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Conquering Fear with Alex Honnold
00:57:51
Is the fear of heights innate or learned? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O'Reilly explore taking risks, the neuroscience of fear, and how to overcome it with freestyle rock climber and subject of the film Free Solo, Alex Honnold, and neuroscientist Heather Berlin.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:31]
C
About time we revisited neuroscience.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Of fear.
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B
Fear is the mind killer.
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C
Yeah. We got the guy who was featured in Free Solo.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Not dying. Ascending that cliff face.
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A
Yes.
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C
Coming up on StarTalk Special Edition. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begin right now. This is Star Talk special edition. Neil Degrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And when it's special edition, it is. Gary O'Reilly.
- [02:10]
A
Hey, Neil.
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C
Hey, man. Chuck. How you doing? Professional comedian.
- [02:13]
B
Yes, sir.
- [02:14]
C
All right, dude.
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B
Feeling good, man.
- [02:16]
C
All right. So, Gary, you cooked these topics up.
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B
Got a good one.
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C
I'm impressed every time.
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A
So thank you.
- [02:22]
C
Tell us what you brought us.
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A
Gotta give a shout out to Lane Unsworth over in la. Alright, so getting to the top, reaching the summit, they are goals for millions, maybe if not billions of people daily around the world, right?
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C
Yes. Either literal or figurative summits, Totally. Yes.
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A
But not all of us can get over our fears to reach it. But then there are some of us who can. So we gotta think about that. Today we're going to talk about the science of fear. Yes. The science of fear. I like that. And how we can change the neuroscience of fear, of course, and change our brains to overcome it. And who better to discuss that with a neuroscientist and a freestyle rock climb?
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C
Plus, I want to find out about his podcast, what's it called? Planet Visionaries.
- [03:05]
A
Yes, it's with Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiatives.
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C
Okay, we'll find out more about that.
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D
Yes.
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A
All right, so, Neil, please introduce our first guest.
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C
I will be delighted to. We have in our midst, sitting right here in my office at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, we have world renowned freestyle climber.
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B
Oh, my gosh. Alex.
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C
Alex Hanold. Alex, welcome to StarTalk.
- [03:31]
E
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
- [03:32]
C
I mean, everyone learned about you through the indelible film free Solo on a climb that you did of El Capitan. Yes. This is a mountain in Yosemite. Could you just explain what free solo means?
- [03:51]
B
So before you do that, let me just say, because I don't think we gave Alex the. The proper reverence. This guy is the best climber in the world that we have. Sitting here like, there is no one better. You understand what I'm saying? Like, he's a rock star. And what I love is he's like, yeah, whatever, you know, I just. I just like the climbs.
- [04:10]
C
He's a rock star.
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B
Did you see what I did?
- [04:12]
C
See what you did there?
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B
You weren't supposed to point it out. So.
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C
So explain what it means. Yeah.
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E
So free solo climbing is climbing without a rope or harness. Just climb with your hands and feet up a cliff.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So no extra tools or. Yeah, no gear clips or hammers or safety net.
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B
Which means if we think things through just a little bit.
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E
Yeah. If you fall, you die.
- [04:38]
B
Thank you. Thank you. I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to be free solo
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C
equals you fall, you die.
- [04:43]
E
Yeah, basically.
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B
Yeah. Actually, you know, honestly, unless you trip in the first five feet.
- [04:48]
E
Well, that's exactly. Well, I was actually. Because if you fall and you don't die, then you were bouldering, because that egg shape is. Another discipline of climbing is going bouldering, which is what most people do in gyms, which I'm actually going to do in the gym here in New York. As soon as we're done chatting, go to the gym and go bouldering to train. And so that's when you climb without a rope and everything as well. But you're climbing 10 or 15ft, you fall onto pads, it's all safe. But basically, if you go much beyond that and you're looking at serious consequences.
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C
The laws of physics will kill you.
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E
Yeah. Then you're freeze hauling.
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C
Wow.
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E
Freeze throwing is kind of defined once you cross that line where you experience consequences.
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A
Can't play with that guy.
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C
So I've had a few rock climber friends in my life, one of whom is dead.
- [05:26]
E
In a climbing accident or just.
- [05:27]
C
Yes, in a climbing accident? Back in college, what impressed me was the things they could do. They were kind of lean and lanky. So just like you can do one arm push ups and finger pull ups. Just tell me the kinds of things you can do that most of us can't or none of us can.
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E
I mean, nothing that crazy. I can do one arm pull ups, obviously.
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B
One arm pull up. That's not crazy. Yeah.
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C
Okay.
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E
Who can do that? Everybody does that. All my friends can do that.
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C
Really?
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D
Yeah.
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A
But you hang out with rock climbers.
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B
All your friends are rock climbers.
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E
All my friends are professional climbers. But I can't do like one arm push ups. That's because basically I have good pulling muscles. Not that good.
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B
Not great pushing muscles.
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E
Yeah, right. I never push the rock you need to push as well toward me.
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C
So I hadn't thought about it. In a push up you're pushing things away, which is not something you would ever do as a climber. Typically.
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E
I mean, you do a little bit of pushing as a climber. Cause you have to like press onto things. Like pressing over the top of like. Imagine getting out of a pool if you're trying to get onto the top of a cliff. But that's pretty minimal compared to. Compared to how much you're pulling. You're pulling all the time as you're pulling yourself.
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C
So you got good biceps relative to your body weight.
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E
Yeah, I guess.
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C
What do you mean you guess?
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A
Well, not this discipline specific muscle groups.
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C
That's what I, I'm enchanted by.
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E
Well, that's kind of discipline specific muscles. Well, but that's kind of the thing is that people assume that because you're a good rock climber you must be very strong in different ways. And really climbing is so much around technique and weighting your feet and like having open hips and balancing on your toes and doing all these things that, you know, I'm sure some random CrossFit bro can probably pull stronger than I can.
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A
Then you don't want to be muscle bound because you'll need an amazing amount of flexibility.
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E
Yeah, but like a gymnast is almost certainly more flexible and stronger than me. But it doesn't mean that.
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A
But you're not doing a backflip off the rocks.
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E
Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying that it's like you train for what you need. So I'm able to climb, you know, as well as I can, but I don't know. But by any metric of strength, it's not that excessive.
- [07:17]
C
This is where we transition, because if we get line up five people with similar strength to weight ratios and similar agility, not everyone makes it to the top. There's a certain mental state that you have to enter. I'm presuming that might distinguish you from other rock climbers who are equally as physically fit and capable of lifting their own weight.
- [07:42]
E
Yeah, that's actually probably a more apt transition than you might have even have thought, because. Yeah, if you lined up five of my friends who are all professional climbers, and we're all relatively the same strength and weight and size and build and everything, you know, why are some of us more successful than others? And, yeah, that starts to come down to the sort of indelible factors, like mental things.
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B
Is there a, I'll say, prototypical physiology attached to climbing, or can any body type do it?
- [08:11]
E
Any body type can do it, but strength to weight matters. So, I mean, there are some really big climbers, you know? Cause if you're strong enough, you can be big, but in general, people are relatively lithe. Like, I'm kind of a big climber.
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A
Okay, interesting.
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E
I'm kind of big for a climber.
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C
And in that movie.
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E
Which movie? Another climbing movie.
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C
Sylvester Stallone.
- [08:32]
E
Oh, Cliffhanger. The best. I mean, that's the best.
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C
Yeah, yeah, but he. To me, he looked almost too muscular for that.
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E
Yeah, but I think Sylvester Stallone would argue that you can never be too muscular.
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B
Right, Exactly. Plus, he can always just, you know, grunt at the rocks to get them to cooperate.
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C
That's true. I had not.
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B
And, you know.
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A
All right, so enough about Sly. So when you're planning a major ascent, are you physically training for that particular climb, or have you got all of your toolkit ready, you just need to polish it up and get going?
