If you had to say, because a lot of what we've talked about is how being sedentary impacts you negatively, therefore, movement is medicine, and any movement is better than no movement. But if you had to frame it in the positive, what are the benefits of having a daily walking practice where you are getting outside and you are taking a walk outside every day? What are all the benefits to doing it?

Well, there are lots. And the obvious one is to start with is how you feel. You will feel better slowly over the days. If you've been sedentary and you haven't been moving before, you're going to find it a bit of a struggle, perhaps at first when you get walking, but you will, over the course of a few days, you will discover, actually, you feel pretty good and you miss it when you stop walking. And you will adapt very, very quickly. The example And the example that I give is we can adapt easily to walking 20 or 25 miles a day if we have to. It only takes a week or two to do that. But we won't adapt that quickly to running 20 or 25 miles a day, the equivalent of a marathon a day. We can walk the equivalent of a marathon a day, day in, day out, without too much trouble. But we can't run the equivalent of a marathon day in, day out, because our bodies are designed for walking and walking together with others, carrying children, carrying food. And we can break a walk up into a couple of maybe phases of three or four miles in the morning, another three or four miles in the early afternoon, another three or four miles in the evening, or whatever it happens to be.

So we adapt very quickly and our mood adapts positively because of that. I think you'll also find, in terms of cognition, a a general benefit, which is that you will feel a clarity of thinking that you might find eludes you otherwise. I think you'll find social benefits walking with others or walking and happening to meet others because randomly intersecting with your neighbors or those familiar strangers, It turns out to be a very good thing for you as well. So you've got all of those kinds of benefits. Those are all, quote, head-centred ones. But then there are lots of others for the other organ systems of the body. We know, for example, that things like metabolic disorders, things like type 2 diabetes or heart conditions and those kinds of conditions tend to drop off dramatically in people who are active compared people who are inactive. So there's a a positive feedback where that's concerned. Simple things like if you have a bad back because you're seated all day, rather than taking some pills to try and damp the inflammation down. Go for a walk and generate some natural anti-inflammatories, which will act against the inflammation and loosen your back out.

And you'll feel an awful lot better from that point of view as well. So there's a whole constellation of things that happen to be under this one word, which is why I say we're damned by this word, because we've only got one word which covers all of these other things.

Are there times when you should walk fast versus walking slow? And what's the difference in terms of the benefits?

I guess, again, it depends on your intention where the walk is concerned. If you're walking to enhance heart health, walking fast and walking at a pace where it's difficult to talk to another person is a really good way of doing that. That's better than jogging slowly. You're going to be placing more demands on your cardiac system and your circulatory system than you would have been otherwise. So it really depends. I'm inclined to the view, and this is just based on personal experience, that if you're trying to think through a difficult problem, if you're trying to engage in creative ideation, that it's hard to do that when you're walking very fast. That walking at a slightly lower speed is probably the way to go. And then if you're walking with kids, well, then you're going to be walking at the rate that they're walking at. So I guess it really depends on the purpose of your walk. If you're walking, I think to boost your overall physical health, walking at a good clip is what you really need to do. But if you're walking to think something through, probably walking a bit more slowly is probably the thing to do.

And there's a way to demonstrate that. Imagine, for example, I ask you to engage in a complex addition problem. Add 17s until you get to 999.

Oh, my God. I used to like you, Shane.

That's hard. Or take 17 away from a thousand. You can do that when you're walking slowly. You can do it sitting. But if you're walking fast, you'll find your ability to do it drops to zero.

I'm sitting here, so I'm sitting here going, what is a thousand minus 17 right now? 987. No, that's not it. 987, isn't that it? It's not. 93 No, no.

No? No. It's 883.

Sorry, 983.

You don't have it either. You're putting me off. It's 983. Anyway, my point is that we can see it here, when we're doing something that imposes a mild mental strain while we're talking to another person under slightly unnatural circumstances, our ability to do a simple mathematical problem drops dramatically as well. So my point really is that if you're thinking about something, probably walking a little bit more slowly is fine. But if you're walking for physiological health, walking more quickly is the thing to do. It depends on the purpose of the walk.

You know what? You're delightful. And if I ever come to Dublin, I hope you'll take a walk with me.

Of course.

You can even bring your dictator and do your little dictating as we walk. I'll let you do that.

Thank you.

You're great. You're really great. I learned a lot. I learned a lot, and I had a lot of fun.

Thank you.

And what I want to know is, what's been your most shocking discovery about walking?

I think it's the last chapter of the book. We underestimate the extent of which walking is a profoundly social activity. We think of walking as just a simple means from getting from A to B, and we underestimate dramatically how exquisitely attuned we are to each other when we walk. We underestimate terribly how enjoyable walking together is. If you think about it, humans made our journey out of Africa, 80 to 130,000 years ago. We did it on foot. We didn't do it using mechanized transport because we hadn't invented it. That's only something we really invented in the last 50 or 100 years or whatever. So it's something we have to do together. We did it in groups, we did it in families, we did it in tribes, we did it in communities. And to do that successfully means that everybody has to be paying attention to everybody else. People have to keep an eye out for danger. If you're walking at the edge of the group and you see a sudden movement in a bush, you're going to to quickly tell everybody that there's a tiger over there.

Either that, Shane, or I'm going to shove you in the direction of the tiger and run in the other direction. Exactly.

To survive a tiger, all you have to do is run a little bit faster than the slowest person, as the old joke goes.

It's true. Nobody that's listening to the podcast, but everybody on YouTube could see that I wore a orange and black-striped sweater today. I look like a tiger.

Maybe that's what primed me to give that example.

It could be, but you're right. I But I also think in modern life, the fact that so many people are stuck at home working hybrid roles, and you feel a sense of deep isolation, that you underestimate the difference that simply getting out even alone and walking in your neighborhood can have in you feeling connected?

Yeah, no, that's for sure. And I think if you take those two different examples, you going for a walk by yourself yourself? Are you going for a walk with others? There are clearly benefits to you from the very fact of you going for a walk for yourself. It brings clarity of mind. It's certainly good for your health and all of those things. You may also happen to accidentally meet people when you're walking. And you can talk to them, which is an easy thing to do. It's not so easy when you're driving or cycling on a bike or whatever to do that. But the benefit from walking with others, of course, arises from the fact that humans are intensely and immensely social animals. And we get this feeling that it's been given a variety of different names, but the one that I like is effrofescent assembly, which is the feeling of the dissolution between self and other, and people are walking together in a common cause. And we humans are the only species that do this. No chimpanzee has ever got up and gone on a protest march against the alpha because they're unhappy with an edict that the Alpha has handed down.

