#2450 - Tommy Wood

13:11Joe Rogan:And I would think, okay, that would be a good subject to bring up on the podcast. But the rest of the time, it was just horseshit.

13:18Tommy Wood:Well, part of the algorithm, and I'm not an expert in training algorithms to do this, but part of the goal of the algorithm is that you don't get everything that is perfect or that immediately captures your attention up front, right? Because you want it to be random. And there's a method in the randomness that keeps you scrolling. Because eventually you'll get those small bumps that then keep you going. but what's particularly interesting about social media is it leverages the fact that we are social beings so we prioritize information that is called the acronym is prime prestigious in group moral and emotional and this is even greater in social context right because we are trying to learn about our social environment so that we can survive our group and be fitter and so social media makes us think that we will get that information whilst at the same time offering us the exact opposite, which is essentially isolation.

14:19Tommy Wood:But it leverages that desire of the human brain to find this social information and this social connection whilst not giving us any of that.

14:28Joe Rogan:Also, without it getting any feedback from another human being while you're communicating ideas. So you could say the most horrible shit to people in a comment or a text message, and you don't think about it because it's like there's not a person there. Yeah. Not right in front of you. Yeah. It's designed for like – it's like an anti-human device.

14:46Tommy Wood:Very weird. But, I mean, if your goal is to capture attention, they're doing a great job of it.

14:53Joe Rogan:Well, not just that. They're acquiring enormous wealth and also enormous influence over the – just all sorts of things. Politics, economics. I mean some of the richest corporations in the world, they gather a thing that we never thought of was valuable, which is data. I mean when people first started using these things, when people first started using the internet, nobody really thought that data was going to be one of the biggest commodities in the world.

15:21Tommy Wood:Yeah, but now if they know what captures your attention and what you'll spend money on, that's the perfect way to get as much out of you as possible.

15:32Joe Rogan:So the concept is future proofing your brain. Like what are the things that you think people should be doing to try to future proof other than avoiding social media and avoiding a lot of the stuff that we're talking about here?

15:47Tommy Wood:So I think every tool has a possible use. So like, for instance, social media, if you have crafted a social media that allows you to maintain connections that you wouldn't have otherwise, like the original version of Facebook, as it existed 25 years ago, was just like posting pictures and you could like chat with some family members. Right. Right. So if you use social media like that, and there are studies that show that if you're using online tools, including social media, and it increases communication and connection beyond what you would have had otherwise, that can be a net benefit. If it's all you use and it's replacing in-person human connection, then it's a net negative.

16:29Tommy Wood:So there can be ways that it could be beneficial. and you know if your instagram feed is just like cute dogs running around in the snow which is what most of mine is right now right that can be a nice five minute break in between like cognitively demanding tasks right that's that's that's that's fine um but when you think about future proofing your brain this this idea that there is some unknowable future right we don't know what the future is going to look like but if we want to exist in that future we're going to need good processing speed good decision making skills good working memory good emotional and social and social skills right and so in order to maintain those we need to challenge and stimulate them so the i think the most important thing most people can do is think about new challenging and often creative skills, and there's a lot of evidence for creative arts, music, what they do is they improve the function of networks in the brain that are at risk during the processes of aging, particularly because they're important for attention and social connection.

17:48Tommy Wood:And so if we really invest time in doing these things that we suck at and get better but get get better at them we maintain these broad cognitive skills that we're going to need in the future regardless of what happens and some of that is also personal so i like the goal is to build as much cognitive capacity as possible right i have this idea of headroom which is the difference between what you what you need on a day-to-day basis versus what you're truly capable of it's the difference between like on a day-to-day basis your legs need to be strong enough to like get you up off the toilet right but your maximum capacity is like what's your max back squat the the difference between those is your headroom and then that gives you capacity to perform when you're injured or sick or you need to like lift your car off your buddy because it got flipped in a car accident like all those things like when you need to draw on greater resources you want those resources to be there because we are going to be stressed sleep deprived, sick, and we still want our brains to function.

18:49Tommy Wood:So investing in like really challenging tasks and skills builds that capacity so that we have access to it when we need it.

18:58Joe Rogan:What is the function and like what is the effect on the brain when you learn a new skill, like sucking at something, which I always tell people is one of the best things you can do. A lot of people don't enjoy it because their ego, they don't like being frustrated that they're terrible at something but there's something about not being good at something and dedicating yourself to it and and seeing market improvement that stimulates all sorts of areas of your mind which i find really interesting so most people don't realize that the process of learning

19:31Tommy Wood:which in itself is like the core process of neuroplasticity right the brain making new connections and cementing new connections. That whole process is driven by failure, essentially, and making mistakes. Because your brain is a prediction machine. It's constantly predicting what's going to happen next based on the world around you and what you're trying to do. And so imagine that you're trying to do some kind of new move in jujitsu or something, and you have no idea how to do it. You're going to try it, and there's going to be this big gap between your expectation and reality. That's going to be frustrating, right?

20:10Tommy Wood:That's the feeling of failure. But that's what diverts resources in the brain to say, hey, we need to close the gap between what we hoped would happen and what actually happened. And that's what drives neuroplasticity. And this is also then what drives the cementing and function of these networks in the brain associated with that. So the idea that you start sucking at something and you get better at it over time, that is exactly the thing that the brain needs in order to improve and maintain its function

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21:45Joe Rogan:How many of those things should you take on at once, though? This is my issue. I have a problem. I wish I could have four lives that I could run simultaneously. I would do four. I'd have four different occupations. So I try to smash as many things into a day as possible. But there's many times where I think, boy, I think I'm doing too many different things that I'm trying to get good at. And maybe it would be better if I just concentrated on one.

22:12Tommy Wood:So there's a few different ways to look at this. I think that a broad base and a broad range of different skills is probably something that we should all hope to have.

22:23Joe Rogan:Like talent stacking.

22:24Tommy Wood:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you think about, like one of my favorite books is Range by David Epstein, which talks about the broad range of skills that people who then really succeed in academia or sports have. They didn't specialize really early. They had like a broad base of talents that they can then draw upon as they specialize later in life. And I think that's something that we can all aspire to. but equally um what's probably more common is that we try something and we do it for a little while and then we just kind of like give up on it and we try something else and yeah there's there's like a little bit of benefit to that but when you look at some of the studies that um really examine the effect of learning some of these creative skills and they've done it with tango dancers and painters and video gamers when you when you when you compare an expert to an amateur and where you're seeing the benefits of expertise in terms of the function of some of these networks in the brain it really is the development of some level of expertise is probably required to see the maximum benefit obviously the learning curve is steepest at the beginning right right when you're learning beginning to learn something that's when you'll learn the fastest but there is also some benefit to expertise so some of that like just to say that pick one or two things that you're actually excited to continue getting better at for a long period of time.

23:46Tommy Wood:And so then maybe you do have to like, like try a bunch of different things until you find the thing that like really like gets you going. But across all those different skills, they have similar core effects on the brain. So you don't have to do one or both. You can just pick the one that you enjoy the most.

24:05Joe Rogan:So it's just about the struggle of trying to get better at something essentially yeah yeah and um my wife is learning a new language right now and uh she's she's been so excited about it and it's like it's really interesting because she starts talking around the house in french and uh and it's one of those things where you like i was i'm watching her do it she wasn't doing it and then she's been doing it over the last couple months and i'm seeing this like excitement in this like new project and we were talking about it about how that is one of the things that's very difficult to do but it's it's more complex than learning because it's learning and interacting it's not just learning you're learning but you have to it requires like this back and forth with another person yeah you have to understand sentence structure you go to it's just like calm and especially french is so different than english there's there's so much weird shit involved in it but you could see like I could see in her that like this is very stimulating to her mind yeah and it made me go oh man I should learn a language but I'm like fuck where do you have the time to learn a language but then I thought about like when I was on social media all the time I would look down at my phone some days and it would say screen use today six hours I'm like fucking six hours that's what your time is right if you spent six hours just learning Spanish, you'd be fluent.

25:28Joe Rogan:I'd be able to go to Taqueria and order in Spanish. It's like, we spend so much time doing nonsense that anything that you can do that requires your brain to be in that uncomfortable state of, what is this? Oh, it's this. Is that this? Got it. That dance, that firing of the synapses and and forcing your brain to figure this this puzzle out so many people don't have that and i see it in people that get stagnant where they're doing the same thing every day their job is fairly mundane and kind of boring and maybe they like it but there's nothing stimulating about it they're talking to the same boring ass people they don't exercise, they go home, they watch TV, and then they shut off and they do it all again.

26:21Joe Rogan:And then you talk to them like five, 10 years later, and it's almost like they've, they're slipping. Yeah, like you see it, you can see it in people that have mundane existences, like their stimulation is so low that their ability to be stimulated is low. I think that that thing you describe

26:42Tommy Wood:is so baked into our society that we've started to believe that it's normal. Right. So when you look at the trajectory of cognitive function over your entire life, imagine a graph where on the one side you have cognitive function, and it could be something basic like processing speed. How quickly does your brain process information? On the bottom is age, right? It tends to peak sometime around our mid-20s to early 30s. it's usually the peak on average tends to be higher and later the more time we spend in education so the more time we spend essentially as professional learners the more we can build that kind of final capacity after that it's just sort of like an average decrease downwards and a colleague of mine josh turknet and i he's a neurologist we wrote a paper a couple of a couple of years ago where we theorized that the reason why we see that decline in at the population level in cognitive function from about that age is because we go to work we do the same thing again and again and again um and then everything else that life gets in the way um and we never spend that same time investing in building our cognitive capacities the way we did when we were kids and when we were in school.

28:04Tommy Wood:And so the decline is partly because we just stop doing that. So one of the theories of aging is that it's just a continuation of development, like process of development. And most of the processes of development in the brain are refining connections based on the environment and the stimulus the brain receives. So if you start removing stimuli because you're no longer engaging in these like cognitively challenging things, the brain is going to start removing connections. Hey, I don't need that, right? I'm not using this part of my brain. And as a result, you start to see decline. And so there are studies that show if you have a very stimulating job, it's very complex, problem-solving skills, lots of social interactions, you have a slower rate of cognitive decline as an adult and a lower risk of dementia.

28:53Tommy Wood:You see in individuals who continue to engage in reading, writing, lectures, dancing, a whole bunch of hobbies, again, you see a slowed rate of decline. So some of what we just expect to happen with age is because of the way we stop engaging with the world and we stop challenging ourselves.

29:14Joe Rogan:Well, it completely makes sense, right? Like if you think about physical activity, it goes along the same kind of path. Exactly. You see, I have friends. I'm 58, which is crazy to say. It sounds so old. But I have friends that are 58 that are basically, they're skeletons with like meat hanging around various parts of it. But my physical ability is very similar to what it was when I was in my 30s. The only way that I could really test it is like physical competition. And I'm not really interested in that. I don't want to get hurt. But my capacity for work is very similar. Yeah. And I know that because I force it.

