Movement Makes Us Human: Kelly McGonigal, PhD | Rich Roll Podcast

Well, it's interesting even before we get into your amazing work. First of all, I am very excited that you are here. Thanks for coming. Yes, we are dealing with potential fires in the area, which is a bit stress inducing. I could move, yeah I'm fine, but so far I think we're safe and I think we'll be fine for the next two hours, but we're keeping an eye on it. Your relationship with your sister is super interesting and when. I think about the work you do and the work your sister does, it feels like the Whiskey sisters wait, tell me what that is, oh you don't know, so these three women who are super successful, I went to school at Stanford with Janet and she is a doctor at UCSF who specializes in telomeres like super successful and the CEO of YouTube and the CEO of 23andme are the other two and they have this amazing mother ester, they went to Palo Alto High School and she is become a guru of education because how did you raise these three incredible daughters?

I get that question a lot, yeah, how do you feel or how do you think about that? I always tell people, so I think the way you end up with daughters Like my sister and I, the best thing they did was encourage us with anything we had any interest or aptitude in, often in very unusual ways. , so my sister and I had very creative interests and instead of doing it in a small way. they would find a way to let us do it in a big way so I remember my sister got really interested in this TV show when we were in high school and it was right when Prodigy was coming out like you can go on the internet and somehow my parents encouraged her to develop a newsletter for the entire country based on the home front of the show, so she was like producing a newsletter and finding other Prodigy fans and sending it out, and we were always doing that kind of thing, it was like, oh you.

I'm interested in this, well, don't just sit there and watch the TV show, which is the craziest version that you could get involved with even when you were a kid, so we were always doing these creative projects and I often feel like even when their interests were It's not very consistent with my parents' values ​​because they were both teachers. I was really interested in fashion design for a while and I think that made my mom

roll

her eyes, but she still let me take classes at a Fashion Design Institute when I was in high school, so I guess which is because you know we probably could have been pretty successful at anything we did, but we're both doing really weird things with our lives, like non-traditional paths, yeah, it's almost like a homeschooling technique where you look at the person who the young person is interested in and you just take advantage of that or invest a lot in trying to channel that interest into learning experiences that are a little bit broader, actually, that's like my mother's great gift as an educator, so she was a classroom educator. , she taught everything from kindergarten to the end of high school and her secret, the reason parents loved her is because she found out what kids were obsessed with or what their talents were and found ways to bring them out to shine even. students that other teachers thought were problem students, so I feel like we only have 18 years of that, yeah, we need more of that.

Do you do that with your students? It has to be harder, you're giving a lecture, so it's different, right? to teaching because I teach a lot and I do tutoring, a non-academic type of tutoring. I'm always looking for the good in that person that you can tell they want to be true for them, but maybe it's not fully developed yet and I try to be a mirror for that, so if I see that seed, it's the first thing I tell them about. I give feedback so they know that's part of who they are and that it's in them, and I find ways to amplify that good and what I feel.

That's pretty much the same thing, yes, it's empowering and the person should feel that I'm okay, that they're being seen well and there's nothing more encouraging than having that feeling or that feeling, yes, very cool, okay, you've done all this incredible. Work in the fields of everything from compassion to willpower to stress, which we can talk about all of that, but I feel like now you're synergizing everything you've learned in those other fields and channeling it into this world of

movement

. , seems. as an obvious next step, but how did your interest in exercise and

movement

come about?

Yes, it is actually the opposite of synthesis or the next step. This is who I really am and I think all the work that people know me for. It's like it's a part of who I am that I really care about. It's like a class where I taught the science of willpower or the science of stress, but I've been in love with movement and exercise since I was a kid. The girl and I have been teaching group fitness for 20 years, so it's more like I can finally solve some other problems for people now, we have that willpower under control, we are getting good with stress, now I can convince dancing people or run or swim or really put your whole body into the pursuit of happiness and connection.

How come it wasn't the first book I didn't think was right? Okay, so my approach to posting has always been to wait for someone to ask me. I what book should I write Nexo my first book was yoga for pain relief and it was because an editor literally sent me a letter in the mail saying we had seen the work you are doing on yoga at various conferences and in research um Do you want to write a book about that? No, okay and then I was teaching this class called the science of willpower that was getting a lot of notoriety because it was so popular and then agents started saying you should write a book about this.

I said okay and then I gave that TED talk, you should write a book about that, okay, and this was the first book where I said this is the book I really like. No one was asked in the book I probably wanted to write my whole life. life and finally now maybe having some kind of platform where people are interested in finding out why, yes, exercise is so fundamental to mental health. Yeah, well, in any book of this type you're expected to explain step by step how to... and you said or wrote that that was your expectation going into this and then it turned into something else entirely, so explain it a little.

Yes, I thought about what happened for two reasons, one is that I thought I was going to write this. Kind of a self-help book that was like if you think you don't like moving, you think you don't enjoy it. I believe there is a form of movement meant for everyone and it doesn't matter what body you're in or no matter what. Your past experience is that there's probably a way that moving your body will give you access to something you want, whether it's social connection or the hope of having a different sense of self, so I thought, well, I'll just write the book that helps people figure out what saying is, and when I wrote the proposal my editor didn't really like it, she's not really a self-help person, so the only reason she's not is because she actually encouraged me to asking what's the big idea here and for For me, the equivalent of what's the big idea is really what's the feeling here, so I feel like she gave me permission to think not just about how to make your work more meaningful and pleasant, but also to really think about what the feeling is. that I have when I marvel at what the body is like, it is almost designed to help us find happiness and meaning through movement, what is that feeling, that sense of wonder and what does it tell us about being

human

and when did I have permission to think about that?

The way I feel like it opened me up to a different kind of story as well and I feel like that was the other part of how it turned out to not necessarily be a step-by-step self-help book was when I started talking. Talking to people about movement, one of the things I realized is that when you talk to people who have found meaning and movement, they become this version of themselves when they tell you their story, which is this amazing mix. of incredible vulnerability and strength that somehow both emerge and you can see this whole

human

being in this tremendous glory and beauty and I felt like I had to do that justice when people were telling me their stories and like they were crying and I was crying, I thought I don't believe.

This is going to be some kind of cheesy self-help book that I needed to write a book that somehow honored the versions of themselves that they shared with me, you know, they were talking about how do you know how to grow, change your life, yeah, yeah, Yeah. No, I get it, I mean, you're listening, you're speaking my language, you don't have to tell me like you don't, you know, it's funny because when I read the book I think I'm not really the audience for this because I'm already sold on it. They were selling a bundle of products that I bought a long time ago, but I learned a lot about a lot of things that I didn't know and I think what we are uniquely qualified to do is take these ideas that can descend very quickly into the world of woowoo, as if I were to write this book, it would be crazy, woowoo, but you can accept this version.

I mean, first of all, you could say thank you. you for putting me in the book was a woowoo, we quote, you know, I look at it as you know, movement is an integral part of what it means to be human, it is also a journey that we can embark on, that will, you know that catalyzes this trajectory towards wholeness spiritually, emotionally, mentally, of course, physically, so you sound like the reverence with which I speak, that's almost exactly what she said about the movement. Yes, and it's a beautiful thing and I think it's important. that each human being discovers the movement version of themselves that is compatible with who they are, but it is a very powerful kind of Archimedean lever for personal growth in all areas, but getting back to my point, you are able to do it because of your pedigree. you can inject science, anthropology, psychology and all these interesting anecdotes that come from meeting a wide spectrum of different types of people, from the athletes themselves to the researchers and knowing how to immerse yourself in the research itself, yes and and I think that does it emotionally engaging to the reader and you're always changing topics, but yeah, it's about self-discovery as much as anything else, but it's also about community and cooperation and all these other ideas, how are you?

I think that was the biggest surprise for me because if you look at the thread of my previous work, I keep coming back to this idea that nothing is a do-it-yourself project, like every problem I've tried to solve. solve I'm always pointing people in the direction of making it social make it community get support you know let social connection be your primary response to stress but somehow even though I would live and experience a great sense of community and belonging through the movement and the teaching of movement. Somehow I didn't think that was going to be the main lens of this book, you know, sinking, oh, you know, the endorphin rush and how it changes the brain, and I didn't understand how full the joy of movement is. joy of connection and how completely integrated in our brains and our bodies the biology of movement is with the biology of social connection, it was a big surprise to me and I was so happy that that came up as a topic, yeah, how.

Do you compare that to the kind of experience that's certainly true, but there's also something that you talk about like I forget what you call it, like green or green exercise where you connect with nature as a big part of just speaking from my own experience is that a big part of this for me is the time I spend alone, like in nature, and I don't really train much with other people, since sometimes I find it stressful having to be in a certain place with these people and It's organized and like I just want to get out the door and like it's my quiet time and it's my you know, it's an active meditation.

I decompress, I breathe the air, I pay attention to my breathing and things like that that aren't really, you know. that that doesn't really align with cooperation and group type of participation, so in that chapter one of the things that I wrote that really intrigued me is the idea that in order to become great as a species, human beings needed to learn these social aspects. cooperation and thinking skills in other people and we have this kind of default state that allows us to constantly think about ourselves in relation to other people and that we also needed to develop these skills that allow us to be in nature and connect with nature. and experiencing self-transcendence in nature that is so different internally from that version of us as humans that we are always thinking about other people about how we get along and belong and one of the things that I realized in talking to people who really find touching. in nature, healing, therapeutic inspiration is that the kind of relief from suffering thatWhat they need is more that aspect of being human that is very similar to what many people experience when they meditate or go on solo hikes and trips, there is a version of the being. for yourself that is also at the same time connected to something bigger than yourself, but you are free from those social roles and all that angst or that just the pressure, the hustle that comes from being a social creature and I was so fascinated.

