The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2450 - Tommy Wood

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night!

00:00:09.000 All day!

00:00:12.000 All right.

00:00:13.000 Nice to meet you, sir.

00:00:15.000 Stimulated mind.

00:00:18.000 Future proof for your brain.

00:00:19.000 Is that possible?

00:00:20.000 Future proof.

00:00:21.000 Why can't I say that?

00:00:22.000 I already have dementia.

00:00:24.000 Future proof your brain from dementia and stay sharp at any age.

00:00:30.000 First of all, what prompted you to write this?

00:00:34.000 So I've spent a long time working in a whole range of different spheres related to the brain, how to treat newborn brain injury, how to treat and maybe even prevent certain traumatic brain injuries and concussions, looking at what affects long-term cognitive decline and dementia, as well as working with elite professional athletes, particularly Formula One drivers, trying to help them stay on top of their game for as long as possible.

00:01:02.000 And I saw across all those different areas, there are these core things that the brain seems to thrive on that are required either for development or maintenance of cognitive function.

00:01:14.000 And these are things that people can apply to themselves on a day-to-day basis, improve their focus and well-being now.

00:01:22.000 And then long term, that translates to a lower risk of dementia.

00:01:27.000 So is dementia an is it is a genetic is it a genetic thing or is it a function of atrophy?

00:01:38.000 Is it a combination of those things?

00:01:40.000 It's a combination of those things.

00:01:42.000 Certainly there's a genetic component.

00:01:44.000 So maybe we'll zoom out to start with and just think about what is dementia?

00:01:50.000 Dementia is the clinical diagnosis of losing so much cognitive function that you're not able to take care of yourself on a day-to-day basis.

00:02:00.000 There are several different types of dementia.

00:02:03.000 The most common is Alzheimer's disease.

00:02:05.000 That's something like 60 to 80% of cases of dementia.

00:02:09.000 The next most common is vascular dementia, something like 10 to 20%.

00:02:13.000 And then there are others like frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, dementia you get with Parkinson's disease.

00:02:19.000 But those first two, something like 70 to 90% of dementias, they are directly tied to a lifestyle in the environment.

00:02:30.000 And right now, it's estimated that somewhere between 45 and maybe even 70 or more percent of dementias are preventable.

00:02:37.000 And most of those fall into those two categories.

00:02:41.000 There is a genetic component.

00:02:43.000 So Alzheimer's disease has two broad types.

00:02:46.000 There's early onset Alzheimer's disease.

00:02:48.000 That's caused by a single mutation in a single gene, something like the amyloid precursor protein gene or one of the presenilin genes.

00:02:56.000 Those people get Alzheimer's in their 30s to 50s.

00:03:00.000 It's a very predictable and quite rapid decline sometimes.

00:03:05.000 But that's maybe 1% of Alzheimer's.

00:03:07.000 The vast majority, like when we think about Alzheimer's, we think about an age-related dementia.

00:03:12.000 And this is much more related to the environment.

00:03:16.000 So there is a genetic component.

00:03:18.000 You might have heard of ApoE4.

00:03:21.000 Yeah.

00:03:21.000 So you can have three different flavors of ApoE, apo-lipoprotein E, two, three, and four.

00:03:26.000 You get two copies.

00:03:28.000 Which is the one that makes you more likely to get CTE?

00:03:33.000 Is that two?

00:03:34.000 No, no, so that's four as well.

00:03:36.000 That's four as well.

00:03:37.000 Yeah, so four essentially has an effect of amplifying certain inflammatory effects in the brain.

00:03:45.000 That's probably why it makes CTE worse, makes it more likely for you to get CTE, because if you're getting repetitive impacts, repetitive injuries, then it sort of exacerbates or makes that inflammatory response worse.

00:03:57.000 But when you think about that in terms of Alzheimer's, if you have one copy of ApoE4, your risk of Alzheimer's has increased by sort of two to six times.

00:04:05.000 If you have two copies, it's six to twenty times, depending on how you look at it.

00:04:10.000 But all the data suggest that ApoE4 is a risk multiplier, right?

00:04:17.000 So it's not that if you have a copy of ApoE4, you're definitely going to get dementia.

00:04:23.000 It's that in the setting, particularly of the modern environment, risks of dementia or risk factors for dementia are amplified, like excessive alcohol intake, physical inactivity, low-quality diet.

00:04:37.000 So that also means that if you have, if you, if you then address those risk factors, you have greater benefit, right?

00:04:45.000 Because you're offsetting some of that additional risk.

00:04:48.000 So however you look at dementia from a genetic standpoint, and it can also be family history, right?

00:04:53.000 If you have a family history of dementia, you have an increased risk of dementia.

00:04:57.000 But a lot of what comes with family history is shared environment and shared lifestyle, right?

00:05:01.000 You eat and sleep and move like your parents did.

00:05:04.000 And so if they had a lifestyle that might increase their risk of dementia, you get that as well.

00:05:10.000 So even if you do have an increased genetic risk, you can offset a large part of that through lifestyle and other environmental factors.

00:05:18.000 Okay, so for some people, there's an increased genetic risk, but do some people who do not have this increased genetic risk, do they still have a possibility of getting dementia just from atrophy or just from sedentary lifestyle?

00:05:30.000 No stimulation whatsoever?

00:05:32.000 So the kind of the way we would say it is that not everybody who has ApoE4 gets Alzheimer's, and most people who have Alzheimer's do not have ApoE4.

00:05:32.000 Yes.

00:05:41.000 So absolutely.

00:05:42.000 Okay.

00:05:43.000 So is it just like everything else?

00:05:46.000 Like your muscles atrophy, your bones weaken when you don't put load on them?

00:05:52.000 Is that what it is?

00:05:53.000 Yeah.

00:05:53.000 So that's like the core thesis of my book, right?

00:05:55.000 It's called the stimulated mind for that reason.

00:05:58.000 I think that in the and the title is slightly provocative because in the modern world, we are hyperstimulated.

00:06:05.000 Overstimulated and nonsense.

00:06:07.000 So we're overstimulated and understimulated at the same time.

00:06:07.000 Exactly.

00:06:10.000 Right.

00:06:11.000 We're getting a lot of input, but we're not doing any calculations.

00:06:15.000 We're not formulating new ideas.

00:06:16.000 We're not being creative.

00:06:18.000 We're not problem solving.

00:06:19.000 We're just being inundated with nonsense.

00:06:21.000 Exactly.

00:06:22.000 So the function of any tissue in the body, right?

00:06:25.000 You mentioned the muscles, the bones, the liver, the immune system, their function is dependent on the stimulus you apply to them.

00:06:32.000 And so the brain is exactly the same.

00:06:34.000 And if you want functions and networks in the brain to perform well, you need to challenge them in order to enhance capacity in them.

00:06:42.000 Do you think you need to keep your liver working healthy by drinking every now and then?

00:06:47.000 So it's the example of, yes, if you drink a lot of alcohol, your liver gets better at metabolizing alcohol.

00:06:54.000 So it kind of proves the point, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the alcohol is there to keep your liver healthy.

00:07:01.000 Probably not.

00:07:01.000 Didn't they used to do that with people that had, if they had lung problems, they would give them cigarettes?

00:07:07.000 Yeah.

00:07:08.000 Like people with asthma?

00:07:09.000 And that didn't turn out so great.

00:07:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:13.000 The theory was okay.

00:07:14.000 I think they should have just been breathing heavy.

00:07:16.000 That would have been a better application of that, right?

00:07:18.000 Because it's just like, you don't want to torture.

00:07:21.000 Your lungs aren't a filter torture you.

00:07:24.000 Yeah.

00:07:26.000 So when you started studying this, do you have someone close to you that has Alzheimer's or is it just a field of study that you're interested in?

00:07:34.000 Yeah, there was two different things.

00:07:36.000 One, I focused initially on the brain early in life and then elite level cognitive performance in athletes.

00:07:46.000 And you kind of see that these things sort of tie together.

00:07:49.000 Like what happens early in life, what happens during life, affects what happens later in life.

00:07:53.000 But I also had my grandfather died of dementia.

00:07:56.000 He was an alcoholic and he had a combination of alcoholic, you know, alcohol-induced brain atrophy plus vascular dementia.

00:08:07.000 I really wonder about people today, and this is one of the reasons why I was so interested in this, because what are we just talking about before, that people are being oversaturated with nonsense but not stimulated in any way that challenges your mind.

00:08:20.000 I mean, this is a constant state today.

00:08:22.000 And then on top of that, you've got a lot of people that are using AI throughout their day to solve all their problems where they don't think at all.

00:08:33.000 And there's been some studies on that that show that it's a decrease in cognitive function.

00:08:33.000 Yeah.

00:08:38.000 Like when they ask them to actually use their brain, the brain works less well than it did before they started.

00:08:45.000 So you're not getting educated by ChatGPT or any of these.

00:08:49.000 What you're doing is you're letting it think for you.

00:08:51.000 Absolutely.

00:08:52.000 So this one, maybe one of the studies you're thinking of was a study they did at MIT.

00:08:56.000 And they had students write essays and they could either just write it using whatever they had in their head already or using Google or using an LLM.

00:09:06.000 And what they showed was that as you increase the amount of outside support you got, you know, Google and then I think it was ChatGPT, then there was less activity in the brain networks associated with actually doing the task and students remembered less well afterwards.

00:09:25.000 So, I mean, this isn't surprising.

00:09:28.000 You're not using your brain, therefore, it doesn't engage in the task.

00:09:28.000 Not at all.

00:09:31.000 But what's interesting is that they found a version.

00:09:35.000 So like some of the students who had previously written an essay just for themselves, then they asked them to go back and use ChatGPT on top.

00:09:47.000 And what they found was that the final output was better.

00:09:50.000 So the way that we can use these tools, rather than just asking it to do all the stuff for us, which is what most people are doing, and I think will cause skills and maybe even parts of the brain to atrophy because they're not being used, is we use them as orthotics.

00:10:06.000 Like they can expand our capacities, right?

00:10:09.000 You try writing it all first, and then you say, hey, what did I miss?

00:10:12.000 What am I not thinking about?

00:10:14.000 And you can kind of build on it from there.

00:10:16.000 And that might perhaps actually stimulate your mind.

00:10:19.000 Why didn't I think of that?

00:10:19.000 Exactly.

00:10:21.000 Like, next time I'm writing a paragraph, I'll consider these options.

00:10:25.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:10:25.000 So you actually have to fully engage your brain in that process.

00:10:29.000 But then the end result might be better.

00:10:32.000 Well, it's just such uncharted territory for us.

00:10:35.000 Yeah.

00:10:35.000 All this, especially social media.

00:10:35.000 Right.

00:10:38.000 I mean, completely uncharted territory that people are staring at their hand for eight hours a day.

00:10:43.000 I mean, that's really what you're doing.

00:10:45.000 You're staring at your hand and you're hoping, usually unsuccessfully, to get something that really excites you and something that's really unique and changes your perspective on things.

00:10:55.000 I mean, I think maybe when I was using social media every day, maybe once a day I would get something that was really interested in that I would save.

00:11:04.000 I'd go, oh, that's actually interesting.

00:11:06.000 And I would think, okay, that'd be a good subject to bring up on the podcast.

00:11:09.000 But the rest of the time, it was just horseshit.

00:11:13.000 Well, part of the algorithm, and this, you know, I'm not an expert in training algorithms to do this, but part of the goal of the algorithm is that you don't get everything that is perfect or that immediately captures your attention up front, right?

00:11:27.000 Because you want it to be random.

00:11:30.000 And there's like method in the randomness that keeps you scrolling.

00:11:35.000 Because eventually you'll get those small bumps that then keep you going.

00:11:35.000 Right.

00:11:40.000 But what's particularly interesting about social media is it leverages the fact that we are social beings.

00:11:47.000 So we prioritize information that is called, the acronym is Prime, prestigious, in-group, moral, and emotional.

00:11:55.000 And this is even greater in social contexts, right?

00:11:58.000 Because we are trying to learn about our social environment so that we can survive our group and be fitter.

00:12:04.000 And so social media makes us think that we will get that information whilst at the same time offering us the exact opposite, which is essentially isolation.

00:12:13.000 But it leverages that desire of the human brain to find this social information and this social connection whilst not giving us any of that.

00:12:23.000 Also, without getting any feedback from another human being while you're communicating ideas.

00:12:29.000 So you can say the most horrible shit to people in a comment or a text message and you don't think about it because it's like there's not a person there.

00:12:35.000 Yeah.

00:12:36.000 Not right in front of you.

00:12:37.000 It's designed for like, it's like an anti-human device.

00:12:37.000 Yeah.

00:12:41.000 Very weird.

00:12:42.000 But, I mean, if your goal is to capture attention, they're doing a great job of it.

00:12:48.000 They're acquiring enormous wealth and also enormous influence over the just all sorts of things, politics, economics.

00:12:48.000 Well, not just that.

00:13:00.000 I mean, some of the richest corporations in the world, they gather a thing that we never thought of was valuable, which is data.

00:13:07.000 I mean, when people first started using these things, when people first started using the internet, nobody really thought that data was going to be one of the biggest commodities in the world.

00:13:16.000 Yeah, but now if they know what captures your attention and what you'll spend money on, and that's a perfect way to get as much out of you as possible.

00:13:27.000 So the concept is future-proofing your brain.

00:13:32.000 What are the things that you think people should be doing to try to future-proof their brain, other than avoiding social media and avoiding a lot of the stuff that we're talking about here?

00:13:42.000 So I think every tool has a possible use.

00:13:46.000 So for instance, social media, if you have crafted a social media that allows you to maintain connections that you wouldn't have otherwise, like the original version of Facebook as it existed 25 years ago was just like posting pictures and you could like chat with some family members, right?

00:14:05.000 So if you use social media like that, and there are studies that show that if you're using online tools, including social media, and it increases communication and connection beyond what you would have had otherwise, that can be a net benefit.

00:14:19.000 If it's all you use and it's replacing in-person human connection, then it's a net negative.

00:14:24.000 So there can be ways that it could be beneficial.

00:14:27.000 And if your Instagram feed is just like cute dogs running around in the snow, which is what most of mine is right now, that can be a nice five-minute break between cognitively demanding tasks.

00:14:40.000 That's fine.

00:14:42.000 But when you think about future-proofing your brain, this idea that there is some unknowable future, right?

00:14:50.000 We don't know what the future is going to look like.

00:14:52.000 But if we want to exist in that future, we're going to need good processing speed, good decision-making skills, good working memory, good emotional and social skills, right?

00:15:08.000 And so in order to maintain those, we need to challenge and stimulate them.

00:15:14.000 So I think the most important thing most people can do is think about new challenging and often creative skills.

00:15:24.000 And there's a lot of evidence for creative arts, music.

00:15:28.000 What they do is they improve the function of networks in the brain that are at risk during the processes of aging, particularly because they're important for attention and social connection.

00:15:43.000 And so if we really invest time in doing these things that we suck at and get better, but get better at them, we maintain these broad cognitive skills that we're going to need in the future regardless of what happens.

00:15:56.000 And some of that is also personal.

00:15:58.000 So the goal is to build as much cognitive capacity as possible.

00:16:03.000 I have this idea of headroom, which is the difference between what you need on a day-to-day basis versus what you're truly capable of.

00:16:11.000 It's the difference between, like on a day-to-day basis, your legs need to be strong enough to like get you up off the toilet, right?

00:16:18.000 But your maximum capacity is like, what's your max back squat?

00:16:22.000 The difference between those is your headroom.

00:16:24.000 And then that gives you capacity to perform when you're injured or sick or you need to like lift your car off your buddy because it got flipped in a car accident.

00:16:34.000 Like all those things.

00:16:34.000 Like when you need to draw on greater resources, you want those resources to be there.

00:16:38.000 Because we are going to be stressed, sleep deprived, sick, and we still want our brains to function.

00:16:43.000 So investing in like really challenging tasks and skills builds that capacity so that we have access to it when we need it.

00:16:52.000 What is the function and like what is the effect on the brain when you learn a new skill, like sucking at something, which I always tell people is one of the best things you can do.

