The Wright Show
Recorded: Dec 29 Posted: Jan 19, 2014
Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv) and Joseph Goldstein (Insight Meditation Society, Mindfulness)
FOLLOW:
Robert Wright
Download: wmv | mp4 | mp3 | fast mp3
Links Mentioned
Why I Thank the Voices in My Head
A New Voice In Mental Illness
Eleanor Longden
Posted: 08/23/2013
A few months ago, a colleague of mine brandished an article in front of me with a rather bemused expression. "Read this!" he said, "I'd never have believed it." It was a piece about a man who hears voices. Intrigued, I began to read:
"The voice is identified as Ruah... the Old Testament word for Spirit of God. It speaks in a feminine voice and tends to express statements regarding the Messianic expectation... It has spoken to me sporadically since I was in high school. I expect that if a crisis arises it will say something again. It's very economical... It limits itself to a few very terse, succinct sentences... I have to be very receptive to hear it. It sounds as though it's coming from millions of miles away."
The reason for my colleague's surprise wasn't so much the content (he's a psychologist and is well accustomed to accounts from people who hear things no one else can). Rather, it was who was relating their encounter with this "tutelary spirit" that surprised him. Because this wasn't a report from a distressed, disorientated psychiatric patient; they were the words of award-winning, visionary author Philip K. Dick whose works, amongst others, inspired the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall. To me, this wasn't particularly surprising; why shouldn't someone of accomplishment and renown also happen to be a voice-hearer? But to my colleague it seemed to present a puzzling, almost unsettling, dissonance. And, to an extent, I can empathize with his surprise. After all, voice hearing is closely entwined with schizophrenia (with all the sinister connotations that this controversial diagnosis implies). And in the popular imagination, voices are commonly linked with derangement, madness, and mental corruption. As such, many contemporary voice-hearers inhabit hostile territory -- it's an experience that is literally marinated with fear, suspicion, and mistrust.
Yet despite these florid associations, psychiatry has long recognized that voice hearing features in a range of non-psychotic mental health difficulties, particularly trauma-based conditions like post-traumatic stress and the dissociative disorders. Perhaps more unexpectedly, research also suggests that approximately 13 percent of people with no record of psychiatric problems may also report voice hearing at some point in their lives. In itself voice hearing is an absorbing topic -- conjuring the nuances of perception and the nature of self -- and has alternatively been feared, reviled, celebrated, and consecrated, and forensically scrutinized within such diverse specialties as psychology, neurology, anthropology, theology, medical humanities, and cultural studies. Furthermore, accounts of voice hearing have been documented throughout human history: recounted by a wide array of pioneers, geniuses, rebels, and innovators that span across the centuries -- and also by normal, unexceptionable people like myself. You see, I'm a voice-hearer too.
It was the delirious, frenzied depths and exhilarating rewards of my own voice hearing voyage that would eventually take me to the Long Beach stage for TED 2013. Over the years, my voices have changed, multiplied, terrorized, inspired, and encouraged. Today they are an intrinsic, valued part of my identity, but there was also a time when their presence drove me to delirious extremes of misery, desperation, and despair. They brought me cringing and rocking to a psychiatric ward and pulled me down into the bleakest depths of madness; yet they would also lift me up to help me pass my University exams and ultimately elevate me to discover fundamental, healing truths about myself. The evolution of this understanding -- and the remarkable privileges and terrible penalties it incurred -- form the basis of my talk and accompanying TED book, Learning From the Voices in My Head.
Sharing my experiences so publicly could have felt overwhelming, but at every step the solidarity of friends and colleagues in the International Hearing Voices Movement fortified and sustained me. This organization has taken huge strides to reclaim voice hearing as a meaningful human experience; one which, for many of us, embodies figurative, emotional metaphors that communicate compelling information about pain and conflicts in our lives. This is not about pathologizing voices as symptoms; rather it is about understanding, accepting, and reclaiming them. In my own pilgrimage to recovery, it was learning to see the voices in more respectful, compassionate ways -- as adaptations, survival strategies, and representations of emotional pain - that made my healing possible. After years of shame, horror, and heartbreak, I finally made peace with my voices which, fundamentally, meant making peace with myself. And it was this framework that empowered me to take to the TED stage; not as an ex-psychiatric patient with a 'bad brain,' but as a proud and maddened survivor with an assortment of valuable and valued voices. In fact, at the end of my talk June Cohen, one of the conference's wonderful co-hosts, came onto the stage and asked me, with a respectful interest, whether I still hear voices. For a split second I hesitated, wondering whether to feign 'normal' and play it down with an airy "oh, not all that much now." Instead I opted for the truth: "All the time," I said cheerfully, "In fact I heard them while I did the talk... they were reminding me what to say!" Pride, empowerment, and the support to listen to one's voices without distress should, I believe, be a natural right of everyone who hears voices. So too, the right to freedom, dignity, respect, and a voice that can be heard.
'Learning' Our Way to Mental Healing
Patric K. Stanton
Watching and hearing Eleanor Longden talk about her experiences of hearing voices may, for many of us, feel both odd and familiar. I am a neuroscientist, but first, I am a person living my own human experience. So I found myself thinking how often, in the course of life, these things we call thoughts and emotions appear, unbidden, from some recess of our minds and make themselves known to us, as if "we" are not quite the same as everything going on in our "conscious" and "unconscious" brains. Many of us, at some time or other, may even have had the experience of hearing a distinct voice, a parent or coach, speaking to us. Eleanor's voices seemed more coherent and more separate, but might they not be on a continuum of states of mind that we all have? When should society (namely us) view this form of internal experience as a disease, instead of a rare, but acceptable, part of life?
* * *
Madness, Revolution, and Making Peace
Ron Unger
While some will frame Eleanor's story, told in her awesome TED video, as the triumph of an individual struggling against "mental illness," I believe the story might better be seen as a refutation of the whole "illness of the mind" metaphor, and as an indication of a desperate need for a new paradigm.
