How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself

Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! The awakened brain's extraordinary power to transform our mental health lies at the intersection of spirituality and neuroscience. This episode proves that. Dr. Lisa Miller reveals it through groundbreaking research showing spiritual connection physically alters brain function. We also explore how our brains are literally built with neural networks designed to perceive transcendent love, receive divine guidance, and experience oneness. Capabilities that, when activated, reduce cortisol, mitigate depression, and shield against addiction and suicide. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee shares how learning to manage our stress response through simple practices like mindful breathing and releasing the need to always be right creates lasting inner peace. And, neurosurgeon Dr. Rahul Jandial offers a fascinating perspective on why we must dream, explaining that our brains cycle between waking and dreaming states as a form of "high-intensity training" essential for maintaining mental flexibility. These three expert conversations help uncover how spiritual practice, stress management, and proper sleep create the foundation for profound mental wellness and personal transformation. In this episode you will learn:The three key networks of an awakened brain that make us feel loved, guided, and connected to something greaterWhy spirituality provides 80% protection against suicide and more protection against depression and addiction than medication aloneHow to nurture your child's natural spiritual awareness without needing to have all the answers yourselfThe powerful "3 Fs" technique to break free from emotional eating and manage stress in healthy waysWhy breathing patterns directly signal your brain about danger or safety, and simple breath work to reset your nervous systemThe surprising science of why humans must dream and how dreams serve as essential "training" for the brainFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1754For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Dr. Lisa Miller – greatness.lnk.to/1708SCDr. Rangan Chatterjee – greatness.lnk.to/1716SCDr. Rahul Jandial – greatness.lnk.to/1603SC 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?

  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 makemoneymeasibook.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. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following, and stay tuned to this episode on the School of Greatness.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  What do the MRIs say from a brain that is connected to God or has a spiritual practice versus a brain that doesn't have a spiritual practice?

• 0:54Lisa Miller?

  We have charted this very precisely. And the first thing that everyone needs to know is that we are all capable of awakening. Every brain is built to awaken. Nobody's left out.

• 1:07Lewis Howes?

  It's a choice.

• 1:08Lisa Miller?

  It is a choice, and it is a practice.

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  And what are the brains that are spiritually connected versus a lack of spiritual connection?

• 1:14Lisa Miller?

  A spiritually-connected brain is compared to one that has yet to do the work. Has three components. The first is that just as we are loved and held as children in our parents' or grandparents' arms, the bonding network comes up online, and we can feel that we are loved and held. So, Louis, that's not a belief. Our brain perceives.

• 1:38Lewis Howes?

  It feels it.

• 1:39Lisa Miller?

  It feels it, because we are detecting something real.

• 1:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:44Lisa Miller?

  It's not a brain in the box that made up, isn't it nice to feel loved?

• 1:47Lewis Howes?

  It believes it is loved and held.

• 1:50Lisa Miller?

  The brain perceives transcendent love.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:54Lisa Miller?

  So, we're moving here from the 20th-century view of the brain that makes thoughts, like the brain in the box, to the emerging view of the brain that is like an antenna that receives thoughts, or inspiration, or transcendent presence. So, when we receive God's presence...

• 2:15Lisa Miller?

  As incarnate beings, the bonding network comes up online. And we watch it through the FMRI that tracks blood flow. We watch the bonding network literally engage as we experience and receive God's love.

• 2:27Lewis Howes?

  And what happens when the bonding network engages in the brain? What happens to the body?

• 2:32Lisa Miller?

  Ah, it's, well, we are at peace. We have less stress. Cortisol goes down. There's a whole host of downstream problems from dysregulated cortisol, dysregulated diurnal patterns of cortisol. So when we sustain a relationship with God through practice, through prayer, through meditation, through how we treat each other, as you just described, the choice of godly relationships.

• 2:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 3:00Lisa Miller?

  We literally host and welcome. You know, God chooses when God shows up, that we can invite and welcome God. And when we feel God's presence, when God touches us, the bonding network comes up online as we are incarnate and shows that we are loved and held. The second circuit that we all have is that there's multiple forms of intelligence, of multiple forms of attention. There's the bowling alley attention, which is

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  Narrow focus?

• 3:32Lisa Miller?

  Narrow focus. And there's times for that, right? We need that discipline. But the bowling alley alone is insufficient. I've got to have it. I've got to get that job. I'm going to do A plus B plus C to close that deal. That is not an accurate map onto the structure of reality because life is full of surprises and hard left turns. And we have another attention network. There's another system of awareness, which is not our dorsal attention, but our ventral attention, where the floodlights come on and the world becomes a lot bigger, brighter. And a new direction pops. And that allows us to receive guidance.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  What's that step called?

• 4:18Lisa Miller?

  So we are loved and held, as we all have a bonding network, and we are guided. We are built to receive divine guidance. We are built to perceive direction from the universe. Loved and held, guided, and the third circuit, the third component of the awakened brain that we're all built with, ready to go, is that you, Lewis, are in your chair, and I'm over here in mine. And we also have friends in New York, and Cincinnati, and London, and Des Moines, right? We are separate beings, and at the same time, we're part of this great oneness.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:57Lisa Miller?

  The brain is built to receive and perceive separateness and oneness.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:03Lisa Miller?

  The parietal region puts in and out hard boundaries. As blood flows through the parietal region, we see that, okay, I have my zipped up bio bodysuit, and we're all wonderfully diverse, and we live in different chairs. And at the same time, we're part of one family of life, we're part of one unit of consciousness. That capacity allows us to know we're never alone.

• 5:26Lewis Howes?

  So is that oneness, or what is that?

• 5:28Lisa Miller?

  That is the oneness. So if you add up all three circuits that run together, they don't run separately, we are loved and held, we are guided, and we are never alone. That awakened brain is yours. It is there for everyone.

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  So everyone has that in us, but we need to be practicing and believing it in order to experience it?

• 5:50Lisa Miller?

  Yes.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we don't practice and believe that we are loved and held, we are guided, and we are all one, we are never alone? What happens to us?

• 6:02Lisa Miller?

  We feel unloved, we feel lost, and we feel completely painfully lonely.

• 6:10Lisa Miller?

  And that excruciating pain is a big bang at the door. It's an invitation to start to practice awakening, to start to use your awakened brain.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  And as a clinical psychologist, doing this research for a long time, and doing all the MRI studies and working with individuals who have experienced this, is there any other way to get out of pain and suffering than seeking a spiritual practice?

• 6:38Lisa Miller?

  There is no greater way. There is no profound and robust and enduring way to move out of despair as to awaken spiritually.

• 6:48Lewis Howes?

  But you're a psychologist. Aren't there medicines that people can take that are going to fix them or solve them? Aren't there drugs that people should be doing? And isn't this clinically proven that if you're depressed and you have mental health diseases, that the medicine will set you free? Isn't that why we have medication?

• 7:07Lisa Miller?

  So medication, I'm not against medication. If you're in terrible pain and it's urgent and you need it now, do whatever it takes to keep yourself buoyant.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:17Lisa Miller?

