Tj Power: Dopamine, addiction, and hunter-gatherers

0:00Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and this is the show that helps you navigate the mayhem of the modern world. Today I'm chatting to TJ Power. We as humans spend 300 ,000 years evolving out in nature. These chemicals during those 300 ,000 years, like every part of us, were evolving and trying to help us. Dopamine, for example, if we were out there hunting and looking for food and building shelter, it would reward these behaviours and suddenly our dopamine would go up because those behaviours were vital to surviving. If you then put a hunter-gatherer in the modern world, like put our ancestors in the modern world, and suddenly they had sugar and phones and sat inside all day and stopped sleeping and became disconnected, all these chemicals would drop.

0:42And that really is where we're at as a society. All of these chemicals are low for all of us. TJ is a neuroscientist and the co-founder of Neurofi. He's basically the brain behind our brains. And yes, he's a super clever scientist, but he's only human too. He's struggled with addictive behaviours himself. So he knows firsthand how to spot those more unhelpful habits from hangovers to endless scrolling on our phones. But he also now knows how to manage them. The key is to understand the four primary brain chemicals that influence our feelings and behaviours. We're talking dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins.

1:24These are the things he focuses on in his book, The Dose Effect, which will come out later this year. You've probably heard of some, if not all of those chemicals. I definitely have heard a lot about dopamine, certainly in relation to phones and scrolling and these little hits we're trying to get all of the time. And I guess a little bit about oxytocin when I was pregnant, but I certainly need to learn more about it. and I know a teeny bit about serotonin because I'm pretty sure it relates to sleep and that's something that I can become a bit obsessed by. So look, I am really eager to hear more of what TJ has to say.

2:05Basically, TJ can identify what chemical you're lacking based on what you're experiencing and then offer a really lovely simple solution to increase it using everyday things that we can all do. And I mean that. You'll hear in a moment. This stuff doesn't have to be difficult. We just need to understand how it all works in the first place.

2:46Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin. Check out Zin.com slash find to find Zin at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine.

3:26Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Say what you want about AI, but it's here. And it's helping businesses get more done in a day. Wix's website builder is infused with AI so you can stay ahead. Create a beautiful, functional website just by describing your idea. Track how your site appears in AI search results. Create custom images on demand. Or launch an entire campaign in a matter of minutes. Wix gives you AI wherever you need it. Try it now for free at Wix.com.

4:00All right, here it is. This is the show.

4:24Hello TJ Power. Hello, Pat. How are you? I'm good, I'm good. Is Power your actual surname? It is. I do get asked that, but it is. It's a really strong surname. Yeah, my parents gave me a shot for this media world. Exactly. They were thinking very, very far ahead. It's so good to have you on the podcast. I think what you're doing is so interesting and I've been really enjoying following all of your social content and breaking down some pretty complex situations for us to understand in really plainly spoken language, which I think is a lovely bridge because there's many of us out there extremely interested in neuroscience, but it can get extremely overwhelming and overcomplicated.

5:06So I like that you've distilled it for us to really understand what we need to know. 100 % that's been the goal I think when I was studying at university I came across all these ideas I thought wow that'd be super useful for society to understand but it's all in such complicated language and my number one mission has just been like simplify it make it accessible so people can actually start taking action. Yeah it's great and what I think's really empowering for us all to understand is when we feel we've got poor mental health and we'll all peak and trough with how we're feeling mentally often we will assume it's down to either circumstance or something that's happened in the past or maybe it's simply hereditary and I think we can all get quite stuck in that I've certainly been there where I've gone my mental health is poor at the moment because this thing happened yeah whereas the data that you're presenting to us in your neuroscience world yeah is actually we've got these brain chemicals that are really attributing to how we're feeling, what our mood is, our energy levels and our general baseline mental health.

6:16So would you say we've got more agency over our mental health than we care to believe? A hundred percent. I think these brain chemicals are right at the core of how a human being functions. Just for context, these brain chemicals we're talking about are dopamine being the super famous one, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. And very conveniently, that spells dose d-o-s-e which is heaven whoever named those chemicals thank you and each of these chemicals presents really specific symptoms if you're low or high on them and we have so many people coming through our training and connecting with us that may experience being like really demotivated or low in confidence or disconnected or tired or anxious and don't understand necessarily that they could be low in some very specific chemicals the modern world is creating a world that does lead to these chemicals being low and we're finding simple action start alleviating people out of this sort of pain.

7:08Yeah it's so interesting because obviously you know all of us will have been through challenging experiences and it's not to say that those experiences aren't valid and don't contribute to us feeling not great but like you're saying and I think it's so interesting to reiterate that the modern world isn't conducive to us having balanced levels of these brain chemicals. I mean, that is a huge thing to realise. We're under pressure to create some sort of stability with these chemicals that isn't a given. Yeah, effectively, we as humans spend 300 ,000 years evolving out in nature. That's like the path we are in.

