Kind: captions
Language: en
dopamine itself is not the reward it's
the buildup to the reward and the reward
has more of a kind of opioid Bliss likee
property which itself is not bad if it's
endogenous released from within but when
we can just sit there like the like the
rat with no dopamine gorging ourselves
with Pleasures so to speak what you end
up with is somebody that feels really
unmotivated and those Pleasures no
longer work to tickle those Feelgood
circuits and so there's no reason for
them to go out and pursue anything how
do we Spike intention
youer
Bute
dopamine so and you've done this so your
example of craving is actually what you
crave you crave the feeling of craving
is beautiful because it would what it
means is that you don't allow yourself
to go so far down the Arc of the
dopamine trajectory to get to the other
source of motivation so there are two
sources of motivation as it relates to
dopamine and then we can think about
tools that we could export from these
that are nested in neurobiology the
first is to do what you do which is to
be able to sense the craving as its own
form of pleasure this has kind of
remnants of Carol Dre's growth mindset
that you eventually develop a pleasure
in the seeking and the striving has a
you know uh has flavors of a go David
goggin type approach where where it
seems like he gets pleasure from the
friction itself and so there elements of
that you seem to have that as well but
if you can start identify the craving as
its own internally released drug this
thing dopamine that is a source of
motivation then what you realize is that
capturing the reward is wonderful but
attaching dopamine to the reward is
actually a little bit dangerous
attaching yeah celebrating the win
celebrating the win more than the
pursuit it actually sets you up for
failure in the future and so this gets
us right into something called dopamine
reward prediction error and reward
prediction error is basically if expect
something to be really great and then
it's not quite that great your dopamine
Baseline lowers and now understanding
what we know about dopamine that means
that not only did you you feel as if you
lost because it wasn't as much a
celebration as you thought it would be
but it also means that you're starting
from a lower Place meaning you are less
motivated now the the simpler way to
conceptualize this is I have a colleague
at Stanford she runs the addiction dual
diagnosis clinic at uh her name is Dr
Anna she has a book called dopamine
Nation that's out right now and she's
really described this pleasure pain
balance where anytime you have a bunch
of dopamine and you're in Pursuit
Pursuit Pursuit after you achieve a win
now this could be a a business win a
relationship a win of any kind but
inevitably there's going to be a tipping
back of the scale on the pain side and
that pain side is always going to go a
little bit higher than the dopamine side
so this is what you would feel if you
Pur Pur a goal like building a big
company here it comes here it comes the
big sale and then there's the well what
now you to kind of let down now if you
wait if you simply wait and stop
pursuing dopamine for a short while the
scale starts to reset the problem is a
lot of people immediately roll right
into the next Pursuit and then what
happens is that scale starts to get
stuck on the pain side a little bit more
a little bit more a little bit more and
pretty soon no amount of seeking will
allow you to experience that craving and
motivation so what what does this mean
in terms of an actual tool well first of
all if people can do what you do they're
going to be in a much better position in
life doesn't matter if it's School sport
relationship any domain of life if you
can start to register ah that craving
and that friction and that desire that
almost kind of low level of agitation
sometimes high level of agitation that
is that I'm trying to impose my will on
the world in a benevolent way we hope
that's dopamine it's working with its
close cut which is epinephrine which is
adrenaline they are very close cousins
in fact dopamine manufactur is
epinephrine a lot of people don't know
this but adrenaline is actually made
from the molecule dopamine okay so those
two are hanging out together it's like
crave work crave work craving work
craving work craving work and then you
get the win and some people allow the
big peak in dopamine to be associated
with the
wi and smart people learn to adjust
their celebration internally right right
this is all internal you could throw the
biggest party in the world but as long
as you're kind of in laidback and
looking at this not letting yourself get
manic crazy you won't necessarily crash
as hard and pretty soon your system will
reset so that you take the day you clean
up the dishes you relax you go what now
I'm feeling a little low well rather
than going out and spiking your dopamine
again just wait understand that the
scale will reset again give yourself a
few days where you're going to feel a
little kind of underwhelmed things
aren't going to be as interesting it's
going to be hard to trigger that big
release because you just had the the
peak well if you adjust that you relax
you understand there's always a little
bit of a postpartum depression we
sometimes hear about postpartum
depression that's a clinical thing but
there's always that kind of hm today's
not as exciting as a previous days what
