#1 NEUROSCIENTIST: This Dangerous Habit is DESTROYING Your MEMORY (Here’s How To Fix It FAST)

1. 0:00 – 2:54

   Intro

   1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial0:00

      Whether you end up having Alzheimer's, it begins with like, "Where did I put my keys?" We can't tell you which one's gonna go to 10 years later, that adult says, "I can't find my way home." Since we don't have that answer, everybody should do things to prevent memory loss.

   2. JSJay Shetty0:15

      Neurosurgeon- And a neurobiologist- Dr.- Rahul Jandial. Why is it that we feel we can't remember anything anymore?

   3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial0:22

      One of the most common questions people ask is when they start forgetting, like, where the keys are at and they s- they say, "Hey, is this Alzheimer's? Does this need to be fixed? Is this natural?"

   4. JSJay Shetty0:31

      What are we doing every day that's distracting and disrupting our working memory?

   5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial0:37

      Too much juggling and multitasking has its own issues. You wanna get away from your thought hijacking your body.

   6. JSJay Shetty0:45

      Why do we replay negative memories? Why is it so easy?

   7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial0:48

      So an emotional imprint on a memory requires no focus and attention. So emotional imprinting of a memory and trauma makes it sometimes too easy to remember, and sometimes it pops up without you even wanting to. When you're able to revisit a memory in a controlled environment, you can dampen your emotional stamp onto that memory. You don't forget the memory, you just disassociate the emotional feelings, the trauma, the fear, the physical reaction.

   8. JSJay Shetty1:15

      For anyone concerned that their family member may have early dementia or Alzheimer's, what should they be looking out for, and how can they help that person?

   9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:28

      The number one health and wellness podcast.

   10. JSJay Shetty1:30

       Jay Shetty.

   11. SPSpeaker1:31

       Jay Shetty.

   12. JSJay Shetty1:32

       The one, the only Jay Shetty.

   13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:34

       [laughs]

   14. JSJay Shetty1:36

       Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn, and grow. Today's guest is someone that we had on last year, and you absolutely loved the episode. The response was incredible. We had to have him back on. It is none other than Dr. Rahul Jandial, a renowned neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and author. Dr. Jandial is known for his expertise in brain surgery, particularly in areas related to brain tumors, epilepsy, and other brain disorders. Dr. Jandial is also a prominent public speaker and educator, frequently sharing insights into the brain's complexity and health. His work combines clinical practice with research, aiming to deepen our understanding of the brain and improve treatments for neurological diseases. Please welcome back Dr. Rahul Jandial. It's great to have you back.

   15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial2:27

       I'm stoked to be back, my man.

   16. JSJay Shetty2:29

       Yeah. People loved that episode, and the response was so great that we were like, "We have to get you back on for part two." [laughs]

   17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial2:36

       I mean, it was hard to tell for me because, you know, we're here, and it's intimate, and I'm feeling relaxed, and I can communicate, but then [laughs] it's going out to so many people, whereas if you do a, a, you know, a live television or you do an audience event, you can feel that energy like a sporting event. But-

   18. JSJay Shetty2:48

       Yeah

   19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial2:49

       ... I'm thrilled to be back, man, and I'm, I'm ready to just, just go off the top and just vibe.

2. 2:54 – 6:28

   Is Your Memory Really Getting Worse?

   1. JSJay Shetty2:54

      I love it, man. I love it. I wanted to dive in because I know you've been talking a lot about memory, and that's been something you've been studying quite deeply recently. Why is it that we feel we can't remember anything anymore?

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial3:06

      So that was the most common question I would get from my patients. So I, I, I'm a brain surgeon. I've taken care of several thousand patients with surgery and the interaction before and after surgery, and then I've met thousands. I was talking to your team, like, you know, not everybody you see needs surgery or benefits from surgery or chooses surgery, so there's just a lot of human interaction. I've had thousands of patients. I'm 52. I've been doing this since I was 25, and one of the most common questions people ask when they start to think about, "Maybe my brain isn't gonna be perfect forever," is when they start forgetting, like, where the keys are at or they stop remembering things and they s- they say, "Hey, is this Alzheimer's? Does this need to be fixed? Is this natural?" So that the question about memory is fundamental, and I'll, I'll zoom out for a little bit. People who don't have memory of who they are are completely lost. Every day they have to invent themselves new, so it's an essential feature that one type of memory called autobiographical memory, it stitches our memories of our childhood, lifetime experiences, and it gives us a sense of identity, meaning, purpose. Like, I have been the one in this vehicle of life, and it... those, those experiences are connected, right? So memory is essential in that way for identity. On a more practical level, memory is not one word, so, like, there's a lot of types of memory, and I think that's where today I wanna just take it one step deeper. Like, I don't have all the answers, but when I'm communicating with patients, if I can take it one step deeper in the explanation and they go, "Aha, I get it," then they're more likely to implement the guidance, uh, they choose. There are many types of memory. Memory's not one word. So let's take one that we rarely lose, procedural memory. Once you learn how to ride a bike [laughs] , once you learn how to, like, you know, tie your shoelaces, patients of mine that have Alzheimer's or even brain injury or just get 80s and 90s, they still remember that. Procedural memory is not the one we need to be thinking about. Then there's another type of memory called semantic memory. That's facts. I, I don't wanna remember my phone number anymore, man. [laughs] I got facts on my phone.

   3. JSJay Shetty5:08

      [laughs]

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial5:09

      I, I wanna connect the dots. So those kind of things aren't as important. Then there's the a third type you can call episodic memory. It's a fancy word for episodes. Again, like, this happened in my life, this episode. Now, that's important. Unfortunately, that type of memory is what's lost with dementia, with aging, a- and people worry about that. Like, does this mean I'm aging normally, or is this the onset of Alzheimer's? We don't have that answer. So whether you end up having Alzheimer's or whether you just have age-appropriate subtle loss of memory, it begins with like, "Where did I put my keys?" Like, it all begins that way. We can't tell you which one's gonna go to 10 years later, that adult says, "I can't find my way home." So that concept is so tricky that since we don't have that answer, I believe everybody should do things to prevent memory loss.

   5. JSJay Shetty6:03

      Right.

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial6:03

      'Cause you don't... Because if you go down the Alzheimer's path or just a normal cognitive declineThe guidance is still the same, ABC. A- eat a certain way, think a certain way, move a certain way. The guidance, ABC, whether you're about to get Alzheimer's, don't know if you're about to have Alzheimer's or normal aging, or have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the guidance is the same, and that speaks to how the brain and mind works.

3. 6:28 – 10:26

   What’s Distracting Your Working Memory

   1. JSJay Shetty6:28

      How bad is it that we can't remember what we had for dinner last night?

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial6:32

      Not a big deal at all.

   3. JSJay Shetty6:33

      Not a big deal. Okay.

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial6:33

      Not a big deal at all. So those glitches are age-appropriate. Uh, that happens in our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties as we get less young. I had, I had a patient a, a long time ago, she was ninety-something. I said, "Well, you're older." She looked at me with the-- just a scowl. She was like, "Older? I'm less young." So, uh, since that day-

   5. JSJay Shetty6:54

      You say

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial6:54

      ...less young.

   7. JSJay Shetty6:55

      Less young. [laughs]

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial6:55

      So as we get less young, that's natural. So first-

   9. JSJay Shetty6:59

      Why? What's happening?

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial7:00

       Well, the answer is, is not clear because we don't study that. What we do study is when it starts with age-appropriate, sort of subtle memory loss. And if you zoom out, we're-- our whole bo-- our knees age, our hearts age, our, our minds age. That's not necessarily a disease, uh, but it's age-appropriate versus Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is, and dementia, and like what Bruce Willis has, frontotemporal dementia, there's a lot of different types of dementia, maybe we should just call it dementia, is that it starts with a little bit of memory loss that's just normal aging, but then it, it accelerates. And what people think is like, "Oh, they can't remember things." It's more than that. They can't remember their autobiographical memory. They can't remember who they are 'cause they don't remember their stories from their childhood. Then they start forgetting who the loved ones are and why they're loved ones. Autobiographical memory. Then the, the injury goes even deeper, and it affects their emotional regulation. Like, that's a big topic I love, I wrote about a long time ago. Like, the ability to say, "I'm angry, but that's not how I wanna feel right now. That's not how I wanna act right now." They lose emotional regulation. So for caregivers, [laughs] it's very challenging. It's like, "You don't remember me. I'm your child. And then on top of that, you're angry with me all the time." It's a, it's an intense experience, of course, for the patient, for the person. I wouldn't say why do-- can we, can we never age in a way that's super memory all the way? Let me ju- I'm, I'ma get to that. I'm not sure we want perfect memory that's about facts, that's about procedures. The area, the, the last type of memory that I didn't mention is called working memory. This is, this is the memory I want. Of course, I want [laughs] autobiographical memory. I'm Rahul, I'm, I'm this, I'm that. Facts are in my phone. I think I'll be able to, to, you know, handle a bike and, and laces for a while. So let's get down to if you wanna level up. So the training for Alzheimer's and dementia, the training for me, the training for NFL quarterbacks, for moving receivers, analysis, judgment, timing, that's called working memory. Too much juggling, uh, multitasking has its own issues, but working memory is, it is the skill I want. I wanna be able to run six governmental departments. I wanna be able to manage a hospital with sixteen patients on ventilators when I was twenty-eight. I wanna manage talking to you and having a bunch of ideas popping in the back, and which one do I bring, right? That's called working memory, and there is guidance and training for that. There is brain training for that type of memory. So you asked me early like, "What's memory?" So now we've broken it out into several types.

