The Dr. Hyman Show - What Our Kids Don’t Learn In School Is The Key To Their Success And Happiness with Goldie Hawn

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

What Our Kids Don’t Learn In School Is The Key To Their Success And Happiness | This episode is brought to you by TrueDark, BiOptimizers, and Tushy Throughout school, we learn arithmetic, biology, and how to read and write. But we don’t learn how to manage stress, understand our emotions, or connect the feelings in our bodies with the thoughts in our heads. Most of us don’t even really know how to breathe in a way that truly serves us. What if our children could learn these essential life skills early on? That’s the question Goldie Hawn asked herself after meeting kids all over the world and seeing their need for self-regulation. Today, I’m so excited to sit down with her to talk about the program she created and how it’s helped so many children grow into successful, grounded, emotionally intelligent adults.  Goldie Hawn is an Academy Award-winning actress, producer, director, best-selling author, and true children’s advocate. She is the Founder of The Goldie Hawn Foundation, a public charity with a mission to equip children with the social and emotional skills they need to lead smarter, healthier, happier, and ultimately more productive lives. Alarmed by increases in school violence, youth depression and suicide, and the persistent failure of the education system to help children cope with increasingly stressful lives, Goldie started The Goldie Hawn Foundation in 2003, applying cutting edge scientific research to create educational programs that support the social and emotional development of children. Working with leading neuroscientists, educators, psychologists, and researchers, the Foundation developed MindUP™ an evidence-based curriculum and teaching model for grades K-12 that provide tools to help children self-regulate and understand their own emotions, reduce stress and anxiety, sharpen concentration, increase empathy, and improve academic performance. This episode is brought to you by TrueDark, BiOptimizers, and Tushy. TrueDark Daylights help prevent eye strain and headaches from overexposure to junk light and TrueDark Twilights collection for nighttime helps you get deeper sleep. TrueDark is offering podcast listeners 15% with code DRHYMAN15. Just go to truedark.com/hyman. Right now, BiOptimizers is offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners 10% off your Magnesium Breakthrough order. Just go to magbreakthrough.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to receive this amazing offer. The Tushy bidet is a sleek attachment that clips onto your existing toilet and connects to the water supply behind your toilet to spray you with clean, fresh water. Right now, Tushy is offering 10% off, just go to hellotushy.com/HYMAN.  Here are more of the details from our interview:  Goldie’s quest to seek and understand joy and happiness (9:12) Goldie’s personal experience with depression, what she learned from it, and how it led to the development of MindUP (11:04) How MindUP serves as an antidote to the burdens that children face in today’s world (16:59) Empowering children to manage stress (18:45) The science of happiness, gratitude, and training of the mind (22:03) The importance of understanding the brain and taking “brain breaks” to self-regulate (27:05) Enhancing brain development to improve health and societal outcomes in children (32:14) Savoring happiness, random acts of kindness, and the biology of altruism (36:04) Goldie’s advice for following your dreams and passions at any stage of life (47:09) Learn more about the MindUP program at https://mindup.org/ and on Facebook @TGHFMindUP, on Instagram @mindup, and on Twitter @mindup.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. If we are giving anything to our children, we have to give them tools to manage stress because it is not going away. It's not. What we can do is we can learn about the power of breath. We can learn about how to quiet our heart rate. We can learn how to have better heart health by doing these things and knowing how to bring down this sort of all the cortisol and so forth. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. Most people don't realize that our exposure to light has a huge impact on our health. And that's because we're wired to respond to the changing position of the

sun, which regulates our body's circadian rhythm and either helps us to feel energized and awake or lets us know it's time for bed. But our modern always-on culture means we're now surrounded by conventional LEDs and fluorescent bulbs and digital devices with bright lit screens that emit junk light around the clock. My friend Dave Asprey actually coined that phrase, junk light, to describe the excess of blue light as well as green and violet light that disrupt our circadian rhythms. Junk light reduces our ability to produce melatonin, which is a key hormone for regulating our internal clock, sleeping well, and even aging well. It's important to realize we actually need to be exposed to certain amounts of blue light in the daytime. Otherwise, we may feel as too sleepy or tired. It's the excess of all that blue light, along with other types, that leads to a long list of

potential problems. So how can we get just the right amount of light throughout the day? Well, going outside is, of course, key, but we almost all work on computers these days and have our phones with us 24-7. And that's why I was really excited to learn about the TrueDark Daylight Glasses. TrueDark Daylights are meant to be worn during the day. They come with either clear lenses that block 40% of blue light or yellow lenses that block 75% of blue light. Some of these daylights also act as transition sunglasses that in addition to blocking toxic blue light indoors, also have photochromatic lenses that are darker when exposed

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code drhyman15. Now supplements are one of those things that I'm always being asked about. Is it worth spending money on them? Do we need them if we really eat well? Can your body even absorb them? The answer to the most of these questions is it depends. There are definitely certain supplements I'd never recommend taking because they aren't made in a way that your body can take advantage of and you just pee them out. And there are definitely some supplements we can benefit from because our food supply, even if we're eating whole organic foods, because that doesn't just provide enough of the nutrients that we need for optimal health. A major one of those nutrients that I suggest people supplement is magnesium.

