Dopamine Expert: You Check Your Phone 175 Times a Day. The Shocking Truth About Dopamine | TJ Power

25:27And out there off the phone in the nature, like suddenly this real deep desire within me was born of like, well, I need to get humans towards this state because like no one knows this exists still to this day I imagine most people aren't going for walks without their phones for 60 minutes like on a frequent basis and that journey of addiction and then finding a solution right now like and I don't say this from a point of ego like don't have addiction like I don't consume anything which might seem really extreme and for me it's the right path but I don't watch any porn I don't drink caffeine I don't drink alcohol I don't smoke anymore I don't scroll any short videos at all like I've completely left addiction and I don't say that from a point of like look at me i say from a point of like hope that like even if you're super addicted there's this like incredible life where you don't touch it and it feels like the most peaceful freeing place i'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor please subscribe to the show this helps it grow more than you know and i'm so bad at asking this from you i'm so bad at thinking about this but you know my goal is a hundred thousand to get to on youtube and i really want to bring you more content and better guests and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together so please do hit subscribe thank you i mean i think it's really inspirational to hear your journey through this and also then have your expertise kind of match to it because a lot of people will say well are you missing out i mean i'm just trying to be like devil's advocate like you know are you missing out on like the fun parts in life like where you can go out with your i'm not saying that alcohol has to play a part in this but going out with your friends allowing that kind of freedom of a 28 year old.

27:02Or, I mean, it's just like, I guess, a mixture of things. Like if somebody really enjoys like a nice glass of wine, like having one glass of wine or having coffee, I guess coffee's my, I mean, you've seen that today. Yeah, and it worked. Coffee's my addiction. I say addiction, I guess it's more of my pleasure. It's something that I really enjoy in the beginning of the day. Like for me, it's sitting in my garden, having a coffee and journaling. For me, it brings me such happiness. And to feel like I could be completely devoid of those things makes me feel it's a little bit a life not as well lived and I'm not saying that's right no that's a fair opinion because I think like what you're doing is incredible I'm just trying to for people who are listening who are like maybe I can't get rid of everything yeah yeah is there a way to try and balance this in a way that works for a person without having this like insane dopamine addiction yeah so the really important thing to recognize is it's literally been like a seven-year journey of like a gradual like gentle refinement it hasn't been like right i'm just gonna quit everything and be a monk like it hasn't it hasn't been that experience and to explore a few of those i technically am missing out on the life of my friends live in london like i even when i went to play golf with like some friends from university on the weekend like they drunk like maybe 10 beers on the course like during the I somehow were basically sober.

28:21That's quite a lot. How were they shooting? I know, what? And one of them shot two over par, I was gonna say. And then they all went out into London, and I didn't go, because I just don't necessarily want to go out and get out and see Smash now. So I am missing out on that. But there is also a world where fun can shift and evolve. To me, last summer, I went with my friends to the Dolomites in Austria and went hiking for a week, and that was more fun than I ever had, to be honest. That was really, really cool. So much laughter and humour. and lightness and like conversation and interest. So like for me, like with the alcohol part, I think like fun has just like slightly changed for me and like fun with my girlfriend, my fiance now has changed with something like the coffee.

29:03Like if I'd been on here six months ago, I would have been saying how much I love like my flat white in the morning on the empty stomach. So like, I totally get that. And like, it was a huge part of my life, my ritual. I really could have sold coffee super well. the only reason I've gradually cut more things out is because my difficulty with a more addictive dopamine brain is one addiction reduced just feeds another addiction to increase effectively and I've been moving addictions around to lots of different things and I have a very addictive personality so for me the ultimate conclusion is like gradually reduce them and then be free of like anything feeling like I have to have that thing every day because for me that was big like I had a massive addiction to weed for a long time.

29:42Had to have it every day. I used to love the weed and the caffeine together. There was just all kinds of complication that was going on. So I think if you're someone listening and you're like, wow, I've got a really addictive brain, there is a path to just consider over a five-year period where it's a grad show, I'm going to let these things go. But if you're someone that has a glass of wine and thinks that was a beautiful glass of wine, I'm going to read a book and go to bed. That's not even going to do any harm to you. That piece that it brings you might be beneficial to your health and longevity.

30:08So I think it's observing closely, what your addictive nature looks like and considering and applying your behaviors based on that. So before we get into building the healthy dopamine habits, which I want to talk about, and also versus where the dopamine detoxes work. Yeah, they do work. They do. Okay. Well, you just already told the answer. I want to really quickly make sure that I talk about the attention crisis connected to all of this, because I mean, with somebody who's recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and I know that you have ADHD too, and it's not something that I really publicly spoke about.

