Latest / The You Project / #1759 Hyper-Focus - David Gillespie

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#1759 Hyper-Focus - David Gillespie · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get Agarouba's welcome to another installing the new project.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's it's bloody twenty twenty five. That's what it is.
0:06
Speaker 1: It's bloody twenty twenty five. It's January one, and only
0:10
Speaker 1: losers would record a podcast on January one, on New
0:15
Speaker 1: Year's Day. And the three losers today are David Gillespie,
0:18
Speaker 1: Tiffany and called Craig Anthony Harper.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hello, Tiv, I'm a winner, mate, I'm a winner. Hello,
0:24
Speaker 2: Well you are a winner. Dave's winner too, call him Dave.
0:28
Speaker 1: I feel like, no, I'm not a big fan of
0:31
Speaker 1: me called Dave.
0:31
Speaker 3: People do call me that and I never correct them.
0:33
Speaker 1: But I'm correcting. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not a fan,
0:38
Speaker 1: I don't, you know. To all the Daves, I apologize.
0:40
Speaker 1: But if I was David, I would rather be called David.
0:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I think it's always a good
0:45
Speaker 3: idea to pay attend to what people call themselves. You know,
0:48
Speaker 3: if I run around saying introducing myself as Dave, then
0:51
Speaker 3: feel free to call me Dave.
0:52
Speaker 1: But I never did, right, right. I think that's probably
0:55
Speaker 1: a good rule of thumb. I think that's probably a
0:57
Speaker 1: good social kind of to tick, so you pay attention
1:01
Speaker 1: to what people call it. A tiff.
1:04
Speaker 3: For example, I call Tiff, and I'm not certain that's
1:06
Speaker 3: right because on her screen she has Tiffany.
1:10
Speaker 2: I was just thinking this. I introduced myself as Tiffany,
1:13
Speaker 2: but I prefer most people call me Tiff, and I've
1:16
Speaker 2: just started changing things to tiff, like in written form.
1:22
Speaker 1: What is that? That's because I mean, you do have
1:25
Speaker 1: a very fancy spelling of your name, which is two
1:29
Speaker 1: e's on the end. I don't know that fancy.
1:31
Speaker 2: I am very fancy.
1:33
Speaker 1: You're about as fancy as a fucking ug boot. That's
1:35
Speaker 1: how fancy you are.
1:37
Speaker 2: You know that my Motorbix called Emily with two e's
1:40
Speaker 2: on the end.
1:40
Speaker 1: Now of course, Oh wow, we're anthropomorphizing our vehicles, now,
1:48
Speaker 1: are we? Although my mum has done. All of her
1:50
Speaker 1: cars have had names, and they've all been girl cars,
1:53
Speaker 1: so I can't say I'm unfamiliar. What's that?
1:57
Speaker 2: My first car was Lucy.
1:59
Speaker 3: I can't. I've heard a lot of people name their cars.
2:02
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever heard anyone give their current
2:04
Speaker 3: a man's name. You don't think people referring to their currents.
2:08
Speaker 1: That's Steve, that's that's Brian the Honda accord. It doesn't
2:16
Speaker 1: really roll off the tongue, does it. I wonder what
2:21
Speaker 1: that is. There's some research for you before we talk
2:24
Speaker 1: about who the fuck knows what without giving away any
2:28
Speaker 1: family secrets or revealing any data that you don't want to.
2:32
Speaker 1: What's news even news day look like in the Gillespie
2:35
Speaker 1: household or for the remaining members?
2:40
Speaker 3: Well, the remaining members were just my wife and I yesterday,
2:43
Speaker 3: because you know, with adult children, they've all got something
2:46
Speaker 3: much better and cooler to do than hang around with
2:48
Speaker 3: their parents. And yeah, so you know, we're just at
2:54
Speaker 3: the beach, went down, caught the fireworks that are on
2:57
Speaker 3: the beach, and today I'm mostly sitting around doing nothing,
3:02
Speaker 3: which is my idea of a good time.
3:04
Speaker 1: Well, accuble you write, is this a book we already
3:08
Speaker 1: know about? Or yeah, I know that's the one we
3:10
Speaker 1: already know about. That's the one about adhd Yep. What's
3:13
Speaker 1: the what's the ETA on publication for that? I don't know.