But you see right throughout, look at the history of the US over the last 50 or 100 years. You've got those amazing marches that happened in Washington. You've had the astonishing civil rights marches in the country next door, the UK. You had those huge marches against Brexit, which, sadly, were ineffectual. But nonetheless, a million people who didn't know each other together and walked the streets of London to protest a policy that they disagreed with. And we've had similar marches here for all sorts of reasons. And humans are unique because we will do this together. As I said, chimpanzees won't do it. Tigers, and we've spoken a moment ago, won't do it. Fire ants won't do it. This is something unique to us as humans.

If you even take that point that you just made and you distill it down to just something even more simple that's important to people's lives, I'm thinking about the fact that even when you join up with a group of friends and you decide to go on a walk in the afternoon, you are joining in solidarity in your friendship. And one of the things that I know that has made a huge difference in my life, and it's one of the many reasons why I wanted to talk to you, is when I moved to this new area just a year or so ago, it was forming a walking group with other women that had moved to the area that made me feel suddenly more connected. It made me feel more optimistic. It made me feel a little bit more excited about being in someplace new. I hadn't thought that much about the fact that walking is something that we've done our whole lives. It's something we do in political protest. It's something that we do to form friendships, and that that is one of the many, many profound reasons why it's an important part of everybody's life.

Dr. Hyman, you just said something that really struck me, which is that every single one of us, our bodies, has an intelligent healing system built into it. I immediately thought about the fact that we all know instinctively that if you cut your hand, your body knows how to heal itself. Exactly.

You don't have to go to the doctor to get a prescription to heal your It just knows what to do.

Yeah. And so can you just expand upon that for somebody who has never considered that concept, that your body is designed When you know how to take care of it, to heal itself, what the hell does that even mean?

It's really incredible. I mean, I literally get to be the witness to miracles every day. And people who are either wanting to just optimize their health and live a long, healthy life, or people who have end-stage diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, dementia, whatever it is, ADD, depression. When you know how the body works, you can learn how to optimize its function, which is what we call it functional medicine. Then you get rid of the stuff that's impairing our ability to function properly, and you put in the stuff that the body needs to thrive. You take out the impediments to health, you put in the ingredients to health. The She knows what to do. That's what happened. Why is there no more asthma in that story we just heard? Why is there no more pain? Why is her life totally transformed? She said, I didn't know food had anything to do with what I was feeling. Well, most people don't connect the dots between what they're doing in their life, whether it's what they're eating or the toxins they're exposed to or the stress they're under, the lack of sleep they're getting, or the fact that they may not move their bodies or learn how to do all these things.

They don't know how that's impacting them. They don't know how close they are to feeling We're literally only a few days, not weeks or months, from feeling better.

Okay, hold on. We're only a few days away from feeling better.

Yes, it's really remarkable. I take people all over the world. I put them in these groups. We do these programs around the world. And longevity programs, detox programs. And we change their diet. We move them a little bit, a little bit of yoga, not like running a marathon, but just general exercise, some simple body practices. And within six days, the average person reduces their symptoms from all diseases by 70 %.

Wait, what? Yeah.

I've done this so many times, and I'm like, I even shock myself because whether you have migraines, or irritable bowel, or depression, or insomnie, or joint pain, or fatigue, or brain fog, whatever the stuff you're feeling. I call it the FLC syndrome, which means you-What's FLC? When you feel like crap. There's a more serious version of that called FLS.

Feel like shit. Yeah, exactly. You know what's interesting is that I think about... We're constantly looking at what people DM us and what they fill out in the forms at melrobbins. Com. And I've started to wonder if part of the problem is that so many of us are used to feeling like shit.

Yeah, we don't know how better we can feel. We don't have any insight because we've never... It's like you have an elephant standing in your foot your whole life. You don't know what it feels like when the element gets off until it gets off. And so then people have the insight. I've written many books about how to do this. In my new book, Young Forever, I explain how to do this. I've written a book called The 10-Day Detox Diet, which is really what I used in my patients to help reset autoimmune disease, reset the gut, turn off inflammation, and get rid of asthma, migrate, whatever it is. People are suffering from depression because we know now depression is inflammation in the brain.

Okay, I'm going to stop you right there because I want to go point by point because I can you just hear Dr. Hyman winding up. I'm just winding up. He is so excited. This is a 63-year-old man with a six-pack for abs in the best shape of his life who has just written, Young Forever: The Secrets to Living your longest, healthiest life. And this is a book not about living to 170. This is a book about truly maximizing the years that you do have. Being energetic, being strong, being vital, having Like your presence of mind, being able to tap into the full opportunity of your life. And so I want to back up a couple steps because we were talking about the fact that your work in functional medicine as a medical doctor, decades of work with patients, of research, the books that you've written. We are going to link to all of this, everybody. So I know people are like, whoa, what was that 10 day detox? It will be in the show notes. Don't you worry, we got you covered. But I want to back up a minute because you talked about the fact that our bodies are designed to heal.

And so I want to give people a metaphor to start to think about because you've already started talking about food and that we don't stop and think about the fact that the environment that we live in and the things that we stick in our mouth and put into our body and the stress that we endure are all things that we can change for the better that have a material demonstrated impact on the quality of your health to the point where if you take this seriously within six days, you will feel better. Yeah.

What's so amazing, Mel, is that every cell in your body, your DNA, your microbiome, which are the bugs that live in your gut, your immune system, everything is listening to your thoughts. Everything is responding to your environment in real-time. We call it the exposome. Your life is not predetermined by some genetic destiny. It's the life and the exposome, which is all the sum total of all the experiences you've had, all the toxins, all the thoughts, all the relationships, all the food you eat, everything, washing over your biology, creating the expression of who you are in this moment. That's a very empowering idea because it's just something that didn't happen to you. You can actually be empowered to understand what those things are and change them and radically reverse your biological age, your health problems, your mental health, because the body has this incredible It's a little healing system, as we said.

Wow. Okay. So what a good metaphor, and maybe you have a better one, but I keep thinking about, if you think about the fact that a car, brand new car is designed to drive. It needs fuel, though. So if you want to take care of your car, you put in the fuel that doesn't have a bunch of crap in it, or you plug your car in, and you drive one of these electric cars. I think a lot about food as the fuel. And If your car drives best on electricity or gas, you would never put sand in your gas tank because it would clog it up. Is that a metaphor to get you thinking about how-It's even more exciting. What is it?

It's more exciting than that because Yes, food is fuel. It's energy. You need it to run your body. But there's all this other stuff in food that we've ignored besides calories. It's the informational molecules in food because It's not just calories, it's information, it's instructions, it's code that upregulates your biology or downregulates it every single bite. It changes your gene expression, your hormones, your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Literally everything is changed in real time by what you're eating. It's the informational molecules, the medicinal molecules in food that are speaking to us and changing everything about how we feel. Most people don't connect their food and their mood. Or their food and their asthma, or their food and their irritable bowel, or their food and their migraines, or their food and their depression, or their food and their depression. Or their food and anxiety, or their food and depression. I have a great story of a patient who was having horrible panic attacks. Yes. And this was a guy who was chubby at Big belly. So I knew right away he was insulin resistant, prediabetic, and probably had big swings of blood sugar and insulin.

