Latest / The You Project / #1522 Hearing, Alzheimers & Ladders - Dr. Hannah Korrel

Transcript

#1522 Hearing, Alzheimers & Ladders - Dr. Hannah Korrel · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: Oh good, your bloody champions. I hope you're great. Welcome
0:03
Speaker 1: to another installing the show, Doctor Hannah Corral, who's been
0:06
Speaker 1: on about a thousand times. You love her, We love her.
0:09
Speaker 1: She comes at a great rate, and I think that's important.
0:13
Speaker 1: Free what no, as if we don't pay you, don't
0:17
Speaker 1: don't misrepresent me.
0:21
Speaker 2: Pay me in smiles. Yeah.
0:23
Speaker 1: Other than that, she's also super smarty pants. Having said that,
0:28
Speaker 1: Having said that, Doc, it has been a little while.
0:31
Speaker 1: It's been a few months.
0:33
Speaker 2: It's been a long time between drinks, hasn't it. I
0:35
Speaker 2: think what did we do last your brain in a nutshell?
0:38
Speaker 2: It was a little while ago.
0:39
Speaker 1: Now I think was the last thing that we did,
0:41
Speaker 1: like ten episodes in a row, ten short.
0:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ten the ten EPs nutshells? That was?
0:50
Speaker 1: Can you believe that was? Well that was five and
0:53
Speaker 1: a half months ago. Because we're now nearly half amazing.
0:56
Speaker 2: It goes so fast. I was thinking about you just
0:58
Speaker 2: the other day and I was wondering, how's your PhD going,
1:01
Speaker 2: how's your mom? How's her eye? How's your eye? You know,
1:04
Speaker 2: how's it all? How's it all been since I heard
1:07
Speaker 2: from you?
1:07
Speaker 1: As thanks for asking? Nobody fucking asks let's make it
1:10
Speaker 1: all about me. Good. Let's yeah, let's talk about me,
1:14
Speaker 1: all right. Let's start with my eye. Had an operation
1:17
Speaker 1: on my eye at worked. I was going no good
1:21
Speaker 1: with the old eyes. But thankfully because the old iologists
1:25
Speaker 1: said you're going to be blind by Christmas, which that was.
1:28
Speaker 1: That was that was mildly terrifying. So we dealt without. Mum,
1:35
Speaker 1: Mum's good. The old man, Dad, he's he's if you
1:40
Speaker 1: know my dad and you're listening to this, don't tell
1:42
Speaker 1: him I said any of this. He's he's not the
1:45
Speaker 1: most mobile these days. He's walking.
1:48
Speaker 2: You know.
1:49
Speaker 1: Is this you kind of exercise, you work out, and
1:52
Speaker 1: you're a smarty pant. So you understand there's this kind
1:55
Speaker 1: of almost the chicken and the egg kind of thing
1:57
Speaker 1: going on with older and I mean, you know people
2:00
Speaker 1: in their eighties and seventies, some of them when they
2:03
Speaker 1: start to get a bit wobbly, when balance and coordination
2:07
Speaker 1: and motor skills deteriorate significantly. So there's this very typical approach,
2:14
Speaker 1: which is a lot of people go, oh, their balances
2:18
Speaker 1: really dropped and their motor skills and so let's get
2:23
Speaker 1: them to do balancy stuff. So we'll improve their balance.
2:27
Speaker 1: And while that kind of makes sense, there's also this
2:31
Speaker 1: other component, and that is the strength stuff. So you
2:36
Speaker 1: would know this, but there's a fancy name for people
2:40
Speaker 1: losing muscle as they get older. It's called sycopenia. And basically,
2:45
Speaker 1: when we're talking about sycopenia, generally, we're talking about relating
2:48
Speaker 1: to old people. Older people, and I mean really anywhere
2:52
Speaker 1: from fifties onwards, but tends to be more seventies eighties,
2:56
Speaker 1: and so a lot of older people lose a lot
3:00
Speaker 1: of muscle mass. And a lot of people think, oh,
3:02
Speaker 1: that's just what happens when you're seventy or eighty, and
3:06
Speaker 1: it's actually not that. It's that's maybe ten to twenty
3:09
Speaker 1: percent of it, but it's about eighty to ninety percent
3:13
Speaker 1: because people just stop doing stuff.
3:16
Speaker 2: They become homebodies.
3:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that, yeah, my dad would spend like a
3:21
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, probably twenty three hours a
3:24
Speaker 1: day sitting or lying a day. Well, you think you're
3:29
Speaker 1: eight hours a day you're asleep, Like, how many hours
3:35
Speaker 1: a day do you spend? Like you come at work,
3:38
Speaker 1: you go to work sitting, You get at home, you
3:41
Speaker 1: sit on a couch, you sit at your desk, you
3:43
Speaker 1: sit at your kitchen table. You know, we think that
3:46
Speaker 1: we spend half an hour a day, half a day
3:48
Speaker 1: on our feet. We actually don't. No true huge amount
3:53
Speaker 1: of Australia, Australians who spend twenty three hours a day
3:55
Speaker 1: either on their back or on their ass. Shut you
4:00
Speaker 1: think about it. I mean, I'm I'm the least lazy
4:03
Speaker 1: person I know. But when I'm working, for the most part,
4:07
Speaker 1: I'm sitting. I go for a walk every day, I
4:10
Speaker 1: work out every day.
4:12
Speaker 2: And I'm you go for a crazy run, yeah, or
4:15
Speaker 2: something like a quick twenty minute run. You're crazy, man.
4:19
Speaker 2: But that's so interesting because my father and if you're listening, Dad,
4:23
Speaker 2: no shade, no offense. And if you know my dad, like,
4:26
Speaker 2: don't tell him I said this, but my dad is like,
4:30
Speaker 2: it sounds like your dad's not moving enough. My dad's
4:32
Speaker 2: doing the opposite and he's moving too much. And my
4:34
Speaker 2: dad's in his sixties and he has an addiction to ladders, Craig,
4:40
Speaker 2: so he loves and bargains, so you know, the combination
4:44
Speaker 2: of everything in Camera. I grew up in Camera. So
4:47
Speaker 2: there's a place called the Green Shed and like shout
4:49
Speaker 2: out to Camberan's. There's a place called the Green Shed
4:52
Speaker 2: and it's a tip right, and you can give away
4:54
Speaker 2: stuff that's too good to be thrown away, and they'll
4:57
Speaker 2: sell it for cheaps like a second hand store, but
4:59
Speaker 2: at the tip. And so Dad has taken to collecting ladders.
5:02
Speaker 2: So he must have about like twelve to fifteen ladders,
5:06
Speaker 2: but he so none of them are very good because
5:09
Speaker 2: they're all from the tip right, so he has been
5:12
Speaker 2: putting them. My father is like Army, Navy, Air Force,
5:15
Speaker 2: which is probably why I'm like such a type a perfectionist,
5:18
Speaker 2: because I was raised by military men and he so
5:22
Speaker 2: he's always doing stuff. He's always on the roof, he's
5:24
Speaker 2: always in the roof. He's always, you know where he
5:27
Speaker 2: shouldn't be, just constantly fixing stuff. And he uses these
5:31
Speaker 2: stupid ladders to get up and down the roof. And
5:34
Speaker 2: three times last year he was on the roof and
5:37
Speaker 2: the ladder fell off the roof. So my sixty year
5:40
Speaker 2: old father decided that it would be a good idea
5:43
Speaker 2: to jump off the roof to get down. I know,
5:50
Speaker 2: and I had to say to him, Dad, if you
5:52
Speaker 2: if I catch you jumping off the roof one more time,
5:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to confiscate all your ladders, which then makes
5:57
Speaker 2: me really concerned about like his risk of having a
6:00
Speaker 2: fall breaking his hip, and that to kind of really
6:03
Speaker 2: sit mom and dad down and say, you know, when
6:04
Speaker 2: you get over a certain age, like this is not ages,
6:07
Speaker 2: This is just a statistical fact. When you get over
6:09
Speaker 2: a certain age, you are much more likely to break bones.
6:12
Speaker 2: And if you break a bone at a certain age
6:14
Speaker 2: and you have to be hospitalized, the risk of deconditioning
6:17
Speaker 2: in the hospital is tenfold for someone half your age.
6:21
Speaker 2: So the chances of you having much more sever your
6:24
Speaker 2: outcomes for the subsequent twelve months after a fall, the
6:28
Speaker 2: rifts increase substantially of you breaking that hip or getting
6:31
Speaker 2: hospitalized again.
6:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I know that sometimes I can be
6:37
Speaker 1: a broken record on this show, but with this particular topic,
6:40
Speaker 1: I don't care. I've said to I've said to people
6:44
Speaker 1: thousands of times and thousands of situations. If you are
6:47
Speaker 1: fifty years or older and you are not doing something
6:51
Speaker 1: to either maintain or improve your strength, you're actually doing
6:56
Speaker 1: yourself a disservice. I was going to say something harsher
6:59
Speaker 1: then I won't say that, But like my dad turns
7:03
Speaker 1: eighty five on July fourth, and I take him to
7:06
Speaker 1: the gym every Saturday. I drive for four hours, right,
7:10
Speaker 1: drive two hours up and two hours that I love
7:14
Speaker 1: my dad, Right, He's a grumpy old bastard, but I
7:16
Speaker 1: love my dad. But I spend four hours in the
7:20
Speaker 1: car to train him for sixty minutes. Now. The reason is, like,
7:26
Speaker 1: we talk about balance, and I know this is not
7:28
Speaker 1: really your wheelhouse, but fuck it, here we are. You've
7:31
Speaker 1: got a dad. I've got a dad, right, So and people,
7:35
Speaker 1: you know, we have some older let's call them wiser,
7:39
Speaker 1: more senior listeners, shout out to you guys. But the
7:42
Speaker 1: truth is that like a lot of the instability and
7:45
Speaker 1: the lack of or the decreased coordination and balance and
7:49
Speaker 1: motor control and all of that is just that thing
7:52
Speaker 1: that I said before cycopenia is people lose strength and
7:55
Speaker 1: lose muscle. But the good news is that you can
7:59
Speaker 1: be like I'm sixty. Now. I don't mean this arrogantly
8:03
Speaker 1: because I don't have great genetics, but there's nothing about
8:07
Speaker 1: me from a physiological point of view that seems or
8:11
Speaker 1: operates like a typical sixty year old, and.
8:13
Speaker 2: That you don't look like a sixty year old. You
8:15
Speaker 2: look good.
8:16
Speaker 1: No, thank you, but what I mean and I'm not fishing,
8:19
Speaker 1: but because I.
8:19
Speaker 2: Literally currently you can't see you guys with actually flexing
8:23
Speaker 2: in the screen. I just saw him kiss his bifab.
8:26
Speaker 1: I've just taken my shirt off. I'll leave my cargoes on.
8:30
Speaker 1: You're welcome. That is not that's all bullshit. My shirt
8:34
Speaker 1: is on. I didn't kiss my bicets, but now you
8:36
Speaker 1: mention it. But very big, thank you, so many hilarious.
8:45
Speaker 2: He's flexing, guys, He's flexing, and I've gone bright red.
8:50
Speaker 1: Whatever.
8:50
Speaker 2: Anyway you were talking about, psycopedia, stay on topic.
8:53
Speaker 1: The bottom line is, like, to take our messages, we
8:56
Speaker 1: should all lift weights, and not only should we all
8:58
Speaker 1: or we should all do some form of strength training
9:01
Speaker 1: men and women, old and young, and not just because
9:05
Speaker 1: it increases bone density and muscle mass and strength and
9:09
Speaker 1: function and balance. It also improves cognitive function. It also
9:14
Speaker 1: correlates with better brain chemistry. It also correlates with better
9:19
Speaker 1: mental and emotional health.
9:21
Speaker 3: It also gets us everyone what really and also just
9:30
Speaker 3: making that up, but so many people that I know
9:34
Speaker 3: that train thirty forty fifty per cent of the benefit
9:38
Speaker 3: for them is that they're going somewhere where there are
9:41
Speaker 3: other people and it's a good environment and it's positive,
9:45
Speaker 3: and they're doing something that's great for their body, and
9:47
Speaker 3: they end up making friends, you.
9:50
Speaker 2: Know, And do you know what that's I think it
9:53
Speaker 2: ties into brain atrophy as well, because you're talking about
9:56
Speaker 2: muscular atrophy and your limbs and your young your legs, etc.
10:01
Speaker 2: But I'm as a neuropsychologist. One of the biggest preventers
10:04
Speaker 2: of dementia is having an active brain. So keeping on
10:09
Speaker 2: learning and keeping on socializing the biggest preventer for dementia.
10:13
Speaker 2: They think the two big At wealth, there's three big preventers,
10:16
Speaker 2: but the two big preventers are keep learning. Some people
10:20
Speaker 2: who have more education or longer years of school are
10:23
Speaker 2: less likely to get dementia, or it'll take long after
10:26
Speaker 2: the dementia are set in. And people who continue to
10:30
Speaker 2: be social and don't become homebodies, like what you're talking about,
10:33
Speaker 2: spending twenty three hours a day at home, not wanting
10:35
Speaker 2: to go outside anymore. People who keep going out, they
10:38
Speaker 2: keep making friends, they keep seeing someone, They go to
10:41
Speaker 2: the gym and they get a nice little group at
10:43
Speaker 2: the gym. Your dad socializing with you every Saturday. That
10:47
Speaker 2: keeps you socially on your toes too, So it keeps
10:50
Speaker 2: you neurostimulated, which keeps your brain moving and chugging it away,
10:54
Speaker 2: and you're flexing all those lovely brain muscles, which is
10:57
Speaker 2: what staves off dementia as well. Third one is food.
11:00
Speaker 2: But you know, we could talk talk about food till
11:02
Speaker 2: the cows come home. Mediterranean diet, guys, that's a look
11:06
Speaker 2: it up Blue zones.
11:08
Speaker 1: Do you know how many episodes we've done on food?
11:11
Speaker 1: Trust me, when you go diet, look it up. They know.
11:17
Speaker 1: My group have had a lot of conversations around paleo
11:20
Speaker 1: and Mediterranean and intimate and fast, that low carb fucking
11:25
Speaker 1: we've We've done it all.
11:27
Speaker 2: But what I have a theoretical question. Okay, well, I
11:30
Speaker 2: have a theory of really quick, really quick theoretical question. So,
11:34
Speaker 2: with your brain, you have a cognitive reserve, and I
11:37
Speaker 2: like to imagine, like a pac man going numb, numb,
11:39
Speaker 2: eating away this buffer that we all have. All of
11:42
Speaker 2: us are going to get dementia eventually. It's just a
11:44
Speaker 2: matter of how long do you live as to whether
11:46
Speaker 2: that dementia comes out or not. All of us will,
11:48
Speaker 2: your brain will eventually age so much that you get dementia.
11:52
Speaker 2: But depending on how healthy your brain is, what is
11:54
Speaker 2: your cognitive buffer, That will depend on how long it
11:57
Speaker 2: takes before the dementia shows. So I've very healthy person
12:00
Speaker 2: might not show dementsion to one hundred, whereas someone who
12:03
Speaker 2: has less education, less socializing, more risk factors might show
12:07
Speaker 2: when they're sixty. Do you think that's a there's a
12:11
Speaker 2: muscle buffer as well, if you have an early history
12:14
Speaker 2: of working out and you have trained your muscles from
12:17
Speaker 2: a young age, like, do they keep that muscle memory?
12:20
Speaker 2: Is there a buffer?
12:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's actually science on this now and I won't
12:25
Speaker 1: bore you with that, but it's what they call muscle memory.
12:28
Speaker 1: So if let's say, for example, you know forty year
12:32
Speaker 1: old me who had trained from when I was fourteen,
12:35
Speaker 1: which is when I started, versus forty year old me
12:37
Speaker 1: in another universe that didn't lift at all until I
12:40
Speaker 1: was And let's say that forty year old me took
12:45
Speaker 1: a year off and I got back to it at
12:47
Speaker 1: forty one versus forty one year old me that had
12:49
Speaker 1: never lifted away. The forty one year old, pre trained
12:52
Speaker 1: version of me would adapt much more quickly and would
12:55
Speaker 1: be stronger much more quickly. We know that. But I
12:59
Speaker 1: think also, you know, like you're talking about training and learning,
13:04
Speaker 1: and like, I think there are a myriad of parallels
13:07
Speaker 1: between training training literally our skalidal muscle and training our brain,
13:12
Speaker 1: and the benefits are similar in that we're talking about
13:15
Speaker 1: improved function and increased health span, whether that's you know,
13:20
Speaker 1: cognitive health or emotional or physiological, you know, muscular health,
13:25
Speaker 1: bone health, whatever. I know that. I mean, it's very hard,
13:31
Speaker 1: like all of us that all of us, our individual
13:34
Speaker 1: experience as a human is a subjective interpretation of whatever,
13:38
Speaker 1: but as objective and as aware as I can try
13:43
Speaker 1: to be. My brain works better at sixty than it
13:46
Speaker 1: did at thirty, which definitely sh Yeah, well i'd agree.
13:51
Speaker 2: Is that because of what were you doing when you're
13:54
Speaker 2: thirty or is it what you're doing now six?
13:56
Speaker 1: I've always been busy, right. I started my first business
13:59
Speaker 1: at nineteen, which was a scrambling design business. Yeah. I
14:04
Speaker 1: was always just doing stuff. I was always worked multiple jobs.
