The Liz Moody Podcast - Stanford Neuroscientist: THIS Is The Secret To Living Longer (It's Not Diet Or Exercise)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The world's longest study, which took place over 80 years and came out of Harvard, found that the single most important thing for our health and happiness is having good relationships. I quote this study all the time. It is a hugely important finding. And I have always wondered, why? Why does having relationships have such an incredibly powerful impact and not only our brains, but our physical health, our immune systems, our likelihood of having a heart attack, our ability to fight. off cancer. This episode, finally, finally answered why. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Ben Ryan, an award-winning neuroscientist and lecturer at Stanford and the author of the phenomenal

Starting point is 00:00:40 new book Why Brains Need Friends. We are talking about why hanging out with your friends floods your brain with a chemical cocktail that is basically a microdose of MDMA. By being married beats chemotherapy as the number one predictor of surviving cancer. Why Botox and Tylenol and Advil are making it harder to make it. friends, yes, really, and why we should all probably get dogs and get our parents to get dogs if we want them to live a long time. This conversation is so fascinating. You're going to come away with so many tidbits you're going to want to share with people in your life like, did you know this? Did you know this? But also just a fully new understanding of your brain and a ton of

Starting point is 00:01:19 action steps to not only live longer and be healthier, but also just to feel better every single day. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing. And we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. Ben Ryan, welcome to the podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you. Okay, so the reason that I wanted to have you here today is because I feel like we talk all the time about the health impacts of loneliness. I quote on this podcast far too often the Harvard School of Adult Development Study, which is like the number. number one thing. The impacts our health and our happiness in the long term is the strength

Starting point is 00:02:00 and quality of our relationships. Like my audience is sick of it. But your book is the first thing that I have ever read that explained why this is happening. Like what is happening to our brains that is having this impact? So in the simplest words, can you explain why relationships are impacting our brain health and our physical health and our bodies? I think of it as like a two-sided coin that on one side of the coin, you have connection is really good for you. On the other side, of the coin, isolation is really bad for you. Let's start on the positive side of the coin. For me, it all comes back to like our evolutionary origins that we are a social species. We exist and survive really well in groups. We hunt well in groups. We have incredible capacities like empathy.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Like you can look in someone's eyes and kind of understand what they're thinking. That's incredible. Makes us really good at working together. So since we survive so well in groups, historically, we've been incentivized to stick together. And so our brains have systems that basically make us feel good when we're around each other and drive things like dopamine that says reinforcement, come back and do this more. And then on the other side of the coin, we have this kind of alarm system that goes off when we're isolated that says, warning, warning, you're at risk, get back to your group. And so that triggers a stress response that's really unhealthy for you.

Starting point is 00:03:17 By being around others, we can kind of like tickle the brain and make it feel good that we're safe. And then by not being with others, we're initiating this like alarm protocol that actually undermines our health. And then that neurochemical cascade that's making us feel safe, that's making us want to be around other people is also having these systemic bodily effects. And I didn't understand that until I read your book. Like, for instance, they found in a study that being around other people having strong relationships had the same impact as chemotherapy on cancer. cancer, how could that be happening? Yeah. Actually, in multiple forms of cancer, this study found that the number one predictor of survival,

Starting point is 00:03:57 you would think that that would be chemotherapy. It's actually being married. Chemotherapy is number two. Of course, it's partly because being married, you're more likely to get chemotherapy because your partner is kind of encouraging you and supporting you. But there's also just this other, like, health benefit that you mentioned. So oxytocin, the love hormone, as we know, it makes us want to be connected with others. the more oxytocin that's flowing in your system when you're with someone, generally, the more you like them,

Starting point is 00:04:23 and the more you want to be around them again. It's like that warm, fuzzy feeling we're getting around our friends. Yeah, and honestly, part of that is because oxytocin is driving dopamine and serotonin. And so dopamine is your body saying, this is good, right? Evolutionarily, being around someone that you love that you can form a partnership with is good for you. And then you also have serotonin. So this combination of like, you just feel amazing. That's love.

Starting point is 00:04:45 But it's driven by oxytocin. and that's what makes us feel so connected around people. But then aside from that, oxytocin has all of these other incredible benefits through the body. So it's been shown to be anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective. It can support bone growth. There's oxytocin receptors on our bones. Wound healing, there's studies showing that in both humans

Starting point is 00:05:07 and more mechanistically in mice, that if you have a cut and you have more oxytocin flowing, the cut heals faster. Oxytocin can also kind of blunt social stress and anxiety. So, like, for instance, there's a study where they had people do a presentation and they gave them oxytocin before or they didn't. And the people who got oxytocin afterwards felt they did better than the people who didn't get oxytocin. So, like, after this, if we really connect, perhaps, and I get, and I have a lot of oxytocin, I might come out here being like, I crushed that interview, right? So there's so much that it does for us in our bodies.

Starting point is 00:05:39 Wait, would a life hack there be in job interviews make eye contact so that you release oxytocin and the interviewer releases oxytocin? or at a date, so then they, like, feel really good afterwards. And they're like, oh, that was a good date. That was a good job interview. Yeah, I mean, I think eye contact is one of the things that you can do, but also just like, vibing. Viving. Yeah, having a good connection. There's a lot of kind of like. Oxytocin hacks. Yeah, well, likeability hacks. I was going to say, you know, there's a whole chapter in the book about likeability. And we're going to get into some likeability hacks later for sure. But the oxytocin thing is so fascinating because it provided a mechanism by which all of these positive things are happening in our bodies when we're around other people. All I've heard before is like, well, it decreases stress. And so when your stress is lower, you're going to be less inflamed.

Starting point is 00:06:22 And then that's going to have all these positive impacts. And we're going to talk about that too because that is part of the equation. But this oxytocin mechanism is like, oh my gosh, it unlocks so many things for me. I like to think of connection as a pool. And so like I can literally picture like a pool where there's a deep end and then there's a shallow end and then like the steps to get in. And you can swim at any depth. You know, you can jump in the deep end and like go out with your best friends and hang out with them for a few hours and have like a really robust connection in the deep end. In the shallow end,

Starting point is 00:06:51 you can like have lunch with a coworker or like talk to the cashier at the grocery store or in just the steps. You can dip your toe in and like wave to your neighbor as you're walking by. At all of these levels, there are benefits. And I literally think of this pool as being like filled with oxytocin. And so when you go in the deep end, you're getting this like tremendous systemic benefits that might, you know, suppress inflammation and, you know, have all these great benefits on your health. But even if you just dip your toes in and you wave hello to your neighbor, you're still sending a meaningful signal to your brain when your neighbor waves back that your brain says, that person has my back. I feel safe. You get a little bit of oxytocin.

Starting point is 00:07:32 Just like a micro-dose. Yeah, splash. What's important for people to think about is it's okay to swim at any depth. And it's good, probably, to have a variety of kind of, kind of of depths that you're swimming at. You can pay attention to this too, or you can get to the end of a week and be like, where did I swim this week? You know, did I actually spend any time in the deep end? Did I even dip my toes in? Or was I at home working remotely all week? And you can find what's comfortable for you that a couple dips in the shallow end don't really do it for you. You need a dip in the deep end every once in a while. And the benefits, you know, systemically, you kind of correspond with the level that you're diving in. And also, teaser, we're going to get into later how digital

Starting point is 00:08:12 interaction impacts our oxytocin because it's a quite different interaction. But on the flip side, stress is also a mechanism. Cortisol is a mechanism. I realized reading your book, I completely misunderstood how cortisol works in our bodies. I feel like we always talk about like, oh, my cortisol's too high. It's bad. But correct me if I'm wrong about this. You were like, our bodies release cortisol, and that's actually anti-inflammatory and helps with stress. But then if we release too much, our receptors become unreceptive to it, essentially, and then they can't get those anti-inflammatory and stress effects. So cortisol is actually like a good thing. And then us numbing our ability to respond to it is what's bad. Yeah, pretty much. So cortisol is the body's signal that like something's wrong,

Starting point is 00:08:57 right? Some threat has presented itself. And if you think about this in a very like evolutionary sense, right, saber tooth, tiger jumps out. And your body's like, whoa, threat detected. In that moment, it's fight or flight. You need to be ready to fight or to escape. So cortisol, one of the things that it does is it suppresses inflammation because inflammation is not helpful at all in that moment. And you're running from the tiger. In a short-term stressful situation, cortisol is really helpful. But when we remain stressed for an extended period and our cortisol levels remain elevated, then eventually your body is like, all right, enough's enough. We can't be like suppressing inflammation, fight or flight mode all the time.

Starting point is 00:09:36 And so there's this kind of like compensatory effect where the body like just goes back to its like natural levels and kind of starts ignoring the cortisol because it's just not sustainable. So what happens is when cortisol is usually suppressing inflammation, but then the body kind of starts ignoring it, then one of the body's main anti-inflammatory systems is now like out of order.

Starting point is 00:09:57 Over time, you get this buildup of inflammation that normally would have been kind of suppressed, but it just continues growing. And then as that inflammation kind of grows and takes over throughout the body, it becomes like a health burden. So acute cortisol is like a good thing. It's something that helps with our anti-inflammatory mechanisms in our body. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And it like sustained cortisol is the problem. So we're like, oh my God, my cortisol is too high? We should be like, good. Is it momentary or is it a longer term thing? Yeah. I don't want to say that like everything about cortisol is good, right? Like you don't always want it. But it's funny.

Starting point is 00:10:29 There's a lot of systems like this in the body. My PhD lab did this study where they found that this was in rats. They induced stress. When the rats were stressed for like a short period, like one day, they found that the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is this really like analytical, important decision-making brain area actually became like better. It like kind of adjusts biologically to make you smarter, essentially. It's kind of dumb down version.

Starting point is 00:10:54 It's like this is a high pressure situation we got to perform. Yeah. And so what actually happens is these NMDA receptors, which are really involved in like, cognition, you get more of them. Like they kind of get like inserted into cells to like potentially enhance cognition. And actually I'm pretty sure they showed that the the rats became like better at like solving mazes and stuff. But then when the stress went on for like seven days, 14 days, the opposite happened where then the body was like, all right, all these NMDA receptors, they're super expensive to run. So we need to pull these in and then the opposite

Starting point is 00:11:24 thing happened where then the rats became worse at the cognitive tests. That's interesting. And so it's like your body is really built to respond to threats, but then it's just not sustainable over the long term, which is why it's important to regulate your stress, you know, without letting it become a chronic issue. Is that cortisol mechanism that we just talked about? Is that the main reason why being lonely or being isolated would have these negative downstream impacts on our health? It seems so.

Starting point is 00:11:52 Yeah, I would say so because it just, it affects all these different systems. So when you have this inflammation buildup, you're at increased risk for like atheros sclerosis and heart disease and then stroke. And if you have this inflammation build up and you have a stroke, then your ability to recover might be impaired and can lead to dementia. And it's definitely an oversimplification to point at inflammation and act like it's the only thing going on. But it's definitely seems to be a big part of the puzzle. You also said, and I thought this was so interesting, that when we hang out with our friends, our brains release a neurochemical cocktail that's pretty similar to MDMA. Talk to me about that.