So I've talked to a lot of people who have that experience, and in contrast to me, I think my essential nature is to be alone and withdrawn. And what I need is something to take me out of that great comfort that I feel in being here and alone and almost like I can be on retreat all the time and what I need to be therapeutic is no you need to be in a room with other people and you need to connect and you really need to tap into that aspect of your human nature yeah and I think you know people They're probably on the move, it's always about finding what that is. your medicine and you know that movement helps us access so many different parts of our human nature that are useful or meaningful and nature is one of those, yeah, I mean, I can relate to you being an avowed introvert, I certainly consider that A The same thing happens to me, and you know, based on that, I've also been in recovery for a long time and there's a very alcoholic tendency to want to isolate myself, you know, and I can mask that tendency with endurance sports, you know when?

I know I should probably be better and happier and more fulfilled when I'm in groups of people, but I really have to force myself to do it, but I can say, well, you know, I run alone or whatever, but I know. that when I participate in those group efforts it's incredibly satisfying, but I really have to muster a lot of energy to do that and think about you, you know your major, you're with students all the time, you're teaching all the time and I'm teaching these groups these classes. group. I imagine you would also know that the counterpoint to that would be that you would need some comfort that involves some kind of movement, yes, and I move on my own.

I mean, there were a lot of the things that I do that are, you know, it's kind of a personal practice, teaching academic classes is very different energetically for me than teaching movement classes. I get more energy from teaching movement classes, while I find giving talks or teaching academic classes. The training is definitely exhausting. I often feel like I've been hit by a bus. There is a sense that energy flows much more from me to the outside and I really just work hard to try to create an experience of value for others when I am teaching. like a dance class, I don't know, music gives me so much energy and watching other people move to be like it feels more like I'm co-creating an experience, so sometimes I don't bring that to the classroom, but I even want to I mean, in so many different ways of teaching, you know?

Whether I'm leading a meditation retreat or giving a lecture, there's no other way of teaching and I think, again, it's part of how I'm wired that there is something. about moving to music and using my body and not speaking properly, speaking is a totally different way of being with a group than reflecting and guiding through the body, I find that teaching movement is part of that right, so when this goes up, it's going to be a spectacular new year, so the idea of ​​new year's resolutions and creating a trajectory for, you know, new year, new you, is on everyone's mind and I have a fan.

I know some people are very cynical, yes. I wonder why it's not the beginning of a new year. Well, let's look at that a little bit because I think it also incorporates the work that you've done in these other areas. It's like people are thinking about willpower. Do I have the willpower? you know, set this goal and really keep going during this time, even though you know in the last five years I keep failing and you know maybe someone you know's resolution is to reduce the stress in their lives, like how do we think about the new ? year resolutions in a healthy way and creating a strategy that is actually effective instead of counterproductive, you know, two or three weeks later we give up hope, so I'm a big fan of doing some serious reflection, like not just choosing a behavior like drinking more. water because you saw it somewhere as a healthy habit and I often encourage people to ask themselves a series of questions like if you project yourself to the next New Year's Day in a year and look back and be really grateful If you have made a change, what do you imagine you could do in the next year?

That future you will be very grateful for because it will have improved your vitality, your health, your relationships made you move forward in some way that is consistent with the vision. you have for your life maybe that question or do you know if there is some kind of suffering in your life right now that you are ready to free yourself from and what that would look like or if there is movement. I would particularly ask people if it is there. a type of joy that you are looking for in your life right now, forget if you even think it is connected to movement, but something like social connection or hope or mastery, progress, adventure, joy, creativity, because there is some type of joy that you're missing out and you just know.

If you had more of that in your life, it would be a bigger change to ask those kinds of questions and then when you have that kind of vision of what you want, then be concrete and say can I think of some choices or behaviors that feel like? It's really consistent with that, even if I'm not entirely sure that you know what it will be like a year from now, but I think in the New Year's resolution, I will often choose a word for myself, that's how I want to approach the year. or what I want more in that year, but if you set that kind of framework then it will allow you to experiment with behaviors like whether this brings me closer to that kind of joy or whether this actually reduces my suffering or just increases the suffering and change your focus as you go. you move through the year while keeping Mike, yeah, I mean, essentially, what you're saying is getting clarity on what your and, what you're talking about like the big and, like what's the why behind this instead of the Behavior that you're trying to modify like what's behind it, that's how you know what the behavior is if you don't know what your desire is and in the willpower instinct I'm talking about it's desire for power, but this is actually a strength for many.

People need to develop the ability to know what is most important to you, roles, relationships, values, yes, values, what your values ​​are, and if you are clear about that, it will be much easier to discover what behaviors to try to change. and pay. Pay attention to the real consequences of whatever you are trying to control. I feel like too often people think of self-control as if it's the key thing they focus on, that I feel out of control with what I am? I'm going to force myself to control it, but that's not always what will have the biggest impact on your well-being.

You know you may have a bad habit in an area that isn't really destroying your life in any meaningful way, but it is something that is. you always judge and I feel like people often go in that direction, they say what I can control now instead of what I really care about, yeah, and that's not a sustainable energy source, ultimately you can sustain the process of So , you can sustain the process of blame, hate and changing values ​​and you will begin to have an unhealthy amount of chronic stress. I imagine so, yes, but how to turn that around to look through a different prism, like the prism of aspirations. of the person you want to become, so if you take weight loss, for example, something big, obviously, instead of thinking I have to lose weight, the Y would be like I want to feel good in my body or I want to be healthy o I want to look in the mirror and feel good about how I look or whatever, what the value is attached to it and then I'm putting together what you're actually saying to then identify behaviors that you might like. the wills that you can implement and that take you in that direction instead of focusing on the things that we won't like and that you are going to avoid and also the things that you can't control, like you mean, wait, we think it's something that you can choose , but you can't really choose to wake up, you know, in a month and weigh less or weigh more.

It's much easier to choose things that will reliably give you more energy. They will improve your health and your weight may or may not be a consequence of I think a lot of this is defining something that you are actually pretty clear about that you can choose and get that consequence, whether it's having more energy, being healthier, feeling better about yourself, that you can actually work directly with that instead of setting these goals. You know if it was something with money for example instead of saying I want to have this amount of money in the bank maybe what you want is a feeling of financial freedom more security and that there are decisions you can make every day that move you in that direction , even if you can't guarantee that at the end of the year I will have this much money in my bank account or reduce my debt this much, so it's not just about choosing things that you can say yes to. but that the things you're not preparing to have are a success that you can mark or not, which almost diverts our attention from the daily benefits we get when we actually adopt behaviors that are good for us.

I think the problem with a lot of this is that those little imperceptible actions that you do every day that move you in that direction just aren't sexy, you know you don't get Instagram likes for them, it doesn't seem like they necessarily are. They are moving you forward in a tangible way, you know from an external point of view. I think they are super important and they create momentum and I think there is an internal shift that happens with them, but I think a lot of people struggle with that because they are so focused on the end goal that they don't learn to fall in love with the process or the journey to get there.

I think this is where mindfulness comes in because, again, if you've chosen something that really has the power to transform your well-being in some way you'll notice it while it's happening if you're paying attention and that becomes a much more motivating reward than the initial reward and it's much easier to track like I did this today I didn't do this today or you know some change, some number that you're tracking but you have to learn to pay attention, it's almost a process of self-confidence, you know, you say to the end of the day how I feel about what I did, maybe there is a feeling of pride, a feeling of celebration for whatever step you have taken, but pretty quickly, over time, you should notice the direct benefits of what you are doing. doing and again, this can be like a reality check, it's almost like an integrity check, it's much easier pick something that you can define, mark it and track it and get a streak of good behavior that you know, but if that's not the right behavior for you and what you need at this point in your life, all you're doing is like giving yourself something else to distract yourself with these short term wins and feel good, so you know that attention plenary is a big part of that because I feel like a lot of my behaviors change for the better when I became very strong.

I got serious about practicing yoga because it became much easier to notice the effects of my choices in everyday life. I began to find it very difficult to do things that were not consistent with my values, such as being dishonest or eating foods that would later make me feel hungover. Eh, I just couldn't do it because it was too clear. I could just see the consequences as they unfolded and I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of attention that you train in practices like yoga or meditation, yes. I think that level of self-awareness is very important and I think a common mistake that a lot of people make is that they want to skip that part and they want to go straight to the goal, and I see a lot of people who are not convinced that they are setting the goal. right because they feel like that's what they should be doing, but there's not enough introspection about whether that actually aligns with the values ​​that you know they are and aspire to. you know how to embody in their lives and, except for mindfulness practices or yoga or movement like you mentioned in the book, you know that these are all vehicles to unlock what you know or deepen that level of connection with yourself.

I think you're just a ping-pong ball you're reacting to your environment or social expectations of you you know what you think you should be yeah so what are some of the common mistakes that derail people when it comes to you ? Resolutions that you're such a fan of, yeah, well it's one thing to pick something that's something that you like, the idea that you have to finish resolutions that you made in the past because they're not resolved and often all that You know I used to do a lot. "There is a lot of press about willpower at New Year's and almost every time I interview people I tell them what their New Year's resolution is and they say something they have failed at in recent years.and they were going to try it again and I." I would ask, well, what benefit will this bring to your life and they would say, I don't know and then I would say, Well, what would I really like?

What would bring more joy to your life? ? And I still remember this, an interview where she says, oh, I wish I had time to play the piano again, it's like she lit up and was a completely different person, like why isn't that your New Year's resolution? ?, so that first obstacle that we talked about is another one. The problem is probably the relationship that you have with yourself as you are changing, you know we have to do it again, if it is a really good change and it is not something that is so easy like so. As soon as you decide you're going to go.

