How to Protect Your Brain and Live Longer | Dr. Andrew Weil

22:09Lewis Howes:Setup is so quick and simple, no technician needed, and you're online in 15 minutes or less. And the price comes with a five-year price guarantee, so you don't have to worry about unexpected price hikes down the road. And when I'm working from home, my internet does a lot of the heavy lifting. It's prepping for the next show on the School of Greatness, uploading files, I'm doing Zoom calls, I'm doing meetings. All these different things are all happening and I need them to happen fast. And with T-Mobile 5G home internet, things move fast and stay smooth. Pages load quickly, files upload successfully, and I can stay focused without constant interruptions.

22:41Lewis Howes:It makes a big difference. Visit t-mobile.com slash home internet to check availability today. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla speed test intelligence data. Second half of 2025. All rights reserved. You know how people sometimes invest in something that seems incredible at first, but then it doesn't live up to the hype? Like when everyone was convinced NFTs were the future and people were buying them for thousands of dollars and now they barely have any value. Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for numbers that look great, like impressions, but then they don't see revenue.

23:14Lewis Howes:LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads. Cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend$250 and get a$250 credit. Go to linkedin.com slash Lewis. Terms apply. It's interesting because my girlfriend, Martha, she's from Mexico and her family is very socially connected. Yeah. You know, activities all the time, you know, involving the grandparents with the grandchildren and connecting the dots constantly. Playing games, having fun, and singing music, and playing instruments, and like adventures. So I've got a story for you, which is very powerful.

23:56I knew a woman who was a pediatric intensive care nurse. And she told me, this was over a period of about six, seven years, she had seen a number of cases of kids, teenagers, who'd been in devastating, and mostly motorcycle accidents, devastating head injuries, who were in vegetative states in the hospital. And she said she saw, I think it was like eight or ten cases of kids who recovered completely, to the astonishment of doctors. But after she'd seen about a certain number of them, she noticed that they were all Hispanic. And she'd never seen an Anglo kid in that state recover. Really? And she so thought about what's the difference.

24:44And then she realized that with the Hispanic kids, there was always at all hours an extended family around the bed. People talking to the kid, touching the kid. And the white kids were always there by themselves. Really? Yeah. And she said that clearly was what made the difference.

25:01Lewis Howes:Because that was the only difference, essentially, of seeing that environment. Yeah, they were all in basically the same vegetative state. But it was that kind of constant stimulation, touch, you know, that kept their brain, that made their brains recover. Even when they were in comas and vegetative states. Yeah. And she said that they had, some of these had like full recoveries or big recoveries. Full recoveries, yeah. Walking around talking normal, thinking clearly. Whereas the other kids. Right, she'd never seen it happen in an Anglo kid who had nobody in the room with her. Wow. Yeah. Or maybe they would come for like an hour and then leave or something, right?

25:34Yeah. Wow. So that's very powerful. And, you know, I think that that's something we should really guard against, you know, is like not getting socially isolated and spending time with people that stimulate us.

25:47Lewis Howes:Well, it's interesting because we were just talking about this beforehand. You told me you're 80 years young. Yeah. 80 years young. I'm going to be 40. You're a kid. but here's what the funny thing you said you said you know when i was young 80 seemed like you know ancient ancient and 40 used to think like oh they're really old too yeah right when you're like eight right you see a 40 year old you're old man right yeah so um i still feel like i've i'm a child in a lot of ways childlike energy yeah yeah that's good not childish but childlike energy and I feel like you have that too. You've got this joyful, youthful energy about you.

26:27Lewis Howes:If you could go back to 40, I mean, you've lived an amazing life and you've been changing the world for the last 40 years, but if you could go back, is there anything you would do, add, to support you for longevity, now you know everything beyond what we talked about, or anything you'd take away from habits you did to support you in setting yourself up for these last 40 years and beyond? You know, I grew up in a row house in Philadelphia in a city, so I was pretty disconnected from nature. And then I was, you know, in school for a long time. I think if I could go back, I would spend much more time out in nature and in the wilderness at an early age.

27:10Why is that? Because I think it is very good for your spirit as well as your physical being. and you know i i would like to have had more time for that when i was young i didn't eat very wisely until you know in my early life uh i didn't know and uh you know i probably adopt better eating habits early on uh i'd probably practice my four seven eight breath earlier in life things like

27:38Lewis Howes:that sure yeah and speaking of the you know the bad eating habits what do you think are the foods that everyone should avoid? Oh, that's the biggest killer. That's very simple. It's so simple. It's refined, processed, and manufactured food. You know, that's it. That's simple. You know, you want to try to eliminate that. It's all the stuff, mostly all the stuff in the middle of the supermarket. You know, all the snack food. The 5 % of stuff you should eat. Yeah, right. It's all that. And that's the first, you know, I advocate an anti-inflammatory diet because chronic low-level inflammation seems to be the root cause of most serious disease that kills and disables people prematurely.

