Kind: captions
Language: en
now you talk a lot about meaning walk me
through like the how we assign meaning
how we leverage the reward and
Punishment to to really get us in a
situation where we can push through
something other people might not be able
to push through yeah so when you start
thinking about things like growth
mindset in terms of how they convert to
neurochemical signatures it leads us to
this place of okay if it's all
subjective then you know if I just say
look I'm going to stand up out of my
chair and and that's going to feel
amazing is that going to work well no it
depends on the meaning that I attached
to something and this and this
subjective part can be a little tricky
and a little bit hard for people so I
want to try and lay it out in a in a
concrete way so that if they want to
apply this they can
um incidentally or not so incidentally I
should say when you look at communities
of very high performers and I'm
fortunate enough to do some Consulting
with some people from Special Forces
communities and so forth they're very
good as are you at attaching a reward to
specific behaviors in subjective ways so
growth mindset and these dopamine
rewards that we subjectively apply are
not about saying oh you know I had a
terrible day I performed poorly but you
know what it's great I just feel great
anyway it's not about that it's not
about attaching your sense of reward to
the ultimate goal it's about attaching
your sense of reward to the fact that
you're making action steps that are
generally in the right direction the
more you can reward the effort process
the better off you are at building these
kinds of neural circuits and these kind
of Tendencies to be able to lean into
anything challenging over essentially
any duration so how does this work like
how would somebody do this right well
keeping in mind that adrenaline and
epinephrine are all great for getting us
into action this is Mother Nature's Way
of chemically making us feel kind of
agitated remember stress was designed to
agitate us to move us away from things
and toward things but realizing that
that's a a limited resource that
eventually that same chemical is what
makes you have a negative mindset it
feels painful it's the burn in your body
it's uncomfortable and realizing that
dopamine can push back on that
neurochemically it can suppress those
sensations of wanting to quit you say
well then how do I get this dopamine to
work for me before I hit a goal because
not every day is going to be a real win
there's some days I mean I know from my
science career there were days that were
really hard experiments didn't work
papers got rejected and yet you know
I've spent two decades or more just
drilling on and drilling on and it's
been a sheer pleasure at times but
there's been you know some pain points
along the way so what is this process
really about and how would somebody
Implement these dopamine and epinephrine
type neurochemical events in their own
life well we all know the example of
like wanting to run a marathon I've
never run a marathon but
um that'd be a nice goal to have let's
say tomorrow morning I set my shoes near
the door now a lot of people have talked
about this day one you set your shoes
near the door day two you go out the
door day three you run around the block
day four but the key thing is not just
to go through the actions but when you
hit each one of those self-designated
Milestones the Milestones that you're
setting out for yourself you have to
pause for a moment
and tell yourself I'm heading in the
right direction I haven't run the
marathon yet but this is the foundation
upon which I'm going to lay another
Foundation upon which I'm going to lay
another foundation and those little
pulses of dopamine allow you to get that
action step without the depletion that
it would normally bring otherwise you're
just like you're spending money this is
like replenishing this bank account that
you have and it's a neural bank account
and so dopamine is the is the thing that
you can control the dosing of and so if
you say today it's my shoes at the door
but tomorrow it's around the block and
that's it but that's in the direction I
want to go what you do is you now get
those two events plus the next day the
mile long run and so forth without it
depleting you it actually builds this
capacity to build more reward and this
is what you've done this is what people
from elite special forces can do they
know how to make small
simple
physical steps in the real world that
allow them to build on these reward
circuitries but they don't get
delusional about how they're doing they
they know they keep the end in mind but
they get very micro they move the
Horizon in very close and so if you can
move the Horizon to something you know
you can complete and you reward that you
essentially are where you were before
you're just as strong if not stronger
but you're heading in the direction you
need to go you're not depleting you're
not spending out anything and it feels a
little weird because none of us like to
reward things that aren't external but
the ability to control these internal
reward schedules is everything one thing
that um you've talked about that I think
is uh along these lines be interesting
to see if if they feel as related to you
when you know so much about it but for
me at a high level these feel very
related talked about somebody gets in a
car accident acetylcholine if I'm not
mistaken is released it says [ __ ] pay
attention to this pay attention right
now and it it basically responds to
Peaks and valleys so something really
bad habits or something really good
happens it's present you begin to
hardwire the association of whatever
emotion is with that thing and so if you
have something a traumatic event or
whatever and you now see something as
very negative you can actually flip that
by getting in a state where you're
secreting acetylcholine again and now in
a positive right so that you can feel
good about that thing so how do people
take that take control of that process
so if you've been in a car accident and
you now have this negative association
with driving how do you grab a hold of
the production of acetylcholine how do
you reframe yeah so it's great you're
mentioning acetylcholine so
acetylcholine is the neurochemical that
we want to think about anytime we're
talking about neural plasticity and in
particular attention High attentional
States so everyone knows that the brain
is very plastic early in life so from
birth until about age 25 you can learn
so much for Better or For Worse I always
say that downside is that early in life
you're you have less control over your
life circumstances but your brain is
very plastic so there's a you know dark
and light to that later in life you have
a lot more control generally over your
life circumstances but the brain becomes
less plastic however
we know based on Nobel prize winning
work and recent work in addition to that
that the neuromodulator acetylcholine is
secreted when we pay attention to
something very specific it acts as sort
of a spotlight in the brain making
certain synapses the connections between
neurons more active and more likely to
be active again than others so when you
hear that song that you love so much and
it moves you and you feel dopamine being
pulsed into your body that's a real
thing you're actually getting dopamine
secretion you've formed that deep
association with that and acetylcholine
draws your attention to that and that
song is essentially wired in a very
indelible way into your nervous system
it multiple you can probably even with
certain songs you can feel your body
start to energize because of course the
brain through connections with your
muscles controls your body so for things
that are traumatic or negative what
we're really talking about is
neuroplasticity that's focused on
unlearning and most of the therapies for
this whether or not it's EMDR I movement
desensitization reprocessing or its
traditional psychoanalysis and
Psychotherapy or it's somatic embodied
release big you know Kundalini breathing
type almost all of those are designed to
do something which is to bring the
person or you bring yourself into a
state of heightened alertness right you
can't do this stuff when you're sort of
half asleep heightened alertness and
then focusing your attention on the
traumatic or negative event this is the
way that works and then pairing that
with something new you know
traditionally this was done with things
like NLP or in talk therapy where people
would feel the relation the positive
relationship with the therapist that was
kind of the main rationale in
association with this very traumatic
sometimes even you know shameful type
events and the idea is that you you
would simultaneously have those two
experiences the negative one and the
feeling of safety and you would rewire
those circuitries I actually believe
that can work but it can take a lot of
times it can take a lot of visits to the
therapist which is not to say it's bad
it's just not everyone has access to
those resources
things like eye movement desensitization
reprocessing simply moving the eyes
laterally while recounting these
negative events the woman who devised
this
figured out that somehow when people
recount these traumatic experiences when
they're doing these lateralized eye
movements not vertical eye movements
they somehow separate out the negative
emotions and I thought for years people
would ask me about this stuff Tom and I
thought this is ridiculous first of all
I'm a vision scientist and I work on
stress it's like there's no way and then
I really ate my words because four
papers two Inhumans two in mice and then
a fifth paper published in nature which
is kind of our Super Bowl of scientific
publishing
showed that these lateralized eye
movements quiet the amygdala they
actually suppress activation of this
threat detection Center in the amygdala
and why would that be true ah so this is
really where it gets cool turns out
because of when the way that we view the
visual world when we move through space
when our head moves or when we walk and
things flow past us that these
lateralized eye movements are what
happens when you move forward in space
when you're walking when you're moving
forward towards something and that
suppresses activation of the amygdala
now you say why well okay so then 2018
my laboratory did an experiment there
was an actual graduate student in my
laboratory where we're looking at fear
in this case we're looking at fear to
Big looming objects that either trigger
freezing or running and hiding there's a
brain area that's in your brain and my
brain that mice also have that triggers
a third option not run and hide not
freeze but forward confrontation this is
the no I'm gonna fight I'm gonna move
forward in the face of adversity this is
the growth mindset I'm going to lean
into friction and it turns out that this
circuit is linked to the dopamine reward
pathway when we move forward in the face
of a threat and obviously we want to do
this in healthy adaptive ways we
suppress activity of the amygdala
through physical action of moving
forward and there's a signal sent to the
areas of the brain that control dopamine
reward
those reward centers then trigger the
release of dopamine to reward forward
effort in the face of stress or threat
so when you hear about people saying
look take some physical action when
you're feeling exhausted take some
forward physical action when you're
feeling overwhelmed by this traumatic
experience now that could be in the form
of a walk in the now this therapist she
figured out with EMDR because you can't
take people walking around for therapy
sessions she figured out that these
lateralized eye movements are what
trigger suppression of the amygdala and
it makes perfect sense because the
amygdala this threat detection Center in
our brain it doesn't connect to the
limbs so how does it know if you're
moving forward well because the eyes are
moving you have these reflexive mind
movements that move anytime you're
moving through space so to make this a
little more succinct it's really forward
movement action pushing yourself across
that threshold not only rewards you but
it suppresses activity of the fear
centers in the brain and these are
ancient hardwired mechanisms these
aren't hacks these are things that
mother nature installed in US
so I love this more than you could
possibly imagine uh this is so
interesting
um one of the things that I've heard
talked about I think is really powerful
is that overcoming a fear isn't about
um diminishing the fear response it's
about making more robust a sense of
being brave in the face of that fear
um so moving forward to translate it to
you know like you say if if your brain
is meant to interpret stimuli what at a
stimulus level what is that thing that's
going to trigger the response talk about
the the I don't know if it was mice or
rats I think it was rats where you force
them to fight and they're like in a tube
and you like that that study to me tied
with what you just said is insanely
powerful especially for people who've
allowed themselves to become Paralyzed
by you know fear or whatever forward
movement provided it doesn't endanger
you or kill you is absolutely the remedy
for fear stress and all and at least in
the clinical literature to these sort of
trauma events you know that that people
carry with them for many years of course
trauma needs to be dealt with hopefully
with a professional but we can all apply
these mechanisms and these neurochemical
reward schedules so the the study that
you're referring to is a beautiful one
um there's a classic study where
researchers not my lab put two rats or
you could do this with mice into a tube
and the tendency is for them to try and
push one or the other one out one always
wins and pushes the other one out we
call the one that got pushed out the
loser the one that pushed him out the
winner
here are the interesting things about
this first of all the winner
will tend to win with other in other
battles even though these are just
pushing battles more because it simply
won the time before the loser by losing
will tend to lose and so people say oh
well that explains a lot about Society
Etc well here's where it gets really
interesting you can even take a mouse or
a rat and push it from behind and make
it the winner and then on subsequent
trials where you're not pushing it it
will tend to win more often so the wind
doesn't even have to come from itself so
last year there was a very important
paper published about this where a set
of researchers just said well what is it
like what is this winning circuit and
this losing circuit enough with the
demonstration that this happens like
what's happening on what's under the
hood and so they went into the brain and
they identified
a brain area which is part of the
frontal cortex the area that we
typically think about planning action
executive function all the kind of high
level stuff and what they discovered was
this brain area is more active in the
winter
than in the loser in fact they could
take the loser and over stimulate this
area and turn the losers into winners
now it gets even more ridiculous than
that if you quiet this brain area
winners become losers okay and and if
you take a winner and let's say at this
tube battle and you put them into let's
say a cold environment with a bunch of
other mice and you have just a warm
Corner mice don't like to be cold and
you say who gets the warm corner right
who gets the luxury spot it's always the
winner so it even breaks down at the
level of social interactions and so you
say okay all right now we know that
cisbrainer it's this it's this one area
of the frontal cortex but what's it
actually doing right okay what's it
actually Tran what how can we translate
this turns out this brain area that's
responsible and required for winning in
this series of experiments is actually
driving up the level of activation what
you and I would call agitation or stress
to the point where that animal is more
likely to move forward it's simply
taking stress which is wired into us in
order to make us feel agitated instead
of suppressing us you know instead of
saying you know I'm just going to sit
here I'm overwhelmed I'm not going to
I'm just going to move into action so
there's a circuit for winning there's a
the same circuit when it's
hypoactive not active enough is what
causes losing in these competitive
scenarios and similarly there's a
circuit for quitting there's an a
norepinephrine circuit in the brain stem
this was published in the last couple
years showing that when animals or
people are in constant effort eventually
that level of norepinephrine gets so
high that triggers a circuit that shuts
down the motor control over the limbs
and you just say that's it I give up I'm
done so these mechanisms were hardwired
into us we all have them whether or not
it's from Evolution Mother Nature God
the universe it is is irrelevant to the
discussion that these circuits exist in
everybody and I think it's a select few
people who really understand that
forward action
is what drives these circuits it's the
ability to take that agitation stress
agitation increase our focus and they
bias us for movement and nature wanted
that they want us to move forward in the
face of challenge not to be quiescent we
weren't sitting around battling tigers
and sabertooth tigers all the time more
likely we were in caves and we were
getting hungry and we had to go out and
search for things agitation and stress
were designed to get us up and move us
and when we try and fight that too much
and we try and quiet that stress
that actually can be problematic you
have to decide are you going to try and
quiet stress or are you going to
actually lean into action that's a
critical Choice point for everybody
who's experienced anything negative or
positive for that matter
dude that that is so useful in terms of
getting people to understand how to get
themselves out of it and this goes back
to this notion that
um your thoughts are ultimately a choice
like you get to decide what you think
about and when you understand that
you're living in this VR environment and
that there are things like simply moving
forward is going to make you feel
entirely different that you're being
essentially manipulated by evolution by
nature or however you want to think
about it to get you agitated enough to
go out and do the things you need to do
but that it has this just feedback loop
of how it makes you feel about yourself
that winning begets winning and losing
begets losing but it's it isn't like at
some sort of grand untangible level that
it's happening at the level of
neurochemistry that there are regions of
the brain that are designed for this so
how can somebody begin to turn things
around in their life because I know one
thing that people really struggle with
is they have this negative voice in
their head that's just playing this Loop
and so even if they understand the
mechanisms some part of them is going to
discount it right because it's like well
you're just trying to say that because
you think you can manipulate
neurochemistry but you you're a loser
like you just falling and that's what's
playing in their head how do people go
in and and really take the reins of that
process so that they can start winning
yeah great question so you know I'm
never gonna argue that we can
subjectively control all of our
experience because there's some things
that just genuinely suck right and when
they and it's important to and it's
important to register those those not so
great events or terrible events because
they can drive us also you know we can
be driven from a place of anger
frustration and and you know revenge or
we can be driven from a place of you
know love gratitude and Etc I'm not here
to judge which one is better or worse
but the nervous system doesn't
distinguish between them so if you're
the kind of person that needs to you
know kind of budge yourself into
something great if you're the kind of
person that wants to do things from more
of a warm fuzzy feeling that's fine too
what I will say is this the ability to
tap into this dopamine reward system
which is activated anytime you're in
pursuit of something that's outside the
boundaries of your skin and literally
the boundaries of your body as well as
the reward system the serotonin oxytocin
system which is really about the things
that are contained within your own body
and immediate experience things like
gratitude and you know touch and comfort
and things like that with loved ones the
ability to tap into both is crucial now
you said something really important
which was well negative thoughts
negative thoughts what to do I don't
believe that it's very easy to suppress
negative thoughts however when you
realize that thoughts can be
deliberately introduced you can start
replacing negative thoughts with new
types of thoughts so you can always add
something in but when people start to
realize that thoughts are very much like
physical actions of reaching and picking
up a glass of water or taking a jog
around the ball block or typing an email
perfectly this is something I sometimes
do because I'm I you know I struggle to
do the perfect email not all my emails
are perfect but when I do one I make
sure that I I complete and I think okay
it's possible it's not because the email
being perfect is so important it's
because I want to remind myself that my
thoughts and my actions are essentially
the same the nervous system can organize
thoughts so for somebody that's
struggling
you know we have these examples like oh
they were really back on their heels or
they were so depleted no money and all
this stuff what are they gonna we we
have so many examples like that but in
trying to make it actionable it's really
about saying yep that's all true
but I'm going to introduce a thought
which is I made it through today I'm I
made it through today and that's
actually worth celebrating at a micro
level so if you can give yourself
dopamine rewards in small increments
right you're not trying to celebrate
that you made it through one day
sometimes that's a huge feat but most of
the time you just want to dose yourself
with a little bit of that internal
release of dopamine you start rewarding
incremental steps and if there's
anything that your listeners could take
away from this whole thing about
dopamine and reward schedules and being
in movement it's reward incremental
steps in particular incremental steps
that are about forward action so maybe
that's writing an email maybe that's
um maybe that's that run around the
block maybe that's something much
grander for you as you get better at
things right the stairs get further and
further away from one another because
you've achieved more success and so they
tend to be you have to take the rungs on
the ladder further apart so to speak
that's a time when you really need to
implement not only the dopamine rewards
but also so those serotonin and oxytocin
rewards Etc so to make it actionable I
would say remember don't spend so much
time trying to suppress negative
thoughts if you need trauma therapy