30:40It's only recently that I've just started. I've only just come to terms that I didn't actually seek the diagnosis, as I told you. It came up during an interview. It was quite a lot to process and I'm still processing it, which is why I'm very, you know, aware of how I'm speaking about it because I'm still going through that, understanding what it really means for me. But it's really interesting. There's this big conversation now with, you know, everyone's getting diagnosed with ADHD, which is another reason why I'm also very aware of not talking about this as another person who's been diagnosed with ADHD.

31:11But you also have ADHD. I don't know how young you maybe got diagnosed with it. I mean, I've known it all my life. My mom had a similar thing where she knew like, oh, he's definitely super hyperactive and I was just an absolutely nightmare in school. So it was like super obvious. So you knew it from quite a young age? Maybe two or three years ago, like I had a proper understanding. Okay, right. So I think there's this whole wave of people either getting diagnosed with ADHD or realizing that their attention is massively plummeting. Do you think that dopamine is having that effect on everything that we're going through?

31:47Or do you think we're just becoming more aware of it? Is it an environmental cause? Is it a genetic thing? I guess people seeking this or kind of connecting to maybe what you and I have just found out in the last few years. It's trying to understand, is the world making us this way or is there a genetic factor in link? Yeah, so I reckon ADHD is an evolutionary adaptation that was really important to hunter-gatherers surviving. I constantly go back to this evolution thing just because our brain and its chemicals spent 300 ,000 years doing that and then we just suddenly went, okay, now we're doing this.

32:22We started farming 12 ,000 years ago, but we really became modern society a couple thousand years ago. And even if you go back a thousand years, life was very different. It was much more effort outdoors, very connected. It was very different to the experience we have today. But for 300 ,000 years, the goal was to find food and build shelter and survive. An individual that had ADHD, and I believe many hunter-gatherers would have had ADHD, would have been effectively extremely good at hunting for dopamine. They would have been very good at hunting for food, building shelter, making fires. They might have been amazing with like finding new ways to help kids survive there would have been this massive advantage to ADHD and I think a subset of the population would have been designed with it 12 ,000 years ago we invented farming and humanity began to slow down massively in our pursuit of food a small subset of the community would be able to provide food for the entire group and then gradually the invention of writing and poetry and all the things that evolved humanity began to form I think there's a huge population of humanity now that still have that hunter-gatherer brain and don't have the farmer brain effectively.

33:27So they have a brain that is seeking dopamine more than a neurotypical brain. And that was useful. The challenge that's now presented with us is we no longer can only acquire dopamine through effort, which the hunter-gatherers had to do. So their dopamine was staying nice and stable. Like if they had ADHD, they might have seeked dopamine harder, but their dopamine never spiked and crashed. It just would have built and they would have had this ridiculously strong dopamine system, very motivated, very focused. the challenge we're presented with now is all of the individuals with adhd are being given the opportunity to access dopamine quickly with ease via their phones via pornography via alcohol nicotine cigarettes so on and that's then causing a massive dysfunction in the dopamine pathway creating big spikes and crashes and then low dopamine baselines if you have a low dopamine baseline your adhd symptoms are going to worsen they're going to get more intense intense your inattention your hyperactivity your difficulty like sitting still and being present in activities and I think that's where the situation is really confusing because I think some people will have been born with ADHD they've genetically got this hunter brain and if you look back over your childhood typically men might physically display ADHD more women might mentally have more ADHD but if you look back over your childhood if you were someone that was very hyperactive within your mind or your body you might have had ADHD since you were born but if you're an individual that is suddenly feeling as though they're developing ADHD, suddenly they can't focus, suddenly they find stillness really hard, suddenly they're hyperactive, then it's more of like behavioral inattention developing as a result of behavior than maybe something you've genetically had since birth.

35:02Regardless of where you are on that scale, understanding dopamine and beginning to figure out how you're going to reduce quick dopamine and increase low dopamine, I think is the answer for everyone. It's essential. I think that's where the self-awareness component really, really comes in. Like actually being aware of just how much your attention is decreasing or increasing. And I know this because I'm in the midst or hopefully near the end of finishing my book. Yeah, the book's a big journey for your ADHD. Oh my gosh, I can't tell you like the highs and the lows of trying to hyper focus, which I'm very good at doing.

