The Dr. Hyman Show - Friendship Is Medicine: The Surprising Science Behind Connection | Simon Sinek

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Friendship isn’t just a feel-good concept—it’s essential for your health, happiness, and longevity. In this episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, I sit down with world-renowned author and leadership expert Simon Sinek to explore the science and psychology of friendship—why we need it, how it impacts our biology, and what it takes to build deep, meaningful relationships in an increasingly disconnected world. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss: The surprising link between friendship and physical health—how loneliness drives inflammation, chronic disease, and even early death. Why your five closest friends determine your habits, health, and overall well-being. The social contagion effect—how behaviors like diet, exercise, and even emotions spread through friend groups. Why food, fitness, and lifestyle interventions won’t work unless we also address social health. The biggest friendship mistakes people make—and how to fix them. The missing conversation in longevity research—why friendship might be the ultimate “biohack.” If you’ve ever wondered why making friends as an adult feels so hard, or how to create stronger connections in your life, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal This episode is brought to you by Seed, PerfectAmino, Fatty15, Sunlighten, and AirDoctor. Seed is offering my community 25% off to try DS-01® for themselves. Visit seed.com/hyman and use code 25HYMAN for 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. Get pure essential amino acids today. Go to bodyhealth.com and use HYMAN20 to get 20% off your first order. Head to fatty15.com/hyman and use code HYMAN for 15% off your 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Visit sunlighten.com and save up to $1400 on your purchase with code HYMAN. Get cleaner air. Right now, you can get up to $300 off at airdoctorpro.com/drhyman.

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman show. And I think that friendship is the ultimate bio hack. I think if you can master friendship, a lot of those other things correct themselves. Friendship and the microbiome. Yeah. Get the microbiome right, a lot of stuff just falls into place. Get friendship right, a lot of stuff just falls into place. If you're a regular listener, you already know how much I believe in optimizing gut health for living a hundred healthy years. And you have likely heard me talk about Seeds DSO-1 as the probiotic I take and recommend as a true game changer in your daily

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everyone by my personal practice there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community, Dr. Hyman Plus.

And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website, DrHyman.com for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the Dr. Hyman show. Today we have an amazing conversation with one of my close friends, hero and brilliant thinker about the things that matter in life. Simon Sinek, who's got an incredible vision of humanity that I love. He's a spark that ignites passion ideas. He envisions a world where people wake up and inspired, feel safe and,

and the day fulfilled. He's an unshakable optimist, much like myself, a pathological optimist, I call myself. He's a trained ethnographer. He's fascinated by people and organizations that make a lasting impact. And he's discovered remarkable patterns in how they think, act, and communicate reveals how people perform at their best. And he's known for his TED Talk on why in his viral video on millennials in the workplace. I think his, uh, Ted Talk has gotten over 80 million views. He's gotten many bestselling books, start with why in his podcast,

a bit of optimism, which is amazing. You should listen to, uh, continues to inspire so many people. He's the founder of the optimism company and optimism press. He shares all kinds of innovative views on leadership, which attract intention from all over the world. He recently had president Biden ask him to come to the White House to be on his podcast, to be on Simon's podcast. He works with the US government, with the military,

Rand Corporation, and he's just doing cool shit. So let's jump right into our conversation with Simon, where we talk about friendship, which I think is one of the neglected topics of our time, the thing that matters most about how we live and feel. And the other day, if we aren't connected, we can't be healthy. And so I think you're gonna love this conversation

about friendship, both from a humanitarian perspective and even a physiological perspective where we dive into the biology of friendship. So I think you're gonna love it. Let's just jump right in. So Simon, it's great to have you back. I'm so excited about our topic today, which is friendship. Thanks, Mark, good to be back.

It's such an important topic. So let's jump right in and get to it. So you are a world-renowned doctor on the cutting edge of functional medicine. You're one of the leaders of the functional medicine movement. You have a new company where you are helping people have easier access to those kinds of tests

and community, et cetera. My big thing right now is I'm writing about friendship and I'm sort of mildly obsessed with it. And so it's a good thing to be obsessed. It's a good thing to be obsessed with it. So I'm sure people are asking, what is, what do these two things have to do with each other? Yeah.

Right. Now there are a lot more closely related than I think, I mean, there were a lot more closely related, right think, I mean, they're a lot more closely related, right? And I want to go down that path. Yeah. I want to go down the path of the connection between health and community and health and friendship.

You made a comment that you can't be a good friend if you're not healthy. If you feel like shit, you know, you can't show up and be present and be there for someone and be there. And yeah, just even be present to have a conversation. If you're foggy and fatigued and you feel like crap and you're dealing with all kinds of issues, it's hard to really be present. And that's what you need to do to be a friend.

I'll give you a perfect example of this. A friend of mine is going through serious depression. He's going through, I mean, it's bad, bad, bad, suicidal ideations, the whole thing, right? And he did this exercise where he kept a diary for 28 days and he only answered three questions every night. What gave you energy? What sapped your energy?

And what did you learn? And you're not allowed to read the entries until after 28 days. So every, for 28 days, he did this and he's, you know, his career is up and down. Yeah. And he thinks that it's this career stress that's causing his depression. Yeah.

Right. And so he went through this exercise and after 28 days, he went back and he read all the entries. Entries. And what he discovered was career stress really accounted for like two days of sapping his energy. It really was a. And what was the rest of it? A non like two days of sapping his energy. It really was a Non-factor lack of sleep. Yeah poor diet. Yeah excessive cell phone

excessive cell phone use excessive social media, it's a paradox because you need mental health to be a good friend, right, but if you Don't have friends. It's hard to have good mental health, right? So they're they're kind of Synergistic and the depression, you know is interesting phenomena because we have such a crisis of mental illness in this country and Part of it's because of loneliness isolation Disconnection, you know social media all the things that I think you're you're thinking about in Actually writing about hopefully with your new book on friendship. Yeah. Yeah But you know from my lens, you, when I look at people's mental health, I look at it through the lens of biology.

Because we now understand that the brain is obviously connected to the body, which has not actually been part of medicine. Isn't that a weird thing that that's a discovery that the brain is actually a part of the body? The old joke in medicine is psychiatrists pay no attention to the brain and neurologists pay no attention to the mind. Right? But now psychiatrists are paying attention to the brain and they're finding that brain dysfunction, brain inflammation is actually driving much of mental

illness, everything from depression to anxiety to OCD to bipolar to schizophrenia to autism, all these things are connected to brain dysfunction. And yes, it can be caused by an external stressor, like a spouse dying or trauma or things that are external, but it also can be caused by nutritional deficiencies and your microbiome and environmental toxins and things that actually are treatable and measurable.

And, and so I think, you know, I was just back, for example, here a few weeks ago in LA and I was at an event. This guy comes up to me, Dr. Heimann, I have to tell you, I had severe bipolar disease when I was a teenager. I was on a pile of medications, I was on anti-psychotic drugs. And I started reading your book on the brain and the mind called Ultra Mind Solution. And I followed your directions. I changed my diet. I took the supplements. I did that. And now I'm good. And I got off of my medications, and I'm a high-functioning human. So do you have evidence, do you have data

to show that in our modern world with excessive packaged goods and processed foods and unhealthy microbiomes and unhealthy gut and all the junk and excess sugar. Can you show from data that the increased amount of shit that we're putting in our body in this modern day is directly contributing to the mental fitness challenges that so many people are struggling with?

Absolutely, there's so much data on this Simon. I mean, there's a very famous trial in Australia called the SMILES trial. And they come up with all these great names for studies. But it's Dr. SMILES? No, they essentially, I don't forget the acronym, but it was essentially, they swapped out, did a randomized controlled trial of giving people

healthy whole foods and then versus processed food. And there was a huge improvement in mental health by eating whole foods on a depressed population. They've done studies, for example, in juvenile detention centers where there's a lot of mental illness. And these kids, by swapping out the crap for healthy food, had a 97% reduction in violence and 75% reduction in use of restraints,

100% reduction in suicide rates, which is the third leading cause of death in teenage boys. Profound in prisons is the same thing. You get prisoners healthy food compared to the crap, 56% reduction of violence. And it's not like you're putting them on, like, they eat the food you give them. It's not like they're going to the fridge and choosing.

No. So it's a great space for a controlled study. Yeah, it is, it is, right. Because there's no choice involved. Right, it is, yeah. And so it's not like they have a mindset of choosing. No. So it's a great, it's a great space for a controlled study. Yeah, it is. It is, right. Because there's no, there's no choice involved. Right. It is.

Yeah. And so it's not like they have a mindset of health. No. They're just eating whatever they're given. And then they, you know, they violent crime does down 56% in prisons. If you add a multivitamin, it goes down to 80%.

And with function health, we're finding a huge amounts of nutritional deficiencies. I just had a friend who's a vegan and he was severely omega-3 deficient, very depressed. And he's piling on omega-3s, and his mood is completely different. And we know that omega-3s play a huge role in mood. We know that folate and B vitamins play a huge role.

