E165 | Why Do Your Goals Make You Miserable? (w/ Dr. Paul Goldsmith)

Dr Paul Goldsmith is a Consultant Neurologist with a special interest in evolutionary biology and its application to the challenges of modern life. In his new book The Evolving Brain, Dr Goldsmith draws on cutting-edge neuroscience and case studies from his clinical practice to accessibly explain how our brains work and how they evolved the way they did.

On this episode expect to learn:

- Why we were not designed for happiness.

- A new lens on goals: why passivity drags you down, why modern goals can lead to burn out, and how to rebalance for better wellbeing.

- Why loneliness is an essential feeling, and what modern society gets wrong about community.

- Practical takeaways: how to stay motivated, journaling to close mental “open loops,” and why dropping a goal can be progress.

- A provocative view on the “self”, and how holding it more lightly can reduce blame, rumination, and reactivity.

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

Check out The Thinking Mind Blog on Substack: https://thinkingmindblog.substack.com/p/2026-is-the-year-of-the-horse-but

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for focused behaviour change coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

Transcript

Speaker 3: [00:00:00] What, what goals are we told that we've got? We've got to get a bigger house. We've got to get a better job title and a higher salary. Get an AC academic publication. These don't play out over hours or days. It's over years, and that brings a lot of problems because the brain is constantly assessing, am I still making adequate progress or should I disengage?

And switch to a different goal. It may be that we've got to give up some goals, so giving up goals is not a failure, which I think many people think it is. This is just the way our brains work, and we need to be more self-compassionate and give up goals when it's appropriate.

Speaker 4: Today I am pleased to be joined by neuroscientist Dr. Paul Goldsmith. He's the author of The Evolving Brain. Paul, thank you so much for joining us. 

Speaker 3: It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Speaker 4: Can you tell me a little bit about your book? I know it just came out. What was your [00:01:00] motivation for writing it?

Speaker 3: It was several motivations. It was seeing so many patients whose lives I recognized could be improved if they could get a better understanding of what their brains were designed to do and why things were going wrong in the situation which they found themselves in. And it's very difficult in the therapeutic setting of a clinic appointment of 20 to 30 minutes to really cover that.

So I wanted to offer people a, a, a manual, a toolkit to, to help. Um, so that was sort of part of the motivation. Another part was thinking about society. So one can either change the way one thinks and behaves. Within a fixed society, but there's also, ideally you changed or the, the world around us has changed.

Um, so there was another element, which was the beginnings of my writings actually, to bring insights into policy makers to try and get better policy. Um, so the book is written from an individual [00:02:00] perspective, but I hope it might be read by people who can influence society. 

Speaker 4: What do you think people need to understand at the basic level about how the brain evolved?

Speaker 3: Th that we are dependent on a developmental lineage. So the brain develops from an inside core, which is evolutionary, ancient outwards like a tree, the trunk being the oldest bit most hardwired, and then complexity layered on top, and the fundamentals of our emotions, our drives. Are very, very old and hardwired, and we can't change those no matter how much we'd want to the outer interface and the cortex, the bit that Elon Musk is wanting to stick electrodes in to try and alter the way we think.

That's not going to get to the core bits. So like it or not, we're stuck with a manion tool. Inside our head, which is being driven in a [00:03:00] world for which it's not designed for, not optimized for. And when you think of the the just a time course in which this was all laid down in terms of an evolutionary perspective, I mean, it's mind boggling that evolution took.

2 billion years to perfect a, a single basic cell. Another billion years for a more specialized cell, 500 million years for a worm. And now we've got a brain. And most of the cells in the worm are brain in terms of coordinating goals and goal directed behavior. 300 million years of mammal, 60 million years of primates, the homogeneous 5 million years.

But for Sapiens, for us. It's a few hundred thousand years. So in terms of that full scope of brain development, it's, it's less than a fraction of a percent. So, like it or not, we've got this old tool in our heads 

Speaker 4: and what, what is our brains optimized for? What are like, what's the kind of. Life that [00:04:00] our brain is really best designed to live.

Speaker 3: So our brains have evolved to assist our genes with their single underlying goal, which is to be passed on to the next set of genes. So from a gene's eye perspective, it is all about persistence. Um, so I've sort of been. Perhaps sort of overly ambitious in the book and trying to sort of take the broad sweep from what it's all about and why we are here, right through to sort of the end.

But the beginning is about persistence. So rocks are still here compared to when they were created millions of years ago, or billions of years ago because of the persistence of form, because they're very stable. If you think about what life is, life is. In a way defined by death that biology is sort of chemistry, which has been cooked up to allow variation in [00:05:00] form.

But that ability to create variation by its very nature means things are fragile and so disappear. So we have death as well. The only reason we've got that continuity is because the genes pass from one generation to another. So everything ultimately comes back to persistence of form and continuity of genes, and our genes don't care how they do that.

So they've evolved a set of tools such as our emotions, like anger, blame, guilt, happiness to achieve that continuity. But they're a toolkit. They're not fundamentally optimized just for happiness. 

Speaker 4: It's quite interesting 'cause I think most people who are maybe unfamiliar with this way of thinking, it must be quite bewildering.

'cause most people just think of their emotional lives as a marker of the quality of their lives. Like, oh, I'm mostly happy, so my life is mostly good, or I'm mostly sad, or maybe I'm 50 50. [00:06:00] And this is the quality of my life, as it stands, as as marked out by my emotions. But what you're saying is actually our emotions are a toolkit that are helping us to serve a much greater goal, which is reproduction, passing on genes to the next level.

