EmOntheBrain: How to Rewire Your Reality

1. 0:00 – 0:02

   Trevor's Wild Idea to Merge Old Age Homes and Kindergartens

   1. TNTrevor Noah0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:02 – 2:07

   How Emily Used Neuroscience to Quit Nicotine

   1. TNTrevor Noah0:04

      My idea is we create old age homes-

   2. EUEugene0:09

      Mm-hmm

   3. TNTrevor Noah0:09

      ... that are kindergartens.

   4. EUEugene0:11

      Yeah.

   5. TNTrevor Noah0:11

      'Cause old people-

   6. EUEugene0:13

      Mm-hmm.

   7. EMEmily McDonald0:13

      They've done that.

   8. TNTrevor Noah0:14

      Wait, they have?

   9. EMEmily McDonald0:14

      So they've done a research study.

   10. TNTrevor Noah0:15

       They stole my idea?

   11. EUEugene0:16

       Nah.

   12. EMEmily McDonald0:17

       If-

   13. EUEugene0:17

       Come on

   14. EMEmily McDonald0:17

       ... so if... No, no. So they haven't done this for, like, as a business, so go, go and do it.

   15. EUEugene0:21

       Oh, okay. My idea is still safe. [laughs]

   16. EMEmily McDonald0:22

       It... No, but there is actually research to show your idea would work.

   17. TNTrevor Noah0:25

       Good.

   18. EMEmily McDonald0:25

       If I'm clear on your idea.

   19. EUEugene0:26

       This is why I need you in my life, Em.

   20. EMEmily McDonald0:28

       [laughs]

   21. TNTrevor Noah0:28

       For my hype.

   22. EUEugene0:28

       You know how many... Well, let me tell you something.

   23. TNTrevor Noah0:30

       So his idea is great. My... But you know my correct.

   24. EUEugene0:31

       You know how m- you know how many times I say things to people, and then they'll be like, "I don't know if that"... And if I had you around, you could be like, "There's research to show" bam. [upbeat music]

   25. TNTrevor Noah0:42

       This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Well, I'm gonna call you Em On The Brain, but what, what do, what do your friends call you?

   26. EMEmily McDonald1:01

       [laughs]

   27. EUEugene1:01

       [laughs]

   28. EMEmily McDonald1:01

       They call me Em.

   29. TNTrevor Noah1:02

       They call you Em as well?

   30. EMEmily McDonald1:03

       Em, yeah.
3. 2:07 – 5:19

   She Hated Pre-Med and Accidentally Found Her Life's Work

   1. EMEmily McDonald2:07

      Um, I was studying drug addiction. Yeah.

   2. TNTrevor Noah2:09

      Drug addiction?

   3. EMEmily McDonald2:10

      Mm-hmm.

   4. TNTrevor Noah2:10

      Oh, wow.

   5. EMEmily McDonald2:10

      Investigating new ways to treat relapse to prevent drug addiction, or relapse to drug addiction, yeah.

   6. TNTrevor Noah2:15

      That's wild.

   7. EMEmily McDonald2:16

      Mm-hmm.

   8. TNTrevor Noah2:17

      And so when you were in university, what were, what were you, like, going in to study? It... 'Cause how did you get into... Was it neuroscience? Was it... What, what was your, like, your, your focus and your passion at the time?

   9. EMEmily McDonald2:27

      Well, initially, I was pre-med-

   10. TNTrevor Noah2:31

       Yeah

   11. EMEmily McDonald2:31

       ... studying biology. Absolutely hated it. And so I went up to one of my friends that was in my pre-med org I was in in college, and I told him I hated it. I was like, "What should I do?" And he goes, "Well, why don't you try neuroscience?" And I had never even heard of neuroscience at the time. It just sounded cool. So I switched my major to it, immediately fell in love, like, aced my first exam. My professor reached out to me. He was like, "Congrats, you couldn't have done better." And I was like, "Get me in the research lab. This is so cool." So I started studying learning, memory, the perception of time, all throughout brain development in undergrad. So that's what I was doing. Fell in love with research, but I knew, I always kind of knew that I wanted to be more kind of preclinical, helping people more directly. Like, studying learning and memory is cool-

   12. TNTrevor Noah3:14

       Okay

   13. EMEmily McDonald3:14

       ... but I wanted to be able to, like, help people and solve problems that doctors couldn't solve at the time.

   14. TNTrevor Noah3:21

       Wait, wait. Sorry, what does preclinical mean?

   15. EMEmily McDonald3:23

       Like, for example, so preclinical research is sort of research that happens before, you know, we take a med- a medication, for example, to clinicians to use.

   16. TNTrevor Noah3:33

       Okay. Okay.

   17. EMEmily McDonald3:33

       Right? So you're doing sort of research to investigate new ways to treat, for example, relapse or treat depression or anxiety-

   18. TNTrevor Noah3:40

       Okay. All right

   19. EMEmily McDonald3:40

       ... or Parkinson's disease, and you, uh... So that's kind of like preclinical work, before it goes to clinicians, basically.

   20. TNTrevor Noah3:48

       Right. Right.

   21. EMEmily McDonald3:48

       Um, yeah. And so actually, it's funny that you were kinda talking about nicotine before this because I used to be addicted to nicotine, and that was sort of why I initially became passionate about studying drug addiction. And I took a class in undergrad about why the current treatments for relapse don't work, and they're really just putting... They don't really work because they're just putting Band-Aids on the symptoms of the problem-

   22. TNTrevor Noah4:11

       Mm-hmm

   23. EMEmily McDonald4:11

       ... rather than actually solving the problem. And that's why research is so important because you can go and investigate what the problem really is. And so immediately, I was like, "This is it. This is what I'm meant to do. I'm meant to go and cure relapse to drug addiction." [laughs]

   24. TNTrevor Noah4:23

       [laughs]

   25. EMEmily McDonald4:23

       "I'm gonna go get my PhD, and I'm gonna win a Nobel Prize for this." And so, yeah. And so from then, I was like, "Okay, let me go get my PhD in neuroscience." So that is sort of how I became really passionate about drug addiction research and how I... The, the path that led me to the PhD. So yeah, moved to Arizona, started my PhD in neuroscience with a minor in medical pharmacology so that I could study drug addiction.

   26. TNTrevor Noah4:48

       Mm.

   27. EMEmily McDonald4:48

       And that's what I was doing for a few years.

   28. TNTrevor Noah4:50

       That's really crazy. Um, did it work for you? Did, did, did the research help you?

   29. EUEugene4:54

       Yes. She did stop smoking.

   30. TNTrevor Noah4:56

       How do you know?
4. 5:19 – 7:25

   You Can Rewire Your Brain to Find Something Disgusting

   1. EMEmily McDonald5:19

      Yeah.

   2. EUEugene5:19

      You rewired your brain.

   3. EMEmily McDonald5:20

      Yes.

   4. EUEugene5:21

      So you took a feeling that you didn't have before for something that you liked-

   5. EMEmily McDonald5:24

      Mm-hmm

   6. EUEugene5:24

      ... and then recoded it-

   7. EMEmily McDonald5:25

      Yep

   8. EUEugene5:26

      ... and said, "This, this is disgusting."

   9. EMEmily McDonald5:28

      Yep.

   10. EUEugene5:28

       The action of it.

   11. EMEmily McDonald5:29

       It's exactly what I did.

