From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Songs are like a cleanse for the nervous system. I put on She's Always a Woman by Billy Joel and I just suddenly felt psychologically lifted. There's something in the essence of this song… it's not just beats and energy. It felt this song was filled with beauty, mystery, and love.
People have been told that asthma is an incurable condition, that they'll need to stay indoors and rely on a bronchodilator every few hours for life. But that's just not true. The way you breathe is deeply connected to asthma symptoms, a message that asthmatics rarely hear from anyone.
I learned that even if I lost every limb, my core identity – a hardworking, competitive, fun-loving person – would remain intact. My physical abilities as an amputee changed, but not my fundamental self. It was a powerful realization: my true essence is untouchable.
When it comes to claims like 'pets alleviate depression,' there's really no solid evidence. In fact, the findings so far are pretty ambiguous. And—I don't really want to tell you this—but in one study that found no significant overall effect, cat owners were actually more depressed than the control group.
As long as you keep your mind in the game, your body will follow. You convince your body through your mind. I've never heard anyone say, 'well, I was going to quit, but my body pulled me through…' it's your mind that pulls you through, and your body follows.
If we want to live and become 100 years old, we need to have parents and grandparents that have lived that long- that's it. There's not much we can do in terms of environmental influence, eating well, and living well – those things help of course but to get to great age, you need the genes.
When I got better, even simple things like being able to wake-up, go for a walk, speak, and observe life, felt viscerally stunning and good. I found a state of being – a state that gave me perspective and feeling about life and my place in it.
When considering the prevalence of this disease, we're speaking of 7 million diagnosed patients in the US. But how many Americans currently have the initial stages of Alzheimer's already festering in their brains? I concur with the higher estimates, suggesting around 40 million people.
I have anxiety and depression, I don't 'suffer with them' as the description would normally go. I have them in the way I have arms, legs, eyes and a mouth, they are a part of me.
In the future, these kinds of blood tests will become commonplace. They will allow us to offer treatments for Alzheimer's disease 10, 20, or even 30 years before symptoms start to manifest, much like how we currently handle cholesterol. This early detection and intervention will be our strategy for combating Alzheimer's.
There's a direct link between mental health and immunity. If you go through a divorce, if you are in a car accident, or if you suffer some major trauma to your body… your cortisone rises, adrenaline goes-up. You could have enough of an immune response to get pneumonia.
To break the silence around sexual abuse, more people need to speak about it… normalise it… and by doing so, hopefully we can start to get our children talking, and make some real progress to eliminate these acts from our society.