3:18
Speaker 3: It really depends, really depends what the publisher thinks of
3:21
Speaker 3: this manuscript. But we'll see how we go.
3:25
Speaker 1: Surely by that now they just go, yeah, whatever, we're
3:28
Speaker 1: going to publish it. It's not like you.
3:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I like to see a manuscript to know,
3:33
Speaker 3: you know, where in the year it's going to be published,
3:36
Speaker 3: you know, all that marketing year.
3:38
Speaker 1: Is this the one that is that you're building around stories?
3:44
Speaker 3: No, that was the last one I wrote, which was
3:46
Speaker 3: the one about the stories about psycho And yeah, I
3:52
Speaker 3: know that one is the one in the market at
3:54
Speaker 3: the moment. And now this one is more about talking
3:59
Speaker 3: about what a lot of people are describing as ADHD,
4:02
Speaker 3: which is lack of focus and you know, the massive
4:05
Speaker 3: increase in diagnosis of adult ADHD and all that sort
4:10
Speaker 3: of thing, and looking at you know, what's causing that.
4:14
Speaker 3: And we've talked about bits and pieces of this a
4:16
Speaker 3: lot over time, but more importantly talking about what to
4:21
Speaker 3: do about it other than take drugs.
4:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is I mean? Well, this wasn't where we're going,
4:28
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter where we go. It's newsday. What
4:31
Speaker 1: are the common misconceptions around ADHD?
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Speaker 3: I think one of the really common ones is that
4:40
Speaker 3: you're born with it and there's nothing you can do
4:41
Speaker 3: about it, you know, you know, it's just the way
4:44
Speaker 3: I was born.
4:45
Speaker 1: But that's just nonsense. It really is.
4:49
Speaker 3: For the vast majority of ADHD cases, or at least
4:53
Speaker 3: the things being diagnosed as ADHD. The rates the rates
4:58
Speaker 3: of this condition have gone through the roof, The rates
5:02
Speaker 3: of diagnosis of drugs for this condition have gone through
5:05
Speaker 3: the roof. If it's something that people are born with,
5:10
Speaker 3: then it's a pretty weird thing that suddenly the incidence
5:13
Speaker 3: of it is changing really dramatically. So but the alternative
5:20
Speaker 3: to that that's often put about is well, if you're
5:23
Speaker 3: not born with it, then I guess these people are
5:25
Speaker 3: imagining it, or they're wroarding the health system in some way,
5:29
Speaker 3: or you know, or it's just being made up. I
5:31
Speaker 3: don't think that's true either. I think the incidence is
5:34
Speaker 3: actually increasing very rapidly. But the cause of it is
5:39
Speaker 3: not a birth defect. It's what we're doing in our society,
5:44
Speaker 3: which is a combination of and massively increase addiction.
5:51
Speaker 1: And what about Do you think that nutrition plays a
5:54
Speaker 1: role in ADHD incidents or the prevalence or the growth
5:59
Speaker 1: in ADHD diagnoses.
6:02
Speaker 3: I think a partial role, in the sense that sugar
6:05
Speaker 3: addiction is definitely an underlying base layer to what a
6:12
Speaker 3: lot of people ultimately become addicted to. So yes, part
6:17
Speaker 3: of fixing this without drugs is removing sugar, but other
6:22
Speaker 3: aside from that.
6:23
Speaker 1: Now, I feel like, and this is not research anyone,
6:27
Speaker 1: and probably inaccurate, but I feel like for some people
6:31
Speaker 1: their inability to focus to concentrate is somewhat task or
6:37
Speaker 1: context dependent. I feel like, you know, for me, there
6:41
Speaker 1: are some things that I really struggle to like. Even
6:44
Speaker 1: with my research, there are bits of it where I'm like,
6:47
Speaker 1: I cannot like reading a paper that doesn't really interest
6:52
Speaker 1: me naturally interests me right versus I'm doing a thing
6:55
Speaker 1: at the moment called a risk of bias assessment for
6:57
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten papers. I've got this eight step protocol.
7:00
Speaker 1: It sounds horribly boring, but today I did nearly four
7:03
Speaker 1: hours of it and I was completely engrossed and immersed.
