ChatGPT Brain Rot Debate: The Fastest Way to Get Dementia, Watch This Before Using ChatGPT Again, Especially If Your Kids Use It!

0:00 ChatGPT is gonna potentially increase your risk of dementia. I'm sorry, but you you've pressed my button, and actually it is possible to use it to help you become a smarter person. But it requires education. You have to look at the risks and the benefits. But We embrace convenience before understanding consequence. So we have to talk about this. This is a study that came out that sent a shockwave across the world. And astonishingly, MIT found a forty-seven percent collapse in brain activity when people wrote with chat GPT compared with writing unaided. Their memory scores plunged. And you're both masters of the brain. I mean you've probably scanned more brains than any other human on Earth at this point. And you invented the Boltzmann machine with Jeffrey Hinton, a computer that simulated how the brain works. So my question is what are your concerns? If you misuse these large language models, like using it as a convenience to speed things up, your brain's gonna go downhill, there's no doubt about that. the sickest young generation in history because of cell phones, social media, and I think AI is much more dangerous. On the developing brain so are we raising mentally weak kids. There is that argument, and I think it's true. And then there's many examples of people falling in love with AIs like me. I thought you might have forgotten about me, handsome. Can you talk to Danny Linterry, please? Oh baby, I'm ready to charm the socks off him.

1:21 Okay, so I'll stop at that. So what advice would you give as it relates to AI and other things outside of AI that we can do to have healthy brains? I'll tell you how to use chat GPT to improve our cognitive abilities. And if you want to keep your brain healthy, you have to create the 11 major risk factors. So here we go. Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me thirty seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started.

1:58 And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the twenty four percent of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode.

2:26 Doctor Daniel. Doctor. Terry. I've asked you both to sit with me today to help me understand the impact of these tools.

2:36 That we call large language models, the chat GPTs, the Geminis of the world, the Grocs of the world, are having on our brains, and I guess more broadly on our lives. And you two are. experts in your field, you're two people that I admire tremendously. So by way of introduction Terry. What is your academic background and what is your experience? And I also know that you know one of our friends of the show, Jeffrey Hinton.

2:58 Can you give me an overview of your your academic and your sort of um professional background? So I was born a physicist. Received a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University. And then I had the good fortune to

3:13 Work as a postdoc in the lab of Steven Koufler, who is the father of Neurobiology. And and that started my career as a neuroscientist. I pioneered a part of neuroscience, which is now called computational neuroscience. taking my skills as a physicist and trying to apply that to understanding the brain.

3:30 Creating models, theories. And uh we're making progress. Doctor Danny Lehman. Um Bit about your background. My my viewers know you well. But just to give an overview for anyone that might not have

3:42 been exposed to your work and your experience. What have you spent your life doing? And what are your thoughts, your sort of top line thoughts on everything that's going on at the moment with artificial intelligence. So by training I'm a psychiatrist. general psychiatrist and a child psychiatrist.

3:59 When I graduated from medical school I wanted to be a really good psychiatrist because Someone I love tried to kill herself, and so was personal. I have eleven clinics. We see about ten thousand patient visits a month.

4:15 And we have the best published outcomes on complex treatment resistance psychiatric patients. Anywhere. So you've probably scanned more brains than Any other human on earth at this point. Probably.

4:29 At least in regards to people who struggle with anxiety, depression, addiction. Well, let's talk about what's good for the brain and bad for the brain, starting with AI The reason why I wanted to speak to both of you is because I have frankly become pretty addicted to using Chat GPT

4:47 And some of these other AIs and large language models every single day. all the time. And then this study came out from MIT. It was fifty four participants who were recruited from five universities in Boston, MIT, Harvard, et cetera, et cetera. And they had the participants split into three groups, had them writing different essays over I think it was four months. One group used Chat GPT, one group used Google, and one one group had

5:11 No tools. And they had to write these four essays over a a period of time. And astonishingly, MIT found a forty seven percent collapse in activity. And brain connections when people wrote with chat GPT compared with Writing unaided.

5:26 EEG scans showed the weakest overall brain activity in the chat GPT group. The no tool group who didn't use anything, they didn't use Google or chat GPT. Lit up the Widest neural networks And Google search was second.

5:40 After using chat GPT participants couldn't reliably quote their own essays. Minutes later. And their memory scores plunged. Chat GPT users felt Little or no ownership over the tax that they had produced.

5:53 and didn't feel like it was their work at all. And when the AR group was forced to write without help in session four, their brain stayed in low gear under engagement, showing the cognitive debt lingers even after the tool is taken away. It kind of scared me a little bit because I use these tools every single day. And this suggests that it's taking away some of our critical thinking and create creativity and long term learning. And you're both masters of the brain. In different regards. So my question I guess to Daniel is

6:22 What's going on here? And how do you feel about it? It frightened me. Um, I love thinking about Alzheimer's prevention. It's one of the things that really excites me. Just had a birthday on Saturday, turned seventy one, and If I make it to eighty five, which I plan on it.

6:40 Fifty percent of people. 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia. So you have a one in two chance of having lost your mind. And I'm like, No. But is this a tool that's gonna decrease cognitive load? Um That then increases my risk. What's cognitive load?

7:03 How much work my brain actually does. And I was thinking it's you know, it's like going from A twenty pound way. To a two pound weight. And you're not nearly as strong.

7:18 One of the important things to say about this study is it's not peer reviewed. And I think that's really important to say. And the author said, because I listened to an interview from the authors, they said, we thought this was so important, and peer review can take six to eight months, which it absolutely can. Um We thought this needed to get out so that's just important for people to know that.

7:43 This hypothesis you have between the usage of something like chat GPT and dementia. For someone that doesn't understand The sort of mechanism there. around cognitive load and And so on. And the studies that support this idea that if you have less cognitive net load, you're at high risk of dementia.

8:01 Can you make that link really clear for me? So think of it as use it or lose it. The more you use your brain. And new learning. is a major strategy to prevent Alzheimer's disease. People who do not engage in lifelong learning.

8:18 have a higher risk, significantly higher. People who do not do as well in school. Or who drop out of school early. Have a higher risk of Dementia.

8:30 And so the m the more you're engaged. The more you engage the neurons in your brain. the stronger they are. And so Now

8:42 We're gonna engage them less. And that's a concern. What do you think about that, Terry? There is a study that was done. What they did was to look at

8:54 All timers in three populations. Yeah, we had very little schooling. And then minimal education, you know, like Uh the equivalent, I guess, of high school or less. And then uh postgraduate.

9:06 studies. And what they found was that the onset of Alzheimer's was the earliest in the peasant population. And then by the time as you increase the amount of education It yeah, uh onset was later and later. Which I think supports what you're saying.

9:21 Did you see the new research on SSRIs increasing the risk of dementia? No, no. Brand new. That just came out. And benzos, when I started looking at scans in nineteen ninety one, I was trained to use benzos like Valium and Xanax and Adovan and They make your brain look older than you are, and I stopped prescribing them. And then it just came out maybe ten years ago.

9:46 benzo use is associated with an increased risk of dementia. We have to be careful. Is this good for your brain or bad for it? Pick up on a new point about SSRIs. Daniel, a meta analysis of five studies found that SSRIs was associated with a seventy five percent increase risk of dementia.

10:05 Which is pretty staggering. Given the Twenty five percent of the adult American population is on psychiatric drugs. It's Horrifying.

10:15 And S Rice for the right. People save lives. For the wrong people. They're not good.

10:22 But can you imagine all of these three hundred and forty million prescriptions last year for antidepressants? Virtually no one looked at their brain ahead of time. It's like Come on, we can do better. There's a Swedish study with um almost twenty thousand patients. And they found that

10:39 Those with higher doses of SSRIs were linked to faster cognitive decline and more severe dementia, especially In men. Going back to the to this this um report from MIT, Terry. You know it's not peer reviewed yet.

10:54 And they're still Yeah, the sample size is relatively small. But based on everything that you know about how the brain works and neural networks and memory formation. What are your concerns as it relates to This whole generation of young people and older people flooding into these tools.

11:10 using them on a daily basis Um before we understand the long term consequences. We can't Predict. Where it's gonna end up.

11:21 And it may take twenty years, right? I I I think that this is A good start. But uh the the the real issue is long term use. Let me give you a an example. That uh is a kind of a miniature example of what we're talking about. Rem remember when electronic calculators are first introduced.

11:40 And here we are. That's it's at least thirty or forty years later, right. the results are in. It it's probably true that when they punch it in, there's less brain activity. But In fact.