Starting point is 00:12:28 Yeah, so that's this oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin trifecta. And so I think of it like dominoes. You have this first big domino that falls. That's oxytocin. So you're connecting with someone. Oxytocin is released. And by the way, oxytocin isn't just released peripherally in the body, but also it functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain in a very, like, distinct way.

Starting point is 00:12:49 And so when you have this oxytocin in the brain, there's research from mice showing that the oxytocin then stimulates dopamine release and serotonin release. And so those are like the other two dominoes that like the oxytocin falls and it tips over those dominoes. And when you have this combination, it's incredibly powerful. And the only drug that has been shown to activate the same brain system is MDMA or ecstasy. What that says to me is one, there's an explanation for why it feels good to hang out with your friends. And number two, it suggests how important it has been for our survival evolutionarily that the brain wrapped social interactions in this like intense, euphoric neurochemical pathway.

Starting point is 00:13:30 They, like, made it into a drug for us. Yeah, this is an oversimplification, but it's like you're microdosing MDMA when you're hanging out with your friends and, you know, when you're laughing, you're having a good time. Like, it's good for you and it makes you feel good. It also makes me think about all the research that's being done into psychedelics right now in terms of their therapeutic potential. And I'm like, so are we getting some of those like neuroplasticity benefits that they're

Starting point is 00:13:51 pointing to with MDMA with psilocybin, et cetera, from hanging out with our friends. At such an interesting point, there's a bunch of different types of psychedelics, and they all kind of do different things. But like the classic ones, like psilocybin or mushrooms and like LSD and DMT, they all act on primarily on this one serotonin receptor, serotonin 2A. And then downstream of that, it drives neuroplasticity. So it's possible that social connection, if it drives serotonin release, which there does seem to be a lot of evidence for that, could be driving neuroplasticity. But I wonder what the net effect of that is. It's like, is there any benefit to there being neuroplasticity tied into your connections? Maybe it's helpful to be able to kind of adapt to changing social environments, but it maybe seems

Starting point is 00:14:38 like more of just a kind of byproduct than like an intentional thing. I went through like a heavy drug use phase in my 20s and I had some negative experiences that I feel like now that they're therapeutic, I can't use them because I'm afraid of them. So I'm always looking for like hacks to get the benefits without having to do the drug. So I'm like, is there some way I can hang out with my friends where I can get the benefits of MDMA without having to do MDMA? Yeah, I literally just gave a talk yesterday where I actually reframed it this way where I said, imagine that I was coming up on stage here to say, I'm a neuroscientist for the last decade. I've been leading research.

Starting point is 00:15:11 And as a result of this research, we discovered this new drug. And this drug, if you take it every day, will reduce your likelihood of dying in the next 10 years by 50%. It will reduce your risk of depression, anxiety, suicide, but not just that, dementia, stroke, heart disease. It's free. You don't take it every day just when you want it. Every single person in the world would want that drug. That drug sadly doesn't exist, but there is no drug. It's social interaction. That is the actual reality of connection, that it has all these tremendous benefits. It is free and accessible. and yet it maybe feels disappointing that it's not a drug, that it's not something you can just pop in and then forget about it. It's like you have to do this active process. And I think it's a

Starting point is 00:15:56 really important question of why aren't we? Yeah, that was my next question. Like, if we're hardwired to get all of these benefits, why is it so hard for me to hype myself up to hang out with my friends? Yeah. There's a bunch of these like social miscalculations that we make where we tend to basically underestimate and undervalue interaction. And anybody who's ever tried to make the decision of Friday night, do you go hang out with your friends or do you stay home and watch TV on the couch knows exactly what this feels like? It's like, I committed to these plans, but now that they're actually here, I don't really feel like doing it. It feels like it's going to be a lot of energy. So number one, we tend to think that interacting with people won't feel as good as it actually

Starting point is 00:16:39 does. We think we're worse at socializing than we really are. We think people like us. less than they really do. We think that conversations won't stay fun, right? That was one of them. We're like, this is a good conversation now, but I got to leave before it runs out of being good. Right. We think it's going to get worse as it goes on when that's not true. It remains the same.

Starting point is 00:16:58 There's all of these things that predispose us to not interacting. And the only guess I have is that our reputations are so critical for our survival that it would be prudent and wise of us to always be second-guessing where we stay. and socially and be anxious about, oh, that person's, you know, going to reject me. Maybe they don't like me. It actually makes us more, maybe respectful or maybe like we try harder to like be nice to people when we think that we're on bad footing. Yeah, that tracks for me.

Starting point is 00:17:30 I'm like, why do I not want to go out when I don't want to go out? And it's because I don't want to say the wrong thing. How do we get over the hump of like, this is important? It matters, which is why it feels hard, but also it's so good for me and I'll feel better if I do it. It's a really tough question. I think the answer is different for everyone, truthfully. I think it starts by recognizing those feelings are totally natural. Everyone has some level of social anxiety. It's just baked into our brains. And that's because, again, if you're judged by your group and kicked out of the group, you would die type of thing?

Starting point is 00:18:00 Probably. That's the evolutionary explanation. That makes the most sense to me. Okay. And I think that is probably part of the barrier. When we ask this question, we all have heard that it's important to socialize for your health. So why aren't we? Well, it's difficult. It can be uncomfortable. And the other thing is that people like what they're good at. This is a basic psychological phenomenon. Like, the career you choose is probably the class that you got the highest score in in high school or college, right? Like, we just want to do things that make us feel good and being bad at something feels bad.

Starting point is 00:18:30 In this one study, they asked a group of people to rate how they compare to their peers on a bunch of different things. Like, how good are you at, like, cleaning the house or, like, finding music you like. And everyone was like, I'm amazing at everything. They're very confident. The only thing in the list that they rated themselves as below average was socializing. But they all did that. Right. So they can't all be below average.

Starting point is 00:18:51 Exactly. Exactly. So we underestimate our skills. Like I said, people like what they're good at. They don't like what they're bad at. When we think we're worse at socializing than we really are and we think the outcomes are going to be worse than they really are, the incentive to go do it is limited by recognizing when Friday night rolls around and you're choosing between home or the party, acknowledging

Starting point is 00:19:11 that the party is probably better than it seems, and then noticing afterward, okay, actually I do feel pretty good. Unless you kind of overdo it or stay too long, we can get into that, you're probably going to feel better after the interaction than you did before. I've heard a lot of people who've read my book

Starting point is 00:19:26 have told me, like, it just changed their perspective, and they start paying attention to how interacting makes them feel, and they're noticing for the first time in their life that they actually feel really good afterwards. I think about, like, working out, for instance. Like, if no one had ever,

Starting point is 00:19:41 heard that going to the gym and lifting weights or cardio is good for you, would you feel that good afterward? You get out of a workout and you're like, man, I feel good. Like, that was good for me. Like, I can feel the effects. I feel like that's kind of where we're at with socializing is it's right up there with exercise for the health benefits. But we don't do it for our health. And if we did and we started paying attention to it, then we might notice afterwards that, oh my gosh, I actually do feel pretty good right now. Trying to set aside the anxieties, which I know is like, like, kind of like gaslighting. I'm afraid of flying and my mom's always like, have you ever tried not being anxious on the plane?

Starting point is 00:20:18 And I'm like, yeah. So I try that? Yeah. Doesn't work. Yeah. Are there any neuroscience hacks in the moment that can help us overcome social anxiety? Like, can we, I don't know, like look into our pets eyes to release oxytocin or is there some sort of little hack there that can make it feel more fun or easier?

Starting point is 00:20:36 One thing that can make you feel easier is there's this eye contact hack that if you look at someone's mouth, they don't know. that you're not looking at their eyes. And so if eye contact is uncomfortable for you, then you can just stare at their mouth. People don't notice. You have to be at a certain distance. Like this distance probably,

Starting point is 00:20:50 like, can you tell I'm looking at your mouth right now? No. Yeah. Like, you can probably tell if I'm looking up and down. But we do this all the time anyways, because when you're trying to sound out what someone's saying, you're looking at their mouth. So if you're uncomfortable with eye contact,

Starting point is 00:21:01 and that's a big barrier for you, you can at least try that. But as far as erasing the anxiety... Just like remind yourself of the reward. That's like kind of the best we've got. Yeah, I think so. And just as gas-lady as it sounds, just try to remember that you are psychologically inclined to be more anxious than is necessary. And that probably the person likes you more than you think they do. That research is really helpful for me, that people tend to like us much more than we think they will like us. I tell myself that, like, I'll be at a party and I'll be like, they like, they like you more than you think they do, Liz. Because it bears out in quite a bit of research. Yeah, definitely. There's a huge amount of science on that, for sure.

Starting point is 00:21:40 Are the brains of introverts any different than the brains of extroverts? There are some studies on this. I haven't found them particularly clear, unfortunately. It's like all these different brain areas are like a little bit different and nothing that you can clearly point at. One thing that does make a lot of sense to me is that there's genetic evidence that certain variations of like dopamine-related genes are predictive of introversion or extroversion. And it makes sense that if dopamine is this brain signal that, that tells you this is good and pleasant and you should do it more. And extroverts are more prone

Starting point is 00:22:16 to having dopamine release when they're socializing and introverts are less likely to have that dopamine release than that could underlie the differences. There's definitely brain differences for sure, but nothing that's like an obvious explanation. Do introverts and extroverts get the same amount of reward from social interaction? This is where it gets really interesting. So I like to think about interaction, like, kind of like a drug, and there's a dose that's right for everybody. And for introverts, the dose is much lower. And introverts are more likely to basically overdose. Or extroverts require a much higher dose and a more frequent dose. And so if you, for instance, take an introvert and an extrovert and you bring them to a party and at one hour in,

Starting point is 00:22:59 you pull them aside and you say, who wants to go home, the introvert will probably be like, I feel perfect. I think I'm ready to go. Like, this was the right dose. The extroverts, like, We're just getting started, right? And they stay for three or four more hours and then they eventually tire out. If you have an introvert and an extrovert go on a vacation together, for example, and they spend like a whole week together. And then by the end of that week and you ask them, how do you feel? The introvert is going to be like, I'm, I've completely overdosed.

Starting point is 00:23:25 I feel terrible. Take me out of here. I want solitude. We're the extroverts. Like, we're just getting started. We're best friends now. This is great. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:33 Exactly. So the analogy that I really like to use is like a potted plant. that introverts are like plants that don't need to be watered very often, where extroverts are like plants, you got to water all the time. And you can overwater a plant pretty easily. Extroverts are pretty difficult to overwater. Introverts are very easy to overwater. And so I think it's important for everyone to try to figure out where do they stand

Starting point is 00:23:55 on this spectrum from introversion to extroversion. There's actually an assessment in the book. It's also free on my website so people can download it. But it's really interesting because you may be surprised I do talks and I'll have the audience do the assessment. And it's like always just this uproar after because people are really surprised at where they stand. Like it's a little bit different than you'd think. What are you? I'm pretty high up. I'm an extrovert for sure. I'm like pretty close to like maximum extrovert. I'm interested to take it because I self-identify as an introvert, but everybody

Starting point is 00:24:27 tells me that's not true. Yeah. Well, the surprising thing, honestly, is that it's not just about how much do you enjoy socializing and how often do you like to and all that. It's also about assertiveness. And confidence. It's in here if you want to open it up. Like the questions. Give us a few. Yeah. Here's one that's obvious.