35:34But I think it's, you know, knowing that there's constant distractions with my phones or like messaging different parts of my team or running everything else and trying to write a book it's really really difficult especially in this environment i feel like i just need to be locked in a room you need to be locked in a room with literally only google docs and maybe like your ai or your safari or whatever you do to search and look at ideas because even just like trying to write like i've been writing my second book and the difference between my first and second book even just now with like increased stimulation via the computer because they're just getting better at stimulating our brains and if you try like write a little bit like one or two sentences and then you check your WhatsApp web and then you check your Slack and then you check your email.

36:15You never really get any good deep work done. And humans, it's so good. Like if you actually work for an hour on something, you feel insanely good. Like you feel next level because your dopamine has gone on the path it wants to go on and requires so much discipline. It does. It's so hard. It's so hard. So tell me about how we can get to that focus because you talk about flow state in the book, which I was very connected to reading because I'm obviously trying to get into that constant flow state. And sometimes it just happens and I'm like, wait, how did I get here? And other times I really struggle.

36:47And I know when I'm in that real struggle state, just to kind of walk away and not push myself because sometimes I'm like, well, this work's going to feel quite meaningless because I'm facing a lot of resistance. I'm trying to change my environment and then come back to something. But I guess dopamine is like the big factor here. So how can we get, first of all, into good dopamine baseline levels and then into that flow state? So I think one of the most crucial components is this AMCC part of the brain, anterior mid-cingulate cortex, that controls your ability to effectively control your decision making, but it's seen as like the willpower center in the brain.

37:25And when you sit at a computer and you attempt, so like we'll just go with that scenario because everyone has to sit at a computer and focus on tasks. Very quickly, whenever a task becomes difficult or too easy, a bit boring, you begin to task switch. So you're like, click your LinkedIn and check your notifications there, or you're like, go on your email or whatever it might be, your WhatsApp, your Slack, YouTube on the computer, whatever it might be, X, like you constantly change when things are easy or too difficult. In that moment, you're presented with a decision. And I've had this interesting scenario recently where I've blocked down my whole phone so I can't like use any apps on it but then over a period of time like the addiction began to move towards like all of the platforms just on safari so I was going on instagram on the computer and I was going on youtube on the computer and then anytime I was waiting for like ai to answer something whilst I was like generating an image for a presentation or something anytime I was waiting for anything I was just like going on to linkedin going on to instagram going on to youtube and there isn't a software that I could use to block them so then I was presented with a chance where I have to think about this amcc part of the brain.

38:28Whenever you successfully get yourself to not do something that you're tempted to do, this anterior mid-cingulate cortex, it activates within the brain and it strengthens. And in individuals, for example, that reach over 100 or really high-performing athletes, this AMCC is literally larger in their brain. It physically grows in their brain like a muscle because they have so frequently said no to temptation effectively. And it gets stronger and stronger. And therefore, your willpower gets stronger and stronger. So I'm sitting there and of thinking I want flow state I want to be able to focus I want a good attention spam and for a week first day I had to admit to my partner that I'd got addicted because I think sometimes like accountability is really useful like voicing it yeah just voicing it so then it's actually in reality because something that's addiction is just like secret so I was like by the way I'm actually like constantly going on Instagram with my computer so I like made that present and then the first time I've now made it present I want to solve I'm facing a situation where it's like okay I'm going to click on Instagram now like my brain goes like command tab to like type in Instagram in that first moment, I'm like, no, I have to activate the AMCC.

39:25Like I've got to try. And it's the hardest is actually the beginning of trying to break the addiction. So in my brain, I beat it. Like I just say, okay, don't go on Instagram. And I say to myself, AMCC. Like I just repeat it in my brain, like a mantra, AMCC. And I force myself back to the task. Then a number of minutes later, I'm presented with the same thing. Oh, I'm going to click my email. And I'm going to try and stay focused on the task, AMCC. And you might successfully activate it once you're conscious of this, you might activate it like 30 times over like a work session. And your AMCC has then literally got stronger and over a prolonged period of time, literally larger and easier to activate.

39:57So you can build it like a muscle. You can build it like a muscle. And you see physiologically it grows within a mind, which is so useful because the bigger this thing, the easier it becomes like to wake up in the morning and then not go on your phone. The easier it becomes to convince yourself to do hard things like, should I go to the gym? In that decision, your AMCC is presented with the temptation or the harder part. Each time it gets stronger, the decision becomes easier. And that's why you meet some people in life that are just so healthy and they eat great and they don't drink too much and they exercise great.

