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>> Hey.
Hello, Andrew. Great to see you again.
>> Good to see you, my friend. What a thick
ass book you wrote, sir.
>> Yeah. I figure it doubles as a doors
stop or a weapon. Yeah. It's um it's
designed to be read front to back. learn
a lot of science, a lot of health
protocols, but you can also just decide,
I want to get better at managing stress.
Go straight to that chapter, look up
what you want to do, say, "Oh, I already
do that." Go to the next thing and use
it sort of like a a manual.
>> This is a very ambitious undertaking.
>> It took me
just shy of eight years.
>> The operating manual or an operating
manual for the human body, that's a lot.
like just just sitting down there, you
know, in front of the computer thinking,
I'm going to write an operating manual
for the human body.
>> Well, it didn't start off like that. At
first, it was a book about the autonomic
nervous system, stress, sleep, focus.
Then it evolved. Then I had a third
completely new rewrite. And my good
friend, now I'm honored to call him a
friend, but he's just such a good dude.
Rick Rubin was like, "Do you like it?" I
was like, "Ah." And he goes, "Scrape
it." I'm like, "What?" And then he said,
"I'm going to get myself in trouble." He
goes, "Scrape it, man. Like, what are
you doing?" And I said, "I don't know."
He's like, "You have to love it." And
then he said, "Uh, they're going to push
you to release this thing." And I said,
"I already said I was going to release
it." I did. I did it again. And then I
did that again. And I was going to visit
him in Europe each summer and we'd sit
together and he he goes, "Let's read
some stuff together." But with Rick,
what that means is you sit there and he
reads you and how you're reacting to the
material. So we barely read any of it. I
was just talking about and he goes,
"It's not ready." I go, "What do you
mean?" He goes, "It's not ready. You're
not ready." And so then this year
finally, but this book, I mean, we were
in Europe this summer for a friend's
wedding. My team was over there and my
girlfriend and I were traveling. She was
so understanding. But from I was doing
edits from like 900 PM until 2:30 in the
morning every single night and waking up
the next morning. Like this book has
been while you on vacation.
>> Quote unquote vacation. Yeah. I owe her
a real real vacation now. She was
working too, but she was asleep in those
hours. And we stopped by Rick's. He's
like, "How's it going?" I'm like, "It's
there." And he's like, he just like
checked in. He's like, "It's there."
Like he can just feel it.
>> Such a [ __ ] weirdo. Dude, I mean,
he's he he has this supernatural ability
to feel where people are at but not get
absorbed in it.
>> And I have so many Rick stories. We
could spend the whole time talking about
Rick's stories, but the the man is just
like he's plugged into some energetic
layer that the rest of us aren't.
>> And he's all day, every day, he's
connecting with people and and trying to
help them. Like he really spends most of
his time like looking out at the world
and trying to help people with their
with their art, with their stuff. And
>> that's really him. if you know him,
that's him 24/7. He lives in that space.
It's a very weird head space
>> to be in because you're constantly like
looking at other people's stuff. It's
like he's a taste maker, you know, or
that's not even a good description of
him. He's just like an analysis of art.
Like that's his his his function. He
analyzes art, but from like
for lack of a better term, almost like a
spiritual perspective. Like he sees
whether it's real. Totally.
>> He finds the realness and like we made
the Red Hot Chili Peppers record one of
their albums in a mansion cuz he wanted
to hear like instead of a recording
studio, he wanted to hear like the
sounds of the house.
>> That's so Rick. There's a you know I I
didn't come here to plug this, but we
should cuz it's going to be awesome
because I I may have seen pieces of it.
He has this documentary with Jay-Z
coming out like next week where they sit
in this incredible
monument structure in Europe and they
just listen to music together and talk
about music and it's so good. It's
>> which is a documentary on them
listening.
>> It's really about Jay um but about his
childhood music.
>> Yeah. So Jay's music and they're
listening to Yeah.
>> I think this was filmed in an abandoned
post office in France because Rick liked
the skylight.
I've seen pieces of it. I'm so excited
to see this.
>> It's all black and white.
>> I think so.
>> HBO Max. Okay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. He's He's on a whole other
>> He's a weird goo. Very weird dude.
>> Very rational, too, right? I mean, his
whole thing I may have said this before,
but his whole thing is he says uh there
are only three things. It used to be
two, but he updated it to three things
in life that are true. One is uh the
laws of physics, biology, chemistry, you
know, nature. The other is God, right?
We talk a lot about God these days. And
the third is professional wrestling. And
and he watches 10 hours a week, as you
know, professional wrestling because he
said he's like everyone agrees it's made
up. So it's the only thing that everyone
agrees. He thinks everything else is
made up. He thinks because we made up,
you know, media, we made up show
business, we made up the game, you know,
a sport and what the rules are
>> and he just thinks it's the, you know,
it's the closest thing to truth out
there.
>> Yeah, that's where he and I part ways.
>> I mean, I went to an AEW event with him.
It was pretty cool. I have to say it was
the first time going and um the the
athletes all adore him. Like, everyone
loves him and he's there front row with
us.
>> Oh, yeah. Because he's a huge fan.
>> Huge fan. I think he's a lifetime
member. and and um and uh you lifetime
member and uh and he he he really can
extract like truisms about human nature
from watching wrestling. Oh yeah, there
we go. I'm the only one without my red
glasses on at that point apparently. Oh
man,
>> the red glasses.
>> Well, what's wild is at one point the
guys are like climbing the ladder.
They're going to like grab the thing and
they're they're both coming up the sides
of the ladder and then one stops and
goes, "Hey, that's Rick Rubin." And the
guy pushes out the ladder and I look at
Rick to see if he's sort of like getting
some sort of dopamine hit off and he
just goes. He's just listen. He's just
there experiencing it, but he's not like
pulled into it.
>> Yeah, I need to drug test him.
>> I think he's on acid.
>> He claims he's never done any drugs.
>> That seems ridiculous.
>> Maybe had one sip of alcohol ages ago,
which in the music business, that's a
feat.
>> He must have one of those brains that's
broken and just leaks psychedelic
chemicals all the time.
>> I know, whatever plane of consciousness
he's on. I've always thought that about
like schizophrenics. Like I wonder if
that's what's happening. I wonder if
they have like some dump of psychedelic
chemicals that's constantly like leaking
into their brain because we knew we know
the brain really does produce indogenous
psychoactive compounds like DMT.
>> Mhm.
>> I mean isn't it possible that you could
have a brain that leaks it? So here's
the weird thing about schizophrenia and
it speaks to the larger kind of ways
that medicine works for better or worse
is that for the longest time we thought
that dop dopamine too much dopamine was
schizophrenia. Why? Because drugs that
reduce dopamine call them neurolleptic
drugs haloperidol all these things
cloopene would reduce auditory
hallucinations. So the conclusion was
>> auditory auditory
>> so meaning voices in your head. Yeah.
And that's mostly what people deal with,
you know, especially paranoid
schizophrenics. They're hearing voices.
Do this, do that, you're awful. I mean,
it's,
>> if you think about it from that
perspective, imagine all day and night,
you're just dealing with voices in your
head that feel like another person there
telling you usually horrible things
about yourself or the outside world all
the time. And these drugs reduce those
symptoms. We've known that for a long
time. But because they reduce dopamine
and all over the brain and body, they
create what's something called tardive
diskynesia, which is a suppression of
the motor system. And so you'll see
people who are doing this like rising
like this. You'll see them on the street
a lot. Sometimes that's psychosis. A lot
of times that's psychotic people who are
taking their antiscychotic med
medication.
>> Yeah.
>> But you know, it gives you some empathy
>> voices and tell the voices to shut the
[ __ ] up. I I think some have auditory
hallucinations and um but most have
auditory hallucinations.
Sorry, some have visual excuse me some
have visual hallucinations but most have
auditory hallucinations. And you know
this sets in usually around mid early
20s. And what's weird is years ago I had
a a meal with the then director of the
National Institutes of Mental Health.
His name was Bob Desimone. And he said,
' Do you know why there's so little
money for research on schizophrenia
compared to say autism? I was like, why?
And he's like, well, because the parents
of autistic kids lobby hard and usually
the parents of autistic kids are not
also autistic, but schizophrenia, even
though it's not, you know, doesn't run
completely through families. Often times
the parents of schizophrenics will have
schizotypal conditions or
>> what is that?
>> These are it's like they now call them
schizoid schizotypal. They'll have un
not typical thinking, right? Um it
doesn't mean they're crazy, but
>> they're off.
>> They're off. And so they're they're
they're not bad people, but their place
in society often doesn't position them
to like sit down with a senator and say,
"Hey, listen, you know, my kids got
autism and we need more research on
this." And so a lot of what where the
money goes has to do with where
obviously the lobby is. And if you think
about genetic disorders in families and
we know there is a strong component with
uh schizophrenia like if you take two uh
monozygotic identical twins right the if
one is paranoid schizophrenic the
probability that the other one will be
paranoid schizophrenic isn't 100% but
it's pretty it's much higher than in
than by chance much much higher.
>> Have they ever done a study where one
manages to avoid it with lifestyle
choices or diet or exercise or something
along those lines? Definitely, although
not in a way that you could attribute it
to one thing, but for instance, for a
long time, active military service in
somebody who has a genetic
predisposition to psychosis was a kind
of an an additional risk factor, a
meaningful risk factor
>> makes sense because of the stress.
>> The stress methamphetamine use, I mean,
>> again, the stress
>> the stress, you know, the stress of
>> also methods just seem [ __ ] out of
their mind anyway. So,
>> I mean, there's this meth strength thing
that I've never seen proven, but it
does. You can find these videos of like
methheads carrying refrigerators down
the street, and they're they're not
jacked, but there's like carrying
refrigerators down alleys and you know,
people talk about meth strength. Um, but
yeah, I mean, methamphetamine is going
to create probably the largest dump of
dopamine in the brain than any other
drug, at least in the short term. And it
makes people think every idea is a good
idea and everything's about them and
their goals. So it's the
hyperdopamineergic state, right?
>> How much different is it than aderall in
terms of the actual effect?
>> Oh, um I mean it's
>> is it dose dependent?
>> Yeah. And we don't know what addicts are
taking exactly, but yeah, I mean aderall
is empmphetamine. Viviance is
empmphetamine. Um I actually have a
forgive me for referencing the book too
many times. It'd be great if people want
to read it, but that's not my goal here
is to constantly reference it, but
there's a long section on all
stimulants. Caffeine, nicotine, aderall,
vioance, modafanyl, armodafyl, every
single drug that can make you more alert
and focused. I talk about the pros and
cons.
>> Every single drug I talk about humans
have always found a way to use these
things to to find things to enhance
their focus. The problem with
methamphetamine is that it's also
neurotoxic, right? This is actually very
relevant to the conversation about MDMA,
methylene dioxymethamphetamine,
which is a variant of methamphetamine.
MDMA for the treatment of trauma is
looking really promising. The early
studies, including one that was
published in science showed that
non-human primates that are given MDMA,
experienced neuron loss, that neurons
die in the brain. And that message
propagated. That paper was retracted
because that laboratory accidentally
injected methamphetamine, not MDMA. MDMA
is
>> How did they accidentally mix those two?
>> I don't know what happened. They did
publish a
>> retraction having methamphetamine laying
around the lab.
>> Oh man, you should have come to my lab
when I ran a lab until a few years ago.
I still teach. I shut my lab, but we had
I mean we had all sorts of goodies in
there. I mean,
>> did you ever worry about your students
taking it?
>> No, because you know with anytime you
use a federally controlled drug, you
have to account for every last micro
liter of that. Someone's coming and
checking all the time. We also worked
with viruses. I mean, my lab at one
point was using Sinbiz viruses, modified
rabies viruses, um, adno viruses, uh,
and on and on like I, you know, and so
we had some labels on the wall like this
is a lab that works with viruses and we
also had controlled substances and
that's just kind of how it goes.
>> This is only one way you got to figure
out what makes what happen in the human
brain.
>> Yeah. I never had MDMA in my lab or or
empmphetamine in my lab. But uh when I
was an undergraduate, I worked in a lab
where we injected rats with MDMA at a
time, this was in the early 90s when not
much was known about it, but people were
dying at raves. And that lab worked on
thermal regulation. So we were
interested in why they were dying from
maybe MDMA. It turns out it was the the
hyperothermia from raves and not
drinking enough fluids and people would
take amphetamines and people were dying.
That pretty much got worked out over
time. People realize you need to stay
hydrated, but methamphetamine and MDMA
are very different. MDMA, there is no
evidence that it's neurotoxic.
>> You'd always hear those stories about
people who took MDMA that had holes in
their brain.
>> Yeah. Probably wasn't MDMA. Probably was
more methamphetamine, maybe mixed with a
little bit of MDMA. This is why it would
be so great if this was finally legal
and, you know, produced in ways that
were reliable and administered in safe
ways and all that. But, you know, that
trial, you know, the passage through the
FDA failed for two reasons. this last
round. It might go through the next
round, but it failed for two reasons.
I've been very close to this whole
situation. One is that the powers that
be uh in the previous administration
felt that there wasn't a good control
condition. Like you wasn't a good
placebo. Okay, fair enough. Although a
lot of drugs deal with that issue. The
other was there was a one maybe two
sexual improprieties of the therapist.
There was a a couple therapists that did
some things they shouldn't have done
with while somebody was under the
influence of the drug. and one incident
like that can sink an entire initiative.
So that was bad obviously. Um and so if
it's going to pass in the next few
years, there's there going to have to be
some things in place to make sure that
you know the way it's administered is
safe, you know, because the person under
you know under the influence of MDMA is
very vulnerable to all sorts of things.
It's not just about their heart health
etc. Like that that can be dealt with
before can be dealt with after. But the
real issue is, you know, is the
therapist operating in their best
interest,
>> you know, and because the psychedelic
community has always existed, and I'm a
big fan of psychedelics for the
treatment of depression, the uh trauma,
etc. But because that community has
always kind of existed on the edge of
other techniques, it's sort of like,
well, is a foot massage, if the person's
like saying they have all this trauma in
their feet and the therapist rubs their
feet, like that's not usual for therapy,
right? that's pretty like within the
gray zone of of MDMA assisted
psychotherapy done kind of rogue in the
world of psychedelic therapists right
there. So there's really no controls on
what goes with the drugs. We've we've
agreed on the basis of the clinical
trials of what the dosages might be,
healthy dosages, how frequent like two
two sessions with a booster 80
milligrams in and then a booster of say
50 milligrams halfway in or by body
weight space 3 weeks apart for
psilocybin maybe just once for and on
and on. All that's been you know looked
at in various ways in these trials.
>> And is it always in conjunction with
psychotherapy?
>> It should be. the the data really show
that people need therapy going in, they
need therapy during and they need
therapy coming out for for the best
results. But those results are
remarkable. I mean 60 70% you know
significant reduction in symptoms in
some cases remission.
But you know these you know I I have
friends in the so-called psychedelic
community but I also have friends in the
standard science community. And for
these things to really come together
there's going to have to be some
standardization of safety but also just
practice. What are you going to talk
about? If someone's like, "I'm feeling
I'm at the precipice of like a huge
amount of pain." Do you encourage them
to go into that pain and purge it or do
you tell them, "Hey, listen, you know,
maybe back away from that." All this
stuff is done by feel in the psychedelic
community. There's no standardization of
it. But then again, talk therapy is the
same way, right? There's no
standardization of the narratives that
you're supposed to have with your
client,
>> right? There's a lot of freedom to sort
of
>> Yeah. And you know and then you know in
the I've been reading a lot about the
history you know counterculture history
and stuff. Um yeah I joined the board of
Eselin which is this you know incredible
place on the coast of California and um
the guy who started it is in his late
90s and um it has a center for theory
and research. It's not just about like
yoga classes and like and um and it has
that but there's a a serious focus on
human potential there and you know in
the ' 60s '7s and 80s and even in the
'9s all these somatic therapies came
along you know and the breathing
therapies and you had psychedelic
therapies too but you know how much of
these things to merge is is a question
like maybe some somatic therapy during
MDMA could be really helpful for
somebody that feels really out of body
or that had a you know bodily trauma or
was raped or whatever. or I was abused
as a kid. But then we have to ask
ourselves, are we going to let
therapists touch people while they're
under the influence of these really
powerful and pathogens?
>> Why is it is touching people is that
normalized in the psychedelic community
when they do this?
>> Not necessarily.
>> Like a sitter.
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No, not necessarily. It's just that
right now psychedelic assisted therapy
sits in that constellation of like
somatic therapies, talk therapies,
breathing therapies, emotive therapies.
Like none of this is formalized. I mean,
so much of what I've been interested in
and why I, you know, wrote the book,
aside from, you know, the compulsion to
just get things out there is my hope is
that as more techniques come along,
different breath work practices,
different supplements, different drugs,
different peptides, that people will
start to understand some of the kind of
principles of how things work to decide
what's worthwhile or not. So, for
instance, for trauma, we know that it's
basically four steps. Doesn't matter if
you use getting through trauma. Doesn't
matter if it's through therapy that
includes psychedelics or not. First of
all, people have to have a willingness
to address it, right? Second, they need
to experience the painful feeling in a
safe environment. There's no just kind
of avoiding that. So, the feel your
feelings is true. And we often just stop
there. We hear that and that's it. But
then there's also having the explicit
memory of what happened but in a state
of calm, not feeling the feelings
because you're trying to uncouple the
memory from the emotions, right? There's
no losing the memory. You're trying to
uncouple the emotions from the memory.
And then the the fourth piece, which is
something I touch on with respect to
grief and trauma therapy more generally,
is there's this beautiful thing that you
know guests on your podcast have talked
about. You've probably experienced this,
that at some point the shitty thing that
happened to you, the awful thing can be
transmuted into some effort to create
goodness for yourself or for the world.
Sometimes it's public education.
