Amishi Jha

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dak Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

[3] Hello.

[4] Hiller, how are you?

[5] I'm good.

[6] We're in my apartment.

[7] I want to do a tease because last time we did an episode, we talked about us going to Husson's show.

[8] And we did, and then we deep dive on it in the fact check.

[9] We're going to give a full account of what happened at that show.

[10] Yeah.

[11] And a review and a declaration.

[12] That's right.

[13] Okay.

[14] Today we have Dr. Amishi Jha.

[15] She is a neuroscientist and a professor of psychology at the University of Miami.

[16] She is also the director of contemplative neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co -founded in 2010.

[17] Her work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and the Pentagon.

[18] Most importantly, she is a spunky gal from Chicago.

[19] I got a bang out of her and we had so much fun talking to her.

[20] After we were done recording, she was telling us a couple stories.

[21] and she knows everyone.

[22] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[23] She's very connected.

[24] Very dialed in.

[25] She has a new book out called Peak Mind.

[26] Peak Mind teaches you how to train your brain to pay attention differently.

[27] So please enjoy Dr. Amishi Jha.

[28] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[29] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[30] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[31] So you've come in from Miami?

[32] You traveled to us.

[33] I did.

[34] It's the first time I think I've traveled in two years.

[35] Get out of here!

[36] Wow.

[37] Does it feel awesome?

[38] It feels so weird.

[39] It's so strange, yeah.

[40] Now, can we talk about the U for a second?

[41] Please.

[42] Yeah.

[43] So she teaches at University of Miami.

[44] Best 30 for 30 of all time is the U, part one, and two, and now there's maybe even a three and a four, have you watched that?

[45] I think I had to before we worked with the football team.

[46] I would think that would be, because the culture of that football team is very, very specific.

[47] Yeah.

[48] And so interesting.

[49] There was a period there in the 90s where they were much more popular than the NFL team that was in town.

[50] Oh, wow.

[51] What kind of parents do you have?

[52] Do you have first generation?

[53] They're both Indian.

[54] Well, clearly, but I was born in India.

[55] You were born in India.

[56] But I was one when I came here.

[57] From your perspective, how was there?

[58] transition from there to Chicago.

[59] Oh, you know, it's really hard to say because I grew up with them, right?

[60] Right, right.

[61] But definitely the house was a different world.

[62] Sure.

[63] I don't know if you had that experience.

[64] Yeah, a little different.

[65] My mom grew up in Georgia.

[66] Oh, wow.

[67] So I was a little removed.

[68] Like you, her mother came at like three or six.

[69] Oh, wow.

[70] Well, you're a lot younger than me. That's the first thing to realize.

[71] 34.

[72] That's still a lot younger than me. I'm 50, so.

[73] Okay.

[74] Okay, there I'm right there.

[75] If it makes you feel better, we were on a flight home from London last week, and she...

[76] The flight attendant came up, and she was calling me sweetheart, and I was like, oh, maybe she's just being, you know, nice or whatever.

[77] But they were English, let's add.

[78] Like, if you hear that in the South, that makes total sense.

[79] Yeah, but she was calling me sweetheart, and then she said something about your sisters and pointed to their children that are six and eight.

[80] Which are Azarian, their Adolf's wet dream.

[81] I mean, they're bright blonde hair and blue eyes.

[82] See through skin.

[83] Yeah.

[84] And I was like, oh, they're not my sisters.

[85] And then, yeah, and then Lincoln said, I wish she was my sister.

[86] And then she got kind of caught up in that.

[87] And then when she came for the drink orders, I was like, I'm going to have a glass of wine.

[88] She was like, um, are you 18?

[89] Are you 18?

[90] And I said, oh, yeah, I'm 34.

[91] And I've never seen a reaction.

[92] I mean, she was.

[93] Donned to her core.

[94] That's a 16 year under.

[95] That's a big.

[96] I mean, it doesn't maybe feel so fun right now, but I know, but this has been going on my whole life and I'm waiting for it to get fun and so far, no. Well, I'm going to tell you, well, it's just about the get fun because all of your peers are not going to get mistaken for being 17.

[97] Let's just say that.

[98] It's just a weird thing to have to tell someone.

[99] Like, you're really, really, really wrong about the thing you think about me. I don't know.

[100] It's strange.

[101] Well, so in high school, I looked inordinately old.

[102] So the last time someone thought I was 17 was when I was like 13.

[103] And then my girlfriend, Carrie, is like you.

[104] She looked really young.

[105] And we were at a restaurant.

[106] We were sitting on the same side of the booth.

[107] And we were in high school, so we'd, like, kissed a little bit and everything.

[108] And the fucking waitress brought the crayons and the coloring mat for her.

[109] Oh, my.

[110] And then another time we went home.

[111] Oh, my God.

[112] Who cares for her?

[113] But I was like, I said it to the woman, do you think I'm in like a creak?

[114] Like I'm kissing someone who should be coloring before the food arrives?

[115] And then the other time it happened is we went canoeing and we're on this bus.

[116] And it was like a family reunion of mine.

[117] And they make this announcement that everyone under 12 has to wear a life vest.

[118] Oh, no. And again, the person hands her a life vest.

[119] And she's like, I'm 19.

[120] And she goes, I'm sure you are.

[121] Please wear the life vest.

[122] I totally dismissed it.

[123] They don't believe you.

[124] It's crazy.

[125] That part's not fun.

[126] That happened also when I was in Santa Barbara with my, it's really bad when I'm with my parents, because they also look young, I think.

[127] So everything's just all askew.

[128] Skeddywampus.

[129] Yeah, and we were in Santa Barbara, and we were at the bar, the three of us, my parents and me, and the waitress was like, I'm going to need to see your ID.

[130] And I was like, I'm with my parents, and you see that there, you know.

[131] And I was like, I'm 33.

[132] And she was like, yeah, but if you look younger than, what was the number she said, like, 20.

[133] She said, I'm like, if you look younger than 25, I have to card you.

[134] And I was like, okay.

[135] And then I had to like walk all the way back to, I was not happy.

[136] I bet she got a patented Monica eye roll.

[137] Oh, for sure.

[138] Now, Chicago, so if I can speak for Monica, her experience is kind of she wanted to distance herself a bit from the Indianness.

[139] So what was your experience?

[140] Did you embrace it?

[141] Was it something that terrified you?

[142] Oh, I mean, my husband's white.

[143] Okay.

[144] And that was a huge deal.

[145] I would say even it's interesting now because, like, we just had Navratri and, you know, these big Indian festivals.

[146] And my son's, like I said, he's away at school.

[147] And I'm like, you should go to these things.

[148] He's like, why?

[149] I was like, that's true.

[150] I never wanted to go to any of that.

[151] But it's like I'm defaulting to something.

[152] And I'm like, I never wanted to do any of that.

[153] Yeah.

[154] Even in college, I tried my best.

[155] I mean, I definitely had Indian friends.

[156] Yeah.

[157] But it was always, like, I never feel like I fit.

[158] Yeah, sure.

[159] And I probably didn't feel aligned.

[160] Like, I was just, like, different, you know?

[161] I wanted to study the brain, and I was interested in consciousness.

[162] I seriously thought, okay, I got a couple choices here.

[163] I can be a doctor.

[164] I can be an accountant.

[165] I can probably use something in engineering.

[166] Like, that's what was available to me, given the kind of norms of the family environment.

[167] And so I'm like, okay, that's it.

[168] I'll be a doctor.

[169] That sounds cool.

[170] And then in high school, starting to volunteer in the hospital.

[171] I hated it.

[172] Oh, the smells, the sights, the sick people.

[173] Like, I was just like, and I just, was like, I don't want to treat people that are sick.

[174] I'm not interested in that.

[175] And I felt bad because at that point I did have a lot of Indian friends who were like, no, this is great.

[176] It's in my passion.

[177] And I was like, no, not me. But it took me a while to even admit it, like admit it to myself, admit it to my family.

[178] But I super lucked out because one of the first places I got transferred to after some of those original candy stripe around the whole hospital kind of thing was a brain injury unit and I was like oh yeah this is very interesting so I my job was pretty trivial like take the patients take them outside but I could see especially there was a couple cases where I'm like I really remember this distinctly of they came in and they could they look bad I mean usually some kind of motorcycle accident or something like that so you got to be careful I've been in those where the helmet but then in particular there's one guy, I remember, I thought he was a quadriplegic.

[179] My job was to actually take him outside for fresh air, so they'd put them in a wheelchair.

[180] I'd push them, or it'd be some kind of massive contraption because there'd be...

[181] Can I ask, is this during an exam or like a pre -op situation?

[182] They're there for the long haul.

[183] It's a brain injury unit.

[184] Oh, unit?

[185] Okay.

[186] It's a brain injury unit.

[187] So they're there for a while.

[188] And I'd see them multiple times.

[189] If I go week after week, they'd still be there.

[190] But at some point, the same guy who I thought was a quadriplegic, all of a sudden, he was in a different wheelchair and he could move himself, the little lever.

[191] And I was like, this is wild.

[192] And then so he was just talking to me about what he was doing.

[193] And he's like, yeah, I go to PT and all the training.

[194] But then at night, I closed my eyes.

[195] and I imagine myself moving the wheelchair with my finger.

[196] And I was like, wow, he's changing his brain from the inside out.

[197] He's doing something on his own every day privately that is transforming his ability to function.

[198] And that was very exciting to me. I was like, oh, this is what I want to study.

[199] So it was like a slight pivot and I eased my family into it.

[200] Like, I'll still be taking all the pre -med classes.

[201] I'm just going to focus on the neuroscience aspect.

[202] Yeah.

[203] Was he a stroke survivor?

[204] Is that?

[205] No, he was a motorcycle.

[206] Oh, he was a motorcycle.

[207] So they do this, though, is, am I right in that they do this with stroke patients that they almost relocate the motor control?

[208] Or if that part of the brain has been damaged, you can kind of use another part of your brain to do motor control?

[209] Exactly.

[210] I mean, it kind of spreads into these other areas so that they take over.

[211] And that's what's so amazing.

[212] I mean, this aspect of neuroplasticity is fascinating that our brain can actually accommodate.

[213] But the key is that you have to exercise to actually engage those functions.

[214] to have the brain start responding in a way that makes it more permanent.

[215] I was just reading a book.

[216] I can't remember which one, but it was really breaking down the complexity of you moving things.

[217] And as someone who understands mechanics quite well, like, yes, if we were a robot, to be able to do all these tiny little fine -tune movements, you're talking about like millions of neurons firing, pulling on nine different tendons.

[218] Like, it is so complex to move the way we do, and you're not born knowing how to do much of that.

[219] And then your brain slowly through road learns that, right?

[220] I find that insane when you really think about the complexity of it.

[221] Well, I just had this thought last night, which is so funny, because I study attention.

[222] So everything I'm really focusing on is the explicit, the apparent to you, the voluntary in some sense.

[223] And I was just, I had this thought when I was just turning in the middle of the night.

[224] Like, what made me turn?

[225] I wasn't thinking, oh, I need to turn.

[226] I just turned.

[227] And like, we do that kind of stuff all the time.

[228] And even our little hand gestures, et cetera, we're not thinking about these aspects of our functioning.

[229] Well, and the turning over in the middle of the night, that fascinates me, too, in the same way that driving fascinates me, right?

[230] Like, largely they say your driving's happening and you're subconscious.

[231] Like, you're not actively controlling the vehicle when you're driving down the highway.

[232] You'd be exhausted by the time you got there.

[233] Like, that's all happening on autopilot while you think of whatever you want to think of.

[234] Sometimes, but now think about, this is the tricky part about driving.

[235] Okay.

[236] There's so much of it that is something called procedural memory.

[237] It's basically learned to the point where you don't need attention.

[238] And that's sort of the job of the brain.

[239] Offload everything so you can actually keep this precious resource because it's limited.

[240] We don't have much of it.

[241] So let's keep that available.

[242] So when you were starting to learn how to drive, and I know from my children learning more recently, oh, no, it's 100 % attention.

[243] Yeah.

[244] And if you didn't have it, you won't learn.

[245] But then at some point, it gets offloaded to these other systems.

[246] And just like if I tell you, if I ask you, you know, Monica, can you just read off the, the keyboard right to left for me. It's like, can you do that?

[247] Neither can I. But then if I say put your hands and like now probably you could do it.

[248] So it's there, but it's not explicit to us.

[249] Yeah.

[250] Boy, that makes me think of kind of the transition you make when you are into motorcycling on the track.

[251] When you're first there, it is like, it's so terrifying and break here and do this and turn and make sure you're angry.

[252] But there becomes a point where I just think, faster into this turn slower than faster out.

[253] I feel it.

[254] Yeah, I'm not really aware of all the shifting, the braking, all this stuff.

[255] I'm now just experiencing what it's like to go around the track.

[256] I don't know.

[257] Yeah.

[258] It's pretty fast -in -you.

[259] What the brain can kind of do in the background.

[260] Flexibly.

[261] But that's the thing about driving.

[262] So if everything's cool, it's not too trafficking, nothing, there's no hailstorm.

[263] Yes, I think you can offload a lot of that to the default, already procedurally, well -honed machinery of the brain.

[264] brain, but as soon as you need to actually pay attention, then you got to flip it back on.

[265] Right.

[266] And we do.

[267] And we can do this seamlessly, right?

[268] Yeah.

[269] I don't know if you read this.

[270] There was some article about the Bay Bridge had been shut down for a while, and there was one line in particular.

[271] And a couple of people drove off the Bay Bridge.

[272] And it only happened in the morning.

[273] They were saying that in the morning people are, they're doing the most of that, right?

[274] Like, where they're not paying attention at all in the morning on that commute to work.

[275] They're out to lunch.

[276] Yeah.

[277] Whereas maybe even when they get off, they're excited to go where they're going and they're a little more, I don't know, but I don't deal with people and cars, but yeah.

[278] Jeez.

[279] Oh boy.

[280] Oh, boy.

[281] Okay, so that makes sense for how you got interested.

[282] I just want to, before we go further, what's interesting because we love identity on the show, had I not read your name, right?

[283] We just met somewhere.

[284] You're a straight Chicago.

[285] Like, I would be able to guess within 30 seconds that you're from Chicago, that you were a woman from Chicago.

[286] Oh, cool.

[287] Based on my accent, my demeanor.

[288] I just know, you know, Robbie, I mean, you just, yeah.

[289] Yeah, there's a toughness, There's a little bit of a shortness.

[290] There's an accent.

[291] That's funny because, yeah, I lived there for 18 years, but.

[292] Yeah, I guess I know.

[293] I live there for 18 years.

[294] So go fuck yourself.

[295] You know, maybe I'm like some of your best.

[296] That's more New York.

[297] I know.

[298] I know, but it is on the spectrum.

