122. Dr. Mayim Bialik on Stress, Mental Health, and Human Connection

Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained in board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. In this episode, I'm going to be sitting down with the brilliant Dr. Mayam Bialik, neuroscientist, actress, author, and lifelong science communicator. We're going to explore her unlikely path from child actor to trained geneticist, her groundbreaking work studying Prader-Willi syndrome and how she ultimately merged her love for storytelling with her passion for education. Mayam opens up about the state of modern mental health, the biological costs of our tech-driven world, and why lifestyle connection and nervous system balance matter now more than ever. We're also going to dive into trauma, diet, gut brain health, women in STEM, the science behind manifestation practices, and how to build resilience in a culture obsessed with diagnoses and quick fixes. This conversation is equal part scientific, grounded, and deeply human, offering a road map back to presence, connection, and true well-being. Hey everyone, before we dive into today's episode, I want to talk about something that you hear me talk a lot about, your biomarkers. 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You just go to the link in the bio or go to functionhealth.com slash Dr. Shaw and use the code Dr. Shaw 25 for a $25 credit towards your membership. Myam is so exciting to have you here. Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. Yeah, this is fantastic. So I've been a huge fan since the blossom days actually. Wow, you're aging yourself. I am. I am. I'm an older dude. But you know, Big Bang is one of those, I would say, nerdy pleasures of mine where I just felt like watching every episode like that's my life. Like I'm a nerd. Yeah. You know? I've been, it's one of those shows also I watch at night before going to bed. So I watch it on repeat many, many times. Yes. It's really like, I would describe it as it's like the show for the rest of us. Yeah. You know, the time that Big Bang started, like the people that we were seeing on television were like very pretty and they were getting together in different permutations and like, that's fun. But no, Big Bang was really a show about like the rest of people's experience. Like especially if you feel like an outsider or are an outsider. And you know, when I first saw a clip of the show, because I came on and you know, the end of season three, I was like, oh, this is like all the people I went to grad school with. Like these are my people, you know, this is very comfortable, this community. So yeah. So true. And it like, it made me feel more like I was normal because I was watching other people on TV for the first time ever that were nerdy like me, but they were still dating. They were still like having a fun and doing all the things that they love to do with no pressures from the outside world. Yeah. And that's who they needed to be like, you know. Yeah. And I think that was, you know, when we first went to Comic Con, you know, we go to Comic Con as a cast. Like, and that was something that we would do. And you know, the first year that I went, one of the cast members was like, you know, prepare yourself. It's like a lot of like, you know, it's very intense. And when I got to Comic Con, I was like, these are my people. These are just like the nerdy people who like comic books and superheroes. And so it was very comfortable, you know, especially coming from academia where everybody is kind of focused on cerebral things. And those are kind of what the conversations are like. I do think that's what a lot of people related to about Big Bang Theory. Yeah. And I think it was really like the first show too that brought science to like a sitcom and just to like the general public's awareness that it's, we could talk about science on TV. It's probably going to be fine and fun actually. Yeah. And when, when you think about, you know, sort of how the show started, right? It was Chuck Lorre, who's like this like sitcom, you know, kind of genius. And Bill Prady, who also, you know, had many incredible credits in the industry and he'd worked with Jim Henson's company, but he came from like a computer tech kind of world. So you had these two people creating this show that was kind of, you know, trying to highlight the best of comedy and sitcom and writing with also the sensibility of science and tech and engineering and all these things. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, like back then for them to kind of pivot into that because most sitcoms are like family sitcoms. Right. Right. Yeah. It was very, you know, very special. I mean, I think the nice thing also about coming in, you know, at the end of season three is I didn't have to worry about like, is it going to be a success? It's all on me. I need to worry about it. Like I was just thrilled to be part of it, you know, in any way. And then I was made a regular in season four. And you know, obviously the show took on a lot more relationship dynamics, you know, for all of the characters at that point. And my favorite episode was when you were proposed to. Oh, sweet. I'm watching like a thousand times. Sweet. Yeah. And then I was lucky to be invited to the last season. Right. And episode I saw was the one where I, Cal Penn was on it. Oh, yeah. And you were trying to convince the, the Nobel Committee. Yeah. That was a Nobel, yeah. One of the Nobel episodes. So awesome. Yeah. It was, and I was so sad to see the show, you know, ending then, but it ended so beautifully. Yeah. And then we had a great run. And you know, for us, it was 12 years. It was like a, you know. So lifetime. Yeah. It's like a first grade through 12th grade is, you know, how we thought about it. It was like a whole school, you know, school experience. So, holy crap. Yeah. Really. And so I'm curious, oh, good. You're wearing two of the same socks. You didn't do that at the beginning. What? Blossom, right? Oh, I don't know. No, that was Punky Brewster who wore different socks. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I always wore the same socks. That's something I definitely. So sorry to confuse you with Punky, but I remember your transition from Blossom into then, you know, what happened in the future. And you know, you also, I mean, you have a really incredible career with your education right as well. Like you became a PhD neuroscientist at UCLA, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so like, how did that go for you as like being a child actor and then going to school and then still being in the acting world? Like that must have been tough. Yeah. You know, I started acting at 11, which is actually late for child actors. Most child actors or most teen actors have been acting since they were little. So I had kind of a different trajectory of getting into the industry. I was definitely an outlier in sort of, oh, I like school plays and like I was almost in junior high, you know, by the time I started sort of like actually, you know, performing and, you know, being a working actor. So I did Blossom from the time that I was 14 to 19. And then I was in my teacher, you know, obviously incredibly important years in your life and I was two years out of high school when it ended. So I graduated high school at 17. My parents were teachers my whole life. They were documentary filmmakers in the 60s and 70s, but they were English teachers. My dad was a drama teacher, not my drama teacher, but I came from a very education oriented family. My grandparents are immigrants from Eastern Europe. So I really wanted to go to college and I had fallen in love with science when I was on Blossom. You know, I had tutors for different subjects. So you were already on Blossom and that's where you got it. Yeah. And I got interested in science, but like I wasn't a natural science student, you know, by the time I started UCLA, you know, at that time there were, you know, kind of remediation classes they called them to get people caught up. Oh, I see. A different high school experience or who, yeah, I mean, back then it was under this umbrella of like affirmative action, which is very controversial. But at the time what it meant was that if you're not up to, you know, where other people are with calculus or with chemistry, there were classes that would catch you up in, and that's what I did. And so I was part of that program of, you know, kind of getting to learn science. Oh, she was like, thanks, catch up in science a little while. Yeah, I mean, I was two years out of high school and I wasn't naturally like a science mind. So anyway, you know, all of those people who I was in class with are now your doctors and dentists and surgeons. And you know, we all became whatever our, you know, fantastic UCLA education gave us. So I did my undergrad in neuroscience. I minored in Hebrew and Jewish studies, which kept my morale and my GPA up. And then yeah, I went straight to a graduate program, the PhD program in neuroscience also at UCLA. I got married. I had my first kid in grad school and I took my doctoral hood, pregnant, very pregnant with my second son. So my kids are now 17 and 20. Yeah, I did a couple episodes of like herbure enthusiasm, but I was pretty much out of the industry, you know, for all of those years. I mean, just 12 years that I was in school and had my kids. So yeah. Wow. So yeah. So when you went into science, do you remember like what sparked your interest? Like what was it that, you know, being an actor and then going into science is like a pretty like 180 almost, right? So like those are the moment you remember. I mean, I had a tutor. She was an undergrad at UCLA at the time. She's now a, you know, successful oral surgeon. But at the time she was an undergrad who had answered an advertisement saying, you know, Hollywood