Latest / INSPIRE STORY / Your Brain Is Overwhelmed_ _ DO THIS Tiny Habit Every Morning to Get Energy_ Focus _ Peace Back

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Your Brain Is Overwhelmed_ _ DO THIS Tiny Habit Every Morning to Get Energy_ Focus _ Peace Back · INSPIRE STORY

0:00
Speaker 1: How much do we actually know about the brain and
0:02
its potential.
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Speaker 2: We have years of knowledge, but there is an enormous
0:10
amount that we still don't know.
0:12
Speaker 3: There are brain areas we have no idea what they do.
0:17
Speaker 2: Every ping of the phone is anxiety producing, which then
0:21
launches your stress response.
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Speaker 3: And that keeps us stressful for way.
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Speaker 2: Too much of the day. So many people are appreciating
0:30
at a higher level stress and anxiety and depression. A
0:35
little bit of that is actually good for the brain.
0:39
You want to live a long, healthy, energized life, start
0:44
paying attention to all the things you need to do
0:47
to make your brain work beautifully.
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Speaker 3: It defines everything that we do.
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Speaker 2: And everything that we are.
0:57
Speaker 1: The number one health and well in the podcast, Jay.
1:00
Speaker 2: Sheddy, Wendy Only Shedy.
1:05
Speaker 1: Wendy, thank you so much for being here. So grateful
1:08
to have you on on purpose. I was really looking
1:10
forward to this, and even just the few words we've
1:13
exchanged now I'm like, all right, click record asap. We
1:16
need to capture all of it. Thank you so much.
1:18
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
1:21
Speaker 1: Well, let's dive right in. Yeah, the first thing I
1:24
wanted to ask you was how much do we actually
1:27
know about the brain and its potential?
1:30
Speaker 2: That is such a great question. We have hours and
1:35
semesters and years of knowledge that we have gained about
1:39
the brain since we've seriously been studying it, but there
1:43
is an enormous amount that we still don't know. There
1:48
are brain areas we have no idea what they do.
1:51
My favorite is called the claustrum. Somebody asked me, what's
1:54
the most mysterious brain area that you know, Wendy. This
1:58
is a brain area that can next to everything cortically subcortically,
2:03
it should be integrating something critical. We have no idea
2:06
what it does. We have little idea of how consciousness works.
2:12
We know a lot about vision. So it is a
2:16
beautiful bag of information and mystery that our brain represents.
2:22
Speaker 1: There's something about that, right that There's so much we've learned,
2:25
but there's so much yet to uncover. Yes, But I
2:28
feel when we talk about the brain and what's relevant
2:30
to us, I think about what does a healthy and
2:33
unhealthy brain feel like? Yes, and how do we know
2:36
whether we have a healthy or unhealthy brain?
2:39
Speaker 2: I think that the answer to that is so many
2:44
people are appreciating at a higher level their stress and
2:50
anxiety and depression.
2:53
Speaker 3: A little bit of that is actually good for the brain.
2:57
Speaker 2: Chronic all the time can't get out from under the
3:01
cloud or the big rock around your neck that anxiety
3:04
can feel like.
3:05
Speaker 3: That is not good for your brain.
3:07
Speaker 2: High levels of stress overall will start to first damage
3:11
and then kill some neurons in your brain. That is
3:14
not good.
3:15
Speaker 3: So if you are at that level, that is not
3:18
good for your brain.
3:19
Speaker 1: What about someone who says, and I'm sure you hear
3:20
this all the time, Wendy, Oh, you know, stress doesn't
3:23
really affect me. You know, I can just keep going.
3:25
I don't really notice it. What would you say to
3:28
someone who says that.
3:29
Speaker 3: I would say I said that a lot to myself.
3:33
Speaker 2: And when I sat down to write my second book,
3:36
Good Anxiety, I realized how much stress and anxiety that
3:42
I was dealing with in my life. And also, I
3:46
think the key was there were simple tools that one
3:53
could use to address not all forms of your stress
3:57
and anxiety, but a lot of those. I'm so stress
4:01
and anxiety and so the first step is awareness.
4:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, so becoming aware? Why are we in denial about
4:08
our stress?
4:08
Speaker 2: I think, Well, I live in New York, city, people
4:11
like to wear a badge of stress. Oh you know
4:13
you every time you answer how are you?
4:15
Speaker 3: Oh so stressed out?
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Speaker 2: So much to do? It's like a badge of a
4:20
badge of honor. So I think that that becomes has
4:24
become part of our individualistic society, and that's not good.
4:29
I mean, what you should be able to say, at
4:31
least a good chunk of the time is actually, I'm
4:34
doing well. I feel good, I feel energized. And you
4:37
don't hear that response all too often. And that's not
4:42
just in New York, but I think all over the
4:43
country and all over the world.
4:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. No, I think you're so right. I
4:47
think people are used to saying surviving, Yes, just surviving,
4:50
just getting through this day. Yeah, I'm just moving forward.
4:54
And I think that's why we're doing this episode, because
4:55
we want people to be able to turn around and say, oh, no,
4:58
I'm doing well and manergize it. It's almost like we
5:00
carry this guilt if we are about to say that, right,
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there's a feeling of like, oh, there's a feeling of
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shame that I'm not working hard in that yes, right,
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So going back the other way with the badge of honor.
5:12
There's a feeling of if I said, oh, no, I'm
5:14
actually doing okay. Yeah, that's me saying I'm not working
5:17
hard in it. Right.
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Speaker 3: I've noticed that as well.
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Speaker 2: I've noticed that in myself and my colleagues, and it's
5:23
about stepping back and realizing. You know, I think one
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of the most profound pieces of advice that somebody gave
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me early on is making me realize how important and
5:39
how complex my brain was. It defines everything that we
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do and everything that we are, and making that work
5:50
well should be high on our list. Chronic stress and
5:55
buying into that I'm busy all the time culture is
5:59
not inducive to brain health. So you want to live
6:03
a long, healthy, energized life, start paying attention to all
6:10
the things you need to do to make your brain
6:12
work beautifully.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no matter how much you think you've got away
6:16
with it up until now, Yes, it's not good to
6:19
keep pushing that and testing, yes, how far the brain
6:22
can go?
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Speaker 2: Exactly.
6:24
Speaker 1: Walk me through the difference between anxiety and stress and
6:27
why is it important to know the difference.
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Speaker 2: They are intertwined in a really complex way. So physiologically,
6:34
the stress response is enacted by the sympathetic nervous system,
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and it's all those feelings that we are very familiar with.
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Increase heart rate, increased respiration rate, our eyes dilate, there's
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a upset stomach because actually blood is rushing away from
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our digestion and reproductive systems towards our muscles, because the
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response is to get us ready to run away, to
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physically flee. Now, anxiety is the emotion of fearing something
7:05
that is coming up in the future, that could that
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we don't like, that that could harm us.
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Speaker 3: In his essence, it is protective.
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Speaker 2: So you know, a woman three point five million years ago,
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trying to protect your baby wanted to use those feelings
7:20
of anxiety to keep that baby safe from those physical
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dangers that were there. The problem is that in today's world,
7:28
every ping of the phone is anxiety producing, which then
7:33
launches your stress response, and that keeps us stressful for
7:37
way too much of the day. So the key, I
7:41
think is learning how to turn the volume down on
7:45
those anxiety cues that then launch stress and learning what
7:50
they are for yourself, but also using the tools of
7:53
science to turn that volume down.
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Speaker 3: It's a simple first step that everybody can take.
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Speaker 1: How do we do that.
8:00
Speaker 2: The first thing that you can do is first realize.
8:03
You said, you know, how do we know we're stressed? Self?
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Speaker 3: You know, self reflect for a moment.
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Speaker 2: Am I am? I telling everybody I'm stressed all the time?
8:12
Do I not sleep well because of stress? When you
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do that? There are my number one and number two
8:18
tools that I immediately go to. And I know you've talked
8:21
about this so many times on your show. Number one, because.
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Speaker 3: It is immediate, is deep breathing.
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Speaker 2: Breath work. Why because breath work activates the equal and
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opposite part of that sympathetic fight or flight system, the
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parasympathetic system. I told you all the things that stress activates,
8:41
heart rate rays, respiration rays.
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Speaker 3: You know you're blood rushing.
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Speaker 2: I can't control where my blood rushes, and I can't
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really control my heart rate, but I can control exactly
8:52
how deep and profound and frequent my breathing is. So
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that's why just deep breathing just two or three times,
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can you know? Try it out? It can really calm
9:04
you down, and if you practice it, it gets even
9:06
more powerful. That's my tool go to number one, and
9:10
it's number one because if I'm getting anxious about this interview.
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Speaker 3: I could actually do this in the background.
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Speaker 2: You don't even know, and I can calm myself down
9:21
even in the heat of a This is not a
9:23
stressful conversation at.
9:25
Speaker 3: All, but I'm pretending that you know it could be.
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Speaker 2: Number two is moving your body, and so ten minutes
9:34
of walking outside or anywhere, up and down the stairs,
9:37
down the hallway has been shown to decrease your anxiety
9:41
and stress levels. It's one of the fastest way that
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you can use physical activity to address your stress and
9:47
anxiety levels. Those are my number one and number two
9:50
go tos. Anybody can use. You don't even have to
9:53
change your.
9:53
Speaker 1: Clothes that first roun. I'm so glad you brought that up,
9:56
and it's a practice I do still till this day
9:59
if I'm going on stage or if I'm doing something
10:01
that's anxiety and do you sing? And I think people
10:03
are always like, Jay, wait a minute, you experienced anxiety. I'm like,
10:05
of course I do. It's a part of everyday life.
