Whitney Cummings: Neurology and Mind over Matter | AI Podcast Clips

You've. You've done actually quite done a lot of thinking and talking about neurology and just kind of look at human behavior through the lens of. Of looking at how our actually, chemically, our brain works. So what. First of all, why did you connect with that idea and what have you. How has your view of the world changed? By considering the. The brain is just a machine, you.

Know, I know it probably sounds really nihilistic, but for me, it's very liberating to know a lot about neurochemicals because you don't have to. It's like the same thing with, like, critics, like, critical reviews. If you believe the good, you have to believe the bad kind of thing. Like, you know, if you believe that your bad choices were because of your moral integrity or whatever, you have to believe your good ones. I just think there's something really liberating and going like, oh, that was just adrenaline. I just said that thing. Cause I was adrenalized and I was scared and my amygdala was activated. And that's why I said, you're an asshole and get out. And that's. You know, I just think it's important to delineate what's nature and what's nurture, what is your choice and what is just your brain trying to keep you safe. I think we forget that even though we have security systems and homes and locks on our doors, that our brain, for the most part, is just trying to keep us safe all the time. It's why we hold grudges. It's why we get angry. It's why we get road rage. It's why we do a lot of things. And it's also when I started learning about neurology, I started having so much more compassion for other people. You know, if someone yelled at me, being like, fuck you on the road, I'd be like, okay, he's producing adrenaline right now because we're all going 65 miles an hour. And our brains aren't really designed for this type of stress. And he's scared. He was scared, you know, so that really helped me to have more love for people in my everyday life instead of being in fight or flight mode. But the, I think, more interesting answer to your question is that I've had migraines my whole life. Like, I've suffered with really intense migraines, ocular migraines, ones where my arm would go numb. And I just started having to go to so many doctors to learn about it. And I started, you know, learning that we don't really know that much. We know a lot. But it's wild to go into one of the best neurologists in the world who's like, yeah, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. And that fascinated me.

It's like one of the worst pains you can probably have, all that stuff, and we don't know the source.

We don't know the source. And there is something really fascinating about when your left arm starts going numb and you start not being able to see out of the left side of both your eyes. And I remember when the migraines get really bad, it's like a mini stroke almost. And you're able to see words on a page, but I can't read them. They just look like symbols to me. So there's something just really fascinating to me about your brain just being able to stop functioning. And so I just wanted to learn about it, study about it. I did all these weird alternative treatments. I got this piercing in here that actually works. I've tried everything. And then both my parents had strokes. So when both of my parents had strokes, I became sort of the person who had to decide what was gonna happen with their recovery, which is just a wild thing to have to deal with it, you know, 28 years old when it happened. And I started spending basically all day, every day in ICUs with neurologists learning about what happened to my dad's brain and why he can't move his left arm, but he can move his right leg, but he can't see out of the. You know. And then my mom had another stroke in a different part of the brain. So I started having to learn what parts of the brain did what, and so that I wouldn't take their behavior so personally and so that I would be able to manage my expectations in terms of their recovery. So. So my mom, because it affected a lot of her frontal lobe, changed a lot as a person, she was way more emotional, she was way more micromanaged. She was forgetting certain things. So it broke my heart less when I was able to know, oh, yeah, well, the stroke hit this part of the brain, and that's the one that's responsible for short term memory and that's responsible for long term memory. Da, da, da. And then my brother just got something called viral encephalitis, which is an infection inside the brain. So it was kind of wild that I was able to go, oh, I know exactly what's happening here. And I know so.

So that's allows you to have some more compassion for the struggles that people have. But does it take away some of the magic for some of the. From the. Some of the more positive experiences of life?

Sometimes. Sometimes. And I don't. I don't. I'm such a control addict that, you know, I think our biggest. Someone like me, my biggest dream is to know why someone's doing. That's what stand up is. It's just trying to figure out why. Or that's what writing is. That's what acting is. That's what performing is. It's trying to figure out why someone would do something. As an actor, you get a piece of, you know, you know, material and you go, this person, why would he say that? Why would she pick up that cup? Why would she walk over here? It's really why, why? Why? Why? So I think neurology is. If you're trying to figure out human motives and why people do what they do, it'd be crazy not to understand how neurochemicals motivate us. I also have a lot of addiction in my family and hardcore drug addiction and mental illness. And in order to cope with it, you really have to understand that borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and drug addiction. So I have a lot of people I love that suffer from drug addiction and alcoholism. And the first thing they started teaching you is it's not a choice. These people's dopamine receptors don't hold dopamine the same ways yours do. Their frontal lobe is underdeveloped, like, you know. And that really helped me to navigate dealing, loving people that were addicted to substances.

I want to be careful with this question, but how much money do you have? How much can I borrow?

$10.

Okay. No. Is how much control. How much? Despite the chemical imbalances or the biological limitations that each of our individual brains have, how much mind over matter is there? So through things. And I've known people with clinical depression, and so it's always a touchy subject to say how much they can really help it.