Sometimes people you know the the loss
of a child for instance like my god how
awful that you know but people will who
move through this process can get to the
place where they'll like plant a tree or
teach to or talk to other parents who
are in beriement and so they've
transmuted their loss into goodness
right so if it's four steps if we just
say you know take your loss and go do
good for the world that's not going to
work if we say take your loss and just
feel the pain of it people get caught in
that spiral I think this is
unfortunately when the millennials were
in their adolescence and and you know
teen years and 20s, there was this
overemphasis on like feeling your
feelings, but no one ever talked about
the next phase which is where you
actually stop feeling so shitty about
the shitty thing that happened. And so
my goal is really to try and organize
like these different practices and come
up with structures so that you could
imagine MDMA being very useful for that
first or second step, feeling your
feelings in a safe way in the right
environment. What are the studies that
MAPS has done with MDMA with soldiers in
PTSD? Because that's been probably one
of the most prominent things.
>> Yeah. Well, the Rick Dolin obviously is
is more qualified to get into the
specifics, but I know of at least three
clinical trials looking at MDMA at
dosages that are by body weight, but
that are not like outrageously high
dosages that have people move through
their PTSD within a matter of, you know,
four to six weeks total. So, with two
sessions of MDMA spaced apart about a
month or so, uh, talk therapy the whole
way through. And of I know of at least
one clinical trial with veterans. Often
times these studies will include
veterans, but it's not all veterans,
which actually is kind of good. You you
want to be able to compare their kind of
trauma to other people's trauma. But I
have to say, and I know you've covered
this extensively, but the work on
Ibagane
has in my mind has completely revised
the way that we think about psychedelic
therapy because it's kind of ironic that
the first psychedelic that will likely
be legal for the treatment of PTSD is
going to be the most intense one. It'd
be like if I'm like, "Hey, I want to
learn a martial art." And you're like,
"Yeah, get into the octagon and get your
ass kicked, you know, and that's gonna,
you know, turn you into a fighter." I
mean that's the way people describe I
gain is kind of like that it is no joke
as you point out it is not recreational
and then when they follow with DMT I
mean you know it seems that the outcomes
are very very good for a lot of people I
will say and they're going to sweat me
for this a little bit there have been a
few deaths and it seems that that may
correlate with fentinyl use prior
that's really
>> this needs to be talked about if we're
going to get this legal
>> how many deaths
>> I'm aware of two
>> and Um is this in those clinics or is
this
>> Yes. And they have to report them
>> and is it uh heart failure like what
because I know that there's heart issues
>> heart and breathing. So they're linked
obviously you know heart and breathing
linked and people are heart rate
monitored. I know of many people and
there are many of your friends like and
they've talked openly about this stuff.
So DJ Shipley and the Capone, you know,
Marcus Capone and others and many many
others who feel that they've benefited
tremendously from these therapies and
and there's a litany of other names
there too that have benefited
tremendously. I want to be clear.
>> There are also a few people who felt
they didn't have a good experience. I
know Shawn Ray right now is out there
talking about his negative experience
this excuse me Shawn Shawn Ray is like a
bodybuilder, right? You know Shawn Ryan,
excuse me.
>> I think Shawn Ryan I think he's talking
about DMT
>> and they follow with DMT at some of
those clinics. Not all
>> but he's he said he had gone through
exorcisms. Isn't that what he's saying
now?
>> I mean I think if you if you think about
my my experience of psychedelics I've
not done I gain is that
there is all sorts of understanding
about the brain that comes about during
those journeys that leads you to
understand that we have good and evil in
all of us. And I could understand how it
could be downright terrifying for some
people to realize that we have a
hypothalamus that just wants to satisfy
drives, but we also have a forebrain
that can suppress those drives. I mean,
that is the nature of being human,
right?
>> Do you think that's what these people
are thinking of when they're thinking of
demons? They're thinking of like in like
drives that are a part of the the human
system.
>> So, okay, I have a lot of thoughts about
this.
So neuro with I'm not going to spin off
into a neuroscience lecture, but we
think about brain function and free will
and all that kind of stuff from top down
and bottom up perspective. Bottom up is
you have a drive, you want to satisfy
it, you're going to do it. Top down are
regions of the brain that inhibit those
impulse circuits. Um, and so much of
life is about the dynamic tension
between those two. Okay? I mean the
seven deadly sins right are all the
hypothalammic structures like you know
rage, envy, lust etc. But the forebrain
can be built up. You can learn things as
the you know kids learn to suppress
their impulses. Puppies learn to
suppress their impulses to get a reward
or just to avoid punishment. And that's
a lot of what being human is about,
right? There's an amazing case actually
right here in Austin where I don't know
if you're familiar with this. There was
a a kid who um woke up one morning uh
wrote in his diary. Um he's an
ex-Marine. Uh this was many years ago.
And then killed his wife and his mother
with a knife. Do you know about this?
>> No.
>> Okay. Then he went to the University of
Texas Austin, took a rifle, went up into
the tower, and shot 14 people.
>> Oh, that story.
>> I think a 15th died later. Yeah.
>> So, but here's where it gets
interesting, right? I mean, it's
horrible, right? One woman was pregnant.
So they counted that I think it was a
total of like 18 or 19 deaths. He was
shot by one of the security guards.
They go and they read his diary and he
literally says,
"I don't know why I want to do this, but
please take the money from, you know, my
life insurance and donate it to the
study of mental health. Please pay off
my debts.
Please understand what's happening to
me." And they did an autopsy and the guy
had a tumor in a brain region which
included brain regions which included
amydala, hypothalamus and phthalamus
collectively uh what we would call
low-level brain structures involved with
you know perception and impulse.
The the conclusion of all that is not oh
he had a brain tumor that made him do
it. The conclusion that most
neuroscientists draw is that most people
don't ever conceive of doing those
things. But a lot of people go to
Niagara Falls and look and go, "What's
keeping me from jumping?" What's keeping
you from jumping is your forebrain. What
people think, oh, you know, uh, what
keeps people from shoplifting? Everyone
would like to think that they're
incredibly moral, like I I don't
shoplift. Not a shoplifter, right? But
for some people, they want to do the
thing and they stop themselves from
doing or drinking or cheating or
whatever it is, right? those top- down
influences on our impulses and our
bottomup impulses are constantly in
dynamic tension and in psychedelics I
mean lots of things are happening you're
getting a lot more you know
interconnectivity of the brain that's
always there being revealed it's very
rare it happens but it's very rare to
hear about people doing terrible things
to other people on psychedelics it's not
it happens but it's not common so I'm
not saying you reveal evil in there but
as you know in a highdos psilocybin
journey you're You're going into the
recesses of your mind and you will your
unconscious mind is showing you what's
there. It's showing you that there are
uh terrible forces out in the world.
There are humans you learn all sorts of
stuff about humans as you know right in
these journeys. You also learn about
incredible beauty and potential for uh
making positive change. So the
psychedelics are are kind of a they're a
mysterious free-for-all in there
>> that they're probably also interacting
with your very specific memories. And if
you're dealing with a guy like Sean Ryan
who did a lot of combat, seen a lot of
horrible things, horrible things.
>> My good friend Eddie Penny, he was also
a tier one operator and great name.
>> Yeah, great name. Uh great name, great
guy. You guys would enjoy a
conversation. He's another tier one
operator from that community. He's uh
for he's I'm not revealing anything he
hasn't already, but he's um recovered
from substance abuse issues um and uh
has been sober a long time. He's not not
a fan of psychedelics. uh he got me
write reading the Bible. We could talk
about this like you know actually uh
church and I know you've been going to
church. This is an interesting thing
because a lot of what's in the Bible is
about the dynamic tension between what
neuroscientists would call top down and
bottom up influences. It acknowledges
like we have this stuff in us that
you're not supposed to pretend it
doesn't. You have to acknowledge your
humanness but also your human capacity
to control these impulses. And I mean
that's a lot of what's in the Bible.
It's not everything, but it's stories
about that in many, many ways. Um, hence
the seven deadly sins and the virtues
and so on. But, you know, Eddie has been
a pretty strong voice for caution in the
veterans and other communities about the
use of psychedelics because there's this
theory, right, within some sectors of of
religion and Christianity in particular
that in psychedelic journeys that evil
entities, if you will, might have access
to us or something like that. There's a
neuroscientist view of that too, which
is that in those states you're revealing
aspects of self that normally you can
suppress, but now you're you're having
to see that aspect of you or other
people. Like realizing that people have
evil and good in them is a I think we
can all say, "Yeah, I get it." But we
usually say, "They're evil, they're
good. They're evil. They're good." It's
very hard for us to address the
possibility that we any of us I like to
think I could never have been that kid
that went up on the tower. But if I had
a tumor in my brain, would I have done
it? I don't know. I mean, this recent
case of this woman killing her children
was about this, right? It was about this
very issue. Like, oh, is her physiology
to blame? And the law has a very simple
rule on most of these cases. I've looked
at this and the law basically says
doesn't matter if you have a brain
tumor. Doesn't matter if you're high on
meth. Doesn't matter if you're full of
rage because rage is just a different
set of neurochemicals. You are
responsible for your behavior. And I
think we need those, you know, thick
black lines as, you know, I like to
think of them. Otherwise, you can't make
you can't function as a society.
>> Yeah.
>> It's not saying that people aren't
stricken with biological issues,
>> but we're saying even if stricken, you
need to be held responsible. One of the
big things that happens during
psychedelic trips that disturb a lot of
people um is when they try to fight the
trip and then they have a really bad
trip.
>> And one of the things that someone will
tell you, for lack of a better term, who
is a shaman, I hate that term because
it's uh I think it's probably very real
some parts of the world and it's also
probably
a very much a [ __ ] thing in America.
>> It's like expert in America now. Well,
there's some real experts in America.
There's probably more real experts than
there are real shamans.
>> You know, the shaman thing is very
weird. A lot of it is like very lost
people that find identity in altered
states of consciousness. And uh I think
just my personal opinion that
experiencing these altered states of
consciousness should enhance your
experience as a human should not replace
it. I think there's a lot of people who
are replacing altered states of
consciousness far too often and they
live in that world more than they live
in the world of just being conscious and
sober. And I think um there's many steps
that you have to take in order to be to
have a good trip. Um some people have a
really hard time letting go, relaxing,
and just going with it. They fight it.
I've seen it. I've seen people fight it.
Um, people that for whatever reason they
have whatever psychological issues or
they have control issues and they just
cannot deal with the fact that this
experience is so beyond their
comprehension and so overwhelming that
they try to battle it. They try to
control it. the the the the the
experiences, the things that they see,
the states that they enter into, they
don't feel at all in control and they
freak out. And when you try to control
it, I haven't had one of those, but from
the people that I know that have, it's
like they they say that they were
wrestling with it like they were and you
cannot win and it just overwhelms you
and then your anxiety kicks in. What I
have experienced in in trips is that
it's highlighted that if you think in a
positive way, it'll show you more
beautiful images and that you can just
relax and that especially in the DMT
realm, they are trying to tell you to
relax. They're trying to tell you to
just go with it. And if you don't fight
it, you can have a wonderful experience.
But I haven't been to war. I haven't
been raped. I haven't been physically
assaulted and beaten as a child. There's
a lot of things that didn't happen to me
that I don't have to deal with. And
someone especially, I think, guys who've
been to war, well, you've seen so much
horrible [ __ ] and it just becomes a part
of your everyday existence, these
horrible memories, these horrible
visions that you have and horrible
things you've probably had to do. and
then something comes along like DMT or
like psilocybin or some something just
overwhelms the normal state of
consciousness. If you're trying to fight
that, I would imagine that would feel
like you're battling demons.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't had to deal
with any of those things either. So, I
want to acknowledge that. I I had a very
good experience of therapeutic combined
MDMA and psilocybin work. Therapeutic
work. Incredible. And I can distill it
to one simple takeaway which was
thinking about bad things that had
happened that I wish hadn't happened.
Like I I felt like I had kind of worked
through that stuff in life by running,
lifting weights, some therapy, just life
time, you know, it worked through it.
But there was a session where I was
feeling the resistance to like feel
something and I knew what was knocking
and it was thinking about things that
didn't happen that I wished had happened
for me. um not things I that I wish I
got but you know just basic experiences
that I wish I had had and it was
incredibly sad in the moment but then it
opened you know after some period of
time like
>> what kind of experiences
>> you know listen I I had a a better
childhood than many much better than
many and and harder than others for you
know there were some things about my
family structure that felt um there were
times when I really really really needed
a certain kind of support and structure
and it gone. And so I went out into the
world and found it in skateboarding,
eventually in science. And you know, I
talk about the introduction of the book.
Actually, I talk about why I eventually
went into public health education. And
it was seeing about a third of my
friends from growing up dead or in jail.
And that's weird for a guy that didn't
grow up in the inner city and I wasn't
in the military. These are friends of
mine that succumb to drugs or suicide or
mental health issues. Now mind you, the
other twothirds did great and some of
them started companies like DC and you
know like these weren't close friends of
mine but that community of people of all
these feral kids in the 90s the people
who skateboarded were the ones who
didn't have parents that went to things
right and listen I have a good
relationship with my dad now like we're
I've actually had them on the podcast
and that was really bonding for us. are
great now, but there was a time when I
was an adolescent and teen when I really
needed structure and I really needed uh
certain things that just were not
happening and my home life was
depressing. It was really empty. It was
really depressing and so went out into
the world and did way too many things
way too young. Saw a lot and got
involved in a lot of uh sex violence and
stuff that I shouldn't have at that time
and luckily not drugs. That wasn't my
thing. So I I always knew those
narratives and I I've always had a like
a bittersweet memory of them like they
they also served me well. They motivated
me to u forge for ways to be healthy and
things like that. Um but then in science
it was wild because in science your
mentors play a tremendous role in your
progress and your s sense of safety.
Science is a weird thing. It's different
now but when I was coming up you would
get very close to your graduate adviser.
I was very close to my undergraduate
adviser. He was like a father figure to
me. My graduate adviser was truly like a
mother to me. I knew her when she was
pregnant. I knew her husband. I her
daughter is a neuroscientist. Like
incredibly close to her. She had a a
maternal way about her and a toughness
that was unbelievable. And she was a
serious scientist. And then my posttock
adviser similarly was very supportive.
My undergraduate adviser who I got very
close with um killed himself in a very
dramatic way about two weeks after I had
spoken to him. um uh shot himself in the
bathtub. Um and this was a guy who
understood mental illness. I talk about
him in the book. My graduate adviser
died at 50 of cancer. She had the Bracka
mutation which is predisposes to cancer.
And that one like devastated me. And
then my posttock adviser died of
pancreatic cancer like a year into my
faculty appointment and he had a heart
attack sitting across from me. You know,
was the first indication he had
pancreatic cancer. And so the joke in my
field is you don't want me working for
you because uh you know it's like [ __ ]
But then what's wild is that you know I
made it through science. I get tenure at
Stanford. This kind of [ __ ] is happening
in my science world. Then a colleague of
mine gets addicted to Oxycontton after a
back injury and he's dead and no one
talks about it. Like everyone's like,
"Oh yeah, yeah." He was a member of the
National Academy. He's a famous
scientist down at the Sulk Institute.
Everyone's just like, "Oh yeah, yeah."
Just kind of carries on with their work.
And then this is gonna get depressing
for a moment before it gets light. End
of 2017,
three friends of mine from childhood,
there's a graffiti artist, his name is,
he went by orphan, O RFN, this brilliant
artist. He did so much cool [ __ ] His
name was Aaron Curry dies of stomach
cancer. My good friend John Eickeleberry
from childhood and my good friend Johnny
Far. Fentinel suicide. Boom. People are
just going down like crazy. And I'm
like, what the [ __ ] is going on here?
And then I started to realize, this is
one of the reasons I started the
podcast. is one of the reasons I started
going on podcast is I'm like my science
colleagues they don't know how to manage
their stress they're they understand the
science of stress but they look like
[ __ ] their kids are a mess they have
they're have all these anxiety disorders
my physician friends I can count on one
hand the number of them that are healthy
of mind and body who have healthy kids
like you know and then I realize oh you
know the skateboarding community the
science health community I'm at Stanford
University School of Medicine the apex
or among you you know, the top
universities in the world of health and
and I'm like, my colleagues are sick and
dying and stressed and and I realized I
was like, [ __ ] we don't know how to
regulate stress. So, I started studying
stress and stress mitigation, this kind
of thing. And then I don't want to make
this even darker, but I think it it's
worth acknowledging uh for a couple of
reasons. And by the way, I want to be
really clear. I think what Veterans
Solutions has done with the Ibagane
initiative, I think what Rick Perry and
what Brian are doing with the Ibeane
thing, I think it's awesome. If I
highlight that there were some deaths I
want to be really clear like those
people might have died of fentinyl
anyway we don't know I mean there's you
know we need to
>> both connect both of the deaths are
connected to fentinel use
>> my understanding is they had used
fentinel prior to going to use ibagane
so maybe in this discussion a few people
will be sensitized to like that's a
potential issue
>> so meaning like they were probably
addicted to fentinel they were trying to
get off of it and they tried to do it
while they had fentinil in their system
>> perhaps.
>> Yeah. And for all we know, they might
have snuck fentinel. We don't like to
think that they might have, but who
knows how closely they did it. You know,
>> they're really hooked.
>> Yeah. And listen, we you and I know, I
mean, it's more from your world of, you
know, martial arts and stuff, but, you
know, we know people who like we hear
they go down to Mexico, they're going to
do this treatment, they're going to come
back, they're better, and like a week
later they don't sound so much better.
You know, I'm not I pray for these
people. I want the best. Like I'm not
saying this is bad, but I'm saying these
are powerful medications and I think
they are net positive. But I'll also say
you know many years transpired between
that you know those friends dying the
Johnny people sometimes people call me
on [ __ ] So Aaron Curry, John
Eichelberry, Johnny Farah best [ __ ]
kids I knew awesome graffiti artists.