   12. EUEugene5:29

       Buying it, putting it into my pocket, putting it into my mouth-

   13. EMEmily McDonald5:33

       So I would let my-

   14. EUEugene5:33

       ... blowing out the smoke

   15. EMEmily McDonald5:34

       ... I would let myself carry it around still, and I would let myself have the craving, and I would, I would put it in a place where it took me a second so that there was kind of a gap between The initial craving and the action of actually doing it-

   16. TNTrevor Noah5:47

       Yeah

   17. EMEmily McDonald5:47

       ... because that's what addiction is, right? It becomes like this mind- mindless stimulus response behavior where the stimulus is, like, seeing the vape or seeing the cigarette or whatever it is, and then immediate response. Or for example, social media, you see the notification. All of a sudden, you're picking up your phone and you're scrolling-

   18. TNTrevor Noah6:00

       Yeah, you're back at it again

   19. EMEmily McDonald6:01

       ... and you don't even know how you got there, right? So it's ... I kind of added a little bit of space where I still would carry it around. I'd put it, like, I would drive and I'd put it underneath the passenger seat-

   20. TNTrevor Noah6:10

       Yeah

   21. EMEmily McDonald6:10

       ... of my car. And I would get that craving, and I would, like, at a red light, you know, it gave me some time to kind of rewire that association. And the brain's an association machine. You're in a relationship with everything in your life.

   22. TNTrevor Noah6:20

       Yes.

   23. EMEmily McDonald6:20

       So yeah, I would pick it up and I'd be like, "Oh no, this is disgusting." And even if I wanted to still hit it, I would, but then I would make sure to, like, pay attention to the feeling of feeling gross that I just did it. And I would sit in that feeling and, and really feel the feeling and make sure my brain was paying attention to it.

   24. TNTrevor Noah6:37

       Yeah.

   25. EMEmily McDonald6:37

       And over time, yeah, and so even after I quit, I would get that craving still, of course, and then immediately my brain would remember, "Oh yeah, no, that's gross. We don't really want that."

   26. TNTrevor Noah6:45

       Okay, wait, so help, help us understand-

   27. EMEmily McDonald6:47

       Mm

   28. TNTrevor Noah6:47

       ... or help me understand really the, the w- the process of what's actually happening. Because y- you're saying this about vaping. You're saying, you know, disgusting. I'm, in my head I'm like, oh, but there's strawberry flavors. I don't even vape, by the way. Never smoked.

   29. EMEmily McDonald7:00

       But you love strawberries.

   30. TNTrevor Noah7:01

       But in my, in... I love strawberries.
5. 7:25 – 9:26

   Why You Keep Doing Things You Don't Actually Want to Do

   1. TNTrevor Noah7:25

      First of all, what is happening to the brain when it's, when you're doing that? When you're doing something you don't necessarily want to do, but you keep finding yourself doing, what is happening to the brain? And then I wanna get to how the rewiring actually works.

   2. EMEmily McDonald7:39

      Yeah. So what's happening is really just maladaptive habit formation, and that just means the formation of bad habits.

   3. TNTrevor Noah7:46

      Mm-hmm.

   4. EMEmily McDonald7:46

      That's all it is. It's just learning.

   5. TNTrevor Noah7:47

      Mm-hmm.

   6. EMEmily McDonald7:48

      And I think, you know, in undergrad I was definitely divinely led on the path toward studying learning and memory first, because then I really understand the process of learning, and that's really all it is, is you've just learned a behavior. Your brain has learned a behavior, and it's learned to automate that behavior so that it's no longer a conscious act. For example, getting up in the morning and hopefully brushing your teeth is an automated behavior-

   7. TNTrevor Noah8:10

      How did you know?

   8. EMEmily McDonald8:12

      ... that you [laughs] that you-

   9. TNTrevor Noah8:12

      How will they know?

   10. EMEmily McDonald8:13

       [laughs]

   11. TNTrevor Noah8:14

       They'll never know.

   12. EMEmily McDonald8:15

       Well, I'm hoping. I'm hoping that that's an automatic behavior for you.

   13. TNTrevor Noah8:19

       Wait, but okay, okay, but yeah, before, b- but before you move on from that, then why, why is it that good habits are harder to keep? Like, I know that working out is good for me. I know that going for a walk is good for me. I know that stretching is good for me. I know, I, I know all these things.

   14. EMEmily McDonald8:34

       Okay.

   15. TNTrevor Noah8:34

       And then I'll do them, and I'll feel good after doing them.

   16. EMEmily McDonald8:37

       Mm, yes.

   17. TNTrevor Noah8:37

       But then I don't f- I don't find myself craving, like, a gym session. I don't find myself being like, "Mm, you know what'd be nice right now? A little bench press. Mm, mm, mm. I know it's midnight, but I can sneak in a little 250. Mm, mm, mm."

   18. EMEmily McDonald8:50

       You see, I like to do that sometimes.

   19. TNTrevor Noah8:52

       [laughs]

   20. EMEmily McDonald8:52

       But I'll tell you, there's a couple things there. All right, so if you wanna talk about the neuroscience of habit formation, the way that every single habit is formed is it first begins as a dopamine-driven-

   21. TNTrevor Noah9:02

       Mm-hmm

   22. EMEmily McDonald9:02

       ... activity, right? So-

   23. TNTrevor Noah9:04

       Mm-hmm

   24. EMEmily McDonald9:04

       ... when social media first came out, you weren't going on social media out of habit. You went on there because you could connect with your friends.

   25. TNTrevor Noah9:10

       Okay.

   26. EMEmily McDonald9:10

       Or you could, you know, see, you could post something or whatever it is, right? You're, you went on there for a, a goal, for a reason. Um, same thing with ice cream or, you know, vaping, whatever it is. You n- you started it because it felt good.

   27. TNTrevor Noah9:25

       Mm-hmm.

   28. EMEmily McDonald9:25

       That's why you started.

6. 9:26 – 11:27

   The Real Reason Dopamine Drives You to the Fridge at Midnight

   1. TNTrevor Noah9:26

      Okay, so feel good is the first thing.

   2. EMEmily McDonald9:28

      Right. And then that dopamine, so dopamine actually drives learning. It drives neuroplasticity, which is the ability for your brain to rewire. So dopamine drives learning. So, and dopamine does- isn't just released when something great happens. It's also released when something not so great happens. It's more of a, a salience molecule, which means like, "Look at me." So anything that really, like, grabbed your attention.

   3. TNTrevor Noah9:48

      Mm-hmm.

   4. EMEmily McDonald9:49

      That's why you have really strong memories of bad events as well.

   5. TNTrevor Noah9:51

      Oh.

   6. EMEmily McDonald9:51

      Because they're emotional-

   7. TNTrevor Noah9:52

      Okay

   8. EMEmily McDonald9:53

      ... and they raise dopamine as well, just in a different way. So yeah, anything that really boosts dopamine, it will drive that learning, right? And so what actually happens is that over time, the dopamine moves from being released when you get the good thing to being released whenever you see sort of a cue or something that represents that good thing, right? So for example, it's super, super easy to just talk about it with, you know, drugs of abuse, but we can talk about ice cream. It initially, you got dopamine from eating ice cream, but o- over time you get the dopamine from seeing the ice cream-

   9. TNTrevor Noah10:31

      Yeah

   10. EMEmily McDonald10:31

       ... because your brain's anticipating a reward.

   11. TNTrevor Noah10:34

       Mm-hmm.

   12. EMEmily McDonald10:34

       So your dopamine moves from actually getting the reward to the anticipation of the re- reward, and that's craving. So that's sort of how habit formation works. And then once that happens, then you kind of begin this, this, it goes from this goal-directed behavior, right? And it moves to, um, a stimulus response behavior or a cue response, where, like before it was like, "Oh, I wanna eat this i- ice cream because I know, like, I wanna eat this ice cream. It's gonna taste good." And now it's like, "Oh no, I see the ice cream." Dopamine is released when I see the carton, and that's gonna drive me, 'cause dopamine is also a molecule of action, to go and eat it. And you're not even... You don't want to. It's just that your dopamine has learned to associate the picture of the ice cream that you're seeing with a reward, and now you're not even deciding it. It's just your brain is driving you to do it.

7. 11:27 – 15:03

   Why Ads Only Work If You've Already Tried the Thing

   1. TNTrevor Noah11:27

      This is why ads work.

