How I Transformed My Health & How You Can Too! | Getting To Know Dr. Mark Hyman

I think my real aha was when I, my biggest fear in life is...

You got a yellow question over here, closer, and it says, When was the last time you've asked for help? And right before you answer, the whole idea of these deck of cards, and there's a lot of different ones that are out there like this, our friend Esther Perel, you know, put out a deck of cards too, called Where Should We Begin? The whole idea is that often we are think that we're close to the people that are in our lives, but we've not asked some of the most interesting questions that could foster a deeper, more meaningful relationship. And that's tough for people to do. Not everybody is as great of an interviewer as Mark Hyman is and can get the best out of folks. So these prompts are a great way to bring connection. And you can use some of these questions in your own life at home with your partner or your friends or your loved ones. All right. So Mark, I'm going to repeat the question for you. When was the last time you have asked for help and a little bit of a dig deeper note there? Are you comfortable with asking for help when in need?

You know, that's a great question because the truth is, I don't really like to ask for help. I feel like I can do most things myself. I can deal with things. I don't really need anybody's help. And I think that's not a good thing. And this morning, actually, I'm having a little proceedure on my back later today. And I'm in New York and a friend called me and I talked to in a bit who I love and she was in New York and you know, I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna feel after, I probably can't get too busy, but I kind of, she kind of offered and I really invited her to come and hang out with me in my hotel after just keep me company. And I realized I was like, wow, do I really deserve that? Is that okay? Like she's gotta come all the way from Brooklyn and I realized my own head was, telling a story about it. So, in some ways, I really don't like to ask for help, but in this case, I was really glad I did and I'm really happy to look forward to having someone come home soon after I get out of the procedure.

Yeah, that'll give a little background context for why you're laying down right now and taking this podcast episode kind of perched up against the bed. We've chatted about it in a previous podcast episode that we recorded on the same day, but your back has been acting up a little bit. And I said, Mark, do whatever you need to do to be comfortable. Everybody in your audience would want you to be comfortable. So if that means laying on the bed, then lay on the bed.

For sure.

All right, Mark, let's continue on with the list of questions. And thanks for entertaining our team's choices with all these. This is a green question, so it's close. So can you remember a time in your life when you felt the most alive? and can you share that with our audience?

I mean, I definitely get to feel alive a lot, and I'm really lucky 'cause I put myself in situations and places where I do feel alive, when I'm with community and friends. And the most recent, I think, well, I've had so many, but the most recent was when I was in Antarctica. And I mean, like the most alive, I mean, I feel alive a lot, but I, I was in Antarctica and I was at the end of the earth. And we were on this trip to raise awareness around the melting of the Arctic ice sheets and the impact on climate and the environment. And I was kind of staggering. We had five, I think, of the hottest days in a row down there. The ice sheets were melting in front of us. We could see them caving. It was so beautiful. Also, it just felt, land felt so alive. It felt so, you know, incredibly beautiful. I felt so ecstatic to just be able to be there on the planet, hanging out with the penguins and so, and hanging out with my friends down there. So it was really, it was really one of those special moments in life. So I tend to have a lot of those moments, but I thought that one stood out for me quite a bit.

Well, what are the common themes for you, you know, on that trip? I'm hearing a few of them, but.

What are the common themes for you? Yeah, nature, nature, nature, community, nature and community are the things that to me activate me the most, beautiful nature and deep connections and friends. Those are the things that make me most alive.

A few years ago, you turned 60. Would you say that you've reprioritized the importance of those couple things in your life?

For sure. I mean, I definitely always make time to be in nature. I always build community. I always make sure I make connections with people and have fun. So, even in Washington, I have friends there and I'm friends with a couple of those senators and congressmen. And so we had those epic lunches and we bonded and it just creates a context of belonging. And in fact, one of the senators said to me, I think they were really living their lives and running around, they're always going back and forth to their districts. It's hard to build a sort of stable life. And he was sharing how he really noticed how isolated he was becoming, even though he was a very prominent national figure. and how important his social network was and how important his community was and how important it was to meet on a regular basis and for people to show up together and help and support each other. So, you know, I think, you know, you used to see people on television, you see famous people, or, you know, you think about our own leaders and that they got it all together. But the truth is we're all needing to find our own way to belonging and that longing to belong is such a key part of being human. And finding your tribe is really an important part. I just came back from Ikaria and I was in Sardinia last summer and finished my book on longevity called Young Forever. The key theme there is really about building this social fabric, this connection, this people have deep meaningful relationships with it. How many people can you actually just call up when things are bad and talk to them and they'll be there for you? Somebody else wrote a book called Refrigerator Rights, which is basically how many people in your life can you go over to their house and eat out of the refrigerator and just be welcome to do whatever you want. You know, that kind of measures the depth of your social circle. And I was at a friend's house and there was no problem being from the refrigerator, but I took it to a new level. I took it to the car rights, you know, where you can just grab the keys and take the car without asking. So they were asleep and I wanted to go to yoga class and I'm like, I just grabbed the keys and took the car and went to yoga. And they're like, oh, no problem, that's great. So I think those kinds of deep connections and friendships where you really have that in your life make a huge difference in, not only your mental and emotional well-being, but also in your health and longevity.

Yeah, there's another variation of that question. I think the New York Times talked about, which is if you're going through a really tough time in life, how many people do you feel comfortable calling at 2:00 a.m. in the morning? And if you don't, that's a good reflection of like, okay, is there something to work through over there, your own vulnerability and closeness with people, but also number two, do you need to recultivate relationships in your life so that one of the best ways to know that somebody is gonna be there to pick up the phone for you at 2:00 AM in the morning is also to remind them that you are there for them. If they were ever going through anything, that you would be there to pick up their call at 2:00 in the morning. And that sort of mutual reciprocity and the feeling of like, oh wow, you do that for me? Wow, that's amazing. Like I would actually also do that for you. That's a beautiful way to think about things.

For sure.

All right, Mark, we're gonna go to the next question. It's red, so it's the closest question. Let's see what it is. When you are sad or upset about something, how do you, Mark Hyman, like to be comforted?

Wow, well, how do I like to be comforted if I'm sad? You mean other than chunky monkey ice cream? And the truth is, I call my friends. I call my best friends. I'm really blessed. I have cultivated and nurtured really deep connection to me over the last 40 years of my life. And I reach out to the closest people I have in my life. And I have a friend, for example, David, who I've been friends with for 44 years. We met on top of a mountain in Canada. And we just have this really deep bond and we can say anything to each other. We've got each other. I have a men's kind of group that I have friends that I've had for 40, 35, 25 years that are really deep soul connections. And we meet every week. And it's really a way for me to kind of keep my own emotional health good and to connect with the people I love the most. And so I find it really blessed to be able to have that and do that.

