Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / 489. The Neuroscience of Focus, Attention and Distraction (& harnessing neurochemicals to improve focus)

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489. The Neuroscience of Focus, Attention and Distraction (& harnessing neurochemicals to improve focus) · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the podcast episode off Today.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: So this is another neuroscience off Dot dot Dot episode,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: which I'm very excited about. The one I did I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: wanted two or three weeks ago, got so many like
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: positive comments. Everyone was like, we love the neuroscience episodes,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: we want more of these. It's like you used to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: do heaps or of these back in the day, Bring
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: them back. So I'm really thrilled at the feedback because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I love doing these episodes. It really kind of is
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the basis of why I started the podcast in the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: first place, and so I really love to do a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: nice deep dive of science. So anyway, the episode of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: today is about the neuroscience of focus, distraction, and attention.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about how to rebuild your ability
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to focus and pay attention and have sustained attention. To
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: be talking about focus versus attention, brain regions and kind
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of pathways that are involved. We're going to be talking
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: about the neuropharmacology of attention. We're talking about dopamine and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a set of coal line in particular, these two main
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: neurochemicals that I want to be touching on. And then
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the effects of low focus
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: versus the ability for high focus and how that can
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: impact your life. And we're also going to be talking
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: about how to begin to improve these things and start
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: reaping the benefits. Okay, this a lot of the stuff
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that I talk about are going to be things that
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you already have at your disposal to start improving your
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: focus and attention today. Okay. I really believe that having
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: good focus is a major contributing factor to our mental health,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: our overall levels of life satisfaction and happiness, because when
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you are focused, you are able to hold your attention
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: on things that matter to you. You are able to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: put sustained effort into something and start reaping the benefits
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and reaping the rewards. I think when your focus is
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: absolutely scattered, it feels like you're constantly constantly playing catch up.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: By the end of the week or the end of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the year, you're always looking back being like, well, I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: had all that spare time, I had all these you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: all the ability to be able to do that stuff,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: but I just didn't do it. And most of the time,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the reason why we didn't do things in our life
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: boils down to this lack of focus. Lack of holding attention. Okay,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I really believe that from a psychological and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: neurological perspective, focus is crucial for your overall happiness and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: your mental health. I will die on that hill. So
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: everybody can benefit from this episode. Now, if you have ADHD,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I am going to be dipping into some of these facts. However,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this episode is not directed at people specifically with ADHD.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: It is for the general population. People who have ADHD
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: will benefit still from this episode, but it is not
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: tailored specifically. So obviously there will be some differences. You
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: might be listening to this thinking, well, that doesn't work
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: for me. That like, I can't apply that because it's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: harder for me and whatever, And I do understand that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: But this episode is more for the general population. However,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: there will be important factors that I will speak about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: two people that have ADHD, and a lot of what
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I talk about is actually extremely relevant as well. But
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I don't want this to be for you if you
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: have ADHD. I don't when you're thinking that this podcast
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: is going to solve all of that, because it's very layered,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: very complicated, and it can't obviously be covered all in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: one episode. Okay, Now, I did have some questions that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: people asked. I'm going to read out the questions kind
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of broadly. There were many questions, but I kind of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: cover them already within the episode. But ones that I
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: am going to talk about are particular supplements that can
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: help with attention. In particular, i'll speak about creating briefly.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Someone asked how short term entertainment is affecting our attention span.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It's affecting it. It's affecting it, but it can be reversed,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: which is very exciting. Ways to increase sustained attention, and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: how to get into a flow state or deep concentration
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: state if you normally struggle with that. So they're the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: main questions that I thought I would kind of bring
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to the surface and talk about. Let's begin well, prior
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to that, I'm going to do a very short and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: sweet brain fact. It's very short and very sweet because
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: it kind of ties into what we're talking about today,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and pretty much the whole episode is a bit of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a brain fact. But we're talking about neurochemicals versus a neuromodulator,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: or I should say neurotransmitters versus a neuromodulator. So when
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: we talk about neurochemicals, that's like an umbrella term. A
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: neurochemical is a neurotransmitter and a neuromodulator, all right. Now,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: A neurotransmitter is something that will bind directly to receptors.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: So there's little things on the cells that have little
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: gates or pockets or whatever. Urotransmitter binds to that and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it kind of performs an immediate excitatory or inhibitory response
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: on that cell. A neuromodulator will alter the function of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: other neurotransmitters. So they're going to work on modifying the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: effectiveness of synaptic transmission across many neurons. You want to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: think about it affecting kind of large groups of neurons
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: rather than having action on a single post synaptic neuron
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like a neurotransmitter would. And the reason I'm telling you
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: this is because it's relevant to this episode. You want
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to think of neurochemicals, or I should say neuromodulators as
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: kind of having multiple jobs. Okay, they can work across
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: many different things, and there are certain neurochemicals that work
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: as a neurotransmitter and also as a neuromodulator depending on
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the context. And so These particular chemicals include dopamine, serotonin, GABBA,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and asceticol. And I'm going to be talking about acetacolon
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and dopamine a little bit more in depth in this episode.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So you're going to know that while they do act
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: as a neurotransmitter where they bind to that cell and
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: perform the inhibitory, inhibitory or excitatory action, they also can
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: influence how other neurotransmitters work. So we're talking about across
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: networks across the brain. I might have mentioned this earlier
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: in one of my thousands billions of episodes that have
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: put out. But chemicals endogenously produced or exogenancy, so whether
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: we produce it in our body, whether we get it
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: from the outside, are promiscuous for the most part, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: what that means like slutty, But basically what that means
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: is that it's not going to do just one thing.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: It does more than one thing. It acts upon multiple
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: things for the most part. That's why most medications come
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: with side effects because it's really hard to create a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: substance that has one single target. Okay, which can be
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a good thing and it can be a bad thing,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: but that's kind of the pharmacology chats for the first
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: part of this episode. Now, let's first talk about focus
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: versus attention, because it's different. Okay, you want to look
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: at attention as fleeting, kind of moving from one thing
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to another. And I often hear people that do have
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: ADHD say because it's an attention deficit, right, And they say, well,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like I have a deficit in attention.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like everything is pulling my attention. I feel
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like I can give my attention to absolutely everything, which
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: is true, right, So I guess it should really be
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: focus deficits, not ADHD, but FD or whatever. I'm not
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: here to change the term, but this paying attention to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: too many things, And it's more the lack of the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: ability to hold attention and sustain attention in order to focus. Okay,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the difference. You want to look at it as attention
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: is kind of seeing an article cover. Focus is reading
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and extrapolating the data from that article. Okay. Attention is
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: hearing what someone said. Focusing is really knowing what they
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: meant or knowing the context behind it. A really good
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: example of this, you know, when you're talking to someone
