Girls Gotta Eat - Attachment Theory and the Science of Desire feat. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

We are joined by the brilliant Dr. Andrew Huberman and he's educating us on attachment theory and the science of love and desire. We're discussing how we develop our attachment style from childhood and how it affects our adult life and relationships, if/how it can change, our brains in different states (for example, when we're anxious and in love), power dynamics in a relationship, how to manage your anxiety in dating (and in everyday life), keeping the attraction and excitement alive in a relationship, and more. Before Andrew joins us, we're discussing home buying, a first in our friendship, and ultimatums. Enjoy! Follow Andrew on Instagram @hubermanlab and check out the Huberman Lab Podcast. Follow us @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg, and Ashley @AshHess. Visit our website for tour dates, merchandise, and more. Thank you to our partners this week: Babbel: Visit babbel.com/gge for up to 60% off your subscription. Living Proof: Go to livingproof.com/gge and use code GGE10 to get 10% off your first purchase. Truff: Get 15% off site-wide with promo code GGE at truff.com. Osea: Get 10% off your first order with promo code GGE at oseamalibu.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now, I'm not saying you should do this on dates. If your date does this, whoever you are, they're anxious. Although I kind of think everyone should start every date this way. Another episode of Girls Gotta Eat. Welcome back. We're back in New York. I'm upset. That is Zool isn't here.

It is really strange. Why are you going to start the episodes so sad? I hate it. It doesn't feel right. George is so upset. George is so upset. I'm so upset. Like, we've never recorded an episode without Azul. Since Azul has come into our life.

I opened the door and George went fly. lying towards the door with this big smile on his face because he thought it was a soul. He thought it was a soul. So Zool is still with my parents because he was with them when we traveled and then we had another trip and his sitter wasn't around so he's just staying there. My parents are so obsessed with him and I miss him so much. Your dad's living his best life. There's like a hole in my soul.

Like I miss him so much. Well, you seem happy. I'm fine. I'm stressed. I'm stressed planning my trip to Greece for my birthday. Ashley so stressed. She doesn't know which mansion to pick. No, it's not.

Not even that. I just, you know, I'm not trying to plan trips to places I've never been. It's so stressful. I don't like plans. This is a lot of plans to make. I love to plan a trip to somewhere I know. Like, I have to plan it. Like if someone's like, I'm going to plan a trip to Dewey Beach, I'd be like, you're absolutely not. Also, no one's better than us at like telling you like what's going to be fun and where to go. And I mean, I don't like any plans. But like I know where to make the plans. Yeah, I don't, I'm like, it's such a fish out of water. So we're working on it. Now everything's fine, you guys, but as well is not here with us if you're wondering why the. energy is off. But hold on, hold on.

Is this the 18th? Today is the 18th. Okay. Of the episode. You guys are listening. So the 24th. So a week from today is his gotcha day. Like the day.

You bought him? That I bought him. Raina. We adopt. The day that I thought I was fostered him. Yeah. The day he showed up. Oh my God.

You got out of the car. And I was like, you smell like shit. Yeah. You were like, you need a bath. Oh my God. I can't believe it's been a year. That's so crazy. I know.

When did I convince him to do. Did I convince you to keep him? Let me look. We had brunch with Jamie Lay. That was a Saturday. You convinced me to keep him the following Thursday. So I guess that would be, so the 29th. Oh my gosh.

It's our anniversary. So the 29th was the Raina and his soul's anniversary. All right. We'll talk about it next week when he's here. Yeah. I know that you're a stress, but I'm feeling this outfit, this tortoiseshell glasses and this button down white crisp shirt. I feel like you wore it because you want to.

I don't even want to be wearing my glasses today. I have chronic conjunctivitis. No, I don't. It's not chronic, but every, but it is conjunctiveitis. Well, I don't even know if it is. I mean, it's, I don't think I'm like contagious right now with pink eye, but I get this red eye. So this is kind of, let's, let's talk about it.

So when I, we came back from Nashville in 2020, we did shows in Nashville. Yeah. We thought it would feel safe. It didn't. And then we didn't tour Canada. of the vaccine. So we were like, all right. So we came back and I was like, we obviously have COVID. Like there's just no way. No way. We didn't get COVID, but I had conjunctivitis. So like, who comes back from being in the thick of COVID and just gets another ailment? So I got these drops. And then

every once in a while, I just get this red eye and I just do a couple of the drops. They're not expired quite yet. I checked last night. I checked in my teladoc. And yeah, I'm back on back on those drops. Well, they don't look red. I thought that you wore this more serious-looking outfit, like the button down and the glasses. We have a daddy coming in today. I'm a doctor-daddy. We have a doctor-daddy. Right is sliding off her scene.

A little juice stop, yeah. And the shirt, let's talk about the shirt. So you and I bought the same shirt without knowing. Uh-huh. So I was on in some, I was on some real, I think it was like betches. And this girl had the shirt I loved, which is not usually my style, but it was like a collared shirt, like a men's style shirt with all these crazy colors. and someone in the comments had tagged Gap, big shirt. And I was like, what's a Gap big shirt?

So I went on the line ordered six Gap big shirts. And one is this like pastel stripes that go all different ways. And I was like, I got to show you this shirt. I feel like it's not my style. I want to see what you think. And you're like, I ordered that same shirt. I'm a different company, but they look exactly the same. And I was like, also it's like a huge departure for me.

I don't wear stuff like that either. Like it was a huge departure for both of us and we both bought these like pastel striped shirts because we're trying to get more serious. Like we're trying to date. We're going to a fraternity party in the south. I'm trying to date daddies now. But I like like a big shirt. I'm wearing it over like a bra top or a crop top.

Not right now because I'm not trying to swoop. She's making it sexy. Swooping on your fan. Making it sexy. I'm a red, a pink guy. I have a pink shirt on. I wear a pink crop for this daddy today. We'll see.

He's going to be great. I'm really, really excited. Yes. He's by popular demand. Yes. Or request. And this is a great episode to listen to you as a couple or send to your significant other two. So I just want to recommend that because we're talking about attachment theory

today. And Ashley and I sort of like breadcrumbed attachment theory for years. So we're really excited to like dedicate a whole episode to it. Yeah. I mean, I feel like everybody knows what this is at this point. And, you know, if you're on TikTok or wherever you get your relationship to your education. If you're on these streets. But yeah, so we'll get into that today. Yeah. A couple quick things you get out of the way. We will be releasing new merch next week. I think so. 90% sure. So get everything that you want now. We're going to discontinue some of the styles. So that's GirlsGottiepodcast.com.

We have so many cute things. We have so many like crops and stickers and just really fun stuff. And then also we will be on the road, not this coming weekend, but next weekend, we'll be in Missouri in St. Louis and Kansas City. So if you guys have stories about people you're coming with, single guys that are coming to the show, anything crazy you want to tell us,

email that to stories at GirlsGottypodcast.com. Yes, and just tell us what show you're coming to. Yeah. Okay, I wanted to give an update too. So two weeks ago, we had said that I put this offer in this house. But like the next day, I found out I didn't get it. So then it was just like I forgot to mention it last week because it happened obviously so quick. Yeah, I mean, shocker. Like, it's just, it's crazy. Yeah, it's hard to buy houses at the base. It's super hard. I mean, there's this hysterical TikTok. I've heard of TikTok three times seven minutes and 45 seconds about like trying to buy a house in 2016

where you're like, I'd like to buy this house and you're going to give it to me at a discount and then trying to buy a house now, this woman's like crying, she's drinking. She's like, I'd like to offer 20K over asking and I would like to forego an inspection while she's like sobbing and she doesn't get it. Like it's so realistic.

I mean, it's so difficult. And there's just obviously I'm not willing to ever buy a house without an inspection. And that's what people do. They're coming in. They have cash. And they're like, we don't care. And I'm just not at that.

place. I mean, I think I would go pretty hard for like my dream home. Like I think I would be like whatever it takes. But this just wasn't it. So I didn't get it. And it was upsetting. I mean, it's like, this is the second time this has happened. It didn't hurt as much as the first time. The first time was like really kind of stung. Yeah. We're like on the road and I found out my heart sunk. But it'll happen one of these days, I guess. I don't know. It's hard to do. And I mean, listen, you're just not going to like hemorrhage money just to have a house, you know? And The longer you wait, I think the more adept you'll be at this. I mean, I can't believe people by houses like 22, 23. People used to like do that in the babies. But it just used to be easy.

Like this is unreal. Like this is just, it feels impossible. You know, it used to be so easy. All willy-nilly, just buy a house. I mean, Matt bought his first house. Matt bought his first house. I mean, I think he was 25, 26. Oh, I forgot about that house. My brother bought his first place at like 27. Our brothers were just blown right past us. Oh, yeah. And it was like a nice house. It was like, you know, at the beach. It was so cute. It was that house. It was great.

So one day, you guys, but anyway, a couple people were, like, commenting. Like, you said you were going to tell us. And I was like, you're right. It's a journey. I didn't tell you last week. Didn't get it. I'm homeless. Just kidding.

Well, something funny happened last night. So we have been friends for, like, four and a half years. Oh, I know you're going to say. We've been best friends for four years. No, but I received my first accidental text about me. from Ashley last night. You were just like, Rain and I talked, it's all good.

And I was like, stop, stop, stop, stop. Abort, talk to Kate about me. But it's so funny because, like, your other best friend, my best friend, Kate, that you guys were talking about something. And it's just like so funny because you've never, ever done that. I don't know how we don't do it more often

because you and I text on the computer like crazy amounts. I mean, I am pretty careful. I mean, I'm really cautious. Like you and I, we were talking about recently. like even if I send someone's story talking shit to you and I am like look at your name and I'm like, I'm sending this to Ray and I still immediately X out, go to my sent messages to make sure I went to you. Like I'm pretty cautious.

I mean, especially when I'm saying something that I don't want anyone to hear about the person that's intended for, you know. So, but yeah, we were, I was going back and forth with you and Kate at such a rapid pace. We just should have been on the group, but we were talking about a soft launch situation that shook us all to our core. And it's, anyway, there is, listen, there was just a lot to be said. And Kate sends me and then you sent, like, we were all, I was, we just should have been on the group.

But you actually sent me a screenshot of something Kate said to, like, make me laugh. That's what it was. Yeah. So then I was just going back and forth. And then I thought I was talking to Kate and I was talking to Raina. And Rain and I had had this discussion that I had talked to Kate about. It wasn't like anything crazy. It wasn't a big deal.

But I just said like, Rayna and I talked. And Rayna was like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Like worried, so worried. I was going to just say something bad. I wasn't. Well, I'm not worried that you, like, think terrible things about me, but, like, everybody has private conversations with their other best friends about people that are close to them. They're like, I don't think that you, like, sit around and talk shit on me. Also, the sentence was like, Rain and I talked and it's all good. So I was like, I knew it was for Kate.