When human experiences like hearing voices are framed as "illness," the strategy of attempting to eradicate them naturally follows. When Eleanor was first hospitalized, she was trained in this model, which directly led to what she describes as her engagement in a "psychic civil war," where the voices multiplied and became overwhelmingly nasty. Unfortunately, this is not unusual: research shows that fearing experiences, and attempting to avoid and/or suppressing them, often predicts the escalation of difficulties.
* * *
Listening to the Soul
Mark Rubinstein
As a novelist and psychiatrist, I listened to Eleanor Longden's lyrical presentation with a mixture of awe, admiration and humility.
She hauntingly described the "toxic, tormenting sense of helplessness" accompanying severe mental disturbance. "My voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events. Each voice was related to aspects of myself... that I'd never had an opportunity to process or resolve, memories of sexual trauma and abuse, of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth." I found these statements deeply insightful.
I was particularly impressed when she said the voices "represented the parts of me that had been hurt most profoundly."
* * *
Eleanor Longden's TEDTalk: "The Voices In My Head"
Lloyd I. Sederer, MD
Damage is not destiny. That is Eleanor Longden's lived experience and the message delivered in her warm, poignant and illuminating TED talk.
She casts a striking figure, statuesque in the beam of the TED lights with her long, golden blond hair and crystal clear blue eyes, telling a story about psychosis -- her own. I watched, mesmerized, and saw both her confidence and her fragility as she revealed how what started as benign voices commenting on her behavior escalated to sinister, accusatory and demoralizing demons. She was told she had schizophrenia, a severe and persistent mental illness. Like many people in a psychotic state she was given medication that -- while generally necessary -- left her feeling more "drugged and discarded" than having assisted her in overcoming a serious illness.
* * *
Mind Wide Open: Listening to Disturbing Voices, Thoughts and Feelings
Dr. Gary Trosclair
"Is that crazy?" my patients sometimes ask me when they've told me something they're feeling or thinking that they're worried about. "No, it's not crazy," I say, "but I get that it can be crazy-making." I understand that while their feelings or thoughts don't necessarily qualify them for a trip to the hospital, they can be very disturbing. But I've also come to learn that while what comes up inside can be distressing, it may well also have meaning. And while the experience that psychologist Eleanor Longden describes in her TEDTalk is far more dramatic than what most of us go through, her talk shows the way to a more informed and fulfilling way of living; we should all listen to our voices.
* * *
Psychiatry and Recovery: Finding Common Ground And Joining Forces
Allen Frances
Eleanor Langdon is an extraordinary woman who has shown remarkable grit and creativity in transforming her disturbing symptoms into useful tools. Hats off to her for finding such a fruitful path to personal recovery and for sharing her techniques and inspiring story so that others may benefit from what she has learned.
There are many precious lessons we can draw from this tape- never give up hope; never forget the person who is ill by focusing only on the illness; normalize the experience of mental illness rather than stigmatizing it; and use the symptoms as a way of gaining self understanding and self acceptance.
* * *
The Hope Within
Ashley L. Smith
Eleanor Longden's TEDTalk, "The Voices in My Head," provided insight into a world I know all too much about -- living with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be characterized by irrational thoughts, bizarre behavior, hallucinations, delusions, and psychosis, or lack of understanding of reality. Hallucinations can come in all five bodily senses -- sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell. Despite popular belief, not all people with this type of mental illness experience hallucinations. Sometimes people with different mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, depression, and schizoaffective disorder experience hallucinations too.
Eleanor's experiences seemed to parallel some of my own which helped me identify with her even more than simply sharing diagnoses.
* * *
Why Mental Health Is Losing Its Soul
Jeffrey Rubin, Ph.D.
Many years ago I worked with a man in his early 30s, who was sent to me by a psychiatrist because he suffered from "delusions of persecution." Short and slight, "Roger" believed rays were being beamed into the bus he was on.
Schizophrenics are supposedly people who are crazy and "out of touch with reality."
At the end of our first session, Roger leaned forward and asked if I would treat him using only intensive psychotherapy, without forcing him to take drugs and become a "zombie."
"Let's try it and be honest about how it goes," I said.
* * *
The Real Dangers of Self-Stigmatization
Katy Gray
Being sectioned and locked in a hospital ward wasn't on my bucket list, but it's something that has happened to me twice. The first time, I was 20 and in the middle of my studies at university. I had been hearing a voice for two years, a voice I believed was the devil. He made me do many harmful things to myself, but his latest command was even more extreme. He commanded me to stop eating, and for two weeks, I obeyed him. I was physically and mentally exhausted after this fortnight, but being sectioned still managed to take my breath away.
Around ten minutes after being sectioned, I was told I was being prescribed an antipsychotic.
"Wait, an antipsychotic? Does this mean I'm psychotic?" I thought.
* * *
Realize Your Mind's Intrinsic Power
Marie Pasinski, M.D.
Holding a human brain for the first time was a powerful moment. Cradling the fragile organ in my hands, I had this overwhelming realization that every thought, every emotion, every experience and every dream this person ever had was coded within. As a neurologist, my awe for this miraculous structure intensifies with every new breakthrough in neuroscience and each personal triumph that I encounter. Eleanor Longden's talk, "The Voices in My Head" is a testament to the intrinsic power of the human brain and its ability to redesign itself.
Only recently have we begun to understand that thoughts are structurally encoded within the brain. Every time you think a specific thought, certain pathways of neurons fire up. With repetition, these pathways are strengthened.
Utah Is Ending Homelessness by Giving People Homes
Earlier this month, Hawaii State representative Tom Bower (D) began walking the streets of his Waikiki district with a sledgehammer, and smashing shopping carts used by homeless people. “Disgusted” by the city’s chronic homelessness problem, Bower decided to take matters into his own hands — literally. He also took to rousing homeless people if he saw them sleeping at bus stops during the day.