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and it looks like they're not paying attention they're clearly distracted,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and you say you're listening to me, and they're like yeah,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and they just vomit out the last sentence that you said.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: That's attention, so they're aware of what you said. But
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I can guarantee you they did not gather the context
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: or the meaning behind that whole sentence that you said
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: prior to that, right, So attention is, oh, yeah, I
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: heard you, and I can vomit it back out. But
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: if you said, yeah, but what was the meaning behind
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: what I said? What was what the last couple of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: things I just said to you? What did I mean?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: What did I intend? That requires focus? Okay. So another
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: example would be hearing a song. You're just hearing it,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you're paying attention yet heard it. Focusing would be really
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: paying attention to the lyrics, like focusing on what is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: being said and what is like the double meaning behind
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: that lyric or something like that. Okay. Attension is what
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: identifies the thing and highlights it to your awareness. So
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it's really easy to grab someone's attention, Okay, it's really
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a much harder job to hold their focus, okay, because
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: focus is the effort that is required to keep that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: thing in your mind. In your conscious working memory at
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: that time. Okay, So that is focus. It's effort. Attention
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: requires very little effort. And when I talk about focus,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you'll also interchangeably speak about it as sustained attention. But
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: attention versus focus, that's kind of what I'm talking about here. Okay,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Now both are important, mind you, I'm not saying that
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: attention like like, they're both very important because we need
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: attention to actually grab us and then focus to stay
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: in that thing. Now, selective attention this is you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: where you are able to enhance relevant signals and manage distractions.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: If we didn't have selective attention, we would be constantly
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed with information input all the time. We would get
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing done with our lives if we didn't have
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the ability to have selective attention. So every single person,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: even if you have ADHD, has selective attention abilities. Some
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: people have it better than others, for sure, but everyone
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: has it. Otherwise you just not manage with your life
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: because it's just constant input, constant input without being able
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to be like I'm going to filter that out. I'm
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: going to focus on this and do this thing. Okay. So,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: for example, when I'm writing this podcast episode, and I'm
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: planning it, and I'm at a cafe. I'm able to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: filter out the distractions at the cafe that I'm sitting at.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: There's probably people having conversations all around me. There's the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: noise of the coffee machine. There is that, but they're
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: they're kind of background things that aren't affecting my focus.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And I've got the selective attention to focus on the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: journal articles that I'm reading to pull the data to
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: create this episode. Okay, then we've got sustained attention. Like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I said, that's focus. This is where you can actively
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: direct your attention and hold it there despite there being
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: other things pulling you away, whether it be temptations, whether
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: it be other exciting things, whether it be straight up
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: distractions that are annoying. Sustained attention is high effort cognitive
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: tasks where you think of writing, studying, researching, reading something
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that's information heavy, where you have to really put in
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: conscious effort to stay on task. This is where a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: lot of people suffer. A lot of people struggle with
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: sustained attention or high focus tasks. Sustained focus. Okay, then
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we've got fragmented attention. This is where you're dividing your
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: cognitive resources across multiple things. These is people that are
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: on their screens switching from notification to notification, replying to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: text messages while also watching a series on TV or
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a movie or whatever. Okay, so it stops deep focus
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and it really prevents productivity. You are not fucking productive
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: at all. When we have fragmented attention, we're switching back back, back, back,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth where
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: nor here, where nor there. Then we've got context switching,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: which is known as multitasking, but I don't really like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: calling it multitasking. It's more context switching because it's really
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: difficult to actually multitask at the same time. Context switching
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: is where you're doing one thing and then quickly switching
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a focus to another thing, back and forth, back and forth.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: When we're talking about high focus tasks that require cognitive effort,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you actually cannot multitask. Multitasking is more for when you
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: are doing two things that don't require a high cognitive effort,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: or something that you're already so good at because you
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: can do it so well. You're an autopilot, like driving
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and having a conversation. You're able to do both things
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: really well because none of them require this high, high,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: high level of focus. Okay, but when we're talking about
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: like let's say you're studying, you shouldn't be studying and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: then trying to parent a child and these and that
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and these and that, because what occurs when people do
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: this context switching is really high error rates. Okay, So
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to get your taxes done and you're
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: distracted with you know, doing the laundry as well, you're
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: going to create a lot of errors. Okay, You've got
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a massive reduction in your ability to get into deep work.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Your mental fatigue goes up because you're constantly high focus
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: here and then stop, and then focusing here and then
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: stop at the back, and we never get into this
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: nice zone, this flow state that we talk about that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I will talk about a little bit more, and of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: course your stress levels go up. Okay, So never try
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and do a high focus task while you're in context switching,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: because you're gonna have errors, and you're gonna be exhausted,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and it's gonna be shit. The results will be shit,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to be trash, Okay, don't do it. Multitask for low
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: focused tasks like I said, talking and driving whatever. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: when we do this flow state and focusing and attention whatever,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the more you do it, the easier it gets. So
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: for someone that's like I just can't, I just can't,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I just can't, firstly, stop saying that you can't. You
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: need to change your language. You can start saying I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: am learning too, I am learning too. I am going
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to learn how to dot dot dot. Okay, because we
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: really do listen to the shit we tell ourselves. You
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: are limiting your abilities if you keep announcing to yourself
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and the world that you can't focus and I don't
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: care if it's a big part of your identity. Do
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you want to change that part of your identity? And
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: are you willing to get whatever resource is at your
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: disposal and at the very least improve it, because everyone
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: can improve it. Some people might not be able to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: get to the tops the tops the tops of you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: high focus whatever, but wherever you are, it can be
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: improved somewhat. Okay. Another thing that I want to touch
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: on is how much are you using your deep thinking abilities.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit concerning when there's so
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: much readily available information out there, and it's really really
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: easy to get swept up into just Oh, I heard
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: this quote and I'm going to take it as gospel.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I'm this thing, this like article whatever or AI. I
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: just punched it into AI and it's spout out this thing.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: People aren't even writing emails anymore, and I understand if
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't actually need to put effort into
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: this email because it means nothing to me. But at fine,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But you know, I'm looking at how are people getting
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: work done, how are people doing essays? How are people
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: like how much time do you actually give to your
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: COVID cognitive task Because there's this all this push on
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: things like AI and all of that being a time saver,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: but it should never be at the expense of brain
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: training and training your intelligence and using your brain as
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a muscle, because then it's not saving your time because
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you're going to be in the grave earlier if you're
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: not fucking using your brain. Right, So when we're talking
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: about using AI and things like CHATJPT, you've got to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: use it in a very ethical way when it comes
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to your brain health. And it should never be replacing
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: your creativity. If you want to write something creative, ride