7:06
Speaker 1: And I looked up and it was four hours, and
7:07
Speaker 1: I went, where did that go? I feel like, with
7:11
Speaker 1: certain tasks or in certain capacities, I have amazing focus
7:16
Speaker 1: and concentration, and with other tasks or in other perhaps settings,
7:21
Speaker 1: not zero but you know, way less.
7:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, look absolutely, I mean, And part of the key
7:28
Speaker 3: to fixing what's being described as ADHD is to find
7:33
Speaker 3: those areas of what I'm calling in the book hyper focus,
7:37
Speaker 3: which is I think I think we're all capable of
7:40
Speaker 3: hyper focus, as you say, if you find the right thing,
7:44
Speaker 3: we're all capable of hyperfocus. The troublers at the moment.
7:48
Speaker 3: The easy thing to direct. Hyper focus is usually an
7:52
Speaker 3: addictive behavior. So people have the experience you just described
7:56
Speaker 3: when they're playing computer games, so they're intensely focused on it,
8:01
Speaker 3: they're un'ntable to leave it alone, and then they look
8:05
Speaker 3: up and you know, before you know it, four hours
8:07
Speaker 3: has gone by, which is of course part of the
8:09
Speaker 3: reason why they don't have clocks and casinos and why
8:11
Speaker 3: they don't have clocks on screen in computer games. So yes,
8:16
Speaker 3: there's a hyper focus, and it's both part of the
8:19
Speaker 3: cause of the problem if it's sent in the wrong direction,
8:23
Speaker 3: and I say, the cure of the problem. So you know,
8:28
Speaker 3: my preliminary title for this book is hyper focused, and
8:32
Speaker 3: it's you know, how to get more done in less time?
8:36
Speaker 3: And or the subtitle love come up with, and none.
8:40
Speaker 1: Of these will be kept by the publisher because they
8:41
Speaker 1: always hate. My marketing ideas.
8:44
Speaker 3: Is you know how to focus like it's nineteen ninety
8:48
Speaker 3: and that that's what I propose as part of the cure,
8:54
Speaker 3: which is find the thing that isn't addictive creates that
8:59
Speaker 3: state of high focus.
9:01
Speaker 1: Yes, that is I mean obviously it sounds simple. It
9:06
Speaker 1: can be both simple and difficult. But yeah, like if
9:09
Speaker 1: you could find that thing that can get somebody in
9:11
Speaker 1: that state of where they are focused, they are byper
9:15
Speaker 1: focused perhaps.
9:16
Speaker 3: But I'll make a guess about you and this research
9:21
Speaker 3: you were doing. When you got to the end of
9:24
Speaker 3: that four hours, did you feel you know, enlivened, supercharged
9:30
Speaker 3: or did you feel exhausted?
9:32
Speaker 1: I felt fucking great. And it's funny because I am
9:36
Speaker 1: not the best student, right, there's a shock, But when
9:41
Speaker 1: I'm learning something I want to learn, Like when I
9:44
Speaker 1: say I'm not, I'm probably actually quite a good student
9:48
Speaker 1: in certain capacities and environments. But in the traditional traditional
9:52
Speaker 1: academia kind of or academic setting and academic kind of processes,
9:59
Speaker 1: some of them they just do my head in because
10:01
Speaker 1: they're so pointless and inefficient, as you well know, right, no,
10:06
Speaker 1: go on, you can, yeah, but I've you know, there
10:09
Speaker 1: are some things where it took me a while to
10:11
Speaker 1: understand this particular thing that I have to do in analyzing.
10:16
Speaker 1: Sorry everyone for boring you. But this is just my day,
10:19
Speaker 1: the risk of bias assessment for all of these individual
10:23
Speaker 1: way that individual studies were done, and it's like one
10:26
Speaker 1: paper sometimes got six studies, so you've got to do
10:28
Speaker 1: six analysis or assessments in one paper. And you know, anyway,
10:34
Speaker 1: but I've kind of got into a rhythm and I've
10:37
Speaker 1: figured it out and I'm clear about what I'm doing,
10:40
Speaker 1: So my confidence has gone up my output. Like it
10:43
Speaker 1: was taking me one hour to do one paper, and
10:48
Speaker 1: you know, now I'm doing depending on how many studies
10:51
Speaker 1: are in each paper, but I might do three, four
10:53
Speaker 1: or five in an hour. It depends. But with that,
10:56
Speaker 1: you know, and so yeah, I guess too, when you
11:00
Speaker 1: feel like you're competent at something or you're actually making
11:03
Speaker 1: ground or for me anyway, there's a lot more joy
11:07
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah.
