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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

#1 Brain Surgeon: Reset Your Body & Life In 24 Hours - Stop Feeling Old, Tired & Unhappy

We are undergoing a huge technological experiment. In our pockets we have tiny technological miracles through which we can communicate, instantly, with anyone on the planet. We are constantly bombarded with endless information.

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostDr. Rahul Jandialguest
Apr 18, 20251h 3mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 3:27

    A 24-Hour Day of Brain-Healthy Habits: Fasting and Breathing

    1. RC

      This podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. The reason it is, it's quite self-explanatory, but I believe that when we feel better in ourselves, when we're functioning better, we get more out of our lives. We've got more energy to do the things we wanna do. We've got more cognitive capacity to do the things that we like to do in our spare time, and even at work.

    2. RJ

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      And there's plenty of tips in the book. I wanna sort of, I won't say quickfire, but just go through them systematically. I, I was really struck by a paragraph I read that, um, I think it was in your book, about how even at 60 or 70 years old, a few simple lifestyle changes with patients or, or with the public, has been shown to increase their performance on cognitive tests. And I think that's really empowering for people-

    4. RJ

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... when they think, "Oh, well, I didn't do this. I've had a stressful life."

    6. RJ

      Yeah.

    7. RC

      Wait a minute, there are still things you can do.

    8. RJ

      It's not too late.

    9. RC

      So let's go through, what are some of the things that people can do, whether it's their diet, whether it's, you know, whatever. You, you, you go through some of the tips that you think are useful.

    10. RJ

      And I thought about how to explain that so it's not too much of a listicle for people. And let's, let's do a 24-hour day about, um... I'm just, I'm just thinking about this now. I'm just gonna take you through things you can do, um, y- if you have the luxury. So first of all, food. I mean, people are starving in this world, and food scarcity and bad food. I, I'm respectful of that. That said, um, if you wake up, consider skipping breakfast a couple of times a week. In neuroscience journals, and from what we know about the biology of it, that intermittent fasting, going 16 hours couple of times a week without eating glucose will, your liver will run out of its glucose reserves. It'll burn fat into these things called ketones. The brain is a hybrid vehicle. It's not all gas, it's not all electric. It likes both. And so if you have dinner at 8:00 and it's Monday evening, consider having, uh, your next meal be midday the next day. That's an easy way to get to 16 hours. It doesn't mean you're fasting for days and days. There is neuroscientific literature that intermittent fasting is good for attention and focus. Okay, now it's lunchtime and you're thinking about what to eat. Before that, I would consider taking five minutes, um, to just breathe deeply like you're doing now. Just bake deep breaths a couple of times a day. Three times a day for three minutes. Make it easy. See how that works for you. Just the pause might be helpful. Now it's time to eat. The food you choose is important. And [laughs] I... There's delicious food to eat that's actually good for your brain. And how do I know that? Well, we don't have a pill for Alzheimer's, but we do have the MIND diet, which is essentially Mediterranean food, um, that if you look at a group of thousands of people over a long period of time, they had less dementia. So now that you've figured out the cadence of eating, which is intermittent fasting, skipping breakfast a couple of, uh, days a week; now that you've brought in, uh, pre-lunch, three minutes of just deep breathing that's meditative breathing. Choose plants, choose nuts, choose occasional fatty fish. The fatty fish has omega-3s, which is an essential component of your f- of, of your brain. It's the wrapping around all those connections that keeps those electrical signals firing faster.

    11. RC

      A- a-

  2. 3:27 – 4:56

    Eating for the Brain: The MIND Diet and Going Vegan

    1. RC

      and on that point, given the growing tendency to follow a vegan diet-

    2. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... in your opinion, can that be problematic?

    4. RJ

      Yeah. Uh, I don't think so bec- This is a good question. I was asked this at, uh, at Stella McCartney's yesterday, and there are good nutritional sources, uh, for B vitamins as well as omega-3s. I don't have the, the names of those jars, but-

    5. RC

      So you, they can supplement.

    6. RJ

      Yeah.

    7. RC

      If they're choosing to go vegan-

    8. RJ

      Yeah. They can-

    9. RC

      ... they, you would recommend they supplement with something containing omega-3-

    10. RJ

      B vitamin

    11. RC

      ... and, and B-

    12. RJ

      Well, B vitamins. But if they supplement omega-3s from fish oil, then they're not vegan anymore.

    13. RC

      Sure.

    14. RJ

      But there are other supplements. And what I als- also say is the benefits of being vegan, if you can pull it off, are so great that a little bit less omega-3s because you're not eating fish, I think it far out, uh, you know, far, far exceeds that.

    15. RC

      Is that, is that... Are you saying that relative to the standard, uh, of course you live in America, so the standard American-

    16. RJ

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... or the standard Western diet.

    18. RJ

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      Relative to that, are you suggesting an inc- increasing plant foods is generally a good thing?

    20. RJ

      Absolutely. Not only is it, it's, uh, good [laughs] for the animals that you're not killing, it's good for the planet, but it's actually what your body prefers. It's healthier for you. And if you wanna eat meat, uh, consider the Mediterranean diet, where it's fatty fish and, and poultry. Pass on the beef. Pass on the fried food. Pass on the, um, processed food. Now, if you do have a burger [laughs] you're not gonna undo what you did. Just make those things an indulgence rather than a habit.