14:08
Speaker 1: I opened my first gym at twenty six, but I
14:10
Speaker 1: didn't go to UNI for the first time until I
14:12
Speaker 1: was thirty six. I didn't start formally studying. I was
14:15
Speaker 1: thirty six, and at that stage I'd had a myriad
14:18
Speaker 1: of jobs. I'd been I was writing for the Herald Sun,
14:21
Speaker 1: I'd written a book, I'd worked, I'd coached an AFL
14:25
Speaker 1: team as a strength coach by blahh. I just did
14:29
Speaker 1: a lot of things right. And then the year after
14:32
Speaker 1: I graduated from my first degree, I started lecturing the
14:35
Speaker 1: course I just came out of because I had an
14:38
Speaker 1: extensi well, I had an extensive background in training athletes,
14:42
Speaker 1: working with team amazing, and as a sports science graduate,
14:46
Speaker 1: I had way more kind of on the ground experience
14:51
Speaker 1: than all of my lecturers in certain areas, so exercise programming,
14:57
Speaker 1: they knew that I knew more than them because I've
14:59
Speaker 1: been doing it for twenty years, right, And that's not
15:01
Speaker 1: an ego thing, that's just an experienced thing. But I
15:05
Speaker 1: started my PhD at fifty six, I wrote my first
15:08
Speaker 1: book and forty right, and so like, I've been a
15:13
Speaker 1: lifelong learner, and I've put myself in consistently, put myself
15:19
Speaker 1: in environments and situations and roles where I have to
15:23
Speaker 1: keep learning. I have to keep working against physical, mental, emotional,
15:28
Speaker 1: and cognitive resistance. I have to keep upskilling otherwise I'm
15:32
Speaker 1: going to fail. Like I didn't know what the fuck
15:35
Speaker 1: a podcast was when I was fifty. I did all
15:40
Speaker 1: nobody did ten years ago. Really maybe I had an
15:43
Speaker 1: inkling right, and now I've done two thousand podcasts. But
15:48
Speaker 1: you can't get good at the thing that you won't do.
15:51
Speaker 1: You can't master something that And I think that, apart
15:55
Speaker 1: from the fact that it's interesting and exciting and to
15:59
Speaker 1: stay curious, to stay busy, it's also improves so much
16:05
Speaker 1: about who you are and how you are on a functional, operational,
16:10
Speaker 1: day to day level. So yeah, as a sixty year old,
16:13
Speaker 1: nothing about me other than my old fucking head. That's
16:17
Speaker 1: a giveaway, but nothing about me from the subjective experience.
16:23
Speaker 1: Nothing feels sixty.
16:25
Speaker 2: That's awesome, And you're a very young looking sixty year old,
16:29
Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting if you compare to looking
16:31
Speaker 2: at old home videos. The other day with my partner,
16:34
Speaker 2: we were looking at our parents' parents on these home
16:38
Speaker 2: videos and we're like, oh, how old granddad there, How
16:41
Speaker 2: old grand are there? And you know, and like my
16:44
Speaker 2: in laws or my mom my dad saying, oh, they're
16:47
Speaker 2: they're my age that I was now, and we're looking
16:50
Speaker 2: at they like back in the day. You know, they
16:54
Speaker 2: I say this in the most politest way I can,
16:56
Speaker 2: they didn't look they looked sixty. They look like a grandma.
16:59
Speaker 2: They looked older, whereas now, you know, our parents look
17:03
Speaker 2: quite young in comparison to you know, how our parents'
17:07
Speaker 2: parents looked when they were the same age. And I
17:09
Speaker 2: do wonder if part of that is you know, better diet,
17:12
Speaker 2: better living arrangements, better situation in life, better you, better knowledge,
17:17
Speaker 2: better access to resources and food, et cetera, et cetera,
17:20
Speaker 2: et cetera, and all of these things are having this
17:22
Speaker 2: amazing impact on you know, each subsequent generator. Even just
17:25
Speaker 2: wearing sunscreen Craig, Like, do you wear sunscreen every day?
17:28
Speaker 2: You must, You've got.
17:30
Speaker 1: I'm wearing sunscreen. I'm wearing sunscreen.
17:33
Speaker 2: Right now in the studio. It's actually wearing a hat
17:37
Speaker 2: and sunny. Yeah, it's amazing.
17:44
Speaker 1: He's the thing though, right, like I will sit down
17:46
Speaker 1: with somebody and or so well you're talk to anyone,
17:50
Speaker 1: and you know, you go all right, so your diet's
17:52
Speaker 1: pretty good, well done. Like in the old days, like
17:55
Speaker 1: what they would call healthy eating wasn't particularly healthy necessarily.
18:00
Speaker 1: Although let's just say that obviously, like a lot of
18:03
Speaker 1: what gets called food these days is fucking not food.
18:08
Speaker 1: I call it food like substances. Right, But think about
18:13
Speaker 1: all of the stuff that we.
18:14
Speaker 4: Know now that impact impacts our immune system, our cellular health,
18:21
Speaker 4: our energy levels, our cognitive function, our bone density, our
18:25
Speaker 4: you know. Even I was talking to somebody the other
18:28
Speaker 4: day and they pretty much tick all the boxes except.
18:32
Speaker 1: They sleep on average three hours a night. And I
18:35
Speaker 1: said to lady, I said, I hate to tell you,
18:38
Speaker 1: but you can't be healthy. It doesn't matter if you've
18:42
Speaker 1: got the best diet, the best training, training program, the
18:45
Speaker 1: best lifestyle, the best supplements, and even the best attitude,
18:49
Speaker 1: and all of those things, of course really help. But
18:53
Speaker 1: unless you're a genetic freak. There's actually a group of people,
18:57
Speaker 1: and I forget what it's called, but it's like one
18:59
Speaker 1: in ten thousand people. But for most of us, like
19:04
Speaker 1: rock Bottom, it's got to be like six six and
19:07
Speaker 1: a half hours rock Bottom. So if you'll have a
19:09
Speaker 1: three hours sleep, your immune system, your endocrime system, your
19:15
Speaker 1: nervous system, your ability to recover and repair, all that
19:18
Speaker 1: stuff gets kind of blown out the window to an extent.
19:21
Speaker 1: And so but we know now we even know that
19:25
Speaker 1: you and me, let's hope we like each other. I
19:28
Speaker 1: like you and hopefully you like me. But you and
19:31
Speaker 1: me now having fun as friends talking shit is literally
19:35
Speaker 1: good for our health.
19:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel my brain getting stronger right now. I
19:39
Speaker 2: think I feel my frontal lobes like throbbing with the
19:42
Speaker 2: learning the other you know what. I will also just
19:47
Speaker 2: add to that, though I just riffing with you now,
19:50
Speaker 2: I will say one other tip that I've learned over
19:52
Speaker 2: the years. If you have a parent or you yourself think
19:55
Speaker 2: that you have hearing issues, you must, must, must, must,
19:59
Speaker 2: must get a check because one of the biggest predictives,
20:02
Speaker 2: another big predicta they've recently found of dementia is untreated
20:07
Speaker 2: hearing issues. So there's often that perception. And we sort
20:11
Speaker 2: of touched on a little bit with my dad and
20:13
Speaker 2: refusing to give up the ladders and refusing to go
20:15
Speaker 2: on the roof and kind of know his act more
20:18
Speaker 2: in line with the boundaries of his age, but he
20:21
Speaker 2: also had some difficulties with hearing, and I had to
20:24
Speaker 2: kind of sit him down and say, Dad, you know
20:26
Speaker 2: you're hearing. There's various reasons why you should go get
20:30
Speaker 2: your hearing checked, but there's two big ones. Number one,
20:34
Speaker 2: you're hearing today, Let's say you're hearing today is not
20:36
Speaker 2: so great. If you get hearing aids, twelve months from now,
20:39
Speaker 2: your hearing will be the same. It'll be the same.
20:42
Speaker 2: But if you do not go and get support for
20:44
Speaker 2: your ears, and you do not get the appropriate, you know,
20:46
Speaker 2: hearing assistance, then your hearing will decline between now and
20:51
Speaker 2: twelve months. It will get worse in twelve months time
20:53
Speaker 2: because of that lack of lack of assistance. The second
20:56
Speaker 2: thing is it increases your risk of demas if you
21:01
Speaker 2: have hearing loss, it actually increases your risk of dementia.
21:04
Speaker 2: So untreated hearing loss is a massive predictor for dementia
21:08
Speaker 2: later in life. And the you know, there's some correlations
21:11
Speaker 2: to explain maybe why we think that occurs, but predominantly
21:14
Speaker 2: it might be because of the loss of then socializing,
21:18
Speaker 2: the reduction in socializing that occurs when you can't hear anyone,
21:22
Speaker 2: the fact you can't participate in a group conversation, and
21:25
Speaker 2: there's probably also some neurological things going on, but it's
21:28
Speaker 2: just yet another thing as we like aging in an
21:31
Speaker 2: accepting way where we except we're at a different age,
21:34
Speaker 2: and we need to we just need to do things
21:35
Speaker 2: a little bit differently. There's no shame in getting some
21:37
Speaker 2: help for things like hearing, and you should because it's
21:40
Speaker 2: good for your brain.
21:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. And you know what else is
21:44
Speaker 1: really interesting, Well you can explain this better than me,
21:46
Speaker 1: but you know, being you know a couple of things
21:51
Speaker 1: that affect brain function or cognitive function really quickly. Obviously,
21:56
Speaker 1: stress and anxiety have almost if you're really stressed around
22:00
Speaker 1: has an immediate impact on cognition. If you're dehydrated, same
22:05
Speaker 1: if you're underslept, same if you've got booze, If you've
22:09
Speaker 1: got booze in your system, same.
22:12
Speaker 2: Right, substances, Yeah.
22:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, substances. And it's like, I don't know if you
22:18
Speaker 1: know off the top of your head, but there's a
22:20
Speaker 1: formula that I've heard thrown around a few times between
22:24
Speaker 1: you know, being underslept by a certain percentage it equates
22:27
Speaker 1: to like the equivalent of being point zero five of
22:32
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but it's like, I
22:35
Speaker 1: know the times when I've been really which is rare,
22:37
Speaker 1: but sleep deprived because I've just got you know, like
22:40
Speaker 1: I'm running a camp for the weekend and I've been
22:43
Speaker 1: kind of going forty eight hours by Sunday night. My
22:46
Speaker 1: IQ's about fucking seven. I'm like a wombat, right, But
22:51
Speaker 1: there are so many There are so many things that
22:54
Speaker 1: And also another thing that is I didn't know this
22:57
Speaker 1: until a couple of years ago. And you know this
23:00
Speaker 1: is that although your brain only weighs about three pounds
23:03
Speaker 1: or one point three or four kilos, it uses twenty
23:06
Speaker 1: percent of our energy, right, twenty percent of Wow?
23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what burns calories to think, but I
23:13
Speaker 2: didn't realize it was twenty percent. But I'm not surprised,
23:16
Speaker 2: and I think new parents is probably fifty percent.
23:19
Speaker 1: So think about this, somebody like me who weighs eighty
23:22
Speaker 1: five kilos. Let's say my brain is one point three
23:25
Speaker 1: I don't know what percentage of that it would be, like,
23:28
Speaker 1: but less than two percent, but less than two percent
23:31
Speaker 1: of my body uses twenty percent of my energy and
23:36
Speaker 1: take that's that's like, you know, like literally mad using
23:42
Speaker 1: your brain burns energy.
23:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeap. And the brain is the only organ in
23:48
Speaker 2: your body that studies itself. It's crazy, isn't that?
23:52
Speaker 1: Well? That's the is it the brain?
23:54
Speaker 4: Wild?
23:55
Speaker 1: Is it the brain or is it the oh.
23:56
Speaker 2: This is your this is your PhD. I don't know
23:59
Speaker 2: you till us tell us in six months when you
24:01
Speaker 2: publish it. But I'll also add another crazy point if
24:06
Speaker 2: you okay, this is one. This is a PSA. I'm
24:09
Speaker 2: going to put this out. If you have access to
24:11
Speaker 2: ADHD medication, you are not diagnosed with ADHD, please don't
24:15
Speaker 2: take other people's ADHD medication. There's a common misconception. I'm
24:19
Speaker 2: sure we'll talk ADHD another day, but people who are
24:22
Speaker 2: taking are seeing this a lot of the clinic, you know,
24:24
Speaker 2: I diagnose ADHD I to assessments for a living with
24:27
Speaker 2: neurodiversity and autism and stuff. I'm seeing a lot of
24:30
Speaker 2: people who will take ADHD medication that they've gotten access
24:33
Speaker 2: to to help their brain, help them concentrate. And the
24:38
Speaker 2: latest research there used to be this idea that, oh, yes,
24:41
Speaker 2: it will help me concentrate, to take someone else's riddle
24:43
Speaker 2: and or take someone's dex amphetamine whatever it was. But
24:47
Speaker 2: actually the latest Rich show is telling us that if
24:50
Speaker 2: you do not have ADHD and you take des amphetamine
24:55
Speaker 2: or any kind of you know, stimulant medication for ADHD,
24:58
Speaker 2: if you don't have that diagnos the medication actually does
25:01
Speaker 2: the opposite to you, and it can make you appear
25:04
Speaker 2: like you have ADHD, So it makes your concentration worth
25:08
Speaker 2: worth but your perception of your concentration, your belief about
25:14
Speaker 2: your concentration is that it's better, so you believe you're
25:18
Speaker 2: doing better. But actually the researchers who have tested people
25:22
Speaker 2: and put them through tasks and where they have to concentrate,
25:24
Speaker 2: they've actually found those people could when they were taking
25:27
Speaker 2: the medicine perceive their performance to be better, but they're
25:30
Speaker 2: actually much more likely to switch tasks, not stay on track,
25:34
Speaker 2: click from one thing to the next in a bit
25:36
Speaker 2: of a hurried fashion, without realizing that they were much
25:39
Speaker 2: more disorganized than they were without the medication. So it's
25:43
Speaker 2: a really big placebo effect when people take medication who
25:46
Speaker 2: do not have the diagnosis. So if you know, that's
25:50
Speaker 2: one of the ways the trial to figure out if
25:51
Speaker 2: you really do have ADHD, you'll notice the difference when
25:54
Speaker 2: you take the medication for the better, But if you
25:56
Speaker 2: don't have ADHD, it will make you worse. So people
26:00
Speaker 2: trying to get a quick fix or a silver bullet
26:02
Speaker 2: or a magic pill for making their brain better, Unfortunately,
26:05
Speaker 2: there really isn't that magic pill you do as you say,
26:08
Speaker 2: you need that holistic approach to are you sleeping right?
26:12
Speaker 2: Is your mood? Okay, you're working out? And if you
26:15
Speaker 2: do think you have a neurodiversity, have you done the
26:17
Speaker 2: appropriate steps to get it properly, properly checked, not just
26:20
Speaker 2: popping a pill because it might make things worse rather
26:22
Speaker 2: than better.
26:23
Speaker 1: Well, there's about seventy million bio hackers out there who
26:27
Speaker 1: are rolling their eyes at you, saying you clearly don't
26:31
Speaker 1: understand eutropics. You clearly have, like have you? I agree
26:37
Speaker 1: with you, by the way, But it is funny because
26:39
Speaker 1: there's a whole field of supplements proliferating right now all
26:46
Speaker 1: around cognitive function. And oh do you mean.
26:50
Speaker 2: Like ginco boloma and like.
26:52
Speaker 1: Line No, no, no, they're supplements like no, these are
27:00
Speaker 1: I can't say too much, but let's just say I
27:03
Speaker 1: know at least fifty people who use neotropics, and by
27:06
Speaker 1: that I mean things like pro vidual modafinite, things that
27:11
Speaker 1: are so For example, modfinitel is an anti narcolepsy drug.
27:18
Speaker 1: Wake right, Yeah, it's not a stimulant per se. Nicotine.
27:26
Speaker 1: Nicotine is massive, massive, really massive, not not pertually, not
27:35
Speaker 1: in your environment, but m.
27:39
Speaker 2: UNI students. What I think, because I'm lecturing now, I
27:44
Speaker 2: lecture at UTS, teaching the psychometrics to the master students,
27:48
Speaker 2: and you know, I think you're in exposure to UNI students,
27:51
Speaker 2: not necessarily UTS students, but just across the board. When
27:53
Speaker 2: I was at UNI, people using things like, yeah, the nudos,
27:59
Speaker 2: or people who were taking medicine from friends who are
28:02
Speaker 2: diagnosed with ADHD, people who perhaps might you know, do
28:07
Speaker 2: things like chew nicotine gum. But interestingly, they always rolled
28:12
Speaker 2: into the exams looking like death, warmed up, looking exhausted,
28:17
Speaker 2: and I often wondered whether it was just the adrenaline
28:19
Speaker 2: of being so close to the deadline that got them
28:21
Speaker 2: over the edge. You know, is it really actually helping you?
28:24
Speaker 2: What's the long term ramification to your liver and your
28:27
Speaker 2: gut and your your health, and you know, even just
28:30
Speaker 2: the diuretic effects of eating heaps and heaps of nicotine
28:34
Speaker 2: gum that you don't need. You know, I can only
28:36
Speaker 2: imagine what that does to your bowels. But yeah, there's
28:40
Speaker 2: better ways. There's better magic pills than pop and nodos, guys,
28:46
Speaker 2: And now by that I mean exercise than sleep.
28:49
Speaker 1: Well, there's no I mean, there's no doubt that all
28:51
Speaker 1: of those things over the long term and no good
28:53
Speaker 1: for you. And even then the short term they're not
28:55
Speaker 1: good for you. But I think like one of my
29:01
Speaker 1: friends got diagnosed with sleep apnea, which a lot of
29:05
Speaker 1: people have, and so he's got one of those sleepy machine,
29:10
Speaker 1: those sleep a datata. Anyway, the bottom line, bottom line
29:14
Speaker 1: is he now sleeps great. Well, now he's like a
29:17
Speaker 1: fucking genius just because he's.
29:20
Speaker 5: Sleeping like he's literally it's literally smarter, like as in functionally,
29:27
Speaker 5: he's like, oh my god, I didn't realize I was.
29:30
Speaker 1: I was like a V eight running on two cylinders.
29:32
Speaker 1: And now he sleeps proptly. He's changed his diet, his
29:36
Speaker 1: last weight, he's cut out nearly all booze, and he
29:39
Speaker 1: drinks water so he's well hydrated, he's well rested. He's
29:43
Speaker 1: not carrying a round weight that was non functional. Yes, like,
29:48
Speaker 1: apart from all the obvious physiological benefits, you know, look
29:51
Speaker 1: for your function, health, immune system, energy levels, his brain.
29:56
Speaker 1: It's like he said to me the other day, I
29:58
Speaker 1: literally feel smarter, and I go, well, you probably literally
30:03
Speaker 1: are smarter from a function point of view. Just because
30:07
Speaker 1: you did your.