It just like really made me laugh. We've never had that experience before. I know. It's so funny. I'm with you. Like, I always, I will forward somebody's story. I will go into the message and then I'll talk to shit that I'm going to talk. So you're not, I mean, people are supposed to know, like, your inner most shit talking thoughts that you have with, like, your three best friends. Yeah. So, yeah. So, so, yeah. So, so, We got through it. We got through it. And both of us actually last night started the ultimatum on Netflix.

So I just feel like by the time this episode comes out, it will be dated. We're recording this before new episodes drop. So we can't even speak on the whole series. We'll keep it quick. But so many of you guys recommended it to us. And obviously it's a Netflix show, a Netflix dating show, which is elite. It's hosted by Nick and Vanessa, who hosted Love is Blind. And it's a crazy concept.

Well, it's really interesting that they're hosting it. So they gave a little background that also that they'd been together for years and that she had basically given him an ultimatum and they'd broken up for a little while and got back together. So I love that they shared a little bit of their story. So the idea is that there's all these couples, I think it's six couples that come and one person is giving an ultimatum to the other. And they're basically going to like break up and date the other people on the show

or you can decide to be together and leave the show together. And I like that it wasn't all women. They had a couple of like men that were giving ultimatums. They had people that didn't want kids and things like that. So it's a big mix. I really love it. I think it's like so enthralling. I can't believe how crazy it gets. I'm only three episodes in. But it's, it's really like gut wrenching and sad to watch. And I mean, they break the third wall a lot. So I like that they acknowledge like this person brought me on the show. They

can't be mad at me for the things that I do. What do I say? The third wall? You guys know what I meant. It's a term in the biz. I mean, I like it. Obviously. Obviously, I like it. I'm just, I'm not so obsessed, like, the way I have been with some other shows in the past. I mean, my feeling is that, like, you can't get into it as much as, like, love is blind is it's not a hopeful show. It's like a gut-wrenching, really sad. Like, most of you people together for years, and they're bringing their partner on the show, and they all date other people in front of their partner. Like, it would rip me to shreds. It would be so hard to watch. And, like, it's really painful to watch the people that, like, came there, just destroy their own

relationships. And hopefully some of them walk out, okay. But, yeah, it's sad. It's not like a hopeful type of show. But like, you know, I think everybody should be treated like humans, but like you decided to go on this ridiculous fucking show. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to do that. Like truly.

I mean, listen, I'm here for it. But think about how actually crazy it is. Like to be inside the relationship, we're going to put our relationship on blast because we can't figure this shit out, but we're going to go on TV. Like it's honestly so insane. It's one of the more insane things that I've seen. But like, God bless these couples for

green to it because we get to watch it. But I don't have a ton of the sympathy. Like, I'm like, you signed up for this shit show. It's bad shit crazy to go on this show. Also, the only thing I care about that I want to happen on the show is for Vanessa to say dismantled. Or is what's going to happen is that we never see them again. They are the most absentee hosts on any show. Has anybody ever gotten paid more for less? I just want to see Vanessa get all riled up and be like, unconditional love is if you were dis mangled and he would be by my side. You know, when Nick and I were on the rocks and we went out and dated someone else, I came back to him because I knew that if I was dis mangled, he would be there for me.

You know, I know it's true love between them. Remember the look on his face when Jessica Simpson asked if it was chicken or tuna? And he looked like the flesh on his face was going to melt off. I mean, listen, I, sometimes I catch him looking a little like side eye or like embarrassed. Like, I don't No, I just, I don't think Nick Lachey is so great at hiding his expressions. Like, I feel like he looks annoyed sometimes. I like the girl that doesn't want kids. And I like how the other, is it Colby is like, I can change her mind. But listen, spoiler alert, the girl that doesn't want kids, like, just fucking accepted

that bullshit proposal that was straight up out of jealousy. I'm never seeing the like that guy, his ego proposed. It was shocking to see. She was like, we can't agree in this kid thing. And she's going to accept the proposal. And then they're going to go back into the room and be like, we're going to need to go a therapy. Are they going to stay together? Like, can they re-break up? Do you think she can, like, start dating Colby now? Colby's like, I'll change her mind. I loved her and Colby.

Colby's like, just kidding a week. I'll change her mind. We said we weren't going to deep dive on this because it's going to be dating. Right. Here's the last piece of tea about her is that they say she's 26 on the show. She's not. She's 30. I don't like it. Why do you know that? Okay. First of all, first of all, why do you know that? The way you said it was so funny. And third of all, Like, they filmed, I don't know. I like the way you said it. Okay.

They filmed Love is Blind like years in advance. I mean, four years is on. Two years. Yeah. They filmed this two years ago? No, they filmed Love is Blind almost two years in advance. Yeah, which was crazy. Mm-hmm.

Not during COVID times. What did Lauren and Cameron do in those two years? Because, you know, they're just so obsessed with each other. Cameron's, every time he looks at Lauren, he starts crying. So how did they keep this secret? They just fucked and cried a lot. Why do you know? What is?

What is? Why do I know that I? Because I was looking up the show this morning to see how many more episodes were there and there was like a couple articles that came out with her just saying like, I'm annoyed that they said I was 26. Oh, I was 30.

Oh, like that was their choice. Uh-huh, that was the show's choice. Everybody did seem kind of young. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I mean, people were there like 24. It's like, don't worry about this. I mean, live your life. I mean, one of those, two of those couples

are like 23 in together for a year and a half. I mean, I don't know, whatever, do whatever you think is right. I think it's a little, I don't ever want to give somebody an ultimatum. I think people should do what they want to do with me. Regardless of me, like, threatening them. Also, that's a crazy young age to be like, make a decision now. It's, I mean, it's insane.

And like, I strongly believe it's too young to get married, but people do it and they're happy forever. So, again, like, whatever you do is nothing to do with me. I think that's such a young age to put that on someone, like you just said. So when it's, when you're 23, 24 and you're like, marry me or I'm out, it's like, they're probably going to be out. I would be. You know, let's revisit this in five years.

I just, I mean, why do you need this so badly? Like, we're together. We're committed. We live together. Like, is it that you want to start having kids immediately? Fine. Whatever. I can unpack the reason. Somebody give an ultimatum all day long. It's just, it's not how I want to end up with somebody. And it's very young.

Yeah, it really is. So, yeah. Well, we like the show. I mean, we've talked about ultimatums on this on this podcast. I mean, they're not, it's not really the move, usually. I mean, it boils down to kind of threatening somebody, but we also think you should be able to stand by what you want out of life. And sometimes it is a matter of like, if I'm not satisfied or fulfilled in this relationship, I am going to walk away. I mean, that's kind of what

it boils down to. It just sometimes it's, you really got to ask yourself why you want the certain thing and especially why you want this engagement ring at 24. Because if the person is committed to you, I mean, again, like Raina said, there's no judgment again. Like, cancer has to Love your truth. But if it's because you want to start having kids. Is this are a medical reason. You know, this is how you were brought up.

Your parents had you really young. I mean, people have a multitude of reasons. But it always is a little strange to me where it's like we are in love. We're committed. We're happy. But if you don't propose to me at this very young age, I'm out.

But I'm also like that's so far out of my realm. I'm so much older than that. So it's like I understand more our age. The ultimatums feel more like I want to have children. and I'm 35 plus and you don't seem like you're on the same page. And that really is when you need to think about what's going on here physically. I think for your own, you know, what you want out of life. I think we all deserve to put our cards on the table and draw boundary and just be honest

about what we want. And if, yeah, if you're like, I'm religious, my parents got married at 22. I'm going to get married to 24. I want to start kids by 25. I've played my whole life out. We all deserve to do that. I don't want to threaten somebody. And I think that you deserve to say it once.

And I think you can say it once. and I don't think that we can constantly be giving ultimatums. Like, if you're going to do that, you have to be ready to walk away. And just, especially if you want children and say, like, this is my boundary and this is what I want. And then you have to be prepared to leave. Because it's sort of like an empty threat otherwise. Yeah. You know.

Don't get married though, you know. That's a crazy thing to do, you guys. But listen, you know, no judgment. It's time. It's time. Guys, we have a very exciting guest today. wrote a lot of big words in his intro. So let's see if I can get through it. He is a neuroscientist and a tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University of Medicine.

He's made many contributions to the brain development, brain plasticity, and neural regeneration and repair fields. How'd I do? Don't say anything. I'm ready. Work from the Huberman Laboratory at Stanford has been featured in time, BBC, Scientific America, and tons of other top media outlets and journals. His show the Huberman Lab podcast is frequently ranked as one of the top podcast in the U.S., please welcome to the show, Andrew Huberman. Great to be here. Thanks so much. Thanks for being here. Good job reading. Thank you so much.

You know what I thought was going to trip me up with plasticity and regeneration, but I done it. I nailed it. You nailed it. Yeah, thank you. Oh, my God. I can feel you falling in love with me. Oh, my God. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. All the way from the West Coast. Yes, me. Just for this. Yes. We're so glad to have you here. We love talking about brains and relationships. And we're talking about attachment theory today. So we're going to talk about all of it. But we would love just your brief history. I mean, we got some of it in the intro, but kind of what brought you to where you are now? Well, I'm delighted to be here. The risk of asking an

academic professor about themselves or what they do is they're going to tell you. So I'll try and keep this brief. Damn it, Andrew. I'll give you the life arc very quickly because it turns out that will likely define the different topics that we might consider talking about. And all along, I want to be very clear that my main interest is in the audience, extracting information that will be helpful for their lives. So it's not so important for me in my life to be known as much as I think some of these themes might be repeating themes in everybody's life. So grew up very interested in biology and animal behavior, including the human animal.

Why do people behave the way they do? Why do they feel the way they do, et cetera? was always interested in those topics. Avid Reader. I've been nerdy kid. Played some sports, but mostly just a nerdy kid. And then in my high school years, I got very, very involved in the skateboarding community.