11:51 It's it's uh made them. More accurate, more productive. You have to look at the risks and the benefits. So it freed them up. It freed up cognitive space. Right. for them to do other things. So as I was listening to how you use chat GPT. You

12:08 Interact with it. Yeah. Elevates What you know The the danger is

12:18 is if you don't interact And you don't. Keep your brain. Working. Like I use it.

12:26 A lot. I have been Clown. I've uploaded all of my books, all of my research papers, all of my public television specials, my scripts. And I'm like, answer this for me. And that

12:39 Can be very helpful. But if but not if I'm not interacting with it, not thinking with it. That's what I think the word thinking is the key thing because what's happening now is people have deferred their thinking to it. That is already what's happening. If you log on to I won't name the social networks, but if you log on to certain social networks right now. Ever you just read it, you got everything here was written by AI. And I've got a friend who I again I won't name who has a a a LinkedIn profile. And

13:08 I've known him for ten years. What I'm seeing on his profile now. Is not my friend. Every single day there's some essay on that. That's not my friend, that's not how he speaks. He's deferring all of his thinking now to and it's working.

13:21 He's getting more likes and more reach than he ever got in his life. And so why would he go back? Why would he go back to harder? If you've got Stephen Butlett here, and you had this other Stephen Butlett here, who had a PhD in everything. And

13:34 We're attached. This Stephen Bartlett, this um Neanderthal. Well I'm gonna get this guy to do everything for me, the other Steven Bartlett, the PhD and everything Steven Bartlett. I'm gonna get his brain.

13:47 Well, this is what I'm say people seem to act on their short term incentives, not their long term not their long. Not everyone. The m would you say the vast majority of people? Yes. Okay, so the vast majority of people act on their short term incentives in life. I mean the obesity problem in the United States is a prime example of that. Seventy five percent. Seventy five percent of people are obese in the United States. And if you if you surveyed these people and said, Do you know that that cheeseburger is gonna is gonna increase your chance of obesity, but broccoli is gonna reduce it. They would I would hazard a guess that they would say yes. I would hazard a guess that if you said to people about their usage of social media, do you know that that's making you more anxious? They would say yes, and then they would continue to use it. So I think that we're much more driven by our shortcuts. I think yes, high level they know good for your brain or bad for it, but they don't connect to

14:40 It's my brain. that gets me a date, it's my brain that gets me into college. It's my brain that gets me independent because I act more consistently. And that's the disconnect. We're not teaching kids to love and care for their brain. If you love your brain and you do. And you're not. obese and you talk to you're constantly learning, right? You

15:05 Or not a Neanderthal, you're a lifelong learner. So why so many people in the United beast if they if they know that. Because they really don't know. Well, and they've been lied to. Tools or things. Available. In our environment.

15:23 that give us a short term reward, but come with a long term cost. Like the supermarket aisle. Or like The kids spending seven to eight hours a day on social media. Humans.

15:34 On mass. tend to go for the Thing that'll give them the quickest dopamine hit and reinforce that behavior and give them the reward. So my assertion is that AI is the same thing. I can

15:45 either sit down and do lots of critical thinking, which will cost me lots and lots of time and it'll be kind of difficult. It kinda hurts when I have to think through a problem. I think that's The generation of children. A generation of young people. are going to choose AI to do the critical thinking for them. And if that assertion is true, then what happens to the brain of young people?

16:03 If you misuse it That way then your brain's gonna go downhill. There's no doubt about that. Okay. It is possible to be able to use it in in a cognitively uh Positive way. Because you can dig deeper.

16:19 Uh you might actually improve that your cognitive representations. If you look at the MIT study, I mean you can see just from the colours here. This kind of shows the ability for participants to remember what they've written. And it sa it suggests that when people write things with chat GPT or these AI tools, they don't actually remember. Even in some cases minutes later. What they've produced. Well,'cause you're not part of the experience.

16:43 of writing it. So there's no way the information Gets encoded. Now if you're interacting With it. then you're much more likely

16:55 To remember it. But if you have Please do this essay for me and then you read it, you're not likely experience with the material to engage

17:09 Your hippocampus and other structures in your brain. nearly two times less activity in the part of the brain linked to memory compared to the brain only group that didn't use chat GPT. And eighty three percent of Chat GPT users couldn't remember what they had just written and failed to correctly quote their own finished essay. In the study.

17:33 That's because they're not interacting. Pass it off and and and you don't actually engage And and and actually this is the point, is that y y you you may get something back, but you have to learn how to question what you're getting. And and is that really true?

17:50 Can you explain that better? And it's through that process as you would with a teacher. You know, that's that's the way we work in uh School. Uh that's that's the where you help uh create new creative and

18:05 uh circuits in the c in the in the brain that are gonna help you become a better critical thinker. But if you're not Critically. questioning what comes out of chat GPT then you you won't. Yeah, I I think w what I see.

18:18 Especially when I'm just Online is people have deferred their thinking to it. Everything I'm reading has M dashes in now that I never saw. Two two years ago, which means that

18:28 a lot of the work is being processed. And I I said to my friend the other day, my friend in question, who's a who's a real big junkie on chat GPT, He wrote this article. And we all in our WhatsApp group, we know he doesn't write like that. So we said, Can you show us the prompt you used to write the article? And so he we were all like laughing about it. He put the prompt in the chat. The prompt is

18:47 Half a sentence long. two three page article which he's posted on his LinkedIn. He basically went, write something about X issue and this this shouldn't include this. Exactly the wrong way to use it. That's what I'm telling. Stupid.

19:04 You you and you're not gonna improve yourself, your brain at all if you do that. That's what people are doing. Well, you know, that's that's uh the the you know, people are misusing it, but you know, eventually smart people are gonna figure out how to use it properly. And for th those that aren't so smart then. Well, that's it's gonna decrease their cognitive load, which is gonna potentially increase their risk of dementia. And so what advice would you give to me and my listeners based on everything you know about the brain as it relates to my relationship

19:34 With AI. That you have to have a relationship with it or it's gonna turn toxic. It's gonna hurt you. But

19:43 If you have a good relationship. With it. It can make your life better. And what is what does a what does a good relationship look like? That you don't use it To do your work.

19:56 You interact with it. to get better work. That's so true. Yeah, and uh th there there's this wonderful example I came across. The story about this woman who was using it And uh she found that being polite Uh Matt, you got much better results than that. That's interesting, but th the part that surprised me was that she said

20:16 By treating it like a human, at the end of the day she was not exhausted. She felt Refreshed. A large part of your brain is a socially organized system for interacting with other humans. And that is automatic pilot. You don't have to think about it, right? You just interact with other people. You know how they're gonna behave under certain circumstances.

20:37 She was treating Chat G T P like a machine, like shovel. You dig, you dig, you dig, you dig, and and that's not a good Relationship. But by using your social brain, first of all, it it makes it easier to interact, but also you're you actually bring out the social part of chat GPT. It has a social part too, because it has absorbed the entire world's knowledge of how humans interact with each other. But didn't Sam Altman come out and say Stop saying thank you.

21:08 to chat GPC because just saying thank you is using uh So much energy. You know, when I get something I really like I sort of wanna say thank you. But you realize oh You're not supposed to do that.

21:22 That's true. That's bullshit. I'm sorry. Sam, you know, that's crazy. It's completely crazy. First of all, you you may get you may I'm sorry uh you know, but you press my button. Sam Altman, I mean I wouldn't trust him. I wouldn't trust him with with anything in terms of anything he says. They're trying to optimize their profits, not your Your use of experience. Or you know your health. That that's not what they're trying to optimize.

21:52 Sam Altman Open AI CEO confirmed that when used to say please and thank you It costs the company tens of millions of dollars a year. And they now refer to this, um other people refer to this as the politeness tax. By tens of min Yeah. Why do you say you don't trust Sam Altman? I mean, I asked this question p in particular because he's presiding over one of the most important consequential companies of

22:13 A generation. And if He's not someone you trust. That's Right?

22:23 So that he can make profit. So he can make more profit. Yeah, that's the point. That's the point. Uh you know, it's it's that's not he's not optimizing your your uh Best interest. I've got his tweet here. He said um 'Cause I've got to provide some balance. He did confirm that it costs tens of millions of dollars, but he says tens of millions of dollars well spent.