  3. 4:56 – 7:02

    Exercise, BDNF and Getting Vertical

    1. RJ

      So now you're at lunchtime. You've chosen the Mediterranean diet, more plants, less meat, the right kind of meat, a- and your day goes on. And then the question is what's next to improve your health? A bit of exercise is great. The brain likes exercise because it is flesh. Don't, don't clog the plumbing to your garden because swaths of your garden will wither. So people have strokes and injuries, it's because blood flow is not getting into their brain. That's the way to hurt the structure of your brain. So what's good for the heart is good for the brain. Then the other thing it does is it bathes itself in these, uh, neurotrophic factors. That's what my science is on, BDNF, brain-derived ne-

    2. RC

      Okay

    3. RJ

      ... And so that's what my grants are on. When the brain exercises, it showers itself. It's not like thigh muscles release, uh, healthy brain chemicals that swim up there. It's got its own pharmacy. You give it the right behavior and interaction, it'll reward itself. So exercise keeps the plumbing open to the flesh of the brain as well as releases molecules that serve as mirac- miracle grow for the brain. A couple times a week is a good place to start.

    4. RC

      Do we know what specific exercise is good for the brain and good for BDNF levels? Or, or is it a mix?

    5. RJ

      We don't. Well, some people are starting to suggest, uh, some strength training is an essential component.

    6. RC

      Sure.

    7. RJ

      So if you're just running a marathon, you might wanna throw in some light weights. But when- More, a little bit more exercise than you're currently doing-

    8. RC

      Is a good thing

    9. RJ

      ... is, is what the brain's gonna say, "Hey, I like this direction. I'm gonna shower myself with BDNF."

    10. RC

      Yeah. Exactly, and I think we can... Look, strength training, I'm a huge fan of strength training. I do think we undervalue muscle mass in society and in health. But generally speaking, for most of us, if we just increase how much we move-

    11. RJ

      Get vertical, even.

    12. RC

      Yeah. That's gonna-

    13. RJ

      Get out of the chair. Just the-

    14. RC

      That, that's gonna, that's gonna help

    15. RJ

      ... just the postural elements of standing-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. RJ

      ... is a first step. Next thing you know, you're walking. Next thing you know, you're taking the stairs. Uh, so these are simple things. These are free things. And, um, so exercise, and then the day, the day moves on and you're getting to the evening. Uh,

  4. 7:02 – 9:45

    Evening Habits: New Content and Creativity at the Edge of Sleep

    1. RJ

      if you can, I like to read something completely unfamiliar. I've got a stack of old magazines. I just flip through. Just, just n- new content for your mind. And I think it's, since it's thinking flesh, and of course it likes blood, it likes to be irrigated, of course it likes a certain kinda diet because of the components it needs, but it also wants to think. If you ask Usain Bolt, I mean, how do you get your thigh muscles stronger? He'd say, "Take some stairs." Well, how do you get your brain to be healthier? Think. And everybody's level, next level of thought and challenge is individual. We don't all have to do the same puzzles. We don't all have to have the same career. But get out of your comfort zone, if you will-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. RJ

      ... just with the thoughts. So flip through something different on your phone. Read something different on your phone. Develop a new habit. I think that's important. And then for those of us who have, um, creativity as an ambition, and I have the luxury of having, uh, creativity as an ambition because cutting out a cancer from somebody's brain is a three-dimensional thing. Uh, understand, trying to guess what Mother Nature is, how Mother Nature is working in science is a creative thing. W- I'm not a technician. Uh, I'm not a, I'm not an intellectual, frankly, in the end. I, I'm an instinctive person who wants to harness his creativity. So, um, you know, people are microdosing. People are doing different things, but we're, you know, those, that requires pharmacological intervention. I don't support that. What I would say is we're all wildly creative in our dreams, and people are finding that when you, uh, on the transition from awake to asleep and from sleep to, uh, waking up, it's called hypnagogic and hypnopompic. There's actually those same alpha waves that we've been talking about. Just for 10, 20 minutes as you drift, uh, into sleep and your tasks are done, and Salvador Dali mentioned that, and, like, he uses sleep as a psychedelic tool for creativity to solve problems. It's not gonna happen every time, but I like to look at my riddles at the end of the night in my... And, and I have a notes app, and I write a few things, and I wake up and I write a few things. That transition is like sort of a strange portal to your subconscious. And again, based on science, if you put some electrodes on a brain, at that time you have those alpha waves that we talked about, awake but focused and calm, and you also have these other waves, these delta waves that, waves that are, um, light sleeping, early dreaming. It's the only time where you have both awake and asleep waves.

    4. RC

      And, and I've heard in one of your articles, a- sorry, I've read in one of your articles that you say leave a pen next to your bed-

    5. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    6. RC

      ... so that you can actually take advantage when those creative thoughts come just before bed or just when you wake up. You, you can actually just jot them down and-

    7. RJ

      Yeah

    8. RC

      ... and, uh, yeah, that's, that's incredible. You, you said learn new things.

    9. RJ

      Yeah.

    10. RC

      Um,

  5. 9:45 – 14:01

    Learning New Skills and Using Your Non-Dominant Hand

    1. RC

      how important can learning a new language be?

    2. RJ

      Oh, it's an essential thing, and whether you get it right is actually secondary. [laughs] It's the, it's the process of trying to learn.

    3. RC

      Yeah.

    4. RJ

      So language, music, the act of learning makes your brain say, "I gotta, I gotta pull from different pathways. I gotta get to different corners of my mind." It's actually an energy-consuming activity, and, and that's what engages the, the greatest corners and recesses of your mind is to learn new things, particularly music, particularly languages, social interactions. We know these things. And now I'm just trying to give you a biological basis that-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. RJ

      ... brain's efficient if it wants to fall into its rut, and breaking the rut in a constructive way is gonna be good for your brain. Globally as your mind, thoughts and emotions, as well as the flesh, it, that's, that's one strong way to stave off dementia.

    7. RC

      Yeah, a- and that's very powerful. You know, keeping your brain active, trying new things, and I think what you said was super empowering. It's not about whether you can actually master that language.

    8. RJ

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      It's not about whether you master playing the piano.