29:53Joe Rogan:You know, I make myself do it. And I would imagine the same thing is true with the mind. I mean, it has to be. I think it's all together. It's use it or lose it. Yeah. And if your mind doesn't have a need to be constantly intrigued and stimulated, like you got to think for survival, right? One of the things that's speculated, maybe I can ask you about this because this is one of – I think about this a lot. Like what is ADHD? And whether or not it's actually a problem, I think it's a superpower because I'm pretty sure I have it. But yet I can – I'm very functional. I can focus on things. And as long as I tire myself out from activity, I can relax and I can concentrate on things.

30:42Joe Rogan:And I'm very interested in certain things and I can lock into them and concentrate. But if I was forced to be in a classroom with a very boring teacher teaching a subject I'm not that interested in, and I was a child, if I had the wrong parents, luckily I didn't, I would be medicated. But I think that that is this ability to focus on certain things like hyper-focus was probably a function of a persistent hunter. Because if you wanted to catch an animal, you couldn't be a person that gives up quick. You had to be a person that you keep looking for tracks. You keep trying to find sign. You're trying to figure out a way like, I've got to keep pushing one more hour.

31:29Joe Rogan:We've got 20 minutes of daylight left. I've got to figure this out. Right. You that thing had to be in you in order to be a successful hunter.

31:40Tommy Wood:So I'm sure that that's that's part of it. The the current picture of ADHD, I think, is quite complicated. So I have family members with ADHD when they then started on medication. They were like, oh, actually, all of a sudden my brain works. Right.

31:54Joe Rogan:Right, but that medication is Adderall, right? If I took Adderall, I would say the same fucking thing. I don't need a stimulant. But if I took a stimulant right now, I'd be like, dude, I'm so much better.

32:07Tommy Wood:But do you know what happens? In certain individuals with ADHD, when you give them stimulants, they calm down. So I think there's a combination of multiple things. Some is, yes, like these can be very beneficial traits in the right settings. But you also have to consider that we're layering on a modern environment that's like bright lights at night, a whole bunch of caffeine and stimulants. Right. And yeah, of course, some of it is, I think, right, the teacher is boring and they're like they're just not engaged because the majority of people with ADHD can still focus. on things that they're interested in focusing in.

32:48Joe Rogan:Yes.

32:48Tommy Wood:Or on.

32:49Joe Rogan:Even without any kind of medication.

32:51Tommy Wood:Yeah. But there's like a sliding scale. And I think there's a whole bunch of different reasons why for one individual they might experience symptoms of ADHD or not. So I think it's complicated.

33:00Joe Rogan:Can I ask you, before you go any further than that, can I ask you, how much of that is dependent upon physical activity? Like, do we study ADHD based on whether someone is physically active or not? Because, look, if I'm not physically active, I'm a mess. like if for something if something happened and for some reason like uh i got a court order you're not allowed to exercise for six months or you go to jail like oh god i would probably be a fucking complete basket case right yeah and maybe i would have full-on adhd maybe i wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything my brain would be bouncing all over the place like how much of it is a biological requirement that your body has to release energy so i think you can i would expand

33:41Tommy Wood:out even further than that because physical activity is a core requirement of our biology and physiology right um there's a there's a nice quote by inigo samanon milan who's a you know well-known exercise physiologist who says that um exercise physical activity is baked into our evolutionary um development so much so that now we've had to invent exercise in order to like like to prevent what happens when we don't move so it's the lack of movement is a disease causing

34:18Joe Rogan:pro-aging like situation so to stop you there yeah what if i mean or do they when they treat

34:27Tommy Wood:kids with adhd do they take that into consideration so as i'm not an adhd researcher so i i genuinely don't know.

34:37Joe Rogan:But I would think that before you would give someone a stimulant, maybe track and field. You know what I mean?

34:43Tommy Wood:Yeah.

34:43Joe Rogan:And maybe play badminton, do something where you've got to run around where you're like, oh boy, I can focus now.

34:50Tommy Wood:I think, I think that that's, again, I would say that that's needed for all kids regardless of any potential diagnosis. So of course we need, I think that should be taken into consideration. Whether that's going to be enough for every kid, you know, hard to say. But we know that all humans require significant amounts of physical activity just for their biology to work properly. So certainly if that's not being taken into account or it's not available or it's not encouraged, there are a whole host of conditions where that's going to become a problem.

35:22Joe Rogan:Well, it just only makes sense, right? And I mean, this has been talked about forever. The Stoics used to talk about it, quieting the mind. I mean, Samurais used to talk about it, like that physical activity, which is what, you know, one of the main benefits the Chinese used for Kung Fu thousands of years ago, quieting the mind. And the propensity that we have in the society, this direction of almost immediately prescribing a medication for something when it seems like what you're doing is you're dulling a biological requirement. You're dulling the impact of this biological requirement that you're not needing.

36:01Joe Rogan:Why wouldn't we prescribe exercise first and then think about those things? For instance, hormone replacement. If you have a good doctor, an ethical doctor that is working with someone and they find out you have low testosterone, one of the first things they do is adjust your diet. They say, well, you have so much food in your diet that causes inflammation. You have a very high rate of complex carbohydrates. You have a lot of sugar in your diet. You drink too much alcohol. You smoke cigarettes. Let's remove those things first. And then let's see what happens. And then you increase your protein and you start drinking water and you go, oh, look, your hormone levels are going up naturally.

36:46Joe Rogan:Well, because you're fucking poisoning yourself, right? So wouldn't you – I mean why don't they prescribe exercise for kids? other than the fact that you can't make money off of it, wouldn't it be a good idea? This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Recipes, cooking methods, even portioning, it all makes a difference for your dog's health. And The Farmer's Dog is pouring a ton of resources into new research studies. They've also just started sponsoring a residency program at the University of Tennessee's College of Veterinary Medicine, which aims to contribute new research and help shape the future of pet health.

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39:50Part of the problem, it's not that scientists or doctors don't think that's important.

39:58Tommy Wood:right now the systems that we have make it very difficult for those things uh to be to be put in place right so making sure that every kid has the time and the resources to be able to exercise and like the the right kind of people so that they know what they're doing and they're they're supervised um and you know it's the same with uh say with testosterone replacement if your testosterone is low like most right the the primary cause or one of the most common cause of low testosterone in men is right that combination of metabolic disease being sedentary poor quality diet like we know that but creating the systems that allow people to change those things and then supporting them to do that is really hard nobody nobody has solved the behavior change problem right if we think about if we think about the modern environment um and we think about what that drives us to do and not do but we know we have all this information right we know how to prevent these diseases we know how to reverse many of them and a lot of it is driven by lifestyle and the environment but supporting people to change those behaviors and make sure they have the resources and time to do it that's really hard like nobody solved that problem yet boy

41:18Joe Rogan:That seems like a problem that's easy to solve. It's just based on personal responsibility. No, but it's not. But if you can tell someone, this is your requirement for the day. I want you to run one mile. I want you to do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups and write it down. But how are you? So first of all. But you're saying it like it's impossible.

41:39Tommy Wood:I'm not saying it's impossible. I think that those of us for whom this has become a part of our personality and our lives, like you and me, of course, you just do that. You just go for the run. You do the 100 push-ups. But for people who have never had anything like this and it's never been a part of their environment, it's never been a part of who they are, changing that actually requires a ton of work and coaching. And it's actually really difficult.

42:11Joe Rogan:It's difficult, but it's totally doable physically. It's not like I'm asking you to breathe underwater. Like people have done it, and you can draw inspiration from them. Like my friend Jelly Roll. You know Jelly Roll, the musician? Jelly Roll was 500 pounds, and he's lost 300 pounds. And he did it with no Ozempic, no GLP-1s. He just started walking and started cutting sugar out of his diet, and slowly but not even slowly over the course of just a couple of years he shrunk to like a normal size human it's fucking amazing but he drew inspiration from a lot of other people you know one of them he's he's good friends with my good friend cam haynes who's a ultra marathon runner and endurance athlete and so you know he's taking them on runs and worked out with them and helped them and just watching youtube videos and just all he started doing was just walking where he couldn't walk up hills and he would just walk around his block and walk up the hill when he didn't want to do it.

43:10Joe Rogan:And he did it. It's like it's not. You can do it. You just have to start doing it. And I think the starting doing it is the most difficult. I don't think it's difficult to do it once you gather momentum because there's a thing that happens with people when they start doing something, they get excited, and then they look forward to doing it again. As long as you don't take a guy who's 500 pounds and say, today we're going to do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, we're going to do kettlebells, and then we're going to do laps around the block. You can't do it. It's not possible. But you could just go for a walk.

43:43Joe Rogan:And then tomorrow we're going to go for a walk a little bit further. And then in two weeks we're going to double that walk. And then in three weeks we're going to incorporate some light bodyweight squats. And along the way we're going to adjust your diet and then write these things down. It's not impossible.

43:59Tommy Wood:It's just they need motivation. So I agree. It's not impossible. But, you know, I've worked with several digital health companies who are working in the behavior change space. And people don't need more information. Like they know that they need to walk more and they know that they could eat better and they know that they could sleep better.

44:19Joe Rogan:Right.

44:20Tommy Wood:But the process of trying to, first of all, understand, like, how should I do that? What should I do that? When should I do that? And then, right, some people may absolutely not have the time or the environment. Maybe they live somewhere where actually they don't want to be walking around outside. Right. Right. That's relatively common. Or they don't have a kitchen. Right. So then how do you cook food? Like, how do you navigate that food environment? So I agree. I completely agree with you. All of this is doable. it's just that different people are going to need different levels of support to do that initially right gain that momentum understand understand um how how that feels um how it changes them and right now the majority of people don't have access to that that kind of support and i absolutely hope that that changes right the food environment changes so that it's much easier to change the way that you eat and that the built environment changes so it's much easier to go out and have a walk um and and do a lot of that um so i think we just have to consider that it's both right there's there's an individual component right but there's also like a societal component where we have to make this as easy for people as possible and sort of like build it into their lives such

45:40Joe Rogan:as they are okay so let's consider the societal aspect of it let's consider the like how would you implement something like let's let's imagine that you get appointed to some committee that's in charge of trying trying to facilitate this growth and improvement in people what would you do

46:03Tommy Wood:so i think you need um a few a few different parts to it one uh great part would be so say through you know if you could dramatically improve quality and access of like education at all levels and make physical activity just be a regular part of that that has been slowly removed from many educational curriculums around the world over time right so bring some of that back and it just becomes part of day-to-day life and then you would also teach people the skills involved in some of these other things. So like teach people how to cook and how to do that within the bounds of what they have access to, their, you know, cultural preferences, dietary preferences, you know, financial abilities, that kind of stuff.

46:52Joe Rogan:Right. That should be a part of a school curriculum. Yeah, absolutely.

46:55Tommy Wood:Just like you should teach kids about taxes and all these other things. And so I think if you start early on and you do this with sort of curiosity and skill building, then you release people out into the you know that that i think that's that's the place to start because when you get out into the real world and you're working three jobs and you live somewhere where you don't want to go for a walk outside and like you can barely get six hours of sleep every night and you know you've got three kids that you're trying to look after saying oh hey you should do 100 push-ups every day like that's not going to happen like other things are going to happen that are more important um so so i think there's that part maybe the the skill building part then it's thinking about like how people have opportunities to do those things um and then i would think about you know access to high quality um you know health care psychological care like these things that's like some sometimes people need help that they can't get access to or it's expensive or whatever um so i think giving more of that so that they get support when they

48:00Joe Rogan:need it is definitely it would definitely help as well i think one great way would be to devise a website make like maybe like even a government website where you uh put in like your body weight when was your last physical activity what this that the other thing all the what's your diet and then they implement a program and you could follow online with a bunch of other people that doing the same thing and post your results. So you have a community aspect to it. You have a dedicated program that you can follow so you don't have to think about, oh, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do this.