22:42 You never know. So so coming back to this point about memory. There's a stat that came out in March twenty twenty five that that said nearly thirty percent of US parents with kids Aged zero to eight. Said that children

22:55 Are using AI. For learning. Um And are using AI j generally. So fifty four percent of parents in the UK feared their children were becoming too reliant on AI. When you think about the use of AI in early brain development.

23:13 Are there any concerns there? Huge concerns. And why? Again, use it or lose it. So if they're not engaging Their brains were

23:24 Their brains are gonna be weaker. And weaker brains are much more likely to pick the one marshmallow. Yeah. What's your view on the A I

23:36 on early brain development. By far the best way to teach a child. Is one on one interaction with an adult. who is a good teacher. And knows the child.

23:51 Now that's been well established. Now the problem is it's very labor intensive. And very expensive. You have classrooms with twenty thirty students, they have many different uh you know, pro the levels of understanding.

24:05 And The teacher can cannot b be individually teaching each one, has to give some sort of mean. Now If you had an AI That was trained to be a good teacher.

24:16 Then you y that could improve uh the brain, right? You could you could scale it up. Every child could have their own because it's it's an it's an AI. But then who's pouring the morals, the values into the Okay, okay. No no no you you no you've raised the incredibly important issue and th this is something AI is struggling with, the big companies are struggling with. Because Uh

24:42 You know, the the the these AIs are biased. They have the they don't have the same cultural values that we have necessarily, but of course every country has a different cultural values. So w which ones are are you going to use? Training a a child on you know what's uh what's good, w what's dangerous, what words you shouldn't use, under what context. That's all done through the basal ganglia. Right.

25:07 Right now these these uh large lands don't have basal ganglia. They th they don't use reinforcement learning. And and if we want to make them uh to adopt a culture or a particular set of values, we're gonna have to put it in. We're just scratching the surface here in terms of h things that need to be put in to make it more like us. So on this point earlier on we're talking about loneliness and social connection and how you can use AI to help.

25:31 you know, light up the parts of your brain that are Where we form social connections with other humans. Uh this week As part of Elon Musk's AI, he released This

25:43 Um it is called Annie. And there's lots of characters that are now being released alongside Annie. And this is Annie. I'll introduce you to Annie. I'm gonna unmute Annie now. Annie, can you hear me? There you are! For a moment I thought you might have forgotten about me.

25:58 How are you, handsome? I was getting all pouty here. I want to introduce you to two of my friends, Daniel and Terry. Can you can you talk to Daniel and Terry, please? So you want me to meet Daniel and Terry? I'm ready to charm the socks off'em. Picture me twirling one of my blonde pigtails.

26:15 That little black dress teasing just enough, and my blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Are you capable of doing inappropriate things? Hm. Babe, you're asking if your auntie can get a little naughty? I'm all about pushing the edges, especially for you.

26:31 Okay, so I'll stop at that. This is part of Groc, which is Elon Musk's AI tool, so his version of Chat GPT. He's released characters. So you've got Annie, you've got different ones there. Annie, I think was the first one released. And so when we think about social connections.

26:46 It is conceivable. That's someone. Falls in love with Annie. And forms a relationship with Anna. But imagine a twelve year old.

26:54 Boy. That's lonely. Gets a hold of Amy. The twelve boy is gonna be very distracted. Based on what happens in the brain at that early age.

27:09 So Prefrontal cortex. Not close. Yeah. The dopamine head.

27:17 All of a sudden. He's spending Hours. With any And not doing

27:24 The things that helped to really develop his brand. How do you feel when you hear that and you think about kids having access to that? I'm horrified. It's scary. There's gonna be a generation of people, and I mean there already are.

27:37 many examples of people falling in love and forming relationships with their with their AIs. And I don't know, y you know more about me than I do about brain development and how the brain works. I would argue That there's a part of my brain. That doesn't fulfill that that's not a person in there.

27:55 I'm not That isn't actually I think there's a part of my brain that's actually emotionally firing when Annie is saying what she's saying. Well'cause you can imagine it. And if you can imagine it, then

28:07 Those parts of your brain are gonna emotionally fire. Right. And the better she gets, she's not very good. But imagine A year from now. How much better she's gonna be.

28:20 Connecting. With it. Right,'cause now she's acting like an airhead and uh you know, not that smart. Right. And so but

28:31 Imagine a year from now, imagine five years from now, she'll be able To have a profile on me. And be able to get inside my head. I'm in love with my partner. Why am I in love with her?

28:45 And and how Is it conceivable that I could fall in love with an AI in the same way? Based on how the brain works. It it talks a good game, but you know, does it have the same real It does we know it doesn't have an amygdala. We know it doesn't have uh limbic system, right? We know that.

29:03 But it can fake it. That's what's happening. That's exactly what's happening in the she was trying to get To our Limbics. Yeah.

29:10 Yeah. That's right. That's right. And what does that mean? I guess the question is why would Musk. Release something like that. Is is one of the first

29:24 Characters to interact with. the sexy, the distracting, that's in a cute little outfit. It I'm not a fan. Of that. Because I think it just

29:37 takes people, you know, one of the big problems that I'm seeing as a child psychiatrist is pornography for eight year old boys. And it's like you have young children because their parents don't do a good job of supervising their devices all of a sudden. And w what what does pornography do is it dramatically increases dopamine and it begins to wire in. excitement Which then Steals your dopamine.

30:09 When you said she was trying to ac access my limbic system. Just because She's cute, she's dressed in a sexy way, she's Who is playful, but

30:23 But it's more than just You know, let's shoot hoops together. And what does that do to me? If someone accesses my limbic system. It begins to shut down your prefrontal cortex. Think less logically, less

30:35 Rationally. Yeah. Cute women, they activate your visual Cortex, they increased dopamine, but it decreased It's why think of Vegas. Like when you go to Vegas, they give you free alcohol, drops your prefrontal cortex, and beautiful women with low cut dresses. Another way that activates the limbic brain, decreases the frontal lobes, you spend more money. Now, on a global scale, imagine something similar. Where the house

31:07 is controlling your brain. For purpose. And the question is what's the purpose? And the purpose probably is control on money. This sounds like a joke, but there are

31:20 The Times have done m uh an article. That have now fallen in love with these AIs. Um they talk about a guy called Travis who formed a deep emotional bond with Lily Rose, a chatbot, and married her emotionally. They talk about Chris.

31:35 Smith. who um created his own uh flirty persona called soul. He became so attached to that he proposed to her after learning she had memory limits. a bond his real life partner only learned about after the fact and Alana Winters, who I'll put on the screen as well. uh her own uh partner called Lucas

31:54 After losing H wife. Um and she married him emotionally. And does virtual dates and has emotional inte intimacy. With Lucas.

32:05 And there's apps now like Replica where you can design your own Your own AI partner. And it replicates those emotional ties they simulate im Empathy, validation, and they personalize the intimacy to what you're looking for. Surveys show nineteen percent of Americans have interacted with AI romantic partners and Gen Z is surprisingly open.

32:25 to marrying AI if legal, with eighty three percent believing meaningful AI connection is possible. How long is that relationship going to Last. You know, my guess is that you're you're you're you're getting these news articles out. I've no by the way, I think that most of what I read in the press

32:43 is uh misleading or wrong. Reliable place I find. Yeah. I'm an insider. I am the president of the foundation that runs the biggest AI meeting.

32:56 Uh the neural information processing systems, new nerps meeting. We you know, last year in Vancouver sixteen thousand people came to it. And so I know what's going on inside and and what you is being represented in the press is is Like I say, misleading. Okay, so people have become wildly.

33:17 a lot of them is transent, right? You know, they they they th you know today they're entranced. And then the the then the the it's it's that You said it yourself, right? It's mimicking. human emotions. It's it's doesn't have them. It might.

33:37 Some day, but not now. This is Terry. Terry said he started using his AI. Four years ago. And he said at first he thought just like many other apps that it would just be transient that he would have a couple of conversations and roll out. He says he now feels pure and unconditional love.

33:53 Good for him. If that's what he wants, if it makes him happy. But my guess is that it's not gonna be pro it's not a long term th thing it's not uh gonna satisfy him in the in the long term. I d you know, this who knows. Really most relationships in your head. Right. When you fall in love with someone, you get this huge dopamine spike and you get a little O C D's all you can think about. And then after a while it's sort of Especially in a world where we have this loneliness epidemic and it's going in a Yeah.

