Do You Feel Like Your Memory Is Getting Worse? (Do THIS Quick Daily Brain Exercise to Reset Your Focus & Strengthen Your Memory Long-Term)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whether you end up having Alzheimer's. It begins, we're like,
where did I put my keys? We can't tell you
which one's going to go to. Ten years later that
adult says, I can't find my way home. Since we
don't have that answer, everybody should do things to prevent
memory neurosurgence and in your biology, Doctor ruhu Jiandiel.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Why is it that we feel we can't remember anything anymore?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
One of the most common questions people ask is when
they start forgetting, like where the keys are at? And
they say, hey, is this alzheimer or does this need
to be fixed? Is this natural?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
What are we doing every day that's distracting and disrupting
a working.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Memory too much? Juggling multitasking has its own issues. You
want to get away from your thought hijacking your body?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Why do we replay negative memories? Why is it so easy?

Speaker 1 (00:48):
So an emotional imprint on a memory requires no focus
in the technic. So emotional imprinting of a memory and
trauma makes it sometimes too easy to remember, and sometimes
it pops up without you even wanting to. When you
were able to revisit a memory in a controlled environment,
you can dampen your emotional stamp onto that memory. You

(01:09):
don't forget the memory, you just disassociate the emotional feelings
of the trauma the fear of the physical reaction.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
For anyone concerned that their family member may have early
dementia Alzheimer's, what should they be looking out for and
how can they help that person?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
The number one health and wellness podcast Jay Sheety.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Jay Shetty Sez jo. Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
the place you come to listen, learn and grow. Today's
guest is someone that we had on last year and
you absolutely loved the episode. The response was incredible. We
had to have him back on It is none other

(01:51):
than doctor Raoul Johndel, a renowned neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and author.
Doctor John Deal is known for his expertise brain surgery,
particularly in areas related to brain tumors, epilepsy, and other
brain disorders. Doctor John Delle is also a prominent public
speaker and educator, frequently sharing insights into the brain's complexity

(02:14):
and health. His work combines clinical practice with research aiming
to deepen our understanding of the brain and improve treatments
for neurological diseases. Please welcome back, doctor Roll John Dale.
It's great to have you back.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I'm stoked to be back, man.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
People loved that episode and the response was so great
that we were like, we have to get you back
on for part two.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I mean, it was hard to tell for me because
you know, we're here and it's intimate. I feeling relaxed
and I can communicate, but then it's going out to
so many people, whereas if you do a you know,
live television or you do an audience event, you can
feel that energy like a sporting event. But I'm thrilled
to be back, man, and I'm I'm ready to just
just go off the top and just vibe.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I love it, man, I love it. I wanted to
dive in because I know you've been talking a lot
about memory, and that's been something you've been study quite
deeply recently. Why is it that we feel we can't
remember anything anymore?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So that was the most common question I would get
from my patient. So I'm a brain surgeon. I've taken
care of several thousand patients with surgery and the interaction
before and after surgery, and then I've met thousands. I
was talking to your team, like you know, not everybody
you see need surgery or benefits from surgery, or choose
a surgery. So there's just a lot of human interaction.
I've had thousands of patients. I'm fifty two. I've been

(03:27):
doing this since i was twenty five. And one of
the most common questions people ask when they start to
think about maybe my brain isn't going to be perfect
forever is when they start forgetting like where the keys
are at, or they stop remembering things, and they say, hey,
is this Alzheimer's? Does this need to be fixed? Is
this natural? So that the question of my memory is
fundamental and I'll zoom out for a little bit. People

(03:50):
who don't have memory of who they are are completely lost.
Every day they have to invent themselves new. So it's
an essential feature that one type of memory called autobiographic memory.
It stitches our memories of our childhood, lifetime experiences, and
it gives us a sense of identity meaning purpose, like
I have been the one in this vehicle of life

(04:12):
and those those experiences are connected, right, So memory is
essential in that way for identity. On a more practical level,
memory is not one word, so like there's a lot
of types of memory, and I think that's where today
I want to just take it one step deeper, Like
I don't have all the answers, but when I'm communicating
with patients, if I can take it one step deeper
in the explanation and they go, ah, I get it,

(04:36):
then they're more likely to implement the guidance they choose.
There are many types of memory. Memory is not one word.
So let's take one that we rarely lose, procedural memory.
Once you learn how to ride a bike, once you
learn how to like you know, tie your shoelaces. Patients
of mind that have Alzheimer's or even brain injury, or
just get eighties and nineties, they still remember that. Procedural

(04:58):
memory is not the one we need to be thinking about.
Then there's another type of memory called semantic memory, as facts.
I don't want to remember my phone number anymore, Matt,
I got facts on my phone. I want to connect
the dots, so those kind of things aren't as important.
Then there's a third type you can call episodic memory.
It's a fancy word for episodes. Again, like this happened
in my life, this episode, Now that's important. Unfortunately, that

(05:23):
type of memory is what's lost with dementia with aging,
and people worry about that, like does this mean I'm
aging normally or is this the onset of Alzheimer's. We
don't have that answer. So whether you end up having
Alzheimer's or whether you just have age appropriate subtle loss
of memory, it begins we're like, where did I put

(05:44):
my keys? Like it all begins that way, we can't
tell you which one's going to go to. Ten years later,
that adult says, I can't find my way home. So
that concept is so tricky that since we don't have
that answer, I believe everybody should do things to prevent
memory loss. Right, you don't, because if you go down

(06:05):
the Alzheimer's path or just a normal cognitive decline, the
guidance is still the same. ABC. Eat a certain way,
think a certain way, move a certain way. The guidance
ABC whether you're about to get Alzheimer's, don't know. If
you're bout to have Alzheimer's or normal aging or have
been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the guidance is the same, and

(06:25):
that speaks to how the brain and mind works.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
How bad is it that we can't remember what we
had for dinner last night.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Not a big deal at all, not a big deal,
not a big deal. So those glitches are age appropriate.
That happens in our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, as we
get less young. I had Patience a long time ago.
She was ninety something. I said, well, you're older. She
looked at me with the just a scow. She was like, older,
I'm less young. So that since that day less young.

(06:55):
So as we get less young, that's natural.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Why what's happening, Well.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
The answer is not clear because we don't study that.
What we do study is when it starts with age
appropriate sort of subtle memory loss. And if you zoom
out our whole about our knees age, our heart's age,
our mind's age, that's not necessarily a disease, but it's
age appropriate. Versus Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's and dementia, and like what

(07:24):
Bruce Willis has frontal temporal dimension, there's a lot of
different types of dementia. Maybe we should just call it dementia.
Is that it starts with a little bit of memory
loss that's just normal aging. But then it accelerates and
what people think is like, oh, they can't remember things.
It's more than that they can't remember their autobiographical memory.
They can't remember who they are because they don't remember

(07:45):
their stories from their childhood. Then they start forgetting who
the loved ones are and why they're loved ones autobiographical memory.
Then the injury goes even deeper and it affects their
emotional regulation. Like that's a big topic I love, I
wrote at a long time ago, Like the ability to
say I'm angry, but that's not what I want to
feel right now, that's not I don't want to act

(08:06):
right now. They lose emotional regulation. So for caregivers it's
very challenging. It's like you don't remember me, I'm your child,
and then on top of that, you're angry with me
all the time. It's a it's an intense experience, of
course for the patient. For the person, I wouldn't say,
why do can? We can? We never age in a
way that's super memory all the way. Let me, I'm

(08:29):
gonna get to that. I'm not sure we want perfect memory.
That's about facts, that's about procedures the area. The last
type of memory that I didn't mentioned is called working memory.
This is this is the memory I want, of course,
I want out of biographical memory. I'm who, I'm this,
I'm that, facts are on my phone. I think I'll

(08:49):
be able to, you know, handle a bike and laces
for a while. So let's get down to if you
want to level up. So the training for Alzheimer's and dementia,
the training for me, the training for an NFL quarterbacks,
for moving receivers, analysis, judgment, timing. That's called working memory.
Too much juggling, multitasking has its own issues, but working

(09:12):
memory is the skill I want. I want to be
able to run six governmental departments. I want to be
able to manage a hospital with sixteen patients on ventilators
when I was twenty eight. I want to manage talking
to you and having a bunch of ideas popping in
the back, and which one do I bring? Right? That's
called working memory, and there is guidance and training for that.

