Loading summary
Transcript128 lines
- [00:02]
A
Lemonade. Hi, everyone. I'm Dan Buettner. You know, I've been a book author. I've written now six New York Times best selling books. But I realize people are consuming stories, more so on podcasts than they are books. So I decided to change mediums and I also decided to open the aperture. I was really interested in talking to experts beyond just centenarians and beyond longevity experts. It turns out the idea of aging well is a multidisciplinary pursuit. And I was really interested in looking at it from all angles, some of them really controversial, some of them unlikely. And I was also interested in getting some celebrity point of view. I know people like celebrity, and I figure sprinkling some celebrity point of view in would bring the audience, and it really has. I look at it as the icing on the cake. My buddy Matthew McConaughey actually came on and read poetry, but he had some really great advice on how to stay healthy for the long run. You and I hiked Buckskin gulch. It was 25 miles of ass deep in water. We biked over the mountains in North Vietnam. You're in good shape and 55 years old. You don't look 55. What is your routine? What, how do you, what do you eat? And how do you keep in shape to.
- [01:28]
B
So look, I go through, I go through seasons. When I was writing Green Lights, I went ahead and told myself, be a writer. If you don't, if you're, if you're hot and writing and you're. And you're in a groove, you ain't got to get up for nothing. You don't want to go exercise and, And I was consumed with writing where I was writing 17 hours a day. Mind you, I was kind of losing weight because I was forgetting to eat. I'd have to remind myself, you got to go to sleep and drink some water.
- [01:55]
A
That's like writing like Jack Carol.
- [01:57]
B
It was. That's how it was like. It was like that. I also had times when it was the editing process and then doing all the rest where I just kind of let myself go and I ended up putting on sweat. And that felt fine and good. I've been, you know, I try to stay within a few weeks of getting in shape for maybe whatever role. Now what I do now is I'm trying to stay in shape to not get injured and to still be able to go out there and be athletic with my kids and to still be athletic enough to go play tennis and move around and be at a weight where I like the way my clothes fit and I feel good and I got a good amount of energy. I'll get up in the day. For the past, you know, year, my daily routine would be get nine, nine and a half hours of sleep.
- [02:38]
A
That's generous.
- [02:39]
B
Yeah. Get up. Thank you, Camilla for that. As she says, I'd rather be around you. I'd rather get up before you and do the stuff that needs to be done when you get nine hours of sleep than be around you with seven and a half hours.
- [02:53]
A
For those who don't know Camila is Matthew's better three quarter. Yes.
- [02:58]
B
Amen. So I'll get up. I'm pretty Spartan at breakfast. Matcha couple matcha teas and some, some, some kombucha. In the morning if I'm hungry, I'll eat a little bit yogurt and berries or maybe some scrambled eggs and then. But a lot of times I'll just skip it and kind of ride that little caffeine buzz in the morning until 12:30 or 1. I have a lunch. I usually do some sort of seafood I prefer or chicken, usually seafood with a little bit of salad, a lot of tomatoes I'm into right now. I have a couple of green juices through the day. One right after lunch. I have my first cup of coffee after lunch.
- [03:36]
A
Is that right?
- [03:36]
B
Yeah.
- [03:39]
A
And, and that's non conventional. Most people get up and start their day with coffee.
- [03:43]
B
I love to in the morning, but I don't like how I feel in the afternoon. The coffee in the morning. I love how I feel until 1pm but it steals the energy. I have a drop off.
- [03:54]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [03:55]
B
And it steals future energy from me. We've talked about this. I've tried that thing about, no, wait an hour, wait till you're up for an hour and then have a cup of coffee. Whatever it is about the caffeine rush that getting coffee, if I have it in the morning, it grabs a debit from my energy in the afternoon. So I'll have my first cup and maybe two cups in the day at say 1:30 and then four and that's my favorite. If I'm powering through the afternoon, I'll then in the afternoon do work. I usually do my workout. I prefer to do my workout 5 o', clock, 5, 6 o'.
- [04:26]
C
Clock.
- [04:26]
B
I have much more, I'm a much more energy and power. I'm the same way working out in the afternoon. Then if I can grab some tennis or whatever before dinner, come back, have dinner. For dinner we'll have a lot less red meat than we used to. But, you know, fish or, or chicken of some form or some other white meat for, for dinner. And, you know, I like my beans
- [04:51]
A
and he's just sucking up to me now.
- [04:54]
B
I do, I actually do like my legumes. I know I can get you started, though. And then, you know, I'll, I'll finish dinner, hang out, and then I'll pour my first drink of panelos tequila to probably about nine, you know, one, two of those and be hitting the hay at about 11. Close my eyes about 1140.