Bower’s tactics were over the top, and so unpopular that he quickly declared “Mission accomplished,” and retired his sledgehammer. But Bower’s frustration with his city’s homelessness problem is just an extreme example of the frustration that has led cities to pass measures that effective deal with the homeless by criminalizing homelessness.
This trend makes Utah’s accomplishment even more noteworthy. In eight years, Utah has quietly reduced homelessness by 78 percent, and is on track to end homelessness by 2015.
- City council members in Columbia, South Carolina, concerned that the city was becoming a “magnet for homeless people,” passed an ordinance giving the homeless the option to either relocate or get arrested. The council later rescinded the ordinance, after backlash from police officers, city workers, and advocates.
- Last year, Tampa, Florida — which had the most homeless people for a mid-sized city — passed an ordinance allowing police officers to arrest anyone they saw sleeping in public, or “storing personal property in public.” The city followed up with a ban on panhandling downtown, and other locations around the city.
- Philadelphia took a somewhat different approach, with a law banning the feeding of homeless people on city parkland. Religious groups objected to the ban, and announced that they would not obey it.
- Raleigh, North Carolina took the step of asking religious groups to stop their longstanding practice of feeding the homeless in a downtown park on weekends. Religious leaders announced that they would risk arrest rather than stop.
How did Utah accomplish this? Simple. Utah solved homelessness by giving people homes. In 2005, Utah figured out that the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail says for homeless people was about $16,670 per person, compared to $11,000 to provide each homeless person with an apartment and a social worker. So, the state began giving away apartments, with no strings attached. Each participant in Utah’s Housing First program also gets a caseworker to help them become self-sufficient, but the keep the apartment even if they fail. The program has been so successful that other states are hoping to achieve similar results with programs modeled on Utah’s.
It sounds like Utah borrowed a page from Homes Not Handcuffs, the 2009 report by The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and The National Coalition for the Homeless. Using a 2004 survey and anecdotal evidence from activists, the report concluded that permanent housing for the homeless is cheaper than criminalization. Housing is not only more human, it’s economical.
This happened in a Republican state! Republicans in Congress would probably have required the homeless to take a drug test before getting an apartment, denied apartments to homeless people with criminal records, and evicted those who failed to become self-sufficient after five years or so. But Utah’s results show that even conservative states can solve problems like homelessness with decidedly progressive solutions.
Shrink Rap Radio #386 – An Update on Mind-Expanding Substances with Ralph Metzner PhD
A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
copyright 2014: David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
Posted on January 16, 2014
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, is a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He collaborated with Leary and Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics at Harvard University in the 1960s, co-authored The Psychedelic Experience and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He is a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was also the Academic Dean for ten years in the 1980s. His books include The Unfolding Self, The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, The Expansion of Consciousness, Alchemical Divination, and Mind Space and Time Stream. He is the editor of two collections of essays on the pharmacology, anthropology and phenomenology of ayahuasca and of psilocybin mushrooms. He is also the president and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation, dedicated to healing and harmonizing the relations between humanity and the Earth.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Check out the following Psychology CE Courses based on listening to Shrink Rap Radio interviews:
- Jungian Psychotherapy Part 1 (6 CEUs)
- Jungian Psychotherapy Part 2 (7 CEUs)
- Jungian Psychotherapy Part 3 (7 CEUs)
- Jungian Psychotherapy Part 4 (6 CEUs)
- Jungian Psychotherapy Part 5 (7 CEUs)
- Jungian Psychotherapy Package of the Five Above (33 CEUs)
- Wisdom of The Dream (4 CEUs)
- Positive Psychology (6 CEUs)
- Pros and Cons of Positive Psychology (5 CEUs)
- CERTIFICATE PROGRAM IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (32 CEUs)
- Body-Mind: Goodbye to Dualism (6 CEUs)
- Brain: Insights from Neuroscience (8 CEUs)
- Meditation & Psychotherapy (8 CEUs)
- Insights from Neuroscience (8 CEUs)
- Neuroscience and Healing (8 CEUs)
- NEW! The Psychology of Relationships (7 CEUs)
- Get our iPhone/Android app!
- Get 10% discount on all lectures at The JungPlatform using our discount code: DRDAVE
For the Love of Money
By SAM POLKJAN. 18, 2014
Launch media viewer Owen Freeman
IN my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted.
Eight years earlier, I’d walked onto the trading floor at Credit Suisse First Boston to begin my summer internship. I already knew I wanted to be rich, but when I started out I had a different idea about what wealth meant. I’d come to Wall Street after reading in the book “Liar’s Poker” how Michael Lewis earned a $225,000 bonus after just two years of work on a trading floor. That seemed like a fortune. Every January and February, I think about that time, because these are the months when bonuses are decided and distributed, when fortunes are made.
I’d learned about the importance of being rich from my dad. He was a modern-day Willy Loman, a salesman with huge dreams that never seemed to materialize. “Imagine what life will be like,” he’d say, “when I make a million dollars.” While he dreamed of selling a screenplay, in reality he sold kitchen cabinets. And not that well. We sometimes lived paycheck to paycheck off my mom’s nurse-practitioner salary.
Dad believed money would solve all his problems. At 22, so did I. When I walked onto that trading floor for the first time and saw the glowing flat-screen TVs, high-tech computer monitors and phone turrets with enough dials, knobs and buttons to make it seem like the cockpit of a fighter plane, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It looked as if the traders were playing a video game inside a spaceship; if you won this video game, you became what I most wanted to be — rich.