28:19And the mainstream diet promotes inflammation. And all that processed, refined, manufactured food gives us the wrong fats, the fats that promote inflammation, the wrong kinds of carbs, and not enough of the protective elements like those polyphenols, antioxidants, that are mostly in fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices.

28:37Lewis Howes:What causes more inflammation in the brain? Is it stresses of life or foods that cause it? I don't think you can separate that. It's all of it. Yeah. It's all of it. If you had to eliminate one, like which one is less damaging, do you think? Like if you eat healthy perfectly, but you're constantly in a low level of stress or high level of stress versus I am around beautiful people in a great environment, but I'm eating at best towards. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I wrote a book on eating well for optimum health, and I quoted in it, I think she was a 106-year-old Russian woman who was asked what was the secret of her longevity.

29:16And she said, I never eat vegetables.

29:20Lewis Howes:It was like it went against everything. Right, right. And, you know, when you see people who've smoked all their lives and drink like fish, and so they have very good genes. There's exceptions, yeah. They have good genes, right. But maybe they could have lasted longer. Exactly right. I've never ate vegetables. I never eat vegetables. That's hilarious. That was the secret of her long life. Oh, my goodness. Did she have a different type of diet? Was she like? I think she ate meat and potatoes. Wow. That's amazing. And probably vodka. Now, we talked about this a little bit the last time, which I think is fascinating that you were willing to talk about relationship stuff because I think it sounds like good social connections is the key to successful aging.

30:00Lewis Howes:Right. and probably a great intimate partner or relationships intimately can be supportive or harmful. You can't. Yeah, exactly. Can be extremely harmful, right? Right. Yeah. How does one learn with your amount of wisdom to step into a healthy, loving relationship and sustain it? Well, I think a big key, we talked about this, you have to start by loving yourself. Man, it's so good. that's why i love this guy so good and that's a hard one for a lot of people you know that that we we seek love in in an other person you know we project something of ourself onto them and uh you know but it has to start with loving yourself and from that place you can i think enter into good relationships with other people when was the age where you feel like you fully loved and accepted yourself?

30:55I think it was not until my, it might not have been until my 40s. Really? Yeah. So you got, you're right at, right at the cusp there.

31:03Lewis Howes:Lots of pain and suffering before. Yeah. Really in your 40s. Yeah. I don't know that I want to go back and be young again. I mean, in some ways I'd like to have a more elastic body and, and things like that, but I, I think it's, things are easier now for me. Why is that? Cause you love yourself? Yeah. And I think I'm more accepting of myself and more accepting of things. You know, when I wrote a book on healthy aging, and one of the things I looked at was what gets better with age? And what can we see? What are examples out there where we see that things improve with age? One of them I wrote about was cheese.

31:40We were talking about cheese. Oh, man, stinky cheese is the best. Okay, stinky cheese. So some cheeses get very better with age. Violins, old violins, old trees, You know, and when you look at wine, you know, what are the qualities in these older things that we like? They're more complex. They're deeper. They have more character. Right. So you can see that in people as well. And, you know, that if we lived in a society where we valued old people instead of shutting them away, you know, they can be great repositories of wisdom. and I've interviewed a lot of older people about what they saw get better.

32:21Interesting answers. A lot of people felt that they were more accepting of things as they got older, that they had more equilibrium, that things didn't throw them off balance as much as when they were young. Right. You know, that's interesting. They weren't as triggered or they could, like, manage life easier. Yeah. I've heard some scientists say that their memories have gotten better with age, And they think it's because they have more filed away. So when something new comes along, they have more to compare it to, to know where it fits. And that's interesting, you know, when we think about, you know, cognitive decline.

32:56Some things may get better.

32:58Lewis Howes:What have been the main benefits for you? I think greater self-acceptance, you know, definitely as well. Well, and in some ways I'm sort of, I'm less patient with things and people that take up my time for no good reason. You know, I really want to spend time with people that make me feel good about myself, about the world. You say no to a lot of things that you maybe would have said yes to earlier in life. Right, yeah. I think I'm more discriminating about it. Yeah. Was there a process or like a moment that allowed you to say, oh, actually, I can accept and love myself, and this is how I'm learning how to do it?

33:42Lewis Howes:Was there like a period of time? No, I think it was gradual. But it was in midlife, definitely. Did you have a crisis before then? Did you go through a midlife crisis? I had a period of depression. Really? Of several years, yeah. And, you know, that just lifted at some point. I think some of it was becoming more physically active. Some of it was changing my diet. Some of it was practicing meditation and my breathing technique. And some of it was, I think, a natural process that happened with getting older. Yeah. I've never had a midlife crisis. I don't want to have a midlife crisis. It's not like a long way for it.

