that purpose. Right, the 330 00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:49,159 Speaker 1: nervous system already harbors these mechanisms and one can access 331 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:51,360 Speaker 1: them through these little microrests. So, whether or not you're 332 00:17:51,359 --> 00:17:53,720 Speaker 1: a child or an adult, every so often when trying 333 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,400 Speaker 1: to learn something, just pause for ten seconds or so 334 00:17:56,560 --> 00:17:58,840 Speaker 1: do your best to just clear your mind. Of course, 335 00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: it's very hard to clear them up mind, but do 336 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:03,040 Speaker 1: your best to clear the mind and then go back 337 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:06,080 Speaker 1: to the learning task as it were, And that has 338 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:09,600 Speaker 1: been shown to vary to significantly accelerate the learning process 339 00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:11,879 Speaker 1: and the retention of newly learned information. And then the 340 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:14,639 Speaker 1: last thing you touched on earlier, which is this notion 341 00:18:14,680 --> 00:18:17,000 Speaker 1: of incremental learning. You said you like to throw yourself 342 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,400 Speaker 1: into something as kind of a litmus test of whether 343 00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:22,159 Speaker 1: or not you enjoy it or not. Turns out that 344 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:25,240 Speaker 1: from beautiful work done by my colleague at Stanford School 345 00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:29,080 Speaker 1: of Medicine, Eric Knutson, has shown that yes, it's true 346 00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:31,600 Speaker 1: that early in development in humans this would be up 347 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,800 Speaker 1: until the mid twenties, we can learn things in larger 348 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:38,440 Speaker 1: batches and much more easily than we can later in life. However, 349 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:43,639 Speaker 1: if one batches that work into smaller increments, and so 350 00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:46,560 Speaker 1: for instance, deciding maybe set a timer, turning the phone 351 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:49,040 Speaker 1: off otherwise, and saying, I'm going to spend three minutes, 352 00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:52,080 Speaker 1: just three minutes in trying to intensely learn this thing, 353 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:55,160 Speaker 1: even if I feel like I'm failing. If one does 354 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:58,960 Speaker 1: that repeatedly, those little increments of learning can lead to 355 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:02,399 Speaker 1: an outsized amount of learning overall. And so the nervous 356 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,880 Speaker 1: system loves incremental learning. It loves to batch things into 357 00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:09,440 Speaker 1: focused little bouts. And you know, if that's already the 358 00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,320 Speaker 1: tools that you've built up, which it sounds like you have, wonderful, 359 00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:15,000 Speaker 1: But if somebody is out there trying, you know, struggling 360 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,880 Speaker 1: to learn, really trying to break things down into very 361 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,160 Speaker 1: brief periods of intense focus, that is the queue by 362 00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,720 Speaker 1: which during sleep the nervous system will change itself. And 363 00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:25,760 Speaker 1: this has been shown over and over and over again, 364 00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:30,360 Speaker 1: even in very late life individuals and people in there. 365 00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:32,320 Speaker 1: You know, we like to think life could go on 366 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,520 Speaker 1: further than this, but people in their eighties and nineties 367 00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:38,080 Speaker 1: still have neuroplasticity. There's even evidence that new neurons can 368 00:19:38,119 --> 00:19:40,440 Speaker 1: be produced in the hipocampus of people in their late 369 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:44,000 Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. So the capacity is there. This is 370 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:45,920 Speaker 1: why I love what you do, because you would never 371 00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:50,840 Speaker 1: consider that the answer to learning is depressed right lessly, 372 00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:56,200 Speaker 1: provided the focus comes first. But of course, sleep deprivation 373 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,520 Speaker 1: makes it very hard to learn. And there's something else 374 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:02,280 Speaker 1: and that happens in sleep. Nowadays, we I think most people, 375 00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:05,120 Speaker 1: thanks to the beautiful work of Matthew Walker at Berkeley 376 00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:07,720 Speaker 1: and others, really understand the value of sleep for health, 377 00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:10,680 Speaker 1: immune system function, etc. There is a stage of sleep, 378 00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,320 Speaker 1: rapid eye movement sleep that we're all familiar with, of course, 379 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:17,000 Speaker 1: and where literally the eyes are moving, that tends to 380 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,240 Speaker 1: come later in the night, during the second half of sleep, 381 00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:23,159 Speaker 1: where there's a there's a tendency to have very emotional dreams, 382 00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:26,119 Speaker 1: or at least dreams that are laden with a lot 383 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:30,400 Speaker 1: of emotional content of some kind. During rapid eye movement sleep, 384 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,440 Speaker 1: there's an inability to move the body. We call this atonia. 385 00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:37,919 Speaker 1: It's literally a sleep induced paralysis that's healthy and a 386 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:41,640 Speaker 1: complete failure of the nervous system to release adrenaline, epinephrin. 387 00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:45,120 Speaker 1: This is sort of like a trauma therapy in some sense. 388 00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:47,120 Speaker 1: If you think about it, it's a replay of an 389 00:20:47,119 --> 00:20:51,480 Speaker 1: emotional events the neurochemical that makes us feel tense and agitated, 390 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,639 Speaker 1: so in our mind, those dreams can often feel very distressing. 391 00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,520 Speaker 1: It's been shown that if you deprive people of rapid 392 00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:01,440 Speaker 1: eye movement sleep, they fail to dump the negative emotions 393 00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:03,520 Speaker 1: of things that happened the day before and the day before. 394 00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:07,080 Speaker 1: And I think all of us have experienced the shifting 395 00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:10,440 Speaker 1: emotionality that happens when we are sleep deprived. What ends 396 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:12,760 Speaker 1: up happening is that the little things seem like big things, 397 00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:15,600 Speaker 1: but after a few nights sleep, we're okay, and there's 398 00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,080 Speaker 1: no mystery to why that is anymore. I think almost 399 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:20,359 Speaker 1: every sleep scientist believes that has something to do with 400 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,600 Speaker 1: this built in kind of trauma release therapy where you 401 00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:26,720 Speaker 1: get to experience the thing in your sleep minus the 402 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,760 Speaker 1: neurochemicals that make your body feel terrible, and somehow that 403 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:32,240 Speaker 1: dissociation allows people to then step back into life with 404 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:36,200 Speaker 1: a clean slate. Wow. Yeah, no, I've heard those ideas before, 405 00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:39,720 Speaker 1: but the way you just wove ail together is really special. 406 00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:42,480 Speaker 1: What I'm intrigued by, then, is what's the latest science 407 00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:48,560 Speaker 1: on dreams? Because there are so many spiritual wisdom based 408 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:53,960 Speaker 1: approaches to dreams. I've never really dive deep enough, I think, 409 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:58,840 Speaker 1: from a scientific perspective into dreams apart from some particular aspects. 410 00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,520 Speaker 1: But let's go there. Yeah, where is so? I love 411 00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,760 Speaker 1: the idea that sleep, of course, is acting as somewhat 412 00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:09,879 Speaker 1: of a dishwasher cleansing, healing agent, so that while we're sleeping, 413 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,560 Speaker 1: we're actually being able to release these ideas. Hence we 414 00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,880 Speaker 1: have where did dreams fit into that? Picks? Ye? Yeah, Well, 415 00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,960 Speaker 1: I'm glad you said dishwasher because from a pure physiological standpoint, 416 00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:24,440 Speaker 1: this is separate from dreams. But from a pure physiological standpoint, 417 00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:28,320 Speaker 1: it's now well appreciated that during sleep there's a rinsing 418 00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,240 Speaker 1: out of the debris that accumulate in the brain. The 419 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:33,520 Speaker 1: brain is the most metamolically demanding organ that we have. 420 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,520 Speaker 1: It consumes tons of energy. Most of the energy that 421 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:38,560 Speaker 1: we burn in terms of calories, is from our brain, 422 00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,119 Speaker 1: not our muscles. Even if people aren't don't feel like 423 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,919 Speaker 1: they're thinking very hard, and thinking very hard as we know, 424 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,439 Speaker 1: can feel very taxing. We can feel exhausted after a 425 00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:52,240 Speaker 1: hard conversation. Right. This washout, as it's called, is a 426 00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:55,199 Speaker 1: so called glimphatic rinse out. The brain wasn't thought to 427 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,000 Speaker 1: have a lymphatic system, but it does. Cerebral spinal fluid 428 00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:01,880 Speaker 1: starts to reverse basically it's pattern of flow during sleep. 429 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,200 Speaker 1: All these incredible ways of washing out the brain during sleep. Now, 430 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:10,280 Speaker 1: during the first half of one's night, the ninety minute 431 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:12,239 Speaker 1: cycles still persists. That we were talking about earlier, these 432 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,400 Speaker 1: old trading cycles, and those ninety minute cycles are mostly 433 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,879 Speaker 1: made up of a so called slow wave sleep, so 434 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:21,080 Speaker 1: we see big amplitude brain waves this kind of thing. 435 00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,960 Speaker 1: Dreams tend to be pretty boring early in the night. 436 00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:29,040 Speaker 1: They tend to be more associated with motor function and movement, 437 00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:31,879 Speaker 1: and it's actually the case that growth hormone is released 438 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,280 Speaker 1: in the early part of the night and that most 439 00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,159 Speaker 1: of the repair of the body and tissues is occurring 440 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,880 Speaker 1: during that first half of sleep. As the night goes on, 441 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,800 Speaker 1: dreams become more intense and more emotionally laden, regardless of 442 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,560 Speaker 1: what's been going on in someone's waking life, And in fact, 443 00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,520 Speaker 1: toward morning, almost all of those ninety minute cycles that 444 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,720 Speaker 1: occur back to back is going to be comprised of 445 00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,880 Speaker 1: this rapid eye movement sleep. So the sleep toward morning 446 00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,240 Speaker 1: is going to be much more emotional. Now. The interesting 447 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,800 Speaker 1: thing is that if you look at the data on 448 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,399 Speaker 1: dreaming in humans and you look at it purely through 449 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,160 Speaker 1: the lens of neuroscience, you get a bunch of language 450 00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,679 Speaker 1: back about okay, not much up and effor in happening. 451 00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,000 Speaker 1: So you're associating the emotion from the neurochemical state. If 452 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:17,399 Speaker 1: you look to the psychology literature, which I do, or 453 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,160 Speaker 1: you read a book like Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Yung, 454 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,400 Speaker 1: or you start to look at some of the kind 455 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:24,720 Speaker 1: of hybrid work which is psychiatry, which of course are 456 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,280 Speaker 1: mds that are grounded in physiology but also think psychoanalytically. 457 00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,879 Speaker 1: They I think they're really onto something with this idea 458 00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:35,560 Speaker 1: that dreams are basically a time in which the ordinary 459 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,800 Speaker 1: sequence of life events is converted into heuristics, shorthand symbols, 460 00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,760 Speaker 1: and the brain loves symbols in the daytime too, right, 461 00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:47,080 Speaker 1: we don't walk around parsing every angle of every object. 462 00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,800 Speaker 1: The way the visual system works is that the recognition 463 00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,159 Speaker 1: of your face, for instance, there's a brain area that 464 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,879 Speaker 1: I've seen you many many millions of time, billions of 465 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,320 Speaker 1: times probably, and I recognize you immediately as Jay Shetty 466 00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,960 Speaker 1: because there literally is a neuron my brain that's a 467 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:04,239 Speaker 1: Jay Shetty neuron. We know this right from recording from 468 00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:06,760 Speaker 1: brains of people that recognize people. Right. If I met 469 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,800 Speaker 1: some of your staff today, lovely people, for the first time, now, 470 00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,280 Speaker 1: those neurons exist for them, But that representation of you 471 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,560 Speaker 1: was built up through basic representation of just the orientations 472 00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,200 Speaker 1: of lines, all right, just like a one would sketch 473 00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,919 Speaker 1: your face and then build in more elaborate representation. The 474 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,679 Speaker 1: brain represents things in symbols in a very abstract way, 475 00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,240 Speaker 1: so without going down too far of a rabbit hole, 476 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,160 Speaker 1: if I were to, for instance, say you know what, Jay, 477 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,760 Speaker 1: I'm going to play artists today, of which I'm not, 478 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:37,520 Speaker 1: and I'm going to draw your face, and I did 479 00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:38,879 Speaker 1: my best to draw your face and showed it to 480 00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,400 Speaker 1: you'd probably say, oh, well, that's not great, but you'd 481 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,040 Speaker 1: probably recognize some of the features. But for instance, if 482 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,360 Speaker 1: I had decided that I was going to put your 483 00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,800 Speaker 1: eyes in a different location, eliminate your teeth, put a 484 00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,960 Speaker 1: bunch of tattoos on your face for fun, and show 485 00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,480 Speaker 1: you this, and I'd say, you'd say that doesn't look 486 00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,119 Speaker 1: anything like me, And I'd say, ah, but that's my 487 00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,879 Speaker 1: abstract representation of you. It turns out that the brain 488 00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:04,720 Speaker 1: represents everything in the external world as a shorthand abstract representation, 489 00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:09,160 Speaker 1: and in dreams, the reason that we tend to, for instance, 490 00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:15,560 Speaker 1: replace people with animals or objects with different objects is 491 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,199 Speaker 1: because the brain is thinking more in terms of the 492 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,040 Speaker 1: relationships between objects than it is the objects themselves. And 493 00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,359 Speaker 1: so this is where dream analysis gets a little bit tricky. 