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it and then yeah, you might want to put it
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: into chat GPT and be like, oh, can you tidy
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: this up? Or can you like give me a few
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: more ideas based on what I've written or whatever. But
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I think there's way too many people that are outsourcing
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: way too much of their cognitive abilities to external sources.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And it's very scary. And there's already data showing that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the youngest generation is not going to be as intelligent
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: as the oldest one, and that's the first time that's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: ever happened in recorded history. We need to get each
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: generation being smarter than the last one. That's the point.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: That's how we evolve. Okay, anyway, that's my little fucking
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: food for thought. So yeah, every time you think, like
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: how much actual deep dive work am I doing? How
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: much time do I give my mind to you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: work hard on a task and be creative and that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: mental effort that comes from like the struggle and the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: pushing through and then I didn't understand something, and now
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I do, and now I've finally written this thing, and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like that stuff of like UNI back in the day
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: where you had to literally type that shit out and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: print it and anyway, or even write it by hand. Guys,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to show my age when I say that.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I used to go to lectures in my undergrad with
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: a pen and a paper and I wrote down all
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: my notes. And you couldn't get your lecture content sent
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: to you after. You couldn't watch it online. You physically
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: had to be there. It was a vibe and I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: have really messy handwriting, so you can imagine. Anyway. Now,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: let's get into brain regions and pathways that are involved. Now.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: The first one is the medial prefrontal cortex. This is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the hubs of attention and focus.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: This is what regulates higher order cognition. Hear me talk
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: about this brain region all the time because it does
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a lot. It is like really the most developed region
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of the brain among a few other regions as well.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: It supports sustained attention. Okay, it's where we can direct
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: our attention to things. It becomes more active when attentional
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: demands increase, and damage to this brain region, or damage
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to the chemical systems that feed this brain region impairs
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: your ability to sustain attention. So brain damage to this area,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: so we're talking lesions, you know, impact to that area, hemorrhaging,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So you want to look
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: at the prefrontal cortex as like the main place where
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the brain decides what deserves your focus, what gets filtered out,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and whether you choose to stay on task or not. Okay,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And lesions in that region are associated with lower concentration
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and high destructibility. Then we've got the thalamous different part
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of the brain more in the met brand. This is
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: kind of like a sensory gateway which filters signals, which
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: signals are going to get sent to the cortex for
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: higher order processing, and which signals are not. Okay, So
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: signals that are coming sensory signals that are coming from
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the body. Then it arrives at this center and think
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of it like a security gate and like a processing center,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and then it decides that's relevant, that's not relevant. I'm
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: going to send this up to cognitive higher order processing. Okay.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: That then becomes your awareness, what you pay attention to.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Then you've got the parietal lobes. They're involved in spatial
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: awareness and navigating sensory input. So this is very much
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: related to like where we place attention on specific like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: visual stimuli and things like that. The whole frontal lobe,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: which is yes, where the prefrontal cortex is located, but
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: also the rest of the frontal lobe. This takes care
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of voluntary, goal directed actions where you choose to do
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: an action physically and your body goes ahead and does
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that thing. And then we've got the endior singular cortext
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: which I've spoken about several times, and this takes on
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the role of task switching emotional regulation, which is very
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: important in goal setting and staying focused and attention and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: all of that and not getting distracted and staying on task.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Another thing to not is when you're dividing your attention
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: all the time, you see a much bigger load placed
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: on all the processing parts of the parietal networks within
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the brain. So you're getting more work happening in the brain,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: but you're not seeing more quality in the output. If anything,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it's lower quality because this constant switching of tasks. The
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: effort is great, but the output is okay, all right,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So because of this greater workload, it's also not sustainable
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: as for as long versus if you were doing one task.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: If you were doing one task, you could hold your
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: focus for longer. Obviously, it takes practice because you're probably
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: someone that like, oh my god, I can't. You can.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: You can hold your focus for longer and the output
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: will be better. Now let's talk about the neurochemicals. So
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: aceta coline this is the star of the show, or
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: one of aceta colon and dopamine, but the ceta colone
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: you want to look at it as the star of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the show. This is effort, full attention and staying engaged. Okay,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: this is crucial. Aceta coline is crucial for retentional performance,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: especially in the prefrontal cortex. All right, so this is
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: released during attention tasks. Damage to cholinergic inputs kind of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: like you know where it binds to and things like
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that causes major attention deficits. And then both nicotinic and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: muscarinic aceticolone receptors are involved. Now, interestingly, nicotine binds to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the same receptors that aceta colone binds to, so often
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: you might hear them called if you're studying neuroscience or pharmacology,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you'll hear it called the nicotinic aceta coline receptor. So
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it's literally named after nicotine and aceta colone because nicotine
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: has the same shaped molecule as aceta colone, and so
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it binds into the same pocket and has a similar effect.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying go out and start smoking, because you've
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: got to have obviously different negative side effects from nicotine
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that you don't get from a seat of colne, but
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you get the gist. Now, a set of coline doesn't
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: simply just mean like, oh, you're going to have better performance,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: but it is specifically linked to attentional effort. So the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: brain is ramping up these resources when it has to concentrate.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's using a set of coal line more and using
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the resources and the pathways involved with a set of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: coal line more when we need to concentrate. So it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: basically helps the brain mobilize attention when a task is
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: really demanding a lot of cognitive effort like filtering, vigilance, focus,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: all of that so very important. A set of coline
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: is very important. Then we've got dopamine. So this is
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: control task engagement, engagement, accuracy dope. I'm going to go
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: into a little bit deeper as well, but it's kind
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of if you want to think of it as essential
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: for prefrontal cognitive control, tension being one of those things
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: activity in the cortex is tied to attention and working
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: memory with dopamine. If you boost D one receptor activity,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it improves your attention, especially in people that kind of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and in regions that are performing poorly, So in like
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: studies where that's been boosted, also in like mice and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: rat studies as well. And then two this is interesting.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Too little dopamine is obviously a problem, but way too
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: much dopamine is also a problem. So the idea is
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that we want to have a healthy baseline of dopamine
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and making sure that we're not going for these crazy
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: spikes and then the crazy drops below dopamine. So I
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: will speak about addictive behaviors and how that can negatively
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: impact your dopamine later, But you want to think about
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: having healthy levels of like baseline dopamine and readily accessible
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: dopamine when you want to use it, not this like
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: spike addictive behavior. You know, like for example, methamphetamine, fucking
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: meth is gonna time your dopamine baseline levels by ten,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: But then the drop that you get is so severe
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and then you are so depleted from dopamine. I'm hoping
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: none of you are doing meth as you're listening to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: this or just in general. But anyway, it depletes so
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: heavily that you have such great antidonia, like no desire
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to do absolutely anything with your life, and then you
