The Rich Roll Podcast - Kelly McGonigal Wants You To Fall In Love With Movement

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

We equate the new year with potential energy. It's an opportunity to re-evaluate one's trajectory. A permission grant to chart a new course of self-discovery. In truth, every moment presents a window for reinvention. But January always provides heightened urgency to inventory how we spend our precious time, focus our intention and deploy our energy. Extrapolating on themes explored with Chadd Wright, today we balance out the warrior alpha-male vibe with some feminine wisdom, courtesy of Kelly McGonigal, PhD. A health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University who specializes in understanding the mind-body connection, Kelly is a pioneer in the field of 'science-help,' translating insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and community connection. There’s a decent chance you caught her amazing 2013 TED Talk, How To Make Stress Your Friend. A viral hit with over 21 million views, Kelly makes the case that social connection is both a natural instinct and a source of resilience in times of stress. Or perhaps you’ve read one of her many amazing books, The Upside of Stress, The Willpower Instinct, or The Science of Compassion -- all of which are based on classes Kelly has previously taught at Stanford. Fresh off the press and the framework for today’s conversation is her latest work, The Joy of Movement. A love letter to physicality (motivated in part by the dance, yoga, and group exercise classes she has been teaching for two decades), it's an evidence-based primer on how movement can serve as an antidote to depression, anxiety, and loneliness -- the modern epidemics of our time. Although we touch a bit on willpower and stress (the subjects explored in her previous books), this conversation focuses on what exactly happens when we move our bodies. But movement isn't just about fitness. It's not about the treadmill or StairMaster. And it has nothing to do with weight loss or six-pack abs. Instead, movement is about something far more important. It's fundamental to being human. And a powerful path to that which we seek most -- happiness, hope, connection, and courage. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, today we discuss why movement need not be a chore, but rather a source of joy. A source of self-expression. A vehicle for cooperation and social connection. A tool for mastery. And for some, even an instrument for self-transcendence. Whether you're an experienced ultra marathon runner, a CrossFit enthusiast or a couch potato with a new year's resolution to finally get your heart rate up, Kelly is here to help deepen our collective understanding of how movement can create more meaning, pleasure, positivity and intimacy in our daily lives. You can watch it all go down on YouTube. Kelly is fantastic. And this conversation is a perfect way to embrace the new year enthusiastic about the body's potential to quite literally change everything about how we experience ourselves and our communities. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange as much as I enjoyed having it. Peace + Plants, Rich

Movement is how your brain knows you are alive and engaged in life. And when you move on a regular basis, your brain basically says, I guess we have to be the best version of ourselves because we're in this thing called life. And so I think this is how we should frame movement, that it's something you can choose to do to really powerfully influence your mental health and your resilience. And every time you move, you're doing that. I believe that there's a form of movement meant for everyone. And no matter what body you're in, or no matter what your past experience is, there's probably a way that moving your body will give you access to

something that you want, whether it's social connection or hope, a different sense of yourself. I think people shouldn't believe that there are these tricks to behavior change that are beyond what your intuition can lead you to if you are clear about what you care about and you're willing to experiment and not give up the first time it doesn't go as planned. That's Kelly McGonigal, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings to you. Greetings to January. Did I mention my name is Rich Roll? Did you hear you. Greetings to January.

Did I mention? My name is Rich Roll. Did you hear the news? It's 2020. I'm still your podcast host. Even though January is in full swing at this point, I'm recording this on, what day is it today? November 13th.

Why so early, you ask? Yeah, well, I'm banking episodes super far in advance so that I can take the entire month of December off, which is a much needed and long overdue break. My first, in fact, in the seven years since I started this podcast thing, which at this point has already concluded, obviously. Hopefully, it was good. Hopefully, I made it back better than I was before, a little bit renewed, hopefully perhaps transformed, fully gestated.

At least that's the idea. That's part of my New Year's, New You plan to bring a bit more balance in and self-care into my equation. I'll probably do a podcast soon on the hows and whys behind all of this, what I did and what I learned, the whole deal. Anyway, what I do like about the fresh start of a new year is

that it brings top of mind the notion, this notion that we can transform, that in any moment we have the ability to reinvent ourselves, to do better, to move more, to be more intentional and mindful about how we spend our time. It's what I talked about with Chad Wright the other day, and I thought it would be good to extend that theme, to extrapolate on that conversation by balancing out the Chad warrior alpha male vibe by injecting a little feminine energy in the form of a human called Kelly McGonigal, PhD. Kelly is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University who specializes in understanding the mind-body connection. As a pioneer in the field of science help, her mission is to transform insights from psychology and neuroscience

into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities. Because it has over 21 million views, there's a decent chance that you've seen her amazing TED Talk, How to Make Stress Your Friend, which basically makes the case

that social connection is both a natural instinct as well as a source of resilience in times of stress. Or perhaps you've read one of her many amazing books, all of which I should add are based on classes she has taught at Stanford. Among those titles are The Upside of Stress, The Willpower Instinct, and The Science of Compassion. Through the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism, she helped create Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training, which is a program that's now taught around the world that helps individuals strengthen their empathy, compassion, and self-compassion. In addition, Kelly has served as the psychology consultant for the New York Times Education Initiative and has appeared broadly in many mainstream media outlets,

including the Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper, and CNN's Vital Signs. Fresh off the press and the framework for today's conversation is her latest work. It's called The Joy of Movement. And it's this beautiful, educational, entertaining, but also very science-based love letter to movement as this antidote to our modern epidemic of depression, our epidemic of anxiety, and our epidemic of loneliness. Quick fun fact, Kelly's identical sister is the well-known game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, also a big TED Talk person. You might have heard her on Tim Ferriss' show a while back. Anyway, Kelly is fantastic, and she's coming up after we support the fine organizations

that support us and make the show possible. that support us and make the show possible. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

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To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so you're about to find out just how awesome Kelly is. Although we touch a bit on willpower and stress, these are the subjects that she explored in her previous books, this conversation is really focused on helping you kick off the new year on the right foot. It's about falling in love with yourself, with your body, with moving your body, not necessarily exercise or fitness as we narrowly define those ideas, but really movement. It's about community and it's about connection to ourselves, to others, and to nature.

So this is me having a delightful conversation with Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Well, it's interesting, before we even get into like your amazing work, first of all, I'm very excited that you're here. Thank you for coming. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. We're dealing with potential fires in the area.

So that induces a little bit of stress, which we can talk about. Good news, yes. I'm good at stress. But so far, I think we're in the area. So that induces a little bit of stress, which we can talk about. Good news. Yes. I'm good at stress. But so far, I think we're in the clear and I think we'll be all right for the next couple hours, but we're keeping a watch on it. Your relationship with your sister is super interesting. And when I think of the work that you do and the work that your sister does, it sort of feels like the Wojcicki sisters. Wait, you're going to have to tell me what that is.

So these three women who are all like super accomplished. I went to school at Stanford with Janet, and she's a doctor at UCSF who specializes in telomeres, like super accomplished. And the CEO of YouTube and the CEO of 23andMe are the other two. And they have this amazing mother, Esther. They went to Palo Alto High School. And she's become like a guru of education because like how did you raise these three incredible daughters? I get that question a lot too. So how do you feel that or how do you think about that?

I get that question a lot too. Yeah, so how do you feel that? Or how do you think about that? I always tell people, so I think the way you end up with daughters like me and my sister, the best thing they did is they encouraged us with anything we had any interest or aptitude at in often very unusual ways. So like my sister and I had very creative interests. And instead of just doing it in like a small way, they'd find a way to let us do it in a big way. So I remember my sister got really interested in this TV show when we were in middle school.

And it was just when Prodigy was coming out. You could connect to the internet. And somehow my parents encouraged her to develop a newsletter for the entire country based on the show Homefront. And so she was producing a newsletter and finding other fans on Prodigy and sending it out. And we were always doing that sort of thing. It was like, oh, you're interested in this? Well, don't just sit and watch the TV show. What's the craziest version that you could engage with this, even as a kid? So we were always doing these creative projects. And I often feel like even when our interests were not super consistent with my parents' values, because they were both teachers Like I was really interested in fashion design for a while. And I think that made my mom

like double roll her eyes, but she still let me take classes at a fashion design institute when I was in high school. So I think like that's because, you know, we could have probably turned out to be fairly successful at whatever we did, but we're both doing really weird things with our lives, like non-traditional paths. Yeah. It's almost like a homeschool technique where you look at what the person, the young person is interested in, and you just kind of leverage that or like put a lot of investment into trying to channel that interest into learning experiences that are a little bit more broader. Actually, that's like my mother's great gift as an educator. So she was a classroom educator. She taught everything from kindergarten to late middle school. And her secret, the reason parents loved her, is she would find out what kids were obsessed with or what their talents were and find ways to really bring it out of them, even students that other teachers thought were problem students.

And so I feel like we got 18 years of that. Yeah. We need more of that. Do you do that with your students? It's gotta be harder. You're lecturing, so it's different, right? My approach to teaching, because I do a lot of teaching and I do mentoring and non-academic kind of mentoring. I am always looking for the good in that person that you can tell they want it to be true of them, but maybe it's not fully developed yet, and to try to be a mirror for it. So if I see that seed, to make it the

first thing I provide feedback on so that they know that that is part of who they are and it's in them, and find ways to amplify that good. And I feel like that's sort of the same. Yeah. It's empowering. And the person must feel like, okay, they're being seen, right? And there's nothing more encouraging than having that sensation or that feeling. Very cool. All right, well, you've done all this amazing work in the fields of everything from compassion to willpower to stress, which we can talk about all of that. But I feel like you're now synergizing everything that

you've learned in those other fields and channeling it into this, this world of movement. It seems like an obvious next step. But how did, how did like your interest in exercise and movement come about? Yeah. It's actually the opposite of like the synthesis or the next step. This is who I really am. And I think all of the work that people know me for is sort of like the synthesis or the next step. This is who I really am. And I think all of the work that people know me for is sort of like, it's a, it's a part of who I am that I'm really interested in. It's like a class that I taught the science of willpower or the science of stress. But, um, I have been in love with movement and exercise since I was a little girl and I've been teaching group fitness for 20 years. So it's more little girl. And I've been teaching group fitness

for 20 years. So it's more like finally now that I've like solved some other problems for people, got that willpower under control. We're getting good at stress. Now I get to convince people to dance or run or swim or to really bring their whole body into the pursuit of happiness and connection. How come it wasn't the first book then? I don't think, well, so, okay. So my approach to publishing has always been, I wait for someone to ask me what book I should write next. So my first book was Yoga for Pain Relief. And it was because a publisher literally sent me a letter in the mail that said, we've seen the work you're doing on yoga at various conferences and research. Do you want to write a book about it? And I was like,

okay. And then I was teaching this class called the science of willpower that was getting a lot of notoriety because it was so popular. And then agents started saying, you should write a book about this. So I said, okay. And then I gave that Ted talk. You should write a book about that. Okay. And so this was the first book where I said, this is the book that I really want to write. Nobody was asking you. This is the book that I probably wanted to write my whole life. And finally now maybe having some sort of platform where people will be interested in finding out why exercise is so critical to mental health. Yeah.