IT was a miracle I’d made it to Wall Street at all. While I was competitive and ambitious — a wrestler at Columbia University — I was also a daily drinker and pot smoker and a regular user of cocaine, Ritalin and ecstasy. I had a propensity for self-destruction that had resulted in my getting suspended from Columbia for burglary, arrested twice and fired from an Internet company for fistfighting. I learned about rage from my dad, too. I can still see his red, contorted face as he charged toward me. I’d lied my way into the C.S.F.B. internship by omitting my transgressions from my résumé and was determined not to blow what seemed a final chance. The only thing as important to me as that internship was my girlfriend, a starter on the Columbia volleyball team. But even though I was in love with her, when I got drunk I’d sometimes end up with other women.
Three weeks into my internship she wisely dumped me. I don’t like who you’ve become, she said. I couldn’t blame her, but I was so devastated that I couldn’t get out of bed. In desperation, I called a counselor whom I had reluctantly seen a few times before and asked for help.
She helped me see that I was using alcohol and drugs to blunt the powerlessness I felt as a kid and suggested I give them up. That began some of the hardest months of my life. Without the alcohol and drugs in my system, I felt like my chest had been cracked open, exposing my heart to air. The counselor said that my abuse of drugs and alcohol was a symptom of an underlying problem — a “spiritual malady,” she called it. C.S.F.B. didn’t offer me a full-time job, and I returned, distraught, to Columbia for senior year.
After graduation, I got a job at Bank of America, by the grace of a managing director willing to take a chance on a kid who had called him every day for three weeks. With a year of sobriety under my belt, I was sharp, cleareyed and hard-working. At the end of my first year I was thrilled to receive a $40,000 bonus. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to check my balance before I withdrew money. But a week later, a trader who was only four years my senior got hired away by C.S.F.B. for $900,000. After my initial envious shock — his haul was 22 times the size of my bonus — I grew excited at how much money was available.
Over the next few years I worked like a maniac and began to move up the Wall Street ladder. I became a bond and credit default swap trader, one of the more lucrative roles in the business. Just four years after I started at Bank of America, Citibank offered me a “1.75 by 2” which means $1.75 million per year for two years, and I used it to get a promotion. I started dating a pretty blonde and rented a loft apartment on Bond Street for $6,000 a month.
I felt so important. At 25, I could go to any restaurant in Manhattan — Per Se, Le Bernardin — just by picking up the phone and calling one of my brokers, who ingratiate themselves to traders by entertaining with unlimited expense accounts. I could be second row at the Knicks-Lakers game just by hinting to a broker I might be interested in going. The satisfaction wasn’t just about the money. It was about the power. Because of how smart and successful I was, it was someone else’s job to make me happy.
Still, I was nagged by envy. On a trading desk everyone sits together, from interns to managing directors. When the guy next to you makes $10 million, $1 million or $2 million doesn’t look so sweet. Nonetheless, I was thrilled with my progress.
My counselor didn’t share my elation. She said I might be using money the same way I’d used drugs and alcohol — to make myself feel powerful — and that maybe it would benefit me to stop focusing on accumulating more and instead focus on healing my inner wound. “Inner wound”? I thought that was going a little far and went to work for a hedge fund.
Now, working elbow to elbow with billionaires, I was a giant fireball of greed. I’d think about how my colleagues could buy Micronesia if they wanted to, or become mayor of New York City. They didn’t just have money; they had power — power beyond getting a table at Le Bernardin. Senators came to their offices. They were royalty.
I wanted a billion dollars. It’s staggering to think that in the course of five years, I’d gone from being thrilled at my first bonus — $40,000 — to being disappointed when, my second year at the hedge fund, I was paid “only” $1.5 million.
Launch media viewer Owen Freeman
But in the end, it was actually my absurdly wealthy bosses who helped me see the limitations of unlimited wealth. I was in a meeting with one of them, and a few other traders, and they were talking about the new hedge-fund regulations. Most everyone on Wall Street thought they were a bad idea. “But isn’t it better for the system as a whole?” I asked. The room went quiet, and my boss shot me a withering look. I remember his saying, “I don’t have the brain capacity to think about the system as a whole. All I’m concerned with is how this affects our company.”
I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. He was afraid of losing money, despite all that he had.
From that moment on, I started to see Wall Street with new eyes. I noticed the vitriol that traders directed at the government for limiting bonuses after the crash. I heard the fury in their voices at the mention of higher taxes. These traders despised anything or anyone that threatened their bonuses. Ever see what a drug addict is like when he’s used up his junk? He’ll do anything — walk 20 miles in the snow, rob a grandma — to get a fix. Wall Street was like that. In the months before bonuses were handed out, the trading floor started to feel like a neighborhood in “The Wire” when the heroin runs out.
I’d always looked enviously at the people who earned more than I did; now, for the first time, I was embarrassed for them, and for me. I made in a single year more than my mom made her whole life. I knew that wasn’t fair; that wasn’t right. Yes, I was sharp, good with numbers. I had marketable talents. But in the end I didn’t really do anything. I was a derivatives trader, and it occurred to me the world would hardly change at all if credit derivatives ceased to exist. Not so nurse practitioners. What had seemed normal now seemed deeply distorted.
I had recently finished Taylor Branch’s three-volume series on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and the image of the Freedom Riders stepping out of their bus into an infuriated mob had seared itself into my mind. I’d told myself that if I’d been alive in the ‘60s, I would have been on that bus.
But I was lying to myself. There were plenty of injustices out there — rampant poverty, swelling prison populations, a sexual-assault epidemic, an obesity crisis. Not only was I not helping to fix any problems in the world, but I was profiting from them. During the market crash in 2008, I’d made a ton of money by shorting the derivatives of risky companies. As the world crumbled, I profited. I’d seen the crash coming, but instead of trying to help the people it would hurt the most — people who didn’t have a million dollars in the bank — I’d made money off it. I don’t like who you’ve become, my girlfriend had said years earlier. She was right then, and she was still right. Only now, I didn’t like who I’d become either.
