Should I Delete That? - Dopamine, phone addictions and how our brains work - with neuroscientist TJ Power

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

Do you find it impossible to stop scrolling? Do you struggle to get motivation? Do you need to listen to a podcast to fall asleep? Today’s guest is here to help you re-balance your brain chemistry...TJ Power is a neuroscientist and founder of The DOSE Lab - who has made it his mission to explain how our brains work and help us tobreak our addiction to dopamine. TJ explained how our brains work and gave us real practical advice on how we can re-balance our brain chemistry to live a happier, less anxious life. And boy… did we have a lot of questions to ask him - we basically used this as a personal therapy session. Follow @TJPower on InstagramGet your copy of The DOSE Effect: Everyday habits to balance your brain for a healthier, happier life here!Spotify Premium users can listen to The Dose Effect for free!If you'd like to get in touch, email us on [e-mail] us on Instagram:@shouldideletethat@em_clarkson@alexlight_ldnShould I Delete That is produced by Faye LawrenceStudio Manager: Dex RoyVideo Editor: Celia GomezSocial Media Manager: Sarah EnglishMusic: Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This dopamine resource is like the most crucial thing in your brain for you to be able to be motivated and do hard things and like create a life effectively. It's something like that's magic that happens in our brain when we just let it rest. And it can only be discovered that it's magic if you just try it a few times. Hello and welcome back to Should I Delete that. I'm M Clarkson. I'm Alex Light. What a guest we've got for you today.

I hope to say what a treat. We have a treat indeed. And neuroscientist, no less. A Bigger Brain has never graced our studio before this. True. We felt very enlightened afterwards, didn't we? Faye was annoyed at us during this episode because we could have gone on for about three hours

and we were going on for way too long. But I have a thousand questions for him. He's left me with more questions than answers. However, since we recorded that episode, which was a couple of weeks ago now, I have implemented some genuinely life-changing things into my life. Same. I said life too many times, but I stand by it.

Like what? Well, you'll have to wait and see. Oh, okay. Sorry, didn't I just nail that? Good suspense. Very good suspense. I bought his book. Well, quite right, too.

I just sent it to my brother. It's called The Dose Effect. It's available for free on Spotify. Now, it's actually not a new book, although he is writing a new book. We just came to have a chat for the sake of chatting. And the man had something. to say. Didn't he? I had no idea the extent of how many chemicals were at play, what was causing what, I mean, I ought to have probably explored some of, like the fact that I've just

been living with this brain for 31 years with no idea how it worked, says a lot about the brain itself. However, this has shown some light into the, into some spaces. I had, and I had, well, I had no idea how fucked I was. Basically, it's shown a line on that and I'm determined. Herman to fix it. And he's right when he says that his book is written in like small doses, like little, it's very easy to read. It's very digestible. And I just feel like this is the new me. Is it? Okay. Well dozed. Watch the space. Today we have neuroscientist T.J. Power on the podcast. He's come to speak to us about the way that our brains work, the chemicals at play. It was entirely enlightening. We are sorry for hijacking so much of this interview with our own personal problems and

peculiarities. But what else did you expect? Without further ado, here is T.J. Power. Hi, T.J. Hi. I am equal parts, excited and terrified to have you here for this conversation because I know that I am not kind to my brain. My brain chemicals might as well be like, my phone might as well be surgically attached to me. So we have a lot to dive into. This episode came, yeah, because we talked about smartphones.

Yeah. Which I'm actually going to just slap myself on the wrist. That was tragic because they're not smart phones, they're just phones. And like how much we're using them, the fact we're addicted to them, which isn't great. I don't really want to confront that. I fear I'm going to have to. But broader scale, because I was kind of anticipating just having that conversation and the phone conversation, which I do really want to have. But then last night, Alex sent me a text.

And she was like, I'm so excited to find out why you love running an ice bath so much. And then I was like, oh my God, terrifying. Don't want to know that. And then I was thinking about you. I was like, I've got lots of questions about you, so I thought maybe we could just like go analyze each other via you and that might be quite fun. Let's do it. For the group.

Can you tell us quickly who you are and what you do and why you're here to have this combo with us? Yes. Why you're here to have this conversation with us. Let me never say combo again. That's horrible. I said smartphone, so you're allowed. So it's a combo.

It's all about that. Yeah, so my name's TJ Power. I am a neuroscientist. I run a research lab called Dose Lab, which, studies our four main brain chemicals with dopamine, which is the really famous one, oxytocin, which I'm sure you know, serotonin and endorphins. I've recently written a book all about this idea of dose and I'm here to have this conversation just to kind of consider these ideas of how could we all create healthier brain chemistry? Our mental health is

massively impacted by how these brain chemicals fluctuate. I've spent like 10 or 15 years as the biggest dopamine addict in the world trying to like learn to manage this stuff myself. And yeah, think it'll be cool to dive in. So can you manage this stuff yourself? Yeah, definitely. Okay. Are we doing it wrong? Currently, yeah, we had not necessarily doing what our brain chemicals want. Our brain chemistry evolved over hundreds of thousands of years while we were running around in the forest, like hunting for food and building shelter and stuff like that. And it loves that like really effortful, low stimulation, super connected, natural experience of life. That's what our brain wants. And then now, obviously, we're in kind of the opposite where we get like loads of

easy pleasure. It's quite artificial. It's quite overstimulating. And it means it's like throwing these chemicals out of balance. Can you briefly explain to us each of the chemicals what their role is and like how much of them do we need? Do we need like one more than another? Dopamine, it feels like the, it's a buzzword, isn't it? Dopamine. Like everyone's talking about dopamine. But how important are the other ones as well? Yeah. So they kind of equally important. And as you've shared there, we're living in kind of dopamine land now where dopamine's become become like the big, big focus for us all and the really addictive one. They each have a really specific function.

So dopamine creates all of our motivation to do hard things. So to get yourself out of bed and do your job and do the washing and anything that's hard, dopamine enables you to do it. And then gives you some level of satisfaction and pleasure when you do something that's hard to reward you. This is what you might be getting from the cold. Oxytocin connects us. It enables us to experience love and bonding with our kids, our partners, our family.

is the chemical that we desperately need more of and are getting less of as a result of dopamine to give you a really simple example when we lie in bed with our partners and we scroll our phones instead of like talking or cuddling, we choose dopamine over oxytocin and that can be quite tricky for our brain.

Serotonin is all about our mood. It helps us like calm anxieties within our brain and then endorphins have this amazing ability to kind of de-stress us. When you feel like that, oh, I feel really annoyed and frustrated, tense feeling, maybe like your kids something that stressed you out

or maybe your kids experiencing their own stress, endorphins can, like, calm us back down, bring us back. So we need more oxytocin. We do. Do you think our brains will adapt to this, like, evolutionary shift and the way that we're all on phones and stuff? Will our kids and their kids and their kids adapt to living functionally within this?