Very.

What can you. Yeah, what can you. Because you've talked about codependency, you've talked about issues that you struggle through, and nevertheless, you choose to take a journey of healing and so on. So that's your choice, that's your actions. So how much can you do to help fight the limitations of the neurochemicals in your brain?

That's such an interesting question, and I don't think I'm at all qualified to answer. But I'll say what I do know and really quick, just the definition of codependency. I think a lot of people think of codependency as like, two people that can't stop hanging out. Or, like, that's not totally off. But I think for the most part, my favorite definition of codependency is the inability to tolerate the discomfort of others. You grow up in an alcoholic home. You grow up around mental illness. You grow up in chaos. You have a parent that's a narcissist. You basically are wired to just people, please, worry about others, be perfect, walk on eggshells, shapeshift to accommodate other people. So codependence is a very active wiring issue that, you know, doesn't just affect your romantic relationships. It affects you being a boss. It affects you in the world, online. You know, you get one negative comment and it throws you for two weeks. Or, you know, it also is linked to eating disorders and other kinds of addiction. So it's. It's. It's a very big thing. And I think a lot of people sometimes only think that it's in romantic relationships. So I always feel the need to say that. And also one of the reasons I love the idea of robots so much, because you don't have to walk on eggshells around them. You don't have to worry they're going to get mad at you yet. But there's no. Codependents are hypersensitive to the needs and moods of others. And it's very exhausting. It's depleting. Just a. Well, one conversation about where we're going to go to dinner is like, do you want to go get Chinese food? We just had Chinese food. Well, wait, are you mad? Well, no, I didn't mean to. And it's just like that. Codependents live in this. Everything means something. And humans can be very emotionally exhausting. Why did you look at me that way? What are you thinking about? What was that? Why'd you check your phone? It's just this. It's a hypersensitivity that can be incredibly time consuming, which is why I love the idea of robots just subbing in. Even I've had a hard time running TV shows and stuff, because even asking someone to do something, I don't want to come off like a bitch. I'm very concerned about what other people think of me, how I'm perceived, which is why I think robots will be very beneficial for codependents.

By the way, just a real quick tangent. That skill or flaw, whatever you want to call it, is actually really useful for if you ever do Start your own podcast for interviewing because you're now kind of obsessed about the mindset of others and it makes you a good sort of listener and talker with. So I, I think what's her name from NPR talked about. Terry Gross talked about having that.

So I don't feel like she has that at all. Was what. But she worries about other people's feelings.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, I don't get that at all.

I mean, you have to put yourself in the mind of the person you're spoken.

Yeah. Oh, I see. Just in terms of. Yeah, I am starting a podcast and the reason I haven't is because I'm codependent and I'm too worried it's not going to be perfect.

Yeah.

So a big codependent adage is perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis.

So how do you. Sorry to take a million tangents. How do you survive on social media? Because you're exceptionally active.

But by the way, I took you on a tangent and didn't answer your last question about how much we can.

Control how much you. Yeah, we'll, we'll return it.

Or maybe not.

The answer is we can't.

Now, as a codependent, I'm okay, guys, we can. But. But one of the things that I'm fascinated by is the first thing you learn when you go into 12 step programs or addiction recovery or any of this is genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger. And there's certain parts of your genetics you cannot control. I come from a lot of alcoholism, I come from a lot of mental illness. There's certain things I cannot control, and a lot of things that maybe we don't even know yet what we can and can't cause of how little we actually know about the brain. But, but we also talk about the warrior spirit. And there are some people that have that warrior spirit, and we don't necessarily know what that engine is, whether it's you get dopamine from succeeding or achieving or martyring yourself or the attention you get from growing. So a lot of people are like, oh, well, this person can edify themselves and overcome. But if you're getting attention from improving yourself, you're gonna keep wanting to do that. So that is something that helps a lot of. In terms of changing your brain. If you talk about changing your brain to people and talk about what you're doing to overcome said obstacles, you're gonna get more attention from them, which is gonna fire off your reward system and then you're gonna keep doing it yeah.

So you can leverage that momentum.

So this is why in any 12 step program, you go into a room and you talk about your progress. Cause then everyone claps for you and then you're more motivated to keep going. So that's why we say you're only as sick as the secrets you keep. Because if you keep things secret, you know, there's no one guiding you to go in a certain direction it's based on. Right. We're sort of designed to get approval from the tribe or from a group of people because our brain, you know, translates it to safety.

So in that case, the tribe is a positive one that helps you go the positive direction.

So that's why it's so important to go into a room and also say, hey, I wanted to use drugs today. And people go, hmm. They go, me too. And you feel less alone and you feel less like you're, you know, have been castigated from the pack or whatever. And then you say, and I haven't. You get a chip. When you haven't drank for 30 days or 60 days or whatever, you get little rewards.