A terrific question to lead off with and you know there are so many books out there there are so many programs online and cetera that really give out good information about what we should eat that we should exercise Pay Attention to our sleep but the problem is so many people end up with these books on the bookshelves and year after year they go on an answer and the reason is now we have to start paying attention to making making the choices so what we are describing in our new book brainwashed is the bridge between information and action really finally giving people 2 things number one the recognition that their Decision Making has been taken from them actively and number 2 how to get it back now full disclosure ive been one of you a big fans ever since your number one New York Times bestseller grain brain was published in 2013 it gave me and im sure many other people didnt know the agency to make a long lasting Lifestyle Changes but as you said in a couple of weeks youll have a new book out brainwash what are you trying to achieve with that. Well were hoping to achieve some very very big things and what were trying to bring to the public attention is the fact that our modern world our modern society through the foods that were eating our lack of sleep and certainly from all of the time we spend connected to Digital Media is changing the wiring of our brain as it relates to our ability to make good decisions im going to put forward a simple kind of understanding of 2 brain parts one is a part called the prefrontal cortex it sits up here in the forehead and the other is called the amygdala between the ears the a mega is like the child in the room its impulsivity its narcissism its us versus them it is fear the prefrontal cortex is empathy its compassion its thinking about the future in terms of what we do today thats where we need to make our decisions based from from the prefrontal cortex unfortunately when we eat the modern diet of our planet or when we watch the news or we spend too much time online we lock in to the a magdalen we lock in to the child in the room and were not able to make good decisions as i mentioned at the beginning of our time together while all the great books are there theyre not useful for anybody unless were able to implement or put bring action in terms of what all these terrific books are talking about in the same thing goes really for our mentality how we look at other people our next door neighbors people in another community and even people in other countries right now we look upon people around the world with fear with an us versus them mentality and this is brought about because of the way our brains are being rewired you know grain brain talked about the changes in the diet around the world. And like you say a lot of people gain some benefit from now from that but now were really want to look at how we can change how people look upon each other and how we look upon our planet and almost all of your books are focused on the brain which as far as i understand is not only you know has not only professional oric adamic but also a personal of balance for you because from what i know you lost your father to alzheimers now you keep referring to yourself as we and i know that you rode this latest book with your son who is also a trained doctor what is he bringing to the table. Well austin promotor m. D. Is a Board Certified physician in an area called internal medicine and austin brings a very youthful a very guarded perspective of how this is extremely Important Information for his generation and really brings a an incredible level of science and knowledge to the project so what a what a gift for me to be able to share in this experience bringing this book to the world you know as as we have this conversation were getting ready to publish this book keeper in the United States and its already been acquired by 16 other countries around the world and you know we believe this is going to be an important game changer that we desperately need we need to come together and we think that is you know the way to our survival is to look upon each other as friends not follow and you know whether its losing weight or whatever your goal may be achieving that goal as you mentioned earlier in our conversation the new years resolution all well and good but unless you make certain decisions youre not going to be able to follow through and thats what brainwash offers the ability to actually change your Decision Making ability well lets talk about those decisions because one of the take a waste of your book for me was that we as humans can now really decide how millennial evolution will work on our own bodies we can pick and choose which evolutionary adaptation to empower and which on the contrary to keep in check and i think that takes these old debate of nature versus nurture to a whole new level of the big ation doesnt it. It does and what a wonderful question to ask especially these days when we realize that its not a dichotomy between nature meaning our genetics and nurture meaning our environment not at all i mean for many years it was either one of the other and we now understand that it is actually a very beautiful dance better kurz between our nature our genes and nurture our environment that the foods we eat the amount of sleep we get in even our exercise each day actually change the expression of our life code of our d. N. A. Thats very very empowering and it also carries with it a lot of responsibility as it relates to our health we now recognize that globally the number one cause of death are what we call chronic degenerative conditions and these are by and large related to the choices that we make every day in terms of our food in terms of our activities as well as our use of technology i have a very big chapter on technology and whats interesting and fascinating about it to me is that Technology May be new but its added in from your book that the ways in the which the Tech Companies are trying to hijack our brains are essentially the same old tricks that the big food or the Big Tobacco Companies are using and that is manipulating the brains