[299] It's further along the spectrum than Minnesota is, let's say.

[300] That's right.

[301] And it's funny because I do feel like a sense of familiarity with people, like from the Midwest.

[302] Yeah, yeah.

[303] I mean, Michigan is close enough.

[304] Yeah, I was like, you feel just like, oh, I get these people.

[305] Like, I dated a gal for nine years.

[306] from Washington, a state, and I think on her first trip back to Michigan for like the summer, I was explaining to her, like, you know, you're going to see a lot of fights at the bars and stuff.

[307] Like, it's a pretty, it's different than California.

[308] Like, I just need to warn you, it's a little hectic.

[309] You go drinking, you're generally going to see a fight, one a night.

[310] She's like, that can't possibly be true.

[311] Sure enough, first bar I take her to, the Bachelor in Kigo Harbor, we're sitting in there and two women dressed to the fucking nines.

[312] I mean, their hairs up, they've got earrings up.

[313] They've put so much effort in this.

[314] You just hear her from across the ball.

[315] Fuck you, bag, you.

[316] And they run at each other.

[317] People are grabbing hair.

[318] And Brie goes, first of all, I didn't think you were even telling the truth.

[319] Certainly, I did not think women would be brawling in the bar.

[320] It's not the image I would have in mind.

[321] Okay, so when you're going to college and you're becoming a doctor or you're earning your PhD, what do you think is going to be the application of this study?

[322] Like, do you already think it's going to be about attention?

[323] Oh, in grad school, I knew I was going to study attention.

[324] Oh, okay.

[325] I said and tell you is that in addition to this sort of fascination regarding the brain early on, I used to just read psychology textbooks.

[326] Sure.

[327] This is another one of those things where I just didn't feel like a lot of my friends.

[328] I was just like, no, this is, I want to, and philosophy.

[329] And it was just, that was my thing.

[330] And at my, my dear mother, I remember when I was like in 10th grade, I'm like, I want to take a moral psychology class at the University of Chicago, but you're going to take me every week.

[331] She's like, all right.

[332] But it's Hyde Park.

[333] You're not going to just let me walk around campus.

[334] I should sit there for the, like, three hours.

[335] class just to let me take it.

[336] And I don't think I've learned much.

[337] And I didn't understand what was going on.

[338] It was like a graduate level.

[339] How old were you?

[340] Probably a sophomore junior year?

[341] You can do that?

[342] It's a continuing studies kind of thing.

[343] Yeah.

[344] Like you're auditing almost.

[345] You're auditing.

[346] But no, it's actually four people that are not active undergrads or students.

[347] But I just now when I look back at that, I'm like, what a weird thing to do.

[348] But it all kind of culminated.

[349] And at that point, when I was an undergrad, I've really felt like, oh, okay, for sure I want to study the brain.

[350] I started doing research in the topic of attention.

[351] Mom and dad are probably the most beautiful people in the world.

[352] We're not going to say one disparaging thing about them.

[353] But was either parents' attention a little hard to get?

[354] Oh, well, my father had passed away when I was quite young.

[355] Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

[356] But no, I wouldn't say, no. But if you meet my husband, you'll be like, ah.

[357] And we met during undergrad.

[358] And I don't know, it's funny, because for sure, he is my constant case study.

[359] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[360] For sure.

[361] It was funny, when I first started out, I was interested in research in this topic called Theory of Mind, which maybe you've talked about at birth, various experts that have come through.

[362] The thing that a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of autistic people can't do, sort of understand what other people's minds are doing, et cetera.

[363] And so I was in this lab, and it was interesting.

[364] I thought it was very interesting.

[365] But at one point, I go to talk to the professor about wanting to apply to grad school.

[366] And the first thing he says to me is, women in your culture don't typically go on to have professional lives.

[367] Are you serious about this?

[368] Oh, wow.

[369] And this is like in the, it's not, none of it's true.

[370] Oh, my God.

[371] And I was like, bye.

[372] Yeah.

[373] It really so turned me on.

[374] But I was really fortunate because at that same semester, I was in this course on perception and attention.

[375] And I was already starting to really like it.

[376] And it was really cool because the professor was a total.

[377] badass.

[378] I mean, she was teaching probably at that point.

[379] By the end of the semester, she was like fully nine months pregnant.

[380] Oh, wow.

[381] And I just thought, I remember really feeling like, you can do that?

[382] Like, it was the first time I had a female professor.

[383] Right.

[384] And she was amazing.

[385] And she happened to be pregnant.

[386] And it really gave me like this whole different view of what life could be.

[387] And so then, of course, I said, I'd like to work in your lab.

[388] And that really shifted things for me. Yeah.

[389] I just read a highly offensive book that was literally in 2021 making some kind of gender claim that women probably on their own, all things being equal will not be drawn to those.

[390] And I'm like, how on earth are you undervaluing exactly what happened to you and happens is nearly every woman in the night?

[391] They are so strongly urged not to pursue that.

[392] There's nobody that represents you teaching the class.

[393] Like, oh, I found it so offensive.

[394] Yeah.

[395] And it's like what Monica, you were saying about, like, you know, people about age and stuff like that.

[396] It's the same thing.

[397] It's like when somebody thinks of a professor, they don't think of somebody that looks like me. Right, right.

[398] And it's non -trivial, like, even probably in my own mind.

[399] I'm like, am I really a professor?

[400] I don't have the Tweed jacket and the elbow thing.

[401] So it's a very interesting thing.

[402] Well, they look at the pictures they hang in the classroom.

[403] Oh, yeah.

[404] You grow up looking at all these wonderful men.

[405] They're so good and great.

[406] They're so diverse.

[407] Yeah.

[408] So diverse.

[409] Some are under 5 -7.

[410] Some are over 5 -7.

[411] Okay, so your book is called Peak Mind.

[412] Find Your Focus on Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a day.

[413] First and foremost, I watched your TED talk.

[414] I could get on my knees and kiss your feet for dispelling this stupid fucking rumor that, to me, always read as bogus.

[415] And you heard it nonstop growing up.

[416] We only used 10 % of our brains.

[417] I've heard that, yes.

[418] Now, it did lead to one of the funniest lines in a comedy of all time in wedding crashes.

[419] Alan Wilson says, you know, they say we only use 10 % of our brains, but I think we only use 10 % of our hearts.

[420] So funny.

[421] What a fucking line.

[422] Okay, but that's hogwash, right?

[423] Absolutely.

[424] Oh, thank God.

[425] Thanks God you're here to straighten it.

[426] Tell us how much we use of our brain.

[427] All of it.

[428] Okay, that makes sense, because I've never met anyone that's using 9 % of their heart or 8 % of their liver.

[429] Why the fuck would we have an organ we're using 10 % of it?

[430] Exactly.

[431] Everything that we are as a human system, so energetically costly.

[432] There's no way we're going to not use it.

[433] But this is what's interesting about the brain is that it's not that the whole thing is active.

[434] in some sense, meaning neurons aren't firing equally in every part of the brain, but we really have to get out of this view that specific regions are doing anything.

[435] Like, it really is the entirety of the brain and its configuration moment by moment that matters.

[436] Yeah, like works holistically, right?

[437] It works holistically, dynamically.

[438] Yeah, help us understand because we're getting closer and closer to actually be able to see what's going on, I think.

[439] We're approaching that phase, but for so long, we have such a limited access to the brain that what we're really studying is, There's a lot of correlation and maybe not causality, maybe not this, right?

[440] Like, so what has been the evolution of how we're even knowing what the brain does?

[441] First, we just have this big, bogus, convoluted chunk of gray goo.

[442] And we're like, everything happens in here, huh?

[443] And then a guy gets a railroad spike through his forehead, and we find out, oh, the prefrontal cortex is the thing that predicts the future, right?

[444] Like these little...

[445] Phineas Gage.

[446] What's his name?

[447] Phineas Gage.

[448] Phineas Gage.

[449] Wonderful.

[450] But, yes, so by pure accident, we're finding out, oh, I guess that thing.

[451] is predicting the future or letting you model the future.

[452] And so it's not been the easiest thing for us to study.

[453] No, but we have come a long way since then.

[454] Yeah.

[455] So now we went to the point of, yes, we had to rely on accidents of nature, whether there were physical injury or internal injury like stroke or tumor.

[456] And that gave us a pretty good idea of basically how things are organized.

[457] Like, oh, okay, the back of the brain's vision, side, probably memory and hearing, front, decision making, et cetera.

[458] And then somewhere deep inside, something to do with emotion.

[459] So we had a basic sense of the orientation and structural assignments to these different regions.

[460] But we didn't know a lot more than that.

[461] Yeah.

[462] Can I ask really quick before we move on?

[463] When did we come up with the notion that, oh, the internal brain is more the primitive brain.

[464] And basically the evolution of the brain or the development or adaptation is really kind of going outward.

[465] Like that's a weird concept to me to have figured out.

[466] Oh, it's very cool.

[467] Yeah.

[468] How did we get to that?

[469] I mean, I think it's just looking at sort of the evolutionary biology.

[470] It's like looking at what structures were present in different kinds of organisms to see at what point things start proliferating.

[471] And that's where a lot of misinformation happens to.

[472] People like, oh, we're just like a lizard brain.

[473] You might hear that a lot.

[474] Your survival brain and your thinking brain.

[475] Monkey brain.

[476] Well, monkey brain is a different thing.

[477] That's really, that's more metaphorical.

[478] Like it jumps around, stuff like that.

[479] And we can definitely talk about that.

[480] But really what I'm talking about is when people think that there's multiple brains in your brain.

[481] And no, it's not the way it works.

[482] And we're not a lizard brain with a bunch of frontal lobes on top.

[483] We're not.

[484] Right.

[485] I mean, the branching of the whole way brain development happened, the entirety started shifting.

[486] So even the more like instinctual areas of the brain that are fight or flight and all these things, they evolved to a capacity far beyond that.

[487] And then other things happened, basically.

[488] It's not like we got this little walnut in there that a lemur had and then we grew everything on top of that.

[489] Like you're not a lizard brain.

[490] Anyway.

[491] That's just Chicago and her.

[492] You're not a lizard brain.

[493] Okay, so what I was going to say is then what happened is essentially we started being able to look at the brain in terms of its structure and function using different tools.

[494] So you've probably heard of functional MRI, right?

[495] So fMRI is great because you can put the person in the scanner, you have to do various tasks, and all of a sudden you can see various regions activated.

[496] And the very first, probably decade, to tell you how new this thing is, like when I was in grad school, I remember I was one of the grad students that was vizance.

[497] and toll to go check out the MRI scanners, get yourself in there.

[498] And I'm very claustrophobic, which I discovered then.

[499] Yeah, yeah.

[500] But what we were doing initially was just kind of this confirmatory stuff.

[501] Like, oh, yeah, it is the case that the back of the brain is vision and the sides of the brain are having to do these other functions.

[502] And then the thing I do in my lab, in addition to functional MRI is EEG recording.

[503] And that was great because...

[504] How does that work?

[505] EEG is looking at the direct electrical activity.

[506] Direct meaning it's actually neurons firing.

[507] Right, right, right.

[508] So functional MRI is like measuring.

[509] electrical activity.

[510] It is.

[511] It's measuring when groups of neurons fire together, they're like a little battery in your head, and then the voltage can propagate to the scalp, and you can pick it up with electrodes on the scalp.

[512] So it's very cool, because it's like basically we're picking up the little batteries that are kind of coming on and off.

[513] Yes.

[514] And that gives you really great timing information, like millisecond timing information.

[515] Functional MRI, actually, you need blood flow to be able to look at it.

[516] It's looking at blood oxygenation levels, which is very slow.

[517] Like on the order of a second to three seconds.

[518] Okay.

[519] And the reason blood flow matters is because when neurons are active, they need more blood.

[520] So there's like an overabundance of blood that goes there.

[521] There's a difference in the ratio of the oxygenated blood.

[522] And then that tells you, oh, there must be neural activity happening.

[523] And just to put that in layman's terms, you're talking about like the difference between hydraulics and electricity.

[524] So turn your hose on, wait how long it comes out the end of the hose or turn a light switch on.

[525] It's instantaneous.

[526] That's what you're...

[527] You got it.

[528] That's really good.

[529] So anyway, I just want to fast forward to where we're at now, which I think is just a much better place.

[530] And I think you're right.

[531] We are getting closer to knowing something about the brain.

[532] It was kind of funny.

[533] My son asked me recently, like, do you think you're going to understand the way the brain works in your lifetime?

[534] And I was like, well, probably not.

[535] And then he said, do you think humanity will ever understand the way the brain works?

[536] And then I was kind of like, probably not.

[537] I mean, because we will be stuck with ourselves looking at ourselves.

[538] Yeah, a computer might understand our brain at some point, but I don't know that we will.

[539] But then, of course, his next response, because he's 19, was, well, then why are you bothering?

[540] Sure, sure, sure.

[541] Well, that's like an astronomy question.

[542] What do we do?

[543] Yeah, it is.

[544] Well, he's a mathematician and computer science guy.

[545] But anyway, okay, so now we're at the point where we know that these different parts work together, but this is the really cool part that we're at right now.

[546] We're getting to the point of understanding that this is a very dynamic and interactive aspect of the way it works.

[547] So now we see that, oh, actually there's a series of networks.

[548] And the networks are nodes, meaning chunks of neurons that are in different parts of the brain, like a subway system.

[549] And when one network is active, all the neurons in that network are kind of humming together, and they're actively suppressing the other networks.

[550] And all consciousness or our experience may be is just which network is more prominent.

[551] Yeah, so tell me if this analogy holds up.

[552] So, like, the system can run three light bulbs.

[553] and there's a hundred in there.

[554] So when it turns two or three on, it's not going to give electricity to those other parts.

[555] Exactly.

[556] It goes back to your 10 % thing.

[557] So it's not that we only use 10 % of our brains.

[558] It's that there's an active war, and the thing that allows us to have any distinct experience in any moment is the inhibition of things that are not most prominent right now.

[559] Yeah.

[560] When we move, what's happening?

[561] So if I move my hand up, all the neurons and neural networks that are responsible for moving my hand down are actively getting suppressed.

[562] Like, you're doing this, don't do that.

[563] And so in disorders like Parkinson's, unfortunately, that battle gets messed up and now of a sudden you don't know which way to move.

[564] It's firing both sides of it.

[565] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[566] We've all been there.

[567] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[568] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[569] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[570] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[571] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[572] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[573] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[574] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[575] What's up, guys?

[576] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[577] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[578] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[579] And I don't mean just friends.

[580] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[581] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[582] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[583] What's happening in a seizure?

[584] Because I have...

[585] Okay, here we go.

[586] It's easy, buddy.

[587] That was a funny joke.

[588] I've had two and diagnosed with epilepsy.

[589] And I have a neurologist, and I've never really thought to ask fully, like, what is actually happening in there?

