225 ‒ The comfort crisis, doing hard things, rucking, and more | Michael Easter, MA

1. 0:00 – 0:08

   Intro

   1. PAPeter Attia0:00

      [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia.

2. 0:08 – 3:56

   The value in doing something difficult

   1. PAPeter Attia0:09

      Michael, so awesome to be sitting with you here today. I have been, uh, looking forward to this, uh, podcast for probably about three or four months. Um, and I appreciate you making the trek out here to do this in person.

   2. MEMichael Easter0:18

      Absolutely. Likewise, Peter. I've been looking forward to this one.

   3. PAPeter Attia0:21

      Yeah.

   4. MEMichael Easter0:21

      Should be fun.

   5. PAPeter Attia0:21

      Um, my wife, by the way, I just want you to know, called me like an hour ago to give me a ton of crap for the fact that we're not recording this outside in the 107 degrees here today. She's like, "You guys talking about the comfort crisis in your air-conditioned [chuckles] studio here. What..." So she, she's kinda called us out on the fact, called me out on this fact.

   6. MEMichael Easter0:41

      Well, she's not wrong.

   7. PAPeter Attia0:42

      Yeah.

   8. MEMichael Easter0:42

      I did think about that. I was like, "It might be interesting if we actually did this while rucking," but here we are. We'll ruck afterwards, it'll be fine.

   9. PAPeter Attia0:48

      [laughs]

   10. MEMichael Easter0:48

       We'll survive.

   11. PAPeter Attia0:50

       And she was like, I mean, she wants to ruck with us later today, which we will, but-

   12. MEMichael Easter0:53

       Good

   13. PAPeter Attia0:53

       ... she was mostly like, "Really, you should at least be just sitting outside doing this in the sweltering heat," and you know-

   14. MEMichael Easter1:00

       Yeah

   15. PAPeter Attia1:00

       ... all that stuff. And so, so maybe she's right. I mean, we're, we're definitely way too-

   16. MEMichael Easter1:03

       She might be right

   17. PAPeter Attia1:03

       ... comfortable right now.

   18. MEMichael Easter1:04

       There's gonna be a weight penalty for our behavior with the rucks.

   19. PAPeter Attia1:07

       [chuckles] Yeah.

   20. MEMichael Easter1:08

       If we were planning 40, no, it's now 50.

   21. PAPeter Attia1:09

       Yeah.

   22. MEMichael Easter1:10

       It's now 55.

   23. PAPeter Attia1:10

       Yeah.

   24. MEMichael Easter1:10

       So, that's how we'll, we'll compensate.

   25. PAPeter Attia1:12

       Yeah. Yeah.

   26. MEMichael Easter1:12

       It'll all shake out in the end.

   27. PAPeter Attia1:13

       So look, people have heard me kinda talk a little bit about your book on previous podcasts. Um, people have also heard me allude to this obsession of mine in rucking. Uh-

   28. MEMichael Easter1:24

       Sorry

   29. PAPeter Attia1:24

       ... certainly anybody who knows me personally is, it's, it, they're, they're, they're, they're either converted or sick and tired of me. Uh, and my daughter, who just got back from her first sleepaway camp in Colorado and Wyoming, so she was, first time, and she's 13, gone away for two weeks. And you know, this was a hard camp. You know, we'd sent her to a place deliberately because of how hard this place was, and it's basically a camp where you go to work. So they're, you know, taking care of animals, you know, doing a bunch of hard stuff. And so in prep for this, we said, "Look, Olivia, um, th- you really ought to just ruck with me all the time because it will make it easier for you to go," and she just kinda didn't really want to. I mean, I think when you're a 13-year-old kid, the idea of going for a heavy-weighted backpack walk with your dad at 5:00 in the sweltering Austin heat is not that appealing. The whole time she's there, you know, they have no electronics. You get one time to speak with them. You get a 10-minute call at the middle of the thing. So the first thing she said on that middle of the thing, she goes, "Dad, I'm like the fastest hiker here. All that rucking totally paid off."

   30. MEMichael Easter2:29

       I love this.
3. 3:56 – 8:39

   Michael’s upbringing with a single parent and alcoholism

   1. PAPeter Attia3:56

      let's take a step back and kind of, you know, just l- uh, help folks understand a little bit about you. Remind me where you grew up.

   2. MEMichael Easter4:02

      I grew up in northern Utah.

   3. PAPeter Attia4:03

      That's right.

   4. MEMichael Easter4:03

      So a little town called Bountiful, just outside of Salt Lake City.

   5. PAPeter Attia4:06

      Okay. Um, were you a skier? What was your main-

   6. MEMichael Easter4:09

      I like to say that, uh, snowboarding got me into college. Because [chuckles] when I was in high school, I was not a great student. I liked to go out, I liked to party, I was into girls, I was into cars, I was into all that kind of thing. Didn't really care about schoolwork. Now, would never do homework. Did okay in school. But with, uh, Park City Mountain Resort, they would sell you a season pass for $99 if you got on the honor roll. That is the only thing that incentivized me-

   7. PAPeter Attia4:36

      That's amazing

   8. MEMichael Easter4:36

      ... to do any good at school. So thank you, Park City, uh, Ski Resort. That is what got me into college. Yeah.

   9. PAPeter Attia4:42

      So you mentioned your, did your parents split when you were young?

   10. MEMichael Easter4:48

       They did. So my, well, I wasn't even born yet.

   11. PAPeter Attia4:51

       Oh, okay.

   12. MEMichael Easter4:51

       So my mother was pregnant, five months pregnant, and my dad took off. So their backstory, which I think is relevant-

   13. PAPeter Attia4:57

       Mm-hmm

   14. MEMichael Easter4:58

       ... to understanding the context, is that my dad was al- always a heavy drinker, heavy drug user. When my parents met, my mom was into that lifestyle too. So eventually my dad realizes, "You know, maybe I'm a little too into this world," so he goes to rehab. Now, as part of his rehab-

   15. PAPeter Attia5:16

       And sorry, this is after you've been, after you're born? That they've-

   16. MEMichael Easter5:18

       This is before I'm born.

   17. PAPeter Attia5:19

       Okay.

   18. MEMichael Easter5:19

       Yeah, so they were married at the time.

   19. PAPeter Attia5:21

       Yeah.

   20. MEMichael Easter5:21

       Um, they'd been married a few years. So as part of his rehab, uh, they give my mother the book that he is supposed to read in rehab, and they say, "You read this so you understand what he's going through." So-

   21. PAPeter Attia5:33

       Is it 12 step?

   22. MEMichael Easter5:34

       Uh, it was.

   23. PAPeter Attia5:35

       Okay.

   24. MEMichael Easter5:35

       Yep. So she, she goes, "Okay." And one night, as she explains it, she goes, "So I'm sitting in the tub one night and I'm drinking a gin and tonic, and I get to this line in this book and it says, 'Try to drink and stop. Try it twice.'" And she goes, "Oh. [chuckles] Yeah, I couldn't do that." So she realizes that she has a problem too, and she manages to get sober. So that's, that's the joke, is my dad went to rehab and my mom got sober. [chuckles] And so they got back together. He stayed sober for a little while, you know, a little bit, just enough for her to get pregnant, and once she got pregnant, it was, you know, there's- You don't have a drinking buddy anymore. The fun's over, and I think he wasn't quite ready for that. So he took off, and my mom raised me. Always been raised by a single parent.

   25. PAPeter Attia6:21

       Um, do you have a relationship with your dad today?

   26. MEMichael Easter6:22

       I do not. I haven't heard from him for, oh, man, since I was, like, eight or something like that.

   27. PAPeter Attia6:28

       Hmm.

   28. MEMichael Easter6:28

       Yeah.

   29. PAPeter Attia6:30

       So given, you know, you, you... How much of this history of your parents' drinking did you know as you got into high school and stuff?

   30. MEMichael Easter6:38

       I knew my mom didn't drink, and I knew the reason why she didn't drink. Now, she was very respectful of my dad. She wasn't gonna give me any sort of details, but I was left to assume that the reason that he was not in my life is because he didn't ever stop drinking. So that was sort of the context around that.
4. 8:39 – 21:13

   Michael’s battle with alcoholism and his experience with quitting drinking

   1. PAPeter Attia8:39

      Yeah. So talk to me about the, um, the k- the kind of realization that this isn't working for me. Um, you know, they talk about how change happens really slowly and then really quickly. Um, and, and so what was the slow descent into the r- quick realization, and how many, how many... Not everybody just has a one realization where they hit rock bottom and they switch. Sometimes you have to bounce a little bit-

   2. MEMichael Easter9:03

      Yeah

   3. PAPeter Attia9:03

      ... on the bottom.

