Full Transcript Summit Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00 Welcome everyone to the Gut Health and Longevity Summit. 0:03 I am so glad you are here, and I want you to take a moment right now, 0:06 because what you're about to hear could shift something 0:10 fundamental about how you understand your own health. 0:13 We built this summit because the science of connecting your gut to every system 0:17 in your body, including your brain and your mind, has never been 0:21 more compelling, and most people have never heard of it in plain language. 0:26 Today's conversation takes that one step further 0:29 into a territory I find genuinely fascinating. 0:32 The idea that your mindset is not separate from your gut health, it is part of it. 0:38 My guest today has a term for this. 0:40 It's called psychogenic longevity. 0:43 And once you hear what it means, 0:45 you will not think about food stress or aging in the same way again. 0:49 My next guest spent the last 17 years studying the human brain at Harvard, 0:53 and what he found changed how he thinks about everything from stress 0:57 to longevity to the food you put on his plate. 0:59 He does not separate the mind from the body, and he proves that they are 1:03 in the same conversation. 1:04 Please help me in welcoming Doctor Srini Pillay. 1:07 He is a Harvard trained psychiatrist and the most awarded resident 1:10 at Harvard Psychiatry. 1:12 He has directed the McLean Hospital's Anxiety Disorders program 1:16 and was a brain imaging researcher at Harvard for 17 years. 1:20 He is a chief medical officer of a rule. 1:24 Don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but you can correct me. 1:26 A digital therapeutics company using AI to reduce chronic disease risk. 1:30 And he has authored three books. 1:32 Life Unlocked a Your Brain and Business, and The Tinker, Dabble, 1:36 Doodle Try, which has been translated into eight languages. 1:41 And so he has also been a TEDx speaker 1:45 and is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council. 1:47 And I'm so excited to welcome doctor here. 1:52 And I've been looking forward to this conversation, because I think it's 1:56 a very unique way of thinking about longevity. 2:00 And I think people 2:02 are going to be really in store for a really great conversation. 2:06 So let's dive in with the first question 2:10 I have for you, which is your big idea.
Psychogenic Longevity and Mindset Basics 2:13 You've coined the term psychogenic longevity. 2:17 Most people think of longevity as diet and exercise. 2:22 So what is it that you are actually describing 2:25 and why does the mind belong in that conversation? 2:30 Well, thanks so much for having me. 2:32 It's really lovely to be here today. 2:33 Psychogenic longevity is the term that I coined. 2:36 The term psychogenic aging has been used in the literature to refer 2:39 to psychological factors that impact aging. 2:43 And so when I became interested in trying to think about health span and longevity, 2:48 it occurred to me 2:49 that a lot of what goes on in the brain is connected to the rest of the body. 2:54 So on the surface, people think of mood states, they think about focusing. 2:59 They think about self-transcendence states 3:02 as being mental or intellectual, and then they think about 3:06 health span and longevity as being related to biomarkers 3:10 or actual concrete physical health that you can see over the years. 3:15 What we've learned is that emotional states like stress, for example, 3:18 can actually impact the gene by causing epigenetic changes 3:23 that eventually is related to chronic disease. 3:26 And as Canada's move down, there are a number of other mindsets 3:30 which have data showing that they connect to inflammation and immunity 3:34 and as a result, health span and longevity. 3:37 So I'll name the nine mindset so that anyone listening 3:41 can give themselves a score from 0 to 10 where they say, 3:45 I'm so terrible at this that I'm a zero or I'm perfect this, I'm a ten. 3:50 The first is focus, right? 3:52 The second is optimistic. 3:54 How optimistic are you? 3:56 The third is confidence. 3:58 You know, are you trapped in uncertainty? 3:59 A lot of the time, or do you you generally feel confident 4:02 the fourth is or so or inspired states. 4:06 The first is somatic awareness, which is ways in which we are aware of our bodies. 4:12 And then there's the connected mindset where your relational autonomy, 4:18 where you do things that actually feel like they're self-directed, resilient. 4:23 Are you someone who recovers from adversity easily or empowered? 4:29 Do you feel empowered to make to make your own decisions in life? 4:33 Now, if you go down each of those mindsets and you see that you're close to attend 4:37 for every one of them, then you'll probably have the green light on mindset, 4:41 saying that no matter what you're eating, even if you're paying attention 4:45 to eating a good diet, optimize mindset will actually help you. 4:49 However, if you identified one or more areas where you think, 4:53 I'm not really that it's hard to be optimistic 4:56 at times like this, a lot of people will say, or I'm not. 4:59 I don't really feel like I'm in control of my life. 5:02 I feel like I have to listen to my boss. 5:04 The moment you start going low on that, the practical significance is 5:07 what one area can I choose to build that mindset? 5:12 And just to give you a sense of of some examples, 5:15 if you look at people with ADHD where the focus mindset is not even a thing. 5:19 People with ADHD have twice the rate of death before the age of 46. 5:24 If you look at Optimus, Optimus 5:27 had 11 to 15% longer lifespans. 5:30 Another mindset that I didn't mention among those because people often don't 5:34 think of it as a mindset, 5:35 is the self-transcendence mindset, but it's connected to some of them. 5:39 Read proposed a model for self-transcendence, 5:43 and that model basically said self-transcendence is when you go inward 5:48 so you're not just operating as your LinkedIn profile, 5:51 which a lot of people do when they're describing themselves. 5:54 But when you go inward and you start to explore 5:56 what's going on in your mental state, that's one form of transcendence. 6:00 The other form is when you're not just 6:01 connected to yourself, but you're connected to others. 6:04 And, you know, a lot of recent studies have shown that the protective effect 6:08 of being connected to others is close to 50% in terms of mortality rates. 6:13 Compare that to high blood pressure, which skews mortality rates 25%. 6:18 People are much more likely to pay attention to high blood pressure 6:21 than they are to the strength of their connections. 6:24 And and and so and and there's two other things about that. 6:27 One is or is another way of connecting, of self-transcendence. 6:32 And then more than half of the studies show that connecting 6:34 to something spiritual 6:36 or being religious can actually also be protective in terms of health span. 6:40 And my favorite of all is hopping off the timeline. 6:43 And I always say, what the earth does around 6:45 the sun has nothing to do with myself construct in terms of my health and my age 6:49 that can do what it wants to do. 6:51 Chronological age does not have to match psychogenic it. 6:55 Okay, I'm really okay. 6:57 So I'm excited about this because I also talk 6:59 about mindset in my book, The Anatomy of Well-Being. 7:02 And you've introduced nine mindsets, which I had a few of them in my book, 7:06 but a few, like a few, are new, so I really want to dive into these 7:10 a little bit more. 7:11 Based off of your expertise and your research that you have seen 7:15 really will influence chronic diseases and longevity. 7:20 So I'm going to pick a few from here, just so people can get a better 7:24 understanding of what this might look like, 7:27 because they might not be able to identify, 7:29 do I have this mindset or like, do I need to work on this mindset? 7:34 So maybe if we can talk about a few of these specifically, 7:38 I want to start with and mind you, 7:42 the ones you gave us are all really positive mindset. 7:46 You know, there's I'm sure there's a whole list of negative mindsets 7:49 because I've also have studied that and put that in my book. 7:52 But let's let's talk about in a little bit more detail. 7:57 What do you mean about the all mindset. 