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Your Brain Was Never Designed for Modern Life | Dr. Patrick Porter | DSH #1850 - Digital Social Hour | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Your Brain Was Never Designed for Modern Life | Dr. Patrick Porter | DSH #1850

Digital Social Hour

Sun Mar 08 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: Digital Social Hour – "Your Brain Was Never Designed for Modern Life"

Guest: Dr. Patrick Porter
Host: Sean Kelly
Episode: DSH #1850
Release Date: March 8, 2026

Overview

In this compelling episode, Sean Kelly returns with brain health expert Dr. Patrick Porter to unpack the stark mismatch between our ancient brains and fast-paced, technology-saturated modern life. They explore how stress, movement, mindset, nutrition, and technology interplay in our neurological health and provide actionable steps for “training” your brain to thrive. Dr. Porter weaves science, stories, and practical advice—grounding his insights in recent research and personal transformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of Eliminating Stress

[00:00, 08:14]
- Dr. Porter emphasizes that stress isn’t meant to be eliminated—total freedom from stress only comes with death.
  
  "Think of stress as like a pro athlete... They go, what can I do to challenge my body physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Push it to its limits." – Dr. Porter, [00:07]
- The key is to build stress resilience through intentional training, much like athletes prepare for physical competition.

2. Modern Brain vs. Ancient Design

[00:24, 09:00]
- Our brains were never equipped for the unrelenting, chronic stressors of today’s world.
  
  "Our brain was not designed for the life we're living today. We need to train our brain just like an athlete would train its body for a sport." – Dr. Porter, [00:24]
- Brain “training” in the modern era requires daily intentional practices to foster resilience and adaptability.

3. Movement as a Pillar of Brain Health

[00:34, 09:35, 22:15]
- Physical activity isn’t just about fitness; it directly impacts neurotransmitter and hormone production essential for mood and cognition.
  
  "Every muscle is like a chemical factory that's feeding those neurotransmitters and those hormones..." – Guest Speaker, [02:52]
- Dr. Porter highlights the value of yoga, tai chi, dance, or simple movement in the morning to wake up the brain via Sensory Motor Rhythm (SMR) brainwaves.

4. Technology: Double-Edged Sword

[21:10, 32:26]
- Technology causes “digital dementia” by pushing people into hunched, sedentary postures and chronic low-level stress states.
  
  "If you took somebody looking and walking with their phone and you took a dementia patient walking, they look the same. It's digital dementia." – Dr. Porter, [21:10]
- However, technology like Brain Tap can also optimize brain health if used intentionally.

5. Music & Mood Regulation

[04:23, 06:22]
- Not all music is beneficial; some (like high-frequency Christmas songs) agitate the brain, while others syncronize brainwaves for calm and creativity.
  
  "Alvin and the Chipmunks... it's like the number one worst song to listen to." – Guest Speaker, [06:15]
  "Music can change their frequency, raise their energy, and get their brain functioning." – Guest Speaker, [04:23]

6. The Importance of Hydration & Nutrition

[10:07, 19:46]
- Hydrate first thing in the morning—coffee is a diuretic and should be offset by ample water intake.
  
  "The best thing you can do for your body in the morning is hydrate your body... your brain shrunk three quarters of an inch while you slept." – Dr. Porter, [10:07]
- Swap commercial salad dressings filled with sugars and seed oils for olive oil, which reduces risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia by 40%.
  
  "One tablespoon of olive oil a day, your risk of Alzheimer's and dementia went down 40%." – Dr. Porter, [19:47]

7. Sleep: The Brain's Cleaning Cycle

[12:59, 29:33]
- Deep sleep triggers the “glymphatic system”—the brain's cellular cleaning mechanism, critical for mental clarity and disease prevention.
  
  "There's a new system of the body... activates only during level four sleep called the glymphatic system. It's the brain's cleaning system." – Dr. Porter, [12:59]
- Sleep quality—not just quantity—is essential; even 10 hours in bed can mean nothing if lacking deep and REM phases.

