Michael Pollan:
One of the great ironies of the supermarket is that the quietest food is the healthiest food. Broccoli doesn't have a health claim on it, it just sits there. But then, when you go to the middle aisles and everything's screaming, cookies are telling you that they're low-fat, or high-fiber, or whatever, they're making health claims. So, one of my rules of eating is don't buy any food that makes a health claim.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. We all live inside our own personal private perception box built by our genes and the physical, social, and cultural environment in which we were born and raised. In this podcast, we explore how although the walls of this mental box are always present, they can expand in states like awe, wonder and curiosity, or contract in response to anxiety, fear, and anger. I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts, two incredible and distinguished minds. Dr. Heather Berlin, professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. And Dr. Christophe Koch, chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, and the current meritorious investigator and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.
Heather Berlin:
Hi everyone, welcome to Science of Perception Box. I'm your co-host, Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch.
Heather Berlin:
Every week we feature an aspect of the Science of Perception Box, highlighting the latest research together with our expert guest. I'm thrilled to welcome Michael Pollan to the show. Michael is an author and researcher who describes his interests as the places where the human and natural worlds intersect, on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. He's the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including the Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, This is Your Mind on Plants, and Cooked. He's received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gastronomic Science, and in 2020 he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. I'd like to welcome Michael Pollan to the show.
Michael Pollan:
Thank you. Thank you, Heather.
Heather Berlin:
So, you've written a lot about the cultural and biological connection to what we eat for decades. So, can you talk a little bit about how food can change or affect our perception box, and our perception of the world?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. I mean, food has a profound effect on our mood, and not very well studied. We don't know that much about it, but we know that it happens. And the most obvious case is sugar, especially in children. I mean, it is a drug. I mean, if you have kids, basically child-rearing is a matter of sugar management. And you feel really different after you're full, you feel different when you're hungry. The absence of food does sharpen you up to a certain point.
Heather Berlin:
Well, it is interesting because the same food can affect you, impact you psychologically in different ways depending on where you're at. So if you're food deprived, a good piece of chocolate is going to be like, you're like, "Oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever eaten." Now you've eaten six chocolate bars and somebody says, "Here, you can have another." And that same chocolate bar is going to be disgusting.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, exactly. And of course, that's true with drugs as well. I mean, the dose makes a huge difference in how you respond to it. But I think it's a frontier of research to understand the links between food and mood. I know there've been some studies on prison populations, which you can do in England. I guess they don't have IRBs, I don't know. But they do. They get away with this where they use a prison population where you have ultimate control over the diet, and the addition of omega-threes bumping up the omega-3s, bumping up the omega-3s in the diet, whether through fish or greens, I don't know how they did it, led to reductions in violence, and real changes in the behavior of people in prison. There's also been some very interesting studies around ultra-processed food, a term you're beginning to hear a lot more, because there's now a body of science around this category. We used to just call it junk food, and that was an amorphous category. Ultra-processed food is still a little amorphous, but it has some more precision to it and rigor.
Christof Koch:
So, can you give an example?
Michael Pollan:
Well, an ultra-processed food would be, it's usually snack foods or ready-to-prepare meals that you would buy frozen. The definition, the best definition is they're made with, they usually have a lot of ingredients, they're made with ingredients that you don't have at home. Emulsifiers, stabilizers, things that bind things together.
Christof Koch:
Many syllable words.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, and they're unrecognizable generally to the normal person, but you don't have these ingredients in your pantry and you also need a factory to make this food. Even if you wanted to make a Twinkie, you don't have what you need. And this kind of food, if you offer people over the course of a month, two versions of food, one is ultra-processed and one is whole foods, matched for all the macronutrients, same amount of fat, same amount of sugar, same amount of fiber, all that stuff. Actually, I don't know if they match fiber, it'd be hard to do. Ultra-processed food usually has very little fiber. People will eat 500 more calories a day. And so, it's food that's been designed on the drug model in a way to make you crave it.
Christof Koch:
You mean, the people who eat the ultra-processed food will eat-
Michael Pollan:
Will eat 500 more calories a day, and that'll put on the weight pretty quickly. And we don't know the mechanism, whether it's some of these additives that are responsible or the combination, or the fact that it's been specifically engineered to get you to overeat. I mean, that's how they-
Heather Berlin:
So, maybe it's reducing the satiety, feeling satiated-
Michael Pollan:
Because there is no fiber. That may be part of it. It's absorbed very quickly too, so the insulin reaction is different.
Heather Berlin:
And it's like a, what they call a super normal stimuli, right? It's created-
Michael Pollan:
I don't know what that is.
Heather Berlin:
So, there's the normal kinds of sugars we would find in nature, like picking fruits and berries. But then you artificially create these things that are very high in sugar and fat that wouldn't be naturally things that you would find in the environment that we're super attracted to, because evolution.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, absolutely. That misfit between what our body expects to get and what it gets from highly processed food is a big problem. There was a study also done at Yale where they gave people a series of drinks in an fMRI. Some were matched, in other words the sweetness and the sugar level were matched, and then they were not matched. There were drinks that were sweeter or less sweet, had artificial sweeteners. And on the artificial sweeteners the body becomes confused, and the insulin response is to perceive level of sweetness. But if you're not getting the calories to absorb, the body will look for them. And that's one of the reasons people on no calorie sodas don't lose weight, their bodies will find those sugars eventually.
Heather Berlin:
And there's some work that was done by Alia Crum at Stanford, who looked at these milkshakes, and they had the same number of calorie but in one case they said this was a really high fat milkshake, and the other said it was this diet-
Christof Koch:
So, that's the influence of belief.
Heather Berlin:
Belief can also affect. So, there's the physiologic aspect to it, but there's actually this top down where when people believed it was this high fat, nutritious, and they would feel more satiated and they wouldn't want any other food. When they thought it was the diet one, they still were hungry-
Michael Pollan:
They wanted to keep eating?
Heather Berlin:
... and they wanted keep eating. So, there's the psychological aspect of it as well that affects us. And there's also the cognitive framing. If they say this a really expensive bottle of wine, and people say, "We really like it." And then you say, "It's really cheap. It's the same wine-"
Michael Pollan:
And it's not as good?
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, and the pleasure centers don't light up in the brain. So we really are, it's this combination between what's happening in our bodies, but also in our minds. But in terms of our perception box, it's like what we believe, our beliefs and our expectations impact how our body physiologically define-
Christof Koch:
So, it's three things. It's the molecules that we ingest, then it's a state of our body. Are we hungry? Are we satiated? And then it's what we believe, what we believe we eat. Is it good or bad? Is it expensive? Is it not expensive? And all those three things combine to affect our health.
Michael Pollan:
And I'm sure if you eat something you believe is indulgent and not good for you, it has an effect. Whereas if you eat something that you've been told or you think is very healthy-
Christof Koch:
I believe that [French 00:09:11] is a cognitive enhancer. I can show you the evidence.
Michael Pollan:
I believe chocolate is, definitely. Chocolate is.
Christof Koch:
Particularly [French 00:09:19].
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
But I mean, there are also studies that show if you're sleep-deprived, if you're stressed and they give people a choice, they tend to go for the junk food, the more higher fat foods. And so, there is this aspect of impulse control as well, because often it's more attractive to have the food that is not so good for you. And so, when you are sleep-deprived or stressed, you tend to go for those. So, I think there's an aspect-
Michael Pollan:
There's probably the quicker-
Heather Berlin:
High of the sugar?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, or satiation. In general, processed food is absorbed by the small intestine, and very quickly so you get your sugar rush. And so, if you're in a depressed or low energy mood, you're looking for that quick response. And so, there's food that unfolds more slowly through digestion and offers your microbiome something too. I'm sure that's the problem with a lot of ultra processed food, that it doesn't feed the 10 trillion organisms that you have to think about when you're eating besides yourself.
Heather Berlin:
I think it's like a hidden epidemic of people not realizing that their psyche and their bodies, everything is being affected-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, no, I think it's a misfit. I think we have this incredible mechanism designed by evolution to tell us what to eat. And you look at animals, they know what to eat. Cattle will self-medicate. When they're pregnant they'll eat one kind of grass, and when they're putting on fat for the winter they'll eat another kind of grass. I mean, there is a nutritional wisdom that food science has learned how to manipulate and thwart. And so we know fruit, we're attracted to fruit because of the colors, and the smells, and the tastes. We have some nutritional wisdom that is in danger of being lost, because it can be manipulated.
Christof Koch:
You wrote this beautiful article that stayed with me back in 2007 called Unhappy Meals, I think?
Michael Pollan:
Mm-hmm.
Christof Koch:
You start off with this very short statement, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plant." Well, is this what you mean when you say nutritional wisdom?
Michael Pollan:
It sounds a little cryptic, but what I mean by that is real food. I mean, there's certain substances we dignify with that word that we shouldn't. I mean, I think a lot of ultra processed foods are not real food, so it's really eat real food. And I define that as food your great-grandmother would recognize as food, or food that doesn't have ingredients your third-grader can't pronounce. So, that was an article that eventually became a book called In Defense of Food, where I was asked by my editors at the New York Times, "Do a deep dive into nutrition science, and figure out what do we know, what can we say with some certainty about how to eat?"
Because there's a huge amount of confusion, and the science around nutrition changes. And there's also a lot of companies putting out bogus research to confuse people and their health claims on very unhealthy foods. I mean, one of the great ironies of the supermarket is that the quietest food is the healthiest food. I mean, broccoli doesn't have a health claim on it, it just sits there. But you go to the middle aisles and everything's screaming. Cookies are telling you that they're low fat or high fiber, whatever, they're making health claims. So, one of my rules of eating is don't buy any food that makes a health claim.
Heather Berlin:
Oh, I love that.
Michael Pollan:
Most health claims are bogus.
Heather Berlin:
What do you think about all those super green powders, superfood?
Michael Pollan:
It's not food.
Heather Berlin:
Right.
Michael Pollan:
It's not food.
Heather Berlin:
And there's no evidence that suggests-
Michael Pollan:
And so, it's a very interesting case of science as a problem in terms of public education. In other words, scientists need to study nutrients. To understand food you need reductive science, to a certain point. But for the consumer to focus on nutrients is a tremendous mistake. We don't eat nutrients, we eat foods.
Christof Koch:
But tell me, do you believe if you equate everything else, which is of course never the case, 200 years ago let's say, when people were eating still mostly foods, do you think the mindset of the people was fundamentally different from today when, let's say a large fraction of people eat large proportions of meat, let's say every day? Do you think actually their sense of who they are and their sense of reality, their sense of the world was different?
Michael Pollan:
It's a good question, I'm not sure. I think that with regard to meat, it was a special occasion food. Meat was expensive and you had chicken on Sundays, and that was a very special thing. And you had meat a couple times a week. We have meat three times a day, many Americans, we eat eight ounces of meat per person, per day. And you're not holding your own and I'm not holding my own-
Heather Berlin:
Neither have I. I've been a vegetarian since 14.
Michael Pollan:
... so people are eating for us. And the idea of having meat three times a day, which now a lot of Americans think is an entitlement, is destroying the planet. Not to mention the damage it's doing to people's health. I think people had a stronger connection. Food is not just a substance we take in our bodies, it's a relationship. It connects us to the person who produces it, to the animal if there was an animal involved, to the earth, to nature. And food is one of our key connections to nature, and we have lost track of that.
100 years ago, 200 years ago most people either were farmers or new farmers. So, they had a real sense of where the food came from. And I think that changed the process of eating. I think there was no accident people said grace, because they understood that this is a marvelous thing and it's a real gift of nature or God, and I think we've lost that. Food comes from the supermarket. Kids have no idea how food is produced. I remember standing in line at a McDonald's once with my son, and yes, I did take my son to McDonald's occasionally.
Christof Koch:
That's how you start off the book, the only way-
Michael Pollan:
That's right, that's right. Yeah. We're having a McDonald's meal, which I proceeded to follow back to the farms. And there was a kid there who, they had a picture of a steer or something, and was shocked to learn that that's what she was about to eat. So, it's just stuff, it's protoplasm from the supermarket for many of us. So, I think there's a communal and a sacred aspect to food.
Heather Berlin:
Do you think the education is key for children? Because I became a vegetarian, not because of any political reasons, but I had dissected my first frog and I noticed the ligaments, and the tendons, and the bones, and then I was like, "I don't want to eat these animals." It looks like chicken. And there was this disgust response, and then it just made me not want to eat animals. But I think children are smart, and early childhood education around this could be something that changes their perception-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. No, I think everybody who eats meat should go to a slaughterhouse once in their life. It should be a field trip. I mean, that's what got me off meat and just watching how the animals were treated on the feed lots. Just to give you an idea how far away we are from that, there are 14 or 15 states in America where it's illegal to take pictures of a feed lot, even from public right of ways.
In other words, you could be on the road in Finney County, Kansas, where I went to write about the meat industry, and if I took a picture of that feed lot, there is a law I'm breaking in the state of Kansas. I have a friend who's a photographer who just did a beautiful book about the food system, and he traveled all over the world with his paraglider taking pictures of food production, and it's a stunning book. And he was arrested in Kansas for taking pictures from the air of a feed lot. So, they've got something to hide, and they know it. So anyway, so yeah, I stopped eating industrial meat anyway, having done all this reporting and gone to all these chicken houses, and feed lots, and confinement pig operations, which to me was the most upsetting because pigs are just so intelligent.
Heather Berlin:
Why food for you? Why did you become hyper-focused and specialized in that?
Michael Pollan:
So all my writing, both the food writing, the nutrition writing, the agriculture writing, the psychedelic writing, it all grows out of my interest in gardening. I was a passionate gardener. I started as a little kid, I had a garden when I was eight years old outside my family's house. And anytime I could grow a couple strawberries, I would put them in a cup and sell them to my mother. And so, I was very entrepreneurial. And then I fell away from it for many years. But in my late 20s I started gardening again, and we bought this piece of property in Connecticut, it was a weekend house. I was working as a magazine editor. And I just got very absorbed with what happens in the garden, and that kind of engagement with the natural world and the problems, dealing with pests, keeping your soil fertile, which I gradually realized are the same problems that farmers deal with.
And so, I went from this focus on the garden and it gradually opened up onto an interest in agriculture and farming. And I was writing a column about my garden for the New York Times Magazine, like a monthly column, and using the garden as a laboratory to think about our relationship to nature and the environment, and this became my first book. But then at a certain point when GMOs were introduced, genetically modified crops, I thought, "Oh, that's a good column. I'm going to get some seeds from Monsanto, plant them in my garden, see what all this brouhaha is about." Although there wasn't actually a lot of controversy at that time in this country, it was a huge controversy in Europe. And in the course of writing that piece, Monsanto, I had wonderful access because I had approached them as a garden writer, the most benign creature on earth, and they gave me some of their potatoes to grow.
And they took me out to witness some of their farms out in Idaho, where I saw industrial farms of a scale I just didn't know existed. 50,000 acre farms completely remote controlled, irrigation pivots, using pesticides that the farmer was so careful of he would not go into his fields for three, or four, or five days after he sprayed, not even fix a broken irrigation pivot. That's how neurotoxic these pesticides were. It was a pesticide called Monitor, which is now off the market. And why was he using that? And he explained, "Well, potatoes get something called net necrosis. It's spread by aphids." The net necrosis doesn't really damage the food, but it leaves those brown lines you sometimes see inside a potato. And I said, "Is there any other way to deal with net necrosis?" And he says, "Yeah, don't grow Russet Burbank potatoes." And oh, "It's a problem with this kind of potato?"
"Yeah." I said, "Well, why don't you grow another kind of potato?" He said, "Well, McDonald's only buys Russet Burbank potatoes." Now, the people at McDonald's don't understand that because of their insistence on that kind of potato, which is purely aesthetic by the way, they want the longest possible french fry to put in those little red boxes, that little bouquet of french fries that they're so good at, that there's such an easy fix. So, the point I'm coming back to is the food chain is so long and opaque that people at one end don't realize that their aesthetic choices are forcing farmers to do things that endanger them, and potentially the consumer as well. So, that's how the interest in gardening morphed into an interest in agriculture. And I've always been really interested in plants and our symbiotic relationship to plants.
In Botany of Desire, I dealt with this most manifestly, and I was very interested in the fact that domestication's a two-way street, and that these are very clever creatures that have learned, and I use the word metaphorically, that by gratifying certain human desires they will get more habitat.
Christof Koch:
You mean it's a co-evolution?
Michael Pollan:
It's co-evolution, exactly. It's a special case of co-evolution. And so, I looked at four cases. And I looked at the plants, but I also looked at the human desires that they evolved to gratify. And so, I looked at beauty, I looked at sweetness, and I looked at intoxication. And this is what I mean when I say all the work begins that way. And there's a long chapter on cannabis, which is a plant that has succeeded far beyond anyone's dreams because of the fact that it does something to our consciousness that we really like. And I looked at the neuroscience around cannabis, and THC, and anandamide, and I got very curious then when I was working on that book as to why would we like to change consciousness? On its face that might not be such a good idea. Why would it be adaptive to change consciousness? Now, there's some obvious cases like pain. If you can change your consciousness of pain, that's a really positive thing. I mean, one of the most important plants in the pharmacopoeia are the opiates, which I've grown and written about, and gotten in trouble with.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, isn't that illegal to grow opiates?
Michael Pollan:
Well, actually-
Christof Koch:
It's a complicated [inaudible 00:23:29]
Michael Pollan:
It's complicated. It's legal to grow it, but as soon as you turn it into a drug you're breaking the law.
Christof Koch:
I think when you start cutting them up-
Michael Pollan:
Exactly, exactly. And I did do that. So, it's a curious human desire though, because when you're in an altered state of consciousness you are more likely to have accidents, in a wild setting you're more likely to be the prey of some other animal, yet we like to change consciousness, and many animals like to change consciousness. I suspect some of it has to do with sheer boredom, that we want to vary our experience of the world, and we happen to live in a highly distracted, entertained culture. We don't have the same boredom problem that I can imagine people a couple hundred years ago, life could get pretty tedious. So, being able to change consciousness with alcohol, or with caffeine, or with any number of things would be attractive. But I think there are more positive benefits to changing consciousness. Caffeine is a great example. Caffeine has a lot of benefits. It improves focus, it helps you stay awake-
Christof Koch:
It's a great drug in a capitalist society.
Heather Berlin:
But too much is not good either. I mean, you can get anxious and jittery.
Michael Pollan:
Caffeine is on balance, has been a boon to humanity at least within the context of capitalism.
Christof Koch:
And now as I understand the most widely consumed psychoactive substance-
Michael Pollan:
In the world, yeah. In the form of coffee, tea, and soda.
Christof Koch:
I mean, just to riff a little bit more on these, so what are the changes involving when you take caffeine in terms of consciousness? Because for sure you get more alert, so it modulates the level of arousal.
Michael Pollan:
Yes.
Christof Koch:
But what about changes in experience, which are different from arousal?
Michael Pollan:
Coffee's a funny case, because the experience is completely transparent if you compare it to psychedelics, or cannabis, or lots of other consciousness changing things which have a kind of ... You see the windshield.
Christof Koch:
Oh, you know when you are on magic mushrooms.
Michael Pollan:
You do. And even with cannabis, there's this physiological noise, there's all these weird side effects. Coffee, caffeine is perfectly transparent. It's wonderful that way. It improves people's stamina, it's very good for athletes and it's legal for them to use it. And they do, in large quantities. It improves memory. If you study for a test, then take a dose of caffeine, it will lock those memories in and you'll perform better on the test. The negatives are pretty minor. I mean there's, you mentioned jitteriness. Some people can't really tolerate it. The big negative is sleep, it does interfere with sleep. Caffeine has a long half-life, so it's in your system for ... If you drink a coffee at noon, at midnight 25% of the caffeine will still be circulating. So, it's a good idea to knock it off in the morning.
Christof Koch:
But it is legal. But now people-
Michael Pollan:
Thank God.
Christof Koch:
... also want more stronger changes, more-
Michael Pollan:
Yes, there are consciousness-changing plants and fungi that improve your performance in various ways, give you a certain edge, and caffeine is a good example. There are others that render you useless to capitalism, and psychedelics would be one of them.
Christof Koch:
And to warfare, as the CIA discovered.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, that's right. Well, we think that's what they discovered. They haven't really told us, but we're assuming that's what they discovered. I've thought a lot about this, and what consciousness change at that level of intensity could offer us. And we're learning, of course, about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, but I also think they play a role in cultural evolution. I really think that radical consciousness change is one of the ways that new ideas, new metaphors, new insights enter into our culture. And in the same way, borrowing Richard Dawkins scheme, that you've got memes in culture, you've got genes in biology, and memes evolve in a similar kind of way through a process of mutation and then spread. I think psychedelics, but cannabis too, and other consciousness-
Christof Koch:
Which is already recent, this is 20th century, at least in Western culture. If we just stick for the moment with Western culture-
Michael Pollan:
Well, the opiates were being used for thousands of years.
Christof Koch:
Again, in Western culture was really the opening on the British route to-
Michael Pollan:
To China.
Christof Koch:
... to the East. So that was the opium war, but that was the 19th and 20th century. I mean before, yeah, there was probably some usage back with the-
Michael Pollan:
Well, there was alcohol. Alcohol was a big drug in the West.
Christof Koch:
Yeah, there was alcohol.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. We've improved on that.
Heather Berlin:
I mean, it's a cultural evolution, but it seems to be linked to creativity, right?
Michael Pollan:
Yes, oh yeah. Novelty.
Heather Berlin:
And not all consciousness altering substances induce creativity.
Michael Pollan:
No. And in most people, they don't. And I would say 99% or 90% of the insights, or metaphors, or creative thoughts people have on psychedelics are worthless. Just like most mutations don't serve the creature-
Christof Koch:
So, let's take one of the greatest bursts of creativity, at least in Western tradition, the Renaissance, Enlightenment. What evidence do we have that drugs were involved?
Michael Pollan:
Well, caffeine. Caffeine shows up, I think in the 1640s in England and France. Many of the Enlightenment figures were big coffee drinkers. Voltaire, Balzac. It's very hard to pin this down but I do think that if you look at their role, there are people, I mean, there's a history of scientists who've had breakthroughs on psychedelics-
Heather Berlin:
At least from what I know, the micro-dosing doesn't increase creativity. There's no evidence for that. But I think it would be interesting to look across time, like if once we introduced psychedelics into mainstream culture was there a burst of creativity?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
I think certain psychedelics are a quick route to get there, and in a very extreme way. But that's not the only way to go.
Michael Pollan:
Oh, no. By no means is it the only way, it's just one of the tools, it's one of the mutagens we have that changes things. So I think it's had, on balance I think you could point to some positive effects that consciousness change has for our species. I mean, you're talking about another kind of consciousness change as part of creativity, unconstraining the self and the mind. So, there was a study done on creativity in the '70s at Stanford Research Institute, where they gave a group of creatives 100 micrograms of LSD. They had architects, they had writers, they had engineers, they had people across the ... And everybody supposedly had a block, was stuck on a project.
And they gave them the LSD, and they rolled around on the floor for a while. And then they told everybody, "Go to your desks." And they had their work tables, and they went to their desk and the architect worked on, he was designing some mall or something, and the writers worked on their problem. And it was an interesting study, and many people reported a breakthrough, but there was no control. Surely we could do a better job of that now. We have better measures of creativity, I think we could better control something like that. Alison Gopnik has various creative tasks that she gives to kids, some of those could be used. So, I think it's a really rich area to explore, and maybe you don't need a massive dose to get these effects.
Christof Koch:
I mean, there are management classes that offer this now, that offer you to take you outside the U.S. to the Caribbean, somewhere where you can be more creative.
Michael Pollan:
And we don't know if it works or not-
Heather Berlin:
And also, each drug-
Michael Pollan:
... but we should find out.
Christof Koch:
But if people believe that they're more creative, that may well make it more creative.
Michael Pollan:
Well, it might improve their confidence but if their product still sucks ...
Heather Berlin:
But there is something in the letting go that where creativity thrives, and I think these drugs are an avenue for that-
Michael Pollan:
All about that.
Heather Berlin:
... but they're all different. I think we lump together psychedelics, but MDMA has a different effect on consciousness than ketamine, then LSD, then ayahuasca-
Michael Pollan:
And works on different receptors-
Christof Koch:
And opioids.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, all of it. So do you have a favorite? Do you think if there was a recommendation, everyone-
Michael Pollan:
Caffeine. That's my favorite.
Heather Berlin:
Caffeine, I'm on board.
Michael Pollan:
Well, it's the one I can use most often without disturbing my life too much.
Christof Koch:
But you don't lose a sense of self.
Michael Pollan:
No, you don't. In fact, it's intensified. I think it's an ego building drug, and that's part of the reason it's so good for capitalism. And that is an interesting model for drugs, are they enhancing the ego or softening the ego?
Heather Berlin:
But also, everybody has different needs. Some people are too open and impulsive, and they need something to constrain them in a way.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, that's right.
Heather Berlin:
Others, some are too constrained-
Michael Pollan:
And they should take amphetamines.
Heather Berlin:
... and they can take amphetamines to help that. Others are too constrained, they need to be able to let go. And it's interesting. So, it's not one size fits all, but how this affects our perception box, is it opening the doors of perception? Is it all that expanding our perception box?
Michael Pollan:
But some people need to do to constrict it, because they're too scattered,
Heather Berlin:
Right, it's too expansive, too much. And so, I think it's personality dependent.
Christof Koch:
Totally, in a certain setting. So, what about the other extreme where those substances that completely make you lose a sense of self, yet isn't it remarkable that you can totally lose your body, your memory, your identity yet there's still something there that experiences, right?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. I mean, the most powerful experience I've had on psychedelics has been one of complete ego dissolution. I had always assumed I was identical to my ego, and discovered that my ego could dissolve. In my case, it was detonated into a cloud of blue Post-It notes.
Heather Berlin:
Oh, that's interesting.
Michael Pollan:
It was interesting.
Heather Berlin:
We can analyze that from [inaudible 00:34:05]
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, I know.
Heather Berlin:
Blue Post-it notes.
Michael Pollan:
Somebody said, "Yeah, well you're a writer, so you probably use a lot of Post-It notes." And I don't know what the blue was about, but it was definitely blue. But I wear a lot of blue.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, we need to unpack that.
Christof Koch:
Who saw this? Who explains that?
Michael Pollan:
Well, that's the question. I knew that was me and I was no more, but there was some perspective, but it was not a familiar perspective. It was highly disinterested, it wasn't troubled by what it was seeing at all.
Christof Koch:
And there was no personal memory. It wasn't you-
Michael Pollan:
It wasn't me.
Christof Koch:
It wasn't Michael.
Michael Pollan:
But I was perceiving it from some vantage. It was an unfamiliar vantage.
Christof Koch:
So, I think you need to be then careful with the word I.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, I know, but it's like-
Heather Berlin:
Well, it's his brain in a way that's doing the perceiving.
Christof Koch:
Well, we have no idea if the brain. It could be the liver or the heart. Many people [inaudible 00:34:57]
Heather Berlin:
Is this you, Christof Koch, the scientist?
Christof Koch:
No, all I'm saying-
Heather Berlin:
Or am I talking to Deepak?
Christof Koch:
... you never experience your brain.
Michael Pollan:
That's right.
Christof Koch:
You don't, you experience your mind.
Heather Berlin:
No, but we are assuming as scientists that the consciousness is coming from the brain, not the liver.
Christof Koch:
Yeah, but we haven't at all talked about the physiological subset, here we're just talking about consciousness, phenomenology, feeling. And so my point is, when you see yourself disappears and saying I-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, it's sort of like-
Heather Berlin:
Well, the concept of the self is disappearing, but the brain is still giving him the experience that he's having with the Post-It notes-
Christof Koch:
That's exactly, and this is what I would call a non-dual experience.
Michael Pollan:
It was non-dual, and I shouldn't use the word I, but I don't know what pronoun to use.
Heather Berlin:
Well, I would say the brain that's inhabited in this skull was experiencing that phenomenon-
Michael Pollan:
But the brain, as Christof says, the brain's not part of our phenomenology at all. And I'm trying to describe it. It was very hard to write about. But it was-
Christof Koch:
It's cool, isn't it? Extraordinary.
Michael Pollan:
It was extraordinary, and it wasn't frightening.
Heather Berlin:
Were you never afraid? Oh.
Michael Pollan:
No, I wasn't frightened at all. And earlier in the experience I had had frightening moments, but at this point it was complete equanimity. And what was interesting is that when the ego dissolves, the wall between us and them, or me and it, also goes away. And that leads to this experience that William James described of this merging into something larger. And for me it was a piece of music, which surprised me. I mean-
Heather Berlin:
What drug was this? This was-
Michael Pollan:
Psilocybin.
Heather Berlin:
Psilocybin, okay.
Michael Pollan:
This was a pretty high dose of psilocybin. And I heard that music in a new way because, and again the pronoun's wrong, because I didn't hear it, I became it. There was no space between me and that piece of music.
Christof Koch:
No distinction.
Michael Pollan:
No distinction.
Christof Koch:
That's what Arthur Schopenhauer, the German idealist, calls the aesthetic experience.
Michael Pollan:
I had one for the first time in my life. There was no separation.
Heather Berlin:
So, you are the music.
Christof Koch:
Yes.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Christof Koch:
You are the art. You are the painting, the music.
Michael Pollan:
And at moments I could feel the horse hair of the bow going across my body. Again, that implies I had a body at that moment, and I felt like I was inside. I mean, as the thing evolved I was inside the well of sound. It was extraordinary. It was a very sad piece of music, but I didn't feel sad at all. This felt so right. And it taught me an important lesson that I think is relevant to the perception box idea, that I'm not identical to my ego, that I'll survive its disappearance, and that the ego stands between us and amazing experiences. Not to mention love, and connection to nature and all the other things, but that we build these walls and they may help us in certain ways-
Heather Berlin:
But they're necessary, yeah. Sometimes.
Michael Pollan:
Oh, yeah. Without an ego, I'd be screwed.
Heather Berlin:
You probably wouldn't have been survived this long if you-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, and I wouldn't have gotten any books written.
Christof Koch:
Write a book.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
But there's a difference between temporary ego death and death-death.
Michael Pollan:
Well, what's interesting though is I mean, I've interviewed a lot of the cancer patients who've had psilocybin therapy. And the ones that undergo an ego death, it does change their attitudes toward their physical death in ways that make it less frightening to them. It's a rehearsal, and that rehearsal seems to help them. They're not saying I believe in an afterlife or anything, but they just sort of feel, "Okay, this is what it's like."
Heather Berlin:
The letting go. "I can let go."
Michael Pollan:
And it's the letting go, I think. I mean, letting go is a very hard thing to do and in our world-
Heather Berlin:
But when you let go in that way, you're letting go into becoming one with the music and you're still having an experience. Whereas there's a letting go into what we think is no experience.
Christof Koch:
We don't know. It may be-
Heather Berlin:
It'd be lovely if there's something more.
Christof Koch:
... again, chakra is a view. There's this mental entity, it's like a river. And then in the river there are all these billions of little eddies that formed. And these eddies all feel, "Well, here I am. I'm forever, I'm a me." And then-
Michael Pollan:
And it's how you define your me, too. I remember interviewing this one woman who had cancer, and she had psilocybin therapy at NYU, and she told the story about flying around the world and finally going into the earth, and dissolving in the earth, and her molecules were taken up by the plants. Now, that's a very naturalistic afterlife, but she could identify with the molecules so strongly that it didn't frighten her.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah. But this is the thing, and not to harp on this, but it's not about me, the ego, but I like the experience of consciousness and the way that our molecules happen to got together gives us an experience of consciousness-
Christof Koch:
Did you see what you say? I. I like it.
Heather Berlin:
Okay, the consciousness-
Christof Koch:
No, I get it. It's your ego to solve-
Heather Berlin:
... being, but when all these molecules are disorganized and separated-
Christof Koch:
The world will still go on.
Heather Berlin:
But there will be no experience of consciousness of those molecules.
Christof Koch:
No, there will be no ego. There will be no heaven.
Heather Berlin:
But you think they'll still be conscious?
Christof Koch:
We don't know. But what we do know-
Heather Berlin:
Okay, just me.
Christof Koch:
... there will not be an ego. Ultimately it's all about the ego.
Heather Berlin:
I don't need the ego, but I like the idea of consciousness.
Christof Koch:
Again, you say, "I, I, I. Me, me."
Michael Pollan:
Well, the other thing though, the other important takeaway for me was that consciousness survived the death of the ego, and that there was still experience.
Heather Berlin:
No, I'm all about that. I want consciousness to survive-
Michael Pollan:
And I thought the two were identical.
Christof Koch:
It's a very important insight, because many people claim self-consciousness is a defining feature of consciousness. Without self there isn't consciousness, which I think is nonsense.
Michael Pollan:
No, I think that that psychedelic experience proves that that's not the case.
Heather Berlin:
There's pure consciousness, but those molecules that are creating that experience of pure consciousness are organized in such a way to allow that to emerge. If those molecules are separated out, and they're in the plants, and the earth and everything, that's beautiful. But I don't know that they're communicating in an IIT kind of consciousness way, integrated information theory, that would create a sense of experience.
We end every episode by asking a perception box question. And so, our perception box question for today is for everyone, we're all going to answer it. How would you describe the difference between who you are publicly and who you are privately?
Christof Koch:
Well, almost by definition, particularly in a context like this you're much more social, you interact with each other, where privately and perfectly happy sitting at home, listening to music for an entire weekend. I spent this blissful three weeks over Christmas with my wife, and my Bernese Mountain Dog for three weeks on a tiny island, and was just wonderful just by myself. Well, I mean, with one other person and one other almost person, Mr. Felix.
Michael Pollan:
Who I met, is a wonderful dog.
Christof Koch:
So, there are these differences between public, when you're on stage when you're surrounded by other people, you become very-
Heather Berlin:
Extroverted?
Christof Koch:
... gregarious, very extroverted. And then people think, "Oh, the person's always like that back home." But back home they may be very different, and introverted, and maybe shy. I'm actually shy.
Heather Berlin:
I've seen you in various contexts, and I think it's intermixed. It's intermixed.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. Well, similarly, I mean, I do a lot of public things like this, and I do a lot of public talks, and I teach, and I'm very sure of myself and very sure-footed. And I have my opinions, and I always have an answer to any question. In reality, I don't. And I'm reminded of this by my wife and my son all the time, who will remind me that, "You don't really know anything about that, do you?" So, there's a certain confidence that I portray in public that I don't necessarily feel.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, there's a persona that you put on of this is person, the idealized person that I want to be.
Michael Pollan:
And it's reinforced, of course by others. I mean, there's a social self, and it's how we perceive ourselves in the eyes of others. And I've always wondered, and I've had periods of really being isolated, being alone, going somewhere to focus on my writing or something. And there is this way in which you sense your sense of identity just softening and eroding. And if you did it long enough, it would disappear. It wouldn't quite disappear, but it would change fundamentally. So, I think our public identities reinforce all sorts of things about us and our ego that wouldn't otherwise exist.
Heather Berlin:
Right. And it's almost like an identity that's created outside of your true self. I mean, the pandemic was difficult for a number of reasons, not the least of which my children were home and had to be homeschooled, but I did enjoy this idea of that I didn't have to go anywhere, there was no pressure. You don't have to wear makeup, you can wear sweatpants and just be this true self of not being on, which I found so enjoyable. And when things started to lighten up and we could go out in the world, I wasn't that thrilled about it, to be honest.
Christof Koch:
But is it a truth, or is it just a different aspect, a different facet of-
Heather Berlin:
A different aspect. I enjoy this too, but I enjoy the majority of the time to not be on. And then occasionally you're on, and there's a performance aspect to it, but then to retreat. I think you need a little of both.
Michael Pollan:
I think performance is a key term too.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah. It's like performative and you're a character. And I once spoke with Bill Nye the Science Guy, and he was saying there's the guy and then there's Bill. And sometimes people lose that distinction between their performative self and their non-performative self, let's say. But I think that we all have to be humble at some level and realize that we don't know everything. I'm going to leave it on this-
Christof Koch:
Speak for yourself.
Heather Berlin:
... my grandmother said to me, my grandmother's advice is always great, and I was very nervous, I was in graduate school and I was giving my first lecture to all these professors. This was at Oxford, it was very intimidating. And I called her, "I'm so scared, Grandma." And she said, "They all take a shit like you and me."
Michael Pollan:
All right, Grandma.
Christof Koch:
On that note.
Heather Berlin:
And on that note, that has been this episode of Perception Box-
Michael Pollan:
That sounds like a great grandma.
Heather Berlin:
So I want to thank you, Michael, for joining us today-
Michael Pollan:
Oh, thank you both. Thanks for having me on.
Christof Koch:
Thanks so much coming, very enjoyable.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
... this was so amazing. And if you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guests, and check out other questions on the website at unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box, created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I am Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch, thank you very much.
How Food Affects Your Mind with Michael Pollan
Humans have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants coevolved to suit our desires for nourishment, beauty, and altering consciousness. Journalist Michael Pollan has investigated the human connection to plants. This week on Science of Perception Box, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch ask Pollan about modern trends like ultra-processed foods, industrialized agriculture, and consciousness-altering drugs from plants including caffeine, cannabis, and psychedelics.
