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- [00:02]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Welcome to Paging Dr. Gupta. This week I'm addressing a topic that we are seeing out in the world whenever I get a chance. I've been turning on the World Cup. I'm sure you have as well. And we have been lucky enough to see some incredible feats of athleticism. It's really remarkable. But I think my favorite game so far, probably yours as well, was Argentina's opening match. Picture this. June 16th. Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi and and his team, they step back onto the World cup field as reigning champions. Expectations are high for the team and for Messi. He's now nearly 39 years old and having joined the MLS, an organization, by the way, which is dubbed the Retirement League. Many did wonder if Messi's prime was behind him. But then he did something miraculous. Messi became the oldest player to score a hat trick at the World Cup. These spectacular performances are the latest examples of Messi's mastery of the sport and, frankly, what it looks like. When an athlete has entered the flow state. You might know it as being in the zone. You've likely been in the zone when you're fully absorbed by a task. Bending time while hitting the sweet spot between effort and instinct. So how does he do it?
- [01:19]
Dr. Rui Costa
If you're reacting in soccer or football, you're too late. In our common language, we say they are one step ahead. How could they see that that space was gonna be open? We say, how could they see? They saw that thing that still didn't exist and they created it.
- [01:36]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I think that's a headline. If you are reacting in something like the World cup, you're already behind. Well, this week on paging Dr. Gupta, we are turning to neuroscientist Dr. Rui Costa. And he studies the brain mechanisms behind movement and learning. We're going to ask him how pro footballers get into flow, what we can learn from the brains of football legends like Brazil's Neymar Jr, and whether some of us, the rest of us non World cup champions, can intentionally enter flow state too. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is a special episode of paging Dr. Gupta.
- [02:20]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
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- [02:51]
Podcast Host or Announcer (e.g., Audie Cornish or similar)
episode is brought to you by Google Health. Stop chasing someone else's definition of health. What matters is what's healthy for you. Google Health offers a new kind of coach built with Gemini for effortless tracking, sleep insights and holistic coaching tailored to you. Visit googlestore.com to learn more and start a new relationship with your health. Requires Google Account, Google Health App Internet and Google Health Premium subscription. Features subject to change availability and results vary. Not intended for medical purposes. Works independently of Gemini apps. Check responses for accuracy.
- [03:22]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
First of all, are you a soccer fan? Are you going to be watching the World Cup?
- [03:26]
Dr. Rui Costa
I am going to be watching the World cup whenever I can, yes. I'm a fan.
- [03:31]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
With your background in science, do you watch it differently? I mean, are you looking at these athletes in a different way than the rest of us are?
- [03:40]
Dr. Rui Costa
It's interesting you'd ask this. Sometimes I laugh with a play. Top athletes have trained so much the skill that now they are in this state of flow, of trying to predict everything. They are one step ahead of everyone else, of the defenders, let's say, of the public, and then they decide to do something completely different that they decide in the last hundreds of milliseconds. And to me, it's not the muscle speed. This is a very cognitive process, right? So when I see that, it's almost like some magician revealing something extraordinary and I, I, I have a reaction that is a reaction of laughter. It's like, look at that brain, what it just did, what it created. Like if it's an improv jazz musician that just created a complete new sequence of notes.
- [04:39]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
No, I mean, it's pretty remarkable the way flow state is often thought of. And I wrote this down because I was doing some research on this. Someone can get into flow state if they have clear goals, if they're getting immediate feedback, and there's an appropriate balance between challenge and skill. I think there's definitely times in my life when I've been in flow state. Sometimes I think with long runs, for example, which may not require as as much talent. But time has suddenly just by I, I want to get into what is happening in the brain during this state and obviously for the purposes of this discussion, the connection with movement specifically, and I don't want to be too simplistic, but are you turning your brain on or are you turning your brain off?
- [05:23]
Dr. Rui Costa
So it's very interesting, right? You're turning your brain on, but maybe Slightly differently than what I would do not being a professional athlete. Right. So if you would measure my brain moving my right foot, and there's a study of Neymar, for example.
- [05:46]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I've read this study, and I want to talk to you about that.
- [05:48]
Dr. Rui Costa
Yeah, yeah. So you would see the part of my brain that moves my foot in the motor cortex, for example, being activated now, it turns out.
- [05:59]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Okay, so, yeah, let's just. So if it's your right foot, you're talking about the left part of your brain, the motor cortex here, that's what you're talking about. About in terms of moving your right foot, then.
