In this box is a real preserved human

brain named Betty. And I think you

should hold it.

Oh my god, it's wet.

And now we're going to go through all

the tools and tricks to make your brain

as healthy as it can be. Are you ready?

Wendy Suzuki, the neuroscientist and

professor at New York University.

Her first-hand research on the brain is

helping to improve memory, learning, and

higher cognitive abilities in humans.

Let me start with exercise.

All the research shows the more you

exercise, the more change in your brain

we notice. Every drop of sweat counted.

And the best kind of exercise that you

can do is

What about things that we consume? Food,

drink, and alcohol.

It's all the Mediterranean diet. Go

ahead.

Coffee.

And then my memory's not great.

Most people feel that. But there's four

things that you can do to make memories

stick. Number one is

Is it true that if we have less friends,

then our brain will shrink?

Yes, loneliness damages the brain.

Can you see if someone's in love in the

brain?

Yes, in the side here. A lot of the

reward areas are activated.

Doesn't that mean then that if we don't

fall in love, the love part of my brain

gets smaller? And would that make it

more difficult to love in the future?

That's a great question. So

Wendy, do you have any brain routines?

Absolutely. So every morning I like to

Oh, and then I do the most powerful tool

that you can do to protect your brain

from aging and neurodegenerative disease

states, which is

We've just hit 6 million subscribers on

the Diary of a CEO. Um, so me and my

team would like to do something we've

never done before as a little thank you.

And we're calling it the Diary of a CEO

subscriber raffle. And here is how it

works. Every episode this month, we're

going to pick three current subscribers

at random, and we'll send one of you a

£1,000 voucher, one of you tickets to

come and watch the Diary of a CEO behind

the scenes live with our team, and one

of you will have a 10-minute phone call

with me to discuss whatever you want to

talk about. If you're a subscriber,

you're in the raffle.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart

for allowing me to do something that me

and my team love doing so much. It is

the greatest honor of my lifetime, and I

hope that I hope it continues off into

the future. Let's get to the episode.

You just said to me that much of your

work is focused on making sure people

have big, fat, fluffy brains.

Yes.

Why does that matter?

It matters because a big, fat, fluffy

brain is a healthy brain, and

my whole first book, Healthy Brain,

Happy Life, was about how I learned to

use all the tools and tricks and magic

of neuroscience and psychology to make

my brain work better, and I so needed it

at that moment. My life got better. I

got happier. It is a pathway to a happy

life, I think.

Having a very healthy, big, fat, fluffy

brain.

Do you think people appreciate the

importance of their brain?

No. I think they ignore it all the time.

And I think that is part of my part of

my message to everybody that that the

human brain, that is the one in your

head right now, is the most complex

structure known to humankind. Not

Einstein's brain, not Marie Curie's

brain, but the one in your head. And

when you think about that, it gives you

more of a self-appreciation

of all of the computations that is

taking for me to see you and appreciate

your face and be able to remember your

face next time I see you when I go to my

Diary of a CEO podcast and and choose an

episode, all of that is is such a

complex structure. Um you start to

appreciate your own kind of brain

functioning more. I think that's a very

important thing to do.

Why don't we appreciate our brains? Cuz

we appreciate a lot of other things.

Yeah.

We spend a lot of time on our like our

muscles.

Yeah, our abs.

Yeah.

I think that that's a great analogy and

part of my goal is to kind of shift the

focus from focusing on certain body

parts to focusing on what our brain is

doing for us, what it can do for us, and

what we can do to change our

environments to get to that big fat

fluffy brain, to get it healthy, to get

it happy, to get it growing.

If I achieve a big fat fluffy brain,

how would my life be different? I'm

saying me, Steve Bartlett. I'm a

podcaster, I'm an I'm an entrepreneur,

I'm

relationships, I've got friends,

girlfriend, family. How would I show up

differently if I was able to make my

brain big, fat, fluffy?

Yeah. So, uh let me start with the two

areas that we know respond really,

really well to things like meditation

and exercise. Those two brain areas are

the hippocampus, critical for long-term

memory, your ability to form and retain

new long-term memories and for facts and

events. And the second brain area is

your prefrontal cortex, right behind

your forehead, critical for your ability

to shift and focus attention. Um it's

important for your personality, for

decision-making.

Can you show me on there? Is it you

brought

Absolutely. I brought a human brain.

You You have

that.

a model of a brain as well.

a model of the brain. Okay, let's start

with the model of the brain.

So, here is a model of the human brain.

So, there's a front part and a back

part. This front part is right behind

our forehead. That's the prefrontal

cortex, critical for the ability to

shift and focus attention. Also, a part

of the brain that is very responsive to

what you bring into your life. Exercise

actually really helps the prefrontal

cortex. Meditation

helps area 10 of the prefrontal cortex,

which is right in the very front, right

here. The second brain area that you

will benefit from when you make your

brain big and fat and fluffy is a

structure called the hippocampus, which

is which is very deep in this lobe,

deep in this lobe right here, which is

the temporal lobe. The hippocampus

Hippocampus means seahorse, and the

hippocampus is critical for your ability

to to form and retain new long-term

memories for facts and events. You have

one on the right and you have one on the

left. So, for you,

superstar podcaster, what do you need to

do? You need to remember all the details

of that guest that you're sitting in

front of. You need to be able to focus.

What did they say? What do I want to ask

next? And how do I want to come back to

those things? That is a combination of

what your prefrontal cortex is doing for

you and your hippocampus is doing for

you. So, I submit that you, when you do

these things that we know from

neuroscience, are going to make your

prefrontal cortex and your hippocampus

big and fat and fluffy, you will be

better at doing your job as a podcaster.

I am better as a dean and a professor of

neuroscience and and teaching in class,

for example, is where I'm using my

prefrontal cortex and my hippocampus the

most. Most of us would benefit from

these things that make our brains big

and fat and fluffy.

Was there a point in your life where you

had a personal epiphany or revelation

about the brain that made you so

passionate about the subject?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, this story

starts when I was in the middle of

getting tenure um at New York

University. So, it takes six years. Uh

you have six years to prove yourself as

a scientist and do something

groundbreaking. And if you don't, you're

fired. So, no big deal. No pressure

there. And I decided to only just work.

Work, work, work. I didn't have a lot of

social interactions. I was just working

and I just just threw myself into work.

And I was getting burnt out. And

I decided to go on a river rafting trip

to Peru

by myself cuz I had no friends. So I go

on the river rafting trip and it's

great. It's beautiful. We're river

rafting. We're we're camping on Aztec

burial sites and it is just spectacular.