Well, there's an expectation with any book of this ilk that it's going to be this step-by-step how-to. And you said or you've written that that was your expectation going into this, and then it became another thing altogether. So explain that a little bit. Yeah. I thought, well, it happened for two reasons. One is I thought I was going to write this sort of self-help book that was like, you think you don't like to move, you think you don't enjoy it. I believe that there's a form of movement meant for everyone. And no matter what body you're in, or no matter what your past experience is, there's probably a way that moving your body will give you access to something that you want, whether it's social connection or hope,

a different sense of yourself. And so I thought, well, I'll just write the book that helps people figure out what that is. And when I wrote the proposal, my editor really didn't like it. She's not really a self-help kind of person. So the one reason that it's not that is because she actually encouraged me, like, what's the big idea here? And for me, the equivalent of what's the big idea is really what's the feeling here? And so I feel like she gave me permission to think not just, you know, here's how to make your workout more meaningful and enjoyable, but to really think about like, what is the feeling that I have when I marvel about how the body is almost designed to help us find happiness and meaning through movement?

What's that feeling, that sense of wonder and awe, and what does it tell us about being human? And when I had permission to think in that way, I feel like it opened me up to a different type of story as well. And I feel like that was the other piece of how it turned out not to be necessarily a step-by-step self-help book is when I started talking to people about movement, one of the things I realized is when you talk to people who have found meaning in movement, that they become this version of themselves when they're telling you their story. That is this amazing mixture of both incredible vulnerability and strength. That somehow they both emerge and you can see like this full human and this tremendous glory and beauty.

And I felt like I need to do that justice. When people were telling me their stories and they were crying and I was crying, I was like, I don't think this is going to be some sort of cheesy self-help book that I needed to write a book that somehow honored the versions of themselves they were sharing with me when we were talking about how does rowing change your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it. Listen,, listen, you're speaking my language. You don't have to tell me. It's funny because when I read the book, I'm thinking, I'm not really the audience for this because I'm already sold. You're selling me a package of goods that I bought a long time ago, but I learned a lot about a lot of stuff that I didn't know about. And I think what you're uniquely qualified to do is take these ideas, which can very quickly, you know, descend into the world of woo-woo.

Like if I was going to write this book, it would be crazy woo-woo. But you can take this. Really? Oh, yeah. What's the woo-woo version? Well, I mean, first of all, thank you for quoting me in the book. I hope that was okay. It was a woo-woo-y quote.

First of all, thank you for quoting me in the book. I hope that was okay. It was a woo-woo-wee quote. I look at it as movement is part and parcel of what it means to be human. It's also a journey that we can embark upon that will kind of catalyze this trajectory towards wholeness, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, of course, physically. So you sound like one of the reverends that I talk to. That's almost exactly what she said about movement too. Yeah. And it's a beautiful thing. And I think it is important that every human being discover their version of movement that is compatible with who they are. But it's a very powerful kind of Archimedes lever for personal growth across the board. But to get back to my point,

you're able to, because of your pedigree, you can inject it with the science, the anthropology, the psychology, and all of these interesting anecdotes that come from, you know, a wide spectrum of different types of people from athletes themselves to the, you know, the researchers and, you know, diving into the research itself. Yes. That wasn't a question, but, you know, the researchers and, you know, diving into the research itself. Yes. Thank you. That wasn't the question, but, you know, and I think that makes it emotionally engaging for the reader and you're always changing gears. But yeah, it's about self-discovery as much as anything else. But it's also about, it's about community and cooperation and all these other

ideas that you kind of bring into it. I think that was the biggest surprise for me. Because if you look at the thread of my past work, I keep coming back to this idea that nothing is a do-it-yourself project. Every problem that I've tried to solve, I'm always pointing people in the direction of make it social, do it in community, get support, you know, let social connection be your primary response to stress. But somehow, even though I'd lived it, and I have experienced so much of a sense of community and belonging through movement and teaching movement, I somehow didn't think that was going to be the primary lens for this book. You know, I was thinking, oh, you know, endorphin rush and how it changes the brain. And I didn't understand how fully the joy of movement is the joy of connection and how fully integrated in our brains and our bodies the biology of movement is with the biology of social connection. That was a huge surprise for me.

And I was like, I was so happy that that emerged as a theme. Yeah. I was like, I was so happy that that emerged as a theme. Yeah. How do you square that with the kind of experience that, like, that's certainly true, but there's also that you talk about, like, I forget what you call it, like green exercise or green, green, where you're connecting with nature. Like a big part of, just speaking from my own experience, like a big part of this for me is time spent alone, like out in nature. And I actually don't do very much training with other people. Like I find that stressful. Sometimes I have to be at this certain place with these people and it's organized. And like, I just want to go out the door and like, it's my quiet time and it's my, you know, it's an active meditation.

I decompress, I breathe the air, I pay attention to my breath and things like that, that aren't really, you know, that don't really line up with the cooperation and kind of group participation aspect of it. So in that chapter, one of the things I wrote about that really intrigued me is this idea that to become great as a species, human beings needed to learn these social skills, cooperation, and thinking about other people. And we had this sort of default state that allows us to constantly be thinking about ourselves in relationship with other people. And that we also needed to develop these skills that allow us to be in nature and to connect with nature and to experience self-transcendence in nature that is so different internally from that version of us as humans that are always thinking about other people and how do

we get along and belong. And one of the things that I realized in talking to people who really find moving alone in nature, healing, therapeutic, inspiring, is that the sort of the relief from suffering that they need is more that aspect of being human. That is so much like what many people experience when they meditate or they go on solo treks and journeys. There's a version of being by yourself that is also at the same time connected to something bigger than yourself, but you're free from those social roles and all of that angst or that just the pressure, the busyness that comes from being a social creature. And I was so fascinated by that. And I talked to so many people who have that experience. And it's in contrast to me. I think like my essential nature is to be alone and

withdraw. And the thing that I need is something to pull me out of that like great comfort that I have just being in here and by myself and almost like I could be on retreat all the time. And so the thing that I need that's therapeutic is no, you need to be in a room with other people and you need to connect and you need to like really touch that aspect of your human nature. And so I think that, you know, people are probably with movement, it's always about finding the thing that's, that's your medicine and, you know, movement helps us access so many different parts of our human nature that are useful or that are meaningful. And nature is one of those. Yeah. I mean, I can relate to that. You're a self-avowed introvert. I certainly consider myself the same. And building on that, I'm also a long time in recovery and there's this very

alcoholic tendency to want to isolate. And I can mask that tendency with endurance sports. You know, when I know, like I probably should, I am better and happier and more fulfilled when I'm in groups of people. But I have to really compel myself to do that. But I can say, well, you know, I trail run by myself or whatever. But I do know that when I do participate in those group endeavors that it is, like, incredibly fulfilling. But I really have to marshal a lot of energy to do that. And thinking of, you know, your career, you're with students all the time, you're teaching all the time and you're teaching these group, these group classes. I would imagine that you would also, you know, the counterpoint to that would be that you would need some solace that

involves some kind of movement. Yeah. And I do, um, I do move on my own. I mean, there's a lot of things that I do that are, you know, just sort of my own personal practice. Teaching academic classes is very different energetically for me than teaching movement classes. I am, I get more energy from teaching movement classes, whereas I find giving talks or teaching academic classes definitely draining. I often feel like I've been run over by a bus. There's a sense of the energy flow is much more from me outward and really just working hard to try to create an experience of value for others. When I'm teaching like a dance class, I don't know, the music gives me so much energy and to see other people moving and to be, it feels more like I'm co-creating an experience.

So I definitely find that- Can't you bring that into the classroom somehow? Sometimes, but even, I mean, in so many different forms of teaching I do, you know, whether I'm leading like a meditation retreat or giving a lecture, there's no other form of teaching. And I think it's, again, it's just part of how I'm wired, that there's something about moving to music and using my body and not talking, right? Talking is a totally different form of being with a group than mirroring and sort of leading through the body that I find that the teaching, the movement is part of that kind of recovery. So when this goes up, it will be a brand spanking new year.

So the idea of New Year's resolutions and kind of creating a trajectory for New Year, new you is on everybody's minds. I am a fan. I know some people are very cynical. Yeah. I'm like, why not? It's the beginning of a new year. Well, let's like unpack that a little bit. Cause I think it also brings in the work that you've done in these other areas, right? Like people are thinking about willpower. Do I have the willpower to, you know, set this goal and actually follow through this time, even though I, you know,

the past five years I keep failing and, you know, perhaps somebody's, you know, resolution is to reduce the stress in their lives. Like how do we, how do we think about new year's resolutions in a healthy way and create a strategy that's actually effective rather than self-defeating, you know, two or three, three weeks in when we abandon hope. So I'm a big fan of doing some serious reflection, like not just picking a behavior like drink more water because you saw it somewhere as like a healthy habit. And I often will encourage people to ask themselves some set of questions like, if you were to project yourself to next New Year's Day a year from now, and you were going to look back and be really grateful that

you made one change, what can you imagine you could do in the next year that that future you is going to be so grateful? It's going to have improved your vitality, your health, your relationships, moved you forward in some way that is consistent with the vision you have for your life? Maybe that question. Or is there a kind of suffering in your life right now that you're just ready to be free from? And what might that look like? Or is there, for movement, I would particularly ask people, is there a type of joy that you are seeking in your life right now? Forget if you even think it's connected to movement, but something like social connection or hope or mastery, progress, adventure, playfulness,

creativity. Like, is there some kind of joy that you're missing that you just know if you had more of it in your life, that would be a great change? To ask that sort of question. And then when you have that kind of vision of what you want, then to get concrete and say, can I think of some choice or behavior that feels like it's really consistent with that, even if I'm not entirely sure what it's going to look like a year from now? But I think that the New Year's resolve, I often will choose a word for myself. That's how I want to approach the year or what I want more of in that year. But if you set that kind of framework, then it allows you to both experiment with behaviors like, is this getting me closer to that type of joy? Or is this actually reducing my suffering or just increasing the suffering?

