Managing Your Stress Response with Dr. Greg Kelly & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your question for today is, how do you tap the different levels of the cognitive performance pyramid? And here with me to answer this question, we have Dr. Gregory Kelly. He's a naturopathic physician. He's a product formulator and author. And, uh, Greg, thank you so much for taking your time to talk about this important topic.

Oh, my pleasure. I'm thrilled to be on your show and get an opportunity to share some things with your audience.

Amazing. So you and I were talking, uh, we're geeking out over the brain before we started recording. And one of the things that stood out that I wanted to bring to our community who are real brainiacs, they love to learn, they love to understand how the brain works and most importantly how to work their brain, is we talked about levels and, and, You use the metaphor of like a pyramid, like this framework of a pyramid. What are the different levels and what is this cognitive performance, these levels, this pyramid?

Sure. So when you see essentially like in the DSM-5, when they talk about cognitive domains, so like the collections of cognitive skills, you'll usually see them, maybe the image will be a brain in the center and then little circles surrounding it. So you would have attention, executive function, learning and memory, language, social cognition, and then visual perception. So they're almost all treated as if they're these independent things. And what the pyramid analogy means to me is that some of those things are more foundational and that others are higher up and we can only get to those if we've got the foundation in place. So when I think of, you know, like these cognitive domains, I don't think of, okay, we can just jump right to social cognition. Like my experience is we can't get there if we haven't made sure the other levels of the pyramid have also been taken care of.

Okay. So let's, let's go through these levels in this, in the pyramid. What would be the base, you would say?

For me, the base, usually you'll use the term vigilance. but alertness, right? So that would be like, unless you're awake and alert, you couldn't get to memory, like the methods in your book that would allow you to lock in and really rock with memory. So to me, like that core level is alertness. You got to have that covered, which good sleep is obviously a foundational piece for that. And then the next level after that, I think of is the attention cognitive domain. So those are terms or skills like focus and concentration and ability to lock in and not be distracted. So all of those attentional things, if those aren't in place, then really getting to executive functions, I don't know that we can. So I think of those as the next level up. Like, we really want to make sure that we've got mastery in those areas.

Okay. So you have vigilance, which is the alertness, usually for danger, right? When someone's looking—

So I'm a big fan of Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow and his 2 systems, like his 2 characters. So vigilance would be really— vigilance and attention would be a lot of what would be his System 1 character. So our senses, things that are going to be our largely almost instinctual intelligence would all be in that vigilance. category. So vigilance is going to happen even when we sleep. Our auditory system is going to use a lot of mental energy during sleep to make sure that we're safe.

And people don't realize that, you know, like, I mean, obviously this is core for survival. So we have that alertness and then focus and concentration. And then as you work your way up in this analogy, what would you say is another important level?

So for, in my experience, for most people, then it becomes executive functions. So, and the classic trilogy of executive functions are working memory, inhibition. Inhibition is basically your ability not to do the things that you know aren't good for you.

Mm-hmm.

And then usually it's called cognitive flexibility, but it's, that's your ability to change your mind or your point of view or put yourself in someone else's shoe, that all the things that allow us to both be creative but to be adaptable. So those are— there's other cognitive skills within executive function, but that trilogy is the core, especially in research.

Yeah.

So I think in general, executive functions, if we want to be a high performer, which most of your audience, if not 100% of them, would, executive function is going to be the grouping of skills that are going to really let us, you know, be a power performer, whether it's in the gym, At the office or at home.

Okay. And then is there anything above executive function?

So I think for most people then it's social cognition. I think there's always some exceptions. There's going to be some people that they're just much stronger in that cognitive domain. But for most people, the social cognition and those skills to me are what lies above that. And so social cognition, typically, again, there's 3 things that are thought of there. One is our ability to be in tune with our own emotional responses to things. So that like self-reflective cognition piece. Another would be our ability to essentially pick up cues from body language. So all those subtle cues, that's like our social cognition brain. And then the last part would be almost what you think of as empathy, that ability to kind of forecast what the other person might be thinking, feeling, etc., which are all different skills. And so what, um, like going to your equation, the P times E times S3, what seems to me in that pyramid model to be the case is that especially when E has been depleted, which we can if we're really going for it with executive function all day, we've got no E left to tap into the social cognition at the end of the day when we get back to our loved ones. So they get the worst version of ourselves. We've literally been so much nicer to the person we got coffee with from at the coffee shop in the morning.

Because we lack the energy, the E for energy.

Yeah, like E is a depletable resource over the course of a day. Like, that's definitely crystal clear with brain research. You know, and the whole idea of ego depletion is the term sometimes that'll be used, but we basically, like if we were given a difficult math problem and then, okay, now go lift weights, our weight training is going to be worse than if we didn't get challenged with that tough math problem, right? We depleted some energy that now can't be used for that. So E ends up being, you know, a finite resource over the course of a day.

