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on Something You Should Know... Are

0:36

you getting touched enough? I'll tell you

0:38

why it's so important. Then,

0:40

a lot of things can accelerate aging,

0:42

and there are so many simple ways

0:45

to fight back. I think

0:47

my favorite of these is to brush your teeth.

0:49

What we've discovered is that people who have worse

0:51

oral health actually have a higher risk of heart

0:53

disease. There's maybe even a link with dementia because

0:55

the bacteria that cause gum disease have been found

0:57

in the brains of people who've got dementia. Also,

1:00

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1:03

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1:05

loneliness, especially during the holidays, can be

1:07

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1:10

bad for your health. In

1:12

fact, the Surgeon General defined loneliness

1:14

as the number one medical problem

1:17

in the United States today. Not

1:19

cancer, not heart disease, loneliness. And

1:21

most people don't realize social isolation

1:23

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1:26

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1:28

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1:33

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Something you should know, fascinating

3:00

intel, the world's top experts,

3:02

and practical advice you can

3:04

use in your life today.

3:07

Something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

3:12

And Happy Thanksgiving. If you're listening to

3:14

this on the day this episode publishes,

3:16

which is Thanksgiving Day But

3:20

then again, that's the thing about podcasts. If you're

3:22

listening to this in the middle

3:24

of the summer, well, that doesn't make any sense. I

3:27

said Happy Thanksgiving. We

3:29

start today with touching. You know,

3:31

I have this sense that people don't touch

3:34

as much as they used to. Probably

3:37

COVID had a lot to do with that. And maybe from

3:39

that, this overall concern we have about

3:42

germs and the spread of illness. But

3:44

it does seem that people don't hug or

3:47

shake hands as much as they used to,

3:50

which can lead actually to something

3:52

called touch starvation.

3:55

It's a condition that happens when you

3:57

don't get as much physical contact as

3:59

you're used or you don't get any

4:01

at all. Human touch

4:03

is a huge part of how

4:05

humans interact with others. We

4:08

shake hands, we high-five, we

4:10

hug, we bond through physical

4:12

touch. Your skin is

4:14

the largest organ in the body and

4:16

it sends good and bad touch sensations

4:19

to your brain. When you

4:21

engage in pleasant touch like a

4:23

hug your brain releases a hormone

4:26

called oxytocin. This makes you feel

4:28

good and it firms up emotional

4:30

and social bonds while lowering anxiety

4:32

and fear. So for

4:34

all these reasons and probably a lot

4:37

more we need to find

4:39

more ways to touch again. And

4:41

that is something you should know. I

4:46

bet there have been times when you have been

4:48

alone with your thoughts and you have wondered to

4:50

yourself, I wonder how

4:53

long I'll live. This happens often

4:55

I think when someone close to

4:57

you dies especially a family member.

5:00

I know some people believe that hey when your

5:02

numbers up your numbers up and I guess to

5:04

some extent that's true. But

5:06

since as the saying goes all we

5:08

really have is time what

5:10

can we do to prolong our time

5:12

and live a happy and healthy life

5:15

in the process? Well

5:17

as it turns out there is a

5:19

lot of really interesting research going on

5:21

that I really think you want to

5:23

hear about because it goes way beyond

5:25

the you know exercise eat right see

5:27

your doctor and that's about the best

5:29

you can do. Andrew Steele

5:32

is a biologist, he is a

5:34

science writer, he has his PhD

5:36

in physics from Oxford and he

5:38

is author of a book called

5:40

Ageless in which he

5:42

looks into the latest cutting-edge research

5:44

on longevity and he

5:46

has found some really interesting stuff

5:48

that could actually affect how long

5:50

you live because this

5:53

new research could lead to treatments

5:55

in our lifetime to

5:57

extend our lifetime which

5:59

is pretty cool. Hey Andrew,

6:01

welcome. Hello, thanks for having me.

6:04

So define what you mean by aging. And

6:06

first of all, I've always had trouble with

6:08

that term because it implies that

6:10

you can stop time almost and that

6:12

people get old. I mean, that's what

6:15

people do. My car gets old, the

6:17

trees get old, everything gets old. So

6:20

what are we talking about in

6:22

your view when we talk about

6:24

aging? I mean, that's exactly right. And

6:26

I think why the big challenges that I've overcome is

6:29

to explode people's conventional wisdom about what

6:31

aging is. But what I mean by

6:33

aging as a biologist, actually the simplest

6:35

definition isn't a biological definition at all.

6:37

It's a statistical one. And

6:40

it's simply how fast your risk of death increases

6:42

with time. As a human, our rate of aging

6:44

as a species is that our risk of death

6:46

doubles about every eight years. So let's try and

6:48

put that into some kind of context. I'm 36

6:50

and that means my odds of death this year

6:53

are about one in a thousand. And actually, I

6:55

quite like those odds. If that were to continue for

6:58

the rest of my life, I'd live into my thousand

7:00

and thirties on average. But of course, that isn't what

7:02

happens. My risk of death will carry on doubling every

7:04

eight years. And so that means if there are no

7:07

advances in medical science between now and me, fingers crossed

7:09

making it into my nineties, my odds of death by

7:11

then will be one in six per year, life and

7:13

death at the roll of a dice. And so, as

7:15

a biologist, you look at this and think there's this

7:18

exponentially increasing risk of death with time. That is the

7:20

problem that we call aging. I

7:22

was surprised when you said that your chance

7:24

of death at age 36 is

7:27

one in a thousand. That actually seems

7:29

high to me. So one out of

7:31

every thousand 36 year olds will die

7:33

this year? Yeah, I

7:35

guess you got to look at that as 0.1%.