For more than 30 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In 2020, along with Dacher Keltner and others, he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Michael Pollan:
One of the great ironies of the supermarket is that the quietest food is the healthiest food. Broccoli doesn't have a health claim on it, it just sits there. But then, when you go to the middle aisles and everything's screaming, cookies are telling you that they're low-fat, or high-fiber, or whatever, they're making health claims. So, one of my rules of eating is don't buy any food that makes a health claim.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. We all live inside our own personal private perception box built by our genes and the physical, social, and cultural environment in which we were born and raised. In this podcast, we explore how although the walls of this mental box are always present, they can expand in states like awe, wonder and curiosity, or contract in response to anxiety, fear, and anger. I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts, two incredible and distinguished minds. Dr. Heather Berlin, professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. And Dr. Christophe Koch, chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, and the current meritorious investigator and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.
Heather Berlin:
Hi everyone, welcome to Science of Perception Box. I'm your co-host, Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch.
Heather Berlin:
Every week we feature an aspect of the Science of Perception Box, highlighting the latest research together with our expert guest. I'm thrilled to welcome Michael Pollan to the show. Michael is an author and researcher who describes his interests as the places where the human and natural worlds intersect, on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. He's the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including the Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, This is Your Mind on Plants, and Cooked. He's received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gastronomic Science, and in 2020 he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. I'd like to welcome Michael Pollan to the show.
Michael Pollan:
Thank you. Thank you, Heather.
Heather Berlin:
So, you've written a lot about the cultural and biological connection to what we eat for decades. So, can you talk a little bit about how food can change or affect our perception box, and our perception of the world?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. I mean, food has a profound effect on our mood, and not very well studied. We don't know that much about it, but we know that it happens. And the most obvious case is sugar, especially in children. I mean, it is a drug. I mean, if you have kids, basically child-rearing is a matter of sugar management. And you feel really different after you're full, you feel different when you're hungry. The absence of food does sharpen you up to a certain point.
Heather Berlin:
Well, it is interesting because the same food can affect you, impact you psychologically in different ways depending on where you're at. So if you're food deprived, a good piece of chocolate is going to be like, you're like, "Oh my God, this is the best thing I've ever eaten." Now you've eaten six chocolate bars and somebody says, "Here, you can have another." And that same chocolate bar is going to be disgusting.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, exactly. And of course, that's true with drugs as well. I mean, the dose makes a huge difference in how you respond to it. But I think it's a frontier of research to understand the links between food and mood. I know there've been some studies on prison populations, which you can do in England. I guess they don't have IRBs, I don't know. But they do. They get away with this where they use a prison population where you have ultimate control over the diet, and the addition of omega-threes bumping up the omega-3s, bumping up the omega-3s in the diet, whether through fish or greens, I don't know how they did it, led to reductions in violence, and real changes in the behavior of people in prison. There's also been some very interesting studies around ultra-processed food, a term you're beginning to hear a lot more, because there's now a body of science around this category. We used to just call it junk food, and that was an amorphous category. Ultra-processed food is still a little amorphous, but it has some more precision to it and rigor.
Christof Koch:
So, can you give an example?
Michael Pollan:
Well, an ultra-processed food would be, it's usually snack foods or ready-to-prepare meals that you would buy frozen. The definition, the best definition is they're made with, they usually have a lot of ingredients, they're made with ingredients that you don't have at home. Emulsifiers, stabilizers, things that bind things together.
Christof Koch:
Many syllable words.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, and they're unrecognizable generally to the normal person, but you don't have these ingredients in your pantry and you also need a factory to make this food. Even if you wanted to make a Twinkie, you don't have what you need. And this kind of food, if you offer people over the course of a month, two versions of food, one is ultra-processed and one is whole foods, matched for all the macronutrients, same amount of fat, same amount of sugar, same amount of fiber, all that stuff. Actually, I don't know if they match fiber, it'd be hard to do. Ultra-processed food usually has very little fiber. People will eat 500 more calories a day. And so, it's food that's been designed on the drug model in a way to make you crave it.
Christof Koch:
You mean, the people who eat the ultra-processed food will eat-
Michael Pollan:
Will eat 500 more calories a day, and that'll put on the weight pretty quickly. And we don't know the mechanism, whether it's some of these additives that are responsible or the combination, or the fact that it's been specifically engineered to get you to overeat. I mean, that's how they-
Heather Berlin:
So, maybe it's reducing the satiety, feeling satiated-
Michael Pollan:
Because there is no fiber. That may be part of it. It's absorbed very quickly too, so the insulin reaction is different.
Heather Berlin:
And it's like a, what they call a super normal stimuli, right? It's created-
Michael Pollan:
I don't know what that is.
Heather Berlin:
So, there's the normal kinds of sugars we would find in nature, like picking fruits and berries. But then you artificially create these things that are very high in sugar and fat that wouldn't be naturally things that you would find in the environment that we're super attracted to, because evolution.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, absolutely. That misfit between what our body expects to get and what it gets from highly processed food is a big problem. There was a study also done at Yale where they gave people a series of drinks in an fMRI. Some were matched, in other words the sweetness and the sugar level were matched, and then they were not matched. There were drinks that were sweeter or less sweet, had artificial sweeteners. And on the artificial sweeteners the body becomes confused, and the insulin response is to perceive level of sweetness. But if you're not getting the calories to absorb, the body will look for them. And that's one of the reasons people on no calorie sodas don't lose weight, their bodies will find those sugars eventually.
Heather Berlin:
And there's some work that was done by Alia Crum at Stanford, who looked at these milkshakes, and they had the same number of calorie but in one case they said this was a really high fat milkshake, and the other said it was this diet-
Christof Koch:
So, that's the influence of belief.
Heather Berlin:
Belief can also affect. So, there's the physiologic aspect to it, but there's actually this top down where when people believed it was this high fat, nutritious, and they would feel more satiated and they wouldn't want any other food. When they thought it was the diet one, they still were hungry-
Michael Pollan:
They wanted to keep eating?
Heather Berlin:
... and they wanted keep eating. So, there's the psychological aspect of it as well that affects us. And there's also the cognitive framing. If they say this a really expensive bottle of wine, and people say, "We really like it." And then you say, "It's really cheap. It's the same wine-"
Michael Pollan:
And it's not as good?
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, and the pleasure centers don't light up in the brain. So we really are, it's this combination between what's happening in our bodies, but also in our minds. But in terms of our perception box, it's like what we believe, our beliefs and our expectations impact how our body physiologically define-
Christof Koch:
So, it's three things. It's the molecules that we ingest, then it's a state of our body. Are we hungry? Are we satiated? And then it's what we believe, what we believe we eat. Is it good or bad? Is it expensive? Is it not expensive? And all those three things combine to affect our health.
Michael Pollan:
And I'm sure if you eat something you believe is indulgent and not good for you, it has an effect. Whereas if you eat something that you've been told or you think is very healthy-
Christof Koch:
I believe that [French 00:09:11] is a cognitive enhancer. I can show you the evidence.
Michael Pollan:
I believe chocolate is, definitely. Chocolate is.
Christof Koch:
Particularly [French 00:09:19].
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
But I mean, there are also studies that show if you're sleep-deprived, if you're stressed and they give people a choice, they tend to go for the junk food, the more higher fat foods. And so, there is this aspect of impulse control as well, because often it's more attractive to have the food that is not so good for you. And so, when you are sleep-deprived or stressed, you tend to go for those. So, I think there's an aspect-
Michael Pollan:
There's probably the quicker-
Heather Berlin:
High of the sugar?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, or satiation. In general, processed food is absorbed by the small intestine, and very quickly so you get your sugar rush. And so, if you're in a depressed or low energy mood, you're looking for that quick response. And so, there's food that unfolds more slowly through digestion and offers your microbiome something too. I'm sure that's the problem with a lot of ultra processed food, that it doesn't feed the 10 trillion organisms that you have to think about when you're eating besides yourself.
Heather Berlin:
I think it's like a hidden epidemic of people not realizing that their psyche and their bodies, everything is being affected-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, no, I think it's a misfit. I think we have this incredible mechanism designed by evolution to tell us what to eat. And you look at animals, they know what to eat. Cattle will self-medicate. When they're pregnant they'll eat one kind of grass, and when they're putting on fat for the winter they'll eat another kind of grass. I mean, there is a nutritional wisdom that food science has learned how to manipulate and thwart. And so we know fruit, we're attracted to fruit because of the colors, and the smells, and the tastes. We have some nutritional wisdom that is in danger of being lost, because it can be manipulated.
Christof Koch:
You wrote this beautiful article that stayed with me back in 2007 called Unhappy Meals, I think?
Michael Pollan:
Mm-hmm.
Christof Koch:
You start off with this very short statement, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plant." Well, is this what you mean when you say nutritional wisdom?
Michael Pollan:
It sounds a little cryptic, but what I mean by that is real food. I mean, there's certain substances we dignify with that word that we shouldn't. I mean, I think a lot of ultra processed foods are not real food, so it's really eat real food. And I define that as food your great-grandmother would recognize as food, or food that doesn't have ingredients your third-grader can't pronounce. So, that was an article that eventually became a book called In Defense of Food, where I was asked by my editors at the New York Times, "Do a deep dive into nutrition science, and figure out what do we know, what can we say with some certainty about how to eat?"
Because there's a huge amount of confusion, and the science around nutrition changes. And there's also a lot of companies putting out bogus research to confuse people and their health claims on very unhealthy foods. I mean, one of the great ironies of the supermarket is that the quietest food is the healthiest food. I mean, broccoli doesn't have a health claim on it, it just sits there. But you go to the middle aisles and everything's screaming. Cookies are telling you that they're low fat or high fiber, whatever, they're making health claims. So, one of my rules of eating is don't buy any food that makes a health claim.
Heather Berlin:
Oh, I love that.
Michael Pollan:
Most health claims are bogus.
Heather Berlin:
What do you think about all those super green powders, superfood?
Michael Pollan:
It's not food.
Heather Berlin:
Right.
Michael Pollan:
It's not food.
Heather Berlin:
And there's no evidence that suggests-
Michael Pollan:
And so, it's a very interesting case of science as a problem in terms of public education. In other words, scientists need to study nutrients. To understand food you need reductive science, to a certain point. But for the consumer to focus on nutrients is a tremendous mistake. We don't eat nutrients, we eat foods.
Christof Koch:
But tell me, do you believe if you equate everything else, which is of course never the case, 200 years ago let's say, when people were eating still mostly foods, do you think the mindset of the people was fundamentally different from today when, let's say a large fraction of people eat large proportions of meat, let's say every day? Do you think actually their sense of who they are and their sense of reality, their sense of the world was different?
Michael Pollan:
It's a good question, I'm not sure. I think that with regard to meat, it was a special occasion food. Meat was expensive and you had chicken on Sundays, and that was a very special thing. And you had meat a couple times a week. We have meat three times a day, many Americans, we eat eight ounces of meat per person, per day. And you're not holding your own and I'm not holding my own-
Heather Berlin:
Neither have I. I've been a vegetarian since 14.
Michael Pollan:
... so people are eating for us. And the idea of having meat three times a day, which now a lot of Americans think is an entitlement, is destroying the planet. Not to mention the damage it's doing to people's health. I think people had a stronger connection. Food is not just a substance we take in our bodies, it's a relationship. It connects us to the person who produces it, to the animal if there was an animal involved, to the earth, to nature. And food is one of our key connections to nature, and we have lost track of that.
100 years ago, 200 years ago most people either were farmers or new farmers. So, they had a real sense of where the food came from. And I think that changed the process of eating. I think there was no accident people said grace, because they understood that this is a marvelous thing and it's a real gift of nature or God, and I think we've lost that. Food comes from the supermarket. Kids have no idea how food is produced. I remember standing in line at a McDonald's once with my son, and yes, I did take my son to McDonald's occasionally.
Christof Koch:
That's how you start off the book, the only way-
Michael Pollan:
That's right, that's right. Yeah. We're having a McDonald's meal, which I proceeded to follow back to the farms. And there was a kid there who, they had a picture of a steer or something, and was shocked to learn that that's what she was about to eat. So, it's just stuff, it's protoplasm from the supermarket for many of us. So, I think there's a communal and a sacred aspect to food.
Heather Berlin:
Do you think the education is key for children? Because I became a vegetarian, not because of any political reasons, but I had dissected my first frog and I noticed the ligaments, and the tendons, and the bones, and then I was like, "I don't want to eat these animals." It looks like chicken. And there was this disgust response, and then it just made me not want to eat animals. But I think children are smart, and early childhood education around this could be something that changes their perception-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. No, I think everybody who eats meat should go to a slaughterhouse once in their life. It should be a field trip. I mean, that's what got me off meat and just watching how the animals were treated on the feed lots. Just to give you an idea how far away we are from that, there are 14 or 15 states in America where it's illegal to take pictures of a feed lot, even from public right of ways.
In other words, you could be on the road in Finney County, Kansas, where I went to write about the meat industry, and if I took a picture of that feed lot, there is a law I'm breaking in the state of Kansas. I have a friend who's a photographer who just did a beautiful book about the food system, and he traveled all over the world with his paraglider taking pictures of food production, and it's a stunning book. And he was arrested in Kansas for taking pictures from the air of a feed lot. So, they've got something to hide, and they know it. So anyway, so yeah, I stopped eating industrial meat anyway, having done all this reporting and gone to all these chicken houses, and feed lots, and confinement pig operations, which to me was the most upsetting because pigs are just so intelligent.
Heather Berlin:
Why food for you? Why did you become hyper-focused and specialized in that?
Michael Pollan:
So all my writing, both the food writing, the nutrition writing, the agriculture writing, the psychedelic writing, it all grows out of my interest in gardening. I was a passionate gardener. I started as a little kid, I had a garden when I was eight years old outside my family's house. And anytime I could grow a couple strawberries, I would put them in a cup and sell them to my mother. And so, I was very entrepreneurial. And then I fell away from it for many years. But in my late 20s I started gardening again, and we bought this piece of property in Connecticut, it was a weekend house. I was working as a magazine editor. And I just got very absorbed with what happens in the garden, and that kind of engagement with the natural world and the problems, dealing with pests, keeping your soil fertile, which I gradually realized are the same problems that farmers deal with.
And so, I went from this focus on the garden and it gradually opened up onto an interest in agriculture and farming. And I was writing a column about my garden for the New York Times Magazine, like a monthly column, and using the garden as a laboratory to think about our relationship to nature and the environment, and this became my first book. But then at a certain point when GMOs were introduced, genetically modified crops, I thought, "Oh, that's a good column. I'm going to get some seeds from Monsanto, plant them in my garden, see what all this brouhaha is about." Although there wasn't actually a lot of controversy at that time in this country, it was a huge controversy in Europe. And in the course of writing that piece, Monsanto, I had wonderful access because I had approached them as a garden writer, the most benign creature on earth, and they gave me some of their potatoes to grow.
And they took me out to witness some of their farms out in Idaho, where I saw industrial farms of a scale I just didn't know existed. 50,000 acre farms completely remote controlled, irrigation pivots, using pesticides that the farmer was so careful of he would not go into his fields for three, or four, or five days after he sprayed, not even fix a broken irrigation pivot. That's how neurotoxic these pesticides were. It was a pesticide called Monitor, which is now off the market. And why was he using that? And he explained, "Well, potatoes get something called net necrosis. It's spread by aphids." The net necrosis doesn't really damage the food, but it leaves those brown lines you sometimes see inside a potato. And I said, "Is there any other way to deal with net necrosis?" And he says, "Yeah, don't grow Russet Burbank potatoes." And oh, "It's a problem with this kind of potato?"
"Yeah." I said, "Well, why don't you grow another kind of potato?" He said, "Well, McDonald's only buys Russet Burbank potatoes." Now, the people at McDonald's don't understand that because of their insistence on that kind of potato, which is purely aesthetic by the way, they want the longest possible french fry to put in those little red boxes, that little bouquet of french fries that they're so good at, that there's such an easy fix. So, the point I'm coming back to is the food chain is so long and opaque that people at one end don't realize that their aesthetic choices are forcing farmers to do things that endanger them, and potentially the consumer as well. So, that's how the interest in gardening morphed into an interest in agriculture. And I've always been really interested in plants and our symbiotic relationship to plants.
In Botany of Desire, I dealt with this most manifestly, and I was very interested in the fact that domestication's a two-way street, and that these are very clever creatures that have learned, and I use the word metaphorically, that by gratifying certain human desires they will get more habitat.
Christof Koch:
You mean it's a co-evolution?
Michael Pollan:
It's co-evolution, exactly. It's a special case of co-evolution. And so, I looked at four cases. And I looked at the plants, but I also looked at the human desires that they evolved to gratify. And so, I looked at beauty, I looked at sweetness, and I looked at intoxication. And this is what I mean when I say all the work begins that way. And there's a long chapter on cannabis, which is a plant that has succeeded far beyond anyone's dreams because of the fact that it does something to our consciousness that we really like. And I looked at the neuroscience around cannabis, and THC, and anandamide, and I got very curious then when I was working on that book as to why would we like to change consciousness? On its face that might not be such a good idea. Why would it be adaptive to change consciousness? Now, there's some obvious cases like pain. If you can change your consciousness of pain, that's a really positive thing. I mean, one of the most important plants in the pharmacopoeia are the opiates, which I've grown and written about, and gotten in trouble with.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, isn't that illegal to grow opiates?
Michael Pollan:
Well, actually-
Christof Koch:
It's a complicated [inaudible 00:23:29]
Michael Pollan:
It's complicated. It's legal to grow it, but as soon as you turn it into a drug you're breaking the law.
Christof Koch:
I think when you start cutting them up-
Michael Pollan:
Exactly, exactly. And I did do that. So, it's a curious human desire though, because when you're in an altered state of consciousness you are more likely to have accidents, in a wild setting you're more likely to be the prey of some other animal, yet we like to change consciousness, and many animals like to change consciousness. I suspect some of it has to do with sheer boredom, that we want to vary our experience of the world, and we happen to live in a highly distracted, entertained culture. We don't have the same boredom problem that I can imagine people a couple hundred years ago, life could get pretty tedious. So, being able to change consciousness with alcohol, or with caffeine, or with any number of things would be attractive. But I think there are more positive benefits to changing consciousness. Caffeine is a great example. Caffeine has a lot of benefits. It improves focus, it helps you stay awake-
Christof Koch:
It's a great drug in a capitalist society.
Heather Berlin:
But too much is not good either. I mean, you can get anxious and jittery.
Michael Pollan:
Caffeine is on balance, has been a boon to humanity at least within the context of capitalism.
Christof Koch:
And now as I understand the most widely consumed psychoactive substance-
Michael Pollan:
In the world, yeah. In the form of coffee, tea, and soda.
Christof Koch:
I mean, just to riff a little bit more on these, so what are the changes involving when you take caffeine in terms of consciousness? Because for sure you get more alert, so it modulates the level of arousal.
Michael Pollan:
Yes.
Christof Koch:
But what about changes in experience, which are different from arousal?
Michael Pollan:
Coffee's a funny case, because the experience is completely transparent if you compare it to psychedelics, or cannabis, or lots of other consciousness changing things which have a kind of ... You see the windshield.
Christof Koch:
Oh, you know when you are on magic mushrooms.
Michael Pollan:
You do. And even with cannabis, there's this physiological noise, there's all these weird side effects. Coffee, caffeine is perfectly transparent. It's wonderful that way. It improves people's stamina, it's very good for athletes and it's legal for them to use it. And they do, in large quantities. It improves memory. If you study for a test, then take a dose of caffeine, it will lock those memories in and you'll perform better on the test. The negatives are pretty minor. I mean there's, you mentioned jitteriness. Some people can't really tolerate it. The big negative is sleep, it does interfere with sleep. Caffeine has a long half-life, so it's in your system for ... If you drink a coffee at noon, at midnight 25% of the caffeine will still be circulating. So, it's a good idea to knock it off in the morning.
Christof Koch:
But it is legal. But now people-
Michael Pollan:
Thank God.
Christof Koch:
... also want more stronger changes, more-
Michael Pollan:
Yes, there are consciousness-changing plants and fungi that improve your performance in various ways, give you a certain edge, and caffeine is a good example. There are others that render you useless to capitalism, and psychedelics would be one of them.
Christof Koch:
And to warfare, as the CIA discovered.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, that's right. Well, we think that's what they discovered. They haven't really told us, but we're assuming that's what they discovered. I've thought a lot about this, and what consciousness change at that level of intensity could offer us. And we're learning, of course, about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, but I also think they play a role in cultural evolution. I really think that radical consciousness change is one of the ways that new ideas, new metaphors, new insights enter into our culture. And in the same way, borrowing Richard Dawkins scheme, that you've got memes in culture, you've got genes in biology, and memes evolve in a similar kind of way through a process of mutation and then spread. I think psychedelics, but cannabis too, and other consciousness-
Christof Koch:
Which is already recent, this is 20th century, at least in Western culture. If we just stick for the moment with Western culture-
Michael Pollan:
Well, the opiates were being used for thousands of years.
Christof Koch:
Again, in Western culture was really the opening on the British route to-
Michael Pollan:
To China.
Christof Koch:
... to the East. So that was the opium war, but that was the 19th and 20th century. I mean before, yeah, there was probably some usage back with the-
Michael Pollan:
Well, there was alcohol. Alcohol was a big drug in the West.
Christof Koch:
Yeah, there was alcohol.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. We've improved on that.
Heather Berlin:
I mean, it's a cultural evolution, but it seems to be linked to creativity, right?
Michael Pollan:
Yes, oh yeah. Novelty.
Heather Berlin:
And not all consciousness altering substances induce creativity.
Michael Pollan:
No. And in most people, they don't. And I would say 99% or 90% of the insights, or metaphors, or creative thoughts people have on psychedelics are worthless. Just like most mutations don't serve the creature-
Christof Koch:
So, let's take one of the greatest bursts of creativity, at least in Western tradition, the Renaissance, Enlightenment. What evidence do we have that drugs were involved?
Michael Pollan:
Well, caffeine. Caffeine shows up, I think in the 1640s in England and France. Many of the Enlightenment figures were big coffee drinkers. Voltaire, Balzac. It's very hard to pin this down but I do think that if you look at their role, there are people, I mean, there's a history of scientists who've had breakthroughs on psychedelics-
Heather Berlin:
At least from what I know, the micro-dosing doesn't increase creativity. There's no evidence for that. But I think it would be interesting to look across time, like if once we introduced psychedelics into mainstream culture was there a burst of creativity?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
I think certain psychedelics are a quick route to get there, and in a very extreme way. But that's not the only way to go.
Michael Pollan:
Oh, no. By no means is it the only way, it's just one of the tools, it's one of the mutagens we have that changes things. So I think it's had, on balance I think you could point to some positive effects that consciousness change has for our species. I mean, you're talking about another kind of consciousness change as part of creativity, unconstraining the self and the mind. So, there was a study done on creativity in the '70s at Stanford Research Institute, where they gave a group of creatives 100 micrograms of LSD. They had architects, they had writers, they had engineers, they had people across the ... And everybody supposedly had a block, was stuck on a project.
And they gave them the LSD, and they rolled around on the floor for a while. And then they told everybody, "Go to your desks." And they had their work tables, and they went to their desk and the architect worked on, he was designing some mall or something, and the writers worked on their problem. And it was an interesting study, and many people reported a breakthrough, but there was no control. Surely we could do a better job of that now. We have better measures of creativity, I think we could better control something like that. Alison Gopnik has various creative tasks that she gives to kids, some of those could be used. So, I think it's a really rich area to explore, and maybe you don't need a massive dose to get these effects.
Christof Koch:
I mean, there are management classes that offer this now, that offer you to take you outside the U.S. to the Caribbean, somewhere where you can be more creative.
Michael Pollan:
And we don't know if it works or not-
Heather Berlin:
And also, each drug-
Michael Pollan:
... but we should find out.
Christof Koch:
But if people believe that they're more creative, that may well make it more creative.
Michael Pollan:
Well, it might improve their confidence but if their product still sucks ...
Heather Berlin:
But there is something in the letting go that where creativity thrives, and I think these drugs are an avenue for that-
Michael Pollan:
All about that.
Heather Berlin:
... but they're all different. I think we lump together psychedelics, but MDMA has a different effect on consciousness than ketamine, then LSD, then ayahuasca-
Michael Pollan:
And works on different receptors-
Christof Koch:
And opioids.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, all of it. So do you have a favorite? Do you think if there was a recommendation, everyone-
Michael Pollan:
Caffeine. That's my favorite.
Heather Berlin:
Caffeine, I'm on board.
Michael Pollan:
Well, it's the one I can use most often without disturbing my life too much.
Christof Koch:
But you don't lose a sense of self.
Michael Pollan:
No, you don't. In fact, it's intensified. I think it's an ego building drug, and that's part of the reason it's so good for capitalism. And that is an interesting model for drugs, are they enhancing the ego or softening the ego?
Heather Berlin:
But also, everybody has different needs. Some people are too open and impulsive, and they need something to constrain them in a way.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, that's right.
Heather Berlin:
Others, some are too constrained-
Michael Pollan:
And they should take amphetamines.
Heather Berlin:
... and they can take amphetamines to help that. Others are too constrained, they need to be able to let go. And it's interesting. So, it's not one size fits all, but how this affects our perception box, is it opening the doors of perception? Is it all that expanding our perception box?
Michael Pollan:
But some people need to do to constrict it, because they're too scattered,
Heather Berlin:
Right, it's too expansive, too much. And so, I think it's personality dependent.
Christof Koch:
Totally, in a certain setting. So, what about the other extreme where those substances that completely make you lose a sense of self, yet isn't it remarkable that you can totally lose your body, your memory, your identity yet there's still something there that experiences, right?
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. I mean, the most powerful experience I've had on psychedelics has been one of complete ego dissolution. I had always assumed I was identical to my ego, and discovered that my ego could dissolve. In my case, it was detonated into a cloud of blue Post-It notes.
Heather Berlin:
Oh, that's interesting.
Michael Pollan:
It was interesting.
Heather Berlin:
We can analyze that from [inaudible 00:34:05]
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, I know.
Heather Berlin:
Blue Post-it notes.
Michael Pollan:
Somebody said, "Yeah, well you're a writer, so you probably use a lot of Post-It notes." And I don't know what the blue was about, but it was definitely blue. But I wear a lot of blue.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, we need to unpack that.
Christof Koch:
Who saw this? Who explains that?
Michael Pollan:
Well, that's the question. I knew that was me and I was no more, but there was some perspective, but it was not a familiar perspective. It was highly disinterested, it wasn't troubled by what it was seeing at all.
Christof Koch:
And there was no personal memory. It wasn't you-
Michael Pollan:
It wasn't me.
Christof Koch:
It wasn't Michael.
Michael Pollan:
But I was perceiving it from some vantage. It was an unfamiliar vantage.
Christof Koch:
So, I think you need to be then careful with the word I.
Michael Pollan:
Yes, I know, but it's like-
Heather Berlin:
Well, it's his brain in a way that's doing the perceiving.
Christof Koch:
Well, we have no idea if the brain. It could be the liver or the heart. Many people [inaudible 00:34:57]
Heather Berlin:
Is this you, Christof Koch, the scientist?
Christof Koch:
No, all I'm saying-
Heather Berlin:
Or am I talking to Deepak?
Christof Koch:
... you never experience your brain.
Michael Pollan:
That's right.
Christof Koch:
You don't, you experience your mind.
Heather Berlin:
No, but we are assuming as scientists that the consciousness is coming from the brain, not the liver.
Christof Koch:
Yeah, but we haven't at all talked about the physiological subset, here we're just talking about consciousness, phenomenology, feeling. And so my point is, when you see yourself disappears and saying I-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, it's sort of like-
Heather Berlin:
Well, the concept of the self is disappearing, but the brain is still giving him the experience that he's having with the Post-It notes-
Christof Koch:
That's exactly, and this is what I would call a non-dual experience.
Michael Pollan:
It was non-dual, and I shouldn't use the word I, but I don't know what pronoun to use.
Heather Berlin:
Well, I would say the brain that's inhabited in this skull was experiencing that phenomenon-
Michael Pollan:
But the brain, as Christof says, the brain's not part of our phenomenology at all. And I'm trying to describe it. It was very hard to write about. But it was-
Christof Koch:
It's cool, isn't it? Extraordinary.
Michael Pollan:
It was extraordinary, and it wasn't frightening.
Heather Berlin:
Were you never afraid? Oh.
Michael Pollan:
No, I wasn't frightened at all. And earlier in the experience I had had frightening moments, but at this point it was complete equanimity. And what was interesting is that when the ego dissolves, the wall between us and them, or me and it, also goes away. And that leads to this experience that William James described of this merging into something larger. And for me it was a piece of music, which surprised me. I mean-
Heather Berlin:
What drug was this? This was-
Michael Pollan:
Psilocybin.
Heather Berlin:
Psilocybin, okay.
Michael Pollan:
This was a pretty high dose of psilocybin. And I heard that music in a new way because, and again the pronoun's wrong, because I didn't hear it, I became it. There was no space between me and that piece of music.
Christof Koch:
No distinction.
Michael Pollan:
No distinction.
Christof Koch:
That's what Arthur Schopenhauer, the German idealist, calls the aesthetic experience.
Michael Pollan:
I had one for the first time in my life. There was no separation.
Heather Berlin:
So, you are the music.
Christof Koch:
Yes.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Christof Koch:
You are the art. You are the painting, the music.
Michael Pollan:
And at moments I could feel the horse hair of the bow going across my body. Again, that implies I had a body at that moment, and I felt like I was inside. I mean, as the thing evolved I was inside the well of sound. It was extraordinary. It was a very sad piece of music, but I didn't feel sad at all. This felt so right. And it taught me an important lesson that I think is relevant to the perception box idea, that I'm not identical to my ego, that I'll survive its disappearance, and that the ego stands between us and amazing experiences. Not to mention love, and connection to nature and all the other things, but that we build these walls and they may help us in certain ways-
Heather Berlin:
But they're necessary, yeah. Sometimes.
Michael Pollan:
Oh, yeah. Without an ego, I'd be screwed.
Heather Berlin:
You probably wouldn't have been survived this long if you-
Michael Pollan:
Yeah, and I wouldn't have gotten any books written.
Christof Koch:
Write a book.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
But there's a difference between temporary ego death and death-death.
Michael Pollan:
Well, what's interesting though is I mean, I've interviewed a lot of the cancer patients who've had psilocybin therapy. And the ones that undergo an ego death, it does change their attitudes toward their physical death in ways that make it less frightening to them. It's a rehearsal, and that rehearsal seems to help them. They're not saying I believe in an afterlife or anything, but they just sort of feel, "Okay, this is what it's like."
Heather Berlin:
The letting go. "I can let go."
Michael Pollan:
And it's the letting go, I think. I mean, letting go is a very hard thing to do and in our world-
Heather Berlin:
But when you let go in that way, you're letting go into becoming one with the music and you're still having an experience. Whereas there's a letting go into what we think is no experience.
Christof Koch:
We don't know. It may be-
Heather Berlin:
It'd be lovely if there's something more.
Christof Koch:
... again, chakra is a view. There's this mental entity, it's like a river. And then in the river there are all these billions of little eddies that formed. And these eddies all feel, "Well, here I am. I'm forever, I'm a me." And then-
Michael Pollan:
And it's how you define your me, too. I remember interviewing this one woman who had cancer, and she had psilocybin therapy at NYU, and she told the story about flying around the world and finally going into the earth, and dissolving in the earth, and her molecules were taken up by the plants. Now, that's a very naturalistic afterlife, but she could identify with the molecules so strongly that it didn't frighten her.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah. But this is the thing, and not to harp on this, but it's not about me, the ego, but I like the experience of consciousness and the way that our molecules happen to got together gives us an experience of consciousness-
Christof Koch:
Did you see what you say? I. I like it.
Heather Berlin:
Okay, the consciousness-
Christof Koch:
No, I get it. It's your ego to solve-
Heather Berlin:
... being, but when all these molecules are disorganized and separated-
Christof Koch:
The world will still go on.
Heather Berlin:
But there will be no experience of consciousness of those molecules.
Christof Koch:
No, there will be no ego. There will be no heaven.
Heather Berlin:
But you think they'll still be conscious?
Christof Koch:
We don't know. But what we do know-
Heather Berlin:
Okay, just me.
Christof Koch:
... there will not be an ego. Ultimately it's all about the ego.
Heather Berlin:
I don't need the ego, but I like the idea of consciousness.
Christof Koch:
Again, you say, "I, I, I. Me, me."
Michael Pollan:
Well, the other thing though, the other important takeaway for me was that consciousness survived the death of the ego, and that there was still experience.
Heather Berlin:
No, I'm all about that. I want consciousness to survive-
Michael Pollan:
And I thought the two were identical.
Christof Koch:
It's a very important insight, because many people claim self-consciousness is a defining feature of consciousness. Without self there isn't consciousness, which I think is nonsense.
Michael Pollan:
No, I think that that psychedelic experience proves that that's not the case.
Heather Berlin:
There's pure consciousness, but those molecules that are creating that experience of pure consciousness are organized in such a way to allow that to emerge. If those molecules are separated out, and they're in the plants, and the earth and everything, that's beautiful. But I don't know that they're communicating in an IIT kind of consciousness way, integrated information theory, that would create a sense of experience.
We end every episode by asking a perception box question. And so, our perception box question for today is for everyone, we're all going to answer it. How would you describe the difference between who you are publicly and who you are privately?
Christof Koch:
Well, almost by definition, particularly in a context like this you're much more social, you interact with each other, where privately and perfectly happy sitting at home, listening to music for an entire weekend. I spent this blissful three weeks over Christmas with my wife, and my Bernese Mountain Dog for three weeks on a tiny island, and was just wonderful just by myself. Well, I mean, with one other person and one other almost person, Mr. Felix.
Michael Pollan:
Who I met, is a wonderful dog.
Christof Koch:
So, there are these differences between public, when you're on stage when you're surrounded by other people, you become very-
Heather Berlin:
Extroverted?
Christof Koch:
... gregarious, very extroverted. And then people think, "Oh, the person's always like that back home." But back home they may be very different, and introverted, and maybe shy. I'm actually shy.
Heather Berlin:
I've seen you in various contexts, and I think it's intermixed. It's intermixed.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah. Well, similarly, I mean, I do a lot of public things like this, and I do a lot of public talks, and I teach, and I'm very sure of myself and very sure-footed. And I have my opinions, and I always have an answer to any question. In reality, I don't. And I'm reminded of this by my wife and my son all the time, who will remind me that, "You don't really know anything about that, do you?" So, there's a certain confidence that I portray in public that I don't necessarily feel.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, there's a persona that you put on of this is person, the idealized person that I want to be.
Michael Pollan:
And it's reinforced, of course by others. I mean, there's a social self, and it's how we perceive ourselves in the eyes of others. And I've always wondered, and I've had periods of really being isolated, being alone, going somewhere to focus on my writing or something. And there is this way in which you sense your sense of identity just softening and eroding. And if you did it long enough, it would disappear. It wouldn't quite disappear, but it would change fundamentally. So, I think our public identities reinforce all sorts of things about us and our ego that wouldn't otherwise exist.
Heather Berlin:
Right. And it's almost like an identity that's created outside of your true self. I mean, the pandemic was difficult for a number of reasons, not the least of which my children were home and had to be homeschooled, but I did enjoy this idea of that I didn't have to go anywhere, there was no pressure. You don't have to wear makeup, you can wear sweatpants and just be this true self of not being on, which I found so enjoyable. And when things started to lighten up and we could go out in the world, I wasn't that thrilled about it, to be honest.
Christof Koch:
But is it a truth, or is it just a different aspect, a different facet of-
Heather Berlin:
A different aspect. I enjoy this too, but I enjoy the majority of the time to not be on. And then occasionally you're on, and there's a performance aspect to it, but then to retreat. I think you need a little of both.
Michael Pollan:
I think performance is a key term too.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah. It's like performative and you're a character. And I once spoke with Bill Nye the Science Guy, and he was saying there's the guy and then there's Bill. And sometimes people lose that distinction between their performative self and their non-performative self, let's say. But I think that we all have to be humble at some level and realize that we don't know everything. I'm going to leave it on this-
Christof Koch:
Speak for yourself.
Heather Berlin:
... my grandmother said to me, my grandmother's advice is always great, and I was very nervous, I was in graduate school and I was giving my first lecture to all these professors. This was at Oxford, it was very intimidating. And I called her, "I'm so scared, Grandma." And she said, "They all take a shit like you and me."
Michael Pollan:
All right, Grandma.
Christof Koch:
On that note.
Heather Berlin:
And on that note, that has been this episode of Perception Box-
Michael Pollan:
That sounds like a great grandma.
Heather Berlin:
So I want to thank you, Michael, for joining us today-
Michael Pollan:
Oh, thank you both. Thanks for having me on.
Christof Koch:
Thanks so much coming, very enjoyable.
Michael Pollan:
Yeah.
Heather Berlin:
... this was so amazing. And if you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guests, and check out other questions on the website at unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box, created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I am Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch, thank you very much.