34:22Lewis Howes:You never know. Right. But what do you think causes that for people to go through a quarter-life crisis, midlife crisis, where they like say, I'm just going to change everything. I'm going to go through a divorce. I'm going to get married to this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to, you know, buy a sports car. Whatever it is that happens for people. What causes a crisis? I guess, you know, people sometimes feel stuck and it often just seems to happen around 40 and that period. Right. Do you think it's because people aren't in alignment with like where they think they should be going or they're not living their purpose?

34:54I think that's a big one.

34:56Lewis Howes:Yeah. Yeah. But you were living your purpose, though, during that time. You were doing the medicine stuff. I was. I was off on my own. But, you know, people thought I was crazy because I dropped out of medicine. I wasn't practicing. I was living like a hippie. Exploring other... Exploring, right. And I did not get a lot of reinforcement from the world for what I was doing. Especially not back then. Back back then. But I knew what I was doing was right and what I had to do. Right. So you lived in Germany for a while? No, I visited there. You lived in Mexico for a while. I lived in South America for a while.

35:31Colombia especially, yeah. For how long? About three and a half years.

35:35Lewis Howes:What was it about the South American culture, about longevity, that inspired you? Well, I was interested in... When I was growing up, I remember having a kid's book. It was about... I think it was about a South American village, but it was about the Andes Mountains. I thought they were my mountains, you know, Andes Mountains. So I developed this. So my mountains, where are they? My mountains, yeah. So I had this, I know some of a deep thing I wanted to visit there. And then when I was a student at Harvard, my mentor there was Richard Schultes, who was the father of modern ethnobotany. And he had lived in the Amazon for 14 years and discovered all sorts of hallucinogenic plants.

36:22And he was a fascinating teacher. and he sent me down there to study medicinal plants. And so I think what really drew me down there was the culture that was very connected to nature and to plants. And so I learned a lot of things there. You know, I visited shamans and did all sorts of crazy things. Tried stuff. Tried stuff. Experimented. Yeah, a lot of stuff.

36:46Lewis Howes:Interesting. Interesting. You joked about the woman who said my secret was not eating vegetables, but how important are plants in improving cognitive brain health in general? Well, as I said, a lot of the main sources of these protective polyphenols and antioxidants are plants. And, you know, there's so many plants out there with so many different properties. And, you know, the foods that have become popular up here are such a small slice of what's possible. So I've also spent a lot of time in Asia and in other cultures, and I always am interested in the foods that people eat, and I've tried to bring them back here and turn people on to them.

37:33Yeah.

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38:48Lewis Howes:Because creating peace of mind is at the heart of Amica's mission. And whether you're at home or on the road, Amica knows it's not just about where you're going, but who you go with. Go with the insurer that truly understands you. As a mutual company, Amika puts its customers' needs first. Visit amika.com and get a quote today. What are the main foods that you try to have consistently that are unique or different than kind of the standard American diet? Well, I use a lot of herbs and spices in my own cooking. One of the ones that I'm very big on these days is turmeric, the yellow spice, which Indians eat every meal from infancy to old age.

39:30and in North America until recently, the only way we got it was in yellow mustard, which is more a turmeric preparation, a mustard preparation, and in curry. It's what makes curry yellow. But now, when I was doing that research on aging, I made a number of trips to Okinawa, which at the time that I was doing it had the highest number of centenarians in the world. And I made a number of trips there. And the diet there is astonishing. You know, they have an incredible variety of sea vegetables, land vegetables, fish. It's not like the Japanese, mainland Japanese diet. Okanomans are not Japanese.

40:13They're another, there's something else. What's different than the mainland? They drink jasmine tea, not green tea. They eat more pork and the pork is long cooked to reduce fat. They eat more tofu. The tofu has a higher fat content. they eat this great variety of unusual vegetables. But the beverage that I was, it was very hot and humid when I was there at the time of year. And a very popular beverage was cold unsweetened turmeric tea made from a fermented form of turmeric. Delicious, really delicious. And I just recently been able to bring it into this country and sell it through our matcha company, matcha.com.

40:53You can drink it hot or cold. But anyway, turmeric is the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent that we know of.

40:59Lewis Howes:Turmeric. Yep. The most powerful, you think? It is. It's the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent. A lot of research on it. And interestingly, India has the lowest rate of Alzheimer's disease in the world. And people think that has to do with the amount of turmeric they can see. The lowest rate. I think they're also like highly social family ties. It's like... They're not, I mean, their cardiovascular health is not great. Their food habits have changed, but they have some protection against Alzheimer's. And turmeric might be, yeah, that might be the factor that accounts for that. Wow.

41:36Yeah. So anyway, that's an example of something.