To do it, do it, we know that the journey will include setbacks, obstacles and mistakes, and I think people have a feeling that once you've made the vow, you have to do it and the day will never come when you slide back and the day will never come when you are the worst version of yourself and you are so exhausted that you do the opposite of everything you value and wouldn't do, so we need some kind of vision for what it is like. change process. It seems and understand that any really significant change will include that day when you feel like giving art, yes, I know people, people do not recognize the fact that every success comes with many failures and I think we have prepared ourselves in such a way that If we hit that roadblock and we're not good enough or you know we give up hope instead of just recognizing that it's part of the process, one of the things that I often encourage people to do who feel like they don't know what.

What they need to do when they run into that kind of setback is imagine, okay, imagine that this is the end of the story and that we actually have the result that you have achieved this goal or you have made this change at some point in the future. future and you're telling the story of how it happened I want you to look back and see today and what was the turning point how was this a turning point? What was the next thing you did that moved you in that story toward change? So do it right, basically forecasting your idealized self, yeah and understanding that what you're stuck in the middle of now is part of that journey, aha, that doesn't reveal that you can't continue on this path.

Yes, in my experience, impulse controls such a key role. In all of this I want to say that we have all had that experience where we are doing very well at something and then an unexpected life event occurs that throws us off our schedule and then it becomes very difficult to get back on the horse. Whether it's going to the gym or whatever, I wonder if there's any science behind the power of impulse and how that operates on our psyche. Yeah, I can actually work both ways, so some people get derailed by momentum because they feel so good about their progress and they're like, hey, I'd like to take a break, so some people fall into that trap or if you're a self-sabotaging, yes, now is a good time to blow everything up.

I think you know one. Which is why I often talk about the importance of celebrating successes or appreciating effort because it partly changes the way you feel about yourself as someone who is engaged in this difficult task, so I think momentum works because so you can tell a story about yourself that is really empowering and gives you the positive energy to keep going, it's like fuel and I think as soon as we experience a setback, often one of the reasons we are so sick is that we start to tell a story about ourselves instead of a story about today.

Like we didn't have that ability to be compassionate and say "it's okay," you just went through a health crisis or you just had to deal with this other thing in your life, of course your energy went there and there was less energy available. for this other project. what you've been working on, instead we start telling stories about ourselves or our lives that feel fixed, this will never happen or I'm not able to do it, it's like when values ​​compete for your attention and resources, like if it weren't just that we have one value that we aspire to embody, there are multiple values ​​and sometimes they conflict and that's okay, it can change your priorities moment to moment and particularly when you do it with the sense of agency and autonomy like you know what.

I said I was going to dedicate this year to improving my health and then I had to take on this caregiver role and right now I'm fulfilling that role and it's meaningful and it's stressful and it's difficult and I've regressed a little bit. On this other topic, I think we should feel free to fully support that kind of change and really honor any connection between what we're doing and what we care about. Yes, I tend to punish myself. Yes, you are not alone. A lot of people's New Year's resolutions revolve around movement and that's what you're writing about in this new book, so let's talk about movement.

I am very interested to hear your thoughts that you explore in this book about what is happening to us psychologically and biochemically when we move our bodies well, let's start with the biochemical, if any of this is so fascinating, can I explain the whole molecule thing ? Yeah, believe me, I wrote it like that, all these hormones are recent, the Myo types, super interesting, um. I know when I discovered it, so I found this article. I think maybe it was a 2016 article where the scientist talked about this research and they just threw out the term hope molecules and I remember I circled it.

I think I said to my husband, oh God. God, you won't believe this term sums up a lot about why the movement is awesome and I feel like no one else is using this term, it's just in this article. I will assure the scientist that I have used it again, but let me. Explain what it is, so this is the idea that our muscles are like an endocrine organ and that when you contract your muscles in any type of movement, they are secreting chemicals into your bloodstream that are really good for all the systems in your body. , I mean.

They are great for your heart health and immune function and some of them can kill cancer cells. You know, all we know is that exercise is good without a big chunk of them. These proteins are chemicals that your muscles release called mi Oak ions have profound effects on the brain, so you go for a walk or run or lift weights and your muscles contract and secrete these proteins into your bloodstream, they travel to the brain, cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain. they can act as an antidepressant like Ireson they can make your brain more resistant to stress they increase motivation they help you learn from experience and the only way to get these chemicals is by using your muscles it's like this is part of how we become best thing about ourselves is that we have to use our muscles and then scientists call them molecules of hope because in this study they found that exercise could protect rodents from experiencing depression and post-traumatic stress disorder if you severely traumatize them, so this idea that these molecules give you hope even in vertical times, so it's not innately human, that's right, it's not innately human, it is, and other mammals are fine, so I don't know how many species this has been studied in in this field.

They tend to pass from mice and rats to humans. I think not much in the middle, but it's worth noting that rodents are very social species and that's one of the reasons why they can be really great models for human behavior because they look a lot like us and some of the social ways and more basic psychological things, so extrapolating that idea, like what do you like, what do you do with it, what does that mean, first of all, a very practical level means when I go for a walk or exercise, I will literally tell myself that you were giving an intravenous dose of hope.

I think that's how we should frame movement, which is something you can choose to do to really powerfully influence your mental health and your resilience. every time you move you are doing that, I think you should know that you like to look at your own muscles and be able to say thank you legs, now you are tired, that was hard work, but like legs, you are a pharmacy of antidepressants and resilience and hope, then I think more philosophically again. One of the things that I feel like anthropology and science point out is that movement is how your brain knows that you're alive and engaged in life and when you're moving forward.

Regularly your brain basically says I guess we have to be the best version of ourselves because we're in this thing called life and then you mentioned some other things too, like when you exercise you see elevated levels of neurotransmitters that tend to increase our willingness to cooperate and the pleasure we get from connecting with other people who give us hope and courage. I mean even that lactic acid, that metabolic byproduct of exercise, that lactic acid seems to have an anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effect, right, this is crazy. things, it's not just a rush of endorphins, it's like at every level of our biology, when we move our brain, it's like I guess we have to do this thing called life and, for people like me, who have struggled with anxiety or depression, this idea That you can convince your brain to want to fully engage with life in a brave or hopeful way through movement is so phenomenal.

How does that compare to what we anecdotally consider runner's high? Yeah, just, pretty much how you open the book that I opened was funny because I'm not a runner but my husband is a runner and my sisters he's a serious runner you did a triathlon, though didn't you? Yeah, you said you were in the book, you said you thought you and your husband were thinking about trying out my husband, oh, I was thinking about saying yes, go ahead, the only thing I've ever participated in was a dance marathon, okay, yeah, so I'm not a runner and that's part of my interest.

By exploring the science, it was like really understanding why the people I love love this thing that is not my movement, so I started researching what runner's high is and I came across this research that part runner's high is driven by Endocannabinoids, not just endorphins and then endocannabinoids as a neurotransmitter system, are really about reducing anxiety and making us bolder and braver, as well as more social, and getting more of that warm glow out of any type of social interaction and the anthropologists. those who think about runner's high there's this idea that the reason we have runner's high is so you know that hundreds of thousands of years ago we could sustain hunting and gathering, but also hunting and gathering They were part of being a species society and being a tribe and that this kind of runner's high not only allowed the first humans to go out and do the hard work of gathering food, but maybe even helped them become the version of themselves. that it wouldn't be like I caught this big animal, it's mine, good luck to the rest of you, I hope you don't starve, that the runner's high was actually making it easier to be a cooperative species, that's it very interesting, and then you know one thing that I didn't put in the book.

Because I'm not sure the research is completely there, but a lot of people I talk to think that oxytocin is part of this too and the research just isn't that strong right now, but oxytocin is a neurohormone that helps us connect with others. and also that

makes

us remember the events more positively than perhaps they were when they actually occurred. Some researchers think this is why people run ultramarathons more than once. Yeah, isn't there so much release of oxytocin that somehow at a distance it seems better? which maybe it was actually at the worst time, so it's great that it colored your memory, but it was like the oxytocin and orphan endocannabinoids that the biochemistry of a runner's high prepares us to not only feel good while you move, which Which is it, I think.

How we often think of it as if it's a trick to trick you into exercising, but what it actually could be is that your brain is fine, now we have to be this version of ourselves that can persist and cooperate with others and That changes who. We are after we exercise, we can be a different version of ourselves, well, we have this soup of all these feel-good chemicals swirling around in our bodies as a result of this type of movement that brings up something that I have. field all the time, which is this idea that because I'm a recovering alcoholic, I've simply channeled all of my addictive tendencies into resistance exercise and this is just an extension of the

rich

role that the addict and I play.

I'm chasing this runner's high in a very unhealthy way and that's why you see so many people in recovery in the endurance and ultra-endurance communities who are basically perpetuating this unhealthy pattern of behavior.healthy, yeah, so I mean you can see in my book that that's not my opinion on it, but I know that yeah, I think you would rot, you addressed it very well. You know, I have my friend Mishka, who's been on the

podcast

a few times and he just dismisses it with this joke that he says, which is. putting on, you know, taking the dirt, drinking the drug, it was always the easy choice and the way out, putting on your running shoes is hard, you know, it's like it's a vehicle for self-improvement, it's a difficult thing that you struggle with. . it leads to greater self-efficacy and all that, you know fantastic things, so he knows that and I see it similarly.