48:39Joe Rogan:It'll just tell you, just do this. Just do this. Oh, you weigh 400 pounds. You're 39 years old. You haven't worked out in 10 years. Okay. Here's day one. And follow along, post your weight, post what you're eating. I mean, and with AI, I mean, that's one of the good things about an LLM, right? With AI, you could ask it to formulate adjustments. And you could say, okay, what nutrients should I be consuming? How much protein do I actually need? How many calories do I need? How many calories are in this and that? And how much protein do I get from 20 ounces of broccoli or whatever the fuck it is?

49:19Joe Rogan:You know what I mean?

49:20Tommy Wood:Yeah. So when you look at some of the most successful trials of behavior change, and most of them are based around weight loss studies, right? That's a very typical way to do it. When you want somebody to change their behavior and feel good about it, one of the sort of constructs is self-determination theory you've probably heard of, right? Like humans need three things, autonomy, competence and relatedness. So autonomy is like I am in charge of my life and I'm in charge of my decisions. So what are the things that I want to work on today? I have some choice there. Competence, like how do I help somebody feel like they know what they're doing?

50:02Tommy Wood:Like a lot of the hurdles with exercise or diet is like, I don't know what I'm doing. And like this guy says that I need to do sprints and this guy says I need to lift weights. And this guy says, I need to do X amounts of zone two. But I'm like, what does that even mean? Like, do I even know what I'm supposed to do? So how do you build competence in people? And then relatedness. That's the point that you were making, right? You have a group. Like, you support each other. Maybe you do stuff together. So one of the most successful weight loss trials of all time was called the broad study. And one of the things they did, so they lost a lot of weight and they kept it off.

50:39Tommy Wood:And so most weight loss studies, people regain it afterwards. is they met several times a week. They did like potlucks, group activities, like they helped each other. Yeah, community. Yeah, community. The one downside of that is that there was an app, I can't remember the name of it, that tried to build that for exercise. So like you'd have these buddies and they'd be your accountability buddies. But what happened was that when people started to slip, they left the platform much faster because they were like, I don't want my buddies to know that I'm not doing what they are supposed to be helping me do.

51:11Tommy Wood:So you kind of have to like build in multiple buffers and different ways to help people depending on what it is that motivates them or not

51:18Joe Rogan:I mean we have public education, right? We have Universities we have public high schools and middle schools. Why don't we have public gyms? Why don't I mean how much money would it cost to have community gyms set up where you don't have to have money to join where it's paid for by your taxes? You're not talking about something that's out outside of financially it wouldn't be feasible.

51:43Tommy Wood:It's not that hard to do. So I think that was the, I don't know what the financial model is now, but that was the idea of the YMCA. Right. It becomes a community focus point. My wife grew up in North Carolina. She talks about how they were down the YMCA all the time, like playing basketball. I used to have a YMCA when I lived in Boston

52:02Joe Rogan:that I used to go to. It was really cheap. They had weights. They had a track. They had a swimming pool. They had all sorts of stuff. It was way cheaper than a regular gym. And they had classes you could take.

52:12Tommy Wood:Yeah. And there was something very similar close to where I grew up in the UK. Just like for a couple of pounds, you go do some kind of martial arts class or something. Yeah, they had that too.

52:22Joe Rogan:Does Austin even have a YMCA?

52:25Tommy Wood:Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. There's like a big one downtown. I've driven past it once. Like big glass front. I don't know what it costs.

52:32Joe Rogan:How much does it cost to get into the YMCA in Austin? Let's find that out. I mean that should be paid for by taxes I mean if we pay for all this other shit that we don't need when a big hurdle

52:46Tommy Wood:is accessibility and one year

52:50Joe Rogan:new progress pack join today how much

52:56Joe Rogan:$125 value for a year is that what it says how much does it cost join today that's also the secret of most memberships for gyms They don't list their prices online. Yeah, but it's a YMCA. Click on Join Today. I'm telling you, they want you to come in and say hi so they can talk to you. Oh, is that what it is? That's how everyone works. But it's probably cheaper than most. Well, why don't you put it into perplexity or something like that? Say, how much does it cost to join a YMCA? Here we go. Let's guess. How much do you think it costs? $20 a month? $50?

53:32Tommy Wood:Yeah, I think it can't be much more than Planet Fitness, right? or us. Planet Fitness is pretty cheap.

53:36Joe Rogan:But the thing about Planet Fitness is they kind of, a lot of these big gyms, not just singling out Planet Fitness, they kind of hope that you don't show up. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the big, yeah. You're generally looking at$40 to$80 per month, depending on age and household type. That's not too bad.

53:51Tommy Wood:Yeah, but for some people, that's a lot of money, right? $40 a month. Yeah, like that's a good chunk of their food bill. So there should be some sliding scale where this becomes very, very heavily subsidized.

54:03Joe Rogan:Yeah. Or free.

54:05Tommy Wood:Yeah. Yeah. Ideally, yeah.

54:06Joe Rogan:I mean, why wouldn't it be free? Yeah, I think it should be. Wouldn't the homeless people go in there and shower? There are. Well, I mean, I'm okay with that, too. Depends on who they are. I mean, if they shower. I'm okay with some of them. You know, fucking crazy people shitting in the shower. Blue Cross Blue Shield, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many health insurance plans offer gym membership through reimbursements. Discounts or programs like ActiveFit or GlobalFit. benefits can include twenty to four hundred dollars annual reimbursements Some people can use their health insurance to get some of that fee covered.

54:40Joe Rogan:Okay. Well, that's nice But the thing is again, it's just like Planet Fitness or any of these places The the thing is like they want to recruit you and then you go and you're like, okay, and then you never go again

54:51Tommy Wood:Yeah, yeah, we will but we genuinely want people to go like that's right. That's the whole idea

54:56Joe Rogan:Well, the thing is like there's one thing like for someone and I've taken friends to gyms before that don't work out and they're like, what do I do? They have no idea what to do. Classes. Classes is what should be. Absolutely. It should be classes.

55:08Tommy Wood:Learn a new skill, move, make a friend. So much amazing stuff happens in that kind of setting.

55:14Joe Rogan:Yeah, and they should have multiple different classes available at the same time. There should be a class for people that have done nothing. Like, okay, these are dumbbells. You can pick up a light one. I'm going to show you how to do a shoulder press. and then it should be for you know more advanced people intermediate people yeah something and a

55:33Tommy Wood:whole whole range of different skills yoga zumba pilates tai chi slightly different not dumbbell

55:39Joe Rogan:weights but in austin they have a bunch of uh public free gym equipment and different parks playgrounds and parks yeah that stuff's great well in new york city has a whole look at these guys staring at each other talking shit

55:53Tommy Wood:I think one of the problems is that well first of all a lot of people might just look at that and be like what do I do with that and then the second is that a lot of what we see around fitness and movement is kind of the extremes right they're idolized professional athletes like this is what the best of the best do and we often we internalize this idea that that's what we need to do and if we're not doing that then we're not doing anything

56:19Joe Rogan:whereas

56:19Tommy Wood:Whereas all the data suggests that literally any type of movement above what you're doing right now is beneficial. Cardiovascular health, cognitive health, dementia risk. So I think some of it is just like letting people know and having people understand that it doesn't take that much to move the needle. And then when they start to do a little bit, right, you get a bit of a bug. Maybe you enjoy it. You find a thing that you enjoy. You do more of it. And so that's part of it, too. Like having people understand that it doesn't take that much. to really start having an impact.

56:52Joe Rogan:Yeah, and it's also, for a lot of people, this is a society that really emphasizes quick fixes on things. And it's not a quick thing. You have to trust in a process. And so that has to sort of be – people have to be educated to that. It has to be taught to you, like, this is a process. And you're on a process. You should be very excited about being on this process. it's going to be weird because it's going to take a long time before you see any results but that long time like in that in that time period you will eventually see results and then you'll be excited you'll feel better you'll have more energy it'll help every aspect of your life you just got to do it one of the one of the things that i i like when i talk about

57:39Tommy Wood:movement in particular or exercise and say cognitive function is that you will start to see benefits relatively quickly so if you go and do a six second max sprint a couple of times right and there are studies that show this you will acutely like immediately see an improvement in cognitive function better blood flow to the brain you've created arousal which is really important for focus and attention um if you you know go out go for a walk outside right And you will sleep better that night. So you'll feel better the next day. And so, yes, you're absolutely right that this is a lifelong thing, right?

58:20Tommy Wood:You can't just do it for a couple of months and then hope that it's going to translate to benefits for decades to come. But you can see immediate benefits if you start to do some of this stuff and you can feel it very quickly. So I think that that's going to be important because not everybody is going to feel in the position to invest in their future selves. So if you start to see benefits straight away, you're more likely to keep going with it.

58:46Joe Rogan:Okay. So that's for people. We were just – I mean I'm glad we covered it, but we're essentially talking about people that don't know what to do. For people who do know what to do, you said you work with a lot of Formula One athletes. Yeah. What do you do for – like what is – Formula One is fascinating to me. I've been to the CODA racetrack. We're actually putting up a studio. We're going to have a studio at CODA. We're going to have a second studio at the racetrack. And the idea is to take people around the racetrack. I think it would stimulate their mind and then come in and do a podcast. It would be a lot of fun.

59:16Joe Rogan:You'd be like racing. Your mind would be like, woo! That is an incredible sport where it's fractions of a second, split-second decisions. your ability to react has to be like incredibly fast like have you ever seen the thing where they drop things oh yeah like Lewis Hamilton is like better at anybody than anybody he's fucking intense um what do you do with them so you already have people that are primed right they're the best in the world yeah but they are constantly looking for an additional edge what are you doing for them

59:53Tommy Wood:Yeah, so there's a few things there. My work with Formula One drivers happens mainly through a company called Hintze Performance. It was founded by Aki Hintze. What is it? Hintze Performance? Hintze, H-I-N-T-E-S-A, named after Aki Hintze, who was a Finnish orthopedic surgeon. He worked with Haile Gabra Selassie, with Mika Hakkinen. He was a two-time Formula One world champion. And then now, sort of like a big sports enterprise, and I'm their head scientist for motorsport. So that's all motorsport categories from like karting and kids up to Formula One. We work with several Formula One drivers.

1:00:29Tommy Wood:And we provide coaching and medical services. Each driver or most of the drivers have a coach, right? So like, you know, when you watch Formula One, there's like somebody holding the umbrella, holding the helmet, right? That's usually, well, that's often one of our coaches. They're usually a strength and conditioning specialist or they might be a physio or a nutritionist. like they they have a ton of you know really high level skills and they're there every day right they do the sleep they do the training like they're traveling with them the whole time they sort of can manage as much of their of their life as possible and when you're thinking about that level of of skill the the stimulus part has has taken care of itself right one of the reasons why these guys are so good is because it's all they've done every day for two plus decades, four decades, if you're Lewis Hamilton or close to that.

