HealthyGamerGG - Dr.K Reacts To Collargate

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Dr. K takes a grounded, psychological look at “Collargate,” the viral controversy surrounding Hasan Piker and his dog. Rather than judging individuals, he unpacks what the internet’s reaction reveals about collective psychology, why outrage spreads, how mentalization fails, and how online radicalization erodes empathy. The episode becomes less about one streamer and more about the state of digital discourse itself. Dr. K explores the neuroscience of emotional triggers, the human obsession with novelty and hypocrisy, and how resentment and projection fuel mob dynamics online. Topics include: Why internet outrage cycles (like “Collargate”) dominate attention and emotion How emotional reactivity overrides critical thinking and creates echo chambers The concept of mentalization—understanding others’ motives before judging How failure of dialogue and empathy drives polarization and radicalization The neuroscience of memes, emotional engagement, and belief formation Projection, resentment, and the need to “see justice” when power feels unaccountable The dangers of black-and-white thinking, selection bias, and narrative fixation Dr. K’s reflections on empathy, dialogue, and how creators can respond to public backlash This episode blends cultural commentary with deep psychological insight which turns a Twitch controversy into a lesson on human cognition, empathy, and the modern attention economy. HG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3Szt HG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Alo Kanoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. Welcome to another Healthy Gamer Gigi stream. My name is Dr. Allo Kanoja.

Just a reminder that although I'm a psychiatrist, nothing we discussed on stream today is intended to be taken as medical advice. you think is for educational or entertainment purposes only, especially that, that bomb that I just dropped right there. Do you guys like that? Was that good for you? Did you enjoy yourselves? So if you all have, but seriously, this is for educational or entertainment purposes only. If you all have a medical concern or question, please go see a licensed professional. And if you all, yeah, so this is not medical advice, y'all. This is just, we're just going to be talking about stuff related to but we are not dispensing medical advice here.

If you'll need medical advice, go see a doctor, which I'm a huge fan of. I'm a huge fan of people who need help seeing doctors. Love doing that work as a doctor. I think it's great. Strongly recommend it. Y'all should absolutely do that. So, listen, y'all, we're going to talk about a couple things today. First thing we're going to talk about is the psychology of Collargate.

Now, I'll explain a little bit what this is. I'm not like, I notice that the title is reacting to. I don't think that's really the right word. So I'm going to be clear about what I mean by this. So I think Collargate is a great example of a lot of very interesting psychological dynamics that are at play in the world today. And I'm going to talk about Collargate from the perspective of those psychological dynamics, not the individuals involved or anything like that.

it's going to be like, this is what, and then I'll talk a little bit more about why I decided to do this, but it's not about like demonizing Hassan or defending Hassan or anything like that. It's not about the specifics of Collargate. It's about, don't you guys think it's weird that this one thing happened? And then for the last two weeks, this is the only thing that anyone on LSF is talking about. Like, what on earth is happening on the internet and in our lives where this is happening? That's what we're going to talk about. Second thing, we've got two lectures prepared that I'm super excited about.

One of them, I'm thrilled. This is going to be awesome. One of them is about nighttime anxiety. So I don't know if you all have ever seen this meme, but during the day, our anxiety is down here. And then we try to go to sleep. It like pools up into our brain. Beautiful, beautiful meme. So we're going to be talking about that nighttime anxiety.

and then we're going to talk about how to love the grind. Okay? What is LSF? Nice. Okay. Love it. Okay. So let's talk about Collargate for a second.

Okay? So some time ago, I don't know if you guys have been following. There's a creator named Hassan who had this video where he, oh, okay, there's this creator name of son. And he had this video, this I think was the original thing that kind of started Collargate, where he was, I believe he was streaming. Okay, so be a little bit careful. I don't know how this audio is yet, so let me just make sure.

Of all of America's much more consequential. So there's this clip. Violence, okay? It's the same reason as to why America, Kaya, please just fucking go, just stop. Right, so this is the clip that started Collargate. So Asan's streaming, he gets frustrated with his dog, apparently touches a button.

his dog yelps and goes back to the bed or whatever. And the first thing that I want you all to notice is that this has 78,000 upvotes. So like what on earth is going on here? So today what I want to talk about, I want to talk about Collargate, not in the details. And let me just like disabuse y'all of some notions from the get-go. So the first thing is that this is not going to be like an anti-Hassan kind of thing. This is not going to be a defending Hassan kind of thing. This is about understanding what is.

is happening to us on the internet. And the reason that I wanna talk about this, so generally speaking, like, we have this ethos here at Healthy Gamer that we talk to people, we don't talk about people, so this is not gonna be about Hassan and whether he's guilty or whether he's a narcissist or whether it's real.

I'm not an investigative journalist. It's not my place to try to determine truth of something. What I wanna focus on today is why this blows up. and the way in which it blows up. Because, and this is what's kind of wild, I think I'm really starting to believe that the most dangerous thing on the planet is the psychological dynamics

that we see happening in Collargate. The reason I want to talk about Collargate is not because I'm invested in shitting on Hassan or supporting us on or anything like that. I have nothing against the guy. I've had one interaction with him. I think he's a decent dude. I think he's got a mission in life.

He's doing the best that he knows how to do, which is what I think about most human beings. I think most human beings are good people with flaws. For the record, I have undoubtedly better relationships with many of the people who are Asan's critics. So, like, you know, I've had a chance to hang out with people like Asmond Gold. I've been on his podcast. We've collabed before.

People like XQC, we've had several conversations. We'll sometimes hang out at streaming events. People like Ludwig or whatever. Like I have a more positive relationship with them. than I do with Hassan. That's a disclaimer that I'm tossing out from the get-go about my biases, but I've got nothing against the dude. I've met Hassan once. It was an event with the Surgeon General. It seemed like a totally cool guy. I respect the work that he does, like nothing against the dude, okay? This is not about determining whether he's good or bad. It's not about

analyzing, psychoanalyzing him or anything like that. What I want to talk about today is what happens on the internet. And we're going to be talking about mentalization. We're going to be talking about online radicalization, and we're going to be talking about a host of psychological things, including displacement, projection, et cetera. So if y'all are here looking for some drama farming kind of stuff, I think basically the drama is over. I know it sounds weird. Oh my God, why would you say that? I have reasons, and we can get into those if y'all want. I think basically Collar Gates done, I would hope. And so that's why I want to talk. I didn't want to talk about, I don't want to open my mouth and get embroiled in this stuff while it was live, but I think it's a really, really great example of something that is really dangerous.

So there's a failure of mentalization, which we'll talk about what that is. There's a profound online radicalization. And I think Collargate is also a really good example of how people have stopped talking to each other. So if we look at the fundamental structure of Collargate, what is it? It's some clip gets shown, right? A lot of people make judgments based on their... clip. This is a 37 second clip that causes this explosion. There's no context. There's unclear levels of critical thinking. And then what happens is everyone starts reacting to it, right? So we've

got the original Hassan gate and then like, oh, sorry, collar gate. And then we've got clips like this one. Okay? Right? So then we have people like analyzing this like people like XQC with that and of zapping which was they moved away from the initial

conversation which was that like she didn't even have that collar on to begin with she didn't have it then what the fuck is it wearing then? Okay then I saw yeah I got the only way to get out of this new lie which is honestly this darned this

room find this collar then in the room you're gonna have to show right so there's all this business about the collar Guys, I've tried to be charitable with my tics. I've tried to look at... There's all this business about the collar. And you've got to show this... This...

Um, not color, collar, color that doesn't exist thing, I guess. Okay? There's all this stuff about the collar. And then, like, people are doing... I don't know what this one is. Oh, yeah. And then there's, like, clips like this one, okay? Out of it.

Where then people are, like, defending Hassan. Like, it's only a vibrate. Like, there's a setting for vibrate, and there's a setting for shock. No, no, no, there's no, there's no shock. Like the electric prongs are taken out of it. But here's my thing, right? Like, it's only a vibrates. Like, there's a setting for vibrate and there's a setting for shock.

True. That's a fact. That's a fact. So there's only the, like, since the prongs are in it, they'll only vibrate. Right. So whether is there a caller, is there a collar or the setting, or the prongs are moved, or they not removed? So there's, like, a lot of people, like, talking across each other. And the reason that I'm talking about this is because this is not the only place this is happening. If we look at the world we live in, the amount of people talking across,

each other is increasing exponentially. And I'm really starting to believe that that is one of the core reasons why we are seeing so much strife and conflict in the world. So if you look at like politics, we don't have places where people sit down and actually have a conversation. Even in politics, we have these debates where it's like, you get three minutes with a 90 second rebuttal and three minutes with a 90 second rebuttal. We have all kinds of people who are no longer talking to each other, right? They're talking to their base. I'm talking to my base over here. You're talking to your base over there. And we're just talking across each other. And so it's sort of like there's no direct like dialogue. And so we've got like, you know, you can look at things like Gaza and

stuff like that. I'm not an expert in it by any means. And maybe it's a can of worms just to even mention it, but like, I think one of the things that I also saw with like this whole Ethan Klein-Hasson thing, right, is like they fucking make videos about each other. I don't know if they just don't sit down and have a conversation. Maybe they did, you know, and we'll talk about ignorance in a second. So I'm really ignorant. There's another huge problem. No one says I don't know anymore, right? Like, no one's like, I'm not sure what happened. I don't really know what's going on. What happens on the internet, and this is important to understand. So when we see clips on the internet, These clips activate our emotions.

And when our emotions get activated, whatever thoughts get produced by our brain, we believe are true. Okay. So there's this kind of, you know, clip of, oh my God, where is this? Right. So I want to show you all something because this is actually super scary. So then we've got these kind of memes of like Hassan being fucking Raiden and like shocking Ludwig and. Hassan, this is a cutie holding this, but there's one of like, you know, Hassan, like having Ludwig on a leash and things like that. So I want y'all to think for a moment.

And I'm curious what y'all think. When you see a meme like this, what do you think happens in your brain? What do you think is the effect of this in your brain? From a neuroscience standpoint, okay? This is not like, do you guys like it or not? This is like what is happening in your brain. So, okay, so this is what's really scary, right? Everyone's like, lull.

Fair enough. I enjoy a good meme. Hey, all, if you're interested in applying some of the principles that we share to actually create change in your life, check out Dr. K's guide to mental health. And so we start by understanding what literally is meditation. How does experience shape us as human beings? How do we strengthen the mind itself as an organ? And so by understanding our mind, we understand a very, very simple tool, a crucial tool that we have to learn how to use if we want to build the life that we're. we want to. So check out the link in the bio and start your journey today. Here's the crazy thing.

When you get emotionally engaged with something, either you start to believe it more or you believe it less. There's no in between. So like when people see these kinds of memes, it literally shapes your thinking. And this is, there's just a ton of science behind this, that the more emotional we get, it doesn't matter what kind of emotion, right? So if you sort of think about like, whether you believe someone, I want you all to say, like, imagine for a moment that I'm like, hi, my name is blah, blah, blah, and I swear I didn't do anything and I'm innocent. And then if you listen to that person, right, like, you're like, oh, yeah, I don't know if I believe that person.

A really great example of this is like Johnny Depp in his Amber Heard trial. If you guys watch clips of Johnny Depp and he's like, you know, he's like hilarious on the stand. And if you think about the psychological impact that that has on your brain, If someone is funny and entertaining, you are more likely to believe them. That's like a fact, yo. Like a fact. So I think we do not realize that when we watch things like this, this actually shapes our thinking, whether you realize it or not.

And this is what's really insane. So I'm going to ask you all a question that's really hard to answer, which is when you believe something about Collargate, what is that based on? right and we think it's based on evidence but there's a really really good chance that it's based on emotion and i'm not saying that there isn't evidence that is supportive or not supportive we'll kind of get to that in a second okay but like i want you all to really really understand this that the thoughts that your mind produces are not like super logical necessarily like you have to work really hard to have like a logical thought and this is what we see on the internet we know there are tons of studies on online radicalization, which is the more time, it doesn't matter, the more time you spend

in a particular bubble, the more your thoughts will be shaped in that bubble. I've had patience, it's fucking terrifying. So I had one one friend of mine, not a patient, whose wife started going down this like Instagram girl power feminist, like toxic femininity, like misandry, like rabbit hole. and then like their marriage completely fell apart. I've also had friends who's, patients usually actually, not friends, who's like husbands or boyfriends will start to go down the toxic manosphere rabbit hole.

Right? And we can even look at like Israel and Palestine is a really good example of like people like Ethan and Hassan used to be friends. I don't know what the nature of their relationship is. Maybe they weren't friends. I don't really know. I have this presumption that they were friends.

And then as they get radicalized by these two communities, maybe it's not radicalized. Maybe one is right. Maybe one is wrong. My point is that they used to be here and now they're here, right? I think that's a pretty fair factual statement. The reasons for that I can't really comment on. My point is we're seeing this online radicalization. So as we talk across each other, as we stay in our insular communities, as there's a lack of

dialogue, we're seeing in the political space where like, you know, here in the United States, people don't answer questions anymore. This has been going on for a long time. I know everyone loves to shit on Trump about how he's doing this and he's doing this. Like we stopped answering questions. Politicians stopped answering questions in the United States a very long time ago. Right? So we don't talk to each other.

And as we don't talk to each other, as we don't really sit and listen to each other, as we consume this online content, we get radicalized into two areas. And then it's like, then we get to the stands. and the aggressors. Right? So now it's like, now that the drama is on, right? Drama's on now.

Like, let's go. Like, we have all these people. Like, there's this loner box video where, actually, we'll talk about that in a second. So here's what we're going to do. Now I'm going to share with y'all. Now we're going to talk about mentalization. Okay?

So first step is like online radicalization is happening. Now we're going to talk about mentalization. Okay. So this is going to be really challenging. Okay? It's going to be so fucking simple, but it's going to be really challenging. Okay? Now, here's the interesting thing. When I make this video, at the end of this video, there's a really, really, really good chance. Actually, not even at the end. Already, there's a good chance that if you're a pro-Hassan person, you dislike what I'm saying. If you're an anti-Hassan person,

you dislike what I'm saying. By the end of this video, there's a really, really good chance that people on both sides of the conflict will really, really dislike me. Okay? And we're going to understand why. I'm going to explain why right now because I'm not saying that he's good or he's bad or anything like that. I'm not. And yet both people will dislike me. And we're going to understand why right here and right now. Let's say you're Hassan. And let's say for a moment that you are not abusive to your dog. Let's just assume this for a moment. Okay. So Hassan loves Kaya, which is not mutually exclusive with abuse, by the way, which we can talk about if you all want to. but is kind to dog does not use shock caller.