    10. RJ

      [laughs]

    11. RC

      Just the process of trying to-

    12. RJ

      Yeah, yeah

    13. RC

      ... that's gonna do all the groundwork and-

    14. RJ

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... all the sort of heavy lifting in the brain, which i- which is super empowering. Doing things with your non-dominant hand.

    16. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    17. RC

      I'm asking, A, 'cause I'm interested, but B, it's something that I often do with my son. Like I, we've been playing, uh, table tennis. Do you call it table tennis-

    18. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    19. RC

      ... in, in America-

    20. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    21. RC

      ... or ping pong? Um-

    22. RJ

      Both.

    23. RC

      We, we've, you know, we've been playing that in the back garden, and, um, sometimes we'll try and play with our left hands.

    24. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      We're both right-handed.

    26. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    27. RC

      And, and Daddy says to him, "Hey, yeah, this is really good for your brain, this. You know, try and do it with your left hand."

    28. RJ

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      What's going on there, and is it good for your brain?

    30. RJ

      Yeah. It is. I'm a two-handed surgeon. Neurosurgery requires the use of left and right, so to facilitate that, I had a mentor when I was younger say, you know, "Put your right arm in a sling for a little bit just, just, just to be crazy, just to be, just to see how that goes." And over a few weeks, it's awkward, but your left hand, if it's your non-dominant hand, it can catch up quite a bit. And that, that effort to learn how to use parts of your body that, that you weren't, you know, relying upon is what I learned about from my patients. You know? When they have injuries, when they come in with stroke or they've had a brain tumor removed, sometimes they have weakness in their arms and legs and their ability to speak. They have these, um, central nervous system issues and th- and they have to rely on what's left. Um, and that is a very powerful thing because when they come back to clinic three weeks later or you see them three months later, they're quite facile, and that is brain plasticity. That is brain rehab. Relying on extremities, relying on thought, relying on communication that you wouldn't have originally had. So when I use my mouse with my left hand, I force myself to do that, or chopsticks, and I encourage my kids to do that, what it's doing is the left hand, for me that's non-dominant, is controlled by the right side of the brain. That part of the brain, if you don't engage it, will also start to wither a little bit.

  6. 14:01 – 15:34

    Dr. Jandial's Top Four Tips

    1. RC

      So what are your top four tips-

    2. RJ

      Sure

    3. RC

      ... for people listening to this that they can think about applying into their own life?

    4. RJ

      [lips smack] Um, one would be, uh, get vertical. That's the most essential thing. When I see our patients who can come out of a bed and stand, they, they grow. You can see a withering flower come back to life if they can get vertical. Being standing and moving is very important-

    5. RC

      Okay

    6. RJ

      ... for your frame. Wherever you're at, just do a little bit more. Two, make subtle but important changes in your diet. Get rid of the red meat and fried food, add in some more of the Mediterranean diet. You're still gonna enjoy what you're eating. You can have a glass of wine. Salmon, red wine, yogurt, fruit. It's not a tough thing, it's just changing the direction of what you're eating. Uh, the other things that I would do is I would consider, I would consider getting some of these apps. Now, it's an interesting place to start. I don't know which ones I'm recommending, but there are brain training apps.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. RJ

      Brain training works. Certain governmental agencies are using it. We use brain training as brain rehab in our patients. Find some puzzles, find some content, read a book, do something unusual. Uh, that will also be good. And the fourth one I would say is, you know, try to find happiness. It's the most elusive thing, but we also know that people who have mental health issues or people who are depressed, their brains start to change. They are brain injured from the way they are thinking. So if it's within your power to be happier, to pursue relationships and crafts that make you happy, that will probably be the best thing for your brain.

  7. 15:34 – 21:56

    Sleep Deprivation, Circadian Rhythm and Surgeons' Hours

    1. RC

      I'm really interested. We are currently speaking, it's about 11 o'clock in the morning.

    2. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      Um, where do you live in America?

    4. RJ

      I live in Los Angeles.

    5. RC

      Okay, so eight hours behind. So your body clock is potentially thinking it's 3:00 in the morning.

    6. RJ

      Yeah.

    7. RC

      So we know that sleep is critical-

    8. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... for brain health, so what's going on in your brain at the moment, given that you are trying to be alert, trying to have a conversation with me about brain health when your body thinks it's 3:00 AM?

    10. RJ

      Yeah, sleep deprivation is unhealthy. On occasion it's okay, but prolonged sleep deprivation is not good for you. It gives you diseases. For a short trip like this, I'm familiar with sleep deprivation. I did surgical training in, in the States-

    11. RC

      [laughs]

    12. RJ

      ... before they, before they limited the hours to 88, and I mean, we were doing 40-hour shifts. Uh, for me, when I'm sleep deprived, uh, I become disinhibited, more candid, uh, a bit more jovial. I think that works for me during this trip, so I'm, uh, I'm okay with it. But for most people, they should understand that we, as well as plants, grew on a planet th- that has a revolution. And so it's a diurnal basis of not just our sleep patterns, but the DNA in our tissue changes at night and during day. We're meant to cycle that way. And it's not from the pineal gland and melatonin that regulates it, it's actually from a suprachiasmatic nucleus.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. RJ

      It's a fancy term for a structure hanging down beneath your brain that you can access through your nose, and it is based on a 24-hour clock, and a recent Nobel Prize was given to it. So the getting into a rhythm of day and night is extremely important for your health. It is designed not in your, not just in your brain, but in the DNA readouts in your liver, in your muscle, in your intestine. So it's mind-body regulation that the sun and the setting sun or the rising sun does.