- [05:19]
A
By Joe. You're the only person I know who can drink a tequila at 9 or 10 o' clock at night and go to bed like a baby. I, I caught. Really, McConaughey.
- [05:28]
B
Chamomile.
- [05:29]
A
Chamomile.
- [05:32]
B
What does it do to you? What's it do to you? You don't go to sleep.
- [05:35]
A
No, I don't sleep very well. Most people don't sleep very well if they drink very close to bedtime. I'm a big fan of panelones tequila, by the way. I think it's very pure. If you're going to drink, it's either red wine or Pantalone's tequila. But I usually, these days I drink a little bit with dinner, maybe a little bit after, and then call it off. But like people in the blue zones, most days are healthy days. 1000 out of 1100 meals are whole plant based. Then they'll pig out during festivals. Same with me. About one day a month, I like to go deep where I'll stay up late, usually a Friday night.
- [06:11]
B
Once a month.
- [06:12]
A
Once a month, that's it. Well, where I'll have more than one or two glasses of wine.
- [06:16]
B
Okay. And that is because.
- [06:19]
A
Well, older people metabolize alcohol differently than younger people. So it doesn't provide the lift it used to provide. It interferes with sleep. The hangover is much longer. If I have three or four drinks on a Friday night, it's not until Sunday when By the time 60 minutes is starting that I'm getting over it. So it may just be that I hit it too hard in my younger life.
- [06:48]
B
I don't know. I went pretty hard in my younger life, too. I mean, you know, I, I. Speaking of that, that, you know, a diet without meat, we've gone. We go a couple weeks at a time with that. And I used to be hard. It's not hard anymore. Maybe that's because there's so many new cool recipes.
- [07:08]
A
Yeah.
- [07:08]
B
With that meat. But it, I find it. I used to, I'm Sure.
- [07:10]
A
Getting out of the Blue Zone Cookbook all the time.
- [07:12]
B
We've definitely eaten out of the Blue zone Cookbook, sir.
- [07:16]
A
Dr. Daniel Amen. Brain Science guy had some of the best practical tips to keep your brain sharp.
- [07:23]
D
So I'm actually going through. I have an acronym called Bright minds. Want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it to prevent or treat these 11 things. Well, the D in Bright Minds is diabesity, high blood sugar and or being overweight. If you're overweight, you have 10 of the 11 risk factors for dementia and aging.
- [07:45]
A
That's 70% of Americans at 75% of
- [07:49]
D
Americans are now overweight or obese.
- [07:52]
A
And
- [07:54]
C
sleep.
- [07:55]
D
Go to bed a half an hour early. You want a better memory tomorrow, Go to bed half an hour early tonight. Sleep is so important. An untreated sleep apnea. Snore loudly, stop breathing. Chronically tired triples your risk for Alzheimer's disease. And so those are the things to avoid. But then the flip side, the things to do, do exercise, new learning, omega 3 fatty acids. Know your risks and be on a prevention. Like, I have heart disease and obesity in my family. I don't have heart disease. I'm not overweight because I'm on a heart disease obesity prevention program every day of my life. Don't text and drive because you're more likely to get a head injury. Detoxify, you know, avoid toxins and support the organs of detoxification, especially saunas. And you've probably seen this with your work. People take the most saunas, have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Don't believe every stupid thing you think. From a mental health standpoint, know your vitamin D level. Optimize it. Test your hormones. And one reason to avoid sugar. If you get a sugar burst, it decreases testosterone by 25%. So if you share the cheesecake with your sweetheart at the restaurant, nobody gets dessert when they get home.
- [09:25]
A
What do you mean by that? So Dr. Tim Spector is another one of these really top tier scientists. In fact, he's in the 1 percentile, the most cited scientist in the world. And, and his expertise is gut health. And of course he understands it at the cellular and the, and the, and the bacterial level. But more importantly, what happens if you don't get enough fiber? And guess what? About 90% of Americans don't get enough fiber. The microbiome is so misunderstood and you're better than anybody else at understanding how it works. I want to talk about the good bacteria, good bugs, and the bad bugs. But first, the good bugs. We Have a variety of good bugs, hundreds of species probably, and most of them like their own type of food. But what happens when we feed our microbiome these good bugs, when we feed them fiber rich diversity of fiber rich food? What do they do that helps create health?
