Dr. Daniel Levitin Explains How Music Can Help Heal the Brain

23:00Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, I think I read, you know, way back in medical school, learning about schizophrenia, that nicotine has a unique position in the mind of a schizophrenic that it actually helps sort of auto-regulate some of their missed synapses. And that's why so many people with schizophrenia, they tend to smoke almost in a chain-smoking way.

23:25Dr Daniel Levitin:I'm so glad you explained this to me. I know somebody who was schizophrenic and who had smoked two or three packs a day from the age of 11. Wow. And by age 60, the cardiologist said, you got to give up smoking. And so the cardiologist bought my friend this special box. I don't know if you've seen these, but it's got a timer on it and a motor. And you put the pack of cigarettes in the box and the lid closes and you can't pry it open. and then every 30 minutes or whatever it was that was prescribed every 40, the box opens and you can take a cigarette out. And so my friend who had schizophrenia, every time the box opened, would just grab a whole fistful of cigarettes.

24:13Yeah, so I was going to say, it sounds like one of your Stanford experiments you did as an undergrad, maybe in the rat lab, having a little buzzer box that did some incentive codes. But that's great. He figured out how to out-fox the fox. But in fact, my friend had a stroke and it damaged a great, about a third of my friend's brain.

24:34Dr Daniel Levitin:And my friend was, you know, could still talk, but they totally, cigarettes are completely out of the question now. And the schizophrenia has returned. Well, there you go.

24:51Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children.

25:31Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZepBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills.

26:02Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. Struggling with side effects? Your genes might tell you why. The GeneSight test may reveal which mental health medications require dose adjustments, be less likely to work, or have an increased risk of side effects based on your DNA. If your medications aren't working for you, discover how the GeneSight test may help. Visit genesite.com forward slash iHeart today.

26:44That's genesite.com forward slash iHeart today. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y 'all say. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment.

27:21And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. I'm John Green. You may know me as the author of The Fault in Our Stars.

27:53And now, I guess also as the co-host of The Away End, a brand new world soccer podcast. I'm Daniel Alarcon, a writer and journalist. And John and I have known each other since we were kids. My first World Cup was Mexico 86. I was nine years old. I watched every game and I fell in love. On our new podcast, The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. For us, soccer, football, is a story we've shared for over 30 years since Daniel was the star player on our high school soccer team. Very debatable. And I was their most loyal and sometimes only fan.

28:30I love this game. I love its history, its hope, its heartbreak, and above all, its beauty. Together, we'll find out why, of all the unimportant things, football, soccer, is the most important. Listen to The Away End with Daniel Alarcon and John Green on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

29:13so talk to us about stroke in aging and rewiring and Jordan I know you were uh when we were talking about this you you came across some things that uh Dr. Levinson had had brought up in uh in because you know you've had I mean first of all I didn't even put your intro the fact that that when Joni Mitchell is quoting what a great songwriter and singer you are. And I mean, that's pretty hard to beat praise like that coming from Joni Mitchell. I mean, again, another Laurel Canyon resident and Canadian, made it down to Laurel Canyon, just like Dale Young at all. But yeah, I mean, how does the brain, tell me about stroke and let's just jump into music and that because I mean, I cannot let you not talk about your work in music and cognitive science.

29:59Thank you.

30:00Dr Daniel Levitin:So as you know, you listeners may not know, there are two kinds of stroke. There's a hemorrhagic stroke where a blood vessel bursts and it bleeds through your brain, or there's an ischemic stroke where there's a clot. And either one can damage the brain. It damages it in different ways. My understanding is that ischemic strokes tend to be more localized, but it depends on how far back in the blood vessel they are and what they're feeding. I mean, it's hard to draw generalizations. The problem with the brain bleed, though, if it's not caught, is that then the blood just fills the cavity and presses on the cerebral spinal fluid and all hell breaks loose.