7:47Like we looked in this physical form, this is what they believe, that we were in this physical form for 300 ,000 years. 99.9 % of that we were out there. And very recently, we've come up with this new way that humans live their lives and these chemicals during those 300 ,000 years like every part of us were evolving and trying to help us they were trying to help us survive but also like thrive as a species and each of them has a specific function so dopamine for example if we were out there hunting and looking for food and building shelter it would reward these behaviors and suddenly our dopamine would go up because those behaviors were vital to surviving oxytocin if we remain super connected to the tribe obviously that was vital if you were on your own you were screwed out in nature serotonin was this one that wanted us to take care of our bodies with nutrition and sunlight and sleep and then endorphins had this ability to de-stress us and effectively when we were out there in the wild all these chemicals were pumping if you then put a hunter-gatherer in the modern world like put our ancestors in the modern world and suddenly they had sugar and phones and sat inside all day and stopped sleeping and became disconnected all these chemicals would drop and that really is where we're at as a society all of these chemicals are low for all of us and it's a dream for us to discover this to be honest as people because there are so many things that could then rebuild it and get us feeling good again yeah we need to almost reverse a few of the terrible habits that we're all in collectively and there's stuff that's totally normalized it's not like i'm talking about criminal activity here it's just like using your phone too much so let's break some of these down so let's look at your your daily dose sort of theory here so let's look at dopamine so dopamine as you say is like a reward feeling it's the chemical that makes us feel good when there's like a reward in place.

9:25But of course, that reward used to be hunting and gathering and food and something that was actually going to help to nurture our health and our longevity as human beings. Now we're getting it off phones. That's where we're getting the dopamine hit. Why does it differ? Why is that hit of dopamine not as productive, say, as something that is slightly more rewarding and I guess contributing to your actual health? Yeah, such a good question. So effectively, what you have to imagine is it would have been so hard to survive outside. Like if you actually imagine it now, we find it hard enough to survive in this world.

10:01So imagine actually what it was like to survive outside. And dopamine was there to basically make us enjoy the experience of effort so that all of these things that were really hard to do, like find food or find animals or whatever it may have been, it made us feel good in the pursuit of that goal so that we'd want to keep doing it. And the reason it varies so much compared to like when we go on social media is if you imagine like a really simple graph, if you were, say, hunting for an animal, it might be two or three hours of your dopamine gradually building. You finally successfully get the animal and then it comes back down.

10:33You've had this really slow rise and fall. The difficulty happens with when something like you go on social media, immediately you experience that huge spike of dopamine. You get the reward straight away, even higher than what we could have got from that because these are very like carefully made ideas. and the brain is always good at getting itself back into balance it just wants to be in the middle and that's the same with everything your heart rate everything wants to always be balanced because it goes so high it's then like wow i've got to get back to the middle so it crashes really low and that's what creates something called low baseline dopamine and you know that feeling where you scroll for ages and it is really fun and then you put your phone down and you get that deflated feeling like i even saw in that little things book you compared it to eating a slice of cake yeah and that is so one up and you're like i can't stop it's so amazing i'll have a little slither more and then afterwards you feel crap 100 and cake or social media the exact set the exact same is effort the key here is it you know we're getting dopamine hits with zero effort we're like barely we're moving one finger and we're getting the hit that would have as you say taken two hours of exertion and effort before 100 effort is the key and that can be slightly annoying so obviously we all want everything to be super easy yeah but we have to understand like the nature of how our brain actually is and even if you take something like needing to tidy your home and it's one of those annoying tasks can't really be bothered gradually start doing it it's a bit annoying but then you start to gain momentum and that momentum is dopamine building in your brain and then afterwards you get this feeling of satisfaction and anything that's like discipline a little bit of effort whether it's work-based even if you compare something like the feeling you get after reading compared to scrolling social media one of them your brain had to engage a bit bit of effort, satisfied after, won them no effort, kind of a bit disappointed after.

12:15And that's the difference. One of the things that you've been really brilliant talking about online, which I think is a subject that gets pushed to one side because people either feel ashamed talking about it or they find it embarrassing to talk about it. And that's porn, which again, you've got this low effort, extremely high hitting dopamine rush and then a huge crash afterwards. Can you tell me about why you wanted to look into the study of that and how you've experienced that personally? Yeah, porn is fascinating. I think we're underestimating it so much as a society because it is like an unspoken topic, effectively.

12:49And I think it's an activity that so much of our world engages in very regularly. And that really isn't a surprise. Like, I see no judgment in wanting to watch that. Of course, it's going to be like a fun activity to do. I love that you're calling it a fun activity. It's great. We can describe it however, but I understand why society wants to engage in it. And I did. like I grew up young kid I remember googling something on like a laptop suddenly seeing all that for the first time before I'd seen any of it in real life and then again I just got into that cycle and you think that's not that bad for me you don't necessarily know it would be bad for you and then I was in that cycle for maybe 10 years of watching it and then came to study this dopamine stuff and thought porn is literally the epitome of this concept of our brain wants effort it wants to be rewarded for hard work something like having sex with someone is designed to be effort you have to meet someone connect with them eventually get intimate with them then have sex and it's like this gradual journey porn is the opposite it's just like i'm horny boom straight into it and then it's gone and the crash is huge like i think lots of people can feel that deflated feeling within them after watching it and i then start i came off it and i was like so shocked at how it affected my drive and that's what dopamine is here for it's to make you feel driven for your life and having drive is so essential to creating the life you want like being able to pursue your work and help your family and whatever it may be so i then came off it told my brother and my friends i was like can you just try coming off it and they're like oh i can't bother it obviously they came off it for a few weeks so like tj's come up with some other bullshit and they came off it suddenly experienced more drive and then i built it into the dose training and now it's like one of the most frequent messages we're getting online is from particularly men but i think women also watch porn but I think men might engage them more frequently and the frequency of these things is what creates the most damage and they then come off it suddenly more driven feel calmer more focused so it can have a big big effect yeah I mean and an instantly noticeable as well definitely what I guess is terrifying and we were talking a little bit about this before we started recording today is how quickly technology is moving so you know TikTok is Instagram on heat you know it's moving even quicker and it's all video and it's you know for me it's too much overload for my brain i know not to get stuck into that world because it wouldn't it wouldn't serve me well and you know we've got ai the introduction of that coming into play and i'm sure the porn landscape's changing online and things becoming you know more fast-paced more immersive and that is terrifying to me as a parent certainly but also just as part of the human race that we've got even more challenges ahead in terms of being disciplined enough to not just fall into these traps that are just set up for us constantly.