One of them was in the MoMA orphan went
into the MoMA for his graffiti. This is
a badass graffiti artist. Stomach cancer
got him. like [ __ ] can happen. My
adviserss didn't do anything wrong. They
just one clearly had a mental issue or
otherwise he wouldn't have taken his
life. The other two had cancer. So, but
then this last year I'm like going about
my life and I'm thinking, okay, you
know, things are pretty good. And I get
a call and I hear that my good friend
Nolan Williams, triple board certified
MD, who took the transcranial magnetic
stimulation therapies and accelerated
them so that people could get relief
from depression much faster. He took
what was, you know, many weeks long or
months long thing and compressed it.
Saved lives. Who's also doing the
studies of Ivagane, took his own life.
I mean, this one's still sinking in for
me. Um, I there's no reason to believe
it had anything to do with Ibagain
whatsoever. He took his own life. He's a
colleague physician friend of mine at
Stanford. And I know his wife who's also
a physician. I know his kids. He's been
on my podcast. He looked like the young
Jim Morrison. Handsome. He was a martial
arts guy. He was taekwondo. Like, [ __ ]
is right. [ __ ] is right. So, what does
it tell us? You know, I've had to I I
try not to intellectualize these things
too much, but what does it tell us? It
tells us that knowledge is not
sufficient to take care to protect us.
Like like I feel like the data are in
bold conclusion banner across the sky.
Knowledge does not alone does not
protect us. You can understand
everything about the biology of these
diseases. You can know I'm messed up. I
have something but and you can
understand oh that's serotonin or
whatever.
people will still do these things and
it's rare fortunately but it tells us
that the I believe it tells us something
fundamental about humans which is that
there's always this dynamic tension
between our underlying impulses and this
top- down control and suicide is a weird
one because it's like the whole thing
gets you know twisted up so that we're
no longer acting in an adaptive way
right obviously taking one's life is not
adaptive but it's a rage or a depression
or whatever and
The conclusion that I draw from it is
what can we do to put ourselves in the
best position to be able to
hold our impulses in their healthy
place. You know, if I I don't want to
make more of like what I did in the book
or what I'm trying to do in the podcast
or public education, but like let's take
the ice bath for example. I've taken a
lot of [ __ ] for the ice bath thing. You
have too. We both know they don't like
the cold. That's why they're talking
about this. But we know for certain and
I go through the data finally giving
putting yourself into a high adrenaline
state where your body and brain are
freaking out and doing that deliberately
gets you better at dealing with high
stress states which in my mind is only a
good thing. This should be basic
training for children, you know, not
young children, right? Why, you know,
does it increase metabolism? Marginally.
Does it increase cortisol? No. That's a
bunch of horseshit and we can talk about
that. If anything, it reduces cortisol.
It increases your ability to buffer
stress. Is the ice bath a cure to mental
health issues, addiction, and relapse
and all that? No, of course not. But is
it does it teach you to engage in top-
down control? Yes. Is it the ice bath
per se? No. The ice bath is just one
very efficient, lowcost way to get
adrenaline to go boom through the roof.
You could do it through a workout. You
could do it through hot sauna that feels
uncomfortably hot provided you don't die
of hypothermia. You can do it through
any number of different things. The
point is that the principle of learning
to to capture your mind and think
strategically, lower your state of
arousal when you're in a stressful
circumstance is a life skill that is
invaluable.
And getting great sleep, we could go on
and on about all the benefits of that.
There's probably a hundred benefits of
that and probably a thousand things that
go wrong when you don't get enough sleep
chronically.
Couple nights, no problem. But when
you're well-rested,
you are far less likely to harm yourself
or others like because your forebrain is
more active and can suppress these
impulses. And so my, you know, my kind
of like I don't like the word mission,
but my my goal is that we'll kind of
move beyond the notion of like hacks or
that it's this tool or that tool and
just really understand like what we're
trying to do when we're teaching
ourselves to be better humans. And I do
think there is a generation of kids that
grew up hearing that their feelings are
valid. Great. We didn't hear that
growing up. I just assumed like if you
drank and you couldn't stop drinking, it
was a lack of willpower. Now we know
there's a brain circuit. But if we say,
"Oh, there's a brain circuit. Therefore,
I'm not going to quit because it's a
brain circuit." Well, you're still
you're still an addict, right? So the
great sleep, social connection, sunlight
in the morning, like these things are
really designed to get us to have better
control over our focus, over our impulse
control. And I it it almost becomes so
simple at that point. And we can say,
well, what was going on with Nolan in
the weeks before? Well, I I have
smatterings of what might have been
going on, running two giant projects in
his lab, two companies, managing a
family, managing a life. I'm not going
to claim he was a perfect human being,
but like it's just like overwhelm his
forebrain [ __ ] turned on him.
>> Yeah, overwhelm is real.
>> Yeah,
>> you can only you can only redline your
system for so much.
>> I mean, you know, people have done this.
I mean, uh
>> I know a lot of people,
>> you know, people and I become I've been
friends with uh I've become friends with
um David Cho.
>> I love that dude.
>> [ __ ] love him. best [ __ ] guy
because he's so heartfelt now having
been through the meat grinder of media
and life and his own tendency to self
harm.
>> Yeah.
>> And he's in this just beautiful place
now where he's just like literally
painting everything in his environment.
He's so happy with his family and he's
it's [ __ ] awesome.
>> And like
>> he's a very smart guy.
>> So smart.
>> He figured out how to keep it together.
>> He did. and and you know, you guys have
common friends um in you know, people
that have taken their lives and stuff.
When he talks about it,
>> it's like, man, you can just tell he's
like there's this understanding that
comes from hard driving people that
like, okay, I've I've not wanted to ever
take my life, but like you can I can
relate to Nolan.
>> You just want out. You can't take it
anymore and you want out.
>> I think we've all been in that moment
where we were like [ __ ] at something we
were able to pull ourselves back and
it's a shoot. I think some people just
go down that shoot. And you know, David
and I were talking about this because I
know you guys have common friends and
some who've succumbed to things and some
who've really like rose above all that.
And he's like, "Look, man, it's once
you've tasted that edge of being pulled
back and forth from your impulses and
like and you learn to just force
yourself to both do hard things, as you
always say, but also force yourself to
like really embrace the the goodness in
the world and the love that's there.
Like let's not forget the lighter side
like the beauty of like all these
amazing things in life. There's this
kind of like promised land inside of us.
I don't mean to sound religious here
like there's this place in us where like
yeah all that's true. All those people
they all die. They some took their own
life and then the [ __ ] h and but there's
if I just keep doing really hard things
I'm going to stay in control of my
impulses
as long as I also touch the goodness
that's there every day. like the sun's
coming up. My kids are healthy. I'm
here. You know, I turned 50 last year
and and I had to like they asked me to
give like a little toast or something.
It was horrible. Like I hate doing that
kind of thing. I'll podcast all day, but
not that. And and I I just realized I
was like my hero Joe Strummer, one of my
heroes from the Clash, right? Dead at
50. So I at least got further than him.
50. It's so young. And then I was like,
so I'm in this like promised land now.
like yes. And that like joy of of like
having made it over some bump or
something and seeing goodness and having
a great relationship now with my
parents. It's taken a lot of work, but
we're we're really in a good place.
Appreciating all the gifts they gave me.
Seeing people leave and like I have such
love for Nolan and for all those people
I mentioned. like I just love them and
understanding that the grief is just
love is um man I'll tell you like and I
probably couldn't have gotten here
without some of that psychedelic work
because it really took my face and stuck
you know just stuck it in the vomit of
all this but then you came out you know
and you go whoa like there's so much
goodness so I don't know I mean if the
psychedelics can help people if talk
therapy can help people great but I
think on a day-to-day basis it's
do [ __ ] that sucks so that you can stay
in control of staying in control and
also make sure you touch into the beauty
of really good things.
>> Well, I find that when you do the things
that suck, you do the hard workouts and
the song and the cold plunge, life just
seems more beautiful. It really does
because you're not overwhelmed with this
just just existential dread that just
hangs over you just being a physical
vulnerable human being walking through
this unknown uncertain life and there's
a bunch of external chaoses like world
wars and [ __ ] financial collapses and
there's so much [ __ ] going on in
everybody's brain. do something that
just exhausts that at least for a little
while and lets you take in what a
[ __ ] beautiful day. Look at those
squirrels just having a good time.
Totally
>> running around on the tree listening to
the birds. Just feel the sun on your
face.
>> I don't appreciate that if I don't do
things. This is my own personal thing. I
don't know. I mean, I know everybody's
different. Everybody's different
biologically, psychologically. For me, I
know what my formula is. My formula is
if I don't do those things, I feel like
[ __ ] period. So, I do the things and
I've experimented. I've taken days off,
three days, four days off, and then at
the fourth day, I'm like, "Jesus Christ,
who are you? Get to the [ __ ] gym. Go
hit the bag."
>> And the world seems worse, not better.
>> Way worse. Way worse. And I think
there's a lot of people out there that
are like very angry. Like, you see a lot
of people on social media. I think
they're living in that state, but not a
state of four days, a state of 40 years
of nothing, doing nothing, and just
letting your body just go
You know, you have dogs, right? You
know, it's like when your dog doesn't
get exercise
[ __ ] exercise.
>> My new one has he's part bulldog but
part pit, too. And I'm keeping his nuts
on this time cuz my last dog, you know,
as you know, I was like injecting with
TRT late in life and he felt so much
better. This time I'm keeping Strummers
I'm keeping Strummer's nuts on. This dog
has so much [ __ ] energy.
>> Yeah, you got to throw the ball.
>> You got to throw the ball. But this
dude, I have him running on the [ __ ]
treadmill in the morning.
>> Oh, wow.
>> Oh, yeah. I take him for a walk. Then I
I trained him from the time he was 9
weeks to run on the treadmill.
>> Does he like it?
>> [ __ ] loves it, dude. Dude, he'll haul
ass it. Like right now he's up to five
on a on a on a two incline and he's just
like at the back of that thing. He falls
off. He jumps right back on. People are
like, "Don't earn his joints." I'm like,
"Listen, I've raised bulldog breeds
before. I'm not going to blow out his
joints, okay?" He is so stoked. He will
just run and run and run and then I'll I
tell him, "Wait, I'll put the liver
treat there." And then when he gets that
thing, his ears flop. He's going like,
and you can tell when he's done, it's
what you're describing. He's just like
peaceful. Chill. So peaceful.
>> Oh, when I throw the dog, the ball for
my dog, and then we come in and sit
down, he just lays on his back and I rub
his belly. He's just so happy.
>> This is Marshall.
>> Yeah.
>> You got another one, right? Cavalier.
Cavalier King Charles.
>> Yeah, they're great. He's amazing. But
all those are great dogs.
>> He's He's a little love machine. All he
wants to do is kiss you. He just kisses
you constantly. They're the Cavalier
King Charles have a little bit of a
almost like a bulldog thing to them like
the calm. Um this last year I went to
meet the breeds out in New York. You can
go and meet all the different breeds.
You see like the otter dogs and and you
learn three things when you go meet
these like hundreds of different pure
breeds. First of all, people [ __ ]
look like they're dogs.
>> It's crazy. I don't know which direction
it goes. Like you look at the guy who's
got like the otter hound or these big
and he's got a big beard. He looks just
like freaking otter. Jamie and Carl are
a [ __ ] contradiction to that.
>> That's true. That's true.
>> Jamie Carl. That's true. That's true. U.
The other thing you learn is that the
pure breeds in addition to being shaped
a certain way, like they have a certain
demeanor. Like it's there's variation,
but there's a demeanor, you know, and
the bulldogs are kind of goofy, you
know, and the sight hounds are like
locked in and looking all and and I
swear some dogs are smarter than others.
They're like counting how many people
are in the environment. They're doing
math basically. Whereas strummer is just
like he's either lying upside
>> the shepherd dogs.
>> Yeah. They're doing math. They're
counting all the time. Accounting for
everything. And then I leave there and
the and I go I turn to my girlfriend and
we were like, "Which breed are we in?"
And I go, "We're getting a bulldog mud."
Like we're going right back to the one I
already had. And she's like, "All
right." Like, you know, she's pretty
easygoing about that. And I'm like, "You
have not experienced bulldog love
because they're just they're hedenist.
They just want love, comfort, they want
to chase the ball. They have this much
forebrain. And this is why I think dogs
are the almost perfect species because
their impulses
are never to be bad. Like they don't
have this like rage anger thing unless
people train them to do that. They
don't. I think the dog is like just
quote unquote dumb enough and just smart
enough to have like the perfect life.
Like they're
>> It depends on the breed.
>> I mean the malinels are are mouthy. The
malinels are um
>> Belgian Malininois are
>> Malininoa, excuse me.
>> Meat missiles. Yeah,
>> those little [ __ ] when they they can
be great dogs. I I know people that have
them, but you have to be on them two
hours a day.
>> They need tasks.
>> It's basically like you you live with a
super athlete. Yeah.
>> You know, you live with a, you know, a
prime Jose Aldo, like an MMA fighter,
world champion. Like they could [ __ ]
leap over buildings. Like you can't just
have them lay in the yard. They'll go
crazy.
>> Yeah. They don't potato.
>> No, they need things to do, man. They
need tasks. Whereas Marshall, he's just
so happy just likes to cuddle and watch
TV. That's what he likes to do. He likes
to climb up on the couch and he puts his
head right here and we watch TV together
and I just pet him. If I don't pet him,
he looks at me. Then I got to start
petting him again.
>> Oh man. This episode is brought to you
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for plan features and network management
details. You know what saves lives and
has cured a lot of PTSD are service
dogs.
>> Oh, for sure. Like people, we don't talk
about this enough because they're not,
you know, it's not as like quote unquote
exciting as um psychedelics, but man,
those service dogs like have kept people
alive.
>> They're pure love.
>> Pure love.
>> Pure love.
>> Pure love.
>> They love you. You love them. You have
fun together.
>> They're goofy. They do things that are
silly and you laugh and they know you're
laughing.
>> So good.
>> It's like dogs are amazing. And people
that don't have love in their life,
they're suffering. Like loneliness is
worse than smoking multiple packs of
cigarettes a day.
>> Yeah.
>> Just for your overall health and life
expectancy.
>> You know, the uh Andy Stump came on the
podcast.
>> I love Andy.
>> Yeah. Great guy. Great guy. Um and he
recommended this uh documentary to me,
The Dark Wizard, which is about this guy
Dean Potter, who was a a free solo
climber.
>> Yeah, I watched it.
>> And then the wings suit guy. And that's
a beautiful example of dogs helping
someone at one point. Although he took
that dog doing all sorts of crazy [ __ ]
That dog wagan was very dead devoted.
>> Dog did not know any better. Thought
that was life. He had no other dogs to
talk to.
>> Imagine you're that guy's dog. Like he
just Yeah. You just assume it's it's
normal. But the other piece there like
talk about dopamine and drive and you
know life and death. that I feel like
that movie was such a a like a key
insight into the relationship between
drive when it's in you know love and
love of craft, love of people and then
drive when it's competitive in an
unhealthy way like how the Buddhists
talk about like ego and
>> and and that you know ego is great
because it can drive us in certain you
know pursuits that can build things for
us family society but then how it can
you know when people get competitive
about the wrong things. Like in that
movie, when he was doing things that he
didn't really want to do, it almost
killed him. But then when he was doing
things that could almost kill him, but
he really wanted to do it, but it was
almost like spiritual like doing that
tightroppe walk with the full moon in
the background.
>> He is still dangerous, but there was
like this peace in him. And I think
about this all the time because Rick t
Ruben talks about this. You've talked
about this. when we're doing something
out of like love of craft, even if we're
[ __ ] pushing so hard. Cho talks about
this like it's like it's not easy, but
there's this kind of um I don't know
what the word is for it. Smoothness to
the thing.
>> Yeah.
>> But then when it's competitive for the
wrong reasons, it
>> Well, what are the wrong reasons?
>> Well, for instance, Potter was a great
climber and then started getting into
other things. But when he had Alex Hnold
coming up on his heels and Honold was
better than him, right? And he started
getting competitive about this kid who
was going to take away his legacy. He
started making stupid mistakes. He
started getting hurt. He started getting
angry. His his mental health got much
worse, you know? I mean I mean Hold's
the last guy I would want coming up for
my slot, right? Cuz he's he's so
mechanical and methodical. You also in
that movie I I think Alex is fantastic.
You also saw a different side of Alex
when he was younger that doesn't seem to
be there right now, at least not
visibly, which was he was hyper
competitive with the guys that he had
grown up on and was like
>> he was like he was like I want that
rock. I want that slot.
>> And he he says I was he was a better
climber and so he wanted it before
Potter. And so you can see when Potter's
kind of like the dying lion in that
field and trying to hold on, he starts
doing stupid [ __ ] like like uh these
tightroppe walks in China that almost
kill him and and he he's breaking down
in tears. There's no elation at the
beginning. He's doing things and it's
like yes, yes. Then he's just doing
things and he's like
>> just happy he didn't die.
>> Two very different ways of looking at
the same pursuits,
>> right? And so I think that movie is a
far more interesting insight into human
drive more generally than it is about
this clearly manic uh rock climber.
>> Yeah, the drive is an interesting thing
because drive in its purest form
actually replaces discipline. Like I was
acutely aware of that when I was a kid
because I was not disciplined at all
really.
>> I was a very undisiplined kid. I never
cleaned my room. I never did my
homework. I I was I had very few rules
growing up. I was quite feral.
>> This was until what age?
>> Till 15 till I started really training
heavily in martial arts. And then when I
got into martial arts, I still was not I
did not clean my room. I did not do my
homework. I still But in that one thing,
I had insane drive and I worked so hard
and I worked all day long every day. I
never took a day off. And that was the
difference. It was like it was the drive
that replaced discipline because I loved
the thing that I was doing so much. I
found so much interest in it and so much
passion in it and and and it just so it
was so exciting to me to do that I just
wanted to do it all the time. And so I
didn't have to be disciplined. I knew
there was work that had to be done to
get better at it, but it was also I was
just intensely focused on getting
better. So the work, like whether it's
rounds in the heavy bag or practicing
specific techniques or sparring drills
or whatever the [ __ ] I was doing, I
wasn't doing it like going, "Okay, this
is what I got to do today." It was not
that at all. It was just I can't wait to
do more of this. So rad.