00:17:01.000 100%.

00:17:02.000 A lot of people don't enjoy it because they're ego.

00:17:04.000 They don't like being frustrated that they're terrible at something.

00:17:07.000 But there's something about not being good at something and dedicating yourself to it and seeing market improvement that stimulates all sorts of areas of your mind, which I find really interesting.

00:17:20.000 So most people don't realize that the process of learning, which in itself is like the core process of neuroplasticity, right?

00:17:29.000 The brain making new connections and cementing new connections.

00:17:33.000 That whole process is driven by failure, essentially, and making mistakes.

00:17:39.000 Because your brain is a prediction machine.

00:17:40.000 It's constantly predicting what's going to happen next based on the world around you and what you're trying to do.

00:17:47.000 And so imagine that you're trying to do some kind of new move in jiu-jitsu or something.

00:17:55.000 And you have no idea how to do it.

00:17:58.000 You're going to try it and there's going to be this big gap between your expectation and reality.

00:18:02.000 That's going to be frustrating, right?

00:18:04.000 That's the feeling of failure.

00:18:06.000 But that's what diverts resources in the brain to say, hey, we need to close the gap between what we hoped would happen and what actually happened.

00:18:13.000 And that's what drives neuroplasticity.

00:18:15.000 And this is also then what drives the cementing and function of these networks in the brain associated with that.

00:18:22.000 So the idea that you start sucking at something and you get better at it over time, that is exactly the thing that the brain needs in order to improve and maintain its function.

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00:19:39.000 How many of those things should you take on at once, though?

00:19:43.000 This is my issue.

00:19:45.000 I have a problem.

00:19:46.000 I wish I could have four lives that I could run simultaneously.

00:19:51.000 I would do four.

00:19:51.000 I'd have four different occupations.

00:19:53.000 So I try to smash as many things into a day as possible.

00:19:56.000 But there's many times where I think, boy, I think I'm doing too many different things that I'm trying to get good at.

00:20:02.000 And maybe it would be better if I just concentrated on one.

00:20:06.000 there's a few different ways to look at this.

00:20:08.000 I think that a broad base and a broad range of different skills is probably something that we should all hope to have.

00:20:17.000 Like talent stacking.

00:20:18.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:20:19.000 And if you think about like one of my favorite books is Range by David Epstein, which talks about the broad range of skills that people who then really success really succeed in academia or sports have, right?

00:20:31.000 They didn't specialize really early.

00:20:33.000 They had like a broad base of talents that they can then draw upon as they specialize later in life.

00:20:39.000 And I think that's something that we can all aspire to.

00:20:41.000 But equally, what's probably more common is that we try something and we do it for a little while and then we just kind of like give up on it and we try something else.

00:20:50.000 And there's like a little bit of benefit to that.

00:20:53.000 But when you look at some of the studies that really examine the effect of learning some of these creative skills, and they've done it with tango dancers and painters and video gamers, when you compare an expert to an amateur and where you're seeing the benefits of expertise in terms of the function of some of these networks in the brain, it really is the development of some level of expertise is probably required to see the maximum benefit.

00:21:21.000 Obviously, the learning curve is steepest at the beginning, right?

00:21:24.000 Right when you're beginning to learn something, that's when you'll learn the fastest.

00:21:28.000 But there is also some benefit to expertise.

00:21:30.000 So some of that, just to say that pick one or two things that you're actually excited to continue getting better at for a long period of time.

00:21:40.000 And so then maybe you do have to try a bunch of different things until you find the thing that really gets you going.

00:21:48.000 But across all those different skills, they have similar core effects on the brain.

00:21:53.000 So you don't have to do one or both.

00:21:56.000 You can just pick the one that you enjoy the most.

00:21:59.000 So it's just about the struggle of trying to get better at something, essentially.

00:22:04.000 Yeah.

00:22:05.000 And my wife is learning a new language right now.

00:22:08.000 And she's been so excited about it.

00:22:11.000 And it's like, it's really interesting because she starts talking around the house in French.

00:22:15.000 And it's one of those things where you're like, I'm watching her do it.

00:22:20.000 And then she's been doing it over the last couple of months.

00:22:20.000 She wasn't doing it.

00:22:22.000 And I'm seeing this like excitement in this new project.

00:22:26.000 And we were talking about it, about how that is one of the things that's very difficult to do, but it's more complex than learning because it's learning and interacting.

00:22:42.000 It's not just learning.

00:22:43.000 You're learning, but you have to, it requires like this back and forth with another person.

00:22:49.000 You have to understand sentence structure.

00:22:51.000 It's just like calm, and especially French is so different than English.

00:22:55.000 There's so much weird shit involved in it.

00:22:57.000 But you could see, like I could see in her that like this is very stimulating to her mind.

00:23:02.000 And it made me go, oh man, I should learn a language.

00:23:04.000 But I'm like, fuck, where do you have the time to learn a language?

00:23:07.000 But then I thought about like when I was on social media all the time, I would look down at my phone some days and it would say, screen use today, six hours.

00:23:14.000 I'm like, fucking six hours.

00:23:16.000 That's what your time is.

00:23:17.000 If you spent six hours just learning Spanish, you'd be fluent.

00:23:17.000 Right.

00:23:22.000 I'd be able to go to Taqueria and order in Spanish.

00:23:25.000 It's like we spend so much time doing nonsense that anything that you can do that requires your brain to be in that uncomfortable state of, what is the, oh, what is this?

00:23:40.000 Oh, it's this.

00:23:41.000 Is that this?

00:23:42.000 Got it.

00:23:43.000 You know, that dance, that firing of the synapses and forcing your brain to figure this puzzle out, so many people don't have that.

00:23:55.000 And I see it in people that get stagnant, where they're doing the same thing every day.

00:24:00.000 Their job is fairly mundane and kind of boring.

00:24:04.000 And maybe they like it, but there's nothing stimulating about it.

00:24:08.000 They're talking to the same boring ass people.

00:24:10.000 They don't exercise.

00:24:11.000 They go home, they watch TV, and then they shut off and they do it all again.

00:24:15.000 And then you talk to them like five, ten years later, and it's almost like they're slipping.

00:24:20.000 Yeah.

00:24:21.000 Like you see it.

00:24:22.000 You can see it in people that have mundane existences.

00:24:24.000 Like their stimulation is so low that their ability to be stimulated is low.

00:24:31.000 I think that that thing you describe is so baked into our society that we've started to believe that it's normal.

00:24:42.000 Right.

00:24:42.000 So when you look at the trajectory of cognitive function over the over like your entire life, imagine like a graph where on the one side you have cognitive function and it could be something basic like processing speed.

00:24:53.000 How quickly does your brain process information?

00:24:56.000 And on the bottom is age, right?

00:24:59.000 It tends to peak sometime around our sort of mid-20s to early 30s.

00:25:04.000 It's usually the peak on average tends to be higher and later the more time we spend in education.

00:25:10.000 So the more time we spend essentially as professional learners, the more we can build that kind of final capacity.

00:25:18.000 After that, it's just sort of like an average decrease downwards.

00:25:22.000 And a colleague of mine, Josh Turknet, and I, he's a neurologist, we wrote a paper a couple of years ago where we theorized that the reason why we see that decline at the population level in cognitive function from about that age is because we go to work, we do the same thing again and again and again.

00:25:44.000 And then everything else in our life gets in the way.

00:25:49.000 And we never spend that same time investing in building our cognitive capacities the way we did when we were kids and when we were in school.

00:25:59.000 And so the decline is partly because we just stop doing that.

00:26:04.000 So one of the theories of aging is that it's just the continuation of development, like process of development.

00:26:12.000 And most of the processes of development in the brain are refining connections based on the environment and the stimulus the brain receives.

00:26:21.000 So if you start removing stimuli because you're no longer engaging in these like cognitively challenging things, the brain's going to start removing connections.

00:26:29.000 Hey, I don't need that, right?

00:26:31.000 I'm not using this part of my brain.

00:26:32.000 And as a result, you start to see decline.

00:26:35.000 And so there are studies that show if you have a very stimulating job, it's very complex, problem-solving skills, lots of social interactions, you have a slower rate of cognitive decline as an adult and a lower risk of dementia.

00:26:48.000 You see in individuals who continue to engage in reading, reading, writing, lectures, dancing, a whole bunch of hobbies, again, you see a slowed rate of decline.

00:27:01.000 So some of what we just expect to happen with age is because of the way we stop engaging with the world and we stop challenging ourselves.

00:27:09.000 Well, it completely makes sense, right?

00:27:11.000 Like if you think about physical activity, it goes along the same kind of path.

00:27:15.000 Exactly.

00:27:16.000 You see, I have friends, I'm 58, which is crazy to say.

00:27:20.000 It sounds so old.

00:27:21.000 But I have friends that are 58 that are basically their skeletons with like meat hanging around various parts of it.

00:27:29.000 But my physical ability is very similar to what it was when I was in my 30s.

00:27:34.000 The only way that I could really test it was like physical competition.

00:27:38.000 And I'm not really interested in that.

00:27:40.000 I don't want to get hurt.

00:27:41.000 But my capacity for work is very similar.

00:27:45.000 And I know that because I force it.

00:27:47.000 I make myself do it.

00:27:49.000 And I would imagine the same thing is true with the mind.

00:27:54.000 I mean, it has to be.

00:27:55.000 I think it's all together.

00:27:57.000 It's a use it or lose it.

00:28:00.000 And if your mind doesn't have a need to be constantly intrigued and stimulated, like you've got to think for survival, right?

00:28:09.000 One of the things that speculated, maybe I can ask you about this because this is one of, I think about this a lot.

00:28:15.000 Like, what is ADHD?

00:28:17.000 And whether or not it's actually a problem, I think it's a superpower because I'm pretty sure I have it, you know, but yet I can focus.

00:28:27.000 I'm very functional.

00:28:29.000 I can focus on things.

00:28:30.000 And as long as I tire myself out from activity, I can relax and I can concentrate on things.

00:28:37.000 And I'm very interested in certain things and I can lock into them and concentrate.

00:28:41.000 But if I was forced to be in a classroom with a very boring teacher teaching a subject I'm not that interested in and I was a child, if I had the wrong parents, luckily I didn't, I would be medicated.

00:28:55.000 Right.

00:28:56.000 But I think that that is this ability to focus on certain things like hyper focus was probably a function of a persistent hunter, right?

00:29:07.000 Because if you wanted to catch an animal, you couldn't be a person that gives up quick.

00:29:13.000 You had to be a person that you keep looking for tracks.

00:29:17.000 You keep trying to find sign.

00:29:19.000 You're trying to figure out a way like, keep pushing one more hour.

00:29:24.000 We got 20 minutes of daylight left.

00:29:26.000 I've got to figure this out, right?

00:29:29.000 That thing had to be in you in order to be a successful hunter.

00:29:33.000 So I'm sure that that's part of it.

00:29:37.000 The current picture of ADHD, I think, is quite complicated.

00:29:40.000 So I have family members with ADHD.

00:29:42.000 When they then started on medication, they were like, oh, actually, all of a sudden, my brain works.

00:29:49.000 Right, but that medication is Adderall, right?

00:29:52.000 If I took Adderall, I would say the same fucking thing.

00:29:56.000 I don't need a stimulant.

00:29:58.000 But if I took a stimulant right now, I'd be like, dude, I am so much better.

00:30:02.000 So, no, but do you know what happens in certain individuals with ADHD, when you give them stimulants, they calm down, right?

00:30:09.000 So I think there's a combination of multiple things.

00:30:11.000 Some is, yes, like these can be very beneficial traits in the right settings, but you also have to consider that we're layering on a modern environment that's like bright lights at night, a whole bunch of caffeine and stimulants.

00:30:28.000 And yeah, of course, some of it is, I think, right, the teacher is boring and they're just not engaged because the majority of people with ADHD can still focus on things that they're interested in focusing in.

00:30:42.000 Yes.

00:30:43.000 Or on.

00:30:43.000 Even without any kind of medication.

00:30:45.000 So, but there's like a sliding scale.

00:30:45.000 Yeah.

00:30:47.000 And I think there's a whole bunch of different reasons why for one individual they might experience symptoms of ADHD or not.

00:30:53.000 So I think it's complicated.

00:30:55.000 Can I ask you, before you go any further in that, can I ask you, how much of that is dependent upon physical activity?

00:31:00.000 Like, do we study ADHD based on whether someone is physically active or not?

00:31:05.000 Because look, if I'm not physically active, I'm a mess.

00:31:09.000 Like if something happened and for some reason, like I got a court order, you're not allowed to exercise for six months or you go to jail.

00:31:16.000 Like, oh, God.

00:31:17.000 I would probably be a fucking complete basket case, right?

00:31:21.000 And maybe I would have full-on ADHD.

00:31:24.000 Maybe I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything.

00:31:25.000 My brain would be bouncing all over the place.

00:31:27.000 Like, how much of it is a biological requirement that your body has to release energy?

00:31:34.000 So I think you can, I would expand it out even further than that because physical activity is a core requirement of our biology and physiology.

00:31:44.000 There's a nice quote by Inigo Saman Milan, who's a well-known exercise physiologist, who says that physical activity is baked into our evolutionary development so much so that now we've had to invent exercise in order to prevent what happens when we don't move.

00:32:08.000 So the lack of movement is a disease-causing pro-aging situation.

00:32:16.000 So to stop you there, what if, I mean, or do they, when they treat kids with ADHD, do they take that into consideration?

00:32:25.000 So as I, well, I'm not an ADHD researcher, so I genuinely don't know.

00:32:31.000 But I would think that before you would give someone a stimulant, maybe track and field.

00:32:36.000 You know what I mean?

00:32:37.000 Yeah.

00:32:38.000 And maybe play badminton.

00:32:40.000 Do something where you've got to run around where you're like, ooh, oh boy, I can focus now.

00:32:45.000 I think that that's, again, I would say that that's needed for all kids regardless of any potential diagnosis.

00:32:52.000 So of course, I think that should be taken into consideration.

00:32:56.000 Whether that's going to be enough for every kid, hard to say.

00:33:02.000 But we know that all humans require significant amounts of physical activity just for their biology to work properly.

00:33:09.000 So certainly if that's not being taken into account or it's not available or it's not encouraged, there are a whole host of conditions where that's going to become a problem.

00:33:17.000 Well, it just only makes sense, right?

00:33:19.000 And I mean, this has been talked about forever.

00:33:23.000 The Stoics used to talk about it, quieting the mind.

00:33:26.000 I mean, samurais used to talk about it, like that physical activity.

00:33:30.000 One of the main benefits the Chinese used for kung fu thousands of years ago, quieting the mind. 0.98

00:33:36.000 And the propensity that we have in the society, this direction of almost immediately prescribing a medication for something, when it seems like what you're doing is you're dulling a biological requirement.

00:33:51.000 You're dulling the impact of this biological requirement that you're not needing.

00:33:56.000 Why wouldn't we prescribe exercise first and then think about those things?

00:34:00.000 Like, for instance, like hormone replacement.

00:34:04.000 If you have a good doctor, an ethical doctor that is working with someone and they find out you have low testosterone, one of the first things they do is adjust your diet.

00:34:16.000 They say, well, you have so much food in your diet that causes inflammation.

00:34:19.000 You have a very high rate of complex carbohydrates.

00:34:22.000 You have a lot of sugar in your diet.

00:34:25.000 You drink too much alcohol.

00:34:27.000 You smoke cigarettes.

00:34:28.000 Let's remove those things first and then let's see what happens.

00:34:33.000 And then you increase your protein and you start drinking water and you go, oh, look, your hormone levels are going up naturally.

00:34:40.000 Well, because you're fucking poisoning yourself, right?

00:34:43.000 So wouldn't you, I mean, why don't they prescribe exercise for kids?

00:34:49.000 Other than the fact that you can't make money off of it, wouldn't it be a good idea?

00:34:54.000 So I think that all kids should absolutely get several hours, ideally, of movement and physical activity of different kinds every day.

