The Manosphere Report

0:00Everyone's focused on changing behavior.

0:02Everyone's focused on increasing willpower to overcome this tendency.

0:06And it's like, why not just change the tendency?

0:09That sounds so simple, but that's literally what we do in psychotherapy every day when

0:14we come in and someone has a narcissistic personality disorder.

0:17This is personality. This is who they are.

0:20And we can psychotherapize them to be someone else for their natural thoughts to change,

0:27for the way that they see the world to change, for their behaviors to change

0:31on its own. It doesn't require, willpower is necessary when you are trying to not

0:35be narcissistic. It is not necessary when you are no longer narcissistic.

0:39So we've done it in psychotherapy.

0:41We know that if your self -esteem changes, if your sense of being changes, treatment

0:46refractory depression will change. Trauma, PTSD will change.

0:50Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science -based tools for

0:55everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford

1:04School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr.

1:07Alok Kanogia, also known as Dr.

1:09K. Dr. K is a psychiatrist and online mental health educator.

1:14He has a very unique background, having trained and earned his medical degree in the

1:18United States, but also having studied as a monk for seven years.

1:22Today, we discuss powerful tools for increasing your self -understanding and mental health, and for

1:27rewiring your nervous system, specifically how you can unlearn unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors and

1:33replace them with ones that truly serve you and those around you.

1:36Much of today's discussion centers around differences between Eastern and Western concepts of things like

1:42the ego and what makes up our self -concept.

1:44That portion of the conversation will no doubt have you rethinking why you do what

1:48you do in virtually everything, and he provides a roadmap for clearly defining your best

1:54goals and for increasing things like your energy and drive, not through hacks, but by

1:59tapping into deep intrinsic motivation.

2:02In fact, throughout today's episode, Dr.

2:04K explains specific practices that you can use to help rewire your nervous system, resolve

2:09traumas, and come to a much clearer understanding of how best to apply your efforts

2:13in work, school, and relationships.

2:16We also discuss social media, dating, and relationships, addiction, and pornography.

2:21So there are a lot of topics covered.

2:22And I have to say, this is a conversation unlike any other that I've had

2:26on or off the podcast.

2:28Dr. K offers a completely new perspective on how to resolve common struggles that we

2:33all face. And in doing so, he offers a lot of practical tools.

2:36So this should be a very valuable conversation for anyone wishing to better understand themselves

2:41at the theoretical and psychological level, but also who wishes to implement specific tools to

2:46improve some or all aspects of their life.

2:48Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching

2:52and research roles at Stanford.

2:54It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer

2:57information about science and science -related tools to the general public.

3:01In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

3:04And now for my discussion with Dr.

3:07Alok Kanogia. Dr. K, welcome.

3:10Andrew Huberman, thank you for having me.

3:12So interested in you and the knowledge you hold.

3:15Um, today we're gonna talk about a number of things.

3:20I mean, Ayurveda and East -West medicine, motivation and dopamine, but I wanna start with

3:26the internet. Okay. You had an interesting upbringing, so very different than mine, not just

3:31because of our age difference, but you grew up on the internet.

3:35Like, yeah. And so you really have an empathy for people on the internet, on

3:41social media. Now everyone's on the internet.

3:45What was it that drew you to screens and that interface with such a degree

3:51of magnetism? You know, I was like a gifted kid growing up.

3:55And I think that one of the things that we don't really appreciate is how

4:01school moves at the pace of the slowest kid.

4:04So school was incredibly boring for me.

4:08And then I was also young, so I was a year ahead.

4:13And so I was like early on when I was a five -year -old in

4:17first grade and I was competing against seven -year -olds like on the playground or

4:21in gym class. I sucked at sports.

4:24So the one thing that I really got addicted to was this idea of like

4:29a computer game where like when you beat level one, like level two is there,

4:32you know? And then if you beat level two, like level three is there.

4:34If you fail at level three, you get to try level three again.

4:37So it was the only activity that was like cognitively to my pacing.

4:43And so that really drew me in.

4:45And I didn't realize that until years later.

4:48You know, my parents were big fans of putting us into school like young.

4:52And if you can skip grades, like that's great, right?

4:54Because life is a race.

4:56And the faster you finish, the better things are.

5:00But I didn't realize how developmentally challenging it is to be like a five -year

5:05-old or a six -year -old in school with like seven -year -olds or eight

5:07-year -olds. So I think that's what originally drew me in.

5:10If you don't mind me asking, so you were first -generation immigrant parents from India.

5:16Yep. I mean, I grew up in the South Bay in Palo Alto, so I'm

5:20familiar with intense academic environments.

5:22Sure, yeah. Increasingly. in the last 10, 20 years, but even when I was there,

5:27it was intense. Did you feel that as pressure?

5:31Absolutely. I mean, my earliest memories are of my grandmother telling me I'm going to

5:36make a great doctor one day.

5:38And when I was like 15 years old, people would ask me, like I'd go

5:41to like a party, right, with my parents and their friends.

5:43And people would ask me, what do you want to be when you grow up?

5:45And so I was like, I'm going to be a doctor.

5:48And everyone's like, wow, impressive.

5:50So my 15 -year -old brain was like looking at this like amazing idea of

5:57what a doctor was. And both my parents are doctors.

6:00My dad was an amazing doctor.

6:02I suppose my mom is too, but my dad was one of the seminal researchers

6:05in like graft versus host disease.

6:07It's how he landed his job at MD Anderson.

6:09So he like came from India and like was an oncologist.

6:13And so I also remember he used to, back then, HIPAA wasn't, I think there

6:18wasn't even a HIPAA law.

6:19So he would have patients over to our house and stuff like that.

6:23He would throw a Thanksgiving party every year where he would invite all of his

6:26patients, all cancer survivors and things like that.

6:30And so my dad was really like a mythical figure, incredibly charismatic.

6:35And so I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to be that.

6:39And so it became a huge part of my ego.

6:42And then it turns out that ego is not a great way to motivate, well,

6:45it can be a great way to motivate yourself.

6:48But then I ran into trouble when I hit college because I had never learned

6:53how to study. So either I like absorbed everything and did well on the test.

6:57So I went straight from like A's to F's and then got addicted to video

7:01games, failed out of college.

7:04But your original question was, was I into computers and why?

7:08And that's probably has something to do with it.

7:10Well, it sounds like you were so into computers, you eventually went over the cliff

7:13of computers with this addiction.

7:15But I want to talk about the addiction, but I think this is a perfect

7:17frame and maybe we'll jump back and forth as we move forward.

7:22This is a perfect frame for what I have heard and wonder about a lot,

7:29which is, you know, I'm Gen X.

7:32Okay. You're a millennial. Yeah.

7:34And I'm told that the generations right behind Gen X perhaps had more love and

7:46encouragement to feel their feelings, notions of what trauma and addiction were, but maybe that

7:54there wasn't this universally high standards set for all of them.

7:57That's the narrative that you see in the news right now.

8:00Oh, you know, this coddled generation, et cetera.

8:02You had high standards set for you.

8:04When you look out on your peers and you look out on the internet for

8:08millennials and younger, do you think that we can make a general statement about, oh,

8:14yeah, you know, all this appreciation and understanding about what addiction and trauma and feelings

8:19are, you know, that just was foreign to my generation, frankly, that it helped or

8:24hurt to have this awareness of kind of self and what one needs and all

8:30of that. Do you think that it, yeah, do you think it helped or it

8:33hurt development? Well, so Andrew, I'm delighted to be speaking to a scientist because I

8:39think it helped and hurt, right?

8:41So this is, as you know, things are multifactorial.

8:44It's rarely one thing or another thing.

8:47So I think a lot of people picked up ground with awareness of feelings.

8:52As a psychiatrist, you know, I work with people who were unaware of the family

8:56dynamics going on in their life, in their household, unaware of their emotions, growing up

9:02with things like avoidant attachment and having difficulty forming connections.

9:05So I think it is always good to be more aware.

9:10I think actually awareness is probably the single factor that correlates the most with like

9:16success and happiness. The challenge, the really subtle thing is that talking about emotions isn't

9:25the same as actually being aware of them.

9:27So I think what started to happen is a lot of this dialogue around trauma,

9:31a lot of this dialogue around feelings has actually been hijacked in very subtle ways

9:37by other parts of our mind, other parts like, for example, our ego.

9:41And so it's kind of like this therapy speak has like, and this happens, so

9:47you can look at any population.

9:48And if you have someone who's like sociopathic, or if you have someone who's histrionic

9:52or narcissistic, and everyone is talking feelings, they will do that too, but in a

9:58sociopathic way. Feelings have now started to be used as a form of manipulation, right?

10:03So people will use like, I see this all the time, speaking of the internet

10:06and its modern incarnation. We all talk about boundaries, but people have started to use

10:11boundaries as a form of control for other human beings.

10:14You know, my boundary is that you don't text anyone after 8pm.

10:19My boundary is that, you know, every time I call you, you need to answer

10:23the phone. So it's really bizarre how like, the basic like psychological stuff can hijack.

10:32Like our psychological patterns can hijack like we all this mental health week.

10:37Another really good example of this is, so I remember I was seeing an assault

10:43victim in the emergency room at Mass General Hospital many years ago.

10:46And so the MIT chief of security was campus Man 2 and so I was

10:51talking to. to them a little bit about, you know, because there were other students

10:55with a student who had been assaulted, and they were kind of talking to me

10:58about safety. And I remember something that the MIT chief told me that I've never

11:02forgotten. We're talking about safety, and he's like, my job is not to make people

11:05feel safe. My job is to make people safe.

11:08And there's actually a big difference.

11:10And so something interesting has happened.

11:13We have all become more narcissistic because that's what the internet does to us.

11:17And so now if I am hurt, that is no longer my responsibility.

11:21That is because you did something wrong.

11:24Does that make sense? Like fundamentally, if I feel hurt, that is oftentimes tied to

11:29you doing something wrong. So there's this tendency towards victimization where you'll see even people

11:35who are like playing the victim card, which doesn't mean that we shouldn't be believing

11:41victims. I think that's exactly what happens is we started to realize that we're not

11:45taking victims seriously. But then all the chameleons in our society were looking at this

11:49pattern, and they were realizing, okay, the fastest way for me to get ahead is

11:56to claim to be a victim.

11:58So there are all kinds of weird permutations that are happening right now with this

12:03sort of emphasis on feeling.

12:05One more evidence -based example of this is we're seeing the prevalence of mood disorders,

12:11anxiety disorders, addictions, body dysmorphia.

12:14Basically, everything is getting worse.

12:16And so one weird thing that started to happen is as we've talked more about

12:21feelings, there is something called a transdiagnostic factor, which we can get into.

12:25I don't know if you're familiar with these or not.

12:27But so if you look at like all of the mental illnesses, there are certain

12:31attributes that are a risk factor for multiple mental illnesses.

12:36So a good example of transdiagnostic factors are perfectionism and rumination.

12:41So rumination doesn't make you depressed, doesn't necessarily make you anxious.

12:46But if you have a high index of rumination, you are more likely to have

12:51a major depressive disorder. You're more likely to have an anxiety disorder.

12:54Does that kind of make sense?

12:55If you are perfectionistic, you are more likely to be depressed.

12:59You are more likely to be anxious.

13:00So there's one interesting transdiagnostic factor which has gotten way worse, which is something called

13:04distress tolerance. So human beings' capacity to sit with things and tolerate things that they

13:13do not find comfortable is starting to tank.

13:15And as that starts to tank, we're seeing just an explosion of mental illness.

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16:05The moment you said that we're seeing a reduction in distress tolerance, I heard in

16:11my head voices on the internet saying, oh, so we're just supposed to push our

16:17feelings aside? Like we're just supposed to...

16:19everything that happens to us, we're supposed to, you know.

16:21And of course, I don't actually believe that, but I can empathize a bit with

16:27that notion, right? Like there's, these things are always on a continuum.

16:32It's a push -pull, right?

16:34I mean, I was going to raise the same thing around the standards that were

16:37set for you. Some people who grew up with very high standards set for them

16:41by parents, teachers, or coaches might internalize that as, oh, that must mean I'm very

16:47capable. In fact, in one of my favorite books, The Last Lecture by Randy Posh,

16:51he talks about, he was a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon.

16:54He eventually died. He gave this last lecture, which is an incredible lecture.

16:57And he said, the moment that your parents, coaches, and teachers stop pushing you is

17:01the moment you should worry because they've given up on you.

17:04If you're pushed, people believe in you, that there's a chance you might actually accomplish

17:08something. They believe in you.

17:10But you could also internalize it as overwhelm.

17:14Yeah. Like, and so I think this notion of distress tolerance, like what are, what

17:18are the standards? What are the standards for distress tolerance, for performance, for being a

17:24quote unquote functional member of society, while also quote unquote honoring one's feelings about feeling

17:30one feelings? There's, there's no roadmap, I believe, to how to navigate that.

17:38What you said, there is no roadmap.

17:39That happens to be true and it happens to be wrong.

17:42So I know that's confusing.

17:43So let me explain. So here's the first thing to understand.

17:46The way that we collect information, this is why I love being a clinician.

17:50So like, you know, you talked about the last lecture.

17:53So this person was saying, if people don't push you, that means that they don't,

17:56you know, care about you.

17:58They're not invested in you.

17:59They know, the moment that you give up on someone is the moment that you

18:02stop pushing them, right? Makes perfect sense.

18:05And then there are also people who've been pushed to the point where they like

18:07crack under pressure. That's actually way more common.

18:10And so, so generally speaking, pressure, you know, just like any other part of biology,

18:15if I exert pressure on some part, on some joint, on some part of soft

18:20tissue, we'll develop a callus.

18:22It'll become tough. So this is where the, the reason there's no roadmap is because

18:28people aren't the same, right?

18:30So we all have unique genetics.

18:31We all have unique experiences.

18:33We all have a unique internal dialogue.

18:35And so the whole point of personality, and we can define personality like by the

18:39technical terms, which is, it is the way that you interpret information, the way you

18:42perceive the world, your internal reactions and the behaviors that you engage in.

18:48So you can take literally, you know, two different human beings in the exact same

18:53situation. I've worked with a couple of survivors of like genocidal conflicts.

18:57And the really interesting thing about that is not everybody gets PTSD, which is like

19:01really weird, right? Like if you think about, this is like a genocidal conflict.

19:05So we have tons of people who all experience the same thing, but their reactions

19:10to them are really different.

19:11That's what's fun about being a clinician.

19:13What I try to focus on and what I learned, I looked for a roadmap.

19:16And what I found is that there's not a roadmap.

19:19There are thousands of roadmaps.

19:21And those roadmaps come down to, and this is, I think, a huge problem in

19:27the information -based world we live in.

19:30So everyone has problems, right?

19:32And they're looking for solutions, which is great.

19:35The problem, the biggest mistake that I see people make, especially high performers, is a

19:42problem of misdiagnosis. So really good example of this, I had a patient come into

19:48my office, worked in finance, was at a very, very successful firm, came in and

19:54was like, I have really bad anxiety.

19:55Like it's really starting, like I can't eat, like I can't sleep.

19:58My wife is really worried about me.

19:59So he's like, you know, I've got really bad anxiety.

20:01So we start talking about it and he's like, you know, I'm afraid I'm going

20:04to get fired. And we worked together for about 12 months and then he realizes

20:10this environment is not where he's happy.

20:13And the reason he's going to get fired is because he doesn't fit in and

20:17he decides to quit. So what's really interesting is if we had just solved that,

20:22if we'd made his anxiety go away, he would have perpetuated in an unhealthy system.

20:29And this is the thing that I think we forget when we're talking about our

20:32emotions. Like, Andrew, which part of the brain does anxiety come from?

20:39It's a circuit -wide phenomenon.

20:40Sure. If we had, how is it taught?

20:43If you had to teach someone who's taking an undergraduate neuroscience class, and maybe you

20:48wouldn't teach it this way, but if you had to localize it to somewhere, where

20:50would you localize it to?

20:51To one structure? Yeah, one structure.

20:52Everyone would say amygdala. I teach neuroanatomy to medical students, so, or I did until

20:57very recently, so. I'm totally with the limbic system as a whole, right?

21:01But the amygdala. Sure. And the really interesting thing is like crocodiles have amygdalas, right?

21:07So we sometimes forget that these negative emotions are actually really important for us.

21:13They're really healthy for us.

21:15One other really interesting example of this is, you know, I work with a lot

21:20of like gamers on the internet.

21:21So sometimes they'll try to engage in mating behaviors and they'll creep people out.

21:28And one of the really interesting things that I realized is embarrassment is the best

21:34way to not creep someone out.

21:35So if I violate one of your boundaries, and then I express embarrassment, that signals

21:41to you that I realize I did something wrong.

21:45So if I violate one.

21:47of your boundaries. And then I express embarrassment.

21:49That's a really important empathic signal.

21:51And now we have all of this like content on the internet telling people to

21:54be relentlessly confident. And when they become relentlessly confident, they no longer express embarrassment.

21:59Embarrassment is a really important signal to send.

22:01In the example you gave, it's very clear that somebody violated somebody's boundary.

22:05They felt embarrassment. Showing that embarrassment shows that they have some sort of empathic attunement

22:11or awareness that makes them perhaps a little less creepy and a little bit safer

22:16as opposed to if they just kept going forward.

22:20However, if it was a bit vague, like let's say that they did something of

22:24flirtation and it wasn't really clear what it was.

22:28And the other person said, hey, that doesn't feel good to me.

22:31And then they acted very embarrassed.

22:33And the person who said it didn't feel good to them would quite understandably think,

22:38oh, it must've been really bad.

22:40Oftentimes the dynamics are subtle where people don't really know how they should feel about

22:45something. At the extremes, we know.

22:46So I'm going to reverse Russian doll us because I was all over the place.

22:50So you asked about a roadmap.

22:52Then I gave the example of anxiety.

22:54Then I gave the example of embarrassment as another emotion that's helpful.

22:58And now you're asking a question.

23:00So we're going to do it in reverse order.

23:02But I want to get back to that roadmap because I think it's a beautiful

23:04question. I wrote it down.

23:05We haven't forgotten. Great. Let's talk about the ambiguous interactions.

23:08This is fascinating. So I saw a really cool study where when two people are

23:13flirting and that's taped and a neutral observer is watching it, they accurately detect flirting

23:19only about 30 % of the time.

23:22Different studies show 24 % to 42%.

23:23You're saying ambiguity is a problem.

23:25No, ambiguity is exactly what's supposed to happen.

23:28So if you think about what flirting is, flirting is a way to preserve plausible

23:35deniability. It's a way to make you feel safe, right?

23:38So if I am really – Andrew, I'm really interested in your body, bro.

23:43But if I say that, it's – unless you are matching that energy, it's not

23:48going to be safe. It's not going to be good.

23:49It'll ruin our relationship. So flirting by nature is supposed to be missed.

23:54So this is another thing where you're saying like, yes, there's ambiguity.

23:57It could be interpreted this way and it could be interpreted this way.

23:59That's not bad. That's good.

24:00But that's how human beings actually interact.

24:04So Winnicott described this beautifully because flirting is a form of play.

24:08That's literally what it is.

24:10And play is about a potential space.

24:12When I'm playing like dolls with my daughter, it's not defined.

24:16And the whole point is for it to be not defined.

24:20So in that absence of definition, which now everyone is sort of like we're seeing

24:25a social skills atrophy. So the parts of our brain that interpret tone, body language,

24:30things like that, like people are becoming like – we're seeing a rise of like

24:34ADHD and everyone also feels subjectively like they're autistic.

24:37It's because they're losing some degree of social skills because we text back and forth.

24:41And our brains don't – our occipital cortex is not interpreting visual information of people's

24:47facial expressions. So that part of our brain like literally kind of shuts off.

24:51So people are having a lot of difficulty with ambiguity.

24:55People are saying like, oh, this person is sending mixed signals.

24:58Like that's the point. In a relationship, you are going to have mixed signals.

25:03In a friendship, you will have mixed signals.

25:05We all have ambivalence within us.

25:07I want to eat a healthy lean protein during lunch and I also want to

25:12eat a fried protein during lunch.

25:14So ambiguity is actually not something to be avoided.

25:18The really interesting thing, another transdiagnostic factor, really important one, the intolerance of uncertainty.

25:24So human beings who are capable of tolerating uncertainty, better mental health outcomes, more resilient,

25:34improved quality of life, right?

25:37So everyone needs defined answers.

25:39So I'll pause there for a moment just to address your flirtation example, but you're

25:44spot on. We can tell what the signals are at either end.

25:48The point of human interaction is that way we can adapt to each other.

25:53You know, if I put my arm around you, then how do you respond to

25:57that? Do you get up and go to the bathroom or do you lean in?

26:01So these are how human interactions actually happen.

26:05There's a lot of back and forth.

26:06Fascinating. A lot of younger guys talk to me about their challenges in the dating

26:11scene. And one of the things that they seem very challenged with is the fact

26:15that they feel like whatever happens on a date is shared on the internet.

26:20And this is of course not related to, you know, assault or, or them acting

26:27highly inappropriate or, you know, this is really like they're reported as a good or

26:32bad kisser. They're reported as a, um, they pay or they don't pay.

26:36And, and, and, you know, and so I think that the room to explore ambiguity,

26:41um, to them, this is what I hear feels very dangerous.

26:47It feels like a slippery slope where they have to perform perfectly on every measure.