  But that said, when we take away the medication, the majority of the time, the pain comes back, as does the deep existential feeling of unlovedness, isolation, of being lost. Why is that? Because we have yet to engage our awakened awareness. We have yet to engage our spiritual capacity. We have a donut-sized hole because we haven't deployed this gift we're all given.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's the gift that we're all given that most of us never use?

• 7:50Lisa Miller?

  We have, within every brain, the neurofoundation for a relationship with God. We have, within every human being, the inborn capacity, actually, the inborn imperative, to be in relationship with our higher power.

• 8:05Lewis Howes?

  But why do so many of us reject God or a relationship with a higher power?

• 8:14Lisa Miller?

  Well, it's very easy to feel isolated, to feel lost, because the rich two-thirds embrace the socialization of our natural spirituality.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Our environment.

• 8:27Lisa Miller?

  Our culture is pretty silent.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  What we consume, what we're putting in our physical space, the people in our environment, the conversations that we're hearing, listening to and having, all that stuff, right?

• 8:42Lisa Miller?

  And yet, we can choose to cultivate every single thing you've said.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Lisa Miller?

  Forty years ago, in the United States, there was a decision made, it was made with a good intention, to be inclusive, which was to throw all religion out of the public square. And you may remember, we take down the Christmas tree, take down the Hanukkah menorah, we're not talking about religion.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  It's offensive, yeah, it's all offensive.

• 9:01Lisa Miller?

  Someone's gonna be left out. And the intention was good, which was to be inclusive, but it actually was radically exclusive. Everyone was left out.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:12Lisa Miller?

  And we had an ice age, forty years of an ice age, where people don't talk about spiritual and religious life at work, at school, at a cocktail party, at a dinner party.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  To not be offensive or feeling exclusive if they don't have a similar belief, is that right?

• 9:26Lisa Miller?

  Yes.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  Okay, if they have a different belief, we don't want to force something on them or talk about it if they feel uncomfortable or...

• 9:31Lisa Miller?

  Yes, right? But society now has grown up, and we've become much more pluralistic. We can comfortably talk about different genders and race and orientation as part of the fabric of our culture. It's time now to be pluralistic when it comes to our spiritual life. I want to know you, I want to hear about Diwali, or Ramadan, or Hanukkah, or Christmas. I want to hear about the crossing of your grandmother, and I want to hear about the baby that came into your life in the deepest, most important way.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Something you said in one of your books, called The Spiritual Child, I believe this one is, it talks about that you...

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  Talk about the next big idea in psychology, which is the science and the power of spirituality. And you're explaining a clear scientific link between spirituality and health, and it shows that children who have a positive, active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, are 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers, are 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex, and have significantly more positive markers for thriving, including an increased sense of meaning and purpose, and high levels of academic success. Why do kids lack spiritual connection in a spiritual relationship today?

• 10:57Lewis Howes?

  Why are... is it parents aren't willing to encourage their kids? Do the parents not have the spiritual relationship? Why do you think that is in kids today?

• 11:07Lisa Miller?

  The most important gift we give our children is a strong spiritual core. In fact, I would even go so far to say there is nothing that a parent needs to do more than strengthen their child's natural spiritual awareness. How do I do that? Every parent wants to know. Okay, look at those statistics. Your child will be less at risk for addiction, depression. In this epidemic, 82% protected against suicide when spiritual life is shared. Suicide is tragically the number one killer of high school students.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 11:38Lisa Miller?

  It's come to rival auto accidents. So it's not cancer or COVID by our own hand, and yet we have the antidote. I mean, Louis, if I said, here's a pill, and you can give this pill to every high school student in the United States, and they are four-fifths protected against the epidemic of suicide, what school wouldn't give that out every day at lunch? What parent wouldn't give that to their child? And yet, we have the antidote in us already. And it's the realization of how we are built to be in a sustained connection to God or a higher power. Why is this not happening? Why is this not happening? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. Parents don't know how, and they don't know if they're spiritual enough. So I went on the road. I thought it was going to be three weeks. It was three years with my first book, The Spiritual Child.

• 12:23Lisa Miller?

  And parents would raise their hand, and they'd ask questions. How do I help my child be more spiritual? What is spirituality? But when parents started to cry was when they said, am I spiritual? So people don't know if, you know, as a mother, as a father, I'm spiritual enough. And the answer is... You don't need to be, because your child is spiritual. And all you need to do is listen and be totally in awe of your child.

• 12:52Lewis Howes?

  Kids are like a portal. They're already a spiritual portal.

• 12:54Lisa Miller?

  Yes.

• 12:54Lewis Howes?

  It's not, you know, it's your job not to throw on material animal magnetism types of thinking or thoughts or energy to diminish their spiritual power.

• 13:05Lisa Miller?

  Yes. And...

• 13:07Lewis Howes?

  And that's hard to do.

• 13:09Lisa Miller?

  But you know what? Parents are so in love with their child.

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:12Lisa Miller?

  That if we can just hold our tongue and listen, your child is just gonna come up and say, you know, "I saw grandma."

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:20Lisa Miller?

  Or your child is gonna come up and say, "Does God love evil people too?" You know, and those are incredible moments. We don't need the answer. We can simply hold the moment and say, "Wow." Because often the child's actually not looking for an answer. They're looking to engage in the spiritual realm.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:39Lisa Miller?

  And so they're really thinking, "Can you walk with me here?"

• 13:41Lewis Howes?

  When a child asks a question, like, "Does God love bad people? Does God love evil people?" Whatever, any question, and a parent says, "Man, I think I know the answer, but I really don't know the answer." What should a parent do in that moment when a child asks a difficult spiritual question that the parent doesn't know the answer to?

• 14:03Lisa Miller?

  The child's question is an opening for the child to learn to listen to their own heart. So we can say, you know, "Deep in your inner wisdom, what does your heart say?" Or we can say, you know, "Do you want to sit with me now in meditation or prayer and see what comes to you as the answer to that?"

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 14:25Lisa Miller?

  Teach the child to receive their own spiritual answers. I can tell you a story about that. I adopted my son from an orphanage north of St. Petersburg, Russia. The most delicious little boy on earth, madly in love with this little boy.

• 14:39Lewis Howes?

  How old was he?

• 14:40Lisa Miller?

  He was 10 months when he came.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:42Lisa Miller?

  I knew right away that this sort of, you know, secular materialist culture was gonna tell him a big story about not having been wanted and why did that mother leave you? And so I was gonna get ahead of this. And the way I was gonna get ahead of this, my husband and I together, was by talking about our authentic spiritual journey to finding Isaiah.

• 15:05Lisa Miller?

  So from day one, we said, you know, we had really been five years with us. We prayed hard for five years before we found Isaiah. And so, from day one, I said, there was a little 10-month voice, used to hearing Russian. And we said, "Isaiah, mommy and daddy, we prayed for Isaiah. And grandma prayed for Isaiah, and grandpa prayed for Isaiah, and everybody prayed for Isaiah, because mommy and daddy had been crying for you." And then, one day, we heard they'd found Isaiah. And we took little baby, a plane, to a train, to an automobile, kids love transportation, ran up the hill, and there, there was Isaiah.

• 15:46Lisa Miller?