And we know that many people are deficient in these nutrients. And we can measure those biomarkers with testing that wasn't available before for people. Now it's accessible to anybody. Do you know what I think is really significant about this little insight, especially as we're relating it to friendship and having the mental capacity to anybody. Do you know what I think is really significant about this little insight, especially as we're relating it to friendship and having the mental capacity to be there for someone,

to having the strength of mind to be present for someone else as they're dealing with happiness or sadness or whatever they're dealing with. They're just being there to be a friend. Is that so often when we talk about nutrition, we talk about eating right, we talk about you. We talk about so that you can be healthy,

so that you can live longer, so that you don't suffer from chronic disease. And most of us, let's be honest, it's the same reason we don't save money. Eh, you know, if it doesn't have an immediate impact, you know, it's the slow boiling frog, you know, nobody plans to get diabetes. It just kinda just shows up after years of being like,

I'll deal with this tomorrow. In other words, we're crap at doing things for ourselves, even though the data is overwhelming, that if you just exercise, sleep, and eat right, you'll be fine and healthier. But to think about eating well as an act of service. Yeah, to others, yeah. That I choose to eat well, not for me,

though I may get benefits from it as an unintended byproduct. I choose to eat well so that I can be a from it, you know, as an unintended byproduct. I choose to eat well so that I can be a better friend to you. I choose to eat well so that I can be a better parent to my kids so I'm less grumpy and less agitated. And to think of that, I think, as an act of service. You know, because like for me, like I am perfectly comfortable disappointing myself.

You shouldn't be. I'm genuinely completely fine with it. Like if I wake up early, like before, you know, whatever my calendar says I have to do at the beginning of the day. And I was like, and I wake up, let's say I wake up two hours before my alarm. Yeah. Right. I'm like, Oh, I could totally work out right now.

I have excessive time to work out. But I'd rather not. I'll just sit in bed and do the crossword puzzle. Right? And I'm fine with that. I suffered no guilt. I'm just like, ah, shit. And then I go about my day. But if I'm meeting someone early to work out

before my day starts, I'll set the alarm, I'll be ready, and I will not disappoint them. Yeah, that's right. Right? Well, illness starts with I, wellness starts with we. Oh yeah, yeah. Isn't that true? And so I think the correlation,

and this is the thing that drives me nuts when we think about things like innovation, or we think about things like, or health, is we make it a very I thing You have to get healthy. You have to take a multivitamin. You have to exercise you have to sleep But we don't make it about a we right and and you know the data better than I do that when you know There's a group of people who are overweight and one of them decides to go on a diet The disproportionately high number of them will decide to go on a diet

Yeah, if there's a group of smokers and one of them says, I'm going to stop smoking and disproportionately high number of them. Getting healthy is a team sport. Getting healthy is a team sport. And we are absolutely influenced by our friends. Yeah. You're only as healthy as your five closest friends. So it raises, right.

So it raises the question. Because clearly we're failing as a people, as a nation, doing all the things you recommend. Because most of the things you recommend at the high level What you recommend is a lot of work, right? It can be or not. It's just what you set up but at a functional level a Lot of the stuff that you recommend It's not difficult not expensive and pretty basic. Yeah, it's kind of silly but it is right and yet For not any more money

I mean you can buy broccoli cheaper than you can buy mcdonald's, you know For not more money a little bit of effort but not complicated things you can live we can all live much healthier lives and yet We're not And so it raises the question, you know, are we banging against our heads against the wall? We're repeating the same behavior, expecting a different result. That maybe the drumbeat from the health establishment of change the way you eat, get more sleep, you know, maybe work out. Work out.

Like we're all exhausted, we all know that. It's not like, it's not like you're. I think a lot of us know it, but there's a whole subset of our population that doesn't know what it means to eat well. Different problem. Yeah. A completely agreed different problem.

It's shocking to me, but it's true even in the... And it's because the food industry has been so good at manipulating the public to think that certain foods are healthy that are not. And they put health claims on labels of stuff that's the worst possible food. All natural, which means nothing. My basic rule is if it has a health claim on the label,

it's bad for you, don't eat it. If it has a health claim on the label. Yeah, because it happens. If it's trying to hide something, it's trying to hide something. It's like low fat, low sugar, sugar-free. What else is going on in there? Right.

It's like my favorite ones are new and improved formula. Like what was in the old one? Yeah, yeah. Like, uh-oh. So you were kind of going through the rabbit hole of, we know what to do. Why don't we do it? Why don't we do it?

And I'm asking the question, maybe if we refocused our attention in a different place, let's call it friendship. You know, and I, look, the way I've been talking about it is with the rising rates of anxiety and depression and mental fitness challenges and inability to cope with stress and then the worst case, suicide, even the obsession with longevity,

I'll go and I'll throw that one in as well. Friendship is the ultimate biohack. It is. Friendship literally fixes all of those things. It is. We know the data that people who have close relationships live longer. People who have close relationships friendship is the ultimate biohack. Friendship literally fixes all of those things. We know the data that people who have close relationships live longer, people with close relationships are happier.

And you look at Dan Buettner's work and the Blue Zones and so much attention is put to them walking to the house and so much attention is put into what they're eating and how they're eating. But not much attention is put into what they're eating and how they're eating. But not enough attention is put into the fact that they're eating with their friends every single day. You're so right Simon.

I actually, I spent a lot of time in Sardinia and in Ikaria or Akaria, however you pronounce it. And it was just stunning to see the level of community and connection. Even if, if someone, for example, like this woman, Julia was a hundred and three months, like, you know, like I'm five and three quarters.

I'm a hundred and three months. I think when you're very young and you're very old, the half the quarter count. And, and now she didn't have kids, but she lived with her niece and nephew and there were no nursing homes. People just took care of each other, you know, and it was really remarkable.

And it was this guy, um, Carmine, who basically had this huge farm that he had his whole life and his family had. And he was 86 years old, and he was raising animals, and had fruit trees, and gardens. And he was feeding his whole community, and family had meaning and purpose. And he would live with his kids, and his wife had died. But it was all this incredible sense

of connection and community. And it's so essential. And I learned this lesson when I went to Haiti after the earthquake. And I was the first medical team on the ground at the main hospital, the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. And it was a disaster. I mean, you can't imagine the scope. It was 300,000 people injured and 300,000 people dead. Wow.

It was an unbelievable massacre that was a natural occurrence. But it was horrible. And so we got there and there were people helping, everybody was helping. There was a sense of community and service and connection. And I got to meet Paul Farmer, who was a hero of mine. He was a man doctor who went to Haiti and decided that even though the whole world had neglected this community of people who were suffering from TB and AIDS

because they were poor, they didn't have sanitation, they didn't have clean water, they didn't have watches, they couldn't take the drugs, since it's complicated at that point to take the drug regiments for multiresistant, drug resistant TB or for AIDS. And he realized it wasn't a medical problem, it was a social problem. And he called it structural't a medical problem, it was a social problem.

And he called it structural violence, what are the social, economic, and political conditions that drive disease? And it wasn't that we needed better drugs or surgery, we knew how to solve it. But the entire public health community had given up on them. So he started to help by building a network of community health workers, neighbors helping neighbors,

friends helping friends. And I realized, and he called it accompaniment and it was French, but I don't, I'm not going to pronounce it in French, so I'm going to skip that. Accompaniment. Accompaniment, yeah, something like that. And, and, uh, and he built this whole model and he scaled around the world. It was adapted by the Clinton Foundation and the Gates Foundation to help. He did this in Peru.

He did this in prisons in Russia. He did this everywhere where people were struggling in Rwanda, built hospitals. And it was an incredible model. And I realized that most of the diseases we have now in the West are not infectious diseases. They're chronic illnesses, which are called non-communicable. What's the difference?

Well, infectious diseases like malaria, or measles, or TB, right, these are the things that all were killing us a century ago. Now they're pretty much not, except in certain parts of the world. But the disease we now have are what we call non-communicable diseases. But that's a fallacy because they are very communicable.

They're not infectious, but they're contagious. And chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, autoimmune diseases. These are diseases that are driven through many things, including our diet, toxins, but also through our social networks. And I realized that our social networks were more important than our genes, that the social threads that connect us are more important than the genetic threads. And the data is really clear on this.

Chris Stock has worked out at Harvard, outlined this very clearly. He wrote a book called Connected about this. But he's published the research that showed, for example, if your friends are overweight, you're 170 times more likely to be overweight than if your family's overweight, where you're 40 times more likely to be overweight.

That your social networks are driving your behavior for good or bad. So I realized that yes, we have a society where the default is to do the wrong thing, and that we as a society aren't supporting each other to do the right thing. And I realized that community was medicine, just like food is medicine, and that love is medicine.

I mean, look, that's our anthropology, right? We grew up in, we're tribal animals that grew up, you know, historically in tribes, you know, about 150 people, and that's how we lived. We lived in these relatively small, we help each other communities, communes. I mean, that's the history of humankind. We've only started farming 10 or 12,000 years ago.

But for most of human history, we lived in these small groups where we couldn't have populations larger than about 150. What's very interesting about the little statistic that you threw out, the thought that I had, which is when our family is overweight, we're 40 times more likely. 40%. Sorry, 40% more likely to be overweight. But when our friends are overweight, we're 170 times, percent I mean, will likely be overweight. And that's, you know, the immediate thing that popped into my head was when you think about children, right, children, all they want is their parents' approval.

