HealthyGamerGG - Reintegrating post-COVID, Executive Dysfunction, and FOMO | Community Stream

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

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Hey, man, God, you did. Welcome, chat. Sorry for the delay. Things are hectic today. We had a big storm last night, and there are some complications, but all is well now. How are y'all doing? Hey, man, gett, Gatsman. It's not really, is it really Cartman, chat?

Is that what it is? How y'all doing today? Oh. Yep, up, up, yep. Um, you all doing good? Good. So, hope you all are doing well. Welcome to another healthy gamer Gigi stream. My name is Allup Kanoja. I'm a psychiatrist practicing in Boston. Just a reminder that everything we discussed today on stream is intended to be for educational purposes. And we are going to educate you guys

quite a bit today. Nothing is intended to be taken as actual medical advice. So if you guys have a medical problem, concern, please go see a licensed professional, maybe a therapist, maybe, you know, social worker, maybe a psychologist. Hello. Akkad. It's nice to be here. Sorry for the delay chat. Um, so today we're going to be doing a couple of different things, okay? So we've got, uh, I'm going to be talking a little bit about reintegration anxiety, which is kind of weird. Um, I've never really heard of it before, but it's something that I'm seeing amongst my patients and my clients. Uh, we're going to do some review of the Reddits. And if we've got a little bit of time, um, we may talk a little bit of

about the gambling meta and like principles of addiction and loot boxes and stuff like that. All right. Okay. So, how you all doing today, chat? Hmm? You guys doing well? Ladies doing well. Non-binary folks doing well.

I know, right? So I've been playing Genshin Impact recently. Bad, sad. 4 out of 10. I feel you. I feel you. it's a sleepy day yeah it is it's like one of those overcast stormy rainy kind of days so i want to talk to you all today a little bit about something that i call reintegration anxiety which is kind of weird okay

so this is what i noticed something weird happened chat so back at the start of the pandemic there were you know everyone was like oh i'm stuck at home like the journal of the american Medical Association did a study that showed that depressive symptoms are 300% worse than they used to be. Anxiety was getting worse. People didn't know if they were going to be able to pay their bills. They didn't know what was going to happen to the economy. They didn't know if they were going to be able to pay their rent. And so everyone was like, oh my God, the mental impacts of COVID are so bad, man.

They suck so hard. And now that things are starting to open up, it's kind of like weird because everyone was like, I can't wait for COVID to end. I can't wait for COVID to end. but now that COVID is maybe starting to end, I know that Delta variant is bad, but people are getting vaccinated, people are starting to open things up.

People are sort of like, okay, so are you thrilled that you're going to be back in school and like hanging out with people socially? Something weird has happened, especially with a lot of the students that I work with, where they're kind of like, actually, I feel really anxious about reintegrating into society. Like what I hear from students that I work with is

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to like do school anymore. Like, I don't know if I can do school. And now that I can socialize with people, it's like, oh, my God, I can't wait to socialize with people. And it's like, now when you think about socializing with people, you want to do it, but you feel like really, really anxious about it. And it's really weird. But the best term that I can kind of come up with is something that I'd call reintegration

anxiety. And so it's kind of weird, but there seems to be a new kind of anxiety where everyone's been waiting to get back into society. But at the same time, like, now that we're able to do it, it seems actually. really hard to reintegrate into society. So what I'd like to do today is talk to you guys a little bit about this and sort of try to explain a little bit about how I understand it. Okay.

So to begin with, you know, when COVID hit, everyone was sort of like kind of positive about it. Like people felt isolated. People felt depressed. People felt anxious about the future. They had difficulty maintaining social connections and they actually turned to online communities to start to socialize with people. people. And the cool thing is that if you if you kind of look at, you know, data or not not data,

because there aren't really a whole lot of studies about this, but if you look at people from our community, what we found is that people who have robust online connections were actually a little bit resilient to the negative impacts of COVID. And what we did as a society is we turned to like more online interactions. And that's sort of a double-edged sword because research does show that spending a lot of time on social media actually has negative impacts on your mental health. And at the same time, we were kind of stuck because we couldn't spend time with people in the real world. So, like, it was nice to have, like, Discord and Twitch and things like that, gaming. And so it was sort of like a little bit of a double-edged sword where, like, gamers were

somewhat resilient, but we're engaging in more social anxiety. I mean, social media, so sometimes that can make mental health stuff worse. So it's kind of a wash. The interesting, the interesting, thing is that if you talk to people who engage a lot in in online communities and like engage with people socially online as opposed to the real world, what you find is when they go back out into the real world, you can form a real connection online. But when you go back out into the real world, it seems to be hard for people. And so what I found is that especially now, like working with a lot of students, that, you know, they've been hanging out on Discord for the last year. They've been doing online school and like Zoom classes and all this kind of stuff. And they've like hated it

in some ways. But at the same time, it's been sort of like comforting in some ways. Oh, no. All right, chat. There's going to be one more of these and then we'll be back to back to is my small nuclear reactor that's having a minor meltdown. Okay. Done. So back to reintegration anxiety. So basically what we noticed, okay, so let me try to remember where I was. Okay. So when COVID started, we're going to start from the top, okay, chat, abbreviated version. So when COVID started, everyone was like, there was, there were huge impacts to our negative health. People felt isolated. They felt depressed. They felt anxious. You know, um, studies showed that like depression and anxiety was like three times worse than prior to COVID. The isolation was,

really, really messing with people. The gaming community was somewhat resilient to these effects, especially at the beginning because we already had good online support systems. And the rest of the world shockingly switched over to like this online world where this is how we socialize. It was Zoom birthday parties and and, you know, like hanging out with people over like Discord and WhatsApp and stuff like that. And so this was okay for a while, right? So people like, especially in the gaming community, we did okay for a while. But then as the pandemic war on, people were like, I can't wait to get back in school. I can't wait to like see my friends again.

This sucks. I'm trapped in my house. And so then something weird happened. Like now that things are opening up and we're like, hey, you can go socialize again and like you're going to be back in school. Like the people that I work with are like, wait a minute. I actually feel really, really uncomfortable with that stuff. And now they come to my office and they say things like, you know, I'm not sure I can actually do school anymore. I'm not sure. Like, like, I got invited to a party, but like,

I don't know if I even want to go. And people are really confused by this because they're like, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, it's like, okay, we're going to be trapped for a couple weeks. Like, I'm going to learn how to bake bread. I'm going to learn a new language. I'm going to like learn all this stuff. I'm going to take this as an opportunity. And then the isolation sets in, the depression sets in. I'm going to work on a project. And now that the world is opening up again, everyone's like, oh, God, thank God. like that, oh, I can start doing things again. And now when you try to do things, like, it seems actually really, really hard to go out and, like, get back into school.

And I have students that come to me and are saying, I'm not sure I can do school anymore. Like, I hate Zoom school, but I don't know if I can actually cut it in real school. I have people who are like, I'm so isolated, I'm so lonely, I'm so depressed. Do you want to go to this party? No, I feel super anxious going to the party. So what's going on here? Why is this happening? And what can we do about it?

So this is something that, for lack of a better term, I call reintegration. anxiety, which is sort of like this tendency to not be able to like go back into the world. And what I actually have found is that I think that it correlates with some interesting principles of neuroscience. Why is there a, what is happening? Okay. So going back to where things are. So here's how, here's my understanding of like how reintegration anxiety works. Okay. So when we start socializing with people online, what tends to, happen is that our brain has certain like social circuits, which sometimes don't get used and so start to rust a little bit. So if we think about how our brain works, what we discover is that,

you know, if you don't use a part of your brain, it kind of like starts to rust. So if I speak two languages and then I don't speak one of those languages for a few years, what happens is that part of my brain is sort of like, oh, we don't need this anymore. So let's get rid of it. And what I found in people who interact a lot online is that there are social circuits that start to go like dormant or rust. So there are parts of our brain that will look at body language, facial expression, tone, other things like even like physical touch, and use those as means to kind of socially reassure us. So when I interact with people a lot, there are circuits in my brain that are very active that are telling me, hey, these people like you. Like they're sort of interpreting all of

this information about people's body language and the way that they interact with me and their facial expressions and things like that. And it uses that information to reassure me. And what happens when we interact with people a lot online is those circuits of our brain kind of like don't get used, right? Because if I'm talking to people on a Discord call, like sure, it may be a video chat, but especially if I'm playing games and stuff, like, I'm not going to be interpreting their body language and their facial expressions. And if we think about the way that our mind looks at a social situation and tells us whether to be anxious or not anxious, what it'll do is include a lot of information about stuff like facial expressions and body language. So when these circuits in our

mind go dormant, what happens is we're left with a big question mark. And if you think about what anxiety is, the bigger the question mark is, the bigger your anxiety is going to be. Because anxiety is all about uncertainty, right? So if I think about, I'm anxious about going to the party, and I ask people like, you know, if I ask someone, why are you anxious about the party, they'll say things like, I don't know who's going to be there, I don't know if I'm going to say something stupid, I don't know if people are going to like me. So a lot of anxieties have to do with I don't knows. You don't know what's going to happen.

It's uncertain. And so as we sort of turn to online interaction and some of these other circuits of our brain go dormant, what we're left with is more and more question marks. And the more we're left with question marks, the more likely we are, to feel anxious. So now what's happened is we have these reassuring parts of our brain, which normally will help us feel comfortable in social situations, that have basically been dormant for a year to a year and a half. And so I think this is part of the reason that we're experiencing what I call reintegration anxiety. We also sort of see this when it comes to online schooling.

So like, you know, in school, it requires like particular faculties. Like I have to wake up at a particular time. I have to like, you know, show up. I have to shower. I have to do these kinds of things, which online school sort of insulates me from. And I don't have to do those things. So as those parts of our brain get rusty, we start to understandably start to feel somewhat concerned about being able to kind of reintegrate into regular school. And so what we kind of end up with is this situation where like we're basically like out of practice integrating into the real world again. And since we're out of practice, this sort of results in anxiety. And so people sort of ask me, okay, what should I do about this? Right. And so this is the kind of tricky part,

but like there's no way to artificially turn on those circuits again. And there's no way that I've been able to discover to sort of make it painless in terms of reintegrating into society. But But what I have found is that people tend to do far better than they think they're going to do. And what I mean by that is that like, you know, if I'm working with, let's say, like, a college undergraduate who's like, oh, I'm not sure about like starting up a study group because I don't know if the people are going to like me and stuff. And they're sort of envisioning all of these negative things. And what my experience has been is that if you can actually get yourself to go there, right? If you can show up there, you may have a lot of anxieties that are very hard to alleviate ahead of time. But the cool thing is it's almost like magic, but once you show up there and your brain starts to like dust off these old circuits like facial expression and body language, what happens is the anxiety kind of starts to melt away.