reward circuitry making us feel good so that to be come back for more more and more is it fair to say that their Business Model is ultimately based on flustering addiction. Without question without question and the more that happens the more the brain becomes a conduit for that very thing that you are talking about and let me be very clear im not antitechnology at all i mean look you and i are able to have this conversation because of some incredible leaps in technology we wrote the book brainwashed based upon an unlimited resource of knowledge having the internet but we all recognize now that when we spend hours and hours mindlessly on the internet that those are precious hours those are times lost that we could be doing other things that are very constructive and help providing we know that our attention is absolutely gamed by pop ups by click bait you know the average american spends more than 6 hours a day in front of one type of screen or another whether its a Tablet Television or their computer screen that as of 2 about 22 years of screen time in the average life time its been said that when youre doing one thing youre not doing Something Else and those Something Else things are really important exercise reconnecting with people spending time in nature for example you make a very interesting point in your book that on the one hand humans have evolved in gauging physical activity but on the as they had we were also selected to avoid unnecessary exertion so being a couch potato also has an evolutionary basis to it its just a matter of how much youre willing to succumb to it and that leads me to the question to the issue of balance of each essential to all your books how do you decide how do you add drive at golden middle. Its a terrific question and that is what its all about we use the term sweet spot i kind of reject the turncoats the sweet part but youre right too much or too little of virtually any of our lifestyle choices is not good we want to be in that that what we call the goldilocks zone as a relates to exercise you can overdo it or you can spend your time as you mentioned as a couch potato you can sleep too much which isnt good for you or not get enough sleep for example but what we recognize is that the human body likes to be stressed when it is stress it responds in a positive way to some degree unless its overstressed we in primitive times didnt have food for days at a time and that turned out to be actually activating of some very important survival mechanisms but you know you mention for example the way that our we are being manipulated to be online and even even food i mean here in america about 68 percent of the food sold in Grocery Stores had as added sweetener why exactly what you mention to keep us coming back for more and that sweet flavor hacks into a primitive gene pathway that says that sweet foods are safe and sweet foods have high nutritional content but not all the time again its finding absolutely finding the balance but now its all through how these activities increase something that ive mentioned many times in previous books and that is inflammation inflammation is a cause of alzheimers Heart Disease diabetes cancer and now we know that inflammation is keeping us from ken neck ting to that part of the brain that weve been talking about the prefrontal cortex that allows us to be forward thinking and empathetic people now this fundamental change that the you mentioned a moment ago and that you. Explore in your book the if this. Came in the application of the brains theory of words circuitry of from the promotion of live sustaining activities to disease inducing pleasure seeking do your thing it has the potential of destroying the human race not to be too dramatic here. Well in the book we were dramatic theres we dont have the luxury right now of as we say pulling punches so what weve recognized as an example is that inflammation as i just mentioned is keeping us away from that part of the brain that we need to access the prefrontal cortex and inflammation is a consequence of the modern diet this diet that is riding around the globe which is pro inflammatory is changing the wiring and therefore the behavior of people all around the globe and you know we need as we talked about earlier to come together so it is what we call an existential consideration so there is no need to pull the punch here we can be very direct and its time that we confront some of these things that are happening while dr perlmutter its also time for us to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments statement. This is a stick from the water bottle phone in the stomach of the fish the brand is sponsor of the Cocacola Company which zooms millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that lets tell consumers there are the bad was there the litter bugs are throwing this away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. Special projects funding he tells it depends. On the that is the end of a 42. 00. But for now the mountains of waste only grow. Welcome back to worlds apart but David Perlmutter neurologist and call thoreau of the upcoming book brainwashed dr perlmutter just before their break restarted talking about the connection between what you eat and how you treat others and yourself you know they sling bits when inflammation and lower levels of empathy and the you put it down to the broken communication between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex with the former taking the better of the latter arent you concerned that some people may interpret that as an excuse to be a jerk what about free will even the when the your arteries are on fire with inflammation. I wouldnt say this is an argument against free will i mean i think what were looking at are the v. Anatomical structures that allow us to make judgment and when we make judgment which is impulsive and suddenly reactive versus reflex reflective then we get into trouble we should me making our actions by and large by thinking about the future consequences what i do today might affect you tomorrow what i do today might affect my health in 10 years so i think