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This could sound like the beginning of Radiolab. Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert experts on experts. We love you, Radiolab. We do. We wish we were as good as you.

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We have our first three peat today. That's right.

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Our Alec Baldwin, our Alec Baldwin or Steve Martin of SNL. Yeah, Martin's up there in the teens. Interesting. He doesn't get as much credit as Baldwin.

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He doesn't. He's underappreciated. Wow.

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He's never bought anything on credit. But that's true. Oh, Steve Martin's never bought anything on credit. Yeah, that's one of his things. Yeah, it's cool.

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I almost never bought anything, but I'm really mad right now that I can't say I never did that I was a stickler for. I didn't use a credit card forever and I didn't.

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It's actually good to use a credit card because you do need to have a good credit score. Not if you don't ever buy anything on credit, then you don't have a good credit score. Well, you don't need one.

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No. Isn't it cool? Yes. More gangster did not need a good credit score. Any who are first three. Sanjay Gupta. He is an American neurosurgeon and he's a medical reporter and writer you see on CNN all the time. We've talked to him twice. I love him. We love him to death. And he has a new book called Keep Sharp, Build a Better Brain at Any Age.

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I've already started implementing some of these tools. Well, he planted a seed for me to worry about. You remember I said, are you are you moving enough this holiday break? I wanted to make sure you you're moving. I wasn't. Because he says the number one thing for brain.

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Yeah. Is moving. Keep moving. Monica in arm chair. He's you keep moving and enjoy. Sanjay Gupta. We are supported by Hello Fresh with Hello Fresh. You get fresh, pre measured ingredients and mouthwatering seasonal recipes delivered right to your door. Monica, you know it better than anyone because we both get hello fresh delivered to the house. It's affordable. It's so easy to cook. You can get your meals on the table generally in less than thirty minutes.

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And that is why it's America's number one meal kit. Can you tell us what you tempted your taste buds with last night?

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I made a turkey meatball parm soba yet, Audie, it was so good too.

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It was like a restaurant one. Oh my gosh.

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Yeah, it had precooked turkey meatballs, but also like was not taking forever. Oh, my gosh. Quick of so good. Everyone should be ordering hello fresh. They have twenty three plus recipes each week featuring a range of flavors, cuisines and ingredients so you'll never get bored. Eating healthy has never been easy with local carbs, smart vegetarian and Pescadero and options every week. And no matter what you choose, every single recipe is packed with fresh produce sourced directly from farmers.

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Go to hell, fresh dotcom dacs ten and use codecs ten for ten free meals including free shipping. That's hello fresh dotcom Daghestan and use codecs ten for ten free meals, including shipping. We are supported by athletic grains. When you entered the attic today, I was just finishing my athletic greens that I added to my box water. Oh yum.

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You don't know that you have this distinction, but you're our first three peat. Yeah, is that true? Yes. You're now you're going to wear that badge with great honor and plastic.

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I was just saying this backdrop is just a picture for me.

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I'm in a windowless closet, actually, in my basement. But it got just so depressing to be there all the time. Figure at least I could see that it would make me happier, which actually really works, I think.

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Now, what scares me about this image, your background you've selected is it appears to be on the second or presumably even higher floor.

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And there's a circular railing, but there's no inlet for a staircase. So I'm a little confused how people are getting up and down.

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You know, it's so funny is that everyone asks me, like, where is the staircase and stuff? You're the only person who's actually come to the there is no inlet. You're absolutely right. It's a rail all the way across.

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And it was purely decorative. You know, it interesting.

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And it was my wife's idea and it was funny. We just wanted something that looked a little bit distinctive because it has no function and it's a waste of space. I mean, clearly. But it was worth it.

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Like, you know, typically you think a function over form, but this was clearly just form over function, which I like it.

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You got to applaud it. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows. You know, maybe a bucket could be lowered down. Kind of like exhibition style dumbwaiter.

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Maybe that's its design intent. If someone had to quarantine, that's a great way to bring food up and down and really eat. It really would be nice in a pinch. I don't know.

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The aperture may be too large and the the virus could still spread through the night. Yeah. Thanks for saying Aperture.

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It's not a word that's used nearly enough, I think not outside of the shutterbug community now and in the hospital. Yeah. Yeah, because they're talking aperture a lot.

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So the last time we talked to you, it was like really new into the pandemic and you were so gracious to find time for us. And during that interview, I really thought, boy, I hope this Korona doesn't take out Sungai and not because he's going to get it, but because the stress and hourly demand of updating America seemed like it was too much for me. I couldn't have done it.

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I don't think I had no idea it was going to last this long. I was reflecting on our conversation before and I think this is my own sort of lack of anticipation, I guess. But if you think it's like a few weeks, I mean, you sprint, right? You just go out there and you're sprinting and you're trying to just get it all in and make sure you educate people as much as possible. But I thought that, you know, there was a good chance it would be a couple of months.

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You know, I mean, the United States, where the, you know, one of the wealthiest countries in the world got this public health system, we'd been through SARS. We've been through H1N1. Here we are, you know. Yeah, 11 months. First of all, how's your hand? Because I read about that.

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Oh, sure, I broke all the bones in my hand at one point in quarantine, and then I broke the clavicle into four separate pieces in four ribs at another point in time. So like you, the novel virus didn't almost get me, but by God, I almost got got during the whole thing.

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So you're getting a little restless during quarantine. Is that what prompted all this?

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Yeah, I felt like I needed more and more off roading and hospital visits.

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Yeah, I wanted to get a firsthand look at what was happening at the hospital.

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But in our first conversation, I was under the belief with no data. I just was under the belief that I had had it already and that several people in my circle had had it earlier. And boy, I was convinced of that. And in fact, we all took antibody tests and I was so excited to be vindicated. And they all found out like I took one that required three days turn around. They took one that took like, I don't know what day turned around.

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So I walked into the house and they had all gotten the results. It took like about two or three hours before our friend Eric said, I don't know if you heard, but.

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We don't have the antibodies, but we were all very scared to tell him because he was so adamant about, oh, so embarrassing, that they would have been nervous to tell me this good news that no one had ever had.

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KORONA You've learned so much. Do you know what I did today? I would love to find out.

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It's very exciting. It's very exciting. I got the first visor shot to.

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I did oh, it's great news. Yeah, you know, so the health care workers are in the first group of people, so they've been vaccinating health care workers in my hospital. And, you know, everyone sort of gets their call and says, it's your turn. So I didn't hesitate at all. But, you know, it's so amazing because I've been doing this sort of medical media sort of blended life for close to 20 years now. The worlds came colliding together really today because I was getting vaccinated as a health care worker, but as a journalist because of reporting on it.

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I you know, I had watched the initial development of this vaccine. I talked to the scientists at the NIH and at Pfizer as they're like figuring out how exactly this vaccine is going to roll out, talk to the FDA. So I had all this knowledge about it that I think if I wasn't a journalist, I'd know that it was safe and effective. I know that part of it. But like, I have really granular knowledge about this vaccine.

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Yeah. And then so was able to really apply that knowledge towards making the decision. I would have gotten it regardless. But it was it was really like an informed decision because of, you know, reporting on it for a year. So it was kind of amazing.

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OK, so I'm going to air again right now, real time. I'm going to make the same mistake twice. And I'm going to guess I have to imagine people that have been in and out of the hospitals working for the last 10 months, the percentage of folks who have to have the antibodies is it's got to be high. Right.

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Well, you know, they've done some studies on this. You know, it was really interesting, the Northwest medical system in the Northeast during that, you know, big April sort of surge of cases. They took care of some 70000 patients over there. So they had a lot of patients with covid in the hospital inside and health care workers obviously taking care of them. And what they found at that point, because they did do antibody testing, surveillance, testing, and they found that the incidence of covid among their health care workers was lower than the general population at that time, despite the fact that they were indoors taking care of covid patients.

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I'll tell you why. I mean, I think it's just that you can protect yourself. That's one of the great ironies masks.

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And they wash their hands every five minutes. Yeah, it's really, really basically it I mean, the masks work really well. It's hard to sometimes convince people. I think we even talked about this before. It's hard to convince people that something so simple would be so effective. You know, I think we're used to expecting that in order for it to work, it's got to be really complicated. It's got to be really expensive, all these things.

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And so I tell you, masks and you know, you think I must be kidding. You know, how could it be that simple? This is a pandemic, you know, but the health care workers had a lower incidence than the general population.

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Well, I'm going to add a layer. You know, you're having one conversation that's very logical and backed by so much evidence that just it works. There's nothing really to talk about. It works. But that's not I don't believe what the real conversation is. Right. It represents loss of liberty to people. That represents what they perceive as a fear based snowflake left that wants to cripple our economy. You're on the science side saying, come on, this thing works, but you're really not having the same conversation.

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I don't think the people who don't want to wear a mask.

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Yeah, you know, I've talked to so many people this year and, you know, it's hard to paint with a broad brush why people have made certain decisions. Sometimes I made the mistake of sort of shortcutting at saying this is clearly a political thing. Right. But there are people like you say who say it's an individual liberty thing. There are people who say that they simply don't work. And by the way, you told us not to wear masks in the beginning and now you're saying wear masks.

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So obviously you don't know what you're talking about. I kind of get that one. You know, people are very, very clear, consistent message. But, you know, and then there's other people who it did become sort of a divisive political tool. And that one's the one that shocked me, I think, because in order to get the economy open, you know, wearing masks would have actually helped not hurt. I mean, we're not saying not shut down.

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We're saying stay open, just wear masks. So the same people who very much did not want shutdowns, which was everybody I don't think anybody wanted a shutdown. But oftentimes they were the same people who said, I'm not going to lean into the basic sort of stuff, you know, wearing the mask. It's it's fascinating to me.

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I've learned so much this year about this just human behavior, how we assess risk, all this sort of stuff.

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Yeah, we're complex little animals, man. We got we got a little too much brain power at times.

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But it boils down to I think I remember when we did our first conversation and I think, Monica, you may have brought this up, but I was talking about this trip that I had had with Chasing Life, and I was really quite taken with this idea that someone had told me about reciprocal altruism, which is this idea that you do something nice for somebody without any sort of transactional quality to it. And it just feels good. It feels good to do good.

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And I think people sort of know that. But evolutionarily, like, why would we have selected for that trait? Like, why would I sacrifice something of mine to make someone else feel good? How does that help me evolution that. Right, I don't know, but it's true. Well, I know why, which is the odds of your survival. Being in a group are definitely higher than an individual, right. If you have to make certain individual concessions to remain a part of that group, you're going to pass your genes on.

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Yes. If you're an indignant piece of shit, guess what? The early hominids, they're kicking your ass right out into the savanna and good luck.

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And do you think that's still like from an evolutionary standpoint, is that still happening? I mean, people who do not want to be part of the group, are they slowly being selected out? I mean, obviously not next year, but I'm saying over time. Over hundreds of years.

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Well, and I think your book is going to address this explicitly, but. Yes. So you're not relegated to the savanna where a large predator cat is going to take you down, but you are banished to isolation and in isolation, you're going to have very predictable, statistically relevant declines in all kinds of health things. So, yeah, on the surface, it doesn't carry the risk of getting eaten. But we now see the rate of addiction, the rate of all these things through isolation and lack of community are as probably more people go down from that than ever got killed by lions.

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I think you're right. It took me 11 months attacks to sort of come to that conclusion.

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You guys have minutes, shall we call write something together? So I don't know that I'm right on this, but really quick, can I pause you?

