The human urge to explore has taken us to every corner of the planet. From the highest peaks to far-flung islands to even the deepest dimensions of an idea, our species has an innate drive to venture into the unknown.

But what exactly drives this need to explore? Is it genetic, cognitive, or something else entirely?

Here to unpack this question is Alex Hutchinson, author of The Explorers Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map. Today on the show, Alex shares the fascinating science behind our exploratory tendencies, from the dopamine-driven "explorer's gene" that varies across populations to the universal cognitive frameworks that govern how we navigate both physical and mental landscapes. He explains the delicate balance between exploring new possibilities and exploiting what we already know, and why we sometimes find meaning in difficult challenges. We also discuss why younger people explore more than older people do, how this decline in exploration doesn't have to be inevitable, and how to keep exploring throughout your entire life.

• Alex’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #382: How to Lift More, Run Faster, and Endure Longer
  • Episode #538: Research-Backed Answers to All Your Fitness FAQs
  • Episode #1,021: You Were Born to Run
• AoM Podcast #534: How Navigation Makes Us Human
• The Wundt Curve

• Alex’s website

When you think about ancient gladiators, you likely have a certain vision that comes to mind: slaves forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of bloodthirsty Romans.

But much of what we think we know about gladiators is actually wrong.

Today on the show, Alexander Mariotti will separate the just-as-fascinating fact from popular-culture-derived fiction when it comes to gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome. Alexander is a historian and an expert on gladiators who's served as a consultant for shows and films like Spartacus and Gladiator II.

In our conversation, Alexander explains how gladiatorial games evolved from funeral rites into professional sporting events featuring the greatest superstar athletes and sex symbols of the day. We discuss the different types of gladiators, their rigorous training regimens, why gladiators fought in their underwear, and whether they actually fought to the death. Alexander describes what a day at the Colosseum was really like, complete with elaborate special effects, halftime shows, souvenirs, and even concessions. And we talk about the connections between the gladiatorial games and the sports and spectacle culture of today, and why, despite the passage of two millennia, these ancient athletes continue to captivate our imagination.

• AoM Article: Lessons in Manliness from Gladiator
• AoM Article: The Men in the Arena–A Primer on Roman Gladiators
• Gladiator
• Gladiator II
• Spartacus series
• "Gladiator 2 History Consultant Hits Back at Inaccuracy Claims"

• Alexander's website

Face-to-face socializing in America has declined by more than 20% nationwide. Among some groups, like young adults and unmarried men, the drop is closer to 40%.

But strangely, this hasn’t led to the loneliness epidemic that you hear so much about. Instead, we’re seeing a new phenomenon: rising aloneness without rising loneliness.

Today on the show, Derek Thompson will help us understand this puzzling disconnect and its profound implications. Derek is a staff writer at The Atlantic who recently wrote a piece entitled “The Anti-Social Century.” In the first half of our conversation, Derek unpacks the cultural shifts and technological developments — and no, it’s not just the smartphone — that have created what he calls the “convenience curse.” We then get into why even self-described introverts are often happier when forced to socialize, the concerning trend of young men settling further and further into isolating, sedentary leisure, and practical ways we can strengthen our atrophied social muscles to become better, happier people.

• AoM Article: The Importance of Developing and Maintaining Your Social Fitness
• AoM Podcast #742: The Power of Talking to Strangers
• AoM Article: Introversion as an Excuse
• AoM Podcast #176: The Vanishing Neighbor & The Transformation of American Community
• AoM Article: Use Technology Like the Amish

• Derek on X

People commonly think of time as a fixed, linear, objective structure. But our own experiences belie this belief. We’ve all been in situations where time has seemed to drag on or speed up, and there are even whole periods of our lives that seem to have gone by slower or faster.