- [09:08]
E
Yeah, well, always a little bit about. So you. So you're always trying to stay fit, like base level fitness, like, to be capable of doing a climb, then you do the specific training on that route. So, like in the film Free Solo, you see a ton of practice on the actual wall memorizing the specific moves of that route. Cause it's one thing to have the physical capability where, like, my muscles are strong enough, but it's another thing to actually remember how to use your muscles the right way, you know, like left hand or right hand, or should I raise my left foot? Or, you know, like remembering how to do it? And then beyond that, then there's the whole mental side of it of like, do I believe I can do it? Do I want to do it? Is it too scary?
- [09:39]
A
Like, you know, okay, so you landed on that button. How are you working with the development? Mentally, you're looking at the bottom up at this climb. How do you then configure how you address that with your own thoughts?
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E
You know, at the base level, there's the confidence that comes from knowing that you're physically able to do something. So it's like if you've done the physical preparation, if you're trained for it, then obviously it's much easier to have the self confidence.
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A
Just about any elite athlete would have. They'd have. The confidence comes from all the work they've done in their history.
- [10:10]
E
Yeah. And particularly with rock climbing, you know, like, the medium is unchanging. Like, the rock is always there and it's always the same. So if you climb it with a rope a bunch of times, you know that that's how it feels. That's how it always feels. And so if you can do that in a variety of conditions and in a variety of personal conditions, like when you feel tired, when you feel strong, like, whatever, and you know that you can always do it, then you kind of know that you can do it.
- [10:30]
B
And is that the process that you climb with a rope multiple times as kind of a means of solidifying your path and your technique in your br. And then you go without the rope?
- [10:42]
E
Yeah, that's the ideal. I mean, I've certainly done a lot of things without prep beforehand, but that's typically because you've looked at a map. Like, you kind of know that the route is supposed to be a certain grade, that you can do it. And you're just like, oh, I'll go up and figure it out.
- [10:53]
B
Go ahead and do it.
- [10:54]
E
And then you also are typically free soling far enough within your comfort zone that if it starts to get weird, you can just down climb or fail and just escape.
- [11:01]
B
And is that more exciting if you're kind of. Because that seems to require a bit more improvisation.
- [11:08]
C
That's the word.
- [11:09]
E
There are few things in the world probably quite as stimulating as being like, alone on a cliff that you've never climbed. Just questing. I mean, that's like real.
- [11:16]
C
Yeah. Suppose, you know, I have pretty long arms, but for anyone, if you're climbing, if a grip is like a Few inches out of reach. Can that happen? You say, I gotta give up because I have no place to ascend from here.
- [11:28]
E
Or typically you would raise your feet and you'd get closer to it.
- [11:33]
C
What do you mean, raise your feet?
- [11:34]
A
Climb it?
- [11:34]
E
Yeah. It's funny because. So most people, when they're climbing the gym, they're like, I can't reach the next hold. And you're like, well, raise your feet. Basically, if you raise your center mass. Like if you put your feet on the next level up and you're like, oh, suddenly I can reach the next hole. Oh.
- [11:45]
C
Because your hands already got past that level. So wherever your feet are standing, your hands used to be there.
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E
Yeah.
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C
Right. So there's gotta be something above where your current feet are. If you're trying to reach a higher point above that, in theory.
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E
Or you can always just paste your feet against the wall. You're wearing these rubber shoes, so they kind of stick to rock a little bit. And so with enough body tension, you can just push and lever your body higher. The general idea that you're saying, like, what if there's a gap that you can't surmount? Then it's like, yeah, I mean, if there's a gap gap and you. You can't surmount it, then. Then you fail.
- [12:11]
C
You have to.
- [12:13]
E
Or you have to jump. Well, most people, though, are like, well, yeah. I mean, sometimes you jump from one hole to another, but jump but without a rope, you prefer not to do
- [12:22]
C
that while you're ascending. There's a point where you are not in contact with the rocks at all.
- [12:26]
E
But typically you only do that when you're. When you have a rope on and things.
- [12:30]
C
Ah, okay. But when you.
- [12:31]
E
When you're roped up, though, that's relatively common, where it's like you run out of holes and you jump or you fly.
- [12:35]
B
However, if I remember the movie correctly, the impasse for every other climber was this one particular point where it wasn't necessarily a jump, but it required something like that.
- [12:50]
E
A big kick out of the start.
- [12:51]
B
It was a big kick out. And you. And.
- [12:53]
E
And that's actually something that I had solved with a jump in the past. Like, you could jump that part, but the idea of free soloing it that way seemed totally out of the question.
- [13:00]
B
Right.
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E
Because you just don't want to. You don't want to get up to a point and be like, now my whole life has come down to this moment where I just jump for a hold.
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C
I was like, no, let's get back
- [13:08]
E
to your Brain or lack thereof.
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C
Are you now or have you ever been afraid of heights?
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B
Ooh, no.
- [13:18]
E
Well, so I actually. Most people who say they're afraid of heights, I don't think they're actually afraid of heights. I think they're afraid of falling to their death, which I think is totally fair. And that's what, like, I'm afraid of falling to my death.
- [13:27]
C
Okay. The comedian Steven Wright said, I'm not afraid of heights. I'm afraid of widths. And I said, that's very insightful. Because if you're very high up, but you're walking on a broad swath of.
- [13:42]
E
Well, that's exactly. Yeah. You're afraid of falling to your death.
- [13:44]
C
Right. But if something's narrow, that's when you're afraid of the height. Yeah, but the higher you are, isn't that more scary than if you're not as high?
- [13:54]
E
I mean, once you're more than 40 or 50ft off the ground, you're basically gonna die either way.
- [13:57]
B
Right.
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E
So what's the difference between being a thousand feet, two thousand feet? Yeah, I mean, in general, I like being really high because I feel so
- [14:02]
C
calm about that sentence.
- [14:04]
A
No, that's so pragmatic. I know, because it makes sense.
- [14:07]
B
It's like this.
- [14:07]
C
You're dead anyway, so what's the difference? I know.
- [14:10]
B
You know what? I used to be afraid. For a very short period of time, I used to be afraid of flying. And I would get in the plane and I'd be white knuckling, and I'd be like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I don't remember the exact flight, but I remember when the plane took off and we were no longer on the ground, something said to me, it's over, so relax. If the plane crashed right now you're gonna die. Most likely you're going to die. So what difference does it make if it crashes from 30,000ft? Because here you are not even 100ft off the ground, and if this plane went down, you would die. So it's the same thing.
- [14:45]
A
So the psychology is he's taken away you. He. You have taken away this issue and minimized it because you've said it doesn't matter if it's 1,050, the death is the outcome. So you've just taken. You've just made something that could be big and dramatic, like Chuck's fear of flying and put it in its own box.
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E
Yeah. Or you've just kept it. Basically, I have a fear of death. I have a fear of falling to my death. Just like, anybody.
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B
Yeah, right.
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E
Try my absolute best.
- [15:08]
C
I don't believe you.
- [15:10]
E
Well, I mean, because if I honestly didn't care, then I wouldn't do any practice. I wouldn't prep, I wouldn't train. I would just show up and be like, screw it. You know, if it works out, it works out.
- [15:17]
C
You actually.
- [15:18]
E
Of course I don't want to die.
- [15:19]
C
Want to die.
- [15:20]
E
Well, so, like, if you've seen the foam free Zola, I mean, that documents two years of direct training and prep for this one climb.
- [15:25]
B
Right.
- [15:25]
E
But before that, I'd spent another six or seven years sort of building up to it. So I'm like, oh, I spent, you know, eight or nine years building up to this one climb. And then people like, you have a death wish. And I'm like, well, if I had a death wish, I would have just gone and done it. I want to spend nine years training for it.
- [15:37]
C
You know, it's like, okay, so is it fair?
- [15:41]
E
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, hold my beer, I'm going for it. Like, well, that's one time.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah.