   2. EMEmily McDonald11:28

      Yeah.

   3. TNTrevor Noah11:29

      But, but I guess it also explains to me why ads are more effective when you've actually had the thing.

   4. EMEmily McDonald11:34

      Mm-hmm.

   5. TNTrevor Noah11:35

      So sometimes I'll watch an ad for, like Taco Bell, for instance. Taco Bell ads come on all the time. It's never, never ever once made me go, "I want Taco Bell," because I haven't had Taco Bell in my life. I don't-

   6. EMEmily McDonald11:46

      Ever

   7. TNTrevor Noah11:47

      Maybe I had it once

   8. EUEugene11:48

      Oh, yeah, yeah

   9. TNTrevor Noah11:48

      ... I think I, I had it once on the road when I was with Gabriel Iglesias, and then we bought... One of my favorite memories, we were on the road somewhere, um, where were we? Maybe we were in, we were in El Paso, Texas, or maybe somewhere in that region. And after all the, after a comedy show, we'd go and we'd just buy, you know, food, whatever, takeout. And then one day, Gabriel and the gang, we're in the, we're in the tour bus, and then he's like, uh, he says to me, he's like, "Yo, yo, um," he's like, "Do you wanna get some Taco Bell?" I was like, "I've never had Taco Bell." Everyone in the bus is like, "You've never had Taco Bell?" It was literally like an ad. Everyone, "You've never had... We gotta get him Taco Bell."

   10. EUEugene12:24

       The bus driver, bo-bom.

   11. TNTrevor Noah12:25

       Yo, bo-bom.

   12. EUEugene12:26

       [laughs]

   13. TNTrevor Noah12:26

       We're on the way to Taco Bell.

   14. EUEugene12:27

       [laughs]

   15. TNTrevor Noah12:28

       So now we're driving this giant tour bus, like bo-bom, Taco Bell, here we come. We get there. Now, we g- wanna go through the drive-through. We can't 'cause the bus-

   16. EUEugene12:36

       The bus

   17. TNTrevor Noah12:36

       ... is too big. So we have to walk through the drive-through 'cause the, the Taco Bell itself was closed. So we walk through the drive-through, and then they just b- like, we ordered for everyone on the bus plus more-

   18. EUEugene12:49

       Mm

   19. TNTrevor Noah12:49

       ... 'cause they wanted me to taste everything. And I'll never forget, there's a moment where I'm walking back to the bus and I'm carrying two bags, but I mean, like, huge, huge, huge, huge bags. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, when, like, you-

   20. EMEmily McDonald13:04

       With Taco Bell

   21. TNTrevor Noah13:04

       ... I'd come back from shop, but with Taco Bell.

   22. EMEmily McDonald13:06

       [laughs]

   23. TNTrevor Noah13:06

       Guys, I've never felt sexier in my life, 'cause I love food. I was like... And I'm walking to the bus, and Gabriel Iglesias, he's looking at me, like, from the bus, and he looked, and it was almost like we had the same thought, 'cause as I got to the bus, he looked at me and he's like, "You've never looked hotter." [laughs]

   24. EUEugene13:20

       [laughs]

   25. TNTrevor Noah13:20

       And I walked on. But that was the only time I ate it, right?

   26. EUEugene13:22

       Yeah.

   27. TNTrevor Noah13:22

       So, and it was like, eh, okay, whatever.

   28. EMEmily McDonald13:24

       I was gonna say, what did you think?

   29. TNTrevor Noah13:25

       Yeah, it was meh. It was w- okay. It was whatever.

   30. EUEugene13:28

       Mm-hmm.
8. 15:03 – 17:15

   Why Going Cold Turkey Almost Never Works

   1. EUEugene15:03

      ... the want for it, right?

   2. EMEmily McDonald15:03

      And that was, I love that you made that point of, like-

   3. EUEugene15:05

      Mm

   4. EMEmily McDonald15:05

      ... feeling stressed, too, because that was another thing, and that's why I decided to do it the way that I did.

   5. EUEugene15:10

      Mm-hmm.

   6. EMEmily McDonald15:10

      Because when you go cold turkey, it almost, especially when you're addicted to something, you feel this sense of, like, stress without it-

   7. EUEugene15:16

      Mm-hmm

   8. EMEmily McDonald15:17

      ... and not having it. And stress reduces activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the area of your brain that allows you to control your impulses.

   9. EUEugene15:25

      Yes.

   10. EMEmily McDonald15:25

       So it actually makes you... And that's why, you know, when people quit an addiction or something, and all of a sudden they feel stressed, they are more likely to relapse because it, your ability to control your impulses is reduced.

   11. EUEugene15:36

       But here's my thing. Do we quit things that we're addicted to because they're hurting other people? Or do we quit because they're hurting us? 'Cause initially, everything, there was a dopamine spike, I liked what I was doing, I was having too much of a good time at a strip club. Now I have kids.

   12. TNTrevor Noah15:50

       [laughs]

   13. EUEugene15:50

       Now I have to think, do I tip strippers or do I pay for school fees? Is it the strippers or is it the kids? The... Am I stopping this because I want to stop or because they are crying because they are hungry now?

   14. TNTrevor Noah16:01

       Oh, man.

   15. EUEugene16:01

       Not the strippers, the kids.

   16. EMEmily McDonald16:02

       Yeah.

   17. TNTrevor Noah16:02

       These analogies are so crazy. [laughs]

   18. EMEmily McDonald16:05

       So Trevor thinks-

   19. EUEugene16:06

       I'm so sorry

   20. EMEmily McDonald16:06

       ... this is really funny.

   21. TNTrevor Noah16:07

       Oh.

   22. EUEugene16:08

       'Cause you choose ice cream.

   23. TNTrevor Noah16:09

       I mean... [laughs]

   24. EMEmily McDonald16:10

       No. No, but I'm sitting here, like, thinking about this very much from my own perspective and experience.

   25. EUEugene16:15

       Mm.

   26. EMEmily McDonald16:15

       And the way that I decided was it's always about who I'm wanting to become.

   27. TNTrevor Noah16:20

       Mm-hmm.

   28. EMEmily McDonald16:21

       And it's always-

   29. TNTrevor Noah16:22

       Oh

   30. EMEmily McDonald16:22

       ... about that. And you know, you can never force somebody to quit something they don't want to. Like, you have to want to do it. And I think for me, I didn't care to quit vaping. I didn't care how many ads showed me what happens to your lungs. Like, I didn't care about any of that. I was young. I don't care about that. I don't care about my health. Like, whatever. The, the thing that actually made me care about stopping was understanding that there is a gap currently between the, who you are now and the version of you who's achieved everything you've ever wanted in life.
9. 17:15 – 19:05

   The Science Behind "Woo-Woo" — And Why It's Been Right All Along

   1. EMEmily McDonald17:15

      where I wanna go.

   2. TNTrevor Noah17:15

      So this is, this is, I think, something that attracted a lot of people to your account and to what, to your work online, is like, there were a lot of people who would give you information about the brain in a very technical way that help you understand how your brain works-

   3. EUEugene17:33

      Mm

   4. TNTrevor Noah17:33

      ... what your brain does, you know, dopamine, and there's all these phrases, you know, like, uh, uh, stimulus and neoprenine-prene, and like all these-

   5. EUEugene17:42

      Mm, neuroplasticity

   6. TNTrevor Noah17:42

      ... plasticity and-

   7. EMEmily McDonald17:43

      I, maybe you were trying to say norepinephrine.

   8. TNTrevor Noah17:45

      I, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

   9. EMEmily McDonald17:47

      Yeah. [laughs]

   10. TNTrevor Noah17:47

       That's exact- but you knew what I was trying to say. You see? You see? That's, that's exactly what... 'Cause every time I see that word, I'm just like, "Amen. Neoprenepreneprene."