what am I going to do with my life but
then if you let it start ratcheting up
again then what you realize is your
capacity to tap into dopamine as a
motivator not just seeking dopamine
rewards that is infinite and I I can say
with with great certainty that this is
how you were able to build a big company
and sell it how you've been able to
build a successful podcast and sell it
how you're constantly seeking because
seeking is the reward and I think for
most people we think of the reward as
the finish line and so the key is to get
to the Finish Line step into the end
zone but no Endzone dance it's just like
yep and I'm going to go do it again
that's really the key that's that's the
key to doing it over and over and when I
see big athletes or academics or anyone
or musicians and they rise and crash
it's clear they've lost the touch with
the motivation evoked dopamine and
they've lost touch probably because it
hasn't really been described by the
Neuroscience Community until Anna has
started talking about this stuff
publicly and I'm just kind of I'm
echoing what she's beautifully said said
much better than I am which is that you
should always expect that after a bunch
of pleasure there's going to be that and
then that craving how do I get back to
there again and the key is you have to
walk the staircase again you don't get
to do this as a square wave pull you
know you don't get to just Ascend Ascend
Ascend it's always up down up a little
bit higher down up you know it's that's
the function so um I don't know if that
resonates with your experience I'm over
here freaking out so you've literally
just explained what I will say is the
single most important Loop if you want
to be successful and you used words
attach right you you had another one
which was about your T I forget the
exact word but you're taking you're
inserting yourself consciously into the
process because what I learned very
early on and I'm so grateful in the same
way that you are grateful that your
upbringing wasn't perfect but it ended
up giving you uh a frame of reference
and insights that have propelled you
forward I'm very grateful that I spent a
decade just trying to get rich it was
the State admission I would say it every
day like I'm here to get rich I show up
to work to get rich this about getting
rich rich rich rich rich and it didn't
work and so and my wife pulls me aside
and she's like you're now damaging the
marriage like you're just so
fishlyn is integrated in your life
you're doing something you hate for an
end state that may never come and that
was so profound and it shook me so
deeply and it suddenly became clear that
from a neurological perspective what I
wanted was to feel alive and once I put
everything in the pursuit I'm just
interested in can I show up every day
and sincerely pursue this thing which I
may never get but I'm going to honor
myself celebrate myself big up myself as
the Brits would say for just showing up
today and actually trying to make it
happen and one that's way more
sustainable and then two you don't you
don't get tricked into thinking that oh
when I get this thing that I'll feel
good because it's the craving that makes
me feel alive so it's the state of
wanting that is in and of itself the
pleasurable act that's right and so I
began to use the metaphor of I'm going
to climb this mountain only to want the
next mountain to climb and once I knew
that well then you have to be totally
comfortable dropping back down and
starting all over now the interesting
thing and I don't know if I'm fooling
myself or if I have so integrated that
trick but the cown isn't hard for me so
I I think my last day at Quest was a
Monday and Tuesday I started impact
Theory and so that went from I had 3,000
employees your position matters you get
a lot of difference uh you've got a
privileged parking space you know what I
mean like there's there's a lot of
things that go into it and but I didn't
none of like my reward system was tied
to that so it was very easy for me to
start the next day with there was only
seven of us and no one had time for any
different of any kind and I went from
having an EA which you can't imagine how
amazing that is to not and you're doing
everything for yourself again but that
wasn't a painful thing because I was so
focused on all right cool this is step
one again and now can can we repeat well
it helps if you can expect that there
will be a little bit of a dip post win
or post whatever um that's helpful
there's always a refractory period of
any kind so to speak uh if you expect it
that's great because you eliminate the
the downside of the reward prediction
eror reward prediction era can also be
um conceptualized as I tell you we're
going to go to this restaurant I keep
building up the food building up the
food I actually raise the expectation
and the requirement that that food be
really spectacular better off I just
tell you it's going to be pretty good
and then you're wowed by it right
because if your dopamine was higher in
anticipation than the actual food evoked
well then it makes sense why it would
you're always integrating over the
dopamine release you had previously now
there are a couple things that you said
in there that I want to uh highlight
which I find so interesting
uh and we can get a little bit um
Eastern philosophy mystical here but tie
it back to some real Neuroscience which