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C
Is it fair to say that your level of preparation systematically reduced your fear factor?
- [15:53]
E
Yeah. So, I mean, if you take risk as sort of the. The likelihood of something bad happening, I change my consequence of it, you know, with the free soloing, if you look at the risk as, you know, the consequences are basically always death. But the likelihood of falling off is determined by how much you practice, how well trained you are, the weather, you know, like all kinds of factors.
- [16:10]
C
So you tell me you were so prepared for this climb. We should be less impressed than we all were for having watched you accomplish it.
- [16:16]
E
Well, I think that the impressive part is the amount of effort that goes in to the preparation.
- [16:21]
C
Which the film captured.
- [16:22]
E
Yeah. Which I think does a good job of.
- [16:24]
B
No, I think the impressive part, but also is the doing because, let's be honest, are you still the only one who's done it? Yeah, exactly. Look at him, this guy. I swear to God, I don't know what's wrong with you. All this climate done up your brain. Because I ain't never seen nobody who has summited achievement like you have. And he's like, yeah, I guess. I mean, you know, whatever.
- [16:45]
C
I. I kind of did it very,
- [16:46]
B
very Mike Tyson about like.
- [16:47]
C
Well, whatever. Are we alone in the universe or just early to the party? In my latest book, Take Me to youo Leader, I explore how aliens might find us, what they be like and what we should do next. Curious. You should be. Take Me to youo Leader is available now. In print and in audiobook, which I narrated. Don't wait until after you've had your first alien encounter to grab a copy of Take Me to youo Leader because then it would be too late.
- [17:31]
B
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A
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- [20:46]
B
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- [22:06]
C
Is it possible to be overconfident and then you sort of let down your cautions and is that a part of your brain that you access and think about actively?
- [22:20]
E
Yeah, you're definitely trying to avoid being. I don't think I've ever been too overconfident though. I don't know. Other people might say differently, I don't know. But yeah, that's certainly something to avoid. I mean the thing with free soloing is you definitely never want to overstate your or like over. You don't want to exceed your capabilities.
- [22:34]
C
Right.
- [22:34]
E
So you have to keep a pretty clear eyed view.
- [22:36]
C
You have to match your expectations with your abilities at all times.
- [22:39]
E
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [22:40]
B
That's cool.
- [22:41]
A
Okay, so Your planning, I'm guessing, is pretty much meticulous.
- [22:45]
E
For hard free solos, for sure.
- [22:47]
A
So what point is there when you think I've overthought this and all of a sudden these things start to spiral around in your mind? Do you get to that point? Are you disciplined enough just to keep it at meticulous?
- [22:57]
C
Yeah, it's about discipline, I guess.
- [22:58]
E
I don't know if I've ever been accused of overthinking anything. No, I don't know. So it's interesting. So part of my process with free selling OCAP was I knew that it would be the most consequential climb of my life. I knew that it would be the most important thing I'd ever done. I knew that the film had the potential to be great and what, you know, I knew it'd be a big deal, but I didn't want it to. I didn't want to put it on too much of a pedestal in my mind because I already knew that there was a big mental challenge involved in believing that I could do it and whatever else. And so by building it up even higher, being like, this will be the most important thing you ever do, it's like I don't really need added pressure because there was already just the fact that it's a 3,000 foot face and it hasn't been done. It's really hard, you know, I felt like that was enough and so I was kind of like, well, I don't want to when. So actually, so part of my planning was that, you know, I had a couple months in Yosemite in the springtime, which is kind of like the time to do the free solo. But right after that, I'd agreed to go on this expedition to Alaska to climb some walls. And that was kind of training for this expedition, Antarctica, later in the year to climb some other walls. And so I was kind of looking at this.
- [23:54]
C
Antarctica has walls?
- [23:55]
E
Yeah, some insane. Like granite. No, like granite teeth. Like just giant jagged faces sticking out of the glaciers.
- [24:04]
C
I was in Antarctica a year and a half ago. I must have been in the wrong part of Antarctica.
- [24:07]
E
Were you on the coast or in the.
- [24:08]
C
Yeah, coast.
- [24:08]
E
Coast, yeah. No, in the interior, there are giant mountains sticking up all over.
- [24:11]
C
Okay.
- [24:11]
E
It's totally amazing.
- [24:12]
C
Yeah. 40 below zero. Yeah. Okay.
- [24:14]
E
Well, actually in the sun, I mean, it's chilly, but it's not that chilly. It's okay. You can climb bare handed in the sun. Sometimes unpleasant, but it's fine. But anyway, the point being that I had sort of planned these other Expeditions with the intention of making my Yosemite season feel like training for these other trips. And so obviously I was intending to free solo cap. I wanted to climb El Cap. I knew that'd be so important to me. But at the same time I'm kind of like, well, this is just practice for these other trips. And you know, it's all part of my year. Because I didn't want to put undue pressure, I didn't need to put extra pressure onto something that already felt like a lot.
- [24:45]
A
Do you have that point where you're. You're mid climb and you think, I left the light on in the bathroom and you've lost your concentration? Or do you, Are you, are you able to discipline yourself? And it goes back to that point of discipline.
- [24:56]
C
Do you have a better example leaving a light on in the bathroom?
- [24:59]
A
No. You know, something comes in.
- [25:01]
B
I left the stove on.
- [25:02]
E
I've left lights on in the van. You look down and you see your van parked down at the bottom in El Cap Meadow and you're like, God damn it, I left the lights on on the inside. I've done that a bunch of times where your headlights are on and you're like, oh man. But then if you get down fast enough, you haven't killed your battery. So it's fun.
- [25:13]
A
So you're able to shut that down in your own mentality quickly.
- [25:19]
E
Well, it's not even that. So I mean, with free selling El Cap, it took almost four hours. And so, you know, realistically, unless you're a highly trained monk or something, everybody's mind wanders all the time for four hours.
- [25:30]
A
So how do you. We remember the Ironman.
- [25:31]
B
Yes.
- [25:32]
A
Interview. And it wasn't till later in his career.
- [25:35]
B
Right.
- [25:35]
A
That he was able to get out of his own head and finish the race in first place. But it took that time to not listen to the sort of things about whatever it was going on in his head. So are you able to shut that right down?
- [25:49]
E
Yeah, I don't think it's a matter of discipline. I think that with hard free soling, when you have to, when you're doing something hard, you're just focused, you're just doing the thing. Actually, it's kind of a akin to running. I'm sure you've spent a lot of time running in your life.
- [26:00]
A
Too long.
- [26:00]
C
Yes.
- [26:00]
E
You know, it's like if you're, if you're doing some casual jogging, you're thinking about all kinds of things. You're thinking about your life and your friends. But if you're sprinting all out. You know, if you're chasing the ball towards a goal, you're not thinking about anything. That's a fair point.
- [26:12]
C
Very good point.
- [26:12]
B
Can I ask you this? Does this ever happen where your brain somewhat bifurcates into two distinct consciousness, where one is totally locked in on what you're doing, so much so that it opens up another part of your brain where you're kind of thinking about other things. Not like I left the lights on, but, like, deep philosophical issues that are running through your brain.
- [26:41]
C
Mean, like, why am I doing this? Existential question.
- [26:45]
B
That's very funny.
- [26:46]
C
No, no.
- [26:46]
E
I mean, I think for me, the closest thing to a bifurcation like that is occasionally when I'm really doing something, like I'm performing, then you're like, so on autopilot that it's almost like your body's just doing a thing.
- [26:57]
B
Yes.
- [26:57]
E
And you're not really. You're, like, along for the ride on.
- [27:00]
B
It's almost like you're there for the ride.
- [27:01]
E
But. Yeah, but I've never really experienced the other part where it's like. But the. Some part of my mind is thinking about other things. It's just that you're just doing it and you're not thinking about things. It's like. I mean, I've always assumed that's kind of like what a gymnast must feel like when they're executing their routine or something. They're just like. Their body is moving and they're doing a thing. They're not thinking about it. They're not.