  And we'd throw him in the air, and we'd celebrate the finding Isaiah story. And that's, you know, when he was one, two, somewhere around four, he got a little older, and they like symbolic stories. So here was little Isaiah. He loved to play in our backyard by a little creek, a river. And we'd point at the river, and we'd squish his toes, and we'd say, "Isaiah, you see this river here? You came down this river. You were our baby Moses."

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:12Lisa Miller?

  And he'd say, "I'm baby Moses." So, "That's right, Isaiah. You came down. God sent you to us." So this was the story of finding Isaiah for a four-year-old. And we always told Isaiah the spiritual story of finding Isaiah. So sure enough, Louis, now he's eight. Driving my SUV, everything in parenting happens from the second row.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure is your area.

• 16:37Lisa Miller?

  His best friend Johnny's back there. "Mommy, mommy, Johnny says, 'My name is not Miller. You are not my mother, and I am not Jewish.'"

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:49Lisa Miller?

  And I took a big breath. The day had come.

• 16:51Lewis Howes?

  He knew the original story, the story before the story.

• 16:55Lisa Miller?

  Right. And sure enough, that's right. He was prepared. And I held my tongue, prayed, and Isaiah whips around, turns to Johnny and says, "I'm baby Moses." And Johnny says, "What?" And he said, "No, I'm baby Moses." And pretty soon, Isaiah realized that Johnny just didn't understand, but that he was baby Moses.

• 17:18Lisa Miller?

  Mommy, this time more desperate, more agitated. Mommy, Johnny says, what about the woman who gave me up? The story I'd always knew was coming.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:29Lisa Miller?

  Ten years before, I expected it.

• 17:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 17:32Lisa Miller?

  But there it was. Again, I held my breath, said a prayer. And from the second row, oh, I know. God whispered in her ear and said that you were crying for me. So if we support the natural spiritual knowing of the child, when the tough questions come, they're ready to receive and perceive a spiritual answer directly from God. He, like every child on earth, has an awakened brain. But as parents, we build that day in and day out sense that just as you and your new wife have God in that bond, you and your new wife, and God willing, your children

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:17Lisa Miller?

  will have God in that bond. And our message to Isaiah from day one was that this is a family built by God.

• 18:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful. It sounds like

• 18:26Lisa Miller?

  And it's true.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It sounds like you were practicing the first eight years, step one, which is, you know, show him that he is loved and held by you and also by God, right? You're loved and held by us. And the world is loving you and holding you high. It sounds like

• 18:47Lisa Miller?

  And the river.

• 18:48Lewis Howes?

  And the river, right? It sounds like step two, you know, understanding we're all guided. It sounds like he was able to remember that he was loved and held and be guided into like having the answers within him for when his friend was telling him, no, that's not true. This is you were adopted or whatever it is he was saying. And it sounds like he had the inner strength to feel guided in that moment. And I'm curious, what have you learned as a psychologist about the science and spirituality of synchronicities? Of knowing that we are guided and how to really have our antenna up and awareness up

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  so that we can receive signals, signs, and the synchronicities of life to know where to move our entity toward to create more opportunities, abundance with our purpose?

• 19:42Lisa Miller?

  When you met Marta, was that a synchronicity?

• 19:44Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 19:45Lisa Miller?

  Will you tell the story?

• 19:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, I've probably told her on here a few times already, but I mean,

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  there was just too many synchronicities that were just like, oh, this is, it was weird. It was weird synchronicities. I was like, okay, this is, and let me keep exploring. And the synchronicities were so weird, there was like, I felt like I was on the right path. It was like, uh, let's keep, let's keep hanging out another few days. Let's keep hanging out. You know, I didn't want to not hang out with her, but I was like, I need to keep exploring these conversations with you to see what unfolds. But the first day, you know, within the first five minutes, uh, where I knew something was different, um, I went to pick her up. I was visiting a buddy of mine in Mexico and near Tulum, and she was actually in Tulum at that time. And we had never met, but we'd connected online, and I just happened to respond to

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  something that she posted online, right? She was posting something in nature, actually. And I replied to that and I said, "It looks beautiful there." That was it. I wasn't like hitting on her or anything. I just replied to what she was posting about. So, nature was the first thing that I replied to within her, her, her, connecting online. And then she replied, "Hello, my friend. How are you? Are you ever in my country?" And I don't think she knew I was in Mexico, but I was in Mexico at that time, and I was assuming she meant Mexico. So I said, "Yeah, I'm actually here with a friend right now in Platao Carmen, and it's like an hour from Tulum." She goes, "Oh, I'm in Tulum. Let's, let's hang out if you have time." So we ended up just getting together. When I picked her up, I had my buddy's Jeep, and

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  I had my phone, picked her up for dinner, I had my phone in the middle of the Jeep, you know, in the middle of the seats in the front. And it was dark out, because I was getting her, picking her up for dinner, and so my phone screen kind of turned on as I set it down, like the screen turned on and you could see my screensaver. And it was a photo of a boy, a little boy. And that, I could see that she looked at the phone, because the screen popped up. You see this image of a little boy. And so I kind of looked at her and go, "Oh, don't worry. I don't have a son or anything." You know, it's our first time meeting. So I was like, "Oh, don't worry. I don't have a kid or anything." And she goes, "I know what that is." She goes, "That's you, and you're healing your inner child." And I was like, I get chills just thinking about it.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  I was like, "Uh, yeah." And she took her phone, she goes, "Here's a photo of me. I've been doing the same journey."

• 22:10Rahul Jandial?

  Oh, my.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  When she was five. I get chills thinking about it, and I'm just like, "Oh, something's different right away." She understood the journey of healing that I was already on. And that had been up there for, I don't know, eight months on my phone, right? So I've been alive, had it for a while. And she was like, "Yeah, this is something I was doing like in the last year." And I'd been healing and transforming and, you know, probably getting out of a depressed state that was like a reawakening to seeing the world differently. And so even just in that moment, like that unlocked the conversation. The whole conversation was spiritual from the first moment. There's no, there was no surface. I can't do surface anyways with anyone. You know, we talk right away, and I'm like, "Tell me about this, tell me about that."

• 22:54Lewis Howes?

  And so the whole conversation was spiritual. And the whole first few months was that, like every time. And some people might say, "Oh, that's too deep." When you're like going on dates, or you shouldn't be like going so deep so quickly or having spiritual conversations. But I think why wait to, why wait to have those conversations? Like, and they can be fun and lighthearted. They don't have to be deep and heavy. It can be like, "Wow, fascinating." You know, you can get to learn about someone's soul sooner rather than six months down the line have those conversations. So for me, that was a synchronicity that said, "Oh, hang out again." And every time I hung out, there was just things like that that just kept happening.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  That was like, "Oh, there's, there's some force that's more powerful pulling us to keep exploring." And I think I, I allowed myself to, to be open and stay in it without rushing to, "This is the person I'm meant to be with forever" because of one synchronicity. And I think I wanted to continue to not rush a lot of things, but just dive deeper spiritually, which created safety. It created a sense of safety and feeling at home within me and her feeling at home within her. So it made us feel more at home together. That was a powerful, you know, again, I would,

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  I wish I would have learned this, you know, 20 years ago, but it happened at the right time. So, and I needed the painful moments, I think, to awaken to where I'm at today.

