We Weren't Designed to be Happy: The Scientific Reason You Feel "Off" | Anders Hansen

26:16And when you see it through the lens of evolution, you realize that we evolved for survival. And starvation was a huge threat to our survival. So to eat all the calories that we could find, that was a great strategy. Now we put on the savannah because it was very little food. If you find something that contained a lot of calories, you should eat that food. In today's world, that becomes a problem because we have food everywhere, and we continue to eat everything. And all of a sudden, we get obesity and type 2 diabetes. Now, the amount of energy that we have in the body is not just dependent on how much food we eat, but it's also dependent on how much energy we use.

26:57And it costs energy to move. That's why we're lazy. That's why we don't want to waste our valuable anyway. energy, even though it's so good for us. We want to stay in the couch. So personally, I've understood this and I've realized that I'm lazy. That's not because it's moral failure. It's because I have a strong defense mechanism against starvation. That defense mechanism leads me wrong in today's world. So therefore, I make a habit out of exercising, even though I don't like it so much. I always run every day, no matter how I feel. And I think there are so many sort of similar conclusions that you could draw from this.

27:39When you understand it, you realize, ah, this was once a survival mechanism. In today's world, it's an Achilles heel. Now, let's build my way around that Achilles heel. I think it boils down to the fact that the more we learn about the brain, the less dependent we become from the brain. the more we can work around its limitations.

28:02Anders Hansen:Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. We have more knowledge today than ever before. I'm sure you agree with that, right? Like we have knowledge coming out of our ears from like podcasts like this to social media to AI, anything we need to know. But then our brain still tries to not always do it. Why is there always this friction point between we know all of this stuff that's good for us? You know, I speak about nutritionists, nutritionists, we know that we should be eating more fruit and vegetables, more fiber, more omega-3s. We know that we should be exercising at least 45 minutes a day, five times a week.

28:38Anders Hansen:Why do we struggle still? Well, one of the answers is when it comes to exercise, at least, that we are lazy and we should be lazy. That's how we evolved. And if we understand that, we could sort of call the bluff again, the evolutionary bluff, and go against our instincts. So much of, I think, happiness or well-being is going against your natural instinct. Don't do what feels good in the moment. Another reason, I think, is that the brain is wired to seek out information that comes in the form of a story. And scientific knowledge is not presented in the form of a story. It's presented in graphs and with statistics and so on.

29:25And that, I think, explains why there's so much bogus and fraudulent medical information on the internet that many people still fall for. I saw that during COVID. I thought it was incredible that we have more knowledge than ever about viruses and infectious diseases. But still, people believe that Bill Gates was behind the COVID epidemic because he wanted to implant chips into people and stuff like that. These were just insane conspiracy theories. And I thought, why do people believe this stuff if we have all this knowledge? And I think part of that answer is the fact that science is not explained in the form of a story.

30:11and the conspiracy theories, they are stories and they are so much more in line to how the brain functions. So they sort of, they have an advantage. We have an unscientific instinct. And that's also something that we need to be aware of. And maybe also science communicators and scientists need to be better storytellers.

30:33Anders Hansen:100%. I mean, the whole reason I started this podcast five plus years ago was for the very reason that I just didn't feel there was anything that I found relatable in the science sphere. I was like, there's all this information, but like, I don't quite know what to do with that. I remember leaving my bachelor of science degree and having all this knowledge, but going, how do I treat patients? Like this feels, there's such a friction between the knowledge I've got, but then how do I translate that to people in a really easy, but also encouraging way? And I think about that with diets, right? You think about people that follow different types of diets, it's all an identity.

31:10Anders Hansen:The carnival diet is quite like a masculine identity. You know, the vegan diet is that very kind of detox, feminine, more so. The intermittent fasting, that's more like the scientific LNs. And you've kind of got all these different identities shaped by stories of diets. And the first ever diet was done via storytelling. So it's like, we love stories. We love belonging to a tribe. Yes, absolutely. And that's another one of the brain's Achilles heel, so we want to belong to a group at all costs. And not because it's fun to be part of a group, but because group is survival. To be part of the group was as important for our ancestors as having food.

31:48And that means that when we are confronted with information that challenges the group that we are in, the brain wants to keep that information at a distance. It doesn't want to accept it. There was actually a study that was done at Yale, a brilliant study. They had people, that tested people's mathematical abilities and saw that some were good at math and some were not so good. That's not strange. Everyone's more or less good. And then they were given a test. And that test was, if you have a skin cream, and this is used by a number of people, and a part of that group gets better skin, how efficient is the skin cream?