A lot of friends that went on to start companies and sponsored skateboarders. And I was very lucky to be part of that in the early 90s. Actually here in Washington Square Park and San Francisco Bay Area, there's a whole scene. And I mentioned that because it's an amazing community. But I also was exposed to a lot of people I normally wouldn't have been exposed to and saw a lot of mental health issues, a lot of drug

addiction, that kind of thing. So it was very sensitized to the fact that people have different leanings in this life. Some people take a drink and fall in love with alcohol and it destroys them. Other people like me never really like drugs or alcohol. Love adrenaline, don't love drugs and alcohol. Learn that about myself. Eventually, I followed a high school girlfriend off to college and didn't do much of anything with myself except get into some trouble, which I don't recommend. course correct early on or don't fall off the track and you'll be way better off. Basically, the wake-up signal for me was 19 realizing I wasn't really going anywhere and it was time to get serious about life. So I got really serious about biology and studying. So I studied biology and psychology,

which eventually led to neuroscience. And then there was a bunch of graduate school and postdocs, et cetera, et cetera, became a professor. But along the way, I've been really interested in health and wellness and fitness. I've been actively involved in psychoanalysis for well over 30 years for reasons that aren't interesting. So I have an active interest in psychology. And so just briefly to kind of define or maybe set some possible points for jumping off, study things like basic physiology, you know, how we regulate our metabolism, hormones and behavior, why hormones like estrogen and testosterone make us feel certain ways and not other ways. And brain plasticity, which is the brain's ability a change in response to experience, but also relationships and different types of behavior

in and around relationships. You know, you can expand your imagination around that. And things like sleep and mental health, and now my lab works a lot on things like anxiety and sleep and things that I like to think a lot of people struggle with, but that I'm certain that there are a lot of remedies for. So that basically defines the kind of arc of it. And I run my lab, we run experiments, on human beings, very interested in health and wellness and fitness generally, but also mental fitness. You know, people's ability to deal with the ups and downs of breakups, pandemics, and also the good stuff in life. You know, what does it mean? You know, I mean, we think a lot of your listeners will be familiar with getting really excited about, for instance, a new relationship. Why does that feeling

go away? Are there ways to renew that feeling over time? I think this is one of the most fundamental, fundamentally, excuse me, interesting questions about human beings. You know, what makes attraction come and go? Why do we get attached? What is attachment anyway? Does it always have to be warm and fuzzy? Or can it, you know, maintain that sort of exciting, almost objectification of the other person, or is it always going to be either feeling dangerously attached and excited

or safe, right? Are those incompatible? And there's actually a lot of biology that speaks to that. I don't want to abandon the topic. We didn't talk for hours. We could just spin the wheel and, you know, jump up. Well, it's all sort of connected. I mean, yeah.

It's so much. Like, it's so much of what we're like so deeply interested in and just talk about forever. Yeah. And you did an episode on your podcast. I think it was called the science of desire and love and attachment. And I thought it was so interesting. And Ashley and I talk about attachment theory a lot on the show and romantic attachment and why we are the way we are and can we change and how can we have healthier relationships and things

like that. So we definitely want to talk to you about that today. And then, yeah, once you figure out what your attachment style is, can you change it? How do you pick partners? Things like that. Can the excitement be prolonged? One reason we titled that episode, Love, Desire, and Attachment was to point out that those are indeed separate psychologies and separate neural circuits.

Neural circuits are just connections in the brain, right? I think this is one of the more important discoveries in the last 20 years. And it's important because, of course, within a healthy relationship, one hopes that there would be love, desire, and attachment. And yet, there are relationships that only include one or two or three of those, or that morph from having all three to just one or any variant thereof. When you have different circuitries in the brain and different psychologies related to those circuitries, things start to make a bit more sense. I think one of the most important and fundamental discoveries in all of psychology that, and I verified this with my colleagues who are

clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and biologists, is this notion of attachment theory. And here's the basic principle. As an infant, you come into the world and you're helpless. You are truly, truly helpless, especially our species, born very helpless. And attachments are the way that we start to learn whether or not our anxiety can be soothed or not. So as a baby, you know, a baby feels agitated because they're hungry or agitate because they're cold or agitated because they're warm or agitate because they need a changing. And they don't know how to vocalize that. So they just cry, right? And they don't even know what crying is. They just feel agitation. And then a caregiver, mother, father, or other caregiver comes to the child and gives them what

they think that child needs or wants. And then the anxiety is relieved. And there's this understanding because the baby stopped crying, right? Seems so basic. And yet if you think about the main job, of the brain is to predict what's going to happen next and to try and engage in behaviors or say things in order to make the world okay and to be able to move through that world safely, well, then you realize that the first rule that we all learned was when feeling anxious, look outside yourself to soothe that anxiety. And part of becoming a functional adult in or out of romantic relationship is the ability to self-soothe in part. And yet a of relationships is about accessing the things from other people that we can't provide ourselves,

right? So that basic circuitry, these basic connections in the brain related to anxiety, mature under this rule, the first rule we learn is not, oh, my mother's voice is beautiful, my father sounds like this, and my mother's, it's only, when I feel anxious, vocalize, and that anxiety will be soothed by some external thing. And that's a very hard rule to shake, and it tends to persist our whole life. And there's some healthy aspects to that, but there's some really unhealthy aspects to it as well. There are beautiful studies that were done by Bolby and Ainsworth

are the names that are normally associated with this, basically taking young children, toddlers, bringing them in back then it was with mothers, they've done this with fathers, they've done this in many different cultures. This has been a repeat now hundreds of times in different laboratories over the years. And essentially having caretaker and toddler

go into a room, they call it the strange situation task, and then caretaker leaves, and the experimenters observe the children. And then the caretaker comes back. And that's the interesting part. It's not about how the child behaves when the caretaker leaves, as much as it is how they react when the caretaker comes back. And that's fundamentally important, because what you're testing there, or what they're examining is what are the differences among toddlers in terms of how they react to care, the effort to soothe, and one's sort of openness to having another person relax their anxiety. And what they found were there are these different so-called attachment styles. And this again is in infants and toddlers. And those attachment styles broadly

defined fall into securely attached. So a securely attached child will get a little anxious when their caretaker leaves, understandably so. But we'll explore the environment, might cry, might vocalize, they miss their mom or dad or other caretaker. But when the caretaker comes back, they're very relieved to see them, and they run to them, and they want to be near them. Sometimes they might still be distracted with a toy or something, and they'll wait for the caretaker to come over, but it seems like a pretty smooth transition both ways. The more insecure attached babies, as they're called, will tend to not react in the same kind of way when the caretaker comes back. They will tend to either act anxious, like they're not

really sure this is happening, or they will potentially also avoid the parent. like almost trying to punish the parent. But of course, the child isn't aware of this. They're not actually punishing the parent. They're really just protecting themselves against them leaving again. So it's sort of one fundamental thing that everyone should understand is that avoidant and anxious are basically the same thing. It's just that avoidance is a way of not vocalizing the anxiety as much, but setting up barriers to that anxiety. And then there's a fourth category that was discovered years later called disorganized,

which seems more related to some deeper pathology where babies will or toddlers will act very strange all around and getting to kind of stereotype behaviors and kind of odd systems start to get recruited. Okay, why is any of this interesting? Well, fundamentally it's all about anxiety. They're intentionally creating anxiety and then they're trying to create a soothing situation.

And we know the brain circuitries that are involved in this. Okay, fine. And that makes perfect sense in the context of parent-child attachment, but what's really interesting and certainly I didn't discover, I wish I had, but I didn't discover, is that the same neural circuitries,

the same brain areas, the same chemicals in the brain and body that are used in each of those situations are reused in adulthood in romantic attachment. And as a biologist, this makes perfect sense. There's no area of your brain that you're just going to toss out and not use as you get older,

you're going to repurpose it for other things. And so when you look at dating and relationships through the lens of attachment, you start to see some regular patterns. But just to be really clear, and to answer your question, attachment patterns are very much under our own flexibility and control. They are not fixed for life,

and they absolutely will change depending on who you depend on to relieve your anxiety. And if you depend on somebody to take care of your anxiety and how much. In other words, a secure attached person who's in a relationship with somebody who's avoidant attached, who just kind of doesn't, you know, texting seems to be the major mode of communication nowadays. Let's say someone just drops out for a day or two. There are a lot of anxieties that are stimulated by that. But that's communicating a certain, you could say, disregard. It's also perhaps a healthy mode of communication depending on how new the relationship is

or not. The rules for this are very plastic and themselves is changing all the time. So until there's an agreement, it's not clear an agreement is being broken. That secure attached person could very quickly find themselves getting anxious. Whereas with somebody, sure, I think this happens a lot. I think this now happens. And I don't think one can draw clear, you know, kind of male, female labels to this stuff anymore. I mean, I remember when texting first came out and I thought, this was my own personal thing and since changed my views and my behavior. I thought, this reminds me a lot of passing when people would pass notes in class. And I never passed notes in class. Like, I wouldn't text in a million years. And now, of course, I communicate by texting all the time,

right? But that was 10, 15 years ago. So whether or not we're secure attached, insecure attached, anxious avoidant, or et cetera, depends entirely on the relationship that we're in and the attachment style of the other person. Now, the last point, and then I'll, you know, see where this takes us is that this whole notion of calm and secure versus anxious all has to do with a system in the body called the autonomic nervous system, which basically is how high do you rev, right? What's your basic level of anxiety? Somebody wake up in the morning and they're anxious until they text a friend. It has nothing to do with romantic attachment. Some people, if they are two feet from their pet, don't feel quite as relaxed as when they're in contact with their pet, right? Pets can be

very soothing. It's a form of attachment, obviously. There are many different examples of this. And one thing that we're just not taught or trained in is how to relax or adjust our own levels of what's called autonomic arousal. And that's something that my lab focuses a lot on. And I personally believe that relationships of all kinds, regardless of who's involved in them, avoid and et cetera, would benefit if people were just better at regulating their own internal levels of anxiety. because it is only under conditions of calm that your perceptions of the outside world are accurate, for one, and it's only under conditions of calm

that you can make really good decisions. I'll just leave it at that. I mean, like three questions. I know, like 100 questions. Well, okay, I think it's good at least to address that you can change your attachment style as you get older and with different partners because some people are like,

I feel like I've been a different person in this relationship than other relationships. It's like, yeah, because it was a different partner and it made you feel a different sense of security. So I think that that's good for people to know. Right. Like you hear people say, this isn't me. Or you hear people say, excuse me,

I can't be the person I want to be in this relationship. Oftentimes what they're saying is, this person destabilizes me so much that I can't really focus on what I'm doing or I can't really show up the way I want to show up. And there, it's unclear because this is a hypothetical relationship. we don't know if that's because there's an immense amount of excitement, right? Oftentimes, highly desirable mates have other options. This is the reality, right? And when so somebody

desires somebody very much, it's often an anxiety-provoking situation because they realize they may not be the only person at that point in the relationship. So this is like a two-part question. Do we lean more towards one because it's who we are since we've been toddlers? And is it how your parents soothed you when you were a baby and whether, is that kind of how it happens in the first place? It's how predictable your world was in terms of the caretaking you needed. It's security. It's security.