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Just go to magbreakthrough.com forward slash hymen. That's M-A-G breakthrough, B-R-E-A-K-T-H-R-O-U-G-H dot com slash hymen and use the code hymen10 to receive this amazing offer. I think you'll love it as much as I do. Now, let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's Pharmacy with an F, a place for conversation that matters. If you care about your kids, this conversation is going to matter because it's with Goldie Hawn, who you may know from the film and TV career that she's had, the wonderful career. And also she is focused on the health

and wellbeing of our children. And now more and more of us are having mental issues, stress issues, focus issues, attention issues, and the world has become such an inattentive, chaotic, crazy place. And we need a system or tools to help us get back to ourselves. And that's really what Goldie has created, which we're going to talk about today. But you probably know her better as

an actress. She's an Academy Award-winning actress for Cactus Flower. She's been nominated many times. She's a best-selling author, a wonderful book called A Lotus Grows in the Mud about her life. And she has developed this incredible program, which you may or may not have heard about, but I've been aware of for a while, which is called MindUp. And her Goldie Hawn Foundation developed that program. She was alarmed by increases in school violence and youth depression, suicide, and the failure of our education system to help children cope with increasingly stressful lives. And she wanted to apply the best scientific research

to helping our kids do better and create an educational program that supports the social and emotional development of kids. She's worked with leading neuroscientists, educators, psychologists, researchers, and they've all created this incredible program called MindUp, which everybody should go check out, mindup.org.

And we'll learn more about that and also mindupforlife.org. And it's an evidence-based curriculum that teaches kids from K to 12 the tools to help them understand their own emotions, reduce stress, anxiety, sharpen concentration, increase empathy, and improve academic performance. It sounds like a great list of benefits.

It sounds like a lot of gifts in that little package. Okay, so welcome to the Dr. Sarmas and Goldie. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Okay, so true to the Dr. Sarmas and Goldie. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Okay, so true confessions. Yeah. When I was nine years old. Uh-oh.

And this dates me. I loved watching Laughing. Oh, God. And I had a nine-year-old. Nine-year-old bed. Yeah. That's exactly what it was like. And I had a nine-year-old crush on Goldie Hawn.

No, really? I did. I so did. You were so funny and silly and cute and ridiculous. And I just want to confess and get that out of the way. Oh, that's so crazy. You know what I mean? I was like, wow, that was 50 years ago.

I'm like, holy crap. Where does that go? I still remember like it was yesterday. So much of that stuff. And it was really a time when I think we really felt we could make a difference. Yeah. I think it was a great time for empowerment. Yeah, it was an incredible show.

People who are probably listening now, happy, don't even know what that is. I know. We're doing TV on some little... Like, Laugh-In was the original sort of comedy review show with all kinds of skits. Sort of like the Saturday Night Live of its time. Right, that's right. It changed television. And it was highly political.

Very political. And it was right in the end of the 60s, so things were kind of hot and heavy. Yeah, I mean, Richard Nixon was on. We had so many amazing people, right, and disparate different belief systems and whatever. And everybody was like, cool, right? Yeah.

I mean, it was a great, great show of a time when we were in transition as a culture. And this is when, you know, we were having love ins and free sex and everything was great. And you know, you didn't have to get married and every and it was wonderful. But we also were dealing with assassinations. We were dealing with the Vietnam War. And somehow we figured that out. We protested and we did all of these things. But today it's a little different world right now, isn't it? Yeah. We're now dealing with a lot of issues around mental health.

Totally. And that's a difference. Whereas we felt free, we felt like at that time we were able to make change. We mattered. There was a sense of belonging and a group saying, we believe in something, but it wasn't horribly. Some things turned out poorly, but militant. Anyway, this is what we're talking about today. And I think this is why as we started to grow and as I started to move on, I learned a lot about, believe it or not, meditation. But we'll get, I think you had some questions around.

So, yeah. So this laughing period was sort of an interesting moment and it led to your acting career and Cactus Flower and the Academy Award and Private Benjamin, which many of us have seen, which you haven't seen. You should definitely watch. It's a fabulous movie. And you were not just an actress.

