The Exercise Expert: This Popular Lifestyle Is Killing 1 Person Every 33 Seconds! Michael Easter

Michael Easter 0:00 2000 heart disease deaths a year in Europe were due to (loud noise) the noise that people live in.

Steven Bartlett 0:06 Jesus.

Michael Easter 0:06 The world we live in now, that is not how humans are designed to live. Michael Easter. Bestselling author. Journalist. Professor of psychiatry. He's on a mission. To save us from the comfort crisis.

Steven Bartlett 0:17 Crisis. Crisis. Crisis.

Michael Easter 0:19 Is it really a crisis? As a species we evolve to do the easiest, most comfortable thing, but we eventually end up paying a price for it. People are burned out, stressed out. More mental health problems, and we're looking for the next pleasure. And the industry really leans into this addiction. For example, slot machines. (coins clinking) Once they got rid of handles and just put a spin button, people went from playing 400 games in an hour to an average of 900. If you break that down by minute, that's more than we blink. And then we engineered movement out of our lives with our new jobs, sitting in these chairs eight hours a day. Now 2% of people take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. And now we have heart disease, the number one killer of humans globally. This drive that we have to do the most comfortable thing is a problem. As people experience fewer and fewer problems, we don't become more satisfied. We simply start searching for the next problem.

Steven Bartlett 1:04 Really?

Michael Easter 1:05 Yes. We've become unhappier.

Steven Bartlett 1:07 Usage of the word love halved between 1965 and 2015.

Michael Easter 1:11 And negative words like hate increased. We need to realize that it's your ancient brain working against you. It's not your fault, but it is your problem.

Steven Bartlett 1:18 I wanna take back control. How do we break out of this?

Michael Easter 1:20 I call this concept being a two percenter. And if you apply this, I guarantee you will end up healthier and learn what you're capable of. The first step is...

Steven Bartlett 1:31 Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the backend of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to su- subscribe. Helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched the show before and you've enjoyed it, and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much, and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better, and better, and better, and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal?

Steven Bartlett 2:11 (gentle music) Michael, there's a quite obvious through line throughout your work, so I wanted to ask you if you had to sort of encapsulate and summarize the mission that you're on with the work that you do, the books that you write, how would you summarize that mission?

Michael Easter 2:32 I think that in the context of today and the world we live in now, you often have to embrace short-term discomfort to get a long-term benefit. So I think the world is set up in a way now where things are easy-

Steven Bartlett 2:47 (laughs)

Michael Easter 2:47 ... things are more effortless. And while that is good, overall that's a result of progress, I think by not having moments that press back against us, and this could be everything from taking the stairs to, um, being willing to have hard conversations in your life, all those sorts of things, we lose something about being a human and lose, um, the things that keep us healthy and, and happy. I, I would argue, I argue in The Comfort Crisis that the things that most impact your day-to-day life today, how you live, everything from cars, uh, climate control, to the food system, to on and on and on, they're all relatively new in the grand scheme of time and space. They're all new within the last 100 years. I mean, here's a great example. Uh, digital media. The average person today takes in 12 to 13 hours of digital media a day. The radio was invented maybe 100 years ago. That is an insane shift in how people spend their time and attention every day.

Steven Bartlett 3:45 And the brain hasn't caught up.

Michael Easter 3:48 No. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 3:50 What?

Michael Easter 3:50 No. So we, uh, you know, a lot of my work it looks at, um, it looks, takes an anthropological lens really. It looks at how humans were shaped over time, and how we have these adaptations that used to make sense in these environments where, um, what we needed t- to survive was scarce, uh, where the world was hard and uncomfortable and life took effort. And those things kept us alive, right? Uh, but when you put us in a world where we've engineered the world to be kind of a lot easier in a lot of ways, where we have an abundance of all these things that we're sort of built to crave, everything from food to stuff to information, to even status and influence, we now have an abundance of all those things. And these sort of ancient drives we have, this ancient hardware, it can backfire in these new environments. So that's called an evolutionary mismatch.

Steven Bartlett 4:38 What is the, the s- modern symptoms of that evolutionary mismatch?

Michael Easter 4:42 Chronic diseases. So for example, you know, people didn't really get heart disease until we started engineering, uh, movement out of our lives with our new jobs and, um, started eating more because we had a massive supply of food (laughs) thanks to advances in agriculture. Um, I think there's mental health issues too. People are, you know, burned out, um, stressed out. Our collective lack of fitness I think too has led to a lot of health issues. So for example, um, in the past, our ancestors probably were about 14 times more physically active than us. 14 times. It's a crazy number. So when they do, uh, when scientists do studies on hunter-gatherers today, which are a way to get, get to the ideas of how humans used to live in the past, um, groups will generally walk more than 20,000 steps a day, and that's just an average day. You know, today, the average American, and I would assume probably the average Brit as well, we're probably, um, about in the same place, walk anywhere from, you know, 4,000 to 5,000 steps a day. That is just so little in the grand scheme of time and space. We had to be active to, to live and survive, and, um, this drive that we have to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing, it often backfires today.

Steven Bartlett 5:58 I imagine in preparation for your books, you spend significant amount of time studying hunter-gatherer communities and native tribes and things like that. I'm so fascinated by that.So fascinated. 'Cause I think most of the answers we're in search of in our modern lives exist behind us instead of in front of us, if that makes sense?

Michael Easter 6:17 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:18 What have you learned about the differences in how they lived versus how we live now? You talked there about movement and activity. Is there any other sort of really central differences that are pertinent to health outcomes?

Michael Easter 6:31 Yeah, I mean, uh, well, food is one of them, right? So it's, uh, part of this new book, Scarcity Brain, when you, uh, when you look at the diseases that kill humans, modern humans, it's heart disease. Now, the crazy thing about heart disease is that people also don't worry about it. So when you look at what people worry is gonna kill them, it's, uh, cancer, it's terror attacks, it's, you know, the crazy neighbor next door with a gun, it's all these whatever things. And heart disease is way down the list. But what actually kills people is heart disease, full stop. Like, that is the number one killer of humans globally, especially if you live in a developed country. So I have that in the back of my mind. And I come across this paper, this study, and it found a tribe in Bolivia with the healthiest hearts ever recorded by science. The reason they don't seem to get, uh, heart disease, as well as a lot of other chronic diseases that we get and that kill us, for example, they don't seem to get Alzheimer's, um, tracks back to what they eat. And what they eat, at some point in the day, which is fascinating, is that it is going to give the middle finger to every single fad diet you've heard of over the last 40 years. So it's not necessarily low fat, it's not low carb, it's not vegan, it's not paleo, it's not ex... all these different diets you've heard of, right? But the one commonality that all their food has is that it has just one ingredient. So they're eating things like foods like rice. They're eating potatoes. They're eating red meat from, um, Amazonian deer. They're eating a lot of fish. They're eating nuts. They're eating fruits. They're eating... They even eat sugar, right? Like, how many diets do we have where they're like, "If you eat a gram of sugar, your kidneys are gonna explode and you're gonna die on the spot"?

Steven Bartlett 8:15 (laughs)

Michael Easter 8:15 (laughs) Right?

Steven Bartlett 8:15 All of them.

Michael Easter 8:15 And so, for me, the takeaway was that, um, when you look at what the average person in a developed, uh, country eats, it's a lot of very ultra-processed foods. So ultra-processed foods are basically. That's a euphemism for junk food. It's what scientists use to describe junk food, you know? And it's stuff packed with all sorts of, uh, ingredients and triggers that lead us to overeat, more or less. So when you take a food through a ton of processing, right? Like a Dorito. You guys have those in the UK?

Steven Bartlett 8:47 Yeah, we have Doritos.

Michael Easter 8:48 Oh, thank God.

Steven Bartlett 8:49 (laughs)

Michael Easter 8:49 (laughs) You concentrate the calories. So one, the food tastes way better than anything you'd find in the jungle. Like, when I was living with these people, I'm not gonna lie, the food was not that delicious.

Steven Bartlett 9:01 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 9:01 It- it really wasn't. So you, you make the food taste a lot better, and you also concentrate the calories. The food becomes a lot easier to eat. You can eat more faster. So there's these interesting experiments at the NIH where they will lock people in a lab, and they will give them a unprocessed diet, and then for the next period of time, they will give them an ultra-processed diet, a sort of junk food diet. Now, everything about these diets is matched, like the calories, the- the carbs, the protein, the fat. They say, you know, "Eat as much as you want till you're full, full." And when people eat the foods that have, you know, fewer ingredients, the unprocessed foods, they end up eating 500 fewer calories a day, and they end up losing weight. So that's just one example of how things have changed. So in Scarcity Brain in particular, you know, I'm looking at how everything we needed to survive in the past was scarce and hard to find. And so, it made sense to. When you got the opportunity, to overdo those things, whether it be food, whether it be gath- gathering possessions, right? Tools. Whether it be trying to gain status over other people, trying to gain influence. Whether it was information. And now we have an abundance of all of those things, right? We've got grocery stores packed with thousands and thousands of foods on all sorts of corners. Uh, information. Think about the internet. The average person in one day today sees more information than a person, uh, 700 years ago would have seen in their entire life.