1:01:29Tommy Wood:So, and that's slowly building these skills first in karting, then in these different formula categories, formula three, formula two, up into formula one. And so the kinds of things that we might work on, and so like I'm helping the coaches working with the drivers we have like a a huge team um you know uh doctor who's uh who works with a bunch of olympic athletes as well and so it's it's a combination of are there any individual performance limiters so we might do some blood tests look at nutrient status and various other things um you know make sure they're really on top of that with their with their diets um but then in that kind of world and like i'm sure you experience this yourself everybody's got a thing for you to try or a thing for you to do right like you're constantly being bombarded with the latest greatest technology and like this guy wants to sell you this thing so a lot of what we do is like be really careful about the things that get added and maybe even like take stuff away if we need to like what are we what are we trying to work on what are we trying to build what does this one driver need because they're all very they're all very different they need a difference you know they have different uh diets they have different training programs they have different um warm-up strategies for when they get in the car um and so a lot of what we end up doing is focusing on on the other side right so if you stimulate your brain it adapts when you rest and recover afterwards so because they're essentially jet-lagged nine months of the year uh rather than a different country every every week that's a factor yeah that's a huge huge factor and like on top of like every race weekend they've got to go meet sponsors they've got to do media days right they're constantly moving so it's what can we do to maintain their level of performance throughout the season this is something that the coaches do a ton of work in like how can we what kind of exercise and how can we do targeted training to like maintain performance throughout the throughout the year and then the other part is how can we get as much recovery as possible because if we want them to adapt to all the work they're doing and come back each weekend at the top of their game or as close as possible we need to get them to rest and recover and come back and do it again so often we're not focusing on the stimulus part we might be in driver training we might be thinking about how can we develop cognitive skills and these kinds of things and these driver physical skills in um in formula one often it's how can we get these guys to recover better?

1:04:03Tommy Wood:How can we get these guys to sleep better? And then that might be technology, but it might also be just like, how can we nail the basics again and again and again, make sure they're getting enough time in bed, right? Especially when you're traveling a bunch, that gets really difficult. So we're often focused on the recovery side and how we track, like how do we collect those data? How do we know when something's starting to slip and get on top of it early? That's the kind of stuff we tend to focus on.

1:04:27Joe Rogan:So let's talk about the jet lag aspect. What are the strategies for mitigating jet lag? Let's say if they fly in for a race, like if they're going from Europe to the United States and they have to race, how many days in advance do they arrive and how do they shift their circadian rhythm and eliminate jet lag? What are the strategies?

1:04:51Tommy Wood:Yeah, the time for them, the number of days they come before the race will depend on how long it was since the last race, plus what other things they've got going on. But it's often like two or three days. They'll try and come in the beginning of the week, at least like Monday, Tuesday, if the race is then going to be on Sunday. And then as much as possible, you might start to try and shift things earlier. So shift your light exposure so that it aligns more closely with your destination a couple of days before you travel. Shift your sleep if you can. Shift exercise and caffeine timing. Again, because those things shift circadian rhythm so that you can kind of get closer to what you're going to do when you land.

1:05:40Tommy Wood:And so those are probably the primary tools is exercise, light, caffeine. You can use some of them use melatonin. um you can also change uh when you eat so like um food timing is a zeitgeber it's a fancy word for like time giver like helps to drive circadian rhythm so um often when you're when you're flying they'll give you a meal that's happening like in the middle of the night in the time that you're going to land right so often you might try and avoid eating while flying and then have your next meal in time with like a normal meal timing when you land i've heard that one of the things to help

1:06:22Joe Rogan:jet lag is just eliminate meals when you're flying period there's something about eating even if it doesn't have anything to do with the the time like say if you're flying from los angeles to new york one way to eliminate jet lag they say is just to not eat on the flight so six hour flight don't eat

1:06:39Tommy Wood:it all usually i think most of that is to do with circadian circadian timing because you're usually flying at a time when you wouldn't normally eat or like you're often like they give you dinner at like 9 p.m or it's even midnight right so if you see but is that all it is because but ways explained

1:06:58Joe Rogan:to me is that just there's something about your body processing food when you're flying that actually exacerbates jet lag?

1:07:07Tommy Wood:So I can't think of a... Does that make sense? Other than the fact that, I mean, you're obviously, you know, sat still for long periods of time, which might not normally happen at that time of day as well. I think the majority of it, certainly in terms of jet lag plans, is thinking about the timing of meals relative to circadian rhythm because you normally, you know, break your fast at a certain time of day, have dinner at a certain time of day. So I think most of it is related to circadian timing.

1:07:32Joe Rogan:Okay. What about rigorous exercise? Because one of my strategies, like say if I have to fly to London or something like that and I want to avoid jet lag, I immediately go to the gym. That's the first thing I do. I put my stuff in the hotel room. I go right down to the gym. No negotiation whatsoever. And I get in at least an hour. I have to.

1:07:53Tommy Wood:That's a great way to help to offset some of the jet lag. Because you start to tell your body, oh, hey, like even though it's whatever, midnight in Austin, right, this is the time when I want to be awake. So it starts to advance the circadian phase. So exercise. Some people like to do cold exposure, right? It does a similar thing, right? Increases adrenaline, increases heart rate, increases arousal. Can do it with light, can do it with caffeine. And so like some combination of those things can definitely help.

1:08:22Joe Rogan:Okay. So there's the sleep, adjusting the sleep. There's the light exposure. There's exercise and food. Is there anything else? Like what kind of supplementation is effective to mitigate that?

1:08:33Tommy Wood:Yeah. So they might use melatonin. One of the issues that we have, it's not an issue. It makes perfect sense, is that the supplements that we use with the drivers have to be third-party tested, right? NSF is sports certified, informed sports certified. So some of the things that we might like to try. Is that because the drivers get tested? Because the drivers get tested.

1:08:58Joe Rogan:And what do they ban?

1:08:59Tommy Wood:What's banned? Everything. It's the same as all the water drugs. It's the same. They're under water regulations. Are they allowed to use peptides? It's a gray area in general. I don't believe anybody does, and we certainly don't recommend it for that reason because we just don't know what's in there. Are they tested for peptides? So they're not tested for peptides. then take them well that's it depends on whether there's actually a peptide that has good high quality evidence in humans well there's also

1:09:35Joe Rogan:you should get them from a real good compounding pharmacy make sure you're getting it from a quality source which is the real problem with peptides today is that since they're not regulated there's a lot of grey market there's a lot of real you know bullshit corporations that are selling you stuff that's nonsense and even things that are tainted so yeah

1:09:52Tommy Wood:so the main thing that you're worried about is contamination Like what else have they put in there to make it to get better performance? Same thing as supplements. Yeah, same thing as supplements. But in reality, like there aren't many peptides where I'm like, where I would say, or actually I couldn't think of any, where I'm like, this will have a definite benefit based on high quality studies in humans. Right? Those studies just don't exist. and so until we get to that point plus the the sort of like the the the gray area of the sort of legality of it um we we tend to focus on you know the real i mean it's the basics but we know

1:10:33Joe Rogan:that they work but there are peptides that have shown to increase sleep and increase rem sleep in humans yes like which one humans but i wish i could tell you because they they talked about it but I never tried it. I know Tom Segura's on it. See if we can find what it is, Jamie. It's, boy, it's fucking with my head. DSIP? Is that what it is? I'm asking. No. Delta Sleep-inducing peptide?

1:11:02Tommy Wood:I want to see the randomized control trial. I have to. I couldn't recommend it unless I know that it's third-party tested, it's legal, and there's a high-quality trial in humans. All those things have to align.

1:11:14Joe Rogan:The problem with high-quality studies is they take time and money. Yeah. And these aren't FDA approved, so you're not going to get those things. But that doesn't mean they don't work. Yeah. And this is the problem is that, like, you could try it. And then if you show benefit, like— In that setting, I can't try it. You can't. No. Well, you can't because of Formula One drivers and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. So with the way drug-free sport works, which is the governing body of the UFC drug testing, They don't allow anything, unfortunately. But there are studies that show that BPC-157 increases tissue recovery and helps you heal from - Not in humans.

1:11:52Joe Rogan:True. But there's, look, the same thing with the COVID vaccine. They weren't tested in humans either before they started trying them.

1:11:59Tommy Wood:There were some, for the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines, there were some pretty good quality trials in humans. Right. But all it showed is that it showed an antibody. It didn't show that it - Oh, no, against hospitalizations and death in the first waves.

1:12:14Joe Rogan:We could argue about that because it's very sketchy.

1:12:16Tommy Wood:It's very sketchy data that has been disproven. I think those first waves were high quality. But they didn't even say that it decreased hospitalization and death.

1:12:29Joe Rogan:It was stopping transmission and infection, which was just a lie. So that's what they claimed. so it's all sketchy because it was based on profit the whole thing is weird it's a weird one it's a weird one i can't uh i can't yeah i can't talk about maybe it's not a good example yeah but with there's plenty of anecdotal evidence especially with professional athletes with bbc 157 and tb500 particularly for tissue injuries for recovering quicker from tissue injuries so i know

1:13:01Tommy Wood:there's anecdote. I know that people say it benefits them. In the environments that I operate in, that's not enough. I understand. You're an actual doctor.

1:13:13Joe Rogan:Dr. Tommy Wood, he's legit. I'm just a dork. I'm allowed to just say, try it, fuck it. So, with drug-free sport, like with the UFC, they use Thorne supplements. That's what the UFC recommends, which are very good, third-party tested. So you have to find whether it's pure encapsulations or some legitimate, well-proven, established company that provides you with third-party tested supplements. What supplements have been shown? Let's stick with Formula One drivers. Reaction time is critical. Your ability to function at a very high cognitive state, right? You're thinking constantly. You're always calculating in movements.

1:13:55Joe Rogan:What supplements are these guys taking that benefit them?

1:13:59Tommy Wood:So when you think about complex skill performance, and there's like a whole chapter on this in the book, the most important driver is arousal, right? how aroused is your physiology and are you set up with the right level of sympathetic activation noradrenaline adrenaline cortisol to kind of get the the best level of performance and don't let any one of those overwhelm the other one when you want your spring break to feel like

1:14:38Joe Rogan:and your kids pool day to feel like and your hotel bed to feel like ooh, and room service to feel like because at Hilton, hospitality feels like

1:14:52Tommy Wood:your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels?

1:14:55Joe Rogan:It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton for this day. We all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life or usually price

1:15:34Tommy Wood:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the curve is bell-shaped, right? It's the Yerkes-Dodson curve named after a couple of guys who actually did studies in mice that then translated actually surprisingly well over to humans. And so what it says is that if you're sort of under aroused, you're kind of disengaged, a bit lethargic, right? You're not really going to perform well. If you're over aroused, you're sweaty, anxious, right? Again, you're not going to be able to sort of pay attention to the task. So there's this sweet spot. At the top of the curve, you're capable of flow states, clutch states, which is where you can perform at your best, but it's still like it's hard work.