Speaker 3: Absolutely. And then they were shaped in different circumstances to what we have now. So. Primarily they were shaped for surviving in small groups with relatively simple goals that played out over short timeframes of hours, days, perhaps weeks. And then you look at the world into which we've been catapulted and how things then go awry that they go wrong because of the nature of the goals, which are.

Thrust upon us, the societal constraints, and then you realize, okay, these emotions are, they're running a mock as a consequence. 

Speaker 4: And it, that's evolutionary mismatch theory, right? Essentially. 

Speaker 3: Absolutely. That's, that's a mismatch between current [00:07:00] and environment and the environment to which that they were honed.

Speaker 4: Would it be fair to say that from an evolutionary perspective. Modern life is pretty damn strange. 

Speaker 3: Completely. The, the strange bit is modern society rather than our brains. Our brains are very logical in terms of how they work. It, it all makes sense. What doesn't make sense? Uh, modern phenomenon, social media laws.

Expectations. That is what is not caught up. 

Speaker 4: What do you think are some like key facets of modern life that get us into trouble, do you think? Because of this mismatch? 

Speaker 3: There are many, I think sort of two important ones around goals and goal setting and goal achievement, and the emotional distress that that brings.

You know, wellbeing and lack of wellbeing and that. I think is something that is worth having a bit of a dive into. And then the other bit is around social [00:08:00] relations, which ultimately are just another goal, having a su successful or positive social relations, but that that is given that sort of the key needs around food and shelter are dealt with, that becomes a very important part of what contributes to our wellbeing.

And, and it malfunctions in modern society. 

Speaker 4: Okay, so let's talk about goals and of, of course, you know, in the mental health, self development space, we talk a lot about goals as a way to actually help with your mental health. You know, set goals, trying to achieve them outside of the mental health world.

Goals are generally thought of like as a good thing, and it does feel like we're all a little bit goal obsessed now, especially high achievers. But what do we need to know about goals? 

Speaker 3: I think understanding how fundamental they are and how the brain processes them, and therefore how we can manage our goals in the modern world to maximize our wellbeing and minimize distress.

The, [00:09:00] the fundamental reason we have a brain really is to coordinate gold pursuit. Now, if you think about, well, what's the difference between an animal and a plant and, um, is it photosynthesis? Well, no, because we make vitamin D from our skin from mulch, vier light. And is it social? Well, trees have a social network through the, the mic riser, um, the fungal strands underground.

So the, the fundamental difference is. Changing location, it's movement. And that then comes down to moving towards a goal, clearly in a simple way that is moving towards some food or away from a predator or towards a mate. But it's also more complex goals as the brain evolves in terms of speech production or building something complex, uh, relationships.

But it, it, it, it still comes down to that fundamental bit. So moving towards a goal, expends energy. And you can only move towards one goal. Essentially. You can have [00:10:00] nested goals and you can switch between them, but the brain's gotta decide what it's going to pursue and expend energy. And so it induces, it rewards us, drives us to towards that goal by a positive feeling.

And that's sort largely comes down to release of dopamine. But the key thing is it's a drawing towards the goal. Rather than just being teleported to the end goal because evolution never envisaged that things were just a land in all app. There's been very recent work actually published just a few weeks ago in Nature that shows that it was acetylcholine accumulation during goal pursuit during greater effort that then leads to a greater dopamine release.

When you reach one of the goal milestones 

Speaker 4: and the acetylcholine, would that be associated with like an unpleasant emotion? 

Speaker 3: No. No, no. So this is, um, as your expending effort to reach a goal. Then [00:11:00] the signal mechanism for I have expended more effort is coded instal choline within basal ganglia, and that leads to a greater dopamine release.

So you feel better if you've put more effort into achieving the goal. 

Speaker 4: That's kind of a big deal. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. It, it, it's, it's really important and of course it's like with Pavlov's dogs, something is triggered if sausages just arrive, but the dogs would go stir crazy if they weren't taken out for walks because they're chasing after sticks.

And that, that is a, is one of their goals. Um, it's the same for us if you. Passively circumvent goal pursuit. You deprive people of the opportunity for maximizing their dopamine and YL choline, but their dopamine release and therefore the sense of wellbeing. And it's, it's difficult from a society perspective because you've got to have that safety net of a welfare state and the associated rules, but you don't want to make people unnecessarily passive.

So passivity, I [00:12:00] think is a. And I see this in my clinical work, as I'm sure lots of your listeners do as well, is a real trap. And you, you think, say somebody, uh, we might talk about what triggers melancholy, uh, in, in a bit. But if somebody has a falling out in their group 30,000 years ago, they feel sad the next day they're out active contributing to the group 

Speaker 4: because by necessity 

Speaker 3: you've got no choice, because to be excluded from the group is lethal.

You, you, you've got to be in that group and so you've got to be active the next day. And you contrast that with the modern world where when something happens, you retreat, you're signed off work, you put on a waiting list for CBT, put on an antidepressant, which might have a bit of an effect, but unless you've got that activity towards goal pursuit.

Then it's suboptimal. Now, one of the best ways of, and again, this is sort of just obvious step, but it's understanding what if, if people [00:13:00] understand that brain mechanisms, and I think it's easier to take on board as well. One of the most reliable ways of getting that flow of dopamine is through exercise.