8:00 Like what would that look like to somebody in their life. 8:03 Like if you can give an example 8:05 so people can kind of identify, oh, do I have this mindset 8:09 and what is the impact of having this type of mindset. 8:14 So or is generally an experience. 8:16 Simply put that sweet tea off your feet. 8:18 So you metaphorically speaking you actually feel like you're so moved by it. 8:23 And you know, there are simple things that can create this mindset. 8:26 I think looking at a sunrise, looking at a sunset, 8:29 a patient of mine I spoke to today was saying she's pregnant. 8:32 And she was like, I could not believe there was this moving person inside of me. 8:37 And she was so in awe of the idea that she was growing a life. 8:42 So it is personal to a certain extent, meaning whatever sweets 8:46 you are for your feet. 8:47 I think for me, simple things like beautiful sunrises and sunsets 8:51 can really make me feel like like I moved. 8:55 But also you can look at amazing trees, really huge trees that make you feel. 9:00 And for me, actually flying into New York City, I never lose the whole mindset. 9:04 So whenever I'm here and I look at just the buildings, I'm like, I'm always 9:08 really sort of struck by what an amazing city. 9:12 So what that's saying is that you're not just 9:15 limiting yourself to cognitive stream. 9:19 What you're also doing is you're connecting to your emotions, 9:23 and you're connecting to your emotions in a way that might even make 9:26 you feel vulnerable, because when you experience or 9:29 then the ego itself disappears in the way we talk about it,
Awe and Self-Transcendence 9:33 and instead what you're left with is a self-transcendence state, 9:37 where you are so moved by something else that you have the self-transcendence. 9:41 Now, preliminary studies have shown that long 9:44 term transcendental meditators are able to turn down all 49 genes 9:49 associated with inflammation, and they're able to to turn up the genes 9:53 associated with immunity and oxygen carrying capacity. 9:57 So and I actually recently wrote a paper which was about enhancing longevity 10:01 using the metaverse, because some of my work involves using virtual reality. 10:05 And Mayo Clinic Proceedings Digital Health published this paper in which I proposed 10:09 that rather than only relying on transcendental meditation, for example, 10:14 can we put ourselves in immersive environments 10:16 where we are able to transcend the self because something 10:20 so much larger has taken over so specifically in relation to that? 10:25 That's what all is. And it can affect genes. 10:27 It can affect you at a genetic level as well. 10:30 Okay. 10:31 So I'm thinking of two examples right now. 10:33 I think, you know, for me I have two personal examples that I will give. 10:37 And maybe the audience can resonate with this. 10:39 One is I do retreats in person 10:43 with individuals, and I'm always in awe of 10:47 the transformational 10:48 change that an individual can have in the matter of a few days. 10:52 You know, like people think that they can't change their health 10:56 or their outcomes. And and that's one thing. 10:59 But then on a personal note, one of the things I noticed that 11:03 I get emotional with and that I just feel like so amazing, like you are saying, 11:09 like you like sunsets and stuff, I'm going to say that is music to me. 11:14 So when I find, you know, lately there's a lot of this on internet 11:20 and social media right now is like these talented people 11:24 just coming out of the woodwork playing violins 11:27 and like all these instruments off the like the side of the street 11:30 and the type of music that they can create. 11:33 And you can see that just the people sitting there watching 11:36 like they're in tears because it creates such an emotional, 11:40 I don't even know what the word is, but it creates this internal feeling of, 11:44 like you said, like or. 11:45 I was watching one yesterday where this 11:48 one video where this guy, he didn't even have like arms. 11:52 Okay. 11:52 So he had physical disability and so basically 11:56 his arms up to his elbow, like from his elbow downwards were gone. 11:59 And he ended up playing classical music holding a flute. 12:06 And the song that I think it's something I think it was like a Vivaldi, 12:10 like a real, like classical, like musical tone. 12:14 And while it's meant to be played with a violin, he was able 12:18 to accomplish this with a flute and just watching everybody's reactions. 12:23 I think, you know, now, if people understood that just being 12:26 in that space that you're turning off the bad genes, like, wouldn't 12:31 you put yourself in more of those spaces to just experience life? 12:35 I think this brings to light the impact of when we are spending all of our time 12:41 in front of negative news and all this, 12:44 you know, bad stuff, that we are activating our genes 12:48 in a way that we don't even because it's invisible to the eye, right. 12:52 That we aren't realizing. 12:53 So finding times and spaces of all I think is absolutely critical. 12:59 So I love the way you describe that. 13:01 Let's talk about another one. 13:02 I'm totally going off like my script here because I'm so fascinated by this. 13:06 Now we'll get back to my script, but I want to talk about 13:11 so many okay, let's do somatic awareness next. 13:15 Tell me what that might look like for an individual. 13:19 So, you know, there are certain kinds of techniques 13:21 like the Feldenkrais Method where people learn to reduce pain 13:25 by becoming aware of their bodies and then becoming aware of the meaning. 13:31 They were tributes to that pay. 13:33 So, for example, a lot of people think pain is just fixed, that 13:36 whatever pain you have is the pain you're dealt with and you have to deal with it. 13:40 But studies have now shown that by becoming aware of that region 13:44 and your emotional response to it, you can actually change your emotional response 13:48 because anxiety and pain pathways in the brain are actually interconnected. 13:53 So when you reduce anxiety, you reduce the experience of that pain 13:57 because you are instead of just experiencing the pain, 14:00 you are directing your attention toward it. 14:02 Now, a lot of these mindsets do have overlapping elements, right? 14:05 Because part of what I'm telling you about 14:07 is that you're being more mindful of the pain rather than saying, I am pain, 14:11 but you are saying, I'm going to observe that pain 14:14 and you introduce some element of mindfulness into it. 14:16 The other, more direct way in which a body awareness can change 14:20 longevity is if we intuit what is going on in our bodies, we are more likely 14:25 to make changes to to move ourselves in the directions of health. 14:29 And so people who are not body obsessed, because if your body obsessed, 14:33 it can make you really paranoid and lead to extremes like anorexia. 14:38 So your body obsessed is not what I would recommend. 14:41 In fact, I often when I'm speaking to people who are looking at their heart 14:45 rate variability in number of steps, you do it within reason. 14:49 Because if you're if you're obsessed, it's not going to help. 14:51 Body awareness actually allows you 14:55 to then work on that particular region. 14:58 And it helps you understand that your body is very connected. 15:01 So an example of this would be I was working with a facial therapist once, 15:05 and he drew my attention to something which I did not believe in the moment. 15:09 And I was I went up 15:10 and looked up the medical literature and I was like, wow, this is true. 15:14 One of the things he said to me was, do you know where most temporal mandibular 15:18 problems come from? 15:19 You know, in the jaw? 15:20 And I said, I said, I mean, it depends. 15:22 Could be local, it could be distant. 15:23 He said, no, there's a whole solid literature showing that abnormalities 15:27 with foot posture are actually connected to your temperament joints. 15:31 And I thought the foot is he said, yeah, there's a fashion plane 15:35 that actually connects the foot to the jaw. 15:38 So those are just two examples where your health span is affected 15:43 because you're not just attending locally to that problem. 15:46 You know, if you know that fact and the next time your jaw hurts, 15:49 you will say, let me go to someone who can help. 15:51 Help me relieve the pain in my foot. 15:53 So, so that is one of those mindsets where awareness 15:57 can change your emotional reaction to something, but it can also help 16:00 you make connections in counterintuitive parts of your body. 16:03 Okay, so example from my end, as I am somebody who for the last five years 16:09 has experienced chronic pain in my 16:13 for my right shoulder down to, you know, basically my arm 16:17 because I have three cervical disc herniation from a trauma. 16:21 And I would agree with you that when you identify the like, 16:25 when you're so focused on the pain, it is very challenging 16:29 because I think many people who are watching this right now is like, 16:32 oh yeah, I'm always in pain of that lower back pain. 16:34 I have chronic pain and all this. 16:36 But creating that self awareness around it and almost like de-identified 16:42 that, okay, the pain is there, but how can I in a way take my like for me? 16:48 Also, it was changing my mind to alleviate the pain. 16:51 Now that doesn't mean my pain is disappeared. 16:53 I still have it occasionally. 16:55 You know, if I don't have like a proper body pillow to sleep in and,