You were our executive director, Dale. And producer. And producer. And, you know, you had this wonderful career. And then, you know, you were sharing with me the other day about how you wanted to make a documentary on joy. Right. Which is a beautiful idea. And the timing kind of was a little messed up. You did it right at 9-11 right in

2001 who knew you know i mean right i was noticing that people at least i traveled the world a lot i was in india third world countries all kinds of places that interest me actually very much people were really happy there i mean really and truly't have much, but there was a much more joy, more family connection, India, Africa, so on and so forth. And then I came home and I saw people in their cars and they weren't happy. And I started noticing that there was sort of a lost, extreme understanding of what this emotion is today. And I didn't want to lose it. Joy, excuse me, happiness, all that. So I thought, let's make a documentary in search of joy around the world. Let's try and find where people are still celebrating, where life is worth living,

where there's small little things that make people happy. And that is what makes us healthier. And it makes us not just happier, but it also has a mind-body connection. So sort of the science of happiness is what you were searching for. It really is the science of happiness, the causes of happiness. All those things were important. So 9-11 happened. And then it was not the time for me to go out and do, you know, in search of joy. I mean, people would have thought it was crazy.

I mean, right now, what happened to my brain is that I said, okay, the world has changed forever. We need to do something. And actually, it wasn't we, it was me. You know, I've adopted children all over the world. Yes, that's my thing. And with the love that I have of children and hoping they have a good childhood. The reality is, is that I just thought, what am I going to do? What little thing can I do? And that's when I moved to Vancouver and literally started thinking about what I have learned over all these years. Going through my own depression, which was really hard for me. It happened to me overnight.

I was just starting to sort of leave the nest. I was home. I then went to New York. I then came in and suddenly I'm picked out of the chorus line. And, you know, life was changing. And I thought I was going to go home and get married and open a dancing school, right? So those plans didn't work out. You were a go-go dancer at one point in your career. But I was a go-go dancer. Exactly, yeah. I did that to pay my rent, by the way, right? Sometimes the tables were three-legged. But it was unbelievable but i mean that when you when that was happening

to me i then the only thing i could do because i really couldn't go outside without being sick to my stomach i was really anxiety ridden i had so there was a lot of things that i could relate to about being fearful yeah and having a fear of going out being sick to my stomach um sitting in my chair and and feeling like cozy, maybe not wanting to go out. But I was doing a show. Well, in between shows that I was doing there, I would go to sleep or lay down in my trailer. The reality is that people is not a bad thing. People will come and go.

Bad things can happen. You can have a lapse of mental stability. You can do this. You wrote about this. So what happened? You wrote about this in Lotus in the Mud. It was your memoir in 2006. And you talked about how you went through the dark times, panic attacks and depression. You lost your smile. I did. I really did. I had to fake it. Of course, I faked it. But it was terrible to walk around and fake how I was really feeling. But the gift in that was that it gave you this discovery of

something new. Well, what happened was I actually became an advocate for myself. And I went to a doctor. I went to a psychologist. And I learned a lot about myself. I was there for eight years. I really did the University of Goldie. And I learned a lot of things, not just about me, but about understanding how people might view me so when i wasn't so vulnerable if somebody didn't like me or my performance or you get a bad review or i i really gave that person the ability to make a decision you gave them power exactly because the power for that is that that's them not me so we individuate from each other in a healthy way and i learned a lot about that and that's kind of the one part of it the other part was is that i learned about

psychology i then started decided that i wanted to learn to meditate okay and i did that because i felt that it was maharishi much yoga it was tm it was like the thing to do. And yet I've always been a very spiritual young lady. I mean, I always have been. I mean, one of the reality there is that I used to read the 29th song, 23rd song before I grew up. So I was one of those kids, right? But in the meantime, that ultimately is what made me look at meditation and say, look, there must be something there.

And that was when I realized that it was the first time that I actually could hear and feel my own heartbeat. And I'll never forget that experience. And it was very powerful to be able to rest your mind and to go inside of this perfect body, this thing that was given to us that is absolutely perfect, that it does things and helps us in ways that we'll never know, that we have to help that body. And that was the other part of my life, right? And then through all the other things, I then started understanding the brain

because the brain was basically, it's control central. It's where everything can happen. And if you have the will and the intention to make it happen. So that was my interest, right? What is happening? What's the connection between the brain and the body? How is us focusing in on certain parts of the body? I could focus my hands and I would feel them tingle and get hot.

Well, that was my brain doing that. That wasn't like my brain didn't decide to do that. My brain does what I ask it to do. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes, exactly. Not always. So that was what happened during 9-11.

So I switched my happiness program into Mind Up. Yeah. Because everything that I learned about happiness was brain the psychology was all of these different aspects that is when I decided to turn it into a school program for children because I started to sort of research suicide but our young children from 10 years old to 15 was the second leading cause of death for children. These are the things.

That's a staggering statistic. It was heartbreaking. And this is when I wanted to make the world happier by doing In Search of Joy around the world. Then it became a focus. I want our children to be happier. They're going to inherit our world. And they have to have tools that will help them reduce their stress. Yeah.

So that was sort of the beginning of Mind Up. So really, this all came out of your own experience of being challenged with panic attacks, depression, and then having to discover who you were, explore your own mind, your own consciousness, and your own spiritual path. The story we hear a lot from people who do really great things in the world, they've often had a crisis. And they come out of that crisis with renewed interest, enthusiasm,

and ability to actually make real change in the world. And belief. Yeah. Because you have- Because you felt it firsthand. I did. And you have to believe, you have to know that you can make a difference.