30:42Dr Daniel Levitin:So the way we treat stroke is if you've got risk factors, we either give you a blood thinner or a blood clotter. And basically, you get to choose which way you want to die. Do you want to die from a clot? Because they can't treat both. That's right. But Joni had an aneurysm burst, as you know, in 2015, March. And she was in a coma for three months. And when she got out of the hospital, her neurosurgeon thought that there was no chance that she would ever recover speech or movement. and so he sent her home without any follow-up care i mean he wrote a prescription for 24-hour nursing but nothing in terms of care he figured it was it was a lost cause but i visited her and i write about this in my new book i heard there was a secret cord yeah oh man it just gives me chills to hear the title of that book one of the best songs in the history of rock and roll Yeah.

31:46Dr Daniel Levitin:I visited her, I don't know, two days after she got back home. And you met with the nurses, and it was, yeah, she couldn't talk, she couldn't walk, she couldn't express anything. Do you want a drink of water? She couldn't nod or shake, you know. But when music was coming from the other room while the nurses were on break, something in her kind of perked up. And I thought, well, maybe the way to reach her is to play her music that we know she likes. And she had invited me to help her curate an album of her favorite songs called Starbucks Artist's Choice. And I think there were 16 songs on it. We spent many hours listening through her collection and figuring out what should go on it.

32:33Dr Daniel Levitin:And by definition, these were her favorite songs. And so I played her the first cut on the album, and she seemed to respond in a positive way. So the nurses played her that album, you know, throughout the day for the next two weeks. And we now know that listening to music you like can increase dopamine. My lab was the first to show that, that dopamine is released by pleasurable music. And we found the mechanism. We found where. It's the limbic system, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tag mental area, the same region that is active when you have an orgasm, when you are hungry and you eat, when you're a gambler and you win a bet, listen to music you like, that same pleasure mechanism comes in.

33:21Dr Daniel Levitin:So it's affiliated, I guess you'd say, with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And Barry White, I was going to say, but, you know, who transcends all of those except the drug part yeah but good lord yes yes yes it does oh well done well done uh so uh dopamine it also um our lab was the first to show that we listen to music you like your brain produces its own opioids its own internal analgesics dopamine does different things in different parts of the brain and uh in the limbic system it signals pleasure but in the frontal lobes it helps spur motivation. And in the basal ganglia, it helps to create smooth and continuous movements.

34:04Dr Daniel Levitin:The reason Parkinson's patients have trouble walking is because the basal ganglia dopamine circuits are degraded. But that dopamine was enough to motivate her to want to get better. And so I hired a team of speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and a neurologist to come to the house. And within two years, we were able to go out to dinner together. And then I think four years later, whenever it was, she played the Newport Folk Festival, maybe six years later. I'm fuzzy on the dates. That's about right. Yeah. Wow. So do you think it's because of who she was and what she did, does her brain respond differently to be a musical genius as she is to that?

34:52Or in other words, if somebody was just reading me surgical books while I was in a coma, would it wake me up or would I respond to music just because I'm a lover of it, not that I'm a player of it?

35:02Dr Daniel Levitin:So for the audience, Dr. Mills and I are both research scientists as well as writers. And the difficulty with research is that no two brains are alike and no two brain injuries are alike. And so what we try to do when I do my MRI studies, fMRI studies, brain scans, I try to get 20 or 30 people and find what's common to all of them. Because one brain doesn't really help you predict what another brain will do. but the average is somewhat stable. So I don't know. I can't know. It's unknowable whether Joni's brain was, I mean, obviously it was special. She's a genius. Right. Was it special in a neuroprotective way or in a neuroplastic way?

35:50Dr Daniel Levitin:We don't know. David Crosby, who knew her well, other Jones, told me that he thought that it was, her recovery was unique to her because she has such an indomitable spirit. Yeah. And I mean, that's the Joni I know. She is just fiercely in charge of her life and will not take no for an answer. I love that. And that's, you know, you're getting back to aging. Yeah. And the Dylan Thomas quote you started with, you know, I talked about conscientiousness for sleep and diet, but the other C that's really important is curiosity. and curious people, that's the second most important statistical factor in overall life satisfaction and longevity and health span.