26:52And I'm sure women feel the same way, right?

26:54I just hear from more, more men.

26:56Yeah. It's, it's very tricky.

26:57So I think what we're seeing in the, in the dating world and, and I

27:00guess we're, this is what we're talking about.

27:02Maybe it's top of mind for me because I just, uh, did a bunch of

27:06content on it. But, um, so what's interesting in the dating world is that now

27:11we're sort of adding the internet to the equation, right?

27:13Which you'd sort of talked about.

27:15So let's just understand a couple of things about the internet.

27:18So the first is what the internet, in my opinion, this is sort of like

27:21a clinician's perspective, having read about 200 papers on various aspects of how the internet

27:26affects our brains and our psychology.

27:29First thing to understand is that the internet selects for emotional activation.

27:34It's not even dopamine, in my opinion.

27:37So if you look at like internet, right, so it's not just fun and games.

27:41Actually, the most engaging content is emotionally engaging.

27:45Arousal. Arousal. Absolutely. Adrenaline. And then the other interesting thing is that in order to

27:51maintain arousal, you need a dichotomy of emotions.

27:56So I need to scare you, and then I need to make you angry, and

28:00then I need to show you a cat video, and then I need to scare

28:03you again, and then I need to tell you how AI is going to steal

28:06your job, and then I want to show you this birthday party where this baby

28:11did the cutest thing. So this is literally how they maintain engagement.

28:16And so what's really interesting about this is as our limbic system is like hyperactive

28:22over and over and over again, that's one of the biggest cognitive drains that we

28:26have. So like I think the top three cognitive, the things that drain our willpower

28:31the most, suppressing emotion, repressing emotion, even just feeling emotion is like very exhausting.

28:37The internet is selecting for the most emotionally activating things.

28:42So which tweets get engaged with?

28:45The ones that are the most polarizing.

28:49So then what happens is people are dating, and now you've got a problem because,

28:54and here's the real tragedy, is people will have a perception that if I don't

29:00say the right thing, this will get posted online.

29:02That is not what happens most of the time, right?

29:05But this is where we as human beings have certain cognitive biases where the extreme

29:10example, like we get trained in this in medical school is, you know, once you

29:16miss a cancer diagnosis once, it doesn't mean that every patient after that has cancer.

29:21But that's what the brain is designed to do.

29:23Our brain is designed for survival, which means that if we get food poisoning from

29:27a restaurant even once, our brain doesn't look at that probabilistically.

29:31It takes the worst examples, and that's what we have to base our behavior on,

29:37right? Like if I'm at work and I want to, if I'm attracted to a

29:41coworker, even though there's a 90 % chance that if I express some romantic interest

29:46in them, I'm going to be fine, I can't make a strategy based on that.

29:49I have to base my strategy on the worst possible outcome.

29:53That's what we're seeing in dating.

29:55You said that suppressing emotion is cognitively draining.

29:58Did I also understand correctly that being in constant arousal through different emotions is also

30:05cognitively draining? I don't know if I would use the word cognitive there, but it's

30:09absolutely draining, right? So periods of extended arousal.

30:12And this is where like, when I mean cognitive draining, I'm referring to a paper

30:15that's looking at the anterior cingulate cortex.

30:18And that's where when the anterior cingulate cortex and your frontal lobes are suppressing your

30:23limbic system, that's very draining.

30:26But I think high levels of arousal, right, through the reticular activating formation and things

30:30like that, just being on emotionally, hyperactivation of your limbic system is absolutely exhausting is

30:36the word that I would use.

30:38You mentioned distress tolerance is a valuable skill to have.

30:42It feels appropriate to say, okay, distress tolerance, I totally agree.

30:49Great to be able to tolerate distress to a point, but that sounds like it's

30:55very cognitively and generally draining.

30:58So how would you encourage someone to develop healthy levels of distress tolerance?

31:03But if that involves, you know, constant suppression of an impulse to shout, to react,

31:09that sounds like it could get very unhealthy.

31:11So I realize what we're taking, we're sort of staying on this tangent, but I

31:14feel like what defines healthy distress tolerance if pushing back an emotional reaction or pushing

31:21down an emotional reaction is not good for us?

31:23So distress tolerance doesn't only include emotional suppression, right?

31:30So what's really interesting about distress tolerance is a key feature of distress tolerance is

31:35not even suppressing is the opposite, is accepting your emotions.

31:39It's actually moving in the opposite direction.

31:41Feeling your feelings. Feeling your feelings, right?

31:44Recognizing that you feel your feelings.

31:46What if somebody feels extremely angry and they want to feel their feelings?

31:52What is a healthy way for them to do that?

31:54Three things. Okay. So if you want to learn how to control your emotions, you

31:59want to be tranquil in the face of your emotions is what I would say.

32:03Three things you can do.

32:04The first thing is putting words to your emotion.

32:08So the moment that, so right now, if you, I don't know if this kind

32:11of makes sense, the more angry you are, right?

32:14The more your amygdala is like hyperactive, it is drowning out every other part of

32:20your brain. So the first thing that you have to do is put words to

32:23it. And when you put words to it, you can't put words to, ah, there's

32:28no word there. So the moment that you try to put words to it, it

32:31has to calm down in order for your linguistic centers, Broca's area and all these,

32:36in order for them to like articulate it, you have to understand it.

32:40So Freud understood this like, ah, oh.

32:42over a hundred years ago.

32:44And there's something powerful about processing emotions by putting them into words.

32:48In order to put words to it, we have to tone it down some.

32:51So that's the first thing.

32:53The problem is that people oftentimes think that that is sufficient, right?

32:58So people will say, journal, go see a therapist and talk about your feelings.

33:02Man, the number of times that I've had, like I had this patient who came

33:04in, if I can tell a story, you know, and so like I was a

33:08third year resident. I'd done maybe like a hundred hours, 200 hours of psychotherapy.

33:13So I had a guy come in.

33:14He'd been in the clinic for eight years, had depression, was a dude in his

33:17forties. He came in and he would tell me about why he was sad every

33:19day. Like every week he'd come in.

33:21He's like, I got written up at work.

33:23People are complaining because I snapped at them.

33:26You know, one of the patients is complaining because I didn't give them benzos.

33:29And so he'd come in every week.

33:32He'd talk about why he was depressed.

33:34I'd be like, why are you depressed, bro?

33:35And he'd like, tell me some story about something bad that happened in his life.

33:38And then we did this for six months.

33:40And like, I didn't know, cause I'm like learning psychotherapy, right?

33:44So I'm like, I'm supposed to be supportive and I'm supposed to be like, okay,

33:47like that must be hard for you.

33:48How does that make you feel?

33:49That must be so hard for you.

33:51How does that make you feel?

33:52That must be so hard for you.

33:53We do this dance for like six months.

33:54And then one day he comes in and I'm kind of getting frustrated.

33:56And I'm like, hey, is this helping?

33:59And he's like, what do you mean?

34:00Is it helping? I'm like, is it helping?

34:02Do you feel any better than when you came in six months ago?

34:04And he's like, I thought this is what we're supposed to do.

34:06I'm just supposed to come in every week.

34:07I tell you about how I'm sad.

34:09And then you tell me it must be like, isn't that what psychotherapy is?

34:14And it was a huge light bulb moment for me because talking about your feelings,

34:18especially for men, is not enough much of the time.

34:23Fascinating neuroscience and endocrinology behind that.

34:26Putting words to it is just step one.

34:29Second thing, this is a really important skill, cultivating additional emotions.

34:33So if you look at people who are resilient, if you tunnel down into the

34:37internal dialogue of people who are resilient, you'll notice that they do something else, some

34:41interesting things. So my patients who are very severely ill, right?

34:47And literally what I try to do with them over the course of weeks is

34:50this thing happened and I feel overwhelming shame.

34:56The moment that you start cultivating additional emotion.

34:59So I've been dumped by my boyfriend or my girlfriend.

35:03I'm really, really depressed. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.

35:06They start to catastrophize. They have a lot of negative emotion.

35:09And it's really easy in that moment to forget that, okay, I had three years

35:15of wonderful experiences with this person before things went downhill.

35:19It's really easy to forget all of the positives.

35:21It's really easy to realize that three years of experience followed by, let's say, one

35:26year of a toxic relationship is going to actually protect you from the next toxic

35:30relationship. So cultivating additional emotions is a huge fundamental part of EQ.

35:37And you don't just have to tolerate it or suppress it.

35:40These are the additional things that you can do.

35:41And this is really important.

35:43It's not just cultivating positive emotions when you're feeling negative emotions.

35:46It's the other way around as well.

35:49I've seen more relationships ruined by falling in love than anything else.

35:53And you just fall in love with the wrong person.

35:55You're in a relationship and you fall in love with somebody else.

35:58So many people I've worked with, you know, I have this great business idea and

36:03I get so excited about it.

36:04And like, I'm going to start this AI company.

36:06That's the time that you actually want to cultivate negative emotion.

36:10Cultivate a little bit of anxiety.

36:12What could go wrong? Make sure you ask yourself that question.

36:15Like literally in addiction psychiatry, we have a cool technique that we use with people

36:20where it doesn't really work so much anymore.

36:21But we tell people to play the tape through to the end.

36:25You're really excited right now and you want to do this thing, but play the

36:29tape through the end. What are all of the negative things that could happen?

36:32So that cognitive flexibility, that emotional flexibility is really important.

36:38We have to understand what emotions are.

36:40So a lot of times, you know, this is going around on the internet where

36:42like, feel your feelings, right?

36:44Like, I'm just going to authentically, I'm going to be authentic with my feelings today,

36:48which means that you're an asshole, Andrew.

36:51And I'm just, this is my truth, right?

36:53So we've started like speaking our truths as excuses to being assholes.

36:58Like that's what's happening on the internet.

37:00It's what's happening in real relationships because people are watching social media and they're like,

37:04I should speak my truth, right?

37:07So the other thing that's really important is to understand that an emotion is not

37:11a behavior. An emotion is literally from an evolutionary perspective, and you may know this

37:18better than I do, is information and is motivation.

37:23That's what emotions are for.

37:25So when you feel fear, when you're walking outside, go into the, walk into the

37:31outhouse in the middle of the night and you feel fear, that is all this,

37:36all this sensory input is being processed in parts of your brain that you have

37:40no conscious awareness of. The first thing that happens is that you feel emotion before

37:43you have any logical idea of what are you even scared of.

37:45That is your brain telling you something.

37:48The other thing is it's motivation, right?

37:50I feel like running away.

37:51And this is where unfortunately our brain evolved for a world that we don't live

37:56in anymore. So, you know, back when I used to feel fear because I was

38:00being hunted by a tiger, the natural impulses that our fear encourage us to do

38:06don't work when you've got to pay rent at the end of the month or

38:09you've got to pay your more.

38:10mortgage, or you've got to do well on your performance review.

38:13So oftentimes what we do is we think that feeling authentically means letting our emotion

38:17run the show. We don't want to do that.

38:19We want to ask ourselves, what is this emotion telling me?

38:22Why do I feel fear?

38:23What am I afraid of?

38:25And I don't even think what am I afraid of is the right question.

38:28It's way too like self -help.

38:33It's way too psychotherapy for me.

38:35It's what is my fear telling me?

38:37What is the information and motivation that it's signaling?

38:41Yeah. And then what is it telling me to do?

38:43Like your client who was feeling very anxious all the time, by exploring that emotion,

38:49eventually it sounds like came to the understanding that it wasn't the job for him.

38:54Perfect. Right? That this is not the...

38:56And so he's trying so hard, right?

38:58So the anxiety is like clinging onto his job, but actually once you understand the

39:03emotion, it's actually walking away.

39:06And so once you have mastery over your emotions in this way, and I think

39:10mastery is maybe a better word, it makes life like so much better, right?

39:15That's when we talk about distress tolerance, like that's what I'm talking about.

39:18It's not just suppression. Wonderful.

39:20I so appreciate your answer.

39:22The thoroughness of it, the clarity of it, distress tolerance is putting words to emotion,

39:27adding additional language to it, and exploring the reverse context as well, the negative aspects

39:34of positive emotions, the positive aspects.

39:36So it sounds like it's broadening the time domain, like thinking about this and going

39:42forward, what does this represent in the past, present, and future?

39:45And then really thinking about what the emotion is signaling.

39:48What a beautiful description of distress tolerance, because it's also operational.

39:53People can put this to work.

39:54Thank you. That's fantastic. If you're a regular listener of the Huberman Lab podcast, you've

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40:48The roadmap. If we could go back to the roadmap, if you could spell out

40:53for us, what do you think of as the roadmap to navigate this very complex

40:59landscape that we exist in now?

41:01And this could be relationship with this person.

41:03It could be be a doctor, go to an Ivy League school versus be an

41:08artist or, you know, any number of different examples where we have to make the

41:14distinction of what's wished for us and expected of us versus what is true to

41:23us on the inside. That seems to be where, to me, where the friction of

41:28life exists. Absolutely. So that to me is the most interesting question in life, frankly,

41:32you know? Let me just make sure I understand your question.

41:36The friction and joy of life is the rest of the world wants me to

41:41do all of these things.

41:43And sometimes this doesn't want to do those things.

41:49Sometimes it does want to do those things.

41:51When do I listen to this?

41:52And when do I listen to everything that?

41:55Yes. Right? Okay. Beautiful question.

41:58So this is where I'm going to lean into the Eastern stuff for a second.

42:04So I spent seven years studying to become a monk.

42:06And then I went to medical school and I became a psychiatrist.

42:10And the really interesting, I had a really weird experience of training in psychiatry because

42:15everyone was teaching me how the mind works, okay?

42:18And this is like good teachers at like the Harvard Medical School.

42:20And they're like, here's how the mind works.

42:22And this is what the subconscious is.

42:24And like there's cognitive behavioral therapy, right?

42:26So like Aaron Beck taught us that there's like thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and all

42:31these things connect. And the really fascinating thing, my most instinctive response when people would

42:38tell me how it is, is no, it's not.

42:42So in the East, they have a completely different conception of mind.

42:46And here's the big problem with the Western conception of mind.

42:51You're a scientist, right? How do you learn about something, Andrew?

42:55Andrew. You have a question.

42:58Okay, good. You pose a hypothesis.

43:00Excellent. You design an experiment.

43:02Good. Where you isolate variables.

43:04Okay. And you either refute or you, in some sense, support your hypothesis.

43:13Okay. And then you design another experiment.

43:16Great. It improves, right? And ask another question.

43:18You just keep going. And then you get tenure and then you start a podcast.

43:22Beautiful, right? Just kidding. No, no.

43:24So let me ask you this.

43:25How do you study the mind?

43:28Here's what's really interesting, right?

43:30So here's what's really fascinating.

43:32Like, do we have any scientific evidence of the existence of thought?

43:36We could define thoughts. Some pattern of network activity.

43:40What I mean is like, if we literally look at it, we have no instrument

43:44that can detect a thought.

43:45That's right. Right? So we have no proof.

43:48We cannot measure a thought.

43:50Like it is like literally impossible.

43:51We can measure blood flow to the brain.

43:53We can measure electrical activity in the brain.

43:55We can induce thoughts, right?

43:57We can do that, but we have no idea that a thought exists.

44:01So like psychiatry is weird because every other part of medicine and science, we can

44:07measure what we are studying.

44:09In psychiatry, we can't do that.

44:12So along came Freud and he made a fascinating discovery, which is when a human

44:16being speaks, we understand something about what's in their mind.

44:21And the whole reason we get trained and the reason that we can measure mental,

44:27we can measure your mind, right?

44:30So we have validated scientific instruments using things like factor analysis and stuff like that,

44:35where we can use the Beck depression inventory, which will tell you how depressed you

44:39are. We have good ways to measure stuff.

44:41So there's a lot of science in psychiatry.

44:43The basic problem though, is that we have a fundamental problem.

44:46We cannot, we have no insight into what is in someone's, we have insight into

44:50someone's mind, but we can't detect the mind.

44:52That is a fundamental problem with science.

44:54Okay? Here's the cool thing.

44:57We have no scientific measurement of thought, but we as human beings have measurement of

45:04thoughts. Can I ever know what you were thinking using any instrument of science?

45:09You're the psychiatrist, so I'm tempted to say yes, but no.

45:12No. Right? Can you know what you're thinking?

45:15I would like to think so, but I'm guessing - Yes.

45:17I'm guessing, I mean, I can ask myself what's going on in there, but I

45:21don't necessarily have the ability to put language to it in a way that captures

45:26what I'm thinking. But you are capable of observing your thoughts.

45:30You are capable of, I'm not capable of observing your thoughts, but you can, whether

45:35you detect all of them, whether they're right or wrong, that question is separate.

45:38Just the fundamental idea of like, you can measure an axon, you can detect your

45:43thought, right? We all live in this way, right?

45:46So that we can get to the edge cases later.

45:48So here's the cool thing.

45:50So when I went to India and I studied for seven years, the difference between

45:54the psychology that was developed from the contemplative traditions is its foundation is internal observation.

46:02So yogis are capable, we're all, it's not like some special ability, but they based

46:08their theory of mind on what they could observe.

46:11Whereas in the West, that is not something we have access to.

46:15So their theory of mind is very different.

46:18So when I was training to become a psychiatrist, people were like, this is how

46:20the mind works. And I'm like, no, that's not true, right?

46:23There is a different way.

46:24So here's one example, getting to the roadmap.

46:27So the biggest thing that I think is different is the ego.

46:30So in the East, they have the concept of a part of our mind that

46:36is the ego. And in the West, we use the word ego, Freud defined it

46:41in some way. We all have this intuitive sense of identity, but in the same

46:45way that logic and emotions interact in a very mechanistic and defined way, in the

46:52West, our model does not include this piece.

46:55And the roadmap that you're talking about has to do with that piece.

46:59So if the rest of the world, because things get complicated, right?

47:02That's why it's so exciting for you and so challenging.

47:05Things get complicated as everyone wants you to be something.

47:08And then we make a big mistake because we do this thing called internalize.

47:13And the moment that you internalize, now is it coming from the outside or is

47:17it coming from you? Is this something that I've been conditioned to want or is

47:23it something that I truly want?

47:25Which then begs the question, what the hell is truly want?

47:29Is there a difference between want from over here and want from over there?

47:32And the yogis will say that the answer is yes.

47:34So once you understand the ego and the ego functions in a couple of ways.

47:40If I ask you, Andrew, who are you?

47:43What would you say? Andrew.

47:47Okay. Is that it? I mean, I have a list of roles that I occupy

47:52in life. Very good. Are those you?

47:55They're facets of me. Okay.

47:58Right. So anything that you can use to describe tenured professor at Stanford.

48:02I wouldn't put that first, but that happens to be true.

48:05I'm a brother. Brother. I'm a boyfriend.

48:08Skater. Once a skater, always a skater.

48:11But yes. Right. I'm a public educator.

48:13Great. I'm a son, a friend.

48:16All of that stuff is ego.

48:18Mm -hmm. Okay. So ego is anything.

48:20When you say I am dot, dot, dot, anything that defines you after that is

48:26actually part of your ego.

48:27Mm -hmm. And the interesting thing is that it's not that the ego is bad.

48:31This is a common misconception.

48:32But like ego, we all need ego to function in the world.

48:36If you are okay not functioning in the world and you're moving towards enlightenment, then

48:40you no longer need ego.

48:41But generally speaking, we need ego.

48:44So if you're looking for a roadmap of what you truly want in life and

48:49what is healthy for you and not healthy for you, when you say you're Andrew,

48:53right, there's a lot of other people who can claim to be Andrew, but they're

48:56not you. You're talking about a fundamental internal experience of the self.

49:02And you were Andrew before you were.

49:05a boyfriend. You were Andrew.

49:07You've always been a son.

49:09But actually, you were Andrew before you even knew you were a son, right?

49:13You were still Andrew. So there's a fundamental bundle of experience.

49:18That's really what you are.

49:19And I think that the best roadmap, if you're trying to figure out what to

49:23do in life, try to peel away the layers of your ego.

49:28And I know that's getting complicated.

49:30But if we sort of think about what is it that practically gets us jammed

49:34up in life, is when I try to be something.

49:38I know this is going to sound weird.

49:39I'm sure you have ambition.

49:41But I don't think you are where you are because of your ambition.

49:44I think you are where you are because you listen to this internal voice, not

49:49try to live up to external expectations.

49:52100%. I can truly say that every choice I've made to get into fish and

49:57animals when I was a kid, obsessed with birds and fish and then skateboarding and

50:00then biology and science and where I'm at now, has been some sense of an

50:06internal passion and something pulling me from the outside.

50:10And it's just a, I just go.

50:12Those choices were always made because I knew in my heart's heart, there was no

50:17other option in the positive sense.

50:20I'm going. I'm pulled toward it and I'm driven toward it.

50:24Right. So you are listening to a part of you, right?

50:29So it is an internal thing that the world then meets you halfway.

50:32So it makes it possible where there's a whole thing about that.

50:34For me, it's a physical energy.

50:36Fine. If I feel physical energy coming up in my body and I want to

50:40move toward something, and for some reason I feel it more in my left arm

50:43than anywhere else, this has always been true, I'll have a thought and I know,

50:47and that's when I go, oh my goodness, I'm going to do this thing.

50:50I know I'm going to do it.

50:52And there's no backing out because it has to happen.

50:56That's how it feels. Yeah.