8. The Power of Mindset and Social Energy

[11:03, 32:26]
- MIT studies show that human thoughts are essentially “broadcast” and can influence others within a 10,000-mile radius—mindset matters beyond just the self.
  
  "We live in a sea of consciousness... your thoughts might not be your thoughts." – Dr. Porter, [11:58]
- Associating with “gainers” (people with uplifting energy) instead of “drainers” is key for energetic health.

9. Practical Tips for Brain “Training”

Morning: Movement (SMR), hydration, breathwork

"That first your morning should be yours. If you win the morning, you're going to win the day..." – Dr. Porter, [32:33]
Afternoon: 20-minute nap or Brain Tap session to recharge, especially around 2 PM natural dip

"A 20 minute session of brain tap is equivalent to a four hour nap." – Dr. Porter, [33:14]
Evening: Stretching, unwinding, preparing body and mind for deep sleep cycles

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Stress:

"If you want to eliminate all stress, that only happens one time in your life. They call it death." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [00:07], [08:18]
On Ancient Wisdom:

"Our brain was not designed for the life we're living today. We need to train our brain just like an athlete would train its body for a sport." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [00:24]
On Movement:

"Movement is life." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [09:37]
On Social Influence:

"They search the whole world to get you one hour of bad news every night... There's so much good news in the world, we need to start focusing on the good." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [11:03]
On Technology:

"It's digital dementia... They have the same physiology." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [21:10]
On Energy & Mindset:

"People that look at life as a pessimist actually down regulate their nervous system and they produce 200 times less light." – Dr. Patrick Porter, [31:23]

Important Timestamps

00:00: Stress can’t (and shouldn’t) be eliminated.
01:10: Dr. Porter’s personal transformation and biohacking journey.
03:48: Dr. Porter discussing launching his “Brain Camp” healing retreat.
04:23: The therapeutic power of music; modern abundance and choice.
06:15: How certain types of music (like “Alvin and the Chipmunks”) affect the brain negatively.
09:00: Why and how to “train” your brain like an athlete.
10:07: Hydration and brain function in the morning.
12:59: The discovery and significance of the brain’s glymphatic (cleaning) system.
21:10: Technology’s downside—“digital dementia” and posture.
23:05: The essential nature of the afternoon rest/recharge.
29:33: Turning liabilities into superpowers; the hero’s journey as a model for mental health.
32:26: The impact of mindset (“gainers” vs. “drainers”); importance of energy hygiene.
33:14: Brain Tap’s impact—20 minutes equivalent to a four-hour nap.

Actionable Takeaways

Hydrate first thing every morning—supplement coffee with 3x as much water.
Prioritize movement early in the day; any form that raises energy and SMR is beneficial.
Leverage afternoon dips: Take a power nap or use a technology like Brain Tap for a midday reset.
Choose mindset and social circles intentionally—seek “gainers,” avoid “drainers.”
Get quality deep sleep: Prepare with stretching, unplug from technology, and let the glymphatic system do its work.
Focus on optimism: It has measurable effects on your body’s “light” and overall health.

Final Thoughts

Dr. Porter makes a powerful case: the key to thriving in modern life is not in eliminating stress or following the latest trend, but in reclaiming the ancient practices of movement, community, mindset, and rest—adapted with modern science and biohacking tools. Listeners are encouraged to treat their brains like athletes in training, viewing life’s challenges as opportunities for growth, and mindfully harnessing both traditional wisdom and innovative technology.

For more depth and resources, visit Brain Tap or follow Dr. Patrick Porter’s work.

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Transcript

Sean Kelly (0:00)

I know you have a lot of data on the brain. Have you found anything that eliminates stress?

Dr. Patrick Porter (0:03)

We don't eliminate stress. Everybody always asks me that, Dr. Porter, how can you get rid of all my stress?