15:31How do you feel about that? Do you feel hopeful that we can push against these trends that are everywhere? They're just so ingrained in our culture. Do you think we can push against them to save our mental health? That is a good thing to ponder. I really back society to solve problems. I think the human species is unbelievable. And the fact that we have survived here for hundreds of thousands of years means we're very good at overcoming difficulty and even if you go back a few hundred years maybe it's like disease and aids and things like that massive problems to society eventually when a problem is big enough enough attention is garnered and then humans are very good at solving it so i think we're seeing that shift in our world with things like you making a massive focus on this and progressively more and more people putting their attention towards a problem that needs solving and i also back the human instinct and all the human instinct wants to do is stay alive like that's all it wants is just to be alive that's the core of why we're here effectively and the reason dopamine for example rewards positive behaviors like hunting and building shelter is because these things increase your likelihood of survival the reason something like porn gives you the opposite feeling is because the brain is so clever and knowing that isn't the way humans will prosper it knows that if all humans start watching porn all the time and eventually get to a point we're not having sex not having kids that will lead us down a challenging path the same with if we spend all our time mindlessly watching tiktok it'll lead us down a bad path lack of productivity and depression and stuff like that so i back these feelings to become so strong within humans that it'll wake up enough of an energy to solve the problem it's a very lovely way of thinking about it it's really nice and you know you're right you can i think it's that awareness piece isn't it if you can step back and go i really feel like shit after watching porn every day for a month or i for like shit being on TikTok for an hour that you can step back and make changes.

17:19I think it's the awareness is really key there. If you're just feeling low in dopamine and maybe you've tried making some tweaks here, you're on your phone a little bit less, you're not watching porn or whatever else that high is that you're getting, could be drugs, you talk about drugs a lot as well. How can we all boost our dopamine in very natural ways? Yeah, the most important thing is how your day begins because effectively throughout your sleep part of the restorative process is your brain is building a load of dopamine so that a human wakes up and they feel driven and motivated to pursue whatever they need to do and you'd imagine for our ancestors like they had to wake up and get to work find food and keep everyone alive and effectively if you imagine it as little like dopamine bubbles in our brain they're called vesicles and they're literally like a restoring in our brain overnight when our brain wakes up it then craves dopamine really badly because it wants you to go and do something rewarding.

18:11It wants you to find food or whatever it may be. All these bubbles are sitting in your brain. If in that moment of waking, you go straight into the phone, immediately, effectively, those bubbles in your brain start bursting. And suddenly the quantity is reducing and it's really satisfying. It's so nice going into my phone when I wake up. But then you're setting yourself up on low dopamine levels. And when you're on low dopamine, you're then in this kind of slightly lethargic, demotivated feeling. And the only way out of it is all the quick stuff. So then you want the sugary breakfast and whatever it may be, the vape or whatever you could seek for in terms of that quick dopamine.

18:44If the day begins whereby you wake up and you've got this abundance of dopamine in your brain and suddenly you just go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face, you're then using some of these bubbles and they're building more. Or if you just make your bed, anything that's engaging effort, if you could step outside for like a few minutes, even if it was like not very long, that first five to 10 minute window then sets you on a completely different trajectory. So I know it's so hard. Like I went on my phone waking up every day for like my whole life. That one shift is so phenomenal.

19:13And it's just like gradually integrating it into it. I think it's really important, like you just said, none of us want to do the right thing. We would all love to wake up, eat a load of shit, go straight on our phones. We'd all like to do that. I know because I've got the propensity to not feel great or I can look back at my history and think, oh, there have been times where I felt so awful. I feel like I've got no choice sometimes but to be disciplined. So I'm very like that in the morning that I won't let myself go on my phone for at least half an hour because I know I'll just I won't get off it.

19:47And I think it's really important to say that there's not some some of us aren't just naturally disciplined to go. Yes, I'm holier than thou and I won't look at my phone when I get up. It's horrible for all of us. But if you notice the difference that you do feel your baseline of dopamine is slightly higher, that's the incentive, isn't it? That you just keep on on a good route. this is one of the most important things is that if you want to feel happier in our modern world you really need to get super in tune with how these behaviors are actually affecting your feelings in your body because a lot of the time like you're in the pleasure of scrolling the phone but if afterwards you come off the phone and you really tune in to how your body feels you'll notice like a really deflated feeling and on the other side like when you have really positive behaviors you need to really tune in to how good they're making you feel like if you do go for a walk out in the sunlight in the morning you have to directly compare these things because the more in tune you get to how it actually makes you feel the smarter your decisions become i wake up every day craving my phone like i love going on instagram and checking engagement sort of stuff can get super addictive and then seeing what my friends have said and dms and whatever it may be and i have to fight it like every single day i've been doing this for like three years it's not a single day where i don't wake up craving it but i just like force it i have my phone charging like outside my room buying an alarm clock i think is one of the most essential things in the world because if it is right by your bed, you're never going to be able to resist it.

21:06And then like I have the urge to go towards it. I can even feel myself wanting to go towards it now. And I'll just like force myself outside, brush my teeth, whatever it may be. And the difference is phenomenal. Like it's not something I think is negotiable. Like you're asking like, how can we solve this problem in our world? These sort of actions, they just like they have to get into our life. We have to find a way to build them in. Yeah, and they are really simple. You know, obviously there's nuance to the conversation because if you've got a clinical depression, whatever, There's going to be different infrastructures needed to ensure that you feel all right.