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: have absolute demons and shit like that. So it's all
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: about finding a balance, as with most things in life.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So yeah, too little dopain, poor focus, optimum levels best focus.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Too much dopamine, your performance worsens again. Okay. Dopamine is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: often known as this motivation chemical, but like I said,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: it is promiscuous. It is in charge of a lot
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of things. It's also very important for physical movement. That's
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: why dopamine or lack of dopamine, or the death of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the dopamine producing neurons what happens in Parkinson's disease and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that's why you get the tremors and things like that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Then we've got neuropenefron, which is alertness and readiness. So
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: this is another really important player in attention. Okay, so
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: this is vigilance, attentional readiness, improved performance. It also helps
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you tune into that brain state of arousal. So this
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is if it's too low, you're going to be really
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: like foggy. If you're in the right zone of having
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: this norropreneferin, you're going to feel alert, and then if
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it's too high, that's when you're stressed or chaotic. Okay,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So again again with the neurochemicals, it's all about finding
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that nice balance, and I'll talk about how you're going
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to do all of that later on. Then we've got
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: glutamate and GABBA. So these are the balancing forces of
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the brain excitation inhibition. Glutamate is excitatory and it supports
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: shifting attention response inhibition kind of adjusting your behavior. Blocking
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: glutamate receptors in the prefrontal cortex impairs attentional performance. This
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is in animal studies. By the way, GABA is in
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: hybitry and it helps regulate how much neural activity is happening.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you need inhibition as much as you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: need excitation in the brain. But also you're going to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: notice that if you've got a lot of GABA related drugs,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: it can reduce your attention and attentional performance as well
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: because it is inhibitory. So in simple terms, glunamate helps
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the system activate and adapt, GABA helps control and suppress
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and attention needs both in the right balance. Now let's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: talk about ADHD briefly, and I will touch on ADHD
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: again a little bit later on. So ADHD involves inattentiveness, impulsivity,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: reduced response, inhibition, and abnormality is in prefrontal circuitry. So
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I was talking about the prefrontal cortex and just the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: frontal lobe in general when it comes to attention, focus, memory,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: all these things. We're seeing abnormalities in this circuitry in
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: people with ADHD. So there are going to be differences
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: in how these people focus, how they pay attention, how
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: they sustain attention. And also another thing that's interesting to note.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: For a lot of people with ADHD, and if you're
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: listening and you have ADHD, you probably know this. They
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: it's not like it's across the board. I can't pay attention,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I can't focus. There's many people with ADHD. I would
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: say possibly most, but I don't want to spit out
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: numbers that I don't know, but I'll say a significant
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: number that can get into a zone and get so
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: engrossed in something and be really good at it, but
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: then they really struggle to like to do sustained focus
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: on something that they you know, where they really struggle
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to put their focus on and hold their attention on
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: one thing. Now, that might not be the case for
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: every single person with the disorder, but there's a lot
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of people that operate their businesses very well because they
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: run it on their times. They might be a bit
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of a night out, they might get most of the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: work done at weird hours, like and when I say
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: weird hours, quote unquote, I'm talking about versus the general
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: population that normally would get more mentally fatigued at the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: end of the day. Sometimes people with ADHD have this
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: like way of high focus later on in the day.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So that's why we talk about abnormalities in circuitry. We're
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: not saying that it's all shit, it's all gone to shit,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: it's all bad, it's all no, because you see just abnormalities.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: There are differences. Sometimes you do see waves of intense
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: focus where they can be in the zone, and sometimes
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it's just they can't hold their attention for longer than
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of minutes on something before they
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: feel like they're completely bored or they can't hold their
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: attention any longer. Okay, Stimulant medications they do help partially
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: by improving activity in prefrontal networks, especially through kind of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: dopamine and norbinephron kind of efforts in that area. Sense sense. Now,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit more about dopamine
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and motivation, drive, time, perception, kind of for all of
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: this thing, because I feel like understanding dopamine helps you
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: really understand not only how the brain directs its attention,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: but also how to improve it for yourself. The point
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of dopamine in the brain, the reason we have dopamine
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in the first place is for humans to exist, you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: for us to continue on as a species. Okay. It
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: is what causes you to search for resources that are
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: going to keep you alive or connected or happy. So food, protection, mating, water,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: obviously resources in general, things that are going to extend
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: your life and also the species in the long term. Okay.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So dopamine you want to look at it as the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: driver for us to seek things. Yes, it is rewarding,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: of course, because it drives us to do that thing,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and then we reap the rewards once we've found that thing,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that resource or the mating or the eating or the whatever. Okay,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: then so you've got your baseline levels of dopamine and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: then you get that spy of dopamine when you get
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that thing, because if you never got that spike, you
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: would never be motivated to go and search for that thing.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: If you always have that baseline twenty four seven, you
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have So these spikes are important. We need it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It's part of our evolution. It's part of who we are.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: You can't be like, oh, it's got to be balanced
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: all the time. That doesn't work. So the spike is necessary,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and the drop after the spike back to baseline is
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: also necessary because we need to feel what the contrast
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: feels like. It's got to feel good to have that thing,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and then we also need to know what the baseline
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: feels like, so then we want to have that good
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: feeling again, which then forces us or really heavily encourages
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: us to go and seek out that thing again for survival.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: All right, So that helps you understand why dopamine exists
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in the first place. Why it is that we get
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: this rush and this excitement when we get that thing
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that we like. Why do we even have this thing
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in the brain. It's so we survive. Now. The reason
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it drops below baseline after you've had that spike of
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: dopamine is you want to think of dopamine. When dopamin's
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: in a cell, right, it gets released out of the cell,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it lands on like the like it acts on the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: on the receptors of the other cell, and it performs
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: an action and you know, an excitatory action in that cell,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and then you get that high, You get that release,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: You feel really good. Dopamine is packaged in these little
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: vesicles before it exits the cell, and then it gets
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: dumped out of the cell and then it performs its action.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: There aren't unlimited amounts of these little packaged vesicles of dopamine.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: They get depleted and then you've got to wait. There's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: like a bit of a wash out period. You've got
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to wait for that dopamine to build backup in those
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: little vesicles again so then they can get flushed out again.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That is why I was saying. When people have something
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: like a methanthhetamine, which is ten times in that normal
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: high that you would have from something like you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: just that makes you fucking eating chocolate or whatever. It's
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: this really extreme high, and then of course you've depleted
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: all the fucking dopamine. That high is just you got
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: it all out, and then of course you feel like
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: dog shit after after that high, because you not only
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: have you dropped below baseline, but it's not returning back
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to baseline immediately either. You've got this period where you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: even if you tried to have more of the drug,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you would not deliver that result if you did it
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: too close together, if you did it too instantly. You
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: get this. You hear about chasing the high, the idea