But I realized that I'm the weakest

person on this trip. And when I got back

after this wonderful, you know, two

weeks in Peru,

I said I never want to feel like the

weakest person on a trip like that

again. And it was so great to to be

moving and to be exercising. So I

decided I'm going to go to the gym and

I'm going to continue this

physical activity at the gym. And

somehow it stuck. I had I had let myself

go, not no exercise at all. And when I

started going to the gym regularly, I

noticed that that great mood that I

found in Peru every day during the river

rafting trip stayed with me. I think

everybody in my lab loved it when I was

going to the gym. And I started to

notice not only I got stronger, I was

feeling better,

that mood boost that I got from physical

activity was so powerful. But then one

day this you asked me about this

revelation I had. It was one day I was

sitting in my office

writing a grant,

which is usually something that I have

to do very regularly, but usually

something that I'm pulling my hair out.

It's so hard. It's very competitive. I'm

competing against Nobel laureates for

the same pot of money.

And I had this thought that went through

my mind, which was

gosh, writing

went well today. I I'd never had that

thought before ever in my I had been

there for five years at at NYU writing

grants. And so um, I um, I thought, "Oh,

maybe maybe I'm just having a good day.

I'm feeling good."

But I realized that the um,

the writing seemed to have been getting

a little bit better over time. I had

noticed it a little bit if I think about

it. And the only thing I had changed in

my life was regular physical activity

inspired by that trip to Peru.

And so, I'm a neuroscientist. I went to

the literature and I asked, "Well, what

do we know right now about what exactly

exercise is doing?"

And it showed at that moment in time,

about 10 15 years ago,

that exercise can improve your mood,

exercise actually makes your memory work

better, and exercise improves the

function of your prefrontal cortex. And

I thought, "Wow, that that is amazing."

But the last part of the story was that

when all of this was going on, this was

after this day of realizing, "Gosh,

something's you know, my writing is

better and um, maybe it's exercise." Um,

I got a call from my mom who said that

my father wasn't feeling well and that

he had gotten lost driving back from the

coffee shop that he drove to every day,

every afternoon for the last 20 years.

And the hippocampus, that structure

critical for memory, is particularly

important for spatial memory. And as an

expert in the hippocampus, as I am, I

knew that that was a telltale sign of

dementia and maybe Alzheimer's dementia.

But as I talked to my father and of

course we went and got him uh, neurology

appointment, I saw that everything that

seemed to be improving in me, that is

memory, focus,

completely and very very suddenly uh,

diminished in him. His memory was

terrible. He couldn't focus. He was also

very depressed because he could notice

how poor his memory was.

And I think those things together, what

I was noticing in myself about the

physical effects of the effects of

physical activity on my own brain

function, and seeing my father go

through which what was a really

precipitous loss of his cognitive

functions, that turned out to be

Alzheimer's dementia.

Made me think that the power of physical

activity needed to be explored more

deeply.

And by me. I I was waking up in the

morning thinking about what can we what

can I do to better understand how

physical activity could be used not just

for me, for my students? Can they study

better? Can they learn better? Can it

help maybe not my father, I wasn't sure

whether exercise could help my father at

that point, but as people age, that was

the revelation that I had that made me

actually switch my research focus from

memory function to understanding the

effects of physical activity on the

brain.

All of this is rooted in a

fact that was once not considered a

fact, which is the idea that our brains

can change shape.

Yes. Yeah.

Which is this idea of brain plasticity.

I mean, I really learned about this a

couple of years ago cuz I think I, like

many people, didn't realize that like

muscles, my brain changes shape based on

what I do.

Yes.

And also what I consume.

Yes.

I guess.

Yes.

What is the evidence for the studies

that we have that proves our brains do

change shape?

Yeah, that's such a great question and

uh it takes me back to the first day of

my freshman year at UC Berkeley. When I

walked into the classroom, I didn't know

at the time, but the classroom of the

professor that discovered brain

plasticity. Her name is Marian Diamond

and she was the very first female PhD in

neuroanatomy that UC Berkeley ever gave.

Um I walked into her classroom in the

'80s when I went to college, but she

discovered this in the late 1960s.

Um, when it was thought, as you said,

that the adult brain can't change at

all. There's absolutely no evidence for

it. And that was true at the time. She

thought, "Hmm, I don't think that's

true. Let's Let's do a simple

experiment. Let's try and um

uh look at the effects in two randomly

grouped set of rats. One that lives in

what they would consider an enriched

environment. What would be an enriched

environment? Well, for her, it was a rat

cage full of toys that got changed out

all the time, lots of other rats to play

with, and um lots of lots of activity. I

think of it as the Disney World of rat

cages. And she compared the brains of

those rats to rats that she raised in

kind of a shoebox, a smaller

environment. They got free food and

water, all the food and water they could

eat and drink, but maybe only one other

rat and no toys.

Now, if the adult brain They were all

the same age, they were adults. If the

If the adult brain didn't change, then

there should be absolutely no difference

between the brains raised in Disney

World and the brains raised in the

shoebox. But she found that the

the brains of those rats raised in the

Disney World of rat cages, the outer

covering of the brain, the outside of

the brain here, I'm pointing to the

outside of this brain model here, called

the cortex, it was actually thicker. She

was She was a neuroanatomist, and she

showed that the thickness of this outer

covering actually grew. What does that

mean? There were more synaptic

connections there. In Not in the whole

brain, in certain brain areas. That made

sense. The visual cortical area. There

was much more visual stimulation in the

Disney World of rat cages. The motor

areas were thicker. The somatosensory,

the touch areas were thicker because

they were interacting in a much more

complex way with their touch system.

And that was the first demonstration the

adult brain could change, and that it

would actually make the cortex of the

brain grow.

And now we know, what is it about the

Disney world of rat cages, you know? Um,

is it the toys? Should we all be playing

with toys? Later studies showed that you

get almost identical effects just by

giving rats a running wheel.

Physical activity is doing all of that,

has the potential to change all of that

in the rodent brain, and now in the

human brain.

Didn't they find something similar with

um, London taxi drivers? I always hear

this. I I thought it was like a wasn't

sure if it was true or like a rumor, but

no. It's absolutely true. That is a

different form of brain plasticity,

which is something that we all do, and

my students do hopefully very well,

which is learning.

So, can learning the streets of London,

which are I can't remember the the the

number of different streets that London

taxicab drivers have to learn to pass

the famous test called the knowledge,

but I do remember that it takes them 4

years to study for this test. It is

intense

uh knowledge. You have to learn all the

lawful ways to get from all the big

landmarks to be a certified London

taxicab driver. And what uh my colleague

Eleanor Maguire, uh professor of

neuroscience at University College

London, did is she followed wanna-be

London taxicab drivers during their 4

years of the knowledge, this test for

London taxicab drivers, knowing that

half of them were going to fail. They're

they're they were not going to make it.

And so, she tested them at the beginning

and asked, "How is your memory?" Uh, and

how big is your hippocampus?

Identical for all all of the wannabe

London taxi cab drivers before they

started.

She scanned their brains.

Yeah, she scanned their brains and she

tested their memory.