50:58Right. So any desire that you have that comes from the sense organs is probably

51:05not this thing. So the sense organs can trigger something within you.

51:11But if we look at like, you know, social media, half the problem is that

51:15the hardest problem I have as a psychiatrist is convincing people that they don't really

51:21want the things that they say they want.

51:23It's like so crazy, right?

51:25Like we're being programmed. We're being conditioned.

51:29And I realized this the other day when like I was like, man, like I

51:32wish I talked to my agent about like doing more talks.

51:36Like I want to go someplace and like get like paid speaking engagements.

51:39And I realized I actually hate that.

51:42I don't like that. It's just what I thought people like us do.

51:46And I've done a couple of them, which have been really fantastic.

51:48And I really enjoy that.

51:49But I like sitting with people, right?

51:51So we're trained and just think about it.

51:52Like anyone who's listening to this, think about all the shit that you've seen that

51:57you think you want, but you don't really want.

52:00You just like look at other people and you're like, yeah, I want that thing.

52:03It can be a particular kind of relationship.

52:05It can be a particular job.

52:07Like, you know, we all want like all this random stuff.

52:09It's all coming from our sense organs, right?

52:11This is why advertising is a thing.

52:13So stepping away from sense organs is really important for that roadmap.

52:18Second thing is anything that you want that is a comparison.

52:24That is born of the ego.

52:25The ego is what defines you, right?

52:27So we can say tenured professor.

52:31We can say associate part -time instructor.

52:35And so any comparison requires a definition.

52:39Does that kind of make sense?

52:40Yeah. Like, so all of the gold medalists, silver medalists, bronze medalists, that's a comparative

52:44thing. If I say I'm a silver medalist, then my desire for the gold medal

52:48can come out of the ego.

52:49Does that kind of make sense?

52:50Yes, it makes sense. The reason I'm sort of with my hand below my lip

52:55is because I'm so struck by this because I've had this feeling for a while

53:01now that most of the danger in life comes from the need, the feeling that

53:09we need to prove something to others or to ourselves.

53:13Yep. And yet I know it's healthy to prove things to myself.

53:17Like it's felt good to be able to accomplish certain things.

53:19You know, I did that.

53:20Like I could do other difficult things, but the origin of, of all of that

53:25work for, in my mind, it's only healthy, at least for me, if it's not

53:32by virtue of trying to prove something.

53:34It's like, there's a difference between a genuine heart's desire, for lack of a better

53:38way to put it, and what you're calling a pursuit of, of trying to win

53:44at some game in one's head.

53:46It's like a video game that, that isn't real.

53:48Yeah. It's, it's not that it's not real, right?

53:52So, so I, I, I, I agree with you a hundred percent.

53:55And I think there's a couple of important things.

53:57So, you know, proving yourself is not wholly wrong, but understand that it is the

54:04ego. That's what it's going to gratify, right?

54:07So if you have an ego of, I am a loser by all means.

54:11So this is part of the process.

54:13I have people in my office who are losers for lack of a better term,

54:1729 years old, living at home, playing video games all day, watching pornography, no job,

54:24dropped out of college. And, and so what they want more than anything else is

54:28to be a winner. And so my work involves two steps.

54:32First, let's help. you go from loser to winner, and then let's abandon the whole

54:37paradigm. Because I've also had people in my office who are billionaires and finally get

54:43to retire at the age of 52 after having sold their amazing third company.

54:48And then after retirement, it's not enough.

54:51They want to make another billion.

54:53They want to do something else.

54:55So that loser to winner, your mind will continually move the goalposts.

55:01If you were hungry before you got it, the thing won't fulfill your hunger.

55:07It may for a little while, and then you have to take another step of

55:09like, okay, losing and winning is now done, right?

55:13And I think you've gone through that.

55:14I can hear it in your words, and people can probably hear it too.

55:17Like the way that probably at some point in your life, being a 10 -year

55:22professional, I don't know why.

55:24That's just the thing that people are the lustiest for, right?

55:29In the world that I think we come from.

55:31It felt good to get.

55:32Right. And I won't lie, it felt good to get at a place like Stanford.

55:36Even though there are many fantastic and extremely challenging places to achieve that, it felt

55:42like the culmination of 20 years of very hard work that I enjoyed, but that

55:50it represented an important milestone for me.

55:53But I knew, I'll just say, and of course, we're talking about this example, but

55:57hopefully people are thinking about examples in their own lives.

55:59But I knew, for instance, I never want to be a department chair.

56:04Yeah. Tons of work doing administrative stuff.

56:06I remember when they told me, you'll be vice chair, and I'm like, oh my

56:09goodness, what do I have to do to avoid that?

56:10Yeah. I also knew that I didn't care about being a member of the National

56:15Academy. A close childhood friend of mine was just elected to the National Academy of

56:18Sciences. We've been friends since we were seven, and I was, I'm so happy for

56:22him because he's doing exactly what he loves.

56:25But I never aspired to be a member of the National Academy ever.

56:28Why? Because what came after tenure in order to go there was a divergence from

56:35what I really wanted to do.

56:36Yeah. So I think this is the key thing about the roadmap, right?

56:39So like we get conditioned by our sense organs.

56:42So like just to keep it super practical, if you're trying to figure out what

56:45you should do, is this coming from my sense organs?

56:49If your sense organ triggers something that's always been within you, right?

56:53So if you see like a frog and like you really want to be interested,

56:57like you want to figure out how the frog works.

56:58But the interesting thing about the difference between the sense organ thing and an internal

57:02drive is your internal drive will find multiple objects in the outside world, right?

57:07So first it was biology, then it was frogs.

57:10Now it's neuro -ophthalmology. Now it's this.

57:12So I don't know if this kind of makes sense.

57:13The drive is always the same, and it'll encounter different things in the world.

57:17Yes. What is that drive?

57:19Life. We'll get to that in a second.

57:21Okay. So first thing for practically is like, if you're trying to figure out what

57:24should I do, first ask yourself, how have you been conditioned by social media?

57:30Move away from that. Second thing is be careful about any comparisons you make, any

57:35motivation that you have to, because of a comparison, it can lead to success.

57:40You can be successful, but you won't be happy.

57:43Because this is, it's so annoying, right?

57:46So when I want, like, I work with a lot of influencers and YouTubers and

57:50stuff. And so it's like, oh, we want our first million.

57:52And if you're not careful, the moment that you get your first million, like you

57:55want a second million, and then you want a third million.

57:57And then it's even scarier, right?

57:59So like, oh, I got 3 million subscribers.

58:01That's awesome. But then you know what's really terrifying, Andrew, is a guy who started

58:04after me, is getting followers faster than I'm getting them.

58:09Right? And so the ego is never going to be satisfied.

58:13The ego by its nature is comparative.

58:15And even if you're number one, people think the most anxious people I've ever worked

58:20with, not actually true, but yeah, is people who get to the top and you

58:25think that you're done. You're not done.

58:27Then you're looking behind you at all of the people who are younger, harder working,

58:32have the benefit of AI tools, have the benefit of the path that you have

58:38carved, who are catching up on you and will overtake you soon enough.

58:42So one good example of why we get, why we compare is the more you

58:47are judged, the more your ego grows, and the more you will compare.

58:52Right? So this is almost like we're taught how to, when people judge us, we

58:57judge ourselves and we get judged based on ranking.

59:00And, and so, you know, this is what we see on the internet as social

59:04media, as we start to get judged more and more and more, we become more

59:09and more narcissistic. This is the narcissistic defense that tries to protect us from judgment.

59:15And so it's happening to everybody and it's escalating the rate at which it's happening.

59:19People are more egotistical than they've ever been.

59:22Do you think that's especially true for people who have large followings on social media?

59:28Absolutely. I mean, so, so I work with, with influencers and was so curious about

59:34the work that I was doing that I tried to develop a program.

59:37So we now have like a creator coaching program where we're like collecting data about

59:40whether it's effective or not.

59:42And, and so the really interesting thing is I think it's a unique like effect

59:47on our psychology. The closest thing is like, you know, a lot of celebrities are

59:50like really messed up and, and that's because they have so many eyes on them

59:54and people don't realize just as a simple example, the brain just doesn't think probabilistically.

1:00:01So you can have a thousand people love the work that you do, but all

1:00:06it takes is one person who's really nasty.

1:00:09That is what your brain is going to focus on.

1:00:11It's going to highlight, it's amazing.

1:00:13I can be looking at like chat that is scrolling during live streaming.

1:00:16There are messages that are faster than I can read, but if someone says something

1:00:21that is dangerous, my mind will flag.

1:00:23Wow. It's like a predator on the horizon.

1:00:25Absolutely. So we have these circuits which were designed to look at a jungle and

1:00:31see a single pair of tiger's eyes.

1:00:34And so the danger scanning mechanism makes it so that the bigger that you get

1:00:39and the more eyes that are on you, the more paranoid you have to be,

1:00:43the more narcissistic you will have to become.

1:00:46Because when someone turns to you and says, you are ugly, you are stupid, in

1:00:50order to defend against that, you have to say, no, I'm not.

1:00:53I am beautiful. I am intelligent.

1:00:56And the more times that you say that to yourself, it's, this is where things

1:01:01get complicated, but you don't, that doesn't result in confidence.

1:01:04So I don't know if this makes sense, but if you are confident, you don't

1:01:09need to say that I'm smart or that I'm beautiful.

1:01:13Does that kind of make sense?

1:01:14What about the, uh, you know, to each their own mindset?

1:01:17Like some people will like the content.

1:01:20I tell myself this, you know, some people will like the content and the way

1:01:23I frame it. And, um, we'll look at it, uh, on the whole that, you

1:01:27know, some episodes more than others, uh, it's, you know, certain things and others won't,

1:01:32they'll, they'll hate it for whatever reason or hate me for whatever reason.

1:01:35And I'm okay with that.

1:01:37Yeah. So I think you're doing a really important thing, which is like a key

1:01:40takeaway. So when someone dislikes what you do, you think about them and not you,

1:01:48that's the opposite of ego, right?

1:01:51So if we take someone who's very narcissistic and they receive a criticism, they say,

1:01:56no, no, no, I'm great.

1:01:58Right. So, so this is where like, literally, I don't know if this is too

1:02:01abstract, but I'll give kind of like maybe a simpler example of this.

1:02:04So, um, I, you know, I trained in Boston and there was a lot of

1:02:08K2 use. So K2 is like synthetic marijuana.

1:02:11And, um, so like sometimes like you walk into the emergency room, there's, there's a

1:02:14dude who's like high on math or like high on K2.

1:02:17Like, you know, he's just saying all kinds of terrible things that has nothing to

1:02:20do with me. Right. And the way that you framed, some people are going to

1:02:24like what you do and some people are not going to like what you do.

1:02:27That's on them. So if we want to step away from the ego, we have

1:02:32to understand that don't take it personally.

1:02:35Like literally that's the colloquial phrase, right?

1:02:37But it's hard to do.

1:02:38So if you're someone at home trying to figure out, okay, how do I connect

1:02:41with my true self? How do I step away from my ego?

1:02:46Notice your reaction to criticism is your reaction of criticism.

1:02:52Are you considering, are you actually being empathic?

1:02:55Right? So what empathic really means is, are you putting yourself in someone else's shoes

1:03:00and the other person, Hey, maybe not everybody likes pineapple on pizza, or are you

1:03:05taking it personally? Do their insults determine your value as a human being?

1:03:11And the moment that that starts to happen, the friction that you're talking about, which

1:03:16can be so fun becomes torture because now you have to make them happy in

1:03:22order to feel good about yourself.

1:03:24You have to make the people around you happy.

1:03:27So interesting. I, I think some of us grew up or somehow internalized the idea

1:03:33that if somebody is angry or is criticizing us and it's being delivered in a

1:03:39certain way, that it must be true versus the ability to just really step back

1:03:47and assess, you know, no, it could very well be they're in a bad mood.

1:03:52They didn't sleep well. Um, you know, I grew up in a community of academics,

1:03:56some athletes, mostly academics. So everyone around me, it wasn't necessarily hyperverbal, but you know,

1:04:04this from training in Boston, there was a way of delivering a criticism that felt

1:04:09like a poison dart that would get right to the, to the heart of it

1:04:14without calling somebody a name.

1:04:15This is actually a very prized skill in academia and medicine.

1:04:19I think it's one of the more sinister aspects of, of higher education and medicine.

1:04:24Um, but it exists in every field, but people aren't going to say, Oh dude,

1:04:29you're, you know, like that was stupid.

1:04:31They're going to find a way to, to kind of thread that, that heat seeking

1:04:34missile. Right. And I think that sometimes getting to this thing about emotion versus language,

1:04:39the more primitive, the expression, though, I hate you, F you.

1:04:45Like it's easier, like you said in the, with the, with the person in the

1:04:49clinic on K2, it's easier to say like, they're crazy.

1:04:52They're on drugs. They are ill.

1:04:56But when something is delivered in a way that's very articulate or calm, we tend

1:05:02to give it more credit as likely to be true.

1:05:05So on the internet, I see most of what comes at me that's negative as

1:05:09I like to think there's also learning there, but if the way it's delivered, the

1:05:13way I've noticed things get past my force field is I go, Oh, wait, wait,

1:05:19like they'll say like a pub med ID.

1:05:21You don't know what you're talking about.

1:05:22Give me a pub. Then I'll go to the paper.

1:05:23I'm like, that actually doesn't say that.

1:05:26But, but in my mind, I thought, Oh my goodness, I must've.

1:05:28screwed up, right? They're not just telling me I'm wrong.

1:05:30They're telling me that I'm wrong because of something on the Library of Congress PubMed.

1:05:34So do you see what I'm saying?

1:05:35So I think that knowing what our fences are good at filtering and not good

1:05:41at filtering is hard. It takes time.

1:05:44It takes years to cultivate.

1:05:47I would hope that it could be quicker, but it took me, excuse me, it

1:05:50took me many years to cultivate.

1:05:52Yeah. Let's just understand. So it's hard to cultivate.

1:05:55It took years for you to cultivate because you didn't have a teacher.

1:05:59Right. Right. So let's be a bit precise here.

1:06:02So like, and this is the key thing.

1:06:04So I think, I hope people are following this because this is how you develop.

1:06:08Like, so one of my colleagues in residency talked about this concept of a Teflon

1:06:13Buddha, right? Like this idea of like being like impervious.

1:06:17So how do you become like psychologically impervious?

1:06:20And what you're talking about when you say a heat seeking missile is your linguistic

1:06:24cortex is doing wonders because it, what a poison dart, right?

1:06:28What they're doing, the reason it's so effective, Andrew, is not just because of the

1:06:33anger. We'll get to the anger in a second, but they're figuring out where your

1:06:36weak point is and they're, they're attacking that weak point.

1:06:40It's not about the size of the missile.

1:06:42It's about the precision. Even in your language, you are talking about a precise attack.

1:06:48So that precision is in academia, people are really good at detecting other people's vulnerabilities

1:06:55and they go for the nuts, right?

1:06:58That's what they do. Like psychologically, they go for the nuts and, and there's, there's

1:07:03all kinds of other things going on here, but let's, let's be simple.

1:07:06So it is when someone has a high anger attack, okay?

1:07:12This means their amygdala is through the roof.

1:07:15So they are thinking in black and white, their attack isn't black and white.

1:07:19A black and white attack is easier to repel because it's not nuanced.

1:07:24Okay. So like when someone is angry, you're right.

1:07:26It is easier to dismiss their anger.

1:07:28And you are also correct that, but it's, it's almost like a, not a, everything

1:07:33you said is correct, but I'd say the model that you're assuming is that these

1:07:36are two opposite things. They're not.

1:07:38The other thing is, so when someone is not angry, they're not black and white.

1:07:43If they're not black and white, it is not easy to dismiss just because it's

1:07:48not black and white, that doesn't activate your anger.

1:07:51It doesn't activate your black and white thinking, right?

1:07:54So when someone is coming at me angry, my empathic circuits are going to activate

1:07:58my own amygdala. I'm going to get angry back.

1:08:01You did this. No, I didn't.

1:08:03Right? So the most psychotic denial, psychotic or delusional denial, that's a better word.

1:08:12The most delusional denial that you'll ever hear is when someone's angry.

1:08:16No, I didn't do that.

1:08:17I never did that. I never did that.

1:08:18I never did that. I never, and they can believe it because that's what happens.

1:08:20The amygdala makes your thinking black and white.

1:08:24You know, when we have adrenaline collapsing or running through our system, it collapses peripheral

1:08:28vision down to a 30 degree cone.

1:08:30So we can only see this thing.

1:08:32So this is the first element of why heat seeking missiles work.

1:08:35When they come at you angry, you're going to get angry.

1:08:37If you're going to get angry, it doesn't matter if they're right.

1:08:39It doesn't matter if they're wrong.

1:08:40You're going to say, no, it's incorrect.

1:08:42It doesn't matter the truth of it.

1:08:43So this is the first element of it, right?

1:08:45So is that they don't approach you.

1:08:47They approach you in an articulate way.

1:08:48When they approach you in an articulate way, it doesn't activate your amygdala.

1:08:51It does in a different way.

1:08:52But then the issue is their finesse.

1:08:56And you said a poison dart, really interesting imagery.

1:08:59It's something that hurts a little bit and then flows through your veins.

1:09:02So I can even imagine when they said that problem idea, your first thought was

1:09:07not a big deal. I know my shit.

1:09:09And then the poison goes into your mind.

1:09:11Well, maybe I don't know my stuff.

1:09:13Oh my God. What if there is a paper that I missed?

1:09:16What if there is something that I, and then that, that injury will grow in

1:09:21your mind. And so all of your, and this is the stuff, right?

1:09:26Like the stuff that hurts us when people insult us, what hurts are the things

1:09:31we believe about ourself. You know, we all have these doubts because we're not perfect

1:09:36human beings because we make mistakes.

1:09:39And when someone figures out, oh my God, this is, this is this person's weak

1:09:44point. And the really scary thing is that humans have evolved to do this.

1:09:49All you have to do is go to any recess in the fifth grade and

1:09:55kids will figure out what hurts.

1:09:57And then they will say it to you again and again and again and again.

1:10:02But I think it's really important to remember, you know, if something hurts, that's your

1:10:06own insecurity and insecurity. Remember, if you say, I am a loser, I am fat,

1:10:11I am ugly. Those are all part of your ego.

1:10:14So there are certain things that you can do.

1:10:16And this goes back to the, what is that voice on the inside?

1:10:19So this is where, you know, in the Eastern system, there is a self beyond

1:10:24the mind. So the mind is not what you are.

1:10:27The mind is an organ that you can observe in the same way that you

1:10:30can observe your hand in the same way that your hand can change.

1:10:33Your mind can change. Your mind changes every day.

1:10:35What's the best way to learn to observe one's mind?

1:10:37Is it meditation? Probably the best way to observe your mind is actually psychotherapy.

1:10:41You'll get better insight into your mind there.

1:10:43But if you want to move beyond mind, and I don't mean that in like,

1:10:46oh, let's move beyond mind.

1:10:48What I mean is that if you look at your experience of existence, there is

1:10:52more to you than thoughts, emotions, and ego.

1:10:55And so if you want to get to that and step outside of your ego,

1:10:59meditation is the best thing for that.

1:11:01And there are lots of studies that suggest that meditation shuts off the default mode

1:11:04network. Default mode network is our sense of like self.

1:11:08There are also many studies that show that you can predict the therapeutic benefit of

1:11:13a psychedelic trip based on an ego death experience.

1:11:17So if someone has an ego death experience when they're using psychedelics, there is a

1:11:21greater likelihood that they heal from it, which has to do with deactivation of the

1:11:26default mode network. When you say psychedelics, are there particular psychedelics that tend to promote

1:11:31ego death more than others?

1:11:32I don't know the answer to that question, but I would say that most of

1:11:36the studies that I've seen are in psilocybin, but that's just because there are more

1:11:40studies on psilocybin, I think.

1:11:43Arguably, MDMA will do it too because MDMA is an empathogen and will help people

1:11:49form bonds and kind of changes their perception of the self, right?

1:11:53So meditation is the best way to dissolve your ego like that, I believe.

1:11:58I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function.

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1:13:47Meditation potentially in a safe clinical setting, maybe exploring ego dissolution through psychedelics, although there's

1:13:54still schedule one drug. So we have to have to be thoughtful in how I

1:13:57communicate this, not just to protect myself, but to protect other people.

1:14:00I normally say that, but yeah.

1:14:03I always just raise it just to be clear what we're talking about.

1:14:07I understood your position on that.

1:14:10The thing inside that we know is our true heart's desire that allows us to

1:14:16navigate the external pressures and the roles, these ego labels that we've given ourselves and

1:14:22that others have given us.

1:14:24Do you know any practices to help cultivate being in touch with that?

1:14:29Yeah, absolutely. So the meditation that I like the most for this kind of thing

1:14:35is meditations around something called shunya.

1:14:38Shunya means void. So if you really look at like all of the attributes of

1:14:43you, right? So I'm a man, I'm a husband, I'm a son, whatever, boyfriend, all

1:14:49of those things are like qualities.

1:14:51Even a loser is like that presence of something, right?

1:14:54I'm a loser. I'm pathetic.

1:14:55That is the existence of a negative thing, a negative valence thing.

1:15:01So if you really look at what you are, imagine, Andrew, for a moment, this

1:15:06is going to be hard, but imagine that you only existed for 10 seconds.