The social fabric, coming back to it, is so key. Mark, you know, I'm leaving for a trip later on today. And actually the first week of the trip, taking a vacation is with my close men's group. There's a men's group that I've been meeting with in LA. We call it Man Morning, Man Morning Thursday, 'cause we meet up on Thursday mornings. And we go for a walk, and much like this interview over here, there is somebody that brings a question of the day to create a deeper intimacy with the group. And we get a chance to talk about business and life and relationships, and just everybody opens up. And one of the things you notice is that you never know the battles that people are facing. And, you know, the goal of the group is not to solve each other's problems, but just to be expressed and to hear each other. And there's a shared sense that when somebody's hearing about what you're going through, even if they don't have the solution or the answer, you immediately feel more connected and more support in the world because you know you're not on this journey alone.

For sure, for sure, totally.

Okay, Mark, let's go into a next question over here. We've got another yellow over here. And the question is, what are you addicted to?

Oh, God, what am I addicted to? That's a great question. Ah, I don't really think I have a lot of addictive quality. Oh, I know. Work. I was a workaholic. I'm recovering workaholic. Tell us more.

Where does that come from?

Where do you think that comes from? How did that become a key pattern in your life?

Well, I've been doing a lot of social lately, but the truth is, I'm nuts. I basically had my own practice. I was chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine, running around the world speaking, wrote 20 books in 20 years. It's crazy. And all the other things that I've done, political work, And I realized a lot of it had to do with trying to counteract what my father and my stepfather's life was like, which was very much kind of sad in a way. They were both really not very successful despite really trying hard and they had a lot of financial struggles, a lot of financial troubles. And so I kind of just said, I'm going to make sure I don't end up like them because it was really sad. And that's really, I think we drove a lot of it also. Just to be very frank, both of my fathers, my stepfather and my father, were very disapproving of me. I think they meant well, but they didn't know how to parent. I don't think anybody gets a parent instruction manual when their kid's born. They certainly did not. For me, they were very judgmental about my lifestyle and my things I wanted to do and what I believed in. It was really challenging for me as a kid. So I think that also drove me to get recognition, success, and work too much. So I'm definitely way better than that. I'm a recovering workaholic. I don't really have sugar, alcohol, drugs. None of that really kind of grabs me. I mean, if I have one drink, I'm like, whoa, that's way too much. And now my aura ring tells me I've been a bad boy if I drink. So I don't. I don't really drink too much.

What have been some key experiences or insights or aha moments that have helped you kind of step away and say, wow, okay, this drive for achievement has been fantastic. It's allowed me to create a lot of things. I've been successful. I've been able to provide opportunity for a lot of people. I employ a lot of people. And, you know, I need to pull back a little bit because when I'm too much into it. So yeah, what would have been some of those distinctions that have helped you kind of see it a little bit more in context and not just be driven by that addiction to work.

Yeah, I mean, I think a couple things. One, you're just getting older, you get smarter.

I don't want to pay attention to not getting smarter.

But two, I think, you know, that's the hope.

That's the hope.

That's true. That's true. I would say that's true. I think my real aha was when I got very sick about five years ago and I was like, I can't continue to do this at this pace. I can't keep pushing. and I really had to peel back and I sort of limited my practice more. I helped, you know, create a program at Cleveland Clinic that I've really been able to now move to a more senior role in advising and strategy. I've definitely taken a lot more time for myself and I realized, you know, when I was about to turn 60, I needed to design a life that I didn't have to recover from, that I wasn't exhausted. I remember, you know, just going to Cleveland Clinic every month and going to my practice every month and running around the country lecturing, teaching, doing all this stuff, writing books. And it just, I was burnt out and I just needed to pause. So in a way, COVID forced me to do that. And then I got to reevaluate what I wanted to do afterwards and how I want my life to be, what matters to me, what I want to think about, who I want to be with, what I want to do. And someone said, oh, you want to start a clinic in Florida? not really. I want to change the world. And so I want to go to Washington and change policies that will affect every practice in America. That we'll get food paid for by insurance companies and change medical education and change our dietary guidelines and change food labeling and change the SNAP program and encourage regenerative agriculture and do the things that I think are going to have, you know, greater impact than me, you know, just one-on-one patient care, which I love and I still do. but I just, instead of doing it.

All the time, I sort of refocused my efforts. I think that's fitting for the next phase of your life. Sometimes there was a, it sounds a little crazy, but there was a psychic medium that I met many years ago and he saw something that I posted. And I'm not seeking out psychics or anything like that, but I'm not closed off to it. I've seen a lot of different things. One of my friends had a really great session with him, so I said, okay, great. Let me try it. And it was really insightful. And one day, fast forward many months later on, he saw me write something on social media where I was talking about, oh, you know, it's important to something, something like make it happen, right? It was about the theme of the post was about making it happen. And he sent me a DM and he said, Hey, brother, I just want to let you know that sometimes in life it's make it happen, other times in life it's watch it happen, and other times in life it's let it happen. So it's like not everything has to get done by us rolling up our sleeves and always putting in the work. Sometimes we're putting out an inspirational message that leads to transformation that other people are causing.

You know, that's really true, Drew. I've noticed that. I think the less I try to make it happen and let it happen, the more things are happening just automatically as a result of me really focusing on, you know, just being in the world in a way that encourages things, but not having to force everything anymore.

No, absolutely. And actually, I misspoke on the last part. So it's make it happen, let it happen, watch it happen. And life is a combination of all those things and not any, you know, too much emphasis on one of them. All right, Mark, we're about halfway through this podcast. We got a few more questions that we got for you. And this one's a fun one, another yellow, and it is, what do you miss about being a kid?

Oh, wow.

You know what I miss about being a kid is, is like, you know, like, summer vacation was this time when you had, like, no responsibility. Like, there was no work. There was nothing you had to do. You had to play. It was like play was, was like an acceptable, unacceptable behavior. And essentially, I just love that. I loved going to camp. I love riding my bike. I loved going on retreats, I love just the sort of abandonment of all to-dos, you know? And I think, you know, nobody's gonna say on their tombstone, you know, Dr. Hyman got everything done on his to-do list today, this before he died.

And so what does it look like for you right now? 'Cause I know you talk about this a lot. What does that look like for you to tap back into that? You know, how do you incorporate play into your life in today's world?