It's almost like, you know, if I've gotten rusty in terms of speaking a language, if I show up in the country, it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable because I don't really remember how to speak the language. But my brain will sort of start working for me and will start to activate and it actually gets really, really easy. for me to re-learn the language. And so I may think that it'll take me three months to learn the language, but it actually turns out that after about a week, like my anxiety is way better. I've learned a lot, a lot. I may not be back to 100% after a week,

but it actually gets far easier and is far better than I expected it to be. So this is basically what I found in terms of reintegration anxiety. You know, just to kind of summarize, when we started COVID, people were really isolated and depressed and really wanted to get back and socialize and like go back to school and live a normal life. And now something really weird is happening, which is that like as we're on the cusp of hopefully starting to live a normal life again, delta variant aside, what we actually find is that people have a lot of difficulty reintegrating into society. They're concerned about being able to cut it in school. They're concerned

about like, you know, socializing and feeling dumb and feeling out of practice and things like that. And the good news is that it actually seems to be somewhat solvable. The other thing that I want to let people know is that this appears to be a relatively normal and shared experience for most of society. So it seems like, you know, most of the university students that I work with are experiencing something about something like this. And the good news is that, you know, you may be kind of anxious in terms of like socially integrating with people. And it turns out that they're anxious too. So one of the tips that I'll give the, you know, like my university students is actually

to tell people, be like, hey, I've been cooped up for a year and I'm actually looking forward to like making new friends. Like if you meet like a group of people, right, you can say, hey, I'm looking forward to making new friends. I'm curious like how other people feel about that. And what I actually find is it's like incredibly relieving to everyone in the group when one person says that because we're all in the same boat and all it takes is like one person to like you know crack the damn a little bit and then everyone's super relieved they're like yeah man like absolutely

let's hang out and all you have to do is kind of take that first step and then like it's actually really easy to kind of get everyone on the same page and people seem to be excited they're anxious they don't know if you want to be friends with them right like no one knows everyone's like oh my god I want friends, but I don't know if this person wants to be friends with me. Am I too weird? Have I been like enclosed in my room too long? Is it like awkward? Do people not like me anymore?

This is what reintegration anxiety is. And as you kind of bring awareness to it, it turns out that actually like it gets better like way faster than you may have thought. So the first thing is, you know, as COVID is ending, if you, if you guys have been like isolated and like wanting to get back into society, it's completely normal to feel a little bit confused about that and like be surprised by oh I really want to make friends but I feel like really anxious and I feel like people may think I'm stupid or I've gotten rusty. There's probably a neuroscience reason for that. It's probably because you have circuits in your brain that normally are able to

reassure you and sort of can't right now because they've gotten kind of like they've turned off. They'll turn back on but it may be a little bit painful for you to tolerate that anxiety and it does seem to get better. School is sort of of also seems to be kind of that way, but jury's a little bit out there because now we're into the summer, so most people aren't in active school. But for the people who have reintegrated and sort of started school back in March or April, some places started in-person classes, then I noticed that people also had reintegration anxiety, and it kind of got better. So questions about that. Yeah, so someone's asking, what if you had social anxiety before

and feel like I've, and it's worse now during COVID, I think I've seen the same thing. So the reason it's worse, as far as I can tell, is because, like, we've gotten rusty socially. So what I've seen in my patients with social anxiety is that they've gone back to their pre-COVID state. And actually, like, I'd say maybe a third of them have actually gotten better,

like, post-COVID. It's kind of weird. I don't understand that myself. But, like, a third people seem to be better. than their baseline. So Kela Deva asks, what about overall confidence? I don't feel like I've lost social skills as much as confidence. So this is a great question because that's exactly how it manifests.

So if you think about what is the nature of confidence in your mind, what circuits in your brain lead you to confidence? And so what I've found is actually that like a lot of our confidence comes from sort mirroring from the outside world, right? So when I walk into a room and everyone's like, yay, Dr. Kay is here. That's going to help me feel a little bit more confident. So those are the kinds of signals that we haven't gotten, right? We haven't gotten reinforcement in our ability to feel confident about ourselves. And so in the absence of that reinforcement, this reintegration anxiety manifests as a lack of subjectively feeling confident. The good news is that for people who seem to

lack that confidence. As they integrate, just they kind of have to understand that you're going to feel pretty anxious, but just show up. And it seems to get better relatively quickly. So this is when someone says, so it will just get better. I know it sounds shocking, but that has largely been our experience. So when it'll just get better, if you expose yourself to social situations, right? If you go into situations and you start talking to people, you start hanging out with people, if you see facial expressions and body, language, then chances are this will start to go away or will be at like a pre-COVID baseline. Oh, God, I said expose myself.

So someone's asking, aspiring lawn, lawn clippings is asking, I quit my study, how will it not spiral in a gap year? So if you have a gap year and you quit studying, there's a decent chance it will spiral unless you have like a good amount of structure or something to kind of replace it with. So you got to be careful about taking it. gap years because sometimes people do the spiral right like when it comes to a gap year some people like really flounder in the lack of structure and some people can really like some people take a break and really enjoy it and they sort of view it as a vacation other people will use it as like you know an opportunity to like learn skills or projects and just like grow in a space outside of

school other people will actually spiral in gap year so it's absolutely something you need to be careful about. Someone's asking how fast do you unrest? Honestly, I say it gets like 50% better in a week.

That's what I've seen. And like in two weeks, you're like 80% there. And then maybe in a month you're like back to normal. Is it similar to agoraphobia? Sort of. So agoraphobia tends to be

something a little bit more specific. So generally speaking, when I think about agoraphobia, when I work with people about agoraphobia, agoraphobia is about a lack of control in outside of your like home environment.

So when I really think about agoraphobia, it's someone who's like going to have a panic attack, but they'll think things like, if I go to a restaurant and I have a panic attack, like what's going to happen? Or what if I'm driving and I have a panic attack? Or what if this happens and I'm in this other place? I can take care of myself in this environment.

But when it comes to being outside of this controlled environment, environment, I think I'm going to lose too much control. So I might as well stay in a situation where I can maintain control and account for things like panic attack or diarrhea or things like that. That's what I really think leads to agoraphobia. How to tell reintegration anxiety from social anxiety. So I think reintegration anxiety and social anxiety overlap a fair amount. I think they have common neuroscientific mechanisms. But here's kind of what I have noticed about reintegration anxiety, it seems to be like something that is novel or worse and relates to COVID. So if you're someone who has been cooped up and wants to get back into things but also is

afraid to get back into things, that's what I would really think of is reintegration anxiety. So oxymoron indeed asks, what if it doesn't go away even after trying to reintegrate? That is the anxiety. You guys see that? What if? What if it doesn't get better? Oh my God. But like, what if it does? Then it's a non-issue. So this is the nature of anxiety. So people are like, what if it doesn't get better? That is a product of the anxiety. You guys see that? Like, it's a completely normal thought. But I can answer that question. Then I'll say, well, then there's a decent chance that this will happen. And then your anxiety will say, but what if that doesn't work? And what if that doesn't work? And what if that doesn't work? And what if that? doesn't work. Your anxiety will, any reassurance that I give you, your anxiety will find something else to be anxious about, right? Because reassurance doesn't actually help that much with anxiety. So as long as the root of the anxiety is there, you're going to find some way to be concerned about a what if in the future. And this is the really tricky thing about anxiety because anxiety

says, what if that doesn't work? And then, as long as that thought is there, do you actually take that first step? So this person is asking, what if you? What if my anxiety doesn't go away after reintegrating? And so as long as that thought is there, will you try to reintegrate? And this is why anxiety controls your life. This is why anxiety can be so crippling because it's so worried. It wants a complete solution before you take the first step. And so this is why you're stuck because there's like, there's no way I can give you

a 100% guarantee that everything will work out. And if you're waiting for that 100% guarantee for the last. thing to happen before you take the first step, then your life will be controlled by anxiety. Okay? All right. Oh, God. So many questions. All right, chat.

Should we do Reddit review or questions or what? What do you all want to do? More questions? Should I text my ex-girlfriend to hang out again? I'm going to go out on a limb and say, you've got to be careful about that. Can we get a poll? Is there mods? Mods?

Okay, hold on. Let me scroll down. Okay. No, okay. Maud's AFK. Okay, Dr. K will moderate the channel. Let's see if I can do this poll. All right, let me load this up. And then we'll take, well, I'll try to find one or two more questions and we'll do Reddit, okay? Um, hold on, chat. Hold on, y'all are typing too fast. Hey, I just wanted a shout out. So like, we had a bunch of people who were gifting subs last time. I really appreciate that. And then I also really like it that like, so I think y'all are, so Dr. No, 83, like, gifted, like tons and tons of subs. Satin gifted tons of subs.

Thank you all very much. I know we don't oftentimes acknowledge the generosity of people in our community. And I apologize for that. The second thing that I want to comment is I know that there are a lot of people in chat who will, like, answer each other's questions. And thank you guys so much for doing that or girls. because I really appreciate that because I can't get to everyone's questions. And I found that the like chat is leveling up. Like it's really crazy, but like y'all are actually leveling up. And so I think if you feel confident about, you know, answering someone else's question,

you should do it because don't sell yourself short. Sure. Like if you've been hanging around for a while and you've been like paying attention, like it appears that chat is actually learning. I know it sounds crazy. We're trying to figure out how to measure this. We had a great conversation with our research director about like, how can we measure? Can I nerd out for a second? Just real quick. Real quick, real quick. Okay. So, you know, we started measuring outcomes for our coaching program like a year ago. And so we started to get a little bit concerned because so like a year ago, like let's say this is where chat started.

And so we give them coaching and this is where they end up. So like this gap is the efficacy. of coaching. So we're talking about like somewhere between a 22 and 47% reduction in depression and anxiety from coaching. Okay. Now the interesting thing is if chat starts to get better, right? If you guys watch like YouTube and stuff for a year and chat improves, what we could actually see is a decreasing impact from coaching because now the impact of coaching is only this much. So it's a really interesting question that we're trying to figure out whether the baseline of people who are entering coaching has actually gotten better and therefore makes coaching appear to be less effective.

And so it's interesting, right? So like we're looking at that. We're trying to figure out, you know, how to tell like how much better can you get from actually watching the stream? Like, can you start to see a clinically significant, statistically impactful change in your depression and anxiety from watching stream? We're trying to figure it. out. Okay. Let's move to Reddits. Ah, so people are asking how to remove the route. So that's a really good question. So this is where I'd say like, you know, turn to our other content. But generally speaking, if we look at and there's also like Dr. Kay's guide, so like that's why we have this. Let me just show you guys real quick. I'll explain it now just because I don't leave you all

hanging. But there's more detail for people who are interested. So there's more detail for people who are interested, okay? But I'll answer the question now. So this is my challenge. So if you go down the anxiety module, so I would say, you know, anxious personality talks a little bit about this. Neuroscience of anxiety talks a little bit about this. But this is the key thing. So thought loops, responses to anxiety, this is the key thing.