32:26Now, there was a little twist to this test, so you had to calculate carefully, and the researchers saw a pattern. The better you were at math, the more common it was that you came to the right answer. Now that's not at all strange, right? If you're good at math, you're good at solving mathematical problems. However, these participants were then given a new test, and then the question was this. If you have a city and you have restrictions for guns in that city, what happens to criminality? Now, this is not a question about skin cream, this is about gun violence, and gun violence is in the US, gun restrictions is a very political question.

33:10If you're a Democrat, you are often against free access to guns. If you're a Republican, you don't want any restrictions. You basically want people to be able to buy guns if they want to. Now, when this example was constructed, when these people were given these mathematical problems, there was no correlation between how good they were in math and how they solved the problems. So it did not matter if they were good in math or not. What did matter was where they stood politically. Democrats solved this problem if it was constructed in such a way that gun restrictions had effect on criminality. Republicans solved the problem if it was constructed in a way that guns restrictions did not have effect on the criminality.

34:05So in other words, these people solved the problem if it was in line with what their own group thought. And when I heard this from the first time, I thought, oh, these people are, I mean, this is a perfect way of seeing how politics can make us stupid. But then I thought, well, this really doesn't show that the brain is stupid. It shows that the brain is trying to help us survive. And for almost all previous generations, it was more important to belong to a group than to solve mathematical problems. So we should not be surprised that the brain will not listen to facts that go against one's own group.

34:49It's trying to protect our place in the group and it will push those kinds of facts away.

34:55Anders Hansen:Wow. So I guess that that means that actually our brain is a bit like a chameleon when it comes into tribes. Yes, exactly. It's a chameleon or an opportunist or something because it wants to be in the group at all costs. And I think that's very important to be aware of. Again, when you are faced with information, whatever information it is, your brain, it's not just asking, is this correct information? It's also asking, what are the social consequences of accepting this information? Will I lose my place in the group? Because also that's, well, the reason why I guess that's such an important question for our brain is because our brain needs connection to thrive.

35:40Anders Hansen:We don't thrive in isolation. Yes, exactly. Which is why that feels like such a payoff, right? That's why our brain is like, well, if I twist this to fit into the tribe, I won't be excluded. Yes. And then you might ask us the next step. So why do we feel so, why is the connection so I mean, that's not why isn't loneliness? Why doesn't that feel as good? And the answer is that we did not survive by ourselves. To be a part of the group was as important as having food. And that's why we are so deeply wired for connection. And that is why we suffer so much from loneliness. I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor.

36:24Anders Hansen: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 of thinking about this. But you know, my goal is 100 ,000 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. Well, I read here and you said in a snippet in your book, how many people can we be friends with? And you said that Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford has suggested that humans are capable of having relationships with about 150 individuals.

37:03Anders Hansen:While we can recognize and remember the names of many more, the number of stable relationships where we also know what a person thinks of others is somewhere in that region. And this is known as the Dunbar's number. That feels like a lot for me. 150. Yes. I mean, you should ask him about these things. But his point is the fact that you could know names, of course, of more than 150 people, but you can only manage 150 individuals when it comes to knowing how they are related to one another, because you must not just know, okay, this is Michael, but you have to know that Michael knows Maria, and Maria doesn't like Anna.

37:46So if I make Michael upset, he will tell Maria, and that will in turn come to Anna, etc. And in that case, it seems to be a limit for the human brain, and that seems to be around 150. And 150 is a number that comes up again and again and again in history. Villages were often that big. And maybe that is because the human brain can't handle more connections than that. But I think one of his main points is the fact that human social life is small-scale. We are still evolved for living in small groups and meeting in real life, physical, because it was, if we did not meet, we died. To be by yourself, to be isolated, that was certain death.

38:34and it's not just you know to see each other on a screen yes we get some of the social input from that but you can't replace all human social life with digital life because there's so much more that we register when we meet in real life it's not just how we look it's you know we how we smell how we touch everything goes into the brain and if it doesn't get that these signals it will think that we are isolated. And to be isolated, that meant certain death for our ancestors. And that is probably why we suffer so much from loneliness. Loneliness has been a topic for medical researchers during the last 20 years.

39:17And there's been many, many studies that shows that loneliness is not just, it doesn't just increase the risk of depression and anxiety, but it also comes with the risk for the body. For instance, the prognosis for all forms of cardiovascular disease is worse if you are isolated and lonely. And loneliness also increases the risk of colon cancer and actually some other forms of cancer as well. And that's very strange. I mean, how could loneliness be dangerous for the body? And the reason is probably that when humans, during almost our entire history were isolated and lonely, there was no one there to help them.