I mean, I do a lot of things. I mean, I, definitely dance a lot, friends. We have gatherings, for example, next weekend, there's a gathering of a bunch of friends at a farm up in upstate New York. And, you know, it's just a beautiful group of people that love to hang out and, you know, do theater and music and dance and we do saunas, we go swimming and we just hang out and have fun. It's really very intentional about just being present, not on our phones, not really just, you know, focus on the kinds of things that are really not really enlivening our souls. So I feel really excited about this time in my life when I can actually start to cultivate these times of real play.

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of the things that bring me joy that are pretty simple and straightforward. It's just that I got to be more intentional with my schedule and planning and also putting it out there to the people that I want to do it with. And one of the things that brings me the most amount of joy is that Typically, every year my family would go on a vacation together. And I have a pretty big family, and I'm talking about my media family, like parents, sisters, their husbands, their nephew, nieces, and my wife. And some of my most magical experiences would be the dinners that we would all cook together. And before we would start cooking, everybody would grab their cell phone, and the kids would go around in a little basket, and they'd put their cell phones, iPads in there, and they'd go lock it up and put it away in the other room. So we have this entire meal that we're getting a chance to prepare together. and not only cook together, which is a bonding experience in its own, but also eat. And then at the dinner table, again, much like these questions, I'm big into questions, which is why I was super into today's theme for the episode. We just go around the table and ask something. It's amazing how even your own parents, there's basic stuff about their life that you've never thought about asking and their answers will continue to surprise you. You know, one of the things that I often, try to think about is I try to make sure that I don't think that I know somebody too well. Like even you, Mark, you're my business partner, but I try to always imagine, what is there something new that I can discover about you? Because the second that I say that I already know you, I'm less curious about wanting to get to know you.

Yeah, for sure.

On that note, we have a few more questions here. So we're gonna go to the next one. What characteristic do you most admire in others?

Honesty, integrity. I think that's just like straightforwardness. I think a lot of times we are taught, and I was certainly taught to, you know, just kind of, and not always tell the truth, you know? And I think, and when it can be subtle, it could be like either over-exaggerating, under-exaggerating, it can be not meeting things, it can be, not being direct and honest about your feelings and experiences and emotions. So people who can just be fully themselves, be transparent, honest, and be kind in it, that's very attractive to me.

I have a few more questions over here, Mark. This one over here, what is the greatest struggle you've overcome?

I think in the context of my whole life, the thing that I'm really proud of that really helped me do the work I do was succumbing to this horrible disease called chronic fatigue syndrome. For me, it was caused by a host of things, from mercury poisoning to mold, to tick infections. And I just, you know, it could have taken me down. I could have just quit my job. There were times when I thought I was going to go on disability and just, you know, I was going to kind of go on disability for the rest of my life because I couldn't function. and I just felt like my life was over. I felt suicidal at times. Because you're just like, imagine not sleeping for two days and feeling like that all the time. And never, even if you sleep, you don't feel better. And then you're achy, tired, brain fog, my gut was a mess. And really, I'm most proud of sticking to and being tenacious about learning about functional medicine and learning how to unpack it, learning how to heal myself. before I was just so, so struggling with this condition that most people would have given up on. So I'm really proud that I stuck with it. And now it's really become my whole life. And I'm, I've really been the advocate for functional medicine because I saw what it could do for me. I saw what it does for my patients. And I really, I really want to get out there in the world. And I can tell you, it's just so exciting to be in Washington this week, Drew, talking to the White House Senators, Congressman, and really, you know, hearing people talk about food as a medicine. And I have them lobbying me, and it was hysterical. Like, there were a of Senators or Congressmen who were just wouldn't stop talking and all they want to talk about was like food is medicine and what we need to do and regenerate. I'm like, wow, okay. So all that hard work, all that effort, you know, I think that has paid off and now it's really become part of healthcare and part of our national conversation. Well, there's a lot of work to.

Be done there and I appreciate you dedicating a huge portion of your life and your energy right now to it. You know, we're all going to benefit from the progress that's made there. All right, let's keep on going with the themes of some of these questions over here. What is the best advice you've ever received?

I think the best piece of advice was, you know, I grew up in a family where my stepfather was very angry, was a rageaholic. He went through his own childhood trauma and It was all, you know, it's not blaming here or anything, but it was a really tough environment. And my mother really taught me to lie. She taught me to manage people's emotions by not telling the truth and by avoiding conflict. And so I met a friend in my 40s who really encouraged me to tell the truth about everything and to be in integrity and to have straightforwardness and honesty. to myself first and then to my friends and my partners, my community. And that really has changed me because before I thought I had to kind of manage people's emotions and manage people's reactions and not get like the blowback of someone got upset. And so shifting that has really changed a lot about, you know, how I believe in what I've done and has really helped me move forward in a way that allows me to have more integrity and be more straightforward. So that piece of advice about being honesty and integrity, I think is hard. It's hard to do for many of us. And there are white lies, all kinds of lies. I think there are seven different kinds of lies. But, you know, there's omission or exaggeration or under exaggeration or outright lies or whatever. So I think we are really in a moment where we can start to move into a state of more truthfulness in society in a way that's kind, that's honest and direct. That's really, kind of one of my life lessons that's really helped me have better relationships, be happy, better at work and be better in every area of my life.

For anybody who's listening who wants to take a step in that direction and wants to get better at that, are there any resources that you would share with them?

Sure. I mean, you know, my friend was Lauren Zander and she created a program called Inner U, which is available online. It's like enter with a capital U. You can just Google it, you'll find it, we'll put it in the show notes. But essentially it's a self-guided curriculum on how to build integrity in your life in every area of your life, whether it's your health, money, relationships, your kids, spirituality, and that really makes a huge difference for people.

That's great, amazing. All right, Mark, a couple more questions over here. We have another yellow. and that is, what is your biggest fear in life and why does it frighten you?

You know, my biggest fear in life is not being able to do what I want to do, like having physical limitations, my body as I get older. So I try to stay fit, active, but when something happens to me like my back, I definitely felt fear come up and then I kind of manage it, but it's really the sense of, you know, as we get older, can we still do all the things we love to do? I want to go skiing, I want to go, you know, water skiing, I want to hike mountains, I want to do all kinds of fun stuff, biking, and I don't want my body to not let me do that. So I think that's probably my biggest fear because you mentioned about addiction. I think I'm also kind of addicted to being active. So I really like it and it makes me feel good and I want to do more of it. And so if I have a vacation, what I want to do is exercise three hours a day. That's the part that scares me the most.

Yeah, well, just a follow-up question because again, we start off at the top of the podcast talking about you're taking this podcast, laying down in your bed, your back has been acting up, you had a little injury from scuba diving. Were you feeling any sort of sense of fear coming up with this recent injury?