- [10:27]
E
So most of the microbes are in the lower part of the intestine. So you have to have fiber that isn't easily digested. It's one of the definitions of fiber is it's a form of carbohydrate that's really hard to digest so that it doesn't get absorbed in the upper part of the intestine, the small intestine, and go straight into the bloodstream. Like if you have white rice or white bread or sugar, it just goes straight into the system so your microbes don't get it. So it's foods that have some fiber in it. They then go down to the large intestine where the microbes will break the fiber down into smaller particles and its intrinsic parts. And they break it down into multiple things like they'll separate the polyphenols from it, which are these antioxidant chemicals that then provide them with energy source. So they sort of suck out defense chemicals of plants and they use it for themselves. And the other thing they do is to often they will certain ones produce things like short chain fatty acids. They're called SCFAs. These fatty acids are little short messenger things that actually go into our gut lining and help our immune system. So they're the messengers sending really positive health signals to our body through the immune cells. And that dampens down things like inflammation and just tells the whole body to calm down. So you've got this energy source and a source of saying I'm going to regulate the immune system absolutely correctly for my environment.
- [12:06]
A
How does this short chain fatty acid regulate the immune system? How does it know when to ramp up if I'm sick or back off? If there's sort of an autoimmune thing going on?
- [12:18]
E
You've got immune cells that are on the lining of the gut and they have these receptors there. And there's various mechanisms of how these receptors work. But the short chain fatty acids are basically there to dampen it down. And if they're not being produced, then the immune system will get agitated, get overstimulated. And that's what we think is the cause of low level inflammation in many populations. It's why we get food allergies. It's just inappropriate response to our environment. So in a way, all these Immune cells are waiting for the microbes to give them signals about what's happening in the outside world. So we've got to think about it
- [12:59]
A
almost like a brain, isn't it?
- [13:00]
E
It is like a brain.
- [13:01]
A
It's so much more complicated than we thought.
- [13:03]
E
Well, the second brain of us is in our gut. So if you joined up all the nerve endings in the gut, it's the same size as a cat's brain. So just what's happening in our immune system, you're also getting chemicals that are being broken down from our foods and our microbes that are telling the nervous system what to do. And those signals again go through the vagus to the brain, the big nerve that connects the two, and they tell the brain what's going on. And this is why we have this sort of gut brain axis, is it called, and why we shouldn't think of the mind and the brain as separate from the body. Because it's all one system, it's all connected. And this is something that we've got to relearn in medicine because we've gone too far down this route is absolutely all connected. And so we're looking now at a lot of gut interventions. Whenever we do a study, say one of these, Zoe, citizen science studies, which have hundreds of thousands of people, whether it's fasting, whether it's adding fermented foods, whether it's taking the daily 30 prebiotic, the first things people notice is their mood and their energy change. Mood, energy and hunger. They're the first things that change.
- [14:12]
A
Yeah, you're a great writer. You've written the diet myth spoon fed. And now we have this new book, Ferment. I'm one of the first to receive it here. Maybe it's a metaphor, but maybe it's actual. But you assert that the microbiome actually manufactures vitamins. How does that work?
- [14:29]
E
Well, we have 200 times more genes in our microbes than we do in our bodies. And genes are basically programming units for proteins. So through evolution, we've evolved a system to have all these other bugs inside us that are doing the job that we can't do. So they produce all kinds of vitamins from most of the B vitamins, including B12, actually.
- [14:57]
C
Wow.
- [14:57]
E
Vitamin K and many other ones, as well as neurotransmitter chemicals like serotonin and gaba. They're really essential for our health. Plus many thousands we don't yet understand. So you've got to think of the microbiome not as just these creatures that are running around attacking each other, but as chemical factories. So each of them is designed to eat a certain food and produce a certain series of chemicals. And we use these chemicals in our body to manipulate our immune system and our nervous system and tell us exactly how our metabolism should be working. So this is why the more chemicals you've got in your system, that is the healthier your gut, the more you can be flexible and more you can deal with problems and illness and aging, et cetera. So this is why gut health, in my view, is now absolutely central to our health. And that's what Chinese traditional medicine has been saying for thousands of years. They didn't know about microbes, but they knew that there was something here that was driving.
- [16:04]
A
It was so magical.
- [16:04]
E
You gotta think, you know, we house and feed these microbes, give them a nice place, a safe place, and in return, they offer us these chemicals, these vitamins, you know, to keep us functioning normally. And this is an evolutionary marriage, really. It's just common convenience. It works very well. We can't live without microbes.
- [16:24]
A
Another big surprise was menopause. So I have to admit, this was not a topic I was that interested in. It's not something I will imminently face. But our producers suggest that we have Jessica shepherd on, who is this fabulously eloquent and articulate scientist doctor. And she came out and gave fabulous insights to what really happens during menopause and how does it affect the rest of the family. What do men need to know about menopause? You know, I'm an imperfect student. Cause I'm actually interested and I'm clueless.