   11. JSJay Shetty9:42

       Yeah.

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial9:42

       And the one-

   13. JSJay Shetty9:43

       It's fascinating

   14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial9:43

       ...the one we want is short-term juggling a lot of plates, a lot of thoughts in the sky.

   15. JSJay Shetty9:48

       Working memory.

   16. RJDr. Rahul Jandial9:48

       And that's where creativity comes from. You're looking at things, your working memory's pulling back imagination. Working memory can be trained. Working memory is the digital therapeutic for Alzheimer's. Working memory is like the, the people I look up to, they're the ones that do things the best. 'Cause it's not just procedurally, like I'm looking at six monitors and able to operate. It's the fact that I have a lot of thoughts in my head, and my working memory's keeping them all-

   17. JSJay Shetty10:15

       Hmm

   18. RJDr. Rahul Jandial10:16

       ...immediately accessible. I don't have to like go, "Ah, where, where's that? What was that?" No, I've got like eight or nine things I wanna talk to you about. My working memory is keeping them afloat, let it-- allowing me to extract them for you.

4. 10:26 – 13:39

   How to Manage Distractions and Stay Focused

   1. JSJay Shetty10:26

      Yeah. For anyone who's listening right now, and they're concerned that their family member may have early dementia or Alzheimer's-

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial10:35

      Hmm

   3. JSJay Shetty10:35

      ...that direction, what should they be looking out for, and how can they help that person?

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial10:40

      The story is when we, when humans passed away in our thirties and forties, it was sort of like the heart that wore out. And then we lived longer, and we addressed heart disease main- you know? As, as we live longer and longer, it's the brain that's starting to wear out. And if you suspect that your family member is having memory issues, the greatest challenge will be, and I don't mean this lightly, is that that person doesn't remember what they don't remember. They're not thinking, "I, I forgot that," because they don't remember that. It's the loved ones that see it. So if you see that, you have to invite them and say, "Look," you know, "I'm noticing a few different things. In our next general visit to the doctor, can we maybe mention it to them?" And they'll do a neurocognitive test. It's straightforward. Draw this circle backwards. And they do like those, that, uh, like a little test. It's casual, but they can track it and say, "Can we do this every year?" And you track that test every year. And when, when you see that you're drawing the clock and you're missing numbers, even the person with dementia will say, "Yeah, you know, something's changing." But if you try to persuade somebody who can't remember, "Hey, you're not remembering," can you... You, you could see how that could just not work, right?

   5. JSJay Shetty11:54

      Yeah.

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial11:54

      So you wanna get them to somebody early. And what the physician will do is take a look at that and then then say, "Hey, do you have genetic history?" And cer- so certain-- almost all dementia is not genetic, but there are some genetic issues that you wanna know about. And then, this is the best part, whether it'sAge-appropriate cognitive decline of certain memory, not working memory, the one we're fighting, I'm fighting for, or it's early-onset Alzheimer's that we can identify, the interventions are the same. Keep the brain arteries open, eat a certain type of food, the mind diet, and continue to challenge the brain. Puzzles, socializing, networking, taking a different route home, using your left hand, learning a new language. You don't have to learn the new language, you just have to try. You might only get like three words.

   7. JSJay Shetty12:46

      [laughs]

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial12:46

      You're like, "Hey, this language thing is not working." But it's the-

   9. JSJay Shetty12:49

      [laughs]

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial12:49

       ... those, those three steps are, are there is-- it-- that's the established thing, and I think that way, that's empowering to the patient, to the families, and it's not like pill and medicine dependent because frankly, there ain't good medicine for it.

   11. JSJay Shetty13:04

       Really?

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial13:04

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is not a-- there are not great treatments for Alzheimer's. They're out there. People can look at them. They're for early cognitive decline, but when you-- even if you were to take those medicines, you still gotta do the other things. You gotta walk to keep your brain arteries open. You gotta irrigate the flesh. You gotta eat a mind diet, which is fatty fish, or if you're vegan or plant-based, or, you know, they have that. And then you gotta like, you have to do those brain training and challenge your working memory. The same thing with somebody with Alzheimer's, about to get Alzheimer's, worried about Alzheimer's, and you and me, it's the same recipe.

5. 13:39 – 19:05

   Understanding the 3 Main Types of Memory

   1. JSJay Shetty13:39

      Let's break down the recipe for people who are listening right now so that we can get into the details of those three steps.

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial13:45

      Like, you know, uh, the brain is flesh. I remember the first time I saw one, I was twenty-six, uh, and they opened the skull, and I was just like watching the professors. And I was like, "What? Is this even possible?" And it gets twenty percent of the blood flow from your heart with, with these four raging arteries that come up, and it's like three pounds or five kilograms or whatever it is. That three, four-pound organ gets twenty percent of our blood flow. It is a energy hog. And you think it's-- and then it's white. It's opalescent. It's shimmering under the operating room lights. I mean, it's not gray matter. Gray matter is when they, uh, when the patient's passed away, and they've like formal- No, no, no. It, and it's heat. With every breath, it heaves a little bit. It's got fluid chambers on it. I mean, it's like a, it's-- the way to imagine it is like a hundred billion-ish jellyfish in a, in an aquarium, but there's fluid in there, and they're shooting electricity and chemicals at it. You mentioned something about when I said sleep entry, and you said, yeah, versus falling asleep. Language is important for our concepts. That's what I try to do before I came on today was like, how do I describe this in a way where it's not like-

   3. JSJay Shetty14:50

      Yeah, yeah

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial14:50

      ... the brain? I, I say the same thing. I'm not, I'm not throwing shade on anybody, but take your imagination away-

   5. JSJay Shetty14:55

      Yeah

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial14:56

      ... that it's a hundred billion jellyfish packed together in clusters floating in an aquarium inside our skull. Our brain doesn't sit on the inside of our skull. It's, it's buoyant, and it's s-spraying electricity, and it's not in left and right directions. It's like aurora borealis or a school of birds that rolls back onto each other, right? It's a, there's an electrical flow that's shivering through those, through those jellyfish, right? Like, that's how you gotta imagine it. So when you look at it, the first thing you need to know is those four arteries that come and feed this garden, right? And the neurons are like roses. You'll, you get what you get. You're not really growing neurons. There's a mild exception with stem cells, and then there's all the supporting cells, what I call like shrubs, like astrocytes. Like, you wanna keep that garden irrigated. You sprinkle the lawn, right? You gotta sprinkle blood to that flesh because that activity in those neurons is relying on the glucose coming up.

   7. JSJay Shetty15:52

      Mm.

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial15:52

      And that glucose is the fuel to keep those little molecular jellyfish alive.

   9. JSJay Shetty15:57

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial15:57

       So people say, "Well, what do, what do I do to keep my brain sharp?" Well, keep those arteries open. How do you keep those arteries open? You know that. Take the Lipitor, walk, exercise. That's not just to look good. It's to keep the main arteries and all those fine branching arteries going into those crevices open. Because if you start losing swaths of brain tissue, you're gonna have issues. Not always, but that's the first thing is heart health is also brain health. That's the easiest thing, okay? Number two is what you eat. Not, not today or tomorrow, but over a decade. And this is well-established. This isn't like one study. Globally, the Mediterranean diet, which is mostly plants, fatty fish, beans, nuts, those people, if you just look at like thousands and thousands over a decade or two, they have lower rates of dementia, and that's the only difference that they're having. That's the recommendation we give to people. So you say, "Well, why does that, what kind of, that kind of diet, why does that work?" And look, I'll, I'll, I'm a love-- I'll have a burger. I love it. I mean, it's not the indulgences. It's that baseline habit with food.

   11. JSJay Shetty17:05

       Yeah, it's the eighty percent.

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial17:06

       Those neurons, the neurons, if you think of it as a jellyfish with all these tentacles, ten, you know, they, rough numbers, ten thousand, hundred, whatever. But the electrical signals that flow between our neurons, they're wrapped with something, insulation. The insulation lets the electricity fire faster. That insulation is literally made of omega-3 fat. The brain is fatty. The fat that the brain uses to keep insulated comes from fatty fish and those kind of things. So there's a reason to eat that way. And the last thing we've been talking about all, you know, all morning is focusing on tension on the, on le- on your next level up-

   13. JSJay Shetty17:43

       Yeah

   14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial17:43

       ... not somebody else's.

   15. JSJay Shetty17:44

       The challenge, yeah.

   16. RJDr. Rahul Jandial17:44

       Right. 'Cause if I told you, "Hey, you want bigger biceps," we would say we need it, but this is a thinking flesh.