Starting point is 00:24:42 I make friends easily. Like, yes or no. I take charge. I have a strong personality. I can talk others into doing things. I am the first to act. So a lot of these questions are about... Okay, I might be an extrovert.

Starting point is 00:24:56 Yeah, right. Exactly. It's a lot about... Why are we so confused about what introverts and extroverts are then? Like, I don't think most people would identify those questions as this is an introvert. This is an extrovert. Yeah. I think that the general understanding people have is that extroverts really like to interact and

Starting point is 00:25:10 introverts don't. But if you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. A lot of the questions, like I said, are about social confidence. Being socially confident makes sense that you would feel more comfortable and that you'd naturally want to interact more. People like what they're good at, right? Yeah. You can't be confident and courageous unless you think you're good enough to, like, display your personality.

Starting point is 00:25:31 I just thought it was because I was raised by a New Yorker. I grew up in Arizona and people would be like, wow, she really has a lot of strong opinions over there. And I just thought it's like my New Yorker mom coming through. Well, and your upbringing definitely shapes a lot of who you are and your personality and your social habits. That's interesting. You also note, though, that acting more extroverted, even if you are not actually boosts your mood. So should introverts be acting more extroverted? Yeah, that's just kind of what I mean by the dose, in my opinion. Socializing is acting extroverted. When introverts go to a party and they like put on the face

Starting point is 00:26:04 and hang out and have conversations, like you're acting extroverted. So even if you're like, this is draining me, like you're getting those benefits? Or no? No. Because once it tips to draining,

Starting point is 00:26:15 you're not getting the benefits anymore. Yeah, I mean, basically if the research is correct, then what should happen for introverts is that they should notice when they socialize for a little bit, they feel pretty good,

Starting point is 00:26:26 and then they reach an upper limit where it stops feeling good. And that's the point where it's actually good to get out of there and go hang out at home. I think one thing that's really important to note about this whole conversation of like connection is that

Starting point is 00:26:37 connection is is good for everyone but too much of it isn't good for some people and has like disproportionate benefits for other people for extroverts like a recent study came out looking at um superagers these people who are in their 80s but are like as healthy and cognitively active as people in their 60s what they found is that these people were all like very social like the common threat among super ages is that they're all extroverts and they all the very social lives And so this kind of triggers this question of does that mean that everybody should go see their friends seven days a week if they want to live to 150? I don't think so. I think that in order to have that benefit, you have to be an extrovert because the plant needs to want to be watered.

Starting point is 00:27:20 If you're overwatering your plant every day, you can kill a plant by overwatering it. My opinion, based on the data I've seen, is that everyone should try to figure out what is the proper cadence for me. because a super extrovert can probably extend their life and live healthier by socializing all the time. They can also probably cause a lot of negative effects on themselves by not meeting their brains need. So it's like the stakes are higher for those people. The thing I'm worried about though, like my dad who listens to this podcast will say all of the time that he would be like happy to go live in a cabin in the woods and never talk to another human again for the rest of his life. And I'm like, dad, that is not true. Like there's so much research that shows that you need other.

Starting point is 00:28:00 people, even if you don't feel like you do. So I guess I'm worried about people using the introvert thing as like an excuse for why they shouldn't have any social interaction at all. I agree. And the reason I really like this plant, this potted plant analogy, is because every potted plant needs to be watered, even if it's infrequently. Introverts are much more likely than extroverts to go an extended period without watering the plant and think everything's fine. Meanwhile, the soil is dried out. And that's not necessarily healthy. Yeah, that's interesting. So my dad can't go just like live in a cabin in the woods. I haven't met your dad. I mean, they're, it is interesting though. Like, I think a lot of us worry about our parents and our parents feel very isolated. A lot of my friend's parents, I worry about my

Starting point is 00:28:42 parents. And a lot of them are like, no, it's fine. I'm fine with this situation. Even if they feel like they're fine, they are likely not is what you're saying. Let's talk about parents and grandparents for a moment. Because if you look at data on how much time we spend with other people, and you graph that over the course of the lifespan, it looks like this. And by the time you're in your 60s, 70s, 80s, you're spending way more time alone than you ever have before, which, you know, you retire, you stop seeing your coworkers, friends pass you, whatever. And what concerns me about that is that one of the strongest risk factors for like every disease out there is being old, right? You're just naturally more vulnerable. One of the other strongest risk factors for like every disease out there is being isolated.

Starting point is 00:29:24 And so in Western culture, we have the, we're superimposing these two risk factors. The people who are the most isolated are the people who are the oldest. And so they're at super high risk. And so if you look at the effect of isolation on mortality, just how likely you are to die, it's the highest in older people. It's like above 65 if you're isolated, you're 78% more likely to die by any cause if you're a man, 57% more likely if you're a woman. And so I really encourage people to visit your parents,

Starting point is 00:29:54 visit your grandparents, get them a dog, get them a cat, maybe. It's really something that we, like, need to be addressing. And I keep seeing more and more of these in-home dementia and, like, older person care kind of things. I love these programs that, like, pair a college student with an older person and the college student comes over once a month and they have coffee or something. Like, we need so much more of that. I really, really do. Not just because it's probably good for young people to learn from the older generations, but also because the older people's brains really, really need it. I don't know if this is a neuroscience hack. But if they say they don't want it, what do we do?

Starting point is 00:30:26 Other than make an entire podcast that we hope our dad listens to. Is that the whole purpose of this? This is all that I invited to here today. Give them people they like, I think, and people they trust, especially in dementia. There's a lot of paranoia. It's very easy to fear new people. And my grandma actually recently passed and she had dementia, but she was such a sweet woman, super, super paranoid.

Starting point is 00:30:49 I once took her to the museum locally, the Museum of Science. and she was like, this is incredible. Like the kids were playing. And she's like, I forgot how much I love children and watching them play. This is awesome. We should do this more. And then like a week later, I was like, hey, Bubby, do you want to go to the museum again? She's like, no, I did not like that.

Starting point is 00:31:05 Like, she became like very paranoid that I had tricked her. Like, or like maybe some, like she thought someone broke into her house while we were gone. And I had coordinated it or something. And so it can be very difficult to socialize people who are older and with dementia. but if you can place them in an interaction that they're comfortable and happy and they actually like the person, I mean, I can't think of a better way to satisfy that need. Here's something that most people don't know about beef sticks. Nearly every single one on the market, including a lot of the ones that seem healthy,

Starting point is 00:31:39 are made with conventionally raised beef and preserved with something called encapsulated citric acid or ECA. And ECA has been linked in case studies to inflammation symptoms like brain fog, energy, joint discomfort, and gut issues. Which explains why so many people feel kind of gross after eating them and just assume that beef sticks aren't for them, despite beef sticks being a great source of protein and one of the best savory on-the-go snacks. Paleo Valley beef sticks are completely different and the difference starts at the source.

Starting point is 00:32:08 They use 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef from small-scale regenerative American farms, not factory farms. Grass-fed beef has an improved omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. it has higher levels of vitamins A and E. It has conjugated linoleic acid and the super antioxidant glutathione. And instead of chemical preservatives, they are naturally fermented using these same processes like a kimchi or a sauerkraut, which means a long shelf life and gut-friendly, more bioavailable nutrients, no added nitrates or nitrites with zero grams of sugar.

Starting point is 00:32:42 I have loved Paleo Valley for years. They create some of my favorite energy bars and protein powders too. just put an incredible amount of thought and care into all of their sourcing. Their superfood bar is actually one of the very few that my personal RD approved in terms of the sugar, the fat, and the fiber ratio. It's really, really hard to find bars that aren't too high in sugar or that have fiber or don't have other weird ingredients. And these ones pass mustard. The red velvet and then the apple cinnamon are my favorite flavors. Also the dark chocolate. Honestly, they're all really good. But the red velvets, like I haven't had anything like that before. I really love it. They have a

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Starting point is 00:35:33 It is the brand that I keep coming back to when I want a moment in my home that actually feels luxurious and relaxing and not just like part of a routine. My two favorite Ocea products are the Undaria algae body oil and the undaria algae body butter. They are both incredibly hydrating, but even more than that, they have the yummiest smell that I have ever smelled. I cannot overstate how good this smell is. I give these out as gifts because everybody is obsessed with how good they smell. It's grapefruit, lime, cypress, mango, and mandarin. And it smells like a five-star hotel on a Greek island. I've not actually been to a five-star hotel in a Greek island.

Starting point is 00:36:11 But this is exactly what I would picture their spa would smell like. It's like warm and summery and sexy and it's not cloying at all. And I am so sensitive to sense. And it's made with 100% natural essential oils as fragrance, which is really hard to find. And it does not give me headaches like a lot of fragrances do. The secret to the body oil is to apply it while your skin is still really wet from the shower. I actually keep my bottle in the shower. So then I turn the shower off and I apply the oil and then I kind of like wait to dry a little bit.

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Starting point is 00:37:39 Having pets and dogs specifically is really, really, really good for us. It's kind of unbelievable. It's so good for us that there's an entire chapter in my book about you should have a dog. Do you have a dog? I have a dog. Her name is Zoe. She's so sweet. Having a dog and interacting with your dog can lower your blood pressure, lower your risk of heart disease.

Starting point is 00:38:00 Interacting with your dog drives endorphin levels, drives up dopamine levels, drives down cortisol levels, drives up oxytocin levels. it's so good for us. And even there's studies showing that, like, for instance, even going for a walk with your dog versus alone, being with your dog has, like, more favorable indicators of, like, cardiac response that it can, like, maybe be better for you to walk with a dog than alone. For your heart. For your heart. Like, not just for, like, your brain or your mental health or anything.

Starting point is 00:38:31 Yeah. Let me just say the chapter is all about dogs. There is evidence on other animals, too. but there's the most evidence for dogs. But this study I'm about to talk about, they used all pets. It wasn't just dogs. What they did was they went into people's homes

Starting point is 00:38:46 and they presented them with some sort of like stressful situation. Like for instance, they had to put their hand in an ice bucket and hold it there for like 10 minutes or like doing mental calculations in front of an audience. And what they found, yeah, right, nightmare.

Starting point is 00:38:59 I'm like, that's worse than nice. Yeah. So what they found though was that this makes you stress. You start sweating. Your heart rate goes up, all these bad things you don't want. But if they had their pet in the room, cat, dog, fish, whatever, they didn't show as much of a stress response.