11:09
Speaker 3: Look, and I think what you just described is exactly
11:13
Speaker 3: the way someone who can play a musical instrument well feels.
11:18
Speaker 1: After they have a session.
11:19
Speaker 3: So they go and they play the instrument for an
11:21
Speaker 3: hour or whatever, and they experience that hyper focus and
11:25
Speaker 3: then at the end of it they feel real euphoria,
11:29
Speaker 3: like someone's giving them drugs. It's not a grind. Whereas
11:34
Speaker 3: for me. If I tried to do that, I wouldn't
11:36
Speaker 3: feel euphoria. I'd feel extreme frustration because I can't play
11:40
Speaker 3: a musical instrument very well at all, and it's a
11:45
Speaker 3: grind for me. So you've got to find the area
11:48
Speaker 3: of hyperfocus. Your story actually reminded me of the way
11:53
Speaker 3: I did university, at least my undergraduate degree is. And
11:57
Speaker 3: I was often laughed at for this, but it was
12:00
Speaker 3: the only way I could do it. I never went
12:02
Speaker 3: to a lecture. This is back in the days when
12:05
Speaker 3: you were supposed to go to lectures and they can
12:07
Speaker 3: record them, and the only way to find out what
12:09
Speaker 3: happened at a lecture was to go to it, and
12:13
Speaker 3: I never did because I found that an extremely low
12:16
Speaker 3: bandwidth way to get information and it usually just put
12:20
Speaker 3: me to sleep. So, and this was in the days
12:24
Speaker 3: when they used to assess things with sort of seriously
12:27
Speaker 3: long exams at the end of a year. So year's
12:29
Speaker 3: worth of lectures with a really long exam at the
12:32
Speaker 3: end of it, and that was it. And I determined
12:35
Speaker 3: that the only real way that I could learn anything
12:39
Speaker 3: was to do nothing all year, and then in the
12:44
Speaker 3: two weeks prior to the exam, essentially cram the entire
12:49
Speaker 3: textbook usually written by the lecturer. So that's probably what
12:52
Speaker 3: the lecture lectures were about and hope for the best.
13:00
Speaker 3: But in that period that two weeks, that was two
13:04
Speaker 3: weeks of hyper focus. That was like really really disciplined.
13:09
Speaker 3: You read for two hours, then you take a break,
13:12
Speaker 3: and then you read for another two hours and then
13:13
Speaker 3: you take a break.
13:14
Speaker 1: You know. So it was done that way. So I
13:17
Speaker 1: want to know, by the way, kids don't do what
13:21
Speaker 1: David did it. Now I've seen my kids in university.
13:24
Speaker 1: You couldn't do it. They've got NonStop assessments and sign
13:29
Speaker 1: and all that, you know.
13:31
Speaker 3: They university is a lot more like high school these
13:34
Speaker 3: days and the way it's conducted.
13:37
Speaker 1: So when I did my first degree, which was one
13:39
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, but you know, so anatomy and physiology
13:42
Speaker 1: and biomechanics and energy systems and all the stuff that
13:45
Speaker 1: you actually have to commit to memory. You know, it's
13:49
Speaker 1: like because you're being assessed on functional anatomy. So we
13:52
Speaker 1: have this like a myriad of books. But where I
13:55
Speaker 1: would read the book, I'd kind of skim it and
13:58
Speaker 1: then I'd highlight the stuff that I thought I needed
14:00
Speaker 1: to know I'd do that for every chapter, and then
14:05
Speaker 1: I would record on CDs, right or floppy discs or whatever.
14:10
Speaker 1: I would record the stuff that I'd highlighted, and then
14:15
Speaker 1: I would play that in my car NonStop. You know.
14:18
Speaker 1: So I'd say, so there's there's four quad muscles, you know,
14:21
Speaker 1: rectis femeris.
14:23
Speaker 3: You know. Is that what you do when you don't
14:24
Speaker 3: have friends at university?