Okay.

Behaviorally.

Then they go through, half of them drop

out, they don't become London taxi cab

drivers and half of them become

certified London taxi cab drivers after

successfully learning all of this. Now

let's see, how big is your hippocampus

and how good is your memory? The people

that passed the test and became London

taxi cab drivers, the posterior part of

their hippocampus, which is the part we

know is important for it with posterior

is back towards the back of the head,

the posterior part of the hippocampus,

which is kind of a cigar-shaped

structure that goes from the front part

of the brain to the back part of the

brain, that back part of the brain was

significantly bigger in those London

successful London taxi cab drivers

compared to the failed London taxi cab

drivers. And the memory of the

successful London taxi cab drivers were

now superior to the memory of the

wannabe London taxi cab drivers that

failed. So that is an example of how

intense learning in a particular part of

the brain,

we know the posterior hippocampus is

absolutely involved in spatial learning,

that can change the actual structure and

the function.

How much of a difference can we make?

I'm 31 years old now.

Yeah.

So if I got serious about my brain

health,

Yeah.

how much of a difference can I

realistically see?

You know, I'm trying to figure out if

it's worth it.

Yeah.

If it's worth caring about my brain.

Mhm.

Is Is there any evidence within the

literature, within studies that have

been done that show if I start now, even

though I'm like 30 31 years old,

my life will be different in the future

in the areas that I care about

profoundly if I start caring about my

brain.

Let me be very very um

um concrete here. The answer is

absolutely yes. First, I'm going to give

you results of a study in people that

are 65 and older. So, study people that

are 65 and older

and asked, "What is the probability of

getting dementia in the next 6 years

depending on the level of activity that

you have just right now?"

Physical activity.

And they measured it in how many walks

you take per week.

And if you took three walks a week or

more,

you were 30% less likely to develop

dementia in the next 5 years.

So, ooh, 30%

uh less likely to develop dementia. My

father passed away of Alzheimer's

dementia. That makes me sit up and take

notice. But the But the thing that

should make you as a 31-year-old uh

really sit up and take notice is the

larger correlations that show that the

longer you have regular physical

activity in your life, the longer you're

able to stave off dementia. The more

active you are over your lifetime, um

that first study shows that it's never

too late to start. You can start walking

regularly, which is doable when you're

uh perhaps at that age. But the longer

you stay active, the bigger and fatter

and fluffier your brain will be. Why

does that make sense? So,

one key piece of information that I

haven't told you yet

is that we know that physical activity

is releasing a whole Every single time

you move your body, you're releasing a

whole bunch of neurochemicals in your

brain. Some of them make you just feel

good. Serotonin, dopamine,

noradrenaline, endorphins. Yeah, I feel

good. If I go out for a walk, I feel

better than if I had been sitting here

for 8 hours. But, the other thing that

gets released every single time is

growth factors. I like to call it a

bubble bath of neurochemicals that

happens every time you move your body.

What that

growth factor does is it goes directly

into your hippocampus, and it helps

brand new cells grow in your

hippocampus. The hippocampus is only one

of two total brain areas where new cells

can grow. That's not the same as

synapses, which are connections in the

cells that are already there. But, the

hippocampus can grow new cells, and this

is really important because many people

know that the hippocampus is attacked

first in Alzheimer's dementia.

And so, exercise is not going to

eliminate that disease state, but if you

start with a huge, fluffy hippocampus,

it's going to take that disease that

much longer to actually damage enough of

your hippocampus so that you start

seeing those telltale signs of memory

impairment that comes with Alzheimer's

disease and and dementia in general.

Same thing with the prefrontal cortex.

Your prefrontal cortex can grow with

physical activity. That's not neurons,

but new synapses can grow.

Age and neurodegenerative disease states

can damage cells, but also take away

synapses.

I got two questions on that. So, the

first is about dementia and Alzheimer's.

Do we know what's causing it?

No.

We still don't know.

No.

And there's not

good drugs, unfortunately, right now.

There's a lot of links to lifestyle

choices there, right?

Yes, absolutely.

And so, of course, from based on what I

just said, my number one most powerful

tool that you can do to protect your

brain from aging and neurodegenerative

disease states is start walking.

Why do I start with that? Because

everybody can walk. You don't need to

buy any new fitness outfits. Just go out

and walk more. And then they say, "Oh,

well, do I have to become a marathon

runner?" That could help, too.

But everybody can walk. And from that

study that I mentioned in the

65-year-old, si- 30% reduction in um the

probability of getting Alzheimer's with

just walking.

You said that if I go and start walking

and I do exercise, my prefrontal cortex

will grow.

Which is the decision-making center,

right?

Yes.

So, does that mean then that if I am

somebody who is very sedentary, I don't

do much physical activity,

Mhm.

that my decision-making will be worse

compared to what it could be with the

same person if they were active?

Yes. I mean, that there is that

potential. Brain plasticity and the

neuroscience of brain plasticity tells

us that absolutely with physical

activity, uh you have great potential to

improve the function of your prefrontal

cortex. And I must specify a little bit.

Uh the main function that is um that has

been shown to be particularly sensitive

to regular physical activity is um

shifting and focusing your attention.

So, being able to um listen to me while

you might be paying attention to uh the

AV guy that might be telling you

something right now. So, to be able to

do that effectively, uh that that is one

of the things that we know is helped

with regular physical activity.

Focus and attention, that kind of thing.

Okay. You talked about memory as well.

Does that Does that exist in the

prefrontal cortex as well?

Uh there's a form of memory, working

memory, uh which is kind of scratchpad

memory. It's a memory that um when we

used to have to remember telephone

numbers, that that the ability to

remember a seven-digit, at least in the

United States, telephone number. It's

different from long-term memory

formation, which is memory for facts and

events uh that is dependent on the

hippocampus.

I feel like my memory is not great.

Most people feel that.

Why is my memory not as good as other

people?

Because I I noticed this when I I was

with my friend in um Thailand many years

ago. I think I was 21 years old and we

could like leave the house and go on our

little mopeds for about an hour and he

could navigate us back home without

needing sat nav or Google Maps. And if I

go 3 minutes down the street, I'm lost.

Mhm.

And I always wondered why that was. Is

it because And then even with names and

stuff, I would always He's my best

friend. He's He's one of my best friends

for for 7 8 years. We ran a business

together and he would remember every

name of every person

and I couldn't. I wouldn't. And so I'd

always turn to him and say, "What was

that person's name again? What's that

you know?"

And I always wondered why my memory He

seemed to have this incredible memory

and mine seems to be pretty rudimentary.

