Brain Surgeon’s Advice On How To Stop Negative Behaviors And Strengthen Your Mind

depression OCD and and obesity the drive to eat it can all be modulated and they're all housed near each other that speaks to what they are is is an imbalance of the emotional drive with the ability for the frontal lobes to tamp down some of these instincts it's instinctive to eat sometimes it can feel instinctive to be depressed and sometimes obsessive compulsion is is a part of our brain and it's it's a natural part of our brain it it's okay to have those feelings when you have them too much the imbalance isn't just electrochemical in those emotional hubs it's a it's the frontal lobes not accessing their potential to tamp down some of the emotions everyone this episode is brought to you by our sponsor better help an online counseling company with the mission to make professional counseling accessible affordable and convenient I hope you enjoy everybody welcome to health theory today's guest is dr. rahul jandial he is a dual trained neurosurgeon who was both an MD and PhD and he's based out of the world-famous City of Hope Hospital here in Los Angeles he's a researcher and author of 10 books and countless academic papers on the brain and as if that wasn't cool enough he's also one of the stars of Fox's TV show superhuman and the co-host of a National Geographic Channel documentary on the brain alongside Bryant Gumbel additionally he's the founder and co-director of inka a nonprofit that performs free surgeries in underprivileged areas around the world and his latest book neuro Fitness explores the real science of peak performance you had me at peak performance I'm totally obsessed with this stuff about what we can do to really supercharge ourselves given that you've been a a neurosurgeon in literally cracking people's brains open been on the show seeing some really extraordinary people what is the human animal capable of like what when people I find they don't pursue any things they don't think they're capable of much but what are we really able to pull off well if you're thinking about just what the brain can do I like using just crazy gnarly exam fools I used to work in an Alzheimer's Clinic when I was trying to get into medical school and once in a while these older folks they would have dementia parts of the brains would literally wither like the flesh would wither it's not just the thinking and the electricity right and hidden painting abilities would come out so you see and I'm not talking like they're gonna be at in a museum at some point but a dramatic change in their in the way they wrote in their ability to paint landscapes and you see the before and after pictures and those kind of things make me think there's a lot of untapped potential so those examples when I you know when I take care of brain injured it's not all sad cases they can be phenomenal in some ways and you learn that there's so much going on in the brain that we are not seeing on the daily level so I think there's a lot of potential we haven't we haven't tapped in doing that we could if we structured things better in our daily lives also in the ways we approach our kids and the next generations that were done before we got started that's what I want to dive into so how much of brain training is real I know for a minute it was like brain trainings everything and then it was like no it's all BS yeah maybe you talked about that specifically in the book what's the conclusion so the conclusion is anything difficult where you have to think is good for your brain if you ask you saying Bowl how do I get stronger legs to run it's intuitive but the flesh in our skulls it's meant to think and feel and that is the power of self growth and it's a thinking machine it's a thinking flesh that you actually have to use or to protect itself because it's an energy hog right it's three pounds but use a 20% if you're not using parts of it it'll program itself to let those parts of the garden wither so the diversity of thinking and the depth of thinking just one level past what you're used to is the way to keep the whole garden flourishing and it is a garden in there there's chemicals there are things moving there are different types of brain cells it's not just neurons so I would try to give that metaphor analogy if you will that it's a garden and you have to irrigate it and stimulate and tend to all the corners particularly the ones you're starting to neglect maybe it's your left hand getting out of the box and engaging the recesses of your mind is the most important thing and then you have the then the then the creative things happen you can just sit down and have them happen you got to work and dream and go hard and on top of that something creative can happen so is there a specific protocol like I know people have said brush your teeth with your left hand or one of the coolest things I've ever heard about stating off dementia is to take dance class because having to do bodily movements but in a particular rhythm and learning new steps is like sort of the ultimate trifecta for keeping the brain young are there things like that because people listening right now they want to write something down step one give this step to do this so now we have the understanding that the brain is meant to think the brain is also meant to command your body to move and absolutely the minute you don't use your left hand the right parietal lobe with the motor strip says I'm not gonna use much I'll shave down that I'll shave down that density of those brain cells a little bit so that's where movements important so simple things like getting the mouse you know using the mouse with your left hand and using your phone with your left hand it's a powerful technique and then the other thing is navigation when you see old people and they lose their way home well that has a particularly address also many things are global in the brain but navigation is in the temporal lobe and they have dementia in that area navigation also is spacial awareness is a function of the brain and sometimes when we're on our phones too much we don't