   4. MEMichael Easter9:04

      100%. I would say that I would, uh, I'd always noticed that I probably drank a little more than other people. At the same time, there were no real repercussions for that until I was maybe 23 or 24. I was living in New York City. I was going to grad school. I was living alone, and I had no one watching me, and I had bars that closed at 4:00 AM. And [laughs] that's a potent combination. And I think that was when I started to realize, oh, like, maybe this isn't good. And I remember I, I, I remember exactly when I sort of realized it is I went, uh, went on the internet like you do, consulted Dr. Google.

   5. PAPeter Attia9:44

      [laughs]

   6. MEMichael Easter9:45

      And, you know, signs you have a drinking problem, and it's like these 10 questions or whatever it was. It's like, I'm going yes to that one, no to that one, yes to that one, no to that one, yes, yes. And I go, "Oh, five or six out of 10. I should be fine." It gets to the bottom. If you have answered yes to one or more of these-

   7. PAPeter Attia10:02

      To one or more [laughs]

   8. MEMichael Easter10:03

      ... you know, I just go, "Uh-oh." [laughs] So that's when it gets on your radar. And I think I told myself, "Well, I'll just quit when it gets bad enough."

   9. PAPeter Attia10:12

      Once I reach eight out of 10, then I'm stopping.

   10. MEMichael Easter10:14

       Yes, exactly. [laughs]

   11. PAPeter Attia10:16

       Yeah.

   12. MEMichael Easter10:16

       So then you just start rucking them up over the years. And for me, you know, I had tried to stop drinking probably, probably started trying to stop when I was about 25 in different ways, and it never worked, just never worked. And-

   13. PAPeter Attia10:32

       And why, why is that? I mean, I, I'm sure you are not the first person to come to that realization of just willpower alone without maybe a broader system or structure or awareness-

   14. MEMichael Easter10:46

       Mm-hmm

   15. PAPeter Attia10:46

       ... is, is, is tough. Why, why do you think that's the case?

   16. MEMichael Easter10:49

       I think there's a lot of things behind it. Uh, I think some of them are developmental. Most people tend to get... So about half of people end up getting sober around age 30. So I think certain things, the same things that are happening in the brain that draw a teenager towards alcohol and make it this great association, um, they start to kinda shake out over time, right? You, you take on responsibility. You have all these other things in your life that all of a sudden make that, you start to realize, "Maybe this isn't as good for me." I also think that eventually the balance just tips where the short-term relief just doesn't, isn't as good as what this long-term thing could be. And I think that coming to that realization takes a long time, like you said, a lot of bouncing. And for me, it was just one morning. I woke up. I was living in, uh, Pennsylvania. I was working at a magazine that was based out of there. We had an office in, uh, New York, but our editorial office was in Pennsylvania. And I woke up, and my house is a mess. I'm a mess. I'd had mornings like-

   17. PAPeter Attia11:53

       And you're how old?

   18. MEMichael Easter11:54

       I was 28 years old. And I'd had mornings like that before, and for whatever reason, this morning it was like you could kinda see where this path was going. And it was very clear to me that if I were to continue this drinking, I was gonna die early. Now- Whether it was 35, 55, 75, I didn't know. I just knew that it was gonna be earlier.

   19. PAPeter Attia12:18

       And, and tell me about your relationship with your mom at this point. Does she understand how much you're drinking? Is she-

   20. MEMichael Easter12:23

       No.

   21. PAPeter Attia12:23

       No. Okay.

   22. MEMichael Easter12:24

       So I always hid that from her. We've always been very close. Um, you know, we were always a team.

   23. PAPeter Attia12:28

       Yeah, yeah.

   24. MEMichael Easter12:29

       And so I kept that away from her. She would travel when I was, uh, a kid and in high school, so I would even only drink when she was out of town. She was gone about a third of the year. So even things like, behaviors like that, I just didn't want her to know and sort of protected that.

   25. PAPeter Attia12:43

       And it's interesting, when you kind of contemplated, um, getting sober, did it occur to you that your mom could be the most important ally in that, given that she knew what it was like as well?

   26. MEMichael Easter12:54

       Well, I think that, so the morning where things became more clear to me, she was the first person I called.

   27. PAPeter Attia13:01

       Mm-hmm.

   28. MEMichael Easter13:02

       Right? I had told people-

   29. PAPeter Attia13:02

       So now you're telling her two things, [laughs] which is, "I'm getting sober," the implication of which is, "I'm an alcoholic."

   30. MEMichael Easter13:09

       Yeah.
5. 21:13 – 31:12

   Origin of the idea that we are in a crisis of comfort

   1. PAPeter Attia21:13

      w- the magazine you're working at at that time, what are you, what's your, what's the, what are the kinda stu- stuff you're writing about?

   2. MEMichael Easter21:18

      So I was mainly in fitness and nutrition and performance. I did some mental health stuff. So all kinds of different articles. I was running basically all the fitness coverage for Men's Health, is what the magazine was, and I would-

   3. PAPeter Attia21:29

      Which is how we met originally, wasn't it?

   4. MEMichael Easter21:31

      I think it was.

   5. PAPeter Attia21:32

      I, I feel like you interviewed me a couple of years ago-

   6. MEMichael Easter21:35

      Yeah

   7. PAPeter Attia21:35

      ... on, uh, on something that was related, like a Men's Health piece. I don't remember what it was about, but-

   8. MEMichael Easter21:39

      Yeah

   9. PAPeter Attia21:39

      ... I think Bill Gifford introduced us, right?

   10. MEMichael Easter21:41

       Yeah, I think it was him, 'cause he, his background is with Men's Health, right?

   11. PAPeter Attia21:44

       Yeah. Yeah.

   12. MEMichael Easter21:44

       Yep. So Bill introduced us and yeah, I worked there for six or seven years, and that's where I was working at at the time.

   13. PAPeter Attia21:52

       So where did you get this idea that we are in a crisis of comfort?

   14. MEMichael Easter21:57

       A few things happened. So one is that working at that magazine, I noticed that every single thing that I was writing about, 'cause I mainly am working on lifestyle, health, performance, fitness, nutrition, that kind of stuff, mental health. I noticed that anything that I'm writing about, you have to go through short-term discomfort [laughs] in order to improve. If you wanna get fit, you're gonna have to exercise harder than you are now if you're not. If you wanna lose weight, you're probably gonna, gonna be hungry at some point. If you wanna improve your mental health, just like I experienced, you might have to ask yourself some hard questions about why do I feel this way, what's happening, what's the underlying behavior and motivation, and that's not always comfortable. So I make that observation. Then I get sober, which is the ultimate... Yeah, that was really, really hard.

   15. PAPeter Attia22:47

       And what year was this? December of...

   16. MEMichael Easter22:50

       2014.

   17. PAPeter Attia22:51

       Okay.

   18. MEMichael Easter22:52

       Yeah, 2014. That was exceedingly hard. But after things sort of started to settle, after you're done with the white-knuckling-

   19. PAPeter Attia23:04

       How long is the white-knuckling?

   20. MEMichael Easter23:07

       For me, I would say there were times, it was probably shorter than for some people, 'cause I think I was just done psychologically. Like, it was sort of like, "Okay."

   21. PAPeter Attia23:17

       But part of the white-knuckling, I'm sure, is also just the physiology, right?

   22. MEMichael Easter23:20

       The physiology, yeah.

   23. PAPeter Attia23:20

       I mean, you're really giving up something that-

   24. MEMichael Easter23:23

       Yeah.

   25. PAPeter Attia23:24

       Yeah.

   26. MEMichael Easter23:24

       So you're having to relearn all these behaviors, which is really tough, and figure out how to deal with things. Um, but soon, like, literally everything in my life got better. Everything you could measure got better.

   27. PAPeter Attia23:36

       Your performance got better at work.

   28. MEMichael Easter23:37

       Performance got better.

   29. PAPeter Attia23:38

       Your writing got better.

   30. MEMichael Easter23:39

       My writing got better. My finances got better. [laughs] I lost weight. [laughs] All these things. Uh, but more importantly, I would say internally is where the change really was.
6. 31:12 – 39:33

   The death of boredom in modern society

   1. PAPeter Attia31:13

      of all the... Well, and we're gonna go into each of these in some depth, but I'll tell you the one that nagged at me the most, 'cause most of these discomforts I've thought a lot about-

   2. MEMichael Easter31:23

      Mm-hmm

   3. PAPeter Attia31:23

      ... right? And I've, um, but the one that I don't think I'd really given its due to was boredom.

   4. MEMichael Easter31:29

      Mm.

   5. PAPeter Attia31:31

      In some ways, that's the most insidious comfort we've cured.

   6. MEMichael Easter31:35

      Yes.

   7. PAPeter Attia31:37

      Um, I love the way you talk about it, right? 'Cause it basically we, you know... I, I think you, you say sort of like in the 1950s television... No, no, no. So it's go back 1920s radio.

   8. MEMichael Easter31:48

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PAPeter Attia31:48

      Right? So that's the first time you've got this external source of input that you can kind of numb your boredom with, um, which is passive rather than active. I think that's a part of it as well, right?

   10. MEMichael Easter32:01

       Yeah.