10:08
And if I'm about to do something that feels that way,
10:12
I can not. It's the same thing. But now that
10:13
I've noticed that cue, which is like you said, it's
10:17
easy for me to think Okay, Well, I know I
10:19
need to breathe in for a four and breathe out
10:21
for more than four, which is a pat And I like,
10:23
are there any patterns that you suggest or is it
10:25
just deep breathing?
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Speaker 2: You know, the easiest is just deep you for three
10:30
or four counts in three, four counts out? But I
10:32
like box breathing, which I know you know about. Deep
10:35
breath in for four counts, hold at the top for
10:38
four counts, deep breath out for four counts, hold it
10:42
at the bottom for four counts. It's funny every time
10:44
I even say that, and I often say that in
10:47
these kinds of interviews, I feel myself destressing as I
10:53
do that, because the muscle memory of when I do
10:56
do that comes comes in.
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Speaker 3: But yes, it is such a powerful technique that everybody
11:02
can use.
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Speaker 1: And how do we spot our cues more closely? Because
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so for a long time I used to say I
11:07
don't get stressed, and then I started to realize when
11:09
I was actually still, that all my stress was stored
11:12
in my body, so I wouldn't get stressed mentally, I
11:14
wouldn't experience it in my mind and I wouldn't experience
11:17
it in my chest. Or my heart. But then I
11:19
started to notice that my upper shoulders or my neck
11:22
is always tight. And it took me a while before
11:26
I started to recognize that stress existed in different ways
11:29
as opposed to this idea of oh well it's not
11:31
up here, so it doesn't exist. How do we get
11:34
closer to those cues? Because I think there's two questions.
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One is how do we get closer to our cues?
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And the second is when you feel that cue or trigger,
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how do you remind yourself to breathe?
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Speaker 2: I think to get closer to your cues, the easiest
11:47
answer is to spend time in open awareness of your
11:53
own cues. And just as you said, and it's the
11:55
same for me, they don't suddenly appear on a list
11:58
in front of you.
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Speaker 3: You have to go and.
12:00
Speaker 2: Seek them out, because for you, it wasn't in your head,
12:03
it was in your body. I'll never forget. Multiple times
12:06
I've had the experience of deep tissue massage in certain
12:10
places that triggered just crying in me and I'm so sorry,
12:16
what's happening? They said, No, I've just touched a point
12:20
in your body that you store a lot of stress.
12:24
You mean, actually actual physical crime, and it wasn't like
12:29
I couldn't help it. And it's happened. It's happened just twice.
12:33
But that was my very clear cue that I also
12:37
store a lot of stress and anxiety in my own body.
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Speaker 3: You have to go and look for that, and you
12:43
have to notice it, and you have to.
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Speaker 2: Remind yourself when you've been covering up your own stress
12:51
and anxiety, which I am also a master of. It
12:54
takes a little exploration, and I think that listening to
12:58
others and and actually asking a friend, do you notice
13:03
times when when you think I'm more stressed than others
13:05
and sometimes you might be surprised. That might be a
13:08
really good moment of realization. And so then your second
13:13
question was, once you realize you're in this moment, how
13:16
do you remind yourself to breathe? And that's a hard
13:20
one and I think the best way is don't wait
13:25
until say, oh I'm I'm I'm anxious, I need to breathe.
13:30
But never having any practice with this breathing, it is
13:34
wonderful to take to take a class time and go
13:37
to a breath meditation class. You learn so much because
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there is literally thousands of years of breath work technique
13:45
to learn, and I've been exploring that as well. But
13:49
you don't have to get super fancy. Sometimes it's just
13:53
about you said you like the inhale and exhale for
13:56
a longer time. That is a very basic but power
14:00
full one. Explore that on YouTube. There are thousands of
14:04
free meditations you can do that. I always send people there.
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Practice it, see which ones you like. Sometimes it's too
14:11
long of a hold for people, and you have to
14:13
find the one that you like. Practice it, get it
14:16
comfortable with yourself, and then it'll be easier to call
14:19
it up when you do notice that moment coming up.
14:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I think that's great. At what advice
14:24
it's you can't have something help you. It's almost like
14:29
I remember being at school and they'd always train you
14:32
with what happens if there was a fire, So you're
14:35
training when there isn't a fire, yes, and so it's like, hey,
14:39
when there's a fire, you're going to walk through this door,
14:41
you're going to line up outside, you're going to do this,
14:43
And it's almost like we need that yes for when
14:45
the fires appear in ourlind exactly, and you've got to
14:47
do the routine before it happens in reality?
14:51
Speaker 2: Right, And if you do, do it, really think about
14:55
how that made you feel. Do you feel that difference?
15:00
And it's important to keep exploring how different things make
15:05
you feel. Because maybe you chose just a bum breath technique.
15:09
It doesn't work for you, and there are those that
15:12
you know just won't pack it for you. So try
15:15
other things, but stay aware. And that practice of self
15:18
awareness I think is so important for the rest of
15:22
our lives. I think it's really hard to put the
15:25
phone down, but that could be such a game changer.
15:29
Well what am I going to do? Have a conversation
15:32
with the real person. When you practice the meditation, you
15:36
realize how powerful that is for your life.
15:39
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me just how everything that's good for
15:43
you seems hard, and everything that's bad for you seems easy.
15:48
What's actually happening to the brain when we ignore anxiety
15:52
and stress for a long periods of time.
15:54
Speaker 2: Stress very physiologically releases stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol goes through
16:00
the blood brain barrier, goes into the brain. And the
16:04
danger is that there are key brain areas that you
16:07
want to keep healthy and thriving and growing throughout your life.
16:12
That high levels of consistent cortisol will damage and then
16:17
eventually kill cells. And the first brain area I'll focus
16:21
on is called the hippocampus, critical for memory function, and
16:25
here we know that long term stress. For example, people
16:29
with PTSD monkeys that have low rank in the pecking
16:34
order male monkeys have tiny little hippocampi because those cells
16:38
have gotten.
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Speaker 3: Damage and then died, and that is not good.
16:43
Speaker 2: We need what I like to call a big, fat,
16:45
fluffy hippocampus for the rest of our lives. This is
16:48
the area that first gets attacked in Alzheimer's disease, and
16:52
you want to keep that beautiful and healthy. The other
16:55
brain area that is attacked in stress is your prefrontal cortex,
17:01
critical for decision making, being able to shift and focus
17:05
your attention. And so you are starting to damage two
17:08
key areas. You know. I lead nine thousand students. The
17:13
two brain areas I want to work best in these
17:15
students are the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. And it
17:19
kills me that during finals, all that stress that comes
17:23
off is damaging their ability to show us all the
17:26
beautiful knowledge that they learn. Of course, not just my students,
17:29
but all students around the world. How can we how
17:33
can we destress that process and thereby help learning, help
17:39
help recall, help their professors know what they do understand
17:44
about the topic.
17:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what are our daily activities that are damaging
17:50
the hippo campus and the prefrontal cortex?
17:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is that every day stress.
17:56
Speaker 2: It's the anxiety provoked by scary news that we read
18:01
every single day, by social media. And here I'm thinking
18:04
about younger, younger people well known how much it damages
18:09
self esteem to spend too much time on social media.
18:12
All these things. We all know these stressors in our lives,
18:16
but it's actually hard to put the newspaper down. It's hard.
18:20
Speaker 3: It's really hard to put.
18:21
Speaker 2: The phone down. But that could be such a game
18:25
changer for both adults and children, and just ask, well,
18:30
what am I going to do? Have a conversation with
18:33
the real person, which is what I always try and
18:37
push people to do. That is such a joy and
18:42
a privilege in our lives to be able to do. Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 1: I've really found also that if we can just find
18:49
a gap between when you wake up and when you
18:52
pick up your phone, Yeah, it just rewires the brain,
18:56
and I think we have to think about it, yes,
18:57
physically where it goes. Okay, Well, if I don't put
19:01
my brain in this you know noise, yes, in the morning,
19:05
just as I would never wake up to like volume
19:09
one hundred on any song or whatever it may be. Yeah,
19:12
if I just allow my brain some time to like
19:15
speed up naturally and catch up with the pace of
19:17
the day, then actually I'll be better at doing everything else. Yeah,
19:20
rather than when I rush my brain from zero to
19:23
one hundred miles per hour with fifty emails and thirty notifications.
19:27
I'm expecting so much in my brain and no wonder
19:30
I'm stressed out immediately, Yeah, because my brain's trying to
19:33
compute and formulate. It's like, it's like if your partner
19:35
turned to you in the morning and said, I want
19:36
to have a really deep discussion about life, yeah, first
19:39
thing in the morning, It's like you'd be like, oh,
19:41
I don't think I can handle that right now.
19:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:43
Speaker 1: And it's shocking to me how many of us are
19:46
putting ourselves in stress by looking at our phones first
19:48
thing in the morning.
19:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a morning routine that I've come to
19:52
love which is about a forty five minute meditation when
19:57
I first wake up. So that's the first thing that
19:59
I do. And I do a tea meditation, which is
20:02
meditation over the brewing and drinking of tea, because not
20:06
tea bag tea, but you know, loose leaf tea where
20:09
you have to seep it for a certain amount of
20:11
time or else it doesn't taste its best, and then
20:14
you pour it and then you drink it and then
20:15
you re seep it. So for me, that ritual really
20:20
keeps me in meditation. And what do I mean by meditation?
20:25
Just I do body scans, I have prayers that I
20:31
go through every morning, which is I think the antithesis
20:34
of looking at your email, And then I do a
20:37
thirty minute workout, which is I do it online, so
20:40
I do open my computer, but I'm not, you know,
20:43
looking at the newspaper at the same time I'm doing
20:45
my workout. I'm focused on that workout and that really
20:49
prepares me for the day. And if I miss either
20:51
one of those, I feel it the rest of the day.
20:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I love hearing that. How long have you
20:56
done that for?