Wealth addiction was described by the late sociologist and playwright Philip Slater in a 1980 book, but addiction researchers have paid the concept little attention. Like alcoholics driving drunk, wealth addiction imperils everyone. Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country. Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation — including an $8.5 million bonus — as the McDonald’s C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.
DESPITE my realizations, it was incredibly difficult to leave. I was terrified of running out of money and of forgoing future bonuses. More than anything, I was afraid that five or 10 years down the road, I’d feel like an idiot for walking away from my one chance to be really important. What made it harder was that people thought I was crazy for thinking about leaving. In 2010, in a final paroxysm of my withering addiction, I demanded $8 million instead of $3.6 million. My bosses said they’d raise my bonus if I agreed to stay several more years. Instead, I walked away.
The first year was really hard. I went through what I can only describe as withdrawal — waking up at nights panicked about running out of money, scouring the headlines to see which of my old co-workers had gotten promoted. Over time it got easier — I started to realize that I had enough money, and if I needed to make more, I could. But my wealth addiction still hasn’t gone completely away. Sometimes I still buy lottery tickets.
In the three years since I left, I’ve married, spoken in jails and juvenile detention centers about getting sober, taught a writing class to girls in the foster system, and started a nonprofit called Groceryships to help poor families struggling with obesity and food addiction. I am much happier. I feel as if I’m making a real contribution. And as time passes, the distortion lessens. I see Wall Street’s mantra — “We’re smarter and work harder than everyone else, so we deserve all this money” — for what it is: the rationalization of addicts. From a distance I can see what I couldn’t see then — that Wall Street is a toxic culture that encourages the grandiosity of people who are desperately trying to feel powerful.
I was lucky. My experience with drugs and alcohol allowed me to recognize my pursuit of wealth as an addiction. The years of work I did with my counselor helped me heal the parts of myself that felt damaged and inadequate, so that I had enough of a core sense of self to walk away.
Dozens of different types of 12-step support groups — including Clutterers Anonymous and On-Line Gamers Anonymous — exist to help addicts of various types, yet there is no Wealth Addicts Anonymous. Why not? Because our culture supports and even lauds the addiction. Look at the magazine covers in any newsstand, plastered with the faces of celebrities and C.E.O.'s; the superrich are our cultural gods. I hope we all confront our part in enabling wealth addicts to exert so much influence over our country.
I generally think that if one is rich and believes they have “enough,” they are not a wealth addict. On Wall Street, in my experience, that sense of “enough” is rare. The money guy doing a job he complains about for yet another year so he can add $2 million to his $20 million bank account seems like an addict.
I recently got an email from a hedge-fund trader who said that though he was making millions every year, he felt trapped and empty, but couldn’t summon the courage to leave. I believe there are others out there. Maybe we can form a group and confront our addiction together. And if you identify with what I’ve written, but are reticent to leave, then take a small step in the right direction. Let’s create a fund, where everyone agrees to put, say, 25 percent of their annual bonuses into it, and we’ll use that to help some of the people who actually need the money that we’ve been so rabidly chasing. Together, maybe we can make a real contribution to the world.
~ Sam Polk is a former hedge-fund trader and the founder of the nonprofit Groceryships. A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 19, 2014, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: For the Love of Money.
Comedians@Google: Eddie Izzard
Uploaded on Aug 18, 2011
Eddie Izzard stops by Google for a conversation about his life, his influences, and comedy. The interview was conducted by Mark Day.
Gary Taubes - Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
Uploaded on May 4, 2011
Gary Taubes spoke to Googlers in Mountain View on May 2, 2011 about his book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It.
About the book:
An eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes.
Building upon this critical work in Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health, Taubes revisits the urgent question of what's making us fat and how we can change in this exciting new book. Persuasive, straightforward, and practical, Why We Get Fat makes Taubess crucial argument newly accessible to a wider audience.
Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the calories-in, calories-out model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulins regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid?
Packed with essential information and concluding with an easy-to-follow diet, Why We Get Fat is an invaluable key in our understanding of an international epidemic and a guide to what each of us can do about it.
About the Author:
Gary Taubes is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine, and his writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and Esquire. His work has been included in The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010), and has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers, the only print journalist so recognized. He is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
I read the book with an eye for the most dangerous claim. What stuck out to me was Perlmutter’s case for cholesterol. He basically says that we can’t have too much.The reality about cholesterol is not quite as clear-cut as Perlmutter argues, but it is true that there is only about a 5-15% correlation between dietary intake of cholesterol and blood levels of cholesterol. From Wikipedia:
“Nothing could be further from the truth than the myth that if we lower our cholesterol levels, we might have a chance of living longer and healthier lives,” Perlmutter writes . He recommends disowning the notion that LDL is bad cholesterol and HDL is good cholesterol; rather, both are generally good. LDL is only bad when it is oxidized, and it only becomes so in the presence of the sort of oxidative stress brought about by carbs and gluten. Avoid those, and cholesterol is innocuous.
Beyond that, Perlmutter says that cholesterol-lowering statin medicines like Lipitor, which are prescribed for a quarter of Americans over 40, should actually be vehemently avoided. Cholesterol is necessary for the brain in high levels, he says, and lowering it is contributing to dementia.
I took this to Katz, too.
“Is there a weight of evidence that says we can totally ignore both dietary cholesterol and LDL? Absolutely not,” he said. “You can legitimately say we’re starting to rethink some things, but ignoring LDL could absolutely result in heart attacks and strokes. Perlmutter is way ahead of any justifiable conclusion.”
The medical community’s understanding of the danger of cholesterol is changing. Many cardiologists are starting to think that independent of other considerations, the level of LDL in our blood may not be as important as it previously seemed. In November, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new guidelines that redefined the use of statins. While they continue to recommend that people at high risk for heart disease and people with LDL levels above 189 take a statin, the long-standing goal of lowering one’s LDL level to 70 is no longer deemed worthwhile to monitor.