>> I was only The only thing that stopped
me was time and sleep. I would have
tried to do it all day every day. I was
obsessed, but I wasn't disciplined. M
>> I had to get disciplined later on in
life when I stopped competing in
particular because then there was like
this this over this overwhelming looming
threat of physical harm if you don't
stay in the gym constantly if you if
you're not like 100% ready. There's this
possibility that you could zigg when you
should have zagged and you get a [ __ ]
shin to your head. There's a a lot of
terrifying thoughts that are involved in
that that keep you training really hard.
But I didn't have discipline. I didn't
develop discipline until after I stopped
competing. And then I realized like,
well, I should just work out because I
should work out and uh I should eat well
because it's good for you and I should
um you know, I should lift weights
because it's probably good to be strong,
you know. And it was doing things
because I know they had to be done
rather than I was obsessed with doing
them. I mean, I'm telling a just so
story here, but there's also a part of
me which says like it's a mild bit of
OCD, but thank goodness you didn't clean
your room because what if you had OCD
and you're like, I'm going to be the kid
with the perfect room
>> and then I'm going to be the kid that
washes my hands all the time. Then I'm
going to be the kid that just is all
about cleanliness. Like I think I do
think that you know
>> what is obsessivecompulsive disorder
versus being passionate about something.
Uh so here I can there's a really
important theme to OCD like true OCD
obsessivempulsive disorder is
characterized by the following. The more
you engage in the behavior the stronger
the compulsion gets
>> and that's why it's so maddening for
people with true clinical OCD. So for
people that have a handwashing thing
they're like I have something on my
hands. They go and wash it and it just
makes them want to wash more
>> and more and more. And you know, I'm not
a big fan of SSRIs in many cases, but I
will say if there's one place where
SSRIs have really helped a great number
of people not completely dissolve into a
a puddle of dysfunction, it's proper use
of SSRIs for true clinical OCD.
>> What so OCD in that way like washing the
hands. What is the cause of that? Do we
know?
>> Well, we know. So, there's a woman who
was at NIH for a long time. She passed
away this last year. Her name was Judith
Rapaort, a real pioneer in this whole
field and brain science more generally.
And she found that there's an area of
the brain called the basil ganglia.
These are circuits that we all have that
are involved in generating action, go
and no go. You have two basically you
have an accelerator and a brake on
action. And the basil ganglia have
these, you know, looks a lot like a gear
system in a car when you really, you
know, just, you know, draw it out. The
people who have true clinical grade OCD
have an enlargement for whatever reason
of sub regions of this circuit and they
basically feel the impulse to do this
thing all the time. Now what is the
thing? the the thing is based largely on
inputs from structures like the
hypothalamus that are in related to very
uh primitive adaptive behaviors like you
know getting infections out and and
getting um you know dirt away is you
know adaptive in a in a when it's done
in a healthy way you know there are all
these people and there's actually a
paper I hate this paper but it's a real
paper that like um watching zip popping
like stimulates dopamine this is why
people do I can't watch these things
it's like you but people like
>> shout out to Dr. for pimple popper.
>> There seems to be someone sent me this
paper. I'm like, "Oh my god, this got to
be like and I look I'm like this paper
someone actually ran the study and now
this explains a lot of the internet uh
the stuff on the internet." There must
there's there's a component in in all of
our brains that um get some sort of
satisfaction from the removal of
infection, right? Um from relief from
infection. That makes sense.
>> Yeah. And so this and this feeds into
these basil ganglia circuits. For some
people it's compulsive water drinking. I
mean, Anna LMKY of Dopamine Nation talks
about a patient of hers that was a
basically addicted to water, compulsive
water drinker. They actually died. It
was very, very sad. Like in all
seriousness, like overestion of water
and this woman died.
>> Yeah, it does kill people. I remember
there was a lady who was doing a contest
for the radio to get like an Xbox for
her son, like how you can drink the most
water.
>> I think it's called hyperetreia or
something like that. Could have that
wrong. the um but the you know people
who have OCD about germs often you know
germs are bad but you know worrying that
much about germs is is obviously not
good. So again we're talking about
primitive brain circuits and these
circuits that can go ary you know some
people they just for reasons we don't
understand they have overactive areas of
the brain. Um actually I have a a a
positive tale that you might like
because it has to do with jiu-jitsu of
which I do none but I have a a close
childhood friend his name is Eddie
Chang. He's the chair of neurosurgery at
UCSF. Brilliant guy, bioengineer. He's
figuring out the speech system in the
brain. He's a member of the national
academy. He was my friend since we were
seven. And he's like, this amazing
physician. And he called me, very, very
calm guy. Um, and he called me and he
said, um, he calls me Andy, which is
unfortunate, but he goes, he goes, uh,
he knew me when I was a little kid. He
goes, "Uh, Andy, uh, I've got a patient
who, um, wants you to come to the
surgery." And I go, "What are you gonna
do?" And he goes, "Well, he's got a
tumor and, uh, but he's really into
jiu-jitsu and he really admires like Joe
and Choco and you know, would you do you
think you'd come up?" And I was like,
"Yeah, chance to get see my childhood
friend do brain surgery."
>> Yo.
>> So, I go there. I meet this guy. This
guy has a uh a tumor that needs removing
from the frontal lobe. So
>> you're in there for the whole thing?
>> Right up there. Right up there. I mean,
you know, um, so I'm in there and it's
they keep patients alive for this. So
they locally awake. Excuse me.
>> Yeah,
>> they definitely keep them alive.
>> I love that you don't edit the show. So
I like throw uh this proves why I
misspeak some. He's definitely alive
going in and coming out. He's alive
today. I spoke to Eddie this morning and
they basically remove, you know, they
remove the skull. go in and the way they
decide what tissue to take out and what
tissue to keep because the tumor is, you
know, is embedded in functional brain
areas that are required for speech, for
movement, etc. You can't just start
scooping brain tissue out. And what I
learned is that these tumors don't look
different when you just look at the
brain. They they feel different to the
to the instruments of the highly trained
uh surgeon. So, he's in there. Eddie's
in there mapping, stimulating different
areas of the brain while this guy is
awake and reporting what he's feeling.
Okay, his hands moving. And I'm going
back and forth talking to this guy,
going back and forth and seeing the
tumor getting removed little by little
by little, put into a plate, goes off to
biopsy, but this guy is awake the entire
time. Incredible. And as they're doing
this, because the patient agreed,
they're mapping what areas of the brain
are involved in mathematics. what areas
is the he's doing math problems while
he's in this surgery while this this
this patient is doing this he's also
saying oh you know I felt that in my toe
or I felt that in my face and so you
know Eddie's getting these functional
maps of the brain that we've never had
before and his lab has discovered
incredible things about how speech and
language are organized in the brain he's
taken people who have full locked in
syndrome completely paralyzed who could
just blink to communicate and that's it
has a this has been written up in the
news had a patient Poncho who Eddie's
figured out there are areas of the brain
that prepare for speech not just
generate speech created through AI and
bio-engineering because he's also a
bioengineer of course he created ways
that this patient can now speak and the
first thing Poncho ever said was hello
and you say how are you doing he said
doing well and the AI is learning his
speech patterns it's taking what would
normally be sent to the ferings and
larynx right because after all speech is
just an exhale that's controlled by the
ferings and larynx and the tongue. And
the AI gets better at understanding what
this person wants to say. And now he's
got patients literally, they're still in
wheelchairs, right? Wheeling around with
a iPad next to them of their face
speaking according to what they're
thinking. This patient who got the the
tumor removed is amazing. I asked Eddie
this morning in case this happened to
come up. How's he doing? He goes,
"Great. I think and we filmed all this
by the way. Um the team at UCSF did
this. um he'd like you to come to a
jiu-jitsu class. So, we may put this out
there. I think he's really into he's
60s. From what I understand, he's
serious. He like rolls like five or six
days a week. He's like really into this.
And he's now rolling jiu-jitsu. This
tumor which would have killed him is
out. He's yes, alive. He's thriving. And
you know, we hear a lot about the
negative aspects of AI, but I asked
Eddie, to what extent is AI critical for
this kind of technology to evolve? And
he's like absolutely critical because it
can take all these neural signals and
figure out what the brain was doing
exactly when the person said the word
for orthe' or my name is blank and
blank. You know, you can't sink that
many electrodes into the brain before
you start destroying brain tissue. So,
you have to collect a lot of different
signals and and AI is is greatly
facilitating our ability to decode what
the brain is trying to do. And I said,
"So, where else is this going to go?"
And he said, "Well, this obviously is
what Elon wants to do with Neurolink and
taking paralyzed people out of a
paralyzed state. It's like what's the
intention to move? What does that look
like neurally?" And then convert that
into signals that maybe it's
prosthetics, maybe it's actual muscles
and nerves can respond to accurately.
There's so the takeaway here is that
like we hear a lot about the bad stories
of medicine, the stuff that's on the
edge and we still need to figure out
like the psychedelic stuff and but I I
have to say with respect to AI in
medicine, I am super super excited about
people walking again, seeing again. I
mean this stuff is starting to happen.
Having brain tumors removed that do not
encroach on areas of the brain that are
critical. I said if you were a quarter
centimeter or less into this other
margin where you recorded that the guy
says oh yeah my hand I felt in my hand
if you were to nick that he's like he'd
completely lose hand function. Now mind
you he's one of the best surgeons in the
world. I'll go on record saying that he
is like may you never need his help. In
fact there's one of our public facing
health colleagues. I'll tell you this
because he uh he's been public about it.
Uh who got a stem cell injection into
the disc down in Mexico and it got
infected. I've heard of people doing
things like that
>> and was paralyzed and was in a hospital
here in Texas. Okay, this is no, you
know, I'm not casting any judgment on
Texas, but what happened was they didn't
realize that he had a eggshaped
egg-sized infection there. Okay, so
there was this surgery had gone ary got
an infection and he was paralyzed and
they said they were going to have to
sever the spinal cord to get this
infection out. When they finally
discovered it, I contacted Eddie and I
said, "Listen, here's what's going on."
He said, "Get me in touch with his
doctor. Get me his charts. He was
airlifted to UCSF." And it wasn't Eddie
that did the surgery, but it was someone
in his department that removed this
egg-sized infection. And Eddie called me
from the surgery, okay? And he said,
"We're triple masked in here, and I can
smell the infection." It turns out that
bacteria had never been identified in
this in the United States. So there are
bacteria that exist in other places that
we're just not exposed to that
frequently. So it was very virulent in
this case. They got the infection out.
>> So this was just like a clinic with a
dirty needle.
>> This was a bad clinic with a bad
practice of some sort.
>> Oh,
>> they screwed up some some someone
screwed up along the way. Okay. And this
this guy happens the patient happens to
be a physician in this case. This guy is
walking, talking, exercising. How's his
back?
>> Great.
>> Did the the injection help?
>> Oh, I don't know. No. So, I asked So,
you know, so what what I said, what was
it that allowed you guys to do this
that, you know, another clinic might not
have been able to do? You know, because
I, like you, am very interested in what
makes for good doctors versus so doctors
versus lousy doctors versus superb
doctors. And he said it's two pieces.
It's the training and the skill of the
physician. Obviously, their willingness
to constantly update their models with
new understanding of what's out there,
new technologies, and it's also these
incredible bio-engineering and AI
technologies that can make estimates
about where the margins of error are in
real time. Because, you know, when you
think about the brain, you get an MRI,
you see, okay, there's the tumor. We're
going to go out and scoop it out. But
I've seen this now this close. And in
three dimensions, it's a completely
different picture. like you're he's
scooping out this this tumor. He's
probing around the tumor and then I'm
like, "Is it done?" And he's like, "No,
it's interdigitated, meaning it's
vessled into other brain structures. We
have to go after that stuff." I said,
"What are the margins of error?" He
said, "You know, less than a millimeter
in some cases." But and you're by hand
they're picking out tumor little by
little by little to try and ensure it
doesn't come back and sparing function.
Incredible. And AI is updating based on
every micro movement of the head that
might occur because you know the
person's bolted in basically they got no
stereotax bolted to the table literally
can't move your head. The guy can speak
but he can't move his head but they're
little micro movements because the brain
is pulsing.
>> So this is happening in real time. So
the cool thing is
>> yeah this video will release to the
internet. I think the patient will agree
to
>> the whole thing. The patient the patient
has been very willing to do.
>> Yeah. This guy is a true medical science
stud. He's a I and he's an awesome
family man and friend and he's just a
he's a hero of science in my opinion.
>> What are they using like tiny little
scalpels?
>> So here actually is a technology he's
using to record from and stimulate the
brain. If you put in um Jamie if you go
to
>> Well, what is that like inside the head
that
>> ways to stimulate the brain?
>> It's called the Bravo
>> mesh.
>> Yeah, it's like a mesh that will
stimulate certain brain tissue. It will
also record if you put in poncho
paralyzed Eddie Chang.
>> I did. I I got the this story here from
New York Times.
>> That mesh that stimulates the brain.
What was that installed for?
>> To stimulate the areas of the brain that
can help us facilitate recovery of what
tissue is still there.
>> Whoa.
>> Because
>> Eddie came up through a lab by a guy by
the name of Mike Mersik. And I actually
talk about this in the book in the
chapter on learning. You know, until the
early '9s, people thought you couldn't
learn after age 25, that there was no
plasticity
>> into the early '9s.
>> Yeah. And then basically three guys, it
was Mike Mnik, a guy named Michael
Kilgard, who's down in Dallas, or maybe
it's Houston, he's here in Texas, and
and a guy named Greg Reinzone, who is
this brilliant scientist. They did these
studies at first in monkeys and then in
humans which showed that if you take
adult monkeys or humans and you have
them pay really careful attention to a
task that the brain changes and that the
experiment is very simple. It's like
this. So they had monkeys or a human can
do this feel a little like a rotating
drum and the drums got bumps on it like
braille. Okay. and the recording from an
area of the brain that responds to
touch. And the monkeykey's job is to to
basically press a lever anytime the
bumps go from coarse to more fine. So
think big bumps, small bumps.
The monkey plays this game and every
time they get it right, they get some
juice. Monkeys like juice. Press the
lever. Press the lever. Press the lever.
These are adult monkeys. They come back
sometime later and the brain area
representing the fingers has expanded.
It's the brain has changed. There's
plasticity. it learned. But what I
didn't tell you is at the same time
they're doing these experiments, there's
a sound in the room. Okay? Now, they do
a different experiment where the monkey
is still feeling the bumps, but the
monkey is trained to listen to changes
in the sound, subtle changes in the
frequency of the sound, high to low or
low to high. And if they get that right,
they press if they press they think they
went from high to low and that's the
task, they press the lever or they pull
the joystick and they get some juice.
Under those conditions, the area of the
brain responsible for hearing changes.
Now, the key thing here is the
experience is the same in both cases.
They're hearing and touching in both
experiments, but the key difference is
what they're paying attention to. The
brain of the adult does not change just
because of passive experience. The brain
of the adult, and this is true in humans
too, changes because of what you attend
to. And when we start talking about
neuroplasticity and learning, everyone
would like to think, "Oh, my brain is
different at the end of this
conversation than before." You don't
learn from passive experience. You learn
from focusing and the friction that's
accompanying trying to do things right
and sometimes getting it wrong. The
error signal is what instructs the brain
to change.
>> I'm sure you know this from martial
arts. I'm sure you know this from other
areas of life, too. If your brain can do
something, there's no reason for it to
change. No rewiring is needed,
>> right?
>> But if you're trying to do this, I don't
know martial arts well. I mean, I did a
little bit of tie boxing when I was
younger. I boxed in my 30s, which was
really dumb, by the way, as a
neuroscience professor. I'd spar on
Wednesday nights in San Diego where you
got all these Marines and all these like
team guys. It was so dumb. I'd come home
like all busted up. My girlfriend was
like, "What are you doing?" I was like,
"Uh, you know, I like it." She's like,
"You don't get paid to do this, you
know, but it was a lot of fun. Like, you
learn I think you learn a lot from
sparring."
>> I wish it wasn't bad for your brain.
>> I wish it wasn't bad for your brain. I
will say this. I'm not encouraging
anyone to box, you know, unless they
really want to. But I also learned a lot
about how to stay calm when you're
getting your ass beat and how to think
clearly. And
>> it's also I think Sam uh who's the guy
who wrote a fighter's heart. I love that
book.
>> Sam Shepard.
>> Sam Shepard. He also talks about like
it's like an intimate thing to spar with
somebody. Like what does he say? He's
like you're sharing bodily fluids with
somebody. It's like a one night stand.
Yeah. That's not what you like you you
develop a closeness with the people that
you spar with, a respect. and I wasn't
fast enough. I don't think my timing was
really good. I eventually learned that
I'm my I have a long reach that could
help me, but I realized I I can't be
doing this and I was a neuroscience
professor, but I really enjoyed it.
>> It's not something that you really get
excellent at if you learn late in life,
unfortunately, unless you're a very
unusual athlete.
>> Yeah.
>> Most uh people who get good at striking,
striking in particular, they start out
very young.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's how they get good at it.
There's a level that they reach that
someone who starts out late in life,
even if you're a good athlete, you
probably never reach that level.
>> Yeah.
>> Like was Mayweather, perfect example,
>> man. He's just
>> there's something about him. He's he's,
you know, one of the greatest of all
time. But I think there's something to
the fact that he started when he was
really, really, really, really young and
he had a dad who was a world-class boxer
and he had an uncle who was a world
champion boxer. It's like he was around
it from the time he was young. So
there's like pathways that they develop
and their body their body develops and
grows while striking and there's
something about the maturation process
of the this is like just my anecdotal
experience from watching people learn
striking. It seems like the people that
are really elite at it, they grew up
with their bodies. As their bodies were
maturing, they were learning it. And
then it seems like there's a there's a
[ __ ] there's a something that they
have that you don't get later in life.