Let's just assume for a moment that this is true. Now, the first thing that I want you all to do is notice your reaction to this. So here's what I've learned. Here at Healthy Gamer, we've worked with over 500 creators, I'm a creator myself, and one of the craziest things that we encounter time and time and time again is like once the internet starts to believe something,

first of all, how little information they have. Right? And let's understand like why this happens. So a week ago, okay, a week ago, if I upload a clip of Hassan being nice to his dog, what do you all think happens to that clip? Right. So if I upload a positive heartfelt clip of Hassan, chilling with his dog, having fun with his dog,

what do you all think happens? This gets fucking downvoted through the roof. Okay? Now, let's understand why. So what does the internet love more than anything else? This is a separate point. The first thing that the internet loves is a delta, is a change. So why is Collargate such a big deal?

It's because Hassan is not known as an animal abuser, right? So Hassan's like platform is about minorities. It's about supporting the people who are like, you know, he's like a leftist. So he's like, you know, people, we got to like look out for the underdogs and we got to take care of everybody. And like the people in power, the bad guys. I may be misrepresenting it. I apologize if I am. I'm trying to just summarize and move on because I'm not so interested in the platform.

But what the internet loves more than anything else is a delta. So anytime you have someone who's perceived as good. who does something bad, the internet is going to love it. And anytime you have someone who's bad, who does something good, the internet is going to pay attention. Right? And that's just the way that our brain works. We like novelty.

And any kind of change is important. So I'm going to show you all a paper real quick. The Effective Adaptation on Differential Brightness Discrimination. This paper is great. It's from 1938, y'all. Journal of Physiology. Like back when there was just a journal of Physiology. Not like cardiac physiology, not like kidney physiology.

Like, okay, basically this paper talks about how human beings are more sensitive to changes. So like basically this paper is looking at the eye, okay? And it basically says, like, look, when the eye is used to seeing darkness and it sees light, it like notices a lot more. So there's this really interesting principle in human beings where, like, basically if you, if there's some kind of change, that's something we're really sensitive to. So if I'm in a relationship with someone and they suddenly stop responding to my texts, I'm going to be hypersensitive to that. If like there's a very, very loud room where like everyone's like laughing and like hanging out and whatever and suddenly things go silent, I'm very sensitive to that. So human beings are our brains are wired to be sensitive to change. Okay, but let's get back to this other Hassan thing. So here's the sequence, okay? So let's assume for a moment that Hassan does not use a shock caller, that he uses a vibrating collar,

that he loves his dog, okay? That there, he treats his dog well. Let's assume that this is true. Now, he says his story is it's not a shock collar, it's a vibrating collar, it's part of her training, etc., etc., etc. Now, what happens is that there's two groups, one that believes this and one that disbelieves this. Now, once you form a judgment, this is the really scary thing. So then everyone gets upset about this clip, not this clip, right?

So this is, everyone gets upset about this clip, and people form opinions. And then what happens is, let's look at things. like, you know, there's this clip. So now, like, now we're in an interesting situation, because if you're close to Hassan and you know the guy and you know that, like, this is true, right? Like, I've seen Hassan, I'm not just basing things on a 37 second clip from the internet. I've known this guy for years. He's a friend of mine. I see the way that he treats Kaya. People like Ray showed up and they're like, this is the most loved dog in the world, right? And so they're saying things like this. So then, like, then what happens?

happens is like his friends are like, yo, this isn't true. Right? Like people like defend him. And it's not even clear. Like I don't think that they're necessarily like defending him. I think they're just saying, hey, people on the internet who watched a 37 second clip. We know this guy. we've spent hours, days with him and his dogs. He is not like this. This is a poor representation. Now, here's the really important thing. Don't worry, we'll get to all the loner box videos and all that kind of stuff.

I'm not worried about truth at the moment. What we're talking about right now is mentalization. Okay? We're talking about mentalization. So let's define what is mentalization. So here's the key thing that we need to learn. So when a human being does something, there are reasons they do something.

There are psychological drivers. There are emotional drivers that lead to the behavior. So mentalization is the process of understanding when a human being does something. What are the psychological drivers that are actually driving them? And then even within ourselves, when I do this thing, why do I do this thing? right what is psychologically driving me to engage in this behavior this is something that we become so fucking decrepit at like we suck at this and i'll give you all an illustrative example okay so let's say i'm someone who has a very high level of insecurity i'm somewhat narcissistic

and i'm getting married and then my my bf who i haven't seen in two years shows up a month before the wedding for her bridesmaid fitting and i've noticed Oh crap, she has lost so much weight and she looks so great. And in the meantime, I've been in a steady relationship for the last five years. I've let myself go a little bit. A few years ago when we were in college, she used to be a little bit overweight and I was like a regular weight and now she's really kind of gotten her shit together and like I've kind of let myself go and then I feel bad. Right? Our positions have reversed. And so if I'm not careful, what I will do is I'll say, oh my God, she lost weight to make me look bad.

And then I start coming up with all of these excuses for her to no longer be a bridesmaid. But if I do not have insight into these driving factors, like it doesn't make sense, right? So, and this is where there's a failure of mentalization because this person in this situation, I don't think for a moment about why would this person lose weight. I don't consider that they have all kinds of reasons outside of what my mind automatically produces. That there are actions and then there are reasons for those actions. But my mind produces some hypothesis like, oh, she's trying to make me look bad, which, by the way, is emotional.

Remember that, right? But there are all kinds of reasons why people could be doing this. And what I see in Collargate is a whole scale failure. of mentalization, okay? And we're going to explain that. I'm going to walk y'all through it, okay? So let's go back here. Now, yo, this isn't true, friends of Hassan, right?

They say this. Now, here's the scary thing. When we have these clips of people saying this, this is what's crazy. They're the people who believe Hassan who are like, yes, right? They look at this, and based on their mentalization, they sort of accept this.

And then we have the people who are the disbelievers. Okay? And the disbelievers look at this. In this very simple action, they don't think like, oh, these people actually have spent thousands of hours with Hassan and Kaya. Maybe they know more than we do. Right? That's not what they think.

What do they think, chat? Do you see how one action gets interpreted by two groups of people in a completely different way, right? Because these people are, they're just like, hey, like, this is not who he is. Right? And this is where we got to talk about something for a second. And if it sounds like I'm defending Hassan, I'm really not. Right. We're going to get to like all the people who criticize him and stuff in a second. But I just want y'all to know, like, so there is a perspective where it's like, okay, like I'm not abusive to my dog. But then let's think about Hassan's perspective. Let's just imagine for a fucking second that he is not abusive to him.

his dog. What is he supposed to do? Okay. So then we get to these clips of, so this is like, I think this is Loner Box. We actually match the ET 300 mini educator, half-mile remote e-collar, which does have shock prongs. It seems to match in shape. Right. So then a day later, Hassan shows the collar. And he's like, look, here's the collar that I used. Of the charging port and the texture of the. Okay. And then Lonerbox shows up and he's like, look, this looks like this model. He examines it and he's like, basically, this is a shot caller. Okay?

So this is what Lonerbach says. Now, remember, we're trying to mentalize here. So we're trying to put ourselves in Hassan's shoes and we're assuming because we don't really know, right? We weren't there. We don't know. If you think this is sufficient evidence to crack the case, that's totally fine. I'm not commenting on that.

But my point is that like, if you're Hassan and you're not using a shock collar, what are you supposed to do, right? Like, what action can you take? And this is what we've learned working with so many streamers, is that like when you get railroaded, like there's really not much you can do because people are, even some of this stuff where people are like, okay, you know,

people are coming out and quote unquote defending you, but someone saying, hey, this guy didn't do this gets interpreted as like, oh my God. This guy is like, he's like bullying all these people into defending him. That could be true. I'm not saying it isn't. But I'm not saying it is. Do you all see what I'm kind of, like, you'll see what I'm kind of getting at here?

Is that there is one piece of evidence which based on your narrative interpretation gets like put into one area or the other area. Right? So like someone coming out and actually saying, hey, this is not a shock call. Like, I hang out with the guy. I've seen it a bunch. He doesn't shock his dog. I'm with him all the time.

And then the believers are going to say yes, and the disbelievers are going to say no. They're going to say he's whipped. So my point is not whether this is true or not true. Okay? It's about the differential actions, the differential reactions based on the narrative that is already in our head. And now we get to a really, really scary issue, which is that if this. is true, if true, right? If you don't want to believe it, that's okay. Just listen to what I'm saying. Don't worry about this particular thing. If this is true and the disbelievers are discounting it,

then what do we do? And this is what we see, not just here. We see this in politics all the time, right? This piece of data does not fit with my narrative. Therefore, I'm going to say that this data is invalid. And once I say this data is invalid, how is anyone ever going to change their mind? Do you all see what I'm saying here? This is like, I kid you all not. This is why there is war, strife, and problems, political unrest, male, female dynamics. This is the problem. Like, this is the most dangerous thing on the planet.

If I'm a dude alive today and I say, hey, I'm struggling, and people say, I am discounting that because you are privileged. That's why men have a super high suicide rate. If I'm a woman today and I'm saying, hey, it is not safe for me to walk around and we say, oh, it's safe. And if you get raped, it's your fault. Like, that's the problem. It is fundamentally, it's not, I'm not anti any of these views or anything.

I'm not trying to take aside here. What I'm trying to point out, and this is why I'm talking about this in the first place, is like the biggest problem in the world today is when someone speaks up with something that is contrary to what we believe, we just discount it. We talk across each other. So each of us like, you know, I'm saying, I'm saying this is good. You're saying this is bad. And instead of like talking and discussing and understanding, I'm not understanding why you think it's

bad. Wait, why do you think this is bad? Let me try to understand. You're not trying to understand. Wait, wait, this is good? Like how? I'm confused. Instead, what we do is we talk to our base, and then we end up moving in this direction. Because we're not listening to each other at all. Okay? Now, that's one scenario. But the other scenario is that Hassan uses shock collar. Right? This is possible. It's a possibility.

Right. And there's like, you know, you have to make your own judgment on the evidence. Like this, like I watched this 51 second clip

and I was like, damn. Right? And then it's like Lonerbach cracked the case. Like even the framing of the video seems really,

really like damning. Okay? And then there's all kinds of other problems. Like one problem is like, and then there's this kind of contextual stuff, right, where we see him doing things like this. So this builds a narrative of like, like he's just, you know, he seems to get mad at his dogs a lot. Like pulling a dog by the tail, big, big, big, no, no. That's like part of their vertebra, if I remember correctly. I'm not a veterinarian. Okay, I'm a psychiatrist. But like this, this looks really bad, right? So this is like,

this is kind of scary stuff. And the way that he reacts to her in that clip where he's clearly frustrated with her, right? And this is where like, so there's, I mean, there's, there's really strong evidence, quote unquote, right? So there's historic evidence of, let's say, I'm going to call it frustration or abuse. I don't know if this is how abusive this is. I can't, I can't, I'm not, I don't know about the treatment of animals from a professional sense. So is this damage, I think it's, I mean, it scares me when I see that. I would never, I had three German shepherds growing up.

I would never do that to my German shepherds. Right? Like, I wouldn't do that to a dog. But I don't know. Maybe it's okay. I don't know. I don't know. Right.

And if you all know more about dogs and you want to form a judgment on that, that's totally fine. Then there's things like the loaner box. Okay. who's like looking at the shock caller, and then we get to one of my favorites, all the mixed messages. So then what happens? And this is, this is really where there's like, narrative really creates real problems. So people are saying, okay, so cutie said this.

She said, oh, my God, like, it's had the shock collar prongs removed. Someone else is saying, oh, my God, there were never shock collars. There was never prongs on there. somebody else is saying this, somebody else is saying this. And when people see mixed messages, they, once again, remember, there's a narrative interpretation based on what you already believe. So when two human beings offer different stories to a particular thing, your interpretation is that they're lying.

I hate to break it to y'all. Could they be lying? Absolutely. But I think what's far more common is that human, beings and people are like, oh, why don't you just show the caller then and there? Right? People will say all of these things on the internet. They're like, why didn't they do this?

Why didn't do this? Okay, let me ask you all something. When you're like doing your day job and something weird happens that you don't expect and you're kind of frustrated, right? You're clearly not in a good mood. And then you kind of lash out and then you're like, you don't think it's that big of a deal, right? So I don't think you thought it was that big of a deal.

Like, do you all know, like when you make a mistake, do you immediately? Do you immediately know how to correct it? Or does like a day go by, two days go by, and you're like, oh, shit, I should have said that. I should have done that. I shouldn't realize in that moment, like, I should have really done this. And my favorite example of this is when I was in school growing up, kids would make fun of me. And then like 36, they'd say, oh, yeah, Alok is such a fucking loser. Like, go back home and play your Nintendo.

Can't catch a ball butterfingers. And then I'd go back home and 36 hours later, I'd be like, man. I've got the perfect comeback. So in that moment, like, we don't think properly. In fact, we think improperly when we're stressed. Right? But when people see that, okay, he's showing the caller the next day. And, like, in that window, could it have been doctored?

Absolutely. I'm not saying that it couldn't have been doctored. I'm not saying that he did. It is a shock caller. It isn't shot caller. What I'm saying, and this is what's so hard for human beings, there is a differential diagnosis. for a situation. See, when a patient comes into my office and I think one thing, the whole point

of medical training is like, I think this is what happened, but I could be wrong. Like, I think you've got COVID, but maybe you've got cancer. Maybe it's an allergy. Maybe it's an autoimmune disease. So we are formally trained to think through multiple possibilities. This we do not see on the internet. Depending on what your narrative is, you jump to a conclusion. Right? You just jump to a conclusion. So people say like, oh, there's mixed messages and people are lying. Like, no. So I want you all to think about fucking the last time you and your roommates argued about the dishes. If I were to go and interview all through three roommates, who did the most dishes, I'd get three different answers. Does that mean that people are lying and trying to do a cover up? No, people just

have their own individual flawed memory, their perception of things, they're representing that. It doesn't mean that there's some kind of conspiracy or that people are lying or trying to cover up or anything like that. I think human beings sometimes, I know it sounds insane, human beings sometimes make contrary statements. Now, keep in mind that even though I'm saying all this stuff, I'm not commenting on whether Hassan used a shock caller or didn't use a shock call. I have no idea. Okay, I don't know. I wasn't there. Right. And so you can, you're allowed to believe what you want to believe if you think that all of this evidence against him that, you know, people are saying this and like the loaner box video, like this is what the shock caller is, that he has this historic narrative of like being at least callous towards animals, if not abusive. I don't really know. Right. So it doesn't look good. And that's when we get to another issue, which is selection bias. Right. So when these things kind of happen. So I don't know. if y'all, I once had a patient that got accused of not really sexual misconduct, but was like

harassing one of the female employees. But the moment that happens, the whole narrative changes. The moment that happens, everyone is like, oh yeah, like they were such a creep. There was that one day in the break room where like, you know, they, like, they sat next to me and they like started sneezing and then they like dropped their phone and like maybe they were taking a picture of like what was under my skirt or something like that. Like the moment that there's a narrative that gets formed, we start populating all of these clips, right? So how many hours of material is there of Hassan interacting with Kaya? And are any of the positive things going to get upvoted?