    15. RC

      Sure. And, and then as in the Western world, but actually all over the world now-

    16. RJ

      Yeah

    17. RC

      ... as, um, we move to 24-hour societies and shift work is common, we know that that has a detrimental impact on our health. But for you as a neurosurgeon, so you, you were talking about your early days-

    18. RJ

      Mm

    19. RC

      ... as a trainee. So you are there, you're cutting open someone's skull. What are the effects of you doing that when you're sleep deprived? 'Cause if you're working 88 hours plus-

    20. RJ

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... a week, you must have operated at some point when sleep deprived.

    22. RJ

      Yeah. I have operated, uh, sleep deprived for maybe a decade when I was in training. Back then it was the way to staff hospitals. You couldn't hire five trainees to work 30, 40 hours each. Some people felt like that's the only way to, uh, get the necessary experience. And when they limited it, what we found in the States was when they limited the work hours, the complications and the errors didn't go down because that increase in handoffs also raised the risk-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. RJ

      ... for the patient. So it didn't solve all the problems, but it was- ... a major problem. What is it like to feel-- What is it like operating when you're sleep-deprived? I think we select for ourselves in medical school. I think there are, uh, certain personality traits and driven personalities that go into brain surgery or maybe cardiac surgery. And on occasion, we end up working in areas where you can't call another doctor the next day. In many of the smaller towns in the States-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. RJ

      ... if you do a brain surgery, and the next day you need to tinker with that patient's skull again, as you said, you can't call somebody else. So if you didn't sleep that night, you still have to perform. I think general limiting of work hours is great. Me, when I was sleep-deprived as training, uh, as a trainee, there was usually another professor alongside with you, so you were a team. But is performance affected by sleep deprivation? Absolutely. Can you still perform a task in a capable manner? I like to think I did so. But truck drivers to cops to surgeons and definitely pilots, sleep deprivation is not only bad for your health, it's, uh, it's the best way to not perform well, if that's your goal.

    27. RC

      Yeah, and it's interesting that those professions now have limits-

    28. RJ

      Yeah

    29. RC

      ... don't they? Drivers have limits.

    30. RJ

      All of them.

  8. 21:56 – 27:36

    Disrupted Sleep, Devices and Downtime

    1. RJ

      I like that question. I mean, I think the semi-autonomous features in cars now, that the steering wheels vibrate if you go out of your lane, those things will help. But we are, we are in an extremely distracted society. So let me backtrack to the story you were telling just now about, you know, uh, acutes came in. That must mean a lot of admissions or a lot of things were happening in the middle of the night. I found, in the surgical residents I knew, if we were just given the opportunity for one, one and a half hours of sleep, it was actually better that we pulled an all-nighter. There was something weird about just shutting your brain down for just a touch. You hit the pillow, and you pop back up in a 40-hour shift for, uh, for an hour and a half. It kind of threw off, uh, threw off your energy and your focus even more than just enduring the night awake. So I used to, rather than get an hour of sleep, I'd just walk around the ICU talking to nurses and seeing what's going on. But that le- and that's a story I mention in the book. That led me to understand a little bit about the dangers of disrupted sleep. And what I talk to my kids about is, it's, you know, they say you want seven, eight, nine hours of sleep. I re- if you could get five hours of uninterrupted sleep, that might be better than eight hours where you got up once or twice to answer your phone, or it pinged and the light went on. So disrupted sleep is now almost an epidemic because all the devices and lights that are near us that are tripping up that circadian rhythm we talked about, the sunrise and sunset that we, uh, that, that it led to our evolution of how these, uh, biological cycles work. I think the treatment for that is more sophisticated devices. The, the devices aren't going anywhere.

    2. RC

      No.

    3. RJ

      I don't want them to go anywhere. I like having a superpower computer in my left pocket.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. RJ

      The first thing I look at, and sometimes it's the last thing I look at. But if we could regulate the glow, the access, the frequency for our kids. That's what I do with my teenage sons, is let's just start turning it down around 8:00, and just give me an hour without a phone in your face before you go to bed. I mean, they, they're teenagers, and that's a big ask. And they say, "Why?" I say, "Well, it would be great to just have your brain entertain itself for one g- [laughs] one damn hour, rather than having a device pummeling content into you." I think the ability to drift into random thoughts is very important to the brain, especially the moments before you drift into sleep.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. RJ

      And so I have tried my best to... They all have phones. They do their thing. I don't really, I don't, I don't really... I talked about the f- digital diet. Just choose good content as well as all the indulgences on your phone. Mix it up, and just get it out of your face the last hour before you go to bed. Fridays and Saturdays, my wife and I will binge on Netflix and fall asleep sometimes with a laptop in the bed.

    8. RC

      Yeah.

    9. RJ

      There's nothing wrong with that. But for kids in particular, the ability to be creative and daydreamers is fundamental, and I worry that these devices are tripping them up before they go to bed.

    10. RC

      Yeah, I think the, the, the point about, uh, downtime-

    11. RJ

      Yeah

    12. RC

      ... I think is really important. It's something I've written about in, in my last book, The Stress Solution-

    13. RJ

      Mm

    14. RC

      ... all about stress and its impacts on our health. And one of the things I see happening in society is that downtime is slowly being eroded-

    15. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    16. RC

      ... from our lives.

    17. RJ

      Yeah.

    18. RC

      So the example I often give is, you know, you're here in London, right? If you were here 15 years ago in London, I'm gonna guess that if you went into a local cafe to order a coffee, you would stand in line and you know what? You'd, you'd probably be daydreaming, people watching, looking around you.

    19. RJ

      Mm.

    20. RC

      You might be looking-

    21. RJ

      Mm

    22. RC

      ... at all the pastries-

    23. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    24. RC

      ... and trying to think-

    25. RJ

      Mm

    26. RC

      ... am I gonna have one? Am I not gonna have one? You might interact with the barista.