First of all, I admit that I say: yes, there is probably a part of me that is doing this for that. Which is why I think it would be profound to qualify for me to say no, that's not the case at all, but is it making my life better or is it making it worse? You know, and it's clearly making my life better. It may be out of balance. I've seen that with a lot of people who become obsessed with their training and then they know their marriage is dissolving and they know all kinds of terrible things happen, so I have to be aware of that and balance it appropriately, but when I do it, everything in my life has improved as a result.

Yeah, I think that's basically my opinion too and I was really fascinated by the research on the neuroscience of addiction and exercise and how they're really similar in some ways but really different in important ways and that, like exercise almost by hijacking, some of the mechanisms of addiction make you really want it and like it and crave it, but it's changing your brain in exactly the opposite way to most of the substances of abuse that people become addicted to, so you're more open to other pleasures and you are more able to connect with other people, and I think that is true.

One of the most important distinctions that most people who have dealt with some other type of addiction will talk about when they talk about the difference is that they can feel addicted to the movement and sometimes many people feel dependent on it. I am totally dependent on it, but you know that diabetics depend on insulin. I'm very happy to depend on it and sleep exactly, but most people will point out that when you become dependent on movement, it often improves your ability to also pursue other goals and be a version of yourself in relationships that you really do. you are proud to be that version of yourself and that is quite different from other addictions.

Yes, part of your exploration is trying to determine the genetic markers of the people you meet. I know that's dependent and one of the things you do is you do the 23andme thing and you get all this data back and you're trying to figure out where I can identify my propensity to be a fitness fanatic. Yeah, first I'm just saying a couple of things about this. I think it's a very bad idea to do it yourself, why not three and me inputting the raw data? So my husband, who is a scientist, was helping me try to figure out what I know all these different ways of working with the raw data, so I don't necessarily recommend it and the science itself is very nascent, so basically everything It might be silly, but I was interested in doing this because, me and my twin sister are both.

Totally hooked on the movement, we both felt dependent on it and this emerged very early in life. I mean, I first tried aerobics when I was seven or eight and I was instantly hooked. I even remember not wanting to go to a friend's house. birthday party in fifth grade because I was going to miss the hour of exercise that was on PBS that I wanted to do and be like oh, they're trying to decide which was more important. I guess maybe it's a sign of addiction, but I was hooked. immediately and to see how important it is for me and my sister I thought this must be genetic because we are identical twins and there are certain things that I firmly believe are determined genetically because we are very similar in many ways and I thought this must be one of them and when I looked at some of the genetic markers that have been linked to exercise behavior and how much you enjoy exercise, we didn't necessarily have them all, but there are some bits of DNA that have been linked to a real psychological benefit from movement, i.e. , you are at higher risk for things like depression or anxiety disorders or suicidal thoughts, but if you exercise, those risks are dramatically reduced or, in other studies, you respond better to an exercise intervention like You have better psychological outcomes than people that they don't have those genetic markers and when I looked at those studies, my sister and I had every single one of them.

Wow, and I feel like you know this because when we were kids, no one was in therapy. I don't want to say this was decades ago, no one helped me manage my mind as a child, yes, and the idea that we both found something that helped us deal with genetic susceptibilities to anxiety and depression. very grateful, it's interesting how the human animal can eradicate that thing that will be healing, you know, it's like they say everyone finds the drug they need to quell whatever they're trying to deal with in some way. It happens and exercise certainly, you know, could be considered, you know, a healthier version of that.

I have no doubt, but if I hadn't found exercise, I would have done something less fun exactly, and I've done both, but I probably have the same genetics. bookmarks because I wake up every day and leave myself alone, as if stopping moving my body is what I choose to do. I'm waiting excited. I can't wait to do it. The only thing that gets in my way is when I have other obligations, I have another value that competes with that value, but I think there are a lot of people who can read the book or listen to what you say and know that they can intellectually understand all the finer points. why this is a good idea, but they lack that impetus because they see it as a burden, or intimidating, or something they just don't connect with, so first of all, I must say a couple of things about This in my experience speaking.

For people, there are a lot of late movers in life who just needed to find the right form of movement and I don't think we are exposed to enough movement diversity like the women or the staff who got on a boat in a row and They had their whole life they thought they had the wrong type of body, that they were athletes, but suddenly they got on a boat with other women and they were rowing and they said: yeah, my body was born for this, you know, there are so many ways of movement. that changed how you feel about yourself because they simply create a different narrative about who you are.

I talked to so many women who discovered things like weightlifting, CrossFit, or ax throwing. Suddenly, we come to the day where we do these amazing things with their bodies. and they felt powerful and it was a side of themselves that they had never experienced before and if you just listened to the way the media usually talks about exercise, it's about burning calories, right, it's about how you look and you can be swept away. to places where, instead of being told that way, this is what it feels like to stand in your own power. Now they tell you that you're burning more calories, so you won't look as horrible as you did walking in today. so it's a very different experience and very often people's movement experiences have been defined by this obsession with burning calories and improving your appearance and making yourself more acceptable to yourself or to society's judgment and it gets very confusing very quickly and for that reason.

I always encourage people to ask, "What is the form of movement if someone sent you a YouTube video? What is the video you would watch?" appropriate for the body you have now or who you want to become, it's not about having a tracker telling you if you've done enough, there are a lot of things that get in the way of finding movement. that will make you happy that can make you feel like a chore like a punishment we have such a limited perspective on what those options are we only think about the gym and the Stairmaster machine and the little LED readout that tells you calories and time and how long you're in. watching, you know the news and it's okay to distract yourself while you exercise if that works for you, but there are many forms of movement where the more attention you pay to what you're doing, the more it's enjoyable, but often I think the advice we get is just get on the treadmill and watch new Netflix so we're not really there and get through it, but I bet there's some form of movement that, if you were really there, you'd have an amazing experience, a sense of self, or a connection to the rest, what do science and research tell us about intensity?

Do we have to suffer? to take advantage of these benefits, such as knowing how much, how often, and with what intensity. There are two ways to think about it: one is the minimum dose so as not to scare people and then also recognize that many of the benefits are probably enhanced by higher intensity, so if you're looking to just feel better, have a mental health benefit , improve mood and increase energy or even physical health benefits, there is almost no minimum of what you need to do and the intensity you should have. You know there's something in the literature called the feel-better effect, which is that if you're sedentary, you haven't moved in a while, and you do a couple minutes of any kind of movement, you're going to feel better, you're going to have more energy.

Be more hopeful if that's all you ever did and you did it a couple of times a day. That would be much better than doing nothing. You know, we talked about the Myo types. As you contract your muscles, you will be producing a healthier set of muscles. my own types and if I take it off, if someone thinks that the barrier is that I don't want to do something incredibly intense, so I won't do anything, instead we should take that off the table at the same time, a lot of the pleasures of movement . They are enhanced by intensity, so, for example, there is something called collective joy, which is this feeling of transcendence and connection with others, a type of euphoria that we feel when we move in synchrony with other people, particularly when we move together.

We move to music, and research shows that the higher your heart rate when you do that, the more intense the euphoria and the stronger the social bonds. Research also suggests that more intense movement and greater resistance will produce extremely high levels of Myo types that are likely to be very protective for your mental health. and your brain when it comes to your sense of self, you know that if you do something that you never thought you could do and to get there you had to do very hard workouts and you had to try to lift something heavy and fail 20 times. before you were successful, there is a certain kind of intensity, how you will feel the day you finally do it, it will probably be more powerful than if you set a very small goal that you could succeed the first time you try it, so there is I think that intensity amplifies the joys of mastery, connection and mental health in many different ways, but people shouldn't think of it as saying suffer and commit suicide, it's more like always telling people what the most intense form of movement you can. do it and still enjoy the meaning and again, if it's the right form of movement for you, it's probably part of the training and you'll be like, "Oh my god, this is so uncomfortable, why did I say I wanted to do this and then, two minutes after?" You're going to say: I feel amazing, right.

I mean, joy can take different forms. I mean, it's like you know that if you want to change your life, like sign up for an ultramarathon, you know you're going to find yourself in a way you've never done before. There will be an enormous amount of suffering, but there is a joyful aspect to that because it is a journey of self-discovery that you can't really replicate any other way in your life and we are very afraid of that level of discomfort, but I think it's our thing, I want to. I mean, it's not like you have that.

I was so delighted that you, I mean, you basically have like a whole chapter on the world of ultra under, so that chapter took me longer to write. I was reviewing it. a year after the manuscript was submitted because it's so different from my own basic forms of movement or yoga and dance and I just knew it was so different from the ultra world and I had to keep talking to people and watching videos of events and reading memoirs to feel like I could really understand it in a way that was deeper than my initial impressions and I learned a lot about what sport is like in that world and I found it very moving to try to pay attention to that world in a way that really goes against a lot of People who aren't ultra athletes probably had the same initial response I had, oh my god, why do you need to practice suffering?

I'm already suffering enough if it weren't like that. I don't really need to do it that way, but then yeah, I'll move on, so I want to interrupt you, but what made the biggest change for me was.when I started watching videos and I saw how I saw in people's faces who they were when they were struggling and it was so beautiful to see people confront their desire to end the reluctance of their bodies and it was beautiful and then to see how so often a of the ways they did it It was people who showed up to help them and that's when I started talking to ultra-athletes, people weren't talking about interdependence, it was like in later conversations.

That's what I found so beautiful because from the outside it looks like something that people are doing just to show that they're tough and that I can do it myself and of course you're doing it yourself but most people don't do it for themselves and that was so beautiful when I realized, okay, this is like the most beautiful display of human inner strength and interdependence at the same time. Yeah, I mean that's a very astute observation because it's a very individualistic pursuit on paper. It is also this beautiful journey of the soul. You know there's a heartwarming aspect to the Ultra Endurance community is really beautiful and I think it's unique because people don't get into this because there are cash prizes and they'll become pros and they'll make money like there's something calling them to it. this because there is something inside. themselves that they need reconciliation or there is some answer that they are trying to find for themselves and in that way it is almost like in ascetic spiritual practice, like whipping yourself or something like that.