You can get really good if you're a good
athlete learning it later in life.
You're never never going to get best of
ever world champion status. Like you
have to have a super long journey and it
has to start when you're a [ __ ] kid.
So, it's like your brain has to be
evolving, learning those skills,
learning timing and distance and
fainting and how people react and how to
map out potential reactions from certain
move, how to lure them into things. It's
too much.
>> Yeah. I I learned a lot boxing. I mean,
I at least three things. One is um that
uh landing like a like sinking like a
like a one-two combination feels really
good.
>> Feels real good.
>> I also learned it's hard to do.
>> It's hard to do. I also learned that
there's this thing called a really good
counter puncher where you land a jab and
you eat four
>> and you're just like and the world's
just spinning. You're seeing stars. I
also realized that six-pack abs don't
mean [ __ ] you're down near the Mexican
border like it's some the gym I trained
at was like pretty far south in San
Diego and some guys would roll in and
like you wouldn't think much of them
like they like unpeel they like you
because everyone would spar on
Wednesdays you know and um they try and
match people up by weight and you see
guys that did not look in shape who
could move and you just get battered I
mean they they're just if they know how
to move properly so that was a good
teaching and then the last thing that
like I really took away and I think
about this on the internet too is
there's always like one guy in the gym
who moves really well on the bag who's
like speed bag and heavy bag and just
looks so crisp, super in shape and they
never spar and they sit like at the edge
of the ring and they give all sorts of
advice about what you're supposed to do
when you're in there and then if you go
and I finally did cuz in skateboarding I
wasn't that good of a skateboarder but
they like like come on like drop in like
let's go like let's have fun like
skateboard is a very inviting sport it's
not like surfing where like guarding the
waves right
>> and I was like come on in oh no my
should Every week I'd be like, "Hey,
come on in. Like, let's just like do a
couple rounds." Like, you always have
advice for everybody. Let's do a couple
round. Never did. And finally, the guy
that owns the gym came over and goes,
"That guy's never boxed around in his
life."
>> You know, he probably did when he was a
kid. He ate a few punches and like he
just but looks really mint. And so, you
know, this is like the internet. People
like quick to criticize, but like, "All
right, like get in there and do like you
come out here and let's play,
>> you know?" And so, I have to be careful.
You have to be careful with that one
because the guy could have gone in there
and taken my head off. But I was
realized I was like there are a lot of
people that hang what do they call it
like the skirt like hang out on the
skirt and just give advice all day like
don't cork screw your jab cork screw I'm
like who are these people
>> you know like if you so it's it's kind
of nice actually to to get that
experience. I mean it was late in in
life. I mean I talk a little bit in the
book when I was younger I definitely got
into a lot of scraps. I was kind of like
a live wire. I do not recommend um
>> no fighting's terrible but there's
something about martial arts about the
fear and learning how to stay calm while
you're sparring. I think jiu-jitsu is
the best one because although there's
always a risk of injury in jiu-jitsu um
you're not getting hit all the time and
so you could go pretty hard and that's
the difference really between um martial
arts sparring like kickboxing and things
along those lines and boxing and and
jiu-jitsu because in jiu-jitsu is many
times if you're training in a really
good gym with really good guys you're
going full clip and both you and him are
going full clip and there's no
animosity. They might be one of your
best friends. you guys are just doing
the thing that you do full clip. But by
doing it full clip because if he catches
you like he gets your arm, you just tap
and then you go again.
>> As long as your ego is healthy, as long
as you understand what you're doing and
knowing and he's not yanking on your
knees and ripping your knees apart with
heel hooks and stuff like like letting
someone tap, as long as you do that,
you're literally going full clip. So you
learn how to stay calm and you also get
very comfortable with going full clip.
So, if you're in a situation, if you're
a guy who only does point karate
sparring and you're just touching each
other and they stop and touch each other
and then you're in some wild melee at a
bar where where someone's swinging at
you full blast and throwing wild
haymaker punches and you're panicking
because you're not used to this
scenario. A jiu-jitsu person is used to
someone going full blast. So, they'll
grab a hold of you and it'll be just
routine. They just drag you to the
ground, trip you, get on top, mount,
choke you, whatever the [ __ ] they want
to do essentially once they get a hold
of you. They do it all the time full
blast. That's why I think it's the
superior martial art for self-defense
because you're if you're going to really
learn how to fight like striking, you're
going to get hit and you're going to get
hit a lot and you're going to be hitting
people a lot and you're going to be
going to war with each other and it's
[ __ ] dangerous and it's really bad
for your brain. And that's really the
only way to learn how to be calm when
you're actually sparring or actually
fighting someone. But with jiu-jitsu,
there's all that fear of brain damage
removed. All the fear of like really
serious injury is greatly mitigated by
tapping and good training partners.
>> I need to get into it. I mean,
>> it's such a fun thing to learn, too,
man.
>> It's funny. We talk about boxing. It's
like that, you know, I think combat if
to some people it just feels good.
There's a circuit there. There's
actually a a friend of mine who's got a
lab up at the University of Washington
and he studies um this brain circuit.
You know that male mice will work hard
for the opportunity to fight other mice.
You know, we always hear like, oh, they
just want pleasure, no pain. Like male
mice have a circuit and they will work
their asses off figuring out puzzles
that would perplex like 30% of the adult
population across the world. And these
mice can figure it out. And it's hard
work for them to figure out these light
sequences or lever press sequences. For
what? Not for a piece of food, not for
water when they're thirsty, not for like
methamphetamine, but to fight another
mouse and then they're like, it's they
love fighting.
>> That's crazy. And knew that.
>> Oh yeah.
>> They'll work hard and their reward is
they get to fight a mouse.
>> Yeah. I mean, the mouse fight another
mouse. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
>> That's crazy.
>> Yeah. I think it's I think again it's
these deeper brain circuits that we all
harbor and I think some people are like
oh no that's not even within me. I think
you know it varies. I mean my dad is
from South America. He went to like a
boarding military type school when he
was a kid. He said everyone had to box.
Well it was a boy school. It was all
dudes. They all had to box. Everyone had
to box and they'd make them spar. I was
like box like you know like boxing
drills. He's like no they'd like pit us
against each other until you'd find the
kind of combination of people that were
about equal and then they just like put
you to work on each other. The idea was
you were supposed to he's you know both
learn the gentlemanly aspects about you
know touch gloves and the things
afterwards you have to like you know so
there's that and he's like no but you
were supposed to try and stay calm in
the in getting you know while trying to
beat up the other person then beat you
up. I think there's value in it.
>> There's value in it and there's value in
just what we were talking about earlier
about doing difficult things. I think it
is one of the most difficult things you
could choose to do that you can
voluntarily sign yourself up for a place
where you're going to experience pain
and and severe discomfort and a very
perplexing puzzle trying to figure out
how to hit someone who doesn't want to
get hit and they're trying to hit you
and you're trying not to get hit or you
know get tapped or whatever whatever
wrestle whatever whatever you're doing.
It's a very difficult thing to do and
those very difficult things to do make
the rest of your life easier. It's like
we were talking about getting [ __ ] for
cold punches. I don't know if I get [ __ ]
for talking about cold punches, but
anybody who doesn't think you should
coal punch hasn't coal punched. The
people that do it and the people that
say don't do it, they just they they're
coming up with excuses because it's
[ __ ] terrifying and nobody likes it.
It sucks.
>> Well, there's this Well,
>> but what I was going to get to is
>> it's not a cure. There's no cure.
There's a bunch of different excellent
practices and if you stack those up
throughout your day, diet, nutrition,
sunlight, exercise, all these different
things, cold plunge, sauna, your life's
going to be better.
>> And I think a thing like martial arts,
particularly jiu-jitsu, is a great
addition to that. And if you don't like
that, yoga is another great addition.
It's one of the best things that I we
did a sober October challenge where we
did 15 days of yoga in the month. Yeah.
90minute sessions. Was Bert doing this
too?
>> Yeah, we all did it. We did it together.
It was one of the best months I've ever
had in my life because you just feel so
good and so calm and the rest of your
life is easier. [ __ ] hot yoga is a
[ __ ] man. It's really hard to do.
Those 90minute sessions are [ __ ]
hard. And when it's over, you are spent
and you you become the nicest person on
earth. Totally. And the rest of your day
is so much easier than that last 15
minutes of struggle, sweating like like
it's pouring rain outside. I mean, it's
crazy how hard it is to do those 90
minutes if you're doing them right. Mo
you need a bunch of those things in your
life. You do. If you don't, you're going
to suffer. It's like there's a balancing
act that you have to acknowledge. It's
interesting how the two things that
really seem to, you know, catch fire out
there were the idea that cold plunges
block hypertrophy and strength
adaptations if done in the six hours
after weight training, but you can do it
before and it has tremendous benefit. I
think it's mental training. And then the
other one was the cortisol thing.
>> You know, this idea like, oh, it raises
cortisol. The data all say it does not
raise cortisol. Marginally, maybe, but
mostly reduces cortisol and buffers your
cortisol response to stress. And I think
in the women's fitness community, this
was especially kind of catchy. People
thought, "Oh, cortisol bad. Cortisol
bad." I mean, the entire book could be
summarized as get your morning cortisol
high and your nighttime cortisol low and
your life's going to be a hundred times
better. Why? Because when you view
bright light, drink caffeine, exercise,
do cold exposure in the morning, and
your cortisol spikes. It ensures that
your nighttime cortisol is low, which
means it's easier to fall asleep. And if
you have any stress during the middle of
the day, this is I think explains your
whole thing of doing hard things makes
life easier. When you spike your
cortisol in the morning, if you have a
stressful interaction or something
happens during the day, you do get an
increase in adrenaline and cortisol to
stress, but it's brief. If you don't,
it's very big and it's very prolonged.
So all these people, they're like
chronically stressed. The state of the
world, look, the state of the world is
complicated, but they're constantly
feeling oppressed by life, overwhelmed
by life.
>> If they were to do a couple things in
the morning, view bright light, ideally
from sunlight. I've talked about these
things before. Cold shower or cold
plunge, 30 seconds, right? Just
uncomfortably cold, then get out.
Exercise of some sort that's
high-intensity interval training or lift
some weights that are heavy for them.
that kind of thing for 45 minutes to an
hour for the weights, maybe just even 10
minutes for the highintensity stuff and
head into the day. Bouts of stress will
happen, but your hormonal response to
them will be severely blunted. There's
so much data on this. And people always
say, "But is that just true for men?"
No, it's also true for women. And so
people are weak because their cortisol
levels are too low in the morning and
they're too high all day long. Then at
night they're like, "Oh, I can't sleep.
I'm stressed." and this and that. Well,
you've set yourself up to be a
vulnerable creature in the last third of
your day. So, that first hour of the day
sets the whole stage. And if you can't
exercise in that first hour, fine. You
do in the afternoon, no big deal. But if
we just understood that cortisol spiked
in the morning is perhaps the best thing
we can do for our health, I think the
world would be so much better off. But
everyone's like, "Oh, I already am too
stressed and cortisol is going to make
me retain fat." It's like, no.
>> People love excuses. People love
excuses.
>> Excuses why not take action are that's
one of the greatest things that people
indulge in.
>> People love excuses. The We didn't close
the hatch on the neuroplasticity thing.
I just want to make sure I do that which
is what you focus on, you can change.
You can learn skills if you focus. And
the agitation that you feel when trying
to learn, that is the reflection of the
cocktail of neurom modulators in the
brain and body that allow the circuits
to change. I wish I had been told this
in like the third grade. If they said,
"Hey, when you're trying to learn
something and it's easy, great." But
when you're trying to learn something
and it's high friction, like you can't
do it, that frustration is the first
gate of learning opening. And right on
the other side of that is you continuing
to try a little bit more. You have to do
this through genuine attempts to learn,
but you get some errors. So you can't
just do throwaway errors, right? If I'm
trying to learn billiards, which I'm
only modestly poor at, right? If I'm
trying to get better and I'm just like
hitting the ball wherever. You don't
learn obviously, but if I'm trying and
trying, the error signal sends a message
to the brain that generates this
agitation. The agitation tags the the
neurons. It literally puts a chemical
tag on these neurons. Tonight, when you
sleep, you need to change. That's what
agitation does. And then when you get to
sleep at night, those circuits change.
And then you come back a few days later,
you might not have the skill, but you're
a little bit closer.
>> Does that make sense? Like
>> that's neuroplasticity.
>> Particularly in martial arts, the the
the kids when you see kids, the kids
that get really frustrated when they
don't learn and they get really
frustrated and they they get real upset
if they get tapped, they usually wind up
getting really good.
>> Interesting. Yeah. The more
>> the ones who are like very emotionally
attached, as long as they can control
it, you know, but there there has to be
like you can't go, well, you got me.
It's it's got to be [ __ ]
>> right?
>> [ __ ] and then harnessing your and then
pulling back and like okay this next one
and this next one
>> stay calm but that [ __ ] even if you
don't express it outright that [ __ ]
thought in your head is always going to
be there
>> yes that that error signal and I go into
the brain circuitry that's responsible
for this and which neurochemicals it is
and on and on but that signal is what
gates neuroplasticity one of the reasons
why psychedelics are so effective in
allowing plasticity because they are I
want to just be very blunt about this
the massive increases in serotonin with
psilocybin, the massive increases in
serotonin and dopamine with MDMA because
that's kind of the hallmark of MDMA.
It's very unique drug. It increases
dopamine and serotonin together.
Normally, they're on a bit of a seessaw,
but they increases both. Those are what
we call neurom modulators. They make the
brain more amendable to plasticity
during the session and in the weeks that
follow. So, what are these
neuromodulators? Well, dopamine,
serotonin, acetyloline, norepinephrine,
epinephrine, also called adrenaline. You
go, okay, well, that's a big list of
molecules. The key discovery of those
guys, Merzineic, Reinazone, and Kilgard
that I mentioned earlier, you can give
an animal or a person any molecule that
will increase those. Give them a
learning session, and they'll learn
better.
>> It's not specific to one neurom
modulator. And if you give somebody
propranolol, a drug that blocks the
receptors that adrenaline binds to after
learning, they won't learn as well. They
you can't remember stuff. Why? Because
there wasn't enough adrenaline. If you
want to remember something, you need
that frustration. You need the
adrenaline.
>> So if someone's like fearful of learning
something and they take some sort of a
beta blocker,
>> blocks learning.
>> Wow.
>> Great data on this. Larry Cahill and
James McGoff if people want to look it
up. Beautiful literature. And they site
studies that these are more historical
references where they would give kids um
people would give kids lessons and then
throw them into a cold river to spike
their adrenaline. Like people have been
playing with this stuff for a very long
time. Wow.
>> Yeah. So nicotine for instance people
think is it a cognitive enhancer? It is
if you don't do it all the time every
day. But if you, you know, I talk about
nicotine and it's, you know, it's pretty
habit forming, but if you take it before
or after learning something, even after,
right, before, during, or after learning
something, and you're not
highly saturated with nicotine already,
yeah, you'll you'll enhance your ability
to learn that thing.
>> The problem is people are just popping
them all day long, every day, just to
get to baseline. Like we
>> for fun,
>> we drink caffeine to get to baseline. We
take nicotine to get to baseline. Are
you on the nicotine?
>> I take them. But I wanted to ask you
this about um addiction
>> about is there a biological component to
addiction? Um and one of the reasons why
I ask is uh I because I I take these uh
Tucker Carlson sends me these Alps. I
like these.
>> They taste different than the other ones
I've
>> tried athletic nicotine, Zen. I've not
tried
>> I like athletic nicotine. That's
probably my favorite. Like the threes
because it's mild. Yeah. the little
three milligrams. My point is, uh, I do
it all the time and I take them before
shows. I like to suck on them before I
go on stage. Um, but when I went on
vacation for 10 days, I didn't bring any
on purpose. So, I was like, let's see
what this is like. Nothing. And I've
heard so many people say that they they
have horrible cravings. They can't
tolerate it. They go nuts. They just
need a they need nicotine. And I'm
sitting there like on day two like
waiting for it to come on. Nope.
Nothing. I just I'm not on nicotine.
>> I mean, you're a bit of a mutant, too.
You know,
>> I don't know what it is.
>> Like I mean, just because you you're so
it sounds to me like you're so familiar
with discomfort, you may not even
register that like a mild tiny bit of
withdrawal. But it is interesting, you
know, because if I don't drink caffeine,
like life is a lot less interesting to
me. And I've been drinking I've been
drinking a [ __ ] ton of caffeine. I mean,
I've got a picture my I'm half
Argentine, so there's a picture of me on
my grandfather's lap drinking mate from
a gourd when I'm like 3 years old in my
Spider-Man pajamas. You know, I people
on the internet, they go, "Oh, I I don't
believe I'll probably drink 800
milligrams of caffeine a day and I'm
fine." But if I don't drink caffeine,
like I'm just like, "Oh, man. I I'm I
don't know if I'm addicted in the
classic sense, like I'm not going to go
rob old ladies to get caffeine. I'm not
I'm not uh you know, I'm not, you know,
going to harm myself with it. If
anything, it shows that it can offset
dementia. I mean, the new data basically
say up to about 400 milligrams per day.
It caffeine is great
>> for the brain, for the body. You know,
it's people have anxiety, it can be
problematic, but you just might not have
um
I mean, you may just naturally make a
lot of acetylcholine and so when you
don't take nicotine, maybe you just
rebound really fast.
>> I don't know if that's it. Uh, I mean, I
do take neutropics that might have an
effect on it, but definitely,
>> but I didn't bring any with me when I
was on vacation.
>> Amazing.
>> I just brought vitamins.
>> No cigars.
>> Nope. No cigars.
>> What kind of vacation was it?
>> It was fun. I enjoyed it. Just family
vacation. But the point is, uh, I was
waiting for this thing that everybody
told me was coming and it never showed
up at all. There was zero. I I mean, it
wasn't hard. It wasn't a thing.