   11. PAPeter Attia32:01

       So you could have read before then, but reading's not really boring, you know?

   12. MEMichael Easter32:05

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PAPeter Attia32:05

       Uh, reading is not necessarily the same type of a remedy.

   14. MEMichael Easter32:08

       Mm-hmm.

   15. PAPeter Attia32:08

       Um, and then we talk about televisions in the 1950s and the 1960s, but I love what you describe as, what is it, June 29th, 2007, is the death of boredom.

   16. MEMichael Easter32:18

       Yes, the advent of the iPhone. And I think that that shifts. So if you sort of back up and look at how much time people spend engaged with digital media today, when I wrote the book, the average was 11 hours and six minutes. It's now past 12 hours.

   17. PAPeter Attia32:34

       Yeah. So, so I had my team look at this because I'm like, "This can't be right." Like, I said, first of all, that must include working at the computer, right? Does it?

   18. MEMichael Easter32:45

       I th- I think it might, and I've always... That's been a question in my mind as well.

   19. PAPeter Attia32:49

       Yeah.

   20. MEMichael Easter32:49

       But when you look at cellphone usage, it's up to, like, three average hours. Television, television, I will say this, television is the most dominant at capturing our attention.

   21. PAPeter Attia32:58

       And, and how much of that is the TV is on while I'm cooking, but I'm not watching it? Because I, when I go through these numbers, I'm... There's one of two possibilities. One is I am so out of touch with how the world lives, or it's capturing things that aren't direct, right? Like, 'cause I've seen the, I've looked at these data where it's like 12 hours, and yeah, TV's the biggest chunk-

   22. MEMichael Easter33:24

       Mm-hmm

   23. PAPeter Attia33:24

       ... and smartphone and computer and, and stuff like that, and I'm thinking, like, if I could watch six hours of TV in a week, that would be a big week of TV, and that's only during a week when there's a Formula 1 race.

   24. MEMichael Easter33:42

       Right.

   25. PAPeter Attia33:42

       Right? Like, it's not, it's, I, it, that wouldn't be on a regular or a non-F1 re- week. Um, so how is the average person watching four hours of TV a day or whatever it is?

   26. MEMichael Easter33:54

       I think it's definitely possible because think about the data from Netflix. When they release a new series, something like thousands upon thousands of people will binge 12 episodes in a weekend.

   27. PAPeter Attia34:07

       I mean, that's so inter- I guess you're right. I just-

   28. MEMichael Easter34:09

       So Netflix, they-

   29. PAPeter Attia34:13

       Like, I binge-watched, um, Ozark.

   30. MEMichael Easter34:15

       Yeah.
7. 39:33 – 43:17

   The benefits of boredom

   1. MEMichael Easter39:33

      when we feel this evolutionary discomfort of boredom, we have very easy, very effortless escapes from it, right? You just pull out your cellphone. We have, like, the ultimate vehicle for stimulation and attention capture on our persons at all time, right? So it, it has really put a big dent in boredom, and boredom does come with benefits. So there's these really interesting studies around boredom and creativity, and they're, like, totally hilarious, too, is that they'll take one group of people, and they'll let them do, you know, whatever they want. They'll put them in a room, and, like, people pull out their cellphones or whatever. They'll take another group, and they will, they'll bore the hell out of these people, and then they'll give them a creativity test. And the bored group always comes up with more, more creative answers than the non-bored group. And I think it also gives your brain time to sort of process information in the background, let things sort of happen. So when you think about the sort of cliche of you get your best ideas in the shower, well, it's a cliche for a reason. It's because when we're focused outwardly on the outside world, like in a screen, our phone, Netflix, even this conversation, your brain's working hard to process that information, so it's kind of a work mode. But when you have these moments of boredom, you tend to go inside for a little while as you figure out what to do. You kind of have some weird, funky thoughts, and that's kind of more like a rest mode for your brain. I call it unfocused mode in the book, and that tends to sort of give your brain a little bit of time to rest, and from that seems to come good things. Now, one of the researchers I talked to, he goes, "Look, boredom is neither good nor bad. It really isn't. It's, it's how you, it's what you do with it." And so what we do with it now, I think, is increasingly becoming something that maybe isn't moving our lives forward. So what I'm arguing in the book is I'm not saying, you know, burn your cellphone and, you know, go back to a flip phone or any of that. But I am saying that I think we need to think about putting more boredom back into our lives, 'cause a lot of times, there's so much talk around how we need to reduce our phone screen time. Like, reduce your phone screen time, reduce your phone screen time, and I think that's a good thing. But what tends to happen to people is they go, "Okay, I took an hour off my iPhone screen time. Well, now what do I do?" So they watch an hour of Netflix. Well, your brain doesn't know the difference.

   2. PAPeter Attia41:49

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MEMichael Easter41:49

      Right? So I think it's, it's better to have time where you're just sort of unstimulated. So something that I'll do in my own life is just go for a walk every day, at least 20 minutes, and just don't take your phone and just kinda let your mind do what it needs to do. That also gets you out into nature, which has its own benefits I'm sure we'll get into and... [laughs]

   4. PAPeter Attia42:06

      Well, that's, that's, y- you know, we're gonna talk about rucking a lot, and so this will be the f- you know, o- one of many. But the, some of, something that I really, and I always talk about this with one of my friends when I'm getting them into it, it's like, "Oh, and by the way, you don't bring your phone. You're not listening to a podcast, and you're not listening to music." Like, the whole key to this thing is going without the phone so that all you're hearing... You know, we're lucky here. We get to do it, and we're not hearing, like, we're not on a road that's busy with a bunch of cars going past. So you're mostly just kinda listening to the wind.

   5. MEMichael Easter42:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. PAPeter Attia42:35

      But, you know, wherever you are, you're, you, you, you have to get into that zone of not being with the phone, which for me was also, like, I'm the king of efficiency.

   7. MEMichael Easter42:45

      Yes.

   8. PAPeter Attia42:46

      You know, I'm always listening to an audiobook or a podcast, or I'm on a phone call. Like, if I'm moving, those things are happening.

   9. MEMichael Easter42:52

      Yes.

   10. PAPeter Attia42:53

       There is never a time when one of those three things is not happening.

   11. MEMichael Easter42:57

       I was totally the same way. And I started digging into this research, and it really changed how I thought about it. And I do think that I tend to get a lot better ideas, my mind goes to more interesting places that it maybe needs to go when I am disconnected and don't bring that phone along. That's ultimately gonna sort of capture more attention.

8. 43:17 – 48:40

   The value of disconnecting and being in nature

   1. PAPeter Attia43:18

      Going back to the hunting thing, I, I find it takes two days for me on a hunt to find my senses. Um, we were talking a little bit about this before we started the podcast. You know, one of the reasons I like axis deer so much, not only is it, you know, just from an environmental standpoint, it's, you know, you're doing something very positive for the environment. Um, the meat itself is incredibly healthy, tastes great, but the challenge of hunting that animal is so high, right?

   2. MEMichael Easter43:49

      Yeah.

   3. PAPeter Attia43:49

      It's just... You know, if you can shoot an axis deer with a bow, you have earned that animal. Um, and the reason for that is they have really good senses. Like, their sense of hearing, their sense of smell, it's insane. And so if you try to go and hunt them in a clumsy way where your senses aren't heightened, it's a joke. It's like they're, they're, they're toying with you, right? Like, they'll smell you a mile away. They'll see you a mile away. They'll hear you a mile away. You're not gonna get within their zip code. You can only get up on them if you become as attuned to the wind, as attuned visually to what's going on, as attuned to every sound you're making. And again, I'm sure a guy like Donny can get in that zone in one second. I need, like, a day or two. And, and again, I... Like, you don't have your phone with you. You know, you're not listening. You don't have earbuds in as you're making this move. Um, and I, and I remember each, you know, on almost every hunt I've been on, I remember kind of what that transition feels like. And getting there is hard.

   4. MEMichael Easter45:02

      Yeah.

   5. PAPeter Attia45:02

      Like, it is, it is boring as hell.

   6. MEMichael Easter45:06

      It's totally boring.

   7. PAPeter Attia45:07

      But you have to kinda go through that for your senses to wake up, at least for, for me.

   8. MEMichael Easter45:12

      Yeah. I, I mean, I think two things, one that's short and one that's long. Um, I think that that's kind of a metaphor for the book as a whole is you have to go through that to get that benefit, and I think there's a lot of different things that we've removed from our lives that going through can benefit us. The second thing is that what you're saying, it totally jives with not only my experience, but there's this concept, uh, called the three-day effect, and it basically shows that after three days in nature, a lot of good things tend to happen to people. So in the modern world, your brain tends to ride what are called beta waves, a frenetic sort of go, go, go associated with sort of stress, burnout, and this sort of thing. Uh, after your third day in nature, brain tends to start to ride what are called alpha waves, and these are found in experienced meditators. They're, like, calm, more focused, more aware, and you just feel like, "Ah." Like, I'm sure you've felt it when you're out there. When you first get into nature, you're kinda, to your point, you're like, "What's going on?" You don't really feel in tune. You're worried, like, "Did I put the garage down?"