    27. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    28. RC

      If you go into anyone now, as I'm sure you have done since you've got here-

    29. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    30. RC

      ... and again, I'm not criticizing 'cause I do the same thing-

  9. 27:36 – 30:50

    Boundaries for Kids, Technology and Addiction

    1. RJ

      Yeah. The, the phone thing is a very interesting conundrum. It is the way in which they engage the world, but it's also the way in the wor- the way the world can actually lead them to the wrong path. I mean, not just the phone. 13 Reasons Why came out, and there was a little bit of a spike in suicides. I don't know what to make of that. You know, I want them to know about it, but I didn't know what to make of that. We know with Facebook and politics that those rules weren't set right. So I love what you're saying about the [laughs] listen, these devices aren't going anywhere. The television's not going anywhere. Rock and roll's not going anywhere. Drugs aren't going anywhere. But how do we structure some boundaries and constraints within those devices so people who, uh, use them in a destructive manner, um, have some triggers? For example, gamblers. They don't ingest a drug, yet they do all kinds of... They can have an addiction that's equal to-

    2. RC

      Yeah, yeah

    3. RJ

      ... equally addictive and destructive as cocaine, and they never put a chemical inside their body. So casinos have certain things with gamblers and rules. There's gambling hotlines. You start to put things in. I think for some of the kids that cannot manage and, and choose a healthy digital diet or actually even a food diet, there should be some boundaries. Maybe, maybe the, maybe what we did with supersize at McDonald's also needs to apply within Facebook and Instagram. And, you know, YouTube is now making a kids channel because maybe it's not good to have kids channels and porn [laughs] on the same thing.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. RJ

      So those constraints, without being too stifling, 'cause I, I tell my kids, I want to be allowed to make bad decisions. I don't want too many constraints. I just want to know the truth about them, and I think you've hit it perfectly. What's the way to let them have it, but set some boundaries up so they know when they're getting into dangerous terrain?

    6. RC

      Y- I mean, you say you've hit it perfectly. I, I'm, I'm not [laughs] not convinced with my own children-

    7. RJ

      [laughs] How old are they?

    8. RC

      ... I am hitting it perfectly. I think, you know, I'm sure you're the same. You, you, you know, we're trying to figure it out, right?

    9. RJ

      Yeah.

    10. RC

      We're trying to learn the science. We're trying to learn from our own intuition, and we're trying to do the best that we can. And-

    11. RJ

      How old are your kids?

    12. RC

      My kids, my son has just turned nine, my daughter's six.

    13. RJ

      Okay.

    14. RC

      So they currently don't-

    15. RJ

      So you're right into it

    16. RC

      ... not quite yet, but almost with my son.

    17. RJ

      No phone at nine?

    18. RC

      Not at the moment, no.

    19. RJ

      Yeah.

    20. RC

      So I don't know if culturally it's different here from the US or where I live. I have no idea, but at the moment it's not become an issue yet, but I'm expecting it to, um, within weeks to months. [laughs]

    21. RJ

      [laughs]

    22. RC

      And so, you know, I'm a sort of, it's interesting to hear how other parents do it, right?

    23. RJ

      11 or 12 is when we... Our three teenagers, back then there was, that was the average age when somebody got a phone.

    24. RC

      Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying this video and you want to learn more, then do check out my free special guide which contains the six crucial steps you need to take in your life to not only build healthy habits, but also to make them stick. If you wanna get a hold of this free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

    25. RJ

      And, um, uh, the parental blocks are key, are, are key.

    26. RC

      Yeah.

    27. RJ

      And just the heads-up about those parental blocks, they're good at removing, so you sometimes have to supplement with another app or feature to make those, uh-

    28. RC

      Even harder.

    29. RJ

      Yeah.

    30. RC

      'Cause at the, the-

  10. 30:50 – 39:28

    Music, Flow States and Letting Go

    1. RC

      Rahul, you mentioned, um, rock and roll just now.

    2. RJ

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      And that got my attention. Uh, as a, as a music fan my entire life, as someone who's spent a lot of his teenage years-

    4. RJ

      [laughs]

    5. RC

      ... and 20s, and still now going to rock and roll concerts-

    6. RJ

      Good for you

    7. RC

      ... um-

    8. RJ

      That's great

    9. RC

      ... that sort of piqued my interest. So rock and roll, or let's expand it out, music- What impact does music have on our brains?

    10. RJ

      That we know. And there's actually, uh, somebody in San Francisco or somewhere else, he's putting musicians in fMRI scanners, and those scanners don't tell the whole story, but they do tell something new compared to just putting electrodes on somebody's head. And so these different technologies, they... You know, we're an electric, uh, our f- our brain f- uh, flesh is electric. It's... I think of it as a jellyfish. It's, the tentacles are spraying chemicals and electricity. We can detect it from the surface of the brain, and we can actually put people in machines and look at blood flow. And when you do that for musicians, it's really interesting. Because it's a physical performance, if you're learning to play music, I think I wanna pivot from listening to music, music to learning to play to m- learning to play music. That seems to be the thing that leads to the most left, right, right, left, uh, connections and electrical currents passing through the corpus callosum. Your brain's like a walnut. There's a bridge in the middle. And music, hearing it, playing it, thinking about it, using your fingers to control it, seems to pull from the most corners of our mind, and I can't imagine that not being good for you because as you know with the brain, if you don’t use it, you lose it. It will down regulate, it will let w- wither certain corners of the brain if they're not actively engaged. So I think music, especially when you're a kid, learning to play music has to be good for the brain. Do we have data on that? No. But do we have instinctual, uh, feelings about it being beneficial? Yes.

    11. RC

      Yeah, and I think, um, as you say instinctively, we think that, you know, are kids learning a new skill, whether it's a sport-

    12. RJ

      Yeah

    13. RC

      ... or a musical instrument, is likely to yield benefits. Um, I think one of the, one of the reasons for me that might apply is because it often puts you into flow states.

    14. RJ

      Very good.