And to change your approach as you go through the year while you keep going. Yeah, I mean, essentially what you're saying is getting clarity on what your why is, right? You talk about like the big why. Like what is the why behind this? Rather than the behavior that you're trying to modify, like what's behind that? Because how do you know what the behavior is if you don't know what your want is? And in the willpower instinct, I talk about it as want power. This is actually a strength many people need to develop, the ability to know what matters most to you. The roles, the relationships, the values. Yes roles the relationships the values yes what are your values and um if you're clear on that

it gets so much easier to figure out what behaviors to try to change and to pay attention to the actual consequences of whatever this thing is you're trying to control. I feel like way too often people think about self-control as like the key thing that they target on. Like, what do I feel out of control with that I'm going to force myself to control? But that's not always the thing that's going to have the biggest impact on your wellbeing. You know, you may have a bad habit in one area that's really not destroying your life in any meaningful way, but it's something that you're always judgmental about. And I feel like people often go in that direction. They're like, what can I control now as opposed to what I really care about? Yeah. And that's not a sustainable energy source, right? Ultimately, you're going to burn out. You can sustain the process of it as in you can sustain the process of self-blame and hate and

vowing to change. That's very sustainable. Then you'll start having an unhealthy amount of chronic stress, I would imagine. Yeah. But kind of flipping that to look through a different prism, like the aspirational prism of like the person you want to become. So if you take like weight loss, for example, big one, obviously, rather than thinking like, I got to lose weight, the why would be like, I want to feel good in my body, or I want to be healthy, or I want to look in the mirror and feel good about my appearance or whatever that, whatever, what is the value that's attached to that? And then I'm gathering what you're, what you're really saying is then identifying the behaviors that you can do, like the wills that you can implement that lead you in that direction,

as opposed to focusing on the, I will nots, like the things that you're going to avoid. Yeah. And also the things you can't control. Like, I mean, weight, we think it's something that you can choose, but you can't actually choose to wake up, in a month and weigh less or weigh more. It's a lot easier to choose things that will reliably give you more energy, improve your health and weight may or may not be a consequence of that. But I think a lot of it is defining the thing that actually you're pretty clear you can choose and get that consequence, whether it's having more energy, being healthier, um, feeling

better about yourself that you can actually work directly with that rather than setting these goals. If it were something with money, for example, rather than say, I want to have this amount of money in the bank, maybe what you want is a feeling of financial freedom or security. And that there are choices you can make every day that move you in that direction, even if you can't guarantee at the end of the year, I'm going to have this amount of money in my bank account or have reduced my debt this much. If you can't guarantee at the end of the year I'm going to have this amount of money in my bank account or have reduced my debt this much. So it's not only choosing things that you can say yes to, but that things that you're not setting yourself up to have a success that you can check off or not. That almost it pulls our attention away from the daily benefits we get when we're actually engaging in behaviors that are good for us. I think the problem with a lot of this is that those tiny imperceptible actions that you take

every day that move you in that direction just aren't sexy. You're not getting the likes on Instagram for them. They don't seem necessarily to be moving you forward in a tangible, from an external point of view. I think they're super important and they create momentum and there's an internal, I think, shift that occurs with them. But I think a lot of people struggle with that because they're so focused on the end goal that they don't learn how to fall in love with the process or the journey of getting there. I think this is where mindfulness comes in. Because again, if you've chosen something that really has the power to transform your wellbeing in some way, you will notice it as it's happening if you're paying attention. And that becomes a much more

motivating reward than the initial reward that's a lot easier to track. Like I did this today, I didn't do this today, or some change, some number that you're tracking. But you do have to learn to pay attention. It's almost a process of self-trust that you say, at the end of the day, how do I feel about what I did? Maybe there's a sense of pride, a sense of celebration for whatever steps you took. But pretty quickly over time, you should notice the direct benefits of what you're doing. And again, this can be like a reality check. It's almost like an integrity check. It is much easier to choose something where you can define it and check it off and keep track and like get on some, you know, streak of good behavior. But if that's not the

right behavior for you and what you need at this time in your life, all you're doing is sort of giving yourself something else to be distracted by. These sort of like the short-term wins and feel good. So mindfulness is a big part of that because I feel like a lot of my behaviors change for the better when I got very serious about yoga practice because it became so much easier to notice the effects of my choices in everyday life. I started to find it really hard to do things that were inconsistent with my values, like to be dishonest or to eat food that made me feel hungover afterward. I just couldn't do it because it was so clear. I could just see the consequence as it was unfolding. And I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of

attention you train in practices like yoga or meditation. Yeah, I think that level of self-awareness is super important. And I feel like people, a common mistake that a lot of people make is they want to skip that part and they want to go right to the goal. And I see a lot of people who I'm not convinced are setting the right goal for themselves. They're doing it because they feel like that's what they should be doing. Because they feel like that's what they should be doing, but there isn't enough introspection into whether that really aligns with the values that they aspire to embody in their lives. And short of mindfulness practices or yoga or movement, as you talk about in the book, these are all vehicles for unlocking that or deepening that level of self-connection. know, or deepening that level of self-connection, I think you're just, you're a ping pong ball. You're reacting to your environment or to social expectations of, you know, what you think you are supposed to be. Yeah.

Yeah. I know. So what are some of the common pitfalls that derail people when it comes to, you know, these New Year's resolutions that you're such a fan of. Yeah. Well, so one thing is choosing something that is something you, the idea that you have to finish resolutions you made in the past because they're unresolved. And so often I'll, you know, I used to do a lot of press around willpower at New Year's and almost every time people I'd be interviewing, I'd say, oh, what's your New Year's resolution?

And they'd say something that was what they had failed at the last few years and they were going to try again. And I'd ask, okay, well, what benefit is this going to bring to your life? And they'd be like, oh, I don't know. And then I'd be like, well, what would really, like, what would bring you more joy in your life? And I still remember this one interview where she's like, oh, I wish I had time to play the piano again. And it's like, she lit up and it was a whole different person. Like, why is that not your New Year's resolution? So that first pitfall, which we've talked about. Another pitfall is probably the relationship that you have with yourself as you're changing.

You know, we need to, again, if it's a really good change and it's not something that's easy, like as soon as you decide you're going to do it, you do it. We know that the trajectory is going to include setbacks and obstacles and mistakes. And I think people have the sense that once you've made the vow, it should be done. And there's never going to be the day where you slide back and there's never going to be the day where you're the worst version of yourself and you're so exhausted, you do the opposite of everything you vowed you wouldn't do. And so we need some kind of vision about what the process of change looks like.

And to understand that any really meaningful change is going to include that day where you feel like giving up. Yeah, people don't recognize the fact that every success comes with a lot of failures. And I think we set ourselves up such that if we meet that obstacle and fall short, that we're not good enough or that we abandon hope rather than just recognizing that's part of the process. One of the things I often encourage people to do who feel like they don't know what to do when they hit that kind of setback is to imagine, okay, imagine this is the end of the story and we actually know the outcome, that you have accomplished this goal or made this change some point in the future, and you're telling the story of how it happened. I want you to look back at today and what was the turning point? How was this a turning point? What was the next

thing you did that moved you in that story toward change, then just do that. Right. So basically forecasting your idealized self. Yeah. And understanding that what you are stuck in the middle of now is a part of that journey, that it doesn't reveal that you are unable to continue on this path. Yeah. In my experience, momentum plays such a key role in all of this. I mean, we've all had that experience where we're doing really well at something and then some intervening unexpected life event occurs that throws us off our schedule. And then it becomes so difficult to kind of get back on the horse, whether it's going to the gym or whatever it is. I'm wondering if there's any science behind the power of momentum

and how that kind of operates on our psyche. Yeah, it actually can work in both ways. So some people are derailed by momentum because they feel so good about their progress. They're like, hey, I can take a break now. Right, oh, right, yeah. So some people fall into that trap. Or if you're a self-sabotager. Yeah. Now's a good time to blow everything up. I think one reason why I often talk about the importance of celebrating successes or appreciating effort, because it changes in part the way you feel about yourself as someone who is engaged in this difficult task. So I think momentum works because then you can tell a story about

yourself that is really empowering and gives you the positive energy to keep going. It's like fuel. And I think that as soon as we experience a setback, often one of the reasons it's so derailing is we start to tell a story about ourselves rather than a story about today. Like we don't have that ability to be compassionate and say, okay, you just went through a health crisis or you just had to deal with this other thing in your life. Of course, your energy went there and there was less energy available for this other project that you've been working on. Instead, we start to tell a story about ourselves or our lives that feels fixed, like this is never going to happen, or I'm not capable of this. It's sort of like when values compete for your attention and resources, right? It's not just that we have one value that we're aspiring to embody. There's multiple values, right? And sometimes they come

into conflict. And that's okay. You can change your priorities moment to moment. And particularly when you do it with a sense of agency and autonomy, like, you know what? I said I was going to be dedicated this year to improving my health. And then I had to step into this caregiver role. And right now I'm fulfilling that role and it's meaningful and it's stressful and it's difficult. And I've slid back a little bit on this other thing. Like, I think we should feel free to fully endorse that kind of shift and really honor any connection between what we're doing and what we care about. Yeah. I tend to beat myself up.

Yeah. You're not alone. Well, a lot of people's New Year's resolutions pivot around movement, right? And that's what you're writing about in this new book. So let's talk about movement. I'm super interested in hearing your thoughts that you explore in this book about what's happening with us psychologically and biochemically when we move our bodies. Let's start with the biochemical because some of this is so fascinating. Can I explain the hope molecule thing?

Yeah, trust me, I wrote that down. Like these hormones are recent, the myokines. Isn't it amazing? This is super interesting. I know. When I found, so I came across this paper, I think it was maybe a 2016 paper where the scientists talk about this research and they just sort of throw out the term hope molecules. And I remember circling it. I think I like said to my husband, oh my gosh,

you're not going to believe this term. It encapsulates so much about why movement is amazing. And I feel like nobody else is using this term. It was just in this one paper. I'm not even sure the scientists have used it again, but let me explain what it is. So this is the idea that our muscles are like an endocrine organ and that when you contract your muscles in any type of movement, they are secreting chemicals into your bloodstream that are really good for every system of your body. I mean, they're great for your heart health and your immune function. And some of them can kill cancer body. I mean, they're great for your heart health and your immune function, and some of them can kill cancer cells.

You know, all the stuff we know exercise is good for. But that a big part of these proteins and chemicals that are being released by your muscles, which are called myokines, they have profound effects on the brain. So you go for a walk or a run or you lift weights, and your muscles contract, and they secrete these proteins into your bloodstream. They travel to your brain. They cross the blood-brain barrier. And in your brain, they can act as an antidepressant like irisin can. They can make your brain more resilient to stress. They increase motivation. They help you learn from experience.

And the only way you get these chemicals is by using your muscles. It's like, this is part of how we become our best selves is we have to use our muscles. And then the scientists called them hope molecules because in this one study, they found that exercise could protect rodents from experiencing depression and post-traumatic stress disorder if you severely traumatize them. So this idea that these molecules are giving you hope even in very difficult times. So it's not innately human. That's right. It's not innately human. It is in other mammals. So I don't know how many species this has been studied in. It's like in this field, you tend to go from mice and rats to humans.

There's like not a lot in the middle. But it should be pointed out that rodents are very social species. And that's one of the reasons why they can be really great models for human behavior, because they look a lot like us in some of the very basic social and psychological ways. So extrapolating on that idea, what do you make of that? What does that mean? Well, first of all, at a very practical level, it means when I go for a walk or I exercise, I will literally say to myself, you are giving yourself an intravenous dose of hope.

Like, I think this is how we should frame movement, that it's something you can choose to do to really powerfully influence your mental health and your resilience. And every time you move, you're doing that. I think to know that, to like look at your own muscles and be able to say, thank you, legs, you're tired now. That was hard work. But like legs, you are a pharmacy of antidepressants and resilience and hope. Then sort of thinking like in a more philosophical way, again, one of the things that I feel like the anthropology and the science is pointing to is that movement is how your brain knows you are alive and engaged in life. And when you move on a regular basis,

your brain basically says, I guess we have to be the best version of ourselves because we're in this thing called life. And so, you know, you mentioned some other things too, like when you exercise, you see increased levels of neurotransmitters that tend to increase our willingness to cooperate and the pleasure we get from connecting with others that give us hope and courage. I mean, even that lactic acid, that metabolic byproduct of exercise, that lactic acid seems to have an anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effect. This is like crazy stuff. It's not just an endorphin rush. It's like at every level of our biology, when we move, our brain is like, I guess we have to do this thing called life.