Hey mom, hey dad, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me. Right, and they have no inhibitions in the outside world. They don't care what the world thinks about them at all. I'm gonna dress like a princess, I'm gonna dress like Spider-Man, but I want mom and dad to watch me jump off the step. And I desperately want mom and dad's approval. And that's where all of the learning about

what's appropriate and what's inappropriate comes from. Strictly from our parents, nothing else. Until they reach about adolescence. And adolescence, we convert to only needing our parents approval to only needing our friends approval, frustrating for the parents, but very, very important for social animals because what we're doing is acculturating outside of our families,

beyond our families, into the broader tribe. And that lasts for the rest of our lives. We don't actually go back to the family. It's all friends, which is why I have to believe, and I'm just sort of thinking about this out loud now, I have to believe that's the reason so many of us go on Instagram and wish our parents happy birthday when our parents aren't on Instagram.

It's for the social approval that I'm a good kid and showing all the pictures of my dad holding me when I was a baby, like scroll through all those pictures and everybody likes that I'm a good son. And yet my dad's not on Instagram. Right. And so I have to wonder if that same drive, that same weird need to want social approval for being a good son is the same, it comes from the same route. I mean, a hundred percent. If you're, if you're a friend of mine, you're a friend of mine, drive that same weird need to want social approval for being a good son is the same, it comes from the same route.

I mean, a hundred percent. If your friends are all drinking green juices and doing yoga. Then you're going to drink green juice. Then you're going to do the same thing. If all your friends are. The amount of shit that I take simply because their friends like, you should do it.

You know what, you know what it's equivalent to? And this, because you're in the industry, I'm going to say something that's potentially insulting to you. Please. That's what I like to do. I like to have, I like to talk to guests and then insult them. But this is potentially insulting to you.

Okay, we're friends everybody. So this is potentially insulting, so I need you to work this through me with me, right? It feels like, I can't say that it is, but it feels like that the complete explosion in the supplement uh, supplement, in the supplement, uh, industry, where nothing is evaluated by the FDA.

And every influencer now has a vitamin or a supplement or powder or a drink with all kinds of nonsense claims. Maybe they're good, maybe they're bad. It feels like we're living in the dot com boom of supplements. Maybe. That, you know, in the dot com boom, you were like, I'm investing in this, in this, in this,

in this tech company because my neighbor told me I had to. Yeah. And now that's been replaced with, I'm now taking these 87 pills per day because one friend told me to take these four, another friend. And just like the dot com with, I'm now taking these 87 pills per day because one friend told me to take these four, another friend. And just like the dot com boom, you can't live in a bubble like that.

It's going to have repercussions and it's going to be unexpected and it's going to be pretty violent. So riddle me this, is it time for the FDA to get involved? Is it like, you know, like it's, it's like, I can no longer tell the difference between a claim on a product you're selling or a claim on something that some, like literally, their only qualification is they have a following

on Instagram. Yeah. Isn't that a job? We're living in an- Being an influencer is not. I mean, we're living, we're living- Where was my course in college, influencer 101? It's not a job, being an influencer is not. Where was my course in college, Influencer 101? We're living, I think we're living in a supplement boom.

Yeah, it could be. And it's gonna, I don't know how, it suddenly kicks back, but this can't last forever. Yeah, I think there's gotta- And it's counted to everything you're trying to do. Yeah, what I want people to do is do the right thing. And I think it's what I've spent my whole life trying to do is help people understand how to create health.

And part of the new company I co-founded, Function Health, is really empowering people with their own health data to make choices that are personalized, that aren't just random because somebody said do this or do that. And so that's what I love because somebody said do this or do that. And so that's what I love about that. I had a, for example, a friend the other day showed me her results from function and she was low in zinc, she was low in iron, she was low in vitamin D, she was

low in omega-3 fats and like, oh, that's why you feel like crap. You know, you need to take these things and here's what to choose. But most people don't have a way of navigating this sort of morass of products that have again, no regulations in terms of quality or efficacy. Now, that was sort of a deliberate decision. It was sort of put forth by Arne Hatch, who was from Utah where there's a big supplement industry and it was called the D'Shea Act. It's got a lot of problems because people aren't protected in the sense that they don't know if the product they're taking has the exact ingredient it says, if the dose is what

it says on the label, if there's any contaminants in it, if there's any fillers or products that kind of may be harmful to you. So it's kind of a shit show. And so as a physician, I've spent a lot of time investigating which companies are using pharmaceutical manufacturing practices, which do testing before and after their product. So they know that's a purity and potency is exactly right. And they throw the product out if it isn't.

So there are good companies that are doing that. But it's like a- How do I even know? You can't, unless you know what to ask. I did a thing a while ago where- There's a way to learn about Simon. Where they took my blood and they evaluated all of, everything in my blood from,

I mean, you name it, all the minerals and everything I'm supposed to get and have. And then they made. A personalized cocktail. A personalized smoothie that replaced all my things and I'm supposed to come back every six months. And it was really interesting and they introduced, then I talked to a doctor who walks me through my results

and then they give me my smoothie and the only choice I get is What flavor and and it sounded good? Until I was like, I don't even know if this is bullshit Yeah If they're just like I don't have a problem if someone's if someone's selling you something off of something else that that's it That's that can be a problem. It's not always a problem But if you're saying I've done all of the things for a little bit. I took AG1 for a few months and that was fine

until I was like, I don't know, maybe just vegetables is better. Did you do the customized shake that they gave you or not? I just did the generic AG1 that they. No, no, but when you got your results of all the tests, they gave you the recommendation, did you try it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did it for a while. I mean, I do all these things. I feel the same.

Like I've done AG1, I've done Clostrum, I've done, I mean, I've, you know, and again, all because somebody's like, you should try it. And there are people who I trust. That's why I did it. And you know, they, like, you take these things, like it boosts your immune system. And. How do you measure that? Exactly. I got a cold. So does it work or does it not work? Well, it would have been worse if you'd, I mean like I don't know.

And I, you know, you say I start, I get very cynical. Sometimes I'm all in and sometimes I'm very cynical. I'm in a very cynical mode right now. No, I hear that, I hear that. And I think it's fair and you're right to be cynical. And I think there's a lot of garbage out there and a lot of people pushing stuff and there's a lot of companies, for example, doing tests

and then selling you products on the back end I think there's a problem with that. Okay. For example function health we don't do that at all we just say okay for example you have these things that you found that you need to fix that are affecting your health and well-being and here's how to make a decision for example we have a 30 page guide on how to choose the right and you don't take we don't sell and you don't take kickbacks from the products that you recommend. No kick know. We're completely agnostic. We don't have any. Do whatever you want.

You just need this. Yeah, but no, but not only do I want, but if you're going to, if you need something, here's how to choose the right product. Here's how to investigate the company and here's the questions to ask and here's what to look for and here's how to make a good decision. So we teach you how to fish, not giving you a fish. About 10 years ago, I discovered my 120 year old home was in a very remote area. So we teach you how to fish, not give you no fish. About 10 years ago I discovered my 120 year old home was infested with mold and it took

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Right now head to airdoctorpro.com slash drheimann to save up to $300 on Air Doctor today. ["Spring Day"] I like that you're doing this, but I remember I'm in a cynical mode. What else is new? Which is when there's a good business model, even if it's for the greater good, because money is fuel and that's totally fine, that means you'll have competition and other people will start doing similar things.

And then we're back at square one, which is all of these companies are gonna be funded by VC. And you and I know too well, unfortunately, the way VC and PE works, which is they all are wonderful. They're all fantastic in the beginning, and they're so behind you in your vision at the beginning. And just wait three to five to seven years, and all of a sudden the pressures start to show up. And the growth, we want growth because that's our business model, not your business model years. And all of a sudden, the pressures start to show up. And the growth, we want growth because that's

our business model, not your business model. And then all of a sudden, especially if you've given up controlling interests, you will have built up this beautiful brand. You get fired from your own company. And there, I mean, the number of companies that have, like, that were the brand Aveda, Burt's Bees, Kashi, you know, Amy's, these were. Well, they got bought by Kraft's Bees, Kashi, Amy's.

These were. Well, they got bought by Kraft. They were all great brands that built their brands based on like Aveda or Burt's Bees, natural ingredients, Kashi. And we believed it because the founders were true. And then they sold to Kraft and L'Oreal and whoever buys these companies.

They stripped the beautiful things out, put the shit in because they can increase margin, but we're none the wiser. We don't know which CEOs got fired from beautiful companies. We don't know that these companies are owned by large conglomerates that are driven by shareholder value. And then we end up suffering for these products that we were told were good

and they were good until they weren't good. And we're back at square one. So I think we should just have friends and well, let's get back to the conversation about friendship because I think, I think that, that, you know, the, the, the, the fundamental thing is we should garden and farm with our friends and then eat our own food. We can't live, you know, I mean, when you look, when you look at the subsistence farming, that's, that's what I think it's right. I mean, I think, you know,

community gardens are amazing. I think they're great service for people. And I, I think that what we're finding is that loneliness is as big a killer as anything else. Some have said it's equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. And how many, especially men, don't have someone who's a good friend? How many people don't have somebody to call when shit goes down? I've talked about this before, where, as I've been on this journey of understanding friendship

and learning friendship, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who's active duty military. And what people don't understand about active duty military, and veterans, what people don't understand about active duty military and veterans, what people don't understand about military is that it's a highly emotional enterprise. It's a very, very human enterprise

because life and death is the thing. And higher calling and service are big, very human themes. And so I've hugged more people in uniform than I've ever hugged in suits. I've cried with more people in uniform than I've ever hugged in suits. I've cried with more people in uniform than I've ever cried with in suits. I've sat around dinner tables with generals who were sort of telling stories at the dinner table,

and we're all crying. I've never done that with CEOs, ever. And I remember he's a very close friend of mine, and we were just catching up, and at the end of our hour-long conversation, he, getting off the phone, and he says, I love you. Not love ya, not love you, I love you.