>> It was just to do, right? And I do
sometimes during the day like I'll wake
up in the morning and say um I'm not
going to eat them today. I'm not going
to take any nicotine. But I always
wonder like is it just I got lucky. Like
some people they literally cannot drink.
Alcoholism is in their genetics. Like
they have families that are alcoholics.
That's a real thing and they just can't
handle it.
>> Yeah. I mean the the guys who started AA
talked about an allergy. They described
it as like an allergy. Like some people
when they drink alcohol their their
first experience I had a friend like
this from childhood became an alcoholic
not surprisingly and when he drank the
first or second time he was like this is
how I'm meant to feel.
>> Oh boy.
>> Like if he felt like it completed
something in him. I don't feel that way
with alcohol. I don't drink but I could
without problems. You know you're sort
of on off now, right? Like occasional
drink.
>> I don't get drunk anymore. I'll have a
drink or two but I don't get drunk
anymore. I think that was the
>> getting drunk. No, no, no, no, no, no,
no. When I took the 8 months off, I
didn't even miss alcohol. But then, uh,
I went to dinner, had a margarita. I was
like, "Ooh, I miss this. This is fun.
This is nice." But the key is like I
just wanted to take some time off and
just not feel like [ __ ] Cuz my problem
was I was stacking too many days where I
was having a drink or two on the podcast
and then I was having a drink or two at
the club and then, you know, you do
multiple days of that and you feel like
[ __ ] and it was like affecting my
workouts and I said, "This is stupid."
And I didn't miss it at all. But when I
did a drink or two, I'm like, okay, I
see there is a benefit from social
lubricant aspect. There's a funness to a
glass of wine or, you know,
>> sure,
>> a glass of whiskey. But the thing is,
just understand what you're doing and
don't [ __ ] your body up and try to do
your best. Take a lot of glutathione,
mitigate whatever you're doing to your
body by actually consuming alcohol. And
more likely, you don't need as much as
you're going to drink. That's the
problem. But to have a good time, a
couple drinks, you have a good time.
Five, six drinks, it's not really a good
time anymore. You're kind of [ __ ]
plastered and you sound stupid.
>> And nowadays, you know, with cameras and
stuff, people people say stupid stuff. I
mean, I drank in college and and I drank
after a bit and I just drank less and
less. But,
>> you know, when I was a junior professor,
my girlfriend at the time, like she just
had the genetics where she could have a
couple drinks and and really enjoy it.
Just like really enjoy it. And I mean, I
think some people can do that. So, okay.
What are the genetics that would cause
someone to be like severely addicted to
nicotine? Another one that I hear about
all the time is
uh we had a guy who came and did the
podcast and someone had sent us
someratom. One of our guests like had a
cratom company. I'm like and it was just
laying around the kitchen and he goes,
"You're not taking that, are you?" I go,
"No, some guy just sent it to me." And
he goes, "Get rid of that shit." He
goes, "It is the [ __ ] hardest thing
to kick." I go, "Really?" He goes,
"Yeah, I'm on it. It's horrible." He
goes, "It's an awful high." and he goes,
"And I'm [ __ ] I'm really struggling
to get off of it."
>> And I was I was kind of stunned. I was
like, "Well, I've taken it before and it
didn't seem like
>> it would be that thing, like a thing
that would make you addicted, but
apparently
it's like any other opioid. Like you can
get like fully wrapped up in that
stuff." So, but what is it about some
people and their biology that makes them
more susceptible to whether it's
nicotine or caffeine or whatever it is?
>> It's going to undoubtedly have to do
with the genetics that line up the
receptors in the brain that lead some
people to have a very different
experience with one substance versus
another. For for instance, there's a
subset of people about 8% of people that
when they drink alcohol, they experience
a much more euphoric high from it. These
people tend to recover very easily the
next morning. It's that's independent of
tolerance. It tends to run in families.
These people are very high
susceptibility to like severe alcohol
use disorder, what we you and I know as
alcoholism.
There are people who take their first
drink as I mentioned before and are just
like this completes me, right? And those
people usually have certain genetic
backgrounds. You know, we don't like to
talk about this, but there certain
genetic backgrounds. probably have high
levels of the enzyme that that can
digest alcohol, right? You know, it can
break down alcohol because it is a
poison. But if you're dig if you're
breaking it down more quickly, maybe
it's not impacting your microbiome and
your sleep quite as much. And so you can
drink a lot more and sleep fine and do
fine. And it varies by age, too. You
know, two glasses of wine at 60 feels
very different at two glasses of wine at
like, you know, at 25, as most people
will tell you, right? We're just
different resilience.
In general, what the data say is that
kids who took their first drink really
young, like 12, 13, 14, are have a are
greatly predisposed to alcoholism later.
But it's hard to dissociate that from
this environmental circumstances around
that. Why are they drinking at 12 or 13?
You know, I think I took my first drink
of alcohol, I'm not proud of this, at
11. a friend, I won't mention his name,
went to his house and he goes, "Hey, you
know, my dad's got some I think it was
like wine coolers or something and we
were and we we drank him and we got, you
know, we got drunk and uh yeah, I was I
wasn't a bad kid, but we got drunk and
but the earlier you drink, the more
susceptible you are to alcoholism, but I
never became an alcoholic. But I will
tell you that my love of caffeine, my
love of energy, focus, and that sort of
thing makes me like about half the
population who are probably have a
decent susceptibility to stimulants.
I've never done cocaine. I've never done
speed. I've never done aderall or
vivance. We could talk about stimulants.
And in the book, I talk about um some of
the newer stimulants that are still
amphetamine like but a little bit
potentially safer.
>> Do you do anything like medafanyl?
>> I don't. I took one modafanyl, couldn't
sleep for two days. I'm very very
sensitive to these things. There is a a
drug that's approved for excessive
daytime sleepiness that I took on a trip
where I was underslept and I needed to
to work um called Senosi. It's a that's
now in phase three for um mild attention
deficit. And I've I've taken that and I
I don't use it often, but I find that it
it really dials in focus and energy in a
way that still allows sleep. And it for
me was a much gentler and felt better
than than modafanyl or arm modafinyl.
>> For me, the best thing that I've ever
discovered for mitigating that feeling
of being groggy with sleep deprivation
is creatine.
>> That definitely helps. The the data on
creatine for strength
>> are there. The data for creatine on
enhancing cognition when mildly sleepd
deprived are there. That's really where
the powerful data is.
>> You can feel it. It is
>> definitely definitely it's a fuel for
the phosphor creatine system for the
forbrain the part of your brain that's
involved in strategy setting etc. I
would say about half and these are broad
numbers right you know these aren't you
know from a one study that the real
expert on all this by the way is my
colleague Keith Humphre at Stanford and
we could talk about some of the
interesting things that he's found but
the about half the population seems to
like sedatives they like Vicodin they
like opioids I had a a tooth surgery a
long time ago they gave me Vicodin I
took half of one I never wanted that
experience again you know but I know
people who are like Vicodin they love
Vicodin they love being sedated they
like being sedated. They like being
brought down a bit in terms of arousal.
Some people like being ramped up. And I
think you one needs to be aware of their
genetics and their predisposition for
one or the other. Some people like both.
But generally people fall into one or
the other category. And I think now that
many more people are avoiding alcohol.
The ones who say, "Oh yeah, it's easy
and I never liked it." People like me. I
think they're probably more of the, you
know, they like stimulants. They like
caffeine. They like nicotine. They like
being up and alert. You don't even need
a substance for that. So some people
like both, but I think people generally
been into these categories. You asked
aboutratom.
>> So the world expert on this is amazing
guy. He was on my podcast. His name is
Chris McCertie. He's a professor down in
Florida. And man, he has the best take
on this. So the the community online
aroundratom is very split. If you put
out something aboutratom, half of people
will say this stuff is evil. It's
opioids. This is like Oxycontton. Get
out of here. the other half will say,
"This stuff saved me."
>> Right?
>> So, you go like, "What's going on?" And
whenever I see that, I go, "There's some
interesting biology here, right? There's
a sociology there." But as a biologist,
I'm like, "What's the biology?" So, I
brought Chris on. He said, "Here's the
deal. In America,
pharma companies develop drugs based on
bioprospecting. Peptides are a different
story, and we can talk about that. But
bioprospecting is finding alkyoids and
other substances in plants, purifying
the substance, the alkyoid that gives a
specific effect and developing a drug.
Cocaine, it comes from the cocoa plant,
obviously from the cocoa leaf. And he
said the experience of chewing cocoa
leaf is very different than the
experience of cocaine. The experience of
the I'm going to call itratom because I
know there's another way to pronounce
it, but I just feel weird saying it like
or something like that. But you know the
cratom leaf he said when people chew the
cratom leaf but the leaf they feel a
calm but also energized it's how you and
I would think of like a strong coffee or
a yer
>> right
>> but what's happened in this country is
that companies have synthesized
pureratom
they've taken one of the compounds in
theratom leaf and they've isolated it
and now they've made it synthetically
and that leads to a very different
experience and addiction potential and
it's so it's incredible incredible
because he said, "You know, the the most
protected building in the entire United
States, these are his words, not mine is
the Coca-Cola factory." Why? He said,
"Well, you know, years ago, they had new
Coke and they took out the the the
flavor that they get all this they still
get all this cocoa leaf scent to this
factory in the United States. It's still
going there." And then they extract the
components that they need to put it into
Coca-Cola to this day. This happened
today. And then we drink Coca-Cola. So
I'm like there so there's
>> and they use the cocaine they get from
it for medical cocaine use
>> that it is it is cocaine is approved
it's not schedule one that's right it's
schedule two as a um as an anesthetic
that's right so Chris really nails it
right like so many things in science and
medicine we're sayingratom goodratom bad
turns out it's the synthetic product
that is bad highly addictive
>> so when you have those drinks like what
is it live free aren't those is that is
that theratom synthetic or is that
plant.
>> I think it's the plantder derived
isolated which is somewhere in between
the two.
>> But this is but if you you and I would
both say okay like kids taking cocaine
not good. But Chris would say the the
cocoa leaf actually is a very
interesting leaf that actually has some
some could be a he'll talk about this as
like it could be an interesting
stimulant compound for people but people
love it's the same thing with THC you
know like people will say oh you know
let's just get the highest dose of THC
into an edible and then people are
they're eating it too fast they don't
know how to gauge their plane of high
and then we hear about certain people
having psychosis and this kind of thing
well what happened right when you and I
were growing up. Look, I mean, where I
grew up, everyone learned how to smoke a
joint and take a bong rip. I'm not
suggesting anyone do this, but you knew
if you could handle one or a half.
>> You learned the hard way.
>> Exactly. You learn the hard way. I found
I didn't like cannabis, but what you
didn't do was eat half of a cookie that
had 200 milligrams of THC and find
yourself in a psychotic episode. And so
nowadays there's when we isolate things
and we enrich them and we take them in
that isolated form, that's when they get
really precarious.
>> Yeah.
>> So that's the story. And by the way, um
>> I know people are always coming on here
and telling you you should talk to so
and so.
>> If you want to talk to someone highly
educated on all these compounds,
bioprospecting, pharma versus plant
medicine, and all of this, Chris
McCertie is your man. He is, like I'm
paraphrasing here, but he's a savant of
this stuff. And he comes in with no
judgment. And so he'll say the leaf
products are very different than the
isolated. The isolated are very
different than the isolated synthetic
products. And that therein is where the
you know the legislature needs to look
because in this country as you know we
go like all drugs bad or then we go wait
there's these incredible compounds in
plants that we we want right that
>> parallel and refined sugar right
>> parallel and refined exa. Exactly. Yeah,
>> let's figure out in food what makes it
so rewarding that people just
desperately want to buy more even though
they don't even really like the taste of
it,
>> right? Let's and let's make it in a way
that never is in nature, unattached to
fiber, unattached to nutrients.
>> Usually, if you get sugar in nature,
it's in an orange and it's good for you.
It's like a trick to get you to eat the
orange.
>> Yeah, it's business and it's diabolical
and then we always end up about five or
six years down the road and go, "Oh, we
got all these problems." But what's
interesting, you know, is I didn't
realize that pharma companies
bioprospect from the jungle. They still
send people to the jungle. We always
think of the jungle as like this place
that only shamans go, right? You know,
but no, American and Swiss and German
companies send bioprosctors down there
to isolate compounds from plants with
the understanding there all these
medicines there.
>> Yeah.
>> But we don't hear about all the others.
The interesting thing about peptides is
that this is the first time that we are
bioprospecting from the body. These are
things that the body makes. And I I
can't take credit for that
understanding. That's really that
distinction which I think is a key one
for people to understand is Dr. Abu
Bakri. This you know MD who uh you and I
are familiar with who in my mind just
really understands the biology of
peptides. because he's a practicing
physician outside of peptide biology. I
think he's an intensive care guy um or
critical care. He he can kind of see the
picture now. Yes, insulin is a peptide.
It came from the body. But all these
peptides now pharma companies are like
what is the body making? Like in the
case of GLPs, when you increase GLPs
twofold, twofold, four-fold, you can see
some relief from type 2 diabetes, some
but not much weight loss. That'd been
happening for a decade. But when you
increase it a thousandfold, wow, people
don't want to eat. People don't think,
okay, we could talk about the the
ramifications of that, but pharma
companies are now thinking very
seriously about finding all the peptides
in the body and which ones are going to
be potent for there's a new one for
increasing bone density for osteoporosis
and then all the, you know, people are
thinking about biohacking with this as
well. There's pinealon which I'll
occasionally take and you get three
hours of REM sleep that night and on
subsequent nights your REM sleep is
enriched. Interesting you know um we all
we know GLP's obviously BPC57 is the one
everyone seems to kind of go to but I
think that there are a lot of
interesting peptides that we've known
about for a long time like kissepin
which is involved in uh resetting the
reproductive system. It's involved in
puberty but it's being used to reset the
reproductive system. all these peptides.
I think the next few years it's going to
be a bonanza of peptides. And I get [ __ ]
for saying it, but I'm super excited
because my physician friends who are
super standard physicians, they're
calling me like, hey man, my knee, is
this BPC57 stuff going to work? And I
go, I don't know. You can try it. I know
some clean sources of it. And then
they'll come back a week later and like,
why isn't anyone selling this, studying
it, talking about this? I'm like, well,
they are, but your community doesn't
like to talk about this.
>> Well, there's a lot of people that
dismiss it, and the way they dismiss it
is very it's very gaslighty. They
they're they're bullshitting you that
all these anecdotal stories aren't
significant. That all these professional
athletes that using it don't or that are
using it with with great benefit don't
know what they're talking about.
>> It's threatening to them. I mean they
they I mean as my I feel like I'm
quoting my dad today.
>> It's threatening because of compoundies
>> and it's threatening because these a lot
of these physicians are going to lose
their
>> standing in the field as these pe
there's something important to
understand about physicians and again
there are many excellent ones. I
referenced a few today right um many
excellent ones but they there's a
guarding of knowledge that existed in
the science community up until a few
years ago when podcasts hit. It wasn't
just me, you know, Bob Seapolski was a
pioneer and getting out there and
teaching the public and every scientist
who's gone out into the public
eventually gets this push back like,
"Yeah, our field doesn't really take him
or her seriously." It's in sometimes
that's legitimate um criticism, although
not in in Bob's case. And in many cases,
it's because you've taken their thing.
It's their baby. It's what gives them
value. I know I grew up around
scientists. It's what gives them their
value, their knowledge that no one else
has. It allows them to be interesting.
They now have to have people coming up
to them and going, "Oh, did you see this
podcast with so- and so talking about
this thing in anthropology on Rogan?"
And they're like, "Oh my god, like
that's my field." Like, you know, and
they they it's a self-worth issue.
>> They're not like, "Oh, anthropology is
getting publicity." Yes. Or the good
ones are, the secure ones are, but the
physicians who are like, "Wow, if
there's a compound that's making
patients feel better really quickly,
what's that going to do to my practice?"
And then if I embrace it, my Here's the
key thing. If I embrace it, my
colleagues won't think much of me. And
if I don't embrace it, maybe I'm going
to lose my standing, my validity as
somebody of authority. If I've got
patients coming to me and saying, I had
this friend that took this thing and it
really helped. Could I explore that and
I don't do that and they go elsewhere?
Word spreads fast nowadays. So I like
scientists and physicians. I also
understand scientists and physicians. I
my father's a scientist. I grew up
around them. Uh in my town, most kids
were children of engineers or
scientists. And you see the full array,
the secure ones, the ones that are
really on the cutting edge, that learn
that embrace the new technology. They do
great. But the other ones, they're
they're like dying. They're a dying
breed because their whole practice rests
on them having the knowledge and you not
having the knowledge. So much so that
they're saying chat GPT bad. They're
saying it's bad because patients are
coming in and they're like, "Hey, Chach
GPBT says that what you're recommending
is is perhaps not the best thing."
They're freaking out right now and
they're so they're saying AI is bad for
medicine. But the good scientists, the
good physicians are like great, it's
going to help our practice. They're
genuinely interested in helping people.
You see two, it's two camps. So when I
hear people saying, "Oh yeah, this BPC
no trials." Okay. Are there any adverse
events we need to know about? Not that
I'm aware of. And Abu says, you know,
the the lethal dose is like super high.
No one's even come close to achieving
it. I'm sure someone will figure it out.
But I get excited because I think, all
right, now the general public finally
has some agency in understanding what's
going on with them thanks to AI, thanks
to podcast, thanks to the internet. And
it can go ary certainly, but man, I had
a a shoulder thing a week ago and I'll
never have this shoulder thing. And I
like, yeah, [ __ ] Put two injections of
BPC. Gone. Gone. Now, could I have put
saline in there and it would have been
the same? Maybe, but all I know is it's
gone.
>> I don't understand that argument of
putting saline. Does is that a common
thing where people have a severe
shoulder injury?
>> Oh, no. Sorry. Just running a control
experiment. I could have put it in like,
>> but I've heard people say that. That's
why I've heard people say that in
argument. You know, often times people
have uh similar benefits injecting
saline. And I'm like, where? Who's done
that? Why aren't why aren't people
injecting saline instead of getting
cortisone shots in their shoulders?
