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The Crazy Thing Marriage Does to a Man's Testosterone with Dr. John Gray · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

0:00
Stress is the number one killer of who we are.
0:02
A chronic stress will cause us to live shorter lives.
0:05
And this has been documented, that men with lower testosterone levels, for example, have shorter lives.
0:11
And that men who live long, healthy lives have normal testosterone levels.
0:15
I don't want to say high testosterone levels because I think high is normal.
0:19
Okay.
0:19
But as testosterone descends, your capacity to live longer is shortened.
0:24
One of the key factors is...
0:27
I want you to link this to the topic of longevity, because we hear about people, for instance, in blue zones throughout the world.
0:34
And, you know, they say one of the primary motivators, if you will, or contributors to longevity is healthy relationship.
0:42
How do you see this and comment on that for me?
0:45
Absolutely.
0:46
Let's put this through a gender lens, what you just said, because...
0:53
We're back on Age Defiantly, and I am so excited about this episode, and this one's for me.
1:00
I'm excited about this, not just because of what you get to do, but because of what I get to do.
1:04
Because recently I've become acquainted with a gentleman by the name of John Gray.
1:10
And what's funny about this, this is a true story, guys, I accidentally clicked on John's profile,
1:17
because I have another friend whose name is actually also John Gray.
1:21
And when I saw something from John Gray, it was not the John Gray I thought it was.
1:25
It turned out, no offense to other John Gray, a better John Gray.
1:30
This John Gray is the author of the 90s pop culture book called Men Are From Mars, Women Were From Venus.
1:38
And if you lived in the 90s, and John, I graduated from high school in 1993, so,
1:44
So everything about relationships was talked about in Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
1:51
I want to introduce our audience today to the man, the myth, the legend, the author, John Gray.
1:57
Thank you so much.
1:58
I appreciate that very much.
2:00
I'm happy to be with you.
2:01
I appreciate that, John.
2:03
I'm going to actually read this bio, John, because I love how my team does this stuff because I could not give you the credibility that they will.
2:11
So John Gray, 74 years old now, is the author of Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, published in 1992, my senior year of high school.
2:22
The best-selling relationship book,
2:25
of the 1990s, translated into roughly 50 languages, with sales cited between 15 to 50 million copies, depending on the source.
2:37
He's written 20 plus other books over a 40 year career as a relationship counselor, seminar leader, and lives in Northern California.
2:47
I almost said North Carolina, that's where I'm flying this afternoon.
2:51
His backstory is stranger than most listeners will ever know because at 17, he joined the Transcendental Meditation Movement, took a vow of celibacy, and spent nine years as a Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's personal assistant before leaving to get married.
3:13
His recent work has moved from communication psychology to hormone science.
3:18
Beyond Mars and Venus and Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice reframe his classic ideas around testosterone, estrogen and oxytocin, arguing that chronic modern stress depletes these hormones and that this, not just poor communication, is what erodes relationships and libido with age.
3:41
He also tells a striking personal health story publicly describing how he reversed his own early Parkinson's systems with a natural protocol he still maintains daily.
3:52
He lost his wife, Bonnie, in 2018 after 32 years of marriage, but remarried in 2020, a lived case study in grief, resilience, and finding love again past midlife.
4:06
He co-creates content with his daughter, Lauren Gray, and remains a frequent guest on health and midlife focused podcasts.
4:15
John, I have no way of telling you how excited I am to talk to you today.
4:19
Does all of that summarize you?
4:20
Thank you.
4:23
That was wonderful.
4:24
You're who I want to be.
4:28
I want you to really start telling us this story because here on Age Defiantly, we always talk about topics about longevity, right?
4:37
And when I first got you to agree to be here on this podcast, the exciting part to me is I was immediately thinking of the social and relational aspects.
4:48
My background is in clinical psychology and now my PhD is in functional medicine.
4:53
And I say when people start talking about...
4:55
physiology, I immediately go to psychology.
4:58
And when they talk about psychology, I immediately go to physiology because where people are looking is usually not where the answer is.
5:07
So I'm always looking at the reciprocal of what we're talking about and reading through your bio and getting to know more about you.
5:15
I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy is my spirit animal.
5:18
You're talking my language here when you're talking about it's not just about communication.
5:24
It's not just about relationship.
5:27
This is a hormonal thing.
5:29
This is an oxidative stress problem.
5:32
This is an oxytocin imbalance.
5:36
Like, I'm fascinated with all of this, but not more fascinated than I am about a man who decided to go live as a monk for nine years.
5:45
Okay.
5:46
Where do you want me to start?
5:48
He wants you to start at 17 years old.
5:50
What 17 years year old?
5:52
I mean, I, again, your book was published when I was 17 years old.
5:56
Literally that's the math.
5:58
And I'm like, wow, I was 17 years old when your book was published, but at 17 years old, I know what I was doing at 17 years old.
6:05
You'd signed up to become a monk.
6:07
Well, I was 14 to 17 and 18.
6:11
I was, I think it's 18 years around that time.
6:16
I was sex, drugs, and rock and roll all the way.
6:18
You know, after Woodstock, we had a Texas, I'm from Texas.
6:22
There was Woodstock and then there was the Texas Woodstock that nobody knows about, but it was massive.
6:27
I was high for three days and...
6:31
Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
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I was having a good time, you know, and I completely crashed.
6:37
And coming home from that event, a three-hour drive, I was...
6:43
And the back of my little VW bug all curled up in the very back.
6:47
If you've ever seen a little, there's a little backspace.
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And my friend was driving.
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And the whole time I was like, this is like, I have hit bottom.
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And I remember playing on the eight track in those days, eight track.
7:00
But it was a song called I Can't Find My Way Home.
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I still relate to that song because it was such a traumatic moment of crashing and just feeling so empty.
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And I can't find my way home.
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The next day, my mother came into my room.
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I was crashed.
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And she saw a poster on the wall.
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And the poster was of the Beatles.
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I had black lights.
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I had posters.
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I was a cool 17-year-old.
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And she saw the poster of the Beatles.
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And then she said, and who was that man with them who was the guru of the Beatles?
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So that was a big deal back then.