I doubt it. What's going to get upvoted is the most damning clips. Now, just because what's going to get upvoted is the most damning clips does not mean that those clips aren't true. Maybe that's true, right? I'm not saying it isn't true. What I'm saying is like, remember, this is not about Hassan. This is about the world that we live in. What gets propagated?

What gets upvoted to the top? The stuff that tends to fit our narrative. Now, there's one other thing that I want to talk about, which is like all kinds of weird stuff. I know it's kind of weird. I say one thing I want to talk about. So why is there so much dislike for this guy in the first place? So this is where I feel really,

Anyway, so let me summarize with mentalization first. So I think this is a really good example of why we should mentalize more, right? Instead of just jumping to a conclusion, we should try to put ourselves in Hassan's shoes and ask yourself for a moment. If this was not a shock caller, what is he supposed to say or what is he supposed to do? Let's assume he's innocent. Is there anything he could say that would alleviate the suspicions of the people who think he's bad? Is there any option? And this is an interesting, I sometimes will have political discussions, like not often, but, you know, and one of the things that I will ask people, one of my favorite questions in politics is what would have to happen for you to stop supporting this person, right?

what would actually change your mind? And that's why the answer to that question is why I think politics has a serious problem. Because the truth of the matter is that very few things, like if you ask someone what would actually change your mind, you realize how far radicalized they've become, that it would take something incredibly monumental once a narrative forms in your head. So if you're someone who hates Hassan, what would it take for you to like him? what would it take for you to think he's a good guy? And on the flip side, if you're a Hassan stand,

what would it take for you to dislike him? See, this is something that you have to do ahead of time because each step of the way it doesn't work. Like, because you'll rationalize, you'll rationalize, if you're on a particular team, you'll rationalize away the behavior of that team one step at a time and you'll end up, when you started at zero, you'll end up at like 100.

You should really stop and ask yourself critically for a belief that you have, for someone that you likes, for someone that you dislike. What would it take for you to change your mind? We do not ask ourselves this question enough. Okay. Now, there's one other thing about mentalization that I want to talk about. This too, I mean, this is where there's like claims that Clyde didn't have a shocker during the incident. like this, I mean, it's clear that she did. And this too is like, okay, and this is where I know that there's a differential

diagnosis here. One is that he's mistaken, which, I mean, he's mistaken, I think. And then there's plenty of evidence of that. And maybe I'm wrong there. But the second is like, I can just attest to this, y'all. When people are under huge amounts of stress, their mind like thinks in a very black and white way and they just sometimes make mistakes. Right.

So just because he's having some, doing some mental gymnastics in his head, like a week into this shit when he's getting hammered. Like, just because he makes a mistake doesn't mean he was originally lying. It, I'm not, like, I'm not saying that I'm not, I'm not trying to, like, support him here. I'm just saying, I want y'all to think about when you're, when, when you're one week into a period of stress, is your mind producing thoughts that are 100% correct? Okay. So here's the other part about mentalization that I want to talk about, okay?

Right wing figures are literally doing rapes, okay? They're doing rapes. And nothing matters. On the right, it don't matter. This isn't to say that, like, there shouldn't be a limit. You know what I mean? I'm just saying, be a little bit more exercise, a little bit more critical thought. Then be better yourself.

Maybe have a dog and it not be a part of your persona. If you don't want it fucking question when you're evasive, you're no different than the GOP. You're a 40-month subscriber and you think I'm like the grand old party. Because I won't just sit there and be like, you guys are right. I'm actually abusive to my dad. dog. This is unironically what I was talking about. So this too is unironically, what I think is, see, critical thinking in this moment, in my opinion, is when you have a 40-month subscriber who says, hey, oh, actually, hold on, we got to listen

for the rest of the clip. Like, please, exercise a little bit of critical thinking. Just a little bit. Just for like a second. and I think you will realize that maybe you're not behaving correctly about this. Because if you're a 40-month subscriber, you've been here, you've been here long enough that you know this is ridiculous. Okay.

So here's where we're like, we're going to talk about critical thinking for a second. So this is why it's so important to mentalize. Okay. So if a 40-month subscriber who's been around from the beginning thinks that this is suss, I think a huge opportunity for critical thinking is for you to take a step back and think about how does this person arrive at this conclusion? Right?

And this goes back to like this diagram over here, which is like if we, if there's like a 40-month subscriber who's over here who's over here, who's over here and doesn't think that what you're doing is like, okay, telling them to exercise critical thinking is fine. You can do that. But this is, I think, a great opportunity for critical thinking. Because how is it that someone who has been here, right? The key question for me in this scenario is, how is it that this person who has been here for so long comes to this conclusion?

Because they are ending up in one place and I am ending up in a different place. And Hassan talks about this a lot. He says, like, you know, the best way, I don't know how to fight against observable reality. Right. So he'll say, like, I don't know how to fight against observable reality. And like that's really, really, really, really, really important to think about. Because the whole point here is that the reality that you are observing is not the same as the reality that the other people are observing. And until you understand the reality.

that other people are observing. How do you know that your reality is more correct than their reality? And this is where the mind will come up with whatever answers. Hassan will say, well, I was there. Obviously, duh. Right?

But your mind is going to be plagued with cognitive bias as well. Your mind is going to look at things like this and say like, you know, your mind is going to look at things like this and say like, this is not a problem. This is a clip of someone who's telling him that, you know,

he's like choking his dog because the collar is too tight. His mind is going to look at something like this and it will very prone to dismiss it. People are leaving out the contacts. People are leaving out this. People aren't considering this. People don't see all the great stuff that I do for my dogs. Right. So like this is where I'm not,

and I'm not trying to like zero in on him. I'm saying any human being will do this. The moment that you get defensive. Right. So think about when you all get criticized. And you will think, oh my God, these people are ignoring the reality of the situation. They're ignoring the reality of the situation. They see a different reality. And this is the problem with the world today is we are all living in our own realities.

And how on earth can we coexist when we are living in different realities? When a 40-month subscriber says, hey, man, I think this is suss. That's where you, and I realize I'm sort of calling out Hassan now, but I mean this more generally. So I apologize for the structure and the way that this is coming out. Right? So like any time, like if someone has known you very well, and I see this all the time, let me just use a different example. So someone knows you really well.

And like, you know, I've had patients who have struggled with things like alcohol addiction. And then their friends come to them and they're like, hey, man, I've known you for 40 months. And this is not like you. This is a problem. And then my patient's response will be like, oh, my God, you don't understand my situation. you're being judgmental, you're not looking at things clearly, like you don't understand what the reality of the situation is. That's their response.

But when you're under attack, I want you all to think about when people attack you, do you think critically? Or is your default response, man, I wish they would think more critically. And this is what's happening right now because we're talking across each other. We're not actually listening to each other. We're just like getting pissed at each other.

blaming each other, and then like inviting the rest of the world to be less stupid, right? We're smart, you're dumb. And that is not working, y'all. It's just not working. This is why dialogue, as we've seen a decline in dialogue, we see more things like this, where it's shots fired, followed by defenses, followed by tribal thinking, followed by defense versus attack. Now it's us versus them.

There's no like, hey, can we sit down and try to figure out what's like going? going on. How is this for you? Like what, you know, what's going on with you? Like, you know, everyone feels this way. Like, what do you think about that? Like, there's, there's no dialogue. And then we get to, I think, the weird stuff. Okay. Now, this is where there's something weird in the air that is hard for me to describe. But I think there's a lot of projection. There's a lot of displacement. And the reason, like, when I look at this, when I look at this, like, um, you know, this 78K, like, this blows my mind. And Hassan is like, hey, there's a genocide going on, right?

There's all kinds of problems in the world. And it's not just a genocide. There's like, you know, American, like rural hospitals in America are closing down. Like, there's still conflict in Israel and Palestine. There's a lot of, like, weird stuff happening in the U.S. There's war between Ukraine and Russia. There are problems in the EU. You know, was it not Indian.

Indonesia. Which country was it? Nepal, maybe, had like a revolution where they elected somebody on Discord. I'm forgetting which country it was. I think it was Nepal. And they like, they fucking dragged their finance minister through the streets and like whipped him and stuff like that. Like there's all kinds of stuff going on. And this is what we get really focused on. Right? So, so for the people who are like hammering Hassan, why is it that it is so important to see that this guy is brought to justice about this issue. Do you all get what I'm saying? Like, why is there such a intense desire to see this outcome resolved in a particular way?

Do you all get, like, that's a little bit weird? Like, what is our investment as a community in this? Are we suddenly, like, super pro animal rights? or like, what's going on here? We're going to try to, like, protect the... Like, why are we so invested in this? And this is where I think there's a lot of projection, there's a lot of displacement.

I'm not quite sure what this is. I'd really have to sit down and talk to a lot of people to really understand what's going on. But this is what I feel. So this is the part that I think is, like, the sketchiest part of what I'm going to say. So what I detect is a lot of pent-up resentment. And now that resentment is coming out.

I would say that this reaction is disproportionate, and maybe I'm wrong there, maybe I don't understand people's values and we're really pro-animals or whatever, but I would say that this reaction is like disproportionate to the size of the thing. Right? Now, I want to say, like, can we, I'm going to just check in with chat for a second. Can we agree on that? Would you all say that this is like, okay, because we hate hypocrites? Great.

I'm So for the people who are saying no What are y'all saying? Why do you all think this is not disproportionate? No, no, let's listen to the people. So people who say, like, let's, let me understand Because he always escapes, okay, this is beautiful, okay, always escapes responsibility.

What else? Jesus, I got to slow down. Maybe we're pro animals. like, okay, right? So animal abuse, but there's like all kinds of animal abuse going on all the time, right? There's like all kinds of animal abuse going on all the time. What bothers us so much about this instance of animal abuse?

More so than everything else. And I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying y'all are wrong. I'm genuinely trying to understand why, for the people who do not think this is disproportionate. Like, tell me why. Explain it to me. He can't keep getting away with it.

Exposes his true colors. Okay? So this is like related to hypocrisy. This is beautiful. Okay, so he's like deflecting, talking about rapes. Okay. Gaslighting.

Okay, this is great. Okay, so I didn't feel super confident in what I was about to say. double standards. Okay, I didn't feel super confident at what I was going to say, but man, y'all just really helped me out. So I'm so grateful, okay?

This is so good. Okay. All right. So remember when I said up here, there's pent up resentment. Okay. So I'm going to ask you all the question. Do we live in a world

where there are some people who escape... Jesus, my handwriting is terrible. And I apologize for taking the Lord's name in vain. Are there people in today's world that escape responsibility? What do you all think, chat? No accountability. Are we upset?

Right? Can you all think of anyone who is escaping responsibility for their actions? Hmm? Right? Are we upset with them? Yeah, okay. Are there people? Can we do anything about it? So I want you all to think about, I want you all to think about someone who you are, who is escaping responsibility, and what can you do? Can you all do anything about it? Okay, right? So like some people are saying yes, some people are saying no,

right? So there are people, and can we do anything about it? Not really. Maybe you can do something. I don't know. right? Are there people out there abusing animals? Can we do anything about it? Do we do anything about it? Not really. Are there people out there who keep getting away with it? Can we do anything about it? Not really. Do we know someone who we're waiting for them to expose their true colors? Or they're like people in your life that you know, like that you see on TV or you see on the internet? Are we like kind of as a society? Are we frustrated with people being fake? And can we expose them? No.

Are there people around us that are very hypocritical? Say one thing. Do something else. Can you do anything about it? Probably not. Are there people who deflect who when they have some kind of problem say, oh, but there's something, they're really good at what aboutism? They're like, stop looking at my problem.

There's so many worse problems going over there. absolutely. Are there people out there who are gaslighting us and can we do a whole lot about it? Absolutely not. Oh, here's a good one. Are there people who have double standards? Does the world treat some people very well and some people treat very poorly, right? Does the CEO of Twitch, is he a fan of any particular political streamers? Is there a double standard? This is what's crazy. We don't really know. I know there's a perception of a double standard, but this is what's crazy. I know this is crazy, but hear me out. I've been on the receiving end of this. The prime example that I can think of is I once worked with a Dota 2 team.

And man, working with that Dota 2 team and seeing how it runs on the inside and what the real problems were and seeing what Reddit's understanding of what the problems were, they were like night and day. No one on Reddit had a fucking clue what was going on inside the team. But everyone is judging and everyone is sure that they're right. Does that make sense? that being in the room and knowing what is actually happening is very different from watching clips on the internet and believing you know what is happening.

Okay? Are we sensitive to people who do not take responsibility, accountability? So here's what I think is happening. When human beings have all of this pent-up stuff, right? there are so many things that we hate Hassan for and that's fine but here's the thing the things that y'all are talking about for those of y'all that are like really really not don't think that this is inappropriate right and i'm not saying that y'all are right or y'all are wrong remember the goal of this is not to pass judgment i'm not judge i'm not jury i'm

not executioner i'm not investigator i think we as human beings need to understand what the fuck is going on in our society right now because we are tearing each other apart. And I'm serious, y'all, this is not hyperbole. This could result in biological weapons. It could result in nuclear weapons. It could result in all kinds of problems. People, the world is fucking falling apart because of stuff like this. Because of the fundamental way that human beings have started interacting with each other

and because of a lack of the way that we've stopped interacting with each other. So we have all of this pent up emotional energy And it's got nowhere to go And so where does it end up? Someone shows up in holy shit y'all The evidence is good Did you see him yank him by his tail? The Loner Box video.

XQC is doing this. All these people are lying about it. He's got Ludwig on a leash like, oh my God, this guy, this fucking guy. Double standard, hypocrite, privileged, pretends to be pro-minority, while he has $3 million houses and $300 shirts, right? A champion for the underprivileged.

A hypocrite. No accountability. He gets to dodge bans all the time. Other people get banned for all kinds of stuff. And then now, like, it comes out onto him. And this guy's like, what the fuck did I do? I hit a button. And, oh, my God, I want you all to think about this from Hassan's perception.