40:27And you just think, how does it look so easy for you? But it's actually not easy for them initially. It's just they've activated this brain part so frequently that now it's actually easy to make the right decision. For most of humanity, the AMCC is shrinking. So it means temptation is rising. So it's actually getting harder and harder to activate willpower. So I think with flow state, it's like this really conscious thing where you're going to become aware of your behavior, definitely get the phone out the room. That's the number one. The phone can't be in the room. Block down the apps if you need to block down the apps.

40:56And then with your computer, if you can't block it all, consider that idea whereby every time you resist, you say AMCC and you imagine it in your head getting larger and larger. I even take it to another level whereby there's a song in the world that many people will know that goes YMCA and in my head I just go AMCC and I just like mantra into my head like a song and the difference has been massive because like gradually you start developing and then like the week after the week of training it I go to tap it and it's like more of a reflexive response to resist. But once you get into addiction, it's just like, screw it.

41:35It's just so unconscious that you're just constantly distracting yourself. So it takes conscious effort to grow it. But once growing, your whole life becomes easier because you make better decisions. So much about what you're saying is there's two factors that I'm seeing. Visualization, like saying that AMCC, knowing that you can actually visualize a part in your brain that is getting stronger and bigger also allows something quite tangible because I think addiction and things that are quick at dopamine allow you to just disconnect very, very quickly from yourself. And so you seek that kind of external as opposed to astringent kind of connection.

42:10So already you're working with visualization, which we know is really powerful. And then you also mentioned that they're really interesting willpower, which I have, like my thought process on willpower is the fact that we always try and set ourselves up for the best version of ourselves. And so we don't hit the best version of ourselves every day. You know, women, you know, women have a fluctuation of hormones all the time. So they're always feeling different. Life hits us. Like life is just not linear. Life is so unexpected, so chaotic that you can never know if you're going to have a good day.

42:44Like what is a good day? Like I think life is just like this multitude of different things that kind of get thrown at you. And it's like, how much kind of resistance do you have towards that? And so willpower, I think we all have this mindset where we're like, we'll wake up and we think of this perfect day. And for me, I think willpower is about thinking about the worst possible case scenario. How can you set yourself up for that? Interesting. Okay. Because like, we're never going to face these days. It's perfect. We're never going to get up and think, okay, I've got a balance of energy to get me to the gym.

43:13You know, like set yourself up for the day where you actually thinking like, what is the most resistance I can face? Because then you're much more likely to be able to achieve what you're going to achieve because you've already got that mindset of, okay, well, this is how the day is going to look, which is going to be quite difficult. And you plan a challenging day, you mean? Exactly. So then on the days when it's easier, it's like, oh, this is, I haven't even had to think about it. And so I think we're always kind of looking for the most like perfection day. And when our days don't go, we feel like our willpower drops, but it's because I think we're looking at willpower in a completely the wrong context.

43:45Definitely, because the anterior mid-cingulate cortex is also very close to this whole center with the VTA where the dopamine is built and they're in deep communication with one another as well. So if you choose the easier day, so you wake up and scroll the phone, for example, which is super pleasurable, your dopamine slightly drops, then your ability to activate your AMCC is actually less as a result of choosing the quick dopamine. So if you set the easy day, it then begins to domino as well into like an easier and easier day, which then often isn't the day you deeply want. It's just like the short-term pleasure version.

44:15So I think setting yourself up for a challenging day is important. and also just overall knowing that the more effortful challenging path is the one that creates the best life for you and I think it's a really important thing to constantly remind yourself yeah if I go for the walk in the morning or if I do the breath work or do the journaling whatever it is to you that's like the boring effortful thing then it's like oh well I'll be happier and have better mental health and good mental health it's pretty nice like it's nice it's great it's like it's a good thing we're declining rapidly but it's it's a great thing when you feel that you've got a good balance with your mental health definitely so you know for me the way I look at it, because I talk about this a lot with nutrition, is a lot of people come to me and say, well, you know, how I want to have this like healthy diet, but they're never setting themselves up for something that's easy.

44:59So for them, it's kind of like, well, I need to grab and go in that moment. It's like, no, no, you've got to put the, you've got to prioritize the hard work before, whether that's food prep or thinking about your week or making sure that you've always got kind of healthy options on you rather than having to seek something that you haven't got and you're to run into a shop and you know the majority of things on offer aren't going to be healthy. It's like setting yourself up for those case scenarios where actually when your brain is exhausted, you've got something healthy to grab as opposed to something that you're just going to order because you've got no time.