Or we all that's going to be depressed forever? We definitely don't need to be depressed forever. Like, there is definitely an answer where you can work and have a phone and have social media and do all the things we want to do and still feel good. But the brain won't necessarily at some point just be happy with the facts that we're like scrolling phones for six hours a day because it's not how our brain evolved to experience dopamine. Like for 300,000 years, you could only get dopamine after like hours of effort, trying to get

fire to light or build some shelter or hunt for food. You'd have been so on that. It's human. It'd be like two or three moments a day where it's like, cool, yeah, loads of dopamine. and now it's like 500 hits a day and that's just very confusing for our brain and you have this thing in your brain effectively called your dopamine factory

it's called this VTA area and it's getting very tired because it's producing too much dopamine too quickly and the factory is emptying and then sometimes when you're sitting there you just think oh I'm so depressed and I can't want to do anything it's because your dopamine factory is very low

all the pleasure of the dopamine then tips us over into pain right yeah it does so there's this thing called the pain pleasure balance in our brain it's in an area called the hypothalamus but just like deep in the center of your brain. And as we were evolving as humans,

our brain had to become accustomed to enjoying doing painful things. It sounds that you might enjoy painful things as we explore this conversation. Yes. And why? Say, for example, I had to spend five hours in the freezing cold, scratching rocks together to make a fire

or my family would die from lack of heat. That would be like a super painful experience. I'm sure my body and hands, everything. The whole thing would be super painful. And it will operate in a seesaw in our brain. So if you experience something psychologically quite painful from like a lot of effort and physical discomfort, the seesaw would begin to tip towards the pain side and pleasure would rise within our brain.

And our brain created that adaptive response so that when we did all these painful things, pleasure would be created in our brain so that we would keep doing the painful things because otherwise we just wouldn't have survived as a species. Like surviving through ice ages and all these ridiculous things required us to almost enjoy the experience of physical discomfort and pain. The annoying thing about it is the seesaw works in both ways. So if we tip it heavily towards pleasure, the pain side of the seesaw will come. And that was so that, say, for example, for the hunter gatherers, they weren't just like,

I'm just going to kind of leave you guys to do all the work. I'm just going to stay back and shag my girlfriend and do nothing and just go for pleasure. The brain would begin to feel uncomfortable with not doing anything that was hard to try and tip them back towards contributing. And a simple example of that now is like, when you drink a few bottles of red wine and you go into super pleasure, the next day you end up in pain as a result of the seesaw. Because when I swear, I can feel. the dopamine flooding when I drink alcohol.

Yeah, same. Me too. You can feel it, can't you? You start to talk to you in your mind. Feel the flood of it and like this. I don't feel it. Do you not? Why do I feel it? But when you have a drink, do you not think like, well, that's quite good.

Like, I would like another drink? Or do you not really drink? No. I mean, that's a good thing. Yeah, but that's quite, but I want the drink to talk to me. That sounds fun. No. Do you feel the flood when you're on your, like, scrolling videos on your phone?

Like, do you feel like a pleasure from that? Nope. caffeine? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I love caffeine. Yeah. That's your one.

Is that it then? You just have like your thing. Yeah, everyone has a unique thing that will give them dopamine. And for our ancestors, that might have been like unique skills for the tribe. For us now, it's more like, is it from porn or is it from the phone or is it caffeine or nicotine? That's so tragic. I know. And unfortunately for me, it was all of them.

So then I had to go on a big journey to try and balance them out. Fine. So that's, okay, that's really interesting. So you were studying all of this while struggling with your own. yeah for sure like from so young i was just like such a dopamine addict so there's like a tiny toddler like climbing up the side in the kitchen so i could try and get to the area where my mom would put the sugar so i could just like spoon sugar into my mouth i was just like oh god i used to do that you might be a dopamine yeah i don't want this and uh and it's just so fair like it's really

tricky the modern world is hard like we're we have brains that want dopamine and now there's a lot of choice as to how you can get it and then yeah graduate started studying it and i was like oh maybe there's some kind of like middle round i can find do you think this excess of dopamine that we're getting has contributed to the poor mental health that we have like collectively one million percent i think it's like the number one source of mental health challenges yeah because if our dopamine level is low our brain feels very very unhappy like it gets very depressed it can't focus on anything can't make progress on anything and when you're in quite like a stagnant not achieving much even if it's like achieving just like going and socializing with your friend it doesn't have to be

like productive stuff. If we're not really doing anything, our brain just gets very, very depressed and we're stuck inside these like dopamine loops at the moment. Like from the moment you wake up, it's just like, oh, have I get enough out my phone? And then the caffeine and then the sugar. And it's like really tricky to, uh, to manage. When you said before, like everybody's got their thing, does that mean to an extent we are all dopamine addicts? Yeah, we are all dopamine addicts. Those with ADHD, like slightly bigger dopamine addicts, like I almost would love ADHD to be called. dopamine hunters because you're just like someone that's going to look for dopamine a little bit more than a neurotypical brain and and do you got do you guys have any neurodiversity for

example yes I yes I recently got diagnosed a fish I was told I had ADHD years ago I recently got diagnosed with it yeah but I think it was exacerbated for me with breastfeeding are interesting both babies but but I went insane when I was breastfeeding my last baby in what way like genuinely like I felt like I was losing my mind like my memory was appalling okay my moods were so up and down and it was only at the end of breastfeeding my my my first daughter and I felt it more this time but like brain fog memory going up and down it was like I was waking up every morning and my brain would run somewhere and my body would trip over trying to catch up with it and I was just in a state of overwhelm and panic all the time wow and it was but I went

and saw a doctor about it's like a therapist about it and he basically said that breastfeeding causes a lull in dopamine to keep the body safe and to keep you safe like when you're like nurturing your child but if you've obviously got ADHD anyway which is a deficiency of dopamine as I understand it then it's like that is why it is exacerbated while you're breastfeeding makes a lot of sense and I imagine you're quite a like a high achiever sort of person imagine like doing quite a high energy person yeah for sure and I like doing a lot of things so it's been actually quite a journey for me recently because I was doing the running which you can't do when you've had a cesarean.

You can't do when you've got babies and I used to do marathons and that was how I processed. Yeah, that was almost like your own medication for ADHD. Yeah, which you can't do. So then I started ice bathing and recovery to birth because I couldn't run. Did that help your dough for me when you did the ice baths? Yeah, because I'd be getting to that point of overstimulation where I'm like, I'm going to scream, which I did quite a lot often.

My first baby was born. I decided to go and stand places and scream, which you can't do when you live in London. Yeah, people ring the police. Yeah, so then I'd get in the ice bath and it would be like, Like, it would be a full reset of like, it would just basically reset me completely. And that pain pleasure balance, like the ice bath is so much pain that it means the dopamine comes back to like a nice regulated level. Yeah.