pursue that with a professional but if
you have negative thoughts just remember
I can also introduce positive thoughts
the same way I can control running
around the block positive thoughts are
the equivalent of forward physical
action and if you reward them internally
you buffer yourself against the quitting
circuit this norepinephrine circuit we
were talking about before you are
building a stronger version of yourself
completely between your own ears and
some people say well that's silly it's
like you're saying oh I'm going to jump
up and down reward myself for doing
nothing no you're building the neural
circuits that reward that you can
control self-reward and in doing that
you can push through days and weeks of
effort consistently I don't mean
necessarily all-nighters but you can
push and push and push you know my
career is one that was made over two
decades it wasn't we had our big you
know Peaks and we added a lot of alleys
but learning to control these rewards is
absolutely key and I know you've done
this too Tom it's like you know it the
huge wins are great but it's really
about rewarding these increments so you
can keep going another 30 another 40
years 50 years 100 years if that's how
long you know if David Sinclair has his
way you know we'll live 100 more years
all of us so yeah people if people learn
to tie things to the process then
they've got a real shot
um
the this the Success is Not Guaranteed
but the struggle is right so if you are
able to
get to the point where you get excited
about the learning process you get
excited about trying something even if
you fail that if you can associate in
your own mind that I feel better about
who I am because I tried this thing
um then it begins to stack because even
the failures become something that you
learn and so you actually have made some
progress because you took action because
you tried something and now
understanding you know some of the brain
mechanisms around it it really gets
super powerful
now for people to
um make use of every tool that they have
at their at their disposal something
that you've talked about that I've
always been really interested in at the
periphery but never have um Doven into
it enough is hypnosis
when people think of hypnosis I think
they think of stage hypnosis what's the
real deal why is it useful and and how
do people actually use it the truth is
hitting your career goals is not easy
you have to be willing to go the extra
mile to stand out and do hard things
better than anybody else but there are
10 steps I want to take you through that
will 100x your efficiency so you can
crush your goals and get back more time
into your day you'll not only get
control of your time you'll learn how to
use that momentum to take on your next
big goal to help you do this I've
created a list of the 10 most impactful
things that any High achiever needs to
dominate and you can download it for
free by clicking the link in today's
description right my friend back to
today's episode code yeah so um I'm
really glad you asked about this so I
have a colleague his name is David
Spiegel in our department of Psychiatry
at Stanford and he and I have a
collaboration going now looking at how
respiration or breathing can be used to
shift the brain into different states
and I've talked to David about this and
so I'm sort of borrowing from his words
here so I want to be fair that these are
from those conversations so hypnosis
inevitably involves relaxing the nervous
system taking the nervous system into
states that are more like sleep now what
I mean by that is in high alert states
where you're talking and planning and
inaction and stress in particular the
brain is very linear it's saying okay if
this then this if then then this is why
we tend to be Forward Thinking when
we're when we're stressed we tend to be
not in our immediate experience but
really kind of forward thinking so
clinical hypnosis involves
going into a state of deeper relaxation
so that our analysis of space and time
meaning the way that the brain is
perceiving events is slightly
dismantled so that it's a little bit
dreamlike and then the hypnotist and
this could be by listening to a script
or listening to a hypnotherapist
starts to narrow our context take our
thoughts if you will it down a
particular path and that path could be
one of
um stress reduction or a smoking
cessation
um hypnosis is incidentally is very good
for treatment of smoking cessation or
for feelings of well-being or
confronting traumas so what it is is
it's really opening up the window for
neuroplasticity which is of course the
brain's ability to change in response to
experience to trigger neuroplasticity
you have to have Focus especially as an
adult you need acetylcholine released
but high levels of attention
acetylcholine and norepinephrine
together norepinephrine to create that
sense of urgency and acetylcholine to
bring that Spotlight of focus in really
really tight that triggers plasticity
but the actual it marks certain synapses
in the brain for change but the actual
changes in the synapses the rewiring
okay that happens during states of sleep
and deep rest
so this is why when you're trying to
learn a motor skill you go and you go in
your tennis serve it's not happening
it's not happening you take a break you
come back and you nail it you're like
wait what happened well you needed time
to set those circuits in motion and
allow them to do to rewiring the sort of
adaptation hypnosis seems to capture
both the high attentional State and the
deep relaxation at the same time it's
this very unusual State of Mind where
you're neither asleep nor awake and in
tight Focus or narrow focus and it's
very clear that it leads to these rapid
changes in Behavior because you're
rewiring the brain and the reason you're
able to rewire the brain so quickly is
because you're getting the trigger event
the focus and you're also getting the
relaxation event simultaneously and so
it's much faster than separating out the
learning trigger from the actual
rewiring of the brain my lab has a deep
interest in David Spiegel's lab has a
deep interest now and using respiration
or breathing to shift our state to
either heightened states of focus and
alertness to to open up neuroplasticity
right there are going to be lots of ways
to access can you give me some examples
like what are we doing very specifically
breath work I find incredibly
interesting uh changed my life through
meditation just shifting my breathing to
diaphragmatic breathing was no joke it
changed my life it changed my
relationship to anxiety my feeling of
being able to control my state as it
started to spiral so I'd be very curious
to know what type of breathing are we
talking about here yeah so I'm really
glad you mentioned the diaphragm
diaphragm of course being this muscle
inside of all of us at least all mammals
that works all the time to move our
lungs because all the cells around body
need oxygen of course we gotta get rid
of carbon dioxide it does that but it's
done reflexively but we can also take
voluntary control over it I want to just
mention about the diaphragm why it's so
important for what were these State
changes is that a lot of people talk
about the vagus nerve and all this stuff
the Vegas and these connections between
the brain and this vagus nerve or the
gut
it's what gets activated when you're
really full and you eat a big meal and
you feel relaxed those are great but
it's very slow
the diaphragm is skeletal muscle just
like your bicep just like your tricep
just like your quadricep it is the only
internal organ except maybe a couple
muscles in your throat that are actually
skeletal muscle meaning it was designed
to be voluntarily moved and the
diaphragm isn't just designed to move
your lungs it also sends a signal
through the so-called phrenic nerve back
to the brain to inform your brain about
the status of your body so when you
breathe fast deliberately the reason you
feel kind of an elevated sense of
alertness is because yeah there are
chemicals secrete but mostly because the
phrenic nerve is firing off it's telling
you hey the body's moving we're really
running now even though you're
stationary in a chair if you're doing
breathing or if you're breathing very
slowly and rhythmically right box type
breathing or you know slow slow
breathing your diaphragm is telling your
brain hey we're calm we're good and you
calm down very quickly on the order of
seconds and so once you start tapping
into this you start realizing okay
movement of the body was designed to
inform the brain pain of where to be not
just the brain telling the body and how
does the body communicate with the brain
through the phrenic nerve from the
diaphragm so my lab is really pursuing
two questions and this is still being
worked out so I just want to highlight
that it's still in progress
but certain patterns of breathing will
calm you very much like entering a
hypnotic State and so you have a subset
of neurons in your brain stem that are
responsible for sighing is it you have a
subset of neurons in your brainstem
responsible for for coughing subset of
neurons responsible for laughter and a
subset of neurons in your brain stem for
sign this was a paper published in
nature this is a real thing these
neurons are every so often and your dog
does this too
you inhale twice
and then you exhale long
now that double inhale best done through
the nose on the inhales and then long
exhale through the mouth activates these
PSI neurons that trigger the so-called
calming reflex the parasympathetic arm
of the nervous system so we have a
hardwired mechanism a set of neurons
connection with the diaphragm and Back
Again from the diaphragm to the brain
that was designed to activate calm and
when people ask me how should I breathe
to calm myself down I always say double
inhale through the nose followed by
exhales two or three of those will reset
your autonomic nervous system faster
than any other mechanism we're aware of
because it's really capitalizing on a
set of neural circuits now once you're
calm you say well how do I get into
plasticity states there you want to go
the other direction that's going to be
inhaling a lot more than you exhale
you're going to be driving in more
oxygen than you are breathing out
generally carbon dioxide and that will
lead to states that are kind of more
elevated this is typical of things like
tumor breathing Wim Hof breathing
Kundalini breathing and when people
enter those States
their whole world changes because it
shuts off the frontal cortex it really
this is why sometimes people pass out or
they feel like they want to get up and
move you know you get some odd behavior
when you're doing this kind of thing so
the key is if you want to access states
of heightened plasticity let's say you
want to learn faster where you want to
be more
um you want to bring more out of some
physical training that you're doing the
key is to apply those principles first
you need to focus you need to bring
yourself to that heightened state of
alertness you can breathe to do that so
this would be super oxygenated breathing
then you want to drop into a state of
calm and you do that by these a couple
maybe two or three rounds of inhale
inhale exhale inhale inhale exhale and
then now your brain is in a state we
believe this is still again being worked
out in Labs like mine and David's that
then you're in a state for heightened
learning because you're in a state where
neurochemicals like acetylcholine are
going to be at levels that are higher
than they typically would be things like
noradrenaline slightly higher than they
typically would be but not in a
discombobulated way in a very regulated
way and the cool thing is you're
regulating them so you could argue you
know earlier we were talking about
subjective emotions and thoughts and all
these things but one thing that's
absolutely concrete is breathing I
always think of physical exercise
movement writing whatever singing
dancing talking those are physical
actions in the universe
then you have thought and somewhere in
between those is controlling your
respiration once you can control
everything that's within the confines of
your skull and skin once you can really
control that relationship that brain
body relationship you start to realize
that relationship is a lot like any
other relationship to forward action
it's just all happening within the
confines of my body so it's heightened
states of focus followed by states of
relaxation that are going to prime your
nervous system for learning in
plasticity just like hypnosis
so if somebody's watching this right now
and they're thinking okay wait do I make
better decisions when I'm hungry or full
night day
what what are you looking for and what
can they look for at home so I would say
what we do with a lot of people who are
kind of in senior positions in companies
that want to actually make decisions
better we have a protocol that's a
little bit tedious so it's not easy to
do it but I'll tell you what it is and
then you can think of ways to maybe try
it yourself so we have them basically
walk for a week with a diary and make
choices and just write them down so tell
us okay you know I had this fish at the
stake for lunch and I chose this and
this is how I Chosen and they also write
whether they were happy or not with the
choice now this is done the way they
would do it normally but we also had one
more thing we put the EG cap on their
head all day for more than 24 hours so
they work with something that measures
their brain activity and there's a
moment where we have to replace the
batteries there's a lot of like gaps
there but altogether we have them walk
through life with both living life the
way they do and reflect on the the sorry
choices but also have us look at our
brain and what we do at the end of the
three days one week as long as they
would do that it's kind of uncomfortable
and embarrassing sometimes we asked them
to kind of look at all the choices and
tell us which ones were good which ones
were bad and then we look at their
brains and we see what words their brain
looking like what did it look like when
they made choices that they were happy
with and we sometimes see that there are
things in their brain that are kind of
repeated so maybe they make choices more
using this part of the brain that I'm
trying to simplify it by looking at
parts of the brain that are more
emotional rather than a rational we see
that they activate more parts of their
brain that are very deep inside it has
to do with reflection rather than like
thinking so we kind of in retail let me
know here's what we learned about you
you are better in this that state so
that's one thing so it's kind of not
easy to apply because you still have to
have this thing on your head right so
not everyone can do that but at least
people in senior positions who feel that
you know their sources are critical come
to us and they say Okay help me I want
to know who I am better now what about
the the study you did where you've got
the cyclist on the bike they're going
hard hard hard and you watch for certain
brain states where you know okay they're
gonna quit and then you use that
information over time to get them to
delay quitting farther and farther so
behind that lies the idea that the brain
is kind of like a muscle and
specifically there's a part of their
brain that we really care about it's the
part it's doing self-control so if you
think about it in simple way to look at
it is that you start running you go
running
the first mile your legs say let's run
and the brain controls themselves that's
fine and another part within says no
problem at all after one mile you're
like say it's a little bit painful but
the parts the other brain it controls
and say keep going after 10 miles the
legs say I want to quit and the other
parts say no keep going and there's like
a battle there and at some point you're
gonna break now when you're gonna break
depends on a lot of things your muscles
but it also depends on this kind of
control coming from the front of your
brain that overrides your experience
your pain
and if we can see this moment where you
bake the moment where you stop despite
the fact that you can do a little more
we can come back to you tomorrow and say
let's do the same thing you did
yesterday have you run only this time
when you get to the moment when we see
that you're about to break we're gonna
play a sound we're gonna tell you that
we can see that you're about to break
and we ask you to just continue for one
more minute at this moment that is
beyond what you did yesterday what in
that moment how do you appeal to them is
it like come on [ __ ] like you
got this or that's basically it's right
there's a question in sports for a while
why is it that people do better when
they play home game versus outside game
like what is it about your mom being in
the audience that makes you win the game
like we in theory they shouldn't matter
like you're throwing the basketball
should be the same but somehow we know
that if your friends out there if you're
feeling better we know that people do
better when they're already kind of
winning there's a lot of things that
affect our brain and what we try to
understand right now is why is it in
their brain what is this part of the
brain that gets better when you're like
when your emotions are highlighted more
heightened and now we're seeing it that
is so this is life like what you're
talking about right now boys and girls
at home I'm telling you there's a
banality to being an entrepreneur there
is a willingness to suffer to being an
entrepreneur to being a great mom like
whatever it is that you're trying to do
suffering is involved and it literally
like the being able to extend your break
point is what it's about and when I read
what I was going to say is that we we
all face those moments when the alarm
bus is at 6am we set the alarm at 10 pm
and suddenly in the morning we're
different people like we're not the
person who wants to wake up anymore and
it's the same brain that set the alarm
at 10 pm but now suddenly at 6am we're
not the same guy this is the moment like
that we have to make a choice when we're
going running when we're about to eat
the cake there's like a Tasty Cake and
we're on a diet and we say oh I
shouldn't eat the cake but there's a
conflict and now is the moment where
those two parts of the brain come to
life and the more you know about
yourself the more you're aware of those
situations the better you can do in
controlling them and the more you know
about yourself you can do better in all
of those tasks and that's kind of the
ultimate thing that that's why we're
here we're giving you the knowledge and
once you know it doesn't work anymore
once you know that 699 isn't seven it's
harder for you to work so just knowing
is enough for people to do better to
know that it's in your capacity to
change and that's what we want like how
does somebody become more self-aware how
do they begin to identify those things
that are particular to them so that they
can extend their breaking point or so
that they can you know improve whatever
so so all we need to do is we need to
communicate science intangible way so
people would know all the options I said
there's hundred thousands of options but
they're actually a couple of hundreds of
biases that we humans have
I can give you examples in a second
once you know them they don't work
anymore so the job of scientists is to
just translate the knowledge of the
brain into words that can be then spoken
to an audience who then lives by them
and that's it so all we need to do is
just do this
speak to people and List It biases then
it doesn't work anymore then at least
when it happens you become a little bit
better in controlling that that's
already it's pretty simple once you know
it doesn't work so how about I mean
let's use an example from your life so I
love the story by the way of you're
about to be published in nature it's
your first big break in science I mean
this is really going to set up your
career and then someone wakes you up
from a nap and you basically say yeah
recording dreams is possible you can't
take a bag you're like wait wait that's
not quite what I meant and it goes crazy
but the part that I love is
um Christopher Nolan calls you up and
says hey I just did this movie Inception
you're now the dream recording guy uh I
want you to come with me and do a
worldwide tour which would be a huge
break for you and just be I'm sure money
and certainly notoriety
um and you had to think about it even
though you knew going means essentially
reinforcing this opinion that I actually
don't agree with
um but turning it down means that I pass
up that opportunity what what did you go
through in the 24 hours before you gave
the answer so this is so to give you the
full story I'm finishing my PhD
I just decide what I do next am I
continuing in science do I go like back
to being a hacker this is like a moment
of folk in my life and suddenly this
comes this moment where the end of my
five year PhD is getting a lot of
attention but all wrong this is my
career hinges of this thing then I
haven't suddenly an option to actually
own this thing and become this stream
expert even though it's based on a lie
right
[Applause]
um
so I I was fortunate enough to have
enough checks and balances that I didn't
really have to go far with that so
here's the interesting reflection that I
have right now so I knew it's impossible
to look at people's dreams and I knew
that I kind of said it in uh sleepy
State and created this like amazing uh
story for people that scientists and
other coding dreams
and
the mistake was to leave this
say you know what it's not possible I'm
not gonna own this thing even though the
world cares about it so if anything can
be learned from this thing is that the
world really wanted to have people they
call dreams because that's why it's such
a big thing because people cared about
it it was in terms are interesting and I
went and I said it's impossible and I
want to kill this story this was a
mistake interesting three years later
I'm sitting at home now 2013 and I got a
call from BBC again BBC were the first
one to kind of you know let the story go
away
and they call me again and they say a
professor surf we wanted you to comment
on the recording and the possibility of
doing that and I say guys are you
kidding me we've done it this is not too
like let's not even begin going there I
said no no
we know that you cannot do that
but we wanted to comment on the work of
Professor kamitani from Japan who is
doing it right now
so someone in Japan didn't know that it
was impossible he just didn't hear me
going anywhere public and saying it's
impossible so he just did it
so three years after I said it was
impossible someone did it and two years
after that I joined so now half the
thing we do in my lab is actually
looking at people's dreams so we the
mistake I made wasn't to say that
something is possible and it was not it
was to say something was impossible
before I knew that because I think that
science is all about
going to those dark places and trying to
find what's impossible my mistake was to