   17. JSJay Shetty17:50

       Mm.

   18. RJDr. Rahul Jandial17:50

       This is a feeling flesh. This is an interconnected flesh. So vibe, think, read, whatever that is for you, but the combination of those three things is well-established, and there is no shortcut. The concerning shift is certain cancers, breast and colon in particular, are if on average they popped up at a certain age, that curve for is shifting earlierAnd in particular for women. I want to do this, but I also want to do this. I want to have this piece of bacon, but I want to, you know, I don't want to eat it. It-- that's where we are at our most vulnerable and best, you know. That's where we're human, and rather than feeling frustrated by those wants that you can't always pursue the way you really choose to int- inside your mind, like, I want to do this, but I don't get there. My mind is ready to do it, but my behavior doesn't reflect that. That, that's called your internal referee. We need more reduction of what I call barriers to care, right? It's, it's in our field. There are medicines and screening and treatment that people don't even know about, people don't even get to. There's a language barrier, maybe somebody can't afford the bus. So as I work in my laboratory to make new medicine, we got to make sure the medicine and the, and the care we got gets to everybody.

6. 19:05 – 22:43

   What’s Distracting Your Working Memory

   1. JSJay Shetty19:05

      I love the way you've broken down the different memories. I had no idea that there were so many different words for memory. And I love that because it helps us really compartmentalize how we think about this really big topic. But when I'm listening to you, I'm wondering, what are we doing every day that's distracting and disrupting our working memory?

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial19:25

      So what I try to do is I try to take my patients' stories, I try to look at the neurons in a Petri dish. I read a lot, I read a lot of random things, and, and I try to think about how to answer that. What's the right... How do you thread the needle between juggling enough to where you're holding on to and cultivating your working memory, or you're just, like, just numb by this, like, blitz of, of things coming at you?

   3. JSJay Shetty19:53

      Yeah.

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial19:53

      I think it's very individual. I would say it's different for children because, as we discussed last time, we're learning to move and walk, and the brain is learning to have a sense of self. There's a psychological cultivation that mirrors our physical cultivation. You don't want to flood that mind with too much. I'll let others comment on at which age they should be on social media or not, but the concept I think we can all agree on based on science and this conversation is in the developing mind, it doesn't have the filter, and it doesn't have the maturity of that working memory. You don't want a kid [laughs] I've raised three sons. They're nineteen, twenty, and, and twenty-three, so I'm talking from the perspective of a parent. I always try to see where are they at and then add one more thing. But sometimes when I see families with their patients in the waiting room, I mean, the kids just look down at their phones for, like, a hundred hours. You know, it's like you look at their, you know, their time they've been on there, and you ask them, "How long you been on there?" Like, "A lot." You know, they just... It's just, it feels excessive for that age. And then it's also the content. At the later end of life, you want certain brain-training games for elderly. They have shown, [laughs] like, it's FDA approved. That means you brought a lot of evidence in it. It's not just one study. I'm not throwing shade on anybody, but the game is, it's a racer game [laughs] where, like, grandma's, like, racing a car, and there's distractions coming up, and she has to avoid them. Same thing for NFL quarterbacks. I think it was, uh, Atlanta. He's an, he's a broadcaster now. He's a quarterback. They had a game where they're looking at something, but different lights are popping up, and they have to identify them in their peripheral vision. That speed of processing, that working memory is an important skill. The question is, when are you stunting its development, and when are you cultivating? I think it's age specific. I think it's individual specific. I think when we know when we're just doing something to shut down versus doing it as training.

   5. JSJay Shetty21:57

      Yeah.

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial21:57

      So that portal can be both. It can mess you up, it can hold you back, but if you have the right digital diet, man, it can open up the world for you.

   7. JSJay Shetty22:04

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:05

      So I think that's the way I look at it.

   9. JSJay Shetty22:06

      Yeah. I always think about it like an elastic band, and it's this idea that an elastic band is useless if it's not being stretched. But at the same time, there's a point at which it will snap.

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:18

       Yeah.

   11. JSJay Shetty22:18

       And I've seen that with my own memory or my ability, my working memory as you describe it, where I used to think I was doing everything I could, and then I stretched, and I was like, "Oh wow, I can do more than I believe." And then I stretched, and then I stretched, and I started to realize that my capacity and capability was far larger than I ever imagined.

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:40

       And you were developing it with each stretch.

   13. JSJay Shetty22:41

       Exactly. But

7. 22:43 – 25:22

   Why the Right Amount of Stress Helps You Grow

   1. JSJay Shetty22:43

      if I accepted where I was, that, oh, this is the most I can do, actually I would never have known. And you're saying that in some ways that's unhealthy.

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:50

      Unhealthy that you-

   3. JSJay Shetty22:51

      You don't stretch and challenge.

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:53

      Absolutely.

   5. JSJay Shetty22:53

      Like you were saying with your kids, you're always adding one more.

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial22:55

      Oh, yeah. Somebody flies to space, they don't have gravitational force, they come back, their bones are brittle. You need certain amount of stress at the bone, at the osteocyte level. Like, physiologically, we need gravity. So some stress makes us grow. Too much stress fractures that bone, okay? Take that physiologic concept and apply that same to the mind. Now, what I would say is that elastic band, I love that, and if you leave it idle and that elastic band gets dry, then the stretching is too late. That... And then the last thing I would add to that is when my sons and others, they play video games, there's a very well-studied thing. If you give them multiple levels, they'll compete to level up. But if you just present them the fifth level, they'll just say, "Nah, that's too hard." And if you make it too easy, that won't hold their attention. So the nuance is exactly is to find where am, where am I at? Not that person's advice, not that person's life, but from everything that I've taken in, where am I at where the appropriate next stress, challenge, stretch of the rubber band, next level on the video game is there that's enticing enough, achievable with some effort, and then I get there.

   7. JSJay Shetty24:04

      Yeah.

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial24:04

      And then I get there, and then I get there, and then I get knocked down because life is, [laughs] is gonna knock you down. We- That's, uh, part of its struggle and its beauty, and then you might find yourself not at those same levels, not with those same coping mechanisms, but remembering that it's an incremental crawl out of that ditch that your mind can fall into.

   9. JSJay Shetty24:24

      Yeah.

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial24:24

       I've seen it in my cancer patients. They're heroes. And so if the lesson there is that our working memory, our memory, our mo- everythingFrom bones to biology to trees, we need stress and pressure. It's a thermostat. Stress isn't all bad, and stress isn't all good, and it's individual. Stress for you might be different than stress for me. In the hospital, there are stresses that certain friends of mine can handle. That's a massive stress. You're operating in the middle of the night. You, you're handling fifteen patients. For them, they're right at that.

   11. JSJay Shetty24:59

       Mm.

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial24:59

       For other people, that might inundate them, and that's not appropriate. So it has to be an individual thing, but biologically, physiologically, psychologically, I think knowing thyself is to know what's that next challenge for me that's enticing, that's achievable with effort, that's not too easy so I don't, you know, give a damn-

   13. JSJay Shetty25:18

       Yeah, yeah

   14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial25:19

       ... or just there's no way I can get there, so I'm not even gonna try.

8. 25:22 – 29:14

   Yes, Older Adults Can Have Strong Working Memory

   1. JSJay Shetty25:22

      Yeah. There's a brilliant book called Flow State, uh, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, if I'm saying his surname right, that explains this so brilliantly. He talks about the need for having your skills meet your challenge. And so he talks about this idea that either what most of us experience is our challenge is above our skills, so we get frustrated, right? We get really disappointed. You might even get depressed because your challenge is so high and your skills are so low. Or you have the opposite, where your skills are really high, but your challenge is low. Now you're bored. Now you're disconnected. Now you're disengaged because you can practically do everything with ease. And so he talks about flow state, which is what we see athletes, musicians, singers, these people who are in their moments or in the zone is when their experiences and their skills meet their challenge. And while we're talking about this, the part that I was thinking about is why do we get so stressed when we can't remember something?

   2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial26:18

      Mm.

   3. JSJay Shetty26:19

      Right when we're like, "Oh, man, I wanted to tell you about that movie," and, "Oh, I want to tell you about that t- oh, what was that-

   4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial26:23

      Yeah

   5. JSJay Shetty26:23

      ... actor's name? Oh, gosh, I, I, I..." You know, and we get so frustrated when we're, we almost feel that glitch.

   6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial26:29

      I think that's because we assume that we're slowing down or shutting down, and what I'm trying to tell people is that memory, uh, outsource that to your phone. There are people who forget their keys, forget other people's names. That's appropriate as we get less young. But older people can still have high working memory. Fight for working memory and stay with that. Back to the flow state, I love that, man. I mean, I wrote about it a little bit. I'm familiar with the book. And I think the insight that he provided is that, one, it's individual. You can be in a flow state driving. You can be in a flow state sewing. You can be in a flow state holding your kid. It's not only for high-level people. I think, you know, as described, that it's, again, individual. It's personal, but it takes knowing not what other people's ambitions and desires are, not what other people's goals are. It takes knowing, like, this is something I want to get better at. This is something I want to cultivate myself. I think that's what I liked about his book was that it wasn't about the skill. It was at your skill level.