And this is, you know, it's impossible to know every situation. One thing in circumstance, but one thing that's really important that we can glean from the psychology and especially the psychoanalytic literature is that this stuff doesn't always obey one to one with gender. And here's what I mean. Or, you know, in biology, we talk about sex. We don't talk about, we don't talk about, well, we could talk about the biology of sex, the verb, but we talk about sex the noun. So X, X, X, X, Y, X, Y, X, Y, chromosomes, right? Gender is a different construct. But for instance, let's take a hypothetical child. This child has a really solid relation, let's say a female child, has a very strong relationship to her father. He's very

consistent. He's very nurturing. He's very loving. The mother perhaps is more anxious, more volatile. Very loving, very soothing, but then also very damning. I'm making this up. This isn't my experience of anyone in particular, by the way. That young girl grows up to be a young woman and may find herself in a relationship with somebody. Let's assume she's heterosexual. She likes men. She's in a relationship with a guy and he's very kind, maybe very charming, but then also can be very damning and kind of aggressive, right? The kind of surface level, you know, pop psychology 101 thing would say, but wait, she had a dad who was really, you know, consistent. This doesn't make any sense. In the landscape of attachment, it doesn't matter. Because remember, the circuitry that underlied

all this comes from infant caretaker attachment, which is pre-sexual, right? All of that circuitry was about, can you predict what the other person will do? How reliable are? they. And so, okay, in this particular example, this woman ended up being heterosexual. Now it's it doesn't make sense on the one hand, like, wait, she had a good example of a consistent father. Doesn't matter. I'm not saying the father doesn't matter. What I'm saying is that it makes just to any psychoanalyst would say, of course, because you can toss out gender, you can toss out biological sex in the context of something that was presexual. It was, it was those circuitries are all about, am I getting soothed or not in a consistent way?

So the important point is to understand that, yes, those circuitries are laid down, the expectations are laid down early in development, and there's one other feature. And I think everyone would do well to ask themselves where they exist on this continuum, which is some people are just naturally calmer than others. Okay. Regardless of their... I'm not talking about energy level.

I'm talking about some people are more flappable, right? They have a higher what we call prepulse startle. You go walk up behind someone, you go hi, and they jump, right? Some people just sit more on this kind of, it's like a seesaw of autonomic arousal. They're just jumpier. Some people are really calm. You see this in the landscape of dogs. I always had bulldogs, love bulldogs.

I mean, Bulldog, the robo vacuum used to bump into his face and he wouldn't even blink, right? Some dogs are really skittish and their tail is always. Human beings are like this too. And that doesn't necessarily mean you're anxious, but you have to understand which way you're kind of leaning to begin with. Some people, you know, if they're dating new person, doesn't matter if they're dating a bunch of people and they don't get a text back from the person that they really would like to hear and see more of, well, that's going to be pretty destabilizing for some people. And some people will just, and be like, well, they might be busy

or I'm busy. And so some people can't, you know, and so there's a lot of nuance to this. For sure. But once you understand that all of the circuitry is laid down in infancy, that it is plastic, but that it's pre-sexual. Then you start to look at, it's sort of like a, in biology, we talk about algorithms. It's sort of like a paradigm, like a rule that's being used over and over again that doesn't care about whether or not it was mom or dad. It's more about, are you feeling safe and secure in your romantic adult life? I love that because I think it feels so easy to be like, but her dad's great.

Why does she choose this guy? This is someone we were talking about recently. I was like trying to kind of assess the situation. And I don't know if it was you or somebody else. And they were like, yeah, but her mom. And I was like, oh, right. Right. It's the parent the fuck you up.

The mom. Yeah. Well, hopefully this isn't redundant. I don't think you will make it redundant. But let's talk about how this manifests itself in adult romantic relationships. So like what does it look like? And I think that it's probably some of it, people like, yeah, I get it. But what does it look like if I'm dating an attached, an in anxious person or an avoidant

person? I mean, secure, obviously, is a little self-explanion. editorial. But how does this look in a romantic relationship? There's a wonderful book called Attached, quite popular book. I don't know the authors. So I don't get a kickback. I don't know them. Oh, no. He goes to me. I tried

to get him on the show years ago. Yeah, they don't you know, I think the book, I think the book is very good. I mean, it's not, you know, any book, the problem with books on like podcasts is they aren't updated very often. Yeah. I think it's a game changer. I think everyone, we can't recommend it enough. I think paradigmatically

it's spot on. And I think, you know, I would even go so far to say it's an important book. There's another book that maybe we could talk about because it highlights something different, important about relationships, which is a book, the title's pretty terrible. But it's called Can Love Last? And it's a very interesting book that explores whether or not romantic and sexual attraction and objectification

is incompatible with deep attachment and reliance on somebody. That's something that maybe if we have time we could get into. Because it's fundamentally important, has a lot to do with neurochemistry of attachment. So what does it look like? Well, secure attached, as you mentioned, we sort of know it when we see it. It's a kind of, it's a,

it isn't necessarily a consistency of communication that matches the other person. It's a consistency of communication, period. Okay. Right? So let's say, let's just by way of example, I'll just do this. My apologies.

Humility aside, let's say I'm securely attached. So if I'm securely attached, I'm going to send a text perhaps in the morning to somebody that I'm seeing, and then maybe at lunch and in the afternoon. And I'll be pretty consistent about that. And if I'm not going to do it, I might say why. Okay. Okay.

Let's assume this is a fairly stable relationship we've been seeing one another for a while. That's a secure attached pattern because I'm establishing predictability. And I'm also going to say, because here I'm using myself in the first person example, it also works for me, right? Before work, at launch and afterwards. And probably not so much texting in the middle of the day, which is actually not something that I personally happen to do. related to things other than work.

It's just you set up a system of predictability. It's about predictability. Somebody who's, let's say the person that I'm with, again, this is hypothetical, is anxious attached. I might modify my frequency of communication if they make a direct request. But if I get 14 text messages at lunch, a secure attached person, in this case,

this is fun, I can kind of play this person now and you can wonder if it's actually me or not, is going to say, thanks for your messages, happy to hear from you, and respond, right? And just respond. Not like, is everything okay I got. They sort of understand the attachment style of the person they're with, and they make some effort to acknowledge that.

Okay. Right. But they don't start texting them. But an avoided person just won't respond to you. But that's an important question. Are they annoyed? And to that, and I'm not being dismissed, so it actually doesn't matter.

Okay. The point is, let's say me, here, I'm using myself. Maybe I am annoyed. Maybe I'm surprised. But maybe, you know, but maybe I'm sensitized. But aren't you like this bitch is crazy? And I have a job. This actually wouldn't be in that extreme.

I mean, if you think about the sort of distribution of texting frequency. 14. 14 unanswered. All right. Well, here. What are we texting about? All right. Well, here we can play a game that's maybe, I'll turn this on you because I know where this is headed.

Well, let's say half of these are photos. What are they photos of? Like what I'm cooking for dinner for you later? Or maybe not. Who knows? Maybe it's what you're cooking for them. 14, nudes. drop-ups. So it all depends, right? It all depends. It's highly contextual, right?

Right. Right. So, so, so, so a, so you said that, not me. It was a prostitute at all thing. You also said that, not me. The, so the, so I think that the, the, the key thing is you want to communicate consistency of availability and consistency is the key operative word here. It's not about frequency. It's about consistency. Okay. there's also the version of this where people are consistently inconsistent, right? We can talk about that, intermittent reinforcement. A lot of people operate in dating relationships like a slot machine because the slot machine is the ultimate intermittent random reinforcement

where you don't know when the reward is coming is the ultimate way to hook any animal or human being onto a behavior. Every single time this has been true since the beginning of time, this will be true forever. Let's say the anxiously attached person. The anxiously attached person feels, obviously, a shift from their baseline level of anxiety up to more what we would call autonomic arousal when they don't hear back on a timescale that is entirely set by their own expectation, right?

Not by some kind of consistency or understanding what the other person might be dealing with. That's the extreme. And then the avoidant person is the person who deliberately doesn't respond to a text message in order to try and invoke anxiety in the other person in order to get them to be consistent. Now, the reason we can say this really does go back to the whole toddler thing. The one experiment that I didn't talk about when I cover this on my podcast, I'll mention now, which is kind of disturbing to watch, but I actually encourage people to watch it.

It's very informative. If you look at the baby mother, I think you can put into YouTube or elsewhere, it's baby mother attack. movie in real time. And here's what happens. It's a mother playing with a baby in a kind of a crib bassinet thing. And the baby's making faces and the mom's making faces. There's an important part of how attachments are formed.

Then they intentionally, it's hard to imagine this. It's horrible to watch, really. But they have the mother suddenly stop responding. So the baby is making all these faces and the parent just goes stone face. I literally could cry thinking about it. Then what happens is the baby starts amplifying their own behavior. They start gesticulating and doing it. Eventually they transition to crying

and eventually they transition to screaming. And in these experiments, which today could not be repeated, the mother turns her head and eventually turns around completely and no matter what the baby does, does not turn back around. It's a very disturbing thing to watch.

But in watching this, if you're a normal, healthy human being, it will be disturbing to watch. But in watching this, you see the entire arc of an unhealthy adult attachment. And so this is why I quote unquote recommend it that people watch this because it shows you what happens in the infant circuitry. And it shows you what happens when your requests first playful, then kind of charming.

You'll watch a baby try and charm its mother. They are not doing this consciously. They're not sociopaths. At least we don't think they are. And then over time, the baby resorts to this protest behavior. And then eventually what happens is really truly horrible. to watch, which is the baby eventually just sinks into this kind of mode of total acceptance and depression. And I've known enough people, male and female, to see the arc of unhealthy

relationships, and it looks just like that. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a romantic relationship that, you know, with an unhealthy relationship and an avoidant person. It feels like the most secure person with a really avoidant person that almost feels like they're punishing you can turn anxious. and I've read attached. I'm pretty certain I'm secure, but I feel like I want to snap sometimes. I mean, I don't throw tantrums and cry and scream.

Like, I feel like I used to when I was younger, but you feel a little crazy if you're really with somebody that is avoidant. Or somebody who is deliberately deploying intermittent reinforcement. That's what I mean. Kind of cat stringing. Yeah.