21:36But for many people out there who just want to feel a bit better, these really simple things matter. And we think, oh, how can that be a thing? How can not going on your phone make me feel any better? But it's these tiny, tiny tweaks. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert.

22:14That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction. But there's only one Zinn. Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. What does it mean to move at the speed of AI?

22:53It means thinking big and moving fast. It means running like a 10-person team, even if it's just you. With Wix, it's possible. Create a website that's as unique as your business. Launch a new campaign or test new ways to make more money without slowing down. Think it, build it, scale it. All with AI on Wix. Let's talk about the next one on the list, which is oxytocin. So tell us about oxytocin. And what is it? What does it do? So completely here on earth to help connect us as a species. That's why we have it. And it's released most prominently when a mum gives birth, as you will have experienced.

23:33In that moment of birth, the mum and the baby experience this huge surge of oxytocin and it provides that initial pair bond. And then as you go through life and you have physical touch and love and breastfeeding in those early months, oxytocin begins to build and build. and then as you begin to grow as a human and you start to give love to others and contribute and receive love oxytocin bigger and bigger and this connection-based chemical again like in a world where we're so like stuck behind our phones it is beginning to drop and again actions we can go through that can get this one up yeah in a similar way to you know looking at dopamine the screens that we're obsessed with are again really impacting this one on a big level when we often you know i I'm so guilty of this one that I think, oh, I'll just text that person and we'll just like have a voice note chat.

24:18But actually, if I took the time to go, let's go for a cup of tea, sit face to face, make eye contact. Yeah. Probably, you know, just have a laugh or go deep and talk about big things. You feel so boosted after. And I'm, you know, it's no secret that I really struggle to get out the house sometimes to go and see people. I can be, you know, really drawn to just staying at home because it feels comfy and safe and easier. but I can see, especially in the wintertime, it can be detrimental when you've got to look at your own comfort zone that you're willing to step out of to go and, you know, there's a lot of people out there who will be listening to this that feel deeply lonely.