kid needs a science tutor. Like that's how it worked. And she was my science tutor. She was from a prominent Persian Jewish immigrant family and she was a very passionate lover of all things science. And she was my biology tutor. And you know, it was kind of the first time I had had a female one-on-one, you know, mentor and role model in science. And I think that's very important for, you know, for girls in particular, but, you know, for everyone to be able to kind of see what their life could be like if they were to pursue, you know, a career in STEM, right? And her name was Fierce. And she was amazing. And I'm still in contact with her. I love it. And, you know, the cell, like just the mechanics of the cell is very, very fascinating to me. You know, I do have a strong memory, meaning, you know, it's remembering a lot of terms and a lot of functions. And I still remember how she taught me about the Golgi apparatus and the, like, you know, reticular formation, like all these things. I just remembered, you know, how she taught it to me. It was very powerful. It was very exciting and to think about, you know, the mechanism and like the physiology, right, of like a system that functions that way was very, very powerful. I was in particular interested in genetics. I was really interested in nature versus nurture. That's at least what we called the conversation back in the 90s. And then when I got to college, I took, you know, a lower division class and it was there that I learned about the neuron and the electrophysiology of the neuron was the thing that really convinced me, like, this is the level that I want to study. I really want to study this level of action potentials and refractory periods and, you know, the sodium potassium pump. Like that's really where my brain was kind of happiest. And I trained in genetics. I worked in a genetics lab and then my undergrad, I actually worked in functional neuroimaging. So I worked with some of the patients who had had their corpus callosum sectioned. So these calisotomy patients were very, very special and we did simple reaction time experiments and I trained in Iran's I Dells lab and he was a really, really phenomenal mentor and I worked with Marco Yacoboni who did a lot of the incredible kind of neuro psychology that led to conversations about consciousness and neuro neuron system and things like that. So that was sort of my training, but for my graduate work, I studied obsessive compulsive disorder in Prader-Willi syndrome. So I studied oxytocin and vasopressin. I did psychoneuroendocrinology was my field for my thesis. And I loved it. You know, I'm a vegan neuroscientist, so I didn't want to work with animals. And so there's a lot of amazing human research, you know, that is being done. And so, yeah, that's where I landed. Wow. And so you were studying Prader-Willi syndrome and, you know, that's such an interesting, especially now, like, you know, now that we're talking about GLP ones and everything like that. And it's like the physiology of the neuro physiology syndrome in particular is really like incredible to me and to understand the science behind that. Can you talk a little bit about that? And like, what gravitated you towards Prader-Willi? I mean, you know, if you're not willing to work with animals as a neuroscientist, there's only certain labs that you can then work in. And one of the labs was a lab that focused on mental retardation syndromes, developmental disabilities. And so they studied a lot of different syndromes. And one of them was Prader-Willi syndrome. And so I've always had an interest in working with individuals with special needs. So that was very interesting to me. But it just really seemed like why has no one looked at things like oxytocin and vasopressin in their high rates of obsessive-compulsive disorder. And so that was sort of my interest, but obviously my study included a lot of different aspects of Prader-Willi syndrome. It is the leading genetic cause of obesity, which is like kind of how people know it. But it's also a really beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful example in the first human example of genomic imprinting, where if you have a region deleted from your mother versus your father, you get a different syndrome. So Angelman syndrome is what you get from the imprinting from the other parents chromosome. So it's just like a very special and very, you know, kind of helpful genetically, very helpful syndrome to study. But it had mostly been studied by geneticists because of the imprinting. Or it had been studied by psychiatrists in terms of like, what is this profile? Individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome often have, you know, other combative behaviors and, you know, oppositional behaviors. So it had been studied from that perspective. But my interest was, is there anything we can know about the hypothalamus that relates? And so hypothalamus is satiety. It's how we know that we're full and, you know, very, very, you know, prominent feature of Prader-Willi is they don't know when they're full. You know, when I was in grad school, this was already many years ago, the conversations were around Grelin and Leptin. And could these things be involved? And obviously we know a lot of different things. And, you know, the GLP one conversation has really changed the kind of landscape. But at that time, you know, caloric restriction was essentially the only thing we could do for, you know, a brain that was never full. Right. And so it's very interesting. And many of those, you know, kind of things and the fact that many people, you know, with Prader-Willi syndrome can't live in their homes and they need severe restrictions on access to food and things like that. You know, it's a lifestyle decision, right? For many families. So, I mean, it's also just a really lovely community to be part of. It's, you know, with any syndrome like that where there's family involvement, it has so much better, you know, prospects for, you know, for lifestyle changes and things like that. So it's just a really lovely community. So I was really grateful to be a part of that community for that time. And you're in Los Angeles. So is there a large Prader-Willi community here? Yeah, I mean, there's a Prader-Willi syndrome USA, you know, that kind of serves. There's an international, you know, organizations as well. And a lot of them are focused on research and funding for research. But yeah, when I worked with the individuals I worked with, we would do blood draws at, you know, community events and things. So I would go to different events and get to meet people there. So interesting. So you did that for a while. You got your PhD. Yep. And then then you went back to acting. Yeah. And what was that transition? Yeah, I had, you know, when I, when I took my doctoral hood, as I mentioned, I was very, very pregnant and I chose not to do a postdoc. I planned to be home with my kids, which is, you know, it's the decision that was right for me. It's not a decision that many women make or that many men make, I guess. But, you know, for women, it's a decision of, am I going to be home with my kids? And what's that going to look like? So for me, I did, did choose to be home with my kids. I did teach and I taught, I designed a neuroscience curriculum. So for the first couple of years after I got my degree, I mean, I tutored piano, I tutored Hebrew, I tutored like a lot of different things. But I did. I designed a neuroscience curriculum and I taught junior high and high school, home schoolers in the Los Angeles area. So I taught bio, taught neuroscience. I did a little bit of chemistry, not my favorite thing to teach, but I did it. And I was running out of health insurance because you only get certain health insurance as a grad student and it extends, you know, for a year. And my husband at the time, he had done a master's. So, yeah, I figured if I can just get like a little acting work, like the screen actors Guild insurance is so great, like just to cover, you know, I had a baby and, and a toddler. So by the time, you know, I was asked to audition for a big bang through. I mean, I had never seen the show. I didn't know what it was. I wasn't really watching TV in those days. I had two little kids and I was, you know, like breastfeeding around the clock. Like I wasn't, you know, dialed into sitcoms. Right. So, yeah, by the time I was made a regular, you know, my, my kids were, yeah, a toddler and older toddler. But yeah, it was really just like I never expected to be on a TV show full time again. I never expected that. It was very surprising and, um, yeah, it kind of happened several times in my career. Like things I didn't expect at all and couldn't have even planned for. Looking for health insurance. Yeah. I mean, but still, you know, was able to be with my kids, um, you know, sitcom schedules very friendly as it goes. So that was really nice. But it was a, you know, I was a, I was a working, pumping, you know, breastfeeding mom for some time there. So yeah. That was the next 12 years of your life. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I was made a regular in season four and yeah, for the next nine years, that's where, you know, that was my place of work. Yeah. So awesome. And so did they ever come to you and say, Hey, we're going to be talking about, you know, this neuro biological condition. Like, is this real? Yeah. This was a thing that, you know, I think Bill Prady was quoted as saying they made my character a neurobiologist so that like I could fix things, you know, if they needed fixing. And obviously we had a very smart writer's room. The internet existed so they could look things up. But a lot of times I would get, you know, fun questions. Like we want to mention a tumor that might affect, you know, this, what part of the brain would it be in? Or, you know, a lot of the, the scenes in my lab, I would work with our prop master, Scott, who, you know, would say to me, like, how thick do I have to slice this to make it look like, you know, like you're actually scanning something. And this, you could never actually see the level of, you know, slice, but we make it as thin as possible for, you know, at least for visibility's sake. But yeah, if there was stuff I had to be doing in, you know, my office or my lab, I would like be like, okay, I'm going to prepare to run a PCR. What are the things I would do? And I'll go to the fridge and I'll go to the freezer and I'll have this pipe header. So like that was fun to have that kind of knowledge. You know, we had an episode where Sheldon had to come work in Amy's lab. And so they asked me like, well, what kind of things would happen in your lab that he could mess up? And I was like, well, I wouldn't give him a responsibility like running a PCR. I wouldn't give him that kind of responsibility. But that's how we came up with that he wouldn't, if you don't rinse, you know, the glassware correctly, it will throw off every experiment you're doing and possibly explode things. So that's where we, you know, kind of focus like that Sheldon would not know that you would have to do an extra rinse and under the, you know, autoclave and things like that. So you would give like advice that actually worked out into the script. It was usually practical stuff. Right. That's so cool. I love it. Yeah. And I bet like, you know, coming from these two worlds of like acting and also science, like deep knowledge of science, like the ability to communicate the science probably comes really natural to you. Yeah. I mean, I think that's more kind of like when I started my podcast and decided like, you know, I'm going to be a science communicator kind of as a living. And you know, I had done really interesting tie ins with companies, especially, you know, in those days during big bang theory, like the notion of getting girls involved in STEM was a very big, it was a very big deal that we didn't have women. It's not so much that in my opinion that it needs to be like 50, 50, but the fact that a lot of girls were not even knowing this is something you can do. Your brain was made to learn the things same as boys were, you know, there are many, you know, also there are many dynamic, exciting and creative aspects to being a scientist, you know, a lot of that notion of like a scientist alone in a lab, it doesn't appeal to a lot of girls who tend to be social creatures or want to be more engaged, you know, and those are things that like it's become unpopular to talk about those things, but it does exist that even educating girls was a large part of what I did, you know, and I worked with Texas Instruments for a time and I did a lot of that kind of advocacy. But in terms of actually being a science communicator, you know, that's a skill that I have from teaching and from having parents who were teachers and from teaching for many years. And so, you know, when my partner Jonathan and I started our podcast, that was kind of the idea was like to democratize mental health in particular. And now, you know, to talk about the intersection of science and spirituality and to be able to communicate, you know, things that also many of us, which I know you know a lot about, a lot of things that people have dismissed, like there is science behind it. And there's a way to talk about it in ways that can democratize many aspects of health that for most of medical history has been reserved for elite populations or, you know, just the people who could afford it. I mean, the fact that like mental health is more accessible than it was even 10 years ago, it's largely due to the fact that we're talking about these things more, people are realizing these are real concerns. And as I'm sure we'll get into, mental health is intimately linked to gut health, you know, to whole body health. Like you can't really separate these things. No, they're so intimately linked. And, you know, just to say real quick, like I'm sure Big Bang Theory inspired so many women to go into science because it just looked fun and interesting. And men as well. You know, we have a scholarship fund that the Chuck Lorre Foundation started through UCLA where we have literally raised, you know, young students who come from communities where they weren't supported in being able to do that. So it's, you know, financial support so they can focus their life on these fields. It's very important. And it was a really, you know, kind of incredible cultural touch point, you know, this kind of geek chic thing, you know, to have it go more mainstream and have it impact the way people view scientists as well. Yeah, that's so true. I have a daughter who's nine years old and she's so into, we get these little kits at home where she makes some little like engineering devices and stuff. And like to her, it's like, it's just normal to do this. It's amazing. Yeah. And it's like, she doesn't feel like she has to go play with dolls if she doesn't want to. She can do the science stuff. Dolls can be fun. You don't have to choose also. Right. You know. Yeah. There's no, like in her mind, it's perfectly okay. That's amazing. Like, you know, like, you know, you can be an engineer or scientist or whatever. You know, I'm sure it's to your credit, but also our cultural movement has shifted so that that's not so like, oh my gosh, you want to be a scientist, you know, right. And then like even in our kids school, the robotics class is half girls and half boys, which is fantastic. It's the way it should be, right? For sure. But it wasn't like that in the 70s and 80s at all. Like I grew up in like, you know, we grew up around the same time. Yeah. And it was not like that in school. Science was for boys and the boys were right there to confirm that, you know, that girls, we weren't made for it and we're not cut out for it. And yeah. It's such a great, great movement. It's been a change. Yeah. And now medical schools are like mostly women now, you know, are becoming physicians in most medical schools. I mean, we need men also to be physicians. Yeah. We need a lot more physicians in general. That's right. But thank God women are doing it. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So I do want to kind of dive into now some of the things that you talk a lot about in your podcast and, you know, maybe a little bit of talk about around stress and the neuropsychological implications of how that all works, but also just emotional health. And then our kids, I have so many things I want to ask you about. Yeah. Where should we start? Let's start with this concept of, you know, stress. I think that's a really good place to start just because you mentioned a few things, how the gut and the brain are intimately connected. And I would love to hear kind of how you think about, you know, we all live stressful lives. There's no way we're going to get rid of stress in our lives, right? And so when someone comes to you and says, I'm really stressed out, like it's affecting my health, where should people start and how they think about that? Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I guess I can speak to stress, you know, in particular, but I think what Jonathan and I have kind of noticed is, you know, exactly the kind of divide I think that you have noticed and, you know, built probably your business around is that Western medicine is really good for some things, right? But it's not good for all things. And in some cases it can be harmful for certain aspects of what you're trying to achieve. Many lifestyle decisions impact stress in ways that I think many of us have wanted to ignore. Meaning it's kind of like, doctor, it hurts when I do this. And if we think about the way many of us were encouraged to sort of live, to study, to spend our free time, you know, with the rise of phones, the way that we are spending our free time, no one should be surprised that their system feels tapped out, that we feel overwhelmed, that we can't manage things that we thought we should be able to manage, that we feel pulled in a million different directions, that we can't sleep, right? Our stomachs are funky, right? Like all of these things, this is what happens when the body is stressed. And in many cases, it's like we're prisoners that have the key on the inside of the prison, right? There are so many things that are in our control that we can pull levers on, right? And where do you pull those levers? And what support do you need to do that? That's a much larger conversation and it's particular for every person. But you know, I'm not the kind of celebrity and I'm not the kind of podcaster that says like, here are the things you need to do in your life. It's going to be amazing. It is hard to be a human. It's really hard to be a human. And it's hard to be a human if you do want to be dialed into what's happening in the world or what's happening in your community or what's actually going on in your children's internal world or what's on their phone. It's hard. And for people who like to, you know, kind of like live in a La La land. Yeah, I'm sure life can seem very easy, but for most of us, it's hard. It's hard to be a caring human. It's hard to be a feeling human. It's hard to be a political human on any side of any political issue, right? So our world is stressful in ways that it never has been before. And this is where people say like, oh, everyone said that every generation said that and our grandparents said that. And absolutely every generation has its challenges. Yeah. When I think about the technological changes that our children have experienced in their lifetime, they're easily adaptable to things that in many cases are not good for them to be adapting to. Like the human brain does not evolve so much in 10 years. When