494 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,280 Speaker 1: So the analysts would say, you know, the for instance, 495 00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:29,919 Speaker 1: I had a dream not that long ago where I 496 00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,200 Speaker 1: was being chased by two animals. It was a bear 497 00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,440 Speaker 1: and a wolf, a very salient dream for me. And 498 00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,160 Speaker 1: turns out that that bear and that wolf I realized 499 00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:39,960 Speaker 1: only later that day. I was walking around. I'd gone 500 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:41,679 Speaker 1: for a swim in the ocean, got out of the ocean, 501 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,000 Speaker 1: and I turned to someone. I said, oh, my goodness, 502 00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,360 Speaker 1: I know what that was about. That was about these 503 00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,520 Speaker 1: two children that are now in my life. That and 504 00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,679 Speaker 1: I thought, they're chased me, like they need something for me, 505 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,159 Speaker 1: And it opened up an entire conscious discussion about that. 506 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,400 Speaker 1: So in my mind, these children were represented as animals, 507 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:01,160 Speaker 1: not because children are always represented as animals, but probably 508 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,600 Speaker 1: because it was the feeling that they were impinging on me, 509 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,760 Speaker 1: and they're they're lovely children, but nonetheless that they're impinging 510 00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,879 Speaker 1: on me. So the point is not my dream. The 511 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,800 Speaker 1: point is that dream analysis always has to take into 512 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,880 Speaker 1: account that the brain operates in symbols where objects are 513 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:22,320 Speaker 1: replaceable and there is there are only relationships between objects, 514 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,879 Speaker 1: and so if one has a very scary dream about 515 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,800 Speaker 1: a person or sees a monster, it's really in the 516 00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,000 Speaker 1: early waking state of the day that we are in 517 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,800 Speaker 1: a position to best understand those relationships. So here's a 518 00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,240 Speaker 1: tool I recommend that's actually supported by sleep science, which 519 00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:41,960 Speaker 1: is when waking and in the first thirty minutes or 520 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,919 Speaker 1: so around waking, you're in this liminal state. Even if 521 00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,040 Speaker 1: you're somebody who wakes up and feels very alert, you're 522 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,320 Speaker 1: in this liminal state where that symbolism is still quite fluid. 523 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,919 Speaker 1: I highly recommend that people try and not bring in 524 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,240 Speaker 1: too much new sensory experience if they want to understand 525 00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,359 Speaker 1: their dream, stay lying down with your eyes closed. Maybe 526 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,920 Speaker 1: tell your partner, if someone else you live with, if 527 00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:05,880 Speaker 1: you live with somebody that you just need a few 528 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:07,760 Speaker 1: moments and just try and move about your day in 529 00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:09,879 Speaker 1: a way where you're not trying to solve the dream, 530 00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,320 Speaker 1: but you're also not bringing in a lot of new 531 00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,200 Speaker 1: sensory experience because in that moment, you actually stand a 532 00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:19,199 Speaker 1: chance of parsing what that relationship is. And this is 533 00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,240 Speaker 1: something that psychoanalysts understand. This is something that, believe it 534 00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,040 Speaker 1: or not, clinical hypnotists understand bring people into a state 535 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:29,000 Speaker 1: of deep relaxation and be able to capture that transition 536 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,199 Speaker 1: between the sleep and waking state. Forgive me for the 537 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:36,959 Speaker 1: you know, excessively long answer, but not exacting, not excessively long, 538 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,840 Speaker 1: please carry on. Yeah, Well, so there's physiology that we know, 539 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,440 Speaker 1: and then there's the psychology of this. And just to 540 00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,480 Speaker 1: make it very clear, the brain thinks in symbols in 541 00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,320 Speaker 1: the daytime and in dreams, in waking states, and in dreams. 542 00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,800 Speaker 1: It's all symbols. Every This is symbolic representation because we 543 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,440 Speaker 1: can't parse all the information coming into our nervous system, 544 00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,720 Speaker 1: but because the nervous system's main job is to make 545 00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:02,640 Speaker 1: really good predictions, to basically do statistics like when, for instance, 546 00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,000 Speaker 1: as a child, one of the first things you learn 547 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,200 Speaker 1: is that objects fall down, not up. So the first 548 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,080 Speaker 1: time they see a helium balloon, it's like awe and excitement. 549 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,800 Speaker 1: That on excitement is the release of neurochemicals that teach 550 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,920 Speaker 1: the brain sometimes objects fall up, so to speak. So 551 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,160 Speaker 1: once one starts to recognize that the brain is always 552 00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,720 Speaker 1: trying to make these predictions, you can start to look 553 00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:27,280 Speaker 1: at your dreams as symbolic representations and how those relate 554 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,040 Speaker 1: to one another. The action functions are far more interesting 555 00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,080 Speaker 1: and important than it was a vase. And you know, 556 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:35,440 Speaker 1: when I was a kid, there was a vase in 557 00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,440 Speaker 1: my grandmother's home, and that vase represented something maybe, but 558 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,400 Speaker 1: more likely you would want to think about the shape 559 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,760 Speaker 1: of it or where that vase was in relationship to 560 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,200 Speaker 1: other things, because that's how the brain works. It makes 561 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,840 Speaker 1: predictions based on context. Yeah. I hope that's helpful to people. 562 00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,920 Speaker 1: If there's If there are other theories of dreams, and 563 00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,360 Speaker 1: I'm certain that there are that extend past this, I 564 00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,000 Speaker 1: apologize for not addressing them, but I think for most people, 565 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,560 Speaker 1: just thinking about the relationship between objects in their dreams 566 00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,360 Speaker 1: is going to be more useful than thinking about what 567 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,200 Speaker 1: exactly that the dream was about, quote unquote, Yes, and 568 00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,400 Speaker 1: I want to just say, please, do not apologize. That 569 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,840 Speaker 1: was a brilliant answer, and it was so useful even 570 00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,200 Speaker 1: for me, because I think you're so right that so 571 00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:19,880 Speaker 1: often even people will ask me. They'll be like, hey, 572 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:21,400 Speaker 1: I had this dream, what does it mean? One thing 573 00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,040 Speaker 1: we have not solved as a neuroscientists. Two things. One 574 00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,160 Speaker 1: why it is that people need to tell other people 575 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,400 Speaker 1: their dreams because other people, unless it's a trained therapist, 576 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,920 Speaker 1: are useless, of course help unless they have intense knowledge 577 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,719 Speaker 1: of the symbolic representations of your life. We should all 578 00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:38,320 Speaker 1: be doing this ourselves. And the other one is a 579 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,120 Speaker 1: kind of peculiar one which there seems to be a 580 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,040 Speaker 1: need among many people that if they wake up in 581 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:43,440 Speaker 1: the middle of the night and they can't sleep, to 582 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,760 Speaker 1: wake up other people who are sleeping. But I haven't 583 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,480 Speaker 1: solved that one. No, I love that, and I completely 584 00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,440 Speaker 1: agree with you. I think when I think about that though, 585 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,240 Speaker 1: what really struck me was this idea of the brain 586 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 1: loving symbols, and I think of what are healthy symbols 587 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,280 Speaker 1: throughout the day, because I think we forget. I mean, 588 00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,080 Speaker 1: you came into this room earlier, we came into the 589 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,400 Speaker 1: studio and you were looking around it all my symbols 590 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: that I surround myself with. Do they count as symbols? 591 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:12,480 Speaker 1: Do they not count as absolutely? One thing I've noticed 592 00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,760 Speaker 1: immediately on walking in here is these many things that 593 00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: are beautiful and they have a lot of depth to them. 594 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,240 Speaker 1: And I have this obsession with anytime I'm in a 595 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,040 Speaker 1: new environment, provided that it's appropriate, I just have to 596 00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,800 Speaker 1: sniff around and look at everything to kind of know 597 00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,880 Speaker 1: where I am in relationship to things. Absolutely, And I 598 00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:31,440 Speaker 1: saw you do that, and I didn't want to bore 599 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,080 Speaker 1: you with the history of everything I can said it 600 00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,960 Speaker 1: to you. But the idea that I find as well, 601 00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,200 Speaker 1: this environment has been sculpted with symbols that allow me 602 00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,560 Speaker 1: to be present with someone and what I hope will 603 00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,040 Speaker 1: help others be present as well, or at least spark 604 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,360 Speaker 1: their curiosity and intrigue so that we can have that 605 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,200 Speaker 1: in our conversation. I wonder what are healthy symbols are 606 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,960 Speaker 1: there set and healthy symbols for the brain to connect 607 00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,080 Speaker 1: with on a daily basis before sleep to sleep that 608 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,800 Speaker 1: allow us to program ourselves more effectively, because I feel 609 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,680 Speaker 1: like most of the symbols that we're seeing are unconscious 610 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:14,760 Speaker 1: or unintentional or mainly marketing or advertising or propaganda. But 611 00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,160 Speaker 1: we're not really selective around our symbols. Yeah, I love 612 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,400 Speaker 1: that you asked this question because for years, you know, 613 00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,640 Speaker 1: we hear these things, like you know, you're the some 614 00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:25,680 Speaker 1: of the five people you spend the most time with. 615 00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,040 Speaker 1: But nowadays we spend more time with symbols and people 616 00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,120 Speaker 1: on social media than we do oftentimes with other individuals, 617 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,520 Speaker 1: or at least equal amounts of time in the room. Right, 618 00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:36,520 Speaker 1: Rarely is it just the physical bodies in the room. 619 00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,080 Speaker 1: It's all the people in our phone, which I don't 620 00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,080 Speaker 1: see is a bad thing. Right. Actually, for years, when 621 00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,440 Speaker 1: I was working more or less in isolation in my lab, 622 00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,600 Speaker 1: I had this little list. I don't think I've ever 623 00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,360 Speaker 1: shared this before. I had this little list of people 624 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,640 Speaker 1: who I love and admire, many of whom I've never met, 625 00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,600 Speaker 1: and I just would read that list over and over again. 626 00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:58,760 Speaker 1: I didn't realize that at the time, but I was 627 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:03,680 Speaker 1: developing what I believe the analysts call this an interject 628 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,080 Speaker 1: or an introject. Perhaps someone should look that up forget 629 00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,360 Speaker 1: which one it is, which is actually a subconscious representation 630 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,840 Speaker 1: of somebody else's ideas and approach to things that if we, 631 00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,240 Speaker 1: for instance, listen to you over and over again, the 632 00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:23,040 Speaker 1: nervous system starts to ask questions like what would Jay 633 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,760 Speaker 1: do in this circumstance. That's a very real thing, and 634 00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,840 Speaker 1: we're not always consciously aware of it. Now. Physical symbols 635 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:33,480 Speaker 1: are also very important because the brain likes to make predictions. 636 00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:36,760 Speaker 1: It loves symbols because symbols are a shorthand way of 637 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 1: eliminating a lot of useless information. But much of the 638 00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,239 Speaker 1: way that we operate and feel really does impact us 639 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,080 Speaker 1: at a subconscious level. And this has been shown over 640 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,440 Speaker 1: and over again. I mean, it's and it's always cast 641 00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,000 Speaker 1: in the context of subconscious bias, which has kind of 642 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:54,360 Speaker 1: a negative slant anytime we hear bias, of course, but 643 00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,440 Speaker 1: there are positive biases as well. So I think that 644 00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,640 Speaker 1: for some people, having order among symbols is very important, 645 00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,160 Speaker 1: equal spacing, everything very aligned. I'm sort of one of those, 646 00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,760 Speaker 1: but you know, I'm kind of in the middle. Other 647 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:12,200 Speaker 1: people they aren't so consumed with the relationships between how 648 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,600 Speaker 1: they arrange things physically, but they enjoy great depth and 649 00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,440 Speaker 1: emotional relationship to things, And it could be appendant. It 650 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,799 Speaker 1: could be nowadays, you know, people like tattoos are kind 651 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:22,960 Speaker 1: of interesting. Yeah, they're much more prominent than when I 652 00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,080 Speaker 1: was growing up. They are an externalization of how people 653 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,160 Speaker 1: feel on the inside. Yes, right, So those are very 654 00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,160 Speaker 1: powerful symbols. And there's something about the process of stamping 655 00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:35,520 Speaker 1: in into one skin, etc. The slighter intense pain involved 656 00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,680 Speaker 1: depending on where and who does it and the person's 657 00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:40,640 Speaker 1: pain threshold. So symbols are a way in which we 658 00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,279 Speaker 1: create an external reflection of who we are to ourselves. 659 00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:48,200 Speaker 1: But also they are operating in a subconscious level to 660 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,080 Speaker 1: keep us, for instance, in a place of order, like 661 00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,040 Speaker 1: to be able to organize one's thoughts. In a world 662 00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,280 Speaker 1: filled with statistical information, every ray of sunshine is statistical information. 663 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,360 Speaker 1: We can't pay attention to all of it. So I 664 00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,120 Speaker 1: think that to directly answer your question, there are a 665 00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,160 Speaker 1: couple of things that I think from morning till night, 666 00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,600 Speaker 1: make it outsize positive effect on our nervous system, both 667 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,160 Speaker 1: in terms of its ability to feel, think and act 668 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,719 Speaker 1: and its ability to learn. The first one isn't so 669 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:17,880 Speaker 1: much a symbol unless you adopted as one, and I 670 00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,560 Speaker 1: certainly have, which is there are now thousands of quality 671 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,120 Speaker 1: studies showing that we should all try and get some 672 00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,479 Speaker 1: bright light, ideally sunlight in our eyes within the early 673 00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,640 Speaker 1: hours of waking. This doesn't necessarily meaning waking with the sunrise, 674 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: although if you can do that that's great. Some people 675 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:35,839 Speaker 1: wake up before the sun comes out. Getting a lot 676 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,040 Speaker 1: of bright sunlight in one's eyes early in the day 677 00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,400 Speaker 1: puts a number of neurochemicals and hormones into a state 678 00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,319 Speaker 1: of let's just call it what it is, positivity. Mood 679 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,799 Speaker 1: is enhanced immune system function. Sleep is enhanced sixteen to 680 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,440 Speaker 1: twenty hours later, and so on, also in the evening. 