24:54We know that loneliness is one of the biggest problems. I don't know if we still do, but we had a lonely minister in government at one point. And I think that might have even been before the pandemic, but people are really suffering with this one. And again, would you say we've got a bit more agency see over how much we're connecting and how deeply we're connecting than we think definitely and i do think it's important to understand like we all have our own social desires like it's not that you suddenly have to like put yourself in really like extroverted situations if that's not your vibe like if you want to just like meet someone one-on-one that's great and that'll provide you all the oxytocin that's me you need the other thing is if you do want to stay at home which is also fair like it's amazing that we have these nice comfortable homes to be in the interesting thing in the research is also showing that when we text one another we get absolutely no oxytocin release in our brains at all and then immediately when someone calls someone they hear someone's voice they do get an oxytocin release wow so it does show that it is very important like if you're going to be at home to connect more via things like facetime and the research behind that all comes from the fact when you're really really young and you hear the sound of your mom or dad's voice it immediately releases oxytocin and calms you because you know you have safety because your primary caregiver is there so the sound of voices began to like calm us and build this connection based chemical and so much of us now are getting our connection through our phones like even if you think about something like dating apps and i think dating and relationships is a big topic in our world i think it's something that so many people are struggling with if you look at dating apps the entire connection is based on words and texting initially before you get towards facetime or meeting each other and that itself doesn't release the chemical that's going to make you build any kind of bond with the person so it's like we are we're just like malfunctioning a bit as we step into this tech world and the more we can understand the importance of these things the better yeah god that's a big one isn't it because i you know i haven't been on the dating scene for some time and i do think god how how would that how would i feel about that and how would i cope with that because it is now probably the number one way that people meet their partners loads of my friends are married to people they've met on dating apps or dating people and it's a beautiful thing but it is it's a totally different experience to yeah I met my husband very pissed in a club in Ibiza that's pretty cool though that's probably the way to do it there was a hell of a lot of oxytocin um let's talk about many chemicals all legal brain chemicals um let's talk about serotonin this one interests me hugely because there's also relation to sleep so tell us about serotonin so serotonin is fascinating effectively this one evolved to make us take care of our body and this is where things get super interesting because we've coined this term mental health as a society which really makes it sound like something in the top of our head effectively that mental word and this effectively is the most mental healthy chemical and 95 % of it is being made in our body which is very different to the other ones and your brain has and body have a very sophisticated mechanism called the vagus nerve it's this nerve that connect them together effectively your vagus nerve is constantly reading the state of your body your heart your gut system everything and then giving feedback to your brain about how that is and the more you take care of your body the better fed it is the more slept the more sunlight the more well rested the more serotonin is created the better you then feel in your mind it's a very good point to make because often i think you know we we do have these conversations about mental health and we picture this sort of floating head and the body just gets totally forgotten about but hello it's all connected and it's all an interconnected system that has to have some sort of level of equilibrium to feel okay all around and we really forget about that so this is an interesting chemical to talk about yeah if you like i often do find it very difficult to sleep i mean it's kind of chicken and egg thing what do you start with are you trying to solve the problem of boosting serotonin or are you making sure you're getting better sleep so you're producing more serotonin how does it work it really is chicken and egg because when you're sleeping you are building serotonin so it's a serotonin activity but in order to go to sleep you need the release of that melatonin chemical which is the chemical that releases in the evening in the sunset to help put us asleep and serotonin is what creates melatonin so you basically want to build as much serotonin as you can in the day that will then create melatonin and melatonin will put you to sleep and then when you're sleeping you'll build more so it becomes like a nice cycle and there are definitely actions we can take i'd almost start at the beginning of your day and then go from there one of the greatest predictors of sleep is how quickly we see sunlight first thing in the morning it is absolutely essential because we have this circadian rhythm which is like our body clock and that obviously did once live outside all the time so it was just like completely adapted to sun rose we woke up sunset we went to sleep like a few hours after that and the quicker we see sunlight in the morning the faster our circadian rhythm will start so it'll kick off and our energy will go super high super quickly but then the faster it will fall at the end of the day so you'll fall asleep faster and fall asleep deeper quicker effectively so sunlight first thing is absolutely essential would you say sunlight outside is there a difference between looking out the window and being in the you know in the street yeah annoyingly windows just like the fact you wouldn't burn through a window like if it was sunny like because it'll block the uv it's also blocking that capacity for the serotonin to release in the morning it also then interconnects with cortisol that stress hormone but in like a healthy way you actually want a bit of cortisol first thing in the morning to get the system started and especially in months like this like when i woke up this morning i wanted to feel good today like this is a cool thing to be doing and immediately that's okay so i definitely need sunlight and not social media and i try and have this rule of sunlight before social media as like a base idea of if i've seen sunlight then i've like earned my allowance that's nice of going on social media and whilst the sun in the winter is a bit like weaker effectively you can actually look towards it and obviously you have to be super careful you never want to hurt your eyes but you want to effectively imagine that the sun is like a wireless charger and you're like an iphone and it literally has the capacity to charge your serotonin up and if you can like have a few minutes where you look towards the sun that sort of thing is ridiculously good building this chemical and then optimizing your sleep as well later on so brilliant one of my really good mates jj she was feeling just a bit flat and probably the end of last year and a friend said to do this to go she luckily lives near in london a part of london where you can sort of get into a bit of greenery and see the sunrise so every morning she was getting up and watching the sunrise which is obviously again a bit easier to do in the winter because it's not four in the morning it's maybe like seven half seven but she said the difference was noticeable in how she felt in a week not even looking at sleep she just felt better in herself and again it's stuff that we could easily poo poo and say what's that gonna do looking going out and looking at the sunrise but it's all of this stuff that is you know stripping back the layers and looking back to what our ancestors did yeah that works and that's that's the key to it it's basic stuff we have like we just spent so much time out there and our brain and body is just craving these things so badly and the big thing to understand is it's not like immediately going to solve the problem if you're in like a depressed anxious headspace not one sunlight walk is going to solve the problem suddenly you feel amazing but it's like the consistency of doing it gradually begins to rebuild these chemicals and get things going again and someone like andrew huberman one of the most phenomenal neuroscientists in our world believes that our lack of sunlight is the greatest predictor of our poor mental health that one thing and you think sunlight what the hell is that gonna do but we really need it it's just we spend so much time like we used to have 12 hours a day outside now we might have five minutes and that's a radical difference for our brain for our body and if it can just like gradually start increasing i know apple for example are now beginning to track how much sunlight you're getting a day so they're beginning to take prioritization of realizing you need a certain amount a day and again looping back to that conversation of how are we going to solve this problem it is beginning to just figure out all these unique things we need gradually boosting them up yeah and they're really really basic things i think that's such a good one the change that most of us should be able to make that we can prioritize getting outside a little bit more and maybe moving to spain one day because it's pretty great i mean that's also an option and that is something to also understand when it is great because i know it's like amazing when it's sunny and you look at a sunrise but you kind of want to imagine it that if it's sunny outside you'd need about five to ten minutes in your morning like before 12 to get a decent rise in this chemical if it is cloudy you're looking at more like 15 to 20 minutes right so you're still getting it if it's a cloudy day still going to get it arguably it's even more important on those days to make sure you get it because the days where we get no time outside are the ones that really screw us up so you want to imagine it five to ten then fifteen to twenty.