   7. JSJay Shetty27:37

      Yes, yes.

   8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial27:37

      It's not like brain surgeons are in flow state. Athletes are in flow state. He, he studied them to understand that. The second thing that I liked about it, often there's a physical component and a thinking component, and I love that because there have been times where, I don't know, I mean, people think like, people think like brain surgery is like fixing a car. You do these twenty steps. It's every tissue, every cancer is reverse sculpting. There's, at some point, you have to just, you have to let the maneuvers go where, like, it's, it's a dance when I've seen it done with finesse at the highest level. And in those occasions where I'm feeling that, I just remember feeling so good about what was happening without every thought being engineered and structured. Like, there was a... I felt proud that there was a skill being released, and I think that's a flow state for me during surgery. Sometimes when I dri- I grew up in LA, so when the freeways are open, I took a long-

   9. JSJay Shetty28:36

      [laughs]

   10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial28:36

       ... fast drive through all the open roads. I had my white coat. I was, you know, I'm a surgeon, so we're allowed to be on there. But for driving some people, they just describe it as, again, it's both paying attention externally and then doing something physically. I think the combination-

   11. JSJay Shetty28:52

       Yeah

   12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial28:52

       ... the physical movement, physical activity, I think should not be underestimated. Let me give you a specific example. The overlap of, of wanting and desire, th- those circuits, when you talk about flow state, it's not just a psychological thing. The most times I felt that it's a mind-body

9. 29:14 – 33:16

   How Memory Is Built Inside the Brain’s Ecosystem

   1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial29:14

      thing.

   2. JSJay Shetty29:14

      Mm-hmm. What's the connection between, you were mentioning their focus and attention.

   3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial29:17

      Mm.

   4. JSJay Shetty29:18

      What's the connection with memory? Because I think a lot of us are trying to be more present.

   5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial29:21

      Okay.

   6. JSJay Shetty29:22

      We see it as valuable. When we meet someone, you forget their name instantly. You're right, the facts will be there, but there's a part of us that feel like we're almost looking through people. We're not really there. How much does focus and attention actually impact memory, or are they not connected?

   7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial29:38

      You know, that's a good question. I don't think I have a specific answer about that. I haven't read about that. But I will tell, I will tell you that memory, to retrieve it is a reconstruction. There's no Rolodex or a filing cabinet, you pull it out. Memory is built and-

   8. JSJay Shetty29:53

      What do you mean by that?

   9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial29:54

      Let's think of, uh, of the brain as an ecosystem, right? The, the general electricity that you can record with electric-- or is like an atmosphere. Then we have the flesh, the lobes. We can talk about that. Then we have networks and circuits, like things that work in ensembles. They go up and down together. They, they never turn off. It's always like fifty-one, forty-nine. There's noth- there's no part of the brain that shuts off. And then there's individual neurons. You can think of them as like each tree in a forest. When, when we talk about memory, it is not a filing cabinet. It's a hub, and so it pulls. Like, I, I want to remember something. The easiest way for me to remember something, and sometimes-Unavoidable, like you can't even forget it is when the emotional structures and s- and regions of your brain have put a stamp on it. So emotional imprinting of a memory and trauma makes it sometimes too easy to remember, and sometimes it pops up without you even wanting to, right? So that's one type of focused attention, emotional stamping. Th- I don't-- amygdala is not posi- is not negative stamping, it's just emotional stamping, both positive and negative. So an emotional imprint on a memory requires no focus and attention. It's just, it's just churning back there.

   10. JSJay Shetty31:08

       Wow.

   11. RJDr. Rahul Jandial31:09

       It, it's activated. A smell can pop it open. Y- you don't wanna think about it, and it's coming up. I think we all know that, right?

   12. JSJay Shetty31:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial31:15

       Like things we don't wanna think about, feelings we don't have, memories of the past blended with imagination. So you don't require attention [chuckles] and focus for some types of memory.

   14. JSJay Shetty31:26

       Yeah.

   15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial31:26

       Usually the ones with emotional stamps. We can get into trauma and that sort of thing.

   16. JSJay Shetty31:30

       Yeah. We will later.

   17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial31:32

       For the re- for the rest of it, if we're engaging people, then on the other side is [chuckles] there's all this like, "You don't rem- I wanna remember all of this." It's not really relevant, right? It's a habit. You're driving, and you make that exit. There's a mem- there's a procedural memory. I don't wanna think about, like, tying my shoelace. So somewhere in between is the attention to, "I should remember this. I want to remember this." So memory's emotionally imprinted. Memories you don't need, you're, you're just driving on the freeway. And in between, the emotional memory is easy. The attention and focus to memory is hard because it's a decremental process, meaning bandwidth is a casual word, but it takes effort. The emotional thing, ooh, it just strikes you. The other one you don't want. So attention and focus requires effort. And so when you have people you're talking to, you wanna remember something, or you wanna remember, uh, you know them or their names, that attention and focus is something you have to dial up.

   18. JSJay Shetty32:32

       Yeah.

   19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial32:33

       And there's a couple ways to dial it up. Removing distractions. When you talk to LeBron James, it's like, it's about not thinking about it. There's one way is to remove distractions or increase attention, and that's individual. Focus is if you haven't slept, your energy towards attention is less. It's decremental. They call it decremental vigilance. Like, if you're on guard in a military situation [chuckles] like after a certain amount of hours or a long surgery or a long shift at the hospital, it fades. If you're in the middle, you're just like, "I wanna have more focus and attention to this," the natural answer is lessen the distraction, be rested, and, you know, make it a priority. But that's within each of our minds based on what we're looking at.

10. 33:16 – 35:31

    The Critical Gap Between Thoughts and Actions

    1. JSJay Shetty33:16

       So when you just told me before we started that you're doing brain surgery at 3:00 a.m. today, how do you maintain a level of attention? Obviously, there's no distractions.

    2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial33:28

       Oh, there are tons of distractions.

    3. JSJay Shetty33:30

       Oh, there are? Oh, okay, okay.

    4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial33:30

       People are walking around. Things are going wrong.

    5. JSJay Shetty33:32

       All right. Okay. [laughs]

    6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial33:32

       Beeps are going off. You gotta tell somebody, "Hey, no music today."

    7. JSJay Shetty33:35

       So walk me through that. How are you that focused with something that sensitive in that moment? How do you prepare for that type of surgery?

    8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial33:43

       So the skill, the cultivation, is to know when this task can be performed casually, going to the cafeteria, talking to a patient. Your emotional intensity is there, but you, you learn to dial up and dial down as the situation requires. It's ec- the fancy word is ecological validity. Like, you got, you got a game plan, but it's gotta be tested. And so that long training and those long hours was partly because they needed labor, partly because, you know, they justified it like if you go work in a small town and you do an operation, then the patient has to go back because something went wrong. You can't call somebody else. You gotta run it. You gotta handle it. And so what you learn is... So, for example, the, the operation went late last night. That's not a big deal to me because before that, I wasn't trying to wear myself out with drama with somebody, you know, wearing myself out with, like, looking at things that would distract. I went into, uh, sort of what I call a, a zen mode to prevent distractions. You know, I go to zen mode before, and it's not like you can tell. And then I save that tension and focus because I know my vigilance is decremental. It fades. And then we get the patient set up, and we do all of that. I'm still just whatever, you know? And until there's like a, there's a physical cue for me, and then it lifts. There's attention and focus, and then there's the craft, and then there's a release, and then after that, there's, you know, there's a crash. And then I make the decision I'm gonna Uber home or drive home, you know? I know the freeway, so I drove home. But that goes back to your original question is realize attention and focus for memory, for anything, is a resource. Some things will grab your attention. Some things don't warrant your attention. It's, it's, it's that middle zone, right? That's what we're trying to finesse-

    9. JSJay Shetty35:28

       Yeah

    10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial35:28

        ... at an individual level, uh, you know,

11. 35:31 – 40:28

    Simple Ways to Train and Improve Your Focus

    1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial35:31

       and a collective level.

    2. JSJay Shetty35:31

       Well, I, I, I appreciate what you're saying because I remember reading about it in a book by Daniel Levitin called The Organized Mind.

    3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial35:38

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JSJay Shetty35:38

       And he talked about this idea of how when Warren Buffett is deciding where to invest, he takes milk and cookies, rents an apartment in New York City, and lives in that apartment for five days. So basically, he's doing very little when it comes to his daily requirements of food. He's cleared out his space, so he's in a new environment that's empty, and then he's sitting there making decisions. And he talked about how this was his way of removing decision fatigue, this idea that when we're making lots of insignificant decisions in the morning when we wake up, by the time it comes to a big decision at the end of the day, the middle of the day, we have no energy left to make it. So most of us are stressing out, going, "What do I eat today? What do I wear today? Which route do I take to work today? Oh my gosh, what am I gonna say to that person today?" Now, by the time you get into the office, you've already made so many insignificant decisions that you're exhausted, and now you can't dial it up when you actually need it.