Yeah, I really look forward to a summer of real being very active, I've had to just calm things down. So, yeah, I'm going to have fear that I won't be able to do the things I want to do and go where I want to go and, you know, just be the leader I want to be in the food space. So just because I have to kind of chill more. So, yeah, I think it's come up, but I'm pretty good at listening to my own head. And, you know, I think my friend Daniel Lehman talks about ants, you know, automatic negative thoughts. and how we kind of have to manage those and also about how not listening to every stupid thought you have because we have a lot of stupid thoughts. So this morning, I actually, I managed it. I woke up early, I wrote my, I had a journal, I kind of talked it out with myself and I'm not feeling a lot better.

Yeah, and going back to one of our other questions that we had, which is how good are you at asking for help? Well, maybe now will also be a good opportunity for you to practice that a little bit more in this interim while you're getting on the men's to feel better again to be active, you can ask for help and count me in that corner of somebody that you can rely on.

Well, I have so many. My partner, Brianna, my friends, my kids, I mean, you are so many people. So I don't feel isolated or alone and all in that. And I, you know, like I said, I don't like to ask for help, but I know if I need it, it's there.

What is your definition of success? You know, you mentioned earlier, you were talking about some family members who you were looking at their life and you were feeling like, You know, from your perspective, again, they were living a life that maybe wasn't taking advantage of their full potential. So when you think about success and living a successful life, what's your definition of it?

I mean, it's, yeah, for me, it's being fulfilled and integrity in every area of your life, right? Physically, emotionally, spiritually, your purpose, meaning, contribution, love. I mean, at this point in my life, I think it's really, you know, success I define as, is the degree to which I can express and, and give and receive love in my life. So that's, that's kind of a different definition than most people think about. But it's definitely, it's definitely right up there for me in terms of what, what I, what I care about now. So, I mean, I don't need to write another bestselling book. I don't need to make more money, I don't need to like, you know, have more kids, I don't need to like, there's none of the check marks that I, a lot of people have at different stages of their life I have to do anymore. And so to me, it's really about the quality of my community, the quality of my health, the quality of my life is how I define success. It's very, very disconnected from money. You know, like taking a walk on the beach costs nothing. And maybe you have to get to the beach, pay for the gas, but you know, it's like, Basically, the things that I love to do are more or less free and they're things that nourish me in terms of nature and community. That's the most important thing we can cultivate for long-term health and happiness.

All right, Mark, here's a fun question. What is the most miraculous thing that's ever happened to you? Miraculous.

Miraculous. That's a big question. Miraculous. How do you define miraculous?

It's your question.

What's a miracle? Oh, God.

Being born. That's one.

Yeah, I literally was gonna say that. That was what I was gonna say. You know, actually, honestly, that probably was one of the most miraculous things that happened to me. And it wasn't that long ago where, you know, I've been running for decades since I'm 20, just driving hard, working hard, going to school, being a doctor, being a father. spreading the world of functional medicine out there. And I decided to take a break and I went for a month by myself to this cabin. And the miracle that happened there was I realized I was just happy with nothing. Like, I didn't have my phone, computer, barely any books, just nature, me and myself. And I got to sit with myself. And I tell a bunch of people I was doing them like, you,'re crazy. I'd be terrified to go sit with myself for a month. Actually, what happened was the opposite of what you might expect. Rather than being lonely and isolated and disconnected, I felt way more connected, way more in deep relationship with myself, way more connected to life, way more connected to nature. I was up in a little house in Vermont at the base of this mountain and I just felt so ecstatically alive and that I didn't need anything. To me, that was a miracle because most of us think we need so much to be happy. We need money, we need this, we need people, success. And the truth is that, you know, there's a place inside of each of us that's whole. And so for me, getting that place where I didn't need anything and I could just be in this incredible miracle of being alive and being in relation with creation, that actually was kind of a miracle. I was like, wow, this is so good. And then I just been sort of on a high ever since.

That's beautiful. I remember you telling me about going on that adventure and it sounded like, It sounded like the perfect time in your life and it also sounded like one of those things that everybody says that they would love to do but genuinely brings up a lot of fear for them. So how many people actually end up doing it?

Well, I mean, just to be honest, like I, the first week or so, it was hard. I was like, Where's my phone? Where are my people? How come I'm not getting messages? Who loves me? I don't like being alone. It's like all this stuff came up, you know, but I kind of settled through it. It's like, you know, when you do meditation, you sit there. And at first, five, some 10 minutes, your monkey mind is going crazy, and then you settle in and you get in this deep, peaceful state and serenity.

And that's kind of what- what was the inspiration? What was the thing that you watched, read, saw, heard about that prompted that?

Well, I don't know if you know this, but I actually was inspired most of my beliefs or the framework for how I thought about how I wanted to live my life. most of my inspiration when I was younger came from a book called Walden by Henry Thoreau, who was a transcendentalist in the 1800s. And he went to a cabin on Walden Pond and lived there for two years, I mean two years, a month, by himself with nothing, with a pen and paper. They didn't have phones, didn't have TVs, didn't have anything. And he just wrote about it and he just wrote beautifully about life and about the importance of being alive and the simplicity of life and the benefits of that simplicity. And that really kind of influenced me. So I think I've always sort of dreamt of doing that. I had once lived in a little yurt when I was in college and had a lot of that time. But I also felt inspired because I wanted to kind of reset my life. I wanted to get away from the fact of sort of this need for achievement or the need for success or the need for recognition or the need for anything, anybody, a partner, a friend, anything. Just how am I enough by myself? So I got to this place where I just got to be enough and that was it. And now everything in life is gravy. So it's kind of good.

I love you sharing that, Mark. And I think the version that's the takeaway for people who are listening is that your version of that this coming weekend could be just, hey, maybe go for one day without your phone. And if there's anything urgent, you know, you can check your messages every once in a while, but largely for most people, you can get by without a phone. And if you have a phone in your house, people can call that for an emergency and just try to go one day, just one day with no phone and not watching the news and see how that starts to feel. That's a little mini Walden retreat for anybody who wants to, you know, do that, a digital detox.

Well, actually, it's interesting Drew, you say that, but on the podcast, I don't know if it's released yet, but I did a podcast with Colin O'Brady who by himself skied across Antarctica. It was like 54 days carrying everything unsupported. And he talked about that experience. And then he wrote a book called 12-Hour Walk, which is inviting all of us, whether you can walk or not, you can sit, you can ride your bike. Being alone, without any kind of input, just yourself for 12 hours in nature. What that does to you is really remarkable. And most of us never give ourselves that moment. We're constantly putting inputs from our phone, from the TV, from the noise, this, that. Just giving yourself that time to be human is so transformational. And on September 10th, he's inviting the whole country to do a 12-hour walk. Well, you know, and it can be 10 steps where you sit half the time, but it's basically just Being in that space with yourself in that sacred solitude.