33:31I love that but let's talk about endorphins because again we hear about them in the context of exercise usually but I know that that's not the full picture so distill it for us tell us what we need to know. Yeah so it's correct that exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins basically evolved in our brain to help us cope with physical and mental stress topic you're obviously super interested in and the whole function of them was we used to cope with ridiculous physical stress of having to like fight an animal or run away from a person or whatever it may be and we needed a mechanism that could effectively in those really high pressure moments immediately take all the stress out our brain so we weren't like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die so you just like got focused and then also if you were physically in pain it would take that pain away like for example right now if i told you to run as fast as you can to richmond tube station you'd probably get like a stitch and be like this is quite nice if a bear was chasing you you'd probably just get there you just keep running yes because you'd have this huge endorphin release to de-stress you because you'd be like i have to try and survive this situation and this chemical is magic because any time in which we're feeling stressed out or the other side of low endorphins could we feel kind of frustrated and pissed off and angry if any time that emotion is arising endorphin scientifically will de-stress the brain so getting them released is key yeah absolutely and getting that i think this has been a big one for me like trying to look at stress and understand it in my own life and go because I know sometimes I don't cope very well with it and I can get extreme like physical tension and that can manifest into I had a big sty over Christmas because I wasn't looking at that enough um and it came out in my eye which is like I think all kind of um emblematic of like things I wasn't sort of dealing with in my life but if I can physically get the stress out whether it's exercise or I really love the last probably 12 months I've been doing a lot of shaking nice so just shaking my whole body like I look like an absolute crazy person but it feels so amazing and the sort of release you get from that you can feel the stress literally coming off your body it's so important and something that's really interesting when you were talking about that there that sprung to mind is I think we collectively assume that a good life is a really comfortable easy life but actually all of this points to the absolute opposite that for us to feel good there needs to be effort exertion of some kind and that sort of element of challenge and struggle on a physical level but a mental level so we've probably we're maybe aiming for the wrong things in terms of looking for this sort of ultimate relentless comfort yeah we the the pursuit of comfort is only going to be like a world that does create like a lot of depression in our mind unfortunately just because if we'd been in this modern tech world for hundreds of thousands of years maybe the brain will have evolved into like a whole new mechanism that can enjoy this experience but it's just like we are literally the first humans to ever experience this and the brain is just like what is going on like this isn't what i lived in this is the opposite i was never comfy i was hard working every day constantly trying to contribute to my family to keep them alive constantly having to sleep loads to recharge in order to get there eating the unprocessed foods because there was none of these things like our brain really desires effort and that's why like when people go down the path of like some kind of new routine and they're like oh i'm waking up earlier i'm eating a bit healthier i'm exercising more i'm focusing better obviously a lot of the benefit comes from the behaviors themselves making you feel good but a huge proportion of it is simply the fact your brain is suddenly in more of a pursuit of a goal and it just wants that it wants such a clear goal that it's constantly chasing for and in the steps accomplishing that goal is when you're going to feel your best yeah i mean i i'm addicted to that feeling if anything Like I find it difficult to do the opposite and just be a human and just exist.

37:16I find it really hard. I get so caught up in that feeling. And of course, but I have had periods of my life where I haven't felt like that. And of course, all of that forward moving action requires motivation. If you're not motivated, you are not going to do anything. And I've definitely had, there was a period of my mental health where I felt so unmotivated in most areas. And that's a very tricky place to be when you realize that motivation is probably going to get you out of maybe not fully, but certainly elevate you maybe one or two levels up from the absolute shit show that you feel your life is at that point.

37:49if you are feeling super bleak and there might be people listening to this now that really aren't feeling very good and they have zero motivation but listening to you speaking and understanding that it might require a change of habit maybe some motivation to get outside of the morning to not look at your phone etc where do you start how do you cultivate that motivation to make change yeah this is a really good thing to to ponder and this is where i've been like i now talk at it from a place of like I am doing lots of these things so I am in a more motivated headspace but I was once in so far from this I grew up and had like a really challenging experience between like 16 and 21 I lost five people in five years and by 21 had like carried four coffins on my shoulder and during that time got really into the world of addiction and I got to the end of that about 22 years old and I was so fucked to be honest I was like depressed anxious I'd been having way too much of that dopamine stuff.

38:50And at that point, I was like, how the hell do I solve this? Like I was coming out of uni, I'd managed to keep uni going and do all my degree and all that sort of stuff. But like, personally, my brain was just fried. And at that point, I was like, I need to create some kind of big desire in my life to want to get healthy. And I knew the phone was the greatest problem to solve that the addiction of the phone, because although all the other things like I was having is the frequency of the phone that was really screwing me up. And I hated the idea of coming away from my phone. And I was like, I'm going to see if I can go for a walk each day for an hour without it.

39:25And that was literally the worst idea possible. I'd walk out there, so much like anxiety in my mind, all my depressive thoughts. I would like really criticize myself, be super tough for myself. But I just had this commitment. I was like, I'm going to do this every day until I find a way out of this challenge I'm in, because I'd learned so much about the human instincts and I thought if I give it enough time to be heard eventually it's going to give me the answer and I interestingly in these in the silence is when I actually found all this dose stuff basically all these actions but I found that if you go for a walk every day without your phone and on that walk simply ponder what you want from your life and it's like whether you're wanting deeper connection in your relationships you want to have a healthier lifestyle you want to pursue something in your work if you give your brain enough time to think it's actually so talented at finding the answer.

40:11I just think so much of the time, we're never giving it the space to find it because it's just like, oh yeah, I really want that thing. But now I'm just going to scroll on my phone and you can't see distracting. And I really believe that is step one, a headphone free walk on a consistent basis in a natural environment where you ponder what you're seeking for. And I think that's step one in the catalyst of everything else. But interesting that for you personally, the initiation into that was really challenging. It's not like on day one, you were like, I feel fucking great. I've not got my phone.

40:36I'm pondering all these life ideas. You're going to have to push through a bit of a breakthrough moment of feeling very uncomfortable and I think like any change of habit there's discomfort but that doesn't mean it's wrong a hundred percent and if I can't explain how tough it was like I as I said before the human instinct is very good at guiding us towards positive behaviors and away from unhealthy behaviors and I was engaging so hard in everything unhealthy you can basically do as a person so then when I was out there I heard this really critical voice in my head. And it's so easy to just kind of ignore that voice and just ignore it, ignore it, keep engaging with the behaviors because they temporarily make me feel good.

41:14But if you're out there for long enough, you have to let that voice be heard. And eventually when I started hearing it, I started thinking, okay, I'll listen, I'll listen. I was coming out there more often, more into the silence. And then I started to kind of go down another track of rather than constantly criticizing myself when I was out there, I started to think maybe I could celebrate some progress when I was out there instead of constantly being so tough so I began like this little moment there's a specific bench I'd sit down and I still do this to this day like I find like mental health is just like a constant job of like working on it and building on it and I would sit down I just asked myself like where have I achieved something and it might be like I managed one day where I didn't go on my phone for five minutes and that was like a huge huge step or one day where I didn't eat crappy food or I drunk less alcohol whatever it may be at the time and gradually as I started reinforcing the positive behavior rather than the constant critique of the negative behavior which i think was actually reinforcing the negative i started to reinforce the positive and it began this like gradual domino effect and then i started thinking wow this feels good this feels good and then you go on to this new path thing is everyone everyone even the people we look at and think oh my god they are nailing life they're so perfect everybody has got that horrible critique in our heads every single one of us and i think we look at everyone else and just go, well, they've not got that.