(09:34):
There is brain training for that type of memory. So
you ask me early, like, what's memory? So now we've
broken it out of several types, and the one we
want is short term juggling, a lot of plates, a
lot of thoughts in the sky, and that's where creativity
comes from. You're looking at things your working memories, pulling
back imagination. Working memory can be trained. Working memory is

(09:58):
the digital therapy peutic for Alzheimer's. Working memories like the
people I look up to, they're the ones that do
things the best because it's not just procedurally like I'm
looking at six monitors and able to operate. It's the
fact that I have a lot of thoughts in my
head and my working memories. Keeping them all immediately accessible.
I don't have to like, go, ah, well, where's that?

(10:18):
What was that? Now? I've got like eight or nine
things I want to talk to you about. My working
memory is keeping them afloat. Let it allow me to
extract them for you.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, For anyone who's listening right now and they're concerned
that their family member may have early dementia Alzheimer's, that direction,
what should they be looking out for and how can
they help that person?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
The story is when humans passed away in our thirties
and forties, 're sort of like the heart that we're
out and then we live longer. We addressed heart disease.
Main you knows, as we live longer and longer, it's
the brain that's starting to wear out and if you
suspect that your family members having memory issues, the greatest

(11:01):
challenge will be, and I don't mean this lightly, is
that that person doesn't remember what they don't remember. They're
not thinking I forgot that because they don't remember that.
It's the loved ones that see it. So if you
see that, you have to invite them and say, look,
you know, I'm noticing a few different things in our

(11:22):
next general visit to the doctor, can we maybe mention
it to them? And they'll do a neurocognitive test. It's straightforward,
draw this circle backwards and they do like those that
like a little test. It's casual, but they can track it.
Say hey, can we do this every year? And you
track that test every year? And when you see that

(11:43):
you're drawing the clock and you're missing numbers. Even the
person with dementia will say, yeah, you know something's changing.
But if you try to persuade somebody who can't remember,
hey you're not remembering? Can you can see how that
could just not work right, So you want to get
them to somebody early. And what the physician will do
is take a look at that and then they say, hey,
do you have genetic history? And so certain Almost all

(12:07):
dementia is not genetic, but there are some genetic issues
that you want to know about. And then this is
the best part. Whether it's age appropriate cognitive decline of
certain memory, not working memory, the one where fight I'm
fine for, or it's early onset Alzheimer's, that we can identify.
The interventions are the same. Keep the brain arteries open,

(12:28):
eat a certain type of food, the mind diet, and
continue to challenge the brain puzzles, socializing, networking, taking a
different route home using your left hand. Learning a new language.
You have to learn the new language. You just have
to try. You might only get like three words. You're like, hey,
this language thing is not working. But it's the those

(12:49):
those three steps are are there is that's the established thing,
and I think that way that's empowering to the patient,
to the families. And it's not like pill and medicine dependent,
because frankly, there ain't good medicine for it.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Really.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, this is not a There are not great treatments
for Alzheimer's. They're out there, people can look at them.
They're for early cognitive decline. But when you even if
you were to take those medicines, you still got to
do the other things. You got to walk to keep
your brain arteries open. You got to irrigate the flesh.
You got to eat a mind die, which is fatty
fish or if you're vegan or plant based, you know

(13:26):
they have that. And then you got to like you
have to do those brain training and challenge your working memory.
The same thing with somebody with Alzheimer's about to get Alzheimer's,
worried about Alzheimer's, and you and me, it's the same recipe.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Let's break down the recipe for people who are listening
right now so that we can get into the details
of those three steps.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Like you know, uh, the brain is flesh. I remember
the first time I saw it when I was twenty
six and they opened the skull and I was like
watching the professors and I was like, what is this
even possible? And it gets twenty percent of the blood
from your heart with these four raging arteries that come up,
and it's like three pounds or five kilograms or whatever

(14:06):
it is, That three four pound organ gets twenty percent
of our blood flow. It is an energy hog. And
you think it's and then it's white opal lesson, it's
shimmering under the operating room lights. I mean, it's not
gray matter. Great matters when they when the patients passed
away and they've for mountain no no, and it's heat

(14:26):
with every breath that heaves a little bit. It's got
fluid chambers on it. It's like, it's the way to
imagine it is like one hundred billion ish jellyfish in
an aquarium, but there's fluid in there and they're shooting
electricity and chemicals at it. You mentioned something about when
I said sleep entry, and you said, yeah, versus falling asleep.
Language is important for our concepts. That's what I try
to do. Before I came on today, it was like,

(14:48):
how do I describe this in a way where it's
not like lebrain. I'd say the same thing. I'm not
throwing shade on anybody, but take your imagination away that
it's one hundred billion jellyfish packed together in clusters, floating
in an aquarium inside her skull. Our brain doesn't sit
on the inside of her skull. It's buoyant and it's

(15:09):
spring electricity, and it's not in left and right directions.
It's like Aurora borealis, or a school of birds that
rolls back onto each other. Right, it's a there's an
electrical flow that's shivering through those through those jellyfish, right, Like,
that's how you got to imagine it. So when you
look at it, the first thing you need to know
is those four arteries that come and feed this garden. Right,

(15:30):
And the neurons are like roses. You get what you get.
You're not really growing neurons. It's a mild exception with
stem cells. And then there's all the supporting cells what
I call like shrubs, like extracites. Like you want to
keep that garden irrigated, you sprinkle the lawn, right, You
got to sprinkle blood to that flesh because that activity
in those neurons is relying on the glucose coming up,

(15:52):
and glucose is the fuel to keep those little molecular
jellyfish alive. So people say, well, what do I do
to keep my brain shot? Well, keep those arteries open.
How do you keep those arteries open? You know that
take the lipiatore walk exercise. That's not just to look good.
It's to keep the main arteries and all those fine
branching arteries going into those crevices open because if you

(16:15):
start losing swaths of brain tissue. You're gonna have issues,
not always. But that's the first thing. Is heart health
is also brain health. That's the easiest thing. Okay. Number
two is what you eat, not today or tomorrow, but
over a decade. And this is well established. This isn't
like one study globally the Mediterranean diet, which is mostly plants,

(16:40):
fatty fish, beans, nuts. Those people, if you just look
at like thousands and thousands over a decade or two,
they have lower rates of dementia. And that's the only
difference that they're having. That's the recommendation we give to people.
So you say, well, why is that that kind of diet?
Why does that work? And look, love have a burger,

(17:01):
I love it. I mean, it's not the indulgences, it's
that baseline habit with fish. Those neurons, the neurons, if
you think of it as a jellyfish, all these tentacles
ten you know, they rough numbers ten thousand, hundred or whatever.
But the electrical signals that flow between our neurons, they're
wrapped with something insulation. The insulation lets the electricity fire faster.