Because it's a very reliable, the, the goal is if I go for a cycle, my goal is to complete the circuit. But actually just getting to the end of the road is a subgoal, and getting to the next lamppost is a subgoal of the subgoal, and each turn of the pedal is a subgoal. Each one is, it's reached, it's giving a tiny little squi of reward.

And so that area under the curve of total benefit is far, far greater than if so that well, I could have just got a taxi round, you know? Yeah. That, that doesn't work. You've got to have done it yourself. Of course, the social goals are also very important, uh, in, in modern life, and, but what, what goals are we told that we've got?

Um, we've got to get a bigger house. We've got to get a better job title, um, a higher salary, get an aca academic [00:14:00] publication. These don't play out over hours or days. It's over years, and that brings a lot of problems because the brain is constantly assessing, am I still making adequate progress or should I disengage?

And switch to a different goal. This is a very basic mechanism. So you think where the core neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, they're right in the center of the brain, very deep, the control systems, and you've got a, a deer perhaps in winter. It's really hungry. So it's driven, it is wanting to go to find food, uh, a couple of valleys away where it knows there's some food sets off gold pursuit, but the signals it's receiving from the external environment are the weather's closing in the ground is really marshy.

So I'm making much lower progress and then I'm hearing a potential predator. The brain then calculates disengage. I should return to base. And that disengagement, [00:15:00] the associated cognition is a sort of a, a brief width of melancholy. So that's like the break. You've got dopamine goal pursuit as you accelerated, then you've got this braking system as well as goal disengagement, 

Speaker 4: which is can be just as important if a goal doesn't prove to be worth pursuing.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Because if you didn't have that system, you'd be out competed by an animal that did have that braking system, which is why it's a fundamental part of our brains. So now think of how this plays out in the modern world. Um, I'm not getting feedback from the boss, so I'm getting feedback from the boss that I haven't done a good job, my experiments haven't worked.

I'm not gonna get this paper published. I've got another rejection. We're constantly receiving negative feedback. Our brains are making that calculation and saying, disengage, but rather than disengaging, we, we have break and accelerator pressed on at the same time. And so the melancholy gets worse, and then it might trigger full [00:16:00] depression and then withdrawal and a feedback loop where you stop doing the very things which would improve our mood with the various societal traps.

Speaker 4: So I guess so far in the discussion about goals you've outlined two problems as far as I can tell. One is many aspects of modern life make it very easy to fall into passivity because we have. Technology. We can live in houses by ourselves. We all need to leave the house necessarily. People can fall into a state where they don't have goals and become apathetic.

And that's inherently bad for mental health because gold pursuit is like a huge driver of dopa immunity, et cetera. And then the second problem, which you're alluding to now, is the kinds of goals we have in society are long-term, take years. They're abstract. They often involve a lot of negative feedback on the way.

It's a real grind. So I guess we're almost like still talking about two groups of people. There's people who are a little bit more on the apathetic passive side, but then people who are more on the high achieving side who are. [00:17:00] Maybe capable of delaying gratification, but they end up like burning out.

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's a lovely summary. So ancient goals would be much more physical, short term, reliable feedback, predictable goal release, and then starting on an on a new goal. Okay. So we haven't, we're not gonna go out on the hunt. We'll work on improving the shelter. Modern goals are cognitive, abstract, and also conflicting.

So you're trying to do one thing which then decreases your potential to do another goal. So rationalizing that is an important therapeutic strategy, but I think it's not just high achievers, is everybody that the person in the call center who is getting the feedback from the the red light saying, you're not seeing enough.

Customers or the, the, the waiting time is too long. You're only scoring three outta five on customer feedback. You should really have a better house. And this sort of flat, which is rented and has got mo, I mean, it, it, it, it's, it's everywhere [00:18:00] you look. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. So I guess, no, you're right. So everyone to some degree has both of those groups of problems.

The, the goals of modern society are really weird, and also we're really vulnerable because of. Technology, the kind of luxury of technology in a way that, the way that technology distracts us we're also vulnerable into falling into a kind of passivity 

Speaker 3: It is and, and because modern goals are so often status related, so cognitive and end status related.

We're in an arms race, so we've got. Media that is very good at exploiting our desire for something just a little bit better. And then more broadly, society creating these in inducements for us to do stuff by giving us titles. So, you know, you look at, I know quite a few politicians who have got everything or all the people superstars, very wealthy.

They're great success. Yet they get so upset because they've not been given a knighted. You know, you've got everything. [00:19:00] So why is this making you depressed? Because of this mismatch? 

Speaker 4: This mismatch? Because there is something about the human brain that's always one small, and if I'm following your logic, that's because.

It's evolutionary advantageous to always want more, and we just never anticipated this weird, modern landscape. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. We say the goals which are being thrust upon us are not achievable, so I can't make myself a Lord. I need that to be gifted to me. You're bestowed to me and therefore I'm sort of trying to do this.

This is from a politician's perspective, it's not happening. I feel depressed. So there's lots of psychiatry in Parliament. 

Speaker 4: Well, it's good to know I'll never run out of work. So if someone is feeling like a combination of these problems, I'm sure most people are a little bit of the passivity from maybe outside of work.

But then also, God, the goals I have are so difficult and I'm getting all this negative feedback. How can someone start to reapproach their goals and their goal setting in [00:20:00] a way that's a bit more healthy? 