40:00They only could count on themselves. And then the smoke detector in the brain gets even more sensitive for threat. Well that means that loneliness is not the state where you are passive, it's a state of stress that goes on and on and on, and that low level constant stress is probably the reason why it comes with the risk for disease. And I think this is of course very sad to hear, but there has been studies that show that you don't need to do much in order to neutralize the dangers that comes from loneliness. There was a study done during COVID where you had people who were very lonely and they were called three times a week on the phone, 10 minutes every time, and someone just chatted with them.

40:53And after a couple of weeks, they felt much less lonely. Now, then you think, okay, who were these callers? They must have been super psychologists or something. Well, they were not. They were high school students, basically. And these students, they had been given very simple instructions, which were, listen to the person you're talking to and let the person decide the topic and be interested in what's being said. So it seems like with rather a small effort, you could make someone feel less lonely. And by definition, then lower their risk of several forms of cancer and give them a longer life.

41:31And I think when you are calling your mom or your grandpa, someone who is lonely, you are sending a signal to that person, someone has your back. There is someone there for you if something will happen. And deep inside that person's brain, that will be registered as, I don't need to be so vigilant for threats anymore. The smoke detector sensitivity goes down.

41:57Anders Hansen:Yeah, I was thinking about that, about everyone calling their parents three times a week, as thinking about something to take into their year. because I think so many times in our lives, and I don't know if you've seen this, but like hyper-independence has become quite a big thing right now. You know, people are posting on Facebook, it's not cool to have a boyfriend anymore. And everyone's kind of very becoming obsessed with their work and successful and building their own businesses and companies. But with that also comes a lot more loneliness and a lot more disconnection to your kind of natural social groups.

42:34Anders Hansen:So it's an interesting way to think about it, like as we're developing and getting AI and maybe using AI more so than an actual real person in our lives, like how important those three phone calls are a week to your parents could be fundamental. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we have seen people who have relationships with AI bots, which I thought was absurd a year ago. We did a TV program about this. and now it's happening more and more and more and of course I see the temptation to have something that just care about you it's just your needs it's just what you want and that's convenient but I think it will have very very bad effects on our mental health if we if we do these things and I was in Kenya a couple of years ago and I was lucky enough to spend time with a group of hunters and gatherers.

43:27And they did not have access to water. They did not have water on the tap, so to speak. They moved from one place to another constantly. And when I met them, they looked like health models or something. Everyone was in fantastic shape. And none of them exercised in anyway. They got their movement from their daily work. And I remember I asked them, how many of you have sleeping problems? And they said, well, we did not sleep last night because there was lions here. And then I said, oh, come on, if there was lions in my house in Stockholm, the whole Stockholm will be awake. So that doesn't count.

44:09If there are no lions or no threats, how many of you have sleeping problems then? And then no one has sleeping problems. They were like, well, if nothing is disturbing you, then you sleep. Now compare that to Sweden, where about a third of all adults say that they have sleeping problems. These hunters and gatherers, and there have been studies that confirm this, depression seems to be very, very rare among them. It happens, but it's very rare. And they don't have any antidepressant medication. They don't have any therapies. They don't have anything of that. They are also very healthy in general.

44:49Diabetes is very, very uncommon. Very uncommon. Cardiovascular disease also. And they don't have any medication for these things. They don't have any medication against high blood pressure, etc. Despite all of this, they are healthy. And that's probably because they get more exercised. They live close to one another, so they are not lonely. And these things are so important for our health. And I think my occupation, psychiatry, has been so much focused on medication and cool molecules and mechanisms in the brain, and that's wonderful. But we also need to take a step back and look at our evolutionary history and see how we function the way we do and why we function the way we do and try to build our way around that and learn from the past, not just invent new medicine.

45:42Anders Hansen:I mean, that is the million dollar question, right? But I feel like as we are in a position in our world of history that's going quicker than ever before, I mean, the next five years, I think so much of what we're going to be around is going to be unrecognizable. And everything you basically just explained to me there was simplicity, simplicity of life. like there's hardly any comparison there's just the people that they're around they're so embodied in nature they are getting their circadian rhythms because they're outside all the time like everything is just a way simpler way of life they may die of infectious diseases more but actually the secondary ones that we all get they don't but yet we're living in a world that's going faster than ever before so how do we how do we balance this because you know I think in five years, it's going to be even worse.

46:34Yeah, you're right. You're right. And everything is going to change, as you say, but we are not going to change. We are going to be exactly the same. And I think that needs that if we want to get the best out of this technology, we don't just have to understand the technology, we have to understand ourselves. And I call Achilles heels. We have to understand that it will feel very convenient to stay in the couch, even though that doesn't lead us to a good place. We need to understand that it might be very convenient in order to have a quote-unquote relationship with something that tells me exactly what I want to hear, but that's not a real relationship.