Starting point is 00:39:13 I think the key is like, yeah, having a partner, right, having someone there to support you. If having a pet nearby can buffer your stress response, then you think about like 80-year-old sitting at home, phone rings, it's really bad news, right? Heart rate spikes and what could maybe be a heart attack isn't a heart attack because they're dog or cat is nearby, literally buffering this like nervous system response. And so there's like literally study showing that the risk of like cardiovascular death is lower in people with dogs. And it's pretty incredible. Wow. Okay. And the mechanism by which pets are having this impact on our brains and bodies is basically the same as everything we talked about earlier in terms of like what people are doing to our cortisol and to our inflammation levels and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, I would presume so. Basically

Starting point is 00:40:05 interacting with the dog, the patterns of kind of what it does to your brain and body line up very closely with what happens when you interact with the person. Like it, the relationship between humans and dogs is basically driven by oxytocin, the same system that guides human relationships and parent relationships. There's actually a very strong theory that dogs have basically hijacked our like parent-child bonding systems to get into our social circles because evolutionarily existing together is good for us, for both of us. So over millennia, like 40,000 years, domestic dogs have been evolutionarily shaped to connect better with humans. And so they've actually taken on all these new traits that are

Starting point is 00:40:46 different from wolves, which is what dogs evolve from. Like, for example, they have a muscle in their eyes that allows them to raise their inner eyebrow, which is like puppy dog eyes. Yeah, and wolves don't have this. Because they were like, this releases more oxytocin and human. I mean, evolutionarily, they were like that. They weren't consciously thinking that. Yeah, I mean, probably what happened is it's some way along a wolf was born or a dog was born with this muscle and humans loved it. They were like, this dog is so cute. We want this one. And then that one was bred. There's some evolutionary selection pressure. The selection pressure is this like term for what makes certain types of a species continue to exist.

Starting point is 00:41:25 Some of it was like just being around humans made dogs survive. A lot of it was we were the selection pressure. Like we saw those dogs with the cute eyes and were like, that one. is the one I want to be in my house with me. There's real life, modern validations of that. In dog shelters, they measured how often the dogs used the muscle, and there was like a strong correlation between the more they use the muscle, the faster they were adopted. But then there's other things too.

Starting point is 00:41:49 When dogs look into their owner's eyes or the caregiver's eyes, the dog and the human both show a rise in oxytocin. And remember I mentioned oxytocin is like this social glue. And so you feel connected with your dog. you want to be around your dog. They also have other things like their eyes water and makes them cuter, and that seems to be driven by oxytocin. But that doesn't happen in wolves.

Starting point is 00:42:10 When wolves look into the eyes of their caregiver, even like domesticated wolves, they don't show that oxytocin response. And so that's what gives lens to this theory that dogs basically like looped themselves into the parent-child bonding mechanism of like just being around your child, drives up your oxytocin, social glue. You want to be near your child. evolution has successfully driven you to be near and protect your child. And so your child's going to

Starting point is 00:42:36 survive. This makes so much sense to me because our cat died like a year and a half ago. And it was mine and my husband's cat of 15 years. She's here on the wall reading my book. Our grief was so immense. And we really felt like she had hijacked like this part of our brain. And I'm not in any way. I want to be so clear comparing this to like the loss of a child. But we were bold over by the strength of our grief. And so it's really interesting. It crept into that part of my brain a little bit, you know? Although I know that you hate cats. Not true. So, okay, this research, though, it's largely been done on dogs. Is that because dog owners are just like, we will love our dogs. We want to do the research and it hasn't been done on cats? Or is it because it can't be

Starting point is 00:43:19 replicated with cats? Phenomenal question. My understanding is that there's the most research in dogs because it's like the most justified because evolutionarily, there's like reason for us to live together. There's like systems to explore, whereas cats haven't been really like integral to our survival historically. I feel like they've been integral to our survival. Yeah. I mean, I'm speaking on behalf of an entire field that I don't know. You're like, I'm speaking on behalf of the scientific community and you're speaking on behalf of the cat ladies. Yeah, I mean, I like cats a lot. In fact, I wish I had a cat, but my dog would never allow it. But growing up, I do cats. One was warm, fuzzy, cuddly, like my best friend growing up.

Starting point is 00:44:01 The other cat, I like almost never touched the cat because every time I approached her, she just like sprinted away her entire life. If you think about the purpose of connection and the meaning of connection, like, did my body ever release any oxytocin when my cat, honey, sprinted away from me? Like probably not. Right. And so the way I conceptualize this is a lot of people have toxic relationships with humans because human relationships are complicated, you know, fights happen, disputes. it's very difficult to have a toxic relationship with the dog. Dogs are just always there, always chilling, always just want to be pet, have fun. Dogs have this sort of like unconditional love where cats don't really have that same vibe.

Starting point is 00:44:45 Like Mikey, my one cat, gave me unconditional love, although he did prefer me when I was giving him treats. Honey, the other cat that ran away, like, there was no such thing. So I think maybe part of the problem too is that cats have, inconsistent personalities, which... They're variable rewards, which should make them more addictive. Yeah. Theoretically, yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah, if they do offer rewards at all.

Starting point is 00:45:14 Has neuroscience research ever been done on like why people are cat people versus dog people? Not that I'm aware of. I like dogs. I'm not opposed to dogs, but I am a cat person. Like, I will choose to get a cat every single time I like that they're floppy. I like the way they cuddle. I just like the way they interact. And I don't know why that is, whereas I have friends.

Starting point is 00:45:31 And they like cats good enough. Yeah, great, but they're really dog people. And I wonder what's up in our brains. Yeah, did you have a cat growing up? I did, but we also had a dog. Did you have a better relationship with the cat than the dog? Maybe a little bit. Yeah, I mean, the way I think about the brain is, and biology in general, it's like everything is a spectrum.

Starting point is 00:45:50 Like we talked about the introversion to extroversion continuum, right? Like, we all exist somewhere on that. And it's like, how muscular are you? Like, we all exist somewhere on that. how much do you like cats? How much do you like dogs? We all exist somewhere on that. And the like cumulative sum of all of our preferences and like abilities and all this, it just comes down to like our genes and our environment, nature and nurture collectively shape who we are. I doubt that's been studied. Yeah. I feel like I'm not sure who would fund that research,

Starting point is 00:46:21 but the dog people of the world. Yeah. Okay. Going back to we have convinced ourselves to go out and socialize in the right. dose for our introversion to extroversion scale. When we are out, are there types of conversations that are more rewarding for our brains? Well, I would say enjoyable interactions. I mean, I wouldn't say types of conversations. There is evidence that when you share more in conversation, that people tend to feel better afterwards, which is kind of interesting. I always operate personally as an open book. Like, you could ask me anything on this podcast, and I would answer it because it's just comfortable for me. But overall, I mean, I think that like, just whatever feels meaningful, whatever feels right, interaction partners definitely matter a lot.

Starting point is 00:47:05 Like, of course, you have the person who you, like, never get along with and you always get an argument when you're with them. That is not a person who is going to, like, nurture your brain and provide these benefits, you know? Like, it may even have the opposite effect. If it's driving up cortisol, you know, then it's not helping. But there's, there is evidence that certain relationships have, like, the most strong benefits for our brains and bodies. And those relationships are our, like, romantic partner and, like, the parent-child relationship. There's evidence that those partners drive greater oxytocin release. They're actually more likely to have interbrain synchrony where their brains sync up while they're interacting, which maybe helps us, like, collaborate and work together.

Starting point is 00:47:49 I found that so fascinating. So essentially, there are these circumstances where we're essentially syncing up our brains, like reading each other's minds. What is going on there and how does that happen? Yeah, it's a really, really fascinating topic. It's kind of a, like, mysterious thing. There's two ideas here. One idea is, if we're doing the same thing, then our brain activity is naturally going to look similar. And so maybe it's like, oh, you know, it looks like they're synchronizing, but they're not actually synchronizing. That's probably not it, because there's studies showing, like, mice, which can be more easily experimented and tested and stuff. If you have, like,

Starting point is 00:48:25 two mice interacting, they will show synchrony. And if they're doing a lot of, specific task, right? They'll show this synchrony. But then if you have like these two mice, like mouse one and two, and then in a different trial, you have mouse three and four, and these two also show synchrony. But then you compare like mouse one and mouse four. So they weren't interacting directly, but they were doing the same task. So they should show synchrony. They don't. So it's like something about being together and like reading each other's social cues seems to actually drive synchronies. I said that was the first option. The second is that something is happening that leads our brains into this unison, and that seems to be the truth. And it's also, it's not just

Starting point is 00:49:03 our brains. There's also like physiological synchrony. Like maybe you've heard of these studies where like people like breathe in unison when they're like listening to stories, like their heartbeat synchronizes with the people listening. It has a lot to do with empathy. I think that reading someone else's emotions and their thoughts, there's a ton of evidence on this, that it kind of leads us into that same emotion that's called emotional empathy. So when someone's hurt, for instance, and you feel that like, ooh, that pain, or they're smiling and you feel good, that's emotional empathy. And so synchrony is a really big part of just how we connect. Our brains, like our language, our body language, our facial expressions. It's been shown that our facial expressions imitate other

Starting point is 00:49:47 people. So when they're smiling, your muscles that cause you to smile, they start to activate too because it helps you understand what they're feeling. It's sort of, this fundamental but very quiet piece of how we're connecting the synchrony. And all of that suggests some very surprising dangers of Botox. So can you talk about that? Yeah. When we're interacting with someone, we all the time are mimicking their facial expressions in both directions.

Starting point is 00:50:12 If they're smiling, we might start to smile just a little bit. If they're frowning, we might start to furrow our brow. It just kind of happens automatically. Like people don't even notice it. The reason it happens is because it helps you understand what they're thinking. If they're frowning, and then suddenly your face starts to frown, the information from your face goes back to your brain and your brain says, oh, I'm frowning, I must be sad. And then you're like, okay, they're sad.

Starting point is 00:50:34 And through these intricate networks in your brain, it helps you figure out what they're feeling. So Botox, it paralyzes the muscles in the face. And so if you're not as easily able to imitate someone's facial expressions, then it's actually been shown that people with Botox kind of struggle to pick up on emotional cues, that they can't as easily identify what someone's feeling. So it's not just that they can't show how they are feeling. It's that they can't identify what other people are feeling too because we need to make those spaces in microways ourselves for our brain to have the message of that emotion or feeling. Yeah, exactly. They can't imitate it as easily. And by the way, you might be listening to this and

Starting point is 00:51:11 being like, I don't smile. When I see someone smile, like that's not happening. It's really subtle. Like the way this has been shown is they actually put electrodes on these muscles. And so the person may not be like perceptibly smiling, but the muscles are activating. And so Botox, I mean, it's literally paralyzing the muscles. And so it's, it's just suppressing that ability to activate those muscles. So what would be the downstream consequences of that? Like in the last 30 years, millions of people have started getting Botox that did not previously because it wasn't, it didn't exist. So what's going to happen societally? It would blunt the ability to understand what people are feeling. Wait, is this the reason why we're also divided and we hate each other now?