is you said you know that's the juice
the motivation is the juice you know the
if you look at Eastern philosophy and
they talk about Chi you know and this
you know what is that I I I wager that
is dopamine the desire to pursue things
and to create more of oneself and uh as
a species whether or not you decide to
have kids or not those circuits all use
the one universal currency dopamine of
wanting more things that are outside the
confines of your skin and that's what's
Driven forward evolution of individuals
and families and cultures and our our
species as as a whole and again the
circuitry has been there for many many
tens if not hundreds of thousands of
years and so it's and it's highly
conserved and so what that means is that
it doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin or
ethereum it doesn't matter if it's
putting rockets on other planets it
doesn't matter if it's building the
first automobile it's the same currency
so understanding those Cycles is really
key the other thing is the element of
pain I think that understanding that
pain and pleasure are in this really
dynamic balance can also help us which
in the following way any pain that you
feel the longer day the less sleep the
the kind of Agony that things aren't
working that power outlet doesn't work
or the Internet is slow whatever it is
the amount of pleasure that you will
eventually experience is directly Rel
related excuse me to how much pain you
experience so we know this from what
nowadays would be considered quite
barbaric and unethical experiments where
they would give people electrical shocks
and they would measure their response
and then they say we're going to
increase it we're going to increase it
eventually they get to the point where a
slight a shock that was previously very
painful actually evokes a sense of
pleasure now you couldn't do these
experiments anymore these are not the
experiments I do in my lab and these are
older experiments but for instance uh
and this has been discussed in
scientific research papers giving
somebody like a 10-minute ice bath for
instance or even a 3-minute ice bath or
a one minute ice bath is quite painful
but there was a study from the
University of prog a European Journal of
physiology showed that after a painful
ice bath stimulus the amount of dopamine
release goes up for 2 and a half hours
to 250% above Baseline and that's not
because the ice bath itself evokes
dopamine release a lot of people think
oh cold water evokes dopamine release No
Pain evokes dopamine release after the
pain is over yesterday I tweaked my back
because I do this stupid thing every few
years the same stupid thing and it it's
really painful and then you just
remember all the ways in which you can't
move around I was like standing up the
swearing I'm like H and just walking is
so painful as the pain has started to
dissipate you get a little bit of a high
right you get a little bit of a Euphoria
that's dopamine because of the the
degree of pain you experienced
previously predicts how much pleasure so
when you start a company down in the
drgs and you're shoveling again that's
beautiful because that means that the
wind that you achieve is going to be as
good or greater than the one you had
previously in your case with Quest and
so we go back to this example the person
that's not motivated that can't get off
the couch that's doesn't want to do
anything well this is the problem we
remember the rat experiment they are
effectively the rat with no dopamine but
they can still achieve some sense of
pleasure by consuming excess calories by
consuming social media and look I'm not
judging I do this stuff too right
scrolling social media if you ever
scrolled social media and you're like I
don't even know why I'm doing this it
doesn't really feel that good and I can
remember a time where you'd see
something it was just so cool or you'd
see something online I remember this
when TED Talks first came out I was like
this is amazing these are some at least
some of them are really smart people
sharing really cool insights and then
now that they're like a gazillion TED
Talks I remember spending a winter in my
office at when I was a junior Professor
cleaning my office finally and binging
TED talks in the background thinking
this is a good use of my time pretty
soon they all sucked to me I was like
this isn't good so what you need to do
is stop watching TED talks for a while
wait and then they become interesting
again and that's this pain pleasure
balance and so for people that aren't
feeling motivated the problem is they're
not motivated but they're getting just
enough or excess sustenance so they're
getting the little mild hits of opio it
becomes an opioid system and if you
think about the opioid drugs as opposed
to dopam dopaminergic drugs dopaminergic
drugs make people rabid for everything
you know know drugs of abuse like
cocaine and amphetamine make people
incredibly outward directed right they
hardly notice anything except what they
want more of more more more more more
it's very it's bad because those drugs
trigger so much dopamine release that
they become the reward it's very
circular the only the drug can give that
much dopamine nothing they could pursue
would give them as much dopamine as the
drug
itself so there's that and then there's
the kind of opioid like effects of
constantly indulging oneself with social
media or with video games or with um
