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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

BRAIN EXPERT Explains How To Boost Brain Health & IMPROVE FOCUS | Dr Rahul Jandial

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
Oct 2, 20191h 4mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 0:04

    Intro

    1. RC

      [upbeat music]

  2. 0:04 – 3:17

    Jet lag, sleep loss, and why circadian rhythm matters

    1. RC

      So Rahul, welcome to the Feel Better, Live More podcast.

    2. RJ

      Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to be here.

    3. RC

      So I thought, you know, y- your new book is, is full of practical tips and tools, as well as some great stories and anecdotes from your career as a neurosurgeon. But I thought a really nice place to start would be, you know, you're here in London, you're doing promotion for your book. How's the jet lag doing?

    4. RJ

      [laughs] Jet lag is terrible because I haven't, uh, done all the tips people might, you know, think that are valuable to break jet lag. Drink a lot of water, don't have a glass of wine, try to get sleep. My son and I are here, we're going hard in London. We are... [laughs] We've been to Stonehenge, we've taken a bike tour, we went to Tate Britain, saw van Gogh. So we're, we're just, uh, enjoying it all, and I think it's liberating to be able to see London both as a tourist and to get into these corners, such as meeting you and being in this space. So I'm having a, a great time, and thank you again for including me.

    5. RC

      Hey, Rahul, it's so, so refreshing to hear that, that you've actually come to do your promo tour with your son. How old's your son?

    6. RJ

      He's 14. I have three, 13, 14 and 17, and I take them, I take them all over the corners of the world, and it's never for business, it's always for pleasure.

    7. RC

      Yeah. No, that's fantastic, and we're, we're definitely gonna explore children's health and, and brain health a little bit later. Um, you said you're not doing the things that you should be doing for jet lag, and I'm really interested. We're currently speaking, it's about 11 o'clock in the morning.

    8. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Um, where do you live in America?

    10. RJ

      I live in Los Angeles.

    11. RC

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

    12. RJ

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      So we know that sleep is critical-

    14. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    15. 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?

    16. 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-

    17. RC

      [laughs]

    18. 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 [laughs] 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.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. 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.

    21. RC

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

    22. RJ

      Yeah

  3. 3:17 – 7:45

    Sleep-deprived performance in high-stakes jobs: surgery, driving, and errors

    1. 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-

    2. RJ

      Mm

    3. 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-

    4. RJ

      Yeah

    5. RC

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

    6. 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-

    7. RC

      Yeah

    8. 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-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. 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.

    11. RC

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

    12. RJ

      Yeah

    13. RC

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

    14. RJ

      All of them.

    15. RC

      Pilots have limits.

    16. RJ

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      I guess we as doctors in our profession-

    18. RJ

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... we, we've been pretty late to the game-

    20. RJ

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... in terms of recognizing our fallibility and that-

    22. RJ

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... actually being sleep deprived. I mean, I-

    24. RJ

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... I can... Like, I started off, um, as a physician doing nephrology.

    26. RJ

      Mm.

    27. RC

      That was the, the specialty I'd chosen to go for a- and was doing before I switched, and I can remember so clearly, um, I was a junior, or what you guys call an intern, I'm guessing. I was probably-

    28. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    29. RC

      ... what we call a second year SHO here, senior house officer, and we were still doing the old-fashioned on-call shifts.

    30. RJ

      Yeah.

  4. 7:45 – 13:25

    Disrupted sleep and the “digital diet”: phones, downtime, and kids’ creativity

    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, and 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, 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 ra- 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 of 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 i- 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're, 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 talk to them 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 from our lives.

    15. RJ

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    16. 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.

    17. RJ

      Mm. Mm-hmm.

    18. RC

      You might be looking at all the pastries-

    19. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    20. RC

      ... and trying to think-

    21. RJ

      Mm

    22. RC

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

    23. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RC

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

    25. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    26. RC

      ... and again, I'm not criticizing, 'cause I do the same thing a lot of the time-

    27. RJ

      Mm

    28. RC

      ... we're all stuck in our phones, right?

    29. RJ

      Yeah.

    30. RC

      We're trying to catch up on that email, or I'll quickly check Instagram. Every little bit of downtime now I think has been eroded out.

  5. 13:25 – 16:16

    Phones as an addictive environment: boundaries, content risks, and parental blocks

    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 wanna 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] I'm not convinced with my own children-

    7. RJ

      [laughs] How old are they?

    8. RC

      ... I hit anything 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 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. And, um, uh, the parental blocks are, are, are key.

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. 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-

    26. RC

      Even harder.

    27. RJ

      Yeah.

