From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Last week I was asked to help the NHS get video-consultations up and running in every GP practice in the country, in one week.
No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing.
Philosophy is not an anaesthetic, like it's just going to make the pain go away. But there is great solace in really understanding why chronic pain is difficult. Understanding those things can be consoling in itself, in part because it overcomes the isolation of illness.
If we consider the United States, where potentially 40 million people could discover through brain imaging or blood tests that they have amyloid in their brains, the question arises: how can healthcare systems afford to provide a $100,000 per year therapy to so many people? It's simply not feasible.
Most of the time, this isn't the case. Physiology is, in fact, largely malleable. While genetics indeed play a role in our overall health and capabilities, the impact of lifestyle factors and habits often outweighs genetic predispositions, primarily because we have control over these factors while we can't alter our genetics.
What they found was that people thought the person with the whiter, straighter teeth looked healthier, younger, more well educated. Just the teeth. Same person. Whiter, straighter teeth. Everything else was the same.
Ageing is malleable, we can control it. 20% of our health in old-age is due to genetic factors, and the rest is due to our lifestyle. We can measure this clock. It's literally measuring chemicals in our own DNA.
You are the custodian of your body. Billions, perhaps trillions, of organisms live in your bowel and your immune system is formed and informed by those organisms.
The oral care industry and oral products is mainly made out of three or four companies that control 90% of oral care products in the world. All multibillion-dollar, multinational companies. I don't think these companies are stupid. They are run by very intelligent people, but I think the premise has been wrong.
A lot of people assume that I would choose not to have bipolar disorder; but I'm grateful for it. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, because I feel like all the ups and downs have formed who I am, and made be braver, tougher… more creative and more capable.
He describes mental wellness as an unwavering commitment to reality, regardless of the cost. Trauma, in this light, can be a powerful teacher, though its lessons often require revisiting. These moments offer a stark glimpse of reality, a contrast to the daily bombardment of trivial concerns.
Fear is like being shot out of a cannon. Imagine a car has fallen on someone I love—I get this clear, calm, intense bolt of energy. In that heightened state, I could lift the car off them (as has happened before in rare cases). Anxiety, on the other hand, is like being haunted. You never actually see what's scaring you—it's just a story in your head that never goes away.