681 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,279 Speaker 1: So the sun as a symbol is very important, but 682 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,520 Speaker 1: it's also anchoring our subconscious physiology. Because every cell in 683 00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,239 Speaker 1: our body has a twenty four hour clock, we need 684 00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:01,680 Speaker 1: to time it to the rise and fall of the 685 00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:06,400 Speaker 1: sun each day. When human beings become misaligned with that 686 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:09,160 Speaker 1: rising and falling of the sun, bad things happens to 687 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,520 Speaker 1: the nervus system. Now, fortunately it's very easy to fix. 688 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:13,960 Speaker 1: There's a study done at University of Colorado taking college 689 00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:15,920 Speaker 1: students camping. I wish I had been a subject in 690 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,800 Speaker 1: the sense moment. But they found is that melotonin rhythms 691 00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,279 Speaker 1: cortisol rhythms, which can be a healthy thing. We all 692 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:26,040 Speaker 1: have cortisol, protects, us, energizes us, dopamine, epinephren All these 693 00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,600 Speaker 1: rhythms of the body could be reinstated to their proper 694 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:33,160 Speaker 1: timing by waking up and seeing the sun and going 695 00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,560 Speaker 1: to sleep not too long after sunset, depending on time 696 00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:39,560 Speaker 1: of year, for two nights and two mornings, and this 697 00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,120 Speaker 1: lasted at least two weeks, even though people were getting 698 00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:44,719 Speaker 1: artificial light. So I would say the symbol of the 699 00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,200 Speaker 1: sun is not just uh, you know, it's not a 700 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,279 Speaker 1: trivial thing at all. It's the anchor by which our 701 00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:55,920 Speaker 1: biology is designed, in our psychology follows. Of course, I 702 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,279 Speaker 1: think you know, many people who have wile sleeping, many 703 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,000 Speaker 1: people who have mood issues. Is a metabolism. I mean, 704 00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,080 Speaker 1: I could list it on and on and on people 705 00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:06,359 Speaker 1: will ask, So I'll just put it out there. Try 706 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,840 Speaker 1: and do this without sunglasses if you safely can't. You 707 00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:10,919 Speaker 1: don't stare directly at the sun. Never look at any 708 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,120 Speaker 1: light so bright that it's painful to look at. You can, 709 00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,360 Speaker 1: of course, blink only takes a few minutes on a 710 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,440 Speaker 1: cloudless day. If you're in the UK and the depths 711 00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,799 Speaker 1: of winter, you're still going to get more light coming 712 00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,760 Speaker 1: through cloud cover by going outside than you would indoors 713 00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,120 Speaker 1: with bright lights on, And it can take anywhere from 714 00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,880 Speaker 1: two minutes to thirty minutes, depending on how dark or 715 00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:32,960 Speaker 1: bright it is outside. Sunglasses and excuse me, eyeglasses and 716 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,080 Speaker 1: contacts perfectly fine. If you think about if anything that 717 00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,880 Speaker 1: just focuses light onto the retina, don't try and do 718 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,000 Speaker 1: this through a window or a windshield because it filters 719 00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:42,640 Speaker 1: out a lot of the light that you want. So 720 00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,239 Speaker 1: the sun is a key symbol. I think if people 721 00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,400 Speaker 1: could adopt that there, I'm certain their physiology and psychology 722 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,400 Speaker 1: will benefit. Then in terms of physical symbols, I find 723 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:56,040 Speaker 1: it very useful and that they're good data. If you know, 724 00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,160 Speaker 1: if a picture is worth a thousand words, a movie 725 00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:02,560 Speaker 1: is worth a bazillion pick. So having an image of 726 00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,400 Speaker 1: something that makes you feel good and seeing that early 727 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,319 Speaker 1: in the day tremendously powerful. Having a mental image of 728 00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:12,279 Speaker 1: something in your mind is equally powerful because you also 729 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,239 Speaker 1: carry that with you. And then if you do have 730 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,080 Speaker 1: a meditative practice, or even if you don't, being able 731 00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,520 Speaker 1: to try and bring the mind and the body into 732 00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:21,840 Speaker 1: that experience. So taking a moment to look at a 733 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,319 Speaker 1: photo of someone that you love or appreciate and or 734 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,880 Speaker 1: the actual person right, and being able to actually sense 735 00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,600 Speaker 1: that and feel it at a complete nervous system level. 736 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:34,400 Speaker 1: It might sound like kind of woo science, but it's not. 737 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,000 Speaker 1: The nervous system extends through the whole body. So the 738 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,439 Speaker 1: extent that you can make that a truly whole body 739 00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:43,840 Speaker 1: somatic experience, yeah, that it leads to an outsize effect 740 00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,800 Speaker 1: on the just the ability of the nervous system to function. 741 00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,359 Speaker 1: And then of course we are bombarded all day with 742 00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,360 Speaker 1: negative symbols. There's just no way around that. But we 743 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,200 Speaker 1: can buffer ourselves against those negative symbols by very strongly 744 00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 1: associating with certain things. And here I'll just that great 745 00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:04,759 Speaker 1: neurologists and writer Oliver Sacks had this obsession with minerals 746 00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,920 Speaker 1: and stones. He felt they had personalities, and he used 747 00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,719 Speaker 1: to say that he had developed such a strong relationship 748 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,640 Speaker 1: to them, their touch, especially as he started to lose 749 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:16,440 Speaker 1: his vision later in life, the way they felt, and 750 00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:18,919 Speaker 1: they made him feel safe, They made him feel good. 751 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,120 Speaker 1: So these could be inanimate objects. So find things that 752 00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:27,200 Speaker 1: you love and associate with them on a regular basis, 753 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,080 Speaker 1: and you are literally shifting your nervous system towards this 754 00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:35,280 Speaker 1: place of buffering yourself against negativity, and you are reinforcing 755 00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,080 Speaker 1: the very circuits that trigger the release of neurochemicals that 756 00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,600 Speaker 1: make you feel better. And some people might say, well, 757 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:42,440 Speaker 1: then you're just kind of doping yourself up with your 758 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,560 Speaker 1: own chemicals. But as a last point here, the neurochemical 759 00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,839 Speaker 1: dopamine is a very important and very misunderstood molecule. First 760 00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:53,680 Speaker 1: of all, it is the substrate by which epinephrin neural 761 00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,960 Speaker 1: energy is created. And people think of it as dopamine 762 00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,640 Speaker 1: is just feeling good, But dopamine is not about feeling good. 763 00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,040 Speaker 1: Dopamin is the molecule of motivation and the desire to 764 00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:07,200 Speaker 1: pursue additional things in a particular line of life. So 765 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,520 Speaker 1: when we positively associate with a song, a person, a face, 766 00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:15,040 Speaker 1: an object, the sunrise, we don't just benefit from those 767 00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,719 Speaker 1: activities based on the effects of those activities. It's also 768 00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:22,360 Speaker 1: what we believe about those activities combine and the release 769 00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,399 Speaker 1: of dopamine makes you more capable of then leaning into 770 00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,279 Speaker 1: life and going and doing other things and so. And 771 00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,000 Speaker 1: this are not small effects, right, The effect of a 772 00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,840 Speaker 1: small even you know, half a percent increase in dopamine 773 00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,080 Speaker 1: transmission in the brain is the difference between feeling like 774 00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:41,640 Speaker 1: your life is bleak and you can completely attack the 775 00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:45,400 Speaker 1: day in the positive sense. So fill your life with symbols, 776 00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:47,960 Speaker 1: you get. What's wonderful is that you get to curate 777 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:50,399 Speaker 1: what those are. If you don't have access to them 778 00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:53,520 Speaker 1: in your physical environment, they can be entirely internal. And 779 00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:55,600 Speaker 1: when I think about the great stories of the Victor 780 00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,759 Speaker 1: Frankels and they, you know, and people who have just 781 00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:05,600 Speaker 1: overcome tremendous challenge, they've internalized symbols such that the tiniest 782 00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,719 Speaker 1: of things can actually evoke this dopamine release system. And 783 00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,280 Speaker 1: dopamine is just a generic neuromodulator. It doesn't know anything 784 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,360 Speaker 1: about your experience. It only knows what you believe about 785 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,440 Speaker 1: your experience, and it's deployed according to what you believe 786 00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,400 Speaker 1: about your experience. So in theory, I could train my 787 00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,239 Speaker 1: dopamine system to release dopamine every time I raised my 788 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:29,440 Speaker 1: right hand if I genuinely thought that that had if 789 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,520 Speaker 1: that has meaning for me. And this is the art 790 00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,760 Speaker 1: also of superstitions, right, This is why you know people 791 00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,000 Speaker 1: will engage in superstitions because they've built positive associations with 792 00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,600 Speaker 1: outcomes according to a certain behavior. So what you start 793 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,279 Speaker 1: to realize is that the brain is making predictions about 794 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:49,440 Speaker 1: the external world. Who's Jay, when's he coming back? You know, 795 00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:51,000 Speaker 1: what objects are going to be in the room this 796 00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:52,960 Speaker 1: time versus next time. If I suddenly walk out in 797 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,120 Speaker 1: that painting over there, which I've happened to love, is 798 00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,959 Speaker 1: now on a different wall, my nervous system would notice 799 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,520 Speaker 1: that because it's but it's also making as about internal state, 800 00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,160 Speaker 1: and a lot of depression and anxiety is about people 801 00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,280 Speaker 1: feeling like, oh, when they feel lousy, that that lousy 802 00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:10,960 Speaker 1: feeling is going to go on forever. The way to 803 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:15,320 Speaker 1: rewire this is to understand that making and controlling predictions 804 00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,400 Speaker 1: about how you feel internally gives you a sense of agency, 805 00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:20,360 Speaker 1: and that sense of agency, at the end of the 806 00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,600 Speaker 1: day is just purely neurochemical. So these are pretty straightforward 807 00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,080 Speaker 1: things to master. I mean, that's mind blowing to me 808 00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,600 Speaker 1: because I've never heard dopamine be explained that way. Well, 809 00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,640 Speaker 1: domine everything about dopamine release is learned. Yeah, there are 810 00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,279 Speaker 1: a few things, like all at all the ones that 811 00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:39,799 Speaker 1: evolved for us to be here. Okay, so associated with 812 00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,799 Speaker 1: reproduction food sugar, there's a very powerful dopamine pathway in 813 00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,120 Speaker 1: the brain and in the gut too, because sugar has 814 00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,560 Speaker 1: a nutritive value, right, we should all probably be ingesting 815 00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,400 Speaker 1: us of it. But you know, it's a hard wired system. 816 00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,160 Speaker 1: Food when we're hungry, warmth when we're cold. Those are hardwired. 817 00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,239 Speaker 1: But the dopamine system is designed to be trained up 818 00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,719 Speaker 1: to associate with anything. Yeah, and this is how a 819 00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: guy like uh, you can meditate for long periods of 820 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,160 Speaker 1: time and feel I'm guessing there were times in which 821 00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:11,680 Speaker 1: it felt brutal and there were times in which it 822 00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:15,200 Speaker 1: felt incredible. This is how a guy like David Goggins 823 00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,160 Speaker 1: can um, you know, punish himself with running it, you know, 824 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,719 Speaker 1: over and over and over. And yet somehow he's inverted 825 00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,839 Speaker 1: that dopamine circuit so that it feels like something he 826 00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:29,560 Speaker 1: either wants to do or that by overcoming that the 827 00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,000 Speaker 1: resistance to doing it, he gets a dopamine release. So 828 00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:38,840 Speaker 1: dopamine is entirely a learned release system. There are a 829 00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,439 Speaker 1: few things that trigger it's release no matter what. But 830 00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:43,880 Speaker 1: and I should highlight drugs of abuse. I was just 831 00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:49,839 Speaker 1: about to say, a cocaine amphetamine um excess, you know, pornography, 832 00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,320 Speaker 1: excessive dopamine release, and that the diabolical thing about dopamine 833 00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,880 Speaker 1: under those conditions is that the higher the dopamine release, 834 00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:00,160 Speaker 1: the big amplitude dopamine, the bigger the crash. Always it's 835 00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,399 Speaker 1: the way the circuits are designed. Now Here, we're talking 836 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,120 Speaker 1: about self training in healthy amounts of dopamine, yes, non 837 00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,400 Speaker 1: addictive amounts of dopamine release, or you could say mildly 838 00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,560 Speaker 1: addictive patterns of behavior that serve us and the people 839 00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:14,719 Speaker 1: around us well. And in that case, I think of 840 00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:18,400 Speaker 1: that as kind of an adaptive addiction compulsion yea, and 841 00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,759 Speaker 1: not one that we should necessarily avoid. Absolutely. I think 842 00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:24,319 Speaker 1: that for me, the way I differentiate that, and I 843 00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,359 Speaker 1: think that's such a good distinction that you're raising there, 844 00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,560 Speaker 1: because what you're basically saying is we could commence ourselves 845 00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,000 Speaker 1: through the release of dopamine that anything's good for us, 846 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,759 Speaker 1: and hence it can lead to addiction or it can 847 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,040 Speaker 1: be these aspirational positive habits for us. And I think 848 00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,920 Speaker 1: the way I've been able to at least differentiate is 849 00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,799 Speaker 1: that which is good for me, that which makes me 850 00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:51,120 Speaker 1: feel good after I do it, because that's that release 851 00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,960 Speaker 1: of dopamine that I'm experiencing after I do it is 852 00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,320 Speaker 1: more important than that which makes me feel good before 853 00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,560 Speaker 1: I do it. I love that. So I don't feel 854 00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,440 Speaker 1: good before I go to the jim or maybe before 855 00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,680 Speaker 1: I meditate, or before I eat a healthy bowl of 856 00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,320 Speaker 1: protein and food that's good for me, but I always 857 00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:10,600 Speaker 1: feel good after it. I love that. And when I 858 00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,080 Speaker 1: feel good before I stay up late at night and 859 00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,680 Speaker 1: hope that we're going to have a great time. I 860 00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,200 Speaker 1: feel good before I eat a pizza. I feel good 861 00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,000 Speaker 1: before I have loads of sugar because I have a 862 00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,040 Speaker 1: massive sweet tooth, but then afterwards I feel the pangs 863 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,160 Speaker 1: of it. I love that. And it proves that in 864 00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:29,480 Speaker 1: your heart you're a neuroscientist. Because there's something called dopamine 865 00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,879 Speaker 1: reward prediction error. This was defined by getting rule from 866 00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,520 Speaker 1: Schultz and others, and it's an incredible thing and it 867 00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,239 Speaker 1: can be made very simple, which is when we positively 868 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,319 Speaker 1: anticipate something, there is dopamine release. I mean, just tell 869 00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,480 Speaker 1: kids that you're going for ice cream and you're seeing 870 00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:47,239 Speaker 1: what is I'll now explain as reward prediction error. Now 871 00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:49,440 Speaker 1: you get to the ice cream shop and it's closed. 