Okay, stop. So are you talking about that pregnant belly that dudes get? Yeah. Okay, so when I see a dude with a big solid basketball, I'm like, beer gut. But what do you Well, it's beer because it's sugar or it could be sugar, or bread, or pasta, or potatoes, or rice, or anything that's starchy sugary will cause that belly fat. So is that like, you know how when you put yeast in bread and it ferment and it starts to rise? Not quite.

No, it's actually fat.

That's actually fat. It's not just gas. Okay.

This guy was telling me how he would have these horrible panic attacks. He felt like he was dying. Part was palpitating, he was sweating. He couldn't breathe. He felt anxious. Where I was he going? I said, Wow, what happens after that? He said, Well, I drink a can of Coke and it goes away. I'm like, Oh, you have hypoglycemia, right? Your blood sugar was crashing. When that does, so you get into a life-threatening emergency. Your body doesn't know that you can go to the grocery store and get something, you think you got to go get food immediately. It's really anxiety and panic attacks can be caused by many things, but one of them is huge fluctuations in blood sugar, and we see this all the time.

Wow. Today, we're talking about a topic that I'm getting a ton of questions about, like this one from Sarah.

Hey, Mel, this is Sarah, and I have a question. Are there actually ways to unlock sudden rapid steps to big change in a short period of time, or is this a dangerous misconception?

Yes, Sarah, there is a way to unlock sudden change, and it's called habits. And that's what we're all going to talk about today. You and I are going to talk about the science of habits. I want to repeat Sarah's question because I want to make sure that we unpack a elements in it, and then we're going to jump into the science of habits. Sarah's question was this, are there ways to unlock sudden, rapid steps to big change in a short period of time, or is this a dangerous misconception? Now, I said, yes, there is a way for you to experience big change in a short period of time if you change how you view yourself. I mean, that's the biggest change that you can experience. When you change your identity, when you change what you believe is possible, that's transformational. Now, one of the things that Sarah said, though, is she asked, Is it a dangerous misconception to think that big change happens immediately? And that brings me to the topic of habits. See, change doesn't happen overnight. But when you understand the science of habits, what you realize is that change, little change, It compounds daily.

And the massive change that you experience in a short period of time when you focus on habit formation is how you relate to yourself. So I'm going to give you an example. Let's say that you set a goal, that this is the year that you are going to run your first marathon. You're going to train for it. You're going to finish the race. Now, it will take time. It's going to take you time to achieve that goal. But if you make it a habit to wake up every day and get out the door and go for that training run, within a matter of days, something crazy happens. You experience this massive change because you start to see yourself differently. You start to see yourself as a runner. Now, have you achieved that goal yet? No. That's going to take time. But the power of habits is that as you practice them, they start to change your identity. They become evidence that you're the person that goes for a run. So in the beginning, habits are just something that you and I do. But over time, habits change who you are. So I'm excited for this because if you're somebody who's struggling to change, maybe you're trying to become a better student, or you want to be better with your money, or more organized, or you'd love a rock solid morning routine, or how about carving out the time to put yourself first?

That'd be a great habit. Or this is the year that you're going to become better at sleeping. You're going to make it a habit to go to bed earlier. Or I'm seeing a lot of you writing in with questions about launching a new business. You want to make it a habit to work on it. I see that. That's awesome. You're going to love this episode and everything you're about to learn, because habits are the evidence that you see that you're becoming a different person. And that shows up before you achieve the goal that you set. And this is why the science is so So powerful. One of the other things I want to remind you is that this episode on the science of habits, it's part of a month long series that I'm doing where you and I are covering the foundational topics that you need to understand and apply to your life so that you can create a better life. And just a few days ago, I released an episode on goal setting. And if you've listened to it, fantastic. If you haven't listened to it, no problem. It's there. You can listen to it at any time.

Listen to it right after you finish this In fact, all the episodes this month work together. They stand alone, listen to them in any order. It's totally cool. And you're going to also see that there's a big connection between setting goals the right way, according to research, and how habits are an integral part of that. Today, what we're going to cover is you're going to learn what a habit is. And even if you think you know what a habit is, I want you to listen, because research shows that most of us think we know, but we don't actually know what a habit is or how to apply what we know to making a habit stick. The other thing that we're going to cover is the three parts of a habit. These three parts are required. This is all grounded in decades and decades of research, and you need these three parts present in order to encode that habit into your brain as a brand new automatic behavior. And that's where really the secret sauce comes in. We're also going to talk about how these three parts and understanding them. It's essential, not not only to forming new habits, but you need to understand these three parts because they help you break the bad or old habits that you're tired of in your life.

And here's one more thing I want to say up front. I promise this is going to be really eye-opening, and it's going to be somewhat of relief. Because the science of habits, everybody gets all fancy and researchy and neuroscience and psychology and biology, but the truth is, habits are pretty simple. The research on habits has has not changed in years and years and years and years and years and years, decades, really. And the way that I explain the science of habits is so simple that even your puppy could understand it. I'm not kidding. There are only three steps to making a habit stick. That's it. And so even if you've listened to a bazillion episodes about habits, even if you've read a ton of books out there, I want you to stick around and stay with me on this. Because according to the two women, that created all the research that absolutely everybody cites, you may have heard that there are three parts of the habit. Well, you can thank Dr. Anne Graebiel at MIT and Dr. Wendy Wood at USC for creating the fact that there are three essential parts to every habit. These two researchers, they are the founders, the grandmothers of habit research.

Every book that you've read is working on their research. Every podcast interview, they're talking about their research. Nothing has changed about habit research in decades. But here's the issue. Those two women will tell you, even if you think you know habits, you still struggle with making behavior stick. And so my mission today is to make this so simple that you don't have a problem implementing the research anymore. Because I think there's a reason why none of us implement these three essential parts of a habit, even if we know about them. And there are two reasons why. Number one, we get all emotional about what we need to do. We know the three things that make up a habit, and yet we have feelings and opinions and all that stuff about it. That's number one. Number two, we, human beings, overcomplicate everything. We talk about habits. We think we're so fancy and educated. We can fly to the moon. We can drive in electric cars. We can do all these amazing things. And I think we forget that when it comes to habits, it's just these three things. It has nothing to do with your feelings.

It has nothing to do with how smart you are. In fact, Dr. Wendy Wood says, Almost nobody understands what habits are. And so you may know the definition. You may know the three things that you're about to learn. But when you are put to the test, are you actually able to make changes and get them to stick? No, not really. So Dr. Wendy Wood has determined that almost everybody gets this wrong, which is why we're going to simplify this. So let's just start with the basics. What is a habit? A habit is something that you do so often that it's automatic. That's it. That's all that a habit is. There's no drama, there's no resistance, there's no feelings involved in it. I like to think about it like a habit is something that you do that you don't even think about. And you certainly don't put up a fight about it, right? Here are some examples of habits in your life: brushing your teeth, looking over your right shoulder when you're backing up in the car, or if you're in the US, that's what you do. For our fans of the podcast over in the UK, you're probably looking over the left shoulder.