Most ingested cholesterol is esterified, and esterified cholesterol is poorly absorbed. The body also compensates for any absorption of additional cholesterol by reducing cholesterol synthesis.[9] For these reasons, cholesterol intake in food has little, if any, effect on total body cholesterol content or concentrations of cholesterol in the blood.The primary reason for this, as Perlmutter describes, is that the body would much prefer to use dietary cholesterol for the many cellular and hormonal processes based on its metabolism (most notably as an essential structural component of cell membranes and necessary to establish proper membrane permeability and fluidity, as well as it's role as the building block of sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen). Making cholesterol from sugars and saturated fats is an energy demanding process. Importantly, cholesterol is NOT really a fat - it is technically a sterol, a modified steroid.
Yeon-Kyun Shin, a biophysics professor in the department of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, says the results of his study show that drugs that inhibit the liver from making cholesterol may also keep the brain from making cholesterol, which is vital to efficient brain function.
"If you deprive cholesterol from the brain, then you directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters," said Shin. "Neurotransmitters affect the data-processing and memory functions. In other words -- how smart you are and how well you remember things."
The effects of different dietary sugars, with or without exogenously induced hyperinsulinemia, on rat plasma triglyceride kinetics have been studied. Glucose, sucrose, or fructose were supplied as 10% drinking solutions. The sugar-supplemented groups were each divided into subgroups, one receiving 6 U of insulin per day for 2 wk from intraperitoneally implanted minipumps and the other receiving none. The same degree of hyperglycemia and of endogenous hyperinsulinemia was seen in each sugar-supplemented group. Infusing exogenous insulin restored normoglycemia and produced more pronounced but equal hyperinsulinemia in each subgroup. In those rats that received no exogenous insulin, triglyceride production increased 18% in the sucrose-supplemented group and 20% in the fructose supplemented subgroups, but not at all in the glucose-supplemented subgroup. This 20% increase in triglyceride production in the fructose-supplemented subgroup was accompanied by a six times greater (120%) increase in triglyceride concentration. This suggested that dietary fructose not only increased triglyceride production, but also impaired triglyceride removal. Exogenously induced hyperinsulinemia further increased triglyceride production in those rats receiving dietary fructose, either as the monosaccharide or as sucrose, but not in those receiving only glucose. Thus, in the presence of fructose, but not glucose, insulin stimulates triglyceride production. As exogenous insulin returned the triglyceride concentrations to normal in the fructose-supplemented rats, it also appeared to overcome any fructose-associated impairment of triglyceride removal.[Emphasis added.] While fructose is clearly the culprit in triglyceride levels, glucose is not so harmless as the above study might indicate. Perlmutter claims that glucose is very damaging to the brain, and there is research to support a correlation, although not yet a causative relationship:
Our results indicate that even in the absence of manifest type 2 diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance, chronically higher blood glucose levels exert a negative influence on cognition, possibly mediated by structural changes in learning-relevant brain areas. Therefore, stratgies aimed at lowering glucose levels even in the normal range may beneficially influence cognition in the older population, a hypothesis to be examined in future interventional trials.So it appears that Perlmutter is not so far off after all. He is a little too absolute given the current evidence, but it's not likely that the millions of Americans who read his book are actually going to stop eating wheat and other grain products - Americans are simply not that concerned with the long-term consequences of immediate whims and desires.
5:06 -- The impact Dr. Perlmutter had on Dr. Oz.
9:10 -- Why you shouldn't let the government tell you what to eat.
14:42 -- LDL vs oxidized LDL -- know the difference!
17:10 -- 4 vital functions that require cholesterol in the brain.
20:20 -- Why cholesterol should be your BFF, not your worst enemy.
23:43 -- Is whole-grain wheat bread more toxic than a Snickers bar?
29:07 -- Your brain on gluten.
32:20 -- Heard of leaky gut? There's even leaky brain.
34:15 -- Do your kids a favor -- put them on a gluten-free diet.
36:15 -- Dr. Perlmutter's opinion on quinoa.
38:40 -- The antioxidant hoax. And why Sean was right about Protandim.
40:52 -- 5 foods that prevent oxidative stress.
42:00 -- Caller Q: Can gluten-free products still affect the brain?
44:26 -- Caller Q: Is brain fog the result of a gluten sensitivity?
46:47 -- Caller Q: How effective is liposomal glutathione?
49:10 -- Caller Q: If you're on a gluten-free diet, do you only eat protein and vegetables?
51:06 -- Caller Q: Are there other harmful elements in grains beyond gluten?
55:45 -- Caller Q: Is there a difference between the diet Dr. Perlmutter recommends and the paleo diet?
57:30 -- Caller Q: What is Dr. Perlmutter's opinion on the supplement KetoForce?
1:01:24 -- Caller Q: Can you fully recover from damage caused by gluten?
1:03:10 -- Why MS is a gut-related disease
1:09:41 -- Suffering from blood sugar issues? Here's a marker you should test for.
1:15:35 -- How to lower triglycerides.
1:16:33 -- Report your gluten-free success stories to Dr. Perlmutter!
1:17:56 -- The Grain Brain breakdown.
Decades ago, growers in the US bred CBD almost entirely out of cannabis plants because their customers preferred varietals that were more mind-altering due to a higher THC, lower CBD content.[50] To meet the demands of medical cannabis patients, growers are developing more CBD-rich strains.[52]One wonders if all of the people on the internet arguing so vociferously for marijuana legalization based on its medicinal qualities would still support legalization if only the high-CBD strains were allowed.