    28. RC

      'Cause e- like the-

    29. RJ

      Yeah

    30. RC

      ... the reality is our kids are probably gonna be more tech-savvy than us.

  6. 16:16 – 18:33

    Music, learning, and the brain: cross-brain connections and ‘use it or lose it’

    1. RC

      Uh, 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-

    10. RJ

      Music

    11. RC

      ... what impact does music have on our brains?

    12. 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, like, 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 the mu- 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.

    13. RC

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

    14. RJ

      Yeah

    15. 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.

    16. RJ

      Very good.

    17. RC

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

    18. RJ

      Right

    19. RC

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

  7. 18:33 – 24:18

    Flow state under pressure: mastering skills, letting go, and managing anxiety

    1. RJ

      I find those people who get into the flow state, and I think some people of, uh, you know, may not know what that means, and they may think that's kinda 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.

    2. RC

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

    3. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    4. RC

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

    5. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    6. RC

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

    7. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    8. RC

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

    9. RJ

      Yeah.

    10. RC

      What I think is happening with a lot of those golfers a- 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."

    11. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RC

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

    13. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    14. RC

      Is, is that the key to allowing our brains to function at its peak? It's you learn, and you then develop mastery, and then you let it go, so you just allow it to perform?

    15. RJ

      Yeah. And I think, let's, let's dig into that a little bit deeper. I, I don't think when a surgeon is, is moving swiftly and with minimal trauma to tissue or a footballer's making their moves and you're thinking, "Well, this seems effortless. They look relaxed." They're moving in a way that is, is efficient. It's not, it's not strained. You can see it in their face. They're not trying and thinking. That's not a reflex. Reflex is you h- I don't want people to think it's a... You've trained t- uh, 10,000 hours an hour. You know, I don't, I don't believe in the 10,000 hours thing.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. RJ

      I like to have conversations with teenage kids, and I go to dive bars in Los Angeles when I'm off duty, and my friends are just bunch of normal fellas. I just tell, I... Well, we know surgeons that have done 10,000 operations, and they're still no good.

    18. RC

      [laughs]

    19. RJ

      So how c- how can it be 10,000, right? So the 10,000 thing, and that, I, that, that limits the inclusion of talent into the equation. And when people say flow, uh, uh, the, saying it's a reflex and you do it so much it's reflexive is actually a, a misconception. Reflex is I, as you know, the, you tap on my knee, and I reflexively will kick it. It doesn't even go to my brain.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. RJ

      It just goes to my lower back and comes back and makes my leg move. That's a reflex. Um, thought and anxiety and controlling your, uh, your movements, we know what that is. That's frontal lobe. That's too much CEO involved in the game. Uh, what is that flow state? What is somebody performing at a high level? Is one, somebody who's mastered something. Uh, just like a creative thought has to come on top of lots of knowledge-

    22. RC

      Yeah

    23. RJ

      ... uh, a flow state has to come on top of lots of practice. And then, uh, it's about harnessing the subcortical structures in my... Uh, this is the way I understand it, so the brain's like a canopy. The CEO's on top, and, you know, the cortical canopy's doing the thinking, but below that on the way down, uh, to our spinal cords, there are these subcortical structures that fine-tune the movements. They're the structures where you see a snake and you jump, but then you realize it's plastic, and the next time you don't fall for it. So there's all this subtle intuitive movement and instinctive responses going on. And the challenge of a flow state is once you've mastered it and you're golfing, you're in that back nine, like you said, the anxiety is making those subcortical structures say, "Freak out. Freak out."

    24. RC

      Right.

    25. RJ

      Uh, ask the CEO for help a- and it's gonna start interfering with it, and the mastery underneath is saying, "Just let it go." Most people will have a flow state when they're not under pressure and the lights aren't on. The challenging thing for athletes is how to deliver that under the stress o- of a game-winning situation. And, and clutch performance to me, that flow state, is not performing better than what you would do in practice, but just doing what you would normally do under these extremely anxiety-provoking, stressful conditions.

    26. RC

      So, so for people listening to this who are not high-performing athletes, I think there's a lot of take-home there for them. So I submit that we all want peak performance in our lives.

    27. RJ

      Sure.

    28. RC

      What- whatever our life entails, whatever we need to do, whether it's to be a father-

    29. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    30. RC

      ... whether it's to be a good office worker, what... be a, a neurosurgeon. Whatever it is, we are all, I think, on some level wanting to perform at our peak. So what can somebody listening to this or watching this on the video learn from what you've just said that athletes can do?