[590] Yeah.

[591] I mean, essentially, you know, you've probably heard this term.

[592] It's an electrical storm.

[593] Yeah.

[594] It's like the electrical activity.

[595] And remember how electricity works, it proliferates.

[596] Yeah.

[597] Again, these normal inhibitory things aren't happening.

[598] So it gets overly activated.

[599] And then because there's some epileptogenic tissue, let's just put it that way.

[600] Essentially, the things that should be suppressed aren't.

[601] And that storm is kind of proliferating.

[602] The body is not functioning properly.

[603] There's like violent movement, et cetera.

[604] And is it brought on?

[605] Because you're a bad older sister?

[606] Usually, yeah.

[607] Okay.

[608] That's the...

[609] When I was in grad school, we had the wildest case.

[610] It was a woman that had epilepsy.

[611] Now, the hard part about epilepsy, just like you were saying, you know, how does it actually work?

[612] It's hard to know how it works.

[613] Yeah.

[614] Because you're going to capture people when...

[615] They're not going to have seizures on demand.

[616] That's the whole thing, because I was supposed to get an EEG, and then eventually, mine are all just like, you know what?

[617] We don't need to do that.

[618] And mine happened at night, and I've only had two in there, but were a year.

[619] apart that we know of.

[620] So he was like, the chances of us catching one are so low.

[621] It'd be like waiting for a lightning storm in L .A. Exactly.

[622] It happens once a year.

[623] He's like, there's just no point and we'll just put you on the medication and it's kind of what we'll do.

[624] Yeah.

[625] And sometimes intractable epilepsy where it's really the person cannot function, then they'll implant electrodes and you'll have an entire like grid of electrodes so that you can kind of pick it up.

[626] So I have an uncle who had epilepsy to the degree where it was unmanageable of medication and they did the procedure where they cut a corridor in his brain.

[627] So the two areas that kept misfiring couldn't communicate anymore.

[628] Wow.

[629] You have a split brain uncle?

[630] Yes.

[631] That's amazing.

[632] That's a very unusual thing to have happened.

[633] But yeah.

[634] And I was going to write a script about it because one of the warnings that was given to he and his wife, my aunt, was he may experience a radical shift in personality after this procedure.

[635] And I thought that is one of the most bizarre side effects anyone could ever be given.

[636] And then my idea for a movie was a guy stuck in his life and he gets that procedure and he doesn't actually have a radical shift of personality, but he decides to have a, that's kind of neat, right?

[637] It'll do over.

[638] That's amazing.

[639] One of the very first patients I ever worked with was a split -brain patient.

[640] That's what they called split -brain.

[641] Yeah, where the corpus callosum, the bridge between the two hemispheres is cut.

[642] And it's because the electrical storm, you know, unfortunately, when it starts, it can actually go over the bridge to the other side.

[643] Then you've got a grand mal seizure.

[644] I mean, you've got a lot of trouble.

[645] So I hope his epilepsy is better.

[646] To my knowledge, but can I tell you, this is the most amazing story.

[647] The incident that precluded the decision finally to go this way is he was in Chicago on business, and he was at the McDonald's Drive -Thru, and he looked at the woman to get the bag of food, and she said, oh, my God, are you okay?

[648] And he said, what do you mean?

[649] And she said, sir, you're bleeding, and he looked in the river mirror.

[650] He's bleeding.

[651] The windshield's smashed.

[652] He has rolled his car.

[653] It landed on the wheels.

[654] And then drove into McDonald's and ordered Had no clue any of this happened Isn't that insane?

[655] Can you imagine?

[656] That's like a movie to be like looking at it on McDonald's employee And then look in the rear of your mirror And see that you've been in a horrendous accident Oh my goodness I can't believe he didn't know Because once you come to you do feel crazy I witnessed his amazingly At my birthday party at a Japanese steakhouse And all the things are going off and everything And he was like grabbing his plate and then he had a seizure, and then it kind of went everywhere, and then he came out of it, and you could see he had, there was, it's not like he was not making any memories during that period.

[657] So for him, it was just like he was watching, and then he was watching, all this other stuff that happened in between he was unaware of.

[658] Right.

[659] Wow.

[660] So let me tell you about this weird case.

[661] So that is the tricky part.

[662] I mean, we've learned a lot, but it's usually through these implanted electrodes, et cetera.

[663] Or you hand up somehow, you have the cap on them, the electrode cap, and then you can pick it up.

[664] And then there are some, like, smaller ones where you might not, it and it's, it looks like a mess, like it looks like a little storm is brewing.

[665] But this particular patient, I don't know how they found her, but she could have a seizure on command.

[666] Oh, no. And this is the wild part.

[667] The thing that drove her seizure was a particular part of like a Led Zeppelin song.

[668] Are you serious?

[669] And at first you're just like, what?

[670] But they did the analysis of the frequency spectrum of the sounds then, and that was the exact part of her what's called the tonatopic map, the frequency array in your temper lobe, that was problematic.

[671] She could never listen to a classic rock station while diving.

[672] It would be too hard.

[673] That's sort of how they found out.

[674] But this is the really interesting part, right?

[675] Once they figured out what it was, because this is where functional MRI is so great.

[676] It's like it wasn't great that they could get her to have a seizure.

[677] But as soon as they saw it, they knew exactly what tissue to go in and remove.

[678] Right.

[679] And do they, and do they cauterize it?

[680] Like, did they make a note out of it?

[681] What do they do they do?

[682] Oh, yeah, they just have to go in and take it out, scoop it out like a, you know, like any kind of.

[683] Like a melon.

[684] But, yeah, kind of.

[685] When you can localize it, then you don't have to do something as severe as what your uncle had to do.

[686] Oh, wow, that's wild.

[687] Now, I was aware of the visual component that, like, strobing lights often will induce an epileptic seizure.

[688] I did not know it could be auditory.

[689] That's why I was.

[690] It could be any part of the brain that has this sort of property of the, like I said, epileptogenic tissue.

[691] Yeah.

[692] It's just something's kind of off with the coordination.

[693] I'd like to open up your brain and just look around and just see if I see anything visually that looks like It's so weird because mine happen at night And so like what is happening at night that's triggering?

[694] A lot, right?

[695] Because your entire sleep cycle is a series of different frequencies.

[696] As you're going in and out of various frequencies it could be that there's a particular shift that might have kind of...

[697] Yeah, he did say nocturnal seizures normally happen when you're coming in or out of sleep.

[698] I had woken up and gone in the bathroom, and then I had it pretty soon after that.

[699] So I'm sure it was going back into sleep.

[700] Right.

[701] Oh, wow.

[702] So I know this is like so funny because this is not what I really study.

[703] I mean, it's just, yeah, but you know all about it.

[704] Yeah, those are the best interviews.

[705] You get someone like as an expert on neurobiology and they tell you about diesel mechanics.

[706] That's kind of like our sweet spot.

[707] But, you know, I wanted to just say something because you brought up this thing and it's like kind of my pet peeve, this 10 % thing.

[708] but it's also this notion of like a modular brain.

[709] And most people think when it comes to neuroscience that, well, most people can't understand it.

[710] It's probably really complicated.

[711] And I'm like, I don't think so.

[712] I think we have a responsibility to let people know how this thing actually works.

[713] Just like everything you guys do on this show, it's like up -level people's understanding.

[714] So it just reminds me of like, I've been a professor for a long time.

[715] At one point, my then four or five -year -old came to the lab and I have a little plastic brain and she's like sitting on the ground and I'm doing something on my computer.

[716] and she starts taking the little brain model apart.

[717] So I can barely kind of see her because I'm at the desk and she, like, raises up apart and it's like, what does this do?

[718] And then I'm like, it helps you see.

[719] What does this do?

[720] And then she's like, so we're kind of going through the pieces.

[721] And then I'm like, this is terrible.

[722] I'm doing the exact thing I don't want to do.

[723] The brain functions together.

[724] So I like, get up, sit on the ground.

[725] I was like, okay, let's.

[726] And I'm like, why do I feel compelled to do this?

[727] But I actually think it's probably a good thing.

[728] And I think it actually is an indication of how anybody can understand things if we explain it in a way.

[729] Oh, I totally agree.

[730] Makes sense.

[731] They have friends there, like, well, they understand.

[732] I'm like, of course.

[733] So I said to her, she's a gymnast.

[734] She was, at that point, she was, she was just getting into gymnastics, but really nailing her cartwheels and stuff like that.

[735] So I was like, what parts of your body do you need to do a cartwheel?

[736] And she said, well, right hand or left hand.

[737] It's like, I don't care.

[738] Left hand.

[739] And then she's showing me like, well, first you need this and then your hand and then your arm, and it has to move in the right way.

[740] And if it doesn't move in the right timing, then it's not going to be a good cartwheel.

[741] And I was like, that's how your brain works.

[742] None of these pieces work alone.

[743] Right.

[744] A hand doesn't do a cartwheel.

[745] They all have to work together, and the timing between how they talk to each other has to be just right or else you're not going to get a cartwheel.

[746] Yeah.

[747] And then she kind of got it that, oh, I mean, who knows if that will make any big difference in her life, but I think it's more the reality of how things happen.

[748] Well, you can scale that up.

[749] We have a predisposition to want to be modular, to be categorical, to make ourselves different from from each other to make ourselves different from the planet we live, all these things.

[750] They're like, yeah, there's something weirdly innate.

[751] And it's somehow simplifying it, right, in a way that makes sense.

[752] But when you say like, oh, functional brain dynamics, people are like, what are you talking about?

[753] But that's all we're talking about, a series of networks that kind of coordinate their activity.

[754] Yeah.

[755] Okay, so you do these neat studies where people are in the EEG, and you show people a photograph.

[756] And the photograph is actually two photographs.

[757] So there's a photograph of a woman's face, and there's a photograph of the front of a Victorian -style house or colonial house, I don't know, old school house.

[758] And at first glance, you really can't tell what you're looking at.

[759] They're on top of each other?

[760] They're on top of each other.

[761] And they're faint, right?

[762] So both are semi -translucent.

[763] So at any rate, explain then what happens in the machine.

[764] The whole point of this study was to figure out what attention does to perception.

[765] And the notion is that the point of attention is to privilege some information over other information.

[766] That's why our brain developed and evolutionarily, advantaged us to have it.

[767] And that was because the brain has got a giant problem, which is there's so much more out there than it can process that it's got a sub -sample bits and pieces.

[768] So if that's the case, wherever it's paying attention, more information should come in.

[769] So it was basically a test of that.

[770] Right.

[771] Can we give a concrete example?

[772] So I'm looking at you.

[773] Within my periphery, there's a refrigerator with all these drinks.

[774] There's a million drinks on there.

[775] I can look at those.

[776] There's sound panels around you.

[777] There's a smell in the air.

[778] There's a noise outside.

[779] There's all this shit.

[780] And I actually have to pick what thing I'm going to focus on.

[781] That's my attention, yeah?

[782] Yeah, and whatever it is that you pay attention to, you get privileged access to that information.

[783] And the way I like to talk about it, it's like if you are in a dark room or an outside when it's dark out and you've got a flashlight, attention is like a flashlight.

[784] At least this one system.

[785] Wherever it is that you direct it, you're going to get information out of there.

[786] And everything else is dark around it.

[787] So same idea.

[788] And the reason you could even say, oh, there's a refrigerator over here and Misha's sitting over here is because you know this room because you've sub -sampled parts of this room.

[789] But in this moment, really your perception, at least I can see your eyes looking at me, is on me. And for you, it's probably more distracting in this room than it is for me, because I've filed all this into white noise in my head.

[790] Right?

[791] Like, this stuff's all novel to you.

[792] Like, you could be interested to see this dog.

[793] Yeah, I could get pulled around.

[794] But I did that before you guys got here.

[795] Oh, okay.

[796] You settled yourself.

[797] Now, I do think perception would be worth defining with some concrete examples.

[798] Well, I think that the easiest way to put perception is it's the ability to take an initial, let's say, in vision, visual and information.

[799] Okay.

[800] So it's not really about elaborating that or telling a story about it or imagining it, though imagining it actually activates the same regions.

[801] Very first stages of information processing in the brain.

[802] Okay.

[803] So light, dark, et cetera.

[804] So this face house overlay, right?

[805] You've got, that's what they're called, just face scene overlay.

[806] We take these two images.

[807] And then we use this very handy property of the brain, which is that the brain happens to have, and we know this from other studies, essentially a face detector in these early visual areas that happens about 170 milliseconds.

[808] So that's 170 ,000ths of a second after you see a face.

[809] So every time we see a face, and that's the perceptual aspect, very fast, initial stages.

[810] Can I geek out?

[811] That's a product of us being a highly social animal with like multi -member groups, right?

[812] That's why we're super advantaged, right?

[813] It's so important.

[814] That's one of the main theories in anthropology of why we develop such great intelligence is just managing all these relationships and being all identified these different faces, which are very hard to identify.

[815] We don't think they are, but they are.

[816] Yeah.

[817] I mean, we have a hard time doing this with computer algorithms.

[818] Right.

[819] Just recently can we have face configuration, and they fail when we put on a mask.

[820] Yeah, yeah.

[821] Right?

[822] I mean, so anyway, so we knew that we could put a face on somebody in a screen when somebody is this brain cap on, and we could pick up this N -170.

[823] So that we knew.

[824] Our question was, if you show somebody a face and something else at the same time, and you tell them what to pay.

[825] attention to because you move around the amplitude of that component.

[826] So I'll just tell you what we found.

[827] So what we did is we'd show these series of these overlay images, face, scene, and then we'd ask them on certain trials, pay attention to the face and tell me something about the face.

[828] Is it male, female, happy, whatever?

[829] So that way, when they responded, we'd know they're paying attention to the right thing.

[830] Right.

[831] And then other blocks of trials, we'd say, look at the other image, the scene, tell us, is it indoor or outdoor.

[832] Right.

[833] So this was the front of the house.

[834] This is the front of the house.

[835] You'd say, okay, it's outdoor.

[836] So that way we'd say, we'd say, okay, it's outdoor.

[837] we know that they're doing what we said, we can confirm that.

[838] And now we look at the brain and we say, what happens to that N -1 -70, when they are paying attention to the face versus paying attention to the scene?

[839] Because what's hitting the retina is the same.

[840] Right, right, right.

[841] The only thing, only thing that's changing is how you're directing your attention to it.

[842] And then you couldn't even say how you're focusing, because that's not true either.

[843] Your focus, it's not anything like you're changing your focus per se.

[844] I mean, we can discuss what focus means at that point, but it's really, I would say, if you want to say focus is attention, then they're focusing on.

[845] the house.

[846] I guess I mean if you had two objects that were staggered in distance, you would actually have to have a mechanical process at some point.