Steven Bartlett 10:30 Jesus.

Michael Easter 10:31 Entire life. Think of status and influence, right? It used to be that we would be in these, uh, tribes of people that would have maybe 150 people max. And it was very clear what your sort of rank was, right? 'Cause we got a leader. We got some whatever. But now you can blast out (laughs) stuff about yourself to millions of people at one time.

Steven Bartlett 10:51 You talk in your work about. I think that was in the first book, The Comfort Crisis, about how kind of sort of adjacent to that, being in large groups is act- has adverse consequences for our health and happiness. This number, 150 people-

Michael Easter 11:05 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 11:05 ... in an office space really made me consider a couple of decisions I've made. (laughs)

Michael Easter 11:10 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 11:10 What is the, what is the basis for that? And what is the- the key takeaway?

Michael Easter 11:15 So the number is called Dunbar's Number, and it's by this researcher, uh, Robin Dunbar. I hope I got his first name right. The theory is that groups of people, um, as we evolve, we probably didn't get over 150 people. Now, because of this, today, when we have groups of more than 150 people, things get complicated, right? Because once a group of people gets over a 150, you got to remember a lot more interconnected relationships. You got to remember a lot more names. You got to remember a lot more faces. You got to remember all these things. And oh, by the way, now that we have this big group of people, we need to establish laws. We need to establish all these different things. So it gets rather complex. And the takeaway is that this seems to be a lot of work and stress for, uh, most people.And so living in environments where you are sort of jam packed in with fewer people seems to make most people happier most of the time. So you can sort of gauge (laughs) happiness levels where people who live in the most densely packed cities tend to be, on average, uh, most unhappy compared to people who live out in rural areas. Of course, I'm not saying that everyone that lives in a densely packed city is unhappy. Of course, I'm not. I'm just saying, on average, you compare those two groups, you're gonna find that people who live in, uh, countrysides, and they're less packed in with groups, are gonna be happier.

Steven Bartlett 12:34 Does noise matter? Noise of the environment?

Michael Easter 12:36 Yes. That was part of The Comfort Crisis. The overarching narrative of that book is I spent, uh, 33 days in the Arctic, and, um, the thing that I really didn't expect to happen... So in that book, I tell the story of my time in the Arctic, and as I experienced these different forms of discomfort that humans would have experienced in the past, I sort of peel off and explain the science behind them and other travels I did about them. So in the Arctic, it was unbelievably silent. There's no one around for hundreds of miles. I mean, one day we're s- you know, you're standing there, and, um, I hear this, "Ch, ch, ch, ch." And I'm going, "What the hell was that?" (laughs) Turns out it was my wristwatch. It was so silent up there that you're just standing and you just pick up the, "Ch," of the second hand, which normally you would have to hold up, right? Um, and so I got curious about that, and what was funny is that humans have increased the loudness of the world about fourfold.

Steven Bartlett 13:47 So 100%.

Michael Easter 13:48 Yep, fourfold since, um, before we, you know, became this species that overtook, uh, the planet is the estimate. And people tend to get stressed out when they're in lots of noise all the time. So if you think about noise in the past, um, if you heard a loud noise, it was probably danger. It's a storm rolling in. It's an animal that thinks you would be a delicious dinner and is letting out a roar, right? So we tend to become stressed when, um, we hear loud noises. Now, in the past, those were likely i- infrequent, and today we kind of live in this low grade loudness that seems to, um, be associated with stress and even disease-

Steven Bartlett 14:34 Really?

Michael Easter 14:34 ... which is interesting. Yeah, there's a, uh, there was this interesting WHO study where they estimated that 2,000 heart attack deaths a year or heart disease deaths a year in Europe were due to how loud the, the noise that people live in, and that's simply because, um, loudness increases stress and stress is a key factor for heart disease.

Steven Bartlett 14:54 It makes me think about the way we've kind of designed our professional and personal environments, you know, like open plan offices and, I mean, all my offices around the world have always been open plan. In your first book, Comfort Crisis, I think it's chapter 13, where you start to talk about how that is both bad for people's anxiety, depression, and productivity.

Michael Easter 15:11 Yeah, well, a- and it's funny because, um, what I found fascinating about the studies on that is most people don't realize that being in a lot of noise impacts their productivity, um, but when you look at what they actually produce, people tend to produce more better work when they're in more silent environments.

Steven Bartlett 15:29 There was one study where one group worked in a quiet office and one worked in an open plan office. The open plan office was 50% louder. The workers in the open plan office said they didn't feel any more stress, but stress monitors found that they were in fact more stressed and less productive.

Michael Easter 15:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 15:43 Chapter 13 of your book.

Michael Easter 15:44 I'm sorry that I just... (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 15:46 (laughs) I was like, "My team are gonna hear this." We've just had- we've just approved the designs for, for our new HQ in the middle of London.

Michael Easter 15:53 Well, let's, uh, you know, call off the build.

Steven Bartlett 15:56 Yeah, Jesus.

Michael Easter 15:57 We'll take a look at the blueprints after this.

Steven Bartlett 15:58 And that's what's staggering. Anti-anxiety medication use rises a relative 28% for every 10 decibel increase in sound in neigh- in neighborhood experiences, and people who live nearer to loud roads are 24% more likely to be depressed.

Michael Easter 16:13 Yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely surprising, right? Because we do live in a lot of noise, and, uh, another thing that was interesting while I was reporting that section on, um, noise and sound and how that's changed is that most people today say that they feel, at first, uncomfortable in silence.

Steven Bartlett 16:28 Totally me.

Michael Easter 16:30 Yeah, I think everyone's like that.

Steven Bartlett 16:31 I can't even sleep without something playing.

Michael Easter 16:33 Right.

Steven Bartlett 16:33 (laughs)

Michael Easter 16:34 So, uh, this is, uh, this was a, a study in Australia, and it was rather informal but, um, yeah, people, uh, would, you know, take some time to just be in complete silence and they all wrote, you know, "At first I felt really uncomfortable through that," but, um, on the other side of that, they started to feel better. And I think that that's kind of, um, a framework for a lot of things in life.

Steven Bartlett 16:54 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 16:54 It's uncomfortable at first, but when you go through that, you come out on the other side of it, and you feel like you've improved, and you probably have improved.

Steven Bartlett 17:03 Being alone and being lonely, you cite as being two very different things. Loneliness seems to be awful for our health, and we're getting increasingly more lonely decade by decade, but being alone is... What's the distinction between the two? How do you define the difference?

Michael Easter 17:19 Yeah, so lonely to me is I want to be with others, but I don't have anyone to be with-

Steven Bartlett 17:24 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 17:24 ... right? I just don't have that resource in other people. Being alone is different. It's choosing to take time to be with yourself and see what you can learn from that. And I think, too, that there's real- there is some interesting research, um, on people who just prefer to be alone. They just like solitude.

Steven Bartlett 17:42 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 17:42 And turns out that they're just as happy as super social people. There's a little bit of individual variation. Now, of course, these people will have, you know, some people in their life that they can count on. I think that that is absolutely important. Uh, but I do think we've shifted in the last, say, 15, 20 years, where the message is really-You need a bunch of friends to be happy. You absolutely need to be as social as possible. And while I'm not saying that don't be social, that is not my message at all, I am saying that it's also worth, um, taking time to be alone sometimes and seeing what you can learn from that, because I think it does help you better appreciate those social moments. Like for me, I never appreciate my friends more when I've gone off on some reporting trip into a strange place, completely alone for a month or whatever it might be, and then come back and I'm like, "Oh man, I really appreciate being around these people." And I don't take that time for granted.

Steven Bartlett 18:40 Being lonely increases your chance of dying in the next seven years by 26%. Being lonely can shorten your life by 15 years. Staggering stats. When you think about the trajectory of travel that society is on with machines and artificial intelligence and all of these things, um, it's hard to find... It's understandable how it might be hard for someone to find hope that the stats are gonna turn around and go the other way, as it relates to loneliness. Are you concerned at all that the invention of AI and the speed in which we're seeing it proliferate is gonna lead to, you know, some people say sex robots and (laughs) -

Michael Easter 19:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 19:15 ... and all of these kinds of things. I mean, I read an article the other day where, um, a woman is a virtual boyfriend to hundreds of men, and they're paying because they're using generative AI to have, like, seemingly intimate conversations with her. And the fact that there's demand for that is a signal of not great things.