- [27:18]
B
Yeah. For me, the closest thing is, like, riding a motorcycle. I ride motorcycles. And so when you're traveling at, you know, 90, 110 miles an hour, you're focused. You're very focused. And the deal is, if I'm not focused, I'm going to die. But the longer you stay focused, because you can't. The longer you stay focused, your mind starts to not wonder, but it starts to think about other things in a different level of consciousness. That's all I was asking.
- [27:45]
C
Well, so evolutionarily, fear is a very important feature in the history of our species because that preserves our species. It's like, no, I'm not gonna do that. And where does that come from? Because everyone who said, that's a cuddly lion, I wanna go pet it. If you didn't fear the lion, you were summarily removed from the gene pool.
- [28:11]
B
Yeah. By the way, I love those videos. Love them.
- [28:16]
C
So are you, however, the subset of people who are fearless and manage to not die, actually have outsized impact on the advance of civilization. Otherwise we'd all still be in the cave. So are you one of these people in our species that retain the level of fear that was genetically removed by other forces, but you're still there helping our species?
- [28:50]
E
I don't think so. I think that's overstating. I think that, I mean, I experienced fear just like anything.
- [28:54]
C
I put you up on a evolutionary school.
- [28:58]
B
He was like this. Nah, let's not get crazy. I'm still scared of the dark.
- [29:03]
E
No, I mean, I think that if anything, I've just had so much practice being scared that I've gotten good at differentiating. You know what's in love there?
- [29:13]
A
Oh, and love it become a muscle memory almost.
- [29:15]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [29:16]
E
Yeah, we just get used to. I mean, I think that most people who are really crippled by fear it's because they don't experience that much fear. Like they're not scared enough in a way, or they haven't had to manage their fear enough.
- [29:25]
C
Do you have a fear appetite so that you gotta go see scary movies all the time as well? Or jump out?
- [29:30]
E
No, I saw.
- [29:31]
C
Or jump out of airplanes.
- [29:32]
E
I have jumped out of airplanes. But no, I hate horror because I actually think that the whole genre is stupid. Because like jump cuts and startling moves and weird things. That's always gonna startle you. That's designed to scare you. And I don't really want to feel fear.
- [29:45]
B
Like, as a. I'm with you on that.
- [29:47]
E
I wouldn't intentionally go. I just think the whole thing is stupid.
- [29:51]
B
As a black man, my life is scary enough. I don't need to sit and watch things.
- [29:56]
C
If you don't climb a rock face risking death after a certain amount of time, do you get antsy? Oh, you have to go.
- [30:03]
B
That's a good question.
- [30:04]
C
Go back and put your life at risk.
- [30:06]
B
Do you see the climb?
- [30:07]
E
Yeah, a little bit.
- [30:10]
B
Yeah. You know, we call that an adrenaline junkie.
- [30:13]
E
Well, it's so hard to say. I mean, I get itchy to climb, but like, I'll go climbing this afternoon. But it'll be in a gym. It'll be totally safe. But I'll still be.
- [30:20]
B
But you're still. Yeah, you're excited.
- [30:21]
E
Yeah.
- [30:22]
A
That's tapping into something there. Motivation. The motivation to do El Capitan. The motivation to do. And we haven't discussed yet, the Taipei 101, which you streamed live on Netflix. So what's the motivation? Because it's. For me, I'm in competition with opponents. Or you Know, for tennis pro or a good player. Good point. Are you just in competition with yourself?
- [30:44]
E
Yeah, it's like a journey of self. I mean, I hate to say self mastery or whatever, but I mean, you're basically just. You know, I spend most of my year climbing the gym, doing, like, what I'm gonna do this afternoon. Just go. You train, you work out, you climb, and then every once in a while, you kind of want to test yourself or. Or see if you're capable of the things that you wish you were capable of or that you want to be capable of.
- [31:03]
C
You're competing against yourself.
- [31:04]
E
Yeah. I mean, basically, because we only just
- [31:07]
C
met, but as best as I can judge, you don't look like a publicity hound.
- [31:14]
E
Well, some would say streaming a building climb live on Netflix is about as public facing as it gets.
- [31:20]
B
That is a very good point. I have to say.
- [31:22]
E
However, to be fair, have done it for free. That's what I was going to say.
- [31:27]
B
However, you're not the guy with the camera.
- [31:28]
E
Yeah, exactly right.
- [31:29]
C
That's everyone else.
- [31:30]
B
Everybody else.
- [31:31]
C
Who's. Who's riding your high there? Yeah.
- [31:34]
B
Was it. I'm trying to remember the documentary. If I recall correctly, they were showing you as a little kid climbing everything. Everything in the house. No matter what it was, you were up on it.
- [31:45]
C
You were never down on the ground.
- [31:48]
E
Yeah, I'm seeing that with my kids a little bit now.
- [31:49]
C
Oh, really?
- [31:50]
E
If that's nature or nurture, you know, but very cool.
- [31:52]
C
You got something wrong with the ground, you got a problem with the ground.
- [31:55]
E
Well, actually, I love the view. Honestly. I love being up high. I love seeing lots of things I like, you know, like getting on top.
- [32:00]
C
I'm just throwing a little bit of physics here, if I may.
- [32:02]
B
Please.
- [32:03]
C
Okay. As you ascend, you're putting energy into that ascent, obviously, muscle energy. And 100% of that energy is what kills you when you hit the ground if you fall.
- [32:17]
B
Oh, wow. So you're.
- [32:19]
C
It's an exact match.
- [32:20]
B
You're storing up potential energy.
- [32:22]
C
Correct.
- [32:23]
B
So that if you were to fall, it's that energy that hits the ground.
- [32:28]
C
You basically killed yourself with the energy that you used to ascend.
- [32:31]
B
That's kind of wild.
- [32:32]
E
And I remember that if I ever fall, I'd be like, I was saving
- [32:36]
C
for this on the way down. And on Earth, we have a surface gravity that gives you your current weight. What are you at? £160?
- [32:48]
E
Yeah. 160.
- [32:48]
C
Yeah. Okay.
- [32:50]
A
Those were the dice.
- [32:51]
B
I was gonna say. I remember those. Damn.
- [32:54]
A
Yeah.
- [32:54]
C
He doesn't Wanna carry up any more fat than is necessary, I got you.
- [32:57]
B
All right.
- [32:57]
C
Yeah. So on earth you weigh 160 pounds. But on a pulsar, the gravity is. It's like a dense ball of neutrons. The gravity is so severe that the energy to ascend the thickness of a sheet of paper equals what it would take to climb a thousand foot rock face just to step onto that sheet of paper.
- [33:23]
B
Wow.
- [33:24]
C
So rock climbing would be very different on different surfaces. Planetary surfaces.
- [33:28]
E
Yeah, it's pretty hard on pulsars and
- [33:30]
C
a little easier on the moon. And even on Mars. Mars, you'd weigh 100 pounds or no, 40. You weigh 60 pounds on Mars.
- [33:37]
E
That would really help. That'd be tremendously beneficial to my Glenn.
- [33:42]
B
That's excellent.
- [33:43]
C
A long time ago I was in a mild car accident. You know, nobody, no blood, but I found it hard to get back into a car for weeks after that, just. It was such an assault on my concept of safety. I guess they say the same thing about if you fall off a horse, get back on the horse to just. So does this happen among rock climbers? If you made a mistake or you fall, is there a barrier that prevents you from recovering?
- [34:17]
B
Yeah, I believe it's how fast you can clean your underwear.