47:14That's not going to be beneficial to my well-being. So in order to strike the sort of the balance between these things, we need to be aware that, again, that if we just follow our instincts, we'll probably go in the wrong direction. so it's it's it's more important than ever to to know yourself because humans will be the same and our needs will be the same even though we have this fantastic technology and how did you

47:41Anders Hansen:get into all of this how did you one start getting so involved and want to go into psychiatry and then also change your your mindset to understand the environment more like what was it about your curiosity that drove you so deep into what you do now was there a moment that made there actually It really was. Yeah. I was in an autopsy room in the Karolinska Institute 25 years ago, and I held a human brain in my hand. And I remember this just like yesterday. This brain came from a man who had died when he was 84. And I remember holding his brain in my hand, thinking that everything in his life, every moment, every memory, every emotion, everything played out in this organ that I am now holding in my hands.

48:28And in a way, I am closer to his inner self than he ever were himself. And of course, in the next moment, I realized that I have a brain, and everything that happened in my life has occurred in my brain. But what I took away from that day in the autopsy room is not that, you know, the bizarre fact that your experience of existing is being created in an organ that looks rather ugly, actually. What I took away from that day in the autopsy room is the fact that the brain is an organ. And just like the heart and the liver and the kidneys, the brain did not evolve the way it did by chance. So if the brain doesn't show the world the way the world is, it shows us the world the way we had to see ourselves in order to survive.

49:16And the brain doesn't show ourselves the way we are, it shows ourselves the way we had to see ourselves in order to survive. So the point is that the brain is not sort of a middle step that you could just skip if you want to understand human nature. It is, in the end, what human nature is. And I think that day in the autopsy room really was the first time I thought about these things, that our inner lives is being created in an organ that is not a neutral middle step. If I understand that organ, I will understand myself better, and I will understand my surroundings better, other people better.

49:57And I never looked back. And then I started writing these books 12 years or so, and then I thought that this evolutionary perspective was probably something that just a couple of geeks like myself were interested in. but many people seem to be interested in it. And I have explored these topics in books now and TV series and podcasts and all the rest of it. And it's wonderful to be able to present this knowledge and especially as a psychiatrist because I think there's so much forgiveness and it's therapeutic to understand it because you don't feel broken.

50:38Anders Hansen:Well, I think that's the biggest thing, right? Because when you don't feel broken, you're more self-compassionate. And that, I feel, is such an antidote to how we look at our health, self-compassion. In the UK, we struggle with that word. I'm sure in Sweden, it's pretty similar. The Americans seem to have a much better relationship with that word than we do here. But it's something that I feel is such an antidote to the mental health crisis that so many of us are going through. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you could, of course, summarize all the things that I've written in these books as exercise more, make sure to take care of your sleep, meet people in real life, etc, etc.

51:20Then no one would have cared. We've heard those things a gazillion times. But it's when you really understand what these things do to the organ in which you're experience of existence is being created, then you will start to take these things seriously. When you really understand how incredibly important exercise is for your brain, but at the same time understand that you are lazy, not just because you're a bad person, but because we evolved that way, well, then you will start to find ways to build around that laziness and make a habit out of exercise or making a point of meeting up people to exercise so that you don't have to feel bad for always being the one who skips out or whatever.

52:07It could be many ways that you could build around this Achilles heel, but you need to be aware of it. Otherwise, I think you fly blind.

52:16Anders Hansen:100%. I think two things came up to my brain that when you spoke about habits. One was brushing your teeth. It's not an exercise I think any of us learn to love. But we do it automatically on autopilot because we know if we don't, our teeth are going to fall out. And probably one of the big things is aesthetic is probably very important to a lot of us. So we do it so we can look better. But actually, it also has so many other health things connected to it, health benefits like cardiovascular disease, even dementia. All of these things are connected to our mouth. But we do it because we've taught it from such a young age and it makes me think about our brain.

52:53Anders Hansen:We don't really have, we don't get taught any of this when we're young at all. We don't get taught kind of how we look after our brain and how we can grow up making these habits. I think about from a nutrition perspective, not having junk food in my house because I know that when it's there, like Christmas, I will just keep eating it because it's there and my brain can see it as a signal. whereas when it's not in the house it's why everyone I think struggles at Christmas not because a Christmas dinner isn't healthy because it's not it's just because there's just this constant flow of Moorish food everywhere and our brain is like well it's right there I can eat it whereas if you have to walk to the shops or get in the car and drive to the shops you do stop and that's that's kind of a habit that we create these loops in so how can we create healthy loops for our brain to support us emotionally?