20:57
Speaker 2: I've done the meditation for nine years straight and I've
21:01
missed only a few days when I have those four
21:03
am you have to get on the cab at four
21:05
am to get to the airport and exercise I've been
21:10
doing for even longer. I've gone through lots of habits
21:13
with my exercise, but having the morning habit and really
21:19
forcing myself, not forcing, it's a habit, having the habit
21:24
of even when I only have five minutes, I'll do
21:26
some sort of you know, stretch or something for that
21:29
five minutes every single day and feel good about that
21:34
in addition to my good thirty minute cardio strength workout
21:37
where I really sweat. So, I mean, I think we're
21:39
both talking about the habits that we choose for ourselves
21:43
that improve our mental health, strength in our brain.
21:47
Speaker 3: This is what so important to.
21:49
Speaker 2: Choose for us.
21:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think the point is you'll get
21:52
so much more out of your day, yes, and your brain.
21:55
Speaker 2: Yes.
21:55
Speaker 1: I think often we think, well if I skip that.
21:57
I used to be like this with my wife. She
21:59
was the one who kept drilling into me how important
22:02
physical activity was. Yeah yeah, And I was just like, no,
22:05
I'm fine, and she was like, imagine how alert you'll be,
22:09
Imagine how focused you will be and I didn't believe her.
22:11
And then when I started to do it, I was like, Oh,
22:13
she's right, and it's such an interesting thing. It's so
22:16
easy to think I'll accomplish more if I don't make
22:19
time for meditation, breath work and working out, But you won't.
22:23
You'll actually accomplish less.
22:24
Speaker 2: You'll accomplished.
22:26
Speaker 1: Is that what you found is that does a science
22:28
show that too?
22:29
Speaker 3: You know, the science shows that exercise.
22:33
Speaker 2: Improves your mood, it improves your ability to shift and
22:37
focus your attention. Long term, it will improve your memory.
22:41
And so compared to subjects or you know, animal subjects
22:46
that don't do exercise, there is better brain function in
22:50
those people that are exercising. So, yes, the science is
22:53
behind it. And there's beautiful science in meditation showing that
22:58
there are brain areas that.
22:59
Speaker 3: Are enhanced with in months. For example, that's going way.
23:04
I'm never going to be a monk.
23:06
Speaker 2: But the active meditation is a act of learning how
23:11
to focus better so that I could focus on your
23:15
questions and not be distracted by whatever is going on
23:18
on the outside. I mean, we have a nice quiet room,
23:20
but sometimes you know, I live in New York on
23:23
the subway, and there's so much noise, and when you
23:26
practice the meditation, you realize how powerful that is for
23:30
your life. That I could choose to focus on you.
23:34
That's all I'm focused on. I'm listening to you deeply,
23:38
I'm thinking about it deeply, and that is that is
23:43
an experience that not enough of us are having on
23:46
a very regular basis.
23:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, why does it feel like when we're trying to
23:50
do that? It almost feels like it huts hm right,
23:53
Like when someone's really trying to focus, it's like you're
23:55
trying to pull all the energy and you can feel like,
23:57
oh god, it's so tiring. Yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah, to
24:00
be present and it almost feels like you're having to
24:02
pull yourself, Yes, in a certain direction, but there's some
24:06
tension and resistance back. What are we experiencing? What's going on?
24:09
Speaker 2: You know? I think part of that is our lives
24:14
have been focused on getting pulled in ten different directions
24:18
at the same time. We get used to that and
24:20
so no, I can't focus on you for a whole
24:23
hour because I have thirty other things that I usually
24:26
get pulled into. And that becomes your habit. If that
24:30
is your habit, I think you need to rethink that.
24:34
And it's a muscle that you build. I remember my
24:39
undergraduate advisor, the woman who made me want to become
24:43
a neuroscientist. She used to say that new learning, and
24:46
this is a new habit that you're learning, will hurt.
24:49
It'll make your brain hurt because it's those dendrites that
24:52
are growing and stretching out and making new connections. It's
24:57
not an easy thing. It's a metabolic load. It is
25:00
an effort to build new pathways. But that's what we're
25:04
doing when we're trying to focus and connect for longer
25:08
periods of time than we were used to.
25:10
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's okay if it hurts.
25:11
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's supposed to hurt.
25:13
Speaker 1: Right. It's almost like you're walking through a path that
25:17
doesn't exist yet. Yes, and so you're having to pave
25:19
that way exactly. You're the first person walking in. There's
25:22
nothing ahead of you. You're chopping down the trees and
25:25
leaves in front of you. You're building the bridge, the pathway. Yes,
25:28
and that's why it hurts. And it's so interesting when
25:31
you think about it that way. Yeah, but you go, oh, okay,
25:33
So every time I walk over that bridge, it will
25:36
become stronger. Yes, And every time I step on that step,
25:39
that path becomes clearer, and now it's going to be
25:42
easier for me every time. Yeah. Yeah, It's fascinating to
25:45
me just how everything that's good for you seems hard
25:51
and everything that's bad for you seems easy.
25:55
Speaker 2: Well. Yes, I think at a certain at a certain
25:59
point of the journey, that is absolutely the case. But
26:02
at a different point of the journey, when you've when
26:05
you've you know, cut down those trees with your machete,
26:10
it feels glorious to be able to have these deep
26:14
conversations with your friends and build that habit with your
26:20
friends and your loved ones, and build that habit of
26:24
first thing in the morning, no no phone, and meditation,
26:28
and you know how much better you're going to feel.
26:31
And that that is the part of the gratitude. Yes,
26:35
I have a gratitude practice. It is that it is
26:37
like being grateful for all those good habits that I
26:41
have been forming and throwing those away that I don't
26:44
and being grateful that I threw that away.
26:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I talked a lot about going back to your
26:48
point around Monk's Brains, I talked a lot about the
26:50
science monk's brains in my first book, Think Like a Monk,
26:53
And I remember a simple practice that we used to
26:56
do when I lived as a monk that was really
26:58
helpful to me. So often meditate on beads. Yeah, And
27:04
we were always told because we'd be meditating on those
27:06
beads sometimes for two hours at a time, four hours
27:08
at a time, even more. And so we were always told,
27:10
when you hear the word two hours, you're just like, God,
27:12
how am I going to get through two hours? And
27:15
we're always told, just focus on one bead at a time,
27:18
one mantra at a time, just one at a time,
27:21
And all of a sudden, it became so much easier,
27:23
where it's just like it's just about this bead, it's
27:26
just about this mantra, it's just about this step. It's
27:29
not about two hours. And I think sometimes when we're thinking, oh, gosh,
27:33
I've got to build this new habit, I've got to
27:34
work out five days a week and I've got to
27:36
it's like that just feels so insurmountable. Why does the
27:40
brain work better with small steps and habits and changes.
27:45
Speaker 2: That's such a great question. I think that.
27:50
Speaker 3: It is part of the effort that.
27:52
Speaker 2: Goes into something new, the novelty of praying on a
27:57
single bead and.
28:00
Speaker 3: Kind of fighting away that.
28:02
Speaker 2: Instacts like, oh I didn't get through one hundred beads,
28:04
I'm a failure.
28:06
Speaker 3: That's a lot of cognitive noise.
28:09
Speaker 2: And I always say for exercise and meditation, those two
28:13
things that could immediately decrease your stress and anxiety levels.
28:17
Speaker 3: It's great.
28:19
Speaker 2: In fact, I tell you, I tell everybody to start small.
28:22
Ten minutes of walking. Don't even have to change your
28:25
clothes or your shoes, just a minute of deep breathing,
28:29
just put your phone on you just the clock and
28:32
just so you know how much that minute is. And
28:35
just doing that is is good enough. And the effort
28:40
comes in batting away all those feelings of failure and
28:45
the difference between your one minute and ten hours that
28:48
you really wanted to do.
28:49
Speaker 1: Definitely, what's the difference between everyday anxiety and then having
28:54
an anxiety disorder?
28:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, so anxiety is a normal human emotion. Everybody has anxiety.
29:02
I think it's been kind of clinicalized. Oh I have anxiety. Yeah,
29:05
everybody has anxiety. But anxiety exists on a very, very
29:09
large spectrum. So we all have anxiety, and yes, the
29:15
highest levels of anxiety that prevent you from doing the
29:18
everyday things that you need to do in your life
29:20
and having a job and having relationships and going out
29:23
and doing things that's clinical and it is just kind
29:28
of going down that rabbit hole of anxiety and needing
29:32
more help, clinical help to get you out with cognitive
29:36
behavioral therapy, so many different techniques that you could use.
29:39
So it's all part of a spectrum, which you know,
29:43
I hope that makes people feel better because you can
29:46
come back.
29:47
Speaker 3: Everybody has it. Let's just pull you back from that highest.
29:50
Speaker 2: Level and let you take advantage of I think one
29:56
of the things I love the most from my book
30:00
Anxiety is that it's not about anxiety is so bad,
30:04
let me just tell you the tools to get rid
30:07
of it in your life. It is the acknowledgment that
30:11
anxiety is a protective mechanism. My invitation is, can I
30:17
invite you to try and use your anxiety to help
30:20
protect you, to actually give you some gifts or superpowers,
30:25
because there's a lot.
30:27
Speaker 3: That we can learn from our anxiety and all our
30:30
uncomfortable emotions.
30:31
Speaker 1: I think when people hear that, they may think Oh
30:33
that's cool, but I don't believe it, Like, how could
30:35
I believe that anxiety can be my superpower? How do
30:39
I do that? How do I make that switch from
30:40
going I'm scared to actually unprepared.
30:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I start with I think the easiest
30:47
to implement. So this one is the superpower of productivity
30:51
that comes from a very common form of anxiety that
30:54
everybody has, which is the to do list that comes
30:58
up at opportune times. Oh, you get overwhelmed. For me,
31:01
it comes up right before I'm going to go to sleep,
31:04
and so it prevents me from going to sleep, so annoying.