Guest Speaker (0:07)

You don't want that.

Dr. Patrick Porter (0:07)

That only happens one time in your life. They call it death. Think of stress as like a pro athlete doesn't look for an easier workout. They go, can you give me an easier workout so I can get my big paycheck? No. They go, what can I do to challenge my body physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually Push it to its limits. When I'm there on game day, I

Guest Speaker (0:23)

have high peak performance moments.

Dr. Patrick Porter (0:24)

Now, this morning when you woke up, I'm sure you said, wow, I got a race today, right? You said, man, I getting ready for the race. It's called the human race. Most people don't know. They get up in the morning to get there. In the 100 yard dash, the guns up. They go, what the hell, what's this 100 yard dash? I didn't sign up for this. They go, no, you're in the human race. You never trained for it. Our brain was not designed for the life we're living today. We need to train our brain just like an athlete would train its body for a sport. We need to train our brain for our life. And most people don't do that. So in the morning we need to wake up our brain using something called smr, Sensory motor rhythm. And this is a brainwave that has to do with distributor systems. So exercise is really important. So if you can do yoga, tai chi, dance, even just get up and move your body. Foreign.

Sean Kelly (1:06)

Guys, returning guest, Dr. Patrick Porter. We are here at A4M talking about brain top. What's new with you, man? You're down £50.

Guest Speaker (1:12)

Yeah, downfit. I met up with some pretty incredible people, like the Queen of biohacking, Dr. Laura Leva. She introduced me to things like the vision bodysuit. You know, when you exercise your body, you get that bdnf the we call it miracle growth for the brain. So imagine you're working out but now you're not just recruiting 30% of your muscles, doing a regular workout, it's 90 to 95% of muscles are being recruited.

Dr. Patrick Porter (1:33)

Wow.

Guest Speaker (1:34)

It made a big difference. And you know, I travel a lot, speak a lot, so now I can just pack it in my luggage and if I don't have time to work out, I just put it on, do the electro stem and I can do my emails. I'm doing a workout, but usually I Usually I will do a workout at the same time.

Dr. Patrick Porter (12:59)

@N101.com we're sharing these thoughts. That's why when, when Bannister broke the four minute mile the next year high school students were breaking the 4 minute mile. How did that happen? Because the barrier, our brain, that that belief barrier is gone. If I was to take you back in time right now to 2015 and you're in medical school, you're going through all your curriculum and they're talking about your physiology. There's a part of the physiology called the lymphatic system. Yeah, this is the garbage man of the system. Remember, there's four things that reasons you have problems in your brain today. Thoughts, traumas, toxins and technology. So when you think about the tech, the tech, the toxins, how do you get them out of there? The problem isn't that we don't have good nutrients. The problem is you can't paint a house while it's burning. So with all the inflammation, everything going on so you got to down regulate. So this, this. But back in 2015 there was a doctor that was doing a sleep study. And while he's doing this sleep study he realized there was a new system of the body. Think of it like X Men. This system activates only during level four sleep called the glialymphatic system. It's the brain's cleaning system. Actually in American Scientific in May 2015 they actually show there's an article there that says the garbage man of the system if you do not get deep sleep. So there's two things listeners, two Things you need to do before you do any biohack, any health optimization, any longevity treatment. Because they're never going to work if you don't solve these two problems. First, stress resilience. Not get rid of stress. How do we build more resilience? You have a 100 billion neuralbit processor. Every one of those neurons is more powerful than a Cray computer. So imagine that you have 100 billion of them. When you were born, you were 18.1 volts. You were alive. Your brain was fully activated. You had neuroplasticity. Who knows what, you could stay up all night long, get up and play all day long, and you didn't get tired at all. But then, as we age, what happens is about 21 to 25 years old, that brain starts to modulate about 10.1 volts, and then it stays that way. It should stay that way until we die. Do you know any ancient culture that keeps all the wisdom of the tribe with the youngsters? You know, like when you hear about ancient traditions, go all the wisdoms with who? The elders.