Somatic Awareness and Body Signals 17:00 you know, this kind of stuff, but changing the mind of 17:03 how I responded to the pain made a huge, huge difference. 17:08 You know, like so I would agree with that. 17:10 So self-awareness, somatic awareness okay, let's pick another one I'm curious okay. 17:16 Confidence. 17:18 Confidence is interesting because the more and more 17:23 that you know in your patient world, because you deal a lot with mental 17:27 health, my patient world, I deal with a lot of chronic diseases. 17:31 And and I know somebody confidence level will influence 17:36 their experience with the disease but also their outcome with the disease. 17:40 So how can we explain, you know, when people are thinking of confidence 17:44 like they might be thinking of like, you know, in 17:47 high school I was never confident I wasn't the person who was outgoing. 17:51 But I think what you're going to say is a little bit more 17:54 deeper than that, a little bit more scientific than that. 17:57 So let's talk a little bit more about confidence. 18:00 Well, confidence can be just a really understand the importance of confidence. 18:03 It's often contrasted with with extreme uncertainty. 18:07 Right. 18:07 And extreme uncertainty is often associated with anxiety. 18:11 Now our brains are not wired to process uncertainty accurately. 18:16 So if you there was a study done by police and colleagues 18:19 that actually looked at people who were in an uncertain state and people 18:23 who were in a certain who were in a normal state, 18:25 the people who were in an uncertain state three quarters of the time, 75% 18:29 of the time they missed, predicted when something bad was going to happen. 18:33 So rather than telling themselves, I don't know what's happening, 18:37 they said something bad is going to happen because uncertainty activates 18:41 the anterior cingulate cortex, the conflict detector in the brain. 18:45 You can also activate the insula 18:46 and suddenly your self construct becomes I'm in danger. 18:50 Now, if you are in a state of chronic hyper arousal, 18:53 or you have, you know, ongoing anxiety that disrupts your confidence, 18:57 we now know that anxiety is connected to many diseases. 19:00 It's connected to arrhythmias. 19:02 It's connected to cardiac disease. 19:04 It's connected to it can be connected to thyroid disease. 19:07 So the number of medical conditions where having a greater degree, 19:11 having too much anxiety can actually sort of 19:15 worsen that, that that particular disease. 19:18 A good example is, you know, when people 19:20 I remember when when we first went through late, 19:22 we were sort of thinking, I wonder what would be most reimbursable, 19:26 like, would it be for PTSD or would it be for. 19:29 And most insurance companies said no pre and post cardiac surgery 19:33 because people with higher levels 19:34 of anxiety before they go, before they have cardiac surgery, 19:38 stay in the hospital for much longer and they have much worse outcomes. 19:42 So when you're thinking about feeling states, you might feel that they live 19:46 in a different world because of the way it's been marketed to you. 19:49 And, you know, it's like, well, no, you don't feel too much like 19:53 feelings are not really important. 19:54 It's important to just go through your day 19:56 paying attention to one thing after another. 19:58 Well, Pure Marty and his colleagues at the Paris Psychosomatic Institute 20:03 actually found that there was an epidemic of what they called essential depression. 20:08 And in that instance, they weren't talking about necessary depression. 20:11 They were talking about essential, as in primary. 20:14 And what they found was that people who many people were presenting 20:17 not with classic major depression like, we know, you know, 20:20 you have problems sleeping or feeling suicidal. 20:23 They just lack vitality. 20:25 And if I look at the world right now, I think there's a significant 20:28 prevalence of essential depression where people lack vitality. 20:32 And what they found 20:33 was that when you lack vitality, those people are overly operational. 20:37 They're all about to do lists all about, you know, so 20:40 they have a kind of false confidence in that instance. 20:43 And they're not connecting with the complexity of their emotions. 20:47 You know, most of us, 20:48 if we were really honest about we're feeling 20:50 like I'm always taken off guard when someone says to me, 20:53 how are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. 20:54 I have like billions of cells in my the part of me is like happy, 20:58 part of me is anxious, part of me is sad. 21:00 Part of you doesn't care. I gotta get stuff done, you know? 21:03 But if we were really honest about what we're feeling, we have very complex 21:06 brings. 21:07 A lot of people try to put out false confidence. 21:09 And that's not the answer to confidence. 21:11 It's the very first thing I say to people is, if you want to disrupt this 21:16 connection between anxiety on its own, being connected to cardiac disease 21:20 or to health span, all being connected to exacerbate stress, 21:24 which has a lot of evidence showing its connections to chronic inflammation. 21:28 The first thing to do is to reframe anxiety in your head. 21:31 It's a reframe not just anxiety, but to reframe uncertainty. 21:36 So rather than saying, oh my God, I don't know what's going to happen 21:39 next, the world feels so uncertain. 21:41 And then saying something disastrous that's going to happen. 21:43 Say my brain exaggerates three quarters of the time. 21:47 It's going to tell me a disaster story that doesn't exist. 21:50 So let me just use self-talk, because self-talk can actually improve 21:55 your your level of confidence and it can decrease your uncertainty. 21:59 Now, Ethan Cross and his colleagues have actually found 22:01 that if you're trying to pump yourself up because you're not confident, 22:05 one thing that's better to do is to speak to yourself by name 22:09 and speak in the third person. 22:10 So a lot of people in there 22:11 trying to get pumped up, they say, I'm going to crush this. 22:14 Let's say you're going to give a talk. 22:15 We're going to a board meeting. 22:17 Well, it's far more effective if I was saying it for me to say, 22:20 you're going to crush that, 22:21 because if you're feeling anxious and you say, I'm going to crush that, 22:24 your brain is like, yeah, whatever, you're not crushing anything. 22:27 But if I say 3D, you're going to crush that. 22:29 It actually separates out the anxious part of me from the part of me 22:33 that can crush that. 22:35 And so those are two simple ways in which, firstly, name the feeling of affect. 22:39 Labeling is a super important technique, which is sort of naming the feeling. 22:43 It can actually decrease the activation. 22:46 And in addition to that, naming the feeling, 22:49 reframing the uncertainty, saying there's no disaster. 22:53 Uncertainty just means I don't know. 22:54 And speaking to yourself by name and in the third person can actually improve 22:59 your state of uncertainty and anxiety and eventually your health span as well.