It makes sense. You moved into like pure oxytocin for a period of time. And if you're someone that needs dopamine as part of your like personality and genetics, yeah. Make sense that it would feel quite unsettling. That's interesting. What about you? Because it's talk about you now.

I'm uncomfortable about myself. No, I'm just thinking about having a baby. Like that's when I really noticed like oxytocin. Yeah, okay. Like massively. and even now like when I've got him I mean we still like basically he sleeps in the bed with me

cuddling probably because of this because I get so much oxytocin from it at least that's what I think it is I think that's the what's happening my brain but it's it's funny isn't it because to me it's like dopamine is like such a I don't mean higher reward but it's like it gives you a more of a hit

it's much faster oxytocin is much lower it doesn't just make you go like oh my god like dopamine does but like it does make you feel good just over a longer period of time like the difference between like scrolling your phone or holding a baby it's quite like a different experience for our brain and one is dopamine one's oxytocin where's your dopamine come from um my phone definitely yeah um what's your favorite thing to do on your phone like what do you find when you sit down in the evening you're like this is my phone moment tic to scrolling ticot yeah not on instagram i don't like

scrolling Instagram. And is it just because the algorithm's better? The, well, I think with Instagram is because, like, I see too much of our world that we're, you know, the industry. I don't want to see that. I want to, I want to be, like, lost in like, like, escapeism, you know. Yeah. But then it's like, I can't stop scrolling. I'll scroll or like one video. I'm like, one more video, one more video, one more video. And suddenly it's like 12 o'clock, like midnight. And I'm like, what have I been doing? It's easily done though. Like, these algorithms are so smart. and the content is so, like, perfectly curated. And eating as well, I definitely get my dopamine from eating.

I think that's been a huge problem my whole life, I think. From all types of food or a certain set of food? Like, all of it just feels pretty good. Like the sugary junk food. Would you get dopamine from eating a steak? No, probably not. No, it wouldn't exactly. I think I get dopamine from all, from eating anything,

from just from the process, the ritual of eating, I think. Yeah, that's good. I mean, that is very natural. Like, food is like one of the deepest thing. we're looking for. And I've had like a lot of therapy about my eating, like eating disorders, like all sorts, you know, a lot of therapy. And that's what we focused on for a long time actually is like the dopamine side of it. And I've, that's why to me I've always thought of eating. Like I consider it. I know it's like it's a gray area in like the real in, in the

technical world. But like to me, eating is an addiction. Can be an addiction. And the tricky thing is, is like the addictions play into different addictions. Like when I went through a process of trying to like quit smoking for example i smoked for like 10 years often you can kind of then substitute one addiction for another because you're like oh if i'm reducing that dopamine i need it from another source and also when we really lower our dopamine we get into this depleted state so say for example like get home from work nail the phone for like an hour or 60 minutes or half an hour whatever it might be the dopamine then dips and then it puts us into that less comfortable state and then we might seek the food to kind of pull us back out and then we end up in this like yo-yoing

up down, up down, which can be so tricky. Yeah. Why is it that we are so different like that? Like, those things don't elicit dopamine for me. Food doesn't, for example. Not really. And TikTok. And TikTok.

I don't really like TikTok. Like, I can forget about TikTok and then I get a bit stressed by it. Like, I like going on my phone and I sit on my phone a lot, but I like working, I think. I don't really scroll that much. You are on Instagram a lot, though. Yeah, I am. But then I think I do that because I don't want to, like, I don't. Like, I didn't like the escapism.

Okay. Do you know what I mean? Like, I like staying, like, where we work. Maybe because it makes me feel like I'm being more productive. Are you someone that, like, leans towards overworking and, like, burning yourself out? Yeah, but in weird ways, because I don't do the work I actually need to do. Okay. I just do other work.

I'll just create other work for myself. But I don't derive pleasure in that same way. Like, when I was describing that, that doesn't feel, but in the same way that if I said, like running that doesn't do it for you so like why is it that we have such different relationships with dopamine it's partly genetic variation but then it's also partly what you've observed throughout your life like it might be for example that you watch a particular TV show or your mom or dad like was really into food and there was something about food that seemed like oh that's really exciting like I love food and then like your brain began to learn

like that could be a source of pleasure for me and it might be different for you there might being some kind of role model or content you consumed and your brain started from a young age thinking, oh, maybe I could get stimulation from that level. It also, with dopamine, some people can with this sort of ADHD type brain, be more in their head with ADHD, where their brain feels quite hyperactive and their thoughts feel quite hyperactive. And other people will have a body that's more hyperactive and they feel like they need to use up the energy in their body. So some's in the mind, some's in the body. And that can then create variation in how it plays out in our behavior.

That's super interesting. That checks out. Because I feel like my brain, I mean, my brain never stops. It runs at a thousand miles an hour. It always has, but it manifests in like physical exhaustion for me. Yeah, okay. So that makes sense? Yeah.

Because I was just like, anyway, I don't know why we're talking about ourselves. Sorry. I do think it's really interesting. Because it's like you can have two people who have grown up, like not in a dissimilar situation. Like we do the same job. Like in a million ways we're really similar. We're really good friends. But I am constantly fascinating.

by the difference. We do the same job. And it's really funny, sometimes frustrating mostly for you, like in how we do it differently. Yeah. Like, and I never, it is interesting. Like, I do think it's interesting to explore it because there's a minute, like, I think people, not there are a million different type of people,

but I think you probably are towards one of us or the other of us. Yeah. Yeah. As a listener, people are probably on one side or the other more. When you're exhausted, because that's such a common thing, like so many people feel exhausted now, is there anything that, like recharges you like do you find any activity actually makes you think oh cool my energy's coming back now i don't think i do the things that i should do when i feel like that i think i know the

things that i should do what would those go for a walk go outside like get sunlight yeah touch a flower yeah like getting to nature like do some yeah like and i just continue to work and just start my tv screen just feeling a computer screen just feeling exhausted so i don't think i i help myself really and that's like basically the whole world right now so that's so fair what is it that uh stops you wanting to do those things is it just like uh i don't necessarily know if it would do anything or is it like i don't think i have the motivation for it yeah i feel like i don't have the motivation for it where does that come from our motivation is it's all dependent on how many of these dopamine bubbles are basically sitting in our dopamine factory in our brain at any one time

and you can literally visualize it like there's this small ball in the sense of our brain called the VTA and it can manufacture these bubbles and then you have something across from there called the nuclear succumbens and it's like this little reward center so even smaller little factory thing and if you take something like cleaning your house like cleaning your house isn't like a super fun task but what you'll notice as you get it clean as like the kitchen finishes being clean or the lounge can looks clean you'll notice these like little moments of satisfaction in your brain you're like oh I guess it's kind of good that I've done that it's actually nice that it's a bit organized or you finish the washing or whatever it might be in that scenario it's a little