Michael Easter 19:33 Yeah, I think we need, I think we need... I mean, so then you ask like, okay, well why are, why are these people doing that? Um, I think part of it is because having to go out and interact with another human is, that you don't know, is a little bit awkward and challenging at first. And so to me, I mean, a, a big message of my work is that you have to do challenging things in order to grow as a human, 'cause I guarantee that your relationship with an actual person is going to be more rewarding in the long haul than the, you know, the AI bot or whatever, whatever they call 'em. But it is hard to go out in public, and I think that we live in a world where you can, you can go, "Okay, I'm gonna avoid the hard thing 'cause I

Michael Easter 20:14 can get this thing that's easier, even though it's not gonna be as good for me in the long haul."

Steven Bartlett 20:20 Why you? I always think when people commit themselves to writing books, because books are painful processes. I mean, it's nice when it's out, but it's not necessarily enjoyable when you're having to condense your thoughts and put it pen to paper. But there is correlation and there is a through line between these two subject matters, so it makes me beg the question, why did you, of all the things you could have taken an interest in or become curious about, why did Michael have a natural curiosity towards this subject matter?

Michael Easter 20:48 Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think a lot of it for me is how I grew up. Um, I grew up with a, an only child with a single parent who had to travel a lot. When I was in my 20s, I also got sober. That was not an easy thing, right? I was choosing this short-term relief of alcohol at the expense of long-term growth and meaning.

Steven Bartlett 21:13 And what was the cost of that?

Michael Easter 21:15 Oh, I mean, y- you're just an internal mess, you know? So my, uh, I, I was... I wasn't an interesting case, but I, I wasn't the case that most people would think of in the sense that my life was totally fine on paper. I had a job at a magazine everyone knew. You know, I had a house, I had a car, that sort of thing. But, uh, internally I was just a, a total mess, and it's kinda like the walls were caving in. And I tried to quit drinking a lot of times. And finally it just occurred to me, um, like, this isn't gonna be easy. And if you don't do this, you're probably gonna die early, by the way. And, um, I realized I had to just rip off the Band-Aid and do the hard thing. And once I went through that process, my life improved across the board.

Steven Bartlett 21:59 When you said that internally you were a mess, how do I gain color on what that means in reality so that people that are listening who might be internally a mess will have a bridge to be able to relate to what you're saying there?

Michael Easter 22:13 Oh, well, uh, so addiction is really, um, consistently choosing a short-term reward at the expense of long-term growth. I knew that my drinking was causing, um, problems in my life across the board. I mean, like, uh, you know, I had less money, it was eating into my bank account. It was kind of, it was messing with some of my relationships. Um, I would never feel good. The three days after I would go out on a bender, right? I would just be like a, a mess. And, um, yet I couldn't stop. I mean, that's the key, right? As you go, "I know this is screwing me up. I know it." And then I tell myself, "You know what? Maybe it'll be different this time. Like, I'm just gonna have one or two drinks this time." And then you have one or two and you go, "Well, if one or two is this good, what would, like, 10 more be like?" Right? And something shifts in your head. Um, so it's choosing that short-term, um, relief at the expense of long-term growth. And that is a tough cycle. I mean, I write about it in Scarcity Brain, about, um, addiction and how we think about it, because I think that another thing that's interesting about today is that, um, you know, when people hear the word addiction, they automatically think drugs, they automatically think alcohol. But really if addiction is choosing the short-term re- reward at the expense of long-term growth, it really falls on this big spectrum. There's plenty of things we all do every day that, that fall into that. But it's just how bad is it hurting you? To what extent? Um, and even the, you know, the DSM-5, which is sort of like the bible of psychiatrists, the one that they use, it basically puts addiction on a spectrum. It's like a, here's, like, 11 questions about addiction, and if you say yes to, you know, four of 'em, then you got a mild case. If you say yes to six of 'em, you got a medium case, and if you say yes to s- seven or more, you got a extreme case. And like when you read that, you could plug in a bunch of different behaviors that people do all the time and go, "Oh, I guess I am kind of, like, mildly addicted to insert whatever app you spend way too much time on."And, um, I think that getting out of that is ultimately hard. And ultimately, I, I also see addiction as kind of a symptom of some underlying thing. So, for me, I think the reason that I drank is because I had an office job that I found a little bit boring. Um, it was rather sanitary, rule-based, and as I mentioned before, I'm a person who I do well on extreme experiences, right? And when I would drink, alcohol would allow me to be sort of wild and free in this world that's become increasingly sanitary, increasingly rule-based, whatever. But that's, like, not a good way to find that. There's a lot more productive ways to find that, and I can find that now by applying it to a job that allows me to go into extreme and interesting places, right? And so I think that, you know, the message for the average person is that, um, once you figure out why you have an issue in the first place, and if you can figure out, "Okay, well how do I apply it to something that enhances my life?" That can, that can be a good life hack.

Steven Bartlett 25:11 I wanna zoom in on a particular moment there, which we can all relate to. It's the moment you described where you have an internal conversation about having those first two drinks. Now, we can all relate to that in our own ways. I have internal conversations with myself once in a while about having the carrot cake. And in my head, like, logically I know that this is not a good long-term decision, right? It could be, you know, binging on a website or whatever when you know you've got other important responsibilities and priorities in your life. That moment where you have that internal conversation with yourself, it appears to be the opportunity you have of making a better long-term decision. How on earth everyone listening to this will want to make better long-term decisions? How do we win that battle, which is seemingly with ourselves?

Michael Easter 25:55 Yeah. It, it is in a way with ourselves, but it's also, I think, in a way, with this sort of ancient hardware that we have. So in the- I'll answer this this way, and it might provide some insight and, um, we can kind of go from there. So in this book, um, Scarcity Brain, there's this underlying question I have that is, you know, everyone knows that everything's fine in moderation, and yet we all suck at moderation in some way or another in our life, right? We all have a thing that we're not great at moderating, let's say. So I live in Las Vegas, and I have this underlying question. And Las Vegas is a fascinating town. And, um, so I wanna know why slot machines work. Why are they so good at grabbing attention? Now, long story short is this leads me to, uh, this place on the edge of town in Las Vegas. And it's a brand new, fully working cutting-edge casino, but it's used entirely for research on human behavior. So, it's a collaboration with the gambling industry and a bunch of different tech companies. So you go into this place, and I went in there, and it is just a, it's a real casino. There's hotel rooms. There's, like, restaurants. There's a coffee bar. There's all these different things that a casino would have, like the slot machines, like the poker tables, like the sports book, like insert whatever. And while I'm there, I end up talking to a researcher who, um, designs slot machines. And slot machines work on what I call the scarcity loop. It is a three-part behavior loop, and its three parts are one, opportunity, two, unpredictable rewards, and three, quick repeatability. So, one, opportunity. You have an opportunity to get something of value that's going to enhance your life. In the case of a slot machine, it's money, right? Two, unpredictable rewards. You know you'll get that thing of value at some point, but you don't know when and you don't know how valuable it's gonna be. So with slot machines, it's like you play, you could lose your money, you could win a couple dollars, you could win hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's crazy. And then three, quick repeatability. You can immediately repeat the behavior. Now, the important part is that, and why I'm talking about this, is because that three-part behavior loop, it is, uh, the most powerful behavior loop at getting people to repeat behaviors and get sucked in. It's like the serial killer of moderation, okay? And it's now in all sorts of other tech and institutions. So, for example, it's what makes social media work. It's what makes dating apps so compelling. It's being put in, um, financial apps like Robinhood. Um, it's being leveraged by different, um, gig work companies, right? It explains the rise of sports betting. It's embedded in a lot of these behaviors that we can't seem to moderate. So when I look at the things that people aren't good at moderating, whether it's, you know, I check email way too much, or I check my stocks way too much and this drives me nuts, um, it usually fall- it's usually behavior that falls into those, into that scarcity loop. And so the book unpacks, you know, what it is, uh, where it came from, why we get hooked on it in the first place, and I can explain that.

Steven Bartlett 29:06 Please.

Michael Easter 29:06 And then where it, um, pops up in modern life. You don't wanna know where it came from?

Steven Bartlett 29:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Easter 29:10 Okay. So, I had the same question. So I talked to the slot guy, and now I'm like, "Okay, I get that gambling and slot machines are so compelling. I get that this thing is in a lot of different places. But why? Why in the first place?" He just looks at me and goes, "I don't know." Like, he just makes money off it. He doesn't care. (laughs) So, I end up calling a guy who's a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. And this guy is an old-school behavioral psychologist. Like, he got his PhD in 1968, and he's been doing research, uh, ever since. And he explained that it likely evolved to help us find food in the past. So if you think of humans in the past, you basically had to find food every day or else you're gonna die. But you don't know where the food is, and you don't know how much you're gonna find. So you go to point A, no food. Point B, no food. Point C, ding, ding, ding, jackpot. You find this massive elk that you end up killing, and it feeds you for weeks, right? So that is the exact same architecture as a slot machine.You play the game, you don't get anything. You play the game, you don't get anything. You play the game, oh, it's right there! Amazing! And you couldn't predict any of that, right? And you've got to repeat that behavior every day for life. So we seem to be inherently attracted to behaviors that fall into that loop. Because if we weren't in the past, um, we wouldn't have had as much incentive to continue searching for food and, in turn, survive. So we still have that sort of ancient hardware.