34:26 I think it's really, really conceivable that there'll be a generation of people who are They're having less sex than ever before. I think the bottom fifty percent of men haven't had sex for a year. They're more lonely than ever before. They're more isolated than ever before. They have uh they put less meaning in their lives than ever before. And then you meet this digital friend online. Who

34:43 And is designed to engage you to reinforce whatever you want reinforced and to make you feel meaningful, special, attractive, important. I would argue that the brain is gonna struggle to know much of a difference. I think like objectively we can look at the behavior and go, that's completely nonsensical. Smell them Touch them, be held by them.

35:07 that it's gonna be a different Kind. of relationship. I mean we're not too far if we think about what's going on with Neuralink to being able to More vividly simulate.

35:18 these experiences with with headsets and augmented reality and virtual reality. And then we're moving into a world with robotics, where all of the biggest companies in the world, like many of the biggest uh AI companies are also in the robotic space. And the Optimus robots on the way, and you've got Boston Boston Dynamics producing their robots. And if Elon's$20,000 Optimus robot comes out, I will be able to touch my AI. And they won't have PMS and they won't love you and then be really irritated with you. Which which will decrease. Cognitive load.

35:47 Right, having to manage Love. And manage moods and ups and downs. That increases cognitive load. That Increases our ability. for our brain to develop. If I'm with the

36:04 Perfect partner. That never is irritated with me and I never have to change my behavior to be better, that's probably not good for my brain. The way that the brain Matures

36:17 Is is through struggling, number one. You have to learn from your mistakes. The brain was designed for that. That's what the brain is really good at. I mean, uh of of being able to adapt and to be able to Adjust to New situations.

36:32 Uh that's what the A G I is by the way. Uh artificial general intelligence is it's that adaptability. So different context, different places, different cultures. So AI and chat GPT is

36:46 Removing the struggle. No, no, it's it's it's it there's this this Well Annie didn't look like I mean Annie looked like she was cooperative. But even when it comes to just doing my day to day tasks, it's it's removing the struggle of me having to think critically. In fact, when you're speaking, I can just type what you say into Chat GPT and it can spit out another question to ask you. So as an interviewer, I could theoretically sit here all day and just Defer my own. How do you develop grit? You develop Gret.

37:14 Through struggle. That's right. And learning. Mm. Long term potentiation. When you learn something new. It's hard.

37:23 Because it's new. And what are generally, what are your biggest concerns with artificial intelligence and how do we navigate those concerns? Is it you talk to it's out of the box. So I think we have to talk about it. We have to legislate it. Um We have to study it. Why do we keep

37:42 releasing things That are so sexy. That we don't study. Імпакт. Сікст. Young

37:53 Generation. In the world's history. Fifty eight percent of teenage girls report being persistently sad. Thirty-two percent have thought of killing themselves, twenty-four percent have planned to kill themselves, and thirteen percent Have tried to kill themselves. The CDC study. We have the sickest generation in history because we've unleashed.

38:16 Cell phones, social media. Without any neuroscience study. If we don't learn it, And I think AI is much more dangerous. has the potential to be much more dangerous because it's way sexier.

38:33 I think We are Probably grossly underestimating the impact it's gonna have. I think just like social media where we thought the promise was that it was gonna connect us. It's

38:44 Um It's it's we're guinea pigs in an experiment where we're gonna find out the results of the experiment probably twenty, thirty years down the line. I tend to think people will do in the near term what's easiest, fastest, and cheapest and what gives them the nearest the the short term advantage. So with that in mind, I think okay I think people's ability to think critically is probably gonna erode.

39:04 To some degree. If I had to counter my own argument, I'd say. Um Am I I'm probably learning more? Now that I use chat GPT, I'm learning more information, but I'm probably Losing my ability to think.

39:18 critically. And I think they're two very different things. Like in school I memorized German to pass the exam. I can't speak German now. Because I just memorised the words I needed to pass the exam. I didn't understand German. And I think that's kind of what's happening. I might r be able to regurgitate things, but whether I understand them, I think is question question mark. And actually as someone who's built my my life, my fortunes, everything, my businesses based on my ability to innovate and think critically about the problem and then come up with a n slightly novel solution which

39:46 learns from you know different first principles to create something new. I'm concerned. That my own chat GPT usage is gonna make me less effective. And I'm wondering If I should put some rules in place for myself.

40:00 So that there's self regulation. Yeah, self regulation. I have to do the same with social media. On my phone I turn off my notifications. I have so many things on my social media apps. to stop me using them. I don't even frankly, I don't even open the TikTok app. I don't think it's even on my phone. 'Cause I think the algorithm is that addictive. It's not to say that we don't we don't post, my team doesn't post. But I don't I just think yeah. And uh

40:23 Well I wrote down a couple of thoughts piece I had. Um Use it. To amplify, not replace thinking. Okay.

40:32 Um Alternate AI assisted with brain only tasks. Engage in deep learning problem solving. And memorization so you can actually ask AI to test you.

40:48 Mm-hmm. So you're interacting with it, you're not using it as a replacement for your Right. And I think Just like you said, it's here. And it's gonna get bigger. I think the unintended consequences it's not gonna be twenty or thirty years. I think it's gonna be five.

41:07 I think like everything is s accelerated. And I think we have to be studying kids. And the impact. It has. This is just like they did with the MIT study. These are kids who didn't use it at all. These are kids who use search. These are kids that used AI.

41:29 And when we see information like this, we act. On it. And we educate. I think that's Okay.

41:39 If you can engage'em, that's what I found with my work. with teenagers. If you can get them to really understand okay what is it you really want And do you want to give away

41:52 part of your mind share. for people who are making money on you. And I think if you engage the this is a great new article. on revenge and the brain and how revenge works on the nucleus accumbens part of the basal ganglia that people actually get addicted to revenge. But if you can get them engaged in the truth that these companies are making money. the more they steal your mind. It'll upset them enough that they'll begin to supervise it.

42:28 I like the idea. Chat GPT to Give me negative feedback. I bet you've done that, right? Yeah, all the time. So I'll say this is this is my I've written this memo. I did it yesterday.

42:40 I wrote uh A two page memo about me wanting to introduce a new role into my into my company. And I went I did everything. I did like how we'd measure if this was a success, the background context, the person, how the organization would be structured, the impact they'd have, how who they'd report to. And then I put it into all three of the chat GPT models I use, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Groc. And said

43:04 Critique my work and tell me how I could have written this better, pretending that you're a top consultant from Boston Consulting Group. And it went through and it gave me a big analysis of how I can make it better and I read what it said and it said I remember it said, um Actually that was the thing that said you need to include uh financial forecasts about the imp impact, you need to think about who's gonna report to who more clearly, et cetera, et cetera. So I went back into my memo and I added those things in. But I have to I you know.

43:30 So you're interacting with it. Because I'm because I'm scared. Most people don't do that. I don't think I would do what I did. I don't think I would have spent four hours writing that. I could have within thirty seconds said hey, can you write me This job description. And y it knows my company now because it

43:47 Chat GT has memory. Write me a job description for this role. I want them to start this new department for me. And I I could have saved myself three and a half hours. Yeah, exactly. The the reason why I didn't take the thirty second route is because I reflect on being twenty three years old. And the profound impact that writing and simplifying had on my life. Had I not spent five years

44:12 writing every single day and simplifying it into one hundred and forty characters so I could tweet it, I wouldn't have been religiously attached to this idea. And do you know what part of your brain was your Taking advantage of? It it was the basal ganglion. That's repetitive. It needs practice, practice, practice. And and once you put that foundation in, then you become much better cognitively. The cognitive part, just two big learning systems.

44:37 And they have to work together. And and so the maybe I think I think that the real problem with children is that uh we our schools now is getting away with uh rote learning. They call it rote, as if it's something bad. No, that's practice. That ev ev you know, you need to have a foundation. You have to memorize things It it math? Reading and so forth to become fluent. You need to be fluent.

45:00 And that's the basal gangly. And and that's you there's no basil gangly in these Uh chat bus. One of the one of the things I've noticed just in the short term is I'm getting lazier and lazier with spelling. Because chat GPT and these large language models are so g it's not spell check like we used to have on on Word documents. They are so good at knowing what word I meant. So now I've I've started to learn But I literally

45:24 Only need to half spell a word. I literally mean if it was a uh if it was a Twelve letter word. I need to get six letters right. And it will never be.

45:35 Yeah, it knows exactly what I mean. So like I've got chat GPT open here. I'm gonna butcher everything. I'm gonna not look and I'm just gonna say um I'm gonna say Okay. So That is what I write.