   9. PAPeter Attia46:17

      [laughs]

   10. MEMichael Easter46:18

       Uh, is, does my, you know, my daughter have a ride to school? That sort of thing. Once you get to day three, it's like focus, centered. Like, you just feel like, like a Zen monk or something, right? And I think there's a good reason for that. There's a lot of things that are happening, and this is why, one reason why some researchers are thinking of extended time in nature as a way to help com- uh, help people with PTSD, specifically veterans, because the benefits don't seem to wash off immediately. So this idea of the three-day effect, it's at the top of this concept that I write about in the book called the nature pyramid, and it basically prescribes, uh, different amounts of time you should spend in different types of nature. So this idea of three days and sort of more backcountry removed nature is at the pinnacle of this, and it basically says we should try and hit that at least once a year.

   11. PAPeter Attia47:07

       Mm-hmm. You know, I never really thought of it that way, but that's, you know, as you know, if you go on a hunting trip, it, you're... [laughs] That's another thing people don't understand. Like, if you're going out there to try to, you know, kill an elk or a deer, like, it's gonna take you a week.

   12. MEMichael Easter47:21

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PAPeter Attia47:22

       And, like, my first elk hunt, seven days later, I didn't have an elk.

   14. MEMichael Easter47:27

       Yeah.

   15. PAPeter Attia47:27

       Like, that's not uncommon.

   16. MEMichael Easter47:29

       Yeah, not uncommon at all, and I would... I think most, I mean, the success, I don't know what the success rate is. It's maybe, like, twenty percent I would say for the average person.

   17. PAPeter Attia47:35

       You know, it depends obviously, but in public land, it's really gotta be pretty low.

   18. MEMichael Easter47:40

       Yeah.

   19. PAPeter Attia47:41

       Um, you know, you have to be, like, you have to be an exceptional hunter to, to, to get an elk on public land.

   20. MEMichael Easter47:47

       Yeah. And I think another thing that people sometimes don't realize about hunting is that you're not hanging out on a trail-

   21. PAPeter Attia47:56

       [laughs]

   22. MEMichael Easter47:57

       ... going on the tr- you know, the trodden ground. Like, you are embedded in the wilderness. You are bushwhacking the entire time. You're completely, you can be completely off the grid. Like, you are in it. And I think that that's what makes hunting compelling to me is that rather than becoming sort of a, a observer of nature, you become a participant in it. And I wasn't sure how I would feel about that, to be honest, so the first time I ever hunted big game was for this book, and I ha- I definitely had my reservations. Um, but Donny told me, "You know, I think you'd understand why we go out there and do this thing if you were to actually hunt." And so I trusted him on that, and I can see the appeal.

9. 48:40 – 55:26

   Changing the dynamic of how we think about food and the story of Peter’s daughter’s first hunt

   1. PAPeter Attia48:40

      Yeah, it's funny. My, my daughter again brought this up when she got back. Um, I've taken my daughter on one hunt with me when she was 10 or 11, and you know, in retrospect, I'm really glad I did, and I don't know what I was thinking at the same time because, like, it's hard to see an animal die. There's, there's no way, there's no getting around that. Like, I, I don't know, maybe if you've done it, you get numb to that, but I, I don't think so. Even the most experienced hunters I know have a, have a, a real respect for life and for, you know, what I describe as the carbon cycle.

   2. MEMichael Easter49:13

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PAPeter Attia49:13

      Like, we're part of it too, right? Like, we're, you know, we're gonna die and our carbon is going to go back into the earth and our nitrogen and it's gonna fertilize something around us. Um, so... And of course, the, the, the one axis deer she sees me shoot, it's a disaster because I forgot, literally I forgot my front stabilizer. So you're, you know, we're booking it in at 4:00 in the morning, right?

   4. MEMichael Easter49:36

      Mm-hmm.

   5. PAPeter Attia49:37

      'Cause you've gotta be in position to try to see deer by, like, 5:30-

   6. MEMichael Easter49:41

      Mm

   7. PAPeter Attia49:41

      ... to get a shot by, you know, 5:45 or whatever. And I stupidly, like, just took the front stabilizer off my bow the night before, something I would never do, and I forgot to put it back on. And we're an hour in and I realize I don't have it, and I don't have a choice. I- if we go back, we're done for that morning. So I'm like, "I'm gonna be shooting this thing without a front stabilizer. I've never done that before." It's doable, but I've never done it before. So to make a long story short, I get a 47-yard shot at this axis deer and, um, I don't, I don't hit my sweet spot, which is, like, you're- on an axis deer it's not that big. It's only about that big.

   8. MEMichael Easter50:19

      Yeah.

   9. PAPeter Attia50:19

      You've gotta be able to, you know-

   10. MEMichael Easter50:20

       How much do they weigh?

   11. PAPeter Attia50:22

       Um, the biggest ones in Hawaii are 200 to 220 pounds.

   12. MEMichael Easter50:25

       Okay.

   13. PAPeter Attia50:26

       This one was probably 150 pounds.

   14. MEMichael Easter50:28

       Yeah.

   15. PAPeter Attia50:28

       So this one was not a monster. Um, and instead I hit him in the neck-

   16. MEMichael Easter50:34

       Mm

   17. PAPeter Attia50:34

       ... but it hits his spinal cord because he just dropped immediately. He was paralyzed. So now we've gotta run up and stick a knife into his heart to immediately kill him.

   18. MEMichael Easter50:43

       Mm-hmm.

   19. PAPeter Attia50:43

       'Cause, you know, on the one hand you could say, "Well, he doesn't feel anything," but you could argue psychologically this is pretty traumatic. So it's not just like she sees a clean kill, like, she actually sees a very messy kill.

   20. MEMichael Easter50:55

       How did she handle that?

   21. PAPeter Attia50:56

       Um, amazingly well. Um, she got a little nauseous when I-- 'cause I, every time I shoot an animal, I also wanna take its insides apart and, um, so you're taking the meat off is one thing, but I like to see the organs 'cause I do think it really helps me to understand the anatomy well.

   22. MEMichael Easter51:11

       Mm.

   23. PAPeter Attia51:11

       And I really like to see every detail of their anatomy over and over and over again. Plus we also eat the heart and some of the organs as well. So I think when I, when we got into me taking out the heart and doing all that stuff, she was like, "I'm gonna stand back here for a minute." But otherwise, she did great. And then of course, what did we do? Like, we took that deer back to our hotel, 'cause we were staying at another part of Maui, and, uh, ate it.

   24. MEMichael Easter51:35

       Yeah.

   25. PAPeter Attia51:35

       And, and, like, shared it with everyone who worked at the hotel.

   26. MEMichael Easter51:38

       Cool.

   27. PAPeter Attia51:38

       Um, so-

   28. MEMichael Easter51:39

       Very cool

   29. PAPeter Attia51:39

       ... we befriended the chef who... And these are all people local to Hawaii who know about what axis deer do to their community, how they destroy their farms and stuff like that, and many of them had never even eaten an axis deer.

   30. MEMichael Easter51:50

       Wow.
10. 55:26 – 1:05:00

    How a profound experience at an elk hunt changed Michael’s thoughts about life and death

    1. MEMichael Easter55:26

       And it, you know, it's fascinating because when I, when I kinda had my hesitations-

    2. PAPeter Attia55:32

       And was your hesitation around the act of taking a life?

    3. MEMichael Easter55:36

       I think that's ultimately what it was.

    4. PAPeter Attia55:37

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MEMichael Easter55:38

       Now, my, I told myself it was because, well, you're a journalist, and journalists don't get involved in the story, so you're just there to cover it. And I think that was kind of a, a mental workaround-

    6. PAPeter Attia55:48

       Mm

    7. MEMichael Easter55:49

       ... for me to not have to, you know, it's, I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

    8. PAPeter Attia55:52

       But I don't know. I mean, I, that seems like a reasonable point of view as well.

    9. MEMichael Easter55:55

       Yeah.

    10. PAPeter Attia55:55

        Do you, do you not think that I, I could see that argument.

    11. MEMichael Easter55:58

        I can see the argument. Um, but I think ultimately it was just that I-

    12. PAPeter Attia56:01

        But it's a different experience

    13. MEMichael Easter56:02

        ... it's a different experience.

    14. PAPeter Attia56:03

        I, I don't think one's better than the other. I just think, like, you could've been there watching Donny do it.

    15. MEMichael Easter56:07

        Yeah.

    16. PAPeter Attia56:08

        And what was the other guy's name?

    17. MEMichael Easter56:09

        William.

    18. PAPeter Attia56:10

        William, right.

    19. MEMichael Easter56:10

        William.

    20. PAPeter Attia56:10

        Yeah. Um, alternatively, by doing it, now you're, you're writing about your experience.