What happens when an irredeemable person receives love, gratitude, and respect? After decades of drug and alcohol abuse, chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern learned firsthand.
As a teenager, Andrew Zimmern experienced deep pain when his mother became permanently disabled, and his father enforced a rule to avoid discussing feelings. Without an outlet, that pain grew into resentment and substance abuse. By 14, Zimmern was drinking daily, and his addiction followed him into adulthood, ultimately costing him his career, relationships, and home.
In January 1992, after hitting rock bottom, Zimmern attempted to take his own life. When he woke up, something shifted. For the first time, he asked for help. His friends intervened, sending him to rehab, where he began confronting his emotions and embracing a mindset of learning and giving.
Zimmern rebuilt his life, becoming a celebrated chef, author, and TV personality. Today, he credits that one vulnerable moment with saving his life and inspiring him to live with purpose and gratitude.
About Andrew Zimmern:
Andrew Zimmern is a chef, food writer, and television personality best known for hosting Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. A four-time James Beard Award winner, Zimmern has dedicated his career to exploring global cuisines and advocating for culinary diversity. Beyond television, he is a passionate philanthropist, focusing on hunger relief, food sustainability, and social justice. He founded the Andrew Zimmern Project to support food security initiatives and works with organizations like Second Harvest and Services for the Underserved. Through his work, Zimmern strives to create a more equitable food system and inspire cultural appreciation through cuisine.