14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly, that is it inserts into the bloody patella tendon,
14:30
Speaker 1: which inserts into the tibi l tu vorosity or whatever
14:33
Speaker 1: it is. Right, I remembered it. I've remembered it. But
14:36
Speaker 1: I would just memorize all this shit. But then so
14:40
Speaker 1: it took me a while to download it. But then
14:44
Speaker 1: nearly everything that I memorized for exams back in the day,
14:48
Speaker 1: nearly everything I cannot get out of my head. Like, yeah,
14:52
Speaker 1: but once I learn, like I'm a slow learner, but
14:55
Speaker 1: once it's learned, I almost never unlearn it.
14:58
Speaker 3: I once saw us some research somewhere about that audio
15:03
Speaker 3: learning methodology, and I've tried it a few times myself,
15:06
Speaker 3: and it kind of works. And I think the research
15:08
Speaker 3: said you have to hear something seven times and really
15:12
Speaker 3: focus on it, listen to it seven times and then
15:16
Speaker 3: it will be memorized. So when I've really needed to
15:20
Speaker 3: memorize something, I sort of incantation seven.
15:24
Speaker 1: Yeah right, and it seems to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah almost. Yeah.
15:29
Speaker 1: I used to create stories around shit so I could
15:35
Speaker 1: or But this is different, but similar Like with people's names,
15:40
Speaker 1: if it was a difficult name, I've think of something
15:43
Speaker 1: that's you know, like a town or a place or
15:45
Speaker 1: a car or whatever, and I'd associate that image with
15:49
Speaker 1: that person. So even if I had no idea of
15:55
Speaker 1: what their name was, just looking at them, I could
15:59
Speaker 1: recall this image or this whatever association and then I
16:03
Speaker 1: would know from that because I couldn't remember their name,
16:06
Speaker 1: but I could remember the image that I had in
16:08
Speaker 1: my mind that I associated with that person.
16:11
Speaker 3: What's the image you've got in your mind for Tiffany.
16:15
Speaker 1: Well, for tiff, I've just got an ug boot for you.
16:19
Speaker 1: I've got the David and you know which is well,
16:25
Speaker 1: thank you, I think, which is maybe I don't know
16:30
Speaker 1: if you should be that platted It's right, I don't know.
16:34
Speaker 1: So so have you got any I mean, without giving
16:37
Speaker 1: away the book, because we're all going to buy. The
16:39
Speaker 1: book is going to be called hyper Focus.
16:41
Speaker 3: And probably not, because you know, when a publisher's marketing
16:46
Speaker 3: department gets these things.
16:47
Speaker 1: I haven't had one yet. I've read.
16:49
Speaker 3: I've written fourteen books and that have been published by publishers,
16:53
Speaker 3: and not one of them has come out with the
16:56
Speaker 3: same title I gave it.
16:58
Speaker 1: Tiff, can you look that up and see if there's
16:59
Speaker 1: a book called Hyperfocus? Please please idea. Yeah, let's check that.
17:04
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that's a book. Well,
17:07
Speaker 1: every time I come up with a new title, I'm like, yeah,
17:10
Speaker 1: that's that's that's already there, is it there, Tiff.
17:14
Speaker 2: And someone Chris Bailey, Chris Bailey.
17:19
Speaker 1: Give us a snapshot, give us a little bit of
17:21
Speaker 1: a give us a snapshot of that, or a byline
17:23
Speaker 1: of what that book's about.
17:25
Speaker 2: Hyperfocus is a practical guy. Me, yeah, let me let
17:31
Speaker 2: me open the link. Hyperfocus had to be more productive
17:35
Speaker 2: in a world of distraction. Guide to managing your attention
17:39
Speaker 2: the most powerful resource you have to get stuff done,
17:42
Speaker 2: become more creative, and live a meaningful life.
17:46
Speaker 1: That sounds way too fluffy for Giles. More science. He
17:51
Speaker 1: will be a lot more research based respect to that guy,
17:55
Speaker 1: But it's ye. Dave published Tiffany.
18:00
Speaker 2: When was it published eighteen?