    21. MEMichael Easter56:16

        I think that the, I'm glad I trusted Donny, let's just say that. I think that the, um, the book ended up better. I think specifically the section where I talk about death is a lot richer because of that. I mean, I feel like it is internally. The experience of actually hunting the animal is, you know, I, I, I told my- even when I said okay to Donny, I was like, "I s- I don't have to do it. You know, I don't have to pull the trigger."

    22. PAPeter Attia56:45

        Yep.

    23. MEMichael Easter56:45

        And he was, he kinda told me that too. He's like, "Look, just plan on it, but you don't have to."

    24. PAPeter Attia56:48

        Yeah.

    25. MEMichael Easter56:48

        And he wasn't pushing me either direction. But, you know, you buy a, buy a tag, which in Alaska you can buy a caribou tag, uh, over the counter. Go all the way out there, carrying the rifle around for a couple weeks, and we finally get in position where, um, we're on this hill, and there's a herd on the other side, uh, of this valley on a hill. And, you know, Donny says, you know, "If they keep eating their way down this hill, they're gonna probably come over this knoll. So if we can get on the other side of the knoll, we're gonna be in a good position." So when that happens, we just, we're on the move, right? We're kinda up and over the knoll. We start cranking through the, the grass on the tundra, and eventually we kinda get into an army crawl, you know, planning that these, uh, this herd is gonna come over the hill. And so we get in position. You know, it was, it's like something out of Planet Earth, where you're kinda watching this hill, and then all of a sudden it's like the first thing you see are these antlers.

    26. PAPeter Attia57:40

        The antler tips.

    27. MEMichael Easter57:41

        These gigantic antlers that first, and then it's like there's one and two, and then eventually there are 30. And they're all kinda coming. And we're looking at them because we're only wanting to shoot something that's old.

    28. PAPeter Attia57:54

        Old, yeah.

    29. MEMichael Easter57:54

        And we had, you know, from the spotting scope we had thought, okay, there's probably two older ones in there. But, you know, you wanna be sure, 'cause we're super far away when we made that call.

    30. PAPeter Attia58:03

        How far were you when you guys made the first spot?
11. 1:05:00 – 1:15:04

    How happiness can thrive in places without all of the modern comforts of the West

    1. MEMichael Easter1:05:00

       And so this leads me to this trip to Bhutan that I take. So Bhutan is a very fascinating pl- place. I believe-

    2. PAPeter Attia1:05:09

       And, and I mean, you know, you, you have a whole chapter on it, which is amazing, and I wanna hear all about it. Were there other candidate places you looked at besides Bhutan?

    3. MEMichael Easter1:05:18

       Bhutan came on the radar.

    4. PAPeter Attia1:05:21

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MEMichael Easter1:05:21

       And it kinda became that, that I think that's a place I should go.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:05:24

       Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's a, it's an amazing discussion about the contrast.

    7. MEMichael Easter1:05:28

       Yeah.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:05:29

       So how do they die?

    9. MEMichael Easter1:05:32

       Well, I mean, first of all, what's so fascinating about them is they're on... If you measure it by GDP, they're 160-something out of 180.

    10. PAPeter Attia1:05:41

        Yeah, I think it was like 184 or something.

    11. MEMichael Easter1:05:43

        Yeah, they just don't-

    12. PAPeter Attia1:05:43

        Uh, they're dirt poor.

    13. MEMichael Easter1:05:44

        Yeah. But in a lot of happiness measurements, they rank in the top 20, so they punch way above their weight. And [clears throat] death, this idea of death and how they approach it, I think factors in. There's a lot of things going on, but I think their relationship with death does factor into this. And in Bhutan, it's [laughs] they just take it into their life. So the Bhutanese are told to think about death three times a day. It's kind of a cultural practice. Uh, death is woven into a lot of the art and the cultural dances and heritage, and there's even these little clay pyramids called tsatsas. So this is mud mixed with ashes-

    14. PAPeter Attia1:06:25

        Mm-hmm

    15. MEMichael Easter1:06:25

        ... of cremated people, and they're all over the country. All over the country. You take a turn, like on a bend in a road, and there might be 300 of them. They're in the window sills in the city. I mean, they're everywhere. So there's this constant reminder, and it flows in with this idea of impermanence in Buddhism, and I think that Bhutan as a country really, um, plays that up. So I travel there to learn more about this, and I-

    16. PAPeter Attia1:06:50

        And this was after the hunt?

    17. MEMichael Easter1:06:52

        This was after the hunt.

    18. PAPeter Attia1:06:53

        'Cause it grew out of this-

    19. MEMichael Easter1:06:54

        Mm-hmm

    20. PAPeter Attia1:06:54

        ... understanding of, yeah.

    21. MEMichael Easter1:06:57

        And, uh I met with three different people there. The first was a guy whose name is, uh, Dasho Karma Ura, and a dasho is like secretary in the US.

    22. PAPeter Attia1:07:09

        Mm-hmm.

    23. MEMichael Easter1:07:09

        Like we have Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense.

    24. PAPeter Attia1:07:10

        He's like Secretary of Happiness, right?

    25. MEMichael Easter1:07:12

        He's Secretary of Happiness.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:07:13

        Yeah.

    27. MEMichael Easter1:07:13

        Yes. So I meet with him, and he just does these happiness me- measures all around the country. And, um, you know, he finds that I think 92% of, uh, Bhutanese say that they are happy more or less. They have different variations. They say, I think they have narrowly happy, sort of like kinda happy.

    28. PAPeter Attia1:07:29

        Baseline happy.

    29. MEMichael Easter1:07:30

        Yeah.

    30. PAPeter Attia1:07:31

        Yeah.
12. 1:15:04 – 1:25:43

    Why we’re hardwired for stress, and the responsibility that comes with our level of comfort

    1. MEMichael Easter1:15:05

       when I started to look at a lot of what kills us now, it's all things linked to pace and comfort. How do we-

    2. PAPeter Attia1:15:16

       Yeah, it's overnutrition, under-movement-

    3. MEMichael Easter1:15:18

       Under-movement

    4. PAPeter Attia1:15:19

       ... too much stress.

    5. MEMichael Easter1:15:20

       Too much stress. Yeah. And you know, one thing that I learned as I did this, when it, when it comes with stress, it's, the question becomes, what is causing our stress? A lot of it is manufactured, right? No one causes your stress. You cause your stress.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:15:38

       Yeah. [laughs] Amen.

    7. MEMichael Easter1:15:40

       There's this concept in the book I talk about called prevalence-induced concept change, and that's kind of a nerdy way of saying basically problem creep. So these scientists at Harvard, uh, they did this kind of fun study, and they noticed this, by the way. They're waiting in line for TSA. They're going to a conference.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:15:57

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MEMichael Easter1:15:58

       And they're looking at TSA. They're going, you know, a lot of people who are clearly not that threatening get patted down. You know? It's like grandma's getting the full-body pat down 'cause she had a half-filled bottle of hairspray in her purse, and, you know, they just pulled out my banana thinking that it was a Beretta or something. So they start to wonder, you know, if all of a sudden everyone just followed the rules, would they let everyone flow through and, you know, just, "Yep, go on to your flight," or would they start looking for successively smaller things? And they thought it would probably be the latter.

    10. PAPeter Attia1:16:29

        And, and I bet the reverse is true. If, if every fourth person coming through actually had a gun-

    11. MEMichael Easter1:16:35

        [laughs] Yes

    12. PAPeter Attia1:16:35

        ... would the other three of us who have never carried a gun or threatening thing to an airport never get patted down again?

    13. MEMichael Easter1:16:43

        Right. [laughs] Um, so they do this study, and there's two different studies they did where they had people look at 800 different faces, and the people had to deem whether the face was threatening or non-threatening to them. So the people are going non-threatening, non-threatening, threatening, threatening, non-threatening, non-threatening. And what they did is about midway through, they started showing the people successively fewer threatening faces. The other one they did was very similar, except they were having them read these research proposals, so you would have to say whether the research proposal was ethical or unethical. And again, somewhere in the middle, they started feeding them fewer unethical ones. So you would think that people would just start saying threatening fewer times. They would start finding fewer things unethical 'cause it's like a person either threatens you or they don't, right? And something either crosses this moral line you have in the sand or it doesn't.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:17:36

        Right, which you've already established-

    15. MEMichael Easter1:17:37

        Yeah

    16. PAPeter Attia1:17:37

        ... through the first half of the study.

    17. MEMichael Easter1:17:39

        Uh, well, it didn't. What ended up happening is they said that, they said threatening the same amount of times, the same ratio of times. They found the same amount of, uh, studies, uh, uh, what word am I looking for now? Help me out.

    18. PAPeter Attia1:17:51

        Unethical.