(17:24):
That insulation is literally made of omega three fat. The
brain is fatty. The fat that the brain uses to
keep insulated comes from fatty fish and those kinds of things.
So there's a reason to eat that way. And the
last thing we've been talking about all you know all
morning is focus on untentioned, on your next level of
not somebody else's right, Because if I told you, hey,

(17:46):
you want bigger biceps, we would say we need it.
But this is a thinking flesh, This is a feeling flesh.
This is an interconnected flesh. So vibe, think, read, whatever
that is for you. But the combination of those three
things is well established and there is no shortcut.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Before we dive into the next moment. Let's hear from
our sponsors. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
back to the discussion. I love the way you've broken
down the different memories. I had no idea that there
were so many different words for memory, and I love
that because it helps us really compartmentalize how we think
about this really big topic. But when I'm listening to you,

(18:24):
I'm wondering what are we doing every day that's distracting
and disrupting our working memory.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
So what I try to do is I try to
take my patient stories I try to look at the
neurons in a Petrie dish. I read a lot. I
read a lot of random things, and I try to
think about how to answer that. What's the right How
do you thread the needle between juggling enough to where
you're holding on to and cultivating your working memory or

(18:52):
you're just like just numb by this like blitz of
things coming at you. Yeah, I think it's very individual.
I would say it's different for children because, as we
discussed last time, we're learning to move and walk, and
the brain is learning to have a sense of self.
There's a psychological cultivation that mirrors our physical cultivation. You

(19:16):
don't want to flood that mind with too much. I'll
let others comment on at which age they should be
on social media or not. But the concept I think
we can all agree on based on science and this
conversation is in the developing mind. It doesn't have the
filter and it doesn't have the maturity of that working memory.

(19:37):
You don't want a kid. Our raised three sons, they're nineteen,
twenty and twenty three, so I'm talking from the perspective
a parent. I always try to see where are they at,
and then add one more thing. But sometimes when I
see families with their patients in the waiting room, I
mean the kids just look down at their phones for
like one hundred hours. You know. It's like you look

(19:58):
at their you know, the they've been on there, and
you ask her how long you've been on there, like
a lot of them. It's just it feels excessive for
that age. And then it's also the content at the
later range of life. You want certain brain training games
for elderly they have shown like it's FDA proved. That

(20:21):
means you brought a lot of evidence in it. It's
not just one study. I'm not throwing shade on anybody.
But the game is it's a racer game where like
grandma's like racing a car and there's distractions coming up
and she has to avoid them. Same thing for NFL quarterbacks.
I think it was Atlanta. He's a broadcaster, now he's
a quarterback. That a game where they're looking at something

(20:43):
but different lights are popping up and they have to
identify them in their peripheral vision. That speed of processing,
that working memory is an important skill. The question is
when are you stunting its development and when are you
cultivating I think it's age specific. I think it's individual specific.
I think when we know we're just doing some something
to shut down versus doing it as training, so that

(21:03):
portal can be both. It can mess you up, it
can hold you back, but if you have the right
digital diet man, it can open up the world for you.
So I think that's the way I look at it.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, I always think about it like an elastic band,
and it's this idea that an elastic band is useless
if it's not being stretched, but at the same time,
there's a point at which it will snap. Yeah, and
I've seen that with my own memory or my ability,
my working memories. You describe it where I used to
think I was doing everything I could, and then I

(21:34):
stretched and I was like, oh wow, I could do
more than I believe. And then I stretched, and then
I stretched, and I started to realize that my capacity
and capability was far larger than I ever imagined.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
And you were developing it with each stretch exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
But if I accepted where I was that, oh this
is the most I can do, actually, I would never
have known. And you're saying that in some ways that's unhealthy,
unhealthy that you you don't stretch and challenge. You say,
video kids, you're always adding, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
So many flies to space. They don't have gravitational force,
they come back. Their bones are brittle. You need certain
amount of stress at the bone, at the osteocyte level.
Like physiologically we need gravity. So some stress makes us grow.
Too much stress fractures that bone. Okay, take that physiologic
concept and apply that same to the mind. Now what

(22:22):
I would say is that elastic band, I love that.
And if you leave it idle and that elastic band
gets dry, then the stretching is too late. And then
the last thing I would add to that is when
my sons and others they play video games is a
very well studied thing. If you give them multiple levels,
they'll compete to level up. But if you just present
them the fifth level, they'll just say, nah, that's too hard.

(22:45):
And if you make it too easy, then won't hold
their at tension. So the nuance is exactly is to
find where am Where am I at? Not that person's advice,
not that person's life, but from everything that I've taken
in where am I at? Where the appropriate next stress challenge?
Stretch of the rubber band, next level on the video

(23:05):
game is there that's enticing enough achievable with some effort,
and then I get there, and then I get there,
and then I get there and then I get knocked down,
because life is going to knock you down. That's part
of its struggle and its beauty. And then you might
find yourself not at those same levels, not with those
same coping mechanisms, but remembering that it's an incremental crawl

(23:28):
out of that ditch that your mind can fall into.
I've seen it in my cancer pati of their heroes.
And so if the lesson there is that our working memory,
our memory, everything from bones to biology to trees, we
need stress and pressure. It's a thermostat. Stress isn't all bad,

(23:48):
A stress isn't all good, And it's individual stress for
you might be different than stress for me. In the hospital.
There are stresses that certain friends of mine can handle.
It's a massive stress. Yes, you're operating the middle of
the night, you're handling fifteen patients for them, they're right
at that. For other people that might inundate them, and
that's not appropriate. So it has to be an individual thing.

(24:10):
But biologically, physiologically, psychologically, I think knowing thyself is to
know what's that next challenge for me that's enticing, that's
achievable with effort, that's not too easy, so I don't
give it down, or just there's no way I can
get there, so I'm not even going to try.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, there's a brilliant book called flow State by Mihai
Cheek said me Hi if I'm saying his surname right,
that explains this so brilliantly. He talks about the need
for having your skills meet your challenge. And so he
talks about this idea that either what most of us
experience is our challenge is above our skills, So we
get frustrated, right, we get really disappointed. You might even

(24:51):
get depressed because your challenge is so high and your
skills are so low. Or you have the opposite where
your skills are really high but your challenge is low.
Now you're bored. Now you're disconnected. Now you're disengaged because
you can practically do everything with these And so he
talks about flow state, which is what we see athletes, musicians, singers.
These people are in their moments or in the zone

(25:13):
is when their experiences and their skills meet their challenge.
And while we're talking about this, the part that I
was thinking about is why do we get so stressed
when we can't remember something right? When we're like, oh, man,
I wanted to tell you about that movie, and I
want to tell you about that Oh what was the
actor's name? Oh gosh? You know, we get so frustrated

(25:33):
when we're we almost feel that glitch.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
I think that's because we assume that we're slowing down
or shutting down. And know what I'm trying to tell
people is that memory outsource that to your phone. There
are people who forget their keys, forget other people's names.
That's appropriate as we get less young, but older people
can still have high working memory, fight for working memory

(25:56):
and stay with that. Back to the flow state. I
love that, man. I mean, I wrote about it a
little bit. I'm familiar with the book, and I think
the insight that he provided is that one it's individual.
You can be in a flow state driving, you could
be in a flow state sewing, you can be a
flow state holding your kid. It's not only for high

(26:19):
level people. I think you know as described that it's
again individual, it's personal, but it takes knowing not what
other people's ambitions and desires are not what other people's
goals are. It takes knowing like this is something I
want to get better at, this is something I want
to cultivate myself. I think that's what I liked about
his book was that it wasn't about the skill. It

(26:41):
was at your skill level. Yes, it's brain searchers are
in flow state. I think it's are in flow state.
He studied them to understand that. The second thing that
I liked about it often there's a physical component and
a thinking component. And I love that because there have
been times where I don't know, I mean people think
like people think like brain surgery is like fixing a car.