have that so my kids that some don't look down not religiously or adamantly but try to just remember our route I just looked up and see how see how far you can get I think those habits will help us as we get less young and those are practical things we can do during the day and as far as the the other element is brain training it doesn't have to be some weird game that's not intuitive I think brain training just means learning as a habit one step past where you're comfortable if you're reading and you know it your brains and it's an idle if it's too hard it's not even engaged I'm like I'm gonna win this race I'm not gonna kick in a second gear so just just like video games just good enough to get to the next level right they don't hit you with the fifth level the tilt level up front it's level one to level two level two to level three that's what learning is so despite your knowledge and intellect it's just that level right beyond you that is brain training so you don't have to buy an app you just have to challenge yourself and think right so in the book you talk about some pretty powerful the sort of blocking and tackling of improving your brain what are some things whether it's sleep or diet that you think people are just wofully miss handling so well we can take we could take each one you know sleep is a tricky one I've spent a decade without sleep going Monday morning at 4 or 5 a.m. come home Tuesday at 7 p.m. that's a shift Wow and what you realize during that time is even if you can get a few hours of sleep don't do it really yeah disrupted sleep as residents and people can write in we if you could just get an hour too sometimes it's better to stay up the whole night and it's a story well-worn between residents they pass that on to each other and the reason is the sleep disruption can be quite difficult on the brain and so if you're gonna get 5 good hours of sleep going on to people who aren't in surgical training maybe that's better than seven hours of disrupted sleep where your phone is going off and different things are pinging your way so that's one lesson I think people should understand then my family what we do is actually start you know I start turning the lights down in the house I don't make it dark but I just take off the the floodlights and I started getting more ambient light it's just like a trigger for your mind in my opinion for my boys to like there's a transition coming here you know to wrap down in your thought but the light change is the trigger and it's not melatonin in the back your brain that everybody's been talking about it's actually called the suprachiasmatic nucleus you can get to it through your nose and they're uh there's a small cluster that is a circadian rhythms setter we all of us plants and animals have been on this revolving earth and are in tune to it that it's a it's the daily revolution and the Earth's rhythm that we're in tune with it's not the pineal gland releasing one magic chemical that makes you fall asleep we cut out the pineal gland when they has tumors or cysts they sleep just the same afterwards I've done the surgery myself mmm we don't worry that if we take out the pineal gland they're not gonna sleep the next day and that's the only thing that makes melatonin but we know when we go through the nose and we mess with this area by the hypothalamus their temperature regulation is off there like 104 for no reason their sleep is off so sleep is of a complicated thing that cannot be addressed just with melatonin I believe you can catch a bunch sleep during the weekends and the way to get into sleep rhythm is to not have a stimulant and start shaving the light as you get later on at night that's the way I would approach you know all the issues would sleep that are going on that's super [ __ ] interesting let's talk about the mind diet yeah I found that really interesting in the book yeah that's well known so this is not to lose weight it's what nutrients to put inside you where if you have a thousand people here and you have a thousand people here and for 20 years they eat differently what are the numbers of people with dementia from all other things being equal it essentially says it doesn't have to be Mediterranean it just has to be plants like as my tell my kids plants which is you know fruit or salad it doesn't have to be just salad you know yogurt nuts lean meats like pull you know chicken and salmon what is it that salmon has omega-3s it's the only thing in our literature that we know is that is a nutritional component in food that is good for brain health and the omega-3 is a unique type of fat that are you know the brain is an extremely fatty organ and so it needs to it needs to have those fats omega-3s are the only things nutritionally that I would say is you could supplement or actually add salmon in a couple times a week so that's the mind I twist on the heart diet by adding a little bit more emphasis on salmon but you can't have is a lot of fried processed food and if you have a cheat day or whatever you have a burger it doesn't negate what you've done I think that's the hardest thing about dieting for people they feel like but shift has to be complete and religious and to me it's more glacial because the benefits will also take decades to accrue you know that's my that's my you know those are the nutrients that are best for the brain he talked about intermittent fasting in the book what do you think about that what is its impact on the mind longevity what's its place if you want to kick the mind I into next year and you're thinking I don't want to just stave off brain degeneration right like what if you wanted to work on focus and cognition these things are harder to test but when you go into the big neuroscience journals they speak about intermittent fasting and the best way I can splain it is your brains a hybrid vehicle it grew it evolved through through thousands and thousands and thousands of years of lots of food scarcity you didn't eat all the time and so it's got a backup mechanism called ketone so after 16 hours if you don't put glucose in and the livers done the