Dr. Patrick Porter (15:12)

So what are we doing wrong with our elders? We're putting our elders into community homes. We're disassociating them. All the wisdom of our tribe is being disassociated. We need to somehow get used to be. If you and I were in a tribe together, we'd go out hunting and gathering, and then we'd meet at the communal fire at night. Now, that communal file was a biohack. They didn't know it, but that fire is crackling and burning at 10 hertz frequency. You know what 10 hertz is? What? Alpha. The body mirrors that. Every cell of your body has a mirror neuron. So this mirror, these mirror neurons are now matching the fire's intensity. So then it gets in rhythm and cadence like metronomes. If you go onto the Internet to YouTube and put in synchronizing metronomes, you'll see a guy starts one metronome and 200 metronomes within three minutes, they're all synchronized. The cells of your body do the same thing with everything. And we. I know we don't have a lot of time, but what, what we're, what we're talking about here is that when you. When you get in sync with your environment. So in ancient times, what they would do, they would. They'd go to the fire. What would they do? They would talk about their day. Hey, there's berries over here. There's buffalo over here. There's, you know, whatever There's a tribe over here that looks a little weird. We don't want to be around, you know, whatever's going on. But they downloaded the wisdom of the tribe, so everybody knew about it. And then when the, as the logs burned, they didn't realize what was happening. Not, not just the logs, but you as a person, you are emitting infrared light. Like all the, out here in the, in the hall, we have all these light generating systems like Braintap and Theraj and all these people, they have all these different light devices. You are a light machine. They call it the electron transport chain for a reason. The electron transport chain, that's the base system of the body. It's energy, it's light. Which means that we are light beings and we are energy beings. So what this light does, it comes into the cell, the Krebs cycle starts again, starts to create ATP, which then produces oxygen and creates energy, nitric oxide, everything we need for vasodilation, blood flow, circulation. Because the problem most people have is inflammation because they have all this plaquing. Because there's so much inflammation going on, nutrients can't get to the cells. So we've got to clear that out. Like I said, you got to plan for that. So in the morning you get up, you do the SMR training. If you don't do brain tap, then what I recommend is you do psychological breathing. And it's very easy. Everyone out there has heard this before. You've been with a family member or friend and they get fed up and then they finally go, you know, they just let out a breath, they go, what's that big sigh about, John? And you go, oh. What it was was your nervous system got so built up you just had to go, well, you can do that on your own. It's actually a breath technique. You just breathe in. And if you do that in the privacy of your own home or bathroom so your family doesn't think you're going nuts, you know, if you do that for a minute or two, you will regulate your nervous system. You will create dopamine, norepinephrine, cortisol, everything you need in the morning to kickstart your journey. That's how you get your brain ready. A cup of coffee is not the answer. A cup of coffee starts at 10 o' clock or two hours after awakening. So when you think about the first two hours should be hydration. Mineral, mineral water. At least one tall glass of water, if not two. Remember your brain shrunk three quarters of an inch while you slept. Wow. The minute you drink that cup of coffee, it's a diuretic, you've just dehydrated your body. There's a really good book called you'd Body's Many Cries for Water and Most Ailments. The first thing when somebody says, what's going? I said, how much water you're drinking? Oh, I drink coffee all day long. No, how much water do you drink? Every glass, every cup of coffee. If you drink 12 ounces of coffee, that's fine. You better drink 36 ounces of water to wash that out.