Speaker 3: So you can either change your goals. Or you can keep the same goals, but think differently about them.

So yeah, I'm feeling a little bit, you know, sad today. Actually, the reason is because I got this feedback from something that I haven't made sufficient progress. So I'm just gonna interpret that a different way, or just recognizing that that's gone on in my brain allows me to continue pursuing it. So just reappraising the whole, your whole situation.

Is the first of the powerful thing. The next thing you can do is to make sure you've got the right mix of goals. So of course, like it or not, we're gonna need to pursue some long-term, more complex goals, but we should make sure that we've got some reliable goals. The like, like exercise. Um. The social side is really important in terms of social goals, so some shoe-in some reliable flows of dopamine, and then it may be that we've got to give up some goals.

So giving up goals is [00:21:00] not a failure, which I think many people think it is. This is just the way our brains work, and we need to be more so self-compassionate and give up goals when it's appropriate. And this has been well studied that, I mean, as an example, women who are desperate to have children but can't may get depressed.

Understandably, that goal is not being met and that depression increases until they reach menopause. And then it improves when the goal is removed from them because of menopause. And I see it in my clinical practice when sometimes neurology. You tell somebody they've got a terminal condition, much sadness, but punctuated by relief because of the goal release.

It's not my problem anymore. I, I can give all of this up. 

Speaker 4: So I guess what's key is like, uh, an an important undercurrent to what you're saying as well is we should really be paying attention to our emotional lives that this melancholy we might feel when we're passing a goal that's not working out. Or even the [00:22:00] happiness, the simple happiness we might feel from the gym or meeting a friend.

These are really important things we need to be paying attention to. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's understanding what's going on is powerful, understanding that it's not your fault, it's a reflection of the way the brain works and that mismatch, and then what both you and others, what the emotions are trying to do. And uh, and, and it, it may be malfunctioning.

And I think that is both one's own emotions, whether that's sadness, happiness, anger, but also other people. So when you say, okay, the reason that they're. Trying to shame me is because this was a useful tool that evolved to help us function in small groups that's happening in their brain. I'm feeling sad because of what they're saying to me or trying to do, but actually recognizing that just helps dissolve it a bit 

Speaker 4: in, in terms of social relationships.

So I've started in my practice now to see a lot of people who are [00:23:00] spending a lot of time, perhaps most of their time by themselves. There have been appointments where I literally prescribe, you know, spend time with other people, leave the house as though I'm prescribing a medication. How important do you think are social relationships for someone's mental wellbeing?

Speaker 3: Fundamental. The, the Greeks regarded exclusion is equivalent to death. Um, so that's not that long ago, but certainly. In terms of time, relevance for our brains development, not being part of a group was fatal, so you had to be part of it. Now, what makes the group function? We've got to cooperate and so we've got emotions to optimize cooperation, and we are motivated to do things that are perceived by the rest of of the group as.

So we are part of the group, therefore, validation is critical. So we have a fundamental need to be, to be receiving signals from other humans that we are part of the group, 

Speaker 4: that you're a [00:24:00] good person, that's your valuable, that you belong. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And, and no laid on top of that. We also have that additional element of not just are we.

Accepted in the group, but where do we rank within the group? So there's a status element, that utility element as well, where it then runs amok. I've got to have the knighted in terms of status, uh, or, or the bigger salary, I think. Well, you're already on a big salary, but he's got more, so this is sort of still, that's sort of the status bit playing out, but the, the validation is so basic.

There's a wonderful video. Which of your listeners have never seen It is worth watching. It's just a couple of minutes. The tro silent face video. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, I have seen that. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I, I, whether I can briefly describe it. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. 

Speaker 3: So it's a mum playing with their baby, the baby sort of not speaking yet, sort of it's gurgling and their sort of having fun together.

Then the, the mum looks away and turns back with a silent face, just a [00:25:00] blank expression. Not a negative expression, just. The baby initially becomes more energized. You know, a bit of cortisol goes out to put a bit more effort in, and then the mum's still blank, so the baby, then the adrenaline probably kicks in and gets cross starts to throw a tantrum, and then gets really sad and starts to cry.

That is just. Basic validation working. When you see that and then you look at adults, you think this is just playing out again and again and again in adult life. Now, the, the theater, the script is different in adults, but the plot line is the same. 

Speaker 4: The plot line is like, my needs aren't being met. I need some attention.

Speaker 3: It, it's, I need to be validated. I need to have signals that I am part of this group, and that they've therefore in times of need, will look after me. It's just fundamental. So everything we do, you know, we need that [00:26:00] reciprocation, that messaging from our group. And it's better if it's a stable long-term group rather than just a random person.

And that's a big challenge because we've got the welfare state and often the people who are signaling or know are helping us. We never see again. It's, there's some professional body and it's sort of removing that opportunity to have those meaningful relations, uh, stable relations. Uh, an example, a personal example where I used to live.

The road was then adopted, which sort of means that the council didn't look after the road, the residents did, and leaves would come across the fields and mud and block the drains and the sides of the road. So periodically, everyone would get together on a Saturday morning, dig out the drains. Well, the sort of the, the, the younger people would do more of the digging, the older people a bit more, the sweeping and the oldest would make the tea and cakes at the end and you'd chat and it was [00:27:00] social and, and that.