The one phrase that changed Diana Nyad’s life, and set her on course to become the first person ever to conquer the 110 mile, 53 hour swim from Florida to Cuba.
At 64, Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida, facing jellyfish, exhaustion, and tough ocean currents for over 53 hours. But this feat was more than just physical - it was the result of a lifetime of mental endurance.
As a young swimmer, she faced sexual abuse from her coach, which derailed her Olympic dreams and left deep emotional scars. Instead of letting those experiences hold her back, she found a way to channel that pain into something powerful. She talks about developing a "steel trap mind," using her struggles as motivation to pursue her goals.
Diana's journey goes beyond breaking records. It’s a powerful reminder of the human spirit's ability to persevere and heal, no matter the odds. Her swim from Cuba to Florida, completed on her fifth attempt, showcases her incredible willpower and serves as an inspiration to people everywhere.
About Diana Nyad: Diana Nyad is an endurance swimmer, author, and motivational speaker best known for her 2013 record-breaking swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64. Completing the 110-mile journey without a shark cage, she demonstrated unparalleled resilience and determination. Nyad is also a bestselling author, journalist, and co-founder of EverWalk, a fitness initiative promoting community through walking. Her story of perseverance, chronicled in her memoir Find a Way, continues to inspire audiences worldwide.

“I saw that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, and when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer.”
Author and public speaker Byron Katie shares how she transformed her life after discovering ‘The Work’, a method for identifying the thoughts that cause pain and suffering. By asking herself four simple yet profound questions, she found a way to recover from her agoraphobia, reunite with her family, and begin teaching others how to heal.
Katie’s strategy for ending suffering lies in asking yourself four questions about the thoughts you’re having: Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How do you react when you believe it? Who are you without the thought?
By asking yourself these questions, Katie explains how you can begin to escape the mentalities that hold you back. Her method shows us that peace doesn’t come from changing the world—it comes from changing how we see it.
About Byron Katie: Byron Katie is an author and teacher who helps people find peace by questioning their stressful thoughts. In 1986, after years of depression, she experienced a life-changing realization that led her to create The Work, a simple process of self-inquiry. Her books, like Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy, have touched millions. Through workshops and talks, Katie shares a path to clarity and freedom, helping people live with more acceptance and ease.