31:07
And so the flip for that is to take the
31:11
to do list. And first I want you to notice
31:15
that all of these things are things that you care
31:18
about doing well.
31:20
Speaker 3: They're usually about your job, or your.
31:21
Speaker 2: Relationship or money, money, things, all good to be concerned
31:27
about them. The trick is to take that what if
31:32
list and turn it into a to do list. And
31:36
so for me, I don't do it in the middle
31:38
of the night. I wait till the next morning. But
31:40
I've trained myself that I'm going to take care of
31:43
each one of those worries and do something active. If
31:46
there is an issue at work, I'm going to talk
31:49
to three people about it and try and get input
31:51
for that. There's something active that you can do for
31:54
every single one of your worries. And the more people
31:58
you talk to about it, you realize that very productive
32:00
people are already doing this.
32:02
Speaker 3: So take advantage of that.
32:04
Speaker 2: Of that trick. Those anxieties are really telling you what
32:08
you hold dear in your life. The flip side of
32:12
your anxiety and the flip side of grief is deep love.
32:16
Trying to kick them out the door and never experience
32:19
them again. That that is not a full life.
32:22
Speaker 1: Is it possible to prepare for future trauma or is
32:26
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32:28
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33:07
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33:09
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33:16
really like that. And one thing that's really helped me
33:18
is I always look at my anxiety as revealing to
33:21
me a skill I haven't yet developed. Yes, and I
33:24
really believe that. It's like it's a muscle that you
33:26
need to develop. So I go, Okay, if I'm anxious
33:29
about going to this event and having to do small talk,
33:31
it's because I haven't built the skill to be able
33:34
to do small talk. So maybe if I read a book,
33:37
or I spoke to someone, or I sat down with
33:39
an expert, or I listened to a podcast with an
33:40
expert on how to have good conversations, all of a sudden,
33:44
now I know what questions to ask, and at least
33:46
it makes me feel comfortable. Or if a I'm nervous
33:50
about the fact that I've been asked to do something
33:51
at work and I know nothing about it. Hey, let
33:54
me go and take a course on it or a
33:55
class on it. And I feel I always look at
33:57
anxiety as just a sign of what's a skill I
34:00
don't have quality, I haven't developed, an ability, or a
34:03
priority I haven't made, and now let me do that.
34:06
It could be the skill of having tough conversations, the
34:09
skill of learning to say no, the skill of setting boundaries,
34:13
whatever it may be. It's just this one skill away.
34:16
Not that I won't feel that anxiety ever again, yeah,
34:19
but that I can actually better manage that anxiety when
34:21
it arrives.
34:22
Speaker 4: Right.
34:23
Speaker 2: I love that, because you've just created a new superpower
34:27
of anxiety, which is the love of learning. So can
34:31
you turn your anxieties into the next learning project that
34:35
you have and then get better at small talk or
34:39
whatever you're anxious about? I love that.
34:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's the only thing that's ever helped me
34:44
for so many years subconsciously of just I've always experienced anxiety,
34:48
but I've found that it just got less and less
34:50
and less as my skills developed. Yeah. Yeah, And developing
34:53
those skills was hard, and that took time and effort,
34:56
and it wasn't easy, but as those skills grew, now
35:00
it was just like, oh, I can manage this. I
35:02
know I can deal with this. And of course there
35:04
are always going to be things that surprise you and
35:06
then you go, oh god, I have no skills for
35:08
this one, and that's okay too. But even if the
35:11
skill is resilient, or even if the skill is learning
35:13
to develop how to deal with grief, I feel these
35:16
are all skills and muscles and if they look to
35:19
that way, we can deal with them better.
35:21
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, those anxieties are really telling you what
35:27
you hold dear in your life. If you go, wow,
35:31
that sounds good, I want to know what I hold
35:33
deer in my life. Because the flip side of your
35:35
anxiety and the flip side of grief is deep love.
35:39
And so I think that all of these more difficult emotions,
35:43
when seen in that light, can be embraced in a
35:46
new way instead of trying to kick them out the
35:49
door and never experience them again. That that is not
35:53
a full life if you don't have grief, because it
35:58
suggests you didn't have that deep love that turns into
36:02
grief when something goes away. Not that I'm wishing people grief.
36:06
But that helped me so much in my periods of
36:11
grief to realize that that grief would never be so
36:16
deep that I could never even imagine it before it happened,
36:19
unless unless the love for those people were so deep
36:24
in the first place. And it's like, Wow, I loved
36:27
them more than I even realized, which was a gift
36:32
to realize.
36:33
Speaker 3: That and pulled me out of my grief.
36:35
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so beautiful. Could you share more on that
36:37
from real perspective? How you actually got to that realization?
36:41
Speaker 2: Yeah?
36:41
Speaker 1: How was it before you felt that way?
36:43
Speaker 2: So that realization really really defined the way I wrote
36:47
this book Good Anxiety, because I started the book before
36:50
these events, and it was going to be a neuroscience
36:54
based book on anxiety and I was going to explain
36:57
the science of it so everybody could understand. And it
37:00
was going forward in an exciting way. And then my
37:05
father passed away and he was eighty five, and he
37:10
had dementia and he had a sudden heart attack, and.
37:13
Speaker 3: It was just so.
37:16
Speaker 2: So sad, and I remember being so grateful that my
37:20
brother did the eulogy, because that has been my biggest
37:24
fear in life to have to do eulogy and have
37:28
to stand up and talk about somebody who's just passed
37:31
without crying uncontrollably.
37:34
Speaker 3: He did such a beautiful job.
37:35
Speaker 2: But the next traggy tragedy was that three months later,
37:41
my brother, who's two years younger, also passed away of
37:44
a heart attack.
37:45
Speaker 3: Suddenly, he was the most.
37:47
Speaker 2: Fit person and that you would ever know, and that
37:53
was devastating to lose both of them of the same
37:59
thing within three months. And I was trying to go
38:02
through it, and I stopped writing the book because I
38:04
couldn't because I was grieving. And then I realized I
38:06
had to. I had to do his eulogy because there
38:09
was nobody else left. It was.
38:11
Speaker 3: It was only me, and so a lot of soul
38:17
searching what am I going to say?
38:18
Speaker 2: How am I going to get through this? And it
38:22
was in that search that I realized that that that
38:27
grief was coming from a good place, and it actually
38:31
was inspired by a workout that it was doing, where
38:34
the instructor said and trying to get us to work
38:38
out harder. She said, with great pain comes great wisdom.
38:44
And I was like, oh my god, that's what I
38:46
need to know right at this moment. What is the
38:49
wisdom that's coming from this huge pain that I've never
38:52
felt before. And I realized that the wisdom was that
38:57
the deep grief was showing me how much I love them.
39:02
And so it was still hard thing I've ever done
39:05
to write this eulogy and stand up, but I basically
39:11
invited everybody to cry along with me at the one
39:16
point that was hardest to get through, and I got
39:23
through it that way. But it allowed me to approach
39:28
grief in a very different way. And I want to
39:32
say I'm almost thankful for that experience because it made
39:38
me search for the beauty that comes from the pain
39:42
in our lives in a brand new way.
39:44
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing that, and so sorry
39:47
for that period in your life. I can't imagine how yeah,
39:52
how challenging and stressful that is, talking about stress and anxiety. Yeah,
39:56
And I really appreciate how you can to the dots
40:00
for us, because it's one thing. You know, you're this
40:04
incredible researcher, professor, you have so much amazing insight, but
40:09
then to apply it in real life in extreme cases,
40:14
it's so hard. What did you learn about the brain
40:18
when going through that that you didn't know already?
40:21
Speaker 2: I learned that my brain was more resilient, to more
40:27
resilient than I thought it was. I expanded the range
40:30
of my emotions that I had experienced in my life,
40:33
which is a good thing. I think that relativism is beautiful.
40:40
That dark feeling of deep grief helps me appreciate the
40:46
joyous moments better, and I think about that a lot
40:52
after this has happened. It really that was part of
40:56
the gift that I got. And yes, and it changed
41:02
the way I looked at because then I did the eulogy.
41:07
I came out of it. I was feeling better. Okay
41:09
to go back to this book on anxiety, but I
41:12
couldn't write it in the same way anymore. I had
41:14
to find the gifts or the superpowers that came from anxiety,
41:19
which I've already shared that with you. But that's the
41:21
reason why I never would have like, I don't know
41:24
what the gifts are. Well, I did learn, not trick.
41:29
I learned that lesson through that experience, and I applied
41:33
it to the emotion of anxiety, and I think it
41:36
changed the book.
41:37
Speaker 3: Well I know it changed the book.
41:39
Speaker 2: I wrote it in a completely different way, and I've
41:41
used those lessons in a different way in my life
41:44
since that experience.
41:45
Speaker 1: Wonderful And what did you know about the brain already
41:48
at the time that helped you get through it?
41:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, as a nerdy neuroscience I'm neuroscientist. I know all
41:54
about the mechanisms and the receptors involved in stress. And
41:59
not that I studied grief per se, but grief is
42:02
one you know, it gives you a lot of stress
42:04
when you have grief. I think my whole life has
42:10
helped me bring my more academic study of neuroscience to life.
42:18
There is the lessons that I could teach and that
42:21
I do teach to students about what we know about
42:23
the stress system, the memory system, your prefrontal cortex, decision making,
42:27
all these fascinating topics. But then there is life that
42:32
comes in and I think that what I've been doing
42:36
more recently in my career. I did a very traditional
42:40
academic career up to a certain point, and then I
42:43
started to try and apply kind of life's lessons to neuroscience.
42:49
And so what does that mean? That means going off
42:53
book and thinking about, you know, other ways to convey anxiety,
43:01
not just the clinical part, but the useful part for
43:06
your life.