1:16:10Tommy Wood:And so what you're trying to do is get the guys to the top of that curve. And this, for many, involves some element of routine, right? Knowing that I've done the thing that I know that's going to make me feel good. And so it's a combination often of the things that we've already mentioned. They might use some warm-up sprints. They might use music. They might use bright light. They might use breath work. They might use cold. Certainly if it's going to be a hot race, they might do some pre-cooling to bring down cold temperature. That improves endurance during the race.

1:16:40Joe Rogan:Oh, do they bring like cold plunges to Formula One bays?

1:16:43Tommy Wood:Yeah, yeah. So some of them have like a cold plunge or, you know, you can fill a wheelie bin with water and ice and jump in that. It doesn't need to be that cold, actually. So for increasing endurance performance, like 20 minutes at around 20 degrees Celsius or like 60-ish Fahrenheit, that significantly improves endurance.

1:17:06Joe Rogan:Is there a benefit to 20 minutes at 60 degrees Fahrenheit versus three minutes at 34 degrees?

1:17:13Tommy Wood:So the problem is that when you get too cold, you can actually decrease cognitive performance. so there's a there's a fine line when it's really cold that what you want to do is you want to decrease core temperature without negatively affecting cognitive function and so that's easier to manage at slightly less cold temperatures um because just like if you did really really exhaustive exercise right you go out um and so i was a rower in college so like a 2k test on a rowing machine like after that my brain doesn't work for like hours afterwards right and so like very um you know very cold ice baths for several minutes for some people that can decrease cognitive function so you you can find a sweet spot um that makes sense that makes a lot of sense because um

1:17:59Joe Rogan:my mind is very bad after brutal workouts yeah yeah like if i if i have a really hard workout and i come in and do a podcast there's there's a moment where i'm like um it's just not firing

1:18:12Tommy Wood:Yeah, and that's perfect. And that's normal. We know that. If you do very fatiguing exercise, for a period of time, you experience a decline in cognitive function. But a light exercise stimulates you. Exactly. So like one of the best studied exercise modalities to improve cognitive function is literally just like a 20-minute jog, right? Just a light jog. Exactly. But you're kind of warming everything up, you know, increasing sympathetic activation, increasing release of all those hormones you mentioned. And that increases arousal. that improves cognitive performance. So they might be doing some of those things.

1:18:45Tommy Wood:In the car, right, there'll be differing types of caffeine use depending on sensitivity and timing.

1:18:51Joe Rogan:Are they taking it in pill form so that they could regulate it quickly or accurately rather?

1:18:57Tommy Wood:Yeah, so some do, sometimes pills, sometimes gels. Some guys just like a cappuccino. Some might use like green tea because like the theanine in there might balance some of like the jitters that you can get with caffeine. some people find creatine stimulating or mildly stimulating so they might take creatine before they get in the car

1:19:17Joe Rogan:well there's been studies on creatine in cognitive performance that are really interesting

1:19:20Tommy Wood:particularly in the setting of sleep deprivation and so when they're jet lagged I think that would make sense there are some newer caffeine related compounds that if we can get them when they're third party tested some may try those so theacrine or t-creen and paroxanthine, which is a metabolite of caffeine. They may have some fewer of the anxiety-promoting, high blood pressure, high heart rate effects, but maintain some of the cognitive effects, especially in combination with caffeine. So you have a little bit less caffeine, plus a bit of those. They're harder to get third-party tested and stuff, and some of the evidence is newer.

1:20:01Tommy Wood:But that's looking promising as another thing that people might try.

1:20:05Joe Rogan:You mentioned theanine, which is a nootropic. There's quite a few different ones that people enjoy. Beta choline. There's a bunch of different ones. Do Formula One drivers, do they supplement with that kind of thing?

1:20:21Tommy Wood:So you're thinking like alpha-GPC? Yeah. It's a choline, type of choline. It's preferentially turned into acetylcholine. And acetylcholine is really important for focus and attention. And some of that stuff isn't regularly used, mainly because it's hard to get a third-party tested source.

1:20:46Joe Rogan:Is it really?

1:20:47Tommy Wood:Yeah. Like most of the things that you take, there probably isn't, or that anybody would take. There might not be an NSF for Sport certified version. There's very few companies that do that routinely for all their supplements. God, you'd think that that would be really accessible because nootropics are so common now. so but so there's that plus there's the um when we're working with different drivers they each have very unique needs so it's trying to it's a combination of what do i think is really going to move the needle and not over correct i think most coaches i've spoken to in formula one have a story where their driver had three espressos before it got in the car and then he overcooked the first corner right um so it's a really tricky balance of trying to make sure that they can um systematically get in the zone to perform well in the car without sort of pushing them too far over the over the other side and so that's where supplements become trickier because it's very easy to down regulate um if you've overcooked it um through some of those physiological means right i can do some breath work or something to kind of calm myself down but if i've like stuffed myself full of caffeine it's it's it's it's gonna be hard to like come back from that and then you sort of step in the car and it could cause some issues so we tend to focus on some of the physiological stuff and then maybe a little bit of supplementation um because that seems to be the the sort of like

1:22:11Joe Rogan:best balance across those different needs well it seems like formula one would be a great place to develop a framework for this because there's so much money involved it's such a massive sport and you would think that they would have that dialed in like you're 168 pounds this is when you woke up this is what you need right now you need this much protein this much this stop eating x amount of hours before the race so yes um we do a lot of that but it's different for each guy and nobody wants to share what they've got oh it's that yeah yeah so like even even like

1:22:47Tommy Wood:your your biggest rival is your teammate in many respects right because you're that's the only guy you can go up against truly head to head because you're in the same car right so yeah you know a lot of what we do we have we um we have to silo within a driver like this is the stuff that works for this guy and i can't use that to help this guy right that's one reason that's one reason why they don't share information yeah and that's one reason why hints has been very successful as a company is because they've been we're very good at walling this stuff off like we know what's good for this guy. We know what's good for this guy.

1:23:20Tommy Wood:And we, we sort of leave those separate because right. Different frameworks, different approaches might be needed.

1:23:26Joe Rogan:Well, it's such an extreme example because any little deviation that you wouldn't normally feel in everyday life could be disastrous in a formula one race. What about different things to stimulate cognitive function like playing chess or doing is there anything that those guys engage in specifically to improve the way they think again it depends a little from driver to driver um a lot of them like play some kind of video games which actually have have some interesting

1:24:05Tommy Wood:evidence to support them in terms of in terms of um improving cognitive function i think for them though uh a lot of that is it's almost like relaxation like when you drive a formula one car for a living like playing a video game it's relaxing isn't necessarily as challenging right um and so a lot of it tends to be very car car focused right they get tons of time in the simulator like during the season they get a lot of time in the car um so there's nothing that like consistently would work or that everybody does. I think a lot of where the cognitive training side comes from is during driver development, right?

1:24:47Tommy Wood:How can we get more sports specific or sports, supporting cognitive challenges in younger drivers as they're developing? So we might use some cognitive training tools and some other things to try and support some of those development processes because by the time they're at the the top um especially if you want to maintain it that the main thing that you need to do is obviously maintain those driving skills which you'll get through like the day-to-day aspects of the job plus then it's really continually paying attention to sustained physical health physical performance um especially because of the like arduous schedules and all that kind of stuff so so often again that they're focusing on the other areas because they know that will help them stay at a high level for longer.

1:25:34Joe Rogan:So they're focused on recovery from all the unavoidable aspects that are going to mitigate your performance.

1:25:40Tommy Wood:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So sleep, some of them use different meditation or breath work or other devices just to kind of help. Maybe you like gamify it slightly or you make it a slightly more enjoyable experience. It's easier to do, easier to switch off if you're doing things related sort of like uh vibration and that that that kind of stuff um you mean like pressure plates like those standing on things so like um shaky plates no there there's um turbosonic there's a there's a chair that that's that some guys use and i mean this is used in a ton of different sports and like in other military groups as well called the shift wave have you heard of this yeah i have one yeah yeah so some of the guys some of the guys have a shift wave It just kind of depends on what works well for them in terms of like allowing them to downregulate, allowing them to kind of sleep better.

1:26:31Tommy Wood:And again, we sort of often focus on the more sort of physiological environmental side rather than, you know, trying to throw a bunch of supplements at it.

1:26:40Joe Rogan:Well, it seems like that's a great place to study Formula One drivers because you're dealing with these like fine lines, this tiny differential between success and failure.

1:26:50Tommy Wood:Yeah. Yeah. And one of the interesting things is that the real performance stuff is kind of siloed within the team. So then, right, because that's related to performance in the car and that's sensitive information. So a lot of the time we're kind of thinking about, and this actually across most sports, the best predictor of performance is subjective well-being. How does the athlete feel? how and and so like there are tons of studies even like coming out now like you compare that to blood tests and hrv and all this other kind of stuff how they feel am i tired am i achy um do i feel alert uh you know all that kind of stuff that seems to predict performance really well so how can we or or and and better some of those better than some of those other things the best is a combination as much as possible but so so we do a lot of work aggregating data but then really the rest of the time is how can i make sure this guy feels good every day right and feels confident when he gets in the car and so then we have psychologists they're a big part of that plus like keeping an eye on their body and all that you know all those sort of things sort of put them in the best spot possible when they get in the car do you coach them to

1:28:03Joe Rogan:avoid toxic relationships i'm not i'm not sure if anybody's ever gotten into that there for fighters It is like one of the number one predictors of poor success in a competition. I've seen it over and over again. Guys with horrible relationships.

1:28:20Tommy Wood:Yeah.

1:28:21Joe Rogan:You know, whoever's fault it is, both fault, both parties, whatever it is. But those are the ones like when they have like really bad relationships. Like there was this one guy that I know that was a really high performer, very good fighter. but he had this crazy girlfriend and she required so much so much attention that it would drive her nuts when he was getting ready for a fight because he was spending all his time concentrating on the fight and it would peak literally the night before the fight like their relationship was so toxic she would always start fights and all the coaches knew it she would start fights after he weighed in because he was so locked in on the fight the next day that he wasn't paying attention to her So she would storm out of the hotel room and go down to the bar by herself and he would freak out and he would always wind up performing poorly.

1:29:07Tommy Wood:At least I personally haven't seen the evidence of that in that world. I will say that fighters are kind of crazy, though.

1:29:15Joe Rogan:It's an interesting group to study because it's a very bizarre activity to begin with. The way I describe it is high level problem solving with dire physical consequences.

1:29:26Tommy Wood:yeah and although you could say that formula one is is similar in that respect right very similar the there are there are certainly you know a lot of drivers come into into the sport with up is often driven by family relationships so so i think that that may may be an influence sometimes

1:29:45Joe Rogan:overbearing parents or another one coaches overbearing yeah yeah so they come in with this

1:29:50Tommy Wood:long history of right of like what got them there um so maybe that affects some of them i'm not sure

1:29:56Joe Rogan:um what are the most challenging athletes i assume you've dealt with a bunch of different athletes from various sports what are the most challenging ones to deal with

1:30:09Tommy Wood:the the one i think the ones that i found most challenging uh are it's usually because they're pulled in so many different directions that it becomes difficult for them to like really engage in the things that we know is going to help them perform long term. And so as, and like I have friends who work in the NBA, for instance, where I think this is amplified even more, right? You have teenage millionaires who can literally do whatever they want, right? But you have to like keep them on task. And we see that in a lot of professional sports. And so it's that kind of stuff, is what's distracting them?

