The #1 Thing Impacting Your Sleep More Than You Know & How To Overcome It

My life-changing annual event, The Summit of Greatness, is happening September 12 & 13, 2025. Get your ticket today! When Dr. Baland Jalal experienced his first episode of sleep paralysis as a teenager in Copenhagen, he felt a demonic presence choking him in his bed - an experience so terrifying and real that it launched him into a 20-year quest to understand the brain. What he discovered will blow your mind: the cultural stories we tell ourselves about these experiences literally reshape how our brains process them. In Egypt, where people believe sleep paralysis is caused by evil genies, sufferers experience episodes three times more frequently than in Denmark, where it's viewed as just brain stress. This isn't just about sleep - it's about how the meaning we assign to our experiences becomes our reality. You'll walk away understanding how your brain creates your sense of self and how you can rewire it for greatness. Dr. Jalal’s online Peterson Academy courses:Intro to NeuroscienceThe Neuroscience of DreamsIn this episode you will:Discover the four-step meditation technique that reduces sleep paralysis episodes by 50% and why relaxation beats resistance every timeTransform your understanding of how cultural beliefs literally rewire your brain's response to fear and create your lived experienceBreak through limiting self-images by understanding how your brain hates incongruencies and fills gaps with stories - and how to make those stories empoweringUnlock neuroplasticity secrets that keep your brain growing until you die, including why new experiences are brain fertilizerMaster the difference between spiritual truth and scientific truth, and why both can coexist in creating a meaningful lifeFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1815For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Dr. Rahul Jandial – greatness.lnk.to/1603SCDr. Rhonda Patrick – greatness.lnk.to/1707SCEckhart Tolle – greatness.lnk.to/1463SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  There was one main thing that is blocking you from reaching your full potential. And it's all because you're trying to do everything alone. And that's a big problem because real growth happens when you build a community. When you're in a room full of people who want to see you thrive, who supports you, becoming your best self. And if that's something you're looking for, then make sure to join me at the Summit of Greatness, live at the iconic Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, down in Hollywood, September 12th and 13th. Because this year is a powerful lineup of incredible speakers and performers like Gabby Bernstein, like Dr. Tara Swart, like Brendan Burchard, Amy Purdy, and so many more inspiring surprise guests.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  You'll experience a couple of days of transformation and inspiration and deep connection with a community that actually gets you and wants to see you thrive. Tickets are selling fast, so go to lewishouse.com/tickets right now to get your seats. Bring your friends and family, and I can't wait to see you there at the Summit of Greatness very soon. If you have ever experienced some crazy dreams, or sleep paralysis, or you just struggle at night with really finding the peace and harmony that you're looking for, this episode is going to be extremely powerful because we have Dr. Belan Jalal on this episode, who is a neuroscientist and Harvard researcher,

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  and one of the leading experts on sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. He shares the cutting-edge science behind sleep paralysis, dream states, and consciousness, and how these unusual experiences can actually become a gateway for healing, creativity, and deeper self-awareness. We talk about what sleep paralysis is and why it happens to more people than you think, how the brain wakes up while the body stays frozen during REM sleep, and why terrifying nightmare visions during sleep paralysis are actually biological. Talk about how to turn sleep paralysis into a tool for lucid dreaming and transformation.

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  That and so much more, the connection between high performers, creativity, and deep quality sleep.

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  This is a powerful one. And for me, you know that I'm always looking for the latest research neuroscience tools to support myself and to support you into living a more harmonious, healthier, holistic life. So where we can feel like we're living our best lives, that we can feel like we're not missing out on something, like we can feel like we're getting the most out of our potential, that we're connected to the world in deeper, more meaningful way, that we're connected to people in our lives in a better and a healthier way, and that we're doing the best we can to set our future selves up for success. So I'm very excited about this episode. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please share it with a few friends, just text a couple of

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  friends and post about it on social media. Make sure to tag me as well and leave a review over on Apple or Spotify while you're listening to let me know what you enjoy most about this episode. And without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in.

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  But one of the things that you talk about is understanding dreams, lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. And I have experienced sleep paralysis maybe a handful of times in my life. And I think I understand what it is. Correct me if I'm wrong. But it's the part where you wake up and you can't speak, you can't move, and you feel like you're screaming, at least for me, it's like I feel like I'm screaming, but I can't move my body, but my eyes are open. Sometimes my eyes are not open, but I know I'm awake, trying to move, and it's like you're paralyzed. Would that describe sleep paralysis?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yes, it would. I mean, sleep paralysis is basically you lying flat on your bed, you know, opening your eyes. So your eyelids are, you know, working.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  You're awake.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  You're awake, right? Or you're partially awake, so to speak, and you can scan the room, yet you're paralyzed from head to toe. So you have the paralysis.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  It's terrifying.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  It's terrifying.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  Is it? How many times have you had experienced it?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  I've had it many times, many times. I've had it over, yeah, maybe 50, 60 times.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  50, 60 times.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I would say so, yeah.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  What was the first time you experienced sleep paralysis?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Well, the first time, I would say the most crazy time that I had, it was kind of, I was, I was straight out of high school. I grew up in Copenhagen, in like a ghetto area in Copenhagen. And I was, I was sleeping on bed one morning. And I suddenly had this feeling that some monstrous creature was in the bed. So I was, I was kind of sleeping, but I felt awake. And then at this point, I realized, actually, I actually paralyzed from head to toe. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. And this, and this feeling got stronger and stronger with each second. So I just felt like, what's going on? What's happening? There's this ominous presence in the room. And the creature got sort of closer and closer until it was on my chest. You know, strangling me, pressing on my chest.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And I saw my legs flying up and down and it was this crazy experience. And I didn't actually see the ghost at this point. And there, there was, I could just feel its presence.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  So it's very common to actually feel like there's a ghost, so like a sense presence, but no actually visible ghost being in the room. So that's one sort of manifestation of sleep paralysis. So I felt the ghost there. The next day I woke up, I said, what do I do? What, do I tell my parents about this? Do I go tell them like, that ghost was in my room is trying to choke me and kill me?

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  So you were dreaming still, you weren't awake?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  I was, you could say that I was partially awake.

• 5:53Lewis Howes?

  Were your eyes open or no?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  My eyes were open, my eyes were open. So during sleep paralysis, this is important to sort of add is that the brain is sort of partially, partially awake. You can say that, um, in the brain, you have a structure called the prefrontal cortex, which is the outer, the outer layer of the brain, the prefrontal. So the outer layer has six layers, it's called, it's sort of six layers deep. And in this part is the CEO of the brain. It's the part of the brain that's active when you're awake.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  The captain of the ship.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  It's the CEO, the head office, the captain. So this part of the brain turns on partially during sleep paralysis. So when you are in REM sleep dreaming, right? So you are in REM, which is the stage of sleep where you have vivid, lifelike, crisp dreams. This part of the brain, the CEO, turns off. It sort of goes into hibernation.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  When you are in sleep paralysis, it partially turns on. So it's sort of wakefulness clashing with the dream world. And we could go deeper into that, how it actually emerges out of REM sleep, because that's really interesting, how sleep paralysis actually comes out of the dreaming world and sort of hits you like that. That's, I think, quite fascinating. But so this happened to me and I was, so I woke up and I was like, do I go tell my parents? It was crazy because that was sort of the black sheep in the family. And I felt like if I go tell them about the monsters and all that, it wouldn't, it wouldn't look good. So do I Google this? This was like, you know, 20 years ago. So what do I, you know, do I go tell my parents? How do I, how do I deal with this? So the way I, you know, I was trying to figure out what it is. And, and eventually it got me to the library, reading about,

• 7:31Speaker 01

  REM sleep, dreams and all that. And actually, this experience was the catalyst for me to go and, and study sleep paralysis around the world. Yeah, so this really triggered it.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  So what did you find? I mean, what was your answer, I guess? After studying this for 20 years and researching it from this sleep paralysis demonic event that you experienced?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:53Lewis Howes?

  What was the answer to it?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  So the answer, that's a big question. So we can go straight into the deep, deep questions.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  I would say for me,

• 8:06Speaker 01

  what was intriguing about this experience was the fact that I had a sense of a creature, an evil being that felt so real. It was as real as this conversation you and I are having right now. It has that realness to it. So this really got, this took me aback, the fact that it was so real.

• 8:24Lewis Howes?

  Was it real?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  It felt real. And a lot of people will say it's real. They will say it's ghosts, it's demons, it's space aliens. So there's all these cultural ideas around the world for what sleep paralysis is. And for me to answer you what sleep paralysis is, actually, I cannot, I cannot even give you a full answer today, even though I, I've studied this in about six, seven countries. I can't tell you for sure, sleep paralysis is this and that. Well, we can say the fact that, well, sleep paralysis, the actual paralysis is in the lower part of the brain called, there's a region called the brain stem. It's composed of regions called the pons and medulla, for the technical folks. The pons and medulla, when you are in REM sleep, it sends signals down the spinal cord to paralyze you during REM sleep.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  And this is important because you don't want to act out your dream and hurt yourself.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Right?