Let's think for a moment. Like, holy shit, what is this disproportionate reaction? because people can't get upset at anybody else. People can't tear down anybody else. So what do they do? They go for him. He's the one target because I know this sounds insane, y'all. I've worked with a bunch of creators.

Creators, the creator, a creator's power is a house of cards. Is a fucking house of cards. And if public sentiment turns against you, there's very little resilience. There's no institution to prop you up. And it's terrifying. Like, this guy's like, what did I do? I hit a button. And by the way, it's not even illegal.

People sell shock collars. You can use a shock collar. Hey, he talks about like the tent, like I've had a Tens machine. It delivers, and by the way, he's correct here. So Tens machine, I think, delivers way more. Tens machines are things that are used to help people in physical therapy. They deliver an electrical shock that is way higher than a shock collar. But here's the key thing to remember.

A tens machine is used on muscle. The shock collar is not. Okay? If I punch you in the throat and I punch you in the arm, the amount of pain you will experience will be very different. Do you all get that? Just because the force is the same does not mean that the pain is the same.

Okay? Right. And this is where like we don't really, and like, you know, it's like, anyway. But do you all get what I'm saying about this right here? That this is what's happening. We've got one guy. And when the mob gets angry,

and it's angry at 15 people, and one person fitting the description of the other 14 show up, they tear him apart. Now, there are a couple of other complicating factors here, which I think really, really, there's a lot of pent up stuff, I think, that's specifically towards Hassan. So I know, for example, that, and I'm not saying this is true or not true, I'm just saying that with the creators that I've worked with, one of the things that they're a handful of communities

that they're really scared of, and Hassan's is one of them. I'm not saying that that's justified or not justified. I'm not saying it's true or not true, but just from, for whatever reason, right? And when people say, I'll ask them like why, right? What concerns you about? And I think it has something to do with his size, his rigidity, and the tribalism of his community. Right? There's like a, there's an us versus them. And another example of this, and I think this is why the Ethan Klein, Hassan thing got so bad because there's a lot of tribalism in both of those communities. There's not a whole lot of like dialogue or trying to understand or things like that, at least that I can

perceive. And if that's incorrect, remember, I'm making these judgments based on very limited stuff. It's not like I watch these guys a whole lot. It's just when I, the parts of them that I do see, which there could be a selection bias for, there's like, you know, there's not a whole lot of like, let's understand why the right is the way that it is. That's not usually what they say. Let's try to understand the perspectives of the Palestinians. Let's try to understand the perspectives of the Israelis. I haven't seen them talk about that. There is rigidity. There is tribalism. and there is righteousness. And so I think that when you add tribalism, rigidity, and righteousness,

when you add that with clout, power, and size, this is what you see. And this is not just him. So I encourage y'all to think about communities, how open they are, how understanding they are, how convinced they are that they are right and somebody else is wrong. And how do those communities behave? Don't even think about LSF or the Twitch sphere or the streamersphere or whatever.

Think about other groups that you know. So why am I talking about this? Because I think like we need to understand that this is happening. We need to understand that this poor guy, he is getting just an explosion of resentment. Because we've got nowhere else to send it. And I'm not saying he's innocent. I'm not saying he's a good dude. I'm not saying he's a bad dude.

Not my place to be judge, jury, or executioner. The reason I'm sharing this with y'all is because like we as a society need to understand these dynamics because as long as this stuff keeps going, the world will literally keep moving in the direction that it's moving. It's about winning, not understanding, right? And this is where like I said something earlier

that I think is like, you know, sometimes has gotten me in trouble, but I want you all to really think about this. There are, there are groups historically. Like, why do people try to do genocide? It's because if I can wipe everybody out, then I win for sure. We've seen this historically. There are so many people that will try to ethnically cleanse. They're trying to wipe people out. There's no sense of understanding. That's the direction we are moving. Hell, we're already there. Right? There are groups of people who are trying to systematically wipe out other groups of people. There's no attempt at understanding.

It's only about winning. And as long as we are doing this, this will continue. Now, the last thing that I want to talk about is talking to people. So this is where a lot of times, so when we started streaming, or when I started streaming, we used to have these really powerful conversations with people. And then what would happen is people would start pressuring others. streamers to come and talk to us. And then we made a decision several years ago at Healthy Gamer that we were growing. We used to have 20 to 40,000 concurrence. Now we're sitting at a whopping like

1,500. We made a decision some time ago that the kind of audience that we were attracting was not there to get better. They were there for voyeurism. We're here to talk to people to try to help people. We're not here to try to be a show for other people. This is not, you know, the entertaining part is not someone else's struggles. The entertaining part is me doing accents. There have been many times where I've been tempted, and sometimes we'll reach out to people if they're going through shit. Tons of people reach out to us.

We try to support them in the best that we can. So I think dialogue is important, but this is where I want you all to understand. I feel like I have to talk about this. This is framing is really important. I struggled with something that I'm going to share with y'all. So when all this shit was going on, I struggled thinking about whether I should message Hassan or not be like, hey, dude, are you doing okay?

Sounds like you're going through a ton of shit. I don't have a relationship with him. So if there's someone I have a relationship with him, I'll almost always try to DM them if they're going through something. Try to be supportive as a friend. But then I was thinking about, and this is what's so hard. So let's say I DM him. He says, no, dude, I'm good. And then I make this video.

What's that like for him? Oh, shit. Now Dr. Kay is like talking about me because I turned him down. Do you all kind of get what I'm saying? it puts him in a weird position. And we usually, like, I'm open to having conversations on stream with people, with things about this, but there's a certain ambulance chaser mentality to that that I don't like. It's not really what we're doing, but that's really tricky.

And then the other problem is now that I've had this conversation, I'm sure that people will show up in his chat, hey, Dr. Kay's talking about you. Like, do you want to talk to Dr. Kay? Please, guys, don't do that. Do you guys realize, let's mentalize for a moment, what kind of position that puts him in it puts him in a lose-lose situation. If he doesn't want to do it, right, it makes him look bad. And if he does do it, then it's really scary.

It's really dangerous. Like, you all get what I'm saying. Like, this is where I think dialogue is important. But think for a moment about what his experience of this is going to be. Right. And I genuinely hope that nothing I said today will cause him or anybody else. Cutie Cinderella, Ludwig, Asman Gold, XQC, like whatever. I don't wish anyone to troll on any of these people.

I think, please, y'all listen to what I'm saying here. This is not about them. This is like, look around. The world is fucking falling apart, and we need to start having dialogues. So I'm sort of open to doing that in some way. It's kind of what I try to do, but I don't want to be like, okay, like Dr. Kay is saying, hey, like, y'all should come and talk, right? Do you guys see how manipulative that is?

That's not what I'm saying. So I'm trying to sort of not do that, but also say that, hey, we need to start talking to each other. That I firmly believe. Do you all kind of get what I'm saying? Right? Because I'm not trying to, I'm really not trying to call anyone. I don't think that that is good. Right?

To be like, oh, like, hey, like, do you want to come talk? And if they say, no, oh, yeah, fucking he didn't want to talk. And then, like, to, to, there's a frame of like, hey, Do you all kind of get what I'm saying? Because this is really important to me. That we don't want to put him in an unfair position or anybody else for that matter. And at the same time, I want to signal to y'all that this work needs to be done. And if this work needs to be done, I am somewhat willing to do it because I don't know what it looks like.

There are so many other considerations. Right? we need to start talking to each other. Like that, I believe more than anything else on the planet. Like, this absolutely needs to happen. And this particular instance doesn't need to happen with this particular person about this particular thing because there's so much crap loaded into this. Because I want you all to think for a moment.

Let us mentalize if Hassan and I have a conversation. And he says anything. This happened with fucking poor Thor. I had a conversation with Thor and I think the guy really tried to understand. He showed up with the right intention. I showed up with the right intention. I even asked y'all, please don't clip it and ship it. What happened?

It got clipped and shipped. We took the worst parts of the conversation and they blew to the top of the LSF. Yay, Dr. K is back at the top of LSF showing narcissists how they're such assholes. This world that I know you guys love, oh my God, love to blame Hassan. Love to blame all these hypocrites and everyone escaping responsibility and everyone who deflects projection. Do y'all take accountability for your part in this? And this is where people are like, yeah, fuck yeah.

Fucking deserves it, bro. I wish I could have done more. Right? But what I want you all to really understand is that in a relationship, which this is a parasocial relationship, There is the way that I behave and there is the way that y'all behave. What gets created between us has contributions from both sides. Right?

And like I think especially with just talking about Thor for a second, the number. So I know that everyone like loves to burn him and things like that. But the number of people that like we got so much positive feedback, they're like, oh, I'm like this too. Can you please help me change because it's fucking up my relationships? Right. I'm not saying that he's bad or anything like that. It's like, we do this to try to help people, not to try to tear people down.

And unless we start talking to each other, and if we keep talking across each other and having these like, you know, literally like, I'm going to react to this and I'm going to react to this. I saw the title of stream and I was like, oh my God, I'm doing it too. Talk about hypocrisy. Here I am. Stop talking about people. Stop talking across people. Right.

And maybe I, this is me trying to not be hypocritical. It's me trying to notice, hey, like, I'm part of the problem too. I'm a streamer too. I do it too. Like, I'm not perfect in this by any means. Today may fuck up people's lives in ways that I really don't intend. And I really do think that it's over y'all, which is why I'm kind of talking about it now. But like, it's just such a good example of what is wrong on the internet.

Yeah, so people are saying, Hassan just needs to say, I'm sorry, I won't do it again. but I want you all to imagine for a moment that he didn't do it. Okay, just imagine. Are you 100% sure that that was not a shot caller? Right? You can't be 100% sure. It's impossible. And if, like, then what is he supposed to?

Do you all see the position that he's in? Does that make sense? Okay, very good question. So imagine he did it. How would he act? Exactly like he is. Right? So if you're, I don't know, but I think that in the differential diagnosis, one option is he, let's assume that he did it for a moment.

And then he probably can't afford to admit that he did. Or he doesn't know how to do it in a way that will be received well. So in that case, it's like, once you dig your heels in, you cannot give an inch. imagine he did it, how would he act? I think if he did use a shock caller, the behavior that he is exhibited is completely consistent with using a shot caller.

I also believe that the behavior he is exhibiting is completely consistent with him not using a shot collar. That's my whole fucking point. If all criticism of things online can be just dismissed and boiled down to your own pent-up anger and resentment, how is any accountability ever in anything?

So this is important to understand. Great question. So if I'm like, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, he found nothing wrong. It is your pent-up resentment that is displaced onto him, and he has great, right? How will there ever be accountability? Here's what I'm saying.

I know it's wild. How about we give the appropriate amount of accountability to the people who deserve it? So does Zan deserve accountability? Absolutely. Should we hold them accountable? Absolutely. Should we hold me accountable?

absolutely. All I'm saying is when there is this pent up resentment and displacement, and I'm betting y'all money that you have been on the receiving end of this. I've seen this so much when you're the black sheep of the family, when you're the person who people don't like at work, when you are a racial minority and you get a displaced amount of hatred. How does that feel? So I'm not advocating for an absence of accountability at all. Never. What I'm saying is let us have an appropriate amount of accountability for people in what they did. I have too much hope for people. Yeah.

So here's the last thing I'm going to say. I think most people do the best that they know how to do. They do the best. Honestly, most people kind of do the best that they can. And sometimes that's pretty bad. But I don't, I don't, I think that like, you know, When I've worked with people who are streamers, there's a certain narcissism that is like a necessary developmental piece that comes with streaming. So I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but see, when you get criticized by one person, it hurts.

When you were a gigantic streamer and you get criticized by 10,000 people, 100,000 people, your brain doesn't view that criticism probabilistically. It just doesn't, that's not how our brain works. our brain doesn't do a calculation of okay 99% of people like me one percent of people hate me it just looks at the 1% of people that hates you or the 10,000 people who hate you or the 100,000 people who hate you and that's very psychologically traumatic it's not a percentage that's just our brain is bad at probability there's all kinds of studies about this you can look at things like the monte hall problem and things like that it's why human beings play the lottery and it's why human beings gamble because we suck at probabilistic thinking it's a feature and so when you're a

streamer, it requires, right, because some people are going to hate you no matter what. And how do you protect your psyche from people who hate you no matter what? There's a series of defense mechanisms that will use. The narcissistic defense mechanism is one of the biggest ones, right? Because I can't receive that person's opinion. Because if I receive that person's opinion and that 9,000 other people with them, like, I won't be able to wake up tomorrow morning. So I have to deflect.

Is it healthy? It's adaptive. I don't think it's the healthiest thing that you can do. Does it cause problems? Does it create sort of narcissistic patterns of thought? Absolutely. Are those bad? Absolutely.

Do those kinds of patterns of thought encourage people to avoid accountability, to be a little bit gaslighty towards themselves and the people around them? Absolutely. But it's a feature of the profession. That's my. honest belief. There's other details and nuances there that we can kind of go into. But I like, I like, I like these questions. So if you guys think, you know, I'm full of shit or whatever, like ask, ooh, why women are liberal and men are conservative. Okay, nobody listens anymore,

not even your chat to you, at least many people who I now see are incapable. How then to transfer this message or intention at this age and time? Okay. Nobody listens. anymore, not even your chat to you. I respectfully disagree, right? So this is black and white thinking, and maybe I'm not listening to you. But I think y'all are listening. Some people are listening, and some people are not, and that's okay. Right?

So at least the person who made this comment, I think, is hearing what I'm saying. I think a lot of y'all are hearing what I'm saying. A lot of y'all may not be, but that's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day. How to then transfer this message or intention at this age and time by living it as best as you can, by doing the listening yourself. and you will be amazed at how well this works. Right?

So I can't change the world. I can maybe have some tiny impact on you. And then you hopefully can start to live your life in a slightly different way, which will then have a cascading impact in your life. And maybe you can affect another human being. The only way this works is Domino's. And the reason someone said, you know, I have a lot more faith in people than y'all do.

And maybe it's an act. Maybe it's like the scam of Dr. Kay. I mean, maybe it is. I'd have to think critically about that. But I think honestly, when you practice psychiatry, like, psychiatry has restored my faith in humanity, man. Right? And I think we see it on this channel.

Like, when we do interviews and stuff like that, like these are like good people. Like, these people are like, you know, life is hard, but people get better, people do better. You know, this is great. I want to show you all something. This is why I have faith in humanity. You guys want to see?

I get faith in humanity from the community. This is why I have faith in humanity. Thanks for getting me laid, Dr. Kay. Because people do better. Like people do better. Like this is someone who, it sounds like they had difficulty getting laid, I'm assuming.