36:36Curious people are motivated to learn every day

36:42Dr Daniel Levitin:and that is neuroprotective because you're building up new brain circuits all the time and reinforcing old ones, making connections between something you just learned and something you knew before. And curious people also have more friends because instead of trying to be interesting, they're interested. And so it's much more fun to be with a curious person at a dinner party or a concert or wherever you are because they're going to keep asking you questions and they never get tired of it. Joni's like that. She's very, very curious. You brought up something I was thinking about in my personal history recently is that I was an okay baseball player in high school and I went to a fantastic high school.

37:24So there are a lot of much better players than me and I would get recruited every once in a while. So love baseball, grew up playing it. Then, you know, went to college, tried out for the team at UCLA. And here I am as a physician and not a major league baseball player. So we all know how that story ended. And I really didn't pick up a baseball for years. And then about six or eight months ago, the Dodgers reached out to me and said, hey, Dr. Mills, we'd love to have you start for Shohei Itani. It didn't actually quite go like that, actually. We wanted to honor you to throw out the first pitch.

37:56You got to throw out the first pitch. My God. I did. I got to throw out the first pitch. And it was the first day that Shohei actually started. June 22nd, 2025. Now, let me back up. Were you a pitcher? No, I was a first baseman. I'm left-handed. And I had an okay arm, but a much better bat. And so I always played first base. And I hadn't played baseball for, you know, really since high school. Maybe a little pickup softball here and there. But when they called me and said, Dr. Mills, we want you to be out there to celebrate Men's Health Month as the Men's Health Champion in Los Angeles. I said, of course.

38:29And then my competitive brain said, I actually should probably pick up the baseball and throw it again. And so I went to this local pitching hitting academy down in Sautel in that sort of that West L.A. neighborhood. Really cool place. And I was by far by, you know, an order of 40 years older than anybody else that was training there. But I would get on the mound and I would throw a bucket of balls. And it was the most meditative state I had been in, whether I'm writing, whether I'm reading, whether I'm operating. It just it triggered something in me that I hadn't really thought about just a repetition of throwing 100 balls until my arm was ragged, just to be able to get in shape to throw one pitch, you know, in front of an audience at Dodger Stadium.

39:12But I have to get back there because it just it. So what was that? What do you do when you haven't done something for years that you used to love and then just put your childhood dreams on hold? What triggered in my brain that made me feel so good standing on that mound and just throwing the ball into a backstop?

39:30Dr Daniel Levitin:That's a great question. What a great story. I'll start with how is it you were able to throw after all those years? Well, it was funny. The owner of the place, who I love, he was great because, you know, again, I was the oldest guy there. I told him my story, told him, and he was like, ah, that's cool. So he actually started, he brought out a speed gun. I was doing fine. I was throwing, you know, I was throwing probably about 80 % strikes. And the first time I threw, I was in the low 50s. But by the time it was game day, he brought out a speed gun, and I was up into the low 60-mile-an-hour range, which is, you know, for a 10-year-old Little Leaguer, that's pretty good material.

40:06You know, that's pretty good stuff. I could go into Little League and throw at that, but I was doing pretty well. I mean, I still keep myself in shape, just not in that sense. But it was very gratifying to even in those probably eight weeks or so that I trained for this to see some improvement. Does that make a difference if I was actually okay at it versus just being terrible?

40:26Dr Daniel Levitin:Yeah, because the way we move is that we have to engage a circuit in the brain that's called the motor planning area, premotor area. And it works in tandem with the cerebellum and other structures. But the idea is that any movement, whether it's throwing a ball or catching a ball or playing a guitar or a piano, dancing, typing, these require motor action plans is what we call them. Your brain has to come up with a plan about what to do in what order. And if you look at touch typists who are, and you shoot them in high resolution video and then slow it down, their fingers and wrists are actually a few letters ahead of where they need to be because they're anticipating it.