And to your point, you know, I think men really struggle with saying those words to the people who they genuinely love. And so I did an experiment with my friends. I remember that feeling of what it gave to me when he said those words to me. It took me aback and it felt amazing. Yeah, it felt amazing. And so I started experimenting. I have a couple of friends who, if you met them, you wouldn't describe them as warm. They're wonderful people. They're generous and they're kind.

They're not fuzzy. But they're not warm. You know, if I told you this is one of my best friends, you'd be like, he's a little distant, is what your reaction would be. He has Asperger's. They don't have Asperger's. They're just a little cold.

They're just a little guarded. They're guarded, let's call them guarded. And one of them, I was leaving his house and as I was getting ready to leave, I said, I love you. And I watched him. Freak out. I watched him. No, he didn't freak out.

I could see the reaction. And since then, he has been much more emotionally open with me. And I don't even think he realizes it. I don't think he realizes he wasn't before, and that he's more now. And the other one I tried it with, and I sort of said, I love you, and I gave him a kiss on the cheek as I was saying goodbye.

And he did not know how to react. I tried it with and I sort of said I love you and I gave him a kiss on the cheek as I was saying goodbye and He did not know how to react and I did it again the next time I saw him and he hugged me the second time like I was his son Yeah, which he'd never done before he's he's always nice to me. He's he's you know, he's one of my best friends He's never hugged me like that before yeah And I realized that to take the risk to say I love you if you mean it It's got to mean something. It's hard. It's easy to say. Love you. Yeah, it's easy to say. Love you It's very hard to say I love you, right those three words together are Really hard to say especially for men and I to your point, you know

I I wonder and and this goes to this idea of service again, which is whose responsibility is it to say it, right? And I go back to the work that I did some years ago when I was writing Leaders Eat Last with Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, if you wanna overcome alcoholism as a 12-step program, most of us are familiar with the first step,

you know, admit you have a problem. Yeah. Okay, let's say admit you have a problem. Yeah. OK, let's say I'm depressed or I'm lonely. Let's admit that's the problem, right? But it's the 12th step that people don't talk about. Right. And Alcoholics Anonymous knows, exactly. Alcoholics Anonymous knows that you can master 11 steps

and not the 12th, and you will succumb to the disease. Exactly, to help another alcoholic, it's service. And so I think to find the courage to say I love you, I think the people who are the most lonely are the ones who have to go first. Because the way to solve your problem is to help your friend who's suffering from the same problem. If you're an alcoholic, you help another alcoholic. If you're lonely, help a friend who's lonely. And I think that the therapeutic benefits of helping someone who's

struggling with the same thing that you're struggling with rather than worrying about yourself goes right back to the gym. There's a huge biology to it, dude. I don't know if you know, but there's a whole field of socioegenomics, which is how our social interactions affect our gene expression. Say more. So, if you're in a conflictual relationship with someone, your inflammatory genes are turned on. Literally, not just your emotions are inflamed but your biology turns on the inflammation system.

Like fight or flight kind of stuff? Not fight or flight. Just if you're like in a shitty relationship or if you're fighting with someone or you have a conflict, you turn on inflammatory genes that then increase expression of cytokines that cause inflammation and that cause disease and all chronic disease from depression to heart disease to diabetes to obesity, Alzheimer's are all inflammatory diseases. Conversely, if you have a connected loving relationship with somebody that turns on anti-inflammatory genes. And this-

And inflammation is the core of everything. Yeah, and they did studies with entrainment, where if you sit with someone and you have an authentic connection that you can put EEG and EKGs on, basically brain waves and heart waves, you can see the heartbeat of someoneGs on, basically brain waves and heart waves, you can see the heartbeat of someone

you're having a deep connected relationship with in your brain waves. It's wild. So it's not just a feel good thing on an emotional level, it's a physiological response that happens of being in connection. If you take animals and put them in cages and separate animals and feed them exactly the same thing

and have everything else the same, the one that's isolated versus the ones that are connected will shrivel and die and get sick. And so humans are the same way. And we've gotten into a situation where friendship and connection is sort of like really nonpartisan. Okay, so why aren't doctors prescribing to spend more time with friends? I do.

Like, doctor, I'm suffering from X, Y, and Z. I'd like you to try and get an extra hour of sleep, go to bed a little earlier. I'd like you to stop eating before, don't eat past 8 o'clock at night, and I want you to spend at least three hours a week with a friend. How come that's not on a prescription? It should be. It should be.

I mean, I prescribe it. In fact, I actually, based on this work that I did in Haiti, I met a pastor after Rick Warren, who wrote The Purpose Driven Life and had a church with 30,000 members. And I met him. He came to my office, and we started talking. And I said, hey, Rick, tell me about your church,

because I'm a Jewish doctor from New York. I don't know much about evangelical Christian churches. Like, yeah, we know, Rick, tell me about your church because I'm a Jewish doctor from New York, I don't know much about evangelical Christian churches. He's like, yeah, we got 30,000 people. I'm like, wow, that's a lot of mega church. He's like, yeah, we got 5,000 groups that meet every week, small groups in the church to help each other live better lives. I'm like, oh, this isn't a mega church,

this is thousands of mini churches. And I had that light bulb moment, I'm like, well, I just come back from Haiti, I said, why don't we put a healthy living program into the groups to see what happens Yeah, he's a great idea because I was baptizing my church last week and after about the 800th person I'm like man We're a fat church and I'm fat and we got to do something about it Yeah, and so we put a program together through the small groups where people were just helping each other

There was no doctor nutritionist health coach. Nobody there was just a curriculum Yeah we had a big rally, you know, sort of a big event where we talked about, and Rick talked about the biblical rationale for why God wants us to be healthy. I gave a bunch of speeches and talked about how God lives in you, why are you feeding him crap and things like that. I mean. If Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed him?

Big mac fries and a Coke. And they got it. Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth? If Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed them? Big mac fries and a Coke. And they got it. Ain't that the truth. Ain't that the truth. Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed him? Exactly, so they got it. I said, if you feel like crap,

how are you gonna serve God? How are you gonna serve each other? You've gotta take care of your body. And so they got it, and they did this together in community. It was Jogging for Jesus, and they all these incredible. It was incredible, and they lost together a quarter of a million pounds in the first year, and they did it together.

And then I took that same model and I applied it at Cleveland Clinic where we created small groups where people helped each other. And we did research on us and published it. There were three times better health outcomes on validated metrics of health outcomes compared to one-on-one visits

for the same condition with the same doctors. So the doctors at our clinic could see them in one-on-one visits for the same condition with the same doctors. So the doctors at our clinic could see them in one-on-one or they support them in a group. The group was three times as good as seeing the doctor one-on-one in terms of health. But why aren't these things then being implemented across the medical field? I'm trying, I'm trying.

Why aren't we going to the doctor with our friends to deal with similar issues? Why aren't we, like, everything's so siloed? Literally, it's in a- Yeah, it is essential. I mean, I think the models of support, whether it's coaching, whether it's one-on-one coaching or support, whether it's group models,

they have to be the thing that's gonna change because we get healthy together or we get sick together. So the quote from Benjamin Franklin is, we must all hang together or surely we'll all hang separately. And I think that's kind of where we're at in society. That is kind of where we are, yeah. I'm very glad that we are talking about this

because I have a lot of respect for your work and the fact that you're validating all this friendship stuff that I'm doing from a physician's standpoint, not a kumbaya isn't it nice? No, no, no. There's so much science on this. We wrote a book about this work called The Daniel Plan after Daniel from the Bible who

resisted the king's temptation of rich food and was better for it. And we talked about the five F's, food, fitness, focus, which is your mental fitness, faith and friends. Why aren't friends number one? Well, they were maybe in there somewhere. I don't know the order, but it was like food, probably friends, but the whole point is, friends are such a key part of our wellbeing, whether it's understanding the blue zones,

or whether it's AA or Weight Watchers, it's how we change. I mean, AA, all of these things, Weight Watchers, they're all community-based things. 100%. And one of the problems we have in our society is community things. Bowling leagues don't exist anymore. Church attendance is down.

So in church attendance and faith, they're not the same thing. You can have faith and not go to church. And you can go to church and not have faith. That's right. The church would rather that they're overlapping. Yeah. But the idea of doing things in commune, in community, this is why I love things like Comic-Con or Burning Man or whatever you're, you know.