45:29Definitely. Can I ask you a question about the nutrition? Yeah. Do you think it's possible to have a balance with nutrition in the world today? Yes. You do? I do. I think it's hard. I think there's limited choices available. but I think if you really want to try and make that a goal I definitely think it's achievable I just think that we have more temptation around us so it's a self-awareness and it's working with what you have and I also think that balance now in some parts can feel quite elitist and actually I think nutrition shouldn't be hard yeah okay I think actually it's really simple and I think we're trying to work in this over-optimized state yeah we definitely are over-optimizing I've got to have all of these foods that are organic and come from a certain place, and it's got to be this way of eating.

46:17And actually, it's not that hard. And so I think if you, but that doesn't sell. Yeah, okay, interesting. You know, like if you actually want to take it to something that's really plain and balanced, it is actually really easy. But I think that because that technique doesn't sell and it's not that marketable, we're always trying to look for these nuances of like, okay, well, let's do it in this way, in this way, in this way. And that's where I think it's got complicated. because you're up against so much noise now. I mean, I feel like my job is up against a lot of people on social media that are selling something that feels optimized and easy and actually it's not.

46:53And so I think that's where the counterbalance comes in, where I do think it is actually easy. I just think it requires a lot more effort and you'll know the brain is hyper lazy. So who wants to like go and cook a healthy meal every evening when you can order something pretty quick? It's making kind of like that conscious decision that I am going to put an extra half an hour into my day every day or that hour on a Sunday to think about how I can balance my nutrition through the week. Yeah, it's very true. And I think if you can give yourself that time, then actually it does become a lot more attainable and achievable.

47:28Overnight oats are a good way to quickly do that. Yeah, they're great. They're amazing. Because when I come to London for work like this, it's always obviously like, okay, how the hell am I going to make sure I don't eat like ultra processed food and stuff because like most of the stuff in the in this like quick grab stuff would be not always it's changing at the moment yeah but ultra processed uh sorry overnight oats you can bang that in like three minutes and it's made and then it's like oh cool now i won't eat uvfs tomorrow so exactly small decisions it's also like for me i say about the way people can get really balanced nutrition is every month which is very time limited cook us cook yourself a new Yeah, that'd be cool.

48:05And then over a year, you've got 12 new meals. That'd be good. You need something that your brain hasn't got to constantly think about every day of, I'm now going to go and make something fresh in you, because that is quite exhausting, that's decision fatigue. That's a nightmare. So if you've actually got like just one day a month where you're like, hey, this is the day that I'm going to dedicate to just cooking a meal that's within 30 minutes. Every single month you're having a new meal and you're over time going to go back to that meal. Over a year, you've got 12 meals that are just like unhabitual routine.

48:33that's the way that you build these like healthy habits ingrained you're not going to overnight just change into the chef that's going to have like 20 mils under they're about to cook for sure but it's that long-term gain yeah and so it's actually saying okay this month i'm going to prioritize wednesday night to cooking something but i haven't cooked before and i'm going to make sure i make that every month yeah it's having those kind of things that you can pull very easily so when you are knackered and you come in you you haven't got to think about something new to cook Like you've already got your habitual toolkit of 12 mils that you've got under your belt from last year, dedicating this time.

49:04It'll grow your AMCC over time as well. Every time it's like, oh, I've got to make a new meal. But then you've done it and then the AMCC will grow. Exactly. Very cool. So thinking about this with, like, I know you have like a morning routine and habits and things that you suggest. What is it that people can do as well as saying this AMCC? Like what are things people can do to help level the space? because you've obviously got to a really good place, which you use the word hope, which I think is so important to hear this on people's personal journeys as well. Like, you know, I am here now and I don't struggle with this.

49:35So what are the things in the morning, because I'm very focused on morning routines, to start people's day to get them to this kind of good baseline of dopamine? One small tweak that occurs in the evening that I think is really important, but it prefaces the morning, is actually eating your dinner earlier is really useful, because if you can try and move your whole wind down time earlier, it's very useful because you're going to have a greater capacity to make good decisions in the morning, obviously, if you get more sleep, which we're aware of. I think lots of us still like scrolling bed and stuff super late.

50:05So I think not doing that is probably actually the most important thing for your morning routine in the world is just like not like binge scrolling late at night. And there's this thing, revenge bedtime procrastination, where it's like, I've got some me time, like I deserve this. As much as you do deserve it, I'm sure everyone has like complicated, busy lives. It won't actually lead to good mental health. It's so important to consider that. and then you wake up in the morning and it's like okay so i'm gonna wake up open your eyes i think it's important to not rush in the morning and not like enter your body straight into like panic mode like sympathetic overdrive like it's quite easy to kind of wake up like phone for a bit then think shit that's the time and then it's like then you just go inside bang and your sympathetic nervous system goes hard so i think it's important to like wake up with enough time even if that means waking up a bit earlier it's for you to be able to just like wake up hug your partner if you have if you have a partner it's like beautiful so hug them and like give them a kiss before you get out of bed.