In November 2012, an Israeli medical cannabis facility announced a new strain of the plant which has only cannabidiol as an active ingredient, and virtually no THC, providing some of the medicinal benefits of cannabis without the euphoria.[53][54] The researchers said the cannabis plant, enriched with CBD, "can be used for treating diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, colitis, liver inflammation, heart disease and diabetes". Research on CBD enhanced cannabis began in 2009, resulting in Avidekel, a cannabis strain that contains 15.8% CBD and less than 1% THC. Raphael Mechoulam, leading cannabinoid researcher, noted "It is possible that (Avidekel's) CBD to THC ratio is the highest among medical marijuana companies in the world, but the industry is not very organized, so one cannot keep exact track of what each company is doing".[55]
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a compound in cannabis that has medical effects but does not make people feel “stoned” and can actually counter the psychoactive effects of THC. After decades in which only high-THC Cannabis was available, CBD-rich strains are now being grown by and for medical users.There is significant scientific evidence that THC has some seriously negative effects on the human brain. The results from a 2008 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry compared THC only, THC+CBD, and no cannabis found clear differences in levels of delusions and anhedonia:
The reduced psychoactivity of CBD-rich cannabis makes it an appealing treatment option for patients seeking anti-inflammatory, anti-pain, anti-anxiety, and anti-psychotic effects without disconcerting lethargy or dysphoria.
Scientific studies underscore CBD’s potential as a treatment for many conditions, including chronic pain, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, alcoholism, PTSD, schizophrenia, antibiotic-resistant infections, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, epilepsy, and other neurological disorders.
Our results show higher levels of unusual experiences – an analogue of hallucinations and delusions – in individuals who had evidence of only Δ9-THC in their hair compared with those with both Δ9-THC and CBD, and those with no cannabinoid. There were also greater levels of delusions in this THC only group compared with individuals who showed no evidence of cannabinoids in their hair, with a similar trend in the THC+CBD group. The THC+CBD group reported less anhedonia than the other two groups.A 2012 study in Psychological Medicine reached similar conclusions:
CBD attenuates the psychotic-like effects of cannabis over time in recreational users. Higher THC negatively impacts on memory and psychological well-being. These findings raise concerns for the harms stemming from use of varieties such as ‘skunk’ (sensimillia), which lack any CBD but currently dominate the supply of cannabis in many countries.A 2012 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that ongoing marijuana use compromised cognitive functions across a the whole spectrum, including memory and intelligence. They also found that subjects who showed marijuana dependence by age 18 suffered greater IQ losses than those who did not. Here is the abstract:
Recent reports show that fewer adolescents believe that regular cannabis use is harmful to health. Concomitantly, adolescents are initiating cannabis use at younger ages, and more adolescents are using cannabis on a daily basis. The purpose of the present study was to test the association between persistent cannabis use and neuropsychological decline and determine whether decline is concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users. Participants were members of the Dunedin Study, a prospective study of a birth cohort of 1,037 individuals followed from birth (1972/1973) to age 38 y. Cannabis use was ascertained in interviews at ages 18, 21, 26, 32, and 38 y. Neuropsychological testing was conducted at age 13 y, before initiation of cannabis use, and again at age 38 y, after a pattern of persistent cannabis use had developed. Persistent cannabis use was associated with neuropsychological decline broadly across domains of functioning, even after controlling for years of education. Informants also reported noticing more cognitive problems for persistent cannabis users. Impairment was concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users, with more persistent use associated with greater decline. Further, cessation of cannabis use did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset cannabis users. Findings are suggestive of a neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain and highlight the importance of prevention and policy efforts targeting adolescents.The negative impact of cannabis use on young people is not unexpected. The adolescent and teen years are the second most important period of brain development in a person's life (after infancy). It is also not surprising then that cannabis use in kids and teens doubles the risk for psychosis and schizophrenia - Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 2005.
Cannabis and memory loss: dude, where's my CBD?
Legalisation presents an opportunity to promote cannabis rich in a chemical that protects against its negative effects
Dude, Where's My Car? CBD in cannabis is thought to protect against dependence, psychotic symptoms … and memory loss. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext
It isn't often that science and pop culture overlap, but the two fields are in agreement when it comes to the familiar trope of the forgetful stoner.
A recent study published in Schizophrenia Bulletin is the latest to reveal the detrimental effects that cannabis can have on memory. The authors report that people dependent on the drug – both healthy individuals and patients with schizophrenia – show impairments in memory compared with healthy volunteers and non-smoking schizophrenia patients.
Even more striking, the cannabis-using groups had significant decreases in the volume of two brain areas that are important for processing rewards, learning and working memory – the thalamus and striatum – and these changes were linked to their memory problems. There was no evidence to connect cannabis use and schizophrenia – the authors simply compare the two groups. However, previous studies have found a higher prevalence of psychosis among regular cannabis smokers.
Reports of memory loss with long-term cannabis use are nothing new, and an influential paper published last year provided evidence that smoking marijuana has a deleterious effect on intelligence. In the investigation, the cognitive abilities of participants were tested several times over the course of 25 years. The researchers found that heavy cannabis users had significant decreases in intelligence and memory ability as they aged, not only compared with non-smokers, but also compared with their younger selves. Additionally, the earlier they started smoking pot, the bigger the cognitive decline.
Obviously these findings are worrying, especially given the recent spate of cannabis legalisations in states across the US and in countries such as Uruguay. However, before we all start worrying about the good people of Colorado and Washington, it might be helpful to look closer at what's actually in the cannabis we're smoking nowadays, and what ingredients are contributing to these cognitive deficits.
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis and is what causes the subjective "high". This includes changes in perceptual sensations, a feeling of contentedness and increased appetite. However, THC is also linked to many of the potential negative consequences of cannabis use, such as dependence, psychotic symptoms, and impaired memory and cognition.