So I would say anxiety is learned behavior. This is what I'm going to talk about when we're talking about the roots of anxiety. and how we feed anxiety. So the goal of Dr. Kay's guides is that this is a question that if I chose to answer in its completeness now, would derail not only the rest of what we have planned for stream today, but would also derail my afternoon because this is about like three hours of video, plus exercises and stuff like that. So I'm going to try to answer in a quick sense.

But like, this is the real challenge is that we just don't have enough time on stream to answer all the questions in an organized manner. So we definitely want to get to Reddit, but I'll answer quickly now. So if you think about anxiety, let's just start to understand like anxiety for a second. Okay. Let's try to understand it. So anxiety is in a sense a shared experience, but not everyone is anxious about the same things. So then the question becomes like, why is that? like why isn't if our brain has like anxiety circuitry like why isn't the anxiety of all people the same

so it turns out that there's an individual component of anxiety duh and so if anxiety if different people are anxious about different things what we can sort of naturally conclude is that that brain must have been exposed to a particular trigger that activates the anxiety circuitry and so if you want to get to the root of the anxiety, what you actually have to do is go back to the trigger where your brain learned to be anxious. So we've talked about, you know, people on stream who have had parents who have been abusive. And so those brains, like the brain of an child who's been abused, will learn to be anxious based on particular triggers. Like when my parents come home, have they been drinking or have they not been drinking? And so then what happens is when this person grows up and they're with a

significant other who starts drinking and that anxiety circuitry flips on. And they're like, okay, but what, you know, so each brain has a particular kind of trigger for anxiety. So if you want to get to the root of anxiety, what you have to do is go back to those experiences and start to like realize like, okay, so this is actually my brain's way of responding to this situation. And the reason it's responding that way is because I had this experience. in the past. And as you do that kind of emotional work and you digest that sumscar, then the anxiety in the present will go down. It isn't enough to logically tell yourself, oh, the reason I'm anxious is because I was traumatized as a kid. That doesn't actually

rewire your neurocircuits at all. So if we look at the way that our brain rewires, the experience of emotion is a powerful way that we rewire our brain. So if you kind of think about, you know, if I'm in a relationship and I get cheated on by my significant other, that emotional impact is going to shape the way that I interact with all future relationships. And so if we think about why isn't logic enough to fix my anxiety, it's because logic doesn't actually rewire your brain. Emotion rewires your brain. And if we look at the limbic system in our learning circuitry, the limbic system is our emotional circuitry and our learning circuitry in the limbic system are very tightly connected. And so if we want to change our behavior, powerful emotional experiences are a big way to rewire our brain.

And if you look at people who have turned their lives around, I remember feeling jealous of people who had been like tested. So I remember like almost feeling jealous of these like success gurus who had put together their life after like going to jail or something. Right. So if you guys like look at these talks from like the dude who the wolf of Wall Street is. based on. So like I almost crave, like, I was like, I wish I would be tested in some way where my life would be like shattered and I could build myself from the ground up. I wish like I had this kind of like catastrophic experience that would test me as a human and then like I would have no choice but to be like motivated. It would be like do or die and then I'd be fixed on the other side. I crave these powerful transformative emotional experiences because that's what we see,

right? We see people who have turned their life around after an emotion. experience. So what we kind of discover is that like emotional experiences are what actually rewires our brain and leads to sustained change, which is one of the mechanisms of psychotherapy. So when you go into a room and you like cry with your therapist or you have like this breakthrough with your therapist, when you have that emotional catharsis, your brain starts to rewire. So how do you fix the roots of your anxiety? You go back, you sort of think about where I learn this behavior. And then ideally you process some of that emotion down there. And then that it will actually rewire your brain and you'll kind of change afterward. Okay? Great question.

And like I said, there's a ton more information. Like that's that's why we made the guides because this is like a complicated process. There's neuroscience to it. There's like personality elements to it. There's attachment theory. And if you guys really want to understand that, like I can't, I mean, I guess theoretically I could lecture about that stuff. Maybe we'll kind of do something like that down the road. But it, you know, it's just not suited for stream. So let's go to, ah, so someone's like, how am I supposed to remember such a specific moment?

There are particular exercises and guidance that you can actually go through. So that's like part of the worksheets that are included in Dr. K's guides. And you can also work with a therapist, right? So like, if you guys think about the people who come on stream, we dig for those experiences. And there's actually like a particular formula to dig for those experiences. Our coaches are also somewhat trained to dig for them. And they're actually going to get trained more, hopefully in the next month or two,

to help you guys dig for those experiences and actually like find the roots of these problems. Ah, okay. So someone else is asking, what does it mean if I remember all those moments easily? So remembering the moment is just the first part. it's the emotional processing that you have to do afterward that is actually like the important part. Right? So like this is where, so that's the first thing. The second thing is that sometimes you think you remember the right moments. But maybe those aren't actually the roots of your anxiety, right? It may logically make sense. But sometimes the best way to bury an emotion is to logically come up with an answer that lets you, like,

not look at what the painful part is. Right? It's kind of interesting. Because like this is what I find and this is why like, I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but when people come on, sometimes like we had someone who came on, right? And sometimes people will come on and they have all the answers laid out for me. Like especially now. So we had like a couple of people who've been watching on.

They're like, oh, I figured this out and I figured this out and I figured this out. It's not where the money is. If you figured it out, you've probably done good with that stuff. But it's like the stuff that you haven't figured out. Right. Growth is in the things that you don't understand, not in the things that you do understand. All fantastic questions, though. I love these because these are like second level questions, third level questions. They're higher order questions. Their second step, third step, down the step questions, which really makes me happy because I think if you guys are asking these questions, that means that you all have already leveled up a little bit. How can we realize what we don't understand though? Exactly, man. Exactly.

That's the problem. So this is why you turn to external sources of help, right? Because it's hard in your own mind. You can do it internally too. Or what you can do is develop a process to examine yourself that is not based on your cognitive biases. This is what the yogis did. Right? So like this is a big problem.

I foresee it already. So as part of Dr. Kay's guide, I'm going to ask you guys to write a page. and like half of y'all will not write it. Because what will happen is you'll say, oh, I know what I would write. And then you won't write it. And then you won't grow. But what inevitably happens

when I ask people to write one page is they can conceptualize the first half of it. But the second half ends up being something unexpected. And that's where the money is. So there are systematic ways that you can actually explore yourself. The challenge is that if your mind, tells you, I don't need to do that because I already know what's going to happen, then you're not exploring yourself. So you got to be careful. The realization, you almost stumble upon the realization.

Right. And so that's the goal. So the goal is to like give you all a set of practices or you work with a coach or something like that. That will like lead you to the barrier of your understanding and then you will realize it. Okay. All right. Reddit review chat. Come on. let me like review the reddits. I'm supposed to do these and we've got an hour left. Okay. We good? Great questions.

Does third eye meditation help with this? Absolutely. Look at that next level question, dude. That's what I love to see. Otimo Bita. That's why we teach you third eye meditations. Absolutely third eye meditations will help you with this. Gigi.

100% correct. Chat is learned. Oh, no. This is great. Dude, like, we're going to go like next level. 2021 is going to be next level. 2022 is going to be, what if third eye doesn't work for you? Ah, so maybe you need to do something else. Maybe your realization, you're not ready for third eye stuff yet.

Totally fine. I know it's crazy, but that's why we teach other things besides third eye meditations. Right? Do we ever raid? Did somebody raid us? I can't tell. Okay. Is the third eye just a,

metaphor for your brain? Absolutely. Once again, well said. Absolutely. So I want you guys to understand this. So when people came up with like third eyes and stuff, these are heuristics. Okay. So what a heuristic is is a tool that's used for understanding, like to make sense of the world and like navigate it more easily. I don't know that the third eye actually exists because the yogis weren't interested in anatomy. They were interested in like functional capacities of the brain. right? So what they did is they like realize like oh some people like the faculty of our brain that allows us to intuit or intuitively understand something is different from the faculty of our brain that digests external information. And they realized like oh like assimilating outside information and revelatory knowledge are like different buckets of stuff. And so they called one the Agnachuker the third eye. and one, the Manipura chakra, or like the naval chakra. And they're like, there's two buckets of stuff.

And one of them seems to be like kind of digesting information. And the stomach kind of digest stuff. So let's say like one of them is down there. And then the other one is like intuition, which is not quite digestion. It's quite different, actually. So we're going to call that one the third eye. And so they came up with all of these like tools to help them organize this information that are not real. per se. And then the really interesting thing is that nowadays, though, people will study this stuff. So like this happened in Ayurveda, where the Ayurvedic doctors basically said, oh, look, like there are, you know, different people. Like there's a Vata person and there's a kafa person. Like this person has too much wind. But if you diagnose someone with too much wind and then, like, can you biopsy them and find

wind. The answer is no. But now what people have started to do is look at genetics. And so some Ayurbedic folks sat down and said, okay, if we take 100 people who are wind types and 100 people who are fire types and 100 people who are water types or earth types, does that correlate with their genetics? And it turns out like this is super cool, chat, but there's all kinds of stuff. So, for example, relation of risk factors for diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance are kaffa Vata people and kaffa people. Right? So this is earth people. They're prone to diabetes.

So, like, there are, Bita kafa and vata have different nuclear receptors, which regulate different genes and control embryonic development. and affect metabolism. Interesting. There's a strong association between brachry, blood pressure, and biochemical parameters. So vatapitas have high levels of blood pressure, and vatakhas have low levels of blood pressure. So a high blood pressure is kind of like a fiery thing, right? And so it turns out that this brukrithi is like, has the least amount of fire. So as you start to actually study this stuff, is it a metaphor?

Absolutely. But as you start to do research on it, it's really fascinating because it seems to correlate well with like scientific exploration. It's really cool. Right? So like, but is it real? No. Let's be clear. Let's be scientific.

The conception that they created is not actually real, right? You can't biopsy someone in fine Vata. Actually, that may change. that I think about it. So it's possible, it's theoretically possible that in our lifetime, you'll be able to do genomic analysis and determine from your genes how Vata you are. But as of now, you can't like X-ray someone, blood test someone, biopsy someone, and find Bata on them. It's not a real thing. The Agnachakra, I don't think, is a real thing. It's like maybe it correlates with the pineal gland. Like there may be correlates, like physical correlates to these things.

But they're absolutely metaphors. Okay? Reddit review? Can we do it? Reddit now, chat? So Guido's asking, wouldn't it be more useful to determine those aspects with more scientific terms rather than elements? Actually, no. So remember that the purpose of a heuristic is function and utility. Right? So like, let's just think about this. Like, diagnosing someone with Vata is way more useful than doing a complete genetic analysis. In fact, the more scientific you get, the more cumbersome it becomes. So what human beings do, if we really look at science, there's like the complete science of everything,

and then there's like the dumbing down of stuff. Right? So like, for example, all biology can be reduced to biochemistry. All biochemistry, there's no such thing as biology, right? Biology is essentially like a functional version of biochemistry. It's like principles of biochemistry that we create to make things easier to understand ourselves. Like, there's no such thing as a cell.