50:54Like a little bit of oxytocin first in the morning instead of dopamine is good. If you're on your own in bed, any kind of grateful thought when you wake up would also be oxytocin. It's just like, oh cool, like today's good, like life's good. Find something that's good about life and then you get out of bed. Definitely without looking at a screen, like no screen can be looked at before you get out of bed. Then you just go to the bathroom and you immediately start brushing your teeth because it's just like a boring mindless task that's going to get some dopamine, like get the engine working because there's effort.

51:20Brushing them properly for two minutes is just like an annoying thing to do and it will get the dopamine to begin. Splash some cold water on your face would be great. Again, getting the dopamine generated, come back and make your bed. And then the goal would be, can I get ready before I go on screens? Like, can that just be the foundational role? Like, can I make sure like if you do your makeup or have a shower or whatever it might be, is it possible to go through the morning routine with less stimulation, less kind of like YouTube playing in the background, podcast playing in the background? Like a lot of time we just wake up and it's like, how do we just like fire stimulation to the brain?

51:53And I did this as well. Like it's not that I judge it. Like I only know this because I did it so bad. I love putting on music in the morning. Yeah, music would be nice. Music would be nice. As long as it's not kind of like fast tapping through lots of songs. Like as long as it's just like, I need a good song. Skip to the chorus. As long as it's just like put some music on. Like music's great. Like dancing around in the morning, singing would be really good. So that's cool. Like if that was something you desired. But it'd be really good to have a lower stimulation morning considering how high stimulation our days are.

52:19Like our brains are very overstimulated from technology, but also our environment with the sounds and the lights. And our brain is just like really in overdrive all day. If the morning can start a little bit more peaceful, like it'd be super useful for regulating our whole brain chemistry. Our serotonin system is much better if we're more peaceful. So I would say just have that as a base rule. Like can you actually get ready for your day before you go on your screens? If it's every day when you're working from home, I really recommend that your first use of a screen should actually be your computer, not your phone.

52:47and that you should look at your WhatsApp and your email and the things you need to check via there because you'll sit down and it'll be productive use of that time of catching up on things and then into work. Whereas if you kind of sit down on the sofa and then it's like, I drink my coffee and I like begin the phone. It's so hard to get back out. And then you crash the dopamine, the AMCC won't work that well. And then the whole day is just like a big struggle. Whereas if the morning starts slow, but effortful, a better day is going to come. so i basically did a little i'm not going to call it a scientific experiment but i did do a bit of scientific experiment i wanted to ask the audience god i'm literally on my instagram as i'm speaking to you about this i feel like i'm a match i'm jealous i'm getting a huge dopamine hit right now give it to me send it over i'm talking about the disastrous impact of social media and i'm like getting out my phone during this probably the first time i've ever done it that's the irony of the world.

53:40So I said, I have a small question ahead of tomorrow's recording. Let's bring a little research from our community here to the conversation. I want to know how addicted, and I put that kind of comment, I said that because actually it's not recognised in the DSM v5 as... It's poor, that. It's quite interesting. We'll come back to that. Okay, it takes time to get into DSM. To your phone or social media, guess what the percentage of my following said yes? What is yes, no question? Are they a date? Yes, I said yes, no as a poll. 78? 88%. Yes, I do. I'd love to know what those 12 % are doing. So would I.

54:19Yeah, it's really cool. So cool for them. The next question was, do you use your phone? Well, should I reframe that. Do you use your phone within 30 minutes of waking up? Yes, no. How many people do you think said yes? 90. Oh, very close. 89%. Okay. So it was, and I, it was yes. And that's a healthy group of individuals. It's very healthy. It's very healthy. Yeah. Very biased sample if we were looking at research. I know, it's very biased. And then the other people said, no, I have strict time to use it. That was the other option. Cool. Okay. Because I thought, I wondered if people put in boundaries.

54:54So that was really interesting. So we're basically skewing on like near 90 % for both. Yeah. And as you said, very healthy audience that follow me. Everyone who kind of listens to the show are like self-improvements, self-improvers, interpersonal development. So that I found really interesting as a subset, just to kind of ask people. It shows how hard it is. It shows how hard it is, but I also think it just shows the vastness of this problem. Like, they were all consumed by this, which is why this episode is so important. And you mentioned an area earlier, which we didn't tap into, which was boredom.