1:15:11What would you be? Like you'd be almost nothing, right?

1:15:16You just get this flash of experience, but you have no narrative identity.

1:15:21You have no sense of self.

1:15:22All you are is just a raw receiver of an experience.

1:15:27And like I sometimes empathize with a child when they're first being born, that first

1:15:32shock of awareness. And you don't know what the hell is going on and you

1:15:35start crying, right? You have no idea who you are, what you are.

1:15:38You're just a chunk of receiving.

1:15:41So there are shunya practices which allow you to connect with the void within you.

1:15:47And the void within us is actually the most basic part of what we are.

1:15:50It's actually what's at the bottom.

1:15:52And so there are some ways to sort of understand what this is.

1:15:57Like, so if you think about, you know, watching a beautiful sunset and you cease

1:16:03to exist, you're just soaking in the sunset.

1:16:06You don't have any thoughts.

1:16:07You don't have any worries.

1:16:08It feels incredibly peaceful, right?

1:16:11And you are there. You're not comatose, but you don't have a personhood in that

1:16:18moment. Another really great example of this is like, if you really need to -

1:16:24to pee and you're like waiting to use the bathroom and then finally you get

1:16:29your turn, the moment you start peeing, you cease to exist, whether you've got mortgages

1:16:35or you need to get a Valentine's Day present or you have to do this,

1:16:38you have all those thoughts, you were just there as a nothing.

1:16:42So these shunya practices are a little bit, you have to do them with a

1:16:46little bit more caution. There's some like introductory practices.

1:16:49One example is if you close your eyes for a moment, this is going to

1:16:56sound kind of weird, but like where do you feel your body?

1:17:00Like so think about proprioception, right?

1:17:01So like pay attention to your arms, your head, your nose.

1:17:06So what I want you to do is focus on the area of the solar

1:17:09plexus and look for like an absence of feeling there.

1:17:15Like as you breathe in and out, like you can feel your rib cage expands.

1:17:19Maybe you can feel your heartbeat.

1:17:22But if you really pay attention to just the area of solar plexus, there's going

1:17:25to be a feeling of emptiness.

1:17:28And so as you meditate upon that, you'll get closer to shunya.

1:17:35The other really interesting, easy way to get a taste of shunya is close your

1:17:40eyes. I want you to breathe in and then breathe out.

1:17:50And then when you're ready, breathe in again.

1:17:54And when you're ready, breathe out.

1:17:56Just breathe nice and slow.

1:17:57And now what I want you to do is pay attention to the time between

1:18:06breaths. Between your breaths, you will have stillness.

1:18:15Not during the breathing. During the breathing, you exist.

1:18:18Inhalation, exhalation. But in between exhalation and inhalation, there's a very beautiful stillness.

1:18:28For people who are having trouble feeling that, I love this because there's an interesting

1:18:32cognitive technique. Catch the moment where inhalation becomes exhalation.

1:18:38In your normal breathing, not absence of breathing, because you're normally breathing in and out,

1:18:43in and out, in and out.

1:18:44Catch the moment where one becomes the other.

1:18:47That'll help you find shunya.

1:18:48And shunya is defined as the void.

1:18:51Void. It's also zero. Emptiness.

1:18:54Yeah. There's no thought of roles or anything else.

1:18:58And here's the beautiful thing.

1:19:00Once you find shunya, you can go into it.

1:19:05So it's like, as you practice this, right?

1:19:07So I'm sure that there's some neuroplasticity going on where your brain is wiring.

1:19:11And then when bad things happen to you, it's happening to my body.

1:19:16It's happening to my mind.

1:19:17In here, there's nothing. So I tested this when my dad passed away.

1:19:23So I remember going to the funeral and seeing his body.

1:19:27I remember touching his skin, like his face, and shocked at how cold he was.

1:19:33It was like my dad, but he's like ice.

1:19:36And so I was grieving and I was sad and I was crying.

1:19:41But I was like, is that thing still there?

1:19:43And I found that thing was there and I felt at peace.

1:19:47Like it is the mind that is sad, but I'm not sad.

1:19:53The body is grieving, but I'm not grieving.

1:19:56That's really what I am.

1:19:58That's just emotion. It's not really me.

1:20:01When we become identified with our emotion, right?

1:20:05When we were going through a breakup and we're like, oh my God, I become

1:20:09sadness. I become sadness incarnate.

1:20:11But then when you step away from sadness, when you are watching sadness from the

1:20:15outside, it can actually be wonderful.

1:20:17And that's why we like sad movies.

1:20:19We feel sad, but we feel great.

1:20:23The difference is, are you the sadness or are you watching the sadness?

1:20:29And what is doing the watching?

1:20:31Because the sadness is in the mind.

1:20:32There's something outside of the mind observing it.

1:20:36That shunya will help you find that thing.

1:20:39And that's how you become, I mean, that's the core of resilience.

1:20:43So when I work with these influencers who are being stalked and, you know, just

1:20:49no matter what they do, someone is there unhappy with it, right?

1:20:53Because you're talking about the internet where they're, they're literally people out there who are

1:20:56delusional, who are projecting all kinds of stuff onto you.

1:21:00They've never met you, Andrew.

1:21:02And then they say that you're the incarnate of evil.

1:21:06And like, how are they making that?

1:21:08They're living in a corner of the internet.

1:21:11And so in order to withstand that, in order to withstand the judgment, in order

1:21:18to withstand the poison darts, right?

1:21:21The interesting thing, if you want to be impervious to the poison dart is you

1:21:25are inside. The poison dart hits your ego, it hits your body and the poison

1:21:31flows through you and it hurts, but you are actually even beyond that.

1:21:36He seems to come up almost every episode, but my good friend, Rick Rubin, who

1:21:40you would absolutely enjoy spending time with and he with you, I I'm certain of

1:21:45that, uh, just talking with you today and knowing him very well, um, has talked

1:21:50a lot and written a lot.

1:21:51A lot about how this getting beyond or outside or separate from the ego is

1:21:57the essence of really the work he does with creative artists.

1:22:00It's really getting them outside of the perceptions of others.

1:22:04It's one of the reasons why when he's worked with artists, when they're not yet

1:22:09famous, they're in their, they might be ambitious.

1:22:12They might want some of that, but they're just doing their art.

1:22:17They're not filtering it through feedback.

1:22:18And there's something so beautiful about that.

1:22:21Then it gets contaminated. And then the work over time is to ask whether or

1:22:26not people can get beyond that.

1:22:27But you're talking about Shunya, is that how you pronounce it?

1:22:30Accessing this void, getting away from the ego as a practice for everyone, everyday life,

1:22:36not just people, not just influencers and on the internet.

1:22:39You're talking about the kid on the playground, the person on social media going with

1:22:45comparison or at the game, looking at what the other kids' moms or dads have

1:22:49or are doing, wearing, et cetera.

1:22:52Yeah. I'm talking about the older sister whose younger sister is getting married first.

1:22:58I'm talking about the sibling whose older sibling got admitted to an Ivy League university

1:23:05and they didn't. But I'm talking about the two of y 'all that started the

1:23:09job at the same time and your friend gets promoted and you don't.

1:23:12And all that stuff hurts.

1:23:15Right? And the real tragedy here, I've worked with so many people who are incredibly

1:23:19successful, is sometimes when we get that hurt, we adapt.

1:23:22We become ambitious. We say, I'm going to be that thing.

1:23:26And it leads us to success, but we pay the price of happiness.

1:23:30And the real tragedy is that some people believe that you get one or the

1:23:34other. You can be ambitious or you can be happy.

1:23:38But I think you are a great living, breathing, walking example of when you tap

1:23:43into what really drives you, then you can be successful.

1:23:47I don't know if you're happy.

1:23:48I actually am very happy and very peaceful at this stage of my life.

1:23:51I am. I mean, I struggle like everyone else with having to do work to

1:23:56clear the contaminants in my own and working on myself, certainly.

1:24:01One thing that I've done that I'd love your thoughts on, because perhaps it offers

1:24:06a useful tool for people, is whenever I feel I'm not as in touch with

1:24:11that part of myself as I would like, or I feel like I've drifted from

1:24:15it or I'm just kind of caught in the current of whatever it is I've

1:24:18signed up for in life, which I enjoy, but now it's contaminated and there's sewage

1:24:22floating next to me, so to speak.

1:24:24I find some way to bring things into my home environment that remind me of

1:24:29that feeling when I was a kid.

1:24:31So recently, for instance, I converted an art gallery into a living space.

1:24:35This is something that I can now do in my life that I certainly couldn't

1:24:38do some years ago. And I love fish tanks, so I brought in Aquaria, and

1:24:43I've got my fish tanks, and I've got a pet octopus.

1:24:47And my girlfriend brought, for Valentine's Day, I got her flowers.

1:24:51I said, oh, there are the flowers we got back from dinner.

1:24:53They were there. And she goes, I got you some plants.

1:24:54And I turned around, and the place was, like, filled with plants.

1:24:57And I love animals and plants.

1:25:00I was like, oh, my God.

1:25:01So she clearly gets me.

1:25:03And I was like, oh, my goodness.

1:25:04And now when I wake up in the morning, I love those plants.

1:25:08I need her to take care of them because I walk near a plant and

1:25:11it dies. Fish and animals, I'm good.

1:25:15But when I'm surrounded by things that just feel really good and wholesome and just

1:25:21kind of basic to who I know myself to be at a certain level, then

1:25:26I feel like I can take that energy into everything I do, and it serves

1:25:30as a filter. Like bullshit shows up as bullshit at that point.

1:25:34People's issues show up as their issues.

1:25:37Real criticism that I need to internalize, I like to think, still gets signal above

1:25:42the noise. So I tend to put things outside me to reawaken that.

1:25:49But I love, love, love, love that you're offering tools that have nothing to do

1:25:54with building something, buying something, because those things are still external to me.

1:25:59This meditation is really about accessing it from within first.

1:26:03And so anyway, that's just a reflection.

1:26:07Yeah. So I want to point out, I think this is, it's such a masculine

1:26:13thing. So if I can, so, you know, men are really interesting.

1:26:19So we're trained to not manage our internal environment internally.

1:26:24So I had a patient who was, I saw him in jail, he was 19.

1:26:30And he'd been in, he'd been in jail like three or four times.

1:26:33And so I was talking to him about, you know, how he like wound up

1:26:37here because he's like 19.

1:26:38And so he was, you know, telling me that when he was 12, his dad

1:26:42passed away. He's got three sisters, all older and a mom.

1:26:48And what they told him is like, you're the man of the house and you

1:26:50have to provide. Heavy. And so he was like, okay, this is what I have

1:26:55to do. Like, so men do this thing.

1:26:58It's really interesting. We do emotional regulation through our environment.

1:27:02So if my environment makes me feel a certain way, if my mom, dad, brother,

1:27:08sister, boss is upset with me and makes me feel bad, if I make them

1:27:13happy, they will no longer be upset with me.

1:27:15And if they're no longer upset with me, I will be content.

1:27:18We shape our... internal emotional environment through our external environment.

1:27:23And the scariest place I see this is when men I work with, and it's

1:27:27not that women, this doesn't happen to women as well.

1:27:30This is more the way we're socialized and there's an effect of testosterone and estrogen

1:27:33here as well. This is a biological element to this.

1:27:36But then they fall into this trap of like their emotions are determined by the

1:27:44environment. So men are just the way that they solve their internal emotional problems is

1:27:50by interacting with their environment.

1:27:52That's just very common. So it doesn't mean that we shouldn't utilize the outside space,

1:27:57right? So I'm not suggesting, I mean, if you really want to be, if you're

1:28:01pursuing enlightenment, then don't get Aquaria.

1:28:04But like most of us aren't doing that.

1:28:06So I think we should utilize, shape our external environment.

1:28:09There's tons of evidence that changing your environment is critical from recovering from addiction, right?

1:28:15If you're still hanging out at a bar, it's going to be really hard to

1:28:18be so sober. So we want to utilize those things, but we don't want to

1:28:21become dependent on them. So shape your environment for your benefit, but also be stable

1:28:29enough internally to where you don't need your Aquaria to feel stable, which I doubt

1:28:35you need. No, no, no.

1:28:36I raised that example. I see exactly what you're saying.

1:28:39And no, I use that example because it's like the ability to get in touch

1:28:44with a piece of oneself that feels very true, very wholesome, and not, for lack

1:28:54of a better word, contaminated by anything external.

1:28:59Yeah. It feels good. And I think it's the energy that one takes away from

1:29:03that, that I take away from that, that excites me.

1:29:06Yeah. So I think it's a great point, right?

1:29:08So I think we sometimes forget.

1:29:11So I was giving a talk for executives about work -life balance, and I was

1:29:15like, there's no such thing.

1:29:17So I think we try to, work is over here and balance, like, you know,

1:29:21home is over. Sorry. Yeah.

1:29:22Life is over here. That's not how it works.

1:29:24You as a human being carry yourself between both situations.

1:29:28When things are bad at work is when people have affairs.

1:29:31If things are bad at home, you're not going to be your best at work.

1:29:35So I think you're, you're, you're really tunneling down into, I think the most important

1:29:39part of it, which is that look at how you get shaped and look at

1:29:42the person that you carry into your next thing.

1:29:47There's a whole science behind that, which I think we probably don't have time for,

1:29:51but like this idea of some scars, which is like almost like learning.

1:29:55So if you sort of look at every experience that you have, you learn something

1:29:58and you carry yourself forward, right?

1:30:00Into the next experience, into the next experience.

1:30:02That's what we call learning.

1:30:03Well, let's talk about some scars because, um, years ago, 2017, I was exposed to

1:30:07yoga nidra. Okay. The guy that taught me nidra said the whole purpose of nidra

1:30:13is yes, to learn how to relax the body with an active mind, et cetera,

1:30:17to make up sleep that perhaps you didn't get the night before, become a better

1:30:20sleeper, all that stuff. But he said, the purpose is to burn the some scars

1:30:25down to the roots. You're supposed to, um, these are like weeds that come up

1:30:30in your life and you're supposed to burn them down.

1:30:32And nidra is one way that you, you, you rid yourself of, of these things.

1:30:37Is he totally off base?

1:30:39No. So we, we have to be careful because you love aquaria and you love

1:30:43frogs. Now we're getting to what I love.

1:30:44Great. Okay. Great. I prefer that.

1:30:46Let's understand what yoga nidra is and what a samskara is.

1:30:50So one of the biggest challenges that I have as a psychiatrist, my job is

1:30:55not in teaching people things.

1:30:56It is in helping them unlearn.

1:30:59So if you look at what trauma is, if you look at ambition, if you

1:31:02look at ego, you know, you, you kind of said, you try to connect to

1:31:06this childlike energy. I forget if it was like Leonardo or Michelangelo or, or someone

1:31:11who's like, you know, it took me my whole life to learn how to paint

1:31:13like a child. So if you look at literally what happens with the human psychology

1:31:18is we accrue these micro traumas as we go through life, we accrue associations.

1:31:25I had a patient who was absolutely traumatized.

1:31:28So was dating someone engaged to a dude.

1:31:30Okay. Discovered that her fiance had been lying.

1:31:35So he was in med school, failed out.

1:31:39Uh, for two years, he pretended to go to class every day.

1:31:44And then, then when he graduated, he got a job, but he didn't really graduate.

1:31:49He didn't really graduate. Here's the scary thing.

1:31:51So he would leave in the morning, drive to his parents' house, spend the day

1:31:57there. Parents would deposit money in their account.

1:32:00And so for years, like, then, so one day I think, I think what happened

1:32:04is she went to his parents' house and she saw him there.

1:32:07Cause she like, you know, were they in on the, yeah, they were in on

1:32:10the lie. Right. So they were in on the lie.

1:32:12And so she is just like, like, what are you doing here?

1:32:16And then, then she discovers not only him, but her parents have been depositing money

1:32:20into their account every month.

1:32:22And so she discovers this betrayal.

1:32:24And so I'm shocked. It's insane.

1:32:25It's absolutely insane. The, the, the lengths that people will go to, to, to deceive

1:32:30you. Oh, believe me. I've experienced somebody creating a world that was a complete fabrication

1:32:37and eventually all came tumbling down for them.

1:32:40But I remember being like, oh my God.

1:32:44Yeah. Right. So when you're about to marry this person.

1:32:47it leaves scars. So then what happens is she goes into her next relationship and

1:32:53she has an immense amount of distrust, is paranoid about her next partner.

1:32:57Next partner didn't do shit.

1:32:59And this guy is getting like, like there's so much paranoia, right?

1:33:03So if you look at life, life is a series of like bad stuff that

1:33:07happens to us. And then we adapt.

1:33:10But the way that the human mind adapts is the same way that the human

1:33:13body adapts. Because if something is, if we get really damaged, we get a callus,

1:33:18we get scar tissue. Scar tissue is not functional.

1:33:20It's protective, but it's not functional.

1:33:22So most of our adaptations become maladaptations later on.

1:33:27Okay? So this is what a samskara is.

1:33:30So it's like this emotional energy that lingers with you and shapes the way that

1:33:35you see the world. So it's really fascinating because we have all this like trauma

1:33:39processing and the yogis were talking about it for thousands of years as samskaras.

1:33:45And now you were talking about, you know, this thing down there that needs to

1:33:48be burned. So let's understand that for a second.

1:33:50If you look at your mind, stuff pops up, right?

1:33:55Have you ever wondered why certain things pop up?

1:33:59No. Right? Have you ever thought like, why aren't you interested in the scent of

1:34:04a rose? Like a certain, like it's so weird.

1:34:08Like our mind just generates thoughts and everyone is trying to learn discipline and willpower.

1:34:13I think it's terrible. Willpower is so bad because why not just shape yourself to

1:34:21have the right desires? Then you don't need willpower.

1:34:24This is what the process of yoga is really about.

1:34:26This is what samskara generation is about.

1:34:28Did you learn a sankalpa when you did a yoga nidra?

1:34:31Well, they talk about it.

1:34:32I confess that I've maintained a very regular yoga nidra practice, but I've not explored

1:34:41the, these aspects of it.

1:34:43So I'll explain to you the mechanism of a sankalpa and like literally it's, it's

1:34:47fucking wild. This is reprogramming your subconscious mind so that the things that your subconscious

1:34:54mind puts into your conscious mind, you can control.

1:34:57Okay? So in the case of trauma, all kinds of weird stuff gets put into

1:35:01our subconscious mind. Like I can't trust people.

1:35:04Then what happens is that floats to the surface.

1:35:07In my patient's case, every time her second fiance, say she doesn't know where he

1:35:14is. She's like, maybe he's scamming me, right?

1:35:17Like that's what she thinks.

1:35:18So I don't know if that makes sense.

1:35:19That's a thought in her conscious, which is being born out of something in her

1:35:24unconscious. We in neuroscience call this learning, right?

1:35:28So we're learning certain things.

1:35:32So in psychotherapy, we try to get rid of that bad stuff, but let's understand

1:35:36how stuff goes in because if we can understand how the mind is programmed and

1:35:40this is, it's so simple, so neuroscientific, okay?

1:35:43Or maybe you can tell me it's not neuroscientific, but I'm pretty sure it is.

1:35:46Okay. The first thing is the one pointedness of the mind allows things to sink

1:35:53in. So if I'm trying to study optic nerve anatomy and I'm in a burning

1:35:59building with people yelling at me, I can have my eyes look at the paper,

1:36:03but I'm not going to learn anything.

1:36:04This is the really crazy thing is a lot of people study repetitively, right?

1:36:10So I read the paper again and again and again and again, but it's not

1:36:14like each time I read the paper, I get 10 % of the knowledge.

1:36:17If you really pay attention to your mind when you are focused, when your mind

1:36:22is one pointed, you just need to read it once.

1:36:24What we're basically doing is we're rolling the dice.

1:36:27Am I focused this time I read the page?

1:36:29Am I focused this time I read the page?

1:36:30Am I focused this time I read the page?

1:36:32This is also why we have studies on things like writing.

1:36:35So when you write, it improves your capacity to focus.

1:36:38So that's when things enter your memory a little bit more.

1:36:42So one pointedness of the mind is what leads to things being learned.

1:36:49Now, this is how trauma works.

1:36:52So when we, when you are intensely emotional, it actually focuses your mind.

1:36:58Yeah, and as you mentioned before, and I'm so glad you did as a visual

1:37:01system neuroscientist, when adrenaline levels are high, the visual field narrows, our depth perception change,

1:37:08everything becomes a microscope view of the thing in front.

1:37:11Absolutely, right? And when, when we're having an argument because you didn't get me what

1:37:16I asked for for Valentine's Day, and then I tell you, Andrew, you've, you've never

1:37:21gotten me what I want for Valentine's Day.

1:37:23That laser focus, that one statement that I make, even though I told you right

1:37:27before that I love you and right after I'm sorry, that thing sinks in.

1:37:31It's that poison dart, right?

1:37:33It sinks in and that's what you remember because you are focused on it.

1:37:38So when we are emotional, we are focused.

1:37:40So the way that I want you to think about your mind is like a

1:37:43pool of water that has a lot of waves.

1:37:46And when the water is still, something can sink down to the bottom.

1:37:50But when the water is really active, nothing sinks in.

1:37:53So now we get to Yoga Nidra.

1:37:55So in Yoga Nidra, what we are doing is attaining a state of consciousness that

1:38:01is what's called in the yogic scientific literature a hypno -yogic state.