(27:03):
You do these twenty steps. It's every tissue, every cancer
is reverse sculpting. There's at some point you have to
just you have to let the maneuvers go where like
it's a dance. When I've seen it done with finesse
at the highest level, and in those occasions where I'm
feeling that, I just remember feeling so good about what

(27:25):
was happening without every thought being engineered and structured, like
there was a I felt proud that there was a
skill being released. And I think that's a flow state
for me during surgery. Sometimes when I grew up in
La so when the freeways are open, I took a long,
fast drive through all the open roads. I had my

(27:45):
white coat. I'm a surgeon, so we were allowed to
be on there. But for driving, some people they just
describe it. It's again, it's both paying attention externally and
then doing something physically. I think the combination the physical
move move physical activity I think should not be underestimated.
Let me give you a specific example, the overlap of

(28:08):
wanting and desire those circuits. When you talk about flow state,
it's not just a psychological thing. The most times I
felt that it's a mind body thing.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
What's the connection between you mentioned their focus and attention,
what's the connection with memory? Because I think a lot
of us are trying to be more present. Okay, we
see it as valuable. When we meet someone you forget
their name instantly. You're right, the facts will be there.
But there's a part of us that feel like we're
almost looking through people, We're not really there. How much
does focus and attention actually impact memory or are they

(28:43):
not connected?

Speaker 1 (28:44):
You know, that's a good question. I don't think I
have a specific answer about that. I haven't read about that,
but I will tell I will tell you that memory
to retrieve it is a reconstruction. There's no rolodex or
a filing cabinet. You pull it out. Memory is built.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
What do you mean by that.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Let's think of the brain as an ecosystem, right, the
general electricity that you can record electric is like an atmosphere.
Then we have the flesh, the lobes. We can talk
about that. Then we have networks and circuits like things
that work in ensembles. They go up and down together.
They never turn off. It's always like fifty one to
forty nine. There's no part of the brain that shuts off.

(29:21):
And then there's individual neurons. You can think of them
as like each tree in a forest. When we talk
about memory, it is not a filing cabinet. It's a
hub and so it pulls. Like I want to remember something.
The easiest way for me to remember something and sometimes unavoidable,
like you can't even forget it, is when the emotional

(29:44):
structures and regions of your brain have put a stamp
on it. So emotional imprinting of a memory and trauma
makes it sometimes too easy to remember, and sometimes it
pops up without even wanting to write. So that's one
type of focus attention. Emotional stamping. I don't amygdala is
not positive, it's not negative stamping. It's just emotional stamping,

(30:06):
both positive and negative. So an emotional imprint on a
memory requires no focus and attention. It's just churning back there.
It's activated. The smell can pop it open. You don't
want to think about it, and it's coming up. I
think we all know that, right, Like things we don't
want to think about feelings, We don't have memories of
the past blended with imagination, so you don't require attention

(30:30):
and focus for some types of memory, usually the ones
with emotional stamps. We can get into trauma and that
sort of thing for the right for the rest of it,
if we're engaging people. Then on the other side is
there's all this like you don't want to remember all
of this. It's not really relevant, right, it's a habit,
you're driving, you make that exit. There's a memory, there's

(30:52):
a procedural memory I don't want to think about, like
tying my shoelad. So somewhere in between is the attention
to I should remember this. I want to remember this.
So memories, emotionally imprinted memories you don't need. You're just
driving on the freeway and in between. The emotional memory
is easy. The attention and focus to memory is hard

(31:15):
because it's a decremental process. Meaning bandwidth is a casual word,
but it takes effort. The emotional thing, oh, it just
strikes you. The other one you don't want. So attention
and focus requires effort. And so when you have people
you're talking to you want to remember something where you
want to remember them or their names, that attention and

(31:37):
focus is something you have to dial up. And there's
a couple of ways to dial it up. Removing distractions.
When I talk to Lebron James, it's like it's about
not thinking about it. There's one way is to remove
distractions or increase attention, and that's individual focus. Is if
you haven't slept, your energy towards attention is less. It's decremental.

(32:00):
They call it decremental vigilance. Like if you're on guard
in a military situation, like after a certain amount of
hours or long surgery or a long shift to the hospital,
it fades. If you're in the middle. Just look I
want to have more focus and attention to this. The
natural answers lessen the distraction, be rested, and you know,
make it a priority. But that's within each of our

(32:20):
minds based on what we're looking at.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
So when you just told me before we started that
you're doing brain surgery at three am today, how do
you maintain a level of attention? Obviously there's no distractions.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Distructions people walking around, things are going wrong, are going off.
You got to tell somebody, hey know my music today.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
So walk me through that. How are you that focused
with something that sensitive in that moment? How do you
prepare for that type of surgery?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
So the skill, the cultivation is to know when this
task can be performed casually, going to the cafeteria, talking
to a patient. Your emotional intensity is there, but you
you learn to dial up and dial down as the
situation requires. It's the fancy word is ecological validity, Like
you got you got a game plan, but it's got

(33:12):
to be tested. And so that long training in those
long hours was partly because they needed labor, partly because
you know, they justified it. Like if you go work
in a small town or you do an operation, then
the Parasi has to go back because something went wrong.
You can't call somebody else. You got to run it.
You got to handle it. And so what you learn
is so for example, the operation went late last night,

(33:34):
That's not a big deal to me because before that,
I wasn't trying to wear myself out with drama with somebody,
you know, wearing myself out with like looking at things
that were distracted. I went into sort of what I
call a zen mode to prevent distractions. You know, I
go to a zenmo before and it's not like you
can tell. And then I save that tension and focus

(33:57):
because I know my vigilance is acremental. It fades, and
then we get the patient set up and we do
all of that. I'm still just whatever, you know, and
until there's like a there's a physical cue for me,
and then it lifts. There's attention to focus, and then
there's the craft and then there's a release, and then
after that there's you know, there's a crash, and then
I make the decision I'm going to uber home or

(34:18):
drive home. You know, I know the freeway, so I
drove home. But that goes back to your original question,
is realize attention to focus for memory for anything is
a resource. Some things will grab your attention, some things
don't warrant your attention. It's it's it's that middle zone, right,
That's what we're trying to finesse at an individual level,
you know, and a collective level.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, I appreciate what you're saying because I remember reading
about it in a book by Daniel Leviton called The
Organized Mind, and he talked about this idea of how
when Warren Buffett is deciding where to invest, he takes
milk and cookies, rents an apartment in New York City,
and lives in that apartment for five days. So basically
he's doing very little when it comes to his daily

(34:59):
require ments of food. He's cleared out his space, so
he's in a new environment that's empty, and then he's
sitting there making decisions. And he talked about how this
was his way of removing decision fatigue. This idea that
when we're making lots of insignificant decisions in the morning
when we wake up, by the time it comes to
a big decision at the end of the day the
middle of the day, we have no energy left to

(35:21):
make it. So most of us are stressing out going.
What do I eat today? What do I wear today?
Which route do I take to work today? Oh my gosh,
what am I going to say to that person today? Now,
by the time you get into the office, you've already
made so many insignificant decisions that you're exhausted, and now
you can't dial it up when you actually need.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
It because it's limited and is decremental over time. I
love that. What I would say is again, you have
to know yourself a little bit, like that's coming and
it could be I'm about to have a hot conversation
my lover, and this is not. This is a tense situation.
I don't want to walk in that with my mind
already in a fuss. I got a big case. It's

(36:01):
going late. There was an emergency before I'm gonna start
this at eleven o'clock. It needs to go tonight. That's
not when I'm trying to get into a fuss. I
don't know what the example will be for your viewers
and other people, but if everybody can walk away with like,
your attention and focus or wherever level and stage you're
at is precious, is limited. You want to control your environment.