43:06
Speaker 3: So that's how I would describe it absolutely.
43:08
Speaker 1: How do traumatic events like that what you went through
43:11
over a period of three months? And I know so
43:14
many friends who've been through similar things and different things
43:17
that man maybe are not to do with grief in
43:20
that way, but even grief of a life you could
43:22
have had people who have had breakups. How does emotional
43:26
trauma actually affect the brain? What's going on?
43:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know emotional trauma.
43:32
Speaker 2: Also there's a relatively simple formula with what happens, which
43:37
is going back to the stress hormone cortisol. Depending on
43:41
the actual stressor and the duration of that, it is
43:46
going to first kind of alert your brains like I
43:49
don't want this to happen again. It's like this will
43:51
not happen again. And that's what it was supposed to do.
43:53
It's supposed to heighten your senses so you can escape
43:57
from the burning building. However, in these other life circumstances,
44:01
a breakup or death that that you know, the emotional
44:06
effects linger for a long time. They they might actually
44:11
cause what's called fear memories to develop. These are memories
44:17
dependent on a structure called the amygdala that again are
44:20
trying to protect you, like, don't have this happen again,
44:25
and steer you away from events. So so I might
44:29
have been steered away from eulogies or speaking in front
44:34
of crowds, which I do all the time. But yeah,
44:36
I would have been steered away from eulogies when when
44:41
you have these broader realizations about what's going on, you
44:46
could actually learn in a deeper way from them, and
44:49
instead of being steered away, instead of developing a fear
44:53
memory that is very strong and hard to get rid of,
44:57
you can have a deeper learning that sharing those very personal,
45:04
very deep, very difficult emotions to feel talk about new
45:09
synapses forming is a deeply cathartic process that brought me
45:18
closer to my family and to everybody that was there,
45:23
including all my brother's friends, many of whom I didn't know.
45:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Is it possible to prepare for future
45:33
trauma or is the only way to be prepared for
45:37
it to go through it? Can we build resilience before
45:40
a traumatic event?
45:42
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I wouldn't recommend that everybody goes out
45:45
to try and prepare for trauma, but but you know,
45:50
everybody has some form of trauma, and I think going
45:55
back to your superpower of anxiety and learning learning from
46:00
that and also realizing this was another big realization for me.
46:06
Speaker 3: You're not going to get rid of that deep negative emotion.
46:10
Speaker 2: It's there for a reason to warn you against this
46:14
is a bad time. If you didn't have this warning,
46:17
you would be walking in the middle of the freeway
46:19
with no care in the world. So you're not going
46:22
to get rid of that, But to focus yourself on
46:26
the learning that comes out of it, and that yes,
46:31
it might take some time, and to give yourself that time.
46:35
Maybe what I'm trying to get at is a self
46:37
compassion that can come from any trauma that you have,
46:42
and learning to to apply that to yourself, I think
46:46
is a really good thing that you can prepare. Ye.
46:49
Speaker 1: I think when you lose someone you love, that painful
46:53
feeling inside is reminded that life is sacred. Yes, that
47:00
you should tell the people that are close to you
47:02
that you love them, that you should really value and
47:04
prioritize time together and moments together. It's a reminder that
47:09
pains just pushing you in the right direction, nudging in
47:12
the right direction, to say, don't make the wrong priorities,
47:16
don't set the wrong focuses in your life, right, and
47:21
if it went away, as it does, we also forget that.
47:26
As the distance grows from when you've lost someone and
47:29
the distance from that pain, it's not that pain goes away,
47:32
but it gets less and less and less. We also
47:34
forget that. Yeah, and then all of a sudden something
47:36
else happens again and we read prioritized right does yeah?
47:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
47:40
Speaker 1: Why do we forget lessons that we learn?
47:45
Speaker 2: Well? If I could answer that, that would be that
47:48
would be the sixty four million dollar question. And actually
47:53
part of the answer is the brain evolved to help
47:58
us remember the lessons around dangerous situations that we have,
48:02
so we don't go in that direction anymore. Yes, we
48:07
might forget, but actually our brain has evolved to make
48:13
those kinds of fear memories or difficulty memories the hardest
48:18
to get rid of. That is why PTSD is so
48:21
hard to get rid of, and those you don't.
48:23
Speaker 3: Want to be carrying around. So I would ask a
48:27
flip question, which.
48:28
Speaker 2: Is how come we don't relive our most glorious memories
48:34
more often than our lives? And in fact I think
48:38
of that because that is my favorite brain hack from
48:43
good anxiety, which are tools that you can use to
48:45
decrease your anxiety. And this tool is called joy conditioning,
48:51
and it is designed to specifically to counter fear conditioning.
48:55
Dependent on the migla. Joy conditioning is dependent on another
48:59
structure called the hipocae, which allows us to form and
49:01
routaine our everyday memories for events. And so joy conditioning
49:06
is simply using all the tools that we know about
49:09
neuroscience that make those kinds of memories stick, which is
49:12
reliving them. I just went on a beautiful week long
49:17
yoga breath work it was actually not yoga breath work retreat,
49:21
and I completely unplugged. And so what I'm practicing my
49:26
joy conditioning on is what it felt to be in
49:30
that circle every day, every morning, every afternoon. I remember
49:35
that the ocean was so loud. We're right by the sea.
49:39
The heat was so hot, the food or the fruits
49:43
were so amazing, just the flavor of the fruits, and
49:47
those are the things that that re vivification of the
49:52
what where why, When the taste, the smells, the sounds,
49:57
that's what strengthens the memory.
49:59
Speaker 3: I am strengthening this joyous.
50:02
Speaker 2: Memory and I do that consciously, and I invite everybody
50:07
to do this to kind of counteract all those negative
50:11
memories that are hard to get rid of. Let's let's
50:13
fill our brains with all the most joyous, funny, fun
50:17
memories of our lives.
50:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that joy conditioning. That's a great hack
50:22
and habit there was when I went on tour last year,
50:25
we went to nearly forty cities across the world, and
50:28
at the end of them might lead in meditation, and
50:31
I didn't. I didn't have a name for it, but
50:32
that's exactly the meditation I do. I ask everyone to
50:35
go back to a moment where they experienced the most
50:38
love and joy in their life and to relive it
50:43
in the feelings. And I was thinking about earlier this year,
50:46
you reminded me as you were talking about your breathwork retreat.
50:49
Earlier this year, I visited Bhutan and I'd never been before.
50:54
And for anyone who doesn't know, Bhutan is this tiny,
50:57
beautiful country landlocked between India and China, right in between,
51:01
and it's got a beautiful culture. They're famously known for
51:04
measuring GNH not GDP and gnh's gross National happiness, and
51:10
so it's the culture of Bhutan is very very much
51:12
mindful and being present. And I was asked to leader
51:15
session there and I remember we'd gone inside one of
51:18
these old Bhutanese buildings. It was We're in this beautiful
51:23
courtyard surrounded by candles. It got really, really dark, where
51:27
even though I was giving a presentation, no one could
51:29
see me, they could only hear me. And before it
51:31
got dark, when it was just the sun was about
51:33
to set, I asked everyone to take a mental picture.
51:36
And I always loved that technique, the five four three
51:39
two one technique, And so I asked everyone to look
51:43
at five things they could see, four things they could touch,
51:47
three things they could hear, two things they could smell,
51:50
and one thing they could taste. And I was like,
51:52
this is how we take in mental picture. And now literally,
51:55
if I close my eyes, I can go back there,
51:57
right now, to that moment, because I took in the
52:00
colors like you were just saying, took in the shade
52:03
of the sky, took in the shapes of the Bhutanese
52:06
architecture like all of these, and as you were describing
52:10
the fruits and the colors, and I just feel like,
52:13
if we all I love what you're saying, because I
52:17
do think we have so much joy in our lives, yes,
52:20
but we relived the negativity more. And if you had
52:24
a tough journey coming here, or I did, we would
52:27
talk about how tough it was the whole day. But
52:30
if we had the most beautiful journey coming here, we
52:32
wouldn't talk about it once exactly, and we just ignore
52:35
it and feel like, well, that's normal. But what's become
52:40
normal is us repeating our challenges. When does talking about
52:44
our problems and our anxiety actually help our brain versus
52:48
her our brain?
52:50
Speaker 2: I think it depends on how you talk about your anxiety.
52:54
And I think again, going back to this learning process,
52:59
can you talk about your anxiety as what it brings you,
53:04
what you learned from either the fantastic way you handed
53:08
your anxiety or the non optimal way, and then think about,
53:12
well how will I do that differently the next time?
53:17
That is the classic growth mindset. And if we can
53:21
learn how to talk about our fear, our anxiety that way,
53:26
that is beautiful. In my meditation this morning, actually it
53:31
was an auditory, you know, I was listening to a
53:34
guided meditation. They asked me to think about four things
53:38
and I just loved it. I didn't know this was
53:40
coming up. It was what do you fear? What scares you?
53:47
What brings you joy, and what brings you hope? I thought, wow,
53:52
what great things to ponder, and it really kind of
53:57
brought things into focus for me when I the first
54:01
thing that came to mind what do I fear? Who
54:04
do I fear? Losing more people? What am I scared of?
54:09
And there it was, you know, I get scared of
54:12
people's opinions about myself. What brings me joy, all the
54:17
friends that bring me joy?
54:19
Speaker 3: And what do I hope for? We don't want to
54:21
build in this world, So it's about approaching.
54:25
Speaker 2: And there's anxiety in that list that everybody will do
54:28
when they if they choose to do those four things.