Beautiful. Okay, one more fun one and then a last concluding question. So this question is, have you ever seen something you cannot explain or you could not have explained?

Oh, yes. Yes, this is a great story. I was 20 years old. and, you know, I think, you know, we all, you know, we all sort of tend to have some type of spiritual, like beliefs, most of us. Some people are atheists and don't believe in anything, but most of us feel connected to something greater than ourselves, right? This isn't just all there is. And, and a lot of us belief, because we can't, we can't have a direct experience of it. Now, some of us do, and there are mystics that do, and, you know, can't talk for anybody else, but I certainly have. And then I went to this conference, it was called, I think it was called the School of Spiritual Healing, and there are all these different characters there. There was rabbis and priests and, you know, Sufis and Buddhists, and one of the guys was Wallace Black Elk, who was a Native American medicine man. He was the grandson of Black Elk, who was a very famous Lakota medicine man. And I learned, and I was 20, and I could learn how to make sweat lodges. And I volunteered to help build sweat lodges and to keep the fire going on the sweat lodges. And so we basically did all this prep, and we heated the rocks and the fire. And for those who don't know sweat lodges, it's like basically like a tent in the ground with a big pit in the middle, and you cook rocks up really hot, a fire, and then you bring the rocks in and you put water on them. It's like a sauna, basically. It's a Native American purification ritual. And so at the end of the night, it was like two in the morning, and I had been helping all night, and I built the sweat, so I knew what they were made of and all that. And there was a gourd that they used, like a rattle, and it basically is a gourd, which is like a squash, and there's some bean, dried beans inside, and it's sort of like on a stick, and you kind of shake it, it's a rattle. And then we basically went in after everybody was done with all the sweat lodges, they invited all the keepers of the fire, which was me and a few other guys, to go into a sweat lodge with all the other leaders of all the other four sweats. So it was all the Native American medicine men. And then I'm sitting in there and all of a sudden, that's pitch black, you can't see your face. If you put your hand in front of your face, you can't see your hand. And this started sort of shaking the rattle and singing in Lakota. And also the rattle started glowing and lighting up. I'm like, wow, that is crazy. Because there is no battery in that one. I had it in my hand, I know what it is. So that was very, couldn't explain it. And then a few minutes later he's talking, but not in English in Lakota, but he's not talking to anybody in this way. He's like, he's talking to somebody else. and then he stopped and he's like, translates. He says, well, I was talking to the thunder spirits and they said it's going to thunder four times and then it's going to rain. I was like, yeah, you know, that's a little far-fetched but then it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, rain. I'm like, oh my God, I don't understand everything going on in the world. I definitely don't know what's happening, but I cannot explain this and it's got to be something else. So that kind of got me to, just kind of have a deeper sense of relaxation about being in the world because I kind of got that there's more to the world than the eye can see and it's probably a deeper spiritual story here that we're all connected to.

Yeah, wow, what a wild story experience and also kind of like mind-blowing in the way of not being so confined to what our mind thinks that the world is and isn't. I super appreciate that story.

And different people have different experiences and there's been coincidences and there's things that you can't explain. They seem like, oh wow, you think of somebody and they show up or you think of somebody and they call or just like the right thing happens at the right moment. That happens to me all the time. But you kind of, you know, you can go, I don't know, maybe there's something bigger sorting everything out. But that thing with the thunder and the rattle, I could not explain it. I couldn't explain it away.

Well, there's a fun little book that's written by one of your friends, Deepak Chopra. And honestly, it's one of my favorite books of his. It's called the Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. And inside the book, Deepak goes through a lot of the world of sort of quantum physics, but also he does it through storytelling of his life and all these coincidences that happened throughout his life that led to him doing everything that he does. And it's just told in a way where you hear his story and you're like, wow, I've had a similar experience to that. And then he tells you a little bit about some of the mechanisms and the things that could be going on in the background. It's a fun little book. If anybody wants to dive deeper into this area and read a little bit more about it, that's a book that I'd recommend.

We can link to it in the show notes.

Yeah, very fun. All right, Mark, last question over here. It's red, that means closest. That means these are the deep questions. So, you're writing a book on longevity, you got many, many years, knock on wood and all those things that are there. You have a long life to live with a lot more best-selling books, podcasts, all that other good stuff. So this question is very much for the future, which is, how do you wish to be remembered?

Sure. I'll quote Aaron. I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. Or I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I want to live on in my apartment. So I think the reality is, I think, you know, I feel like if I just, you know, Common, which is a rap singer, is a beautiful song. And there's a line in there that basically says, you know, where are you going to put your one grain of spiritual sand? on the universal scales of humanity. And for me, I think, you know, like this week was an example for me of where I put my grain of sand. And I don't have any illusions that, you know, I'm going to change the world or do anything dramatic, but if I can just make the world a little bit better place, just help one more person, you know, it's just like, just make somebody's life a little bit better. That's how I would like to be remembered.

If we want to be happier, we should really be investing in experiences, not things. In part for, it's actually lots of reasons. One is that things stick around and you kind of get bored with them over time. Bad feature of human nature is that we're a subject to adaptation. We kind of just get used to stuff. But most experiences don't last long enough. If you go to a good concert or you take a vacation, I don't know about your vacations, but mine aren't long enough. They're not like a new car or an iPhone. It's not going to stick around for very long. and that means they're not subject to adaptation. But a bigger thing is that experiences seem to connect us socially in ways that material possessions don't. It's hard to have a fun conversation about your new phone with a friend, right? But if you went on a cool vacation or you saw a cool concert, you can talk to people. Experiences let you connect with other folks. They also form part of our identity. If you kind of learn a new language or go to this cool concert, that's kind of part of you, but you look like a jerk if what's part of you is like a really cool coat or like a really nice pair of shoes. It's kind of a sucky thing to have as part of your identity. So yeah, so I think that's just one of many different tips that come from the literature that sort of violate our intuition. We think like a good buy is something that's going to stick around and that will last for a long time.

But in practice, well-being wise, that's just not how it works. Yeah, so you've been studying data-driven happiness, which is pretty awesome. And I don't think people, most people think that even exists as a field, but that as your field. I wonder if you've looked at Bhutan, which measures this gross national happiness. And I've been to Bhutan, and it's an incredible place where most people are far, far less well off materially than we are. We really have very, very little in terms of possessions or material goods, very, very basic life. And yet, the level of happiness is off the chart compared to the rest of the world. Can you share a little bit about that, what you've learned from it, and what insights we might have about our own happiness?