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  So you're almost paralyzed when you sleep anyways.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  So you are paralyzed during REM sleep.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Because you're not moving.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  You're not moving. So you are paralyzed during REM sleep.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  But you're not awake, aware of it.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  You're not aware of it, right? And the reason for this paralysis is very, is very simple. The brain is clever. It says, look, I'm dreaming about, you know, these, I'm on the moon, having tea with the Queen of England, and I'm

• 9:33Lewis Howes?

  Jumping out of airplanes.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Jumping out of airplanes, and I'm, you know, doing all this crazy stuff. I don't want you to, I don't want Balan, I don't want Louis to, you know, act out these dreams that hurt himself, so I'm going to paralyze his entire body.

• 9:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  This is a clever trick for survival. You don't want to hurt your sleeping partner either, right? So you have this complete lockdown of the body. It's sort of a physiological straitjacket of, of sorts. So it's very clever. So you have that during REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. Now, your eyes, of course, are moving side to side, and that has to do with the fact that there's a different circuit in the brain for eye movements. But that circuit for paralysis is different. That's the brain stem. That's the lower part of the brain. So the CEO is up here, which is involved in higher order thinking, rational thought, you know, captain of the ship. And then you have the lower part of the brain that, that is involved in things like paralyzing your

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Physical body. So you're paralyzed, so you're paralyzed from head to toe during sleep paralysis. Now, what actually happens during sleep paralysis is the following, Louis.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  During wakefulness, when you actually wake up, you have a little structure in the brain called the locus coeruleus. Again, a technical name for the technical folks. It sends out a chemical that's called noradrenaline. It's the chemical cousin of adrenaline. So you have adrenaline in the body when you're doing your handball and sports and all that. You have adrenaline, you feel agitated and you know, you feel excited. But when you, in the brain, you have noradrenaline. You have some noradrenaline in the body as well, but mainly noradrenaline. Keeps you sharp, keeps you focused, keeps you alert. So when I'm walking about in Hollywood here and I, and a car is coming towards me and I'm, I feel stressed out. I have a lot of noradrenaline. Now, when you wake up,

• 11:22Speaker 01

  so during REM sleep, during this stage of sleep when you're dreaming, noradrenaline is shut off. You have, you have no noradrenaline. And that's why the world is so space. That's why things are not really sharp and focused, but everything is sort of all over the place. That has to do with the fact that noradrenaline is shut off. It makes things open. It opens the gates of exploration, right? Now, when sleep paralysis strikes, what happens is that you sort of wake up and then you have noradrenaline you know, flooding the system prematurely. So you start waking up and tickling the CEO. So it becomes partially awake, but you're still stuck in the paralysis phase of, of sleep.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  The backside of the brain that's, that's controlling the paralysis still is still holding on.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Holding on. It's almost like a clash of wakefulness and, and dream and the dream world. They're sort of clashing in this, in this weird, weird world where these two.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  That's so interesting because it's only happened a handful of times for me, but every time it happens, it feels like, I don't know what the feeling is for me, almost like.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  You've, it's almost like you're suffocating and you feel like it's gonna last forever. You're like, I can't move and what if this is stuck forever like this?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  And I'm paralyzed forever.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  And it probably only lasts like five to 10 seconds, but it feels like five hours.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:44Lewis Howes?

  Like, wake up, you know, you feel like you're screaming.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 12:48Lewis Howes?

  Wake me up.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:49Lewis Howes?

  But nothing's coming out.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Nothing coming out, yeah. But the same thing for me, I mean, the times that I've had it, I, the first time I thought I'm gonna die. I was sure, so I thought I'm sure I'm gonna die and it felt like an eternity. And that's when, when we interview people around the world, they will say like, it feels like it lasts for hours.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  And it might be seconds, right?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  It might be seconds. And in fact, it turns out, when you sort of compare cultures, where there is, there are certain cultural ideas for it. So I've done research in Egypt, for example, done it in Egypt. And people would say it's the evil genies, like of the Latin, you know, the, the comes out of lamb and they can kill you. But it's not the good ones, like the good.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's not granted wishes.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  It's not Robin Williams, right? It's the evil, big, you know, terrifying ones, right? That, um.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  Wanna control you.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  I wanna control you and kill you and all that. So in Egypt, they will say it's the genies of a Latin. They will kill you, potentially terrorize you, do all kinds of horrible things to you. And it turns out, when you have this cultural idea, it can change the way it sort of unfolds. So one study we did, we did one study in Egypt and compared that to sleep paralysis in, you know, in Denmark, my home country.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  In home, in my home country, in Denmark, people will say it's just the brain, it's the stress, it's this physiology. There's no spirituality there at all.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And so in our study, we had deep, in-depth interview, asking people, what do you think sleep paralysis does to you? How do you think it can affect you? Can it kill you? Can you die from this? Is there a monster? What's the name of the monster? And invariably, we found that in, in Egypt, people will say it's the genies, they can kill you. They could do the, all these horrible things to you.

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  Cast spells on you or something like that.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Spells on you and, and so just, the whole idea was, was crazy. But then more than that, we found that this cultural idea for what sleep paralysis means trickled into sort of a.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  What you'd call a salience of an experience becoming amplified, the whole experience becoming much more real in a sense. So they would say it lasts much longer, so the experience was amplified in this way.

• 14:59Lewis Howes?

  In Egypt.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  In Egypt, exactly, in Egypt. Versus in Denmark, it's just like a few seconds, it's nothing, it's just like, it's just over like this, right?

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  So it's almost their perception of what it is.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Their perception shifts completely, exactly.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  Based on the meaning they give it.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Based on the meaning, based on that.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  If it's a religious, spiritual, demonic undertone.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  And through thousands of years of cultural imprint.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  Then it's like, oh, we believe this to be true, based on our history, based on religion or spiritual beliefs. Whereas in Denmark, or other cultures like Denmark, without that history, it's just, oh, it's just a defect in the brain that happens every once in a while and you just move on or something.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely, that is exactly correct.

• 15:43Lewis Howes?

  There's less emphasis of the power it has.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  This is very true. And then they would say, not only that, we fear it much more, to the extent that, this is the Egyptians speaking, we can die from this. It's potentially fatal, right? And then they would say, the paralysis is, so we say it's much more, oh, it's much more frequent as well. So this is it. So it's first of all, it's much more fearful, to the point it can be fatal. The paralysis lasts much longer, but also it's much more frequent in them. In other words, if you are an experiencer in Egypt who has sleep paralysis, it occurs three times more than a Danish experiencer's.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  And I'll tell you why we think this is the case. I'll give you this anecdote here. Actually, it's sort of a fictitious story about a girl I call Little Lisa. She lives on this fictitious island. And on this fictitious island, her grandmother will tell her about these monsters that come at night. They will kill you potentially. They can do all kinds of sexual molestation to you. By the way, sexual molestation is common, the idea of feeling like you're being raped during the experience as well. And the grandmother will tell Little Lisa, the monster looks like this and that, it has these features.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Be careful when you go to sleep. And mind you, little Lisa has never had sleep paralysis before.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Now, little Lisa, completely inexperienced, never, no sleep paralysis ever, goes to bed. And lo and behold, she has sleep paralysis the first time in her life. Not only that, the monster looks exactly like the grandmother was telling her. So it has all the features, all the characteristics, you know, the long fangs, the, the, everything, all the, all the traits, right? Freddy Krueger-like monster is appearing.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  The boogeyman.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  The boogeyman.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Next day, she wakes up, she's anxious, terrified, she has it again. Three days later, she has it again.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  A week later, she has it again, a month, it becomes chronic all of a sudden. And I'm, you know, and she's, and she starts developing PTSD and anxiety, trauma from, you know, trauma as well. And tells her friends about it who start having it as too. Now, Louis might be asking, what's going on? What's, what's happening? What, why would this have this effect? And it turns out, when you have sleep, when you are fearful, first of all. So little Lisa, she had anxiety and fear when she went to bed. And that will cause her to have what's called nocturnal arousal, meaning it's a fancy name for, in the brain, you have a structure called the limbic structure, limbic center, tucked behind your ears.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  That's the emotional part of the brain. When you go to bed and you have a lot of emotion and emotionality, tickling and, you know, titillating are the parts of the brain, especially the CEO, the cortex. That can lead it to become prematurely aroused and wake you up during REM stage of sleep. So it's almost like a priming effect. So little Lisa was primed. Next, she will have what's called a self-conformatory behavior, meaning she's lying there and she goes,

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Is there any monster holding me down? Is anything holding me? And squeezing me like my grandmother was telling me and she's sort of

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  Living in fear.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  She's living in fear and kind of self-monitoring, right? In this way. And then obviously, if she does this in REM sleep and tries to move, what will she encounter? Paralysis, right? And it would feel like something's actually holding her down and she starts to wake herself up. So that's step number two. Now she's paralyzed and she's waking herself up.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Here comes the third part. Now because sleep paralysis emerges out of REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, it's obviously a REM dream phenomenon. Meaning the REM part of the brain can trickle into the experience. It could spill over, almost like augmented reality, like goggles and the dream world is coming alive before your eyes. And this is kind of