Like you play with a cat, you get a bounce the string around. They love it. You put the string down on the ground and they're like, and it's like, I don't want it anymore. It's not, I'm not down with the stuff. slot machine. I don't actually like casinos in general. And so I just feel like that behavior is not for me. Like it's consistent and stable or I don't want it. I can really see a securely attached person and I do

feel that I am and I had a loving home growing up and I can see somebody in this type of relationship going, but I'm doing all these normal things that normally work and it feels healthy and they're not responding to it and just trying harder and it makes you spiral so far into this anxious headspace. And I've had people do that to me. And I'm like, I feel like, I feel like, like I'm crazy. And I don't understand why this is happening. I'm like, but this isn't me, you know? Right. Anytime I think that we are feeling as if we can't show up the way we want to or a situation around dating and relationships is making us more anxious or insecure than we would like to be. I think there are two important questions. I think the first important question is,

do I have at my core a healthy attachment style? And remember, it could be to either parent. then the second question is one that fortunately there's some immediate tools because last time I checked, time machines were broken, we can't go back to childhood. We can gain understanding around childhood. And that could be very beneficial. I mean, I'm a big believer in people using the forebrain to try and parse their life experience as opposed to just going by feelings every moment. But the second issue is, how anxious am I independent of this relationship in this moment? Because, you know, when I said some people are calmer than others, some people are more anxious. sometimes we're more anxious because life events are making us more anxious. Sometimes we're not sleeping well and that can really destabilize us. A lot of the focus of my podcast is any question that comes up,

I always just say first, how's your sleep? If you're not sleeping well 80% of the nights, well, we have episodes about that and there are other people like Matt Walker from Berkeley who have written books about this. And there are a lot of tools now to improve sleep. So get your sleep right because if you're not sleeping well and right, unless it's for the right reasons and the fun reasons, or disrupting your life, you're not going to be healthy emotionally and physically for very long. One all night or two all nighters, everyone's all fine. But if you're not sleeping well, consistently, you're not going to show up to any relationship. You're not going to perceive anything about life or relationships of any kind in a clean way. The other one is to have tools

that you can deploy, to calm yourself when you're feeling anxious, to make sure that it is indeed them and not you. In the landscape of the psychology of trauma, the fundamental issue that people are grappling with is who's responsible. You know, a lot of people who experience trauma are fixated on their own involvement in creating the trauma. And sometimes they had an involvement, but they have to cleanly parse out that component in order to really deal with the trauma. The same thing is true in a relationship that's making people feel uncertain. And if you think about people who stay in unhealthy relationships a very long time, oftentimes it's because they don't know if it's really them or it's themselves. If it's the other person, if it's

themselves and they will spend years grappling with that. But it doesn't always come up as that question. The question that comes up is, for instance, well, if I'm not with them, will I ever find anyone as exciting? Or that's really a question about oneself? I hate when I hear women say this, we talk to a lot of women. I hate when I hear somebody say that because I think, you know, you will always find something better than someone who makes you question yourself constantly. I feel anxious all the time. It's a bad feeling. So yes, you will find something better. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, one thing to remember, and I don't want to erase the true specialness of certain relationships, because one of the incredible things about human bonds is that over time, people really do, friends and romantic partners really do become special to us. I walk through the city, there are so many amazing, beautiful dogs. I just walk through this city and I'm like, that's a beautiful dog. That's a beautiful dog. Come here a second. I need to talk to you. I'm going to like, talk to this dog. Okay. So, you know, and it's an incredible thing.

But when I had my dog, when he was still alive, I didn't see, I didn't really see them. They didn't matter to me as much. I was 100% Costello, my bulldog master. No, I'm telling you. And this is how attachment works. When you are truly happy in an attachment, now it's different with pets, right? I mean, I like the other dogs. I got to pet every dog, even when I'm in a relationship with a dog.

As she's in a relationship, she's got to pet all the dog. But now, I see what you're saying. It's hard to see outside of the relationship. But now, I'm the guy who, basically is like, hold on, wait, slow down the Uber. Hold on. This bulldog is amazing. Okay, now I'm making this kind of scenario somewhat facetiously, but this is true. Okay, here I'm not making this up. The point is that attachments are special because when we have them in that moment and when they feel reciprocated, they truly feel like the only thing that

can occupy that circuitry. And guess what? They are. In that moment, that circuitry is 100% occupied by that attachment. And here I'm using the dog example to avoid other examples, but also because I think some people can appreciate this. Now, some people have decided to never be in that situation by never really having a pure and complete attachment to one person. And there are a couple ways that people do that. One is to have multiple attachments to multiple people, no judgment, but that's- Like in a polyamorous situation. Or so people just continue to date or people don't settle down, right? You know, there are any, a lot of variants of that. The other version of it is to never actually get completely attached to one person.

They hold back something inside where I'm not going to let myself depend that much on this person. They maintain a sense of self-sufficiency. You see that a lot in kids that grew up with parents that weren't available for attachment, and they learn to mother and father themselves. Not completely, but they sort of, you know, maybe, you know, and here we have to be careful not, because nowadays parents obey different roles. But in the traditional model, you'd say, okay, father performed certain roles,

mother performed other roles. Nowadays, there's a lot of fluidity of that. But the idea is that if certain roles weren't met, that as they grow up, a person, teenager, young adult, starts to kind of learn how to soothe themselves in, let's say, in air quotes, maternal ways, or in paternal ways.

Create a sense of safety at home, right? This has changed a lot in the last 60 years. It was kind of rare for women to live alone, 70 years ago. Now, of course, it's very common, right? So what you end up finding is that the friend who's saying, but I'll never find anybody quite like that, what they're really saying is 100% of my attachment circuitry is devoted to this person. And the biggest mistake, of course, is to think that just by bringing in a new attachment, it will displace that old attachment. There's actually a process by which attachments are broken. And anyone who's going to, you know,

unless you're lucky enough to kind of fall in love with the first person you're with, and it works out great for the rest of your life and go through every developmental milestone with that person. You hear this. It's beautiful when you see it, you know, and they don't seem to wish for or at least don't talk about wishing for or wanting other things. But most people are, at some point in their life, are going to have to deal with a broken attachment. Okay. And the way to deal with that is the same way that people deal with a death, which is another form of breaking an attachment. You can also lose somebody by death, right? and the grieving process is the process of resetting the neural circuitry for attachment without question.

And so the whole notion of just kind of bringing new people in in order to displace a given attachment, of course it doesn't work or it doesn't work very quickly. But of course, fixating on somebody's smell and the amazing things you did and looking at their photos and all that. I mean, the block function on the phone, 100%, absolutely. This is all technology that makes it hard to break attachments. If you're dating somebody with a really avoidant attachment style, is it worth it to stick around and get deeper and try to change them? And I know that's like a load of questions. Everybody's so different. Everybody's different circumstances. But I understand that people with secure attachment styles can become anxious and anxious people can become secure. But can people that are really avoidant ever truly become securely attached to you and make you feel less anxious? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, the avoidant attachment style is,

is really the anxious attachment style. It's just that they're dealing with that anxiety by not making themselves vulnerable. Can you do anything? Like, I mean, I think that if I feel like an attached, I mean, now it was years since I've read it, but it was kind of like, they got to do this shit on their own.

I mean, like, if you're, I feel like the, I'd love to talk about being an anxious attachment and then being with an avoidant. I feel like that's probably what we hear the most of. So like. Well, those two do very well together for a while for the obvious reasons, because the avoidantly attached person

really wants an anxiously attached person because then they feel soothed. Let's set up the parallel to infancy again. The avoidant person, let's say, is the child that is acting avoidance so that the caretaker is constantly running after them saying, are you sure you don't need anything? Are you sure you don't need anything?

But they're actually, in the adult scenario, is saying, I need something, I need something. Okay? So to get really brass tacks about this, here's what a terrible tactic would be. Trying to evoke anxiety in the avoidant person. You see people do this all the time. They're not responding.

They're not responding. So I'm not going to respond to. Terrible. Or make them jealous or like act out. Yeah. So jealousy is a, you know, very primitive feeling everyone, despite what people say, has the capacity you feel jealous. Jealousy is yet another form of autonomic arous.

It's an arousal state that is, you know, it's hardwired into our species, right? because of the need for attachment and to predict people's availability. So trying to make the avoidant person anxious is a terrible strategy. It might work in the short term, but ultimately it's going to cause great resent, and the punishment will come.

And the punishment will come in the form of more avoidance. Terrible strategy. What works really well, but then again, I'm 46 years old, so I can say this. What works really well is a very clear community. about exactly what's happening, but not what the other person is doing. Like, oh, when you don't respond to me for two or three days, that doesn't feel good.

That's sort of like, that's the kind of like white belt version of communication. Like everyone should be able to do that at some point. But it's really about when you do that, it doesn't feel good. And the temptation for me is to try and find some way to make you feel the way that I feel so that you'll relate differently. It should just be a brass text conversation. Do you think that it's possible to communicate X number of times per day on a consistent basis? Remember, it's not about frequency, it's about consistency.

Because once you can start to predict how often someone will respond, two things happen. First of all, the whole arousal system, and here I'm not saying about sexual arousal, I'm talking about autonomic arousal and kind of anxiety, that system can start to make predictions. Okay, if they contact me at lunch and in the evening or after work, then things are good. and if not, things probably aren't good. You actually can attach that to reality because so much of being anxious is about not really knowing what's going on

and the amount of work that you have to do in your head to try and figure out what's going on. Are they seeing somebody else? Are they not interested? But then the other reason to do that is that if somebody can't communicate about what they're capable of doing consistently in terms of text messaging,

you're kind of dealing with somebody who is, to be fair, is kind of powerless over their own behavior. Right? If somebody, I'm not saying somebody should be able to meet your demand of 10 times a day. I want to be texted 10 times a day

every hour on the hour. That's a little extreme in my book. But if you say it twice a day or three times a day or at least let me know when you can't call back, if they can't control their own behavior, now you know you're dealing with somebody

who's not really a fully formed adult. They really haven't left infancy. And at some level, I'm saying none of us have left infancy because of the circuitry that I'm talking about. But that should be a very simple, straightforward conversation. I don't know if people still have those kind of conversations, but it's not a demand.

It's just saying, what can you do consistently? So I guess if we had to make it very succinct. The question is, just so I can decide if this is something I want to stay in, what can you do consistently? And if they can't answer you, you're dealing with someone who needs to evolve their neural circuitry a little bit more. But at least you have your answer, which you're saying is like,

the answer is not to play games with them and be like, I'm going to fuck with you back, because it will backfire. hard. And I think the texting is a great example, but there's still so much, like, larger than that. I mean, there's somebody that, like, doesn't want to spend as much time with you as you want to spend with them. Doesn't want to meet your family, doesn't meet your friends. Doesn't want to introduce you to their family, their friends. I mean, I feel like, there's so many more parts of it. I mean, I think someone could even be like, yeah, I'll text you more. I'll respond you

quicker. But they're not showing up for you, right? Direct requests are really powerful in relationship, right? Direct requests, but also direct requests that put the power in the person who is being requested something of to define what they can do consistently. You know, when you do that, you're really asking, like, how much of a commitment are you really willing to make? So you're not saying, I need to be contacted every day. You're just saying, what's your level of consistency that you can give to this? That's all you're asking. And then you have some sort of discussion. Then you, I don't know, I don't like the words, hold them to it. You just watch. It's just like, be a scientist and just watch. Now, in terms of

fuck around and find out. That's the scientific method. So the context of, you know, are they who introduces who to family and a friends, et cetera. There's so much nuance around that. Oh, 100%. I would just saying like there's so much nuance if people have kids and, you know, and do that I want to explore. So there's so much noise.