say it was impossible before I was sure
about that so I should have said we
don't know yet we didn't do it yet but
we should investigate I was quick to say
I didn't do it it's impossible so I
delayed things by three years five years
after I'm doing it right now dude can I
shake your hand I [ __ ] love that so
much like that's
like most people cannot look at
something like that and say the mistake
that I made was actually in the opposite
direction and I should have been Bolder
I should have made a wiser Proclamation
and then to to actually join the team
that's so cool dreams is something that
I was told not to study now that's what
I do in my lab every day now I'm never
saying something is impossible before
I'm certain that it's impossible wow I
love that I'd love it even more if you
if you would go so far as to say nothing
is truly impossible then you'd really
help me I'll I'll go without that so
like you you mentioned that I teach
screenwriter and I it's writing and I
work with TV the reason I do that is
because I feel that the best ideas for
my research come from those hours with
the kids right place with the fellows at
the American Fitness the two rights
science fiction for movies that that
inspired me like the Matrix you
mentioned that like this has inspired us
we're kids of 1999 what happened then
affected us start like affected my dad's
generation the best paper that I ever
written there's a thousand of citation
the episode of Limitless that I worked
on last week and you know came out has
five million people watching it and
those are the kids who are gonna be me
in 20 years and if they think oh this is
maybe possible they're gonna do that and
you ask me how to change Behavior this
is how to know what the possibilities
are
ah I love that so much so here's the the
people watching the show they know my
story very very well and and I'll run it
into the ground because it's so
important I am not an example of what
happens when innate Talent meets hard
work I'm an example of what happens with
a human being anytime hard work is
applied because I didn't show early
signs of promise I got a 990 on my SATs
I was taking it twice
um I don't qualify for men's or anything
like that I have a averageish IQ I mean
it's like none of my sort of raw
materials are very impressive
but I work hard and I work hard over a
very long period of time and in doing so
I've completely transformed my life and
I've transformed my mind to the point
where now people just assume I'm smart
the same people right that were looking
at me 20 years ago did not assume I was
smart but they do now the reason this
conversation is so important to be
having with a neuroscientist is it all
comes down to me to The Narrative that
you tell yourself when I was
undereducated and lost and bordering on
depressed and all of that it it was
because the narrative that I told myself
was that I was a victim of something
once I gave up the victim mentality and
I realized I can do anything that I set
my mind to so now it's a spiritual
question right like if you really
believe you can do anything you set your
mind to then how you spend your time is
a spiritual question
and once I said okay when I'm going to
spend my time on is self-improvement I'm
going to see how how much can I
manipulate my own brain so I began
researching the brain to understand
what's malleable what's not learning
about myelin if you don't even know what
myelin is to like think that you've
already sort of maxed yourself out it's
[ __ ] crazy so researching the brain
finding out the anatomical mechanisms
that are at play and then coming to okay
this comes down to self-narrative if I'm
telling myself dreams can't be recorded
then they really can't because I will
stop shy of that and when you're talking
about you know never saying that
something's impossible when you're not
really sure what I start thinking about
is thinking big like thinking really big
and watching The Matrix and saying okay
either that level of VR is actually
possible or stopping bullets is actually
possible like you know whatever the
thing is that you sort of take away from
it and time travel was one of the things
on your list and
the the promise I make to people
watching this show is from watching the
show you will accomplish more than you
would have if you didn't watch the show
and one of the key reasons for that is
you'll finally understand that if you
fail to think big that's on you
and the only reason you're not thinking
big is because you're scared because
there's nothing in the the mechanations
of the brain there's nothing in what has
come before you in science nothing that
would lead you to believe the thing you
currently think is impossible actually
is let me say this in Neuroscience words
I love it so here's how I'm gonna say it
your brain goes with you and it carries
all of the history in the form of
memories all you have from what happened
before you is stored in the form of
members and they're not accurate and
they're kind of compressed so that's all
you have about the best you have no idea
in the future even though your brain
tries to predict it all the time this is
what dreams are for this is what
decisions are for you try to kind of
simulate the future and make predictions
you don't know what's going on all you
have is this kind of sliver of reality
which is the present which is all you
have and you control everything that
happens there the nice thing about the
present is that actually it interacts
with everything in your brain and you
can change things what we learned in the
last five years is that memories are are
different in how they work and what if I
had summarize it in one sentence they
change every time you use them so if you
have a member we stole here of what you
had for lunch yesterday and I asked you
what did you have for lunch you
basically open the memory right now and
you tell me a story but whatever happens
right now goes into the store and you
save it differently and if I ask you
tomorrow what you had for lunch you'll
open the modified version so every time
I ask you the same question you open a
different version which means you can
actually change the past you can
actually change your experience of
things this is why therapy works right
you go your girlfriend breaks up with
you you go to the therapist she asks you
what happened you tell the story she
intervenes you save it differently they
ask you a week after what happened you
tell a different story after five
meetings you have a different version of
the reality
and that is powerful because it means
that we control the narrative that we
have we don't really have to be kind of
confound to the story that we experience
we can actually change it this is what
the brain is for to simulate and change
and adjust and synthesize better version
of life we can make ourselves happy we
can make bad things look better we can
control things and it's all by virtue of
just telling a story
looking it differently and saving it
again it's as simple as that we have the
ability to actually change the story all
the time so learning is one way to do
that
thinking reflecting about yourself
another way to do that having more
experiences allows us to do that we know
all of this now so suddenly there's
there's kind of essence to this
self-help book that we read when we were
kids and we know how to implement that
and I love it I love it and I hope
people are listening to your sermon
because this is like that is the most
important thing anybody struggling to
have success should know is the
narrative that you tell yourself about
yourself is the most important thing you
have and if you tell yourself a story of
struggle inadequacy not being good
enough failure like all of that then
then that's going to reinforce because
that that literally becomes your
identity and going back to what you're
saying at the very the very beginning
you've got people and they're justifying
why they made some choice right and when
you said you want the fish of the steak
dude inside I was like my narrative as a
human being is I'm the guy who chooses
the stake right like so I mean that
wasn't even difficult it would have been
easier if you said steak or cake because
I'm really the guy to choose a steak
over cake but it's like that's that's
pure narrative right that's what I want
to tell myself and so when I like the
big breakthrough in my life the big
breakthrough on a map of my timeline if
you were going to put a demarcation
point it is the day I stopped thinking
of myself as smart because I wasn't and
I started thinking of myself as a
learner that changed everything because
now the narrative that I was reinforcing
the memories I was pulling out changing
just a little bit and then putting back
all revolved around reimagining myself
as somebody who learns faster than other
people is willing to learn we'll put in
the time and the effort to to learn and
so it became this identity which was
anti-fragile right because now you could
tell me that I was stupid it didn't
matter it didn't hurt me it just
compelled me to learn more the reason I
shook your hand earlier is I really am
moved when you say I was wrong about
that I should have done this like any
time people can say that can just own a
mistake and see a better solution I
that's somebody who's polishing a
self-image in a way that's anti-fragile
that the more they look at that failure
the harder they go in a new and better
Direction it's really incredible all
right I want to ask you all the
questions that I get asked to which I
have no answer and I'm hoping because I
get asked these questions a lot all
right number one
how can I get more motivation and it's
the one thing because I've never lacked
motivation I don't know how to help
people
tough
um so
here's how I would think about that
um
so motivation is a word right it's a
it's a label that we put a set of
events in our brain
what you actually want is the outcome of
that you want to do things that when you
when it's hard
so I think that there are a few kind of
things that we know work one is a
evidence of past successes if I
typically when I go back to your
memories and I reframe them as successes
suddenly they suddenly the current event
that's the same is a success so I think
that one one thing is like having
success stories and identification
stories as in you find there's a lot of
people out there there was a person that
is like you that had similar experience
and chose the thing that you want to
choose find this person or these people
and it's gonna rub into you so I I get
asked by my students often how do I
become funnier how do I become a smarter
and like my one tip that I give them all
the time is surround yourself by people
that you want to be like you want to be
funny just sit next to comedians just go
to the same room they are and just
detect them it's going to rub Onto You
by osmosis because it's just it's the
environment that is around us that
really changes everything and and other
people said it before but I'll tell you
the Neuroscience behind it
we know now that brains interact with
each other through language in a way
that synchronizes the brains so when I
talk to you right now
if you're engaged with what I say it
means that if we scan our brain right
now our brains are going to look alike
more than yours and someone on the
street that isn't here so two people in
the same room as soon as they kind of
interact their brains literally start to
kind of if you want pulsing in the same
way parts of the brain light up in the
same way Parts shut down so we actually
are affect this is how we affect each
other this is how communication made
humans who they are this is the one
thing that makes us better than all the
other animals because we are able to
communicate using language affect each
other brain and create narratives they
don't exist together we both believe in
things that we've never seen before like
God or or ideas that's like democracy or
money like those things we invented then
we can communicate them and create this
image in people's brains and they all
share this thing so in the same way if
you surround yourself by people that you
want to be like you hear them
communicate they change your brain and
it's gonna rub onto you you were gonna
actually become funnier if you sit and
listen to funny people next to you you
actually become more motivated if you're
next to people that are motivated
the next version of that if you cannot
find them if you're sitting right now in
a rural part of Alaska and you can't
just find yourself in Los Angeles with
the people you want to be with is to
actually just look at them on videos on
books and that's the way our brain
basically gets content and change so
changing brains happens many many ways
but the easiest one that everyone can
try is to say what kind of world I want
to be in
and bring this world to you in the form
of movies stories TV shows or people
that's the ways to kind of get
things that you want next to you and do
you think when you're doing that that
it's you're getting into a repetitive
brain firing pattern that ultimately
wires
you actually change your brain so so we
didn't mention that the science behind
it much like in terms of what we do but
we put electrons into people's brains
and we look at their brains while things
happen to them and we actually see it in
happen in action we see how the brain
changes when people communicate we see
how the brain looks when to when you
watch a movie we see how your brain
aligns with the movie and when you tell
someone else the story of the movie
their brain aligns with your brain but
aligns also with the brain of the
director of the movie so communication
is this mechanism by which information
flows between brains and changes the
brains and actually if you want to take
it one step above this is also how we
change ourselves because we talk to
ourselves all the time you walk you
drive your car or you walk to work and
you're just alone with yourself and you
communicate you also change your brain
you kind of solidify the things that you
want to be more like and you suppress
the ones that don't want so we always
talk and those voices those are
basically the other characters in our
brain that talk to each other you kind
of choose which one to give more weight
to so this is how you become the better
person you want to be so we actually now
play with things that change behavior
during the night when you're sleeping in
the following way yes we actually
so this is a another new thing from the
last 10 years in Neuroscience that was
kind of finally discovered which is you
can learn change and transfer overnight
so if you look at the Knight if you go
to sleep in for eight hours sleep it's
not a uniform experience night is not
really just the fall asleep and you
spend eight hours just in the same state
you actually have phases we call them
stages and cycles and they have
different things that happen in them and
one of them is the stage where We're
Dreaming that's when our brain basically
simulate future options and shows us a
movie of things that could happen and
allow us to live through them thinking
their reality it's the ultimate VR we
actually live life thinking that we're
there
thinking how it would be to live with
her in Alaska or to quit the job and
move to Vancouver really have this
experience filtered into our emotions
and then wake up with the answer what to
do this is one stage but there's another
stage it's really interesting stage
three and four of the sleep we call it
slow wave sleep it's a stage of the
night your brain essentially takes all
the experiences from the day before and
awaits them and chooses which ones to
keep and which ones to take out so if
you think about life when you go through
your day there are many many moments you
call the present about every one and a
half second you have a different present
and then it goes in the past it becomes
a memory and you go to the next moment
and you live it and then you throw it in
a memory then when you go to sleep your
brain looks at all those 50 000 moments
that you had and says okay when I walked
from home to the bank I had 20 of those
moments they're not really important I
should compress them into one keep just
one remove the others when I kissed her
it was a moment that I want to remember
every faction of so I want to keep all
of them individually as like one like
big stock of like
your brain does it during slow wave
sleep during this moment it kind of
chooses out of all of them and picks the
ones that important what we learned in
the last five years 10 years
is that you can actually do things to
you at this stage when you're sleeping
it will make you change the pointer we
can choose for you to focus on the walk
to the bank rather than the kiss and in
doing so we're going to basically make
you strengthen those memories at defense
of others we do that by using a smells
or sounds that we play to your ears in
the right moment the smell of and you
judge that right moment because you're
actually watching like a readout it has
to be that the modern thing is that you
can't really do it at home you can't
just spray the smell all the time you
have to do it in the right moment
because that if you do if you just spray
smell in the womb it's gonna wash out
you have to kind of Target the brain the
right moment but then the brain is going
to say I smell this thing this means
that I want to focus on this moment and
strengthen that and what the experiments
that we're doing and others are doing
right now show is that you can actually
make a person learn things when they're
sleeping you can actually change their
behavior you can make them choose to
focus on different behaviors that they
want to change and wake up not doing
this thing you can actually do things so
the classical experiment that was really
popular in the last three years of 2015
was people come to the lab and they're
smokers and they want to quit they go to
sleep for two hours and the
experimenters wait for the moment when
their brain is in this state where it's
kind of listening to the outside world
and reassessing life
then they spray the smell of nicotine
into their nose making their brain think
okay out of all memories I have let's
focus on those that have to do with
smoking and then immediately after they
blast the brain with the smaller vote
and smell of water and eggs which
basically makes the brain rewire and for
and take nicotine and wire it with like
bad experiences so you do that a few
times when they're sleeping they wake up
they have no idea what happened but then
suddenly they say I don't really want to
smoke anymore for a few days they
actually change their behavior they
don't want to smoke not knowing what
happened they just came took a nap wake
up and they don't want to smoke this is
changing whatever Neuroscience you find
the moment you hit the brain with it you
change the wiring and the person wakes
up a different person
that is amazing do people freak out
about that like good or bad the answer
is they do but they shouldn't
and I have an analogy that's gonna be
the kind of way I look at it go back 406
years ago uh 1610 Galilei points his
telescope to the moons of Jupiter and he
looks at the orbit and he expects it to
go in one way but it doesn't it goes in
a different way and he kind of tries to
understand what's going on there and the
only way to solve the equation is to
realign the planets of our Milky Way
galaxy and specifically the solar system
by putting the sun in the center and put
Earth as the number three planet in the
system which to him is a the Throne of
humankind what does it mean that we're
just one more planet out of many we're
not the center it feels horrible to him
it changes everything but the equations
require that so he does it and in doing
so he basically allows us to now see the
wide witches of the universe suddenly we
see that the universe is much bigger
than we imagined and we can explore it
and in the next 400 years we saw more of
the universe and we learned a lot about
what is out there now in the same way in
the last five years we begin to
understand that in our own brain there
are many many voices and we are not the
most important one we're not even the
center we're just one more voice out of
many in our head and we're the one who
thinks the most important but actually
the quiet ones that don't really talk to
us are the center of our universe now
this to us again feels like I did one of
you in kind what does it mean that I'm
not the center of my own universe but
the reality is that this will allow us
to understand the most important and
interesting thing in the universe which
is us
that's I think a profound understanding
yes it's scary that we're not
responsible for choices that they happen
to us that we're creating a narrative
based on things that we're not really
full in control but that's the beauty of
us because now we can actually explore
more things in our brain and learn how
things happen and maybe we'll understand
how to become better people I'm writing
a book right now and it's about how to
use
basically how to take control of your
mindset but I believe that the process
by which you do that is values beliefs
identity it's it's a priorities it's
like this whole and I often use when I'm
talking to people about it the analogy
of your identity being like cancer and
that cancer is not like a little ball
that you can just reach in and pluck out
it's got all these crazy [ __ ]
tendrils and
um because it's so intertwined with the
healthy tissue that like getting it out
is very very difficult and there's so
many things that are just intertwined
like there's no way for me to tell you
oh it's about values oh it's about
identity oh it's about repetition or
whatever it's it's all of it [ __ ]
matched together but it all comes back
to
the brain is this malleable thing and it
can change both Form and Function and
agree what are the things that make it
change Form and Function so while I have
you as a captive person here to talk
about the brain what what is that
process so like forming a new maybe
habits the wrong way to think about it
but I think about part of your job if
you want to change your I'll even go so
far as to say you're
um the affectations of your personality
because I think there are some parts of
it that are just it's who you are it's
hardwired all that but there are certain
elements of your personality what you
desire what you pursue things like that
that are manipulatable
um
how do we go about moving some of that
to the default Network so that it's so
ingrained and you've done it so many
times it'll become second nature I love
this question it's the hardest question
because I've I went all magical with
these jellyfish spraying things and
you're like well so how do we harness
that yeah exactly right
so it's three pounds and it uses twenty
percent of the blood flow uh that said
the way I think habits function this is
these are my ideas
is that because it's such an energy hog
it wants to be efficient so this whole
myth about you only need to use 20 of
your brain no we use 100 our brain and
pictures show that but to get things
done we might only use 15.