Like, a cell is not a real thing. A cell is a definition that we use for a particular pile of biochemical stuff. Yeah. Really? When? They're ready. Okay.

I'll finish this point, and then I guess we've got to take a break. So then we can say, like, okay, so then, like, what's... So biology is based on biochemistry. Biochemistry, in turn, is a system that we create, based on chemistry. Biochemistry isn't a thing. It's just when you have chemistry

that has carbon involved, there's like a different discipline, but it's still chemistry. And chemistry in turn is nothing but the interactions of physics. So you could say that biology isn't real and that if we want to be more scientific, everything should be reduced to protons, neutrons, and electrons. But is it functional?

No. So the purpose of human, like some of these abstracts, human concepts is that it makes things more functional because it's like easier to handle than the raw science. Because at the end of the day, like chemistry is actually a human conception. It's all physics. Right? It's kind of weird. Okay, so we got to take an ad break because it sounds like they're going to be doing more drilling. So how do I do this? Add? Ad break. Five. That's not a command. Can somebody please tell me how to take an ad break? Or do I log into Twitch? Are you not already dead?

No, I can, I can figure it out. Are you sure? No, I'm not sure. Okay, we'll be back in five, chat. Thanks, y'all. Sorry about it. I see myself. Let's see. Let's see, chat. Run one minute ad break.

Okay, five minutes, buddy. I'm running a one minute one. That's not what you're supposed to do. I will run another one. How do I run? You can't do it that way. Get wrecked. Okay, there's just gonna be lots of drilling.

Really, this is for y'all's sake, but... All right. I'm just gonna hang around. But like, there's gonna be drilling, chat. Look, I was not... This is the problem, dude. Like, I don't know how to take ad breaks, chat. Oh, thank God.

Hello? Yeah, I guess run the ad break. Okay. Bye. Someone is helping chat. All right. So we're going to, we're going to mute and we're going to go AFK, okay, chat? Because this is, y'all don't have to put it.

We'll be back, like, we'll be back in like four minutes. Do you guys want me to hang around with the drilling or do you want me to go AFK? Oh my God, cool down. Do I, we can hang out, dude. We can watch the ads together. I'll open up this stream in an incognito browser. we'll just watch together. There it is.

Thanks for the follows, guys. Scoffed. Meditate to the sound of the drill. We can, you know, in, in honor of, we'll be charging the laser beam today. Drill meditation. Absolutely, dude. We'll do it.

Let's do that today. Thanks for the sub, squalers. Thanks for the sub. Sal Alex. Fire, NTF flames. Thanks for the subs. Three months. Happy Drilling, chilling.

I'm the drill. Be one with the drill. Yo, Dr. K. Scoft podcast. I loved being on the scuffed podcast. Last one especially was a lot of fun, dude. It was like dope, man. Really enjoyed it. Netflix and Drill.

Praj, 1992. Wonderful, Praj. You're doing okay? Are you Indian? Anger meditation. Hmm. Let me think about this. Someone's asking, uh, Oh, thanks for the follows, subs.

Sorry, guys. I don't always have time to, you know, acknowledge you all for the support that you guys do on stream. We tend to do it in batches. Let's think about anger meditation. Yeah, so we've actually taken all your donations and we are, as someone has figured out, we're drilling for oil in my living room.

And so that way we can, you know, start to fund things a little bit better. regular research streams when. Swamini is interested in research? I think we may have a research posting job. Jobs. We are wanting to do more research. Research?

So, you know, in medical school, there are two kinds of people. There are people who pronounce it research, and there are people who pronounce it research. Which one are you? Computer scientist. Okay, Gigi. Can I do a British accent? Is this British?

I'm not quite sure. You try to do a little bit of research. I'm a researcher. Hello. Welcome to Dr. Kaye's stream. I'm Dr. Kay. It's British, isn't it? I'm not quite sure, though.

But children don't like it when I do a British accent. Oh, man. I'm wondering, chat, so do you guys think that something, like, are we going to get cancelled for doing accents? at some point. Thanks for the follows. Oh man, Japanese accent. Absolutely, dude. So this is the thing, right?

So like at what point does doing an accent become, like, can I do an Indian? Like, so at some point, you know, you know, it may be offensive to do an accent, or maybe it's already offensive and we just, I just don't realize. But I wonder, like, I'm allowed to do Indian accents, right? Because that's, that's okay. It's interesting because, you know, I noticed the other day that, so comedians talk a lot about race, right? Like, so comedians will like, there's a lot of racial comedy. But it's really interesting because one of the most interesting aspects of inequality is that depending on what kind of comedian you are, you get to make fun of a particular race.

But if you're depending on your race, you get to tell certain jokes. Right? It's really interesting. So I'm not quite sure. it's like one of the most the most interesting measures of inequality is the racial restriction on what kind of jokes you're allowed to tell

yeah I think that's good dad Musashi is saying punching down is bad and punching sideways or up is okay makes a lot of sense right so punching down so that's what confuses me as an Indian is like I don't know what's punching down and what's punching up because like on the one hand

I was sort of punched down to growing up But on the other hand, like, my race has a lot of privileges. So, like, especially in the field of medicine. Like, I remember having colleagues who were, like, African American and female. And, like, when I was a medical student, you know, people thought I was a doctor. And for many of my colleagues, especially female colleagues, they thought that they were a nurse. And now that we're all doctors, they still, like, get mistaken as nurses. So I don't know how to deal with that.

but it's definitely real. Guys absolutely can be nurses. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying that generally speaking, people in the medical field, I've noticed a differential in the way that people are treated. And so I remember as a medical student,

like if I walked into a room, patients would be like, oh, I had a wonderful Indian doctor like 10 years ago. The Indians are really, y'all's people are really good at medicine. I'm like, great, thank you. For the compliment. and also still stereotyping, right?

So I don't know how to feel about that chat. I really know. Yeah. All right. I can imagine. Someone's saying it's the same thing for female veterans. Like, dude, it's, uh, no, I'm South Indian. I'm Gujarati.

So that's the other thing, right? So like, you know, it's really interesting because if you look at like, I was talking, so I was mentoring someone who was, uh, South Indian Dalit. So like, you know, in the United States, if you're of Asian or South Asian descent, you have to score on average two to three. Well, I don't know what the number is now because they changed the scale of the MCAT. But you basically had to score like 10 percentile points higher than the average in order to get into medical school. And it sort of makes sense.

Like both of my parents were doctors. Like I grew up with a lot of emphasis on education and a lot of like educational resources and stuff. If I wanted to take an MCAT class, my parents could afford it. I kind of get it, right? And at the same time, like, I remember, like, mentoring this kid who's, like, a Dullah, so I don't know if you guys know this, but, like, there are a lot of poor Indian people who, like, don't have much privilege and are actually, like, oppressed in the country of India. There's, like, a billion Indians, and India has terrible wealth equality and, like, terrible

social inequality. And I remember, like, feels bad, man, that this kid is, like, you know, parents are, like, immigrants, they work for under minimum wage. and are, you know, are like, they work under minimum wage cleaning motel rooms, and their son is like trying to go to medical school. And this kid has, has to, you know, he has none of the advantages that I had, but he's Indian.

Anyway, he ended up doing well, but it just, I remember feeling frustrated that, you know, race, there are a lot of underprivileged Indians out there. All right. Are we done with the ad break? Or is it running or are we just chatting? Chill in. Thanks for the follows.

I see a lot of people are following. Thank you all very much. Indian Rant Stream. I don't know. What would the Indian Rant Stream be? I think it's hard, dude. Like I think so this is why, you know, someone posted on our subreddit the other day about sort of like the educational rant and how I didn't talk about capitalism and stuff, which is totally fine. Like, I think this is a challenge.

Chat. I don't understand. Like, I don't have answers for these social issues. Like those are, I mean, medical stuff, like psychology. feel pretty good about, but with a lot of this stuff around, like, race and, like, social inequality and, like, capitalism versus, like, shared what, like, you know, what amount of wealth distribution. Like, I definitely see a lot of problems. I have no idea what to do about it, man. I don't know. Like, I don't, because I, on the one hand, I think it's like, it's not

actually, I don't blame the medical system for sort of discriminating against me because I think it's sort of fair. Like, I had a lot of advantages, and I still wound up there, right? Like, it's like, it's not like Indians are underrepresented in medicine. So I sort of get where people are coming from. At the same time also sucks for the like the Dullet kid who's like had none of the advantages but because of the color of his skin, he's got to like outperform everyone, right? From a socioeconomic status standpoint, from an advantage standpoint, he's like really not advantaged at all. He's actually grossly disadvantaged. And his people have been oppressed by the other Indians for like generations. So I just don't know what to do about it.

Like I don't know like how people solve these problems. Like I just don't know. So what's my opinion or white privilege? You guys may crucify me for this. So I think white privilege is real. And at the same time, it doesn't, it doesn't, how can I say this? So I think you can look at it statistically and determine that, for example, the way that people of Caucasian descent are treated in certain situations, they're given certain advantages over people of other races. Like, I've seen that. And at the same time, it doesn't make up for a lot of the bad stuff.

So, for example, if you look at, you know, like the vast majority of people who are addicted to heroin and die of heroin are Caucasian. And like, for Crystal Matthewsers, it's also Caucasian. So it's sort of like, is white privilege real? Like, I think so. Like, I think you can make a statistic. I'm not an expert on this, by the way. But based on what I've seen, you can make a statistical argument that, you can make a statistical argument that, people of Caucasian descent have particular advantages over other races.

I do think, though, that in the vast majority of cases that I've seen as a clinician, it's like woefully inadequate. Right? Like, it doesn't like, like, you know, 90% of the homeless people in Boston who were addicted to drugs that I worked with were Caucasian. And like, it's kind of weird because it's sort of like, if that person gets arrested, are they likely to have better outcomes than someone of African American descent? I believe so, but I'm not an expert on the data. I can't provide you guys with a reference.

So someone knows more than me, by all means say so. And are they at an advantage? Yes. And also, is it sufficient? No. So it's kind of weird. So, like, I think the challenge with these issues of privilege, right? So you can say, like, there's Indian privileges.