your factory is basically generating these dopamine bubbles. It's building them because you're putting an effort. And then it's occasionally sending some of these bubbles to that reward center and making you feel good about it so that next time you'd want to keep doing that activity. If there's lots of dopamine in that factory, you have tons of motivation. So deciding to go for the walk, for example, or eat the healthy meal or whatever it might be, is really easy because you've got like an abundance of dopamine. When we're, say, scrolling on social media or it could be like sugar base,

it could be any of these things that are tricky to manage. Effectively what happens is the factory mass ships these bubbles to the reward center. So instead of sending like a few every five minutes, it just sends it all over because it's like, wow, this is super stimulating. Let's just send it all. But because there's no effort when you're scrolling a phone, like you're not actually having to engage effort, the factory doesn't regenerate any dopamine during the task like it did with the cleaning. So suddenly the factory is just empty. And if the factory is empty of dopamine, then the idea of like, oh, I should probably go for a walk or I should make myself go to bed is just like CBA because you just can't be bothered because there's not enough of that molecule. So kind of building a life where from when you wake is building that factory up,

so there's more dopamine in there, is then actually going to make the hard decisions easier to do. Can you give us some practical tips? Yeah. Of like, and I'm guessing that you're going to say that the morning when we wake up is the most important part, where we can implement stuff. Yeah. And probably don't not pick up our phone straight away. Yeah.

So could we start there maybe with the morning? it is great to not go on the phone when you wake up i appreciate how insanely hard it is like it's pretty nice to just like roll over like get the phone and just like nail it for a while and i did this uh podcast last week with jamie uh jamie lang and he i got this message this morning by the state from the lady called victoria who said she just tested for seven days just like altering the morning to what i'm about to share and it's completely changed like how she feels her motivation how she's engaging with her kids just from like a tiny tweak. So like it can happen. And she shared with me that she was waking up and doing like 60 minutes of TikTok every day when she woke for a long time.

So like like she'll sleep it in it, which is just like easily done. When we wake up, ideally, we just want to do something that's a bit of effort, but not like insane effort, but just like a little bit. Just so the brain's like, oh, okay, so we're going to build a little bit of dopamine today. So if you were to wake up, if you could charge your phone at the end of your bed instead of on your bedside table, like for example, where do you guys charge your phone right now at nighttime? I'm going to give you an excuse. Yeah, excuse is a good. I have a baby monitor, so I have to have it on my bedside table.

And the phone is the baby monitor. So does that just play on your phone all that way? Your screen time must be like 24 hours in it. Yes, yeah. Yeah, my screen time is not great. It's a monitor, so I don't have the screen, but I hear it through my phone. Solid excuse, love it. Thank you.

It comes from love as well. It's charging right by my head. Yeah, right by my head. And I have no excuse. And like, both by the super fair. so the goal would be that it would just like not be so close that it's impossible to resist going on it because if for example I said to you why one you start doing is pouring yourself like a glass of red wine and putting it right by your bed and then when you wake up nail it as soon as you wake up

obviously in like a week you'd start getting pretty addicted to wine like you'd be like really needing wine and then suddenly like a few hours later you'd be like well I need more wine because you'd go in that big high and then big low and the tricky tricky thing about the phone is that is what's happening like when you scan a brain and someone drinks a glass of wine or scrolls a phone, it's the same. You can't really see any difference at all for the level of dopamine stimulation. And ideally then we don't wake up and just like nail the glass of wine straight away. We wait a little bit of time before the glass of wine. Obviously with the wine, we might be able to wait until the evening.

With the phone, we're just trying to push it back a little. So if it charged even just the other side of your bedside table, just like some barrier. And the goal would be to wake up and just try as quickly as you can to get to the bathroom and start brushing your teeth. because brushing your teeth is just one of those like annoying tasks if you do it properly two minutes it's just going to begin to set your brain on the more effortful path the path that's going to generate dopamine splash some cold water on your face would be great if you come back and you can make your bed that would be great but just trying to do like even just like two or three minutes of effort before the screen that's like a huge win and then gradually moving towards the framework whereby if you could wake up and just try and actually get ready for your day

before you went into the phone that would be absolute magic but even tomorrow you started with 60 seconds. You just pressure two, six seconds, came back and got on the phone. Even just that process of getting out bed is going to be a big win. And then if you gradually laid it out. And the biggest thing with this is you have to actually run the experiment because everyone might think, oh, yeah, I've heard about that phone thing. Probably should do that.

Can't really be bothered though. You can't know there's any benefit unless you do it. And then you discover, oh, like, I actually did feel just like nice and chill today. And I was like less snappy and less irritable and more of it. And then you're like, oh, maybe it's worth just like having a little break before the phone. and then the change begins to motivate it to continue. It is wild that we've got here, isn't it? But like with this into our phones.

Oh, we are seeing points to that. Yeah, yeah. Phones haven't been around that long. No, like, I remember. But then I'm like, what did I used to do? I know. And in my head, I'm thinking, I can't do that. When you're speaking, I'm like, I can't do that because I need to.

Which bit? But that's the thing. I'm like, I can't do that because I need to check if something's happened overnight. And then I'm like, hang on, but what would have happened overnight that they can't just wait like half an hour for me to look at? And the answer is nothing, really. yeah and but these all this nuance is so important to consider in your mind because also everyone that's going like listening to the conversation will have all these different things and

even if you say it's not like half an hour at the beginning it doesn't need to be half an hour at the start anyway even if it was five minutes which be a huge win yeah if you just think like your alarm could have gone off five minutes later like there's no way that five minutes was the window which like the big emergency took place like it's very unlikely that that would be the case very few emergencies actually take place in the middle of the night anyway that's just like another one of these things we've built in our mind to secure the phone. The baby monitor is a really good excuse. Yeah, yeah. As you're speaking, it's like it's not that good excuse because if it goes off on the other side of the room, I've still got to get her up. Oh yeah, you will.

She's crying. I'm up. Yeah. So it doesn't matter where the monitor is, to be honest. Yeah, even if it was just like just to have arms length. Yeah. It's just really good to not go into the phone like in the, and in the night as well. Like there's this area of our brain called the herbenula. It's like this little ball just above where we were talking about before. And it's an area of the brain that's really overactive when people have clinical anxiety and depression. Like if someone's got clinical anxiety and depression and you scan their brain, you'll see that there's a really overactive herbenula. You don't need to remember that place.

But when you take a sample of individuals that don't have any mental health problems, and then in research, if you put them in a situation where they have to occasionally look at a phone screen between 12 p.m. and 5 a.m. Just like a few flashes throughout the night, within a week that herbenula is just as overactive as someone that has clinical anxiety or depression. And they start waking up, feeling out. anxious and depressed, thinking that it's whatever they're thinking about, their kids, their partner, whatever it might be. But it's really that overstimulation in the night when our brain is trying

to regulate itself is actually creating this overactivation, which generates these like negative mental health feelings. So it's not just like, oh, you'll feel like a little bit better. Like it could be huge the difference if it was just a little bit less close to you when you're sleeping. At what point do you pick up your phone after you wake up? I do wake quite a long time now, but it's like you can gradually move towards there. Like, oh, where? wake up and I go and brush my teeth. I think quite like doing like the breath work stuff, like the big hyperventilation, hold your breath thing.