Our cultural lenses can expand our Perception Box or contract it, keeping us closed off to new opportunities. So how do we become aware of the personal influences that shape our perceptions? In this episode of Science of Perception Box, cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch discuss the impact of cultural differences on identity and mindsets with guest Dr. Daphna Oyserman. Dr. Oyserman shares her insights on how small changes in context can significantly affect our mindset and choices, impacting our health and academic performance.
Dr. Daphna Oyserman is a Dean’s Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Southern California. Dr. Oyserman received a PhD in psychology and social work from the University of Michigan and served on the faculty of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, before returning to the University of Michigan where she last held appointments as the Edwin J. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Social Work, Professor of Psychology, and Research Professor in the Institute for Social Research.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
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Humans have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants coevolved to suit our desires for nourishment, beauty, and altering consciousness. Journalist Michael Pollan has investigated the human connection to plants. This week on Science of Perception Box, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch ask Pollan about modern trends like ultra-processed foods, industrialized agriculture, and consciousness-altering drugs from plants including caffeine, cannabis, and psychedelics.
For more than 30 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In 2020, along with Dacher Keltner and others, he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
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Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, overcame a challenging upbringing marked by social isolation and family tragedy, channeling those experiences into a life defined by action, innovation, and iconoclasm. Though he’s undeniably earned his reputation as a business trailblazer, McKelvey remains uncomfortable with any attempts to mythologize his journey.
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As a child, Bob Stiller felt unmoored. His mother’s death was a loss that fueled anger, insecurity and, as a teenager, lots of partying. He founded rolling paper company E-Z Wider in 1971 and, a decade later, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