I would argue that um yeah, everybody

has parts of their memory that aren't as

good as they want, but also other forms

of memory that they're very good at. So,

I would guess, I've only just met you

today, that your memory for stories and

storytelling and story progress is

excellent because it has to be for the

job that you do. I bet you it's much

better than your friend that can

navigate back. Not everybody has a

perfect memory in all the different

dimensions and and it's like our

personality. Some people have a

wonderful sense of humor and others

don't. Um It is about how our brains are

wired, which is defined both by nature

and nurture, our genes and you know, if

I if I went to uh stand-up comedy class,

I would probably get funnier, but um uh

but there's probably a limit to my

funniness compared to other people.

So, there's different types of memory.

Yes.

In your book, you talk about there being

I think it's like three different types

of memory in total.

That are formed in the hippocampus.

Uh there's lots of different names for

forms of memory in the hippocampus. Um

but I like to describe it as The

hippocampus is critical for our memory

for facts and and events. Um also called

declarative memory or cognitive memory.

Uh another form of memory that's

dependent on a completely different

structure is motor memory, like the

memory that you uh use to learn how to

play tennis or pickleball or whatever

you're playing. And it's not

declarative. I can't declare how I do a

backhand in in in tennis, but it is in

your motor functions. And and this is

dependent on the striatum and a a

motor-related structure. And then

there's the prefrontal cortex dependent

on that working memory or scratchpad

memory, keeping things in mind. So um

you and I are both trying to remember

what we've just said so we can we can

link it to things that we might say in

the future.

Uh uh one of the things I found really

interesting, both as a marketer but also

as a podcaster and as someone that's

making a lot of

content and trying to get people's

attention, was as I was reading through

your work it became quite clear to me

that there's an a bit of an overlap

between memory and attention in in many

respects because you were talking about

these four things that make facts or

events memorable. And many of those

things are things that I think about as

a marketer when I'm trying to get

someone

that make facts or events memorable.

Yes.

And many of those things

are things that I think about as a

marketer when I'm trying to get someone

to, you know, engage with something,

click on something, buy something. What

are those four things?

Okay.

Can we go through them?

Absolutely. So I like to say there are

four things that make memory stick.

And this is after 25 or 30 years

studying the hippocampus and and how

memories work. Number one is obvious

repetition.

Okay.

You you remember things with repetition.

Number two, not as obvious, association.

The hippocampus is an associative

structure. It associates one thing with

the other. Uh for example, your name and

your face. So I'm you know, I've just

met you and I mean I I I will remember

your name and your face now, but it also

helps you remember things like who's

married to each other, associating the

husband with the wife. Uh have you heard

of the memory palace?

Uh yes.

Yes. So, this is a technique that has

been used for many, many

ages uh to help remember things. And it

is a strategy where you picture a

special location

that's very familiar to you, like your

childhood home. And when you need to

remember a list of items, you take an

imaginative walk through that very

familiar environment and place those

items in particular locations in the

environment. That is associating

something really familiar, your

childhood home, you know every corner of

it, with the new thing you need to

remember. And that works uh and has

worked for memory champions for many

years because the hippocampus associates

things together.

That's number two, association. Number

three is novelty. We remember novel

things. I've never been to this

particular studio ever before in my 26

years in New York and Brooklyn. So, this

is a novel thing and I remember I will

remember coming here uh to do this

podcast with you. Our brains, and this

is where it interacts with the attention

system. Our attention system focuses on

things that are novel. Why? Because it

could be dangerous. If I've seen it

things over and over and over again, I

don't notice them. They go into the

background. It's not going to hurt me

any, you know, it's not it's not going

to cause me any danger.

Cliché. That's why cliché doesn't work

in marketing.

Exactly. Yeah. And so, but something

novel, ooh, that really uh perks people

up. I use that in my teaching all the

time. Surprise students uh with uh an

element of what you want them to learn,

and they will remember it better.

But the fourth one, which is so

powerful, and we know it intuitively, we

understand this intuitively, is

emotional resonance makes things more

memorable.

We remember the happiest and the saddest

things in our lives because that

emotional resonance is solidifies those

memories. Where does that come from? It

comes from a structure called the

amygdala that sits right in front of the

hippocampus, right in the front of the

temporal lobe, right here. And the

hippocampus is right behind it. Amygdala

means almond. It's an almond-shaped

structure and it sits right in front of

um the kind of tube-shaped structure

that is the hippocampus behind it. And

the amygdala is kind of infusing uh the

hippocampus and kind of getting a giving

it a little jolt when it's emotionally

resonant, either really happy or really

sad.

You brought with you what you've told me

is a real human brain.

Yes, I did.

Now, I'm not sure if you're just winding

me up, but we're talking here about

novelty and surprise and

That's right.

things you'll never forget and emotional

resonance.

Correct.

And while you're saying that, I was

conscious that over in the corner of the

room it appears that there's a human

brain in a box. So, Jack is just

bringing the human brain in.

Yes.

I've never seen a human brain before.

You've never seen That's why I brought

you gloves so that you can hold it if

you like.

If you like.

Do you have permission

to If there is a human brain in this box

and you're not winding me up, did you

have to get permission from the

owner of that brain?

So, um this was

purchased uh lawfully um by my

department, the Center for Neural

Science at New York University. So, it

is lawfully ours to use as a teaching

tool.

And it does bring enormous novelty to

any situation that I go into and makes

people really think about their brain in

a new way, which is why I bring it.

What is in that box?

In this box is a real preserved human

brain named Betty.

Was the person

who used to own that brain called Betty?

No, we don't know the name of the

person. I named this brain Betty, so

Can you Can you tell if it's a man or a

woman?

No, I can't.

Huh. Man Men and women brains not

different at all?

They are, but in very, very subtle ways

that we wouldn't be able to tell just

looking at the the outside of the brain

like this.

Okay, I'm ready.

Are you ready?

I think so.

Okay. So, I'm going to open

the hat box.

No way is that a real

out

Are you joking? Is that really a brain?

It is

a real preserved human brain.

There it is.

Frontal lobe.

Frontal lobe.

Occipital lobe for vision.

Occipital lobe back there.

And in this brain, I don't know if you

can see it from over there, if I pull

apart

the two hemispheres, you can see how

deep

the the folds of the brain

the surface is folded in that deep into

the brain, which expands the surface

area of the outside of the cortex. The

rat cortex is flat. There's no folds.

Humans and elephants and dolphins have

lots of folds. They have much higher

capacity for computation because of the

folds that you see in this brain.

It's smaller than I was expecting.

Really? Half the people say it's

smaller, half the people say, "Wow,

that's that's enormous."

Interesting. Is that the the color of a

brain?

The color of the brain is darker than

the real brain if we opened up my head

right now, um, because of the

formaldehyde, the the preservative

chemical that this has been sitting in

for at least 26 years. This brain has

been in my department for

ever since I got here 26 years ago.

I feel like I probably should hold it.

I think you should hold it.

Oh my god.

It's wet.

Yes.

So, I mean that that has that defined

this person's whole life.

How they saw, felt, smelled,

heard, and thought about the world.