And I'll use my iPad to play that video just because my iPad I don't find like addictive because it doesn't have all my messages and stuff on it. I'll play that. Sometimes I'll go for a little walk. Sometimes I'll go to the gym and I'll have a shower. And then I actually find it easiest to start with my computer, not my phone. So like when I'm at home, like I'll open my laptop and then do all my WhatsApp and stuff. Like from there, because I don't get sucked into social media.

Because I've just got way too addictive of a personality, like the phone is just so irresistible. They're like, if I delay it and then I start with the laptop, it just means my addiction is a little bit less. Can I just ask a personal question quickly? I don't know if this is to do with brain chemicals. I don't really know what this is to do with, but I don't think it's healthy, is that I can't fall asleep without listening to a podcast. Yeah, okay. Is that to do with brain chemicals or do I just need to just man up and try? Yeah, so it's to do with your serotonin, which is the,

S in dose, really important chemical, and then also your melatonin, which you may have heard of, melatonin helps get us to sleep at night. And I relate a lot to that. I remember when I was like 14 or something as my Christmas present from my sister, she put friends, the TV show on this on an iPad I had. She like figured out how to download it and put it on. And I just started listening to it to go to sleep. And then I got to like the age of 23 and I'd literally listen to it every night for nearly 10 years. Like every like partner I had been with had to get used to the fact I play friends at night. It was just like this thing. And I could not sleep in the quiet. So like that's so far. And graduates, I tried to get the tech out of the bedroom. It was a

nightmare for me. And like this is only recently I've managed to figure this out because I just wanted to see if it was possible to go to sleep in the quiet because I've always found that like quite anxiety inducing that my brain is just race really, really fast if I tried to go without it. The big thing to understand is your brain will because of these things called mirror neurons begin to reflect the environment it's just experienced. So if, for example, you've ever been on holiday and sat on the beach and watched a sunset, your brain would have entered a much calmer state because it would be reflecting what it can see and it's super calm. And on that night, if you had observed it like closely, you may have fallen asleep much quicker because

your brain was in this quite peaceful state before bed and it had mirrored the environment it was in. The really tricky thing is, is when like just before sleep, we nail fast videos. Our brain begins to mimic it in our thought patterns. And then when we put the phone down and try and go to sleep, the brain's like, well, I'm just going to mimic what I just had. So it goes at the same speed, but without the content. So it basically short form contents your thoughts, which obviously then is really tricky, because I'm jumping around, jumping around. So the only way really is to try and slightly de-stimulate yourself for like a period of time. And it doesn't mean you have to like not use a phone and TV anymore, but it's just like, can you consume

slightly calmer things as you get closer towards trying to fall asleep? So it's if it was that you love watching content before bed, even if it was I'm going to put an iPad on the bed and watch a podcast like this podcast, you could just watch it, lie down, not engage with the iPad the whole time. That would be much less stimulating, even potentially boring. Like, oh God, I've got to do nothing. You just got to watch a podcast. And if you like gradually move yourself towards lower stimulation consumption just before bed, then your mind ends up settling a little bit more. And it can become possible to fall asleep in silence. But even if you began falling asleep yeah just with a podcast on but you'd fall asleep a bit faster if you didn't

know the videos first okay that's really interesting i relate to it like it's only about six months ago have i managed to finally start getting it out of the room yeah it's hard very hard yeah don't want to be left to my own thoughts either maybe that's more of a therapy thing than neuroscience thing i mean our brain chemicals like uh they talk to us effectively like they're a very like wise thing within our body and brain and i remember when i I was like partying super hard and someone a therapist I had at the time I've had OCD all my life so I've had a lot of therapy for OCD because my brain's like it's loads of intrusive thoughts and stuff like that and a therapist at the time guided me to try and go on a walk

without tech for like an hour and to me that's just like hell on earth like how would I be able to deal with an hour inside my own head and it's a really interesting experience like time in the quiet because it feels like it will be hell but there's something about it by the end that actually feels significantly better. And the only thing I can relate it to is, you know I'm friends when Monica has that cupboard that's like, not to be a massive friend addict all of a sudden, but Monica has that really messy cupboard in France.

Can you remember that episode? Lots of us have that messy cupboard. Like I've had that messy cupboard. And if like you constantly have shit that you're building out and you put it in the cupboard, shut it, shut it, shut it, gradually the idea of opening that cupboard and looking in there and dealing with it

obviously becomes more and more anxiety-inducing as it builds up. And our thoughts can be very similar. our thoughts are just building up, building up. And we're never really actually getting through them. They're just layering and layering. And the process of opening that cupboard one day and having to clean it out, of course would be hell and really annoying. But gradually throughout the day would actually be quite nice.

And then eventually you'd look at the cupboard and it'd be clean and you'd think, oh, so peaceful, it's bliss. The exact same thing happens when you walk in the quiet. Like at the beginning, it's how gradually you start cleaning out the thoughts. And if you were to, say, for example, be able to go on like a 30 minute walk or 20 maybe with your kid, like in a push chair, whatever it might be, but like not have headphones in. And even if you just did it once and you were like,

because trust me, like you, I don't think it's possible that you could hate the idea more than I hated the idea. Like it was really, I mean, imagine we're equal. It sounds like we, I was on the same wavelength now as you were then. Yeah. And like, even if like the only thing you took from this whole conversation with me was like you tried one walk for 20 minutes and you just like left the phone in a bag and just dealt with the fact you're going to think lots,

I really imagined by the end you'll think, oh, it was actually a good idea. I'd be so surprised if you didn't think that. that's the case. Okay. That's super interesting. Really interesting. We've got to clear out all the crap in our heads. There is so much in there.

There is so much. But like why are our brains actively against us? No, they're wanting to help. They're really wanting to help. I know. It's hard. Creating like new pathways in the brain, like forming new habits is so hard though, isn't it? It is so hard.

But I guess, yeah, I guess that makes it all the more rewarding when you do do something. And it's also important just not to try and like, fix everything all at once not to be like oh my god I'm so screwed like I need to change my whole life to fix my brain like you just start with like really small things like if it was just the few minutes with the phone when you wake up or like a little bit less of the videos just before sleep or a little bit of this walk or just even trying to eat a meal without a phone in front of you like that's something that I found really hard I was so addicted to watching YouTube when I eat food that you couldn't not watch it and like even today like I was eating these like

oats I was around him trying to stare out the window and I sit there like what the fuck like It's hard, but then there's something like that's magic that happens in our brain when we just let it rest. And it can only be discovered that it's magic if you just try it a few times. I don't know why I'm making this all about me. I'm so sorry, but like, I'm sure people have these feelings. I'm embarrassed to say that I can't eat without watching something. I honestly couldn't.