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The Beatles had gone to be with the Maharishi.
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And that's really when they started doing the psychedelic music after that.
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And so I don't know.
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She said, I think that's the Maharishi.
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And so I asked around, and that was what that was about.
7:51
And then I went to the bowling alley, pick up my brother.
7:55
I'm trying to shorten this, but I was into martial arts, okay?
7:58
I was on the front of martial arts magazines, totally into that.
8:02
And somebody said to me at the bowling alley, upstairs, there's a...
8:07
a samurai demonstration.
8:09
So I thought, oh, cool, samurai demonstration.
8:11
Well, when I went up there, it was a seminar, and it was on transcendental meditation and had the picture of that guru there.
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It was such synchronicity.
8:20
And then when I heard the talk, the talk was basically develop your full mental potential and...
8:27
There was also this idea you'd have powers, you know, the cities, you know.
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That's what really excited me was the powers.
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And some guys said, oh, yeah, I've got all the powers after a few months of meditation.
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I'm like, wow, that's great.
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But when I went home, my dad said, where were you?
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Because he thought I was out doing drugs.
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And I said, no, I went to this talk.
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And he said, well, he didn't believe me.
8:48
And then he said, well, what did you hear?
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I gave the complete talk.
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It was like that talk.
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was in my heart.
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I mean, it was like I knew every word of that talk.
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It just resonated with every cell in my body.
9:00
I started taking transcend...
9:03
I took the course on transcendental meditation.
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I then said, I have to be with this guy.
9:08
And I was very clever in many ways to get a degree because I kept going from one university to another, telling them that I was getting extra credit by being with the Maharishi.
9:18
And it was very clever of me.
9:21
But...
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I basically took every course he ever taught in the Western world during that time, those nine months.
9:29
And eventually we trained other people.
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I taught over 15,000 TM teachers.
9:34
It was my heart and soul was resonant with that.
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And I was completely celibate because the idea there, well, he was a celibate and that was the fastest route to enlightenment.
9:43
And, you know, whatever we want to call enlightenment, I got something where I felt, you know, totally one with the universe.
9:51
I mean, it was a real concrete experience.
9:53
After 40 years of it, you just get used to it as normal.
9:56
But it's not living just in this body.
9:58
It's living, feeling a oneness with everything and then having another part of me, my soul, which is watching everything all the time.
10:06
So this was very cool.
10:09
It allows me to have kind of constant flow.
10:12
I can just flow out ideas and whatever from the source.
10:15
A lot of people have this now, but then it was rather unusual.
10:19
But as I come out from being celibate and then I'm wandering around, I just no longer felt a desire to be with this teacher.
10:26
It was like everything that was inside of him, I found inside of me.
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And there was no need to be with him.
10:32
I think we're often drawn to certain things to find a part of who we are, to see ourselves and others.
10:37
And what's ironic is that he taught, he was a celibate, and I would be kind of a proxy for him to give advice to people.
10:45
People would always want to ask him questions, and he didn't want to take the time.
10:48
So he'd have me interview them first and summarize their questions, and then go out and give them the answers.
10:54
And eventually he just said, just go give them the answers as if I said it.
10:58
So I knew his information totally inside and out.
11:02
And anything that had to do with relationships, people would ask questions of the guru about relationships.
11:07
He'd always say, that's not my department.
11:09
I'm a celibate.
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And the irony here is that when I went out in the world to find my own, what am I supposed to do in the world?
11:15
It was like this, I lost my traction to him.
11:18
That wasn't negative.
11:19
I just didn't have him on a pedestal anymore.
11:21
It was like he was a regular guy who was a good guy and very enlightened and helping the world.
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So now I didn't know what I was going to do, but I ended up teaching relationships, the very things that he didn't teach.
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So it became my own source, original information that came forth from me.
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And it's a long, fun journey.
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I mean, I'll indulge you with a little bit since you seem to be one a little bit more about me.
11:44
So here I am wandering around.
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I'm thinking God's going to, you know, have somebody deliver, pick me up at the airport.
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I just knew I had to fly out to California.
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And but nobody picked me up, you know, and I became I was homeless for a while.
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I was thinking, hey, God, what's going on here?
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Homeless.
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And which was good and not good.
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I would sit around thinking, OK, well, here are these poor people on the beach and they have a lot of mental problems, too.
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And drinking beer around night.
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One night, one guy said to me, he said, John, we love listening to you talk, but we have no idea what you're talking about.
12:19
Suddenly, my noble effort to help these people on the beach with spiritual knowledge, it just hit like a weight.
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This is not my lane.
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So I had to realize I had to pick myself up and get a job, make enough money.
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And then in that process, I took some of the California courses and.
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One of them was S that was very popular at the time.
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Another one was loving relationships training at the time.
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Met a woman at that.
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But even before all that, first of all, when I was first homeless, then a friend got me a place to stay.
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And there was a woman, it was like a cult kind of a place.
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Everybody had their own place.
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And there's this woman I saw in a dream.
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And I thought, this must be special.
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And so I just sat outside her little cottage all day long in Lotus in a meditation.
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I can meditate 18 hours.
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I go into a breathless state.
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And it's...
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Very enjoyable.
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But so there I was doing it.
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And she was like, OK, because she didn't want any.
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I showed interest in her and she just repelled me.
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So I just sat outside her little cottage meditating and she said, OK, who are you?
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And I told her who I was.
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And then she said she was the personal assistant of Claire Prophet, who is another spiritual teacher in California.
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And she had just left.
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So that was like this synchronicity.
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It was just all synchronicities all over the place and lessons to be learned.
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And so I asked her, what does she do?
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She's a massage therapist.
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And she said, want a massage?
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I said, sure.
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And then she says, OK, take off your clothes and lie down.
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That was the end of my celibacy.
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You're killing me.
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I still remember the moment where she said, so why are you celibate?
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And I said...
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I don't know why I'm selling it.
14:05
No one said yes.
14:05
My mind sort of took over, and it was very interesting.
14:09
You know, right now, just as a side thing, what I've taught is –
14:14
is I read a bunch of books of what people were doing, took a bunch of seminars, and realized I had my own message.
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I had the way, because I had a different perspective on things.