41:39Lewis Howes:They have the lowest amount of Alzheimer's. Yeah. In the world. Yes. India. Is that regions of India? I think rural India especially. Yeah. Wow. So interesting. But that's, you know, turmeric's a good thing to include in your diet. And even just like a turmeric supplement every day is a good thing also. Yeah, that's fine. You don't have to cook with it, everything. Right, all that. You know, we can't, like, we don't know how to cook with it. You know, like Americans. Throw it out, it's not going to taste good on a steak. Yeah, and if you put too much, it's astringent, not pleasant. I had a student, a family physician from South India, and she was a very good cook.

42:14and she said she tells her patients to try putting a level teaspoon of powdered turmeric in beans, bean dishes, stews, soups. That level of it is good. Level teaspoon, that's it. Yeah. But that fermented turmeric is a great drink. It's delicious. Interesting. Yeah.

42:30Lewis Howes:I've never been able to get into fermented things. It doesn't taste good. It doesn't taste fermented? No. Okay, that's good. But fermented things are good to get into. I know. That's what I hear. It's so good for the gut. But if you like stinky cheese, why don't you like fermented things? Man, the stinky cheese is amazing. Well, that's a fermented product. That's got a living culture. It's got a different smell and taste than like a liquidy or like a fermented like, I don't know, vegetables. I don't know. It just doesn't. It's just like a weird aftertaste. The stinky cheese. Maybe you've never had good fermented stuff.

42:59Maybe that's what it is. Because to me, good fermented stuff, it's got a fresh, really fresh crisp. I make my own sauerkraut. I make kimchi. I make pickles. It's really delicious. You need to, I got to get me some good stuff.

43:13Lewis Howes:I have the palate of a seven-year-old. No, if you like stinky cheese. Well, that's the only thing I promote. But most stuff, like I'm very picky. That's the challenge. What are the main benefits of fermented foods? Well, mostly you're eating, first of all, the foods are partially digested, so they're more assimilable. You know, the microorganisms have done work for you that your body doesn't have to do. But the living cultures are what's really important. You know, this feeds your gut microbiome. And this is one of the most exciting, revolutionary changes in medical thinking in my lifetime. When I was in medical school, you know, I learned that we have these organisms in our gut and that assist in digestion, and that was it.

43:57And that people who took, ate yogurt or took acidophilus supplements were health nuts. And now, the gut microbiome, it looks like it's involved in everything. I mean, it conditions your mental health. It influences your interactions with the environment. I mean, it's the key to health and how you move through the world. So the gut microbiome in our society has changed for the worse in recent years as a result of several things. One is incredible overuse of antibiotics, which do wreak havoc on the gut microbiome. Decline in breastfeeding, because breastfeeding provides organisms early in life. increased consumption of these refined, processed, and manufactured foods, which feed the wrong kinds of organisms.

44:57And then, and finally, the unbelievable rise in cesarean deliveries. Because when babies are born, normally the organisms they pick up come from the birth canal and colonize the gut. When they're born by cesarean, they come from the skin, and it's a different population of microorganisms, and they get established for life So the combination of those things, I think, and this has to do with why there's a rise of allergies, autoimmune diseases, maybe things like ADHD. So you want to keep your gut microbiome healthy. So one way to do that is to eat fermented foods. Oh, man. Sorry.

45:36Lewis Howes:If I don't like the smell or the taste of fermented foods, is there anything else? Size kombucha? No, you don't have to. I don't drink kombucha. I like sauerkraut. I like kimchi, good pickles, miso. Miso? Yeah. Okay, I can do miso. That's a good one. All right. I can do miso soup. Okay. Yeah, that's fermented. Yeah, miso soup. Miso is a fermented soy. It doesn't have the smell of the fermented I used to. No, I hear you. You know what I mean? Yeah. Another one, did you ever eat tempeh? Yeah, I can eat tempeh. So tempeh is a fermented soy food also. Okay. I don't like soy as much, but I mean, that's got the benefits all.

46:09Well, tempeh doesn't taste like soy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It tastes like meaty. Right. Okay. So temperature is so. Okay. You can take yogurt, you know, that has living cultures in there or kefir. You can take probiotic supplements, but they may not be as good as the foods. And the other thing you can do is make sure you're consuming enough prebiotics, which are foods that feed the beneficial microorganisms. And that's mostly fiber-containing foods. Fibers. Beans. Beans, vegetables, whole grains.

46:44Lewis Howes:So you want prebiotics and probiotics, both. You want to consume a lot of them daily? Prebiotics you should have on a regular basis. You know, that should just be part of your diet. And probiotics, you know, whatever foods you can take, or you can take, as I said, a probiotic supplement. Sure, sure. Okay. All right. So if I'm going to have the palate of a 7-year-old, take the probiotic supplements. But especially important if, for any reason, you have to take antibiotics. You know, it's really important. Take those afterwards. It will be from the moment you start taking the antibiotic. Yeah. What happens if you're taking antibiotics and you're not taking probiotics at the same time?