Unless, no, if I'm out for dinner or like, that's fine. Oh, no, I wouldn't watch it with Tommy. But I don't eat with Tommy for that. Well, also he eats early. He's too early for us anyway. But there's this double dopamine bang with the food and the phone at the same time that is good, like it's bliss. It's heaven, yeah. And your whole brain just like silences in that.

It's like soothing. How don't I feel this? What, from the phone at eating or? I'm surprised because I thought you were proper dopamine seeking. Yeah, this doesn't, none of this really sounds familiar. No. Could you go for a walk in the choir? Yeah.

Yeah, the last few runs I've been on. I haven't had any headphones and I've really liked it. What have you liked about it? I don't know. Just fun. Just fun. Cool thoughts, creative ideas. Do you think? Yeah. I like thinking though. Would it? Yeah. Well, this is what I was going to ask because I think, I think, I think, I do think a lot. But then I, like, I, like, I don't know. I just, I don't understand. Like, I don't understand why it's so different. Because it sounds, like, I understand why, but I just don't feel like that. Like, I kind of like the time, but I think what I struggle with is I feel guilt for not doing. So I feel guilty. for doing things and not doing other things. Yeah. So like if I go for a walk by myself or like, oh, I wouldn't go for a walk,

but like doing nothing, I think I'm wasting time. Yeah, that's so far. Yeah. That's kind of more how I feel. So it's more like if I'm eating, it's not that like I need to be eating while I'm doing something. But I wouldn't just sit and eat because I'd be like, well, I should be, I could be working while I was eating

or I could be replying to someone or reading something or doing something. Yeah. So I think I have like an element of like, it's like productivity. Like I feel a lot of strain on myself to like be the most productive. And what's like the source of that? Is it you just want to achieve lots? You want the business to do? I want to achieve lots.

I think I feel a kind of way since having kids particularly. That's, I think it's supercharged. To support your kids and stuff like that. It's more that like you're so not to scare you because obviously you're a part of a baby, but like you are time is such a precious commodity when you have kids. And if you want to work, you can you freelance like obviously I've had two babies in two years and my little one's really little. and I never know how I'm supposed to be using my time

and I get very stressed that I'm allocating it in the wrong places so like and then I get very cross only ever with myself but like I get very cross with myself if I feel like I've missed use time because it's like it's so precious when I get it yeah like because I don't have you know I really wanted this time with my baby yeah but I've been trying to work with my baby which is just a very difficult thing to do so then if you get like an hour it's like then you've got an hour so then I feel like I have to do the most

in that hour. Yeah, it's such a precious time. And I think I feel that. And it did get better for a bit when my first went to childcare, but then I got pregnant and got sick and then had another baby. So it's not been a great time for that part of my brain. Yeah. But I think I just, I feel like time is so scarce.

But like yesterday, I was trying to film something and it took me so long. And I was furious. I was in the shittiest mood for the rest of the day. Yeah, I've had those filming moments. Because it's just like, I've just wasted time. Like the feeling that I feel when I have. wasted time makes me... I swear that's having a kid because I never felt that so intensely after...

It makes me... Like, I had to apologise to my husband because I was like, I was so irrationally grumpy. Like, it completely... And I was trying to say it to me. I was like, I'm just annoyed because I've wasted my own time. Yeah. And it's like, and that feeling, I don't know. Where does that come from?

How do I get rid of that? Interestingly, in that scenario, you actually get massive dopamine crashes off disappointment. So with making that video, like, if a video didn't go to plan, the dopamine crash is massive off the disappointment which really that just pisses you are that's interesting with the time thing when you're kind of like rushing through things to make sure you're getting things done what is it that you're dreaming to spend your time doing being with my kids so just like being able to just hang out with them i need to get what i need to get done yeah so that i can be present with them that's so fair

but i get really cross because that never happens though yeah it's beautiful in theory that you get the time with them you mean no but like you do but like it never have stress free time you never get that like in an ideal world i'm not going to work past five because i'm going to be with my kids until they go to bed okay then i would ideally because i don't really give a shit about my evenings i would rather work in the evenings then my husband's like no you have to talk to me and i'm like oh okay so i basically have to stop working by five in order to keep my family happy which is which is important we are trying to not work before eight me and now yeah that's a nice guy us two are trying not to work before eight because we're trying to implement that boundary.

I try not to work on Fridays, try not to work on the weekends, because this time is really precious. It is so hard to fit this job, any job, anything, into that time. And I think I relate to what you're saying there about the disappointment, because then when I have to do something at six or on a Friday or whatever, that's when I get so, like, overwhelmingly angry, almost with myself. Yeah. But I just feel this overwhelming frustration. and that would be the dopamine crash, right? That would be very connected to the dopamine crash. Do you have like a voice in your mind?

Do you chat yourself in your mind? Because some people do chats themselves, some people don't chat itself. Not in like a schizophrenic way, just like, is there a voice that you chat away with? Like, oh, I should do this now. I can't hear a voice, but there is a constant like... Like it's some kind of chatter.

There's a narrator. Yeah, there is... There's a lot in there, yeah. And I have a schedule, and this is another thing that's not good, whereas I'll make a schedule, and this is motherhood, to be fair, but you'll make a schedule for the day. Everything has to go within that day. Don't communicate it to anyone. And then when people don't do the things exactly to my time, I'm like, well, this is a catastrophe. But I think that's all the same. Like, I just think it's the productivity. Like, I keep my mind

going very quickly, and I don't like it slowing down. What don't you like about it slowing down? Is it annoying? I just want to do the best job. the time and I want to do lots of things of mom and work everything of everything and I just want to do everything very well I want to do everything very efficiently very effectively I don't I waste of time I really no waste of time is my biggest like nothing will annoy me more than more than once of the time nothing do you uh ever give yourself any credit in your mind for all you are doing as a mom none well a bit like you know like when we have a nice yeah yeah like a bit like I think I'm a good

mom and I like I have a great time of my kids it's not really it's not like that it's just more like I feel like I can't stop it. Do you know what I mean? The productivity feeling. Yeah. And just like the way that it all goes, like the speed that it's all got to go. Like I just feel like, like I feel like even with like scrolling like I don't think

I'd let myself and I'm quite controlled like that. Like I don't have an addictive personality because I would be able to be like that was not be a productive use of my time. Interesting. So when I'm on Instagram and stuff, I do feel like it's productive because I feel like we kind of need to know what's going on and like I can convince myself that's a, well, I need to know this and this and there. Yes. Then I'll go and scroll some other stupid email or WhatsApp and obviously not reply to anyone, but look at them all.