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And the first perspective was on sex, which is that for me, I went and I started having a lot of sex, because I was very popular in the TM movement, being the assistant to the top guru.
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My picture was in all the TM centers.
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So I kind of had already a doorway in to quickly have relationships.
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And so I was just suddenly, after this first woman, having lots of sex.
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And what I noticed is having sex, it was totally enjoyable.
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It was ecstatic.
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It was like devotional to the Divine Mother.
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So the...
14:56
But what I noticed is half of my unbounded awareness disappeared.
15:01
Okay.
15:01
It was like I drained out through sex.
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I drained out a lot of the energy of celibacy that gives you this potency.
15:08
It's very powerful to be celibate.
15:11
And then I started practicing tantra because I didn't want to lose the semen.
15:16
When I stopped losing the semen, it was less, less loss.
15:20
And then finally, long story short, I ended up marrying my wife, Bonnie, of 34 years.
15:26
What I noticed is that with the woman I was in love with, I didn't lose any of that energy.
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And so I began teaching a class called Enlightened Sexuality, which is realizing the purpose of sex, if it's just pleasure, you will lose energy.
15:40
You will become drained.
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But if the purpose of your sex is to feel more love and to express more love...
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then you're opening your heart, you're putting your attention on expressing love and receiving love.
15:52
You didn't lose the energy.
15:53
And that was just a concrete experience for me because, you know, I was just, I have this expanded awareness, which is really very nice.
15:59
No, but I think what you're saying there is, and I'm going to, I always, again, I drag things, the psychological, the physiological, but also I always rope in the theological side of that as well.
16:13
And, you know, I come from a Christian worldview, but I go back to marriage and marriage being divinely appointed, right?
16:22
Because it is, it is when we take something that is outside of marriage, that's not of divinely appointed.
16:28
And you're saying, you know, sex simply for pleasure.
16:31
It's literally a different energy.
16:33
It's a different.
16:36
Even in my most recent work, because I've been doing all this biology and studying hormones and everything.
16:42
This isn't except in my most recent book, just so people want to reference it.
16:46
It's in the book, which is Men Are From Mars for Women Only.
16:49
I've got another book just came out for women only.
16:52
I did so much research on that because everybody kept saying, give us the references to your other concepts, because I'm not really big on giving references, so it's tedious.
17:04
So I did a lot more research in terms of biology.
17:06
And one of the things that people should know to support what you just said is that
17:11
Making love can be a sacred thing or just a waste of energy and lowering your life force energy.
17:18
When couples who have sex with each other, who are in a committed, loving relationship, they make different hormones during sex.
17:28
I mean, this is remarkable is what they produce 500% more prolactin.
17:37
Prolactin is a hormone also associated when women do breastfeeding, but it's also a hormone that has the effect of cutting down our sex drive for other people.
17:50
Now, it doesn't cut down my sex drive for my wife.
17:53
I mean, all throughout our marriage, we had a great sex life, and right now I'm in a better sex life.
17:58
As I get older, my testosterone is just going higher because I also understand the dynamics of masculinity and femininity even better.
18:08
But what prolactin does, what it's designed to do, and if you want to use God in this, divinely ordained hormone that prevents a man from seeking another woman to have babies with so that he would stay with his child.
18:20
See, it's there.
18:21
But historically, it didn't stop couples from having sex.
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If you're married, they would continue to have sex because there was a polarity of masculine and feminine.
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When you have masculine and feminine, you experience a different type of attraction, a stronger attraction, actually.
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But it's based on polarity.
18:40
When people first meet, they have lots of sex, the hormonal, what is it, the...
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Honeymoon stage, often called.
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You know, you just go off and find a hotel room.
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What's all that about is the newness of a relationship stimulates dopamine, the reward hormone, motivating hormone.
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And also, if you look at the biology of it, the hormonal biology, it raises men's testosterone really high.
19:07
And it raises women's estrogen really high.
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That creates a polarity of difference.
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So there's many things that produce dopamine.
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But one of the things that produces dopamine is experiencing differences, new and different.
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Different from me produces attraction.
19:24
So if we sustain the differences between men and women and honor them, don't try to negate them.
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You maintain the attraction even though your body's making prolactin.
19:36
So you're not addicted to sex like most men.
19:39
Basically, you're not even interested.
19:40
You can strip in front of me as a woman.
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I think you look beautiful, but I'm not going to get an erection.
19:44
The only person I get an erection with is my wife.
19:47
It's an amazing experience.
19:48
My body is packed with prolactin because I'm so committed.
19:52
So the act of commitment and making marriage is what produces the prolactin that allows you to sustain a sexual attraction towards your partner.
20:02
It's a little different for people...
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And I don't know for younger people how much is different, but I know here in my 70s, my testosterone is 50 to 100% higher than when I was a young man.
20:13
That's one thing, which is very, very important for men to know how to keep your testosterone up.
20:17
There's a lot of dynamics to that, but most men is going down, and they lose magnetic attraction to their partner.
20:24
They lose a lot of their masculinity.
20:26
Today, not in historical times, I've gone down to...
20:33
the Amazon live with Ashmore Indians and they have amazing sex lives at all ages.
20:38
Okay.
20:38
And they, they don't like dress up or do romantic things.
20:41
You know, they, they're, they're not civilized, but what happens is men do men things and women do women things and women things, men things produce hormones that are unique to women.
20:53
So you're familiar with my book, Beyond Mars and Venus.
20:56
All that's about is it's a simple concept for people to understand how we're different because we're so confused about that today.
21:02
People just think it's made up in our minds.
21:06
It's in our biology.
21:07
When a man is coping with stress, we can measure cortisol, you know, and that's where it comes into longevity.
21:13
I mean, I don't produce hardly any cortisol except just enough to be normal.
21:18
There's no stress reactions in me.
21:21
And it's not just because I have this spirituality.
21:23
That gives me wisdom to have loving relationships.
21:27
But it's the loving relationship that manages my stress most effectively.
21:33
But let's put it in a context for people to understand.
21:37
When a man is stressed, his testosterone levels are going down.
21:41
Everybody knows about fight or flight and men are aggressive and angry.