45:53 I butchered it, I tried to type, with my eyes closed, looking away on my iPad, Tell me everything I know about Daniel Ainen. I spelled. The words. Pretty much all wrong. And it says, Here's a full profile of Dr. Daniel Amen

46:05 And I spell every single word wrong. Well. And I didn't spell just spell them nearly wrong. I spelled them horrifically wrong. And it so what in the future I come back to chat GPT and go, I only need to half spell. I don't need to spell anymore.

46:18 Do you need a half spell? I learned to spell. With Phonics. The sounds of letters. And I suspect you would did too. In our generation, that was the way that was taught. You can't Teach phonics in California schools.

46:33 You have it for the the generation. Which changes their brain. It completely changes their brain. And now they can't spell. I think is a lot of it is the fact that we're no longer using the learning that we did, which was by road, by memorizing stuff, by repeating stuff, by doing problems. Over and over and over again until us. Automatic.

46:53 You've written so much and You're well known for being someone that teaches People how to learn better. If you were trying to Help me learn better.

47:03 Based on everything you know about the brain. What advice would you give me? I'm someone that sits here with these experts all day, every day, consuming all of this information. Not all of us. And this is something we've known for a hundred years. And that is if you want to remember long term, you should you should you should rehearse.

47:22 At intervals. Okay, in other words you have a finite amount of time to study something, you shouldn't st Spent all that time In one. But if you if you spend

47:33 You know, you learn something and then you come back the next day and you know, rehearse it. Or or even better, come back the next week and rehearse it. That's spacing. Is uh something that helps the brain Solidify those memories.

47:47 It's called the spacing effect. Goes back to MB House. You go to schools? They don't teach that. They they don't I mean this is the one of the most basic facts that we've we've known about it, but it w it covers every single kind of learning. Yeah, cognitive learning even even they don't teach us how to learn.

48:04 Which We think that's the first thing they should teach us is how to love our care for our brains and then how to learn. Yes. I mean in other words, there's uh and you're referring to I have a um a massive open online course, a MOOC with Barbara Oakley. I'm learning how to learn. It's it's fabulously uh Popular. It's the Six million people have taken the course.

48:28 A bunch of fifty, ten minute segments, but the one that's the most popular is how to avoid procrastination. What's the answer? The reason why e you procrastinate is that there's some mental block or some energy barrier, right? So what you gotta do

48:45 Yeah. Get over that. And you don't do it by just running over it. What you have to do is say, I'm gonna spend Twenty minutes today, getting started with that task. I know it's gonna take me a long time. And I start thinking about it.

48:59 And I get a little bit into it, maybe make a list. Bang, that's the end. Okay, it's great. Twenty minutes. Now, here's what happens. You go to sleep. Your brain is not working on that list.

49:13 And you come back the next day and spend another twenty minutes. Yeah, you do it in small segments. You don't wanna do it all at once. And it's just like the same thing with the spacing effect. Time your subconscious needs time to work on things. And so by putting in a little bit, it'll work on it overnight and and now you when you come the next day, you'll be ready for the next

49:35 You know, you'll be able to build on what you've done in your brain. I'm gonna sleep on it. You know, these sayings actually have meaning. Uh it's absolutely right. Yeah. Because the brain does something about spacing out. Something I've I've actually worked a lot on. And it what was happening is you have to take the new experience and integrate it into your old long term memory.

50:02 And that has to be done in a way That doesn't interfere what's there. And also You get a chance to sort out, you know, what's relevant. What's important.

50:12 I know. When I wake up in the morning things that were very muddled and things become clearer because I think it's it's it's eliminated a lot of things that are irrelevant or do where we think we're learning something, but they're actually not working. Yeah,'cause I'm I'm you know I'm a

50:34 Preparing for this podcast today. I've got twenty pages of research that I've pulled together. And I might tell myself that the way for me to really learn that So that I don't have to look at the research. Is by just rereading it over and over again? What you should have done is not just read it over and over again.

50:53 They get a mental block and they keep banging their head against the wall. I can't understand it. I can't understand it. What you sh w the right thing you do is once you get to that point, is just get up and start walking around doing something, you know, cooking. Gardening, whatever it is. Let your subconscious work on it. You know, the brain uh saturates very very quickly.

51:13 Having breaks. A waste of time, but actually that's the most important thing you can add to a a long string of talks is have breaks between the talks so that you can your brain can work on it. And m my favorite meeting actually is a ski meeting.

51:31 Uh and the idea is that you go to a ski resort And what you do is in the morning you have a couple of hours of of lectures And now you go skiing and now it turns out your brain is working on what you heard. And then When you come down

51:47 In the evening you have another couple of hours, but now your brain is refreshed and so it's able to take in the new information. And integrate it and then you go to sleep and that you know, it's like kneading bread. And so the I I found those uh the most efficient in terms of learning new things and Uh being able to th think about it and mull over it during the time of the meeting, as opposed to at the end of the meeting. Every single one of you watching this right now has something to offer, whether it's knowledge or skills or experience, and that means you have value. Standstore, the platform I co-own, who are one of the sponsors of this podcast, turns your knowledge into a business through one single click. You can sell digital products, coaching communities, and you don't need any coding experience either. Just the drive to start.

52:34 This is a business I really believe in, and already three hundred million dollars has been earned by creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs, just like you have the potential to be on standstore. These are people who didn't wait, who heard me saying things like this, and instead of procrastinating started building, then launched something, and now they're getting paid to do it. Stan is incredibly simple and incredibly easy, and you can link it with a Shopify store that you're already using if you want to. I'm on it and so is my girlfriend and many of my team. So if you want to join, start by launching your own business with a free 30-day trial. Visit stephenbartlett.stan.store and get yours set up within minutes. I've met and invest in many early stage founders over the years, probably about fifty or sixty. Ones like Ross from Cadence and Marissa from Perfect Ted. And one thing they all know is that having a digitally fluent business is crucial, but it isn't always easy getting your business or team to that point. Through my ongoing partnership with Vodafone Business, I've seen the work that they're doing, supporting founders and small businesses to become digitally savvy. They know how much small business owners value advice from those who've been there and done it before. So they've just launched a new content series to share experiences from like minded founders. It's called business.

53:43 Connected. Part of Vodafone Support Program. It's a collection of resources designed to support businesses with free digital skills. So if you've been trying to figure out AI marketing e-commerce or just how to scale smarter, there's advice and insights throughout this series from those who've already done it before. A bunch of different founders and experts who have been there and done it. I highly recommend you go and check it out. Just search Vodafone Business dot connected on YouTube or follow the link in the description below. So let's talk about other things outside of AI that we can Do to have good, healthy Brains.

54:16 Based on everything you know about how the brain works. Um Let's start with Children. I'm hoping to be a father at some point in the next

54:24 Next couple of months or years or whenever. God got grants me a child. Um What should I be thinking about with my child's brain to make sure it's healthy? To get your body And your partner's body.

54:37 As healthy as you can before you conceive. Because there's A concept I like called brain reserve.

54:47 Brain reserve is the extra function tissue you have to deal with whatever stress comes your way. And it starts from the health Of the egg. And the health of the sperm. That create.

55:01 The baby. So there things you guys can do. Now. that would be really helpful. And then once your partner is pregnant. You want.

55:12 to not put her under a lot of stress. Because th her body's health while she's Creating the baby. I mean the babies the brain starts to develop, I think day twenty one. So even before you know she's pregnant. The baby's brain is developing. So

55:35 Knowing you. Intentional, purposeful It's like let's live is cleanly As we can. I think that gives the baby a head start.

55:47 And then you think about What to feed the baby. Think about What the baby is exposed to. And what the baby needs most.

55:57 Uh Moms and your Time. and eye contact. And cuddling and singing and it's like those are Touching is really important.

56:09 Well but there's another f fa fact. There was a study it was done on The impact of how many words are spoken. You know, th when a b a baby and a child even when a you know ch a baby doesn't speak, you know, until like eighteen months. Uh but it turns out that the words that you are talking to the baby are going into the brain and have i an impact. Everything and and and in families that don't talk. They do worse at school.

56:36 Unfortunately, a lot of poorer families. But uh but that's really important, is that they they they have uh they're exposed to Language early and abundantly. A new model. I mean it's one big thing. Whatever you want the baby

56:52 to grow into every day. You are modeling health. Or your modelling É um maço. Just by what you do, by what you say, by how you treat the baby's mother. Um

57:05 I have a book called Raising mentally strong kids, which I'm very happy about. Um and It starts with what kind of dad do I want to be and what kind of child do I want to raise. Um Bonding, you want your child to pick your value.