[847] You'd have to dialate a pupil or something, right, to actually focus on the other object that was in a different plane.

[848] So that mechanical process would take some amount of time.

[849] You mean like moving your eyes?

[850] Yes.

[851] Yeah, yeah.

[852] But these things are in the same plane as what I'm trying to say.

[853] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[854] In the same physical location on the screen, their eyes are steady.

[855] The only thing that's changing is what they're paying attention to.

[856] And we'll check for eye movements.

[857] For a long time, people are like, oh, they're moving their eyes slightly.

[858] No, no, we had electrodes around their eyes.

[859] We know they weren't moving their eyes.

[860] The only thing was changing was what they paid attention to.

[861] And what we found was that the N -170 was larger when you paid attention to the face versus when you paid attention to the house.

[862] So that gap, that increase in amplitude is the power of attention on perception.

[863] The power of what you're deciding to look at and then what you see.

[864] And that's why we say things like, I was saying a moment ago, it's like a flashlight in the darkened room.

[865] It is crisper.

[866] It is It's clearer.

[867] You get more information out of it.

[868] Right.

[869] And now that process we can see in any modality.

[870] It doesn't have to be visual.

[871] It could be auditory.

[872] You know, it could be conceptual.

[873] It could be memory.

[874] But it was a hard test to see, is it the case that this higher level thing, we say, pay attention, is changing these very initial aspects of our basic perception?

[875] Does this differ from, like, the famous silhouette of two candle stands?

[876] The visual illusion?

[877] Yeah.

[878] Like, are we doing the same thing in that moment?

[879] Yeah.

[880] Yeah.

[881] Like, we're either going to decide to see a face or two candlesticks.

[882] Do you know that famous?

[883] Wait, magic guys?

[884] Or like, have you seen like the duck rabbit illusion?

[885] It's like, it's like this weird looking image.

[886] And if you've focused on some parts of it, you can see it's a duck.

[887] In other parts, it's a rabbit.

[888] These are visual illusions, but it's completely.

[889] But the very famous one is like, it's a candle stick.

[890] You put candles in.

[891] You can see it if you want.

[892] Or you can quite clearly see it's a man and a woman's face.

[893] Oh, I want to look at it.

[894] The silhouette of it is.

[895] And I was just wondering if that's.

[896] It's very similar, right?

[897] It's very similar.

[898] Now you're doing it based on not what I'm telling you to pay attention to, but some representation you have of what silhouettes are.

[899] That you're holding in your mind and that pops out to you more.

[900] Yeah, yeah.

[901] But the kind of point of why I even described it in that TED Talk was because I wanted to make the point of how powerful this is.

[902] It's starting from this very, very early process as soon as I show you something.

[903] But now let's extrapolate that.

[904] Like, how does that have to do with, did you find it?

[905] Yeah.

[906] This one?

[907] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[908] Yeah, it's weird.

[909] I kind of didn't describe it correctly.

[910] It's actually some kind of a chalice in the middle.

[911] True, yeah, it's like a big cup.

[912] Okay, yeah.

[913] Something you would drink, the Holy Grail, might be the Holy Grail.

[914] Oh, boy.

[915] Oh, I see it again.

[916] Okay, we're back, we're back, so sorry.

[917] Talk about your topic right now, attention and perception.

[918] Seriously.

[919] Anyway, the reason I wanted to describe that study was because it can extrapolate to so many aspects of our lives.

[920] And the work that I do now with high -stress groups like soldiers and firefighters and elite athletes, like this aspect of their attentional ability as such a, it could be life or death for many.

[921] Yeah, so I think what you found in this, right, is that 50 % of the time people's brains are off gallivanting around.

[922] They're just wandering.

[923] Yeah.

[924] All of us, like half of our attention is sometimes wandering?

[925] Is that?

[926] Yeah.

[927] So this goes to actual connect it back to perception in a second.

[928] So the statistic is, yeah, about 50 % of our waking moments, our attention is not in the task at hand.

[929] And how do we know that?

[930] Well, you recruit a bunch of people.

[931] You say, at any time of day, I'm going to ping you on your cell phone.

[932] I'm going to ask you a couple questions.

[933] Will you do it?

[934] Sure.

[935] You ask them questions like, what are you doing right now?

[936] And they can even choose, like I'm reading a book or I'm having a conversation.

[937] Second question, where is your attention right now?

[938] Only half the time and would they say their attention's actually in that?

[939] Right.

[940] So then we went from like, okay, that's real world.

[941] That's fine.

[942] Maybe you're distractible in the real world.

[943] Now let's bring people into a laboratory and have them pay attention to a task in the lab.

[944] That's all they're doing.

[945] Probe them every now and then.

[946] Where was your attention right before I asked you this question?

[947] Half the time.

[948] They're not there.

[949] Then you pay them.

[950] You're like, I'm going to pay you to stay on task.

[951] Still can't do it.

[952] And even one of them, right, I believe, was you're going to hit a button every time you see a face.

[953] Don't hit the button when the face is upside down.

[954] And it's such a boring.

[955] boring experiment that the face goes upside down, people just hit the button.

[956] Like, they're now out to lunch.

[957] They have enough committed to notice something happened.

[958] That's about it.

[959] Yeah.

[960] But they're off doing another thing.

[961] And we did that on purpose because it was a tricky space.

[962] Like, how do you have people come into the lab and see if make them mind wander?

[963] Yeah.

[964] And we were like, I have to just bore people.

[965] People will mind wander happily if you bore them.

[966] So, yeah, so that's where that.

[967] I'd argue show them Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[968] I'm so sorry, Lord of the Rings for NASA.

[969] Oh, just lost half our eyes.

[970] There are at least.

[971] Get some hate on that.

[972] So that is what we formally call mind wandering.

[973] Yeah.

[974] And it's having these off -task thoughts.

[975] And the question is, for the kind of groups that we're working with, what are the consequences of doing that?

[976] And so if you do the same sort of thing, actually that experiment that you were just describing, what we did is we put the cap on them.

[977] We looked at the N -170 again.

[978] And we said, okay, sit here.

[979] Every time you see a face, press the button unless it's upside down.

[980] And those upside -down faces happen only 5 % of the time.

[981] Some people just press.

[982] They default.

[983] They're now making their grocery list or whatever.

[984] Yeah.

[985] And then we wanted to see what happens to the N -170 when they say they were off -task.

[986] Mm -hmm.

[987] And what we find is that just like that attention bumped it up when we paid attention to the face versus the scene, if you are distracted mind -wandering, the N -170 goes down.

[988] Uh -huh.

[989] So, again, it's hitting the eyeballs.

[990] It's perceived, but that perception is biased by your attention.

[991] Right.

[992] And so I would imagine it's slowing that.

[993] down, like your reaction time is it?

[994] It's definitely slowing down your reaction time.

[995] It's definitely making you worse.

[996] Your performance is worse.

[997] But your perceptual inputs are dull.

[998] It's like you're not seeing as crisply.

[999] Right.

[1000] It's almost like the flashlight isn't really on, right?

[1001] Right.

[1002] It's like you're missing it.

[1003] The point is wherever your attention goes is what you're privileging.

[1004] And you know, in this book, I actually trying to get people understand that that means that whatever you pay attention to is your life.

[1005] I mean, that is your life.

[1006] That is what you're experiencing moment by moment.

[1007] And so it's probably pretty important to try to understand where you're paying attention moment by moment.

[1008] Okay, great.

[1009] So I only have like a couple thoughts throughout all of this that I maybe wanted to challenge or I'm not sure how I feel about.

[1010] And one is the kind of pattern, I'm going to make a really bold tie in here, but this notion that you've observed it and that somehow in the observation of it, we've detected a pathology, as opposed to like, yeah, that's how brains work.

[1011] no reason to now feel guilty that you're doing it wrong or you could be doing it better.

[1012] And I think that is a part of our innate evolutionary pull towards religion where like we accept this notion of original sin.

[1013] We feel guilty.

[1014] We have this bizarre notion that we're always doing everything wrong.

[1015] We could be doing it better.

[1016] We suck.

[1017] Blah, blah, blah.

[1018] So it's like we observe half the time you guys are out to lunch.

[1019] Then the next thought is like, we got to correct that.

[1020] I don't know about that.

[1021] That's what I want to have.

[1022] Oh, I would agree with you.

[1023] The only reason I'm bringing this up is it's happening.

[1024] So be aware that's happening.

[1025] Sure.

[1026] The next piece is under certain circumstances, threatening, fear -inducing, negative mood, that number goes up.

[1027] And if you've got this number going up and you're in a consequential situation, it doesn't have to be life or death in a war zone.

[1028] You're looking at your kid and you're actually trying to see the expression on his or her face.

[1029] That's consequential if you miss that.

[1030] Yeah.

[1031] So that's my point.

[1032] Like maybe pick the moments where you decided these are high value moments and those are moments I want to be able to control my attention.

[1033] Here's the problem.

[1034] Most of us, we don't by default have a lot of capacity to know where our attention is moment by moment.

[1035] So most of the times when people say, yeah, I'm not here.

[1036] The next question we ask is, how aware are you of where your attention is?

[1037] No idea.

[1038] Correct.

[1039] You're just kind of blowing around the ocean and now I'm back.

[1040] I'm reading this sentence.

[1041] Now I'm back over here.

[1042] And if you think about, you know, in our own lives, Like, usually if we are lost in thought, it takes somebody a few times.

[1043] Are you listening?

[1044] Are you there?

[1045] To, like, clue us in to like, oh, wow, I'm not here.

[1046] I have a few of those in my life.

[1047] You're just staring and you're like, you're not, I can see.

[1048] You're not taking any of this on.

[1049] Can I just ask one quick question?

[1050] Because we were already on that topic.

[1051] Because I guess my pushback for it was a little bit of, I think what we're generally doing in those moments is we're modeling out the future.

[1052] We're going, oh, we're going to go to the grocery store.

[1053] But I also got to pick up my medicine.

[1054] And so I should probably stop there first because it would be inefficient for me to drive their back, their back, I'll go in a circle, right?

[1055] Or generally kind of modeling out the next step in our life, which I think is probably a good thing quite often, right?

[1056] Very good thing.

[1057] Okay, okay.

[1058] And yeah, that is what we formally call it.

[1059] We call it mental time travel.

[1060] Right.

[1061] In AA, they call it future surfing.

[1062] Future surfing is, yeah.

[1063] I mean, this is the thing, right?

[1064] So it's so productive and it's so good for our humanness.

[1065] Like, we need to be able to plan for the future.

[1066] you know, we fast forward all the time.

[1067] We can also reverse, reflect on the past, learn from it.

[1068] Yeah.

[1069] And that's a very productive thing.

[1070] But under these kinds of circumstances, stress, threat, poor mood, we're fast forwarding and rewining in unproductive ways.

[1071] Right.

[1072] So we're ruminating.

[1073] We're like regretting.

[1074] We're stuck there.

[1075] We're attentionally rubbernecking in some sense like that.

[1076] You're looking at a couple world -class ruminators right here.

[1077] Sure are.

[1078] So, right?

[1079] Or you're catastrophizing and worrying about the future.

[1080] So let's just be clear about what rumination is.

[1081] And do you think both of you, they both said that you ruminate, do you think that it's helpful when you've returned from a period?

[1082] No, while it's happening, I'm smart enough to go, you are in a vortex, this is not helpful, yeah.

[1083] I know this is unproductive, and yet it is impossible to step off the ride.

[1084] So this is where my work actually enters the scene.

[1085] The first thing is to recognize, oh, when I'm ruminating, my attention isn't here.

[1086] For sure.

[1087] And that flashlight, we talked about the flashlight.

[1088] being able to be directed, but the flashlight gets yanked.

[1089] The same system gets pulled.

[1090] And the kind of content that pulls you is this type of content, preoccupations, worries, regrets, et cetera.

[1091] So one thing you could do is say, why the heck do I keep ruminating?

[1092] And that's not going to get you very far.

[1093] So what I'm interested in is, if we know we have these tendencies and under certain circumstances more, and it's not productive for us, in fact, we know it drives down mood.

[1094] It makes us make a lot more errors.

[1095] Our decision making is worse.

[1096] Our relationships can get impacted.

[1097] If all of these are the consequences of having an attention that is displaced in time more often than we want it to be, how can we train for that?

[1098] Yeah, the one that breaks my heart is I'll be like in a family moment that is special and should be memorable.

[1099] And I'm talking to everyone.

[1100] I'm looking at them.

[1101] I'm opening the door.

[1102] I'm putting the kid's jacket on.

[1103] But I am fucking 99 % of my brain is ruminating on this one thing.

[1104] And those are the times I certainly feel guilty about it.

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] All right.

[1107] So I have some practices I've stumbled across.

[1108] So one is my breathing.

[1109] I start getting really crazy focus on my breathing.

[1110] And I make a noise.

[1111] I go, mm -hmm.

[1112] And I do that over and over and again.

[1113] And then that gets distracting enough that I kind of start feeling.

[1114] I'm focusing on other input right other than my brain.

[1115] I go work out like I don't want to.

[1116] But I don't want to.

[1117] But I've forced myself to go work out.

[1118] I'd do something very physical in hopes of not going to take a long walk that sometimes helps.

[1119] Are any of these practices included under the umbrella of mindfulness?

[1120] Not really.

[1121] But I think this is where we could talk about mindfulness because you're doing a lot of stuff.

[1122] You're putting energy into solving a problem that you think is a real problem.

[1123] And I think it's worth at least adding to your menu of options.

[1124] So if I could say a teeny bit more about attention.

[1125] Please do.

[1126] So we already talked about it.

[1127] And I'm so glad you got to watch the test.

[1128] head talk, because you can see where it's the starting point.

[1129] It's like, oh, attention impacts perception.

[1130] That means wherever I directed, there's going to be some real consequences to that.

[1131] But that's still this notion of focusing, narrowing, privileging some information over other information.

[1132] But that's not the whole story with regard to attention.

[1133] There's two other systems of attention that are really important to think about.

[1134] The second one, and it relates to what the solutions I'm going to offer.

[1135] The second one is actually almost the exact opposite.

[1136] You know, this notion of focusing, and technically, would be called having a high signal -to -noise ratio.

[1137] A high signal to noise.

[1138] So the signal, like you're right now, you know, Monica's face is a signal.

[1139] That's what's important.

[1140] Everything else is noise.

[1141] So the signal's got to be bumped up, and all the noise has to be disregarded.

[1142] Privileging of some information, really not privileging, actively inhibiting other information.

[1143] Right.

[1144] That's what we call focus.

[1145] Right.

[1146] Right.

[1147] So Einstein did it when he was thinking about a problem space.

[1148] Athletes do this when they're like focused on whatever athletic performance they've got to do.

[1149] So this next system is the opposite of that.

[1150] And it's the metaphor I like to use is a floodlight.