47:17It drastically changes your gut microbiome. Wow. You know, it wipes out a lot of the good organisms.

47:23Lewis Howes:How long does it take to get back to like a healthy space? We don't know. We don't know. I mean, maybe the body comes back pretty quick from that. I don't know. Wow. But it's important to take it before and during and after, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To get it back to baseline. man. Because I just took some antibiotics a couple weeks ago from a dental surgery I had to take, and so it didn't get infected. But I should be overloading now on probiotics. I was like, okay. So I should have talked to you before that. You should have talked to me before. Too late in then. I know. You mentioned that India is the lowest rate of dementia or Alzheimer's?

48:05Lewis Howes:Alzheimer's. What countries or regions are the highest rate of Alzheimer's? Do we know? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Alzheimer's is pretty consistent around the world. Yeah. So as I say, we don't... But it seems lower in India. It seems lower in India, rural Indian population. Yeah. But it's consistent around the world. Yeah. There's not one country that has a higher risk. Not that I know of. Everywhere. Gotcha. Not that I know of. That'd be interesting to see. Yes. Maybe we do know that. I don't know that. It seems like there's an issue in America. I mean, maybe I'm just hearing about it, but is it...

48:36And when does it usually... Well, you know, we used to call, when I was growing up, my mother's father was senile. So that's what we say. People got senile. That was dementia. Now, there's different forms of dementia. Alzheimer's is one kind of dementia that's associated with particular brain changes. So maybe there's an increase in our population. Maybe that's because we have more older people around. I don't know that it's actually increased. They may call it by a different name.

49:08Lewis Howes:But there are a lot of people, over 100, who don't have decline as well. Exactly. Right. But it sounds like they're doing a lot of these things correctly. They have strong social ties. They're doing the exercises and brain games or music or languages. They're doing something challenging for the brain that's like making them think or puzzles or whatever it might be. They're also eating generally well, it sounds like, with these types of foods and glyphenols and antioxidants and all these different things and anti-inflammatory turmeric and stuff like that. So it sounds like they're doing more of these things.

49:42Lewis Howes:Obviously, there's exceptions. You hear someone smoking their whole life and living to 100. But in general, it sounds like you do a lot of these things, you could live a longer, healthier life. Now, the other one is trying to do whatever you can to avoid environmental toxins. And that's not so easy. You can get a water filter for your home, which is a good idea. Maybe an air filter, depending. But I think things like getting plastics out of your life, avoiding secondhand smoke. Just paying attention to all this. like, you know, I'm a big proponent of organic agriculture, mostly not because I think the food's necessarily more nutritious, but to avoid contamination with things you don't want.

50:31And, you know, it's gotten easier to get organic produce, but for many people it's difficult. Either it's not accessible or it's expensive. So a good thing to do is to learn which crops are most likely to be contaminated. And a good source of information on that, There's a group in Washington called the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. And they periodically publish a list of what they call the Dirty Dozen, which are the 12 most contaminated crops. Strawberries are always at the top of the list. Really? You know, other things like green beans, you know. And then they have also a Clean 15 list, which is the least contaminated, things like avocados and bananas.

51:11So if you're buying something from the dirty dozen list, it's probably worth making an effort to get it organic or not eat it. Got it. From the clean 15 list, it doesn't matter. So that's a way of – yeah.

51:26Lewis Howes:So try to get organic on that list if possible. But isn't sometimes like organic still has chemicals or pesticides even if it says organic? No, we have good organic standards now. I mean the industry is constantly trying to whittle them away. Okay. But we've beaten it back so far. I mean, there was when they first got that USDA organic certification, I remember there was an attempt to allow, the industry wanted to allow sewage sludge to be put on crops and still call it organic. Oh, my God. We beat that back. Wow. Yeah. But if it's got that seal on it, it's good. Now, however, also realize that it costs money for farmers to get that certification.

52:07So small farmers often can't afford that. So if you're at local farmers markets and small growers, often growers will say that they're pesticide free. You know, they can't afford the USDA organic certification, but they'll say that their crops, they don't use pesticides. It's still good. Yeah, yeah. I also, you know, don't keep poisons around the house, herbicides, you know, pesticides, all of those things. You don't want to be exposed to them.

52:34Lewis Howes:When you mentioned plastics, avoiding plastics, what does that include? Drinking out of plastic bottles, living with plastic in your life? Yeah, as much as possible. Because what you see happening is that plastics that we've always considered safe turn out not to be. Like what? I don't remember what the latest one that I've seen. Sort of like drinking out of a plastic bottle or like? Yeah, drinking out of a plastic bottle. Using plastic storage dishes for food. Really? Use glass instead. Use glass bottles. Or tin or something else. Yeah. With plastic wrap for food, there's, you know, some of them have chemicals called phthalates in them.