It's not easy. No. But you can through habituation, and the brain likes habituation, as long as we habituate more positive things, it actually will adhere to that and eventually default to a more positive state of mind. And now it's kind of worse than ever, isn't it, Goldie? Because our kids grew up in a different world than you and I grew up in. Oh, my God.

We were just like, I got on my bike, went out for the day or no my mom never knew where i was me too he's got a play you know he's running a place i hear her calming right at the corner she'd go goldie right i know i'd have to go home right to dinner on the table and now kids are just so pulled into digital devices and disconnected from each other and the world and nature. And we see the rampant rates of ADD and ADHD and behavioral issues. And I mean, you know, the average school nurse is dispensing medications to half the kids in the school that are psychiatric medications. I know.

It's just unconscionable to me. And it's not our natural state of evolution. And these kids are often burdened with lifelong issues around mood issues and attention issues and intimacy and connection. And so it's like you're saying we need an antidote to that. So mind up, in a sense, is an antidote to all of that. It actually is. I call it an ace potential solution. There's no promises, but I have seen more children respond to this. And I'm telling you, it's an emotional experience. How they learn to default understanding, having self-awareness.

They know that now they said, and there were 83% in our research, because I researched this way before I went out with it. Because, you know, what was it? Oh, yeah, Goldie Hawn made a program. Oh, la, la, la. Was it a comedy routine or what? No, no. I wanted researchers to do this, universities to do this. I didn't want this to be my program. I was just a producer and I produced a great program. Why? Because the research was stellar. It came

out with 83% of the children reported they now had a way to make themselves happier. If we are giving anything to our children, we have to give them tools to manage stress because it is not going away. It's not. What we can do is we can learn about the power of breath. We can learn about how to quiet our heart rate. We can learn how to have better heart health by doing these things and knowing how to bring down this sort of all the cortisol and so forth. And by the way, one of the researches that we did was on cortisol, which had never been done on children before. And our children were more able to manage their cortisol levels throughout the day than the control group. And that's the stress hormone.

And that's the stress hormone, or certainly one of them. Yeah. It's so incredible that we go to school and we learn about reading, writing arithmetic, and we don't learn the basic fundamental skills that we need for a happy life. I know. How to relate to other humans and have good relationships. How to train our brain. We were really talking about a brain training program.

Right. It is. It's brain-based all the way. And we sort of ignore that. We don't learn about nutrition. We don't even learn how to manage our finances in school or how to take care of our bodies. And yet when you look at other disciplines, and you went to India after 9-11, and you were looking to make this movie on joy, and you've been dabbling with Buddhist ideas and philosophy and spirituality. And within those cultures in the East, they have been inner astronauts, right?

They've been exploring inner space and we're exploring outer space. And they're discovering ways in which we can be in command of our minds and not let our minds run the show. And that's really what you created is a program that empowers kids, which is so important to start young with the tools and skills they need to be focused, optimistic, resilient, and be global citizens and be functional. Because I'm terrified about the future,

given the state of, one, all the psychological stress kids are under, and two, the nutrition, which is my focus. But you need to focus on feeding kids' brains right and training their brains right. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And also give them the agency over their body

and the agency over their mind, that their brain, that they know that they can make a difference. They're empowered. They're in the driver's seat. And there are no wrong answers, by the way, in MindUp. All it is is an experiential program, interactive program. And we're training teachers and millions of children over the world have had this, by the way. I have not been, what do you call it, selling it, per se. I wanted MindUp to be the star. And actually MindUp has now become the star because people go, oh, is MindUp yours? And I'm going, it actually isn't mine, but maybe the best script I ever produced, right?

So I don't want to own that because the teacher should own it and people should own it. And I always had that feeling, right? Now I can toot a horn. Now it's the millions of children have done this now. Millions of children around the world have been through MindUp. Yes. That's incredible.

And you've tracked their outcomes, right? Right, exactly. What have you found? That we have found that our children now, we did one longitudinal study, that was it, because we don't really pay for our own research. That's not a good thing to do, is it? That there were 65% of the kids who had this in Vancouver were able to use it in college.

They never forgot it. It was like riding a bike. Now, do they remember the gratitude circle? Why do we do a gratitude circle for children? Why do we do it? Because gratitude and that feeling changes how the brain fires. Dopamine is emitted in the brain. There's an uptick in serotonin.

Gratitude is a beautiful thing to experience, to give someone. And that is the gift is in the giving. So we're not doing this because, because oh isn't it great to be grateful no what we're doing is to habituate the mind to understand the feeling of what it is to be grateful so now i have a feeling about that i will always remember it because the hippocampus which they know is will remember the experience what we're saying is you can you can literally understand the science of happiness and the biology of gratitude, the biology of happiness, the biology of focus, right?