Sophia Amoruso (aka Nasty Gal) started a tiny online vintage clothing store that quickly turned into a $350 million business. Fame soon followed, but so did all of her insecurities.

Anxiety can make us feel like we’re trapped in our brain. So how do we open the door and gain freedom? This week in the inaugural episode of Science of Perception Box podcast, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch invite Dr. Judson Brewer to delve into the roots of anxiety, its impact on our perception, and how curiosity can be the key to lasting change.
Dr. Judson Brewer studies the neural mechanisms of mindfulness. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he’s also an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine. Dr. Brewer is a leading expert in the science of self-mastery and breaking habits. His books include Unwinding Anxiety, The Craving Mind, and The Hunger Habit.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.

Join renowned scientists Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch on the Science of Perception Box, where they delve into the Perception Box—a groundbreaking concept developed by Elizabeth R. Koch, that reveals how our beliefs, biases, and neural wiring shape our reality and define how we experience the world.
Through captivating conversations with expert guests like psychiatrist Dr. Judson Brewer, anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, and journalist Michael Pollan, the show explores how the Perception Box expands in states of awe, curiosity, and love, and contracts during fear, anxiety, or anger.
From mindfulness and romantic relationships to psychedelics and human connection, each episode uncovers transformative insights into unlocking greater awareness, fostering curiosity, and reshaping how we perceive the world.
New episodes drop every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow the journey and redefine your reality.

Don’t call yourself “a writer,” just write. Ryan Holiday on how the labels you give yourself can hold you back.
Who would you be without all the labels and identities you’ve collected over the course of your life?
Ego, titles, and societal expectations often shape who we think we are—or who we think we should be. Author, and for simplicity's sake, bookstore owner, Ryan Holiday explains the simple question “What do you do?” can turn into a trap, making us cling to roles that don’t really define us. But what happens when you let go of these labels? What if, instead of focusing on the identity of being a writer, you focused on the act of writing itself?
As Holiday got older, he learned that being busy “doing the verb” is far more valuable than obsessing over the noun. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to fit into the “right” categories and titles, but that often means copying, comparing, and losing sight of what really matters.
About Ryan Holiday: Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author, marketer, and one of today’s leading voices in modern Stoicism. He’s known for taking ancient wisdom and making it relatable and practical for everyday life. Before becoming an author, he led marketing at American Apparel. Now, he writes about strategy, self-discipline, and leadership, weaving history into real-world advice.

When a group of first responders were asked to confront the Perception Box question, "What need inside of yourself have you been neglecting?", their raw and honest responses were deeply moving and sparked profound reflection.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.

“I feel like I had to lose my sight to fully gain my vision.” John Furniss on how becoming blind led him to drug abuse, rehab, woodworking, and finally, to a fulfilling life.
John Furniss, also known as the Blind Woodsman, opens up about his journey from a difficult past to finding peace and purpose. After losing his sight as a teenager, John struggled for years to accept his new reality, battling inner turmoil and substance abuse along the way. It wasn't until he discovered woodworking through a vocational rehab program that he found a way to channel his creativity and start healing.
Woodworking became more than just a skill for John; it allowed him to bring the designs he imagined in his mind to life. This craft also led him to meet his wife, Annie, who has been a constant source of love and support. Through his work and his relationship, John found a sense of belonging and a new way of seeing the world. He reflects on how losing his sight actually helped him gain a clearer vision of who he is and what he’s meant to do, ultimately finding peace in embracing his true self.
About John Furniss:
John Furniss, known professionally as The Blind Woodsman, is a skilled woodworker, author, and disability advocate recognized for his meticulous hand-turned creations. After losing his sight at 16, John faced significant challenges adapting to life with total blindness. In his 20s, he found his passion for woodworking through a class designed for the blind, which led to the development of his unique craft.
Today, John’s work has been featured on platforms such as Good Morning America and The Kelly Clarkson Show. He and his wife, Anni, who is also an artist, use their social media platforms to share their work and raise awareness about disability and mental health. John’s expertise in woodworking and his contributions to the art community have established him as a respected figure in his field.

Kaelynn Partlow shares her story about life with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, and how finding the right diagnosis helped her embrace her neurodivergent identity.
Kaelynn Partlow, an author, autism advocate, and registered behavior technician, shares her own experiences living with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. She talks about how these diagnoses shifted her self-perception from feeling "stupid" to understanding her unique challenges and strengths.
Kaelynn opens up about the misunderstandings neurodivergent people face and the difficulty of connecting in a world that often doesn't accommodate different ways of thinking. She also shares her fears—like wondering if her social difficulties will ever improve—and how she copes with loneliness, especially when not focused on work.
Through it all, Kaelynn emphasizes the value of recognizing your own strengths, even when it’s hard. By taking on challenges and thriving under pressure, she found new opportunities, from public speaking to creative writing. Her story shows that growth often comes from facing fears and redefining success on your own terms.
About Kaelynn Partlow:
In 2015, Kaelynn Partlow joined Project Hope Foundation as a Registered Behavior Technician. She is now a Lead Technician, providing services to middle and high-school-aged clients and contributing to staff training development.
In 2021, Kaelynn was featured on the Netflix series Love On The Spectrum. She has also been a guest on numerous national podcasts and has published several articles, offering insights from an autistic perspective.
With a large following on various social media platforms, Kaelynn uses her reach for autism advocacy, connecting with millions globally. In addition to her online work and role at Project Hope, she is an international public speaker, passionate about sharing tangible strategies for best practices when interacting with individuals on the autism spectrum

Your brain is wired to repeat the familiar. Change this wiring, and it will change your life.
Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist and organizational psychologist, explains how deeply rooted beliefs can limit our potential and keep us trapped in patterns of thought. These perceptions, often shaped by our upbringing and environment, aren’t necessarily our own—but they can be changed.
Nicole shares how the brain’s natural biases, like negativity bias and confirmation bias, reinforce these limiting beliefs. However, with the right approach, it’s possible to reshape our mental patterns. By practicing metacognition—observing and naming our thoughts—we can start to rewire our perception and create new, empowering narratives.
Our brains are capable of change at any age. By focusing on small wins and challenging automatic thoughts, we can break free from old beliefs and begin using a mindset that better serves ourselves and our futures.
About Nicole Vignola:
Nicole Vignola is a neuroscientist, author and corporate consultant. With a BSc in Neuroscience and an MSc in Organizational Psychology, Nicole works with companies and individuals worldwide, educating them on the science of human optimisation, health and longevity, and how to enable employees to perform better in their daily lives and in turn, bring peak performance to the workplace. Recent clients include Lloyds Bank, Makers Mark and Smeg Ltd.

Expanding your worldview starts with understanding your brain. Stanford neuroscientist David Eagleman explains.
David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, explores how our brains shape the reality we experience and why we often accept our perceptions as the only truth. From a young age, we develop our understanding of the world based on limited experiences and biases, which can lead us to form narrow views about what's true.
Eagleman explains that our genetics and life experiences wire our brains in unique ways, meaning that each of us sees the world a little differently. He introduces the idea of "perceptual genomics," which looks at how slight genetic differences influence our perception of reality. He also discusses how our brains naturally create in-groups and out-groups, a tendency rooted in evolution that affects how much empathy we feel for others.
To overcome these biases, Eagleman suggests that we start by recognizing our own prejudices, understanding the tactics of dehumanization, and connecting with others through shared interests. This approach helps us appreciate the diverse realities others experience, ultimately contributing to a more empathetic and understanding society.
About David Eagleman:
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

Challenging the loneliness stigma can change your life. Here’s how to start.
From a young age, many of us are taught that being alone means something is wrong, leading to negative thought patterns that reinforce feelings of isolation. Kasley Killam, author of The Art and Science of Connection and an expert in social health, explains how these perceptions of loneliness can shape our experiences and influence our lives.
According to Killam, this stigma around loneliness can trigger a stress response in the body, affecting both mental and physical well being. However, by challenging these narratives and reminding ourselves of how much control we really have, it’s possible to redirect our mindsets. It also helps, she says, to understand the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures, and how each one can influence the way we interpret and discuss our feelings with others.
For those who have struggled with loneliness or felt trapped in a cycle of negative thinking, this perspective can help us break free. By shifting our thought patterns, we can transform our relationships, enhance our sense of connection, and improve our overall well-being.
About Kasley Killam:
Kasley Killam is a social health expert, author, and advocate focused on strengthening connections and enhancing community well-being. With a background in behavioral science and public health from Harvard University, she is a leading voice on the impact of social relationships on mental and physical health.
As the founder of Social Health Labs, Killam collaborates with organizations to develop innovative solutions for combating loneliness and social isolation. Her work has been featured in major publications, and she is a sought-after speaker on the importance of social well-being in creating healthier, more resilient communities.

Ever wonder why your partner goes Tasmanian Devil in traffic jams while you just shrug? Or why you have such a hard time setting boundaries with parents when your sibling has no problem saying "hell no!" Everyone has something that triggers panic or turns their blood cold…and it all starts with the story you made up about yourself when you were too young to know the difference…your Perception Box Seed Story.

A group of LGBTQ+ individuals courageously answered the Perception Box question, "Who or what have you left behind on your journey to become who you are today?" Their honest and insightful responses were deeply moving.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.

How has Kel Mitchell navigated self-doubt, isolation, and the desire to “hit the off button”? He says it’s all faith, community, and personal forgiveness.
After his debut on Nickelodeon, Kel Mitchell began a life-long career as an actor and comedian. He got married, started a family, and basked in professional success. However, behind the scenes, he faced intense personal hardships that pushed him to the brink, testing his resilience and strength in ways he never imagined.
Kel guides us through the lowest points of his life, showing us how faith in himself and his religion helped him rebuild and achieve a fulfilling existence. He reminds us that blessings can often be hidden in hardships and that mistakes play a crucial role in shaping who we are.
By expressing his pain and opening up to others about the things he was struggling with, he was able to find unity, community, and support from those who had experienced similar drawbacks. Mitchell stresses the importance of understanding others, and how deep relationships can change – and even save – lives.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
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Kel Mitchell is a two-time Emmy Award-nominated actor, producer, comedian, and youth pastor hailing from Chicago, Illinois.
Mitchell executive produced and appeared in the new iteration of the beloved Nickelodeon series All That, bringing him full circle to the original award-winning show that was his big break. All That was Nickelodeon's longest-running live-action series, with 171 episodes across ten seasons from 1994 to 2005. The franchise paved the way for a number of successful spin-offs, including Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, The Nick Cannon Show, and the feature-length film Good Burger, all of which cemented Mitchell's impact on pop culture.

A two-part visualization to help you gain distance from any overpowering emotion so you can respond to the true need of the moment with something closer to calm.