Right? They go on a couple of dates. Right? And then like this, so at the end when we arrived, I've just asked her and said what she thought about the past two day. I remember the friend's own video where this guy was just supposed to ask what to do.

do with these feelings he has in a relaxed setting, probably not going any further. In my mind, I was just thinking about what to do when I drop her off, maybe just wave goodbye or a hug at the most. I remember the friend zone to do where the guy was supposed to ask, what do I do with these feelings? Hey, I have feelings for you. What should I do with them? So when we arrived instead of just asking what she thought about the past two days, no hard feelings, how does she feel about this whole thing?

Want to meet again, not really feeling it, want to keep this on a friendship level. She said that she enjoyed it and liked me, and then things escalated. This is why I have faith in humanity. Because people get better. I've had people in my office who are just like suicidal, man. Like the world is ending. Oh my God, I want to kill myself. They get better.

They get happy. People on the autism spectrum end up getting married and hopefully live happily ever after. People with addictions will become sober for years and years and 10 years of sobriety, 20 years of spriety. People with trauma who are in repetitive toxic relationship patterns will get better. And let's remember that when we're dealing with. mental illness, these are not like high probability scenarios in a positive direction, right? This is complex PTSD, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, double depression, both dyshthymia with a depressive mood disorder on top.

So they're chronically depressed with acute periods of depression on top of that. And these people get better. people heal, people improve. Your past life does not determine your future. That's why I have faith in humanity. Not because I'm like, oh, I'm Dr. Kay, and I'm going to be like, oh, my God, everyone's so great, and I have to believe in people. No, like, I didn't believe in people. And then people taught me to believe in them.

Right. So when I kind of turned my life around, I was like, I'm one of the lucky ones. And then I started to wonder, can this be reproducible? Can we duplicate this? Can other people get better too? And the answer is yes. Does it happen all the time? No. Is it hard? Yes. Your mileage may vary. But I think like, I don't know if this makes sense. You know, if you all have struggled, if you've been like really stuck in life, how much effort from somebody else does it take to really help you out? And this is what I think is crazy, right? So when you do it yourself, it feels like, oh my God, it's impossible to do. A little bit of help goes a long way. A little bit of help goes so far.

Right. So if someone has been mentally ill with double depression for 10 years, I had a patient like this. And then I worked with them for like 18 months. So 18 months sounds like a long time. It's 36 hours. About 36 hours of effort to start to turn around a decade of moving in the wrong direction. Maybe a little bit longer, 42, 48, I would guess. 42, 40, 50 hours, let's say.

Right? That's like, it doesn't take much. No, I mean, if you guys want to be mad at Sasan, be mad at Hassan. Like I said, I'm not, I have no. I have no horse in this race. Like, if, like, I'm not, like, whatever. If y'all want to be mad at him, be mad at him. If you guys think he's a terrible person, like, it's your choice.

I'm living proof that people get better. I was bottom of the pile bullied at school. I lashed out at the world. Then I looked inside and healed now. I love the world. Honestly, you rule Dr. Kay. Like, thank you so much. And you rule too.

Right? It's not just me. I'm not like the lone champion of goodness out there. Like, I think the reason that people, you know, I don't know if this makes sense. If I was the, if I was truly special, then I wouldn't be anywhere. The whole point that the only reason I'm somewhere is because what I say matches y'all on some level, right? Like, y'all are really great. Really, I believe that.

I just think y'all need a little help. And not even all of you. Right? So whether you need help or I don't know if you need help. I'm just trying to do what I can do. Okay. Shall we move on? Enough.

General question, how can accountability be proportionate when more than one person is passing judgment? Internet or not? It's really hard. Right? So what I would say is if you're in a position where you're like, you feel like there, I think one of the best things that you can do is try to hold, like, people accountable for stuff that they do. So, you know, if you're frustrated about something in your family and there's a lack of accountability by someone in your family, like, do something about it. Right. Don't just pick some random streamer and then like offload everything onto them. If there are other people in your life or politicians or whatever, take action. Take action.

In all of those dimensions. Like that's, it's going to be so good for you from a psychological perspective, right? Give you purpose, give you direction. Now I'm fucking doing something about it instead of just whining about it on the internet. Like that's good for you. Go and do something in the world. protesting. Gotta be careful with that though. This episode is brought to you by CarMax. Want to buy a car the easy way? Start at CarMax.

Want to browse with confidence? Get pre-qualified with no impact on your credit score and shop within your budget. From luxury to family rides. CarMax has options for almost every price range, including over 25,000 cars under $25,000. Want to get started? Head to CarMax.com for details.

and get pre-qualified today. Want to drive? CarMax. So Hassan is literally a proponent of political violence, defends terrorists, and people only get triggered when he shocks a dog. Humanity is utterly lost. So first of all, I can't comment on, I haven't watched enough of his stuff. I don't really understand what his political beliefs are.

I mean, I have some sense, but I would be the first person to say that, I think before you form a judgment, you should thoroughly understand what someone's views are. And ideally, I try not to form judgments without actually sitting down and talking to people. So I don't know if that's correct or not. But even if it is, I don't think humanity is utterly lost.

Because even if that's true, there are people like you who are like, hey, this is a problem. And as long as it's not just that someone has a set of political beliefs that are pro-political violence, humanity is utterly lost when people stop having a problem with it. Understand? Depression isn't the problem. The problem is when you give in to depression. When you start to say, okay, there's nothing I can do. That's so devastating about depression is that it makes you think that way.

Right? So, I mean, if you've lost hope, fair enough. But I don't agree with you. And I'm not saying I'm right. You may be right. Okay. All right. I think enough about that.

Let's move on to other things. Sound good? Okay, you guys want to talk about nighttime anxiety or, um, oh, by the way, Do you all understand? Let me ask you all one last question before we move on. You remember earlier when I said people who like Hassan and people who dislike Hassan, both of them are going to hate me? Can y'all understand why?

I'm curious whether you guys... It's a read-my-mind question. It's a bad question. So I had a particular hypothesis about that going in. Do you all remember... Do you all get a sense of what I was talking about... about then? Because I rode the fence. So I didn't, y'all are sort of spot on. It's not that I did, it's not that I rode the fence. I'm not writing the fence. I'm just not, yeah, I guess you could say

it's writing a fence. I was thinking critically about mentalizing and was thinking, okay, you can call it that. So I think that I had enough ambiguity to where, depending on your narrative, you can slot me into either side. Does that make sense? So like I said enough anti-Hassan things where people who like Hassan will be like, oh my God, Dr. K is the enemy. And I said enough pro-Hassan things to where if you're anti-Hassan, you'll be like, oh, my God, this guy is defending Hassan. Do you all kind of get that? So it's not about sitting the fence. It's about being, I mean, I guess it is.

So I would say I'm perpendicular to the axis. And this is the key thing to understand the whole point about the narrative. is once you have an idea in mind, you're going to filter what someone says through that narrative. So it was concerning to me. And I've tried really hard. I mean, I have an opinion based on what I've seen of whether the caller is shocking or not.

I have an opinion. I do not think that that opinion belongs in this conversation. I do not think that opinion belongs in public. I think sharing that opinion is not my area of expertise, and I should keep my fucking mouth shut. I do not think sharing that opinion makes the world a better place in any way, shape, or form. All it does is encourages narratives. All it does is rile people up. Does that make sense?

Right? Like, right? So this is beautiful. So people like, oh, so Hassan is cooked. This is exactly what I mean. I didn't state which direction it was, right? And so what people are going to do, like, just notice your reaction to that statement. Are you making an assumption about which way I fall?

And you guys may be right, because since I have an opinion, that may bleed through, right, subconsciously in the way that I speak. Like, I'm not perfect, but it's not something I'm trying to share intentionally. Intentionally, I'm not trying to share it because I don't think it helps. It's not the problem. What I think about Hassan is not what's wrong with the world today. What's wrong with the world today is that we don't talk to each other. What's wrong with the world today is we're getting radicalized to both sides.

That's the problem. My analysis has nothing to do with my opinion as hard as I can try, but I'm flawed. My brain is biased just like everybody else's. There's zero chance that my opinion does not affect the lecture that I just offered. Zero chance. I've done my best to remove it, but I'm human. So I apologize if that came through, and really I don't. intend to hurt anybody. Okay? All right. Let's talk about anxiety at night. Okay. So someone said,

I strongly disagree with Hassan and I understand your point and mostly agree with you. Underlining the problem does not get solved though. It is so hard to reach people in those communities because of their bias. I agree. So I'm glad that you shared your opinion in what I think is a productive and dialogue forward way. And I'm not saying it's hard. I also think it's very hard. I think if it was easy, the world wouldn't be going to hell

in the way that it is right now. And also, just because it's hard, doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. So I think it's a huge problem. I think it's a problem that humanity has never solved before, and I think it's going to take a lot of mistakes in order to solve it.

Let me find. I'm going to pull up a couple of papers chat. there are a lot of people who have anxiety. And for many of these people, this anxiety gets way worse at night. Okay? So this is like my favorite example of this where it's like, okay, when you're awake, you kind of push down the anxiety, you suppress it. It's like you manage to survive and distract yourself through the day.

But then when you lay down, the anxiety spreads and now it's in your brain. And it causes you problems. And that's something that a lot of people will experience, right? So why does my anxiety get 10 times worse at night? During the day I can usually manage. I keep busy. I focus on work. I push the thoughts aside.

But the second, it's nighttime and things quite down, my brain turns into the loudest thing in the room. Every worry I shoved away all comes back. Bills, relationships, future plans, regrets. I'll try to go to sleep, but instead I toss and turn until 3 a.m. I'll sometimes jump into calls with friends or even play around on my prize. So I just don't feel alone, but the anxiety is still lingers. Does anyone deal with this? Why is anxiety so much worse at night?

And how do you comment? So it is fascinating. But anxiety is way worse at night. And that is because that is the way that we have evolved. There are all kinds of neuroscience mechanisms that make anxiety worse at night. And the really scary thing is that one of the reasons, probably one of the biggest reasons why anxiety is worse at night that is not evolution is that the way that we deal with anxiety makes it worse at night so a lot of people will go through their during the day

and they will occupy themselves to distract themselves to ignore the anxiety and the really scary thing is if you are distracting yourself from the anxiety during the day there's a really good chance that you're actually making it worse at night. And so this is why, so sometimes as a psychiatrist, I work with patients who come up with solutions to their problems. The problem is that sometimes their solution

creates another problem. And the moment that your solution creates a different problem, now you're stuck. Because if your solution is making a problem, then you're kind of like, You're winning over here, you're losing over here. But if you let go of your solution, then the original problem kind of comes back. So let's understand why nighttime anxiety is worse, okay?

So this is going to be a more neuroscience-heavy lecture. If you guys are having trouble following, please let me know, okay? So the first thing that we're going to talk about is circadian rhythm. So when we... So this is a paper about night shift work. But the first thing that I want to show you all is we have this hormone called cortisol. Okay? And this is the normal level, this is the normal curve for cortisol throughout our body.

So cortisol is at an all-time low at midnight. It spikes in the morning, and then it decreases throughout the day and then it's low at night. Okay? This is about night shift workers, but it sort of relates to anxiety. So we're going to talk about this for a second. So what does cortisol do? Okay. So our circadian rhythm is our 24-hour biological clock.

Okay? Actually, it's maybe about 25 hours, but 24-hour biological clock. So our body is not the same at every hour of the day. And one of the key things that changes is cortisol. So we saw that cortisol curve, right, where at midnight, it's low. It kind of peaks around maybe like 7 a.m. and then it decreases throughout the day, and then it's low by like 6 p.m.

Okay? This is what a normal cortisol curve looks like. Cortisol is a stress hormone. It makes you feel awake. It makes you active. It kind of turns you on. It revs you up. It increases blood pressure,

increases heart rate, increases immune activity. It increases blood sugar. Okay? So it revs you up. So there are studies that show that people who have anxiety disorders have a disrupted cortisol curve. They have something called a flattened cortisol curve. So this is the normal cortisol curve, but their cortisol curve looks more like this.

Something like that. Actually, that's probably not correct. So this is the peak. So their cortisol will peak and then it'll go down like this. Okay? So their cortisol curve doesn't have highs, doesn't have low. So this is the first reason. Because literally there is a hormone in your body that is keeping you awake.

Now, this becomes important because if we want to alter our cortisol levels, we need, one of the best way to alter cortisol levels is our psychological stress. So the way that we deal with stress will increase cortisol or decrease cortisol, okay? So people do have circadian rhythm problems, for sure. Second thing, incredibly fascinating. So if we look at studies on narcolepsy, okay? So here's one thing to understand. If you want to understand how something in the brain works,

the best way to understand it is by looking at a disorder or disease where that part of the brain is messed up. So if I want to understand how a car works and I remove, I don't know, if I take all the oil out of the car, I will very quickly discover what the role of oil is. If I want to understand how a wheel works. If I remove a wheel, I will see changes in the car that tells me what the wheel is doing. So when we look at disorders like narcolepsy, which is when people fall asleep, and cataplexy, which is when they get paralyzed and fall asleep,

that's when we will see a couple of very important things about how the brain works. works, okay? So there are two circuits that we're going to talk about, the frontal lobe and the amygdala. The amygdala is our negative emotional center of the brain. It is also our stress and our survival center. Okay. So this gives us anxiety and fear. When we're afraid and anxious, the amygdala is lit up. So why is this our survival center? of the brain. Because if we think about what's the role of fear, when I'm like walking through the woods and I see a grizzly bear, fear is what keeps me alive, right? So the amygdala is there to keep us alive. Now, here's what's really, really, really interesting. When we go to bed,

our amygdala activity increases naturally. It's supposed to increase. Now, this is what's really fascinating. Why? Why does our amygdala become hypersensitive when we go to bed? There are two or three reasons for that. The first is, when we go to sleep, I'm going to ask you all a question. When you sleep, do you experience emotion? Yes or no? What do you all think? When do you experience the most intent? Ah, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second. When do you experience the most, intense emotion. When do you experience the most intense emotion throughout the day?

When you're awake or when you're asleep? Very good. Dreaming in nightmares. So nightmare is the whole point of a nightmare is that it's like terrifying, right? So now I want you all to understand this for a moment. If a nightmare is terrifying, which part of your brain does that terror come from?

it comes from the amygdala. Like, when it turns on, we feel fear. That's like one to one. Literally the point. So there's a good chance that the reason that we dream and the reason that we have nightmares is to process our emotions. And in order for us to process our emotions,

they can't be in read-only mode. They have to be in edit mode. We have to work through them. And one of the ways that we do that is through nightmares. So as a clinician, when I have a patient who has a lot of nightmares, as we work through their nightmares, their emotional state gets better during the day.