00:35:05.000 Part of the problem, it's not that scientists or doctors don't think that's important.

00:35:13.000 Right now, the systems that we have make it very difficult for those things to be put in place, right?

00:35:21.000 So making sure that every kid has the time and the resources to be able to exercise and the right kind of people so that they know what they're doing and they're supervised.

00:35:32.000 And it's the same with, say, with testosterone replacement if your testosterone is low.

00:35:39.000 Like most, right, the primary cause or one of the most common causes of low testosterone in men is right that combination of metabolic disease, being sedentary, poor quality diet.

00:35:50.000 We know that.

00:35:51.000 But creating the systems that allow people to change those things and then supporting them to do that is really hard.

00:36:01.000 Nobody has solved the behavior change problem, right?

00:36:05.000 If we think about the modern environment and we think about what that drives us to do and not do, but we have all this information, right?

00:36:16.000 We know how to prevent these diseases.

00:36:18.000 We know how to reverse many of them.

00:36:20.000 And a lot of it is driven by lifestyle and the environment.

00:36:23.000 But supporting people to change those behaviors and make sure they have the resources and time to do it, that's really hard.

00:36:31.000 Nobody solved that problem yet.

00:36:32.000 Boy, that seems like a problem that's easy to solve.

00:36:36.000 It's just based on personal responsibility.

00:36:38.000 No, but it's not.

00:36:39.000 But if you can tell someone, this is your requirement for the day, I want you to run one mile.

00:36:45.000 But I want you to do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups and write it down.

00:36:49.000 So first of all.

00:36:51.000 But you're saying it like it's impossible.

00:36:54.000 I'm not saying very difficult.

00:36:56.000 I'm not saying it's impossible.

00:36:57.000 I think that those of us for whom this has become a part of our personality and our lives, like you and me, of course, of course you just do that.

00:37:07.000 You just go for the run.

00:37:08.000 You do the 100 push-ups.

00:37:09.000 But for people who have never had anything like this, and it's never been a part of their environment, it's never been a part of who they are, changing that actually requires a ton of work and coaching.

00:37:24.000 And it's actually really difficult.

00:37:26.000 It's difficult, but it's totally doable physically.

00:37:29.000 It's not like I'm asking you to breathe underwater.

00:37:31.000 Like people have done it and you can draw inspiration from like my friend Jelly Roll.

00:37:36.000 You know Jelly Roll, the musician?

00:37:37.000 Jellyroll was 500 pounds and he's lost 300 pounds and he did it with no Ozempic, no GLP1s.

00:37:47.000 He just started walking and started cutting sugar out of his diet and slowly but surely, not even slowly, over the course of just a couple of years, he shrunk to like a normal sized human.

00:37:58.000 It's fucking amazing.

00:38:00.000 But he drew inspiration from a lot of other people.

00:38:03.000 You know, one of them, he's good friends with my good friend Cam Haynes, who's an ultra marathon runner and endurance athlete.

00:38:10.000 And so, you know, he's taken him on runs and worked out with him and helped him and just watching YouTube videos.

00:38:16.000 And just all he started doing was just walking, you know, where he couldn't walk up hills and he would just walk around his block and walk up the hill when he didn't want to do it.

00:38:25.000 And he did it.

00:38:26.000 It's like it's not, you can do it.

00:38:29.000 You just have to start doing it.

00:38:31.000 And I think the starting doing it is the most difficult.

00:38:35.000 I don't think it's difficult to do it once you gather momentum.

00:38:38.000 Because there's a thing that happens with people when they start doing something.

00:38:42.000 They get excited and then they look forward to doing it again.

00:38:45.000 As long as you don't like, you don't take a guy's 500 pounds and say, today we're going to do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups.

00:38:50.000 We're going to do kettlebells and then we're going to do laps around the block.

00:38:54.000 You can't do it.

00:38:55.000 It's not possible.

00:38:56.000 But you could just go for a walk.

00:38:58.000 And then tomorrow we're going to go for a walk a little bit further.

00:39:01.000 And then in two weeks, we're going to double that walk.

00:39:03.000 And then in three weeks, we're going to incorporate some light bodyweight squats.

00:39:07.000 And along the way, we're going to adjust your diet and then write these things down.

00:39:11.000 Like this is, it's not impossible.

00:39:14.000 It's just they need motivation.

00:39:15.000 So I agree.

00:39:17.000 It's not impossible.

00:39:19.000 But I've worked with several digital health companies who are working in the behavior change space.

00:39:24.000 And people don't need more information.

00:39:27.000 Like they know that they need to walk more and they know that they could eat better and they know that they could sleep better.

00:39:34.000 Right.

00:39:35.000 But the process of trying to, first of all, understand like, how should I do that?

00:39:40.000 What should I do that?

00:39:41.000 When should I do that?

00:39:42.000 And then, right, like some people may absolutely not have the time or the environment.

00:39:48.000 Maybe they live somewhere where actually, you know what, they don't want to be walking around outside, right?

00:39:53.000 Right.

00:39:54.000 That's relatively common.

00:39:56.000 Or they don't have a kitchen, right?

00:40:00.000 So then how do you cook food?

00:40:02.000 Like, how do you navigate that food environment?

00:40:06.000 So I agree.

00:40:07.000 I completely agree with you.

00:40:08.000 All of this is doable.

00:40:10.000 It's just that different people are going to need different levels of support to do that initially, right?

00:40:16.000 Gain that momentum, understand how that feels, how it changes them.

00:40:22.000 And right now, the majority of people don't have access to that kind of support.

00:40:27.000 And I absolutely hope that that changes, right?

00:40:30.000 The food environment changes so that it's much easier to change the way that you eat and that the built environment changes so that it's much easier to go out and have a walk and do a lot of that.

00:40:42.000 So I think we just have to consider that it's both, right?

00:40:46.000 There's an individual component, right?

00:40:47.000 But there's also like a societal component where we have to make this as easy for people as possible and sort of like build it into their lives such as they are.

00:40:56.000 Okay, so let's consider the societal aspect of it.

00:40:59.000 Let's consider the like how would you implement something?

00:41:04.000 Like let's imagine that you get appointed to some committee that's in charge of trying to facilitate this growth and improvement in people.

00:41:15.000 What would you do?

00:41:17.000 So I think you need a few different parts to it.

00:41:24.000 One great part would be to say through, you know, if you could dramatically improve quality and access of like education at all levels and make physical activity just be a regular part of that.

00:41:39.000 That has been slowly removed from many educational curriculums around the world over time.

00:41:44.000 Right.

00:41:45.000 So bring some of that back and it just becomes part of day-to-day life.

00:41:49.000 And then you would also teach people the skills involved in some of these other things.

00:41:54.000 So like teach people how to cook and how to do that within the bounds of what they have access to, their cultural preferences, dietary preferences, financial abilities, that kind of stuff.

00:42:07.000 Right, that should be a part of a school curriculum.

00:42:09.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:10.000 Just like you should teach kids about taxes and all these other things.

00:42:14.000 And so I think if you start early on and you do this with sort of curiosity and skill building, then you release people out into the, you know, that I think that's the place to start.

00:42:27.000 Because when you get out into the real world and you're working three jobs and you live somewhere where you don't want to go for a walk outside and like you can barely get six hours of sleep every night and you've got three kids that you're trying to look after, saying, oh, hey, you should do 100 push-ups every day, like that's not going to happen.

00:42:45.000 Other things are going to happen that are more important.

00:42:48.000 So I think there's that part, maybe the skill building part.

00:42:51.000 Then it's thinking about how people have opportunities to do those things.

00:42:57.000 And then I would think about access to high quality healthcare, psychological care, like these things that sometimes people need help that they can't get access to or it's expensive or whatever.

00:43:12.000 So I think giving more of that so that they get support when they need it would definitely help as well.

00:43:18.000 I think one great way would be to devise a website, make like maybe like even a government website where you put in like your body weight.

00:43:29.000 When was your last physical activity?

00:43:32.000 What this, that, the other thing, what's your diet?

00:43:36.000 And then they implement a program and you could follow online with a bunch of other people that are doing the same thing and post your results.

00:43:44.000 So you have a community aspect to it.

00:43:46.000 You have a dedicated program that you can follow.

00:43:50.000 So you don't have to think about, oh, I don't want to do that.

00:43:52.000 I don't want to do this.

00:43:53.000 It'll just tell you, just do this.

00:43:55.000 Just do this.

00:43:56.000 Oh, you weigh 400 pounds.

00:43:57.000 You're 39 years old.

00:43:59.000 You haven't worked out in 10 years.

00:44:01.000 Okay, here's day one.

00:44:03.000 And follow along, post your weight, post what you're eating.

00:44:08.000 I mean, that, I mean, and with AI, I mean, that's one of the good things about an LLM, right?

00:44:13.000 With AI, you could ask it to formulate adjustments.

00:44:18.000 And you could say, okay, what nutrients should I be consuming?

00:44:22.000 How much protein do I actually need?

00:44:24.000 How many calories do I need?

00:44:25.000 How many calories are in this and that?

00:44:28.000 And, you know, how much protein do I get from 20 ounces of broccoli or whatever the fuck it is?

00:44:34.000 You know what I mean?

00:44:35.000 So when you look at some of the most successful trials of behavior change, and most of them are based around weight loss studies, right?

00:44:35.000 Yeah.

00:44:42.000 That's a very typical way to do it.

00:44:47.000 When you want somebody to change their behavior and feel good about it, one of the sort of constructs is self-determination theory.

00:44:57.000 You've probably heard of, right?

00:44:58.000 Humans need three things, autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

00:45:03.000 So autonomy is the, like, I am in charge of my life and I'm in charge of my decisions.

00:45:07.000 So what are the things that I want to work on today, right?

00:45:10.000 I have some choice there.

00:45:12.000 Like, how do I help somebody feel like they know what they're doing?

00:45:12.000 Competence.

00:45:16.000 Like, a lot of the hurdles with exercise or diet is like, I don't know what I'm doing.

00:45:23.000 And like, this guy says that I need to do sprints.

00:45:25.000 And this guy says I need to lift weights.

00:45:27.000 And this guy says I need to do X amounts of zone two.

00:45:30.000 But I'm like, what does that even mean?

00:45:32.000 Like, do I even know what I'm supposed to do?

00:45:35.000 So how do you build competence in people?

00:45:36.000 And then relatedness.

00:45:38.000 That's the point that you were making, right?

00:45:40.000 You have a group, like you support each other.

00:45:42.000 Maybe you do stuff.

00:45:43.000 You do stuff together.

00:45:44.000 So one of the most successful weight loss trials of all time was called the Broad Study.

00:45:50.000 And one of the things they did, so they lost a lot of weight and they kept it off.

00:45:54.000 And so most weight loss studies, people regain it afterwards, is they met several times a week.

00:46:00.000 They did like potlucks, group activities, like they helped each other.

00:46:03.000 Yeah, community.

00:46:04.000 Yes, community.

00:46:06.000 The one downside of that is that there was an app, I can't remember the name of it, that tried to build that for exercise.

00:46:13.000 So like you'd have these buddies and they'd be your accountability buddies.

00:46:16.000 But what happened was that when people started to slip, they left the platform much faster because they were like, I don't want my buddies to know that I'm not doing what they are supposed to be helping me do.

00:46:26.000 So you kind of have to like build in multiple buffers and different ways to help people depending on what it is that motivates them or not.

00:46:33.000 I mean, we have public education, right?

00:46:36.000 We have universities.

00:46:38.000 We have public high schools and middle schools.

00:46:40.000 Why don't we have public gyms?

00:46:42.000 Why don't, I mean, how much money would it cost to have community gyms set up where you don't have to have money to join, where it's paid for by your taxes?

00:46:50.000 You're not talking about something that's outside of, you know, like financially, it wouldn't be feasible.

00:46:58.000 It's not that hard to do.

00:47:00.000 So I think that was the, I don't know what the financial model is now, but that was the idea of like the YMCAs, right?

00:47:05.000 Right.

00:47:06.000 So like it becomes a community focus point.

00:47:09.000 Like my wife grew up in North Carolina.

00:47:11.000 It's like she talks about how they were down the YMC all the time, like playing basketball.

00:47:15.000 I used to have a YMCA when I lived in Boston that I used to go to.

00:47:18.000 It was really cheap.

00:47:19.000 They had weights.

00:47:19.000 They had a track.

00:47:21.000 They had a swimming pool.

00:47:22.000 They had all sorts of stuff.

00:47:23.000 It was way cheaper than a regular gym.

00:47:25.000 And they had classes you could take.

00:47:26.000 Yeah.

00:47:27.000 And there was something very similar close to where I grew up in the UK, just like for a couple of pounds, you go do some kind of martial arts class or something similar.

00:47:36.000 We had that too.

00:47:37.000 Does Austin even have a YMCA?

00:47:40.000 Yeah, definitely.

00:47:41.000 Oh, yeah, there's one.

00:47:42.000 There's like a big one downtown.

00:47:43.000 I've driven past it once, like big glass front.

00:47:46.000 I don't know what it costs.

00:47:47.000 How much does it cost to get into the YMCA in Austin?

00:47:50.000 Let's find that out.

00:47:52.000 I mean, that should be paid for by taxes.

00:47:54.000 Why?

00:47:54.000 I mean, if we pay for all this other shit that we don't need, why don't you know?

00:47:54.000 Yeah.

00:47:59.000 When a big hurdle is accessibility and one year, new progress pack.

00:48:06.000 Join today.

00:48:07.000 How much?

00:48:10.000 $125 value for a year?

00:48:12.000 Is that what it says?

00:48:13.000 How much does it cost?

00:48:14.000 It doesn't say how much it costs.

00:48:16.000 Join today.

00:48:16.000 What does it cost?

00:48:17.000 How much are you cooking?

00:48:18.000 That's also the secret of most memberships for gyms.

00:48:21.000 They don't list their prices online.

00:48:23.000 Yeah, but it's the YMCA.

00:48:24.000 Click on join today.

00:48:29.000 Oh, is that what it is?

00:48:31.000 That's how everyone works, but it's probably cheaper than most.

00:48:33.000 Well, why don't you put it into Perplexity or something like that?

00:48:37.000 Say, how much does it cost to join a YMCA?

00:48:42.000 Here we go.

00:48:43.000 How much do you think it costs?

00:48:43.000 Let's guess.

00:48:44.000 $20 a month?

00:48:46.000 Yeah, I think it can't be much more than a Planet Fitness, right?

00:48:46.000 $50?

00:48:50.000 Planet Fitness is pretty cheap.

00:48:51.000 But the thing about Planet Fitness is they kind of a lot of these big gyms, not just singling out Planet Fitness, they kind of hope that you don't show up.

00:48:59.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the big thing.

00:49:00.000 You're generally looking at $40 to $80 per month, depending on age and household type.

00:49:05.000 That's not too bad.

00:49:06.000 Yeah, but for some people, that's a lot of money, right?

00:49:09.000 $40 a month.

00:49:10.000 Yeah, that's a good chunk of their food bill.

00:49:13.000 So there should be some sliding scale where this becomes very, very heavily subsidized.

00:49:18.000 Yeah.

00:49:19.000 Or free.

00:49:20.000 Yeah.

00:49:21.000 Ideally.

00:49:21.000 I mean, why wouldn't it be free?

00:49:22.000 Yeah, I think it should be.

00:49:23.000 And then homeless people go in there and shower.

00:49:25.000 Well, I mean, I'm okay with that too.

00:49:25.000 There are.

00:49:27.000 Depends on who they are.

00:49:29.000 I mean, if they show.

00:49:30.000 Okay, with some of them.

00:49:31.000 You know, fucking crazy people shitting in the shower.

00:49:36.000 Blue Cross, Blue Shield, many health insurance plans offer gym membership through reimbursements, discounts, or programs like ActiveFit or Global Fit.

00:49:46.000 Benefits can include $20 to $400 annual reimbursements.

00:49:51.000 So some people can use their health insurance to get some of that fee covered.

00:49:55.000 Okay, well, that's nice.