And so, you know, for people like me who've struggled with anxiety or depression, this idea that you can convince your brain to want to fully engage with life in a brave way or in a hopeful way through movement is so phenomenal. How does that measure up against what we think about anecdotally as the runner's high? Yeah. Which is kind of how you opened the book. I opened it. It was funny because I'm not a runner, but my husband is a runner and my twin sister, she's a serious runner.

You did a triathlon though, didn't you? Me? Yeah. Oh, you said you were, in the book, you said you and your husband were thinking about doing a triathlon. No, my husband. Oh, just him.

Okay. I was thinking about saying, yes, go for it. The only thing I've ever participated in was a dance marathon. Yeah, so I'm not a runner. And so part of my interest in exploring the science was to really understand why people I love, love this thing that's not my movement. And so I started to dig into that. Like, what is the runner's high? And I came across this research that in part, the runner's

high is fueled by endocannabinoids, not only endorphins. And that endocannabinoids as a neurotransmitter system is really about reducing anxiety and making us sort of more bold and more courageous, as well as more social. And that we get more of that warm glow from any kind of social interaction. And the anthropologists who think about the runner's high, there's this idea that the reason we have the runner's high is so that, you know, back hundreds of thousands of years ago that we could sustain hunting and gathering, but that also hunting and gathering was part of being a social species and being a tribe. And so that this sort of runner's high not only allowed early humans to go out and do the hard work of gathering food, but maybe was even helping them be the version of themselves that wouldn't be like, I caught this big animal. It's mine. Good luck to the rest of you.

I hope you don't starve. That the runner's high was actually making it easier to be a cooperative species. That's super interesting. It is. And then one thing I didn't put in the book, because I am not sure the research is fully there, but a lot of people I talk to think oxytocin is also part of this. And the research just is not as robust right now. But oxytocin, as a neurohormone that helps us bond with others. And also that makes us remember events more positively than maybe they were when they actually transpired. Some researchers think this is why people will run ultra marathons more than once is that there's so much oxytocin release that somehow at a distance, it seems better than

maybe it actually was at the worst moments of that race. It's coloring your memory. But it was just like oxytocin, endorphins, endocannabinoids, that the biochemistry of a runner's high is priming us to not only feel good while you're moving, which is, I think, how we often think about it, like it's a gimmick to trick you into exercising, but that what it might actually be is your brain being like, okay, now we have to be this version of ourselves who can persist and can cooperate with others. And that changes who we are after a workout. We can be a different version of ourselves.

Well, so we have this soup of all these feel-good chemicals swirling around in our bodies as a result of this kind of movement, which brings up something that I have to field all the time, which is this idea that because I'm a recovering alcoholic, that I've channeled all my addictive tendencies into endurance exercise, and this is just an extension of Rich you know, Rich Roll, the addict. And I'm pursuing this runner's high in a very unhealthy way.

And that's why you see so many people in recovery in the endurance and ultra endurance communities, that they're just basically perpetuating this unhealthy behavior pattern. Yeah, so, I mean, you can tell from my book, that's not my take on it, but- I know, and you write about this. Well, I think you, I thought you addressed it really beautifully. You know, I have my friend Mishka, who's been on the podcast a bunch of times. He

just dismisses it with like this quippy thing that he says, which is putting, you know, taking the drink or the drug was always the easy choice and the way out. Putting on the running shoes is hard. You know, it's like a vehicle for self-improvement. It's a difficult thing that you grapple with that leads to greater self-efficacy and all these, you know, fantastic things. So, you know, and I see it similarly. Like, first of all, I acknowledge that. I'm like, yeah, there probably is a part of me that is doing this for that reason. Like, I think it would be perfunctory for me to just say, no, that's not the case at all. But is it making my life better

or is it making it worse? You know, and it's clearly making my life better. It can be out of balance. I've seen that with a lot of people who get obsessed with their training and then their, you know, their marriages dissolve and, you know, all kinds of terrible things happen. So I have to be aware of that and balance it appropriately. But when I do do that, everything in my life is actually improved as a result. Yeah. I think that's basically my take on it too. And I was really fascinated by the research on the neuroscience of addiction and exercise and how they're really similar in some ways, but really different in ways that matter. want it and like it and crave it, but that it's changing your brain in the exact opposite ways as most substances of abuse that people get addicted to so that you're more open to other pleasures, that you're better able to connect with other people. And I think that that's one of the most important distinctions that most people who have dealt with some other type of addiction

will talk about when they talk about the difference. They might feel addicted to movement. And sometimes a lot of people feel dependent on it. I'm totally dependent on it. But you know what? Diabetics are dependent on insulin. I'm very happy to be dependent on movement for my mental health. I'm dependent on breathing, too, and sleeping. Exactly.

But most people will point out that when you become dependent on movement, it often enhances your ability to also pursue other goals and to be a version of yourself in relationships that you actually are proud to be that version of yourself. And that's pretty different from other addictions. Yeah. Part of your exploration is trying to determine the genetic markers for people that are, you know, exercise dependent. And one of the things that you do is you, you do the 23andMe thing and you get all this data back and you're trying to figure out like, where do I, where, where, where can I identify my proclivity for being an exercise freak? Yeah. So I just say a couple of things about this. First of all, I think it's a really

bad idea to do like do it yourself, 23andMe, like going in the raw data. So my husband, who's a scientist, was helping me try to figure out what, you know, all these different ways to work with the raw data. So I don't necessarily recommend this. And the science itself is super fledgling. So it could all be bunk basically. But I was interested in doing this because my twin sister and I are both totally hooked on movement. We both feel dependent on it. And this emerged very early in life. I mean, I got my first taste of aerobics when I was seven or eight, and I was hooked instantly. I can even remember not wanting to go to a friend's birthday party in fifth grade because I was going to miss

the exercise hour that was on PBS that I wanted to do and be like trying to weigh which one was more important. I guess maybe that's a sign of addiction. But so I was hooked immediately. And to see how important this were both me and my sister, I thought, this must be genetic because we're identical twins. And there are certain things that I very much believe are genetically determined because we are so similar in so many ways. And I thought this must be one of them. And when I actually looked at some of the markers, genetic markers that have been linked to exercise behavior and how much you enjoy exercise, we didn't necessarily have all of those, but there are some bits of DNA that have been linked to really benefiting psychologically from movement. That is, you are at both increased risk of things like depression or anxiety disorders or suicidal thinking.

But if you exercise, those risks are dramatically reduced. Or in other studies, you respond better to exercise intervention, like you have better psychological outcomes than people who don't have those genetic markers. And when I looked at those studies, my sister and I had every single one of them. Right, wow. And I just feel like, because when we were growing up, nobody was in therapy. I mean, this was decades ago. There was nobody helping me manage my mind when I was a kid. And the idea that both of us found this thing that helped us deal with genetic susceptibilities to anxiety and depression, I am very grateful. It's interesting how the human animal can root out that thing that will be curative.

It's like they say everybody finds the drug that they need to quell whatever it is that they're trying to deal with. Somehow that happens and exercise certainly, you know, could be considered, you know, a healthier version of that. I have no doubt that if I hadn't found exercise, I would have found something less helpful. Right, exactly. And I've done both. Excuse me. But I probably have those same genetic markers because I wake up every day and left to my own devices, like going out and moving my body is what I choose to do. I look forward to it. I can't wait to do it. The only thing that gets in the way is when I have other obligations. I have another wait to do it. The only thing that gets in the way is when I have other obligations. I have another value that competes with that value. But I think there's

a lot of people out there who can read the book or listen to what you're saying, and they can intellectually grasp all the finer points of why this is a good idea, but they lack that impetus. They look at it as burdensome or intimidating or something that they just don't connect with. So a couple of things about this. First of all, I should say, in my experience talking to people, there are a lot of late-to-life movers who just need to define the right form of movement. And I don't think we get exposed to enough diversity of movement. Like women who got in a boat to row and had their whole life thought they had the wrong body type, that they weren't athletes, but suddenly they got in a boat with other women and were rowing. And they were like, yes, my body was born for this. That, you know, there's so many forms of movement that change the way you feel about yourself because they just create a different narrative about who you are.

I talked to so many women who discovered things like power lifting or CrossFit or axe throwing, where suddenly they were doing these amazing things with their bodies and they felt powerful. And it was a side of themselves they'd never experienced before. And if you were to only listen to the way that the media usually talks about exercise, it's all about burning calories. It's all about what you look like. And you can get pulled into places where instead of being told, this is what it feels like to stand in your own strength, you're told now you're burning more calories. So you won't look as hideous as you looked walking in today. I mean, like that is a very different experience. And too often people's movement experiences have been defined by this

obsession with burning calories and improving your appearance and making yourself more acceptable to either yourself or the judgment of society. And it gets very confusing very quickly. And so I'm always encouraging people, like, what's the form of movement? If someone were to send you a YouTube video, what's the video you would watch and be like, wow, that's amazing? And what's the version of that that would fit into your life? Who's doing that in a way that's appropriate for the body you have right now or who you want to become, that it's not about like getting a tracker that's going to tell you if you've done

enough yet. There's so much that gets in the way of finding the movement that will make you happy, that can make it feel like a chore, like a punishment. We have such a limited perspective on what those options are. We just think about the gym and the StairMaster machine and the little LED readout that tells you calories and time while you're watching the news. And although it's okay to distract yourself while you're exercising if that works for you, but there are a lot of forms of movement where the more attention you pay to what you're doing, actually, the more pleasurable it is. But often I think the advice we get is just get on the treadmill and watch Netflix so that you're not really there and you can get through it. But I bet there's some form of movement where if you were really there, you would have an amazing experience, a sense of yourself or a

connection with others. What does the science and research tell us about intensity? Like, do we have to suffer and, you know, just kill ourselves? Or can we go off for a walk? You know, like, what do we have to do to avail ourselves of these benefits? Like, how, you know, how much, how often, how intense? So there are two ways to think about this. One is minimum dose so that we're not scaring people off. And then also acknowledging that many of the benefits are probably enhanced by greater intensity. So if you're looking to simply feel better, to have a mental health benefit, to have a mood boost and energy boost, or even physical health benefits, there is almost no minimum of what you need to do and how non-intense it needs to be. You know, there's something in the literature called the feel better effect, which is if you are sedentary, you have not moved in a while and you do a couple of minutes of any type of movement, you will feel better. You'll have more energy.

You'll be more hopeful. If that's all you ever did and you did it a couple of times a day, that would be so much better than doing nothing. You know, we talked about myokines. As long as you're contracting your muscles, you are producing a healthier set of myokines than if you never move. So if anyone is thinking the barrier is, I don't want to do something insanely intense, so I'm going to do nothing instead, we should take that off the table. At the same time, many of the joys of movement are enhanced by intensity. So for example, there's something called collective joy, which is this feeling of transcendence

and connection to others, a kind of euphoria that we feel when we move in synchrony with other people, particularly if we're moving to music. And the research shows that the higher your heart rate gets when you're doing that, the more intense the euphoria and the stronger the social bonds. Research also suggests that more intense movement, more endurance is going to produce extremely high levels of myokines that are probably very protective for your mental health and your brain. When it comes to your sense of self, you know, if you do something you never thought you could do, and in order to get there, you had to have really tough workouts, and you had to try to lift something heavy and fail

20 times before you succeeded, that's a certain type of intensity. How you're going to feel the day that you finally do it is probably going to be more powerful than if you set a very small goal for yourself that you could succeed at the first time you try. So there's so many different ways that intensity, I think, amplifies the joys of mastery and connection and mental health. But people shouldn't think of that as, like you said, suffering and killing yourself. It's more like, I always tell people, what's the most intense form of movement you can do and still take joy and meaning in it? And again, if it's the right form of movement for you, probably part of the workout, you'll be like, oh my gosh, this is so uncomfortable.