Starting point is 00:51:51 It's actually Botox. No, I mean, it's probably like a tiny, tiny, tiny little fraction of it. You know what makes me think of is when we're interacting on a text, right? And someone says something and you misjudge the emotion. And then you're like, they're mad at me? What did I do? You know, and that person's not mad at you. It's just that they didn't have the emotional, the social cues that would normally tell

Starting point is 00:52:14 them that it wasn't, they weren't mad. It's kind of like that, right? Like you're just kind of more likely to misread, misjudge someone. one, go down the wrong path and misunderstand them, and then whatever the consequence may be, generally miscommunication is not good. You know, it's going to lead you into an uncomfortable interaction or it's a barrier to connection. Which leads me to one of the most millennial hot tips in your book. Are you a millennial? I think so. Okay. Yeah, I don't. You, you tell people that if we add emojis to our texts, they will be understood better. Yeah. Here's how I think about

Starting point is 00:52:49 digital interaction in general. I see like a staircase in my mind where at the top we're in person interacting. One step down is video. You could still see them. You could still hear them. You're not together though. Step down audio, phone call. Step down text message. And as you progress down this staircase, you are gradually taking away social cues. So even when we go from in person to video, the reason it doesn't feel the same is because we're losing eye contact, we're losing body language, we're losing social touch, we're losing social smells, and that texture makes it feel different. What if we could restore some of that texture by adding emojis,

Starting point is 00:53:35 by adding facial expressions to our texts? There's evidence, this is speculative, but there's evidence that when people look at emoji faces, the brain response is very similar to what happens when they look at a real human face making the same expression. So the idea here is if you send a text message and you're like, that sounds great. Someone might read it, be like, but does it really sound great? But if you say, that sounds great, big smiley face emoji.

Starting point is 00:54:02 It's like, oh, okay, like, you know, they're on board. I think it can lead to less of the misunderstanding and less of the miscommunication. I don't know if it can substantially make our interactions more rewarding, but it can make it easier to communicate. Do you know Gen Z has eschewed emojis in favor of memes these days? Okay. That's fine, too. Which feels like it'd be even better because you're like, yeah. I mean, sometimes it's like Spungebub, but sometimes it's like a person making, like a real person making a face to express a feeling. Yeah, I mean, I do that a lot. I'm a big meme girl. Yeah. Because I'm so Gen Z. Right. Of course. Maybe I am Genzy. I might not know. How old are you? 30.

Starting point is 00:54:37 Oh, you're cusp. Yeah. I think I'm millennial. I think you're millennial, but barely. Yeah. Yeah. 95. Since emotions are contagious, how bad is it to hang out with that friend who's just like really negative about everything all the time? Great question. Because our bodies imitate these expressions and vocal tone, it is very, very common to just soak

Starting point is 00:55:01 up someone's emotions and you start feeling bad. I do think that like if you're spending time with someone who's miserable or angry or whatever, like their emotions are going to rub off on you. just like, you know, we all have that friend who's always so energetic and, like, amazing to be around and you feel better afterwards. I do think it's something worth paying attention to. And maybe the answer is instead of not spending time with that person, acknowledging it and guarding yourself, because probably those people are the people who, like, really need the interaction the most. Emotional contagion is, like, a very real neuroscientific phenomenon. Hang out with them right after you get Botox.

Starting point is 00:55:40 Yeah, to blunt you. Yeah, or you know. But then they're probably not getting what they need from you. And that would be sad. It's a complicated equation. Yeah. As a neuroscientist, do you think that we should try to be friends with people of different political beliefs or values than us?

Starting point is 00:55:56 I think that the world would be a better place and people would be healthier and happier if people who had different opinions could get along better. Absolutely. I get a little bit of hate for saying this that like, you know, people on opposing sides that the political aisle should hang out and be friends. But if you think about it, in the United States right now, we are tensely politically divided. What does it do to your brain when you feel that when you go out in public, roughly 50% of the population cannot be trusted and is the enemy?

Starting point is 00:56:28 It's really, really bad for you. We have so many brain systems devoted to soaking up the benefits of interaction. We have similarly many brain systems devoted to identifying the enemy. and, you know, hating them, right, and fearing them. And those emotions, that experience is not good for us. It's a threat response. You feel that you're, you can't trust your neighbors. I really, really hate that America has gotten to this point where you can meet someone

Starting point is 00:56:58 and you like them and things are going well. And then all of a sudden you figure out who they voted for and it's like, oh, I can't be friends with this person. Because what does that do to our society and our networks and our, you know, our social capital? on the other hand, what happens when you do overcome that barrier and you befriend someone who's very different is your brain realizes, oh, wait a minute, the people who I've been afraid of and not trusting are actually, they can be my allies. And I think that is a powerful kind of revelation

Starting point is 00:57:28 that can be really like therapeutic. I have friends who are completely different from me politically and in many other ways, you know, culturally and I love those people. They're amazing. There's so much research on in groups and out groups. And essentially our brains are always kind of trying to put people in the same group as us or a different group as us. And we like people who are in the same group as us. Even if they're fake groups, like the research is like, even if you're team yellow, team blue, if you're going to like team blue better. Right. So how do we trick our brain into wanting to make these connections with people that we perceive to be in different groups than us? We don't have to really trick anything. We just have to like think about it differently. I think what happens is when you identify someone as the other. It kind of just like casts a huge shadow over everything that makes them who they are. But the truth is, underneath that shadow are a lot of things that make them just like you. Instead of putting something like political identity at the very top, we can shuffle that down a bit and think about what else do they have that's like us. There's this concept of self-other overlap that I talk about a lot in the book because it

Starting point is 00:58:30 has a lot of influence over how we relate to people. So you picture yourself as one circle in a Venn diagram, another person as another circle. how much of the overlap is there. And if you take politics completely out of it and you think about, okay, well, this person lives in the same neighborhood as me or the same city as me, they like the same sports team as me, they probably listen to the same music as me. Oh, they have a dog. I see them walking their dog often.

Starting point is 00:58:53 You know, maybe they watch the same TV shows as me. Actually, we have a huge amount in common. We just vote differently. That's like one thing. And so if we can change the weights of each of these factors, then we can realize that these people are a lot more complex than we'd like to think, and they're closer to us than we really like to believe, honestly. Does our brain get the benefits of friendship from social media at all? I think in certain situations, yes. My perspective on social media and, like, digital interaction

Starting point is 00:59:25 is generally negative. I think that people will be happier if we didn't have the internet and social media and stuff. And there's a bunch of evidence that, like, when social media happened, people became more depressed and anxious. And when people stop using social media for period of time, they become less depressed and anxious. But I do think that the amazing thing about social media is it's a global networking tool. Like, you can connect with anybody anywhere in the world. That's special. Also, I do think that there are certain circumstances where it can be really valuable. Like, I think there are people who the only interactions they feel really truly comfortable in are virtual interactions. And so that is incredible that a tool exists that can allow and

Starting point is 01:00:12 enable those interactions. So there's, same thing with AI and like AI tool, you know, friends and all those companions. I don't think we should have a pack of 10 AI avatar friends that we hang out with and no human friends and an AI partner. But I do think there are certain circumstances where having a life like, a human like AI companion can actually be really helpful. And for instance, there's evidence that female survivors of sexual assault when they're starting to reenter like the dating world. There's a lot of trauma around it. It can be really intense and uncomfortable going on a date. Having like a simulated date with an AI chat bot can actually really help ease those tensions. So this is what I mean by as years go on and we start to study AI more.

Starting point is 01:00:54 I think we'll settle into understanding that like here's a circumstance where it's really great. Here's a circumstance where social media or virtual interactions can really be helpful for people. but it will clarify our understanding of my prediction that generally, broadly speaking, it's not good. What about like, does watching our friend's Instagram story release any oxytocin or have any of those same chemical effects? That is something that I can almost guarantee has not been studied yet. The interesting thing about social media is that it's so many things at once. Like it's this big mosaic where, you know, you might see your friend's story and it's them at the carnival. and you're like, wow, I'm happy for them.

Starting point is 01:01:33 You know, that makes me feel good. And then right after that, it's like, you know, drone footage of a bomb detonating, you know, and like people dying. And it's like, whoa, that's horrible. I can't believe I just saw that. And then it's like a cat, you know. And it's just such a wild ride. Like this turbulent roller coaster for the brain.

Starting point is 01:01:49 I don't know what the net effect of that. I mean, for anybody, neuroscientists, anyone, psychologist, to point and be like, this is the net effect. You know, this is how it impacts our brains would be wrong. Because it's like you're taking the entire world and compacting it into a screen. and just experiencing it in this very passive, strange way, the studies are clear that it's not good for us. Are there moments where it is good for us?

Starting point is 01:02:13 Probably. Probably those moments of seeing your friend's story are those moments. I mean, I know that there's a bunch of social media platforms that are kind of popping up that are kind of like that where it's like, let's just take the friend part and just focus on that so that this is actually pleasant, but like they don't take off because they're not as entertaining, addictive, yeah, like those dopamine hits, et cetera. Well, that's the other thing I wanted to ask about is I've noticed an increase of you hang out with people in real life, but their dopamine is so messed up from their constant scrolling

Starting point is 01:02:46 that they cannot sit there and pay attention and they're not getting as much reward from in-person interactions or like reaching for their phone all the time, et cetera. So what do we do if we want to have these in-person interactions, but our attention span, like can't handle it. We're not getting the same reward from it anymore. For that person, like that specific archetype, I would say do a like two-week social media break. It's a habit, right? It's kind of an addiction.

Starting point is 01:03:09 Let your brain kind of reset. The other thing that I just want to point out, there are real studies showing that when someone is isolated, the same kind of thing happens where they don't experience as much joy and reward from socializing. So not only do they not feel as good when they socialize, but there's also studies literally showing that like they don't show as great of a rise in oxytocin. And so when you've been isolated for a while, which might be happening at the same time as you're scrolling your phone a lot, you might not feel quite as good in social settings. And you kind of have to like ease back into it. If you are having that feeling where you're like, wait, I went out to dinner with my friends and it wasn't as rewarding as I expected it to be. The answer might just be less phone and do it a little more. Like it's okay if it's hard at the beginning.

Starting point is 01:03:55 But that actually may be the solution. Because if you think about what happened after COVID, like, I remember when it was like, okay, kind of back to normal life. And I went back to work and I started seeing people again. And I felt so awkward and rusty. And it just my interactions, they were so clunky. And I didn't really feel that good after. And I didn't understand it at the time. And I thought, wow, I've just kind of fallen out of the practice of socializing.

Starting point is 01:04:19 But I think probably like these social reward systems in the brain were kind of like shut down for a while. and then they were kind of having to fire back up. And luckily, I feel normal again. But this might be happening on like a micro scale in people's lives all the time. You work five days a week from home. You don't see friends. Saturday night you go out and you're like, this is okay.