Exactly. It's not just an abstract idea. The science is really there behind it. No, there's- We were talking the other night about some of our friends and colleagues who really studied the brain, like Richard Davidson and- Yeah. ... you know, Goldman, what we call all two traits about people who are really experienced in meditation and training of the mind. And whole brain structure is different their brain function is different

they're happier literally there's like the happiness parts of the brain light up and all the ego parts of the brains go down that's right and and all the problems we're seeing now in our society all the divisiveness all the hatred whether you're you know republican or democrat whether you're whatever vegan oro. It's like crazy. These opposition is all oppositional, right? And we use the word inclusive and it's becoming one of those words that everybody uses all the time or whatever. But when you really think about what it means, it means community. It means being together. And that I think is one of the areas as you can attest to being a doctor, the community, people gathering together,

being in groups and so forth, your family and whatever creates greater health, physical health, because it creates better mental stability, better mental okayness and resilience, and also partnerships. So rather than, and it isn't political, but rather than moving apart from each other, we need to move toward each other because that is what ultimately will keep us healthy, happy, productive, kind.

And, you know, the brain and the heart have this great connection. And it's an amazing connection because all the organs do connect to the brain. So it's like I said, you know, my hands are getting warm because i'm focusing all my energy on my hand oh my god they're tingling oh my god that you know blood's running through there because i'm thinking about it well when you think about love you think about that feeling you feel with your dog you know and you see how much you love your dog and whatever that is doing amazing things for your body and heart patients as you know, you could tell that story, but they live longer with dogs. So love,

we've got to start thinking about, it's medicine. Love is medicine. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. There's one thing most of my patients are reluctant to talk about, but it's really important when it comes to understanding your health. And I'm talking about poop. In fact, when I worked at Kenya Ranch, I was known as Dr. See Every Poop because it tells us so much about what's going on inside the body. Everybody poops. And proper digestive function is a huge part of optimal wellness. So we should not be afraid to talk about it. And my good friend, Mickey Agraw, actually loves this topic and saw a major opportunity to follow a way of life that so many other parts of the world are already on board with, using a bidet. She founded this company called Tushy and sent me one of her bidet attachments to try out a few years ago. And I have

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Just go to hellotushy.com forward slash hymen to get 10% off your order. That's hellotushy, T-U-S-H-Y dot com slash hymen for 10% off. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. So your program is highly experiential. It's not just academic, oh, you should do this and that. You literally have really specific things you do experientially with these kids, like brain breaks and gratitude circles. Three a day, brain breaks a day. Talk us through some of the specifics of the program and how you get kids to buy into it, how you get them to experience these things.

And what are the sort of tricks? Because you're kind of like, kind of almost subversively introducing this in and you're not saying you're going to become enlightened, you're going to meditate. It's like, let's do this fun stuff together. And the consequences are really amazing. Right, right.

It isn't, I would not never say we're meditating because there's meditation, which are long, nice meditations. And then there are times when children just need to know they need a brain break. That brain break, you can break it down and say, okay, we're learning to quiet the brain. We're learning to breathe. We're learning tasks, things that we can do in order to make it easier for me to learn

or to take my test or to do these kinds of things, to relax them. But the first thing that we teach, and by the way, it's not the kids that have to love it. It's the teachers. So this was the beginning. So all of our educators will come in or our school districts or our principals. It comes from various different directions, right? And then we will train the school or then you train. Now we get to train a single teacher, which is very exciting because some teachers want it. And the schools are like, we don't know, you know. So anybody can take this that wants to take this training. Right. First thing you learn is the brain, because that's what we are.

We're a brain based organization. We learn about the brain, which is probably the only thing we need to really understand fully, all the breath and how all the intricacies of that and how it affects the brain. But brain is a great thing. First thing we do, and we learn about the amygdala, we learn about the prefrontal cortex, we learn about the hippocampus, we learn about corpus callosum, we learn about the left-right brain, we learn about where we create from, because creativity in the classroom is over. And Sir Ken Robinson, who is one of the great educators of all time, was on my board and a great friend. Oh Robinson, who is one of the great educators of all time, was on my board and a great friend.

Oh, yeah, he had one of the top TED Talks on education. Oh, yes, and he passed away this year. And we're just moving right into that world as well with Ken and taking his legacy and putting sections of our program in there. They can go to them if they want. Anybody who goes into the program which launches um may 24th um will be able to look at all not just the training which you can take right or to become a member once you become a member you are now into the expert world you can learn more about breathing we give them breath but now you want to deep dive you can go into different

experts sharing breath if you want to do happiness for kids which we do acts of kindness and to save their happiness right then you go into deep dive and you can learn as sean anchor anchor is delivering all kinds of interesting talks on the importance of happiness for physically as well as emotionally so it's a if somebody said to me once years ago was i've been doing this almost 20 years now. Surprise. And by the way, I'm still inspired by it. So it's pretty great. It's so great.