[1151] So like you've got a floodlight above your garage door maybe, right?

[1152] So it's like broad, receptive, and pays attention to what's going on right now.

[1153] That's the only privileging it's doing is like this moment.

[1154] That we call formally the alerting system.

[1155] Okay.

[1156] So if you're driving down the road and you see a flashing, yellow light, not a traffic light, just usually by a construction set or something.

[1157] It's like, what is your mind doing in that moment?

[1158] Usually like, pay attention.

[1159] It's like broadly you're saying that to yourself, but you're not using the flashlight there.

[1160] You're receptive.

[1161] You're kind of waiting for something that you might require action.

[1162] Yeah, you're taking in all the info at that point.

[1163] And so that would be a very low signal to noise ratio.

[1164] Okay.

[1165] Because there's no privileging on some information over the other.

[1166] Yeah.

[1167] Okay?

[1168] But the other key part about that is you're receptive.

[1169] You're present for whatever it is.

[1170] You don't have to do anything about it.

[1171] You're just present for whatever it is.

[1172] Yeah.

[1173] So I hope that makes sense.

[1174] These are quite different.

[1175] Okay, the third system is actually something that will also sound familiar.

[1176] It's formally called executive control, which you probably heard about, right?

[1177] So this is where we use our frontal lobes, more.

[1178] We use the frontal lobes for all of these, by the way, because it's a network.

[1179] Like you talked about it.

[1180] Yeah, yeah.

[1181] But the executive system, the metaphor I like to use is like a juggler.

[1182] So just like the executive accompany, this system's job is to ensure that our behavior and our goals align moment to moment.

[1183] And when they, so you have to know what the goal is, that's part of its job, hold the goal in mind.

[1184] But you're also shifting based on the goals changing.

[1185] You're updating if there's new information.

[1186] You're inhibiting when you're doing the wrong thing.

[1187] All of that's executive control.

[1188] And I call it a juggler because you really are.

[1189] You've got to keep all the balls in the air.

[1190] There's a coordination aspect to it.

[1191] and this system controls the other two.

[1192] It's like, right now I'm in the middle of this interview.

[1193] I shouldn't probably be looking at my shoe or checking my phone.

[1194] The juggler would say, get back and do the thing you're supposed to do.

[1195] So anyway, the reason I'm mentioning all three of these is because it ends up that attention can go awry in all three of these.

[1196] And people with a certain kinds of attention deficit can be problematic in any of these.

[1197] Right.

[1198] The thing that may surprise you is that these are also systems that relate to our mental health and our psychological well -being.

[1199] So oftentimes when we think of the depression, for example, we think of it as a mood issue.

[1200] But as an attention researcher, it's also an attention issue.

[1201] The flashlight is yanked by depressogenic thought.

[1202] It's a lure.

[1203] It pulls it.

[1204] And we think that in things like rumination, that's what's happening.

[1205] That's why I call it a intentional rubber necking.

[1206] It's like we can't pull it away.

[1207] Right.

[1208] And then disorders like anxiety disorders.

[1209] Everything is this flashing yellow light.

[1210] You're just constantly in this hypervigilance mode.

[1211] Right, so it's kind of a lack of focusing in.

[1212] And this alarm going off, like something that needs my attention may happen.

[1213] In general, we're very interested in the story you're telling yourself.

[1214] And then, of course, you're searching the world.

[1215] The narrative.

[1216] You're searching for data to confirm the story you're telling it.

[1217] And in that search for that data, you're missing a lot of contradictory data along the ride.

[1218] 100 %, right?

[1219] Yeah, so how's that working physiologically?

[1220] So what you're doing in that moment, so the story in some sense is the mental model you hold.

[1221] right so in some sense it becomes the driver of your goal right like right now i'm expecting x y or z and that means that the flashlight is going to be directed towards certain things the floodlight maybe not being receptive to anything at that point and maybe completely like only bias towards certain kinds of information and yes absolutely you will miss inputs and it might seem like oh that's annoying that we do this but there's so many real like consequences of this.

[1222] That's why people get divorced.

[1223] Yes, yes.

[1224] I mean, literally.

[1225] They have a story about their partner, and that's the only thing they will ever see.

[1226] Everything is confirmation bias, right?

[1227] Yeah, yeah.

[1228] So here's the question then, and it goes back to some of the solutions.

[1229] How do you drop the story?

[1230] Oh, tell me about it.

[1231] Yeah.

[1232] How do you?

[1233] And you can learn to drop the story.

[1234] You can.

[1235] You can actually train yourself to drop the story.

[1236] And this is where mindfulness is so powerful.

[1237] Do you introduce a different story and pursue it?

[1238] Or how do you, yeah, how do you change direction of the story.

[1239] Introducing a different story is actually still doing the same kind of process.

[1240] Like what I would say with something like the solution to all of these things that we've come to in the lab, I was not interested in mindfulness meditation at all.

[1241] And I'll just tell you, we were talking earlier about Indian background.

[1242] It was like one of those things my parents did that I don't want anything to do with.

[1243] Sure.

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] And in fact, I would say it was also tinged with a lot of sexism in the culture.

[1246] And I was like, no, no, not for me. we came to mindfulness because it ended up that all the other things we were doing to help people's attention so that they could drop the story on command so they could notice when they needed to so they could direct the flashlight when they needed to so that they could become aware of the mind wandering that was driving the story nothing else was working nothing else was consistently protecting attention and so that's how mindfulness entered my lab I just want to say that I'm like I'm like you gotta especially as an Indian person people think well this is just your cultural You're required to push mindfulness onto the world.

[1247] You're like non, and you love meditation.

[1248] Yeah, exactly.

[1249] And as a neuroscientist, I was just like, yeah, there's no evidence that this thing works.

[1250] And when I actually started this work, there was no evidence.

[1251] You're right.

[1252] The field was not exist since the early 2000s.

[1253] So anyway, I just wanted to mention that the reason I wanted to study this is to add to people's toolkit.

[1254] And it really is a different set of skills that we're developing with it.

[1255] So it's not really about, you might say, whereas conventional thinking or conventional, even therapeutic approaches are about reframe.

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] Change the content.

[1258] Change even where you, how you place your attention.

[1259] And I would say those are fine.

[1260] Those are great things that you can do.

[1261] But what about if you could defame?

[1262] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[1263] Let's do a real -world example.

[1264] So Rob is always late.

[1265] Mind you, Rob.

[1266] This is why it's a safe example.

[1267] he's always early.

[1268] But my story is Rob is always late.

[1269] And not only is he always late, he's always late because he doesn't respect me at all.

[1270] And it's because he's gotten totally cavalier about this job.

[1271] And right, so now I'm building all these things based off of my stories that Rob's always late.

[1272] So what do I do next?

[1273] First of all, this is not an in -the -moment quick fix kind of thing.

[1274] But first, this is what I would do if you'd never heard of mindfulness and you were not even willing to think about training the brain so that you can do this more often on -demand, on -call.

[1275] The first thing you could do is watch the mind creating the story.

[1276] The first thing you have to do is realize thoughts aren't facts.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] So you say to yourself, Dax, you have a story right now.

[1279] Your thoughts are, you don't even say a story.

[1280] Right now, Dax is experiencing a lot of irritation because he thinks, blah -d -de -bladdy -bladdy -blah.

[1281] Do you know I like the word story?

[1282] Because we recognize stories aren't necessarily factual.

[1283] Yeah.

[1284] We recognize there's fictional stories.

[1285] there's non -fiction.

[1286] That's right.

[1287] I think it's a great term to use.

[1288] By saying, like, once I admit to myself I'm telling a story, I have to admit, oh, I'm writing it.

[1289] Okay, well, if I'm writing it, then why am I writing this story?

[1290] Well, that's where I probably would go in a different direction.

[1291] Okay, great.

[1292] I would not go with why am I writing the story.

[1293] Then you're elaborating in some sense.

[1294] You're staying with the story.

[1295] I'm probably going to now build a case for why I made that story.

[1296] So this is all, I put this all into category, conceptual elaboration.

[1297] Okay.

[1298] And this is the way the brain works.

[1299] It's an entirely associative network.

[1300] You do something associated with it.

[1301] Just like hyperlinking on the internet, right?

[1302] Right.

[1303] It's correlating things.

[1304] It's not just correlating.

[1305] It's actually connecting them.

[1306] Like, I'm linking this topic to this topic.

[1307] And all the other times Rob was late.

[1308] And he's even late for parties.

[1309] It's not just work.

[1310] So disrespect me for Rob.

[1311] Every aspect of my life.

[1312] It's so safe because he's so early.

[1313] So the point is just you're still in this conceptual landscape.

[1314] Uh -huh.

[1315] So instead of, and this is why I replacing one store with another, doesn't get you out of really being able to watch what the mind is doing and not be an active participant.

[1316] So you are, when you take an observational stance, and this is, I sometimes refer to it as having a bird's eye view or technically called decentering or defusing.

[1317] You're not fused with the story because what happens is that you're not seeing your mind experiencing a story.

[1318] You are in it.

[1319] You are feeling it.

[1320] And so taking a little bit of distance can be very helpful.

[1321] But in doing that, the flashlight only exists in one place at one time.

[1322] So right now, you watching the fact that you're having these thoughts means there's less actual cognitive energy going into continuing to build and elaborate those thoughts.

[1323] Right, right, right, right.

[1324] So it helps you distance yourself.

[1325] So again, what does someone physically do to create that distance?

[1326] I'll give you an example for my own life.

[1327] This happened to me last night.

[1328] So I'm excited.

[1329] I'm going to come see you guys.

[1330] It's a be in the actual attic where all this happens, right?

[1331] So there's anticipation, there's anxiety.

[1332] And I'm like, I got to sleep.

[1333] I can't be doing this.

[1334] Why can't I freaking fall asleep?

[1335] So I'm in that space and I'm like, ah, I see what's going on here.

[1336] So the fact that I could do that, and I did a lot more quickly than I would have done in the past because of practicing.

[1337] But what I did in that moment is I said, okay, let's really accept what's going on here.

[1338] Like, Amishu's having a little bit of nervousness.

[1339] Yeah.

[1340] Her mind is going.

[1341] And I really was talking to myself that way.

[1342] In the third person.

[1343] I was talking to myself that way.

[1344] Amishi is having a lot of nervousness and anticipation.

[1345] Mishi's feeling a lot of pressure.

[1346] I mean, she's feeling like this matters and she cares.

[1347] Amishi is caring about what's going on.

[1348] Like I'm just watching it.

[1349] And then that kind of calmed it down.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] I like that you found a positive in it, though.

[1352] I definitely did it.

[1353] I would say that's sort of this other aspect of it, which is in the same way when you, you talk to your daughters when they're having, when they're upset with each other themselves, there's a self -supportive aspect.

[1354] You're just helping somebody see.

[1355] You're befriending your mind instead of fighting it.

[1356] And by just describing the facts as they're unfolding as it's happening, it provides that distance.

[1357] And then I said, okay, what I should probably do right next I could do right now is I'm going to start going back there into those neighborhoods of my mind if I just go back to doing nothing.

[1358] So I've said all this stuff.

[1359] I'm feeling a little more distanced.

[1360] Things are a little bit more calm.

[1361] I'm not stuck and fused with that content.

[1362] And then if it were other circumstances, and I've had this before, I might say, okay, I'm going to pay attention to my breath for a little while.

[1363] And I'm not going to, just to make a distinction between what you said, I'm going to watch my breath in the same way I was watching my mind.

[1364] Sensations are occurring, you know, in breath, out breath.

[1365] Well, really quick, that's what I meant about.

[1366] What physically are you going to do?

[1367] Like, I don't find that more thought helps thought in general.

[1368] So I was wondering, so the breath thing for me would be what I meant by, like, physically, what can you do?

[1369] But the breath thing doesn't matter, so I'll tell you what I did instead.

[1370] The breath meaning, I thought you meant you were manipulating, like you were exhaling.

[1371] No, no, no. I'm making a noise loud enough that it catches my attention.

[1372] Okay, good.

[1373] Like, people go, watch your breath.

[1374] It's not loud enough for me. It's really focused on it.

[1375] So I make it loud enough for me to focus.

[1376] I actually think that's a great strategy.

[1377] Oftentimes when people say they can't pay attention to the breath because they feel like they keep controlling it, I'll say, listen to you.

[1378] it.

[1379] It's exactly what you're already doing.

[1380] Last night, the other thing that was happening was there is like a very loud air filter or something in that room that I was in.

[1381] And I was like, I'm going to do mindfulness of air filter.

[1382] Instead of hating the fact that's happening, I'm just going to listen.

[1383] What's the texture of these sounds?

[1384] And just be with that.

[1385] And then I drifted into sleep.

[1386] Oh, wow.

[1387] So all I'm saying is...

[1388] I needed you last night.

[1389] I was up forever, yeah.

[1390] But these kinds of things, these are just, you know, in some sense, I don't think I would have been able to do this if I hadn't been training for it when I wasn't in this ruminative loop, anxious and ruminative loop.

[1391] But so the other thing I was going to say is the normal things that we do to talk ourselves out of certain situations, et cetera, I'll still stay in that conceptual landscape.

[1392] When we are under stress, especially for long periods of time, all of that is attentionally costly.

[1393] It is taking your attention to build a different story.

[1394] And so we tested this out in the lab by comparing positivity training to mind.

[1395] training with pre -deployment soldiers.

[1396] Because it was a big question.

[1397] Like, when you're in bad situations and you've got to kind of neutralize that difficulty, well, maybe seeing the good and not even seeing the good, like, actively thinking of all the good things so you can feel more positive.

[1398] It seems like a reasonable way to go.

[1399] And positive psychology is something that has been helpful to people.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] This is like a real -time gratitude list kind of.

[1402] Not even, gratitude would be even a little more balanced because gratitude may be more slow -going in some sense.

[1403] I'm thinking, like, think of my favorite song.

[1404] Imagine my brain hearing it.

[1405] Your happy place.

[1406] Your happy place.

[1407] Happy place takes a lot of attention to build.

[1408] You're building a castle in the sky.

[1409] So anyway, that was one consideration.

[1410] So we had these pre -deployment soldiers.

[1411] They were going through intensive field training.

[1412] So they were week after week after week.

[1413] And what we knew from our prior studies is that whether they're soldiers or undergrads or even athletes getting ready for some big event, anytime you've got some ongoing or protracted period of demand, attention starts declining.

[1414] Your capacity just starts declining.

[1415] And so we knew that.

[1416] We knew that baseline, they're not going to have a lot of attention over this period.

[1417] And when we looked at people that we gave no training to, sure enough, they went down over time.

[1418] So then we wanted to compare what happens if you give this positivity versus mindfulness.

[1419] Now, how is mindfulness different than positivity?