    19. MEMichael Easter1:17:52

        Unethical, yes. And so what their takeaway was is that as we experience fewer and fewer problems, we don't actually perceive this. We simply go out and look for other problems. We don't become more satisfied. But the thing is is that as the world improves over time, and I think we can agree that even though things aren't perfect right now, everyone knows it, we're probably-

    20. PAPeter Attia1:18:18

        There's never been a better time to be a human being-

    21. MEMichael Easter1:18:20

        Mm

    22. PAPeter Attia1:18:20

        ... with respect to the benefits we have.

    23. MEMichael Easter1:18:22

        Yes.

    24. PAPeter Attia1:18:23

        Yeah.

    25. MEMichael Easter1:18:23

        You're less like, again, compared to 100 years ago, you're more likely to be literate, educated. You're less likely to die at any moment, on and on and on. But when you poll people, only something like 12% of people think the world is improving. It's 'cause we're always moving the goalpost.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:18:39

        Yeah.

    27. MEMichael Easter1:18:39

        And I think this makes evolutionary sense because in the past when the world was hard, when you did have serious life-threatening problems, if you were always identifying the next problem, okay, that's gonna give you a survival advantage. If you're always, "Okay, we gotta fix this thing, this thing. Okay, this is a problem. Fix that. Fix that." But in today's age, as things become successively better, we look for problems where they maybe don't exist, or our problems become more hollow.

    28. PAPeter Attia1:19:03

        Uh, yeah, I agree with that completely. I think there's another issue at play here, and I've, I've thought about this so much. Um, you know, the first time I started thinking about this problem was 10 years ago when I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond's book, which I'm sure you've read, and if people haven't read it, it's, uh, it's, it's a great read. I, I suspect some of- It has now dated and there's, you know, I'm, I'm, I don't know if he's written an updated version of it, but what, what it got me thinking about a lot was how awful life was. I mean, there's just no other way to put it.

    29. MEMichael Easter1:19:34

        Yeah.

    30. PAPeter Attia1:19:34

        Like, it's, it's... We can sit here and talk about romanticizing some elements of a world with no iPhone. The reality of it is, like, I wouldn't wanna be one of the Hadza right now.
13. 1:25:43 – 1:33:07

    How perspective on the timescale of our lives in relation to history can impart positive changes

    1. PAPeter Attia1:25:43

       If the entire history of this universe were laid out in a calendar year, can you give some milestones?

    2. MEMichael Easter1:25:50

       [laughs]

    3. PAPeter Attia1:25:51

       I lo- I love... Where, where did you, uh, read about this or learn about this?

    4. MEMichael Easter1:25:54

       I was, uh, I was driving to work in my truck, 29, and it was on a podcast. Someone walked through it, and I just started bawling. Like, uh, you know, I'm driving past, like, a Chipotle, just this, you know, kind of fitness bro, like, "Oh my God, that's so much time," you know? Um-

    5. PAPeter Attia1:26:13

       Why... Okay, well, so tell, give, give the answer, and then I wanna talk about why that, what that meant to you emotionally.

    6. MEMichael Easter1:26:18

       Yeah. So the answer is that [laughs] the Big Bang happens-

    7. PAPeter Attia1:26:22

       If the Big Bang happens on January 1st-

    8. MEMichael Easter1:26:25

       Yeah. Uh, I believe that our galaxy forms, I might get the months-

    9. PAPeter Attia1:26:29

       Like September

    10. MEMichael Easter1:26:29

        ... shaky. September. Earth forms in November. Dinosaurs, uh, die off on December 25th.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:26:37

        After appearing on December 20th or something?

    12. MEMichael Easter1:26:41

        Yeah, yeah. They were around for, you know, five days on this calendar. Yeah.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:26:44

        Oh, yeah, yeah. That's right. The 20- 25th to the 29th or something, right? Of December.

    14. MEMichael Easter1:26:49

        Of December.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:26:49

        [laughs] Amazing.

    16. MEMichael Easter1:26:50

        All of human history that we have written down happens New Year's Eve, 11:59, starting at 30-

    17. PAPeter Attia1:27:01

        33 s-

    18. MEMichael Easter1:27:02

        Yeah

    19. PAPeter Attia1:27:02

        ... 33 seconds.

    20. MEMichael Easter1:27:03

        33 seconds in. That is all of recorded human history. That is how little time we've been here. It's crazy. [laughs]

    21. PAPeter Attia1:27:15

        It is unbelievable. All of recorded human history is 27 seconds, the last 27 seconds of a year.

    22. MEMichael Easter1:27:22

        Yes. So for me, that was one of the things, too, that, you know, I started thinking about just that you're... It makes you realize y- you're not that damn important in the grand scheme of time and space. Now, that sounds like it's kind of you're being hard on yourself, but at the same time-

    23. PAPeter Attia1:27:40

        I, I, I would go one step further. It's that you are completely unimportant.

    24. MEMichael Easter1:27:43

        Yes.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:27:43

        I mean, it's like-

    26. MEMichael Easter1:27:44

        [laughs] Yeah

    27. PAPeter Attia1:27:45

        ... you couldn't be less relevant.

    28. MEMichael Easter1:27:47

        Yeah. And so that, you know, that can be unnerving at first. But at the same time-

    29. PAPeter Attia1:27:54

        I need to do the calculation of what an average human lifespan is, 'cause it's milliseconds on that scale.

    30. MEMichael Easter1:27:59

        Oh, yeah.
14. 1:33:07 – 1:43:11

    The benefit of challenging oneself and the positive carryover it can have

    1. PAPeter Attia1:33:07

       So what's Misogi?

    2. MEMichael Easter1:33:09

       Misogi. [laughs] So I learned about this concept from a guy whose name is Marcus Elliott. He, he went to Harvard Med School, but decided he didn't want to be a traditional doctor. He decided that he wanted to get into sports science. He wants to revolutionize sports science, and he kind of ends up doing it, in a way. He's the first guy to really bring, uh, AI and movement tracking into, uh, pro sports, and by using this data, he can basically tell people, "You know, the way that your knee caves in as you do this, you might have a 60% chance of injury based on all the other cases we've seen of men of your size in the NBA," whatever. So he's kind of all about these numbers and data and figures that can improve performance, but he also believes that what improves performance and potential, it can't always be measured, in a way. There's intangibles that some people have. And so to get to these, he does this idea called Misogi. Now, the setup, the backup for this is, is why it's important, is that if you think about how humans evolved, we used to have to do hard things all the time. No safety net. This could be from a big hunt, moving from summer into wintering grounds, tiger lurking in the bushes, all these different things. So we were challenged all the time, and if we failed, we would die. But each time we would take on one of these challenges, you would inevitably learn what your potential was, right? You would really have to dig deep, push, and you would come out of that, assuming it went well, you made it out the other side, knowing what you were capable of. But now in modern life, you start to see a shift where you can live a decent life and you're never really challenged, especially physically, in a way that it, you know, sort of almost blends mind, body, spirit. You know, you'll, you'll have your running water, you'll have your food, you'll have your home, you'll have your family, and it's really great. But, you know, he argues, and I, I'm with him on this, that if you think of human potential as, like, a really big circle, it's like most people are kind of in this little dinner plate-sized thing right here because we never explore those edges, really what we're capable of. So enter Misogi. [laughs] And this is this idea that once a year, gonna go out into nature, gonna do something really hard, some challenging task. So there are only two rules of Misogi. Rule number one is that it has to be really hard. So he defines this by saying you have a 50/50 shot at finishing whatever it is, this Misogi task that you've decided to take on. And it has to be true 50/50, because now I think when people take on challenges, especially when there's a physical element, they pick things that they know they will finish, that are within their capabilities. So if you look at how marathoners approach running a marathon, it's not, "I don't know if I'm gonna be able to finish this marathon."

    3. PAPeter Attia1:36:09

       Or, "What's my time gonna be?"

    4. MEMichael Easter1:36:11

       Right. "I don't know if I'm gonna be able to finish this marathon in..."

    5. PAPeter Attia1:36:13

       Under three hours or whatever.

    6. MEMichael Easter1:36:15

       Yeah.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:36:15

       Yeah.

    8. MEMichael Easter1:36:16

       Uh, [clears throat] the second rule of Misogi- [laughs]

    9. PAPeter Attia1:36:19

       Which I like as much as the first rule.

    10. MEMichael Easter1:36:21

        [laughs] So you can't die. Don't die. [laughs] That is kind of a tongue in cheek way of basically saying y- be safe on this thing. So to give examples-

    11. PAPeter Attia1:36:31

        Wait, isn't there also a third sort of rule of Misogi?

    12. MEMichael Easter1:36:34

        There's guidelines. So the-

    13. PAPeter Attia1:36:36

        Well, oh, I thought there was a, "We don't talk about Misogi." Like, you don't go and, like-

    14. MEMichael Easter1:36:39

        Advertise it

    15. PAPeter Attia1:36:39

        ... your Misogi doesn't get up on Instagram.

    16. MEMichael Easter1:36:41

        Yes.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:36:42

        Yes.