to get something complicated then we
might only use 35. otherwise you need to
just be otherwise you wouldn't be an
efficient animal or a human in the
savannah if you couldn't really control
this important but not having not having
it in fifth gear all the time is is a is
an evolutionary strategy in my opinion
so I explained to my kids okay so so
then it falls into ruts because
efficiency is about ruts like dominoes
falling in a certain path and the best
way I can explain it is
as you grow the brain the way the
electric electricity flows
the way the connections prioritize is a
bit like skiing down a mountain
it starts creating these electrical
grooves of sort where if you see
something you see a cliff a fear it goes
down a certain path and every time you
do that and you reinforced it it
actually becomes less expensive energy
wise to follow and fall into that habit
so these Pathways these habits in our
mind these rituals these things that
are good for us we want to hold on to
those but a lot of them have become
deeply carved you know routes down the
mountain
and filling those in bearing them and
finding healthy ones is going to be an
energy expending process okay the effort
will be harder in the beginning and then
as you create a new route down the
mountain you can condition yourself to
having more favorable and constructive
responses that's the best way I can
explain is why effort will lead to
change and your most effort will be
spent in the beginning and then you can
change your emotional
and cognitive responses by conditioning
yourself to find a different different
route down the mountain
what is that process at a cellular level
what does that look like what's
happening so here's how I've always
thought of it you don't actively undo a
habit you create a new habit and the old
habit atrophies and now it's trying to
basically remap this new pattern but in
remapping you're sort of breaking that
old Power or not breaking it but it's
it's over time it's just beginning to
atrophy I don't know a better way to say
it
um dendritic plasticity
neuronal plasticity at the cellular
level is all about
use it or lose it as a very old phrase
but it applies
if it's reaching out looking for an
electrical signal to come by and Trigger
it release shower with some chemicals
after a while if it's not bathed in what
it wants the brain will say let those
dendrites wither and morph and reach out
to other tentacles
those that's the cellular basis of
steering electricity within your brain
that's the cellular basis for creating a
new electrical Groove down the mountain
and that let me give you some examples
be like well that sounds very Off the
Wall no no not at all you were born with
more brain cells than as a kid than you
are as an adult
and because we're losing them slowly
over time we're equipped with a lot that
we can't hold on to
you're going to reinforce the ones that
you're using
and the ones you don't use
your brain will say I don't need to hold
on them because they're just using
energy but the the plasticities we start
off with more brain cells than we hold
on to yet we get smarter that's then
when we were for the most part we are
from our as kids and we get more
coordinated
as we lose brain cells their their exam
that's the example that shows you that
uh it's about the connections and
reinforcing those patterns I hope that
empowers people to be like wait a second
it's not a static thing and much I would
like I would exercise for my body there
are things maybe I should do for my
brain and mind especially while the
window is still here uh to set those
into actions and make them constructive
habits and maybe pass them on to the
generation what are you calling that
window I want to believe that window is
open till the day I [ __ ] die it is
for everybody but not to the same degree
you know I would say that window is less
than 40 less than 30 even is is the most
bang for your buck but there's no doubt
that the ability this plasticity we're
talking about is highest in your teens
and that's actually when you get a lot
of mental health disorders weird thing
the most dynamic shape shifting is an
adolescence so we come into our identity
but we also it's also a peak of mental
health issues so you're sort of setting
your cognitive and emotional thermostat
and then 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s it
does it does slow down but it doesn't
wither to zero that's interesting
um my the my thesis in life is that
we're far more malleable than we think
the science that I've read exited about
50 50. so you're 50 genetics it's just
it is what it is we all have
predilections there's things that we're
better at intelligence is certainly has
a genetic component all of that so let's
say that's 50 you're just 50 it's
unmutable can't [ __ ] change it's like
height it is what it [ __ ] is but 50
of it on the other hand is to really be
scientific as epigenetic so it's going
to be your response to the environment
if you had a radical case and you had
somebody come to you and they were
um all I don't want to get lost in the
word depression but they're sort of
depressive they're lost in their life
they're 35 things that haven't worked
out the way that they want they're a bit
temperamental they don't really have
hold over their environment like
how would you get them in line like what
are things that like I have a list of
things I would tell them to do but I
would think they're sub-optimal compared
to somebody who's actually looked inside
of a brain yeah that's a tough question
because I don't take care of people with
mental health issues in a neurosurgery
sometimes
we do Place catheters into the emotional
hubs inside our brain so the thinking
brain is like a mushroom cap at what end
uh you can electrically
break an obsessive-compulsive disorder
habit if we've seen patients come in and
they so okay you've talked about
something I'd never heard of before you
called it electrical plasticity is that
what you're trying to disrupt yeah yeah
exactly so that's [ __ ] interesting so
wait a second so if I'm disrupting the
electrical or resetting it changing the
oscillations
it's not on or off what is that coming
out of like so in the heart you can put
a pacemaker and get it to beat on a
certain Rhythm right what's driving that
in the brain that creates a certain
electrical pattern uh so you're
basically the electricity in the brain
is shooting through hubs does this all
come down to repetition well I think
right now repetition can
um ingrain a physical habit but what
we're talking about just to go backwards
on this is if you look at a snake and
you've never seen one before a lot of
people reflexively jump back
and let's say it's a plastic snake
first time you might jump second time
you say I've seen that before
Your Instinct was tapped down by your
frontal lobes
and those structures are are emotional
and instinctive responses to our
environment they should be under they
should be malleable by our thought the
thought of these giant frontal lobes
behind our forehead should say to them
you know just because you're angry
doesn't mean you should physically reach
out and hurt somebody just because
you've seen a snake you know it's
plastic you don't have to jump every
time
just because you're afraid of public
speaking doesn't mean after a while you
have to be afraid of it so that it's not
conditioning it's it's a thought that
tamps down instincts we feel are
destructive or or not useful so when I
see going back to the electrical
simulation when I when I grab a doorknob
I sometimes I think oh you know I mean I
should wash my hands
but if I grab a doorknob and go wash my
hands 80 times
the frontal lobe is having a hard time
tamping down those emotional hubs and we
can drill a hole and put a catheter
into these subcritical structures
they're like nodules within the the web
of of neurons
and electrical tickling of that will
snap the patient out of this
obsessive-compulsive disorder it's not a
last they laugh get the [ __ ] out of here
deep brain stimulation you'd love this
topic but uh depression OCD and and
obesity the drive to eat it can all be
modulated and they're all housed near
each other that speaks to uh what they
are is is an imbalance of the emotional
drive with the ability for the frontal
lobes to Tamp down some of these
instincts it's instinctive to eat
sometimes it can feel instinctive to be
depressed and sometimes uh obsessive
compulsion is is a part of our brain and
it's it's a natural part of our brain
it's okay to have those feelings when
you have them too much the imbalance
isn't just electrochemical in those
emotional hubs it's a it's the frontal
lobes not accessing their potential to
Tamp down some of the emotions do you
think that that is I want to talk Garden
variety [ __ ] I get there's always going
to be outlier cases but Garden variety
uh depression let's start there or even
the garden variety like they can't get
over the fear of the snake or public
speaking anxiety will round it to
um is it me not using my prefrontal lobe
to Tamp it down or is it that I either
have a diminished prefrontal lobe from a
physical like there's a physical
structural problem in my brain or that
the fear Center the amygdala whatever is
kicking off the anxiety is is physically
over robust or is it just that if if you
had them could you train them to use
thought alone to get a hold of it that's
a good question I know where you're
going with that because it'll empowered
people to think down their anxieties I
think there's no other way and I'm not
copying out of a straight up answer on
it there's no other way to say it's all
of the above some people actually have
aberrant robust you know lighting up of
some of these structures amygdala are
the ones people usually think of but in
these subcortical structures some people
are actually correlates that they light
up more and they have greater Addiction
in that group so there's a structural
element there's a life context element
and then there's also the uh the frontal
lobe element and that thinking of
creating new habits creating new values
uh creating less triggers in your life
that's the opportunity that we all have
and I think that's the project you're
working on what's the stuff we can
control without zapping ourselves and
without putting pills in US those things
set the boundaries but the front to lobe
regulation of how we feel is in your own
command and you've seen it in Buddhist
monks you've seen the mind-body
connection in deep divers there's
actually two nerves that come down and
wrap around the heart they can think
down there
pulse they can think down how fast their
heart beats this is not like baloney
this is you can put an ultrasound we can
you can look it up online you see videos
of it that shows that thinking
can change
thought can change how fast your
heartbeat
why wouldn't we believe that thought
can change those subcortical structures
about anxiety and depression if you get
depressed you're sort of you know you
can get stuck but people who aren't
having those mental health issues but
just want to be better and live a more
rich life in the sense of personal
experience we can think about our lives
and our habits and triggers and create
effects inside us the mind-body
connection is is mind down the body and
many people feel you know body back up
to mind and that's where meditation and
and meditative breathing come in but
those connections are real you see
examples around you if your frontal lobe
can only help you five percent in
somebody else is all dialed in it helps
them 50 doesn't matter that's your best
and that's an Avenue available to you
but it's not a it's not a simple one
it's not a quick fix it's not going to
be a bullet
it actually takes work and you mentioned
repetition it takes work it takes effort
uh and there is no shortcut to it but
it's a glacial change that can happen
over a few months to a few years and I
think once you know like people go to
the gym they can't not go to the gym
anymore I think people who find these
rituals and habits that make them feel
better they become addictive to that and
they're constructive and they're not
pharmacologic I want to hear what you
think about this because this is going
to be a key this is a key thesis that I
have that will play out in the book it
is certainly played out in my life one
of the things I think is most under
valued is repetition repetition
repetition like if if you left me alone
with somebody that had whatever bad
habit
um
I would have them do good things the
whether it be thinking prefrontal lobe
trying to lower the heart rate whether
it's diaphragmatic breathing like
whatever the case whatever physiological
hook that I'm trying to tap into which
is is another part of the thesis so
there are physiological hooks into
changing your brain States and so I
would have people whether it's calming
yourself down taking you out of the
sympathetic nervous system just from
breathing from the diaphragm to get into
the the parasympathetic nervous system
and I would have them do that over and
over and over and over until that is so
the using your your Double Diamond
there's a new analogy there's a new
slope they've got the groove the rut is
I think you called it they've got that
[ __ ] rut and it's positive and my
understanding a rut that they want to
fall into exactly and my understanding
of what's happening is what I would be
helping them do is create the pathway
that requires the least amount of energy
because the brain is hardwiring it it's
wrapping it in the myelin sheath so that
the electrical signals are trans they're
going more efficiently and so the brain
from a caloric usage standpoint is
trying to do whatever is most efficient
and so simply through intelligent
repetition you're moving people into the
default network of the brain so they can
sort of [ __ ] space out and when they
space out they're becoming more calm
their default reaction is the
de-excitation of the nervous system yeah
no I like I like what I'm hearing
so the the question is repetition and I
agree it's not thinking about the
Mountaintop you can
by the way you breathe you can change
the electricity in your mind we've seen
that with the people we put grids on
like we have actual measurements now but
that's the you know what's the structure
where you get the most out of repetition
what is the perfect spot where uh
meditative breathing hits that sweet
spot for people and they'll increase it
if it continues to benefit them but the
food the breathing sleep is a hard one
but to me
um
food what we eat
and meditative breathing I think are the
most graspable
and measurable uh the creativity stuff
the sleep stuff uh the exercise stuff is
harder for people uh but the exercise
stuff is in its own way the most
important if we could get back to that
oh why keeps your brain arteries open
releases all these neurotrophic factors
inside your brain so not just the
plumbing that irrigates the Flesh of the
brain tell me about it gnf yeah they're
nerve growth factors they're all
neurotrophic factors and
whatever the the for the in this case to
be abbreviations gdn f b dnf ngf it
doesn't matter then with GF
and growth factors so it really is I've
heard your word Miracle Grow but getting
back to the Garden analogy
uh to keep the flesh
we're gonna get you know electricity is
one thing
to keep the flesh healthy
uh you have to irrigate it
and that has to do with your brain
arteries and since we already said it's
not a it's not a ball you know it's
these uh you know these jellyfish and
they're moving and they're throbbing and
they're pulsating and their tentacles
are reaching out there's a lot of space
in between and that extracellular space
outside of the actual cells outside of
the neurons outside the jellyfish if you
will it's not just water
there's chemicals floating around in
there now dopamine might be just from
tentacle to tentacles you know serotonin
might be this way but what's it what's
in all the stuff around all those
billions and billions of neurons they're
growth factors
and minerals and chemicals that the
brain naturally has but there's also a
soup that these billions and billions of
neurons are floating in bdnf is a key
component of that soup that helps
regulate the health of each of those
jellyfish and we can trigger more of
that through exercise yeah you exercise
it releases it showers itself it's not
like the thighs thigh muscle sends it up
to the brain the brain says hey I'm
feeling good this is good I like this
I'm going to create a new rut I'm going
to remind you you feel good when you run
the brain will shower itself with growth
factors there are growth factors brain
says hey you know the electrochemical
balance is better with those so I think
that's where you get the runners high
it's not just adrenaline it's not
dopamine is a happy chemical I'm jacked
up I'm on adrenaline it's just such a