• 20:05Speaker 01

  think of the during the dream, when you're dreaming, certain parts of the brain are more active than when you're awake. So for example, the hippocampus, meaning the memory part of the brain is more active. It kind of becomes, it blossoms with activity, dances with activity. And this memory part of the brain, if it's active during this sleep paralysis stage and during this kind of half, half, half dream stage, all the stuff the grandmother was telling her about the mantra looking this and that can then

• 20:39Speaker 01

  start to go into the experience. So she starts seeing what the grandmother was telling her. The mantra will spill over in a dreamlike fantasy and imagination of sorts. So she'll have that.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  The emotional part of the brain, the fear centers of the brain are hyperactive when we're dreaming, about thirty percent more active in the dream state. So she'll have that. By the way, when we're dreaming, the parts of the brain that has to do with a sense of a body image, the feeling like I occupy this body and I feel anchored in this body, the land's body, this is, I feel anchored here. That part of the brain also becomes dysfunctional. So you feel like your sense of body image is kind of all over the place. And so that can trickle into the experience. So you feel like your sense of self is shut. It's weird, you may have an out of body experience while the ghost is there too. So she might have that too. And everything, all you can imagine from the brain is kind of, it's going into the experience and she's seeing the monster that her grandmother was telling her

• 21:36Speaker 01

  in perfect detail.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Now she wakes up, she's anxious and terrified, extremely terrified to go to sleep. And we actually see a lot of people with sleep paralysis, they feel like that

• 21:52Speaker 01

  they feel they have fear of going to sleep. Sleep itself is something that's terrifying. And so because of that fear and anxiety now, she'll even be even more predisposed to having sleep paralysis.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  So she goes to bed, has it again. Three or four days later, as we said, she had it again. And the reason why it becomes so chronic now is because the whole meaning point that you brought up and the fact that the monster is not only attacking me once, it's a personal thing.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  I'm being, I'm possessed now. It's completely like it's

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm being chased, it's haunting.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  It wants me for some reason, it's after me. And so

• 22:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  This is the whole, this is the whole sort of thing that the conclusion you mentioned, right? What's, what's sleep paralysis? This is the whole idea. And then you can potentially become highly anxious and even traumatized from this.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Here's something I'm curious about. We're talking about monsters, demons, ghosts, aliens.

• 22:52Lewis Howes?

  Are monsters, aliens, ghosts, the boogeyman, are these things potentially real in life? Or is everything an imagination? That a demon is chasing me in my room? That something is a spiritual ghost is trying to harm me? Or is this cultural, religious, societal

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  visualizations, imaginations, stories that have been imprinted in our mind and our hearts and our being? Where our brain fantasizes about these things so much that it believes these things are true? Or is it just the imagination that makes it feel like it's true?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  How is a big one?

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  As a neuroscientist, researcher, what have you discovered?

• 23:44Speaker 01

  What have I discovered? So there's me, there's the person, Baland, the scientist. And then there's the science. Personally, I'm a spiritual person. I'm a Muslim and I believe that there's a spiritual world. There's a world that we cannot see, an unseen world. And many of my scientists, colleagues, I've worked with some of the, I've been fortunate. I wasn't even of my doing, I was just blessed to work with some of the greatest scientists. And behind closed doors, they'll believe in things like prayer and God and things like that, so.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Even though it's not science-based.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Even though it's not science.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  They still do it because they know the benefits of it.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  They know the benefits, but also who says, who says it's not real?

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Right? And I think that when you think about it, right? A hundred years ago, 150 years ago, if I was telling you, Louis, on your body right now, there's all these small animals crawling, trillions of them on your, on your skin.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Said you're crazy.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Said you're crazy.

• 24:43Lewis Howes?

  But we know there's.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  There's a microscope, right?

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  There is a microbiome and yeah, yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yes, and we developed and we invented the microscope and, and now we know that they're all this, right? So before the, like before we invented the microscope, it was insane to say this. So same goes with the metaphysical reality around us, spirituality, God, whatever, the unseen world of sorts. And who says it doesn't exist? So, science cannot answer whether there's actually spirituality. Now, my work has been ironically, even though I believe in spirituality, the fact that has been to understand why do we see ghosts and what's going on in the brain? I have to be truthful to the science and say, well, look, when I zap this part of the brain called the TPJ,

• 25:31Speaker 01

  if I zap it with an electrical current, you will feel like there's a ghost behind you mimicking your postures and movements. So we can create a ghost.

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  This part of your brain.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  This part of the brain, a little structure.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Like an electrical, electrical shock there.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  It could even be a magnet, just stimulating it and you will feel like disrupted. When it's disrupted, you will feel like there's a ghost behind you, it's mimicking you. So if you move like your hand like this, it will also move its hand. So if, it, it kind of feels like you is in fact, we scientists say it is you, we just created a double of you. It's a copy of you, right?

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  And that has to do with the fact that a sense of self is created in the brain. Your brain uses sensory modalities like touch, vision, hearing.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  And then weaves together a sense of a self. Comes about in those regions in the brain. The T P J and the parietal, this kind of multimedia media studio, kind of like your studio. We have it up here. And that creates a sense of a self and weaves it together. You can disrupt that and then you will feel like there's a ghost in the room. Some of the same structures are disrupted during sleep paralysis as well. So that can explain why there are ghosts there. I have the whole theory. I spent 10 years writing about how these structures can affect, you know, make you see ghosts in the room. But that doesn't change the fact that that could be energies from other dimensions and galaxies and worlds that we cannot see. Spiritual dimensions that I cannot negate.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  In fact, I may even believe it personally that, you know, that there are things like that.

• 26:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  So we just, when I go, I do, when I go and do my science, I obviously don't think in those ways because I have to be truthful to the knowledge that is currently present. I don't have a microscope to, you know, peer into

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  The spiritual world.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  The spiritual world, but I can say, tell you, this is the brain. This is the area of the T P J that is, that's disrupted. This is the prefrontal that's shut down. This is the lower part of the brain that's paralyzing you. So that I can say, and that's my job to say, and some, you know, often you'll feel like, you know, when people learn about the scientific basis of sleep paralysis, the fear vanishes as well. So that's very helpful.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  But you asked about meditation and meditation therapy maybe. So maybe I can go into that because that's, that's a very practical way to deal with it.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  The way I came, you know, this, invented this therapy and this was during my grad school years when I was in Cambridge, England and, you know, yeah. Over there, we, we spent a lot of time thinking about new ways of doing therapies and all that. And I was thinking about like, how can I help people with sleep paralysis? What's the way to help them? And I noticed that a lot of people with sleep paralysis will say, when I'm

• 28:16Speaker 01

  When I have the experience, I pray to God. And it actually helps. The monster seems to dissipate. Myself too, when I was there and, and to be honest with you, you know, you know, I've started to pray too, because I thought I was going to die. So I was like, a few times I was like, God, help me. What's going on? You know, I tried to, to do that and it kind of seems to help to pray to a deity or having some kind of belief and hope in something greater coming and rescuing you. So I wanted to bring that element into the experience. So the therapy is four steps. The first step is the following. It's called cognitive reappraisal. That's the fancy name for it. And it's basically

• 28:59Speaker 01

  a mental shifting of the experience. So you say, I know I'm having sleep paralysis right now. I know I'm being attacked by something, but because it's just sleep paralysis,

• 29:16Speaker 01

  I should, I, there's no reason for me to be scared. You know, there's no reason for me, people all around the world are having sleep paralysis now. Nobody's dying from this. So I'm doing a cognitive restructuring of the whole experience. So it's sort of a mental interpretation shifting. That's the, that's the first element. Next, the next step that you do is it's called emotional and psychological distancing, meaning given that it's the brain, given that it's the mind playing tricks on you, there's no reason for me to be scared. So I psychologically distance myself from it. I just gonna think of it as something that's far away and I won't actually let myself get absorbed into it. That's the second step. Now here comes your meditation step.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  We know that the brain has very limited attentional capacities at any given time. I can only attend to so many things in the room. I don't have infinite attention. It's the frontal, frontal and parietal regions of the brain. The front and this part that's evolved in attentional capacities. Have you seen that YouTube clip of the, that you know, there's like a, you're, there's somebody playing with a ball and then there's a clown going, moonwalking and then you can't, you don't notice it because you're so

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  You're focused on

• 30:32Speaker 01

  on, on counting the ball. So attention is very limited, right?

• 30:36Lewis Howes?