    5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial36:34

       Because it's limitedAnd it's, and it's detrimental over time. I love that. What I would say is, again, you have to know yourself a little bit, like that's coming. And it could be I'm about to have a hot conversation with my lover, and this is not gonna... This is a tense situation. I don't wanna walk in that with my mind already in a fuss. I got a big case. It's going late. There was an emergency before. I'm gonna start this at 11 o'clock. It needs to go tonight. That's not when I'm trying to get into a fuss. I don't know what the example will be for your viewers and other people, but if everybody can walk away with, like, your attention and focus at wherever s- level and stage you're at is, uh, precious, is limited. You wanna control your environment. You don't wanna talk to certain people. Maybe you do wanna talk to certain people. Maybe you wanna listen to certain music. Maybe you don't wanna listen to... Those examples are all around us. Athletes walking in with their Bose headphones on, they're doing the same thing, but we can explain it with neuroscience that attention is detrimental. You cannot maintain-

    6. JSJay Shetty37:34

       100%

    7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial37:35

       ... sustained external focus. So in those 40-hour shifts, I never did a 40-hour operation, and I just learned to work with my attention and focus. That was the real skill that I learned. And then Buffett, you know, he's also changing his physical environment.

    8. JSJay Shetty37:49

       Yeah.

    9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial37:49

       I do that, too. Like, I'm going to London next, next week, and I'm just... People are like, "Oh, you like to stay in the same place though?" It's like, "No, I'm coming here to, like, oh, get lost. Ugh, my phone's not working. Look at this. Where's this?" Like I, I need to change physical environment to have new thoughts 'cause I'm working on something in my mind. And so I think part, maybe part of what he does is, is not just to get rid of the fuss and to avoid, uh, decision fatigue or detrimental vigilance. Because detrimental vigilance, I, I prefer that one for-- is broader. I'm not telling you what to pay attention to. I'm not trying to tell you, but you're about to make a decision. Just realize this focus, this external... They're, they're actually calling it action network, an action brain network. These fountains and continents that rev up a little bit on the inside our brain for outward attention versus dreaming, where it's all imaginative. Like th- you can't rev that up for 16 hours. See, there's a cadence to the day.

    10. JSJay Shetty38:43

        Yeah.

    11. RJDr. Rahul Jandial38:44

        You're setting yourself up for success, individual success, fighting with somebody, dealing with a kid, driving you crazy. Whatever it is, that's, that's yours. I want people to walk away with like, "I get it."

    12. JSJay Shetty38:54

        Yeah.

    13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial38:54

        You know? My, my day-

    14. JSJay Shetty38:56

        I really like that

    15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial38:56

        ... my, my, my day is a dance, you know?

    16. JSJay Shetty38:58

        Yeah. I really like that, man. I think that's such great advice, and it, it resonates so strongly with me, even when I look at my day. So, for example, I only do two interviews per day. So you're my first one. I have another one in the afternoon, and I can only do two interviews per day because for me, these interviews require 100% focus, and if you ask me to do another one on top of that, I just don't think I could be at 100%. But I know that for you I can be at 100%. I then have a couple of meetings in between, which are requiring a different part of me-

    17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial39:28

        Mm-hmm

    18. JSJay Shetty39:28

        ... that don't require this-

    19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial39:30

        Mm-hmm

    20. JSJay Shetty39:30

        ... exclusive focus. And you're so right. I think we put so much pressure on ourself that we expect this level of focus in every conversation, every meeting throughout the whole day.

    21. RJDr. Rahul Jandial39:40

        In every situation.

    22. JSJay Shetty39:41

        In every situation, yeah.

    23. RJDr. Rahul Jandial39:41

        Like, you get some bad news, you gotta know I may not even be able to pull off two.

    24. JSJay Shetty39:44

        Yeah.

    25. RJDr. Rahul Jandial39:44

        You got a crunch. You might be able... But that's exactly, that's again, ecological validity in your environment. If I get into a car crash, I can't go into my zen, pre-surgery zen mode. I call my partner. I gotta know where I'm at. And so i- there is no final guidance. It's just that your attention and focus is-

    26. JSJay Shetty40:04

        No, it's great advice.

    27. RJDr. Rahul Jandial40:05

        You know what I mean? It's-

    28. JSJay Shetty40:06

        Yeah, it's great advice

    29. RJDr. Rahul Jandial40:06

        ... 'cause people c- people think like, like he's a robot. [laughs] No, man, I'm not. I, I've been through a lot. I go through a lot. I feel a lot. But I've just realized that to deliver as a surgeon, here's the dance I do with my own mind-

    30. JSJay Shetty40:20

        Mm-hmm
12. 40:28 – 48:55

    Why Negative Memories Stick With Us

    1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial40:28

       that's all I'm about.

    2. JSJay Shetty40:29

       I wanted to ask you about something you've mentioned before. You talked about this idea of this emotional memory that almost comes immediately, this idea that if... And I, I often lead this meditation. It's one of my favorite ones to lead when I'm sharing it with my audience or community, and technically it's called a loving-kindness meditation. And what it means is I'll often ask people, before we share love with the world, I edited it slightly for people to really experience love within themselves. So I'll ask people to close their eyes and get into that zone, but I'll ask them to go back to a memory where they felt the most joyful, the most happy, and the most love. Who was there? How did it smell? What could they see? What could they hear? What could they taste? And immediately people will have a vision. People think of their wedding day. People have even thought of, uh, their dog passing away-

    3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial41:22

       Sure

    4. JSJay Shetty41:22

       ... because it was a really important transition point for them. It could be the first time they, uh, celebrated their parent or bought their parent a home, or whatever it was, the ability to take care of someone.

    5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial41:33

       It's personal.

    6. JSJay Shetty41:33

       Yeah, it's really beautiful. It's different. But it's really interesting what you said is, for most of us, it's actually the opposite that we do more of. So it's more common for us to replay a negative memory again and again and again and again than it is for us to remember what we did last weekend, even if it was positive. Why do we do that? Why do we replay negative memories? Why is it so easy, and what do we do about it?

    7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial42:01

       Memory is imprinted with emotion for our protection, right? Like you see a snake, you don't have to think about it. It- it's a global thing, but roughly as the brain blossomed, it went from brain stem, which people call reptilian, to limbic structure, that people call emotional or primal brain, and prefrontal cortex, which is the s- which is the part of the brain that pushed the brain forward. They have different, uh, regions, but they're all interconnected and they're hubs. So it's not a consistent texture throughout the brain. It's not like a liver. It's not like flan, where it's like the brain, the brain is not one thing. It's a whole ecosystem, different structures, different connections, different cells. And memory and emotionAre intertwined as part of the primal limbic structures. That's the way my puppy [chuckles] can sniff and smell out when I'm trying to trick her. I mean, think about it. In that way, how ingenious that is. Like, if you're going on a date night-

    8. JSJay Shetty43:04

       [laughs]

    9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial43:04

       ... you're like, "Hey, Frankie. Frankie, come, come." She's, she's, like, looking at you, right? That's instinct. So emotion and memory and thoughts, that is a type of thinking. I don't think of emotions as not thinking, but that... If you have a brain injury and you lose those primal centers, you're, you're, you're paralyzed. You can't make a decision. You can actually have an injury to your prefrontal cortex and still do a lot with just your limbic structure. So emotion and memory are important, right? You want that imprint. I saw a snake, I jumped before I thought about it. Then what also happens is we have emotional regulation. I saw the snake, I jump. Then I look down a second time and it's, it's a plastic snake. I'm not worried about that. Or I'm afraid of heights and exposure therapy. I can learn to tamp down my emotional responses with my prefrontal cortex, which is the area of the brain that pushed the forehead forward. You can think of it as two fists, and there's different regions that do different things that are fascinating. That's an important system, but that system is so hot for your protection that it could go sideways on you, too. So what, what I think is important is that most of us, when we have traumatic experiences, we don't develop PTSD. The great majority of people from hurricanes and COVID and other things, they don't develop PTSD. There is a protective mechanism on how to deal with trauma, and that mechanism is learning to uncouple the emotional imprint of the limbic structures in the primal area of the brain, amygdala-ish part of it, that I was hurt and the assailant was wearing a flannel jacket. Your immediate response is not to go down that alley. That, that's protective. When a year later you're not able to leave your home, I'm not judging you, I'd be the same way. I'm just saying that's something you wanna work on. That emotional imprint is too strong. Then you go to somebody who can take you safely based on you feeling safe. Not every therapist office is safe. You feel safe, you, you bring up that memory, your body has a response, and you realize, "You know what? It's okay." You do that 10 times and what happens? You take the traumatic, negative, hurtful, scary emotion to that memory. You don't lose that memory. Those patients will tell you, "Yeah, now I can think of it, but it doesn't, it doesn't take my breath away like that."

    10. JSJay Shetty45:30

        You're extracting the story you have attached to that memory from that memory, right?

    11. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:36

        Yeah, yeah. The negative imprint part of the story.

    12. JSJay Shetty45:38

        Yes, yes.