- [06:10]
Dr. Rui Costa
Exactly. So it turns out Neymar and. And others. I mean, there's also studies with martial arts experts, they activate less the part of the movement, there's less effort to execute the movement. So now you can focus, quote, unquote, on other aspects. And that's fascinating because movement, even a simple movement, engages a lot of the brain. So we mentioned the cortical parts that are executing descending through basal ganglia, brain stem, the cerebellum, all the way to the spinal cord and then muscles. But your frontal cortices are planning what to do and predicting. We used to think plan, execute, plan, execute. But imagine now you're executing one movement, but you could be planning other movements at the same time in different brain circuits. And so when you need to deploy, they are ready.
- [07:07]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
That's fascinating. So in a sense, you're both turning your brain on and off. You're just turning on different parts of the brain. I think you're referring to this part of the brain that's. That's referred to as a default mode network, Am I right? The dmn. Talk to me about that. So let's say someone is playing football, playing soccer, and. And they're in this state that you're describing now. They're not actually using a lot of their motor cortex. Even though they're executing pretty sophisticated motor movements, other parts of their brain are highly activated. The planning area. But this default mode network, people have referred to it as the wandering brain part of your network. What is exactly happening there? How is that beneficial?
- [07:53]
Dr. Rui Costa
Wandering is thinking about possibility. Right. And it is following thought with another thought and letting the mind go. So when you were describing getting into a flow state while running, if I would ask you, how hard were you running? What was your stepping? You probably don't remember, but maybe you thought interesting things during that run.
- [08:20]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yes.
- [08:20]
Dr. Rui Costa
And that's probably what you remember. So your brain went into wandering mode and it was a very highly cognitive state. Sometimes you go deep into some thoughts. You need to be engaged, not overly engaged. So now let's take this to the athlete. Right? So now the athlete is wondering about possibilities. The defender sees them coming and is predicting this is what they're going to do, and wondering possibilities, predicting and then going and making quick decisions into these other states. So that's why that wandering network, being active in a way, could allow that possibility. You know, wandering is opening of possibilities and letting possibilities flow.
- [09:08]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Talking about the Neymar study, specifically, would. Would you describe this as someone who's conserving cognitive energy? They're not activating the motor cortex as much. It's a lighter recruitment of the network. Is that beneficial overall? I mean, on one hand, you'd think, hey, look, there are times in life when you need to be full tilt in. You need to be recruiting everything and playing a World cup game. That would be the time to hyperactivate everything to give yourself the biggest advantage. But here, it sounds like you're describing a scenario where someone might actually be preserving some of that cognitive energy.
- [09:50]
Dr. Rui Costa
Absolutely. So I think part of what happens when choking is you actually think, this is the World Cup. I need to activate everything instead of trusting. Now, the movement part. I've trained for thousands of hours, every possibility, every. Let's just. My brain needs to be in this wandering mode, predicting, reading, and, you know, creating. I mean, when we start to drive, it's hard. You can't even have a conversation. And after you're skilled at driving, you don't remember any movement you did. And so it is interesting. I do think that's that idea and the ability of the brain predicting, and it goes even beyond what we imagine. There's. There's a test where they put Cristiano Ronaldo heading balls and they send the ball from the corner and then turn the lights off. It's kind of a soccer stadium. That's a studio 100 milliseconds in, and they put many players that are very good trying to head the ball, and you miss, because now the ball comes in the dark and Ronaldo was heading them in. So you could imagine that's a complete prediction. Now, in the dark of the trajectory of the ball right in your brain, just with that initial snippet, you can calculate where the ball is going to be. Now, is that movement. That's a different thing.
- [11:25]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
That's a great example. So this idea that the predictive part of your brain, or the part of your brain that's allowing you to predict if that's turned on. Then regardless of how good you are at heading a ball, if that part of your brain's really turned on, you can do it even in the dark, because you're predicting the exact trajectory of that ball.
- [11:45]
Dr. Rui Costa
Exactly. And imagine if you're a piano player or something like this where the keys are more fixed. It's already an extraordinary skill. You've seen people play in the dark or backwards. Now, the ball can bounce in many different ways. So that predictive brain needs to be even more on. And I think that's also part of the fascination of the collective watching. We're also trying to predict as spectators. And we get surprised, right? Participating a little bit. We're predicting what's happening. And when it's something so unpredictable, you go like, whoa, how did this happen?
- [12:26]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
How did this happen? You know, I have such an appreciation for our brain as it is. But I gotta tell you, hearing Dr. Costa explain how parts of our brain simultaneously turn on and off, predict a myriad of possibilities in a matter of milliseconds, and devote so much effort that somehow outputs effortless, it's truly humbling. So when we come back, I'm going to ask, can any of us enter this high performance state?
- [12:56]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with Morning Nutrition. 100 whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start. Whatever's next, Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. Let's go.
- [13:25]
Podcast Host or Announcer (e.g., Audie Cornish or similar)
I'm Audie Cornish.