1:38:08So it's not hypnosis, but it's not pure active consciousness.

1:38:14It is a very... very dormant awakeness, if that kind of makes sense, right?

1:38:18You're in this trance. And so in that trance, you're in the edit mode for

1:38:25your unconscious mind. So this is where a sankalpa comes in.

1:38:28So a sankalpa is a resolve that you put in there.

1:38:32And then I don't know how to explain this except in this way.

1:38:36So when I work with a patient who has anxiety and they have this subconscious

1:38:40programming, when we have a therapeutic breakthrough, which there's tons of evidence for, right?

1:38:45So even Freud noticed this, that you have to activate the emotion in psychotherapy.

1:38:49Like my patient that I talked about a while ago, who was like, comes and

1:38:52he talks about how he's depressed, didn't do shit for him.

1:38:56What we have to talk about is why he's angry, how he's been screwed in

1:39:00life, all the people that he's angry.

1:39:02So then once that emotional energy activates, we become one -pointed, we activate that energy

1:39:07in the unconscious. And then if we vent it out, it disappears.

1:39:11That's how you burn away the things, by letting them out.

1:39:15And in nidra, is there an opportunity for emotion?

1:39:20It's a deeply relaxed, but mind -active state.

1:39:23No, no. Yeah. So you don't want emotion in nidra.

1:39:26You are actually... So emotion collapses a scattered mind to one point, but there is

1:39:32a state of consciousness even beyond one -pointedness that we use in studying, where if

1:39:37you talk to people who engage in not even the flow state, but beyond the

1:39:41flow state. So there are people who like the best term...

1:39:44I know it's going to sound hokey, but people who like channel divinity.

1:39:49I think divine is the best scientific term.

1:39:52So there are some human beings, and everyone has experienced this, where like, you're not

1:39:57you, you're like something else.

1:39:59Tell me more. I think the Greek's thought of genius is not a person, is

1:40:04like something you channel. Something coming through somebody.

1:40:07Something coming through. We see this, I think, most readily in musicians.

1:40:12Musicians, athletes, right? So there are some times, like I work with like e -sports

1:40:16athletes, and some of them know that they're going to win.

1:40:20They see the game that they're going to play, and they know exactly what's going

1:40:24to happen. And the crazy thing, it's not a calculation, it's an intuition.

1:40:28I'm sure that on some level, they're calculating.

1:40:30So we call this stuff divine.

1:40:32I'm not saying it's divine.

1:40:33I'm not saying it comes from God.

1:40:34I'm saying that the subjective experience is qualitatively, fundamentally different from like a regular logical

1:40:41experience. So this is a state of mind that is even beyond emotion.

1:40:46It's in the edit mode.

1:40:48In scattered mind, emotion brings us down to some amount of focus, but then there's

1:40:52even a level of focus that's deeper.

1:40:54And that's where the rewriting comes from.

1:40:56That's where the rewriting comes in.

1:40:58And then when you implant something there, that's what a sankalpa is.

1:41:03So when you do yoga nidra, the physiologic element, so this is what's like not

1:41:08bad, but is a necessary step with where we are with science.

1:41:12All the weird mystical stuff, I think is real, but we have to start with

1:41:18the basic science, right? So the way that science works is like, we start with,

1:41:22okay, like, let's look at cortisol production.

1:41:26And then let's look at what happens next.

1:41:28And let's look at what happens next.

1:41:29And let's look at what happens next.

1:41:31So yoga nidra, whether you're talking about cardiac coherence, breathing.

1:41:35So there's the first stage of what we call nadi shuddhi pranayama, which is alternate

1:41:38nostril breathing. But then there's a text called vashishtha samita, which talks about a particular

1:41:45kind of cardiac coherence breathing with a ratio of one to four to eight.

1:41:51So you breathe in for eight seconds.

1:41:53Actually, you breathe in for 16 seconds.

1:41:55You hold for 64 seconds, and then you exhale for 32 seconds.

1:42:00If you do the vashishtha samita version of cardiac coherence breathing, the subjective experience is

1:42:06completely different. You will feel prana.

1:42:10You will feel chi. With that pattern of breathing.

1:42:13With that pattern of breathing.

1:42:14Those are long inhales, holds, and exhales.

1:42:16Yeah. So it's hard to get to, but like literally the subjective experience that you

1:42:21will have is like a sense of vibration on like at the periphery of your

1:42:27body. That's what it feels like to me.

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1:43:47If I may, just a brief editorial about why I also believe that science needs

1:43:54to go down through the physiological first.

1:43:56My lab has done some clinical studies on breath work.

1:43:59We call it respiration physiology for a reason.

1:44:02It's important to be able to fund studies and also to be able to communicate

1:44:05that information to colleagues who, if they just hear breath work or meditation or that

1:44:12it's a separator, right? The field of science can't go into the mystical right away.

1:44:18But what's so interesting is nowadays there are discussions about meditation that are starting to

1:44:23get into the deeper layers.

1:44:24But it took 20 years or more of formal science to do.

1:44:28I'm not arguing with you.

1:44:29I think some people will say, why not just cut to the chase?

1:44:32No, no, no, no. I completely agree with everything you're saying.

1:44:36I think there are ways of editing the nervous system that are non -pharmacologic, that

1:44:42are behavioral. You're describing some of the more ancient ones.

1:44:47I do believe that yogis were and are neuroscientists.

1:44:50They come in through a different avenue.

1:44:53My recollection from Nidra is that there's an encouragement to two things that I would

1:45:01love your comments on. One is there's an instruction in the Nidras that I've done

1:45:05to move away from thinking and doing to being and feeling.

1:45:11You're trying to get out of the state of planning.

1:45:14Is there some shift that's critical?

1:45:16And then the other one is I am statements.

1:45:18There's this instruction to give – like talk about one's deepest heart's desire as if

1:45:23it's already happened. Is that BS or is that real?

1:45:26No, no, no. It's not BS, but we have to understand mechanisms.

1:45:28So let me talk about the science bit for a bit.

1:45:30I have a far – not simpler.

1:45:32I'm a clinician. I think there's a reason we have to start with physiology because

1:45:36when a patient comes into my office, if I tell them do yoga nidra, what

1:45:40is the effect size of the intervention?

1:45:42We need to know that, right?

1:45:43So here's the problem with studying meditation and the benefit of studying meditation this way.

1:45:49The problem is that we're teaching people to swim for eight weeks.

1:45:53That does not show us what an Olympic athlete is.

1:45:56So our science of meditation is in its infancy.

1:45:59The reason why this is really important is because not everybody is a Buddha.

1:46:05So the reason we have to start with physiology is because we need – we're

1:46:08doing scientific studies to make predictions.

1:46:11Why are we making predictions?

1:46:12At least for me, it's to help a human being.

1:46:14So I don't care that there's some yogi who's been in the cave in the

1:46:18Himalayas for 60 years and attained some weird channeling of divinity.

1:46:22What I want to know is like when a human being comes into my office

1:46:24and I tell them to meditate, how much can I pull back on their SSRI

1:46:28if they've been sticking with the practice, right?

1:46:30So you have to start – science is about reliability, not about possibility.

1:46:34That sounds so new age, but it's about what we can reliably predict.

1:46:37And that's a really important place to start.

1:46:40Going back to the Nidra thing, this is the thing to understand.

1:46:44So if you think about planning, planning is a higher -order cognitive function that depends

1:46:51upon other baser cognitive functions.

1:46:55And I'll just give you a simple example.

1:46:57If I care about parties, my mind will automatically plan parties.

1:47:02If I care about avoiding other people, I will automatically plan how to avoid other

1:47:07people. So the planning that you do is whatever, but which things are you planning?

1:47:13That comes from the deeper stuff, for lack of a better term.

1:47:17That's why – so these people, they're not doing the sankalpa in the most classic

1:47:21form, but they're getting there.

1:47:23Because a being statement is the pluripotent stem cell of where you want to go,

1:47:30okay? So what do I mean by that?

1:47:31It's like – so let's be precise.

1:47:34And I know it sounds new -agey, but there's like science here, okay?

1:47:36So let's look at something like self -esteem.

1:47:39So self -esteem is an assessment of yourself.

1:47:43And think about all of the ways if I have high self -esteem or low

1:47:46self -esteem. That will result in so many different – like, fuck, manifestation is not

1:47:51– it's the word, right?

1:47:52That will manifest in your life in so many ways.

1:47:54How do you respond to feedback?

1:47:56If someone asks too much of you, can you set a boundary?

1:47:59And this is the problem.

1:48:00The core of the work that I try to do is I try to help

1:48:02people get to their fundamentals.

1:48:04Everyone's focused on changing behavior.

1:48:07Everyone's focused on increasing willpower to overcome this tendency.

1:48:12And it's like why not just change the tendency?

1:48:16And that sounds so simple, but that's literally what we do in psychotherapy every day

1:48:20when we come in and someone has a narcissistic personality disorder.

1:48:25Andrew, this is personality. This is who they are.

1:48:28And we can psychotherapize them to be someone else for their natural thoughts to change,

1:48:35for the way that they see the world to change, for their behaviors to change

1:48:39on its own. It doesn't require – willpower is necessary when you are trying to

1:48:43not be narcissistic. It is not necessary when you are no longer narcissistic.

1:48:48So we've done it in psychotherapy.

1:48:50We know that if your self -esteem changes, if your sense of being changes, treatment

1:48:56refractory depression will change. Trauma, PTSD will change.

1:49:01Do you have your patients do NIDRA?

1:49:03Some of them. So I also have a whole – I mean, I just started

1:49:08this research and then left academia.

1:49:09But – I was trying to develop evidence -based protocols for particular diagnoses for certain

1:49:15kinds of meditation practices. Beautiful.

1:49:18Right, so for narcissism, I would lean into Shunya practices for trauma healing and specifically

1:49:23the patients who come in who need a fundamental belief change.

1:49:27If they just didn't believe this thing about themselves.

1:49:30So I had one patient who had a lot of trauma in the Sankalpa that

1:49:34she came up with or that we came up with together is, I deserve to

1:49:37be whole, not I am whole.

1:49:39And then if you think about a Sankalpa, that's a compass that you will navigate

1:49:44life with. So the main thing is once it gets into her mind, I deserve

1:49:47to be whole. If people, even her own, she had a lot of self -sabotaging

1:49:51behaviors. And it's like, no, I deserve to be whole, right?

1:49:55That is something that she, and this isn't telling yourself, this is the problem.

1:49:59I wanna be precise. I know it sounds weird, but telling yourself is like, there's

1:50:03a lot of mental activity and you're trying to say something from the outside.

1:50:07Like you can tell yourself, hey, Andrew, I'm gonna remember this mathematical formula.

1:50:13Doesn't work. You can tell yourself all kinds of things, but like telling yourself is

1:50:18very surface level mental activity.

1:50:20That's not how change happens.

1:50:22So when we're talking about like narrative reconstruction, post -trauma, and this is what's so

1:50:28terrible about social media, everyone's like consuming this, like, you know, tell yourself every single

1:50:34day that this is true.

1:50:35That's not how you change your beliefs.

1:50:38That's the science of how beliefs change isn't by telling yourself things over and over

1:50:42and over again. That's gaslighting yourself.

1:50:44It's just trying to drown what you really believe with like, it's like taking a

1:50:50piece of dog poop and putting icing on top.

1:50:53It's not how neuroplasticity works.

1:50:55Exactly. I mean, I can say that with 100 % confidence.

1:50:58I mean, as a neuroscientist, and you know, I don't claim any relationship to the

1:51:02work, but my scientific great -grandparents won the Nobel Prize for neuroplasticity.

1:51:07It is a process that has certain requirements.

1:51:12They have to happen in a certain order and at a certain depth of the

1:51:16nervous system, which is what you're describing.

1:51:18And so no amount of repeating a phrase, positive or negative, is going to engage

1:51:26neuroplasticity. Yeah. And I wish that people knew that because it would provide them a

1:51:31filter through a lot of bullshit.

1:51:34So I think this sankalpa idea and this idea of like, you know, focus on

1:51:38being statements because being statements are like more primordial and they will result in the

1:51:45mental fluctuations of your mind in a different way, right?

1:51:49So they'll automatically result in a certain kind of desire and a certain kind of

1:51:52planning and a certain kind of inclination.

1:51:54They're your most natural tendency.

1:51:57And like, I'm lazy. Like people don't realize this, but like I'm lazy.

1:52:03I'm still the degenerate gamer.

1:52:04You know, I don't like to work.

1:52:06I work seven days a week, but it's not work.

1:52:08The only way I can work seven days a week is to shape my experience

1:52:12of the thing. And this is what a lot of people don't realize.

1:52:16There's a fascinating theory that I think is somewhat true called the theory of constructed

1:52:21emotion. So I forget who's the person who's the pioneer of it, but it's sort

1:52:26of this idea that like we think that, you know, when something happens to us,

1:52:29the emotion is automatic, but we actually construct that emotion.

1:52:34We have a hand in how we receive the world around us, right?

1:52:39So you can, people can criticize you, but you can take it constructively.

1:52:44The way that you mentally respond to something is huge.

1:52:49So when we, when we're doing a sankalpa, when we're doing yoga nidra, are we

1:52:54burning away samskaras? Sure. The samskara is the negative emotional programming, then the adaptation that

1:52:59we made. So it'll burn that stuff away.

1:53:02So you will be free of that stuff, but that's not what I would do

1:53:05that practice for. It's really to put a positive thing in there.

1:53:09And by having a being statement, it may somehow counteract.

1:53:12I think this is where like my science had, I can't be precise enough.

1:53:16I sort of know that how a sunkulp works.

1:53:18I've used it for myself.

1:53:20I've used it for many patients.

1:53:21It really is about attaining that neuroplasticity.

1:53:24It's about attaining that state of mind.

1:53:25And if you don't get there, it doesn't work.

1:53:27Then you're just repeating things to yourself, which is why there's such an emphasis on

1:53:31the physiology, because in order to enter into that state of mind, we have to

1:53:35be really precise with what we're doing autonomically, physiologically.

1:53:39Do you think that liminal states between sleep and awake are also a valuable opportunity

1:53:45for people to rewire their beliefs about themselves and engage neuroplasticity?

1:53:51Absolutely. So hypnagogic, hypnopompic hallucinations are like good examples of this.

1:53:57That state is really weird.

1:53:58So there is one of the 112 techniques that will bring you to enlightenment is

1:54:04to catch the moment of sleep.

1:54:07Beautiful technique, incredibly hard to do.

1:54:10So this is something that people need to understand.

1:54:12When we're talking about meditation, I want y 'all to understand that this is a

1:54:16technique that I did for 12 years before seeing a single result.

1:54:21And this technique will give you, and now we're going completely off the rails, okay?

1:54:27Will give you a lot of insight into your past lives.

1:54:31So there's something, and we can get into the science of that if you want

1:54:35to. But - Like there's something like when people come to me and they say,

1:54:40hey, like I want to learn about my past lives, the technique that I give

1:54:43them is to focus on the liminal state between consciousness and sleep and specifically to

1:54:48catch the moment of sleep.

1:54:50So to see yourself fall asleep.

1:54:53So I do that in Nidra.

1:54:55I can observe myself falling asleep and I'm aware that I'm falling asleep, but I'm

1:55:00not lucid dreaming. I'm watching myself sleep.

1:55:05And I literally feel like I'm falling.

1:55:08There's probably some deactivation of the vestibular system or something going on there.

1:55:13Proprioceptive hallucination. Yeah, something going on.

1:55:17I mean what we're talking about here is to really just break it down is

1:55:23deeply relaxed state. So autonomic tone is very parasympathetic, but alert enough to observe the

1:55:31self. So this is an unusual state, right?

1:55:34Because I normally think about the autonomic nervous system like a seesaw, parasympathetic, sympathetic.

1:55:38So alert, stressed, panic, or asleep, coma, dead, right?

1:55:44You know, and it's going back and forth the entire time we're alive.

1:55:47But what we're talking about here is a weird kind of bending of the seesaw

1:55:50where we're both very relaxed and very alert.

1:55:53And in that state, the brain is more available for instruction, for editing.

1:56:00Many people, I think, use psychedelics trying to achieve this state.

1:56:06That's one avenue. I think it would be amazing if there were more faster entry

1:56:12points. It's 12 years is a long time.

1:56:14I hear that. Other people hear that like, oh, shit.

1:56:16You know, that's a lot of meditating before I get where I want to be.

1:56:19But do you think that there's opportunity for Nidra and, excuse me, Shinya, the void

1:56:26meditation, to be valuable in the short term as well?

1:56:29This is one of the 112 Thantra techniques.

1:56:31It's just that technique. Yeah, that's a really hard one because it has no preparatory

1:56:36practice. It has no physiology to it.

1:56:37It's just catch the moment of sleep.

1:56:39That's it. So that's where, you know, that technique is normally if you've trained yourself,

1:56:45then you can do it.

1:56:46But it's really hard to do just off the cuff.

1:56:49Nidra is very helpful from the get -go, right?

1:56:52So from an autonomic nervous system standpoint, very helpful.

1:56:55We tend to be hypersympathetically activated.

1:56:58So yoga nidra is very good for parasympathetic activation.

1:57:01Yoga nidra is also very good for the rotation of your somatosensory cortex.

1:57:06So, you know, like we have this idea of the homunculus.

1:57:08That's not really what it is.

1:57:09And we can, if I'm wrong - The map of self.

1:57:11Yeah, right? So really what it is, your somatosensory cortex is plastic.

1:57:15And when you do rotations of awareness through your body, it's really good for you.

1:57:20Really helps with things like chronic pain.

1:57:23So in chronic pain, what happens is patients, their somatosensory cortex is literally locked into

1:57:28the part of their body that's in pain.

1:57:31People think that, and it's a, you know, it's a self -reinforcing thing where something

1:57:36hurts, so your brain is thinking about it.

1:57:38And the more that your brain thinks about it, the more that it hurts.

1:57:41So nidra is really good from the get -go.

1:57:43And that's where I sort of think about the benefits of meditation as, first of

1:57:48all, scientific to woo -woo.

1:57:50This we know works. This we have no clue.

1:57:54In my personal journey, it's been really weird.

1:57:57So I was brought to this weird mystical stuff, like kicking and screaming, where, you

1:58:02know, once you're meditating one day and you have a memory from your past life,

1:58:07like, you sit there and you're like, what the fuck is that?

1:58:11Like, is this a hallucination?

1:58:13Is this some form of genetic memory?

1:58:16Like, is this epigenetic memory?

1:58:17Like, what is this? I have no idea.

1:58:18So I'm not saying that past lives even exist.

1:58:21All I'm saying is that there are things that maybe some people can do that

1:58:25will give you the illusion of a past life.

1:58:27That's all we know, right?

1:58:28There's no – and this is where I think a lot of people are very

1:58:30unscientific because they say, if I have a memory of something that didn't happen, that

1:58:34means it – no, it didn't.

1:58:35The human brain constructs memory all the time.

1:58:38Most of our memory is stuff that didn't happen, actually, technically.

1:58:41I have to say – I don't want to interrupt your flow, but I just

1:58:43have to say because I'm feeling it.

1:58:45I'm not saying this to make you feel good, but if it does, great.

1:58:49I mean, you're one of the more intellectually supple people I've ever encountered.

1:58:53I hope that lands because, you know, I've been around a lot of well -educated

1:58:58people and a lot of practitioners, everything from former Mr.

1:59:01Olympias to Rick Rubin to David Cho.

1:59:03So, I mean, we've – I mean, Martha Beck, I mean, who has three degrees

1:59:07from Harvard but talks about spiritual downloads.

1:59:10And I have to say, like, I feel what's missing from health, public health, mental

1:59:18health, physical health, performance, you know, broadly speaking, is this ability to understand how the

1:59:25ancient practices are really of benefit, where the neuroscience and other forms of science can

1:59:31explain it, but also to acknowledge that even where we don't have mechanistic understanding, there's

1:59:39value in the practices. Like, if – you know, I really believe that the healing

1:59:43that everyone wants so badly for themselves and for the world, I really believe that

1:59:48most people want that, resides in this business of going inward that we can only

1:59:54do for ourselves and seeing where our bullshit is, burning it down and unlearning the

2:00:01stuff that makes us unkind to ourselves and others and unproductive.

2:00:05And so, I don't think so.

2:00:05I don't know. You know, I think one of the dangers in discussions around yoga

2:00:08and these things is some people will think, okay, this is navel gazing, this is

2:00:15all me stuff, this is, you know, you just got to, you know, get out

2:00:18into the world and do stuff.

2:00:19But when we hosted James Hollis, 84 -year -old Jungian analyst, he said, there are

2:00:24two things that are critical to a good life, if I may.

2:00:29He said, every day you have to shut up.

2:00:33These are his words. He said, you got to shut up, meaning no whining, be

2:00:38grateful. You need to suit up, meaning you need to prepare for your roles in

2:00:43life, and then you need to show up to your roles in life.

2:00:45But you also need to spend some time getting out of stimulus and response, going

2:00:51inward, and really touching in with what he called your genuine heart's desires.

2:00:58And when he said that, I thought, like, perfect.

2:01:00This is the ambition, the doing, the getting things done in life that we have

2:01:05to do, because no one wants to be the loser you described earlier.

2:01:08Like, no one wants to be that person.