You've never been to Burning Man? I have been to Burning Man. You have? Yeah. Oh. Or Sturgis, is that what it's called? Yeah, it's called the motorcycle thing. Hell's Angels.

Like all of these things. Like politics aside, like I don't care what it is. Going to church, you know, doing things in community with people who have common interests. And you know, one of the questions I've getting since I've started talking about friendship, it's amazing how many people are coming up to me who are of all ages, of all income levels,

who are saying to me, I don't know how to make friends. I struggle to make friends. Because they're afraid to be authentic. I mean, that's the hard part, right? Have you ever struggled to make friends? When I was a kid, I didn't have any. I was a weird kid. I just was in my head, read a lot of books.

It was a little weird and kind of a nerd. Uh-huh. And I just didn't. And you had a lot of health issues when you were younger. Not really. They came later, right? When I was in my 30s. Okay, okay.

And I was living in Toronto in the 70s. It was spiritual wasteland and I did not kind of relate to anybody. And it wasn't until I, and I did not relate to anybody. And it wasn't until I left and went to college and went to Cornell that I found other people who were like, oh, wow, you actually think like me, and you read the same books, you do the same things. And in fact, I actually, my first real friend,

I met on the top of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies. We were backpacking and I was a week out in the middle of nowhere by myself and he was a week out and we crossed over on Badger Pass in Alberta in Banff National Park and we just had this kind of moment of connection and we both found out we were going to be at Cornell in the fall. No kidding. He was in Ithaca college. I was at Cornell. We climbed this mountain the first night called Brachypod

mountain, it was like 11,000 feet. It was like this kind of, kind of, kind of prototypical pointy top mountain. We sat on the ridge and watched the sunset at 11 o'clock at night and then ran down the screen and we just had this extraordinary experience and we got back and we got together and you know, we didn't know if we were going to be friends or not, but we, we became like brothers and still friends today. He's my best friend. Yeah.

We've 40, 46 years later. Wow. Yeah. 46 years later, we do mountain bike trips all over. We were, we were very close and, um, you know, we help each other. And when one's down, the other picks one up and I'm down, he picks me up. When he's down, I pick him up. And we've had this really sustained, deep,

authentic, intimate relationship for 45 years. That's amazing. And we love each other. We hug each other. We cry together and we laugh together. And it, you know, it was a place where, where I could say and be and do anything. And it was, it was, it was a remarkable experience for me

to actually feel seen and loved. It was like the first person who loved me who didn't actually have to love me like my parents. They didn't have to love you, they chose to love you. That was like, and that friendship for me has been like an anchor in my life. Throughout all the troubles and tribulations and successes and diseases and,

his wife committed suicide, I went through three divorces. I got very sick. He had- You're such an overachiever. Yeah, I know, right? I'm an expert at relationships. I mean, what did W.C. Field say? Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I've ever done.

I've done it hundreds of times. That's right. Marriage is the easiest thing I've ever done. I've done it four times. I got it right though. I think we want to think about it. Here's something I discovered about close friendships. Which is we always talk about close friends

as the person you would call when you're in need, when you need help, the person you can cry with, the person when you're in pain. And I actually think that's true. That's a level of close friendship that you can call that person in a time of struggle or need. But I think there's even a closer level of friendship, which is when you can call somebody

when something amazing happened. And they're not jealous. And there's no jealousy. And you can call them. And what you're doing is bragging, but not really. You just need to tell someone about this amazing thing that you accomplished, or that was given to you, or that you won, or that, you know, whatever it is.

And if you were told anybody else, they'd be like, they'd think you were bragging. But to that friend, they have unbridled joy with you and for you. And what I've learned is the number of people I would call with good news is actually smaller than the number of people I would call with bad news. That's interesting.

Well, you can call me with good news. Oh, thank you. I'll celebrate you. But you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like to, you know, and like a friend of mine called me recently about something amazing that happened in his life.

And he was, I was the first person he called and I had no jealousy and I was like, I was felling like a parent, you know, I was so proud of him for what he did. And you realize that that was actually more intimate than being there in pain. And so I started making lists of who are the people I would call for the insanely good things.

And it's a smaller number. Well, it is, it's important to take an inventory of your life and your friends. And if you don't have good friends, it's really important to cultivate them, to invest in them, to find them. And there's ways to do that. I mean there's ways to put yourself

in environments and situations. And part of it's like who you are, right? For me, you know, I wear my heart on my sleeve. And I'm just who I am. Like when we met. Oh I am. Like when we met. Uh, it was a weekend and I had just gone through this very intense emotional process. I worked for a lot of this trauma that I was, had experience as a kid and I was just like, kind of like in this altered state. And then I met you and I remember, I think that's why we became friends.

You put it on your sleeve. Because I just, I just that's why we became friends. You put it on your sleeve. Because I just, I just shared, and we just then had this connection and it was, that's kind of what I'm talking about is in order to actually create friendship, you have to be open. You have to open your heart. I think people sometimes treat and not be afraid of being judged.

I think people sometimes treat friendships like bad food Right. So I don't get that But here's what I mean like like, you know, I just had this conversation with a friend of mine just just very recently she's in a relationship and She's She's afraid of being alone. She knows the relationship is imperfect. She knows that if she were in a different place in her life, she wouldn't be with this person.

But that partner fills a space for her for where she's at. She's more afraid of the loneliness than being in an imperfect relationship. And I don't know how healthy that is. And she can rationalize it, like they go on adventures together and they laugh a lot together, which is all true. But then now as I'm talking to you, it kind of sounds like cake, which is,

I know I shouldn't eat this, but it's so tasty and so chocolatey and just so good. And I'll worry about it later. Yeah, yeah. You know, what's another little piece? I'm just having a little piece of cake. And the goodness, I can, I enjoy the goodness so much that I can ignore the badness. Yeah.

We tolerate a lot. We tolerate a lot. And this is one of the downsides of human beings, which is we're incredibly adaptable people. We're incredibly adaptable. So I did that for so many years in relationships. I was like, oh, it's good enough. Oh, this bad stuff, I just rationalize away.

So how do we, okay, you're a doctor. You know, one of the things that I'm exploring when in this friendship book is how to make friends, how to foster friendship, that's the thing I think most of us fall down on, how to navigate tension in friendships, and how to end friendships. How to recognize that I really like this chocolate cake, but I think I need to not be in friendship

or in relationship with this chocolate cake. And maybe we'll just hang out now and then. Yeah. Cause I do have fun with you and I do like you, but this is not healthy. At a certain dose. There's a certain dosage. And I've adopted wholeheartedly by the way, just as a quick aside,

you know, something you say regularly, which is treat sugar like a recreational drug. That's right. So I enjoy sugar, but I know to do it just occasionally. You know, it's OK. I don't. I read once and you can affirm whether this is correct or not, that when people stress about eating dessert, the cortisol released from the stress about eating the cake is actually worse for you than the chocolate cake. It might be, yeah. So if you're going to have a little piece

of chocolate, just enjoy it. Well, you're right, Simon. The greatest pharmacy is the one between your ears, and it can actually kill you, or it can heal you, literally. I mean, that's how voodoo works. It's not like they just kind of put a hex on you and you die. I mean, people, that actually happens. So I think how we think about things matters. So if you want to eat a cookie, eat that cookie and love the cookie. And just enjoy it.

And enjoy every bite. And treat it like a recreational drug. Just have one, two at the most. You know, one of my tricks, if there's like a bowl of M&Ms, if you take a handful of M&Ms and throw them in your mouth, that counts as one. That's one mouthful.

And then you take another handful and put it in your mouth, that's two. But if I have one M&M, that's also one. And if I have another, that's, cause you count mouthfuls, not M&Ms. And so if you just go from handful to one or two, you would drastically reduce the sugar intake. Anyway, but we digress.

How, have you ever, I wanna understand the health issues of staying in unhealthy friendships or unhealthy relationships where we know, where we know and when we're in the dark parts of the night, we'll admit to our, admit to ourselves are out loud. This is not a good relationship and I shouldn't be in this, but I fear the alone more than the thing that I'm in.

Talk, talk about the physiological impact of being in an unhealthy relationship. Yeah. Well, we sort of touched on it before, but when you, when you're in a conflictual relationship, your physiology changes to a state of disease. Your cortisol goes up, your inflammatory cytokines go up, your microbiome can change. I mean, a whole series of things happen in your body that make you more sick. And we see this happening.

You know, here we see people who are in bad relationships just do poorly and get sick more often. Uh, and so I think, I think the data is there. It's just really the question is how do we, how do we navigate a world where friendship is not of value? It just doesn't, it just seems like the last thing on the totem pole, you know, and after work, after success, after social media, after whatever, or else we're doing, exercise, food, it's not something we invest in.

And it's a crisis. It's a severe crisis. I mean, I know you probably saw those articles in the New York Times about men and friendships, and it was just so heartbreaking. And for me, it's been a value I've had my whole life and I've intentionally invested in friendships. And when COVID happened, we're all isolated, we're all alone. And September, 2020, my wife and I split up. I had just had back surgery, I was alone, it was COVID. And what did I do?

I sent an email to my closest men friends, six other men, who I've done men's work with, done men's retreats with, done medicine journeys with. And I said, hey guys, can we start a little Zoom once a week for an hour maybe? And they're like, how about we do two hours every week? And we've been going for, it's plus four years now. And it's remarkable to have this container.