Steven Bartlett 30:41 And are we the only ones? Or is the rest of the animal kingdom wide in such a way? Because one would assume they would be.

Michael Easter 30:46 Yeah, they are. So the, the guy that I spoke to at the University of Kentucky does research on pigeons. And pigeons will play a gambling game that gets them less overall resources compared to a predictable game that gets them more food. So he can basically turn pigeons into these sort of degenerate gamblers. And you see it in rats, you see it in, um, other primates. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 31:09 So when the rewards are unpredictable for a pigeon, they engage in the behavior more?

Michael Easter 31:14 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 31:15 Which would, again, matches up with your theory that whenever there's unpredictable rewards associated with an action, we are more engaged because then it falls into that prehistoric hardware.

Michael Easter 31:22 Exactly. Think about, um, starting a car. Okay, you start your car. Um, it turns on every time. That's not that exciting, right? Like, it's not gonna capture your attention. Let's say you turn it on and it doesn't turn over. So you try it again, it doesn't turn over. You try it again, it doesn't turn over. What are you gonna do? You're just gonna be like, "Okay, well my car's not starting, I'm gonna fix it." Now what happens if you go to start your car and it doesn't turn over, but it kind of putters? It goes da-da-da, like it's gonna turn on, and then it stops. And then you do it again, and then it doesn't do that. And so you're like, "Okay, well what's going on?" So you do it again, it starts to sound like it's gonna come on. It's like da-da-da-da-da, but then it doesn't. You're gonna sit there messing with that j- so long as that car is giving you signs of life, right? There's this unpredictability embedded into it. And that'll capture attention of, yeah, any animal pretty much.

Steven Bartlett 32:09 And I mean, that's what, when I was thinking about, I think it's called like near miss theory or something that you, you talk about in your book.

Michael Easter 32:14 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:14 That's kind of what that is. When you see, you're on like a slot machine and you see like the cherry go nearly, you nearly got it.

Michael Easter 32:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:20 You didn't quite get it, but ... Is that called near, is it near miss theory or something?

Michael Easter 32:24 Yeah, near miss. So near misses are, uh, a term from the casino industry. And in slot machines, let's say you have five reels and, you know, you need these bars to line up, these gold bars or whatever. We'll, we'll use cherries. That's a better example. You got four cherries lined up and if this fifth cherry hits, you're gonna win a bunch of money. Now what'll usually happen in slot machines is that fifth re- wheel, they will be programmed to have that thing roll longer and longer and longer. So they extend that out 'cause you are sucked in. You're like, "If this thing lands, I'm about to win a bunch of money!" And then it lands, but it's not the cherry. What tends up ha- what ends up happening is that this leads people to repeat the behavior quicker, actually. And because, uh, near misses are mathematically more likely to happen than actual wins, it compels people to repeat the behavior.

Steven Bartlett 33:18 Do they use near misses as a way to engage us with technology or anything else in our lives? Is there like any other examples within our modern lives where I know brands or technology companies are using that as a way to engage us?

Michael Easter 33:30 Yeah, well you could think if you, um ... I mean, s- say you get an update on your phone. Let's say you go onto Instagram and you get an update and it's a comment. I mean, you could argue, "Well, it's a comment. It could be good, it could be bad." Is this a comment from like someone that I think is super cool that's saying, "Oh, that's an amazing photo. You look-"

Steven Bartlett 33:48 Yeah.

Michael Easter 33:48 "... wonderful in that photo." Or is it some troll online going, "Man, you look like a complete idiot in that," right? So there's always unpredictability embedded in social media. It wouldn't work if you knew what was coming.

Steven Bartlett 33:59 I guess that's what, why so many people just keep tweeting and posting, because it's kind of like every post comes with a bunch of likes and you're going, "You know, you might go viral." (laughs)

Michael Easter 34:07 Yeah, totally. Yeah, think of the, think of the experience of using, um ... Uh, we'll take, uh, Twitter.

Steven Bartlett 34:13 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 34:13 Um, now called X apparently.

Steven Bartlett 34:15 (laughs)

Michael Easter 34:15 Um, so you, let's say you have come up with a, a little tweet that you think is hilarious and it's of the moment, right? So you put it up and then you wait, right? The reels are spinning. And you open the up, app back up and you're like, "Did people like it? Did they retweet it?" And you don't know what's, what could have happened. It could be so clever that like, "Oh my God, so many people have retweeted this." And this feels amazing if this happens, but it could have fallen flat. And then you're like, "Now I actually look like an idiot." Because I put out a joke and no one thinks it's funny. It's like telling a joke in front of a room and people just stare at you, right? So there's this range of unpredictable outcomes that could happen. Same with scrolling though, in a way. I mean, you just scroll and scroll and scroll and you're kind of searching for that video that's going to provide you with a hit of something, right? It could be, oh, here's some sort of crazy fight that happened outside of a bar after a Philadelphia Eagles game, 'cause the fights are always in Philadelphia, in the US. Um, or it could be this video, this amazing heartwarming dog video, and that makes me smile. Or it could be some hilarious video that you're just laughing your butt off and so you're kind of sucked into that waiting for the next win, right? You're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and then, choo, that's the one that got me.

Steven Bartlett 35:28 How do we break out of this? 'Cause I, you know, I want to take back control.

Michael Easter 35:33 Yeah. (laughs) Well, we all do.

Steven Bartlett 35:35 Hmm.

Michael Easter 35:36 Um, well first I will say that, um, when people fall into this loop, I like to say that you're not a bad person 'cause this is very much part of the human brain. You know, people will be hard on themselves because their screen time is so high and like, "Why do I keep doing this thing?" So you're not a bad person. It's your ancient brain working against you. (laughs) It's not your fault, but it is your problem. You still have to figure out, "How am I gonna get out, get out of this?" Uh, the first step to me is just being aware of it in the first place. So once you become, uh, aware of b- behavior and observe a behavior, it tends to change. That's called the Hawthorne effect. And then the second part is that you can ...... remove or change any of the three parts of that loop that I, of the scarcity loop that I mentioned. So you can remove or change the opportunity, you can remove, remove or change the unpredictable rewards, or you can remove or change the quick repeatability. You can slow things down.

Steven Bartlett 36:35 In Scarcity Brain, in chapter four, you talk about something I was also very, very compelled about, which is, you make the case that we have an ingrained sense of not being enough. My first book, uh, the last chapter is about this idea of, like, not being enough. I've always hypothesized whether humans are built with a, I don't know, a message in our genetic code that tells us we- we are designed and we will struggle forward to get more. Like, is that hardwired into us?

Michael Easter 36:59 Well, I think that when you l- when you look at how humans behave, it seems to be, right? And I think it does go back to evolution, because if you had more of these things that we need to survive, whether it's food, to stuff, to information, to, um, status, you would have a survival advantage, and that's still, um, built into us. I think it still is advantageous today, to a point. Um, now I'm gonna turn the question back on you.

Steven Bartlett 37:24 Uh-oh.

Michael Easter 37:24 So it's like, y- you probably, y- you have that drive, right? And that's taken you to a certain place, and now, um, you have certain financial assets and you've sort of shifted, though, too-

Steven Bartlett 37:37 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 37:37 ... your career. So now I'm turning it back on you. How do you feel like that's manifested itself in your life?

Steven Bartlett 37:41 I ... it's interesting, because in chapter seven, you talk about this idea of status. And I, once upon a time, three or four years ago, would have told you that I'm no longer playing status games. Because three or four years ago, I would've had flashy things, like I had, like, a Rolex and, like, a sports car and designer stuff. Now I have none of that. The outfit you see me in now is pretty much the outfit everyone sees me in always.

Michael Easter 38:04 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:04 And so I assumed that I'd, like, liberated myself from s- (laughs) the game of status. However ...

Michael Easter 38:09 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 38:10 ... I read another book, and it was, it made the case that all the status games we all play just change. And in fact, it's an anti-signal now for someone in my position to have those things. So I'm just playing a different status game. Maybe the status game I'm playing is how big can my podcast be, or how good can I be on, like, TV, or whatever it is.

Michael Easter 38:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:27 It's just a different game. So that's kind of where I think I am now. I think I've just changed the game.

Michael Easter 38:32 Uh, no, I think you're right. I think we all changed the game. And we like to, we like to think that we're either not playing the game or that the game hasn't changed. Um, everyone's like that. So what's it, what's really interesting about status, which I l- I loved learning when I was, uh, reporting about it in the book, is that, um, psychological researchers, they didn't really research status all that much until the '90s. And this is because they didn't want to admit that status is important to humans. Because by researching it, you are saying, "This is probably important to me."