55:31which I think is something that we've completely lost. We've lost the concept of just being bored or we kind of get a bit anxious about being bored. And I was like, well, how can we kind of increase the need to tolerate boredom? And then I was thinking about something that I have to make sure we put in before we're in the episode, which is the default mode network. I've become quite interested in this area of the brain since speaking to Robin Schwama, who came on recently. and I went away to Austria to write the last part of my book recently on a solo trip. And it was amazing because I was surrounded and immersed in nature.

56:05And I had to physically remove myself from my work environment and put myself in the middle of nature and have to train myself every day to get up and go out for a walk, not take my phone, disconnect and just be around greenery. And I have to say, I worked harder than ever before. well that's maybe an extreme statement I worked extremely hard I was working kind of 15 hours a day on just writing which is quite intense but my aura ring and my know watch were like two trackers that I wear were saying that I was more restored than ever oh cool and I found that really interesting one because I wasn't like crossing my tasks I was I was really trying to be I was like checking in with work but being very boundaried with my work and just using hyperfocus but I was also immersed in nature, immersed in greenery.

56:53A huge benefit to that. And I wasn't switching, my brain wasn't switching constantly. I was just in the zone. And I was like, wow, I've done really extreme work hours because I had to do it over four days. But my HRV is higher than it's been all year. Wow, you must have felt calm then. I felt extremely calm and really clear. And then I was like, why don't I, why don't I integrate this more into my life? So can you just talk a little bit about the kind of power of the default mode network and the connection that it has to when you do switch off from, you know, switching tasks and being more in nature, like just how this impacts like our creativity and motivation.

57:29Yeah. So as a massive dopamine addict, boredom is not a nice place. It's a learning. It's like a working progress, but it's really hard, like stillness. And I have a cousin who's about 10 years older than me, and he's been super inspiring to me in lots of ways throughout my life. And he's quite like a proper hippie living in Australia, like next level of where maybe people would want to go. But he does have lots of good insights to share with me. And one time I went to his house and he told me he likes to sit on the sofa and think. And I thought, you're a crazy person. Like, why would you want to do that?

58:05Like, to me, that sounded like hell when he said that to me, just like to sit on a sofa with no objective, but to just like be in your head. And it like led me down a path of like, what could come from that world? Because often what guidance he's given me has led to good outcomes. So I'm like, okay, so now I've got to explore the idea that I've got to enjoy it to some level sitting on a sofa doing nothing. And he sent me this challenge that we called meals, bedroom, bathroom, where I wasn't allowed to look at a screen when I was eating a meal, when I was in my bedroom or when I was going challenge for me.

58:40Like the meals component for 10 years, I watched YouTube whilst eating. Even sometimes as shameful as it is to say, like a lot of the time, like even with my partner, I'd be like, let's watch this YouTube video. And then we'd like watch dinner, like eat dinner in front of YouTube. And then the bedroom one, no screens in the bedroom, as we've shared, is very tricky. And then bathroom, like it's very easy to get into the habitual nature of just like taking your phone to the bathroom with you all the time, or like sitting in the bath, always on your phone. And throughout that period of time, it gave me this big opportunity to like, okay, what is boredom doing for my brain?

59:11And for anyone listening, I do think meals, bedroom, bathroom is like a good phrase to consider. Like, could they try for a number of days, meals, bedroom and bathroom without screens? When you come to this default network against the executive network, when we were like really engaged and we're doing something or are very present in a specific activity that's quite cognitively stimulating, our executive network will activate. And it's a very useful network. Like it's very useful to be able to work deeply on a project, for example, or to engage in a task or engage in a conversation. Very useful.

59:42On the other side, we have our default mode network, which will have the capacity to reflect more. And some people can say like there's challenges with the default mode network, with things like rumination, like we can ruminate on our worries a little bit in the default mode network. But there's also a huge amount of power in reflection. And when we're presented in life with hard decisions to make, like career changes, relationship stuff, decisions around our health. Typically, they require quite significant amounts of reflection to make good decisions. And often you see that individuals that spend time in the default network, like they intentionally try and go towards boredom.

1:00:19They begin to make better decisions because they begin to deeply think through challenges in their life rather than sort of like impulsively making decisions. Like when we're on our phone, it's executive network, executive network. And then it might be like, oh, I need to think about think for a sec, don't really want to think about it, just like make a very quick decision on it and then go forward. In that boredom, in that default network, not only do we make good decisions, amazing like creative answers to either problems or just like solutions in work begin to appear. And for me, like for example, something for me that's really hard is to go to nature and just lie on the grass and do nothing.