As my guest Steve Taylor will explain, time is a lot more fluid and moldable than we often recognize. Steve is a psychologist and the author of Time Expansion Experiences: The Psychology of Time Perception and the Illusion of Linear Time. Today on the show, he unpacks the four laws of psychological time. He discusses the theories as to why time speeds up as we get older and what factors slow down and speed up time. We delve into the way time particularly expands in accidents and emergencies, giving people the ability to take life-saving measures. And we discuss why some people are more likely to have time expansion experiences than others, and what you can do to slow down time and make your life feel longer as a result.

• AoM Article: Be a Time Wizard — How to Slow Down and Speed Up Time
• AoM Article: More Footage — Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge

• Steve’s website

Pornography is more prevalent and accessible than ever before, yet its effects on relationships, mental health, and human development aren't popularly well understood. Discussions on the topic are often engaged in from an emotional or religious point of view; less typical is a discussion of pornography from an empirical frame.

My guest today, Dr. Brian Willoughby, a social scientist who has spent the past 15 years studying porn's impacts, will unpack what the research actually says about how it affects personal well-being, relationship satisfaction, and sexual expectations. We discuss the latest data on porn use across different demographics, how porn impacts religious versus non-religious populations differently, and how exposure affects kids. Brian shares whether using porn causes erectile dysfunction and depression, what parents should know about talking to their kids about porn, the main risk of porn that's typically under-discussed, and more.

• AoM's series on porn and how to quit it (also available as an ebook)
• NYT article that Brian was interviewed for: "It’s Time to Talk About Pornography, Scholars Say"
• Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
• NYT article: "The Teen Trend of Sexual Choking"
• Brian's research

• Brian's faculty page
• Brian at the Wheatley Institute

The idea for the Art of Manliness came to me 17 years ago as I was standing in the magazine section of a Borders bookstore. As inspiration struck, I took my Moleskine out of my pocket and jotted down some notes, like potential names — I considered things like “The Manly Arts” before settling on “The Art of Manliness” — categories of content, and initial article ideas. Almost two decades later, the fruits of those notebook jottings are still bearing out.

That’s the power of a pocket pad’s possibilities, something Roland Allen explores in The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. Today on the show, Roland traces the fascinating history of notebooks and how they went from a business technology for accounting to a creative technology for artists. We talk about how famous figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Theodore Roosevelt used notebooks, the different forms notebooks have taken from the Italian zibaldone to the friendship book to the modern bullet journal, and why keeping a personal diary has fallen out of favor. Along the way, we discuss ways you can fruitfully use notebooks today, and why, even in our digital age, they remain an irreplaceable tool for thinking and creativity.

• AoM Article: 100 Ways to Use Your Pocket Notebook
• AoM Article: The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook
• AoM Article: The Pocket Notebooks of 20 Famous Men
• AoM Podcast #194: The Field Notes of Theodore Roosevelt
• AoM Article: The Right and Wrong Way to Journal
• AoM Article: Finally Understand How to Keep a Bullet Journal
• Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks
• Charles Darwin’s notebooks
• John Locke’s Method for Commonplace Books

• Roland’s website

A lot of people go into marriage with a 50/50 mindset. Everything in the relationship — from tangible things like childcare and chores to intangible things like the effort and energy needed to keep the partnership going — is supposed to be divided equally.

The 50/50 approach to relationships is all about fairness. And that seems sensible and rational.

But, my guest says, it actually sabotages relational happiness.

Nate Klemp is a former philosophy professor and the co-author, along with his wife, of The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship. Today on the show, Nate shares how cognitive biases skew our perception of our contributions to a relationship, what happens when couples get stuck in the 50/50 mindset of domestic scorekeeping, and how shifting to an 80/80 model of “radical generosity” can create an upward spiral of connection and appreciation. And we discuss practical ways to divide household responsibilities, decide how much time to spend with each spouse’s respective parents, and establish values that will guide your partnership as you navigate life changes and work towards a spirit of shared success.