Yeah, I think there's lots of variance across countries in terms of happiness, where some folks self-report, and different countries self-report really high happiness, whereas right now in the US, not so much. It doesn't correlate with the stuff you think it correlates with, like material wealth overall in a country. It does correlate with some structural factors, like inequality, it turns out, is really bad for happiness. It's one of the reasons I think the US takes such a hit, is that we're such an unequal nation. but it really seems to hang on different countries' practices. And so surprisingly, Bhutan's up there, but not like one of the highest ones. The highest ones tend to be sort of Scandinavian countries, you know, think Denmark, Sweden, that kind of thing. Places like Costa Rica, so really close-knit Latin American countries are pretty good. And they tend to have a couple of features in common, right? I mean, first kind of getting to a lot of the stuff you talk about on your podcast, they tend to be eating stuff that's like, you know, really close to the plant sources and like comes from their kind of native environment and stuff. They also tend to spend a lot of time being social, so they have rich community ties, lots of other oriented behavior. But they're also kind of present, like they spend a lot of time savoring, you know, like being in the present moment. Like, you know, Scandinavian countries have this idea of hygge, you know, the H-Y-G-G-E that a lot of folks have made a lot of, which is like kind of comfort and take savoring in these cold months. And so, Those are the kinds of practices that we know empirically seems to boost that well-being.

So savoring, that is quite a concept. It's something that we are not good at. We rush through our life, we rush through our food, we rush through experiences, and we don't actually stop and smell the roses. Essentially what you're talking about is just be. We're human doings, not human beings, for the most part. And then happiness comes from actually just being and noticing and and watching and sitting. And, you know, I was interviewing Senator Bill Frist, who was the former Senate Majority Leader, and he was telling me about sitting on his porch on his farm up in rural Tennessee and just noticing what was going on in front of him, the birds, the bees, the animals, the leaves, the trees. I mean, just all the things that were going on all the time that he never took a moment to savor. And now that we're all sort of stopped, locked down, and have more spaciousness in our life, It is a time of more savoring. And I think, while it's also a time of incredible stress for so many, I think it also is waking us up to, wow, do we want to go back to normal? Because maybe the normal that we had is not what is going to create the most well-being or happiness for us. And I think that's really striking to me. And you also share a little bit.

About.

The attributes and behavioral actions that you can take to actually create happiness. And now more than ever in this time of COVID-19, I think a lot of us are struggling. And you talked about simple practices like gratitude, for example. Talk about gratitude and why that is so much better than commiserating. Like, oh yeah, our life's miserable. And you know, like, misery loves company, that whole thing. I think how does gratitude provide an antidote to that? And how do you even practice gratitude?

Yeah, I mean, I love bringing up this idea of misery loves company because I think when we hear that quote, we think well, you know, when you get misery, you kind of love it, but I think it's the opposite. It's like when one person's miserable, there's emotional contagion, right? Like other people pick up your misery. So, and you probably felt that if you're around somebody who like gripes all the time, you know, that can feel depleting when you're around them like that. And so gratitude is kind of the opposite. It's just this emotion where you're taking time to count your blessings, just feeling thankful for the good things in your life. And happy people, the research suggests, do that naturally. So people with high self-reported happiness, tend to spontaneously bring to mind all the things that they're grateful for, which suggests that it could be powerful. And so now you need an experiment, you need to force people to experience gratitude and to think about things they're grateful for. And the research shows that if you get people to do that, say just like scribble down three to five things they're grateful for at the end of the day, all of a sudden their happiness starts to increase. In fact, you can get significant increases in happiness within about two weeks. And so then there's a question of why does it work? And I think It works for a couple reasons. One is that gratitude feels really good, but there's also evidence that as a social emotion, it's kind of doing something evolutionarily. I think this is something we forget, that our emotions aren't these like annoying things that kind of stick around and make us feel good or bad. They're like for something. And research suggests that gratitude is for what like researchers call self-regulation, right? It's there because you want to like help someone. It's there for cooperation, which sometimes means forgoing your own benefit to help someone else. And there's studies suggesting that people who feel more grateful or if you can make someone feel grateful, they're more likely to do things that benefit their future selves. So they're more likely to save for retirement in these little experimental scenarios. They're more likely to choose things that allow them to eat healthier over time because it feels like less of a sacrifice. Gratitude gets us to be a little bit more future-oriented. So not only does it feel good and boost our well-being, It also helps us make healthier choices in general in life too. And it's totally free. Another thing I love about all these interventions, you don't have to buy anything. You don't have to buy a gratitude app or something like that. It's just you just think stuff and it just can be completely free and a nice boost for your well-being. Like a little gratitude journal, one of the three things. Yeah, you can get a nice notebook, but you can also just scribble it down on scrap paper, just think about it. And so yeah, I think that's that's another kind of way that a lot of this work is sort of anti-capitalist, right? It's like if you really understand what the science is telling you, no one's going to make money off this stuff. Most of these tips are just completely free.

Yeah, it's not about buying more stuff to be happy. It's about being and noticing. I remember being really unhappy as a teenager and early on in college. And I remember sitting down with my best friend and his little apartment and had a futon and pretty much nothing else in a few clothes on the floor. And he said, Mark, he said, you know, if you have enough food to eat and clothes on your back and a roof over your head, the rest is gravy. The rest is gravy. And that little mantra has guided me and it shifted my whole perspective about life. So everything is gravy pretty much. And for some people, they don't have enough food, they don't have a house, they don't have enough clothes and that's fine. And then those are the sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. once you've got those met and for the most part, most of us do, then everything else can be perceived as a blessing or as gravy. And if we do that, it really changes the quality of our experience, the quality of our happiness, the quality of our interrelating with the world. And I think I never thought of it before, but you're right. When you come from that frame, you're more likely to be engaged with others in a positive way, more likely to be of service, more likely to think about creating goodness for others in your life. And that's a very also powerful strategy which seems paradoxical. Why would being of service and helping others actually lead to happiness? It just seems doesn't make sense to most people.

Yeah, totally. I think it's like me, me, me.

Me, me instead of you, you, you, you, right?