872 00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,000 Speaker 1: What happens is there dopamine drops below baseline before they 873 00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,359 Speaker 1: were told they were going for ice cream. If they're 874 00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,000 Speaker 1: going to the ice cream shop and they have ice cream, 875 00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,040 Speaker 1: you might think then they get even more dopamine. But 876 00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,000 Speaker 1: guess what, the ice cream isn't as good, or if 877 00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:05,160 Speaker 1: one kid that the ice cream cone falls and they 878 00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,480 Speaker 1: don't get another one. What ends up happening is that 879 00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,799 Speaker 1: dopamine is relative to where you were just feeling, it 880 00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,719 Speaker 1: doesn't feel that great. And so this is the diabolical 881 00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,520 Speaker 1: nature of addictive drugs. People get a dopamine surge in 882 00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,200 Speaker 1: anticipation of using, and over time they get less and 883 00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,359 Speaker 1: less of a dopamine surge. But the punishment signal, as 884 00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,440 Speaker 1: we say, that comes afterwards. The trough afterwards goes lower 885 00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:29,920 Speaker 1: and lower and lower. So it's like a asymmetric seesaw. 886 00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:32,680 Speaker 1: It's not just back and forth. It goes dopamine, but 887 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,719 Speaker 1: then it goes punishment signal. Now you've figured it out 888 00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,759 Speaker 1: because dopamine reward prediction error says that if you have 889 00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:44,160 Speaker 1: less dopamine heading into something, then you do afterward. That 890 00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,640 Speaker 1: tells the synapses, the brain connections that were involved to 891 00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,719 Speaker 1: reinforce themselves and to engage in that behavior. Again, and 892 00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,400 Speaker 1: this is also what happens with surprise. If you go 893 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,040 Speaker 1: someplace you're not expecting, you know what likes. Let's go 894 00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:57,680 Speaker 1: to this place for dinner out and all looks good 895 00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,320 Speaker 1: and it's amazing. You create a much bigger dopamine signal 896 00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:02,560 Speaker 1: than if I tell you Jay, I got to take 897 00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:04,880 Speaker 1: you this place. This is the best sushi in Los Angeles. 898 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,479 Speaker 1: It's incredible. That actually sets you up to not enjoy 899 00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,839 Speaker 1: the meal as much. So we all should learn to 900 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,120 Speaker 1: kind of control this dopamine. NB. You've done it beautifully 901 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,719 Speaker 1: by simplifying it into making sure that you get enough happiness, thrill, 902 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:23,160 Speaker 1: excitement in retrospect. That's the way to wire in healthy behaviors. 903 00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,759 Speaker 1: And I've never actually heard it put as succinctly as 904 00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,000 Speaker 1: you because academics are not trained to be succinct, as 905 00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:30,000 Speaker 1: you can tell. But I think if everyone kept that 906 00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,759 Speaker 1: in mind, they would do themselves a great service, which is, 907 00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,919 Speaker 1: try and ask whether or not there you had as 908 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,319 Speaker 1: much or more pleasure in the aftermath of something as 909 00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:44,640 Speaker 1: you did during and you will. You get two benefits, 910 00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,480 Speaker 1: one as you can avoid addictive type behaviors and the 911 00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,320 Speaker 1: other because you avoid that crash if there's a dopamine 912 00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,960 Speaker 1: release after there's no crash, and the other is that 913 00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,640 Speaker 1: you'll have a tendency to return to that behavior over 914 00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:57,880 Speaker 1: and over again. There's also I think a lot of 915 00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:02,760 Speaker 1: people enter new relationships there is a well established dopamine surge. 916 00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,560 Speaker 1: With the early phase. Everything feels possible. People feel like, 917 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,319 Speaker 1: people go out and make purchases. They're kind of manic, right, 918 00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,160 Speaker 1: and it's a very exciting kind of mental illness that 919 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,920 Speaker 1: we all enjoy from time to time. But then people 920 00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,600 Speaker 1: start to enter the phase of real challenge or oftentimes 921 00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:22,080 Speaker 1: real challenge, and if they can't make that transition seamlessly, 922 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,560 Speaker 1: and they constantly focus back on how great things were 923 00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,200 Speaker 1: and they look at the differential, it can be a 924 00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,719 Speaker 1: kind of a dark picture, and then people have to 925 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,400 Speaker 1: start working on trying to reignite, so to speak. But 926 00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,160 Speaker 1: the bigger the dopamine surge at the beginning, the bigger 927 00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,920 Speaker 1: the crash. So I think that a wonderful model for 928 00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,719 Speaker 1: relationship is also to temper that dopamine release, spread it 929 00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:44,680 Speaker 1: out over time. Try and spread it out over fifty 930 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,640 Speaker 1: years any your home free. Now, I'm not an expert 931 00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:50,560 Speaker 1: in relationship, but it is absolutely clear that dopamine is 932 00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:55,840 Speaker 1: the hallmark of human bonding, then you know early on anyway, 933 00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,400 Speaker 1: then come the oxytocin and all the feel good, warmth molecules, 934 00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,680 Speaker 1: because dopean fundamentally is about accessing things that are outside 935 00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:07,160 Speaker 1: your immediate experience. It's reaching for things beyond the confines 936 00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:11,279 Speaker 1: of your skin, a degree, money, a relationship that you're 937 00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,600 Speaker 1: worried that's developing and that you're working on. Whereas the 938 00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,880 Speaker 1: serotonin and oxytocin system, which I think most people have 939 00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:20,080 Speaker 1: heard of, are feel good molecules. They're associated with things 940 00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:23,600 Speaker 1: We already have, knowledge of how wonderful our partner is, 941 00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:27,319 Speaker 1: knowledge of how much we love something, or how much 942 00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,439 Speaker 1: we appreciate the meal that we had. So neither it's 943 00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,520 Speaker 1: not that dopamine is bad and serotonin is good. These 944 00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,200 Speaker 1: are molecules that have built up in our system over 945 00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:39,920 Speaker 1: time to allow us to establish new relationships of all 946 00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,399 Speaker 1: kinds two things end people and to ourselves, and then 947 00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,680 Speaker 1: to sustain them. But that those big dopamine peaks early 948 00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:50,200 Speaker 1: on are very very dangerous, and we need to learn 949 00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,960 Speaker 1: to temper them and just spread that out over time. 950 00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,480 Speaker 1: It's a resource, and we need to learn to calibrate 951 00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,680 Speaker 1: that resource. Andrew you, honestly, you just blurn my mind 952 00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,719 Speaker 1: again and again and again, because is there are so 953 00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,319 Speaker 1: many long held beliefs that I have, or techniques or 954 00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:08,839 Speaker 1: tools that I've built, or mindsets that I've created and 955 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:12,560 Speaker 1: that I share and coach and pass on from the 956 00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,240 Speaker 1: studies that I've done. But I get so much joy 957 00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:22,120 Speaker 1: out of seeing deep study support those ideas. I think 958 00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:24,120 Speaker 1: I want to unpack a lot of the things you said. 959 00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:25,399 Speaker 1: The first thing I want to say is my new 960 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,040 Speaker 1: claim to fame is that you said I'm an honorary neuroscientist. Now, 961 00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,520 Speaker 1: so I'm gonna you think like a neuroscientist because to 962 00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:34,200 Speaker 1: be able to batch things in time that way is 963 00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:36,279 Speaker 1: a unique skill. I'm not saying this for flattery, but 964 00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,120 Speaker 1: it makes you feel good even better. But the fact 965 00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,600 Speaker 1: of the matter is funny, but I'm grateful. But most 966 00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:45,319 Speaker 1: people think about experiences as one thing. You know, we 967 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:49,040 Speaker 1: went to Costa Rica. It was amazing, ah and I'm 968 00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:51,480 Speaker 1: sure it was. And when dopamines flooding through your system, 969 00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,240 Speaker 1: there's also something really cool. Is it distorts your perception 970 00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:57,080 Speaker 1: of time. It feels like time goes by very very fast, 971 00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,360 Speaker 1: but in looking back, it seems like a lot happened. 972 00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:01,600 Speaker 1: I think about when you're bored in the doctor's office 973 00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,960 Speaker 1: waiting room. It feels like it goes on forever and 974 00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:07,839 Speaker 1: you look back, Guess what happened? Nothing, it's low dopamine state. 975 00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,719 Speaker 1: So dopamine actually acts as a It's like shooting a 976 00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:15,080 Speaker 1: film at high frame rate. Yeah, okay, so it feels 977 00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,799 Speaker 1: like a lot's happening. You look back and it goes 978 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,120 Speaker 1: by very fast. But you look back, a lot happen. 979 00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:24,799 Speaker 1: So you batch things in time. And this is fundamentally 980 00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,440 Speaker 1: important to how we work. If we look at experiences 981 00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,759 Speaker 1: only in terms of how we experience them and not 982 00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:36,920 Speaker 1: the aftermath, we miss a huge portion of life, and 983 00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:41,120 Speaker 1: more importantly, we miss the opportunity to access the right 984 00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:44,480 Speaker 1: behaviors and thoughts. Yeah, we can be very misled by 985 00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:49,800 Speaker 1: things like dopamine. It's it's a it's really a tricky 986 00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,080 Speaker 1: molecule to work with, and we're all working with it. 987 00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:54,719 Speaker 1: No one is immune from this, right, But yes, you 988 00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:59,160 Speaker 1: are absolutely a neuroscientist. That's my new that's my new tagline. No, 989 00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,840 Speaker 1: I such a fascination with neuroscience, and I hope that 990 00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,080 Speaker 1: at one point in my life, I create the time 991 00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:08,800 Speaker 1: and space to deeply study and study, should do an experiment. 992 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:10,520 Speaker 1: It's genuine a desire in my life. So I'm not 993 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,680 Speaker 1: Jefford has a mind body Lab, Ali Crum's Lab, which 994 00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,520 Speaker 1: is all about beliefs and how beliefs shape our physiology. 995 00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:21,200 Speaker 1: My colleague David Spiegel and psychiatry studies hypnosis and brain 996 00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,239 Speaker 1: states and beliefs in mind body. So Stanford of course 997 00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:28,040 Speaker 1: does all the hardcore, rigorous stuff around moleculobiology, genetics, it's 998 00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:30,680 Speaker 1: deep sequencing. But we also have a collection of people 999 00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:32,840 Speaker 1: there that are very interested in mind body, so we 1000 00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:35,600 Speaker 1: should design an experiment. Yeah, definitely, I'd love to. That 1001 00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,960 Speaker 1: would be that's music to my ears. I'm backing more 1002 00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:43,120 Speaker 1: of what you said. What I find so interesting is 1003 00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:45,400 Speaker 1: that you said, obviously this this painting that you like 1004 00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:47,400 Speaker 1: behind me, and then you said if it was in 1005 00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:49,440 Speaker 1: another place, then you know it takes a bit of 1006 00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:53,000 Speaker 1: time to reconfigure and recalibrate, you know what's going on here, 1007 00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:56,120 Speaker 1: and when you look at our lives today, so much 1008 00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,239 Speaker 1: of the anxiety that we experience is based on change 1009 00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:02,399 Speaker 1: or or the lack of being able to predict as 1010 00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:06,440 Speaker 1: we talked about or unpredictability, and we've long known kind 1011 00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:10,240 Speaker 1: of like what you were saying before, We've long known that, 1012 00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:13,360 Speaker 1: you know, things will not always stay the same. We 1013 00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,400 Speaker 1: realize that change is the only constant, that uncertainty is 1014 00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:20,120 Speaker 1: the only certainty. Like we know these truths, yet we 1015 00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:24,319 Speaker 1: love holding on to predict, even for me, Like when 1016 00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,239 Speaker 1: I walk into this room, I do predict that these 1017 00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:29,120 Speaker 1: things will remain on the wall, and the mics will 1018 00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,200 Speaker 1: be here, and Homer will have set up the lights, 1019 00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:35,319 Speaker 1: and there's some predictability there, which creates security. But as 1020 00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:38,920 Speaker 1: we all know, shifting and being good with change is 1021 00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,839 Speaker 1: so integral. What do we do with that? Like, how 1022 00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:47,239 Speaker 1: do we start opening up and being more comfortable in 1023 00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:51,280 Speaker 1: the discomfort of change, not just growth, but just change 1024 00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,319 Speaker 1: and shifts that we don't expect and predict. Yeah, I 1025 00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,200 Speaker 1: think two ways. One, I'll just go back to this 1026 00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,799 Speaker 1: fundamental feature of the nervous system, which is it's trying 1027 00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,880 Speaker 1: to make predictions. So the reason why change is stressful, 1028 00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,560 