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Lessons - The Neuroscience Breakthrough That Could Stop Brain Disease | David Eagleman - Stanford Neuroscientist · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how novelty and mental challenge protect the brain from cognitive decline.
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  Learn how trying new activities builds neural pathways that delay dementia,
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  learn why staying socially and mentally active is more powerful than relying on diet or supplements,
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  and learn how Ulysses contracts help us beat temptation and make better decisions for our future selves.
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  One more one more thought and question on memory and sort of brain health and brain optimization.
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  I've I've spoken to Steven Kotler who does a lot of work on flow state and he's written
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  several books of Dhammaha many and he was speaking about activities that ward off all
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  timers and dementia and I don't know about the science behind it he has a lot of conviction
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  that certain kinds of activities can ward off Alzheimer's dementia. Is there anything that is
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  studied or proven to ward off Alzheimer's dementia if that's something that's in your family? He
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  was mentioning if I remember correctly he mentioned that penis was one of the most beneficial activities
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  because it's cognitive and physical at the same time which apparently is something that is not
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  prevalent in many other sports. I don't know where I think he's on research on this but regardless
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  in your studies have you found anything like that to be the case where any sort of activity prevents
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  cognitive decline maybe any foods anything at all really. The whole thing comes down to
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  challenging your brain with with novelty. So the key is and you can fit anything you want in here
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  including penis but the key is if you are an expert tennis player then playing tennis in your
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  sixties or something is not going to benefit you. The thing that will benefit you is to
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  not play tennis but to start something else that you've never done before that you're terrible at
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  that you need to learn how to do that's the thing and this is true across whatever it is whether it's
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  I don't know people always ask me about Sudoku or you know was sailing or whatever the thing is
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  it's got to be something that's challenging what you always want to do but especially if your brain
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  is getting closer to cognitive impairment is put yourself between the levels of frustrating but
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  achievable so you're taking on a new task let's say you've never done Sudoku before then that's
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  cool you start Sudoku you don't know what you're doing you're putting a lot of effort into it the point
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  is what that's doing in the brain is building new roadways you're you're making new things happening
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  with your synapses that you haven't done before as soon as you get good at Sudoku then you have to
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  drop that and pick up something else like tennis like whatever the new thing is that you haven't done
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  but the key is the challenge and that's where you always want to be and weirdly that's actually our
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  best thing that we know about for you know for dementia is challenging the brain obviously there's
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  lots of pharmaceutical work going on and other things like that as far as foods go I don't think
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  there's anything that's particularly convincing about that if one already has a balanced diet
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  I don't think there's some magical new food that one can do there but the key is to constantly build
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  new roadways and bridges in the brain there was a study that's been going on for I think like 30
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  years now called the religious order study and this is on nuns who live in convents in the Chicago area
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  who all agreed that they would donate their brains upon their death and so over the years different
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  nuns have passed away and donated their brains and the brains have been autopsy and the stunning
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  result from the study is that a number of these nuns actually had Alzheimer's disease their brains were
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  ravaged you know molecularly you can see this in the tissue the tissue is degraded their brain tissue
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  but even though they had Alzheimer's disease they didn't show the cognitive deficits that one
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  would expect and this came as a giant surprise but the reason is because these women live in these
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  convents until the day they die and in these convents they have chores and responsibilities they
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  have this very active social life and you know when you have an active social life you're you're arguing
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  people fighting with people and you know getting along with people and whatever it's we sometimes say
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  in the field that there's nothing is hard for the brain as other people and so it's constant
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  challenge or constantly keeping their brains active and as a result even though their brains are
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  degenerating they are they're building these new roadways compare this to people who retire and
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  don't have that kind of challenge and sit at home alone and watch television on the couch that's a
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  very different thing that's happening as their brain tissue degenerates there's no new roadways
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  being built and that's why you can see the cognitive correlates of the degeneration
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  that's fascinating so retiring very retiring with no activity no
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  no learning new skills no socializing very bad for your brain I would even it's interesting
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  but I guess by virtue of what you just said flow state is great for productivity and for work
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  but it's actually useless for preventing cognitive decline which is ironic because everybody keeps
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  trying to how do I get the flow state how do I you know how do I optimize my four hours in the
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  morning where nothing distracts me and I'm completely in the zone that that's exactly right you got
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  it that what's funny is brains are always in this middle state where they're trying to balance
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  novelty and familiarity so if you're doing too much novelty it's tough and the brain really
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  wants to just be I for example I just returned from an eight day hike in Spain a pilgrimage
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  along commuter de Santiago and you know each night you're sleeping in a different little inn and
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  then you walk 15 miles to the next place and so on and and when I came home just a couple days ago