• 24:34Lisa Miller?

  It's a magnificent love story.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 24:37Lisa Miller?

  And the deep question is, what is life showing me now? What is God revealing to me now? What has my higher power just put in my path?

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and understanding if we believe that we are guided, that's what I was like doing. I go, okay, God, just show me the way. Let me just explore this a little more. Let me, let's go hang out another day. Let's have more conversation. Let's just be guided into the possibility. Whether it works out or not, I'm just gonna lean into this without rushing to conclusions. So what did you then learn from the research of the science of synchronicities and spirituality together?

• 25:12Lisa Miller?

  The more we pay attention to synchronicity, the more we are able to perceive synchronicity. And on the one hand, it's because we strengthen our eye. We know, yes, this is real. We take it to heart. We think about and reflect on what it might mean, and then we act on it. You chose to go another day, to both of you, to look at this more deeply, to walk a little further.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like you can't, you don't want to stuff the emotions, but you don't want to stay in the emotions. You gotta learn to let it out in some healthy, conscious way. Hopefully not hurting someone else in the process of your anger, resentment, or frustration, or whatever it might be. But you can't stay there also. So you can't spiritually bypass the emotion, just say, that didn't affect me. If it did, let it out and don't stay there. You don't keep reliving the trauma for years to come.

• 26:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think one of the things we see these days, because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions, as many, you talk about it on your show all the time, there's many people talking about this in public. I think what's happened is that for some people...

• 26:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  They go to, "Oh, I get it now. This is why I'm the way I am. This is because of my mum or my dad. This is how I was brought up." And they stay there and then they start to blame their parents. And I think that's unhelpful. Maybe you have to go through that, but you can't stay there. At some point, you have to come out the other side and go, "Okay, I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions. Now let me move to the next part where I process them and move on." And I'll tell you a very simple technique that's helped me, Lewis. I don't know if it will help others, but it certainly has helped me is a few years ago, I chose to take on the belief, and again, I use those words carefully.

• 27:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  I chose. I don't have to take on this belief, but I've chosen to take on this belief in life. I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their experiences. And so let me just elaborate on that a little bit because it can be quite triggering for people that. I choose to believe that if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them. Why? Because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were 17 or whatever it might be, if I had their life, I'd probably be thinking and acting in exactly the same way as them.

• 27:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, it doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right. I'm not saying that. But once you adopt that approach to life, like you can feel this inner calm, Lewis, because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion. It's trying to understand why is this person behaving that way. Now, it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorrent or wrong. But I choose to take that approach to life and it's really, really helped me because now my first instinct, if someone's attacking me online, if something's happening, if someone disagrees with me, my first instinct now, because I've trained it for years is, "Oh, I wonder why they think so differently to me."

• 28:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place. And once you start interacting with life like that, I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier. Because then you're like, oh, if I was that person, I'd be doing the same as them. Oh, their dad cheated. They grew up seeing that. It doesn't make it right, but I think it makes it easier. And again, do you know when I learned that the most, right? Have you heard of John McAvoy?

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  I'm thinking John McElroy, the tennis player. No, no.

• 29:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, so John, John, John McAvoy. I, I had a wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about five years ago, Lewis. You'd love to, you would love talking to him, I promise you. He used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two life sentences, right? With all the terrorists, he was locked up there.

• 29:30Lewis Howes?

  And he got out?

• 29:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  He got out.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  And he's like, he's one of the loveliest people I know, right? I would leave him alone with my children, right? I think he's the most wonderful person. But I spoke to him for two hours and he went through his life story with me. And he told me about his upbringing, that his dad wasn't around. And that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers and they came rounds. They had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars and they had a code of conduct. They treated women well, like they had their own code of conduct. And I remember there was so much in that conversation because he's now a free man inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity. It's an incredible story.

• 30:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast. Oh, my mind was blown and I saw my wife in the kitchen. I said, babe, you know what? If I was John. If I had lived John's life,

• 30:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think I'd be in jail right now. Like, I genuinely thought if I had his childhood, I would be in prison.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  Or dead.

• 30:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Or dead. And it really, it really helps me understand that, look, we all see the world differently. It's very easy to judge. And I get it. Some things are horrible and really traumatic, and you're gonna probably need help to process that. But I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that. So let me go back to what you said about Dr. Ramani, who I really admire and respect.

• 30:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 31:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals. But I don't. So I, you know, she has every reason to believe what she believes.

• 31:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  My belief, based on my 23 years of clinical experience, and what I've seen with patients, what I've seen in the research, and what I've experienced myself, is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on, maybe you don't like the term forgiveness.

• 31:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  So I think that can be triggering for some people because they feel it's like, I'm forgiving that person for what they did. I don't mean that.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  We don't forgive it, but let it go and move on.

• 31:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let go and move on is how I describe it in, in this book, right?

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think you do not realize the lightness in your being that exists on the other side. I mean, Lewis, why don't you, I mean, if you don't mind, like, I'd love to know from you, like, you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggled with this for years, but you have moved through that. How's that been for you when you weren't able to forgive? And now, would you say that you can forgive now?

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And I mean, the difference is freedom, is peace. I think you're a prisoner of the past when you don't forgive. And there's, there's, um, there's a reward for that as well. Like, you get to be righteous, you get to be justice, you get to be right and them wrong. You get to be, you get validation from people having sympathy for you and understanding and understanding how something is not okay. And that was horrible what that person did and all these different things. You get rewards.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  But I just feel like the reward of forgiveness and setting yourself free is far greater than any other reward you could get by holding your grudge.

• 32:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  And holding a grudge and being angry at someone or an event or the government or the world or the weather, whatever, for ruining something in your life or hurting something in your life or causing a disruption in your life and however drastic or small it might be, holding a grudge onto that.

• 33:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's a cost.

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  There's a big cost. There's a big price you'll pay. There's a big price you'll pay.

• 33:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  But you're validated in society for holding it. As you say, like if you hold on and you go, yeah, they shouldn't have posted that post. They're wrong. Your friends will often support you. Yeah, they shouldn't have done it, but what we don't, and I used to be that person, so I'm not judging. I just know what it's like to not live like that anymore. Right? Chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offense. And I say many of us have an overreliance on being right. And I make the case in that book about, I talk about the George Floyd death, right? That's how I opened that chapter, you know, and I kind of explain how it affected me and then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it. Because if you remember when the George Floyd death made headline

• 33:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  news around the world, it was during COVID. It was, we were in lockdowns. I was in the UK. We were in a lockdown. And this event happened, horrible event, tragic event, just to be really clear. And it brought up all kinds of feelings for me. Now, I'm a Brit, right? I was born and brought up in the UK. I've got Indian immigrant parents. I'm not American, right? I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country, right? So I understand that, right? I have to say this is, I'm just watching it from the outside. But nonetheless, whatever the narrative was at the time, brought up things for me. And I wanted to share my view on social media, right? Like you have a large platform and

• 34:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  I thought, I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice. I don't always comment on public things. In fact, it's quite rare for me, but I felt like I wanted to. I thought about some of the things that my family had experienced when they came to the UK. And I also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl and living in the north of England. She can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out and she was just watching TV, I think, and then suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in. That is traumatic. That is really scary. So two or three days after George Floyd's death, I shared a well-thought-out post on Instagram.