[1420] So we already talked about positivity as you have a certain frame, you're creating these stories so that you can fill it with certain content, right?

[1421] Mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experience without a story, without elaboration or reactivity.

[1422] So the way I like to visualize it, because that helps me is I'm not in fast forward or reverse, even though there's oftentimes nothing wrong with that and very helpful.

[1423] I'm in play.

[1424] I'm just right here, right now, and I'm going to just be here, but I'm not just here in a normal everyday sense where I'm editorializing about my experience, I'm here without a story.

[1425] I'm getting the raw data of what's happening.

[1426] And we give them a whole suite of practices where they're learning this.

[1427] They're learning this for multiple weeks.

[1428] And so just like the other group that we didn't give any training to, we tested them, these other two groups of soldiers also.

[1429] What we found was that the positivity group also significantly declined.

[1430] Their attention also got worse.

[1431] But the mindfulness group, they stayed steady.

[1432] Their attention did.

[1433] decline in many studies now we're finding that their mood doesn't decline.

[1434] Their stress levels don't go down as much.

[1435] So it's in particular important when there are high -stake circumstances and situations that we know are probably going to not leave that attentional fuel to allow you to build the positive story.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] So you're fighting again, you're like pushing the accelerator when there's no gas in the tank in some sense.

[1438] So I hope that distinction makes sense of like stepping out of that conceptual space?

[1439] Yeah, I wonder what category would you put this in?

[1440] So I've been on, like, a 10 -year trajectory to eliminate road rage from my life.

[1441] At its peak, I would be out of the car at stoplights once every couple months, engaged with other gentlemen.

[1442] And I took baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.

[1443] The thing I've now landed, like, not to bore you, but I had rules.

[1444] Like, number one is you can't get out of car.

[1445] That was just year one.

[1446] You can't get out of your car anymore.

[1447] Okay, I made it through a year with that.

[1448] Great.

[1449] Now it's, you can't scream at anyone, right?

[1450] I did that for the day.

[1451] Okay, great.

[1452] Now, I'm not allowed to honk at anyone.

[1453] So it was like baby steps towards this.

[1454] So now what I do, I start monitoring someone.

[1455] I'm a sheriff, right?

[1456] So I'm driving in my rear rear mirror.

[1457] I can see someone trying to snake their way up.

[1458] And I start getting obsessed with them and I'm going to fucking shut them down.

[1459] Like, this is the racket in my head.

[1460] And I now force myself to start reading license plates in front of me. Like, okay, that's from California.

[1461] 7, 8, G, G, 4, 7.

[1462] on the next license plate, but I have to be that active so that I stop thinking about this person that's approaching from my six.

[1463] What is that?

[1464] Okay.

[1465] It works, by the way.

[1466] I was going to say, you're using great strategies, right?

[1467] But you're still leaning on the same systems.

[1468] You're taking that flashlight that was obsessed with that person tracking them to now putting it here.

[1469] So, and if you have attentional control and you've got good capacity expending in that way, it's probably going to work fine.

[1470] It sounds like it has been.

[1471] But what if you don't have attentional capacity?

[1472] What are you going to do then?

[1473] You know, is it mean you're going to just default?

[1474] Well, you know, you know.

[1475] So here's what I'm saying.

[1476] All of that is you're leaning on the flashlight.

[1477] And the jugglers here are saying, you're not allowed to have road rage displayed anymore.

[1478] This is against your goals of holding under your money and not going to jail.

[1479] Exactly.

[1480] So what I think in some sense what we're doing with mindfulness training, the weakest muscle, if you will, of attention is probably that floodlight.

[1481] taking that observational stance and getting more granular with it so you probably notice that you're starting to feel a little edgy when pretty far into tracking this person like you're like oh yeah no I see it I see it and this means you've got to practice outside of while you're actually in the car doing this that's the other thing it's got to be like a workout separate from this you're not going to start by thinking about difficulty motions you're going to sit there and you're going to watch your mind for like a minute you're just going to watch your mind And in this book I just wrote, I call it River of Thought.

[1482] And there's many different ways that people talk about this.

[1483] But you're like at a nice rock, smooth rock at the edge of a riverbank.

[1484] And your mind you're going to think of as like what's going on in that river.

[1485] Thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations.

[1486] It's all coming.

[1487] It's all going.

[1488] And you're practicing taking this observational stance toward it.

[1489] And not being in the river floating.

[1490] Not just that, but you're not going to go in and say, oh, that's a really cool leaf.

[1491] I'm going to, oh, look at that fish.

[1492] You're not following anything.

[1493] You're allowing it.

[1494] And that's the steadiness I'm talking about.

[1495] Yeah, yeah.

[1496] And when you can do this with your own mind, the title you saw 12 minutes a day comes from many studies where we found about that amount of time a day is the right amount of a workout that people tend to be able to keep their attention stable.

[1497] Yeah.

[1498] It's done in the morning, I presume?

[1499] You can do it whenever you want.

[1500] Oh, okay.

[1501] But if you practice being there with your own mind for whatever comes up, I'm just, and by the way, not, I'm going to think these thoughts.

[1502] I'm watching.

[1503] I'm watching what's happening.

[1504] Yeah, this thought comes.

[1505] But there it is again.

[1506] There it is again.

[1507] Thousand times.

[1508] And that kind of a practice, what you're doing is the off -task aspect of that is when you go down a particular road.

[1509] It's like, oh, that thought led me to another thought.

[1510] Get back here.

[1511] Sit on the rock.

[1512] Just sit here and watch what's going on.

[1513] Because some people think it's not having any thoughts.

[1514] Oh, no way.

[1515] Which is impossible.

[1516] And then they're like, I can't do it.

[1517] I can't do meditation because I can't stop thinking.

[1518] It's like, well, no, that's not what you're trying to do.

[1519] If you're alive and conscious, you're going to have thoughts.

[1520] Yeah.

[1521] And that's the first thing.

[1522] It's like we kind of skip to the second practice is when I'd probably want people to do their hearing this and never heard of mindfulness first.

[1523] But what I would just say is if you can do this with yourself, with your own mind, and all you know about your own mind and watch it in this way, build up to 12 minutes.

[1524] Don't just start there.

[1525] You can take anything.

[1526] you will have a toughness that you have never experienced before because you can be with yourself and you know that no matter what you are just there steady and I think if you can do this you won't need to look at the license plates you'll just be yeah it's there you can acknowledge it but it will be a different stance you take in the middle of that experience yeah this is getting a little egocentric but I do want to just add one element I also employ and I want to get your opinion on that, which is sometimes I can stop the racket before I have to stare.

[1527] License plates is like, that's we're at DefCon one, you know, I'm about to go crazy.

[1528] I see the person and I go, you think this person is aware of you and they're trying to best you and you are not in their world and this person is really representing all the other people you think that tried to screw you in childhood.

[1529] But none of that is happening, like attribution error, basically.

[1530] I catch myself with attribution error, which is this human has no intentions towards you.

[1531] They don't know you exist.

[1532] You drive fast.

[1533] You're never doing it personally to anybody.

[1534] I mean, that's something I just try to remind myself of really quick.

[1535] Like, this has nothing to do with me what's going on behind me. But because it feels like I feel like I'm being attacked.

[1536] Yeah.

[1537] But that's just me more thinking my way out of things.

[1538] You're doing all the things.

[1539] You've such great strategies because.

[1540] You're dialing down self, the flashlight of attention is really built, not only to direct it, but to be pulled by things that advantaged to evolutionary survival.

[1541] Anything self -related is going to be really, really salient.

[1542] Someone concerned with their own well -being is likely going to reproduce.

[1543] Yeah.

[1544] But what I was going to say is before you even do this kind of river of thought thing, there's like a first step that I think is really important, which is even to know where your mind is, what I call the find your flashlight practice.

[1545] So you do exactly what you were doing with your breath, like you focus on the breath, but you add a couple of things in.

[1546] So for this period of time, I'm going to focus, and do it not, this is very important.

[1547] Pick a time not in your regular life, like not in the middle of activities to practice this.

[1548] It's almost like the same way we'd do.

[1549] Like carve out time for it, you're saying.

[1550] Not just carve out time, but do it like you would weight training.

[1551] Yeah, you can get a strong body by moving things in your garage, but You don't have to tell me. As we've seen here on top it.

[1552] No, but you want to set it aside because that will grow this intrinsic capacity.

[1553] You can strengthen it, and then you can use it wherever, whenever.

[1554] So anyway, that's what I'm saying.

[1555] Do it in like a stillness practice where there's nothing else happening.

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] Anyway, so you said for this period of time, I'm going to focus on breath -related sensations.

[1558] I'm going to be very specific.

[1559] I'm going to have like a laser pointer to what those are.

[1560] I'm going to be very clear on what the target for my attention should be.

[1561] let's say coolness of error for you maybe sound and then you say for this period of time my executive control is going to have as its goal put that flashlight right on that target when my mind wanders I'm going to notice that and I'm going to redirect it back yeah so this is very much like transcendental meditation training which I would say in some sense it maybe it is but really the difference with mindfulness is that it's about what is happening right now we're not trying to go anywhere else.

[1562] It's the most ordinary aspect of what's happening.

[1563] It may be that you're focusing on a month throw or something like that with Transcendental Meditation.

[1564] Here you're using whatever object.

[1565] It could be sensations of walking.

[1566] It could be the conversation partner you have.

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] But the point is the key is that you're not only being better at directing that flashlight and redirecting it back, but that noticing component you're beginning to establish very early on.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] And just like Monica was saying, it's a win when you notice that your mind wanders.

[1571] Well, I was going to say, we have a reward system, and that's really how we're learning at all time.

[1572] So it's like if you endeavor on this practice, after a few rewards, after you get through a few situations that you previously couldn't navigate without a dump of cortisol, your body knows that.

[1573] You're always like, oh, wow.

[1574] Yeah, this other thing that I was talking about, that river of thought, or some people are like, the mind is a vast open sky.

[1575] We're following the clouds or whatever.

[1576] That's a different practice.

[1577] That's something we call open monitoring.

[1578] So you're staying in the most receptive.

[1579] You're really exercising that floodlight, and you're just here.

[1580] and you're cultivating, the technical term would be meta -awareness.

[1581] Yeah, I wrote that down.

[1582] Yeah, awareness of your awareness.

[1583] So this is what was so heartening to me. I asked a colleague of mine who'd been practicing for about 30 years, how long do you go before you mind wander?

[1584] I'm thinking he's going to say some amazing number.

[1585] And he said, seven seconds.

[1586] Sure.

[1587] And I was like, ah, what?

[1588] But this is the really cool part.

[1589] It actually relates to you tracking the guy in your car.

[1590] He said, but I don't have to be in a full -on fantasy or in a full -on rage before I noticed that my mind has wandered.

[1591] And he said in this really beautiful way, like, it's like I see a little ripple in a placid lake.

[1592] Like, he is just much more attuned to where he is moment by moment, monitoring in that way.

[1593] Well, he's checking in with himself so much more that he's aware of every time there's some fluctuation.

[1594] So it's both the checking in, but it's having the tolerance, like the distress tolerance, the mental toughness to just be with it, without doing anything.

[1595] So that's what I would say would be interesting.

[1596] Like if you just add in this notion of like, it sounds cheesy, but just be the heck out of this situation.

[1597] Don't do anything.

[1598] Just be it.

[1599] Yeah, the thing that helps me sometimes get to that resting place is my mantra when I'm really struggling for a day or two is in those moments my mantra is, this is temporary, this is temporary.

[1600] Like this is temporary.

[1601] I don't need to try to fight this.

[1602] I don't need to try to put it back in the box.

[1603] Like, it's going to pass.

[1604] And just the knowledge that it's going to pass, to me, de -catastrophizes the experience.

[1605] Exactly.

[1606] I think you're doing like all these like deep wisdom insights, right?

[1607] Interdependence.

[1608] We're all related to each other.

[1609] Impermanence and no self.

[1610] Like this notion that this thing and you said it when you said the guy is not, whoever's driving this crazy car, doesn't care about you.

[1611] I don't know who's in the car.

[1612] But it's even your sense of this thing you're trying to protect maybe something is a story.

[1613] I mean, self is story.

[1614] Yeah.

[1615] I see the hesitation and reservation people have.

[1616] because it's not unlike someone who literally can't do a push -up and you're inviting them in the gym.

[1617] And then their mind, they are not a person who can do anything.

[1618] Like, they've decided that.

[1619] I can't run a mile.

[1620] I can't do this.

[1621] I can't do a pull -up.

[1622] I can't.

[1623] And so if people have that reservation about physical activity, that's something they probably only experience once every couple months where they're like, oh.

[1624] But your racket in your head is something that anyone listening right now is already juggling.

[1625] So it's like you're double confirmed that you're not capable of.

[1626] Or in your mind, you think, well, that's not an option for me. I mean, this sounds great for them.

[1627] That sounds great.

[1628] But that's not the case.

[1629] It feels abstract, too.

[1630] I'm going to add that.

[1631] It does feel abstract to people, I think.

[1632] At times, it's felt abstract to me. Like, does it help to at least think about it as, okay, even just the activity itself, like this notion of like just even the image of, all right, I'm pointing something here.

[1633] Oh, my gosh, over here.

[1634] Yes.

[1635] Like, get it back.

[1636] That, I think, in my mind, it helped me a lot.

[1637] Of course.

[1638] And that's the thing that I'm, yeah, I'm always searching for.

[1639] these, because I think action is required on all things if you desire a different state.

[1640] Yeah, and sometimes the action is inaction in some sense.

[1641] It's to tolerate the observing stance without elaborating.

[1642] That's the other thing that we're so addicted to thinking.

[1643] We can't understand how to not think.

[1644] I mean, you are doing it.

[1645] By focusing on the license plate, you are actively trying to not think.

[1646] But I'm saying add this to your toolkit as well.

[1647] Well, I've said it on here before.

[1648] The reason I decided to start tackling this is I was like, okay, you've got Los Angeles traffic, and you got to Act Shepard.

[1649] Those are the two variables.

[1650] Which one's changing?

[1651] Because I'm pretending that somehow it's going to be a different experience when I drive.

[1652] My expectation should be exactly that someone's going to hunt me down from behind.

[1653] That's what I should enter my car.

[1654] This illusion that I'm going to have an easy drive to the west side for 50 minutes is a bad place to start.

[1655] But what if you just didn't have easier or heart?

[1656] a drive?

[1657] Like, what if it was just, it's going to be a drive?

[1658] It's going to be moment to moment.

[1659] Whatever's happening is happening.

[1660] Yeah, we have this saying in AA that I'm religious about, which is expectations are resentments waiting to happen.

[1661] And I, that is so true for me. I think all these things can work in concert.

[1662] They have to.

[1663] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1664] And I'm just saying, we got to pump up the stuff that we probably don't do as much by default.