54:31
But again, anxiety is pointing you towards what you hold dear,
54:36
and all of those questions point out what you hold
54:40
dear and what your aspirations are. So so to summarize
54:47
mindset is so critical as we are living, even as
54:52
we're talking about our bad day, you know, our bad
54:55
parking experience or driving experience. Is it to learn or
55:00
is it to commiserate or just to you know? Or
55:04
you're not realizing you are focusing too much on a
55:07
negative thing mindset and awareness.
55:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also what you're saying is this over amplification
55:14
as well of something that actually was quite insignificant, or
55:18
if it was significant. You're talking about looking at our
55:21
challenges or talking about them in a way that takes
55:24
accountability and future accountability. And that's what I love, this
55:28
idea of, well, let me talk about what went wrong today,
55:31
and maybe I shouldn't take that route to work anymore,
55:34
or you know, maybe let me talk about what went
55:36
wrong in this conversation with someone I love, and maybe
55:39
I've got to set better boundaries. It's always about a
55:41
solution oriented growth focus, as you said, but so many
55:45
of our conversations today, especially about anxiety and stress, are
55:48
victim based. And how do we make that switch? Because
55:51
when you feel like the victim, it feels so real
55:54
to you, it does, yeah, and you do feel so
55:56
hurt that if someone said, well, what could you do differently,
55:59
You'd be like, I did everything the best I could. Yeah,
56:02
So how do we open up that switch from anxiety
56:06
to growth? Yeah?
56:07
Speaker 2: So I think that something that has really helped me
56:12
is to pay attention to who you are talking to,
56:16
who is feeding you information in your life and if
56:21
it's too negative, and if it you know, you know
56:24
this person is the best complainer in the world, and
56:28
and you you join in because it feels good to complain,
56:31
you know, with a with a friend about something. Step
56:34
back and instead choose somebody who has that growth mindset
56:40
that can open up other possible ways to think about that.
56:46
Do it yourself. Think, okay, you know you can do
56:48
an exercise, do the complainer mindset for on yourself by yourself,
56:53
and then do the growth mindset and ask yourself, how
56:58
does that feel? What does it feel if I just
57:00
go down the road of the complainer versus what it's like?
57:04
Oh I actually like that idea? What if I do
57:06
that next time? Can you inspire yourself? So many different
57:10
routes and coaches, therapists can they're experts at doing this
57:15
as well. So that's another route to go. But podcasts
57:18
or another. This is a common topic in podcast world
57:24
these days.
57:24
Speaker 1: Definitely, what does healing actually look like in the brain
57:28
from trauma? Like from a chemical perspective, like what's actually
57:31
happening when we're healing?
57:33
Speaker 2: I must say I'm more of an expert not on
57:36
healing from trauma, but on growth in the positive direction.
57:43
And so here's what growth can look like based on
57:46
of the things that we've already talked about. So we
57:49
talked about the effects that the fact that moving your
57:52
body can have an immediate positive effect on your anxiety,
57:56
also on your depression, decrease your stress response. What's happening there?
58:00
Every single time you move your body, you're releasing a
58:03
whole bunch of neurochemicals in your brain. I like to
58:07
call it a neurochemical bubble bath for your brain. And
58:10
so you're giving yourself this bubble bath. What's in that
58:13
bubble bath, Well, you've heard some of these neurochemicals before, dopamine.
58:16
I know you love talking about dopamine. You and so
58:19
many other people talk about dopamine in such interesting ways. Serotonin,
58:24
nor adrenaline, endorphins, that's what's being released in this bubble bath.
58:28
And so, not surprisingly, you feel better after you walk.
58:31
That is why you're feeling better. But the other thing
58:35
that gets released is growth factors. Growth factors get released
58:39
and they go to the hippocampus and they actually build
58:44
new brain cells in the hippocamps.
58:46
Speaker 3: They help new brain cells grow.
58:47
Speaker 2: In the hippocampus. Now you want as many shiny new
58:51
hippocampal brain cells as you can get, which means that
58:54
and they don't pop up like mushrooms. It takes a while.
58:57
You need to keep up that physical activity and for that,
59:01
the best way to get high levels of growth factors
59:04
in your bubble baths is to do an aerobic workout,
59:07
any workout that increases your heart rate. Now, this gives
59:10
you lots of options. You like to dance, go dance.
59:13
You like to take your dog for a walk, Go
59:14
take for a dog for a power walk, like to walk,
59:18
go for a walk. Anything that gets your heart rate up.
59:21
I don't care what it is will help with this,
59:25
but keep it up. And it's like I picture a
59:27
watering can with growth factors going on your left and
59:30
your right hippocampus, making it big and fat and fluffy.
59:34
And that is one of the harbingers two great brain growth.
59:41
The other brain area, which I'm sure is huge in you,
59:44
is your prefrontal cortex. Living a life of a monk
59:48
and doing that deep practice of focusing your attention keeping
59:53
it there makes your area ten, which is right behind
59:56
your forehead, enhanced enriched. Not because of new neurons, but
1:00:01
likely because of new synapses. And so basically what a
1:00:05
healed brain looks like is a bigger, fatterer, fluffier brain
1:00:10
that is kind of flush with good neurochemicals and is building.
1:00:16
Speaker 3: New synaptic connections.
1:00:18
Speaker 2: That is kind of the beautiful picture of what I
1:00:22
call positive brain plasticity.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: You make it sound so simple in terms of what
1:00:26
we need to do when you want breathing moving. Yes,
1:00:30
like it's as simple as that. What if we're doing
1:00:33
breathing and moving and we're still not feeling positive benefits,
1:00:36
what could be a play there?
1:00:37
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that sometimes it's hard to
1:00:41
appreciate what's going on. It could be that you're not
1:00:45
moving quite in the same way. I think it's easy
1:00:48
to get in a habit of moving, and so sometimes
1:00:52
you need to push yourself a little bit more. If
1:00:54
you're doing ten minutes of walking, maybe try fifteen minutes
1:00:57
and it's it's you know, there are some pillars that
1:01:00
not just me, but so many neuroscientists have shown are
1:01:04
so important for brain plasticity, which is actually what my
1:01:08
undergraduate advisor discovered as she was a young neuroscientist in
1:01:14
the nineteen sixties at UC Berkeley Marion Diamond, and so
1:01:17
exercise was one of the pillars stress reduction that comes
1:01:21
from meditation.
1:01:23
Speaker 3: Social interaction. We are social beings.
1:01:26
Speaker 2: I'm sorry social media does not count person to person interaction.
1:01:32
That is what humans were evolved to do. Sleep, which
1:01:37
we haven't talked about but is so critically important. And
1:01:41
the fifth pillar is good nutrition social interactions. Sorry, I
1:01:46
need to add that social interaction doesn't mean just conversations.
1:01:52
Speaker 3: I include love there.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: Having love in your life is something that neuroscientists don't
1:01:58
often talk about, but it is absolutely critical for the
1:02:02
health of your brain.
1:02:03
Speaker 1: And how do you define love from a neuroscience perspective, Well, so.
1:02:08
Speaker 2: You can study the neurobiology of love and compare the
1:02:11
brain areas that get active when you look at the
1:02:14
picture of an acquaintance versus the picture of somebody that
1:02:19
you might have.
1:02:20
Speaker 1: What you see, you would see you would.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: See reward areas lighting up, but other areas social interaction
1:02:27
areas as well. And one of the most interesting findings
1:02:31
that I love from that neurobiology of love fMRI study
1:02:35
of love literature is that they've also started to look
1:02:38
at how does the brain response to your loved one
1:02:42
change from the first throws of romantic love when you
1:02:46
can't get enough of each other to a relationship that
1:02:50
has evolved to something stable but very very loving. And
1:02:55
what happens is it goes from just lots of lots
1:03:01
of dopamine and lots of reward areas and kind of
1:03:04
a suppression of the amigla and and kind of the fear.
1:03:07
Speaker 3: You're fearless when you are first in love.
1:03:10
Speaker 2: And I know, you know I felt fearless. I don't
1:03:13
know if in a good way, but we feel fearless.
1:03:16
And it starts to evolve into a pattern that looks
1:03:20
like the maternal or paternal pattern, that is that protective element.
1:03:26
And we can't see everything from fMRI, but I thought,
1:03:30
I thought, that's such a beautiful pattern to think about
1:03:35
that that, yes, I can't sustain that first you know,
1:03:39
flush of love for the rest of my life, but
1:03:43
that deep love that you do feel for a child,
1:03:47
that is what comes with with long term.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: I'd never heard about that from you. That's so interesting. Yeah,
1:03:54
that's so interesting, that romantic love, but the way it
1:03:58
looks afterwards is more paternal and protective.
1:04:00
Speaker 2: Yes, and yes, not in every single you know, Marcel,
1:04:04
but when you look at the relationships that you admire,
1:04:08
you know, those long term relationship, there is the devotion
1:04:13
that is there that of course you see for you know,
1:04:16
protection for your young child. It's not identical, but that
1:04:20
devotion is beautiful. That's what's moving about those kinds of relationships.
1:04:25
Speaker 1: And I feel like today it's become harder and harder
1:04:27
and harder, even just in how people gather. Like I
1:04:31
feel like I was just watching what did I just see?
1:04:33
Gladiated two? And I remember watching Gladiator one, and I
1:04:37
was just while I was watching it, I was just
1:04:38
thinking about the fact that the Roman Colisseum was so
1:04:41
big and that people would gather every week. I mean,
1:04:44
they'd gather for the worst reason, right, But the idea
1:04:48
that so many people would gather, yes, every week, well
1:04:52
I think at one point it was every day. And
1:04:53
I'm like, first of all, what is everyone doing in
1:04:55
their spare time? But right, so many people would gather,
1:04:58
so many people would be together. Of course, if we
1:05:01
look at whether it's community censors, churches, temples, the places
1:05:05
of gathering, today we have less and less places of gathering,
1:05:09
even though there's millions of people going to listen to
1:05:12
this episode, They're not in the same place listening to it.
