Kind: captions
Language: en
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
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
obsessive compulsion
is is a part of our brain and it's it's
a natural part of our brain it 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
hey everybody welcome to health theory
today's guest is dr rahul john dial he
is a dual trained neurosurgeon who has
both an md and phd and he's based out of
the world famous city of hope hospital
here in los angeles he's a researcher
and author of 10 books and countless
academic papers on the brain and as if
that wasn't cool enough he's also one of
the stars of fox's tv show superhuman
and the co-host of a national geographic
channel documentary on the brain
alongside bryant gumbel additionally
he's the founder and co-director of inca
a non-profit that performs free
surgeries in underprivileged areas
around the world and his latest book
neurofitness explores the real science
of peak performance
you had me at peak performance i'm
totally obsessed with this stuff about
what we can do to really supercharge
ourselves
given that you've been
a a neurosurgeon and literally cracking
people's brains open been on the show
seeing some really extraordinary people
what is the human animal capable of like
what when people i find they don't
pursue anything they don't think they're
capable of much but what are we really
able to pull off
well if you're thinking about just what
the brain can do i like using just crazy
gnarly examples i used to work in an
alzheimer's clinic when i was trying to
get into medical school
and once in a while these older folks
they would have dementia parts of the
brains would literally wither like the
flesh would wither it's not just the
thinking and the electricity right and
hidden painting abilities would come out
so you see and i'm not talking like
they're going to be at in a museum at
some point but a dramatic change in
their in the way they wrote in their
ability to paint landscapes and you see
the before and after pictures
and those kind of things make me think
there's a lot of untapped potential so
those examples when i you know when i
take care of brain injured it's not all
sad cases they can be phenomenal in some
ways and you learn that there's so much
going on in the brain that we are not
seeing on the daily level so i think
there's a lot of potential we haven't we
haven't tapped into that we could if we
structured things better in our daily
lives as also in the ways we approach
our kids and the next generations that
we're talking before we got started
that's what i want to dive into so how
much of brain training is real i know
for a minute it was like brain training
is everything and then it was like no
it's all bs and then you talk about that
specifically in the book what's the
conclusion so the conclusion is
anything difficult where you have to
think
is good for your brain
if you ask usain bolt how do i get
stronger legs to run it's intuitive but
the flesh in our skulls it's meant to
think and feel
and that is the power of self-growth and
it's a thinking machine it's a thinking
flesh that you actually have to
use or to protect itself because it's an
energy hog right it's three pounds but
uses 20 percent if you're not using
parts of it it'll program itself to let
those parts of the garden wither so the
diversity of thinking and the depth of
thinking just one level past what you're
used to is the way to keep the whole
garden flourishing and it is a garden in
there there's chemicals there are things
moving there are different types of
brain cells it's not just neurons so i
always try to give that metaphor analogy
if you will that it's a garden and you
have to irrigate it and stimulate and
tend to all the corners particularly the
ones you're starting to neglect maybe
it's your left hand
getting out of the box and engaging the
recesses of your mind is the most
important thing and then you have the
then then the creative things happen
you don't just sit down and have them
happen you got to work and dream and go
hard and on top of that something
creative can happen
so is there a specific protocol like i
know people have said brush your teeth
with your left hand or one of the
coolest things i've ever heard about
staving off dementia is to take dance
class because having to
do bodily movements but in a particular
rhythm and learning new steps is like
sort of the ultimate trifecta for
keeping the brain young are there things
like that because people listening right
now they want to write something down
step one do this step two do this so now
we have the understanding that the brain
is meant to think the brain is also
meant to command your body to move
and absolutely the minute you don't use
your left hand the right parietal lobe
with the motor strip says i'm not
getting used much
i'll shave down that i'll shave down
that density of those brain cells a
little bit so that's where movement's
important so simple things like
getting the mouse you know using the
mouse with your left hand and using your
phone with your left hand it's a
powerful technique and then the other
thing is navigation when you see old
people
and they lose their way home well that
has a particular address also many
things are global in the brain but
navigation is in the temporal lobe and
they have dementia in that area
navigation also is
spatial awareness is a function of the
brain and sometimes when we're on our
phones too much we don't have that so my