(36:23):
You don't want to talk to certain people. Maybe you
do want to talk to certain people, Maybe you want
to listen to certain music, maybe you don't want to
listen to Those examples are all around US athletes walking
in with their bo's headphones on. They're doing the same thing.
But we can explain it with neuroscience that attention is decremental.
You cannot maintain one hundred sustained external focus. So in

(36:43):
those forty hour shifts, I never did a forty hour
operation and I just learned to work with my attention
and focus. That was the real skill that I learned.
And the buffet.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
He's also changing his physical environment. Yeah, I do that too,
Like I'm going to London next next week, and I'm
just people are like, oh, you like to stay in
the same place, Like, no, I'm coming here to like
get lost, my phone's not working, look at this, where's this?
Like I need to change physical environments to have new
thoughts because I'm working on something in my mind. And
so I think part maybe part of what he does

(37:14):
is is not just to get rid of the fuss
and to avoid decision fatigue or decremental vigilance because of
decrimental vigilants. I prefer that one is broader. I'm not
telling you what to pay attention to. I'm not trying
to tell you, but you're about to make a decision.
Just realize this focus. This external they're catchy calling it

(37:35):
action network and action brain network. These fountains and continents
that rev up a little bit on the inside our
brain for outward attention versus dreaming where it's all imaginative,
Like you can't rev that up for sixteen hours. See,
there's a cadence to the day. You're setting yourself up
for success, individual success, fighting with somebody, dealing with a

(37:55):
kid driving you crazy, whatever it is that's yours. I
want people to walk away with like get it. You
know my day is My day is a dance.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah. I really like that, man. I think that's such
great advice, and it resonates so strongly with me even
when I look at my days. So, for example, I
only do two interviews per day, so you're my first one.
I have another one in the afternoon. And I can
only do two interviews per day because for me, these
interviews require one hundred percent focus, and if you ask
me to do another one on top of that, I

(38:26):
just don't think I could be at one hundred percent,
but I know that for you, I can be at
one hundred percent. I then have a couple of meetings
in between which are requiring a different part of me
that don't require this exclusive focus. And you're so right.
I think we put so much pressure on ourselves that
we expect this level of focus in every conversation, every meeting,
throughout the whole day.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
In every situation you get some bad news, you got
to know, I mean, not even gonna pull off too.
You got to crunch you might be a But that's
exactly that's again ecological validity in your environment. If I
can a car crash, I can't go into my zen
and pre surgery zen mode. I call my partner. I
got to know where I'm at, and so there is
no final guidance. It's just that your attention and focus,

(39:11):
you know what I mean. It's great because people think
like like he's a robot. Now, man, I've been through
a lot. I go through a lot, I feel a lot,
but I've just realized that to deliver as a surgeon,
here's the dance I do with my own mind to
bring it for that patient. Because that patient trusted me
on a journey that's sacred, and at that moment, that's

(39:34):
all I'm about.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
our sponsors and back to our episode. I want to
ask you by something you've mentioned before. You talked about
this idea of this emotional memory that almost comes immediately,
this idea that if and I often lead this meditation.
It's one of my favorite ones to lead when I'm
sharing it with my audience or community. And technically it's

(39:58):
called a loving kindness medita, and what it means is
I'll often ask people before we share love with the world,
I edited it slightly for people to really experience love
within themselves. So I'll ask people to close their eyes
and get into that zone. But I'll ask them to
go back to a memory where they felt the most joyful,
the most happy, and the most love. Who was there,

(40:22):
How did it smell, what could they see, what could
they hear, what could they taste? And immediately people will
have a vision. People think of their wedding day. People
have even thought of their dog passing away because it
was a really important transition point for them. It could
be the first time they celebrated their parent or bought
their parent a home or whatever it was. The ability

(40:44):
to take care of someone. Yeah, it's really beautiful. It's different,
but it's really interesting. What you said is for most
of us, it's actually the opposite that we do more of.
So it's more common for us to replay a negative
memory again and again and again and again. Then it
is for us to remember what we did last weekend,

(41:06):
even if it was positive. Why do we do that?
Why do we replay negative memories? Why is it so easy?
And what do we do about it?

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Memory is imprinted with emotion for our protection, right like
you see a snake. You don't want to have to
think about it. It's a global thing. But roughly, as
the brain blossomed, it went from brainstem which people call reptilian,
to limbic structures that people call emotional or primal brain

(41:36):
and prefrontal cortex, which is which is the part of
the brain that pushed the brain forward. They have different regions,
but they're all interconnected and they're hubs, so it's not
a consistent texture throughout the brain. It's not like a liver,
it's not like flaw And whereas like the brain. The
brain is not one thing. It's a whole ecosystem, different structures,
different connections, different cells, and memory and emotion are intertwined

(42:03):
as part of the primal limbic structures. That's the way
my puppy can sniff and smell out when I'm trying
to trick her. I think about it in that way.
How ingenious that it is. Like if you're going on
a date night, You're like, hey, Frankie, Frankie, come come,
She's like looking at you. Right, that's instinct. So emotion

(42:24):
and memory and thoughts, that is the type of thinking
I don't think of emotions. Are not thinking that. If
you have a brain injury and you lose those primal centers,
you're paralyzed. You can't make a decision. You can actually
have an injury to your prefrontal cortex and still do
a lot with just your limbic structure. So emotion and
memory are important, right, you want that imprint. I saw
a snake. I jumped before I thought about it. Then

(42:46):
what also happens is we have emotional regulation. I saw
the snake, I jump, Then I look down the second
time and it's a plastic snake. I'm not worried about that,
or I'm afraid of heights and exposure therapy. I could
learn to tamp down my emotional responses with my prefrontal cortex,
which is the area of the brain that pushed the
forehead forward. Can think of it as two fists, and

(43:07):
there's different regions that do different things that are fascinating.
That's an important system, but that system is so hot
for your protection that it could go sideways on you too.
So what I think is important is that most of us,
when we have traumatic experiences, we don't develop PTSD. The
great majority of people from hurricanes and COVID and other things,

(43:31):
they don't develop PTSD. There is a protective mechanism on
how to deal with trauma, and that mechanism is learning
to uncouple the emotional imprint of the limbic structures in
the primal area of the brain, A mike diligious part
of it. That I was hurt and the assailant was
wearing a flannel jacket. Your immediate response is not to

(43:54):
go down that alley. That's protective. When a year later
you're not able to leave your home, I'm not judging you.
I'd be the same way. I'm just saying that's something
you want to work on. That emotional imprint is too strong.
Then you go to somebody who can take you safely
based on you feeling safe. Not every therapist's office is safe.