Steven Bartlett 39:05 (laughs)

Michael Easter 39:05 So the worst-

Steven Bartlett 39:06 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 39:06 ... thing you can do for your status is tell people that you care about your status.

Steven Bartlett 39:10 Hmm.

Michael Easter 39:10 Absolutely. Yet everyone cares about it.

Steven Bartlett 39:12 Hmm.

Michael Easter 39:13 And everyone acts, "Oh, no, I don't care. I don't care what others think about me." It's like, yeah, you do. Like, let's b- I'll be honest, everyone cares to some extent what others think about them in some way. And I think by talking about it and also understanding why in the first place is important. Now, the reason why, to me, is that the more status and influence that you would've had in the past, uh, would've given you a survival advantage in the sense that you probably would have to, you probably wouldn't have to do the crappy, like, menial labor that burns energy. You probably would've had more mates. You probably would've gotten more food. You probably would've gotten all these things. And still today, when you look at, um, how status affects health, people of lower status tend to have worse health outcomes than people of higher status. And so you might think, "Well, this is just because the higher-status people have more money and they can go to better hospitals and get better healthcare." But the thing is, is that it holds in countries that have universal healthcare. So everyone's healthcare access is pretty much equal.

Steven Bartlett 40:09 D- could it not relate to the type of work they're doing? 'Cause y- as you kinda had said earlier, I think of, if you're lower status, one might assume the type of work you're doing is constrained-

Michael Easter 40:22 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 40:22 ... low autonomy, maybe more isolated, potentially-

Michael Easter 40:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 40:26 ... or monotonous or less fulfilling, and that might have physiological implications. Um, it's interesting. People that are higher status live longer. Hm, that's not a nice narrative, is it?

Michael Easter 40:36 (laughs) Yeah, no. And that's the thing.

Steven Bartlett 40:37 Okay.

Michael Easter 40:37 It's like, it's not super comfortable to talk about, right? Um, and it definitely affects us. And here's a, here's a sort of fun, crazy study that I came across while reporting Scarcity Brain, is that, uh, flights that have a first-class cabin, they have a fourfold higher rate of air rage complare- compared to flights that don't have a first-class cabin. And if the passengers in second class, coach, have to walk through the first-c- class cabin, their rate increases to a ninefold increase in incidence of air rage.

Steven Bartlett 41:14 What is air rage?

Michael Easter 41:15 People going absolutely nuts on flights. It's like when there's a, there's a big incident with, you know, the, the flight attendant or someone just losing their mind and they have to ground the plane, or whatever it might be.

Steven Bartlett 41:27 And why do you think that is?

Michael Easter 41:29 Well, the researchers think it's because of that massive status cue of having to walk through first class. And by the way, you're not first class, 'cause you're in coach.

Steven Bartlett 41:37 We talked about, um, food in your,

Steven Bartlett 41:39 uh, how you covered it in your first book. But in your second book, Scarcity Brain, you talk about food again. Specifically, you talk, uh, quite a lot about snacking.

Michael Easter 41:46 Oh, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 41:47 Snacking. What's the problem with snacking? Everybody snacks.

Michael Easter 41:49 So this is in, in the 1970s, the food industry decided, you know, we need to come up with this new category of eating, and it's, uh, eating between meals. Snacking. Now, if people are eating three square meals, um, they may not be super full, so they kinda need just these little meals they can have, and they need to be easy to eat, they need to be quick to eat. So they come up with, um, snack foods. And what's really interesting is that, uh, you know, I told you about the scarcity loop. There is a executive in the food industry who s- was talking about what makes a snack food successful.Like, how do you sell snack food? And he said it has to have three V's. It's gotta have value, it's gotta have variety, and it's gotta have velocity. That's just another way of talking about that loop. So, right? It's a good value. Variety, it's gotta have a lot of different interesting, intense flavors. And there's gotta be a lot of different options. So, when you think about chips or crisps as you guys- you- you guys call 'em crisps, right?

Steven Bartlett 42:48 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 42:48 There's a bunch of different flavors. There's like barbecue, there's sour cream, there's salsa. There's like all these different flavors. And then, um, velocity, it has to be quick to eat. So, when you ultra process a food, as I mentioned before, people tend to eat it faster. And so, the industry really leans into this. They create snacking as this totally new category. And this is, um, in the '70s is when you really start to see obesity climb and it's because we just end up eating more across the day. Meantime, our activity levels are- are dropping.

Steven Bartlett 43:17 There's a kind of through line there with gambling when you talked about velocity. The- the speed in which you get the outcome-

Michael Easter 43:22 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:23 ... being short.

Michael Easter 43:25 The faster we can do a behavior, the more likely we are to repeat the behavior, especially if it's unpredictable. So, one of the big advances in casino technology, for example, with slot machines, was removing the handles because, you know, if you've, um ... if the machine has a handle, you have to doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Once they got rid of handles and just put a spin button, you can keep your hand on the button and just doo, doo, doo, doo.

Steven Bartlett 43:53 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 43:53 And it basically doubled the rate of gambling. So, people went from playing, I think, 400 to 500 games in an hour up to an average of 900. So that's more ... If you break that down by minute, um, it's more than we blink.

Steven Bartlett 44:06 Interesting.

Michael Easter 44:07 Yeah. With a crazy range of outcomes, too.

Steven Bartlett 44:11 Why can't it ... So, if snacking is a n- sort of relatively new invention in modern society and it's- it's correlated to the rise in obesity, can we not just measure the amount of calories that we have? Like, can we not just do the, you know, the whole calories in, calories out approach to staying fit and healthy?

Michael Easter 44:28 Oh, I- I think you absolutely could, but I just ... The question is, are people gonna actually do that? I mean, I think there's a certain sub- you know, there's a portion of the population that will do that and, you know, I do believe that y- if you were to measure everything perfectly, you have, um ... You know, you could probably lose weight eating McDonald's and there's people who have shown this. At the same time, if you are eating only McDonald's, I can tell you something. You are gonna be starving throughout the day because foods that are ultra processed tend to be less filling per calorie than foods that have just a single ingredient. So, I want you to picture, um, you and I have a bag of potato chips and then we have a plate of boiled potatoes. What do you think we could have more calories of?

Steven Bartlett 45:13 Uh, aren't they the same thing? They're both made of potato.

Michael Easter 45:15 (laughs) They're the fried potatoes, right?

Steven Bartlett 45:18 Right. Really?

Michael Easter 45:19 The- the chips. So, if you h- like how ... You could probably eat an entire bag of chips if you really set your mind to it.

Steven Bartlett 45:25 Oh, yeah.

Michael Easter 45:25 But you couldn't eat an equivalent amount of calories in boiled potatoes. I mean, it would just ... You would get full like a quarter of the way through. So, for example, you know, like a boil- an ounce of boiled potatoes might have 50 to 100 calories. An ounce of chips might have 200, whatever it is. And by the way, it's also not as filling because there's not as much water content. Um, so when you process a food, you concentrate the calories and people tend to eat more of the food.

Steven Bartlett 45:54 I don't eat them anymore, but they used to be one of my favorite foods and in your first book, I think you- you came for them, which is croissants. But I don't- I don't have those anymore because they make you feel like shit and my gut hates them. But you use a croissant as an example of a food that- that makes us less full.

Michael Easter 46:11 Mm-hmm. Yeah, so there's this really interesting study out of Australia where they, um, had people eat a certain amount of different types of foods and then they had them go eat at a buffet a certain amount of time later and measured how much they ate after, and, uh, asked them how f- how full they were after eating the test food. So, they found that the most filling food per calorie was plain boiled potatoes. Um, I think after that was just plain white fish that was a relatively low fat fish, and then after that I think it was oatmeal, just plain oatmeal. And the least filling foods were ... Tended to be things like croissants, cookies, foods like that. Foods that have been, um ... You know, we're- we're mixing flour, fat, all these sorts of things and baking it and it's like this nice crispy thing. So, it's really a ... It's a measurement of how processed the food is, basically.

Steven Bartlett 47:07 A small croissant and white potato both have about 170 calories, but you'd have to eat seven croissants before you feel the same amount of fullness as one potato. How- how much of weight gain is about f- the feeling of fullness? 'Cause it's not really a concept that I really thought much about, this idea of fullness. I thought the key thing was calories or not eating junk food.

Michael Easter 47:30 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:30 But fullness?

Michael Easter 47:32 Well, I think that you will be fuller or you will be as full eating fewer, uh, and e- end up eating fewer calories if the food is not as processed. So, the foods just ... They take up more room in your stomach. They're not packing in as much calories per bite.

Steven Bartlett 47:49 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 47:50 Let's say for you to be full, you have to eat 10 ounces of food.

