Fixing Brain Rot, The 'Maxxing Obsession & Is Cereal Junk Food?

0:00I am genuinely so excited about today's sponsor because it's the way. honestly if you have listened to me anytime over the last few months you know i have become a little bit evangelical about this app and i honestly recommend it to everyone my friends my family people on instagram everyone and she recommended it to me so it's true i've heard so much about it it's just because it has had such a big impact on me i've meditated on and off for 15 years or so now but using the way it's honestly the first time i've become so consistent with this daily practice. And I've just seen the most unbelievable results as a result of that.

0:38The app is just incredible. And what I love is every day you open it and there's a meditation waiting for you. So you don't scroll, that you don't have to choose between hundreds of options. There's no wondering what to do. It just takes you on a path. Well, I think that's why it works so well, because most of us just don't need more big decisions every day to make, Ella. No, exactly that. We've got decision fatigue, haven't we? So this is so nice because you just follow this path of meditation. which is led by Henry, the founder, who's just the most amazing teacher. And he makes it seem somehow just incredibly simple, but exceptionally profound at the same time, which is a very rare skill.

1:14And I've been using it too. Yes, I've now finally begun my meditation journey and I've been doing some of the shorter practices on busy days because I completely understand why you talk about it so much, Ella. It really is a nice intro in for me. Yeah, it is. And I'm so glad. anyway it's helped me feel so much calmer less reactive more present it all sounds like huge claims but i just say please please please try it if you're struggling with stress or overwhelm you just got to give it a go and the lovely thing is that everyone listening can definitely try it themselves exactly so you can get a 30-day free trial so just try it every day per month it'll change your life all you do is head to thewayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop yeah that's thewayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop.

2:05Welcome to The Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're both here as your hosts. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rhiannon Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be. And that's why we've created this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal.

2:33Welcome, guys. It's so nice to see you. Hope you're having a lovely start to your summer. We have got so much to talk about today. Goodness me, what is coming up, Ru? Yes, we do. I almost laugh when I want to read out the first headline we've got. Could bran flakes really be classed as junk food? So we're kicking off the podcast with a bang today. What the government's proposed sugar rules mean for cereals, yogurts and healthy eating advice. And then why the average Brit could spend five years, five years doom scrolling. The surprising habit that may improve attention and focus and what brain rot is doing to our attention spans.

3:10Then our trends today of slow maxing, sperm maxing and the rise of the Internet's latest wellness obsessions. Plus, have we reached peak optimization culture? Yes, exactly. We're diving a little bit more into that because of this maxing. obsession that's everywhere. And we have, before we kick off today's show, some really nice listener feedback. We love hearing from you, as you guys know. Obviously, our Thursday episodes are all dedicated to our community. But honestly, there's so much feedback. We're going to have to, I think, bring a little bit on Mondays as well. But we had an email from one of our lovely listeners called Gabby.

3:46And Gabby has a PhD in health psychology and works as a lecturer at the University of Salford and as a guest lecturer at the University of Liverpool. Anyway, she emailed us all about trackers and the impact of listening to data instead of ourselves and it was such an amazing bit of feedback from her own work that I asked if she could share it as a voice note so you could all hear too. Hi all, Dr Gabrielle Humphries here. Thank you so much Ella and for having me. I am a regular scooper and a huge fan of this podcast. I see listening to it as my own little self-care moment so I am so excited to get to add to it.

4:26For context I'm a researcher in health psychology and I specifically focus on digital health and behaviour change. Because of this you can imagine I was so excited when you discussed Stephen Bartlett's podcast and self tracking and this is what I can add on to. So the quantified self is absolutely at play here. This term refers to when your subjective feelings get replaced with quantitative elements and that means numbers. We can go from doing something for joy to reach a certain score, calories burn and this applies to lots of different areas but some of our recent research focuses on smartwatch use.