Exactly. And I think it's our own personal intuitions, but it's also the culture, right? You know, like especially now in the context of coronavirus, like if you look online, it's like, well, treat yourself during the crisis or self-care, like self-self-self. And again, if you look at those findings, and again, what the findings do is they just go out and find happy people. Like researchers find these happy folks and like, what are you doing? And they find like, oh, that maybe that's what we should all be doing. And when you look at actually happy people, they're not focused on themselves. They're doing nice stuff for others. So controlled for income, happy people give more to charity than unhappy and controlled for, it's hard to control for it, but controlled for sort of set amounts of time, happy people are volunteering, giving their time more to other people too. And then, so now that's like a correlation, now you do the research where you say, okay, let's force not so happy people to do nice stuff for others and see if that bumps up their well-being. And when you do that, when you force people to give more money to charity say, what you find is that they get happier over time. And that's true no matter what your income level. In fact, Liz Dunn, who's a professor at UBC, has some data that Even if you go to rural parts of the world where people can't put food on the table, if they're donating more money to charity even in that horrible financial situation, they're happier than if they're not. And so there seems to be something really fundamental about becoming other-oriented, like doing nice stuff for others. And I think it kind of comes out of this attitude of like, if you can really share with others, it sort of convinces you that you have enough yourself, you know, and it forms really strong social relationships, right? Like you kind of can believe that you're in this web of a community that's kind to protect one another. You know you have other social connections that you could go to when you're down, you know? And so it can be, again, we don't realize the power of it. And I don't realize the power of it, right? Like I teach this class, I know all these findings. If I'm having a super bad day, my instinct is like, you know, I'm gonna, you know, do something nice for myself or buy something or have a good experience myself, like get a massage or something. I'm not thinking, let me gift a co-worker a massage. Like, yeah, I know I'm supposed to do that now, but that's just not, natural intuition. But if you want to be happier, we have to overcome those natural intuitions to kind of follow what the science suggests.

Yes, true. You went to Harvard and there was a guy there, E.O. Wilson, who I'm sure maybe you took a class with, did you?

Yeah, I not only took a class, but my freshman year of college, I took a class with him. And I got so excited that I went to his office hours at this like kind of doe-eyed two-weekend freshman. I think he thought I had something important to talk with him about and I didn't. And so he was like, well, can I show you pictures from my recent trip to Japan? Because I just got them. I sat with Yo Wilson, he showed me pictures of his trip to Japan.

Yeah, he's fantastic. Well, he wrote a book called the Social Conquest of the Earth about the interdependence we all have on each other for survival. A human being out by himself in the world or herself won't last very long without our social networking community. And we are so interdependent on each other. and most of us don't realize it. And I think now more than ever with COVID-19, we're realizing that our behaviors impact our entire community, our family, our nation, our global pandemic, and that's why in some ways we're staying home is not just to protect ourselves, but for the social contract we have. And I think that is incredibly ingrained in us from an evolutionary point of view. And also from a biological point of view, it's fascinating to see the benefits of altruism. from as a doctor, I've studied, you know, what are the benefits of altruism on the brain? And it seems to activate the same reward centers in the brain as heroin or cocaine or all the sugar. So, you know, rather eating a cookie, you know, do some for somebody else and you'll get a hit of dopamine and pleasure that is much better for you and longer lasting. So I think this, these acts of service, how, how would you, how would you sort of guide your students and people who are listening into ways of acting that can activate this and are doable for people in their average daily lives. Yeah, I mean one of the ways to convince people is just honestly to.

Show them the science, right? Like I think people kind of understand the evidence. If you see the graph of your well-being, if you're regularly doing acts of service, you're like, well, I want to be there on the graph, not here on the graph, so let me bump this up. But then I think you just need kind of practical tips. And I think right now there's this really interesting opportunity in this context of this crisis to do more stuff for other people, right? Many of us are experiencing one of two different windfalls right now. So some of us have a tiny financial windfall, right? Like we're not paying to go out to eat as much, we're not buying our morning coffee, you're not paying gas.

For our commute, right? Although my wife made me buy a latte machine, that was like a, that took a hit on that one.

Well, for those that don't, those that are, you know, but we forget, I mean, just like, you know, four bucks a day or something, right? Like, that could go to help a local business, like that could go to, you know, help someone in need. But even if you're not having a financial windfall right now, and, you know, latte machines aside, many of us are not, right? You know, stocks are plummeting, people are losing jobs and things. But sometimes even people in those situations have a different windfall, which is a temporal windfall, right? Like, they're having a little bit more time, you know, maybe you're not spending spending time on a long commute to work or maybe you're not working, right? Like what can you do to use that time to help other people? Can you call an elderly neighbor or call a friend? Can you advocate for PPE for healthcare workers or do something political if you don't like the way this crisis is playing out? Contact someone about it. These momentary little windfalls can be used for positive effect to help other people. We just forget that that's there and there's like a little bit of a startup cost, right? If I have a little bit of free time, it's just easier to plop on social media or read something stupid, but you could actually use it for something that's much more, in some sense, nutritious for your well-being. I use a lot of metaphors about food because I think, again, there's this kind of opportunity cost. Some ways of spending our time and some behaviors are a little bit more nutritious for our well-being than others. It doesn't mean we always have to make the nutritious choice, but if we're not feeding ourselves nutritious behaviors at least some of the time, Yeah, there's gonna be a problem.

I love that idea. It's sort of like nourish happiness. How do you nourish happiness? It's such a great concept. And most of us don't think about that directly. And I think, you know, you mentioned social media and I know in your class you tell your students for time being to delete all their social media accounts as an experiment. And why is that important and what do they find and what is your experience?

Yeah, I mean, so often in full the real truth, there's actually not much really good data on social media and whether it affects happiness, mostly because we can't do the right experiments, right? There's no control condition. There's not like, you know, college students today that have not interacted with social media and don't want to, right? Like, it just doesn't exist. We've inadvertently put these tools in the pockets of six billion people without really understanding how they're going to affect our lives, our well-being, our attention, all this stuff, right? But, and also with a caveat that social media is just a tool, right, that we could use for all kinds of different things. The problem is that the way we tend to use it allows us to do things that don't look a lot like the behaviors we know map onto happiness. So take social connection, you know, one of the things that we know is super important for happiness. In theory, these tools should be great for social connection, but in practice they're often at the opportunity cost of social connection. You know, I remember sitting in a restaurant looking over at different tables of families who all have their, you know, Together as a family in this setting that for, you know, millennia has been used to allow humans to connect really closely with the people they care about, and they're all privately on their own devices doing things, right?

Yeah.