Steven Bartlett 47:53 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 47:54 And we have one food that has 50 calories per ounce and one food that has 100 calories per ounce, right? So, if you were to eat the 10 ounces of this food, you're gonna eat 500 calories. But if you eat 10 ounces of this food, you're gonna eat 1,000. And I think that you extrapolate that across the day and you start to see, oh, okay, I can see why choosing foods that help me be more full on fewer calories could be good if my goal was to lose weight or not gain weight, compared to foo- foods that are more calorie dense.

Steven Bartlett 48:23 What's your position on fasting?

Michael Easter 48:24 I think that it can be a good weight control tool for some people. I think, um ...It can constrain... (laughs) Like, look, if you're a person who's eating around the clock and you go, "Okay, well I'm just gonna eat from noon to, whatever, 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM," you've just cut out a lot of meals. Um, I also think that if you were to go, "Well, since I'm only eating from noon to 6:00 PM, um, I better eat a ton every single meal," I don't know if you would lose weight. I think there could be definitely some, um, health benefits possibly. Um, but I also think that if you're doing these extended fasts, that could maybe not be great for m- for muscle mass. So, I think it kind of goes back to... Like, these things are complicated, right? And I think it kind of goes back to, uh, what is your goal? Uh, how are you trying to use this tool? Like, what are you doing this for? And then, is the way that you're doing it, does it align properly with your goal? But I do... I mean, I've met plenty of people who have lost weight fasting, simply because they ate crap for breakfast and they would stop at Starbucks on the way, um, to work and get some sugary drink. And like, just by cutting that out, because now they don't eat till noon, like they ended up losing weight.

Steven Bartlett 49:36 You talk about h- h- hungry days-

Michael Easter 49:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:39 ... pr- programming two hungry days per week.

Michael Easter 49:41 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 49:42 That's a hungry day.

Michael Easter 49:42 That's one that, um, has worked for some people, where you could eat relatively normally, say five days a week, and then people will eat, say, 500 calories on their two hungry days. So basically, you're just constraining your calories. You're basically just pulling the lever of time, right? Um, if you can... At the end of the day, it, um... I think really calories is probably the best predictor of weight gain or loss. And so the question is, okay, if you need to reduce the calories, how are we gonna do that? And there's a lot of different ways to do it. I think that fasting is pretty damn simple, right? It seems a lot simpler than some of the other methods out there.

Steven Bartlett 50:17 I was on a, a treadmill many years ago in Boston. And I always tell this story, 'cause I'd got into this routine of running f- like five, 10 kilometers a day-

Michael Easter 50:24 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:24 ... every day on the treadmill, pretty much every day on the treadmill. And I... And when I got to that five, 10 kilometer mark, I would typically feel like fatigued. And then there was this one day where I'd landed in Boston, got on this treadmill. The, the distance dial wasn't working, so I couldn't see how far I was running. So I thought, "Well, I'll stop when I feel the usual feeling." And I start running, and I start running, and I start running, and I start running. And I only get off the treadmill because I'm gonna be late for this appointment that I have.

Michael Easter 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:48 And when I hit the stop treadmill button, the distance pops up. And I've ran two times further than I usually run o- on a treadmill, and I didn't feel the same. I felt fine.

Michael Easter 50:59 Felt fine.

Steven Bartlett 51:00 And I couldn't understand that until, and I've said this on stage quite, quite often, as evidence that there's clearly something going on in our psychology that is signaling to our body that we are at our limits. And that's clearly somewhat of an illusion. And then I read, in your first book, The Comfort Crisis, this idea of where you talk about mental fatigue. Doesn't that kind of marry up to what I'm s- what I'm saying?

Michael Easter 51:20 Oh, 100%.

Steven Bartlett 51:21 Mus- muscular fatigue. Sorry.

Michael Easter 51:22 Our psychology affects our, how we perform, basically. And there's a lot of fascinating studies, um, similar to yours, where they will, uh, take people and, um, you know, they'll give them some sort of cue like, "We're gonna... Run as f- run as far as you can. Um, most people are getting about an hour." (laughs) So they'll give them this cue, and then they will change the, uh, time basically. They'll change the clock. So the people maybe have run 40 minutes in real- in reality, but they think they've done, you know, an hour and five minutes, which is five minutes longer than some of the better times. And they'll be like, "Okay, I'm totally wiped out." They'll do opposite, where they slow down time. So these people will have run an hour and say, 30 minutes. I'm making up the times. But they think they've run that hour and five minutes, just a little bit better than the next guy. And then they'll, then they'll be like, "Okay, I'm totally fatigued." And there's plenty of research that goes back years that basically says our psychological perceptions is a key determinant of, um, how tired we feel during exercise.

Steven Bartlett 52:22 'Cause at the heart of this comfort crisis is our psychological relationship with discomfort.

Michael Easter 52:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:27 Discomfort, to me, feels like a story I tell myself.

Michael Easter 52:30 Oh, it's totally a story. Yeah, what story are you gonna tell yourself? All right, so here's another great example. Your legs, they're, they're spasming. They're tired. If you're running up a hill, it sucks. You wanna quit. If you're having sex, this is great. Right?

Steven Bartlett 52:47 (laughs)

Michael Easter 52:47 Like, context really matters-

Steven Bartlett 52:49 So true.

Michael Easter 52:49 ... about how we feel. And so, I think also realizing, you know, there's some really fascinating studies that show we don't recruit all of our, um, capacity more or less, because, uh, it's a defense mechanism, right? You wanna keep some capacity on board, so your brain is trying to slow you down and shut you down before you've reached your limit. Framing how you want to view how a workout is going is important, right? And I think it can allow you to squeeze a little more performance out of it. Now, let's say your brain only allows you to recruit 50% of your muscle. I don't think you can go, "Well, I've only gotten 50%," and you're gonna get like, uh, up to 100. Like, doesn't work like that. But I do think running it through, like context and thought and realizing like, "This actually isn't as bad. And by the way, I've chosen to do this, and it's kind of awesome that I can choose to do this," can allow you to perform a little better.

Steven Bartlett 53:39 I wonder... I wish there was like a magic pill we could take which allowed us to change the frame and the story we tell ourselves about the discomfort we experience. You know?

Michael Easter 53:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 53:48 'Cause there's clearly a, a big group of people that are able to... You know, ultra-runners and ultra-athletes and-

Michael Easter 53:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:54 ... all this stuff.

Michael Easter 53:55 But you... But this can also be... I mean, this isn't just exercise we're talking about, right? It's like, what story am I gonna tell myself in any given situation? So I'll g- I'll give you a good example, is that, um... So I spent 33 days in the Arctic, right? Now, to get up to where the drop-off point is, you have to take a bunch of different flights. My first flight is from Las Vegas to, uh, Seattle. And I hate flying, right? The plane is always too hot. The seat is cramped. The movies suck on the plane. If you wanna go to the bathroom, it's this cramped little closet, baby's crying. It's just, it's terrible.Then I go spend a month in the Arctic, where I'm hungry the entire time. If I want water, I have to hike down to the stream and hike it back up. I'm freezing cold the entire time. I'm sitting in the dirt the entire time. If I wanna go to the bathroom, I have to hike out onto the tundra, and I gotta bring a rifle because there's grizzly bears. So, when I leave that world and I get back on that flight to Las Vegas, what do you think the flight was like?

Steven Bartlett 54:54 Hmm. Amazing?

Michael Easter 54:57 It was the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, right? So the chair, I hadn't sat in a chair for more than a month. It's like, "Oh, my God. This chair is so incredibly comfortable." I'd been freezing the entire time. So that warm plane, I was like, "Oh, this plane is so comfortable, so nice and warm."

Steven Bartlett 55:12 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 55:13 I'd been bored out of my mind up there the whole time, 'cause I don't have any screens or anything. So those movies on the seat back, oh, my God, this is the most stimulating thing I've ever watched. This is incredible. Um, snack food, I used to think that airplane snack food sucked. I'm like, "Oh, my God, these pretzels, amazing." And then when I go to the bathroom, right, it's ... You hit this little red tab and you get hot running water that hits your hands at 35,000 feet, and you're moving 600 miles an hour through a tube of steel.

Steven Bartlett 55:43 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 55:43 It's like, when that hot water hit my hands, it was incredible.

Steven Bartlett 55:47 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 55:48 So context matters, because once I went and did that, that totally reframed how I think about these situations that I used to bitch about in the past, and now I can appreciate them. So the reality is, is that the world that we live in today is amazing in so many ways, like full stop incredible. The fact that we have hot running water on demand, the fact that we have all these different forms of entertainment, the fact that we don't have to hunt and gather for our food. Like, we're not forced to do these things. Um, but we often miss how amazing that is, because we're like the fish thrown in the water that don't know they're in the water. And, um, I do think that doing things that push back against that, having experiences that you throw yourself into, they can be big and small, that throw you out of your comfort zone and give you perspective, I do think that that is important, um, in order to live well and get perspective and have gratitude. I mean, I still have times today where I'll be washing my hands, the water's nice and hot, and I'll think back to that and be like, "Oh, remember when, like, the hot running water hit your hands and you got emotional, how amazing it is?" I mean, it's good to have these reminders that life is pretty amazing right now. We've come pretty far.