    15. RC

      Um, you know, and I think for others as well, you know-

    16. RJ

      Very good

    17. RC

      ... when, when, when something's at, you know, it's not too difficult that it's unachievable, it's a little bit, little bit harder that we have to concentrate, you have to, you, you access that flow state.

    18. RJ

      I find those people who get into the flow state, and I think some people have, uh, you know, may not know what that means, and they may think that's kind of fluffy, but there is a measurement for that. So, uh, when you're awake, the, and resting and focused, those are alpha waves. If you look at, for example, sharpshooters just the moment before they hit a target, likely athletes, a footballer scoring something, NFL quarterback, ballerina, the, uh, the release from the constraints of thought that come from your frontal lobe and letting a well-trained behavior, uh, exert itself, the brain is actually less active. It lights up less brightly. It's more efficient in its pathways, and that flow state is an alpha wave that's detectable. Similarly with Buddhist monks, likely with deep divers before they do their dive. It's a state of being focused, awake, and calm. And I think our phones and the technology and everything we're doing is pushing us away from that. So if we can find skills and habits that let us harness that, channel it, know how to get into it, that would be great. And I think learning music, and like they say with, uh, with music, learn it and then let it go. That's that alpha wave flow state that I think could be very beneficial for anybody to learn music.

    19. RC

      I, I guess what you're saying is essentially this whole idea that, you know, let's say a golfer for example-

    20. RJ

      Mm

    21. RC

      ... who, who freezes and, and crumbles in the final back nine at a major tournament. And I'm, I'm super fascinated with this. This whole idea that when we learn a new skill, we are, you know, rationally, we're thinking about it-

    22. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    23. RC

      ... we're trying to learn all those movements that we need. But then when we need to perform-

    24. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    25. RC

      ... you know, we just wanna have absorbed that, forget about, you know, rationally thinking about everything and just let it go.

    26. RJ

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      What I think is happening with a lot of those golfers a- and any sport when you freeze is that you're starting to overthink again. Instead of just letting your innate ability that you've trained just come out, you're then starting to think, "Oh, yeah. Okay."

    28. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    29. RC

      "Make sure you get to this point in the back swing. Make s-..." You've stopped. I, I think it's what you said about letting go, right?

    30. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

  11. 39:28 – 49:49

    Meditative Breathing, the Vagus Nerve and the Evidence

    1. RJ

      To me, it's meditative breathing. It's a very powerful way to quell that anxiety storm that those instinctive structures have done. I'm gonna see my boss, and those subcortical structures are firing and they're unhappy. Much like you'd see a snake or you're at the edge of a cliff, there's certain things that should be released in your body, but those have been, uh, repurposed in a negative, destructive way where we feel that at work, we feel that at home, we feel that when we look at certain social media. How do we tamp that down? Just like we would slowly walk away from a fear of heights, how do we walk away from just the general anxiety that's filled our life during the day? And I deeply, uh, believe, and particularly now because there's hardcore data, and I'll go into this a little bit, is meditative breathing. I don't know what mindfulness is. I don't know what your mind is thinking or my mind is thinking or your mind is thinking. But I know that, that the brain is connected to the lungs and the heart through this thing called the wandering nerve. It comes down. And that, that the brain can send signals down to your heart, and Buddhist monks can slow down their heartbeat. I know when I put a little coil on there for people with epilepsy, kids with epilepsy, a vagal nerve stimulator, and we send electricity, the electricity can actually go upward into your brain-

    2. RC

      Wow

    3. RJ

      ... and quell epilepsy. Epilepsy seizure is an aberrant, uh, electrical activity of your brain. Think of it as an arrhythmia of your heart is epilepsy of the brain. It's called a vagal nerve stimulator. It's been around for a while.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. RJ

      This is something you can look up right now. We put electrical coil on this nerve, and it calms electricity. It's not even in the brain. But meditative breathing, deep breathing, an, in, in a count of four to go in, a count of three, two, one to hold, and a slow release. If you do that just a little bit before you engage in that next stress-provoking task, it too works like a vagal nerve stimulator without us having to do a little surgery to calm the electricity in your brain. And you're saying, "Well, okay, that sounds... Where did you get that?" Well, well, you know, you know, meditation's been going on for a long time. We've seen Buddhist monks do certain things, and others. Deep divers are a great example of that. But we, we know this now because a study came out last year, and children and young adults, and actually all people, if they have epilepsy, an aberrant electrical activity of the brain, arrhythmia of the brain, if, usually it treats with medicine. Sometimes they find a little nodule we cut out. It's usually not cancerous. But sometimes we don't know where it begins, and it's hard to know what to do without understanding the origin of it. So they come in, and they ha- they have brain surgery. We make a big incision. We remove the skull, and we put a grid [laughs] on the surface of the brain. It's not deep brain surgery. It's surface brain surgery.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. RJ

      There is a difference. And then the wires come out of their head, and they have to stay in the hospital for a week, and that's recording them 24/7 waiting to catch that, that, that firefly, that, this origin of the seizure. Where is it? 'Cause then with radiation you can zap it and you can cure them of it, okay?

    8. RC

      Wow.

    9. RJ

      So it's meant to be therapeutic, but what are they doing for that week when they're just kicking back, getting bored? So in come all the neuroscientists from San Diego. The highest per capita is out there. It's, you know, the ocean-

    10. RC

      [laughs]

    11. RJ

      ... cliffs of San Diego. They come in and say, "Hey, can we hang out with you?" And the recording's going on.

    12. RC

      Wow.

    13. RJ

      And they actually ask them, "Let's do certain tasks." And then they d- went through, like, meditative breathing with these patients and these kids and these young people, and they're watching the electricity change and get closer to that alpha wave, get closer to the calmer electrical signals in their brain after just deep, slow, deliberate breathing. And that's accessible to us all without having to pay for it.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. RJ

      So that way-

    16. RC

      But that's the great thing. It's free, right?