7:37

And actually, most of that when you're my age

7:39

is still down to external things that we call

7:42

them extrinsic forms of mortality biologically. So that's things

7:44

like, you know, car accidents and unfortunately suicide is

7:46

a really big cause of death for men at

7:48

my age as well. So it's not generally the

7:50

sort of cancers and the heart disease and that

7:52

sort of stuff that you associate with older age.

7:54

It's the external causes of death. And then

7:57

obviously as you get older, the risk of

7:59

diseases increases. and starts to swamp those

8:01

external causes. And as you

8:03

get older, as you say, your risk

8:05

of death goes up

8:07

exponentially, but at the

8:09

end of the day, I mean, everything gets

8:12

older. My car gets older, you know, the

8:14

trees outside get older, and

8:16

eventually my car breaks down.

8:19

One day the trees will die. One day

8:21

I will die. Everything gets

8:23

older and goes away. Well,

8:26

this is the fascinating thing because obviously that

8:28

happens to cars, it happens to machines, it

8:31

happens to our pets, it happens to our

8:33

farm animals. You know, you can easily imagine

8:35

that aging is a universal process, but

8:37

actually this just isn't the case because we've

8:40

got a huge advantage as biological organisms. We

8:42

can repair ourselves. If we didn't have these

8:44

incredibly intricate mechanisms of repair that are buzzing

8:46

away inside of ourselves, every single hour

8:48

of every single day, all the time, you

8:51

know, correcting mistakes, disposing of

8:53

rubbish, that kind of thing, we would die an

8:55

awful lot sooner than we actually do. And

8:58

the fact there are some animals that have got

9:00

so good at repairing themselves that their risk of

9:02

death doesn't change with time. That's a phenomenon that

9:04

in biology we call negligible senescence. So negligible just

9:06

meaning, you know, not much, and senescence is just

9:09

the biological term for growing old. So

9:11

the reason there's a tortoise on the cover of

9:13

my book is because that is a negligibly senescent

9:15

animal. It's an animal whose risk of death stays

9:17

constant when it becomes an adult, and that means

9:19

that they can live an incredibly long time. But

9:21

most importantly, it's not just their risk of death

9:23

that stays constant. They also don't have any increase

9:25

in frailty as they get older. They stay reproductively

9:28

active no matter how old they are. That means

9:30

that they grow older, but without growing old in

9:32

the way that we humans do. And so I

9:34

hope that by understanding the biology of aging, we

9:36

can try and transfer some of that wisdom and

9:38

some of those sort of biological techniques to keep

9:40

us sprightly into our old age too. And

9:43

the goal is what? Because one

9:46

day, your day will come. I mean, you

9:49

can't put off death forever. So is the

9:51

goal just to put it off as long

9:53

as possible? Put it off as long as

9:56

possible and be healthy? What

9:58

is it that we're trying to accomplish? with all

10:00

of this? The goal

10:02

is definitely health and I think that you know

10:04

you've got to think about what actually kills you.

10:06

Although you know decades ago it was permissible for

10:08

doctors to write death by old age on an

10:11

older person's death certificate. Now we understand that you

10:13

can't just die of old age you know you

10:15

die of heart disease, you die of cancer, you

10:17

die of dementia. One of these diseases that are

10:19

much more likely as you get older and these

10:21

diseases too get exponentially more likely as you increase

10:23

in age. That's something that eventually becomes severe enough

10:25

to take your life and so you

10:28

know it's very much the pain, the suffering, all of these things

10:30

together that we want to try and get rid of. Actually

10:33

it's a really good way of thinking about

10:35

it is to think about a lot of

10:37

modern medicine seeks to treat individual diseases but

10:39

even if we had hypothetically a complete success

10:41

treating an individual disease and let's take the

10:43

example imagine that you know we cured cancer

10:45

tomorrow that would only add about three years

10:47

to human life expectancy and that's because you

10:49

know if you avoid getting cancer you've probably

10:52

already got a bit of heart disease or

10:54

diabetes or you know dementia starting you know

10:56

waiting in the wings to kill you as

10:58

you get older and so that means that

11:00

it doesn't make you healthier for much longer.

11:02

Whereas by treating the aging process the thing

11:04

that causes all of these diseases we can

11:06

potentially defer those diseases maybe even prevent them

11:09

entirely and create a lot more healthy years

11:11

for people. And isn't the prescription for doing

11:13

that just lead what we've been taught is

11:15

a healthy lifestyle to eat well, sleep well,

11:18

isn't that the prescription? These

11:21

are all good ideas and they're definitely something that I would

11:23

you know encourage people to do but the fact is we

11:25

can go beyond this with medicine and I think the best

11:27

way to explain this is with an example. One

11:29

of the biological processes behind aging is the

11:31

accumulation of aged senescent as that word again

11:33

senescent cells and they build up in our

11:36

bodies as we get older and we know

11:38

that they're responsible for a whole range of

11:40

age-related diseases and we've also got drugs that

11:42

can kill those senescent cells while leaving the

11:44

rest of the cells in the body intact.

11:46

So we've done experiments using these drugs on mice

11:48

and we wait until the mice get to about

11:50

24 months old. Now mice obviously have a much

11:53

shorter lifespan than humans so that's something equivalent to

11:55

about 70 in human years so that means we

11:57

give these old mice the drugs it clears out

11:59

those aged cells. And what we find is the

12:01

mice basically get biologically younger. They live a bit

12:03

longer, which is a good thing, but they're not

12:05

just sort of stumbling along in ill health, unable

12:07

to muster the energy even to die. They're healthier.

12:09

They get less cancer. They get less heart disease.

