What would I have to do to destroy my brain? So no sleep. I'm going to be sedentary. I'm going to have no friends. And smoking?

Smoking is very bad for your health and your brain.

Okay. Alcohol?

I mean, yes, long term alcohol can cause significant and named brain diseases. Even moderation now, studies shown, is not very good. The reason why it's not good is that alcohol disrupts your sleep. Even though people drink it to go to sleep faster, the sleep is much more superficial and is not deep and it's not the healthy sleep. That is not good overall for sleep, depth, and health, and therefore, brain health.

I'm going to eat a processed diet to hurt my brain. I'm not going to have a life lifestyle that is novel because we talked about learning. Right, yes. So I'm not going to learn anything new. All of these things should shrink that little- You're not going to be mindful also. Is there evidence that being mindful, which is like meditation and being in the moment helps the brain.

It does. There's beautiful studies showing brain plasticity in the areas that are important for focused attention. Meditation, the practice of meditation, is It's basically a practice of enriching the function of your prefrontal cortex. You can focus on that object. Either the breath or loving kindness is a form of meditation. So yes, there's been studies that brain changes occur in long term meditators that are absolutely beneficial.

What if I'm on social media all the time? Because isn't that good for me? Because I'm going to be seeing lots of new things all the time and I'll be learning lots of new things. So if I sat on a screen for seven hours a day. Is that good for my brain, social media?

Does that take you away from real people and interacting with real people?

Yes.

Okay, then it's modulated by that.

Is it not the same thing?

There's a difference, and I think your brain knows it. Look, there's enormous amounts of evidence showing that the increase in use of social media, especially in young kids, correlate with huge increases in depression and anxiety levels, particularly in young girls. When kids started getting the smartphones and started to spend more and more seven hours a day on social media, that's when the anxiety and depression went up. That's for young kids. I use social media as well as a tool for business. That is a little bit different. I'm not 13 years old, and you're not 13 years old. There's some warnings, I think, that need to go into that. But But let me be clear, no, it's not the same. Social media is not the same as social interactions face-to-face with people.

Are you concerned about what social media is doing to our brains? Yes. Because we hear those stats around young girls are struggling most with social media, and we think to ourselves, well, that's because there's a lot of comparison and all these kinds of things, and there's a lot of toxic messaging and such. But if we think about the physiological consequences of social media, what it's actually doing to our brains at a chemical level, what would you as a neuroscientist, guess is the physiological harm to the brain? I'm thinking about not the psychological, okay, oh, my God, she's more this than me, but the physiological harm.

But the psychological harm causes stress. Stress releases stress hormone that goes into the brain that at too high and too constant a level can start to first damage connections and then kill cells. It's intertwined there, and that is part of what is happening. You can't pull one away from the other.

Where social media is designed to... It's like pulling the slot machine handle. I pull down on the feed and I get, oh, look, there's a nice picture. And there's notifications and comments, et cetera. I think about the constant... They say there's constant dopamine hit. They refer to it. Is it a dopamine hit? Is that what happening when we're being stimulated by a social media or a slot machine. Yes. And is there any harm in just a constant dopamine hit all day, every day?

Well, I'm going to answer that question by saying, I would not want to be addicted to gambling. Gambling is addictive. It's hard to get away. You lose all these other things that we just decided were all good for you, including sleep, including social connections, including exercise. And I think that's part of what social media is doing for our young kids is not good, that they're not joining teams outside to be social and interactive in that... Now it seems like an old-fashioned way, but it's very, very powerful way for development and brain health.

I think I'm addicted to my phone. I often ask myself, Is that a problem? From what you said, it sounds like the problem is what I sacrifice through that addiction to that device. Yes. Is that the issue? The issue I sacrifice social connections, maybe movement. Although I do work out every day. But the brain is smart enough to know that there's no substitute for real human connections.

Absolutely.

That's going to make me what? I need you to help me, scare me out of this phone addiction that I think I have, but I know many other people have as well.

So that is going to limit your potential for for brain growth, for brain plasticity. It is going to limit your possibility for, not to be dramatic, but joy in your life. There's different kinds of joy that you have in real person-to-person social interactions that it feels pretty good on social media if you get lots of likes, but it's not the same. I would say that to scare yourself yourself out, you're going to have to bite the bullet and do a two-week phone detox. What would that do to you? How would you feel?

I just could never imagine such a thing. Which It's a real shame, isn't it, really? Because I just think about my ancestors and my parents, they must think I'm so strange. But it's just the way that... When my phone dies, I'm nervously waiting for it to come back on. I'm staring at it like, Oh, my God. What am What am I going to do with myself? I remember those studies they did on people where they gave them the choice of either sitting alone with their own thoughts or giving themselves an electric shock. And a huge amount of people in that study actually would rather give themselves an electric shock than just sit alone with their thoughts because it's some stimulation. That's how I think I am now. I don't know what I do without my phone. It's really sad. I know there's people listening to me now that think I'm an absolute... I'm really sad, but it's just the truth. I do wonder what it's doing to my brain, but I think you're right. I think it's actually what it's doing to my life, the joy, the connections, being there to experience things.

I mean, that point that you made is a very profound one. The not wanting to be alone with your thoughts is the core of meditation. Can you be alone with your thoughts and focus on something Organic, usually the breath, but also a thought like loving-kindness? That is a very powerful practice to do, and it's hard. I find it hard, too. Actually, I notice I find it harder when I'm using social media and when I'm using my phone more. But I feel most creative and most imaginative when I do practice that. That is, being alone with my thoughts. What comes into mind? How does my own imagination work? Which is very much dependent on the hippocampus as well. It's putting together all these things in your memory in new and interesting ways that are unique for you or unique for me. It doesn't work the same if you are stimulating your brain with social media all the time.