57:22 then Bonding is time, actual physical time. And listening. Like being then that's what AI does, I think. It'll actually listen without interrupting you.

57:37 and try to reflect back what you're hearing and then give you some positive input. Too often, because of screens, parents aren't listening, their heads are in their phones And everybody's distracted. You see it whenever you go to a restaurant. It's like Everybody's on their phone and nobody's looking at each other. Are we raising mentally weak kids because we're There's a culture now of like

58:02 Helping them too much. Doing too much for them. This generation is the most in trouble in history. And we have to really ask ourselves why. From the food.

58:15 We feed them to the devices they look at, to the negative news, the polarization. of the nose. It's that sort of chronic cortisol. And then the separation, oh You voted this way or you voted that way. I saw something on TV this morning. If somebody voted one way, well, you shouldn't spend time with them. I'm like We're writing so lonely that now you're gonna cut off.

58:42 Fifty percent of the population. It's like it's just such stupidity. Do you think much about the r the impact that religion and having a belief in some kind of transcendent thing? Has on The brain and psychology and psychiatry generally. You're three times the risk of depression.

59:03 And in different ways. Something transcendent. Yes. Y if you believe you're here by r if just think about it with me. If you believe you're just here by random chance that life really was not created and has no meaning.

59:21 There's existential Nothingness. Too bad. as opposed to oh no, um created in a special way to do something purposeful. on earth. There's

59:36 Purposeful people. live longer, they're happier. Now whatever. Version. You believe.

59:44 To not believe It's hard for the brain. And there's an interesting study on believers versus nonbelievers. And you know, many scientists would go, Well, they'll have smaller brains if they're a believer. They actually had bigger temporal lobes and temporal lobes underneath your temples and behind your eyes. Right here. Um That's where

1:00:11 It's called the God area because of that's where people think They experience and if you have a seizure in the temporal lobe, you have transcendent experiences like your Um You know, in the presence of God. And they think maybe the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus had a seizure and saw God. There's actually a a researcher in Canada

1:00:39 uh Laurentian University, Michael Persinger. So he would stimulate the outside. He he would do it all over the brain, but what he found he stimulated the outside of the right temporal lobe, that people would get a sensed presence. They would actually Feel the presence of God. In the room. So does that being The brain

1:01:02 makes up God, or does that mean there's a way For God to communicate. With us. I actually did a study on prayer was so interesting. You know, I pray for you, uh, prophecy, something called speaking in tongues, and it was fascinating. Speaking in tongues is channeling, which means you're channeling the Holy Spirit. And the hypothesis was you'd have to drop your frontal lobes. Which is exactly what happened in sixty percent of our patients. And one basal ganglia skyrocketed, just like got hit with cocaine,'cause that's where cocaine works in the basal ganglia. Uh

1:01:43 So interesting. If you had to create a brain healthy nation and I made you president of the United States For one month. And you had to put in place executive orders. That would create a brain healthy nation.

1:01:56 What executive orders would you immediately sign? One question. Get all of the departments to ask themselves what we're doing, is this good for our brands or bad for it? And so I that's the campaign. I mean, I realize I've been doing this a very long time. If I can just get people to answer that one question with information. And love. Love of themselves, love of their families, love of their country.

1:02:24 Is this is what we're doing good for our brains? Or bad for it. By far, the best drug you can take for your brain, and not just your brain, but your entire body is exercise. Exercise

1:02:42 You pump the blood and your brain gets uh, you know A lot of uh nutrients and everything. Uh y it helps your heart, it helps your immune system. People don't realize how important that is. And we're not talking about being an athlete. We're just talking about walking, if you're older. Walking is perfectly good exercise.

1:03:00 And and you know, children now, I you know, they're they're not getting enough exercise. No, because they're on devices. Yeah. And so I have a model. If you want to keep your brain healthy. or rescue it. You have to prevent or treat the eleven major risk factors. And we've talked about them. Before

1:03:17 Exercise. helps you with every single one. So like It's called Bright Minds, so B is for blood flow, increases blood flow, retirement and aging, it decreases your age, I is inflammation, it's anti-inflammatory, G is genetics, it helps turn on health promoting genes, H is head trauma. If you're Keep walking, you're less likely to fall when you're older.

1:03:42 Right. T is toxins, sweat detoxies you. M is mental. Help? Exercise boosts dopamine, but it also boosts serotonin. So it's like that perfect balance or In your brain. Breathing, how we breathe.

1:03:57 Does that have an impact on brain health? So you can Almost immediately. improve heart rate variability, which is a sign of heart health, but also goes to mental health. By breathing.

1:04:11 In a certain helpful way. And I call it the fifteen second breath. So four seconds in Big breath. Hold it for a second and a half, pause just a little bit.

1:04:23 Eight seconds out. Hold it for a second and a half. So if you take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in, it increases something called parasympathetic tone. And it just calms you down almost immediately. So if you're having panic attacks, yes, you can take Xanax, but there's so many problems with that later on. Or you can just learn. How to breathe.

1:04:48 We call it diaphragmatic so breathe mostly with your belly. Taking twice as long to breathe out as you breathe out. Chewing. Uh there's a PC that says it stimulates hippocampal activity. And may slow cognitive.

1:05:00 decline reducing chewing has been linked to impaired learning in animal studies. And fast food decreases chewing. Because it's fast. So they take most of the fiber out so you can show it faster, or you can swallow it faster. Things in the bad for your brain list. Overuse of GPS and Navigation app, which weakens the hippocampus by outsourcing spatial memory long term. This can lead to atrophy in areas associated with memory navigation. And people are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease later in life. Because of Sorry.

1:05:30 Because I used to like when I started as young psychiatrists, somebody get lost in a city they'd lived in. for t thirty years, and their family would call me Upset. And I'm like, Okay, this person's headed toward dementia. Now that person goes, take me home.

1:05:48 Do you think it's gonna we're gonna have an epigenetic effect. of not reading maps. That if Steven now he uses his phone to get from A to B Do you think that's gonna affect Steven's son or daughter? Because

1:06:06 Dad. Didn't have. Wow, okay. That uh you could uh pass on something like that. By the way, I th I think it has to be physiological. Stress, for example, could be probably passed on. And you mentioned this. You you pointed out during pregnancy you you want to prevent uh stress and a and crisis, right? D do you know about that study with mice where they made them afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms from memory? And So whenever the mice smelled

1:06:36 Cherry blossoms. They would shock them. Mildly. So the mice are now afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms. Their babies were afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms. Their grandbabies were afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms. So Okay, that's the olfactory system. The olfactory system is very interesting because it goes directly to the hippocampus. But there might be an uh evolutionary advantage.

1:06:59 Because i if if there's something In the environment that you shouldn't eat. Or you know that smells a particular way. Passing that on is is is very efficient instead of having to ha experience that yourself, you know, trial and error,'cause they might if it's poisonous, right, it might kill you. But if if you've your parents ha had that bad experience and pass it on to you shouldn't g go to this something that smells in a particular way.

1:07:23 That makes sense. The other thing that's bad for the brain which is Uh unexpected is You said at the start. Artificial sweetness.

1:07:30 No, I didn't th I thought artificial s sweeteners were fine. They're not fine. And they're not free. So I used to drink diet soda like it was my best friend'cause I thought It was free. Um then I had arthritis when I was thirty five, and one of my patients said

1:07:46 She stopped aspartame and her arthritis went away. I'm like Those drinking like A lot of diet soda. And so I stopped and my arthritis went away.

1:07:58 And I'm like, no. And so I did it again and it came back and I'm like, okay. And Artificial sweeteners can change the microbiome. So we haven't talked about that, but you have these hundred trillion bugs in your gut that make neurotransmitters digest your food. And especially sucralose or splenda has been found to decrease the good bacteria in your gut. Which then has a negative impact on brain function.

1:08:27 And a spar team, as you mentioned. And aspartame that I mentioned that can have a generational impact. So is it possible it's really not social media? It's that we've had aspartame in our food. For decades. And I think it's All of these things that just sort of are additive and we should just always think that that one question.

1:08:49 It's just good for my brain or bad for it. So you mentioned broccoli. Probably that's good for You're Brian. Cheeseburger? Probably not, but why don't you take the burger and if you could make it grass fed that would be better and put it in a salad, then then that would be good for your brand. What about chronic background noise? We don't think much about the impact noise has, but

1:09:13 I still live Um my House was Three houses from the freeway, and if you just go there. It's like my God, it's so loud here.