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of chasing the high, and that comes from if you
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: have never fully regenerated the dopamine's sauce, you're never going
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to get that as big a high as you did
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the first time. And that also goes for smaller things
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: as well. Let's look at behavioral things like checking your phone.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: The first time you check your phone, it's like quite entertaining.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: You're in a good mood whatever. If you keep checking it,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: checking it, checking it, checking check, you still got the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: impulse to check it, and you get in these little spikes,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: but they're not as big as the first one, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you feel shitter and shitter and shitter as it progresses.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And after doom scrolling and checking your phone for so long,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you feel so fucking depleted because you've used up all
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the little vesicles of dopamin You've got to wait for
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: it to replenish. It's not gonna happen straight away. And
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: that's why you feel like you could just bedrot. You've
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: literally depleted the chemical that's going to make you motivated
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to be able to take action, to do something, to
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: sustain your focus, to sustain your attention. And this is
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: where mood disorders set in quite comfortably now, right when
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: we don't have that dopamine, when we don't have that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: nice balance, when we're depleting it unnecessarily, when we're really
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: bad at creating balance. Most of the people listening here
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: are guilty of one of those addictive behaviors, and this
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: is why they struggle with attention and sustained attention and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: focus and really working on that thing that's going to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: take your life to the level that you want to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: take it. It's because we are depleting the actual chemicals
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: responsible to make us do that thing and take action
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and make that change in our life. The beauty of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: it is is that it's very easily changed. Well, I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to say easily, it's very simple. The answer
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is very simple. Is it easy? No, because addictive behaviors
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: are not easy to curb. But the beauty of it
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: is that the brain loves to find this homeostasis if
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you just, if you just cooperate with your own brain,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: it will work wonders for you. So if you are
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: willing to make the change and put in the effort
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: to break out of these I am going to do
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: a neuroscience episode of making and breaking a habit. By
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the way, maybe I should do that one in a fortnite.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: But if you're willing to do that, your brain finds
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: that balance and that homeostasis very quickly. Okay, it's always
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: working to find that balance, and we are always doing
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: things to interfere with its actions, Like we cock block
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: our brain so much all the fucking time. It's just outrageous.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: You like to think how productive our brains could be
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: if we just cooperated is crazy. Even myself sometimes I'm like,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: oh my god, things that I could have done. I mean,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: we're not all perfect, and we also don't want to,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you know, not be spontaneous and enjoy our lives. But
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: it's wild at how much the brain actually can do
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: for you if you lean in right. So, how do
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: we want to use dopamine to our advantage without having
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: these crazy periods of below baseline. The main answer here
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: is don't chase the high, okay, especially not chronically, not
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: daily at least. So when we are trying to chase
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: that high, you get that spike just like I spoke about,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and then you get the drop below baseline, and then
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you stay below baseline too long. If you're going for
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: too big a high, or you're repeating that action too much,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: like checking your phone or whatever, then it's going to
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: take longer for you to return to that baseline and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: have any sceric of motivation or you know, desire to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: do anything. So the aim is to focus more on
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: effort full tasks, and you want to make the effort
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: what you are focusing on. That you can't do everything
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: where the prize is what you're working on. How do
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I make the effort enjoyable, because at the start, it's
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: not going to feel that enjoyable. Some people love effort
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: from the get go, and that's great, but there's many
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: people that think, oh my god, how can I actually
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: find this enjoyable. You have to start small, and you
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: actually have to start telling yourself that this is where
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the joy is. You can also look at it from
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: like long term things. So for example, I want to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: every so often I pull out my neuroscience textbooks, and
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: I think I want to keep my knowledge fresh, so
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I should read a couple of pages a day. Right,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: There is no reward after those pages, and the actual reading,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: especially when they're really like content heavy pages, is a
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: bit exhausting. Right. But even though there wasn't a prize
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: at the end, I didn't, you know, have this big
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: celebration or I have like a negroni or my favorite
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: cocktail or whatever. After I start to feel rewarded when
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I do the task, not the first time, maybe not
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the second, but after the third or fourth time that
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I'm reading these pages, I'm thinking the reward is in
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the effort, and the effort starts to feel good. Okay,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: if you were to make yourself do a task that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: was so insurmountable and so stressful, you're not going to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: feel rewarded. So it has to be relative to where
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you are now. But you want to turn it around
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to think the reward is in the effort. If you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: can do that, you'll have healthy, readily available baseline levels
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: of dopamine and then even when you do get that nice,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: slow kind of high of the dopmin the spike, it
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't drop so heavily below the baseline because you're not
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: chasing the high. Exercise is also a really good way
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: of releasing dopamine. However, interestingly, there are some studies that
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: show if you hate exercising, the amount of dopamin that's
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: going to be released is significantly lower than for those
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: people that love exercising. Now, a great way of releasing
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: dopamine even if you don't like it is cold exposure.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: My mother would hate to hear that because she fucking
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: hates the cold so much. Every time I tell her
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that she needs to ice bath, she laughs at me, saying,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: do you want me to die? Anyway? Cold exposure is brilliant,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and it's again relative, So a cold shower for someone
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: might be really beneficial for someone who's not adapted cold
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: adapted versus someone who's doing like a hectic ice bath.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Also the release in dopamine. If you're someone that ice
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: sparts every day, yes, there are benefits separate to the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: dopamine release. But if you're ice bathing every single day
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: and you became really cold adapted, the increase in dopamin
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna get is not going to be nowhere
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: near as big as if you did it like once
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: every so often, and it comes down to are you
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: adapted to it or are you not. However, there are
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: many benefits to the ice bath with like reduction of
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: stress and you know, staving off neurodegeneration and things like
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that that are separate to this dopamine hit that you
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: would still get from having the ice bath. Okay, so
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that's important to note. So what like I said, the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: striving is the goal. If you want to make dopamine
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: work for you, you have to find a way to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: make effort the goal. My goal is to put effort
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: into something and then I'm going to feel this release
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: of dopamine. Okay, you're leaning in. The reward is in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the effort, and I can guarantee you once you start
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: doing it more and more and more, whatever that may be,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: whether it be physical exercise and I have to tell
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: yourself you like it, or find a work out that
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you do like, or whether it be reading difficult journal articles,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: or whether it be like I'm actually going to force
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: myself to write this thing and not put it into
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: CHATJPT this time, or I'm going to not outsource that
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: creative task and I'm going to force myself to come
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: up with that idea on my own and then I
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: can tweak it with getting other people's opinions, or yes,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I'll put it through chat JPT, whatever, But don't constantly
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: outsource everything because the more if you don't use it,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you lose it. Okay, if you're not using your ability
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to put effort into something, you're going to lose it, okay.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And the important the reason I'm talking about all this