kids i don't look down
not religiously or adamantly but
try to just remember our route and just
look up and see how see how far you can
get
i think those habits will help us
as we get less young and those are
practical things we can do during the
day and as far as the uh the other
element is brain training
it doesn't have to be some
weird
game that's not intuitive i think brain
training just means learning
as a habit
one step past where you're comfortable
if you're reading it you know it your
brain's and it's an idol if it's too
hard it's not even engaged it's i'm not
i'm not going to win this race i'm not
going to kick it at second gear so just
just like video games just good enough
to get to the next level right they
don't hit you with the fifth level the
tilt level up front it's level one to
level two level two to level three
that's what learning is so despite your
knowledge and intellect it's just that
level right beyond you that is brain
training so you don't have to buy an app
you just have to challenge yourself and
think right so in the book um you talk
about some pretty powerful
the sort of blocking and tackling of
improving your brain what are some
things whether it's sleep or diet that
you think people are just
woefully
mishandling
so well we can take
we can take each one you know
sleep is a tricky one i spent a decade
without sleep
going monday morning at four or five a.m
come home tuesday at
7 pm
that's a shift wow
and what you realize during that time is
even if you can get a few hours of sleep
don't do it really yeah disrupted sleep
as residents and people can write in we
if you can just get an hour or two
sometimes it's better to stay up the
whole night and it's a story
well worn between residents they pass
that on to each other
and the reason is the sleep disruption
can be quite difficult on the brain and
so if you're going to get five good
hours of sleep going on to people who
aren't in surgical training
maybe that's better than seven hours of
disrupted sleep where your phone is
going off and different things are
pinging your way so that's one lesson i
think people should understand in my
family what we do is
i actually start you know i start
turning the lights down in the house i'm
gonna make it dark but i just take off
the the flood lights and i start getting
more ambient light it's just like a
a trigger for your mind in my opinion
and for my boys
uh to like there's a transition coming
here you have to wrap down in your
thought but the light change is the
trigger and it's not melatonin in the
back your brain that everybody's been
talking about it's actually called a
suprachiasmatic nucleus you can get to
it through your nose and there uh
there's a small cluster that is a
circadian rhythm setter
we all of us plants and animals have
been on this revolving earth
and are in tune to it that it's a it's
the daily revolution and the earth's
rhythm that we're in tune with it's not
the pineal gland releasing one magic
chemical that makes you fall asleep when
we cut out the pineal gland when it has
tumors or cysts they sleep just the same
afterwards i've done the surgery myself
we don't worry that if we take out the
pineal gland they're not going to sleep
the next day
that this and that's the only thing that
makes melatonin but we know when we go
through the nose and we mess with this
area by the hypothalamus their
temperature regulation is off they're
like 104 for no reason their sleep is
off so sleep is a very complicated thing
that cannot be addressed just with
melatonin i believe you can catch up on
sleep during the weekends and the way to
get into sleep rhythm is to not have a
stimulant and start shaving the light as
you get later on at night that's the way
i would approach you know all the issues
with sleep that are going on that's
super [ __ ] interesting let's talk
about the mind diet yeah i found that
really interesting in the book yeah
that's well known so this is not to lose
weight it's what nutrients to put inside
you where if you have a thousand people
here you have a thousand people here and
for 20 years they eat differently
what are the numbers of people with
dementia all of the things being equal
it essentially says
uh it doesn't have to be mediterranean
it just has to be
plants like as i might tell my kids
plants which is
you know fruit or salad doesn't have to
be just salad you know yogurt nuts
lean meats like you know chicken and
salmon
what is it that salmon has omega-3s it's
the only thing in our literature that we
know is an is
a nutritional component in food
that is good for brain health and
the omega-3s are unique type of fat
that are
you know the brain is an extremely fatty
organ and so it needs to it needs to
have those fats omega-3s
are the only things nutritionally that i
would say is you could supplement or
actually add salmon in a couple times a
week so that's the mind-dyed twist on
the heart diet by adding a little bit
more emphasis on salmon what you can't
have is a lot of fried processed food
and if you have
a cheat day or whatever you have a
burger it doesn't negate what you've
done i think that's the hardest thing
about dieting for people they feel like
the shift has to be complete and
religious and to me it's more glacial
because the benefits will also take
decades to accrue you know that's my
that's my perspective
those are the nutrients that are best
for the brain
you talked about intermittent fasting in
the book what do you think about that