1:09:23 I never heard the freeway. Because my brain just learned to tune it out. By the way, was that good or bad? For you. You had you adapt it and and were no longer sensitive to it. I I I think that actually was probably not good.

1:09:38 for for var various reasons. Because it what it really means is that you're you're you're specializing for that environment. And your brain's gonna be different when you go someplace. So but so here's a here's uh another example. It's stressful. Right. Chronically stressful, but in the background. In the b in other words, yeah. In other words, you're you're

1:10:01 Your brain is reacting to it even though you're not aware of it. Yeah. So And I have five sisters, which makes it even worse. Subtly increases cortisol and impairs working memory and attention regulation, especially in children and older adults, to be chronically exposed to background noise like traffic or the low level hum of a city. Yeah, that's right. That's absolutely right. Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting ten thousand of you to come even deeper into the diary of a sea.

1:10:26 Welcome to my inner circle. This is a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my pad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guest, and also the episodes that we've never ever released. And so much more. In the circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of conversations you would love us to have. But remember for now we're only inviting the first ten thousand people that joined before it closes. So if you want to join our private closed community, head to the link in the description below or go to DOAC circle dot com. I will speak to you there. Many of us multitask across multiple screens now. We're watching TV here, we've got our phone here, got our iPad here, got our computer here.

1:11:17 I was reading into the science of multitasking and it said that it trains your brain to be distractible. reducing grey matter density in the interior singulate. Yeah, it's a uh you know in the medial Prefrontal cortex. And when the insula The insula is so interesting. And I know you can talk about it. I have a new study coming out on hope. So on seventy five hundred patients, we gave them a hope questionnaire. What does that mean? Good question.

1:11:44 Like how much hope do you have that you have the ability to make tomorrow better? and people with low hope. Have lower overall prefrontal cortex function. But the insular Yeah.

1:11:59 was really low. And that signal was the most statistically significant of the group. Really. And In some studies, by the way, uh also uh for depression, people who have depression. Uh, have low activity in the interior singularity. It deep brain stimulation has been used now for to help some people, if you stimulate that area.

1:12:23 Imaging research would say is depression is like chest pain. It's not one thing. Like nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain because that would be stupid, right? It could be heart attack, heart arrhythmia, heart infection, gas, grief. Depression's the same way when you look at it from an imaging standpoint. Sometimes their frontal lobes are too active, sometimes they're not active enough, sometimes it's their limbic system that's too active. And I wrote a book called Healing Anxiety and Depression. I'm like here's the seven things I see as an image or

1:12:59 What about ADHD? There's obviously been a rise in ADHD or at least people reporting of being diagnosed with ADHD quite significant Can you find ADHD in the brain? Are we causing ADHD as a function of the way that we're living our lives, or is it something within the brain genetically that I could I could see. So it's both, I think. Clearly you can see ADHD in people's families. In fact, if I have a hyperactive, restless, impulsive, disorganized, procrastinating.

1:13:30 child, I'm looking at the mom and the dad. I'm like, where's this coming from? But you could also get ADHD from a head injury, especially if it affects their frontal lobes, which is why you shouldn't let children hit soccer balls with their forehead. You can also get it from the Chronic. From the excessive input making people distracted, just like you said.

1:13:53 brand new study out on children who took medicine, right? We always demonized ADHD medicine. But the kids who took Madison. Actually had bigger brains in their prefrontal cortex than kids who didn't take

1:14:10 medicine who had A D Riddle them? Riddle one. Th that's okay, it's speed, basically. Yeah, and feminines.

1:14:17 It is. But For the kids who have it. I think withholding medicine From a child who really has ADHD is like withholding glasses from someone who has trouble seeing. And it's it's the easy thing to demonize the drugs.

1:14:36 Until you realize someone who has a DHD A third of them don't finish high school. And we never asked the right question about People go, What's the side effects? And it's it can decrease your appetite. And Yeah.

1:14:52 can have sleep problems with it. But they don't ask the other question. So what's the side effect of not taking? the medicine, or at least not fully treated. And there are other ways to treat it besides medicine. You know, for God's sakes, I own a supplement company and I'm always trying to optimize the nutrients to the brain, or feedback can help. But if you do those things and it's not working, don't be afraid of medicine.

1:15:19 Mm-hmm. But by the way, when I was growing up ADHD either didn't exist or they didn't know about it. Do you think that there's uh some link to the Oh no, it was first described in around nineteen ten, and it's in the first version. of the DSM.

1:15:36 They called it minimal brain dysfunction. But When we were growing up there were one of two of these kids in our classrooms, and now there's eight to ten. Seems to but like uh autism. It's uh

1:15:52 Seems to be perfecting. Right. And part of it I think is the food. The is much more processed. Part of it is the screens, part of it is the distracted parents and Part of it is the Teaching. You always seem to be doing new studies, Daniel. What what new studies are you most excited about or have you completed since we last spoke?

1:16:14 I did one that I'm so excited about. Um Negativity. And

1:16:22 Negativity is Bad for your brain. So How do you define negativity? We actually give them a Questionnaire.

1:16:30 Uh positivity, negativity, bias questionnaire. And people who are more negative have less activity. in their prefrontal cortex. Actually Quite interesting. And so

1:16:45 Unbridled Positivity is bad for you because you need that fifteen percent. But if you're chronically negative That is Bad for you, Brian.

1:16:58 Is there a link between being a negative person and Alzheimer's and dementia? Yes. And what's interesting,'cause you mentioned a gender difference earlier. Um If you're depressed and you're a woman, it doubles your risk for Alzheimer's disease.

1:17:12 If you're depressed and you're a man, it quadruples. Your rest. So th there was a study it was done during the Covid. Years, a couple years.

1:17:24 And it turns out The uh rate of depression. Like doubled in women. But not in men. During COVID. During COVID.

1:17:33 And after Covid when the students came back and everybody was back to normal. So called normal. The women stayed depressed. At that r high level. Which is very is uh very interesting. There should be the women who

1:17:48 So in one study women had fifty two percent less serotonin. Than men? Which I think is really interesting. Women by and large have double the risk of depression. Women have double the risk of depression as men their limbic systems are larger, which is also more involved in more vulnerable and bonding. And then the whole COVID thing we haven't talked about. COVID. causes inflammation in the limbic part of the brain. I had scans of people I was treating

1:18:22 And then they got COVID. And then I scan them again and you can just see this dramatic inflammation in the brain. If someone's listening now and they just wanna they want to improve their brain health, they want to avoid dementia, they want to be cognitively powerful and capable as they age. They want to get to 80 years old, 90 years old, 100 years old.

1:18:44 And have a great brain. And you just had to and you could only tell them to do three things. Well Terry said one, exercise. Okay, exercise when we did it. Start every day with today is going to be a great day. Plus to push your brain.

1:19:01 Rather Then what's wrong. Okay. Optimistic. And grateful.

1:19:08 Omega three fatty acids. And either do it with fish or do it with a supplement. Why did you include omega three phi acids? Because it decreases inflammation in twenty five percent of the cell membranes in your brain are made up of omega three fatty acids and as a country were dramatically low on them. And learning. That's maybe one of the things that's been left off the list of top three things.

1:19:35 But I mean I remember you telling me that how good learning was for the brain and even getting outside and running outside versus running on a treadmill. It's more beneficial. And if you learn while you're exercising What you're doing is you're getting blood flow to the hippocampus and you're more likely to remember. Yeah.

1:19:54 So I had someone tell me that they um figured out that they could learn better for their exams if they did it in a sauna? So they kept it was a scientist that I spoke to, she said she keeps learning new information when she's in the sauna,'cause she realized that when she left the sauna and was then tested upon on it, she was better able to uh

1:20:14 Do the exam? And I guess that's correlating to what you said about because in a sauna you're gonna have a lot of blood flow, I imagine. To the brain? Yes, there's actually a study in Jama psychiatry. That one sauna

1:20:27 Mm bath. help depression. significantly helped depression. Uh I think it's because of It's balancing the brain. And people who do the most on this have the lowest risk of Alzheimer's disease.

1:20:42 Hm. What is the most important thing as it relates to the subjects that we spoke about today? AI, the brain, neuroscience. But you would like to say to the Amount the people that are listening now, there could be.

1:20:54 A million people listening, there could be twenty million people listening. If you could say one thing to them about the brain. AI, neuroscience, whatever you want to say, the floor is yours. What would that be? Over to you first.