with food or with anything to the point
where it no longer evokes the motivation
and craving and this is really the New
Evolution of the understanding of of
dopamine in neuro in Neuroscience which
is that dopamine itself is not the
reward it's the buildup to the reward
and the reward has more of a kind of
opioid Bliss likee property which itself
is not bad if it's endogenous released
from within but when we can just sit
there like the like the rat with no
dopamine gorging ourselves with
pleasures so to speak what you end up
with is somebody that feels really
unmotivated and those Pleasures no
longer work to tickle those Feelgood
circuits and so there's no reason for
them to go out and pursue anything and
that's a pretty dark picture so the the
keys are to pursue rewards but
understand that the pursuit is actually
the reward if you want to have repeated
wins okay you the celebration has to be
less than the pursuit and that's hard
for some people to do they you know they
it's got to be that you're celebration
is slightly less
dopaminergic it can be very reflective
you can be in gratitude those are other
neurotransmitter systems but you don't
want to be on that high as you celebrate
the win you want to be trickling out
your dopamine regularly until you pursue
things and then just understand there
will always be a crash of pain and the
more pain you experience the more
dopamine you can achieve if you get back
on that Avenue of yeah this gets into
unintended consequences of modernity and
so we're living through this time where
we you know going back to that flag that
we planted of these unintended
consequences of oh I can make myself
smell good oh I can you know watch the
coolest video oh like Tik Tok dude I
don't have an addicted personality
that's the first thing where I'll lose
an hour and be like what the [ __ ] did I
just do well that's the problem is not
Pleasures the problem is that pleasure
experienced without prior requirement
for Pursuit yes is terrible for us it's
terrible for us as individuals it's
terrible for us as as groups and I I
have great confidence in the human
species to work this out but we are
finding now and we are going to
increasingly find that those who will be
successful young or old are going to be
those people who can create their own
internal buffers they're going to be
able to control their relationship to
Pleasures because the proximity to
pleasures and the availability is the
problem if you look at the increase in
uh use of drugs of abuse abuse or
prescription medication which at least
at the first past deliver pleasure pain
relief the whole issue with the opioid
crisis and and dopaminergic drugs like
rlin
adol you know there sometimes is a
clinical need but tons of people are
taking those recreationally now or to
study huge dopamine increases are what
those cause that is a problem that's a
serious problem because it creates a
cycle where you you need more of that
specific thing I always say addiction is
a progressive narrowing of the things
that bring you pleasure God that's such
a good definition and you know and I
don't like to comment too much on
enlightenment cuz you know I don't
really know what that is as a
neurobiologist but a good life we could
say is a progressive expansion of the
things that bring you pleasure and even
better is a good life is a progressive
expansion of the things that bring you
pleasure and includes pleasure through
motivation and hard work and
understanding this pain pleasure balance
whereby If you experience pain and you
can continue to be in that friction and
and exert effort the rewards are that
much greater when they arrive and so I
think that if you look at any drug of
abuse or any situation where somebody
isn't motivated or thinks now they may
have clinically diagnosed attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder but a lot
of what people think is ADHD it turns
out is people just overc consuming
dopamine from various sources and then
and also the context within a a Tik Tock
feed is the context switch is insane the
brain has never seen first of all this
the first time in human evolution that
we wrote with our thumbs but that's a
pretty benign shift and then the other
shift is normally you walk from one room
to another or from a field into the
trees or from a Hut into or a house or
whatever it is but now you can get
10,000 context switches in that 30
minutes of scrolling on Instagram or Tik
Tok and so it's all about
self-regulation we are going to select
for the people that can self-regulate
and so then people say well how do you
self-regulate how do kids self-regulate
well this is my hope and one of the
reasons I've gotten excited about public
education and teaching Neuroscience is
that this is a place where knowledge of
knowledge actually can allow oneself to
intervene when you think I'm feeling low
I don't feel good nothing really feels
that good am I depressed maybe but maybe
you're just you've saturated the
dopamine circuits you're now in the pl
Pain part of things what do you do well
you have to stop you need you need to
replenish dopamine you need to stop
engaging with this behavior and then
your pleasure for it will come back but
you have to constantly control the hinge
it's not just about being back and forth
on the Seesaw you have to make sure the
hinge doesn't get stuck in pain or in
pleasure so it's a it's a dynamic