Starting point is 01:04:38 And then Sunday you see friends and you're like, oh, now I feel good. And then it kind of resets. And a big message that I try to send through my book is we just need to be paying attention to our social lives. There's so much value there and there's so much information. but we treat our social lives like leisure extension of our life that like if you want to you can hang out with friends on the weekends but it's you know you could also just stay at home but I think we should treat it the same way we treat something like sleep or exercise where you know if you get

Starting point is 01:05:07 a bad night of sleep or two bad nights it's like I got to make sure I go to bed early tonight you know to catch up or if you're you know if you're a person that trains a lot and you miss a couple days it's like got to get back in but socializing we just don't think that way and there's just so much at stake that I don't know if we can afford. afford to neglect it. Well, and this is related to the social media conversation. A lot of the brain health benefits of being social are because it is hard. It is not in spite of it being hard. It is because it is challenging for your brain and your brain is responding to that challenge on a neurochemical level. Of course, like when I'm out with my friends and I'm like,

Starting point is 01:05:43 do I have to say something funny or interesting or I could just like reach for my phone and that's easier? But it is good for me because it is hard. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's such an exercise for the brain, taking in all this information and trying to figure out what it all means. And I think that's one of the reasons why, by the way, it's good to be socializing as we age because you're putting it to use. You know, there's this phrase in neuroscience, use it or lose it. You know, your brain will naturally kind of shrink certain areas, especially as you age. If you're not using them, but if you're engaging these areas all the time, you know,

Starting point is 01:06:13 challenge is good. It's uncomfortable, but it's really, really good for you. This is genuinely one of the most innovative things that I have heard of in a little long time. So here's the deal. I hate getting my blood drawn. The appointments are hard to get. It's hard to know what to test for. I always end up waiting so long. So it eats up so much of my day. And then they like stick this needle in your arm and the whole thing is just miserable. It's terrible. I hate it. But knowing what is going on inside your body like your vitamin levels and what your hormones are doing is so important to be able to make the right decisions for your health, including preemptively treating

Starting point is 01:06:48 things that are coming down the line and identifying things that might not be making you feel as good as you could be feeling right now. Which is why I got so excited when I heard about rhythm. This is a home blood work test with zero pain. It feels genuinely too good to be true, but it is real. So I'm going to walk you through how this works because I was so nervous about it. They send you like a little envelope and in it there's something that looks kind of like a continuous glucose monitor if you've seen that, and you put that on your arm and you press a button and it takes the tiniest vial of blood. And I was like, there's this guy in the video and he's like, this doesn't hurt at all. And I was like, there is no way that this does not hurt, sir. But then I did it. You push the button.

Starting point is 01:07:32 And actually, it genuinely did not hurt literally at all. I was so nervous. You can ask my entire team. I was messaging them before. I was like, I'm not sure I want to do this. I don't want to try it. But it was so painless. It was so easy, breezy. And then, I got my data back and I found out that I've gotten my APOB down from 125 to 79, which is crazy because that is one of the top heart health markers that doctors on this podcast say to look at. And also it's a really hard one to get doctors to order tests for. It's one of the main reasons why I went on my weight loss journey in the first place. It's so, so important. And rhythm tests for it at home really, really easily. With rhythm, you can test every single month, easily, painlessly at home. So you can. actually see how the changes that you're making are impacting your body. So you can stop wasting money or time on things that are not helping. And they test, like I said, they test these things that are really hard to get doctors to give you, like the APOB, and it really clearly breaks down your results. Like this means this, and this is how you should interpret this, and this is what you should

Starting point is 01:08:37 actually do about this. It is a completely different relationship with your health. Rhythm is only $79 a month, which is a fraction of what traditional lab. testing costs. It ships right to your door and you can cancel any time. Right now, Rhythm is offering our listeners 15% off your first month and free shipping at rhythm.com.com slash Liz Moody. And that is Rhythm with 1H. So it's RY-T-H-M dot health slash Liz Moody for 15% off your first month and free shipping. Stop guessing, start testing. Rhythm.com.com slash Liz Moody. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like, if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life.

Starting point is 01:09:23 And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress.

Starting point is 01:09:44 And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things. because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than

Starting point is 01:10:14 five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep. And getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my

Starting point is 01:10:52 side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles. And we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains. CNN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers. And Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Birch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents. they even have a Birch kid's natural mattress. Birch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial.

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Starting point is 01:11:58 I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class is 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors.

Starting point is 01:12:23 There's script writing with Mindy Kaling. Literally, you name it, they're on masterclass and it is such a good way to get off your phone but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps you entertained and interested. And you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best, all for just $10 a month when billed annually. and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode like a podcast.

Starting point is 01:12:55 If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. What happens to our brains when we're falling in love? The neuroscience of love is so interesting. And it all really kind of loops back to oxytocin. This is why I think of oxytocin is

Starting point is 01:13:34 social glue, because there's evidence that when couples are falling in love, if you measure their blood oxytocin levels at the beginning of the relationship, you can predict which couple are still going to be together six months later just by looking at their oxytocin. Pretty wild. And it suggests that, again, oxytocin is social glue. When there's more glue, the pieces are going to stay together. And also, another thing that's important there is that oxytocin is a reflection of how much you enjoy a person.

Starting point is 01:14:04 You can tell at the beginning of a relationship, it's like, this is probably like not going to be my partner for life, you know, or this could be, you know, they say like, when you know, you know, right? It literally may reflect the amount of oxytocin your body is producing. And the more that you have, the more you're going to stick together. In the 90s, these two scientists, Dr. Bartels and Zeki, they put up this ad that said, are you truly madly in love? If so, come be in our study. And so they recruited these people who were in love, put them in the brain scanner and told them to think about their partner. And they compared those brain scans with other people who just thought about like a friend or like a platonic relationship.

Starting point is 01:14:42 And what they found was that thinking about their lover activated this certain group of brain areas and they looked into it, try to figure it out. Turns out those brain areas are all the areas that express oxytocin receptors. And so falling in love recruits this kind of network of brain centers that collectively probably make up this feeling of being in love.

Starting point is 01:15:06 But what's really, really interesting is they did another study later, where they did the same thing but for mothers and their children. And so they had mothers think about their kid or think about like one of their kids' friends. And they found overlap with the romantic love brain areas, but a few different brain areas. But also they were heavily involved with oxytocin. And so it's fascinating to think about that like same thing. If you put someone in a brain scanner and you ask them to think about someone and you look at like the activation of these areas,

Starting point is 01:15:34 you can probably predict like who is that person to them. Is it a child? Is it a romantic partner? Is it a friend? Is there any way to use neuroscience to make people fall in love with us? Falling in love is a big thing. Liking you can be done, sort of. Okay, tell me the tricks.

Starting point is 01:15:53 Yeah, so there's a bunch of factors that have been shown to influence how much someone likes us. One of them is eye contact, looking in someone's eyes builds respect. Another is touch. There's evidence that even like a moment of social touch can boost how much someone likes you. For instance, if a waiter or waitress touches the person they're serving, even for a moment, you know, here's your meal, okay, enjoy it, you know, which kind of seems weird. But like, if you do it right, they get much larger tips. Expressiveness.

Starting point is 01:16:21 So making big facial expressions, right, basically being easy to read drives like ability. And that makes sense because people like what they're good at. People like people interacting with people who are clear and honest and that they can trust. And so I think being expressive with your emotions is just makes everything. thing gel. As we touched on before, having things in common. So mimicking, this study showing that if people imitate each other's bodily positions, that it leads to more trust. So like, for instance, your hands like this, if I were to do this and we, you know, we're sitting like this for a few minutes. And then after you were asked how much did you like Ben, you'd probably rate me as more

Starting point is 01:16:59 likable because I was modeling your body language. Of course, smiling. If you smile a lot more, people will like you. There's this idea that people generalize emotions to like represent the person. So if you're smiling all the time, like, oh, they're a happy person and I like them. Whereas if you're like frowning a lot, like if you have a resting. Bitch face? Frown face. Oh, no. Then people will maybe assume that you're like unfriendly.

Starting point is 01:17:25 You also shared a study in your book that said when men sniffed emotional tears from women, they became less aggressive. I'm curious. Is this an argument for crying in fights? It's such an interesting study. Here's what they did. They had these men play this game. They had the ability to just, like, screw each other over.

Starting point is 01:17:44 It was a financial game. And throughout the game, you had the opportunity to, like, just take money from other people. Pure aggression. So they would keep getting money stolen from them. And then they were given the opportunity to retaliate. And what they found was that if they were sniffing emotional tears from women, they were much less likely to retaliate. They were less aggressive.

Starting point is 01:18:02 And they showed less activity in aggression-related brain areas. Now here's a thing to your question. Does it mean you should cry to get someone to back off? In this study, they took the emotional tears, put it on a like a cotton ball, and taped it right underneath their nose. I can cry right under my husband's nose. Yeah, open your nose. Or I'm like, should we like cry into shirts and then like when men go to war, send them in those? You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:18:30 Like how can we maximize this research? How can we use this? I want to see it replicated. It's like this one study. and they did do it twice, so like I trust it. But it makes a lot of sense because it's like if you're arguing with someone and you're yelling at them and you're pissed off and you're aggressive and they start crying, and empathy is one thing that should kind of stop you because they feel bad.

Starting point is 01:18:49 You start to feel bad. And it's like, well, let me back off. But it would also be nice to have like a secondary thing that's like you can smell how they're feeling and it helps suppress this aggression. It would be an argument, I guess, for fighting in person maybe. Like if you can. have an argument in person that might be more effective because you have more cues. I absolutely endorse that 100%. We've all experienced this, right? You're arguing with someone

Starting point is 01:19:14 over text and then it's like meeting up with them. It's going to be a big fight. And then you get in person, you're like, all right, like I'm so glad we could resolve this. It's like so passive, so calm. And it's because of empathy. It hurts to hurt other people. It's difficult. Social smells, tears specifically are probably one of the factors driving that. But there's probably other things too. I bet that sweat also plays a role. You know, there's probably some odors in the sweat of people who are distressed that maybe have kind of the same effect. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at all if that were the case. We've been talking a lot about the benefits of empathy, which brings me to some of the most interesting research in your book, which is that

Starting point is 01:19:51 taking Advil or Tylenol can make it harder for us to make friends. Why would that be? The researchers have found that if someone experiences social rejection, for instance, or like being neglected in a social group, it activates some of the same brain areas that are activated by physical pain, which makes kind of sense. If you've experienced social pain, it's like, it's really terrible. And by the way, like pain, there's two pieces of it. There's like the physical, like if I slice my hand open, my hand is like, ow, this hurts. And then there's this, this called the effective or emotional component of pain that is like bad, bad, bad. Like this is negative emotion surrounding this. And that's the part that seems to be activated by social pain.

Starting point is 01:20:32 So this is why, like, it hurts so bad to be rejected. It hurts so incredibly bad to go through a breakup. You know, it's like physically painful in many cases. Because it's literally activating the same parts of your brain as physical pain. Yeah. I think that's honestly so validating, though. Like, sometimes when we're going through a really hard thing emotionally, we're like, why does this hurt so bad?

Starting point is 01:20:51 And you're like, because it is activating that same part of your brain. So it's legitimately painful. So these researchers, Dr. Matt, Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberger, they said, what if we gave these people painkillers, acedaminophen? If we blunt the brain response to pain, do they experience less social pain? And they did. They had the people take these painkillers like every day for a couple of weeks. And then they asked them and they found that they reported less social pain during that experience or during that time. And then they put them in brain scanners, simulated an experience where they were socially

Starting point is 01:21:26 rejected and the people if they were on acedaminophen, they showed less of a brain response to this rejection. To answer your question of like why can this be negative for our interactions, it feels almost like it could be positive. When you see someone else in pain, the way that you empathize and you feel for them is kind of the same thing. It activates those same brain areas that are responsible for this like painful feeling. You take on their emotions because your brain like literally steps into the same type of pattern. So if you take acetaminifin, It does the same thing where it blunts that activity and it can prevent you from sharing someone else's pain.