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: dopamin shit when it comes to attention and focus is because,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: like I said earlier when we were talking about the neurochemicals,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the optimal level of dopamin is what's going to give
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: you really good attention and your ability to hold and
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: sustain your attention. People with ADHD. This kind of ties
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: in quite heavily because people with ADHD are much more
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: likely to lean into these impulsive, addictive behaviors because there
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: is a deficit in impulse control people with ADHD. So
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you're going to find like, oh, yeah, that makes a
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: lot of sense. So if you do have ADHD, you've
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: got to think, Okay, what can I do that requires effort,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: even if it's for a short amount of time, that
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I can do daily or relatively often, where the reward
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: is in the effort, So I can start to increase
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this nice baseline level of dopamine, and having readily available
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: dopamine that when I do go for that bigger thing
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that requires motivation, I can have that, you know, that
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: push to go and do that thing. I'm not sitting
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: here depleted with no desire to do anything in life,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: which then, of course leads to depression. Okay. Chronically low
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: levels of dopamine is one of the major contributing factors
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to mood disorders, including depression. Okay, Now I do want
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to talk about this idea. I kind of have covered it,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: but this idea of phone addiction and this consumption of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: short form content, that question that that listener sent in,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: this constant consumption short form content and phone addiction, and
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: how it's affecting the brain, and how it's affecting our
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: ability to pay attention. Is it negatively impacting our ability
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: to pay attention? Absolutely? Yes, And you probably understand now
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: why because of everything I've just spoken about. It's that
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: depletion of the dopamine. It's going for these like the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: quick fix highs. It's the low effort we're not practicing
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: how to sustain our focus. But it's not permanent and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: it can be changed. That's the beauty of it. Like
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I said, the brain is for the most part, unless
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you have a psychiatric disorder, it's on your side. Okay,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't feel like it for a lot of people,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: and there are certain disorders that actually make it so
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: that it isn't on your side. But for the most part,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: even when we do have disorders, ADHD being one of them,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: your brain, if you work with it, will do wonders
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: for you. Now, some people need to put more effort
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: into it than others. But when we look at things
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: like phone usage, that is something that can be curved
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and something that will literally the results will be day
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and night. Okay. When we look at addictive behaviors, you
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: know people that go out and go out on a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: bender for the weekend, good times, right, fucking good times.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to judge that, but it gives you
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: an understanding as to why there's the demons and the
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: anxiety the next day and sometimes for days after. Okay.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Sometimes people can have this like crazy anxiety because they
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: partied for two three days in a row. I'm not
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: even talking about if you've sleep deprived, because that's a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: whole nother fucking issue there. But it gives you a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: really good understanding of why you feel the way you feel.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: If you don't want to have the demons, you just
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: can't party as hard. If you're gonna party as hard,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: you have to accept the demons as being a part
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: of your life. That's just the chemical makeup in your
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: head and that's what's going to happen. But at least
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: it gives you that understanding. So you think, I've got
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to work with my brain. I can't just wish it
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: away and hope that I don't get the demons or hope.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: You've got to know what to expect because it is consistent.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: That's one thing that I'll give you is the brain
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: is pretty consistent with you know, the chemicals and whatever.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And when you are consistent, you will be rewarded. Okay,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to this phone addiction, is it
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: affecting our ability to sustain attention? Absolutely? It is because
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: it's affecting our neurochemicals and what's going on and how
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: they're being depleted or how they're being replenished, or if
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: at all they're being replenished properly. It's affecting your ability
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: to wind down your sleep all of the above, and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: then of course, not only are you then unable to
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: focus and hold your focus because your dopamine levels have
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: been depleted, you're also more stressed, and stress is going
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to deplete your a sated coal line levels, which then
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: contributes to normally is contributing to sustained focus and attention
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and directing your attention to where you want it to go.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: But then you've got all these problems with then not
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: actually doing what you said you were going to do,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: not following through with the things you wanted to follow through,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and then resenting yourself. So it's not only do you
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: have a chemical direct result, but then we have an
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: emotional result where we look back and reflect on ourselves,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: and we reflect on our behavior and we're frustrated with ourselves.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Is why didn't I do that thing? Okay, So one
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: hundred percent phone addictions short form content is affecting you.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Now let's talk about ways that you can improve it. So,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of course number one is we're not multitasking anymore. Okay. Also,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: by the way, the phone one is the main one,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: So limit how many hours you are on social media.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I use social media, guys, And yes, yes, there are
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: times where I get caught up and it's nine pm
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and I've realized I've been scrolling for thirty minutes, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh fuck. And I'm the number one person
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: to tell people not to do that. Okay, But for
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the most part, especially when I'm in a high focus
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: day and I'm trying to work, I will try my
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: very best, and most of the time I do it
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: to not be on my phone during like to not
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: scroll dom scroll during like high focus times, or during
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: work hours or during life. If I'm just about to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: record an episode, the last thing I should be doing
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: is to be scrolling on Instagram because then my focus
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: is going to be scattered and my energy is going
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to be low. Okay, So knowing when to be on
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: your phone, if it's going to deplete my dopamine, maybe
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: don't go on my phone just before I need to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: really use my my focus. Okay. So the next thing
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: is no multitasking. We are doing one task at a time.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: The more you do this the easier it's going to
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: be for you to drop into that flow state and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you're going to start to do and flow state is
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: basically just a deep concentration state where it feels like
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't require that intensity of effort that it did
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the first few minutes you start to drop into it,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you become highly focused and things become less of this
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: intense effort, and you kind of get into the zone. Okay,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: that's what flow state is. I can't remember who coined
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: the term, but I do have like I think a
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: mini episode on that somewhere in my back catalog. Multitasking,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: like I said, you have a higher error rate, your
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: stress levels go up, the cognitive load is a lot higher,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: but the output is a lot shitter. So you want
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to do one thing at a time, and the best
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: way to do that is time blocking, which I've spoken
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: about before. But you just set a fucking time out
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: and you do that thing. If you've got two things
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that you need to work towards and you've got ninety
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: minutes to do it, you do forty five minutes on
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: one thing, rest forty five minutes on the other thing. Okay,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: that's how you're going to do it, but we're not
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: switching here here there. It's just not going to be
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of the quality that you need and you're never going
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: to get into that deep concentration. A lot of people say,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to get into that flow state,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: But do you set yourself up in a really successful
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: environment in order to get into that flow state? Is
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: your phone not in arms reach? Have you blocked out
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: like big distractions? And by big distractions like the TV,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the washing machine beeping at you, the you know, someone
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: else talking to you. Low level distractions are actually sometimes beneficial,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: like if you go to a cafe where there's like