42:27They're just floating through the world and it's all going brilliantly, but we've all got that horrible voice. And I find that really empowering that we can actually connect on that and go, what is your, well, Julia Samuels, who we had on a Happy Place YouTube episode called it the shitty committee. It's so good. It's such a great phrase, but we've all got it. And I think that for me is so empowering because I can go down a right rabbit hole with that one. And I can really listen to that voice way too much. And I can just look around me and assume that none of my friends are experiencing that.

42:59None of my peers at work are experiencing that. Everyone's really confident with what they've set out to do. But even before I start doing a podcast like this, I've got probably half and half, like one bit excited, looking forward to it. The other half of my brain going, well, don't fuck this up. Or, well, maybe it won't go brilliantly and it will be the rest of the days are right off. And it's really, it's a tricky one to manage that. But you're saying if you focus more on the good things that you're actually the, you know, the actions in your life that helps support the more positive voice that you're hearing in your head.

43:31Yeah, this is so crucial. I think this is at the core of every bit of change you can possibly make. If I give you a scenario, if you had two people that were wanting to eat healthier, it's very simple example, I'm sure lots of us want that. and Monday to Friday, they both ate great. They suddenly ate really good. Like 8 % of their food was really nutritious. And then on Saturday, they both ate like crap. They both had a Domino's and like a big tub of Ben and Jerry's. If one of them was like, oh, this is so annoying. I always do this. I'm fat. I'm so bad at dieting and just went down that narrative in their head.

44:02Easily done. Like that could be massive critique. And then the other one was like, this is really annoying that I've eaten the Domino's and Ben and Jerry's, but I just did five days of eating really, really healthy and that's massive progress one of them reinforces the negative behavior and it will just continue to happen whereas the other one reinforces the more positive behavior like i've had this even as i've like stepped into higher pressure moments with speaking or coming on things like this it's so easy to come off it and think oh that's a little bit i got wrong that's a little bit i got wrong whatever it may be do it every time and it's so annoying because you're then just building the floor inside you whereas if you come off and you think wow there were some good things that went right that's how you build proper self-belief and confidence and this is actually something we go into with the oxytocin is how do you do that yourself we have this achievements based card where you learn to just celebrate simple small achievement each day but then also how can you do this with other people and we're living in a world where self-belief is falling so fast because we're mass comparison and everyone has more than us and all that kind of stuff and if around the dinner table for example you like as parents and with their kids you can have a simple conversation of one thing you achieved that day, it then helps like a kid or a parent like begin to believe they actually can make progress in their life.

45:13And it is vital. Again, it's like one of these core things the human brain needs in a world of tech. Like you say, it's got to be independent because we are so now obsessed with outside validation in terms of, again, how we're using phones and how we're communicating with each other and how we're imbibing information from social media that we think things that are heavily liked or talked about a lot are more important or are okay and we've actually got to find that feeling that we're doing all right without any exterior anything and that's that's another discipline that we're not looking at that's potentially getting worse because of social media yeah and this is where getting in tune with how you're feeling is so important like i said that at the start you've got to tune into what's what these behaviors are actually making you feel with the phone and booze or whatever it may be or positive behaviors and this again is why i continue to come back to this idea of a quiet walk in nature because it gets boring out in nature if you're walking and boring is okay like to be in that state even though we fear it now and we hear all these voices but when you're out there it's hard to like understand this as a human because we have it all in our brain but our body can talk to us like we can literally hear these feelings within us and if it's something like that where it's like i'm seeking for validation because maybe that person thinks that thing is cool.

46:30I don't actually give a shit about that thing. The more time you spend in the quiet building a relationship with yourself, the stronger all these connections become. And then you start thinking, what do I actually enjoy? What is making me feel really good? You celebrate the achievement of doing these behaviours more often and you yourself go on to a better path rather than trying to be on everyone else's. Yeah, I saw that on Instagram. You'd put get bored because we're all overstimulated. And you said one of the things to increase natural dopamine is to get bored. And you had loads of people underneath going, get bored.

46:59How does that increase dopamine? I don't get it. But it makes absolute sense. We're not allowing ourself any time, not even to get bored, but just to like not be overstimulated. We're just constantly overstimulated. And again, I think we underestimate the impact that's having. Yeah, getting bored is an interesting one. That's why the comments were funny on that. Because...

47:25on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead, no rigid long-term contracts, just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, this is Knox from the podcast with Knox and Jamie. And maybe like us at the Popcast, you also know people who have been smokers or vapors. And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about.

48:02Because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches. Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction. And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either 3 or 6 milligrams. Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

48:29getting bored in itself isn't something like rises dopamine really significantly that's not the basis of that the whole idea of getting bored is so much of the activities we're doing is constantly spiking and crashing the dopamine phones or sugar or booze or whatever it may be getting bored means the dopamine is doing nothing the dopamine is just staying still and rather than these big fluctuations which eventually exhaust the dopamine and the baseline gets lower and lower and we get more and more into that depressed type energy being bored is going to be something that's like solidifying your dopamine effectively it's strengthening your ability to be in that state of low stimulation overstimulation is causing low dopamine so if you can get into low levels of stimulation you're just going to have the capacity to do things that are a bit more uncomfortable like if you need to exercise that's kind of boring to be honest or go out for a walk or cook and eat a healthy meal or read a book or work and focus better like you have to have the capacity to do hard things and being in like a state where you are a bit bored like it's very healthy for the mind.