53:14Lewis Howes:Plastic wrap, like a wrap to store the food. Yeah, but there's some brands that don't have that. Don't get plastic when you're wrapping the food. Or look, again, use that EWG site that I gave you. They rate all these products. EWG.org is the list? Yeah, the Environmental Working Group, EWG.org. They also have, you know, you can look up things like cosmetic products, shampoos and lotions and creams and deodorants. And you'll tell you which ones, you know, they have a color code. Green being safe and red being no. Yeah, that's very useful. EWG has a lot of this stuff on all these products out in the market right now.

53:50All online, right. And they're rated by particular brands. Really? Yeah.

53:53Lewis Howes:Based on how environmentally friendly or if they have plastics or if they have poisons or whatever. Yeah, all that. Right. They test them and it's a very good organization. Okay. I'm going to look at that for sure. The School of Greatness is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. With the FIFA World Cup 2026 coming, there are going to be thousands of fans traveling into cities all across the country. And it's such a cool opportunity to open your home, make some extra income, and be a part of something global. Personally, I started hosting my properties on Airbnb because I wanted a simple way to create extra income, but what I didn't expect was how meaningful the experience would be.

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55:57Lewis Howes:Who is more likely to go through cognitive decline in general, men or women? And why do you think? I don't know the answer to that. You know, women live longer than men. And we don't know why that is either. when you look around the world at areas where there are people over 100 when you get up in those age ranges it's mostly women there's one exception that I know is the island of Sardinia off Italy that a high population of centenarians in men and women are equal and nobody knows why really but there it's more equal versus other places women greatly outnumber men when you get up in the upper 90s and 100s.

56:45There's one theory that the Y chromosome is toxic, that it produces toxic gene products that do men in. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, it's also possible that men engage in more risky behaviors.

57:01Lewis Howes:It's also like the size. You know, it's like, is it harder to pump blood and recover when you're bigger, you know, physically than a woman? Yeah. I don't know if that has something to do with it. And maybe in Sardinia, there might be like tinier men. I don't know. We don't know. I haven't been there. Yeah, yeah. What do you think is, you've been in this kind of health and wellness industry for a long time. You've seen trends come, trends go. You've seen new discoveries happen over the last, you know, 40, 60 years. What do you feel like we're missing in this, you know, health world that we need to be focusing on more, that we haven't actually leaned into or discovered yet?

57:40Lewis Howes:And what do you also think will be happening over the next five to 10 years with new discoveries? Can I say a word about psychedelics? And say what? A word about psychedelics? Yeah, yeah. I never thought I'd write another book. You know, I've written 15 books. My publisher has persuaded me to write a book on psychedelics. Yeah. So I'm just starting work on that. And it's titled Psychedelics Can Save the World, which I truly believe. And, you know, I've been involved with them since way, way back. and I am very excited to watch this, what's happening with them. You know, they are really entering the mainstream.

58:19I think they have tremendous potential for healing and I'm a little disappointed that all the attention has been on the possibilities of using them in psychiatric medicine for depression and PTSD and so forth, which, you know, is great. But I think they have incredible potential for physical healing as well because I've seen that again and again. And frankly, I think it's the only thing I see out there that has a potential to save us from disaster. Really? Yeah, because we are clearly headed for disaster. And it's only going to be through a transformation of consciousness that I think we can save ourselves.

58:57And they have the potential to do that. And it is amazing. Before the pandemic, when I was traveling around a lot and speaking, no matter where I was and what I was talking about, whether it was on anti-inflammatory diet or integrative medicine or healthy aging, the questions I get would be about psychedelics. Where can I get them? How can I take them? How can I do this? A few months ago, Vogue magazine had a cover story on psilocybin. Town and Country magazine of all places recently had an article titled, Why is Everybody Smoking Toad Venom? I mean, this is like clearly becoming a mainstream phenomenon that sooner or later, sooner I hope, they will be forced out of the restrictive drug schedule they're now in and they'll become available.

59:43And I think the potential out there is tremendous. And I've seen remarkable physical healings in people, instantaneous, you know, lifelong patterns that can change just by changing something in your head.

59:56Lewis Howes:Now, I want to ask you a question about this because I've never taken psychedelics. I've never been high. I've never been drunk in my life. Well, that's admirable. I don't know if that's admirable or just a choice I'm excited to make. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't have pain and suffering in other ways. And maybe getting high and smoking weed would have helped me relieve certain pains. I don't know because I've never done it. But I want to ask you a question about this because I think this is interesting. I've been conflicted with psychedelics. And I know a lot of people that do them and swear by them and say they've had these miraculous healings.