- [34:23]
E
I think there are probably two different scale sets. So there's. If something happens, like say you're free soloing something and you break a handhold, like a very quick immediate thing that sort of jolts the panic system, you know, where you're suddenly like, oh, I'm flooded with adrenaline. I just had a near death experience. There's recovering from that, which there's no real trick to, I don't think. I mean, you take some deep breaths, you can pose yourself, you try to pull it together and you just carry on. But then what you're describing, if you have an actual accident of some kind, though a small fender bender is maybe not a real accident. But you know, if somebody actually has real trauma, like they have a horrendous, like something happens to them, they need a surgery. I mean, that's kind of a different level of coming back from. And I've thankfully never really experienced.
- [35:00]
C
I'm saying I felt it with no physical trauma. It was just emotional for me. So you're drawing a line between, well,
- [35:06]
E
I'm trying a recovery from something that
- [35:08]
C
had no real consequences to something that did.
- [35:11]
E
Yeah, I feel like emotional sort of mental recovery is different between like acute small scale things and then big picture, giant things.
- [35:18]
C
Right.
- [35:19]
E
I don't know, but I just think that the small scale things, at least for me, I've just gotten better at with practice. Cause you just have so many little things happen while you're climbing where you're like, well, I'm really scared. And then you're like, well, what am I going to do other than just pull myself back together, Take some breaths.
- [35:32]
C
So you voluntarily had your brain scanned, is that right?
- [35:35]
E
I did, yeah. Actually, a journalist had approached me for a science magazine about doing a profile basically around this brain scan. And it was with a woman that was doing research on high sensation seeking individuals, which I think in her case was more on drug addicts and things and people struggling with addiction. But it's kind of the same personality traits, I guess. And anyway, so yeah, I had an FMRI and, and they looked at my brain a bit.
- [35:59]
A
They'd have been looking at the amygdala, so that sort of fear factor. And from memory you kind of registered less than the control during the test. So are you putting that down to nature or is this something you've nurtured?
- [36:13]
E
Yeah. So in the film Free Solo, there's this very short scene where they kind of show the brain scan and it's like, oh, it's less than normal. And so I think most people watch that scene and they come away from it being like there's something wrong with his brain. But with the long form version in the magazine article and all that, it was kind of exactly. That is like, is this nature versus nurture or whatever? And I think that the, to me the obvious thing is that it was more nurture. Not so much that was nurture. That was basically just practice.
- [36:39]
B
I think what you're saying is that the repetition of what you do over a very long period of time blunted your amygdala response.
- [36:47]
E
Yeah. So the FMRI scan, you know, you're in this like safe metal tube. You lie there and then you see black and white photos that are range. They're just like random black and white photos and they light up different parts of your brain depending on what you're seeing. And so some of them, you know, there'll be like a black and white photo of like a handgun or something as it like triggers fear in people or like the fear response. But I was kind of like, oh, I spent my whole life getting deeply afraid for my life on cliffs. I'm kind of like lying in this little tube. Looking at photos is just not scary, you know, it's like had they thrown a snake into the tube, it would have been freaking scary.
- [37:17]
C
Why did it have to be snakes?
- [37:19]
E
Yeah, or even like a rat, you know, had they thrown like a rat or like a big spider? Like, you know, there are plenty of things that could have lit up my fear response for sure. But looking at black and white photos, not one of them. And to me that's nurture. It's like if you spend your whole life getting scared, you just require a higher threshold.
- [37:32]
C
That's a good answer there.
- [37:33]
A
That makes sense.
- [37:34]
B
Makes sense.
- [37:35]
A
Well, let's jump into your foundation, the Honnold Foundation. You like, remember the Surfer Kai Lenny?
- [37:41]
B
Yes.
- [37:42]
A
He's well into environmental projects, just like
- [37:46]
B
you are, good sir.
- [37:47]
A
Solar energy project. So please expand on this whole foundation that you formed and does it have its roots in the fact that you spend so much of your time in the great outdoors?
- [37:56]
E
Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly it. I mean I was, I founded the Honda foundation in 2012, I think and I was living in my van at the time and I started earning more than I needed.
- [38:04]
A
You're living in your van?
- [38:05]
E
I lived down by the river. Well, down by the cliff. Parked at the base of the cliff. Yeah, for sure.
- [38:12]
C
So you're living in a van which is pretty inexpensive life.
- [38:16]
E
Yeah, I was living on 10 or 12k a year. It's pretty easy lifestyle because you're literally only spending money on food and gas and you're just driving around climbing full time. And the thing is that I was living exactly the life that I wanted. You know, I was super happy, I was pursuing all these climbing goals. I was, you know, basically I was living my best life.
- [38:31]
C
And did you stank?
- [38:33]
E
Well, I mean there was nobody around to know.
- [38:35]
C
So spending my money on a van,
- [38:37]
A
he sleeping in a van.
- [38:38]
C
And that was your question. He didn't stay on shower or bathing
- [38:41]
B
or soap, but listen, they kept the bears away.
- [38:46]
E
So, you know, I started earning more than I needed and I felt like I should give what I didn't need to things that mattered. And so, you know, I obviously cared about the environment because I was living in nature quite a bit. And then basically came down to what could have the most benefit for environmental causes but also help human population in some way. Because basically I traveled enough through climbing that I was like, nobody cares about the environment unless their basic needs are met. Like, you know, when you travel to rural communities that's always the case.
- [39:12]
B
That's a great point.
- [39:13]
C
Yes, yes.
- [39:14]
E
I was kind of like, well if you're going to try to protect the
- [39:15]
C
environment, it's a luxury to compare and
- [39:17]
E
care about the environment, I mean. Yeah, basically. And so it's kind of like if you're going to support environmental projects, they have to improve standard of living. Like they have to help human communities in those places. And so that's why we've been supporting community solar ever since then.
- [39:30]
A
Fantastic.
- [39:30]
C
Another quote from my father. It's not good enough to be right. You also have to be effective. And your foundation.
- [39:37]
E
Yeah, I think energy access is the base for so many different things worldwide too.
- [39:43]
B
Yeah, yeah. Globally, we're talking.
- [39:44]
C
Yeah. So it's still going strong.
- [39:45]
E
Yeah. This year we'll pass 20 million in total giving.
- [39:49]
A
Congratulations.
- [39:50]
B
Way to go. Way to go, man.
- [39:52]
E
It's crazy because when I started the Honda foundation, I donated 50k the first year. I sort of like went from me giving 50k a year to now. Yeah, we've passed 20 million.
- [40:02]
B
And by the way, once again, whenever this comes up, I feel it incumbent upon me to remind all of you watching that solar energy is still the cheapest energy on the planet. Okay.
- [40:14]
C
And in space. Just thought I'd put that up there.
- [40:19]
B
That's right. So I don't care what you've been told, you know, drill, baby, drill is not the way to go.
- [40:26]
E
Yeah, I feel the exact same way. You know, since 2012, I was like, this is obviously the future. Like, this is. This is where energy should be coming from.
- [40:32]
B
Absolutely.
- [40:33]
C
And you've got a podcast gives you some platform there.
- [40:36]
E
Yeah, yeah. Whose podcast called? Planet Visionaries.
- [40:39]
C
Planet Visionaries, yeah. Good.
- [40:40]
E
Yeah.
- [40:41]
C
There's others of, like, mind and soul,
- [40:43]
E
what's supported by Rolex. And so I'm mostly interviewing Rolex ambassadors and basically conservationist people who are working a lot of, like, marine biologists and divers and, you know, sort of nice, I don't know, like marine photographers and things like that. Yeah, they've definitely been supporting conservation and exploration type efforts for, you know, I don't know, 80 years.
- [41:02]
D
Wow.
- [41:03]
B
Super cool, man.
- [41:04]
E
100 years.
- [41:04]
B
Way to go, Rolex. Who knew?
- [41:06]
E
I know it is surprising, but actually it's been a real pleasure hosting the podcast because just like you guys, I mean, you get to meet all these interesting people who are doing incredible things and it's always pretty inspiring because people who have devoted themselves to one niche, like, you know, we're like restoring coral in certain places and you're sort of like, who knew that you could restore, you know?