This is something I better understand. So I think the problem with, like, applying racial generalizations is that, like, someone's going to get screwed. And generally speaking, why do we apply racial generalizations? the best answer that I can come up with is it's because we don't have more sophisticated systems. So, like, the Duluth kid who, like, you know, so for those of you guys who don't know, like, you know,

in India there's a caste system, and the Dalits are, like, lower on the caste system. So they tend to be, like, not untouchables, but people tend to be familiar with the turn untouchables. And it's sort of like, you can say that, okay, Indian people have to score higher to get into medical school. Like, that makes sense. But then all, like, the vast majority of low-cast Indian people,

get like double screwed. So I think it's an imperfect system. And so white privilege, I think that there's statistical evidence, at least that I've seen, I don't, once again, not an expert, that people of Caucasian descent do have particular advantages

when it comes to like sentencing and stuff like that. And also that like, it's no, I mean, you know, like if you're a homeless heroin addict, I don't know how much white privilege does it actually impact you, probably. But it's not,

I think the biggest issue with white privilege that I've seen is that people seem to think that, just because you're of a privileged class, you don't deserve help or you don't need help or a ton of help. And that's where I kind of disagree. I think that like, you know, depending on your socioeconomic status, depending on your situation, depending on your upbringing, whether you were like raised in a traumatic household or not traumatic household, those factors, I think, are not overcome by white privilege. And generally speaking, my biggest concern is that when I hear discussions about white privilege, a lot of people will simplify that.

and they'll say, oh, you're privileged, therefore you should stop complaining. Whereas, like, you know, if you had parents who are meth addicts and they beat you growing up, like, even if you're white, I think you probably need a lot of societal help and support and deserve compassion. So it's kind of interesting because are there advantages? Sure. And I personally, as a clinician, find them to be, like, insufficient in a lot of ways. All right.

So my thoughts on diversity quotas. we'll get back to this stuff. So I think diversity quotas are hopefully the first, I think they're sort of an indelicate solution to a complex problem and hopefully we get better at them. So, so I think that like it sort of makes sense, like especially in medical school. Like I know that, so I became a better doctor because I was in a class with people who could share with me what their experiences of growing up was. So if we had like, if I had a bunch of Indian kids or a bunch of Caucasian kids, like I don't think, or all men or all women or whatever, like I don't think I would be as good of a doctor as I am today. So I think there's merit to them. And at the same time,

I think that they're like quite discriminatory in a lot of ways. So I think like sort of it's interesting, right, because if we say that there's systemic oppression and the way that we're going to do that is by like systemically discriminate in the opposite direction. to fix the oppression. I sort of make sense that it's sort of the best solution we've got at the moment, but I don't think

that it should be the solution we end with, right? We got to keep working. So I think it sort of makes sense that we're adjusting the scores, the score thresholds for different people to get into medical schools

so that we have diverse doctors makes sense to me. And is it a little bit racist? I think so. So I don't know that like something doesn't feel right to me. I'm not an expert in this stuff that the answer to systemic discrimination

is like reverse systemic discrimination. To balance. systemic discrimination over here with systemic discrimination over here. I think it's like, it's a step in the right direction, so I don't blame people for doing it, but, you know, still screws over the belt kid. So I think we've got to have a complicated solution to a complicated problem. Okay, let's do Reddit. Looks like it's over. Okay. So I would really like to talk to Dr. K about executive dysfunction and how to conquer it, as it has been a the most crippling effect caused by my mental illness and has essentially made life progress

progress near impossible in many respects. And yet this is a topic that seems to go often untalked about in any sort of detail, especially in any sort of solutionary respect. I've even struggled to get my therapist to talk about it with me. Perhaps that is because I have also found that those who don't deal with this issue have an especially difficult time understanding it as well. It is hard for them to grasp the idea of feeling like you are literally unable to force yourself to take an action. And I get it because I deal with it every day. And I still find it hard to understand how it can be this way. I too often wonder, why can't I just to do it like everybody else? From my point of view, it is a bad enough having to battle my mind, but it is

torturous not being able to hardly ever just get myself to do some sort of work or even a fun hobby to help myself through it on top of that. And it is very hard for me to find purpose in myself or work on other parts of my life and mental health as well when I can't actually manage to hardly get myself to do simple or even fun tasks, let alone those more important purposeful ones. So basically it feels like I'm constantly stuck in a solitary prison

and given nothing to do other than sit and look out through the bars to see all the things that I enjoy and want, need to take part in, but can't. Okay, this is a great question. So let's talk a little bit about executive function. Can I get, hold on, chat. I got to go get my, got to go find iPad, because we're going to draw this out. Okay, one second.

Let's talk about executive dysfunction, okay? Under-discussed, there we go. Okay, come on, work. are we laggars today chat okay so let's talk about executive dysfunction okay so the first question is what is executive dysfunction so we have a part of our brain called the frontal lobes which plan and execute tasks okay so what this means is that the example that we're going to use to explain executive dysfunction is i have a three-year-old and i have a five-year-old and i have a five year old. If I tell my five-year-old to clean up the room, she can do it. If I tell my three-year-old to

clean up the room, she's going to feel like she just can't do it. Right? So then what I have to do is I have to tell my three-year-old, okay, let's put the books away. And the three-year-old can do that. I can tell her, let's put the toys away. She can do that. Let's put the stuffed animals away. She can do that. She can put the iPad away. She can put the controller away. She can put her bowl away. But she needs me to structure those tasks together to take like to reach an abstract goal. Okay. So executive function is the ability to plan and execute tasks. So if I think about something like finding a job, that requires a lot of executive function, right? So it requires me to think about, okay, like what are the steps involved and execute on those tasks? So the first thing to

understand about executive function, is that it improves with age. And your executive function kind of, you know, reaches its full potential. It's somewhere between the ages of 30 and 32, and this has to do with frontal lobe development. Okay. So the first issue for this person is depending on how old you are, things may get better for you as you get older. I'm not saying that it's sufficient now. Like, you can't really bank on that, right? Like, you can't, like, if you're a high school student with poor executive function, you can't wait until you're 30 to do high school.

So that's the first thing, just to reassure you guys, that you will get better at this over time until the age of 30 to 32. The second thing that I found is that executive function tends to get negatively impacted by playing video games. I know it sounds kind of weird. But if you spend a lot of time playing video games, what video games essentially do is like do the executive function for you, okay?

I know it sounds weird, but like think about this. So I've been playing Genshin Impact recently, right? So like I don't have, the game sort of tells me what I need to do. Like if you play World of Warcraft or Genshin Impact or whatever, I don't have to plan out, I mean, sort of people do in Genshin Impact, but if you play a particular video game, the game tells you, okay, the next step you need to do is this, the next step you need to do is this, the next step you need to do is this. like if I take ff7 for example

like ff7 doesn't start off in the first 10 minutes and say hey beat sephoroth and then you have to construct how to get from where you are to like beat sephoroth at the end sure you know he's the bad guy and you know he's the end goal but video games give you the steps okay so the problem that people with executive function have or dysfunction have is that they don't they're not

their brains are not able to plan out and execute each step of the task. So if we think about like, you know, planning an execution, what someone with a good executive function can do is like plan out the steps. They understand that, okay, if I need to clean my room, these are the six things that need to happen. So what people with executive dysfunction

experiences paralysis around goals. So what that means is like they know, like the three-year-old theoretically knows what a clean room looks like. And if I ask her, like, what in the room looks dirty, she can tell me that. So what's really frustrating about people with executive dysfunction is that they have insight into their dysfunction. But what's incredibly frustrating about this is that despite the insight, it doesn't actually change your brain and allow your brain to actually do it. So the three-year-old can understand what a clean room looks like.

can understand that her room is dirty, but that abstract level understanding is not the same as the frontal lobes being able to chunk down that task. So really what executive function is, is the ability to take one task and, like, chunk it into pieces. Right? So when I plan and execute, like, here's find a job. Or clean a room.

And it's being able to, like, this process is what's messed up with executive dysfunction. okay and understanding it insight into it is not the same it's the ability to like think through what what to do so another example is like you know sometimes we'll have like let's say like you're having you're hosting a party so people who have like people who are event planners have really good executive dysfunction so like they like plan out this big task of go let's throw a wedding this has to get done this has to get done this has to get done so they're very good like very organized So the problem with executive dysfunction is that we aren't able to like figure out how to chunk up a task and execute on it. And it feels incredibly paralyzing because our brain is literally not able to do this.

So if we think about how do you start on a task that's too big? You can't. So this is why people feel paralyzed because if the task is too big, you literally cannot do it. Like I can't like if I were to tell you, you know, win a Nobel Prize. Like, how do you even start with that? Like, that's crazy. Like, you may be able to theoretically map out what needs to be done, but you can't actually break it apart into, like, its subsequent pieces

and actually execute on it. So then the question is what to do about executive function, about executive dysfunction, actually. Okay? And this is where there are a couple of things to recognize. So when people have paralysis and executive dysfunction, there are a couple of different components. So when you're paralyzed towards a behavior,

there are three things that I'd like to talk about. The first is operationalize. Okay? So what this means is like there's actually a formal process that you can get trained in to do this. So this is what we call operationalizing problems. In gamer terminology, so like back when we did a lot of work with gamers, I know we still do a lot of work with gamers,

but I used to do a lot of work specifically around video game addiction. And what I would teach people is how to change an open-ended problem. So this is something like win Nobel Prize or find a job into a close-ended problem. So what that means is to essentially go through the process of converting an abstract thing into like a discrete quest goal. So like forget about the quest chain. We're going to like, because we can't map out the quest chain. So actually what we're going to do is we're going to take a goal and we're going to map it. onto what we call a quest chain, and then the quest chain will have discrete pieces. So this is called

operationalizing problems, which gamers are bad at. The really interesting thing is that gamers are actually better than the average population at this piece. So if you give a gamer a very discrete task, and you give them an end goal, and you give them all the pieces, they will actually outperform regular people when it comes to doing that task. So this is a real scenario, okay? I was taking a class at Harvard Business School. And in the class at Harvard Business School, we were given a case and we were told to solve this problem about how to optimize flow through a urology clinic. Literally, I was swamped at the time. So I logged on to Discord and I was like, hey, do you guys want to help me with this? And I just uploaded this Harvard Business School case to a group of

my degenerate gamer friends. And the next day, they like came up with like four or five solutions. I went into class two days later. I had the solutions from my gamer buddies. and they're like, what do you do? And I was like, hey, this is what I'm going to do. And the professor was like, that's brilliant. No understanding of medicine, no understanding of MBA stuff, no understanding of any of that crap. If you give them a close-ended task and give them the parameters, gamers are good at this. Gamers are bad.

At this. Okay? So if you have a problem with executive dysfunction, the first thing that you need to do is learn how to turn this into this. So that's called operationalizing problems. There's actually an exercise that we share in Dr. K's guide. So we talk a lot about this in Dr. K's guide, but I'll share the exercise with you now. So this is what I tell people who have executive dysfunction,

like as a therapist. What I'll say is pretend you are paralyzed from the neck down. And pretend you have a servant who will do exactly what you tell them to do. How would you tell them to like a, accomplish this task. So in the terms of like finding a job, it's like you're paralyzed. You like literally have to tell them, go to my computer, log in, open a web browser, do a Google search for jobs available in, you know, Washington, D.C. What do you see there? Okay, then do this, then do this, then do this. And what I find with people who have executive dysfunction is that when you really

like work them through that process, they will actually be able to like execute. on tasks. So the first thing is operationalizing problems. Second problem with executive dysfunction is frustration and emotions. So a lot of people with executive dysfunction also have ADHD or the other way around. So people with ADHD have trouble like with executive function. Okay. So this is the really interesting thing is that I find that when you're paralyzed towards behavior, there's like a practical component to it. But there's also this component. of like feeling so damn dumb and feeling so damn incompetent and frustrated with yourself that it actually negatively impacts your behavior. Because if we think about like what promotes behavior,

right? So like it's not frustration and negative emotion. It's like inspiration and confidence. So what people with executive dysfunction literally have to do in order to improve their dysfunction is digest these emotions. So we'll do therapy around this. Because any time you're thinking about taking a behavior, right? So if I have an idea and then I want to take an action, what goes in here? What is this composed of? It's composed of operationalizing, right? And then there's going to be like, what the? There's going to be good emotions and there's going to be bad emotions, right? So there's like a war between my good emotions and my bad emotions in terms of whether I take the action or not. If I think I'm going to fail, if, like, you know, if I think I'm good at it, like, if I feel confident, then I'll take the action.