what is its impact on the mind longevity
um what's its place so if you want to
kick the mind out into next year
and you're thinking i don't want to just
stave
off brain degeneration right like what
if you wanted to work on focus and
cognition these things are harder to
test but when you go into the big
neuroscience journals they speak about
intermittent fasting and the best way i
can explain it is your brain's a hybrid
vehicle
it grew it evolved through through
thousands and thousands and thousands of
years of lots of food scarcity
you didn't eat all the time
and so it's got a backup mechanism
called ketones so after 16 hours
if you don't put glucose in
and the liver is done
releasing the glucose it's held onto
through glycogen reserves then it'll
start burning fat
it'll clip off those oxygens and
hydrogens and they'll make ketones out
of it
intermittent fasting can also help you
lose weight i think that's why most
people are interested in it but it's the
way the brain prefers to get its fuel
source and it's based on a diet
lessons about dieting learn through
controlling
epilepsy and seizures in kids in areas
where there's no medicine
so i was in ukraine
and when they don't have medicine or a
type of seizure seizure the abnormal
electrical activity of the brain just
like an arrhythmia would be an abnormal
electrical activity of the heart
uh they would just feed them all fat
diet you could smell it in the hospitals
so something about an all-fat diet
forcing you into just using ketones
now intermittent fasting is back and
forth glucose and then ketones glucose
and then ketones but for kids if you
just get them almost nearly all ketone
as the source that goes up to the brain
through an all-fat diet
their
seizure rates
go down you know so that's proof
that food
changes mind
because the mind is the electricity
sparking through that flesh
food
will change the electricity detectable
measurable electricity in your brain
food affects mind food affects brain
with that premise
we can talk about okay mind diet will
hold off
dementia and intermittent fasting
might make you feel like you've had a
cup of coffee once you get a rhythm on
it's not going to make you smarter but
it'll bring you to your most focused to
bring you to your most attentive it's
not oh i'm intermittent fasting and now
i can do physics it's
it's not like that it's
your personal best and then the habits
you demonstrate to your family by trying
to be at your personal best and then
your kids see that and your friends see
that i think that's how you impact
generation change is to have
uh capable people demonstrate hey it's
not hard and this is the best we can do
for ourselves it's really interesting
i have a very different relationship
with intermittent fasting so i
intermittent fast a lot so i'm fasting
almost 20 hours a day how does it feel
awesome
but it does it isn't additional clarity
for me so what i find is that it changes
my relationship to hunger so i'm not
thinking about food in the way that i
would be thinking about food if i'm
eating over a longer period of time
because i'm in ketosis so if you took my
blood not now probably because i just
had a big meal about three hours ago but
if you had taken my blood this morning
at like 10 o'clock
a thousand percent i was probably
posting a 1.5 ish and when i'm in that
range i feel great but i don't feel
extra
but i find it is extraordinary
for fat loss so the reason i'm doing it
now is so i cycle throughout the year so
in the winter i worry a lot less about
carrying a bit of fat so i probably
fluctuate during the year five to seven
pounds probably and then for the summer
then i'll sharpen back up and then again
the cycle repeats so
that i find it really effective for i
find it really effective for changing my
relationship to food so that i don't
need to eat if i were going to miss a
meal not a big deal if my only choice to
eat something bad versus to skip a meal
then i find that it's it's just a
different relationship right so here's
where i think i understand it a little
bit differently it's not like you expect
clarity when you pop into ketosis
because it's been 16 hours after you've
eaten it's just your last meal it's just
the going back and forth
over a few weeks over a few months those
months you'll have maybe more clarity
than the months before when you weren't
doing it i have a hypothesis about that
that's testament obviously we're not
going to be able to figure it out here
but my gut instinct is if you're used to
a high carbohydrate diet a thousand
percent you'd be like holy [ __ ] this is
a revolution my life is so much better
i'm clear all of that
but because i don't
almost ever have non-vegetable
carbohydrates in my diet because if i
were to cheat then i get it then i am a
little bit foggy so the delta is less
for you since you already started with a
better yes so from a clarity perspective
this lay person so discount the [ __ ] out
of it but this lay person's vibe is or
hypothesis is is that this is a lack of
carbohydrate thing that gets people
non-vegetable-based carbohydrate that
gets people to clarity
but there's even another benefit to it
which is it will radically alter your
relationship to hunger is probably a
better way to say it than food yeah
which is pretty interesting yeah so but
your whole psychology of the the feed
forward of you know forward loop cycle
of eating and then i don't know that
what does that mean well it's just the
the fact that you get a rush when you
eat yes you know it's just it's you're