Oh, marathon monks, yes, exactly exactly what you talked about in the book and where we are, you know by virtue of facing this challenge. and by seeing it you will have some form of transcendent experience and as a result you will change, but as you point out, it is a very collective experience and there is a level of cooperation that you don't see in others, you know, quote unquote. Individual team, individual sports, the athletes you know want to do their best and of course there is a competitive aspect to it but everyone helps each other and you know a lot of people don't realize that in most of these races you have to provide your own equipment and these, you are very dependent on these people to be able to finish and the teams will also help other athletes when they need it and the athletes will help each other when they need it, like when I did everything I broke my pedal traumatically .

I got a new pedal from a team member at a competition. This happens all the time, you know, and I think that

makes

it this beautiful kind of collective celebration where a group of people have come together and created. this social contract that you're going to do something really difficult together and you're going to support each other in doing it, yeah, and you know, I think that's one of the things that real stress can do to us as humans. That was one of the central ideas and of my work and that was when I saw that that was developing in the ultra world that I was in, you know, it was wonderful to see, but I also think that that is part of who we are and we because it's part of our human nature, yeah, and it's that perfect kind of stressful situation where people really have resources and when you're in a very stressful situation and you know there's something you can do, that's what people do. humans.

Do we rise and I live one? Yes, and there is nothing more uplifting than the real thing. Realizing that you have more potential and capability than you originally realized, that's incredibly empowering, and based on an idea from your past work and stress, the core idea is basically please. Correct me if I'm wrong, you already know that stress is bad, but the most critical thing is our relationship with stress and how it affects us, and when we think about stress in a healthier way, it doesn't have the harmful impact it would have. we have the opposite and you know, movement sports, ultra-endurance, whatever, we're inviting a certain level of stress into our lives to challenge ourselves and as a result of dealing with that, we create, you know, what Susan David would call it emotional resilience, so you know.

How do your thoughts on stress and your work in that field intersect with your ideas in similar terrain? Yes, I think one of the things she also points out is the importance of often welcoming and embracing the emotions we think we don't have. What I don't want and stress is just part of those you know. I really think about the way I think about stress: it's what comes up in your mind in your body when something you care about is at stake and it can push everyone around too. button in our human nature so that stress can bring out the worst in us and the best in us and that's true for everyone because we have all these different competing instincts and what I'm encouraging people to do is think how can I build a stress response repertoire that is really consistent with my values ​​and the stress in my life so that the instincts that stress triggers are to become aggressive and hostile if that's not appropriate or if you know my default might be to freeze and withdraw?

Very human instincts, but what happens when we recognize that stress can also activate the instinct to ask for help? It can activate the instinct to make sense of things that feel out of our control or meaningless. It can activate the instinct to learn and grow. to the challenge and it's about accepting a reality so that you can make a more conscious decision about how you relate to that reality, there's a real sense of practicality and being strategic and all too often I think when we talk about stress we're looking for a way to change our internal experience because we are afraid of the internal experience or we have been told that the internal experience is always toxic, so if you are in a stressful state, it must be killing your brain cells and destroying your immune system and causing you to have an attack heart, then we look for what will change the inner experience faster instead of thinking well, maybe I feel stressed because I care and maybe it would be good for my happiness and my health. engage with what matters to me instead of looking for the quickest way to turn off this signal mm-hmm, have any of your thoughts about stress or willpower changed as a result of this deep dive into movement or do they just confirm or affirm what you are thinking?

I've always been talking about some of my thoughts that have changed over the years. I'm trying to think if writing this book led to any changes. I guess what I'm getting at is the fundamental paradox that all my work tries to deal with. It is that human beings have nature for good and evil and you know how to help and destroy. I think that's fundamentally true and science always points in that direction and that's why my work has always been good, so you need to be aware of destructive impulses. to strengthen positive impulses and I feel like this was the first book I wrote where, by far, what I was dealing with was the good in human nature and in all my previous work I feel like there was at least some kind of balance. the destructive nature and the, you know, prosocial and positive nature, and that to me gave me a lot of hope.

I feel like I needed it at that moment. I just feel like everywhere I looked I was seeing the good in human nature. and that movement somehow allows us to access that, I don't know, it changed my way of thinking but it changed my perspective, yes, I felt that way, this book and science pushes me to be more optimistic about human nature than I, that It's a trend, yes, yes. How does competition influence this? Because we know that if we talk about movement, a subset of movement is a sport, sports are inherently competitive, there have to be healthy aspects, yes, but also unhealthy aspects, yes, and I think that competition is an important human drive and there is a lot of psychological benefits to it, so when people tell me that they love competition, like my sister is more like that and these are like one of our fundamental differences, she loves to compete, she loves to improve, she loves mastery. and I just don't do it.

I don't know, that doesn't motivate me at all, so I think the really healthy and positive size of competition is whether you're competing as a team or with a group and the tremendous bonds and what you learn from cooperating to be able to compete that that seems like. have enormous benefits and that even if we look at children or adolescents who practice different types of sports, it seems that there are more psychological benefits to participating in team sports than in individual competitions. sports because there can often be a lot of pressure on the individual when you know you're the best without some of those other social forces that come into play when you work with others mm-hmm and I think the other thing that's very helpful and the healthy thing about competence is when it's actually more about mastery than you have a sense of setting goals and making progress on them that are personally meaningful and you present yourself as someone who can set goals that are difficult and work to achieve them and meet them.

I thought of a whole chapter about overcoming obstacles and the very definition of hope is having a goal that is meaningful, believing that you have the resources to achieve it and that there are steps you can take and I think there are forms of competitive movement that will really enable you. To tap into that whole experience of hope, yeah, I think that's definitely the case and you know, I found that my relationship with the competition is evolving like it is now. You know, I used to be very competitive. Now I'm less competitive and now it's actually more competitive. about the purity of the movement that brings me joy and less about how it compares to other people, but the barometer is really internal, it's like how do I measure up to the standard that I set for myself and the person I want to be?

Yes, that's what I feel like my internal metric is very often. I feel like this either has an impact or it doesn't and there's less comparison, like I'm not really comparing my present self to my past self like I used to. I don't have to improve and I'm definitely not comparing myself to other people as much as if I had to be better then, but I'm very in tune with what I did, did it have any positive impact and you know? There may be a real sense of failure around that, but if that's less competition, then this kind of deepening of performance that is consistent with your values ​​with everything you know about psychiatry, psychology and human behavior, what do you think of this kind of cultural trend where The kids you know don't keep score at soccer games and everyone is a winner and everyone gets a medal.

As you know, we've recalibrated our relationship with the movement with young people in a way that has eliminated it as any kind of danger or threat, I guess so, so you know, kids, now we say, well, boomer, when yes, we do. I know, yeah, I was reading your links to those great Taylor the Reds, so I'll tell you one of the gifts of teaching at a university, aha, you see cultural changes, so one of the goals I've set for myself is to have the mind as open as possible when I see cultural changes happening and my instinct is to criticize or think about them.

Well, that's not going to have the consequences that you think it's going to have, so you know it's one of those things where initiatives like the participation trophy Oh you can see how things can go wrong and one of the things I'm trying to do it with all my might. it's trusting the evolution of culture and that, especially if young people tell me something is good and meaningful, I'm actually going to trust that they're probably more right than I am, so in a way I don't. I have a lot of mixed thoughts about it. I'm not sure there's a lot of science that I don't want to hinder in any way, so I'm going to go with a kind of open-minded disposition to tolerate changes in our culture that kind of goes against how I was raised, okay, boomer , yeah, well, that's what I don't want to be told, we should explain to the people who are listening, you don't know what that means, it's kind of a retort to, you know, older people. opinions about exactly, but it has to be interesting, you know, being among so many young people all the time forces you to change all the time, that's the other great gift, it's like you know that you have to stay in the program or you're going to pass overlooked and there are so many things you have to ask yourself, you need a challenge with a similar relationship with technology or what you see every day that doesn't, so he provokes you, but you say: wow, look at that, that's so different to have I had to be very aware of things like that when I started doing PowerPoint, not even PowerPoint, so in the past, what are these things called transparencies when we gave public scientific talks?

You would have to earn your transparency over the bosses. Yes, no one was thinking if you would use the image of a human being to accompany you, like if it said anger and you would show an angry face. Nobody thought that it doesn't matter who you choose in terms of stereotypes. I'm allowed to be angry and who isn't or who is a more fully human being and now that's a big part of my job is thinking about what images I might choose and what language I'm choosing, those choices that at the beginning of my academic career I people treated them as if they had no consequences because the people who made those decisionsThey weren't really aware of the consequences, so I feel like that's one of the things that I always try to dig into and learn is that probably everything I do has consequences. and make more conscious decisions about things that will improve my students' learning experience or that won't create unnecessary harm just because I don't know if what I'm doing matters.

Is there something you're really struggling to achieve? on board with tik-tok hey, I'm finally on Instagram it's the one I haven't signed up for but you know, I feel like I would probably love it if I could understand it yeah, yeah, I've never seen it, it's very dance and movement or You know, I think with the book tour you know will take place here, you'll have to get on board. Yes, I will, well what was the most surprising thing? You know, I feel like you have this solid lifelong story. and a love affair with movement, so you had to have gone into this with some sense of what to expect as you got high on the investigation, so what was there?