Inoculated against future arguments about Head Heights. The chair changed of the, the Road Committee and said, and the great news, um, I've spoken to the council and they can bring their machine around for only 30 pounds and clean the drains and it'd be much more efficient. Said, yeah, let, it's, that is a disastrous idea.

It'll be more efficient, but not more effective 

Speaker 4: to deprive that community am ambience. 

Speaker 3: Absolutely. You've removed the need for the, so social cooperation and all of the goodness that brings, and that's the challenge of modern society now. How do you get that balance? Um, the Robin Dunbar writes a lot about this.

And around sort of the circles of friendship, there's a Dunbar number of 150. Mm-hmm. And the social brain hypothesis that that has been one of the key reasons why we've out competed other species is because [00:28:00] our enlarged frontal lobes allowed coordination of a larger group than other species. And that cabs out at 150, so well below the number of friends you've got on LinkedIn or in your social network.

But what he is also sort of argued is that there's a much smaller group of meaningful, relate, really meaningful relations, which have a very strong correlation with your wellbeing, your survival from cancer, cardiovascular disease, your just your fatality rates, and in particular that sort of inner core circle.

Your shoulders to cry on. So in times of great need, people who will drop everything to come and help. And too many people have got nobody. 

Speaker 4: Is there good evidence that loneliness and isolation is, is increasing? Like is there statistical evidence? 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So say, say modern structures, deprive people of that opportunity in the same way that.

This person who wanted the machine to come and clean the drains was gonna deprive the opportunity for [00:29:00] the road group. You look at the decrease in the working mans clubs and the, the institutions that used to be much more prevalent that are gone, or just the institution of work. So if you live in a deprived area that you're long term unemployed, the local clubs have closed.

It's no surprise that. Physical and mental health outcomes are much worse. So then that again, comes down, comes up to goals In terms of the opportunity cost you, you've got, I think you've got to really focus, or you should focus one of your key goals being to build your long-term core, stable, meaningful relations.

Speaker 4: I, I mean, one other thing that's occurring to me when I'm listening to you is that a capitalist culture. Often drives people away from their core relationships. You know, the, it's the norm in the UK or somewhere like America, especially, to leave your family of origin, leave the small town where you grow up, go to the big place with a lot of anonymous [00:30:00] strangers because to be fair places, you know, cities where with large access to anonymous strangers can provide huge economic opportunities, dating and mating opportunities, et cetera.

But. Inherently, you're losing that core group of people who you grew up with and we, I don't feel like culturally we take that into account how that can affect us psychologically. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So providing that understanding, say providing understand this is what's going on in our brain. Like it or not, our brain needs this.

We should adjust our lives to optimize our brains. Function and wellbeing. It'd be great if we could change society, but uh, until that happens, we've got to work on it ourselves. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. As it stands right now, and this is a point I'd want to underline, as it stands right now, there's a lot of onus on the individual to be very, very proactive to create an environment for themselves that's more suited to their brains, because it doesn't sound [00:31:00] like it's gonna happen automatically.

Like a classic example would be. If you kind of eat the default food of society, there's a very high chance you're gonna get overweight or obese because we're exposed to these very calorie dense, not very nutritional foods, which as we know, you know, two thirds of people end up overweight or obese eating those foods.

So you have to be really proactive. You have to be careful about what you put in your shopping cart. You may need to track your calories in certain cases you need to go through. A building, which we call a gym, to intentionally expand energy unnecessarily. But I guess what we're saying is that that doesn't just apply to your physical health and exercise.

It applies to like your psychology, relationships, goal setting. A person has to do quite a lot of work to make sure. They architect for themselves a life that's not going to der their brain. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's a lovely summary. Uh uh, and that's, I think, sort of coming back to part of the aim, it's to provide a framework which [00:32:00] can be applied to anything, whether that's sort of physical or mental health issues, um, and a toolkit.

Speaker 4: Yes. And Mo and people just aren't, I think most people right now are walking around totally unaware of this. We kind of live our lives and you think, okay, this is how the world is. And this is more or less the way the world's always been. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. And, and I think they blame themselves far too much. 

Speaker 4: Mm. 

Speaker 3: And it's not their fault.

I, perhaps it's because of that sort of paradox that we have so much progress. I mean, so much sophistication, so much wealth, yet more misery. So if I'm depressed. Despite all of this, well, it must be me. 

Speaker 4: Yes. 

Speaker 3: And that, no, actually it does make sense and it's not you. 

Speaker 4: There's quite a few trends. I think one trend is like intense, unhealthy self-criticism, and I see that a lot in my personal life in my patients and clients.

I think this is also perhaps the root of a lot of. Projection, a lot of conspiracy theories. A lot of, you know, the government is out [00:33:00] to get me or this other institution is out to get me. It's like there must be someone out to get me for my life to feel this bad and for my life to feel so full of friction and so unrewarding.

Speaker 3: Yes, and, and of course we are enormously influenced by our surroundings and. Both sort of physical and online and everything we receive, we are not atoms, individual actors that capitalist societies would like us to think we are. And again, I said, if you realize that and the mechanisms by which it sort of plays through, you can adjust, you can calibrate, and that's a very healthy thing to do.

Speaker 4: Maybe to give people some, like something to shoot for. On the other side, if people can put in the work and be a little bit proactive about how they design their lives, what are the kind of results they can expect? 

Speaker 3: I think you can turn things around really quite quickly. There are some things which, some rewiring that takes time, but there are some very [00:34:00] quick wins and practical things you can do in terms of sort of applying the toolkit.