• 35:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  I explained my perspective and I also shared the impact that racism can have and some of the things that came up for me. And I shared that example of what happened to my wife.

• 35:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  And there was a small section who started to take offence at what I said and were attacking me and saying, "You shouldn't be commenting. This is not your place. This is a black issue. This is not an Asian issue." And initially, I was like, "Oh, have I done something wrong here?" Like, I was trying to put out a really careful, kind, considered post to try and contribute to this big public conversation. Initially, I thought I did something wrong and then I meditated on it, Lewis. I thought about it and I thought, "Wait a minute. I've not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3,000 miles away. I am perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it." And I kind

• 36:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offence to everything.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it comes at a cost, right? Because people need to understand, as I've learnt to understand over the last few years, is that nothing is inherently offensive. Something happens, someone shares something. If something was inherently offensive, every single person would get offended. The fact that every single person is not getting offended means it's not that thing that is offensive. It's something within you that's being activated by that external...

• 36:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Events.

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  And once you understand that, because I think most of the world don't understand that. They think an event happens, I have every right to take offence to that. Now, people have got every right to do whatever they want. I'm not trying to change what people do. People can decide what they do. I'm trying to make the case in that chat set that there is an impact. If you are someone who feels that you're wronged in your life everywhere and everything's against you and everything is offensive, you've got to understand that that is coming at a cost to you. You are generating emotional stress in your body that is not neutral. Maybe the reason you can't make change that lasts in your life, right? It's because you're walking around getting offended at everyone.

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  And if you really think about it,

• 37:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  we're living in a world of eight billion people, Lewis. Eight billion people are not going to share the same view as you. And to think that they will is almost a little bit arrogant. The question is, why do you need people to share the same view as you? Like, one thing that's been transformative in my marriage, Lewis, is when I let go of the need to be right. I'm like, I don't need to be right. I don't need to win this argument with my wife for a while. She's got her view. I've got my view. It's cool.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Is it better to be right or be happy?

• 38:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly. Well, I, I, I would say one of the most important things you can do in life for your inner well-being, which will impact your physical well-being. And that's the thing that interesting, that's why as a doctor I wrote this book, because this inner world impacts our physical health. And I still don't think we realize it enough. But there is a cost, there's a cost to thinking the world is against you. And that, you know, you can choose to not take offence. You can choose to look at, let's, let's take social media as a prime example. Someone posts something that you don't like and you don't agree with. You could take a pause there. And instead of criticizing or reacting straight away and going, that person has no right.

• 39:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you're entitled to do that, but it has a cost. You can train yourself to go. Oh, why does that person have such a different worldview to me? What has gone on in their life that has led to them having that? What might I be able to understand here? And I call it in that chapter, adopting a learner mindset. Right? In every situation in life, what can I learn here? Yes. Not, how can I be right and prove my point? What can I learn here? I've applied that on my own life, like, as you know, the cost of having a public profile these days is you have a lot of opinions about your ability. And whether you're a great podcast host or a rubbish podcast host, or do you know what I mean? We have opinions about us because of the way the world is these days.

• 39:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I think learning how to deal with criticism, again, is one of the most important things we can do. Like, I used to really struggle with criticism. Like, I'd wanna push it away. Now I don't live this. Now, I've learnt to create that gap between stimulus and response. And anyone can learn to do that. You just need to practise. It's a skill that you can get better at. So if someone is criticizing me now, I go through, well, I do a couple of things. If I'm feeling triggered, I know myself well enough now to go, ah, wrong him. This is not the time. Okay? You need to ground yourself, calm down, before you start thinking about this. Because at the moment, you're stressed out and you're emotional.

• 40:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's very rare these days, but that would happen in the past. And when I'm calm, I go, wow, is there any truth here? And sometimes I'll be like, that's interesting, yeah? Maybe I could have praised my post differently. Maybe I can learn something and next time I post about this topic, I can improve. Yeah. It's really freeing then, you're learning. And if I think that there's no truth to that, then I'm like, oh, actually, it looks as though that guy's having a bad day and they're taking out their bad day on me. And then I open my heart and I go, wow, that can't be a nice feeling for that person. They're taking out their inner pain on me. I'm okay with that. They don't know me. And I'm okay with that. Do you know what I mean? And it's,

• 41:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  why I'm so passionate, Lewis, about this is because I didn't used to be like this. I didn't.

• 41:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then when I didn't, I found making change that lasts difficult. Because it's in conflict with who I was. But when you can cultivate this inner calm. And everyone can. Your relationships will be better. Your contentment will be better, you'll feel happier. And I'm telling you, having been a doctor for twenty three years. Your health will be better as well.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. It sounds to me like a lot of these habits you're talking about. When people can implement them, they will have. Less stress in their life. And what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong. Is that chronic stress is related to seventy eighty percent of most disease. Is that, is that accurate?

• 42:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let me phrase it slightly differently.

• 42:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  Eighty to ninety percent of what we see as doctors is in some way. Related to stress. It doesn't mean it's the only cause.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 42:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  But stress is playing a role.

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  And so if that's the case, if we can. Learn to navigate stress with more ease. And not let it consume us chronically. Maybe it's gonna come, but then only a little bit a day, not every minute of the day for years. What are the top ways then to? Eliminate chronic stress. So that it doesn't consume us and make us sick.

• 42:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so there's, there's multiple ways that you can tackle stress, right? Because there are external stresses and internal stresses. So let's just break it down systematically for people. So they can actually take action after this episode, right? And actually start to make changes. So, okay, let's take an example that I've, I've seen patients talk to me about for years. Okay.

• 43:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  And maybe you can relate to this. They've been good in inverted commas with their behaviors all day and they're eating well and they're. They're resisting temptation for the sweets and whatever it might be. But at eight thirty P M. On their sofa, they're watching T V. They feel like having ice cream. Can you relate to that?

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 43:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's very, very common. And people would say wrong, like. Like, I don't get it. Like, I know sugar's bad for me. Or this amount of sugar that I'm eating, too much is not helping me. But I can't stop eating ice cream in the evenings. So I created this little exercise called the three Fs, which I would use with patients that I write about to help people understand their relationship with stress and with sugar. Okay. So

• 44:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  the first F is feel, right? So, and Lewis, you can maybe try this in your own life. But next time you find yourself in the evening on the sofa craving ice cream, I want you to have a pause before you get the ice cream. Just have a pause and go, what am I feeling here? Is this really physical hunger? Or is this emotional hunger? Right? It's a very simple question, but often we don't take that pause.

• 44:33Lewis Howes?

  Feels like physical hunger.

• 44:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, fine. So let's say it's physical hunger.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  But it's a, yeah, it's not though.