Check what's in there. Yeah. Make myself feel terrible that I haven't replied to anyone since like 2019. Do you understand these feelings? Oh my God, 100%. Yeah. What's up overwhelming is real. If I go to an event, like I'm so selective about the events that I go to now. And if I go to one that like a work event and I come away thinking that I haven't, that it wasn't worth anything, I'm angry at myself. I'm so angry because I'm like, that is the most. precious time like time is the best bedtime for them precious thing in the world yeah it's like it's so hard I do think it's having a child thing and I'm saying when I'm with him and I get like messages to I feel like I can't do this like I just can't do this it's like yeah what is that what part of our brain is that I mean your your brain is like desperately craving oxytocin like you're two new moms that like obviously want to give so much love to their kids and it's really tricky like we're in a world where both men and women work which is cool like super

which I think is great and I'm sure my partner will do something very similar but deep in your instinct like obviously it wants lots of present time like raising your kids and like just being with them and loving them and it's hard for your attention to be constantly pulled away from them and it's also very natural too as you say okay you kind of like the idea that you're doing both like you're working and doing your kids or you think it makes you better or whatever it might be and that is very natural like women always worked in the truck they didn't just like the concept kind of like a stay at home mom wouldn't have necessarily been a thing like the women would have all been collectively helping raise all the kids build the shelter and make the food forage the food

so I think there is a balance that can be struck and I think when there was a world where we worked in offices and stuff like that and came home and worked disappeared that was much more possible like this work life balance is only a difficulty because of the phone because the phone is the work inside our pocket all the time and I just think it's so important to develop a relationship with of just like more frequent physical separation from the device whereby like it's just little windows where it's like I'm just going to chuck it in like an office or somewhere far away from you and just shut the door and then just like just forget about it and if it means telling your team that you're not going to reply for an hour or whatever it might be or they just get used to

the fact that's the case I just think currently we've let the phone creep too deeply into our life that we're like this is the new normal but this new normal is stressing us out there can be an adjustment that might actually feel quite good can I ask you about AI oh yeah And the rye, I say rye is like the takeover of chat GPT because I feel like everyone is using it for everything. It's the new dopamine. Is it? It's the new over me now.

Okay, that's interesting. People are using it for everything. You scroll Instagram now and it's just, it's just chat GPT talk. It's all AI talk and it's crazy. And what can that be doing to, I think I saw studies that like, basically if you don't use it, you lose it. Yeah, it's accurate. Yeah, so we're just like, we're handing all everything over to chat GPT.

who's just doing everything for us and we don't even have to think, what's it doing to our brains? Yeah, so it really is affecting our capacity to think deeply, effectively, and deep thinking is very important. Like when you're faced with a puzzle and then like of a problem in work, for example,

and then you have to really deeply think of the answer and then generate all that energy within your brain, all that natural dopamine. That's a great experience for the mind and very satisfying and very fulfilling when you do so. Like, for example, if you're relating it to the kids thing, like when you're raising your kids, like if you spent a day with them creating lots of fun for them or if a robot did it for you

obviously it would be more fun if you did it it'd be more satisfying anyway if you did it and so you have that element it's like reducing our capacity to think deeply because we're maybe becoming a bit reliant on it like I'm using it lots and I'm really consciously trying to make sure I don't let it do everything like I'm writing my next book at the moment I could just give it one paragraph about the premise of the book and say write an 80,000 word book and it would just do it just do the whole book and I'm sure it would be like a decent book but but Obviously, I'm not going to get any, I'm not going to get any fulfillment out of that. And also humans will obviously be able to feel the lack of humanness inside the content.

As you can see in all these captions with all they're like M-Dash, like that big line that you're suddenly seeing everywhere. So there's that element, which is effectively giving us more and more dopamine. It's like there's this interesting way in which with how technology evolves that typically the biggest technologies in the world mimic something that we so deeply need as a human. and then it grows as a result. So social media, for example, mimicked connection that humans so deeply need.

Social media became massive. Pornography and only fans have mimicked intimacy. And then suddenly those are obviously absolutely huge. Connection intimacy are massive we need. The interesting thing about AI is it's actually mimicking validation. Like, it really validates you. It makes you feel really good about whatever you're asking it and your thoughts and it tells us you're amazing and smart.

And it's mimicking like that real need that humans have to like feel seen. we really want to feel seen and AI is actually making people feel seen and they can be like a work side to that but there's also many people like one of my cousins the other day shared with me that she I shared on a podcast

that you can't hack oxytocin like you can dopam you can't hack love and then she shared with me these Facebook groups where a number of women like falling in love with their chat GPT because it's giving them loads of like words of affirmation and kindness and telling them they're beautiful and stuff so there's that element where it's like

validating us where we might begin to actually develop some kind of like emotional attachment to it really if it fulfills that then well it wouldn't ever ever be able to properly fulfill it but if it like moderately satisfies it we might not desire human connection as much because we might think oh and then we isolate more and more and this progressive isolation and lack of social is obviously very tricky for our mind where does the dopamine come in that moment in which it gives you a new novel answer to a question is big dopamine like a lot of the time with scrolling social media for example we think the dopamine is coming from watching the video.

That's what we associate. Obviously, I'm getting dopamine from watching the video. In reality, dopamine actually just comes from novelty of what might be. Like for our ancestors, it was all about novelty

in order to generate dopamine. So them looking through the forest and scanning the whole time for deers and fruit and honey, it was the novelty that created a dopamine spike. Like, what might be there? And then, oh, there is something there. And it's actually the mechanism

of what might be in the next video that's giving us the dopamine. It's not actually the video itself as much. We chat GPT, it's just constant novelty. It's just like another question, another question, another question. Wow, what a great answer, another question. And all that novelty is then generating lots of dopamine within our brain. We all fucked.

Because I can't see this going away. Like the AI stuff, feels like it's just getting bigger and bigger. It's just like really important that as we become super robot humans that like spend our life, looking at screens and social media and AI, that we just also remember these are all the human activities that we like doing as well. Like if we just forget about all the time where we'd go on walks and hang out and sit on the sofa and talk to each other and socialize and eat food and be present with the food and exercise, all those things just make us a human.

