Comfort Antidote -— Groks Science Show 2024-09-04

I'm Frank Ling.

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Coming up on today's program, Paul Taylor will join us to discuss death by comfort.

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On the Grok's Science Show.

Welcome back to the Grok's Science Show.

Well, modern life may be slowly killing us.

What is the antidote to life of comfort?

Joining us today to discuss this issue is Mr. Paul Taylor.

Mr. Taylor is an exercise physiologist, nutritionist, and neuroscientist who is at the University of Newcastle.

He is the director of the Mind, Body, Brain Performance Institute,

where he delivers resilience, leadership, and executive performance workshops.

And he created and co-hosted the TV series Body and Brain Overhaul.

He has penned the new book, Death by Comfort.

How modern life is killing us and what we can do about it.

Mr. Taylor, thank you so much for joining us today on

The Grok Science Show.

It's an absolute pleasure.

Thank you for having me on.

Great book you've put together here, Death by Comfort.

How our modern world is sending us to the grave a little quicker than we'd like.

I'm curious why you decided to put this book together.

Well, really a couple of reasons.

So I'm a corporate speaker and do lots of talks to different organizations and I'm consistently asked if I have a book.

So that nudged me into it, but really the drive for the book was my increasing concern about our

deterioration.

And I think it's really important that we have a book that's not just about deteriorating physical and mental health.

So both in my country where I live now, Australia, even though I'm an Irishman, but also in the United States,

one in two people is living with a chronic disease and we have significant mental health issues and it's worse for our teens and the trajectory is just getting worse.

So I really wanted to write a book to dig into the science, but also to give people an understanding and solutions about what they can actually do.

We weren't built for the environment we find ourselves in.

We're beholden to our evolutionary past.

This is absolutely correct.

I mean, what we now know from science is that the human genome hasn't changed in over 45,000 years.

So we still have a hunter gatherers genome that requires and expects us to do lots of movement, to eat real foods and to have lots of social connections, have intermittent stress, but then quite a lot of downtime.

And we've kind of been plunked into this world where we really don't move very much because of our built environment.

A lot of the food that we eat, more than 50% of all calories consumed in my country, your country are ultra processed foods that we know are destroying our health.

We are digitally hyperconnected, but socially disconnected.

And we really have terrible issues around our sleep.

And we have this ongoing, full on lifestyle where we're.

Just go, go, go, go, go.

And don't actually recover effectively as well.

You might be in peril, but then we'd have a lot of time to recover.

And this is the concept hormesis that you point out in the book.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, so hormesis is this really interesting branch of science and it's kind of summed up by sublethal exposure to stress or toxins, which at high levels can kill us, but at low to moderate levels induce stress resistance.

And I talk about a number of hormetic stressors.

In the book that we're really losing our attachment to.

And one of the biggest ones is, is exercise.

So exercise is actually good for us because it's a stressor and it activates the stress response genes that then switch on hundreds of protective genes.

And we get the same sort of things with cold exposure and heat exposure.

And these are what we call evolutionarily conserved mechanisms.

So we see it across timelines of evolution.

And across.

Across multiple species, everything from rodents to cats and dogs and primates and humans all respond to see him to these stressors by upregulating these protective genes.

So I think it's a combination of losing those hormetic stressors, but then we have these other stressors that are just bad for us.

Full stop, like the ultra processed foods, like the, the constant psychological stress that we go through.

And then the stress of social media, particularly.

For our teenagers.

So when we package all that together, it's really bad news for our health.

How do we get more towards the good stressors that will promote our health?

Yeah.

So, so look, we can't all go and become hunter gatherers again.

That's, that's clearly not the way.

So I talk in the book about the stuff that we can do.

And for me, one of the foundational things is around exercise.

And we know from studies of hunter gatherers who live today.

And particularly Hadza.

In Tanzania that they actually take more than double the amount of steps that we do.

But when it comes to moderate to vigorous physical activity, they do about 945 minutes a week.

And the average American and Australian doesn't even do 150 minutes.

So I always say to people, it's about getting the best bang for your buck on exercise.

So if we have limited time to exercise, it's about doing the stuff that is higher intensity.

And both in terms of cardiovascular.

Stuff, which is really good for our heart health and our overall health.

But also we know that resistance training, lifting heavy stuff is really beneficial.

And we have now uncovered in science, the existence of molecules called myokines that

actually get out of our contracting muscle and make all of our organs and organ systems

function better.

So this is what I like to say to people is that every time you exercise, the contracting

muscles are sending signals to all your organs.

Including your brain to just function better.

And then we need to couple that with getting back to a diet where we eat mostly real food.