- [41:22]
C
Yeah. And what platform did they possibly have to tell people?
- [41:25]
B
Right.
- [41:25]
C
Without what you're providing.
- [41:26]
E
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:27]
B
Yeah. You ain't going on a tonight show
- [41:28]
C
restoring coral well, good to hear about this. And it's not just you climbing mountains. It's you making a difference in the world. Not enough people think or feel this way.
- [41:38]
E
It's the classic. I mean, I love climbing mountains, but at a certain point you're like, maybe I should try to do something useful as well.
- [41:43]
C
Yeah, make something of your life for achieving it.
- [41:45]
E
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:46]
C
Well, Alex, thanks for sharing some of your day with us.
- [41:50]
A
Thank you.
- [41:51]
C
Did you climb up the side of the row center to get on the fifth floor?
- [41:56]
E
If you give me permission, I will for sure. I got. I got all my clients done with me.
- [42:00]
C
You gotta never leave home without it. All right, this. We gotta wrap.
- [42:04]
A
Well, we gotta wrap this segment.
- [42:05]
C
This segment. Oh, yes, yes, that's right. We gotta get inside the man's brain home just yet. Okay. Okay. Coming up, yes, we're gonna reach out to our neuroscientist at large, Dr. Professor Heather Berlin. All right, when we come back on StarTalk Special Edition,
- [42:36]
A
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- [43:46]
B
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- [45:23]
E
I'm Joel Cherico and I support StarTalk on Patreon.
- [45:27]
C
This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Gary, time to bring in our next guest.
- [45:39]
A
Yes.
- [45:40]
C
Which is one of my faves.
- [45:41]
A
She is without a doubt one of our favorites. Fascinating guest, Alex Honnold. Fascinating because all of the achievement and the modesty was just the humility was amazing.
- [45:51]
C
We got to get inside his brain.
- [45:53]
A
Let's do it.
- [45:54]
B
And that's what Heather is here for.
- [45:55]
A
Yes.
- [45:56]
B
Heather Berlin.
- [45:57]
D
Hello.
- [45:58]
C
Yes. Clinical psychologist. That's your, that's your. Is that your day job? Clinical psychologist.
- [46:03]
D
Neuroscientist. Clinical psychologist.
- [46:05]
C
Yeah.
- [46:05]
B
He's a crime fighter. At night.
- [46:09]
C
You're at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York. I was born in that hospital, Mount Sinai, New York.
- [46:14]
D
Most people, most amazing people are born in Mount Sinai. You guys born there?
- [46:19]
B
They don't have that in Philly.
- [46:21]
C
You weren't born there.
- [46:22]
B
They don't have Mount Sinai in Philly.
- [46:23]
C
All right, all right. So tell us, how does fear manifest in the brain? And I've heard the amygdala. What is that?
- [46:34]
D
Yeah.
- [46:35]
C
Which I've surely mispronounced unjust.
- [46:38]
D
The amygdala is a key brain region involved in fear. But it's this. I think a lot of people think that fear lives in the amygdala and that's not quite how it works. The amygdala is more like the smoke alarm. It detects something happening in the environment. It says, danger, danger, Something could be happening. We need to gear up. So then it activates other parts of the brain, which then decide whether we need to sort of act on this.
- [47:05]
C
So it's the trigger.
- [47:06]
D
It's a trigger. It's sort of an alarm response that can be trained to either sort of be louder or to kind of dampen down, depending on our experience.
- [47:17]
C
And so what I'm curious. Cause we just take it for granted that a lion with big teeth that's chasing you is something that you should fear. But is that evolutionary? The portfolio of things that scare us, that's not learned, is it?
- [47:37]
D
So it's a bit of both. We are actually born, and research has shown that we're born with certain predispositions, evolutionarily sort of programmed that we're more likely to be fearful of certain things like spiders or heights. Right. Because of our history and our interaction with them than we are to say of electrical sockets.
- [47:56]
B
Right.
- [47:56]
C
Oh, because electric sockets are modern and we didn't have a chance to evolve being afraid. Oh, okay. So what shape.
- [48:02]
B
That's why all my kids have afros.
- [48:09]
C
Wait, so that's an interesting point. If we wanted evolution to continue to work, you would just let kids put stuff in the socket and they would die. And those who did would die. They were removed from the gene pool.
- [48:23]
B
Those who watched the others die would
- [48:25]
C
learn, would learn, and that would be whatever we would be feeding the amygdala of what you should be afraid of.
- [48:32]
D
Right. So I mean, there's a bit of both though, because you can also learn fears, right, by either watching something happen to someone else or having an experience yourself. Let's say you get into a bad car accident, you might start to fear that. Right. So you have lived experience which can program, and then you also have kind of pre installed predispositions to be more likely to be fearful of these things that we've learned from our past.
- [48:53]
C
Okay, but do you get a point
- [48:55]
A
where fear can almost paralyze or does paralyze a person? Yes.
- [49:00]
D
I mean, fear can be maladaptive.
- [49:01]
C
No, not literally. Paralyzed just prevents you from reacting.
- [49:06]
D
So there's a healthy amount of fear. And you don't want too little, you don't want too much. Right, Too much. And if you freeze and you can't respond or run, let's say, from the tiger, you're dead. Right. But if you're not afraid enough, you're dead. So it's this middle ground that is really the healthy fear. And then we get into psychological disorders. Sometimes it's too little or too much. And that's where the problems start to arise.
- [49:27]
C
How much do we need people in modern society who are fear resistant? And there are people who might don't fear getting arrested. I mean, there's the bad side of this curve. People who don't fear repercussions for wrongdoings. That's right.
- [49:45]
B
And that's because frankly, I'm made of Teflon.
- [49:51]
D
Well, I mean, when you look at it like if you look at population genetics, there's things that remain in the population because it's an adaptive niche. Right. So if everyone's playing by the rules, it's actually adaptive for those to be outside that, to be more risk taking, risk takers. And so we find that genetically speaking, there's a certain gene that codes for people who are more risk averse, but also who takes, take more risks. And there's niches within the population for both those people to have an advantage. Now if everyone, like once you get past a certain amount, you know, percentage of the population, then it becomes maladaptive. So it kind of like we work together as a whole organism, if you think of us as a population to keep a certain amount of risk takers because that's adaptive for us as a society. They're the ones who are going to look and go a little further and explore.
- [50:38]
C
Right. Because I said in the first segment, because it made sense to me, not because I researched it the way you have, that we need some risk takers that remain among us lest we all still be living in the cave.
- [50:50]
D
Absolutely. Exactly. So it's actually adaptive for there to be certain people out there who are more likely to take risks.
- [50:57]
C
Right.
- [50:57]
B
And when does that.
- [50:58]
C
For the benefit of us all.
- [50:59]
D
For the benefit of us all. Exactly. They're the ones who are gonna taste that fruit and see if it's, you know, poison or not.
- [51:04]
E
Right?
- [51:04]
B
Exactly.
- [51:05]
C
Yeah. As the head swells up, if you're
- [51:09]
A
not already this person that would go and do something adventurous, how do you sort of push your own envelope when it comes to fear? Are there techniques and skills?
- [51:19]
D
Absolutely. You know, so something that I kind of prescribe to patients, especially people who are risk averse as well, so they kind of are avoiding things too much, is to kind of take these micro risks where your brain is just is making predictions all the time about what it expects and you have to Kind of change this algorithm. And you do that by training it, by actually being a little uncomfortable, letting yourself, you know, do it in a Not. Where it's not overwhelming, where you're flooding, it's called flooding, where it's just too much, but you feel a little uncomfortable and your brain start. And then nothing bad happens. Your brain starts to learn, okay, you know, discomfort doesn't mean danger.
- [51:55]
C
In that case, it's not justified.