Speaker 1: even positive change, believe it or not, is quote unquote 1029 00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:09,799 Speaker 1: stressful is because of this and the release of adrenaline 1030 00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:13,440 Speaker 1: and associated molecules with anytime things change, I mean, if 1031 00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,120 Speaker 1: you look at the psychologists have worked this out, there's 1032 00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:20,000 Speaker 1: a hierarchy of stressors, and of course at at the 1033 00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,520 Speaker 1: top of that hierarchy are awful things that we don't 1034 00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:24,439 Speaker 1: you know, I think at the top, to be honest, 1035 00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,360 Speaker 1: I think death of a child is perhaps the greatest 1036 00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:31,319 Speaker 1: stressor divorce, death of a loved one, these kinds of 1037 00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,080 Speaker 1: horrible things that we wouldn't wish on anyone. Then as 1038 00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,399 Speaker 1: one goes down not too far below, you see things 1039 00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,920 Speaker 1: like moving to a new homer apartment. You think, well, 1040 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,160 Speaker 1: that could be a great event, right, birth of a 1041 00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,200 Speaker 1: new child, and you think, wait a second, I thought, 1042 00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:48,000 Speaker 1: that's supposed to be one of the greatest choice in life, 1043 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,680 Speaker 1: and indeed it is. But it's stressful to the nervous 1044 00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:54,040 Speaker 1: system because so many things have to be reconfigured, not 1045 00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,160 Speaker 1: to say anything about the lack of sleep with a 1046 00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,560 Speaker 1: new born and this kind of thing. So change is 1047 00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:03,879 Speaker 1: always going to force our brain to make more assessments 1048 00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:05,880 Speaker 1: of our environment. One of the things that we can 1049 00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,319 Speaker 1: say about the brain for sure is that once it 1050 00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,600 Speaker 1: learns something, it likes to not have to think about it. 1051 00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,680 Speaker 1: When you walk, because you already know how to walk, 1052 00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:14,759 Speaker 1: you don't think right left, right, left, right left. But 1053 00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:16,680 Speaker 1: when you learn how to dance a new step or 1054 00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,400 Speaker 1: something of that sort, or a new skill sports skill, 1055 00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,960 Speaker 1: you have to think about it, and it's work. And 1056 00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:26,040 Speaker 1: anytime we have to think about behaviors and they aren't 1057 00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:29,360 Speaker 1: simply reflexive. That work, as we call it, is in 1058 00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:32,360 Speaker 1: it's a combination of the release of things like adrenaline 1059 00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:35,080 Speaker 1: ephron in the brain and body, I should say, from 1060 00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:36,919 Speaker 1: the adrenals in the body, but also in the brain, 1061 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:40,239 Speaker 1: from a little brain area called locus ceruleus. That is, 1062 00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:42,200 Speaker 1: X is kind of a sprinkler system for the brain 1063 00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,160 Speaker 1: and kind of wake up all brain areas saying okay, 1064 00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,640 Speaker 1: let's pay attention to a lot of stuff here. Very 1065 00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:50,960 Speaker 1: basic system, but very fundamental system. It's literally a wake 1066 00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,000 Speaker 1: up system for the brain works in parallel with the 1067 00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:57,680 Speaker 1: release of adrenaline into our body. Now, one way to 1068 00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:02,280 Speaker 1: deal with change is to know this right, to understand 1069 00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,160 Speaker 1: that if one feels stress or agitated around a new move, 1070 00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:06,960 Speaker 1: or you have a partner who's really stressed about a 1071 00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,480 Speaker 1: new move, even though it's exciting it should be exciting, 1072 00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:12,239 Speaker 1: that that's perfectly normal because what they're experiencing is this 1073 00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,520 Speaker 1: increase in agitation and alertness, and it also makes it 1074 00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:19,360 Speaker 1: harder to enter deeply relax states because the brain is 1075 00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:24,720 Speaker 1: in a mode of predictions, making predictions, what's happening next, thinking, thinking, thinking, 1076 00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,160 Speaker 1: And one of the things that's key to falling asleep 1077 00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:29,759 Speaker 1: each night and replenishing our ability to think and make 1078 00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:32,759 Speaker 1: predictions is the ability to turn off thinking. This is 1079 00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:34,719 Speaker 1: why I'm such a fan of what traditionally was called 1080 00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:37,719 Speaker 1: yoga needro, which literally means yoga sleep lying down. It's 1081 00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,480 Speaker 1: a form of meditation, as you know, and with breathing, etc. 1082 00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:44,200 Speaker 1: I certainly I want to point out that I have 1083 00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,799 Speaker 1: no desire to rename any of these ancient practices. These 1084 00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:50,520 Speaker 1: are beautiful practices. They've been built up over thousands of years. 1085 00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:54,239 Speaker 1: The reason I call sometimes batch yoga nidra with so 1086 00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:58,440 Speaker 1: called NSDR non sleep deep rest is that, unfortunately, both 1087 00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:02,799 Speaker 1: in science and intradition cultures around some of these behaviors, 1088 00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,359 Speaker 1: the language has become a barrier for people to try them. 1089 00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:09,840 Speaker 1: I'm not trying to wash away any of the wonderful 1090 00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:11,879 Speaker 1: culture and tradition around these I want to be very 1091 00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:15,399 Speaker 1: clear about that, but ultimately it's about accessing a state 1092 00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:17,439 Speaker 1: of mind. As for anyone that's listened to a yoga 1093 00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:19,680 Speaker 1: Niedra script, and I should say I do niitra every day. 1094 00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:22,840 Speaker 1: I have for almost a decade now. It's without question, 1095 00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:27,440 Speaker 1: along with viewing morning light, sunlight, the most powerful practice 1096 00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:32,000 Speaker 1: I think I can recommend anyone. It is about, as 1097 00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:34,400 Speaker 1: you always hear in a classic Kneedure script, you move 1098 00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:37,919 Speaker 1: away from thinking and doing to being and feeling. Now 1099 00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:39,880 Speaker 1: what is that If we take a neuroscience lens of me, 1100 00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:41,720 Speaker 1: what is this thinking and doing, being and feeling. It's 1101 00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,880 Speaker 1: about shutting down of the prefrontal cortex, which is making 1102 00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:49,720 Speaker 1: predictions what's happening next. Right as we move into sleep, 1103 00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,440 Speaker 1: you enter that kind of liminal state where things become disjointed. Right, 1104 00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:54,920 Speaker 1: a cat flies through the room and then you might 1105 00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:57,040 Speaker 1: jerk yourself awake, and it's kind of odd, but that's 1106 00:57:57,240 --> 00:57:59,640 Speaker 1: the state of not thinking and doing and just being 1107 00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:03,240 Speaker 1: and feeling being in one's pure somatic experience. So I 1108 00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:08,720 Speaker 1: would say, in order to move through change, designate twenty 1109 00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,000 Speaker 1: to thirty minutes each day to put the brain into 1110 00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,840 Speaker 1: a state of non thinking, non doing, and into a 1111 00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:19,800 Speaker 1: state of quote unquote being and feeling, so not making predictions. Now, 1112 00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:23,280 Speaker 1: the tricky thing is when one is stressed. That's especially 1113 00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:25,400 Speaker 1: hard to do. And this is why I think, what 1114 00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:28,080 Speaker 1: is it? Technihan said, you know, what is that? Who said? 1115 00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:32,080 Speaker 1: You know? Um? When stress? You know, I meditate every day, 1116 00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:34,960 Speaker 1: but when stress, meditate twice as long as something like that, 1117 00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:40,040 Speaker 1: when I don't think I have time. It's a skill. 1118 00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,360 Speaker 1: And so this ability to turn off thinking enhances one's 1119 00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,480 Speaker 1: ability to enter sleep, which is vital for mental and 1120 00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:49,600 Speaker 1: physical health. Obviously, learning, et cetera. For reasons we discussed, 1121 00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:54,640 Speaker 1: So develop the ability to deliberately disengage from thinking and 1122 00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:58,400 Speaker 1: doing and do that during periods of low stress, right 1123 00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:00,760 Speaker 1: twenty to thirty minutes a day, even ten minutes a 1124 00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,560 Speaker 1: day of just learning, teaching oneself and practicing the art 1125 00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:09,760 Speaker 1: of turning off prediction is an incredibly valuable skill. And 1126 00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:11,520 Speaker 1: then the other one is to just understand that we're 1127 00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,240 Speaker 1: being bombarded with contextual change all the time. You know, 1128 00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:16,560 Speaker 1: I love Instagram. I teach science on Instagram. I see 1129 00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:20,080 Speaker 1: you there daily, and so scrolling on Instagram is an 1130 00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:23,080 Speaker 1: interesting experience because in five minutes you can look at 1131 00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:27,200 Speaker 1: a thousand different contexts. The human brain has never dealt 1132 00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:30,320 Speaker 1: with that kind of change before. Even when television when 1133 00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:32,280 Speaker 1: I was growing up, there were three or four good channels, 1134 00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:34,080 Speaker 1: then it went to cable, and then now you get 1135 00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:35,720 Speaker 1: onto an airplane or something, you got two hundred and 1136 00:59:35,720 --> 00:59:39,400 Speaker 1: forty channels. That's a drop in the bucket compared to 1137 00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,760 Speaker 1: what we can get in a social media feed. So 1138 00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:43,320 Speaker 1: I think we just need to be aware that the 1139 00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,600 Speaker 1: brain can work with that. But then what you're turning 1140 00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:50,200 Speaker 1: on is an ability to walk into a new context 1141 00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:54,560 Speaker 1: and figure it out the statistics. Imagine if an Instagram feed. 1142 00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:57,600 Speaker 1: And I'm not demonizing Instagram, I think they're wonderful. I 1143 00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,720 Speaker 1: think they provide a wonderful resource. Truly. Imagine if we 1144 01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:02,640 Speaker 1: walked out of this room and it was a completely 1145 01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,040 Speaker 1: different landscape. It was a jungle. Then we turned the 1146 01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:07,120 Speaker 1: corner and go into what I would think was the kitchen, 1147 01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:09,720 Speaker 1: and it was the kitchen of the you know, of 1148 01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:13,720 Speaker 1: some Thomas Keller restaurant in New York. Turn the corner 1149 01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:17,160 Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, we're underwater. That's social media 1150 01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:20,240 Speaker 1: and we can cope with that. So if I think 1151 01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:22,040 Speaker 1: about it that way, then I think if we can 1152 01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,680 Speaker 1: cope with that then we can cope with transitions in 1153 01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:29,240 Speaker 1: so called real life with ease. Now, some people have 1154 01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,280 Speaker 1: more situational awareness than others. They walk into an environment 1155 01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:35,640 Speaker 1: and they're sensing all the things other people walk into 1156 01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,800 Speaker 1: an environment, and they're very good at narrowing their attentional spotlight. 1157 01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:41,600 Speaker 1: The latter group actually has a bit of an advantage. 1158 01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:44,400 Speaker 1: They probably wouldn't be so good as a special operator 1159 01:00:44,400 --> 01:00:47,080 Speaker 1: in the military that has to develop a situational advantage, 1160 01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:49,760 Speaker 1: or a police officer or a teacher, but they're going 1161 01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:53,040 Speaker 1: to be immensely good at one on one interactions because 1162 01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,240 Speaker 1: they can make the room disappear. And so, but we 1163 01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:58,840 Speaker 1: need both kinds of people, and we all need to 1164 01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,400 Speaker 1: learn how to sort of brighten and broaden these attentional 1165 01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:05,320 Speaker 1: spotlights and narrow them as well. And I'll just briefly 1166 01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:08,320 Speaker 1: say we are old world primates, as it turns out, 1167 01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:11,920 Speaker 1: and we have the capacity to do what's called covert attention. Yeah. 1168 01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:13,680 Speaker 1: I can pay attention to you, but I can also 1169 01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:16,040 Speaker 1: notice that in my periphery there's something else going on. 1170 01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,760 Speaker 1: So I've got two spotlights now, but I am dividing 1171 01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:21,880 Speaker 1: my attention. We can't do three simultaneously. But what I 1172 01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,240 Speaker 1: can also do is decide to merge those two spotlights 1173 01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:27,160 Speaker 1: and intensify them and narrow the aperture of my visual 1174 01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:29,840 Speaker 1: window and my auditory window. So we should always think 1175 01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:32,600 Speaker 1: of our our attention is two spotlights that can be 1176 01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:36,960 Speaker 1: very broad or it can be very narrowly focused, and 1177 01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:40,360 Speaker 1: that we can overlap them. Yeah, and I think I 1178 01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:42,760 Speaker 1: think we should all know how to do both. We 1179 01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,320 Speaker 1: should learn how to narrow the aperture of our focus, 1180 01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:49,760 Speaker 1: deeply engage, but also deliberately disengage. And the process of 1181 01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:51,720 Speaker 1: falling asleep that we were talking about before is the 1182 01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:55,040 Speaker 1: practice of learning how to take that attentional spotlight, move 1183 01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:59,160 Speaker 1: those two apart, and then not dim them, but extend 1184 01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:03,400 Speaker 1: that same luminosity out more broadly, more broadly, and then 1185 01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:07,040 Speaker 1: we're off to sleep. So it's about deliberate control of 1186 01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:10,880 Speaker 1: the nervous system. And unfortunately, we all know how to 1187 01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,000 Speaker 1: focus on something if we're very stressed or excited by it. 1188 01:02:14,800 --> 01:02:18,760 Speaker 1: Most people don't learn how to turn off this focus 1189 01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:20,840 Speaker 1: and learn how to deliberately disengage. And one of my 1190 01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,760 Speaker 1: great hopes for humanity is that children and adults will 1191 01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:27,320 Speaker 1: learn how to deliberately disengage because it benefits sleep, which 1192 01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:30,280 Speaker 1: benefits mental and physical health. And also, if you think 1193 01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:32,840 Speaker 1: about it, most of the bad things that we do 1194 01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:35,080 Speaker 1: to ourselves and others, and that people do to one 1195 01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:39,160 Speaker 1: another most, not all, but most are from a heightened 1196 01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:42,439 Speaker 1: state of reactivity where we're just not conscious. And that's 1197 01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:45,680 Speaker 1: because our aperture, our window of attention is too narrow. 