From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Thanks to the incredible concept of neuroplasticity, we can reshape our thought patterns. Techniques like affirmations, altering our language, or refining our thought processes are invaluable.
We found that individuals who habitually pushed away problems and difficulties, or those who opted to ignore their issues or avoid confronting them, tended to suffer more and fared less well overall. On the other hand, those who confronted their troubles directly, often seeking the support of others to navigate through these challenges, were the ones who exhibited the highest levels of resilience.
Lack of sleep is like a broken water pipe in your home, it leaks water into every nook and cranny, and erodes the fabric of your DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.
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.
Stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.
My life's mission is to dismantle the notion of mental illness altogether. I detest it. It only serves to shame and stigmatise those with brain health challenges, which is utterly wrong.
A less experienced, less comfortable, version of myself would get angry and then realise they were angry. The meditative version of me can anticipate when I'm going to get angry- and then, it becomes a choice. Do you want to be angry? Or have a different attitude?
Growing up in Pakistan, I saw so many people with heart disease and having heart attacks – it felt almost biblical – it was catastrophic. Unlike a lot of diseases, there wasn't much a cultural footprint for heart disease – it's not something you hear about on news or TV shows…. You don't see much advocacy done around it.
Population aging is evidence that we've been doing a lot of things right. We're confident that if we have children, they will live long lives as well and we've never had those trends before in all human history.
We have these floods of ideas when we allow ourselves to slow down – you get this pent-up energy that flows out of you.
Ageing is not separate from Alzheimer's or heart disease. The leading causes of those diseases is the ageing process, which we can now control. Based on what we're doing in the lab, we know that if you turn the clock back, those diseases go away- that's a revolution. We've been working on a band aid system trying to fix the diseases that are already there, while ignoring the main cause.
Unfortunately, we've become so adept at concealing our problems that we often brush aside reproductive and women's health issues. It's as though discussing them is taboo. Now, it feels like showing strength means not voicing any discomfort or pain. However, there comes a point when silence is no longer an option.