process being a a human being it's not
easy and remember these circuits didn't
evolve for this purpose they they evolve
primarily for making more of ourselves
that's why they're so closely tied to
the reproductive circuits and that's why
it was interesting and very relevant
that you said that your desire to have
sex with your wife is one of the most
powerful feelings and it kind of as a
from a neurochemical perspective it
Wicks out into all these other Pursuits
right those other Pursuits aren't about
sex per se but it's the same molecule so
the feeling is the same it's just that
some people for some people the
amplitude of that dopamine s signal for
craving sex is very high for some people
that's lower and it's higher for um
video games you know whatever you lean
into and and you think about often in
these Pursuits will start to reshape
these circuits because these
dopaminergic circuits are tied to
everything you know there are examples
of people getting addicted to the most
incredible things they're also examples
of people getting very good but not
addicted to chess for instance it's all
the
same general set of
mechanisms yeah you talked earlier about
um the the knowledge of knowledge and
that was the big breakthrough for me at
the darkest period of my life I happen
to grab a book we talked about this
briefly in our first interview I
happened to grab a book that talked
about neuroplasticity and they were
hypothesizing maybe this is a thing and
that gave me hope because I could
imagine what was going on in my brain
and once I can visualize it then I feel
like I can insert myself into it it's
why I've gotten so interested in health
why am so interested in Neuroscience is
for me if I were sliding towards
depression I would do exactly what
you're saying I would assess that and be
like okay wait a second I know that I
can insert conscious control I know that
this is a biological experience and I'm
I'm obsessed with that idea that you're
having a biological experience and to me
like there's some people that see the
way the magic trick is done and it loses
the magic then for other people it's
like you see that it's this is somebody
that's spent 30,000 hours learning how
to move their hands so that you don't
notice that they just moved the coin you
know from this hand to this hand it's it
blows me away I I love magic uh before
the pandemic a friend took me up to the
Magic Castle here in Hollywood and
there's some incredible stuff going on
Magic is actually really cool we could
uh just as a from a neuroscience
perspective magic it's all about um
creating gaps in your percep that's
obvious right and when that happens
because the the brain is so accustomed
to the laws of physics like objects fall
down not up Etc when that happens it
clearly triggers the surprise circuitry
and that itself that feeling of delight
and surprise is absolutely tied also to
these dopamine dopamine circuits it's
interesting though that that doesn't
send us into like Terror like that
people depends on the depends on the
magic trick I when I went there there
was this crazy trick that the guy did he
took out cards and I was invited up to
sit next to him I signed my name on a
card mhm I took the card I took the card
I I tore it up I put it in my pocket and
at the end of the show we went through a
series of things at the end of the show
he took off his shoe and presented the
card to me with the signature intact and
the card intact and that was my
signature so he clearly created gaps of
perception um but at some point as
adults I think as long as we know the
context is right then we can we can do
this all right my friend I have a big
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go through all of that just so that she
could write something down that allows
others to avoid it but I will say that
at least she was able to capture the
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right guys read the book and get ready
to be the hero of your own life peace
out 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 a high
level these feel very related talked
about somebody gets in a car accident uh
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 if something really bad
happens or something really good happens
it's present you begin to hardwire um
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 is 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 yeah 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 age 25 you can learn so much
for Better or For Worse I always say the
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 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
aceto Coline draws your attention to
that and that song is essentially wired
in a very indelible way into your
nervous system at 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 eye
movement desensitization reprocessing or
it's 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 it 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 Rel 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 IM 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 in humans
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 amydala they
actually suppress activation of this
threat detection Center in the amydala
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 amydala now
you say why well okay so then
2018 my laboratory did an experiment
there was actually a graduate student in
