In this episode, we talk about the benefits of being married and having kids. Why is it better to have kids or not? What are the risks of not having kids, and what benefits are there to having kids?
00:01:24.360And enjoyment is something that you get by experiencing something with another person.
00:01:30.400It's not something that you're doing alone.
00:01:32.560It's experiences with people that you love, right?
00:01:35.740And if you're not married and you have no kids, I mean, you really have to really put in a lot of effort to try to have that enjoyment, right?
00:01:44.440Married with kids, you've got your spouse.
00:01:47.860I mean, anyone that's a parent knows the love you feel for them is unmeasurable.
00:01:52.420I mean, it's just, and the joy you get from being their parents, sure, there's, like, hard times, but the joy is also, I mean, it's, you can't describe it.
00:03:36.360But it's really, these relationships are really important for mental health, long-term health, disease risk.
00:03:43.560I mean, there's all this, the Harvard, you know, longitudinal aging study showed that.
00:03:47.160You know, these individuals with relationships, spouses, children, you know, family, friends, like, those individuals not only were happier, they lived longer.
00:03:59.060You know, as you get older, I mean, if you're someone that's single, never married, don't know kids, and then you retire and you haven't really put a lot of effort into maintaining friendships, it comes harder and harder.
00:04:08.800And you really do have to put effort in.
00:04:10.800Loneliness is independently associated with early mortality.
00:04:15.120And people that are lonely then oftentimes will seek out that kind of pleasure and reward by themselves, and they'll turn to, like, alcohol, or they'll turn to gambling, or things like that, where it's, like, the short-term, you know, pleasure you get.
00:04:26.580But it's really not, it's trying to feel the void of that enjoyment that you get from the relationships that are meaningful in your life.
00:04:35.220Rob, can you ask Alicia and Humberto about the clip of two women were debating, I said, where's this interview from?
00:04:42.160If they can find that clip and send it to you, one lady is like, who wants to have a kid and be an underpaid Uber driver for your son that wants to go to taekwondo, a sport that he hates?
00:04:53.840And the other lady just flat out, I mean, if you got this clip, I'll give you a second for you to find it.
00:05:16.680That is a narrative that I'm going to push back on, which is part of the problem, which is that it's the narrative of misery, which has been promoted.
00:05:24.360And it's not miserable to have children.
00:08:04.800You know, until your health goes bad, until you get a cancer diagnosis at the age of 40, until you have, you know, a heart attack at 55, until you get type 2 diabetes at the age of, you know, I don't know, perhaps 39.
00:08:18.420You don't realize how important your health is or your parents come down with a cancer diagnosis or your sibling.
00:08:43.440In addition to the exercise, it's like the best thing that you can do, I think, is really daily exercise, physical activity, because it is hard.
00:08:53.240It is something that trains your brain to do hard things, and other things become easier.
00:08:58.180But also, there's a lot of endorphins that are released that make you feel better.
00:09:03.980And there's also some evidence that, like, doing that hard thing when you're uncomfortable, when you're exercising hard or working out hard, or even doing a sauna.
00:09:12.760When you're sitting in the sauna and it's hot and you're uncomfortable, because sauna does mimic moderate intensity exercise.
00:09:18.760Because those things, or that uncomfortableness, is your brain's endogenous opioid system that is being activated.
00:09:26.420And you're making something called dynorphin.
00:10:18.780You have to experience that uncomfortableness.
00:10:21.760Because what happens is then the brain adapts.
00:10:25.080And the receptors that bind to endorphins, the feel-good opioids, they're called new opioid receptors.
00:10:32.840They become more sensitive to the endorphin.
00:10:34.720So after that uncomfortableness of exercise or deliberate heat exposure, every endorphin that you make is going to feel better.
00:10:42.120Whether that's, you know, a kiss or a hug from a loved one or a joke that you're laughing at.
00:10:46.040Whatever it is that's causing you to feel good for the moment, that endorphin, you're going to feel it more and you're going to feel it for longer.
00:10:54.100And exercise being really, you know, a key, but also deliberate, you know, heat exposure from like hot tubs or saunas is another one that really can help with your state of mind, your mentality, your mood.
00:11:05.760In fact, there's actually studies by Dr. Charles Rezon, Dr. Ashley Mason, some pioneering studies showing that if you do deliberate heat exposure, and this was a very tricky machine that they used, which was essentially raising people's core body temperature to a feverish state, where it's essentially like, you know, going in the sauna.
00:11:23.620They're raising people's core body temperature one and a half to two degrees, or they're doing a sham control.
00:11:29.400So they're getting people hot enough to think it's a placebo, like a treatment, right?
00:11:33.360And they took these people with major depressive disorder, gave them this treatment one time, this was the pioneering study, one time, and they had an antidepressant effect that lasted six to eight weeks after that, just from one sauna exposure.
00:11:46.880Now, Dr. Ashley Mason, she's at UCSF, she's now done follow-up studies using infrared saunas that are sort of like these heat beds where people are laying in them, their head is out, but she's also raising their core body temperature to, you know, 1.5 to 2 degrees.
00:12:00.160And they're doing it multiple times, four to eight times.
00:12:04.500And she's also shown that it really, in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy, dramatically improves a battery of tests for major depressive disorder.
00:12:14.660I mean, these people, like, just to give you a sense of how potent this effect was, if you, there's a Hamilton scale that, like, this battery of tests that's done to measure, to basically assess people's mood, their depressive symptoms.
00:12:26.420If you have, like, a three-point change that's considered clinically relevant, these people were having a 16-point change after doing cognitive behavioral therapy, which is talk therapy with the heat bed, so with the sauna exposure.
00:12:38.540All this is to say, to get back to the clip of the person, the mom saying, why do I want to be a mom when it's, like, so hard, basically, you're dealing with these hard moments.
00:12:52.080Whether or not you have children, it's going to be full of different kinds of hard moments, right?
00:12:56.140And so the reality is, is you're missing out on that joy and the relationship that, who's going to take care of you when you're older, too, right?
00:13:03.340I mean, there's all sorts of reasons to have a family.
00:13:08.620It's, I promise you, the best thing ever.
00:13:12.920I'll never forget, we had a private equity guy in Santa Monica, his name was John Morris, and we were part of this Vistage group, and once a month, you would meet with him.
00:13:22.240And I said, John, how many kids do you have?
00:14:46.100I think that's like if you're one of those women right now that are like, I'm never going to want to have kids.
00:14:51.240Because I would say to you, like, you may change your mind in 10 years, and it will be very heartbreaking if you don't take steps right now to make sure that you can have children later in life, you know, because you might not be able to.
00:15:04.720So, but there's always adoption and stuff, and that's, of course, another option as well.
00:15:09.000But being pregnant and experiencing the whole process, it's amazing.
00:15:24.900I mean, like you gain 50 pounds and, you know, you can't sleep well sometimes.
00:15:29.540And there's all sorts of like you're feeling aches and pains because all the relaxants that your body's making to help prepare for childbirth.
00:15:36.700But you're also like the oxytocin and the bonding and knowing that you are preparing, you know, everything that you're doing, what you're eating, and you're preparing this child.
00:15:46.380And you're trying to give this child the best, you know, opportunity that you can to set them up right, right?
00:15:52.320Like there's, it's all, it's all like, I guess, a matter of like how you, your outlook, right?
00:15:59.160No, listen, my respect for my wife went, you know, of course, I love my wife.
00:16:03.360But when you watch her have the baby and you're sitting there like once, twice, you know, this is, this is incredible what the women's body does.
00:16:12.280You know, God's creation to be able to do that and go through the pain and it's amazing.