• 44:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  But it might be, it might be, and you might want it. And there's nothing wrong with it now and again, right? So it's not, my body's craving sugar. Yeah, but the more you ask yourself these questions, the more you start to trust yourself, right? So the first F is feel, what am I feeling? Um, I actually, I don't know, I had a really big dinner. I'm not that hungry. But I just had a row with my partner. Or I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't seen anyone or been out for a walk. This is a treat to myself because all day I've been doing things for other people. Okay, then go ahead and eat it, right? Go ahead and eat it. Next time it happens, do the what, do the first F and then go to the second F. So the first F is feel, what am I feeling? The second F is how does food feed the feeling? The second F is feed.

• 45:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, so you've identified, let's say you've identified that you're stressed. You've had a row with your partner, you're stressed, and you've identified that when I feel stressed, ice cream makes me feel better because it does, at least in the short.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Temporarily, yeah.

• 45:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. Then you go, and so you're, you're drawing that connection. Oh, wow. I'm having ice cream because I go to it when I'm feeling this stress. Okay, great. Now you have. A degree of self-awareness that you may not have had before. And even simply having that awareness changes your relationship with that event. Like, there's good research on this, but it really does. Even being aware of what's driving your, what's driving your behavior, changes your relationship with that trigger, right? And then the third F, which you can do the next time, is find. Okay, now that I know what I'm feeling, the first F, right? Now that I know how food feeds that feeling, the second F.

• 46:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, the third F is find, can I find an alternative behavior to feed that feeling? Okay, so, oh, I'm feeling stressed because I've been on Zoom calls all day, and I haven't had any time to myself, and iStream is going to make me feel better. Okay, what else could I do? Oh, well, I love yoga, I could do 10 minutes of yoga. Or I could go and run a bath.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I could, I could soak in a bath with a candle on for 15 minutes. So you're still dealing with that feeling, but maybe in a more helpful way. And you can apply that three F exercise to most things in life. Alcohol, too much time on social media, whatever it is, it's a very simple exercise. You know, my whole thing is I love to talk about the big ideas, but then I want to make it really practical for people so that they can actually apply that. So I think for many people, they're going to go, that's quite a useful exercise for me, right? So that's one way that we can think about stress. I could talk to you about all kinds of stress reduction practices, like yoga, like journaling.

• 47:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think breath work is one of the best, right? We overuse the word hack, I think, these days, but breathing and changing the way we breathe, I think, really does qualify as a hack. So a lot of people don't realize that the way they breathe is information for their body, okay? So I don't know if you saw this study, Lewis, or not, but it was from UCLA, actually, that 80% of office workers change the way that they breathe when looking at email.

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 48:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  But they don't know they're doing it. So here's the thing, right? You'll, you, you're, you're engaged in a task. Maybe there's loads of emails and you're on deadlines and you're rushing through them and you're focused. The way you breathe will often start to change. So what will happen?

• 48:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  You'll breathe a little bit faster. You'll breathe more from your chest than your diaphragm. And your breathing will be a bit more shallow. Okay, so what does that do? That sends a signal to your brain that there's danger around me. It always comes back to the stress response, right? Your breathing signals as telling your brain there's danger. And then that encourages you to stay breathing in that way. So you're literally sending stress signals back to your body from your brain because your brain thinks you're in danger. So if you can then be aware of that and consciously change the way that you breathe. And there's all kinds of techniques. One of my favorites is what I call the three, four, five breath.

• 48:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  When you breathe in for three, you hold for four and you breathe out for five. Okay, very simple breath that I've been teaching my patients for years. And essentially anytime your out breath is longer than your in breath. You help to switch up the stress part of your nervous system. And you activate the relaxation part of your nervous system, right? Very simple, one three, four, five breath will take you 12 seconds. Five of them will take you a minute. And you will literally change your state because if you slow your breathing down. You then send calm signals up to your brain. And then they send calm signals back to your body. So I have a, you know, first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work before I actually have my coffee. That's the first thing I do.

• 49:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I do it as preemptive, right? So I do it to ground me in the morning. But I also learn about the breath so that if I get stressed in the day. I can just take a step back and do like two or three minutes of three, four, five breathing. And it really helps me. So it's one of many techniques that can help manage stress. Another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch. Like. Consentual affectionate touch is one of the best ways to lower your stress.

• 50:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So we've got in our skin, something called C T afferent nerve fibers. It's so interesting.

• 50:19Lewis Howes?

  Nerve fibers.

• 50:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  Nerve fibers. And these nerve fibers are optimally stimulated. Check this out at three to five centimeters per second. Right. Okay. So that's a stroking rate of three to five centimeters per second. Now here's the thing, no one's measuring their stroking rate. But this is how humans naturally stroke. Right. So a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate. We're doing that.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  And there's some research from the University of Liverpool that I've interviewed this professor on my show, Professor Francis McGowan. He has shown that when we stimulate those C T afferent nerve fibers with this kind of light affectionate stroking, it sends a signal to the deepest, most primitive part of our brain. And levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Can you do this yourself too?

• 51:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can do this yourself.

• 51:13Lewis Howes?

  But it's better if someone else.

• 51:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's better with a partner. It can be done with a pet. Right. As well. Like some, some people.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Like taking your cat's paw and like rubbing it on you or just.

• 51:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, but you get, but like, there's benefits both ways. Like even if you stroke someone else, you also get benefits. And what's really interesting, if you dive into that research.

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  I was gonna say, I was gonna get my cat tonight and just.

• 51:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  To stroke you, but yeah, but look, I'd never had pets.

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  Ah, yeah.

• 51:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  But people who do have pets.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's so, it's calming.

• 51:43Lewis Howes?

  So there's been a, there have been reports on lots of different dreams, right? There's been like people documenting their dreams and there's, there's studies around that.

• 51:51Rahul Jandial?

  Great question. First of all, let's equip people with what is happening in the dreaming brain.

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 51:56Rahul Jandial?

  And then what different dreams mean. So then they have a playbook at the end.

• 52:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:03Rahul Jandial?

  And what I would say is the dreaming brain is, this was the essential question is. Okay, so you got all the dream patterns. Right, so we got what we dream. You're looking at what people have catalogued. To make sense of why we dream, that's your essential question that we get to. And then there's this like, this, this thing like, like the dreaming brain and the waking brain, right? And so, and I believe these big ideas are applicable to everybody, like getting groceries frustrated. Why am I stressed out? Why am I overreacting? Like, all the, all the things for living a better waking life. You can't separate them from that, that third of your life you spend sleeping and potentially dreaming, right?

• 52:48Rahul Jandial?

  So, I go way, way back to try to understand this. And to make sense of it for myself. And, and I think you'll find there's, there's science and there's stories, but there's synthesis. So first thing is all life is, is governed by the rotation of the planet. Let's, let's just start with square one. Like, yeah, let's just get to the basic here, like, like whether it's like those hot springs deep in the ocean and there's some bacteria there. Or Venus flytrap that opens and closes. Or the moon and the tides.

• 53:23Rahul Jandial?

  Or sleep, right? Like, this, this is governed because that was the foundation on which life arose, right? And when, when you look at that, what I would say is the material, the living material on planet Earth follows that. Whether it's the tide, or the plankton, or fish, or, you know, all migration. But also the material in our brain. Really? Like, there's nothing in our skull that, if you pieced it out, there's no special ingredient. Like, from krypton or something. Everything in nature is also everything inside our skull in these brains, right? That's connected differently, it's functioning differently. But that was like the first thing that really tripped me out.