21:46
Well, what's happening in fight or flight?
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His body's making cortisol.
21:49
And what's also happening in his body?
21:51
His testosterone is low.
21:53
So this big confusion, thinking that high testosterone causes men to be violent or aggressive, no, it's testosterone going down and the female hormone, estrogen, going up.
22:05
And this is what's happening to males today.
22:07
They're being beaten down masculine and they're being feminized and their female hormone, estrogen, is going higher.
22:13
And that results in all of the negative qualities that we see in young men today.
22:17
And this has always been the case.
22:19
This is our biology.
22:20
Right.
22:21
So for a man to know, for a woman to know, how to communicate to a man to bump up his testosterone is going to make him fall in love with you again and again and again and have energy and motivation.
22:32
The other side of this is for women, the hormone estrogen hormone
22:37
Women need to make, on average, if they're not stressed, 10 times more estrogen than a man.
22:43
Men, if they're not stressed, need to be making 10 times more testosterone than women.
22:50
I mean, this is how we're so different.
22:52
So when my testosterone becomes about 15 times higher than my wife's and her estrogen becomes about 15 times higher than mine, that's where this magnetic energy happens.
23:03
And I can feel it in my body.
23:04
And you can see the tests show that testosterone and estrogen are going high in men.
23:10
It's the only time that for most men in the studies, that's the men that are tested, is when they're turned on, attracted to their wife.
23:19
This is amazing.
23:20
Both their testosterone and estrogen are going high.
23:23
It's the only time that happens.
23:25
Now, there's another thing that happens when men's testosterone and estrogen levels open up.
23:30
And that's when he feels compassion, when he's helping somebody, when he's a hero.
23:36
So compassion is everything, love and compassion.
23:38
And you can measure what goes on in men, which is different from women.
23:44
For women, for the way their brain works, scientists told us that we have these mirror neurons, right?
23:50
We know mirror neurons, for those that don't know, they allow you, when your mirror neurons open, it allows you to feel what somebody else is feeling.
23:57
You're able to feel empathy.
23:58
You're able to feel compassion.
23:59
You can feel love for people.
24:01
This is what connects us to our positive feelings.
24:05
Well...
24:06
Men's mirror neurons are closed most of the time.
24:09
The only time they open up is when we're helping somebody and we're not feeling blamed.
24:15
And the only time they really open up is when we're making love with our partner in a committed relationship.
24:21
Now, this is like.
24:22
It's like you're taking slides out of a keynote that I've given.
24:27
It's like it's making me laugh.
24:28
So like one of my.
24:29
I want to hear that.
24:30
Keno, you got to send it to me.
24:31
You got to say I will.
24:33
So actually, a book that I published, was it last year, the year before?
24:37
It was called Radical Generosity.
24:39
And in Radical Generosity, I went through the physiology of generosity and how generosity actually leads to exactly the things you're talking about.
24:50
It actually leads to generosity, leads to joy, joy actually leads to love, and this whole circle completes, and it's all because generosity actually gives you a dopamine hit.
25:01
And you end up with that dopamine hit that's the same type of thing that would happen when you get a high.
25:08
And it turns into, you know, that turns into gratitude.
25:12
And gratitude actually leads to exactly what you're talking about, mirror neurons.
25:17
And, you know, and it makes me actually have empathy for other people.
25:21
And empathy leads to genuine love.
25:24
When I start with a position of gratitude and I start with a position of generosity, I begin a loop and it becomes a cycle that repeats itself, not just relationally or emotionally, but a cycle that actually leads you on a physiological loop that self-perpetuates positivity, right?
25:47
Right.
25:48
Absolutely.
25:48
Absolutely.
25:49
Now, let's put this through a gender lens, what you just said, because, you know, it is a spiritual concept.
25:56
It's better to give than receive, right?
25:58
You know, the whole thing is.
26:00
But if you don't receive enough, then you're giving and you're going to expect something in return.
26:06
So when you're giving with expectations of return, you're not going to get the same benefit of I'm so grateful for what I have and now I'm going to overflow.
26:15
Right.
26:16
Now, the distinction as a man and me as a man, everything you said is entirely leading us in the right direction.
26:23
It's selflessness that raises a man up to the highest level.
26:27
It's through compassion activates those hormones that give us the motivation and the dopamine to follow through.
26:34
But our selflessness needs to be fed by selflessness.
26:38
Feeling, we have to feel inside that we are making a difference.
26:41
Okay, that's the key thing, that I'm generosity, I'm helping.
26:45
So I like the word help.
26:46
It's a big key factor inside.
26:48
Every hero, every romantic novel is a woman in danger and a man helping her.
26:53
That's always the case.
26:54
So now we understand the foundation of attraction between men and women is a man is on his other side, out of compassion, helping someone selflessly.
27:04
Now, the aspect of selflessness there is that we're still human beings.
27:08
He needs a message coming back to him that he's made a difference.
27:12
You know, if I'm being generous with somebody and they go, well, that didn't help at all.
27:16
I'm not going to get the dopamine hit I need to keep me being generous.
27:20
So there's an interdependence we have, which is built into the male-female relationship.
27:26
God made women so they're dependent on us to make babies.
27:30
Now, when you're dependent on somebody for something, what happens is your body makes estrogen and women need to make 10 times more estrogen.
27:40
And when she has a when she depends on a man for something that's more meaningful, her estrogen levels will double.
27:46
And that's the five days before ovulation.
27:49
And during those five days before ovulation, her estrogen levels have doubled or they haven't.
27:55
If they double, she's going to feel very romantic and very attracted to a man and fall in love with a man and bond with him.
28:03
That's at that time.
28:05
Or those five days during ovulation, if she doesn't have what she needs, if she thinks I can't get what I need because I have certain emotional needs, if they're not going to be fulfilled,
28:16
then she's going to be very unhappy.
28:18
So a lot of arguments will fight at that time, or it's the best time for a date where you take a woman on a date where her body goes, oh, I have what I need.
28:27
And someone's taking care of me and someone's doing this for me.
28:30
Because if you think of the genius of women's hormonal system, right before her body has the potential to make sex, to make a baby,
28:38
She needs to first make sure she has food, she has lodging, she has support, she has protection.