And what's been interesting to watch is that even though these are all my close friends for 40 years, 30 years, that the depth of our friendship has gotten more profound, the more vulnerable we've gotten, the more we open our gotten, the more we open our hearts, the more we share our fears, the more we share our successes, the more we share. Whatever is going on in our life doesn't matter. There's always something with one of us. And to me, it's like an anchor. And most of us don't have that. And in Okinawa,

one of the Blue Zones, there's a thing called a moai, which is when you are born, you're stuck together with like three or four other kids, babies, and that's your basically group for your life. And you're there throughout everything. You didn't even pick the friends. I mean, this happens with like the Marine Corps

or any boot camp for that matter. You know, these become lifelong friendships because you go through hardship together. Or in the Israeli army, one of the reasons they're historically been very successful is when you go through boot camp, that's your unit for the rest of your military career, is that you don't get split up.

So what I think's really interesting is these friend groups aren't chosen. They're kind of like arranged marriages. Like you're just thrown together by zip code or by, you know, in the case of babies, like, oh, you're born on the same day. You're friends. Yeah, exactly. Right?

And I think what's really interesting about that, which is, you know, sometimes just like, I think sometimes we overanalyze, you know, who should be a friend. Is that right? Well, I mean, listen, we have to think. Maybe I disagree with myself as I'm saying the words. I mean, it depends on the situation.

When you go through shit with somebody, even if you don't have all the same background, you can get close, right? Yeah. And I mean, I was in Haiti. I was thrown together. Yeah, yeah. Because we know that shared hardship produces cortisol.

I mean, shared hardship produces oxytocin. Yeah. So when you go through shared hardship produces oxytocin. So when you go through shared hardship with someone, it creates a bond of, it creates bonds. But now that I think about it, I'm gonna go back on what I said, which is I also know friendships,

and have had friendships, where time is the only bond. Where we really don't. That's not enough, though. Like we used to grow together, but now, you know, we've sort of grown apart. And we have fun, I guess. Sometimes being a friend is actually calling people out.

In other words, when you see if you're growing. But I think we stay in friendships unnecessarily, simply because, oh, but we've been friends for 30 years. So what? So what? If it's no longer, it's like, you wouldn't stay in a marriage that is dysfunctional just because you've been married.

That's right. And yet we seem to have a different standard for, like nobody says, when you say, I've been married to my wife for 25 years, but we've struggled for a lot of years. And quite frankly, I think we've just decided mutually, it's amicable, but we've decided to call it quits. Nobody says, I think you should stay in the marriage,

you've been married for 25 years. Like I think you should try and go another 25. Nobody says that. But part of the friendship. But we say that in friendship. We're like, how can you end the friendship? You've been friends for 25 years. Well you can.

But I'm saying people, it's a different standard. Time becomes the only bond. It's true but sometimes when you have to part or some people change, like if you're changing and you're growing or I was changing and growing and your friend isn't and you see this sort of split happening, you have one or two choices. You can either go, okay, well, we're just moving apart and it was a nice while it lasted, or you can actually kind of go in for kind of a surgical, spiritual surgery. And sometimes it's painful, but I've done this with friends where I've seen them be in bad relationships or being a job they didn't like or doing things that were

Contracting their life and becoming smaller when they were expansive open beings when I knew them earlier and I had a choice where I was gonna just kind of let this happen or was I gonna go in for yeah Yeah a surgery and I was I gonna do a spiritual surgery on this person? And some of those people are open to it, some of them are not. But I had to drug him. Literally, I had to give him MDMA. Literally spend hours acid and basically get him

to really see how his life was contracted. And he needed that. And he needed that. And he needed to kind of break the cycle of his pattern of thinking. And now he's lost 40 pounds, he's out of the relationship, he's free, he's got out of his job, he's kind of having the time of his life, he's exploring his own development, he's growing, he's let go of his fears around money and this and that. I mean, it's amazing to see a transformation. But it wouldn't have happened

if I hadn't leaned in. Yeah. Yeah. As a friend. I have a friend who sat down with me to give me some life advice. Yeah. And the conversation started like this.

I need to tell you something and you need to hear this and I need you to know that you're not going to like what I have to tell you. But I love you. He didn't say that. He said, you're not going to like what I have to tell you. But I love you. He didn't say that. He said, I'm you're not going to like what I have to tell you. And I recognize that you may be so angry with me for telling you this, that you might end the friendship with me.

And I want you to know that I'm willing to risk our friendship to tell you this because you want to hear it. Wow. And how did that land for you? I mean, he picked the right person because I'm like, yeah, I mean, you're not gonna lose the friendship, but bang, you know, game on. And he gave me something that was very hard to hear that I, that needed to be said. And I love him even more for risking the whole friendship

out of love. Yeah. Like he was willing to throw away the friendship because he cared about me so much to tell me this. And that is, that's a high bar. I mean, I think that speaks to, I think what's, what, you know, he's a remarkable, he defines friendship in my mind, which defines friendship is the ability to be authentically who you are and to be authentic and transparent with your friend. Just like your friend was, right? I mean, he gave me the whole preamble. Yeah, and that's a very scary thing for people

to actually let down their guard, right? To be open and to risk, and it's fearful, but that's what creates real friendships. Yeah, I think so. That's what creates real friendships. Another friend of mine is struggling, I'm like, I'm so attuned to friends these days. Another friend of mine is struggling I'm like I'm so attuned to friends these days another friend of mine is struggling with one of her friends and She asked herself if I was in a marriage and my man or just a romantic relationship

A long-term romantic relationship and the relationship was struggling. We wouldn't just break up We would we would get help we would seek therapy couples couples counseling Yeah, and so she went to her friend and said, this attention has been going over too long. We're going to go to therapy together. Friends therapy. Yeah. And again, why do we instinctively understand that if a marriage or a relationship

is struggling, that we expect people to at least try, to at least try the couples therapy before you call the whole thing quits. And you call the whole thing quits. And yet we don't do that with friendships. When we have tension with friendships, we're quicker to end the friendship or sit in weird tension or avoid the person than to go to the therapy with the person

to try and work through the struggles. We may still end up breaking up. But let's at least put in the effort to rescue this friendship that we claim we care about. Yeah. I love the idea of friendship counseling. Yeah, I mean, and it speaks to that same point about like not just co-living in a sense of

just doing things together. Existing together. Yeah. Going to movies together and having fun together, but rather. Yeah, just superficial dinner. And by the way, I will stress that I don't believe all friendships need to be at this level.

Like, it is perfectly fine to have friends. You need at least a couple, two or three. You need at least a handful. Some have more, some have fewer. But having friends where they're not deep, bonds of vulnerability, you just have fun together. Totally fine. Yeah.

You have adventure partners or activity partners totally fine I don't mean and I think that's one of the problems we have in our country. If not the world I don't know about other languages I only know about English but like, you know, one of the problems I think is language So for example, if you have stage 4 liver cancer or you have a mild melanoma The problem is both of those things are called cancer. But they're clearly not the same thing. But we use the same word.

Right, I have a skin cancer. Right, exactly, I was like, you're fine. What did Larry David say? It's the good cancer. And I think we have very few taxonomies, we have very few words for friends. And so I've started using. Best friend, friend, best friend. Yeah, that's pretty much it. And even I've started using. Best friend, friend.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. And even then best friend is sometimes a little overused, you know? So I've started really trying to add more language when somebody says, Hey, aren't you friends with them? I go, I'm friendly with them. Or somebody says, aren't you close with them? I'm like, no, they're an acquaintance or they're a work friend. Yeah.

You know? Aren't you close with them? I'm like, no, they're an acquaintance. Or they're a work friend. Yeah. And so I've actually started to use the language for my own clarity and for other people's clarity that everybody that I know is not my friend. I know them. Sometimes I like them. Or I'll say, it's a new friendship. Or we're friendly. And I've become really good about

sort of categorizing people, because some I want to invest in, and some I'm okay with them being at that level, but I want both myself and everyone around me to make no mistake, not everybody I know is my friend that I'm gonna like. I can't have an infinite number. I can't have an infinite number.

It takes time. It takes time, and investment is a real thing. Yeah, and that's the thing I think we neglect, right? Is making a deliberate effort to spend time with friends, do special things, to kind of take the time to slow down and stop. I think so. And actually have conversations that matter.

And it's kind of the last thing we tend to think about. But as we talked about earlier on, this is a central part of happiness, of joy, of longevity, of health. By the way, go back to that longevity thing. You're in that space and you know more of them, but I know some of the folks who are sort of like the longevity folks.

And I find a lot of them are very unhappy people. Yeah. Joy, right? Where's the joy? These guys, mostly men, who are obsessed with longevity and they're taking all of the measurements and they're taking all the vitamins and supplements and they're doing all the exercises and they're doing all the things and everything's scheduled and highlighted. And I find them not very happy people. No, no.