49:24I mean, I, um, one of my, I say sort of greatest joys in life, not even just work is creativity, whether it's like painting for my own fun or writing or dreaming up an idea or whatever it might be. And I sometimes forget that I have to have some sort of fallow period to do that well. So I just think, no, keep working. You could do this. You could do that. You could do this. And I remember this one day where I said to my husband, let's just go to an art gallery we both had a morning off work let's just go to an art gallery and mooch about we hadn't done that ever actually quite I was going to say for years but ever and we had a really nice time walking around and the next day I set out to do a painting and it was for a charity thing and I painted the best I've ever painted because I had that sort of you know it wasn't boredom necessarily but it was time out of that overstimulation and just to sort of naturally look around and wonder and comment on the paintings we were looking at did something So I have to always think back to that one very specific day that those moments out really count and they change your productivity, your creativity, your ability to cope with stress.

50:31You know, when we're overstimulated, as soon as a stressful thing comes in, we're screwed because we can't take any more on our plate. We've got too much going on. So I think it's, again, looking for those tiny moments, I guess, where we can create a bit of space, which sometimes feels impossible when you're busy, parent, work, whatever. but there's always a little bit more space than we care to believe even if it's like you say five minutes of sunlight in the morning yeah that's an interesting one because to get super creative like with art or something like that you need to be really like present in that experience you don't you don't need to be like chasing the idea of what's this art going to look like you need to be like fully immersed in its creation when you went and did that thing with your husband at the art gallery that would have made your mind insanely present when we're in hyper productive states we're constantly on the what's next what's next what's next looking at the task list chasing chasing chasing and that's like a very agitated place to be in it's not necessarily that bad like we got to be productive sometimes but when you get deeply into the present that's something the mind loves to be in and that's what's so interesting about like scrolling the phone for example because it's effectively giving us fake present moment because it's immersing us in this thing our dopamine gets super high dopamine when dopamine is high we often do get really present in something and it's like this fake presence and then you come off and it's almost like the word your brain will rebound and then it'll think tons either end and then you go into fake presence whereas an activity like art or creativity or an art gallery that's like actual natural slow slightly boring but not boring but like slightly calmer presence and like the brain needs that it needs these slower paced things yeah it's so cool i need to go and do it again i need to go to an art gallery soon yeah you've been you've incentivized me hugely like it's so interesting and i think um i'm so keen to just learn more about what you're saying because I think personally and also just the work that I'm doing now it feels like a bit of a foundation that I don't understand as well as I could in terms of making you know boosting my own mood but also talking about this stuff really openly I think is extremely helpful and I love what you're doing so TJ thank you so much for being on Happy Place.

52:33Thank you can I bring it together one final thing? Wrap this shit up TJ. I really want to bring it together so what I'd love people to take action from this I think it's magic to listen to podcasts but i think the most useful thing is if something changes in how you're doing your life so when you wake up tomorrow morning this be you and everyone listening first thing is you're going to try and not go on your phone for five minutes yeah that's gonna be you're going to go brush your teeth and splash some cold water on your face and make your bed but you're not going to do it for five minutes the second thing is going to be for the oxytocin we'll do one for each second is going to be for oxytocin you're just going to ponder in your mind one achievement from yesterday something that feels like progress serotonin goal next thing in the morning is going to be try and get some sunlight so a little bit off the phone celebrate achievement bit of sunlight and then endorphins we didn't go too deep into that but it's all about physical exertion and one of the absolute best ways is if you sing and you really sing because it physically exerts the chest and the body releases endorphins that's why you get the euphoric feeling when you're singing so if you can do those four things no phone celebrate one achievement get in some sunlight and sing that's going to be a good action to take to get your dose going oh my kids are going to be cringing tomorrow morning you can do it in your car or something no no i'm going to be doing it in the kitchen and they are going to hate me but i can't wait i think that's a wonderful practical sequence of events that we can all try yeah i guess the key is keeping it up for a considerable amount of time so we can see some sort of benefit but they're all very simple things we can do so that was extremely valuable thank you cool thank you tj thank you so much i really like the way that tj took control at the end of that episode he was not done he still had more tips for us which was very very helpful indeed really good ones to be fair sunlight it's also easy and obvious don't be on the phone straight away that is one that i've been doing since and my god it makes a difference and singing which i've been doing less so mainly because like the other day I was singing Annie Lennox walking on broken glass and my son shot me such a stare um that I stopped but when they're at school I'll have a right old good sing song TJ the biggest thank you for coming and spending some time with me it was so brilliant and I think your book is going to be exactly what we all need right now it's called The Dose Effect and it will be out later this year and in the meantime you can follow him on socials it's at TJ Power what a great name and you can also follow us too if you want we're at happy place official by the way we briefly mentioned the shitty committee all those annoying voices in your head doing their best to keep you sad or frustrated and there's actually a recent episode hearing from loads of great people like ruby wax vex king tim peak about how they tackle their shitty committee so do scroll back just a tiny bit in your podcast feed to have a listen to that if and when you need a little mood boost All right, until next time, it's a massive thanks to TJ, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios, and to you.

55:34Go and have a good old sing-song.

56:11We'll see you next time.

56:25to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.