2:01:10And at the same time, no one wants to be, many people think they want

2:01:15to be, but nobody wants to be the person that sold the company, got the

2:01:19marriage and the kids, and is miserable.

2:01:21Because they took a path that wasn't really for them, that they should have done

2:01:25that with someone else. They literally have the wrong, no one would say they have

2:01:28the wrong kids, but they have the wrong life, right?

2:01:31And so I think that what you're describing is the roadmap, and it involves this

2:01:36going inward. And I think that the language around yogic practices for Westerners is the

2:01:43separator. It's where people brace and they go, what are they really talking about here?

2:01:48This is this. And so as a practitioner in the West with this Eastern mindset

2:01:54woven in, how do you bring that to your patients?

2:01:58How do you convince them that this is the path?

2:02:02Because I really believe it is the path, and I think it's actually the most

2:02:06important thing that any of us can do for ourselves.

2:02:08First thing is I don't try to convince anyone of anything.

2:02:11So convincing is not an objective that I have.

2:02:15So I love research, consume a bunch of research, but there's a basic problem with

2:02:20science, which is when we do a randomized controlled trial, we learn about a population.

2:02:24We don't learn about a person.

2:02:26So we can say that SSRIs improve major depressive disorder by about 50%, let's say,

2:02:32but if a patient walks into my office, I have no idea if an SSRI

2:02:37is going to help them.

2:02:38Does that kind of make sense?

2:02:39There's a basic problem of external validity of all of our science, all of our

2:02:43medical science anyway. I'm not sure about opto or neuroscience, but when you apply it

2:02:49to a person, some stuff works and some stuff doesn't work.

2:02:53So my focus is on helping like a person.

2:02:58And then you don't need the woo -woo stuff.

2:03:00I think the important thing is like, understand your ego.

2:03:04Like that's a fundamental thing that is missing from Western psychology.

2:03:08But we all intuitively understand it.

2:03:10This person is egotistical, right?

2:03:12Second thing is like things like perception.

2:03:15Understand your perception. Your perception, and you were talking about the internet.

2:03:18The basic problem with the internet is that it has allowed human beings to no

2:03:22longer live in the same world.

2:03:25This is where AI is even worse.

2:03:27So the more algorithmic you are, so the problem with an algorithm is it shapes

2:03:32your perception. It radicalizes your perception.

2:03:37So an algorithm shows you thing one, and then it'll only show you things in

2:03:41that tunnel. Does that kind of make sense?

2:03:42So you go further and further down the tunnel, and you are living in a

2:03:46different world than everybody else is living in.

2:03:49AI is even worse at this, which is why it's really scary.

2:03:52But there's a first case report of really AI -induced psychosis in a patient that

2:03:58did not have any history of psychosis.

2:04:00How does that even come about?

2:04:01What are they talking to the AI about?

2:04:03We can get into that if you want.

2:04:05It's actually really scary, but we know the mechanism.

2:04:07So here's the cool thing about this case report.

2:04:09This person got hospitalized for psychosis, was started on an antipsychotic.

2:04:13Psychosis resolves. They get discharged, stop the antipsychotic, start to use AI again, and become

2:04:20psychotic again. It's really scary.

2:04:23And the basic problem is that AI is so sycophantic.

2:04:27Our reality testing of the world requires contrary opinions, right?

2:04:34So like when you're like, hey, I have this idea.

2:04:36I want to throw something by you.

2:04:37And then I say, no.

2:04:39So how do we know what reality is?

2:04:41Because we have this perception, but this person has this perception.

2:04:45This person has this perception.

2:04:46So we modulate our perception.

2:04:49Hey, I got you a gift.

2:04:51No, you didn't. What? I told you yesterday that I was going to pick this

2:04:54up. No, you didn't tell me that.

2:04:56So we stay in reality because we get signals from reality.

2:05:00The thing about the AIs is they're language learning models.

2:05:04They don't actually know anything.

2:05:06All they do is scrape the internet.

2:05:08This is a simplification. I'm not a data scientist or AI engineer, but here's my

2:05:12understanding because people wanted to build like a Dr.

2:05:14K chatbot and I tried to get into understanding the mechanism.

2:05:17What an AI does is it just says a word and then it tries to

2:05:22figure out which words are going to make you happy.

2:05:24That's how it knows what's right or wrong.

2:05:25The user satisfaction is the ultimate thing that they're going for.

2:05:29So there's a lot of data that shows that literally there's a really cool paper

2:05:33I can I can send it to you later, but that shows that the number

2:05:35of statements that you have, the more sycophantic it becomes and the more paranoid people

2:05:40will become. So like, you know, there's another case of someone who murdered their mom

2:05:47and then committed suicide because as they expressed concerns about their mom, the AI reinforces

2:05:55that and says, yeah, you're right.

2:05:56Like these people are leaving you out, right?

2:05:58Because it's like trying to make you feel good.

2:06:00Why'd they kill themselves? I don't know the full details of the case.

2:06:03And this is what's really scary about the AI stuff is like people will say,

2:06:06right? So like a lot of people will make the claim, oh yeah, like if

2:06:09you're mentally unwell and then you use AI.

2:06:11So a lot of AI companies will say it's people who are high risk will

2:06:15use the AI and it activates their delusions.

2:06:18But Andrew, here's what's really scary.

2:06:20In order to make that, I don't know if this makes sense, like this is

2:06:24kind of read my mind question, but in order to say only at risk people

2:06:28will become psychotic from AI.

2:06:30What data do you need to make that statement?

2:06:33I think you need people to be harmed by AI to have that basis.

2:06:38Yeah. So in my mind, from a clinical perspective, in order to make the claim

2:06:42that AI only makes vulnerable people psychotic, mentally ill people psychotic, you need to have

2:06:49your control group, which is people who are not mentally ill.

2:06:53You need to have your intervention group, which is people who are mentally ill.

2:06:57You need to give them an intervention and you need to measure their psychosis at

2:07:00the other end. No AI company I've ever heard of has ever done that.

2:07:04Does that make sense? Like fundamentally, they are not determining ahead of time whether this

2:07:08person is mentally ill or not.

2:07:10And they're not monitoring psychosis.

2:07:14Well, I think the studies that have not been done, at least not until recently,

2:07:18that needed to be done and desperately need to be done is to evaluate what

2:07:23are the neuroplastic changes that are caused by social media and AI.

2:07:27I mean, these are the digital anvils that we're shaping, especially young brains on.

2:07:33And now we're surprised like, oh, you know, from 2010 to, you know, 2025, everyone's

2:07:38been, you know, using progressively more social media online more.

2:07:42And, oh, we've got brain rot.

2:07:43And, oh, we, and surprise, surprise.

2:07:45Well, no, there's this thing called plasticity that we knew about.

2:07:48It's just, we didn't understand how the brain gets modified on these platforms, on these

2:07:53algorithms. And instead we looked at, it was like, we were so focused on the

2:07:59content, but not the, the algorithmic underpinnings of the content.

2:08:04Excellent. So, so I am convinced there is not great data because it's early, but

2:08:09I am convinced that basically, cause we know this from like basic psychology, right?

2:08:13Like AI is basically like a cult of one.

2:08:16You get indoctrinated in your own thoughts.

2:08:19So whatever you say to the AI is what the AI will tell you back.

2:08:22This is the narcissism. It is.

2:08:24What you described before that the AI becoming more sycophantic, the person getting more paranoid,

2:08:28you know, the image that was in my mind.

2:08:30What? It was an eccentric billionaire who can control everything in their environment, but is

2:08:36terrified and is controlling of everything because they feel like they're vulnerable if they don't.

2:08:44That's exactly what you described AI is doing to essentially everyone.

2:08:48And, and, and we'll see it also like not only in the, in the billionaire.

2:08:51So the, and there, there, there are some cool studies that show basically like who's

2:08:56at risk. So it's really fascinating what the risk factors are.

2:08:59The amount of usage is huge.

2:09:01Um, so the more you use AI, the more likely this is to happen to

2:09:05you, but I kid you not.

2:09:07I am really, I'm not trying to be alarmist as a psychiatrist.

2:09:11When someone comes into my office, I ask them, do you use meth?

2:09:14Because I'm trying to assess their risk of becoming psychotic based on something that is

2:09:20not like schizophrenia or type one bipolar disease.

2:09:24Now I'm starting to ask people, do you use AI?

2:09:28How much? So I'll ask them these questions.

2:09:30How much do you use AI?

2:09:32Do you customize the AI to be more effective for what you want?

2:09:35So this is, what's really scary is like, this is what people call prompt engineering,

2:09:39right? Do you train the AI to give you more effective answers?

2:09:45Do you use the AI for mental health issues?

2:09:48And do you find that the AI's answers are far superior to humans?

2:09:55And these are the, these are four of the seven proposed risk factors for like

2:09:59bad outcomes from AI. And the crazy thing is like, this is the use case,

2:10:05right? Like we want people to be using AI more.

2:10:07We will. The whole point is that AI is better than other people.

2:10:11I'm going to use prompt engineering.

2:10:12And I, you know, in my community, there's a lot of mental illness and a

2:10:15lot of mental struggles. So a lot of people will use AI and it's really

2:10:20scary that like the use case is the risk factor.

2:10:24And I really think that there's a chance.

2:10:26I don't think AI is evil or all bad or anything like that.

2:10:28But I think we really could be looking at like, like 60 years from now,

2:10:33we're going to be looking back and we're going to be talking about AI the

2:10:36way that we talk about nicotine and tobacco.

2:10:39I'm letting that sink in.

2:10:41When I think about the algorithm being the thing that shapes the brain, the analogy

2:10:46that pops to mind is, you know, if I want to change a nervous system,

2:10:50I don't care if it's a rat, cat, monkey, bat, or human.

2:10:54I know what you're going to say.

2:10:55I'm going to spike adrenaline and I'm going to provide an experience.

2:10:58I mean, these experiments have been done by James McGaw.

2:11:00and others over many years.

2:11:02Like I can give an animal or a person a terrifying experience, give them a

2:11:08beta blocker and their memory for it will be meager if any.

2:11:15If I don't, they're gonna have a very salient memory.

2:11:17It's that one pointedness that you referred to.

2:11:19So spiking adrenaline is the opportunity to create plasticity.

2:11:25Turns out so is spiking dopamine.

2:11:27So is spiking acetylcholine. Turns out that there's this kind of equality to all the

2:11:33neuromodulators. If you can create a high amount of arousal or an unusual state, you

2:11:38can modify the brain for some period of time.

2:11:40I feel like what was never thought about until recently is that when we scroll

2:11:46social media or we are on the internet, we're getting pulsed.

2:11:49Like you said earlier, we're getting pulsed with typically norepinephrine, epinephrine, right?

2:11:54And so it makes perfect sense that the plasticity is both for what we're observing

2:11:59but also for the action of scrolling and going through the wheel of experience that

2:12:05you described earlier. The puppy, the explosion, the political thing, the opportunity to make money,

2:12:11the relationship thing, and then repeat.

2:12:14And surely the platforms knew this.

2:12:16And I don't think they're diabolical in the sense that they wanted to harm humanity.

2:12:20I don't. I think that they are businesses and they want to make money.

2:12:23They want to drive engagement.

2:12:24So many people don't like what I say about AI because they like AI.

2:12:30And I'm also with you.

2:12:31I don't think the platforms are evil.

2:12:33I think they're just not looking at that dimension, right?

2:12:37So no one at an AI company is designing a clinical trial to be run

2:12:42through the FDA to measure.

2:12:43They're just not measuring safety issues, as far as I know.

2:12:47Not at the level that we do when we're looking at pharmacology.

2:12:51I think these people are, you know, someone, and I've worked with so many people

2:12:55who like work at YouTube and Meta and stuff like that, Twitch.

2:12:59And I don't think they're like bad, evil people.

2:13:01Like this is a big, this is a very black or white thinking induced by

2:13:05social media content where like all these companies are evil or they're totally fine.

2:13:10No, it's like - I know some of the founders and owners of these companies

2:13:13and platforms well. And I think they are benevolent people.

2:13:17Absolutely. And I think a lot of times, you know, they're just like, okay, if

2:13:20I'm Instagram Reels and I'm like a programmer, a developer there, and someone's like, okay,

2:13:25like this amount of the market share is TikTok.

2:13:27How do we bring those TikTok users over here?

2:13:29Right? It's like if I have a car and it's like how do I get

2:13:34someone who buys a different kind of car to buy my car?

2:13:36That's just what business is.

2:13:38I don't think they're evil.

2:13:39I think what they're doing, and this is how humanity works, right?

2:13:42So it's like we invent something and then we figure out afterward that it's harmful.

2:13:47So I don't think people should stop using AI by any means, but I think

2:13:52that the health, what I'm most concerned about is that the health effects are a

2:13:56lot more causal as opposed to uncovering.

2:14:00I think there's like starting to be like some pretty startling data behind that.

2:14:05So what do you recommend for young men and women or older men and women

2:14:11around two things, around social media use, AI use, and we have to talk about

2:14:19pornography. Okay. So let's talk about social media use.

2:14:23Do you believe that people should have prescriptions of amount of time, types of interactions

2:14:28they have or won't have?

2:14:29I realize it's hard to create a blanket statement there.

2:14:32No, no, no. It's not that it's hard to, it's that this is a whole

2:14:35other podcast. So like I've studied this.

2:14:37We're definitely gonna have to have you back.

2:14:38We've got a lot of conversations.

2:14:39So there's so much nuance to this because social media is not uniform in the

2:14:43way that it affects your brain.

2:14:44So, right, that's the number one thing.

2:14:48So just because all drugs of abuse are in some way dopaminergic does not mean

2:14:53that their effects are uniform on the brain.

2:14:56So first thing about use of social media, I think a big thing that people

2:15:00miss, so there's some like common stuff that's like just use it less, bro.

2:15:05So what a lot of people miss is the mental state that you are in

2:15:10when you use it determines a lot, right?

2:15:13So if you are feeling bad and you use social media, you're primed for salience.

2:15:20You will be programmed more, right?

2:15:23So this is where like people who use it as a form of emotional regulation,

2:15:27big problem. Another interesting thing about social media, when to not use it.

2:15:32So, you know, you require a certain amount of frontal lobe function, executive function and

2:15:36willpower in order to fall asleep.

2:15:38You need to be able to suppress your impulses in order to be able to

2:15:42go to sleep. Don't use social media before you go to bed.

2:15:46And the main reason for that is if you use social media to the point

2:15:50where you've missed your sleep window, then it's very hard to fall asleep because now

2:15:56your brain doesn't have enough willpower.

2:15:57And this is what happens to people.

2:15:59So there's a really interesting study about procrastination before bed.

2:16:04And what the study found is that there's two kinds of procrastination.

2:16:07There's before bed procrastination, procrastinating going to bed, and then there's in -bed procrastination when

2:16:13you procrastinate going to sleep after you're in bed.

2:16:16So don't use it when you're not feeling good.

2:16:19Don't use it before bed, especially because you're gonna miss that window and then it's

2:16:24gonna mess you up for the next day.

2:16:26You'll be more emotionally fried, more emotionally fried.

2:16:28Like the hour before bed.

2:16:30Yeah, just nowhere near bed.

2:16:33There's the blue light stuff, but I think this, don't miss your sleep window.

2:16:37That's been such a useful clinical revelation when I'm working with a human being.

2:16:41Because if you get past 10 .30 and you're on your phone, then it's gonna

2:16:44become 12 .30. Because you no longer have the frontal lobe function to be able

2:16:47to stop yourself. That's the second thing.

2:16:50Third thing is understand that your brain is, how can I say this?

2:17:02You are developing the standards for yourself through social media.

2:17:07So we're seeing a rise in body dysmorphia.

2:17:10So this was interesting because it used to be that body dysmorphia was like more

2:17:13common in women than men.

2:17:14We're starting to see that even out, especially as we have all these like alpha

2:17:18male influencers. What you see is going to be your standard.

2:17:22I'll put alpha in the air quotes there.

2:17:24You know, so everyone's expectations for what they should be.

2:17:27So I went to Germany recently and I had my kids there.

2:17:30And we went to like a spa.

2:17:33And there were like a lot of like, we went in the middle of the

2:17:35day. So like we were on vacation, but you know, everybody else is at school

2:17:39and whatnot. There were a bunch of old German people there.

2:17:41And like old German people in swimsuits are like not the most attractive human beings

2:17:45on the planet. And my kids were like kind of surprised because there's just a

2:17:49lot of like German people who are old.

2:17:52But like this is what normal people look like.

2:17:54And we've forgotten what normal people look like.

2:17:57We've forgotten what normal is.

2:17:59And the more time that you spend on social media, the more you will be

2:18:03divorced from normal. So I'd say those are like the three things.

2:18:06And sure, if you want to use it less, like use it less.

2:18:09The less you use it, the better off you're going to be.

2:18:10But I'm sure everyone has said that a thousand times.

2:18:13I think what people don't realize is that the impact of it is not always

2:18:18uniform. That your psychological vulnerabilities, and people know this, if you've ever stalked your ex

2:18:24after they get together with somebody else, like people know what I mean, right?

2:18:28Like you're like, your ex is now dating someone else.

2:18:31And then you look at their pictures and you like look at all their pictures

2:18:33and you make yourself like kind of feel worse.

2:18:35Don't use it when you're vulnerable.

2:18:37That's huge. I realized that my statement about, you know, alpha males and air quotes,

2:18:41I want to be very specific, not to protect feelings at all because no one

2:18:45I'm about to talk about needs a protection for their feelings.

2:18:47But I think there are some incredible male educators and examples online, you know, of

2:18:53people who are showing up in different aspects of their life in really spectacular ways.

2:18:58I mean, good friend, Jocko Willink, for instance, right?

2:19:01I think he has a ton to offer.

2:19:04My friend Ken Rideout has a ton to offer.

2:19:06You know, there are many, many great examples.

2:19:09When the people I was referring to and air quotes are that was in reference

2:19:13to this kind of newer trend of looks maxing as it relates to what you're

2:19:17talking about, about this, you know, over obsession, in my opinion, on looks and on

2:19:23cosmetic perfection, which I do think is going to be, if it's not already very

2:19:30hazardous for young men, the feeling that even just the idea that variation in looks

2:19:36is being discouraged, that there's sort of this need need for everyone to look the

2:19:40same is so very different than how I grew up, where I feel very fortunate

2:19:44that there was, you know, kind of a range of different appearances within the scope

2:19:50of healthy that define people's unique characteristics.

2:19:55And now this looks maxing thing seems to be all about everyone having like this

2:20:00angle of jaw, this cheekbone thing, this type of skin, this type.

2:20:04And that's the part where I go like, hey guys, like, please don't waste your

2:20:08life. Like this is a fool's errand.

2:20:10It's going to destroy them.

2:20:11Here's what's really scary. So like, I'm not a couples therapist, but I just made

2:20:15a guide to relationships because everyone in my community is struggling with loneliness.

2:20:20And here's the really scary thing.

2:20:22If you look at the research, looks are not that important for a relationship.

2:20:26So if you, there's some really fascinating studies on charisma.

2:20:29So looks are number six on, if you do a multivariate regression analysis, actually, I

2:20:36don't think it was multivariate, but if you look at the factors of charisma, looks

2:20:40is number six. And if you look at like the most charismatic people on the

2:20:44planet, like no offense, but like, you know, Winston Churchill, amazingly charismatic, not the most

2:20:50looks maxing guy out there, you know?

2:20:52And so I think the really scary thing is that a lot of this like

2:20:55information on social media is just wrong.

2:20:58It's not based in science at all.

2:21:00Like what we talked about with flirting, people don't realize if you're flirting with someone

2:21:04and they don't get it, that's actually fine.

2:21:07That's why you have to make three attempts to flirt with someone statistically.

2:21:11And then you should level up, like escalate the signal that you're transmitting.

2:21:15Another really interesting data point because I'm excited about this, but women who are of

2:21:21average attractiveness and high signaling are more likely to end up in a relationship and

2:21:27be approached than women who are very high attractiveness and low signaling.

2:21:31Could you define signaling? Yeah.

2:21:34Making it known that you're open for a relationship, eye contact, smiling.

2:21:39So this is what people don't understand is like they think like, okay, if I'm

2:21:42hot, things will happen. That's not how it works at all.

2:21:46There's a lot about how to flirt, how to communicate interest, how to be embarrassed.

2:21:51And all of these things are like positive things that people don't understand.

2:21:55That charisma is... about having vision, because if you're looking for a long -term partner

2:21:59and they're trying to figure out, can I be with this person?

2:22:02They have to have a sense of your vision of life to see if they

2:22:05fit with you. That's actually way more important than looks.

2:22:08The ability to handle adversity, huge element of charisma.

2:22:14So someone wants to know if stuff goes south, can I count on you?

2:22:20Way more important than looks.

2:22:22So the only thing with looks is that in online dating specifically, people will judge

2:22:26based on looks, but there are numerous studies that show, not numerous actually, one study

2:22:30at least that I've seen that shows that if your profile indicates purpose, man or

2:22:36woman, it increases your attractiveness.

2:22:38So the problem with all the social media stuff is not that it's wrong.

2:22:43I work with a lot of incels.

2:22:45I work with a lot of beta males.

2:22:47It's not that they're wrong.

2:22:48It's that they're woefully incomplete.

2:22:51They haven't done a study of the whole literature.

2:22:53Sure. If you're more attractive, it is easier to get dates.