    13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:39

        You're not, you're not trying to forget about it. That's the mo- that's the thr-

    14. JSJay Shetty45:42

        Wow.

    15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:42

        Isn't that cool?

    16. JSJay Shetty45:43

        Yeah, that's huge. Yeah.

    17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:43

        Like, that's established. I don't know how to, how that works.

    18. JSJay Shetty45:45

        That's huge.

    19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:45

        I'm not a therapist.

    20. JSJay Shetty45:46

        Yeah.

    21. RJDr. Rahul Jandial45:46

        But that's, that's the point there is the hippocampus, the hub from brain-wide memory, and limbic structure, something happens. They're meant to stamp you, "Don't go down that alley again. Don't get hit with that snake again," right? Like, that's, that's the design.

    22. JSJay Shetty46:01

        Yeah.

    23. RJDr. Rahul Jandial46:01

        But what happens in our life is we're dealing with a lot of the, the hurt from it, from lovers, from experiences at work, uh, and from assault that... You know, I work in a hospital, people still get hurt quite a bit. And so when you're able to revisit a memory in a controlled environment and not have that harmful experience, you can dampen your emotional stamp onto that memory.

    24. JSJay Shetty46:25

        Mm.

    25. RJDr. Rahul Jandial46:25

        You don't forget the memory. You just uncouple, disassociate the emotional feelings, the trauma, the fear, the physical reaction. Um, and I don't know if that's a negativity bias or not. I don't have an answer for that. You ask, like, "Why do we always remember, uh, more painful things?" I mean, maybe they're protective. It's more of evolutionary psychology maybe that helped us. There's no way to experiment or, like, I can't give you that answer. But what I would say to you is, what if we did the flip side? Maybe that's the neurobiology. I'm not talking about neuroscience and the brain, the bra- Like, just, just to be specific, what if by remembering a positive memory, you are enhancing and accentuating, uh, the positive stamp?

    26. JSJay Shetty47:08

        That's my belief, yeah.

    27. RJDr. Rahul Jandial47:09

        Yeah. A- and the... And because it's interconnected with hubs and continents and lobes, not... What if because it's interconnected, just stay with me. If you have an emotional negative, a negative emotional stamp on a memory and it reverberates through your body, I mean, God, I just goosebu- I mean, you know, it's, it's, like, we can go over the connections, but it's a physiologic response. What if you could have, by choice, in that part of that prefrontal cortex, that area at the bottom called orbital frontal cortex. Without getting into the, the, the details of it, but there's an internal referee of where we steer our thoughts and our competition of wants and thoughts. What if we spent time saying, "Bring up positive old memories, stamp them harder, put them in a collective environment that reinforces it, bring out the positive thinking, bring out the positive vibes"? It could be physiologically possible to be the opposite of PTSD, emotional stamping of the hippocampus. Now, there's no experiment for that, but I believe in that.

    28. JSJay Shetty48:09

        Yeah.

    29. RJDr. Rahul Jandial48:09

        There's no reason not to believe in that. And if you do that, just remember, it's not happening in a spot in your brain. It's reverberating through your brain and your body, so then maybe you stop having some of those somatic symptoms. Maybe... Right? Maybe you feel that flow state where your body is different and your brain is different. So I believe that. There, every nerve is two-way. The, I c- I touch, it goes up, I wanna move. It's the same nerve. It's bi-directional. So why can't the relationship between our primal limbal- limbic cir- circuits, whatever, amygdala, and our memory zone and all interconnected, why can't that be bi-directional? If we can stamp a negative memory so we don't fall in that trap again, what if we could stamp a positive memory and add momentum in that direction?

13. 48:55 – 51:02

    Three Daily Habits That Keep Your Brain Sharp

    1. JSJay Shetty48:55

       Th- this is a huge, huge thing I want people to take away because what we've kind of stumbled on here is so profound for people because what we're saying is, "Don't try to forget the bad memory." If you try to forget the bad memory, it will never go away. That memory's gonna stay there because it's trying to teach you something, it's trying to remind you something, it's trying to make you aware of something. But if you can change the story, if you can give it a different meaning-

    2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:24

       Meaning

    3. JSJay Shetty49:24

       ... if you can extract the pain out of it-

    4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:26

       That made me better because

    5. JSJay Shetty49:28

       ... it just completely transforms.

    6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:30

       Yeah.

    7. JSJay Shetty49:30

       And I'm thinking about so many moments in my life that you're so right, that now you can think of that memory. The memory is not gone, but the way I think of that moment, I think of it as being a powerful part of my story, I think of it as being a beautiful breakthrough for me.

    8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:47

       Put that crisis to use.

    9. JSJay Shetty49:48

       Absolutely. And all of a sudden, yeah, that's really powerful.

    10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:51

        Because it's too hard to tell [laughs] somebody to forget that. They're like, "Uh, you telling me-

    11. JSJay Shetty49:54

        But I think that's the problem

    12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:54

        ... to forget that is the only thing I'm thinking about, dog."

    13. JSJay Shetty49:56

        But I think that's the problem.

    14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial49:57

        You know what I mean? It's not fair to them.

    15. JSJay Shetty49:58

        I think, I think the problem is not just people telling us, I think we want-

    16. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:01

        Yeah

    17. JSJay Shetty50:01

        ... to forget it.

    18. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:02

        Well, because of the language and the concepts that are out there.

    19. JSJay Shetty50:04

        Yeah.

    20. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:04

        But if we're told, "No, y- you haven't failed because you forgot to have that thought."

    21. JSJay Shetty50:09

        Yeah.

    22. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:09

        "You haven't failed b- y- you haven't failed in your intentional efforts because that thing continues to grip you."

    23. JSJay Shetty50:16

        Yeah.

    24. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:16

        Just say, "Yeah, that's in your head. That's in your life. That's your ex-" Nobody knows what happened last night to me, or you, or that patient, or anybody. So it cannot be the same advice for everyone, but it can be the same concept. We don't have infinitely wild dreams. Our dreams follow some patterns. Well, our thoughts and emotions follow some patterns.

    25. JSJay Shetty50:38

        Yeah.

    26. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:38

        Em- negative emotional imprinting built in. Turn that on its head, and it'll be incremental.

    27. JSJay Shetty50:44

        Yeah.

    28. RJDr. Rahul Jandial50:45

        It's not gonna be, "Hey, tomorrow, I see. I get it. D- I can hold onto that memory, I just can't feel bad about it." That's not gonna [laughs] happen in a, in a second. It's not gonna happen in a moment. There are epiphanies. We can get into some things like that, but that's the, that's the direction that you wanna put your attention and focus.

    29. JSJay Shetty51:00

        Yeah. No, and it applies

14. 51:02 – 55:18

    Why Therapy Isn’t One Size Fits All

    1. JSJay Shetty51:02

       to even what you were saying last time you were here. And for anyone who's listening, we're not gonna dive into this topic today, but you can go back and listen to Dr. Rahul Jandial's first episode on the podcast. You were talking about this powerful state for when we're kind of awake, kind of asleep in the morning.

    2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial51:17

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty51:17

       And you were talking about the need to journal at that time, to-

    4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial51:19

       Sleep better

    5. JSJay Shetty51:20

       ... I've been practicing it ever since we spoke. It's been one of my favorite things. I've talked about it with people, shared it with people, and it's amazing because I was saying to... I was talking to my personal trainer today where, when we were working out, and I was explaining to him that if you said in that time, "I'm tired," like that's the first thing you think of. Now, for the rest of the day, you're just looking for proof and confirmation that you're tired. So you look in the mirror and you see bags under your eyes and you go, "Yeah, I knew I was tired." Then you get to the day and you're late for your meeting and everything's feeling a bit slow, and you're like, "I knew I was tired." And now what you're doing is you're just confirming that belief, and it's not setting you up. Rather than saying, "I'm going to look for energy today. I'm gonna find rest today. I'm going to create a space for curiosity today," whatever it may be, you're now gonna look for that. And I think that, at the very base level, is how we wire what we look for and what our repeated thoughts are throughout the day. And so I really love that piece of advice. I'd love to encourage people to go back to it. But going back to the conversation we're having right now, one thing that comes to mind is a lot of people today are scared of going to therapy because they don't feel, even if they don't say this consciously, they don't feel they want to bring something up-

    6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial52:34

       Mm-hmm

    7. JSJay Shetty52:34

       ... because it's so painful. I interviewed someone a couple of months ago, and all I could think of the whole time was that they just couldn't go there, and they haven't gone there, not even in their public life on a podcast. They haven't gone there in their private life because they don't want to go there. Is it true that the brain will let you go there when you're ready? Or why is it that they're suppressing this-

    8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial53:00

       I, I-

    9. JSJay Shetty53:01

       ... negative experience?