you look at the scope of evolution, our nervous system, the primate nervous system, even the mammalian nervous system is designed for human interaction. It's designed for meaningful connection. Right. It's designed to optimize authenticity of the human experience, right? That's what it's made for. So talking to each other will never be replaced by talking to a computer. It won't. It can do a lot of amazing things. I was talking to a friend of mine who recently became a therapist, a psychotherapist. And she said, you know, I really hope that AI, you know, doesn't determine the next phase of my career. It is always, right? Advantages to speak human to human. And when we think about raising kids, the stress that they are under to compete to get perfect grades, like all of that stuff gets ratcheted up because technology is ratcheting everything up. That's real and that's true. But and the place where Jonathan and I have kind of found this sweet spot in our podcast, especially over the last two years or so, is being in touch with something greater than you, whether it's religion, whether it's other, you know, meditation, spiritual practices, acknowledging that this is not all there is. Your work is not all that you are. Even how well your kids do in school is not all of how you are. There's something larger than us that operates and every physician we speak to, every philosopher we speak to, every theoretical physicist we speak to, acknowledges the same thing. So we get to come at it in all these different ways. Having a connection to something greater than yourself and however you find it. Some people find it through art. Some people find it through meditation. Some people find it through religious practice. That is one of the main things that also supports an immune system that can respond to stress. And no one has connected those things in our lifetime. No, no. No one said that. Now we're seeing it. And now we're seeing it. Right, yeah. Hi, Dr. Shah here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30 year old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60 year olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their chillimeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones and they have limited cell phone battery. Poor sleep, stress, processed foods, all of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with IMA. IMA powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. 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If you go to drshaw.com slash IMA or go to IMA health.com slash discount slash drshaw and you can get 20% off with my discount code drshaw. You can also find the link below. So first of all, on the human connection piece, when I started this podcast a year ago and I sat here talking to people, I just realized like this is the best thing I do. And then I thought about like, why do I feel that way about this podcast? And then I, then I, you know, thought about it as like, I miss having conversations with people. Yeah. Right. Like when we grew up, when we were kids, there were no cell phones at all. No. Only way you communicated was a sentence front of somebody. Yeah. And talk. I remember having hours long conversations with people. Sure. We would, I mean, we would talk on the phone, which I remember my parents were like, the phone is rotting your brain. Like the TV's rotting, everything was rotting my brain. But I remember also, you know, remember when we wanted call waiting? Yes. Like my parents were like, why? Yeah. They'll get a busy signal, right? That was astonishing. But yeah, that kind of human connection. Yeah. It's a lost art. And you see it in young people. It's a lost art. It's very hard to teach kids to look people in the eye, to have these conversations, to call customer service if you need something, you know? Do you remember when texting first started and it was a big thing in China? And it didn't really like take a hold of the United States until later. Trying to think. Yeah. It was probably. Yeah. I mean, I remember also when texting started, it was much more procedural. Yes. It was much more like, what time are we meeting? It almost served like a beeper that you could type in. Exactly. But then it became conversations on text. And I'm like, I think this is where the breakdown in our society happened. I have 100% thanks God. Because you have so many also connections with people that you feel are your friends and you feel you're close with them and you're sharing all these things. But you're actually not really knowing what's going on. You're just reporting things into a phone, right? It's so strange. Right. Right. So I always think back upon that, like when did we lose the art of communication? Yeah. I feel like texting was was number one. And then social media became texting on. Well, and it's just like it's such a time suck. Like we're talking about also stress, like the amount of time that we have given over. No one's, no one is forcing us. Right. No one's holding a gun to our head, except the companies that devise these algorithms. Right. We now know literally we're built out of a desire to hijack attention. Right. To sneak into that dopamine loop. Right. I mean, that's it. You're getting, it's all like you are getting the dopamine system activated. Exactly. Like a drug it is. It's like a drug, which is why it is so hard. I mean, put a teenager through withdrawal is what it looks like when you take away their phone. Exactly. It's like withdrawal. They don't feel good. They can't focus. They don't want to think. They don't want to do anything. I know. They're depressed. Like it's their win withdrawal. Like that's what it is. If you've ever lost Wi-Fi and don't have data, you will see what withdrawal looks like in a teenager, you know, from this dopamine hit. Yeah. And you know, it's so important to emphasize that these dopamine hits are drugs because it's like, it is so true. Like my son, he's very susceptible to this. Like if we take away his iPad, he will literally like spend all day trying to like find it and steal it and try to trick us and play mental games. It's literally, it is, I mean, it is, it's a drug system. It is. Meaning that we're tapping into. And I think that with kids, especially, we're seeing what kind of dopamine burnout looks like. And what it means is there's always the more exciting, the weirder, the stranger, the more inane, you know, you keep looking for it. You see it in porn addiction. Exactly. Where you keep looking for like a bigger hit. You need a bigger hit, a bigger hit. Right. It happens with dopamine like that. I mean, I should also say like there's a nod, you know, in certain aspects of your field for also understanding what good stress looks like. Absolutely. Right. And it's important. And there's certain, you know, kind of stress with a lowercase s, right? Versus stress with a big s. And we want ourselves and our systems to be challenged. Right. There's a certain stress. And this is what cold plunge does for a lot of systems, right? Exactly. Things like that. We want to kind of challenge our bodies. A lot of people do this with like the ketone glucose fasting challenge, which I have a lot of opinions about that. And it can be problematic. But the notion that we are resilient is also something that I think is important to talk about when we talk about stress. Yes. Because the system can seem very fragile when everything can throw us off. Right. Everything can make us reactive. We're yelling at our kids, right? We're blowing up relationships. That's often because you've already passed the level where your body was saying, stop, stop, stop. Like how many ways do you want us to tell you? And then you're like screaming at a person on the freeway and you don't know why. Right. Yeah. Like the body has many ways that it's told you we need stress that's this kind. We don't need so much that's that kind. So I also wanted to give a shout out to positive stress. Yes. Yeah. And you know, I always talk about a lot of this podcast, you're like, those positive stresses are an opportunity for you to relearn how to balance your nervous system. Right. So if you're like, for example, we have a cryotherapy chamber here, right? And there's one way to walk into a cryotherapy chamber all stressed out. Yes. I can't believe I'm doing this. You're clenched. Yes. You go in and you can't wait to get out and it's like it's a very- That's not optimal. That is not optimal. Instead, you go in, do some breath work, you realize- You have an intention. With intention, right? Exactly. And that moment of parasympathetic regulation and sympathetic regulation, you carry that through the three-minute experience and come out. And it's a game changer for people. Well, and also the fact that like the notion of intention has scientific basis. And this is where we used to have this divide, right? There's the woo-woo people out there who are like talking about past lives and energy centers and all these things and manifesting, blah, blah. But then we have the true science of like, what does it mean to manifest, right? So there's actually an environment that you can create in your nervous system that is more likely to be able to receive positivity. That's actually a thing. When you talk about breath work, when you stimulate the vagus nerve, when you say to your nervous system, the only way I can be breathing like this is if I'm not running from a predator, right? When we learn to breathe into our belly and not just into our shoulders at our chest, right? Like that kind of breathing tells your nervous system something's wrong. So when we're setting that intention and we're breathing and we are regulating our HRV, when we're lowering our heart rate, when we're getting into that like, how do we get to theta, right? How do we get there? What does meditation teach us for thousands of years? People have