53:46Anders Hansen:What are a few things that you would advise? Well, the example of candy is the most obvious one. The brain evolved for survival and obesity was not a problem for survival. It was a non-existent problem, but starvation was a huge problem. And that means that the brain evolved to eat all the things that it could find, especially calorie-rich food. And that means that it's very hard for the brain not to eat calorie-rich food when that is around. And we all see that during Christmas. We eat because it's around. And from that, we learn, okay, we can't have food around all the time. I can't have candy in my pockets because I will eat that.

54:29It's just not possible. And I think we have been incredibly naive when it comes to the digital revolution. We have smartphones in our pockets. And the most valuable things in today's society is not dollar or pounds or Swedish kron or bitcoins, it's human attention. And there are companies who are getting better and better and better and grabbing that attention by creating more and more addictive products. And when we have those products, and by that I mean Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and so on, when we have them available at all times, it's like having candy all the time. We can't, you know, we will pick it up, not because we like it, because it's an instinct in us that is being exploited by these companies.

55:16And from that, we learn that we can't have the phone around. So we have to have our smartphone in another room if we have a meeting, or if we have a class in school, or if we want to be interested in what's being said, etc.

55:30Anders Hansen:Yeah, the information diet. Yeah. It's a whole thing, Anders. It's a whole thing. And again, we don't pick up the phone because we think it's a great thing to do, and because it's good for happiness. We pick up the phone because humans, Achilles heels, human instincts have been hacked by these companies who are getting better and better and better at it. And in the same way that producers of candy hijacks our instincts, our drive for fast calories, these companies hijack our needs for social information and how we want to learn about dangers and stuff like that. And the algorithm presents these things that we have it's hard for us to look away from and from that we understand okay we can't have candy around all the time we can't have the phone around all the time good that's a start for instance i i exercise every day but i hate it i never like to run but i do it anyway and i have realized that my brain is incredibly good at making excuses you know it's too cold outside sweden is very cold or in the summer it's too warm outside or maybe there's something problem with my knee or maybe it's my tendon or whatever.

56:45It's always something. And from that, I've just said, I'm just going to do it. No matter what, I'll do it. If I'm not sick, I do it. And by sick, I mean I should have a temperature. So I think, again, learning about these things, you could build your way around them. You can understand why some things will work and why some things will probably not work.

57:06Anders Hansen:You said something in the information diet, which I find is such an important topic to speak about, because for so long we've spoken about or I have in myself on the show about nutrition but I have come to understand how powerful our thoughts are and comparison is a thief of joy like we know that analogy so well yet we are surrounded with more comparison than ever before and I think about this back to my previous career as a model when I was in a steroid environment um on comparison every single day of my life. And I was the unhappiest I've ever been because every day I was comparing myself to the most peaceful people in the world on a daily basis.

57:47Anders Hansen:Now we open our phones and everyone's living a better life. What does that do to our minds on a daily basis? Because I think so many of us are unconsciously just bringing this in day in, day out without really any awareness of just how much comparison we are giving to our brains every day. Well, we evolved probably in small groups. Humans lived in groups of perhaps 100, 150, the Dunbar number. And in those groups, we compared ourselves to the other members, of course, and there were probably a couple of dozen, maybe a dozen that were around your age. And in some way, they were a competitor to you.

58:27So you asked yourself, am I as good as he, or am I as smart or good-looking ass whatever. You know, we constantly compare ourselves. Today, we compare ourselves to the entire planet. And there's always someone who is smarter and better looking and richer and more successful than you are. And on social media, we don't see the reality. If there's 100 photos taken, you see one photo, the best one. And that means that you are seeing, you know, a facade. You don't, so you don't, you compare yourself to a facade of reality that will make you feel worthless. And in the brain, that will be registered as danger because the brain is asking, am I good enough for the group?

59:09And these photos actually tell you that you're not good enough for the group. And now we have AI models, which are better looking than any human. And that means that no humans belong to the group at all. Everyone is being, you know, thrown out of the group when we compare ourselves to these photos. And of course, today we know now that over usage of social media, especially for teenagers and teenage girls, have bad consequences for their mental health. It increases the chances of anxiety and depression. And I mean, when you are a teenager, that part of your life, you are desperate to belong to a group.

59:53And again, to compare yourself to this perfect facade, that is not good for you. So I'm not saying that you should turn off social media completely, but you should be aware that your brain will detect it as lethal danger if you are exposed to too much of that and you will feel crappy about it. So don't turn it off completely, but be cautious of how much you use it.