00:49:56.000 But the thing is, again, it's just like Planet Fitness or any of these places.

00:50:01.000 The thing is, they want to recruit you, and then you go and you're like, okay, and then you never go again.

00:50:06.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:06.000 Yeah.

00:50:07.000 But we genuinely want people to go.

00:50:09.000 Like, that's the whole idea.

00:50:11.000 Well, the thing is, like, there's one thing, like, for someone, and I've taken friends to gyms before that don't work out, and they're like, what do I do?

00:50:17.000 They have no idea what to do.

00:50:19.000 Classes.

00:50:20.000 Classes is what should be.

00:50:21.000 Absolutely.

00:50:23.000 Learn a new skill, remove, make a friend.

00:50:26.000 Like, so much amazing stuff happens in that class.

00:50:29.000 Yeah, and they should have multiple different classes available at the same time, right?

00:50:34.000 There should be a class for people that have done nothing.

00:50:36.000 Like, okay, these are dumbbells.

00:50:39.000 This is, pick up a light one.

00:50:40.000 I'm going to show you how to do a shoulder press.

00:50:42.000 And then it should be for more advanced people, intermediate people, something.

00:50:47.000 And a whole range of different skills: yoga, Zumba, Pilates, Tai Chi.

00:50:52.000 Slightly different.

00:50:53.000 Not dumbbell weights, but in Austin, they have a bunch of public-free gym equipment and different parks.

00:51:00.000 Playgrounds and parks.

00:51:01.000 Yeah, that stuff's great.

00:51:03.000 Well, New York City has a whole.

00:51:04.000 Look at these guys.

00:51:06.000 Look at staring at each other.

00:51:07.000 Talking shit.

00:51:08.000 I think one of the problems is that, well, first of all, a lot of people might just look at that and be like, what do I do with that?

00:51:15.000 And then the second is that a lot of what we see around fitness and movement is kind of the extremes, right?

00:51:24.000 They're idolized, professional athletes, like this is what the best of the best do.

00:51:28.000 And we often internalize this idea that that's what we need to do.

00:51:31.000 And if we're not doing that, then we're not doing anything.

00:51:34.000 Right.

00:51:34.000 Whereas all the data suggests that literally any type of movement above what you're doing right now is beneficial, cardiovascular health, cognitive health, dementia risk.

00:51:44.000 So I think some of it is just like letting people know and having people understand that it doesn't take that much to move the needle.

00:51:52.000 And then when they start to do a little bit, right, you get a bit of a bug.

00:51:56.000 Maybe you enjoy it.

00:51:57.000 You find a thing that you enjoy.

00:51:58.000 You do more of it.

00:51:59.000 And so that's part of it too, like having people understand that it doesn't take that much to really start having an impact.

00:52:07.000 And it's also for a lot of people, this is a society that really emphasizes quick fixes of things.

00:52:07.000 Yeah.

00:52:15.000 And it's not a quick thing.

00:52:17.000 You have to trust in a process.

00:52:19.000 And so that has to sort of be educated.

00:52:23.000 People have to be educated to that.

00:52:25.000 It has to be taught to you.

00:52:26.000 Like, this is a process.

00:52:28.000 And you're on a process.

00:52:29.000 You should be very excited about being on this process.

00:52:32.000 It's going to be weird because it's going to take a long time before you see any results.

00:52:36.000 But that long time, like in that time period, you will eventually see results.

00:52:42.000 And then you'll be excited.

00:52:44.000 You'll have more energy.

00:52:44.000 You'll feel better.

00:52:45.000 It'll help every aspect of your life.

00:52:47.000 You just got to do it.

00:52:51.000 One of the things that I like when I talk about movement in particular or exercise and say cognitive function is that you will start to see benefits relatively quickly.

00:53:04.000 So if you go and do a six second max sprint a couple of times, right?

00:53:10.000 And there are studies that show this, you will acutely, like immediately see an improvement in cognitive function, better blood flow to the brain.

00:53:17.000 You've created arousal, which is really important for focus and attention.

00:53:21.000 If you go for a walk outside, right, you will sleep better that night.

00:53:28.000 So you'll feel better the next day.

00:53:30.000 And so, yes, you're absolutely right that this is a lifelong thing, right?

00:53:35.000 You can't just do it for a couple of months and then hope that it's going to translate to benefits for decades to come.

00:53:41.000 But you can see immediate benefits if you start to do some of this stuff and you can feel it very quickly.

00:53:46.000 So I think that that's going to be important because not everybody is going to feel in the position to invest in their future selves.

00:53:56.000 So if you start to see benefits straight away, you're more likely to keep going with it.

00:54:01.000 So that's for people, we were just, I mean, I'm glad we covered it, but we're essentially talking about people that don't know what to do.

00:54:01.000 Okay.

00:54:08.000 For people who do know what to do, you said you work with a lot of Formula One athletes.

00:54:11.000 And what do you do for, like, what is Formula One is fascinating to me.

00:54:17.000 I've been to the Coda racetrack.

00:54:19.000 We're actually putting up a studio.

00:54:21.000 We're going to have a studio at Coda.

00:54:22.000 We're going to have a second studio at the racetrack.

00:54:25.000 And the idea is to take people around the racetrack.

00:54:27.000 I think it would be like stimulate their mind and then come in and do a podcast.

00:54:30.000 It'd be a lot of fun.

00:54:31.000 It'd be like, you'd be like racing.

00:54:32.000 Like your mind would be like, woo.

00:54:35.000 That is an incredible sport where it's fractions of a second, split-second decisions.

00:54:44.000 Your ability to react has to be like incredibly fast.

00:54:48.000 Like, have you ever seen the thing where they drop things?

00:54:50.000 Oh, yeah.

00:54:51.000 Lewis Hamilton is like better at anybody than anybody else.

00:54:54.000 He's just fucking intense.

00:54:57.000 What do you do with them?

00:54:59.000 So you already have people that are primed, right?

00:55:01.000 They're the best in the world, but they are constantly looking for an additional edge.

00:55:07.000 What are you doing for them?

00:55:08.000 Yeah, so there's a few things there.

00:55:11.000 My work with Formula One drivers happens mainly through a company called Hinta Performance.

00:55:16.000 It was founded by Aki.

00:55:17.000 What is it?

00:55:17.000 Hint2?

00:55:18.000 Hintzer, H-I-N-T-S-A, named after Aki Hintzer, who was a Finnish orthopedic surgeon.

00:55:25.000 He worked with Harley Gabriel Selassie, with Mika Hakkenen.

00:55:28.000 He was a two-time Formula One world champion.

00:55:30.000 And then now this is sort of like a big sports enterprise, and I'm their head scientist for motorsport.

00:55:36.000 So that's all motorsport categories from like karting and kids up to up to Formula One.

00:55:41.000 We work with several Formula One drivers.

00:55:43.000 And we provide coaching and medical services.

00:55:47.000 Each driver, or most of the drivers, have a coach, right?

00:55:50.000 So like, you know, when you watch Formula One, there's like somebody holding the umbrella, holding the helmet, right?

00:55:56.000 That's that's usually, well, that's often one of our coaches.

00:55:59.000 They're usually a strength and conditioning specialist, or they might be a physio or a nutritionist.

00:56:04.000 Like they have a ton of, you know, really high-level skills.

00:56:08.000 And they're there every day, right?

00:56:10.000 They do the sleep, they do the training, like they're traveling with them the whole time.

00:56:14.000 They sort of can manage as much of their life as possible.

00:56:18.000 And when you're thinking about that level of skill, the stimulus part has taken care of itself, right?

00:56:30.000 One of the reasons why these guys are so good is because it's all they've done every day for two plus decades, four decades if you're Lewis Hamilton or close to that.

00:56:44.000 So, and that's slowly building these skills first in karting, then in these different formula categories, formula three, formula two, up into Formula One.

00:56:53.000 And so the kinds of things that we might work on, and so like I'm helping the coaches, working with the drivers, we have like a huge team, you know, doctor who works with a bunch of Olympic athletes as well.

00:57:07.000 And so it's a combination of, are there any individual performance limiters?

00:57:12.000 So we might do some blood tests, look at nutrient status and various other things, you know, make sure they're really on top of that with their diets.

00:57:20.000 But then in that kind of world, and like, I'm sure you experienced this yourself, everybody's got a thing for you to try or a thing for you to do, right?

00:57:31.000 Like you're constantly being bombarded with the latest, greatest technology and like this guy wants to study this thing.

00:57:37.000 So a lot of what we do is like be really careful about the things that get added and maybe even take stuff away if we need to.

00:57:48.000 Like what are we trying to work on?

00:57:50.000 What are we trying to build?

00:57:51.000 What does this one driver need?

00:57:53.000 Because they're all very different.

00:57:54.000 They need a different, you know, they have different diets.

00:57:59.000 They have different training programs.

00:58:00.000 They have different warm-up strategies for when they get in the car.

00:58:05.000 And so a lot of what we end up doing is focusing on the other side, right?

00:58:09.000 So if you stimulate your brain, it adapts when you rest and recover afterwards.

00:58:16.000 So because they're essentially jet lagged nine months of the year, right, they're in a different country every week.

00:58:24.000 That's a factor.

00:58:25.000 That's a huge factor.

00:58:26.000 And like on top of like every race weekend, they've got to go meet sponsors.

00:58:26.000 Huge factor.

00:58:31.000 They've got to do media days, right?

00:58:33.000 They're constantly moving.

00:58:34.000 So it's what can we do to maintain their level of performance throughout the season?

00:58:38.000 This is something that the coaches do a ton of work in.

00:58:39.000 Like how can we, what kind of exercise and how can we do targeted training to like maintain performance throughout the year?

00:58:47.000 And then the other part is how can we get as much recovery as possible?

00:58:51.000 Because if we want them to adapt to all the work they're doing and come back each weekend at the top of their game or as close as possible, we need to get them to rest and recover and come back and do it again.

00:59:04.000 So often we're not focusing on the stimulus part.

00:59:07.000 We might be in driver training.

00:59:09.000 We might be thinking about how can we develop cognitive skills and these kinds of things.

00:59:12.000 And these drive are physical skills.

00:59:15.000 In Formula One, often it's how can we get these guys to recover better?

00:59:18.000 How can we get these guys to sleep better?

00:59:20.000 And then that might be technology, but it might also be, you know, just like, how can we nail the basics again and again, make sure they're getting enough time in bed, right?

00:59:28.000 Especially when you're traveling a bunch, that gets really difficult.

00:59:31.000 So we're often focused on the recovery side and how we track, like, how do we collect those data?

00:59:36.000 How do we know when something's starting to slip and get on top of it early?

00:59:40.000 That's the kind of stuff we tend to focus on.

00:59:42.000 So let's talk about the jet lag aspect.

00:59:44.000 What are the strategies for mitigating jet lag?

00:59:48.000 And like, how do you went, like, let's say if they fly in for a race, like if they're going from Europe to the United States and they have to race, how many days in advance do they arrive?

00:59:59.000 And how do they shift their circadian rhythm and eliminate jet lag?

01:00:05.000 What are the strategies?

01:00:06.000 Yeah, there's the time for them, like the number of days they come before the race will depend on how long it was since the last race, plus what other things they've got going on.

01:00:19.000 But it's often like two or three days, right?

01:00:21.000 They'll try and get it come in the beginning of the week, at least like Monday, Tuesday, if the race is then going to be on Sunday.

01:00:28.000 And then as much as possible, you might start to try and shift things earlier.

01:00:34.000 So shift your light exposure so that it aligns more closely with your destination a couple of days before you travel.

01:00:41.000 Shift your sleep if you can.

01:00:43.000 Shift exercise and caffeine timing again, because those things shift circadian rhythm so that so you can kind of get closer to what you're going to do when you land.

01:00:55.000 And so those are probably the primary tools is exercise, light, caffeine.

01:01:01.000 You can use some of them use melatonin.

01:01:05.000 You can also change when you eat.

01:01:09.000 So like food timing is a zeitgeist.

01:01:13.000 It's a fancy word for like time giver, like helps to drive circadian rhythm.

01:01:16.000 So often when you're flying, they'll give you a meal that's happening like in the middle of the night in the time that you're going to land, right?

01:01:26.000 So often you might try and avoid eating while flying and then have your next meal in time with like a normal meal timing when you land.

01:01:34.000 I've heard that one of the things to help with jet lag is just eliminate meals when you're flying, period.

01:01:40.000 There's something about eating, even if it doesn't have anything to do with the time.

01:01:44.000 Like, say if you're flying from Los Angeles to New York, one way to eliminate jet lag, they say, is just to not eat on the flight.

01:01:52.000 So six-hour flight, don't eat at all.

01:01:55.000 Usually, I think most of that is to do with circadian timing because you're usually flying at a time when you wouldn't normally eat.

01:02:05.000 Or like you're often like they give you dinner at like 9 p.m. or it's even midnight, right?

01:02:09.000 So if you see.

01:02:11.000 But is that all it is?

01:02:12.000 Because what is explained to me is that just there's something about your body processing food when you're flying that actually exacerbates jet lag.

01:02:22.000 So I can't think of a you know other than that makes sense.

01:02:25.000 Other than the fact that, I mean, you're obviously, you know, sat still for long periods of time, which might not normally happen at that time of day as well.

01:02:32.000 I think the majority of it in terms, certainly in terms of jet lag plans, is thinking about the timing of meals relative to circadian rhythm because you normally break your first fast at a certain time of day, have dinner at a certain time of day.

01:02:44.000 So I think most of it is related to circadian timing.

01:02:47.000 Okay.

01:02:48.000 What about rigorous exercise?

01:02:50.000 Because one of my strategies, like say if I have to fly to London or something like that and I want to avoid jet lag, I immediately go to the gym.

01:02:58.000 That's the first thing I do.

01:02:59.000 I put my stuff in the hotel room.

01:03:01.000 I go right down to the gym.

01:03:03.000 No negotiation whatsoever.

01:03:05.000 And I get in at least an hour.

01:03:06.000 Yeah.

01:03:07.000 I have to.

01:03:08.000 That's a great way.

01:03:09.000 That's a great way to help to offset some of the jet lag because you start to tell your body, oh, hey, like, even though it's whatever, midnight in Austin, right, this is the time when I want to be awake.

01:03:21.000 So it starts to advance the circadian phase.

01:03:23.000 So, exercise, some people like to do cold exposure, right?

01:03:27.000 It does a similar thing, right?

01:03:28.000 Increases adrenaline, increases heart rate, increases arousal, can do it with light, can do it with caffeine.

01:03:34.000 And so, like, some combination of those things can definitely help.

01:03:37.000 Okay, so there's the sleep, adjusting the sleep, there's the light exposure, there's exercise and food.

01:03:43.000 Is there anything else?

01:03:44.000 Like, what kind of supplementation is effective to mitigate that?

01:03:48.000 Yeah, so they might use melatonin.

01:03:54.000 One of the issues that we have, it's not an issue, it makes perfect sense, is that the supplements that we use with the drivers have to be third-party tested, right?

01:04:06.000 NSF for sport certified and informed sport certified.

01:04:08.000 So, some of the things that we might like to try is that because the drivers get tested because the drivers get tested.

01:04:13.000 And what do they ban?

01:04:14.000 What's banned?

01:04:15.000 It's the same as well.

01:04:15.000 Everything.

01:04:16.000 It's like all the wider drugs.

01:04:20.000 It's the same.

01:04:20.000 They're under wider regulations.

01:04:22.000 So, are they allowed to use peptides?

01:04:27.000 It's a gray area in general.

01:04:30.000 I don't believe anybody does, and we certainly don't recommend it for that reason because we just don't know what's in there.

01:04:35.000 Are they tested for peptides?

01:04:38.000 So, they're not tested for peptides.

01:04:41.000 But, well, that's it.

01:04:45.000 It depends on whether there's actually a peptide that has good high-quality evidence in humans.

01:04:49.000 Well, there's also, you should get them from a real good compounding pharmacy.

01:04:53.000 Make sure you're getting it from a quality source.

01:04:54.000 Which is the real problem with peptides today is that since they're not regulated, there's a lot of gray market.