- [17:01]
F
I think it's like this mystery. It's always looked at as this stigmatized. Don't talk about it. Women weren't even talking about it. So it became very uncomfortable and awkward. But even more so was the connectivity that they were having with their partners, spouses, or I've even had some younger men when they remember their mothers going through menopause. Right. So there's a connectivity part of it that was missing because it was not an open discussion. And so the more that men become allies in understanding the transition, that it's not them. Right. But it was the ego that's involved in that of like, oh, this isn't about finally change. We're trying to give you a break here. We're saying it's not about you and learning how to weave through that connection. There's obviously a lot social media is, you know, can be something that's really good or bad. But right now, we're seeing A lot of menopause and divorce and menopause and relationship changes. And I believe that has to do with. As women are understanding more of this emotional, in this hormonal shift, then we're not, we're not talking to them. So how are we going to advance women in this kind of transition through. I understand what's going on with me now. I know why I feel the way that I do emotionally or connectivity wise. But then we're not talking to the men. Then there's gonna be, there's not gonna be this kind of equal playing or this level setting between two and then that's creating only more diversion. So for men, I would say lean into it. It's not for them to fix. It's sometimes just to allow to be, to be heard for a woman to be heard and understood, especially when it comes to intimacy. There are a lot of women who has nothing to do with their partner, but because of decreased libido or how they feel about themselves and their body changing can play on their mind and they don't want to be intimate with their partner. And so even like little discussions like that can help people be more aware of saying, oh, we can journey this together because we're now more both understanding of this transition.
- [19:04]
G
Hey, it's Julie. Louis Dreyfus from Wiser than Me, et cetera. Just popping in with a little reality check. Food waste shouldn't exist. There is no reason that our leftovers should end up in a landfill. But that's the final destination for about a third of the food we grow. Our ancestors would be confused. They use their food scraps as compost or as animal feed or in weird soups, the stuff we did before garbage was invented. But composting is hard work. Living with a bucket of rotten food on your counter is gross. Most food goes in the trash because it's easy. And these days, we'll take any easy we can get. But now there's something easier. Drop your scraps in a mill food recycler. It looks like a kitchen bin and an iPhone had a baby. It takes nearly anything, even meat and bones. It works automatically. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never smells. When you finally empty it, you've got these nutrient rich grounds. Use them in your garden, pour them in your green bin, or have mill get them to a small farm so the food you don't eat can help grow the food you do, just like it should be. It's why I own a mill, why I invest in mill, and why I'm still obsessed with my mill. If you want to get obsessed too, go to mill.com wiser to get $75 off. That's mill.com wiser for $75 off.
- [20:39]
A
So it raised a lot of eyebrows when I brought Dave Asprey on, because Dave Asprey is the original biohacker and I am pretty much categorically opposed to biohacking. I don't think any of it works, and he's the grandfather of it. Yet it turns out in real life, we're good friends. And even though we disagree on almost everything, I had the day of the podcast, I had beans for lunch and he had a tomahawk steak. Yet our interview was a huge hit, very civil, and he brought up many good points. I think a lot of people come to you and come to me for advice on longevity. And I come from demography, which would suggest that this the ceiling, the maximum average life expectancy for humans, the human machine, is mid 90, and that going beyond that, you have to have won the genetic lottery or it's going to require some intervention that we don't exactly know what it is yet. So the Dan Buettner formula for longevity would be. I can help you get to your mid-90s, largely without chronic disease and with a lot more money in your bank account because you're not spending on healthcare by not trying too hard to change your behavior, but to shape your environment, to engineer your unconscious behavior, not your conscious behavior. So that would be my stump speech. How about what's yours?
- [22:12]
C
We are so incredibly aligned on it. The definition of biohacking, which is a new word in the English language, it's the art and science of changing the environment around you and inside of you so you have full control of your biology and your state. And we're changing our environment with unconscious things that affect you. And that's why you see people wearing true dark glasses, or they're changing their light exposure because it's an environmental variable.
- [22:38]
A
That's a great example, by the way.
- [22:40]
C
Yeah.
- [22:40]
A
So the light you're receiving is different than the light I'm receiving. What happens when you wear those yellow glasses?
- [22:45]
C
These glasses, and not all yellow, will do this. These block only half of the spectrum of blue light. So at 400, I'll try them on. Yeah. At 490 nanometers and below, it creates mitochondrial stress. Those look good on you.
- [22:59]
A
Do I look like a biohacker now?
- [23:01]
C
Yeah, you do.
- [23:03]
H
Love it.
- [23:05]
A
And that somehow protects melatonin, or what are the.
- [23:10]
C
It turns out, blocking under 490 protects the cells in your eyes from excessive stress, which creates brain stress and creates brain fog.
- [23:19]
A
Oh, really?