Sure.

And to me, it seems like for most people, when there's not enough, it's the social cognition that gets robbed of it.

Because you— we've to have alertness, concentration, and focus using our executive function and our—

Vigilance. They're just more foundational. So they're going to— like, when I think of how the brain uses energy, a huge proportion of our energy for the brain is sensory input. So auditory, visual, as an example. And then another huge part is neurotransmission.

Okay.

And then selectively these skills, you know, will tap into different parts of our brain. So what can happen with mental energy is it can get depleted in certain areas of the brain while other areas might have plenty. And then it has to kind of, you know, shuttle its way through. But it just seemed like— I saw a cool study and it was, they assessed empathy and some people did really well, like they performed great in the test, but more than half the people didn't. And the most common reason people gave was it just felt like too much effort.

Hmm.

And when you hear that term, that's almost a cue like, okay, If that goes back to Kahneman's world, right? When there's not enough ability for effort, System 1, the easy thing is going to be what the brain defaults to. And social cognition for many people is just an area that takes more effort. So more effort, more energy.

Sure.

And so easily shut down if energy is already in short supply.

So people have utilized their existing energy, their reserves towards being alert throughout the day. Uh, you know, there's the stresses, the focus, the, you know, their working memory, their, their executive function. And all of a sudden they come home and people are expecting them to be social or to be able to go out and they just, they don't have, they've been depleted.

Right.

Decision fatigue, ego fatigue. Now what would you say to somebody who's listening and they, um, how can they, now that they have this, this framework, this analogy of a pyramid. How would you— well, what suggestion would you have for them to be able to use this to be able to make progress or advance?

Well, I think one of the good things is our brain, our mitochondria are always going to be trying to make more ATP. So maybe all we need is a pause when we get home. So my dad— like, I'm from Boston, Irish Catholic family. My dad had a crazy commute. in and out of Boston most of my growing up time period. And like, we never knew what version of my dad we would get, but the options were like neutral or bad coming home. But if we let him read the paper, have his, you know, martini, relax, by an hour, hour and a half later, we got a much better version of my dad.

Right.

So like, one of the things is I think it's important to understand concepts and mental models so that we don't blame ourselves for our behaviors. But what often we need is that opportunity to recharge, to give our loved ones a better version. And in my mind, they would, like my mom did for my dad, give him that opportunity. So to expect him to be his best social version after that hour and a half to 2-hour commute and a long day of work as an executive, was probably unrealistic. So I think that like giving the permission that, okay, like I feel grouchy, irritable, that's not about me. That's like a symptom that my mental energy needs some rejuicing.

And so what are, what are a few of your favorite ways or research that you've seen or patients that you've worked with to recover and recharge? You know, they, they, they have an hour for themselves. What would you say would help to build those reserves?

So I think it can really vary depending on the person. For my dad, it was reading the paper. It was, I think, really just quieting the outside world more than anything and being able to just have his time to do whatever he wanted. And sometimes that was, um, like he was big into shining his shoes and a lot of things that, like, I don't even have shoes that would require shining, but ritualistic behaviors. tend from a stress perspective to be things that are very recharging because we don't have to expend much mental energy in a ritual that we've built. So maybe for one person that's meditating, for someone else it might be playing a musical instrument. For my dad, it was reading the paper or fiddling with electronics. It was just being able to do his own thing in an environment where there was no other demands for his time or attention. I love that.

So everybody who's listening to this, one of the messages, as you understand, and I'm sure a lot of people drew out the actual pyramid, is give yourself permission to rest. You are not responsible for fixing everything that is broken all the time, that you do not have to try and make everyone happy. Remember to take time for you, time to replenish, time to recover. So you have those energy reserves to be able to feed that pyramid so you could be your best, perform your best, think your best, and, uh, and become that best version that we desire and that we deserve. Greg, thank you so much for sharing in this episode. How can, uh, and by the way, we always do this. We take— encourage people to take a screenshot of this episode. And, um, how can people connect with you? Do you, are you on social media or?

I don't have much of a presence on social media, but I do blog at neurohacker.com. So the best place to find me would be neurohacker.com and then our, um, our blog tab.

Amazing. And we'll put all the links also, uh, to your book, to Neurohacker also in our show notes at jimkwik.com/notes. And Greg, thanks for being on the show again.

Oh, my pleasure. It was awesome. Thank you, Jim.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing because if you miss a video, you miss a A lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing, if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number?

310-299-9362. 362.

Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question, and I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.