41:12Dr Daniel Levitin:That's the depth of the motor action plan. Guitarists, pianists, violinists too. So the thing to know about memory is that anything that gets in there that had an emotional, packed an emotional wallop for you, your first kiss, your first time you drove a car, your wedding, or more ordinary things like practicing over and over again, that's in there. That's in your brain. It's just a matter of finding the circuit and pulling it out again. And we've seen this in every domain that if you reach some level of expertise through your motor system, say it took you 10 years to be able to throw like you did or 10 years to play an instrument like you did.

41:58Dr Daniel Levitin:If you drop it for 30 years and you come back, it's not going to take you 10 years again. Might not even take you 10 weeks. You get back a lot faster because you just have to reactivate those circuits that are already in there. now the euphoria that you felt that's probably a combination of uh re you know rediscovering something from your childhood that was an ambition of yours yes it was and realizing that you're still pretty good at it and then it puts you in touch with that that motion was like proust's madeline or a particular smell activating a memory yeah and suddenly you're 10 years old again and you're carefree and you don't have blood on your hands.

42:42Dr Daniel Levitin:Wow. Oh, Dan, that's so, that's exactly right. Yeah. Oh, so what is that with you and music? Because you, I mean, you just keep, you just keep doing it. So how do people, is it, is music something because other than, you know, people that, you know, that, that can't play anymore for arthritis, you know, Les Paul towards the end of his career. Peter Frampton recently, you know, people, Alan Jackson. Oh, and Sonny Rollins. Sonny Rollins has it. Yeah, yeah. You know, what is it about music that allows you to keep coming back to that well? Is there a dopamine rush or euphoria that keeps some people going, especially people like you that is, you know, they're both one of the leading cognitive neuroscientists but also a recorded producer and player.

43:33Or, you know, how does your brain work? I guess that's the answer to that. Yeah, exactly. I wish I knew.

43:41Dr Daniel Levitin:I think, well, I mean, getting back to the statistical trends, people who learn to play an instrument at any age report overall life satisfaction. And playing an instrument is neuroprotective. Becoming a world-class musician takes more training than becoming an astronaut or a neurosurgeon. It's tens of thousands of hours. And the neural capacity you build up, the neural reserve, cognitive reserve, is enormous. And it doesn't matter when you start. I know people who started playing an instrument when they were 60 or 70, and they seem to reap the benefits of the neuroprotective effect. So anything that you can do that will build up new circuits is good.

44:27Dr Daniel Levitin:And the thing about music is not all the songs that there are to write have already been written. and it has all these parameters of timbre and rhythm and melody. And for people who like music and who like playing or writing music, most of the players I know will never play a song the same way twice. I'm up in Northern California now because I came up to see my friend Rodney Crowell play a concert in Napa at the Uptown Theater. And he's got an all-new band. He's 75 years old. He's playing songs that he has been playing for 50 years. and I see him several times a year. Every performance is different, and that's neuroprotective, and that's what keeps him coming back.

45:11Dr Daniel Levitin:Can I do this better? And just to make a kind of nonlinear analogy to that, you know, can I do this better? You remember the old Who's on First routine by Abbott and Costello? Oh, my God, of course I do. You can do a deep dive on YouTube, and there are about 40 or 50 versions of it. they were constantly tinkering trying to make it a little better sometimes they failed well it wasn't better but the fact is they kept working at it so that they could riff on it and what what I get out of music I I'm just now at the point where Joni's been a mentor to me in my songwriting and my singing as has Rodney and I've been writing songs since I was 20 I'm 68 now but I feel like I've finally, in the last year or two, gotten to the point where I can do something that stands up, that holds up.