And as their emotional state, if we work on their anxiety during the day, the nightmares decrease at night. Okay, this is why Freud and Jung were so into dreams. Great book. Memories, dreams, and reflections by Carl Jung. So back in the day, when we had these, like, psychoanalysts

and they started, like, discovering emotions, They figured out really early on, they stumbled into this idea that the dreams we have correlate with the emotions that we experience. And one of the ways that our brain deals with emotions is through dreaming. Okay. So amygdala becomes hyperactive, therefore anxiety is going to increase. Here's the other thing. The frontal lobe is the part of our brain that controls other parts of our brain. And it is the source of willpower.

Restraint, discipline, focus. So when I'm awake during the day, and I'm like, I start to feel anxious, there's a part of my brain that's like, we ain't got time for that. We got to read memories, dreams, and reflections. We got to get through 50 pages of this today

because they're going to talk about it in class tomorrow. So there's a part of your brain that controls your emotions. The frontal lobe also suppresses the amygdala. Shuts it off. Says, hey, calm down. But the frontal lobe gets drained. So if you've had, like, if you've done a lot of emotional suppression, you feel exhausted at the end of the day. If you've exerted a lot of willpower, you run out.

Willpower is actually a diminishing resource that your frontal lobe start with. So the frontal lobe can't be active for 24 hours a day. And we need it when we're awake. Which means that as we go to bed, the frontal lobe shuts off. It decreases in activity. This is also a feature. But as the frontal lobe shuts off, our ability to suppress our anxiety decreases.

This is why nighttime anxiety is so much worse. Because the part of our brain that experiences anxiety turns on more. And the part of our brain that reduces anxiety is like, hey, bra, I need to rest. Right? And if you think about what happens to your willpower if you get a good night's rest,

what happens to your willpower if you don't get a good night's rest? The frontal lobe recovers when we sleep. This is probably the biggest reason why nighttime anxiety gets worse. But there are more. Okay? Number three, this is where we get to distraction. And why distracting yourself from anxiety is one of the worst things that you can do for your sleep. So normally here's me, and I'm anxious.

Okay, I'm worried. So what do I do? I use external stimuli to push away the anxiety. So there's a great example of this. During the day, I can usually keep myself distracted, but the second I try to go to bed, my thoughts start racing. I replay conversations, worry about things I can't control, and imagine the worst case scenario for tomorrow.

It's exhausting. Not only is it exhausting, you are already exhausted. Why are you exhausted? because your frontal lobes have been suppressing your anxiety all day long. Okay? What's helping is giving my brain something light to latch on to before I crash. Sometimes I'll listen. Wait, is this some kind of MyPrize advertisement?

Did we just stumble into a My Prize advertisement? What the fuck that is? That's so interesting. Okay. So, sounds like some Reddit sneaky astroturfing that we just stumbled into. because I don't even know what that is. Yeah, no one knows what it is, but in two anxiety posts,

people just mentioned it towards the end. I think that's, should we do some Reddit sleething, chat? Let's do some Reddit sleuthing. Interesting, right? Yeah. Reddit age two months, looks like astroturfing to me, chat.

Reddit age one month? Let's see if this one, if this post has my prize, it's guilty. Okay. doesn't have my prize. Still looks suss a. F. Chat. Just discovered someone astroturfing for my prize.

Okay. So what happens is I feel anxious and then I distract myself. I use external stimuli. I pull my attention away from my anxiety. Make sense? But there is a problem with this. Because when my brain is experiencing anxiety in my, amygdala, what am I conditioning myself to do to regulate anxiety? How am I training my brain?

I have eyes over here that go to the occipital lobe in the back. The occipital lobe is actually way better, right? I have ears, which go to my auditory cortex. So I have eyes and ears, and I'm horribly misshapen as a human being. Right? So this is auditory. This is occipital. Actually, Broca's area, I think is more over here, but whatever. So what I'm training myself to do is when anxious use external stimuli to reduce anxiety. So I'm not training myself to regulate my anxiety by my physiology. I'm not training myself to regulate my anxiety using cognitive reframing. Right?

I'm training myself to suppress my anxiety either through drugs or sensory distractions. That's what my brain learns, right? That's the way we deal with our anxiety all day long. Stay busy, stay busy, stay busy, don't think about it. Distract yourself, distract yourself, distract yourself. So if distraction is my method of regulating anxiety and I go to sleep, there's a problem because when I sleep, there is a sensory deprivation. there isn't external stimuli, right?

The external stimuli goes away. That's the whole point. I close my eyes. So what I've actually done is I've conditioned myself to use distractions to control my anxiety. If you put me in a non-distractable state, then the anxiety will come roaring back and will oftentimes come back even harder

because you've been suppressing it this whole time, right? It's been piling up. It's been piling up, right? It started down here, and you're distracting, distracting, distracting, distracting, distracting, distracting, it's building up, and then there's so much of it that it doesn't just end up in your arm, it ends up in your head. And sometimes if you're not careful, it'll fill up all of the head. It'll only be one arm that is not full of anxiety.

So distracting yourself is one of the worst things that you can do with anxiety. Okay. Now, the last thing that we're going to talk about is a couple of things like, actually a couple of of things. One is melatonin. So there are studies that show, let me see if I can find the paper. Modified circadian rhythm. Oh yeah. There's another thing that we need to talk about. So there's another part of our brain that activates when we go to bed, and that is the default mode network. So the default mode network is our self-referential processing. So if we sort of look at these posts, right, worry about things I can't control. Imagine,

worst case scenarios, replay conversations. And if we sort of look at this, I keep busy, I push my thoughts aside. Every worry comes back. So I toss and turn, bills relationships, future plans, regrets all flood at once. So I don't know if this makes sense, but the things that we worry about, oftentimes when we're anxious, relate to ourselves. So, oftentimes we're so when we're anxious, right, we're worried, oh, did I screw this up? Did I mess that up? So the default mode network activates. And there's research that shows that when we go to bed at night, the default mode network also increases an activity. So what's natural to think about when we go to bed? We think about ourselves. We think about the day. We think about tomorrow. That's also a feature,

not a bug. So we're trying to think about ourselves a little bit, processing, thinking about what we could do differently. But this is also why if you have anxiety and depression, this is really, really, really, really bad. So people with anxiety, depression, people with anxiety and people with depression will both have problems with insomnia. And when you have both of them together,

it's because of the hyperactivity of the default mode network that really triggers both. So you start thinking about yourself a lot. The last thing to talk about is melatonin, and there are studies that show that people have difficulty with nighttime anxiety.

Let's find this real quick. Right? So, yeah, so accordingly, dysfunctions and melatonin production and rhythms have been hypothesized to contribute to insomnia crinicity. Okay. So melatonin does a couple of really important things for the brain. One of the things that it does is it increases gabinergic tone. So what is GABA? Gaba is a hyper-polarizing neurotransmitter.

This means that it increases chloride transmission across the neuron. When you hyper-polarize a neuron, it's kind of counterintuitive. That means that the neuron is more likely to shut off. So this is a suppressing neurotransmitter. Good examples of things that activate, GABA, i.e. suppress things. Alcohol and benzodiazepines both work on increasing GABA transmission. So melatonin also shuts things off. Okay? Now let's understand how this works. So I'm increasing, here's my amygdala. I'm increasing amygdala activity when I go to sleep so that I can

process through dreams. There's another reason I'm increasing the hypersensitivity of the amygdala. and that's because remember, so when we go to sleep, this is really fascinating. We want to be in a safe place. So when we sleep, you'll ever thought about this? We want to be in a safe place, but our sensitivity to danger increases. That's why we want to be in a safe place. So I want to be in a room. I want to make sure my alarm is on in the house.

The door is locked. I'm under a blanket. The windows are closed. I want to be safe. But your ability to hear things actually increases. So we increase our threat perception and we create a safe environment to compensate for that so that I can go to sleep. Right? Because what do I want?

I want my brain to be on to be able to detect someone opening a door, breaking a window or something like that. But I also want to be in a safe place because if I'm in a normal area, right, I don't know if you all have ever tried to sleep in an airport and how paranoid you feel sleeping in an airport. What if someone steals my stuff? you pile up all your stuff, you put your legs on top, you'll ever done that? Where you're like, when you fall asleep in a public place, you're like extra paranoid that people are going to steal your stuff. Of course, that's because your amygdala is becoming hyperactive.

So we try to create an environment that is safe, but we actually amp up our threat detection. Okay? Second thing is frontal lobes, which normally inhibit, and this is the sign for inhibition in like physiology, this gets shut off. So we need something to compensate.

That's where melatonin comes in. So melatonin goes over here, increases gabatone, and basically balances things out. Right? So this is going to be suppressive, actually. So we're going to increase our suppression. We're going to increase our action, and that everything works out the way that it's supposed to.

Except if you have an anxiety disorder or you struggle with anxiety, this melatonin production gets messed up. So now we don't have something that is shutting off the amygdala. The amygdala is becoming hyperactive. So how do we deal with this? Do we fix it?

First thing, you can go see a psychiatrist, go see a therapist, it can help a lot. First thing that we got to do. Increase pro-sleep signals. exercise, heavy meal, insulin spike, carb heavy dinner, can work great. Okay? So how easy it is for you to fall asleep depends on how you spend your day. So when your body feels like the day is over, when you've done enough work, we have a whole video about this or multiple, when you've done enough work, then your body is like, okay, fine.

Your brain is like, we did a good job today, now we can go to sleep. If you procrastinate it all day, then what's going to happen is your brain is going to say, oh, we were supposed to do all this stuff you were supposed to do that you didn't do. It's going to be like the day can't be over yet because then we're going to have twice as much stuff to do more. It's going to keep you awake. Increase your pro-sleep signals. Second thing, don't distract from anxiety, at least exclusively. Because if I tell you, don't distract yourself from your anxiety, your response is going to be.

then how the hell am I supposed to do anything? I will be completely non-functional if I don't distract myself from my anxiety. I get that. I do. I've had tons of patients who will tell me that. Dr. K., I can't distract myself. If I don't distract myself, then I'm not going to get anything done. Turns out that that's not the case.

Okay? So here's the cool thing. If you don't distract yourself from your anxiety, you will start triggering homeostatic mechanisms. What does this mean? This means that any time my body or brain feels an emotion, it automatically starts certain processes to turn the emotion off. When I feel joy, that joy doesn't last forever. It automatically expires.

So when I feel anxiety, this is going to be hard for people with anxiety disorders, but we'll talk about this, right? It actually automatically expires. Now, why would people with anxiety disagree with this for two reasons? The first is that the duration and intensity of anxiety in an anxiety disorder are both higher. The second thing is that technically the anxiety does expire, but you create new anxiety through things like rumination. Rumination isn't the propagation. So when I create an anxiety thought, this is what happens, right?

the thought starts anxiety increases and then it goes down the problem with rumination is in the middle i start creating another thought and then this will happen and then this will happen and then this will happen it's not that you don't have homeostasis it's that the process of rumination is creating additional thoughts which is what creates the spiral we must be precise about this your anxiety will go away that's why stopping rumination becomes really important we have a whole video about that It's a whole topic in and of itself. The key thing is that the more you distract yourself, the more the anxiety is going to build up and the more of it that you're going to have when you go to sleep.

So for some amount of time, and this is where you can meditate, you can exercise, you can go for a walk and let the anxiety flow, baby. Going for a walk is great. Going for an hour-long walk, really good for your anxiety. Spending time with animals, really good for your anxiety. Let the thoughts flow. So if you work with someone like a professional and you can do some cognitive reframing or CBT worksheet or something like that, you have to target your anxiety in a direct way. The other thing that you can do to regulate your anxiety, we want to regulate it, not distract from it, is breathing. This is huge.

Your breathing, if you can take deep breaths with particularly long exhalation, so we'll teach a practice called Kapal Bhati or Nadi Shudhdi Pranayam. These are the two that I tend to use in my patients with anxiety. Or Shithal pranayam also works really well. Shithel pranayam is really easy. You just go like this, make a taco with your tongue, and you breathe through it. Now, why does Shithelopranayam work? Because the respite, the speed of exhalation and inhalation is automatically slowed down. When we feel anxious, we are likely to hyperventilate. We want to slow down the feeling of anxiety. I mean, we're going to slow down the rate of respiration,

decrease the number of breaths per minute, increase the length of exhalation, and then our anxiety will hopefully get better, right? Engages the parasympathetic nervous system. There's a lot of good data behind that. So don't distract yourself. Third thing, not a most important thing, everything is the most important thing.

So melatonin can be helpful. Definitely something you should talk to your doctor about, get evaluated for an insomnia disorder, circadian rhythm disorder, there are all kinds of treatments for that. Third thing, don't miss, this is huge, your sleep window. This is what a lot of people don't understand. You have a window per day in which it is easy to fall asleep. If you miss that window, it is hard to fall asleep. See, one of the biggest mistakes that we make is we assume that the more time of the tired we are, the easier it is to fall asleep. That's incorrect. The more tired you are,

it becomes harder to fall asleep until you reach a point of critical tiredness that is like passing out. Do you all understand how subjectively falling asleep and passing out are different? And have you noticed that you can't pass out immediately after you would have fallen asleep? There's always a big gap between falling asleep and being able to pass out. Do you all get that? These are two very different mechanisms. And here's the big thing that people don't understand. I learned this with my kids, by the way.

So your frontal lobes are responsible for controlling the other parts of your brain and suppressing the other parts of your brain. So when you go to sleep, it actually requires willpower to go to sleep. What do I mean by? I mean, willpower is a resource. Not like you have to be like a stoic like willpower do, but like literally your brain requires energy to fall asleep

because in order to fall asleep, you have to shut down the parts of your mind. So when you go to sleep, if your frontal lobes have some energy left, then they can shut off. It's basically like, I'm shutting, down the factory and there's a factory worker who's going around and pulling, like turning off all the

machines, right? It takes energy to shut down the factory. The factory doesn't just shut off on its own. It takes a lot of energy to shut down the factory. So we each have a sleep window where our frontal lobes have enough juice to where we can suppress our amygdala. We can stop ourselves from getting like, we can have the, oh, this is huge. We can have the willpower to not pull out our phones. We can have the willpower to not turn on the TV. We can have the willpower to read instead of turning on the TV. That requires willpower. Going to sleep requires willpower. Sitting your ass down and being bored in bed for 28 minutes while you fall asleep requires a lot of willpower. So this is why if we reach a critical point of tiredness, what do we mean by tired? If the frontal lobes become too exhausted,

they can no longer suppress the other parts of our brain. And then we enter into this severe tiredness phase where our only option now is passing out. And then the fatigue signals need to be so high that we end up passing out. But then we are even more fatigued and a full night sleep is not going to recover from that. A full night sleep will recover from the right sleep window.