12:11

They get fewer cataracts. They're less frail, so they

12:13

can run further and faster on the little mousy

12:15

treadmills that they're using these experiments. They're more curious.

12:17

So if you put a young mouse in a

12:19

maze, it's often very exploratory. It wants to sort

12:21

of have a look around its new environment. An

12:23

older mouse might be a bit more anxious, maybe

12:26

just a bit lazier, because it's a bit more

12:28

frail. And by giving mice

12:30

these senolytic drugs that kill the senescent

12:32

cells, you restore some of that youthful

12:34

curiosity. And finally, these animals, they

12:36

just look great. I was a

12:38

computational biologist, so I never dealt with mice in the

12:40

lab. And if you look at a picture of one

12:42

of these mice that's had these drugs, they've got better

12:45

fur, they've got thicker plumper skin. They just look fantastic.

12:47

And so the point is, you can't diet

12:49

and exercise and live a good life to

12:51

a healthy, guaranteed healthy hundred years old. Whereas

12:54

by using some of these drugs that could

12:56

potentially slow down, maybe even reverse the aging

12:58

process, we can allow ourselves to live longer

13:00

and healthier than any current lifestyle intervention would

13:02

allow. And so that would mean what

13:04

to me? What would I be doing? Where do I

13:06

go get these drugs? Well,

13:09

we're going to have to wait for some of the clinical

13:11

trials to happen. So I'm very excited that these things are

13:13

going to be here in time for all of us, because

13:15

they're already in human clinical trials. But at the moment, you

13:17

know, mostly we're looking at results in mice and we've got

13:19

the first tentative results starting to come out in humans. So

13:21

hopefully in the next five or so years, we're going to

13:23

have some of those answers to these drugs work in humans

13:25

as well as they do in mice. And we can start

13:27

thinking about taking them. What

13:29

is the connection between how

13:32

you look, how young you look, how healthy

13:34

you look, and how

13:36

you age internally? Is there any

13:38

connection or those are two separate

13:40

topics? It actually is. Yeah, there's

13:42

a fascinating study that was done a few years

13:45

ago where people were asked to rate the photographs

13:47

of other people to guess how old they thought

13:49

they were. And what they found was that people

13:51

who looked older tended to have a greater risk

13:53

of dying in the near future and a greater

13:55

risk of contracting certain diseases. And actually what this

13:57

really tells us is that there is a sort

14:00

of fundamental fundamental collection of underlying processes that are

14:02

responsible not just for your internal aging but for

14:04

your external aging as well. And so someone who

14:06

is wrinkly or someone whose hair is a bit

14:08

grayer, they probably have older insides, the same processes

14:10

are giving them an increased risk of cancer, an

14:12

increased risk of heart disease. And so

14:15

actually, although I very much hope we don't initially

14:17

go after these cosmetic things, they're obviously less important.

14:19

One researcher I spoke to said, you know, I'd

14:21

far rather have improved strength and resilience in my

14:24

arteries than in my skin. So, you know, they're

14:26

not so worried about wrinkly skin, but wrinkly arteries

14:28

effectively. I actually think we're going to

14:30

solve quite a few of these cosmetic problems almost

14:32

by accident, because we'll go after the causes of

14:35

these particular diseases. And then what will happen is

14:37

those same processes are responsible for the wrinkles, the

14:39

gray hair, all the external stuff. And so we

14:41

might find that those things improve at the same

14:43

time. What do we

14:45

know about the things that people do in

14:47

their life that are the

14:50

worst? That, you know,

14:52

whether it's drinking or stress or what

14:55

are the things that are killing us slowly?

14:58

The absolute top of my list, and this isn't

15:00

going to come as a surprise to anybody listening,

15:03

is smoking. It's so, so bad for your health.

15:05

But what you actually find when you dig into

15:07

health advice is something that's really, really encouraged me

15:09

actually to, you know, make sure I am doing

15:11

every single thing I possibly can to be that

15:13

little bit healthier. And that's because all these different

15:15

things that were advised about, you know, trying to

15:17

maintain a healthy lifestyle, most of them

15:20

actually slow down the aging process itself. And I

15:22

think a really good example of this is exercise

15:24

because, you know, when you're sweating away, you know,

15:26

on a run or something, it's really obvious your

15:28

lungs are going, you can feel your heart beating

15:30

in your chest. You know, your muscles are obviously

15:32

doing an awful lot of exercise. You can see

15:34

how that exercise is benefiting your muscles. It's strengthening

15:37

them. It's benefiting your cardiovascular system. But

15:39

actually this process seems to slow down the aging

15:41

process as a whole. So it's not just the

15:43

heart disease that you're deferring by doing exercise. It

15:45

also defers quite a lot of kinds of cancer.

15:48

It's even, there's

15:50

even quite good evidence that can reduce the risk

15:52

of getting dementia and neurodegeneration. And, you know, you

15:54

just wouldn't necessarily think that working out on the

15:56

treadmill or going for a bike ride or lifting

15:58

weights is going to improve your culture. cognitive health

16:01

as you get older. But because these processes are

16:03

also interconnected, you know, it just means that doing

16:05

all of these bits of health advice can improve your health

16:08

in so, so many different ways, not just the obvious ones.

16:10

We're talking about longevity, what we

16:12

can all do to live longer

16:14

and healthier. And my guest is

16:17

Andrew Steele, author of the book,

16:19

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Terms apply. So

17:05

Andrew, besides smoking being the

17:07

obvious bad thing for your

17:09

longevity and exercise being good

17:12

for your longevity, what

17:14

else is there? So some

17:16

of the things are surprisingly obvious, you know, making sure you don't eat

17:18

too much smoking, exercise, that kind of

17:20

thing, not drinking too much, getting enough sleep. But

17:22

actually the other thing that can happen is that

17:24

by understanding the aging biology, you can uncover some

17:27

slightly less conventional bits of health advice that are

17:29

nonetheless really important. I think my favorite of these

17:31

is to brush your teeth. So we've

17:33

begun to understand that a lot of the aging

17:35

process is driven by a process called chronic inflammation.