  It's what magicians do very well. You know, it's light of hand, it's perception, it's grabbing attention here and something else happening there.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So I wanted to incorporate that by hijacking your attention to something positive. So it goes something like this. You focus all your attention on something extremely positive like God, your mom's face, you know, your niece's face, whatever brings you a joyful memory. You bring it to light, you bring it to mind, and you think about it in an intensely focused manner. So it's a kind of a focused attention meditation.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Now, the powerful thing about this is that

• 31:19Speaker 01

  not only are you redirecting your attention away from thinking about monsters and all the memory parts of the brain, all the grandmothers talk about monsters hijacking the experience, you are sort of shifting the focus of the emotional core of the brain to something positive. And we actually know that there are circuits in the brain from the emotional part that goes to the visual part, and they can tell you what to see in the world. Literally, meaning that if I have a fearful mindset, if I have fear centers in my brain bubbling away, it can affect what I see in the world.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Versus having a very, if you're very calm, soothed, in a very relaxed, positive mindset, it can also affect your world and worldview. And so in that way, I'm trying to also bias the visual parts of the brain. So you have that as well.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  So you focus on something extremely positive, and then a fourth step will be to then

• 32:24Speaker 01

  what's called a muscle relaxations. You don't try to move or try to act out the paralysis sensations. You kind of stay in a mindful, nonjudgmental.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  A thought, you know, mindset about that. You don't really do anything. You don't try to move or try to become agitated. Oh, I'm gonna scream and I'm trying to try to do that. You know, I'm just gonna stay mindful and just let it slide, kind of. Do these four steps during the sleep paralysis experience. And as you say, we were very fortunate to see a 50% reduction in sleep paralysis. Now, this was a small pilot study. We always have to start small and then build up, but it was very promising.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  That's great. So the four different things is mental shifting or mental restructuring. Just a kind of like rewriting the story, what I'm here to say. If you've experienced this in the past a few times, how can you rewrite the story, re-shift, restructure mentally what has happened? To create more meaning from it and less fear from it. The second one, creating emotional and psychological distancing, which I think is really powerful. It's almost like compartmentalizing in a way.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:29Lewis Howes?

  But allowing yourself to not be attached mentally or emotionally to the experiences.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  Third thing, focusing your attention on joyful, memory positive moments. So instead of focusing on the fear of it happening again, what if this happens again? Put your attention on your mother's face.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  A joyful moment with your family, a loved one.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  And the fourth one is like not being clenched in your body, but saying, how can I fully relax and rest and be peaceful? Body muscle relaxation.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  And it's something that happened to me when I had sleep paralysis, maybe for the fourth or fifth time. Instead of living in fear around it.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:06Lewis Howes?

  I decided to fully relax when it happens.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Supposed to like screaming with nothing coming out.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  I just said, okay, this is happening. It's scary. Let me relax. And I was almost able to come out of it quicker and not live in the fear of it.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  And I haven't had that experience since I did that the last time, maybe a few years ago.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  I haven't felt sleep paralysis since then.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  How many times have you had it?

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  Maybe five or six, maybe that I can remember, maybe like a handful, not like forty or fifty times, but like handful of times. Maybe it was a little more, a little less, but probably five or six times. And um, the last time I remember not trying to scream or move to wake up, I was just like, I'm going to relax and almost enjoy the moment.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  Like ride the wave.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:56Lewis Howes?

  And by riding the wave, like, I started to be able to like move my hands and I like kind of just gently woke up eventually.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  Knowing that I've always woken up, it's, I'm not gonna stay stuck like this. So it's almost like I trained my prefrontal cortex captain to say, let things come back on slowly, then you can take back control when it does, as opposed to overriding something that is you know, creating paralysis in you.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  That's a great point, and it kind of makes me think of

• 35:28Speaker 01

  so the reason why I came up with the fourth step of not trying to move it, it's kind of, it's, it's, has to do with the fact that when you are in sleep paralysis and experiencing this, your motor parts of the brain, there's a strip of, of tissue here in the brain that's involved in movement.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Normally when I'm awake, I move my hand from A to B in space, I send commands from the movement parts of the brain and motor cortex to down to the brain stem spinal cord and I move. Now during sleep paralysis, this is, you send many commands to move. Balan move.

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  But it's not working.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  But it's not working because you're paralyzed, you're sending, you have a simultaneous signal saying, don't move. And that's, that's, that's overriding that movement signal, right?

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  It's very interesting. So you're saying move, balan move, but there's no, but you can't move. Now, at the same time, when I'm normally, when I'm awake and I move, and I move my hands around.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I want to make sure I get this right.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  You have what's called a proprioceptive feedback, meaning as simply there's feedback coming back from the skin, joined muscles, telling your brain how to build a sense of a Baland, how to build a sense of a Lewis. That comes about from, believe it or not, in the skin and muscles, sending feedback back to the brain and to that parietal, that multimedia studio I told you about before. It's telling you, oh, create a sense of Baland based on the information coming back. Right? Now, that part of the brain, obviously, is not it's not, it's not getting feedback because you are not moving. You, you aren't moving, you can't move, so you're paralyzed. So there's no way to create a sense of a self. In other words, you're sending commands to move,

• 37:18Speaker 01

  but there's no feedback coming back from the, a moving body because you're paralyzed. In other words, there's a gap there. And that gap, the brain is trying to fill in with

• 37:31Speaker 01

  hallucinatory movement. And I always want to make sure this is clear because when I tell this during lectures, you know, people sometimes, you know, can, what are you talking about, Baland? I want to be sure. The brain hates any incongruencies, any gaps in information. And whenever there is a gap, whenever there, any incongruency there, it will fill in the blank. Sort of like Google autocorrection. It will sort of, you, when you put the first words of like SO, it will finish soccer, for example. The brain does the same thing. If it has a gap, a lack of information, there's a lack of information, it will fill in the blank. And so that's why we believe that you might see your legs fly up and down

• 38:14Speaker 01

  and you see your limbs shifted in, in space. And I want, I want to avoid all that. And that's why I tell the people, don't, don't try to move because you don't want to have all these mismatching signals and your brain trying to create the story for you.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  It's still fascinating because as a, as someone who loves to study these ideas, more so not as a researcher or scientist, Right. but as a human being who's trying to live my best life and trying to lead my life as an example for the people around me to live better, hopefully, and live more harmonious and fulfill their dreams and have beautiful relationships and have a healthy lifestyle. That's what I'm coming from. And as an athlete who's always looking for the edge and thinking of how can I train my mind and body to perform in the hardest of conditions, in the highest pressure moments?

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

  How can I make sure that my mind and my emotions don't get the best of me and I'm more calm instead of chaotic? All these different things, I'm always looking for the edge. And by no means am I perfect at it, but I'm always trying to improve. Something you shared just now really is interesting for me where you said, "The brain hates incongruencies." And there is this, there's a world that so many people live in where they build a self-image of self. You've been talking about self-image, a Milan, a Lewis, an identity, where the image and identity that people build, most people is so limiting around what, how they think, what they believe and how they feel.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  And the stories that they tell themselves or the stories they believe that others tell themselves about themselves. And when we are, when you said, "The brain hates incongruencies." I believe we're all created to do something beautiful. We're all meant to live in alignment of self. But when we as human beings say, create a limiting self-image and say, "I am stupid, I am ugly, I am not smart, I'm not good enough, I'm not talented." When we build a self-identity and self-image, mentally implanting these ideas in our being. Yep.

• 40:43Lewis Howes?

  It limits us.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  And the brain is incongruent with that.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:47Lewis Howes?

  Somehow, we're believing, we're trying to believe it. But I believe we're all built to be more beautiful and more empowering and reach a higher self-identity rather than a limited identity. So I'm curious, as a neuroscientist, how can we start to train our self-image and self-identity to be more empowering and reach a higher version of ourselves versus a limited identity and limited self that is out of congruency with ourselves, which keeps us small? How can we start to build this? This is a big question, but I'm fascinated, based on your research, what you've come up with or what you've seen.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's a great question and I want to answer this. I'm trying to answer this in a, in a fashion where I so it's a little bit about myself, so I came, I'm Kurdish, I told you, I'm originally Kurdish from Iraq, grew up in Copenhagen and my parents were actually refugees, they escaped the war in Iraq. And my mom, terrible traumas, you know, she would, her grand, her father would, died in front of her, had a heart attack. And it was horrible, the, the body, so the way it happened was, one day she, my granddad just came out

• 42:13Speaker 01

  in, in the, they had like small rooms, they didn't have a lot of rooms, so it's just like one big room.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  In Iraq?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  In Iraq. He just came, one, one day, he just came out and said, look, uh, called my mom, said, look, uh, go call your mommy, go call mommy. And mommy would come in and he said, uh, forgive me for any thing I might have done in my life. Uh, I think I'm checking out, you know, and, uh, so, right on the spot, he died from a heart attack.

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And my mom, 11 years old, loved her, loved her dad, like, her dad was the best, okay? My, her, her brother, her older brother rushed into the room, saw her, saw his dad lying dead. They had a tumultuous relationship. So he was shocked and traumatized by that. So he took a glass and smashed it into his head of in utter shock. Now, blood was gushing from his, from his head. My eleven year old mother was watching that. The my, looking at my mom that was shocked too and and my, my grandfather was just lying there.

• 43:21Lewis Howes?

