Human Potential Lab

Today I’m really excited to have Max Lugavere on the podcast. Max is a filmmaker, health and science journalist, and brain food expert. He is also the director of the upcoming film Bread Head, the first-ever documentary about dementia prevention through diet and lifestyle, and he is co-author, with Dr. Paul Grewal, of the just released book, Genius Foods.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• How he got into his line of work
• How Alzheimer’s may be prevented through diet
• The biomarkers of aging
• Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats
• How to understand research on diet and medicine
• Genius foods you can add to your diet right now
• His supplement regime
• The importance of gut health
• The Hygiene Hypothesis on the rise of autoimmune diseases
• The only fruits he recommends for a healthy diet
• Cholesterol—not bad after all?
• The emerging research on “psychobiotics” (treating psychological disorders with probiotics)
• Stress, sleep and exercise
• Metabolic health and the brain

Links

Follow Max on Twitter

Get his book Genius Foods, which is out now

For everything else Max does

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This week I'm thrilled to welcome Mark Leary, Ph.D. to The Psychology Podcast! Dr. Leary is the Garonzik Family Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University and author of The Curse of the Self. His research interests focus on social motivation and emotion, and on processes involving self-reflection and self-relevant thought. He has written or edited 12 books and over 200 scholarly articles and chapters. He was the 2010 recipient of the Lifetime Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity and a 2015 co-recipient of the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.

During our chat we covered a number of mutual research interests including:

Links:

Read Dr. Leary's new blog at PsychologyToday

• Self-esteem, identity and their relationships to behavior
• The distinction between “instrumental social value" and "relational social value"
  
  
• The human need for belonging
  
  
• The concept of “self-presentation strategies" and their variations:
  
  
  
  • Imposter syndrome
    
  • Self-promotion
    
    
  • Ingratiation
    
    
• The difference between egoism and egotism

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Today I’m delighted to have actress Kathryn Prescott on the podcast! Kathryn is an actor and photographer, originally from London. Ms. Prescott got her first big break when she was 17 playing Emily, a young lesbian with a homophobic twin sister, in the cult UK TV show “Skins”. A few years later she moved to the US to play the lead role in the MTV teen drama “Finding Carter” and has since appeared in various other projects including ‘To The Bone’, ‘Reign’ and ’24: Legacy’. Ms. Prescott is currently shooting her second season of AMC’s ‘The Son’ and has a movie coming out on Netflix in April called “Dude”.

After joining up with The Big Issue Foundation and Centrepoint in the UK for a photography exhibition to raise money for both organizations, she wanted to do something similar in the US, so she got in touch with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles but decided to do something a little different. Her film explores the cyclical nature of pain and isolation when it comes to addiction while highlighting the devastating effect that the opioid epidemic is having on America’s youth. Mrs. Prescott has been surrounded by addiction throughout her life and people’s reactions to it have always fascinated her.

In addition to listening to this fascinating interview with Ms. Prescott, please watch and share her important video and see other links below:

Links

The official website for “Dear You”

“Dear You” on social media: Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook

A great podcast explaining how one sentence helped set off the opioid epidemic

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Melissa Dahl is a senior editor covering health and psychology for New York's The Cut. In 2014, she cofounded New York’s popular social science site, Science of Us. Her work has appeared in Elle, Parents, and TODAY.com. Her new book, Cringeworthy, is her first book.

In our conversation, Melissa shares with us:

- How awkwardness comes from self-consciousness and uncertainty

- How doing improv can help you become less awkward

- How we create more drama with ourselves than necessary

- What we can do to become more one with our awkwardness

- Why the “irreconcilable gap” can lead to awkwardness

- How to find the “growing edge” and challenge yourself to have more awkward conversations

This episode may be the most awkward episode of The Psychology Podcast yet (and that’s saying a lot!). So you won’t want to miss it! :)

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“What is it in the human psyche that allows us to achieve, create, discover, and invent in ways that no other species can?”

This is a question Jessica Tracy explores in her book Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. Tracy is a professor of psychology, an emotion researcher, and a social-personality psychologist at the University of British Columbia. In our conversation we discuss the established and emerging research on:

• The 2 distinct expressions of pride (hubristic and authentic), and how they relate to the routes to power (dominance and prestige),
• The experience and expressions of shame, and how the emotion has made its way into the research on everything from narcissism to addiction,
• The moral and self-conscious emotions, and the roles they play in decision making.

Thanks to Jessica for coming on the podcast and discussing these fascinating and important lines of research!

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Dr. Mithu Storoni is a Cambridge-educated physician, researcher and author, interested in chronic stress and its implications on mental well-being, decision-making, performance, and brain health. In her latest book STRESS PROOF – the scientific solution to protect your brain and body and be more resilient every day, she takes cutting-edge research findings from over 500 published studies and distills them into hundreds of lifestyle-based tricks to help our brains achieve improved mental clarity, increased tranquility, sharper focus, and heightened performance.