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You're free to be wrong here. You just got to own it. So, like, I was dead wrong about my antibody thing and then we already had it. You just got to own it. OK, sorry.

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Motorama, by the way, when I read another article besides your hand, it said that your wife was complaining about you being a know it all.

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So the idea that you would admit that were wrong anyway is pretty good at it.

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To know me is to know I'm a know it all. So I think anyone in my life could have made that statement.

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I know, but I just assumed that large groups of people ultimately based on, again, just the human species selection of reciprocal altruism would have been intent on wearing masks because it's actually a fairly simple thing, you know, just to ear loops. And then the messaging is, you know, you can be part of a movement that can save tens of thousands of people. If you just put on two ear loops when you go outside and so many people said, you know what, I'll pass, I ain't going to do it.

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I don't even know what to make of it. I was surprised by that because I always felt like we would pivot towards reciprocal altruism in the face of some sort of, you know, universal threat like a pandemic.

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I have an armchair theory. So I do think that, you know, we live in the least regulated capitalist experiment of all time. And in this capitalist society that we live in through advertising, we learn that the individual is celebrated, the pioneer, the brave explorer. These are the archetypes that this system really celebrates and loves. By the way, I'm a victim to it all the time. We just took this weird test to see what Hogwarts School you'd be.

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One of the things was like, what would you want people to say about you after you died? And I chose Bold. So like, it's bullycide me, right? I want to be seen as bold and fearless and all this shit, so. I think that's got to play a role in like, well, when I don't put these two loops around my ear, when I'm telling the world is I'm not afraid. And by the way, I have great compassion for a lot of people who want to send the message.

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I'm not afraid because I think a lot of those people were victimized in childhood. Please don't try to hurt me because I will hurt you back.

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That helps me sort of have a little bit of an understanding of why people might behave that way. But the idea of rugged individualism. Right. Which I think you're sort of talking about and how that was celebrated and, you know, even ads on television and all that, like, I guess I never thought that it was at total odds with the idea of still being altruistic. Like, can't you be individualistic and altruistic at the same time? Or they are the properties that cancel each other out and it's a contagious disease as well.

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Right. So I'm willing to take the risk. Well, you're not just taking the risk for you. You know, you're taking it for your spouse, your loved ones, your community, whatever. I mean, people fundamentally get that right when they say I'm being brave, being brave by potentially carrying a contagious disease and spreading it to others. How do you justify that?

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I totally agree. But I saw people interviewed at Walter Reed standing outside to show support. And in this interview line, person wasn't wearing a mask. And they said this. And then they said, do you have anyone in your life? And he said, yeah, my grandparents, who I love. And I got to tell you, I saw it real time, click to that person. So I actually don't know that a lot of people have taken it beyond their bubble of their identity and realized, no, no, I'm being brave on the back of my grandpa or my grandma.

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Right.

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Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it's not as binary, you know, like I think we want to, like, sort of have the easy way of framing it. But like, I think there's a lot of people who I mean, they totally believe this pandemic was real. It wasn't like they thought it was a hoax or anything. But statistically, they thought, you know what, I'll be OK. It's not going to hit me.

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And it's more like that, which I think maybe it's just how we assess risk in general will be OK, you know, myself, my grandparents, you know, whoever it may be. But that was the case with everybody who got sick. Right. I talked to so many patients and I talked to family members of people who had died. And it was always like they weren't deniers, not the ones that I talked to. Yeah, but then, you know, somebody got a few symptoms one day and then the symptoms got worse and then they needed to be hospitalized.

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And then they embarked on the worst days of their life and it just happened so quickly and they were shocked. And, you know, I don't know how that changes their behavior going forward. You know, who knows? But I think it was a genuine surprise to people. And right now there's hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe if you look at the models who are just fine, they are totally fine right now. And they're looking at this in the rearview mirror because they're hearing about the vaccine and all that and the like.

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We're done, you know, 20/20 goodbye and we're done and they're going to get it. I mean, there's no question that they're going to be so many more people still affected. And I mean, it really I've learned as much about the science here as I had the psychology.

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Let's talk about the brain, because that's actually what you have dedicated your life to. And you've written a new book called Keep Sharp. And I think I want to start with a kind of a misunderstanding I personally have, which is if I recall my biology class, I remember there being somatic cells. And those cells go through mitosis. They can replicate, they can repair themselves, but that our brain cells are not somatic, so they can't go through cell reproduction or copying themselves.

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So the ones you're born with, that's what you get. And when they go away, that's that. That was my understanding of it. That's flawed. Yeah. Is that right or wrong?

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Well, as it turns out, it's wrong, but this is a relatively new discovery. So I don't want to say it's wrong in the sense that, you know, we've known this for a long time, the idea of neurogenesis or any kind of cell genesis and stuff like that and how you think about it, I mean, it's still evolving. We used to study, you know, for the most part in terms of why we thought about this incorrectly for so long, is that we studied diseased organs.

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You studied a diseased or traumatized spinal cord, for example, and you're looking for evidence of new neural development, new neural cells, neurogenesis, whatever it may be. But oftentimes it wasn't happening because it was traumatized or same thing with the brain when you started to look at healthy spinal cords and brain because we had better techniques to actually study this. You realize that there are neural stem cells just like there are stem cells in other parts of the body, and they can basically stimulate the production of new cells and neurogenesis in areas of the brain that kind of need them or are being recruited there because of the activity of the brain there.

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So it's a relatively new thing and it's pretty clear it can happen throughout your life.

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That is so comforting because I remember thinking, whoa, oh, man, I blew a punch. How many different times in my life and fuck, I'm just taking money out of the. Principal, you know, he drained the cache of cells that was sort of the thinking, right?

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You know, you can have this negative impact on your brain through various things. There's no question about it.

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But the idea that it can heal and repair itself or in someone who has a healthy brain continued to be optimized, I find really exciting. I mean, that was probably the biggest sort of driver. There was two things that really drove me around this. What really three things. One is that I've had a longstanding love affair with the brain. I just love the brain. I love the fact that you look at three and a half pounds of tissue and that memories live there and your pain lives there and your joy.

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And I don't want to sound reductionist, but this idea that those things that make you you are contained within this tissue. Still, consciousness is probably a locally contained phenomenon within the brain. Some would argue with that. But nevertheless, it's got a lot going on there, right?

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It's the whole thing, all the other shit just in support of it, really. I think so.

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And in order to improve anything else in your body or, you know, in your life, really, you've got to get the brain right. That was another big thing. In order to best heal the body, you've got to heal the mind, which I thought was fascinating.

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That's what I was going to ask you. But first, I just wanted to say that, yeah, you start with the notion that cognitive decline is not inevitable and it's never too early or too late to start taking care of your brain, which is what we just talked about, which is it's not written in stone. It can be nurtured. It can be pathologies. You have a role in this, which is very encouraging, I think. And then, yeah, next, I guess if I asked people to rank which organ they should prioritize for their health, I have to imagine the vast majority of people say, ha, that's where all of us would start.

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Yeah, I think so.

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You know, and I think there's been a real medicalization of heart disease. It is an accessible organ. You can see it. We show you the blockages that occur in the blood vessels. My father had that operation.

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I just had it. I just had the CT scan with the dye. And they give you a percentage in every artery of plaque there.

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Calcium score. Yes, it's crazy.

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I was zero. I was testing. I couldn't believe it. My only explanation is exercise. I don't know what else to say.

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Is your diet good? Your diet's good, right? It's fair. I eat too much meat. I'll tell you that. Really. And my dad had heart disease.

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Your dad had heart disease. Well, if you have zero calcium score, I mean, that is a really, really good thing. You know that already. But in terms of being predictive of the likelihood of having some sort of coronary event. Dr. Agatston, South Beach Diet, you've heard of that. He's a cardiologist and he's big on these coronary CT scans. Had a long conversation about it. He basically said if you have a zero percent calcium score, you're basically heart attack proof for at least four to five years.

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You'll be heart attack proof a lot longer than that. But you'll get another scan. You know, it's kind of interesting to be able to look at a particular scan and say your likelihood of now having a cardiac event is X, and in your case, it's basically zero.

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I can't tell you the peace of mind. It gave me, I think anyone who's in a position to get one, I can't think of a better thousand dollars I've ever spent my life. I just to your point, for the next four years, I'm free of that cancer. Right? I mean, I'm not going to go to Sizzler and put it up there, but you know what I'm saying might be a fun experiment to see how unhealthy you can get quickly.

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Oh, well, I guess I'll going to prove it wrong is great race to forty percent blockage. Yeah, but, you know, it's interesting.

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So, Monica, I had this test done too. I'm 51 now. You're I think mid 40s.

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By the time this airs, I'll have just turned forty six for you. Yes.

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So fingers crossed I have full faith in your zero percent calcium channel, but you know, so I like to run and every now and then I would have some sort of pain in my chest and it could have just been frankly reflux. It could have just been that I was had been lifting some weights. I was having some muscle pain there as a result. But my father had cardiac bypass surgery at age 47. His father, my grandfather, died of a heart attack.

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So it's always like in the back of the mind. So I got a zero percent to back, like when I was around. Yeah, mid forties. Forty five or so.

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We need a club, you know, we need the zero percent club.

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The outlaw bikers think they're cool because they're one percenters. We be zero zero. That's what you got to aspire to. But it did give me that peace of mind that, you know, I wasn't having a heart problem in the middle of a run. It was something else. It was interesting. But I want to say something because this might actually get at what you're talking about with the hard versus the brain. You know, we think of optimizing the heart.

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You just said you wouldn't automatically think of the brain. And this is really interesting. This was a second thing that really inspired me on this book, and that is that things that are measurable take on an. Added degree of importance because they are measurable, right? So you did the Framingham study and you found cholesterol and lipids and all these sorts of things were associated with heart disease. And all of a sudden they became these huge things to aspire to lower your cholesterol lowering lipids, lower your blood pressure and all that and all that's very important.

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But if I told you, for example, stress was a bigger predictor of having a heart event.

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Now people think, well, that's kind of nebulous, soft, squishy around the edges. What does that really mean?

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Yeah, how do you quantify stress? That's the problem. So that is the problem. But it makes it no less important. Right. Things that are measurable shouldn't be more important by virtue of the fact that they are measurable. They should be important because they are so associated with something like this.

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And that's why, again, with this book, it was all these things people think of the brain. Is this box impenetrable, immutable, not changeable, as we were just saying, encased by this skull of hard bone. And therefore, you can't do anything to improve it. You can't prevent disease. It's all sort of preordained when it comes to things up there. And a lot of it's because it's hard to measure. If I had a coronary CT scan of the brain like we were just talking about for the heart.

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And I could tell you now your brain is optimized at this level or hear the things you need to do that be pretty incredible.

[00:28:26]

Right. But we don't we don't really have that. Yeah, people do have that. And they've been working on it, some of these scientists that I interviewed for the book. And yet it's hard to get this stuff published because they don't have the cholesterol below 200. You know, that's an easy paper to write. But if I tell you that you need to have three friends, you need to be hanging out with them for this long. And it's going to do this to your brain objectively.

[00:28:48]

Yeah, that's a harder it's harder evidence to collect, but it makes it no less true or no less important. Yeah.

[00:28:54]

I mean, our best diagnostic tool, to my knowledge, is the DSM in psychiatry. Right. And so it's the best we can do. And there's no numbers given. You know, they might say you're bipolar, but at what level are you 40? Are you at hundred days your cholesterol. Three hundred know.