5:08Here we delved into the impact of the quantified self on individuals and people really share that receiving this data is something that they slowly over time rely on. So much so if you challenge someone what would happen if you took off your smartwatch? They say how will I know what I've done without it? So while somebody might be going for a run or a swim or a leisurely walk, all of a sudden without that data being there we feel lost. We feel like we cannot trust our own perceptions of an activity by itself. Another recent study we've completed examined the psychological impact of removing your smartwatch and here we interviewed a prior full-time smartwatch wearers.

5:58While this was a qualitative study interviewing people so we cannot be sure on that cause and effect, participants commonly discussed gaining bodily intuition back because they could no longer rely on the quantitative self. They no longer had that data to tell them what they should do and how they'd done in an activity. Decisions became for them rather than based on a score and one participant specifically said, I wasn't even doing it for the health benefits, I was doing it for my watch, a really striking quote that has stayed with me. If you don't own a smart watch, the quantified self might still be relevant for you as well.

6:41This can be applied to lots of different things but eating feels really relevant to discuss on this podcast. Seeing food only for its numerical value over feelings like joy, fullness or disgust is the quantified self in action. This can be applied to all realms of diet culture but calorie counting and the current focus on a really high protein consumption might be the most relevant there. So that's my two cents on the quantified self. If you are panicking though, thinking, oh, that's me. Remember the wellness scoop ethos, small steps, take small steps to become a little bit more in tune with your body.

7:26And slowly over time, you can start doing things for you rather than a screen. Additionally, if you'd like to be involved in any of our active research studies on this topic and we do have many drop me an email via the show notes thanks again ella and ray for having me i am very giddy recording this and to hear it back wow gabrielle thank you so so much for contributing to that as you were saying everything that first of all please go everybody and sign up if you are somebody that wants to ditch your tech and you want to explore a bit more about gaining your own intuition again but it's so interesting because I normally save these conversations for Thursday's episode but I went to see Toy Story 5 as well at the cinema at the weekend and this is happening not just in adults but in children as well the reliance on tech and the loss of self it's a huge subject so yeah.

8:21And it's so interesting because you talk you know obviously about things like intuitive eating but you know learning to trust your hunger signals or fullness signals or your energy signals of like you know maybe you have time to exercise today but actually you know you're really tired today in which case actually would a walk be nicer than like a hardcore gym session and I just feel so much in the world of wellness we're so busy ticking boxes or tracking things or trying to do it quote unquote right that we are so terrible generally speaking and you guys let me know if you agree or disagree at listening to ourselves I certainly feel like I spent a long time trying to do it right and I now learned to listen to myself and I feel so much healthier and happier most importantly as a result.

9:04I sent Ella, I don't know if you've seen it yet because you've probably bricked out, but a new invention that I saw pop up with contact lenses almost like a Black Mirror episode that you put into your eyes that you can then use for data. I was absolutely gobsmacked that we're even wanting to invent these things. It's gone past being a cinema screen and it's gone into it's translated the new kylie jenner meta glasses they're so freaky so you can go around just being like take a photo so i'm just like envision of privacy completely oh my gosh it's insane because if i was going to take a photo of you on the train you'd probably realize you know i've got my phone out it's like not that subtle oh my gosh it's terrifying yeah the thought of what this opens up for people that don't take pictures for the right reasons is absolutely terrifying i worry about my children now i worry about where i'm sat and i do look on the track and i look as anyone wearing those really why would anybody want to please let us know is there a reason people want to wear these glasses of cameras and then because i am quite intrigued i know well it's friction maxing to remember we're going to talk about max and this idea of adding like difficulty where the idea that because people can be like hey play this song can you not just get your phone out your back and do that on spotify like how come on our lives are so easy How hard, how many steps were involved in like taking phone out bag, putting Spotify on?

10:22It's the curiosity of scientists to just keep pushing boundaries. And I do wonder if there's an ethical limit to how far we push these boundaries. Ella, that was a wonderful recommendation for our podcast. Thank you. What a thought provoking start. How are you though? We forgot. How are you? All good? I'm good. Do you know, I wanted to share actually a really interesting feature I did on the BBC at the weekend. And I think we touched on it in the podcast before about do hot drinks actually cool you down? Exactly. And I was being asked this, of course, because around the world now globally, we will be experiencing climate shifts.