30:08
Speaker 2: Body testing wise as well. One of the primary things
30:11
Speaker 2: I have to constantly rule out when I do a
30:13
Speaker 2: dementia assessment or a fronto temporal dementia assessment, which affects
30:17
Speaker 2: your frontal lobes and can make you act very odd
30:20
Speaker 2: and make silly decisions and not use reasoning and insight,
30:24
Speaker 2: you know, changes personalities. Because it really affects the frontal
30:27
Speaker 2: part of our brain. I have to constantly rule out,
30:31
Speaker 2: you know, what is a confound, what could be muddying
30:34
Speaker 2: the water here, and those things are things like untreated
30:38
Speaker 2: sleep apnea. So somebody who's snoring in the night is
30:41
Speaker 2: a sign. People who stop breathing in the night is
30:43
Speaker 2: a sign. You know. The partner often can take the
30:47
Speaker 2: room because a person's so loud. Waking up and having
30:51
Speaker 2: excessive daytime sleepiness. There's actually a clinical term excessive daytime
30:54
Speaker 2: sleepiness where you're drifting off, you know, during meetings or
30:58
Speaker 2: when things are a bit more dull, You're falling asleep,
31:00
Speaker 2: you needing to take naps during the day, You're getting sleep,
31:04
Speaker 2: but you wake up exhausted. You know. I have to
31:07
Speaker 2: rule those things out when I'm assessing someone for ADHD
31:11
Speaker 2: or for a cognitive impairment or for a dementia, because
31:15
Speaker 2: it's the bottom of the cognitive pyramid, you know, it's
31:19
Speaker 2: the primary, primary bottom, you know, until you can get
31:22
Speaker 2: into other you can't even get into more complex cognitive
31:26
Speaker 2: abilities like executive function or memory or language. If you
31:30
Speaker 2: don't have adequate if you're not medically stable, right, and
31:33
Speaker 2: if you're if you're a walking zombie because you've had
31:36
Speaker 2: not enough sleep or poor quality sleep.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, I've got a very specific question that I
31:42
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever asked you so now, without opening
31:47
Speaker 1: the autism or the neurodiversity door to wide or even
31:52
Speaker 1: the depression or anxiety or anything in that mental health
31:56
Speaker 1: brain health brain function space, do you think that the
32:02
Speaker 1: way that our brains are working in twenty twenty four
32:08
Speaker 1: and perhaps what seems to be the increased prevalence of
32:11
Speaker 1: mental health issues and neurodivergent kind of people and all
32:15
Speaker 1: of that stuff, do you think that's we're just that's
32:19
Speaker 1: always been at that level and we're just more aware
32:22
Speaker 1: of it. Or do you think it's increasing. Do you
32:25
Speaker 1: think it's increasing because of things like global pandemics, diet,
32:32
Speaker 1: you know, plastics and all of the you know, the
32:36
Speaker 1: myriad of things that we are now doing to our
32:38
Speaker 1: bodies that we didn't do two generations ago or even
32:43
Speaker 1: one generation ago.
32:45
Speaker 2: Oh so interesting, that's really interesting. I think we could
32:48
Speaker 2: do another an entire episode on neurodiversity. We should. But
32:52
Speaker 2: my short answer is yes and no. There's better every
32:58
Speaker 2: time we've had an increase in diagnostic criteria. So when
33:02
Speaker 2: we've had a new DSM Diagnostic Statistical Manual Mental Disorders
33:06
Speaker 2: or ICD International Classification of Disease, every time they've had
33:09
Speaker 2: a new one come out, So we're in the fifth
33:11
Speaker 2: edition of the DSM, we're in the tenth edition of
33:13
Speaker 2: the ICD. When there's a new edition come out and
33:16
Speaker 2: the criteria is a little better, a little more precise,
33:18
Speaker 2: a little more refined, little more finessed, a little less
33:21
Speaker 2: you know, bias to gender, then there's a sudden spike
33:26
Speaker 2: in diagnoses, and that probably reflects better ability to detect
33:31
Speaker 2: these things. You know, women, in particular, neurodiversity. There was
33:34
Speaker 2: a huge group of women. We call them the lost Girls,
33:37
Speaker 2: because they were completely undetected because the DSM, yes, the
33:43
Speaker 2: DSM is written for it was based the samples are
33:46
Speaker 2: based on young boys and men, and so it's a
33:51
Speaker 2: serious issue. A lot of the DSM and the disorders
33:54
Speaker 2: in our mental health understanding is mostly based on male research,
33:59
Speaker 2: and women were excluded because of the concern that things
34:02
Speaker 2: like their period would muck up the results. So even
34:06
Speaker 2: though they're half the population, they weren't part of the
34:09
Speaker 2: research to determine how those disorders displayed themselves. So most
34:14
Speaker 2: women don't present the way that people would typically think
34:17
Speaker 2: of an ADHD child or an autistic person. They're actually
34:22
Speaker 2: the DSM describes autistic males really well and autistic ADHD
34:26
Speaker 2: men really well, but it doesn't describe autistic females very well.
34:31
Speaker 2: And so we're now we're now figuring out ah well,
34:34
Speaker 2: women socially masked and they hide it, and they may
34:36
Speaker 2: be more likely to have an internal meltdown rather an
34:38
Speaker 2: external meltdown. There's a whole bunch of other presentation factors
34:43
Speaker 2: that need to be considered, so't we haven't appropriately detected
34:48
Speaker 2: these people. So hence now we're getting a spike in detection.
34:51
Speaker 2: And yes, COVID was meant that lots of people couldn't
34:55
Speaker 2: assess during COVID, so there's that catch up. We're playing
34:58
Speaker 2: catch up with the two years worth of people who
35:00
Speaker 2: didn't get assessed during COVID or who realized they had
35:03
Speaker 2: symptoms during COVID because isolating for you know, two years
35:08
Speaker 2: socially they realized, oh, I actually really like this because
35:11
Speaker 2: I don't have to socially mask anymore and I can't
35:13
Speaker 2: go back to socializing anymore. So now they're presenting for
35:16
Speaker 2: autism assessments, or they realized they couldn't concentrate, you know,
35:19
Speaker 2: when they weren't in the office, they couldn't concentrate and
35:21
Speaker 2: they had terrible attention. So now they're getting checked for ADHD.
35:25
Speaker 2: So there's that we're playing catch up with that. But
35:28
Speaker 2: the flip side of what you're asking is is there
35:30
Speaker 2: environmental factors playing epigenetic issues or role in our presentation? Like, so,
35:35
Speaker 2: is the environment affecting the genetics and now we're seeing
35:38
Speaker 2: greater increases. I previously would have said no, I used
35:43
Speaker 2: to I used to be of the you know, in
35:45
Speaker 2: the camp of no. No, it's just better. We've got
35:48
Speaker 2: better means to detect these things now. But there is
35:51
Speaker 2: some very new research, very very new research coming out
35:55
Speaker 2: that suggests that it is possible that there are certain
36:00
Speaker 2: toxins in the environment and certain substances that women are
36:03
Speaker 2: being exposed to that affects babies in the womb. So
36:07
Speaker 2: one of them are, you know, prenatal vitamins for example, Greig,
36:11
Speaker 2: you know, how often do you hear or see those
36:12
Speaker 2: videos about those ads about taking prenatal vitamins, Like, it's
36:16
Speaker 2: really important to take your prenatal vitamins. If you're thinking
36:19
Speaker 2: of trying to get a pregnant, you should take them
36:20
Speaker 2: straight away, and while you're pregnant, make sure you take them.
36:24
Speaker 2: With this idea that, oh, there's no harm in making
36:27
Speaker 2: sure you have lots of nutrients. Make sure you have
36:29
Speaker 2: lots and lots of nutrients. But now there's some early
36:32
Speaker 2: research to suggest, oh, actually having too many of certain
36:36
Speaker 2: nutrients may actually be linked to increased rates of perhaps
36:41
Speaker 2: autism or AHD later in life for these children because
36:44
Speaker 2: they were over exposed to stim these supplements. So now
36:48
Speaker 2: doctors are not necessarily prescribing, you know, as a rule
36:52
Speaker 2: of thumb, to every pregnant woman take supplements. Now they're
36:55
Speaker 2: only prescribing them if the woman actually shows a death
36:58
Speaker 2: sit of some kind in her blood. So there's some
37:01
Speaker 2: early research coming out to suggest yes, you may very
37:04
Speaker 2: bur be right about the factors of the environment. Yeah.