1198 01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,840 Speaker 1: We're not taking in to account the full space end 1199 01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,960 Speaker 1: time of what we're thinking about. And as a last point, 1200 01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:55,760 Speaker 1: space and time are linked in the brain. If you 1201 01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:58,360 Speaker 1: have a narrow visual focus, you tend to have a 1202 01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:01,480 Speaker 1: narrow time slicing right, which makes sense if you think 1203 01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:03,720 Speaker 1: about like a little kid watching ants on the ground 1204 01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:06,120 Speaker 1: and then gets called into dinner and all of a sudden, 1205 01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:08,560 Speaker 1: the way you batch time is different. When you're sleepy, 1206 01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:12,160 Speaker 1: you tend to batch things in big blocks okay, or 1207 01:03:12,200 --> 01:03:14,800 Speaker 1: when you're bored, big blocks of time. When you're very excited, 1208 01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:18,640 Speaker 1: stressed or happily excited, you're in that fast frame rate. 1209 01:03:18,680 --> 01:03:20,880 Speaker 1: You've gone from sixty frames per second, which I think 1210 01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:25,640 Speaker 1: is a typical smartphone to a thousand frames per second. Wow. 1211 01:03:25,720 --> 01:03:28,880 Speaker 1: So you're catching all the micro nuances, but you're missing 1212 01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:33,200 Speaker 1: everything else. And what I find most interesting about that though, 1213 01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:36,000 Speaker 1: And I want to study a few years ago and 1214 01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:38,200 Speaker 1: I don't know if it I don't know, I can't 1215 01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:41,160 Speaker 1: remember where it's from, but it said something along the 1216 01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:46,480 Speaker 1: lines of that Today, in twenty four hours, we're exposed 1217 01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:50,480 Speaker 1: to more tragedy through the news or pain or stress, 1218 01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:53,320 Speaker 1: whatever word we want to label that as. Then we 1219 01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:58,360 Speaker 1: were in my entire lifetime twenty five years ago. I think, sadly, yeah, 1220 01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:00,520 Speaker 1: I think I have to agree. Yeah. And what I 1221 01:04:00,560 --> 01:04:02,840 Speaker 1: found also was that what you're saying, and I love 1222 01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:05,280 Speaker 1: this idea of we have these two points of focus 1223 01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:07,240 Speaker 1: and putting it together or bringing out, which I think 1224 01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:11,840 Speaker 1: is fantastic as a visual too. There's an element though 1225 01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:15,840 Speaker 1: that really draws us in of judgment and criticism, like 1226 01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,280 Speaker 1: I find judgment. I'm using judgment as the overall word. 1227 01:04:18,320 --> 01:04:22,400 Speaker 1: Criticism is a very specific word. But what really makes 1228 01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:26,040 Speaker 1: something harder, like when we're processing thousand posts on Instagram, 1229 01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:29,480 Speaker 1: the most difficult part is when judgment comes in, whether 1230 01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:31,760 Speaker 1: it's positive or negative, because that's what draws you in. 1231 01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:34,640 Speaker 1: And I find that we have more things to judge, 1232 01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:38,680 Speaker 1: and to make that many judgments in a day is 1233 01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:42,160 Speaker 1: quite exhausting, and then to be exhausted by the number 1234 01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:47,440 Speaker 1: of tragic or stressful moments that we experience. And like 1235 01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:49,840 Speaker 1: you said that, you know, it's okay if we're on 1236 01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:52,320 Speaker 1: Instagram we're seeing multiple things or where it's seeing this kitchen, 1237 01:04:52,360 --> 01:04:55,280 Speaker 1: into this animation, into this world. But when a lot 1238 01:04:55,360 --> 01:05:00,280 Speaker 1: of it is painful to deliberately disengage, but the main 1239 01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,280 Speaker 1: connected to reality, I feel like that's somewhere where people 1240 01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:07,200 Speaker 1: feel like they're in Nomad's then yeah, and you know, 1241 01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:11,000 Speaker 1: it's it's a particular challenge now with the number of 1242 01:05:11,000 --> 01:05:14,600 Speaker 1: images and movies that can come at us. And you know, 1243 01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:19,040 Speaker 1: I think that here, I I'm not one to usually 1244 01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:21,600 Speaker 1: talk like this, but I think much of building a 1245 01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:26,360 Speaker 1: good life is about both honoring and challenging the asymmetries 1246 01:05:26,360 --> 01:05:28,480 Speaker 1: of our nervous system. What I mean by that is, 1247 01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:30,840 Speaker 1: you know, everything we've talked about up until now are 1248 01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:34,960 Speaker 1: wired into us from birth. We have dopamine, F and 1249 01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,840 Speaker 1: FER in these circuitries. We can attentional spotlight that all 1250 01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:39,280 Speaker 1: we show up in the world with that, and we 1251 01:05:39,760 --> 01:05:41,880 Speaker 1: have to work with them. We also need to acknowledge 1252 01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:44,920 Speaker 1: that there is an asymmetry to learning. You know before 1253 01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,520 Speaker 1: we talked about the gap effects and the two stage 1254 01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:51,560 Speaker 1: process of neuroplasticity. There are exceptions. The exception is learning 1255 01:05:51,560 --> 01:05:53,560 Speaker 1: of negative things. You only have to touch the hot 1256 01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:57,520 Speaker 1: stove once, or the metaphorically speaking, the hot stove only 1257 01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:00,160 Speaker 1: has to touch you once before it changes you. So 1258 01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:03,480 Speaker 1: there's one trial learning of negative experiences. Now, once we 1259 01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:07,520 Speaker 1: understand that asymmetry, and once we understand that negativity actually 1260 01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,640 Speaker 1: has a bit of a stronghold on our nervous system, 1261 01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:14,440 Speaker 1: then we accept I would hope we would accept the 1262 01:06:14,480 --> 01:06:16,840 Speaker 1: idea that then we have to work a little harder 1263 01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:19,280 Speaker 1: to counter that, or maybe a lot harder. In the 1264 01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:23,680 Speaker 1: same way that so called highly palatable foods, which is 1265 01:06:23,720 --> 01:06:26,560 Speaker 1: now because it kind of signs geek speak for unhealthy, 1266 01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:29,200 Speaker 1: highly processed foods, because there's some you know, I do 1267 01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:32,480 Speaker 1: love fruits and vegetables, and there's some wonderful baked goods. 1268 01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:36,680 Speaker 1: Let's I love croissants. So I don't want to highly 1269 01:06:36,760 --> 01:06:38,600 Speaker 1: palatable foods. But but I think we could all do 1270 01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:41,600 Speaker 1: well to eat healthier foods, and they are not as 1271 01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,520 Speaker 1: rewarding in the short term as some of these highly 1272 01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:48,160 Speaker 1: palatable foods, right and especially to the young nervous system. 1273 01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:52,960 Speaker 1: You know, there's you know, a milkshaker or candy just 1274 01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:56,120 Speaker 1: taste better to these kids than vegetables for reasons that 1275 01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:58,560 Speaker 1: are hardwired into the nervous system. But we know that 1276 01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:00,960 Speaker 1: kids need their fruits and vegetables probably more than they 1277 01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:04,960 Speaker 1: need candy. Okay, So we have to all learn to 1278 01:07:05,040 --> 01:07:08,439 Speaker 1: counter these built in asymmetries in our nervous system. And 1279 01:07:08,680 --> 01:07:11,600 Speaker 1: as adults, we probably thought we had it made, but 1280 01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:14,560 Speaker 1: then now we're bombarded with all this negative imagery. And 1281 01:07:14,600 --> 01:07:17,600 Speaker 1: so the key is really the symbols that we were 1282 01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:21,080 Speaker 1: talking about earlier, to really build in positive symbols and 1283 01:07:21,480 --> 01:07:24,080 Speaker 1: internal symbolic representations. What I mean by that not just 1284 01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:27,280 Speaker 1: physical things in our environment and people, but also how 1285 01:07:27,280 --> 01:07:29,920 Speaker 1: we hold those things inside is so important. I think 1286 01:07:29,920 --> 01:07:32,680 Speaker 1: this is what comes to this notion of intentions. It's 1287 01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:36,000 Speaker 1: work right right life and right action and all these 1288 01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:39,520 Speaker 1: things that we hear about. It's work. It's working against 1289 01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:43,320 Speaker 1: the tide that is pulling us toward negativity. That's in fact, 1290 01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:45,800 Speaker 1: there's a study that was done in the sixties. It 1291 01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,240 Speaker 1: was published in the journal Science. There's an excellent journal, 1292 01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:52,120 Speaker 1: and the Apex journals had people with stimulating electrodes in 1293 01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:56,200 Speaker 1: their brain for reasons related to neurosurgery. These people could 1294 01:07:56,240 --> 01:07:59,200 Speaker 1: stimulate multiple areas of their brain one at a time, 1295 01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:02,440 Speaker 1: and they reported how they felt. So that the human 1296 01:08:02,480 --> 01:08:05,960 Speaker 1: would stimulate and they'd feel drunk, where they'd stimulate another 1297 01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:08,560 Speaker 1: area and they'd feel happy. They'd stimulate another area they'd 1298 01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:10,960 Speaker 1: feel sad. The fascinating We learned a lot about the 1299 01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:14,120 Speaker 1: human brain from these studies. The brain area that people 1300 01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:17,639 Speaker 1: preferred to stimulate the most. This is really gonna upset 1301 01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:20,280 Speaker 1: a few people was the one that led to anger 1302 01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:24,240 Speaker 1: and frustration. And you think to yourself, well, that's just terrible. 1303 01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:27,559 Speaker 1: Are we just doomed? Right? No, It turns out the 1304 01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:31,120 Speaker 1: anger and frustration is a signal to the brain and 1305 01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:33,760 Speaker 1: body that you need to do something in response to that. 1306 01:08:33,920 --> 01:08:36,800 Speaker 1: Usually move away or move forward and sort of enter 1307 01:08:36,840 --> 01:08:42,200 Speaker 1: an aggressive state. Knowing that trained, right, that's like habit 1308 01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:45,200 Speaker 1: that probably comes through and habit. I think this is 1309 01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,640 Speaker 1: why people I'd spend more time on Instagram than I 1310 01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:51,320 Speaker 1: do on other social media platforms. But listen, I'm not 1311 01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:53,479 Speaker 1: embarrassed to say you go on Twitter and it's a 1312 01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:56,280 Speaker 1: more combative zone. It's just the nature of the beast 1313 01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:58,439 Speaker 1: there it's a more combative zone, in part because there 1314 01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:01,480 Speaker 1: are a lot of academics on there. It's more combative. 1315 01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:04,160 Speaker 1: So I notice if I log on to Twitter, I 1316 01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:06,840 Speaker 1: already get a little bit of an adrenaline surge, just like, 1317 01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:09,760 Speaker 1: all right, you're ready to fight, and just knowing that 1318 01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:13,960 Speaker 1: we have this innate bias towards frustration and anger and 1319 01:09:14,040 --> 01:09:17,200 Speaker 1: that kind of friction. Hopefully, my wish is that it 1320 01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:21,320 Speaker 1: will allow people to relax around that and to realize, ah, 1321 01:09:21,360 --> 01:09:24,200 Speaker 1: this is sort of like the food that I immediately 1322 01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:26,519 Speaker 1: want to reach for. That's the kind of dopamine signal 1323 01:09:26,680 --> 01:09:28,200 Speaker 1: that you were talking about early on. But how am 1324 01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:30,280 Speaker 1: I going to feel afterwards? Yes? How am I going 1325 01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:32,559 Speaker 1: to feel afterwards? And I would say that ninety nine 1326 01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:35,080 Speaker 1: percent of online interactions where people end up in these 1327 01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:38,760 Speaker 1: ridiculous battles, later both parties probably think, well, how did 1328 01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:41,920 Speaker 1: I get wrapped up in that? It's absolutely crazy. You know, 1329 01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:43,920 Speaker 1: you think you're scoring slam dunks on each other at 1330 01:09:43,960 --> 01:09:46,200 Speaker 1: the time, but it's ridiculous. So I think the thing 1331 01:09:46,240 --> 01:09:49,519 Speaker 1: to understand is that we have these asymmetries, but that 1332 01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:51,439 Speaker 1: we can learn to work with them the way that 1333 01:09:51,680 --> 01:09:55,599 Speaker 1: a really I think a really incredible psychiatrist. He's done 1334 01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:57,880 Speaker 1: a lot of work on trauma. Paul Conti describes it 1335 01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:02,080 Speaker 1: in a different context. Is that um and he's like, 1336 01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:05,000 Speaker 1: into my mind, the expert on trauma and just just 1337 01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:07,280 Speaker 1: done beautiful work. Is that it's like those little kids 1338 01:10:07,280 --> 01:10:09,880 Speaker 1: toys where there's a little ball bearing moving around in 1339 01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:11,760 Speaker 1: a maze, he describes to me. So this is all 1340 01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:14,000 Speaker 1: Paul Kanti's an MD, and this is his work, not 1341 01:10:14,080 --> 01:10:17,559 Speaker 1: mine his words. You know, there are times in which 1342 01:10:17,560 --> 01:10:20,000 Speaker 1: we are like that game where just a slight shift 1343 01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:21,519 Speaker 1: and all of a sudden the ball bearing goes down 1344 01:10:21,560 --> 01:10:23,600 Speaker 1: the shoote. And what we should all be striving for 1345 01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:25,880 Speaker 1: is for you know, slightly concave and for it to 1346 01:10:25,920 --> 01:10:28,680 Speaker 1: kind of maybe move around a bit with the with 1347 01:10:28,720 --> 01:10:30,519 Speaker 1: the events of life and what we hear and see. 1348 01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:33,040 Speaker 1: That's what we should be striving toward. And that takes work. 1349 01:10:33,520 --> 01:10:35,880 Speaker 1: Some people are naturally there, but very few people are 1350 01:10:35,920 --> 01:10:38,519 Speaker 1: naturally there. But this is the power of meditation. This 1351 01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:41,120 Speaker 1: is the power of non sleep deep rest. This is 1352 01:10:41,160 --> 01:10:44,760 Speaker 1: the power of good sleep or most nights. This is 1353 01:10:44,760 --> 01:10:47,240 Speaker 1: the power of excellent social relationships. This is the power 1354 01:10:47,280 --> 01:10:51,760 Speaker 1: of mindsets and intentions, that stuff, gratitude practices, none of 1355 01:10:51,800 --> 01:10:54,559 Speaker 1: that stuff is weak. All of that stuff acts as 1356 01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:58,160 Speaker 1: a kind of a foundation from which we can approach 1357 01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:01,240 Speaker 1: things and go, Yeah, the pulses to get pretty upset 1358 01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:03,880 Speaker 1: about that, but I'm going to lean away from that. 1359 01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:06,400 Speaker 1: Very hard to do when we're not tending to that. 1360 01:11:06,680 --> 01:11:11,040 Speaker 1: Those foundational elements actually quite easy to do over time, 1361 01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:15,040 Speaker 1: because it gives us the perspective. And I think that 1362 01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:18,000 Speaker 1: if we understand that we're being bombarded with this, it's 1363 01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:21,360 Speaker 1: like being at a buffet of junk food. Yeah, but 1364 01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:25,360 Speaker 1: understanding that somewhere in that buffet is really nutritious food, 1365 01:11:25,439 --> 01:11:27,719 Speaker 1: and that's what we should be aiming for and learning 1366 01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:31,559 Speaker 1: to kind of override the natural signals of oh, I 1367 01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:33,479 Speaker 1: really want that, and I really want that by thinking 1368 01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:35,880 Speaker 1: about exactly what you said earlier, which is how am 1369 01:11:35,880 --> 01:11:38,599 Speaker 1: I going to feel afterward being and what's that that's 1370 01:11:38,680 --> 01:11:41,880 Speaker 1: dilating our perception of time. We're getting out of that 1371 01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:45,439 Speaker 1: slave to dopamine mode and we're starting to think about, no, 1372 01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:47,920 Speaker 1: I'm not going to let dopamine control me. I'm going 1373 01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:53,000 Speaker 1: to control dopamine. And that's powerful. Yeah, Well that sparks 1374 01:11:53,040 --> 01:11:56,640 Speaker 1: for me, is Also, this idea that I've been in 1375 01:11:56,680 --> 01:12:00,240 Speaker 1: love with for a while is fragility and strength and 1376 01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:06,280 Speaker 1: how not being exposed to something doesn't protect you, but 1377 01:12:06,360 --> 01:12:08,720 Speaker 1: it makes you. Weaka, it absolutely does. And you know, 1378 01:12:08,920 --> 01:12:11,439 Speaker 1: nowadays there's a big interest in so called dopamine fasts. 1379 01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:14,639 Speaker 1: I think they have their place. You know, if people 1380 01:12:14,680 --> 01:12:18,440 Speaker 1: have been engaging in things that are high dopamine evoking behaviors, 1381 01:12:18,600 --> 01:12:20,000 Speaker 1: there is a place for this. This is one of 1382 01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:23,360 Speaker 1: the routes to sobriety. Beautiful work by my colleague at Stanford, 1383 01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:27,160 Speaker 1: doctor Anna Lemky. She wrote Dopamine Nation, incredible book about 1384 01:12:27,240 --> 01:12:30,519 Speaker 1: dopamine in the context of addiction, but all kinds of addiction. 