- [51:57]
D
Right. Like, let's say you're afraid of taking elevators. You know, maybe you just. I say, okay, you're gonna take just the elevator one floor and get off. I know it's gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna feel. But after that, you're like, oh, nothing bad happened. The brain starts to change its prediction. And that alarm response, the amygdala, it starts to go down. And that's how you gradually train yourself. And if you take someone like, you know, like rock climbing or free soloing, where, you know, you don't just start out climbing El Capitan, you're doing it. Little micro risks over and over, where every time you do it, you feel a little bit safer and a little bit safer, and then you build up to these things where, you know.
- [52:31]
A
So you expand the comfort zone.
- [52:32]
D
Yes.
- [52:33]
B
What happens in the brain when the fear becomes irrational? And then what do you do to deal with that?
- [52:42]
C
Like fear of the number 13.
- [52:44]
B
Yes.
- [52:44]
C
Trixidectaphobia, a phobia in general.
- [52:48]
D
So it becomes irrational. You have to kind of attack it from both ends, like top down, bottom up. So the bottom up is you kind of have to train, you have to embody it. You have to actually do the things, like let the number 13 sit there, and you still do the thing you're afraid to do because the number 13 is there or whatever it may be. And then nothing bad happens. It starts to train the brain at a sort of unconscious level. But then there's the top down, where you can. It's called cognitive reframing. So you think of things in a slightly different way. So let's say you're afraid of something. The heart is racing. You're thinking, oh, my God, I'm panicking. Something bad's gonna happen. You reframe it and say, you know what? My body is preparing for action. You know, this isn't such a bad thing. I can still do things even if I'm feeling afraid. If you reframe it in that way. So there's a cognitive aspect to it, and then there's this sort of. Just behaviorally, you have to keep Doing it over and over again to teach your brain not to fear it. And over time, the fear goes down.
- [53:41]
C
This sounds like what a psychologist would help a person to achieve. But in the future, the future of neuroscience seems to me you just go in there, nip, tuck a few neurons, and then the symptoms go away like this. Is that the future of your field?
- [53:55]
D
There are actually, you know, there are some. And even with drugs that you can sort of unlearn. So fear is about association. You associate something, a stimulus with it's fearful. You can pull apart that association with certain drugs. So you train someone to fear. You know, like Pavlov dogs can be trained to hear the bell and. And saliva starts coming. You can train people to fear something, let's say a white rabbit, right? And then you can unpair that with certain drugs. I don't think it's dramatic as you have to go in with certain neural implants. Ultimately, though, the fear circuits, we understand so well that we could potentially go in there.
- [54:31]
C
Admit it, that's what you really want to do with people's brains.
- [54:33]
D
I do like manipulating people's brains.
- [54:36]
A
So when Alex was talking about, you know, what if I fall from 50ft? It's the same as falling from a thousand feet. How is he dealing with that fear aspect? How does he cognitively arranged himself?
- [54:47]
D
Yeah, that's a really good question. So that's something that I call controlled surrender. So basically, and I used to actually, also you had mentioned fear of flying. I used to have a fear of flying. And the way that I got over it, it's not like knowing the statistics cognitively and all that. None of that. It's a feeling. It's a feeling and it comes up from. So when I finally. It's accepted. Okay. When I get in the plane, I have no control. It's letting go. I don't have control. And if this plane goes down, I'm gonna die. And once you fully accept that, the fear starts to go down because it's the holding on of control that actually is creating the anxiety. But once you just accept it. And Buddhists and mystics and all stoics
- [55:27]
C
have said this, and there's that Christian prayer, which is, God, give me the power to change the things I can and to accept the things I can.
- [55:33]
D
Exactly.
- [55:34]
C
That's the soul of this.
- [55:36]
B
Yes. Which is why I'm drunk on every flight.
- [55:40]
D
But this is, I mean, with Alex, like, he, you know, once he passes, let's say, whatever it was 50ft. There's an acceptance no matter what If I fall, I'm gonna die. And once you accept it, it kind of calms the fear circuit.
- [55:53]
A
I said kind of made it smaller, less of a threat.
- [55:56]
D
Yes.
- [55:57]
A
To not allow it to just be in your head and start to eat away at you.
- [56:01]
C
So I was a geek kid and I would always have data override my feelings. I could do it like that. The plane is shaken. I said no. I know how many planes fall out of the sky and it's this little. And it had this many flights. And so.
- [56:15]
D
So you were able to like cognitive your way out. Well, that's the top down. You must have very strong top down processing that you can. Yeah, very good prefrontal cortex. That's the part of the brain that's
- [56:25]
C
this part right here.
- [56:26]
D
Yeah. Right in front above the eyes that you. But. And sometimes control like that is really good. Like we need that. Right. To override. But other times, like with, with Alex, once he's trained so well and his kind of body and brain know what to do.
- [56:40]
E
Right.
- [56:41]
D
When you start putting in that top down, you start becoming too consciously aware and thinking. It messes you up.
- [56:46]
B
Right.
- [56:46]
D
Because the training, it's a. And then you actually, once you've trained, like to perform at your best, you actually have to stop trying so hard. You have to let go.
- [56:53]
B
Almost like your body knows better than your thought process, than your conscious brain.
- [56:58]
E
Yes.
- [56:58]
B
So is that what's going on in like professional athletes?
- [57:04]
D
Yeah, it's, you know, not even just athletes. Musicians, musicians, surgeons. Right. They've trained to the level that they don't have to think about it. And in fact, if they start to think about. Cause consciousness is very good at certain things, but has a limited capacity.
- [57:18]
E
Right.
- [57:18]
D
The unconscious. And like it has. So it's so large, if we start to consciously think about it, it kind of messes up the flow of things. Like if you had to think, how am I walking and balancing at the same time and all of that, it wouldn't work as well. Or when you're a professional athlete. Right. What angle am I going to hit that ball? It will mess you up. So when you're in, once you've trained, the training lives in your neural circuits and what your job is.
- [57:41]
C
It's what people call muscle memory.
- [57:43]
D
Muscle memory.
- [57:43]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [57:45]
D
So letting go isn't chaos. It's actually trusting the control you've already built in.
- [57:49]
A
Gotcha.
- [57:50]
D
And once you have, your whole job is to not, not think about it. Because when you, when you start to infuse that top down processing it all that's good in some cases. In those particular cases, it's. It can be detrimental.
- [58:01]
B
So is it kind of like you've actually trained this, these neurological pathways to fire in a certain way and then if you just let them do it, then they'll just do it?
- [58:13]
D
Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. And, you know, we've seen that even just with patients with brain damage, you know, this one patient, he actually had his hippocampus, the part of the brain having to do with long term memories was completely damaged. And so he couldn't even hold consciousness from one minute to the next. He would forget. So every minute he felt like, I'm just waking up now. I'm just. He had a diary. He said, I'm waking up now. I'm just waking up now.
- [58:33]
B
Damn.
- [58:33]
D
And so he was, you know, in an institution. He couldn't function, but he was a pianist. And if they could get him to start playing the music, he could play an entire beautiful piece through all the way to the end. Cause it was a different part of his brain. And once you activated that part of the brain, or with Alzheimer's patients, if you get them to start, if they can't even speak at certain point, you get them to start singing a song from their era of their childhood or happy birthday, they can suddenly sing the whole thing to completion.
- [59:01]
C
So that reminds me, we interviewed Daniel Levitin, who, he was a musician and a neuroscientist, and he wrote a whole book on how music just manifests differently in your brain and how anything sort of rhythmic changes what would otherwise be manifesting if it was not rhythmic or was not serenaded by music. And fascinating.
- [59:26]
D
Music is really powerful and it's related to language as well. And it's how we remember things, right. With rhythm and dance. And so it goes very deep to our evolutionary roots as well. But the thing about.
- [59:37]
C
Especially since every culture has some musical tradition.