releasing the glucose that's held on to through glycogen reserves they don't start burning fat they'll clip off those oxygens and hydrogen's and they'll make ketones out of it intermittent fasting can also help you lose weight I think that's why most people are interested in it but it's the way the brain prefers to get its fuel source and it's based on a diet lessons about dieting learn through controlling epilepsy and seizures and kids in areas where there's no medicine so I was in Ukraine and when they don't have medicine or a type of seizures these are the abnormal electrical activity of the brain just like an arrhythmia would be an abnormal electrical activity of the heart they would just feed them all fat diet you could smell it in the hospitals so something about an all fat diet forcing you into just using ketones now intermittent fasting is back and forth glucose and then ketones glucose and ketones but for kids if you just get them almost nearly all ketone as the source that goes up to the brain through an all fat diet their seizure rates go down you know so that's proof that food changes mind because the mind is the electricity sparking through that flesh food will change the electricity detectable measurable to electricity in your brain food affects mine food affects brain with that premise we can talk about okay mine diet will hold off dementia and intermittent fasting might make you feel like you've had a cup of coffee once you get into rhythm uh it's not gonna make you smarter but it'll bring you to your most focus to bring you to your most attentive it's not good oh I'm in term in fasting and how I can do physics it's it's not like that it's your personal best and then the habits you demonstrate to your family by trying to be at your personal best and then you kids see that and your friends see then I think that's how you impact general ation change is to have capable people demonstrate hey it's not hard and this is the best we can do for ourselves it's really interesting I I have a very different relationship with intermittent fasting so I intermittent fasting ought so I'm fasting almost twenty hours a day how does it feel awesome but it does it isn't additional clarity for me so what I find is that it changes my relationship to hunger so I'm not thinking about food in the way that I would be thinking about food if I'm eating over a longer period of time because I'm in ketosis so if you took my blood not now probably because I just had a big meal about three hours ago but if you had taken my blood this morning at like 10 o'clock a thousand percent I was probably posting a 1.5 ish and when I'm in that range I feel great but I don't feel extra but I find it is extraordinary for fat loss so the reason I'm doing it now is so I cycle throughout the year so in the winter I worry a lot less about carrying a bit of fat so I probably fluctuate during the year five to seven pounds probably and then for the summer then I'll sharpen back up and then again the the cycle repeats so that I find it really effective for I find it really effective for changing my relationship to food so that I don't need to eat if I were gonna miss a meal not a big deal if my only choice to eat something bad versus to skip a meal then I find that it's it's just a different relation so here's where I think I understand it a little bit differently it's not like you expect clarity when you pop into ketosis because it's been 16 hours after you've eaten there's just your last meal it's just the goin back and forth over a few weeks over a few months those months you'll have maybe more clarity than the months before when you weren't due I have a hypothesis about that that's test let me obviously we're not gonna be able to figure it out here but my gut instinct is if you're used to a high carbohydrate diet a thousand percent you be like holy [ __ ] this is a revolution my life is so much better I'm clear all of that but because I don't almost ever have non vegetable carbohydrates in my diet because if I were to cheat but then I get it then I am a little bit foggy so the Delta is less for you because you are started with it better yes so from a clarity perspective this layperson so discount the [ __ ] out of it but this laypersons vibe is or hypothesis is that this is a lack of carbohydrate thing that gets people non vegetable based carbohydrate that gets people to clarity but there's even another benefit to it which is it will radically alter your relationship to hunger you have a better way to say it than food yeah which is pretty interesting yeah so but you're the whole psychology of the the feed-forward of you know forward loop cycle of eating and then I don't know that what does that mean it's just the the fact that you get a rush when you eat yes you know it's just it's you're supposed to do I mean and fat tastes richer because somehow you know we figured out it was more advantageous you know to have this because it's more nutritious at least from calorie point of view and so those things are set inside us I mean if it's good for us it gives us a rush sometimes if it's bad for us it gives us a rush and I love the complexity of that I love that animals get high I love that some people think well I stop there it's I totally am with you but explain to people how animals get high well they eat fermented food they bury stuff underneath they they search certain things in the environment that are you know psychoactive meaning it changes the way they feel and what's unique about these substances like cannabinoids or even nicotine the one you as a scientist I'm reading papers and it says cannabinoid receptors we have named scientific terms for cannabis inside our body there is a nicotine receptor nicotinic receptors so that active Agreement ingredient from tobacco I'm not saying smoke but just to understand that the chemicals and plants have perfect locks for which they serve the keys in our bodies we we grew with the plants we changed with the plants we use the plants to our advantage and now the the plants and the food have have gone the other way and it's a