You know? You have to find the joy. And like where, like maybe work out a little less. Don't worry about if you miss the supplement and maybe just hang with friends, I bet. I mean, the data will prove it out. Like we have to wait a bunch of years because the longevity obsessives,

the only way we'll know if it works or not is when they die. Yeah. And if, and if they will be happy and healthy and old age, because nobody wants to live a long time and be decrepit. No. You know? Um, and so we have to wait it out. So my friends are in their thirties and forties now because, you know, a lot of

my older friends have just sort of checked out. And, but, but, but we have to, but we have to redo this podcast in 40 years and see if all the longevity, all the longevity obsessives, if they're still around or if they're dead, I'm going to put, I'm going to put, I'm going to, I'm going to do a Vegas betting pool here, which is, I would bet that the people who are healthy-ish, like they don't, they're not unhealthy, but they're not obsessively healthy. Yeah.

Right. Like yes, they get enough sleep. Yes, they mostly well, you but they're not obsessively healthy. Yeah. Right. Like, yes, they get enough sleep. Yes, they mostly well, you know, like good. They do the basics. They do the basics, you know, sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, like on vacation, they're terrible, you know, like they're not obsessive, but they're, they're, they're not unhealthy is the way I would define them, but they're spend a ton of time with friends and they have a fantastic sense of humor

and they love to laugh. I will bet money that those people will live longer than all of the folks who are measuring and powdering. I mean, it's evolutionary. I mean, I don't know if you know, E.A. Wilson wrote a book called The Social Conquest of the Earth about from ants to humans,

how we have to work together to survive. And in fact, altruism is a built in phenomena and that it activates the same neural circuits as heroin or cocaine or sugar in terms of the nucleus accumbens and the pleasure. And I remember this, it sounds kind of weird to say, but when I was in Haiti and I was sleeping four hours a night and I was working,

helping people all day. You were happily eating anything, probably dehydrated in the hot sun. I felt like the sense of happiness and joy, like I'd never felt. And it was weird because I was in the middle of this disaster with people with limbs amputated and dead people everywhere.

It was, the stench was amazing. But something was happening in me where I was in service of others. I wasn't thinking about myself. And it's sort of why I do what I do. I mean, I'm always in service of others. And I always am happiest when I'm serving others. Like before this podcast, I came because I was helping somebody

and I was late because this person is in my kid, and he needs help, and he's sick, and he's got this issue. Could you also help him? And I'm like, OK. I get it. Because I can. I do. There's a book called Survival of the Friendliest.

That's good. And it makes an argument that we've completely misunderstood Darwin, that the idea of survival of the fittest, we have always attributed to brute strength. And so if you can overpower someone, you're more likely to survive. And they make an argument for social animals and mammals that that's actually completely incorrect. That what he meant by fittest was most fit to create community and take care

of each other and survival of the fittest is actually nothing to do with brute strength, but it's actually to do with the ones who were better at taking care of each other. So as you started to think about this book, Simon, and I can't wait to read it, even though you haven't written it yet. That's a good sign. I should put it up on Amazon. better at taking care of each other. So as you started to think about this book, Simon, and I can't wait to read it, even though you haven't written it yet. That's a good sign. I should put it up on Amazon, drive those

pre-sales before. I'm going to order it. I'm going to pre-order it. Cover to come, title to come, yet untitled book. And as I think about it, I can't think of a lot of books on friendship. Well, this is the reason that my friend Will and I decided, my friend Will Gader and I decided to write this

because it seems to make sense that you should write a book about friendship with a friend. Writing a book about friendship by yourself doesn't make sense. So Will and I decided to write together and we came to the realization that there's an entire industry to help us be better leaders, an entire industry to help us be better parents,

an entire industry to help us be better leaders, an entire industry to help us be better parents, an entire industry to help us thrive in our relationships, how to eat better, how to exercise better, how to live longer, and yet precious little. And I've written many of those books. And yet, you've written all those books, and yet precious little, yet precious little on how to be a friend.

That's right. And when you look at all the challenges, as we've said in the the world of depression and anxiety and all of the, all these epidemics that, you know, doctors and well-intended folks are talking about, no one is talking about friendship as the antidote. And I think that friendship is the ultimate bio hack. I think if you can master friendship,

a lot of those other things correct themselves. So let's talk about that. Like friendship, like friendship and the microbiome. Yeah. You know, get the microbiome right. A lot of stuff just falls into place. Get friendship, right. A lot of stuff just falls into place. It's true. Uh, it's true. So, so as you're thinking about this book, the reason I said that is cause that's, that's your thing. The microbiome.

You like a microbiome. I do. Well, it's a, if your bugs aren't friendly, you love a gut health. If your bugs aren't friendly, you're not happy. Can I just go, I have to interrupt here. Please. Can you talk to me about probiotic sodas if they're a pile of shit or not? Well, if there's sugar in them

and there's artificial sweeteners in them, they definitely aren't good for your gut. Okay, so just that they put, okay. That's what I said, if it has a health claim on the label, I avoid it. Got it. What about kombucha? Again, it's like a lot of sugar.

Depends on the kombucha. It's a lot of sugar. I was surprised. One of my favorite kombucha brands, I looked at it the other day. A lot of sugar. 22 grams of sugar in the bottle. I was like, that's ridiculous.

That's four and a half teaspoons of sugar, or five and a half teaspoons of sugar. You would never put five and a half teaspoons of sugar in your coffee, and why are you putting five and a half teaspoons of sugar in your quote unquote healthy drink? Yep, my rest my case. If it has a health claim, don't eat it. If it has a health claim, don't eat it.

High fiber, low fat, low sugar, I don't know. It's just, if it, you know, an egg doesn't have a label on it, you know. Broccoli and apple doesn't have a label or a barcode or an ingredient list. Stick with that. So, so speaking of friends, let's go back to friends. I think this is really important.

We're talking about the importance of friendship. We're talking about how critical it is for your health. We're talking about how it's critical is for your overall mental health and well-being. But a lot of people listening are isolated and disconnected, you know, and don't know how to make friends. Clearly they're listening to a podcast. Maybe. I listen to podcasts. With your friends?

Nobody listens to podcasts with their friends. My wife and I do. It's a lonely, it's a lonely. My wife and I listen to podcasts together quite a bit actually. Podcast listenership should be going down if we want the world to be healthy. But you know, and you know, there's a great

book I read once called Refrigerator Rights, which is how many people in your life do you have the right to go in their house and open their fridge and eat whatever you want? Love that. And that's a measure of the quality of your friendships and the health of your social network. Yes, I love that. I have one friend that makes fun of me. Their family makes fun of me that I just go into their pantry. That's right. That's good. You want that? Like I'm staying at a friend's house and I went in their fridge this morning and I took out some food because I had to go and I was busy today. Yeah, you didn't ask permission.

I know, I just took out the. because I had to go and I was busy today. And I. Yeah, you didn't ask permission. No, I just took out the bits. Will you politely go, can I keep, can I eat? I'm going to tell them after, but there were these Maui Nui venison sticks and I knew I had a long day and I didn't have time to eat. And I, you know, it was. That's so funny. Yeah.

So, so that I had refrigerator rights in that house. That's very good. I, I, the New York version of that is you, is you go into a friend's house that you have refrigerator rights, an apartment, there's no houses. You open up their fridge and you see, there's nothing in there except half a carton of milk

and a box of Chinese takeout. And you say to your friend, can I eat this Chinese? You scream out and they scream back. It's been there for two weeks. I wouldn't, it's been there for two weeks. You go, okay, and you just close the fridge and you leave the Chinese food in there. That's refrigerates in New York City.

So if it's so important, people listening, I imagine are thinking, oh, this is great. I feel this, I know this is how important. And I feel the disconnection. Yeah. But I don't know how to make friends. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to take the friends

I have and make them better or find new friends. I don't know how to make friendship the medicine that I need in my life. Where does a drug store for friendship? How are you thinking about this? And as you start to think about this book, how are you thinking about supporting coaching, imagining

how to build that network? So the good news is there's new organizations that are starting that are encouraging people to come have a dinner, fight with five strangers and stuff like that. So there's these new businesses that are trying to replace the bowling leagues and stuff like that. You sign up for the bowling league and you'd be put on a team.

That's your team. You know, maybe one of them was your friend, maybe not, but that was your team. We're going to church. So I think starting with common interests. Sign up for a ceramics class and go by yourself. Or if you're too nervous to go by yourself, go with a friend. But talk to the person you're sitting next to. First time?

Because the great thing about doing the thing with common interests is the icebreaker is really, really easy. You just have to say, is this your first time here? Have you done this before? And it pretty much starts the conversation. And if you don't, you don't have to form a deep, meaningful relationship out of it. But I think starting to do hobby things, and I think having

hobbies, and we've seen the decline in hobbies even, you know, and doing hobbies with people. That's why I say- Joy to club. Yeah. That's why I said, go play chess, you know, in a park, you know. That's why I've said, I think things like Comic-Con and things like that are spectacular. Because when you find a group of people who, you know, when people laugh at your hobby, and you find a group of people who we've all been laughed at

but now we're the norm here, it's incredibly easy to make friends. And like the thing that's so, I've been to Comic-Con many, many times. And, you know, it's nerdvana. What is Comic-Con? You don't know what Comic-Con is? No, vaguely, vaguely.