[00:29:11]

Right. And then the distinction between pathology and healthy and optimization, like if I told you you could be optimized. Like, I'm not thinking you have any kind of you know, there's nothing medically wrong or there's not a diagnosis here. It's just that I'm going to increase the reserve in your brain so that when you encounter a problem, you're going to be able to tackle that problem in different ways than you otherwise would have, that you're going to connect patterns that you would have otherwise missed.

[00:29:40]

You're going to be resilient to something meaning like a muscle. When I work it out, it gets stronger as opposed to getting crushed. Daily events right now are crushing so many people mentally.

[00:29:52]

Yeah, but if they have greater resiliency, then that actually can be turned into an attribute in the sense that it's almost becomes like a workout. I'm not saying that any of this is good that's happening to us, but what it does to us in the long run in terms of our brain health is very much dependent on how we treat. Are we treating it like a workout or are we treating it like a crushing event? And some of that has to do with just how resilient you are in the first place.

[00:30:15]

And that is a buildable thing that is probably the core of it to build that resiliency.

[00:30:19]

Well, also, you point out, which is really plainly logical, which is if you have any hope of having a healthy heart, the best thing to start with is if you have a healthy brain and you have some of the things you just listed, you know, if you feel flexible and you feel not overwhelmed and you feel optimistic, all these little things, they actually will lead to you making the time to go get the heart CT scan. Maybe they help you make a better food choice, like you can't be in abject depression and then make a great food choice in general.

[00:30:54]

You know, you're probably caught in a spiral of feeling terrible trying to get a bump from something bad. So, yes, starting at the top and having, like a trickle down approach to everything else makes a ton of sense to me.

[00:31:07]

It all starts in my opinion. And I think I'm obviously I'm biased. I'm a brain surgeon, but everything starts with the brain. The same activity that you do when you're not in a good headspace or whatever you want to call it is not going to have as much of an impact on you. But, you know, one thing I want to say, because I and again, I think you'll understand this, is that when you create resiliency and redundancy or reserve in your brain, whatever you want to call it, and I can tell you how I think that can best be done.

[00:31:36]

But when you do that, I find it to be a very joyous experience, because what happens, even for you guys who live this very interesting life, because you do this podcast, you talk to interesting people, you have to learn you're reading new things, which is fantastic.

[00:31:51]

The term is spoiled. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, what a privilege, right? No oil. You can just say.

[00:31:58]

I mean, you would you would do this for I mean, just to do it right. Oh for sure. We pay to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[00:32:13]

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[00:34:54]

You guys go deep, you know, I think for someone like me, you know, just why I love doing your podcast is because there's only so much you can really convey in the public discourse. I think people's attention spans are short and they want the crisp headline, you know. Yeah. And sometimes everything lives in the nuance. Everything lives there. I can give you a crisp headline, you know, and I can give you the five things you should do to improve your brain.

[00:35:20]

And I will.

[00:35:21]

Yeah, but the why besides the what?

[00:35:24]

You're exactly right. Because what I love what you just said, which is I'm actually promising you not just maintenance of status quo, it's hard to motivate people to prevent their body from deteriorating. That's not a very incentivized approach. But the notion of joy, the notion of optimization. Yeah, 100 percent.

[00:35:45]

That is a life lesson for me. I think even as a as a doc, I mean, we inspire through fear. I think in general, you know, if you eat that cheeseburger, you will have a heart attack, you know, smoke that cigarette, you will get lung cancer. And you invoke this very, very hot response in the brain and the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain, which is an immediate hot, you know, fiery response.

[00:36:08]

The problem is that it's not very coordinated response. It doesn't go through the frontal lobes. So you get somebody in response to being told they may have a heart attack, who does a week of intense dieting and then stops because the amygdala now is not as fired up. And they didn't really have a plan. They just reacted out of fear.

[00:36:26]

But when it comes to the brain, what is so interesting, so a headline would be do something that scares you every day, get outside your comfort zone in some way, every day. And you say, well, why is that? Well, because I could show you your brain. I could surface map it and I could show you that you have a million roads in your brain and you're using a hundred thousand of them really, really well all the time.

[00:36:49]

And those hundred thousand roads are great. They're going from your thalamus over here to your occipital lobe and they're coming over here to your temporal lobe. So that's why you can remember songs and you can sing them whatever it may be.

[00:36:59]

But the other 900000 roads are there. They're not getting used as much. And when I start to get you outside your comfort zone, you automatically start recruiting new neurons, neurogenesis, you start using new roads. And that sort of reserve means when the roads that you use all the time start to get blocked or you need construction, which happens, you already have all these other roads there. That is sort of what reserve means. And I think that the idea that you can build that now just by thinking about something you don't typically think about and being vulnerable about it is really fascinating in terms of how it serves you.

[00:37:38]

Now, you'll think about things differently, automatically, and I find that quite joyous to find patterns that I well, I just saw a pattern there that everyone else missed. And it can help buffer you as you get older from, you know, the medical things that people worry about, such as dementia.

[00:37:53]

Well, not to fear motivate, but it does atrophy in some sense. Right. If you're not using the other nine hundred thousand paths. Yes. It kind of atrophies.

[00:38:03]

Use it or lose it. The practice makes perfect, which is true because the roads you are using will be really, really smooth running roads. But change builds resilience. And I think that that's sort of the key for me. I got to tell you something, though, just real quick on atrophy, quick story. It's about a year ago I was in the operating room and I was on call. And what happens a lot of times is they say somebody is coming to the emergency room and here's a story and they'll show you the scans.

[00:38:29]

And it was a 93 year old guy. So they say 93 year old person who had a blood collection on his head. So right away, I think 93 year old person like this, is this somebody who we're going to operate on? I mean, is this it's a big, big deal. And, you know, if I want to be strategic and be thoughtful in terms of how I'm approaching this, they said, well, they say he's very high functioning guy and all this sort of stuff.

[00:38:53]

And so give me the story. Turns out he had been on his roof of his house with a leaf blower blowing leaves off of his roof, OK? And he fell and he got injured. He had a subdural hematoma. He came in to the hospital and he was still with it.

[00:39:10]

At this point, the blood collection was growing, but he was with it. So I went to go talk to him. And when I went to go talk to him, I'll never forget he was looking at his iPhone or whatever. And, you know, just it was interesting because in their reading glasses on and I thought, I need reading glasses, had to look at this thing and I said, hey, so you know what's going on? He's like, oh, you know, I fell off my roof, you know, whatever.

[00:39:30]

And I said, What do you read? And he's like, Oh, these elections are happening in East Africa. I'm just been following them up.

[00:39:35]

Oh, wow.

[00:39:37]

So he's obviously a high functioning guy, like they said. So take him to the operating room. He's got a subdural blood collection. So that's blood that's just underneath the outer layer of the brain called the dura. You remove that, you stop whatever little bleeding there is in for a little bit of time. You're looking at the brain because you've taken the blood off the brain, so 93 year old guy, this gets back to your point about atrophy.

[00:40:00]

What do you think I saw in this 93 year old really high functioning guy's brain?

[00:40:06]

What I saw was a very shriveled up brain that looked like it belonged to a 93 year old. Oh, really?

[00:40:14]

Yeah, it had aged just like you expected it would age, but it had almost no correlation to his function is the thing that really stuck with me. He was sharp.

[00:40:26]

In fact, I went to his room after the operation and he was having this conversation and I said, so what? You know, it's quite an experience. I mean, you felt you almost died. How are you doing? And he said, well, he goes, I guess thing I've learned in all this is price shouldn't be blowing leaves off the roof. You know, he just just this just really comical, thoughtful 93 year old guy whose brain was a 93 year old brain.

[00:40:52]

But the function was remarkable. We think of our organs having this natural deterioration and they do. But it doesn't mean they can't function like they did when, you know, you're much younger.

[00:41:04]

Well, it makes me think of two things that people like commonly know. Right. And it doesn't really even matter if the numbers are right. But they say, you know, like you only use 10 percent your brain or 20 percent your brain. But forget that the notion that you can have a stroke and then they can actually take your motor control and move it to another area of your brain. Am I right in that? That's how it works.

[00:41:22]

Like they just basically force another area of your brain to do the job that another area was doing?

[00:41:27]

Yeah, I mean, you do it. You basically are recruiting other areas of your brain. They can through therapy and things like that, they can basically start creating these changes in your cortex, you know, where the motor areas are of the brain and create new areas around that to actually help you move again. But you're the one doing it. Your brain is capable of doing it. You know, it's not like they're going in and sticking new motor neurons in this area.

[00:41:50]

It is accelerating a process that might happen anyway. Right. If you if you didn't I didn't even know I had a stroke.

[00:41:57]

I just kept trying to move and then eventually started moving again. You know, if someone told you had a stroke, you're like, why can't move?

[00:42:03]

What that tells me you can't take one of the four chambers of the heart and then just jettison one of them and have one of the other ones to do the job of that. Right. Because it operates virtually at capacity. But what that tells me about the brain is that there's so much untapped potential just sitting there.

[00:42:19]

There is so much untapped potential. And if you build that reserve, which I'm fascinated by this idea of cognitive reserve, then that potential is even greater and can come into play more easily if you start to develop any problems.

[00:42:36]

I don't know if you caught the HBO Real Sports Story they ran a couple of weeks ago on CTE patients that have gone and done ayahuasca or psilocybin mushrooms or ecstasy. And the way the neurologists in that segment described it is that the guys with either brain is so unflexible and that the pathways are. So how do I say it? Just it's all they're using and it's part of the condition. And that when they kind of explode their brain with these different drugs and they show them in whatever scan that is and it's not an MRI, but they show the brain and the activities off the charts.

[00:43:15]

Right. It's just an electrical storm on these drugs. And then when the brain is trying to reprocess and bring them back down to reality in that they end up forging new highways, that's how I understood it. And I was just curious if you knew about that research and could it be that promising? And it's very exciting.

[00:43:34]

I follow the psilocybin research pretty closely. I mean, I think that the idea was, first of all, you know, the idea that you develop similar sort of plaques and tangles that people see in Alzheimer's disease, which leads to interference with these pathways, I think is real. And there's very classic sort of symptoms as a result of that with the psilocybin. The thing that struck me the most was that they were giving people who not nice but had refractory depression or anxiety for a particular reason.

[00:44:07]

In the case of the early trials, it was because these people had a terminal diagnosis. It wasn't just that they were old. You know, people had a incurable cancer, whatever it may be. And they were super depressed about it, understandably. But they also weren't responding to any kinds of the therapies and they would go through generations of these antidepressants and antianxiety meds. And they were incorrigible to the point where they were suicidal, despite the fact that they only had months to live.

[00:44:35]

I mean, it was really you know, I don't know if you've read any of these studies. There was one out of NYU and then Hopkins and now at UCLA. They've added another trial site.

[00:44:43]

I only know it by way of the pollen book, which, yeah, it talks about the act of psilocybin actually reduces your connection with your sense of identity, where you're formulating identity, and that it allows you to feel connected in a way that you otherwise can't. And that connection to the rest of the world seem to be very helpful to those people. And, you know, he had a article in The New Yorker before he wrote his book, How to Change Your Mind, called The Trip Treatment, and it was based on that exact thing.

[00:45:14]

When you talk to those NYU researchers, I'll just tell you this really quickly, because I think it feeds into what you're saying.

[00:45:19]

They had remarkable results, as you know.

[00:45:22]

That's why it got such attention. These people who did not respond to existing therapies, they took a single dose of psilocybin in a cognitively controlled setting. So they were in a hospital and they had a cognitive therapist, a place for a trip, I would imagine, but continue.