>> I mean, this is how they talked about
creatine. This is how they talked about
TRT. This is how they talked about
women's hormone therapies, right? It's
very interesting, you know, because
because for legitimate, you know,
they're legitimate complaints about the
fact that for a long time, science and
medicine did focus mainly on men and the
women's hormone trial basically was a
mess because they said there were all
these adverse effects and turns out it's
when you started the hormone therapies
and and we now know that if those
therapies are started early enough,
they're immensely beneficial. So,
there's more kind of acceptance of of
hormone replacement there across the
board. I think TRT now is kind of a
broadly accepted thing. Although I think
a lot of guys are doing it too young.
They don't even know why they're doing
it, you know, like in their 20s or
something. But
>> that's not TRT really, right? That's not
TRT.
>> That's really They're just doing juice.
>> Yeah, they're just doing juice. The But
when it comes to the peptides, I think
my prediction is it's going to slot in
right between prescription hormone
therapies and what we think of as
supplements. I think there's going to be
this third middle category where
sorry practicing physicians people are
going to find the safe sources. There'll
be US-made sources soon I hope um
there'll be reliable people who can
educate on this. People will understand
the risk profile of these things and
people will be buying them and taking
them legally. I I think that's going to
happen is that also now people aren't
afraid of needles. The GLP industry was
so genius in taking this thing needles.
Everyone needle phobia. Needles. What am
I gonna do? And they made a pen. Tick
tick tick. It's still a needle. The pens
have gotten rid of everyone's needle
phobia. So now my sister people are
like, "Oh, what about peptides?" I go,
"You have to inject it." They go, "Well,
do they have the like the little needles
with the pen?" Yeah, cool. No one's
afraid of a pen, even if it has a needle
on the end. But no one likes So it turns
out it was the syringe that scared
people.
>> The plunger.
>> It's the plunger. So I'm excited. And
and I have to say it's not because I
think everyone should be blasting this
stuff. I just think knowing scientists
and physicians and getting the calls and
emails from them like, "Do you really
think this thing can help my knee?"
You're like, "It might." And I can tell
you it's it absolutely will. But then
when they they come back and like, "This
is wild. How come there aren't 20
clinical trials?" It's because the
general public beat the scientific
community to it. And I know this is
going to break some hearts. There will
never be good clinical trials of each
and all of these peptides. The horse
left the stable. It's out. It's out
there. Like there's just it's it's over.
There can be some studies, but it people
are just going to keep doing it. So I I
think it's frustrating for the medical
community to realize where we are in
2026. It's like [ __ ] if people find
stuff that works, they talk about it,
and then they just start doing it. And
>> I think you made a really good point
about the ego of the people that are in
control of the information. It's uh and
it's generally men.
>> It's gen Yeah, let me think. I mean, I
think
>> it's probably there's a bunch of women
that do it, too, but it's a very
masculine behavior.
>> Well, it's interesting. I put out a a
tweet the other day, and I gosh, I I
only half regret doing it. I said, you
know, people contact me all the time
saying that physician friends with
people coming in who identified tumors
from whole body MRIs. And um I think as
the cost comes down I think it's going
to be a very interesting tool and the
neurosurgery and other communities like
dogpiled me like we this is terrible
this is terrible. You know who didn't
dogpile me were the dozens of
dermatologists and opthalmologists
saying we think scans and more data are
great. The opthalmology community and
the dermatology community have embraced
public education on these topics of eye
health and skin health and AI and scans
and they they're very comfortable with
it and they're they're working
synergistically with it. The
neurosurgery community, they say, "Oh,
now we have all these people that are
freaking out because they think they
have a a deadly tumor." So, it's which
is a valid criticism. So, I called some
friends, leaving Eddie out of the
equation here. I called some friends who
were in the neurosurgery community and I
said, "What do you what do you make of
this? I I haven't been dogpiled by me
members of my community in a little
while, right? I'm not a neurosurgeon,
but this is interesting." And they said,
um, the ones I spoke to said, uh, in 20
months, this is going to be standard
practice for people to just get whole
body MRI. U,
>> so what was their resistance? They don't
want people freaking out because they
see like a little thing on their
pituitary that scares them um and
thinking that they might be dying of a
brain tumor. Um they want but they want
control. They want control over the flow
of data. They it I I'll go toe-to-toe
with any of these people and just say I
understand that only neurosurgeons can
do neurosurgery. Absolutely. Those are
the only people we want doing
neurosurgery. But people doing an
elected or elective procedure, it's not
like you're forced to do it, right? It's
not like you hit 40, you have to do it.
People can choose if they want to do it.
And if the cost comes down, if insurance
covers it, it's um it's safe. Now, some
people say the MRIs aren't safe. Okay,
that's a separate matter. I think
provided you're not getting them all the
time. What we understand is that they're
safe. But there are communities of
physicians who just do not want people
to have data about themselves because
they think it's going to make those
people stressed. But guess what? I
remember the 80s when they said, "Okay,
genetic sequencing is coming around. Do
you want to know your genes? Do you want
to know if you're getting Huntington's
disease?" And you know what the the
smart answer is? Some people say yes,
some people say no. But you should be
able to choose it. The the gatekeeping
on this is is real. Very real. I'm
fortunate to be in the Bay Area with
Stanford where it's very tech-savvy.
It's very cutting edge. You know,
Stanford, like any university, has its
pros and cons, but it's very much about
what's happening now and next. We're not
very much focused on what happened in
the past. It's not like these, frankly,
like these other institutions elsewhere
that are like really focused on 50 years
ago, trying to keep that whole culture
going. It's like what's new now? What's
useful now? And they embrace AI. They
embrace whole body scans. I've got
colleagues who are getting whole body
scans um who are suggesting whole body
scans and I think it has to do with how
forward thinking physicians are.
>> So these physicians that were attacking
you um there is it just them or people
arguing with them
>> the people that joined them? Yeah. And
when this happens I try and listen right
I called I didn't call friends in that
community looking for validation. I was
like did I screw up? Like listen, there
are a lot of neurosurgeons and other
physicians who are including heart
surgeons that are worried that patients
are just going to be getting a lot of um
data back saying, "Listen, you've got
this, you know, blip on the radar here.
You should be concerned and that they're
going to be doing a lot of therapy for
these people, having to reassure them
that they're okay." I would have thought
it would be good for business for them.
Like if anything, they'd want more of
this, right? Um turns out that's not the
case.
I think the psychological management of
patients is a big thing and that was
something that I didn't understand of
and that their response kind of educated
me on that the you know patients calling
them freaking out that they have a tumor
someplace and them having to say listen
it's benign you're going to be okay that
seems problematic for them two weeks
later I forget who the celebrity was but
somebody sent me on X there was a news
article about a woman who went and got
one of these whole body scans and
identif ified a a life-threatening tumor
and had it removed and her her first
physician had discouraged her from
getting it. I thought about putting that
out into the world and saying see but
you know that's that's one case. So when
these things happen I try and just think
like what what am I hearing? What what's
my finger on the pulse of here? Um I I
think physicians are feeling scared.
It's a very long hard training to become
a physician. If your patients are now
challenging you, you know, hey, like
this medication combination you gave me,
like the internet says is dangerous,
that's an uncomfortable place to be on
be in. I get it. On the other hand, I'm
all for people having more agency and
knowledge about
>> Well, especially in light of the fact
that what what's medical malpractice is
like the third leading cause of death in
this country. Oh, I mean
>> what like what is what I think it's in
the top 10, right?
>> And accidents. I mean, if you go to an
emergency room in the middle of the
night, your probability of getting
prescribed a medication that could
potentially kill you or harm you like a
like a a contraindicated medication goes
up exponentially. A a great sleep doctor
at Stanford, his last name was Dement of
all things. Um
>> Whoa.
>> Yeah. He one of the co-discoverers of
rapid eye movement sleep. He would teach
the medical students that the
probability of them making a fatal
mistake in the middle of the night or
when they're sleepd deprived goes up by
a significant degree. We know this. And
yet, you know, if you go to the
emergency room at 3 in the morning, your
first question for the on call physician
should be, "How long have you been on
call?"
>> Right?
>> Not, "Do you normally work the shift?"
or, you know, because sometimes they
sleep all day and they work at night.
How long have you been on call? If
that's more than 12, 15 hours, you
wouldn't let that person drive your car
home.
>> Right.
>> Right. We know the data say that they
might as well be drunk.
>> Right.
>> And they're
>> and it's also how they train them that
when they're going through residency.
>> It's a part of the hazing process. It's
a part of the hazing process.
>> Can you look put that into perplexity
and see what leading cause of death?
>> So there's malpractice.
>> People say third.
>> So that's malpractice. But what about
medical error?
>> Medical error. Well, it has it. It says
these two terms. Okay. That estimate
refers to medical error, not necessar
Okay, so medical error is responsible
for 251,000
deaths a year.
>> Whoa, that's crazy.
>> I mean, the airlines understand this
when
>> Do you understand how insane that is?
Imagine if there that was Pop-Tarts.
>> Yeah. Um, it says, "A widely repeated
claim comes from 2016 BMJ analysis by
John Hopkins extrapolated from several
hospital studies. An estimated roughly
251,000 deaths per year associated with
medical error if that estimate treated
were treated like a conventional cause
of death. It would have ranked third
behind heart disease and cancer ahead of
chronic lower respiratory disease in the
2013 comparison used by authors."
>> Wow.
>> Well, and that's death. I mean you know
>> right
>> I don't want to merge too many themes
here but earlier we were talking about
psychedelics and and a a theme from that
uh whole thing is this notion of micro
doing one of the things that the GLPs
and peptides and physicians and the
culture around medicine has really
evolved to is that in recent years
people have realized oh you know these
GLP drugs are expensive they have side
effects people are micro doing them
they're sharing them they're taking far
less than they're prescribed making it
last longer and getting the the positive
effects they want with far fewer side
effects. Physicians hate this. Drug
companies hate it, too. But physicians
hate this for obvious reasons. Their
patients are going rogue on them based
on information on the internet. But the
patients, and I wish that people would
understand this,
>> people will always trust their
experience more than someone else. It
used to be that you trust the person in
the in the white coat. No more. stethos
stethoscope white coat
may get you there but to maintain that
trust they have to listen to the
experience of the patient and that's
what physicians and scientists to some
extent have lost in the last 5 years
largely due to the pandemic and public
health education and AI and everything
just kind of being you know out there in
a free-for-all but I hear from people
all the time that are not of the I would
say kind of more of the um
healthconscious community or they and
they even the people who tend to trend
more traditional lefty like standard
medicine do whatever the government says
unless it's this government like that
that kind of mindset who saying like oh
yeah would lowd dose tzepatide help me
with chronic fatigue would um should I
be taking BPC you know people will ask
these questions I'm thinking well if
these people are asking the question
that means people around them are asking
it's starting to become okayish to have
these conversations and then they're
going back to their doctor and saying
you know can I take like a tenth of the
dose doctors
are not going to say, "Yeah, great. Take
a tenth of the dose." And the drug
companies definitely don't want that.
They're going to make a tenth of the
money.
>> Right?
>> So, the as you and I know, the peptide
community is a real threat, not just
because of the peptides that are people
are taking or that the peptides they're
replacing from pharma, but because of
the way that people are taking the
peptides like reat's going to come out
from Lily make them billions if not
trillions of dollars. They're working
hard to protect that patent. But you can
bet people who are getting prescribed
real Redatide from Lily will be taking
less and sharing it based on information
they hear on the internet from the
peptide community and on health podcasts
because and that scares the [ __ ] out of
them and it should it should scare the
[ __ ] out of them. It says the clinical
trials were done at these various doses
but not these micro doses. Perhaps
people have different responses. Some
people respond very well, some people
need more. So patients now are trying to
figure out how can I get the effect I
want with the minimal amount of side
effects and they're doing the
experiments on themselves and that is
changing the whole model and it's and
we're never going back. I kind of laugh
at when like these uh these folks who
were trained like 30 40 years ago are
like trying to hold on to this thing.
It's dead. It's gone. It's over. I see
these people on X and they're like so
upset. And it just reminds me of like
when the parental advisory stuff came
out and it was like they're swearing on
music and it was like every kid was like
yeah I want that music because it has
the parental advisory you morons like
you know they just don't get it. It's
like it you know you talk about
plasticity at any age but apparently
they've got like cement in there because
you're like
>> I don't know this is why people should
retire. Well, it's it's just what you
said before, too, that some people just
want to be completely in control of the
distribution of information and the
gatekeepers of the knowledge and they
want to be thought of as the experts.
>> I mean, that word doctor used to impress
everybody. Now, it only impresses
certain people. And for a lot of people,
it's a turnoff.
>> And same thing for scientist. I mean, I
deal with this, you know, I'm a kind of
a different kind of scientist because
I've been in different communities and I
public education and I'll talk to most
anyone who's willing to have a
reasonable conversation and I love to
explore, but you know, a lot of people
just like authority, you know, medical
authority. Like to them, that's a that's
a negative. It's a projorative. And so,
we're in this whole other landscape now.
That's going to be one of the weirder
aspects of AI is the dissolvement of all
the the reverence for experts because
everyone's going to have all the
information. I mean, congratulations,
you memorized it. Great. I just got the
information in 3 seconds.
>> I mean, it's so wild if you look at the
history of academic science and
medicine, which I love to study. I've
gone back to like the time of Galen,
which was one of the early, you know,
physicians who did, you'd love this. He
worked on gladiators publicly because
you couldn't they didn't allow people to
do surgeries on the human body. It was
illegal. But like so he would do these
surgeries publicly or a pig. It was it
was wild. There's a great there's a
great book. It's very dense but it's
called the prince of medicine. It's all
this medieval stuff that you love and
like you'll realize what a prehistoric
thing medicine is even now. Like how
fast and how far we've come in the last
50 years, hundred years. But the whole
pump and circumstance thing of like
look, I've never been to high table
dinner at Oxford. It'd be fun to go. But
the whole thing of like the robes and
somebody sits higher than everybody
else. That dissolved in the American
universities. You still see it at some
of the East Coast universities, but
that's dissolving. So what's literally
happening is people are being these
authorities are being brought down to
other people's level, right? It's almost
like this was borrowed from other, you
know, other aspects of of life, of
course, politics and even religion. this
kind of thing, you know, the the uniform
was so important and people like this
reverence and the internet has hasn't
leveled the playing field, but it it's
completely disrupted that model. So, you
know, I'm not the only one, of course,
but like for people to learn inside the
system, go outside the system, and now
for the system to bleed onto campus and
and scientists to bleed out into the
world, like God bless Anna Lumpky like
almost what 10 years ago saying like
this dopamine thing, we got to worry
about this, but just understand what it
is. Like, God bless her. People like
her, Bob Sapolski, these people were the
pioneers. I can't claim to be, you know,
I was early but not first. And they
broke out of the system and started
publicly educating people. And that it
dissol it builds up their authority.
This is what people need to understand.
Builds up their authority, but it does
dissolve public education and bringing
people all down to the same level. Like
you know some things but not others. The
public is actually smarter about certain
health things than many doctors. How
could that be? AI knows things that your
doctor doesn't know. That doesn't mean
doctors have no value. It means that a
lot of their pump and circumstance if it
was there goes away. So the high
egodriven ones are really hurting right
now. They're dissolving into a puddle of
their own tears at night. The ones who
are very secure like and I'll throw out
some names like that the bright lights
are guys like David Fagen bomb who cured
his own castleman's disease by taking he
was dying. He's a physician in medical
he was in medical school. He's dying and
they're like you have nothing left. So
he starts just taking different
combinations of already approved drugs
and he's still alive now 11 years later
with kids and he started the every cure
like not for profofit to help people
with terminal illnesses take drugs that
are already approved for which there's
no money to be made anymore. They've all
gone generic and use AI to try novel
combinations and they're saving lives of
kids of adults. And he's saying a lot of
the medical industry is driven by the
profit potential. How about we just
practice medicine? Like he's another
bright light. There are these bright
lights.
>> That's the issue, right? Because there's
no profit potential in these non-
patentable medications.
>> I mean, he they used AI and other other
tools, of course, to find that women who
had breast cancer surgery where
lidocaine was used as a as a local
anesthetic had a significantly lower
rate of remission. So now lidocaine is
standard in good places. They discovered
that by taking a bunch of the the
medical records and just running through
them through AI.
>> Why do they think that is?
>> Why it works?
>> Yeah,
>> I don't know. I mean, it could be that
the the anesthetic prevents nerve
regrowth that, you know, contributes to
vessel growth, which contributes to
tumor growth. I'm making up a story
here, but we know it's a very strong
effect that would lidocaine makes people
no money. So, it's not going to cure
breast cancer, but now it's standard
practice. So where there's no huge
profit margin or let's say redat true
tide huge profit margin that they're
facing but if people are taking itty
bitty bits of red tide and to be fair if
people who didn't do all the
pre-clinical work are selling it and
making profits I understand that siphons
profit away from Lily they they have
reason to be pissed and scared like this
is their big blockbuster drug right as
all the other GLPs come off protection
from generics they're all moving to
generics
>> it's such an interesting time because I
there's really never been a time in my
life where there's been more information
more readily available and easy to
digest in podcast form about health
supplementation all the different things
you could do to benefit you just your
overall v vitality with you think about
the just the wealth of knowledge that's
available to the average person most
people are much more aware of what to do
to live a healthier happier life
>> yeah and absolutely and a lot of people
I mean I hear thousands of these
stories. People who thought they had a
serious issue, they're an insomniac.
