Mind Hacks: Joel Pearson

Welcome back to All in the Mind's little sister: Mind Hacks. In this episode, cognitive neuroscientist Joel Pearson tells us how he manages his own stress (clue: it involves saunas!) Each week on Mind Hacks, we're bringing you bonus content with special guests, featuring rapid fire questions about their mental health tips and pet peeves. It's like a psychology version of eff, marry kill! We're going to test this format out over the next few weeks, so let us know what you think, or if there's a guest you'd like us to invite back on the program for Mind Hacks. As always, you can reach us on [email protected] mailto:[email protected] don't worry, regular All in the Mind episodes will keep dropping every Sunday. Guest: Professor Joel PearsonPsychologist, neuroscientistFounder and Director, Future Minds LabUniversity of New South Wales Credits: Presenter/producer: Sana QadarSenior producer: James BullenProducer: Rose KerrSound engineer: Harvey O'SullivanRelevant All in the Mind episodes: Is AI making our brains lazier? https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/ai-making-brains-lazier-psychology/106353300"Scarier than killer robots": why your mind isn't ready for AI https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/scarier-than-killer-robots-mind-ai-psychology/103656056When to trust your gut instinct, and when to ignore it https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/when-to-trust-gut-instinct-when-to-ignore-intuition/103374880You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Sana Qadar from All in the Mind. This is Mind Hacks, our brand new midweek mini pod, where we try and get some tips and tricks and hacks from the experts we speak to about what they do to look after their own mental health. So we ask a few specific questions, kind of in the vibe of the game F, marry, kill. But we're way politer. We're asking love, hate, avoid. And this week, we have Professor Joel Pearson from the University of New South Wales. He's a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the Future Minds Lab at UNSW. We had him on our main show this week talking about AI and how that's changing our brains and whether it might be causing cognitive atrophy. So if you want to listen to that,

• 0:50Speaker 00

  scroll back in your podcast feed. But for now, Mind Hacks, here we go.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  So I'm going to ask you four questions. First one is love. And the question is, what is one mental health tool, strategy, or practice, or piece of advice that has made a real difference to you in your life?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  I'm going to say two. So I'm going to break the rules. Exercise and sauna.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Exercise and sauna?

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  OK, I feel like everyone is probably going to say exercise. But tell me about the sauna.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I just, I get a tremendous mood boost from the sauna. It's almost like a version of exercise you can do while you sit still, I find.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  So the perfect kind of exercise for me?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it does other things as well. It produces heat shock proteins and it does get your heart rate up. So last year, we purchased, got a sauna at home. And so I would try and use that when I can, if I'm not up for exercise. Or in the evenings, after the kids have gone to bed, I'll go and hit the sauna. And that is, if for whatever reason you can't do exercise, hit the sauna and you'll get a similar mood boost.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  How long do you spend in there?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  I don't think time or temperature is a way to think about it.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  So what I I have wearables where I'll I'll go off my heart rate and discomfort. So if you're going to use a sauna, it depends what the, yes, what the temperature is, but also most importantly, what your internal temperature is when you go in there. If you've been to the gym, if you've been running or doing exercise beforehand, your internal temperature is already really high, so you don't need to spend as much time in there. So you want to go off heart rate, get your heart rate up to the point where you feel that discomfort. So go off that that sort of that that feeling of discomfort and your heart rate rather than just time, because half an hour going in cold is not the same as half an hour going in hot.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  Good advice. Okay, hey, what is the biggest stressor in your life currently and how are you managing it?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Probably right now and on and off over the years, it is it is stress or anxiety. It gets me and it will periodically come up and down. I and because I have this weird thing where I both, I I love stimulation. I love nicotine and caffeine. I love things that stimulate. I like this this source of energy, so I'll tend to lean into those things too often sometimes. And then I'll go too far and it'll sort of push me over the edge into this sort of stressed anxiety state. And so that's I don't like that, but at the same time, I kind of like it just sort of a nudge or two before that critical level. And so what I the state I like to be in is a really flexible state where I can be switched on and and take on stress and anxiety, but then find a way to rapidly recover afterwards.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  So if you think about the sort of up and down and up and down, because the worst thing I can do or anyone can do is get stuck in that high stress state. And so I don't like the feeling of anxiety, but I like the feeling of energy and stimulation and being hugely excited about things. And sometimes all those things can come together and push me over the top. And then I have to pull back on all those things and quieten my life down, do more exercise, more sauna. Take more supplements and different kinds of food that will slow me down and relax me.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  It's like a balancing scale.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And I think that the best, you know, if you look at animals in the wild, then, you know, you know, they will have a few minutes of life or death and then they'll like a tiger or a lion, then they'll just lay around doing nothing for the rest of the day. So there's this peak, you know, and it's the same with people at the Olympics, you know, the Winter Olympics is on right now, where they'll wanna go hard, high stress, high performance and then recovery and just do nothing almost for a number of hours.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Okay, avoid. What is one mental health practice or trend or gimmick that you think people would be better off treating with caution and why?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  There are certain things that people have said, I don't wanna, no, I shouldn't name names.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Go on, name names.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  I mean, there, there, there's so much reward for certain influencers to say certain, you know, biohacky things that can change your life and do this.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Precisely why we asked this question.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, so what happens is you, people will map out and some of the best people in the, in the business do this sometimes. And they'll, they'll find a thing that works in a rat model or in a mouse model or an animal model. And then they'll translate that to humans and then give that as human advice, where that hasn't been tested in humans. And sometimes it will translate, but other times it won't. So that's why going from animal research to human research is important, because humans are very different to rodents. And so also the body's really complicated. And so this, so, so one idea would be that, you know, you, you need to wait a number of hours before you have coffee in the morning.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  So this, this is a popular thing going around. And as far as I have been able to find, there's not that much information to support that. There are components in the research that would support that in theory.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Whether that all comes together in the human body and says that, you know, if you wait two or three, two hours before having coffee in the morning, you will have more energy in the afternoon is, is what certain people have said. Um, I haven't seen any human evidence to support that. So there, there are situations like that.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  So free pass to have coffee whenever you want in the morning.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah, yeah. Go to town. Yeah, no.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Cool. All right. The final question is, um, what is the biggest thing that people get wrong about your work? Is there any misconceptions you'd like to clear up?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, two.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  When I talk, I've written a book about intuition. I talk about intuition a lot and they'll just take me to, depending on who they are, they'll either take me to say the intuition's amazing and should use it all the time, or take the other side of the coin where they're saying I'm destroying the magic and spirituality of intuition by making it scientific.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  And then when it comes to AI, people will think I'm coming to talk about AI. And I'm going to teach them how to use, how does AI work? How do you teach AI things? And how should they use AI? But I'm talking about the AI revolution and its human impact and societal disruption and the psychology around AI. So there's that confusion there sometimes.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  And if people want to learn more about your work on intuition, we had you on our episode about intuition and gut instinct. We will link to it in our show notes.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Thanks, Joel.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Pleasure.