17:38

So that's unpack what that means. Inflammation

17:40

is the process by which your immune system goes

17:42

and fights off various threats. So it can fight

17:44

off, you know, an infection or it could rush

17:46

to the site of an injury to try and

17:48

start the healing process. And when you're more youthful,

17:50

that process is often acute, i.e. it turns on

17:52

very rapidly when it's needed and it turns off

17:54

again once the immune system has done its job.

17:56

But as we get older, this process can become

17:58

sort of chronic. It can just be turned on

18:01

a little tiny bit all the time, kind of

18:03

a paranoia in your immune system. What's

18:05

going on if you have poor oral health? Well, you've

18:07

got bacteria in your mouth, they're infecting your gums, they

18:09

might be decaying your teeth. And the

18:11

reason that the dentist has such a sort of

18:14

comparatively primitive set of tools, they can yank out

18:16

teeth, they can drill holes in them, is because

18:18

your immune system never quite wins this battle. So

18:20

there's this constant process of inflammation going on in

18:22

your mouth. And what we've discovered is

18:24

that people who have worse oral health actually have

18:26

a higher risk of heart disease. There's maybe even

18:28

a link with dementia because the bacteria that cause

18:31

gum disease have been found in the brains of

18:33

people who've got dementia. So again,

18:35

it just seems like the whole body is this incredibly

18:37

interconnected thing and keeping one part of it healthy can

18:39

have huge effects on the whole aging process of every

18:41

single part of it. I

18:44

think people believe, and probably because we

18:46

see evidence of it, that there is

18:48

a bit of dice rolling in all

18:50

of this. That people get

18:53

cancer very early for no apparent reason,

18:56

or then there are other people who lead a

18:58

rather unhealthy life and live to 105. And

19:02

that perhaps genetics plays a

19:04

big part in this. And

19:07

actually, the genetic contribution to longevity is surprisingly small

19:09

for people who live a normal length of time.

19:11

So if your parents live to 70 or 80,

19:14

you really shouldn't see that as a ceiling on your own

19:16

lifespan. We think that genetics only contributes maybe

19:18

somewhere between 5 and 20% of how long you can

19:21

go on to live. But the one exception to

19:23

this is the people who do live an exceptionally

19:25

long time. So people who make it into their hundreds,

19:27

centenarians, there seems to be a huge genetic component to

19:29

this. In fact, if your parents

19:32

are centenarians, or if you have a centenarian parent, or

19:34

if you have a sibling who makes it into their

19:37

hundreds, you've got a 10 times greater chance of doing

19:39

so yourself. And it really seems that

19:41

the way in which these centenarians make it to

19:43

these advanced ages is they just got protection from

19:45

age-related disease. They really do just age slower than the

19:47

rest of us. So if you look at studies of

19:49

centenarians, they don't tend to be much healthier than the

19:52

general population yet. They're still a little bit overweight.

19:54

They often smoke. They often drink just

19:56

as much as regular people do. But the fact is

19:58

that they've got the genetics that keeps them... effectively

20:01

impervious to these bad lifestyle habits and allows them

20:03

to live long enough anyway. So for most of

20:06

us, the best advice is to carry on with

20:08

this stuff because unfortunately we haven't got those, you

20:10

know, centenarian genes that are going to allow us

20:12

to power through anyway. There is a ceiling though,

20:14

as I've understood it when I've read about this

20:17

is, you know, people are getting older on

20:19

average, but the oldest of the oldest

20:21

don't get a lot older. It's

20:24

a really fascinating subject. And so the record for

20:26

longevity is 122 years held by

20:28

a French woman called Jeanne Carmont. And she set that

20:30

record in 1997, I think, which is

20:34

really quite incredible. I think the fact is that

20:36

people who make it to these exceptionally old ages, they're

20:38

just so rare that it's very, very hard for

20:40

that record to be pushed back and back. But

20:42

also I think you are right that, you know, with the current state

20:45

of, you know, no matter how well

20:47

you live, no matter what medical care you have access to,

20:49

it's very, very unlikely with the current state of medicine that

20:51

you're going to be able to live longer than that. The

20:53

only way that you can stop your body falling apart on

20:56

that schedule is to intervene in the aging process itself. Because

20:58

as I sort of alluded to earlier, you know, say you're

21:00

110 and you get cancer and you cure that cancer, there

21:02

are still loads of other things wrong with your body that

21:04

are going to probably take you out in the next few

21:07

years. Whereas if we could actually slow down aging, that would

21:09

mean you can make it to 110 in a much healthier

21:11

state. And that would completely change the game in terms of

21:13

the limit on human longevity. But

21:16

no matter how hard you try, I mean,

21:18

the parts of the human body can't

21:21

last forever. Eventually they're just going

21:23

to wear out. I

21:25

mean, I think the best counter to that is

21:27

just to look at these negligibly senescent animals. I

21:29

already mentioned tortoises have this property, but it's not just

21:31

tortoises. There are actually loads of animals out there.