But. There are longer term benefits as well. The aphorism neurons, which fire together, wire together, they will rewire, but it takes time. It's that repetition, doing things again and, and gradually reshaping and getting the feedback loops going in the right direction because there are so many unhealthy ones that we get trapped in.

And then trying to change those in different directions. So like one in a way we sort of touched on already, social relations are so important. If you are anxious. Socially anxious, then you tend to withdraw from social relations, which then makes you more anxious to go and have a social relation. You get in this downward spiral, so you could have the approach with some anxieties.

You sort of, you just sort of, you jump into the room full of spiders. Um, but for others it's got to be a more gradual process, but just getting. In that right direction. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, because [00:35:00] emotions don't kind of exist in isolation. They're part of a whole feedback loop as you've described. There's the emotion, there's the thing that the emotion is being triggered in response to, there's the associated behavior and these are like mechanisms or grooves.

And the more we go with their momentum, the more they get promoted. I guess that's the fire together. Wire together part, I suppose. So you know, you're not just anxious in isolation. You're anxious 'cause you're afraid of people. And what you're saying is if you obey that anxiety, okay, I'm afraid of people, I'm gonna stay home, you reinforce it and this anxiety gets a little bit bigger, and then the next time a little bit bigger.

As we start to confront our anxiety, it becomes more manageable, it becomes more tamable, and then hey. Maybe I went to the party and I was afraid, but I did make a friend. And then you get some dopamine, some reward, and then you start to get another feedback loop, which is, Hey, if I hang out around people, I make friends and I feel good.

And that's hopefully out competes the negative feedback loop they had at the beginning. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, [00:36:00] absolutely. It's that sort of recalibration and say, shifting from many, many positive and negative feedback loops and know positive, not meaning good. Just a, a sort of self-reinforcing circle. Um, and if you understand those and you can shift them, that's immensely powerful.

Um, anxiety I think is a good example. Um, you know, anxiety like pain. Now pain evolved because it's evolutionarily useful. You occasionally see people in neurology who have no pain. They die prematurely. Pain is useful. No, just because it's evolutionary useful doesn't mean that I don't want an anesthetic when I'm on the table being cut out by a surgeon, but it's understanding, okay, what is, what is it designed to do?

In what circumstance? So anxiety, so similar with anxiety, I've got. Patients who I really wish were more anxious, um, because they put themselves in too much danger. 

Speaker 4: We see that in mania, for example, in bipolar. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. They've got hypo anxiety that, [00:37:00] so what is it designed to do if I'm out searching for berries?

I hear a rustle of something. If there's a one in a hundred chance it's a tiger, I should run because from an energy perspective, it's worth running 99 times with false alarms to survive. So it's like a smoke alarm. We calibrate it so it goes off guaranteed if there's fire and we put off the fact that goes off with.

Burning toast. 

Speaker 4: That's actually called the smoke alarm principle, if I'm not mistaken. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, we can calibrate it. So if I'm constantly running away and it's just squirrels, I learn and I calibrate now what triggers anxiety in modern life. It's abstract things that come from around the world without a feedback cycle that I can recalibrate and learn.

Speaker 4: So you're getting Instagram posts about Gaza or the Ukraine or something bad that happened [00:38:00] hundreds of miles away from you, and you have very little control, really have very little effect on that situation. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not calibrating with an no. 30 seconds later I find out it was just a squirrel.

There's no calibration. And then some people then withdraw from the anxiety provoking situation and then they say, get in that. Feedback lift and we see that, I think particularly acutely post COVID with the school refusal and the number of people who are being homeschooled. And I guess, I mean, you will know more than than me on this, that my guess is a lot of that is anxiety driven.

Then the longer you're away from school, the more anxious you become and it's just a downward spiral 

Speaker 4: and people really need to know these processes are reversible. Like I do behavior change coaching with people, and I'm using evolutionary principles, but lots of principles to basically figure out, okay.

What is it that you want or you think would make your life better? How do you make that goal a little bit more reasonable? What are the small, like the micro behaviors [00:39:00] that will start to lead you towards this goal? How do we like maximize the positive emotion you'll feel from those behaviors by really acknowledging, acknowledging them, celebrating them, measuring your results.

How do we even use like negative emotions to help you, you know, what would be the outcome you're afraid of if your goals aren't achieved and you build brick by brick in a very small, consistent way. These new feedback loops. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's smart. 

Speaker 4: Um, your book outlines a number of operational principles for the brain, which I really like.

There are a few I want to talk to you about. So one of them which caused my attention was, don't harbor negative thoughts and strikes me. A lot of people harbor negative thoughts. Why? Why is it, isn't it just the thoughts? Why is it such a big deal to harbor negative thoughts? 

Speaker 3: So if you think about the fundamentals we've talked about, which are deeper in the brain, these are the goals.

Am I progressing towards the goals or should I release our frontal lobes? Enable us to [00:40:00] create much greater complexity and stack. Goals and hold them in our imagination long term. And if those are unhelpful, and particularly when it's sort of socially related. So I want to, I'm angry with so and so, or somebody's a threat to me, then they're held as unresolved things within our ideating frontal lobes.

Speaker 4: So kind of like open loops, unresolved threats. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Causing constant unhappiness. So rather than leading to that quick resolution, we've got this ability to, well both hold them long term for months and years, but also to dream up all sorts of scenarios, which may be not particularly realistic in terms of threats and things that we want to do.