1:30:55Tommy Wood:What are the other things that they're doing that's stopping them from being able to engage in these processes? And so you can have really good conversations and put together really good plans, and in the moment they're really engaged and they're interested, and they want to do well, this is their job, and they love it. But when other things start to come into play, Outside of that conversation, they don't engage with things. They don't do it. They don't see the results that they want. They get demotivated. But it's usually because, like, other things in their life, right, could be like the toxic relationships, but it tends to be other distractors.

1:31:33Tommy Wood:They kind of pull them away from that sort of, like, core goal.

1:31:37Joe Rogan:Unfortunately, success is a big one, right? Because the motivation to succeed in the first place is you want financial gain. You want recognition. You want all these things that you're chasing after.

1:31:48Tommy Wood:and then once you get them now what yeah yeah yeah and some some some people like maintain like really dead they maintain dedication to the craft like this is the thing that i love and i want to do it every day and like the longer you do it the more you have to take care of like the little details like early on in your career you can train however you want eat however you want if you have a certain set of skills and training up to that point you get you'll you'll do pretty well but you want to sustain that for a very long period of time. It requires an increasing amount of dedication to the other areas of your life to make sure that you can still do that.

1:32:27Tommy Wood:And I think sometimes people just aren't honest with themselves in terms of what they really want to do or what they're going to spend their time doing. So that's the most frustrating thing is when you sort of, you hear one thing but you see another thing because of like the other areas of life that are taking over.

1:32:46Joe Rogan:So what do you do if you have an athlete, like say an NBA athlete, and you see all this talent, all this potential, but then you notice that they're getting pulled in all these different directions? Maybe they're just like spending money all the time and partying and hanging out with girls. And how do you get them back on track?

1:33:05Tommy Wood:So I don't do a ton of work in NBA. when I intersect with that, I'm generally advising on like the data portion rather than like interacting with the human. So I don't have good tips, but luckily because I've never had to deal with that because I imagine it's quite frustrating. So what athletes do you deal with? Like what sports? So Formula One is the one where I primarily I'm like face-to-face with athletes. In other professional sports, I'm like an advisor to the team that works with them on like a data health nutrition. Oh, okay.

1:33:36Joe Rogan:Got it, got it, got it. And when you compare notes, what are the differences between like dealing with Formula One athletes versus dealing with like NFL or NBA or baseball?

1:33:46Tommy Wood:A lot of the stuff comes down to differences in travel schedule and training and the ability to capture data, for instance. So data capture in Formula One is really hard because of the types of travel. And you don't get to aggregate across a team, whereas you're part of a big team. There's several people you can kind of work. But you work with and aggregate data across to kind of understand what's happening with individuals as well as overall. but um i think that formula one is unique because it's so it's so individual um in terms of each driver has their one specific team and it's often very difficult to to capture some of the data that we might want to capture like getting blood tests on guys who are in a plane every other day right really difficult um whereas other places where they have a home base and this kind of stuff as usual you might be be able to get at that better um so i think that's maybe one of the biggest differences is the travel travel schedule and how easy or not it is to like capture and

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1:35:49Joe Rogan:When you're working with these Formula One athletes, how much are you changing the methods that you use year to year? It will depend on whether...

1:36:05Tommy Wood:I mean, my job is to stay on top of the latest research, right? Right. So what's come out recently that we think will meaningfully move the needle? In reality, and I think this is the case in the majority of professional sports that I've interacted with, the main thing is getting the boring basics done consistently. And again and again and again, we know that's foundational to sustain performance. And yeah, like some of the tools and technology for recovery and some of the supplements, especially if you're trying to address nutrient insufficiencies based on an adequate diet, which is also very common.

1:36:52Tommy Wood:Right. Those things do make a difference. um but the the main struggle at least from the the guys that that i regularly see is having an environment and framework that allows them to keep doing that stuff like stay on top of a specific training program or stay consistent with a certain sleep routine that allows them to to sleep well those are the things that make the biggest difference and so it's like that's where we tend to focus and then you know maybe every year or so we're like we're constantly improving our data capture and our data analysis we're constantly um you know trying to improve sort of like the support processes because we know that with the better better support we can make sure they're more likely to do the stuff that's going to make a big difference and then maybe every sort of like year or two there's a a new thing that comes in and we're like oh yeah we're fairly confident this is low risk high potential benefit um it's not going to take a ton of their time right that's that's another thing is when i first uh when i first walked into the paddock in in it was here in austin it was the first time i went to formula one to like start working with these guys i like i showed up and i'm like i've got like a i've got like a hundred things that these guys are gonna love it's gonna be really important it's gonna revolutionize everything and then you speak to like a coach for the first time they're like we've got time for maybe one thing and you better be really confident that this thing is going to make a difference right or else you've wasted our time so how do you decide so um a little bit of it is of course there's going to be some trial and error and it does depend on but the error is like consequences are huge yeah like and you just you just have to acknowledge that up front and the the error is biggest when you're telling some guy to do something before he gets in the car right because that's that's that's going to immediately have an effect so there are ways to offset some of that right they have uh practice periods um and so it's like right now it's a new generation of cars for this season um nobody's driven them before they're getting more extended uh track time to practice uh practice with them so like that might be a time when you could try a new supplement or something before you get in the car because it's a low it's a much lower risk setting you're not racing there's not 19 other guys or now 21 other guys trying to trying to get past you um and then right so that so some of it is that right trial and error you acknowledge that you you just have to be really confident that you know what problem you're trying to solve and that it's an important problem right so i've i've worked with coaches and their driver where like reaction time was a very specific thing like off the line we we think we need x amount improvement.

1:39:40Tommy Wood:So then it's a combination of practice, maybe tinkering with some supplements, maybe tinkering with some of that arousal stuff that we talked about earlier. So you need to make sure it's an important problem. Then you need to think about like, what's the hierarchy of things that have the highest likelihood of benefit and the lowest risk, and then sort of work your way through it. And I realized that this is all kind of in the abstract because it just like really depends on the problem that's in front of you.

1:40:05Joe Rogan:What about the psychology aspect of it? I mean, this is a very controversial aspect of mixed martial arts in particular, because there's kind of two schools of thought. there's there's uh like i have a good friend who's a coach that recently told me he's not working with any fighters anymore that need a mental coach and i said why and he's like you just can't count on them he goes they're just too fragile they need a mental coach because i want a motherfucker who just knows that this is what he's supposed to be doing and just go out and do it yeah i'm like boy but that kind of limits your athletes right like do you do you think that there's benefit in mental coaching or do you think like to reach a championship level there's an inherent mindset that you must have going into that and you can improve upon that but if you do not have that mindset you're not going to be successful this is my friend's idea i don't want to call him out because you know the athletes he works with yeah yeah but you know he recently had a bad result with one of his athletes he's like i'm done no no more guys who need mental coaches i want killers

1:41:12Tommy Wood:so i think that you're going to need some element of a mindset to get to that level to begin with right um but we have psychologists on our team who work work with the drivers regularly other drivers who aren't you know you're working with us bring in sports psychologists very regularly

1:41:36Joe Rogan:collaborate with these psychologists do you talk to them and get their notes yeah yeah so we have

1:41:40Tommy Wood:What are common issues?

1:41:45Tommy Wood:I mean, again, it's just it's so dependent on the individual. But it's also very common across all athletes, right? So it's like overcoming failure or fear of failure or maybe it's dealing with difficult relationships, which for various reasons they can experience. and then it's how you know their inherent thought process is when that happens so so we know that the most resilient athletes are those that tend to be self-compassionate right so like interesting

1:42:25Joe Rogan:yeah that's interesting i would have thought the opposite yeah and so there's this idea right that

1:42:29Tommy Wood:right you want killers you want um people hard on themselves the guys who are hard on themselves But for sustained, and so this is looking across, like, as broad as possible across sport, those who are most successful most often, of course, there's going to be the killer who's just, like, hardened himself and gets the job done. Of course, right? but um these elements of self-compassion that include um things like mindfulness like thinking about the world and understanding it and about their place in it and um common humanity which is like treating themselves as they would treat other people and acknowledging the right we all make mistakes and stuff always happens but i can overcome this i you know what this happened to me before like i've sucked i've crashed i've done something wrong and hey i I overcame it and now I'm succeeding again.

1:43:22Tommy Wood:Those mental skills are most common amongst the high level athletes. So I'll give an example. This is not, I don't know him, but like Roger Federer has a very famous quote, right? He gave it some like graduation address or something where he says that across his career, he only won 54 % of his points on court right so that means that 46 of 46 % of points he lost right so that means that every time he makes a mistake every unforced error he has to come back and be like hey dude like you've got this I know I can do this and like and that's the point that he's making in this address and it's those kinds of mental skills that seem to be most important so when you've had a history of beating yourself up and being hard on yourself and that's kind of gotten you to that point there will often be a stage where there's so much accumulated pressure or stress or failure that just working harder and being harder on yourself isn't going to get you past it but athletes who are successful for a long period of time tend to have those other abilities to like think about the bigger picture understand what they've overcome previously treat themselves you know more like they would treat others and they seem to be the ones who

1:44:44Joe Rogan:overcome failure and then continue to succeed um i'm really into professional pool i play pool and i follow a lot of professional pool players and there's a trait amongst the elite pool players that's pretty consistent uh for the ones that are successful and win tournaments is the ability to let a bad shot go exactly because the guys who beat themselves up over bad shots you see it they slump in their chair they start running their fingers through their hair they fucking they throw their head back they take a beat deep breath and then they're carrying that with them when they go out to make a shot again and for a high-level pool player so there's performance scores and a really high TPA performance score is like I think the best in the world right now is Joshua Filler who's this guy from Germany he's arguably if not the best one of the top two or three guys in the world his performance score is about I think it's like eight hundred and fifty out of a thousand so that means if he makes a thousand shots he's gonna make eight hundred and fifty of those shots which is very elite yeah so you got to think like even the best because they're playing on four-inch pockets but this guy never gets upset yeah when he misses he just sits down and he's got a dead look on his face the chinese taipei players are the best at it i don't know how they coach them over there so they're some of the best in the world the chinese taipei players so these guys from taiwan they have no expression when they miss a shot they just go and sit down yeah and maybe they'll smile but they never get upset whereas a lot of the american players they get fucking pissed off and you see it some of the european players do the same thing and those guys they fall off a cliff yeah their performance is elite they'll make a couple of bad shots and then the match goes downhill and they wind up getting steamrolled

1:46:35Tommy Wood:yeah and and i think you can there's other stuff going on you can think about it in terms of that like arousal curve we talked about earlier right as you get stressed and like worked up about a shot you're pushing yourself further and further away from the level of arousal that's required for performance. And dwelling on failure. And then you're thinking about what happened previously rather than the shot that comes next.