18:03
Speaker 1: Old school? Old school up today today? That's historic, that's
18:08
Speaker 1: pre covid, because that is that even real anymore it's
18:12
Speaker 1: in the stone, then it's not going to be called
18:15
Speaker 1: hyper focus. Are there any tips that you might share
18:21
Speaker 1: with us for not necessarily exploring the realm of the
18:24
Speaker 1: hyper but becoming just more focused and more what's the
18:31
Speaker 1: word effective at managing our attention in general? Well?
18:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, like one of them is exactly the one you described,
18:38
Speaker 3: which is to find that thing. And for many people
18:43
Speaker 3: do have a thing like that, whatever it is, for
18:47
Speaker 3: a lot of people at sport, and that's perfectly fine too.
18:50
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be an intellectual thing. It just
18:52
Speaker 3: has to be something that when you're doing it, the
18:56
Speaker 3: world passes you by entirely, where you're one hundred percent
18:59
Speaker 3: focus on that thing.
19:01
Speaker 1: Yes, and.
19:04
Speaker 3: You finish doing it whatever amount of time it takes,
19:06
Speaker 3: preferably at least an hour, and you come out of
19:09
Speaker 3: it almost euphoric from having devoted your entire attention to that.
19:14
Speaker 3: And the reason for that is that doing that causes
19:17
Speaker 3: the brain to produce a significant.
19:20
Speaker 1: Quantity of dopamine.
19:23
Speaker 3: More probably consistently than even pursuing things which are addictive
19:28
Speaker 3: that would normally produce dopamine spikes, and in essence, what
19:32
Speaker 3: this is is sort of like a method owned treatment
19:36
Speaker 3: for addiction in the sense what you're trying to do
19:39
Speaker 3: is generate homemade dopamine and to do that using things
19:48
Speaker 3: that also have other benefits to your life.
19:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, so home dopamine, that sounds like a good recipe.
19:55
Speaker 3: Well, all dopa means homemade. But this is self generated,
19:59
Speaker 3: I guess is a better way.
20:01
Speaker 1: It's not externally generated.
20:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and so you know, people might know of
20:06
Speaker 3: the concept of the runners high. For example, people talk
20:09
Speaker 3: about the runners high and they're so into running that
20:15
Speaker 3: they can't even miss a day, like you know, you
20:17
Speaker 3: know about it. For people who go to the gym,
20:18
Speaker 3: there are people who will really just get quite upset
20:21
Speaker 3: if they if they miss a regular gym session that
20:25
Speaker 3: they're they're keen on going to. And that's not everyone
20:28
Speaker 3: by every stretch. I mean, gyms make their money out
20:31
Speaker 3: of the rest of the population, which are the ones
20:32
Speaker 3: who buy memberships and go twice and then never go again.
20:36
Speaker 3: But there are people who very much get their value
20:38
Speaker 3: for money out of the gym because they can't miss
20:41
Speaker 3: a day, and they are in essence addicted to that
20:44
Speaker 3: dopamine rush they get from doing that intensely focused exercise.
20:50
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you say this. There's a I'll
20:53
Speaker 1: just say a young man at once, say his age,
20:55
Speaker 1: and I'll definitely not say his name. We'll call him.
20:58
Speaker 1: We'll call him Johane. It's not John. But I literally
21:01
Speaker 1: had a meeting with this young man two days ago,
21:04
Speaker 1: sitting in my garden about twenty feet from where I'm talking,
21:07
Speaker 1: and nobody knows what I'm talking about, so I can
21:10
Speaker 1: say this bit. He has significant body dysmorphia. He's completely
21:17
Speaker 1: obsessed with exercise and managing his food and all of
21:22
Speaker 1: these things like lovely dude, really good dude, but yeah
21:27
Speaker 1: and that and very smart, like he knows, he knows
21:32
Speaker 1: what he should be doing, but there's so much fear
21:34
Speaker 1: and anxiety. Like he trains twice a day, Like he
21:38
Speaker 1: has a full time job, an important job, smart, makes
21:41
Speaker 1: lots to do. He has to train twice a day.