10:55And we've known this in temperature. We might get extremely cold winters, extremely hot spells in the summer. And many countries aren't equipped, particularly the UK, to deal with the extremities that we're now faced. So the question that I was faced by the interviewer was, you know, is it better to have a cold drink or a hot drink? And actually when I delved into it and did a bit more research as well, caffeine is a really non-beneficial component to your diet in a heat wave. Really doesn't help, really disrupts your body's ability to cool down. So all these iced coffees and iced lattes that we may consume during a heat wave are definitely not beneficial.

11:31But the researchers at Nottingham Trent University, actually led by Professor Charles Yeo, who we've had on the podcast lots of times before, and explored the difference between the two. And that's the study I broke down that there is actually no scientific difference between the hot tea or the cold drink. But it's whether it's a dry air or a humid or a moist air that defines the cooling you might experience from the sweating of having a hot tea in the first place. So there's a little bit of nuance in there. I thought it was an interesting one to share. Very interesting. So the take home, what should we do in a heat wave?

12:04I'd stick to cold drinks. Cold drinks, okay. To be honest. Homemade laminates. were my thing and like watermelon juices oh so good lovely um ella how about you busy weekend because i feel like with our garden now it's actually really sad that the heat wave makes gardening very very very difficult oh my gosh i was like out in my nightie at six in the morning i have to tell you one of the most like wholesome sights of my whole life though basically my potatoes are coming which is so exciting and may who's my younger of the two girls has been so into the gardening project and like has been really helping me with the veggies and just loving it anyways she was so excited that potatoes were coming she just she's been elated all week and then um she wakes up very early and my Matt had already gone to work and Matt's guy my older one was still asleep so May goes downstairs by herself she opens the door she lets the dogs out I mean she's she's five she's unbelievable and I looked out my bathroom window I could see her in the vegetable garden digging up to 6 30 in the morning digging up potatoes and she filled a whole bucket of them for her teacher that's so lovely it was too much that is the most wholesome thing I've ever heard in my life but it goes to show when you actually expose children or you're able to expose children to where food comes from then there's something so rewarding it's such a give back loop any age it's so cool and we're like watching the tomatoes one of them is starting to go red I mean it's so cool anyway our courgettes come through garlic yeah I've had some real fails on spinach and more salad-y bits all my salad eating my pigeons I think well mine also when we had that freak thunderstorm because we had this tropical sort of storm one night and then the next day you've got these extreme heats I think some plants do really struggle to thrive not that I know much about horticulture but that you know that's something that I could say and then And my raspberries have come out so early that now they're almost destroyed.

14:02And you think, because normally they don't come out this time of year at all. It's much later on. We've had so many raspberries. It's unbelievable. We picked like a mega bowl of them. So that's been fun. I also have a squash that's almost as tall as me already. Are you joking? That's amazing. Yeah, called Tall Bean. Sorry, repeat. Tall Bean. Tall Bean. And I've created a teepee structure that the squashes are growing up. and it's nearly at the top of the TV. It's very cool. So every morning as well, May goes out at 6.30 in the morning to measure Tall Bean. Tall Bean is a Cinderella cartoon pumpkin.

14:33So if you look at the coach and the film, this is what it's honestly as well. I'll bring a photo. It's honestly unbelievable. It's a really classic pumpkin type. Okay, so anyways, that's nice. Also, do you know what I've been planning as well? I just say it because always I want to scoot first. I'm going to start in September, which I'm so excited about doing live beginners. And then we're going to do more kind of self-esteem focused meditation courses which I'm so excited about I'm going to make them really small just 15 people in a class so we're like very together to be a real journey anyway I'm so excited everything's exciting I love it it's perfect it's what we all need and now on to our exciting headline of the week headline number one bran flakes could be classified as junk food under a new healthy eating guidance okay I'm going to be honest and say I was confused by the whole situation here um re i know you were asked to talk about at five o 'clock in the morning or something there's headlines so you're probably it was 3 a.m i declined the press feature do you remember yeah i was like sorry no offense re but like who cares about brown flakes at three in the morning like i get some strange media requests as if pregnant i'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night to discuss brown flakes but also how much of an engaged audience do you have on brown flakes at 3 a.m i'm not sure you tell me anyways you guys might have seen this this had huge pickup everywhere and it creates a lot of debate it's very very confusing so essentially what's happening is in the uk we now have something in play came into play almost a year ago called h f s s that stands for high in fat sugar and salt now this was essentially introduced in stages between 2022 and 2025 but most of it really came into play last year and it's part of the government's obesity strategy.