Well, it's changed over the years, but basically it's a comic book convention. That's what I thought it was. That's the history. I just thought it was. But these days, comic books are only a part of it. It's also science fiction and hero movies, you know, Marvel stories and Star Wars and, you know are only a part of it. It's also science fiction and hero movies, Marvel stories and Star Wars and DC and all of that.

And it's all that nerdy kind of pop-cultury stuff. And there's a lot of cosplay that happens. So people will dress up as their favorite cartoon character or superhero or some obscure character. And some of them are super creative. And some people are there for the content of the convention, and some people are there just to walk around in costume and have fun.

And what's so wonderful about it is it's an incredibly polite group of people. So if you are in a great costume where you see someone who's in a great costume and you wanna have a picture with them, or they want a picture with you, everybody asks. Everybody goes, can I have a picture a picture With you everybody asks everybody goes. Can I have a picture with you, please? Or hey may have a picture with you, please And so there's a lot of interaction you can go up to somebody say I love your costume

And they will be friendly back. There's not a lot of cynicism and the it's You know, I met one of my ex-girlfriends there. I literally went up to her and said you look amazing Can I have a picture with you? And she goes absolutely we took a picture together because I just loved her costume Hmm. I don't remember how the conversation started, but we ended up talking a little bit for just a few minutes I don't know how we got to it But we ended up trading phone numbers and then we ended up having sort of a really great relationship And the best part about that is I I still have the photograph, not from our first date,

I have the photograph from the moment we met. Which doesn't happen in relationships. You don't say, nice to meet you, let's take a selfie just in case. But I have the photograph of the time, the minute we met. And it's just, again, I think when you go to places where people like the things you like, it's gonna increase the odds. It's not, again, I think when you go to places where people like the things you like,

it's gonna increase the odds. It's not the increase the odds that you'll find deep, meaningful relationships, but it makes it easier to break the ice. To just get started. To get started. And that's, I think, where people struggle. They struggle on how to start.

One of the things I'm curious about, I love your opinion on this, is, my experience is two things really help foster deep friendships. One is curiosity. So being deeply curious about who that person is and asking questions about what are they afraid of, what makes them laugh,

what makes them most excited in life, what brings them joy, what are they struggling with, what's going on. Just getting curious about somebody and then letting them talk. Most people don't get that chance to have someone really be present and listen. And the second is to be vulnerable yourself.

So to let down your guard and to share what's in your heart, because it all of a sudden gives permission for the other person to start to do that. And then once you get past that kind of first layer of soil, you get down into the mother load of authentic human relationship. It's a seesaw, right? Which is you kind of expect someone

to be vulnerable if you're not willing to be vulnerable back, because it creates imbalance. And I actually met some new friends just very recently. They're friends of friends. I went up to Seattle for work. And one of my friends who's from Seattle said, oh, you need to meet my friends. They live up there.

You guys will get along. So we all showed up as strangers. The three of us showed up as strangers. I mean, they know each other. They're married. But I went out with them just because our mutual friends said you guys should meet. And so we all took time to meet.

And I can't remember who started, but there was a lot of vulnerability happening and you you know, you could feel That one side had opened up more than the other was lopsided. Mm-hmm Right, and I think was me who opened up a lot and then they said Here, let us balance this out. Yeah, and they were keenly aware of the balance of vulnerability They started opening up an offering to make me feel safer, right? Because it was lopsided, which is, you feel safe for a while until you start to feel insecure

because it's so lopsided. And they were so aware of that seesaw that they literally said, let me balance this out for you. Or do you want us to go first so that you're comfortable to speak? And it was amazing, and we talked about it. We actually, that became one of the topics of conversation, is how we were managing vulnerability

as we were getting to know each other for the first time, that we were keeping the balance. We were both taking turns to manage the balance. And I thought it was incredibly interesting and sophisticated. And by the way, amazing people. Like now they're like, I'm like mad about them. Yeah, you know, yeah, like genuine friends Yeah, and I think I think it's hard for people to do that though. And how do you how do you invite people to you?

Kind of with everyone. I think that's where people get it wrong. It's not a prescription, right? You can't say here are the five things you need to do because if somebody's not willing to match you or go with you It will feel unbalanced or insecure and, or you might open up so much and the other person doesn't want to, and then you'll make yourself feel uncomfortable. You make them feel uncomfortable too. Yeah. And so this is why I say it's a dance, which is,

you know, you give a little bit and do you get a little bit back? And if you don't get anything back. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Yeah, exactly. And if you give a little bit and you get nothing back, you can take another risk and give a little bit more, but at some point you're gonna have to stop.

And it's not that they're bad people or that they won't make friends. It's some people a little slower at opening up. And some people are a little quicker. And we have to allow these things to go at their own pace. But I think you have to manage the balance. Or you can say it out loud. Hey, usually I come out and sort of share everything,

but I'm gonna be a little more measured today because I don't wanna, you know, I feel a little insecure today, but I'm going to be a little more measured today, because I don't want to, you know, I feel a little insecure today, if I'm honest. I don't really know you. And I think that's OK. But I think that's where people get it wrong, which is there's no prescription and everybody's different. And you kind of have to read the room.

I think that's where people make the mistakes. And I've definitely made that mistake. I've projected safety where it didn't exist. Yeah, I started opening up because I wanted them to make me feel safe Yeah, and then did you feel like you? you Suffered because of that or was it because I was it just have like I created uncomfortable situations by accident either for myself or for them Yeah, I overshared Yeah, sure Yeah, that's it, that's an interesting question. Is oversharing a problem? Depends on the person.

Depends on the person who's listening. For some people, if you overshare and they are able and have the skill set to hold that space without judgment, there's no problem at all. But if somebody is ill-equipped to hold space for an oversharer, it's going to be uncomfortable. Well, I'm even just asking, hey, I'd like to share this. Yeah, I think asking permission. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing.

I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing.

I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. I think asking permission is a good thing. But if somebody is ill-equipped to hold space for an over-sharer, it's gonna be uncomfortable. Well, maybe just asking, hey, I'd like to share this. Yeah, I think asking permission. I think asking permission. Yeah, I think that's great.

It's like when you have a different- That kind of resets their barometer. Because that's the technique for having difficult conversations, right? You're like, I need to have a difficult conversation with you. Can I have that with you now? And people are like, can we do it later? You know?

I think asking permission is like, I need to give later? You know, like I think asking permissions, like I need to give you some difficult feedback. Can I give that to you? Go ahead, you know, like my friend, my friend said, I gotta tell you something. You know, this may risk the whole friendship and you're like, okay, you know, like that little preamble that lets you sort of take the breath.

And I think that's very wise counsel, which is to say, can I share something personal with me, with you and they may say honestly, I Don't think I'm comfortable. But if they say yes, then I think they're co-conspirators. So what's what's your what's your goal with your book? What's the set of aim? You're you're targeting? it's it's everything we said before which is there's so much advice on how to succeed as a leader as a parent as a you know In a romantic relationship and I want people parent, as a, you know, in a romantic relationship. And I want people to succeed in friendship.

And you're, you know, I'm somebody who has had very few long-term relationships in my life, and the world criticizes me for that. I'm seen as unhealthy, or I've been judged as having commitment issues. You mean love relationships or just friendships? Love relationships. You know, I've never been married.

I don't have a 10-year romantic relationship. I haven't had it, you know And even some of the women I've dated they're like what's wrong with you? You mean either I've been what's for? What's wrong with you is what I hear a lot Right and I have a I have a friend who was in a 16 year relationship an unhealthy relationship Yeah for 16 years. She freely admits that she should have stayed in that relationship for one year Oh, yeah, and yet society looks at her and says she got it right and I got it wrong Which is twisted and if you look at the quality of my friendships

Like I have a lot of really really good friends and I am fulfilled in almost every aspect of my life But just not necessarily all from one person. That's right And look I I like relationships and I love being in a relationship And I love being a partner to someone and you know people say well, why why haven't you why haven't you been married? I'm like, isn't it obvious? I haven't met the right person yet. That's such a stupid question but uh But I I I found comfort In recognizing that by fostering friendship

I don't have to feel guilty or bad or explain myself why I haven't had a marriage or a 10 year romantic relationship. And friendships outlast relationships. And friendships outlast, and friendships are there to help you through relationships. And if you don't have good friendships, you'll struggle in your relationships,

because you have to have somebody to ask advice or vent to. You can't always go to one person, it won't work. And so I think we don't give enough credit to friendship, clearly, because nothing's written about it, or so little is written about it. We don't give enough credit to friendship, and we don't give credit to people who are good at friendship. We give credit to people who stay in relationships, even if those relationships are unhealthy. And I think we just need to reevaluate how we're managing relationship in general in

our lives. And I want, I want to be a part of the friendship movement. I love that. I mean, that's, it's, it's interesting that one of the chapters of our book around how to get healthy is friends. Yeah.

Five F's. Yeah, exactly. Amen. And, and on that note, my friend, thank you so much. So yeah, Simon, thanks for talking about friendship and your vision and your incredible kaleidoscopic mind focusing on this topic because it's, I think, one of the most existential topics of our time, the disconnection, the isolation, the loneliness, and that investing in friendships,

understanding what they are, how to cultivate them, how to create them, how to foster them, nurture them, how to be a good friend. It's the best medicine. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr.

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