complex ecosystem and rather than
feeling uh
intimidated by that to me I just see
opportunities on how people can you know
improve their lives
dude I'm super stoked to have you back
on anytime that I get to research you
with like the specific purpose of you
coming on I'm a very happy man uh your
new book live wired I think is really
extraordinary and I wanna so I'm haunted
by a quote and that quote is genius is a
young man's game you never use that
quote in the book but you touch on the
subject in terms of how much ability we
have to change and learn as we get older
and
I want to pinpoint just like I really
want to feel like I can get better and
better as I age and that I'm not going
to suffer the slings and arrows of you
know sort of crystallizing into Dogma or
not being able to learn and push myself
um how changeable is the brain
so the good news is the brain remains
flexible all through adulthood which is
why you can learn new names new people
and new facts and so on so it's not that
plasticity shuts down but it does
diminish
but I actually want to address this for
a second because I feel like this is a
really important area which is that as
all of us get older we sort of lament
this we think oh we would love to have
the flexibility of a young brain but in
fact I think you would not and here's
why
although you'd be able to learn Chinese
you know in a few weeks instead of a
year or whatever it's
um
the hardening of your brain actually
represents that you're doing something
right your your brain's job is to make
an internal model of the external world
and it's trying to figure out okay what
is my language what's my culture what's
the beliefs of my Society how do I
interact with people such that they
respond to me in the right way what is
my internal model of my spouse's
behavior all these kinds of things
and if you somehow could take a magic
pill that returned you to the
flexibility of an infant's brain
you would forget all of that you
wouldn't be you you wouldn't be Tom
anymore you'd be you'd be an infant
again you'd have to relearn life again
so let me let me push you on that if I
could get the flexibility but not wipe
the Slate clean would there be
advantages to that or this cold war for
resources that the brain is sort of
engaged in does that become so
problematic that it becomes hard to
solidify the self
yeah I mean
I mean so let me just jump to the first
thing I think there's not a way of doing
the flexibility without losing yourself
why is that from is there a
physiological like the brain structure
becomes just too squishy like what's
happening it's that who you are is the
sum total of all of the experiences
you've ever had you know you mean at the
end of the book I I sort of suggest that
you are a a vessel each of us it's a
vessel of space and time where you were
born in a particular town at a
particular year you go around you vacuum
up your experiences I I was born in a
different town in a different year I go
around I vacuum up my little experiences
and
um and that's what makes us us and if
you got rid of that and said you know I
want to forget all that and start over
you there wouldn't be anything about you
anymore I mean maybe you would learn
Chinese and you'd be have a different
name you'd be a different person
whatever you have to learn everything
over again what is up my friend Tom
bilyu here and I have a big question to
ask you how would you rate your level of
personal discipline on a scale of one to
ten if your answer is anything less than
a 10 I've got something cool for you and
let me tell you right now discipline by
its very nature means compelling
yourself to do difficult things that are
stressful boring which is what kills
most people or possibly scary or even
painful now here is the thing achieving
huge goals and stretching to reach your
potential requires you to do those
challenging stressful things and to
stick with them even when it gets boring
and it will get boring building your
levels of personal discipline is not
easy but let me tell you it pays off in
fact I will tell you you're never going
to achieve anything meaningful unless
you develop discipline right I've just
released a class from Impact Theory
university called how to build Ironclad
discipline that teaches you the process
of building yourself up in this area so
that you can push yourself to do the
hard things that greatness is going to
require of you right click the link on
the screen register for this class right
now and let's get to work I will see you
inside this Workshop from Impact Theory
University until then my friends be
legendary peace out
it's interesting so one of the things
that
um so I think a lot about death you
covered this in an interview that I was
listening to
um about I forget who you were quoting
but man lives two lives one sort of when
he has no sense of his mortality and
then the second one once he becomes
aware of that and I really think in the
last 12 months I've become aware of my
mortality and I don't know if it's just
the the age so anybody that's been
watching me for a while will see that my
rhetoric used to be really hardcore I'm
trying to live forever and when I really
I stopped to ask from an evolutionary
standpoint why don't we live forever
there are jellyfish that can do it and
it is sort of what you're talking about
now where the jellyfish sort of
re-enters it's not a pupa stage but
something like that where it sort of
like blobs back out and then sort of
rebuilds itself
and
renewal was the answer that I came up
with in terms of why we don't live
forever
because you know the the old adage of
science advances funeral by funeral
because you need that sense of renewal
and change for a society to work so a
society certainly doesn't care about any
one individual
um is is that part of when you think
about
neuroplasticity like every time I hear
you say you don't want to get to that
level of flexibility you sound crazy to
me and I keep thinking it's because you
understand something about the way
neuroplasticity works that I don't so
walk us through like the fundamental
reality of what neuroplasticity is and I
think one thing that is interesting is
that notion that the the regions of the
brain are actually competing against one
another which I had never heard until
reading live wired yeah okay great yeah
well I mean one of the things I've tried
to do in Livewire is propose completely
new Frameworks about how to think about
all this so I'm glad I mean you wouldn't
have heard this before live wired
because I feel like at least my hope
with this is It's a completely new way
of of looking at the brain
um okay so there's a lot to unpack in in
your question I'll say a few things
actually let me just start with the the
quotation uh just in case anyone wants
it is it's it's from Confucius and he
said yeah man lives two lives the second
one begins when he realizes he has just
one
um and I agree with you about this whole
uh immortality thing it may be that
there is a
evolutionary basis to this which is
Mother Nature does a lot of work to
figure out okay what do I need to do to
make a species successful and it may be
that part of that is figuring out okay
how long do I make them live in order
for the species to to be really
successful obviously it's not
cast that way from other nation's point
of view it's just an evolutionary issue
but
um some species do better than others if
they have the right turnover rate
um
uh in terms of in terms of death okay so
you asked what can I just go back to say
what neuroplasticity is it's that your
whole life your brain is changing you've
got you know most of your listeners
probably know this but you've got 86
billion neurons you've got 0.2
quadrillion connections between these
neurons and your whole life every moment
these things are changing their strength
they're unplugging they're replugging
these the neurons the cells in their
brain are seeking they're actually
moving around and trying different
things out each one has about 10 000
connections with its neighbors the
interesting part is
your whole life this is what's happening
which means you are a slightly different
person than who you were when you
started this podcast five minutes ago
and and I am too and um so this is what
I mean when I'm talking about the
flexibility of the brain now the argot
of the field we call this brain
plasticity
um but the fact is I think we need a new
term because the reason it got that name
a century ago is because plastic you can
mold into shape and it holds that shape
but what the brain's doing is so much
more than simply holding onto a shape
it's constantly re-configuring yourself
and so that's why I introduced the term
live wired which I do to distinguish how
we think about everything in Silicon
Valley which is hardware and software
when you make these trim inefficient two
layers and they interact with each other
live wear is constantly actually it's
like a living electric fabric it's you
know unplugging and replugging and
changing itself and getting things down
into the system now back to your
question about
um you know as you get older the thing
is you've been plugging things down into
the system your whole life and uh the
longer it goes the deeper that gets into
the system and that's why I'm skeptical
about this idea of returning to
plasticity of a of a child because the
way Learning Works in the brain is
everything Builds on what you already
know so it's not like a computer where
you give it some piece of information it
stores a little file it's not like that
it's instead everything you learn is in
the context of what you have already
known
so just as an example if you and I were
learning how to fly a b212 helicopter
you might think about in terms of like
oh okay I get it this is sort of like a
motorcycle I lean this way I might think
about in terms of a horse like okay yeah
I grew up running horses so here's how I
do it and here's what I think about it
but it's all predicated on what we've
known before
yeah I I heard you destroy my fantasy
which is one day we will be like the
Matrix and we can download stuff and you
introduce that level of complexity where
it's like it learning doesn't actually
work like that and you have to think of
these things as as existing in these
different layers in the brain and that
were essentially synthesizing machines
which I've always said to myself in in a
derogatory way because I look at
somebody like Elon Musk and he he seems
to be truly thinking sort of in a unique
way whereas I've always felt like I have
to take in all this data and then it
bounces around in my mind in a unique
way but it isn't sort of truly
from the ground up a unique insight and
that may just be me looking at it
incorrectly and everybody is a
synthesizing machine but that reality of
the way that we take in data and then
I've always thought of it sort of as a
pinball machine where it comes in and it
hits something else which then bumps
into something else and then it
re-congeals into this sort of new and
unique idea
um but that's interesting and it it
becomes it becomes somewhat trouble
troubling and you have a quote in the
book I forget the exact words but
basically you're everyone is born as
many men but die as one and that notion
of you have all this infinite
possibility you could could have been
born anywhere at any time encounter
anything but ultimately you become one
very specific person
and because I'm in sort of the mindset
space I encounter people that have
childhood trauma a lot and the way that
childhood trauma shapes them I find
really distressing and this is my
obsession around this notion of I don't
I don't want to be a slave to my past
so I acknowledge how important it is but
how much can we begin to push beyond
that like if if we're at you know a 10
in terms of malleability When We're
Young are we at like a 0.5 when we're 70
or like where are we where are we at
well I'll tell you something in this
context this is something I've been
thinking about a ton which is
okay let me explain
why we don't change as much as we grow
older it's because
you are getting a good model of the
world with which you're successful and
so there's no particular motivation to
change further now I happen to know that
you and I both love the idea of
continuing to change trying as hard as
we can to do that all the time but it's
not the general story most people find
let's say just a career and they figure
out how to do it and they learn all the
vocabulary their career and they figure
out great this is this is what I'm doing
and
um unfortunately with a lot of people
when they retire their lives really
shrink and then they
are not challenging their brain in any
way here's why that matters it's because
when you challenge your brain you're
building new Bridges and roadways all
the time and as people get older of
course their brain tissue actually
starts to degenerate so you need to
build those new Bridges to cover broken
roadways or else you're really in
trouble
um and you may have heard the story
about these nuns who when they
um when they died they gave their brain
an autopsy for analysis and it turned
out that some fraction of these nuns who
had lived in the convents until the day
they died they had Alzheimer's disease
but nobody knew it when they were alive
because they didn't have the cognitive
deficits and so it turns out it's
because living in a continent you've got
other people to deal with and chores and
responsibilities and other things and so
they were able to build new Bridges all
the time so anyway this is one of the
most
um important things that we can do with
our brains now uh I'm trying to remember
what was the what was the connection to
the thing we said before this is about
how far you can push yourself so I'm
gonna I'm gonna go now into a a
direction that means a lot to me so
when you think about your kids so I know
you have kids are you like [ __ ] I'm
going to introduce them to everything
that might be meaningful I'm going to
have them playing piano because the way
that the brain will drink in music and
reorganize itself is going to matter I'm
gonna have them doing sports because
obviously that's going to lay certain
foundations that they won't be able to
lay later like how critical is that
developmental period like if if I'm
going to be a good Steward I don't have
kids you don't have to worry about me
I'm not gonna you know [ __ ] anybody up
but like
how I would really sweat that like I
would really worry that I either haven't
done enough to sort of lay important
foundations or I've done too much like
how do you think about making the most
of that plastic period yeah I'll tell
you uh so my father was a psychiatrist
and he had actually prepped me for this
a little while ago he said he said look
the the view of modern Psychiatry is
that the most important thing a parent
can do is open doors uh for their
children that's that's it meaning you
give the kid piano lessons and soccer
lessons and this and that and chess and
blah blah but you can't kids uh
kids already start having personalities
very young and they love this but they
hate that and so on the best you can do
is give the kids the opportunity and the
other thing that's so important is just
teaching kids
creativity and by that I simply mean
teaching them how to consume lots of
data and then remix and do their own
versions of it because the the way that
schools often go wrong is by teaching
lots of stuff and then the semester ends
and that's it like okay now you know all
the different ways that these painters
painted or all the different ways of
electrical engineering that you can do
this and that but the important part is
you should add a week to the end of that
where you say to the kids okay now I
want you to bend break and blend all
these painting Styles and come up with
your own now I want you to come up with
an engineering project that you care
about that you've thought of that
incorporates everything we've learned in
this semester so that's I would say the
main thing I'm trying to do as a parent
is make sure that whatever my kids learn
I turn it into something where they're
leveraging it they're using it so that
knowledge becomes not just a an end
point but a springboard so do you think
of it in terms of because after reading
the book I walked away thinking this way
all of us are going to make When We're
Young accidentally or on purpose we're
going to make decisions about what
infrastructure we build that's robust
and thinking of a musician is probably
the easiest way to explain this so if I
understand it right a kid that starts
practicing music when they're really
young the density of the brain regions
that deal with either how their fingers
move or reading sheet music or you know
whatever the different elements are they
are physically more robust in a way that
they will not be with the same amount of
hours if you pick it up at the age 40.