    17. RJ

      Oh, yeah. I m- the book is not, is, is meant to be all the magical things that are right there. I mean, you could... When you pull into work before a big operation, I'll take a few minutes and just, and just slowly breathe.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. RJ

      Medi- And you can find an app, and it sh- it's a count of four in, hold for a couple, and a count of four out. And then what happens is you don't have to count as much. Um, it, it becomes a habit. It becomes a part of your routine. It's free. You don't have to do it for 30 minutes. You're not gonna be walking on coals and all the exaggerated peop- uh, exaggerated things, uh, people think about. It is a resource available to you that has been harnessed for s- for millennia, and that now you have crazy brain surgeons-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. RJ

      ... providing you the electrical proof if you're a skeptical kind of person. To me, that's magic.

    22. RC

      Yeah. Absolutely, and, and I think, you know, it, it brings a lot of weight to this, to this term just breathe. I mean, it's, it's-

    23. RJ

      Mm

    24. RC

      ... deceptively simple, but it really works. And I know this year I've been giving a lot of, um, talks to companies about wellness and how they can improve productivity. And what's really interesting is that a, a breath that I sort of use with my patients, something I've written about a lot, is the three, four, five breath when you breathe in for three-

    25. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    26. RC

      ... you hold for four-

    27. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    28. RC

      ... and you breathe out for five.

    29. RJ

      Yeah. Perfect.

    30. RC

      And when I'm talking to people, a group, I'll, I'll, I'll often... We'll collectively do just one of those breaths together-

  12. 49:49 – 57:25

    Raising Kids: Diversity of Experience, Orphanage Lessons and Risk

    1. RC

      So you... In the, at the start of your book, I think, it was interesting to me how your knowledge as a neurosurgeon has in some ways shaped-

    2. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... what you do with your children. And it's really to do with that attitude to risk.

    4. RJ

      Mm.

    5. RC

      Some of the things that we might perceive as risky, you allow them to do. I think, I think it was climbing in trees, for example.

    6. RJ

      Mm.

    7. RC

      But some of the other things that others might allow them to do, like crossing a road-

    8. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... you're pretty strict on. I wonder if you could elaborate.

    10. RJ

      Yeah. [laughs] That's... So first of all, my wife, uh, uh, unexpectedly got pregnant. Now, I say unexpectedly because she was an OBGYN in training and I was a neurosurgeon in training, and she's like, "I'm pregnant." I said, "Well, that was 100% your jurisdiction. I thought you had that under control." [laughs] So we had kids when we were in training back when those hours were 40-hour shifts, so it was nuts back then, right?

    11. RC

      Wow.

    12. RJ

      I mean, she was... So we... And my siblings and her siblings, we're not the oldest, but we had kids first, and there was, like, a generation gap where I hadn't, I hadn't s- seen kids being raised for a while. And so she and I just kinda made up our own stuff, you know? She's, uh... So we brought in a lot of, uh, what I call diversity of interactions, partly by necessity, partly by choice. Uh, we put them in a lot of different schools. Uh, we put them in a lot of different faith-based schools, secular schools. We took them to a lot of different places. They ate a lot of different food, a lot of different music. Grandparents, nannies, we did all those things. And part of what motivated me is when I... I had my kids when I was also in the children's hospital, and I remember reading this study, [lips smack] uh, uh, and people were suggesting, and I think later on an orphanage in Belarus proved it, uh, such a sad case, but an, an illustrative one. So I always like to tell you my story-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. RJ

      ... and it can be sometimes too intense and maybe even a bit macabre, but that lets you know, like, why, why... I mean, why would we ask this guy about kids? Well, first I got three teenage kids. Uh, I, I do children's brain surgery around the world, uh, usually in East- Eastern Europe and Cent- North America. Uh, but the kids in an orphanage that were left alone and not tended to, the, the beautiful undulating pattern of that brain, which is like a... The reason it's like that is, like, imagine taking a giant pizza and squeezing it like an accordion to put it into a box. It gives you more canopy square footage or square-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. RJ

      ... kilometers, if you will. And what happened was they started losing the ridge 'cause they-

    17. RC

      Wow

    18. RJ

      ... they needed less parts of their brain. The brain is an energy hog. If you don't use it, it's tw- it's three pounds and it uses 20% of the blood flow. 20% goes to that thing in our skulls. So it's not advantageous to feed parts of the brain that you're not actually using. It'll start to wither. And I-

    19. RC

      He- hence you're use it or lose it.

    20. RJ

      Yeah, but in a, in a, in a, in a way that that's an active process at the structural physical level. Parenting in a, in a way that would preserve the, the flesh inside my children's skulls was important to me. And then at a microscopic level, I was getting my PhD then, and we were seeing this thing called synaptic pruning. So i- in some ways, uh, the biology of the brain is very landscape architecture. We use words like pruning and dendri-

    21. RC

      Yeah

    22. RJ

      ... and dendrites. And you are born with more brain cells, all of us, than you're intended to keep.

    23. RC

      Right.

    24. RJ

      And the ones you keep a- as a toddler when you're young are, are the ones that were tickled, that were engaged. And we know that, again, because if somebody's born with an eye that doesn't work, that part of the brain starts with brain cells. But if it's not using it, it'll let those things wither. So my parental approach, and I don't e- I don't know if it's working or not. It's not even about the outcome. I did-- I took the best approach I c- I could.