Confidence, Uncertainty, and Anxiety 23:04 I would recommend, if 23:05 you're wondering about this, just look up, you know, centenarians online. 23:08 Look at a video of them. 23:10 The one thing you'll see 23:11 is that there's a certain level of acceptance of life that they've had. 23:15 They been through very difficult times. 23:18 You know, we've been through major wars, 23:19 they've been through major illnesses, loss of loved ones. 23:23 But their whole thing is, you know, 23:24 and I'm in sync with life to a certain extent, even though 23:27 that's not classical meditation or classical mindfulness. 23:30 Elizabeth Blackburn, on her colleagues, found that being mindful, 23:34 present in that way can actually protect the ends of genes called telomeres. 23:38 So if we think of genes like shoelaces, shoelaces have the little plastic part 23:43 at the end. 23:43 As we get older, that part shortens and eventually we have disease and death. 23:48 But being mindful rather than just taken away 23:51 with one's anxiety can actually protect that part of the genes and prevent 23:54 the onset of disease and promote health span as well. 23:59 Okay, I'm all about protecting the telomeres. 24:02 I totally agree with you there. 24:03 You just reminded me of a few things on this topic. 24:06 So for a centenarians that have gone through, you know, 24:11 all these life experiences and how they've responded to them, 24:16 I just think back to like when I was in medical school, 24:18 I got to experience and watch the Yugoslav war, 24:22 you know, like I would go to school with like tanker trucks and like, 24:26 you know, refugees on like, like it was insanity. 24:30 I then in residency got to experience. 24:34 I was working in a hospital in, in Brooklyn where I was on the surgery 24:40 rotation and early in the morning on that rotation when I was doing rounds, 24:45 I got to witness the second tower, twin tower get hit. 24:50 Oh my God. 24:51 And I experienced my first code orange, where we had to evacuate the hospital 24:56 because we were expecting all these people to come in and we needed beds for them 25:00 and spending the whole night cleaning glass shards and all this. 25:04 And so, you know, I replay these experiences as like, okay, what is this? 25:09 Like, what is this teaching me about? 25:11 You know, when we do 25:13 have that uncertainty in the world, because for the longest time, 25:16 I personally didn't understand anxiety. 25:20 And when I work with patients and they tell me 25:23 that they're so anxious about this, and I really wanted to understand because 25:28 I didn't experience anxiety, I just okay, I see things happen and I process them. 25:33 But I've been trying to understand where does this anxiety 25:40 stem from in individuals? 25:42 Because I can see the relationship with anxiety slash uncertainty and confidence. 25:48 And and I know myself, I'm pretty confident when it comes to certain things, 25:53 like because if I don't have an answer, I will go find an answer. 25:55 That's how I build my confidence, right? 25:58 But since the opposite of confidence is uncertainty and anxiety, 26:03 why is it that we see so much of this nowadays in the world? 26:08 Like where is this all stemming from? 26:10 Because honestly, like, like every conversation I have 26:13 and I'm like, but why? 26:16 You know, like it's not true. 26:17 It's like, you know, there's no truth behind it. 26:20 Yeah. 26:21 So one simple it's a little oversimplified as an answer, 26:23 but the amygdala is actually a part of the brain that processes all emotion. 26:27 But in my book, Life Unlocked, I talk about the fact 26:30 that fear jumps to the front of the line because it's it's a survival instinct. 26:34 If I'm in danger, I should make sure I protect myself. 26:37 So one of the reasons that people, people do this is they 26:40 just let their amygdala do its own thing where they're like, no, but 26:45 I'm telling you, the world is terrible, and I'm telling you this disaster. 26:49 And my mind and I often say to people two things. 26:52 One is your brain is not a trash can. 26:54 So don't just throw whatever you feel like into it. 26:57 It impacts your mind and it impacts your body. 26:59 But the second thing is you can pay and redirect your attention. 27:04 You can redirect your attention to hopeful things. 27:06 Now a lot of people will say, yeah, but that's just like lying because, 27:10 you know, there's a lot of disaster in the world. 27:11 And they say, well, if you're trying to tell me 27:14 that there's enough misery in the world 27:15 for you to be miserable, I will never argue against that. 27:19 Like there's more than enough misery to be miserable. 27:21 But the question is, how can you train your brain 27:27 to be able to pay attention to things that are not miserable? 27:31 Because there are amazing things 27:32 that happen in the world, and having a sense of hope 27:35 can actually truly influence how you move forward. 27:38 Because hope opens the door to possibility, and possibility 27:43 is essentially entertaining a hypothesis and putting your energetic resources 27:48 toward building something that you want, not something that you don't want. 27:51 Now, if you're thinking about, you know, how can hope be that powerful? 27:54 It's just sort of like it's empty. 27:56 But if you look at some of the earlier studies on placebo 27:59 and many studies on placebo show that when you believe 28:02 that something is going to work, it often does. 28:05 So, you know, one example of this is they gave people 28:08 the same tube of paste, all this, a neutral paste. 28:11 They labeled one little cane for pain relief. 28:15 They labeled the second one capsaicin, the active ingredient in Chile. 28:18 And they labeled the third neutral. 28:20 And people, when they got the lighter cave was the same neutral page. 28:23 They were like, oh, this is calming. And you look in their brains. 28:26 And the reward centers were turned on. 28:28 When they had the active ingredient of Chile, 28:30 they were like, oh, this stings a little. 28:31 And you look in their brains 28:32 and the pain centers are activated and nothing happens with the neutral pace. 28:36 So what this tells us is what you expect 28:40 is actually something that will change your brain. 28:43 A lot of research by Lisa Feldman has shown that, in fact, 28:47 your experience of the world 28:49 is based on the prediction formula that you are giving it. 28:53 So if you tell your brain the horrible world, terrible things are happening, 28:58 your brain would actively go in search of data to support that hypothesis. 29:02 So it will strengthen your hypothesis. 29:04 You will see even more terrible things, 29:06 and you will then feel like you're right in your judgment. 29:09 But if you change the prediction algorithm, 29:11 if you say, oh, I'm not going with this formula 29:13 anymore, brain, from now on, my formula is going to be, 29:17 I think this can be an amazing world, 29:20 and I would like to create my reality. 29:22 Now, the term that I use for this, I've thought about this deeply 29:26 with a colleague who passed recently, whose name is Jim Selman, 29:30 and he and I defined this concept of existential confidence. 