21:34

So there are various kinds of fish, an negligibly

21:36

senescent. There's salamander. There's a tiny little water creature

21:38

called a hydra. There's a bit closer to us

21:40

on the evolutionary tree, something called a naked mole

21:42

rat, which is a rodent, a bit like a

21:44

rat or a mouse. But whereas mice live, you

21:46

know, maybe two or three years in the lab,

21:48

naked mole rats live to 30. They

21:51

seem to be almost immune to cancer. They're

21:53

almost immune to neurodegeneration. But most importantly, their

21:55

risk of death is basically constant throughout their

21:58

adult lives. And then they suddenly. Beautiful,

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isn't it? But you

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can't discover the coolest city in the

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world just by listening. Check

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your Istanbul trip today.

28:22

Loneliness is a feeling I suspect everyone

28:24

has felt, and everyone knows

28:26

it doesn't feel very good. Being

28:29

lonely around the holidays is perhaps

28:31

the worst. And since

28:33

this episode is publishing on Thanksgiving, I

28:35

figured it would be a good time

28:37

to tackle the topic of loneliness, and

28:40

most importantly, things we can all do

28:42

to get rid of that feeling and

28:44

keep it away. There

28:46

is no one better to discuss the

28:48

topic of loneliness than Dr. Edward Halliwell.

28:51

Ned is a psychiatrist who wrote

28:53

a great book some years ago

28:55

called Connect, in which he

28:58

really explored the topic of loneliness and

29:00

the need for connection. He

29:02

also has written several other books

29:05

about distraction and ADHD. His

29:07

latest is a bestseller called ADHD 2.0. Hey,

29:12

Ned. Thanks for being here. Hello,

29:14

Mike. Nice to be with you. So

29:16

what is loneliness? How do you define it? How

29:18

do you look at it? Lonely

29:21

is a lot different from being alone. You

29:23

can be alone and not lonely. You can

29:26

be alone and reading

29:29

a book, listening to music, entertaining

29:32

your fantasies and favorite

29:35

hopes for the future. And you're

29:37

not lonely. But you

29:40

can also be lonely. And

29:42

that's the active presence

29:44

of absence. It's

29:46

like you're feeling what isn't there. It's

29:49

a terrible feeling. You're feeling that here

29:51

I am alone. No one's with me.

29:54

No one likes me. No

29:56

one cares about me. Or so-and-so died. Or I

29:59

miss my dog. or I wish I were back

30:01

home. You feel what

30:03

you're missing. I love that

30:05

definition that you're feeling what isn't there, because

30:08

as soon as you said that, I

30:10

could feel it. I mean, that's exactly

30:13

what it is. It's that absence of

30:15

something that you want or need or

30:17

miss or something. And it's

30:19

a terrible feeling. You know, it is really bad

30:21

for you. You know, in fact, the Surgeon General

30:24

defined loneliness as the number one

30:26

medical problem in the United States

30:29

today. Not cancer, not

30:31

heart disease, loneliness. And most people

30:33

don't realize how bad

30:35

it is for you. In fact, social

30:37

isolation is as dangerous for

30:40

early death as cigarette smoking. Most

30:42

people have no idea about that. If you ask

30:45

them to list risk factors, they'll say cigarette smoking,

30:47

obesity, genetics, don't wear your seatbelt. Nobody

30:49

puts down loneliness. But my gosh, it's

30:51

right near the top of the list.

30:53

And if people would make it a

30:56

priority to connect, I call it

30:58

the other vitamin C, vitamin

31:00

connect. It is the most

31:02

powerful force that most people don't

31:04

make use of. I urge

31:06

people, you know, if you go to the supermarket, talk

31:08

to the guy at the checkout counter. He needs it

31:11

or she needs it as much as you do. So

31:14

help me understand why, what it

31:16

is about loneliness that makes it

31:18

so dangerous. Is it the loneliness

31:20

itself? Or when you are lonely,

31:22

you tend to do bad things

31:24

like drink more, smoke more, eat

31:26

more? Or is there

31:28

something inherent about loneliness that is

31:30

harmful? All

31:33

of the above. When you're

31:35

feeling lonely, your immune system

31:37

suffers, and you are

31:39

putting out stress hormones that are

31:41

caustic. And then what you also

31:44

said, you're inclined to try to

31:46

fill in the emptiness with

31:49

things like online gambling or

31:51

drinking or drug use or

31:54

dangerous liaisons or dangerous

31:56

business deals, reckless, going

31:58

to the market. online

32:00

connecting in chat rooms where you don't know

32:02

who you're talking to. And it's really just

32:06

about people trying to find meaningful

32:08

ways of connecting. And I

32:12

can't tell you how many patients I've prescribed

32:14

a dog for. I mean,

32:16

dogs are the world's greatest. I dedicated my

32:18

last book to dogs. I said it's no

32:20

accident that God spelled backwards as

32:22

dog. Dogs are the world's best connectors.

32:27

And so if you have a

32:29

dog, chances are you're not

32:31

going to feel lonely or nearly as lonely.

32:33

Yeah. And anybody who's ever had

32:36

a dog knows that that relationship

32:38

is very fulfilling, but

32:40

it's still a human dog

32:42

relationship. It isn't the

32:44

same as connecting

32:47

with people. And in fact,

32:49

I tell young people, what

32:51

is the purpose of growing up? What is the goal

32:53

of growing up? And the answers I

32:55

get are like, get into the best school you

32:57

can get into, lay the foundation for making a

32:59

good living. And I say, no,

33:01

no, the purpose, what you want to do while

33:04

you're growing up is fall in love. You

33:07

want to fall in love with a person.