01:05:00.000 There's a lot of real, you know, bullshit corporations that are selling you stuff that's nonsense and even things that are tainted.

01:05:06.000 So, yeah, so the main thing that you're worried about is contamination.

01:05:10.000 Like, what else have they put in there to make it to get better?

01:05:14.000 Same thing as supplements.

01:05:15.000 Yeah, same thing as supplements.

01:05:17.000 But in reality, there aren't many peptides where I'm like, where I would say, or actually, I couldn't think of any where I'm like, this will have a definite benefit based on high-quality studies in humans, right?

01:05:30.000 Those studies just don't exist.

01:05:33.000 And so, until we get to that point, plus the sort of like the gray area of the sort of legality of it, we tend to focus on the real, I mean, it's the basics, but we know that they work.

01:05:49.000 But there are peptides that have shown to increase sleep and increase REM sleep in humans.

01:05:55.000 Yes, boy, I wish I could tell you because they talked about it, but I never tried it.

01:06:01.000 I know Tom Segura's on it.

01:06:04.000 See if we can find what it is, Jamie.

01:06:06.000 It's boy, it's fucking with my head.

01:06:11.000 Is that what it is?

01:06:12.000 I'm asking.

01:06:12.000 No.

01:06:13.000 Delta sleep-inducing peptide.

01:06:17.000 I want to see the randomized control trial.

01:06:20.000 I have to.

01:06:21.000 I couldn't recommend it unless I know that it's third-party tested, it's legal, and there's a high-quality trial in humans.

01:06:27.000 Like, all those things have to align.

01:06:29.000 The high-quality, the problem with high-quality studies is they take time and money.

01:06:32.000 Yeah.

01:06:33.000 And these aren't FDA approved, so you're not going to get those things.

01:06:35.000 But that doesn't mean they don't work.

01:06:37.000 And this is the problem: you could try it.

01:06:41.000 And then if you show benefit, like in that setting, I can't try it.

01:06:45.000 You can't?

01:06:46.000 Well, you can't because of Formula One drivers and all that stuff.

01:06:46.000 No.

01:06:50.000 So with the way drug-free sport works, which is the governing body of the UFC drug testing, they don't allow anything, unfortunately.

01:06:59.000 But there are studies that show that BPC 157 increases tissue recovery and helps you heal from.

01:07:05.000 Not in humans.

01:07:06.000 True.

01:07:07.000 But there's look the same thing with the COVID vaccine.

01:07:10.000 They weren't tested in humans either before they started trying them.

01:07:15.000 For the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines, there were some pretty good quality trials in humans.

01:07:20.000 Right, but all it showed is that it showed an antibody.

01:07:23.000 It didn't show that it was.

01:07:24.000 Oh, no, against hospitalizations and death.

01:07:27.000 In the first waves.

01:07:28.000 We could argue about that because it's very sketchy.

01:07:31.000 It's very sketchy data that has been disproven.

01:07:34.000 I think that those first waves were high quality.

01:07:38.000 But they didn't even say that it increased hospitalization and death.

01:07:44.000 It was stopping transmission and infection, which was just a lie.

01:07:49.000 That's what they claimed.

01:07:52.000 It's all sketchy because it was based on profit.

01:07:54.000 The whole thing is weird.

01:07:55.000 It's a weird one.

01:07:56.000 It's a weird one.

01:07:57.000 I can't talk about that.

01:08:00.000 Yeah, I can't talk about myself.

01:08:01.000 It's not a good example.

01:08:02.000 But there's plenty of anecdotal evidence, especially with professional athletes, with BPC 157 and TB500 particularly, for tissue injuries, for recovering quicker from tissue injuries.

01:08:14.000 So I know there's anecdote.

01:08:17.000 I know that people say it benefits them.

01:08:20.000 In the environments that I operate in, that's not enough.

01:08:24.000 I understand.

01:08:25.000 You're an actual doctor.

01:08:27.000 Dr. Tommy Wood.

01:08:29.000 He's legit.

01:08:30.000 I'm just a dork.

01:08:31.000 I'm allowed to just say, try it.

01:08:33.000 Fuck it.

01:08:34.000 But so with drug-free sport, like with the UFC, they use thorn supplements.

01:08:41.000 That's what the UFC recommends, which are very good and third party tested.

01:08:44.000 So you have to find whether it's pure encapsulations or some legitimate, well-proven, established company that provides you with third-party tested supplements.

01:08:53.000 What supplements have been shown?

01:08:57.000 Let's stick with Formula One drivers.

01:08:59.000 Reaction time is critical.

01:09:02.000 Your ability to function at a very high cognitive state, right?

01:09:07.000 You're thinking constantly.

01:09:08.000 You're always calculating and movements.

01:09:10.000 What supplements are these guys taking that benefit them?

01:09:14.000 So when you think about complex skill performance, and there's like a whole chapter on this in the book, the most important driver is arousal, right?

01:09:32.000 How aroused is your physiology?

01:09:35.000 And are you set up with the right level of sympathetic activation, neuroadrenaline, adrenaline, cortisol to kind of get the best level of performance?

01:09:46.000 And don't let any one of those overwhelm the other ones.

01:09:48.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:09:49.000 So the curve is bell-shaped, right?

01:09:52.000 It's the Yerkes-Dodson curve named after a couple of guys who actually did studies in mice that then translated actually surprisingly well over to humans.

01:10:00.000 And so what it says is that if you're sort of under-aroused, you're kind of disengaged, a bit lethargic, right?

01:10:07.000 You're not really going to perform well.

01:10:08.000 If you're over-aroused, you're sweaty, anxious, right?

01:10:12.000 Again, you're not going to be able to sort of pay attention to the task.

01:10:14.000 So there's this sweet spot.

01:10:16.000 At the top of the curve, you're capable of flow states, clutch states, which is where you can perform at your best, but it's still like, it's hard work.

01:10:24.000 And so what you're trying to do is get the guys to the top of that curve.

01:10:29.000 And this, for many, involves some element of routine, right?

01:10:33.000 Knowing that I've done the thing that I know that's going to make me feel good.

01:10:36.000 And so it's a combination often of the things that we've already mentioned.

01:10:39.000 They might use some warm-up sprints.

01:10:41.000 They might use music.

01:10:42.000 They might use bright light.

01:10:43.000 They might use breath work.

01:10:45.000 They might use cold.

01:10:47.000 Certainly if it's going to be a hot race, they might do some pre-cooling to bring down core temperature.

01:10:53.000 That improves endurance.

01:10:54.000 Oh, do they bring like cold plunges to Formula One days?

01:10:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:10:58.000 So some of them have a cold plunge or You can fill a wheelie bin with water and ice and jump in that.

01:11:07.000 It doesn't need to be that cold, actually.

01:11:08.000 So for increasing endurance performance, like 20 minutes at around 20 degrees Celsius or like 60-ish Fahrenheit, that significantly improves endurance.

01:11:20.000 Is there a benefit to 20 minutes at 60 degrees Fahrenheit versus three minutes at 34 degrees?

01:11:28.000 So the problem is that when you get too cold, you can actually decrease cognitive performance.

01:11:36.000 So there's a fine line when it's really cold that what you want to do is you want to decrease core temperature without negatively affecting cognitive function.

01:11:45.000 And so that's easier to manage at slightly less cold temperatures.

01:11:49.000 Because just like if you did really, really exhaustive exercise, right?

01:11:52.000 You go out.

01:11:53.000 And so I was a rower in college.

01:11:55.000 So like a 2K test on a row machine.

01:11:57.000 Like after that, my brain doesn't work for like hours afterwards.

01:12:00.000 And so like very, you know, very cold ice baths for several minutes.

01:12:06.000 For some people, that can decrease cognitive function.

01:12:08.000 So you can find a sweet spot.

01:12:11.000 That makes sense.

01:12:12.000 That makes a lot of sense because my mind is very bad after brutal workouts.

01:12:19.000 If I have a really hard workout and I come in and do a podcast, there's a moment where I'm like, it's just not firing.

01:12:26.000 Yeah.

01:12:27.000 And that's perfect.

01:12:28.000 And that's normal.

01:12:29.000 We know that.

01:12:30.000 If you do very fatiguing exercise for a period of time, you experience a decline in cognitive function.

01:12:34.000 But a light exercise stimulates you.

01:12:36.000 Exactly.

01:12:37.000 So one of the best studied exercise modalities to improve cognitive function is literally just like a 20-minute jog, right?

01:12:45.000 It's light.

01:12:46.000 It's a very light job.

01:12:47.000 But you're sort of warming everything up, increasing sympathetic activation, increasing the release of all those hormones you mentioned.

01:12:47.000 Exactly.

01:12:54.000 And that increases arousal.

01:12:55.000 That improves cognitive performance.

01:12:57.000 So they might be doing some of those things.

01:12:59.000 In the car, there'll be differing types of caffeine use depending on sensitivity and timing.

01:13:06.000 Are they taking it in pill form so that they could regulate it quickly or accurately, rather?

01:13:12.000 Yeah, so some do sometimes pills, sometimes gels.

01:13:15.000 Some guys just like cappuccino.

01:13:17.000 Some might use like green tea because like the theanine in there might balance some of like the jitters that you can get with caffeine.

01:13:25.000 Some people find creatine stimulating or mildly stimulating, so they might take creatine before they get in the car.

01:13:31.000 Well, there's been studies on creatine and cognitive performance that are really interesting.

01:13:34.000 Particularly in the setting of sleep deprivation.

01:13:36.000 And so when they're jet lagged, I think that that one makes sense.

01:13:36.000 Yeah.

01:13:41.000 There are some newer caffeine-related compounds that if we can get them when they're third-party tested, you know, some may try those.

01:13:49.000 So theocrine or teacrine and paraxanthine, which is a metabolite of caffeine.

01:13:58.000 They may have some fewer of the like anxiety promoting, high blood pressure, high heart rate effects, but maintain some of the cognitive effects, especially in combination with caffeine.

01:14:07.000 So you have a little bit less caffeine plus a bit of those.

01:14:09.000 They're harder to get sort of third-party tested and stuff.

01:14:12.000 And some of the evidence is newer.

01:14:16.000 But that's looking sort of promising as another thing that people might try.

01:14:20.000 You mentioned theanine, which is a nootropic.

01:14:23.000 There's quite a few different ones that people enjoy.

01:14:28.000 Beta-choline, there's a bunch of different ones.

01:14:32.000 Do Formula One drivers, do they supplement with that kind of thing?

01:14:36.000 So you're thinking like alpha GPC?

01:14:38.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:14:39.000 So like it's a choline type of choline that's like preferentially turned into acetylcholine.

01:14:46.000 And acetylcholine is really important for like focus and attention.

01:14:50.000 Some of that stuff isn't regularly used, like mainly because it's hard to get a third-party tested source.

01:15:00.000 Is it really?

01:15:01.000 Yeah.

01:15:02.000 Like most of the things that you take, there probably isn't, or that anybody would take, there might not be an NSF for sport certified version.

01:15:09.000 There's very few companies that do that routinely for all their supplements.

01:15:12.000 God, you'd think that that would be really accessible because nootropics are so common now.

01:15:20.000 So there's that.

01:15:21.000 Plus there's the, when we're working with different drivers, they each have very unique needs.

01:15:28.000 So it's trying to, it's a combination of what do I think is really going to move the needle and not overcorrect.

01:15:36.000 I think most coaches I've spoken to in Formula One have a story where their driver had three espresso before it got in the car and then he overcooked the first corner.

01:15:44.000 Right.

01:15:45.000 So it's a really tricky balance of trying to make sure that they can systematically get in the zone to perform well in the car without sort of pushing them too far over the over the other side.

01:15:56.000 And so that's where supplements become trickier because it's very easy to downregulate if you've overcooked it through some of those physiological means, right?

01:16:07.000 I can do some breath work or something to kind of calm myself down.

01:16:10.000 But if I've like stuffed myself full of caffeine, it's going to be hard to like come back from that.

01:16:16.000 And then you sort of step in the car and it could cause some issues.

01:16:18.000 So we tend to focus on some of the physiological stuff and then maybe a little bit of supplementation because that seems to be the sort of like best balance across those different needs.

01:16:27.000 Well, it seems like Formula One would be a great place to develop framework for this because there's so much money involved.

01:16:35.000 It's such a massive sport.

01:16:37.000 And you would think that they would have that dialed in.

01:16:40.000 Like you're 168 pounds.

01:16:42.000 This is when you woke up.

01:16:44.000 This is what you need right now.

01:16:45.000 You need this much protein, this much this.

01:16:47.000 Stop eating X amount of hours before the race.

01:16:50.000 So yes, we do a lot of that, but it's different for each guy.

01:16:56.000 And nobody wants to share what they've got.

01:16:58.000 Oh, it's that.

01:17:00.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:17:00.000 So like even like your, you know, your biggest rival is your teammate in many respects, right?

01:17:05.000 Because that's the only guy you can go up against truly head to head because you're in the same car.

01:17:10.000 Right.

01:17:10.000 So, yeah, you know, a lot of what we do, we have to silo within a driver.

01:17:16.000 Like, this is the stuff that works for this guy.

01:17:18.000 And I can't use that to help this guy, right?

01:17:21.000 That's one reason.

01:17:22.000 That's one reason why Hints is.

01:17:24.000 They don't share information.

01:17:25.000 Yeah.

01:17:26.000 And that's one reason why Hintzer has been very successful as a company is because they've been, we're very good at walling this stuff off.

01:17:32.000 Like we know what's good for this guy.

01:17:33.000 We know what's good for this guy.

01:17:35.000 And we sort of leave those separate because different frameworks, different approaches might be needed.

01:17:40.000 Well, it's such an extreme example because any little deviation that you wouldn't normally feel in everyday life could be disastrous in a Formula One race.

01:17:51.000 Yeah.

01:17:52.000 What about different things to stimulate cognitive function, like playing chess or doing, is there anything that those guys engage in specifically to improve the way they think?

01:18:08.000 Again, it depends a little from driver to driver.

01:18:14.000 A lot of them play some kind of video games, which actually have some interesting evidence to support them in terms of improving cognitive function.

01:18:24.000 I think for them, though, a lot of that is, it's almost like relaxation.

01:18:30.000 Like when you drive a Formula One car for a living, like playing a video game isn't necessarily as challenging.

01:18:38.000 Right.

01:18:40.000 And so a lot of it tends to be very car focused, right?

01:18:45.000 They get tons of time in the simulator.

01:18:47.000 Like during the season, they get a lot of time in the car.

01:18:50.000 So there's nothing that consistently would work or that everybody does.

01:18:55.000 I think a lot of where the cognitive training side comes from is during driver development, right?

01:19:02.000 How can we get more sport specific or supporting cognitive challenges in younger drivers as they're developing?

01:19:12.000 So we might use some cognitive training tools and some other things to try and support some of those development processes.

01:19:19.000 Because by the time they're at the top, especially if you want to maintain it, the main thing that you need to do is obviously maintain those driving skills, which you'll get through the day-to-day aspects of the job.

01:19:31.000 Plus, then it's really continually paying attention to sustained physical health, physical performance, especially because of the arduous schedules and all that kind of stuff.

01:19:43.000 So often again, they're focusing on the other areas because they know that will help them stay at a high level for longer.

01:19:49.000 So they're focused on recovery from all the unavoidable aspects that are going to mitigate your performance.

01:19:54.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:19:56.000 So sleep, some of them use different meditation or breath work or other devices just to kind of help maybe like gamify it slightly or you make it a slightly more enjoyable experience.

01:20:10.000 It's easier to do, easier to switch off if you're doing things related to sort of like vibration and that kind of stuff.

01:20:19.000 You mean like pressure plates, like those standing on plates?

01:20:21.000 Yeah, so like shaky plates?

01:20:23.000 No, there's turbosonic.

01:20:26.000 There's a chair that some guys use.

01:20:30.000 And I mean, this is used in a ton of different sports and like in other military groups as well.

01:20:34.000 It's called the shift wave.

01:20:35.000 Yeah, I have one.