Steven Bartlett 57:01 It made me think that discomfort is an antidote for happiness in that regard, because, you know, and it also then might ... It popped into my brain what I, what y- what I used to learn about the stoic people and how they would do that sort of, what's hedonistic adaptation, and they would remove the pleasantries from their life so that they could appreciate them more.

Michael Easter 57:17 Yeah. We adapt to what we have. So it's like, today's pleasure is tomorrow's just any given thing, and we're looking for the next pleasure. And, um, there's some interesting studies about this as well. One of my favorites from The Comfort Crisis is the study that found that (laughs) as people experience fewer and fewer problems, we don't, um, become more satisfied. We simply start searching for the next problem.

Steven Bartlett 57:41 Really?

Michael Easter 57:42 Yes. It's called, it's a theory, it was, uh, discovered by Harvard researchers in the psychology department, and it's, uh, the technical term they call it is prevalence-induced concept change. And you can just think about it as problem creep. Now-

Steven Bartlett 57:53 Problem creep?

Michael Easter 57:54 Problem creep. Right. So, you know, what used to be a problem yesterday or ... We're always gonna look for problems is basically what I'm trying to say. Um, and they discovered this where, in this study where they would have people look at a bunch of different faces and determine, you know, is this face threatening or non-threatening? They'd go one face after another. And by the 200th face, though, the s- the scientists started feeding the participants or the, yeah, the study participants fewer and fewer threatening faces. The other study, they did two of these, they had them look at research papers and determine whether the research papers were ethical or unethical. Same deal. About midway through, they start feeding them fewer and fewer unethical research proposals. Now, if these two things are black or white, the groups would have said threatening fewer times. As time went on, they would have found fewer and fewer unethical research proposals.

Steven Bartlett 58:48 Because they'd been given less.

Michael Easter 58:49 Right, because they'd been g- given less. But that didn't happen. (laughs) What they did is they said threatening the exact same amount of times. They took faces that were kind of on the border that they would have passed up and not said were threatening before, they started deeming those threatening. Same with the research proposals. They started getting more nitpicky. Now, the scientist who I, uh, spoke with, his name is David Levari. Yep. Getting his name right. Remembered it. Um, he explained that probably in the past it gave you a survival advantage to always be looking for the next problem, right? 'Cause if you're a type of person who's vigilant, going, "Okay, we might run out of food. That is problematic. We gotta fix it. Um, this is a problem. Let's fix that," if you're vigilant like that, that would, that would help you survive, right? But applied to today's world, where you've seen the world get better and better over time, it often causes us to miss how amazing it is and pile up first-world problems. Right? So, uh, there's also amazing research where (laughs) researchers will ask the average American, "Do you think the world is improving?" And only 6% of people think the world is improving. It's 'cause we look for the next problem. But if you think about that from, like, let's take the last 500 years. Like, of course the world is better. You live longer. Uh, y- you're more likely to be literate. You're less likely to be starving. You're less likely to d-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:14 Lose a child.

Michael Easter 1:00:15 Yeah. Exactly. On and on and on.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:17 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 1:00:17 But we often don't, um, realize that in the moment, and that affects us.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:21 Are we getting ... You know, you talked about the abundance we have in the world, but are we getting happier? Do you know any stats around, around our ha- collective happiness or how we report on that?

Michael Easter 1:00:33 Yeah, I think a lot of the research on happiness suggests that we are less happy than we were. Um-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:39 More mental health problems as well. We all know those stats-

Michael Easter 1:00:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:41 ... around depression and suicidality.

Michael Easter 1:00:42 More mental health problems, yep. And there's probably a variety of reasons for that. But I do think that one, uh, one thing that's interesting, um, we seem to live in a world where, uh, a lot of people have enough of what they need to survive. And if they don't, it's probably a governmental problem, it's probably a distribution problem. Um, and this, I'm mainly talking about developed countries here. But as we've got more and more and more, we haven't necessarily become more happy. So for example, I think the year was from 1970 to about 2000, the real income of Americans grew by 50%. So this is, um, this factors in, you know, price adjustments, inflation. So people got 50% richer on average, yet happiness didn't change. In fact, it might have actually decreased a little bit. (laughs) So this suggests that (laughs) once our needs are met to a certain point, like it's not necessarily gonna make us happier, yet we keep thinking that, you know, happiness is gonna be in the next purchase, that it's in the next meal out, that it's in the next, uh, viral tweet or whatever it might be.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:49 Did they discover an antidote for this sort of incessant search for problems? (laughs) 'Cause I'd like to be content, but-

Michael Easter 1:01:55 Yeah, well that, that's the, that's the search, right? That's the, that's the ultimate human search. I think that a lot of, uh, religions, they're set up to counter that.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:04 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 1:02:06 Right? (laughs) Don't, don't, uh, don't steal because you're taking away from someone else and society falls apart. Don't be gluttonous because that's gonna give you problems. Don't... You know, they're all telling us, "Don't overdo all these worldly things that we tend to overdo." And instead the focus is to, you know, take the focus off yourself and put it on something that will help you, um, kind of do the next right thing. Now, those get interpreted in ways that can be controversial, of course, but I do think that the overall architecture is the same. And that is the, that is the ultimate question for

Michael Easter 1:02:42 all people, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:02:43 My whole team here have got more and more into running.

Michael Easter 1:02:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:46 We speak about running all the time. And obviously, you know Daniel Lieberman, who's been on the show before.

Michael Easter 1:02:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:50 He... I think he wrote... Well, he wrote a book on running, didn't he? It was his last book, the one we had a conversation with on the show. What's your perspective on exercise, running, and what did you learn when you studied, um, nomadic tribes about the importance of exercise?

Michael Easter 1:03:05 Yeah, well, I mean, I do think that, um, it's probably the best thing that you can do for your health, is exercising. And I think that, um, you know, a lot of people will say, "Exercise is medicine." I think more that inactivity is poison. So we evolved to have a certain amount of activity in our daily life. Like, we need that in order to be... get a certain... to be healthy and happy. And we often don't get that today, the way that we design our lives. Um, something I write about in The Comfort Crisis is, uh, the human body is good at two things. Humans evolved to be good at two things. One of them is running long distances relatively slowly, which I'm sure Daniel Lieberman talked about, because he's the dude who discovered that. (laughs) He's great. But the other thing that we are good at is carrying things for distance. So you, you ask, "Okay, well why are we good at this long distance running in the heat?" And it's because we would chase down animals, who are not good at cooling themselves, um, for miles and miles and miles until they overheated, and then we would kill them, and we would have our meal. But then what happens after you kill an animal away from camp?

Steven Bartlett 1:04:12 Call an Uber. (laughs)

Michael Easter 1:04:14 Yeah. Call an ancient Uber. (laughs) You gotta carry it back.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:18 (laughs) Yeah.

Michael Easter 1:04:19 And we're the only, uh, we're the only animal that can carry things for distance well, and that absolutely shaped us just as much as running did. So we've got these hands that can grip things strongly. We're built in such a way that, um, we can carry stuff for distance. And I argue in The Comfort Crisis, a lot of people still run. Like, jogging is popular, but carrying things as a workout is something that a lot of people don't do. And so I advocate for, uh, rucking, which is loading up a backpack with weight and walking. And when you compare, uh, rucking to running, rucking tends to, um, be less injurious, so people... the injury rate is much lower. It also preserves more muscle than running does. So when you run, you're burning fat, but you're also burning muscle. When you ruck, because you have weight on your body, it's signaling your body like, "Don't burn quite as, quite as much muscle." And studies bear that out. Um, so you're kind of getting cardio and weight training in one. And I think it's a good thing that people should be doing. I'm not saying, "Don't ever run," but I am saying, "We've engineered this really important form of human physical activity, which is carrying things for long distances, out of our lives." And by adding it back in, I think we do get a lot of different benefits.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:45 How does the modern body look different to

Steven Bartlett 1:05:48 the body of our ancestors in that regard? All these, um, nomadic tribe- tribes. Do they have sort of... 'Cause I imagine if they're, if they're carrying things in a world where we can put it in the boot of a car or f- find some other means, using wheels to roll it, they must be physiologically, um, adapted in certain ways.

Michael Easter 1:06:07 I think that... Well, I think that in my experience, and you would have to talk to Dan as well to see if he, um, agrees with this, but I do think that most hunter-gatherers are much smaller than the average Westerner is. They're just much smaller, because they don't have as much food. They're also far more active, and so they're not giant people. When you look at... (laughs) when you look at people in the West today, we're giant people in the grand scheme of time and space.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:36 Who burns more calories?