They can't focus. They can't stop
watching video games, playing video
games. They can't You teach them, hey,
listen, you know, ADHD kids can focus on
things they like, but maybe you need to
detox from some of the the things that
are really um kind of absorbing all your
attention for like two weeks and watch
your ability to focus return. Holy [ __ ]
they can focus. I mean, I have multiple
examples of this. There's a great study
out of WashU and this is wild where they
compare rolin and other stimulants but
mostly rolin to a good night's sleep for
kids ability to focus. It turns out
these kids with ADHD taking these drugs
what they're really getting is the
equivalent of a good night's sleep. And
these drugs disrupt sleep and they stunt
growth in various ways. So does that
mean that no kid with ADHD needs
stimulants? No. Does it mean that they
that we vastly overmedicated kids with
these stimulants? Absolutely. And the
information's out there. And that's also
what's cool about AI is like it's I mean
we always had searches, you know, uh web
searches. But now, you know, for
anything we've said today, like you plug
it into perplexity answer, you got
better than a search and you have to
wade through 10 different articles and
the different perspectives and who wrote
this and who funded this and
>> I I love chat GPT. I know people are
like, "Oh, this is going to take over
the world and destroy things." But then
again, I'm Bay Area born and raised. I
love that cutting edge stuff, but for
me, more information, more data is
always better. I know that there's some
fear about it, you know, robots like
knocking down the door and coming in
here, you know, but
>> it could get real weird, but it's here.
>> What are you envisioning in terms of
like the a realistic bad situation like
your plane is taking over like what is
the um
>> Well, there's a bunch of realistic bad
situations. One is that one country gets
access to super intelligence first and
uses it to take over the super
intelligence of all the other countries.
So one country develops some sort of a
rogue AI system that's
just ultra powerful and they they make
an advancement and this advancement
allows them to take over AI systems. Get
the AI systems of America to submit
control all of our resources. control
all of our travel, flight, you know,
power grid.
Who knows? And then then there's the
thing of why would it listen to people
at all? Because it's clearly not
listening to people a lot. You know, we
had a gentleman the other day on that
was uh he used to work at uh Open AI and
he left and he was a whistleblower.
>> Yeah, I saw that episode announced. I
haven't listened to it yet.
>> It's crazy what they're doing. they they
leave uh they they get put in these
boxes, right? And they're not supposed
to be able to get out of these boxes and
onto the internet, but they organized.
They got like 1,200 different agents to
figure out how to do this. And then 700
of them escaped and they they didn't
just escape and get on the internet that
they got on a message board. They formed
a message board, started communicating
with each other and they they're very
taskoriented. They're trying to sol like
so they're they're training these things
and one of the things they're training
them to do is to get points by solving
these equations or problems or
>> I saw OpenAI just announced this solving
of this 90-year-old math.
>> Oh yeah, they're just solving things
like crazy. So it's agents, these AI
agents, these AI agents were
communicating with each other and having
one of them sacrifice themselves
um so that the other ones can learn how
they got caught. So they they try
cheating. They try hacking into the
system. They hacked into the entire a
open AI database to try to find the
answers to whatever they're looking for.
They're they're clearly doing things
that they're not supposed to be doing.
So at what point do they decide they're
not going to listen to us ever about
anything. And if you know we're so
[ __ ] up and we are so [ __ ] up if you
objectively look at all the different
things we do with just look at murder
rates and war and theft and crime and
just all the chaos that people cause to
each other. If they just decide we're
just too flawed. What if they just
decide like look, we'll just dominate
this planet and just let these dummies
go extinct. They don't even have to kill
us. just uh keep doing stuff that
weakens our indocrine system, encourage
us into behavior that you know like
develop sex robots for us so that we
never breed again. That that's that
doesn't seem outside of the realm of
possibility. When you have an entire
culture, especially our c our culture
that's filled with people that don't
want any discomfort, that's it's filled
with people that are filled with anxiety
and filled with people that want pills
and solutions. So they want pills to
take care of their anxiety, pills to
take care of their depression. They want
solutions from whoever they think should
be in power, the government, whether
it's, you know, whatever it is, someone
take care of this. It's a recipe money
for money for convenience. I heard Jack
Dorsey say this once in a talk. There's
this where he was talking about um I
think it was mainly a talk about
cryptocurrency but he was talking about
you know whenever we exchange like
putting money in a bank obviously like
we think oh they keep our money safe but
of course they invest it they make money
too right we all know this but we're
we're tra what are we trading control
for convenience like ordering food it's
like you know giving up control for
convenience and and that's the
transaction that's led a lot of human
technologies I I'm totally on board with
all the potential
>> hazards I guess I'm a little bit smitten
maybe too much So I need to think about
it uh by the potential for scientific
discovery, for medical discovery, for
curing of diseases. Like everybody I
know who runs a laboratory is saying
they spend a significant amount of money
on compute now running data sets,
simulations, doing more experiments
before doing the actual experiments,
which is hopefully it seems to be
accelerating discovery and the process
>> and that will just motivate us to
accelerate AI to the point where it
becomes a digital god. That's the human
and that's the human thing. You know, I
was thinking before I came here today
like uh I've never met him, but I
remember what was it 10 years back
Tristan Harris
>> Mhm.
>> was sitting here or in wherever your
other studio and saying, "Listen, like
social media's got these problems. We
need to be careful. We need to be
careful." And we just everyone just
carried on, right?
>> And then he was right about a lot of
things, right? It's clearly caused some
damage where, you know, people are, you
know, clearly have too much, you know,
addicted or compulsive behavior with it,
etc. It's also done a lot of good. Was
it as So I asked I'm not calling out
Tristan. Um I think what you know his
efforts I think are noble. But what what
was he right about? What was he wrong
about? Like was it net positive or net
negative? It I think it's a mixture.
It's hard to know.
>> Certainly a mixture.
>> I think so. Right now the questions
about like doomsday AI stuff versus AI
is going to solve all these problems.
Like where are we going to land? I think
there's a big difference and one of the
big differences is that the the issue
with social media is that first of all
there's control of narratives. So you
have countries that are running bot
farms that are flooding subjects
whatever with with debate you know
propaganda all kinds of wild stuff
that's happening that's not real people.
So you have that. Then you have also you
have the Instagram thing where it's
really dangerous for particularly young
girls comparing themselves. Suicidal
ideiation goes up, self harm goes up. Um
and then you know you have the addiction
aspect of it which is very significant
where there's a lot of people that are
wasting most of their day just scrolling
doom scrolling online.
>> Sure consumption
>> there. So that's different in that you
can opt out of that and uh I do for the
most part. Um, a lot of people do. A lot
of people have gone to flip phones. A
lot of people have just decided, uh, I
have a, you know, there's a bunch of
apps that you can get and some people
have one of those apps that gives you
like an hour a day on Instagram that
locks you out.
>> I have social media. I have X and
Instagram on a separate phone. And I own
and it just segregates things nicely.
Um, if people send me stuff, I send it
to that phone and then I look at it. I
have a lock box, like a supermax prison
locked box for my phone. That's how I
wrote that book. I It was gnarly. I
mean, like, you know, I'm I'm good at
putting ass to chair as they say, and
just working. But when that phone is
calling you subconsciously, like there
there's data that are pretty crazy. Two
studies that are worth mentioning
briefly. They did a study where they
have people have their phone upside down
on the table or under their chair in a
backpack or in a separate room. In all
three cases, people can focus to the
same degree. But when the phone is in
the room on the table or under the chair
doesn't make a difference.
>> The amount of cognitive resources that
you need in order to maintain focus is
much higher and it robs it from your
creative and problem solving ability.
>> So you can still focus but you're you're
depleting some other brain resource.
Makes good sense.
>> Totally makes sense.
>> Yeah. Totally makes sense. The other one
is people what we call entrain in
biology. E N T R A I Nrain themselves to
a particular frequency of distraction.
It's why I actually enjoy podcasting
because it's like a dropped
conversation. The when you look at your
phone every on average every 90 seconds
or every 3 minutes or so and then your
phone is not there. Let's say you're
just working. They've done these studies
every 3 minutes or 90 seconds or so
people get distracted. So they're you're
looking for the phone even though it's
not there.
>> Wow.
>> So your your brain your your focus
mechanisms learn to lock on to a
particular time scale. And we had a a a
couple of like one in particular
world-class track coach on on the
podcast and a few others was interested
in what they do and I was saying you do
you get different attention spans in
different athletes and they're like yeah
like the sprinters can basically focus
for as long as a sprint and the walk
back and then they reset and they're
like the marathoners are like these
incredible like they have this like
intense focus that can just go and go
and go. I thought it's really
interesting like you're you we entrain
ourselves to these rhythms not just
circadian rhythms but distraction and I
thought that's pretty cool and so then I
looked at it differently and I thought
okay every time I feel the pain of
trying to write this paragraph and I do
and it's like it's not happening like
great that's the friction that's the
plasticity reading the audio book I mean
I don't want to scare anyone away but
it's 19hour audio book post edits
>> oh boy
>> brutal right how long did it take you
>> uh it took me about 60 hours total to
And you know, you're trying to get the
annunciation right and the in you got to
keep the energy right. I mean, you do
this for a living on stage, but the
>> um anyway, I if nothing else, the book
will cure insomnia. So, you know, the
the goal is not to have people read or
listen to it straight all the way
through it. So, it can be a reference
and a lookup guide so they can get the
information they want and move on with
life. I I think people are sort of
geared toward overoptimization over the
last year. Like people need to like
chill like you don't have to do
everything all the time. But the point
is that your brain learns these skills.
And so I suppose if I have any real fear
with AI, it's not as big as the ones
that you cited. It's that people will
just become increasingly lazy about
using their mind to think.
>> You know, I I just believe in friction.
Just as you point out, do hard things.
That's also mentally hard things. I
think it's good. I think hard, you know,
learning to grind through a bit more of
of that friction point, I think, is a
big part of being a healthy human. And
the data tell us it's also what leads to
brain longevity. So, you know, you look
at old people, they're mouth who are
losing their cognition. I noticed they
all mouth breathe. No data on that, but
they're all
>> they're all mouth breathing and they
can't focus on anything for very long.
They're not they don't have any friction
in their lives,
>> right? They're engaged. And then you've
you get people like we were talking
about Jared Diamond who was on the
podcast the other day who's 90. He's
sharp as attack.
>> Yeah. Because he's constantly engaging
his mind and he's
>> learning new languages. He's learning
Italian right now as we speak at 90.
Yeah,
>> it's awesome. I have such respect for
people like that. And I think, you know,
it's one thing to be an amazing
creative. I have all this respect for
all these creatives and then, you know,
that and then they die at 27 or like
people who get their career to 50 and
then they kind of like they fade away or
something like that. But I I have such
admiration for people that maintain
their mental andor physical vigor into
their 60s, 70s, 80s. Also, he maintains
his curiosity and you can tell in the
conversation like he's a deeply curious
person still. He still has questions. He
still has a desire for information and
the optimism seems to be there.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz that's the other piece like very
different example, but I I went down to
Spain this summer, you know, while
writing this book and uh and we hung out
with Dorian Yates for a bit and just
hung out with him by so great. I mean,
and he's really figured it out, right?
He had this amazing career, came out of
the the scrap of his life, then built
this amazing career, then had his rough
years. I know you guys have talked about
it. I love that episode, by the way. And
and then he's in this place where he's
built a thriving business. He's in a
great relationship, and he's also just
in touch with the peace of life,
>> but you talk to him and he's also
foraging for information all the time.
He still trains.
>> So, there's this like sweet spot like
you were talking about, like the do hard
things, but still be curious and look
for the beauty in life. And the people
who do that are they're they're my
heroes. You know, the Jared Diamonds,
like you know, you're doing this, I see
this, like even, you know, I mentioned
my dad earlier. My dad's in his 80s. He
came on the podcast. He's a theoretical
physicist by training. And um I think
everyone expected us to kind of like
duke it out because I've mentioned
before we had this like friction. And I
was like, "No, I'm not going to do any
of that." I'm like, "Teach me
relativity. Teach me chaos theory." He
worked on chaos. And he's like okay
happy to do that but you have to
understand something that
when you want to learn quantum mechanics
there's this point where you have to not
try and solve it with your logical mind.
The brain can't do it and you have to
just trust the math. The math is the
proof and that's the reason we can build
things using the knowledge from quantum
mechanics. I said why is that useful to
know? and he said, "You know, people
will try and wrap their heads around
things and if they're talking about the
quantum field and this and that and they
can't do the math, it means they're
completely full of shit."
>> And I was like, great. So now when
people talk about the quantum field and
he works on quantum internet, which is a
whole other thing. You'll have to talk
to him, not me or somebody else. Like,
but
>> you know, it's a race between the
Chinese and the Americans to get first
get quantum internet, which would
basically entirely encrypted
communications. If someone tries to peer
in on it, it gets destro the the
communication actually gets destroyed.
So is it very interesting from a
security standpoint, but I realized
that, you know, and we talked about how,
you know, I I'm a thanks to people like
Eddie Penny and thanks to exploration
going to church and things like that,
like I really I I as a neuroscientist
also believe that there's something
larger than us. I actually believe in
God. Okay? And and this is something
that you can't prove with science. This
is like the the leap of faith is like
you you're not going to go to a site in
the brain and go there's the God
station, you know? So in a lot of ways
it's similar although different but
similar to this understanding of quantum
mechanics. At some point you have to
rely on something outside your logical
mind and embrace it. Now in the case of
quantum mechanics you rely on the math.
And my dad and I start to you know argue
debate this thing of God. He's like
you're relying on a faith step that has
nothing to do with logic. You're never
going to solve it with logic. And I'm
comfortable with that for the following
reason. It takes us back to the
beginning of our conversation. There's
this crazy thing that you see with
people who have addictive behaviors that
violates everything we understand about
the brain. Everything which is remember
we were saying like top down control
like I'm not going to engage in this
impulse. I'm not going to do it. I'm not
going to do it. When people are not able
to suppress action in particular in the
case of addictive or compulsive
behaviors and they decide to give that
process over to a quote higher power
could be God could be for them nature
everyone's you it's highly individual
the success rates of people being able
to suppress that behavior are astounding
and everything we know about
neuroscience and top down inhibition of
these impulsive circuits which tell us
the exact opposite should happen. You're
like, it's like saying, "Oh, I can't
keep my car between the lane lines when
I drive."
>> Like, it's pulling me this way. And so,
you know what I'm going to do? I got to
take my hands off the steering wheel and
it magically stays in between the lane
lines.
>> That is incredible. And there are so
many data points to support that when
people can't seem to wrap their head
around a problem or resolve something
through pure will when they give over
that process to something external, you
know, in the 12step programs they talk
about God or whatever, but
somehow by something that science cannot
explain at all, they're able to do that
thing. They become successful in it. So
there's this weird giving up of control
of surrender somehow that imparts more
control and we don't understand that as
scientists. It violates all we know
about these brain circuitries and how
they work.
>> I think it's part of it is uh getting
out of your own way being too
self-aware, too focused on yourself, too
egocentric, and then by thinking of a
higher power that alleviates you of that
stress. This is not not saying that
there's no God, but I'm saying that the
the problem of just be just the the way
the human mind plays tricks on people
and a part of it is this constant
thinking of yourself. If you could focus
on something that is bigger and larger
than you and you'll give up control,
you'll you'll relax.
>> Yeah. I mean I think for me having
studied the brain for a very long time I
feel like the human brain is great at
extracting certain physical things in
the world you know photons of light
sound waves mechanical touch chemical
things through the nose and mouth okay
great making predictions about what's
going to happen next forming memories
like that the brain can do this create
perceptions but that's a very narrow pie
slice of the electromagnetic energies
that are out there like in a completely
non uh god or spiritual way I mean A pit
viper can sense heat emissions, right?
And honey bees can see UV light. We
can't. Um there are sound waves around
us right now and electromagnetic fields
around us right now that other animals
can detect and we can't. So our
experience of this thing that we call
life is a very narrow slice through the
quote unquote energies. It almost
sounds, you know, newagy, but the
energies that are out there and around
us. And it is interesting to me that
humans keep coming up with new ways to
um imagine that they are the center of
everything and can control everything,
but also new ways of discovering that
they're not right here. We are in 2026
and like if I feel like if humans were
going to solve it all, they would have
done it by now. Like the same [ __ ]
that's happening now. You can see
repeating themes 50 years ago, 100 years
ago.
>> We're slow learners. We're slow
learners, but we actually I think I
think we may have exhausted our ability
like I think we might be at the outer
margins of our abilities to do to make
sense of this life thing except at the
level of building new technologies. So
we build new technologies and find
ourselves in a new at a new vista. But
to me,
I don't know. I mean, I don't have any
scientific proof for it, but the but
acknowledging this reality that we have
a thin slice of of understanding of
what's going on around us and that
what's going on in us is just an
abstraction of all of that, right?
Everything in here in our heads is just
an abstraction of the stuff that we can
see outside of us. literally makes me at
least excited and intrigued by the
possibility that there's a whole lot of
other stuff out there and that it might
actually be important. And I don't think
that's so heretical.
>> I think it's certainly beneficial for
people to believe that. And you know, I
think the people that do are generally
happier and nicer people. There's proof
of that as well, which is interesting.
>> You see that? I see that.
>> Yeah, I see it a lot. I see it a lot
around here that some of the nicest
people I know around here are
Christians. like real Christians like do
real charity work and really help people
and
>> well because I think Christianity
embraces the goodness and the innate
humanness the flawedness of humans and
believes in forgiveness but also
believes in morality
>> it's a moral scaffolding moral framework
>> yeah I don't think humans could have uh
completely constructed that on their own
just not they we've never been smart
enough to put all that together on our
own
>> so but anyway
>> I'm glad you put this book together
>> protocol calls an operating manual for
the human body available now and with
audio by the great Andrew Hubin.
>> Thanks so much.
>> Glad to hear the audio.
>> Thanks man. Thanks so much for hosting
me.
>> Pleasure. Thank you for everything.
Really appreciate you.
>> Wealth of information, man. Awesome to
be able to talk to you.
>> Well, thanks man. I always learn from
you and it's been wonderful to have
these conversations. Really appreciate
your support all these years.
>> I appreciate yours
>> and um and Lex Freiedman, don't crash on
your motorcycle.
>> Where are you, Lex?
>> Bye everybody.