29:34 And existential confidence is different than this uncertainty thing. 29:38 I was telling you 29:38 what existential confidence is, knowing that this tremendous uncertainty. 29:42 But your commitments determine your reality. 29:45 Reality does not determine your commitments. 29:47 So with most people, 29:49 they're just like, it's a horrible world and I'm reacting to this world. 29:52 But if you stop being a reactor for a minute 29:54 and you say, actually, I can create my reality now for different 29:58 people, the different extends to which they can create their reality. 30:02 They may not have the resources they need, but you can create 30:06 a reality based on changing your brain's prediction algorithm. 30:10 So one of the things I would say is that I think that working with the brain 30:14 in default is what is causing this ongoing anxiety. 30:18 Take a simple example of how powerful feelings can be. 30:21 Alicia Crumbs study. 30:24 Many, many years ago, 30:25 she gave the same number of calories in a milkshake to two groups of people, 30:29 and she told one group it was double the amount of calories. 30:32 Well, that group stopped having the milkshake sooner 30:35 because they thought they were fuller. 30:37 And when you look at the hunger hormone levels, they actually dropped. 30:41 So your expectations and beliefs can change your hormones 30:45 and change your brain. 30:47 And so what I recommend to people is if you're finding yourself in a darker 30:51 place in life, if you're finding yourself, you know, this is a crazy world. 30:55 I don't know how to just set aside one hour 30:58 a week and say, in this hour
Resilience and Anti-Fragility 31:01 I am going to be clear 31:04 about the reality one reality that I want to create. 31:07 You know, a good example of this was Lady Gaga. 31:09 Lady Gaga gave a talk at Yale where she said 31:12 she reached a point in her career which was completely burnt out, 31:15 and she was like, I didn't want to sing anything that's crazy. 31:18 Like, you're famous. You have a beautiful voice. 31:20 She said, well, I just realized I was saying yes to too many things, I didn't. 31:24 I don't like perfumes, but I had to advertise perfumes. 31:27 I spent all my days making money for other people, and I was like, 31:30 I'm going to start saying no. 31:32 And the moment I started to say no, I would be able to go home, 31:35 look at myself in the mirror, and I said, you, 31:37 I can sleep with any time because you have integrity. 31:40 You are moving in the direction of what it is you want. 31:44 And so even if we don't have the same privileges that Lady Gaga might have, 31:49 we can change. They might. 31:51 There's got to be one thing in your life you can say 31:54 no to, to allow yourself to become hopeful. 31:57 And I think in that one concrete way you can do this is at Honor's dot com. 32:03 I have a free ideal Self guide, and Richard 32:06 and his colleagues have found that people are much more likely 32:09 to reach their goals if they live according. 32:12 If they have an ideal self that becomes their compass, they're like, 32:16 I want to look like this. 32:17 I want to make this much money. 32:19 Once, once this ideal self becomes your compass, 32:21 it's much more effective than putting out fires. 32:23 A lot of people feel like, oh, I just got to get up on a Monday morning. 32:26 And, you know, I'm a problem solving, a problem solving. 32:28 You can be a problem solver. 32:30 And sometimes we have to be. 32:32 But how often are we actually taking the opportunity to honor our ideal selves? 32:37 And in this guide you'll see that when you download it, 32:41 you can actually start realizing that you can live a life 32:44 that's closer to your own value system, and having that sense of value 32:49 and feeling like you're being honest with yourself is what will allow you 32:53 to stop seeing the world in this entirely negative way. 32:56 Now, no one's asking you to lie and say, you know, I love everything that's 32:59 going on in the world, and everybody's happy every day, all the time. 33:03 Just ask yourself, 33:04 is there one more thing that I could do to move closer to my ideal self? 33:09 And is there one little way in which my commitments 33:12 can determine my reality rather than just reacting to life? 33:17 Okay, all right, I'm going to do one more. 33:20 I'm still not getting back to my question because I like this. 33:22 I think this is really helpful. 33:24 Let's talk about the resilient mindset. 33:28 And what does the science say about that. 33:30 And how do you define that exactly. 33:33 Because I know how I define resilience. 33:35 So I would love to hear from you. 33:37 What can people think about when they have a resilient mindset. 33:42 So resilience is the ability to recover from adversity. 33:46 And when you have a resilient mindset you are not anxiety slave. 33:50 You recognize something horrible happened, 33:52 but you figure out a way to actually recover from that adversity. 33:56 So one technique that I that I often teach and outline this in my book, Life 34:00 Watch as well, is a mnemonic called circa C. 34:03 I see a. 34:05 And there are five things that you can do 34:07 to improve your resilience by decreasing amygdala activation. 34:11 So the first thing is chunking. 34:13 How do I break things down into digestible and manageable portions? 34:17 You get up on a Monday, 34:18 you don't just open your email and say, oh my God, I'm freaking out. 34:21 You ask yourself, what do I need to get done this week? 34:23 And then you go to how can I ruthlessly prioritize? 34:27 Like for most people, we can't get everything done in a day. 34:29 But what do I have to get done? 34:31 And the third, which we often forget is delegation. 34:34 But those three ways are ways that you can chunk the I in in circle 34:39 is for ignore mental chatter and ignore mental chatter is essentially mindfulness. 34:44 So how do I sit in a chair for five minutes a day? 34:47 Pay attention to my breath and I just pay attention to breathing in and out. 34:51 And if my mind wanders, slowly bring it back to my breath again. 34:55 The R is reality check. 34:57 It's the type of self-talk which basically says this too shall pass you. 35:02 You have those days and you're like, oh my God, I cannot believe I did this. 35:05 And then you're like, okay, I need to get over it because they need to move on. 35:09 If you look at excellent sportspeople. 35:11 They often say that they have their amazing and deliberate forgetting. 35:15 If they lose, they don't carry it on and on and on with them. 35:18 They're like, what did I learn from that loss? 35:20 How do I move to the next thing? 35:22 Then the second C is control check, which is it's like the Serenity prayer. 35:27 What am I in control of? What am I not in control? 35:29 Like let's say you have ten attentional units in your brain. 35:32 Just for argument's sake, 35:34 if you get up in your field of seven of them with the morning news, 35:37 you've only got three more attention units to live your life the rest of the day. 35:41 So why not tell yourself, do I really have to be that freaked out 35:45 about a war in a place where I'm going to be doing nothing about that? 35:48 Or should I rather pay attention to what I can control? 35:52 And then the last A is attention shift, which is how do I shift my attention 35:56 to solving whatever problems at hand rather than only paying attention 36:00 to the negative? 36:01 So chunking ignore mental chatter, reality check, control check, and attention 36:05 shift are five ways that you can build resilience in your life. 36:09 Now, studies show that people even in the 90s, 36:12 when they are more resilient, 36:14 they are more likely to become centenarians than people who are not. 36:17 Now, some people would say, you know, I've had all these disasters happen to me. 36:21 It's not about denying the disaster. 36:24 It's about giving yourself the ability to understand 36:28 that you are a creator in the world,