supposed to i mean and fat tastes richer
because somehow
you know we figured out it was more
advantageous you know to have this
because it's more nutritious at least
from calorie point of view and so those
things are set inside us i mean
if it's good for us it gives us a rush
sometimes if it's bad for us it gives us
a rush and i love the complexity of that
i love that animals get high i love that
some people think that stop there it's i
totally am with you but explain to
people how animals get high well they
eat fermented food they bury stuff
underneath they they search certain
things in the environment
that are
uh you know psychoactive meaning it
changes the way they feel
and what's unique about these substances
like cannabinoids or even nicotine
that when you
as a scientist i'm reading papers and it
says
cannabinoid receptors we have named
scientific terms for cannabis inside our
body there is a nicotine receptor
nicotinic receptors so that active
agreement ingredient from tobacco i'm
not saying smoke
but just to understand that the
chemicals in plants
have perfect locks for which they serve
the keys in our bodies we we grew with
the plants
we change with the plants we use the
plants to our advantage
and now
the the plants and the food have have
gone the other way and it's a
disadvantage to for us and the biggest
problem i don't understand because we're
eating too much
so before food scarcity
was uh an advantage
because it kept us from intermittent it
was intermittent fasting by you know by
necessity
and that if you think about it just
conceptually it's just another
hypothesis
if during times of hunger you were less
sharp or lack of food
made you dull
rather than sharpened your wits about
where the lion was where the other where
was the berry where was the fruit where
were the shellfish in southern south
africa if it made you dull
that wouldn't be a positive thing so i
think
i think it makes intuitive sense also
that just a little bit and with all
respect i know people can't get food
throughout the world i've traveled the
world i know there's bad food everywhere
but an intellectual level
for people trying to take it to the next
level
is
is a bit of food scarcity can actually
sharpen your mind and
neuroscience is trying to understand
at the molecular level what's going on
what's swimming into the brain and which
receptors are being turned on but i
think i think it does make some
intuitive sense
let's go back to plants as medicine and
lock and key have you micro dosed or
macro dose for that matter i haven't but
a lot of people do and i'll and i and
i'm an extremely non-judgmental person
and
they
they have a biology and when you
understand them
you can understand which one may be of
use for you let's go into the biology
i'm sure you're well aware of all the
literature about coming out now about
like um
psychedelic psilocybin specifically on
depression and anxiety what's the
biology going on there there are trials
i don't know if it's new york at cancer
centers where cancer patients
are taking psychedelics to deal with
the existential crisis
of a cancer diagnosis that's even higher
than to me it's like because you're
starting to think like there's parts of
me are eating myself from the inside and
growing inside me it could give you a
real
sense of what is identity i think if
there's a cancer patient and they want
to try it
and we can study and learn from it why
not have something more in the toolbox
for the
psychological weight and difficulty
they're going with while we're doing you
know while we're working on chemo and
surgery the psychological weight of a
cancer diagnosis so psychedelics tend to
uh
work in that way the mechanism in the
brain
it's mysterious you know there are
certain receptors that get activated
serotonin is one of them but in a
different area serotonin is used for
prozac but but you know psychedelics
also work with serotonin so there's this
myth that dopamine is a happy chemical
this is this chemical it's not that
linear at the stage of life you're in
the location who you are sometimes we
replace dopamine when it's low and it
makes gamblers out of people one of the
side effects of replacing dopamine is
making people gamblers so i love the
variety of
roles each neurotransmitter plays you're
not having this complexity dopamine is a
happy chemical that's too simple
we want i want a more nuanced approach
to understanding the brain uh and
psychedelics are the thing that it's a
strange you know we're wildly creative
in our dreams
the things we think of in our dreams
and don't remember so clearly the
machinery is there in our mind let's
just say that how do we access that i
think psychedelics allow people to
access that there's
uh there's this thing called uh
you know sort of sense mixing
where people anesthesia yeah but bigger
than that because that's
that becomes
i i try not to use those words because
then people think it's a diagnosis
but a lot of people can have a
relationship with music it's like they
can feel it and i mean just the bass
coming through and a lot of people can
see different things
and i think that's
that ability
is where it's it's heightened in sleep
and it's released by psychedelics the
do you think the connections are turned
off or something's being turned on i
think oh that's a great question i think
something's being turned off the boss
the boss is told to get the [ __ ] out of
here how familiar are you with
transcranial magnetic stimulation i'm