37:08
Speaker 1: And the other thing that doesn't get mentioned a lot
37:13
Speaker 1: just in it does in science, but in just you know,
37:16
Speaker 1: in the media, when people are talking about all the
37:19
Speaker 1: variables around health, there's like these sweeping statements that are
37:23
Speaker 1: doing this. Does that to who? Like I just met
37:29
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine. His name's Terry, and he
37:32
Speaker 1: had a I forget the type of brain cancer it was,
37:38
Speaker 1: but he ended up undergoing twenty nine operations and the
37:42
Speaker 1: fact that he's alive. He's a miracle man. He's a
37:44
Speaker 1: miracle man. Yeah, we were talking about We're talking about
37:50
Speaker 1: a few things, but one of the things we're talking
37:51
Speaker 1: about was Lyrica, which is a drug for pain, neural pain, right,
37:56
Speaker 1: which you would not So can I say this? Can
38:04
Speaker 1: I say this? I think I can. Well, I won't
38:06
Speaker 1: say exactly how much. But so Terry is in constant
38:11
Speaker 1: pain and he has to take Lyrica as just a
38:16
Speaker 1: daily just to be able to function. Right now, A
38:21
Speaker 1: few years ago, I fucked my back and I got
38:23
Speaker 1: prescribed Lyrica. I'd never had it. I took one seventy
38:27
Speaker 1: one seventy five meal tablet and I sat in this
38:30
Speaker 1: room that I'm in now, I was sitting in a
38:34
Speaker 1: comfy chair and I was in massive pain. I took
38:37
Speaker 1: the Lyrica. Twenty minutes later the pain started to subside.
38:41
Speaker 1: And in front of me is a whiteboard on the wall.
38:43
Speaker 1: I've told this few times on the show. I'm sorry everybody,
38:46
Speaker 1: but so there was writing on the whiteboard, Hannah, and
38:51
Speaker 1: I was looking at the writing, and it slid off
38:53
Speaker 1: the whiteboard and onto the wall. And now the writing
38:57
Speaker 1: was on the writing was on the wall, and the
39:00
Speaker 1: white board was clear. Now I'm sitting there, eyes wide open,
39:05
Speaker 1: looking at the clear whiteboard and now all this writing
39:09
Speaker 1: on the wall, fully knowing that that's not real. It
39:13
Speaker 1: can't be right.
39:13
Speaker 2: Okay, so you knew it was a hallucination.
39:16
Speaker 1: I knew, but I'm looking at it. I literally closed
39:18
Speaker 1: my eyes and reopened my eyes, and the writing was
39:22
Speaker 1: still on the wall. Now here's my point. I had
39:26
Speaker 1: one tablet and I weigh eighty five kilos. He has
39:32
Speaker 1: a lot more than that. I won't say how much,
39:34
Speaker 1: but a lot. Anyway, he's probably seventy kilos. And not
39:40
Speaker 1: only does he not hallucinate, it kind of makes him
39:43
Speaker 1: feel better. Right, I'm just thinking. So the funny thing
39:49
Speaker 1: is it's like, oh, people go this is good, this
39:51
Speaker 1: is bad, and you go, well, One, it depends on
39:53
Speaker 1: how that particular stimulus, whether it's peanuts, almonds, soid products, lyrica, booze,
40:00
Speaker 1: sun exposure, like, it depends on how that stimulus interacts
40:04
Speaker 1: with that individual's physiology. So to say categorically that this
40:09
Speaker 1: is good, this is bad is completely fucking ignorance because
40:12
Speaker 1: the thing that would be terrible for me could save
40:14
Speaker 1: someone else's life. You know, for me, a healthy snack
40:18
Speaker 1: could be For me, a healthy snack could be a
40:21
Speaker 1: handful of peanuts or almonds, But for someone else that
40:24
Speaker 1: will kill them. Right, So there's you know, in exercise,
40:30
Speaker 1: it's the same. You know, in exercise science, you need
40:34
Speaker 1: to stretch more. No, for some people, stretching is bad.
40:38
Speaker 1: And I was even talking about a book recently called
40:41
Speaker 1: Bad Therapy by researcher who interviewed a myriad of world
40:47
Speaker 1: class psychologists and neuropsychologists around different models and treatments for
40:54
Speaker 1: you know, dealing with psychological issues. And what she found
40:58
Speaker 1: was that for some people, talk therapy makes it worse.
41:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it's not right for their brain, that's right, yeah,
41:06
Speaker 2: that's right.
41:06
Speaker 1: And so for some people it's like, oh, every second
41:11
Speaker 1: Tuesday they go and see you know, Diane the psychotherapist,
41:15
Speaker 1: and then they come out of their triggered and stress,
41:21
Speaker 1: and then they come out worse and then it takes
41:23
Speaker 1: them three days to reset, and then eleven days later
41:27
Speaker 1: they go back through the same process. And so it's
41:31
Speaker 1: not to say amends are good or bad, or talk
41:33
Speaker 1: therapy is good or bad, or sun exposure is good
41:36
Speaker 1: or bad, but just that we are not all generic,
41:40
Speaker 1: we are not all clones. And it's trying to figure
41:43
Speaker 1: out how you know, Hannah works, how Craig works, and
41:47
Speaker 1: then figure out with yes, we need to listen to
41:50
Speaker 1: people like you who are experts and maybe me, but
41:54
Speaker 1: also rather consider us, don't necessarily believe us unequivocally.
41:59
Speaker 2: That's it. I would highly recommend any women listening for Pregnant,
42:02
Speaker 2: you know, talk to your doctor. Don't don't go changing
42:05
Speaker 2: what you're doing from listening to a podcast. You need
42:08
Speaker 2: to you need to consult your doctor specifically. And this
42:11
Speaker 2: is obviously not specific advice for anyone. So that's exactly right.
42:15
Speaker 2: And I think the next question that would come to
42:17
Speaker 2: a listener's mind is how do I how do I
42:19
Speaker 2: figure out what's right for me? And it's one thing
42:22
Speaker 2: that I've kind of learned from doing neuropsyche for however
42:26
Speaker 2: long now is speaking to the right person, speaking to
42:29
Speaker 2: the right expert. And it's a it's a it's a
42:33
Speaker 2: mix of speaking to the right specialists, but also know
42:35
Speaker 2: thyself and trust, trust your own gut in a way,
42:39
Speaker 2: because I'll often have people present to Neuropsyche for an
42:42
Speaker 2: assessment for autism or ADHD, and we do an intake
42:45
Speaker 2: first before I assess you. I don't assess people until
42:48
Speaker 2: I've done a session with them first for an hour
42:50
Speaker 2: to hear you know what serious you? What is your concern?
42:53
Speaker 2: When did that happen? Why are you worried? Why do
42:56
Speaker 2: you want an assessment? Now? I'm not going to book
42:58
Speaker 2: you in for a thousand dollars assessment and till I
43:00
Speaker 2: know why do you want this assessment? What is exactly
43:04
Speaker 2: the problem? And let's go back to pregnancy when you
43:06
Speaker 2: were first born and work our way back to now
43:08
Speaker 2: to figure out what your developmental history is to see
43:10
Speaker 2: if this is appropriate for you. So you know, one part,
43:15
Speaker 2: A lot of those people who present to me have
43:16
Speaker 2: been through a very windy road to get to that
43:19
Speaker 2: point of finally, finally, finally getting a neurodivergent assessment to
43:23
Speaker 2: see if they have autism or ADHD. And often they're presenting,
43:26
Speaker 2: and you know, that's half the battle, because they know
43:29
Speaker 2: themselves something's not typical. You know, I feel different, I
43:33
Speaker 2: feel really different. And this is not just depression or anxiety.
43:37
Speaker 2: I've tried the therapy, I've tried the medication and it's
43:39
Speaker 2: not going away. And so often that they've come from
43:43
Speaker 2: a therapy, you know, history of ten years of therapy
43:46
Speaker 2: or have many sessions of therapy and they didn't find
43:49
Speaker 2: it helpful. And I often have to sort of explain
43:51
Speaker 2: to them after we've done the assessment and they have
43:53
Speaker 2: in fact come up as having ADHD or autism, I
43:56
Speaker 2: have to explain to them, you know, yeah, that some
43:58
Speaker 2: therapies are for neuro brains, for neurotypical brains. But you know, Craig,
44:03
Speaker 2: they think, on average is about forty two percent of
44:06
Speaker 2: the population. When you put all the different neurodiversity, specific
44:09
Speaker 2: learning disorder, dyslexia, discalculia, disgraphia, ADHD, ASD or TIM spectrum
44:15
Speaker 2: just sort of put them all together, it's something like
44:17
Speaker 2: forty two percent of population as a neurodiversity, so half
44:21
Speaker 2: the population is not neurotypical yet were We often try
44:26
Speaker 2: to squeeze a square peg into a round hole and
44:28
Speaker 2: give people the same kind of CBT DBT, the same
44:32
Speaker 2: kind of therapy, but it may not be right for them,
44:37
Speaker 2: and that might be why it hasn't been effective for them,
44:40
Speaker 2: because they needed a neurodiverse therapy. And it's not your fault.
44:44
Speaker 2: It's not that you weren't trying hard enough, or you
44:46
Speaker 2: were being lazy, or you just weren't putting enough effort in.
44:50
Speaker 2: It could be that just it actually wasn't the right
44:53
Speaker 2: wasn't the right intervention for you. So part of it
44:56
Speaker 2: is finding the right the right specialist who knows what
44:59
Speaker 2: they're talking out and the other part of it is
45:02
Speaker 2: knowing yourself. Does it feel right, does it resonate with me?
45:06
Speaker 2: Does this answer my question? Six month review six month reviews?