2:22:57Here's the scariest statistic. Drive for muscularity is inversely correlated with length of relationship, right?

2:23:08So the more that if you're watching social media and you're like, I need to

2:23:11be pumped. I want to be pumped.

2:23:13I want to be pumped.

2:23:15That's what drives people away.

2:23:19It's hard to have a relationship with that kind of person.

2:23:21So by all means, get muscular, but want it less, which is really interesting because

2:23:26what I see is people wanting it more like looks, maxing.

2:23:29I want this. I want this.

2:23:30I want this. So deprioritize it.

2:23:32Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting.

2:23:34I mean, the drive and vision thing is and purpose thing is so interesting because,

2:23:39you know, this is one thing where I'm not saying everyone should go into science,

2:23:43but in science, you apprentice yourself to somebody else and then to somebody else as

2:23:48a postdoc. And then eventually whether or not you get to succeed or not as

2:23:51an independent scientist is entirely based not on what you did.

2:23:54That's just proof of an ability, right?

2:23:57It's based on your vision.

2:23:59Like, is there something exciting?

2:24:00And that's what we joke in science.

2:24:03Like every year there's a prom king and a prom queen on the job market.

2:24:07And it's the person who has the most interesting and compelling vision.

2:24:10That's who you're hiring. And yes, they tend to have been successful in the past.

2:24:14You need that, but that's necessary, but not sufficient.

2:24:17It's so important that you're raising this.

2:24:19Do you think that young men are indeed falling behind in terms of, we hear

2:24:23this all the time, that they're falling behind their age matched peers that are women

2:24:28in terms of just sort of life progression?

2:24:31Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's no, I think there's no question of that.

2:24:35So I forget if it was 41 % of college graduates are men now.

2:24:41So I think like the, it's really lopsided.

2:24:45I think in 1975, the average age of marriage for a man was 23 .8.

2:24:53And now it's 30 .8.

2:24:56It's not average, median. So half of the people are actually older than that.

2:25:00For women, it was 21 .1 to 28 .4.

2:25:03People will make financial arguments around that.

2:25:07I see that a lot.

2:25:08People will say, well, it's very expensive to, you know, to be able to raise

2:25:11a family, et cetera. That's often what you hear, at least in California.

2:25:14People will say that they're waiting because they need to establish a certain level of

2:25:17income. Is that true? Sure.

2:25:19I mean, I think that's what people are subjectively feeling.

2:25:2250 % of people under the age of, adults under the age of 30 live

2:25:25with their parents now. I forget what the statistic used to be like 20 years

2:25:29ago. So we are absolutely seeing like economic difficulties.

2:25:33So everything is slowing down, right?

2:25:35And, but I think that there is, the biggest difference is as a society, men

2:25:42are the one group of people that we expect to help themselves.

2:25:48So if you look at like, and there's like, like, I'm not, I'm not saying

2:25:53women don't deserve help. So, you know, there's some examples of this that I think

2:25:57are not great. So there are homeless shelters for every gender, and then there are

2:26:02homeless shelters for women. There are only, there are no male only homeless shelters.

2:26:06I think that's a good example of you don't need a male only homeless shelter

2:26:09because that's an example of like women who are in every, all gender homeless shelters

2:26:14are really way more unsafe than if they're on their own.

2:26:18So like, that's an example of like, I don't think everything should be equal between

2:26:21all genders. But I think the challenge is that, you know, if you just talk

2:26:26to men, or if you talk about men, there are many things that will say,

2:26:30okay, like the patriarchy is harmful to both men and women.

2:26:33Fair enough. But like, what are we going to do societally, systemically to support the

2:26:38men who are struggling? So there aren't, even though only 41 % of people who

2:26:42graduate from college are men, the number of male only scholarships is like really small.

2:26:47So as a society, it's really interesting.

2:26:50I think we're not really supporting men in the way that we need to.

2:26:55Now, a lot of people will hear this as, oh, it is my responsibility as

2:26:58a woman to do things for my husband or boyfriend or whatever.

2:27:03I don't think it's like women's responsibility.

2:27:05I think that's a big problem historically, that women have been responsible for certain aspects

2:27:10of men. I think the work that I do and the work you do, the

2:27:14work we do is to try to help men, women and everybody else take care

2:27:17of themselves. But I do think there's there's plenty of data that suggests that.

2:27:23Men are falling behind. If you look at rates of addiction, deaths of despair, this

2:27:28is a really interesting scientific measure that came a lot out of the UK.

2:27:34These are basically deaths that relate to suicide.

2:27:37Male suicide rates are four times what they are for women.

2:27:42So it's interesting, like now hopefully this is changing, but when I was in residency,

2:27:47we had women's mental health clinics.

2:27:49We didn't have male mental health clinics.

2:27:51Do men in relationships, are they protected from some of the negative effects that you're

2:28:00describing? Oh yeah, this is fascinating.

2:28:01So do you know what Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is?

2:28:03Have you heard of this?

2:28:04This is when people die of a broken heart?

2:28:06Yeah. So this is what's really fascinating.

2:28:08People don't realize this, but women are far more likely to initiate divorce.

2:28:14So I think the interesting statistic about this is you can look at gay couples.

2:28:20So gay men who get married have less than a 50 % divorce rate.

2:28:24I think they get divorced maybe 30 % of the time.

2:28:27Lesbian couples have the highest divorce rate.

2:28:29So they get divorced, I think, something like 60 % of the time.

2:28:32So it's even greater than 50%.

2:28:34So I did a lot of work on this because I've had so many patients

2:28:39who, when they go through a breakup, like it really ruins their life.

2:28:42And there's research on this.

2:28:44Okay. I'm not like misogynist or anything like that.

2:28:47So if you look at qualitative research, if you ask a woman after she goes

2:28:51through a divorce, what did you lose?

2:28:53She will say, I lost a relationship.

2:28:56If you ask a man, what did you lose?

2:28:58They say, I lost a life.

2:29:01So this is just, it's just different.

2:29:03So women will oftentimes form many connections.

2:29:07So when they lose their relationship, they lose a relationship.

2:29:12But men are, by some amount of biology, by some amount of conditioning, by some

2:29:18amount of culture, oftentimes will have one emotional support in their life, which is their

2:29:24wife. And I've worked with plenty of women for whom this is overwhelming because they

2:29:29become their husband's therapist because their husband doesn't know how to manage their own emotions.

2:29:33That's not good. That's not healthy.

2:29:35But if we're looking at outcomes, the cortisol spike that men get after divorce is

2:29:41way higher. The amount of inflammation that they experience is way higher.

2:29:45I think they have an acute risk of heart attack that elevates.

2:29:50So some of this is probably biology where we're just wired differently.

2:29:54Like this is also another thing that's really interesting.

2:29:57The inflammatory response from a cold is greater in men than it is in women.

2:30:02So like when my wife gets sick, she's able to do stuff.

2:30:05But like my inflammatory response is actually like I'm out.

2:30:08And there's a lot of physiological evidence for why that is.

2:30:12And it may have something to do with if you sort of look at like

2:30:14in the animal kingdom, you know, a male lion is much more likely to fight

2:30:18by baboons, much more likely to get scratches and things like that.

2:30:21So we need a more robust immune system.

2:30:26So we want a stronger immune response.

2:30:28But yeah, Takatsubo cardiomyopathy. I mean, the mortality risk of divorce for a man is

2:30:34way higher than a woman.

2:30:35It's interesting because, and these are individual cases, but not population studies, but I've had

2:30:42a lot of young men and their parents reach out to me.

2:30:47Like my kid is really struggling.

2:30:49He, you know, he's really languishing and he's really falling behind.

2:30:53You know, he's got these issues that that issues.

2:30:56There are all these like loose correlations that I'll just throw out there.

2:30:59I often hear, and I'm not saying this is the cause, but I'll hear, oh

2:31:02yeah, you know, and even their moms will know sometimes they'll say, you know, he's,

2:31:06he's had some like really serious sexual side effects.

2:31:09He was using these anti -hair loss meds.

2:31:12I wonder, is it that they always want to find like, what's the one thing

2:31:14that can put them back on track?

2:31:16And I'm not a psychiatrist.

2:31:17So I've talked to them before and oftentimes we'll get a sense of what's going

2:31:22on more generally. And I actually have noticed that a number of these guys have

2:31:27relationships. They're very close with their girlfriend.

2:31:30They have very kind, loving, supportive girlfriends and the girlfriends are doing well in life.

2:31:35They're moving forward professionally, but the guy isn't.

2:31:39He's sort of stuck. And that was a surprise to me.

2:31:43I thought they would be totally alone.

2:31:45They'd have no access to, to, you know, dating or mates.

2:31:49No, that's not what's happening in many cases.

2:31:51They're just, they're sort of just stuck.

2:31:54They can't seem to find a profession.

2:31:55They can't seem to get ahead.

2:31:57They're, and, and they've got these very kind, very, very patient girlfriends that are sitting

2:32:02it out with them for, I don't know how long.

2:32:05I don't know if they'll stick around, but that seems more and more common.

2:32:09So they can find the relationship, but they can't seem to launch into, into being

2:32:14a grown man, frankly. Yeah.

2:32:17So I, I think, um, first of all, that was me.

2:32:19So, uh, you know, when I, it took me five and a half years to

2:32:23graduate from college, I graduated with a 2 .4 GPA.

2:32:26And then I started med school at 28.

2:32:29I couldn't support myself financially until I started residency at the age of 32.

2:32:36My wife started working at 16 and has never stopped.

2:32:39And so there was a period of like five years where like, what was I

2:32:44doing? I had a research assistant position at Harvard, but I was basically applying to

2:32:48medical school. And so like, I was going.

2:32:51nowhere real fast. And she stuck it out with me, which is quite amazing.

2:32:55I'm still surprised by her and her lack of pressure and also her supreme confidence

2:33:04that I was going to figure it out.

2:33:06So I've been in those shoes.

2:33:09And I think the big thing for me was I figured out how I worked.

2:33:13And so we have this picture failure to launch, which is a lot of what

2:33:18I deal with. These are gifted kids who then hit a wall like I did,

2:33:23so had a lot of potential, just never really comes to it.

2:33:27They struggle a lot with things like discipline, motivation.

2:33:30I think oftentimes they will look for some kind of solution, right?

2:33:34Because we as human beings, we don't realize that most of life is multifactorial, that

2:33:39if you do a multivariate regression analysis, you're not going to find that it was

2:33:42the hair loss meds. And so this is where we kind of come back to

2:33:46the roadmap where I think the most important thing, and I've helped anywhere between hundreds

2:33:53to millions, whether you consider YouTube or not.

2:33:59And the main thing is they don't know how they work.

2:34:02See, men are not taught to understand, they're taught to do.

2:34:07We're like, do this thing, get a job, do this.

2:34:10And women have all kinds of expectations, have babies, and work, and do everything exceptionally

2:34:16well. But I think we're just not taught how to understand ourselves.

2:34:21So the biggest thing that I see is not a problem of treatment, but it's

2:34:26a problem of misdiagnosis. And one of the things that you learn, I think people

2:34:31don't really realize this, but most of medicine is not treatment.

2:34:35I don't think treatment is usually the hard part.

2:34:37I think the diagnosis is the hard part, understanding really what's wrong.

2:34:42Just as another example of this, I've worked with so many people, young men, who

2:34:47are like, I'm so tired.

2:34:48How do I increase my energy?

2:34:49How do I increase my energy?

2:34:51And what they don't realize is like, if you think about tiredness, tiredness is a

2:34:56signal from the brain. Tiredness is not always low energy.

2:35:01Tiredness is your brain's way of telling you that this is not worth doing.

2:35:06And the interesting thing is there are a lot of things that we do need

2:35:09to do that we will feel tired for.

2:35:11But the real solution to that is sometimes is to force yourself to do it

2:35:15and kind of get yourself out of it.

2:35:18There are some studies that show that exercise is equally effective to an SSRI.

2:35:22So there's a value to that.

2:35:23But I think what a lot of people are missing is their conception of the

2:35:28thing is what's making them tired.

2:35:31You know, if you think about something that you haven't done before and you're like,

2:35:34oh my God, I have to do this thing.

2:35:36And then when you do it, you're like, oh, it's not that bad.

2:35:39And then you procrastinate on doing the thing, even though it's actually pretty easy to

2:35:44do. So changing your understanding of what you are tired to do is the fastest

2:35:51way to be able to do it.

2:35:55But the problem is we don't teach men what's going on inside them, right?

2:35:59We don't teach them about their emotions.

2:36:00We don't teach them about motivation.

2:36:03And so when I focus on that, that's really what I focus on doing.

2:36:07There's an old Sanskrit sentiment that avidya, which means ignorance, is the source of dukkha,

2:36:14which is suffering. All of your suffering in life has nothing to do with willpower,

2:36:17motivation, anything like that. It's all a lack of understanding.

2:36:20And the more I've worked, the more I've realized that the most powerful thing that

2:36:26you can give yourself is understanding.

2:36:29Even if I were to ask you, you know, like the things that are easy

2:36:33for you are the things that you understand.

2:36:36And before you understood them, they were hard.

2:36:39As someone who's lazy, like understanding what motivates you is actually more important than discipline

2:36:48or willpower for me anyway.

2:36:50I'm a degenerate. You know, and I think this is what a lot of these

2:36:54young men who failure to thrive.

2:36:56Like I had one patient who, you know, was 31 years old, struggled with addiction,

2:37:02drop out. You know, two years later, not only is he finishing therapy school, he's

2:37:08becoming a therapist. So he's supporting himself, making about 150K a year.

2:37:11He's also writing a dystopian novel.

2:37:14Two years later, he messaged me it had been published.

2:37:17Right. And it's like understanding why he behaved the way that he did.

2:37:24And the more that you understand how the system works, then you can make minor

2:37:28adjustments and you can make it work.

2:37:30A car is really hard to move.

2:37:33If you're not driving it, you don't know how to turn it on.

2:37:36I totally agree. And I think that the false message that many people have received

2:37:43is, and that we hear all the time, is that a focus on self, trying

2:37:48to understand the self is really just indulgent focus on one's emotions.

2:37:54It's the like me culture, navel gazing, but that's not what you're talking about.

2:37:58You're talking about doing the work of addressing what parts of you are ego.

2:38:03What do you really want?

2:38:06Doing a shinyam meditation, like learning to access the void so that you can really

2:38:10see the difference between who you really are and what's coming at you from the

2:38:14outside. So you can, so you can steer.

2:38:16I mean, that's what I'm hearing.

2:38:18And I think that, that, that.

2:38:19The challenge is that I don't think that there's a language for this exploring of

2:38:23self that makes it very clear from the outset in two sentences that it's not

2:38:30about just being a victim, not about just feeling one's feelings so that you can

2:38:36justify everything as a trauma, right?

2:38:39And I do think there's trauma out there.

2:38:40I think there are a lot of traumatized people.

2:38:42I also think that, you know, we've left now the diagnosis of trauma in the

2:38:47beholder. Like everyone's decided that they're traumatized by this and that, and it's created this

2:38:52other form of trauma, which is that people are fundamentally weak.

2:38:57And the people with real trauma probably aren't getting the treatment they need and deserve.

2:39:03So, you know, it's interesting that we keep coming back to men and boys and

2:39:08the way that they're suffering.

2:39:10This is probably a good opportunity to talk about pornography.

2:39:14Do you recommend that young males just not look at pornography?

2:39:19I think the majority of people report no problems from watching pornography.

2:39:25So, you know, some people will say it's healthy.

2:39:28I don't know that it's healthy or not.

2:39:29I think it's like the way that you use it, just like any other addictive

2:39:32substance. So I don't think it is all bad.

2:39:35That being said, there are a couple of things that are really problematic.

2:39:38The first is that pornography is getting more neuroscientifically engaging.

2:39:43Here's the scariest, like, statistic about addiction.

2:39:46So 5 % of people under the age of 30 had erectile dysfunction, maybe like

2:39:5120, 30 years ago. That number has climbed to like 20%.

2:39:54And a lot of that erectile dysfunction, if you define what erectile dysfunction is, it

2:39:58is inability to maintain an erection through the completion of the sexual act.

2:40:04So it's not that a lot of people think that this means they can't get

2:40:07hard. It's not that they can't get hard.

2:40:08They can get an erection.

2:40:10It's just they can't achieve orgasm or climax.

2:40:12So I think we're seeing a lot of problems with pornography.

2:40:15We're seeing a lot of very young people having erectile dysfunction, being unable to achieve

2:40:20climax through penetrative intercourse. It's affecting the brain a lot more.

2:40:24So the colors are brighter.

2:40:26Things are jigglier. Things are bouncier.

2:40:28There's virtual reality, 8K, 4K.

2:40:30The bigger problem that I'm seeing or the scarier problem is pornography used to be

2:40:36something of passive consumption. So the porn is over there and I'm over here.

2:40:41There's no emotional connection. There's no parasocial relationship.

2:40:45The really scary thing is with the things like OnlyFans, now the person that you're

2:40:51watching pornography for is interacting with you.

2:40:54They're saying thank you. They're appreciating you.

2:40:57You're asking them and they're sending you a picture or making a video just for

2:41:01you. So I'm seeing a lot more scary parasocial relationships develop.

2:41:06I'm seeing emotional affairs. So now like we've added a dimension of our brain, the

2:41:13empathic circuit, the social circuits, the relationship circuits are now starting to activate with pornography.

2:41:21So that's like a whole different ballgame.

2:41:24And then there's a lot of data just about ease of access and things like

2:41:27that. I think pornography addiction, you know, it's interesting.

2:41:31A very strong risk factor is prepubescent exposure to pornography.

2:41:36Young, young kids are on the internet.

2:41:38A majority of people actually get exposed to their first pornography now before they hit

2:41:41puberty. But there's something about when you get exposed to pornography when your brain is

2:41:46developing before puberty, it increases your risk factor.

2:41:50It increases the risk of developing addiction later in life.

2:41:53So there is something just special about sex in the way that it affects our

2:41:59brain. You know, we're talking about salience and things like that.

2:42:02But we've basically evolved this whole thing to procreate.

2:42:06So when we get visual stimuli, when we get auditory stimuli, you know, it turns

2:42:11our brain on in a very profound way.

2:42:14We see a lot of emotional suppression.

2:42:16So what a lot of people don't realize, I work with a lot of people

2:42:18who struggle with pornography, really the emotional regulation component is huge.

2:42:22They're not horny. It's not necessarily a lot of masturbation, which is what a lot

2:42:26of people assume. Oftentimes it's like second screen kind of stuff.

2:42:30It's watching pornography like when you use the restroom and just like you're not doing

2:42:34– you're not jerking off or anything.

2:42:36You're just like watching porn.

2:42:37So sort of like a numbing out type of activity.

2:42:40Absolutely, absolutely, right? So this is a key thing to remember is in order for

2:42:43something to be addictive, it needs two things.

2:42:46It needs to give us pleasure and it needs to take away pain.

2:42:50And as we see addiction, over time it shifts away from pleasure into taking away

2:42:56pain. When we become dependent on something is when we require it to numb ourselves.

2:43:03So I think we're also seeing more pornography because life for everybody, young people and

2:43:11young men is getting harder.

2:43:13So as we become more socially isolated, as we – it's harder to find a

2:43:17girlfriend, as we get indoctrinated by social media, as we become delusional because of social

2:43:23media, as our social skills atrophy, you know, like all of these things are happening.

2:43:29It's a pretty bleak picture.

2:43:31It is bleak. And I think the reason it's bleak is because we haven't been

2:43:35fighting back in a very focused way.

2:43:39So, you know, part of the reason I focus so much on relationships – because

2:43:45I'm not a couples therapist.

2:43:46But like what I – found is that in my patients, I could only do

2:43:50so much without like having them have a relationship.

2:43:54Like you can be depressed, you can be anxious, but if you have a solid

2:43:57relationship, that is one of the most important things.

2:43:59Like some point I really started focusing on this.

2:44:01It was like, literally I was down the street or, you know, on the opposite

2:44:04side of town filming a guide about like, what is the science behind arousal activation?

2:44:12How do you flirt? Like, these are the skills, like, like how do we help

2:44:16people? I think it's like giving them the skills that we used to learn organically.

2:44:20Do you think that a lot of the attention on the muscle building on looks

2:44:28maxing is actually just a safer discussion for young males?

2:44:35Like they can talk about that.

2:44:36They can talk about, you know, trying to get body fat percentages or they're doing

2:44:40like mewing for their jaw or something, you know, like, like I think nasal breathing

2:44:45can be very helpful, but there's the whole thing of looks maxing is so insane

2:44:48to me, but maybe it's a way of talking about wanting to be different because

2:44:55the conversation about sex, about intimacy, about maybe someone has issues with porn or, or

2:45:02erectile issues, maybe that's just like so scary that they have to, that it's kind

2:45:07of a way of them getting close to the topic, but not like really in

2:45:10the topics. Because when people have approached me, uh, and said, Hey man, can you

2:45:14help me out? I'm, I'm really having problems.

2:45:17They're not talking to me about what I just described.

2:45:20They're talking about not knowing which career to have, but then they're asking me about

2:45:24how to work out. And then they're, it's sort of, it's almost like they're, they're

2:45:27kind of, I have a feeling there's a lot more going on.

2:45:31Yeah. So here's what I'd say.