28:44
And so naturally men become more attractive to her, which then motivates her to then want to bond with a man, have sex and make a baby.
28:52
And so this is like all so built in.
28:54
And even though the world today is all different on the surface in the last few hundred years where you have birth control or in 50 years, the brain doesn't change, the hormone system doesn't change.
29:04
And so we have, by understanding these dynamics,
29:07
It's so powerful.
29:09
So now when we're just talking about everything you said, now let's look at it through the lens of what women need to know.
29:15
Because for women, they're all listening to this idea of their body.
29:19
Their body says, if I give unconditionally, I feel really good.
29:23
That's a nurturing hormone designed to give to children.
29:28
You see, what happens is that,
29:30
When a woman is presented with somebody who needs her help, she goes into this nurturing mode of unconditional love.
29:38
Now, when she has that unconditional love for a man, she'll start to treat him like a child.
29:44
So what needs to happen for women?
29:46
And this is my experience as being a counselor.
29:49
See, a child, if you look at your partner as a child, what do you want to do?
29:52
You want to direct them all the time.
29:53
You want to give them advice all the time.
29:55
You want to explain to them, you have to do this.
29:57
You're going to say, like I have women all the time going, oh, my husband is not working out enough.
30:01
He's not looking at his health.
30:03
He's not doing this.
30:04
And I say, back off.
30:05
He's a grownup.
30:06
Take care of yourself.
30:08
Don't be in his face.
30:10
You know, one of the simple ideas of Men Are From Mars, one of the main
30:13
One of men's annoying irritants, and I say it's very destructive to relationships, is when women give unsolicited advice to men.
30:22
And of course, women are thinking, why doesn't he ask me questions?
30:25
Well, we don't want her asking me questions.
30:27
If we want to talk, we talk.
30:28
I don't wait for her to ask me questions.
30:31
But women all the time are waiting for you to show interest, ask questions, and we have no idea that this is something that's important to her.
30:38
Why is it important to her?
30:40
Because for her to make estrogen...
30:42
Now, this is just an important thing.
30:44
You know, all the science, so many studies on oxytocin.
30:47
Okay, so you're very familiar with the oxytocin studies.
30:50
Most people are not familiar with the studies that show that oxytocin doesn't do anything unless estrogen is in the right place.
30:58
Oxytocin is dependent on estrogen.
31:00
Estrogen is stimulated when a woman anticipates getting what I need.
31:08
Today, women don't even know what they need.
31:10
There are all these hormonal problems because what they think, they need to be independent.
31:16
They need to solve all the problems.
31:17
They need to do it themselves.
31:18
And the result is they're overwhelmed.
31:20
They feel like I have to do everything.
31:22
I have no time for myself.
31:24
What's going on here is women are producing too much of the male hormone.
31:28
See, I love taking on things.
31:30
And I also have, as a man...
31:33
We have a mechanism.
31:34
We have a fast car.
31:36
A fast car also has great brakes.
31:38
Okay.
31:39
So we have the ability that women don't have.
31:42
The ability to have a lot of problems, prioritize them so we're not overwhelmed by them.
31:47
Which is like got to focus on the most important thing.
31:50
Forget about the other stuff.
31:51
She's busy focusing on everything, feeling overwhelmed.
31:55
At the end of the day, when I can't do anything about solving a problem, I can put on the brakes.
32:00
I can meditate, which is the more traditional way, but I can also watch the news.
32:04
I can also go to the gym.
32:06
I can also play a video game, although that's not so good because it's addictive.
32:10
But anytime a man takes time for himself to do something challenging, takes focus, but doesn't cause stress.
32:19
That allows him to rebuild the testosterone that can be exhausted during the day.
32:24
And that was a big wake-up call for women, which is understanding men need to take time away.
32:29
It doesn't mean he doesn't love you.
32:31
It's what he's doing is rebuilding his healthy hormones so he can then now blend his female hormones that will come up whenever he's doing something for you.
32:40
See, this is what happens to men.
32:41
You can look at the...
32:43
What men have the highest testosterone levels at every age?
32:46
If you look at the big studies, now I'm an exception to that because I understand these, how to make testosterone through relationship.
32:53
But if you look at the average in America, is you look at single men at every age, like a 45-year-old man, compared to a married man, he will always have higher testosterone.
33:03
It's all about relationships that stimulates our hormones.
33:05
If you're a single guy at any age, you will have the highest testosterone levels for other men in that age category.
33:12
So a 45-year-old guy who's single will have the highest testosterone level on average.
33:18
It's averages.
33:19
Then a man who's dating a woman will have the next high.
33:23
A man who's married will now go drop lower.
33:27
A man who has children will have the lowest testosterone of that age group.
33:31
except for a grandparent.
33:32
Okay, if you're a grandparent, you have the very lowest.
33:35
And I have an example of that.
33:36
I've got five grandchildren, and one's a three-year-old.
33:40
Okay, so today I'll spend six hours, so the parents have a break, taking care of that child in the park at three years old.
33:47
Okay.
33:48
These children make you feel so much love.
33:51
You see, all that estrogen comes out, okay?
33:53
Massive estrogen that a woman's body is designed to lower stress.
33:58
If my estrogen becomes too high, it pushes my testosterone down, and the symptom for me is fatigue.
34:05
I mean, I'm sometimes like the walking dead.
34:08
After spending three hours with it.
34:10
But you know if a woman here's the difference if a woman has a man in her life Who is taking care of her not that she's a child But she's dependent on him for meaningful things in her life that will raise her estrogen so because I'm providing support for for my my wife and for my daughter whose child this is basically They feel so good because they don't have to do it all so the idea for women is that
34:36
If you're going to have children and you're designed to have children, so the hormone system is there, they need somebody outside themselves to make their life better so that they have no stress.
34:46
So that they then, in a sense, fill their love tank up.
34:49
And now they can unconditionally give their love to someone who needs their help.
34:54
That's the best thing for a woman.
34:55
It's almost as if it were designed that way.
34:59
Yeah, it's like God has some wisdom here.
35:01
It's like this perfect setup where women could have a man.