- [23:20]
C
Yeah. So during the day, you need blue light. This is why blue blockers are actually bad for you, because during the day you get no wake up signal. But if you get a huge wake up signal, including unnatural spectrums of blue, you don't feel good. So I started TrueDark, this company, about 12 years ago when I was trying to figure out, why do these new LED lights make me feel awful at the end of the day. So I engineered this solution. And the problem is at nighttime, I used to wear blue blockers, but there's four other colors of light that also affect your sleep. So blue blocking isn't enough at night. And if you go to my house today at nighttime, it's all red lights, because dim red lights don't affect your sleep at all. They're invisible to your biology. But these white lights we have at night truly are a massive change, even in the last 20 years, because there are different types of light. So I look at light and food as both nutrients, and darkness is also a nutrient. So we're changing our environment so we have better circadian signaling so we can live longer.
- [24:20]
A
And how long do you think we can live?
- [24:22]
C
Well, we know that our current best is about 120, right? So that's proven. We have historical documents where people talk about living to 185 in India, you know, 400 in the Bible, 969 for Methuselah. That was a long time ago. And who knows if they even measured time the same way? So we can ignore those. What that means is that I have 100 additional years to do 50% better than our current best. I have AI, I have PubMed, I have the Human Genome Project. We know what mitochondria are and how they behave. And we have antibiotics. Oh, and we have every technology innovation, because a hundred years ago, we didn't have any of that. World War I was fought with biplanes and horses. I mean, we're living in a different world than our current record hold. So with all those innovations and the fact that I'm willing to go to the ends of the earth, I've had gene therapy that increases follistatin levels and the average person gets nine years younger epigenetically. The other part of my bet is that we can measure whether what we're doing works because we've invented these aging clocks that say, well, compared to everyone else, how's your DNA methylation? So there's a Chance I'll get hit by a truck. There's a chance one of my experiments will go wrong, but I am pretty sure, given the innovation happening in our space, that there are enough people working on enough of the different many variables of aging that we can at least some of us may already be at that point of living 150, 180, 200 years.
- [25:53]
A
So the Dan Buettner podcast actually went to the home of Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese. And these two are almost perfect human specimens. And I was a little intimidated, thought they might be kind of exuding some better than thou energy. And it was the complete opposite. Their house was a vortex of social energy, of physical activity and a family love. And they brought us right in. I remember meeting you two and I will admit I was kind of intimidating. I didn't, I mean, I met you once at some Google event, but then we were tapped at another Google event to do kind of what we're doing right now, except in a big auditorium of people. And I'd read your bios and on paper you guys are intimidating as hell. I mean, you're Olympic athletes and you're a model and you've developed all these fantastic techniques and set these records around surfing and I mean, you are the type of people who you would expect to be snobby and better than thou. And I have to say I was 180 degrees off because, you know, Laird, I kind of consider you as like the consummate alpha male. And the adjective, when people ask me, what was Laird like? I said, well, actually he was kind of sweet. And you, Gabby, I mean you're also very sweet, but you're also kind of, you know, I see as kind of a tough minded part of the relationship here, maybe a little bit more of the dominant one. I may or may not be right on that one. But anyway, I just came away from that conversation with you feeling like I've met people who've not only kind of mastered life, mastered relationship, but understand what's really important when it comes to interacting with other humans. Do I have it kind of right?
- [27:47]
I
You have parts of it, right? You have parts of it not so right.
- [27:51]
A
I think give me the wrong parts first.
- [27:53]
I
Well, listen, I think let's say you saw that I'm out. You know, when you're at a place like this, there just happens to be a lot of guys, right? And men around. And what I have found being around Laird and men like Laird is oftentimes alpha males are the sweetest ones. People get it wrong, you know, what is the quote from? To be a true warrior, one must be compassionate. Right. From Natural Born Heroes. So I think people think tough is. I'm tough. Really tough is not like that. And so Laird is very sweet. And then maybe I'm kind of the through line in the house. So that.
- [28:31]
A
Oh, that's well put.
- [28:32]
I
That tough minded thing you're seeing is I sort of have a through line and then behind me when the, you know, when it hits the fan is Laird. Right?
- [28:42]
A
What do you mean?
- [28:43]
I
So Laird can be playful and moving to and fro. He's also the. Maybe. I would say if our mentalities layered would be more of an artist mentality where I have a different type of mentality. I have my own creativity, but it just shows up differently. So the freedom for layered to be moving in the way that's best. We utilize layered that way. But if like for example, a fire comes or something's happening, it's certainly gonna be Laird that handles it. So I think you're right. But my girls often say that people will say, which one of your parents is dominant? Because they're curious. And both the girls say it's sort of like this weird duel, but it's more like, hey, you go. No. Okay, you go. So it's dominance for the sake of what's best for the group in the moment, not for dominance sake. And, you know, humility. I don't want to learn the hard way. So if I. By being loving or, or humble or kind, it's also because hopefully I'm smart enough to know better by now.