Another important component, CBD (cannabidiol, which works by increasing natural cannabinoid levels in the brain) is associated with the calming, anti-anxiety effects of the drug. In addition, CBD is thought to protect against many of the potential negative effects of marijuana, including dependence, psychotic symptoms and cognitive impairments.
The THC concentration in cannabis has increased by as much as 12% over the past 30 years, making the drug much stronger than it used to be. At the same time, there has been a significant depletion of CBD, sometimes to levels as low as 0.1%. "Skunk", as this new strain of high-THC/low-CBD marijuana is called, is flooding the illegal marijuana market, and it is this variety that is thought to be behind the rise in cannabis dependence diagnoses, links to schizophrenia, and cognitive deficits seen over the past decade.
The changing chemical make-up of cannabis appears to be partly accidental and partly deliberate. New strains are often bred to have higher levels of THC in them, increasing the drug's potency. However, modern growing techniques have also affected these chemical levels. For example, illegal growers have turned to indoor marijuana farms to avoid detection. Growing cannabis locally in such farms also circumvents the need to import the drug, and guarantees a more reliable harvest. However, the 24-hour lighting used in these farms inadvertently reduces CBD levels in the plant. Thus, these new strains are not only bred for higher potency, with elevated THC content, they are also lacking the protection provided by CBD against the drug's negative effects.
It should be noted that the majority of research into cognitive deficits and cannabis use has focused on heavy or dependent users, and there's little evidence that occasional smokers show any of the problems mentioned above. But with the recent changes in drug policy, the chances are that more people will be smoking cannabis than ever before, and the more potent and more popular high-THC/low-CBD marijuana that is available today will increase their risk of dependence.
The recent legalisation of recreational and medicinal marijuana in parts of the US has the potential to reduce significantly the harms caused through incarceration or criminal records for minor drug-related offences. However, it also provides an opportunity to reduce the cognitive and psychiatric harms linked to cannabis use. With this shift in drug policy, it is now possible for states to monitor the commercial production of cannabis, regulating the levels of THC and CBD present in the drug. To facilitate this, they could force growers to use strains with higher levels of CBD, and revert to more old-fashioned farming methods that don't use round-the-clock lighting.
These changes could help protect individuals from the damaging effects of the drug, prevent the development of dependence in new users, and maybe even help our favorite Hollywood stoners remember where they left their car.
This revolutionary eating plan reveals definitive proof that sugar is addictive, and presents the first science-based program to cut out the sugar, stop the cravings that cause most diets to eventually fail, and lose weight--permanently.Sugar (as well as gluten) is one of the most destructive substances in the human diet. Sugar acts much like heroin in the brain - a lot of dopamine gets released. The dopamine flood is not as great as with heroin, but it has many of the same addictive properties.
If you’re like most people, you’ve tried a few (or maybe many) different diets without success. The truth is, most diets work for a while, but there’s usually a point at which the dietary restrictions become too difficult to maintain. Why? Because whether you’re following a low-carb, paleo, gluten-free, or even an all-liquid green juice diet, the addictive nature of sugar causes cravings to take over and sabotage your diet-of-the-moment.
In Why Diets Fail, Dr. Nicole M. Avena and John R. Talbott reveal definitive proof that sugar is addictive and present the first science-based program to stop the cravings and lose weight—permanently. A neuroscientist and food addiction expert, Dr. Avena has conducted groundbreaking research showing that sugar triggers the same responses in the brain as addictive drugs like cocaine, nicotine, and alcohol. And like those other substances, the more sugar you eat, the more you need to get the same pleasurable feelings. (No wonder your last diet didn’t stick.)
Avena and Talbott’s eight-step plan walks you through the process of going sugar-free and surviving the make-or-break withdrawal period—those first few weeks when your body feels the absence of its favorite sweetener most acutely. An easy-to-use Sugar Equivalency Table developed by Talbott lists the amount of sugar in hundreds of common foods so you know precisely what to eat and what to avoid. And when it comes to what you can eat, you have a lot to choose from. In fact, you’ll probably eat more on this diet than you normally do—while continuing to lose weight.
This science-based program is the diet to end all diets. It will help you break the yo-yo dieting cycle, end those maddening sugar cravings, and develop a new longing for the good food that will keep you fit, healthy, and happy.
Why Sugar Makes Us Feel So Good
by Eliza Barclay
January 16, 2014
Last week, I reported that scientists are working their way toward a consensus that sugar is addictive. While some researchers are still hesitant to liken sweet stuff to drugs or alcohol, the evidence is accumulating to explain why some of us really struggle to resist or moderate our sugar intake. (I count myself among them.)
I mentioned a new book called Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar): Science Explains How to End Cravings, Lose Weight, and Get Healthy by Nicole Avena, a neuroscientist and research psychologist at Columbia University who has done a lot of work in this area. She's particularly interested in the neurotransmitters and brain receptors involved in eating. In lab experiments with rats, she's shown how overeating tasty foods (like sugar) can produce changes in the brain and behavior that resemble addiction.
Avena has also just put out a clever TED-Ed video with colorful visuals to help explain the details of just why sugar makes our brains go bonkers.
As the video shows, the key player in the reward system of our brain — where we get that feeling of pleasure — is dopamine. Dopamine receptors are all over our brain. And doing a drug like heroin brings on a deluge of dopamine.
Guess what happens when we eat sugar? Yes, those dopamine levels also surge — though not nearly as much as they do with heroin.
Still, too much sugar too often can steer the brain into overdrive, the video says. And that kickstarts a series of "unfortunate events" — loss of control, cravings and increased tolerance to sugar. All of those effects can be physically and psychologically taxing over time, leading to weight gain and dependence.
The takeaway is pretty clear: If you're sensitive to sugar and inclined to indulge in a supersugary treat, do it rarely and cautiously. Otherwise, there's a pretty good chance that your brain is going to start demanding sugar loudly and often. And we're probably better off without that extra voice in our head.