Gut-Brain Connection and Whole-Body Intelligence 36:31 and that even in the presence of disaster, you can create. 36:35 Now, an upstream version of of resilience is a concept called anti fragility. 36:40 An anti fragility is not just recovering from adversity, it's thriving in it. 36:45 You know I used to feel a little bit like this 36:47 when I used to first go to the emergency room 36:49 when I was in an emergency room rotation I would be like, oh God, you do all these 36:53 lumbar punches, it's going to be. 36:55 And then I was like, I kind of like like the more chaotic it became, 37:00 the more I felt like I could thrive in whatever that environment was. 37:03 And I realized I had leveraged the initial anxiety to use it 37:06 as fuel to just feel more organized. 37:09 Because for some people, 37:10 when you're in that amount of chaos, you can actually really thrive. 37:14 You know, the immune system sort of works like that, right? 37:16 The immune system needs provocations to become stronger. 37:21 So that's a that's a requirement for medical doctors to. 37:25 All right. 37:26 We're always thrown into some sort of chaos. 37:29 Yeah, absolutely. 37:31 So so I think, you know, I think to the extent that we don't have to deny 37:35 when adversity occurs, but we can remember that we can recover from that. 37:39 In fact, 37:40 post-traumatic growth is much more common than post-traumatic stress disorder. 37:44 And that's because people recognize 37:46 that there are ways in which they can bring their lives together again. 37:50 Okay. All right. 37:51 Now I'm going to get back to my questions that I know you 37:54 you have quite a few more in there, but I know people can reach out to you 37:58 and learn more about that. 37:59 But let's get back to some of these questions. 38:01 So you have said that gut health 38:04 is a naive idea if you strip it away from brain health. 38:08 And that's a pretty bold statement. 38:10 So what do you mean? 38:12 And what is the gut actually doing that requires the brain to 38:16 be part of the picture? 38:19 Well, 38:19 so I think, you know, gut brain interactions have become part recently. 38:22 People are like, oh, yeah, 38:23 I realize that that's guts connected to the brain because 38:27 because we know that, you know, the vagus nerve is one way in which 38:30 they are connected and signals are transported in both directions. 38:34 However, the reason I think it's a naive state is if you think about how we were 38:39 we all came to be, there's a permanent of them. 38:42 They form a zygote as a fertilized egg. 38:45 It's all one. 38:47 And then it starts to differentiate into different things. 38:50 Now the first thing we want to know is that we want to remember. 38:54 Dennis Noble has pointed this out. 38:56 Noble is a physiologist at Oxford who has actually 39:00 he made the first mathematical model of a heart cell. 39:03 And he said, what's really striking is that the heart begins to beat 39:08 before the brain is fully developed. 39:11 It's as if the body has some innate intelligence telling it, 39:15 you know, nutrients can no longer just go across a membrane. 39:19 They've got to be pumped by something. 39:21 So all of a sudden you're like, oh, so there's intrinsic intelligence. 39:24 And I was like, yeah. 39:26 So the reason and the other thing that he says 39:28 is that there's no privileged level of causation. 39:31 He says the genes instruct the cells 39:33 as much as the cells instruct the genes, 39:36 and the cells instruct the organs as much as the organs instruct the cells. 39:41 And the organs are instructed by the exposition or the outer reality. 39:45 And we affect our reality, and other reality affects us. 39:49 So there are two way levels of causation all the way along 39:52 to separate out the guts and the brain. 39:54 I think that's an epic phenomenon of modern specialization, the idea that 39:58 there should be a specialist for the gut. 40:00 Now, of course, there's some value to that. 40:01 People who know a lot about one organ, 40:03 you know, there are lots of advantages to that, 40:05 but I can tell you that I never see I, I kind of don't believe in mental health. 40:10 I think it's there's no such thing. There's nothing. 40:12 I can't move my right foot. 40:13 I'm glad you're saying that because you're trained as a psychiatrist to say that. 40:18 But I myself have believed that for a long time. 40:20 Like I told you, anxiety. I'm like, I don't understand. 40:23 Like, what is this process that you're saying? 40:25 Because it's. 40:28 Yeah. Continue, please. 40:30 So the reason I don't believe it though, is that I think that to separate 40:33 out the mental from the physical is just it makes. 40:36 No, it makes no sense even at a psychosomatic level. 40:39 So remember 40:40 I mentioned at this parapsychology institute, 40:43 they found that people who are overly operational 40:45 have many more physical problems and many more cosmetic surgeries as well. 40:48 And the way they frame it, there's a beautiful paper that looks at 40:51 Wilfrid Beyond's theories and talks about the institute's work. 40:56 And what they found was that if you have an emotion that's unprocessed 41:01 and if you are not prone to imagination and fantasy, 41:06 that suppressed emotion has to go somewhere. 41:10 And in their own words, the body takes part in the conversation. 41:15 And, and it's a it's a pretty profound way of, of explaining how, 41:19 you know, there have been studies 41:21 looking at emotional suppression and mortality, showing that over 15 years, 41:25 people who suppress more emotions are much more likely to die sooner. 41:28 And it's a because. 41:29 So so what we call an emotion is a brain activation 41:33 that impacts any way that it can reach in the body. 41:36 But I personally had an anecdotal experience 41:38 recently where I had a killing issue that wasn't really going away, 41:42 but it was odd it would get better when I played 41:44 tennis and would get better when I worked outside. 41:46 I was like, well, that's good, but why is it still there? 41:49 And to make a long story short, I was with a friend in London. 41:52 I don't know where this came from, but remembering my mother's death, 41:55 because we were very close and I thought I had processed it and 41:58 I just I burst out crying in the middle of this restaurant 42:01 and thank God it was him because he, he, he understood. 42:04 I didn't want to be comforted. 