[00:45:36]

Well, you know, it was fascinating. They showed me the room you put on this iPad. You had the headphones. And for a lot of people, it was I've never done psilocybin. I have nothing against or done it.

[00:45:45]

Sanjay, you have to I forced Monica, you know, I'm sober, but I used to do them 16 years ago. I did them all the time. I forced Monica I was really against.

[00:45:56]

What does that entail for you? I put together a beautiful group of people. I was in charge of administering it. I was there sober in case anyone got scared. Which which happened.

[00:46:06]

Yeah. It was a frightening morning. Yes.

[00:46:09]

At first. At first. Because my hands turned in to grab my hands and I was not prepared for that. And also not to make it personal, but DAX was there to protect us and he went to the other room to watch TV because he said she wasn't feeling it and they were all getting annoying, like they were evaluating whether they were high or not.

[00:46:28]

I forgot how annoying that part of it is. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[00:46:31]

Can you look at those bushes. Look at. But are you feeling anything. So I bounced into the other room hoping that when it came on I would get involved.

[00:46:38]

So but I missed my window like I did and my hands turned to to grab my hands. And I started to panic because I was really scared to do it. I didn't want to do it forever. And he had been saying, you should do it. It'll make you more creative, you know, peer pressuring me, which I generally cannot be peer pressured. And I thought, OK, I guess I'll try it out. So we went there with the intention of micro dosing, which is a waste of time that we didn't do.

[00:47:04]

We I had a full dose. No, you guys did micro dose.

[00:47:07]

And I was like, why the fuck are we doing this? Nothing's happening. So we kept it. And then everyone decided to have a real trip. And I said, OK, well, then it's going to be this amount.

[00:47:14]

OK, yeah. So anyway, it just really caught me off guard and I started panicking and having a real panic attack. And by then Decs came out also everyone looked like a cartoon, but then DACs came out and took a walk.

[00:47:26]

I took Monica on a walk. We slowed down. We talked. I said, look at that house. Doesn't it look like it's a movie set? So what was really funny is she started getting convinced I was on them, too, because how on earth would I know? It looks like a movie set and I'm like, OK, I've done this. Are you in my head?

[00:47:43]

Are you even real? But then he said a really wonderful thing, which was you have the capacity to decide whether this is enjoyable or not. You can pick. So then I turned to turn it around and it was really, really life changing.

[00:48:02]

Sanjay, please don't leave planet Earth without doing it. It would be a big mistake. You're not an addict, right? You have no dignity. You have no alcohol against it.

[00:48:13]

But, you know, it's interesting because I hear this story exactly, Monica, what you just said, and I think I'm a bit of a control. Me, too.

[00:48:21]

Yeah. You can't be more of a control freak than Monica. Right. So that part worries me. Like to pay the price to get there by what you the grabbed my hands and all that and having the hallucinations, it would be hard.

[00:48:32]

I won't leave your side. I learn from this. OK, so I will give it to you and then I'll just hang with you the whole time. OK. OK.

[00:48:38]

All right. Also if you know going in. Yeah. Oh there's going to be physical changes maybe or you know I just had no idea and I thought I was only doing a tiny amount so I thought colors were just going to get a little brighter. It was so much more extreme than that. So I think expectation. Right.

[00:48:56]

A big factor I saw I'll tell you when I read the article that the Palin book was ultimately based on and then went back and looked at the research people in that trial who had these, you know, refractory depression and anxiety. Their scores improved and lasted for months, I mean, up to six months in certain cases. So it was a really profound experience for them. I mean, people who are atheists were writing things about their experience, like I am an atheist.

[00:49:22]

But the only way to describe this is I felt like I was bathing God's love. And that was quite interesting to me to sort of read people's firsthand perspectives on going through this. And also from a medical standpoint, you know, like so you give an antidepressant every day, has all these side effects, give a single dose of something like a psilocybin in a cognitively controlled setting, whatever it may be. And it can have really long lasting effects.

[00:49:45]

I mean, it's a whole nother discussion. But, you know, I did a whole bunch of reporting on cannabis a few years ago in this whole inflection point between Overton's window. He's familiar with Overton's window.

[00:49:56]

Oh, I love O terms. Tell me that. So Overton's went on. I pray I get it wrong. So just be humble about this. But that Overton's window fundamental. Lee is a concept of a window through which everything that is acceptable societally can pass through at any given time. And as you might imagine, it shrinks and it expands and it moves all the time. And cannabis, like cannabis, was not something that went through Overton's window 15, 20 years ago.

[00:50:23]

It was not allowed to pass through. And then now, obviously, it's changed tremendously. But those inflection points between what is acceptable and what is actually helpful to people because it's not acceptable, we say it's not helpful, like cannabis can actually be helpful. I became convinced of that, that this documentary is on people with refractory epilepsy and things like that. Kids, you know, again, who weren't responding to conventional treatments, not only did it work for them, for some of them, it was the only thing that worked.

[00:50:49]

So it became as much of a moral issue as it did a medical issue. And I do think things like psilocybin for depression, MDMA for post-traumatic stress, I'm not as familiar with the applications of ayahuasca, although, you know, I just haven't read as much about it. But obviously it's gaining more and more. They're doing more trials around this.

[00:51:11]

It have to be really effective because it's almost guaranteed you shit your pants. So for me, that's a big barrier of entry. I better have some real, real positive outcome.

[00:51:21]

Is that a metaphor or is a no, no, no actually do. When you do it, there's a bucket at the front of your bed and there's a toilets everywhere. Yeah, it really messes just like hits the system gets it hard. I'm never doing this, just so you know. Yeah. That's a little bit of a deal breaker for me. Also, I don't want to be your guide, like I'll guide you through a Schrems event, but not that I don't want to deal with that.

[00:51:46]

You need a true shaman for that. OK, so one thing I love about your book is that it reinforces something that I believe the most. If I have any conviction, it's you know, if I had to give up things that helped me in order, the very last thing I would ever give up, I would leave AA before I would stop exercising. So tell me about the power of exercise on your brain. First of all, it's the only thing that we've actually been able to really gather the evidence around with regard to brain health and, you know, again, a lot of other things that are helpful in absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the thing you're going to hear from neuroscientists and stuff, they're always going to talk about physical exercise, A, because it works because it's measurable, and C, because we've been able to collect real evidence around it.

[00:52:31]

So people who are in motion and I'll just use that term for now and I can define that. But people who are more active tend to have brains that are going to have a lot more of these same qualities that we're talking about, more reserve, more resiliency. BDNF is something that people will often refer to, which stands for brain derived neurotrophic factor BNF. You want BDNF? I can't give it to you in a shot or a pill or anything like that, but your body can make it.

[00:53:01]

It's like miracle grow for the brain and it'll actually spread into the brain in response to movement, which is a really interesting thing. And again, it's the only predictable way to increase these neurotrophic factors which will enable the neurogenesis that we're talking about, all these other things in a very predictable way. So movement is really key. When I started to think about this book, I had been traveling around the world and looking at all these various cultures where, you know, dementia was very rare and a lot of these cultures, they had a lot of healthy habits.

[00:53:34]

But one thing that you noticed was that there was a lot of movement in these cultures. They hardly ever sat they were either lying when they slept or they were standing and walking, usually walking, frankly, not even running when they were upright. And that was it. And, you know, you start to talk to these evolutionary biologists about this and you say, you know, people, human beings really only sat when they got old. You know, it was almost like it was teleological in the sense that you started to sit a lot when you got old and it signaled these things to your body like, hey, I'm old.

[00:54:10]

And some of your body self-defense mechanisms started to decrease. Your immune system started to taper a bit. All these things that basically allowed you to come to a natural biological end, which happens to all of us. But it was almost like the sitting was triggering that as opposed to the other way around. Now, obviously, you fast forward to now and, you know, we sit all the time. So in some ways, we're always sending these signals to our bodies that you go ahead, shut down the perimeter defenses.

[00:54:36]

You know, I'm ready to go.

[00:54:37]

My body must think I'm two hundred years old. I mean, I sit in this La-Z-Boy half a day. Yeah, but you're an active guy as well, you know? I mean, there is something to be said for natural, consistent movement throughout the day. But you're an active person, I think, you know, and I think it makes a huge difference. But it's really the only proven evidence based way to really improve brain health, increase blood flow, increase BDNF, create that reserve that resiliency, all that sort of stuff.

[00:55:03]

So for me, you know, a body in motion stays in motion, I think, of activity not so much as the cure to things as inactivity is the disease.

[00:55:14]

Does that mean that whenever I'm about to sit, I do ask myself if I could be standing instead? I really need to sit. You know, whatever it may be, however you incorporate that into your life can make a huge difference. You know, just overall, in terms of brain health, I think much more so than crossword puzzles or particular brain training exercises. It's like you're signaling to the body that I'm here signaling to the brain that I want to stay.

[00:55:39]

Yeah, I need to be in a condition to respond. Yeah, exactly.

[00:55:44]

I want to be engaged with this world. So keep me as healthy as possible, thinking as clearly as possible, all those sorts of things.

[00:55:51]

You also bust some myths in this book. Here's one I wasn't shocked by. Suppliments won't keep your brain sharp.

[00:55:58]

Supplements are a big topic. And I will tell you that there are some really good supplement makers out there. But the reason when I looked at this, talked to a lot of people who have done these trials around supplements, a few things sort of jumped out. One is that it's hard to get the good stuff out of food and put it in a pill. No lack of trying here. I mean, this isn't to malign some of these really good supplement maker.

[00:56:22]

It's just a hard thing.

[00:56:24]

And there is this notion that you may have heard of called the entourage effect, which basically means that when you eat food, you're getting your lycopene. Yes. You know, whatever it may be, but you're getting lots of other micronutrients that, in conjunction with the biggest active ingredient, are really important for letting that active ingredient work in your body and certain receptors.

[00:56:47]

You know, they allow the lycopene, whatever the most active ingredient is, to work best. It's hard to do that when you put it in a pill form because you're losing the entourage of micronutrients around it. So that's number one. Number two is that it's just a really unregulated business in this country. You know, it's just too bad because, again, there's some really. Good supplement makers out there, but because of lack of regulation, you get a lot of bad actors as well, they're not as diligent about what it is that they're putting into their pills either.

[00:57:17]

It's not what they say it is. It's too much of what they say it is, in some cases even harmful. So we don't have a regulated industry. And, you know, it's a problem. And one thing I'll tell you is that there are some lawmakers that have been around for a few decades. And that's something that I immediately gravitate toward because there are these fly by night operations. It's such a big business, right? Billions of dollars are spent on this.

[00:57:39]

So these fly by night operations, they come in with these grand promises and they sell a bunch of supplements for several months or a couple of years, and then they're gone and they're not in service to the customer. They're in service to just making a lot of money. On the other hand, you do have and I'll send you some of these names that have been around a long time and you spend time with these supplement makers, they still are at risk of having the same problem, of not being able to create the entourage effect and pills.

[00:58:04]

But they do a pretty good job. They can help overcome deficiencies, people who have true deficiencies of a particular thing.

[00:58:11]

But overall, for your brain eating it versus trying to take it in a pill I think makes a world of difference.

[00:58:18]

OK, and that brings me to another one, which this is one I was kind of shocked by, which is brain superfoods are a myth.

[00:58:27]

Superfood is a advertising sort of term that people can get easily behind. Just like we were saying, they want the crisp headline. This is a superfood. There's almost nothing that is a true superfood. And it should surprise no one that when you got seven billion people on the planet, that everyone's brains and what they respond to or what they best respond to is going to be a little bit different, you know. Yeah.