    18. MEMichael Easter1:36:42

        So that is... Then there's two guidelines. The-

    19. PAPeter Attia1:36:44

        Yeah

    20. MEMichael Easter1:36:44

        ... the two guidelines are, one, you don't talk about Misogi publicly. You know, you can talk about it with friends, with your, with your wife and close ones, but you don't put it on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. And the reason for that is so many times... Now, this rule, this guideline was a guideline before social media. But so much stuff that people do today is often for the 'gram, right? You want to do something so you can post it. And by removing this, all of a sudden you have this question of if you're doing something really hard and you want to quit, are you gonna keep going for you, knowing that it's not gonna be for a pat on the back-

    21. PAPeter Attia1:37:21

        Yeah

    22. MEMichael Easter1:37:21

        ... some sort of social, with social implications. The second guideline is that the Misogi should be somewhat quirky. Make something up. The reason for that is because once you ref- remove sort of artificial metrics, that changes the game, right? If you're doing a marathon, all of a sudden you're thinking about your time, you're thinking about all these different things that are kind of socially constructed. Whereas if you just pick some random task, it's like, "Well, let's just see if we can do it. We have no s- we have no framework for this." And that kind of opens up the door for some interesting experiences. So some of the Misogis that this guy has done is one year him and a few guys, they got an 85-pound boulder, and they walked it underneath the Santa Barbara Channel. I think it was five miles. So one guy would dive down, pick up the boulder, walk 10 yards, drop it, go up. The next guy would dive down. Rinse and repeat till you're at point B. But there's also simpler things like, "Here's this mountain that we see every day. Let's see if we can get up there in a single day," things like that. Now, the point of these, there's two big reasons for doing something like this. One is that it teaches you that you chronically undersell your potential. So if you choose an appropriately hard task, you are going to have a moment where you go, "I'm done. I gotta quit. I've reached my edge. There's, um, there's no going back from this." But if you can keep putting one foot in front of the other, then you get this other moment that's much more important, and that's where you look back and go, "Well, wait a minute, I thought my edge was back there, but I am clearly past it now, and that suggests that I'm selling myself short." And the more important question that comes from that is, "Okay, well, where else in my life am I selling myself short?" So you see that you're capable of more. The second thing that comes from this is that it can reframe fear for people, because we're wired to avoid failure at all costs, because failure in the past used to mean death. So of course, we would wanna not fail. But today, failure isn't death. It's, I don't know, mistyping in an email, you misspeak when you're speaking to a group of people, something like that. Yet we still fear those kinds of things like they're death. So sort of dancing on the edge of failure, you can realize that it's not that big of a deal. Now, when I first learned about this concept, it sounded cool. It sounded intriguing. The same time, I'm like, "Okay, it's kinda quirky," just like some made-up thing. And then I started really researching what was happening here, and we used to call things like this rites of passage. So when we had a young person who was at point A in their life and we needed to get them to point B, where they were more confident, competent, a better contributor to the tribe, what would we do? We would send them out into nature to do something really hard.

    23. PAPeter Attia1:40:24

        Yeah.

    24. MEMichael Easter1:40:24

        Right? And along the way, they would struggle, they would battle, they would have moments of doubt, but they would ultimately come out on the other side realizing that they were capable of a lot more, and they could bring that back into society and improve the tribe as a whole. And you saw these... W- what's interesting is you see these across cultures. This is, this wasn't that one tribe said, "Hey, we're doing this thing. It's pretty cool. You should try it, too," and that tribe put the word out. No, these just pop up.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:40:48

        Right. This, this arose independently throughout soc- you know, throughout-

    26. MEMichael Easter1:40:51

        Yeah

    27. PAPeter Attia1:40:51

        ... culture.

    28. MEMichael Easter1:40:52

        They just, it just arises. And it's also in mythology. So if you look at the work of Joseph Campbell in The Hero's Journey, it's the hero exits the comfort of home. Uh, he or she goes into a trying middle ground. They're faced with battles. They have to go inward, and they have to physically strive, and then they come back into society with the treasure or the talisman or whatever it is. Well, what is the treasure or the talisman? It's not the actual physical object. It's the way that person has changed, and that change that they can bring back into society. And you're, you've seen a falling away of traditional rites of passage like this, which is why when you were talking about sending your daughter to that camp, I got so excited, because I think kids really would benefit, adults too, but kids in particular really benefit from having times where they get pushed to their edges, and they have those moments where, of doubt that they're not sure what they're capable of, but then they cross it and realize, "Oh, I've got more on board than I really ever imagined." 'Cause I... You look at what people can accomplish when the conditions are like a survive condition, it's incredible what people can do. And it also makes evolutionary sense to undersell yourself.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:42:14

        Yeah, keeps you safe.

    30. MEMichael Easter1:42:15

        Keeps you safe.
15. 1:43:11 – 1:54:11

    The many benefits of rucking

    1. PAPeter Attia1:43:12

       So speaking of challenges, right? One of my favorite challenges now that we get to talk about, even though it would never rise to the level of a, a Misogi, uh, but as a daily practice, is rucking. So why is it that people like you and I have taken to this thing? And maybe we could start by just kind of defining what is rucking.

    2. MEMichael Easter1:43:30

       Rucking is carrying weight for the sake of weight [chuckles] in a backpack. So it, the word grew out of military circles. So in the military, uh, rucking is just a standard fitness practice. It is the main fitness tool that the US military, and militaries all around the world going back hundreds and hundreds of years u- used to build fitness for soldiers. It is just carrying weight on your back in a, in a backpack.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:43:56

       And it's interesting because this is, again, kind of a feature that is unique to our species.

    4. MEMichael Easter1:44:04

       Yes. I started thinking about this when I was hunting, because once you kill the animal and you have the meat, you have to pack it out. So if you look at why the human body is built the way it is and what we're physically good at, we're good at two things. The first is running long distances in the heat. So if you've read Born to Run, or that was spawned from a 2004 paper in nature-

    5. PAPeter Attia1:44:26

       By Dan Lieberman

    6. MEMichael Easter1:44:27

       ... Yep.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:44:27

       Yeah.

    8. MEMichael Easter1:44:27

       By Dan Lieberman. And we have all these adaptations that make us good at running long distances slowly in the heat, and we would use that to hunt on hot days.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:44:36

       And it's not even running. I mean, like over 24 hours, we could walk further in a day than an animal could go at whatever pace it chose.

    10. MEMichael Easter1:44:46

        Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:44:48

        Like we don't have to be running. We can just simply be walking three miles in an hour and-

    12. MEMichael Easter1:44:52

        Yeah

    13. PAPeter Attia1:44:52

        ... we'll walk 75 miles in a day.

    14. MEMichael Easter1:44:54

        We're unbelievable at covering ground. And animals on a hot day, four-legged animals, they're not efficient at cooling themselves. We are. That's one of our adaptations, so we sweat, our noses are really complex nasal cavities that cool air, all these different things. And so we would, uh, chase animals down until they essentially toppled over from heat exhaustion, and we would spear them. And then this leads to the second thing that we're good at, which is we would then have to carry that animal back to camp, and we also have adaptations that make us really good at carrying, and we are in fact the only animal that can carry.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:45:29

        Yeah, I was really surprised to learn how lousy primates are at carrying.

    16. MEMichael Easter1:45:34

        They're terrible. Very terrible. So we will still be more effi... I think we can hold up to 33% of our body weight and still be more efficient at covering ground than most other primates.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:45:47

        With no weight.

    18. MEMichael Easter1:45:48

        With no weight.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:45:49

        Yeah. Yeah.

    20. MEMichael Easter1:45:49

        Just on their own.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:45:49

        That's amazing.

    22. MEMichael Easter1:45:50

        They have this sort of tipsy, weird gait. Um, there's a technical term for it, I forget it, but it's not efficient at all. And-

    23. PAPeter Attia1:45:59

        [chuckles]

    24. MEMichael Easter1:46:00

        ... arguably-

    25. PAPeter Attia1:46:01

        Yeah, which I completely... Like I, I weigh 180, I could easily carry a 60 pound kettlebell in one hand. It's easier if I could make it a 30 and a 30, but even a 60 in one hand, it's like nothing.

    26. MEMichael Easter1:46:12

        Yeah. Most people can.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:46:13

        Yeah.

    28. MEMichael Easter1:46:13

        Yeah. And-

    29. PAPeter Attia1:46:15

        And to think that that's more efficient than a primate is with nothing.

    30. MEMichael Easter1:46:18

        With nothing. [chuckles]
16. 1:54:11 – 2:00:03

    Tips for rucking: ideal load, type of pack, and other considerations

    1. MEMichael Easter1:54:11

       life is carrying.

    2. PAPeter Attia1:54:12

       Yeah, and, and, and, you know, a reasonably well-trained person, we, we can get most of our patients to the point where they can carry their body weight.

    3. MEMichael Easter1:54:19

       Mm-hmm.