disadvantage to for us and the biggest problem and understand because we're eating too much mmm so before food scarcity was an advantage because it kept us from intermittent it was intermittent fasting by you know by necessity yeah and that if you think about it just conceptually it's just another hypothesis if during times of hunger you were less sharp or lack of food made you dull rather than sharpen your wits about where the lion was where the other where was the berry where was the fruit where were the shellfish in southern South Africa if it made you dull that wouldn't be a positive thing so I think I think it makes intuitive sense also that just a little bit and with all respect I know people can't get food throughout the world of travel the world I know there's bad food everywhere but at an intellectual level for people trying to take it to the next level is is a bit of food scarcity can actually sharpen your mind and neuroscience is trying to understand at the molecular level what's going on what's swimming into the brain and which receptors are being turned on but I think I think it does make some intuitive sense let's go back to plants as medicine and locking key heavy micro dose or macro dose for that matter I have it but a lot of people do and I'll and I and I'm an extremely non-judgmental person and they they have a biology and then when you understand them you can understand which one may be of use for you let's go into the biology I'm sure you're well aware of all the literature about come now about like psychedelic psilocybin specifically on depression and anxiety what's the biology going down there there are trials I don't know if it's New York at cancer centers were cancer patients are taking psychedelics to deal with the existential crisis of a cancer diagnosed that's even higher than in to me it's like because you're starting to think like this parts of me are eating myself from the inside and growing inside me it could give you a real sense of what what is identity I think if there's a cancer patient and they want to try it and we can study and learn from it why not have something more on the toolbox for the psychological weight and difficulty they're going with while we're doing you know while we're working on chemo in surgery the psychological weight of a cancer diagnosis so psychedelics tend to work in that way the mechanism in the brain it's mysterious you know there are certain receptors that get activated serotonin is one of them but in a different area serotonin is used for Prozac but you know but you know psychedelics also work with serotonin so there's this myth that dopamine is a happy camp a chemical this is the this chemical it's not that linear at the stage of life you're in the location who you are sometimes we replace dopamine is low and it makes gamblers out of people one of the side effects of replacing dopamine is making people gamblers so I love the variety of roles each neurotransmitter plays you're not having this complexity dopamine is a happy chemical that's too simple we want what I want a more nuanced approach to understanding the brain and psychedelics are the thing that it's estranged you know we're wildly creative in our dreams I mean the things we think of in our dreams and don't remember so clearly the machinery is there in our mind let's just say that how do we access that I think psychedelics allow people to access that there's there's this thing called you know sort of sense mixing where people stiva yeah but bigger than that because that's that becomes I I try not to use those words because then people think it's a diagnosis mm-hm but a lot of people can have a relationship with music it's like they could feel it and I mean just the bass coming through and a lot of people can see different things and I think that's that ability is where it's it's heightened in sleep and it's released by psychedelics the connections aren't off or something's being turned on I think that's a great question I think something's being turned off the boxing boss is told to get out of here how familiar are you with transcranial magnetic stimulation I'm not very familiar with it I know some people are having good results with it but my worry with it is there's too many like inexpensive untested gizmos being sold on Amazon we put on a certain magic helmet so there's always right it always and you seen some of those things or like one electrode on the forehead if anything is I haven't but it makes me want to go find them so here's this out we can measure your brain electricity from without having to go inside your skull it takes more than one electrode and so it's the manipulation of real technology with fancy branding and I worry about that and I worry about people not just misunderstanding that they've bought something that can't help them but hurting the proper technologies that will come out in five years or later on you know sort of it's sort of mudding this in letting the the environment for the real technology that's going to come out but thousands of years ago one time the ice fascinating thing I read for headaches they would take electric fish and just put try to zap the skull with electro and that's modern electric you know shock therapy there yeah that they let your mind is the electricity flowing through that flesh and you can alter it with magnets so you can use a magnet and alter the electricity in our mind that's not how the knee works that's not how the heart works ours a pump and so that's why the brain is fascinating and I don't want the garbage wants to come out and give it a kooky science vibe when the one there's gonna be some good stuff that comes out in that area yeah that's really interesting is there anything that you think is legitimate that is non-invasive that you guys are using at the cutting edge right now or is that all in the future there's actually FDA approved a sticker that that is electromagnetic and somehow beyond my understanding those patients live longer with their cancers and that's a so the field of electro manic magnetic manipulation isn't just for brain enhancement