- [13:26]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
I'm Ari Shapiro. And it's engagement party and we get to talk about what we're obsessed with, what we're engaged with, what we need to process with a friend. We're going to be talking about two of the most famous women in the world, Taylor Swift and Serena Williams. Also, if in your feed you have seen people tapping their face and their chest, we'll explain what that's all about. If you haven't, we will still explain
- [13:46]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
what that's all about.
- [13:48]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
And of course, we're starting with Serena Williams because she's back.
- [13:51]
Podcast Host or Announcer (e.g., Audie Cornish or similar)
She is back. As we are recording this, she is playing in Wimbledon where she is a wild card. This is a huge deal because she's been retired for a couple of years. It was a big splash when she retired, but it's also coming on the heels of her announcement that she was on a GLP1. And just so we're clear, Peptides all this stuff, none of it is banned from sports.
- [14:14]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
Follow engagement party wherever you get your podcasts.
- [14:19]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Can anybody get into this sort of state?
- [14:23]
Dr. Rui Costa
Yeah, I. I believe in a gross model. Right. I mean, not to be overly generalist, in principle, yes, I think we train skills, but we don't train how to enter these states. Like, yogis can get into states where they lower their heartbeat. Right. They control the variance of the heartbeats, their breathing. They can lower their breathing to extraordinary amounts. Of course, it takes many years. So I don't think we have dedicated the same amount of both research and education and training to train the majority of us in this type of skill. I remember, you know, I'm relatively slow processing. I have ADHD and probably had, you know, dyslexia growing up. And I remember for math, I was good at math, but I would struggle to finish the test and I would do some mental exercises. Before, they weren't about reviewing the math, but it was about being in a state where things would move along and I could achieve the speed of execution. In retrospect, now I wonder if there was a flow state for my testing, but no one taught me this. Now we have colleagues that are doing studies where can I just boost the confidence and the calmness and the trust in the process of students 30 minutes before the test, instead of reviewing math with them, give them a little bit of this other state of confidence. And that has an impact in the Test. It's only 4 or 5%, but it's impressive. So I do believe we all have the capacity to learn these things. When I see you on TV and something is going really well, a conversation, I imagine you're in one of these states where you're listening to an answer and you're thinking of 2, 3, 4 other questions that you'd have about your life, about I should do another interview with these. And maybe so many things going automatically there. And that's the beauty, I think, from an observer perspective sometimes.
- [16:44]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because for me, I think there is a. The joy component of. Again, you know, I want to achieve a flow state because it feels good. I was talking about this with my neurosurgery residents just even last night I told them I was going to be interviewing you. We're going to be talking about flow state. We trained for seven years to. To. To become neurosurgeons, frankly, to be honest, I think much of what we learn from a motor standpoint and that sort of stuff could be probably taught in a couple of years. Doesn't need seven years, maybe, maybe two or three years. But. But I think a lot of the training is ultimately getting people to sort of now almost be in that flow state in the operating room, which is always a weird thing to sort of talk about because on one hand you're not telling people not to think. You're telling them to think differently, to use different parts of their brain to allow their brain to maybe wander a
- [17:41]
Dr. Rui Costa
little bit, which is absolutely, absolutely. Now this is, this is such a good example. They mentally visual, visualize the surgery before. Yes. Even if chaos is going around. Right. So this idea of the noise, the crowd, you know, the nurse, the instrument falls, they are on because every one second of misattention and your patient's gone.
- [18:10]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I can't think of one area of our lives where this doesn't apply. I think it's a skill that, you know, ultimately leads to joy, which is a huge incentive, you know, for it. But what do you, what do you think is the lesson in, in your science, even in the paper about Neymar? What, what is the larger lesson, do you think, for the average person, you
- [18:30]
Dr. Rui Costa
use the word joy several times and I think it's perfect because you don't say reward or pleasure, you know, and, you know, the fast dopamine and things like these people would say, reward, pleasure, joy is a different state. It's not so fast to rise, but it's not so fast to go away. It's a different dopamine, maybe more endorphins and maybe we have focused too much on the fasting. You know, again, flow state is not a movement, it's a state. It's something that can last seconds to minutes to two hours. That joy is something different than pleasure, reward, or I just had a piece of chocolate, right? It's, ah, what a pleasureful one. What a great afternoon. What a great vacation, right? So this joy, that's what we should be teaching humans to maximize less. The oscillatory up and down pleasure, you know, is what's the, what's the joy part of it?
- [19:37]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
This idea of visualization. So, you know, whether it be in the operating room or, or on the soccer field, you know, visualizing things. You're. You're trying to imagine the future in a way, right? You're visualizing what's going to happen, how this is going to play out. And some of that is then, I think, commingled with the idea of anticipation. Like I'm anticipating that the ball is going to go into the net. I'm anticipating that the operation will be successful. Is, is anticipation sort of the, the goal? Like is that the, the, the carrot, if you will, here, the, the, the stimuli to, to, to get people to, to get into that flow state?