And I talk about the low HI diet, which is low human interference.

And the key thing is to eat as much, I talk about the 80, 20 rule, try to have 80% of

the stuff that goes into your mouth has clearly been alive and not influenced by humans.

They're kind of the two major things.

Um, but then there's lots of other little things.

Things that we can talk about that add into that as well.

Sounds like the advice that had been given for years is eat right and exercise, but the

pursuit of comfort has made those most basic of things difficult to obtain.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, most people, when you talk about why they exercise, it's two things.

Number one is lack of time.

And two is that they don't like the discomfort of exercise.

And I really talk about embracing that discomfort.

And I think rather than saying to people, you know, you need to exercise.

You need to exercise to prevent chronic disease.

I like to turn it and talk about the upsides that every time you're exercising, you're

actually sending medicine through your body.

We know that exercise can prevent and or treat 26 of the most common chronic diseases, but

it's these mild kinds of this medicine.

So it's thinking about every time I'm exercising, I'm actually improving my metabolism.

I'm improving my sales, but I'm also improving how my brain functions.

I'm improving my mood.

We get all of these neurotransmitters released in our brains whenever we exercise that just

make us feel better.

And then we get more motivation to do the other things, to change our diet and to be

exposing ourselves deliberately to cold, to be managing our screen time, to be really

serious about our sleep hygiene.

But for me, exercise is the gateway behavior.

And because when people exercise regularly, it actually grows volume.

In the part of the brain that is to do with self-control and willpower.

So I like to get people to focus on exercising first, because when they're doing that consistently,

they find that they have more willpower and motivation to eat healthily, to be better

around their screens and their sleep hygiene and all of these things that are critical

pieces of the puzzle.

Speaking of screens is one of those things that has filtered into our lives, increased

our creature comfort.

And it gives us that slow drip of dopamine, those hits that is not sustainable and just

make us feel worse in the long term.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know what people need to realize is that there's some of the best scientific minds

in the world that are working on how to make technology addictive.

And the reason they want to do that is that their business model is all about your attention.

These things are attention thieves and people do it because they get those little dopamine

hits.

If you can't read from the constant scrolling.

But what they don't realize is two things is number one, all the time that you're on

your screen, you're missing out on real life, on human connections on wonder and awe.

But also, as you rightly said, there's the short term pleasure of the dopamine hit.

But the long term consequences that when we get off this stuff, we feel bad.

And by constantly having these free and easy dopamine hits, we actually reduce the sensitivity

of our dopamine receptor. So we actually change how our brain operates. And then the sort of stuff

that normally would give us pleasure doesn't give us pleasure anymore. And then we're driven back to

the screens and the highly palatable food that gives us these nuclear rewards of dopamine that

basically plays on these natural systems that are there. You know, dopamine is really there

to reinforce behaviors that are good for you, such as food, water, nurturing other people,

having sex, and also having achievements. So we're actually fundamentally changing how our brain

works by constantly indulging in these easy hits of dopamine that the human brain was never designed

for. That's the issue. You recommend doing a digital detox to get exercise in and eating right.

Yeah, a couple of things around screens.

If you look at your screen before your feet hits the floor in the morning, you've got a significant

problem. I really encourage people to take their phones out of their bedroom and to buy a cheap

alarm clock. And that becomes really important for our children, because we know that when children

have a device in their rooms at night, they sleep one to one and a half hours less than their peers

and have really significant increased risk and actually increased incidence of mental

health problems. And so I think that's a really important thing to do. And I think that's a really

important thing to do. And I think that's a really important thing to do. And I encourage people,

and I encourage people, that ideally an hour or at least half an hour before you go to bed, is put your

phones away. Get all the family to put their phones in a little basket, or go and recharge them, and

then do a wind-arm routine, right. And it's just we need to do stuff that prepares our brain for sleep

in this digital detox time. Now that can be meditation, it can be reading a book, it can be doing

breath work, if you're religious, it can be doing prayer.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

anything that is just calming your brain down and preparing it for sleep. Because when we're on

those screens, it's the combination of the blue light and the cognitively stimulating activity

that actually interferes with our sleep. And now we know that if you have a poor night's sleep,

you're more stressed the next day, your diet is worse the next day, you crave sugary,

fatty and salty foods, and you're a lot less likely to move and to exercise, then you're

less able to handle the stress of the day's events. And then you're more likely to go home

stressed and suit your stress with either rubbish and highly palatable food, or alcohol, which both

impact your sleep that night, and then it's kind of groundhog day, right? So for me, a good day

starts with the night before. And a critical part of that is that digital detox and the wind down.

Hard to do in this day and age.