Michael Easter 1:06:38 Uh, well, if you did it per pound of body weight, they do.... like, by far. But when you-- they might we- so you have to do it by how big the person is, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:06:48 Right. Of course, yeah.

Michael Easter 1:06:48 If you have two people that are burning 3,000 calories, great. But if one person weighs 250 pounds and the other weighs 120 pounds-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:57 Yeah.

Michael Easter 1:06:57 ... well, the person who's 120 pounds is burning far more for their body weight, and that's an important distinction that needs to be made when we talk about, do hunter-gatherers burn as many calories as Westerner 'cause there's some people who are, like, "Well, they burn the same." It's, like, yeah, th- they're 100 pounds on average. We're on average 200 pounds. Like, that's a big difference.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:13 The arms of the average prehistoric woman, for example, were 16% stronger than those of today's women's Olympic rowers.

Michael Easter 1:07:21 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:21 Jesus Ch-

Michael Easter 1:07:22 Yeah. They're v- they're very fit people. I mean, they can go ... There's this one, um, anthropologist I talked to who, uh, spent some time with hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, and she talked about how even the older people in the tribe, we're talking about, you know, 70, 80-year-old women, they can just hike all day. They can hurdle over rocks, like, th- it's just like they're monsters. And I'm like, you know, she's a 30-year-old woman, and she's like, "I'm kinda trailing behind these, these women that are, like, two, almost three times my age."

Steven Bartlett 1:07:52 And that's because they've stayed active and kept muscle mass, right?

Michael Easter 1:07:55 Yeah, they've stayed active. And so when you think about daily life, um, a lot of it is effortful. So they're not just c- they're not just covering ground. They're covering ground that is rough, right? It's all outdoors, um, that's gonna require more energy than a, than a sidewalk.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:15 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 1:08:15 They're carrying stuff. They're squatting. They're digging. They're ... Some of them will climb trees. Even when they're resting, they might rest in the squat position, where we are going to rest in a La-Z-Boy and just melt into it, right? So there's this, all this ... I mean, besides just the stuff that we would look at and say, like, "Yeah, that's active." I mean, even just resting is more active than we're ... They're always undergoing some low level of physical activity. And now, we've engineered so much of that out of our lives, and that's undoubtedly changed us. But we don't even know. It's like we're born into it, right? Because-

Steven Bartlett 1:08:46 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 1:08:47 ... as a species, we evolved to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing. So we have applied that with technology to our environments, and it's good overall, but it's changed us. It's changed our fitness. It's changed our physicality. And once we did that and realized, oh, we've taken out all this physical activity out of our lives and now we're getting sick for it, we go, "Well, I guess let's just, like, build these buildings where, um, you just go and, you know, maybe you run on a belt, and maybe you pick up some, uh, weights that are perfectly balanced, and you do that, you know, off ... How about three sets of ten? That's what we'll call it, right?"

Steven Bartlett 1:09:26 (laughs)

Michael Easter 1:09:26 So when we ... W- we basically invented exercise, right? And it's not the same as we used to necessarily do in the past. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but I am just saying that the way that we are physically active today, even that has changed greatly. Like, no one in the past would've tried to get giant and lift a bunch of weights. That ... It doesn't make sense to have all this extra muscle. You didn't have enough food to grow it. You didn't want to be carrying that around on your persons. I mean, think of mountain climbers. They don't, like, bulk up for a climb, right? They don't get huge and jacked. It's like, no, you need to be strong for your weight. You need to be as strong as possible for your weight, but you don't want to have any excess weight. And today, you have people who are like, "I just want to be, like, 250 pounds of pure muscle." It's gonna be awesome.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:06 People always ... People have been saying to me that calisthenics is one of the more important exercises probably for that very good reason, that lifting your body weight is probably the central ... Being able to move your body is the most important thing, not having massive guns.

Michael Easter 1:10:19 Yeah, a- and I think it is a strength thing. Like, there is some research that says that muscle mass, um, is good for longevity and protective. Um, a lot of those studies are often conducted, um, looking at people who are sarcopenic. And there's a difference between people who have a dangerously low level of muscle mass and those who just have a ton, just to have it. I think probably the sweet spot is just be in a, as much as BMI is a controversial measurement, I think probably be in a BMI that is normal, and try and be strong for your weight and do a bunch of cardiovascular exercise. I mean, just look at, like, what did humans do for all of time? That's probably a pretty good roadmap to try and mimic, and you tend to find that those people aren't that giant.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:59 Daniel Lieberman said something to me, which (laughs) is clearly so obvious, but really did shock me. He said when he spoke to these sort of hunter-gatherer tribe communities, they almost laughed at him when he asked them what they do for exercise, because the concept of exercise is not something they think about because they're exercising all day.

Michael Easter 1:11:19 Right.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:19 So h- uh, I think he remarked that one of those communities turned around to him and was, like, "Why would you run for fun?"

Michael Easter 1:11:25 (laughs) Totally. Yeah, they probably... He was going, "What do you do for exercise?" And they probably said, "What the hell's exercise?"

Steven Bartlett 1:11:31 Literally, like ... Oh, he said, like, something like training. "What do you do f- to train?"

Michael Easter 1:11:34 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:34 And they were like, "Training?" Like, we ... It's part of our life, is exercise.

Michael Easter 1:11:37 Well, that's how it was for all of us-

Steven Bartlett 1:11:39 Mm-hmm.

Michael Easter 1:11:39 ... forever. Like, no one moved just to move, because our lifestyles in the past were ... We had to just move for work, and you wouldn't want to do any extra because you were moving all day for labor. And I mean, this was ... Farm labor's really taxing. Most people worked in agriculture, um, until the Industrial Revolution. Um, exercise is something that we invented once we engineered movement out of our lives.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:01 You talk about, a second ago, about exercise as a psychological act, i.e., once upon a time when we were out in nature exercising, we would be psychologically stimulated because there might be a bear or, I don't know, a lion coming at us.

Michael Easter 1:12:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:13 So we're, we're, we're moving our bodies, but our mind is so attuned to everything happening around us. Now, as you said, we're on, in these gyms with these rubber belts, and we're watching, like ... I don't know, we're just, like, looking at the screen or watching Netflix or just-

Michael Easter 1:12:26 Real Housewives.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:26 ... uh, yeah, whatever-

Michael Easter 1:12:27 I'm watching Real Housewives.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:28 ... on the, on the treadmill. Does that e- ... Having exercise be a psychological act where it's psychologically stimulating through the p- when you're doing it, does that matter?

Michael Easter 1:12:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:38 D- Why?

Michael Easter 1:12:38 I just wrote a deep dive, uh, about this on my newsletter, um, which I call 2%, and we can, I can explain why I call it 2%. But when you think about the context of exercise, um, that we used to do in the past-There are so many more things happening than just the physical work of moving your body across the land. So, as you're moving, take- take something like trail running. You're having to figure out, "Okay, well, where am I gonna place each foot?" Because the trail might be rocky. You might even, not even be on a trail. So you're having to figure out what a- "What is my foot placement?" You're also having to factor in, "Okay, how am I gonna pace myself knowing I have this distance to go, knowing that it is this hot outside, knowing that I have this much water with me?" You're also having to factor in things in the periphery, like, "Are there wild animals out there?" And if you are running because you are, say, hunting, in the past, you're having to track the animal. That is an exceedingly psychologically taxing act. You're looking at- You're going, "Okay, well, we got a broken branch there. Oh, looks like there's a blood splatter from that, you know, arrow we put in it." It is- I- if running on a treadmill is like addition, running outside in the context that we would've run outside is like multivariate calculus. And there's a researcher at USC, named David Raichlen, and he's thought about this a lot, and he basically thinks that, you know, when you compare running indoors staring at a screen, your brain just kinda shuts off. You don't really have to do much cognitive work as you do this exercise. Yes, it is good for your cardiovascular health, he will say. But when you exercise outdoors, especially if it's in sort of wilder nature, like on a trail, think running on a trail, you're having to do a lot of cognitive work as you do that, and that might be better for brain health as well in the long run for people. Not to mention outdoor exercise- exercise is also harder. You're probably gonna burn more calories per step, you're gonna have more ups and downs, you're gonna ha- Like, it's just, it's just better overall.

Steven Bartlett 1:14:37 How much do you really know about your health? For me, that answer was simple. The answer was very little, until Whoop came along. As you guys know, they sponsor this podcast. But even before then, Whoop was integral for me to know what's going on inside my body. Most of my friends, my family, and my team now use Whoop, but I still have a few friends that are on the fence about getting on board, and what I hear from some of those friends is that they're a little bit worried about what they might see in the data, and