You don't even think about that, do you? You got to back up, you just turn and look. You get something to eat when you're hungry, that's a habit. You check email first thing in the morning, that's a habit. When you hear your name, don't you turn your head and look in the direction of it? That's a habit. Why are habits awesome? I'll tell you why habits are awesome, because when a behavior becomes automatic, there's zero drama in your life. It's just so much easier. Like, I'll give you my husband. The man is Mr. Habit. He just rolls out of bed like nothing's happened. He gets up, he gets dressed, he meditates, he goes to the gym, he walks the dog, he journals. He does it automatically. No drama. There are certainly areas in my life where I would love to be less dramatic, less emotional, less resistant to the things that I want to do. I'd love to just roll through it like my husband does. And so, let's, you and I, let's not just make this like a conversation. Let's move from listening to doing. If I could take a science-back magic wand, and I could Remove all the resistance that you feel in your body, what is one behavior change that you would like to make?

One new habit, or sometimes It's easier to say, what's a bad habit you'd like to break? Do you chew your nails? Do you hit the snooze button five times? Said in the positive, What's a What new habit you'd like to create? Would you like to exercise every day? Do you want to get your finances in order and be more responsible with money? I'm going to give you a few examples, okay? Would you love to be the person where part of your routine is to get outside and exercise every day? Or how about the person who keeps your room or your desk clean or you have a zero inbox? That'd be Would you like to be the person that gets up 30 minutes earlier than you do right now, just rolls right out of bed like my husband does? Or how about the person who feels comfortable in social settings? You push yourself out there a little bit more. You push through that discomfort. You feel a little bit more outgoing. Maybe you want to make it a habit to meditate and feel like you're the person that's more mindful. That's where the science of habits is so important.

And so now that you've to stop to think, what's a habit I want to break? Or what's a behavior change I want to make, the person I want to become? I have a free worksheet that's a companion to this episode that you can download. You can go to melrobbins. Com/habits, and it will serve as a guide to this episode. It's going to help you apply everything that we talk about in this episode. Now, why do habits matter so much? I'll tell you why habits matter. You've learned one reason, and that has to do with identity, right? But the real reason why habits matter is because learning new habits are the only way to go from what your day-to-day life looks like right now to something different. It's the only way. It's the bricks on the pathway to changing your life. That's what habits are. And habits are evidence. Every time that you get out that door and you go for the run, it's evidence that you are becoming a particular type of person. The other reason why habits are so important, habits are so important, is because they make your life easier. I mean, I want you to just stop and consider something.

Think about how hard it is. To be the person who has a habit of hitting the snooze button four or five times every morning. And then you drag yourself out of bed, that's a habit. And you start your day chronically late, that's a habit. I used to do this. I used to do this. This was the Mel Robbins that you did not know. I was a chronic snooze button hitter. I would drag myself out of bed. By the time I got out of bed, the kids had missed the bus. I Started the day behind. It was a nightmare. It was so hard to have that bad habit. And in order to change, I needed to become a different person. I needed to become a person that got up when the alarm rang, that had a morning routine, and that organized my morning so that I would begin the day with a sense of accomplishment. That's what I wanted. Instead of beginning the day like I was behind and I was already failing before I got out of bed. And the gateway to making that change is changing your habits in the morning. When you have habits that support you and your goals and the person you want to become, your life gets easier.

And that's why habits truly matter. Sure, you could You could muscle your way out of bed every morning. You could drag yourself to the gym. You could berate yourself endlessly until you got more motivated and aggressive and vocal at work. But that change is never going to stick. It's never going to become automatic. It's never going to become who you are. Why? Because you're forcing yourself. You're relying on willpower and brute force to push through the bad habits that you have of sleeping in or staying silent or blowing things off or procrastinating. And that's where these three steps come in. What I'm going to teach you today doesn't require willpower. You're going to learn how to use science to make new behavior a part of your wiring. This resistance thing It is so important, and I think we underestimate how much bad habits are in our life and running our lives, and how it's making your life harder. So I'm going to give you a simple example of a habit that I currently have, so that I can really unpack this resistance thing, okay? So I have a habit of making a cup of coffee every single morning.

I love my morning coffee. I do. And it is so automatic. I don't have to think about it. I know how to work the coffee machine. I know how to work the milk farmer. I know exactly where the coffee pods are. I can literally be doing 15 other things while I make a cup of coffee. That's how automatic of a habit it is. It is easy. I don't even think about it. What if I told you that you could make any change in behavior feel as effortless as making a cup of coffee? Wouldn't that be cool? I mean, I don't stand in front of the coffee maker and go, Oh, it's raining outside. I don't want any coffee. I don't feel like it today. I'm too tired. I don't want to. No. It's a habit, so I just do it. And I'm saying this because this is what the research says. The research says, when you apply the three things that you're about to learn to with every behavior change, whether it's breaking an old habit or learning a new one, you will make your life easier. Another thing that's important for you to hear is that successful people, based on the research from UPenn, they're not smarter than you.

They don't have more willpower than you. You know what they have? They have what Chris has, my husband. They just put in the work to create better habits that make them feel successful and make their life easier. And the more you apply what you're about to learn, the more behavior change you can stack along along the way. You can create a chain of behavior change. It's so cool. Just like Chris rolls out of bed and walks into the bathroom and brushes his teeth and doesn't even think about it, and then gets on his exercise clothes, then goes and medit... That's a chain of behavior. That's a chain of habits. He doesn't even think about it. Because every new habit that you want to create, it's the exact same three-step process. I am telling you, do not overcomplicate this. Do not think you're fancy. Whether you to break a bad habit or you want to encode new ones, let's not overcomplicate this. And I know what you're thinking, Mel, if this is so simple, why is it so hard to get to the gym? Why can I not stop emotional eating? Why am I chewing my nails?

Why is it easy to talk about it, but hard to make it stick? Just accept at face value what you're about to learn. You and I learn new behavior the exact same way a new puppy does. And I'm going to prove it to you. Not everything in life needs to be so hard Or so complicated. So let's all just take a deep breath because we're about to make habits easy. And this is why, by the way, the research shows that nobody understands how to apply the research. Because we read, Oh, it's just these three steps. And we're like, no, no, no, it can't be. We want to think that we're special. But no, we're not. You are like a puppy. And this is why it's so hard to accept the truth. And you want to know something crazy? So right before I came up here to talk to you about habits, honest to goodness, you know what I was doing? I standing in my kitchen with my family of five, and we were in the middle of a dog training session. I'm not making this up. We have a three-year-old Australian Shepherd named Yolo and a five-month-old puppy named Homey.