Just right there in your one hand, in

your right hand.

It's crazy to think that this little

thing is Oh, it's different underneath.

Yes.

It's crazy to think that this little

thing this little

That's the start of the spinal cord

right there that you're pointing at.

And this stuff at the underneath at the

back this

That is the cerebellum.

A brain structure critical for fine

motor movement. Um so, we wouldn't be

able to walk smoothly if you have damage

in your cerebellum.

Isn't it interesting that like

everything, as you say, everything this

person worried about, every thought,

every memory, every relationship,

all of their education, the school they

went to, the university, everything they

saw and remembered, and all of their

trauma,

Yep.

and their

anxiety, and maybe their depression,

everything they went through, even their

last days before they died, is like

captured in this little ball of like

tofu

Yep.

that sits in my hand. An entire human

being's existence.

It's true.

What they watched on TV, their favorite

movie, their favorite number, color,

everything is in this tiny little ball

of tofu.

It's true.

Oh gosh.

It is amazing and actually in real life

firm tofu is the consistency of of the

brain. I often bring in a

you know a block of of firm tofu

when I demo this for students in

addition to Betty.

Do you remember the first time you saw a

human brain?

I do.

Did it change how you think about your

own brain?

It changed my life because I was like I

want to study that. That is the coolest

thing that I've ever seen in my whole

life and I want to study that and I want

to be just like her and um

and so it it really like okay now I I

decided this is what I want to do.

And it was it was

it was life-changing.

I say that because we you know at the

start of this conversation we said that

most of us don't appreciate our brain. A

lot of people don't even realize it's

there.

Yeah.

The minute I had a brain scan one day

and that brain scan

really changed my life because seeing my

own brain for the first time

Yeah.

it was the push that I needed to start

caring more about how my decisions and

behaviors are impacting it. So let's

talk about how I can make that ball of

tofu in my head super healthy

Yeah.

Right.

You talked about exercise earlier on but

we didn't really dig dig into exactly

what you mean by exercise cuz exercise I

think is multifaceted in its definition.

What kind of exercise should I be doing

to make my ball of tofu in my head

great

Yeah.

optimal.

Mhm. Well, all the research shows that

the best kind of exercise that you can

do is anything that gives you aerobic

activity that is getting your heart rate

up. So that that goes for you know power

walking will get your heart rate up

soccer so many different things name

your activity. So many people want to

say oh

my favorite activity, will that work?"

And I always just say, "Is it Is your

heart rate up when you're doing it?" If

the answer is yes, then yeah, that that

works great. We know that that level of

aerobic activity is critical cuz that's

going to release that growth factor

maximally to get into your hippocampus

that will grow those new brain cells.

How much?

So, um I have an answer to that. So, um

we did two different experiments in my

lab. One in um low-fit people, people

that are really not exercising very much

at all, less than 30 minutes um

um in the last three three weeks you

you've moved your body. And um we asked

what could we see any behavioral

improvement in your memory function from

your hippocampus or your uh ability to

shift and focus attention if we ask you

to move your body in aerobic way for two

to three times a week. And we

collaborated with a spin class, so

clearly very aerobic. And what we found

was

in those people that did successfully do

two to three times a week of 45-minute

aerobic activity,

their mood got significantly better,

their memory function got better, and

their ability to shift and focus

attention got significantly better. So,

that gives a little bit of a guideline

for low-fit people, two to three times a

week can start to give you some of those

some of those cognitive changes. But,

you don't look low-fit. So, let me let

me answer the question you're about to

ask me. You're like, "What about me? I I

exercise pretty regularly." And um how

much how much do I need? So, to answer

that question, we went to another spin

studio, and we said, "Look, we're going

to give you free classes. You could

exercise as much as you want in this in

this um

at this studio, and uh um go up to seven

times a week." And the control was just

stay the same. You know, you they were

they were working out twice a week at at

the studio.

Control was the other group that were

you testing them against?

Yes, exactly.

And so what we found was

basically every drop of sweat counted.

The more you exercise, the more change

in your brain we noted. Both your

hippocampal function, prefrontal cortex

function, and mood.

If you you you were already getting

benefit, you know, you're already going

twice a week. But the more you did, the

more brain changes you got. So, that

that doesn't give the formula that I

would like, but we were heading in that

direction, which is part of one of the

questions that I want to answer. But I

love to leave people with the idea that

every drop of sweat counts for building

your brain into the big fat fluffy brain

that you really want.

And then in the real world,

again making it super um

real for people.

Yeah.

How how does that change how I show up?

Yeah.

If you allow it to, should have a

beautiful effect on your mindset.

Um that your mindset around um

how often should I take wake up

30 minutes early and do that walk before

I start my day or accept the the

invitation to go walk the dog with with

a neighbor. It's not an obligation. It

is something that you're doing for

yourself. It is going to have direct

benefits on that ball of tofu as you

call it in your head. It's going to make

it work better. And and I mean, I think

the most immediate thing that I benefit

from every single day is the mood boost

that you get from that serotonin,

dopamine, norepinephrine that gets

released every time you move your body.

I always think that cuz obviously I do a

little podcasting and it's I'm super

reliant on my brain being attached to my

mouth and sometimes I notice that it's

not. You know what I mean? Like

sometimes I'm not articulate, I can't

get my thoughts together, whatever.

Yes. And I always try I've tried to

figure out the correlation between what

I did that day when I have a good day

versus a bad day. And I've from from

your And also I speak on stage

sometimes, so I've often asked myself

cuz I saw Tony Robbins, the speaker, one

day on a trampoline before he goes up on

stage. I asked myself, okay, should I be

doing a workout in my green room before

I go up on stage for a big talk or

presentation?

You think I should?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

What's the basis of that in science and

neuroscience?

Uh it's the basis is that immediate So

there's three key effects that we know

happen every time you move your body.

First one is mood, you're going to get

your dopamine, your serotonin up. Um

second is focus and attention. So So a

single workout isn't going to make more

synapses in your prefrontal cortex, but

the prefrontal cortex uses dopamine. And

so um it's clear that even a single

workout can make your prefrontal cortex

work better in terms of focus,

attention. Also very important anytime

you're speaking. And the third is

reaction time. Your reaction time it you

know, motor your your your working your

motor cortex when you move your body and

your response and reaction time is

significantly shorter after a even a

single workout compared to if you just

don't work out and sit sit um alone. So

great great things to do. A great thing

to do before you you stand up and speak.

What about

coffee?

I I I'm trying to figure out if coffee

is good for my brain, bad for my brain.

I've had a couple of mixed messages

around

the impact it might be having.

Yeah.

You know, caffeine is a stimulant and uh

people respond to that kind of stimulant

uh in different ways. Overstimulation

with caffeine is is not good for your

your ability to put words together. You

know, this is where I turn to uh

a main theme in in my book Healthy Brain

Happy Life with this which is

self-experimentation.