No, I'm not trying to erase what you're saying. But just to say that I don't think there will ever be a good book or rule book for any of that because it varies so much. Now, you did mention something that cute me to this notion of introversion, extroversion. One of the biggest mistakes that everybody makes is thinking that introverts want to be alone a lot more and extroverts want to be out and communicating with people a lot more. The data on this say that introverts like and love social connection, but that they get a kind of higher amplitude dopamine release from less social connection and they're good. Right? They need to,

in the analogy, they need to eat less in order to feel sated, right? They just don't need as much of it. Also, because it's high amplitude, it tends to feel intense to them. They need more time to recover from that. So somebody might really like social engagement, but they also need a lot more time to recover from an hour out at a bar or restaurant, whereas somebody else kind of feels like they could stay out all night. It's never enough. I so set up the extremes.

And I know people like this. I mean, I have a former relationship. And, you know, she was a night owl and like to party. And I'm, I wake up early and I like to go to bed early. but it was also an introversion, extroversion thing. I'm pretty introverted. Spent a lot of time alone,

but I love social contact. It's just that I feel filled up by social contact pretty quickly. Uh-huh. I like you brought up texting because I feel like the volume of texting doesn't necessarily mean to me connection at all. Like, for example, recently I had somebody

who I was seeing and we texted all day every day and I kept saying to Ashley, it feels very service level. And it's nice. It's a nice person to talk to, but I didn't feel any attachment to this person because the volume of communication. It was the quality of communication

that felt lacking. And I don't think he's a wonderful person. I just don't think it was like a match. But volume of texting, at least for me, doesn't equate to any type of attachment. It's, you know, what is, what do we say when we talk? What does the quality time together feel like? What does the sex feel like? Things like that. Yeah. I mean, I'm a, like, I'm texting, we all know my text, saw. We did an episode about it a couple weeks ago. I mean, I'd love to go back and forth at a banter. But I'm also like a quality time, love language person. Like, it's about like the quality time, the time that we're spending together. That's like what is important to move. me. And I think that, I mean, again, it can, it can span all genders, but men just sometimes

just want to text a little bit less. Maybe we just did a whole episode on this. But for me, it's like, are you showing up? Can I rely on you? You know, are you going to just bail on our plans? That's the kind of thing. And that's where I feel like we hear a lot of just because we talk to women more of just like that fear that they're just not going to like show up. Yeah. And it feels that's like an avoidant trait. That the male won't show up. Or yeah, whoever, whoever they're dating. I mean, I think that, you know, The other person. The other person, like, that's an avoidant trait.

A secure person makes plans and shows up. Okay, well, I'm about to say something pretty controversial, but every self-respecting psychoanalysts would agree and every biologist would agree, which is that ultimately the negotiation in romantic relationships that happens early on to define what the attachment dynamic will be is a negotiation of power. Okay. And here I'm not referring to physical power. I'm referring to emotional power.

Yeah. Who is responding to who? Uh-huh. Okay. You hear all these, frankly, irrelevant rules and ideas out there like, oh, you know, somebody sends a really loving or, you know, risque photo or text, you know, what's the latency of response that's allowed? Especially if that person you know is on social media because they have, you know they're online.

This is the problem. Their phones in their hand. Their phones in their hand or this kind of thing. What is the expectation, right? It's almost like latency to respond has become. more than, you know, how long it takes to respond has become more important than how somebody responds. Yeah. Right. You know, the fact that somebody responds one way versus another seems to have fallen to second tier importance behind how quickly they respond. I would encourage people

to rethink that. There are some very deliberate, very thoughtful people that want to craft a response that is appropriate for whatever it is the text that they received, right? But this notion of power is important because ultimately, remember the infant child relationship, right? One person really does have the power there. And in that dynamic, the infants will sometimes do things, protest behaviors, and acting out in order to recover some of the power. But really what it comes down to is that in any given moment, one person really does have the ability to dramatically and deeply hurt the other person. Even in two secure people are in a relationship, there's still a power dynamic? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And there are theories that one person holds more of the power, one leads, one follows. I think that that kind of idea is melting away a bit in the field of psychology. But, you know, and this cuts across homosexual and heterosexual relationships. Now, this doesn't mean that one person leads and the other person follows everything. It just means within the domain of who's requesting more attention, love, affection, and responsivity from the other tends to be pretty till. And fixed? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. You're saying that person loses the power dynamic. I wouldn't say wins or loses. I would say a really winning dynamic could be where one person predictably

always responds in a particular way at a particular frequency on average, right? I mean it would be, for instance, if somebody communicates with their partner only once a day, I don't know that happens anymore, but once a day and it did not happen, that could be devastating to somebody. They might

worry that the person is dead, right? Forget the feeling dropped. They might worry that the person is dead. And, you know, God forbid, they might be. But when people are in early phases of relationship, a lot of this kind of prisoner's dilemma like, you know, chess game that people are playing is really one of who is going to own the power in this relationship. And I think where people go badly astray is when they start deviating from the way they want to be in the later relationship in order to try and secure some false sense of security. And so they'll do things like try and evoke jealousy or turn off their phone or not respond in order to make sure that they aren't the vulnerable one, right? But no relationship of any kind progresses without figuring out what

the power dynamic is going to be. There will almost always be one leader, one follower around certain types of things, right? Yeah. There's no question. And there's some, let's say two very securely attached people. What would we say that is? We can define that. It's not that one doesn't lead and one doesn't follow. That's not how we define that. We define that as it's very predictable what one and the other person will do and how they will respond. One person isn't saying, hey, listen, I'll respond X number of times per day in the following way. And the other person is like, okay, it's not my preference, but that's what I'll take. It's a case where both people are happy with the frequency of communication.

Both people are happy. But it still could be that one person is pinging the other person for responses more often. There is always a power dynamic in relationships. And it can be healthy. I want to emphasize, it can be healthy. It does not have to be unhealthy.

When people hear the word power, it starts to really throw people off. But the reason this, again, the reason this has to be true is that it all harkens back to that early circuitry. The circuitry in the infant parent attachment or caregiver attachment

is not symmetric. The caregiver is called the caregiver for a reason. They hold the power to create or destroy the sense of attachment. And that same circuitry, that skewed, asymmetric, lopsided circuitry, is what we bring to relationship. So you will know if you have the power if you feel like you're the parent or the child. Well, remember, this all... I'm half kidding that.

Well, no, I appreciate that you say it that way, because remember, the circuitry is established during a pre-sexual phase of development. None of it is about sexual development at that point, right? It's about attachment. Right. It's weird and kind of eerie for us to think about romantic attachment in the context of childhood attachment. But once you understand that it was all laid down in this early phase of development and that

really what we're looking for is consistency. It's not about, oh, 10 times per day, 20 times. I realize I've repeated that a number of times. But I hope that that will help people understand two things. One is that the request that one can make of somebody else, if it's one of consistency, asking what can you do consistently in this? Like, what can I rely on you to do? And then the person says, you know what?

Like, I'm at the stage of life now. I got a lot of things going on or I'm working a ton or whatever. Once a week and I don't know what day it's going to be. Okay. So consistently inconsistent is what you can expect for mine. I think that's a very clear statement. I'm not validating that. And other people will be like every.

As long as you have the information. And you described it a different way than I would describe it. I mean, the best relationships in my life, like where I fall in so deeply in love, it feels easy is that's how I've always described. I think the word you sub out is predictable. You know, I know they're going to show up when they say they are. I know they're going to make a plan for the next time

to see each other during the current plan. I know that I'm going to hear from them in the morning. Whether or not I'm the first person to text or not, like I know I'm going to hear from them. They're going to respond. So it always feels easy. And I guess predictable is that word to say. Yeah, like it makes me feel safe.

I know what to expect. Yeah. And I think some people get attached more quickly than others. Some people are much more olfactory-driven. I mean, there's a whole set of studies that are kind of fun and interesting about, you know, you offer people the scents of the smells of, you know, 100 T-shirts. They almost always will pick the smell that's most distant from them in terms of the immune system

composition of the person that had that own the other shirt. Mind you in this experiment, there are no people in these shirts. So, you know, there's that kind of, you know, there's that kind of, of thing. You see that in animals and in humans. There's some basic biological drives that for some people are more powerful than others. Some people are just completely intoxicated by the smell or the existence of human pheromones is a little bit controversial. But we know that certain smells can evoke certain basic physiologies. Some people will just fall in love with this, with literally the smell and taste of somebody's breath or their skin or their body odor. A lot of people

love the smell of somebody's body or a lot of people just can't stand it. Some people aren't as sensitive to this kind of thing. Other people are more visual. I am. I always say I don't like dating apps. I want to be at a bar and I want to like smell. Yeah, you want to be able to smell your well, you would be like every other animal in the animal kingdom. And you would be like every human being up until about 100 years ago. What's happened now is that, you know, we are at distance so much that we can't actually smell other people. And this is also, you know, we talk about kind of, you know, physical compatibility can exist on a number of levels. Some of it, of course, is visual, but a lot of it is these primitive circuitries related to smell.

And, you know, I have to just be honest. I mean, the smell and taste systems are linked. A lot of is, you know, how does somebody's breath smell and taste? You know, it's kind of a weird kind of, you know, racy conversation, at least for a biologist. But there are a lot of data on this kind of thing. Have you had anybody's breath that you really love the way they tasted? So I know what comes to my for me. But I am really sensitive to smell.

Like, like, smells you love, you love. Yeah. And it's like, it's, if I were to. smell like a past partner. I mean, it just comes like, it washes over me. I mean, like, especially if it's somebody that I like would miss, it would just like take me out. Like I'm really, really sensitive to smell.

Well, there's a direct route from smell to these deeper, what we call hypothalamic circuits that relate to all the neural systems of arousal, all of them. And they bypass all the need for kind of sophisticated processing, right? This is the reason why you can smell smoke and sense fear. It makes you alert immediately. or smell something putrid and it makes you immediately retract or smell something delicious and immediately makes you lean in.

There are a lot of data on this kind of thing. And some people are less about this than others. But as you mentioned, some people, it's just kind of this overwhelming intoxicating thing. And for some people, they're not as olfactory driven. And, I mean, it could just be the hugest turnoff. I remember this guy, like I thought he was perfect. Back when I lived in Atlanta, we were hanging out. I had a crush on him.