(44:15):
You feel safe, you bring up that memory, your body
has response, and you realize, you know what, it's okay.
You do that ten times and what happens. You take
the traumatic, negative, hurtful, scary emotion to that memory. You

(44:35):
don't lose that memory. Those patients will tell you, yeah,
now I can think of it, but it doesn't it
doesn't take my breath away. Like that.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
You're extracting the story you have attached to that memory
from that memory.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Right, yeah, the negative imprint part of the story. Yes,
you're not. You're not trying to forget about it. That's
the most that's the threat. Like that's established. I don't
know how that works. I'm not a therapist, but that's
that's the point. There is the hippocampus, the hub from
brain wide memory and limbic structure. Something happens. They're meant
to stamp you. Don't go down that alley again, don't

(45:10):
get hit with that snag again. Right, Like that that's
the design. But what happens in our life is we're
dealing with a lot of the hurt from it, from lovers,
from experiences at work, and from assault that you know,
I'm working in a hospital. People still get hurt quite
a bit. And so when you're able to revisit a
memory in a controlled environment and not have that harmful experience,

(45:35):
you can dampen your emotional stamp onto that memory. You
don't forget the memory, you just uncouple, disassociate the emotional feelings,
the trauma, the fear, the physical reaction. And I don't
know if that's a negativity bias or not. I don't
have an answer for that. You ask, like, why do
we always remember more painful things? I mean, maybe they're protective.
It's more of evolutionary psychology. Maybe that helped us. There's

(45:56):
no way to experiment or like, I can't give you
that answer. But what I would say to you is,
what if we did the flip side. Maybe that's the neurobiology.
I'm not talking about neuroscience and the brain, the brain,
just just to be specific, what if by remembering a
positive memory, you are enhancing and accentuating the positive stamp

(46:21):
that belief. Yeah, yeah, and the and because it's interconnected
with hubs and continents and lobes. Not what if because
it's interconnected. Just stay with me. If you have an
emotional negative negative emotional stamp on a memory and it
reverberates through your body, I mean, just gooseb I mean,
you know it's it's like we can go over the connections,

(46:42):
but it's a physiologic response. What if you could have
by choice in that part of that prefrontal cortex area
at the bottom called orbital frontal cortex. Without getting into
the the details of it, but there's an internal referee
of where we steer our thoughts in our competition of
wants and thoughts. What if we spent time saying, bring

(47:03):
up positive old memories, stamp them harder, put them in
a collective environment that reinforces it, bring out the positive thinking,
bring out the positive vibes. It could be physiologically possible
to be the opposite of PTSD emotional stamping of the hippocampus.
Now there's no experiment for that, but I believe in that.
There's no reason not to believe in that. And if

(47:24):
you do that, just remember it's not happening in a
spot in your brain. It's reverberating through your brain and
your body. So then maybe you stop having some of
those somatic symptoms. Maybe maybe you feel that flow state
where your body is different and your brain is different.
So I believe that every nerve is two way. A touch,

(47:47):
it goes up, I want to move, it's the same nerve.
It's bidirectional. So why can't the relationship between our primal
Olympic circuits whatever migdala and our memory zone and all interconnect.
Why can't that be by directional? If we can stamp
a negative memories that we don't fall in that trap again,
What if we can stamp a positive memory and add
momentum in that direction.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
This is a huge, huge thing I won't be able
to take away because what we've kind of stumbled on
here is so profound for people, because what we're saying is,
don't try to forget the bad memory. If you try
to forget the bad memory, it will never go away.
That memory is going to stay there because it's trying
to teach you something, it's trying to remind you something,

(48:30):
it's trying to make you aware of something. But if
you can change the story, if you can give it
a different meaning, if you can extract the pain, because
it just completely transforms. And I'm thinking about so many
moments in my life that you're so right that now
you can think of that memory. The memory is not gone,

(48:52):
but the way I think of that moment, I think
of it as being a powerful part of my story.
I think of it as being a beautiful breakthrough from
put that crisis to use absolutely and all of a sudden, Yeah,
that's really.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Because it's too hard to tell somebody to forget that.
They're like, uh, but I don't mean to forget that.
It's the only thing I'm thinking about. It's not fair
to them.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I think the problem is not just people telling us.
I think we want to forget it.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Well because of the language and the concepts that are
out there. But if we're told, no, you haven't failed
because you forgot to have that thought, you haven't failed.
You haven't failed in your intentional efforts because that thing continues.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
To grip you just say, yeah, that's in your head,
that's in your life, that's your Nobody knows what happened
last night to me or you or that patient or
anybody so it cannot be the same advice for everyone,
but it can be the same concept.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
We don't have infinitely wild dreams. Our dreams follow some patterns. Well,
our thoughts and emotions follow some patterns. Negative emotional imprinting
built in. Turn that out its head and it'll be incremental.
It's not gonna be a tomorrow. I see, I get it.
I can hold on to that memory. I just can't
feel bad about it. That's not going to happen in
a second. It's not going to happen in a moment.

(50:06):
There are epiphanies we can get into some things like that,
but that's the direction that you want to put your
attention and focus.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah no, and it applies to even what you were
saying last time you were here. And for anyone who's listening,
we're not going to dive into this topic today, but
you can go back and listen to Doctor Rowl John
Deelle's first episode on the podcast. You're talking about this
powerful state for when we're kind of await, kind of
asleep in the morning. You're talking about the need to
journal at that time to sleep. I've been practicing it

(50:33):
ever since we spoke. It's been one of my favorite things.
I've talked about it with people, shared it with people,
and it's amazing because I was saying to I was
talking to my personal trainer today where when we're working out,
and I was explaining to him that if you said
in that time, I'm tired, like that's the first thing
you think of. Now for the rest of the day,
you're just looking for proof and confirmation that you're tired.

(50:56):
So you look in the mirror and you see bags
under your eyes and go, yeah, I knew I was tired.
Then you get to the day and you're late for
your meing and everything's feeling a bit slow, and you're like,
I knew I was tired. And now what you're doing
is you're just confirming that belief and it's not setting
you up. Rather than saying, I'm going to look for
energy today, I'm going to find rest today, I'm going
to create a space for curiosity today, whatever it may be,

(51:17):
you're now going to look for that. And I think
that at the very base level, is how we wire
what we look for and what our repeated thoughts are
throughout the day. And so I really love that piece
of advice. I'd love to encourage people to go back
to it. But going back to the conversation we're having
right now, one thing that comes to mind is a
lot of people today are scared of going to therapy

(51:39):
because they don't feel even if they don't say this consciously,
they don't feel they want to bring something up because
it's so painful. I interviewed someone a couple of months ago,
and all I could think of the whole time was
that they just couldn't go there. And they haven't gone

(52:00):
not even in their public life on a podcast. They
haven't gone there in their private life because they don't
want to go there. Is it true that the brain
will let you go there when you're ready or why
is it that they're suppressing this negative experience.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I don't have an answer for that. And you know, again,
the concept of the brain as a as a single entity,
I would say, you know, like our brain, mind and behavior.
So I try to think of it as the brain
creates a mind. It can create many minds, the dreaming mind,
the waking mind. During the day, we have many minds.