46:09Dr Daniel Levitin:And when Joni said she liked the songs, doesn't get better than that. I mean, Stevie Wonder gave you some props. That ain't bad. He did, yeah. We worked on a record together. He's amazing. Again, another genius. I think there must be something about geniuses that you guys are on this wavelength where you, you know, you get each other without, you know, without some X factor. I would not put myself in the category of Johnny or Stevie or in the category of genius, but I think in the way that no two brains are alike, no two musicians are alike, no two geniuses are alike. And so it's not what's in common, but what's different that's so fascinating.

46:50Yeah. Wow.

47:26We'll see you next time. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it. Or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZepBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

48:05Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. Are you tired of spending money on trial and error for mental health medications? According to a large study, on average, patients who received gene site testing saved over$1 ,000 on their total annual medication costs compared to traditional approaches.

48:52Discover how the Genesight test may help you with medication costs. Visit genesight.com forward slash iHeart today. That's genesight.com forward slash iHeart. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y 'all say. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

49:32One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

50:05I'm John Green. You may know me as the author of The Fault in Our Stars and now I guess also as the co-host of The Away End, a brand new world soccer podcast. I'm Daniel Alarcon, a writer and journalist, and John and I have known each other since we were kids. My first World Cup was Mexico 86. I was nine years old. I watched every game and I fell in love. On our new podcast, The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. For us, soccer, football, is a story we've shared for over 30 years since Daniel was the star player on our high school soccer team.

50:40Very debatable. And I was their most loyal and sometimes only fan. I love this game. I love its history, its hope, its heartbreak, and above all, its beauty. Together, we'll find out why, of all the unimportant things, football, soccer is the most important. Listen to The Away End with Daniel Alarcon and John Green on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

51:18you know so one of the things we love to do in the show is talk a little bit about you know what's fact and what's fiction and what's hype and and you did a great job in successful aging about and i think we covered the diet nutrition the eat move sleep right those are the fundamentals that we all talk about but there are you know you did talk about there might be some hope for supplements, you know, neurodegenerative aging and slowing down the process. And so at the time of that book, which is a couple of years old now, you know, you were maybe mentioning something, but what is out there that, and, you know, again, I'm a huge skeptic of supplements.

51:54I'll just put that out there. And again, in a very common sense way, because I think usually, you know, there's something else that triggers, whether it's, you know, it's the seed in the grape or it's the skin and it's not necessarily resveratrol or it's, it's not. And for example, I'm going to rant before I ask you a question, Dan, but I'm going to say, you know, the thing I get a lot is this, you know, the idea of NAD plus, right. Or the, uh, right. Thank you. And, and the problem with it is, is that, is that it, uh, it's all right. We have an E rating, Jordan. It's okay. We can say, we can say the S word.

52:30I promise. Yeah. My mom's listening. It's fucking bullshit. that a boy come on let her rip now let her rip but uh but yeah i mean and yet everybody is you know i mean and i just i did a surgery in beverly hills earlier and uh you know there's three clinics on on four corners that that are selling drops and oral and iv even i mean shouldn't i why i should have stopped and gotten an iv of n80 plus and it took us 44 minutes for you to talk about getting oral yeah look at this guy gosh with the jokes jordan i don't need to write material anymore johnny carson golf swing oh god thank you look at you that's right now we uh now we're gonna really walk into this e-rating god damn this guy is good we earn it now we gotta earn it come on

53:15Dr Daniel Levitin:well so here i'm gonna be dogmatic here there is no such thing as alternative medicine okay there's medicine and then there's everything else medicine are things that have been shown to work. Now, I would call vitamin D medicine, even though you can get it over the counter. It doesn't mean it's not medicine. Aspirin is medicine. If it's been proven to work, it's medicine. If we aren't sure whether it works or not, it's alternative medicine. The whole category is deceiving. It should not be called alternative medicine. It should be called, we don't know if it's medicine or not yet. Oh my God, that is great.