And Homey needs new habits. Homey is not going to go from being a puppy to a beautifully trained dog without us training him. You are the same way as Homey. Right now, there are areas your life where you're doing whatever the hell you want to do, just like my puppy is. And you and I are going to go back to Obedience School, back to the basics. That's what habits are about. And as I was sitting there watching this training session with our two dogs, I'm thinking, holy smokes, it really is this simple. Make those habits sticky people, and let's start with a question from a listener named Eric. Hi, Mel.

My name is Eric. How do I create habits that will stick? So once I keep going, I'll stay with it.

I want to make it easier. Eric, I'm so glad you asked, because you know what? I don't want that new treadmill that you just invested in to become the most expensive coathanger in your house. And the truth is, there are simple, fun, and easy ways that will help you stick with the new habits that you're trying to Great. And look, I want to say something right up front. I'm not exactly the expert in this. I'm applying the same tools that you're going to learn in this episode. I'll tell you a quick story because I'm in the same boat as you. I I signed up this year to do this 75-day mental toughness challenge that is requiring me to do a bunch of brand new behaviors every single day. So I am in the habit formation soup with everybody. And I have a confession to make. This is the second attempt that I'm making at completing this 75-day challenge. Because I failed last time I did it. I signed up last year, and this challenge was so hard, I bailed within a week. So all the stuff I'm about to share with you are the things that I'm using that I've seen other people use so that I don't fail at it this time.

And so here's how this episode is going to roll. I'm going to explain the new daily habits that I'm trying to learn and stick with and manage. And as I do that, I want you to think right now about the change that you're trying to make, okay? Because I want this to be relevant to you. That way, it's not only going to be valuable for you to listen to this, but it's going to make the change that you want to make easier. So I'll start first. So I've committed to do this 75-day challenge, and here is what the challenge says I have to do for 75 days. No alcohol. I have to eat a healthy diet, which for me, I've decided I'm going to just eat a normal diet because I'm a healthy eater, but I'm not going to have any gluten or dairy for 75 days. I got to work out twice a day, and one of those workouts has to be outside. I have to drink a gallon of water, I have to take a progress photo every day, and I have to read 10 pages of non-conviction every single day. And the way that this challenge works, and this challenge is really like, bro, it's like a bunch of dudes created this thing, very discipline-oriented.

Because here's one of the rules. If you miss any one of those things that I just listed, you have to go back to day one, period. That's how the challenge works. Now, you may be I'm wondering, Okay, why the hell are you doing a challenge like this? I'll get to this in a moment. But I want to be very clear about something, everybody, because a lot of times when I share that I'm up to something, everyone is like, Oh, I want to do that, too. But I want to be clear about Something interesting. This challenge I'm doing is called 75 Hard. It's been around for more than a decade. It's something you can find out about online. And the reason why I want to be clear about something is because this challenge has specific rules, and I'm going to do the challenge based on the rules, okay? But the rules of this challenge are at odds with what the science around habits actually says. See, habit research says that if you miss a day, you don't default back to day zero. You don't lose progress by missing a day. And so I want to be very clear upfront that you can still be successful in making new habits stick.

You can still be successful in seeing a change to change through if you miss a day or two days, or a week. And so I want to be clear that the 75 hard challenge that I'm doing that punishes you for missing a day is not the reality when it comes to neuroscience, biology, and all the research around habits. And I know you're concerned about this because I'm getting a lot of questions about, well, what do I do if I fall off? This one from Zoe. Hi, Mel.

It's Zoe. And I am wondering, how do you not let your setbacks keep you from getting back and trying again?

On New Year's Day, I was resolving not to eat sweets, and literally, the first thing I ate was some chocolate birthday cake. And by noon, it was all over. So thoughts? Any suggestions? Any tips? Thanks. Happy New Year. Great job, Mel and all your crew. Oh, Zoe, we love you. So for Zoe and every one of you listening, we're not robots, we're human beings. And Habit Research says that screwing up does not impact your progress or your ability to make habits stick. In life, unlike this challenge, 75 hard, that I'm doing, if you miss a day, all you do is miss a day and then move forward. That's it. And research shows the new neuro pathways that you create, Zoe, once you start the new habit of trying to remove sugar from your diet, they're still there. And we know this based on research from Dr. Philip Alali at the University College of London. And there's something else. It's called the what the hell effect. Science says, you're not behind. The problem is, is that in our mindset, we have this, what the hell effect. You think, Oh, one mistake. I eat the cake. What the hell?

I guess I'm screwed. I'm not going to do that. And this comes from Duke researcher, Dan Ierley. He writes a lot about this. And you know what's really funny, Zoe? Is that even in Dan's writing and research, you want to hear what he's quoting? I just had one slice of cake when my goal was no sugar. So what the hell? I'll have a couple more. I swear to God, that's the example that he used, Zoe, when he was researching the what the hell effect. And I'm raising this before I teach you the five simple systems that you can use to make habits stick, because I want you guys to go into these five simple systems knowing that if you screw up one day, you go a couple of days, you go a week, you can still get right back on track. Okay? I need you to think that failing is not a big deal. You can recover, period. So Zoe, once you eat that piece of cake, just appreciate how delicious it was. Savor the moment, and then get up Walk around the house, shake it off so that you don't eat another slice. Recognize, Oh, here's that what the hell effect.

I'm not going to follow for it. And then get right back to your promise. Cut yourself some slack and keep going. That's all you need to do, Zoe. And there's one final thing I want to say to Zoe, though, and any one of you who has made a promise, and within four hours, you broke it. Let's have an honest conversation here. Do you actually want to give up sugar? Do you actually want to exercise every day? Do you really mean it, that this is the year that you're going to start that business? And I'm saying that to as a friend. We just did an episode on the science of goal setting. And I want you to go back and listen for real. If you're somebody who chronically makes these resolution solutions or goals for yourself, and then within the first day or two, it's out the window. And the reason why I'm asking you to go back and relisten to the episode we did on the science of goal setting is because if this is like a chronic pattern for you, I suspect that you're not in touch with why you want to stop eating sugar.

Because remember in our goal setting episode, in order for a goal to be achieved, it has to have two components to it: the will and the way. And the will means that this goal is personally relevant. You want to do it. And so I suspect Zoe, that if you're already eating cake four hours into this thing, you're missing the will. And that's not willpower, by the This has to do with intrinsic motivation. The reason why you're quitting so fast is because you're not in touch with why you want to quit sugar. So go back there. If you set goals and you don't have any why, the how, you're going to fail before you start. And so that now brings me back to why on earth am I doing something called 75 Heart? What is my why? Why am I doing something so challenged? Because identifying that is important. No, it's critical to me not bailing within a week this time. And I want you to think about your why, whether that's eating keto or saving money or finishing the manuscript or becoming more organized or getting back out there and finding somebody to share life with.