and so there becomes like these really
critical because I don't know if you've
read the book Nudge but it talks about
how little pushes in any direction can
have a huge impact in somebody's life so
my dad one time made an off-handed
comment that hey because we had a
camcorder and I used to play with it
which now kids think yeah everybody has
a camera this was really [ __ ] rare
back then so the fact that my dad
brought the camera home already begins
nudging me in a direction then my dad
makes a comment that he thinks that I'm
good with the camera that pushes me even
harder in that direction I end up going
to film School all this like and so it
becomes a question of my dad was really
um distant so to get his attention was I
I didn't have that sense that I was
doing it for that reason but were those
like little nudges that pushed me to
build all this infrastructure now around
visual storytelling storytelling my
whole life revolves around this [ __ ] so
I'm like knowing how nudges can have
this big impact
hot like for the parents out there
listening is there certain types of
infrastructure problem solving is what I
heard you just saying now or critical
thinking I don't know what words you
would use to describe what you're
talking about now so actually there's so
many points that I want to address and
the things you've said already
um and actually if you don't mind just
before I forget the cue of things let me
go back to of to a few steps here in
case this is useful let's tie it all
together one is about about Elon Musk
versus you
um you know everybody's brain is running
the same software which is you absorb
the world and you
um you know you you generate remixes of
it and his brain is no different and
when you look at quotations from Henry
Ford from Thomas Edison whatever they're
all saying the same thing which is I
mean Henry Ford said I invented nothing
new I merely took the advances of all
the people before me and I just
assembled it into a new package and
that's of course what musk is doing
because they're actually weirdly there
is no such thing as a
as a thought out of the blue everything
Builds on what you have been exposed to
um the second thing is the quotation you
mentioned was was Martin Heidegger yeah
every man is born as many men and dies
as one the reason where this all comes
together for parents why it's important
is because
um
the number of things that is going to
influence a child whether you bring home
a camera or whatever the thing is it's
so infinitely manifold that as a parent
you actually in the end
can't control there's just too much
stuff so the best a parent can do and
what the parent should do is just try to
just try to bring home all that stuff
and play with your children and
encourage your children to do this stuff
because you can't possibly steer things
in a meaningful way when your father
brought home the camera that was a
meaningful important moment but he might
have brought home four other things that
you have forgotten since because it just
didn't resonate with who you were as a
person so the weird part is we are this
weird combination of Nature and nurture
which is to say you dropped into the
world with a particular set of genetics
that give gave you particular
predispositions for some reason you're a
real visual guy you like doing that so
the camera resonated with you but the
other things your dad brought home you
don't even remember them so
this is the weird thing about who we
become is
is this mixture of Nature and nurture if
you had to give a split
what would you say what I I've seen sort
of 50 50 do you think that's accurate
it's a dead question in in biology
nowadays because you can't say which is
because of the way they intertwine what
I mean by that is
um you know there's this moment where
you drop in the world you've got a
certain set of genes but from there
there's feedback on your genetic
expression from your experiences and
this is this new field of epigenetics
which is to say
depending on the experiences you have
that actually feeds back into your brain
all the way down eventually to the level
of the nucleus in the neurons and you
change the confirmation of the DNA with
certain proteins that fit on it and
change it such that some genes are
getting expressed more some genes are
getting expressed less so what this
means is that the nurture actually
affects the nature
and uh and obviously the nature affects
the nurture because if you know if let's
say I like swimming right but I don't
have the wingspan of Michael Phelps so
I'm never going to be Michael Phelps and
be able to compete with him
um so these things anyway all feedback
on each other
so that's why you can't even put a split
on it yeah that is the notion that we're
not blank slates I think is really
important for people to understand we're
going through a super weird time right
now I'm utterly shocked by this where
people are talking about humans like
they're sort of infinitely malleable
um and while that would actually be kind
of cool I wit I and you've already
debunked this I wouldn't be myself if I
were infinitely malleable and so okay I
do accept that
um but thinking of children at least is
sort of infinitely malleable and that
you know you could become anything
um is is really exciting but it's so
divorced from reality that it breaks
people's ability to predict how human
beings are going to react and how to
even you know structure a society in a
way that's functional
um how do you think about that
intertwining are there things that you
know for for instance the Sexes like are
there things that are somewhat sort of
categorizable if you know just even that
amount of the person or is it like nope
even even that you can't begin to
segregate people the the interesting
part is that
essentially anything you measure exists
on a distribution so let's take
something like you know skill that
chests are swimming or math or whatever
um you know anything you think of
there's this big distribution in society
and when it comes to something like
comparing the Sexes there's a
distribution with whatever you're
measuring and they those tend to be
non-um those tend to be not centered
exactly the same place and yet
overlapping a lot and that's why it's
challenging ever to say oh well that's a
male that's female so they're going to
be because you're only talk all you can
the best you can talk about is on
average
um
so we're in this weird funny position
there where you know yeah one can try to
ignore and say well I think it makes no
difference that she's a female he's a
male but it makes some difference on on
average but maybe not for that
individual is the is the key and as far
as this thing but you know what you just
mentioned a moment ago is this thing
I've been thinking about with all the
where we are in 2020
um
I can just tell you personally I give my
charity money to
um to organizations that deal with
kids in babies infants that's where I
put all my money on this on this bet
because just as one example
um there's one uh charity that I donate
to that deals with daycare centers
because in poor neighborhoods where both
parents have to work or maybe it's just
a single mom
um they need to put the kid in daycare
and most of the daycare centers in poor
neighborhoods
just all the kids get gathered in front
of a television and they watch
television all day essentially the whole
goal is just to keep the kids alive for
the day but it's not interacting and
teaching with the children the way uh uh
you know a good really rich
neighborhoods daycare center would
operate
so much because a young child's brain is
is so thirsty for all the information of
the world and so that's why this matters
a lot and and because of this issue
we've been talking about how brains
flexibility diminishes through time it's
just where I put my my bets my chips is
that
um you know sometimes what you have in
poor neighborhoods is you have to make a
bet on the upcoming generation you say
I'm gonna do everything I can to make
this next Generation get off the
starting blocks at an equal Point as a
rich neighborhood so that um so that the
kids are not disadvantaged from day one
this guy named Jeffrey Canada that I I
have been stalking I'm waiting for the
restraining order I am trying to get him
on the show so desperately and he said
something and it's one of those I don't
know if I remember it accurately and I
can't refind it but my memory of it is
that he said so he is uh really really
bright guy grew up in Harlem ends up
getting a full ride to Harvard goes to
Harvard says I'm going to come back and
change the education system basically
help all these kids in Harlem and goes
tries realizes the education system is
so problematic that he can't fix it from
the inside he has to fix it from the
outside starts looking at what the real
problem is and what the real solution is
and realizes the big difference between
kids that grow up in a sort of normal
Suburban life and kids that grow up in
poverty is the number of words they hear
by the time they're five and the ratio
that's positive to negative and and the
thought of being able to boil it down to
something that simple because again
going back to this notion of
infrastructure they have the language
infrastructure structure in their brain
and that that has these massive knock-on
effects later in terms of their ability
to communicate get a good job
all this crazy [ __ ] and so like you he's
focused on kids and what I think I
remember him saying was you have to give
up on adults and that may have just been
the terror that it struck into my heart
but my memory of that statement which
obviously is all about brain plasticity
has been so influential in my life that
this company impact Theory started aimed
at adults and now about five percent of
what we do maybe 20 20 of what we do is
aimed at adults eighty percent is aimed
at kids because I'm like if I actually
want to have the kind of impact I want
to have I've got to hit him during that
age of imprint where their brain remains
incredibly malleable and so yeah man
that like talk to me talk to me about
um what happened in I think it was the
Ukraine
when there was so much death after the
war that basically there was the orphans
had yeah you know what that was actually
in Romania was after the death of chesku
there were tens of thousands of kids who
had been orphaned because their parents
had been killed so the Romanians set up
these orphanages these statement
orphanages where
um
there were too many kids and too few
staffs and so the staff said look
don't pick up the kid don't talk to the
kid because the kid will get clingy if
you do that so what they did is they
just ran their business keeping the kids
alive but not giving them what a child
needs and these kids grow up with
massive cognitive deficits this is one
of Nature's tragic natural experiments
where you get to look at it and say ah
okay now we realize that what children
they're here's the whole thing and this
is as you know the theme of Livewire is
that human brains drop into the world
half-baked this is the great trick that
mother nature discovered with our
species you drop them in not ready but
there's a certain expectation a certain
gamble nature is taking which is that
you'll get the right sorts of inputs
and it's a gamble because if you don't
get those inputs then the brain does not
um come out uh optimally at all talk to
me about the inputs that will break you
if you don't get
well one of them is
um you know actually that's an
interesting question because we don't
know how to phrase it
except as a general thing about love and
language and you know attention and
physical language break you though
because like if somebody's deaf they can
still develop and and have normal
relations when they're older I think
they are exactly right but they're
speaking language they have language
they have sign language that they're
speaking with people and so if they
didn't have that would they be
developmentally [ __ ] they prop
that's an interesting question let me
think if I can think of an example
I I don't I don't know I'll have to I'll
have to look that up the reason is
because all of the examples of deafness
I know and I know at this point hundreds
or thousands of deaf people they they've
all grown up in a society that's modern
enough that from whatever the age of six
months or a year or whatever their
parents said wow we need to get help
here and learn sign language or put you
into a school or get a tutor who can
teach you sign language so I actually
don't know of people who have grown up
where they're completely ignored in that
way and not getting any language
of course there you know there's a
certain language of people paying
attention to you and touching you and
saying like would you like the milk
where even if you can't hear you might
still be getting a sense of languageness
but there are these again these tragic
natural natural experiments where a
child is so abused so neglected that
let's say a personal hearing child
doesn't get any language because the
parent locks them in a room and just
gives them food or something but gives
them none of the language or attention
and kids like that grow up with really
horrid deficits like they never learn
language they never learn the structure
of language grammatically for example I
tell the story of one girl in the book
who was found at the age of seven having
been abused like this and
what happened after her parents were
arrested and so on all these
psychologists came in all these people
who gave her lots of love and attention
and tried to teach her but she never
could learn language it was too late
that window had closed for her she just
never got the rules of grammar so she
says she can say no and stop it and one
other thing but she can't
speak language there's nothing wrong
with her in terms of genetically in
terms of why she couldn't do that yeah
one of the most interesting studies
um
I've ever come across and I know you've
talked about this is Harlow's monkeys
and how if you give the monkey the
option between basically sort of
affection physical affection comfort
from just a carpet mother and then a
wire mother but it actually has food
that it will go eat really fast and then
run back and cuddle the carpet mother it
is so weird to me like when I hear
people say man humans are just love like
it makes my skin crawl but then when I
think about what the fact that if you
don't touch and love on a human it
actually dies that is so weird do you
have a sense like is that tied to the
the like think of the visual cortex
right visual cortex is expecting
information I'm sure you can explain
your theory on dreaming which I think is
[ __ ] fascinating like is there
something where we have like a love
Center that like if it isn't getting
that love it what the hell happens like
I don't understand how we break
fundamentally as a human
yeah
you know I would say it's this issue uh
so we don't know and happily the reason
we don't know is because there's simply
are not enough examples of this so
Harlow's monkeys you know he did this I
guess about 50 years ago
um where he would do things like you
know give the monkey the choice he also
did these experiments where he would
isolate a monkey and have the monkey
raised in isolation with a one-way
mirror that he could look through
um but those kinds of experiments were
shut down because you know he was doing
it let's say for the right reasons you
know trying to understand depression and
so on but it was just decided that the
outcomes were so awful that it was too
cruel to do and and these um
terribly abused children are super rare
thankfully so we don't really know
there's not a love Center in the brain
but instead it's something about about
this issue of the brain coming into the
world where as much as possible Mother
Nature has put out onto the world like
you need to be getting this
love and attention and touch I mean we
understand a lot about the Touch system
and if you're not getting touched and
stroked as a child that affects the
development of you know what's called
your sensory cortex you know this part
right under where you wear headphones
and
um do you have a hypothesis why
again it's this thing about it's this
thing about
coming in
half programmed and the rest of it is
waiting for the world to program you and
if the world is not programming you
there are no hands on the keyboards
there
you're just not getting what you need
see what you have is uh you know
essentially an infant's brain without
without the extra stuff that you need to
to grow up
we as far as specifically like ah if you
don't get enough touch language this is
precisely what happens we don't know
that and as I said it's for the for the
right reasons that we don't know that
and hopefully I kind of hope that we we
never know exactly why that is because
it would require studying that which is
yeah I mean look I hope that we figure
out why it is I hope we never find out
because we have had cases like that for
sure but one thing that is interesting
and things begin to unlock so the one of
the key things that I took away from
livewired is this notion that
um Reese the the brain is real estate
you use this great example of a map and
if you look at a map as a kid you just
assume all the country lines are like
that's how it is and of course it
couldn't be any other way but as a
historian you know looking back on it it
could have been any manner of
configurations and the brain is the same
that you have competing resources
fighting for resources walk us through
that because to me I want to push some
more on this idea of how we break as a
human if we don't get the right input
but I need to understand if it's tied to
that sort of resource thirst or or some
other mechanism yeah so the general
framework I put forward is that it's
actually a competitive system under the
hood there so you look at a picture in a
neuroscient textbook and it says okay
here's the brain that's the visual Parts
hearing touch and so on and that's how
every textbook is you think okay I got
it that's that's the brain but in fact
it's this fluid dynamic system that's
constantly changing if you are are born
blind this part isn't your visual cortex
that gets taken over by hearing and
touch it's on even if you go blind later
that gets taken over
um it's like that with everything for
people who are deaf that doesn't remain
their auditory cortex there's no real
estate that lies fallow in the brain
ever
and so
this is the remarkable thing about yeah
about resource allocation so the yeah
you know the analogy I give in the book
is it's like uh if you saw the you know
the Cuban Missile Crisis you were an
alien that flew in you saw the Cuban
Missile Crisis you'd say no the
Americans and Soviets nobody's doing
anything I guess everyone's just uh
nothing's happening but in fact what you
wouldn't realize is that all the
missiles are aimed everything is super
tight and wow and the reason nothing is
happening is because all the guns are
pointed at each other and that's what I
propose is going on in the brain it has
to be understood as a competitive system
at many different levels of competition
um from you know from regions all the
way down to neurons and even within
neurons synapses competing against one
another and so on
and so that's what allows things to
change uh really rapidly in the brain
and what is the dynamic by which they
um are either winning or losing is it
I'm receiving input hahaha so I get to
keep going that's exactly it it's I'm
getting the input and so
the um
I mean forgive me because you already
read the book but you know I give this
analogy of uh of colonization in early
the Americas you know you had the French
and the British and Spanish were all
colonizing North America
and what I did is I just went back and I
looked at it to see if I could correlate
how people's territory changed given the
number of ships they were sending over
from Europe and what happened is the
French started sending fewer ships than
the British and um and so you know as
they said fewer and fewer ships their
territory Shrunk the French owned this
huge character all the way from Canada
down to Louisiana
um
and as they sent less and less stuff
eventually they lost all their territory
and eventually they sold the whole
Louisiana Territory so this is an
analogy that I used to what's going on
it Maps itself all the time it depends
on the number of Ships coming over so
you know just as an example if you're an
amputee and you lose your arm
um
suddenly there's no more Ships coming in
from your hand to the brain and so that
territory gets taken over so yes it's
about how much data is coming in and by
the way how useful that data is so if
you look at a map of the body in the
brain you find that the areas that carry
more sensitive information have bigger
representation so for example in my
somatic sensory cortex my fingertips
have a big representation because
they're carrying a lot of important
information in contrast my thigh doesn't
you know it has a very little territory
because who cares about my thigh
um
in terms of the number of ships that
it's sending up to the brain
so if they're locked in this battle for
that going back to the idea of if you're
not touching an infant loving an infant
um stroking them
is is it that
regions that would otherwise go to that
are being taken over by something
and that causes that sort of like
basically that there is it's probably
more distributed than this but the idea
being there is a distribution of items
in your brain that their allocation is
for social interaction so that I get
social cues in and I I sort of play with
them as you talk about babbling so I
sort of Babble I give a response and
maybe I I hit my parent you see kids do
that all the [ __ ] time I grab your
hair and you tell me no oh [ __ ] okay I
get a bit of input there I smack your
face and you tell me not to do that whoa
and so I begin to realize okay cool like
there's this give and take relationship
that I have with this person it's not
carte blanche I can't do whatever I want
and now I'm basically forming my my the
the literal centers of my brain
as myself as a social creature and is
and when now we take that sort of feral
child and put them now in a social
context they seem broken but they might
actually do just fine as a completely
isolated creature
that's right although it would be hard
to Define what we mean by doing just
fine it's a nice picture but but I
totally I totally agree with your point
of view on this which is it this is the
part I talked about in the book about
babbling so we all know with children
they Babble and the reason they're
babbling is because they're saying some
with their mouth and they're hearing
what comes out of their mouth and
they're comparing that to what's coming
out of their mother's mouth their