45:10
Speaker 2: Is it's working for me? Or are you just going
45:13
Speaker 2: along passively? Is it actually working for you and checking
45:17
Speaker 2: in with yourself? You know, probably, Craig, you talk about
45:19
Speaker 2: goals all the time. You know, goals at the start
45:21
Speaker 2: of the year and checking in, and you've got that
45:23
Speaker 2: great journal that you sell with the you know, the
45:26
Speaker 2: goals of setting up your plan for the year and
45:29
Speaker 2: setting yourself up and breaking those goals down to week, monthly, weekly, daily.
45:32
Speaker 2: It's an excellent journal, guys. If you haven't seen it,
45:34
Speaker 2: you should check it out. But you know, checking in
45:38
Speaker 2: to make sure you're not just passively going along with
45:41
Speaker 2: a plan that was given to you and actually saying
45:44
Speaker 2: do I feel better? Do I have less symptoms of
45:47
Speaker 2: depression and anxiety? Is the medication working for me? Or
45:50
Speaker 2: do I need to try something different? Six month still
45:53
Speaker 2: the same, then it's probably not quite working for you.
45:57
Speaker 1: So interesting because when you say listen, thank you for that,
46:00
Speaker 1: that's all fucking fascinating. When you say on nearly half
46:04
Speaker 1: the population is neurodivergent and just over half the population
46:08
Speaker 1: is neurotypical, to me, it's like, well, then if that
46:11
Speaker 1: many people are divergent, they're fucking typical. You know. It's like, well,
46:21
Speaker 1: you know this is I don't mean this to sound cynical.
46:23
Speaker 2: It isn't, but no, no, I get it.
46:26
Speaker 1: I think, Oh, for all our wisdom and all our
46:29
Speaker 1: research and all our DSM five you know, revelations and
46:33
Speaker 1: breakthroughs and now we know this and that. To me,
46:36
Speaker 1: it seems like we've got all this treatment, all these medications,
46:39
Speaker 1: all this knowledge, all this research, all these papers, but
46:42
Speaker 1: we've never had more depressed people, more anxious people, more
46:47
Speaker 1: people terrified of their own fucking shadow. It's like like
46:53
Speaker 1: and more people with I'm like, I don't know. It
46:57
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like with this increase in knowledge, awareness, treatment, options, research,
47:03
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem we're getting better. It seems like we
47:07
Speaker 1: are seeing more and more mental illness, mental health concerns, anxiety, depression.
47:13
Speaker 2: And you only have to look at the rates of
47:15
Speaker 2: suicide in young men to know that it's an absolute crisis.
47:19
Speaker 2: What is it? One in six men try to take
47:21
Speaker 2: their lives every minute. It's like it's something great, Yeah,
47:26
Speaker 2: it's something crazy that there's an absolute epidemic in young men,
47:30
Speaker 2: in particular with mental illness. You're right, and it could
47:35
Speaker 2: be the way we live. Maybe it's partly that little
47:37
Speaker 2: black box that you constantly put in your pocket, that
47:39
Speaker 2: little phone of yours that's constantly talking at you, or
47:44
Speaker 2: the TV that we watch and the horrible you know,
47:49
Speaker 2: like the media that tells you that you're not seen enough,
47:51
Speaker 2: you're not pretty enough, you're not good looking enough, you're
47:53
Speaker 2: not anything enough. But you need to buy this private
47:55
Speaker 2: product and you'll be this thing. And I always find
47:58
Speaker 2: it really interesting, Craig, you know, with this these advertising,
48:01
Speaker 2: Like how many times go on Instagram? How many times
48:03
Speaker 2: do you see ads to say, buy this and you'll
48:05
Speaker 2: have whiter teeth and clearer eyes and shinier, shinier noses,
48:09
Speaker 2: and we won't have as much axe in your ears
48:11
Speaker 2: and you won't have you have perfect hair, and you'll
48:13
Speaker 2: be perfectly skinny, and you'll have you know, six minute
48:15
Speaker 2: ads and like everything, everything's telling you it's so easy,
48:19
Speaker 2: just buy this thing. And then you walk down the
48:21
Speaker 2: street and how often do you see streets full of
48:24
Speaker 2: people who look like the people on TV? Like, how
48:28
Speaker 2: often do you see the people on TV just walk
48:30
Speaker 2: in the streets Everyone just looks normal. So if these
48:33
Speaker 2: things actually worked, don't you think everyone would be walking
48:36
Speaker 2: away and walking around with the longest, shiniest, amazing hair,
48:39
Speaker 2: whitest teeth, perfect skin, no wrinkles. But it's part of this,
48:44
Speaker 2: you know, this fallacy we have with you know, the
48:46
Speaker 2: media telling us you're not good enough.
48:48
Speaker 1: All the time, I agree with you, but also I think, yeah,
48:52
Speaker 1: but every single person listening to this has a brain,
48:58
Speaker 1: like I don't think. I don't think too many of
49:02
Speaker 1: us confuse marketing and advertising with knowledge or information, like
49:08
Speaker 1: that stuff that you spoke of. You're right, but it's
49:11
Speaker 1: not their fault. It's like if I choose to go
49:14
Speaker 1: and buy shit I don't need with money I don't have,
49:17
Speaker 1: if I choose to go to McDonald's, if I choose
49:20
Speaker 1: to spend twenty grand getting whiter teeth, if I choose
49:23
Speaker 1: to sit on the couch, like at some stage we
49:26
Speaker 1: need to stop blaming media and social media, like nobody
49:30
Speaker 1: makes me pick up my phone thirty times a day.
49:33
Speaker 1: You're right, Well, actually I don't know.
49:35
Speaker 2: I agree with you, Craig. Are you telling our first
49:40
Speaker 2: our first argument ever? But I know there's something to
49:44
Speaker 2: be said.
49:46
Speaker 1: Don't talk over the top of me. You're not winning
49:48
Speaker 1: that way. See it's not how he talks loudest. I
49:52
Speaker 1: know what you're going to say about addiction and brain chemistry.
49:54
Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah, but still still like I've I've
50:00
Speaker 1: worked with addicts, I've worked with I worked with addicts
50:03
Speaker 1: for three years. I've dealt with people with the worst
50:08
Speaker 1: addictions heroine being amongst it, and people who are at
50:13
Speaker 1: death's door and have turned their life around in the deepest,
50:16
Speaker 1: darkest addiction and now are fully operational, functional and healthy. Right,
50:21
Speaker 1: you are right there is Phones and screens can be
50:25
Speaker 1: very chemically addictive, of course, but at the same time,
50:32
Speaker 1: like when do we stop going, Oh, it's got nothing
50:35
Speaker 1: to do with me. It's not my faults. It's not me,
50:38
Speaker 1: it's my genetics, it's not me, it's mum and dad.
50:41
Speaker 1: It's not me, it's the government. It's not me, it's
50:44
Speaker 1: the advertising. Because we seem to live in this culture
50:48
Speaker 1: where it doesn't matter what's going on. It can't be
50:51
Speaker 1: my fault. Like at some stage we've got to go yes,
50:57
Speaker 1: this is hard, Yes this is difficult. But I mean
51:00
Speaker 1: my PhD is on self awareness. I think self awareness
51:04
Speaker 1: is rare. I think like, let me tell you, the
51:08
Speaker 1: biggest problem in Craiguper's life is Craig Up. The biggest
51:11
Speaker 1: asset is Craig Up. Nobody makes me do anything. Now, Yes,
51:18
Speaker 1: we can be predisposed to be more likely to become
51:21
Speaker 1: an addict, or more likely to gain weight, or more
51:24
Speaker 1: likely to have mental health issues, of course one no argument.
51:30
Speaker 1: But beyond that, we still have this thing called free will.
51:35
Speaker 1: We can make decisions, we can choose our behaviors, we
51:38
Speaker 1: can decide what we do with our time. And there
51:41
Speaker 1: will always be variables that are out of our control.
51:46
Speaker 1: So let's invest no energy in that. Let's just acknowledge them.
51:50
Speaker 1: And now let's let's invest energy in what is in
51:53
Speaker 1: our control, the choices I make in action. I take
51:57
Speaker 1: my mindset and yeah, you're right, but at some stage,
52:02
Speaker 1: like I've never lived in a time where so many
52:05
Speaker 1: people are so unwell, but it's got nothing to do
52:09
Speaker 1: with them. Like, to me, that's bullshit, And that's not
52:13
Speaker 1: about that's not about hating on people. That's about saying, hey,
52:18
Speaker 1: it's got a bit to do with you. And yes,
52:20
Speaker 1: you've been through some bullshit and it's hard, and I
52:23
Speaker 1: agree with you. Life's not fair and your genetic suck
52:26
Speaker 1: and all of that. But still it's not compulsory that
52:30
Speaker 1: you eat junk and drink junk. Steps down off soapbox.
52:34
Speaker 2: No, I totally understand what you're saying about personal accountability,
52:38
Speaker 2: and I agree. And the most predictive factor in whether
52:41
Speaker 2: the success of the success of therapy is the person's
52:45
Speaker 2: self felt efficacy, their belief that their behavior will affect
52:50
Speaker 2: change your sense of self efficacy, My behavior will make
52:55
Speaker 2: us change and how much you believe that to be true.