And broadly speaking, I think that front labels are fantastic in terms of enabling, you know, multi-step goals. So we can build rockets and do all of the clever stuff that humans [00:41:00] can do, but they also allow us to harbor all of this negativity and allow us, us to go round in loops and loops for for months on end, and recognizing that our brains can do that and are doing that.

And that it is not psychologically helpful is an important step. 'cause then say, okay, this is not helpful. I'm gonna write down what I'm doing and make a decision, and that's it. You might think, oh, well it's still gonna pop into my head, but you at least put some sort of control. 

Speaker 4: I find writing is really helpful actually, to get thoughts out of your head because you clo you can close a loop that way.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. You're externalizing. It's really powerful. Um, because broadly speaking, rumination is not helpful. It's something that our brains allow us to do, but it's not helpful. 

Speaker 4: I have quite strong opinions about, not negative thoughts per se, but let's say negativity, which is not to say talking about something bad.

So let's say you're being bullied in the [00:42:00] workplace. You come home, you talk about it. Like, listen, I'm being bullied in the workplace. This's a serious problem. I need to figure out how to handle it. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about negativity. Like that would sound like I can't believe I'm being bullied.

I can't believe this is happening to me. Kind of woe is me kind of thinking, and I kind of feel like that's the psychological equivalent of smoking cigarettes in that it, I think it provides a temporary release, like an emotional release of tension and perhaps people around you will give you some care and attention, which is like a good thing.

Fair enough. But the problem is. Firstly, I think it, it relieves you of that frustration so there's less frustration to actually help you deal with the problem. But then also I think that kind of extreme negativity, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I think it colors your perception, so it kind of colors your perception of the situation so that you're more blind to solutions and you're over-emphasizing any obstacles or any reasons why this has to be the case.

I have to be in this [00:43:00] situation. And there is no way out of it. Do you, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I, I, I think you are, you're absolutely right, um, that we fall into these traps and get locked in that groove. So again, just, just think, if this situation was 30,000 years ago, how would it have played out?

So. There would've been that sort of interaction, bullying or whatever happened. They tried to nick my food, what we've got from the, from the bison. But they've gotta cooperate. There's gotta be a reconciliation quickly. Um, so I'm gonna express something negative because I want them to alter their behavior.

That is a useful thing that I'm doing, but it's gotta play out quickly. 

Speaker 4: There there'd be some resolution, even if it's really unpleasant, you know, even if it's homicide, the VA resolution. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and the resolution might be you're kicked outta the group. Or, or, you know, they are the, the perpetrators kicked outta the group.

The fact that that can't happen and that's good in, in modern life. So we can't just say Richard Rangan thinks that [00:44:00] actually it has happened over the generations, that the most unpleasant, aggressive people from in the evolutionary perspective have been taken out by the group. And so we become domesticated.

I'm less reactive in our aggression than other homo species. But our idea in frontal lobes have allowed us to. Cooperate in both good and evil more effectively and planned negativity than other homo species. But yeah, sort of recognizing, okay, this is what's happening in both my brain and the person who has done something unpleasant to me.

What is the most healthy psychological route 

Speaker 4: through some kind of resolution. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And that might be. Changing your job, you know, it could be, uh, doing something drastic or, or, or leaving your abusive spouse. 

Speaker 4: And I guess one thing I would want to point out here is that none of your work is saying like, hunter gather life is idyllic, or in some way utopian because, you know, you might have had two people get into an argument and [00:45:00] kill each other.

And, and the lesson from that isn't that hunter gatherer life is good, or homicide is good. It's that in hunter gatherer life, for better or worse, there tended to be resolutions to situations. In modern life, we're often stuck in this kind of purgatory where there isn't a lot of resolution and uh, that's not very good for our brains.

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no. So I'm not saying that we should go back to being hunter-gatherers. There are many, many good things like general anesthetics rather than that utility of pain. And, well, we can't anyway, because we've been infected by all of modern life's. Goals and expectations. Instead, it's gaining an understanding of how things are were designed to play out, and then taking the good bits and minimizing the bad bits, like the reactive aggressions, which we need laws, we need a police force, but.

It comes with downside. So I see this quite a lot where rather than the misdemeanor being played out over 24 hours, you [00:46:00] have legal cases that take five years or eight years to resolve. Which is psychologically terrible, both for the accused but also the victim. They're stuck in purgatory for five years with negative emotions.

I mean, it's just a, it's just a terrible thing. 

Speaker 4: And again, just for the listeners, I'm a huge advocate of journaling to close these open loops. So if you find you have a lot of open loops. In your mind, or even just a few, see if you can write about them in a way that achieves a resolution. You can do that by thinking, okay, what steps am I gonna take to get some control of the situation?

Maybe a plan, a backup plan, and you'll be, or even just writing about how you feel about it and maybe even writing that it is complicated and it's making you feel a complicated way. It's shocking how much that helps. That's, that's a really useful step. One other operating principle of the mind I really wanted to discuss with you was you, you write to, you should hold the self lightly.

What do you mean by [00:47:00] that? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is a complex thing related sort of ego dissolution and I recognize I have to be slightly careful with a sophisticated psychiatry group. There isn't a little homunculus in our brain, somebody sitting behind a steering wheel making the decisions. There's not an I, the letter I, and it's interesting when you ask people and where do you, where do you think the, the, the ego within you sits and I Oh, um, I haven't really thought about it.