It certainly is, yes. But I tell you what, this is the thing, it is hard to do. It's hard to

exercise. It is hard to choose the healthier food rather than the highly palatable, cheap processed

food. But I tell you what's a lot harder, is living out the last 10 or 15 years of your life

with chronic disease, as happens now in both my country and your country. So I say to people,

it's all hard. So you got to choose your hard. Advice then, what have you found has worked

best for you?

In terms of trying to adopt these healthier lifestyles?

Yeah, look, I think the thing that's hard is that our environment is set up to make it really

difficult. And that's not through design. It is set up that we have more sedentary lives

in terms of workplace. We do much more sitting. But we also have all of this entertainment

with screens and social media that cause us to be looking at a screen and we just

generally sitting when we're doing that. And we also sit a lot more in the workplace. We're

working longer hours. So all of these things in our environment are kind of conspiring against us

and they make it much more difficult. So I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for people. But for

me, it's really about getting clear on your reasons why it's important for you to change

at a deep emotional level. Like why will your life be better if you change your diet and your

exercise?

You get fitter, you get healthier. What are all the benefits? And then I like to get people to

create a little ritual board. And so it's using a little board or you can use your bathroom mirror.

We write down a whole heap of habits that you would like to do, such as exercise, eating healthily,

digital detox, all of these things. Gratitude rituals, I think are really important spending

time with friends. Because having that visual board and setting targets is a trigger to do

the behavior. And then when you tick them off, that actually releases dopamine. So this is the

big thing that I've found in the research is that our whole view on motivation is back to front.

Lots of people are waiting for the motivation fairy to come along and give them this big

dollop of motivation. But what we now know from science is motivation follows action,

not the other way around. So when your brain knows that you're in forward motion towards a goal,

that's when it releases dopamine that then drives that further behavior. So I'm a big fan of having

this idea of a ritual board, either in your kitchen or your bathroom, somewhere you're going

to see it lots and having lots of habits, some hard to do, some really easy. And when you're

highly motivated, do the hard stuff and take it off. But when you're not motivated, just do

something, just do 20 squats and then take it off. Because that taking off actually gives positive

feedback to the brain that then spurs forward. So I think that's a really good idea.

And I think the other thing I would say to people is set your goals. But if they're long term goals,

you got to break them down into short term. So if your goal, say it's weight loss, and you want to

lose 1020 kilos, that might be your eventual goal. But let's break that down. What is that goal look

like in three months, then what does it look like in a month? And then what does it look like weekly?

And this is why having these weekly check ins are really, really important. We know if you're going

on a long journey, you're going to lose weight, you're going to lose weight, you're going to lose

weight, you've got to have waypoints along the way to just check that you're going the right way.

And that is really necessary for that feedback. So I get people to break those goals down

into monthly and weekly goals. And then the really important thing is the process. And that's where

the ritual board that I mentioned comes on, what are all the behaviors that you need to do? And

it's focused on the process, process, process, process. And if you have a bad week, that's okay,

you start again next week. And if you have a good week, you think, okay, what happened on Monday and

Tuesday, that actually stimulated this good week. And so it's really about being your own scientist

and analyzing your behavior, and taking it day by day, week by week, gamifying your life.

Absolutely, we've got to gamify that process of behavior change, because the brain loves feedback

that you're making a difference and you're achieving stuff. So every one of those little

ticks is really, really important. Final words, if you want to learn more about the book or more

about the work that you do, where can they go? Yeah, look, you can get the book anywhere,

any of the good bookstops are on Amazon. But I think if people kind of like what I have to say,

I've got a podcast called the Paul Taylor podcast. And I do three episodes a week. One is a deep dive

with somebody who's at the top of the game in their profession, all around nutrition, diet,

performance.

Mental health and stress fitness, all of those things. Then I do one on a Wednesday where I

unpack a research paper and the implications for us. And then on Monday, I do one with my wife,

which is more of a coaching thing, because she's a coach. So that has got oodles and oodles of

information for people. So the Paul Taylor podcast, and death by comfort book would be the way to go.

We were talking with Mr. Paul Taylor, new book, Death by Comfort,

how modern life is killing us and what we can do about it. Mr. Taylor,

thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us today on the Grok Science Show.

Thank you for having me. It's been great.

And that's all for this week's edition of the Grok Science Show.

Make sure you tune in next week for more from the world of science and technology.

If you'd like to contact us here, you can email us at science at groks.net.

For Grok Science, I'm Frank Ling.

And I'm Charles Li. Make sure you also see us on the web at www.groks.net.

Have a great afternoon and keep on grokin'.

Thank you.