    10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial53:02

        I don't have an answer for that. And, um, you know, again, the concept of the brain as a, as a single entity, I would say, you know, like our whole, our brain, mind, and behavior. So I t- I try to think of it as the brain creates a mind. It can create many minds, the dreaming mind, the waking mind. During the day, we have many minds. Sometimes you're frustrated, sometimes you're tired, and then there's behavior. His mind, that person's mind might be saying, "This is something I need to address. It's eating me up." But the behavior doesn't translate to going to take those steps, and that's the thing I'm working on right now, is the difference between mind and behavior, which is, comes down to sort of the, the inter- internal referee again. Like the, the brain has created the mind. The mind can actually go back and change the brain. So certain, certain ways of thought can create grooves where electricity is more likely to flow. Like it's kinda steering the aurora borealis of neuronal activity in your brain. And then, but there's behavior. Behavior is, is fascinating. You can think, "I need to do this," and you don't. Like where's... Why is that not happening? Aren't you in charge of yourself? You're not. You have a competition of wants, and behavior, you know what the right thing to do is. This person might say, "I need to tackle this. I would be better by tackling this." So mind and behavior is uncoupled. We don't always act on what we should do or have even decided to do. But then the s- the original thing you asked, suppression, but o- one of the coping mechanisms is, uh, suppressing looking at something difficult. And I see that when I was a... I did a lot of pediatric neurosurgery. Like [laughs] you gotta give the parents time to deal with a sick child. So yeah, they're gonna hold it at bay. They're gonna suppress it. That doesn't mean that's a, a pathologic or bad therapeutic technique. It's ecological validity, right? Like in that situation, I, we ain't judging parents who got sick kids, right? 'Cause that's a stress we can't imagine. So for this person, I don't know what's going on in the other parts of their life. ButSuppression of something is, uh, is a basic but very effective, um-

    11. JSJay Shetty55:14

        And so it shouldn't be forced out of people is what I'm saying

    12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:16

        'Cause we- I don't know what's going on with him.

    13. JSJay Shetty55:17

        Yeah

15. 55:18 – 58:30

    Redirecting Your Focus Away From Painful Thoughts

    1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:18

       You know?

    2. JSJay Shetty55:18

       No, I think that's a really important note because I think a lot of us, especially when you start doing some of this work, a lot of people want their family member to be like, "You need to go to therapy." Like, "You need to go look at your past."

    3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:29

       Yeah, yeah.

    4. JSJay Shetty55:29

       And I feel like it's well-intentioned-

    5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:31

       Careful. Yeah

    6. JSJay Shetty55:32

       ... but you gotta be very careful because that person may actually need to wait a certain amount of time before they feel ready.

    7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:39

       And to fully engage.

    8. JSJay Shetty55:41

       Yes.

    9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:41

       And to deli-

    10. JSJay Shetty55:41

        Yeah

    11. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:41

        I love the attention to focus thing. And 'cause you're not... You can't just show up. You gotta put attention and focus to that.

    12. JSJay Shetty55:46

        Yeah, exactly. So even if you force them to go but they weren't ready to engage, it's gonna be even worse, and they may walk out thinking that doesn't work for them or it was a useless waste of time.

    13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:55

        Right. And I think-

    14. JSJay Shetty55:56

        Yeah

    15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial55:57

        ... as a physician, as a surgeon, I see myself as a cancer surgeon. Yes, brain, but cancer surgeon. I never say you need this or you need that. Like, you can choose to not have this life-saving measure. You can choose to let this thing, you know, cause you pain. I'm just talking to you about leaving you with an understanding, an informed cho- so you can make... My, my role is to inform you about the things that are out there in this world.

    16. JSJay Shetty56:27

        Mm-hmm.

    17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial56:28

        This medicine, that medicine, this surgery, that surgery, and then if you choose me to be your surgeon, I will give you everything.

    18. JSJay Shetty56:36

        Mm-hmm.

    19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial56:36

        Right?

    20. JSJay Shetty56:37

        Mm-hmm.

    21. RJDr. Rahul Jandial56:37

        Then I feel like that's how it should be for psychological challenges as well. Like, "Hey, loved one. Um, you know, I know you. I can see you're not doing well. These are kind of the things that are out there. You know, there's this, there's that," and there is no one path, and depression gives us that answer. For some people, it's the talking cure. For some people, it's the talking cure plus a medicine that interferes with serotonin at the neuronal level. For other people, they're so close to self-harm that it's a ketamine sniff in a hospital that breaks their suicidal ideation within twelve hours. Like, wow, how does that work? I'm fascinated with that. For, for other people, it's I, I choose to have stickers placed on my scalp and get shock therapy at elite centers. Like, so if you look at depression, it's just so wide, and people say, "Well, this treatment didn't work," but yeah, because all of those treatments only work in some of those people, but please keep going 'cause there might be something that works for you. That's what I think where, where therapy is just, it's too encapsulated. It may not have... The term is too ins- encapsulated. I love the field. I've been reading about it, like cognitive reappraisal and how to stop bodily urges. Like, I love the field, but the delivery's sometimes not nuanced enough, uh, nurturing enough, inviting enough for the other person. So I would say think about how, uh, you know, people engage cancer patients. Like, you don't have to do anything, but do you know that these things exist and may benefit you, may harm you? Uh, depression, the wide range, I think that is where I would like to see the term therapy go. So it's not a, "You ain't doing well. I got it all figured out, and I'm judging you with this term." Uh, it's more of an invitation, an exploration that has benefited me. You may wanna consider

16. 58:30 – 1:00:34

    Debunking the 20 Percent Brain Power Myth

    1. RJDr. Rahul Jandial58:30

       it.

    2. JSJay Shetty58:30

       I remember growing up, I used to always hear the phrase, we're only using five percent-

    3. RJDr. Rahul Jandial58:35

       [chuckles]

    4. JSJay Shetty58:35

       ... of the brain's potential. How true is that?

    5. RJDr. Rahul Jandial58:38

       Well, over here it was twenty. Um, that, that's the urban legend, and I think it's exciting 'cause you think, like, "Hey, if I did this..." I think there was a movie with Bradley Cooper, like-

    6. JSJay Shetty58:48

       Yeah. Yeah, Limitless. Yeah

    7. RJDr. Rahul Jandial58:48

       ... yeah, like, oh, okay, I'm just, I'm just waiting on... I'm just gonna be at the boss of all of this once I get the rest of this eighty, this eighty percent kicking in.

    8. JSJay Shetty58:56

       Yeah.

    9. RJDr. Rahul Jandial58:56

       It's, uh, it's a myth, and I'll explain to you why. A, a couple of clear reasons.

    10. JSJay Shetty59:00

        Oh, you've ruined it. [laughs]

    11. RJDr. Rahul Jandial59:01

        Oh, yeah. I know, but I'll still leave people inspired.

    12. JSJay Shetty59:03

        Yeah.

    13. RJDr. Rahul Jandial59:04

        The... Because it's such an energy hog, y- I don't wanna run all the brain matter to tie my shoelaces.

    14. JSJay Shetty59:11

        Mm.

    15. RJDr. Rahul Jandial59:11

        So habits will manage with just, in that ecosystem of jellyfish, just the lightest shiver of electricity will shiver through some neurons to tie my shoelaces. We wanna be efficient, right? That... So we only use twenty percent of our brain at a time to do most things, but there is no hidden corner, and we know that categorically now with brain scans. The whole region lights up. It just lights up in different ways for different tasks. I think what's inspiring for people is to know that when you try to learn something new, when you try to activate something new, it's gonna feel like work. Like, let, let's not... It's not gonna be easy. But once you get over that, it's called activation energy, once you get over that, once you put in the original work, the, the best way I can describe it, you're going down a mountain, you're following the same sl- the slopes, the, the, the, the ski, the grooves on the mountain that all the skiers run. It's gonna take work to create another groove-

    16. JSJay Shetty1:00:07

        Mm

    17. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:07

        ... of thought, of feeling, of emotion. But after a while, it doesn't require the same amount-

    18. JSJay Shetty1:00:14

        Yes

    19. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:14

        ... of effort.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:00:15

        Yeah.

    21. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:15

        So that, again, there's decremental vigilance in surgery, but there's also, like, hey, this thing you're trying to change, put a couple months into it. Lock down for a couple months, and then the years afterwards-

    22. JSJay Shetty1:00:27

        Mm

    23. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:27

        ... it'll be in your pocket. It'll be easier.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:00:29

        Yeah.

    25. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:29

        It's not gonna be uphill forever.

    26. JSJay Shetty1:00:30

        Yeah. Thanks for busting the myth. [laughs]

17. 1:00:34 – 1:05:15

    What’s Behind the Rise in Cancer Rates?

    1. JSJay Shetty1:00:34

       The last thing I wanted to talk to you about, Rahul, was this. You know, so many young people today are getting cancer.

    2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:41

       Mm.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:00:41

       I just had my friend, forty-two, just, you know, had a surgery. Thankfully, he's gonna be okay, I think. I lost a friend a few years ago to colon cancer. So many younger people are getting cancer. We keep hearing-

    4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:00:54

       Mm

    5. JSJay Shetty1:00:54

       ... it used to be one in four, then one in three. Maybe it's gonna get to one in two people have cancer. What do we do?