(52:36):
Sometimes you're frustrated, sometimes you're tired, and then there's behavior
his mind. That person's mind might be saying this is
something I need to address. It's eating me up. But
the behavior doesn't translate to going to take those steps.
And that's the thing I'm working on right now is
the difference between mind and behavior, which comes down to
sort of the internal referee. Again, like the brain is

(52:59):
created the mind. The mind can actually go back and
change the brain. So certain certain ways of thought can
create grooves where electricity is more likely to flow, like
it's kind of steering the aurora borealis of neuronal activity
in your brain. And then but there's behavior. Behavior is fascinating.
You can think I need to do this, and you don't, like,

(53:21):
where's why does that not happen? Aren't you in charge
of yourself? You're not. You have a competition of wants
and behavior. You know what the right thing to do is?
This person might say I need to tackle this. I
would be better by tackling this. So mind and behavior
is uncoupled. We don't always act on what we should
do or have even decided to do. But then the

(53:41):
original thing you ask suppression. But one of the coping
mechanisms is a suppressing looking at something difficult, and I
see that when I was I did a lot of
pediatric neurosurgery. Like you got to give the parents time
to deal with the sick child. So yeah, they're going
to hold it at bay, they're going to suppress it.
That does mean that's a pathologic or bad therapeutic technique.

(54:05):
It's ecological validity, right, Like in that situation, we ain't
judging parents who got sick kids, right because that's a
stress we can't imagine. So for this person, I don't
know what's going on in the other parts of the life,
but suppression of something is uh is a basic but
very effective and.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
So it shouldn't be forced out of people, is what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
I don't know what's going on with it.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah, you know, No, I think that's a really important
note because I think a lot of us, especially when
you start doing some of this work, a lot of
people want their family member to be like you need
to go therapy, like you need to go look at
your past. And I feel like it's well intentioned. Yeah,
but you've got to be very careful because that person
may actually need to wait a certain amount of time

(54:50):
before they feel.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Ready and to fully engage and to dilect I love
the attention and focus thing, because you're not. You can't
just show up. You got to put attention and focus
to that.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah, exactly. So even if you force them to go
but they weren't ready to engage, it's going to be
even worse and they may walk out thinking that doesn't
work for them or it was a useless waste of time.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Right. And I think as a physician, as a surgeon,
I see myself as a cancer surgeon. Yes, brain, but
cancer surgeon. I never say you need this or you
need that. You can choose to not have this life
saving measure. You can choose to let this thing, you know,
cause you pain. I'm just talking to you about leaving

(55:31):
you with an understanding, an informed so you can make
My role is to inform you about the things that
are out there in this world, this medicine, that medicine,
this surgery, that surgery, and then if you choose me
to be your surgeon, I will give you everything. Then
I feel like that's how it should be for psychological

(55:54):
challenges as well, Like, hey, loved one, you know, I
know you. I could see you're not doing well. These
are kind of the things that are out there. You know,
there's this, there's that, and there is no one path,
and depression gives us that answer. For some people, it's
the talking cure. For some people, it's the talking cure

(56:16):
plus a medicine that interferes with serotonin at the neuronal level.
For other people, they're so close to self harm that
it's a ketamine's sniff in a hospital that breaks their
suicidal ideation within twelve hours, Like, wow, how does that work?
I'm fascinated with that. For other people it's I choose
to have stickers placed on my scalp and get shock

(56:38):
therapy at elite centers. Like so, if you look at depression,
it's just so wide, and people say, well, this treatment
didn't work. But yeah, because all of those treatments only
work in some of those people. But please keep going
because there might be something that works for you. That's
what I think. Where whereas therapy it's just it's too encapsulated.
It may not have the term is encapsulated. I love

(57:01):
the field. I've been reading about it, like cognitive reappraisal
and how to stop bodily urges. Like, I love the field,
but the deliveries sometimes not nuanced enough, nurturing enough inviting
enough for the other person. So I would say, think
about how you know people engage cancer page like, you
don't have to do anything, but do you know that
these things exist and may benefit you, may harm you?

(57:24):
Depression the wide range. I think that is where I
would like to see the term therapy go. So it's
not a you ain't doing well, I got it all
figured out. I'm judging you with this term. It's more
of an invitation, an exploration that has benefited me. You
may want to consider it.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
I remember growing up, I used to always hear the
phrase we're only using five percent of the brain's potential.
How true is that?

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Well, over here it was twenty That's the urban legend.
And I think it's exciting because you think, like, hey,
if I did this, I think there was a movie
Radley Cooper. Yeah, like, okay, I'm I'm just waiting on.
I'm just gonna be at the boss of all of
this ones. I get the rest of this eighty this
eighty percent kicking in. It's it's a myth, and ILL
explain to you why a couple of clear reasons you've

(58:13):
earned it. I know, but ostillly if people inspired because
it's such an energy hog. I don't want to run
all the brain matter to tie my shoelaces. So habits
will manage with just in that ecosystem of jellyfish, just
the lightest shiver of electricity will shiver through some neurons
to tie my shoelaces. We want to be efficient, right,

(58:36):
so we only use twenty percent of our brain at
a time to do most things. But there is no
hidden corner, and we know that categorically now with brain scans,
the whole region lights up. It just lights up in
different ways for different tasks. I think what's inspiring for
people is to know that when you try to learn
something new, when you try to activate something new, it's

(58:57):
gonna feel like work. Like let's not it's not going
to be easy. But once you get over that, it's
called activation energy. Once you get over that, once you
put in the original work. The best way I can
describe it, you're going down a mountain. You're falling the
same sleep, the slopes, the ski the grooves on the
mountain that all the skiers are on. It's going to

(59:18):
take work to create another groove of thought, of feeling,
of emotion. But after a while it doesn't require the
same amount of effort, so that again there's decremental vigilance
and surgery, but there's also like, hey, this thing you're
trying to change, put a couple months into it, lockdown
for a couple months, and then the years afterwards, it'll

(59:40):
be in your pocket. It'll be easier. It's not going
to be uphill forever.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah, thanks for busting the myth. The last thing I
wanted to talk to you about, Roll was this. You know,
so many young people today are getting cancer. I just
had my friend forty two, just you know, out of surgery.
Thankfully's to be okay. I think I lost a friend
a few years ago to carlon cancer. So many younger

(01:00:05):
people are getting cancer. We keep hearing it used to
be one in four, then one in three. Maybe it's
going to get to one in two people have cancer.
What do we do?