01:20:35.000 Have you heard of this?

01:20:36.000 Yeah.

01:20:37.000 So some of the guys have a shift wave.

01:20:39.000 It just kind of depends on what works well for them in terms of like allowing them to downregulate, allowing them to kind of sleep better.

01:20:46.000 And again, we sort of often focus on the more sort of physiological environmental side rather than trying to throw a bunch of supplements at it.

01:20:54.000 Well, it seems like that's a great place to study Formula One drivers because you're dealing with these like fine lines, this tiny differential between success and failure.

01:21:04.000 Yeah.

01:21:05.000 Yeah.

01:21:05.000 And one of the interesting things is that the sort of the real performance stuff is kind of siloed within the team.

01:21:13.000 So then, right, because that's related to performance in the car and that's sensitive information.

01:21:19.000 So a lot of the time we're kind of thinking about, and this actually, across most sports, the best predictor of performance is subjective well-being.

01:21:32.000 How does the athlete feel?

01:21:34.000 And so like there are tons of studies, even like coming out now, like you compare that to blood tests and HRV and all this other kind of stuff.

01:21:40.000 How they feel.

01:21:41.000 Am I tired?

01:21:42.000 Am I achy?

01:21:44.000 Do I feel alert?

01:21:46.000 You know, all that kind of stuff.

01:21:47.000 That seems to predict performance really well.

01:21:49.000 So how can we, and better some of those, better than some of those other things?

01:21:54.000 The best is a combination as much as possible.

01:21:57.000 But so we do a lot of work aggregating data.

01:22:01.000 But then really the rest of the time is, how can I make sure this guy feels good every day?

01:22:06.000 And feels confident when he gets in the car.

01:22:06.000 Right.

01:22:08.000 And so then we have psychologists.

01:22:09.000 They're a big part of that.

01:22:10.000 Plus like keeping an eye on their body and all that, you know, all All those sort of things to sort of put them in the best spot possible when they get in the car.

01:22:17.000 Do you coach them to avoid toxic relationships?

01:22:21.000 I'm not sure if anybody's ever gotten into that.

01:22:24.000 For fighters, it is like one of the number one predictors of poor success in a competition.

01:22:31.000 I've seen it over and over again.

01:22:33.000 Guys with horrible relationships, whoever's fault it is, both fault, both parties, whatever it is.

01:22:39.000 But those are the ones when they have really bad relationships.

01:22:42.000 Like there was this one guy that I know that was a really high performer, very good fighter, but he had this crazy girlfriend and she required so much attention that it would drive her nuts when he was getting ready for a fight because he was spending all his time concentrating on the fight and it would peak literally the night before the fight.

01:23:02.000 Like their relationship was so toxic, she would always start fights and all the coaches knew it.

01:23:07.000 She would start fights after he weighed in because he was so locked in on the fight the next day that he wasn't paying attention to her. 0.75

01:23:14.000 So she would storm out of the hotel room and go down to the bar by herself and he would freak out and he would always wind up performing poorly.

01:23:22.000 At least I personally haven't seen the evidence of that in that world.

01:23:26.000 I will say that fighters are kind of crazy though.

01:23:30.000 It's an interesting group to study because it's a very bizarre activity to begin with.

01:23:36.000 The way I describe it is high-level problem solving with dire physical consequences.

01:23:42.000 Although you could say that Formula One is similar in that respect, right?

01:23:47.000 Very similar.

01:23:49.000 There are certainly a lot of drivers come into the sport withten driven by family relationships.

01:23:56.000 So I think that that may be an influence sometimes.

01:24:00.000 Overbearing parents are another one. 0.81

01:24:01.000 Coaches, other overbearing parents.

01:24:03.000 Yeah, yeah, as far as they come in with this long history of like what got them there.

01:24:09.000 So maybe that affects some of them.

01:24:10.000 I'm not sure.

01:24:11.000 What are the most challenging athletes?

01:24:14.000 I assume you've dealt with a bunch of different athletes from various sports.

01:24:18.000 What are the most challenging ones to deal with?

01:24:22.000 The one, I think the ones that I found most challenging are, it's usually because they're pulled in so many different directions that it becomes difficult for them to like really engage in the things that we know is going to help them perform long term.

01:24:46.000 Um, and so, as uh and like, I have friends who work in the NBA, for instance, where I think this is amplified even more.

01:24:54.000 Right, you have teenage millionaires who can literally do whatever they want right, but you have to like, keep them on on task, and we see that in a lot of professional sports, and so it's that it's that kind of stuff is what's um distracting them?

01:25:09.000 What are the other things that they're doing that's stopping them from being able to engage in these processes?

01:25:14.000 Um, and so you, you can have like really good conversations and put together really good plans and like, in the moment, they're really engaged and they're interested and right, they want to do well right, this is their job and they love it.

01:25:29.000 But when other things start to come into play outside of that conversation, they don't engage with things, they don't do it, they don't see the results that they want, they get demotivated.

01:25:40.000 But it's usually because, like other things in their life right, could be like the toxic relationships, but it tends to be other other distractors, that kind of um, pull them away from that, that sort of like core goal.

01:25:52.000 Unfortunately, success is a big one right, because the motivation to succeed in the first place is, you want financial gain, you want recognition, you want all these things that you're chasing after, and then, once you get them, now what?

01:26:05.000 Yeah yeah, yeah.

01:26:06.000 And some Some, some people like maintain, like really dead, they maintain dedication to the craft.

01:26:14.000 Like this is the thing that I love and I want to do it every day.

01:26:16.000 And the longer you do it, the more you have to take care of like the little details.

01:26:21.000 Like early on in your career, you can train however you want, eat however you want.

01:26:25.000 If you have a certain set of skills and training up to that point, you'll do pretty well.

01:26:31.000 But you want to sustain that for a very long period of time.

01:26:35.000 It requires an increasing amount of dedication to the other areas of your life to make sure that you can still do that.

01:26:42.000 And I think sometimes people just aren't honest with themselves in terms of what they really want to do or what they're going to spend their time doing.

01:26:49.000 So that's the most frustrating thing is when you sort of hear one thing, but you see another thing because of the other areas of life that are taking over.

01:27:00.000 So what do you do if you have an athlete, like say an NBA athlete, and you see all this talent, all this potential, but then you notice that they're getting pulled in all these different directions?

01:27:11.000 Maybe they're just like spending money all the time and partying and hanging out with girls.

01:27:16.000 And how do you get them back on track?

01:27:20.000 So I don't do a ton of work in NBA.

01:27:23.000 When I intersect with that, I'm generally advising on the data portion rather than interacting with the human.

01:27:31.000 So I don't have good tips, but luckily because I've never had to deal with that, because I imagine it's quite frustrating.

01:27:37.000 So what athletes do you deal with?

01:27:38.000 Like what sports?

01:27:40.000 So Formula One is the one where I primarily am like face-to-face with athletes.

01:27:43.000 In other professional sports, I'm like an advisor to the team that works with them on like a data, health, nutrition kind of work kind of stuff.

01:27:50.000 Got it, got it, got it.

01:27:52.000 And when you compare notes, what are the differences between like dealing with Formula One athletes versus dealing with like NFL or NBA or baseball?

01:28:01.000 A lot of the stuff comes down to differences in travel schedule and training and the ability to capture data, for instance.

01:28:13.000 So data capture in Formula One is really hard because of the types of travel and you don't get to aggregate across a team, whereas you're part of a big team, there's several people you can kind of work, but you work with and aggregate data across to kind of understand what's happening with individuals as well as like overall.

01:28:33.000 But I think that Formula One is unique because it's so individual in terms of each driver has their one specific team and it's often very difficult to capture some of the data that we might want to capture, like getting blood tests on guys who are in a plane every other day, right?

01:28:55.000 Right.

01:28:55.000 It's really difficult.

01:28:57.000 Whereas other places where they have a home base and this kind of stuff is usual, you might be able to get at that better.

01:29:04.000 So I think that's maybe one of the biggest differences is the travel schedule and how easy or not it is to like capture and aggregate data.

01:29:12.000 when you're working with these formula one athletes like how much are you changing the methods that you use like year to year um it will depend on whether so i mean my job is to stay on top of the latest research right so

01:29:30.000 So what's come out recently that we think will meaningfully move the needle in reality, and I think this is the case in the majority of professional sports that I've interacted with.

01:29:47.000 The main thing is getting the boring basics done consistently.

01:29:53.000 And again and again and again, we know that's foundational to sustained performance.

01:29:59.000 And yeah, like the Some of the tools and technology for recovery and some of the supplements, especially if you're trying to address nutrient insufficiencies based on an inadequate diet, which is also very common, those things do make a difference.

01:30:19.000 But the main struggle, at least from the guys that I regularly see, is having an environment and framework that allows them to keep doing that stuff, like stay on top of a specific training program or stay consistent with a certain sleep routine that allows them to sleep well.

01:30:39.000 Those are the things that make the biggest difference.

01:30:42.000 And so it's like that's where we tend to focus.

01:30:44.000 And then maybe every year or so, we're constantly improving our data capture and our data analysis.

01:30:51.000 We're constantly trying to improve sort of like the support processes because we know that with the better support, we can make sure they're more likely to do the stuff that's going to make a big difference.

01:31:05.000 And then maybe every sort of like year or two, there's a new thing that comes in.

01:31:09.000 And we're like, oh, yeah, we're fairly confident that this is low risk, high potential benefit.

01:31:14.000 It's not going to take a ton of their time, right?

01:31:16.000 That's that's another thing is when I first walked into the paddock in, it was here in Austin.

01:31:23.000 That was the first time I went to Formula One to like start working with these guys.

01:31:26.000 I like, I showed up and I'm like, I've got like a, I've got like a hundred things that these guys are going to love.

01:31:31.000 It's going to be really important.

01:31:32.000 It's going to revolutionize everything.

01:31:34.000 And then you speak to like a coach for the first time.

01:31:36.000 They're like, we've got time for maybe one thing.

01:31:39.000 And you better be really confident that this thing is going to make a difference, right?

01:31:44.000 Or else you've wasted our time.

01:31:45.000 So how do you decide?

01:31:48.000 So a little bit of it is, of course, there's going to be some trial and error.

01:31:54.000 And it does depend on.

01:31:56.000 But the error is like consequences are huge.

01:31:58.000 Yeah.

01:31:59.000 Like, and you just, you just have to acknowledge that up front.

01:32:01.000 And the error is biggest when you're telling some guy to do something before he gets in the car, right?

01:32:06.000 Because that's going to immediately have an effect.

01:32:09.000 So there are ways to offset some of that, right?

01:32:11.000 They have practice periods.

01:32:15.000 And so it's like right now as a new generation of cars for this season.

01:32:19.000 Nobody's driven them before.

01:32:21.000 They're getting more extended track time to practice with them.

01:32:25.000 So that might be a time when you could try a new supplement or something before you get in the car because it's a much lower risk setting.

01:32:33.000 You're not racing.

01:32:34.000 There's not 19 other guys or now 21 other guys trying to get past you.

01:32:40.000 And then, right, so that, so some of it is that, right?

01:32:43.000 Trial and error, you acknowledge that you just have to be really confident that you know what problem you're trying to solve and that it's an important problem, right?

01:32:51.000 So I've worked with coaches and their driver where like reaction time was a very specific thing, like off the line, we think we need X amount improvement.

01:33:02.000 So then it's a combination of practice, maybe tinkering with some supplements, maybe tinkering with some of that arousal stuff that we talked about earlier.

01:33:11.000 So you need to make sure it's an important problem.

01:33:13.000 Then you need to think about like what's the hierarchy of things that have the highest likelihood of benefit and the lowest risk and then sort of work your way through it.

01:33:22.000 And I realize that this is all kind of in the abstract because it just like really depends on the problem that's in front of you.

01:33:28.000 What about the psychology aspect of it?

01:33:31.000 I mean, this is a very controversial aspect of mixed martial arts in particular, because there's kind of two schools of thought.

01:33:42.000 I have a good friend who's a coach that recently told me he's not working with any fighters anymore that need a mental coach.

01:33:49.000 And I said, why?

01:33:50.000 And he's like, you just can't count on them.

01:33:52.000 He goes, they're just too fragile.

01:33:53.000 They need a mental coach because I want a motherfucker who just knows that this is what he's supposed to be doing and just go out and do it. 1.00

01:33:59.000 I'm like, boy, but that kind of limits your athletes, right?

01:34:03.000 Like, do you think that there's benefit in mental coaching?

01:34:10.000 Or do you think like to reach a championship level, there's an inherent mindset that you must have going into that?

01:34:17.000 And you can improve upon that.

01:34:18.000 But if you do not have that mindset, you're not going to be successful.

01:34:23.000 This is my friend's idea.

01:34:25.000 I don't want to call him out because you know who the athletes he works with.

01:34:27.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:34:28.000 But, you know, he recently had a bad result with one of his athletes.

01:34:31.000 He's like, I'm done.

01:34:32.000 No, no more guys who need mental coaches.

01:34:34.000 I want killers. 0.78

01:34:36.000 So I think that you're going to need some element of a mindset to get to that level to begin with.

01:34:42.000 Right.

01:34:43.000 But we have psychologists on our team who work with the drivers regularly.

01:34:52.000 Other drivers who aren't working with us bring in sports psychologists very regularly.

01:34:59.000 Do you collaborate with these psychologists?

01:35:01.000 Do you talk to them and get their notes?

01:35:02.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:35:03.000 What are common issues?

01:35:03.000 So we have...

01:35:07.000 The...

01:35:09.000 I mean, again, it's just, it's so dependent on the individual.

01:35:17.000 But it's also very common across all athletes, right?

01:35:19.000 So it's like overcoming failure or fear of failure or maybe it's dealing with difficult relationships, which for various reasons they can experience.

01:35:33.000 And then it's how their inherent thought process is when that happens.

01:35:38.000 So we know that the most resilient athletes are those that tend to be self-compassionate, right?

01:35:46.000 So like- Interesting.

01:35:48.000 Yeah.

01:35:48.000 That's interesting.

01:35:49.000 I would have thought the opposite.

01:35:50.000 Yeah.

01:35:50.000 And so there's this idea, right, that you want killers.

01:35:53.000 You want people hard on themselves.

01:35:56.000 guys who are hard on themselves but for sustained and and so this is looking across like as broad as possible across sport Those who are most successful most often, of course, there's going to be the killer who's just like hardened himself and gets the job done, of course, right?

01:36:14.000 But these elements of self-compassion that include things like mindfulness, like thinking about the world and understanding it and about their place in it and common humanity, which is like treating themselves as they would treat other people and acknowledging the right, we all make mistakes and stuff always happens, but I can overcome this.

01:36:35.000 This has happened to me before.

01:36:36.000 Like I've sucked, I've crashed, I've done something wrong.

01:36:39.000 And hey, I overcame it and now I'm succeeding again.

01:36:44.000 Those mental skills are most common amongst the high-level athletes.

01:36:52.000 So I give an example.

01:36:54.000 So I don't know him, but like Roger Federer has a very famous quote, right?

01:36:59.000 He gave at some like graduation address or something, where he says that across his career, he only won 54% of his points on court, right?

01:37:12.000 So that means that 46% of points, he lost, right?

01:37:17.000 So that means that every time he makes a mistake, every unforced error, he has to come back and be like, hey, dude, like, you've got this.

01:37:23.000 I know I can do this.

01:37:25.000 And that's the point that he's making in this address.

01:37:27.000 And it's those kinds of mental skills that seem to be most important.

01:37:31.000 So when you've had a history of beating yourself up and being hard on yourself, and that's kind of gotten you to that point, there will often be a stage where there's so much accumulated pressure or stress or failure that just working harder and being harder on yourself isn't going to get you past it.

01:37:54.000 Athletes who are successful for a long period of time tend to have those other abilities to like think about the bigger picture, understand what they've overcome previously, treat themselves more like they would treat others.

01:38:05.000 And they seem to be the ones who overcome failure and then continue to succeed.

01:38:10.000 I'm really into professional pool.