    6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:01:02

       That's a big question. Um, so the, when you look at last, last thirty, forty years, uh, there have been some positive shifts. Cancer treatments are leading to significantly improved lifespan.And quality of life for cancer patients. Lung cancer rates here are going down. They're starting to pop up in other countries where there's pollution. So there, there are shifts in cancer. The concerning shift is, um, certain cancers, breast and colon in particular, are-- if on average they popped up at a certain age, that curve, you know, there's some early outliers and some late outliers, but the bulk of the curve that drives, you know, understanding of how to, how to manage that as-- at a global and at a national level, that curve for-- is shifting earlier, and in particular for women. And that's, you know, Chadwick Boseman got-- caught people's eyes, you know, with Black Panther. That's somebody that was very young. You're starting to see people with breast cancer at a much younger age. That doesn't mean they're all passing away, but two questions quickly arise: What's going on that's causing it? And then what do we do differently to catch it, right? While waiting to figure out why it's happening, do we need to change how we live, how we screen, and that sort of thing? What's causing it, I, I don't know. I used to get asked this thing like, are, are there more brain tumors because cell-- everybody's on a cell phone? Well, now it's not on our ear, but the global rates of brain tumors didn't change. The earlier cancers, people are saying, "Well, is it microplastics? Is it something else? Is it that?" I don't know. It's a hard thing to design an experiment for. You're not gonna give a thousand people microplastics and a thousand people pretend microplastics as a placebo and like the-- So you have to look at the data that's available to you. But there is a concern that, uh, our food, our air, our, our water, um, is not good enough for people. Should receive more attention. Um, we deserve, as a human right, better food, wa- water. The link to cancer, I c- I can't say that that's categorically there. What's very important is for those people are-- that are living with that fear now, like cancer's coming earlier, why not give them something that's good for them, that may also be protective for these cancers? I think a lot of people on the flip side, like there was this thing like you don't need an experiment to say the, if you don't open a parachute, you're not gonna do well. We don't need tons of proof to say we should improve health at the systemic, right? We just talked about ten years of a certain diet.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:03:43

       Mm-hmm.

    8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:03:44

       Well, what if ten years of bad water, bad food, and bad proces-

    9. JSJay Shetty1:03:47

       Mm-hmm

    10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:03:47

        ... is, is, is the culprit? Even though I can't prove it, that's the right thing to do, and I think it gives people a sense of power, okay? On the flip side, screening needs to move early. If screening for colon cancer in the past is forty, five, fifty, we need to start screening people earlier. There's easy imaging. You don't have to have an invasive procedure. And here we need more reduction of what I call barriers to care, right? It's, it's in our field. There are medicines and screening and treatment that people don't even know about, people don't even get to. There's a language barrier. Maybe somebody can't afford the bus. So as I work in my laboratory to make new medicine, we gotta make sure the medicine and the, and the care we got gets to everybody. So that's reduction, the barriers to care, education, what, what we're, you know, what we're doing on television, what we're doing on messaging, is to start the screening a little bit earlier. And that's important because both breast and, and colon, they grow in stages, one, two, three, four. And wherever you're at, if you catch it one stage earlier, that's less medicine, maybe no medicine, less surgery, maybe no surgery. So it doesn't matter where you catch it. You want that feeling of, "I'm glad I got screened, and I caught it earlier."

    11. JSJay Shetty1:04:58

        Yeah.

    12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:04:58

        So those would be my two suggestions.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:05:00

        It's such a fascinating time we're living in because I think there's more data available than ever, but a lot of us are scared of seeing that data as well.

    14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:05:07

        Yeah.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:05:08

        And there's a fear of not wanting something, but finding out too early as well. It's-

    16. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:05:12

        Yeah

    17. JSJay Shetty1:05:13

        ... you know, it i- it is a, a lot of scare.

18. 1:05:15 – 1:10:55

    A Smarter Way to Take Care of Your Mind and Body

    1. JSJay Shetty1:05:15

       And the biggest thing that I think you've raised today, which I'm glad that you're focused on figuring it out, is that mind-behavior disconnect because I think we all know what we have to do. Everyone knows what they need to change, right? We d- me and you don't have to tell them. We're all aware.

    2. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:05:31

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:05:31

       But we just can't seem to do it. If you had to give anyone any final words on that-

    4. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:05:36

       Mm-hmm

    5. JSJay Shetty1:05:36

       ... for anyone who's been listening today going, "I wanna change my diet," for anyone who's listening today saying to us, "You know, I wanna work out more," for anyone listening to us today and saying, "I wanna challenge myself more, but I feel unmotivated, I feel tired, I'm just exhausted, I'm overworked and overwhelmed," what would you say to them?

    6. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:05:53

       To give you a big picture, you, you-- Us as creatures in this world, we have a reciprocal relationship with our environment. The brilliance and beauty is that we have choice. The, like, the first cell by the deep water, you know, we used to just drift away from toxins, but then at some point, a single cell said, "That's nutrition. I wanna swing over there." And then a collective of cells, and then animals and cre-- and, uh, so we have choice. This is, this is-- I just, I love this. And the newest part of that prefrontal cortex I was describing to you, the little-- the newest neurons, like sedimentary layers, you know, you can see, like, where the dinosaurs are. You cut a tree, and you can see. You can age it. You figure out-- You-- In the brain, you can figure out what, which are the newest neurons. Are in this area called the orbitofrontal cortex, which is orbito. It's just, it's just descriptive. It just mean above your eyeballs and at the bottom of your frontal lobes, you know, like right behind your forehead, but at the bottom, you know? And the cells there, if they're injured, people have a hard time changing political beliefs.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:06:58

       [chuckles]

    8. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:06:58

       Like it's different. It's, it's a decision maker.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:07:00

       Yeah.

    10. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:07:01

        And they call it the arbitrator system that it, it, it decides between things. So again, tying your shoelaces, that's not a big decision. A decision made for you, that's not a big decision. But then when there's a competition of wants-I want to do this, but I also want to do this. I want to have this piece of bacon, but I want to, you know, I don't want to eat it. It-- that's where we are at our most vulnerable and best, you know. That's where we're human. And rather than feeling frustrated by those wants that you can't always pursue the way you really choose to int-inside your mind, like, "I want to do this, but I don't get there. My mind is ready to do it, but my behavior doesn't reflect that," that, that's called your internal referee. It's, it's the, it's the decision maker. And what I would-- the specific guidance I would give people is that internal referee is vulnerable, okay? So you want to work with that internal referee. You want to do a handful of things. One, you want to know attention and focus is limited. Two, you want to know it is susceptible to attentional magnets. You want to stop smoking? Well, be careful looking up at that gas station at those shiny boxes. You want to avoid eating something and you, you know it's, you know your struggle to get there, work with that internal referee. One, break the compulsions. Break the attentional magnets that make you l-look at something and then that decision goes downhill. You're like, "Ah, now it's out the gate." So the first thing is, when it's in your head, think it out. "This trips me up. I want to space myself from this. I want to physically distance myself from this. I want to only get a, a little bit of Coke and then drive away," right? Whatever you're working on, I'm not judging anybody. But first is to give yourself the physical and psychological distance from attentional magnets that have you shift away from the want that you had decided you wanted.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:08:46

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:08:47

        Number two is then if you're, then, then if you're in it and you're like, "Okay, I didn't want to have this food, I didn't want to have this puff, I didn't want to have this snort," whatever, whatever your thing is, once you're going down that road, now your internal referee is a different creature. Now what you're trying to do is prevent it from becoming an urge. For smokers, you're looking at the shiny box. You walk outside, you smell... Y-you want to get away from your thought hijacking your body, 'cause now you're jonesing. You've got, you're shivering. Now it becomes a physiologic thing. Y-the, the game isn't lost. You could still turn it around, but you need to know the steps of desire a-as the, as they happen, as, in your competition of wants. And work with yourself. Break the attentional magnets. Don't let it become an urge. If you do decide to, there's a whole thing called wanting and seeking. That's fine. "I'm gonna have this smoke. I'm gonna have one puff. I'm gonna throw away the pack. I'm gonna have this bacon, but I'm only gonna, I'm gonna mitigate. I'm only gonna have one piece rather than have the whole thing." There are steps in the way we negotiate our wants, so it's not just, "I wanted to do this, but it didn't happen." Develop your arsenal, the arrows in your quiver of, "This is a competing want, and I got one, two, thrings, thr- three things I'm gonna do."

    13. JSJay Shetty1:10:00

        Mm. I love that. Dr. Rahul Jandial, it's such a joy every time you're here.

    14. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:10:04

        My pleasure.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:10:04

        And I hope you'll come back when your new book's ready. And everyone who's been listening or watching back at home, when you're traveling, whatever you're up to, make sure you tag me and Dr. Jandial on Instagram, on TikTok, wherever you post your clips, because I want to see what resonated with you. I want to see what connected with you. I always take away so much when I meet you. Honestly, it's things that stay with me for a long time and, uh, they're good memories and, and they're good lessons, so I'm very grateful for your time and energy.

    16. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:10:29

        I appreciate you.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:10:29

        Thanks so much for coming back.

    18. RJDr. Rahul Jandial1:10:30

        Thank you.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:10:31

        If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.

    20. SPSpeaker1:10:38

        If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged

Episode duration: 1:10:55