1:00:29Lewis Howes:I'm like, that's awesome if it's supporting you. And then I see other people that keep taking them and nothing changes. But they swear by it. Well, I had this healing, but then they're still in darkness. And it's like, okay, you know, is it something we use consistently or is it a tool that unlocks us to start integrating like holistic healing? I don't think it's something you use consistently. Okay. And also weed is not a psychedelic. Right, right. But I mean, just like weed, but then I mean, psychedelics in general. Yeah, no, I think for many people, a single experience with them, you know, or occasional experience does it.

1:01:05Is enough. Yeah, and I wrote, my first book was called The Natural Mind, and it was about altered states of consciousness and drugs written in, it's 50 years ago. Wow. It came out. It's still in print and still used. And Alan Watts gave a blurb for the book. Wow. And there's a quote in it that I really like, referring to using drugs frequently. He said, you know, when you get the message, you hang up the telephone. You don't need to keep using it. No, exactly.

1:01:37Lewis Howes:Now, here's another question for you. You know, you studied meditation and spirituality and a lot of these different things and studied with a lot of people as well who have done that. I have found that in my meditative practices, when I truly allow myself to be in calm consistently, Now, this might take days to do until I can get to that point where I'm fully disconnected from stresses and environmental things that are causing me to feel triggered or reactive. But when I am able to go into those places, which it's a privilege to be able to do that and take a few days and do that, I get it. When I'm able to do that, I feel like I'm having the most transcendental journeys in my mind and feeling the physical benefits of that as well of healing through my own internal pharmacy, let's say, without an external thing causing the pharmacy internally to transform.

1:02:32Lewis Howes:is also with the integrative of constant healing and applying the lessons I learned from that and having support in that ways, which allows me to keep integrating it. So what are your thoughts on first practicing like other holistic ways before the psychedelics? I'm all for it. If you've tried everything, you've spent time in nature, you've done different therapies and you're still suffering and there's no way out. What I get worried about is when people say, I feel like I'm stressed. Let me take a psychedelic. I feel like I'm overwhelmed and I'm just like, I don't know how to manage this. Let me take a psychedelic.

1:03:08Lewis Howes:That's my only concern. Well, that's not how I think they should be used. I think there should be preparation for the experience and so forth. First of all, it's very likely that we have an endogenous psychedelic in our brains. Inside of us. Yeah. It's probably DMT, which is found in many plants in that psychedelic toad. It's probably produced in the pineal gland and maybe when you have profound experiences through other methods, there's a release of that in the brain. So that's the first thing. The third eye, getting into the pineal gland and moving the energy up into the pineal gland and having that DMT experience.

1:03:49Lewis Howes:We can create that without the drug. But I think the The transformative experience that I've seen have mostly resulted when people have been prepared, have done preparation for not taking it casually and not to sort of fix themselves. Right, right. Okay, yeah. I'm just a big, I'm all for learning and exploring, but I'm also like, man, I've never done that stuff. So I know you have, but I know there's other healing modalities that are available without that. True. However, the other healing modalities tend to be slow. And the psychedelic can provide that almost instantaneously. It's true. Just going to talk therapy, you may not get those results.

1:04:30Lewis Howes:It might take years of going once a month before you get very little results. I heard a wonderful, I don't know who said this about talk therapy, is that when you've got a poisoned arrow in you, you want to know how to get it out. You don't want to know how it got there. Right, right. I hear you. That's funny. And that's why I think when, you know, I've had to try to take the approach of like extreme, you know, measures when it comes to like healing, like really diving into like intensive workshops, really diving into like intense. I've done eight hour therapy sessions where I'm like, no, let's get to the roots.

1:05:06Lewis Howes:Give it to me. Yeah. So I think you've got to be willing to go there. Yeah, I agree. If you don't take the psychedelics, you've got to say, I'm going to face this pain head on, bring it on. Let's go. I'm willing to open up and do the work. Because if you don't, it's going to just continue suffering. So anyway, that's my caveat for my consciousness to make sure I speak about that as well. But I know I have friends who swear by ayahuasca and different psychedelics that have supported them in awakening things that are holding them back. But you've still got to take the action consistently once you're aware of it.

1:05:41Well, we'll see what happens. But I'm very hopeful about seeing this. You think that's going to be the next wave, though? Yeah.

1:05:46Lewis Howes:I hope people do it consciously and effectively and not just as a casual thing. That's my challenge. Anything else you feel like we're missing that is going to be coming after psychedelics in terms of healing and wholeness? You know, I'm a big proponent of mind-body medicine. And actually, it's something that I've learned from psychedelics is that by changing things in your head, you can change things in your body and in the external world. and that has been so ignored in medicine. You know, conventional medicine and science really don't believe in the mind and that the mind can affect the body.