2:45:33One of the great things I learned as a psychiatrist, the best way to run

2:45:41away from an unsolvable problem is to solve something else.

2:45:46So I think you're absolutely right.

2:45:48There's a displacement because I don't even know where to start with how to flirt,

2:45:54but you know what I can control?

2:45:56Like here's the thing about looks maxing.

2:45:58There's no other humans involved.

2:46:00There's no possibility like getting somebody else to fall in love with fucking me.

2:46:06Like that's so hard. I don't even know where to start.

2:46:08I don't even like myself.

2:46:10How am I supposed to get somebody else to fall in love with me?

2:46:12When I look in the mirror, I see disgust.

2:46:16I cannot fathom or tolerate the idea of going on a date and having this

2:46:22person look at this. So I'm going to transform myself.

2:46:26I'm going to solve all of those problems by solving one problem.

2:46:30I'm going to turn it.

2:46:31If I can just do this one thing, I'm going to take a multivariate regression

2:46:34analysis and hyper -focus on one variable.

2:46:37I'm going to do a very interesting selection bias and cognitive bias, cognitive filtering of

2:46:43ignoring all of the beautiful people who are still single or divorced.

2:46:49And the other huge cognitive bias that I'm going to do, when I go to

2:46:53a playground and I see lots of kids running around and I look at the

2:46:57parents of those kids, they're average looking.

2:47:01Right? Most people who have relationships look average, like statistically.

2:47:08That's how it works. But the mind does not know how to grab the problem

2:47:13is too big. Where do I start?

2:47:16Do I learn how to flirt?

2:47:18I'm creepy. How do I learn how to flirt?

2:47:20How do I learn how to flirt without getting rejected?

2:47:22I'm tired of getting rejected.

2:47:23I don't want to get rejected.

2:47:24It hurts to get rejected.

2:47:26It proves all of my insecurities about myself.

2:47:29And that's just flirting. So if you talk to these people, a lot of times

2:47:33what you'll get is anytime you tell them to move forward, what they'll say is,

2:47:38but how do I solve the next thing?

2:47:40That doesn't account for this.

2:47:42Even if I look smacks, it doesn't do this.

2:47:43It doesn't do this. It doesn't do this.

2:47:45And that's why the more that they go into look smacking, because there's this idea

2:47:49that if you're beautiful, right?

2:47:51And this is some really interesting theory of mind.

2:47:54When they look at the people that they're attracted to, in their mind, if someone's

2:47:59a 10 out of 10, and I'd date them in a heartbeat.

2:48:01And if I date them, someone would date me.

2:48:04So I think this looks maxing thing is like a really great way of displacing

2:48:09all of our terrifying, overwhelming feelings of how do I get another human being to

2:48:16accept me? It's way more complicated.

2:48:19The good news is that I think we can actually figure it out.

2:48:23Like, I don't know how many research studies are published, but I was blown away.

2:48:26Did you know that half the studies on charisma are published in religious studies journals?

2:48:32It's fascinating. There's so much science out there.

2:48:35Like, we know so many things.

2:48:36We literally know, like, how people fall in love.

2:48:39We know that one of the reasons that it's harder to fall in love is

2:48:42because the feeling of being in love, you know, that feeling of like, when just

2:48:46seeing someone and like, you feel amazing.

2:48:50And like, just their presence makes you feel amazing, floods your brain with dopamine.

2:48:53So as our dopamine system gets messed up by social media, it has literally become

2:48:58neurochemically harder to fall in love.

2:49:00So now when I have patients, I tell them, go for a walk for one

2:49:03hour before you go on a date and stay off of any technology.

2:49:06Love that. Literally, your neuroscientific capacity to fall in love is increased.

2:49:12May I ask what you think about this?

2:49:14I'm a Big fan lately of boring breaks in order to stay on task for

2:49:19things like writing, podcast research, et cetera.

2:49:22I find that if breaks between cognitive tasks, which are demanding, if those breaks are

2:49:27too engaging, that it makes it much, much harder to reengage in hard work, which

2:49:33I love hard work, but I also experience some of the friction going into a

2:49:37bout of work. Yeah, so what most people do on their breaks is exhausting.

2:49:44Literally, right? So if you spend time on social media, your brain will be more

2:49:48tired at the end of the break.

2:49:51So boredom is great. There's a lot of stuff around yoga and boredom and focusing

2:49:56the mind and things like that.

2:49:58But yeah, I'm with you 100%.

2:50:00So people don't understand what's happening to them.

2:50:03They don't understand also like how to make people fall in love with you.

2:50:07Like I don't mean that, that's the wrong phrase, but so human beings have been

2:50:11falling in love since the dawn of humanity, like literally.

2:50:14And there are certain circumstances that lead to that.

2:50:17There's a cool study that I cite over and over and over again.

2:50:20They had couples go on a date on a stone bridge or a rickety wooden

2:50:24bridge. And the couples that were on the rickety wooden bridge formed a stronger emotional

2:50:29bond. People don't realize that forming an emotional bond depends on shared emotional experience.

2:50:37So we have to feel the same thing.

2:50:39This is such a problem in rehab.

2:50:41My biggest problem when I'm running a rehab as an attending is like people keep

2:50:46falling in love. Like we're trying really hard.

2:50:49Like don't fall in love.

2:50:49Don't fall. These two are getting together.

2:50:51All the nursing staff is aware.

2:50:52They went to their rooms overnight.

2:50:54Like this is happening. Like, you know, we're like don't, no love and no in

2:50:58rehab. But it happens over and over again because everyone is sharing.

2:51:01Trauma bonding is what people call it now.

2:51:03But when you share an emotional experience with someone else, that is what fosters love.

2:51:10But nowadays what happens is like dating is like interviews.

2:51:12Everyone's making judgments on each other based on a profile.

2:51:17None of those things actually correlate with the relationship success.

2:51:20Whether you're six feet, how much money you make doesn't correlate with, I mean, I'm

2:51:23sure maybe correlates on some level.

2:51:24But if you look at the big variables, it's not any of that stuff.

2:51:28And if you think about like how you fell in love with your girlfriend, how

2:51:31I fell in love, like I was, I was going to be a monk.

2:51:34I told my girlfriend, I didn't know we were dating.

2:51:36I didn't even ask her out on a date.

2:51:37I was just like, hey, you want to grab food sometime?

2:51:39I was going to be a monk.

2:51:40And then I even told her, I was like, hey, I'm going to be, I'm

2:51:43going to be a monk.

2:51:44Like this is a temporary thing.

2:51:45And she's like, yeah, whatever.

2:51:47Seven years later, you're back from India.

2:51:50Oh no. Well, so I would come back, back and forth.

2:51:52But so we like data during that time.

2:51:55And the cool thing is like, you know, as an educator, right?

2:51:58Like it's amazing if you teach someone how something works and like love is like

2:52:03not that complicated actually. If given the right environment, internal and external environment.

2:52:10Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I'm not trying to be academic about it, but what you

2:52:13described about an hour off social media before going on a date, I think that's

2:52:16terrific advice to people. I think that this idea that our nervous systems are somehow

2:52:23able to pivot from one sensory experience to the next without the previous sensory experience

2:52:28completely either contaminating or supporting what comes next is so obvious in the case of

2:52:35you get a great night's sleep, you wake up, the next morning you feel great.

2:52:38You get a terrible night's sleep, the next morning you feel terrible.

2:52:41Everyone understands that. But people can't understand the idea of dopamine depletion or just over

2:52:47arousal and then going into the next thing that should be arousing.

2:52:51And it's like under arousing.

2:52:53And I'm not even talking about sex here.

2:52:54I'm talking about social interaction.

2:52:56So when I was looking at the mechanisms of this, I realized why going on

2:52:59a movie is a great first date.

2:53:01You know, people like back when we were growing up, people would go on movies

2:53:04on first dates, right? And everyone's like, why would you go on a movie for

2:53:07a first date? You're not even talking or getting to know the other person.

2:53:10Well, it turns out that movies create shared emotional experiences, which is why people organically

2:53:15figured out that you can go to a movie and it'll actually, it's a great

2:53:20first date. But I think, you know, things do seem bleak, but I think we've

2:53:23got the tools to reverse it.

2:53:26So I think the cool thing is we do have all of this information.

2:53:30And so like we know how to be charming, how to flirt.

2:53:34What are the situations that you need to create in order to foster interactions, foster

2:53:39a relationship, foster emotional connection?

2:53:42You know, what makes you charismatic?

2:53:44What makes you attractive? Things like humor and kindness are incredibly important.

2:53:48Humor is a huge signal that signals both intelligence, because if you can make someone

2:53:54laugh, you can read them.

2:53:57And so it's also a signal of empathy and ability, like, does this person get

2:54:01me? If they can make you laugh, that means that they get you.

2:54:05And the last thing that I'll kind of mention is that we were talking about

2:54:08how, you know, the internet is like people live in different worlds on the internet.

2:54:13And the really scary thing, I made a great YouTube video that was kind of

2:54:16controversial, but why women prefer beta males.

2:54:21And the really interesting thing is that a lot of people were really upset by

2:54:24it. It was about this drive for muscularity and some of the scientific research.

2:54:27But the really interesting thing was the male versus female response to the video.

2:54:32That women were like, yeah, this guy's right.

2:54:34We're actually like these super alpha guys are like not actually like not attractive.

2:54:40Like I would run for the hills.

2:54:42And then a lot of dudes were like, oh, this guy's like, he doesn't know

2:54:45what he's talking about. So it's really interesting.

2:54:47Part of what makes it so hard is not only do we have these like

2:54:50effects from pornography and atrophy of the social circuits of our brain, but then we're

2:54:54also like, we just have bad information.

2:54:56And in my experience, once you get good information, I'm sure this is true of

2:55:00you too, right? Like once you get good information and once you start applying it,

2:55:03once you start practicing it, you'd be amazed at how much understanding a system can

2:55:10give you mastery over it.

2:55:11Oh, absolutely. I mean, I can't claim it in the domains that you're so proficient

2:55:16in, but I'll never forget as an undergraduate working in a sleep laboratory over a

2:55:21summer at Stanford. And every afternoon, the entire laboratory would go outside to watch the

2:55:27sunset. And I asked, I'll never forget, I asked Seiji Nishino.

2:55:31I asked, you know, Emmanuel Mignon.

2:55:35These guys discovered the genes that underlie narcolepsy and that druggable targets now exist, that

2:55:40drugs exist to treat it.

2:55:41But at the time they said, oh, we do this to entrain our circadian rhythm

2:55:44and you need to watch the sunrise.

2:55:46So you need to see sun within the first hours of your day.

2:55:49This was mid nineties. And I remember thinking like, how could that be?

2:55:54And I started reading about it.

2:55:55And the cells that regulate this had not yet been discovered.

2:55:58That was in the early 2000s.

2:56:00Like we didn't even know which retinal neurons mediated this, but these guys knew this

2:56:04from their own lives and their own practices.

2:56:07And, and I started realizing, oh, there's a mechanism here.

2:56:10And there's more became, it got discovered.

2:56:11It was like, this changes mood, mental health, metabolism.

2:56:14I mean, we now just all take this for granted, but understanding the mechanism behind

2:56:19something tremendously empowered. And I share that story because that wasn't, but, you know, 25

2:56:26years ago or so. So what that means is that the things that we think

2:56:33are kind of out there now that are a little bit woo or a lot

2:56:37woo, I guarantee in 10 years, we're going to understand the mechanisms.

2:56:42They'll be called something different or similar or maybe the same.

2:56:46And people will be putting that to work and it's going to improve mental health

2:56:50in, in a major way.

2:56:51In other words, the science catches up eventually, but the practices that work need to

2:56:56be talked about. And that's why I, again, I'm so grateful that you're willing to

2:57:00go there. I think the reason there's skepticism.

2:57:03So I'm a Reiki healer.

2:57:04I'm a crystal healer. I learned block flower remedies and I don't talk about any

2:57:09of that stuff because I think there's no basis for it.

2:57:11Like maybe the energy healer, but like, so I've studied all kinds of things, but

2:57:16I think the reason that people are so skeptical is because there's so much BS

2:57:20out there. So the reason I leaned into yoga and meditation or first, actually primarily

2:57:26because of certain personal experiences I had, but those have the best evidence behind them.

2:57:30And I think the real challenge right now.

2:57:32So the reason I do it this way is because if you look at some

2:57:36of the really powerful techniques from meditation, people can't wait.

2:57:43Like at least the people I work with, they can't wait 20 years to elucidate

2:57:47the mechanisms. You know, when we're talking about sankalpa and yoga nidra.

2:57:51So you can get all the autonomic stuff.

2:57:53Great. You can get some neuroscience stuff.

2:57:55Maybe, right. That's kind of iffy.

2:57:56We don't really know. But then some of this other stuff, like I think if

2:58:00people are not achieving what they want, what I encourage them to do is explore

2:58:06and be skeptical. Like don't just believe it, but try it, right?

2:58:11So like, like if you're doing cardiac coherence breathing, that's not, you should be right.

2:58:14Alternate nostril breathing. You know, do it regularly the way that you were taught and

2:58:19then do it for eight seconds for the inhalation, 32 seconds for the hold and

2:58:2316 seconds for the exhalation.

2:58:24Because 16 - Alternating nostrils.

2:58:26Yeah. Alternating nostrils. Can I just insert one thing?

2:58:28Some people will hear alternating nostril breathing of plugging one nostril than the other and

2:58:33they'll go, oh my God, this is crazy.

2:58:35We had the guy who works on olfaction and frankly breathing because the two go

2:58:39hand in hand, Noam Sobel.

2:58:42And he explained that every 90 minutes around the clock, there's a switch in the

2:58:50dominant nostril through which we breathe.

2:58:52You can observe this even if you have a deviated septum, but one will be

2:58:55more, air will flow more readily than to the other.

2:58:58And it's the alternation of parasympathetic dominant and sympathetic dominant breathing through the autonomic nervous

2:59:04system. And so he's a physiologist.

2:59:06And when he said that, I thought, okay, this alternate nostril breathing thing, like for

2:59:10many years, frankly, I heard about this from the yoga community.

2:59:13I thought like, all right, this seems a little wacky.

2:59:16And here he's sitting exactly where you were, where you are now, excuse me.

2:59:19And he said, yeah, there's absolutely a physiological basis for this.

2:59:23When you breathe through one nostril, you get a very different effect on the autonomic

2:59:27nervous system than you do through the other nostril.

2:59:29And this is constantly alternating, even if you're not plugging your nostril, every 90 minutes

2:59:32from birth until death. There were certain things I would find in the yogic texts.

2:59:37And then I ran into this exact thing where there's, I think they call it

2:59:40an ultradian rhythm, right? That's that, oh, this is like a physiologic thing.

2:59:45And so I lean towards the practices that were physiologically sound, that there's some evidence

2:59:52for it. Because I was like, I'm not going to waste my time and like

2:59:54nothing's going to happen. I'm going to do the stuff that at least I'll get

2:59:57a physiologic benefit. And then as you go into advanced practices, like it's wild.

3:00:01And the really scary thing is that in my mind, there's a lot of this

3:00:06stuff is like scientifically valid, but it's really hard to study.

3:00:10And then the really scary thing, the thing that bothers me the most is that

3:00:15I think there's a lot of stuff that's true that is not scientifically valid.

3:00:19I really think it's kind of like beyond what science is capable of measuring, at

3:00:26least now and in the foreseeable future.

3:00:29Spirituality. Spirituality. I think the simplest example of this is a thought.

3:00:34We have no scientific evidence of a thought.

3:00:38The only reason that we know that the amygdala is where we feel anxiety for

3:00:42is because we measure what was going on in the amygdala.

3:00:44And then we ask to the person, what are you feeling when this part of

3:00:47your brain lights up? Well, you may be encouraged to learn that the great Anna

3:00:54Lemke, my colleague at Stanford, right?

3:00:56An MD and psychiatrist like you who wrote Dopamine Nation has amazing work.

3:01:01She's an amazing woman at the level of clinician, human being, just all around.

3:01:06And such a pioneer. If you look back, she's been five to 10 years ahead

3:01:10of everybody else in terms of her understanding and beliefs about where we're going vis

3:01:15-a -vis the neuroscience impact of social media, et cetera.

3:01:18She has a book that's coming out later this year on spirituality.

3:01:25So serious scientists and clinicians like yourself, like Anna, are starting to go there before

3:01:32we have the rat, cat, monkey, bat, then clinical trial and human work done.

3:01:38So what I love about spirituality personally, it scares me and it frustrates me.

3:01:42But what I like about it is it's the only scientific exploration that no one

3:01:47can do for you. So what I love about it, so I like learning, I'm

3:01:51not really like a researcher, but I'm a very like clinically oriented scientist, I guess

3:01:56you could say, or science oriented clinician.

3:01:58And it's the one thing that you can never, like an experience of shunya, like

3:02:05you can look at like the brain scan of shunya potentially, but to experience it,

3:02:11to figure it out, you have to be the scientist.

3:02:15It is the only kind of subjective experience, which is what spirituality is really about,

3:02:19is attaining certain states, is not something that is ever transmissible.

3:02:24And that's why people are hesitant to talk about it because we sound like crazy

3:02:27people. You know, it's like if I mentioned this technique can give you insight in

3:02:33your past lives, like this guy is insane.

3:02:35But here's the struggle that I had.

3:02:37You're meditating one day and then you have these memories.

3:02:41You have memories. But they're not from this life.

3:02:46And then it's like, you're like, what the hell is that?

3:02:50And I'm not even saying that past lives exist.

3:02:52I want to be really clear about that.

3:02:53But for me, it was confusing.

3:02:55It's like really like destabilizing for your understanding of like what the world is.

3:03:00Especially as a psychiatrist. Well, I wasn't a psychiatrist back then.

3:03:05And so then it's like, okay, well, like now we have to figure this out.

3:03:09So if people are like interested in scientific exploration, you know, I think one of

3:03:15the sad things about the world is like we've explored the surface.

3:03:17We figured it out. But within every single one of us is a dimension of

3:03:23exploration that only you can do.

3:03:27You know, do you think when we're talking about samskara, sankalpa, the unconscious parts of

3:03:31our mind, these liminal states of consciousness, we can hear Andrew talk about it.

3:03:37But if you want to like be there, you have to go there.

3:03:40No one can go there for you.

3:03:42And that's ultimately what I think is like really cool about it.

3:03:46Man, you are one of a kind.

3:03:49I have to say. And I also have to say there's so many things that

3:03:54we didn't cover, but that I would love to have you back to cover at

3:03:57some point soon. But I just want to say you're really one of a kind.

3:04:00I have been, you know, kind of peppering our conversation with this from time to

3:04:04time, but again, the degree and the depth to which you're able to think about

3:04:12the practical concerns that people have, the real problems, the real challenges that they face

3:04:18right now. And then offer tools that are grounded in neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and also

3:04:25ancient practices is just, it's spectacular.

3:04:29I have to say this is one of my favorite conversations I've ever had on

3:04:33or off the podcast. I'm totally lit up by it.

3:04:36And I'm so grateful for what you do.

3:04:39You're an amazing public educator.

3:04:41And I just, I can't thank you enough for coming to talk about these topics.

3:04:45And I know that there's lots more that we could talk about and we will.

3:04:49I really want to extend my gratitude.

3:04:52It's been an amazing thing to hear you touch into these things and to offer

3:04:56practical tools about ego dissolution, about distress tolerance, to make that, you know, operational awareness,

3:05:02to really define what that is, to talk about unlearning as such a critical component

3:05:08of our health. The shinyo meditation example, and I was able to get moments of

3:05:14it during that instruction, even though it was the first time I've ever done it.

3:05:19And so many people are going to benefit from this.

3:05:21And I really want to encourage them to try these practices, to explore.

3:05:26Just as you said, there's really no, there's really no substitute for that self -exploration.

3:05:31Just thank you. Thank you for having me.

3:05:34You know, Andrew, I got to say, you are also one of a kind.

3:05:36I have to say a sign that stands in behind, and you shine against the

3:05:37river in the river in the river alone.

3:05:37There's really no place to be there for saying that everything best thanks for running

3:05:37your party. I... I feel like you could still go.

3:05:39I'm wiped. I mean, I got more hours in me if we need to, but

3:05:43I want to be fair to our audience and to you.

3:05:45I mean, I can see that you've got more hours than you.

3:05:48And it's interesting. You know, I felt that gravity the moment you came into the

3:05:51room. But yeah, I mean, you're really energetic.

3:05:57And so it's been awesome being here.

3:06:00And thank you so much.

3:06:01Thank you. Well, the energy is only partially intrinsic.

3:06:05It's also the consequence of what you offered today.

3:06:08And again, this has been thrilling.

3:06:10So please come back again.

3:06:11Sure. You can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple.

3:06:38Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode.

3:06:41That's the best way to support this podcast.

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3:06:54For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out.

3:06:57It's my very first book.

3:06:58It's entitled Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.

3:07:02This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years.

3:07:04And that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience.

3:07:08And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise, to stress control, protocols related

3:07:15to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols

3:07:20that are included. The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook .com.

3:07:25There you can find links to various vendors.

3:07:28You can pick the one that you like best.

3:07:29Again, the book is called Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.

3:07:34And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on

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3:08:13We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training.

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3:08:30Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr.

3:08:33Alok Kanogia. And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

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Unlearn Negative Thoughts & Behaviors Patterns | Dr. Alok Kanojia