35:05
Now, we've changed all that.
35:07
And so what I do is I, with this knowledge, how can we compensate and gain more wisdom and gradually come back to a healthy kind of relationship?
35:15
Because with feminism, we just went way off the track.
35:18
Well, and that's actually, I'm going to interrupt you, John.
35:20
There's two things I want to make sure we get in here before we wrap today, because I could listen to you.
35:26
go all day.
35:27
Yeah, we could.
35:27
I want to hear your talk as well.
35:29
No, no, I love it.
35:30
I don't think I've been this quiet on a podcast in ages.
35:34
I want to touch on this because
35:36
We're living in a time that we don't even know what a woman is anymore, right?
35:40
Like we don't have a definition of a woman and all this other craziness.
35:43
You live in California.
35:44
I don't have to explain it.
35:46
But the question that I have for you on this is clearly the gender neutrality, the feminism movement, the way that you speak about the binary nature of men and women.
36:00
Now, I'm there with you, but the way that you speak about that has to come under an extraordinary amount of criticism in today's gender fluid culture.
36:13
Not even today.
36:14
In the 90s, when I became the biggest selling author in the world, the thing is I was in 45 countries, number one, and I was on the New York Times level for five years.
36:24
It's misquoted, but I mean, it was big, as you mentioned.
36:29
I never received a positive print interview that whole time.
36:35
Not only gotten criticism, not one positive print interview.
36:39
So you're made of steel.
36:40
That's how your testosterone is so high.
36:42
You're under constant criticism.
36:44
Made of steel.
36:45
One of the key factors is I take responsibility for any result in my life.
36:51
I'm never a victim.
36:52
Okay.
36:53
So that's a key thing for a man.
36:55
And one of the symptoms of a victim is complaining.
36:57
Okay.
36:58
I learned a long time ago never to emotionally complain.
37:02
And now I know the biology of it.
37:05
When a man complains, his estrogen is going up, his testosterone is going down.
37:13
It's the worst thing for a man if he wants to culture testosterone.
37:16
You can be upset, but you contain it.
37:20
And this is really the word that women are wanting more now today.
37:23
They're using the word presence if she's upset.
37:27
And I explain that women are overacting most of the time.
37:30
This is not, I never say to my wife she's overacting, but I give you the biology of it.
37:36
Even if a woman is producing adrenaline,
37:39
Adrenaline is cortisol is the high stress level.
37:42
Adrenaline is a lower stress.
37:44
And I identify it as I'm in danger, but I can handle it.
37:47
All right.
37:47
So I'm in danger, but I can handle it.
37:49
But adrenaline production is not bad.
37:51
That's more of just a triggering of the sympathetic nervous system.
37:54
That's right.
37:54
It's not a bad thing.
37:58
But men and women react differently.
37:59
The science shows under adrenaline production.
38:03
Blood flow for a man goes from the emotional part of the brain to the prefrontal cortex logical part of the brain.
38:10
So we become more detached.
38:11
Doesn't mean we're not loving.
38:13
It's just now we're going to be optimistic and solve the problem.
38:16
That's our first reaction.
38:18
Then if we're trying to solve our wife's problem and then she doesn't want to hear it and she argues with you, whatever, then we lose our optimism.
38:25
And that's where our adrenaline now will turn into cortisol.
38:29
But there's this first adrenaline response, which is very good.
38:31
It's the whole thing for men.
38:33
Hey, I got to solve a problem.
38:35
I can't worry about it.
38:36
I can't be afraid of things.
38:37
I got to get it done.
38:38
So men disconnect from the emotional part of the brain.
38:41
And their mirror neurons will close down as well.
38:44
Anytime a woman tries to blame a man for what she's feeling, he can't feel her.
38:49
It's just like it's a dead end.
38:51
You just can't blame a man expecting to feel empathy for you.
38:54
It's not going to happen.
38:56
You have to learn.
38:57
And I teach communication skills.
38:58
But here's the other side of it.
39:00
For women under moderate stress, adrenaline, blood flow stops to the logical part of the brain.
39:07
It stops.
39:07
It goes to the emotional part of the brain, which means everything she feels and thinks is somewhat illogical.
39:14
You know, it's like she's making a big deal out of this when, hey, you should be grateful you're healthy.
39:19
You should be grateful you live in America.
39:20
You should be great.
39:21
What is this little pea becoming a boulder?
39:24
And that's natural.
39:25
That's life.
39:26
You know, we have this whole defensiveness against saying women are overreacting.
39:32
Yes, they are.
39:33
We know scientifically they are.
39:34
Their brain is out of balance at that time.
39:37
And so what we have to have as men is compassion for them.
39:41
And women have to be, like, grateful that he doesn't judge me for this.
39:44
He just sees I'm temporarily out of balance, overreacting.
39:47
This is life.
39:49
Men underreact.
39:50
We underreact.
39:52
If I'm triggered, I will pull away.
39:54
I will disconnect.
39:55
I will become quiet.
39:56
I shut down temporarily.
39:58
It's all just temporary.
40:00
So, you know, I've done a good job of helping women accept that men need to go to their cave.
40:05
You know, men's cave time and all that is good.
40:08
That was the beginning of Men Are From Mars.
40:11
We still haven't gotten to the place where everybody's comfortable with the idea that when a woman is in an intimate relationship, she's going to overreact.
40:18
And it's temporary.
40:19
I explained it in my book in more simple terms.
40:22
Women are like a wave.
40:22
They're feeling good.
40:23
They will always crash.
40:25
They just go up and down, up and down.
40:27
And we can't try to stop them.
40:29
What we do is create a space for them to land without rejecting them from our point.
40:33
And they will come right back up.
40:35
And I have the biology of it, the explanation of it all.
40:38
But I want to just come back to the thing about giving, because for women, if they give, unless they're receiving, then their giving is with strings.
40:46
And when you give to a man with strings, he will always end up not being motivated.
40:51
It's when you give to a man based upon gratitude, appreciation, trust, acceptance.
40:57
These are like key words that build testosterone in men.
41:01
And then he will feel, then he will feel respected.
41:05
And of course, everybody writes about, you know, you need to respect a man.