Why did I say I wanted to do this? And then two minutes later, you're going to be like, I feel amazing. Right. I mean, joy can take different forms. I mean, it's like, you know, if you want to change your life, like sign up for an ultra marathon, you know, you will meet yourself in a way you never have before. And there will be a tremendous amount of suffering. But there is a joyous aspect to that because it's a journey of self-discovery that you really can't replicate in any other way in your life. And we're so afraid of that level of discomfort. Well, I think the ultra great teachers its own thing yeah i mean it's not you have like i was so delighted that you i mean you basically have like an entire

chapter on on the world of ultra endurance i was so that chapter took the longest for me to write i was revising that like a year after the manuscript was submitted because it's so different from my like my own core forms of movement are yoga and dance. And it just, I knew it was very different than the ultra world. And I had to keep talking to people and watching videos of events and reading memoirs to feel like I could actually understand it in a way that was deeper than my initial impressions of it. And I learned so much about that sport and that world. And I was so, I found it very moving to try to pay attention to that world in a way that really goes against, like many people who aren't ultra athletes probably had the same initial response

I had, like, oh my God, why do you need to practice suffering? I'm already suffering enough. Like, I don't really need to do it in that form. But then I, well, yes. No, go ahead. So I don't want to interrupt you. But it was the thing that made the biggest shift for me was when I started watching videos and I saw how, I saw on people's faces sort of who they were when they were struggling. And it was so beautiful to watch people confront their desire to finish with their body's reluctance. And it was beautiful. And then to watch how so often one of the ways they did it was people showed up to help them. And it was, when I first started talking to ultra athletes, people were not talking about interdependence.

It was like later conversations. That was the thing that I found so beautiful is because from the outside, it looks like something that people are doing only to prove that they're tough and I can do it by myself. And of course, you are doing it yourself. But most people aren't doing it by themselves. And that was so beautiful when I realized, okay, this is like the most beautiful display of human inner strength and interdependence at the same time. Yeah, I mean, that's a very astute observation because it is a very individualistic pursuit on paper. It's also this beautiful soul journey. You know, there's a soulful aspect to the ultra endurance community that's really beautiful and I think unique.

Because people, they're not getting into it because there's prize money and they're going to become a professional and make money. Like there, there's something that is calling them towards this because there's something inside themselves that needs reconciliation, or there's some answer that they're trying to find for themselves. And in that way, it's almost like in a, in a static spiritual practice, right? Like flogging yourself or something. Or like the marathon monks. practice, right? Like flogging yourself or something. Or like the marathon monks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which you talk about in the book as well, where, you know, by virtue of tackling this challenge and seeing it through, you will have some form of transcendent experience and will be changed as a result. But as you point out, it is a very collective experience and there is a level of cooperation, um, that you don't see in other, you know, quote unquote, individual team, individual sports.

The athletes, you know, all want to do their best and there is a competitive aspect to it, of course, but everybody's helping each other. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize that most of these races, you have to bring your own crew and you're very dependent and reliant upon these people in order to finish. And the crews will also help other athletes when they're in need. And the athletes will help each other when they're in need.

Like when I did Ultraman, I broke my pedal. I got a brand new pedal from a crew member of a competing, like this goes on all the time, you know? And that I think just makes it this beautiful new pedal from a crew member of a competing act. Like this goes on all the time, you know, and that I think just makes it this beautiful kind of collective celebration where a group of people have gotten together and created this social contract that they're going to do this really hard thing together and they're going to be mutually supportive in the doing of it. And Sina, I believe that that's one of the things that real stress can bring out in us as humans.

That was one of the core ideas in my previous work. And so when I saw that that was playing out in the ultra world, that was wonderful to see. But I also believe that's part of who we are. And it brings it out of us because that's part of our human nature. And it's that perfect kind of stressful situation where people really have resources. And when you're in a very stressful situation and you know there's something you can do, that's sort of what humans do. We rise up and we lift one another up. Yeah. And there's nothing more elevating than realizing that you have more potential and capacity than you originally realized. That's incredibly empowering.

you have more potential and capacity than you originally realized. That's incredibly empowering. And on the idea of your previous work and stress, the core idea is basically, please correct me if I'm wrong, that, look, stress is bad, but it's our relationship with stress that's most critical in how it impacts us. And when we think about stress in a healthier way, it doesn't have the deleterious impact that it would have otherwise. And, you know, movement, sports, thoughts on stress and your work in that field kind of intersect with her ideas on similar terrain? Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that she points out too is the importance of

welcoming and embracing often the emotions that we think we don't want. And stress is just part of that. One of those. The way that I think about stress is it's what arises in your mind and in your body when something that you care about is at stake. And it can push every button in our human nature. So stress can bring out the worst in us and it can bring out the best in us. And that's true for everybody because we have all of these different competing instincts. And so, you know, what I'm encouraging people to do is think, how do I build a stress response repertoire that's really consistent with my values and the stress in my life so that the instincts that get triggered by stress aren't to become aggressive and hostile if that's not appropriate? Or, you know, my default might be to become aggressive and hostile if that's not appropriate, or my

default might be to become paralyzed and withdraw. Very human instincts. But what happens when we acknowledge that stress can also activate the instinct to ask for help, can activate the instinct to make meaning out of things that feel out of our control or meaningless, that it can activate the instinct to learn and grow, to rise to the challenge. And it's about coming to terms with the reality so that you can make a more conscious choice about how you engage with that reality. There's a real sense of, I think, practicality and being strategic. And too often, I think, when we talk about stress, we're looking for a way to change our inner experience because we're afraid of the inner experience, or we have been told that the inner experience is always toxic.

So if you're having a stressful state, it must be killing your brain cells and destroying your immune system and giving you a heart attack. And so we look for the thing that will change the inner experience the fastest rather than think, well, maybe I'm feeling stressed because I care. And maybe it would be good for my happiness and my health to engage with what I care about rather than look for the quickest way to shut off this signal. Have any of your thoughts on stress or willpower changed as a result of this deep dive into movement?

Or do they just confirm or affirm what you've always been talking about? Some of my thinking has changed over the years. I'm trying to think if writing this book led to any changes. I think the thing that, I mean, so the fundamental paradox that all of my work tries to grapple with is that human beings have nature for good and for bad and for helping and destruction. I think that's fundamentally true. And the science is always pointing in that direction. And so my work has always been, okay, so you need to get to know the destructive impulses in order to strengthen the positive impulses. And I feel like this was the first book I wrote where by far what I was being confronted with was the good in human nature. And all my past work, I feel like there was at least sort of an even balance, the destructive nature and the,

you know, pro-social and positive nature. And that, to me, it gave me a lot of hope. I feel like I needed it at that time. I just, I felt like everywhere I looked, I was seeing the good in human nature and that movement somehow allows us to access that. So I don't know that it changed my thinking, but it changed my perspective. Yeah. I felt like this book and the science pushes me to be more optimistic about human nature than my natural tendency. Yeah. Yeah. How does competition play into this? Because, you know, if we talk about movement, a subset of movement is sports, sports being inherently competitive. There has to be

healthy aspects to this, but also unhealthy aspects to this. I mean, I think so competition is a major human drive and there's a lot of psychological benefits to it. So when people tell me that they love competition, like my sister is more like this than me. It's like one of our fundamental differences. She loves to compete. She loves to improve. She loves mastery. And I'm, I just sort of, I don't know, that doesn't motivate me like at all. So I think the, the really healthy, positive size of competition, one is if you're competing as a team or with a group and the tremendous bonds and what you learn from cooperating in order to compete, that that seems like that has tremendous benefits. And that even

if you look at like children who are teenagers who are engaged in different types of sports, it looks like there are more psychological benefits to being involved in team sports than individual competitive sports, because there can often be so much pressure on the individual to be the best without some of those other social forces that come into play when you're working with others. And I think the other thing that's so helpful and healthy about competition is when it's really more about mastery, that you have a sense of setting goals and moving toward them and that they're personally meaningful. And you sense yourself as somebody who can set goals that are difficult and work toward them and meet them. And you have that whole chapter about overcoming obstacles. And the very definition of hope is to have a goal that's meaningful,

to believe you have the resources to meet it, and there are steps you can take. And I think there are forms of competitive movement that will really allow you to access that whole experience of hope. Right. Yeah, I think that that's definitely the case. And I found my relationship to competition like evolving. Like now I used to be very competitive. I'm less competitive now.

And now it really is more about the purity of the movement that brings me joy and less about how that measures up against other people. But the barometer is really internal. It's like how am I measuring up to the standard that I set for myself and the person that I want to be? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I feel like my inner metric is too. I often am feeling like this either has impact or it doesn't, and that there's less of a comparison. Like I'm not really comparing my present self to my past self. Like I don't have to get better. And I'm definitely not comparing myself as much to other people. Like I have to be better then, but I'm very closely attuned to did this thing I did, did it have any positive impact? And there's, you know, can be real sense of failure around that,

but that's less competition than this kind of drilling into performance that's consistent with your values. With everything that you know about psychiatry and psychology and human behavior, what do you make of, you know, this kind of cultural trend where kids, you know, don't keep score at the soccer games and everybody's a winner and everybody gets a medal? Like, you know, we've kind of recalibrated our relationship to movement with young people in a way that has stripped it away of any kind of peril or threat, I suppose. Yeah. So you know how kids now are saying, okay, boomer, when old people criticize? Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah. I was just reading the New York Times. I was great. Taylor Lorenz wrote that amazing article about that. So I will tell you, one of the gifts of teaching at a university is you see cultural changes.

gifts of teaching at a university is you see cultural changes. So one of the things, the goals that I've set for myself is to be as open-minded as I can when I see cultural changes happening, that my instinct is to criticize them or to think, well, that's not going to have the consequences you think it's going to have. So, you know, that's one of those things where initially I was like, oh, participation trophy. Like you can, you can see how things can go wrong. And one of the things I'm trying very hard to do is to trust in the evolution of culture. And that if, particularly if young people are telling me something is good and meaningful, that I actually, I'm going to trust that they are probably more right about it than I am. So I kind of, I don't know, I have a lot of mixed thoughts about that. I'm not sure that there's a ton of science I'd want to stand on either way. So I'm going to default to a kind of open-minded willingness to tolerate changes in our culture

that kind of go against how I was raised. Right. Okay, boomer. Yeah. Well, that's what I don't want them to say to me. I know. We should explain for people that are listening who don't know what that means. It's kind of a retort to older people's opinions about how millennials are not doing things right. Yeah, exactly. But it's got to be interesting to, you know, be amongst so many young people all the time. Yes, it forces you to change all the time.

That's the other great gift is like, you know, you got to stay with the program or you're going to get passed by. And so there's so many things you have to learn and adapt to. What are you being challenged by? Like relationship to technology or like what do you see on the daily that doesn't, not so it triggers you, but you're like, wow, look at that. That's so different. Having to be really mindful about things like, so when I first started making PowerPoint, not even PowerPoint. So back in the day, what are those things called? Transparencies.