1:00:16Anders Hansen:I think that's the main thing. I think the the unhappiest parts of my life, even within this next part of my career, the comparison is what kills any part of the joyful journey. Because there's always somebody so much better than you doing what you're doing. But I think we're just unaware of just how consistently this is showing up in our daily lives. It's all the time. Yeah. And it's, again, it's an example of how a trait that is the comparison that was one that evolved for small groups, how that is now being played out in a global society where we are comparing ourselves to the facades of others and we are starting to compare ourselves to AI pictures of AI models or whatever that aren't really humans anymore.

1:01:05And all of a sudden, these things that helped us survive in our past has become an Achilles heel.

1:01:10Anders Hansen:So with that, what are the, you spoke there also about focus, what are the main things apart from taking our device away that our brain needs to kind of help focus today in a world which is pulling us further away from focus more so than ever before because I have ADHD and I struggle with focus with so much technology but I find that when I give myself certain moments of breaks like 90 minute bursts or I remove things outside the room and I get sunlight and I hydrate it really does help my focus. But is there anything else on top of that that you can help with the brain to create more focus time?

1:01:50Exercise. But going back to focus, we never evolved to be focused. We evolved to survive and to constantly scan your surroundings. Is there something there, there, there, there, all the time? That was very important in a world where half of us died before they became teenagers. So that means that our focus should be easily broken. We are easily distracted, not because we're broken, but because we're functioning the way we should. And that means that we really have to be cautious about our focus. Because focus for us is so important. That's when we get our best ideas. So we need to get rid of all the distractions.

1:02:27And by that I mean don't have the phone in the same room when you're studying. And another thing that we know is good for focus is actually exercise. because exercise makes you more focused, especially the hour after exercise. So when I write my books, I don't have the phone in the same room where I'm writing because I know I am too easily distracted. So I will protect my focus. And I can just recommend to everyone to do that. And by that, I mean, again, have the phone in another room and make sure to exercise.

1:03:03Anders Hansen:Yeah, I read a lot in your book about the frontal lobe and getting a lot more blood flow to that when you exercise. Why is that so important? I guess like getting people's brains to understand why exercise is so important for certain key areas of blood flow to the brain. What happens in the frontal lobe when we exercise? Exercise increases your heart rate and blood pressure because your body's muscles need more blood when you exercise. But it's not just the muscles that get more blood, the brain gets more blood. And the blood flow to the brain seems to increase by about 20 % if we are physically active, if we exercise.

1:03:40And I was taught in med school that that was not the case. The brain's blood flow is constant. But that is not correct. That knowledge has been updated. So the brain gets more blood, and that's probably why it functions better during and after exercise. And then you must ask yourself, well, why then does the brain function that way? Because we don't need our cognitive functions when we go for a run. We don't need our creativity when we go to the gym. We don't need our focus when we are out running, etc. Well, again, we evolved for survival. We are still adapted to life as hunters and gatherers.

1:04:17And it was probably when our ancestors moved that they needed their cognitive abilities the most. It was then that they needed their focus during the hunt. It was then they needed to, you know, be creative and get new ideas. So the fact that the brain functions, the brain's functions improves by exercise is probably because it was when we moved, we needed those functions the most. and then exercise becomes from our perspective a way to hack evolution a way to exploit the way that we have been built in order to function better in modern society so i always tell my you know i get asked a lot of questions by students and they say okay how is the best way to study before an exam and i say go for a run or a fast walk for every day and the things that you will learn the hour after will stick better because memory is improved by exercise.

1:05:20And the reason for that is probably blood flow increases to the brain. And why? Well, probably because it was when our ancestors moved that they saw new things, they experienced new places, new things happened to them that they needed to remember. And that's something that you could exploit by exercising today.

1:05:40Anders Hansen:Gosh, it's so interesting that we've built systems where we just don't move from our chair for eight hours. It's the opposite of what our brain needs. Like we've built schools for kids to arrive at 9am and leave at 3 and retain all this information and you know I kind of sit about how I do my day, not that I'm someone who has a desk job but so much of my work is done in front of a computer and so there's that kind of like trade-off of how often should I be getting up from my desk to be doing something to make sure that my creativity and cognitive functioning is at its peak every like hour? Well, the short answer is that the optimal amount of exercise for the brain is three times a week, 45 minutes every time, pulse raising every time.

1:06:26If you do that three times 45, you get the long term effects for the brain. And by that, I mean, you lower your risk of depressions, anxiety, and so on. If you do more than three times a week, 45 minutes every time, you get in better physical shape, but your brain does not get any additional benefits. However, there are also short-term effects from exercise, which last perhaps an hour, an hour and a half after exercise. And they are better memory, you're getting more creative during the hour after exercise. So based on that, you should probably try to do something every day. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

1:07:08Because remember, because this is hard. Everyone doesn't have an hour extra a day. As a doctor, I can definitely say that the biggest effect from exercise comes from someone who doesn't do anything when he or she is doing a little, like starting walking to work. Then you have huge effects. But if you have the marathon club running five minutes faster, that doesn't have any extra effect. So it's going from nothing to little. That's where you get it. And the ones who are completely sedentary, they are actually to congratulate because they have an untapped resource. You know, if they just started doing the little, they will see a big difference.