Starting point is 01:22:04 So theoretically, if you were driving down the road and you saw someone hurt pulled over on the side, you're naturally, your brain response would be, oh my gosh, this person is hurt. I should maybe help them. But if you were taking acetaminophen, your brain's response would be blunted because you can't really embody their pain as well. And as a result, you'd probably be more likely to just keep on driving and say, gosh, sucks for them, but I don't care, you know. I don't want to give medical advice, but is there any argument for if you are going through

Starting point is 01:22:32 like intense grief or a hard breakup to take a painkiller? Definitely not medical advice, but I have heard of a lot of people doing that. And I've even heard of like doctors and nurses and medical professionals taking painkillers before they go to work because they see so much carnage and so much pain that it helps them kind of stay separate from it. Wow, that is so interesting. You also shared some really interesting side effects of SSRIs that I've never heard anybody talking about. So tell me what SSRIs are really doing to our brains.

Starting point is 01:23:08 Yeah, SSRIs, they're selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. What that means is that they basically boost serotonin signaling. So your brain cells are more likely to send each other serotonin and receive serotonin signals. So there's a lot of evidence, especially like emerging evidence, some of it being my own research showing that serotonin is really key for connection and just like interaction in general. In fact, my own research found, we studied this in mice and we found that MDMA, which is one of the strongest drivers of empathy, the way it drives empathy is by driving serotonin specifically in this brain area called the nucleus accumbens. And also studies have found that like if you just go in a mouse

Starting point is 01:23:49 and you stimulate that same pathway, serotonin in the nucleus accumbens, they all of a sudden they want to hang out with each other more, they empathize with each other more. SSRIs also amplify serotonin in the brain. So it would make sense that theoretically, maybe they make us more social. There's studies showing that when people are taking SSRIs, they become more extroverted. And you might think, well, they're not depressed anymore. Right, exactly. But the researchers controlled for that, and they found that there was not a correlation

Starting point is 01:24:15 between how strong the antidepressant effects were. So simply boosting serotonin maybe made them more interested in socializing, just like the mice. The other thing is that SSRIs seem to like shift our like moral judgments about social situations. So maybe you've heard of this like classic trolley problem where like you can, you have a trolley, it's coming on the track and it's going to hit five people. And if you, if you pull a lever, you can redirect the trolley and it'll only hit one person. Would you pull the lever, you're killing a person, but you're saving five lives? And most people say like as horrific as that is, I would do that. I would pull the lever.

Starting point is 01:24:53 But then there's like a more personalized version of this where it's like the trolley's coming and there's five people there. But then in between there's this really, really big person standing in front of you and you can push them into the tracks to save the five. And even though it's the same math, people are much less likely to do that because you have to physically push. I mean, a horrific idea to think about it. It's so much easier to pull a lever.

Starting point is 01:25:18 And basically, when people were taking SSRIs, it like further amplified that discussed at the thought of that. Like the idea of harming someone became even more disturbing and aversive. So people seem to become more extroverted and less likely to like hurt others or at least, you know, they feel more uncomfortable about it, which would align perfectly with this emerging evidence that like serotonin is very pro-social. And I think people are trying to figure out where SSRR. fit in societally. There's like research around well, how good is it for depression? Is this actually the mechanism by which we think depression is working, et cetera? There's tons of people getting tons of benefits. There's tons of people who are not getting benefits, et cetera. And it's interesting to propose an entirely new use case for them. Yeah. Realistically, down the road, there may be

Starting point is 01:26:11 drugs that are specifically for that, that are not necessarized, but they act on serotonin. So like MDMA, for instance, anyone who's ever taken MDMA will tell you that like you just, you feel so connected with everyone, like you love everyone. It's like the most intense and euphoric social experience ever. What MDMA does is it acts on both dopamine and serotonin. The dopamine piece is this like, it has been shown to be this like stimulant effect. And also people who have taken MDMA will tell you, I just wanted to sprint around and I'm grinding my teeth and, you know, like I'm sweating. My heart rate is up. That's because it's a stimulant.

Starting point is 01:26:46 DMA actually stands for 3-4 Methylene-Dioxy methamphetamine. So it's very similar to meth, has this dopamine effect. But then on the side, it also has this huge serotonin effect. And so the idea is like, what if we could just take out all of that dopamine stuff, remove the stimulant effects, and just have this like intensely pro-social, empathogenic? Wait, that sounds amazing. That sounds like my dream drug. Yeah, it's in trials. It may work.

Starting point is 01:27:12 It may not work. There may be use cases for it. And also, it may turn out that something about the dopamine alongside it is important. So it might not work for that reason. Whenever I talk about MDMA and how it boosts empathy, people are like, should we put it in the water? And if we had access to a drug that would make people more empathic and connected, where would it fit into society? And I think that's a really intriguing question, both like morally and culturally answer. But my first vote would be that political debates, both candidates have to take it.

Starting point is 01:27:43 I love that. Oh my gosh. Can you picture that? It would be amazing. There would be no disputes. We talked about this earlier, right? The opposing sides of the political aisle, they just are, their heels are so dug in. What if you could take that away and like actually go back to when people would like have legitimate debates? Yeah. And it's like, which side is better? And oh, I actually see your side. Here's my views on these policies. I respect your views, but I have different proposals. Like, I think my hot take is I think politics should be so boring. And I think us turning it in. into a sports match has been the most detrimental thing that we could have done societally. 100%.

Starting point is 01:28:18 But second best, I will take them doing MDMA and like being in a cuddle puddle at the political debates. That sounds great. The thought of like Joe Biden and Donald Trump on MDMA. You're so pretty. Yeah. I mean, but it really would be actually helpful, I think. Like it would actually advance progress.

Starting point is 01:28:34 It's kind of like dystopian, but also like exciting to think about where this could lead us. It's dystopian to imagine a world where we're so politically divided that we have to like, introduce a drug to bring everyone back together. But it's also like if we could do that and like people wanted it, you know, it probably would be a good thing. And again, I got to bring us back to the whole premise of your book is that friends and relationships release a similar chemical concoction in our brains to MDMA. And so like the closest thing we can get to that is having these social interactions, steeping our brain in this chemical concoction and then we can get a lot of the benefits. Right.

Starting point is 01:29:09 Which is incredible. On the flip side, alcohol, blood social. information processing, it makes us emotionally detached. Why has drinking become our go-to for nights out if it's actually inhibiting social connection? Because it makes it less uncomfortable. My view is that alcohol makes us worse at interacting, but more comfortable at interacting. And like, based on my experience is like that tracks. You know? Really? Have you ever been like the sober person around a bunch of drunk people? Rarely, but yes. It's like it tracks with what you said. Yeah. It's like you observe drunk people and you're like, why would they ever do that?

Starting point is 01:29:45 Like, that is absolutely bonkers that that person just said that. And I mean, this is exactly like what the science says, actually. So there's study showing that for every drink someone consumes, they show a 4% reduction in social anxiety, which doesn't sound like that much, but then you have five drinks and all of a sudden your mind is 20%. You're way less anxious. So you feel more comfortable, right? It's just like social lubricant.

Starting point is 01:30:09 But at the same time, being drunk basically. blunts these areas that like respond to social cues, especially negative social cues. So going back to that scenario, you watch someone drunk, you're like, why would they say that? It's because the person is not like responding to the emotions of the people around them. You know, you can just say something. One, they're, they're uninhibited. They're less anxious. So they just throw it out there. Under normal circumstances, when you're sober, you say something offensive. You apologize and you adjust your behavior, right? Because you can tell, oh, that was evasive. I can see it in their face that I hurt them, you know? But there's literally studies showing that people who are drunk, they just,

Starting point is 01:30:52 their brain doesn't respond quite the same to like negative social images, like negative facial expressions. It blunts the information processing. And that makes us worse interactors. It makes us, it makes us tone deaf, really, is what it does. But it also makes us just like, I don't care. You know what I'm saying, whatever. So how do you square that circle of like, people are like, yeah, I feel more comfortable. I feel like I can be myself when I'm drunk. I can say what I want to say, but it's kind of making our interactions worse in this felt neuroscientific way. How should we approach drinking? Probably like there's a middle ground. You have two drinks. Minus 8% social anxiety, right? This is like so technical, but you're still aware, right? You're not, you're not losing

Starting point is 01:31:31 that ability to kind of judge and censor yourself. I think the most damage happens when we're like really drunk, and especially if the person around us is not very drunk. There's also a question of how do we compare the upside of how drinking allows us to connect with the downside of drinking period, like the toxicity of alcohol and the emerging research of links to cancer and dementia and things. How do you think about that? That's a really tough one. I think it's so interesting that like culturally as a species, humans have decided that on our free, time or Friday and Saturday nights that we're going to gather in bars and dinners and in large part drink alcohol because it shows us that there is upside to connection, that we enjoy it, that we're

Starting point is 01:32:19 drawn to it. And it's hard and we're bad at it. It shows us literally both of those things. That's so interesting. Yeah, exactly. I think that's fascinating. And maybe alcohol is the only thing keeping us together. The big part of the cultural conversation right now is like a lot of people are saying we've optimized our way out of fun. We have all this information now about how bad drinking is for you. And so people are staying home and they're not drinking. And Scott Galloway is like, you need to go get drunk and have sex and make mistakes and we need to bring back partying culture. And I'm curious as somebody who's like, we need social connection and you're neuroscientist and you're very well aware of the impacts of alcohol on our brains. Like, how are you thinking about

Starting point is 01:32:59 that? I think if we compare the extremes, the detriment of isolation versus the debtor of alcohol consumption. My belief is that isolation is worse. And if the only way a person can connect is by drinking, I'll take that risk. But there's a middle ground. Ideally, no one is completely isolated. Ideally, no one is drinking huge amounts. But I think for young people, it is incredibly important to have social experience for so many reasons. But our culture is the way it is and people interact in the formats that they do. And I think everyone should try to find the interactions that like suits them and is comfortable for them. But I think that like at the end of the day, like living life and learning through uncomfortable experiences and and even

Starting point is 01:33:49 sometimes negative social interactions, if everyone took my book to heart and avoided every single negative interaction they could, I actually don't think that would be perfect, right? Sometimes you need conflict. Sometimes, like, those moments offer skill set development. You can learn to set boundaries. You can learn to have difficult conversations. And if you can successfully work through it, then you have this amazing euphoric experience of resolution. What if it wasn't alcohol? Like, what if it was, what if the drug that everyone had accepted was cocaine or something? You know, it's like, it may turn out that the reason that there are so many signs of, like, health decline is because of how, accepted alcohol has become, and we may have this major reckoning where we actually have to confront

Starting point is 01:34:33 this decision. I mean, it would be amazing if we found ways to socialize without alcohol, especially because if alcohol gets phased out and the only solution is it's more comfortable to socialize virtually. I think that's worse. Oh, so much worse. Yeah. So it's almost like, can we find ways to replace our social connection with things that don't involve alcohol? Can we go for a hike? Can we play sports together, can we play games together, can we find other ways to make it feel less scary and less hard? And in the meantime, or if we can't do that all the time, like a little bit of alcohol, you as a neuroscientist, you don't think it's so bad for your brain that if that's what you need to get the social connection, we should not drink. Yeah, I think so. I mean, and also if the only

Starting point is 01:35:18 reason we're drinking is because it blunts anxiety and it makes it easier to be around others, maybe there are other naturally occurring compounds that reduce anxiety and don't have the toxic effects. Of course, there are many things out there that do this. Some are benzodiazepines, like drugs, others maybe aschamaganda or supplements or things like that. Yeah, like maybe we'll find a new way through that is healthier and allows us to maintain those relationships. But you agree with the people who are like at least that part of it. Like we do need the social. It is so important.