known this. This is not like, oh, guess what? We've got this new thing. They figured this thing out, right? Correct. Like for thousands of years, yogis and mystics have been saying this. That creates what's kind of like a cellular environment, right? For an advantageous experience. So when people are like, I tried it, it didn't work for me. What was the environment that you were presenting when you stepped into that chamber? Right, right. You know, it's kind of like you can grit your way through a transcendental meditation 20 minutes. It's not going to have that kind of impact, you know? And it's really sad because people want all of medicine to work like it's Western. Right. That doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. And like everybody wants Advil, right? They want the ibuprofen. It's like, it hurt, now it doesn't. Guess what? That's not how your nervous system actually works. And if you take too much, you're going to get an ulcer, right? Exactly. Right. Or worse. Some people, exactly. Or worse, right? Yeah. And so, you know, I think about this. The other side of this that you mentioned was attention and how, you know, I think about the neurology of attention, right? Like there's different types of attention that we have. And I think we've also become very disconnected from the ability to maintain attention, right? Sure. And people talk a lot about attention deficit disorder. That's one thing. But I think we all have a level of not knowing anymore how to control our attention. Yeah. I mean, look, there's, you know, there's attention, there's perception, right? These are sort of related kind of concepts, at least from like a neuropsychological perspective and like neuro anatomical perspective. But, you know, people like Yohan Hari, you know, who, he's a journalist and an author, you know, but his, you know, his book on attention brought to the forefront a very complicated and painful notion, which is as a culture, we can effectively give ourselves varying levels of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Exactly. And one of the ways is by burning out our dopamine sources, right? One of the ways is by constantly toggling. One of the ways is by promoting and, you know, highlighting and rewarding multitasking when what it actually is, is dividing your attention to a level that your nervous system will then get used to and expect. And having constant stimulation from your phone, even knowing your phone is in the room, even if it's on the other side of the room, changes your ability to toggle, right? Yes. And to pay attention. So like, and I'm not saying that, that ADHD is not a real diagnosis. Of course it is. Like it's not for me to say I'm not a physician. It's not my specialty. But what are the components that we can modify? And guess what? No one wants to think about diet. It impacts every component of our attention. Absolutely. It impacts every component of autism spectrum, meaning when people were like, you can cure autism with diet. Of course you can't. That's ridiculous. But are there components of the body's system that react differently to ultra-processed foods? There are. Don't believe the FDA when they're like, everything's fine. Eat your processed meats. Don't listen to the FDA. Like listen to them with other things if you'd like to. But when we think about the features of autism spectrum diagnosis, when we talk about the features of ADHD, when we talk about anxiety and you have this beautiful overlap, right? How many venn diagrams do you need between autism, between anxiety and between ADHD? Exactly. There's a fascinating overlap. And at the heart of it is a lot of lifestyle decisions that people like RFK Jr. do no favors to people because in my opinion, it's so out there and the messenger is so not able to be interpreted. Like I don't even know. But when we talk about things like food dyes, that the rest of the world for decades have said, no one should be eating this and the US is holding firm. Like no, we should be eating all these dyes. They're delicious. Those are the kind of things that do have an impact. When you eat sugar makes a difference. Absolutely. Children drinking caffeine, guess what? For those of them that are susceptible to attention problems, it may be the drug that you use instead of Adderall, but we have to like have larger conversations about how we treat attention. And TV, we knew wasn't fantastic for us when we watched it this close and our parents were like, it's going to hurt your eyes. Think of all the media that our children are now seeing and getting at all times. My 20 year old says, I don't even want to be on this thing. And he said, it's like you're in a cycle. And it's because companies are stealing your attention. Now it's so true. And even TV shows, like now they engineer these TV shows with like the movement of the characters to like give you those dopamine hits because I know that's what's going to keep your kid glued to the TV. Try and watch an 80s movie with your teenager or your kid. They can't do it. They're so bored. It's like, why does everything take so long? And even me, I like rewatched some old movies from when I was a teenager and I was like, we're taking a lot of time and character development here. It was so different. And that is the change that we can see. But like I said, it doesn't take a neuroscientist to tell you the human brain does not evolve like that. Well, not in 20 years. Correct. It doesn't evolve like that. That in the time since phones started, oh, my brain is programmed for this. No, it's not. It's programmed to look me in the eye, tell me how you're feeling, cry when you're sad, laugh when you're happy, hug each other, hold hands, you know, like have time before bed to process everything that just happened, like falling asleep with your phone grownups. It's like the same thing that it does to kids. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the things that we do as grownups, they magnify in our kids. Oh, totally. Because the kids' brains aren't developed enough to be resilient to it. But I'm just saying heads up grownups. Even though we tell our kids not to do it, you also should not be doing it. Absolutely. And we all do it. Like that's the thing. It's a painful realization. The damage is invisible until it actually becomes too late, sadly. And just stacks. Autoimmune diagnoses, even the diseases that plague us in so many cases. Sure. All the chronic diseases. All the chronic diseases are in many cases preventable because of diet and lifestyle. They just are. And we get, it's too late. You know, by the time most of us are diagnosed, but for women in particular, when you get to menopause, you know, you're then having a totally different hormonal situation. And autoimmune diagnoses are on the rise. Everyone should be wondering what's going on. In many cases, it's how we're living. But it's also environmental toxin. All those things that the hippies were like, maybe we shouldn't be using this. Guess what? It matters. They were right. It matters. Yeah. Absolutely matters. So, you know, I, going back to like attention deficit and autism and, you know, all these diagnoses out of this Venn diagram, which is absolutely true. Like you can't separate all these things and give them names. I mean, you can try and thank God they're specialists that do. Right. But yeah. But I had Christopher Palmer on this podcast. You know who he is? He wrote this incredible book called Brain Energy and he basically said that all these, you know, thousands of named psychological conditions, you can, you can go down to a few root causes, right? And metabolic health is one of them for sure. Yeah. To your point, the food that we're eating, right? Correct. Secondly. And the way that we're eating it. And the way, yeah. Absolutely. And then the health of our gut, right? I mean, our microbiome has a lot to do with this. If your gut's inflamed, your brain's inflamed. And if your brain's inflamed, your gut's inflamed. That's so true. And those are things that are happening like below your brain, like in this part of the body, right? And above here, we're also causing damage equal to that or maybe even more with the task switching, with the dopamine hits, right? Oh, and also like with alcohol, with weed being so ubiquitous. It's like, I feel fine. What are you actually doing to feel fine? And with the over-prescription of pharmaceuticals in place of mental health support, psychotherapy, time, you know, yes. That's all the above the neck. Yeah. So above the neck and the below the neck damage is adding up to this kind of massive Venn diagram of mental health issues that we have, right? And so, you know, I think that the conversation around mental health for so long has just been, if you have a mental health issue, see a psychiatrist, get prescribed a- If you can afford it. And if not, good luck. Right. Exactly. So one of the platforms that you've been, you know, I think empowering a lot of people is to not put mental health into that bucket of, you know, so I'd love to, you know, kind of talk about that. Like, how do you, when you talk about Medaulathe and your podcast, like, what are some of the advice you can give people that are struggling? Well, yeah. I mean, as I said, the goal for us was to try and democratize mental health. We started during COVID when, you know, me with basically an entire life of therapy under my belt, you know, I've tried every different medication there is in every combination over the course of my life, you know, to deal with mental health issues, including hormones, you know, because as a teenager, that's what they do. They put you on the pill, right? So there's all this like regulation of mood. But, you know, during COVID, I was freaking out, right? I had all this anticipatory anxiety. Yeah. Sleep got disrupted, food got disrupted. I was overeating, you know, all