1:05:15
And I know that if we did have a million
1:05:17
people here right now, even if we had a portion
1:05:21
of the people that listen to the episode here, they
1:05:23
could then talk about it and discuss it and exchange it,
1:05:26
and they could look at each other's eyes and be like, Oh,
1:05:28
you feel that too, Oh my gosh, I went through
1:05:30
that grief, and how amazing would that be? And we're
1:05:33
losing that, and so the ability to create love and
1:05:37
connection is becoming harder and harder and harder because our
1:05:41
places of similar value are now digital. Right if this
1:05:44
is a place I know everyone who listens to us
1:05:46
has similar values, cares about similar things, but they're not
1:05:49
meeting each other. And we're trying to do that by
1:05:52
when I go on tour. That's really one of my
1:05:54
biggest goals, because I'm hoping when everyone walks out, they're
1:05:57
all going to just talk to each other and ask
1:05:59
each other question, should we be forcing ourselves to have
1:06:04
places together of similar value? Like should we make that
1:06:08
a priority?
1:06:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I immediately think of the university, and that
1:06:14
is a natural place of gathering in person. Universities you're
1:06:20
gathering every single day, multiple times a day.
1:06:24
Speaker 3: But sometimes I see the stress and the worry of.
1:06:28
Speaker 2: Do I you know, am I smart enough? You know
1:06:30
in this room pushes people apart and then they go
1:06:33
and they go on their phone and it's more comfortable
1:06:35
to do that. That is what I'm trying to shift,
1:06:39
so that we take full advantage of this person to
1:06:43
person place of gathering at our university, that they feel
1:06:49
connected to each other, they feel like they belong there
1:06:53
for whatever thing that you want to promote. I, as dean,
1:06:56
want to promote the joy of learning. That is what
1:07:00
I want to teach them.
1:07:01
Speaker 3: That is what I want them to feel like.
1:07:03
Speaker 2: And so yes, all of you university professors out there,
1:07:08
you have this power to make your place of gathering
1:07:13
one of these places where people are talking and interacting.
1:07:17
And of course we all try that. It's harder because
1:07:21
of the pandemic and we're not used to being together
1:07:24
as much in society or you know, in our growing up.
1:07:29
So the answer to your question is, yes, it's our
1:07:32
responsibility to do that.
1:07:33
Speaker 3: How can we do that more?
1:07:34
Speaker 2: Yeah?
1:07:35
Speaker 1: I love that example. I saw I read a study
1:07:37
that said eighty percent of us pull out our phone
1:07:40
in a crowd, just to avoid conversation and contact. And
1:07:44
so I love what you're saying about building it on
1:07:46
a college campus. And I think the same applies inside
1:07:49
a corporation if people are coming to work, even if
1:07:52
they're coming to work three days a week. As a
1:07:54
dean yourself, how do you do that when you've got targets.
1:07:58
I'm sure there's results you have to get, You've got things, deadlines,
1:08:02
you have to me. You've got a ton of stuff
1:08:04
on your play, as does a CEO of a major
1:08:07
corporation or an organization. How do you prioritize a love
1:08:10
for learning and belonging and connection? Yeah, yeah, not just
1:08:15
as nice things that you say, but actually you do.
1:08:17
How do you do that? Because I see as very
1:08:19
genuine from you.
1:08:20
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And so how do I prioritize it? I
1:08:24
just make it a priority, and I decide the actions
1:08:27
that I'm going to do to get to that goal. So,
1:08:31
for example, I am literally strategizing about how I could
1:08:36
get in front of as many of those nine thousand
1:08:40
students that I have multiple times during their four years
1:08:44
with us. I see them all, every single first year student.
1:08:47
I see every single one graduating. I see there's a
1:08:50
lot of time between that. What can I do to
1:08:54
have a meaningful How should I go on tour just
1:08:57
like you do, but talk to the first year? The
1:09:00
second year is the third years. I loved my college
1:09:03
experience because I was imbued with the love of learning,
1:09:06
and so I do that through the coursework that I
1:09:11
provide for my students. That is actually I'm trying to
1:09:15
develop it right now. It is an online class, but
1:09:19
with an in person component so that I could kind
1:09:22
of gut up to scale the first time I did it.
1:09:24
It's called it's called the fluffy Brain course. So I
1:09:27
want to give all the students in this course a
1:09:28
fluffy brain, teaching them a lot about what we've just
1:09:32
spent the last hour talking about. But there's always going
1:09:35
to be an in person component, and the goal of
1:09:39
this class is to inspire them to do, not inspire them.
1:09:43
It's part of the class. That's a great thing about
1:09:45
a class I could assign things to. So your assignment
1:09:48
is to do a personal experiment about exercise. How are
1:09:52
you going to up your exercise for the next week?
1:09:55
But first you're going to just notice your mood or
1:09:57
your regular mood states, So that self awareness and then
1:10:00
next week you are going to propose something, do it,
1:10:03
increase your exercise, and then self reflect about that and
1:10:08
we will we will explore that and talk about it together.
1:10:11
Speaker 1: I love that, and they have to do it. They
1:10:13
have really Yeah, I'm really happy that you're saying this,
1:10:15
because I do think as leaders in different institutions and organizations,
1:10:21
there's such a there's a responsibility, but there's also just
1:10:24
a vision for what an amazingly happy, fluffy brain community
1:10:29
looks like. Yes, And when I think about it coming
1:10:33
from college, it's hard because people are coming from so
1:10:37
many different motivations. Yes, right, someone's coming there for the
1:10:41
best job in the world. Someone's coming there for an
1:10:43
amazing social experience. Someone's coming there to compete with everyone else. Right,
1:10:49
You've got all these drivers, and to kind of take
1:10:52
everyone's drivers and point it in one direction. It's one
1:10:56
of the hardest things to do in the world because
1:10:58
everyone's got their background and walk of life. And I
1:11:00
remember in the monastery it's similar to what you said.
1:11:03
Our senior most monk would always talk about three qualities
1:11:07
above all qualities, and it was humility, tolerance, and compassion
1:11:12
that was it, and so if you went to one
1:11:14
of his lectures, that's all he was going to talk about.
1:11:17
And what you realized slowly was that, at least for me,
1:11:20
I found that those became qualities that I aspired for
1:11:24
because I recognized they were most valued in this place,
1:11:27
even though I may have come from a different set
1:11:30
of values before, I would have come from like ambition, drive,
1:11:33
whatever it was. And all of a sudden, it's humility
1:11:36
and tolerance, compassion. And then you saw those who accepted
1:11:39
and those who rejected it as well. There were some
1:11:42
people who just went yeah, oh, yeah, whatever, who cares,
1:11:44
and then there were some that went, no, that seems
1:11:46
to be the truth. And so what do you find
1:11:50
is the healthiest way to encourage people in the right direction,
1:11:52
Because people don't want to be told and people don't
1:11:55
want to be preached to. So how do you do
1:11:57
it in a way that actually the brain digests.
1:12:00
Speaker 2: So I start with the official greeting of the College
1:12:05
of Arts and Science, which is Jay, you have a
1:12:08
beautiful brain. And so I invite all the students when
1:12:11
they see me on the street to come up and say,
1:12:14
you have a beautiful brain.
1:12:15
Speaker 3: And of course I will say it back to them.
1:12:17
Speaker 2: And I love starting from there because that is the truth,
1:12:22
the neurobiological truth, that every single one of the brains
1:12:28
of my students is beautiful. Your brain is beautiful, My
1:12:31
brain is beautiful, And no matter what your motivation for
1:12:35
being in this space with me, it has a beautiful brain.
1:12:40
And from there we go, from which hopefully provides a
1:12:44
sense of belonging, we go to let's share. Let's share
1:12:49
what you have to give from your beautiful brain, because
1:12:52
your brain has something to give that is different than
1:12:55
what my brain. And let's just provide a situation and
1:13:00
an environment that's open to all of that sharing and
1:13:04
talk about the fact that no, it's not about competition,
1:13:08
it's not about getting the highest mark.
1:13:11
Speaker 3: It's learning the deepest for whatever class you are.
1:13:14
Speaker 2: And I know these are hard priorities, but I'm building
1:13:20
them over the last two and a half years and.
1:13:23
Speaker 3: It's really a joy to be able to do that.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: They're so lucky to have you there, really are. That's
1:13:28
such a you know, to leave college with that mindset,
1:13:32
with a love for deep learning, I think we'll set
1:13:34
people up for so much more success, yes than just
1:13:37
a great job that eventually may end up being the
1:13:40
job that they don't want to be in rights and
1:13:42
a career that they don't enjoy. And then when you
1:13:45
realize that you don't have a deep love for learning, yes,
1:13:48
that becomes really really hard. And that's kind of what
1:13:50
I see. I feel like I speak to a lot
1:13:52
of people who are kind of got the job that
1:13:55
they thought they want out of college, and then five
1:13:57
years in, maybe even quicker to like, it's actually not
1:14:01
what I want to do. Yeah, yeah, and now I'm
1:14:02
trying to find meaning in life. But the problem is
1:14:04
I didn't have that deep love for learning, and so
1:14:07
now I have to build it later on. So it's
1:14:09
so lucky to have you. Oh, thank you, it's really amazing.
1:14:11
I want to ask you when you say that affirmation
1:14:13
I love that you have a beautiful brain. Does positive
1:14:17
thinking and positive affirmations do they actually work?
1:14:20
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I mean, there are studies showing that if you
1:14:23
take a group of people and have them do positive affirmations,
1:14:27
not just just saying them a certain number of time
1:14:30
every day, versus people that don't do those positive affirmations,
1:14:33
their affect is better. It's higher, you know, less uh,
1:14:36
less negative affect and more positive affect. Yes, it does
1:14:40
have an effect, which makes sense. Our brain takes in
1:14:44
everything that's happening to us. So you know, this is
1:14:46
why we talked about looking at the people that you are,
1:14:50
that you're that's feeding you information. Are they cynical? Are
1:14:54
they negative? Or are they giving you a growth mindset?