1:47:00Joe Rogan:Well, that's one of the most important things about a shot because even if your mechanics are good, if you think you're going to miss, you're going to miss. It's weird. It's a weird thing because you know what to do. You know how to do it. But if you think, fuck, I can't miss this shot. You're going to miss. Yeah. Like nine times out of 10. It's very weird. So it's a very mentally, the game a giant percentage of it once the skills are acquired because most of them when they get to an elite level have all the skills yeah it's a mental thing it's ability to perform under pressure

1:47:31Tommy Wood:yeah because it's fine motor skills it's you know there's i mean across every different aspect of cognitive performance well-being there's you again and again you see that psychology drives physiology with and drives performance like you can you can measure these things as you think them as they then change physiology which then alters how you perform so so i mean that this is a very very long answer to your or to your question of like is is like psychology and mental skills important absolutely because i think that's going to be foundational to whether you can even achieve those high levels of performance um and everybody needs help occasionally and right that's that's perfectly that's perfectly normal and then right different people are going to need different tools and different skill sets so like different psychologists are going to provide you know different things for them to do so like yes that's always something that we have on hand as needed as part of the team because that's going to be really important yeah the mind controls so much of what you do in life even if you have

1:48:40Joe Rogan:skills. And that's something that elite performers either figure out or don't, right? They either never achieve their true potential because they keep tripping over themselves or they go, okay, this is not helping me. It's only hurting me. I keep allowing myself to spiral into this same sort of mental state and I have to find a method. And so like when you talk with psychologists, What tools and what sort of strategies do they give these athletes to abandon negative thinking?

1:49:19Tommy Wood:There are a few different ways to approach it. And again, don't want to pretend I'm a psychologist. We have other people with these skills for a reason. But I think a lot of what becomes important, again, is thinking about the causes of maybe initially the causes of mistakes and then the causes of stress and why that may or may not be beneficial in the way that you can leverage it. So there's a lot of research on understanding that stress responses are there to divert resources to something that matters and something that either requires your attention or adaptation to it. Right. So understanding that actually stress in the moment, in that kind of moment, is a good thing.

1:50:14Tommy Wood:And you want to you want to leverage it rather than be scared of it. So, and we know that people who are trained in this mindset, so this is work by Alia Kram at Stanford, the stress is enhancing mindset, also like predicts how well Navy SEALs do during training, like how much they sort of like appreciate that stress response is important. this is me rising to the occasion um not only that you still get stressed where you still can measure stress hormones that's that still happens but you release other things that help to um also like counteract that and drive adaptation and it results in better decision making when stressed so like reframing some of these responses can can be important as well as then thinking about like after a mistake happened you know thinking about other examples of times when you did that and you overcame it or you know having having like these different parts of understanding what it is to be a human even when you're performing at an elite level maybe some of it is building in routines so that you feel confident in a given situation right like these are the things that I do and when I do these things I know I'm going to perform well that can be a double-edged sword for some people because and I think this we see this a lot of this in the um in the world of sort of like health optimization we assume that we need to do all these things in order to perform well and so then if those things don't happen we think we won't perform well right so that's another way for us to get in our way our own way so you kind of have to balance that depending on on the individual and then some of it can be, right, in the moment, right, so you're one of those pool players, and you're getting increasingly frustrated because you're not making your shots.

1:52:05Tommy Wood:It's almost impossible to think your way out of that, right? Your brain is too busy being dunked in adrenaline to, like, make good decisions. So that's where you might have tools like leveraging your physiology, breath work, closing your eyes, visualization. communication those things sort of work from the bottom up to kind of help your mind get a grip and like get back in the game so it's a whole bunch of different things depending on um what you might need is it i need to regulate myself in the moment is it how do i set myself up for success through a series of um and it could be like what's my warm-up what's my what am i thinking through What am I visualizing before I perform?

1:52:50Tommy Wood:Or is it tools to kind of deal with the processes of failure afterwards?

1:52:55Joe Rogan:And I would also think that even just the knowledge that these high stress situations where you do encounter failure can produce a result inside the mind that can be beneficial if harnessed.

1:53:08Tommy Wood:Yes. Yeah, exactly. And so one of the ways that this is taught to other people, right, not just athletes, is like think about all the people who've performed under significant stress, right? This is what the human mind and human body is capable of if only we allow it to do that.

1:53:28Joe Rogan:Right, right. That's what's important, right? I think inspiration is one of the most powerful fuels that we can use. And inspiration from other people's examples is one of the best versions of that.

1:53:40Tommy Wood:Yeah.

1:53:40Joe Rogan:Because I think there was a young kid who recently broke the world record of the mile. Did you see that, Jamie? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I watched that.

1:53:49Tommy Wood:It was 16, it was 340 something, 348 maybe.

1:53:53Joe Rogan:Yeah, 348, which is nuts. Which is nuts. We didn't think that people can get below four minutes before. This 16-year-old kid hits 348. And I immediately thought, wow, through the inspiration of this kid being able to do this, who's going to break 340 now? You know?

1:54:13Tommy Wood:I heard from somebody that in the run-up to the race, he was like, he hadn't raced a bunch recently. Fucking kid stud. this was just going to be a run out he was just going to loosen his legs up get back into the race and so in that situation he's put no pressure on himself all the brakes are off he's got nothing to lose and so in that situation incredible performances are possible

1:54:41Joe Rogan:and it's crazy because that's only the 11th fastest indoor mile it says here I thought it was the fastest ever but it's the fastest ever for under 18

1:54:48Tommy Wood:Yeah, under 18 record, yeah.

1:54:49Joe Rogan:So crazy. That's so fast to run a mile.

1:54:53Tommy Wood:Whoo! I mean, I'm not sure I could go that fast full stop ever, like, for any period of time. Yeah, for like 20 feet. Yeah, exactly. I can't run that fast.

1:55:03Joe Rogan:It's kind of amazing. But, I mean, this is one of the things we talk about all the time with mixed martial arts athletes in particular, is that today is such an amazing time for them because there's so much access to video. So you can watch all these performances by all these elite athletes and then it raises your personal standards because you're mirroring what these people are capable of doing. And in your head, you have a very high standard because you've seen it. And that inspires people to become better. And so the athletes that we're seeing today, I say all the time that martial arts has evolved more in the last 30 years than it has in the last 30 ,000 years.

1:55:43Joe Rogan:And it's true. And it's true just based on my own personal experience of seeing athletes from 1997 when I first started working with the UFC to 2026. It's a completely different standard. They're so much better. They're so much more elite. They have so much more balance. They have so much more balance in terms of their game is balanced, striking, grappling, wrestling, all of it together. it's it it's amazing because they've they're walking on the foundation that was set by the athletes before them so it's the mind recognizing what's possible absolutely or not thinking that

1:56:23Tommy Wood:something is impossible right it's the opposite too and maybe that's more of it right it's the same with roger bannister in the four minute mile right as soon as he did it everybody not everybody

1:56:31Joe Rogan:but lots of people started to do it well and also the ignorance of youth which is why young athletes are so damn good sometimes.

1:56:36Tommy Wood:Yeah, because they don't worry about their own limitations.

1:56:38Joe Rogan:And they also don't have mortgages. They don't have wives. They don't have kids. They don't have bills.

1:56:43Tommy Wood:But this is also the thing is, right, if we think about these traits that we'd maybe like to carry over that help us perform or maintain performance for long periods of time later in life, like some of that curiosity, not worrying about these burdens, continuing to engage in these things that challenge ourselves that kids just like readily do, right? The brain is exploring and trying to learn. I think we need more of that as adults. But when you think about the standard being set or thinking that things aren't impossible, there's two parts to that. One, yes, that's a huge aspect of achieving higher and higher levels of athletic performance.

1:57:24Tommy Wood:But for many of us, like us regular people, when you spend a lot of time seeing other people performing so much better than you, it can have the opposite effect, right? I think this is something that we see on social media. There's some really interesting studies on social rank, right? So we are always trying to see where we rank in the world compared to others, right? It's the part of us like being social beings. And so if you spend all day looking at people who are richer, more beautiful, more jacked than you are, internally, you demote yourself, right? You give yourself a lower social rank.

1:58:06Tommy Wood:And that creates a social stress that triggers genuine stress responses, right? Increased sympathetic activation, activation of some like inflammatory process in the body, very similar to if you're socially isolated. So for some people who have the, you know, are on a trajectory to improve their performance, you know, because they're elite athletes and they're seeing these other guys do it and they're like oh yeah i can do that right that's really beneficial but in like the general world the rest of us when we spend so much time seeing other people do other things better than us it can almost have the opposite

1:58:38Joe Rogan:effect but not with everybody no no it's it's very that's the thing between the difference between an athlete and someone who is intimidated by other people's performances well instead of

1:58:52Tommy Wood:being inspired yeah so but but that's that's what i mean is that when when you're one type of when you're an athlete and you're seeing other guys like you do this thing right that's like oh yeah that creates a bar you want to try and hit but that same thing is very different out for the out for the rest of us based on like seeing how we compare to others well particularly in things

1:59:15Joe Rogan:you can't control like your looks or your wealth yeah but wealth in some ways you're achieved but Your mind doesn't interpret it that way, right?

1:59:24Tommy Wood:You don't immediately rationally think, well, I can never be that, right? I'm never going to look like Brad Pitt, right? Right. You can't apply that sort of like rational thinking to it.

1:59:34Joe Rogan:Well, then even worse for young girls because a lot of them are getting surgery because they know that some girls have radically improved their looks through surgery. And so they think like this is the solution to everything. And I just need to get a nose job and a chin job and a this and a that. Which, of course, never results. And also it's like the psychological aspect of being controlled by paying attention to other people's lives is very weird. And it's, you know, Jonathan Haidt wrote a great book about it called The Coddling of the American Mind about the impact of social media and particularly on young girls.

2:00:04Joe Rogan:It's really bad.

2:00:06Tommy Wood:So he did write Coddling of the American Mind. That was more about changes in like academia and helicopter parenting and safetyism. The Anxious Generation was the one about social media.

2:00:17Joe Rogan:That's right. And that aspect of it, of comparing yourself to other girls, is particularly devastating. It's like you see when the impact of social media, when social media gets introduced into the world, immediately you see more self-harm, suicidal ideation. All these different things increase. Whereas like – so those same stressors, if you were in a position like an athlete and you're a competitive athlete and you see someone who's elite, you would be inspired. but you feel helpless to achieve these goals that you know you like you can't get any taller you can't get any better looking you can't like it's just this is what you got yeah and then you see these with and then you see people that are using filters so it's not even what they really look

2:01:05Tommy Wood:like yeah so that i think that's why there's this it's interesting that very similar exposures depending on who you are and what you're trying to achieve and what you have the ability to achieve can have dramatically different effects on mental and other well-being.

2:01:24Joe Rogan:Right. But you'd imagine that for competitive athletes, you've already developed a certain amount of resilience already. You already have a competitive spirit and you are working towards a thing that's a high level of achievement and something you're already doing. So seeing a Michael Jordan, seeing a LeBron James, seeing if you're a basketball player, you would be inspired. And instead of being like, I'll never be as good as that guy. You'd be like, fuck, I want to be as good as that guy. What do I have to do? Well, Kobe Bryant worked out every day and he did this and he did that. So I'm going to do that.