father's mouth and they're figuring out
what as they get older it's a different
kind of babbling exactly it's like
social babbling where they're like what
if I say FU to this oh whoa that didn't
work at all and so
um this is how you try things out in the
world and this is how our brains learn
how to drive our bodies by the way is by
motor babbling you know we try things
out oh I turn the bike this way oops
that didn't work and so on so
um yeah I think that's exactly right
they're not getting a chance to do motor
battling and one of the things about
plasticity that really matters is that
you have these windows and they're
pretty short windows before those doors
close different areas of the brain have
different Windows to them but
um yes so if you don't have a chance to
try language and figure out what's going
on whatever at some point it becomes too
late to do what are some of the doors
that close early yeah well so language
is one of them even subtle things like
uh like accents I mean I I just I've
always thought this is a cool
interesting thing that you know I can
tell usually when I'm talking to
somebody if they were born in a foreign
country when they moved to America
because if you move here before the age
of 13 you don't have any accent but if
you move to your after the age of 13 you
always retain a bit of an accident and
the later you move the more of an
accident it retains so so I compare in
the book you know Mila Kunis to Arnold
Schwarzenegger both of whom were born
outside of the United States didn't
speak any English Mila Kunis moved here
when she was six so most people don't
know that she was born in the Ukraine
and learned English later but
Schwarzenegger moved here when he was 19
and he can't shake that accident it's a
thick accent and it's because they both
learned the the structure of language
and grammar and how to get what they
want but even more subtle things change
different time so this is all to say
that it's actually a whole Suite of
doors that close for different aspects
at different times
um yeah but you know people look at
things like
you know
um right learning language in general
um you know Skillet piano or violin or
something I use the example of Vladimir
Ashkenazi and Yitzhak Perlman as great
pianists and violinists and so on
um I made the assertion in the book that
um
they would never be able to be what they
are if they picked up their instruments
as a teenager and I just saw that
someone made a comment online where they
said oh Dr England's wrong what a jerk
because people can pick up musical
instruments as teenagers and become just
as good as them but they can't it's just
not it's just not accurate you cannot
become a Perlman in Ashkenazi unless you
start really really young and it's
because you have to burn that stuff all
the way down into the deep parts of your
brain
so let's be maybe say it a different way
and see if I'm right it is both that
they need to burn it into a deeper part
of the brain it'll be interesting to
hear you walk through sort of how things
start in the hippocampus and then get
pushed deeper and deeper and that the
the notion of sort of depth is real and
but then the the other side of this is
not just the putting it deeper and
deeper it's that the very ability to put
deeper and deeper is no longer and that
that's sort of the fundamental thing
that your book book
um I hate about the truth of your book
which is that they there are these doors
and that they do close and so even if
like let's say
um that Pearl men were to play for you
know 30 years but he plays from the time
that he's two till he's 32 and now I
pick up the violin at 20 and I play
until I'm 60. now I've clocked more
years but because I'm sort of outside of
that window
it doesn't matter right so even that
that sort of deeper and deeper it's not
just ours clocked it's the time in which
I clock them exactly it's when you
started there's one other thing as you
know I point out in the book which is
it's about relevance also so for it's
our Pearlman I don't know about his
childhood but you know presumably he got
proper social feedback where people said
wow you're really good at that hey you
know this is something that you've got a
special talent that kind of stuff really
matters a lot because if you had let's
say picked it up at the age of two just
like Yitzhak did but for some reason you
had mean parents who said ow Tom it's
really hurting my ears I don't want you
then you could have clocked the same
number of hours but it wouldn't have the
same influence why because we've got all
these neurotransmitter systems that are
involved in reward and that of course
includes social reward what you're
getting out of it and um will that
increase the rate or veracity with which
I learned something
yes uh it increases the ability to even
have the rock the right cocktail of
neurotransmitters present for the
plasticity to take place so you actually
need I mean let's let's say I said to
you hey Tom I really want to teach you
seven important dates in uh Mongolian
history and I told you like if you don't
care about Mongolian history it's just
so hard for you to remember it it's
right but if I'm telling you something
that really matters to you and your life
and it's relevant bang you'll remember
that you'll have a so it has to do with
relevance to you and part of I mean this
is an interesting complicated area but
part of relevance to you has to do with
also what you think you can get out of
it like if I tell you some interesting
facts and you think wow that's cool I
can tell that someone else's cocktail
party and they'll be really impressed by
that fact whatever I mean people are
always trying to surprise and impress
each other and there's all kinds of
interesting reasons why you might find
something relevant but that needs to be
there for plasticity to take place which
is more powerful positive or negative
reinforcement oh it's interesting
question
I don't know I mean both are used for so
many things and you know even when
raising a child you have to use both I
you know it's interesting question
because people often ask this or you
know propose this thing of like hey I'm
going to raise my child I'm only gonna
say sweet things to my child and never
say no about and I don't really think
that works I don't think you can do that
so the child slaps you in the face and
you say you know you did a great job
slapping and blah blah but yeah it's
hard to it's hard to get someone to so I
think both are needed to fence Behavior
inappropriately has anything been
studied on that like because I for
instance
um I was a very
rambunctious child like I was I
certainly had
um I was diagnosed with hyperactivity
disorder maybe some ADHD thrown in for
good measure but because I could sleep
through the night my mom refused to
medicate me and I'm very glad for that
but my mom was also a hardcore
[ __ ] she did not play and she
was able to keep me in line and there
were many times where I really pushed
the boundaries man and because my mom
kept me in line I that I think that's
part of the reason I developed
discipline like there were just things
you could do in my house you could not
do and there was work that was expected
of you and that was just that and she
wasn't going to back down did not matter
how much I fought pushed she just wasn't
gonna break and I'm curious if if
anybody's looked because it just like
for me I said look if I had kids a
hundred percent I would not beat my
children but I'd give them a spanking if
that's what they need because my mom did
it and it worked so well for me if they
don't need it I won't do it but and I
people freak out so it's a good thing
that I'm not having kids so anybody
nobody has to worry about that but like
has anybody looked at that
yeah I mean look this is one of those
things
everybody seems to have an opinion about
that but it's very difficult to compare
if you take a child who's raised in a
family there's no spanking and a child
was spanking it's just really hard to do
any kind of good controlled experiment
on that because there are probably a
hundred other differences in the family
as well so by the way when I had
children I thought okay I'll spank them
appropriate you know just when the
situation really calls her my wife said
no way you are not ever injecting that
kind of fear into a child about they're
going to get physically hit and so on so
we've just never done it and that's cool
I'm happy to go along with that but I
will never know the answer of whether
they would have been better off with a
little bit of physicals you know hitting
or not
um yeah those are there there's a whole
class of questions that we can ask
where there's no good way to study it I
mentioned this in the book because I
haven't heard anybody else things but I
think it's really important one of the
questions that people ask is what is the
effect of children growing up with the
internet now this is a question that
always comes up to be when I give talks
and everybody's got an opinion on this
but it is a very difficult question to
answer why because there's no way to do
a good control group on that you can't
say okay I'm going to take these 18 year
olds who've grown up wired and I'm going
to compare them to these other 18 year
olds who did not have the internet
because the only 18 year olds who don't
have the internet are either Amish kids
or kids who are totally impoverished in
rural China or the favelas of South
America or whatever
um but there are a hundred other
differences there and you can't compare
them to the previous generation because
there are 100 other differences with the
previous generation
um and so it's very difficult to say oh
I know for sure the effect of the
internet is blah blah blah because it's
just hard to do that scientifically
so anyway there's a whole there's a
whole class of experiments like that I
think probably spanking is one of them
yeah it makes me very sad that you can't
run both like timelines to see what
ended up working I'm really curious and
you know with sort of scientific
curiosity I'm open like if if I actually
would have been better off somehow if my
mom had had a more ninja style of
parenting that didn't involve spanking
me cool I'm I don't have some need for
it to be that spanking worked I just
want to know what actually works like
when I think about there's sort of two
things that I think about one I actually
am very very interested in what sort of
the ideal thing is to give to a kid
psychologically to help them Thrive just
when I think about what's the
contribution I want to make to society
it's all around mindset and kids
um and then also just as as an adult I
think about how far can we take this you
know what I mean like every time I
engage with you and your work it's it
there is some like cocktail party like
this is just [ __ ] fascinating and I
want to tell people this at a party but
there's far more than that for me is I
want to use it in my own life you know
the quote that I began with I'm I'm not
kidding when I say I'm legitimately
haunted by the notion that genius is a
young man's game and the reason is I was
a late bloomer and so the idea that I
know physicists talk about sort of 35 36
is about the the sort of last moment you
can expect yourself to have any
meaningful breakthrough
and
I'm in my 40s so that sucks
you know I actually want to address this
issue about breakthrough because I
originally had written a piece of this
in the book and I took it out in the end
but I think this is actually really
important so
um
one of the models that I provided let me
back up for one second just to give the
foundation of this one of the models I
propose is that the right way to think
about the brain is in terms of pace
layers by which I mean some things are
changing really fast and and if those
stay stable then that changes the layer
below them which is a little bit more
conservative and it's changing and if
that's doing something later below that
says Okay I I see that that's a really
consistent message all and so what
happens is all the way down you get
these deeper and deeper things the name
paste layer I'm taking from uh something
that the Thinker Stuart brand proposed
who said that when you look at a city
you need to think of it in terms of pace
layers so fashion changes rapidly the
infrastructure of the city like where
the buildings are that changes more
slowly the businesses that are in the
buildings that changes more rapidly than
the infrastructure the governance of the
city that changes more slowly all the
way down to the nature you know like
where the river is in the city that
changes the mostly and the way to
understand the city is understand the
interaction of all these different
layers of speed and so I thought that
was such a great Insight that I really
wanted to look at the brain that way
and that allowed me to put a lot of data
together anyway
this is why just as an example
there's this property of Neurology
that's very weird which is that you that
older memories are more stable than
younger memories and if you've seen
people at the end of their lives they
often will have essentially receded back
into their childhood they've forgotten
all the stuff in the last few years last
few decades but they remember everything
about their childhood and their
childhood language and also and what
happens a lot actually is that people
revert to the language they spoke as a
child even if they've been speaking
let's say English their whole adult life
um
so there's there so that's one of the
big themes of the book about how
plasticity actually works but what
interested me is this notion of of
breakthroughs this is the part that I
didn't put in the book unfortunately but
this notion that sometimes as you know
in your 40s
you'll have a breakthrough where
suddenly something you've believed your
whole life
something happens where you get a
different view on and you say wait a
minute maybe this D player this thing
where I absolutely thought this was
fundamentally how the world Works maybe
that's not true
and all this other stuff falls apart in
your internal model and you're able to
recast something and um
have you ever taken the landmark forum
you ever done that I know of it very
well but no okay great so anyway they
talk about breakthroughs that's
um something that they try to get people
to have and it's a really stunning
experience what you know we've all had
in our lives various breakthroughs let's
say you thought somebody did something
to you or said something or whatever and
then you find out years later that's not
actually what happened and there was a
misinterpretation of it this is the kind
of thing that really um is is Meaningful
for changing our lives and the reason I
mention this is in the context of you
saying in your 40s can you still change
happily there are these deep things that
happen where sometimes you have an
opportunity to change and the and okay
so that's one thing and the related
issue that I want to say is this is
what's happening to us now during covid
palooza we are all knocked off of our
hamster wheels we are
suddenly our internal models remember I
talked about how our you know our whole
lives we sort of make this model of
exactly what's going on all of a sudden
we're all kicked off this this path of
least resistance
and we're having to re-figure out
everything afresh and there's a lot of
stress and depression and anxiety it's a
terrible time for essentially everybody
but the one tiny Silver Lining that is
worth
emphasizing is that it forces our brains
to rethink our models everything about
you know where I don't know where you're
going to get these supplies how are you
going to get food in your fridge where
you get the toilet paper all the stuff
to more creative things about okay well
geez how do I how do I thrive from here
given that my shop has closed or my you
know employment has ended or where
you're like what do I do now and it's
it's forcing a creativity it's forcing
the brain to rethink things in a way
that is actually despite all the lousy
stuff really good for the brain to to
build new Bridges memory and forgetting
is something that is extraordinarily
interesting so my wife will often joke
with me that she wishes that she has my
memory because I'm ultra forgetful in
terms of emotional amplitude so if
something like really upset me I'll
still forget about it a day later or a
week later so I don't have baggage from
my past I don't hold on to past traumas
but it actually really frustrates me
because I also don't remember a lot of
things that I want to remember so I've
I've always looked at it as a curse and
she's always not always but certainly as
we got deeper into our marriage she's
really like oh man like how how does
that not wind you up how are you not
still pissed about that I'm like that
seems so weird to me but I know that
memories get basically tagged for either
hey this is important remember this or
you know this is irrelevant forget it
right
um so how how does that Dynamic of like
stress definitely find that super
interesting only because I feel like
with most people when they have an
emotionally charged event it's kind of
seared into their memory in the first
place and then the more times you
retrieve it the more and more you're
kind of solidifying that memory in your
brain so usually people remember these
kinds of poignant emotionally charged
memories for a long period of time
whether they do so like perfectly
accurately is another issue but
um it's usually kind of the more trivial
things that people don't remember so I
find that really interesting about you
and what's your primary area of Focus
right now
um are you working with rats a lot like
what's your mice yeah so I think
I would say for like experimental
neuroscience neurobiology
I don't know maybe like 80 percent of
the work is done in mice um for a number
of reasons they're just like you know
great model organism
um and they have they're genetically
tractable meaning you can actually you
know read them and look at certain genes
and look at certain style types and do
kind of all the fancy stuff that we do
nowadays in neuroscience and the
applicability to The Human Condition and
brain is very very high so and the test
that you're running now are they are
they around fear or what are you working
right now that you're super excited
about yeah so right now our lab is
working on we have a few projects in the
lab
um and kind of most of them are
circulating around this idea of social
isolation and what happens to the brain
and behavior when an animal isolated for
an extended period of time and so we
have a lot of kind of different projects
looking at that and so the most let's
see most exciting one recently that
um that's going on in my lab is someone
who's looking at the effects of
isolation on mating behavior which is
kind of a little bit more I would say
maybe more Fringe in terms of interest
to the general public but I think it's
super interesting because he's also able
to record Mouse song so it turns out
mice will sing as a form of courtship to
kind of get the female you know a male
Mouse will sing to kind of get the
female interested in it and so if the
animals are isolated it turns out that
both the mating behavior is disrupted
and also this song is disrupted and so
we're doing some pretty interesting
experiments are they singing when
they're alone like trying to attract or
when you put them back together now they
can't sing properly male mice will sing
to a female Mouse as he's trying to
court her and it's it's not as not
anything that any of us could hear with
our naked ear you need very special kind
of ultrasonic vocalization equipment to
be able to hear this song and to also
analyze these very complex
um you know bands of frequency and
songbursts and things like that that
people have been doing in birds for
years and years and so now they're kind
of starting doing mice and it's super
interesting
so is it is the song breaking down
because they're essentially getting
depressed is it because they're just out
of practice like what's what's going on
that's a really good question that's
something we're working on we have no
idea why the song is being altered
though it does I think help to explain
why they're not as successful mating uh
I was gonna say is it I'm assuming less
attractive the women are less likely to
respond to it yeah it's kind of like you
know if you're at a bar when we used to
go to bars and a guy's like hey you want
to go on a date versus like hey you want
to go on a date who would you go out
with the one who's you know frequency
range is like really short and doesn't
really have anything interesting going
on or the one that's able to kind of put
some more spice into their song or
approach so yeah
now it becomes really easy to understand
why humans put so much energy into or
why isolation is so problematic is a
better way to say it because we're such
a social animal our mice highly social
yes mice are very very social
and we work on mating but I also work on
this has kind of been more of the bigger
area of my research violence is a big
big thing that happens after social
isolation
um so interesting yeah so like they when
you bring them back together they just
want to [ __ ] [ __ ] up yeah they're
extremely violent and actually it's like
one of the best models for looking at
violence which is what I was originally
interested in so if you isolate almost
almost any species you look at if you
isolate them they will be more violent
when you introduce them back with
another member of their species
that's weird so what was it um what was
the fascination around violence that led
you to that just the thought of humans
can be violent and let me figure out why
it was that and it was kind of at the
time where all these you know school
shootings and things were really picking
up
um and you know not just school
shootings but all kinds of uh kind of
violent Behavior it was really not like
not being looked at so much at a
neurobiological perspective so I was
super interested in why you know how
people can become really really violent
and then when you start looking into the
past of those kinds of people who you
know are Shooters and things there's
either a history of mental health or
social isolation or something like that
so
um all right we'll break it down for me
in terms of the Neuroscience so what's
going on at uh neurochemistry level or a
wiring level as as you isolate and
obviously we're extrapolating from mice
into humans but as we
um we're living through a period of such
unimaginable isolation like this seems
like a pretty important question to get
to the bottom of because already we're
seeing you know pockets of violent
outbursts and
is this going to escalate would be a
pretty reasonable question to ask so
what happens during isolation yeah well
I was going to say one thing to add is
