From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
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.
Mental resilience comes from knowing, deep down, that you're supposed to be where you are. Confidence in your purpose is crucial. By focusing on the next step while keeping the big picture in mind, you can effectively accomplish the mission.
We are all headed towards aging populations because we are living longer and measuring GDP growth is not the way to decide whether a society or an economy are flourishing. Population aging is evidence that we've been doing a lot of things right.
With technology, we're creating a lot more hammers – and with more hammers, we're able to find more nails. The question is whether those hammers are being made for the right purposes, and whether they will serve the right purpose. I often worry that when we talk about health-tech – it almost seems that in certain areas the tech is taking over the health.
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.
Limiting sleep to just 4-5 hours for one single night will drop levels of critical anti-cancer fighting cells, called natural killer cells, by 70%. That's a rather alarming state of immune deficiency, and it happens after just one night of short sleep.
We spend a huge amount of our lives away from the immediacy of our existence, lost in reflections on the past or anxieties of the future. This misadventure in episodic memory takes a huge toll on us, leading to stress, anxiety, depression and exacerbating a range of complex medical and psychological conditions we may have.
But 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 in one study that found no significant overall effect, cat owners were actually more depressed than the control group.
They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again.
Operating on less than six hours of sleep, your immune system may function at merely 40 to 50% of its full potential. This is why individuals who suffer from poor sleep quality, including those with sleep apnoea, exhibit a higher incidence of cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
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.
The scale of our damage on the animal world is unimaginable. We inflict pain and suffering on wild and domestic animals. We take away their wild lands and habitats, we use them to test our medicines and they're affected by climate change, pollution and many other aspects of our world.