In our conversation, Mitthu shares with us:

• The physical symptoms of stress
• Tips to improve your emotional regulation
• The perils of rumination and how to overcome it
• The physiological differences between acute and chronic stress
• The benefits of different kinds of meditation (mindfulness, open-monitoring, etc.)
• The research on how lifestyle interventions (ie. The mind diet, cognitive training) can be used to treat chronic stress

You can find Mithu’s book Stress Proof on Amazon.

Follow Mithu on Twitter @StoroniMithu.

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Today I’m really excited to have James and Suzann Pileggi Pawelski on the podcast. James is Professor of Practice and Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania where he cofounded the Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program with Martin Seligman. Suzie is a freelance writer, Psychology Today blogger, and well-being consultant specializing in the science of happiness and its effects on relationships and health. Together, James and Suzie are co-authors of the newly-released book “Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts”. They also give Romance and ResearchTM workshops together around the world.

In this episode we discuss:

• What people get wrong about relationships
• What the "relationship gym" is
• How to cultivate "Aristotelian love"
• The specific ways positive psychology can help you be happy with a partner
• The role of gratitude in relationships
• How to sustain passion in a relationship

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James Fadiman is a Harvard-trained psychologist and writer, who is known for his extensive work in the field of psychedelic research. He co-founded, along with Robert Frager, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, which later became Sofia University, where he was a lecturer in psychedelic studies. Fadiman is author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why he decided to scientifically study the positive effects of LSD

- Why the psychedelic experience is so transformative for so many people

- How the psychedelic experience evaporates boundaries

- The limitations of science

- Fadiman’s experience with Abraham Maslow on an airplane

- The founding of transpersonal psychology

- The potential benefits of "psychedelic therapy"

- How one can have enlightenment without compassion ("false enlightenment")

- The importance of the Bodhisattva Path

- How accepting our multiple selves can increase understanding and compassion

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“Adventure and awe are key to the perpetuation of vibrant, evolving lives, and in combination with technological advances may bring marvels to our emerging repertoires.” — Kirk Schneider

Kirk Schneider is a psychotherapist who has taken a leading role in the advancement of existential-humanistic therapy and existential-integrative therapy. He has authored or coauthored ten books, including The Paradoxical Self, Humanity’s Dark Side, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, The Psychology of Existence (with Rollo May), The Polarized Mind, The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, and Awakening to Awe. Dr. Schneider is the 2004 recipient of the Rollo May award for “outstanding and independent pursuit of new frontiers in humanistic psychology” from the Humanistic Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.

In this episode, Kirk teaches us how we can connect with the mystery and discovery in our daily lives in a way that allows us to feel, sense, imagine, create, wonder, and to feel the dysphoric feelings as well, the poignancy of sadness of hurt or anger, and in essence, experience a larger sense of life and of creative work. Kirk's seminal work in existential-humanistic therapy has helped many people be more open to new possibilities and sensitivities to oneself as well as other people, other species, and have a more profound appreciation of our fleeting time in space. Among these topics, we also discuss the following:

• What is existential-humanistic therapy?
• Kirk’s kinship with Rollo May
• Kirk's debate with Ken Wilbur about "ultimate consciousness"
• Kirk's vision of an awe-based era in the age of roboticism
• Kirk's vision of "depth healers"
• How to preserve the core of humanity in this brave new world

Links

The Spirituality of Awe

Existential-Humanistic Therapy (2nd edition)

The Deified Self: A "Centaur" Response to Wilber and the Transpersonal Movement by Kirk Schneider

Rollo May: Personal Reflections and Appreciation by James F.T. Bugental

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“Money is incredible, but some of the things that make it incredible make it difficult to use.”

— Dan Ariely

Today I’m excited to welcome Dan Ariely to The Psychology Podcast. Dan is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. Through his research and his (often unorthodox) experiments, he questions the forces that influence human behavior and the irrational ways in which we often all behave. He is author of the bestsellers Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and several others, and his latest book is Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter.

In our conversation we cover:

• Why he decided to dedicate a whole book to money
• How the “pain of paying” affects how much we spend
• Why we tend to undervalue saving
• How fairness impacts our perception of value
• Why bad spending becomes a habit

In this episode you’ll learn how to think about money and spend it in smarter ways. It was great getting to chat with Dan, and interesting to see the overlap between his research in Behavioral Economics and the research coming out of Positive Psychology. Enjoy!

Links:

Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter

https://www.amazon.com/Dollars-Sense-Misthink-Money-Smarter/dp/006265120X [Book]

Follow Dan on Twitter

https://twitter.com/danariely

For more resources and information on Dan and his research

http://danariely.com/

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