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
That's a big question. So that when you look at
last last thirty forty years, there have been some positive shifts.
Cancer treatments are leading to significantly improved lifespan and quality
of life for cancer patients. Lung cancer rates here are
going down. They're starting to pop up in other countries
where there's pollution, So there are shifts in cancer. The

(01:00:38):
concerning shift is certain cancers, breast and coal in particular,
are if on average they popped up at a certain age,
that curve. You know, there's some early outliers and some
late outliers, but the bulk of the curve that drives
you know, understanding of how to manage that at a

(01:01:00):
global and at a national level, that curve is shifting
earlier and in particular for women. And that's you know,
Chadwick Boseman got caught people's eyes, you know, with the
Black Panther. That's somebody that was very young. You started
to see people with breast cancer at much younger age.
That doesn't mean they're all passing away, but two questions

(01:01:21):
quickly arise, what's going on that's causing it? And then
what do we do differently to catch it? Right? While
waiting to figure out why it's happening? Do we need
to change how we live, how we screen and that
sort of thing? What's causing it? I don't know. I
used to get asked this thing, like are there more
brain tumors? Because everybody's on a cell phone now it's
not on our ear, but the global rates of brain

(01:01:43):
tumors didn't change the earlier cancers. People are saying, well,
is it microplastics, is it something else? Is it that?
I don't know. It's a hard thing to design an
experiment for. You're not going to give a thousand people
microplastics and a thousand people pretend microplastics as a and
so you have to look at the data that's available
to you. But there is a concern that our food,

(01:02:07):
our air, our water is not good enough for people
should receive more attention we deserve as a human right,
better food, water, the link to cancer. I can't say
that that's categorically there. What's very important is for those

(01:02:29):
people out there living with that fear now, like cancers
coming earlier, why not give them something that's good for
them that may also be protective for these cancers. I
think a lot of people on the flip side, like
there was this thing like you don't need an experiment
to say that if you don't open a parachute, you're
not going to do well. We don't need tons of

(01:02:49):
proof to say we should improve health at the systemic right.
We just talked about ten years of a certain diet,
what if ten years of bad water, bad food, and
bad process is is the culprit, even though I can't
prove it, that's the right thing to do, and I
think it gives people a sense of power. Okay. On
the flip side, screening needs to move early. If screening

(01:03:14):
for colon cancer in the past is forty five fifty,
we need to start screening people earlier. It's easy imaging.
You don't have to have an invasive procedure. And here
we need more reduction of what I call barriers to care.
Right it's in our field. There are medicines in screening
and treatment that people don't even know about. People don't
even get to is a language barrier. Maybe somebody can't
afford the bus. So as I work in my laboratory

(01:03:36):
to make new medicine, we got to make sure the
medicine and the care we got gets to everybody. So
that's reduction the barriers to care education. You know, what
we're doing on television, what we're doing on messaging is
to start the screening a little bit earlier. And that's
important because both breston and colon they grow in stages one, two, three, four,

(01:03:58):
and wherever you're at if you catch it one stage earlier,
that's less medicine, maybe no medicine, less surgery, maybe no surgery.
So it doesn't matter where you catch it. You want
that feeling of I'm glad I got screened and I
caught it earlier. So those are my two suggestions.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
It's such a fascinating time we're living in because I
think there's more data available than ever, but a lot
of us are scared of seeing that data as well,
and there's a fear of not wanting something but finding
out too early as well. Let's you know, it is
a lot of scared. And the biggest thing that I
think you raised today, which I'm glad that you're focused
on figuring it out, is that mind behavior disconnect, because

(01:04:36):
I think we all know what we have to do.
Everyone knows what they need to change, right me, and
you don't have to tell them. We're all aware, but
we just can't seem to do it. If you had
to give anyone any final words on that, for anyone
who's been listening today going I want to change my diet,
for anyone who's listening today saying to us, you know,
I want to work out more, For anyone listening to
us today and saying I want to challenge myself more,

(01:04:59):
but I feel on MOTI, I feel tired. I'm just exhausted.
I'm overworked and overwhelmed. What would you say to them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
To give you a big picture? You as creatures in
this world, we have a reciprocal relationship with our environment.
The brilliance and beauty is that we have choice. The
like the first cell by the deep water. You know,
we used to just drift away from toxins, but then

(01:05:26):
at some point a single cell said that's nutrition. I
want to swing over there, and then a collective of
cells and then animals and creat so we have choice.
This is like I love this. And the newest part
of that prefrontal cortex, as describing to you the little
the newest neurons like sedimentary layers. You know, you can
see like where the dinosaurs are. You cut a tree

(01:05:47):
and you can see. You can agent you figure out
you in the brain, you can figure out which are
the newest neurons are in this area called the orbital
frontal cortex, which is orbital. It's just it's just descriptive.
It just above your eyeballs and at the bottom of
your front of lobes, you know, like right behind your forehead,
but at the bottom, you know, and the cells there

(01:06:07):
if they're injured. People have a hard time changing political beliefs,
like it's different. It's it's a decision maker, and they
call it the arbitrator system that it decides between things.
So again, tell your shoelaces, that's not a big decision,
a decision made for you. That's not a big decision.
But there's a competition of wants. I want to do this,
but I also want to do this. I want to

(01:06:29):
have this piece of bacon, but I want to you know,
I don't want to eat it. That's where we are
at our most vulnerable and best, you know, that's where
we're human. And rather than feeling frustrated by those wants
that you can't always pursue the way you really choose
to inside your mind, like I want to do this,
but I don't get there. My mind is ready to
do it, but my behavior doesn't reflect that. That that's

(01:06:52):
called your internal referee's the it's the decision maker. And
what I would the specific guide that would give people
is that internal referee is vulnerable. Okay, so you want
to work with that internal referee. You want to do
a handful of things. Once, you want to know attention
and focus is limited. Two, you want to know it

(01:07:13):
is susceptible to attentional magnets. You want to stop smoking,
We'll be careful looking up at that gas station, at
those shiny boxes. You want to avoid eating something, and
you know is you know your struggle to get there.
Work with that internal referee. One, break the compulsions, break
the attentional magnets that make you look at something, and
then that decision goes downhill. You're like, ah, now it's

(01:07:35):
at the gate. So the first thing is when it's
in your head, think it out. This trips me up.
I want to space myself from this. I want to
physically distance myself from this. I want to only get
a little bit of coke and then drive away. Right,
whatever you're working on, I'm not judging anybody, But first
is to give yourself the physical and psychological distance from
attentional magnets that have you shift away from the want

(01:07:58):
that you had decided you wanted. Two is then then
if you're in it and you're like, Okay, I didn't
want to have this food. I didn't want to have
this puff. I didn't want to have this snort whatever,
whatever your thing is. Once you're going down that road,
now your internal referee is a different creature. Now, what
you're trying to do is prevent it from becoming an urge.
For smokers, you're looking at the shiny box, you walk outside,

(01:08:20):
you smell. You want to get away from your thought
hijacking your body because now you're jones and you've got
your shivering. Now it becomes a physiologic thing. The game
isn't lost. You can still turn it around, but you
need to know the steps of desires as they happen,
as in your competition of wants, and work with yourself,

(01:08:41):
break potential magnets. Don't let it become an urge if
you do decide to. There's a whole thing called wanting
and seeking. That's fine. I'm gonna have this smoke, I'm
gonna have one puff, I'm gonna throw away the pack.
I'm gonna have this bacon, but I'm only gonna I'm
gonna mitigate. I'm only gonna have one piece rather than
have the whole thing. There are steps in the way
we negotiate our wants, so It's not just I wanted

(01:09:01):
to do this but it didn't happen. Develop your arsenal,
the errors in your quiver of this is a competing
want and I've got one two things through the three
things I'm going to do.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I love that, doctor l Johndelle. It's such a joy
every time you hear. And I hope you'll come back
when your new book's ready and everyone's been listening and
watching back at home. When you're traveling, whatever you're up to,
make sure you tag me and doctor John Deell on Instagram,
on TikTok, wherever you push your clips, because I want
to see what resonated with you. I want to see
what connected with you. I always take away so much
when I meet you. Honestly, it's things that stay with

(01:09:35):
me for a long time, and they're good memories and
the good lessons. So I'm very grateful for your time
and energy. Thanks so much for coming back. If you
love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor Daniel
Ahman on how to change your life by changing your brain.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or
the curve to scan over a thousand convicted felons and
over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.

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