- [29:48]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [29:48]
J
Well, and usually when you see people that are putting off a. A tough Persona is. Is based out of fear, they're actually scared.
- [29:59]
I
Yeah.
- [30:00]
J
And. And so they make up by holding a shield up.
- [30:04]
E
Right.
- [30:04]
J
They hold their shield up. And. And I mean, and I think, I mean, for me, I feel like part of the relationship that Gabby and I have is she's the steady flame. Right. And my flame's off or I'm a flamethrower. So it's like, so she's got the steady. She's the steady burn. And so you could, if you just observe it, you'd be like, oh, that's the flame. But then. But behind that flame is either a flame that's off or playing or. And then the. And then it's a flamethrower. Like, so at the end of the day, if at the very end, it ends up probably being me at the very end of it, just because part of that is a male thing like, maybe I have an ability to throw myself ahead of everything, like, to the point where I'll take it all and maybe I'll make it, and maybe I won't. And I think it's a. I think
- [31:04]
C
a lot of it.
- [31:04]
J
We just. We seem to live out of our biology, like, as male and females. And, you know, every male has a feminine side and every female has a masculine side. And what are the balances that they have individually? And then what do you. And then how are the valent. The balances in the relationship? Like, how do we balance that more
- [31:24]
I
in a cooperation, when it comes really right down to it.
- [31:28]
A
So the Dan Buhner podcast promise is to give the audience actionable advice on how to live longer and better. And I brought on Corey Richards. He's a National Geographic photographer, but he had just written a beautiful book on mental health. And he sat down, and I was kind of probing him, well, how can you live better? And he went deep into the other direction on what it was like to be depressed and bipolar and how to pull out of it. And it turns out there was great advice for people who are suffering from anxiety, who are suffering from depression. What do you do when you're in that condition? And how do you get out of it? And Corey gave some of the best advice I've seen. So what would you say, having gone through these very low times, that dealt with depression, dealt with being institutionalized, dealt with feeling kind of bullied?
- [32:25]
K
Yeah.
- [32:25]
A
What do you say to people listening right now who are going through a version of that? What are. What are the. What. What can you do to either get out of it or somehow accept it and. And turn chicken shit into chicken sandwiches? That was a phrase my lawyer used to use.
- [32:47]
K
That's great. You know, first of all, the very opening. The words in the book are from Rilke, and it's let all things happen to you. Beauty and terror. Read them there. They're right on that page.
- [33:04]
A
Yes. Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No, feeling is final.
- [33:12]
K
That's first and foremost.
- [33:13]
A
Oh, that's great. Yeah. So no matter how bad it is now, it's not gonna last forever.
- [33:19]
K
No, feeling is final. And the single greatest thing that I've learned how to do is to understand my nervous system and understand the messages that my nervous system is saying. People go, ah, it's so nebulous. No. Okay, Are you. Just check in right now. What are you feeling as you're driving in your car, listening to this podcast in your body? Are you tense? Are you like what's going on? That is your nervous system talking. And we can check in with that at any moment, in any conversation, throughout any day. Right? And the more we learn that, the deeper into it we can get. And what I'm suggesting here is there's a place in every single person that is always at peace. It's buried under a lot of layers for people, for most of us, but there is a place in each of us that is always at peace. It is always at rest, and it needs nothing. It is literally rock solid. And as you learn to access that place in any moment when you're feeling triggered, when you're in an argument, whatever the fuck it is, if you're in a bad situation, you can always access that place. That takes work. It's not. There's. There's no biohack for that. Right. That doesn't. Psychedelics don't do it. None of it does that. Learning how to access. Access that place.
- [34:39]
A
So that's.
- [34:40]
K
That's the first thing. And secondarily learning how to ask for help, even when you're in scary positions, that's second.
- [34:49]
A
And let's just drill down a little bit on that. So let's say I am really depressed. What do I do? Who do I call? Ask for help?
- [35:02]
K
Well, who do you call? I mean, do you have somebody that, you know, you can call? That's the first and foremost thing. Do you. Do. You know, I was talking to Simon Sinek about this, and I was telling him, like, I was crying, and he goes, not right. Then he goes, who do you call to cry? And it was such a beautiful question.
- [35:17]
A
Yeah.
- [35:18]
K
And I was like, well, I could call you, you know, but I had never thought of that. So, you know, who do you call to cry? Do you have that person? Okay, there's your first thing. If you don't figure that out, you know, nobody. There's no easy answer because like I said the other day, there I am. Who has. I have all the fucking resources. I have read every book. I've written a book about this, and I can't get off the side of my bed. There are no easy answers for this. The simplest thing you can do is just do one thing.