Whatever it is, get in touch with your why. And it's important that you do that before I tell you these five science-based systems and hacks. And I'll tell you why I decided to do this mental fitness challenge. It's simple. I want to play a really big game in life and have a personal breakthrough. It's really simple. This year, I want to play an even bigger game in life. And I also want to have a breakthrough in personal discipline. It's that simple. That's my why. Plus, a bunch of my family members are doing it this year, and I really wanted to be a part of it. The why is critical. So stop and think, why am I doing this thing? The The goal that I want to have Mel's help sticking with, this habit that I really don't want to bail on. Why is this important? Now, 75 hard for me. I should be calling it 75 brutal. Because the truth is, I have not gone 75 days without having an alcoholic beverage since I started drinking when I was 16 years old. When I think about cutting out dairy and gluten, which is something I want to do because I get a lot of sinus congestion, and so I'm curious to see if dairy or gluten is the reason.

But cutting it out for 75 days, I mean, that's what I eat for breakfast. Hello cereal. Hello, oatmeal. Hello, coffee with cream and sugar. Hello, sourdough toast with bread. Now I'm starting to wonder, why on earth did I make myself do this? Oh, yeah, that's right. Because I'm tired of having sinus issues, and I'm tired of having my gut feel funky. And so here's what I figure. If I can make these six things, exercising twice a day, no alcohol, sticking to the Diet, reading, water for 75 days. You want to know what? I can fucking do anything. And that leads me to yet another takeaway. If you feel stuck right now, if you feel like you're in a rut, if you just got dumped or fired, or you're going through a divorce, or you put on more weight than you've ever had, or you're just feeling lost in life, you have no clue what you want to do, here's a tip from your friend Mel Robbins. If you don't know what to do in that situation, sign up for something challenging. Train for a marathon. Commit to doing something that feels hard as hell and that pushes you outside of your comfort zone.

Something that forces you to add something new to your life. Like a training run every single day, or a class where you're going to learn something, or a meditation challenge, or, Hell, 75 harder. How about this one? If you don't know how to swim and you're an adult, it'd be pretty confronting to go to your local Y and sign up for an adult beginner swim class and learn how to swim, which is a life-saving skill. Or maybe you want to sign up for tango lessons, and you've always thought about how fun it would be to dance in competitions. See, what's interesting about a challenge of something scary and hard is it forces you to level up every area of your life because you won't be successful adding this challenge into your life and completing the goal. If you don't change Change your life and your habits and the systems of your day-to-day life in order to be a person who can achieve this goal. It literally shocks you to your core when you sign up for a challenge. And it reminds you, I'm more powerful than I think. I'm not stuck in this situation or this shitty relationship or this dead-end job.

I'm more powerful than I think. And just trying this online challenge or training for this marathon or this road race or this walking thing, or whatever. It's getting me back in touch with me. How do you know if you're getting enough sleep? Based on the things that you study? Yes. Because you hear eight hours.

How many hours do you sleep, by the way?

The older I get, the more boring I am. So I would say nine or 10.

Yeah, I love that. People who sleep less than six hours have higher mortality. They have lower mood And they are hungrier, as we said, with the leptin. What you want to do is really to realize how much sleep you need is when you sleep without an alarm, How many hours do you sleep? And not when you're sleep-deprived.

Oh, I bet I sleep 10 hours. If I don't have an alarm on, I sleep way longer than I think I'm going to.

When you When you look at the last couple of weeks of your life, the best days, the when you felt the most refreshed, the best mood.

Were the days I got the highest amount of sleep?

By far. That's how much sleep you need. And every American that's listening to this is going to be like, I can't sleep that much. But you think about your best days of your life happened when you slept adequately. It changes your hunger hormone It changes your hormones in general. For women, especially as we get older, this is important. It changes your mood. It changes your ability to make decisions. And your interactions with other people. So why would you want to skimp on that? Why would you say that you'll be like everybody else, sleep when you're dead? When you look at the data, the data says opposite. It says, if you don't sleep, you'll You'll be dead much earlier.

That's true.

If you don't sleep, you will be more depressed, more anxious, have more hunger and craving signals. You are going to be a version of yourself that is a shell of what you want to be.

So one final thing that I think would be extremely helpful to people. Let's assume that we went to bed early, and we wake up and we get a good night's sleep. Can you walk us through what you would recommend the eating routine or what is on our plate and when are we actually eating? Okay. For complete hormone balance.

Yes. Okay, so as you know, everybody is different, and their life circumstances are different. Every time I do this, people say, Oh, but I work night shift, or I have little kids. I get it. I had many years where I didn't get enough sleep, where I didn't get enough sunlight, where I couldn't make the best decisions because I was just so pulled in all the different directions. So I get it. But we didn't even talk about circadian rhythms, but Mel, sunlight and darkness run our bodies. We have internal clocks in every one of ourselves. So routines are excessively important in terms of our mood and our Our body, our nutrition. So when you wake up in the morning, you want to get sunlight. I have a rule that I learned from someone online. Basically, I did this for a few days, and I felt the best I've ever felt, and I'll tell you what it is. When you wake up, instead of scrolling your phone, checking your messages and your emails, go get sunlight first. Sky before screens.

Oh, I love that.

So sky before screens is how you should start your day. Your body is wired to see sunlight in the morning, even if it's a cloudy day. It just has to be bright light. You can just walk out outside. For me, it's my back door to Just walk out for a few minutes. It could be 2 to 10 minutes. For me, I'm usually just in my pajamas, so I'm coming back in and getting ready for the day. So you don't want to have food or caffeine in the first 45 minutes of your day.

Why?

I'll tell you why. When you wake up, you feel groggy, right? Yeah. That grogginess is partially, mostly from adenosine in your brain. Adenosine. Adenosine. Okay. And it clears out, as you know, within 30, 40 minutes, it clears out. Then you have your coffee, then you eat your food. And the reason why is coffee, the way it works, it blocks our adenosine receptor. So that means that it doesn't help get rid of that adenosine. It just blocks it from actually binding. So if you don't let that adenosine clear out and you just drink your coffee, when the coffee wears off in a couple of hours, that a dentinine is still there, and it just binds those receptors, and you feel excessively tired.

And that's why you think you need another cup of coffee.

And then you're fully dependent. Like the people that wake up and they need the coffee right then, and then they need it again at 10:00, and then they need it again at 1:00, it's because you're not letting that adenosine go. You need to let that clear out.

I'm guilty of this. So I am going to try this tomorrow. I am going to Absolutely. Have my coffee, and then... Oh, no, I'm not. I'm going to wake up. I'm going to wait 45 minutes. Then I'm going to have my coffee. I'm going to see if I have a craving for a second cup. Yes. That is fascinating. Okay.

So you want to let it clear out naturally because It's not going to clear out naturally if you start the caffeine cycle right away. Got it.