   11. EMEmily McDonald17:55

       I, I knew what you meant.

   12. TNTrevor Noah17:56

       Thank you very much.

   13. EUEugene17:57

       Neoperipher-

   14. EMEmily McDonald17:58

       Yeah. [laughs]

   15. TNTrevor Noah17:58

       Have you ever seen how it's written?

   16. EUEugene17:59

       No.

   17. TNTrevor Noah17:59

       Neoper-

   18. EMEmily McDonald18:00

       Exactly like that. [laughs]

   19. TNTrevor Noah18:01

       It is written like that, neoprenepreneprene.

   20. EUEugene18:03

       [laughs]

   21. TNTrevor Noah18:03

       All right. And then People sort of just y- y- you think you know.

   22. EMEmily McDonald18:08

       Yeah.

   23. TNTrevor Noah18:08

       And you're like, "Oh, the norepinephrine and the dopamine and then the serotonin and the oxytocin and..." Okay. And then on the other side of, like, let's say the internet/the world, you have people who are like, "Visualize and think about what you want in life," and what I, and I think a lot of people, would call, like, woo-woo, you know?

   24. EMEmily McDonald18:26

       Mm-hmm.

   25. TNTrevor Noah18:26

       You'd be like, "Visualize," dude, and you're like, "All right." And a lot of people love that and swear by it.

   26. EMEmily McDonald18:30

       Mm-hmm.

   27. TNTrevor Noah18:30

       And then I, I find these two worlds have often been at odds.

   28. EMEmily McDonald18:35

       Mm-hmm.

   29. TNTrevor Noah18:35

       So someone who's, like, deep in the science goes like, "Don't listen to that," and someone who's deep in the woo-woo goes like, "Don't listen to the other thing."

   30. EMEmily McDonald18:41

       Mm-hmm.
10. 19:05 – 21:27

    She Has Two Degrees in Neuroscience

    1. EMEmily McDonald19:05

       And I actually get asked all the time, "Any books you recommend?" [laughs] I'm like, it's very much a connection between two disciplines that I love and that fulfill me. But yeah, I would say in school when I was getting my first neuroscience degree-

    2. TNTrevor Noah19:19

       First?

    3. EMEmily McDonald19:20

       Yeah, I have two degrees in neuroscience. [laughs]

    4. TNTrevor Noah19:21

       Hey, yay, yay, yay, yay. One for you and me each, Eugene.

    5. EMEmily McDonald19:24

       [laughs]

    6. TNTrevor Noah19:25

       To make up for the degrees we never got. [laughs]

    7. EMEmily McDonald19:29

       He said, "First?" [laughs]

    8. TNTrevor Noah19:31

       [laughs]

    9. EMEmily McDonald19:31

       Thank you. I appreciate that. Um-

    10. TNTrevor Noah19:33

        [laughs] I do, too.

    11. EMEmily McDonald19:35

        [laughs]

    12. TNTrevor Noah19:37

        [laughs]

    13. EMEmily McDonald19:38

        Um, so yeah, when I was getting my first degree in neuroscience and studying, um, especially just the different sensory systems, so for example, your visual system-

    14. TNTrevor Noah19:47

        Yeah

    15. EMEmily McDonald19:47

        ... and how your brain constructs everything that you see. Like, you're not seeing the world with your eyes. Your eyes are just taking in, taking in light signals.

    16. TNTrevor Noah19:53

        Mm-hmm.

    17. EMEmily McDonald19:53

        And then those light signals travel through the brain where your thoughts, emotions, memories, your beliefs, who y- who you believe you are, all that's incorporated before you, the image is even put together-

    18. TNTrevor Noah20:03

        Mm-hmm

    19. EMEmily McDonald20:03

        ... that you see by your brain.

    20. TNTrevor Noah20:04

        Wait. Let, let's, let's slow that down. Uh, uh, just, just go back on that because you're gonna say it and then we're gonna act like we completely got it-

    21. EMEmily McDonald20:11

        Yeah [laughs]

    22. TNTrevor Noah20:12

        ... which maybe you did. But wait, wait, wait. Your eyes are not seeing, they're only taking in light.

    23. EMEmily McDonald20:18

        Right.

    24. TNTrevor Noah20:19

        Okay? And that light is then going into-

    25. EMEmily McDonald20:22

        The brain. Traveling through the brain, all these different areas.

    26. TNTrevor Noah20:25

        But it's basically being bent by your memories-

    27. EMEmily McDonald20:28

        Exactly

    28. TNTrevor Noah20:29

        ... the way you think about the world-

    29. EMEmily McDonald20:31

        Your current emotions

    30. TNTrevor Noah20:32

        ... because that's your current emotions.
11. 21:27 – 26:02

    What Certain Sound Frequencies Are Actually Doing to Your Brain

    1. EMEmily McDonald21:27

       on you.

    2. TNTrevor Noah21:27

       Yes. Yeah.

    3. EMEmily McDonald21:27

       And-

    4. TNTrevor Noah21:27

       You have, like, sound bowls-

    5. EMEmily McDonald21:29

       Right

    6. TNTrevor Noah21:30

       ... and all of those things.

    7. EMEmily McDonald21:30

       Solfeggio frequencies.

    8. TNTrevor Noah21:31

       Yes, yes, yes.

    9. EMEmily McDonald21:32

       528, 432, and both of those have studies showing that they do actually impact the brain in different ways, um, and binaural beats and things like that. So literally, actually, it all clicked one moment when I was laying in bed one night in my apartment, um, whenever I was in undergrad, and I just r- was listening to... And I sort of went on this spiritual journey toward the end of my first degree in neuroscience, and I, I read the book The Untethered Soul.

    10. TNTrevor Noah21:57

        Mm-hmm.

    11. EMEmily McDonald21:57

        If you guys have ever heard of that, it's really good. Um, but, and so I, I started meditating, and I started, you know, doing, like... And I, I was laying in bed listening to 432 Hz as I was falling asleep, and I was like, "Whoa, wait a minute." The membrane in the ear is organized by frequency. What if this certain frequency of sound is activating s- my brain in a specific way and actually changing the way that my state of mind is, and that's why these frequencies of sound work? And I turn over, pick up my phone, Google it, and there are papers showing exactly what just popped into my head. Like, yeah, 432 Hz has been shown to boost alpha wave activity in the brain. Alpha waves are associated with a sense of calm.

    12. TNTrevor Noah22:41

        Mm.

    13. EMEmily McDonald22:41

        And so, you know, people on the woo-woo side of the world say, "Oh, it's really good for meditation-

    14. TNTrevor Noah22:47

        Yeah, yeah

    15. EMEmily McDonald22:47

        ... or sleep." And then in the science world, it has been shown to help people fall asleep, stay asleep, boost alpha waves in the brain. And so that was kind of my first moment of, "Oh, maybe there is some overlap, and there are some kind of-

    16. TNTrevor Noah23:02

        Right, right

    17. EMEmily McDonald23:02

        ... there's some"

    18. TNTrevor Noah23:02

        ... between the different worlds.

    19. EMEmily McDonald23:03

        Right. And so that kind of just started me on this spiral, [laughs] this upward spiral of just connecting dots everywhere, and, and yeah, and I think I've just go- And then, you know, moving to Arizona, I was just talking to your team about Arizona, and it's, the desert is a very spiritual place. And moving there while doing my PhD and just really growing in my spirituality while also, of course, doing a PhD in neuroscience, so really studying neuroscience to, like, the depths-

    20. TNTrevor Noah23:29

        Mm-hmm

    21. EMEmily McDonald23:29

        ... that you could possibly study it. And yeah, I just started connecting all these dots and then also connecting what I was learning with my own experiences as well.

    22. TNTrevor Noah23:38

        Right.