[00:58:49]

I mean, we want the sort of universal rules as part of this book. One of the things I did, someone kept telling me to do it. I never done it. But I decided for the book I would do it, which was I was really diligent about keeping a food journal. And you write down what you eat and then you spend time, you know, an hour later, two hours later, we're just writing down how you're doing and maybe you have your own sort of way of grading yourself.

[00:59:12]

Like I feel very creative right now or I feel like I need a nap right now or I couldn't possibly do a challenging task right now or this is the best I've ever felt.

[00:59:20]

And you will find your quote unquote superfoods for me. You know what's interesting? I all of a sudden found that fermented foods like pickles were a secret weapon for me. Oh, when I'm going to sit down and write or do something that's, you know, I think it's going to be challenging. It's going to require different parts of my brain. I might have to do novel thinking. I'm not just regurgitating things, but the novel thinking part of my day.

[00:59:45]

That's the fun part, but it's a challenging part. Pickles, you know, I and I got it that through food journaling and people may have different sort of superfoods for them and you can figure it out. You can individualize your optimization.

[00:59:59]

Here comes my cross fire journalism. Isn't it true, Sanjay, that you have a large holding of pickle, fut. cucumber fut.?

[01:00:09]

I thought that was wholly private. Everyone go out and buy pickles.

[01:00:17]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[01:00:22]

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Yeah, I definitely have a lot more clarity after. Yeah. So that's why I go weekly so it doesn't fade out.

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[01:03:11]

And how about crossword puzzles, we always hear that crossword puzzles are like doing sit ups for your boring crossword puzzles are good for developing things like fluency of your brain, word finding, using words, you know, more quickly.

[01:03:25]

And those are great. But maybe sit ups is the right analogy. If you just did sit ups and nothing else, I don't know how good that would be. It wouldn't be bad. But, you know, if I tell you I want to give you a whole body workout and I'm going to focus on your diet, I'm going to focus on all these other things, it would look different than just crossword puzzles. Crossword puzzles are great, but they've become a substitute for everything else that you should be doing for your brain.

[01:03:50]

I love the one thing you wrote.

[01:03:51]

Finishing a crossword puzzle on your own isn't nearly as impactful and boosting brain function as having a face to face interaction with a friend. Studies show that having a diverse social network can improve brain plasticity and help preserve cognitive ability. So yeah, everyone would assume doing two hours of crossword puzzle would be better for your brain than shooting the shit with a buddy, right?

[01:04:14]

I think most people would think that. And what you find again, and it won't surprise neuroscientists, is that when you were shooting the shit with a buddy, all the various things that are happening in your brain as a result, the friendship, the content that you're talking about, whatever it may be, getting yourself outside your comfort zone, challenging each other a little bit, whatever it may be, those things end up being much better for harnessing and recruiting all these different areas of the brain.

[01:04:38]

If that is the goal to always be recruiting new areas of your brain, then it starts to make sense why certain activities are better than other activities. It's not that the other activities are bad, but if I had to put it all together, if you said, OK, what is the best thing to do for your brain? Just give me a couple examples, I would say. Take a brisk walk with a close friend and discuss your problems. Uh huh.

[01:05:07]

That kind of gets at all these things, you know, the brisk walk, obviously, just in terms of the movement, but having the real social connection with somebody, you know. And how do you determine that it's a close connection because you feel like you can actually talk about your problems. Can't do that with everybody. So I found that really, you know, quite compelling and easy to digest. And I started using it in my own life.

[01:05:31]

I haven't been able to see my parents, obviously, in a long time because of this pandemic. But when I call them, I would typically say, hey, how are you doing? And they would typically say, hey, we're doing we're doing fine, you know. And it was very cursory when I started having a more purpose driven conversation with them. And this loneliness expert taught me this. Asking them for help in some way could be something simple, all of a sudden it completely changed the purpose and intent of our conversations.

[01:06:02]

So my parents are both engineers, as you know, you know, Michigan background.

[01:06:06]

And one day my wife came home and her car had smoke coming out of the hood and, you know, just kind of take a look, OK?

[01:06:13]

So I pop the hood and it's all, you know, I mean, you see these engines nowadays. I don't know where to begin.

[01:06:17]

And I FaceTime my parents and showed them the thing. And, you know, Dad, I got this problem. I got this problem. And they were so into it. The next morning, my mom is sending me these diagrams of the engine. And did you look over here? And it was a wonderful sort of interaction with my parents.

[01:06:35]

Yeah. It was revolving around something that was just so purposeful and I just felt good. First of all, I learned something just about engines. But, you know, like the number of, like, really meaningful conversations that I've had even with my family, I do have meaningful conversations with them. But you can get so procedural in your lane. Yeah.

[01:06:54]

And to say I'm going to create a purpose driven conversation again, you guys are privileged because you get to do this through this podcast and other things all the time. So maybe this sounds so obvious to you.

[01:07:06]

I don't think so, Sanjay. I think everyone's life is a broken record. Like once you go home from work, it's like we got to get some food on the table. We got to get these little jerks to brush their teeth. It's almost impossible. You know, the steps are so repetitive that, of course, then the dialogue ends up being informed by the action.

[01:07:24]

In a weird way, you know, look, I'm guilty of that as well. I mean, I'm not preaching here. But if you can be vulnerable to somebody and that means asking for help, then it gets it. So many of the concepts in this book, because it does harness the new areas of the brain, it creates an emotional attachment that really fires up your amygdala. The memories are stronger of those types of interactions because you have more of these neurotransmitters that are actually impregnating these memories more strongly into your hippocampus.

[01:07:55]

There's a physiology behind all this. There's a Y behind all this. But the what which is what you should do is to me, very simple. And it makes sense to me.

[01:08:05]

This makes me want to tell you a two second story, which is on a movie set or a TV set. The people that have to most memorize names probably are the camera operators, because there's so often saying, Jennifer, will you step to your left or whatever? You know, they can't just say, like, hey, guy in the red shirt. So they, more than anyone, have to really learn everyone's names. And there is this great guy on parenthood, Scipio Africanus, perfect name for him.

[01:08:30]

His trick that he taught me was he hung out in the morning at the craft service area where people get their coffee and their snack. And when he would see a new actor that was just there for the day or a background player or anyone, he would have to talk to you. He would ask them to hand him something. And he said that he had learned this trick, that if you need something from somebody, you will remember their name.

[01:08:56]

And I tried that trick in real life. And I also just went through historically, when I'm there as an actor, I actually don't need anything from anybody. But when I've been directing things, I need the costumers to do this. I need the help that I'm so good. I memorize one hundred and twenty people's names on my crew because I need something from also interesting. But when I'm there as an actor, I mean, I don't know anyone's fucking name.

[01:09:17]

And I was like, God, there's something to what he said here.

[01:09:19]

How do you create a purpose around that interaction? Because then it helps you remember. Yeah.

[01:09:26]

That you had an experience and asking for help. There's a little bit of a vulnerability there, which I think is maybe the key. I mean, I'm not sure that that's the key, to be honest. But whatever it is, you tend to remember that maybe it's because you have this instinctive gratitude because they just helped you in some way, whatever it may be, just asking someone's name and they tell you there's nothing to associate that with. I mean, you know, you're DACs, you're Monica.

[01:09:50]

I would not have been able to guess your names just by looking at you.

[01:09:53]

Chirchir Very arbitrary. Yeah. I mean, it's totally you know, if I got to know your mom, your parents, maybe it would make sense. You know, there'd be some story there. But, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. How we remember, by the way, you can remember too much, you know, going back to the MDMA. You know, when you talk about post-traumatic stress, one of the things that they were studying is part of these MDMA trials was to give people these beta blockers right after a traumatic experience, you know, basically bringing down the level of stress hormones because stress hormones cause you to really impregnate these memories even stronger in the hippocampus.

[01:10:29]

So if somebody had a terrible accident or some terrible trauma in addition to everything else, give them some beta blockers and they'll be less likely to have PTSD later on. Sort of fascinating, but it's the same thing except in reverse evolutionarily.

[01:10:42]

If you find that when you drink from this certain waterhole, a crocodile comes out at you. This is very pertinent information to remember. It's not hard to understand. Why we're so good at remembering life threatening things. Exactly, exactly. OK, so we hit Move. So Sanjay's five pillars of brain health. We hit move and we just talked about Kinect. But I would like to talk about discover, relax and nourish because again, some of these are counterintuitive.

[01:11:10]

Well, with nourish, you know, I think that there are a couple of basic rules that do apply, which is one of the things that what is good for the heart is good for the brain. I do think that is true just fundamentally, because these are both highly demanding vascular structures. The brain is two percent of your body weight. It takes 20 percent of your blood flow. What you have in your blood in terms of nutrients and how you're feeding yourself is obviously going to make a difference.

[01:11:38]

But what I think is different about the brain versus the heart, for example, is that nourishing the brain comes not just in the form of food, but in terms of every sensation you have. Every experience you have is nourishing your brain in some way. Every sensation you take in visual, any kind of sensory stimulation is nourishing your brain. So how do you think about nourishing your brain from an experience standpoint, being out in nature, for example?

[01:12:03]

You know, when you're out in nature, you're breathing in these things called fight sides, which are nature's own stress relieving chemicals. That's how nature sort of busts stress or rewards off potential threats. And we have receptors for these fights and sides. So that's a sensation or a nourishment that you can give to your brain as well. So, you know, you really think about nourishment from a dietary standpoint, understand what is good for your heart, is also good for your brain.

[01:12:29]

Find your super foods like I did, and think about nourishing your brain in terms of all these various experiences, sleep and rest. They're both important. I think with sleep, you know, we think about just the body is shutting down and you think the brain is sort of sleeping as well. And it's and it's not. The brain is actually quite active during most parts of your sleep cycle, and you are actually then consolidating a lot of memories during that time.

[01:12:57]

So if you get joy out of having these great experiences, presumably you have joy out of remembering them. If you are consolidating those memories well, through good sleep, it's a joyful thing. You know, that's the incentive. It's not just to tell you that you will live longer. It's that you will have a more joyous life. Now, why? Because you're consolidating wonderful memories that you had before, and that's a good thing. You want to remember your life, but it also serves a pragmatic purpose of almost creating this rinse cycle in your brain at night.

[01:13:27]

There's various debris and waste that occurs just from natural cellular processes. You want to be able to sort of flush that away. And again, this is relatively new science, but almost like the lymphatic system that takes waste away in your body. The brain has its own sort of lymphatic system, which is far more active during sleep. So whatever whatever it takes to convince people to do this, you know, it's super important.

[01:13:52]

Did you read Why We Sleep? Yes. Oh, my God, it's fantastic. Oh, it's mind blowing. It's mind blowing.

[01:13:59]

And, you know, like, I think the what in the why. Right. Like, I could tell you what to do. But I do think like in why we sleep understanding why you do it. I think it's a really good way to learn. And then people will follow it because that's why I'm doing this. It makes sense to me now. It sticks with you. You're more likely to share it with your your friends, your family.

[01:14:19]

And on a personal level, while I was relapsing this year and abusing opiates, what I realized is either wasn't dreaming or if I was, I certainly didn't remember it. And then I read that book and I thought, oh, I was probably robbing myself of all this time where I process my fears, I process my memories, I store those here. I get rid of that. I don't need it. It's like, well, that could be an unintended collateral effect of that that I would have never even considered.