- [59:39]
B
Yes.
- [59:40]
D
Yeah. And before we could write things down, you know, the way we remember things with song. Right? Song and rhyme and rhythm. And so, you know, I think it's deep in sort of our subcortical parts of our brain. And like I said, the prefrontal cortex is important for certain things. And some people who are too under control, they need more control. They need more prefrontal cortex function, and others need less to actually do their best.
- [60:02]
C
So our guy Alex, would you say, because he was very comfortable in himself, it was balanced for whatever his desires and needs were, but for someone else, it could put their life at risk?
- [60:14]
D
Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you're too much of a risk taker without the training, you know that's dangerous. If you overthink too much though, on the other end of the spectrum, that can be dangerous too. And that also leads to anxiety. So, you know, the difference between fear is that something is in your present moment and it triggers this whole neurological response.
- [60:34]
B
It's actually happening.
- [60:34]
D
It's actually happening. Anxiety is just anticipation of a future threat. It's fully cognitive. And certain people who are just obsessing and thinking and worrying all the time, that's not adaptive. You gotta train them to actually turn that part of their brain down.
- [60:49]
C
Now, did you put all this, I heard rumor, I heard tell you put all this together in a TED Talk.
- [60:56]
D
Yes.
- [60:56]
C
And what was the title the TED
- [60:58]
D
Talk is related to? It's similar. The book I'm working on as well. It's the Fine Art of Losing Control.
- [61:04]
B
Nice.
- [61:06]
D
It's about how to control the dial, how to turn it up when you need it and turn it down. Cool. So gaining control by letting go in a controlled way.
- [61:15]
B
See, my book would be called the Hot Mess of Losing Control.
- [61:19]
A
So when you say that, when you say about dialing up, up, dialing down. If you have certain areas of the brain that you were talking about, the hippocampus that was damaged in one patient, is there a way to circumnavigate that you as a person can control yourself with a dial up, dial down sort of scenario?
- [61:36]
C
No. You need professional help. That's why you have to book time with her on her couch.
- [61:40]
A
Wasn't talking about me.
- [61:42]
B
I'm asking for a friend.
- [61:44]
A
Exactly.
- [61:45]
C
Someone I know, I've heard of, he
- [61:46]
A
looks a lot like that.
- [61:49]
D
There are techniques that you can learn how to basically control your brain. Once you understand how it works, then we can figure out ways to control it. And everybody's brain is slightly different. Right. So it's like everyone's brain is like a thumbprint. So some people need more of one thing, some people need more of another. Some people, like I said, need more control. So we have to turn up the prefrontal cortex and there are techniques to do that. Some people need less and we have to train them how to turn it down so they, they can be less fearful and less anxious.
- [62:16]
C
Yeah. In terms of up and down. I was once at a funeral of a 17 year old kid who died of brain cancer. And I played with him once when I was just a child. But he was a family, there was a family friend. So I went to the funeral in a Church with an organ playing. And they brought the busloads of kids from the high school and they were weeping as they're holding each other. Very, very sad. And I started welling up and I said, I don't know this, I don't know this kid. I played with him when I was three. So why am I crying? I'm crying because everybody else is crying, but I don't know him. And then I did the math on how many people die every day in the city versus how many people are born. And I just sucked back up the tears and I watched it anthropologically.
- [62:56]
B
Damn, that's cold blooded.
- [62:59]
D
It's interesting getting insight into how your mind is.
- [63:01]
A
I'm sorry, we're not gonna get anxious right now.
- [63:04]
B
We're in yours. You should have just.
- [63:07]
C
Yeah, I just. I rationalize. I don't mind crying, but I want a reason for it. Not just cause everybody else is.
- [63:14]
D
Everybody has different defense mechanisms and one of them is, you know, rationalization. I mean, not that this is a bad thing. I mean, it could be adaptive.
- [63:22]
C
Yeah. Is it?
- [63:23]
D
It's adaptive, you know, in certain contexts. That's why the brain evolved these mechanisms. Right? To be able to sort of, you know, rationalize your way out of it or intellectualize your way out of certain trauma.
- [63:33]
C
Let's say, you know how this manifest, September 11th, I'm four blocks from the collapsed buildings. There are people, adults, weeping, carrying their kids to safety. And I'm completely in control. And we gotta get my kid, he's there. Let's load up, the supplies come out.
- [63:49]
D
And so it's adaptive to be able to be in control when emotions are heightened and to train yourself. I mean, I don't, you know, maybe there were things that you've done in the past that allow you to. To have gotten to that place.
- [64:02]
C
Yeah.
- [64:02]
B
And what about this? Cause I'm just the opposite. I am very. I am great in a crisis, but I think it's because I've actually experienced a lot of trauma.
- [64:14]
E
Right.
- [64:14]
B
I'm serious.
- [64:15]
D
Right?
- [64:15]
E
No, no, no.
- [64:16]
D
But you've trained yourself that this is a situation in which you. It's almost like this, you know, micro risks or micro fear, like micro over trauma. Over time you start to expand your comfort zone.
- [64:27]
A
So. So normally what might stress you, 10 years ago, you've had that much experience. Now when it falls within that space, that's your comfort zone.
- [64:34]
D
This is to say, though, I'm not saying trauma is a good thing.
- [64:38]
C
Everybody get traumatized.
- [64:40]
D
Too much trauma is not good. And that can lead to PTSD and all sorts of things. But the opposite of that coddling, if you protect your children too much from any kind of feeling of being uncomfortable, that's actually not a good thing. And that can leave. Lead to more anxiety and inability to be able to cope in a threatening situation.
- [64:58]
B
It also leads to your kids saying stuff like, f you, Carol.
- [65:05]
C
Yeah, we gotta land this plane. Do you have just some final reflective thoughts on what power we have over our own risk taking?
- [65:15]
D
We all have much more control than we think we have. And I think it's really powerful to imbue yourself with that knowledge that you can actually make changes and you can improve. Let's say if you're afraid of things like there's science behind it and it works, people can overcome fears. That being said, as much as, you know, being able to control your brain and yourself is. Can be really important and empowering. It's also just as important to be able to let go sometimes and. And stop thinking and just be.
- [65:47]
B
Yeah.
- [65:47]
D
And just have acceptance and be present and let go of control.
- [65:50]
A
Party.
- [65:52]
B
Time to party.
- [65:53]
A
I don't think that was Heather's message.
- [65:54]
B
Okay, I'm sorry. Maybe I. Maybe I heard something that wasn't there.
- [65:59]
D
Party. But just like, don't overdo it.
- [66:01]
B
All right.
- [66:01]
E
All right.
- [66:01]
C
So, Heather, will you come back when your book comes out?
- [66:03]
D
Absolutely.
- [66:03]
C
All right. Excellent. You're our conduit to the neuroscience universe.
- [66:08]
D
Love that.
- [66:09]
E
All right, put that on my page.
- [66:10]
D
Business card.
- [66:12]
C
Thanks for coming back to StarTalk.
- [66:14]
E
Thanks for having me, Chuck.
- [66:15]
B
Gary, always a pleasure.
- [66:16]
C
That's another wrap for StarTalk Special Edition. Neil DeGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, as always. Keep looking up.
- [66:36]
D
Hey, everyone, it's me, Morgan Stewart. And I have a new podcast called the Morgan Stewart Show. Join me each week as I talk about pop culture, fashion, my personal life, and just a warning, I'm gonna be giving my opinion on everything. I'll also have some really fun guests to join in on the fun. The Morgan Stewart show is out now. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts or watch full video on YouTube.
- [66:56]
C
Out on the road, it helps to have a partner like the Love's Rewards app. Download Love's Rewards today and save 10 cents on every gallon of gas. Gas and up to 25 cents on
- [67:05]
A
every gallon of auto diesel.
- [67:06]
C
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- [67:09]
E
Terms apply.
- [67:10]
C
Not available in all states.