Dr. Patrick Porter (23:11)

Farmers weren't out in the field at 2 o'. Clock. Aborigines aren't running around at 2 o'. Clock. In the Serengeti, there's no lions running around chasing zebras at 2 o'. Clock. Everybody's taking a nap. But because we're Americans and we want it now, we want it fast and we think doing, doing, doing is going to make it better. But people have spent all of their time, energy and effort to make their money and now they got to spend all their money to get their health back. If they could just take 20 minutes. And we did this at Google and Microsoft. My co author with the brain fitness blueprint, Rushika Sikrishi was at Google. So we did an experiment actually with Googlers and Microsoft programmers and they wanted to know how could we stop them from having burnout. And I said just have them do a Brain tap session at 2 in the afternoon. They said I can't take 20 minutes off in the afternoon, I'm busy. They get paid by the keystrokes. I said, give me two weeks and I guarantee you will never go back to not taking that break. What we found was if they took that 20 minute break with Brain Tap in the middle of the day because you have a psychological load, your temperature drops 2 degrees. If you're neurologically out of balance, it's going to drop lower and you're going to think you have low blood sugar. It's not low blood sugar. All the stress that happened, your liver pumped out sugar into your bloodstream. Your insulin was released. Fat storage hormone put all that sugar into the adipose tissue, locked it away, called insulin resistance. Now when you're hungry, there's no sugar for the body because when you were stressed you didn't do anything. You're sitting there looking at your phone. So there's no, it's all about movement, motion and flow. So in the afternoon we need to have a reboot. So it's a 20 minute reboot. When they did it, we measured it. Every person that did it. The average person got 26% more work done. Every the days they did brain tap. Over the days they didn't, they had a 54% improvement in their, in their, what they call the happiness score. We didn't even work on their sleep, but they had a 73% improvement in their sleep scores because they offloaded stress in the middle of the day. Now, if you can't do it at 2 in the afternoon. Exactly. Then you can do it when you get home from work. Because what it'll do is it'll reboot the system. You'll have more dopamine, more cortisol, more neoprenephrine. These are the things we need to get going, get out, get it, get after it, it. But we need to go through a cycle because every night when you sleep, and then we'll talk about the sleep one. When you go to sleep at night, your body's not just processing what you thought about, what you brought about, what you were concerned about. It's actually trying to figure out all the problems you have in your life and creating solutions. But if you keep bringing it problems, it thinks, boy, Sean just wants to have more problems. So it basically becomes like that Chinese knot that just keeps getting tighter the more you pull on it. So we've got to loosen that up, relax, let the body and the nervous system unwind. And that starts with the body, your movement, stretching. That's why we say yoga, tai chi, dance, whatever. Get your body moving, breathing again, get your body eating the right materials. But then when you get to the sleep cycle, at the end of the day, you should be at the low because there's a cortisol trough. When you wake up in the morning, you should be a little anxious. You should be a little. Because imagine for 200,000 years we would wake up outside. It's only been a very short time that we've had shelter in what we're doing. So the light of the sun would come in and we'd get a flash. That flash would wake up our brain. Now we're part of the food chain. We're not just going to lay there, we're going to get up. What do we need to do? We didn't have refrigerators. There wasn't a convenience store at every corner. There wasn't a grocery store. You could throw a rock in any direction and hit. We had to go get our food. Food. We had to go, you know, we had to go build our huts. We had to move and, you know, we were not the same people. That genetic memory is inside of us. You know, in. In 2018. Talk about what happened in 2015. But in 2018, another great experiment, a great breakthrough that happened because in 20 2003, when they said, hey, we've mapped the human genome. You remember that?

Dr. Patrick Porter (27:06)