[01:14:45]

Right by that. I didn't know about the relapse. Oh, well, everyone listening knows. So don't I apologize. I, I've been so head down in covid so. I know.

[01:14:55]

But you have no obligation to follow my. Are you OK. Yes I'm, I'm totally ok. I'm three months clean. I had all those surgeries and then I decided I would that was what it was right on those opiates. Well more complicated than that, but that was certainly probably what got me to critical mass. Yeah.

[01:15:13]

I'm sorry. You're my friend. I feel like I should know these things. No, no, no, no. I didn't say it to be a downer. I just was putting that piece together while reading Why We Sleep. I just thought, oh, this is something probably no one even thinks about with different addictions, alcohol, people who are alcoholics. We know it affects your sleep tremendously. We know that it robs you of REM. We know it robs you of this.

[01:15:33]

So that's just, again, when you learn of the function of sleep and how important it is that then, too, has to be a factor you consider total. It's not just your liver. It's not just, you know, your marriage. You know, there's a there's a lot of stuff, you know, going back to the brain.

[01:15:49]

You know, to the extent that you think of the. Brain, when you think of sleep, the liver, you measure your liver function tests, and it's again in this objective measure with your brain, you know, I'm telling you, you're not thinking as well as you normally do. You're not remembering as well as you normally do. You've lost your energy. You know, there's all these sort of vague, nebulous ways of describing it, but it makes it no less important.

[01:16:09]

And in fact, it's the most important stuff for how someone thinks about their life, you know, how they define their lives. And yet, because we don't have a precise measure of that, it's been hard. You know, that's again, what I really wanted to get out in this book. I'm very careful not to be too audacious in terms of how I present this, because I want it to be something that people are really going to believe in.

[01:16:28]

I'm not out there sort of making these wild conclusions, but there are several things we know to be true in terms of how we can best take care of the brain. And I believe there is a best way to take care of the brain for everyone if you believe that that there is a best way to do this for you.

[01:16:45]

If you start with that premise, then I can help anybody can help really get you there. Yeah, and I don't think these are big asks. You know, it's not like Atkins diet where you can't eat more than 30 grams of carbohydrates in a day that is very hard to achieve. But taking a walk every day is doable. You know, getting the right amount of sleep is doable. Connecting with people you love is doable. None of these things are painful, really asks.

[01:17:11]

And so I think it's very approachable in that way.

[01:17:15]

Yeah. I mean, I think the reason people don't do him is almost for the opposite reason. You know, in some ways they're too simple, so they don't believe it could actually have an impact or two. It's always the first thing to drop off your schedule. You've got a busy day. So, you know, you're you're going to get together and do that, walk with your buddy and talk about your problems. And that fell off the schedule quickly because how important could that be?

[01:17:37]

So unlike other things, which are actually hard to do and you're like, I you know, I just I can't do it too hard. It's almost like with these things because they're too easy. They don't seem like they have the same level of importance. I've struggled with that even in this book, like how to convey that to people because I write a book like this as a as a brain surgeon, as someone who has studied the brain for a quarter century, and people will say, well, are these books too soft?

[01:18:01]

Are they too vague or are they too nebulous? And what I say is, look, I think that if it's objective measures that you want, we'll catch up, we'll figure that out. We're going to figure out how to test differently, how to measure differently and all that. And we'll have these paradigms. You have to have a 95 score on X, you know. Yeah. But until then, don't we still want to use common sense and understand societies around the world that have hardly any dementia and learn from them in some way?

[01:18:29]

Don't we want to pay attention to things that we know must be true? Or are we going to wait 100 years for the evidence to do things that can help us now? It's a fundamental debate that's always happening in the scientific world. And frankly, part of the reason I got into journalism, because sometimes things move too slow. You're going to wait for a New England Journal of Medicine article, which will take ten years from some idea and some smart persons head to the time that it's published, or are you going to start doing things now that aren't that hard to do, like you just said, and can make a huge difference?

[01:19:00]

That's really what it's about.

[01:19:01]

Yeah, we can't quantify pain. Actually, we try with this one out of ten thing. It's true. What the fuck is Monika's nine versus my six. But I'm not going to drop a brick on my foot every day until I have that number. Right.

[01:19:13]

You know, and by the way, your measurements are a little bit, you know, seven billion people on the planet, just like with pain, frankly, with everything. My cholesterol of whatever the number is may not have the same impact on my heart as your cholesterol of the same number. We make shortcuts.

[01:19:29]

Yeah, my favorite from Anthropologie was just innervates. We're living on a generally a diet of like 5000 calories a day of whale blubber. That's virtually all they ate, yet they don't have coronary disease. So you just look at the extreme latitude of how humans have lived, how they've thrived in. Yes, we're so variant.

[01:19:49]

You talk about a fatty diet, right? Being a bad thing. Everyone would say that. Yeah. And yet we know that. I think we talked about this two conversations ago about sugar, you know, and sugar became the substitute for fat because we were a low fat country and low fat food tasted terrible. So you replaced it with sugar and that was actually considered health foods. I mean, these were terrible decisions. And cardiac disease became the number one killer of men and women alike.

[01:20:17]

We obviously have the countries either pre diabetic or diabetic, and we are a country that follows a low fat diet. We don't really. But my point is that that became the enemy. Sugar became the friend. And where did it get us? So having measurable that way can actually be to our peril as well. We know fundamentally what's right, and that's what keeps sharp is really all about was in some ways codifying the things because it needs to be codified in some way.

[01:20:44]

Maybe I'm a good person to do it. I don't know. We'll see. But to be able to take this journey and say, OK, you know what, I believe this stuff. I've spent enough time with these neuroscientists. I'll give you the what and the why to explain why these things work and then do with it what you will. But if you do it right, you're probably going to have a better, more joyous brain full of more resilience and reserve.

[01:21:06]

You'll have that life if you do these very simple things.

[01:21:09]

Yeah, because your body's going to physically let you down. Like I too am going to fall off a roof with a leaf blower at ninety three. I guarantee that. So, you know, let's hope the one thing you want the most in those latter years is still high functioning. I hope everybody buys keep sharp so that we can buy Sungai a staircase for this circle behind him.

[01:21:32]

I'm definitely doing that now. I'm telling Rebecca we're putting a staircase in and listen, you are a three peat, but I think you should go for the Alex.

[01:21:39]

Oh, Steve Martin, SNL numbers on here.

[01:21:42]

I'd like to talk to you every you. Annually, I'd say, I agree, no, semiannually I'd like every day, I really love it, I really do. I don't get the connection so much, especially nowadays. We can dig deep, you know? I mean, sometimes I just feel like life gets a little cursory, you know, and sometimes I just want to lean in with some of my friends and have the deeper conversations. And, you know, sometimes they don't.

[01:22:06]

And you got to, like, get the bandwidth right. Because if you want to have a deep conversation, they don't that that's the worst.

[01:22:12]

Right. And that is the worst.

[01:22:14]

And yet, you guys, you are such curious people. And I mean, I just really enjoy it.

[01:22:18]

Well, we hope we're part of the antidote to the Twitter. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:22:24]

Mark Twain said what was it? Would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time to do that. Yeah, I just heard for the first time the other day, it's a quote from someone funny. Do you say who's it from?

[01:22:36]

I think, you know, Mark Twain gets credit for everything, so I'm not actually clever. Yes, I heard that.

[01:22:42]

In fact, it was in reference to something else really funny. What were you gonna say, Monica?

[01:22:46]

I just never get a chance to talk to neurosurgeon's often. And I have you here, so I'm going to so I think last time we recorded this was like days after I had a seizure. So I then has been diagnosed with epilepsy and I don't know what it is exactly like what is happening in my brain when that's happening.

[01:23:13]

So, you know, I didn't know that. So this is after the time that we just spoke in March. You had just had a seizure?

[01:23:18]

I yeah, I had just had one, like, probably Jesus on pills. She's having seizures. Where are you? Goodness, I need to do I need to be doing this more often.

[01:23:27]

It's not enough.

[01:23:28]

Oh, I she's flopping around on the ground. I'm eating. I'm like what the fuck.

[01:23:34]

So they were both at night. I've had two only I think but they're both nocturnal. They were a year apart. The only reason we knew the second one was a seizure. Like I had a seizure and I didn't know it because it was at night. And I woke up and I had like disorientation and I peed in the bed and my back was killing me. And then I went to the doctor that day and they just did like a, you know, a urine test to check my kidney functioning and stuff.

[01:24:00]

And they're like other famous moment. I was wrong. I was like, oh, that's like you just peed. Who cares? People be the bad guy. Like, I don't think I don't think it's normal.

[01:24:10]

And then a year passed and I had one in February in New York and I was in a hotel room with three friends. So they saw it. So that's how we knew that one was witnessed.

[01:24:22]

Yes. Thank God.

[01:24:23]

So I mean, I always try to be very humble. I don't want to diagnose from afar, but I imagine you had to work up with scans. And did you have an EEG as well?

[01:24:32]

We didn't end up doing an EEG because mineralogist who I love was just like I don't think we're going to find, especially because yours were so far apart.

[01:24:41]

And it just doesn't seem I offered to do a mammogram and she didn't think that. I didn't think that was going to do it.

[01:24:48]

Yeah, not the most diagnostic in this case. Yeah. Induce a seizure maybe, but exactly. Yeah.

[01:24:57]

So and there was nothing else that can just those two points in time. Was there anything else that was similar about those two points in time.

[01:25:03]

And not that I can say. I mean it's hard because the first one I didn't do very good documentation because it got written off very quickly, but I don't think so. It's also tricky because they're happening are they happened at night. So I don't know if I'm on medication now. I've been on medication since February, but I don't know if they're still happening. You know, I sleep by myself, so it's a weird thing.

[01:25:28]

Well, I agree it's hard to pick these things up on EEG, but if you are on medication, you know, one thing you can do is you can do a EEG on and off to see if you're you know, at some point I'm sure they're going to think about weaning you off the whatever it is, the Copperas Dilantin, there's a couple. Yeah, yeah. And being able to compare it to see if you're even having anything micro subclinical at that point.

[01:25:50]

It's good that the scan was normal. MRI scan you did that with contrast is they put an I.V. in and you contrast.

[01:25:56]

No, I don't think so. We did all the tests that day like that. Next day I went to the hospital, they did all those tests and they said everything was OK.

[01:26:05]

They were very comfortable with the scans. So, yeah, about a third of seizures are you know, they're sort of video pathic. They never really figure out what caused it. You know, it could be an electrolyte imbalance. It could be some sort of sometimes a medicine that you've interacted with for some reason or whatever. It is a substance.

[01:26:21]

I've had friends that said they were on a birth control and they had them and then they went off and they never had one again. Is that erroneous?

[01:26:27]

I hadn't heard that, you know, specifically with progesterone. But, you know, who knows? I mean, you know, a third of these things are idiopathic. There's got to be some other drivers. But as a neurosurgeon, you know, we always worry that in an adult who has a new onset seizure, that it's something organic in the brain. Something striking in the brain, and if it's not that, then it's good news, obviously, and two is that they're much more likely to resolve, you know.

[01:26:53]

So, you know, I'm sure your neurologist could. But, you know, thinking about getting a EEG while on and then off to see if it changes at all might be worth it.

[01:27:01]

Yeah. And I'm sure they checked all your labs, your sodium and all that at the time.

[01:27:06]

Yeah, I'm pretty.

[01:27:06]

I'm sure they were just a mammogram would be double check that he doesn't know a lot. You know, I would listen to that last time we talked to you was going to land a plane or something.