So those are a couple of pieces that go into it, okay? So we're paralyzed towards a behavior. We have to learn how to operationalize. We have to learn how to, like, deal with our negative emotions and frustration. What's the third thing? I do one more thing. Maybe it's just two. Hold on.

Yeah, maybe it's just two, not three. Yeah, so I think generally speaking, I just do two things with them. So we tend to get to processing their negative emotions, and then we operationalize problems, and we use that exercise. And that tends to be actually like the way that you deal with executive dysfunction. And the third thing to remember is that over time, you will actually improve. Okay? Yeah, so people are talking about meditation. Absolutely.

So you can also do meditation, right? So it's good. Thank you, Chad. See, Chad is learning. So if we talk about strengthening your frontal lobes, meditation actually strengthens your MPFC, your medial prefrontal cortex, which is going to be like a big part of what we want to talk about when it comes to operationalizing problems. I think another thing that we want to talk a little bit about is you have to be careful about the thoughts that keep you from starting.

So this is also like another cognitive. skill that you can learn. So anytime someone has, this is related to the emotions, but like, if you think about problems with operationalizing, like this is where the what ifs happen, right? We were talking about the what ifs earlier. What if? You know? And so there are all kinds of thoughts. Another one is when I'm ready. Right? I'm not ready yet. So there are a lot of thoughts that keep you from starting. This kind of has to do a little bit with like procrastination. So sometimes like, you know, perfection can actually keep you paralyzed as well. Like you want to do it perfect. You don't want to like get a B so you're not even going to try for

until you're sure you can get an A, you're not even going to, you'd rather have an F than a 10% or 90% chance for an A. Right? You want a 100% chance of an A or an F. So this is where there are particular like psychological complexes or cognitive things, which you can actually work on. These are almost like some scars. So we talk about a couple of and Dr. K's guides, I'll try to, you know, map more stuff out. But when it comes to solving executive dysfunction, it gets better with time. You have to learn how to operationalize, which you can practically do. Deal with the negative emotions that keep you from acting. You can absolutely meditate. And then the fourth thing is that, you know, there are particular thoughts. There are

particular other challenges that arise, which have specific solutions to them. Questions about executive function. Does it degrade after the age of 32? Not really. Is it different from motivational issues? No. So here's the problem. There's no Sanskrit word for motivation. So motivation, I think, is one of the worst words in the English language because it lumps together all of these disparate processes under, like, one term.

It's like, and so the problem, like, if you look at, like, solutions to motivation, like, if you do a Google search for, like, solutions to motivation, you will find a million websites with a bunch of people who will sell you their product for like how to get more motivated. And we are guilty of that too. The problem is like if there are all these solutions to motivation, like why isn't everyone super motivated? None of them work. Why don't they work?

Because it's a problem of misdiagnosis. Motivational problems could be ADHD. It could be executive dysfunction. It could be trauma. It could be like a lack of clarity of goal. It could be that you're not motivated because it's something you should do. instead of something that you care about. There are all kinds of nuances to motivation.

It's actually a bunch of different neuroscientific, psychological, and spiritual problems. And the way that I help motivate people is because, like, I don't call it motivation. It's like, what's your actual problem? So you could look at someone with executive dysfunction. You could say this person has a problem, this person has a problem with motivation.

But they're absolutely, they can't act when they want to act, right? That's what motivation is. But if you look at it, like, their actual problem is not a lack of motivation. That's a symptom. Their problem is executive dysfunction. And so in that way, a lack of motivation has a differential diagnosis. That includes a lot of different things. Okay. Let's move on. Okay. Got a couple more things to do. Inside you, there are two wolves. One is a boomer and one is a Scyth Lord. You are Dr. King. Yeah. Absolutely.

So the weird thing there is that if you really look at this construction, it implies that boomers fill the role of Jedi's. Right? It's kind of interesting. Because does this mean that we're like, it's a war between the boomers and the Sith? Because sometimes I thought that the boomers are the Sith words. You know, talking about being a Sith Lord, we're going to have to talk a little bit, teach a little bit about sociopathy at some point, too. because it's interesting

because if you look at surgeons and psychiatrists test highly on the sociopathy scale and so we should probably talk a little bit about sociopathy not being able to feel emotions being kind of like impervious to them you know cult leader yeah okay so sitting with a negative emotion is the first step of every unwanted action so reward it

so if you don't get out of bed because it is very uncomfortable, very comfortable. Sitting with this uncomfortable feeling should be your first goal. Tell yourself, hey, this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to feel this uncomfortable feeling so I can be proud of myself that I did it. If you listen to this talk between Lex Friedman and Andrew Huberman talking about David Goggins, you can get an idea of why this could help you overcome the action blockage from those negative emotions. Quick summary, though I don't know if it's 100% correct. The idea is that when you have this mental friction from the negative emotion,

your body naturally wants to stay still run away from this threat. By rewarding yourself withstanding this emotion, the dopamine that is released helps to turn down this mental friction, which will then ease up the way towards action. The section I talked about actually starts around two hours and 12 minutes. while the video that I actually linked just explains the term limbic friction. Yeah, so I think that there's some good stuff here, but there are some problems here too.

So I completely agree that sitting with a negative emotion is a very important step towards moving in the right direction. I think, I know. it sounds kind of weird, but like, I think you guys have to be careful about this too. Because I don't know if I buy that you're rewarding your, like, so it's like, this is the challenge, right? Is it's hard to actually like choose what you reward yourself with. Right? So if I were to say, like, I should just reward myself for drinking water instead of drinking soda. Like, that's not actually how dopamine works.

Right? Like, I can tell myself that. This is really tricky. Because, like, I can tell myself, like, tell yourself, hey, this is exactly what I wanted. But this is not actually sitting with something. Because that's not actually authentically how you feel. Right? So telling yourself something is not actually being authentic. Sure, like, it can be, you can have some amount of benefit from doing this.

don't get me wrong. There's just a couple of things here which I think are sort of nuanced. And it's the tell yourself part that I think that you have to be careful about. Because telling yourself something won't actually release a dopamine hit. Right? It's like, like I remember many years ago, I used to hate going to amusement parks. So I stopped going for like a decade. And then like I was, you know, once I got together with my wife, she really liked them. And so I was like, oh, like I'll just, you know, like I'll just, you know, like I'll just get over it. So I went on roller coasters, found the experience to be like mind-numbingly unpleasant. Like, I just don't enjoy being on a roller coaster. And I was like, I'll get used to it. I'll get

used to it. I'll get used to it. Try to enjoy it. So I used like all my yoga training to go like back on the roller coaster again and again and again and again. So conquered my fear. Tried to enjoy it. And then I sort of realized like the more I used like the yogic training, I just sat down after my like seventh roller coaster of the day. And I was like, you know what? I just don't enjoy this. And I actually don't need to enjoy it. Like, I don't have to convince myself that this is fun.

So I think it's really challenging when you guys set a standard for yourself to like use, tell yourself that you enjoy something. And then rely on like the dopamine hit to motivate your action. Because that may not work. And then where are you? Like, do you just try yourself? to tell yourself more. Like, this reminds me a little bit of like the power of positive think where it's just, just tell yourself, man, just tell yourself, tell yourself that you enjoy this. Tell yourself that this is good. So I think learning how to talk to yourself in a healthy way is

absolutely wonderful. Don't get me wrong. Like, it's good to tell yourself nice, compassionate things. So telling yourself has a space, noticing your unwanted emotions and learning how to sit with your unwanted emotions is absolutely very, very important. It's the transatlantic of this that sometimes I kind of disagree with. Because in my experience, the goal of sitting with unwanted emotions is not the first step to right action. It's the first step to conquering wrong action. So if we think about why we get addicted to video games or substances, it's the inability to tolerate a negative emotion. I feel ashamed of myself, so let me go play some Dota, and then I can forget about the shame. I feel anxious,

in a social setting, so let me get high first so that I can enjoy social feelings. I worked with people who have marijuana addiction, and like the most devastating and hardest marijuana addiction to kick is diagnosed this way. And it is, when I smoke marijuana, I feel the way that other people look. I feel normal. Other people are living normal lives, and I'm not living a normal life. And if I take marijuana, I get access for a few hours to a normal life. That is the hardest addiction to kick. So in my experience, should you learn how to sit with a negative emotion?

Absolutely. But be careful because when you start telling yourself things or forcing yourself to believe a particular thing, that's actually where I think you go wrong. Because what I try to help people do is like sit with the negative emotion, absolutely. But don't let the negative emotion control your behavior. convince yourself otherwise, actually accept that this, absolutely sit with the negative

emotion, but don't give into it. Don't give into the behavior that follows the negative emotion. And that's when I say, just don't give into it. That's where the process of not giving into it, this is my problem with a lot of, like, you know, these like analyses is like no one gives you a process. And they tell you the goal. They say, notice your negative emotions. Tell yourself this. They don't, like, and it sort of sounds like a process, but like, what's the real process. The real process is going to be painful. That as you notice the negative emotion, that is actually going to mechanically disable its energy a little bit. And then notice what happens when you give into it and notice what happens when you don't give into it. Which you are you happier to be?