53:53Dr Daniel Levitin:And so people get seduced by these stories of you know, NAD plus. Another dogmatic rule is if the person who's recommending it is selling it, particularly in the case of a physician, don't buy it. So Stephen Gunderson keeps clogging up my YouTube feed with crazy claims about how you should never eat tomatoes and they're poisoning you and you've got to get his supplements. Yeah. And then there's that guy at Harvard who's the NAD Plus guy. Sinclair. David Sinclair. Yeah. For one thing, you know, an N of one, that is experimenting on yourself, the plural of anecdote is not data. Well done. And, you know, I remember talking to the head of the FDA at the time that I wrote the book about and a couple of other, you know, like Harvard Nutrition Department people, not David Sinclair.

54:58Dr Daniel Levitin:And I say, what's the deal with this? And they said, well, it seems to show some benefits in mice. And I said, well, would you take it? And the head of the FDA said, no. I said, why not? He says, because I am not a mouse. Right. And not to drive the point home too hard, but about 97 % of the stuff that works in mice does not work in humans. And a high percentage of that is actually harmful to humans. Yeah. Mice are not just little humans in fuzzy suits. That's right. Yeah. Murine data is so hard to extrapolate just because the lifespan is, you know, it's accelerated, but, you know, then just go back to Saccharomyces and looking at yeast.

55:37And yeah, we have gene homologies, but the organism is so different. It's hard to extrapolate. And I think that's fair. And by the same token, then, you know, should I be throwing out all my seed oils? Because, you know, in the seed oil data is such a, when you look at the amount of seed oil that you have to ingest, whether you're a mouse or a human, to show any kind of worry for oncogenesis, it's, you know, you'd be having gallons of it a day.

56:04Dr Daniel Levitin:I'm with Michael Pollan on this. Just, you know, eat a variety of foods and eat the food itself. There was this whole big thing with fish oil, you may remember. Oh, yeah, of course. We were all supposed to take fish oil tablets. And then he realized, because omega-3s were present in the fatty fish like mackerel and salmon, and the more omega-3s, the better. But when you extract the omega-3 from the rest of the micronutrients contained in the fish and the other chemicals, they cause cancer. That's right. You have to get them as part of a whole diet. So, you know, I think Michael's right. Eat a variety of foods, more plants than you probably think is normal.

56:48Right.

56:49Dr Daniel Levitin:And, but, you know, Michael has, Michael and I went out and got an ice cream cone recently. I love this. So, you know, it's not, you can't never eat ice cream, but moderation. Yeah, but I think you said that because that goes back to one of the pillars of longevity is friendship and enjoying doing what you do. And so if you enjoy going and getting NAD plus IVs, then you should do that. But if you enjoy a little salt and straw or your local ice cream vendor, then you should have a little ice cream every now and again. I love this. I mean, you're a wealth of information. Jordan, you had some thoughts or what did you want to talk about with Daniel before we give him the kicker about what the secrets to his longevity are?

57:37Dr Daniel Levitin:Oh, this is such an unfair thing to lob in at the very end now. I am so sorry for what I'm about to do. But, I mean, music is the greatest passion of my life. And one of the things I love the most about it is sort of the mystery behind it. And I've heard you speak about how we see the remains of Neanderthal communities and some of the oldest items there are musical instruments. and from there you've spoken about how the parts of the brain that process music are evolutionarily older and more resistant to brain damage. I just wanted to ask you more about if you could shed a little light on the mystery of music, why it's been this thing that's been a part of our, about being a human since the earliest days, what it does, what it gives to us.