that the cancer cells that grew in the flesh of our brain are also electrically responsive and can be manipulated isn't that fascinating it's an electrical I was explaining it like it's a it's an ocean of electric jellyfish and the the thoughts are not the jellyfish or the brain so it's the sparks happening in between and those sparks are what you manipulate with when you take Prozac and the sparks the the tentacles don't touch they spray these they spray dopamine they sprayed serotonin in different quantities and they last inside this cleft where the two tentacles of the jellyfish are touching at different durations so when you take Prozac it's a basically it slows down the vacuum of that space in between and lets serotonin float a little longer and thereby have greater effect those reuptake inhibitors and then there are other things where these electrical currents coming down if you magnetically stimulate or electrically stimulate or even when the skull is open I can physically stimulate the brain and make it squirt chemicals that you're dancing with these electricity and these chemical charges that are bouncing between each other so then the number of brain cells becomes less relevant and more about what's happening in between that's why I just I just think though the future for brain science brain health it's gonna be even better than what what we've already seen but we have just started to manipulate the mind yeah which is my absolute fascination I want to go back to brain plasticity and talk about how this actually works so I'm writing a book right now and it's about how to use basically how to take control of your mindset but I believe that the process by which you do that is values beliefs identity it's it's a priorities it's like this whole and I often use when I'm talking to people about it the analogy of your identity being like cancer and that cancer is not like a little ball that you can just reach in and pluck out it's got all these crazy [ __ ] tendrils and because it's so intertwined with the healthy tissue that like getting it out is very very difficult and there's so many things that are just intertwined like there's no way for me to tell you oh it's about value so it's about identity oh it's about repetition or whatever it's it's all of it [ __ ] mash together but it all comes back to the brain is this malleable thing and it can change both form and function and agree what are the things that make it change form and function so while I have you as a captive person here to talk about the brain what what is that process so like forming a new maybe habits the wrong way to think about it but I think about part of your job if you want to change your I'll even go so far as to say you're the affectation zuv your personality so I think there are some parts but that are just it's who you are it's hardwired all that but there are certain elements of your personality what you desire what you pursue things like that that are manipulatable how do we go about moving some of that to the default Network so there it's so engrained and you've got so many times that it becomes second nature I love this question it's the hardest question because I've got went out magical with these jellyfish spraying things and you're like well so how do we harness that yeah exactly so it's three pounds then it uses 20% of blood flow that said the way I think habits function this is these are my ideas is that because it's such an energy hog it wants to be efficient so this whole myth about you'll need to use 20% of your brain no we use 100% of the brain and pictures show that but to get things done we might only use 15 mm to get something complicated then we might only use 35 otherwise you just otherwise you wouldn't be an efficient animal or a human in the Savannah if you couldn't really control this important but not having not having it in fifth gear all the time is a is an evolutionary strategy in my so I explained to my kids okay so so then it falls into ruts because efficiency is about ruts like dominoes falling in a certain path and the best way I can explain it is as you grow the brain the way the electric electricity flows the way the connections prioritize is a bit like skiing down a mountain it starts creating these electrical grooves of sort where if you see something you see a cliff fear it goes down a certain half and every time you do that and you've reinforced it it actually becomes less expensive energy wise to follow and fall into that habit so these pathways these habits in our mind these rituals these things that are good for us we want to hold on to those but a lot of them have become deeply carved you know routes down the mountain and filling those in burying them and finding healthy ones is gonna be an energy expending process okay the effort will be harder in the beginning and then as you create a new route down the mountain you can condition yourself to have a more favorable and constructive responses that's the best way I can explain is why effort will lead to change and your most effort will be spent in the beginning and then you can change your emotional and cognitive responses by conditioning yourself to find a different different route down the mountain what is that process at a cellular level what does that look like what's happening so here's how I've always thought of it you don't actively undo a habit you create a new habit and the old habit atrophies and now it's trying to basically remap this new pattern but in remapping you're sort of breaking that old power or not breaking it but it's it's overtime it's just beginning to atrophy I don't know a better way to say dendritic plasticity neuronal plasticity at the cellular level is all about user lose is a very old phrase but it applies if it's reaching out looking for an electrical signal come by and trigger it release shower with some chemicals after a while if it's not bathed in what it wants the brain will say let those dendrites wither and morph and reach out to other tentacles those that's the cellular basis of a steering electricity within your brain that's the