  Dead.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Dead. Now, at this point in Iraq, it was like, you know, during covid, there was like quarantine, they couldn't go out because of all the wars. So often they would tell them, the people don't go out until four, five, four, five AM next day. So the body was just there.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  So they couldn't take him anywhere. So my mom was witness to this.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  As an eleven year old.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  As eleven year old. Growing up without, and then grew up without a father in Iraq, seeing her father die like this.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  My father had a similar story. His, his dad also died when he was very, very young. He had to do hard labor, very, very, very hard traumatizing background. Now, both of them

• 44:04Speaker 01

  came to, escaped to Copenhagen. First went to Bulgaria. I was born in Bulgaria.

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  Did they meet in Bulgaria or meet in Iraq?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  They met in Iraq.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  And then they escaped together?

• 44:14Speaker 01

  They escaped together. My, actually, my dad was called into, um, you know, Saddam Hussein and all the wars and all that. He was, Saddam's army was calling my dad to go fight for him.

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  He wouldn't, he wouldn't. He said, I'm not gonna do that. And so he escaped. Actually, that, it was good he didn't do that because that group of people that, you know, they were supposed to go and fight. They all died from a, uh, from a attack, from an air attack, and they all died on a bridge. So he was supposed to be in that, among those, that group. Came to Bulgaria. I was born, came to Copenhagen. Obviously, you had to start all over. And then get a like area. That's when I, where I grew up, in a very tough, hard neighborhood. Refugee camp initially, then in the seeing the worst things. My, my best friend was shot at, stabbed thirteen times. My neighbor was shot in the head, all these kind of things. Now I do research at Harvard and lecture.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  But I came from the, the worst of worst. Like, I really literally came from the worst now.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  I think that so you can obviously you can overcome that and a lot of people do so I'm not the only one it's not like I'm special but

• 45:22Speaker 01

  we do have some what's and now I'm gonna sort of weave into science here we do have something called epigenetics and that's that's if you had trauma or your parents even had trauma that can affect you down the line

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  in your genetics

• 45:35Speaker 01

  in your genetics so let me give you an example

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  in your nervous system

• 45:37Speaker 01

  in your nervous system so I give so so for example there was these ladies who witnessed they were pregnant and they witnessed nine eleven obviously they some of them developed PTSD trauma from witnessing and seeing the attack horrible

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  you pass that down to your children

• 45:54Speaker 01

  you pass that down to your children so the children that was that were born and obviously didn't witness nine the nine eleven they had cortisol changes similar to their mother signaling trauma from from the experience right you had cortical cortisol systems damaged and and and and out of balance one example another example you may know this experiment too rats that are exposed to a certain smell for example and then you give them an electric shock their kids their babies will fear that smell even though they haven't had that electric shock so we know that

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  they smell it they're just gonna be

• 46:36Speaker 01

  they're gonna be agitated and reactive and it turns out even their their children

• 46:41Lewis Howes?

  wow that's kind of interesting because you pass that through your epigenetics

• 46:44Speaker 01

  epigenetics so inside the gene there are certain methyl groups and atoms that sits on genes and turns gene genes on and off and so depending on our trauma or our parents and our grandparents trauma that can be passed on and so you have all you have all this right beyond this

• 47:02Speaker 01

  the brain of a child right is the synapses in a baby's brain there's about fifty percent more synapses synapses are simply the connections between neurons you want to have a lot of these synapses and then you want to be able to shape your brain as well as possible so a baby's brain is extremely plastic it can change in various ways and if you have a lot of trauma in your childhood if you are raised in a in a poor neighborhood and you have like you know that can affect how the brain of a child then develops limiting your potential but you know as a having a less you know less effective brain growing up Now, I was lucky. My mom and dad were very warm. They took good care of me. So even though it's like kind of a buffer. So even though I was in that refugee camp, my mom was always

• 47:47Speaker 01

  hugging me, playing with me.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  Affectionate.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Very loving parents. So it kind of.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  But you still have the the trauma in your epigenetics.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of a mix, right? From the whole trauma from their experiences.

• 48:00Lewis Howes?

  Kind of like sleep paralysis.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  It's kind of like sleep paralysis.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  You know, the the captain trying to like control, but you have the other guy proud, the trauma.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Paralysis. You're like, ah, I feel love, but I'm scared.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  It was a mix of that, right?

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I had that. So but there was the epigenetics. But my but but because of the love, and you know this from rats, by the way, rats who lick their babies more. They will be more, they will be more resilient towards stress later in life.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  So by having those.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  Having more love and affection.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Love and affection, caring for the child and all that. So.

• 48:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  I was lucky in that way. The the brain is extremely malleable and plastic. It can change shape from based on these some of these epigenetic commands. And so.

• 48:46Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like everyone has experienced some type of epigenetic trauma.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:52Lewis Howes?

  Through their parents.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:54Lewis Howes?

  You know, we all have been passed down some type of genetic trauma.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:59Lewis Howes?

  Through generational.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  Like, no one had three generations of perfect parents that were like healed and calm and relaxed and loving.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  There was trauma somewhere that's been passed down through generations.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Through generations.

• 49:11Lewis Howes?

  And it's not our fault, but it's our responsibility to start to notice it and create awareness and say, how can I be the one to break the generational trauma? If we choose to live a better life.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  If we want that.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:25Lewis Howes?

  It's not our fault. But it is our responsibility.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  It's our responsibility.

• 49:30Lewis Howes?

  Hard work.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  It's horrible. Exactly. And it's hard work. And so and it brings me really to what my research in recent years has been focused on, which is neuroplasticity and the fact that the brain can change. The brain is extremely malleable, you know, that we thought like twenty years ago, we thought, well, you're born with certain brain and that's it. It can change maybe in childhood. So we know that, you know, the baby's brain is more is more is more malleable, is more plastic, meaning it can change shape more. You can grow more synaptic connections. But we now know that until you die, the brain can. can change. If you had a stroke and your left's complete, you know, so the brain, the everything on the left side commands the right and everything on the right commands the left side, for example.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  So if you have a stroke to the left hemisphere, your entire side can be paralyzed. But we know now by with extreme X training and rehab rehabilitation, you can actually do a lot of progress, much more than we thought was even possible. Few years ago. Point of all this. Knowing the principles that can make your brain change is vital. Knowing what what's involved, it's it can help you reach your potential. So for example, there's a chemical in the brain called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is sort of the.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Attention part of attention neurochemical. It comes about in a part of the brain called the Lucas.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Um, what's it? I forgot the name escaped me right now. Um. It's in sort of in the middle part of the brain. It produces there's these neurons that create this acetylcholine. And it is it's and and it's attentional. So whenever you focus on anything, acetylcholine turns on. And you need that for neuroplasticity. By the way, if you just go around in Hollywood and greet people and just, you know, you won't have a lot of neuroplasticity. Why? Because you need acetylcholine. You you need to be hyper focused in order to have neuroplasticity. So this is a key factor, by the way. That's why whenever you break a routine, whenever you do something novel, whenever you sort of, for example, me coming to this area.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Right here, where you are, it's kind of, I haven't really been here before. It's novel. So I have actually a lot of neuroplasticity. My brain is changing a lot and it's becoming more malleable. Because everything is novel. I'm paying attention.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  To figure out where am I going? I don't know the directions and this.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it came about because the brain says, look, I. Whenever I encounter novel thing, novel things, I better write it down because it's important for my survival. That's why you have a lot of neuroplasticity when you travel because your brain needs to know the new routes and everything. So attentional, attention is important for neuroplasticity. So if you want to have a more.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Plastic brain and more malleable brain. Do new things. Challenge yourself by doing novel things and that will trigger the nucleus basalis, that's the part of the brain image nucleus basalis system and then you will have a lot of plasticity. So that's a key factor.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, this is a side note.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  You don't have kids, right?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  From all the research you've done as a neuroscientist studying the brain, dreams, neuroplasticity. If you could give parents three pieces of advice

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  when they have kids.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  From the moment they come out of the womb for the first few years.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Lewis Howes?

  What are three things you would say, whether it be from a neuroscience standpoint or just a practical, personal standpoint?

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  That if parents did these three things, they would give their kids a much better chance at a better life later on.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Deep question. I would say first of all, give them affection. Hugging, caring, taking sort of being physical with with children. We know that when you touch just by merely touching, you have a lot of things like oxytocin and a lot of and a lot of these neuro endorphins, we call them and and neuropeptides are involved in neuroplasticity as well. So very, very good to have a lot of that. So being affectionate around your children, hugging them, kissing them. It's very important.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  A baby's brain, we said, has about fifty percent more synapses. But what happens, though, in a baby's brain is there's something I'll call a pruning process, meaning that the brain of a child is hyperconnected. So everything is almost connected. Everything's flirting with everything. There's connections everywhere. And so as time passes, there's a gene that says, look, we don't need all these connections. I'm only gonna take what I the the what the brain is actually using. So it's kind of a use it or lose it brain. So whatever I'm not using, whatever skill I'm not using, it will just shave it away. So

• 54:33Speaker 01

  you want to definitely optimize for using the brain in various ways. So this so you kind of don't just shave off all the good connections. So stimulate, stimulate, stimulate. This is what you want to do. So stimulating a baby's brain.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Hyper connected in this way, so you want to stimulate them. Affection, we said.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  I'm assuming not stimulate through like screens and iPads and cell phones, but other ways, right?