    4. PAPeter Attia1:54:20

       Um, now again, you're not gonna start out there if you're not well-trained, but, like, a reasonably fit person could, for a minute, carry their body weight in their hands.

    5. MEMichael Easter1:54:29

       Yeah. Yes, 100%.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:54:30

       You could carry it longer on your back.

    7. MEMichael Easter1:54:32

       Mm-hmm.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:54:32

       But, but even the fact that we have the grip strength, the limb strength to carry our body weight, uh, is, is just fantastic.

    9. MEMichael Easter1:54:40

       It's why we have-

    10. PAPeter Attia1:54:40

        I mean, we... One of the metrics we use with, with female patients, who obviously have less upper body strength, is 75% of your body weight carried for a minute is one of, like, our multiple... You know, we have many sort of strength metrics we put people through. Um-

    11. MEMichael Easter1:54:52

        That's a great one

    12. PAPeter Attia1:54:53

        ... that, then that's, that's... You know, think about that for a moment. That's, like, that's pretty impressive, especially in light of what you said earlier. So, so what are kind of some of the... So, so by the way, you know, uh, I, I didn't even know what rucking was when I was kind of doing it in training for hunts.

    13. MEMichael Easter1:55:07

        Mm-hmm.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:55:08

        But I realized, you know, what I do now is so much better because then I was just using a weight vest.

    15. MEMichael Easter1:55:13

        Mm-hmm.

    16. PAPeter Attia1:55:13

        Right? So y- y- you'll see later our backyard is really, really steep, and so I would, you know, in the weeks leading up to hunts, I would put on a 50-pound weight vest and just go up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down the hill. Um, but why is it that a rucksack, we would agree and argue, is, is, is better than a weight vest? What is it, what is it offering over a weight vest?

    17. MEMichael Easter1:55:34

        It tends to pull your spine into a better position. So most people today, since we work i- in front of desks, we're slumped over all the time. We're naturally slumped. When you put weight on your back, it sort of puts your spine in a safer position, and that can actually, seems to relieve and prevent back pain. Now, that is according to, uh, I spoke with Stu McGill-

    18. PAPeter Attia1:55:54

        Yep, at the, yeah

    19. MEMichael Easter1:55:55

        ... who's the back expert up in Canada.

    20. PAPeter Attia1:55:56

        Yep.

    21. MEMichael Easter1:55:57

        And he's a huge fan of rucking. He's a very careful person when it comes to exercise. Um, in my experience with him, I mean, he's very, um, nuanced, and he's a person I trust because of that. And he said, you know, rucking is a great way to add some durability to people in a way that's safe.

    22. PAPeter Attia1:56:15

        The other thing I think about rucking, and I, I also own, you know, uh, several rucksacks from GORUCK now as well. Um, the belt really makes a difference. When you get that belt on your hips... 'Cause, you know, I had shoulder surgery four months ago, and one of the things I was super stressed about was not being able to ruck because, you know, I'm gonna have my shoulder operated on. And amazingly, I was probably rucking three weeks after surgery, and I couldn't do much else, let's be clear.

    23. MEMichael Easter1:56:48

        Mm-hmm.

    24. PAPeter Attia1:56:48

        Um, but how was I able to do that? Well, first of all, you know, you've got really well-placed straps on your shoulders that are not, you know, it's not putting my joint at risk. And, and more importantly, the majority of the weight, 'cause you control where the load is by how you adjust it, but I basically just said, "I'm gonna put all the load on my hips, and I'll, I'll cook my legs a bit more, but I will spare my shoulder."

    25. MEMichael Easter1:57:12

        Yeah.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:57:12

        So that's kind of, to me, the other thing about the, the rucksack that really, really beats the weight vest-

    27. MEMichael Easter1:57:18

        Mm-hmm

    28. PAPeter Attia1:57:19

        ... is that you're, you have the distribution to load posteriorly, but you also can really distribute the load on your hips, which anyone who's hunted or done any backcountry stuff knows, like, a really... It's so important to have your pack fit well on your hips, otherwise you could, simply couldn't carry 100 pounds on your shoulders for very long.

    29. MEMichael Easter1:57:37

        Yeah. When I was in the Arctic and we were packing out, um, caribou, we were heavy. We were, I mean, over 100 pounds.

    30. PAPeter Attia1:57:43

        Yeah.
17. 2:00:03 – 2:04:02

    Parting thoughts on the downside of comfort and benefits of difficult things

    1. PAPeter Attia2:00:03

       So, I mean, look, I think this has been such an interesting journey. I, um, as I, as I've said to you many times before, I think this is just, on some level, it's such an obvious thing, right? Like, when... It's one of those books where you read it and you're like, "Yeah, of course." But if, if you're n- it's not, if it's not pointed out to you, it's really easy to miss how this has happened. Comfort has become so ubiquitous that I don't think we're aware of it anymore. It's kind of like the David Foster Wallace This Is Water thing, that the ubiquity of the water, of course, creates the irony of the fish not knowing what water is, and I kind of feel like that's what comfort has become for at least those of us in the developed world.

    2. MEMichael Easter2:00:49

       Yeah, I think so. And I, I also think that sometimes even if you're pressing against it in one way, there's probably a lot of other ways that you're not pressing it, against it. I have friends that can, you know, run 25 miles now if you, if I ask them to. But if I said, "Hey, why don't you sit in silence for 10 minutes?" It's like, "What?" They couldn't handle that. So there's all these things that we've removed from our lives over time that I think have a benefit, and it is figuring out, well, what are those things, which is what I'm trying to present in the book. And then how do I intelligently weave them in my life? 'Cause as we talked about earlier, I'm not trying to suggest in any way that we go back to [laughs] living as hunter-gatherers. Like, no way. Life today is amazing. But it's, how can we use some of those things from the past to build a better future?

    3. PAPeter Attia2:01:38

       Yeah, I, I agree. And it's, part of it's hunger. You know, I used to do a lot of fasting. I don't fast as much anymore. Um, but one of the things I loved about fasting was how much I learned what I could do when I was hungry.

    4. MEMichael Easter2:01:53

       Mm.

    5. PAPeter Attia2:01:54

       You know, I would do sort of se- uh, seven up to 10-day water-only fasts.

    6. MEMichael Easter2:01:59

       Wow.

    7. PAPeter Attia2:01:59

       But I'd keep working out hard throughout. And the first couple of times, it almost killed me. I mean, the first... I remember the first time I tried to put myself through serious workouts during a seven-day fast. I mean, I thought I was gonna die.

    8. MEMichael Easter2:02:13

       Wow.

    9. PAPeter Attia2:02:14

       Um, and it's not to suggest that during those fasts I was as strong or, you know, uh, my performance was what it was normally. It wasn't. It never was. But, you know, I just kept, I just couldn't imagine. And, and other things, like I remember going to bed so hungry sometimes, thinking I'll never be able to sleep. But yet I did.

    10. MEMichael Easter2:02:34

        Mm-hmm.

    11. PAPeter Attia2:02:35

        And you realize, like, of course you did. This, there's no way our species would be here if we couldn't figure out how to do these things when we're hungry, uh, you know, be it sleep or go out and hunt or do something like that. So yeah, when you think of all of these forms of discomfort, it can be hunger, it can be boredom, it can be a physical challenge. Um-

    12. MEMichael Easter2:02:58

        Time in nature.

    13. PAPeter Attia2:02:59

        Yeah.

    14. MEMichael Easter2:03:00

        Mm-hmm.

    15. PAPeter Attia2:03:01

        It's, to me, that's, that's the take home, is we have, we have this incredible privilege, and it just comes with a little responsibility, which is just make sure on a daily basis you are inserting brief windows of discomfort so that you're never too far from realizing that you're in the water-

    16. MEMichael Easter2:03:21

        Yeah [laughs]

    17. PAPeter Attia2:03:21

        ... so to speak.

    18. MEMichael Easter2:03:22

        You said it. I mean-

    19. PAPeter Attia2:03:23

        In other words, if you're the fish, just make sure you jump out of the water a few times a day so that you never lose sight of the water you're in.

    20. MEMichael Easter2:03:29

        Amen. Yes, sir.

    21. PAPeter Attia2:03:31

        Well, you know what we get to do now?

    22. MEMichael Easter2:03:33

        Are we gonna go ruck?

    23. PAPeter Attia2:03:34

        We sure are.

    24. MEMichael Easter2:03:35

        [laughs] Yes.

    25. PAPeter Attia2:03:37

        Michael, thanks very much for coming. I, uh, I've enjoyed talking about this a lot, and I, I hope everybody picks up the book 'cause it's fantastic.

    26. MEMichael Easter2:03:43

        Yeah. Thanks a lot, Peter. I really enjoyed the conversation, and now we get to ruck and suffer a little bit.

    27. PAPeter Attia2:03:47

        And for dinner, elk and axis deer.

    28. MEMichael Easter2:03:50

        Awesome. Perfect day.

    29. PAPeter Attia2:03:51

        [laughs] [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 2:04:02