    23. EMEmily McDonald23:38

        And I think a lot of people ask me, you know, "Where does this information come from?" And most of it, the information I share, is from my own lived experience, and then I'm like, "Huh, I wonder what's happening in my brain right now." And then I think about it, look into it, read some papers, and I'm like, "That makes sense," and then I talk about it. [upbeat music]

    24. TNTrevor Noah23:54

        We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. All right, Eugene.

    25. EMEmily McDonald24:02

        Mm-hmm.

    26. TNTrevor Noah24:02

        Let's play a little game, you know, make something fun. Two truths and a lie.

    27. EMEmily McDonald24:06

        Mm-hmm.

    28. TNTrevor Noah24:07

        Here we go. One, I've had to tell a world leader that their fly was undone. Two, when getting dressed, I don't do sock, sock, shoe, shoe. I do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. Three, I've been a Verizon customer for 11 years. What do you think?

    29. EUEugene24:24

        Hmm. Very confused. First of all, why would a world leader own a fly? 'Cause those things just come uninvited. Secondly, lying to a friend is not cool. It's never been a game.

    30. TNTrevor Noah24:34

        No, Eugene, f- a fly is for, like the zip is what... And then it's, it's g- it's not a lie, it's a game where I'm try- it's like I give you inform- okay, I lied. All three are true, Eugene. And in case you were thinking, you know, Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill, they'll give you a better deal. And the reason I've been with them for this long is just because I travel so much. I need a network that's reliable. That's right, a better deal on the best network, with the most ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals. Take your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to your local Verizon store today, get your better deal, and start saving for real. Based on RootMetrics' best overall mobile network performance, US second half 2025. All rights reserved. You must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. So do you understand how two truths and a... Do, do you understand it now?
12. 26:02 – 29:13

    Are We Humans Having a Spiritual Experience, or the Other Way Around?

    1. TNTrevor Noah26:03

       why/how we got to a place where we, we got so comfortable dismissing spirituality or the ideas that come with, like, w- you know, connecting to something beyond ourselves.

    2. EUEugene26:19

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TNTrevor Noah26:20

       And having that clash with what we think of as, like, intelligence and knowledge and-

    4. EUEugene26:25

       Yeah

    5. TNTrevor Noah26:25

       ... and do, do, do you get what I'm saying?

    6. EUEugene26:26

       I think religion had a big part in that.

    7. TNTrevor Noah26:27

       What do you mean?

    8. EUEugene26:28

       Because remember that, um, once religion became a thing, people had to attribute their knowledge to something.

    9. TNTrevor Noah26:35

       Yeah.

    10. EUEugene26:35

        It could never be I just know it. You know, we always have, there's always this debate-

    11. EMEmily McDonald26:39

        Yeah

    12. EUEugene26:39

        ... in the spiritual realm of are you a human having a spiritual experience or are you a spirit having a human experience? And most people feel like when they discover themselves in the middle of their life, whenever it is, they were a human and now they're having a spiritual experience. But I think it's the other way around. And obviously literature has proved that, and also when they speak to people who know that. So religion always-

    13. TNTrevor Noah26:59

        Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

    14. EUEugene27:00

        Mm-hmm.

    15. TNTrevor Noah27:00

        Wait. So you're saying ... 'Cause I mean, we c- we can never prove it.

    16. EMEmily McDonald27:03

        I'm with you 100%, by the way.

    17. TNTrevor Noah27:04

        Yeah.

    18. EMEmily McDonald27:04

        [laughs]

    19. TNTrevor Noah27:04

        No, but we can never prove it. But I, I'm, I'm in- I'm intrigued by what you're saying. You're saying the argument or the discussion is are we spirits that are experiencing being human?

    20. EUEugene27:14

        Yes.

    21. EMEmily McDonald27:14

        Mm-hmm.

    22. TNTrevor Noah27:14

        Or are we humans experiencing being spirits?

    23. EUEugene27:16

        Yes.

    24. EMEmily McDonald27:17

        Yes.

    25. TNTrevor Noah27:18

        But you can't prove it.

    26. EUEugene27:18

        Are we a human having a spiritual experience?

    27. TNTrevor Noah27:20

        Yes.

    28. EUEugene27:20

        Or are we a spirit having a human experience?

    29. TNTrevor Noah27:22

        Yeah.

    30. EUEugene27:22

        So the thing is, if you want to prove, well, that's a small part of it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Em, that you're a spirit having a human experience-
13. 29:13 – 39:50

    When Science Caught Up to What Religion Knew All Along

    1. TNTrevor Noah29:13

       so many things that religion teaches people, apart from, like, you know, dogma-

    2. EUEugene29:19

       Yes

    3. TNTrevor Noah29:21

       ... that now science has sort of come around to. So whether it's, like, prayer itself, when you think about journaling and the effects of journaling and the processing, um, and I would love for you to speak a little bit about this, closing your eyes and thinking about your day before you go to sleep, I, I, I see all these things coming out now where scientists are like, "Oh, that really helps you go to sleep," and it also helps your brain sort of, like, just switch everything off.

    4. EUEugene29:46

       Yeah.

    5. TNTrevor Noah29:46

       You know what I mean? But, like, so, so something, something like that or, or something like fasting, which most religions have, or-

    6. EMEmily McDonald29:53

       Mm-hmm

    7. TNTrevor Noah29:53

       ... all these ... You're starting to see more of the tie-ins where science is sort of catching up to old ideas, and then old ideas are showing themselves in science. Uh, like, where do you think the breakdown came between people saying, "Oh, th- we shouldn't listen to that," and now we're going, "Maybe we should listen to some of that"?

    8. EMEmily McDonald30:13

       Yeah, I think honestly, there used to be a lot more overlap.

    9. TNTrevor Noah30:18

       Yeah.

    10. EMEmily McDonald30:18

        There used to be a lot more in science and in research.

    11. TNTrevor Noah30:21

        Mm-hmm.

    12. EMEmily McDonald30:21

        In, especially, like, in the 1900s, there was a lot of research, especially, I mean, even with psychedelics and things like that.

    13. TNTrevor Noah30:28

        Mm-hmm.

    14. EMEmily McDonald30:28

        And what happened was there were a few scientists that just took it a bit too far, and it got to the point where s- in the science world it became ... Yeah, it, kind of started to have this dogma around it and this sort of, like, association around it, and it, it became almost disrespected in a way.

    15. TNTrevor Noah30:45

        Yeah.

    16. EMEmily McDonald30:45

        And it, it be-

    17. TNTrevor Noah30:46

        Bastardized.

    18. EMEmily McDonald30:47

        Right. And exactly.

    19. TNTrevor Noah30:48

        Mm-hmm.

    20. EMEmily McDonald30:48

        Especially with something as simple as hypnosis, for example, like, there's so much, um, like, judgment and woo-woo around it, but it, there's so much neuroscience around it as well. But because it has this sort of, um, like, I don't know-

    21. TNTrevor Noah31:02

        Well, the gimmick as well, let's be honest.

    22. EMEmily McDonald31:03

        Right. Right. And that's-

    23. TNTrevor Noah31:04

        Once you're making somebody jump on stage and they say they're a dog, I think it undermines what hypnosis may or may not be.

    24. EMEmily McDonald31:10

        Yeah.

    25. TNTrevor Noah31:10

        And I'm not saying that thing's not real, by the way.

    26. EMEmily McDonald31:12

        So, yeah, I think that that's exactly the analogy that I'm trying to make here, is that it kind of ... That happened with a lot of the different, you know, research studies that were going on.

    27. TNTrevor Noah31:20

        Okay. Okay. Okay.

    28. EMEmily McDonald31:21

        And it happened in not just hypnosis, but in other areas as well. For example, like psychedelics.

    29. TNTrevor Noah31:25

        Yeah.

    30. EMEmily McDonald31:26

        There used to be a lot more research on it, and then scientists took, took it too far, and then it became, "Oh, no, that's wrong. We shouldn't be doing that."
14. 39:50 – 44:35

    Why You Shouldn't Trust Every Study You See on TikTok

    1. EMEmily McDonald39:50

       for, you know?