For you, how what can you titrate your

coffee to see what level of coffee is

best for whatever your podcast or you're

giving a talk. The other thing that can

work similarly to coffee that that I've

started and that I do every morning is

hot cold contrast showers because that

cold that you

shower on yourself after the heat

stimulates adrenaline in you. A natural

adrenaline.

It wakes you up and okay, it was painful

the first kind of few times I tried it,

but then you get addicted to it and I

have forgotten to do it and gotten back

in the shower just to douse myself with

cold water because I feel better when I

do that for for you know, first thing in

the morning. So, lots of different

things that one can explore with.

Okay, on the other side of the coin

then, what are some of the central

behaviors that people do that destroy

their brain?

Well, sedentary behavior is one of them.

Um, not getting enough sleep

is critical. We haven't talked about

sleep yet. Sleep is so important for

normal functioning of the brain. I like

to scare my students by saying that um,

you know, in torture situations, if you

deprive a person of sleep for too long,

they literally die. They they they die.

You cannot function if you are deprived

of sleep for too many hours in a row.

It's that critical. Yet, we don't we we

happily you know, watch too much Netflix

at night and and and and get only 5

hours of sleep when we could have had

eight. So, what's happening exactly? Why

is it so important? Well, there's

there's so many different things. I'm

going to I'm going to say two. One is

that we know that in regular

um healthy sleep there is activity in

the hippocampus that helps you

strengthen the memories that you have

formed in that previous day. It's called

consolidation and it's so important. If

you shorten that, if you don't get

enough, you are not consolidating your

normal everyday memories. And second, it

is the time during sleep when all the

metabolites, all that garbage that your

brain is producing because all

biological cells produce garbage, it

gets kind of cleaned up through the

cerebral spinal fluid that that is

flowing through your brain. And if you

do not get enough sleep, you build up

garbage metabolites in your brain. It's

like you have a gunky brain. And do you

feel like I feel like I have gunk in my

brain when I don't sleep enough. That is

exactly what is what is happening.

Well, when you think about things that

we consume, you know, like food and

drink and alcohol and all these kinds of

things. Is there is there anything that

if I'm trying to have an optimal brain,

I should be

Yeah.

having or not having?

Yeah. Well, so um

I think the most evidence is around the

benefit of the Mediterranean diet, which

is basically all healthy

kind of organ not organic, but

non-processed is the word I was trying

to think of things to eat that are very,

very colorful.

There is so much evidence about how good

that is generally for the brain. That

that is my go-to. Like what what should

I eat? Well, is it on the Mediterranean

diet? If it is, then go ahead. If it's

too processed,

only do it. Just a little bit.

Is it true that if we have less friends,

if we have less strong relationships, if

we're lonely, then our brain will shrink

and is more prone to dementia and

Alzheimer's and things like that.

Yes, we are social creatures and um

there are uh really powerful studies

that have shown the correlation between

the number of social connections that we

have, including just saying hello to the

barista at Starbucks. It's not a close

friendship that you develop over 30

years. It's It's just how many people

you interact with and greet and

longevity. The more people you are

regularly interacting with, the longer

you are living. Overall longevity. But

if you go into brain health, absolutely

it's also very very healthy for you. It

also brings happiness. So uh friend and

colleague of mine um Robert Waldinger uh

studied um what makes people happy. The

study started in the '20s, the 1920s at

in in Harvard. And after all of those

many many many decades, the answer is

what brings happiness is the strength of

your social connections. So, it makes

you happier, it makes you live longer,

and and uh yes, loneliness on the on the

um flip side

causes stress, uh long-term stress that

that damages the brain and uh yeah, in

the long term can can make it smaller

and uh less healthy.

Do you have any brain routines? Like any

like a morning routine for your brain?

Absolutely. So, every morning I like to

wake up and I do a um

tea meditation, which is a meditation

over the brewing and drinking of tea.

And this is after many years of yo-yo

meditating. I knew meditation was good,

but I just couldn't really get into it

and um

I was introduced to this form of

meditation um from uh by a monk who who

invited me to tea and and just did this

silent meditation outside in a beautiful

location. And the ritual and the um

um the sequence of brewing, drinking,

seeping,

re- starting over again kind of kept me

in kept me in the flow. And so I start

with about a 45-minute tea meditation.

Then I do about a 30-minute workout. I

try and do cardio strength. Sometimes I

do yoga. Sometimes I just do mobility.

And then I have breakfast and then I go

to work.

Oh, and then I I do that heart hot cold

contrast shower is also something very

helpful for my brain health because it

it really does in me that adrenaline

boost that I get just energizes me and I

love that feeling at the beginning of

the day.

Just going back to that question cuz I

want to close off on it as well. The the

idea of what would I have to do to

destroy my brain. So, no sleep.

Yeah.

I'm going to be sedentary.

Yeah.

I'm going to have no friends.

Yeah.

And smoking?

Smoking is very bad for your health and

and your brain.

Okay.

Alcohol?

Alcohol, I mean, yes, long-term alcohol

can cause significant and named brain

diseases.

Moderation even moderation now as

studies have shown it is not very good.

And the reason why it's not good is that

alcohol disrupts your sleep. Even though

people drink it to to go to sleep

faster, the sleep is much more

superficial and is not deep and it's not

the healthy sleep. So, that is not good

overall for your for the for sleep depth

and and health and therefore brain

health.

I'm going to eat a processed diet to

hurt my brain.

And I'm not going to have a lifestyle

that is

novel. Because we talked about learning.

Right.

Yes.

not going to learn anything new.

All of these things should shrink that

little

You're not going to be mindful also.

Does mind Is that Is that evidence that

being mindful, which is like meditation

and being in the moment helps the brain.

It does. There's beautiful studies

showing brain plasticity

in the areas that are important for

focused attention. Meditation, the

practice of meditation is basically a

practice of

enriching the function of your

prefrontal cortex. So you can focus on

that object, either the breath or or

loving kindness is is a form of

meditation. So yes, there there's been

studies that brain changes occur in

long-term meditators that are that are

absolutely beneficial.

What if I'm on social media all the

time?

Because isn't that good for me because

I'm going to be seeing lots of new

things all the time and I'll be learning

lots of new things. So isn't if I sat on

a on a screen for 7 hours a day

is that good for my brain, social media?

Does that take you away from real people

and interacting with real people?

Yes.

Okay. Then then it's modulated by that.

There

the same thing?

There's a difference and I think your

brain knows it and

look, there's there's enormous amounts

of evidence showing that the increase in

use of social media

especially in young kids correlate with

huge increases in depression and anxiety

levels particularly in young girls. So

when

when kids started getting the

smartphones and started to spend more

and more 7 hours a day on social media,

that's when the anxiety and depression

went up. That's for young kids. I use

social media as well as a tool for

business. That is a little bit

different. I'm not 13 years old and

you're not 13 years old. So so you know,

there there's some warnings I think that

need to go into into that. But but let

me let me be clear. No, it's not the

same. Social media is not the same as

social interaction face-to-face with

people.