If someone keeps doing that, they'll cruise through this whole AI changed world that we're going into because their brain will be like, cool, I'm still satisfied as a human. We're doing lots of new stuff, but I'll be able to balance it. If you just forget about all that human presence and you spend all of your life inside technology the brain can't cope with that we're just not a robot that we're a human at the end of the that is so interesting so interesting so when we've got our kids we just need to not have them on devices all the time yeah I mean it would be like the most beautiful thing you could possibly do for those kids and I'm aware how hard this is going to be like for myself like I'm going to obviously

like I'm going to work really hard and they need to entertain them and it's going to be complicated with these tablets but this dopamine resource is like the most crucial thing in your brain for you to be able to be motivated and do hard things and, like, create a life effectively. And we're struggling enough as adults with our dopamine being hijacked as adults. Like our dopamine only started really getting hijacked over the last, like, five years when phones got really good. And still, it's very difficult for us all to manage. But if you start hijacking dopamine at like one, we honestly, like, we can't predict

how low their dopamine might be and it might be really hard for them. Is there a difference with a tablet versus putting, like, traditional TV on for a kid? is a really good question like it's all based on the level of stimulation their brain experiences and how much pleasure they kind of perceive they get from that show so if you take something like cocoa melon like it's like bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang loads of colours and sounds and even that sound can just like stop a kid crying in a second because of the conditioning so that would be hyperstimulation in that scenario earlier where I talked about like the dopamine factory going to that reward center that would flood the

stimulation, the dopamine towards the reward and create dopamine deficit. If they watched slow stuff, like if a kid had never seen anything before and they started watching like blue planet and they'd never knew what another thing was, they might find it interesting to look at a whale like cruising on a screen. They might think that's amazing. But obviously once they experience like the super high stimulation stuff, they might think, well, this is boring in comparison. So for kids that have never seen a screen, it'd be great to start them on the lowest stimulation possible or even like obviously go as long as you can before you begin the screen stimulation life. But then for those kids that are already in screens,

it's just like how can I pick shows that just feel a little bit more boring. And there might be like a changing period where they're like, mom, that's so boring. But it would be the most magical thing you could do for that kid because then they're going to be able to have a steadier level of brain chemistry as they grow. Let them be bored. Boredom is so good.

It's so important for the brain to be bored. It enables you to be a human that can like plan and be motivated for big moments. comments in your life. You know what? Something's just really clicked for me because my mom, as I grew up, used to say to me, only boring people get bored. And what she meant is, oh, that's quite good. Yeah, she always meant find something to do. Yeah. But that probably has led to my toxic positivity, my toxic productivity. And you're like, I won't be bored. I will never be bored because I am not boring. We haven't really talked about, just quickly, we haven't really talked about serotonin. How much of your work is around antidepressants and, I mean,

Has your work converged with antidepressants and SSRIs and, you know, the act of like serotonin hacking our brain? I don't know if that's the right time. Yeah, it's pretty accurate. I have studied of a lot, obviously, SSRIs, and that stands for selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. And they effectively put a wall within your serotonin mechanism that normally lets dopamine come in and then leave and then come in and then leave. And it puts a bit of a wall in that mechanism so the serotonin builds up in the mind to enable you to kind of feel a bit steadier and a bit calmer. And I, in my own work in my research lab, haven't studied medication.

I'm not a psychiatrist. Like I went down the neuroscience behavioral lane when I was studying. So I was very curious about what would be the natural things that could help someone serotonin. And I think for some individuals when they're like really, really deeply struggling and an immense pain in their brain, like SSRIs may serve them in some way to kind of move them through that period in their life and help them manage it. my only take on it would be like it's just so important during that period of time to make

sure you learn and a talk maybe by your doctor or online how to navigate elevating your serotonin naturally so that if ever you decided you wanted to take less of them you were actually building an abundance of serotonin naturally anyway or even if you keep taking them forever it's great to just be generating more of it in a natural way generate more yeah so as is very commonly talks about online yeah bright morning sunlight is like crucial for it. So even if you were to like be able to open a window and just like look at someone for a few minutes, that would be good. Hate sunlight. No, no, I don't. I just don't really go out in it. But I should. I should. But do you actually not like being outside? No, it's not

I don't like it. I just like the whole productivity thing. Like as soon as I can't really picture you outside. I'm up. I'm just like, let's just got to work quick. Like go to work. Yeah. Whenever I see how outside, she's always rushing to go inside. Yeah. I couldn't imagine you just being settled outside. But you could, like, be really hectic out there, but just still be able to, like, eat. Yeah, I could do my work out there. Like, even if you need to just out as you nail your phone, if you were nailing it outside, that would be a bed of your serotonin. Okay, so sunlight is key. So sunlight is key.

Okay. Looks you in the garden in the morning, just running around. Eating, uh, any natural food item is amazing, but fruit specifically is extremely good. Really? Fruit is a very effective way in which you can generate serotonin. I have never heard that. a bunch of grapes a day is that why I'm so happy bang that'll be a little bit of your natural SSRIs and okay and because for context 90% of your serotonin is generated in your gut so it's

predominantly generated here and then a small proportion is generated in your brain and if cool nutrients turn up to our gut and sunlight turns up on our skin it really helps the manufacturing of this serotonin fruit specifically is just really advantageous so if ever like if you're on one those situations where you're like rushing and you run into a petrivation to nail some food obviously it's so tempting to nail like chocolate bars and stuff like that if you were to buy like one of those like box of blueberries and you just got in the car and just nailed it like if you were hungry you could easily nail the box of blueberries and you would notice actually a lift in your mood not a crash because one is serotonin one's dopamine like

chocolate is dopamine so anytime which you can eat anything nutritious that's heaven and then the other thing is occasional moments where you actually let yourself rest and chill out it's like so important but you can sleep in those moments so like if for example you had a podcast that you really liked and two o'clock in the afternoon you got like this 10 minute window where like you would have scrolled your phone if you could just play the podcast shut your eyes 10 minutes and wait back up like that those little blimps of rest would be amazing for your serotonin oh interesting so you can either go sunlight or you can go sleep or you can go through okay like that so i've been prescribed rest that's nice but rest will only make you more productive like i'm a massive

productivity addict obviously like i really want dose to succeed and to succeed with my work I share online. But you actually only become more productive the more you allow yourself to do the healthy things where you rest. Like your brain just works so much more efficiently. You focus on singular tasks much better. When you work, you're much faster.

So there is a world where you have to treat yourself a bit like an athlete. Like if an athlete was trying to win the Olympics, they wouldn't just like run all day every day in their training. They would like strategically rest absolutely tons to be able to run the fastest. And our brain needs the same. I'm sad to let you go every second of this absolutely fascinating and if people want to learn more

they can buy a book the dose effect we're going to leave a link to that in the show notes can I just add on that as well just because I know what it's like when you're told to buy a book and reading now is literally like the hardest thing in the world compared to a phone just bear in mind that this has been written by a massive phone addict so it's like very chunked out nicely lots of imagery very easy to journey through and it's also free on Spotify so you can just download it on there and listen to it if you want to Amazing. We'll put the link in the show notes and a link to your Instagram. Thank you so much, DJ.

Thank you so much for having me out. Should I delete that as part of the Acast Creator Network? My name is Ryan. This is my best friend Tony, and we host the Tony and Ryan podcast. And despite being from Australia, people right across Canada listen every single day. Jared's in Alberta. How did you discover the podcast? Someone was just like, oh my God, you need to check up. These two from Australia, and I was hooked right away. I was like, oh, my God, I was pissing myself laughing to my truck, and, like, it just got worse from there.

Oh, well, but it's good. In a good way. It gets worse with how good it is, and that's just the beauty of friendship. Tony and Ryan, every day.