1:14:58
Are they are they giving you in interesting new possibilities
1:15:01
to go to very important to ask yourself.
1:15:03
Speaker 1: That I wanted to ask you, Bendive, It's okay, a
1:15:05
couple of questions from your first book about memory. Yeah, sure,
1:15:08
because I just think it's such a fascinating subject. And
1:15:11
when we think about the brain and memory, I think
1:15:14
there's there's just there's so much connection that I think
1:15:16
would fascinate people. I wanted to ask you, why is
1:15:20
it that we can remember different things about the same
1:15:23
event when we're there with the same people.
1:15:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so sorry to say, but our memory does not
1:15:29
work very well. Generally we think, oh, you know, I'm young,
1:15:32
I have a great memory. No, our memory is not great.
1:15:36
And so the reason why two people at the same
1:15:41
event remember different things is that we are focused on
1:15:44
these different things. And let me just go over the
1:15:47
four things that makes memory stick. This works at all
1:15:51
ages based on the neurophysiology and biology of the tippy
1:15:56
campus that we talked about critical for forming and rich
1:16:00
any new long term memories. So what makes memories stick? Repetition.
1:16:04
So you and I might be at the same event
1:16:07
and you're focused on one thing, and it's the same event,
1:16:10
but an event is big. I'm focused on something else,
1:16:12
so you're repeating something that that I never saw, and
1:16:16
I'm seeing something that you never saw.
1:16:18
Speaker 3: Repetition, association. We remember things better when they're.
1:16:22
Speaker 2: Associated with other things that are in our long term memory.
1:16:25
So we might be easier to remember a friend of
1:16:29
a friend that we know really really well and they
1:16:32
introduced us, versus somebody that you don't know at all
1:16:34
and you trying to remember them from anybody association. Novelty.
1:16:40
If it's really novel, you've never experienced this in your life,
1:16:44
it tends to be more memorable because our brains are
1:16:47
focused on novelty. It's a it's a danger kind of
1:16:50
you know, we have to pay attention to novelty, and
1:16:52
maybe they are things at the event that were really
1:16:53
novel to you that like I've seen a million times
1:16:56
in my brain just completely ignores them. And the fourth
1:16:59
thing that makes memory stick is emotional resonance. So we
1:17:04
remember the happiest and the saddest points in our life.
1:17:08
That's what this structure, the amygdala helps with. It kind
1:17:10
of helps those really emotional memories stick better. And again,
1:17:15
at this same event, you might be moved by something
1:17:19
that either I didn't see or just I wasn't moved
1:17:22
by because that wasn't in my life experience. So there's
1:17:27
lots of different reasons why two different people will have
1:17:30
sometimes very different memories of the same event.
1:17:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have a friend who is very present,
1:17:37
like you know, in the moment, but if I was
1:17:40
to say to them to remember something from one two
1:17:42
years back, even from like fifteen years back, they cannot
1:17:46
recall it at all. Yeah, is that an issue?
1:17:49
Speaker 2: You know?
1:17:49
Speaker 3: Memory is also there's a lot of variability.
1:17:53
Speaker 2: And I remember at I met somebody with something called
1:18:00
highly superior autobiographical memory. I don't know if you've heard
1:18:03
of this. They did this great show on sixty minutes
1:18:06
about people. It was actually discovered by colleagues of mind
1:18:10
neuroscientists at you see Irvine, and these are people that
1:18:13
have extraordinary memory for details. So they could remember when
1:18:17
they were eight years old what was on TV at
1:18:20
seven pm, seven thirty eight pm? And this this this
1:18:26
incredible memory. It gets in the way, but there's on
1:18:30
one end that form of memory, and then all the
1:18:33
way too. There's actually particularly poor memory in that same vein.
1:18:40
I'm not sure if two years ago memories don't stick
1:18:43
as long as the person can, you know, live their
1:18:46
lives and they have, you know, a regular memory for
1:18:49
the things they need to live their lives for. But there, Yeah,
1:18:53
there's a there's a wide variety of memory levels that
1:18:56
that can exist in the world.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: So that's not a sign for dementia.
1:19:00
Speaker 2: Al know, how old are they? No, they're young, They're yeah,
1:19:04
so so so many people have this fear of dem
1:19:06
I have dimension in my family. It's uh our memories. Also,
1:19:14
here's a tip for everybody. They get worse as a
1:19:17
as we age because we know and we've experienced more
1:19:21
in our life. It's called interference. So I didn't know anything.
1:19:25
When I was in high school. My memory was better
1:19:27
because I had nothing to interfere. Now I have so
1:19:31
much to keep track of. I don't I give myself
1:19:33
some slack when I don't remember certain things. That's why
1:19:37
I have an assistant to tell me about what I
1:19:39
really need to remember. But I'm not worried because, uh,
1:19:42
there there is a lot of interference in my life,
1:19:44
and I take that into account.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if we want to strengthen our memory, what
1:19:49
would you suggest.
1:19:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, So strengthening your memory is all about being present
1:19:54
to what you really want to remember using those four techniques. Now,
1:19:59
you can't make something emotionally resonant unless you try and
1:20:03
make it funny. So that's actually one technique that I've used.
1:20:06
If I really want to try and remember somebody's name
1:20:08
or something, I try and create a funny image about it.
1:20:12
But sorry, repetition, repetition. Repetition will help your memory, no problem.
1:20:16
Association can help. So if you can associate this person
1:20:20
or this name, or this concept with something that it
1:20:23
reminds you of to help those kind of recall lines
1:20:30
that you can have to this memory, that can help
1:20:32
as well. You can't make something novel if it's not
1:20:35
completely novel, but it's not unfortunately, a magic bullet.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: Wendy, You've been so kind and gracious with your time today.
1:20:43
I feel like I've learned so much. We've talked about
1:20:46
absolutely everything. I really hope that everyone goes and grabs
1:20:48
a copy of your book Good Anxiety. It's brilliant. I
1:20:52
think there's a need for us to use anxiety in
1:20:55
the way you're saying, rather than this desire to avoid it.
1:20:59
We end every episode with a final five, so these
1:21:02
questions have to be answered in one word to one
1:21:04
sentence for maximum Okay, So, Wendy, these are your final five. Yeah.
1:21:08
The first question is what is the best advice you've
1:21:10
ever heard or received?
1:21:12
Speaker 2: Your brain defines who you are. Take care of it.
1:21:17
Speaker 1: Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever
1:21:20
heard or received?
1:21:21
Speaker 2: Put your hair down and work as hard as you
1:21:24
can until you reach your goal. I'm the one that
1:21:26
told me that that bad advice, So I love that.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: Question number three, what's something you can't wait to discover
1:21:33
about the brain?
1:21:35
Speaker 2: I would love to discover how to enhance joyous memories
1:21:44
more easily.
1:21:46
Speaker 1: I love that question number four. What's something that you
1:21:50
used to think was true about the brain but now isn't.
1:21:53
Speaker 2: Oh well, we used to think back in the early
1:21:56
nineteen sixties that the adult brain had no capacity to
1:22:01
change or grow, and my whole neuroscience career has been
1:22:06
showing how that could happen, how do you make it
1:22:08
happen more? And what are those activities that you can
1:22:11
bring into your life to do that beautifully?
1:22:15
Speaker 1: Why did we believe that? Where did that come from?
1:22:17
Speaker 2: It came from the point in time we were in neuroscience.
1:22:22
There was just no evidence that there were overt changes.
1:22:26
We didn't have deep enough microscopes to see the molecular changes,
1:22:31
even the structural changes that we can now see very
1:22:34
easily with our more powerful tools. And so understandably they said, oh,
1:22:40
I see no evidence for change once you reach adulthood.
1:22:43
I see no change. And so, of course that was
1:22:45
the dogma until somebody said, hey, I think let's look
1:22:49
at this in a different way. And of course that
1:22:53
wasn't believed at first, but then with effort, that was
1:22:57
the concept of brain plasticity.
1:22:59
Speaker 3: And now we know that so much can change in
1:23:01
the brain.
1:23:02
Speaker 1: Is there an age at which certain things can't change?
1:23:05
Speaker 2: You know?
1:23:06
Speaker 3: Yes, for certain things. Language, there's a language change.
1:23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is. Don't quote me on this,
1:23:15
around ten years old. It's good to learn the languages
1:23:18
before that. That could be a little bit on the
1:23:20
low side. Also vision, it's really important to get bilateral
1:23:27
good vision, and so if you have amblyoplia, it changes
1:23:32
your vision.
1:23:33
Speaker 3: So those are things that change with it.
1:23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: Fifth and final question. Okay, we asked this everyone who's
1:23:40
ever been on the show. If you could create one
1:23:43
law that everyone in the world had to follow, what
1:23:45
would it be?
1:23:47
Speaker 2: You must make at least five deep friendships in your life.
1:23:51
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. Thank you so much, doctor Wendy Size. You
1:23:55
are incredible. That was so much fun. I had a
1:23:57
great time with you. Thank you for being so personal
1:24:00
as well and open about your own journey with grief,
1:24:03
and I hope you'll come back onto the show.
1:24:05
Speaker 2: I would love to ye.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you. If you love this episode,
1:24:09
you'll enjoy my interview with doctor Daniel Ahman on how
1:24:13
to change your life by changing your brain.
1:24:16
Speaker 4: If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
1:24:21
a healthy brain.
1:24:22
Speaker 2: You know.
1:24:22
Speaker 4: I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over
1:24:26
a thousand convicted felons and over one hundred murderers, and
1:24:31
their brains are very damage