1385 01:12:31,439 --> 01:12:33,719 Speaker 1: She talks about this, there is a role for dopamine fast. 1386 01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:38,040 Speaker 1: Really moving away from intensely pleasurable activities for about thirty 1387 01:12:38,080 --> 01:12:41,720 Speaker 1: days is necessary for some people to reset. But it's 1388 01:12:41,840 --> 01:12:43,360 Speaker 1: naive for any of us to think that then you 1389 01:12:43,400 --> 01:12:45,800 Speaker 1: go back into the world and you're not being bombarded 1390 01:12:45,800 --> 01:12:48,439 Speaker 1: with temptation of different kinds. I mean, the whole idea 1391 01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:51,400 Speaker 1: is to bring the system back into balance so that 1392 01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:54,720 Speaker 1: you can notice the subtle inflections, right, I guess the 1393 01:12:55,520 --> 01:12:57,920 Speaker 1: meditators and Yogi's I always loved the language they use, 1394 01:12:57,960 --> 01:13:00,920 Speaker 1: would be the kind of subtle after meditation, you can 1395 01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:03,639 Speaker 1: notice the kind of subtle ripples in life, right, Whereas 1396 01:13:03,720 --> 01:13:05,679 Speaker 1: if you're just hard charging all the time, you miss 1397 01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:09,000 Speaker 1: so much. Again I'm using in the yeah, yeah, but 1398 01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:12,760 Speaker 1: I think that so dopamine fast have their place, but 1399 01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:15,800 Speaker 1: better to have your hands on the steering wheel, accelerator 1400 01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:18,320 Speaker 1: and break of all these mechanisms and to go through. 1401 01:13:18,439 --> 01:13:20,439 Speaker 1: It's only when you know the car has been wrecked 1402 01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:22,800 Speaker 1: that it needs to go into the repair shop. Most 1403 01:13:22,840 --> 01:13:25,200 Speaker 1: of us don't need a dopamine fast. We need to 1404 01:13:25,280 --> 01:13:28,160 Speaker 1: understand how dopamine works. We need to do exactly what 1405 01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:30,799 Speaker 1: you described earlier, which is to extend the time domain 1406 01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:33,920 Speaker 1: so that we think about am I getting dopamine later also? 1407 01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:35,920 Speaker 1: Or is this just a quick up and down kind 1408 01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,400 Speaker 1: of event. Then I think we can move through life 1409 01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:41,120 Speaker 1: in a much more adaptive way. And then you mentioned 1410 01:13:41,120 --> 01:13:43,920 Speaker 1: obviously when you're talking about relationships. You know, we talked 1411 01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:47,160 Speaker 1: about how dopamine is there at the beginning, but then 1412 01:13:47,160 --> 01:13:50,000 Speaker 1: we talk about serotonin and oxytocin these inner feelings, which 1413 01:13:50,240 --> 01:13:53,120 Speaker 1: I love that description also of like how dopamine is 1414 01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:57,000 Speaker 1: the pursuit of external things and oxytocin and serotonin about 1415 01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:58,680 Speaker 1: how we feel what we have. I think that was 1416 01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:01,720 Speaker 1: another great visual And I love how you speak in 1417 01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:04,559 Speaker 1: symbols more than you know, like there you know it's 1418 01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:09,920 Speaker 1: I really everything you've been sharing today, I can visualize it, 1419 01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:12,080 Speaker 1: and I really enjoy visual learning. And so when you 1420 01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:15,120 Speaker 1: were speaking earlier about how you can visualize a symbol 1421 01:14:15,160 --> 01:14:18,320 Speaker 1: even if you don't have it physically, and even when 1422 01:14:18,320 --> 01:14:19,720 Speaker 1: you said that to them, I'm like, Oh, that's really 1423 01:14:19,760 --> 01:14:22,360 Speaker 1: fascinating that dopamine is that oxytocin and serotonin. Is this 1424 01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:26,320 Speaker 1: with oxytocin and serotonin, we know that a lot of 1425 01:14:26,360 --> 01:14:31,160 Speaker 1: the habits you just mentioned they are what create this balance. Right. 1426 01:14:31,200 --> 01:14:34,200 Speaker 1: So the reason why people doing about decreasing dopamine, I guess, 1427 01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:36,680 Speaker 1: is because we've noticed that dopamine is shooting through the 1428 01:14:36,760 --> 01:14:39,840 Speaker 1: roof and often what we do for oxytonin, oxytocin and 1429 01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:44,320 Speaker 1: serotonin and not really that balanced across the board. What 1430 01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:47,320 Speaker 1: are Let's look at relationships and go is there a 1431 01:14:47,439 --> 01:14:51,800 Speaker 1: need to have dopamine in long term relationships or are 1432 01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:55,320 Speaker 1: serotonin and oxytocin enough and not just relationships That applies 1433 01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:59,280 Speaker 1: to Korea. It applies applies to everything I feel. Yeah. Absolutely. 1434 01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:03,120 Speaker 1: There's a wonderful book about this written by a psychoanalyst 1435 01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:06,000 Speaker 1: in a slightly different context. The book the title of 1436 01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:09,600 Speaker 1: the book is Can Love Last? And it's an interesting books. 1437 01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:12,200 Speaker 1: It operates on the premise that when we first meet 1438 01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:15,719 Speaker 1: somebody and we want this in the context of romantic relationship, 1439 01:15:15,720 --> 01:15:18,720 Speaker 1: and we desire romantic relationship with them, it's very much 1440 01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:21,080 Speaker 1: about objectification of the other person. And I don't mean 1441 01:15:21,120 --> 01:15:23,840 Speaker 1: objectification in the traditional sense. But we don't rely on 1442 01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:27,200 Speaker 1: them yet, right, We only rely on the ability to 1443 01:15:27,240 --> 01:15:29,840 Speaker 1: pursue and get them right or for them for us 1444 01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:33,960 Speaker 1: to pursue them exactly, But we don't rely on them 1445 01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:38,000 Speaker 1: for safety at all. If that evolves to become a 1446 01:15:38,080 --> 01:15:41,559 Speaker 1: romantic relationship right with trust, then what happens is there's 1447 01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:44,160 Speaker 1: a true dependency there. If one person were to leave 1448 01:15:44,200 --> 01:15:47,479 Speaker 1: for any reason, die or leave or cheat or break up, 1449 01:15:47,760 --> 01:15:50,960 Speaker 1: it is truly devastating to the safety mechanisms of the 1450 01:15:51,040 --> 01:15:54,200 Speaker 1: brain and body. Right. It's a reactivation actually of a 1451 01:15:54,200 --> 01:15:56,759 Speaker 1: lot of the machinery that was designed for attachment between 1452 01:15:56,920 --> 01:16:00,000 Speaker 1: infant and parent. Right is it just as an important 1453 01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:03,679 Speaker 1: aside all the work on an attachment that was done 1454 01:16:03,720 --> 01:16:06,160 Speaker 1: by Bowlby and Maine and others in psychology of taking 1455 01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:09,200 Speaker 1: deliberately taking babies away from their mothers and then reuniting 1456 01:16:09,240 --> 01:16:12,160 Speaker 1: them and evaluating the responses batching them into different All 1457 01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:15,640 Speaker 1: that circuitry isn't lost as we grow up. It's repurposed 1458 01:16:15,680 --> 01:16:19,000 Speaker 1: for a romantic attachment. There's no question about that, no 1459 01:16:19,120 --> 01:16:22,080 Speaker 1: question about that. We just operated into different domains of 1460 01:16:22,120 --> 01:16:25,120 Speaker 1: anxiety becomes about waiting for a text message as opposed 1461 01:16:25,120 --> 01:16:28,120 Speaker 1: to mother to come back in the room or nursing, etc. 1462 01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:34,160 Speaker 1: So same circuitry reapplied. As we advance into relationships, we 1463 01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:38,559 Speaker 1: become more dependent on people. But the idea, and that 1464 01:16:38,680 --> 01:16:40,400 Speaker 1: it's touched on quite a lot in this book Can 1465 01:16:40,439 --> 01:16:43,599 Speaker 1: Love Last, is that there is a need from time 1466 01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:47,400 Speaker 1: to time in some relationships to bring the dopamine element 1467 01:16:47,479 --> 01:16:49,960 Speaker 1: back in. Now certain cultures have actually built this in 1468 01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:52,200 Speaker 1: in a very strategic way of actually having men and 1469 01:16:52,240 --> 01:16:55,479 Speaker 1: women not physically contact one another for several weeks out 1470 01:16:55,479 --> 01:16:58,080 Speaker 1: of each month in order to maintain the kind of 1471 01:16:58,160 --> 01:17:01,640 Speaker 1: quote unquote excitement of a relationship. Nowadays, we tend to 1472 01:17:01,680 --> 01:17:06,479 Speaker 1: have this model of lover and best friend and sometimes 1473 01:17:06,479 --> 01:17:09,559 Speaker 1: even business partner right, which for some people can work 1474 01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:12,720 Speaker 1: and for other people can quash all the excitement. Right. 1475 01:17:12,760 --> 01:17:15,120 Speaker 1: It really depends, and especially nowadays where people are working 1476 01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:17,680 Speaker 1: a lot more from home, there isn't a tendency for 1477 01:17:17,680 --> 01:17:19,840 Speaker 1: people to spend much time apart and to miss one another. 1478 01:17:20,160 --> 01:17:23,240 Speaker 1: Missing one another the yearning for the other person is 1479 01:17:23,240 --> 01:17:25,960 Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. It's a painful, but beautiful thing. What 1480 01:17:26,080 --> 01:17:29,000 Speaker 1: is that yearning? That yearning is the pain of the 1481 01:17:29,080 --> 01:17:32,000 Speaker 1: lack of dopamine and serotonin. Actually just came back from 1482 01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:34,400 Speaker 1: a trip and we were visiting a couple friends of 1483 01:17:34,400 --> 01:17:36,200 Speaker 1: ours and they said it was right beautiful. They said 1484 01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:38,240 Speaker 1: they've been together a long time. They said they've had 1485 01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:42,000 Speaker 1: three nights apart in their entire relationship, and one of 1486 01:17:42,000 --> 01:17:44,639 Speaker 1: them got sick during that time apart. And I thought, 1487 01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:48,080 Speaker 1: that's beautiful. Now, for some people, that's a beautiful model. 1488 01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:50,880 Speaker 1: For other people that would be excessive, and it actually 1489 01:17:50,960 --> 01:17:54,439 Speaker 1: could eliminate a number of the positive neurochemical features of 1490 01:17:54,439 --> 01:17:57,439 Speaker 1: the relationship. And there's a lot of variation around this. 1491 01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:02,080 Speaker 1: So dopamine is required to quote unquote re up the 1492 01:18:02,240 --> 01:18:04,759 Speaker 1: excitement in a relationship. How is that achieved well? Dopamine 1493 01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:08,160 Speaker 1: is the molecule, as you recall, of reward, predictionary of novelty. 1494 01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:12,320 Speaker 1: So doing things that are not expected is great. Routine 1495 01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:19,760 Speaker 1: is great for serotonin and oxytocin predictability, Routine predictability, same thing, safety, routine, predictability, 1496 01:18:20,400 --> 01:18:24,800 Speaker 1: serotonin oxytocin system, no question about it. Dopamine is the 1497 01:18:24,840 --> 01:18:28,960 Speaker 1: neurochemical of novelty and pursuing new things. So for couples 1498 01:18:28,960 --> 01:18:30,960 Speaker 1: that are very set in their ways and feel very 1499 01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:34,960 Speaker 1: safe and homey together wonderful, but creating ways in which 1500 01:18:35,000 --> 01:18:38,320 Speaker 1: they miss one another, or creating new experiences for them 1501 01:18:38,320 --> 01:18:40,560 Speaker 1: to kind of re up, the dopamine in the relationship 1502 01:18:40,840 --> 01:18:44,280 Speaker 1: can have a tremendously positive effect. And I look forward 1503 01:18:44,280 --> 01:18:48,400 Speaker 1: to a day where neuroscience is actually incorporated into relationship 1504 01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:52,600 Speaker 1: design and an intelligent and respectful way that they're respectful, 1505 01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:55,600 Speaker 1: meaning that their differences. But we see a lot that 1506 01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:58,120 Speaker 1: people will just go out and get a new relationship, right. 1507 01:18:58,280 --> 01:19:01,240 Speaker 1: I'm of the mind that us you know, it's it's 1508 01:19:01,320 --> 01:19:05,880 Speaker 1: dangerous situation, better to probably avoid divorce, right, certainly for 1509 01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:08,839 Speaker 1: sake of children. Sometime I've heard, of course, that divorces 1510 01:19:08,840 --> 01:19:11,799 Speaker 1: can rescue relationships too. I understand there's a lot of nuance, 1511 01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:15,800 Speaker 1: but I think everyone would prefer emotionally, financially, etc. To 1512 01:19:15,840 --> 01:19:17,479 Speaker 1: be able to be in a great relationship for a 1513 01:19:17,520 --> 01:19:21,040 Speaker 1: long period of time. And so I think that understanding 1514 01:19:21,080 --> 01:19:24,479 Speaker 1: that the push pull between dopamine and serotonin is key. 1515 01:19:24,600 --> 01:19:28,000 Speaker 1: And just to remember that missing someone 'earning for someone 1516 01:19:28,560 --> 01:19:30,840 Speaker 1: is the anticipation of how great it's going to feel 1517 01:19:30,840 --> 01:19:33,760 Speaker 1: when together. I think that that could that could go 1518 01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:36,400 Speaker 1: a long way. And also for people that get very, 1519 01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:40,479 Speaker 1: very very excited about the new person the new thing, 1520 01:19:41,520 --> 01:19:45,040 Speaker 1: just be wary that not everyone's dopamine system works the 1521 01:19:45,080 --> 01:19:49,280 Speaker 1: same way. And with dopamine, it's great to have increases 1522 01:19:49,280 --> 01:19:51,880 Speaker 1: in dopamine, but where it passes a threshold and it's 1523 01:19:52,160 --> 01:19:54,759 Speaker 1: very big peaks. Where there's a peak, there's a crash, 1524 01:19:54,800 --> 01:19:57,679 Speaker 1: and the crash is always asymmetrically deeper than the peak. 1525 01:19:57,800 --> 01:20:01,160 Speaker 1: There is no way around this. And learn to temper 1526 01:20:01,200 --> 01:20:05,240 Speaker 1: the excitement if you're an excitable person, yeah, and I 1527 01:20:05,240 --> 01:20:08,320 Speaker 1: would say learn to ramp up the excitement a little 1528 01:20:08,320 --> 01:20:11,759 Speaker 1: bit if you're somebody who's not so easily overwhelmed. Yeah, definitely. 1529 01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:14,080 Speaker 1: I mean me and my wife, we've been married for 1530 01:20:14,120 --> 01:20:16,280 Speaker 1: six years, and nearly together for ten which you seem 1531 01:20:16,320 --> 01:20:18,680 Speaker 1: to have an amazing from the X from the album Yea, 1532 01:20:19,320 --> 01:20:21,720 Speaker 1: I would say I always like to clarify that I 1533 01:20:21,760 --> 01:20:24,759 Speaker 1: don't think you know. I grew up wanting a Hollywood 1534 01:20:24,840 --> 01:20:28,280 Speaker 1: romance and my views of love were defined by movies 1535 01:20:28,320 --> 01:20:30,280 Speaker 1: and music, and I realize that is not what love 1536 01:20:30,360 --> 01:20:32,400 Speaker 1: looks like at all. And my wife has been a 1537 01:20:32,400 --> 01:20:35,559 Speaker 1: great teacher to me in that space of showing me 1538 01:20:35,640 --> 01:20:38,519 Speaker 1: what a beautiful relationship can look like. But it doesn't 1539 01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:40,080 Speaker 1: look like how we think it is. And I think 1540 01:20:40,320 --> 01:20:42,040 Speaker 1: often when people see me and my wife, they may 1541 01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:45,559 Speaker 1: think we have that version two and I would just 1542 01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:48,360 Speaker 1: I'm very careful about the idea that we have a 1543 01:20:48,400 --> 01:20:52,160 Speaker 1: fantastic relationship, but it isn't fantastic for the reasons that 1544 01:20:52,600 --> 01:20:55,320 Speaker 1: TV or movies has convinced us that relationships are good. 1545 01:20:55,640 --> 01:20:58,280 Speaker 1: But we spend around three months apart every single year, 1546 01:20:58,640 --> 01:21:01,920 Speaker 1: not by design or it's just by work and life. 1547 01:21:02,520 --> 01:21:04,760 Speaker 1: And I haven't seen my wife for the last three months. 1548 01:21:04,760 --> 01:21:06,280 Speaker 1: It will be one more month before I see it. 1549 01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:08,560 Speaker 1: So the yearning is real. I cannot wait to see it. 1550 01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:11,160 Speaker 1: But at the same time I get to focus on myself. 1551 01:21:11,200 --> 01:21:12,640 Speaker 1: I get to have a loan time. I get to 1552 01:21:13,160 --> 01:21:16,479 Speaker 1: refill and refuel myself. I get to discover new parts 1553 01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:18,240 Speaker 1: of my identity. I get to learn a new skill 1554 01:21:18,280 --> 01:21:20,040 Speaker 1: like so many healthy And of course we don't have 1555 01:21:20,120 --> 01:21:24,519 Speaker 1: children yet, so we don't have that responsibility. But going 1556 01:21:24,560 --> 01:21:27,200 Speaker 1: to what you said, I see so much value in 1557 01:21:27,200 --> 01:21:30,760 Speaker 1: in how we can be open to these ideas. I 1558 01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:33,280 Speaker 1: think that's the point that it's not about there's one 1559 01:21:33,360 --> 01:21:36,240 Speaker 1: size fit soul or one right way. But I want 1560 01:21:36,240 --> 01:21:39,360 Speaker 1: to shift Andrew with our conversation to something you brought 1561 01:21:39,439 --> 01:21:43,080 Speaker 1: up earlier, because and if you don't feel comfortable to talking, 1562 01:21:43,080 --> 01:21:45,960 Speaker 1: why we don't. But I heard and I've become aware 1563 01:21:45,960 --> 01:21:49,120 Speaker 1: that you are. You have tattoos, have symbols. Yeah. Tim 1564 01:21:49,120 --> 01:21:51,680 Speaker 1: Ferris outed me on his podcast. Yeah, thanks to Tim, 1565 01:21:52,280 --> 01:21:54,720 Speaker 1: Yeah I do. I UM. You know, I grew up 1566 01:21:55,479 --> 01:21:59,200 Speaker 1: a child of an academic and um. But then when 1567 01:21:59,240 --> 01:22:01,880 Speaker 1: I was a teenager, I got involved in skateboarding, punk 1568 01:22:01,960 --> 01:22:04,160 Speaker 1: rock music. I saw a lot of friends in that world. 1569 01:22:04,439 --> 01:22:06,640 Speaker 1: So the photographer for our podcast is from DC and 1570 01:22:06,720 --> 01:22:09,599 Speaker 1: Nike Skateboarding, Mike Blayback. Of good friends in that world, 1571 01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:13,120 Speaker 1: become friendly with guys like Danny Way and you know, 1572 01:22:13,240 --> 01:22:16,920 Speaker 1: it's amazing, one of the greatest skateboarders of all time, 1573 01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:18,719 Speaker 1: by the way, I mean, he and I aren't close friends, 1574 01:22:18,720 --> 01:22:21,479 Speaker 1: but we become friendly, and for me that's you know, 1575 01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:24,479 Speaker 1: I grew up in that, and yeah, those were cultures 1576 01:22:24,479 --> 01:22:25,960 Speaker 1: that made a lot of sense to me given where 1577 01:22:25,960 --> 01:22:27,880 Speaker 1: I was at the time, and they have always felt 1578 01:22:27,880 --> 01:22:30,360 Speaker 1: to me like my first non biological family. So I 1579 01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:34,400 Speaker 1: started getting tattooed pretty young, too young. And I will 1580 01:22:34,439 --> 01:22:36,640 Speaker 1: say to all of those out there they're thinking about it, 1581 01:22:36,720 --> 01:22:41,000 Speaker 1: think carefully, Yeah it is they are permanent. Things have 1582 01:22:41,080 --> 01:22:43,200 Speaker 1: changed around this. I always cover up my tattoos for 1583 01:22:43,240 --> 01:22:47,400 Speaker 1: the following reason when when doing public facing work, which 1584 01:22:47,439 --> 01:22:51,400 Speaker 1: is that generally when I'm trying to teach in roal science, 1585 01:22:51,760 --> 01:22:55,600 Speaker 1: I'm trying to download ideas and transmit them. So I 1586 01:22:55,680 --> 01:22:58,320 Speaker 1: just want to avoid any distractions about the symbols that 1587 01:22:58,320 --> 01:23:00,640 Speaker 1: are meaningful to me because they just aren't relevant in 1588 01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:04,040 Speaker 1: that context. I have a good friend who explained it 1589 01:23:04,040 --> 01:23:05,960 Speaker 1: this way. He said, well, you know, maybe tattoos should 1590 01:23:05,960 --> 01:23:08,880 Speaker 1: be an important part of the hiring process because rather 1591 01:23:08,920 --> 01:23:11,160 Speaker 1: than covering them up, if you have a lot of tattoos, 1592 01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:12,640 Speaker 1: it is evidence that you can sit still for a 1593 01:23:12,640 --> 01:23:16,200 Speaker 1: long period of time while in intense pains. I'll also 1594 01:23:16,240 --> 01:23:19,080 Speaker 1: say this, I was fortunate to know good tattoo or 1595 01:23:19,080 --> 01:23:21,200 Speaker 1: its a good tattoo. There are there's a range out 1596 01:23:21,240 --> 01:23:25,200 Speaker 1: there and and along the lines of them being permanent. 