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2:03:18Tommy Wood:What can I do? So they focus on the process, right? You have to love and focus on the process because you can't guarantee a certain outcome. And I talk about this in the book, and I give the example of the 2012 Olympics. The guys who came second, third, and fourth ran personal best times. Several other national records were set during the whole 100-meter sprint competition, all the different rounds. But Usain Bolt ran. right and so like you can like no you you can be the best you've ever been and be amazing like you can run fast enough to have won a gold medal any other year but like sometimes you're out of luck because Usain Bolt shows up yeah so like you've got to focus on the process because you can't guarantee the outcome but by focusing on the process right you're gonna get you're gonna get

2:04:09Joe Rogan:much closer yeah that's interesting because if you are a person trying to be the best in the world and you happen to be in the same weight class as Mike Tyson. It's going to be tough. What are you going to do? Yeah, but I mean, that's always been the case. That's the thing in championship-level fighting. You find that when someone is a real outlier, that what happens is all the other people in that weight class tend to achieve a very high level, even if they never wind up being as good as Anderson Silva or whoever it is. It winds up being a very competitive contender class underneath it and much more competitive than divisions that are not being dominated by elite fighters.

2:04:54Joe Rogan:It's a very large book. So I know it can't just be the stuff that we've already covered. What other things do you think are in here that are important when you're talking about future-proofing your mind?

2:05:07Tommy Wood:We'll say you're looking at a dummy copy. Yeah, you just tricked me.

2:05:11Joe Rogan:Look at this, folks. I was saying this is a really large book. It's a fucking empty book.

2:05:16Tommy Wood:That's crazy. I read this.

2:05:18Joe Rogan:I'm like, maybe it's a trick.

2:05:20Tommy Wood:Yeah, you're just not paying attention enough. The book is as thick as the real one will be. I believe you. And that's on purpose.

2:05:28Joe Rogan:I've never been given a dummy copy of a book before. So does it even have writing? No writing. Good. I'm going to use this as my new joke book. New notes.

2:05:36Tommy Wood:well um once once the uh once the full thing is printed we'll send you a real one okay um you did trick me though thank god i didn't try to read from it so the like the first the first part of the book is about um some of the history of neuroscience and why we think about the brain the way we do and some of the limitations that's created like why we think about um alzheimer's disease as just being like the accumulation of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain which people might have heard of right that's what it's been boiled down to when there's actually a much bigger picture of many other things that that are important wasn't that was it alzheimer's where the

2:06:14Joe Rogan:amyloid plaque where that idea was sort of proven to be a little bit bullshit so there have been a

2:06:22Tommy Wood:so uh not really but kind of so there were several seminal papers in there were hoaxed They were manipulated in some way, right? And this, unfortunately, is quite common where you change the figures, you manipulate these blots to make them show different things, and you kind of move them around and copy and paste, and it kind of shows what you want to show. And so for some of the seminal papers in Alzheimer's, that turned out to be the case. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's still a part of it. But people have increasingly looked away from just the accumulation of certain proteins in the brain for two reasons.

2:07:00Tommy Wood:One is that we had as a field, they had to create new ideas like resilience. And there's this thing called cognitive resilience, which is how much cognitive function do you maintain in the face of these proteins building up in the brain? and that's because the amount of amyloid you have in your brain doesn't really predict cognitive function and cognitive decline that well so some of that is related to other things so we know that like exercise is an important part of that and then we know that these other things that are important as well so inflammation other cells in the brain that become critical so like the white matter is a really critical structure in the brain it's what allows us to have really fast processing speed, decision making, executive function, the function of the prefrontal cortex, all of that is kind of dependent on white matter structure.

2:07:55Tommy Wood:And that seems to be really related to like vascular function, vascular health, resistance training is really important to support that. So like all these other things become important as well. So like, that's kind of the, it's just showing like the first part of the book is saying, hey, we kind of focused a lot here. But actually, that's, it's not that that's not important. But like there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's important too um and a lot of it is related to things that we have control over so then then you know i we talk i talk about all the different types of exercise how different types of exercise affects different parts of the brain in different ways um nutrition um talk a lot about cognitive stimulus social uh social connection um sleep um like i said stress management and stress mitigation and how you can kind of manage your performance in the moment um and then all of that comes together in terms of into like a model that I call the 3S model of how these different things kind of interact and affect you on a day-to-day basis.

2:08:52Tommy Wood:So the first S being stimulus, right? We've talked about all the reasons why that's important. The second S being supply, which is if you stimulate a part of the brain or a network in the brain with a new skill, that area of the brain, the neurons and the astrocytes there, they ask for more blood flow. So the blood vessels have to widen, they dilate, to bring in more oxygen, bring in more glucose, or whatever metabolic substrate you're using, ketones, lactate, etc. And so you need really good cardiovascular health. That's critical. So that's a big part of what we talk about. You also need good metabolic health.

2:09:29Tommy Wood:So high blood pressure and high blood sugar are two of the biggest risk factors for later dementia because they affect this supply component, either the blood flow getting there or being able to regulate energy. and then there's a bunch of nutrients that are important in in that bucket as well so omega-3s vitamin d iron magnesium um because they have very b vitamins they have very specific functions in the brain that we know that if you're deficient you have an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia and then you've stimulated a part of the brain you've kind of given it all the substrate it needs to do its job like we've talked about adaptation occurs and function and it gets enhanced when we sleep or when we recover so like that's support is the third bucket so sleep is a part of that um other support you might get like hormonal status is important uh trophic factors right hormones that get released or proteins to get released that support neuroplasticity in the brain things like brain derived neurotrophic factor and then you want to avoid things that kind of inhibit that process um so as chronic stress can do that it creates like an overtraining kind of picture in the brain um uh smoking uh excessive alcohol um air pollution those kinds of things um can can have a negative effect so like that's how the that's how they all interact and the fact that they interact means that depending on what feels most impactful to you like what's the thing that you think you can move the needle on by focusing on one area the whole network starts to shift and we see that in in multiple different studies so if you focus on sleep and you sleep a bit better then the next then we see that like inflammation decreases and blood pressure improves and blood sugar improves and the next day you feel more sociable so you're more likely to interact with other people in a friendly way and you're more likely to engage in cognitively stimulating tasks because um when we're tired we kind of shy away from those things and it's the same if you so there are studies in older adults where you give them a brain training program and they sleep better because when you stimulate a tissue, you then drive greater need for recovery afterwards.

2:11:36Tommy Wood:It's the same. If you exercise more, you sleep better. So it's not like this long list of things that everybody has to do. And because when you give somebody a list of 37 things, they'll do zero things, right? We know that. So if you just know that they all kind of communicate and interact, anywhere you come in, you can start to kind of shift things in your favor.

2:11:56Joe Rogan:Now, when you're compiling a book like this, I would imagine there's a lot of editing. And so how do you decide what to leave? I mean, this looks like it's, I mean, obviously these are all blank pages, so they're not numbered. But it looks like this is at least a 300-page book.

2:12:08Tommy Wood:The final book is about 450 pages. Oh. 165 ,000 words. Whoa. And the reference list, so unlike most health books, every time I make a statement or I mention a study, there's a little number and that that gives you the paper or papers that i'm talking about that supports that right um it's 2 000 papers long um and so like that all has to go online because they couldn't of course they couldn't afford to print it in the book um but that's probably better anyway yeah yeah like because like there's like seven people who will do that right they'll read the book and then they'll go and look psychos yeah yeah so so it's important to me like anyway people who want it yeah people who want to do that can do that um but in i'm not quite sure how it ended up being this way but i i actually had to cut very little like there were things where i kind of went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and my editor was like man i'm not sure we really need this um but i basically wrote until i got to the word limit and then I stopped and I focused on the things that I knew that were important and we're going to stay important even in the age of AI and as technology improves and changes.

2:13:25Tommy Wood:Um, so there wasn't a ton that, that ended up getting cut out.

2:13:30Joe Rogan:But when you're putting it together, like, how do you decide the, like the, what's prominent, what's the most important thing to focus on,

2:13:38Tommy Wood:where to put things um so when when i started when i started writing as you saw i'm gonna disagree with my former self like the first i i wrote the i wrote the first part of the book like three times and like the first time i wrote it it was like 40 000 words all focused on psychology and like super like esoteric and academic and i was like nobody's gonna read this so like had to be scratched a couple of times so then um the the core middle part of the book is all those different areas that we know are important like the big rocks and practical frameworks for how to address those and then then there's just like a then there's an introduction to like like why should you care about this like um for like in individuals over 40 dementia is the the most important health concern right um more than 10 say they've experienced changes in cognitive function um we know that the rates of dementia are gonna double or triple in the next two or three decades like so why do people care about this and like some some history there um um and then the middle part is which i always knew i was going to write these are the most important things and they're always going to remain the most important things and then the last chapter is sort of like just kind of bringing it together um does that answer your question it

2:15:08Joe Rogan:does it does well i'm glad you wrote it because i think it's a very important thing and i think there's a lot of people out there that don't understand the risks of being sedentary and that these these are things that you can change yeah and that you can improve the quality of your life by making those changes. And it might make you uncomfortable to begin something like that, but there's some real value in that uncomfortable feeling of trying something new.

2:15:34Tommy Wood:Absolutely.

2:15:35Joe Rogan:And then it really does change the way your brain functions and it'll improve the quality of your life. And in this case, if possible, hold off dementia and just hold off cognitive decline without calling it dementia. So many people experience cognitive decline because of atrophy.

2:15:52Tommy Wood:Yeah. Yeah, so that's kind of like the worst possible end state we want to avoid. Right. But you want to maintain your current level of cognitive function for as long as possible. And possibly improve it. And possibly improve it. And there is evidence you can improve it even later in life. And so a big part of this is that when you – earlier we talked about this graph of cognitive function, right? It increases to 20 or 30 and then it declines. when we're doing studies that show that kind of thing, what we're doing is we're looking at a whole bunch of people, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and we're saying like, you plot them all on a graph.

2:16:33Tommy Wood:And yeah, as you sort of increase in age, there are some people who are going to lose function. You kind of like draw the average down. But we've known essentially since, for the last 50 years, that when you look at the same person over several decades, it's actually very normal for us to maintain function so like um the seattle longitudinal study was run by a guy called warner shai in seattle and it was one of the first studies where they measured cognitive function in the same people every seven years for several decades and like every seven years they measured the same people and brought in new people and so they ended up with people who were like in their 20s up to over 100 years old and they found that the average effect by that i mean that more than 50 of people maintain the same level of cognitive function into their 50s 60s 70s and 80s and those data were used to actually raise the retirement age in the u.s in in the 1980s because they showed that it actually wasn't normal for people to decline but the problem is now we've embodied this idea that as you get older you will decline and as a result you stop engaging in all the things that we've talked about so you're like oh, I'm too old to lift that.

2:17:45Tommy Wood:I'm too old to learn a new skill. I don't have time to do that. And as a result, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You stop engaging in those processes and decline happens as a result. But if we know that it's possible to maintain function and we continue to engage in those processes, the norm should be that function is maintained.

2:18:05Joe Rogan:Last question. Did you do an audio version of this? Yeah, I'm recording it at the moment. All right. When will that be available?

2:18:11Tommy Wood:Be out on the same day, March 24th.

2:18:13Joe Rogan:March 24th. stimulated mind Dr. Tommy Wood go get it folks I promise it won't be like this thank you Tommy I really enjoyed this thanks so much Tommy thank you very much I think it's really important information too and I think it's something that everyone should apply thank you alright thank you bye everybody

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