cellular basis for creating a new electrical groove down the mountain and that let me give you some examples be like well that sounds very off-the-wall no no not at all you were born with more brain cells then as a kid than you are as an adult and because we're losing them slowly over time you were equipped with a lot that we can't hold on to you're going to reinforce the ones that you're using and the ones you don't use your brain will say I don't need a hold on them because they're just using energy but the the plasticity is we start off with more brain cells than we hold on to yet we get smarter that's been when we are at work for the most part we are from as kids and we get more coordinated as we lose brain cells they're in their example that's the example that shows you that it's about the connections and reinforcing those patterns I hope that empowers people to be like wait a second it's not a static thing and much I would like I would exercise for my body there are things maybe I should do for my brain in mind especially while the window was still here to set those into actions and make them constructive habits and maybe pass them on to the generations what are you calling that window I want to believe that window is open till the day I [ __ ] die it is for everybody but not to the same degree you know I will say that window is less than 40 less than 30 even is is the most bang for your buck but there's no doubt that the ability this plasticity we're talking about is highest in your teens and that's actually when you get a lot of mental health disorders a weird thing the most dynamic shape-shifting is an adolescence so we come into our identity but we also it's also a peak of mental health issues so your sort of setting your cognitive and emotional thermostat and then 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s it does it does slow down but it doesn't wither to zero that's interesting my the my thesis in life is that we're far more malleable than we think the science that I've read pegs it at about fifty fifty so you're 50% genetics it just it is what it is we all have predilections they're sayings that we're better at intelligence it certainly has a genetic component all of that so let's say that's 50% you're just 50% son mutable can't [ __ ] change it's like height it is what a [ __ ] is but 50% of it on the other hand is to really be scientific as epigenetic so it's going to be your response to the environment if you had a radical case and you had somebody come to you and they were all I don't want to get lost in the word depression they're sort of depressive they're lost in their life they're thirty five things haven't worked out the way that they want they're a bit temperamental they don't really have hold over their environment like how would you get them in line like what are things that like I have a list of things I would tell them to do but I would think they're suboptimal compared to somebody who's actually looked inside of a brain yeah that's a tough question because I don't take care of people with mental health issues and in neurosurgery sometimes we do place catheters into the emotional hubs inside our brain so the thinking brings like a mushroom cat what and you can electrically break an obsessive-compulsive disorder habit of so we've seen patients come in send their so okay you've talked about something I'd never heard of before you called it electrical plasticity isn't that we're trying to disrupt yeah yeah exactly so [ __ ] interesting so wait a second so if I'm disrupting the electrical is resetting it changing the oscillations it's not on or off what is that coming out of like so in the heart you can put a pacemaker and get it to beat on a certain rhythm what's driving that in the brain that creates a certain electrical pattern so you're basically the electricity in the brain is shooting through hub does this all come down to repetition well I think right now repetition can ingrain a physical habit but what we're talking about just to go backwards on this is if you look at a snake then you've never seen one before a lot of people reflexively jump back and let's say it's a plastic snake first time you might jump second time you say I've seen that before your instinct was tamp down by your frontal lobes and those structures are our emotional and instinctive responses to our environment they should be under they should be malleable by our thought the thought of these giant frontal lobes behind our four it should say to them do you know just because you're angry doesn't mean physically reach out and hurt somebody just because you've seen a snake you know it's plastic you don't have to jump every time just because you're afraid of public speaking doesn't mean after a while you have to be afraid of it so that it's not conditioning it's it's a thought that tamps down instincts we feel are destructive or not useful so when I see going back to the electrical simulation when I when I grab a doorknob I sometimes I think well you know I mean I should wash my hands but if I grab a doorknob and go wash my hands 80 times the frontal lobe is having a hard time tamping down those emotional hubs and we can drill a hole and put a catheter into these subcortical structures they're like nodules within the the web of of neurons and electrical tickling of that will snap the patient out of this obsessive compulsive disorder they'll last yeah get the [ __ ] out of here you brain stimulation you'd love this topic but depression OCD and and obesity the drive to eat it can all be modulated and they're all housed near each other that speaks to what they are is is an imbalance of the emotional drive with the ability for the frontal lobes to tamp down some of these instincts it's instinctive to eat sometimes it can feel instinctive to be depressed and sometimes obsessive compulsion is is a part of brain and it's a natural part of our brain it it's okay to have those feelings when you have them too much the imbalance isn't just electrochemical in those emotional hubs it's a it's the frontal lobes not accessing their potential to