  8. 24:18 – 35:26

    Meditative breathing and the vagus nerve: calming the brain’s electrical activity

    1. RJ

      Yeah. Th- thank you for that transition because, uh, the lessons we learn from athletes and ballerinas and other people apply to everybody. And so when we speak about what people can do, uh, when they're stressed out- On an LA freeway. Um, when they're about to go into a meeting with a boss and you're anticipating something not going well. When you're coming home and your relationship hasn't been good. The time-tested method, and the one that we now know -- see, I don't want to just tell you things without telling you how I know and why I have the privilege to be even asked that question. 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 into 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 a 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 or 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, "Wow, 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, actually, on the ocean cliffs of San Diego.

    10. RC

      [laughs]

    11. RJ

      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. So-

    14. RC

      Yeah. That's the great thing, it's free, right?

    15. RJ

      Oh, yeah. I mean, 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, [inhales] and just slowly breathe.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. RJ

      Medi- And you can find an app, and it sh- it's a count of four in, hold for a couple, 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 people, 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-

    18. RC

      Yeah

    19. RJ

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

    20. 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-

    21. RJ

      Mm

    22. 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-

    23. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    24. RC

      ... you hold for four-

    25. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    26. RC

      ... and you breathe out for five.

    27. RJ

      Yeah. Perfect.

    28. 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-

    29. RJ

      Mm

    30. RC

      ... which takes about 10 or 12 seconds.

  9. 35:26 – 41:37

    Parenting through a neurosurgeon’s lens: brain development, touch, and stress

    1. 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. [laughs] I thought you had that under control." So we had kids when we were in training back when those hours were 40-hour shifts, so it was nuts back then, right?

    2. RC

      Wow.

    3. RJ

      When she was... So we, and my siblings and her siblings were 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, when I had my kids when I was also in the children's hospital, and I remember reading this study, 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-

    4. RC

      Yeah

    5. 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. I, I do children's brain surgery around the world, uh, usually in East- Eastern Europe and Cen- South 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-

    6. RC

      Yeah

    7. RJ

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

    8. RC

      Wow

    9. 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 a- advantageous to feed parts of the brain that you're not actually using. It'll start to wither. And I-

    10. RC

      He- hence your use it or lose it.

    11. 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, the, the biology of the brain is very landscape architecture. We use words like pruning and dendri-

    12. RC

      Yeah

    13. RJ

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

    14. RC

      Right.

    15. 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 co- I could.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. 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-

    18. RC

      Yeah

    19. 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 rather just chat with them like we're talking. I'll take a bullet, interesting article, and I'll be like, "Let's talk about this. I just wanna hear how you think."

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. RJ

      "Just keep up with me. Talk to me. Teach me."

    22. RC

      It, it's interesting. Loads of new ideas there. What about, what about the, you know, the orphanage you mentioned?

    23. RJ

      Oh.

    24. RC

      What was going on there? So why were their brains, you know, adapting in the way that they were?

    25. RJ

      Yeah.

    26. RC

      Was it a lack of touch?

    27. RJ

      Yeah.

    28. RC

      Was it s-

    29. RJ

      All of it

    30. RC

      ... you know-

  10. 41:37 – 48:56

    Risk tradeoffs in childhood and the case for navigation skills over GPS

    1. RC

      Um, and I, and I do wanna make sure we cover those. You mentioned, well, two things about your, a- about your children, about your son in particular, really. Um, first one is why were you so cautious, this is what I got from reading your book-

    2. RJ

      Mm

    3. RC

      ... about letting your children cross the roads-

    4. RJ

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... yet you're happy them jumping off trees?

    6. RJ

      Jumping trees.

    7. RC

      Okay, first question. And the second question is, you said that your son, here in London, what a, what a great gift that he can now start to navigate his way around London.

    8. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      And I was thinking about navigation, I was thinking about GPS-

    10. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    11. RC

      ... smartphones. Um, is there a, an unexpected consequence to our brains by outsourcing its ability to think? You know, many of us, we, we don't know where we're driving anymore. Our GPS takes us, and if the GPS-

    12. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    13. RC

      ... breaks down, we don't know where we are. We don't know-

    14. RJ

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... how to get back.

    16. RJ

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      So quite a few questions there.

    18. RJ

      Yeah, yeah.

    19. RC

      I wonder if you could tease your way through them.

    20. RJ

      Yeah, no, it... 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 d- 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 into, 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-

    21. RC

      'Cause you're looking at death.

    22. RJ

      Yeah.

    23. RC

      Not an injury you're healing from.

    24. 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 the [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'm... 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 test." Multitasking. That's really a skill. That's what, that's what we all wanna do better in a, in a calm fashion, right?

    25. 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.