not very uh familiar with it i know some
people are having a good results with it
but my worry with it is there's too many
like inexpensive untested gizmos being
sold on amazon where you put on a
certain magic helmet so
there's always that right it always and
you've seen some of those things or like
one electrode on the forehead the funny
thing is i haven't but it makes me want
to go find them so here check this out
we can measure your brain electricity
from without having to go inside your
skull it takes more than one electrode
and so
it's the manipulation of real technology
with fancy branding
and i worry about that and i worry about
people
um not just misunderstanding that
they've bought something that can't help
them
but hurting the proper technologies that
will come out in five years or later on
you know sort it's sort of muddying the
letting the environment for the real
technology that's going to come out but
thousands of years ago one time that i
said fascinating thing i read for
headaches they would take electric fish
and just
put try to zap the skull with electric
fish and that's modern
electric you know shock therapy that
yeah that your mind is the electricity
flowing through that flesh
and you can alter it with magnets so you
can use a magnet
and alter the electricity in our mind
that's not how the knee works that's not
how the heart works hard as a pump
and so that's why the brain is
fascinating and i don't want the garbage
ones to come out and give it a kooky
science vibe
when when there's gonna be some good
stuff that comes out in that area
yeah that's really interesting is there
anything that you think is legitimate
that is non-invasive that you guys are
using at the cutting edge right now or
is that all in the future um
there's actually fda approved a sticker
that that is electromagnetic
and somehow
beyond my understanding
uh those patients live longer with their
cancers
and that's a
so the the field of
electromagnetic manipulation
isn't just for brain enhancement that
the cancer cells that grew in the flesh
of our brain
are also electrically responsive and can
be manipulated it's that fascinating
it's an electrical i always explain it
like it's a it's an ocean of electric
jellyfish
and the the thoughts are not the
jellyfish or the brain cell it's the
sparks happening in between
and those sparks are what you manipulate
with
uh
when you take prozac the sparks the the
tentacles don't touch they spray these
they spray dopamine they spray serotonin
in different quantities
and they last
inside this cleft where the the two
tentacles of the jellyfish are touching
at different durations so when you take
prozac it's a basically it slows down
the vacuum of that space in between and
lets serotonin float a little longer and
thereby have greater effect those
re-uptake inhibitors and then there are
other things where
these electrical currents coming down
if you
magnetically stimulate or electrically
stimulate
or even when the skull is open i can
physically stimulate the brain and make
it squirt chemicals that you're you're
dancing with these electricity and these
chemical charges that are bouncing
between each other so then the number of
brain cells
becomes less relevant and more about
what's happening in between that's why
i just i just think though the future
for brain science brain health is going
to be even better than what what we've
already seen but we have just started to
manipulate the mind
[Music]
yeah which is my absolute fascination i
want to go back to brain plasticity and
talk about how this actually works so
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's 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 [ __ ] mashed 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 habit's 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 that it becomes second nature i
love this question it's the hardest
question because i've just i went out
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 20 of blood flow
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 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'd 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've
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
burying them and finding healthier 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 pat or not breaking it but it's it's
over time it's just beginning to atrophy
i don't know what better way to say it
um
dendritic plasticity
neuronal plasticity at the cellular
level
is all about
use it or lose it is 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
to be like well that sounds very off the
wall no no not at all you're 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
uh
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 plasticity is we start off with more
brain cells than we hold on to yet we
get smarter
as than when we are
for the most part we are from 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
to set those interactions and make them
constructive habits and maybe pass them
on to the generation what are you
calling that window i want to believe
that windows open until 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 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 a weird thing
the most dynamic shape-shifting is in
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 pegs it at 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 is 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 is 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