Harvard physician Aditi Nerukar explains how to rewire your brain’s stress response to live a more resilient life.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “pressure makes diamonds,” this video is for you.
Harvard physician Aditi Nerurkar was working 80 hours a week, and, despite what she was telling herself about resilience, the stress was taking a major toll. She explains how there are two different kinds of stress, aptly named “adaptive” and “maladaptive.” But how can you tell the difference between the two?
Dr. Nerukar explains that healthy, adaptive stress moves your life forward, while unhealthy, maladaptive stress wears you down and diminishes your productivity. When experiencing maladaptive stress, you may find yourself plummeting closer to burnout, or a complete shutdown. To combat these consequences, Dr. Neurkar offers two easily achievable methods for resetting your brain in high-stress situations.
Whether you're navigating a demanding job, balancing multiple life roles, or simply looking to improve your stress management, this information can help you thrive without compromising your well-being. Remember to slow down, take deep breaths, and regularly check in with yourself to ensure your stress remains healthy and manageable!

Neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor explains the 4 key ”characters” of the brain, and how understanding each can expand your perception of yourself, and the world, forever.
At age 37, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke that would take her eight years to fully recover from. This is how it changed her understanding of the brain.
In this interview, Dr. Jill draws a map of the human brain, explaining how it is comprised of four distinct modules, each serving a unique role in function and personality. This combination of cognitive and emotional components gives rise to the multidimensional characters within each of us.
Are you looking to be more rational, more creative, more forgiving, or perhaps less rigid in your thinking? Dr. Jill suggests that by becoming aware of the four modules of our brains, we can consciously choose to engage specific parts. This awareness allows us to harness the true power of our brains and shape who we want to become, ultimately fostering less anxiety, more inner peace, and a vastly more purposeful life.

Carrie Berk reveals how she transformed her struggle with anxiety and internet fame by changing her perception and finding her true voice as a writer.
Carrie Berk, author, journalist, and social media influencer with nearly 4 million TikTok followers, shares her journey through anxiety, internet fame, and personal growth.
Amid the pandemic and sudden online fame, Carrie faced intense anxiety, receiving harmful threats from strangers and grappling with the pressures of social media. Sharing her most vulnerable moments, including her first heartbreak at sixteen, Carrie emphasizes the importance of authenticity. Through therapy and self-discovery, she learned that while she couldn’t switch off her anxiety, she could change her response to it.
Carrie’s story is a perfect example of the resilience it takes to be a young person in today’s social climate, and proves how powerful self-confidence and inner strength can be.

This group of people who have experienced homelessness were asked the Perception Box question, "In moments of deep solitude, what major concerns and questions about YOU tend to dominate your thoughts?" Their honest answers were deeply moving and insightful.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.

In this episode, a group of formerly incarcerated individuals was asked the Perception Box question, "What are you most afraid is true about you?" Their candid responses were incredibly moving and thought-provoking.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.

Jewel says denying the truth cost her years of her life. This is how she shifted her perception to see truth more clearly and regain her strength.
“My number one job was to be a happy, whole human — not a human full of holes.” Jewel Kilcher, singer-songwriter, and visual artist, opens up about her childhood, the start of her career, and what makes Jewel, Jewel.
After being discovered during a coffee shop gig in the 1990’s, folk singer Jewel began the life-long endeavor of being a performer. Jewel went on to gain worldwide recognition for her talent and creativity. But who is she at her core? What are her greatest fears, her deepest aspirations?
In this interview, Jewel shares the personal struggles and triumphs that have shaped her, the importance of truth on her life and well-being, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Through this conversation, Jewel offers an up-close look into her journey, revealing the experiences and hard-won insights that have shaped her as both an artist and a person.
Experience Jewel’s latest exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel ► https://crystalbridges.org/calendar/the-portal-an-art-experience-by-jewel/
About Jewel:
Jewel Kilcher, known mononymously as Jewel, embodies the quintessential story of resilience and artistic integrity. From her humble beginnings in the rugged landscapes of Alaska to her rise as a multi-platinum recording artist, Jewel's journey is a testament to the transformative power of art. Homeless at 18, she honed her craft performing in coffee shops, blending folk, pop, and country influences with her ethereal voice and introspective songwriting.
Her debut album, "Pieces of You," captured hearts worldwide, achieving remarkable commercial success while delivering profound, soul-stirring messages. Beyond music, Jewel's talents extend to poetry and acting, with her literary works and performances reflecting her deep empathy and authenticity.
Jewel's commitment to social causes, including mental health advocacy and her foundation, the Inspiring Children Foundation, underscores her dedication to making a positive impact. In a world often dominated by transient fame, Jewel stands out as a beacon of enduring creativity and compassionate leadership.

Alyssa and her ex-boyfriend Trey have successfully transitioned from lovers to best friends. But can she recreate that same dynamic with her most recent ex, Adal? Alyssa, Trey, and Adal dive deep into their pasts and their relationships with each other by answering a series of thought-provoking Perception Box questions. Watch their honest reflections, uncover their perspectives on love and friendship, and discover what the future holds for this unique trio.

What happens when men shed their armor and embrace their emotions? Men from diverse backgrounds share their stories of overcoming trauma, redefining masculinity, and finding strength in vulnerability. This is a must-watch for anyone seeking deeper connections and understanding.

Emma and Nick both swiped "yes" in person. Now that they have a chance to get to know each other and themselves more deeply by answering Perception Box questions, are they compatible?

Arielle & Ella met on a Nectar dating show. Was it meant to be, or are they destined to be just friends? They will find out when they get to know their true selves and each other by answering Perception Box questions.

Participants are invited to sit down to ask each other Perception Box questions to see if two strangers could sit down and get vulnerable with one another.

This powerful episode features a group of individuals with disabilities opening up about their deepest fears and struggles. Their experiences highlight the unique challenges they face, from concerns about independent living to mental health struggles and navigating social stigma, and ultimately how they can relate to one another.

Michael Oher gained widespread recognition through Michael Lewis's book "The Blind Side" and its film adaptation, which depicted his difficulties in early life and time playing college football. After attending the University of Mississippi, he played in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans, and Carolina Panthers, winning the SuperBowl with the Ravens in 2013.

Shaka Senghor spent 19 years in prison, 7 of them in solitary confinement. This is how he found true freedom.
Watch the full video here.

Watch what happens when this group of strangers bravely share their unspoken truths. Will these women find connection in the unexpected? Could sharing your secret be the key to unlocking a powerful sense of belonging?

Curious about tools for fostering deeper self-awareness? Check out the latest episode of Tea for Two by Nectar. Former high school sweethearts, Diane & Justin, use Perception Box questions to explore their individual needs and communication styles. Great insights for anyone in a relationship, whether personal or professional.

Hailey and Travis first met on the Nectar channel, now they are going on their first date and things get deep.
Do you ever feel like you have something to prove?

Scientific experts explain how each person's perception is skewed by various factors such as beliefs, biases, and narratives.
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A collection of interviews dedicated to sharing unique perspectives and challenging our preconceived notions.

Jim Lee, President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics tells us how his childhood obsession with Superman changed his life.
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Explore how overcoming the limiting beliefs that hold us back, can expand the possibilities of our perception, and open us up to new ways of seeing and being seen.

The Osbournes was MTV’s biggest show – and it almost cost Jack Osbourne his life. Here’s how his family’s reality TV fame stole his childhood, and how he’s been able to heal since.

Meet Jordan and Rana. These two undergrads have been in an exclusive situationship, but are ready to confront where their relationship is going and what might come next.
Tea for Two explores how daters show up in a relationship by first taking a look at their relationship with themselves. Through a series of Perception Box questions, Tea for Two questions, and challenges, these daters get to know each other and themselves on a whole new level. This allows them to dig deeper, uncover more meaningful connections, and figure out if they are ready to be in this relationship.

This is how rejection made executive producer and director Julie Plec an undeniable leader.
Creator of the popular series “The Vampire Diaries,” Julie Plec is proof imposter syndrome never goes away, no matter how big you make it. The writer and producer answered our questions about self-doubt, getting “blacklisted,” and how we can alter our perceptions to better appreciate our successes.
About Julie Plec:
Julie Plec is a creator, showrunner, executive producer and director, most notably responsible for the complete Vampire Diaries Universe (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies), which spanned thirteen years and more than 300 episodes of television.
Plec is co-creator and co-showrunner of the upcoming series Vampire Academy, based on the popular book series, which recently wrapped production in Spain and is debuting September 15, 2022, on Peacock. She is also co-creator of the new series Dead Day, along with her Vampire Diaries partner Kevin Williamson, which was recently picked up to series at Peacock as well, and executive producer of Girls on the Bus, which was picked up straight to series at HBO Max.
Plec is creator and executive producer of Legacies, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW, along with serving as an executive producer of Roswell, New Mexico, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW as well. In addition, Plec served as executive producer of The Endgame, starring Morena Baccarin and Ryan Michelle Bathé, which recently aired on NBC.
She is currently under an overall deal at Universal Television, where she and Emily Cummins, president of her production company, My So-Called Company, are developing projects across all platforms for the studio. Plec and Cummins recently announced a new project at Peacock, Clifton, along with a slate of several other projects in development.
Along with directing multiple episodes of The Vampire Diaries, Legacies, and Roswell, New Mexico, for which she also directed the pilot, Plec directed an episode of the CW’s hit series Riverdale, and most recently directed an episode of her new series Vampire Academy.
Plec developed and executive produced Containment, which aired as a limited series on the CW in 2016.
She got her start as a television writer and co-executive producer for the series Kyle XY, which she produced for the show’s three-year run. Other television credits include Dawson’s Creek, on which she collaborated with creator/executive producer Kevin Williamson, and The Tomorrow People, on which she collaborated with fellow executive producers Greg Berlanti and Phil Klemmer.
In the early part of her career, Plec worked with both Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson during the run of their hit Scream franchise. She also co-produced Berlanti’s directorial debut film, The Broken Hearts Club.

Your emotions do not reflect an irrefutable truth. Psychologist Kristen Lindquist explains how important that is for connecting across cultures.
When it comes to obtaining an objective understanding of the world around us, emotions may not be as reliable as we think, explains Kristen Lindquist, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Lindquist explores the concept of "affective realism," a term that describes how our feelings shape our reality, both of which are influenced by cultural nuances. She unravels the connections between emotions, culture, and the brain, challenging the notion that our emotional experiences always mirror objective truths.
About Kristen Lindquist:
Kristen Lindquist, PhD. is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research seeks to understand the psychological and neural basis of emotions, moods, and feelings. Her on-going work uses tools from social cognition, physiology, neuroscience, and big data methods to examine how emotions emerge from the confluence of the body, brain, and culture.

Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Zen priest. He is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development. His TEDx talk on this subject has received nearly 44 million views, and is the 9th most watched TED talk of all time. He is the co-author of The Good Life with Dr. Marc Schulz.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Robert Waldinger about the secret to a happy life. Robert shares the recent findings of The Grant Study, which is the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. It’s been ongoing for more than 80 years now, and has had high profile participants like US President John F. Kennedy. Robert and Scott get into the details of how they continue to conduct research and how to make sense of both the new and old data. Sure enough, what the study has found consistent is the power of connection. They also touch on the topics of psychodynamic therapy, defense mechanisms, attachment, and psychological research.
Website: www.robertwaldinger.com
X: @robertwaldinger

The divisive gold/blue dress that almost broke the internet in 2015 is a relatable example of how a Perception Box works. How each of us having our Perception Box, own subjective reality, affects the way we experience the world.

Expert James Fadiman explains how psychedelics have the power to expand consciousness, enhance creativity, and deepen our connections to the world.
James Fadiman, a distinguished figure with over six decades in psychedelic research, examines the profound impact psychedelics have on consciousness, creativity, and connectivity.
Fadiman shares insights into how these substances shift perception, offering perspectives that challenge and expand our understanding of reality. He also delves into the scientific underpinnings of psychedelics, their therapeutic potential, and the societal benefits of fostering deeper empathy and open-mindedness. Highlighting the importance of integration post-experience, Fadiman sheds light on the transformative power of psychedelics to not only alter individual consciousness but also to enhance community bonds and personal relationships.
Through a focus on responsible use and the expansion of human awareness, Fadiman's expertise offers a compelling view into the capacity of psychedelics to redefine our interaction with the world and ourselves.
About James Fadiman:
Dr. James Fadiman is a leading scientific expert on the use of psychedelics for personal exploration, healing, and transformation. He has been researching, writing and lecturing on the topic for more than fifty years. His research focuses on exploring the potential of psychedelics to help individuals achieve a more meaningful, balanced and enlightened life. He has written numerous books on the topic, such as The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide and Your Symphony Of Selves, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential figures in the field.

There are three kinds of memory that all work together to shape your reality. Neuroscientist André Fenton explains.
Neuroscientist André Fenton discusses the intricate relationship between memory, perception, and reality, shedding light on the complexity of human cognition.
Fenton believes memories are not fixed but are continually modified by our experiences and mindsets.
This, in his mind, underscores the importance of humility and empathy in acknowledging the fallibility of our memories and the need to consider different perspectives in our quest for truth.
About André Fenton:
André Fenton, professor of neural science at New York University, investigates the molecular, neural, behavioral, and computational aspects of memory. He studies how brains store experiences as memories, how they learn to learn, and how knowing activates relevant information without activating what is irrelevant. His investigations and understanding integrates across levels of biological organization, his research uses genetic, molecular, electrophysiological, imaging, behavioral, engineering, and theoretical methods. This computational psychiatry research is helping to elucidate and understand mental dysfunction in diverse conditions like schizophrenia, autism, and depression. André founded Bio-Signal Group Corp., which commercialized an FDA-approved portable, wireless, and easy-to-use platform for recording EEGs in novel medical applications. André implemented a CPAP-Oxygen helmet treatment for COVID-19 in Nigeria and other LMICs and founded Med2.0 to use information technology for the patient-centric coordination of behavioral health services that is desperately needed to equitably deliver care for mental health. André hosts “The Data Set” a new web series on how data and analytics are being used to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems.

Nothing is real and everything is an illusion. Neuroscientist Heather Berlin explains why that’s not exactly a bad thing.
Neuroscientist Heather Berlin likens each person's perception to a unique box shaped by their own experiences. Perception, Berlin explains, arises from a blend of internal expectations and external sensory input, creating a subjective experience.
Berlin believes our mental state can also profoundly affect our perception; a pessimistic mindset might skew it negatively, for example. The brain filters information, relying on preexisting schemas that can lead to cognitive biases. She notes that these biases can be altered through changing inputs over time, which can expand our empathy.
Understanding perception's illusory nature empowers us to shape our experiences and find joy despite life's challenges.
About Heather Berlin:
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and associate clinical professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the aim of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Clinically, she specializes in lifespan (child, adolescent, and adult) treatment of anxiety, mood, and impulsive and compulsive disorders (e.g., OCD), blending her neural perspective with cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and humanistic approaches.