Is one of our board members said, what do you want in five years? And this is when I was already doing MindUp maybe for three or four years. And I said, I want, and this was before big internet stuff was happening. Yeah, for sure. And I said, I want to build the University of Mindup. That's what I want. I want everything connected to well-being to be in one place, under one banner. And that was bricks and mortar. One building, I said.

Well, now buildings are actually online. We're building our building now. It's so much fun. But that's what we want, is to find a place for wellness and a place where we can go for kids and for parents and for teachers and for sports. We're doing now a Mind Up sports program. We're going to be doing caregiver program.

We're going to be doing all of the people that are working as not just caregivers but in hospitals. So we have all these different- It's not just kids now. You're saying this is important. It's developed. We missed the program in school. we need to figure out how to get on the program after two hands are happy exactly because parents need to understand that you know it's like okay my kid is learning how to do this the kids take it home and sometimes they would say to their mom

or dad why don't you take a breath because you know you're excited or you're you're angry or arguing when the parents are arguing they will give them ways to stop arguing which is like a time out it's a time out you know it's counted 10 it's whatever settle settle your brain because reactivity can ruin relationships but the mind up program helps kids self-regulate that's what it does so they don't end up in bad behavior and they can focus better and do better academically. So they can better relationships in school. So they can actually achieve what they'd like to achieve. Yeah. Even be better at sports and

function. I know. I mean, it's crazy. And you know what? It's simple. It really is. Like for instance, we have, after we do the brain break, we teach the, after we do brain, we do brain break and we teach the brain break. And then after that we do being mindful break, we teach the, after we do brain, we do brain break and we teach the brain break. And then after that, we do being mindful of our senses. Well, that's creating more self-awareness, but it's also building focused attention. So everything we're doing is actually enhancing brain development. And as the brain is developing for these young children, we want to help develop it appropriately. And that's the way it's working. So, you know, what are we going to do if we don't give our children these tools?

Because the world is spiraling. And they're going to carry that. So it's a lot we're asking. It is. I mean, you know, I really worry about the next generation of kids. We're seeing, you know, 40% of kids overweight. We see, you We see massive amounts of mental health issues in kids. We see suicide rates in kids. We see increasing rates of ADD and behavioral issues and conflict. I mean, this is not the society we want to build. And it is the result of both our nutrition, which I've talked a lot about. It's so important.

And that's what we're getting into as well, which I shared with you the other night, is that now we're into the nutrition part of what the parents need to understand. So we're going to have a whole section there for this because it does affect the brain. Absolutely. Oh, and the sugar. I mean, I know it's like, you know, we're preaching and whatever. But the truth is, it's real. It's not made up. It's not because it just tastes good it's not good for their brain it's not good for their body can you have a little piece of candy

of course i mean we're not crazy you know you don't want to be crazy i'm fine you know my mom you know made fudge when i was like a good girl i would get fudge But I mean, that's a mindset. How do we shift a mindset? Because then we make our choices from our mindset. Right? Yeah. And that's really the piece that's missing in our current educational system. It's even missing in our culture. And you know, there's a lot of groups working on this, like Tim Ryan is a congressman who wrote a book called The Mindful Nation about how we need to bring meditation into veterans and schools and social emotional learning. And it's unfortunately not prioritized. You know, it's really test scores are prioritized,

academic performance is prioritized. But people aren't prioritizing the cultivation development of the minds and brains of our young people. That's right. And then we end up seeing what we're seeing now in our society, just chaos and divisiveness. This is one of the things. It was like I had a dream once, you know, years ago.

Now it doesn't matter anymore. But Senate and Congress, I saw somebody argue with me. Why teaching brain and behavior and giving tools in the classroom itself where we have our children. Tell me, someone argue with me. Why? Why we shouldn't do this. We shouldn't do this. I mean, I just would love to be able to hear an argument.

Yeah, there isn't one. There isn't one. Yeah. You know, and it takes, everything's integrated into the class. It takes, in fact, it saves time in the classroom because the children, every time they do a brain break, they calm down and they're ready to learn. And it's just, I mean, teachers have gone by some of these classrooms, right, and said to the other teacher that was there, because I've got a report on it,

and said, what is going on with your class? They were not being inoculated. And nobody was crying. And the other class was crying. They were all like crazy. And so she said, well, we're doing mind up. You also talked about mind up having this wonderful component, which is giving and doing acts of kindness.

Yeah. And that really is part of the happiness quotient. What is the happiness quotient? Tell us about that. Well, when you make somebody. I love your giggle because it reminds me of being nine years old and listening to laughing. I know. I'm like, wow, that is such a flashback.

It was one of those things that people used to say to me. They'd stop me in the street and say, oh, just giggle for us. Well, I have to have a reason to giggle. I can't just do it. I keep on cue, right? Which, by the way, I kind of did. Anyway, the idea of savoring happiness is one of the aspects of our program. So we do have a section called Savoring Happiness.