    2. TNTrevor Noah39:50

       It could be a flawed study as well.

    3. EMEmily McDonald39:51

       And, and yeah, exac- and a lot of studies are very biased, too.

    4. TNTrevor Noah39:54

       Yeah.

    5. EMEmily McDonald39:54

       I mean, I used to do them. So I would like [laughs] ... I, I've seen the types of people, you know? And I'm not saying that, you know, they're pe- pe- people not trying their best.

    6. TNTrevor Noah40:00

       Yes. Yeah.

    7. EMEmily McDonald40:01

       But, you know, it's like humans are human, and they are gonna make human mistakes. But I think-

    8. TNTrevor Noah40:06

       What, what, what don't we understand-

    9. EUEugene40:07

       Mm

    10. TNTrevor Noah40:07

        ... about studies? What, like... B- because, y- you know, as the internet has, has exploded-

    11. EMEmily McDonald40:13

        Yeah

    12. TNTrevor Noah40:14

        ... as TikTok has become popular, everyone I see on TikTok references a study.

    13. EUEugene40:21

        Mm-hmm.

    14. TNTrevor Noah40:21

        And I mean everyone. And I've seen everyone reference any study to say the thing that they're saying-

    15. EUEugene40:27

        To justify their-

    16. TNTrevor Noah40:28

        ... is correct.

    17. EMEmily McDonald40:28

        Mm-hmm.

    18. TNTrevor Noah40:28

        But I've seen every... And then I've seen people pull up the same study and go, "No, no, no. This is not the study." And then, then someone else says, "A meta-analysis is more correct." So help us understand a study. So for everyone out there, for us as well, when you're conducting a study, help me understand the very basic mechanics of what is actually happening and how that leads to a conclusion that then, like, CBS This Morning will report and be like, "Coffee makes you live 20 years longer."

    19. EMEmily McDonald40:53

        Yeah.

    20. TNTrevor Noah40:53

        How do they get there?

    21. EMEmily McDonald40:54

        I think those, a lot of the s- like, claims that are made end up being in the discussion, which aren't even necessarily the point of the study.

    22. TNTrevor Noah41:02

        Mm.

    23. EMEmily McDonald41:02

        It's more just speculation of how these results can be applied to, and extrapolated to other situations in life. But the way that a study begins is by asking a question, right?

    24. TNTrevor Noah41:11

        Okay.

    25. EMEmily McDonald41:11

        So we have, we have this background inf- of information. And I studied, you know, in my PhD, a very specific receptor that we thought got leaky when we were re- relapsing the drugs.

    26. TNTrevor Noah41:21

        Leaky brain.

    27. EMEmily McDonald41:21

        And yeah.

    28. TNTrevor Noah41:22

        Ay.

    29. EMEmily McDonald41:22

        Just a leaky calcium channel.

    30. TNTrevor Noah41:24

        [laughs]
15. 44:35 – 55:58

    How Emily Rewired Her Brain to Focus for 7 Hours Without ADHD Medication

    1. EMEmily McDonald44:35

       you want these days.

    2. TNTrevor Noah44:36

       H- how did you, how did you apply this in your life? Because I, I find the internet/the world is full of people who are more than willing to dish out advice and then oftentimes don't seem to apply that advice to themselves.

    3. EMEmily McDonald44:55

       Mm.

    4. TNTrevor Noah44:55

       Do y- you know what I mean?

    5. EMEmily McDonald44:56

       Mm-hmm.

    6. TNTrevor Noah44:57

       And so you get these motivational speakers who when you meet them in real life aren't really motivated. Uh, you, you, you have, like, relationships experts who have terrible relationships themselves.

    7. EMEmily McDonald45:06

       Mm.

    8. TNTrevor Noah45:07

       You, do, do you get what I'm saying? And I, and I'm, I'm generalizing.

    9. EMEmily McDonald45:09

       Mm-hmm.

    10. TNTrevor Noah45:09

        But, but, but you'll often ... You'll find these. What I found interesting with you is, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, it, it feels like you were also running these sort of experiments on yourself-

    11. EMEmily McDonald45:20

        100%

    12. TNTrevor Noah45:20

        ... and I, I watched your life change in real time, and over a very long period, I must say.

    13. EMEmily McDonald45:25

        I noticed that because I went to DM you, and I was like, "Whoa, you DM'd me, like, almost two years ago-

    14. TNTrevor Noah45:31

        Yeah, you, you were like-

    15. EMEmily McDonald45:31

        ... about a podcast

    16. TNTrevor Noah45:32

        ... you were doing ... Yeah, two years ago I asked you to come on the podcast-

    17. EMEmily McDonald45:35

        Yeah

    18. TNTrevor Noah45:35

        ... and there's ... But I've watched you go from- Boy, aren't we glad that was all you did. [laughs] Because-

    19. EMEmily McDonald45:41

        [laughs]

    20. TNTrevor Noah45:41

        No, those, those, those DMs I sent for you, Eugene.

    21. EMEmily McDonald45:44

        [laughs]

    22. TNTrevor Noah45:45

        Yo, Eugene. [laughs] You, you up, you up. [laughs] I represented you well, hey. [laughs] And you were like- You represented- "Tell me more about this dude- You're representing your fiance ... who comes to the show." [laughs]

    23. EMEmily McDonald45:57

        [laughs]

    24. TNTrevor Noah45:57

        So, um, when, when, when, when I looked at your life, I went ... It, it, it felt like-

    25. EMEmily McDonald46:03

        Mm

    26. TNTrevor Noah46:03

        ... just by watching you, I saw somebody who was sharing information whilst also applying that information- Mm ... to themselves. Conducting a real time ex- experiment. Yeah. And, and I-

    27. EMEmily McDonald46:16

        That is exactly correct

    28. TNTrevor Noah46:16

        ... I'd love to know, like- Yeah ... I'd love to know what your journey was like because everything, everything about you changed over time, and over time's the key thing for me, the key phrase here. I didn't witness, like, a, a magical transformation. You know, like those, those YouTube, um, uh, um- Videos ... weightlifting. They, they trick you all the time. Yeah. Have you seen those ones? Yeah, yeah. They're like, "How I lost 40 pounds in six weeks," and then they show you a before and after picture, and really all they do in the before picture is they just push their tummy out- Mm-hmm ... but they still have a six-pack. Yeah. And they just maybe drink a lot of water, I don't know, and then they get shredded. Yeah. Yeah. But they were shredded. Yeah. With you, with all due respect, it didn't seem like you were shredded in your life.

    29. EMEmily McDonald46:55

        No. [laughs]

    30. TNTrevor Noah46:56

        And then I watched you slowly work towards the thing that you were telling people about. Mm. Like, what wa- what was the, what were the beginnings of those? What did you start to learn? Like, can you give me examples? What were, what, what were the moments where you went, "Oh, wow, this is, this is working on me"?
16. 55:58 – 1:00:29

    The Kitten Experiment That Explains Why You Can't See Opportunities

    1. EMEmily McDonald55:58

       like the, the jobs, like money, you know, opportunities, a relationship, or relationships especially. Like we grew up seeing certain types of relationships-

    2. TNTrevor Noah56:05

       Education

    3. EMEmily McDonald56:05

       ... between our parents. Education.

    4. TNTrevor Noah56:07

       Mm-hmm.

    5. EMEmily McDonald56:07

       Like what am I missing now that is probably right in front of me, but my brain's not constructing that experience because it isn't programmed for it?

    6. TNTrevor Noah56:15

       Yeah. It's not so obvious to you.

    7. EMEmily McDonald56:16

       Right. And so that I think was like the, one of the first realizations I had where I was like, "Okay, like, you know, what I'm wanting my future to look like, if it's different than what my past has looked like, then I'm gonna have to change my brain so that it can construct that experience."