• 54:08Rahul Jandial?

  I was like, we too follow the laws, fundamental laws of Earth's rotation. These circadian rhythms you're hearing about, and cycles, and

• 54:20Rahul Jandial?

  and seasons. And that was the first time I said, okay, so the brain is, the brain is... The waking brain and the sleeping brain are doing a 24 hour cycle for as long as the run you have on this planet. Interesting. That's the first thing. That cycle, it actually, you know, there was like, I love this topic, by the way. There are like people who go into canes for like six months, it's still in a cycle. Like it's not based just on dark blackout shades or not, like we, the tissue in our bodies, the cells, we're following this earth's rotation, okay? So if we say that there's the waking brain and the sleeping brain, and every 24 hours,

• 55:04Rahul Jandial?

  it does its things, two third waking, one third sleeping, and that, and that happens for the most part, you know, for how long you live. Now, a surgeon in training, I might skip a few nights, so maybe I've had 500 or 1,000 nights, but overwhelmingly, I follow this cycle too. And in that cycle, we have to ask ourselves, well, what's going on in the dreaming brain? And right away, I'll tell you, it's so important, there's something called sleep pressure. You could, you can do, you could defy a lot of things, but you go a day without sleeping, there's something building inside you saying, sleep, sleep, sleep, you'll fall asleep in

• 55:45Rahul Jandial?

  a dangerous spot, you'll fall asleep standing up sometimes, you'll fall asleep even though you haven't eaten, like there's something fundamental called sleep pressure that makes us follow that rhythm, right? Your body will force you to sleep eventually. Well, I would say your brain. Your brain just shuts off. It's, it's, it builds a pressure. You can startle people and they'll wake up, but at some point, there's this pressure that's bringing you down to sleep. Really? That, you see that, I think torture techniques were based off of that, we saw that, nobody could stay up a third night in the hospital, they tried to get us through a long time ago, the battle day. Really? Yeah, but two nights, second night you could do, third night, so there's a sleep pressure that the brain generates, not the body, the brain, because in, just to give

• 56:29Rahul Jandial?

  you just examples like we're talking about, like, regular examples, we're not trying to get, we'll bring the science in, but the, the complexity is in the, in the concept. I can, we can put hearts from one to another, livers from one to another, lungs from one to another, they all follow that person's brain's order. So really, what we're talking about is the brain is saying, I need to sleep. Brain is saying I need to sleep. Brain is saying, okay, there's some threat going on, or you've got some demands. You're running an ultra marathon, you're a surgeon on call. I can go a day, but I need to sleep. So that's the first, the first thing in this discussion is, why do we need to sleep? Oh. Now, I'm gonna be bold here, this is a conversation.

• 57:12Rahul Jandial?

  I, I think we sleep because we must dream. Now, let me just set that up for you. Wow. What happens when you go without sleep? You have surges in REM and dreaming sleep right away. First thing you do when you've gone a day without sleep, if you put that person in a brain scan, but there's exquisite ways of checking it, is that they think, first thing they do is they dream wildly. Right? Like, so that's, that's an interesting thing to me. The longer we go in our night of rest, quote, restful sleep, the more you're dreaming on the tail end. Mm-hmm. Right? So maybe mental clarity, if we take that phrase, comes from having that longer night's sleep.

• 57:56Rahul Jandial?

  Well, what happens in that fifth, sixth, and seventh hour? You're dreaming more. Hmm. So when I start to see these patterns, I wonder, one, the brain, not the body, needs to sleep. And then, what is the brain doing in sleep? I just checked this out, man. It's, it's doing something that if you put electrodes on the surface of our scalps, and we all fall asleep, at night, during the day, the waves, the, the measurements are, uh, you know, sort of wavy, there's different ones depending on how you're engaging. At night, there are some sharp 90-minute patterns. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

• 58:40Rahul Jandial?

  That stuff is designed, that's built in. Really? Yeah. So that's not new. We don't have that when we're awake. No, during the, like, if, if something startles us, the, the electricity will be different. If we, if we meditate, the electricity will be different during, during waking. But at night, you're all, you're all something programmed. Then that's not new, Louis. That's the stuff that I've known for 20 years and sleep people have known for 40 years. What I'm trying to do is give you an explanation, a synthesis. That's not random. That's not a glitch. Seven billion brains on a 24 hour cycle. Sleep pressure, you got to lie down, you got to sleep. The brain is saying you got to sleep. And when it's sleeping, it's doing this.

• 59:25Rahul Jandial?

  90 crisp cycles, REM sleep. You've seen the charts, they're like, they look like Lego, they look like the top of a Tetris thing or a Lego thing. That is something fundamental that's happening, in my opinion. And so that's why I think we must sleep, but I think what's the most important part of sleep is the dreaming. My kidney and my liver don't need to sleep. You could take part of the liver from a mom and put it in the child. It's no longer connected the transplanted liver to the, to the web of nerves. Liver's fine. Lungs are fine moving between humans. Wow. Right? So what I'm trying to point out there is that it's the, it's the brain that's running the show.

• 1:00:09Rahul Jandial?

  It's on the earthly pattern. It wants to sleep and in that sleep, what is it doing? It's dreaming. The brain, in my opinion, with respect and humility, the brain needs to dream. The, the sleep is so that the brain can dream and stay fine tuned and stay fully adapted and stay fully enriched in all the corners of his mind without just the boring, boring part of our day, right? If the brain only did what we did, driving the 101 or doing this, which is fantastic, but it would become rigid, right? It would become like, like an arm that's never stretched past a certain distance. Right? You get a contracture. Well, the brain tissue, in my opinion, that dreaming is the brain's way.

• 1:00:56Rahul Jandial?

  Other people have other ideas, like it's threat training, or it's a nighttime therapist. I get that, and I think in some capacity. But at the most fundamental level, it's like high-intensity training for your mind. At night, it just goes wild to make sure all those capacities and resources, imaginations, if you will, are accessible to you if you needed them during the day, if the environment or, you know, evolution needed it. So that's like the big explanation about what's happening when we sleep. We're dreaming. Dreaming is important. It's metabolically active. It's electrically active. It puts us at risk. And even if you are in danger, your brain will force you to lie down so it can sleep to dream.

• 1:01:39Rahul Jandial?

  That's how fundamental I think dreams are.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Now, what if people, that's powerful. I'm glad you shared that. And what if people are listening or watching and say, "Well, I can't remember any of my dreams, and I don't think I dream at all."

• 1:01:52Rahul Jandial?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Lewis Howes?

  Because I can't remember them. So what's wrong with me, and should I be worried if I don't have dreams?

• 1:01:58Rahul Jandial?

  Well, I would say the genius is built in. So that's happening whether you want it or not. And the essential question of... I've had people ask me that, like, "Well, if I don't remember my dreams, is it useful?" I mean, what is it? Well, if you're not remembering them... So let me take that one apart a little bit. Here's my thinking on it. We'll bring in imagination and even sports visualization to try to understand that. And we'll bring in something called autobiographical memory. So let's start with memory first, okay? It's not what you're seeing on TV, or like, you know, remembering names or addresses. I like my iPhone. I don't want to remember phone number again, you know? Like, there's that kind of memory.