• 55:02Speaker 01

  In other words, that's a, that's a great, that's a good.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  You can stimulate with an iPad all day long.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  That's the wrong kind of stimulation, exactly. That can lead to addiction and too much dopamine in the brain and too much of addictive circle, cycles. You don't want that.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  So what type of stimulation should babies be having?

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Intellectual, it could be emotional stimulation. It could be teaching them how to interact with other people. So for example, some nowadays, people are becoming less good at human interaction. We're becoming like robots. You know, we don't know how to read facial expressions, emotional cues. What is, so we actually have neurons in the brain called mirror neurons, or some people call them perceptual action neurons. They're involved in, you know, what is Louis thinking up right now? What is his agenda? What is he up to? I can sort of do mind reading. These are the medial part of the prefrontal lobe. And these neurons can be stimulated and activated and, and the circuits can become strengthened by, by us

• 56:01Speaker 01

  engaging with other people and learning, like during the COVID era, I was I'm, I'm pretty isolated generally as a scientist. I don't do enough. I don't do enough of enough social interactions, but especially during COVID. When I came out of COVID, I couldn't interact with people. I was just like, how do I do, how do I, what is, you know, I was just completely handicapped. Like a Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, kind of, kind of scenario. You can train these circuits and the more you use them, the, the better you, you, you become.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay. Stimulate?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you stimulate in that way.

• 56:36Lewis Howes?

  What would be the, what would be the third thing?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Physical, I would say physical exercise. So we know that when you do physical exercise, when you go out and do sports, when you. When especially cardiovascular type exercise, obviously you don't want to take your kid to the gym and start lifting weight. But we know generally cardiovascular exercise is the type of exercise that can lead to the growth of or certain proteins called neurotrophic factors like B D N F, G D N F. Just fancy names for fertilizers in the brain that will cause the brain to create more synapses. So generally, not only for kids, but for all of us doing more of play and like exercise, running for kids, take your kid to the, to the, to the

• 57:20Speaker 01

  playground and let them run around. They always, they obviously do this a lot if you just allow them to instead of sitting on the iPad.

• 57:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I would, I would definitely encourage that.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Teach them things, you know, take them to the zoo and let them show them different animals. What is this animal? Stimulate their brains intellectually, make them curious and passionate too. It's not only the brain, it's also just, it is the brain, but it's also thinking about like, how can I make, how can I convey passion to my kids? Like, so for me, the way I became passionate about the brain was the fact that I had mentors that were, that were extremely passionate about the brain and fascinated about the brain. And so that

• 58:05Speaker 01

  fascination and passion, you know, was passed down to me. So you do that with your kids. You know, you'd show them interesting things, take them to the museums and take them to the zoo and all these kinds of things.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Can they passion, I like that.

• 58:24Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people are curious about this idea of lucid dreaming. Can you explain what lucid dreaming is?

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:33Lewis Howes?

  What causes it? And is it something we can control?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Very interesting.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  So lucid dreaming is the state where so you aren't you have and I may just wanna maybe take you to this because there's a whole there's a whole line of so when you start when you initially sleep you enter sleep you are in stages one and two and during this stage of sleep when you are the the brainwaves are sort of slow and big and your things are very just kind of coordinated and you have these big waves you enter REM sleep you have these wakefulness waves it's called better waves go like this they have this these quick waves and this is characterized this is the same kind of waves you have when you're wakeful so it's the kind of the wakefulness

• 59:24Speaker 01

  waves as well right so the brain when you are in REM sleep and you're having dreams the brain looks very much like a person who's wakeful in fact if I was to eavesdrop on the activity on the activity of neurons during somebody who's in REM sleep and somebody who's awake the brain would look indistinguishable their brains look very much alike now during REM sleep you have vivid and lifelike dreams as we said but occasionally what can happen during dreams is that the CEO your captain of the ship can become prematurely activated inside the dream

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  gonna lucid dream

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  inside the lucid inside the dream is and that makes it become lucid you see now if if you're not fully awakened from that this is I wanna so the difference between sleep paralysis is that it's it's become so much awake that it kind of wakes you up that's when it becomes sleep paralysis which is another borderland state between wakefulness and dream and wake wakefulness and REM during lucid dreaming you simply have this CEO becoming partially awake

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  but you're still asleep

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  but you're still asleep so that's when you are

• 1:00:40Lewis Howes?

  like the opposite almost of paralysis almost right

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  almost almost opposite exactly

• 1:00:44Lewis Howes?

  interesting

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  now so when you have this

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  the CEO of the brain because it's active during during the REM and the dream world that's when you start becoming aware of yourself

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  In the parts of

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  But you're still asleep, but you're aware that you're asleep.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  This is important because Louis, in the, when you are dreaming in REM sleep, this is, this is these part of the brains called the pre, uh, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a mouthful. These are the regions out here on the sides of the captain and the CEO. This part of the brain is involved in things like knowing that I'm aware of myself. A sense of a logic, a sense of a serial thinking, of a sense of a me, Balan, being in the studio. There's a wall, there's all these things.

• 1:01:29Lewis Howes?

  Those are activated when you're awake, right?

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Those are activated when I'm awake. They're turned down.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  When you're asleep.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  When you're, when I'm dreaming. But then they become partially active for some reason, for some reason, and that's when you have lucid dreaming.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  That's when you have lucid dreaming. And we actually know the more it activates, the more this part of the brain.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  Wake up.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Hmm, if, absolutely, if it's, if it's fully activated, you start waking up. But the more it activates, even without waking you up, the more lucid you become. So, and so some lucid dreams, you merely are aware of yourself dreaming. This is the sort of, not the highest level.

• 1:02:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  But then you have certain lucid dreams where you can completely control the scenarios. Those are the crazy ones where you can.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  Like I'm flying around and I can tell myself where to go and yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. These are the, the most extreme examples, but that's when the prefrontal cortex is very activated. And so that's what lucid, lucid dreams are about. So about 50% of people will have had one of these experiences. You become aware of your surroundings. Typically, it can emerge if you see some crazy person that you think, oh my God, Shakespeare is in my dream. What is Shakespeare doing? I'm not supposed to meet Shakespeare right now. And then that can tilt you to become lucid. So those are the triggers of, of lucid dreaming. Um, they're very vivid in the sense that they are more vivid than a, a normal, a normal dream is already very vivid and, and lifelike and all that. But this is even more crisp.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  So you, you have that as well. People often engage in, as you imagine, erotic fantasies and sexual fantasies. And flying is very common.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  So this is what lucid dreaming is about. Do you have, do you have any lucid dreams?

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Maybe a few where I'm like more aware of it, but not something that happens frequently.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:20Lewis Howes?

  But something I am curious about also is. My wife Martha has premonitory dreams. And I don't know if you've studied this at all, or if you're, have you ever had any?

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:30Lewis Howes?

  But she'll have dreams where she'll tell me, like she has a dream book where she writes down her dreams. And some of them are just, I guess, meaningless. Maybe there's some meaning to them, but they're just like, okay, this weird dream, I'm flying or this or whatever. But then she'll have a dream where she'll say, it doesn't happen often, but she goes, there was a different quality to the dream.

• 1:03:52Lewis Howes?

  And it's not lucid dreaming, and it's not just a normal dream, and it's not a nightmare. She calls it premonitory dreams. And

• 1:04:01Lewis Howes?

  whenever she has this, she wakes up, she writes it down. It is so vivid, but it's almost, this may sound weird, but it's almost a signal to what's gonna happen in the future. And for whatever reason, every dream she's showed me in the past that she's written down of this quality comes true.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Lewis Howes?

  And who knows if it's her mind that's influencing her to go manifest these things. But some of them are predictions of what's happening in the world.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  And it's almost like, she's like, there's a spiritual quality to it that's hard to express. There's a, a light being quality to it.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Lewis Howes?

  That she knows when it's happening.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:43Lewis Howes?

  And it's almost like a premonitory predictive dream.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:48Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know if you've studied that, or if that's a phenomenon, or if there's science behind that, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:55Lewis Howes?

  Is that lucid dreaming? Is that premonitory dream? Is that some spiritual intuitive connection? What is this?

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So this is, this is like.

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  Have you heard of this?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. I hear it all the time.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  I hear it from students. When I lecture, I hear it for myself. I have these dreams myself.

• 1:05:15Lewis Howes?

  Like premonitory dreams?

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Premonitory dreams, premonitions, yeah. So they are common all around the world.

• 1:05:19Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  They have been in cultures have talked about this throughout history. So people in various places, I mean, prophecies and prophetic dreams and Joseph in the Bible. You know the story?

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  And he saw his moon, a star, and the moon was bowing and all that. And so this have been, people have reported this throughout history. Now, what are these? Are these, is it the brain? Is it? What's going on?