    8. TNTrevor Noah56:31

       But then-

    9. EUEugene56:31

       And it, it, it shows, sorry, it shows this little gap that has become a huge crevice in society where science has replaced art. Because academia replaced art. Because kids used to u- it, art used to be a way to measure who likes what. So now it became a thing of who can count, who can remember the best, and then you get channeled that way. But if you learn how to draw and then building blocks, how do you see the world according to your eyes-

    10. EMEmily McDonald57:00

        Mm

    11. EUEugene57:00

        ... versus we're gonna sit you guys in one room-

    12. EMEmily McDonald57:01

        Yeah

    13. TNTrevor Noah57:01

        And show you the world

    14. EUEugene57:02

        ... and we're gonna show you to calculate.

    15. TNTrevor Noah57:04

        Damn.

    16. EUEugene57:04

        And whoever remembers to calculate the best-

    17. EMEmily McDonald57:06

        Show you how to think, right

    18. EUEugene57:06

        ... the quickest, yes, is the one that progresses in life.

    19. TNTrevor Noah57:08

        I, I never thought of art like-

    20. EUEugene57:09

        Yeah

    21. TNTrevor Noah57:09

        ... that's beautiful actually.

    22. EMEmily McDonald57:10

        Yeah.

    23. TNTrevor Noah57:10

        I genuinely never thought of art like that.

    24. EUEugene57:12

        Mm-hmm.

    25. TNTrevor Noah57:12

        It is the perfect Petri dish to see how everyone else-

    26. EUEugene57:16

        Yeah, yeah

    27. TNTrevor Noah57:16

        ... sees the world.

    28. EMEmily McDonald57:17

        Yeah.

    29. EUEugene57:17

        The coloring book and the building blocks.

    30. TNTrevor Noah57:18

        'Cause remember how every kid-
17. 1:00:29 – 1:15:55

    Trevor on ADHD: Why His Brain Is Built for Chaos

    1. TNTrevor Noah1:00:29

       doesn't that mean there's a huge swath of society that is always pushed to the fringes unless they are part of the monolithic experience? Does, does ... As somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, right? I, I've often felt like having ADHD, there's nothing wrong with it, but you are in the wrong society and world right now.

    2. EUEugene1:00:51

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TNTrevor Noah1:00:51

       Because a lot of what the world is, is designed not for people with ADHD.

    4. EUEugene1:00:54

       You're in the wrong timeline.

    5. TNTrevor Noah1:00:55

       You really are.

    6. EUEugene1:00:56

       Mm-hmm.

    7. EMEmily McDonald1:00:56

       You're playing the wrong video game.

    8. TNTrevor Noah1:00:57

       No, you really are. Yeah.

    9. EMEmily McDonald1:00:58

       Yeah.

    10. EUEugene1:00:58

        Different rules. Mm-hmm.

    11. TNTrevor Noah1:00:58

        Because I, I, I spoke to, um, I spoke to one, um, one therapist who was talking about how ... And these are, like, hypotheses, but they said people with ADHD were probably really beneficial to a tribe and a society when you would go out, like hunting together.

    12. EUEugene1:01:14

        Mm-hmm.

    13. TNTrevor Noah1:01:15

        Because some people really just need to focus on picking the berries, and some people need to be like, "What's that? What's that? Do you guys hear that?"

    14. EUEugene1:01:21

        Yeah.

    15. TNTrevor Noah1:01:21

        "What's that?"

    16. EMEmily McDonald1:01:22

        Yeah.

    17. TNTrevor Noah1:01:22

        "Okay, you guys hear that?" But you can't all be going, "What's that, what's that?" Because then no one's gonna focus on the berries.

    18. EUEugene1:01:27

        Yes.

    19. TNTrevor Noah1:01:27

        And you can't all be focused on the berries, because then no one's going like, "Yo guys, did you hear that? What was that? What was that?" Pattern recognition.

    20. EMEmily McDonald1:01:32

        So willing to go explore and be curious, and-

    21. TNTrevor Noah1:01:34

        Exactly

    22. EMEmily McDonald1:01:35

        ... yeah.

    23. TNTrevor Noah1:01:35

        And so you need all of these different minds-

    24. EMEmily McDonald1:01:37

        Right

    25. TNTrevor Noah1:01:38

        ... doing and thinking different things so that we can all function together. But to sort of what you're saying with arts equity, like the, and what you're saying now, aren't we creating a world where we're compressing everyone into one? We're going like, "You all have to do this, all have to go to school at this time."

    26. EUEugene1:01:53

        Mm-hmm. We are.

    27. TNTrevor Noah1:01:53

        "All have to learn these subjects. All have to sit in an office. All ha- all, all, all, all-"

    28. EMEmily McDonald1:01:57

        We're trying to.

    29. TNTrevor Noah1:01:58

        Yeah, no, we are.

    30. EMEmily McDonald1:01:58

        And that creates a lot of resistance.
18. 1:15:55 – 1:41:22

    A Neuroscientist's Case for Just Deciding

    1. EMEmily McDonald1:15:55

       I'm gonna be 10, 15 minutes late. And I'm not really gonna, I'm not really gonna stress about it. And that's why I said, like, I don't like to rush. Like, if I'm gonna be... That doesn't mean that I give myself ample time all the time.

    2. TNTrevor Noah1:16:05

       Mm-hmm.

    3. EMEmily McDonald1:16:05

       I don't always have ample time, and sometimes I am five minutes late.

    4. TNTrevor Noah1:16:08

       Right.

    5. EMEmily McDonald1:16:08

       I'm kinda chronically five minutes late to everything. I wasn't today, but I am. [laughs]

    6. TNTrevor Noah1:16:13

       [laughs]

    7. EUEugene1:16:14

       [laughs]

    8. EMEmily McDonald1:16:14

       But that's 'cause I wasn't alone, right?

    9. TNTrevor Noah1:16:16

       [laughs]

    10. EMEmily McDonald1:16:16

        So, um, [laughs] he's on time.

    11. TNTrevor Noah1:16:20

        He's on time.

    12. EMEmily McDonald1:16:20

        And so, and so yeah, I think when I think about that ver- if I were in your shoes-

    13. TNTrevor Noah1:16:24

        Ah

    14. EMEmily McDonald1:16:24

        ... and I'm like, "This is something that I want-

    15. TNTrevor Noah1:16:25

        These were nice shoes, by the way

    16. EMEmily McDonald1:16:26

        ... from the beginning, you had ample time. If you didn't waste-

    17. TNTrevor Noah1:16:28

        I did

    18. EMEmily McDonald1:16:28

        ... an hour thinking, you could have gone there and back and not been stressed at all. If it's something that you wanna do that's gonna make you happier, and that joy, joy is a, the best performance-enhancing drug ever. So if I'm gonna go get these shoes and make myself... I'm wearing my boots. You guys both said you like my boots.

    19. TNTrevor Noah1:16:42

        I do.

    20. EUEugene1:16:42

        We both said we like the boots.

    21. EMEmily McDonald1:16:43

        Yeah.

    22. TNTrevor Noah1:16:43

        They are dope boots.

    23. EMEmily McDonald1:16:44

        And, and when you are feeling like your best self, then you actually perform better, right? Joy perf- enhances your performance.

    24. EUEugene1:16:50

        And I knew, Em, that those shoes would do that for me.

    25. EMEmily McDonald1:16:52

        Exactly.

    26. EUEugene1:16:52

        We are two back to backs.

    27. TNTrevor Noah1:16:54

        You came, you came in with swagger, I won't lie.

    28. EUEugene1:16:55

        I knew.