And in that, we do things like, is the glass half full or is the glass half empty? And the children really talk about what's good when it's raining. Okay, let's look at all these different things that make you unhappy, but let's find the good in that, right? Which is, again, trying to create more default into a more optimistic view, right? So these are things that are actually the causes of happiness, right? And one of them is acts, random acts of kindness. Yeah. And we do that in the classroom. And that's like a thing. So you have to write a letter, or they go to an old age home, they learn to sing a song or they tell

somebody that they love them. Or like I did this the other day, I went for a hike myself, not a hike, but a walk in the street and in my neighborhood. And there was a very aged woman who was in a walker and she was working her ass off. She was very elderly and she was walking up the street. And I just had this burst of love for her. I didn't know her, but I went up to her. I put my arms around her and I said, you don't know me, but I'm so proud of you. You are going, girl. You are really going. And she looked at me and her eyes lit up and it made her so happy.

Oh, thank you. And it just made my whole day. And that kind of thing is like, I didn't do it for a reason for myself, but what I got from it was so powerful. And that's called, you know, those are called mirror neurons or the area where we know if you, Mark, start to get misty or cry or something, I'm going to feel that because that's empathy. So I am feeling empathy. Now, we don't want to get too empathetic, but an empathy is caring, right?

And, you know, you measure the level of how much you want to give of yourself to care, and I think that's healthy, right? We don't want to bombard ourselves with all these, like, negative, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad. But it is important to feel joy when you're with each other. It's so interesting when you talk about this, this act of kindness and giving and just spontaneous altruism. There is a biology of altruism.

And we know when you are doing something for others in an altruistic way, you are happier. And it actually lights up the part of your brain that is the pleasure center, which gets stimulated by sugar or cocaine or heroin. But it's a much safer, healthier way to activate that. I remember driving before we had Easy Pass.

And I would literally say, that's my friend back there. I just paid for his toll. Oh, that's so great. It was just so fun. I love it. And you just get a little bump of joy. I know. And it was so fun. I think we don't realize how much a little bump of joy. I know. And, you know, it was so fun.

I think we don't realize how much we are social creatures, how much we depend on each other. And this individualistic culture where it's every man for himself, everyone for himself, we don't really understand the value of deep social interactions that are about serving and giving and kindness. And that actually is such a great way to get happiness and joy. And it's beautiful as part of the Mind Up program. Yeah, thank you. Well, it's essential. It really is essential to have those kind of. So how do you think creating optimism and resilience in these kids helps us build a

better world? Well, because first of all, we learn to listen. So we have mindful listening as well. So if you give the child the ability to quiet down, number one, I always felt that a peaceful heart could actually lead to a peaceful world. And we are dealing with peaceful hearts. That classroom is quiet. They love it. They ask for it. They like being in that space of quietude three times a day. And they ask for it also when they take tests. So they do ask for the program. The kids.

Mind Up, yeah. So they also do it at home sometimes. So they said, I think I need a Mind Up break. They know when they're thinking. Mommy, Daddy, you go take a brain break. Yeah, you can. I think you need a brain break. You're not acting so.

Exactly. How many parents have I said, but I need a brain break, right? But I think that what we're trying to do is create vision for children to actually be able to have the tools to learn how to rise above a problem and solve it critically. Not angry, not ego. We all have ego. We get it. We all have a belief system but to really look at the problem itself from the 30 000 feet up and say well how how would we solve this problem so to create um critical thinking the ability to actually feel

solid enough in yourself to be able to to create disparate relationships and things that don't work and enemies that, you know, because ultimately that will create a more congenial world. And actually it is, what is it? Contagious. So if you have contagion, like we do right now, we're dealing with contagion. It's the same thing with emotions. You get a gather of people that more and more people gather with a mindset that actually says, really, of the way a world could go, is that not only are we creating more understanding and self-awareness and peace and forgiveness, which we all talk about as well, is that we don't have an ax to bear. So when we have our leaders and create better leadership, we have a more balanced way of

looking at a problem. How do we associate with people that don't look like us? How do we listen carefully at each other? Because it's how we learn. And if this becomes something that's concretized, which is a terrible word, but in the brain where it's a default system where we go, oh, well, I'd rather listen. Can I just listen for a minute? Because everybody wants to talk over somebody because everybody's got their point of view, right? Everybody gets a chance. But I love the fairness of listening. And if we can create that, then once we listen, then as a team, I think we can solve problems. Because the world is a team.

Yeah. I mean, we like to think that we're all this and that and the other. And we need mind up for Congress, right? We need mind up for government. That's what Tim said. He has a mindfulness group. He's got a mindfulness group. In Congress, there's like three people going.

I know. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's really. But this is one of the things I want to also share is that this is not a mindfulness program. Mindfulness is a very important thing. Is there a part of this that's very mindful? Absolutely.