Are Are are you concerned about what

social media is doing to our brains?

Yes.

Cuz you know we I hear we hear those

stats around, you know, young young

girls are struggling most with social

media and we think to ourselves, well,

that's because there's a lot of like

comparison and all these kinds of things

and there's a lot of like toxic

messaging and such, but

if we think about the physiological

consequences of social media, what it's

actually doing to our brains at a

chemical level.

Yeah.

What what would you as a neuroscientist

guess is like is the physiological harm

to the brain? Not the sort of psycholo-

I'm thinking about like not the

psychological like, okay, oh my god,

she's more this than me, but like the

physiological harm.

But the psychological harm causes

stress. Stress releases stress hormone

that goes into the brain that at too

high and too constant a level can start

to first damage connections and then

kill cells. So it's it's intertwined

um there and that that is part of of

what is happening. Um you can't, you

know, pull one

one away from the other.

Cuz you know, we're social media is

designed to kind of It's like pulling

the slot machine handle. I pull down on

the feed and I get ping, oh look,

there's a nice picture and oh ping,

there's notifications and comments, etc.

It's that con- You know, I think about

the constant

They they say there's constant dopamine

hit.

Yeah.

to it. Is it a dopamine hit? Is that's

what's happening when we're being

stimulated by social media or a slot

machine?

Yes.

And is there Is there any harm in just a

constant dopamine hit all day every day?

Well, I would not I'm going to answer

that question by saying I would not want

to be addicted to gambling.

That gambling is addictive. It It's hard

to get away. You You You lose all these

other things that we just decided were

all good for you, including sleep,

including social connections, um

including exercise, and I think that's

part of what social media is doing for

our young kids is not good that they're

not

joining teams outside to be social and

interactive in uh in that

kind of now it seems like an

old-fashioned way, but it's very very

powerful way for development um and

brain health.

I think I'm addicted to my phone.

Mhm.

And I I often ask myself, is that is

that a problem? And from what you've

said, it sounds like the problem is what

I sacrifice

Yeah.

through that like addiction to that

device.

Yes.

Is that that the issue? The issue is I

sacrifice social connections, maybe

movement.

Yeah.

You know. Although I do work out every

day.

But the brain is smart enough to know

that there's no substitute for real

human connections.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And that's going to make me what? I'm

trying to I I need you to help me

Yeah.

scare me out of this

phone addiction that I think I have, but

I know many other people have as well.

So, that is going to limit your

potential for brain growth for for brain

plasticity. It is going to limit your

possibility for for, you know,

not to be dramatic, but joy in in your

life. There's different kinds of joy

that you have in in real

person-to-person social interactions

that it feels pretty good on social

media if you get lots of likes and, you

know, um but it's not the same. And um

I would I would say that to scare

yourself out you're going to have to

bite the bullet and do a 2-week phone

detox.

What would that do to you? How would you

feel?

I just could never imagine such a thing.

Well.

Which is a real shame, isn't it, really?

Cuz I just think about like my ancestors

and my parents, they must

they must think I'm so strange, but it's

just the just the way that like when my

phone dies, I'm like there's like

I'm like nervously waiting for it to

come back on. I'm like staring at it

like, "Oh my god, like Like, am I going

to do with myself?" Like,

uh

and I remember those studies they did on

people where they gave them the choice

of either sitting alone with their own

thoughts or giving themselves an

electric shock, and a huge amount of

people in that study actually would

rather give themselves an electric shock

than just sit alone with their thoughts

because it's some kind of stimulation.

That's kind of how I think I am now.

Like, I don't know what I'd do without

my phone. It's really sad. I know

there's people listening to me now that

think I'm an absolute like I'm really

sad, but it's just the naked It's the

truth, you know? And

um I do wonder what it's doing to my

brain, but I think you're right. I think

it's actually what it's doing to my like

my life.

Yeah.

The joy, the connections, the

being being there to experience things,

and um

I mean, that point that you made is a

very profound one.

Um the the not wanting to be alone with

your thoughts

is the core of meditation. Can you be

alone with your thoughts and focus on

something

something organic, usually the breath,

but also a thought like loving kindness.

Um that is a very powerful practice to

do, and it and it's hard. I find it

hard, too. Um

and I actually I notice I find it harder

when I'm

when I'm using social media and when I'm

using my phone more. Um

but I feel most creative

and most imaginative when I do practice

that. That is, being alone with my

thoughts. What comes into mind? Um how

how does my own imagination work, which

is very much dependent on the

hippocampus as well. It's putting

together all these things in your memory

in new and interesting ways that are

unique for you or unique for me. And it

doesn't work the same if you are

stimulating your brain with social media

all the time.

You um I mean, you wrote a book that

kind of speaks to some what we're

talking about here. You wrote a book

about anxiety.

Yes, I did.

In 2021. Yeah, I think the the US

version's called Good Anxiety, isn't it?

Slightly different title in the US in

the UK.

Yeah.

Why did you write a book about anxiety?

I wrote a book about anxiety because I

started to notice my students

getting much more anxious than they ever

used to be.

And this was before the pandemic. I

mean, I I I had the idea to write this

book in

2018, 2019.

And

so first I noticed it in the students.

They were getting so stressed out before

finals. They never did that before. So

so many accommodations they were asking

for.

And I'm like, "What's going on here?"

But then I realized it wasn't just them.

Like I'm getting more anxious as well.

My friends are more anxious. And I

really wanted to dive into that. I

didn't want to be anxious in that way.

Uh cuz part of me was like, "Oh, I'm

just a New Yorker. I'm I'm just anxious

all the time, right?" Cuz that's what

New Yorkers are. No,

this has changed. And we forget that

before the pandemic, there was there was

still global warming warming. There was

still political issues that that lots of

people, including me and all of my

students, were worried about.

And that was the impetus for for trying

to dive in and ask, "Well,

I made my life happier with exercise.

What What is the approach when it's

anxiety? And not clinical anxiety. I did

not have clinical anxiety. And the vast

majority of my students didn't have

clinical anxiety. They had what I called

everyday anxiety. Just worried about the

things that are going on in the world.

And there were just more things to be

worried about."

Is that normal? Is that human?

That is human, absolutely.

But is it human in the

in is the quantity in which we

experience it human?

Uh I think it is. I mean

Cuz I think about my ancestors. I go,

they they probably I don't know. I

always imagine my ancestors kind of I

don't know, just chilling.

Do you know like I've got

But they didn't have they didn't have

global warming where the ocean is about

to, you know, get sucked up in plastic

and and the the ozone is going to come

come down. No worries like that at all.

But but the everyday anxiety for me is

like emails.