1597 01:23:25,200 --> 01:23:27,519 Speaker 1: I will also say that black and gray lasts longer, 1598 01:23:27,560 --> 01:23:31,760 Speaker 1: doesn't fade than color. So so what's your most h 1599 01:23:32,720 --> 01:23:35,240 Speaker 1: what's the symbol on your body? And I'm sure you 1600 01:23:35,240 --> 01:23:37,599 Speaker 1: have many, but if you were to pick one, not 1601 01:23:37,640 --> 01:23:40,760 Speaker 1: your favorite, but one that feels really meaningful right now 1602 01:23:40,800 --> 01:23:42,840 Speaker 1: in your life. Yeah. Well, first of all, it's funny 1603 01:23:42,840 --> 01:23:44,640 Speaker 1: because people often will say, what are you going to 1604 01:23:44,680 --> 01:23:46,439 Speaker 1: do when you're like sixty or sixty five? You got 1605 01:23:46,479 --> 01:23:48,280 Speaker 1: all these tattoos, and I just think, okay, Well, first 1606 01:23:48,280 --> 01:23:50,280 Speaker 1: of all, and I'm incentive to stay in shape. And 1607 01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:53,040 Speaker 1: the second of all, um, you know, I actually worry 1608 01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:55,200 Speaker 1: about them disappearing because then I have to have them 1609 01:23:55,200 --> 01:23:58,160 Speaker 1: all redone and they're pretty painful. A long time, I 1610 01:23:58,160 --> 01:24:01,320 Speaker 1: got a lot of them, so a long time. It's 1611 01:24:01,360 --> 01:24:06,200 Speaker 1: been twenty five years or more of getting tattooed. So, um, 1612 01:24:06,680 --> 01:24:08,439 Speaker 1: I can't pick just one. But I do have a 1613 01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:12,479 Speaker 1: picture of my bulldog Mastiff Costello and a pop print 1614 01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:15,400 Speaker 1: of his life size or actual size. And I loved 1615 01:24:15,439 --> 01:24:18,280 Speaker 1: that dog. I had to put him down. Um while, yeah, 1616 01:24:18,320 --> 01:24:19,960 Speaker 1: and it was just you know, the last line in 1617 01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:22,120 Speaker 1: the contract of good dog ownership is that you're going 1618 01:24:22,200 --> 01:24:24,280 Speaker 1: to put him down before there and suffering. And it 1619 01:24:24,320 --> 01:24:27,640 Speaker 1: was a It actually turned out to be a beautiful transition. 1620 01:24:27,680 --> 01:24:30,519 Speaker 1: I did it, you know, in a beautiful location. He 1621 01:24:30,600 --> 01:24:32,360 Speaker 1: went easy. And I don't want to talk about too 1622 01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:34,360 Speaker 1: long because I'll cry out of love. I noticed I 1623 01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:38,000 Speaker 1: still cry when I think about him, but it's not sadness. 1624 01:24:38,040 --> 01:24:40,599 Speaker 1: It took me like three months to realize. I was like, 1625 01:24:40,720 --> 01:24:42,720 Speaker 1: I always cry when I talk about Costello. Where I 1626 01:24:42,760 --> 01:24:44,479 Speaker 1: want to cry, and I realize it's because I love him. 1627 01:24:44,680 --> 01:24:47,240 Speaker 1: The feeling isn't sad. He just he had such an 1628 01:24:47,240 --> 01:24:52,360 Speaker 1: incredible that's that symbol, that physical and anyone that knows me, 1629 01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:56,160 Speaker 1: I loved that dog like crazy. So there's that one 1630 01:24:56,240 --> 01:24:58,200 Speaker 1: and then um and I don't want to focus on 1631 01:24:58,240 --> 01:25:00,960 Speaker 1: negative things, but again, it's a feeling love. I talked 1632 01:25:00,960 --> 01:25:03,920 Speaker 1: about these three advisors that I had earlier. I was 1633 01:25:04,000 --> 01:25:09,360 Speaker 1: blessed with amazing advisors, and sadly first one died a suicide, 1634 01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:11,400 Speaker 1: second one cancer, who I was very close to my 1635 01:25:11,439 --> 01:25:14,519 Speaker 1: third one cancer, so that the morbid joke among people 1636 01:25:14,520 --> 01:25:15,880 Speaker 1: that know me is you don't want me to work 1637 01:25:15,920 --> 01:25:18,559 Speaker 1: for you. Now I can make that joke because all 1638 01:25:18,600 --> 01:25:21,160 Speaker 1: three of them had an incredible spirit about life. So 1639 01:25:21,240 --> 01:25:23,599 Speaker 1: I actually have all of their initials or symbols of 1640 01:25:23,640 --> 01:25:26,639 Speaker 1: them tattooed on my body and I miss them every day. 1641 01:25:26,800 --> 01:25:28,840 Speaker 1: But I also, you know, I think there is something 1642 01:25:28,880 --> 01:25:33,719 Speaker 1: powerful to embedding something in your body. Some people wear pendants, obviously, 1643 01:25:33,720 --> 01:25:38,639 Speaker 1: some people decide to get tattoos, and you know, I've 1644 01:25:38,640 --> 01:25:40,559 Speaker 1: been encouraged at times people like, you know, just show 1645 01:25:40,600 --> 01:25:42,360 Speaker 1: your tattoos, be out there with them. I want to 1646 01:25:42,360 --> 01:25:44,120 Speaker 1: be very clear, I'm not ashamed of them at all. 1647 01:25:44,160 --> 01:25:47,840 Speaker 1: I'm proud of them. But yeah, but for me, if 1648 01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:50,240 Speaker 1: I'm teaching or I'm trying to be an educator, I 1649 01:25:50,280 --> 01:25:53,960 Speaker 1: really want to emphasize the information. I also think, listen 1650 01:25:53,960 --> 01:25:56,000 Speaker 1: to the world's a complicated place and we can't always 1651 01:25:56,040 --> 01:25:59,160 Speaker 1: control people's interpretations of why we do things. So for 1652 01:25:59,240 --> 01:26:02,080 Speaker 1: the young people they're thinking about getting tattoos, um just 1653 01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:04,599 Speaker 1: understand that's the world we live in. Although I think 1654 01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:07,960 Speaker 1: nowadays people are more accepting. So, yeah, thank you for 1655 01:26:07,960 --> 01:26:10,439 Speaker 1: sharing both. Yea, thank you. I wanted that more. I 1656 01:26:10,680 --> 01:26:14,559 Speaker 1: I just appreciate hearing about because we spoke about symbols 1657 01:26:14,600 --> 01:26:17,200 Speaker 1: and yeah, and that for that reason, I really wanted 1658 01:26:17,200 --> 01:26:19,720 Speaker 1: to understand the symbols that you know, Yeah, for me, 1659 01:26:19,800 --> 01:26:23,920 Speaker 1: something about having you know, um, having experiences that I've 1660 01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,240 Speaker 1: externalized to the surface of my body. It feels right, 1661 01:26:26,320 --> 01:26:28,280 Speaker 1: it's weird. They feel like my skin now. Yeah, I 1662 01:26:28,280 --> 01:26:30,680 Speaker 1: feel like birth marks. I never look at and I 1663 01:26:30,720 --> 01:26:32,080 Speaker 1: know we won't get up in the morning look at 1664 01:26:32,080 --> 01:26:33,800 Speaker 1: the mirror and go like there's a tattoo, and there's 1665 01:26:33,800 --> 01:26:36,720 Speaker 1: a tattoo. Normally I just think like, oh, yeah, Like 1666 01:26:36,920 --> 01:26:38,960 Speaker 1: it's just it just kind of becomes part of you, 1667 01:26:39,360 --> 01:26:42,920 Speaker 1: as you know, because obviously you Yeah, I already have three. 1668 01:26:42,960 --> 01:26:44,680 Speaker 1: I had a plan. It's not the number, it's the 1669 01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:47,799 Speaker 1: I hadn't plan to have my whole upper buddy tattooed 1670 01:26:47,840 --> 01:26:50,040 Speaker 1: when I was younger, and then I became a monk. 1671 01:26:50,120 --> 01:26:52,599 Speaker 1: So I haven't had any since. Yeah, but up un 1672 01:26:52,600 --> 01:26:55,200 Speaker 1: cycle my first when I was sixteen, second when I 1673 01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:56,840 Speaker 1: was eighteen, and then lost one when I was like 1674 01:26:56,880 --> 01:26:58,800 Speaker 1: twenty one, Okay, and I did them all and then 1675 01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:00,160 Speaker 1: I would gave them monk and then I haven't had 1676 01:27:00,200 --> 01:27:02,280 Speaker 1: any since. And my wife's been the other way around, 1677 01:27:02,280 --> 01:27:04,360 Speaker 1: Like since we've been married, she's had like she had 1678 01:27:04,400 --> 01:27:06,439 Speaker 1: one before we married. I had like seven more. So 1679 01:27:06,560 --> 01:27:09,200 Speaker 1: she's Yeah, it's like I don't wear any jewelry except 1680 01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:11,519 Speaker 1: to watch. But yeah, tattoos for me have been. UM, 1681 01:27:11,600 --> 01:27:14,080 Speaker 1: it's been a fun journey. And I'm forty six years 1682 01:27:14,120 --> 01:27:16,600 Speaker 1: old now, so I plan to keep going. You know. 1683 01:27:16,680 --> 01:27:19,920 Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, there's there's at this point, it's um, 1684 01:27:19,960 --> 01:27:23,599 Speaker 1: it's I suppose it's neuroplasticity. It's built into me. Andrew, 1685 01:27:23,640 --> 01:27:28,000 Speaker 1: you have been so kind gracious with your time. I 1686 01:27:28,040 --> 01:27:32,640 Speaker 1: am you know, I've always known how phenomenally intelligent and 1687 01:27:33,160 --> 01:27:36,800 Speaker 1: smart and sharp and deeply studied you are. But I'm 1688 01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:38,680 Speaker 1: really grateful I got to experience your heart today in 1689 01:27:38,680 --> 01:27:42,960 Speaker 1: so many ways, and to me that that beautiful synergy 1690 01:27:43,040 --> 01:27:47,519 Speaker 1: you have is really meaningful to me to experience. I'm 1691 01:27:47,560 --> 01:27:52,160 Speaker 1: so grateful to you for being here, for taking the time, 1692 01:27:52,280 --> 01:27:54,000 Speaker 1: for for being We've been in touch for a couple 1693 01:27:54,000 --> 01:27:56,759 Speaker 1: of years, maybe even it's been or you know, through messaging, 1694 01:27:56,800 --> 01:27:59,200 Speaker 1: but to really experience you in full today has been 1695 01:27:59,320 --> 01:28:02,439 Speaker 1: been a treat for me. We end every own Purpose 1696 01:28:02,479 --> 01:28:04,839 Speaker 1: episode with a final five. These have to be answered 1697 01:28:04,880 --> 01:28:08,800 Speaker 1: in one word to one sentence maximum, which for this 1698 01:28:08,880 --> 01:28:12,200 Speaker 1: academic might be a bit but we will try so 1699 01:28:12,479 --> 01:28:15,759 Speaker 1: Andrew hum and these are your final five. The first 1700 01:28:15,800 --> 01:28:18,719 Speaker 1: question is what is the best advice you've ever received 1701 01:28:18,840 --> 01:28:22,840 Speaker 1: in any area of life? Know thyself? The oracle said that, 1702 01:28:22,880 --> 01:28:26,160 Speaker 1: and it's absolutely true. We have to be good scientists 1703 01:28:26,160 --> 01:28:32,960 Speaker 1: of ourselves and understand where we have talents, competency, end 1704 01:28:33,040 --> 01:28:36,200 Speaker 1: or challenges and then work with those beautiful all right. 1705 01:28:36,280 --> 01:28:39,400 Speaker 1: Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever received? 1706 01:28:39,439 --> 01:28:44,240 Speaker 1: Ahead that everything is just experience, you know, the idea 1707 01:28:44,320 --> 01:28:48,400 Speaker 1: that all experiences are equivalent. I would love to think 1708 01:28:48,479 --> 01:28:53,200 Speaker 1: that all our steps leads us to enlightenment kind of thing, 1709 01:28:53,680 --> 01:28:56,200 Speaker 1: but we have I do believe that we, or at 1710 01:28:56,240 --> 01:28:58,479 Speaker 1: least I need to be far more intentional than that, 1711 01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:02,000 Speaker 1: and that we can be beautiful. Question number three, what 1712 01:29:02,200 --> 01:29:05,439 Speaker 1: is something that you didn't value before but you've learned 1713 01:29:05,479 --> 01:29:09,439 Speaker 1: to value now? Almost embarrassed to say it, but um, family, 1714 01:29:09,800 --> 01:29:13,360 Speaker 1: you know I've relied very heavily on friendship as a 1715 01:29:13,400 --> 01:29:17,960 Speaker 1: deep source of reinforcement in my life. I've leaned hard 1716 01:29:18,040 --> 01:29:22,800 Speaker 1: into that for many, many decades. I think recently I've 1717 01:29:22,840 --> 01:29:27,000 Speaker 1: become quite moved by the supports within my family that 1718 01:29:27,040 --> 01:29:30,439 Speaker 1: I hadn't realized that really set me up so well 1719 01:29:30,479 --> 01:29:33,799 Speaker 1: to to do what I want to do in life. Beautiful. 1720 01:29:33,840 --> 01:29:37,040 Speaker 1: I love hearing that question number four, what's the first 1721 01:29:37,040 --> 01:29:38,400 Speaker 1: thing you do in the morning and the last thing 1722 01:29:38,400 --> 01:29:40,519 Speaker 1: you do at night? First thing I do in the 1723 01:29:40,560 --> 01:29:43,680 Speaker 1: morning is get outside and get sunlight, and if the 1724 01:29:43,680 --> 01:29:45,240 Speaker 1: sun isn't up, I flip on all the lights and 1725 01:29:45,280 --> 01:29:47,720 Speaker 1: then I go get sunlight. Also drinking a glass of 1726 01:29:47,720 --> 01:29:51,600 Speaker 1: water before I go to sleep at night, Yogendra, you 1727 01:29:51,680 --> 01:29:55,000 Speaker 1: know doing that night you do? I actually I think 1728 01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:58,080 Speaker 1: about those three people I was talking about before. I 1729 01:29:58,200 --> 01:30:01,200 Speaker 1: do every night think about them. I don't know, it's 1730 01:30:01,240 --> 01:30:03,799 Speaker 1: been a long time now, that accumulated over several decades, 1731 01:30:03,840 --> 01:30:06,479 Speaker 1: and um, yeah, I think about them every night. Love 1732 01:30:06,520 --> 01:30:08,720 Speaker 1: that I don't even think to do it. I just 1733 01:30:08,800 --> 01:30:13,000 Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, I've I lost one of mine mentors 1734 01:30:13,000 --> 01:30:14,720 Speaker 1: of the others is still alive right now. Wanted them 1735 01:30:14,720 --> 01:30:16,880 Speaker 1: to Stage four brain against and just a couple of 1736 01:30:16,960 --> 01:30:20,960 Speaker 1: years ago and I when you said that, I was like, yeah, 1737 01:30:21,040 --> 01:30:23,719 Speaker 1: I know, yeah, I know that feels like so yeah, 1738 01:30:23,760 --> 01:30:27,000 Speaker 1: all right. Fifteen final question. If you could create one 1739 01:30:27,160 --> 01:30:30,080 Speaker 1: law or set one had it that everyone had to 1740 01:30:30,080 --> 01:30:32,400 Speaker 1: do every day for the rest of their life, what 1741 01:30:32,479 --> 01:30:33,920 Speaker 1: would it be. I think, I know it's going to be, 1742 01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:36,479 Speaker 1: but I have to ask you, well, since most people 1743 01:30:36,479 --> 01:30:38,479 Speaker 1: will assume it's sunlight viewing and I'll just I'll just 1744 01:30:38,520 --> 01:30:44,479 Speaker 1: assume they're doing that anyway. I would die a happy 1745 01:30:44,560 --> 01:30:50,600 Speaker 1: person if people would adopt a practice of learning to 1746 01:30:50,800 --> 01:30:55,720 Speaker 1: deliberately calm down, whether or not through non sleep depressed 1747 01:30:55,880 --> 01:31:01,720 Speaker 1: or a couple deep breaths, find a tool, because I 1748 01:31:01,800 --> 01:31:05,400 Speaker 1: really believe that much of the misfortune and pain of 1749 01:31:05,439 --> 01:31:08,439 Speaker 1: life could be avoided if people learned to calm down. 1750 01:31:08,520 --> 01:31:10,240 Speaker 1: I also know that there's a lot more joy to 1751 01:31:10,320 --> 01:31:14,840 Speaker 1: access when we do. Andrew, You're phenomenal. You blew my 1752 01:31:14,880 --> 01:31:17,320 Speaker 1: mind multiple times today. I hope this is not going 1753 01:31:17,360 --> 01:31:19,880 Speaker 1: to be the only time that we hang out. We 1754 01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:21,680 Speaker 1: agreed the first and we spoke that the podcast was 1755 01:31:21,680 --> 01:31:26,240 Speaker 1: an excuse to build our Friendship's right, I feel like 1756 01:31:26,280 --> 01:31:29,000 Speaker 1: there is This is a podcast episode that I would 1757 01:31:29,040 --> 01:31:34,759 Speaker 1: highly recommend that everyone listens to. Again. Takes notes. When 1758 01:31:34,840 --> 01:31:37,920 Speaker 1: you make those notes, try and find those elements that 1759 01:31:37,920 --> 01:31:41,320 Speaker 1: you want to put into practice. I would highly recommend 1760 01:31:41,360 --> 01:31:43,879 Speaker 1: that everyone who's listening to this episode go and subscribe 1761 01:31:43,880 --> 01:31:48,479 Speaker 1: to and listen to Andrew's podcast, which is a wealth 1762 01:31:48,479 --> 01:31:51,400 Speaker 1: of wisdom and everything we've discussed today today tip of 1763 01:31:51,400 --> 01:31:53,639 Speaker 1: the Iceberg. We've dived into so many different areas. You'll 1764 01:31:53,680 --> 01:31:56,479 Speaker 1: find episodes on every single aspect of what we've discussed 1765 01:31:56,479 --> 01:31:59,040 Speaker 1: on his podcast. Highly recommend that you go and check 1766 01:31:59,040 --> 01:32:02,120 Speaker 1: it out for the episodes that really connect. We didn't 1767 01:32:02,120 --> 01:32:04,920 Speaker 1: even dive into you incredible work deeply on vision or 1768 01:32:05,000 --> 01:32:07,200 Speaker 1: on sugar and diet, and you know, we haven't even 1769 01:32:07,479 --> 01:32:09,080 Speaker 1: we didn't even get to go. Then we'll do that 1770 01:32:09,160 --> 01:32:12,920 Speaker 1: hopefully another time. But please make sure that you tag 1771 01:32:13,040 --> 01:32:17,519 Speaker 1: Andrew and I on Twitter, maybe on Instagram to let 1772 01:32:17,560 --> 01:32:19,680 Speaker 1: us know what connected with you, what resonated with you, 1773 01:32:19,720 --> 01:32:21,960 Speaker 1: What is something that you're going to try this week 1774 01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:24,760 Speaker 1: because of this episode, how those habits are going. I 1775 01:32:24,800 --> 01:32:29,480 Speaker 1: love seeing you put these ideas and insights into practice. 1776 01:32:29,520 --> 01:32:31,920 Speaker 1: That is the whole goal of living a life that's 1777 01:32:31,960 --> 01:32:34,600 Speaker 1: on purpose. Andrew, I thank you from the bottom of 1778 01:32:34,640 --> 01:32:39,559 Speaker 1: my heart express my deepest gratitude for doing this. And yeah, 1779 01:32:39,600 --> 01:32:41,519 Speaker 1: any final words anything you want to share that's on 1780 01:32:41,600 --> 01:32:42,960 Speaker 1: your mind or heart that you want to put out 1781 01:32:42,960 --> 01:32:45,080 Speaker 1: there in the world. Over to you. Thank you. I 1782 01:32:45,640 --> 01:32:48,559 Speaker 1: want to genuinely say thank you again. We've known each 1783 01:32:48,600 --> 01:32:51,920 Speaker 1: other somewhat a distance for a long time now. It's 1784 01:32:52,400 --> 01:32:56,479 Speaker 1: been a tremendous pleasure. You know. I look to social 1785 01:32:56,520 --> 01:32:58,519 Speaker 1: media and a lot in science and a lot of 1786 01:32:58,520 --> 01:33:02,439 Speaker 1: different landscapes for inspiration. It's been a remarkable thing to 1787 01:33:02,520 --> 01:33:06,040 Speaker 1: see what you've done. And it's so great to meet 1788 01:33:06,040 --> 01:33:08,280 Speaker 1: in person because I knew you were the real deal 1789 01:33:08,680 --> 01:33:11,560 Speaker 1: but there but you know, I'll just say this. I 1790 01:33:11,880 --> 01:33:14,160 Speaker 1: know many people already feel this, but I just want 1791 01:33:14,160 --> 01:33:17,479 Speaker 1: to say that to meet you in person is a 1792 01:33:17,520 --> 01:33:20,720 Speaker 1: real honor for me, and I just so admire what 1793 01:33:20,760 --> 01:33:23,360 Speaker 1: you're doing and I know the intent behind it is 1794 01:33:23,400 --> 01:33:25,960 Speaker 1: real and the way you show up to it is incredible, 1795 01:33:26,080 --> 01:33:30,200 Speaker 1: and so I'm just I'm floating on the gratitude of 1796 01:33:30,479 --> 01:33:32,439 Speaker 1: being able to be here today face to face. Thank 1797 01:33:32,479 --> 01:33:34,960 Speaker 1: you so much, Andrew, Thank you so much. Everyone. Make 1798 01:33:35,000 --> 01:33:37,479 Speaker 1: sure you share this episode, pass it a long term 1799 01:33:37,520 --> 01:33:39,640 Speaker 1: frand who needs to hear it. As I said, you 1800 01:33:39,640 --> 01:33:42,599 Speaker 1: can obviously go and subscribe and listen to Andrew's podcast 1801 01:33:42,640 --> 01:33:45,040 Speaker 1: which is called Huberman Lab, which you will find on 1802 01:33:45,080 --> 01:33:47,479 Speaker 1: all podcasts platforms. It makes you do that, and of 1803 01:33:47,520 --> 01:33:49,640 Speaker 1: course follow him on Instagram. As you can tell, he 1804 01:33:49,680 --> 01:33:52,640 Speaker 1: loves to be there too, highly active, very present. Make 1805 01:33:52,640 --> 01:33:56,560 Speaker 1: sure you follow him for more insights and more intelligence. 1806 01:33:56,800 --> 01:33:59,040 Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching this episode. Please do 1807 01:33:59,120 --> 01:34:09,000 Speaker 1: share it. I'll see you next time. M