[1665] And you got to train for that.

[1666] And that's why going back to what I was saying at the outset of our conversation about that guy in the wheelchair, quietly closing his eyes and being able to change the way he functions, what we're discovering is doing this is actually changing the brain from the inside out.

[1667] His attentional networks and their coordination is much more fluid.

[1668] The mind wandering, when it's excessive, gets dialed down.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] And it has a positive cascade on performance.

[1671] And, you know, I just want to connect it with something you said, just to kind of wrap up my thought on this.

[1672] The notion that people can't do this, right?

[1673] very strong and powerful.

[1674] And I would say, when we started our work with the military, I thought it did not have a lot of hopes that it was going to work.

[1675] Sure, low expectations.

[1676] Well, like, no, these people are going to, like, first of all, what?

[1677] Mindfulness, you want me to?

[1678] I'm about to go into a war zone.

[1679] You want me to close my eyes and focus on my breath?

[1680] Yeah.

[1681] And that's kind of what some of them said to us.

[1682] And some of them actually, the ones that were open to it tended to be the ones that had been previously deployed.

[1683] And they knew that all those approaches that they were taken, not that helpful, and they needed something new.

[1684] So they started practicing, the more they practiced, the more they benefited.

[1685] But there was definitely a group of outright resistors that thought we were completely full of it.

[1686] And then what happened is, like, you know, because we're tracking them.

[1687] So they get tested before and after they go eight weeks apart.

[1688] We give them a training, intervening, those that practice benefit, those that don't decline.

[1689] And then they go away, they're deployed.

[1690] We test them when they come back.

[1691] And there's a subset of these people that look better than before they were deployed.

[1692] And I was like, what the heck?

[1693] This makes no sense.

[1694] Like being in a war zone is going to definitely make your attention worse.

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] Why is this particular group not showing that pattern?

[1697] It was only a subset of them.

[1698] So I ended up asking our trainer, like, we can't make sense of this.

[1699] Anything about these guys that looks unusual to you?

[1700] And she's like, oh, yeah, these are the guys that contacted me while they were in Iraq.

[1701] And they said that crappy rotations before, my buddies that are doing it are sleeping through the night.

[1702] They're clear -headed.

[1703] They're not suffering.

[1704] Teach it to me. So they learned how to practice while they were deployed.

[1705] And what we saw was that when they did this, they benefited.

[1706] So to me, that gives me a lot of hope that we don't know what people are capable of.

[1707] They might not know.

[1708] But when the need is there, they could certainly open up to trying.

[1709] Yeah.

[1710] Well, I'm going to tell you something.

[1711] You wasted a lot of time worrying about how you were going to be on the show last night.

[1712] Because you were absolutely wonderful, and it's been such a pleasure talking to you.

[1713] I hope we get to talk to you again, too.

[1714] And I hope people give this a serious consideration.

[1715] and not be intimidated by it.

[1716] And they should by peak mind, find your focus, own your attention, invest 12 minutes a day.

[1717] And it can't make you worse.

[1718] I often tell people that like it could be a free trial for you to see if it might really help you out.

[1719] So such a pleasure.

[1720] Thank you.

[1721] Thank you.

[1722] And good luck with the book.

[1723] Thanks so much.

[1724] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1725] updates updates updates so many updates so many uppies um let's start with husson if husson's coming through your town and you have an opportunity to go see his live stand -up show uh it is imperative you have to go so we went on saturday night to see his new show king's jester you know i always struggle with the word jester oh you do yeah i want to say gesture oh i get that yeah well and king's do make gestures.

[1726] Big time.

[1727] Wave, smile, thumbs up, middle finger to enemies.

[1728] Oh my God.

[1729] Mainly the way.

[1730] Wait, did we even tell, we told people we saw?

[1731] We didn't.

[1732] Did we not?

[1733] Of all the England updates, we did not.

[1734] Oh my gosh.

[1735] We have to.

[1736] Okay.

[1737] Pause on Hussein.

[1738] Yep.

[1739] When we landed in London, England, we were in a van driving to the hotel.

[1740] We had just gotten into London proper.

[1741] And we were at a stoplight.

[1742] So we were dead stopped.

[1743] And we were dead stopped.

[1744] And then a motorcycle cop was coming at us.

[1745] And I said to the girls, hey, look at the kind of motorcycles, the cops drive here.

[1746] That was what brought our attention to it.

[1747] And then a second and a third motorcycle cop.

[1748] And then our driver said, oh, I think that's the Royal Security.

[1749] Yeah, I think that must be someone from the Royal Family.

[1750] Yes.

[1751] So immediately after that, a Range Rover pulls up, it's going in the opposite direction, but they're going for real one mile an hour, two miles an hour.

[1752] Yeah.

[1753] Because they're in heavy traffic.

[1754] And as the Rangerover passes, the windows are not tinted at all.

[1755] We are at this point, we are seriously about 11 feet from the window.

[1756] Yep.

[1757] And it's fucking Prince William.

[1758] And you could see everything.

[1759] They were on full display, which shocked us.

[1760] We were so surprised.

[1761] And we were like, oh, my God.

[1762] The simulation is so stupid.

[1763] We immediately land in London and see Prince William.

[1764] Wait, maybe I did.

[1765] Maybe we did say this because did I, did I. say the James Bond thing?

[1766] I felt like what he said 007 was staying across the hall from us.

[1767] Did I say that?

[1768] Anyways, yeah.

[1769] So, you know, if you're thinking of who you might want to see in England, it's the queen, it's Prince William, and 007, James Bond.

[1770] Yep.

[1771] For me, that's the top three.

[1772] And we saw two of the top three within the first 90 minutes we were there.

[1773] I said the only other person that would have really made the simulation go over the top is if we saw Terence Posner there.

[1774] Yes, Terence Posner, like, flying by in one of the brooms.

[1775] Like, actually, not Daniel Radcliffe, but Harry Potter.

[1776] What's the brooms they fly on called?

[1777] Brooms.

[1778] Zooms?

[1779] Okay.

[1780] Okay, back to Husson.

[1781] Back to Husson.

[1782] So we went to his show at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles, and it's worth noting that's a 7 ,000 seat theater.

[1783] It's enormous.

[1784] And you feel it when you're in there.

[1785] It's huge.

[1786] It's huge.

[1787] And it was fucking jam -packed.

[1788] He sold it out two nights in a row.

[1789] $14 ,000.

[1790] And then his show starts and it starts at a good pace.

[1791] In my opinion, it's on par with Homecoming King.

[1792] But then it finds a gear, in my opinion, about 12 minutes in.

[1793] And then it's like an episode of the Americans.

[1794] It just is growing and growing and growing and growing.

[1795] And it's so fucking intricate and so well produced and so well written.

[1796] And then while also being incredibly loose, I'm going to be, I'm going to be critical.

[1797] just so you know to believe me. Okay.

[1798] My reaction to Homecoming King was...

[1799] His first special on Netflix.

[1800] Was A -level performance of B -level material.

[1801] Ah.

[1802] That was...

[1803] When we talked afterwards, you were like, do you like it?

[1804] And I go, yeah, I thought it was really good.

[1805] And you were like, you didn't think it was great?

[1806] And I was like, no, I thought it was good.

[1807] For Homecoming King, yeah.

[1808] Yes.

[1809] This is A -plus material, A -plus -plus performance.

[1810] I text them, like, I felt like I was sitting at an Eddie Murphy show or something.

[1811] It was incredible.

[1812] It was incredible.

[1813] I loved Homecoming King.

[1814] I really thought it was incredibly special.

[1815] And I guess for me, like, what I was scared by and admired and loved is Hussein is so comfortable with his otherness.

[1816] Like, he's coming in and out of speaking Hindi, like, especially in that first one.

[1817] He does do it in this one, too.

[1818] He's calling everyone uncle and auntie.

[1819] Yeah.

[1820] which I loved.

[1821] Yeah, and I was so impressed by that first special.

[1822] And then, yeah, and then this one is somehow better.

[1823] And it's almost impossible to have your second special be better than your first special because you've spent your whole life writing material for your first special.

[1824] And he did it.

[1825] And I did leave and I felt so moved by the fact that, like, he just owns himself.

[1826] He never ran from it.

[1827] He embraced it.

[1828] And he forced all of us to get on board.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] Yeah, and I could never do that, and I was the opposite of that, and I was running in the opposite direction, and, like, seeing that it worked, that actually leaning in worked, it just made me so happy and sad for myself and jealous and all of those things, but it was beautiful.

[1831] It was.

[1832] And then he also does something that I really appreciate, which is I think increasingly comedy has to not just be funny, but have some kind of an emotional truth to it.

[1833] And the way he explores the fucking dopamine dump of getting approval from strangers on Instagram and social media was like he took it to an 11 in the greatest way.

[1834] That was some of my favorite parts of the show was like just owning how fucking gross.

[1835] you can get.

[1836] What a monster you can turn into.

[1837] It was like one of the first times ever, I think, which is a really weird thing to say, that I was like sitting in a group full of people.

[1838] Desa people largely.

[1839] There's so many.

[1840] And I was also like, oh my God, look at this.

[1841] Like he brought out everyone.

[1842] Yeah.

[1843] But I was sitting in this group and there are jokes about Indians and there are things.

[1844] And I, I don't feel scared.

[1845] I felt proud.

[1846] Yeah.

[1847] I was like, oh my God, I belong in this community.

[1848] I know what he's talking about.

[1849] And I don't feel like I want to pretend like I don't.

[1850] Well, you finally have a representation that's a gangster and not a guy going, you know, how, you know, we're out of fucking slurpees or whatever.

[1851] Yeah.

[1852] Yeah, it was really.

[1853] You were, I don't, I don't think I've ever seen Monica cackle like this.

[1854] It was such a joy to watch.

[1855] I was getting so much fun, but then I would look over, and Monica was like, when you've passed the point of laughing as loud as you can, and then you have to start rocking your body.

[1856] No, you have to rock your body uncontrollably.

[1857] Like, you were rocking, rocking.

[1858] I told you that one time in the movie, I had to stand up straight.

[1859] Like, I'd pass the rocking phase and just had to stand up.

[1860] And yeah, you were really close to just standing, I think.

[1861] We were so fucking happy for them.

[1862] It's going to be on Netflix, too, eventually, and I just hope everyone watches.

[1863] But I hope they go see it live.

[1864] If they can, yeah.

[1865] Yeah, yeah.

[1866] And I think that his tour is kind of.

[1867] coming to nearly every city.

[1868] And, um, you know, hopefully he'll add shows and blah, blah, blah, but yeah, man, he is, he's really, really getting to like master level and it's really fun to watch.

[1869] It is.

[1870] Okay, that was an update.

[1871] Prince William was an update.

[1872] There was a, oh, oh, oh, a postcard we received that we'd like to read.

[1873] Oh my God.

[1874] Okay.

[1875] Here we go.

[1876] This may be the thing that I think I feel the most amount of pride in in the last year.

[1877] This is a handwritten postcard.

[1878] Okay.

[1879] Dear Dax and Monica, thank you so much for having me back on your podcast.

[1880] I love the question about blowing your dad or eating out your mother and have posed it to any number of people, all of whom were delightfully sickened at the thought of having to do either.

[1881] Sincerely, David Sederis.

[1882] First of all, to see it in cursive handwriting, that question is so funny.

[1883] I love the question about blowing your dad or eating out your mother.

[1884] eating out your mother.

[1885] That was one of these, I can't tell you how many times we do that all the time in the pod.

[1886] And in fact, it's worth noting that our good friend Laura, who works on the show and her now fiance Matt, who's an incredible hairstylist.

[1887] Yes.

[1888] The first time the pod ever met him, it was in deep, deep lockdown.

[1889] And it was over a Zoom call where we were all being introduced to Matt.

[1890] And I mean, what's high stakes for Matt?

[1891] It's like, there's all these dudes, you know, we're all too.

[1892] two dude like to begin with.

[1893] And he was just doing great, great, great, great, great.

[1894] And I think I said, like, well, Matt, that was a great showing.

[1895] I'd just like to close this out by asking if you'd rather suck your dad's degree.

[1896] And he didn't bat an eye.

[1897] He just goes, well, I think I'd have to blow my dad.

[1898] I could never look at my mom again.

[1899] And I was like, he's in the group.

[1900] We talk about it all the time.

[1901] It's a great question.

[1902] And I'm just really, I'm really proud that something I thought of Sederis is not incorporated into his own life.

[1903] connected with it.

[1904] That's my Hussin at the Microsoft Theater moment.

[1905] Do we have any other updates?

[1906] You're drinking coffee.

[1907] That's about the only update, which has made me so happy.

[1908] It's pretty big update.

[1909] I've been waiting fingers crossed.

[1910] What's great is, you know, I've never ever encouraged you to drink coffee.

[1911] No, you have not.

[1912] Which makes me thinks that I should just shut up about MDMA and then maybe one day you'll give that a shot.

[1913] Maybe.

[1914] It does up your chance of pooping your pants that I've noted.

[1915] Yeah.

[1916] Makes me thirstier.

[1917] Yeah, well, we wanted that for water specifically.

[1918] For water specifically.

[1919] And I am dehydrated, so that's good.

[1920] And you have to brush your teeth a lot more.

[1921] Coffee breath.

[1922] Oh, because coffee breath.

[1923] But I do want you just to know that in the chain of stainers, teas number one, wine, then coffee.

[1924] Coffee, ironically, is less.

[1925] staining than tea and vine.

[1926] That is surprising about tea.

[1927] I believe you, though.

[1928] You asked me the other day.

[1929] Speaking of Laura, Laura told me that if you write to the president, any former president, that if you invite them to your wedding, you send them a wedding invitation, they have to respond, and they'll respond with like, thank you for, you know, a letter.

[1930] Thank you for the invite.

[1931] Unfortunately, my engagements.

[1932] Congratulations.

[1933] Conclude me from.

[1934] Yeah.

[1935] So she told me that and I was like, oh, wow, that's so cool.

[1936] And then I was like, who are you going to invite?

[1937] Obviously, Obama.

[1938] So I told you this and you were like, what percentage do you believe Laura when she says something like that?

[1939] Right.

[1940] And I said really high.

[1941] Like she doesn't really say things without knowing they're certain.

[1942] Yeah.

[1943] Well, we established it like maybe you said 85 or 92 or something.

[1944] Yeah.

[1945] Which is really fucking high.

[1946] That means like whatever they.

[1947] they tell you only 12 % of the time you're going to go Google it to make sure that's true before you repeat it out in public.

[1948] Exactly.

[1949] So then I asked you to give me a number out of a hundred.

[1950] Yeah.

[1951] And I was scared to answer.

[1952] Why?

[1953] I knew it was going to be low.

[1954] And I said, well, look, the amount of things that I've taken from you and repeated way more than Laura, way more than anyone else.