[01:27:17]

Yes. I think of myself as a primary care physician and a pilot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:27:23]

I think you're trying to convince me that you should land a plane that I was on. Sure. I was buying it. Oh, that started that.

[01:27:28]

That debate has yet to end, by the way. And we've even had a pilot say that he thinks I'd be a good candidate. Just so arrogant. Yeah. That you really need to believe you can do it. That's probably the most important thing. Right.

[01:27:41]

All right. Well, great luck with the book. Everyone should really appreciate it by and read Keep Sharp and we will talk to you again shortly.

[01:27:49]

I guarantee it for Pete. All right. Bye bye. Take care, guys.

[01:27:54]

Thank you. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soul mate Monica. Oh, you have us now.

[01:28:06]

You have a second diary of fact. I have lots of notebooks. Oh, my gosh. For facts, you probably pick a bunch out because they're stylish.

[01:28:15]

I wish I did. Actually, most of them are given to me. Oh, gifts. This was a gift from Amy Hansen. And it it has a phrase. OK, tell us well-behaved women seldom make history. Oh, that's.

[01:28:28]

Well, that's true. It's true. I don't like this book planning a bad seed for you to be badly behaved. Yeah, no, I like it.

[01:28:37]

Do you know what it means. Women are to be so subjugated.

[01:28:42]

Yeah, we're just talking about subjugation. We were I was saying when people are subjugated they will act out. I don't believe any person could just shoulder being subjugated and not act.

[01:28:52]

Right. Right, right. There's a million different ways to act out. But I just believe there's a limit to human capacity of being fucking ruled over and that you then you do stuff. Yeah, I that's probably true.

[01:29:07]

You'd find an outlet came up because we were speaking of a certain married couple where one member of the relationship rules with an iron fucking fist. It's just barking orders all day long at this other person. Yeah. And then I theorize that that other person must have something going on to get through. Yeah. Yeah. Just to get through it. Now I don't know what the thing is on the side, but I just think there's no way this person just taken it up the caboose all day long and then not acting out in some way.

[01:29:37]

Well, let's be a little more specific. You had decided that this person was having affairs. I don't think based on what I know, that this person is having affairs, but this person probably does have avenues to channel their frustration or visibility morality.

[01:29:56]

Is there anything at, well, you that's you being bad behavior. You just made history. Oh, I got good behavior, though, to make up to break with English.

[01:30:05]

The decorum, English language. You just broke the rules in English.

[01:30:10]

Yeah, it's bad behavior. And then you made history because of it.

[01:30:14]

I sure did. Memorabilia. What do you say. Measurability, measurability. Memorability is already a word. You collect memorabilia.

[01:30:22]

Adelia Yeah. Remember what I said? Memorability. Well, that's that's a view of a high ability for memory. OK, memorability or someone could have like a high level of memorability, like you always remember meeting that person.

[01:30:35]

Oh, OK. All right. I got so many new words for twenty, twenty one. Anyway, I just I do think you tend to believe that the avenue is often sexual.

[01:30:49]

Right. And that doesn't mean they're out banging someone, but that means they like they're watching dirty porn to get even or they're they're in weird chat rooms to get even. You know, there's all these little sneaky avenues for folks to be naughty without really, like having an affair.

[01:31:07]

You think it's about getting even. But I don't. I think it's about them filling the void.

[01:31:13]

No, I think it's about reclaiming your autonomy. So this person has taken your autonomy. You're no longer in charge of when you go here or there or when you eat or, you know, the R. Kelly shit.

[01:31:24]

Yes. And so you need a little something to reclaim your autonomy in. It's best reclaimed if it's in opposition to your oppressor. So you kind of subconsciously know what thing would they would never allow. And you do that thing because that's the clearest expression of your autonomy, because you're doing something that that person. God forbid. Yeah, for bayed forbid, OK, it could be the subject matter, could be like a health nut, OK, and they control the diet of the other one.

[01:31:56]

And then their thing would be to let go to Krispy Kreme, fucking get in their car, fucking eat.

[01:32:01]

We are 16. The other day they were so good. Yeah, but that's not this part I, I'm just saying. And they would eat like 16 Krispy Kreme. I fucking eat whatever the fuck I want, you know. I'm saying yeah maybe.

[01:32:15]

Yeah, do we get anywhere? Nope. OK, we still don't agree what do we kind of agree? But I just. You think I always generally think it's going to be sexual. Yes.

[01:32:25]

And I also think. You think it's always and I. No, no, no, I don't think it's always OK.

[01:32:29]

But I think it's very common because the most threatening thing to partners in general is fidelity. Right. So it's like on some level, some some subconscious level, they know it's the nuclear option.

[01:32:43]

Yeah, well, in this particular couple, the person who is subjugated. Yes.

[01:32:50]

Has also has a past of adultery, which, funny enough, you guys think excludes him from that possibility.

[01:32:59]

Well, everyone this person's life majorly ruined their life ever in this person's life. Well, not in a funny way either. We're not laughing because because of the life running, but because we're trying to keep it gender neutral.

[01:33:15]

I keep that. I keep obviously added the parts out that I've said. So we can't stop laughing. But this doctor's life was ruined by the infidelity. Yes.

[01:33:26]

And I do believe people learn from mistakes you have.

[01:33:31]

I think people repeat their mistakes. Generally speaking, people are in a pattern of repeating the exact same mistakes over and over again their whole life.

[01:33:39]

I think that's actually very doomsday. Well, I think that's the norm.

[01:33:43]

Look, I think most people look at their life objectively, they can see that they've just they just keep doing the same thing. They keep making the same stupid decision. They keep dating the same woman or man. They keep having the same blow up at their job that they always have, like, you know.

[01:34:00]

Anyway, um, we really got off the radar. Yeah, we did. We did. OK, so get into your naughty behavior book, OK? Yeah.

[01:34:09]

Sanjay. I'm going to change I'm going to come up with my own saying, and it's going to say historical women are seldomly well-behaved. Why, I just flipped it, but now own now and now, I own my own saying, my God, that's so manly of you. Yeah.

[01:34:29]

To take something to appropriate a woman's invention.

[01:34:33]

Yeah, exactly. Speaking of that, ding, ding, ding.

[01:34:37]

Oh, Pringle's did Mark Twain say I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time. It's actually a French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise stepping up Blaze because it's French BLR risc. What do you think that is blowsy blazer.

[01:34:54]

OK, that was kind of Italian but Scalf Pascal the is up ok.

[01:35:01]

He wrote, I would have written a shorter letter but I did not have the time. Wait. But then in another source says, oh Mark Twain once says I didn't have time to write you a short letter as I wrote you a long one.

[01:35:14]

Blazey Pascal wrote a version of this saying in French, and it quickly moved into the English language. It sounds like Mark Twain fucking appropriated it.

[01:35:23]

Well, this is saying the second version is saying Mark Twain said, I don't have time to write you a short letter as I wrote you a long one. And then BLAZEK.

[01:35:31]

Yeah, after the fact, after the fact took that changed it to I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time that in French. Then it got translated to English. Lots going on, so much.

[01:35:45]

Do we know up chronologically who did it for now we don't know. We don't know. OK, I like the French guy's version better. OK, just for starters.

[01:35:53]

Also I'm immediately concerned that had that sentence been written in the age of Twitter, it's just gone in the wastebasket with every other thing that can you write a sentence like that that's going to be repeated two hundred years later at this point?

[01:36:08]

Well, Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high.

[01:36:12]

But she said it in a speech. I'm saying, could you write a line of text that will withstand two hundred years of history? I don't think because of the volume of small text being written that anything can stand out. That's interesting. Like there's probably a billion tweets of that merit. Yeah. Oh, man. I don't know. Is that positive or negative?

[01:36:36]

It's negative, right? It's fine. It is. I think it's fine. It is what it is. Who do you think that was a tweet originally? It is what it is. That is what it is.

[01:36:48]

I want to make up a phrase that's new that last. Well, I want to say I have like, what bull? Just have made up some words and stuff. My brother and I made up Bungay when we were little. Oh, I guess we were just doing words.

[01:37:01]

I mean I memorability. I mean. Oh did you get one today. Why was my ability mine. I mean ability. I already forgot it's not it's not memorable. Oh, it's low on the memorability. Yes. Uh oh, I just wanted to clarify, so he said I got the first visor shot, I want to clarify because at first when he said it, I thought he was the first person to get the visor shot. Oh, right.

[01:37:29]

But no, there's two shots. Exactly.

[01:37:31]

He got the first of two shots. OK, we didn't talk about this on Monday, but we were planning on talking about it on Monday. I hesitate to even bring it back up, to be honest, but it did come up in this episode, so I feel that I should. The Hogwarts quiz.

[01:37:49]

Oh, right.

[01:37:51]

I want to address it, although now I'm not sure the Mulgoa in the room.

[01:37:58]

So can I address it for you?

[01:38:00]

Well, no. I mean, I want you to be a part of it. Oh, OK. Thanks, everybody. Me, obviously.

[01:38:04]

But I'm the one who really suffered the consequences of saying that this is where my ignorance save me, like I said, stupid things.

[01:38:14]

But everyone knew. I didn't know what the fuck I was talking. Yes. And I was in a position of power there and. Yes. And I guess I abused it. You are an expert position. I said some disparaging things about huff and puff.

[01:38:26]

Huff and puff. Yeah, there's a lot of hurt. Awful, but there was a lot. There was a lot. And I took a few things from this one. J.K. Rowling.

[01:38:37]

Uh. Good for you. Look at what you've done. You've created a world that people buy into so deeply that their identity is tied to it.

[01:38:48]

Yeah, a fictional world. Yes. That that human real humans on earth have tied their identity to.

[01:38:56]

And that's kind of a beautiful thing that there are so many people who care that much and care that much and identify that much and relate.

[01:39:05]

Absolutely. I love that.

[01:39:07]

And I feel bad. Apology felt really bad.

[01:39:10]

Yes. I talk to you that day or you had a rough day that day. Yeah. Because people really came after you. Yeah. And what you wanted to say, what you can't say is you're not allowed to defend yourself ever because it makes you look defensive and worse is because I was just joking.

[01:39:25]

I don't really have a negative opinion about how awful puff's exactly. And or muffle Duff's and I don't, I'm just having fun and I wasn't really attacking you. But you're not. I have to say that. So that's why I said can I thank you. Yes. And then the other thing I wanted to say that you can't say, but I can say because I didn't hurt their feelings, is if ever there was just, like you said, an example of identity gone awry, which is these things don't even exist.

[01:39:52]

Here was my analogy. If you got ten thousand people together and had everyone count to four, one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Down the whole line. You said one stand over there to stand over there. Three, stand over there, force you over there. And then I go, twos are dumb and lazy. If those people were like, don't you talk about too?

[01:40:12]

Is that what you what are you talking about? I give you this identity 12 seconds ago. Yeah. So that was kind of my thing was like, guys, this isn't even a thing that you can.

[01:40:21]

Yeah, but but but when people's feelings are hurt, you don't want to hurt people.

[01:40:27]

And that is my whole sadness that came with it is I am not in the market of hurting people's feelings. And I'm very, very sorry if your feelings were hurt by that.

[01:40:38]

Yeah. And we're all all of those things like we're so drawn to putting ourselves in boxes because I think it's a control thing. Like we like to know things. We like to know our astrology, our zodiac sign. We like to know our Enneagram, all of these things we like to like attach ourselves to. Exactly. And the the real truth is we have pieces of all of the things. Yeah. I also, you know, when I really was thinking about this a lot, I was like, it's to our detriment, because one person, I'm sure a very beautiful, wonderful person among Dorfmann.