And one day, he was in my car and his breath. I mean, I was like, crush is over. Like, I was like, roll the windows down. Like, what is this? And so I've never thought about him again. I was like, he is halitosis or something. And whatever it is, I don't want any part of it. And that was it.

How did we get here? I don't know. We were talking about attachment and the fact that some people are harder to break free of. Yeah. Because they're, we are attached. We are drawn to them, excuse me, at a deeper biological level. You know, I mean, this is the kind of good on paper versus, you know, But when we're together, it just feels so good kind of thing.

You know, a lot of it is smell. Can we talk about anxious attachment styles? And I mean, we're wired from childhood, but also, you know, we open this conversation saying that you can change. And a lot of it depends on the partner. But if you feel like your baseline is anxious, obviously you're going to want to find someone secure. But in general, you're out in the dating world. You're like, this is hard for me. Like I am extremely anxious attachment person.

And like, what are ways that I remember in Attach, it said to date a bunch of people at once, which I love that. Yeah, I think that that's one approach. Although it's not going to solve, if your goal is one long-term mate, it's not going to solve that problem. That was one thing they said, so you're not all focused on one person. But what do you think? I would like to see all people get better at regulating their own anxiety

so that they can have the clear thinking and behavior. Okay. Okay. How do you do that? Well, there's all sorts of things. You can meditate. you can exercise, you can get good sleep. Definitely try and get good sleep.

That's going to, as we've talked about before. But there are tools I've talked about these on the podcast, and I'm happy to talk about these more. One tool that comes from science, this is not a tool I created is, you know, for instance, the fastest way to calm yourself is to do this pattern of breathing, we call the physiological sigh.

It's two really deep inhales through the nose. In reality, you'll just get one big inhale through the nose and then you'll be able to sneak in another short inhale. So it's, and then, complete exhale of all your air. Now, I'm not saying you should do this on dates. If your date does this, whoever you are, they're anxious. Although I kind of think everyone should start every date this way. Can you see me on a date? If I do that on a date, you have pissed me off so much. Well, or... Take a deep breath. Yeah, it'd be kind of interesting. If ever two people do this on a

date to begin their date, please send me a note. They're actually... I'm just trying to get a good whiff of them. They smell good. I'm trying to smell somebody bit. Okay, so maybe... Okay, this pattern of breathing is the fastest way to calm your nervous system. And so if you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel a feel anxious and you're looking to the outside world like an infant for somebody to calm you down, you are starting off from a back on your heels stance. So in all seriousness, there are very fast ways to calm oneself and to get more clarity about what's happening. Now, incidentally, maybe I'm trying to think of a way to sort of anchor this in people's minds. I mean, there are a lot of reasons that are healthy for being able to reduce your level of autonomic arousal in all kinds of settings that

make you anxious. The ability to do that quickly and using a tool, the physiological size and something I made up, it was discovered in the 30s. We all do it when we get anxious or claustrophobic. Animals do it before they go to sleep. It's the pattern of breathing that you go into anytime you're running out of oxygen. So this isn't like a Huberman hack. This is a biological system in your brain that was created to calm yourself quickly. Why do I say this? Well, there are a lot of reasons why you could be anxious and I hate to put it this way, but I'm not directing this at you, but it could be you. It might be you. It might. It might. not be them, but you'd be smart to find out.

Is it this person's behavior? You know, okay, let's see this scenario. People are out on a date. Do people still go out on dates? You know, I mean, like to restaurants and see, I imagine it's coming back. Yeah, people are on date. And somebody gets up and they take their phone with them.

Somebody might feel a little strange about that. If they take their phone out of their jacket and then go to the bathroom. That's a clear statement, right? They're going to text somebody. Yeah. What are they texting, et cetera, et cetera. Or maybe they're looking at their phone. Or maybe they look at somebody that walks in and you're like, oh, well, who did they look at?

Do they really want to be here? I mean, these are typical scenarios on dates, right? It's not unhealthy. Being able to calm yourself is a great skill because then no longer a question of whether or not the other person is triggering you, et cetera. You can anchor yourself in a place where you can make decisions. Like, yeah, I actually didn't like the fact that this person looked at their phone 10 times in the middle of a conversation.

You might feel that way. So the breathing exercise will sort of bring you back to center? One physiological sigh, you might have to be a little covert about it on a date, will take you down to a level of calmness that will give you far more mental clarity. The first time it works every time because it's an inborn circuit for all of us. And what I'm saying is there are ways to further reinforce your ability to be healthy, to be securely attached. And that has to do with learning how to soothe your own anxiety.

And the two tools that I'm putting out there, which are practical tools, are get your sleep right, 80% of the time, which means sleeping enough, consistently, deeply enough, et cetera. We have a lot of tools for that if people want to know where to access those zero-cost tools based on science. And the other is have tools to relax yourself in the moment so that you're not constantly the infant who's looking for the other being to soothe you. Because I'll tell you, one of the most attractive things in the world is somebody that can self-sooth. I mean, I love that, but I also think there's a world in which you're anxious, that person is avoidant, and it's a total mismatch, and you can't just breathe your way through it. Well, then you might need to clip them.

That's for sure. So I think that that's like- Not clip them, clip them. Yeah, you just- Metaphorically clippling. I think I have to figure out what they are. And some of that, you know, might be like reflection talking to like a stable person or your therapist or whoever. Because I think that those two are so far down the spectrum that it's like, you're like, well,

I'm breathing and I'm sleeping and I'm just, they're an asshole. Right. You know, they're dealing with their own shit. But that's exactly right. If you're breathing and you're sleeping and the person is not behaving in a way that's going to work for you and you say, I would say offer them, if you like them, I would say offer them the potential. I would say, what can you do consistently?

What can you? Not this is what I need you to do consistently, but what can you do consistently? And if that answer comes back and it's not to your satisfaction and you're like, I don't care how much breathing and sleeping I do, that's not going to work. for me? Well, you have your answer. Right. If I can offer like one piece of advice, because I've been in these situations, and of course there's all this, the outsourcing it

to my best friends I can do, but I journal a lot and I just open up a word doc that is not accessible virtually somewhere and I just hammer out every feeling of my body and I feel like once I physically get it out of my body, I do feel a lot better. And I can go back and I can read that and I can say to myself the next day, is this rational?

Is this normal? Is this an overreaction? And I feel that it helps a lot. And if you reread that stuff and you're like, this is valid and this sucks. You know, not every relationship can be, you can't rationalize your way out of it. Some people just are bad for you and you got to go. You got to clip them. I didn't mean kill them. I mean, uh, just me clip it.

Just clip it off. Clip them out. Yeah. No, we know you about. We didn't think you were promoting murder. Clip the relationship. That's a different podcast. There are people who are very excited by anxiety.

There are people who are really, really excited about somebody who's unpredictable or elusive. And generally those relationships don't last that long. It can work, but generally not that long. Some people are downright drawn to fear, right? Yeah. Which is pathologic, if in most cases. So when it feels comfortable, it's sort of like it translates to boring for them. Well, this gets to this issue of this other book, which I do recommend this book Can Love Last. It's a very interesting book because it was the first book, really, came out over 20 years ago, to really understand that the early phase of attachment is really about these dopamine-related circuits.

These ones that give us a ton of arousal and excitement, you don't need sleep. That's the falling in love syndrome, which really is kind of a healthy mental illness that if you're lucky enough to experience this one or several times, it's beautiful. When you're in love, I just wake up at the crack, dawn. I'm like, I need five hours a night.

People start exercising. People see possibility. They actually, you have to be careful because it actually is a bit of a manic state. People start talking about someone that people speak faster. People's entire physical appearance changes in the true pathology of manic bipolar disorder. People who are in their manic phase look amazing. They look amazing.

Not this extreme manic phase, but as they're headed to the peak, people will say, my God, you look amazing. And then when they're down in their crash, the depressed look sets in, et cetera. The same thing is true in love. Now, the dopamine circuitry has rules. These are biological rules. The bigger the peak, the further the fall. And for every peak in dopamine, there will be a crash. Whether or not that peak and dopamine comes from caffeine,

it'll be a little peak and a little crash. If it comes from cocaine, it'll be a bigger peak and a bigger crash. This defines the patterns of addiction. And in love, it's a big peak and a crash. However, the beauty of the circuitry for human attachment is that there's a second mode of attachment, which is this more serotonergic, oxytonergic mode, of love, which is the comfort around what you have. So dopamine can be best understood as a molecule

that makes us feel motivated and in a mode of desire and pursuit. It's the objectification of the other person. It's looking at the other person and you just want to be near them. But they're outside your reach. You don't have them yet. It's not a secure attachment yet or even an attachment. The serotonin system is all about feeling good with what you have. It's the cozy, warm, loving oxytocin system. And once again, these exact same systems were laid down during development.

That same circuitry gets replayed in adult attachment. It's that how much excitement can we have and how much just laying around and watching TV can we have? How much, you know, just being together doing nothing can we have? Those are two modes.

And this book, Ken Love Last, really points to the fact that over time, unless couples make a dedicated effort to spend time apart, truly apart, that dopamine system starts to disappear. That's it. Can't say it enough. Can't say it enough.

Get your own friends, your own hobbies. Get your own house. Well, and not only that, but somebody's smell doesn't have, these studies have been done, their smell no longer is intoxicating your around. Because you're around it all the time. Long-distance relationships are great, because you just get those hats and then they go away.

They're great. They're not so conducive to raising a family often. They can be. I don't want a family, so I love a long-distance relationship. Okay. Is this a more? common thing in your generation. No, we talk about this lot.

I say I don't want to live with somebody. It's like the key to any relationship is like time apart. Have your own life, your own interest, your own, you know. Or there are cultures, for instance, where people don't touch for two weeks out of the month. That sounds a little like Orthodox Jews. Yeah, but guess what? But guess what? In the two weeks where they do, you're so horny.

It's incredibly intense for decades. Very interesting, right? Who is doing this? Well, it does exist in Orthodox Judaism, but other cultures too, where they cover up I'm not saying that that's the way to do this, but I think that we have this model of relationship, especially in this country, that it all starts with this amazing union

that's very dopaminergic and that that can carry people the entire relationship. Now, that probably is true in certain circumstances, but for a lot of people who need that high amplitude dopamine system engaged, it's very simple. Find ways to miss one another. missing somebody is a great feeling. It's like being hungry and eating really good food.

It's so true. How can you ever last if you never miss somebody? You're with them all the time. Girls where I'm always in long-distance relationships. It's amazing. But no, I think it's really fascinating. The thing that really barrels us towards each other so quickly and excitement and, you know, that makes you want to be this person all the time

is the thing that sort of like creates like monotony and makes you not want to be together. Well, so it's really an issue of dependence versus objective. Objectification is a terrible word. It's like power. It sounds horrible. But if you look at it through an academic lens and perspective, it doesn't, it's not as sinister. Objectification is simply a matter, at least in the context of romantic attachments, of desiring somebody else, but you don't depend on that person. Right?