these things. And Jonathan and I said to ourselves, if me, with all of my years of training, therapy, you know, 12 step groups for eating, you know, if this is happening, what about people who haven't had any support? So we wanted to create a place to even define for people. Do you know the difference between anxiety and depression? Do you know the difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack? They're actually different things, right? We started with just sort of educating people and we had guests on who would speak from personal experience. That's how we started. And guess what kept coming up? Addiction. Filling the God shaped hole. And spirituality as a solution for grounding yourself. So that's where our podcast kind of shifted and maybe the mental health conversation needs to be bigger, right? And in many cases it's bigger and sometimes it's actually smaller. The answer is right in here, right? If we tap into a notion of self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-love, right? What the Yogis and Mystics have been talking about for thousands of years, our body has a better capacity to deal with whatever comes at it. That was sort of like the plainest way that we sort of evolved. Yeah. So the podcast was kind of born from the magnified struggles during COVID. Correct. In people's lives and that you were noticing. Correct. Even in yourself. Yeah. And so in terms of what we tell people, we are big proponents of talk therapy. I believe in it very strongly. I believe in it really for everyone. And I'm not saying you have to be in therapy forever. I'm not saying you have to love psychotherapy, but talking about your feelings is a skill that helps you process and metabolize emotionally, right? That was sort of one thing. For many people, they really think they can figure it out on their own. Right. I did that for years. We do until we don't. And that's really the thing. So in many cases, we're trying to empower people to advocate for themselves. And that can be really hard because our medical system is really compromised, especially in this department. And I grew up, my dad was a public school teacher. So I grew up at Kaiser and I love Kaiser and I love the doctors that work there, but they're overwhelmed. Right. They're underserved. And yeah, how much do you expect a doctor to do when they can have 10 minutes with you? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people need to know how to advocate for themselves to be able to say, I need a referral, to be able to say, I need more help, or to be able to say, I think this might be connected. So that's a lot of what we encourage people to do also is to believe that you don't have to do it on your own. And we do make very practical suggestions of things like getting off your phone, learning to breathe. Before you even learn to meditate, learn to breathe. Absolutely. Learn to breathe into your belly. If you've ever been to a yoga class, they will teach you how to do it. Learn to breathe into your belly. It does wonders for your nervous system. The next level up would be to learn meditation. And there are all different kinds of meditation. If you can't sit still, there's walking meditations you can do. Learning to focus your energy, it is good for your nervous system. Any vagus nerve support that people can do, people don't understand what it means when we say that humming is actually good. Breathing deeply and low and like that kind of vibration. Exactly, that's what OM was made for. It stimulates your nervous system to know also how to regulate. A huge thing that we see when we talk to humans is an imbalance in the sympathetic and parasympathetic system. So anything that sort of brings those back into balance. Exercise, enormous. Move your body every day. Move your body every day. In many cases, SSRIs are actually not what's going to be the most helpful. For some people they are and that's fantastic. But for the people who take SSRIs and say, I'm still depressed, what's wrong, many psychiatrists will give you a second pill and I see the commercials on TV. I know. Oh, your SSRI is not working. It's because you need this other pill to make it work. That may be the solution. I am not a psychiatrist. I don't give medical advice. However, there are incredible studies about cognitive behavioral therapy. So if talk therapy is not for you, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, these are things that go toe to toe with SSRIs in some really, really beautiful large studies. We know that CBT can help in many cases where SSRIs don't. But moving your body is one of those things. Those are the big ones. And also, drinking, pot use, edibles, everybody loves an edible, everybody's micro dosing this, that and the other. If you want to figure out why you're doing something, stop doing it. If when you stop doing those things, you find yourself plagued by thoughts, feelings, fears, anxiety, you then find yourself overfeeding yourself. Chances are you need to speak to someone about what's going on. Because those are things that everybody's using. But I often dig deeper when people are like, I'm fine. Everything's great. It's like, oh, but you are needing to smoke weed all day. It's like, is that the only solution? Yeah. It's kind of like, it's just another pharmaceutical covering up the symptoms of something deeper. And it's going to end up just exploding after a while anyway. And I just want to add to that list, which is an amazing list. Like if you are struggling with any mental health issues, there's so many pieces of this puzzle, including getting exercise, avoiding ultra process food, learning breath work, learning how to regulate your parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system. I'll add going outside. Oh, yes. Nature. Going out into nature. That's something greater than yourself, as I would categorize it. Right? Absolutely. Get off your phone and get outside. Yes, exactly. All of these can contribute to healing from these emotional psychological disturbances. You have to do all of them together. It's not just one pill. And that's what really sucks. That's what really sucks. It's like everybody wants the one thing. And again, it's because we're raised in a Western capitalist culture. Right? Yes, yes. Like what gets us there the quickest, the fastest? Can I throw money at the problem with this kind of thing? Yes, it helps to throw money at the problem sometimes. But ultimately, like I said, I do feel like we're all prisoners inside a prison that we have the key to. There's so many levers that we can pull also in ways that don't cost money. Sometimes we do have to invest in our health that way. And that's also really hard to navigate. But that's another thing. This is a human right to have access to this information. Yeah, so true. You know, there's one piece of this that's hard for me to reconcile is that I grew up in a family, in a culture, in a time, or there's a huge stigma around talking about your mental health. If you talked about it, you were weak. And you just have to get over it. Right? And people even now on social media are yelling at the camera saying, if you're depressed, stop being depressed. What's wrong with you? Yeah, I mean, a lot of this has become very politicized. Yes. Where it's seen that like, oh, certain people are just like, they're like, it's snowflakes and they can't handle anything and they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I think a lot of this has become unfortunately politicized. There's always going to be people who want to shove this aside. And I think it's also important. And I don't know that I can fix everyone. I don't know that you can fix everyone. But to keep trying to give support to people who are noticing that they are a human being and not a human doing. And when we see, especially in communities that historically don't talk about these things, it's important to have role models and advocates. And I think that's another thing that we try and do on our podcast. We try and show all different kinds of people from all different backgrounds. Some of them are poor, some of them are rich. We have people of all religious faiths, of none, who come on to talk about the importance of being in touch with something greater than yourself, the importance of nature and that relationship. These things touch everyone and it's very kind of trite to say it's a sign of strength to ask for help, not weakness. But the fact is like the stigma is real because it's kind of like people do wonder, well, what can you take? What can you tolerate? Am I going to be able to employ you? Right? These are some of the real fears. Yeah. So true. You know, it is a sign of strength to seek help and not a sign of weakness. And the main thing is so important. Even though it might sound trite, it's so true for the people looking for help. For men in particular. And that's something that Jonathan talks about on our podcast. And a lot of women are like, men have had all of medical history to talk about things. But this is an arena where we really do need to remind men that, you know, especially if you want to be a partner, your partner is going to want someone who is in touch with themselves, who can communicate, who can feel deeply and who can process that. And you know, I'm raising two boys and it's been really fascinating and I'm grateful that they're growing up in this time because there's still some of that you can't avoid it. You know, boys don't cry. Like that still, that happens no matter what you say. But just the notion that your feelings matter and if you keep them inside, they will start wearing away at your immune system, at your ability to process food, all these things. You know, once I explain that to my boys, like if you have inflammation that is causing you depression, anxiety, it's going to hit your gut next, you know. And then it's going to kind of start ricocheting, you know. I think just about a year ago, there was a study published, I think in Cell magazine, where they showed that your emotional centers of your brain have a direct connection to the immune cells. That's right. It's a beautiful study. I mean, right there, like it gives me chills just even thinking about it. Correct. There is a connection between your immune system and your emotions. Well, and the best explanation I've heard of this is that if you think about your immune system as protecting what comes in and what comes out, your emotional system is doing the same thing. Oh, that's so true. What can come in, what can come out? How do I regulate it? What barriers can I put up? That is where it literally is, it's one and the same. Yeah. And so true. Well, the other thing I want to talk to you about is something that I've talked about a few times on this podcast, and I'm sure you have too, is this notion of your childhood traumas. And, you know, so many of us have some level, and you can even do like a test, like what is your childhood trauma score? Oh, it's a real hoot to do that test. Yeah, exactly. That's a good time. It's so funny. It's first date material. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, I think there's certain levels of this for many people, and I don't think I grew up in a time once again that you're not supposed to even talk about it. It's not even worth talking about it. It's just like suppress it. And then now there's more and more research coming out that a lot of what we deal with and a lot of our reactions, a lot of our emotions have a lot to do with our supposed childhood traumas. Will you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a topic for, you know, an entire podcast. You know, I would refer people to Gabor Maté to the myth of normal, which is also like if you want to read one book about what is ailing us, the things that we've been told, oh, it's just normal. It's normal. Guess what? It's not, you know, so the myth of normal is a great place. Incredible book. The body keeps the score is sort of, I would say the more extreme end of this spectrum. Because we have lowercase t trauma and we have uppercase t trauma. And if everyone's traumatized, no one's traumatized. So there also needs to be ways for us to understand, meaning you could say for all of human history, there's been trauma and there has been. I mean, think of war, slavery, the way women have been treated and continue to be treated historically in certain parts of the world as well. Trauma runs through our existence. So in that case, you can't be like, we're all traumatized and that's all affecting everything. We know the things that our systems are dealing with. But when we talk about these specific traumas, if you grow up in an abusive home, if you grow up in a home where there is alcoholism, if you grow up in a home where even someone has chronic disease that you're dealing with, if you grow up in a home where there's poverty or strife, if you grow up in a home where you are hit, where you see your parent hit, these are the things that do stay in certain bodies in different ways. And this is the hard thing. Every body is different. And there's only so many twin studies we can do. And there are only so many ethical studies that we can do to try and figure this out. But the way that I think about it, you don't know what template you're getting when you have a child or when you are a child. Some children will see things and it will stay with them forever. Other children will see those things and it won't stay with them forever. So there's not a hard and fast here, but we do have really good longitudinal studies about, for example, hitting children. I like to know you can't hit a dog, right? You can't hit your wife. And here we are still trying to promote, like, oh, sometimes you have to hit a kid, right? So like those things we know have impact. And then we have the vast catalog of trauma that falls under sexual abuse. And that falls under these kinds of abuse also that happens as adults. And I'm not saying that those are different more or less, but when we think about what sexual assault, what rape does, what trafficking and growing up in strife, growing up in war. I mean, we can look all over the world now and our hearts break for what's happening all over the world to children being raised like this. The body will react to that and the body does keep the score. So what are the things that we can do? Obviously working on all these issues and protests and all these things we have to do to try and stop this kind of trauma from existing. But there are also people who believe like intergenerational trauma is not a thing. It's a thing and there's really fascinating scientific research and a lot of it, a lot of really phenomenal research came out of Israel kind of post-Holocaust to show the kind of the origins of what we now know is the way that your grandparents experience things do impact you. So the way I describe it, the egg that I was was in my grandmother when she was fleeing pogroms. When she was being separated from her siblings who were being sent to concentration camps. The egg that is now me was in her body. What does that mean? How does that work? What is epigenetics? But these things matter. And I will say that historically women have borne the brunt of a lot of trauma that we have been instructed to push down. And part of that is not like I'm not trying to say that men are horrible and the patriarchy this that, but when I think about how my grandmother was raised, she was raised to be someone's wife. And love marriages is a very recent thing in human history. And in many cases, people would fall in love and build lives together. But the harsh reality is that for most of human history, women were really supporting a lot of emotional labor that is passed on in particular. So trauma is real. I do believe intergenerational trauma is real. And a bad date does not constitute trauma, meaning if you don't link the restaurant that he picked. And I don't mean to say that that can't be upsetting and triggers, but when we think about kind of social media and the pathologizing that we do of behavior, this is a place where I think trauma is getting kind of misunderstood and misinterpreted. Because if everything is a trigger and everything is a trauma, it doesn't allow us to actually understand the nomenclature necessary to get people the support that they need. And so there's a lot of comedians who do a lot of funny things about this generation and like, I was traumatized when my coffee was wrong, things like that. But I think we also do need to right size it and be aware that social media gives the opportunity. You can diagnose yourself autistic in a heartbeat. You can find out all sorts of diagnoses and he's narcissistic. I mean, I took a quiz that told me I might have Tourette's and I was like, I'm certain I don't. And what it was was the questions about, do you sometimes feel a compulsive need to correct people? And I said, yes, I do. Pretty certain that it's not on the Tourette's level, but we need to be careful with trauma also because there's so much information out there that is not necessarily scientifically grounded or clinically grounded. And in many ways can kind of erode what we do need support for in the trauma arena. Yeah. Yeah. And I think to your point, it's really important that people get clear on what is truly a trauma and then explore what was traumatic in your life. All the things that you said, you could add to that like bullying or maybe got really sick when you were a child. Those things can be, or you saw family members. But we're also very resilient. We're also very resilient. And I think that's a piece, especially for young people, that we need to remind them. We are very, very resilient and women in particular, like we are giving birth to humans that we've grown in our body and then we keep them alive. Women are very, very resilient. Absolutely. So I think that's important too, that we reemphasize that as we sort of diagnose these things. Yeah. And I think too, like, I mean, there's two sides to this. There's traumas that's kind of causing you to act in a specific way and to understand like how do your traumas inform your current decision-making processes, inform the way that you're reacting to things. I think that's the reason that you really try to dive into some of these traumas. Yeah. You right? Well, and I think also the danger is, you know, I read a really great article by Freya India about this. I think it was on the Free Press and it was saying, and she is this generation, she said, this generation has turned everything into a clinical diagnosis. That's true. So if you're kind, am I a people pleaser? You know, if you do something for your boyfriend, am I codependent? He puts, you know, his need to visit his mother over, you know, your dinner date and, you know, he's a narcissistic. He's a narcissist also. Exactly. So I think that's also part of it is that we have all of this nomenclature that needs to be, you know, modified depending on situation. Right. You know, a big thing now too is the use of psychedelics and traumas and attention deficit, all these things. And do you think that there's a role? Do you think we're overstating the role right now? How do you think this is all going to land eventually? So I fall on the side of, and we've had Rick Doblin on, you know, very early. Oh yeah, I love Rick. Yeah. I fall on the side of the notion of, you know, psychedelics as a criminal narcotic enterprise that the government, you know, essentially kind of thrust upon us, it has hurt a lot of people. And I do think that psilocybin assisted therapy, if done in a clinically appropriate licensed manner, I think it's incredibly transformative, especially for people who have complex PTSD, for people who have trauma that is outside of the realms of what a lot of other avenues are exploring. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy, we have a little less information about however, very, very powerful and fascinating research again about this, not as a party drug, not as even something you're doing recreationally. And I think that's the thing, if people want to have mushroom journeys, like have a great time. That's not what I'm talking about. And that's not what we're talking about when we speak about this, especially for things like PTSD. There's amazing, amazing work that is done when you are able to access something greater than yourself, especially for terminal patients, death fear, and all of these studies. The DMT, I mean, that's like very, again, less research than psilocybin. But I think that this notion that again, that the government decides to say that like expansion of consciousness when used in a therapeutic modality is criminal, or there's no, I think, like there's no medical, that's not even true. There's plenty of legitimate medical support for it. And I think it's an incredibly important field. Yeah, I totally, and I talked to Rick Doblin quite a bit a couple of weeks ago actually, and he's doing such pioneering work and trying to get this back to clinical medical use. Sadly, there are people still using it very recreationally. Yeah, it's not for me to say. And also, the notion of microdosing and kind of, there's a lot of articles about like the moms who are microdosing and things like that. I mean, I think it's speaking to kind of everything that we've spoken about. It's speaking to people being burnt out, tapped out, women in particular, not having support or resources, and us thinking that we need to live up to some, you know, goal of being like perfect and, you know, having every hour of our children's live schedule that that's going to lead to happiness, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a role also in just giving yourself some grace to, especially if you're a woman, and giving yourself... But yeah, but I think we should listen, you know, when people, especially women who have a tremendous amount of financial resources and access to help, when those women are, you know, saying there's an unhappiness and an emptiness and I just can't get through the day, to me that points to a larger societal problem. What is going on that people feel the need essentially to disconnect, you know? I mean, that's... And in many cases, you know, psilocybin microdosing can be used therapeutically, but when it's just like I feel shitty and I'd rather be stoned all the time, we all have to wonder what's going on here. I know. This is a numbing of the mind as people are trying to get there too. Yeah, it's the God-shaped hole, yeah. Yeah, the God-shaped hole. On the topic of God, and you've said a few times, is God-shaped hole in people's lives? You know, there's so many definitions of God and how to bring, how to fill this hole, right? And so, you know, obviously, you can have a religious practice. You can have spiritual practice as not religious, but I think a lot of people just even shy away from spirituality completely nowadays because it's just not something that we've completely dispatched with society. And it's been associated with a lot of woo-woo things, which I get. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So how do you help those people fill this hole? I mean, look, the fact is you're welcome to run from this, you know, for as long as you'd like to, right? You can try and avoid tapping into something for as long as you'd like to. Organized religion is definitely not for everybody. There's a lot of, you know, patriarchy to it. There's a lot of historical, horrible, problematic aspects to it. There's not a religious practice that hasn't had some crisis of, you know, controversy, in addition to the things we all know about religion, which is that people kill in the name of God and all these things. However, the truth is that, you know, just like gravity exists and I don't have to wish it away and I don't have to pray for it every day, I'm a human being with consciousness and I'm observing all the wavelengths that are not absorbed, right, of every particle that exists. And the same thing that created the universe that we live in, the big bang. However you want to, however far back you want to go, however many tens of billions of years you want to go back, that's the experience that we're having now on a planet that is hurtling through space, held by some elliptical force, right? So whatever level of like, wow, you'd like to have, that's divine. And that wow moment, that like, oh my goodness, it's the same thing as when you see your lover across the room. That feeling, I call it like that elevator drop feeling when your gut goes like, oh my gosh, right? Like that feeling is what every energy worker will tell you to tap into and generate. That's divine. So religious people will call that God. They'll have lots of rituals and fascinating things that their culture devised, you know, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, there's lots of ways to pray to it, to try and focus it, to harness it, to put it in your body. Those are all the things that humans do. But for me, there's only one source. There's gravity. There's all the forces of physics, the things that math tries to explain. Like we're all, that to me, that's oneness, like that's unity. And some religions have hundreds of gods, thousands of gods, and others have one. They all have the same force of gravity. It's my favorite example. Things will always fall at negative 9.8 feet per second square. Like that's just what's going to happen. That's going to happen no matter where. That's what we are asking non-religious, non-spiritual people to tap into. Whatever makes you feel wow, if it's the stars in the sky, amazing. If it's a tree, if it's a hike, if it's remembering what it feels like to give birth, if it's watching someone transition to the next world, whatever it is, that's the source of healing. And so when you see all these religions, like God is love, like it's not just because they want to sell you something. It's because for thousands of years, people have been tapping into like, there's something special about the fact that we're having this conversation. There's something special about our existence. That's divine. And yeah, there's different ways to pray to it into this that you don't, it's like, I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but like it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah. If you could have an experience of wow, of gratitude, of thankfulness, of maybe it doesn't matter the number on the scale, maybe it doesn't matter the wrinkles. Can you find someone who loves all the imperfect parts of you? That's divine. So true. And that does fill that hole. And that can help solve a lot of things. For sure. Wow, this is incredible conversation. Thank you so much. I could talk you for hours. Thank you. And I appreciate all that you do. I know that also in your field, you've seen so many changes. And so I know how hard you and your team work to try and help people do better for themselves. And even though we talk a lot about nutrition and medicine and hormones and all these things, all the things that we just talked about today is such an important big piece of the occasion. And I'm so thankful to you to bring that here to the R Podcast. Thank you. And I know this is a major topic of your podcast. Oh, yeah. If you could tell the audience the name of your podcast, how to find it and all that stuff. I'd love for them to get more of this content. Yeah. Our podcast is at my YouTube channel, but it's called My MBLX Breakdown. But you can go to my YouTube channel and that's where it is. And then we're at Bialik Breakdown is our Instagram. We're on Substack, My MBLX Breakdown. And then I miss Mayim everywhere else. Amazing. So yeah, that's us. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you for coming. Thank you. And look forward to talking again soon. Thank you. Thank you. Before I wrap up, here are five key takeaways that I had from today's conversation with Dr. Mayim Bialik. Number one, science is for everyone and curiosity can start anywhere. A tutor on set first sparked Mayim's love for science. That early interest led her to a PhD program, lab work and functional neuroimaging and research on Prater-Willi syndrome through a hypothalamic lens. Number two, our modern world is overwhelming our biology. Technology, ultra-processed foods, chronic distraction and constant dopamine hits pushed the brain into imbalance. The nervous system can't evolve as fast as our environment, which is why stress, anxiety and burnout are skyrocketing. Number three, lifestyle is medicine and most chronic disease is preventable. Gut health, inflammation, diet, movement and breath work all influence brain function and emotional regulation. Regulating the vagus nerve, moving daily, eating real food and spending time in nature are foundational, not optional. Number four, connection is not optional for human health. From mental health struggles during the pandemic to launching her podcast, Mayim emphasizes that humans are wired for community. Therapy, vulnerability and asking for help are not weaknesses, they're biological necessities. Number five, trauma is real but so is resilience. Intergenerational trauma, childhood experiences and stress can leave biological imprints, but the narrative that everything is trauma dilutes this science. Understanding what trauma truly is helps us grow, heal and reconnect with a sense of meaning, gratitude and something bigger than ourselves that supports the immune system and reduces stress. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and is always important to seek their guidance.