    26. RJ

      I've seen that.

    27. RC

      But I, you know-

    28. RJ

      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-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. 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-

  11. 48:56 – 52:52

    A 24-hour framework for brain health: fasting, breathing, Mediterranean-style eating

    1. 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, and 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 take 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 w- [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.

    2. RC

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

    3. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    4. RC

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

    5. 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-

    6. RC

      So they, they can supplement.

    7. RJ

      Yeah.

    8. RC

      If they're choosing to go vegan-

    9. RJ

      Yeah. They can-

    10. RC

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

    11. RJ

      B vita-

    12. RC

      ... and, and B-

    13. RJ

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

    14. RC

      Sure.

    15. 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.

    16. RC

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

    17. RJ

      Yeah

    18. RC

      ... or the standard Western diet.

    19. RJ

      Yeah.

    20. RC

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

    21. 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.

  12. 52:52 – 54:42

    Movement, exercise, and brain biology: blood flow and neurotrophic factors

    1. RJ

      So now you're at, 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 neurotrophic-

    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 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 good.

    13. RJ

      Get out of the chair. Just g-

    14. RC

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

    15. RJ

      ... just the postural elements of standing-

    16. RC

      Yeah

  13. 54:42 – 58:51

    Cognitive challenge and creativity: novelty, sleep transitions, and learning languages

    1. 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, if you can, I like to read something completely unfamiliar. I've got a stack of old magazines. I just flip through. Just, just new, 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, so, so 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. We- 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 one of your articles that you say, "Leave a pen next to your bed-

    5. RJ

      Mm

    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, how important can learning a new language be?

    11. 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.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. RJ

      So language, music, the act of learning makes your brain say, [laughs] "God, 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-

    14. RC

      Yeah

    15. RJ

      ... that 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.

    16. 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.

    17. RJ

      Yeah.

    18. RC

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

    19. RJ

      [laughs]

    20. RC

      Just the process of trying to-

    21. RJ

      Yeah, yeah

    22. RC

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

  14. 58:51 – 1:01:35

    Training the brain through the body: non-dominant hand practice and plasticity

    1. RJ

      Yeah

    2. RC

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

    3. RJ

      Mm.

    4. 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-

    5. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    6. RC

      ... in, in America-

    7. RJ

      Mm-hmm

    8. RC

      ... or ping pong? Um-

    9. RJ

      Both.

    10. 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.

    11. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RC

      We're both right-handed.

    13. RJ

      Mm-hmm.

    14. 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 hands."

    15. RJ

      Yeah.

    16. RC

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

    17. 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.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. RJ

      And so before you get into those habits, and again, nobody's saying if you're gonna throw the football for a championship [laughs] game to use your non-dominant hand. But the recruitment of brain cells in your right hemisphere by using your left hand and your left arm to bring in habits I think is a powerful and effective way. Not only does it bring those brain cells in, just think about at the musculoskeletal level if using your phone your whole life with your right hand, you're gonna stave off arthritis by bringing in the other hand as well. So it's good for your brain. It's good for your joints. It's a way to be a more balanced person physically, and music, again, it's a two-handed sport.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. RJ

      Uh, brings that in nicely.

  15. 1:01:35 – 1:04:12

    Four closing takeaways: get vertical, upgrade diet, train your brain, pursue happiness

    1. RC

      Yeah. Incredible. Rahul, look- Just to finish this off then, I know we've gone through tips, but if- I'm gonna push you a little bit here.

    2. RJ

      Sure.

    3. RC

      Um, I always like to leave the listener with some really actionable, practical tips that they can apply in their own lives immediately to improve the way that they feel or improve the way that their brain functions. So what are your top four tips-

    4. RJ

      Sure

    5. RC

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

    6. RJ

      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-

    7. RC

      Okay

    8. RJ

      ... for brain 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.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. 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.

    11. RC

      Rahul, great tips. I hope, well, I know that will have inspired people. You say to read more. Guys, I would recommend-

    12. RJ

      [laughs]

    13. RC

      ... that you get Rahul's new book, Life Lessons from a Brain Surgeon: The New Science and Stories of the Brain. It, it's a, it's a really fascinating read. Everything that Rahul and I spoke about will be on the show notes page for this episode of the podcast, drchatterjee.com/brainsurgeon. So do check him out. I'll try and get links to those studies that Rahul mentioned, uh, in the conversation so you can check that out if you are-

    14. RJ

      Thank you

    15. RC

      ... so inclined. Enjoy the rest of your stay in London, and I hope we get to do this at some point in the future.

    16. RJ

      Thank you for including me. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:04:12

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