33:09

That's fine. But with a subject, an idea,

33:11

an activity, an aunt,

33:14

the great entomologist,

33:16

E.O. Wilson, who just died, fell in love with

33:18

ants in a

33:20

parking lot in Alabama because he was a

33:22

lonely kid. So he went

33:24

out to the field next door and started

33:26

studying ants and became one

33:28

of the great entomologists, professor at Harvard,

33:31

author of many books. But

33:33

it was born out of his feeling lonely as

33:35

a kid in Alabama, and

33:37

he found his companionship in ants. But

33:40

what is the reason, do you think,

33:42

that people have such trouble connecting with

33:45

people? Because there's a lot of people,

33:47

there's like billions of them. So you

33:50

would think that connecting with people would be

33:52

easier than it apparently is. Why do some

33:55

people find themselves lonely?

33:58

The reason people stick

34:00

with loneliness is they're afraid. They're

34:03

afraid of being rejected. They're afraid of being

34:05

sued. They're afraid of saying the

34:07

wrong thing, you know, in this age

34:09

of PC, everyone's afraid to say the

34:11

wrong thing. They're afraid

34:13

of looking stupid. And

34:16

so they hold back. They hold back on life

34:18

out of fear and they create their own little

34:20

bubble, their own little prison, which is

34:22

toxic. And so you said a

34:24

few moments ago that you

34:26

need to connect and that one thing you could

34:28

do talk to the cashier at the store or

34:30

wave to the person next to you. That's not

34:33

really a connection. That's just a kind of a

34:35

polite, hi, how are you? See you later. So

34:37

how does that help? Well, it

34:40

actually is a connection. You'll

34:42

get a little drip of dopamine when

34:44

you do that. You'll get a little

34:46

affirmation. You can wave to

34:48

a stranger all clear across the parking

34:50

lot. If it's a snowy day or

34:52

something, you say snowy day and he

34:55

waves back. It takes a half a

34:57

second. That is a connection. It's not

34:59

a lifelong connection. You'll never see the

35:01

person again, but don't take it lightly.

35:03

Small talk is very big talk. Small

35:06

talk is the root into deeper relationships

35:08

for sure, but it all begins with

35:10

small talk. You know, the strong silent

35:13

man is a lonely man on his

35:15

way to a heart attack. You know,

35:18

it's not a good recipe. So make

35:21

the little chit chat. Make the don't

35:23

take it lightly. It's very, very, very

35:25

important. I remember hearing,

35:27

and maybe it was from you when

35:29

we've talked in the past, that that

35:31

intense pain that loneliness

35:34

causes is evolutionary,

35:37

that we're not meant

35:39

to be that way. We can't survive if

35:41

we're all alone and that that's

35:43

a motivation, a push to get rid of

35:45

that feeling. And the only way to get

35:47

rid of it is to go

35:49

connect with people. It is

35:51

so true. It's wired into us. It's

35:53

wired into our endocrine system. And even,

35:56

you know, any of you listeners who've

35:58

had children, The moment you

36:01

give birth either through, you know, the normal

36:03

way or through adoption, the moment you become

36:05

a parent for the first time. Nature

36:08

sees to it that you enter into

36:10

a permanent state of psychosis. Your

36:12

whole body changes, your brain

36:15

changes. You fall madly, insanely

36:17

crazy in love with

36:20

this little peeing and pooping machine whom you don't

36:22

even know. And yet you've

36:24

almost instantly become not only willing but

36:26

eager to give away your time, your

36:28

money, your sleep, your dignity and you

36:30

know, you gotta be crazy to do

36:32

it and you say this is so

36:34

much fun. Let's do it again. You

36:37

know, this episode is publishing

36:39

on Thanksgiving Day 2024 and

36:42

holidays, especially the winter

36:45

holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the holiday

36:47

season can somehow

36:50

make loneliness even more acute

36:52

because you're remembering maybe people

36:55

who have died or people who have

36:57

left your life. And

37:00

if you don't have replacements

37:02

for that, something to, yeah,

37:04

replacements for that, it

37:07

can be really hard this time of

37:09

year. My advice to

37:11

you is maybe take that holiday as a

37:13

chance to developing some

37:16

kind of connection that can

37:18

become meaningful. Maybe it's a time to

37:20

get a dog or maybe

37:22

it's a time to go back to

37:24

church or synagogue or maybe it's a

37:26

time to take up some

37:29

hobby that you've wanted to take up

37:31

even something as simple as crocheting or

37:33

cooking or, you know, starting

37:35

a little garden inside your house. You know,

37:38

there are things you can take up that will

37:41

serve as points of connection and then you

37:43

can find other people who are interested in that,

37:45

you know, and you know, one of my

37:47

favorite lines, I use it all the time,

37:49

it really, it's a line to live

37:52

by. Never worry alone. So when you're feeling

37:54

upset, worried, concerned, you

37:57

know, you're feeling a little

37:59

bit tired. concern, reach out somehow

38:01

doesn't have to be in person. It doesn't have

38:04

to be against your

38:06

grain, but don't worry alone. That's

38:08

when bad things happen.

38:10

That's when you do self-destructive stuff. That's

38:12

when you feel intense despair. That's

38:15

when people commit suicide, when

38:17

you're worrying alone. So never

38:20

worry alone is a really good watchword.

38:24

And another thing you can do

38:26

is when you're feeling these bleak black

38:28

moments where you're sort of ruminating. We

38:31

know from brain science, there's a certain network in

38:33

the brain that takes over. It's called the default

38:36

mode network, the DMN, which I call the demon.

38:39

What you want to do is don't feed the demon.

38:41

And what do you feed it with? Your attention. Well,

38:45

do something else. Fry an egg, dig

38:47

a hole, do a crossword, do something

38:49

else. Shut off the

38:51

DMN's oxygen supply, which is

38:53

your attention. And by the

38:55

way, the reason that we feed it is

38:57

contentment is too bland. You

39:00

don't say he or she was riveted

39:02

in contentment, but you

39:04

do say he or she was

39:06

riveted in despair, loneliness, misery for

39:09

boating. It's riveting.