Well, maybe it's sort of behind the top of my nose about sort of three, four centimeters. And then you show them an MRI scan. And there's nothing there. 

Speaker 4: So what you're saying is there is no part of the brain that is a self Exactly. 

Speaker 3: There's no self. No. So it, it's a delusion, an illusion. And instead there's a massive activity.

There's a continuity between sensory input and motor output, which is in continuity with everything around us, both from an [00:48:00] environmental sense and other people and all of our histories. So there's sort of a complex evolving web of neural activity. And I sometimes think of it a bit like a weather system.

Uh, if that's a complex continuity and we don't get, uh, we're both within us, within our heads and other people's. If, if you can sort of really understand that and think of it like the weather. You know, you don't get angry with the weather if it soaks you or if a branch of a tree falls off and that might really severely hurt you.

It's this evolving whole system and our brains are the same. Both our brains and all of the people that we're interacting with. It's this, it's this wave which is happening from all of past occurrences through the multiple generations and our own personal history since we're born and. All of the interactions and feeling that, viewing it a bit like the [00:49:00] weather is immensely empowering.

If you can do that and, and if you say, you know, can ego dissolve? Actually, I mean, I find it almost more powerful doing it, thinking about other people and than myself because say if somebody is, you know, getting angry with me or doing something that's making me feel sad, seeing it as part of that. Net within their brain that there's not a little driver within, be behind the mask of their face.

The visual processing is happening at the back of the brain, and the thing which is controlling their lips moving and the nasty things they're saying to me is in the sort of the, the dominant, you know, frontal, it's just, it's a net. And that, that helps just uncouple things and just takes the sting outta things.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I, I heard a quote from a philosopher once that you should kind of view people almost as though you're viewing an exhibit in a museum or something in a movie where you're like, oh, I guess that's just how they are. Even if that's negative towards you, like, oh, I guess that person [00:50:00] on the bus is angry.

And like you say, that creates that detachment regarding the, the insight of selflessness. I feel like I can follow what you're saying quite clearly because I have a little bit of experience with, uh, Xan meditation, which is like a form of meditation, literally designed to help you realize this idea of selflessness.

And I actually haven't heard it from a straight neuroscience perspective. Is this important to you because you have some history of meditation as well, or sort of spiritual thinking? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think both that you can get to this through meditation, so you know, you've got that sort of. Progression of focusing their mind on the flickering candle or the breath to then dissociating from thoughts and seeing thoughts as fragments of activity, neural pulses within the brain.

But then that step, which is really difficult, of recognizing that there is no looker or hero or feeler, that that is hard. But you [00:51:00] can also come at it the other way. I think if you understand a bit of neuroanatomy. Actually it's providing a similar insight when you think, well, actually there isn't anything there.

And the, the sort of the, the activity now in my brain is on the left hand side above my ego well, which it doesn't like feel it, that it's there, but it's, it's providing a similar insight that it is a totality and. It takes practice. It takes a long time, and I hesitated putting it in the book because it is really complex.

But if you can do it, it's so powerful. 

Speaker 4: It took me a few years to understand it and so listeners don't be a bit, if you're a bit frustrated, that's very common. Uh, it took me a few years to understand and I, I found meditation helpful because it gives you that firsthand experience of cutting through. Oh, actually I am, for all intents and purposes, I'm a series of thoughts and emotions and physical sensations, as you said, but when you don't think about it, you feel this sense of like, I'm a rider riding around in something.

I am a core [00:52:00] self and therefore. I, I guess what I would ask you is what are the dangers of holding onto yourself? Too tightly? 

Speaker 3: Self blame for everything. And also if you hold on to other people's self too tightly blaming them and harboring negative emotions. To them and interpreting things that they say with greater potency than needs be.

Speaker 4: Right. So see above don't have a negative thoughts. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, it is so, so releasing, so powerful. If you can, if you can. Do that uncoupling, that, that recognizing we are part of a wave. We're, we're part of this sort of complex weather system and, and it's difficult vocabulary 'cause we're talking about, we, you know, that shorthand of I and we all of the time we're, we're, we're saying that.

And of course, you know, in our daily lives it's really useful. You know, we can't go around in a state of sort of ego. Disillusioned 'cause we wouldn't get stuff done. 

Speaker 4: So [00:53:00] that's why you hold yourself lightly. Don't drop yourself. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's knowing when to use it tactically. So just when you open that valve up in key moments, but no, if you like that all of the time, you'll never get anything done.

Yeah. You, you wouldn't go into function properly. 

Speaker 4: No, absolutely. Um, and most, yeah, most people are holding onto themselves too tightly, I think. And maybe they should loosen it. There's a few people who maybe need to tighten their grip on themselves a little bit as well. I think they're a minority, but I think they also exist.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 4: We're out of time. I think we have a lot more to talk about, but that's all we can talk about for now. Paul, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find your book? 

Speaker 3: Um, so I think it's available very broadly in the uk. It's been translated I know, into 11 languages, which is fantastic.

So it will be sort of a staggered rollout beyond the UK over the coming months. Uh, but no, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and I'm sort of very grateful, very skills navigation of the conversation. So [00:54:00] thank you. 

Speaker 4: Thanks so much for coming on. 

Speaker 3: Absolute pleasure.