16:19The idea with this is that foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar basically can't be, for example, near till points. There should be, I think, two meters from till points in large supermarkets. There's watershed bans in terms of ads for them. I think we've talked about this before. I think it's like a tiny plaster on a gaping hole. There's massive kind of loops through it, which is that companies now do huge in-isle activations, loads of stickers on the floor and things like that. It's only two meters from the till, so it's not exactly that difficult to hide. Also, people then reformulate and they're using artificial sugars, which we know are arguably worse for us.

16:58Loads and loads of UPFs to add the flavors instead. So I understand the kind of premise. I think the reality is it's just so far from what we need, but this exists. But the government are also looking at adding to this current regulation that's already in play with something called a nutrient profiling model. Rhi shaking her head, I'm very excited to hear about that. But basically products would receive points for things like calories as well and saturated fat, et cetera. And then positive points for things like fruit and vegetable content, protein fiber. And then those scores together would classify whether food is HFSS or not.

17:36In a way, I prefer that and I'm excited to hear what Rhi thinks because I think it takes more of the whole into account. Whereas, as I said, you see things now that are just reformulated with artificial sugars, but it still has no fiber, et cetera, in it. So it's not gray. But food companies are not happy about this. And that's really what kicked off these headlines, because I think Kellogg's were very, very vocal who own brown flakes about these propositions, because it would classify something like a brown flake as not healthy, essentially. Terrible for their business model. Yes and you know it's great that these new, when I say new it's something that have been trying to be implemented for years but nutrient profile and model will force companies to really think carefully about the ingredient decks.

18:21I mean that's only a positive. Yeah because you would then be actively trying to add fibre and protein for example into the product although you know we both know that can go many different ways. And that's my major concern is that we've already seen as ella mentioned um cereals targeted at children i actually took a walk down the cereal aisle last week i made a little video i haven't shared it yet but just looking at the cartoon images and all the packets you know just having a real thing nothing makes me cross that me too and it's unbelievable the stark difference and actually i feel sad for bran flakes the bran flakes don't do this but it's the other cereals that are obviously blatantly high in sugar but it's the people that coco pops used to have i don't know if it's still there but i still remember seeing it when we were looking at the space in store for work and kellogg's coco pops had in the front supporting your family's health and it's a claim they can make because they add like a sprinkling of vitamin d and you just think how confusing for people great cartoon characters the children want it colorful packaging really cheap and then supporting your family's health are you joking this is the issue with a numerical formula for food flat out because there's always loopholes and that's my big concern with this as well is that you'll get the high art and then the argument is things like sweeteners are not fully agreed upon so even though we say perhaps adding an artificial sweetener might give a negative score perhaps actually it won't because it's still deemed technically by the world health organization as safe so therefore i'm not a fan of nutrient profile modeling for that very reason that scientists disagree immensely already about the ultra processed food conversation.

19:56And that's where the cereals that are really high in what people call natural sweeteners, although they're still sweeteners in my eyes that have that impact on your gut health and are making you crave more sugar for children that are just full of additives to pump up the fiber, the sweeteners to create the cocoa pop alternative or strawberry alternative. And it's something that I feel really strongly against. And I feel that those products are now going to come shining through with this new nutrient profiling model but the public so we might be aware everybody listening because you're a scooper as gabrielle said at the beginning and you're aware of the fact that sugar is not black and white however in the general public health consensus people are starting to clock on to the fact too much sugar is bad only just even though we've been talking about it for 10 years so most people are just looking at one marker on a packet and it's either protein or sugar.