1:07:52Anders Hansen:I think it's that thing, right? It's just the constant build. But it's also making sure that you create space for this. I think that's one of the biggest things of making sure that you create some type of space so the habit can be stuck. Because we can have these extremes, right? And if you don't have space enough, even if it's just getting up 20 minutes earlier to walk around the block or take your dog for a walk or do something where you're creating movement in your body, you've got to create space. I find that as I was setting my goals for this year, the moments when I failed the most is when I've tried to create too much.

1:08:27Anders Hansen:And I just can't retain it. Right. And I think going back to what you said about brushing your teeth, you don't make a decision every night. Should I brush my teeth or not? Well, I don't feel like it today. So you just do it. And in an ideal case, you should try to have exercise becoming something that you just do so that you don't need to negotiate with the lazy part of yourself, because the lazy part of yourself has very good arguments and for good reasons. We evolved not to use calories. So that's what I mean by try to make it something that you have to do without asking too many questions.

1:09:09And that could be walking to work, riding your bike to work instead of taking the bus. It could be getting used to walking in stairs, of telling the elevator, etc. etc. Try to build it into your life so that you don't have to negotiate with this part of yourself that will always have superior arguments.

1:09:29Anders Hansen:One of my favorite quotes was from Audrey Hepburn, where she said, I never go to the gym, but I always take the stairs. And it's always stuck in me. So whenever I see a staircase, I'm like, oh, Audrey would take the stairs. So Anders, I feel like coming back to like one of the main books that you wrote, The Happiness Cure, we started this whole conversation with, you know, our brain isn't designed to make us happy. But we never really define and I think everyone has a different case scenario point of what happiness means. I mean, I think it's very similar now that everyone has a different understanding of what living well being what living well means, what being well means, which is what this podcast is about.

1:10:09Anders Hansen:Also what success means. Like it's so individual. But after all of your research and even writing a book on happiness and being a psychiatrist and seeing so many different people come into your clinic with all different types of reasons of why they're there to see you and your own journey from holding a brain and going on this experiment to understand the brain more, what do you define happiness as now? Well, happiness is a word that I'm trying to avoid. I did not like that they used the word happiness in the English translation because it sounds like you're about to fall into a ditch. There's a lot of unverifiable cliches.

1:10:54But many people seem to believe that happiness is feeling good all the time. And if you have that definition, I think that you will be disappointed because we never evolved to feel good all the time. So in science, when happiness is being studied, it's often defined as being contempt with the long-term direction of your life. If you think that the direction of my life is going to a good place, that's happiness. Not feeling good all the time, but being contempt with the long-term direction. And if you agree to that definition, there has been great studies done on this. One of them was done at Harvard.

1:11:37It's still ongoing. It's been going for 90 years. And this started in the 1930s. And the researchers recruited Harvard students and people from the Boston area who were around the same age. And these participants were followed with interviews and blood tests and a number of medical scans and so on. And after a couple of years, their children were involved in the study, and their children, and now they're into the third or even fourth generation. And they have compiled huge amounts of data. And the result is the following. The thing that makes humans happy, contempt with the long-term direction of their lives, that is relationships.

1:12:24relationships relationships relationships and relationships not superficial relationships but close relationships with your friends and family and that may not sound so surprising but this is very very solid science and i think that's you know again we did not survive by ourselves that's why we suffer so much from loneliness um and so much of my clinical work has i've seen this so many times how people have been disconnected in one way or another and how that could be behind their depressions and anxiety. Not all the time, but many, many times. And I think much of the downside of digital life is that it's bringing us apart.

1:13:08And whether AI is going to do good or bad for our mental health, I think that might boil down to whether it brings us together or drives is a part.

1:13:17Anders Hansen:Yeah, I think of when I try and look at my own short span of life to date, but also different people that I've seen in clinic, the disconnected moment was one of the biggest ones for me. I think I was maybe surrounded by a lot of people, but I was so disconnected from what my values were, what meaning was to me, like what I wanted in my life. And that's such a heavy topic to try and discover as well. Like people talk about purpose very flippantly, but it's actually a very heavy word to try and figure out like, well, what is my purpose or what is meaning to me? But I think the more that you try and find that and trying to find that also, for me, has created massive amounts of resilience because I've come up against a lot of hurdles because I've had to push a boundary.