Something that surprised you or challenged your intuition. I was surprised how easy it was to find. People who had never been given permission to talk about why they loved movement and how happy it made them to be able to say: I love my sneakers or swimming is so important to me that I thought I was a weirdo for loving movement. as such. as much as I have and I have never had such a positive response to anything I have asked from the public or on social media or from friends and family, give people a chance and they will tell you these amazing stories.maybe I don't know Yes that's the most interesting answer, but that's the way: answer like when I ask people about this idea called pleasure glow where when you do something that is really pleasurable you start to associate all the sensations that that experience in which They become incredibly pleasurable even if at first they didn't mean anything to you, like smells and sounds, and when I ask people if you have a pleasure, it shines like it's a real thing and people say, oh my God, I love it. the smell of my yoga mat or, oh, the sound of my petals.

Putting on my cycling shoe and right-clicking the pedal is like a dopamine rush like nothing else and when I ask people if there are any moves you've made that were meaningful. for you like you never thought you could do it you have like a movement story was flooded with stories like the woman who learned to swim when she was about 50 and passed her swim test or you meet the woman the first time she could do a true flexing and there is the person who learned to hula-hoop in a non-dominant direction and this was like a landmark moment in their life.

I was surprised by how many people I knew, that I knew personally, and that I didn't. I didn't know any of her movement stories and it was like people had them, it's great, we're in the middle of an incredible cultural moment with respect to the explosion of interest in the movement, you know it wasn't like that. A long time ago, you know, running was seen as something strange and now there are millions of people who run marathons every year and that's not enough, so the ultra endurance community is exploding and we have these difficult problems and spartan races and all that.

These unique challenges that force us to, you know, go out and venture outside of the cubicle and test ourselves in a very tactile way, so how...what do you attribute to that? Because? Why Nallett? getting electrocuted and crawling in the mud and you know, being really cold. I don't know, why are we appreciated? Yeah, why are so many people attracted to that? Now you know better, as part of me wants to move away from the premise almost. Is that really the case? I'm not asking, no, if you look from an anthropological point of view or if you go to know societies in the near past that don't look like our modern society, people live very embodied lives, celebrate food production, compete with others. communities, everything is so fully embodied, you know, I thought, I don't know if the desire for this is that different, but maybe we've missed a lot of opportunities to feel fully embodied in our roles, our relationships, and our work. about restoring a sense of our full humanity that if you're not using your body to do things that are difficult and to celebrate life and connect with other people, you're not fully alive and maybe people are recognizing that I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, I think that affirms the premise that our lives have become insulated and hermetically sealed, we're in our homes and we're in our cars, we're riding elevators and we're in offices with fluorescent lighting and we barely go out at all. least connect with nature or our neighbors in some meaningful way and that innate human desire has been repressed to such a point that you know it eventually needs an outlet, so this is what we're seeing people doing everything they can to bring this kind of movement and stress to their lives because it speaks so deeply to what it is to be human or to have a human experience, you know, and that reminds me of something that a woman I talked to when I asked her why she loved rowing and she said that it brings out the best. of humanity and I think many of the people I spoke to said something like that and that the form of movement they did attracted to them felt that it was not only bringing out the best in them but it allowed them to see the best and others as well.

I think there's a lot of interest right now in these collective training experiences or elective movement experiences and I think I certainly know that for me it's very healing to see the better than others and there are many things in our society now that Prime allows us to see the best. worse than the others, so that can also be an antidote, of course, yeah, that's super interesting. Yeah, because all the media is channeled into trying to, you know, basically create these chasms between us and even if you were to watch feel-good media, it's different when you watch the feel-good news clip as you sc

roll

through. whatever social media versus being in a real room with people or you know where you can smell them, like there's something about the co-present embodied experience that's different than the little psychological improvement that you might get, yeah, I mean, if I do yoga in my house.

That is a very different experience than going to a yoga class where, even though we are not necessarily talking to each other, there is a consensual activity that we all participate in together and there is something that creates like a unity or a freezing effect with the group that You can't really identify or articulate what that is, but it's very, very real, you know, yeah, it's very real or even if I'm running with a group of people that I don't know like they exist. That's true, for sure, and I wonder if you talked about this a little bit in the book, whether it's this kind of cooperative byproduct of the movement or the community building that it generates, if that also works in a visual reality environment, because we've I have a platoon and we have these types of virtual communities around me.

Were you a bot? I thought John was going bot, that drone that follows you while you run after those hysterics, so you know people loved it? They said, yeah, I want a drone that looks at the target on my chest and runs with me, so I mean, we're things like we really want connection, yeah, so I don't know, I've tried, I mean, your sister must have some idea about this, oh yeah, I think she would say. you probably also know, I mean, still, four people don't know, you know, she has designed several alternate reality games and experiences and one of the strengths of most of her games and interactive experiences is that they take place in the real world and You are forced to interact with other people, including the people in your life, so I guess she wouldn't be totally enamored with technology that allows you to simulate a social connection instead of properly experiencing it, but what about the platoon?

It's a great example. like it's simulated but it's also real, it's just displaced, yeah, in terms of, I think a lot of people have asked me about the peloton. I think they have a great model and it's probably not primarily for people who like it. The medicine they need is the group experience and a lot of what they're doing is based on music and how it feels to do something difficult and be witnessed in a certain way that doesn't have to be like a closed approach, you know. We are having a collective experience where there is a feeling that it is almost like a mirror, like you see yourself as if you have done something very difficult and the soundtrack helps and the teacher helps, the fact that it is often a shared live experience helps, but I think that particular medicine has more to do with how you feel about yourself and others, and again, finding joy in movement is about finding the medicine you need rather than thinking that you have to get it right, get everything right, music is a great deal, I learned a lot, I mean, again, you have almost a whole chapter dedicated to the impact of music and movement, yes, a whole chapter, there could be written a whole book, yeah, I mean music, Tommy is a little, yeah, I like it when I go out, I either don't use anything because I just want to treat it as a mindfulness practice or I listen to audiobooks or

podcast

s because it's almost like it's a way to create a virtual community or something that involves me a little.

I'll go and I'll just use music for the ending or whatever, but I can't listen to music for long periods of time because I need bursts when I feel like my motivation is waning or I want to finish strong or something, it's funny, that's exactly what happens When I talk to someone who leads work songs in a farming community, that's exactly what they said, that you use music when you really need it, when you're exhausted, when you're bored. I need that extra verse of motivation, so it makes me think that part of how humans have always used music is not like this constant soundtrack, but that music brings an extra kind of energy and motivation to support us when we reach a moment. where it's harder, and in fact, the music and sports psychologists I spoke to said something very similar to how, like you, you don't need an amazing playlist for every aspect of your fitness training, it's these that you determine what are the right moments and the song that will put you in the right mindset or help you do something even harder, more powerful, but the way I think about music is that's not really how I think about music because, As humans, our brains seem to be programmed to listen to music as an invitation to move, that's almost everyone, so when you listen to music, especially music with a strong beat that you like, it activates the entire motor loop of the brain, you get ready to move and when you move to the music you get a kind of endorphin rush and a dopamine rush that feels good and what I have observed in myself is that there is another part that is where the lyrics and the key of the music in all these different qualities of music also make you feel a certain way. it brings out an emotion or an aspect of your identity mm-hmm and for me, when those two merge it's like just getting the adrenaline of moving to the beat of the music while the lyrics make me feel a certain way about life and of myself.

There is no greater effect you can get from anything and I think not everyone is, since I have talked about genetic tendencies. I mean, that's deep within me and it's like a defining part of my nature. Nothing lights me up so much. I switched to music and that's how I focus all the classes I teach, but for other people it may be that they have a normal human brain that will experience music as an ergogenic, it will help them work harder and reduce pain. It'll help you connect with others and you'll use it strategically, but you know there's another aspect to it that it really is, it's a journey, yeah, it also evokes a lot of sensory memory, like you can listen to a song that you haven't heard in a long time. and you can, it'll just come to mind as something very vivid, you know, I don't know what, I guess it's similar to, I like the smell of my yoga mat, like there's a, I don't know, it's something that happens. biochemically or neurologically that can root you in a past experience or trigger a memory that can empower you in a certain way and there are certain songs that you will listen to over and over again for that purpose, yes, and I think that's because we listen to music. with our whole body those memories feel more embodied that we somehow have access to them in a way that feels more visceral when you say why?

I don't know if you know anything about this, but why is it that the music that we tend to return to over and over again throughout our lives is music that was imprinted in our brain at like a certain age, as you know, I know, as you know, REM will always be my favorite band, it doesn't matter. You know, yeah, because when I was 16 or whatever I discovered it and I fell in love with it and I'll still go back and listen to those albums over and over again no matter what's going on in terms of music outside of that, I mean.

There is research on this that due tothat we tend to have stronger or more intense emotional experiences and are also busy trying to define ourselves, young people tend to use music as a way to build identity, so what you listen to at that moment will give you

rich

er emotions. that they bond or often young people regulate their emotions with music so that they feel like you know more like chaos and they listen to a song and then you're just building a different intensity of memory and also. Because it's a period of time where you're trying to figure out who you are, that music will remind you of both the intensity of that process and also how you feel about yourself and who you are.

I will say that one of the things that I work very well at, I don't really have to work hard at it, but I am very committed to staying in love with popular music, it's like a gift to myself, aha, so now I have 42 years of memories musicals that are different and I feel like I'm going to try to stay with that as long as I can to keep building these musical memories so that it's like it's your chest expanding your repertoire of nostalgia and sense of self and joy and you can say Keep up with the times. with this, yeah, and I say curtain, you know, so I was telling other women who teach group fitness, some of the women I teach are young, they're in their 60s and then they're significantly older and they tell these others.