41:08
Women can't respect a man unless she first raises his testosterone up, which is you have to appreciate what he does, accept him.
41:16
It's supposed to respect some guy who doesn't earn it.
41:19
You can't do that.
41:21
On the other side of it, how do you get a woman to respect you, appreciate you, accept you, and trust you?
41:26
She needs more estrogen.
41:28
So I've identified the major factors that raise estrogen, which is it's all about having this for women.
41:33
When they feel he cares about, I have a man who cares about me.
41:37
I have a man who has my back, a man who is there for me.
41:40
And of course, commitment is the biggest source of estrogen for women.
41:44
That's why marriage is the whole key.
41:46
It's a major stress reducer for women.
41:48
Second one is understanding because women, they all say, I need, you don't understand.
41:53
You don't understand.
41:54
It's a major need for women to be heard and understood.
41:58
I don't need to be understood so much.
42:00
Just let it go.
42:01
I don't need to talk all about it, you know, just, but she does.
42:04
See, that's how she makes estrogen is she talks about the inner crazy.
42:08
It is a little crazy.
42:10
Put it a little, not a crazy person, not a narcissistic person.
42:13
It's, this is women.
42:15
They're emotionally irrational.
42:17
when they're in an intimate relationship, not at work.
42:20
See, at work, to a great extent,
42:23
She's in adrenaline state and work almost all the time.
42:26
When women are in adrenaline state, blood flow goes to the emotional part of the brain, but it's not safe to express what she feels.
42:34
So in order to maintain being logical, and she can be really smart women out there, she can be very logical, but to do that, she has to suppress these emotional reactions, which are proven to be going on inside of her.
42:47
Now, when she gets home and she can relax, psychology tells us.
42:52
It's PTSD, basically.
42:53
As soon as you feel safe, what you suppress will start coming up.
42:57
And when it comes up, it gets displaced onto her husband or onto herself.
43:02
A lot happens for single women.
43:03
They don't have a husband to displace it on.
43:05
So they'll be, you know, my hair's not good.
43:07
My face isn't good.
43:08
My body's not good.
43:09
I don't deserve.
43:10
They get depressed.
43:10
They need to take anti-depress.
43:12
This is all because they have suppressed emotions because they don't have somebody to talk to about those emotions.
43:17
That's how women process stress.
43:20
which is talking about the irrational emotions, negative emotions.
43:24
And from my point of view, all negative emotions are irrational.
43:27
Why are they irrational?
43:29
Because I can have somebody talk about their emotions and then they feel good and the world hasn't changed.
43:34
It's a simple concept and men don't understand that.
43:38
John, I'm jumping in on you for two reasons.
43:40
One, because I wish I could record and play for you because my producer is female and I'm watching her in the corner of the screen and I'm looking for her reactions every time you say something.
43:52
So like I'm watching her reactions as you're talking about how women are irrational and so on and so forth.
43:58
So I'm enjoying that.
43:59
But I want to leave on a note.
44:02
Let me say one thing with that.
44:03
Women need permission or culture doesn't make give women permission, primarily because men don't understand women and women know this secretly.
44:12
It's amazing when I teach classes just for women only, they'll go, yeah, I feel like a crazy person sometimes.
44:19
But if the men are in the room, they won't say it.
44:21
They won't say it because they're so terrified of a man judging her for being irrational or overreacting or making a big deal out of nothing.
44:29
And clearly, as a man, even though she is, I will never say to her, honey, you're just making a big deal out of nothing, even though that's true.
44:37
Why?
44:38
Because I'm suppressing her.
44:40
She needs to get it out.
44:41
She needs the freedom to get it out.
44:43
And that's kind of what coaching and therapy is provided for people is a kind of a freedom to be a little crazy for a while and then come back to centeredness and balance and coming back to love.
44:53
I think all hate is just craziness.
44:56
All this negative emotion is just our brain is miswired in a survival state.
45:01
So we're reacting to our partner like they're a tiger about to attract us.
45:05
Are they a tiger about to kill you?
45:07
No, but we react in the same way as if a tiger was there.
45:11
That's the craziness of it.
45:13
And I'm not saying just women.
45:14
What men tend to go, if they're not on their female side, men are on their female side.
45:18
If their estrogen goes too high, then they'll have the same thing.
45:21
But if he's still on his male side.
45:23
He will shut down.
45:24
He will become detached.
45:25
He will pull away.
45:27
He will become unloving.
45:28
He can't feel his love at that time.
45:31
She can't feel her logic at that time.
45:33
He can't feel his love at that time.
45:35
Let him be in the cave and he'll come back.
45:38
The problem is if women don't understand when he comes back, he's actually dealt with it.
45:43
Because when a woman goes to her cave, she has a lot of issues to talk about.
45:47
So he comes out of the cave like, OK, everything's fine.
45:50
Forget it.
45:50
No big deal.
45:51
She goes, oh, I don't trust that.
45:53
And then when she goes into I can't trust that, he goes back into the cave.
45:57
Trusting a man that he's a good guy is the most important thing to bring out the best in a guy.
46:02
Absolutely.
46:03
John, I want to give you our last two minutes to comment on something here because being respectful of time, I mean, this has been amazing.
46:10
Like I've loved listening to you and you're just fun, but so factual and everything you're saying.
46:16
But I want you to link this to the topic of longevity because we hear about people, for instance, in blue zones throughout the world.
46:25
And, you know, they say one of the primary, you know, motivators, if you will,
46:32
relationship.
46:34
How do you see this and comment on that for me?
46:39
Well, I see that and I believe that.
46:40
I've studied the blue zones as well.
46:42
They walk.
46:43
That's a big deal.
46:44
They're not rushing around.
46:45
They have plenty of time.
46:47
That's a key factor.
46:48
Clocks is what's causing massive stress for women, particularly not men, but for women.
46:54
And when women are stressed, that causes stress for men.
46:56
So there's a...
46:58
You know, we live in this sort of rush time.
46:59
They don't.
47:00
So timing, walking, singing and eating with other people.
47:05
This is the whole thing.
47:06
And of course, good food is more natural food is better.
47:09
But those are the key components that lower our stress.