42:06 And like, I just wanted to do people feel whatever I was feeling in a way 42:10 that I've made the association, that Achilles thing went away 42:12 and I was like, oh my God, was that like weird? 42:15 Like I thought I was doing all the right things to process my emotion. 42:18 But there was still something knocking in my head saying, hey, 42:21 this is not fully processed and I'm not sure it could ever be fully processed, 42:26 but what it does make me do is in addition to paying attention to physical things, 42:30 if I have a physical ailment, I pay attention to emotional things too. 42:34 So going back to the gut, the gut also has its own sense of intelligence, right? 42:39 It's not that they often call it the second brain. 42:41 It has a nervous system. 42:43 The nervous system is it often responds to nutrients. 42:47 Right. 42:47 It's not like waiting for the brain to tell it how to respond to the nutrients. 42:51 So it has its own intelligence. 42:52 And I think if we say, well, it has its own intelligence, 42:56 number one, but number two, that it has nothing to do with emotions. 43:00 Well, just look at the literature on irritable bowel syndrome 43:02 and stress and anxiety. 43:03 It there's a very strong connection. 43:06 You know, if you look 43:07 even if you look at inflammatory bowel disease, 43:09 very strong connection with stress and anxiety. 43:12 So I always think it's important to pay attention to a particular area. 43:16 But it's also important to ask what is going on in my brain 43:20 that this is going on in my Achilles, what is going on in my brain 43:24 that my stomach feels a little funny, what is going on 43:27 in my brain that I'm processing pain in a particular way. 43:30 So, you know, to summarize that, I agree with Dennis Noble 43:34 that there's no privileged level of causation. 43:36 I believe that individual organ systems have their own intelligence, 43:39 like the immune system, the gut and the brain. 43:41 But I also believe that there is a constant conversation going on 43:45 within our bodies and between our bodies and the environment. 43:49 Yeah, it's an entire ecosystem, as I call it, and it is constantly 43:54 communicating and messages are coming from all different directions. 43:57 So really important, the input you put in to it.
Diet, Expectations, and Individual Response 44:01 So let's let's look at one of the inputs that you also mentioned is 44:06 why does it like if somebody has the same diet, 44:09 why does it work the same way for a person. 44:12 What's actually going on. 44:13 And I think maybe I'm not sure if it's crumbs work where it's like 44:18 that mindset psychology research that's influencing the response. 44:22 But how can you explain to us what the what's happening 44:26 in in our head is influencing 44:30 like person A and person B eat the same diet? 44:34 Well, so so I think it's now widely known that 44:37 that human physiology is pretty individual, right. 44:41 Which is why a lot of science has moved from population studies to what we call n 44:45 of one studies, where we look within individuals to see, for me 44:50 what is best, because everybody metabolizes emotion differently. 44:54 Everyone metabolizes food differently. 44:56 Everyone responds to stress differently. 44:59 So if you just take one concept like a cortisol belly, 45:02 people talk about that in a high stress individual. 45:06 If you take two people exact same diet, but in the high stress individual, 45:10 there's like 45:11 an excessive production of cortisol, which is, you know, it's a little bit 45:14 too gross. Speak about it this way. 45:15 There was a study that just came out a few months ago showing that cortisol 45:19 is better understood through applying 45:22 AI and machine learning through identifying a pattern. 45:27 So it's not like high cortisol or low cortisol. 45:30 We're talking about a specific a stress induced pattern. 45:33 When it is secreted in the stress induced way it is changing. 45:36 The metabolism of food is changing, the is changing 45:39 weather, glucose is being absorbed or not. 45:41 And so I think for every individual it's important to pay attention 45:45 to the population studies. 45:47 But it's important to realize that you are your own lab, 45:50 that you can actually figure out what you think 45:53 you can eat, that can that can change how you operate. 45:56 I think an example from my own life was for a while I was like, well, 46:00 if I put on a little bit more weight, I'm 46:01 just going to stop eating carbs for a week and I'll be fine. 46:04 And it worked consistently, you know? 46:06 But then I had to talk with my trainer and he was like, like, I mean, you know, 46:10 you really don't think the carbohydrates an important part of your diet. 46:12 And I was like, well, not only are they important, but I love rice roti buster. 46:19 I'm not gonna not eat those things. 46:22 They said, well, you know, honestly, 46:23 I think I would recommend you do is I would recommend you increase 46:27 your protein and I would recommend that you 46:31 try on small in small bouts of increasing carbohydrate. 46:34 But also think about how you want to change your exercise. 46:38 And so I think in the process of six months I found that 46:42 by within myself, I made my own body a lab and I was like, wow, just kind of cool. 46:46 Like I, 46:46 I had this presupposition that carbs were always going to make me gain weight. 46:50 Now I can maintain the same weight if I eat more protein, and I 46:54 exercise more because the cards are doing something useful in my body. 46:57 So I think that that 46:59 the more we live intuitively, I am a big believer in intuitive eating. 47:03 For example, 47:04 you know, I recognize that for some people there's just like no self-control. 47:08 So they're like, I have no, I am like that sometimes. 47:10 But but I think if you can say, 47:14 yeah, I don't I don't think, I mean, I have that today. 47:17 I'm not going to have dessert today because I think I'll feel better 47:19 if I have this or, you know, I'm, I have this singularly annoying 47:23 sort of habit of being able to eat two fries 47:25 so I can order a whole lot of fries and then have two in my head. 47:29 I'm not thinking this is the healthiest thing in the world. 47:31 I'm thinking to myself, this is an indulgence which I need to 47:34 understand is an indulgence and not as a frequent phenomenon. 47:38 So I think that that, as you referenced, 47:40 crumbs, work on what you believe can change what's happening. 47:44 The stress is a great example 47:46 of something that impacts your brain and also impacts your gut. 47:49 And and I think the more we recognize that and also there's a lot of data to show 47:54 that dieting itself is pretty useless in terms of like sticking to it. 47:59 You know, most diets fail. 48:01 Maybe you wouldn't think that if you just got into Instagram's algorithm, 48:05 you saw like 10,000 people with six packs and you'd be like, oh my God, 48:08 I must be the only person in the world without a six pack. 48:10 And then you're like, 48:11 no, probably the people without six packs are not in my algorithm feed. 48:15 For some reason, 48:16 I might have looked at two exercise videos and all of a sudden Instagram things. 