Women my age who right now their favorite song is a lizzo song and they didn't believe me and I said, of course, you just have to share it with them and give them an embodied experience, who won't fall for it. I love Liz, oh, so I always thought I'd always be hip to like whatever was happening in music culture. I have a 16 year old daughter right now and she is into more intense rap and hip-hop and I have a hard time trying to connect with that, it's super twisted and it confuses me that she likes it so much because she's not exactly on the same page. height of your sensitivity. but it's definitely doing something for her and I want to be on board because I want to have that shared experience with her, but I found out that's why she wants to have it as a shared expression, oh she cares, but she gets in the car and she doesn't. .

I don't ask who's playing the music, she just turns it on and turns it up and I say, imagine, you know, in 20 or 30 years, that will be a cherished memory, yeah, like that song, come and you'll have this memory embodied and I have that awareness and I still think you just tried to move towards it maybe what you need to do is immerse yourself in the rhythm I'm going to try I'm going to think about the next time we have that experience, well no, it's about expanding your empathy. I mean, we didn't even talk at all about my work in compassion, but hey, let's talk about it, we can, yes, but I think that's choosing.

Open yourself to different forms of music, it's an act of broad empathy, yes, it probably allows us to connect more broadly with other people, yes, and I think compassion, particularly self-compassion, is a big part of the movement, as is the movement It is an act of self-compassion that actually widens your openness to be compassionate toward other human beings, yes, and vice versa. I mean, it's a big circle, so I'm not someone who believes that you have to love yourself before you can love others. I believe you can love others and not. love yourself and that either way, if you strengthen either side, it is possible to get to the other if you make a conscious effort and I think movement is great because it can allow you to do both, as you know in the book.

I talked about communities where everyone has goals and encourages each other and helps each other overcome obstacles and then is encouraged and supported by others as well. I think one of the ways that the movement helps yourself compassion is again, it's not a project that you can do yourself, it's not like you're on your own, you know, taking care of yourself by exercising part of what makes you In an act of self-compassion, it is putting yourself in environments where people will be happy. Seeing yourself put yourself in environments where someone will help you when you need help and begin to practice also opening yourself to the compassion that is available to you in ways that may seem very small but are actually significant in allowing you to be open.

That way, over and over again, you also know on all levels to think about gratitude towards your body for what it can do and there are many ways that it can bring out, yes, receiving compassion is sometimes difficult, I think that is the You know self-pity is a very trendy topic right now mm-hmm and the one thing I think people are missing is that self-pity means that you believe that you yourself deserve compassion and sometimes the source is you. and you can say nice things to him. yourself and you can practice self-care, but a lot of self-compassion is okay, who else cares about you?

Can you believe that other people care about you and can you be transparent about your suffering so that they can help you? That is less discussed. as a critical skill of self-compassion, yes, and sometimes we turn self-compassion into this project, like getting into your compassion closet, don't be a burden on anyone else, you should be able to deal with your own pain and suffering by being self-compassionate, yes, but when it comes to receiving that from other people, I mean, you know, the instinct I have is that that's indulgent or that's a burden on other people, so why should I involve them in my self-efficacy project?

Yeah, and that kind of stuff. The inner voice is really no different than the inner voice that might say you know the voice of self-criticism like you're so stupid why did you do that you'll never change that these are all voices that we have that are barriers to compassion that are not right. , but they are omnipresent and I think when you know I mentioned that compassion is a big circle and so to unlock self-compassion we often need to put ourselves in the presence of a compassion that is not generated by ourselves as we need to see. other people helping other people maybe we just need to witness compassion in the world mm-hmm we need to feel that we ourselves are capable of helping others or caring for others so that we feel that we have something of value that we and ourselves We realize how good it feels, so we can imagine that if we let a friend or family member help us, maybe that feels good to them too, it is not a burden because we have experienced that it is not a burden when we care for someone. that we love and we don't want to suffer, so there's, um, it's almost like we don't want to be too myopic about the part of compassion that is most critical and put ourselves in this big system of compassion that is bigger than ourselves but that guides us.

We ourselves obtained the super important thing, it is something that has been very difficult for me to learn. I know the way I was raised and maybe it's a generational thing or just my personal experience, but you know, it's like you know, check it and don't do it. bothering other people with your problems, like solving it on your own if you need to seek help, that's fine, but don't go around, you know, it's like trying to recruit all these other people and whatever it is that you're trying to solve within yourself, yes. I mean, that's how I was raised: it's considered a virtue to not be a burden and just take care of it yourself and I think if there's a way to honor some part of that drive toward agency and knowledge and autonomy while you're in at the same time recognizing how interdependent we are, fundamentally independent, that's just not how we work as human beings, you can't do everything yourself and it would make other people miserable, can you imagine if no one was ever dependent like no one wants to hear this? podcast no one cared if you got up in the morning and we don't want that existence either well it's an illusion anyway we are all interdependent and I think we walk, you know what you're talking about, stories we tell ourselves we tell ourselves same as these other people that we mythologize or admire have done everything on their own and that if we want to live up to it we have to do the same and it's just that it's a lie, you know it's a lie and I think it requires that you have to muster up the courage to be vulnerable, but ultimately when you do that, you realize that that's actually a strength and not a weakness, and I think you have to do that to realize or overcome that counterattack. -programming and recognizing that they are not inconsistent, I mean, when we were talking about the ultra world and what I learned from observing it was that there was no ceiling effect, the inner strength was simply up, up, up and the interdependence arose from a mother and so It's how people do amazing things well.

It's not that if you accept help you are weaker and you don't continue to draw on the same internal resource, but you didn't see it until you dove deep into it. because on the scooter I was too busy, it seems like these people are doing it alone, yeah, I didn't mean I didn't know anything about it, except you know the occasional horror story I'd like to see, you know? I didn't even write about this in the book, but I did this whole interview process asking people about their abandonments and I heard so many incredible stories and I regret that I didn't find a way to put that somewhere in the book, but These incredible experiences that the people had by failing in ultra endurance events and what they learned from it and why I was significant and that was also a fascinating part of psychology because I feel like it's also a perfect analogy for life in what way and in other words , how they dealt with failure, quote-unquote, and used it, yeah, drove better performances later or what else, no, no, that was a tremendous act of self-pity, you know, a woman was talking. about the moment of having to acknowledge that the injury had flared up but I literally couldn't finish and I was going to accept that and still honor everything I had done and have the feeling that this was a meaningful journey and you know another one.

The person talked about choosing not to finish to help another participant who was sick and couldn't finish and that seemed like the best decision she could make, that she was now part of this other person's journey right where that person wasn't alone. I know, there were just a lot of interesting stories where you see how people find meaning and find compassion and self-compassion even in a moment that seems like objective failure and again I think that's part of whether you think that's the only thing you can do. I might like it if you think you have to keep improving.

I mean, this is one of the mistakes that I think people make when it comes to movement because when we're younger we think it's about always mastering and improving, but you know in the book I'm talking about. about people with Parkinson's disease, we are taking dance classes at Juilliard, yes, they are not taking dance classes at Juilliard to perform at Lincoln Center, they are there because that movement allows them to access some joy and part of themselves, and I feel like the DNF in some ways also reflected that part of the movement that it's not always necessary to get better, it's not necessary if it could get worse and worse until, like people in hospice who are serving well, how do is victory and success defined? as if we could define them more broadly, as if it were a great victory for someone to sublimate their ego, to stop in the way, to help another person, as if it were a beautiful moment of self-discovery that certainly should not be dismissed and you tell the story in the book about the Olympic track and field athlete who injures his hamstring and his father, you know the famous ones, this father goes there and helps them cross the finish line and that becomes a story that transcends whoever He won that race that day, and I think you know the ultra.

The world is you know there are tons of those types of stories out there, well let's focus back on New Year's resolutions and I think one thing that happens with a lot of people is they're faced with this decision of "I've got this." Goal: I want to do this. Do I just go all out overnight or do I take small bites of this and do it slowly in a way that doesn't completely change my entire life? I'm baffled by people who think there's an answer to that question, of course, that's when you have to get that question every day and the thing is, you start where you are and you do what you can do and you do it the way you see fit. correct.

Do it for you and whatever path you choose, don't tell yourself that's it or that I failed, like you know, there are some people who will take baby steps, they will reduce that goal to the little thing they can do tomorrow. and feel successful. and then they find out that they don't actually feel successful because they don't see the benefit of it or it doesn't have a deep meaning for them, so you have to give yourself permission, okay, you have to try harder at this, what's the version? of this, when you finally can do it, you will feel like it is a triumph and then you will give yourself as much time as you need to get to that point if you feel like you want to do everything you can and then find out a month later that this is not working the way you I intended, that it was a learning experience.

I think thatPeople should not believe that there are these tricks to change behavior that go beyond what your intuition can take you if you are clear about it. what you care about and are willing to experiment with and not giving up the first time doesn't go as planned, right? I think it's super wise. I think these things are about getting caught in some kind of future stumble or stumble. You know, stories we tell ourselves about the past, right, and the truth is that all we have is what we're doing now and I love the way 12 steps does it, it's like you don't have to like me.

You don't have to worry about whether you're going to stay sober for ten years like what are you doing now, are you going to drink your pill? Your head will hit the pillow tonight. Are you going to drink before you go to sleep tonight? everything you have to worry about, like those little imperceptible things that seem small in the grand scheme of things but are actually the levers that move everything. Yeah, I think you know an example that I think about often, so one of the hardest things to do is To quit smoking, there are some people who can do it cold turkey and I've talked to people who made that decision and just did it. they did and for some reason it worked for them, it was an "aha" moment, but there is research that shows that if you can delay the first cigarette of the day by five or ten minutes, that increases your chances of quitting.