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit of noise, because there's some studies that
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: indicate that if you're at a cafe or somewhere with
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a bit of noise outside of your regular environment, you're
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit on high alert. But it's an unconscious
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: higher load because it doesn't feel like you're stress or
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: it's intense, but it actually helps with your focus and
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: your attention. You know, when I was talking about Gnau
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Apeneffron and things like that, where you're in that alert state,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: which then helps you stay focused. Okay, then the next
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: thing is lower your cognitive load. How are we going
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: to do that if you were about to start on
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a high focused task like studying, reading, writing, whatever it is,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: whatever it is that you're doing that you want to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: focus on a business plan that you're trying to put together, Okay,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you're going to have a piece of paper on the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: side and a pen. Don't do it on your phone.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: It's a fucking piece of paper and a pen. And
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: you are going to brain dump anything that comes into
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: your mind that's not relevant to the task. So it's like, oh,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: something came into my mind, or that doctor's appointment, Just
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: write it down, doctors appointment back, and then get back
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: onto the task. Brain dump, brain dump, brain up. You're
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: going to get so good. And then I also recommend
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that you do this at night. This is for people
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that really struggle with focus. Some people are not going
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: to need to do this at all because they have
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: no issue focusing. Great, but if you do do it
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: night as well, before bed, it's this brain dump that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: reduces the cognitive cognitive load. We don't realize how many
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: open tabs we have in our brain. If oh, that
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: fucking doctor's appotment, Oh I've got to do this, Oh fuck,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and I've got to prep that food and I've got
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I Meanwhile, I'm here trying to write a novel. How
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the fuck is that gonna happen? Right, So write it
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: down and you're taking it out of your brain onto
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the piece of paper. You instantly start to feel a
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: little bit calmer. The job has gone nowhere. But you
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: don't have to hold and remember. Oh, I can't forget
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: because it's right there. Okay, So anything that's not relevant,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: even a bright idea, but the bright idea that's not relevant,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: write it down. Okay, get it all down out of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: your brain so you can be focusing on the task
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: at hand. Okay, you're not going to forget it because
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: it's there on the paper, and you feel calmer. Then,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: like I said, I've just got this written down. But
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I've already said this minimal distraction environment. Mild distraction is good,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Like I said, a cafe kind of vibe of mild distraction.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It's fine, But you don't want to be at home
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: with someone trying to talk to you or things just
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: you know. Then morning light for quartersold relief is so important.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Cortisol use cordsol to your advantage. I'm not going to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: go into it because it's so convoluted. And I have
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: two whole episodes on cortersol, one on cortisol, one on
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: caffeine and cortisol. I will link them in the show
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: notes below there, if I may say so myself, great
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: fucking episodes, but the importance of really harnessing cortisol for
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: good levels of energy. Get in the fucking sun in
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the morning. It's like a sunflower. I read someway, it's
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: not my This isn't. I wish it was my idea,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't. It's not my quote. Someone said where
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: was it? While I was studying, But I was looking
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: up for this episode. This whole thing of like the sunflower.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: So you like literally lift your head up to like
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: face the sun, close your eyes, and you're just getting
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: all this sunlight still flushing through your eyes even with
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: your eyes closed. Don't do not make direct contact with
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: the sun. And then that is starting to get that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: nice healthy spike of cortsol that we get in the mornings.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: The cordsole has to be highest in the mornings for
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: us to have not only a great mental energy and
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: lower levels of fatigue, but also if you get the
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: quartersol high in the morning, healthy levels of couurso by
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the way, not chronic stress where you're psyching yourself up
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: about something. Then you're actually going to have lower levels
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: at night, which is the aim, and you're going to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: sleep a whole lot better, so that's really important. And
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: then you also want to have this reduction in a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: denocene so this is at nighttime. The morning light also
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: helps you have this reduction in adenosine. So adenocene is
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: what kind of binds onto your receptors, and then you
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: start to get more and more tired as the day progresses.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: But cortisol, sunlight, all of this, it helps you wake
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: up really really fresh, and then you get more of
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: that a Dentocene build up later on in the day,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and then you get into a nice, comfortable, healthy sleep.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you want to put focus on efforts.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: The effort is the reward, not I've got to slog
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: this out. Is the most painful funct thing in the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: world is the painful fucked thing. But then like I'm
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: a I'm all for having these small little prizes at
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the end. I've recommended that to people, like if you're
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: going to have a like delayed gratification, if you're going
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to have a coffee now, but you could unload the dishwasher,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: unload the dishwasher, and then have the coffee. Things like that.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: That's fine because it kind of motivates us to do
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: these tasks and it keeps us kind of on task
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: for a short timeframe. However, you don't want to get
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to the point where everything in life is a slog
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: and you're living for these small treats and rewards. You
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: want to live a life where effort does feel enjoyable,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: because effort is not the most comfortable thing. So how
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: can we enjoy this kind of discomfort Because if we
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: don't learn to enjoy it, we'll always be avoiding it.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I've got to love every second
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: eff it, but enjoy it as in, I enjoy what
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I get out of it. I enjoy putting myself under pressure.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I enjoy growing from it. I enjoy a challenge because
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: it means that I've learned something or become better because
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: of that challenge. So there is a level of enjoyment
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: even in the discomfort. When you can find that in
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: your life, you will have a much, much, much happier
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: life because discomfort is inevitable, you will always be uncomfortable.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: You either choose to be uncomfortable through effort, where there
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: is kind of like a benefit too, because you can
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: have that reward in the discomfort in the effort, or
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: you can have the discomfort of never putting in that
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: effort and looking back and say, my life is wasted potential,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: wasted potential. I had all the resources, I had a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: brain that worked, I could have, but I didn't. That's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the other discomfort that you could choose. So you got
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: to pick which one it's going to be, because it's
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: not gonna be both obviously, So obviously I would pick
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the first option. Now, like I said, time blocking, so
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go into that. Already mentioned it, And
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: then let's talk about foods briefly. So things that increase
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: a set of coline intakes eggs. Eggs are a big one,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: so if you're not a vegan, eggs, liver, fish, cruciferous vegetables,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: certain beans. Caffeine also assists as it boosts the release
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of aceetacholine in the brain and also engaging in learning
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: new things optimizes the use of a cetacholine in the
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: brain as well. Now, creatine has shown that it can
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: help cognitive function. It helps reduce fatigue, especially if you
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: are slip deprived, but in general it does help reduce fatigue,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: and it helps increase your focus okay, and it increases
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: ATP available in the brain. Okay. Now, someone asked about
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: can I take more creatine than the recommended dose? There's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit of It's a bit interesting here because
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: creatine has a bit of a saturation point in the
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: sense that once it reaches a certain point, once the
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: muscles have been saturated, you're just going to pee it out.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a waste of the creatine.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: It's not like you're going to have some crazy negative
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: side effects as much as it just being a waste. Okay. However,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: it does vary from individual to individual, and they're also
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: a study is that daily consumption of roughly five to