And we would give like public science talks. Right. You'd have to whip out your transparency. Overheads, yes. transparencies and we would give like public science talks right you'd have to whip out your transparency overheads yes nobody was thinking if you're going to use an image of a human being to go along with your like it says anger and you're going to show an angry face nobody thought does it matter who you pick like in terms of stereotypes about who's allowed to be angry and who's not or or um who's a more fully human And now, that's such a part of my work, is thinking, what images am I choosing?

What language am I choosing? That these choices that early on in my academic career, people treated like they had no consequence because the people making those choices weren't really aware of the consequences. So I feel like that's one of the things I'm always trying to deepen and learn from, is that there's probably consequences to everything that I'm doing and to make more

conscious choices about things that will improve my students' learning experience, or that will not create unnecessary harm just because I don't know that what I'm doing matters. Right. Is there anything though, where you're just really struggling to get on board with? TikTok. Hey, I'm finally on Instagram. That is the one that I have not signed up for yet. But, you know, it's so music-driven. I feel like I would probably love it if I could understand it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So never say never. Yes, it's very dance and movement oriented. I know. I think with the book tour, you know, about to unfold here, you're going to have to get on board here. I will. You do. What was the most surprising thing?

You know, I feel like you have this robust, you know, lifelong history and love affair with movement. So you had to have gone into this with a certain sense of what to expect as you dove into the research. So what did, was there anything that surprised you or defied your intuition? I was surprised by how easy it was to find people who had never been given permission to talk about why they loved movement and how happy it made people to be able to say, I love my sneakers or swimming is so important to me that I kind of thought like I was a freak for loving movement as much as I did. And then I've never had such a positive response to anything I've ever asked the public or on social media or friends and family, give people a chance and they will tell you these amazing

stories. So maybe that, I don't know if that's the most interesting answer, but that's the most honest answer. Like the, when I ask people about, there's this idea called the pleasure gloss, where when you do something that's really enjoyable, you start to associate all of the sensations of that, that experience, they become, they become insanely pleasurable. Even if at first they, they didn't mean anything to you, like smells and sounds. And when I ask people, do you have a pleasure gloss? Is that a real thing? And people were like, oh my gosh, I love the smell of my yoga mat or, oh, the sound of my pedals, putting my cycling shoe, clicking it into the pedal is like a dopamine rush, like nothing else.

And when I ask people, is there a movement you've done that was meaningful to you, that you never thought you could do it? Do you have a movement story? I was flooded with stories. The woman who learned how to swim when she was close to 50 and she passed her swim test, or the woman the first time that she could do a real pushup, and the person who learned how to hula hoop in a non-dominant direction. And this was like a milestone moment in her life. I was shocked by how many people I knew personally, and I didn't know any of their movement stories. And that it was like there that people had them. It's cool. We're in the midst of kind of an amazing moment culturally with respect to the explosion of interest in movement.

You know, it wasn't that long ago that, you know, jogging was seen as a weird thing. And now there's, you know, a bazillion people run marathons every year and that's not enough. So the ultra endurance community is blowing up and we have these Tough mutters and the Spartan races and all these very unique challenges that are compelling us to venture outside the cubicle and test ourselves in a very tactile way. So how do you, to what do you attribute that? Like why now? Like why are so many people, like who wants to go get electrocuted and crawl in the mud and be freezing cold? I don't, but I can appreciate it. Yeah. Why are so many people drawn to that now? I, you know, I don't, as a part of me wants to pull back from the premise almost,

like, is that really the case? I don't actually know. If you look sort of anthropologically or you go to societies in the near past that don't look like our modern society, people are living very embodied lives. Celebration, food production, competition with other communities. Everything is so fully embodied. competition with other communities, everything is so fully embodied. You know, my thought is, I don't know that the desire for this is so different, but maybe we've lost a lot of opportunities to feel fully embodied in our roles and our relationships and our work, that it's about restoring a sense of our full humanity, that if you aren't using your body to do things that are difficult and to celebrate life and to connect with other people, you're not fully alive. And maybe people are recognizing that. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that affirms the premise in the sense that our lives have become insulated and hermetically sealed. We're in our homes and in our cars and we're riding

elevators and we're in offices with fluorescent lighting and we barely even go outside, let alone connect with nature or our neighbors in any kind of meaningful way anymore. And that innate human desire has been repressed to such an extent that it's finally you know, it's finally like, it needs an outlet, right? So this is what we're seeing, people going out of their way to bring this kind of movement and stress into their lives because it speaks so profoundly to what it is to be human or to have a human experience. Well, you know, and that, it reminds me of something that a woman I spoke to when I was asking her why she loved rowing. And she said that it brings out the best in humanity. And I think that that a lot of the people I spoke to, they said something like that as well,

that the form of movement they were drawn to, they felt like it was not only bringing out the best in them, but it was allowing them to see the best in others too. I think that there's a lot of interest right now in these collective training experiences or collective movement experiences. And I think that I certainly know that for me, it is very healing to see the best in others. And there's a lot in our society now that primes us to see the worst in others. So that may also be an antidote that people are seeking. Right. Yeah. That's super interesting. That's super. Yeah. Because media is all funneled towards trying to, you know, basically create these chasms between us. And even if you were

to watch like feel good media, it's different when you, when you see like the feel good news clip while you're scrolling through whatever social media versus being in an actual room with people where you can smell them. There's something about the co-present embodied experience that's different than the little psychological uplift you might get from- Yeah. I mean, if I do yoga in my house, that's a very different experience than going to a yoga class where even if we're not necessarily talking to each other, there is this consensual activity that we're all engaging in together. And there's something that creates like a unity or a congealing effect with the group that you can't really put your finger on or articulate what that is, but it's very real. It's very real. Or even if I'm running with a group of people that I don't know,

there is truth to that for sure. And I'm wondering, you talk a little bit about this in the book, whether this cooperative kind of byproduct of movement or the community building that it engenders, if that works in a visual reality setting as well. Because we've got Peloton and we have these kind of virtual communities around movement that are springing up. Did you love Jogobot? I thought Jogobot, the drone that follows you while you run, I thought that was hysterical. What was so hysterical was that people loved it. They were like, yes, I want a drone that watches the target on my chest and runs with me.

It's so weird. I mean, we're so quick to want connection. Yeah, so I don't know. I have tried many times. I mean, your sister must have thoughts on this. Oh, yeah. I think she would say probably no also. I mean, even so, if people don't know,

she has designed a number of games and alternate reality experiences. And one of the strengths of most of her games and interactive experiences is they take place in the real world and they force you to interact with other people, including the people in your life. So my guess is that she would not be totally in love with technology that allows you to simulate social connection rather than experience it. Right. But what about, like Peloton is a great example. Like you're, it's simulated, but it's also real. It's just displaced in terms of. I think, I've had so many people ask me about Peloton. I think they have a great model and that it's probably primarily not for people who like the medicine they need is the group experience.

And a lot of what they're doing is based on music and how it feels to do something hard and to be witnessed in a certain way that doesn't have to be like a close focus. You know, you're having a collective experience in which there's a sense that it's almost like a mirror. Like you see yourself as having done something really hard and the soundtrack helps and the teacher helps. And the fact that it's often a live shared experience helps. But I think that particular medicine is more about how you feel about yourself than how you feel about other people. And again, with finding the joy of movement, it's about finding the medicine you need rather than thinking you have to do it all and like get everything.

Well, music is a big deal. Like I learned a lot. I mean, again, this is, you have like almost an entire chapter devoted to the impact of music and movement. Yes, an entire chapter. I could have written a whole book. Yes.

I mean, music for me is everything. So talk about that a little bit. Yeah, it's, I, like when I go out, I either use nothing because I just want to treat it like a mindfulness practice or I'll listen to audio books or podcasts because it's almost like,

that's a way of bringing a virtual community or something to engage me intellectually while I'm going. And I'll only use music for like the end or whatever, but I can't listen to music like for extended periods of time. Like I need bursts of it when I'm feeling like my motivation is waning or I want to finish strong or something like that. That's funny. That's exactly what, when I talked to someone who leads work songs in a farming community, that was exactly what he said, that you use music when you really need it. When you're exhausted, when you're bored, you need that extra kind of energy and motivation to support us when we're reaching a moment where it's more difficult. And actually, the music sports psychologist I spoke to said something very similar, too, that you don't need an amazing playlist for every aspect of your physical training. You figure out what the right moments are and the song that will put you in the right mindset or help you do something even more difficult, more powerful. So the way I think about music is, that's actually not how I think about

music. So human beings, our brains seem to be wired to hear music as an invitation to move. That's almost everybody. So when you hear music, particularly music with a strong beat that you like, it activates the whole motor loop of the brain. It primes you to move. And when you hear music, particularly music with a strong beat that you like, it activates the whole motor loop of the brain. It primes you to move. And when you move to music, you get this little bit of an endorphin rush and a dopamine rush that feels good. And what I've observed in myself is that there's this other side part of it, which is where the lyrics and the key that the music is in, all these different qualities of music also make you feel a certain way. They bring out an emotion or an aspect of your identity. And for me, when those two merge, it's like nothing else.

To get the endorphin rush of moving to the beat of music while the lyrics are making me feel a certain way about life and myself, there is like no greater high that I get from, from like anything that I've tried. And I think not everyone is as like, talk about genetic tendencies. I mean, that's deep in me. That is like a defining part of my nature is nothing lights me up, like moving to music. And so that's like how I center all the classes that I teach. like moving to music. And so that's like how I center all the classes that I teach. But for other people, it may just be that you have the normal human brain, which will experience music as ergogenic. It will help you work harder. It will reduce pain. It will help you connect with others and you use it strategically. But, you know, there's this other aspect that really is a trip. Yeah. It's also very sense memory evocative, right? Like you can

hear a song you haven't heard in a long time and you can, it'll just spring to mind like something very vivid, you know, I don't know what it, I guess it's similar to like, I like the smell of my yoga mat. Like there's a, I don't know, something that, that happens biochemically or neurologically that can root you in a past experience or trigger a memory that can empower you in a certain way. And there's certain songs that you just will go to time and time again for that purpose. Yeah. And I think that because we listen to music with our whole bodies, that those memories feel more embodied, that somehow we have access to it in a way that feels more visceral,

as you said. Why is it, I don't know if you know anything about this, but why is it that the music that we tend to go back to time and time again throughout our lives is music that was imprinted on our brains at a certain age? I know like, you know, like REM will always be my favorite band. It doesn't matter, you know, like- Is that from adolescence? Yeah, because when I was 16 or whatever, I discovered it and I fell in love with it. And I still will go back and listen to those albums

time and time again, no matter what is happening in terms of music outside of that. I mean, there is research on this, that because we tend to have more emotionally, like peak experiences or intense experiences. And also we're busy trying to define ourselves. Young people tend to use music as a way of building identity. So what you listen to at that time, you're going to have more like rich emotions

that get linked or often young people regulate their emotions with music. So they're feeling, you know, all that chaos and they listen to a song. And so you're just building a different intensity of memory. And also because that's just a period of time where you're trying to figure out who you are, that that music will remind you of both the intensity of that process and also how you feel about yourself and who you are. I will say that one of the things that I work very, well, I don't really have to work hard at it, but I'm very committed to is staying in love with popular music it's like a gift to myself so that I have now 42 years of musical memories that are distinct and I feel like um like I'm gonna try to stay with that as long as I can to keep building these musical memories. So that it's like, it's your chest expanding your repertoire for nostalgia and sense of self and joy.