Starting point is 01:35:51 Yeah, absolutely. And we cannot lose it. Yeah. Even if we maybe need to drink a little bit, not to lose it. I think if you had an alcohol scientist on the show, they would probably disagree with me. But from all the things I've seen, all the incredible amount of science that I've read, socializing is like right there at the top with one of the most important and critical pieces of health. Okay, I've got one last controversial question for you.

Starting point is 01:36:17 And then I have the two questions I ask everybody. There's a lot of conversation these days about working from home versus returning to the office. And there's some CEOs that are like, get your butt back in the office. And there's a lot of people are like, my life is made so much easier by being able to do my laundry while I'm at work. Child care situations are much easier, et cetera, et cetera. What impact is working from home having on our brains? There's a few pieces to this. One is that you're missing out on interaction.

Starting point is 01:36:44 There's so many things in life that we have replaced interactions with. screens, you know, like there's a self-checkout line at the grocery store. You can get a Waymo and there's no taxi driver, right? You can check into your hotel just using your phone and skip the concierge. There's so many of these things. Remote work is one of them. You can have the frictionless experience of getting out of your bed and sitting down and not having to go to work, not having to interact with your boss face to face. And I think that in that regard, it's not good because we're missing out on interaction. However, are those really interactions that are meaningful for you. Is everyone coming home from work being like, I had the best day hanging out with my coworkers.

Starting point is 01:37:22 Some people are. Some people aren't. The person at home might be your spouse, might be your roommates, some of your best friends. Hanging out with those people might be so much better. So there's the social tradeoff there or you might live alone. And then actually the coworkers are looking a lot better for your health. The other thing here is the effectiveness of working from home and virtual meetings specifically. And there's there's, some pretty interesting research showing that when people meet virtually, they're not as creative. I like to cite this a lot. People always are like, you're a big company. You're trying to get everyone back in the office. I'm, I'm kind of neutral on it. But I think there's very clear evidence

Starting point is 01:38:02 that when people are asked to, for instance, come up with creative uses for an object and they're either sitting here like we are or they're on Zoom, the people in person come up with a lot more ideas. The ideas are generally better. And it actually seems that the reason for that is because is there the people who are meeting online are restricting their attention to the screen where like in this room, for instance, there's lots of things to look at and you might think, oh, that book, okay, maybe it could be used as a bookend. You come up with all these different ideas. And the researchers found that the more people paid attention to their environment,

Starting point is 01:38:32 the more creative they were, the more ideas they came up with. So there might also be something about going to the workplace and changing environments. But personally, my thought is it should be a blend. I don't know if anyone's going to be happy jumping back to a tree. additional five-day in the office work week. And I think that's probably the most likely outcome as well, that we're going to see people continuing with, you know, one, two, or the lucky, we'll have three days at home per week. But I do think it's an important conversation to we had, like the benefits of being in an office. I'm not on the side of the corporate overlords.

Starting point is 01:39:06 And I miss desperately, like going to the office and having, I guess it'd be like the steps of the pool. Although I was like a water cooler conversation girly. So I was like, the deep end. Yeah, yeah. Lunch and my boss was like, maybe work today, Liz. And I was like, no, I'm okay. Thank you so much. But like, I miss that so much.

Starting point is 01:39:24 And I do think that there's an importance to it that even if it's inconvenient to acknowledge, we should be acknowledging. You're definitely an extrovert, by the way. I can't wait to know your score. I will take the test and I'll let you know. Yeah, yeah. The other big thing here, I mentioned the two psychological principles I think about all the time are number one, people like what they're good at.

Starting point is 01:39:44 The other thing is we want what we don't have. And so when we're working from home, it's so easy to say, my gosh, I miss driving to the office, you know? And then you get to, but then that happens. And it's like, oh, I can't believe I have to leave my cats home. And like, I miss everything about it. That's just an important lesson for people to think about all the time is satisfaction is so elusive. You're always chasing something and then you get it and then you want the next thing. And you just, you want what you don't have.

Starting point is 01:40:10 The grass is greener on the other side of the street. I tend to think about that all the time because I, I'm like, do I really want this or do I just not have it? And then it makes, it's actually very clarifying for like, what do I want to spend my time on? I had two other Stanford professors on the podcast and they said that the longing is how we know we're still like human and alive. And there's something really inherently beautiful about that. And I found that comforting. Yeah. All right. And then last question. We love to leave listeners with action steps. So if somebody's listening and they feel lonely, they want to start getting some of the benefits that we

Starting point is 01:40:41 talked about in this episode today. What's one thing they could do the second that they turned off this podcast to begin to feel a difference? I would say sit down with a sheet of paper and audit your social life. The things that I want someone to think about is how often have you socialized over the last three weeks? You know, like put it on your calendar and look at it and decide, does your plant feel watered? Have you reached your need? And if not, you can try to adjust your cadence based on what you're seeing. So if you feel underwatered, try to interact more. Whereas if you're feeling overwatered and kind of socially drained, then maybe you can slow down. The other concept I present in the book is social journaling, that you come home from an

Starting point is 01:41:27 interaction and you answer a bunch of questions. How long were you there? How many people were there? How busy was it? What time was it? Who were you with? What did you talk about? And just these prompts are meant to just get you thinking about what parts of your interactions are serving you in which parts are not. And are there certain settings that are uncomfortable? Like maybe you were at an elbow to elbow bar at midnight and you hated it because it was too packed. Or on the other hand, you were one-on-one with someone

Starting point is 01:41:53 and it was just a little bit too, like, awkward. You like having multiple people there. By really thinking and doing some introspection about our social diet is what I call it, our social life, we can start to recognize that there are pretty consistent patterns and we can shape our interactions to be a lot better. So if you want to do that social journaling exercise on my website, there's a template that you can download and you just fill it out.

Starting point is 01:42:14 The other thing that's on my website and in the book is the extraversion assessment. And that's also really helpful for when you're doing this kind of calendar exercise of trying to figure out the cadence, knowing what type of plant you are really, really helps. Okay. I have many thoughts. First of all, if you take the introversion to extroversion assessment, tag me and Ben so that we can see your results because I'm very curious where everybody falls. But I do think the noting how you feel is so important because we've talked a lot about

Starting point is 01:42:40 we're overcoming this fear of being judged, this fear of being kicked out of the group to socialize in the first place. It makes it really hard. We know our brain needs it. So anything we can do to make it easier isn't cheating. It's like so good for us. So notice when is it hard, when is it easy, and lean into when it is easy because we know we need it. So why not make it as easy as possible? Atomic habits, right?

Starting point is 01:43:02 James Cleary talks about making the habits that are good for you easy and the ones that are bad for you difficult. Yeah. And I think when we start to notice, oh, I really. really enjoy interacting when I'm with these people, when it's not too late. When we go to this bar I love, if you're not a bar at all. Or yeah, like do that more. Yeah. Or when you have dinner at the house and it's quiet or, you know, whatever that is, like build that into your life because that's also going to make it easier for you to overcome that feeling of I don't want to do this because you have all this evidence that you've already acknowledged that you do enjoy that process. I think that's

Starting point is 01:43:33 so, so smart. And I think the reason, one of the reasons that probably a lot of us are having a hard time socializing is because we are forcing ourselves to socialize in ways that are not as rewarding and do not feel as good. So we're not releasing the dopamine that motivates us to do it more in the future. Ben, tell us more about your wonderful book, Why Brains Need Friends, and also where people can find you if they want more info from you. Thank you for saying that. So it's called Why Brains Need Friends. It's in stores everywhere. You know, I hope that when people read it, they will have this kind of transformational experience of recognizing that there's something that's super good for them and makes them very happy hidden in plain sight that they're already engaging with, but just with some

Starting point is 01:44:10 tweaks, they can make it really work for them. On my website, there's all my academic papers. If anyone wants to read those, God bless you. But it's just my name, benrrine.com, b-en, r e-in-R-E-I-N.com. And that introvert, quiz, is that on your website as well? Yep, yeah. So can we link that in the show notes? Yeah, so it's ben-rine.com slash book where it has all the supplemental stuff for the book. Amazing. Thank you so much, Ben. Thank you so much for having me. That is all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening on Apple or watching on Spotify or YouTube.

Starting point is 01:44:38 You can subscribe or follow so our next episodes get sent directly to your feed. If you like this episode, leave a comment or better yet, send it to a friend, a coworker, or a parent, or somebody else that you think might love it. All right, I love you. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. You've probably seen Red Light everywhere lately, and honestly, I was very skeptical of it. Like, how can one thing help hair growth and skin and period cramps and thyroid health and energy? So I brought Dr. Vivian Chen, who is the founder of Loombox, onto the podcast,

Starting point is 01:45:27 and she finally explained the science in a way that made it all make sense. The short version, Red light targets your mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of your cells, so it literally gives your cells more energy to repair, regenerate, and function better. That's why you get these localized benefits like less knee pain or better skinner, calmer stomach, and more systemic energy. In fact, there are over a thousand studies showing benefits from quicker COVID recovery times to healthier thyroid function, to less depression and anxiety, to better joint pain, to skin health and hair health and scalp health and all of these things because the red lights work on the mitochondria in the different places that you put it and then it's also going to work on your body as a whole.

Starting point is 01:46:10 Dr. Vivian gifted me her red light and I dove into the research around it and then Zach and I both tried it for over six months and I loved it so much that I literally begged her to become a podcast partner so that I could get a discount code for you. I have been gifted so many red lights over the years. it is a perk of this job. And this is the only one that I feel like actually helps with those deeper issues. That's because it has something that is called higher radiance, which is essentially the dose, and a metric that a lot of red light companies do not even disclose. And also it uses red light, which helps with the surface stuff like your skin and stuff like that,

Starting point is 01:46:45 and near infrared light, which is going to penetrate deeper into your cells. You just put it over whatever area you want to target. So I'll put it over my lower belly to help with period cramps and it makes a huge difference. use it for headaches, so I'll, like, put it over my head and it makes them basically go away. It's amazing. Or I'll just sit with my loombox during a short meditation or breathwork for mitochondrial support and having it like on my skin on my face. I've gotten a lot of compliments on my skin health recently and I fully give Loombox a lot of credit

Starting point is 01:47:14 for that. Loombox is third party tested for radiance. Remember, that is the dose. That is the thing that most red light companies are not even testing for, much less disclosing, which is crazy. It's also third party tested for wavelength and it's FDA registered, which is so, so rare. I think of a lot of red lights is more like beauty gadgets and then this is more like a medical device that can also be used for all the beauty purposes too. Plus it's portable so you can

Starting point is 01:47:39 use it anywhere on your body and you can also like take it on vacation with you. Now is the perfect time to try loombox. You can use my link for 40% off. Just head to the loombox.com slash Liz. That is the loombox.com. Moombox.com slash Liz for 40% off. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first.

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The Liz Moody Podcast - Stanford Neuroscientist: THIS Is The Secret To Living Longer (It's Not Diet Or Exercise)

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