• 1:02:41Rahul Jandial?

  Then there's procedural memory, like riding a bike, tying your shoelaces. Then there's episodic memory, remembering episodes of your life. Right? So we have lots of different shades and types of memory. And the one that connects me to the fact that I was here with you maybe about two years ago is something called autobiographical memory. When I... I have gone through so many different things and so many different countries and places. But I feel as if I have been the I've inhabited and lived through all those experiences. Think about that, right? What's the thing that stitches all my life together? That's a type of memory. It's called autobiographical memory.

• 1:03:25Rahul Jandial?

  And, and so I think by design, by

• 1:03:32Rahul Jandial?

  and importance,

• 1:03:35Rahul Jandial?

  it's to, some rare cases, it's to avoid waking and dream confusion. So it has this wild run at night. But when you wake up, and we'll talk about that transition, like this, the transition between dreaming brain and waking brain, it's not a hard line. It's a little, it can be fuzzy in the morning and that's why some people report sleep paralysis and goblins and weird stuff. But the autobiographical memory has to come back into command. Because that's what stitches our waking life together. That's what's get food, get to work, get in the subway. So the autobiographical memory takes over every morning when we wake up. And for it, I think for us to stay,

• 1:04:20Rahul Jandial?

  to not be confused about what reality is because we had such a wild ride. It, it, there's, the memory is designed to have dreaming fade to the background. And so I think, I think it's happening, electrically it's happening. And we're catching a few glimpses of it bleeding into our waking brain and say, oof, last night, what was going on in my head? Pride. Those are the glimpses and the flares of the dreaming brain bleeding into the waking life. And those are the ones that, that

• 1:04:53Rahul Jandial?

  that we want to pay attention to. You know, so that's the, that's the way I'm thinking about dreaming. And trying to explain it too.

• 1:05:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so many questions I want to ask here.

• 1:05:02Rahul Jandial?

  Let's do it.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  There's different types of dreams. There's nightmares, there's erotic dreams, there's weird, crazy dreams, there's sleep paralysis. And I think I know what that is, because I think I've had that a few different times. So I'd love to start there, because this is something I can relate to, where I've woken up, but not been able to move or speak.

• 1:05:21Rahul Jandial?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like I'm screaming, but nothing's coming out.

• 1:05:25Rahul Jandial?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Lewis Howes?

  What is that? First of all, you're...

• 1:05:28Rahul Jandial?

  I know, right? But you're asking me to like, you're asking me to tackle giants of... Giants of mystery.

• 1:05:33Lewis Howes?

  Tell me everything what it is, yeah.

• 1:05:35Rahul Jandial?

  In one afternoon, you know, but, but what I, again, with humility, if you hold on to the concept, if you just, if you just say, look, that was, like, this, we don't have to do a study, but I get what he's saying. We're on planet Earth, we clearly have to sleep. Right? Our brain, I, I believe him, our brain is a thing that needs to sleep. And now what he's saying is, um, that, hey, check this out, while you're sleeping, you're, you're dreaming. Whether you remember none of it, a little of it, or some of it, you're dreaming. Okay? If we, if we, if we hold on to that, and then always come back to like, if one person

• 1:06:17Rahul Jandial?

  later on is like, huh, I am a cycle of waking brain, dreaming brain. Just, if you just walk away one thing, like, you're waking brain, dreaming brain 24 hours, waking in times whatever life is. Waking brain, and just to ask yourself, is this contribution to my thinking, to my emotion,

• 1:06:39Rahul Jandial?

  from the waking brain, or the dreaming brain, or, or somewhere where, where it blends? So when you, uh, sleep paralysis.

• 1:06:52Rahul Jandial?

  A third of people have experienced it. I haven't, but when I wrote, I started writing about sleep paralysis. The, what you describe about, uh, this is, this is great. Look, just give me a minute to take this one, because this one I got a lot of science. What, when you, what the dreaming brain also does is not just hyper emotional and hyper visual and dampened logic, right? That we, we opened with, hyper emotional, hyper visual, dampened logic. Okay, so that's there. What it also does is it locks down your body. So you're temporarily paralyzed.

• 1:07:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:32Rahul Jandial?

  There's some exceptions where reflexes or sleepwalking, but in general, you're temporarily paralyzed. So the dreaming brain can let loose, be emotional, be wild. And in the morning, that paralysis has to come off.

• 1:07:45Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:07:45Rahul Jandial?

  Right, that's an, that we can all agree on, right? That's, that's the dreaming brain and the waking brain. When there is a mismatch um, of you waking, your dreaming brain, the mind is coming to, but the chemicals that have locked down your body, right? The chemical paralysis is still there. People will wake up locked, locked in their body. That's kind of what you're describing.

• 1:08:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:12Rahul Jandial?

  And then on top of that, they start describing goblins and monsters and different things, lurking intruders. I've never experienced it.

• 1:08:18Lewis Howes?

  I never experienced that either.

• 1:08:19Rahul Jandial?

  But that's described so much so that if you go to Italy, you go to Africa, you go to other places, they all have a similar story of being locked in the body and having a threatening presence in the room and sometimes a feeling of suffocation.

• 1:08:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:34Rahul Jandial?

  That grouping is something humans experience and something cultures have come up with their own stories about. So if people want to look it up, it's like succubus, the incubus and succubus come from that.

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:47Rahul Jandial?

  And it's a famous painting of a goblin on top of a woman who's asleep, right?

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:08:51Rahul Jandial?

  What I want people to go is, ah, I see. That sleep paralysis that Lewis brought up was because the dreaming brain and the waking brain, they don't just snap to the next phase, that sometimes they bleed into each other. And that's called sleep exit. That little window is called sleep exit. Sleep entry is a fascinating one too, but sleep exit.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  I've almost, I've had it a couple of times at night, like in the beginning of sleeping also, where I've like fallen asleep. But like thirty minutes later, I've like woken up. It's almost I'm not asleep yet.

• 1:09:21Rahul Jandial?

  That's my favorite time.

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  But I am for a minute. And so my fiance says, I mean, this is just from her theories, but she says, you know, that's you entering a lucid dreaming, like allowing that to happen, allowing the sleep paralysis to happen because you're half awake, half asleep. And if you stay there and you don't freak out and scream, like try to scream, you could actually enter, she says, that's what happens for her and she enters the most incredible lucid dreams that are vivid and memories for her.

• 1:09:50Rahul Jandial?

  She's not wrong.

• 1:09:51Lewis Howes?

  And so it's more of just like surrendering to, ah, I can't move.

• 1:09:55Rahul Jandial?

  So she's not wrong. But again, so, you know, people are like, what are they talking like? If you just, if you, if, if you keep this conversation on the framework of dreaming brain and sleeping brain, dreaming brain and waking brain, then you know where the explanations land. So what you're talking about is the waking brain entering the

• 1:10:16Lewis Howes?

  The sleeping brain.

• 1:10:17Rahul Jandial?

  The sleep world. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:18Lewis Howes?

  Very good.

• 1:10:19Lewis Howes?

  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. 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,

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.