And you could stay, you stay current with it. Yeah. And I say, and you know, so I was saying to some other women who teach group fitness, who, so I, some of the women that I teach are on the young end in their sixties and then significantly older. And I was saying to these other women who are on the young end in their sixties and then significantly older. And I was saying to these other women who are my age that right now their favorite song is a Lizzo track. And they didn't believe me. And I was like, of course, you just have to share it with them and give them an embodied experience of it. Who's not going to fall in love with Lizzo. I always thought that I would always be hip to like whatever was happening in the music culture.

And I have a 16 year old daughter right now, and she's into like the most intense rap and hip hop. And I have such a hard time trying to connect with it. It's like super gnarly. And it confuses me that she's so into it because it kind of doesn't exactly measure up with her sensibility, but it's definitely doing something for her. And I want to be on board because I want to have that shared experience with her. But I found that's where like- Does she want to have it as a shared experience with you? I don't know if she cares, but she gets in the car and she doesn't ask like who's playing the music. She just turns it on and cranks it way up. And I'm like, whoa, my hair just blows back.

You should just imagine, you know, 20, 30 years from now, how that's going to be a cherished memory. Like that song will come on and you'll have this embodied memory. I know. And I have that awareness and I'm still like, I just can't get there. Have you tried moving to it? Maybe what you need to do is get down into the groove and then you'll have a different experience. I'm going to try. I'm going to think about you next time we're having that experience. Well, no, it's about broadening your empathy. I mean, we didn't even talk at all about my work in Compassion. Well, let's talk about it. We can, yeah. But I think that choosing to open

yourself up to different forms of music, it is an act of broad empathy that probably does allow us to connect more broadly with other people. Yeah. I got to work on that a little bit, I think. And I think compassion, particularly self-compassion, is a big part of movement, right? Movement is an act of self-compassion that actually broadens your aperture to be compassionate towards other human beings. Yeah. And vice versa. I mean, it's one big circle.

So I'm not somebody who believes you have to love yourself before you can love others. I think you can love others and not love yourself. And that either way, if you strengthen sort of either side, it is possible to get to the other if you sort of make a conscious effort. And I think movement is great because it can allow you to do both. You know, in the book, I talked about, you know, communities where everyone has goals and they're cheering one another on and they're helping one another overcome obstacles. And then they also get cheered on and they get supported by others. I think that one of the ways movement helps with self-compassion is it, again, it's not a do-it-yourself project. It's not like you're alone, you know, taking care of yourself by exercising. Part of what makes it an act of self-compassion is put yourself in environments where people are going to be happy

to see you. Put yourself in environments where someone will help you out when you need help, that you start to practice also opening to the compassion that's available to you in ways that may seem very small, but actually are meaningful to allow yourself to be open in that way. And again, to also, you know, at every level to think about gratitude to your body for what it can do. And there are many ways that it can bring out. Yeah, receiving the compassion. Sometimes that's hard. It is. I think that is the, you know, self-compassion is a very trendy topic right now.

And the one thing I think people are missing is that self-compassion means you believe that you yourself are deserving of compassion. And sometimes the source is you and you can say nice things to yourself and you can practice self-care. But a big part of self-compassion is, okay, who else cares about you? And can you believe that other people care about you? And can you be transparent about your suffering so that they can help you? That is less discussed as a critical

self-compassionate skill. Yeah. And we sometimes turn self-compassion into this project, like go into your compassion closet, don't be a burden on anyone else. You should be able to deal with your own pain and suffering by being self-compassionate. Yeah, but when it comes to receiving that from other people, I mean, the instinct that I have is that that's indulgent

or it's burdensome to other people, right? Like, why should I have to involve them in my like, you know, project of self-efficacy? Yeah. And that sort of inner voice is not really any different than the inner voice that might say, you know, the voice of self-criticism, like you are so dumb. Why did you do that? You'll never change. That these are all voices we have that are barriers to compassion. They aren't correct, but they are pervasive. And I mentioned that compassion is a big circle. And so to unlock self-compassion, we often need to put ourselves in the presence of compassion that is not generated by ourselves. Like we need to see other people helping other people. Maybe we just need to be a witness to compassion in the world. We need to feel that we ourselves

are capable of helping others or caring for others so that we sense ourselves as having something of value and we notice how good it feels so that we can imagine if we let a friend or family member help us, maybe that feels good for them too, that it's not a burden because we've experienced that it's not a burden when we care for someone we love and don't want to suffer. So it's almost like we don't want to get too myopic about the one part of compassion that is most critical and to put ourselves in this big system of compassion that is bigger than ourselves, but includes ourselves. I think that's super important. It's something that's been very difficult for me to learn. I know the way that I was raised, and maybe it's a generational thing or just my personal experience, but sort of like check sort of like, you know, check yourself, like don't bother other people with your problems, like solve it on your own.

If you need to seek help, fine, but don't go around, you know, like trying to enlist all these other people and whatever it is that you're trying to work out within yourself. Yeah. I mean, that was how I was raised too, is considered a virtue to not be a burden and to just take care of it yourself. And I think that there's a way to honor some part of that impulse towards agency and autonomy, while at the same time recognizing how interdependent, fundamentally independent we are. That's just not how we work as human beings. You can't do it all yourself. And it would make other people miserable.

Can you imagine if nobody ever depended? Like nobody wanted to listen to this podcast. Nobody cared if you got up in the morning. We don't want that existence either. Well, it's an illusion anyway. We're all interdependent. And I think that we walk around, you know, when you're talking about stories we tell ourselves, like we tell ourselves that these other people that we mythologize or look up to have done it all on their own. And that if we want to measure up, we have to do the same.

And it's just, it's a lie, you know? It's a lie. And I think it requires, you have to marshal courage in order to be vulnerable. But ultimately, when you do that, you realize that that's actually a strength and not a weakness. And you have to, I think you have to do it in order to realize or to overcome that counter-programming. And to recognize that they aren't inconsistent. I mean, when we were talking about the ultra world and what I learned from observing it was that there was no, there was no like ceiling effect. The inner strength was just up, up, up, up, up. And the interdependence was up, up, up, up, up. And that's how people do incredible things. It's not like if you accept help, you are weaker and not still

calling on the same inner resources. It's just. But you didn help, you are weaker and not still calling on the same inner resources. It's just. But you didn't see that until you dove into it deeply because on the surface. Because I was too busy like thinking. Well, it just looks like these people are all doing it on their own. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know anything about it except, you know, the occasional horror story that I might like to see. You know what?

I didn't even write about this in the book, but I did this whole interview process asking people about their DNFs. And I heard so many incredible stories, and I kind of regret I didn't find a way to put that in the book somewhere. But these amazing experiences people had of failing at ultra-endurance events and what they learned from it and why it was meaningful. And that was a fascinating part of the psychology, too. Because I feel like that, it also is, it's such a perfect analogy for life. In what way? In other words, how they grappled with, you know, quote unquote failure and used it to fuel better performances later or what else? No, no, no. That it was, it felt like a tremendous act of self-compassion. You know, one woman was talking about the moment of having to acknowledge that the injury she had reactivated, she literally couldn't finish and she was going to accept that and still honor everything she had done and,

and have a sense of this as a meaningful journey. And another person talked about choosing not to finish to help another participant who was sick and couldn't finish. And that felt like the best decision she could make, that she was now a part of this other person's journey where that person wasn't alone in it. I know there were lots of interesting stories where you see how people make meaning and find compassion and self-compassion, even in a moment that looks like objective failure. And it was, again, I think it's part of, if you think the only thing you can, like, if you think you have to keep getting better, I mean, this is one of the, I think, mistakes people make about movement is because when we're younger, we think it's about mastery and always getting better. But in the book, I talk about the people with Parkinson's

disease who are taking dance classes at Juilliard. They are not taking dance classes at Juilliard to perform at Lincoln Center. That they are there because that movement allows them to access some joy and part of themselves. And I feel like the DNF somehow, it was also reflecting that part of movement that you don't always have to get better. You could be getting increasingly worse until like the people in hospice care who are still moving. Well, how do you define victory and success? Like we can define these more broadly. It's a huge victory for somebody to sublimate their ego, stop on the trail and help another person. Like that's a moment of beautiful self-discovery that certainly

shouldn't be discounted. And you tell the story in the book of the Olympic track and field athlete who pulls the hamstring and his dad, you know, the famous, his dad goes down there and helps him across the finish line. And that becomes a story that transcends whoever won that race that day. Right. And I think, you know, the ultra world is, you know, there's tons of those kinds of stories there. All right. Well, I want to bring the focus back on to New Year's resolutions. And I think one thing that happens with a lot of people is they're faced with this decision of like, oh, I have this goal. I want to do this thing. Do I just go whole hog all in overnight? Or do I take little bites out of this and do it slowly in a way that doesn't completely upend my entire

lifestyle? I'm mystified by people who believe there's an answer to that question. Of course, it depends. You must get that question every day, though. Yes. And the thing is, you start where you are, and you do what you can do, and you do it in the way that feels like the right way to do it for you. And whichever path you choose, you don't tell yourself, that's it, or I failed. There's some people who will take the baby steps. They get that goal down to the tiny thing they can do tomorrow and feel successful. And then they find that they don't actually feel successful because they don't see the benefit of it or it doesn't have a deep meaning to them. So you should give yourself permission. Okay, you need to go harder on this. What's the version of this that when you finally get to do it, you're going to feel

like that's a triumph? And then you give yourself as much time as you need to, to get to that point. If you feel like you want to go all in and then you find out a month later, this is not working the way you had intended, that it was a learning experience. I think people shouldn't believe that there are these tricks to behavior change that are beyond what your intuition can lead you to if you are clear about what you care about and you're willing to experiment and not give up the first time it doesn't go as planned. Right. I think that's super wise. I think that these things are all about getting caught up in some kind of future tripping or tripping over, you know, stories that we tell ourselves about the past, right? And the truth is all we have is what we're doing right now. And I kind of love the way 12 Step does it.

It's just like you don't have to worry about whether you're going to stay sober for 10 years. Like, what are you doing right now? Are you going to drink? Is your head going to hit the pillow tonight? Are you going to drink before you go to sleep tonight? Like, that's all you got to worry about, right? Like those tiny imperceptible things that in the grand scheme of things seem small, but actually are the levers that move everything. Yeah. And I think, you know, one example I often think about, so one of the most difficult things to do is to quit smoking. There are some people who can do it cold turkey. And I've talked to people who they made that decision and they just did it. And for whatever reason it worked for them, it was an aha moment. But there's research showing that if you can delay the first cigarette of the day by five or 10 minutes, that that increases your chance of quitting. So like that seems, that seems totally possible. Delay the first cigarette by five minutes. And that's something

you could choose to do tomorrow. And to know that both of those are pathways to the same place. And you don't always know at first, which one's going to work for you, but that, and there's a million paths in the middle that look like something else. Yeah. Do you know Dr. Judd Brewer? Yes. Also, I saw the interview that you did. Oh, you did. Yeah, yeah.