So it seems entirely possible to delay the first cigarette by five minutes mm-hmm and that's something you could choose to do tomorrow and know. that they are both paths to the same place and at first you don't always know which one will work for you, but that and there are a million paths in between that seem like something else, yeah, you know that, dr. Judd Brewer yeah oh I saw the interview you did too oh yeah yeah it's not surprising it's great and it talks about being curious instead of being hard. Are you hard on yourself or do you make judgments about these things like can you be curious about that craving?

Can you lean on it and try to learn about yourself from it and suspend your judgments about it? that idea of ​​surfing momentum is something that when I talk to people about that has been most helpful and that has come out of this integration of science and contemplative traditions of all the ideas, because a lot of the ideas that I talk about are in a way a fusion of both worlds and that idea. The idea is brought up all the time that you may have an internal drive that tells you that you have to do this because what you are feeling right now is not that you can't tolerate it, you have to give in, or you have to give in. say this thing that you are thinking about or that you need to buy, that whatever it is, that there is a process by which you can pay attention to it, trust that it will not overwhelm you, that you can cope with it and that you can expand your attention to your values ​​or your goals, I mean it works for everything, it's not just you know how it was studied for things like cravings, yeah, pay attention, it's mindfulness, okay, so we'll end this here in a minute, but I want to go. people with some ideas or maybe a little cheat sheet as they start to map out their 2020 and I'm thinking about the person who's sitting there saying, I hear everything you say, but I just like it when I think. about the movement, I just can't understand it.

I've never moved my body before. Every instinct tells me I can't do it or it's not enjoyable for me, so how could all of you, that individual? in kind of a restructuring of how they think about this, so one approach is to think about the forms of movement that most reliably make people feel better and one is getting outdoors, going for a walk if you can walk or whatever that version is. for your body it is very likely to have a positive effect and moving to music is another or doing something that feels like playing either with children or an animal or you know in a sport and or doing something with your body that feels useful like gardening or some kind of work that feels like a product of the book I write about this community that combines exercise with community service projects, which, by the way, is the only form of exercise my mother will do.

Write for some people the movement. it has to have a purpose like planting trees or something yeah we're cleaning or helping people yeah so I feel like you know there are certain things you just try are you so convinced that this is going to be miserable? I haven't tried to go. Go for a walk somewhere where you can get some fresh air. Have you tried playing a song you love when no one is looking and just seeing what movement comes out of you? There are these little experiments you can do because you're a human being. Even if you have what seems like a barrier, even if you live with chronic pain, have a disability, or are struggling with depression, even in all those contacts, most people benefit from simple forms of movement.

The other thing I would say is that's like the delay of your cigarette, you know, it's about ten minutes, but I often tell people that I have, what is the movement that inspires you, what is it that you said, I could never do that, if you would rethink it and say, well, maybe I could do it. establishing that kind of possibility of a new version of you that you haven't expressed yet but that you feel like could be in you and do that because I feel like that's where I'm often taking that bolder step like I've done it.

I've never been a runner, but I've always admired runners or danced when I was younger and I haven't danced in three decades, but what would it feel like to be free like that again and go for what feels like you? I just want to be that person in motion, aha, yeah, it's beautifully expressed. I think another big part of this and what you talk about in the book is building the community aspect, like recruiting a friend or colleague or creating accountability and community around this so that you're not doing it alone and having to report to someone, In a good way, in a bad way, if you don't show up, they'll hit you, but you know if you do. show up, they'll be there and you'll be with your friend, yeah, and knowing that when you move in with other people you build a community like that's the other party too, sometimes I'll tell people if you show up somewhere. and you like the way it feels, but no one smiled at you that first time or like, you didn't feel like you belonged right away and you have all these amazing connections that, when they appear over time, are one of the most consistent.

What happens is that you form communities, so if there is a place that you want to belong where movement is available, if you are looking to build connections with particular individuals, then you should know that movement is one of the best ways to do that. can keep coming up and that you'll actually develop a support network around movement the same way your muscles change, I mean those weights, it just happens that way with this solid career and experience in evidence-based human human behavior, already You know, science. In fact, you know human behavior, what keeps tripping you up?

What is the frontier for you that challenges you or that you are trying to overcome well? So what's not new but what's more Something ingrained in me that I struggle with on a daily basis is, um, I just have a nervous system and a temperament that's overwhelmed by life, like you know anxiety is my state. default and that's been true since I came out of the womb, apparently, so I feel like It's not a new frontier, but certainly the things that I've been attracted to are things that make me feel braver about life and that interfere with my instincts to withdraw and shut down the other thing I've been working on a lot lately.

A few years ago I was in this period of my life, I lived in both New York and Palo Alto, California, and when you live in two cities, you don't really live in any city and I felt the consequences of not having daily as a community driven by the neighborhood and as of now I am located only in Palo Alto, the frontier I have been working on is simply trying to honor and rebuild those daily neighborhood-based connections that turned out to be much more important to my mental health than I am. I realized, so that's like the border and then if I were to try to give advice to other people, it would be just because I've been, yeah, we haven't talked about the other passion in my life which is rescue and animal adoption. and if other people are thinking of something to do and don't want to exercise, please adopt something.

I feel like I really want to write a book about the psychological and social benefits of having a beautiful relationship with animals. You should write a The next book about that I teach a course about your problems. All my books are course based. I have to figure out how to do it. I don't know if Stanford Business School will want you to teach that class, but who knows, right? What are the classes you are teaching right now? The next class I'm teaching at the Business School is on communication and it's for researchers who want to learn how to communicate their work to the public and then and also in any type of environment mm-hmm super important coming from the person who has 21 million views in your - are you up to that now?

Yes, it's really morning. Crazy, yes, I have to be one of the most viewed TED talks. At this point it is and I honestly didn't think people were going to see it. Why don't I know? I said we said Ted's main scenario, sure, but you know, I gave that talk in 2013 and it's true, I don't. I don't know, I really felt like there was less at stake for me than it turned out to be because, well, I just didn't think that many people were going to see it and I didn't go through that whole process. People like intense grooming or they like to hire a trainer and a stylist.

I simply treated it as if it were based on a lecture I gave in my introductory psychology class at Stanford. It was like an excerpt from my psychology lecture and I just ordered I treated it like that Wow, well maybe that's why it worked, yeah, I don't know if you're going to do another one. I don't think so, no, that was it, unless they let me lead a movement experience, well that would be a cool follow-up. above, but you have to be traveling quite a bit talking. I'm that kind of thing, yes, since one of the things I'm trying to do is less of that to make the decision to not have to replace one. from my movement classes so I can be on the road speaking to a crowd of thousands of people.

I have decided right now that that is inconsistent with my values ​​and make the decision to stay local. Where is your curiosity taking you now? I'm reading something about the answer, that question for me is science I'm reading a lot and I'm reading two types of science, rather, when I get the Google alerts, I'm more likely to click on all the summaries. I get Google alerts for so many different topics because you're on PubMed all day, yeah, okay, one is the default mode. I'm still fascinated by how the human brain works by default when left alone.

Fascinated by it for years and the research on it, I feel like it's one of those areas where every day there's something more fascinating, like now, well, the default mode network is kind of like the new microbiome. What are you talking about? They weren't talking. About a couple of years ago, but it's still coming up a lot now, so I think the other one is compassion because I'm still very interested in how we deepen and broaden our compassion and there's a lot of research out there right now. of this is practical and applied so that people who are dedicated to helping and around a lot of suffering, how do they maintain a strong compassion that is not exhausting or traumatizing?

There's a lot of research going on right now whether it's in healthcare rescue workers or in Social Work, well it's a big deal in animal rescue oh yeah yeah. I mean, I've talked to Gene Baur quite a bit about this, like how you can't, you can't sustain that kind of work if you're too emotionally attached to the results of It's because you could never rescue as many animals as an orderly rescue, just do what you can. , but I am the organization I volunteer with the most, their motto is to save them all, so there is always that paradox that you have the latest. that's your aspiration, I often know it's right, it's a big challenge and that's why I feel like a lot of people driven by compassion have that motto even if they don't know it, but I'm here to save you all and then that.

You know, day by day you face what Parker Palmer calls the tragic gap, there's your aspiration and that's where you really are and you're looking at this abyss of the tragic gap between reality and your aspirations and therefore part of sustainable compassion is Discovering how to find contentment in the midst of that tragic gap would be a very interesting book. Yes, I think because there are many of you who know people who are activists or who have strong feelings about certain things in certain ways. who have dedicated their lives to causes and there are many things, there is a huge, you know, a kind of psychological damage that comes with that, yeah, great, well, I love the book, the joy of the movement, you did an incredible job.

I think it's going to help a lot of people, so congratulations on this. The full title is the joy of movement, how exercise helps us find happiness,hope, connection and courage. If you want to hear the full story behind the subtitle you break it all down on your website and you have pictures and it's a lot of fun and it's also easy to find on the internet just Kelly McGonigal calm down and act like Kelly McGonigal in all the problems yeah all that stuff and I suppose you're going to do a great job. I don't know why I want to stay local too, but I have my first book event planned in New York City, where we're going to have a little conversation and then a movement experience and then a dance party and me.

I hope that wherever I travel we find a way to connect people to the movement communities where they are, that's my goal. It's very exciting, so they'll post it on their website as their agenda and all that kind of stuff. everything is fine, great, thank you very much Kelly, I appreciate talking to you. Great, she comes back and talks to me again. I feel like there are so many more things we can talk about. Great, okay, peace.