01:38:12.000 I play pool and I follow a lot of professional pool players.

01:38:15.000 And there's a trait amongst the elite pool players that's pretty consistent for the ones that are successful and win tournaments.

01:38:23.000 It's the ability to let a bad shot go.

01:38:25.000 Exactly.

01:38:26.000 Because the guys who beat themselves up over bad shots, you see it.

01:38:30.000 They slump in their chair.

01:38:32.000 They start running their fingers through their hair.

01:38:34.000 They fucking throw their head back.

01:38:36.000 They take a beat, deep breath.

01:38:37.000 And then they're carrying that with them when they go out to make a shot again.

01:38:42.000 And for a high-level pool player, so there's performance scores.

01:38:48.000 And a really high TPA performance score is like, I think the best in the world right now is Joshua Filler, who's this guy from Germany.

01:38:57.000 And he's arguably, if not the best, one of the top two or three guys in the world.

01:39:02.000 His performance score is about, I think it's like 850 out of 1,000.

01:39:11.000 So that means if he makes 1,000 shots, he's going to make 850 of those shots, which is very elite.

01:39:18.000 So you've got to think like even the best, because they're playing on four-inch pockets, but this guy never gets upset.

01:39:23.000 When he misses, he just sits down and he's got a dead look on his face.

01:39:26.000 The Chinese Taipei players are the best at it.

01:39:29.000 I don't know how they coach them over there.

01:39:30.000 So they're some of the best in the world, the Chinese Taipei players.

01:39:34.000 So these guys from Taiwan, they have no expression. 1.00

01:39:37.000 When they miss a shot, they just go and sit down.

01:39:39.000 And maybe they'll smile, but they never get upset.

01:39:42.000 Whereas a lot of the American players, they get fucking pissed off.

01:39:47.000 Some of the European players do the same thing.

01:39:47.000 You see it.

01:39:49.000 And those guys, they fall off a cliff.

01:39:52.000 Their performance is elite.

01:39:53.000 They'll make a couple of bad shots and then the match goes downhill and they wind up getting steamrolled.

01:39:58.000 And I think you can, there's other stuff going on.

01:40:01.000 You can think about it in terms of that arousal curve we talked about earlier, right?

01:40:05.000 As you get stressed and worked up about a missed shot, you're pushing yourself further and further away from the level of arousal that's required for performance.

01:40:16.000 And dwelling on failure.

01:40:18.000 And then you're thinking about what happened previously rather than the shot that comes next.

01:40:18.000 Right.

01:40:23.000 Well, that's one of the most important things about a shot, because even if your mechanics are good, if you think you're going to miss, you're going to miss.

01:40:28.000 It's weird.

01:40:29.000 It's a weird thing because you know what to do, you know how to do it, but if you think, fuck, I can't miss this shot, you're going to miss.

01:40:36.000 Like nine times out of ten, it's very weird.

01:40:39.000 So it's a very mentally the game, a giant percentage of it once the skills are acquired, because most of them, when they get to an elite level, have all the skills.

01:40:50.000 It's a mental thing.

01:40:51.000 It's ability to perform under pressure.

01:40:54.000 Yeah.

01:40:54.000 Because it's fine motor skills.

01:40:58.000 There's, I mean, across every different aspect of cognitive performance, well-being, there's, you know, again and again, you see that psychology drives physiology and drives performance.

01:41:14.000 Like you can measure these things as you think them, as they then change physiology, which then alters how you perform.

01:41:22.000 So, I mean, this is a very, very long answer to your question of, like, is like psychology and mental skills important?

01:41:31.000 Absolutely.

01:41:32.000 Because I think that's going to be foundational to whether you can even achieve those high levels of performance.

01:41:38.000 And everybody needs help occasionally.

01:41:41.000 And that's perfectly normal.

01:41:43.000 And different people are going to need different tools and different skill sets.

01:41:47.000 So different psychologists are going to provide different things for them to do.

01:41:50.000 So like, yes, that's always something that we have on hand as needed as part of the team because that's going to be really important.

01:41:57.000 Yeah, the mind controls so much of what you do in life, even if you have skills.

01:42:04.000 And that's something that elite performers either figure out or don't, right?

01:42:10.000 They either never achieve their true potential because they keep tripping over themselves or they go, okay, this is not helping me.

01:42:17.000 It's only hurting me.

01:42:18.000 I keep allowing myself to spiral into this same sort of mental state and I have to find a method.

01:42:25.000 And so like, when you talk with psychologists, what do they, what tools and what, what, what sort of strategies do they give these athletes to abandon negative thinking?

01:42:42.000 There are a few different ways to approach it.

01:42:44.000 And again, like, don't want to pretend I'm a psychologist, right?

01:42:48.000 These are, these are the, we have other people with these skills for a reason.

01:42:53.000 But I think a lot of what becomes important, again, is thinking about the causes of maybe initially the causes of mistakes and then the causes of stress and why that may or may not be beneficial and the way that you can you can leverage it.

01:43:16.000 So there's a lot of research on understanding that stress responses are there to divert resources to something that matters and something that either requires your attention or adaptation to it, right?

01:43:32.000 So understanding that actually stress in the moment, in that kind of moment is a good thing and you want to leverage it rather than be scared of it.

01:43:41.000 So, and we know that people who are trained in this mindset, so this is work by Aylio Crum at Stanford, the stress is enhancing mindset, also like predicts how well Navy SEALs do during training, like how much they sort of like appreciate that stress response is important.

01:43:59.000 This is me rising to the occasion.

01:44:04.000 Not only that, you still get stress, where you still can measure stress hormones.

01:44:08.000 That still happens, but you release other things that help to also counteract that and drive adaptation.

01:44:16.000 And it results in better decision making when stressed.

01:44:20.000 So reframing some of these responses can be important, as well as then thinking about after a mistake happened, thinking about other examples of times when you did that and you overcame it or having like these different parts of understanding what it is to be a human, even when you're performing at an elite level.

01:44:40.000 Maybe some of it is building in routines so that you feel confident in a given situation, right?

01:44:49.000 Like these are the things that I do.

01:44:52.000 And when I do these things, I know I'm going to perform well.

01:44:55.000 That can be a double-edged sword for some people because, and I think this, we see this a lot of this in the in the world of sort of like health optimization.

01:45:03.000 We assume that we need to do all these things in order to perform well.

01:45:07.000 And so then if those things don't happen, we think we won't perform well, right?

01:45:10.000 So that's another way for us to get in our way, our own way.

01:45:14.000 So you kind of have to balance that depending on the individual.

01:45:17.000 And then some of it can be in the moment, right?

01:45:21.000 So you're one of those pool players and you're getting increasingly frustrated because you're not making your shots.

01:45:28.000 It's almost impossible to think your way out of that, right?

01:45:32.000 Your brain is too busy being dunked in adrenaline to like make good decisions.

01:45:37.000 So that's where you might have tools like leveraging your physiology, breath work, closing your eyes, visualization.

01:45:47.000 Those things sort of work from the bottom up to kind of help your mind get a grip and like get back in the game.

01:45:53.000 So it's a whole bunch of different things depending on what you might need.

01:45:58.000 Is it, I need to regulate myself in the moment?

01:46:00.000 Is it how do I set myself up for success through a series of, and it could be like, what's my warm-up?

01:46:08.000 What's my, what am I thinking through?

01:46:10.000 What am I visualizing before I perform?

01:46:13.000 Or is it tools to kind of deal with the processes of failure afterwards?

01:46:17.000 And I would also think that even just the knowledge that these high stress situations where you do encounter failure can produce a result inside the mind that can be beneficial if harnessed.

01:46:31.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:46:31.000 Yes.

01:46:32.000 And so one of the ways that this is taught to other people, right, not just athletes, is like, think about all the people who've performed under significant stress, right?

01:46:44.000 This is what the human mind and human body is capable of, if only we allow it to do that.

01:46:50.000 Right, right.

01:46:51.000 That's what's important, right?

01:46:54.000 I think inspiration is one of the most powerful fuels that we can use.

01:46:58.000 And inspiration from other people's examples is one of the best versions of that.

01:47:03.000 Because I think there was a young kid who recently broke the world record of the mile.

01:47:10.000 Did you see that?

01:47:11.000 Oh, yeah.

01:47:11.000 I watched that.

01:47:11.000 Yeah.

01:47:13.000 160 something.

01:47:15.000 Yeah, 348, which is nuts, which is nuts.

01:47:15.000 348, maybe.

01:47:19.000 We didn't think that people can get below four minutes before.

01:47:22.000 This 16-year-old kid hits 348.

01:47:26.000 And I immediately thought, wow, through the inspiration of this kid being able to do this, who's going to break 340 now?

01:47:35.000 You know?

01:47:36.000 I heard from somebody that in the run-up to the race, he was like, he hadn't raced a bunch recently.

01:47:43.000 This is stud.

01:47:44.000 This was just going to be like a, just like going to be a run out.

01:47:46.000 He was just like going to loosen his legs up, get back into the race.

01:47:51.000 And so like in that situation, he's put no pressure on himself, right?

01:47:56.000 All the brakes are off, like whatever.

01:47:57.000 He's got nothing to lose.

01:47:58.000 And so like in that situation, incredible performances are possible.

01:48:03.000 And it's crazy because that's only the 11th fastest indoor mile.

01:48:07.000 That's what it says here.

01:48:08.000 I thought it was the fastest ever, but it's the fastest ever for under 18. 0.99

01:48:11.000 The under 18 record, yeah.

01:48:12.000 So crazy.

01:48:13.000 That's so fast to run a mile.

01:48:17.000 I mean, I'm not sure I could go that fast full stop ever, like for any period of time.

01:48:22.000 Yeah, for like 20 feet.

01:48:24.000 I can't run that fast.

01:48:24.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:48:26.000 It's kind of amazing.

01:48:27.000 But I mean, this is one of the things we talk about all the time with mixed martial arts athletes in particular is that today is such an amazing time for them because there's so much access to video.

01:48:39.000 So you can watch all these performances by all these elite athletes and then it raises your personal standards because you're mirroring what these people are capable of doing.

01:48:49.000 And in your head, you have a very high standard because you've seen it.

01:48:53.000 And that inspires people to become better.

01:48:56.000 And so the athletes that we're seeing today, I say all the time that martial arts has evolved more in the last 30 years than it has in the last 30,000 years.

01:49:06.000 And it's true. 0.56

01:49:07.000 And it's true just based on my own personal experience of seeing athletes from 1997 when I first started working with the UFC to 2026.

01:49:16.000 It's a completely different standard.

01:49:18.000 They're so much better.

01:49:19.000 They're so much more elite.

01:49:21.000 They have so much more balance.

01:49:22.000 They have so much more balance in terms of their game is balanced, striking, grappling, wrestling, all of it together.

01:49:31.000 It's amazing because they're walking on the foundation that was set by the athletes before them.

01:49:39.000 So it's the mind recognizing what's possible.

01:49:42.000 Absolutely.

01:49:44.000 Not thinking that something is impossible, right?

01:49:48.000 It's the opposite too.

01:49:49.000 And maybe that's more of it, right?

01:49:50.000 It's the same with Roger Bannister and the four-minute mile, right?

01:49:52.000 As soon as he did it, everybody, not everybody, but lots of people started to do it.

01:49:55.000 Well, and also the ignorance of youth, which is why young athletes are so damn good sometimes.

01:49:59.000 Yeah, because they don't worry about their own limitations.

01:50:01.000 And they also don't have mortgages.

01:50:02.000 They don't have wives.

01:50:03.000 They don't have kids.

01:50:04.000 They don't have bills.

01:50:06.000 But this is also the thing is, right?

01:50:08.000 If we think about these traits that we'd maybe like to carry over that help us perform or maintain performance for long periods of time later in life, like some of that curiosity, not worrying about these burdens, continuing to engage in these things that challenge ourselves that kids just readily do, right?

01:50:28.000 The brain is exploring and trying to learn.

01:50:30.000 I think we need more of that as adults.

01:50:33.000 But when you think about the standard being set or thinking that things aren't impossible, there's two parts of that.

01:50:41.000 One, yes, that's a huge aspect of achieving higher and higher levels of athletic performance.

01:50:47.000 But for many of us, like us regular people, when you spend a lot of time seeing other people performing so much better than you, it can have the opposite effect, right?

01:50:59.000 I think this is something that we see on social media.

01:51:02.000 There's some really interesting, there's some really interesting studies on social rank, right?

01:51:08.000 So we are always trying to see where we rank in the world compared to others, right?

01:51:12.000 It's the part of us like being social beings.

01:51:14.000 And so if you spend all day looking at people who are richer, more beautiful, more jacked than you are, internally you demote yourself, right?

01:51:26.000 You give yourself a lower social rank, and that creates a social stress that triggers genuine stress responses, right?

01:51:33.000 Increased sympathetic activation, activation of some like inflammatory processes in the body, very similar to if you're socially isolated.

01:51:40.000 So for some people who have the, you know, are on a trajectory to improve their performance, you know, because they're elite athletes and they're seeing these other guys do it.

01:51:50.000 They're like, oh yeah, yeah, I can do that.

01:51:52.000 Right.

01:51:53.000 That's really beneficial.

01:51:54.000 But in like the general world, the rest of us, when we spend so much time seeing other people do other things better than us, it can almost have the opposite effect.

01:52:02.000 But not with everybody.

01:52:04.000 No, no, no.

01:52:05.000 It's very, that's the thing between the difference between an athlete and someone who is intimidated by other people's performances instead of being inspired.

01:52:16.000 Yeah, so but that's what I mean is that when you're one type of, when you're an athlete and you're seeing other guys like you do this thing, right, that's like, oh yeah, that creates a bar you want to try and hit.

01:52:28.000 But that same thing is very different out for the rest of us based on like seeing how we compare to others.

01:52:37.000 Well, particularly in things you can't control.

01:52:39.000 It's like your looks or your wealth.

01:52:41.000 Yeah, but wealth in some ways can be achieved.

01:52:44.000 Your mind doesn't interpret it that right way, right?

01:52:47.000 You don't immediately rationally think, well, I can never be that, right?

01:52:50.000 I'm never going to look like Brad Pitt, right?

01:52:52.000 Right.

01:52:55.000 You can't apply that sort of like rational thinking to it.

01:52:57.000 Well, then even worse for young girls because a lot of them are getting surgery because they know that some girls have radically improved their looks through surgery.

01:53:04.000 And so they think like this is the solution to everything.

01:53:06.000 And I just need to get a nose job and a chin job and a this and a that.

01:53:10.000 Which of course never results.

01:53:11.000 And also it's like the psychological aspect of being controlled by paying attention to other people's lives is very weird.

01:53:19.000 And it's, you know, Jonathan Haight wrote a great book about it called The Coddling of the American Mind about the impact of social media and particularly on young girls.

01:53:27.000 It's really bad.

01:53:29.000 So he did write Coddling of the American Mind.

01:53:32.000 That was more about changes in like academia, academia and helicopter parenting and safetyism.

01:53:37.000 The anxious generation was the one about the idea.

01:53:40.000 That's right.

01:53:40.000 And that aspect of it of comparing yourself to other girls is particularly devastating.

01:53:46.000 It's like there's you see when the impact of social media, when social media gets introduced into the world, immediately you see more self-harm, suicidal ideation, all these different things increase.

01:54:00.000 Whereas like, so those same stressors, if you were in a position like an athlete and you're a competitive athlete and you see someone who's elite, you would be inspired, but you feel helpless to achieve these goals that, you know, like you can't get any taller.

01:54:19.000 You can't get any better looking.

01:54:20.000 You can't look, it's just, this is what you got.

01:54:23.000 And then you see these, and then you see people that are using filters.

01:54:26.000 So it's not even what they really look like.

01:54:28.000 Yeah, so I think that's why there's this, it's interesting that very similar exposures, depending on who you are and what you're trying to achieve and what you have the ability to achieve, can have dramatically different effects on mental and other well-being.

01:54:47.000 Right.

01:54:47.000 And but you would imagine that for competitive athletes, you've already developed a certain amount of resilience already.