Does that kind of make sense? Because now we're like extra fatigued. We're like bonus fatigued. Now we're like staying up till 3 a.m. And, you know, even if you wake up at 11, you're still going to be groggy. So when I was like trying to, when I was trying to put my kids to bed, I noticed that if I miss this window, there's like a window where I'm like, okay, bedtime, let's get into bed. Let's do cuddles.

Let's do a story. Right? And then it's like, okay, it's bedtime now. I'm going to give you a kiss. Good night. I'll see you tomorrow. And then the kid grabs her a little stuffy and she goes to sleep. But if it's late, if it's like 10.30, if it's past their bedtime, it's like, okay, do we have time for a story?

Let's do a story. And they're like, I have to go to the bathroom. And now I need water. And now, no, I can't. Like, I need this stuff. You know, it's in the other room. There's just one thing I have to do. They just go insane.

Their frontal lobes are completely shot. They can't sit still. I'm like, get under the covers. Close your eyes. They can't close their eyes. They're like getting up and now I got to do this. Now I got to do this. We miss their sleep window.

and then it becomes twice as hard to put them to bed. And then there's yelling and then there's crying and then there's frustration and then there's tickling. Right? Because tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle. Got to get that energy out of them. You got too much energy. You got the energy monkeys in your armpits.

Let's get them out. Chasing that energy monkey in your armpit. Right? Like then you can't control yourself. And self-control is necessary for sleep. So don't miss your sleep window. Huge. Right?

Generally speaking, your sleep window will start about 16 hours after you wake up, maybe a little bit lower, maybe 14 hours, 15 hours. And you have to go to sleep when you have enough energy to be able to stay in bed. That's how you know. Somewhere between 8 and 10 p.m. watching the sunset is a huge part of that. You know, spending some time outdoors when it's getting dark after it's been dark, then going to bed. And you've got to go to sleep before you're ready. That's actually when it's easiest to fall asleep.

If you wait until you're too tired, it will become harder to fall asleep. And that boys and girls is nighttime anxiety. If you all want to understand other things like this, like some of these physiologic things, so we have a video on rumination. If you'll want more stuff on anxiety specifically, check out Dr. Kay's guide. We've got a lot of good stuff on a physiologic anxiety that people were stunned. They're like, holy shit, I didn't know this is how anxiety works. Remember, 50% of your anxiety comes from your body.

There's a lot that you can do there, dietary things and things like that. Okay? All right. Next. Actually, let's do questions real quick. What questions do you all have? Can you fist fight your neighbor to release your anxiety? First rule of Fight Club is we don't talk about Fight Club. Is there a good book for understanding parts of the brain and their function?

What a great question. I can't think of one. So I have, give me a second. Let me see if I can find it. There's one that I do have. I haven't seen it recently. There's a book called neurobehavioral anatomy, which is like good for psychiatrists. I haven't seen it.

Hold on. So, you know, I think this is the best book that I've read, but I would not recommend it for non-professionals. I think this is. Yeah, this one. This is one that one of my mentors recommended to me. But it's like, it's a book for psychiatrists and neurologists. Right. So it's like a textbook.

But I mean, it's, it's pretty good. So if you all are like, if you guys have a high level of, oh, shit. If you all have a high level of understanding in the basics, then it's good. So it does kind of tell you what the, yeah, it does kind of tell you, like, it's the best one. But it's not, I don't think it's great for what we're talking about. It's not like that level. It's very, very, like, anatomy focus. Yeah, so there are things like

Hypocratin, I don't know how to pronounce it, orexin is another really important neurotransmitter. There's a lot of different hormones and stuff that are involved with sleep. I've been working on a video on those for actually like two and a half years. Just never really gotten around to making it click.

Because like a lot of times I think about how to make it applicable. Can you read me a bedtime story? We've done that before. I've got a question, if I want to go for a walk, can I listen to music? That's a great question. The question is whether the music helps you emotionally process

or whether it distracts you from emotional processing. Oh, you're doing Slydo. Okay, give me a second. Let me pull up Slido chat. Slidochater.com. Dot or org.org. Dot, D.U.org. Thank you very much, Mods.

okay, how can we have proper discourse when people are seeing this kind of situation from their own bubbles? Okay, that's, looks like people are not asking questions related to anxiety. So we can still answer them. Okay, there's a question about emotional processing. I think that deserves a lecture. When you mentioned the brain processes emotions, what does that mean? Regulating hormonal levels. Let's talk about this for just a second, and then this deserves its whole own lecture.

What does it mean to process an emotion? So an emotion has a neurological component, right? So emotion is activation of the emotional centers of the brain. Now, when emotional centers in the brain activate, they communicate with other parts of the brain. So what happens when we feel emotional is they go to our reticular activating formation, which is at the base of our skull, and the emotion says, hey, don't go to sleep, we're in The emotion goes to the sympathetic chain ganglia, which is a set of cells along your spine, and turns those on and causes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, sweating,

diaphoresisus, things like that. The emotion travels to your frontal lobes and says, hey, we got to focus on this, don't think about anything else. Now, here's the key thing to remember about emotions and the brain in general. the brain is never static. It doesn't just turn on and off like a light switch. Every time the brain turns on, it changes. So think about a light switch that every time you turn it on,

it alters the electrical wiring in your house. So if I have a dozen light switches across my house and I turn one on and off every single day, imagine that that wiring gets more insulated. get stronger. And if there is a light switch that I do not touch over time that wiring shrinks.

This is the way that our brain works. You all have to understand that every time you activate the brain, you change the brain. You're changing your wiring. So most of the time when we activate our emotions, this creates a permanent new state.

So when I experience intense trauma, it alters the architecture of my brain. It alters the architecture of my nervous system. So when I do not process emotions, that activation, which I then suppress, so it doesn't go away, it's just I suppress it, right? So it's kind of like I wall it off. The music is still playing. I'm just turning down the volume. It's not the same as hitting the stop button.

So then those emotional signals, even though I'm not aware of them, and a really good example of this is dissociation. So in dissociation, the part of my brain is still like fucking on fire, hyperactive, but I have no awareness of it. So if you measure someone who's dissociating, really fascinating. If you measure like vital signs for someone who's dissociating, oftentimes they're not normal. So their heart rate will be elevated even though they feel perfectly fine. The other really interesting example of this is there's a psychiatric state called catatonia. And in catatonia, I wish I could show you all. Let's look.

I'm going to show you all. Let's take a look at catatonia. I want to show you all what a catatonic state looks like. Here's a video on catatonia. Let's see if it works. Gigi. Like a warm candlestick, the body of the patient can be contorted into almost any posture. The patient may maintain the posture for several minutes.

So in people who are catatonic, they move very little. They move incredibly slowly. Okay, this is catatonia. So this is what catatonia is. If you ask them a question, it may take them minutes to answer. Now, here's the really interesting thing. Got a question for y'all. If you ask a catatonic person, what does it feel like?

So they're super slow. What does it feel like to be catatonic? What do you all think they say? You may think that they say, oh, it feels like time is slowed down. It's actually the opposite. People who are catatonic, their subjective experience of catatonia, is that life is moving incredibly fast. They're the opposite of lagging.

There's way too much stimulation, and it's overwhelming. So they're frozen when everything is firing past them over and over and over again. Life is like, it's like they're living in life that's sped up, but they feel like everything is too fast for them. right so if someone is slow in life they feel like life is moving faster we see them as slower but they see the opposite they're in a time bubble very good which is why what we use to treat catatonia's benzodiazepines which are gabinergic benzodiazepines slow down the brain catatonia is also associated with very intense emotions we see catatonia in two illnesses depression and schizophrenia

Both of these are when people are in a very high emotional state. In severe depression, you will see catatonia. In decompensated schizophrenia, you will see catatonia. Okay? What does this have to do with emotional processing? So, when we suppress emotions, remember we're turning down the volume, but it's still playing. We're just not aware of it. And then all of those emotions are making alterations in our brain.

So after you go through a traumatic experience, you are changed. The way that your brain operates is changed. So when an emotion is allowed to make alterations in your brain, however the fuck it feels like doing. Oh yeah. Door closed. Have a panic attack, bitch. This person didn't call you. Have a panic attack.

Start to trigger your fear of abandonment. Boss said that they want to talk. talk to you this Friday, activate depression, start to feel bad about yourself, start to start to feel bad about yourself, start to dread it, right? Do you guys understand how this stimulus boss says, hey, I want to talk to you, triggers a certain pattern in your brain? And where did that pattern come from? It came from your emotions being allowed to run buck wild without any kind of control, regulation, or intention. What is emotional processing? Emotional processing is regulating that emotion, turning off that emotional circuitry in a way that does not harmfully alter the architecture of your brain.

It is saying, okay, so here's an example. Let's say I get dumped. And if I let that emotion run wild, what's going to happen is that it'll create all kinds of changes in my brain. I'm going to become a blackbiller. I'm going to become an inseller. I will literally, the next time I see a woman, I will be triggered with all kinds of thoughts. Do you all understand that all those triggers

mean that certain neurons are like turning on? And how did those neurons get wired to turn on, do that at stimulus? It's because there was an emotion that was allowed to just run wild and make alterations in the brain, however the fuck it wants to. So emotional processing is preventing that process.

It is allowing the emotion to exist getting rid of the emotion without those alterations, without those permanent alterations. And permanent alterations can be permanently altered down the road, so it's not like you're screwed forever. Do you all get that? But it's changed until you change it back. Right?

So you can think about the brain, not like cement, but like clay. So when I manipulate the brain in a particular way, like it holds that shape. It doesn't naturally resort to whatever the shape is started. It stays there until I remanipulate it. That's how your brain works. That's why I can feel like changes are permanent until you change them the other way.

Like clay, not like cement. Okay? So when we emotionally process, we are going through the process of, no pun intended, shutting down the emotion, disabling the emotion, working through the emotion

in a way that does not create alterations. So if I process my emotions of my breakup, if I sit down and I talk to about it, I'm like, bra, she dumped me, bra, it hurts, and I'm like, yeah, bra, I know it's hard. brah, like that's just life though. And look, not everyone is meant to be together. I know it hurts now, but you're still loved. I still love you, bro. Like, you know, when you're ready to get back

out there, I'll be your wingman. And hey, I started dating this girl and she's got a sister and her sister's super hot. So when you're ready for an intro, like you let me know, bra. And like, you know, you do all this kind of stuff. And then you kind of feel good about it. You're not scarred afterward. The person who ends up, the key thing about emotional processing is that an emotion does not change you. The more we process emotions, the more we actually stay the same,

like sort of. Right? So if I, like, if I, I'm good at processing my emotion, I'm generally okay today. Something bad happens, something good happens, but I don't change.

I'm like basically the same. I'm like the same pretty chill guy. Okay? As we start processing more and more emotions, or as we stop processing emotions, I start to become, as we stop processing emotions, I start to become a different person.

And I don't know if you've known anyone who's built up a lot of resentment. So the building up of resentment, what is that? What does that mean? As that human being turns into a different human being, what is the mechanism of that? Emotional activation, manipulating the clay, changing the electrical wires, changing the way that we react to things,

changing the way that we perceive things, changing the way that our nervous system activates when we are in the presence of a, girl. Right? Feel like an idiot. That is what emotional processing is. It is allowing your emotions to dissipate without changing the architecture of your brain. Makes sense? If y'all are looking for Hassan Slop, missed it, bruh. Okay. Can anxiety or unprocessed grief show up as physical pain? I've been dealing with bodily aches and pains, especially I'm distracting myself with my hobbies. Absolutely. Can it show up? Not only can it show up.

That's how it does show up. Your brain and your body are connected. You can look at studies of people with fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, right? Chronic pain disorders. Emotional difficulties are a very strong risk factor for all of those things. That's where we as doctors made a critical mistake. We started talking in ways and treating patients as if that means it's all in their head. It's not.

It is truly a mind-body issue. There's a psychological problem, which then, remember, psychology happens in the brain. Neurology also happens in the brain. And once your nerves get messed up, then your pain fibers and the nerves, because pain fibers are nerves, right? So then there's like downstream changes, so it's a very mind-body. Does that change the sleep window? Not usually. Depends on when it is.

How can you avoid drama when it seems to be everywhere? I don't know what you mean by seems to be everywhere. but the callous response here is if you're surrounded by drama, maybe you're inducing drama. But I don't think that's necessarily the case. I'm not saying it's your fault because here's the truth of the matter is that some areas are full of drama. So like parent teacher association, certain workplaces, certain places are more drama prone and certain places are more drama free.

Generally speaking, you see more drama wherever there is ego. So let's understand how. ego leads to drama. So in life, good things happen and bad things happen. It is the associations that we attach to the ups and downs of life that create drama. So when something happens and I take it personally, my ego gets involved. You did this do hurt me. Now it's not just the event.

Something bad happened and then that thing will end, right? whatever the bad thing is. Oh, we had a bad quarter, so no one gets raises. That shit happens. So be it. I don't have to take it personally. But the moment that I take it personally, how does that create drama? Because then when the event ends, I'm not done with it.

And I certainly ain't done with you. So I carry it forward. So what is drama? Drama is human beings carrying forward conflicts into new interactions. actions. Do you all get that? You can't have drama unless someone is going to bring yesterday into today. So when relationships fall apart, why do they fall apart? Because the people in them create drama with each other. You did this to me yesterday. I'm going to carry it forward into today. Now we have, you forgot to pick me up at the airport. Now I'm asking you to pick something up

from the grocery store, and since you screwed up back then, I'm carrying that resentment forward, and now when I'm asking you to do something, what? No, I'm fine. I'm doing good. Thank you, though. That's what drama is, right, when you carry something forward. So oftentimes, if you're in a place where there's a lot of egos, there will be a lot of drama. There's going to be a lot of territoriality. There's going to be a lot of entitlement. Does that make sense? So how do you avoid the drama? I don't know if you can avoid the drama, but you can try to not get entangled with it. And the way to not get entangled with the drama is to generally speaking, first and foremost, do not take things personally, right? Recognize that the reason that someone is an

asshole to you is not because there's something wrong with you, it's because they're an asshole. right? So like to recognize that if there's, oh, there's lipstick on the forehead, but it looks like it's not going away. Great. Whatever. So it's hard to avoid. But you cannot get entangled in it. And generally speaking, the right way to get entangled with it is to be neutral. To be of limited inappropriate responsiveness, but not to overcompensate or undercompensate. So oftentimes neutral will do the trick, but sometimes someone who is very drama-prone will put a target on your back and then they'll start bullying you and then you can't be like neutral doesn't mean inactive that just means like not taking a side

so defending yourself setting limits with people that's like part of healthy neutrality right so if I set a boundary it's not like I'm attacking I'm not going to counter attack but I'm going to defend my own territory so that requires some art some subtlety and is difficult to do

generally speaking don't take sides don't be egotistical and if you're surrounded by a lot of drama two things you should consider as what is your contribution to it. And secondly, if your contribution is really not very much, then you should consider finding a different group of people. So oftentimes we will get attracted to certain drama-oriented circles. It's hard.