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  I really just wanted to be in my bed because I thought oh it's familiar and I want to be in this
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  bed for several nights instead of a different one each night so it's it's tough when you've got
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  too much novelty but the key thing that you just want to make sure you're always avoiding is too much
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  familiarity and you're exactly right in the flow state you're saying okay this is something I've
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  trained my brain on it knows exactly what to do and I don't have to challenge it and think about
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  something new here so you don't want too much of that what would you say that are some some common
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  habits that are really damaging to either our brains health or just brains potential yeah I mean
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  so many things that that we all do obviously you know diet is one unless people think about it what's
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  cool what what I think is neat is that just over the course of my lifetime so far I feel like I've
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  seen a real change in the way that society thinks about diet now but maybe I'm wrong maybe people
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  just talking about this on social media about eating clean and then they don't actually do it who
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  knows but I think some people try but maybe probably that's true too to be you know what I find
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  interesting I see these these weightlifting videos on on YouTube and I watch these things and I try
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  to implement some new techniques and whatever these things all have you know millions or tens of
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  millions of views and I think that's awesome that's so many people are watching this thing about
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  like you know the five best you know back exercises or five best bicep exercise I think hey that's
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  so great that so many people are watching this but what I don't know is how that translates in
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  other words do people are there many people watching it than not doing it I'm not I'm not certain
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  anyway um as far as things uh that we do obviously it or it feels to me anyway that there's been a
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  lot more emphasis about sleep and this is massively important one thing that I feel like I've seen
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  a change on as well is alcohol consumption which is related to the sleep issue um it's become
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  more socially cool to not drink alcohol which is a great idea right because alcohol among other
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  things disrupts your sleep um and so at least in the circles that we spin in uh a lot of people
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  are not drinking in a way that let's say our parents generation everybody drank so I think that's a
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  that's a really cool hack that's been happening socially um you know and obviously
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  one generation ago everyone would smoke cigarettes and there were the ads you know nine out of ten
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  physicians recommend camel brand of cigarettes or something uh it's crazy to look back at those
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  sorts of ads but anyway so they're all sorts of bad habits that people are are working on
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  to my mind one of the main interesting challenges in life is that we all have temptations
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  that we in our long-term thinking self would rather not give into whether that's drugs or alcohol or
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  some people have gambling or some people have sex addictions or whatever the issue is that people
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  have when they're when they're really in a moment of sober thinking about who do I want to be in
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  the world they're hungover on a hike and I think okay I don't want to do that anymore
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  the question is how do you get yourself to actually not do it because we are very different people
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  at different times and when you're faced with the temptation you're probably going to do it
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  and so my uh one of my deep interests and this is actually my my next book um is on something called
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  the Ulysses contract which is how we make deals with ourselves through time um the listeners may
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  remember the story of Odysseus also known as Ulysses who is coming home from the Troge war and
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  realized he was going to pass the island of the sirens and and he really wanted to hear their
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  songs but of course he knew that like any mortal man their their song would seduce the the whole
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  ship to to come crash into the rocks and everyone would drown so what he did is he filled his
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  sailor his you know sailors ears with beeswax and he had them lash him to the mast so that he could
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  hear the sirens song but he couldn't do anything about it because he instructed them I want you to
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  go straight and just ignore me if I'm screaming and yelling the point is the Ulysses of sound
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  mind who is you know tens of miles from the island knew that the future Ulysses who who would be
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  right next to the island would behave badly what he was doing is making sure that when faced with
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  temptation the future Ulysses wouldn't uh wouldn't behave badly so um what I find very interesting is how
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  we can make Ulysses contracts in our own lives to make sure that you know for example we show up at
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  the gym one way to do that is to tell your friend you'll you'll meet him there at you know nine a.m
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  and if you tell your friend you'll meet him there then you wake up you maybe feel a little lazy
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  you feel like skipping anything but I can't because he's going to be there so then you show up so
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  that's a very simple way of making Ulysses contract for people who are trying to you know battle drug
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  or alcohol addictions there are all these things you can do like make sure you never carry more than
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  twenty dollars in your pocket because if somebody offers you drugs on the street you'll say oh shoot
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  I don't have the money or for an alcoholic the important thing is to clear all the alcohol out of
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  the house because even if you think okay look I've I know what to do I'm not going to drink this thing
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  if it's there you'll drink it at some point so um there are all kinds of things if we think about
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  ourselves as creatures through time who are not the same person in all moments I think this is a very
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  powerful hack to to help our future behavior thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable
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  don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive
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  deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see
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  you in the next one