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. RJ

      I just took them to all different stretches of experiences. I had them doing, uh, you know, free running for one, one summer. They, they, they dabble with some music. We've traveled all over the world for pleasure, languages, food, constant interaction. And, and, and for example, what better thing for my 14-year-old son to come here and find himself, uh, having the confidence-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. RJ

      ... and the ability to navigate London coming from Los Angeles? That's my gift to him, uh, as, as a father. I'll let school do the algebra [laughs] and the geometry and the, and the grammar. I actually don't do homework with them. It's kind of a weird thing. I'd rather just chat with them like we're talking. I'll take a pull of interesting article and I'll be like, "Let's talk about this. I just wanna hear how you think."

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. RJ

      "Just keep up with me and talk to me. Teach me."

  13. 57:25 – 1:03:01

    Risk, Navigation Apps and Grid Cells

    1. RJ

      I worked at a children's hospital, and I saw how kids die. So I [laughs] apologies to the audience, this is just who I am. I always learn from things, and I have intense experiences, but we saw kids choked. They fell out of second story windows. They were burned, and they got hit by cars, all these ridiculous SUVs, giant vehicles and fast roads. And so when they were younger, I wanted them to be safe because, uh, pediatric mortality frankly is, you know, that's the first thing you wanna avoid. So that's why I didn't do... I didn't mind if they fell out of a tree, and they've, they've taken [laughs] they've taken some scrapes. The one that's here now has got a scar from his forehead. He drove in, you know, rode his bike into a garage because I, again, I saw from children's hospital that's stuff they heal from. And so that's why I didn't, at that time, want them to be crossing the, crossing streets and stuff like that. In the neighborhood, people were-

    2. RC

      'Cause you're looking at death.

    3. RJ

      Yeah.

    4. RC

      Not an injury you're healing from.

    5. RJ

      First you gotta get them to th- live. You gotta feed them and get them to live, and then you can do all those things we talked about by diversifying. And what are we robbing our kids from by letting them push the navigation app? So that's interesting. It, it's okay [laughs] in my opinion, I don't want them to be memorizers. It's okay for them to have all the capitals of [laughs] American states that, that we used to have to memorize in their pocket. I'm like, "I don't care if you get a good grade on that. That's not really what I... I'm not trying to grow robots." So that kind of memory and loss of capacity I'm kinda okay with, but there's another type of memory called working memory, uh, where they can juggle a lot of things. I gotta get to school. I got this text. Multitasking, that's really a skill. That's what, that's what we all wanna do better in a, in a calm fashion, right?

    6. RC

      Although some neuroscientists will say that y- it's impossible to multitask. I, I've read that from many neuroscientists. There's a book, I don't know if it's The Organized Mind where it says that.

    7. RJ

      I've seen that.

    8. RC

      But I, you know-

    9. RJ

      And, and I just completely disagree. You know, the high- highly functional people I know, my kids, they can do a lot of different things. Not necessarily eight projects on the kitchen table at the same time, but I mean, multitask eight different things that need to get done during the day without dropping the ball-

    10. RC

      Yeah

    11. RJ

      ... and connecting them in a seamless fashion. I think that's, that's called working memory. I think that's important. The particular thing-

    12. RC

      So it could be we're talking about different things.

    13. RJ

      Yeah.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. RJ

      So exactly. So i- it, uh, just raw memorization of phone books, I don't mind if they leave that, lose that. Able to get through the day and not drop the ball and know what comes first, what comes second, priorities. As you know, when the acutes came in, you had to take care of the... Triaging is-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. RJ

      ... working memory. And then, but the navigation one I have, I'm particularly opinionate about. I don't like them to press the route app. And you say, "Well, where does that come from? Why, is he just, is he making that stuff up, or where does he get that?" The temporal lobe actually has, uh, grid cells, G-R-I-D. Neuroscientists have found that there are cells in particular clusters of tissue in the temporal lobe that help you with spatial navigation. And so what I tell my kids is, "Come on, you gotta be good at this," because this sta- this spatial navigation is that cognitive reserve that you build now is what people lose in dementia. When people have Alzheimer's, they can't find their way home. It's in that same space. So building up spatial navigation is good for you now. It's good for when you're older. It's good when you're a surgeon. It's good if you're driving, and those grid cells are important to cultivate. So what we do, uh, and many people do it their own way, but for my sons, if we're going somewhere in Los Angeles, uh, or even around the world, let's just look at the map. You can press route if you want, but then you gotta put it away. 101 South, 10 East, exit this, make a left. So I want them to think about the sequence of navigating, uh, an environment. And if you think about it, it was probably useful thousands of years ago-

    18. RC

      Yeah

    19. RJ

      ... in the savanna. Like, which cave, which rock? That's a very important skill to have, and it's deeply rooted in neuroscience and biology in our brain.

    20. RC

      Yeah. I, I love it. It reminds me a little bit, and, and I, I, I've gotta be honest, my tendency is to go a bit extreme on things sometimes when I apply them to myselves. I'm really kind and compassionate, I hope, to my patients, and a lot more relaxed. With myself, I can be quite tough sometimes. And, um, when I used to do a lot of, uh, house visits or house calls, I think you guys call them, uh, from, from general practice, um, I remember I, my car did not have a satnav-

    21. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    22. RC

      ... at that time. Still doesn't actually. [laughs] And I was quite resistant to using them, so what I would do is when I knew I've gotta go and visit these three patients, I'd write down their address. I'd look on Google Maps as to roughly where they were in relation to the surgery, the, where I was working.

    23. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RC

      And I sort of-

    25. RJ

      Try to hold onto that

    26. RC

      ... I'd lock it into my head, and then I'd go to my car and sort of try and picturize it and go, "Let me see if I can figure it out and get there." And I guess what I didn't realize I was doing, uh, is that I was working out these grid cells.

    27. RJ

      Yeah, yeah.

    28. RC

      Which I feel pretty good about myself now that I've seen it, but no, it's, it's interesting, isn't it, that it-

    29. RJ

      All my suggestions, I want there to be a scientific basis.

    30. RC

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:03:01

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