tamp down some of the emotions do you think that that is I want to talk garden-variety [ __ ] I get it it's always gonna be outlier cases but garden-variety depression let's start there or even the garden-variety like they can't get over the fear of the snake or public speaking anxiety will round it to is it me not using my prefrontal lobe to tamp it down or is it that I either have a diminished prefrontal lobe from a physical like there's a physical structural problem in my brain or that the fear center the amygdala whatever's kicking off the anxiety is is physically over robust or is it just that if if you had them could you train them to use thought alone yeah to get a hold of it that's a good question I know where you're going with that because they haven't power people to think down their anxieties either way and I'm not copping out of a straight-up answer on it there's no other way to say it's all of the above some people actually have aberrant robust you know lighting up of some of these structures that make the layer ones people usually think of but in these subcortical structures some people that actually correlates that they light up more and they have a greater addiction in that group so there's a structural element there's a life context element and then there's also the the frontal lobe element and that thinking of creating new habits and creating new values creating less triggers in your life that's the opportunity that we all have and I think that's the project you're working on what's the tough we can control without zapping ourselves and without putting pills in us those things set the boundaries but the frontal lobe regulation of how we feel is in your own command and you've seen it in Buddhist monks you've seen the mind-body connection in deep divers there's actually two nerves that come down and wrap around the heart they can think down their pulse they can think down how fast their art beats this is not like Bologna this is you can put a ultrasound we can look it up online you see videos of it that shows that thinking can change thought can change how fast your heart beats why wouldn't we believe that thought can change those subcortical structures about anxiety and depression if you get depressed you're sort of you know the you can get stuck but people who aren't having those mental health issues but just want to be better and live a more rich life in the sense of personal experience we can think about our lives and our habits and triggers and create effects insight as the mind-body connection is its mind down the body and many people feel you know body back up to mind and that's where meditation and and and meditative breathing come in but those connections are real you see examples around you if your frontal lobe can only help you 5% and somebody else is all dialed in it helps them 50% doesn't matter that's your best and that's an avenue available to you but it's not a it's not a simple one it's not a quick fix it's not gonna be a bullet it actually takes work and you mentioned repetition it takes work it takes effort and there is no shortcut to it but it's a glacial change that can happen over a few months to a few years and I think once you know why people go to the gym they can't not go to the gym anymore I think people who find these rituals and habits that make them feel better they become addictive to that and they're constructive and they're not pharmacologic I want to hear what you think about this because this is going to be a key this is a key thesis that I have that will play out in the book it has certainly played out in my life one of the things I think is most undervalued is repetition repetition repetition like if if you left me alone with somebody that had this whatever bad habit I would have them do good things the whether it be thinking prefrontal lobe trying to lower the heart rate whether it's diaphragmatic breathing like whatever the case whatever physiological hook that I'm trying to tap into which is is another part of the thesis so there are physiological hooks into changing your brain States and so I would have people whether it's calming yourself down taking you out of the sympathetic nervous system just from breathing from the diaphragm you go together to the the parasympathetic nervous system and I would have them do that over and over and over and over me until that is so the using your your Double Diamond analogy there's a new slope they've got the groove the rut is I think you called it they've got that [ __ ] rut and it's it positive and my understanding but but they want to fall into exactly and my understanding of what's happening is what I would be helping them do is create the pathway that requires the least amount of energy because the brain is hardwiring it it's wrapping in the myelin sheath so that the electrical signals are trance they're going more efficiently and so the brain from a caloric usage standpoint is trying to do whatever is most efficient and so simply through intelligent repetition you're moving people into the default network of the brain so they can sort of [ __ ] spaced out and when they space out they're becoming more calm their default reaction is the de-excitation of the nervous system yeah no I like I like what I'm hearing so the question is repetition and I agree it's not thinking about the mountaintop you can by the way you breathe you can change the electricity your mind we've seen that with the people we put grids on like we have actual measurements now but that's the you know what's the structure where you get the most out of repetition what is the perfect spot where meditative breathing hits that sweet spot for people and they'll increase it if it continues to benefit them but the food the breathing I sleep is a hard one but to me food what we eat and meditated breathing I think are the most graspable and measurable the creativity stuff the sleep stuff the exercise stuff is harder for people but the exercise stuff is in its own way the most important if we could get back to that why keeps your brain arteries open releases all these neuro traffic