20:50And that's where I think we're going to get a load of issues because we're talking about fiber on the wellness group, but actually that might take another seven years to infiltrate into the public space. Exactly that. And one of these things about the nutrient profiling is that it would take into account free sugars, which is something that I would love you to explain to us all because I think this is where it all gets a bit confusing. But essentially what we're looking at here is not only added sugar, like literally seeing ingredient, I can say sugar, but things that found in fruit concentrates, fruit juice, syrups, etc.

21:21which aren't currently counted in this model. So which is how I'm saying people get round the HFSS thing by instead of using conventional sugar they use this. But this new amendment would make sure that that's not the case which is probably inherently good but explain to us what we mean by free sugars. Yeah it is inherently good as long as it doesn't push them down the artificial route but I do have a feeling that's where we're going to go sadly. So essentially free sugars. First of all a sugar inside a glucose molecule or a fructose molecule in fruit something where the cell is intact and then when the cell's broken down like in a smoothie let's say if you're eating natural fructose sugars which are not bad for you in a peach or banana or an apple and then you blend it in a smoothie it becomes free because you're breaking down the cell wall where that sugar is contained.

22:08And I think loopholes for so many years, like you've said, with adding fruit juice to items, they are free sugars because they hit your bloodstream extremely quickly compared to intrinsic sugars, which you need the fiber, you need to actively chew your food or have some form of release within the cell. And your insulin in your body reacts accordingly. And the danger of too many free sugars in a concentrated dose is that you get that massive spike and crash in blood sugars. So it will definitely cut out a lot of the added syrups and dextrose and added things that are there, things that people think are natural that aren't.

22:45And that's what's really confusing about them. But if we actually bring brown flakes into this equation, this is what's so interesting because they, you know, Ella, you've had a look at the ingredient deck, you know, the whole wheat, whole brown, whole wheat flour, and they do contain a bit of glucose syrup. So that's where the free sugar would get caught out in this new guidance and that's where they're probably not very happy at all yeah i actually then had a look because there's a lot of pushback from that kind of cereal industry being like no no no um we can't do this because cereals such as brown flakes and special k are important source of fiber in the british diet and i was like oh interesting i wonder how much fiber they actually contain so i had a look brown flakes pretty good 5.1 grams of fiber per 30 grams of serving so probably not wrong to say let's not ban that but then special k is 1.8 grams of fiber per serving cornflakes the other one they're talking about one gram of fiber per serving so i think we can say cornflakes and special k here are doing nothing can i add that it took me six months to get cornflakes removed from the nursery menu in my son's nursery because people think they're healthy quote quote healthy and that they're really really not and it's interesting because then i was like oh i wonder what a bowl of porridge comparatively is and with only oats so assume you're not adding banana or nut butter or anything to it that's four grams so that's four times obviously more than cornflakes but still not as high as the brown flakes and this is why you know i actually let my children have brown flakes as you can also buy really nice bougie organic versions of brown flakes that don't have added glucose syrup but i don't think we should be demonizing a lot of those other types of cereals because we then get into a real conundrum in the supermarket shelves of what on earth are people shopping for and what do they go towards.

24:29I do think it's very confusing for the consumer because special care is seen as diet culture but also therefore seen as healthy because there's that blurred line where people associate diet food with health. Cornflakes incredibly confusing because they're one of the oldest cereals invented in the 1950s. It's that my grandparents used to eat either shredded wheat or corn flakes and add a teaspoon of sugar on top but that was what they did it's opened up a can of worms ella i know it's so interesting we actually tried gosh how long ago now a long time ago five or six years because we delicious ella has delicious granolas but to try and do a like natural bran flake kind of a high fiber can't remember what we called it but It was like a high fiber flake and it had hazelnuts and raisins and it was it was very high in fiber.