You know Steve-O. Now meet Steve Glover, as the professional stuntman talks to us about pain, insecurity, and never finding contentment.
In this deeply personal and revealing interview, Steve Glover, better known as Steve-O, the daredevil entertainer known for his jaw-dropping stunts and unflinching willingness to face pain, shares the untold story of his journey from a childhood craving for attention to becoming an icon of wild antics and extreme performances.
Opening up about his struggles with alcoholism, the relentless pursuit of fame, and his battles with feeling 'not good enough', Glover offers an introspective look into the complexities behind the laughter and the screams.
With raw honesty, he discusses the pivotal moments that shaped him, the drive to document his existence through stunts, and the liberating power of sharing the secrets he once vowed to take to his grave.
This interview is not just a glimpse into the life of a professional idiot; it's a candid exploration of human vulnerability, the cost of fame, and the ongoing quest for self-acceptance.
About Steve-O:
Steve-O (a.k.a. Stephen Glover) was willing to do whatever it took to become famous, even if it meant stapling his ball sack to his leg. After failing miserably at the University of Miami and couch-surfing with friends, he decided that in order to further his goal of becoming a stuntman he would enroll in Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. But it was his relentless attention whoring that ultimately led to working with Johnny Knoxville on a new stunt-based reality show called Jackass.
In 2000, MTV aired the first season and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, he's had continued success, as a New York Times best-selling author with the release of his memoir, 'Professional Idiot', as well as establishing himself in the world of stand-up comedy. With fourteen years of sobriety under his belt, Steve-O shows no signs of slowing down.

Former SNL star @JayPharoah answers our most challenging questions about life, self-esteem, and changing his mind.
Jay Pharoah is known best for his impressions, but he’s got a lot more going on. The actor, comedian, and rapper sat down with us to talk about embracing triumphs, overcoming setbacks, forgiveness, and the way all of it shapes who you are.
About Jay Pharoah:
Jay Pharoah is an actor and stand-up comedian. With six seasons as a cast member of NBC's Saturday Night Live, Pharoah is best known for his wide array of uncanny celebrity impressions, including President Barack Obama, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Stephen A. Smith, Kanye West and Chris Tucker, as well as his recurring character, school principal Daniel Frye.

Over 250 million records sold and more than 70 platinum hits later, @JasonDerulo sits down with us to talk about goals, insecurities, and why he still doesn’t feel like he’s “made it.”
Jason Derulo's career flashed before his eyes when he broke his neck in 2012. Despite fearing the worst, he used positive self-talk and daily routines to recover and create hit songs like “Marry Me” and “Talk Dirty.” Overcoming childhood insecurities, he emphasizes the power of self-improvement. Now a global superstar with 250 million singles sold, Derulo prioritizes family time since becoming a father in 2021.

Cindy Gallop answers our questions about sex, identity, and why we need to stop giving a damn.
Cindy Gallop, the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, answered our questions about self-worth, the weight of other people’s expectations on women, and hope.
She shares her mission to normalize and destigmatize conversations about sex, including the negative consequences of using pornography as a substitute for sexual education.
Cindy hopes for a world where we’re all unburdened by societal judgments and true equality is achieved.
About Cindy Gallop:
Cindy Gallop is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, whose background is over 30 years in brand-building, marketing and advertising — she started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year.
She is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, co-action software launched in beta at TED 2010 and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future — Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social).
She is also the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn – ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference’ — a social sextech platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values, which she launched at TED 2009, and for which she has just raised $2 million to build out MLNP.tv as ‘the Social Sex Revolution’.Cindy recently partnered with AARP on their Disrupt Aging initiative to challenge and change ageism.
Cindy has also published ‘Make Love Not Porn: Technology’s Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior’ as one of TED’s line of TEDBooks.
You can follow her on Twitter @cindygallop.

He co-created one of TV’s funniest shows. He still felt like a failure in his 30s. This is comedian Neal Brennan’s story about conquering toxic self-talk.
We all tell lies to ourselves about ourselves, usually in the form of vicious inner criticism. Neal Brennan, seasoned comedian and one of the brilliant minds behind “Chapelle’s Show,” confronted his inner critic on video for our entertainment.
Despite being instrumental in one of the most successful comedy shows of all time, there was a time when Brennan didn’t think he had much to show for himself, especially not as a solo entertainer. The eventual demise of “Chappelle’s Show” led him down a dark path of self-doubt and, then, rediscovery.
Brennan worked 12-step programs, ventured into the world of psychedelics, and even tried magnetic brain manipulation to break out of his despair. Now, he has a new perspective on the value of going it alone. Turns out, it isn’t quite so bad.
About Neal Brennan:
Three-time Emmy nominated writer, director, producer, and standup comedian Neal Brennan has become a force in the comedy world. An across-the-board talent, Neal has found success in almost every creative vein in the comedy landscape. Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as “Hollywood’s Comic Whisperer” and lauded by The New York Times as having a “hip-hop and Frontline aesthetic,” he has collaborated with top talent both in front of and behind the camera for three decades.
Neal’s most recent one-man show Neal Brennan: Unacceptable enjoyed a sold-out run in NYC in 2021 with The New York Times offering “Brennan starts off with a regular joke format before turning toward introspection as he exposes his doubts, neuroses and vulnerabilities. And he remains very funny as he does so.” Neal’s critically acclaimed first off-Broadway one-man show 3 Mics also enjoyed a sold-out NYC run in 2016 with musician John Legend serving as Executive Producer with Paste Magazine gushing “It will floor you in the best way possible.” In a break from traditional standup comedy, 3 Mics saw Brennan alternating between three separate microphones; one for traditional stand-up, one for one-liners, and one for short confessional monologues covering everything from managing his depression to his difficult relationship with his father. Both one-man shows were taped as stand-up specials and premiered on Netflix to much fanfare and critical acclaim.
Neal co-created Comedy Central’s legendary Chappelle’s Show, for which he received three Emmy nominations. Together, Brennan and Dave Chappelle wrote and produced virtually every sketch on the show themselves. A longtime writing partner of Chappelle, Neal was a standout speaker in his televised Mark Twain Prize ceremony, wrote on his Emmy-winning 2016 Saturday Night Live hosting turn, and co-wrote the cult hit feature Half Baked. Neal also served as a Creative Consultant and on-air correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, for which he was personally picked by Noah to be his final guest. He was Executive Producer on Chris Rock’s special Chris Rock: Tamborine, Consulting Producer on Ellen Degeneres’ special Relatable, and collaborator with Seth Meyers on his White House Correspondents Dinner speech. In addition to standup, writing, directing, and producing, Brennan has also directed popular commercials for Sprite, Netflix, Best Buy and Nike.

The Osbournes was MTV’s biggest show – and it almost cost Jack Osbourne his life. Here’s how his family’s reality TV fame stole his childhood, and how he’s been able to heal since.
About Jack Osbourne:
Jack Osbourne is well known for participating in reality TV shows with his celebrity family, like The Osbournes and Ozzy and Jack’s World Tour. Jack has also overcome and dealt with great difficulties in his life, such as dyslexia, drug addiction, an MS diagnosis, depression, various medical scares in his family, and more. His ability to bounce back from these challenges has served as inspiration for others undergoing difficulties in life. Jack uses his platform to advocate for people living with MS.

Jim Lee, President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of tells us how his childhood obsession with Superman changed his life.
Jim Lee is synonymous with DC Comics now, but when he was first charting his path, his family pushed him towards medical school. In this interview, Jim shares how he reasoned with his parents and bought time to pursue his dream of being a comic book artist over the span of a gap year.
About Jim Lee:
Jim Lee, a world-renowned comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher, is currently Chief Creative Officer of DC (DC) and Publisher for the company.
Known for his incredibly detailed and dynamic artistic style, Lee is one of the most revered and respected artists in American comics. A veritable legend in the industry, he has received numerous accolades and recognition for his work, including the Harvey Special Award for New Talent in 1990, the Inkpot Award in 1992, and the Wizard Fan Award in 1996, 2002 and 2003.

Shaka Senghor spent 19 years in prison, 7 of them in solitary confinement. This is how he found true freedom.
The way Shaka Senghor tells his story, he found himself incarcerated long before he officially went to prison for second-degree murder, and he experienced freedom long before completing his sentence at the age of 38.
Senghor ran away from home and got drawn into the crack cocaine trade at the age of 14. After a series of traumatic events, he felt trapped in a narrative that dictated his life could only lead to limited outcomes: an early grave or a prison cell.
In our intimate interview, Senghor shares the three "keys" that transformed his perspective on life and have enabled him to live as a genuinely free man today.

“The Blind Side” only told part of Michael Oher’s story. Now, he tells us the rest.
You might know Michael Oher as the subject of “The Blind Side,” the 2009 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. The film was based on the true story of Oher, a young Black football player, who gained a second chance at life after being adopted by white parents.
But Oher’s version of the story is a lot different, and it starts long before the Tuohys entered the picture.
In this interview conducted with our partner Unlikely Collaborators, Oher paints a picture of the crack epidemic in the ‘80s and ‘90s, a broken and tumultuous family, and a young boy determined to climb out of it.
About Michael Oher:
Michael Oher gained widespread recognition through Michael Lewis's book "The Blind Side" and its film adaptation, which depicted his difficulties in early life and time playing college football. After attending the University of Mississippi, he played in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans, and Carolina Panthers, winning the SuperBowl with the Ravens in 2013.
Michael has also written two books: I Beat The Odds and When You’re Back’s Against The Wall, which detail his struggles and successes in life, imparting wisdom on how to overcome adversity. Michael has also contributed to the book Blindsided, where he outlines his experience of early-stage CTE, how he walked away from the NFL, and his urgent recommendations to reform football and make it a safer sport.

Built from the material of your beliefs (aka, the bullshit you tell yourself and collect from those around you over the course of your life), the Perception Box™ has the power to distort your reality and leave you feeling isolated, disconnected, and fearful. By asking sometimes contradictory but always consequential questions, we’ll show you how to understand and work with your Perception Box—how to overcome the limiting beliefs that hold you back, expand the possibilities of perception, and invite in new ways of seeing and being seen.

A guided body awareness mediation to help you get out of your head and into your body. Learn to tune into your body for a heads up on what you’re feeling before you explode. It’s literally your friend on the inside.

Simple, easy, and faster than chasing down that driver that cut you off.

Orin Davis earned the first doctorate in positive psychology, and is a self-actualization engineer who enables people to do and be their best. As the Principal Investigator of the Quality of Life Laboratory, he conducts research on flow, creativity, hypnosis, and mentoring. Dr. Davis consults for companies from startups to multinationals on hiring strategies, culture, innovation, and employee well-being. He is the author of Team Flow: The psychology of optimal collaboration.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Orin Davis about the new science of flow. A lot of people are familiar with the concept of flow, but according to Dr. Davis, the experience of it is not very common. They discuss Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work and how Dr. Davis is expanding the research of flow by studying it at a group level. Dr. Davis talks about how we can increase the chances of experiencing flow for both individuals and teams. Orin and Scott also touch on the topics of microflow, hypnosis, absorption, positive psychology, and self-actualization.
Website: https://qllab.org/
X: @DrOrinDavis

Robert Sapolsky is professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. His research has been featured in the National Geographic documentary "Stress: Portrait of a Killer". At age 30, Robert received the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant. He is author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, A Primate's Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone and Monkeyluv. His latest book is called Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Robert Sapolsky about life without free will. Humans like the idea of having control over their lives, but Robert asserts that free will is just an illusion. Life beyond free will may sound unpleasant, but Robert explains the profound consequences of this belief in reforming the justice system, meritocracy, and education. Robert and Scott also touch on the topics of philosophy, quantum physics, mindfulness, grit, and responsibility.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robertsapolsky/

For over 40 years, Bob Mankoff has been the driving force of comedy and satire at some of the most honored publications in America, including The New Yorker and Esquire. He is the founder of Cartoon Collections, parent company to CartoonStock.com, the world’s most successful cartoon licensing platform. For twenty years as Cartoon Editor for The New Yorker, Bob pored over thousands of submissions each week, analyzing, critiquing, and selecting each cartoon. In 2005, he helped start the “New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.” Bob is the author of numerous books, including his New York Times bestselling memoir, How About Never – Is Never Good For You?: My Life In Cartoons.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Bob Mankoff about the psychology of humor. Looking back at his illustrious career as a cartoonist, Bob talks about his early beginnings and the people he's mentored in the field. He explains the anatomy of a joke and reveals his all-time favorite cartoons. While humans are creative creatures, Bob believes that using AI and technology can further augment our intelligence and humor by opening up worlds of possibilities.
Website: www.bobmankoff.com
X: @BobMankoff

Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder and the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) along with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. He is one of the first American vipassana teachers and has been teaching Buddhist meditation worldwide since 1974. A contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism, his publications include Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, Insight Meditation and others.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Joseph Goldstein about Buddhism and the impermanence of life. Being too attached to the self can bring suffering. However, this doesn’t mean that we need to forego our identities or self-care. Joseph explains that enlightenment can be achieved when the mind is free from clinging. He talks about the different states that can help us realize the insight of impermanence and selflessness. Scott and Joseph also touch on the topics of mindfulness, compassion, creativity, and wisdom.
Website: www.dharma.org
X: @onedharma

Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute. He’s authored numerous articles, chapters, and books including the New York Times bestsellers Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human and Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence. His latest book is called IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Dr. Dan Siegel about expanding the notion of the self. Modern culture has taught us that the self is all about individual identity and personal experiences. But Dr. Siegel posits that who we are is not limited to the brain or body. He argues that the self is not isolated, it’s composed of our relationships to other living beings and to the natural world. This expanded view of the self has important implications for the trajectory of humanity. Dan and Scott also touch on the topics of consciousness, neuroscience, quantum physics, and the flow state.
Website: drdansiegel.com
Instagram: @DrDanSiegel

Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University. A recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, he is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets. He’s authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception. Michael’s research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, BBC, The Wall Street Journal and more. He is the author of The Secret Life of Secrets.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Michael Slepian about the psychology of secrets. Everyone has secrets that they keep from others—how does this affect our relationships and well-being? According to Michael, maintaining privacy is not the most burdensome aspect. Carrying a secret all by ourselves is what weighs us down. Michael and Scott explore the different categories of secrets and we talk about when to reveal the deepest parts of ourselves and who to reveal them to. Scott and Michael also touch on the topics of personality, morality, trauma, developmental psychology and communication.
Website: michaelslepian.com
X: @michaelslepian

Monica Parker is the founder of global human analytics and change consultancy HATCH, whose clients include blue-chip companies such as LinkedIn, Google, Prudential, and LEGO. Her career has been nothing short of colorful, having been an opera singer, a museum exhibition designer, a policy director, a Chamber of Commerce CEO, and a homicide investigator. She is also a world-renowned speaker, writer, and the author of The Power of Wonder.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Monica Parker about the power of wonder. In today’s fast-paced world, most people fail to notice the richness of life. To become more wonder-prone, Monica encourages us all to slow down and pursue meaningful exploration. When we pay more careful attention to the world, we become more empathetic, resilient, and exuberant. Monica shares with her cycle of wonder framework and how we can be more open and present in our daily lives. Monica and Scott also touch on the topics of personality, post-traumatic growth, mindfulness, and education.
Website: www.monica-parker.com
Instagram: @monicacparker