And noticing is just the first step, right? Like awareness precedes control. Good diagnosis precedes good treatment. So you should absolutely notice your unwanted actions, I mean unwanted emotions and learn how to sit with them. But the goal is not to transform them into something that you enjoy because you may not be able to do that. Don't rely on that. The goal is to not let them control you. You should be in control of them. And your behaviors should not be dictated by unwanted emotions. How do you not give in? You start by noticing. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but we can do this. give you guys like a meditation practice like now, okay? I want you guys to take a food that you dislike and try eating it. But do it with 100% awareness. Don't watch anything, don't read anything,

don't listen to an audiobook. Sit there with the food and take one bite of the food that you dislike. It doesn't have to be your least favorite food. It's just something you're not a big fan of. Try to be like relatively neutral. And just notice what happens to your ability. ability to eat it. As you eat it with full awareness, does it become easier to eat or harder to eat? It's kind of weird. Right? So someone says pineapple on pizza, the great divide. Right? So if you guys, we can talk about privilege and, you know, socioeconomic stuff as much as you guys want to. Why, we really want to get people upset. We'll talk about whether pineapple belongs on pizza or not. Okay. Just notice what happens with your discomfort. And then see how.

the discomfort that you have full observation of affects your behavior down the road. Does it make it easier to eat it or harder to eat it? And that will be your answer. All right, next question. Okay. A request for Dr. Kay to talk about narcissism. I watch Dr. K's entitled parents video. And as I listened to him explained the definition of a narcissist, I realize that I do know a narcissist. It's me. Good job, bro. Basically, I only knew about narcissism from a grandmother who people called a narcissist in all the internet horror stories, and it led me to believe that narcissism is something else. I don't believe I am better than everyone else. I believe I'm worse, actually, and I don't use people or intentionally do evil

things to them, but I fit Dr. Kay's definition of narcissism to a T. I've been told by friends that I only think about myself and I seem to be unable to consider how other people are feeling before I do or say things. I've also recently caught myself having anxiety that a friend's sad mood that I knew wasn't about me. The friend had told me about several difficult things in his life, so I knew for sure it wasn't about me, was actually about me. That's perfect. I mean, that's a good example. Narcissists are so vilified on the internet, and I really want Dr. Kay to make a video completely dedicated to how narcissists can change their mindset and behavior again. Again, I don't consider myself a horrible person and I believe and I badly want to be a better one. I know that he would take

a very empathetic loving approach and understand we are not just horrible people to be avoided at all costs. There's even a little bit of, there's something about that statement that just strikes me as, okay. Something about this person's narcissism is coming through in this statement. So I will do this. Okay, chat? I know. need some time to compose my thoughts about it. But let me just share a couple of thoughts, right? Like, I'm going to do a little bit now and we'll do a lot later, okay? Chat, is that okay? Is that acceptable? Will you give me that opportunity? So just to recap for people. So a lot of people think that narcissism is what they call being an entitled asshole on the internet. Right? So if you go to

the subreddit, am I the asshole? That's full of narcissists. And I think the term gets thrown around a lot. entitlement, narcissism, there's a lot of like things that kind of get wrapped up together. And I think the challenge is that narcissism is more than being an asshole. Okay. There are many assholes who are narcissists. There are many assholes who are not narcissists. And there are many narcissists who are not assholes. So here are a couple of features that I really think about in terms of narcissism.

one is a sense of internal self-worth that is low or shaky and therefore requires outward validation to like preserve a sense of self. So what this kind of means is like if I don't feel confident in myself, I'm going to require the rest of the world telling me that I'm an awesome person to feel good about myself. And so what happens with narcissistic people is they engage in behaviors that lead to those kinds of like outward shows. So for example, you know, a lot of people will like be like sympathy farmers. So they'll go around like people who are narcissistic will go around and like tell stories of like, woe is me. And what happens is like when they are sympathy farming, people will be like, oh my God, poor you. And then they feel cared for, right? They feel

loved because other people are like telling them, oh my God, that must be so so hard for. you. The problem is that it becomes narcissistic because you become self-centered. Like, and this is where the self-centeredness comes in because when someone else is telling a story about sympathy, you're like, oh, wow, like look at that sweet, sweet sympathy that that person is getting. Like, I need me some of that sweet-sweet sympathy, man. Like, I feel bad about myself. I don't feel love. Like, let me get some of that sweet sympathy. Oh, man, you got, you got emotionally abused by your parents. I got physically abused, emotionally abused. I got all the abuses, man. And so then you one-up them, right? You engage in behaviors to go.

garner that sympathy, but in doing so, you actually, like, are insensitive to the needs of others, right? So that's how, like, that narcissism kind of, like, complex works. So one aspect of it is, like, insecurity in your internal environment, requiring you to engage in behaviors that garner that sympathy. And this is also why, like, people, like, give you the sympathy, but they feel manipulated by it, right? Like, they're like, man, fuck that. Like, like, you don't, Sometimes people don't even understand what's going on, but they start to dislike you. The second aspect of narcissism is self-centeredness. It's hard, but you can't not think about yourself.

And this post has such a good example. They're like, you know, if your friend is having a bad day, your mind automatically thinks about how you are making their day worse. You're not an asshole. It's just your mind is like, oh my God, how did I screw up? Like, I'm screwing up so bad, this person is so upset. And the person can even say, hey, it has nothing to do with you. Like, the world does not revolve you.

My suffering does not revolve around you. But their brains are just like populating thoughts, but like you're just, they're just saying that to make me feel better, but it is my fault. They're trying to say that to make me feel better, but clearly I'm screwing up in some way. I could be a better friend. And so it's kind of interesting, but like the world kind of revolves around them. So sometimes that results in like entitlement and asshole's behavior, right?

Where you show up somewhere and you're like, where is my food waiter? I've been waiting for 15 minutes. And you have like no conception that other human beings have like lives and challenges and maybe the waiter has something going on or like whatever. Right. So sometimes it results in assholery. But like it doesn't always result in assholery. Sometimes it actually results in like really low self-esteem.

Sometimes it results in like a lot of like once again, behavior. that can be frustrating to other people, like reassurance seeking. Like, are you sure that you're not upset at me? Are you really sure that you're not upset at me? Like, are you really sure that you're upset because your dad passed away and it's not my fault? Are you sure? And so it's not like you're being mean or an asshole of them, but you're also doing things that make people like not want to engage with you.

And so that's kind of like the end result of narcissism is that people don't enjoy being around you. And the reason they don't enjoy being around you is not because of like some, you're not fundamentally like a bad person. It's that your narcissism dictates certain kinds of behaviors that you're hungry for that feel like manipulative or frustrating to the other person. And neither of y'all can really pin it down what is actually wrong here. It's a feeling. It's like something feels a little bit like manipulative about this. But you're not really sure what it is. And so you can't really call attention to it. You can't really fix it. And this actually further reinforces the insecurity, and this is why narcissists get stuck.

Because as you engage in these like hungry behaviors to get things, people feel manipulated. They don't feel like you're empathic. You're not really listening to them. You're one-opping them. You're kind of making it about you. And then as they dislike you and feel manipulated, they don't really like criticize you, but they start to pull away. and as they start to pull away, like the insecurity gets worse, right? And then the vicious cycle like continues because then you're like, you can feel this person pulling away. And then it's like, if we think about this person, you know, we use this example of, are you sure you're not sad because of me? And they're like, no, dude, I'm really not sad because of you. You're not mad at me. No, I'm not mad at you. And then is the more you keep asking, the more mad at you they get.

And then as they like, they're like, you know what, bro, just don't worry about it. I'm just going to hang up. The person leaves. And then you're like, oh my God, they're mad at. and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the next time that someone is upset, that has nothing to do with you, your mind has learned this lesson. Oh, they were upset with me. I did screw it up.

And then the whole cycle repeats. So that's sort of like the narcissistic construction. We can go into more detail. So step number one, it's about internal insecurity that requires external validation to make you feel good about yourself. It's hungry. You're hungry.

You're hungry for it. That causes all kinds of behaviors. Second thing is that it's self-centered, which means that other people are living their lives, but for some reason, whatever is going on in other people's lives, you feel like the PC and they are NPCs, as opposed to them being the PC and you being the NPC.

Everything revolves around you, not like in an asshole entitled way, but like your mind can't help but think about you in the situations that other people have. And then those kinds of behaviors will result, in impacting your relationships in a way that reinforces the insecurity and makes the whole problem worse and then makes you hungrier to begin with. That's narcissism in a nutshell. We'll definitely talk about it more. We've got time for one more. All right. I recently discovered that a lot of

the emotions I've felt in the past can be described as fear of missing out or fomo. I don't know if there's a mental health equivalent. I've had the hardest time trying to describe this feeling and I've always defaulted to envy that wasn't always true. I get FOMO from people doing stuff I don't even care about or want, and it's borderline debilitating. I've ended friendships because of the life they live and how much it scared me and upset me that they were living more life than me, even though I didn't care to have that particular thing. I recently pledged to myself to live more and improve, doing more and experiencing stuff I haven't experienced before, but I still get this absolutely heartbreaking feeling that others are somehow enjoying it more than me, and I get angry at myself

for not enjoying myself or finding satisfaction in things. It's a vicious cycle that keeps feeding in on itself and causing me to want to give up even trying. I think if I was somehow able to find the real satisfaction in things, I'd be less likely to feel dwarfed by other people's experiences. Oh, man. I feel like each of these could be an hour-long lecture chat. Okay. So let's take, once again, I reserve the right to do a longer one. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about FOMO. So the fear of missing out is a really interesting challenge. And I think once again, it's like an umbrella term that may have multiple roots to it. Okay? The first thing that I'm going to share with you guys, so is actually from yoga. So it's a really interesting passage from, I forget which Upanishan maybe the Taithraya Upanishad that talks about proximal emotions and distal emotions.

So what the yogis realized is that there's a set of emotions that we feel that are like more acceptable that actually have like underlying more toxic emotions underneath. So like envy can actually be like the proximal emotion. it's like, oh, like, I feel happy for someone, I wish I was like that. And underneath that can actually be like anger or hatred. So it's kind of really interesting because I'm not surprised that we see, if you guys paid attention to the case, right, like the further down we go, the more we get to like hatred.

So interestingly enough, when you're dealing with these proximal emotions and distal emotions, like the acceptable emotion, which is like envy. Like, it's okay to be envious of someone, right? Like, I wish I had that. it's less okay to be like, I hate that person for having that. And so the interesting thing is that, you know, a lot of this could come from dealing with your hatred. So like, do you hate those people? Like, do you hate people who have more than you?

What is it like that other people have had more than you and you have not? So I would ask this person, if you have FOMO and you kind of feel envious of other people, ask yourself like, step one, underneath the envy is their hatred? And like, how do you? Because a lot of times, like, we don't want to hate our friends, right? Like, it's very conflicting internally. It's very dystonic. So we don't let ourselves feel that. And since we don't let ourselves feel that, it never goes away. It just stays there. It lingers. It's the trash can that's rotting in the corner that you never let yourself look at because you never explore it. And so it kind of like fuels this stuff. That's number one. Okay. So explore for hatred underneath. The second thing is to start to think a little bit about like, when did you miss out? Right? So now we're going to take the Sumskar approach. So like if I was talking to this person in an interview, what I would kind of ask them is like,

when did you start missing out in life? What does it kind of feel like to miss out? Like, has there been times in your life where like, you know, there was someone who like got something that you didn't have? And like there was like the person who was happy and then there was like you who was like neglected and you really wanted to be that person and explore that stuff. That's how you may find the root of it. Okay. So to ask yourself, when did you start missing out? When was the first time that you felt FOMO really, really powerfully and forget about social media? Because chances

are it has like it may be something from your personal life, maybe something when you were young, like your parents took your sibling on a trip and they left you behind, like something like that. Okay. The third thing is that social media makes phone. more worse. So like social media creates a system for our brain that is busted. So if I have 30 friends on Facebook, the stuff that Facebook is going to populate my feed with is the stuff that gets the most likes. So person number one has a birthday. Bunch of likes, bunch of comments. I see that. Person number two, the next day goes on vacation. Person number three has a baby. Person number four graduates from college. Person number five wins an award.