So clear it out for 45 minutes. Get our son in. What's next?

Eat.

Okay. No intermittent fasting.

So everybody... I love intermittent fasting.

Then why are we eating?

Because I do it the opposite way.

Talk to me.

There's very good evidence that for thousands of years, we ate in one scheduled way, which is daylight hours. There was no microwave Uber Eats. They had a fire, and you'd maybe eat an hour or two after sundown. That's it, right? Yeah. You are not snacking at midnight. There's nothing. There's nowhere to store the food thousands of years ago. Our internal clocks are set so that when melatonin hits 2-3 hours before bed, your organs shut down. You cannot process sugar as well as you did. You can't take it into your muscles. You are not releasing digestive enzymes. So basically, when you're eating late at night, you're waking your body up in the middle of the night and asking it to do a math problem. Your body is going to be like, I don't want to do this. I'm going to make mistakes. You wake up and you're tired and you're pissed that someone woke you up in the middle of the night. That's what happens when you eat late at night.

Holy smokes. You put your body in conflict with itself.

Yeah. So intermittent fasting, everyone's doing it the wrong way. They're eating way late into the night, and then they don't eat all day when the sun is out. That's the time that your body is ready for food. So ideally, you wait an hour because nobody needs to be eating every minute of every day. Americans, we just eat 14 to 16 hours a day. It's just too much, right? So you wake up, maybe you get some movement in, you get your sunlight, you eat about an hour or or two, even after you wake up. You don't need to push it to two, three, four. People are doing this thing. There's good evidence that skipping meals is actually bad for you and that people who do it habitually actually have worse health outcomes. Got it. So eat your breakfast. You want to have a high dopamine breakfast. Let's have cottage cheese, eggs, tofu, scramble, veggies, nuts, berries.

Great. When do I eat next? Because I'm already hungry. No. Am I Are you hungry right now? Are you hungry? Would I eat vegetables? I would eat vegetables right now. There you go. Then you're hungry. So that must mean I'm hungry. But I got to have a glass of water first, and then I'm going to ask myself that again. See, I'm learning.

Then you tune in with the inner mouth, the brain-gut mouth. So then you can eat when you're hungry. Again, you can use your inner cues. Could be 12, could be 1, whatever your inner cues. You'll notice your Ghrelin is set on a Timer. Every day, you'll get hungry at the same time.

So hello, Ghrelin. It just stopped Yeah. It just, I think, dumped on me. Yeah. So what do you eat for lunch?

So basically, lunch is a chance for you to get... The healthier you eat earlier in the day, the better your chance of sticking to it. So they always say exercise and eating healthier foods, breakfast and lunch, is your best chance. So for me, I automated. And I had already talked to you when we had talked before that I try to eat the same things every day. So what do you eat for lunch? So I eat a salad for lunch. I I usually put a protein source on it. It could be different beans, nuts, it could be tofu, it could do eggs, you could do salmon, whatever you want. Protein and veggies, a salad with protein on it. And I always have a fermented probiotic food with my lunch because that's the best time for you to get in at least one to two servings of the kimchi, of the sauerkraut. It could be kombucha for a drink, apple cider vinegar in your dressing. So That's when you have the best chance. Really simple. It can be very simple. And then your dinner is when you want to eat. If you are someone- Serotonin baby. Yes, you're learning.

I'm paying attention.

So I know it's not sexy to say eat carbs, but carbs actually can be very healthy for you, especially in vegetable form, sweet potato, quinoa, whatever it is. You can eat that later in the day if you want to have that big boost of serotonin.

And what about snacks? If I'm legit hungry, but I'm not really craving anything, but I'm legit hungry midday, what's your go-to snack?

So remember that protein has this effect on your body that it tells your hunger to to hunger hormones to stop. So if you want more leptin, eat more protein. So your snack can be yogurt. Your snack can be a protein shake. Your snack can be a piece of cheese. Something protein because that will keep your dopamine levels up, and it will keep your hunger hormone stable. So protein snack, I think women, especially, we're eating just too little protein. There is a theory Yes. That the reason we get fat from eating ultra-processed food is because it's so low in protein that your brain never gets the signal that you're full. Your protein threshold is never met. Wow.

One final thing I want to ask you because we didn't really cover it, gluten. Everybody I know is gluten-free. Yeah.

It's not the gluten. There's very few people who are actually allergic to gluten. It is very common to have GI issues with processed gluten. So when you eat a lot of bread, pizza, carbs, but that's not the gluten itself. It's the fact that you're eating processed food. So gluten gets mislabeled all the time. What I say to people is, go gluten free for a few weeks, three to four weeks. See how you feel. When you add the gluten back, don't add back the bread, the cookies the cakes, and the processed gluten. Add back a small wheat bulgar, like in a salad. Add back a healthy sourdough bread. Add back wheat in small unprocessed amounts and then see how you feel. And what I realized is that people villainize gluten all the time. And in America, gluten free has become such a tagline that those foods are more unhealthy.

Oh, because of all the processing. Look at you, Dr. Amy. Is there anything else on this topic that we did not get?

I think we covered so much. I think, like you said, and I have taken this to heart, is that there's no pill that's going to save you. There's no person that's going to save you. When you learn about all this, when you actually listen to your own self, you're going to be the one who saves yourself.

Well, Dr. Amy Shaw, let me just say thank you, because without this information, we can't save ourselves. You've explained the internal extremely elegant but complicated systems inside of us so that it makes sense, so that we understand why these choices, these substitutions, why it actually matters. That's my huge takeaway. I have never actually understood any of this at the level that you just explained, and that's an enormous gift. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I want to go into some of the other, I guess, chemicals that you hear associated with the brain, and have you explained to us what they are and why they're important for happiness, for brain health? Let's talk about serotonin. What is it and why is it important?

Serotonin is hugely important for many different functions in the brain, but for happiness, for flexibility, and respect. Respect, and respect's the one that fool's people. But when your Serotonin levels are low, you more easily feel disrespected. And if you have a social fight or you feel diminished in some way, your serotonin levels drop. And when serotonin levels go low, people tend to They get stuck on negative thoughts, negative behaviors. They tend to be argumentative and oppositional. And if things don't go their way, they get upset, which on the surface can appear selfish, but it's really not selfish. It's rigid. And boosting serotonin with bright light therapy, which is why it's so important to get sunshine and while As we go into the holidays, time change happens just at the wrong time. As we get less sunlight and it gets colder outside, we just then got a bomb dropped on us. Like, all of a sudden, you lose an hour a day of light. And light is so important.

Let me back us up a second. So does your brain create serotonin? What is the function mission of serotonin in the brain?