    29. TNTrevor Noah1:16:56

        You, you just had, like, a vibe about you. What you just said, you, you see now coming back to-

    30. EMEmily McDonald1:17:01

        Mm.
19. 1:41:22 – 1:54:18

    Psychedelics and Why They Scare Governments More Than Alcohol Does

    1. TNTrevor Noah1:41:22

       Let's talk a little bit about, um, psychedelics in general. Over the past, let's say five years and maybe a decade, I've, I've noticed science slowly opening up and being allowed to open up to, like, in its defense. You know, 'cause the US government changes-

    2. EMEmily McDonald1:41:38

       Mm-hmm

    3. TNTrevor Noah1:41:38

       ... and you see these things changing around the world. But we've seen a s- a shift now in how people treat even the conversation around psychedelics.

    4. EUEugene1:41:47

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TNTrevor Noah1:41:47

       Where once it was considered, you know, like, this hippie d- d- thing that'll just destroy your life, et cetera, et cetera. Now we've seen, you know, the government doing tests around, like, MDMA therapy and what it could do for veterans-

    6. EMEmily McDonald1:41:59

       Mm

    7. TNTrevor Noah1:42:00

       ... and looking at psychedelics and how terminal cancer patients completely subverts how they feel about the possibility of dying-

    8. EMEmily McDonald1:42:08

       Mm-hmm.

    9. EUEugene1:42:09

       Mm

    10. TNTrevor Noah1:42:09

        ... when they've now consumed psilocybin, or-

    11. EMEmily McDonald1:42:12

        Mm

    12. TNTrevor Noah1:42:12

        ... people on DMT, ayahuasca, et cetera. What do you think, or what have you seen that has sort of, like, opened up a different area of how we see the brain and the mind because of psychedelics? Like, e- e- 'cause I'm, the research now is still, like, young in a weird way, even though we've had it for long, and then we-

    13. EMEmily McDonald1:42:29

        Yeah

    14. TNTrevor Noah1:42:29

        ... have some old stuff that's-

    15. EMEmily McDonald1:42:31

        Right

    16. TNTrevor Noah1:42:31

        ... that's applying to now. But-

    17. EMEmily McDonald1:42:32

        'Cause in the very beginning it was cocaine that was the cure-all for everything.

    18. TNTrevor Noah1:42:35

        Wait, really?

    19. EMEmily McDonald1:42:35

        Yes.

    20. TNTrevor Noah1:42:36

        Mm-hmm.

    21. EMEmily McDonald1:42:36

        That's why I was trying to say earlier, you know, we think, we view this as a new w- mode of, you know, investigation, but it's not at all. Like, psychedelics were popular way back in the day. Drugs were popular-

    22. TNTrevor Noah1:42:47

        Opium in China

    23. EMEmily McDonald1:42:47

        ... way back in the day.

    24. TNTrevor Noah1:42:48

        Mm-hmm.

    25. EMEmily McDonald1:42:48

        Yeah, yeah. Whenever I, I, we h- Whenever I was in the PhD and studying drug addiction, like, I learned about how all these, you know, came to be. And there was this book-

    26. TNTrevor Noah1:42:55

        Well, sorry, before I forget, there's something I want to ask you about that, though. How do, how do we define an addiction? I think a lot of people struggle with this. I, I might be one of them, but I, I know a lot of people will go, "I'm not addicted." You know? Like, sometimes people go, "I'm not addicted to my phone. I just, I just, I, I just use it, and I, I, I like keeping up to date with stuff and... But I'm not addicted."

    27. EMEmily McDonald1:43:16

        Mm-hmm.

    28. TNTrevor Noah1:43:16

        And someone else will be like, "Oh, no, I'm not addicted to that. I'm not addicted to this."

    29. EMEmily McDonald1:43:19

        Hmm.

    30. TNTrevor Noah1:43:19

        "I'm not..." How do, how do we actually define addiction?
20. 1:54:18 – 1:57:08

    The One Thing Emily Would Tell Everyone to Start Doing Tomorrow Sonnet 4.6

    1. TNTrevor Noah1:54:18

       it"?

    2. EMEmily McDonald1:54:18

       Yeah. I would say the first step, and we touched on this a little, is starting with your internal sort of conversation, and, like, how you think about yourself and about the world, and just kind of rewiring that. That's where I started. Um, w- I would get up every single morning and I would go on a walk, and I would listen to affirmations on YouTube. I actually still have that playlist of affirmations on YouTube completely available to everybody, so if you wanna go and listen to it, uh, go for it. But I ... Start rewiring the way that you think And that will change everything. Like, when you change the way you think, we talked about you change the way you look at things, the, the wa- the things that you look at change.

    3. TNTrevor Noah1:54:59

       Mm.

    4. EMEmily McDonald1:54:59

       And the first step in changing the way that you see the world is changing the way that you see yourself.

    5. TNTrevor Noah1:55:05

       Mm-hmm.

    6. EMEmily McDonald1:55:05

       And changing the way that, and we talked about this with relationships too, like e- everything changes when you change how you treat yourself, and you will no longer settle for anything less than you deserve, and you'll believe in yourself, which is extremely powerful. So I would say that really is the first step, is working on your own self-concept and how you talk to yourself, and that's the best place to start. Because even the, e- even if your external reality doesn't change, which I think it will, your internal reality-

    7. TNTrevor Noah1:55:30

       Mm

    8. EMEmily McDonald1:55:30

       ... definitely will.

    9. TNTrevor Noah1:55:31

       Mm-hmm.

    10. EMEmily McDonald1:55:32

        And you'll start to feel better. And at the end of the day, what's the point of doing any of this work, of rewiring your brain, if you don't feel better? Like, that's-

    11. TNTrevor Noah1:55:39

        Mm-hmm

    12. EMEmily McDonald1:55:39

        ... that's the point-

    13. TNTrevor Noah1:55:40

        That's the whole point

    14. EMEmily McDonald1:55:40

        ... of all, that's the whole point, is to feel better. Like, we get so caught up in manifesting this or manifesting that or this achievement, but life, the majority of our life is the time between the achievements. It's the emo- the, the, the journey. It's the m- if it was about the destination, it'd be called death. It's about the moments between the achievements.

    15. TNTrevor Noah1:55:58

        Mm.

    16. EMEmily McDonald1:55:58

        And so how can we make those moments more enjoyable? And it really just comes down to how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself. That'll change every- it does change everything when you change the way that you talk to yourself and treat yourself. So I would start there.

    17. TNTrevor Noah1:56:12

        [instrumental music] You've changed everything. Thank you for joining us.

    18. EMEmily McDonald1:56:15

        Thank you guys for having me.

    19. TNTrevor Noah1:56:16

        Genuinely amazing.

    20. EMEmily McDonald1:56:17

        This has been great.

    21. TNTrevor Noah1:56:17

        Did I not tell you this would be one of your favorites? Did I... I wrote that down in your journal, buddy.

    22. EMEmily McDonald1:56:22

        Are we gonna be friends now, Eugene? [laughs]

    23. TNTrevor Noah1:56:26

        [laughs]

    24. EUEugene1:56:27

        Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

    25. TNTrevor Noah1:56:27

        No, Em, for real, thank you so much. You're amazing.

    26. EUEugene1:56:29

        Em, you're amazing. Thank you for your generosity.

    27. EMEmily McDonald1:56:30

        Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This has been awesome.

    28. TNTrevor Noah1:56:32

        This has been great. Thanks, y'all.

    29. EUEugene1:56:34

        You never lie, do you?

    30. TNTrevor Noah1:56:36

        [upbeat music] Thank you so much for watching the episode. If you enjoyed it, pass it on to a friend. If you didn't enjoy it, pass it on to your friend still. Let them suffer for a change. And don't forget to engage with us in the comments. Uh, if you wanna, uh, suggest a guest, maybe there's questions you want, maybe there's ideas that you have, you can chat to us. We will read through the comments, and we'll get into it. Either way, I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for hanging out with us on What Now? And remember, we do this for you, so we would like to hear from you. Till next time, thank you.

Episode duration: 1:57:10