[1955] But.

[1956] We got into the quantity quality.

[1957] That's right.

[1958] Yes.

[1959] The quantity is just too high with me. That's right.

[1960] What we figured out is that Laura, she might drop one fact a day.

[1961] Or less even.

[1962] And I'm in the like a couple hundred a day are coming out.

[1963] Yeah.

[1964] Yeah.

[1965] And there's no way the accuracy is there.

[1966] There's just no way.

[1967] I think truly I give you like 70%.

[1968] Well, that's pretty good.

[1969] Considering the volume.

[1970] Yeah.

[1971] I'll take it.

[1972] You know, any number works.

[1973] Because I'm me. You know, I'm probably not.

[1974] Changing.

[1975] Yeah.

[1976] This is me. No one's asking you to change.

[1977] Right.

[1978] And I can't control what percentage people think I'm correct.

[1979] I can't be doing it for the percentage, you know?

[1980] No, no, no. Well, you grant me this, even when I'm wrong with the exception.

[1981] And again, I remember it.

[1982] It's in my head of, like, deep shame is the time I estimated Grand Rapids, Michigan, having a million people.

[1983] I was off by, like, a factor of 3x.

[1984] You hated that.

[1985] I hated it, and I remember it.

[1986] But even you will, I hope, grant me that.

[1987] I'm wrong, it's a very small percentage.

[1988] So we were watching something that, oh, it was about the Russian Olympics.

[1989] Yes.

[1990] The Olympic team.

[1991] And I was saying, you know, back when they were the Soviet Union, they span 13 time zones because it was very confusing.

[1992] There was a Russian mafia operative that's clearly Asian.

[1993] Right.

[1994] And I was trying to explain, you know, well, USSR, man, it went all the way past Mongolia and a lot of the Russians are Asian.

[1995] And I said, it spanned 13 time zones.

[1996] And then you were like, fine.

[1997] So I think you challenged me. And I thought, well, let's look that up.

[1998] I think it's that.

[1999] I go, I think even currently it's 11.

[2000] I never got confirmation that it was 13 under USSR, but I did get confirmation it was 11 as Russia.

[2001] Yeah.

[2002] So again, let's say I was off by two.

[2003] The point is still, you know, we're four time zones and they're plus 10.

[2004] That's true.

[2005] You're never like fully, fully off base.

[2006] It's way more about the point is that the place is enormous almost beyond comprehension.

[2007] Yeah.

[2008] Yeah.

[2009] Three times wider than the US of A. What percentage do you believe me?

[2010] You're not a huge fact dropper.

[2011] You're more of an opinion.

[2012] Surprisingly.

[2013] In my real life, I don't drop very many facts.

[2014] Yeah, you're more of an opinion person.

[2015] That's true.

[2016] Yeah, so I guess it's like what percentage of the time do I agree with your opinion?

[2017] Oh, well, that, I mean, I don't know that we need to go down that.

[2018] I am not trying to get people to follow my opinion.

[2019] I have my opinion, and that's fine.

[2020] and I'm not trying to convince another person to believe the way I believe.

[2021] But I do want to make my opinion heard.

[2022] Well, you don't have any interest in that they will adopt this opinion.

[2023] Because ideally, if you believe in this thing, then you would think, like, well, the more people that believe that way, the better the world will be.

[2024] Yeah, but I think I just, I more feel like if I try to convince someone to believe what I believe, they're never going to.

[2025] So I'm just saying, like, this is my way.

[2026] my opinion on it and my thoughts based on my experience.

[2027] And then maybe that will affect their overall thoughts on the matter, but I'm not trying to anyway say like, you must.

[2028] I don't know for myself.

[2029] I guess there's lots of them that, yeah, I'm really annoyed that there's some commonly held opinion that I find to be very, very destructive.

[2030] Yeah.

[2031] And I guess when I say it, I am trying to change the way people are viewing that.

[2032] Yeah, I guess it depends on what it is for sure.

[2033] If I think something's dangerous, then yes.

[2034] If I think Arby's has the best roast beef sandwich, I'm not actually trying to.

[2035] I'm just telling you what I think is the best roast beef sandwich, which I don't know that I think it is, but that's just an example.

[2036] No, you think of Houston's.

[2037] Yeah, but I, boy, those are hardly even comparable.

[2038] I know.

[2039] One is a straight chunk of prime rib, and the other one is like the most paper thinly sliced sliced, Rosed beef.

[2040] But you had it recently anymore.

[2041] Let's not talking about it.

[2042] I still, in my mind, I'm going to blame that location.

[2043] Okay.

[2044] Because it's in a fucking shithole part of L .A. Where like none of those places are being run correctly on that block.

[2045] Who are we fact -checking?

[2046] We are fact -checking Amishi.

[2047] Oh, yes, yes, yes, from Chicago.

[2048] Yes.

[2049] Hold on, don't say it.

[2050] Don't say it.

[2051] I know you want to.

[2052] Because if I get it now, I'll have it forever.

[2053] Okay.

[2054] Goodroffi.

[2055] Nice.

[2056] Oh, okay.

[2057] You did it?

[2058] Good job.

[2059] Did you have a trick to get there?

[2060] Well, my trick was going to be to remember Carl Drogo.

[2061] I know, but then...

[2062] But I couldn't even remember what they're called.

[2063] Oh, Dothraki.

[2064] Dothraki.

[2065] So I didn't get to Dothrake.

[2066] It's hard because I think Dothraki, you've got to eliminate those connections because that actually makes it much harder.

[2067] I agree.

[2068] I agree.

[2069] I agree.

[2070] And I really liked her message.

[2071] And I'm trying to incorporate some mindfulness back into my daily life.

[2072] Yeah, there were a couple elements I really liked.

[2073] We had a post -debrief of it.

[2074] And I said, I do like the stepping back part a lot.

[2075] And I really like finding the sweet part of this negative thing you're telling yourself.

[2076] Yeah.

[2077] I love that.

[2078] I love the third person.

[2079] And like we had somebody on the Dothraki?

[2080] No. Carl Drogo?

[2081] No. His name isn't Carl.

[2082] is it?

[2083] I've added Carl.

[2084] Call, drogo.

[2085] Call, yeah.

[2086] I was like it does sound right.

[2087] Oh, my God, Carl.

[2088] Oh, Carl.

[2089] Oh, Carl.

[2090] Poor Carl.

[2091] Remember poor Carl?

[2092] Who's poor Carl?

[2093] There was a divorce.

[2094] Oh, shit.

[2095] Poor Carl.

[2096] Two Carl's.

[2097] Who's the second car?

[2098] Oh, they really both?

[2099] Oh, wow.

[2100] It's been a rough year for Carl's and calls.

[2101] Actually, whoa, that's a weird ding, ding, ding.

[2102] What?

[2103] Because stepdad is called Drogo.

[2104] Oh, my.

[2105] She was married to a...

[2106] What lazy engineers up there in the fucking Sydney.

[2107] I know.

[2108] I know.

[2109] Oh, my God.

[2110] I got to talk to my dad about this.

[2111] This is getting crazy.

[2112] He cut a couple corners, and it was...

[2113] But do you think he actually just overpaid?

[2114] So now they're freaked out.

[2115] They're going to mess anything up for him.

[2116] Everything just has to be really perfect.

[2117] No, I'm leaning more towards that, like, he got...

[2118] the platinum package, but it was a beta product.

[2119] It was like the first iteration of it.

[2120] And he was like, I'll fuck it.

[2121] I'll take it with the bugs because there's so much more shit that goes on for me in this story.

[2122] He would try to save a penny there.

[2123] Yeah.

[2124] I know him.

[2125] Well, he's very good with his money.

[2126] He is.

[2127] I got to add one thing.

[2128] This is an update.

[2129] This is just a blow your mind.

[2130] It would be way better coming from Aaron because I just had, he did the sleep study.

[2131] If you follow him on Instagram, you saw.

[2132] He must have had 600 wires coming out.

[2133] He looked like a fucking robot from the 30s and he finally got all the info today and what they told him was if you stop breathing five times within an hour while you're sleeping you officially have sleep apnea and if you stop breathing 30 times within an hour you have severe sleep apnea and he stops breathing 72 times and i told him if if if If he had been healthy and never drank or anything, he probably would have lived a 160.

[2134] Because this guy, he'll run through a wall.

[2135] He is still very powerful.

[2136] And it has a glow about his face.

[2137] He sure does.

[2138] And they were saying they're surprised he didn't have a heart attack or a stroke.

[2139] That's so scary.

[2140] So that, I guess, yeah, that is the public health statement of this, is that it's so bad for your heart, which he just learned by talking to this doctor.

[2141] so if you think you have sleep apnea you know get it checked out really because i guess the strain on your heart is horrendous and then also your oxygen levels can get really low and you know that's your brain you're talking about there i'm so glad he got it figured out me too me too i'm just when we all stayed in the motor home and this was pre -sleep apnea and erin was sleeping i mean none of this is surprising at all i could have counted myself 90 times that he stopped breathing yeah it was so bad that it had passed feeling bad for him, and you guys were angry.

[2142] You and Laura were both angry.

[2143] I'm going to include him.

[2144] Everyone was angry.

[2145] And isn't funny that I just, like, I've been trained to not.

[2146] I could not believe it.

[2147] I know, because I'm a really light sleeper.

[2148] Like, I hear noises in the house.

[2149] We were up the whole night.

[2150] I mean, the, the whole night.

[2151] And I even had a sound machine on in my ear to try to combat this.

[2152] It didn't work.

[2153] It's not too much to say that you really are certain.

[2154] There's a fucking 1 ,200 -pound grizzly bear sleeping in the same room.

[2155] Anyway.

[2156] Well, I'm glad he's getting it all worked out.

[2157] Me too.

[2158] We're going to get 90 years out of them.

[2159] Yeah.

[2160] That's the goal.

[2161] Okay, she talked about not looking like a professor.

[2162] She mentioned tweed jackets with those like elbow things.

[2163] Oh, yeah, the patches.

[2164] Yeah, they're called elbow patches.

[2165] Okay.

[2166] That's pretty literal.

[2167] Or professor patches.

[2168] Ooh.

[2169] Because scholars would wear through the elbows of their jackets because they were sitting on their arms on a desk for so long.

[2170] Oh, wow.

[2171] So they had to protect their elbows.

[2172] I wonder if professors ever say, do you want to rub Professor Patches?

[2173] That's sexual.

[2174] Well, that's the great thing is it's highly deniable in court, but it is very sexual.

[2175] Oh, yeah.

[2176] Oh, yeah.

[2177] I wonder if my professor ever rubbed Professor Patches.

[2178] He was never, ever wearing a jacket like that.

[2179] He was a cool surfer.

[2180] Oh, sir.

[2181] Even though it was Georgia, he looked like a surf dude.

[2182] He's like, what's up?

[2183] Little Rippers.

[2184] Yeah.

[2185] What's Cracker Books to page 78, tear it up.

[2186] What was the, what was his?

[2187] Religion.

[2188] Oh, okay.

[2189] Western religion.

[2190] Oh.

[2191] Not like, not like Bible study.

[2192] Sure, sure, sure.

[2193] It was a, it was a good class.

[2194] I'm not going to say my opinion on that because I actually don't want anyone to have my opinion.

[2195] Oh.

[2196] But it is weird to me. I mean, I guess there's great, and understanding what impact religions have.

[2197] Absolutely, yeah.

[2198] But it also at the same time feels a little bit weird that, like, you write a book that, again, in my opinion, is a fairy tale.

[2199] And now someone would dedicate their life to interpreting this fairy tale.

[2200] It seems a little weird.

[2201] But it's its effect on the world, which had the most effect than any other thing.

[2202] Any book?

[2203] Anything, I think.

[2204] Other than Harry Potter.

[2205] Harry Potter's up there.

[2206] Oh, my God.

[2207] Did I tell people about my first edition?

[2208] or do you think they'll steal from me?

[2209] I wouldn't say that, yeah.

[2210] Okay.

[2211] Yeah.

[2212] I got a first edition.

[2213] That's it.

[2214] That's it.

[2215] Yeah.

[2216] Great.

[2217] We loved her.

[2218] Yeah, she was so fun.

[2219] She gave us little brain squish balls.

[2220] Mm -hmm.

[2221] Do you know one of the training exercises for wrestlers is to squeeze tennis balls?

[2222] Do you know this?

[2223] Oh, to get their, like.

[2224] You want your grip.

[2225] Like, your grip is one of the most important aspects of Greco -Roman wrestling.

[2226] Any wrestler, if you know, if you know, if you let, you know, you do a handshake with them or something, telling them to feel it a little bit or put their hands on their wrist.

[2227] It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, really?

[2228] Yeah, they have an inordinately strong grip.

[2229] Well, you brought up wrestlers the other day and like how they're, high school wrestlers and how they're such a specific type.

[2230] Yeah, and the ones I knew, yeah.

[2231] And I fully agree.

[2232] One of my best friends was a high school wrestler and he was a hundred percent that, like so committed, dedicated, disciplined, running around.

[2233] around in trash bags.

[2234] That's what's really interesting is we have these, we have categories where nearly identical behavior is pathological.

[2235] And then we see it as productive in another.

[2236] Because it is really kin to eating disorder folks who really the control is really the sensation that is so gratifying.

[2237] And it's, you know, it's just a putty hair away from.

[2238] It is, it is, it is.

[2239] But it's kind of like all...

[2240] Was it a sane when you were young?

[2241] No, I've never heard that.

[2242] That's very colloquial from the 80s.

[2243] Really?

[2244] I think it's in movies, yeah.

[2245] But I think it's like any negative trait, there's a positive spin.

[2246] Sure.

[2247] You could take things that are negative and, you know, take their positive head of it.

[2248] And if you're just looking at Olympians, like, what goes into being an Olympic is in many, by many definitions, child abuse.

[2249] Like, we were just, we were watching the one.

[2250] It's really good.

[2251] Bad sports on Netflix.

[2252] I think I've talked about it a couple times now.

[2253] But there's one about the Canadian ice skating pair versus the Russian ice skating pair.

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] And this poor Russian athlete, the girl, she's a woman now, but at the time she was a girl.

[2256] And, you know, her father was an insane alcoholic.

[2257] And she lived, you know, in communist Russia.

[2258] Some scouts came to town.

[2259] They had everyone ice skate.

[2260] She showed this inate ability.

[2261] And they put her on a 36 -hour train ride at six years old.

[2262] Without her mother to go join this program.

[2263] That's a kidnapping.

[2264] And then it's celebrated.

[2265] It's celebrated.

[2266] Because the end goal is the Olympics, it's not kidnapping.

[2267] It's kidnapping.

[2268] Yep.

[2269] God, I'm so passionate about all these things.

[2270] Okay.

[2271] Well, I love you.

[2272] Love you.

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