So your gut makes about 90% of the serotonin in your body, but it doesn't go directly into your brain. Your brain creates serotonin from the amino acid precursor called tryptophan. And that's why often eating tryptophan-rich foods- Like turkey. Can be helpful, but not in a ketogenic way. You have to eat tryptophan-rich foods with a carbohydrate because you need an insulin response to drive tryptofan into the brain. So turkey and sweet potatoes together is a great combination to boost your mood.

So when you have high levels of serotonin, how does that impact you?

We to be happy. You're a little bit less motivated. You don't care that much. I remember when Prozac first came on to the market, and I would give it to some of my depressed patients, and they would say they would be less depressed, but also less motivated. Because as tryptophan goes up, dopamine, another chemical we should talk about, goes down. They have this counter Balancing effect, which is why, and this is really interesting for anyone who grew up in an alcoholic home, I studied children and grandchildren of alcoholics. They often have low levels of both serotonin and dopamine. And so if I just raise one, I make them better in some ways, but worse in other ways. So a lot of people who take SSRIs, they go, Well, I'm happier, but I don't really care that much. I had one guy tell me he wasn't doing his taxes, and he's like, No, this is going to be a problem. So I had to rebalance his medication.

So is serotonin the happiness one? And dopamine is the motivation and drive one? Is that their relationship?

Well, they're both. You think of both of them involved in happiness. And dopamine is the molecule of more. When you get dopamine, you go, Oh, I like that. And the problem is the more you get, the more you want, and then it turns into trouble. We are wearing out our dopamine centers in the brain and our society with our phones and social media and the nonstop video games and texting. It's We're being thrilled to death, which ultimately wears out the pleasure centers in the brain. So you have to be very careful. I often talk to people about drip dopamine. Don't dump it. What does that mean?

Drip dopamine, don't dump it. What does that mean, drip dopamine, don't dump it?

So you want little tiny bursts of dopamine, not a big splash. So for example, cocaine, big splash of dopamine, and you go, whoa. But the problem is you have none left, and then you get depressed, which you then start using. Alcohol is the same way. Alcohol dumps dopamine. Nicotine vaping dumps dopamine. Scary movies, dump dopamine. Falling in love, dumps dopamine. You want to drip it, holding Getting Tana's hand, getting eye contact, looking for what I call the micro moments of happiness. So much more important. And new love is totally dumping dopamine. So whenever you just fall in love, you need to like, well, this is really awesome. Let me ride this out before I make any big decisions.

So would an example of dripping dopamine include the two micro habits you talked about? One being waking up in the morning and saying, I'm going to make it a great day. How am I going to do that? And also at the end of the day, going on that treasure hunt for what went right?

Yes.

Excellent. How can you tell if you have low dopamine?

If you're tired, if you find that you're unmotivated, if you're sad, and you just don't have the motivation to get done what you want to get done. And I'm in Justin Bieber's docuseries Seasons, and I've been his doctor for a long time, and they just wore that boy's dopamine centers out. And And when you become famous like that, you have access to women, to drugs, to video games, and just completely almost killed that boy, and they deadened his pleasure centers. But the good news is even if you've been bad to your brain by doing the right things, your brain, we call it neuroplastic, it can be better even in a matter of months.

Wow. We've talked about supplements. We've talked about some microhabits. What are three simple ways to increase dopamine?

Cold showers will do it. So I just took a shower before I did it, and I always finish with two minutes. I turned all the way cold because cold therapy has been shown to increase both norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter, and dopamine. Eating tyrosine-rich food. So we talked about tryptophan, the amino acid building block for serotonin. Tyrosine is the amino acid building block for dopamine. So things like hormones, and eggs, and beans, and fish, and chicken, dark chocolate. But you don't want to do that with an insulin response or with a carbohydrate. And so this is where a higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet can be helpful. Exercise also does it, and certain supplements like tyrosine. So tyrosine is It's a supplement, and it's the amino acid building block for dopamine.

So is there any certain times of day where your dopamine is higher or lower just naturally?

In the morning.

Is the same true as serotonin?

In the evening.

Okay. So explain that to us, and then how we can use something natural to boost it.

So everybody's circadian rhythm or the realm of their energy is different. There are morning larks and night owls, and you have to know what you are. A lot of my ADD Patients are night owls, and society is biased against them because school starts early, work starts early for a lot of people. But you just have to know your rhythm. And if your dopamine is high in the morning, that's when you want to focus and get work done. If it tends to be higher later in the day, know your rhythm. Serotonin often helps people sleep. And in our supplement, Put Me to Sleep, we actually have 5HTP, which is the amino acid precursor, even closer to serotonin than tryptophan. And for a lot of people, it helps decrease worry and promote sleep.

Wow. I'm slightly overwhelmed. I don't even know where to start in terms of how to boost my serotonin naturally, how to boost my dopamine naturally. So is there a way to simplify this? You just talked about your circadian rhythm and understanding if you're a night owl or you're a morning person. So if you're a morning person and you wake up and you're naturally more motivated, are there certain things you should do first thing in the morning to keep your dopamine levels high, to stay focused, to promote your brain health?

So one thing I really like, especially as we start into later fall and winter, is morning bright light. So people who have seasonal affective disorders, so winter blues, that morning bright light therapy, and you can actually get these therapy lamps. I make one called our Bright Minds Therapy Lamp. 10,000 lux. So it's bright. Don't look at it. Put it like an arm's length away from you while you're putting on your makeup or having breakfast, if you have breakfast for 20 or 30 minutes in the morning. Super simple, can significantly improve dopamine, your energy, mood, and cognitive function. Exercise. Whether you want to increase serotonin or dopamine, it does both walk like you're late for 45 minutes, four or five times a week. Super simple, bright light exercise. Just incredibly helpful. And this is very important. I just turned 68 this year, and And it's very clear to me that the stronger you are as you age, the less likely you are to get Alzheimer's disease. But it's really for older people, it's frailty that kills them almost more than anything else. So light exercise, simple supplements. And now you can eat in certain ways to boost the neurotransmitters in your brain.

So when you say frailty and strength, are you also recommending, in addition to the 30 to 40 minutes of walking as if you're late three or four times a week, that you also add in strength training?

You bet. I think it's absolutely critical for men and for women. Your muscles are your protein reserve. So one of my young doctors went to Hawaii on vacation and got this terrible infection that almost killed him.

Oh, wow.

The reason he didn't die is he was strong when he went into that illness and had the protein reserve muscle on his body. And I remember the day when the hospital I expected I was going to get a call. He died in the middle of the night because he just got this wicked infection from jumping into a natural pool in Hawaii. But he survived, and he's done great because it's the protein reserve or the brain reserve you bring into an illness or an accident that determines how you're going to do after it. I mean, you've probably seen one person gets into a car accident, and they come out of it just fine. Another one's permanently damaged. Same accident. Why? Because it's the level of brain health or brain reserve they brought into the accident that often determines the outcome. So every single day of your life, from my perspective, every single day of your life, you should be boosting your brain reserve.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. And if you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one, too. I'll see you there.