1:06:26Lewis Howes:Our thoughts can affect the body. Our thoughts do affect the body. Yeah, obviously, but that's not taken advantage of. It's not acknowledged and it's because our science and medicine are totally dominated by a materialistic paradigm. which does not see the reality of the non-physical. I think that's going to change, and I think that'll bring a lot of good, it'll free a lot of things up. There's so many frequencies that are not physical, not material. You know, the frequency of thinking, the frequency of feeling loved. Of love. Those are frequencies that you can't measure physically, right? But they're real.

1:07:05Lewis Howes:And you talked about last time how, like, you know, you allowed yourself to heal more when you created love You felt loved by another human and got into relationships. Your body healed. So how do we study that and how do we get into that next of like studying the mind and the emotions? Well, we're creeping up on it. You know, these new techniques of brain imaging. You know, we can image living brains. And we've been able to show that placebo responses really are associated with actual activity in certain brain regions. or that experienced meditators have changes in the size of certain areas of the brain.

1:07:44So this begins to make it real for people.

1:07:48Lewis Howes:Yeah, I went to a seven-day meditation retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza a few months ago, and he had a lot of different scientists there, I guess, studying, I don't know, 15 different test points, I guess, from brain imaging to blood to feces to saliva to all these things, everyday mapping and exploring the benefits. And it's amazing to see the natural pharmacy that we have in terms of healing ourselves with thinking, with breathing, like you talked about the 478. This is a healing experience. And incorporating the mind-body, I think, is a very powerful thing. How can we start to learn to teach this earlier so kids have this philosophy?

1:08:35You just do it. I mean, you can teach kids the 4-7-8 breath, for example. Yeah.

1:08:41Lewis Howes:This is beautiful stuff. I'm very excited about this, and I'm excited about everything you're creating and the message you bring to the world. I want to mention, before I ask the final questions, I want to mention about your website at matcha.com. This thing is pretty cool. I'm going to try this. Integrative hydration, matcha plus electrolytes. Electrolytes, yeah. I think it's really cool. I'm a big fan of electrolytes. But why add matcha to it? Because it's for the polyphenols and the antioxidants and all that good stuff. And while there is caffeine in matcha, it's moderated by this other amino acid, L-theanine, that has a calming effect.

1:09:20So the stimulation of tea and matcha in particular is very different from that of coffee and other caffeine plants. It's like calm alertness, people describe. Really? Yeah.

1:09:31Lewis Howes:So it's not a jittery. It's not jittery. Like coffee. No. Gotcha. So when you add matcha with electrolytes, what does that do? Well, it's very tasty, first of all. It's a very pleasant drink. You get a nice alert feeling from it. It's good. I'm a big fan of matcha. And I started this company, matcha.com. It brings high-quality matcha and turmeric, fermented turmeric also. So now you've got fermented turmeric there as well. And what is the main website for you? It's drwyl.com, D-R-W-E-I-L.com. And also, I recommend that people check out the Integrative Medicine Center at the University of Arizona.

1:10:12It's integrativemedicine.arizona.edu. There are a lot of wonderful educational offerings, including a number for general public.

1:10:20Lewis Howes:Okay, cool. I asked you these two questions last time, my final questions. I'm curious where you're at at this season of life from almost two years later. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you, Dr. Weil, for how you keep showing up. And keep being curious and keep trying to bring new ideas to the world and exploring and adapting them so that we can consume them. So I really acknowledge you for your generous wisdom that you continue to bring to all of us to optimize our health. I asked you this last time, so I'll have to go back and look and see what your response was. But it was the three truths question, three truths.

1:10:56Lewis Howes:So imagine you get to live as long as you want to live and accomplish everything you want to accomplish for the rest of your life. For whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work and your message with you. So we don't have this conversation, your books. Everything's gone for whatever reason. Hypothetical. But you get to share three lessons of wisdom you would share with the world from everything you've known about your life. I call it three truths you would share. What would be those three truths for you? Well, I think one of them is everything is as it should be. It's hard for people to accept.

1:11:25I know. I think another one is that you have the ability to heal yourself. and that it's really important to love yourself. Why do you think most people are never taught how to love themselves? That's a good question.

1:11:46Lewis Howes:Yeah. It's almost like that should be one of the first things we learn. Absolutely. It's how to love and accept who you are. Even if you're not where you want to be, you can still love and accept who you are and the mistakes you've made and move forward. And this could be my next book, How to Love Yourself. Right. I figured that out. Good. I love those three truths. This is the final question. What is your definition of greatness? I think really using your full potential. There you go. Yeah. After a while, thanks so much. Appreciate you. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

1:12:24Lewis Howes:Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

1:13:03Lewis Howes:And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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