• AoM article and podcast on how to hold a weekly marriage meeting
• AoM Article: Towards a Philosophy of Household Management
• AoM Article: Beware the Tit for Tat Trap

• 80/80 Marriage website
• Nate’s website
• Nate on LinkedIn
• Nate on IG

For several decades, people's reported sleep quality has declined. This, despite the fact that specially optimized sheets, mattresses, and sleep trackers have emerged during that time, and despite the fact that the amount of time people are sleeping hasn't decreased for over fifty years.

In other words, people aren't sleeping less than they used to, but are less happy about their sleep than ever before.

My guest would say that to improve our experience of sleep, we'd be better off looking past the reams of modern advice out there and back in time — way, way back in time.

Today on the show, Dr. Merijn van de Laar, a recovering insomniac, sleep therapist, and the author of How toSleep Like a Caveman: Ancient Wisdom for a Better Night's Rest, will tell us how learning about our prehistoric ancestors' sleep can help us relax about our own. He explains that the behaviors we think of as sleep problems are actually normal, natural, and even adaptive. We talk about why hunter-gatherers actually sleep less than we think we need to, how their natural wake periods during the night might explain our own sleep patterns, the methods they use to get better sleep, and why our modern efforts to optimize sleep could be making it worse. Merijn shares when it's okay to use a smartphone before bed, the myth that you have to get eight hours of sleep a night, how to intentionally use sleep deprivation to improve your sleep, and more.

• AoM Article: 22 Ways to Get a Better Night’s Sleep
• AoM Article: What Every Man Should Know About Sleep
• AoM Article: What to Do When You Can’t Sleep
• AoM Article: The Importance of Building Your Daily Sleep Pressure
• AoM Podcast #661: Get Better Sleep by Stressing About It Less
• AoM Podcast #736: Could Sleeping in Separate Beds Improve Your Relationship?
• Study: Hadza sleep biology — Evidence for flexible sleep-wake patterns in hunter-gatherers

• Merijn's website

There has been a lot of cultural discussion of the way digital technologies and social media contribute to things like political polarization and adolescent depression.

But as I'll explore with Nicholas Carr, the author of Superbloom, our digital tools are also changing our ability to connect with others and our sense of self in less appreciated ways.

Today on the show, Nicholas unpacks why the optimistic idea that more communication is always better hasn't panned out and how the speed and volume of modern communication is overwhelming our human capacity to process information and maintain meaningful relationships. We discuss why the "messiness" of pre-digital communication might have actually been better for us, how email has evolved from thoughtful letters to rushed messages, and why seeing more of people online often makes us like them less. Nicholas also explains why having different versions of ourselves for different contexts was actually healthy and the simple rubric for better managing our relationship with digital communication tools.

• Nicholas' previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #276: Utopia is Creepy
  • Episode #632: How the Internet Makes Our Minds Shallow
• Charles Horton Cooley
• AoM Article: More Than Ever, the Medium Is the Message

• Nicholas' website
• Nicholas' Substack, New Cartographies

When people get stuck in their job or personal life, the common response is to either work harder or shrug and accept that "that's just the way things are."

My guest today has a much better solution to getting moving and making progress again.

Dan Heath is a bestselling author whose latest book is Reset: How to Change What's Not Working. Today on the show, Dan shares how to escape from ineffective systems and the inertia of continuing to do things the way they've always been done by pressing on leverage points — places where a little bit of effort yields disproportionate returns. Dan explains why you need "to go and see the work," why meaningful change requires "restacking resources," how short, focused "bursts" of effort often accomplish more than prolonged campaigns, how sometimes being inefficient can actually make us more effective, and more. Along the way, Dan shares plenty of stories and examples that illustrate how to implement these principles into your work, relationships, and family.

• Dan's previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #591 — Solve Problems Before They Become Problems
• AoM Article: You Need a Reset Day
• AoM Podcast #896: The Art and Science of Getting Unstuck
• YouTube video: Spotify Engineering Culture

• Dan's website