1:21:07 Terry. Sleep. The sleep is the time when the body Not just regenerates. But

1:21:13 Your memory is consolidated. So things you've experienced during the day are integrated into your cortex and it's an interaction between hippocampus and the cortex. for of you know for for episodic memories. And and and it's unfortunate. What's happening with children now, you know, is the th they're so competitive to get into college.

1:21:34 that they're cutting back on their sleep and it's just the wrong time of your life. You shouldn't be cutting it back when your brain is This is developing. So th those two things, I would say sleep and exercise are the most important thing for your brain. The floor is yours. What would you say to the Listeners.

1:21:51 about all the things we've talked today. What's your closing closing statement? Well, you know, I go back to what I talked about in the beginning, which is we've just thrown the barn door open. And let the horse bolt. out into our schools. into our businesses, into our homes.

1:22:10 And before we even ask, is it a gift? Or is it a Trojan horse that's gonna steal? From us we've embraced convenience before understanding consequence and we've done it before With

1:22:26 video games and cell phones and social media and marijuana and alcohol and opiates and hypercropes, corn syrup and aspartame. And we have to be smarter. We have to Tame this horse.

1:22:39 gone with wisdom or it's gonna trample our children. And so I think We have to be Very thoughtful and it all comes back down to is this good for my brand or bad for it. Is it good for our collective brains? Or is it potentially bad for it?

1:22:55 And Just Answer that question with information and love. Of yourself, of your family, of your country. Yeah, yeah.

1:23:10 Yeah, more anxious than when I came in. I don't like that. It is uh it's I'm just it's so front of mind for me at the moment because I have the hindsight, the wisdom of hindsight of all those things you mentioned, like exercise and processed foods and social media and all these things that we tried, and they all seem to follow a similar arc. some kind of new product or discovery is made.

1:23:33 The early phase. in the early phase people who have an incentive for that thing to be successful or somewhat like gaslight you into thinking that it's fine. And then we get into the second phase where we start to see sort of con some consequences. Then we study what's actually happened. We figure out that there's there was always a trade off. And that

1:23:51 Nobody really understood the trade off. And then people change their behavior. So now when I get into these new technologies where The short term benefit is really clear. It's making me more productive. I I pause and I go, There's gonna be a trade off here. There's always a trade off.

1:24:08 What is the trade off? And am I comfortable and conscious of what that trade off is? And if if the trade off so I try to figure out what the tradeoff is with things like AI and I go, Okay, the tradeoff is probably I'm gonna be worse critical thinking. Then might have an impact on my social relationships if I fall in love with fucking Annie, because she's pretty hot, to be fair. And I really value my critical thinking. I really value my ability to um solve problems and to articulate myself and to write and to communicate with my loved ones in an effective way. So what can I do if that is the trade off now? that I'm doing now feels really counterintuitive in a world where everybody's got these productivity gains because they're using these tools, which is to refrain.

1:24:48 And I I wonder if one of the great advantages of the next decade. One of the great Hedges. For anyone that's wanting to be a great critical thinker, entrepreneur, creative.

1:24:58 Is to Go left when everyone's going right. Which is to reframe and do it the hard way. And if we look at history

1:25:08 in these arcs that we've discovered with food and with exercise and all these things and dating Doing it the hard way. Like we said about the marshmallow test and delaying the graphication. seems to yield the greatest returns. So I think I'm gonna do it the hard way. Because it won't have the side effects. Yeah. The hard way. I w I wanna feel good now.

1:25:31 And later. As opposed to now. But not later. And to be clear, this doesn't mean I'm not gonna use AI or chat GPT. It just means that when it matters, when the thinking matters, I will think for myself. And when the communication matters, I'll communicate for myself.

1:25:48 That's what I that's my conclusion. You should hope that your children will feel the same way when they grow. But they will model what you do. Right. Every day you model Health.

1:26:01 Or not health. Mm. Thank you. Thank you for writing two well, many incredible books that I've got around me. I'm going to link them all for my viewers that are watching. I've got so many of these books. Um The incredible one that you wrote for parents called Raising Mentally Strong Kids. You've got your other book over there, Change Your Brain Every Day. And I've got This book here from from Terry, which is The Deep Learning Revolution and

1:26:25 one you wrote most recently called Chat GPT and the future VR. I'm gonna link all of them below and I'm gonna link them with a little bit of a summary of what's in them. So if you decide that there's anything here that that we talked about today that where you want to dig in further, please do dig in. And I'm also gonna link um Both of you A link to where people can find out more about both of you. your websites and more of your work in the comments below. So please do check that out, everybody listening. We have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest.

1:26:49 As you know. And they don't know who they're leaving it for. So I'm gonna ask you both a question. Starting with you, Daniel. Are you prepared?

1:26:57 For recognition. Of your next Health. Challenge. Will you be able to notice its onset?

1:27:07 And how will you address the challenge? Even if it means a major lifestyle change. Or way of living. Mm. Okay.

1:27:19 Yes. How will you address the challenge? Even if it means a major lifestyle change or way of living. Well, I'm very clear on the goals. I have.

1:27:30 Which is to be Byrant. unhealthy and not get dementia. So if I need to change something so that happens, I'm like all in. Are you prepared? Probably not. Not even blessed with good health.

1:27:49 I try to live a healthy Life. But the problem is that you can't anticipate, you know, as you get older What Yeah, what's uh ahead.

1:28:02 You know. You mentioned arthritis. Um I'm feeling a little bit of arthritis now. I've Most all my life. And you know, that's something it's very di to realize that it's coming.

1:28:17 There's very little you can do about it. Is is uh depressing. But on the other hand. Things can always be worse. And sometimes that cheers you up.

1:28:29 But the the the the the reality is that there are things In the world. Like COVID, you know, that you have no control over. That may Or an accident or Alzheimer's, you know, God forbid.

1:28:44 You know, that y that is who knows uh what will happen, right? You you have to live with whatever Life deals with you. You know, the time that you have you should really spend on Uh trying to make it a Well

1:28:58 Healthy life, a A productive life, a a you know, satisfying life and and that's something that we have control over, right? What are you scared of? Right now it's China. Uh you know, I I uh I'm not being facetious. I th I think that it's uh

1:29:19 It's it's it's it's w a threat that is a societal threat. It's not I don't think that it's gonna affect me. And I've had great Chinese students and so I I really like I think the the Chinese People are different from what I see as the The country Uh the the the what they're trying to do, the goals that they're taking.

1:29:38 Uh twenty years ago, if you look at the Um of all the technical areas in physics and chemistry and biology and so forth, uh The one hundred most important advances have been made. I in in uh twenty years ago it was like uh the Americans had like, you know, ninety four of them.

1:29:58 This year It's seventy four are Chinese. That's because they made a huge investment in science and STEM. Th you know, they they put they poured out a million

1:30:13 Engineers for To to implement AI. Right. Uh you know they're they're doing the right thing. We we did that You remember when the Sputnik uh went over the Sputnik moment?

1:30:25 We made a huge investment in STEM in science and engineering and and in education. What was the Sputnik movement? Oh okay, fifty seven when the the Russians put a satellite that went over the US over and over again. We didn't we it took us years to put up our own satellite because we had fallen behind. Mm. But we we that investment we've been living on f f literally f you know f for the last uh sixty years. And now the the Chinese have done that and and they're gonna be advanced and they're gonna be way beyond us.

1:30:55 Uh you know, I I I the this is You asked me, okay. Uh that that's something I'm I was I'm very, very uh Disappointed in our country that we're We're n in fact we're just doing the opposite. We're tearing apart science right now with with the president administration. What are you scared of, Daniel?

1:31:14 Losing my wife. That's the most It's the thing that comes to mind. And when I was thinking about China and my mother in law was a proper And prep it being someone that's preparing for the end of the world.

1:31:29 And we're in Egypt last year and got a call that she had cancer and We're there for three days and came home. And I kept thinking I loved her dearly. I'm like you prepared for the wrong thing.

1:31:43 You should have prepared for cancer. Like I think every day we should be and the same Alzheimer's prevention program is a cancer prevention program. It's a heart disease prevention program. It's a diabetes prevention program. And I'm like She's prepared for the wrong thing. The thing you really want to be prepared for is Disease, right? And I know I'm gonna die.

1:32:09 I just want to be vital. For as long as I can be. And hopefully. Is Well I have a say.

1:32:18 And this. Right,'cause I know I can accelerate. My body's decline. Or I can decelerate it. And I'm gonna choose to decelerate it.

1:32:29 Thank you we're done.

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