1:00:53Sounds like a lovely thing to do, but it is not lovely in my mind. Like my brain's just too stimulated. But I know that's going towards the default mode network, towards just like reflection. And I find the more I do it, the better decisions I make, the more creative I am, the better ideas I generate with my content and my lab with what we're like going forward with our different work areas. So it's an important place to go towards, not away from. And even if you're a dopamine addict, like if you're a very hyper-stimulated person, there is a world after a number of years of like gradually moving towards it with things like meals, bedroom, bathroom, there's a world where it is actually a nice experience, but it just takes time.

1:01:28I think it's just the self-awareness kind of around all of this. And I think it's so important. The meals, bedroom, bathroom is great. The phone out of your room, activating in nature. I think also just like being disciplined and allowing yourself to know that boredom is an act of creativity, I think is an important message in a world that's so driven towards productivity. Yeah. Like that is so key. Can I add one thing on that? Yeah. Because the word boredom has a like a negative bias in our mind of like, I don't want to be bored. I've started consciously calling it daydreaming in my mind because daydream is a slightly nicer idea.

1:02:05And at school, I was also told not to daydream. So, you know, I'm happy to now do it. But if you kind of sit there and you're like, I'm going to just try and daydream, like try and get into that like trance type state where your vision almost goes blurry. You know, like you get like inside, just like you're in a trance, you're just daydreaming. That is so restful for the brain now. That is so restorative and something we're just not experiencing. Every time we have a second to wait, it's like, where's the phone? Where's stimulation? And on the train, for example, I'd always just like, and now I'm trying to daydream out the window to try and restore the brain.

1:02:39And it's super powerful. And if I nail my phone the whole train home or I daydream, when I get home, my mental health is so different. That reminds me of coming back from the train this weekend where I was with my parents in the countryside and already feeling a bit calmer because I'd been outside of London. And I remember wanting to research, reading your book, coming up, The Dose Effect. And you said something really interesting there where it was about dedicating time to trying to read a book properly, to trying to daydream and connect more to something that isn't your phone. And I did. I spent time looking out the window, reading.

1:03:14And I have to read a lot for work. I'm always researching everyone who comes on. But this felt more like a pleasurable experience because I I was actually on a train coming home and not sat there where I was having to skin read really, really quickly to get the kind of top line research that I need for the show. I actually spent time immersing myself in doing it on a train, looking outside a window and actually allowing myself that space. And I forget how much we just don't give ourselves that time. And that is so critical. And I think, especially now with the rise of AI, which we haven't had time to touch on today, but I think it's something that is not a cause of concern, because I don't want things to sound really detrimental, but the ease of just the quickness of information that we can get now and the hyperintelligence that it's bringing to us is something that we now always have, that very, very, very quick dose of dopamine connection.

1:04:06Like anything we need to know, ask ChatGBT. It's a new dopamine addiction. It's a whole new thing. So I really want someone to share this episode with someone that maybe they see suffering with low dopamine or the reason that we're in this world of expansion of AI, I think everyone should understand the importance of their brain chemistry and how they can best support themselves. Because when you get into adulthood, you have to become your parent. You have to become your own parent of discipline. Because when you're a child, you're kind of given these boundaries. Yet as an adult, we kind of have free range.

1:04:38For sure. Free range for me didn't work out. Yeah, and so that's why I think having access to this kind of, hopefully this episode is going to be really helpful to so many people. So thank you for all the work that you do, Thomas Jefferson. First person ever. Okay, TJ, I have to always leave with the last question I ask all of my guests, which is, TJ, what does Live Well Be Well mean to you? I think for me, it means pursuing a path of lowering stimulation into my brain as much as I can. Like every day, I'm just thinking, how can I choose the low stim path effectively with technology, with my actions, with how fast I like run my system, with how fast I eat, how fast I am with people in conversation.

1:05:25Like I'm desperately trying to slow myself down whilst the world is speeding up. And I think that's super important. gosh yeah slowing down and not yeah it's integral yeah integral for our health our equilibrium our home status all of it it is and it's it's not coming from like an easy place like i'm not just like some super chill monk as i share like i am consciously trying to pursue that path to try and like keep me nice and steady throughout my life in our world that's a little bit crazy well thank you for sharing the wisdom today and congratulations on like getting to getting to where you are in the book and all the work that you're doing with the dose labs and we'll make sure to link all in our show notes but um yeah please do share this episode with someone that you actually think needs a bit of the dose effect do it