01:54:55.000 You already have a competitive spirit and you are working towards a thing that's a high level of achievement in something you're already doing.

01:55:03.000 So seeing a Michael Jordan, seeing a LeBron James, seeing if you're a basketball player, you would be inspired.

01:55:10.000 And instead of being like, I'll never be as good as that guy.

01:55:13.000 You'd be like, fuck, I want to be as good as that guy.

01:55:16.000 What do I have to do?

01:55:16.000 Well, Kobe Bryant worked out every day and he did this and he did that.

01:55:19.000 So I'm going to do that.

01:55:21.000 But that's the key difference, right?

01:55:22.000 Is that something else?

01:55:26.000 We didn't talk about this in terms of like the approaches of the most successful athletes is that they don't just say, I want to be like LeBron or Kobe.

01:55:39.000 They say, what did he do?

01:55:41.000 What can I do?

01:55:42.000 So they focus on the process, right?

01:55:44.000 You have to love and focus on the process because you can't guarantee a certain outcome.

01:55:52.000 And I talk about this, I talk about this in the book, and I give the example of the 2012 Olympics, right?

01:55:58.000 The guys who came second, third, and fourth ran personal best times.

01:56:02.000 Like several other national records were set during the whole 100-meter sprint competition, all the different rounds.

01:56:10.000 But like Usain Bolt ran, right?

01:56:13.000 And so like, you can be the best you've ever been and be amazing.

01:56:19.000 Like you can run fast enough to won a gold medal any other year, but like sometimes you're out of luck because Usain Bolt shows up.

01:56:26.000 So like you've got to focus on the process because you can't guarantee the outcome.

01:56:30.000 But by focusing on the process, right, you're going to get much closer.

01:56:34.000 Yeah, that's interesting because if you are a person trying to be the best in the world and you happen to be in the same weight class as Mike Tyson, it's going to be tough.

01:56:44.000 Yeah, but I mean, that's always been the case.

01:56:47.000 That's the thing in championship level fighting.

01:56:49.000 You find that when someone is a real outlier, that what happens is all the other people in that weight class tend to achieve a very high level, even if they never wind up being as good as Anderson Silva or whoever it is.

01:57:06.000 Winds up being a very competitive contender class underneath it and much more competitive than divisions that are not being dominated by elite fighters.

01:57:16.000 Yeah.

01:57:18.000 This is a very large book.

01:57:19.000 So I know it can't just be the stuff that we've already covered.

01:57:24.000 What other things do you think are in here that are important when you're talking about future-proofing your mind?

01:57:30.000 We'll say you're looking at a dummy copy.

01:57:32.000 So all the patients.

01:57:33.000 Yeah, you just tricked me.

01:57:34.000 Look at this, folks.

01:57:35.000 I was saying this is a really large book.

01:57:37.000 It's a fucking empty book.

01:57:39.000 That's crazy.

01:57:40.000 I read this.

01:57:41.000 I'm like, maybe it's a trick.

01:57:43.000 Yeah, you're just not paying attention enough.

01:57:46.000 The book is as thick as the real one will be.

01:57:48.000 I believe you.

01:57:49.000 So, and that's on purpose.

01:57:51.000 I've never been given a dummy copy of a book before.

01:57:54.000 So, does it even have writing?

01:57:55.000 No writing.

01:57:56.000 I'm going to use this as my new joke book.

01:57:56.000 Good.

01:58:00.000 Well, once the full thing is printed, we'll send you a real one.

01:58:04.000 Okay.

01:58:05.000 You did trick me, though.

01:58:06.000 Thank God I didn't try to read from it.

01:58:08.000 So, the first part of the book is about some of the history of neuroscience and why we think about the brain the way we do and some of the limitations that's created.

01:58:19.000 Like, why we think about Alzheimer's disease as just being like the accumulation of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain, which people might have heard of, right?

01:58:28.000 That's what it's been boiled down to, when there's actually a much bigger picture and many other things that are important.

01:58:35.000 Was it Alzheimer's where the amyloid plaque where that idea was sort of proven to be a little bit bullshit?

01:58:44.000 So, there have been a so not really, but kind of.

01:58:49.000 So, there were several seminal papers in that were manipulated in some way, right?

01:58:56.000 And this, unfortunately, is quite common where you change the figures, you manipulate these blots to make them show different things, and you kind of move them around and copy and paste.

01:59:04.000 It kind of shows what you want to show.

01:59:05.000 And so, like, for some of the seminal papers in Alzheimer's, that turned out to be the case.

01:59:10.000 But it doesn't discount the fact that it's still a part of it.

01:59:15.000 But people have increasingly looked away from just the accumulation of certain proteins in the brain for two reasons.

01:59:23.000 One is that we had, as a field, they had to create new ideas like resilience.

01:59:32.000 And there's this thing called cognitive resilience, which is how much cognitive function do you maintain in the face of these proteins building up in the brain.

01:59:41.000 And that's because the amount of amyloid you have in your brain doesn't really predict cognitive function and cognitive decline that well.

01:59:49.000 So, some of that is related to other things.

01:59:51.000 So, we know that like exercise is an important part of that.

01:59:55.000 And then we know that there are these other things that are important as well.

02:00:00.000 So, inflammation, other cells in the brain that become critical.

02:00:05.000 So, like the white matter is a really critical structure in the brain.

02:00:07.000 It's what allows us to have really fast processing speed, decision-making, executive function, the function of the prefrontal cortex.

02:00:15.000 All of that is kind of dependent on white matter structure.

02:00:18.000 And that seems to be really related to like vascular function, vascular health, resistance training is really important to support that.

02:00:25.000 So, like, all these other things become important as well.

02:00:28.000 So, like, that's kind of the, it's just showing like the first part of the book is saying, hey, we kind of focused a lot here, but actually, it's not that that's not important, but like, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's important too.

02:00:40.000 And a lot of it is related to things that we have control over.

02:00:43.000 So, then, you know, we talk, I talk about all the different types of exercise, how different types of exercise affect different parts of the brain in different ways, nutrition, talk a lot about cognitive stimulus, social connection, sleep, like I said, stress management and stress mitigation, and how you can kind of manage your performance in the moment.

02:01:03.000 And then, all of that comes together in terms of into like a model that I call the 3S model of how these different things kind of interact and affect you on a day-to-day basis.

02:01:15.000 So, the first S being stimulus, right?

02:01:18.000 We've talked about all the reasons why that's important.

02:01:22.000 The second S being supply, which is if you stimulate a part of the brain or a network in the brain with a new skill, that area of the brain, the neurons and the astrocytes there, they ask for more blood flow.

02:01:36.000 So the blood vessels have to widen, they dilate to bring in more oxygen, bring in more glucose or whatever metabolic substrate you're using, ketones, lactate, et cetera.

02:01:46.000 And so you need really good cardiovascular health.

02:01:48.000 That's critical.

02:01:49.000 So that's a big part of what we talk about.

02:01:51.000 You also need good metabolic health.

02:01:52.000 So high blood pressure and high blood sugar are two of the biggest risk factors for later dementia because they affect this supply component, either the blood flow getting there or being able to regulate your energy.

02:02:05.000 And then there's a bunch of nutrients that are important in that bucket as well.

02:02:08.000 So omega-3s, vitamin D, iron, magnesium, because they have very B vitamins, they have very specific functions in the brain that we know that if you're deficient, you have an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

02:02:21.000 And then you've stimulated a part of the brain, you've kind of given it all the substrate it needs to do its job.

02:02:26.000 Like we've talked about, adaptation occurs and function gets enhanced when we sleep or when we recover.

02:02:33.000 So like that's support is the third bucket.

02:02:37.000 So sleep is a part of that.

02:02:39.000 Other support you might get, like hormonal status is important.

02:02:43.000 Trophic factors, right?

02:02:44.000 Hormones that get released or proteins that get released that support neuroplasticity in the brain, things like brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

02:02:51.000 And then you want to avoid things that kind of inhibit that process.

02:02:54.000 So chronic stress can do that.

02:02:56.000 It creates like an over-training kind of picture in the brain.

02:03:01.000 Smoking, excess of alcohol, air pollution, those kinds of things can have a negative effect.

02:03:08.000 So like that's how the that's how they all interact.

02:03:10.000 And the fact that they interact means that depending on what feels most impactful to you, like what's the thing that you think you can move the needle on?

02:03:19.000 By focusing on one area, the whole network starts to shift.

02:03:22.000 And we see that in multiple different studies.

02:03:25.000 So if you focus on sleep and you sleep a bit better, then the next, then we see that like inflammation decreases and blood pressure improves and blood sugar improves.

02:03:35.000 And the next day you feel more sociable.

02:03:36.000 So you're more likely to interact with other people in a friendly way.

02:03:40.000 And you're more likely to engage in cognitively stimulating tasks because when we're tired, we kind of shy away from those things.

02:03:47.000 And it's the same.

02:03:48.000 So there are studies in older adults where you give them a brain training program and they sleep better because when you stimulate a tissue, you then drive greater need for recovery afterwards.

02:03:59.000 It's the same.

02:03:59.000 If you exercise more, you sleep better.

02:04:02.000 So it's not like this long list of things that everybody has to do.

02:04:06.000 And because when you give somebody a list of 37 things, they'll do zero things, right?

02:04:09.000 We know that.

02:04:10.000 So if you just know that they all kind of communicate and interact, anywhere you come in, you can start to kind of shift things in your favor.

02:04:19.000 Now, when you're compiling a book like this, I would imagine there's a lot of editing.

02:04:23.000 And so how do you decide like what to leave in?

02:04:26.000 I mean, this looks like it's, I mean, obviously these are all blank pages, so they're not numbered, but it looks like this is at least a 300-page book.

02:04:32.000 The final book is about 450 pages.

02:04:35.000 165,000 words.

02:04:36.000 Whoa.

02:04:37.000 And the reference list.

02:04:40.000 So unlike most health books, every time I make a statement or I mention a study, there's a little number and that gives you the paper or papers that I'm talking about that supports that.

02:04:54.000 It's 2,000 papers long.

02:04:57.000 And so that all has to go online because they couldn't afford to print it in the book.

02:05:02.000 But that's probably better anyway.

02:05:03.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:05:05.000 There's like seven people who will do that, right?

02:05:07.000 They'll read that.

02:05:10.000 Psychos.

02:05:10.000 And then they'll go and look.

02:05:11.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:05:12.000 So it's important to me.

02:05:13.000 Like, anyway, people who want to, yeah, people who want to do that can do that.

02:05:18.000 But in, I'm not quite sure how it ended up being this way, but I actually had to cut very little.

02:05:27.000 Like, there were things where I kind of went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and my editor was like, meh, I'm not sure we really need this.

02:05:35.000 I basically wrote until I got to the word limit and then I stopped.

02:05:39.000 And I focused on the things that I knew that were important and were going to stay important even in the age of AI and as technology improves and changes.

02:05:49.000 So there wasn't a ton that ended up getting cut out.

02:05:53.000 But when you're putting it together, how do you decide what's prominent?

02:05:59.000 What's the most important thing to focus on?

02:06:01.000 Where to put things?

02:06:04.000 So when I started, when I started writing, actually I'm going to disagree with my former self.

02:06:18.000 I wrote the first part of the book like three times.

02:06:21.000 And the first time I wrote it, it was like 40,000 words all focused on psychology and like super like esoteric and academic.

02:06:31.000 And I was like, nobody's going to read this.

02:06:33.000 So like I had to be scratched a couple of times.

02:06:36.000 So then the core middle part of the book is all those different areas that we know are important, like the big rocks, and practical frameworks for how to address those.

02:06:48.000 And then there's just like a, then there's an introduction to like, why should you care about this?

02:06:52.000 Like, for like in individuals over 40, dementia is the most important health concern, right?

02:07:03.000 More than 10% say they've experienced changes in cognitive function.

02:07:08.000 We know that the rates of dementia are going to double or triple in the next two or three decades.

02:07:13.000 Like, so why do people care about this?

02:07:15.000 And like some history there.

02:07:18.000 And then the middle part is, which I always knew I was going to write.

02:07:22.000 These are the most important things.

02:07:23.000 And they're always going to remain the most important things.

02:07:25.000 And then the last chapter is sort of like just kind of bringing it together.

02:07:29.000 Does that answer your question?

02:07:31.000 It does.

02:07:32.000 Well, I'm glad you wrote it because I think it's a very important thing.

02:07:35.000 And I think there's a lot of people out there that don't understand the risks of being sedentary and that these are things that you can change.

02:07:43.000 Yeah.

02:07:43.000 And that you can improve the quality of your life by making those changes.

02:07:47.000 And it might make you uncomfortable to begin something like that, but there's some real value in that uncomfortable feeling of trying something new.

02:07:57.000 Absolutely.

02:07:58.000 And then it really does change the way your brain functions and it'll improve the quality of your life.

02:08:03.000 And in this case, if possible, hold off dementia and just hold off cognitive decline without calling it dementia.

02:08:11.000 So many people experience cognitive decline because of atrophy.

02:08:11.000 Yeah.

02:08:15.000 Yeah.

02:08:15.000 So it's that's kind of like the worst possible end state we want to avoid.

02:08:15.000 Yeah.

02:08:22.000 Right.

02:08:23.000 But you want to maintain your current level of cognitive function for as long as possible and possibly improve it.

02:08:30.000 And possibly improve it.

02:08:31.000 And there is evidence you can improve it even later in life.

02:08:33.000 And so a big part of this is that when you write the, you know, earlier we talked about this graph of cognitive function, right?

02:08:42.000 It increases to sort of 20 or 30 and then it declines.

02:08:46.000 When we're doing studies that show that kind of thing, what we're doing is we're looking at a whole bunch of people, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and we're saying like you plot them all on a graph.

02:08:56.000 And yeah, as you sort of increase in age, there are some people who are going to lose function.

02:09:00.000 You kind of like draw the average down.

02:09:02.000 But we've known essentially since for the last 50 years that when you look at the same person over several decades, it's actually very normal for us to maintain function.

02:09:16.000 So like the Seattle Longitudinal Study was run by a guy called Warner Shai in Seattle.

02:09:22.000 And it was one of the first studies where they measured cognitive function in the same people every seven years for several decades.

02:09:28.000 And like every seven years, they measured the same people and brought in new people.

02:09:31.000 And so they ended up with people who were like in their 20s up to over 100 years old.

02:09:36.000 And they found that the average effect by that, I mean that more than 50% of people maintained the same level of cognitive function into their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

02:09:46.000 And those data were used to actually raise the retirement age in the US in the 1980s because they showed that it actually wasn't normal for people to decline.

02:09:55.000 But the problem is now we've embodied this idea. that as you get older, you will decline.

02:10:03.000 And as a result, you stop engaging in all the things that we've talked about.

02:10:06.000 So you're like, oh, I'm too old to lift that.

02:10:08.000 I'm too old to learn a new skill.

02:10:11.000 I don't have time to do that.

02:10:12.000 And as a result, right, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

02:10:14.000 You stop engaging in those processes and decline happens as a result.

02:10:18.000 But if we know that it's possible to maintain function and we continue to engage in those processes, the norm should be that function is maintained.

02:10:28.000 Last question.

02:10:29.000 Did you do an audio version of this?

02:10:31.000 Yeah, I'm recording it at the moment.

02:10:32.000 When will that be available?

02:10:32.000 All right.

02:10:34.000 Be out on the same day, March 24th.

02:10:36.000 March 24th, Stimulated Mind, Dr. Tommy Wood.

02:10:40.000 I promise it won't be like this.

02:10:40.000 Go get it, folks.

02:10:44.000 Thank you, Tommy.

02:10:45.000 I really enjoyed this.

02:10:46.000 Thank you very much.

02:10:46.000 Thanks so much.

02:10:47.000 I think it's really important information, too.

02:10:48.000 And I think it's something that everyone should apply.

02:10:51.000 Thank you.

02:10:52.000 Thank you.

02:10:52.000 All right.

The Joe Rogan Experience - February 06, 2026

Joe Rogan Experience #2450 - Tommy Wood

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