And then, oh, this is another example. So if you're saying when drama is everywhere and you mean like things like the internet, well, like, yeah, that's because much like in real life, see, real life has an algorithm just like the internet. And depending on what you engage with in real life, you will get engaged with a certain algorithm. So if I click on some video about, you know, masculinity on YouTube, eventually I'm going to see Jordan Peterson, right?

It's going to happen. It has to happen. So once I get on a pipeline, I'm going to wind up in a particular place. The crazy thing that people don't realize is that life has an algorithm as well, where like there are certain people who like once you you know if you have a group of friends who's pretty chill and one like drama llama shows up like we're going to deselect for that person and if you hang out with a bunch of potheads you're going to enter the pothead algorithm of life if you join degenerate gamers you're going to enter the degenerate gamer algorithm of life

if you go to a place like an ivy league institution you will join that algorithm not for life but for that period. You'll see how like, and then if I'm on the Manosphere algorithm and then I click something about comedy or something about Starcraft, my algorithm will be woven together. So real life is like that.

So if you don't like the life that you are living, you should really ask yourself, what is the algorithm that I am moving towards? If you're sitting at home, not doing anything all day versus, hey, I'm going to start joining a high-intensity, a high-interval intensity training workout group. I'm going to start going to spin class.

I'm going to learn salsa dancing. Right? So the algorithm of real life depends on your interactions with it. And this is what a lot of people who are like red pillars, black pillars, whatever, like, right? So they don't quite get this. They don't realize that if I'm a red pillar and I believe that all women want is money, if I have a transactional attitude when I go on a date, someone will pick up on that and will either accept that if they're willing to play ball or they're going to.

or they're going to not ever see me again. Right? Does that kind of make sense? So we are selecting for the algorithm of life constantly. And if I start to have in-cell-oriented thinking and I'm selecting for my exposure as being talking to in-cells on the internet as opposed to making platonic friendships with women that I'm not attracted to, that will be a very different algorithm.

Great question. But drama being everywhere is like, it's hard. Any videos on forming friendships? Yeah, I think we have some. Isn't there a way to bypass emotional regulation so you don't even get triggered in the first place? Yes. So there are ways to basically not have to emotionally regulate. Okay?

This is a beautiful question. Advanced answer. Love it. So do you always have to regulate your emotions? not at all. Some people may say yes, I don't think that's the case. I'm going to give you all an example. When I was an intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital

in the Harvard Medical School, I once had a patient, my first patient with K2. So K2 is a synthetic form of marijuana, makes people psychotic. So I walked in to evaluate them. First thing, started yelling at me, I miss you. I was like, oh my God, I got emotionally triggered.

I was like, I'm terrified, this is scary, this is whatever. Right? Like I got so triggered by it, right? And I experienced a lot of emotions over time. So then those emotions got triggered. I felt emotion. And remember, emotion will alter the way that my brain functions. If I don't process it in the right way, it'll sensitize me.

There's a certain phenomenon in neurology called kindling. Kindling is at the very, at the beginning, I require a volume. of 10 to elicit a signal. But over time, I can get sensitive to it. I can detect it at a 5, a 2, even a 1. So sometimes the brain develops more sensitivity to things. We see that in something like PTSD. Where PTSD, this thing used to not be scary now since I'm kindling.

Now it's becoming scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scarier, scary. Okay, that happens too. But just because I got triggered emotionally the first time when I'm a fourth-year resident and I'm supervising other residents and there's someone who's high on K2 I look at this, I get the referral from the ED doc and I say, okay,

is this a guy that I need security for? What do you think? And they're like, yeah, maybe you need security. I'm like, okay, great. So I go over to walk these two dudes in the suits, the fucking security's awesome at MGH. One of my favorite things about being at that hospital is security is awesome. We're in suits, super professional, so good at de-escalation.

Like, they're amazing. A lot of them are former police, former military, just top-notch security. So I tell these two guys, and you know, you develop a relationship with him. So I'm like, hey, I've got a guy. He's using K2. You know, E.D. folks say, like, maybe we're going to need you. Can you guys hang out outside the door and just keep an eye on me as I go in?

They're like, fine. So then I step inside. This guy starts yelling, right? But now I have training. And what does training mean? Training means that when I get a stimulus, my response to that stimulus is different. I recognize this is not personal. I recognize that I've taken every conceivable safety precaution I can.

I formed a relationship. These people have my back. If the person attacks me, I'm going to stand in front of the door. So I'm standing in a very specific area. I step into the door, the door swings in. I step one step to the left of the doorway and I lean against the wall. And I put my hands behind my back. Or I show my hands if they've got K2.

If they seem really paranoid, I had my hands across my back. First thing is I do this, then I do this, then I do, I'm showing my hands. I'm like, hey man, what's up? I stand forward. Now, why am I doing each of these things? Because each of these things will change the way that a psychotic person reacts to you. This implies defensiveness. This, I forgot, because I haven't been in an AD in a while, is a big, big, big, big, big, no-no.

Why do you never have your hands behind your back when you're with a psychotic patient? Because they can't see what you're doing with your hands. And if they can't see what you're doing with your hands, maybe you're doing something shady. So instead I'm going to show my hands. I'm going to show that they're empty. Maybe I'm going to eat something. I'm going to pull out some crackers. I'm going to open the crackers.

I'm going to be like, hey, bro, you want a cracker? So I'm going to do everything that I can. So now I don't feel emotion. I recognize that they're very angry. I see that stimulus, but my brain has been trained to process that stimulus. Right? So if you take the average human being and their best friend or partner or whatever says, hey, I'm having thoughts of ending my own life,

triggers a huge emotional response. if someone says that to me, does not trigger the same human, a huge emotional response, right? Am I alert? Am I careful? Am I focused? Am I on board? Absolutely. But I'm not emotional about it.

Another great example of this is, is when I was having, we were having our first kid, there were some concerns about the birth. And so there was an amazing MFM fellow, Maternal Fental Medicine Fellow. and since things were not perfect, she was starting to panic a little bit. The attending comes in. She's, I'm guessing, a woman in her like early 30s. The attending is like an older dude in his late,

it's probably 60s, early 60s is my guess. He's just calm. Scenario is exactly the same. Everyone knows myself included, which is a little bit terrifying and I was dissociating. Things are not ideal, let's say. But her emotional reaction and his emotional reaction is different. so you can absolutely train the way that you respond to situations.

You do not have to regulate your emotions all the time. You can adjust the way that you move through life so that you do not have profound emotional reactions. This is tranquility. This is groundedness. Now the question becomes how. So this is where there's two major buckets. The first bucket is attitude.

The way that you interpret the things around you will alter your emotions drastically. When I get an F, what does this mean? Does this mean I am a failure? Or does this mean, oh, wow, there is really an area of knowledge that I am deficient in that I need to spend a lot of time learning? Those are two very different emotional resources. responses. The way that you receive what the world sends your way will dictate the largest part of your emotional response. This is what the Stoic said. This is what the Buddha said. The Buddha said that

there's no protection from pain, but there is absolute protection from suffering. That's not literally what he said. Maybe he said that. I don't know. That's what his message was. Okay. Now, next question becomes, how do we cultivate that? And this is the kind of stuff that we talk about over on the membership side. So we'll have two-hour lectures about this, but I'll give you all a quick, quick tip. This is what the Buddha said that's really wild. So in Western psychiatry, we say,

we acknowledge this now because of DBT and act, dialectable behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, these principles of like radical acceptance with borderline personality disorder, we realize that you can't stop life from hurting you. So the Buddha said there are these two arrows. One arrow is the arrow that life shoots at you.

You can't prevent that. I can't date someone and guarantee that they'll never dump me. If I date, I'm going to get dumped. I'm going to get ghosted. So be it. That's just part of life. The second arrow is the arrow that I shoot at myself. One arrow to the knee, fair enough.

Happened sometimes. The second arrow is the arrow that I shoot at myself because I got hit by the first one. Oh, you're so stupid. Why did you date this person? You know, you're so dumb. I threw. I was ahead in that game of Dota and I did something. stupid. It is the suffering that you pile on top. It is the association that you attach to the event.

Now that I'm dumped, now it means I'm unlovable. Now it means I'm a loser, right? Getting dumped doesn't make you a loser. That is what you attach to getting dumped. Maybe the reason that you got dumped is because it turns out you're dating a lesbian. That has no reflection on you. Maybe the reason that you got dumped is because the person has severe depression and is not interested in a relationship, and nothing to do with you. The second arrow is the arrow that we shoot at ourselves. It is your response to bad things happening to you. Now remember, we're talking about how to program yourself

so that this doesn't happen. Because you may say, but Dr. Kay, how can I avoid feeling like a loser when I get dumped? This is what's so beautiful about the Buddha. This is what's so scary is because we don't teach the Buddha's teachings anymore. I don't know if you'll notice this. We don't teach what the Buddha said. You know why? Because what the Buddha said is not socially acceptable.

We have so many people talking about mindfulness. No one talks about enlightenment. What do you all think the Buddha was teaching? He was teaching for enlightenment. He said, hey, the reason for all this stuff is enlightenment. That's the point. But no one talks about it anymore. Tons of mindfulness classes, tons of Buddhist teachers. No one talks about enlightenment. Like why? What happened? Here's the crazy thing that the Buddha said about the two arrows. The two arrows is not just about pain. It is also about pleasure. The Buddha said that the second arrow that's just as damaging is when something good happens to us, we feel good. The Buddha said this is a mistake. When you win, if you feel like I am a winner, just as bad.

When something good happens to you, attach nothing to it. Let it sluff off of you like rain. Do not get by it. In the world that we live in, you should be like a swan where you can swim through a bunch of stuff and never get wet. A bunch of stuff doesn't just include the pain. It also includes the pleasure. The reason this is so hard for people is because we tell everyone, oh, detach from your suffering from all of the negativity in life. Which you really need is detach from the positivity too. And this is the beautiful thing. This is a beautiful neuroscience of it. When an action affects my identity, that neuronal connection is there. If the action is good, I feel good.

If the action is bad, I feel bad. Do you all understand how that connection is the same? It's like if I flip this switch, if this switch gets flipped up, this is up. If this is down, this is down. The problem is the connection. That's what the Buddha was saying. So what does this mean practically? This means that when something good happens to you, don't take credit for it.

That is going to be way easier to do than the pain stuff. So when something good happens to me, when someone says, oh, Dr. Kay, you're so great, man, you work so hard. And it's like, bro, like, I'm a product of my environment. I'm a product of my teachers. I'm a product of my parents. I'm a product, as you guys can see here of the side of my wife. I am where I am today, not because I'm hot shit, because I'm lucky A.F. I attach very little importance to my accomplishments

because my accomplishments, like, what else? You know, it's not my, I didn't do anything to be born without an encephaly. Anencephaly is when a child is born without a brain. Right? I didn't do anything to deserve that. I didn't do anything to deserve my IQ. I didn't do anything to deserve my parents. I didn't do much to deserve my wife.

I'll take a little bit of credit there. You'll understand? So detach from the positive things in life, too. So be it. Today I got lucky. It doesn't mean I'm hot shit. And the moment that I stop thinking that I am hot shit, I will also stop thinking that I am weak shit.

Right? It is just what happens. Life is a moment-to-moment experience of what's going on. Okay? I said, you guys ask about regulation. Oh, yeah. So what is the second way to be tranquil? Is to simply practice tranquility.

Forget about the attitude. Practice tranquility. Put yourself in situations that activate emotions and be tranquil in them. Right? Jump off of the 10-foot diving board when you feel afraid to jump. Sit and practice Kaya Shteram.

It's a practice that we've taught before. Stillness of the body. Be perfectly still for five minutes. It'll feel like torture and it'll feel amazing. Practice tranquility. Put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable and learn how to survive. Go volunteer.

Right? And why is volunteering uncomfortable? Is it because you're around a bunch of poor people? Maybe. But then something scary will happen. If you start volunteering over and over and over again, people will start appreciating you. Oh, my God. It's so painful.

If you have such low self-esteem, you should go and volunteer. here. Fascinating studies of depression show that one of the best things that you can do to alleviate your depression is to help another human being. So you cannot become tranquil by watching a YouTube video, by watching a live streamer, even the great Dr. Kay, who teaches you so much, oh my goodness, I will give you the secret. Let's understand that watching some dude talking on the internet will only get you so far. I can, all I can do is point the direction. I can't walk for you.

And with that, I'm out, y'all. We've been at it for three hours and ten minutes. I hope you all enjoyed today. Love the questions. My God. Any thoughts on polyamory under duress and codependency, Alexathemia? I made the mistake giving my consent for my girlfriend to see someone else.

Monogamy eight years. Yeah. Can you post it? about it anonymously on the subreddit so we can get more detail and I can dive into that. How do I tell a narcissistic person to shut up without them getting angry at me? Last thing. So in life, we can choose to act or we can choose to avoid consequences. We can't choose both. If you're going to tell someone to shut up, you've got to deal with the consequences. or you can keep silent and then they won't be angry with you.

So so many people live life because they're trying to do something without the emotional consequence doesn't work that way. The moment that you accept the emotional consequence, the action will be easy to do. They're going to be angry, so be it. Right? You get one. You get the emotion or you get the action. You get to be free from one of those two. Okay?

Thank you all very much for coming today. Hopefully nothing I said today was out of line, but if you all really do feel like I spoke out of turn with all this caller gate stuff, please let me know. I'm genuinely open to feedback about it. I also genuinely hope that nothing I said today creates shit for Hassan or anybody else, ex-cucy, whatever. I don't wish any bit of ill upon them. And also, people from their community, I know we had some Hassan supporters in chat today that seemed pretty positive with what we were saying. You know, if y'all are members of some of these communities and you still think that we're out of line or not still, you think we're out of line? Like, please let us know, right? So this is where

I'm open to dialogue about it. And thank you all for coming today and good luck. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.