[01:41:17]

No, actually, no scathing wish. There was a comment that their daughter had just been sorted into huff and puff, OK, but all but made really good grades and was X, Y and Z. So kind of like, how dare you say that my daughter was just sort it into half. Oh my goodness. And I really.

[01:41:41]

I'm sorry. I really. What are you talking about by the you as the parent are there to explain to your child that there's no such thing and you cannot possibly hang your emotions on this thing that J.K. Rowling invented in her bathrobe. You're putting yourself in way too vulnerable. Like I don't understand the kids writing you that, but the parent I know.

[01:42:04]

Come on. And I started to feel sad that like, well, your boxing, your child in right now. You're saying your child has this trait in this trade, in this trade. And you know, again, that very superficial traits that come from a children's book. Yeah.

[01:42:24]

And I'm like, that's not really fair to that kid. She's walking through life saying, I'm this, I'm this and this and this. Like it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in the good ways, I'm sure, but in the bad ways to like I don't think you should lock yourself into this.

[01:42:38]

Have such a golden hit your train to the Mogador or the Acadians or the Rumpelstiltskin or any of them. I'm going to exploit this topic now to say one of my pet peeves, OK, I've been trying to find a time to air this great. Another Greevey. Yeah, OK.

[01:42:55]

Putting on your Twitter or Instagram profile that you're a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or conservative.

[01:43:02]

To me, you couldn't pick something that says less about you. It is fifty fifty. You're claiming what's unique about you is something that fifty percent of the people in the country are like. What could be less unique. Well there might not be saying that's why they're unique. But what I'm saying this is an opportunity for you to tell people about yourself and the one thing you choose to tell people about yourself is I'm just like one hundred and seventy five other million Americans.

[01:43:26]

There's nothing there that's like saying you're your male or if you write on there over five, four. OK, great. So you can cut this country into two people, all those over five, four and all those under. That doesn't tell me a goddamn thing about you. I see what you're saying, and also I don't know that people are using the byline as to really be like, this is who I am.

[01:43:47]

Like you say when you play or you're a liberal, congrats. You're just like one hundred and seventy five million other people. And if you're declaring yourself a conservative, like, cool, you're in the other half. Yeah. This is not it. Let me ask you, what do you think it's crazy if people wrote mail.

[01:44:06]

No, I actually wouldn't.

[01:44:08]

Whatever you want to write on, they're proud. Proud mail. Proud female, proud female, I think is great. Well, that's a separate thing, which is they've been subjugated, so that's one thing. But to say proud five eight, it's like any proud conservative, proud liberal. How can you be proud of something that everyone is?

[01:44:30]

There's nothing there.

[01:44:31]

We actually disagree. Yes. I think politics unfortunately, it does tell people like if someone says Republican and someone says liberal, I do know some stuff about them already. I do. It is telling me something. It's not like they're writing the word purple, like it means something.

[01:44:52]

So what all of us in our group share in common is liberal. So if we've all written liberal on our thing, it hasn't told you. One thing about me all told me is that I'm the same as you. I'm the same as Ryan or I'm the same as Charlie. That's actually a very poor distinguish. Or if you didn't really actually tell you anything about me, it tells you can say that about our whole group and look at the difference in our group.

[01:45:12]

Yeah, but again, I don't think this isn't like a dating profile. It's just like a two line quick thing. I think people aren't like, I got to pick the perfect sentence that 100 percent encapsulates my personality. Like, I don't think that's happening. So they're just kind of picking generic things if they want. I mean, most people just put, like, a joke there.

[01:45:35]

Yeah, I guess I just the last thing I would do is in my bio tell you something that almost every single other person on the planet is like four chambered heart. Oh, great. Yeah. Everyone's got a four chambered heart.

[01:45:48]

Yeah.

[01:45:49]

I mean again, I think that it tells you a lot about it, it tells you something and and some people are more connected to those beliefs than others. You're more centered.

[01:46:00]

Well I was going to say I think there's the same amount of difference among liberals is there is a difference between liberals and conservatives. And I think there's much difference between conservatives is there are both like I don't actually think they really tell you anything. If any category that can be divided and there's only two options clearly didn't tell you much. It's too broad, right. If it's blanketing half of the population. Yeah. Thanks for let me hear that. You're welcome.

[01:46:26]

Yeah. We didn't come to an agreement, but that's OK. That's OK. We rarely do anyway.

[01:46:32]

So I'm sorry headful puff's. I really am and I love Harry Potter and I wanted to bring joy to everyone and I love all the houses. That's my last note to people.

[01:46:43]

And if we're talking about a fake world of magicians, we're probably not really the experts. Yeah. Yeah they're not.

[01:46:50]

Imagine eres know they were wizards. OK, ok. So Overton's window. He was right. Of course the Overton Window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the thing they need.

[01:47:04]

But who will go to the mainstream population at a given time? It is also known as the window of discourse. The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. The core concept is that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support. They generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options. These policies lie inside the Overton Window. Other policy ideas exist, but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion these ideas.

[01:47:34]

These policies like outside Overton Window, well, that just goes to show.

[01:47:38]

That's why art has to move culture and society and politicians can. Yeah, they really can't. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Movies and TV and books and literature that all has to move us along.

[01:47:53]

Yeah I agree. Um I love that because I never heard it. We learned something I haven't either. It's great.

[01:48:01]

We also learned the Mandela effect last night watching a show of it was so funny which is well the examples that this person gave.

[01:48:10]

Well it's called the Mandela effect, because for a period of time, many, many people on planet Earth had heard that Mandela had died in prison. And then eight years later, all of a sudden he's released and everyone was like, wait, like a significant proportion of the population believed he was dead.

[01:48:25]

And then all of a sudden there he was. Yeah. So their memory doesn't jive with the reality and they have explanations for why that is. The one that many of us identified with was Stover's stovetop stuffing, which is not a thing. No, there's no such thing as Dover. Still stovetop stuffing, nor has there ever been a why.

[01:48:45]

I know there's not you can't even say Stover's stovetop stuffing you get, but you're having a hard time impaired.

[01:48:51]

No, no, no one can say it because it's not real.

[01:48:55]

Come to my house. We're having Stover's stovetop stuffing.

[01:48:57]

Nope. All right. It is hard. Another funny one. Once people think Fairbreeze has to ease in the middle and people are like, no, it. And then another great one was Sex Sex and the City.

[01:49:10]

Yes. In a lot of people think sex. City and they believe it. They're like, oh, no, something changed. Yeah, now they're making us think it was always Sex and the City, but it wasn't. It was Sex in the City. And really, these people are just so convicted in their beliefs. The idea that they could just be wrong is not an option. So unsettling. They've come up with all these theories. Yeah.

[01:49:35]

Like multi universe theories. Yeah. Because they can't accept that they perhaps are just wrong.

[01:49:40]

Now, what I was more interested in is not writing either side off. So the one that I really identified with besides Stofer stovetop stuffing was whether or not the sunshine on the box of Raisin Bran had sunglasses on everyone.

[01:49:53]

Well, not everyone. Many people think that has sunglasses on in there, like when they take the sunglasses off and then come to find out it's never, ever had sunglasses on. So what immediately interests me, I like oh, I bet it was. Heard it on the grapevine. That campaign they had for raisins in the Sun during A Raisin Bran campaign. And I think they pop sunglasses probably on the sun for that commercial, but never on the box.

[01:50:17]

So I'm really interested in like how there's no way it's a coincidence this many people have it wrong. There has to be an explanation. And I want the real explanation.

[01:50:27]

But they think at that explanation's the multiverse, which I don't write, and I think our brains are more similar than we want to give credit and make similar mistakes.

[01:50:38]

So I don't know about the Raisin Bran thing. Yeah, I think part of it is it's a sun. Yeah.

[01:50:44]

And our brains associate some shades on with sun. So when we see it like that, we're like, oh yeah, it should be. And really it's just our brains are just creating the same patterns.

[01:50:58]

There is something with the dash and Coca-Cola, whether it has always had a dash or doesn't have a dash or it was really funny.

[01:51:04]

It's funny. It's what's it called, John. Something.

[01:51:08]

I would have to with John Wilson, there you go, yeah, the show's called How To with John Wilson and it's very peculiar and I like it. It's not like anything else that's really on. Right. Yeah, I totally agree it was getting you I was very conflicted on that one, though. It was making me really anxious that people can't accept that they're fallible.

[01:51:35]

Yeah, yeah. I yeah. That one had you hot under the collar. This, um.

[01:51:41]

Let's see here, do we use 10 percent of our brains? No, that's a myth, OK, that's a myth. Just that's myth.

[01:51:49]

Smith the myth.

[01:51:52]

OK, just real quick, the Intuit diet you were talking about, you said they mainly whale blubber. It's called muktuk, traditional Inuit and Chukchi meal of frozen whale skin and blubber. Muktuk is most often made from the skin and blubber of the bowhead whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used, usually eaten raw today it is occasionally finely diced, breaded, deep fried and then served with soy sauce.

[01:52:21]

Oh, one thing I left out when I was talking about that is I want to say they ate ten thousand calories of it a day because they had to burn so many calories staying warm in that environment.

[01:52:32]

You said five thousand. I think it might have been ten thousand as something crazy. It said here the fat, not the protein from animal foods provided most of the three thousand one hundred calories required daily for these active people.

[01:52:46]

That's what this article said when we were in Alaska. So I had learned that they were called in a weight in anthropology, but also they're called a newbie. Oh, yeah. I don't know, upset. You're right. I wish I knew more. I don't know of the Internet. Call themselves a newbie or what it was, but I just kept hearing a newbie up there and I was like, well, but I thought it was in it anyways.

[01:53:09]

Wow.

[01:53:09]

And he never figured, questionmark. Big question mark.

[01:53:12]

Still, I have an excuse to go back to Alaska now. Oh, because I don't have Google. I have no other choice but to fly to Alaska. Remember, I suggested we take a family trip to see the Northern Lights somewhere. I'd like to do that, whether that's Sweden, Norway, Finland, oh, Russia or Alaska or probably parts of northern Canada, I would imagine. I would love to do that.

[01:53:38]

It would be really fun, wouldn't it? Yeah. And the only goal is to just sit outside and eat whale blubber, to stay warm soy sauce and then watch the northern lights dance around.

[01:53:49]

Do you think it's underwhelming?

[01:53:51]

No, because I told you they one time were visible in Detroit when I was in high school. And like I heard all my neighbors outside going, what? Like people thought many people thought there was a nuclear bomb, right?

[01:54:01]

The whole sky was green and it was awesome. That's crazy. And it was awesome, even with a dose of fear that it might be nuclear fallout. So I imagine just take that away and you know you're safe. It would be even better. How often does it happen in.

[01:54:18]

Oh, yeah. Like I want to say, in the winter months when it's dark very often really cool.

[01:54:26]

Yeah, I guess I could, but I don't have Google, but I think you could probably Google how many nights a year the northern lights visible.

[01:54:32]

Yeah, I'm excited for that and I'm afraid of being really cold.

[01:54:37]

We'll get you like a real nice north face type like climb Everest outfit. OK, today when I got in the shower I was like, man, do I hate being cold? Yeah, I really hate it. Why? By my calculations, you have double whammy reasons because my Indian culture in Georgia grew up in a very warm climate. Yeah. Nature and nurture. Yeah. Oof.

[01:55:02]

That's a double whammy. Yeah. All right. All right. Love you. Love you.