21:45
Speaker 1: And I said to him, like, we have this whole
21:48
Speaker 1: chat and me, I've been borderline body dysmorphic over the
21:52
Speaker 1: years with stuff and all the Craig harba bullshit. But
21:55
Speaker 1: I said to him, all the starting point is that
21:57
Speaker 1: you just train once a day and just terror. I go, so,
22:03
Speaker 1: there's what you're comfortable to do, and there's the thing
22:05
Speaker 1: that you know you should probably do, right, And he goes, yeah,
22:08
Speaker 1: I know. And I said, look, you know, whatever you're
22:11
Speaker 1: going to do, you're going to do so this I mean,
22:13
Speaker 1: this thing it's actually you know, some people call it
22:17
Speaker 1: athletic andsa, this predisposition, or this addiction to not being
22:22
Speaker 1: able to even have a fucking day off.
22:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is an addiction, and it's a very real one.
22:30
Speaker 3: And he reacted exactly the same way that an addict
22:33
Speaker 3: would react who was an addict to anything else. So
22:37
Speaker 3: you go up to a fourteen year old gamer and say, yeah,
22:40
Speaker 3: look you're gaming eight hours a day. I want you
22:43
Speaker 3: to cut back to four. You get a similar reaction. Yes,
22:46
Speaker 3: and yeah. The real question is is the addiction doing harm?
22:53
Speaker 3: Is it impairing him in the rest of his life,
22:57
Speaker 3: you know? Or is it something that he can control
23:00
Speaker 3: and healthy manage?
23:02
Speaker 1: You know?
23:02
Speaker 3: Those are the they're the questions you've got to ask.
23:05
Speaker 3: I mean, because it just because it's an otherwise considered
23:09
Speaker 3: healthy thing to do to generate dopamine, like going to
23:12
Speaker 3: the gym, doesn't mean that if you take it to
23:16
Speaker 3: the extreme, it's any less potentially harmful for you than
23:19
Speaker 3: any other addiction.
23:20
Speaker 1: That is correct. And the amount of stress and anxiety
23:23
Speaker 1: he has, you know, he is under recovered, he's overtrained,
23:30
Speaker 1: he is undernourished.
23:33
Speaker 3: But that's the kind of thing that addiction does. I mean,
23:36
Speaker 3: addiction wouldn't matter that much if there weren't consequences in
23:39
Speaker 3: the sense that you know. I mean, you could say, oh, well,
23:43
Speaker 3: there are consequences for being a smoking addict. You die
23:47
Speaker 3: of lung cancer, okay, But those are consequences of the
23:51
Speaker 3: addiction delivery mechanism, the cigarette. If the only problem of
23:56
Speaker 3: addiction was that, then you'd say, okay, well, then we
23:58
Speaker 3: just put you on nicote patches and you're all good.
24:00
Speaker 3: You can load up on them for the rest of
24:01
Speaker 3: your life. You'll be at it, you'll be an addict
24:03
Speaker 3: to them. But who cares? It matters because addiction comes
24:09
Speaker 3: with a whole load of extra things, which essentially account
24:13
Speaker 3: for probably ninety percent of what we call mental ill health.
24:19
Speaker 3: You know, it cascades once you've got that addiction state
24:23
Speaker 3: in your brain. You've changed your tolerance level for dopamines
24:26
Speaker 3: so high that you need these hits all the time,
24:29
Speaker 3: which it sounds like this fellow has. Then that level,
24:34
Speaker 3: that delaposs B level is so high that you are anxious, paranoid,
24:41
Speaker 3: potentially psychotic, and if it goes further, ultimately schizophrenic and
24:46
Speaker 3: probably depressed all at the same time and ADHD when
24:50
Speaker 3: you're not at the gym. So it's all of that
24:55
Speaker 3: stuff which makes addiction matter. It isn't the addiction itself.
25:00
Speaker 3: And if you add all of that stuff up, you've
25:03
Speaker 3: just named ninety percent of the DSM.
25:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And you know what else is
25:09
Speaker 1: interesting is in the middle of all of this stuff,
25:13
Speaker 1: like people who are have this kind of an addiction
25:18
Speaker 1: that revolves around a lot around appearance. You know, there's emotional, psychological, sociological,
25:25
Speaker 1: physiological variables and factors that all that shit, right, But
25:29
Speaker 1: I said to him, so, doing all the stuff that
25:32
Speaker 1: you do, all the rituals, all the you know, everything
25:35
Speaker 1: you know, does it make you happy? And he's like, Noah,
25:40
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, but nonetheless can't stop.