- [35:55]
A
Just keep going.
- [35:56]
K
Just keep going. And even doing that one thing isn't gonna necessarily make you feel better. And that's okay for me. It's stepping far enough out to go, I'm sad. That's it. I'm just sad. And that's where I am. And that's where, apparently, I need to be right now and not fussing about trying to hijack, you know, and biohack our way into some better state of being. If you're sad, be fucking sad for a second. Just be sad. Let yourself do it. Doesn't mean stay there. But I guarantee if you let yourself feel it, you will move through it faster rather than trying to reject it. It'll just keep coming back.
- [36:45]
A
Case Kenny, I met him on the streets of Miami. He's got a red board where he writes these sort of aphorisms and these dos of wisdom. And I was so mesmerized by him and them. He just struck me as a modern poet and somebody who had metabolized the zeitgeist, or what people are feeling and offered advice that we can actually use. You talk a lot about mindfulness and you're a big advocate of social media, or at least this. This idea of the digital reality of our lives. Do you think social media. Do you think the sort of digital tsunami that rinses over our psyche every day, is that a net positive or a net negative?
- [37:38]
L
That's beautiful wording. I think it's a net positive. I'm never one to like, boohoo. Social media, of course social media is going to come with a downside. Of course, dating apps are going to come with a downside, like all these digital things that have opened up the scale of life and inspiration. So we just have to be cognizant of that. Like, the downside of social media, of course, is young people taking it to heart and not realizing that a lot of it's untrue, subconsciously sliding into conformity. Like in that book I wrote a lot about conformity, the book he's talking
- [38:10]
A
about, that's bold of you, which is Case's book here. So if you're not seeing us and only listening, that's bold of you. Beautiful, right? Right. Yes. You can't mix it.
- [38:21]
L
But yeah, I think I just, like, I wrote it in, you know, conformity. I reference some experiments from a guy named Solomon ash in the 50s who was kind of a pioneer of studying and social science behind conformity. And, you know, it's basically like we conform for two reasons. The first is we don't want to be the odd person out. Understandable. The second is we think that other people know something we don't know because there's so many people doing something. Therefore, we need to fall in line. Right. It's like, well, are all the sheep jumping off a bridge with you? Right idea. Very simple stuff like we know it to be true, but it's like we need to understand that in relation to what we're consuming and social media, and then we'll be fine and use social media. Social media is such a gift to connect with other people and be inspired. But if it becomes a habit that we can't control, if it's affecting you negatively, unfollow those people. Put it away the best of your ability. I think it's an. I think it's an amazing thing. I mean, I wouldn't have a career without it, certainly. And it's. It's a conduit for spreading all the things that I'm passionate about.
- [39:22]
A
Another great friend of mine, Sonia Lubomirsky, a happiness experts, I'd say one of the best happiness experts in America right now, had a few personal struggles herself, but gave us some of the best happiness advice I've ever heard. You've done a lot of research and experimentation, and a lot of it is in sort of the positive psychology of all the research that you've innovated. What are the things that you're most proud of or most you feel have been the biggest contribution into helping others?
- [39:57]
M
Well, for the last about 25 years, my students and I have been doing happiness interventions, which are like clinical trials, but instead of testing a vaccine or a medication, we test happiness strategies. And we mostly have focused on gratitude interventions, kindness interventions, and kind of social interaction interventions. So we ask people to express gratitude on a regular basis. See what happens. We ask people to do acts of kindness on a regular basis, and we ask people to just sort of act social. And all of those together. I feel like the biggest contribution of those. First of all, it's nice to validate that. Yeah, helping others makes people happier. Expressing gratitude, appreciation makes people happier. But really the bottom line is all of those activities make people feel more connected.
- [40:46]
B
Right?
- [40:47]
M
So when I write a gratitude letter to my boss, I feel more connected to her. When I do an act of kindness for you, I feel more connected to you. So then we started doing research on just asking people to act more social, just sort of have more social interactions, have a conversation. So, yes, I'm really proud of that. That we sort of. That's where we've landed on that. Really. The key to happiness is social connection. And what's the key to social connection? How do people feel connected? Well, you can feel connected when you're dancing with someone, right? You can feel connected through touch, you can feel connected through eye contact. But most people, at least in our culture, feel Connected mostly by talking. That's kind of the. Yeah, that's sort of the currency. Currency.
- [41:33]
B
Yeah.
- [41:33]
A
Yeah.