39:11

And that's why you keep feeding it with

39:13

your attention. You got to be ruthless and

39:15

shut it off, redirect

39:18

your attention onto something else. And it

39:20

literally can save your life if

39:22

you do that. But try to keep those two phrases

39:25

in mind. Never worry alone and

39:27

don't feed the demon. That

39:29

is some really great advice because

39:32

everyone who has ever and I

39:34

assume it is everyone has ever

39:36

worried alone knows that when you

39:38

bring somebody else in on your

39:40

worry, it somehow it somehow lightens

39:42

up. It's magical. It's

39:45

magical. And it really is the

39:47

suddenly the worry turns into problem

39:49

solving. It is magical.

39:51

It's like my thought experience. Imagine you're

39:53

standing in a big, dark way warehouse

39:55

by yourself. You feel terrified,

39:58

paranoid if you're there with.

40:00

someone, you laugh. There's

40:03

something about the presence of another

40:05

person that instantly, as

40:07

you put it, lightens the load. And the next thing

40:09

you know, you're problem solving. How do we get out

40:12

of here? I've heard

40:14

it described as a paradox, really,

40:16

that we are, with social

40:18

media and the internet, we are more

40:20

connected than ever. And yet

40:22

a lot of those social media kind

40:25

of connections aren't real

40:27

connections and exacerbate the problem

40:29

of loneliness because you're connected

40:31

but not in the

40:33

way that people used to be

40:35

connected. What do you think about

40:37

social media connections? Is

40:39

it that? Is it exacerbating

40:42

the problem? I

40:44

take issue with that point. It's all a matter of

40:46

how you use it. My

40:49

family, for example, uses social media to great

40:51

advantage. We have a, you know, I don't

40:54

know what the word for it is, but

40:56

we're all on the same little platform and

40:58

we send each other messages and it facilitates,

41:00

deepens human connection. Now, the

41:03

danger is when it replaces human

41:05

connection, that's the danger. So it's

41:07

all a matter of how you use it. It

41:10

would seem that because loneliness is

41:13

so painful and

41:15

a lot of people suffer that pain in

41:17

silence, it must be

41:19

because, at least in part, that it's

41:22

just so difficult to get up and

41:25

go try to connect with people.

41:27

It's just really hard

41:29

for them to do. So what's

41:31

your advice for those people

41:34

who would love to connect but

41:36

just don't even know where to begin? I'll

41:38

tell you a quick story. Do we

41:40

have time for a quick story? Sure,

41:42

of course. Oh, great. Okay. Well, so

41:45

I consulted some 20 years ago to

41:47

the Harvard Chemistry Department because they had

41:49

their most gifted graduate student committed suicide

41:51

and left a note explicitly

41:54

blaming Harvard. As we looked into it,

41:56

the chair of the department, Jim Anderson,

42:00

and basically put his research career on

42:02

hold to figure out what was going on. And

42:04

we discovered it was one of many suicides in

42:06

that department in the previous decade. And

42:09

the reason for it was, the

42:11

community was horribly disconnected.

42:13

It was like a dungeon. It

42:17

was just, there was no connection.

42:20

Everyone was paranoid. There were

42:22

two coping styles, work harder or get drunk.

42:24

And most people did both every day. So

42:27

you had an entire department with

42:29

five Nobel prize winners in it,

42:31

and some thousand brilliant

42:34

little genius postdocs and graduate

42:36

students miserable because they

42:38

were so disconnected. So

42:40

we had to figure out a way to connect them. Now

42:43

with that group of people, really

42:46

smart, often middle European, barely English

42:48

speaking, very high

42:50

IQ folks, if you said,

42:52

let's have a mixer, nobody would show up

42:55

because it's not in their comfort zone. And

42:57

so we had to figure out, how do you bait

42:59

the trap? How do you bring people out of hiding?

43:01

Cause they were hiding, they were paranoid. Well,

43:04

one of the universal answers to

43:06

that question is food. So

43:09

we'd reach out to the best restaurants

43:11

in Cambridge and we'd cater

43:14

weekly buffets where

43:17

there'd be wonderful good food. There'd

43:19

be some beer and wine.

43:21

And these introverted shy grad

43:24

students would come out of hiding for

43:26

food. And the next thing you know,

43:29

they get talking to one another in spite of themselves. And

43:32

the next thing you know, there's a softball team.

43:34

There's a symphony club. There's a, they

43:36

started putting wax boards next to

43:38

the elevators. So instead of making small talk at

43:41

the elevator, they could draw equations and tell each

43:43

other what they were working on. You

43:45

meet them where they are. And

43:47

lo and behold, over

43:49

the course of the year, we really changed

43:51

the culture of that department. So it's a

43:53

grim statistic, but it's very significant. There have

43:56

been no suicide since. The

43:58

proudest award I ever got was. the chemistry

44:00

department gave me the department medal and the

44:02

first non chemist who has ever received that

44:04

but Well done Yeah,

44:06

thank you. But it was it really drove

44:08

home to me number one

44:11

how lethal disconnection is I

44:13

mean literally people dying but

44:16

how How plantable it

44:18

is how startable it is

44:20

because it's in ever even the

44:22

most introverted reclusive

44:24

person Wants to connect

44:27

Loneliness hurts everybody. So if you you

44:29

just have to find the right way

44:32

And like in our case food was was

44:34

the was the catalyst food was what got

44:37

the ball rolling then Then people

44:39

jump in and take over and the next thing, you

44:41

know, the the town can

44:43

go from being isolated

44:45

and separated and paranoid as so

44:47

many places are these days to

44:50

connecting maybe you have a block party maybe

44:52

you have a yard sale maybe you have

44:54

a You know, let's

44:56

root for the local team Movement

44:59

or something that people can join in

45:01

and connect with each other without making

45:03

them self-conscious about it That's the key.