factors inside your brain so not just the plumbing that irrigates the flesh of the brain tell me about but IGN F yeah their nerve growth factors are all neuro trophic factors and whatever the the for the in this case would be abbreviation GD and that median F ng it doesn't matter then with gf and growth factors so it really is I've heard of your word miracle-gro but getting back to the garden analogy to keep the flesh we're gonna get you know electricity is one thing to keep the flesh healthy you have to irrigate it and that has to do with your brain arteries and since we already said it's not a it's not a ball you know it's these you know these jellyfish and they're moving and they're throbbing and they're pulsating and their tentacles are reaching out there's a lot of space in between and that extracellular space outside of the actual cells outside of the neurons outside of jellyfish if you will it's not just water there's chemicals floating around in there now dopamine might be just from tentacle to tentacle you know serotonin might be this way what's it what's in all the stuff around all those billions and billions of neurons their growth factors and minerals and chemicals that the brain naturally has but there's also a soup that these billions and billions of neurons are floating in B D and F is a key component of that soup that helps regulate the health of each of those jellyfish or we can trigger more of that yet exercise yeah we you exercise and it releases it at showers itself it's not like the thighs five muscle sends it up to the brain the brain says hey I'm feeling good this is good I like this I'm gonna create a new rut I'm gonna remind you you feel good when you run the brain will shower itself with growth factors there are growth factors brain says hey you know the electrochemical balance is better with those so I think that's where you get the runner's high it's not just adrenaline it's not dopamine's a happy chemical I'm jacked up I'm on adrenaline it's just such a complex ecosystem and rather than feeling intimidated by that to me I just see opportunities on how people can you know improve their lives mm I love that yeah tell people where they can find the book where they can find more about you the book is on HMH their website but it's it's everywhere and it's my best shot at the brain but every chapter opens with like here's some crazy stuff I've seen or crazy stuff I've read I just want to let you know I'm in this space I'm not lecturing here's my point of view so it's got those elements in it it's not just do these three things do these three things you get that but first I earn your trust with the stories of the science right very cool thank you if people were going to make one change that would have the biggest impact on their health what change would you have the mental health sure it's a good one I think exercise is too easy too easy and too hard actually the way we live to me with my kids I've been trying to drag them to the gym we've got a new membership and all that but changing what shows up on the counter it's powerful and if we ate less and if we ate efficiently and we did you know it's a less carbon imprint I think all of those things it's good for the planet it's good for us it's mind and body and and then it's also communal you know then then it goes to the next generations it's not just something I did at Equinox and with my yoga mat in Malibu and then I think it can perpetuate so it's not just an individual thing thank you so much are you coming on the show you really like guys I can think of nothing more important to learn about than the brain so I hope that you will dive deeper and check it all out and until next time my friends be legendary take care everyone I hope you loved that episode and now I want to take a second to talk to you about our friends at better help better help was a worldwide service featuring licensed and credentialed therapists who were certified by their state's board to provide therapy and counseling you all know that anxiety depression and loneliness are serious pandemics we face as a society today and if you or a loved one have experienced a period of ill mental health you know one of the toughest things to do is seek help when you most need it well we want to make that first step easier than ever with better help members get matched to a counselor in 24 hours or less and receive professional counseling using their computer tablet or mobile device anytime they need it anywhere they are I can't think of anything more important to get right than mental health if you want to enjoy your life you guys have heard countless guests on the show talk about it and I can tell you from personal experience that when your mind isn't functioning right nothing else is right so I hope that you guys give this a shot and to get started all you need to do is click on the description below or visit www.dent.umich.edu/license it'd er getting professional counseling whether it's with better help or not it doesn't matter loving your life and prioritizing your mental health is absolutely paramount give this a try click on the description below or visit better help calm /ht alright guys I hope that you'll take advantage of this offer I think it's really extraordinary it is super super important alright until next time my friends be legendary take care thank you guys so much for watching and being a part of this community if you haven't already be sure to subscribe you're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset cultivating grit and locking your full potential

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 1,898,551

Rating: 4.8795772 out of 5

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Rahul jandial, jandial, neurofitness, neurobiology, neurologist, neurology, brain science, mind diet, self growth, brain injury, brain training, brain plasticity, brain, mental health, depression, anxiety, brain electricity, health theory, health show, health expert, brain surgeon

Id: x29hY6_8bDg

Length: 50min 51sec (3051 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2019