during ice after isolation animals are
way more violent but there's a host of
other things that happen too for
instance they're extremely persistent in
their fear responses so normally you
might be afraid if you hear a car
backfiring or the sound of a car honking
you might be afraid for a second but if
you've been isolated that kind of
persists beyond the kind of normal
window for you to be afraid so this
enhanced fear persistence this enhanced
aggression and then you have
abnormalities really interacting with
other members of your species so if
you're kind of given access to another
friend mouse or a new mouse you're not
going to really spend that much time
with it or for humans you might not
really be that interested in interacting
with the novel a member of your species
and kind of show more hesitation there
so that's those are some of the
behaviors that part I get I get why the
novel person would become more worrisome
you're you know going back to the mating
thing you sort of out of practice maybe
you've lost your groove a bit right but
when I think about inner reintroducing
somebody that you knew already yeah and
you still don't go spend as much time
with them do you know like are we seeing
just the the
um receptors for oxytocin are
disappearing off the cells like yeah why
yeah that's a great question so I I
think I think you know there's some
stuff that we know and there's a lot
that we don't know one thing that we
know for sure is that this one
neuropeptide that I've worked on called
tachycine and two is heavily upregulated
across many regions of the brain falling
social and so tattoo what give me give
me some info what is it it's kind of
like a neuropeptide so you might lots of
people know about neuromodulators like
dopamine or serotonin these are all the
ones that you know drugs for depression
and anxiety disorders are all based on
and these are just kind of like a
smaller what you'd think of as a smaller
class of those so and is it like
oxytocin feels [ __ ] awesome some
people refer to it as the bonding
hormone is it positive negative that's a
good question but it's again it's one of
these smaller neuropeptide systems so it
doesn't have these kinds of light you
can't just kind of generalize and say
that it does X you know makes you happy
makes you sad
um so it's expression is way more
restricted than some of these other ones
so the good news is if you find
something that it does that's important
or useful
that's great and and the other side of
the good news is that you're not going
to be doing something that kind of
affects the whole brain if you want to
Target this system so you know some of
the other systems like for instance
serotonin you know there's some great
benefits obviously people are using
antidepressants
you know developed decades ago um
targeting serotonin reuptake but the
downside is it's you're targeting it all
over the brain and you know serotonin
has sometimes opposite effects depending
on where you look so
um these neuropeptide systems are nice
nice in the way in the sense that you
can kind of Target smaller populations
of neurons and system a system in the
brain that's way less kind of
uh how do I say ubiquitous so yeah so
now did you say that tattoo is increase
or decrease in isolation so it's
increased after isolation and it's kind
of and what do we think the the point of
that what what's it pointing at yeah
that's a good point so I I think you
know there's a few ways of looking at it
one is that it's kind of acting in this
kind of coordinated manner much like
someone who leads an orchestra leads the
whole Orchestra by his you know
Direction and so you see it elevated in
multiple regions and you can kind of
think of it like a web of increased
activity that allows the brain to
coordinate a response to social
isolation that includes many different
things so for instance the enhanced
violence the persistent fear the
alterations in mating those kinds of
things might be a coordinated response
and this is one of the way it could be
coordinated
um which is just this elevation of this
peptide across the brain
okay well that's um
maybe troubling so we have a conductor
who's stepping in but what he's
conducting is anti-social Behavior Uh
aggression sort of
um being anti-social so it's interesting
so okay you said there were a few things
that we knew so one we know tattoo is
elevated the conductor's in there he's
telling us to do things but we also know
that the behaviors that we're seeing on
the outside so if tattoo is conducting
it's conducting some gnarly stuff right
um so we have so I think that's what
that's a really good point and I think
it kind of ties back into the idea that
this kind of social isolation where and
I'm talking mostly about when you are
fully isolated like no other single
person no partner nothing you're by
yourself you know have been in your
apartment and haven't seen anyone in two
weeks at all
um and I think that is not a normal
situation
um not for humans not for mice not for
many species so most of the time you're
interacting with other members of your
species and so you wouldn't have this
kind of explosive response in your brain
or in your behavior so I think
um you know these systems that are
usually probably quite adaptive for
regulating fear which is great and you
know certain to a certain degree because
it lets you survive and avoid dangerous
things
um and also probably being able to be
aggressive and protect your territory
for animal uh protect your mate that's
you know something that's adaptive and
so it's really when these things are
kind of go awry or out of control that
it's not adaptive anymore so it's not
that the system was kind of maybe
designed to do this in some kind of
functionally you know beneficial way but
more it's more that the system that's
usually adaptive at low levels has kind
of been hijacked in these situations
that are you know what I would consider
abnormal for a social species
and when do you see this stuff start to
regulate like is it hey they're violent
and anti-social for a day and then they
begin to normalize they get their song
back or no it's kind of it's a long-term
thing in fact with when you're only
isolated for a day or so you have a lot
of actually opposite effects so if
you've kind of been your apartment stuck
in there for a day or two working on a
project by yourself you seek out social
interaction after and you have a lot of
kind of positive type of interactions
with other members of your species it's
really only when this persists for a
long period of time that you kind of
slip into the state that's not adaptive
or beneficial at all in terms and in the
lab how are we defining long time yeah
so in the lab with mice it takes about
two weeks
um
which you know I'm just trying to think
you know they're usually like live to a
year and a half or two years so
who might that might be like times 50
for a human so I don't know but it's
hard you know it's hard to like make
that exact analogy that's I don't like
making those analogies do you have any
sense of like
um what we should expect from the
unintentional social social isolation
experiment that we're running now so
we're recording this we're what month
five yeah of uh covet lockdown so is
there you know do you have a guess on
where our breaking point is or yeah
that's a really good question I I have
no idea I think there's another big
thing that you know is a factor
especially with humans two things that
are factor with with humans one is that
um the notion of kind of social media
and Skype and zoom and all these ways
that we are staying connected
so to what degree does that actually
help to mitigate those feelings of
loneliness it's hard to say you know
teenagers have been using the new
generation of teenagers have been using
social media for years and years and yet
they report feeling more lonely than
ever so is that how people are feeling
in general right now with social media
or is it actually helping to mitigate
some of the effects of social isolation
so that's one thing and I think that
would that definitely requires kind of
more cognitive psychology experiments
and lots of studies in humans and things
like that and that's much harder to
model in a model organism
in the lab because yeah it's like kind
of a specific human thing and then the
other issue is how you are isolating so
some people are at home with their
immediate family which probably seems
really frustrating sometimes but is also
probably really beneficial so in the lab
if you if you have a mouse that's with
just one other Mouse it mitigates tons
of the effects of social isolation
versus people who are in a situation
where they are totally alone in their
apartment right now so I think that's
going to also be a very big difference
which is like people who have a small
little support group versus those that
have zero so yeah that when you look at
what's going on now in terms of
um people feeling like they they're
being sort of locked up against their
will and it's like who am I even pushing
back on because I can push back on the
government but if I go out and I get
sick it's like you know the virus
doesn't really care so in some ways it's
it's not even people telling me to stay
home it's just and I'll speed for myself
it nobody needs to tell me to stay home
as much as I would now at this point
like to go back out yeah it's I just
don't want to get sick yeah and so and I
really don't want to bring it home to my
wife and so
um there's no one even to like rail
against right
yeah and I think that so it's like I
want my block of wood to chew that lack
of control is hard yeah
um walk me through the
um Anatomy maybe maybe the wrong word
but walk me through the anatomy both
literally and figuratively of fear oh
yeah so fear has come a long way
um but yeah I think the kind of classic
Anatomy that people recognize with the
fear is the amygdala which is like this
small part of your brain shaped like an
almond and that's kind of been this you
know at the Forefront or center of the
fear of literature and research for a
long long time
um and so since then as I was saying
earlier in the interview there's you
know lots of tools that let you look at
different cell populations in the brain
with a much kind of finer finer tooth
comb and so because of that people have
started to find different sub-regions of
the amygdala so you know a lateral part
a medial part
um a basal part things like that that
kind of do different components or in
are involved in different components of
fear response and then within those
regions there are certain populations of
neurons that are involved in you know
increasing fear decreasing fear things
like that so that's come a long way what
what's the part that decreases fear and
how do we take control of that right so
that's actually it's the same part so
kind of more recently people started
looking at the central amygdala I
shouldn't even say more recently maybe
like 10 years which is a subdivision of
this kind of amygdala structure and
people have found cells there that are
kind of active during a fear of inducing
stimulus and cells that are active when
that stimulus turns off so there are
cells there that in theory do the
complete opposite of emit or control a
fear response and so that kind of gets
at why it's super interesting and useful
that we have these new tools because in
the past you could just mess up one
brain region and say oh these you know
animals aren't afraid or for instance I
think in humans there's a very rare
condition where the amygdala gets
calcified and those patients are not
afraid at all that's so crazy so crazy
and it's actually very dangerous for
them so now walk me through how so
um
if you had asked me when I was 18 about
fear I probably would have said yeah
yeah if I could get rid of it totally I
would
um and then I read a study about
emotions and how we actually can't make
decisions without emotions and because
you can walk through the logic of it all
day but there's nothing to parse whether
like a tuna sandwich is better than a
pizza and when there's no emotion be
like yo pizza's rad uh you literally
can't do it and so they'll just stand
there all day they can give you the
benefits and ultimately you just have to
tell them to eat one
um
what what is going on like what do we
use fear for why is it bad to not have
fear like I get it if they're like oh
they don't recognize that getting hit by
a car would suck or whatever but are
there more nuanced ways that fear um is
actually advantageous and adaptive yeah
I mean I think pretty much in every
everywhere you look you could see that
fear would be adaptive so yeah you know
there's the obvious cases where you want
to be afraid of fires or very dangerous
kind of environmental stimuli there's
less obvious cases where you want to be
afraid in situations where you might
sense some things off or wrong and you
can't even really put your finger on it
you probably want to be afraid if you're
in a crowd of like lots of people and
everyone's pointing a gun at you there's
like there's tons of cases where you
might want to be afraid or aware of the
danger in a given situation
um so yeah I guess the physical dangers
I get those those you know obviously
like a gun or a car or something like
that that I get I'm wondering
yeah like is there is there something
like um fear of being hurt makes you
make wiser decisions like being able to
forecast into the future and saying I'm
afraid of not being able to feed my
family because like I'm thinking about
part of the reason that I would have
said when I was younger
um that I would for sure eliminate fear
if I could was fear from at a
physiological level for me fear turns
into anxiety which turns into the blood
leaving my prefrontal cortex and I like
I I when I so I went through
debilitating anxiety and I remember at
one point saying to my wife when I don't
have any anxiety I feel like a superhero
I feel like I can think through things I
can be witty I can solve problems and
when I have anxiety I feel absolutely
moronic like I I actually can't think
yeah and so I just like I get this like
flustered feeling it's so weird now once
I understood that the blood was
literally leaving my prefrontal cortex
and so my higher level cognition was
actually shutting down it was like okay
that makes sense so there it's like well
the anxiety I mean anxiety might be
public speaking or you know it's it's
not something life-threatening at least
not in a modern context right and so
because it seems to so easily get out of
control it's like I want to sort of
better understand if it's you know and
maybe I just answered my own question
but
um you know if thinking through things
like being able to predict the future
breakdown if you don't have fear yeah
that's a that's a really good point I
would probably argue even for those
situations a little bit of fear is good
um and you gave the example of public
speaking so you know you're like in the
back of the stage you're about to go
give a talk to a huge audience or
something like that I think like a few
minutes before kind of getting your
heart rate up feeling a little bit you
know I wouldn't say really afraid but
kind of like a little anxious about your
batch go talk in front of a bunch of
people pumping up that adrenaline and
then going out there I think can
actually be really beneficial
um but I think you know
with a lot of these kinds of more what
you're talking about is like psychogenic
fear and anxiety Oh yeah talk to people
what's the difference between fear and
psychogenic fear oh I just mean so we
were talking about fear kind of produced
by physical
stimuli in the environment like so I'm
pointing a gun at you or something like
that versus fear produced by something
kind of more in your mind or you know
what you think because some of the
studies on psychogenic stress are
incredibly interesting and it's like if
you translate psychogenic and let me
know if you agree with this if you
translate psychogenic to self-induced
then it's like okay this gets
interesting and to me it's psychogenic
is the Shakespeare quote nothing is
either good or bad but thinking makes it
so and so you know when you start
getting into
physiological stress you're working too
hard you're running you got punched like
okay those are those are legitimate
stressors that can be measured sort of
as having or they have a physical cause
right oftentimes externally
when you think about psychogenic stress
now you've got somebody who's
um they didn't get enough likes on their
photo and now they're spinning out of
control or they're isolated and now
they're telling themselves a story about
unworthiness
um
walk me through like and and maybe this
feeds into PTSD I'll actually be
interested to hear like how we end up
amplifying the problem for ourselves
yeah I mean I think with humans there's
that disorder generalized anxiety
disorder where it's like you start
amplifying it and then even just feeling
your heart beating fast can generate its
own anxiety disorder so it's kind of
this like vicious cycle where it's out
of you know kind of out of control in
that sense
um but yeah I think
psychogenic stress I think very quickly
you can go from these like low levels
that are adaptive to these very high
maladaptive levels that make it
difficult for you to function make it
difficult for you to feel you know on
top of your game or that you're doing
you know using all of your skills and
resources you know well or something
like that so I think it feels very
paralyzing when you hit a point of
excessive fear and anxiety for most
people
and do you have you looked into like how
people begin to unwind this like how do
you if somebody has PTSD which I know
you've looked into a lot how do we how
do we begin to back out of that yeah so
I think like this still kind of the most
typical therapy for PTSD is some form of
exposure therapy it's the same for other
phobias so if you're afraid of flying
you can go to a clinic and you know get
in a fake airplane and kind of do that
repeatedly over and over and in a form
of exposure therapy or cognitive
behavioral exposure therapy where you
kind of re relive the traumatic event or
experience the cues that predict trauma
without the trauma itself so that's
fairly typical how does that help so I
mean it's actually a lot of that's also
based on rodent research and so what you
do when you do exposure therapy is you
build a new memory so a memory that
actually I can get in this airplane and
everything's gonna be fine I can drink
my wine and eat the crackers or whatever
I can get on this plane and actually the
world's not gonna end it's going to be
okay so that's you're really forming a
second new memory there and a lot of
people have worked on that it's called
you know Extinction learning or what we
think of as exposure therapy and during
that new learning you can again learn
that the plane doesn't mean something
terrible is going to happen and then
those two memories compete one that
getting on an airplane you know leads
just make terrible and the other that
get an airplane usually leads to
everything being fine and great and so
um by doing exposure therapy you really
kind of just strengthening that
Extinction memory and you know kind of
making that memory the primary one that
you retrieve when you get on an airplane
the problem with PTSD is unlike other
kind of traditional phobias it's pretty
resistant to that type of exposure
therapy and that's why so many people
still work on it so other you know
therapies for people who are scared of
snakes or scared of planes and stuff
have worked pretty well but kind of
these therapies for people who've
experienced some very horrific and
debilitating trauma usually don't work
that well or if they work it's pretty
short term so lots of people are still
trying to understand it and you know why
some of these classic exposure therapy
methods aren't working and what we can
do instead to kind of treat people with
PTSD so in your work on emotions what's
one thing you've come across that you
wish everybody knew
hmm
that I wish everybody knew yeah that
might be useful for people
I actually have a super weird experiment
that
that stock at Caltech
um and
so I don't know let's see if how this
comes across it's pretty weird
um so I was doing a an experiment kind
of looking at this model of PTSD and I
just thought
I thought oh I know I have an idea this
was this is totally an example of like
anthropomorphizing stuff I thought I
have an idea if I give a bunch of these
animals PTSD and then put them back
together it'll help mitigate the effects
kind of like when you go to a support
group for
um you know where everyone else's stuff
for trauma and you talk about it and it
seems to make people seems to result in
better outcomes for people and things
like that so I took some animals I gave
them all PTSD and put them back together
and the next day when I went in not all
of them were even alive they were they
viciously attacked each other it was
horrible their symptoms were even worse
than if and then they were if they just
hadn't gone back with other other kind
of members of their species that had the
trauma and I was very surprised and I
was like whoa what is going on here and
then I decided to run another experiment
to follow up on that where only one of
the animals got traumatized and then I
put it back into the cage with its
litter mates that had not been
traumatized and that seemed to really
alleviate the effect of the trauma so
you could really kind of
um get over the effects of that trauma
or reduce those effects of trauma by
interacting with and being exposed to
you know others and being social but not
others who'd had trauma themselves
and so
what do you think is going on is there
um like I show aggression because I have
PTSD and we and then the other person
shows aggression it's probably something
like that it's probably you know they
all have the same kind of trauma so
there's might be an argument that when
you you know when you're in a group for
other survivors of trauma you have such
different experiences that you're able
to kind of gain you know perspective and
feel healthy from that interaction
perhaps if you guys were all at the same
in the same you know bad place at the
same time you would associate those
people also with the bad place I'm not
sure but kind of It kind of did make me
think oh maybe it makes sense instead of
going to like support groups is might
make more sense to like go you know hang
out with like your three closest buddies
that are like pretty psychologically
stable and that might be actually the
better thing for you to do if you're
anti-work if you're looking for ways to
be lazy you are going to get your lunch
eaten you are going to get mowed over
but because there are people out there
who understand one immutable truth
skills have utility