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: twenty grands of creatine is sufficient to reach that maximum
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: muscle saturation. I also think that it depends on you know,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: like I said, like every individual is different and how
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: we consume things is different. There is this idea of
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: diminishing returns once your muscles have reached that saturation point.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Further supplementation will not result in greater performance gains or
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: increased strength or improved muscle repair or anything like that. Okay,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: so you don't want to waste your money on this
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: product pumping yourself full of creatine because once it reaches saturation,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you're just going to pee it out. A lot of
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: vitamins kind of work in a similar way. Okay, Then
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: we've got responders versus non responders. So individuals with lower
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: baseline creatine levels Vegetarians in general do have lower baseline
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: creatine levels, so they're going to find that they show
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: a really great response to creatine supplementation versus people with
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: higher levels of creatine. Maybe they have a lot of
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: cretene within their diet as well, they will have kind
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: of a more limited further accumulation or more limited response. Now,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: things that affect this ceiling, because when we talk about
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: a ceiling, there's going to be chemicals or foods or
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: well chemicals, let's talk let's say that have a ceiling
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and ones that don't have a ceiling. Basically, what it
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: means by having a ceiling is that there's a maximum
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: point of effect of efficacy that a drug can have.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: And then once it reaches that point, it goes no higher,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: nothing happens. Versus ones that have a no ceiling effect,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: like opioids as an example, that's like the main example
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: that comes to mind, and it just kids going, going,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: going on and going going, going, Take you die. Okay,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: sounds dramatic, but that's the case. So not saying that
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: creating will is going to do that at all, but
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: it's saying that there is a ceiling effect. Now, more
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: frequent doses. They say kind of five grams roughly per
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: day is generally sufficient to reach that saturation ceiling, which
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: means that these loading doses of twenty to thirty gus
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: daily are unnecessary for most individuals. Now, mind you, everything
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: that I just spoke about is studies that are done
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: around creatine for muscle. However, there have been studies that
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: say that this ceiling is that we're talking about of
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the five grands per day is more around skeletal muscle
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: storing creatine. But they say that it might actually take
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: closer to fifteen grands. And again, the individual is different.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: So don't quote me on what your dose should be because
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I can't answer that question. No idea. Okay, but the
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: ceiling for it to reach other tissues such as the
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: brain will be higher, so you might reach complete muscle saturation.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: And if your aim of creatine is just for your muscles,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: then you stick to the recommended dose. There's no need
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to go higher. However, if you want to think, oh well,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: maybe I do want it for cognitive performance, maybe you
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: do increase that dose a little bit and see if
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: you notice the difference in your cognitive performance in like
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: reduced mental fatigue, reduced or like increased ability to focus
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and things like that. Okay, so some research does suggest
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: that five grams daily is very effective for muscles, but
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: ten grams daily might be what is required for full
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: body benefits beyond the muscle, so like bone health and
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: cognition and things like that. But for traditional strength like
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: muscle repair, strength, gains, all of that, three to five
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: grams is effectively reaching that ceiling. Okay, So pretty much
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: in summary off this episode for today, This is an
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: intense episode. I've got no idea how long this has
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: gone for so far, but I feel like it's gonna
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: be a fucking long one. But attention is a biological process.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: It's not just discipline. Okay, your prefrontal cortex is central
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to staying on task. So making sure that we're really
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: leaning into everything I spoke about about a set of
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: coaline and dopamine and things that you can do to
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: keep those levels nice and like at the optimal level
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: in that right range. Attention depends on balance. It is
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: not one magical chemical. Everything I spoke about coming together intertwining.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: That is what's going to help with your focus and
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: your attention and not being as distracted or I should say,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: being able to filter out distractions with more ease. And
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you want to think of attentional problems as being really
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: network and chemistry problems. So every time I think, oh,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: my attention is really shit, you got to think, well,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: what's happening in the networks, what's happening on a chemical
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: level in my brain? Because I think this is one
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: of the things that I hope can positively influence people
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: with my podcast, and that this is always the intention
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: of my podcast from day one, that once we can
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: really understand what's happening in the brain from like a
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: chemical and a network standpoint, it makes it so much
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: more believable and achievable for us. We think, oh, well,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: that's tangible that can be measured. I can really grasp
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: that now, so it makes sense as to why I
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: should do this or do that. I feel like a
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: lot of the time when we hear information about self
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: development or the brain or whatever, it's too like flimsy
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the information. I don't know if that's the right word,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: but it's too like oh, noh, here and know that
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really and so you think, well, how much
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: we're like it can't still doesn't make sense, Like is
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: that actually gonna help me if I did that thing
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: or if I didn't do that thing. So that's kind
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: of what I'm trying to get at when we speak
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: about the brain and the chemicals involved, and it to
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: me makes it like, well that's black and white, that
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: that makes sense that I can do something about. I
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: feel empowered knowing that I can actually do this one
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: action and it's going to change what's happening on a
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: chemical and you know, network level on my brain. And
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: it's really really exciting to know that. Okay, Now, for
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: people with ADHD and other disorders that do affect attention,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: of course, medications can help, and that's something that you
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: have to speak to, you know, a professional about But
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: of course with medications, they're not perfectly precise. Like I said,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: nothing is you know, specific to one target. It's normally
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: going to be promiscuous. So that's why you might need
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: to play around with different and by play around, this
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: is with your doctor with different medications. Sometimes some are
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: going to fit perfectly, sometimes absolutely not. Sometimes you're going
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: to have to switch to a completely different one. And
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: there is a bit of a sometimes for a trial
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and error with medication for certain individuals. So important to
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: note that. But that is the episode of today. I really, really,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: really really hope that you found that helpful. You were
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: able to take something out of that, You were able
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to understand and grasp the brain and the chemicals a
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: bit better, to feel more empowered with this amazing tool
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: that you have at your disposal, which is the brain.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: It's either your best friend, your greatest ally, or your enemy.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: It's whatever you make it. So Okay, I think I
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: spoke forty five thousand words just then. But that is
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: all for today's episode. I think the next episode I
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: should do in a fortnite will be the one about
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: making and breaking a habit, The neuroscience of making and
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: breaking a habit. I feel like that's a fucking vibe
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and you guys would love it. So maybe I'll put
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: a vote. I think you can do a poll on
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Spotify at least, so I'll do a poll and do
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you guys want that one? Or I'll put another option
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: out there. I don't know, but anyway, if you're listening
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: to this on Spotify, vote in the poll and then comments.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Tell me if you liked this episode. If you loved it,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: share it, rate review five stars obviously, and that is all. Guys.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in, for sharing the episode,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: for listening to it, for everything, Love you guys. As always,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: remember be can't yourself, you can't your brain. Don't take
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: shit from anyone, and especially don't take shit from yourself.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Duncan