25:44
Speaker 3: All that I suspected you asked him a slightly different question,
25:48
Speaker 3: you get a different answer, which is if you asked him,
25:52
Speaker 3: when you are at the gym, when you are doing
25:55
Speaker 3: this and you're having a good workout, yeah, you feel normal.
26:00
Speaker 3: And I think the answer to that would be yes.
26:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:03
Speaker 3: I think he'd probably say it's the only time I
26:06
Speaker 3: feel normal, which is why it's so distressing for him
26:10
Speaker 3: to hear you say he needs to do less of it.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know the answer to the
26:19
Speaker 1: next and final question I have for you. But I
26:24
Speaker 1: was telling tip before I did an interview today with
26:26
Speaker 1: the ABC, which they the ABC seem to ring me
26:29
Speaker 1: every New Year to talk to me about New Years resolutions,
26:33
Speaker 1: the efficacy thereof or lack of. Are you a I'm
26:38
Speaker 1: guessing no, But are you in New Year's resolution type
26:41
Speaker 1: of person? No?
26:44
Speaker 3: What's the point of making a resolution you're going to
26:45
Speaker 3: break with twenty four hours?
26:48
Speaker 1: I'm shocked. Well, they actually did a you know, a
26:53
Speaker 1: somewhat pointless study. It's I think it was Birmingham University
26:56
Speaker 1: or Brighton University in anyway, it was like eighty eight
26:59
Speaker 1: percent of people don't achieve what they set out. So
27:03
Speaker 1: I was surprised that that number wasn't higher I would
27:07
Speaker 1: have thought it would be close to one hundred of people.
27:11
Speaker 1: I would have thought, I mean people who go right
27:14
Speaker 1: January one, this is what I'm doing. And you know,
27:16
Speaker 1: when you think about I would say virtually everyone who
27:19
Speaker 1: sets a resolution wants that change to be permanent. Like
27:23
Speaker 1: no one says I want to get in shape for
27:25
Speaker 1: seven weeks, right, everyone says I want to be whatever
27:29
Speaker 1: it is, fit, a healthier, leaner, more productive, you know,
27:32
Speaker 1: smoke lesson I.
27:34
Speaker 3: Reckon the other twelve percent of the lawyers, you know,
27:36
Speaker 3: I you know where there there's a there's an asterisk
27:39
Speaker 3: after the resolution, you know, like I want to drink
27:42
Speaker 3: less asterisk without definitions of what you're drinking before and
27:45
Speaker 3: what you're planning to drink next.
27:47
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sure there's a couple of loopholes in there
27:50
Speaker 1: for the legal brethren and sister and hey mate, thanks
27:56
Speaker 1: for thanks for chatting with us. Are you when are
27:59
Speaker 1: you going to I mean, are you working like your
28:03
Speaker 1: work's not a normal job anyway? Well, you do do
28:05
Speaker 1: a normal job, but when are you back to your proper,
28:08
Speaker 1: real grown up job?
28:09
Speaker 2: Next?
28:09
Speaker 1: Next Monday? Next Monday. I take a couple of weeks
28:12
Speaker 1: off for Christmas.
28:12
Speaker 3: And try and get some serious writing done. Hey, just
28:15
Speaker 3: out of curiosity, what were we going to talk about today?
28:19
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how Australia never runs out
28:21
Speaker 1: of money or how.
28:22
Speaker 3: They go We're going to do We've got to do
28:25
Speaker 3: that because that is an interesting topic.
28:27
Speaker 1: That really is.
28:27
Speaker 3: We don't have to do it today, save it up
28:29
Speaker 3: for the next time if you want It'll keep But
28:32
Speaker 3: I think that's a very interesting topic. Why, you know,
28:35
Speaker 3: why do we keep getting told we can't afford stuff
28:38
Speaker 3: when we have absolutely no trouble affording the things the
28:41
Speaker 3: government wants to afford, like submarines and those sorts of things.
28:44
Speaker 1: I can do it tomorrow if you're a free But
28:46
Speaker 1: let's say goodbye for now and we'll chat briefly off fair.
28:49
Speaker 1: Hey mate, thanks for thanks for your wisdom and insight.
28:53
Speaker 1: As always, no worries. Thanks guys,