- [41:33]
M
And so we started studying conversation. So now we're doing studies where we're asking people just to talk to a stranger or talk to a friend. And then we started studying listening. So what's one of the keys to conversations is really good listening. And I have a new book with my colleague Harry Reese coming out and February 2026 called how to Feel Loved. And in that book, we're going even deeper into sort of how to. How to have conversations, how to change your conversations in a way that makes you feel loved and makes the other person feel loved. And that involves one of the. One of the keys is really good listening. Another key is curiosity. Showing real, real genuine curiosity in the other person. I mean, how often does that happen? Actually doesn't happen that often. When you go, last time you went to a party, when was the last time you went to a party or dinner and someone was so curious about you? Right. They just couldn't wait to hear your story? Right.
- [42:26]
A
Yeah.
- [42:27]
M
It doesn't matter.
- [42:27]
A
You can tell when it's fake, too.
- [42:28]
M
Yeah. But really genuine. You can't really fake the genuine curiosity. And then also sharing, really sharing your full self with people, sharing vulnerably. Because most of the time we try to impress each other. Right. Think of like a first time you meet a colleague, a new colleague, client, or a date. You know, people are sort of talking about themselves because they want to, you know, they want to come off as kind and funny and smart, but that doesn't forge a connection. Y' all might be impressed when you're telling me about all your accomplishments or making jokes, but I'm not necessarily going to feel connected to you. So what makes me feel connected to you is if you share a little bit more of your sort of real self.
- [43:06]
A
I'll tell you another highlight. I have been a huge fan of Goldie Hawn for many years, and she sat right in that chair there. And a lot of people who've won Academy Awards and have been beautiful and celebrities for four or five decades, they become jaded and they think the world's there to serve them. And Goldie could not be more opposite of that paradigm. She was interested. She has this Mind up program where she's helping kids get more focused, be more present, which is a huge gift to them. She's very dedicated to her family and to her husband or her partner, Kurt Russell. And you could just feel this joy and this goodness. And I think People who watch your movies also feel. But I had it four feet away from me, and I. I walked away from that, that podcast with a smile. Here's a good example of Goldie. You tell that story. And I think people think that successful actresses, celebrities have had it easy in life. And here you're a teenager, you're by yourself in New York, you're taking an enormous chance. People let you down. You're with cockroaches and drug dealers, but somehow you're able to hear the voices of children and smile at that. And I just wonder when you talk about mindset and you have a very positive mindset. I've known you for 15 years. You treat everybody with kindness. You give everybody the time of day. You have the same challenges that most of us listening have, but you somehow have this ability to laugh or make it a joke or see the happy side of it. And I just wonder if having endured that hardship when you were a teenager and that let down helped shape your mind so you're better able to see the positive today, or if that was just a coincidence.
- [45:03]
H
No, I think you're right on one level and some levels. Okay, a lot of levels, frankly. But in this, I would say that that muscle is what I consider, and I've always felt it, a tickle inside of me. I can conjure that tickle up at any time because I know what it feels like to feel joy. If I can feel the joy, then I can replicate it, because so much of it also is not just in your experience, but in your ability to retrieve some of these experiences. I've done some speaking and I talk to some areas of people that they don't come to me to be unhappy, but they feel sort of levels of discontent. We all do. But in terms of that particular feeling, I explain that that's who they were when they were little. That tickling heart, that joy, that laughter. Children laugh so much more than we do that adults don't. So I look at that and I say, take a picture of yourself. Put it by your desk, wherever you were working, a big smiley picture of you when you were a little girl or a little boy. And remember, that's still who you are. You have to know that that tickle, that doesn't go anywhere, life can cover it up. It can muddy the water. I remember when Kate said to me, she was six or six years old,
- [46:41]
A
Kate Hudson being your daughter.
- [46:43]
H
Kate Hudson being my daughter, yes. Don't get me started. She's so awesome. Anyway, but she was little and she said, mommy, And I've told this story before, but it's a good one when we're on the subject. She said, is God My cousin is so beautiful. But I gave her a really interesting analogy. Cause I said, I think God is everywhere. And maybe could be your cousin. I don't know. We can't see God. I said, but here's a really good way of experiencing God. I said, and you know that feeling just before you're gonna laugh?
- [47:17]
A
Yeah. You know, it's coming up.
- [47:20]
H
That's what God feels.
- [47:21]
A
Quake. Oh, that's such a great analogy.
- [47:24]
H
That's what God feels like. And everybody has it because we were all touched when we were born. And I believe that we were born with a seed of joy. Because when you look at a child and you watch them laugh and they're little and they don't even know how to talk, and they don't know it's just something in there, I don't like the idea that it's gone. And I have had my sad days, but I would never want to forego the opportunity I have to reconnect with that piece of me.
- [47:56]
A
Thanks for watching, and tell us who you'd like to see on next season of the podcast.