1:14:05Anders Hansen:Helps you connect more to actually feeling that you might be on, as you said, like the right path. But that connection to others, for me, I believe, has only come from understanding the connection to myself more, to finding the right tribes of people around me. Because you can be surrounded by people, but you just don't feel inherently connected to them. Exactly. And I mean, we are all different and our lives are different. We live in different countries and so on. But the things that you have talked about and that I've written about is, you know, you have to learn about this, you have to digest it, read it from many times, hear it from being said in different ways.

1:14:52And then finally, you will internalize it. And then you will see it in others. And then finally, you will see it in yourself. and then you could probably possibly change things in a good way but it's very difficult to give too much prescriptions because everyone's life is different but i can just just recommend everyone learn more about your brain because you will really understand more about yourself you will understand yourself better not just how you function but why you function so you know read books about these, watch lectures on YouTube, hear it again and again and again. And finally, it will be very, very important.

1:15:34I can guarantee that.

1:15:35Anders Hansen:Yeah, well, you basically become your own best friend when you understand it. Yeah. And you understand why, you know, why your instincts will not necessarily lead you to good places. It might feel very, very good to do this in the moment. Why will it lead me to a bad place. Well, because of these reasons that we talked about in this podcast, and then you could work your way around these Achilles heels, I think, and not just understand, you know, do this, do that. You understand, oh, I want to do this because I function this way, because evolution has built us this way. Okay, that will not lead to good place in today's society.

1:16:14Let's do something else.

1:16:15Anders Hansen:So if you can leave our listeners with a question to ask themselves, to think and ponder on, what would you say? One question. Yeah, something for them just to think about as they leave this podcast, to become curious. Wow. I mean, I guess I would try to recommend everyone to think of something that leads them in the wrong direction, that they feel compelled to do. That could be a small thing like grabbing your phone all the time or eating candy when it's around or whatever, but something that they know in the end will lead them in the wrong way, but they still feel obliged to do it or they feel driven to do it.

1:16:58Try to find some example of that. That's an interesting thought experiment, I think.

1:17:03Anders Hansen:Yeah, I like that. I'm even thinking about times when you're always trying to say that you're too busy or you've got too much on and you let down some good invitations. Why are you always retracting against instead of saying yes? There's so many different ways that that could be answered, which could be very interesting for people actually to take on. So Anders, my last question is what I ask to every single guest. And this is one of my favorite questions because it shows how individual this question is to everyone that comes on, which is what does Live Well, Be Well mean to you? Yeah, for me, it's curiosity to be constantly curious.

1:17:45And I've always been interested in these huge problems. You know, what is a good life? Why aren't we driven by our instincts to good places? Why are we drawn to things that are dangerous to us? Things like that. That's something that I've been incredibly interested in. And I have understood that the answer to these questions, probably they aren't just one answer as many, but you have to go in many directions. You have to learn medicine and neuroscience and psychiatry, but also history and sociology and so many different topics. And I have been incredibly curious all my life and been fortunate to be able to use that curiosity to travel the world and meet interesting people and try to digest all of it into books and TV series.

1:18:39So to give one answer to your question is to continue nurturing my curiosity.

1:18:48Anders Hansen:I love that. Curiosity is one of my favorite words. It's the engine of growth, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's so much fantastic knowledge to be gained. I mean, internet is full of crap, but it's also full of wonderful lectures. And it's so easily accessible information, all the stuff that when I grew up, it was impossible to get your hands on. Now you can basically get the introduction course in psychology from Yale for free on YouTube. Yeah, it's amazing how much knowledge we have at the tip of our fingertips now. It's a lot of power. Thank you, Anders, so much for coming on.

1:19:24Anders Hansen:You also taught me from one of your books that if you put your two fists together, that's your brain. Yeah, that's right. That's your soul. That's where everything is being created. That's it. That's it. I have a very small brain because I have very small hands. But thank you so much. It is actually, it is striking that it's not just so small, but it's rather ugly. If you were to think of a place for the soul, you could hardly think of anything that looks, you know, more boring than a brain. A heart, that's wonderful. It pumps and it's active, but the brain just sits there. It's rather small. It looks like squeezedly packed sausages.

1:20:04But at the same time, that's the place where the soul is.

1:20:07Anders Hansen:It's the powerhouse. Well, that's interesting that you think it's in the brain is where the soul is. That's a very philosophical question. I guess it is. That's another episode. That's another episode. That's take two. Thank you for all your amazing work. I've absolutely loved reading all of these books. I will put them all in the show notes. But thank you so much for coming on to Live Well, Be Well and teaching us just how important exercise is for the mind, which is one very big thing that I've learned. Connection and curiosity. Sanders, thank you. Thank you.