They said, wow, we can. Then they go, you know what? We only map 1%. That other 99% is junk. Well, in 2018, they finally have technology that figured out there are switches on our genes. They call these things epigenetics. That's what all of these stem cells and all these different things they're finding out now. They can put different chemical solutions, different thoughts, different activities, different external exponents, and the cells actually change. We know now MIT did a study that showed we pull codes from the center of the universe. This isn't metaphysics. I don't want anybody to believe what I'm saying. Keep your beliefs at church. This is science. They've proven it in science that we are light beings that absorb light energy and we transmit them as codes through our body. So, Sean, if I could take your DNA for a minute, I pull it out of your body, I staple it to the floor, I would. I could pull it out to Pluto, which I still consider a planet, you know? So when you. When you think that's how much is inside you right now. It's a viscous material. Its whole job is to keep your DNA braided. But that DNA, they now know, MIT showed that every 40 seconds or so, it rebraids, means you change. So, one last thing, and I'll let you ask a question. The. When you. When you think about the ancient Rishis, they say, I live near a river where Mystic Pines is. I have a river out there. And when I look at that river, the Noose River, I say, wow, that's the Nus River. It's not the same river it was yesterday. There's new water out there. There's new fish out there. The sediments at the bottom of that river are different. That is a new river. Then the Rishis would say, you never step into the same river twice. What they were saying was, you never step into the same body twice. But the problem is, most people never deal with their thoughts. They carry their consciousness with them. And I call them the Dragons of the Past. In my first book, Awaken the Genius, because people drag them on and drag them on. So imagine for a minute, I'm Superman. I'm being interviewed by the great Sean Kelly. And you're saying what? So the first thing I'm going to tell you is I'm going to bring out my kryptonite. I'm going to put it here on the table and go, Sean, this is what makes me powerless. I'll tell you all the ways you can use this against me. No, I wouldn't do that. As Superman, I wouldn't even tell you about kryptonite. I would put that in a lead box, put it in a vault. Never tell anybody. But people take all their hurts, all. All their. All their scars, everything. Oh, sorry about that. All their things that are going on

Dr. Patrick Porter (29:33)

They broadcast the world. This is what makes me less than myself. Unless you're using that to transform people's lives. Because once you, once you get past it, once. Once you. There's not a superhero on the planet, there's not a comic book ever written that that superhero didn't have to go through the dark night of the soul. Because that's the hero's journey. We all have a hero's journey. Whatever you're going through right now, whatever pain, whatever suffering, whatever's going on for you, you should be blessing is true. God does not give you anything you can't handle. The problem is you didn't know you had to handle it. You didn't train for it. You didn't know. You're going to run the 100 yard dash this morning. So let's start training now. In the morning, SMR in the afternoon, Theta or Gamma in the evening. Let's do some Delta training. If we can get you to have. In our sleep study we did with the coal miners in Australia, we improved their sleep in two weeks. In three weeks, they were 70% better than other people. Who were these coal miners? When I first did the study, we did a two week washout study. The average coal miner spent 10 hours a night in bed. You'd think, wow, they're sleeping great. No, they weren't. They only had one minute of deep sleep and virtually no rim. So they were in bed, but they weren't sleeping. This is the misnomer people have about sleep. It's not about time in bed. You know, it's like. It's like having employees. It's not about how much time they clock in for. What was their output, you know? So what did you do during sleep? So, sleep. I'm doing a new program with Dr. Credo, who's Dr. Amen's sleep doctor. We're doing a program called Sleep Like A champion because sleep is a sport. You got to look at your life like today I'm going to improve the things I can. Number one, I'm going to become more resilient about stress. You got to say who cares? Or what the heck, you know, or whatever other word you want to use. You know, you got to let things go. Don't try to control everything and then go with the flow. Change the things you can, of course, but then embrace those things you can't change. How can you work around them, through them, make them a part of your thing. But if you can take your biggest liability and make it your superpower, now you have something you can take to the world. And that's really what I think. Every person listening, you have a superpower. We all have superpowers. If they found in 2015 that we have this glial lymphatic system. If they found in 2018 that we have this epigenetic system that by the way changes by two factors. One is do you look at life as an optimist or do you look at it as a pessimist? And what they showed was people that look at life as a pessimist actually down regulate their nervous system and they produce 200 times less light. Wow. We can measure the photon exchange between, remember the electron transport chain. It doesn't. It's just like electricity in the walls. That electricity doesn't just run along those wires. That's why we feel emf. We feel the, you know, when we get around dirty energy.