47:13
Okay, stress is the number one killer of who we are.
47:17
A chronic stress will cause us to live shorter lives.
47:20
And this has been documented, that men with lower testosterone levels, for example, have shorter lives.
47:26
And that men who live long, healthy lives, they have normal testosterone levels.
47:31
I don't want to say high testosterone levels because I think high is normal.
47:34
Okay.
47:35
But as testosterone descends, your capacity to live longer is shortened.
47:40
Theoretically, you're supposed to live to 120 years, but you just see this huge cascade of testosterone going down.
47:46
And a big part of testosterone not going down for me is regular sex.
47:50
Okay.
47:51
So I have to maintain that attraction with my partner and regular sex is making love for me.
47:56
That's how it gets sustained is that, you know,
47:59
If sex does not enrich your life with love, your body will lose interest in it after a while.
48:04
That's just the reality.
48:06
And what I mean by love, it's not just loving your partner like a roommate or loving your partner like a child.
48:13
It's magnetic attraction.
48:15
And it's not that I feel magnetic attraction all the time.
48:18
I feel love for my wife all the time.
48:20
And I just want to give a picture for this.
48:22
I'm not this horny guy walking around thinking about sex all the time.
48:24
I'm free of that.
48:26
But when I get into bed with my wife, then it happens.
48:29
And it happens all the time.
48:31
I know one guy was a famous guy who's 81 years old.
48:34
He's giving a talk and he said...
48:37
He said, I have sex almost every day.
48:39
Almost every day I have sex.
48:42
And that was his point.
48:43
Almost.
48:43
He doesn't actually have it.
48:45
For me, I do have it.
48:46
Okay.
48:46
And it's because of the polarity.
48:48
And if the polarity wasn't there, we could still love each other.
48:51
And I...
48:52
A lot of couples do live long lives and they're very content and loving with each other.
48:56
I'm expecting a little bit longer, keeping my testosterone levels higher and my stress levels lower.
49:02
Very important.
49:03
And what I haven't touched, I'll just mention one other thing, is I do meditate every day.
49:08
I think having a good meditation practice, cave time, particularly for a guy, is...
49:12
I think for women, if they learn dancing and singing and do loving things, that's more important than meditation.
49:18
But meditation for women who are way on their male side can help them relax their male side, but then come back to their female side.
49:25
That's the key for women is things that produce estrogen.
49:28
They're very important.
49:30
And we've talked plenty on this show about nervous system regulation, which a lot of what you're talking about with cortisol levels, lifting and stress hormones and everything else taking place is a nervous system.
49:42
It's that fight or flight, as you're talking about, living in that sympathetic nervous system and not being able to downregulate meditation, breathing exercises, sometimes just grounding.
49:51
Yeah.
49:52
And shutting the world out for a moment.
49:55
Yes, yes, yes.
49:57
And I also do the breathing exercise.
49:59
I love the...
50:00
I'm sure.
50:01
Yeah, I do the... That's a big part of before I meditate, I'll do the breathing exercise and I'll do some yoga postures as well.
50:07
I do some exercises.
50:08
Absolutely.
50:09
Absolutely.
50:09
No, I think that's amazing.
50:11
John, it has been awesome talking to you and listening to you talk about these topics because you're spot on with the stuff that you're talking about.
50:18
And I love to see that a book and I'll arguably say a theory back from the 90s that became a global success.
50:28
You're an icon in pop culture.
50:32
But now you've taken this and moved it into the world of physiology.
50:37
And I love that you're not just theorizing relationships in a pop culture way, but you're almost unpacking them into a physiological realm.
50:47
that I think that the world right now in this functional medicine, this functional biology, now that the longevity movement is really taking hold in a lot of parts of not just the country, but the world, the fact that you're talking about hormone regulation, the fact that you're talking about these types of physiological normalcies that have to be created, and it's not relationships lead to good health.
51:13
It's not that health leads to good relationships.
51:15
It's all of that.
51:17
that we are integrated as humans.
51:21
And we're not just integrated within ourselves.
51:24
We're integrated amongst ourselves as well.
51:27
Yeah, mind, body, spirit, and relationship.
51:31
Relationship is a key factor here as well.
51:34
And I think you're adding in the fourth dimension to much of what I talk about.
51:38
That is, we are mind, we are body, we are spirit, right?
51:41
We are theology, we are physiology, we are psychology.
51:46
but we are also just people living in community.
51:50
And that fourth layer of community, it doesn't matter how integrated an individual is within himself, he must also be integrated within the community, right?
52:00
Like that's find your tribe kind of logic.
52:03
And I think that is that fourth dimension that so many people are missing.
52:07
It's that need for connectedness.
52:10
And I would arguably say not just connectedness with one other person,
52:14
but connectedness in community in general, that the romantic relationship with one.
52:20
I love what you're saying.
52:21
And what I would kind of make a differentiation is it's, it's intimate relationship and community as two different layers.
52:29
Another dimension, I think intimate relationship and then community as another layer, intimate relationship, family, because you've got to have your little tribe and based on the love and support of a little tribe, then you can go out to the bigger tribe.
52:41
And I think a lot of people are just, you know, in the bigger tribe, but they're ignoring the real source of our big lessons is our intimate relationships.
52:49
You know, I don't need an intimate relationship.
52:51
I don't need to be there.
52:51
And that's people's choices.
52:52
I'm not against that.
52:53
But I think they're in denial of a very important need that we have as human beings.
52:58
And particularly for longevity, keeping those hormones to the male-female interaction is very powerful for that goal.
53:06
Agreed.
53:07
Agreed.
53:07
John, thank you so much for joining us today on Age Defiantly.
53:11
You've just listened to John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, and most recently, Beyond Mars and Venus, It Was Hormones All Along.
53:23
And I love the connection he makes in that integrated mind, body, spirit within a person, but also reaching out beyond just the individual and actually focusing on the relationships and community that we have to build in order to be integrated, healthy people.
53:40
John, I can't thank you enough for joining us here today.
53:43
Looking forward to watching this episode.
53:46
Look for John's contact information and links to all of his books below in the show notes.
53:50
And we will see you again soon on Age Defiably.