48:20 I want to look at that. 48:21 So I, you know, I think that, I think that what's going on in 48:25 our brains can change our weight. 48:26 Also, the extent to which you believe you can change matters. 48:32 You know, there's Ellen Langer's famous counterclockwise study. 48:36 She took 70 year old men and had them behave as if they were 20 years younger. 48:40 So they were watching movies that were from 20 years ago. 48:43 They were eating food at the age 20 years ago. 48:45 They fully immerse themselves in a different mindset. 48:48 And when they immerse themselves in a different mindset, they had stronger 48:52 vision, stronger hearing and stronger muscle strength. 48:56 What we think I really think should not be underestimated, you know, 49:01 and I don't think it's the only thing in the world I think it matters. 49:04 Even if you're eating high caloric foods and fast foods constantly, 49:08 and you're hopeful, 49:09 you're still probably going to not go in the right direction with your health. 49:12 But to know that there are little tweaks that you can make to your mindset 49:16 to change how your diets impact you, I think makes a big difference. 49:20 I did see a research supporting this bias of mine, but I always feel that 49:25 because I grew up in a home where 49:26 no matter what conflict was happening in the home, my mother was insistent 49:30 that eating time was happy time, usually to leave everything behind. 49:33 And everybody. 49:34 There's no fighting, and it actually changes the way you digest your food. 49:38 And it does it it and it changes. 49:41 And and the healthful effects of that I think are very different than like 49:46 sometimes you see people in their like, 49:47 always angry and they're always attacking their food. 49:50 And I'm always like, is that like, 49:53 I know they're eating the perfect diet. 49:56 There's no way that's going to be the same as someone 49:59 who's eating an identical thing, but is actually giving themselves 50:03 the pleasure of enjoying that experience. 50:06 Mindful eating makes a big difference. 50:08 All right. 50:09 Last question. And I want it to be very concrete. 50:12 So for some someone listening right now who has done all the right, 50:16 you know, gut health things and still doesn't feel well, 50:19 what is the first psychological or mindset shift you would tell them to 50:25 make starting today? 50:27 And I want to be very, very specific.
Unfocused Time and Practical Takeaways 50:30 Like if they just had to leave listening to this conversation, 50:34 that they can start right now. 50:36 Well, my last question will doodle try unlock the power of the unfocused mind. 50:41 And it's about a network in the brain called the default mode network. 50:45 And the default mode network turns off when you focus 50:48 and it turns on when you're unfocused. 50:51 Most people are living their days just being focused. 50:55 Focus, focus. Fatigue. 50:56 That's it. 50:57 They don't have regular unfocused during the day in that book. 51:01 When I wrote it, I wrote it because there were lots 51:03 of creative advantages to that, and there were lots of advantages 51:06 in terms of how the brain was maintaining its energy. 51:10 More recently, when we look at the default mode network, 51:12 it is the one network in the brain. 51:14 There is always off when this inflammation, cardiac disease 51:19 it's associated with not regulating that network is associated 51:23 with many, many diseases. 51:25 So I would say the very first and it just happens to be the self network 51:29 in the brain as well. 51:30 So what I would say to people is 51:33 the first thing is build regular periods of unfocused into your day. 51:37 If you ask, well, how 51:38 you could either build some kind of brisk walking regimen into your day 51:42 where you're just letting your mind flow, or you can do what is called positive. 51:48 So in terms of what people can do, they can actually build periods 51:51 of unfocused by using positive constructive daydreaming. 51:54 And positive. 51:55 Constructive daydreaming 51:56 is a type of daydreaming that allows where the first thing you do. 52:01 It's not like sitting at your desk and daydreaming 52:03 or thinking about your priority nights indiscretions. 52:06 You have to be doing something low key 52:08 if you know how to knit, knitting, gardening, or walking. 52:11 Then, rather than paying attention to what's outside of you, 52:14 you let your mind wander into something wishful and positive, 52:17 like lying on a yacht or running through the woods with your dog. 52:20 And you just do that for like 15 or 20 minutes. 52:22 What people, 52:23 what studies have shown is that it will activate this default mode network, 52:27 and it will also I think it will reduce burnout. 52:30 It will allow you to be more creative in your approaches to health, 52:34 and it will allow you, who cannot actually truly add 52:37 115 minute period of unfocused in your day. 52:40 So I would strongly recommend that. 52:43 I think the second thing I would recommend is try out circuit either one 52:46 or all of the steps, because I think that that has a lot of research behind it 52:51 and research behind it that says, this is how you can change your brain. 52:54 Other things are things like meditation. 52:56 But I think you said one thing. 52:58 So I think unfocused in the day 53:00 is probably the first thing I would start with. 53:02 Perfect. All right. 53:04 So doctor, thank you so much. 53:06 This has been a genuinely expansive interview in every sense. 53:10 The idea that our beliefs and emotional state are literally 53:14 shaping the terrain of our gut, our immunity and our aging. 53:18 And that's not a metaphor, right? 53:20 This is biology that we're talking about. 53:22 And you made that very real today. 53:24 So thank you so much for being here. 53:26 Now, if people want to learn more about you, to 53:29 explore your books, to connect and learn from you. 53:32 Where would be the best places that they can reach out to you? 53:36 So if you go to my website, which is drsrinipillay.com. 53:39 I'm also at NBGcorporate.com. 53:42 I post pretty regularly on Instagram at Doctor Srini Pillay, 53:46 and it's the same handle for LinkedIn and meta as well, 53:50 which is that doctor swimming pool. 53:51 And to check out my books Tinker, dabble, doodle Try and Life Unlocked 53:55 and Your Brain in Business. 53:56 You can find these on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. 53:59 And I would love it if you join my knowledge.com community two. 54:03 And if you if you join drsrinipillay.ccom, I actually have a weekly newsletter 54:07 that's connected to psychogenic longevity and poetry and provocative thoughts 54:12 that I would love for people to sign up to. 54:14 Amazing. 54:15 So the key takeaway here is your gut and your mind are not in different rooms. 54:21 They are in the same conversation, 54:24 and you have more influence over that conversation than you think. 54:28 And so stay tuned for our next session, our next interviewee. But 54:33 for now we are going to be signing off and we'll see you in the next episode.
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