And what I wanted to do with this program in the very beginning was to do a program that was about being mindful. Being mindful, I can wrap my arms around. I know what it is. My mom said, be mindful of this stuff. Be mindful of your, you know, whatever. Being mindful, I can wrap my arms around. I know what it is. My mom said, be mindful of the step. Be mindful of your, you know, whatever. Be mindful of your attention. So Goldie, you've worked on this for 20 years.

You've created an incredible program for children in schools, and it really helped them level up their brain and connect to methods of being in the world and relating to their brain and training their brain, it's really a training system for the brain. It has huge impact for their lives. But you've also realized that this is not just for kids, right? Tricks are not just for kids, right? And this is a powerful model for all of us to learn how to take care of our brains better

and to train our brains to be happier and more connected and more fulfilled and more attentive and present in our lives, which is really where all the juicy stuff happens. So you created Mind Up for Life, which you're now rolling out. It's available online at mindupforlife.org. And I think it's really for schools, for families, for businesses, communities, sports, hospitals, healthcare providers. But if we all had access to those tools. And personally, I find that we've had a lot of podcasts on meditation.

I find that without the time for myself, without focused attention on training my mind and my brain, and not being a victim of my mind, which a lot of times has a very bad narrative going on all the time. We've got talk all along and the brain does it anyway, right? The chit-chat and we want to get it calm. So how do you connect with your higher self? And that's really what you're offering is this wonderful program called Mind Up For Life. So tell us a little bit more about it and what you hope to achieve with it.

So Mind Up For Life is really about how to create a mindset, a mindset and a way of life, right? And a way of life with the opportunity to feel empowered, to be your own advocate. How am I going to share what I know with someone else to make their life better? So because it's the way I think anyway, even when I wasn't doing MindUp, is that we're all in service of each other. But we can't be in service of each other if we aren't educated in a way that actually will allow us to experience these emotions, not just talk about them, not just say, oh, that's a happy face, that's a sad face, or facial recognition, which we have, it's important, but it's experiencing

this. So my dream for this has always been global, because I believe that we in America need it, but I also travel the world and know everyone needs this program. And what has happened in my own meditation and my own affirmations that I do, not saying, oh, I'm going to do affirmations, blah, blah, blah, but because I see it in my mind. I saw it in my mind when I first brought this up, that this was not just one for America. It was for the world. And I thought, wow, what a lofty dream, right? But now we're in

Serbia, we're in Hong Kong, we're in Australia, we're in Africa, we are in Ireland, England, a ton, it just, you know, on and on, and Canada, of course. So the reality is, it's growing. And this is my dream. My dream is, is that we're getting translated in different languages, Chinese and so forth. And we'll be able to have a kind of dialogue together that will change the way that we reach each other's hearts and minds. It's so beautiful. It's such a beautiful vision. And I think you've had many chapters in your life, and you often say this might be the greatest chapter. And tell us a little bit personally

how it's impacted you being able to create this into the world and see its impact on our kids. Well, first of all, seeing the impact on the children is, I can't, it brought more tears to my eyes than I could ever imagine the research brought I just thought oh my god this is amazing but the reality is is I look back and I think wow that was a brave idea yeah I mean that was something when somebody said and people said oh you'll never teach that in school you'll never do this and you got to be careful with this and and there were so many no's in my way and I wish i i saw my research i said watch me yeah and then i went out and i did this and i didn't have a lot of money in the bank for this i but i just kept on going nothing was going

to stop me and one of the areas is is that it went started going into the other part of the world by itself. I haven't marketed this. I didn't sell it. I didn't do your market. I didn't do your show. I didn't do nothing. And it became this. So when I look at this, I think, don't ever let someone tell you you can't do your dream.

That's beautiful. What is that quote by, I think, George Bernard Shaw? It's only unreasonable people that change the world, right? Yes, exactly. And it was kind of a disturbance. And then I'll close by saying, I'm not as young as I used to be. And it's another piece of advice. But when we get older and we've done our job, remember there's more passion and there are more things to do in the world that will keep you current and will keep you excited about life.

And knowing that, you know, you have a part in this world until you pass. Goldie, thank you so much for your contribution to our children and now to a greater population. Everybody should check out mindup.org or mindupforlife.org to learn more about the program, become a member, and bring it into your community, your schools. It's really a gift you've given the world, Goldie. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much, Mark. Thank you. Yeah.

It just makes my heart really warm. And it's exciting to me to get to this podcast with you because I had such a crush on you when I was nine years old. Anyway, I think I'm blushing. But anyway, thank you so much for being on the podcast. For those of you listening and are moved by this, share with your friends and family. Tell them about what Goldie's doing. Leave a comment about maybe some of the challenges you've had with your family, your kids, and how maybe some of these programs have helped. We have them. And subscribe for every day of your podcast. And we'll see you all next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy.

Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do. And introducing you to all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks.

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