I just wanted to tell you a quick story before you go on. I went to Google to give a talk, and I got a tour after, and I walked around, and there was a lunchroom. And, you know, when I met with the human resources folks there, they said one of the most important requests was, for more connection with each other. They felt isolated, alone, and they wanted more interaction and connection. So I walked around campus and over lunch, I walked into this room where everyone was sitting on a couch on their computers. It must have been 30 Googlers, they call them. And I'm like, is this the silent lunchroom? And they're like, no, it's not. And they were all literally sitting next to each other on their computers, disconnected from each other. And it was just the most funny, strange experience.

And it's not just Google. I mean, this was one of my most shocking observations when I became a new head of college is that I walked into the dining hall, which in college I remember is like the loudest place on campus, you know what I mean? And it's not so much that it's dead quiet, but it kind of feels more like a library because they all have, you know, these big Bose headphones on and they're little things. They're sitting at tables all together completely disconnected. And then you have, you know, 65% of college students report feeling very lonely most days, right? And they're around hundreds of other people that they could connect with, but the startup cost of having that first conversation can be tough and it's just much easier to kind of go online. So I think of a lot of the kind of social connection we get on social media, sort of the mutual suite of social connection. It kind of feels like it's sort of like that and it's easier to get and stuff. But the other thing is that we know that not social media per se, but I think just devices in general, because I think you don't have to be on Facebook, like your email, like games, like the internet, like all the stupid stuff on our phone is just as much of a culprit in stealing our attention. These things are known to affect sleep, right, in part because of things like blue light before we go to bed, but just the attentional opportunity cost of like, I know I'm supposed to go to sleep, but I just want to scroll through one more page of Reddit, right? Like, again, these things might feel fun, but there can be a real opportunity cost. One of the things we teach about in class is this funny feature of the brains that there's like this interesting disconnect between the stuff that we really like in the world, like the stuff I would say we find really nutritious, we really get some benefit out of, and the stuff that we want. Like there are literally different circuits in the brain for wanting and liking, which you see dissociate most strongly in the context of addiction, right? So like an active heroin addict really craves, really wants a drug, but when they finally get it, You know, they're habituated to it. So their reward system doesn't even fire for it that much because they don't even like it that much. And then I see disconnects of the opposite way, right? There's stuff that we really like in the world, you know, I think a really hard cardio session or, you know, like, like putting the work in to have a really nutritious meal or gratitude or social connection, all this stuff we're talking about. But we don't like have circuits that crave it, right?

Like there's not, you know, our dopamine.

System kind of misses that, right? And so- People get addicted to exercise. I know I'm like that. If I don't do it, I get depressed.

That's true.

I think there's a big individual difference there. I exercise, but I wish my brain could develop a craving for it. And in the same way, I crave sugar or like, you know, I'm a little addicted to craze. But yeah, so I think we have to, you know, and I think one, but there is one way to hack this system. And that gets to the stuff we were talking about before with Buddhism, that, you know, one way researchers are finding you can hack the system is through mindfulness, right? If after that activity that you find really good, You take a moment to realize, like, huh, when I was scrolling through Reddit, that didn't feel super hot. But like when I had a really nutritious, like deep conversation with a friend that felt better, like when you kind of force your brain to notice that what you're feeling that can kind of remind your dopamine system. Wait, wait, hang on. There is a reward there. Like, let me update what I want to create in the future. And so this practice of mindfulness research by folks like Hedy Kober and colleagues at Yale are showing, like, can help us update the craving system. It can help us kind of come to terms with the fact that Even though I thought I wanted this before, it's actually not as good as I thought. And even though I didn't really think I needed to seek this out, I noticed that it feels good. Maybe I should bump that up in.

My own behavioral repertoire a bit more. So when your students do this digital detox, what do they report? Do they love it? Do they hate it?

Are they feeling they get withdrawal and seizures? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many people report withdrawal at first. I think that's the strongest. Withdrawal, but also noticing their own behavioral tendencies.

People can't even walk into another room without their phone. It's like, I got my phone everywhere I go. And if you don't have it, like if you go to the kitchen or living room, it's like, where's my phone?

It's like a weird thing. It's like an appendage. No, it's super, super hard. For my podcast, I interviewed this woman, Catherine Price, who has this wonderful book called How to Break Up with youh Phone. And she suggests putting a little hair band or an elastic on your phone so that every time you go to use it, you notice this thing and it can just make you a little more mindful of like, wait a minute, I didn't even realize I was picking it up. she has this wonderful acronym she calls WWW, which is like, you know, what for? Why now? What else? You know, what was I even picking up for? You know, why did I need to do it now? And like, what else could I be doing? And, you know, having read her book, now using that technique myself, I can watch it. It's like, you know, what for? It's for nothing. Or it's just, I was just anxious or I just was like momentarily fleetingly bored. Yeah, like even in social situations, you know, like having a conversation with some friends and I have this momentary feeling of boredom and I'm like, Am I already, you know, there's, am I already reaching for the phone? And it's like, is that going to be nutritious in the context of this otherwise good conversation? I think, you know, when you think about evolutionary history, like never in the history of our species have we had a stimulus that's so compelling as this object. Like our brain knows that on the other side of that phone is, you know, every cat video on the internet, my email since 1999, like porn, like, you know, like good recipes, like, you know, politics, and like our president's Twitter feed, like my brain knows that, you know, and it's making opportunity costs to realize, like, I'm having a fun conversation with my husband, but, you know, is that as good as every cat video that could be out there? I don't know. And so, you know, it's taking an attentional cost that I think we don't realize a lot of the time. And I think that cost is stealing us from presence that would normally be.

Bumping up our wellbeing. And those students, are they happy after a little bit, after they go through withdrawal and the seizures?

Yeah, yeah, so some of them, once they get through, often they report just like having just super awareness of it. Like I didn't realize how much I was doing it. Some of them stick with it. A lot of them, you know, like any athlete, go kind of go back to it. But I think hopefully they go back to it with a little bit more mindfulness. Some of them do say that they end up deleting the apps that are most problematic. So that after having done it, it's like, well, I didn't really get rid of Snapchat, because that's my lifeblood, you know, in the college these days. But I kind of got rid of that one video game that was stealing my attention. Or I noticed that Instagram specifically was making me feel bad so I got rid of that. So I think they come out with a little bit more awareness. And that's really the goal. It's not to say shut off your social media forever because that's probably not realistic for most of our lives. Phones and these tools are not going away. It's more just finding a slightly more mindful relationship with some of these devices and techniques.

If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here. There's so much under the surface. But if we understand the basic foundational principles of gut restoration and gut healing, which we've been doing in functional medicine.

For decades, you can make a huge difference in people. Right.

And how you know is that the.

Patients are getting better, right? Yeah. Exactly. It's like, hey, you may not understand how all of.