The person that you want, but you don't depend on them. If they leave, it's sort of like, well, that sucks. But, you know, basically your life doesn't depend on them. Your well-being, you're not attached, right? The moment that you move into a dependency and an expectation of that person, well, that's a completely different system, but it tends to be counter. It tends to be anti-objectification. And so what's impressive is when people can maintain physical attraction over time,

emotional attraction over time. And the way to do that is very simple. Make sure you miss each other at least some portion of every month. And that can be something that is actually harder to do. Most people fall into this mode where they don't really want to be apart. because the serotonin part feels really good. It's not like it doesn't feel good, but what ends up happening is that person transforms

not just in your mind, but in your body. Your body starts turning off a lot of the mechanisms of arousal and excitement. And then the conversation somehow now has morphed into, well, is it really about sexual attraction? And how do you do that? And you've got the Esther Porells of the world who are like, well, you have to create these systems of pseudo-gealousy, and I'm not being diminishing of anything that she's done,

She's my hero. She's great. No, she's great. What she's describing is exactly remedies for once this has already gone down a trajectory. I mean, even the name of the book, mating in captivity, it speaks to that serotonergic phase, captivity. But why captivity, right? The question then people ask is, should I even stay in this relationship?

Should I leave, et cetera? And there are certain things about domestic life that require a lot of presence and attention to things that are very different than the initial phase of relationship. So anyway, everyone's circumstances differ, but finding ways to really miss the other person, including deciding that you're not going to communicate by text every five minutes when you are apart can be immensely beneficial for relationships. There's no question about it. I love that. I love that too. And I think it's so important to start those things like before it's too late because I think when you're so high on all the love drugs, you just do want to spend every moment together.

And then it becomes your norm. And then you're like, well, wait, we've never been apart. And now it's going to be weird and it's going to feel like something's wrong in the relationship. Like we just, I mean, no matter what, I think the healthy habits, like, start them early. That's a number one way that I would not want to be with somebody is more if they were in my space all the time. It's my nightmare. It's my nightmare too. And I don't know if we've ever heard that.

I mean, I know, of course, some people have children, they live together, they don't have that option. Right. There's family system. How do I create this? How do I recreate this bar? It's like, maybe you should miss each other a little bit. Maybe it shouldn't be so assumed that seven nights a week we're going to be home together in our sweatpants. like maybe a few nights a week I go out and you see me on my Instagram store having fun

with other people, you know, and you miss me a little bit and you're like, I want to be a part of that. And I don't know if you've ever heard anybody saying that's a great way. They were going crazy during the quarantine. My parents are like this elite couple. They've been married, what, 42 years or whatever? They just have their own, they do their own shit. They travel separately. They take vacations with their friends. People are like, your parents vacation separately. I'm like all the time. And I feel like luckily I was living with them during quarantine so I can mix it up because I just feel like they were like, this is not our life. Every night, watching TV, cooking dinner, staying inside is like, I do feel like I was just glad I was there to provide

some sort of like difference and, you know, take a walk with my mom or go do something with my dad. Like, I think that that is the key to their happiness. They still are such a great couple. They're so in love after all these years. And like, that's, that's why. The point is that these neurochemical systems drive the things that you and your friends are talking about. And if you can understand, hey, I'm in a mode of like, I really, really am craving

this person all the time. But maybe the distance that they're taking from me is actually a way of putting a long arc on the relationship, right? What if he's suddenly in your house all the time hanging out and not doing anything, not hanging out with his friends, not doing anything? Coloring. Coloring? Do you say coloring? Like, Joe? I just, I lived with someone temporarily with coloring a lot when I would come home. Yeah. But it's so true. It's so true. So you're, you know, so it's sort of a question of what are you asking of a relationship? Are you asking it to both excitement and safety, well, that can happen, but that takes a dedicated process. That takes

a process of intentionally taking time apart. Some people will do it by trying to evoke jealousy, but that starts to bring in other neural circuitries that generally that doesn't work out well. The key situation is to understand this thing that we call anxiety and arousal and to understand that attraction and arousal and objectification and all those kinds of the positive version of objectification, I should say, are all versions of properly regulated arousal. And connection and safety and secure attachment, if you think about the infant, let's go back to the infant and mother, well, the baby is calm. It's a lack of heightened arousal. But we know, and this is where it gets really cool, is that we know that children that feel secure

explore more, they are much more willing to enter novel environments, to play with new toys, to explore things more. And so at the end of the day, the goal is always secure attachment. It's not to throw a wrench into the attachment, but it's two people who are deciding to coordinate this kind of attachment anxiety thing that goes on forever. I mean, when you see couples that, they say, you know, we were still totally crazy about one another

after years and years and years, maybe they got lucky at a biological level, but chances are they either know how to regulate that internally or they have systems in order to make sure that that continues to oscillate. And have their own life. 100%. And I just love what you said so much about having a long arc.

Like maybe you don't have to see this person every day. Like maybe you're not seeing the frequency you would like, but it is stable and consistent. And you can reframe it as like maybe we're setting ourselves up for a really long-term successful relationship as opposed to going too hard, too hard, too much, too fast, too hard, too soon, all the things. Yeah, we see people get really hung up on, you know, I need to see somebody every night of the week. what does mean if I don't.

Like kind of wearing it out. Yeah. I need them to be my social life and all of those things. It's nice to, I mean, we can't say it enough. Go have a life of your own, you know? Yeah. And I think when you say wearing it out, dopamine is a limited but renewable resource. This is what's really important.

It's not infinite. We know this because, let's use a really dark example, but if people, for instance, take methamphetamine, they're going to get a huge release of dopamine, but they will never actually get back to that dopamine peak again. This is why they continue to use. the drug. The dopamine is a molecule. It doesn't care if it's methamphetamine or the new person that you met on an app or the new person that you met in your DMs. It doesn't matter. Dopamine is the molecule of pursuit and desire. There's a wonderful book about this. Two books actually. One is

Dopamine Nation by my colleague Onalemke. It's more about addiction, drug addiction, but the book, The Molecule of More is an incredible book about this and talks a lot about how the desire around a new relationship can drive so much almost kind of crazy behavior in ourselves. I'm not pointing my fingers anyway. We're kind of nuts in a new relationship. And then we people want some components of that going forward. And they'll do all sorts of things, take vacations or reset. Listen, every situation is different. I think where things have gotten complicated nowadays is that here we're talking about one-to-one relationships where even if there's time apart, there's the confidence that the person isn't going to leave and go be with someone else.

And that's very, you know, you're all these stereotypes about dating in New York. How well, like everyone's trying to optimize. I don't know if that's still true or not. But that people are generally surveying a number of different options. I don't know if that's true. I've not lived in New York. It absolutely feels like that. And so that's what the fear is that you're like, well, they're not spending time

with me. They're out with a different girl every night or different person. But presumably, women are doing that too. I have to assume. There's not enough guys for us. Is the ratio in the city is skewed? I see. We have books we can recommend on the dates on that.

But no, I mean. But it's a valid concern, right? Because we were talking about power dynamics, and then when there's a number skew, when you know, it's sort of like the, I'm just imagining I have a friend and he went to essentially in all women's college. There were like eight guys there. Okay, well, the numbers are strongly skewed.

He dated it a lot. That's on the book. John Berger has written two books about it in which he uses college as a large example. colleges where there's more women and more men and the way that it literally gives the power to the sex that's less prevalent. Yeah. I think that to some extent that that's true everywhere and probably always has been small villages and historically. So that's where this gets complicated. And I think that's where clear communication is really great. Now, of course, people, and I'm not the person to talk about this because it's not my expertise, but there's, for instance, David Buss at the, is

evolutionary psychologist at University of Texas. Austin. There's a book that he has, it's really terrific book called When Men or Why Men Behaved Badly. He's written a lot about deception and lying in human relationships. Fascinating. He'd be a great guest for you guys. We love all the recommendations.

Yeah, so deception and lying is a big part of non-early committed relationship. I'm not endorsing it, but people do it, right? It happens, let's say that it happens. And so a lot of what we've been talking about up until now is also, it's kind of like being a good sign. scientist, you know, how do you collect really good data on somebody? It's not trivial, right? You don't really know what's driving somebody's behavior. And so the best way, any good scientists, I think we are

all intuitively good scientists, how do you come to clear conclusions? Increase sample size. I don't mean date more people. I mean get more data, right? If somebody behaves the same way for a year, it's very different than they behave some way for a weekend. I'm just stating the obvious. So the goal of collecting really good data on somebody and handing over this really, frankly, really precious thing of attachment. We're talking about as a circuitry that you really are placing a lot into somebody else's hands is one of, I would argue, not placing it into somebody else's hands by controlling your own levels of anxiety until you have enough data that you can come to a really

clear conclusion. And that requires one thing. It requires knowing how to regulate your own internal levels of calm. There is no friend, no source, no app, no spyware that will allow you to get really good data on somebody from the outset, unless, of course, you Google them, and it turns out they're a sociopath or something like that. Yeah, right.

This is wonderful and a while of information. Thank you for all the recommendations, also, other books, but I'm sure people would love to find you and your podcast and your website and everything. So tell everybody where they can find. Your Instagram is fantastic as well. Thanks. So tell everybody where they can find you.

Yeah, so it's Huberman Lab is the podcast, and that's on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the standard of places. And it's also Huberman Lab on Instagram. there I teach neuroscience tools that are related to the podcast, but somewhat distinct from the podcast. And then we're on Twitter as well, if people are in the Twitter sphere. But I want to say thanks for having me on. This was definitely the most challenging podcast I've ever been on. What? Wait, because we just wouldn't stop making jokes. No, no, not for that reason. You were, you were very respectful. You were very respectful. But because these are high level, at some level, the biology

and the psychology is pretty basic, but the circumstances are so varied, right? There's so much nuanced every circumstance. So I appreciate it because it forced me to try and come up with some, you know, consistent themes. But I've run through them in my mind a few times now just to make sure that they meet the requirements of, they're grounded in scientific data.

They're certainly not going to explain every circumstance. Right. But hard questions, and I appreciate that. That's what I live for. You did great. That's what I live for. So thank you. But thanks for it.

Thanks for, appreciate it. We loved having you and you guys can find us, of course, at Girls Gotta Eat Podcast.com. We are Girls Got to Eat Podcast on Instagram. I am Ash Hess on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Raina is Raina.com. Greenberg, Girls underscore Got to Eat on Twitter. And we'll see you next week. All right, guys.

Have a good week. Bye.