Person number six gets engaged. Person number seven gets a promotion. Person number eight goes, has a big surprise party that their parents throw for them. Person number 10 gets a gift from their parents, gets a brand new car. And what happens is our mind sees all of these like high points from 30 different people's lives. and then what we see appears to be like this glut of a perfect life

because our brain doesn't really process that like for every post this person makes that they get a thousand likes they make a thousand posts that get one like what your brain sees is the thousand posts that you make that get one like so this kind of phomo phenomenon is like very clearly tied to social media

and like is almost predatory in terms of the way that it like you know, enhances this feeling. So there is this stuff about, you know, envy and hatred. There's absolutely finding the roots of it. And then there's like, what propagates the phenomenon of

phomo in your life? What builds up fomo? Despite the roots, what's the fertilizer we're throwing? What's the gasoline that we're pouring on top of the fire? The fire's there. The fire's there because of deep yogic roots and past experiences in your life. And then social

media is the gasoline. So this is where people say just get off social media, which is challenging for any number of reasons. But my experience has been that just getting off of social media doesn't fix the problem. That's the boomer solution. Just stop it. No, like people had FOMO and envy and hatred and jealousy far before social media. Social media making it worse? Is it aggravating it?

Absolutely. Right? But then there's also like the roots of the problem that you kind of have to get to. So what I'd say to this person, and if you're kind of thinking about FOMO, right, is that like it's normal to have FOMO. It's important to understand that social media is going to exacerbate it, but really ask yourself, what are the underlying emotions that are like driving my feeling of FOMO? And then the fourth thing that they said, which I think makes perfect sense, is if I'm able to somehow find real satisfaction in things I do, I'd be less likely to feel

dwarfed by other people's experiences. That person's precisely correct, but it's the other way around. you will never find real satisfaction in things as long as you are comparing based on other people. The way to find real satisfaction in things is to let go of comparison. And so as long as your mind looks at someone else and says this person is better or worse than mine, me, you will never find satisfaction or happiness. And this is the really tricky thing. So the last thing, if you, the secret to FOMO, okay, if you want to really unplug FOMO, There's one tiny psychological life hack, as much as I detest the term, that you can use that will actually disarm FOMO.

And that is you feeling superior to other people in particular situations. So as long as you let yourself feel superior to others, the reverse of that will happen to you. You will feel inferior. So letting go of your feelings of inferiority, start by letting go of your feelings of superiority. I was working with a professional player from a particular region in a particular sport. This person is very good, was very high up in their region,

and traveled and would boot camp in a different region that is known to be a quote-unquote stronger region. And he would find himself in pub games with other people who were like the top players for that region. And he felt like his words, literally, dog shit playing with them. Any mistake he made, he would feel like, oh my God,

like these epic players that I've looked up to my entire life must think that I am dog shit. He would think that, and he would ask me, like, how do I let go of this? Like, I just can't play with these people. He's really messing up my mental. So the solution was,

when you play in your region, how do you feel about the people in the games that you're with? And he's like, they're dog shit. And I told him, as long as you treat them like dog shit, you will be treated like, you will think that you are dog shit because that's the construction. That's the play that your mind enacts. And as long as you're feeling superior, it's just the flip side of the coin. And so it's interesting because he's gotten a lot better. Right. Like he's like, oh, like the less judgmental he's become, the less superior he feels, right? Towards those people, like actually like he has gotten way better. And his performance. is actually objectively improved, and he has been placing higher in international events. So the last thing about FOMO is if you feel inferior to other people, you can also disarm the feeling of superiority. Notice that. Why do I feel better than this person? As you explore that,

you will actually deflate the inferiority with it. It's both, it's all ego, Aham Kara. Right? So the Aham Kada, so we'll just summarize with like Sanskrit, baby, it goes back. back to the yoga. The Ahamkata is the eye feeling. It compares. As long as the Ahamqad is active, you're going to be making comparisons. The sense of identity, the me, the I'm a doctor, I went to Harvard. In my mind, every time I say I went to Harvard, my mind is drawing a comparison to everyone who didn't. It makes me feel a little bit superior. So I have to notice that each and every time. And as long as I notice that and I say, actually, you're not better than anyone else. Like, just RNG, baby, you just lucked out.

Like, literally it was RNG, right? And so as long as you're feeling superior to other people, you're going to be feeling inferior somewhere else. Because equality is equality, man. Like, you can't, if you're not equal, you're not equal. And that's going to come with superiority and inferiority. Okay? All right.

Meditation, chat? How to not feel guilty about your successful R&G? Like, it's RNG, dude. Just appreciate it. Just. Right? So it can be challenging. That's another thing. So when you say how to not feel guilty about your successful RNG, it's not about the RNG, it's about the feeling of guilt. So the question is like, why does your mind find something to feel guilty about? Just can't chill. That's what you need to work on. Forget about the RNG. So this is a problem is that a lot of people look at the object that their mind looks at instead of the way that their mind looks at it. Like a case of the what ifs, right? Like a case of the should or what it could is. I should. should have done this, I could have done this, I would have done this.

And your mind is always thinking like, oh, I should have done this, I should have done this. Why is your mind producing the should thoughts to begin with? That's what you need to focus on. You should focus on why your mind is focusing on should. Okay? Yeah, I love this quote from Billy Fanboy. There is nothing from Ernest Hemingway. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man.

Truman nobility is being superior to your former self. Beautiful. Beautiful. Bad financial decisions is asking, how long is it healthy to be sad after a six-year relationship has ended, you shouldn't be, it's unhealthy to be sad in like a present sense. Like I think it's always fine to like feel sadness about that relationship. But if you're still like in the dumps six years later, like that's probably not healthy. Okay.

Third eye meditation. We're going to start from day one today. Okay. Okay. Okay. So let's do, we're going to do version one of third eye meditation. We'll do upgraded, we'll do the final version of the chakra shuddy meditation on Wednesday. So let's do charging the laser beam. I feel like it's kind of like good, especially given all the topics that we talked about today, FOMO and all that kind of stuff, understanding yourself. By the way, so we do have a section on Dr. K.'s guide to

about the Atman Pada, I strongly encourage you all to get that, check that out if you all are curious about narcissism and stuff. It's not specifically about narcissism, but it's all about discovering your true self. And narcissism is a shell that's on top of the true self.

And if people are feeling like, I'm a shill for Dr. K's guide and he's like, oh, the Dr. K's always talking about it. Like, that's the fucking point. The point is that it's like a comprehensive guide to like many of the things that we discuss, which is why we built it. So like, I feel better and better about investing six months of my life building that because so many of the questions that you guys ask, I think that

you're going to hopefully find some good information in there. I'm honestly not trying to just like shill it for the sake of shilling it. It's like that's why we actually built it. And if I never had, if I never mentioned it, then it would have been a waste of time because it's not actually what the community needs. Guide is hopefully coming out in about six weeks, but don't hold me to that. How do you join the cult? You have to get initiated. There are robes. There's a ritual. Guys, we're working on it, okay? I piss everyone off anytime I try to give any. And you guys ask me a question. I feel put on the spot. I give you an answer and then like everyone gets upset at me. So please don't ask me again. Maybe two months, maybe six weeks, maybe a year. Who knows? You never know.

You never know when stuff is going to come out. Why don't you guys treat me like the rest of the video game industry. Just give me, give me a chance. Okay, let's, let's meditate. So we're going to do charging, or let me think, let me think, let me think. Do we do something a little bit different? No, let's do charging laser beam. We haven't done charging laser beam in a long time. Okay. Okay. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to set up straight, back straight. Okay. Then what we're going to do is we're going to take our middle finger and we're going to hover it over like the midpoint between our eyebrows and just a little bit higher. Okay?

I want you to close your eyes and just hold your middle finger over that point. Don't touch, no touching, and the drilling begins. So just focus on that. Hold it there for about 30 to 60 seconds. You may feel some kind of sensation on your forehead. It may actually feel a little bit like a warmth, a drilling, a crumbling, Some brilliant person in chat said many months ago feels like charging a laser beam. If you don't feel it, no big deal.

Just try to maybe move a little bit closer or a little bit further away. But don't touch. And then bring your hand down. And now focus on that point and see if you can notice the sensation continuing. We'll practice for about 60 to 90 seconds. Now what I want you all to do is, is you continue to notice it, I want you to try to, I know this is going to sound kind of weird, drive your attention into it. Like, try to, like, push all of your concentration, like, into that point and push through it,

into it. Push with all of your concentration. Take all of your concentration and your attention and collapse it down into that point. Kind of stuff your attention into there. And now relax. Let your eyes stay closed. Go ahead and tilt your head. back a little bit, let your attention and concentration wander. You can go ahead and feel the eyebrow center if you want to. You can keep your attention on it, let it beckon you if it so chooses. But no more driving into it. If the sensation is there, you're welcome to sit with it. Otherwise, just let your mind wander. Notice your thoughts, but don't engage them. Let your attention come to your breathing, if you so choose.

If the sensation is continuing, by all means, sit with it. And now put your palms together in front of you, like a namaste position. Rub your palms together. Rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub. Feel the heat, the friction, the warmth. Cup them over your eyes. Take a deep breath in and exhale and open your eyes. And then let your hands come down.

Yeah, so once person was saying, I feel sucked into infinity, that means you're doing it right and that this is a good practice for you. I know what you mean. The tingling is so uncomfortable. Good. You guys will get there. So it starts with tingling

and then eventually you'll get sucked into infinity. That's good. Just keep going. Just felt a bit of pressure. Totally fine. Right? So remember that when it comes to the responses of chat, so let's remember a couple of things about meditation.

Number one, that not everyone has the same temperament for meditation and different techniques are going to work for different people. That's the reason why you have a guru or a teacher, right? So the teacher tailors their teaching to the strengths and weaknesses of the pupil. One of the biggest problems with meditation traditions nowadays is that each tradition says this is the way to meditate, and you have to learn our way.

And you keep practicing until you get it right. My experience with my teachers has been that a teacher should tailor to the student, not the other way around. right? If it's my job to teach, let's say, psychiatry or technology addiction to a group of medical residents or psychiatrists, it's my job to take my expertise and shape it in a way that it does them the most good. I need to meet them where they're at. They don't need to come to me. Second thing is that people have been practicing in this community now. Like some people have been practicing for over a year. Right? Like some people have been practicing for.

18 months. So once again, don't compare. Wherever you are is where you are. And just do the practice if you liked the practice, and you'll get there. It's not a race, and it's not a competition. So, who are we rating, chat?