• 1:05:43Lewis Howes?

  The spiritual connection?

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Spiritual connection? Now, I tackle this because this gets into some of the craziness where I need to be careful between science and spirituality, but I'm answering this in this way. I'll say that

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  I personally have these as well. And I don't talk about it often.

• 1:06:06Lewis Howes?

  They come true, like these?

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  I feel like they come true. I feel like I have a dream of certain things that might happen. And they sometimes come true.

• 1:06:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Right? Some scientists will say it's just, you know, you're just biased. You selectively remember certain things from the dream and you think like, you know, that then comes true and all that. But look, for me, subjectively, it feels very real. And who can deny you of your subjective experience? People have had this. All of the world, people have this. How can you deny them their subjective truth? And this is what I always emphasize, the fact that you can't deny, you can't use science as a way of, you know, denying people what seems subjectively real to them. A real thing. I mean.

• 1:06:53Lewis Howes?

  There's medical miracles all the time.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  There are medical miracles.

• 1:06:56Lewis Howes?

  I can't explain how this cancer went away. The science can't prove this, but it happens, right?

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  So I'll say, so I'll say this. We have no scientific evidence, obviously, of

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Being able to predict the future, full stop, it goes beyond the realm of science. Anything supernatural goes or spiritual goes out there, but it doesn't mean it's not true.

• 1:07:16Lewis Howes?

  And in quantum physics, you know, an atom can be in two places at the same time, I think, right? So it's like, how can it be in two different places at the same time?

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:26Lewis Howes?

  In two different moments at the same time.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:29Lewis Howes?

  Of time. That's, so it's like, how are we able to do this?

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Look, I've, I've been fortunate to work with and, and know some of the greatest dream researchers of, of that we know. And they will tell you what's going on in the brain. I will tell you, this is my area of, of focus. And, and we know these parts of the brain turn on, these turn off. These neurochemicals, you know, are hyperactivated, these are not.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  But that doesn't mean that a spiritual world is not true and that you cannot have premonitions of the future. It's simply not, we just don't use it as, we don't. It's not in the science books, it's not in my scientific articles or anything that I write or my books or anything. There's nothing about that kind of thing there.

• 1:08:17Lewis Howes?

  But people still experience it.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  And I experience it. And I, and I believe it. So what? My scientific colleagues can believe whatever they want. You know, as long as you're truthful to the science, doesn't matter. But, but I'll tell you this, I, I do feel like, I do feel these, and I do believe in these things. And, and there's nothing, I'll tell you, there's, there's nothing in science that can negate the fact that you can have these kinds of dreams.

• 1:08:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  But just don't count on them for like, winning the lottery.

• 1:08:45Lewis Howes?

  Now, do dreams have meaning? And can our environment and our external world influence the quality of our dreams?

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So definitely, so.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Dreams do tend to have, they seem to have some meaning and, and let me answer the meaning question second. Can we, are there influences from the outside world? This is the, let's answer this first. So first of all, having a lucid dreaming, having a lucid dream, for example, or just having any dream with any person you want to meet in your dream. You can do dream incubation, meaning you think about it during the day. So I've had that before.

• 1:09:24Lewis Howes?

  You influence the dream of having that.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  That will influence, so exactly. So you go to bed, I want, I once, I wanted to fly like Peter Pan. So I was like, I was a kid, you know, Balan fly, Balan be Peter Pan fly, Balan fly. And I ended up flying.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  At night, yeah.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  At night. So you can incubate, or I want to meet this person, or I want to become lucid. So you know, we can do this.

• 1:09:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the more you put your attention on something during the day, the greater chances you're going to influence it at night.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. You're biasing the circuitry. So this is, this is one point. Second, when you are inside the dream then, and you are, let's say, you are in a cold room and you're dreaming, first of all, that you are, let's say you were dreaming that, just a regular dream, first of all, it can be anything. You're walking about in Glendale, for example. You're walking about there. And then in Glendale, suddenly you feel like it's cold. Well, that could just be that the room and the place you're sleeping, it's, it's, the, the, the window is open and you're feeling cold. So things can spill over into the dream.

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Or if there's like a smoke from the neighbors barbecuing, for example, that can also come into the experience and you feel like maybe there's a fire in Glendale. One of the hyoses is on, is on fire. So we know this, this is well-known phenomenon that things from the outside world can influence the actual dreaming state. So we know that.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Then, then what's the meaning? How does the brain create meaning out of dreams? It's very deep, it's a very deep one because

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  first of all, you have some of the creative networks in the brain that has to do with creativity. Becoming hyperactivated. It's called a default mode network and whatnot, but it's just creativity part of the brain. They're also active when I'm daydreaming during the day. It's kind of, things are very spacey and all that. We said noradrenaline of the part of the brain that's involved in focused attention shuts down during dreams. So things are even more spacey and bizarre and exploratory. So you have that.

• 1:11:24Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  We said that during the dream state, and I'm coming to the punchline. But during this dream state, you have parts of the brain involved in a sense of balance. It's called the vestibular system. It's sort of have it on the both sides of the brain by in this, in by next to the ears. It's, it's involved in sense of balance. That part of the brain also becomes hyperactive. And that's why you feel like at one moment you're here, then you're on a spaceship and things are just floating and, and, and crazy. That you have emotional part of the brain is thirty percent more active. You know that the CEO is down, so things are logical. You have that.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  hippocampus memory part of the brain is hyperactive, so you remember all the craziness. Now this biases your brain, this state of all these centers being active and this being deactivated. It just puts your brain in a state to think in a certain way. And that will influence the narrative. You cannot avoid having that influence. This, this is the actual theory about how dreams are based on the state of the brain and that the, and you'll have dreams in this way. So that's the meaning. The meaning is the brain is trying to make sense of all these centers being active at the same time. The memory part of the brain influencing things. The environment, your, your hormonal state from the few last few weeks.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  All this will bias what you're dreaming and make you dream about certain things. But at the same time, it could still be, and this is where we're going to do the spirituality again. It could still be some spiritual influences as well. So you don't want to close that gate completely, but I'm saying there's a brain baseline state that makes you dream in a certain way. And be more inclined to have certain visions and see certain things.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  But at the same time, there's so many other things that could be going on as well. So that's, that's, that's, that's the sort of the meaning part of, of what dreaming is, is, is all about, you know, the, yeah.

• 1:13:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And why do some people not remember their dreams where others remember everything?

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  It's a good question. So one of the ways you can make yourself remember dreams more is by having a big glass of water. So before you go to bed.

• 1:13:43Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that gonna make you wake up in the middle of the night because you have to pee it out?

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:13:48Lewis Howes?

  Maybe not right before, but a little bit, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  That's exactly the point. Um, when you're having a big glass of water, you will have more fragmented sleep. So your sleep will be more choppy and then you just wake up and you're more likely to have, you remember your dreams more because you wake up during the REM stage of sleep. And you have more chance of remembering your dreams. Remember, so, so the way dreams work is that

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  during the entire night, during all the stages of sleep, you dream during the REM stage and you have like four cycles of complete, uh, of, of where you go through different stages and where REM is sort of about a 25% of, of this time. So the more you go in and out of REM, the better chances you have, you have remembering your dreams overall. Now, why certain people remember their dreams more? I think, so creative people tend to remember their dreams more. Perhaps they are activating, activating more of their creative networks during the day as well. So they're just more in, in sync and in tune with their creative minds.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  So those, I would say are, and so some, some people just don't remember their dreams. Um, they may not be as, as, I want to say creative. They could be, just be, uh,

• 1:15:04Lewis Howes?

  They're not activating it as much.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Those, those centers, exactly, yeah.

• 1:15:08Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Lewis Howes?

  What is, um, one thing you wish everyone knew about their brain, their brain health? To live a better life, based on your neuroscience research?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Okay, that's, I would say,

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  avoiding stress.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Stress and cortisol, obviously you need cortisol, cortisol is important, but too much cortisol can

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  can inhibit some of these growth fertilizing factors, we call it BDNF and GDNF, these, these, these things that the brain uses to grow new synapses and connections. Stress directly dampens that, so having a lot of cortisol, too much cortisol, to the, to the point that you can't sleep well, that will directly make your brain less plastic.

• 1:16:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Improving sleep. Understanding that sleep, obviously is a phenomenon where you have all these crazy dreams, lose the dreams, sleep paralysis.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  But you also have deep sleep. Deep sleep is the stage before REM that's involved in things like memory storage. Generate sort of replenishing of the cardiovascular system, the auto, the immune system, the blood, blood pressure regulation, glucose, all this happened during deep, deep sleep, the stage before REM. Skin rejuvenation. Hair, you wanna, you know, be pretty for a photo shoot or something, you know, you wanna, this is all in, in deep sleep. So you don't want to neglect deep sleep and you don't want to neglect sleep overall, so

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  having that is, is crucial.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  Meaning taking care of your sleep, having good sleep routines, good sleep habits, sleeping at the same time. Each day and waking, waking up at the same time is a good way to keep your circadian clock, so in the brain and the hypothalamus part of the brain, little region that's involved in, you have a biological clock there involved in setting when you feel awake and when you feel asleep. So having good sleep routine and habits.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  Reducing stress, exercising regularly is crucial. Cardiovascular especially, but also strength. It's good for your brain.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  Social connections.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  Getting out, away from those laptops and those iPads, going out and meeting people. Connecting with your family, your parents, gratitude to your parents, what they've done for you, all their sacrifices. Loving them deeply, that kind of gets all the endorphins and the oxytocin and the vasopressin, all the love hormones to make your brain and nervous system more healthier, optimized.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  Avoid loneliness. I mean, it's kind of goes with the social interaction, but just loneliness is horrible, man. We weren't, we didn't come about to be alone. And a lot of us think our AIs and all that is, are humans. They're not humans. And God and connect with people.