its really one of our wonderful attributes as humans to be able to think about the future instead of acting impulsively somebody says something bad about me i immediately fire off a twitter tweet about that person thats aggressive i mean thats we need to hold those things in check and make more thought through decisions and consider the feelings of others consider how it will affect the future empathy towards other people and even empathy towards my future self you know empathy is the ability to see things from another persons perspective we call that cognitive empathy and we sure need more of that these days you know a few years back before i read your books i was much heavier and i was definitely a very difficult person to be around i think the 1st part of the how to fasting ecstatic fasting that is but im still struggling with this 2nd part because when im on day 2 or 3 without food i can literally feel my body policy with adrenalin and cortisol when you have being a nasty person in that condition is so much easier i wonder if you have any advise on how to tame courses all when the your on the stand that sas pts. I would say make sure that youre engaged in meditation meditation directly offsets cortisol and the other thing that is really important and weve got all the science in the world talked about in the book is nature expos or i mean Research Demonstrates that just getting out into nature can dramatically reduce cortisol very very quickly even if its a Natural Environment within a city even if its a potted plant in your kitchen and even if its just a photograph of nature that you happen to put in your living room so any connection with the Natural World goes a long way to offset that very cortisol that you are referring to now since you mentioned meditation i do personally find the extended fast far more enjoyable when i meditate and meditation is all about switching off certain parts of your brain wheres your book is primarily focused on super charging your cortices what about the importance of turning it off do you think people need to develop that ability of just you know getting inside their own house rather than going outside. I think both i think you know its a bit of a coke with and getting inside your head but what we do know with regards to meditation is that immediately it lights up the prefrontal cortex and the more you do it the more that prefrontal cortex is functional even when youre not meditating and the more it is connected to the a make the law allowing the prefrontal cortex to calm down the you make below when its not connected we call that in the book disconnection syndrome and thats what were trying to reverse were trying to reconnect the prefrontal cortex to the made to give it the ability to calm things down and really basically bring the adult back into the room. Everybody knows that about the harm of junk food but one of the 1st things meditators realized is that our how they have to be a lot of junk thoughts thoughts greasy smelly sticky leave us still feeling bloated feeling sick and with food at least sometimes you can you can understand what youre eating what about the thoughts how do you separate did john from the good stuff when it comes to your mental capacity. Well its been said that neurons that fire together wire together and the more you do something the more you even think about something the more those pathways become indelible so its all about really guiding your thinking process to things that are more positive for example turning off the negative news that is so pervasive these days i mean the news is all about things that are aggressive and fear inspiring so its you know those types of negative thoughts that we want to kind of distance ourselves away from everybody is going to have intrusive thoughts for example when we engage meditation or prayer thats normal but lovingly and kindly we try to push those thoughts away and return to the program whatever the meditation Prayer Program might be its totally normal for that to happen but it does get easier and it does get better with time i think one of the very interesting thoughts that i got while reading your book is that while food is information because it influences the expression of our genes information is also can also be processed like food it can a fact our body in both good and bad ways in fact the news organizations are essentially relying on the same model as the big foot companies and the big Tech Companies that to be discussed earlier theyre also appealing to. Parts of the brain that they can essentially hi jack. Thats right you know the dalai lama told us that the brain we develop reflects the life that we lead it means in a very real sense we are moment to moment sculpting both the form and the function of our brains and one of the major goals we had at the beginning of brainwashing was to call out exactly what you just said and that is the fact that there is this obvious manipulation of our brains that is taking place by technology by marketing through technology again the pop ups and the now the things that are so attractive online to take us away because our attention is valuable to others just calling it out like weve done and brainwash is a major 1st step later on in the book we talk about then one of the tools that you can utilize to recognize it but also to distance yourself from being so highly influenced day by day now dr perlmutter you precise your book with a quote from the great russian writer leo tolstoy if you want to be happy be an dandy you go on to say that billions of dollars have being stand on persuading people to pursue and crave things that make them and happy that make them seek deiced make them addicted is it out ultimately a matter of personal or social responsibility for you. Both you know im and i am now in the meaning part of life where are the what life is all about is the central question for me and ive realized that. Part of the meaning of my life is to make a contribution so its that interaction of doing whats right for me personally in terms of my health and terms of the structuring of my brain but beyond that and t