52:59
Speaker 2: But I also, you know, one of the things I
53:01
Speaker 2: kind of I always often wonder where psychiatry and psycho neurology,
53:07
Speaker 2: you know, where's the line meet between them, and where
53:10
Speaker 2: are they blurred? Where are they overlapping? Because you know,
53:12
Speaker 2: you think of some like a dyslexic child, you know,
53:15
Speaker 2: and I see a lot of children. I do a
53:16
Speaker 2: lot of dyslexia assessments. But if I was to give
53:20
Speaker 2: an illiterate adult who has grown up with very limited
53:24
Speaker 2: education and they have a neurodiverse brain where the phonees
53:28
Speaker 2: and the graphines don't connect, they cannot connect the letter
53:31
Speaker 2: h A makes an h sound, they cannot connect them
53:35
Speaker 2: in their brain because the wiring is not quite right
53:37
Speaker 2: for them. And we just gave them a book and
53:39
Speaker 2: we said, you need our personal accountability and you need
53:42
Speaker 2: to learn to read. And we just gave them a book.
53:44
Speaker 2: You know that person still will not be able to read.
53:48
Speaker 2: And it's not because they haven't tried. It's not because
53:51
Speaker 2: they don't care it's not because then put the effort in.
53:54
Speaker 2: It's probably because they are genuinely genetically and you know,
53:59
Speaker 2: environmentally have grown up in and hasn't fostered that part
54:03
Speaker 2: of their self development. And I often wonder. I see
54:05
Speaker 2: a lot of children. I do a lot of assessments
54:08
Speaker 2: with some amazing organizations like Life Without Barriers and Berdican
54:12
Speaker 2: and some incredible, you know, co incredible organizations who help
54:17
Speaker 2: young children with trauma who are going into adulthood, who
54:20
Speaker 2: have had some really really awful, awful life events occur
54:23
Speaker 2: to them. And you know, I'll see them before they've
54:26
Speaker 2: turned when they're seventeen, on the prespice of turning eighteen,
54:29
Speaker 2: and people are desperately trying to get these assessments to
54:32
Speaker 2: show that, you know, there's cognitive issues or neurodiverse issues,
54:35
Speaker 2: so that they can get funding so they can then
54:37
Speaker 2: get safe accommodation in housing for when they become an adult,
54:40
Speaker 2: because when they become eighteen, they're an adult, and people
54:43
Speaker 2: are terrified for them for when they suddenly go from
54:46
Speaker 2: you know, being a child who's not responsible for making
54:48
Speaker 2: their decisions. You know, I'm seventeen and three hundred and
54:51
Speaker 2: sixty four days and I'm not responded. I'm a minor
54:53
Speaker 2: and I'm not responsible for my decision, and I can't
54:55
Speaker 2: be tried as an adult in a court to eighteen
55:00
Speaker 2: one day and all of a sudden, overnight, I'm an
55:02
Speaker 2: adult and I'm expected to suddenly have the brain of
55:05
Speaker 2: an adult and the frontal lobes of an adult. I
55:09
Speaker 2: find it are really differ I don't. I find it
55:12
Speaker 2: a really difficult and troubling, troubling you know, thought to
55:16
Speaker 2: kind of grapple with, like when when are we responsible?
55:20
Speaker 2: When are we accountable? And almost always I can trace back,
55:24
Speaker 2: you know, somebody who has lacked accountability and self awareness
55:27
Speaker 2: to some pretty significant stuff that's happened for them when
55:29
Speaker 2: they were younger and continues to happen for them. And
55:33
Speaker 2: I do wonder whether you know the things in life
55:36
Speaker 2: that we have that we get to teach, that are
55:38
Speaker 2: teachers for us every day. The Instagram that teaches us,
55:41
Speaker 2: the TV that teaches us, the magazines that teach us,
55:44
Speaker 2: whether we're aware of it or not, that we're exposed
55:47
Speaker 2: to and primed by with this osmosis with the things
55:50
Speaker 2: around us in society, is it teaching us for betterment.
55:54
Speaker 2: Is it teaching us how to be healthy adults? Is
55:56
Speaker 2: it teaching us how to be accountable and self aware?
55:59
Speaker 2: I fear not. I fear it's more teaching us, you know,
56:03
Speaker 2: some other values in life that may not actually align
56:06
Speaker 2: to healthy living. But it's it's a tough topic.
56:11
Speaker 1: I no, one hundred percent agree with you. But then
56:14
Speaker 1: I come back to what's in our control. So I
56:17
Speaker 1: can't control what's going to be on social media, government,
56:21
Speaker 1: mainstream media. So then you go, okay, well, what you
56:24
Speaker 1: can do is you cannot watch the news. You cannot
56:27
Speaker 1: be on Instagram. You could, that's optional. You cannot look
56:31
Speaker 1: at your phone for three hours a day. You cannot
56:33
Speaker 1: sit on the couch, that's optional. You could. You know,
56:36
Speaker 1: it still comes down to everything you're saying is true.
56:40
Speaker 1: And I am just as probably more flawed and more
56:45
Speaker 1: weak and more dysfunctional than most of our listeners right
56:48
Speaker 1: in that, you know, not a journey. It's not great genetics,
56:51
Speaker 1: all those things. But at some stage we've got to go,
56:57
Speaker 1: but what am I going to do with my life
56:59
Speaker 1: and the hour I do have and the skill that
57:01
Speaker 1: I do have, and the brain that I do have,
57:04
Speaker 1: and the potential that I do have because what do
57:07
Speaker 1: you just go, oh, I'm forty. Yeah, but you know,
57:10
Speaker 1: like even one of my friends is dyslexic, bad dyslexic,
57:14
Speaker 1: also multimillionaire business man. And I'm not saying so therefore
57:18
Speaker 1: he's great. I'm just saying, people figure it out. People
57:22
Speaker 1: figure it out.
57:24
Speaker 2: You know, I would say, how do we get that?
57:28
Speaker 2: How do we get that light bulb moment? How does
57:31
Speaker 2: that happen? What allows us to have that insight?
57:35
Speaker 1: But also think about this, you know, people like you
57:38
Speaker 1: and I for better or worse, we I mean, you
57:43
Speaker 1: do IQ testing on people, which you should. That's a
57:45
Speaker 1: normal part, you know, and we talk about. But intelligence
57:49
Speaker 1: is a spectrum. I mean, some people score low on
57:52
Speaker 1: an IQ test, but they're creative geniuses, or they're mechanical geniuses,
57:57
Speaker 1: or they can build a business, or they can they
58:00
Speaker 1: can paint shit, they can like it's fucking like, there
58:03
Speaker 1: are some people that you would say I have more
58:06
Speaker 1: intelligence then, But it depends on the task, It depends
58:10
Speaker 1: on the environment, it depends on the situation. You put
58:13
Speaker 1: me in some rooms, I go, okay, you put me
58:15
Speaker 1: in another room, I'm a moron. It's context dependent, do
58:20
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so this whole idea
58:22
Speaker 1: that Hannah's got a one forty IQ, she's a genius. Yeah,
58:26
Speaker 1: then you throw her a ball and it hits her
58:27
Speaker 1: in the face or your hand, are a crying baby,
58:30
Speaker 1: and she doesn't know what to do. She gets a
58:34
Speaker 1: flat tire and she stands on the side of the road,
58:37
Speaker 1: which I know you wouldn't do.
58:38
Speaker 2: Any Oh, call my I'll call earlier. I call my dad.
58:41
Speaker 2: I know you would.
58:42
Speaker 1: We got to go. That was fun and I'm glad
58:44
Speaker 1: we had our first fight and I think it's I
58:48
Speaker 1: think it's fifteen.
58:49
Speaker 2: Well okay, well look, let's let's save the next one
58:53
Speaker 2: for next chat. I've got some exciting news to tell
58:55
Speaker 2: you for next chat, because I yeah, what's the I'm
59:00
Speaker 2: giving what I'm just a teaser, the teaser. Hannah has
59:03
Speaker 2: some exciting news.
59:05
Speaker 1: In media, we call that a hook. So before you
59:07
Speaker 1: go the break, yeah or teaser?
59:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly next week on the You project.
59:13
Speaker 1: Coming up next week? Well if your friend next week,
59:16
Speaker 1: we'll do another one. People tell people how to find you.
59:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, so come find me. I am the owner and
59:24
Speaker 2: lead traditioner at Sydney neuropsych which is a Neuropsychology Practice.
59:30
Speaker 2: You can call us or give us a ring or
59:32
Speaker 2: come and some see the clinic. Best way to get
59:35
Speaker 2: us is email. Just Addmin at Sydney NP dot com
59:38
Speaker 2: or check me out on Instagram. I'm the no bullsych
59:42
Speaker 2: as in no bull twang you know b U LLL
59:45
Speaker 2: no bullsych ps yich Hannah Coral. Come and find me
59:49
Speaker 2: and let's have a chat. Tell me what your opinion
59:51
Speaker 2: of our discussion today was and which side of the
59:53
Speaker 2: fense do you work on? Are you nature or nature? Yeah?
59:58
Speaker 1: N O b U double l not n O b
1:00:00
Speaker 1: L e as in prize. Yeah, yeah, thank you, appreciate you,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: Thanks Doc
1:00:08
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me always fun, fun as a weeks
1:00:11
Speaker 2: See you, Craig