But he's an amazing one. He's great. And he talks about being curious rather than hard on yourself or making judgment calls about these things. Like, can you be curious about that craving? Can you lean into it and try to learn about yourself by virtue of it and kind of suspend your judgments around it? That idea of surfing the urge is something that when I talk to people about what has been most useful that has come out of this integration of science and contemplative traditions of all the ideas, because that's a lot of the ideas I talk about. They sort of are that merging of both

worlds. And that idea gets mentioned all the time. This idea that you can have an inner impulse that is telling you, you have to do this thing. Because what you're feeling right now is you cannot tolerate it. You need to give in or you need to say this thing that you're thinking or you need to buy whatever it is. That there's a process by which you can pay attention to it. Trust that it will not overwhelm you, that you can ride it out and that you can broaden your attention to your values or your goals. I mean, that it works for everything. It's not just, you know, initially

how it was studied for things like cravings. Yeah. Pay attention. It's mindfulness really. All right. So we got to round this up here in a minute. But I want to leave people with some insights or perhaps a little bit of a cheat sheet as they begin to kind of map out their 2020. And I'm thinking about the person who is sitting there saying, I hear everything you're saying, but I just like, when I think about movement, I just can't get my head around it. I've never moved my body before. Every instinct is telling me that I can't do it or that it's not agreeable with me. So how do we cajole that individual into kind of rejiggering how they're thinking about this? So one approach is to think about the forms of movement that most reliably make people feel better.

And one is to go outdoors, go for a walk if you can walk or whatever that version is for your body, that is very likely to have a positive effect. And moving to music is another one. Or to do something that feels like play, whether it's with kids or an animal or in a sport. Or to do something with your body that feels useful, like gardening or some sort of labor that feels productive. In the book, I write about this one community that pairs exercise with community service projects,

which is, by the way, the only form of exercise that my mother will do. For some people, the movement has to have a purpose. Like planting trees or something. Yeah, or cleaning or helping people. So I feel like there are certain things where just try. Are you so convinced that this will be miserable? Have you tried going out for a walk someplace that you can have some fresh air? Have you tried putting on a song you love when nobody's watching and just see what movement comes out of you? That there are these little experiments you can do where because you're a human being, even if you have what looks like a barrier, even if you live with chronic pain or you have a disability or you're struggling with depression. Even in all those contexts, most people benefit from simple forms of movement.

The other thing I would say, which is that's like the delay your cigarette by 10 minutes approach, but I often will tell people, what's the movement that inspires you? What's the thing you said, oh, I could never do that? That if you rethought it and said, well, maybe I could to, to set that kind of, um, that, that possibility of a new version of you that you haven't expressed yet, but you, you sense might be in you and to do that thing. Because I feel like that's where often it's taking that bolder step of like, I've never been a runner, but I've always admired runners. Or I danced when I was younger and I haven't danced in three decades. But what would that feel like to be free in that way again?

To go to the thing that feels like you just want to be that person in movement. Yeah, it's beautifully put. I think another big part of it, and you talk about this in the book, is engendering the community aspect of it, like enlist a friend or a buddy or create accountability and community around this so that you're not doing it alone. And you have to report to somebody, like in a good way and a bad way. Like if you don't show up, they're going to give you shit. But you know, if you do show up, they're going to be there and you're going to be with your friend. Yeah. And to know that when you move with other people, you build community. Like that's the other part of it too. Sometimes I'll tell people if you show up somewhere and you kind of like how it feels, but nobody smiled at you that first time, or like, like there wasn't, you didn't feel like you immediately belonged and you have all these amazing connections.

That when you show up over time, one of the most consistent things that happens is you form communities. So if there's a place that you want to belong where movement is available, if you're looking to build connections with particular individuals, to know that movement is one of the best ways to do that. And so you can keep showing up and that you actually will develop a network of support around movement. Right. In the same way that your muscles change when you lift weights. It just, it happens. So with this robust career and experience in human behavior, evidence-based human, you know, science-backed, you know, human behavior. What is the thing that keeps tripping you up? Like what's the frontier for you that you're challenged by or that you're trying

to work through? Well, so the thing that is not new, but the thing that is the most ingrained in me that I grapple with daily is I just have a nervous system and a temperament that is overwhelmed by like life, like, you know, anxiety is my default state. And that has been true since I came out of the womb, apparently. So I feel like it's not a new frontier, but certainly the things that I've been drawn to are things that make me feel braver about life, that interfere with my instincts to withdraw and shut down. The other thing that I've been working with a lot lately, so a few years back, I was in this period of my life where I was living in both New York and Palo Alto, California. And when you live in two cities, you really don't live in any city. California. And when you live in two cities, you really don't live in any city. And I felt the consequences of not having daily neighborhood-driven community. And since now I'm located

only in Palo Alto, the frontier that I've been working on is trying to just honor and rebuild those daily neighborhood-based connections that turned out to be much more important for my mental health than I realized. So that's like the frontier. And then if I were going to try to give other people advice, let me just, because I've been, we haven't talked about the one other passion in my life, which is animal rescue and adoption. And if other people are thinking about something to do and they don't want to exercise, please adopt something. I feel like I really want to write a book about the psychological and social benefits of having a relationship with animals. Oh, that's beautiful. You should write a book about that. Coming up next. I have to teach a course about it first. That's the

problem. My books are all based on courses. I got to figure out how to. I don't know if the business school at Stanford is going to want you to teach that class, but who knows, right? What are the classes that you're teaching right now? Right now, so the next class I'm going to teach at the business school is on communication. And it is for researchers who want to learn how to communicate their work, both to the public and then, and also just in any kind of setting. Super important. Coming from the person who also just in any kind of setting. Super important.

Coming from the person who has 21 million views on their TED Talk. Is it up to that now? Yeah, I checked it this morning. That's crazy. Yeah. It's got to be one of the most watched TED Talks at this point. It is. And I honestly didn't think people were going to see it.

Why is that? I don't know. It was at the main TED stage though, right? It was. But I gave that talk in 2013. And I don't know. It was at the main TED stage though, right? It was, but I gave that talk in 2013. And I don't know that I really, I just, it felt lower stakes to me than it turned out to be. Because? Well, I just, I didn't think that as many people were going to see it as did.

I didn't do that whole process that most people do, like the intense preparation and like hiring a coach and a stylist. I just treated it like it was based on a lecture that I gave to my introduction to psychology class at Stanford. It was like an excerpt from my psych one lecture. And I just sort of treated it like that. Wow. Well, maybe that's why it worked. Yeah. I don't know. Are you going to do another one? I don't think so. No, that was it? Unless they let me lead a movement experience. Well, that would be a cool follow-up. But you've got to be on the road quite a bit doing talks and that kind of thing. Yes.

And so one of the things I'm trying to do is less of that to make the choice to not have to sub out one of my movement classes in order to be on the road speaking to a crowd of thousands of people. I've decided right now that that is values inconsistent for me to make the choice to stay local. Right. And where is your curiosity taking you now? I am reading something about the answer to that question for me is the science that I'm reading a lot of. And I am reading two types of science. Like when I get the Google alerts, I'm more likely to click on all the abstracts than I get Google alerts for so many different topics.

So you're just on PubMed all day. Yeah. Okay. One is the default mode. I'm still fascinated by that, how the human brain operates by default when left to its own devices. I've been fascinated by that for years. And the research on that, I just, I feel like it's one of those areas where every day there's something else fascinating. Like now- Well, the default mode network is sort of like the new microbiome. Like suddenly everyone's talking about it. They weren't talking about it even a couple of years ago, but now it keeps coming up a lot. So I think that's- And the other is compassion because I'm still so interested in how do we deepen and broaden

our compassion. And there's just a lot of research right now. A lot of it is practical and applied. So people who engage in helping and are around a lot of suffering, how do they sustain strong compassion that is not draining and traumatizing? And there's a lot of research right now, whether it's in healthcare, rescue workers, or social work. Well, it's a big deal in animal rescue. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, I've talked to Jean Bauer about this quite a bit. You can't sustain that kind of work

if you're overly emotionally attached to the results of it because you can never rescue as many animals as need rescue. Right. So you just do what you can, but it takes some toll. The organization that I volunteer with the most, their motto is save them all. Right. And so there's always that paradox. Like you have the ultimate aspiration. That sets you up to be. I know. It's right. It's a huge challenge. And so I feel like many people who are driven by compassion have that motto, even if they don't know it, that I'm here to save them all.

And then on that day-to-day basis, you are confronted by what Parker Palmer calls the tragic gap. There's your aspiration, and there's where you actually are. And you're staring into this chasm of the tragic gap between reality and your aspirations. tragic gap between reality and your aspirations. And so part of sustainable compassion is figuring out how do you find a sense of compassion satisfaction in the middle of that tragic gap? That would be a very interesting book. Yeah. You know, I think because there's a lot of, you know, people who are activists or feel strongly about certain things in certain ways who've devoted their lives to causes. And there is a lot, there's a huge, certain ways who've devoted their lives to causes. And there's a huge sort of psychological downstream

kind of damage that comes with that. Yeah, you're nodding. Yeah. All right, maybe the next book. Maybe the next. Cool. Well, I love the book, The Joy of Movement. You did an amazing job.

I think this is gonna help like a lot of people. So congratulations on this. The full title, The Joy of Movement. You did an amazing job. I think this is going to help like a lot of people. So congratulations on this. The full title is The Joy of Movement, How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage. And if you want to hear the full story behind the subtitle, you break it all down on your website and you have pictures and it's very fun. And you're easy to find on the internet as well. Just kellymcgonigal.com and at

kellymcgonigal on all the places. Yeah, most of them. Yeah, all that stuff. And I assume you're going to do a big full-blown book tour extravaganza. I don't know because I also want to stay local, but I do have my first book event planned in New York City where we are going to have a little conversation and then a movement experience and then a dance party. And I'm hoping that any place I travel to, we're going to find a way to connect people to communities of movement where they are. So that's my goal.

Cool. Exciting. So you'll put that up on your website, like your schedule and all that kind of stuff. All right, cool. Well, thank you so much, Kelly. I appreciate talking to you. Awesome.

Come back and talk to me again. I feel like there's a lot more stuff we could talk about. So cool. All right, peace. Plants. again. I feel like there's a lot more stuff we could talk about. So cool. All right. Peace. All right. So we did that. Good times. Good person, that Dr. Kelly McGonigal. You know what she told me after the interview? She's vegan. How was I supposed to know that? Way to bury the lead, Kelly. I'm going to have to get her back on the show to talk a little bit more about that. In any event, please make sure to check out the show notes on the episode page to dive deeper into Kelly's world and show her some love on the socials.

Again, you can find her on Instagram at Kelly Marie McGonigal and on Twitter at Kelly McGonigal. Lastly, don't forget to pick up her new book, The Joy of Movement, perhaps on Audible. Just an idea. It just hit stores December 31st. It's fresh out in the world and should be available everywhere, including through the link in the show notes. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on it on Apple Podcasts. Share the show on social media. Hit that subscribe button wherever you enjoy the content.

And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. the show on social media, hit that subscribe button wherever you enjoy the content, and you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank my team for putting on the show this week, Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music, Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing the show, Jessica Miranda for graphics, Allie Rogers for portraits, DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by Anna Lemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. I will see you back here shortly with who is the guest? We don't know yet.

It's a mystery. There's no clip to take you out this time. You're just going to have to wait. You're just going to have to wallow in that anticipation. Until then, peace, plants, namaste. Move your body. Thank you.