- [20:20]
Dr. Rui Costa
I think so together with that joy, I'm going to ask you these and I, I don't know the answer. Do you have this joy visualizing a surgery? Does it come to you even in moments where you don. Almost like if that default mode network is there, working in the background, trying to solve a problem and it gives you some type of fulfillment, Right?
- [20:49]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yes.
- [20:49]
Dr. Rui Costa
So I think that anticipation, prediction, that's one of the main functions of the brain. If you're reacting in soccer or football, you're too late, right? So the defender is trying to anticipate what the other is going to go because it's going to be a different. If you actually, let's say if you predict an act, it's 80 to 100 milliseconds. If you react, it would be something like 150 to 200 milliseconds. So it's the double. That's the difference between the other passing you. And so imagine if your brain is already acting from prediction and planning. You're not waiting for a stimulus. You're anticipating what's going to happen and you're acting on that. So in our common language, we say, oh, they are one step ahead. Like we say these look, they are one step ahead. And we say, how could they see that that space was going to be open? We say, how could they see. Of course, no one could see that thing happen in the future, but we say, how could they see? Because we intuitively, what we experience is. Yeah, when I'm wondering, I see it, they saw it. So we kind of say like, they saw that. And that's why sometimes I chuckle right when I see that happening. It's like, oh, they saw it. They saw that thing that still didn't exist and they created it.
- [22:16]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I think that's a headline. You know, the idea that reacting, if you are reacting in something like the World cup, you're already behind in a sense because that takes longer to react versus just acting. But in order to just act, you have to be predictive and you have to see things, at least in your mind, that other people don't see.
- [22:39]
Dr. Rui Costa
And you know, the neurosurgeon, why do you prepare and mentally so because you don't want to be reacting in the. Or because then you're, you're calm, you
- [22:49]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
don't choke one day you're a resident and the next day you're an attending.
- [22:53]
Dr. Rui Costa
Right.
- [22:53]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I mean literally this happens within a 24 hour period. One day you're a trainee and the next day you're the guy training. Um, but I think the distinction is obviously not that much in terms of your overall experience because it could just be a day difference. But I think it's in all the things you just talked about. You now expect things are going to go well. You're in predictive mode as opposed to reactionary mode. This isn't a question of talent at this point. Talent is assumed. What it is is a question of, of exactly like you're saying, allowing your brain to feel comfortable in that, that wandering state. Which is, which is, can be uncomfortable in the beginning when you're like first starting to operate, you're first doing your first case. You're, you're, I know from personal experience you're overthinking everything, even decisions that should be easy. I remember the first time I was on call and the nurse asked me about giving a patient Tylenol. And I thought, well, Tylenol, I mean it's an over the counter drug. Everybody takes Tylenol. But now I'm thinking, oh my Gosh, what's the LD50 of Tylenol? Could I harm this patient? You know, just overthinking things. Then at some point in life, in your training, in your world, you can go into this, prioritize the default mode network, prioritize the wandering.
- [24:06]
Dr. Rui Costa
Absolutely. And you probably have the experience that one day you tell one one of your residents you're ready.
- [24:15]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yes.
- [24:17]
Dr. Rui Costa
And it's not like oh, did I kick the ball today differently than all the other thousand times Coach. No. You had a different attitude under certain pressure.
- [24:31]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
No one is saying you don't need to do the work. No one is saying that you shouldn't study hard if it's an exam or practice hard if it's a game, whatever it might be.
- [24:39]
Dr. Rui Costa
You need both.
- [24:41]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
But this idea that that's the only thing, that's probably where the thinking has gone awry, that we actually need to focus on getting ourselves into this flow state. And it's, you know, like you said, something I think most if not everybody could achieve if they, if they really think about it that way. Which is fascinating. Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [25:03]
Dr. Rui Costa
Thank you so much.
- [25:05]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
You got a team you're going to be rooting for?
- [25:07]
Dr. Rui Costa
Well, Portugal, I have to. Portugal, yes. And also the US given both my lives. Thank you. Samjay. Thank you so much.
- [25:19]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yes, thank you. That was my conversation with Dr. Rui Costa, a neuroscientist and president of the Allen Institute. On this Friday's Chasing Life episode, I'm going to talk to a Major League Soccer player turned emergency medicine doctor about what it's like to experience flow on the field. Thank you so much for listening. Tune in
- [25:43]
Podcast Host (e.g., Ari Shapiro or similar)
this is CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam, thrilled to introduce the new CNN weather app. Be prepared for anything with comprehensive coverage from real experts like me. Download the CNN weather app on iOS today.
- [25:57]
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