• 1:18:29Lewis Howes?

  Here's a question for you.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Lewis Howes?

  How bad is social media use for people's brains? Obviously, there's some benefit for social media to get a message out and there's entertainment.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:42Lewis Howes?

  But when it's overused, what is it doing to our brains and our brain health as a neuroscientist?

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  It does a lot. I mean, first of all, all these Ferraris and all these mansions you're seeing, I mean, 90% are not real. I mean, you shouldn't feel bad about yourself, wherever, wherever you are in life. If you don't like life, people will portray a life for you that's not real.

• 1:19:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  So make a lot of anxiety and depression. People feel they're not enough. They don't feel complete. They feel like.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  The sense of gratitude, which is important for just brain health and nervous system health and mental health, kind of goes out the window when you just kind of completely engage this, this completely irrational social comparison with people that you just feel like everybody owns a Ferrari and you don't, and so therefore you are not good enough. Forget all that. There's so much more to life. Go out and touch the grass, get some fresh air, you know, and, and, and so that's, that's a huge part of it.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Second, I would say these social media platforms were intentionally designed to be very addictive, creating behavioral addictions, making you just crave likes and crave social attention. Nothing wrong with, with that, you know, having, you know, using that for social connection, but you can become addicted and just feel like that's the only thing you want to do. And the addicted brain is a, it's a brain that's, it gets dopamine. Addiction basically in a nutshell is when you get dopamine from one source only, and when you're not having that source, the amygdala, the fear part of the brain and the emotional part of the

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  brain are screaming for more of that drug. And then the more of that drug you have, the more you need in order to, to get fulfillment and get the addictive cravings off. And so I would say addiction is another part of it. So those are the main two things, the social comparison and the addictive aspects. It's not real. I mean, so much of it's not real. People are forgetting what life is all about. And I think that's, that's the problem with, with social media. It can be dangerous. And some people are, you know, there's actually the genetic component to addiction too. Some people are just more likely to become addicted to drugs. So you have, actually knowing where you fall on that scale is, is, is great, like.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  My uh.

• 1:21:28Lewis Howes?

  Is there a test you can take to see how addictive you are?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  It's no, but I'll tell you this. So so a study that was done by my my uh my mentors when I was at Cambridge. They did early studies when they would hack people, look at their genetics, and then they would see who would become. And then measure their genetics and look at their lives twenty thirty years later or something. It's a very long, long study. They found that certain people were just more likely based on the genes to become genes to become drug addicts and addicted to stuff. So there's a genetic predisposition. It has to do with part of the brain calls. There I don't wanna all these names, but it's it's sort of nucleus accumbens and the dopamine parts of the brain. If you have certain receptors, certain receptors more than other receptors, you you are genetically predisposed to become more addictive.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Now, I can tell you this. Personally, I have that addictive personality. So if I use social media a little bit, I suddenly find myself clicking and.

• 1:22:24Lewis Howes?

  All of it. Yeah, you're all in.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  I can't like. So I know for my own self that I have to be careful. So I think it's.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  Although there might, you know, you can do certain personalities, has to see a shrink. You kind of know if you have that. Are you the guy that just takes, uh, you know, a cookie and then you can't stop?

• 1:22:42Lewis Howes?

  I'm all in or I'm all out. That's why I try to be all out of the bad stuff and all in on the good stuff.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  That's me, right? That's me too. So um.

• 1:22:49Lewis Howes?

  It's like my my my crutch is sugar, right? It's like and.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Lewis Howes?

  I can't just do once in a while.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Lewis Howes?

  It's like once in a while becomes, all right, this is all day today. Now this is like a weekend. Now this is like a month.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:02Lewis Howes?

  And then I either need to be all out or I'm all in.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:23:05Lewis Howes?

  And it's and that's just kind of how I learned to manage my life.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:23:09Lewis Howes?

  And maybe once in a while I can do it to like kind of manage it, but it's really I have to put my attention on the healthy habit.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Lewis Howes?

  Of eliminating certain things.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:18Lewis Howes?

  Or it's just hard to manage balance with certain things that are more addictive for me.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Lewis Howes?

  And I'm glad that I've never gotten into alcohol or drugs or smoking because I'm sure I would have more of an addictive personality with that. So I've just been zero for all of that. Never been drunk or high.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  And so for me, it's like, you know, just trying to know where I'm at.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Lewis Howes?

  And live in accordance to that, but.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Oh, so it seems like you fall in that genetic disposition for sure. Yeah.

• 1:23:45Lewis Howes?

  Probably. I mean, I've been doing this show for every week for 12 years. I have an addictive behavior to doing something good.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:53Lewis Howes?

  Towards this. So I try to put my energy into the good things as opposed to the negative things.

• 1:24:01Lewis Howes?

  I've got a couple of final questions for you. This has been fascinating. I appreciate it.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:24:07Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, why did you decide to pursue the field of neuroscience? Was it because you were having sleep paralysis? Was it for some other reason?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  So I think for me, it was.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  My sleep paralysis experience definitely triggered my, my quest for wanting to understand the brain and how we can certainly see ghosts in our bedrooms, what's going on. And, and that really took me on the journey to, to wanting to understand things and get out of my, my, my little bedroom there and, and in the, in the ghetto and in, in the, in the, you know, poverty district neighborhood and go out there and I studied the brain and traveling to various countries. I went to Egypt initially and then came to the US and went to England and all that. And

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  so my sleep paralysis definitely affected me, but also wanting to give back. My parents were, were so good to me. They, they sacrificed so much for, for, for wanting to me, for me to have a good life. I saw my dad work in a pizza, pizza shop an entire life and have no college education, just kind of working away in the pizza shop and and I wanted to give back. I saw them and so I, I needed to work hard. And so that was what really. Pushed me, a sense of purpose, wanting to give my parents a good life. But at the same time, being utterly fascinated about the brain.

• 1:25:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  So those were the two, two.

• 1:25:29Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. That's cool, man. You're doing good work, man. I want to acknowledge you, uh, Baland for doing the research, sharing the research, and trying to educate so many people on a complicated thing, which is the brain, dreams, neuroscience, like it's hard to understand these things, let alone understand day to day life. So I acknowledge you for going through, you know, the challenges and the pain you've gone through to want to say, how do I find solutions to this pain?

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:57Lewis Howes?

  To serve others and you've been doing a great job with it.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 1:25:59Lewis Howes?

  You also have a great, uh, course out on Peterson Academy, Jordan Peterson's online academy.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Lewis Howes?

  And people can go to Petersonacademy.com and check out Intro to Neuroscience. You've got a course there that teaches more about neuroscience, dreams, understanding this deeper.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:16Lewis Howes?

  So if people want to go there, we'll have that linked up as well. Petersonacademy.com. Go to the Courses section. You can see uh, Baland's course there. You're also on social media, Baland Jalal, uh, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all these different places where you're sharing more content where people can follow you there. How else can we, uh, support or follow you? Do you have a website as well?

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a website, Belandjalal.com. It's not very high, very active on it, but.

• 1:26:43Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Social media is your spot. Yeah.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  I would say so, yeah.

• 1:26:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:47Lewis Howes?

  Awesome, man. Well, there's a lot of great content online that you're sharing.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:50Lewis Howes?

  Um, I've got, I've got one final question for you before we got to wrap things up. You've shared a lot of great kind of truths already and, and insights. And I'm going to be a dad, uh, here in the next few months. So that's why I was asking you about like, what, what should we be teaching our kids?

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:06Lewis Howes?

  As a neuroscientist. But I'm curious, final question for you, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's a deep, that's a deep one.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  I'd say definition of greatness is

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  it's kind of what you're doing, right? It's showing up week after week, right?

• 1:27:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  And that's why I have to acknowledge you as well, right?

• 1:27:29Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  You come up week after week doing these great shows and I've enjoyed watching your show over the years. Very insightful and that's what greatness is about. It's excellence, it's putting in your heart and brain into all that you're doing and following your heart and passion, not being afraid of being who you are authentically, which you're a master at and not closing yourself off to the world and having an open heart. And so I think that's what greatness is about, you know, being truly yourself. So I'd say that's greatness.

• 1:28:09Lewis Howes?

  Well, thanks so much for being here.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:28:11Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyleasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment, moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:28:53Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.