45:05

Most people don't want to sit down

45:07

and talk about their feelings. They're they're

45:09

afraid of that It makes them feel

45:11

very awkward But if you give them

45:14

some task to do Some project

45:16

to jump into and some food to eat

45:18

and even better some wine to drink You

45:21

got a connection thing going and it's so

45:23

great to see it happen because It's

45:26

what people need and you just see them brighten

45:28

up like a christmas tree. I mean, it's just

45:30

it's a wonderful thing And

45:32

and it can be you can start it

45:34

truly anywhere, you know, I like to

45:36

think I know it's not

45:38

a two-way connection, but I like to think that

45:41

People listening to us right now

45:43

learning about this is kind

45:45

of a connection and it can help Ease

45:49

that pain of loneliness I

45:51

mean you are doing a tremendous service. You

45:54

have a big following. That's a

45:56

huge service. It's it's uh, People

45:58

don't realize me you have regular listeners

46:00

and that's a big deal.

46:03

And they don't understand by

46:06

listening to you, by tuning in regularly, they

46:08

literally are extending their life. I mean,

46:10

that is a proven fact. Reducing

46:13

social isolation extends life. And what

46:15

you're doing with your podcast is

46:18

a wonderful way of reducing social

46:20

isolation. So yes, it

46:23

is ironic that we have

46:25

unintentionally conspired to

46:28

create circumstances where one

46:31

of the things we need absolutely most is

46:33

really hard to get, but it is not impossible

46:36

to get. And that's why I'm saying use your

46:38

imagination, but reach out to someone you're

46:40

on the outs with. Forgiveness

46:44

is a wonderful tool for connecting.

46:47

And forgiveness is a gift you

46:49

give to yourself. Well,

46:51

anyone who knows that feeling, and I

46:54

assume it's everyone who has had that

46:56

feeling, that deep sense of loneliness knows

46:58

how horrible it is. And I think

47:00

this is such an important conversation to

47:02

have. Edward Halliwell has been

47:04

my guest. The name of his

47:07

book is Connect, which he wrote several years ago.

47:09

And I promised him I would mention

47:11

his new book, which is about ADHD called

47:14

ADHD 2.0. And

47:17

you can find a link to those books in the

47:19

show notes. Thanks for coming on that

47:21

and talking about this. It was good

47:23

to hear, and it was a lot of really

47:25

good information. Thank you. Thank you,

47:27

Mike. I really appreciate you having

47:29

me on. You're a terrific

47:32

host. Now

47:36

that cooler weather is here, more

47:38

and more of us are actually

47:40

driving around on under-inflated tires. That's

47:43

because when the temperature drops outside,

47:45

the air pressure goes down. So

47:48

it's really worth stopping into the gas

47:50

station for a quick air refill. Driving

47:53

on under-inflated tires is less

47:56

fuel efficient, and it

47:58

can even be dangerous. When

48:00

your tires are low, there's much more

48:02

wear and tear on the tread, and

48:04

you're more prone to blowouts because there's

48:07

more friction between the tire and the

48:09

road surface. And that

48:11

is something you should know. And

48:14

that brings us to the end of this

48:16

episode of Something You Should Know. A

48:18

reminder, please, to tell someone you know, tell

48:20

a couple of people you know about something

48:23

you should know. Maybe it'll come up in

48:25

conversation if you share something you learned in

48:27

today's episode. But invite them to

48:29

listen. I would appreciate it. I'm

48:31

Micah Rothers, thanks for listening today to Something

48:34

You Should Know. There

48:36

is a fascinating and unique podcast I'd

48:38

like you to check out, as I

48:40

have. It's called Only One in the

48:42

Room. A few years

48:44

back, Laura Cathcart-Robbins attended a writer's

48:47

retreat where out of 600 attendees,

48:50

she was the only black one. So

48:52

later, she wrote about her experience, and

48:54

the article went viral because people understand

48:56

what it feels like to be the

48:59

only one in the room. Only

49:01

One in the Room is for anyone who has

49:03

ever felt alone in a room full of people.

49:05

I bet you've had that feeling. Listen

49:08

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49:10

sister of Olympian Michael Phelps, sharing her

49:13

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49:15

Fox News reporter Christine O'Donnell, who was

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fired after one of her social media

49:20

posts was taken out of context. Only

49:23

One in the Room was named a

49:25

top podcast by Reader's Digest, The Manual,

49:27

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49:30

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49:32

invite you to join them for an

49:34

hour and lose yourself in someone's only

49:36

one story. Check out Only

49:39

One in the Room, wherever you get

49:41

your podcasts. Buffet brawlers,

49:43

glory holes gone wrong,

49:46

cannibalistic castration cabins, public

49:48

poopers. These are just a

49:50

few of the crazy topics you'll hear covered on,

49:52

the pettiest podcast around.

49:57

Whether you need a break from all that

49:59

murdery, true crime. stuff or just enjoy hearing

50:02

hilarious stories told in a unique way. I

50:04

got what you need. I'm

50:06

Leroy Luna, your fearless host slash chauffeur,

50:08

so come hop in my minivan and

50:11

let's go for a ride. I

50:13

promise you probably won't be disappointed.

50:16

Excuse me, that's illegal. Is available

50:19

on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, basically everywhere

50:21

you consume podcasts. With new episodes

50:23

dropping on the 10th, 20th, and

50:26

30th of the month, baby!