25:19But we just couldn't we couldn't price align it with the big cereal brands. And it was I have to say it was one of my more favorite products we did. I loved it. I ate it every day. Currently in pregnancy, I in the evening when I can't eat dinner, I will have a bowl of something like that. But it didn't last long in market because it just it wasn't it wasn't cheap enough. and people were not willing to pay more for cereal, which was so interesting anyway. No, it really is. And it goes to show that how do you police food is the question. How do we change this food landscape? And the debate is going to continue.

25:58So we'll watch this space for you. We'll keep discussing the nuances and we'll let you know what Kellogg's reply to with that one. Okay, guys, we are going to take a very quick ad break now. And then when we come back, we are going to be diving into the antidote for brain rock.

26:19Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. From household names like Gymshark, Rare Beauty, and Heinz, to brands just getting started. Shopify has hundreds of ready-to-use templates that can help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style.

27:00And you can tackle all the important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more. No need to save multiple websites or try to figure out what platform is hosting the tool that you need. And if people haven't heard about your brand, you can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. With easy-to-run email and social media campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing... Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash realm.

27:35Go to shopify.com slash realm. That's shopify.com slash realm. I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non-technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end, and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. Headline number two, Ella, today is very different, but it's about something I think we all can end up, well, we find ourselves doing.

28:22I particularly, amongst the heat wave recently, have had major anxiety. I mean, I've been in tears, very hormonal, about the climate crisis and the impact on our wildlife and our ecosystem. So doom scrolling. 708 videos a day. How TikTok has turned our teens into addicts, Ella. Yeah, this is actually a three in one headline because then we also had around the same time average Britain will spend five years doom scrolling. That's not just Gen Z or Gen Z, whatever you want to call them. That's five years of their whole life doom scrolling. And then in good news, there was also an article, The Antidote to Brain Rock Music Lessons.

28:59So we thought, OK, well, these are also interrelated. Let's just scoop them up into one. So, yeah, it's a three in one kind of headline. But I think we just have to pause on the fact that the average Briton at the moment would spend almost five years of their life doom scrolling. And that's based on research from the habits of more than 6 ,000 people in the UK. Yeah, they found that 36 % of smartphone use is unintentional. I mean, it's over a third and that's time spent opening the apps out of habit. And flicking between the platforms. Flicking between the platforms. Just like, you know, you're in a queue, there's two people in front of you and you're like, I can't stand still.

29:37Let me just ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's a huge challenge. It's actually a sign of mental resilience. It's really, really difficult. You almost have to retrain your brain. I know we've had TJ Power on in the past to discuss this sort of thing. Because on average, and I would say I think it's more than this, that's one hour and 26 minutes a day. No, that's of the unintentional. Of the unintentional flicking. So that's not just phone time. That's the unintentional. Like, it's not, oh, let me. Purposefully pick it up. I have a sty this morning. I was selling wreaths. My first one ever.

30:06Anyways, I like opened my phone and went on chat. GPT. Sorry, guys, if that annoys you, because I know it annoys some of you. But and I was like, right, here's a picture of my eye. What shall I do? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's deliberate. so still phone time whereas if I'm like in the queue and I'm bored and I'm just sort of ding ding ding that's what they mean it's over an hour a day or an hour and a half a day of this kind of unintentional I'm bored but I'm not really doing anything so it's not reading the news on your phone or like whatsapping or doing something you're like I deliberately want to action something involved in my phone.

30:35So that was for adults and what's even worse Ella is that this unintentional pick up in 16 to 24 year olds is 44 % of their phone time and whereas 45 to 54 year olds weren't far behind them at 42 % and we really are locked in it's a really scary time I keep referring back to Toy Story 5 honestly epic film I know can't wait to see it I really highly suggest it but it really highlights the fact that there was this real dystopian moment where Woody looks out across the houses around and you know that blue haze and light you get from the phone in the evening and everyone has just got that on in their living rooms and it's not just the tv anymore it's the kids upstairs in their bedrooms on their devices it's very very eerie and then the other interesting stat from this research was that four in ten of us say we have little or no control over how we use our phones which i think is this just interesting bit like we all know we spend too much time on our phones blah blah blah blah but i think it's this idea that we spend so much of it not deliberately using them that I thought was really interesting.