58:13Dr Daniel Levitin:We don't know. We can speculate. It seems as though music preceded language and it was good for emotional communication when you didn't need to refer to concrete objects in the world but you wanted to communicate an emotional state and we still do that we do it with prosody if i'm asking a question my sentence goes up at the end and if i'm making a statement the sentence goes down at the end and i can change my timbre if i'm angry i get like that all raspy you know i mean these are all musical components think of louis armstrong's raspy trumpet or something or his raspy voice although he does it in a way that it doesn't sound angry but it's still exciting because that's called ella fitzgerald he just had ella right by him

58:57the uh i know ella was a patient at ucla that's right yeah years ago um so i think

59:06Dr Daniel Levitin:ultimately it's because music isn't constrained in meeting the way language is when when i when i say in language i've got a pair of reading glasses you may have a bit an image of them and i you're seeing them, but they're still reading glasses. They're not a fern. They're not a bottle of Snapple. They're glasses. But there is no musical phrase that I can play that will convey a physical object in the world, or even a concept like justice or jealousy or love. I mean, we may take from certain musical gestures those feelings, but they're not intrinsic to the music. They're not in the notes. It's our interpretation of them.

59:51Dr Daniel Levitin:And so music's ambiguity is its power. It can project onto the screen of your mind and your emotions anything you want it to. And you can find your own story in it. Getting back to Joni, I remember the first time I heard Joni's song, Amelia, off of Hegira, about looking for love in all the wrong places, basically. I just thought, Oh my God, you know, the music even without the lyrics made things clearer to me. And so I think that's it in a nutshell. The blues are blue for a reason. Yeah. All right. So I got to, I got to ask you one thing before I let you go, because I know you're crazy busy as always, but, but I always want to leave our audience with what one thing do you have to do every day to make you you because of what you're able to accomplish in a day?

1:00:43Is it coffee? Is it meditation? Ah, all right. How much? How much and how often?

1:00:51Dr Daniel Levitin:I sleep seven and a half or eight hours every night. And I take a five minute power nap. Love it. You sleep more than most people, I feel like. And you still do all that you do. That's incredible. I pretty much have to play music every day. If I don't play music, I get grumpy. I love that. Yeah. I have to listen to music every day for sure. Otherwise, if I played it too much, everybody else would be grumpy around me. But if I listen to it, that's a whole other thing. Well, Dr. Levitin, this has been beyond an honor to have you on the show and sharing what you know about music, about cognitive science.

1:01:29And then, you know, in terms of our listeners out here, you've got to check out not only his books, but his music as well on danielleviton.com albums and just just just a beautiful I can't even you know again I don't want to say because I know you're friends with Steely Dan but I get a serious Steely Dan vibe from some of your music it's just that mellifluous it's just it's so it's just captivating uh between your voice and just um and your and whoever plays bass for you my god it's just uh wow I know you've got an amazing ensemble well I play bass on most of my recordings are

1:02:06Dr Daniel Levitin:Are you kidding me? That's you too. Good God. Okay. That was not even trying to be flattering, but. Victor Wooten plays on one song on Turnaround and Steve Bailey plays on the Heather song. And then on the most steely Danish song, which is headed for the fall. Yes. It's a guy named Andy Hess out in New York. Roseanne Cash's bass player. Oh my God. Oh, I'm telling you though. It's, But everybody, please, even if you don't read his books, you've got to listen to his music. That's very kind of you. Thank you. You delivered on the mailroom. I'm so grateful to you for your time. And listeners are also grateful.

1:02:47Jordan, let's let her rip and get him on to his next gig. Thanks so much, Dan. Appreciate you coming on the mailroom.

1:02:55Dr Daniel Levitin:Thanks for having me. The check's in the mail. Ha!

1:03:05Let's talk about it Let's talk about it in the mailroom Let's talk about it Let's talk about it in the mailroom Let's talk about it Let's talk about it in the mailroom The Mailroom with Dr. Jesse Mills was a production of iHeartRadio. It was executive produced by Jordan Runtog. It was edited, mixed, and mastered by Bahid Frazier. And the theme was provided by Long Transit. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave a review. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This program is intended for educational and informational purposes only.

1:03:58It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult your health care provider for any medical or other related questions or concerns. The views and discussions aired on this podcast are those of Dr. Mills and do not represent the official positions of UCLA or UCLA Health.

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