And WhatsApp.

Well, by everyday anxiety I mean the

anxiety that people are feeling today

that is not at the clinical level. So,

all the things that we just men-

mentioned, global warming and wars in

multiple places in the world, all of

that contributes to the higher level of

anxiety. And your ancestors and mine

went through two world wars.

But and that was anxiety provoking, no

question about it. But they weren't also

all the other things that were um

you know, contributing to it including

the higher than, you know, extremely

high anxiety and suicide levels of our

young people

that are, you know, that strongly linked

to social media. So, that's that's

another element.

What did you find then when you started

uncovering and trying to go on this

search of figuring out, you know, the

the nature of anxiety and what we can do

about it? Did you first find that your

writing your hypothesis that it is

increasing?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was

Do you know how much?

Um you know, it it shifted over the time

that I wrote and published the book

because I started in 2018 and then it

was published in the middle of the

pandemic in 2021 where anxiety levels

went up approximately 20%

worldwide.

So, um

but the social media anxiety, um that is

going up in girls even more than 20%. Um

that's kind of in parallel. So, I I I

actually don't know how to um integrate

those two levels, but they're both going

in the same direction.

Why are women, young women, becoming

more anxious and suicidality amongst

that age group is

rapidly increased.

You know, I think that um it's it's that

comparison that that is so easy to do

and I see it in my own work at the

university that

when I was going to college, I had no

idea what rank I was in in number in the

application, but they could see that

immediately. They know exactly what

number they are in each and every class

they take in their whole high school

class in the in their application to to

the five schools that they applied to or

10 or 15 now that they're applying to.

That gives a much higher level of stress

when you know those numbers immediately.

Um that we never had. So so there are

stresses like that that that um they're

they're experiencing.

More information.

Yeah.

More

It's funny cuz more social connection,

but it's I want to say social

connection, I don't mean real world

social connection. I mean more followers

and likes and

Yes.

that can message me and tell me

something and DM me or comment on my

thing.

Right.

More noise.

Yeah.

The volume has increased, which is seems

to be driving more anxiety. Where do we

experience anxiety? Where from a

physiological standpoint, where is

anxiety? Cuz it feels like it's in your

chest.

Yeah.

So anxiety is kind of a full body

experience and um anxiety is um

strongly linked with the stress

response. So um an anxiety-provoking

situation, you you um

meet somebody that you uh you know, had

a big fight with before. Oh, I'm

anxious. I might have to speak to that

person before. Uh that

launches that launches the stress

response

um that is um dependent on what's called

the sympathetic nervous system. And so

this is where it becomes full body. So

what happens when your fight or flight

system is activated? Your heart rate

goes up. Your respiration goes up. Your

um irises get get bigger so you can see

everything and look out for that that

annoying person that you're worried

about. And blood is shunted from your

digestion and reproduc- reproductive

organs towards your muscles so you can

fight or run away. That's what all of

our ancestors evolved to protect us from

not

not the social media post, but

the lion or the tiger that could come

and attack us. So it made sense for that

kind of stressor or that kind of threat.

Unfortunately, our bodies do the same

exact thing when the nasty DM comes in

from somebody I wasn't sure who it is,

but they're saying something really bad

about something I care about a lot. And

we get this stress response, we get

anxious because of that. And somebody

asked me, "Does that mean our brain is

not very smart?" And the answer is our

our our stress and our threat system is

not very smart. It isn't differentiating

between the lion that could physically

kill us and the DM that might wound our

pride,

but but will not kill us. But it causes

the same kind of

stress response and anxiety response.

What do I do about that?

You have to learn how to turn the volume

of your own anxiety down. And part of

that is I'm not saying you have to not

look at your DMs and not look at or not

look at social social media. There's

lots of ways to turn your anxiety down.

We've already talked about some of those

approaches. Exercise immediately

decreases anxiety and depression levels.

And there, you don't even have to get

aerobic. 10 minutes of walking can

significantly decrease your anxiety and

depression levels. That is a powerful

tool that everybody can use right right

here right now.

Breath meditation. Did you know that

breath meditation, that is deep

breathing,

um

is the oldest form of meditation. Why?

Because equal and opposite to that fight

or flight response that everybody seems

to know about is the rest and digest

part of your nervous system called the

parasympathetic nervous system that

calms you down. It slows your heart rate

down, slows your respiration rate down,

and shuts blood from your muscles

towards your digestion and reproductive

organs so that you can do those weekend

rest and digest kinds of things.

Well,

everybody should be asking, "Well, do I

have that system?" Yes, everybody has

that system. Everybody has a

parasympathetic nervous system. How do I

activate that? The best and most

effective way that you can activate that

right now is take three deep breaths

because that's the only thing you have

conscious control over that can launch

all the rest of that parasympathetic

activity slowing your heart rate. I

can't slow my heart rate by thinking

about it. Can I take three deep, slow

breaths right now? Absolutely. And monks

hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago

realized that. That is the thing that I

can do immediately to slow my slow my

stress response down. It's very, very

powerful.

Sadness.

Sadness.

Sadness is um

can be linked with anxiety and um

you know, sadness like anxiety is

something that people

I think would like to kick out of their

lives and just never have any more

at all. If I could get rid of sadness

and anxiety, I would be the happiest

person alive.

But would you?

Because my argument in good anxiety, my

book Good Anxiety, is that

these prickly emotions, these difficult

emotions, like anxiety, like sadness,

are really, really valuable because

they're they're focusing us on things

that we should be paying attention to.

Specifically, anxiety. It is a warning

system. Oh, there's that person. Oh, you

didn't have a good interaction. You you

need to pay attention. Now, should it

throw you into a an anxiety attack?

Perhaps not. Use some of these

techniques. Um like like deep breathing

and and going for a walk. But it is a

warning system. And

why is this valuable? Here's why it's

valuable. It's valuable because when you

know what

you are worried about, your fears that

your anxiety focuses you on, it actually

tells you about what you hold most dear

in your life. And that is something that

we should all

really want to know. So, if you're a

people pleaser,

um you are doing lots of things to maybe

too many things to please people, but

that means that you care about

personal interaction. And I start with

this one because I'm a people pleaser.

And I realized that people-pleasing

response and the anxiety that it does

evoke is reminding me that what's very

very valuable to me is that interaction

with people. I care about that. That's a

beautiful thing. I value that in my

life, in my personality.

I'm going to let you in on a little

secret. What is in The Diary of a CEO

cup? This cup that sits in front of me

when I interview these people, sometimes

for 3 hours, and sometimes three people

a day. And the answer is this, Huel. I

invested in the company on Dragon's Den,

and since then they've gone from an idea

to the fastest-growing energy drink in

the UK. It is a matcha energy drink, and

it is absolutely delicious. But that's

not why I choose to drink it on this

podcast. The reason I choose to drink it

is because it gives me what I call