i'll 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 and in neurosurgery
sometimes
we do place catheters into the emotional
hubs
uh inside our brain so the thinking
brain is like a mushroom cap what end
uh you can electrically
break an uh obsessive compulsive
disorder habits we've seen patients come
in
so okay you 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 it'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 our 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 not useful so when i see
going back to the electrical simulation
when i
when i grab a door and i buy 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 subcortical 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 does that last
get the [ __ ] out of here 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
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 it's the
frontal lobes not accessing
uh their potential to tamp down some of
the emotions do you think that that is
um 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
too 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 yeah to get a hold of it
that's a good question i know where
you're going with that because it'll
empower people to think down their
anxieties
i think there's no other way and i'm not
copping 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 uh aberrant
robust you know
lighting up of some of these structures
uh make the layer ones people usually
think of but in these subcortical
structures some people 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
and 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 frontal 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 their
pulse they can think down how fast their
heart beats this is not like baloney
this is you can put an ultrasound we can
look it up online you see videos of it
that shows that thinking
can change
thought
can change how fast your heart beats
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 mine 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 and
somebody else is all dialed in and helps
them fifty percent 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 gonna be a
bullet
it actually takes work and you mention
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 has
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 this whatever bad habit
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 their 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 getting
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 down there's
a new key 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 um
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 like i like what
i'm hearing
uh 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
food
what we eat
and
meditative breathing i think are the
most uh graspable
and measurable uh the creativity stuff
the sleep stuff
uh the exercise stuff is harder for
people
but the exercise stuff is in its own way
the most important if we could get back
to that ooh 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 but
ignf yeah they're nerve growth factors
they're all neurotrophic factors and
whatever the
the for the in this case to be
abbreviation gdnf bdnf 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
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 the neurons
outside of the jellyfish if you will
it's not just water
there's chemicals floating around in
there
now dopamine might be just from
technical 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 uh jellyfish or nerd
and we can trigger more of that exercise
yeah you exercise it releases it 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
you know 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 um
intimidated by that to me i just see
opportunities
on how people can you know improve their
lives
i love that yeah tell people where they
can find the book where they can find
more about you
the book is on hmh
their website but it's it's everywhere
and it's my best shot at the brain but
every chapter opens with like here's
some crazy stuff i've seen or crazy
stuff i've read i just want to let you
know i'm in this space
i'm not lecturing
here's my point of view so it's got
those elements in it it's not just
do these three things do these three
things
you get that but first i earn your trust
with the stories and the science right
very cool thank you if people were going
to make one change that would have the
biggest impact on their health what
change would you have them make mental
health sure um
it's a good one i think exercise is too
easy
um too easy and too hard actually the
way we live
to me with my kids i've been trying to
drag them to the gym we got a new
membership and all that
but
changing
what shows up on the counter
is powerful
and if we ate less and if we ate
efficiently and we did you know it's a
less carbon imprint i think all of those
things is good for the planet it's good
for us it's mind and body
and and then it's also
communal
you know then then it goes to the next
generation it's not just something i did
at equinox and with my yoga mat in
malibu
and then i think it can perpetuate so
it's not just an individual thing
i love that thank you so much for coming
on the show thank you
guys i can think of nothing more
important to learn about than the brain
so i hope you will dive deeper and check
it all out and until next time my
friends be legendary take care
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