my laboratory where we're looking at
fear in this case we were 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 going
to fight I'm going to 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 amydala 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 triggers suppression of the
amydala and it makes perfect sense
because the amydala 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
reflex of eye movements that move any
time 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 Al 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 win
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
winner than in the loser in fact they
could take the loser and overstimulate
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 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 into the level of
social interactions and so you say okay
all right now we know it's this brain
area it's this it's this one area of the
frontal cortex but what's it actually
doing
right okay what's it actually trans 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 what
I'm just going to sit here I'm
overwhelmed I'm not do 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 it triggers a circuit
that shuts down the motor control over
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 it's 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
quient we weren't sitting around
battling tigers and saber-tooth 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
gonna actually lean into action that's
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 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 it isn't like
at some sort of grand untangle 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 is 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
uh you're just trying to say that
because you think you can manipulate
neurochemistry but you you're a loser
like you just fall and that's what's
playing in their head how do people go
in and and really take the reign of that
process so that they can start winning
yeah great question so you know I'm
never going to 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 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 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 block or typing in 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 it 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 going 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 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 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 our big you
know Peaks and we had 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 David Sinclair has his way
you know um we'll live a hundred 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 the 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 made some
progress because you took action because
you tried something and now
understanding you know some of the brain
mechanisms around it it it really gets
super powerful one thing about dopamine
that I just want to make sure I uh
mentioned and it based on something you
said earlier is that one interesting
question about the brain is we is just
asking the question you know how do we
segment time how do we how do you know
that this podcast has obviously has AIT
beginning and middle and an end but you
know how do we segment time and so there
have been some beautiful experiments
done recently showing that uh for
instance if you're watching a a sports
game regardless of whether or not your
team scores like let's say basketball
goes down Court let's say they miss the
three-pointer and then that you know
it's a close game there's a little blip
of dopamine that says that was one
segment of time and so dopamine is a big
way in which we segment time the other
way are blinks believe it or not what
yeah that every time we blink this is a
paper published in current biology every
time we blink we reset our perception of
time how would I understand more I guess
then the dopamine why would dopamine be
involved in time perfect question turns
out that the frequency of blinking is
set by the level Baseline level of
dopamine in the brain yes so when people
are wide-eyed with excitement and
they're and they're just they're not
blinking very off but or someone is on a
drug that kicks out a lot of dopamine
they hardly ever blink their pupils are
huge they are they are actually not
segmenting time in the normal fashion W
and so much of your life in retrospect
is segmented by those Peaks and dopamine
they those mark key events in your life
when you met your wife there there are
all the segments of your life are are
noted by peaks in dopamine or the way
that you happen to conceptualize
dopamine and so also people who are
depressed are often very focused on the
past they rumin naturally they default
to ruminating on the past when you
adjust people's dopamine levels to
healthy levels they start becoming more
Forward Thinking and more present and so
there's this relationship between
blinking time perception dopamine and
blinking how you conceptualize time has
a lot to do with these peaks in dopamine
and when they occur and this is a big
deal because we're you know 2020 was a
rough year for most people 2021 is
feeling a little better but we don't
really know where we are in this whole
Arc of everything that's happening
there's a lot of uncertainty
yeah the dopamine Peaks an