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In this episode — Céline Hovette, a naturopath and hormone-health coach from Northern France, joins to talk about polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects roughly one woman in ten, most of whom don’t know they have it. Céline lays out the five areas she works on with clients (nutrition, movement, stress, sleep, and chemical exposure), they compare what they eat, and Richard explains the food diary that cost him his morning croissant. Guest: Céline Hovette — naturopath, nutrition consultant (Institute for Integrative Nutrition), aromatherapy consultant; based in Northern France, consulting in France and abroad; author of Take Control of Your PCOS: Naturally Balance Your Hormones, Restore Intestinal Flora, and Boost Fertility (Inner Traditions, 2026) celinehovette.com Nothing in this conversation is medical advice. If you think you may have PCOS, see a physician for a diagnosis. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: a symptom of a sick society 01:04 — Welcome: community as the antidote for anxiety and depression 04:11 — Céline Hovette from Northern France, and one woman in ten 05:40 — What PCOS is, and why it may get a new name 07:41 — Most women who have it don’t know 08:34 — A diagnosis by exclusion 10:13 — Fertility, insulin, and the wider metabolic picture 11:40 — No definitive test: room for misdiagnosis 13:09 — No cure, and no one answer for every woman 14:16 — Dense breast tissue and California’s 2013 notification law 17:19 — The symptoms, and where to get a good diagnosis 22:03 — Which androgens: testosterone and DHEA 22:33 — Can a partner’s testosterone gel cause PCOS? 24:35 — Since 1936: family history and the missing gene 25:16 — Endocrine disruptors: bisphenol, cosmetics, 300 chemicals a day 28:49 — What brings a woman to her practice 30:46 — Referrals, and naturopathy in France 32:10 — Five priorities: nutrition, movement, stress, sleep, disruptors 33:58 — What Céline eats: cook once, eat twice 36:44 — Slow down: egg whites, arugula, and bison 38:43 — The food diary and the 47-minute croissant 41:33 — Obesity in the US and France 45:10 — Reading from the book’s conclusion 48:10 — Fifteen minutes with a cardiologist: “our medical system is broken” 49:24 — The Ten Commitments, and a ripple effect 50:40 — “Patient” means to wait 52:41 — Lifting weights after fifty 54:14 — Break, and the free archive 56:02 — Closing: your diagnosis is not your destiny 57:24 — One last question: are the cysts real? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Zee Cohen-Sanchez, founder of Sole Strategies and executive director of National Ground Game, joins to talk about the difference between an activist and a political operative. They discuss her campus tour built as an answer to Turning Point USA, what “hustle” would mean for a health channel, finding and equipping young talent, lobbying, the working-class and evangelical vote, and Obama’s first two years. Guest: Zee Cohen-Sanchez — founder of Sole Strategies; executive director of National Ground Game PAC. nationalgroundgame.com Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: activist vs. political operative 00:49 — Welcome: tribal animals, isolation, and inflation 03:37 — A political family, and walking through Occupy Wall Street 05:51 — Protesting vs. acquiring political power 06:58 — Leaving graduate school for the Bernie Sanders campaign 09:13 — Running half of AOC’s paid field program 10:34 — Change minds or get out the vote? The win number 12:43 — Does door-to-door canvassing still work? 13:44 — Is the Democratic Party running an effective Senate campaign? 15:04 — Taking on Charlie Kirk: fifty creators at Texas A&M 20:48 — What Charlie Kirk had: the hustle 22:01 — Richard asks: what would hustle look like for a health channel? 24:07 — The Senate odds, and finding young talent 27:23 — A camera, some lights, and a 19-year-old from rural Texas 28:38 — Richard offers to help 29:48 — Both parties corrupt: lobbying is bribery 31:20 — Accountability 32:39 — Why the Democrats lost the working class 34:11 — Progressive policy vs. slogans: the Nevada door hanger 35:53 — Obama’s first two years: playing fair with people who don’t 39:48 — How do women, Black, and Hispanic voters choose Trump? 41:08 — From a party boat and the Dean scream to 34 felonies 42:25 — How the Democrats lost the evangelicals 44:41 — The ground game in Nevada 45:42 — Last word: vote in the midterms 47:36 — An introduction: Jamie Joyce This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Dr. Andrew Tatarsky, developer of Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, returns for a second conversation. They take up the question that divides the field, whether a person who once drank a fifth a day can ever have a drink on a Saturday night. Andrew: some can, some can’t, we don’t yet have the science to tell which, and the therapist’s job is to help each person answer it for themselves. Also: the “submit–rebel bind” abstinence-first treatment sets up, an 89-year-old client who cut her drinking in three sessions, addiction as a continuum that includes junk food and the phone in your hand, and harm reduction as the container for psychedelic-assisted therapy. Guest: Dr. Andrew Tatarsky — clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, New York; PhD in Clinical Psychology; postdoctoral certificate in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis (NYU); developer of Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy (IHRP); more than 40 years in practice; author of Harm Reduction Psychotherapy: A New Treatment for Drug and Alcohol Problems. andrewtatarsky.com · About · Training · Book Nothing in this conversation is medical advice. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: addiction as a universal human response to suffering 00:54 — Welcome: the case for community 02:20 — Two harm reduction stories: a call from the White House, and a two-page letter at NPR 05:41 — The acting drug czar who changed his mind 08:31 — What harm reduction is: the disease model, the drug war, and the AIDS crisis 11:15 — From public health to psychotherapy: compassionate pragmatism, start where people are 14:29 — Religion and the law: clean or using, no gray 16:27 — Can a person who drank a fifth a day ever have a drink on a Saturday night? 17:25 — Taught the disease model in the eighties, and in the sixties: Jellinek’s chart 19:09 — An alternative paradigm: addiction as a response to suffering 20:36 — Who can moderate and who can’t: we don’t have the science 22:46 — Why this is a courageous position: impulse control disorders 25:18 — Drinking, driving, skiing: the bad-driver analogy 27:13 — The submit–rebel bind 29:16 — An 89-year-old who wanted to cut back her drinking 31:43 — Alcohol at 87: the finest fuel 33:09 — Addiction on a continuum: junk food, phones, relational meaning 36:25 — Gambling, eating, shopping, sex 38:04 — Psychedelics and harm reduction: ketamine, ibogaine, a New York training 41:06 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Somatic Salvia guide Christopher Solomon, from Willits in Richard’s own Mendocino County, teaches Salvia divinorum from the ground up: what the plant is (a sage from the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca), its legal status (federally unscheduled and legal in California; banned in some states), how it is grown from cuttings, and the three ways it is taken — the Mazatec quid, the dried leaf, and a standardized extract in the five-bowl pipe Christopher invented. He explains how the gas-station “60x” extracts of the late nineties gave salvia its bad rap, why he built his practice around the smallest dose that does anything (“titrating and pendulating”), what the 2020 Johns Hopkins fMRI study he took part in found about the default mode network, a light dose as a door into meditation, and what he calls “the witness of an other.” For Richard’s book on adverse effects, they cover the ugly as well as the good: no addiction, no hangover, no measured rise in blood pressure or heart rate in the Hopkins safety work, and the one real danger at high dose, a dissociated person getting up and running, answered by a mature sitter and working in slowly. Guest: Christopher Solomon — somatic Salvia guide and teacher; B.A. Psychology (UT Dallas); two-year somatic psychotherapy certification, Hakomi Institute of California; Body-Mind Centering training; inventor of the five-bowl Salvia pipe; founder of the Somatic Salvia Network. Participant in the Johns Hopkins salvinorin A fMRI study (2020). salviahealings.com · About · His Johns Hopkins experience report Legal status of Salvia divinorum varies by state. Nothing in this conversation is medical advice. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: the perfect plant for beginners and seasoned psychonauts 00:46 — Welcome: community is the antidote to isolation 02:05 — A guest from Willits, Mendocino County 02:34 — The magic wand: education and pragmatic advice 04:20 — What is Salvia divinorum? A sage from the Sierra Mazateca 05:35 — Is it legal? Federal law vs. state law 06:50 — How to grow it: clones, shade, and nitrogen 09:07 — Harvest and the quid: how the curanderos use it 10:51 — Gas-station extracts and salvia’s bad rap 13:10 — Three ways in: the quid, the dried leaf, the standardized extract 14:37 — Reverse tolerance and the five-bowl pipe 18:37 — How long it lasts: stair-stepping and pendulating 20:33 — Therapeutic benefits: Johns Hopkins, the claustrum, and the default mode network 23:25 — A light dose: quieting the mind, dropping the story 26:02 — Enhancing the witness: “something else being there with you” 27:49 — The good, the bad, and the ugly: adverse effects 29:34 — Opioid withdrawal and the kappa opioid receptor 30:28 — The main risk: dissociation, and getting up to run 31:37 — A mature sitter 32:40 — No hangover, no fatigue 33:40 — How to reach Christopher: salviahealings.com 34:33 — Blood pressure, heart rate, and medications 37:16 — The break: the open-source archive and Richard’s books 40:10 — Closing: beginners and psychonauts, the Somatic Salvia Network, a sustainable plant 42:47 — Close: “I’m gonna do it myself” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Psychedelic psychotherapist Heather A. Lee returns to the program with the message she received on a recent psilocybin journey. She and Richard cover psilocybin for women sixty and over, why she thinks the “hero’s dose” is male language, what a micro dose actually is, Colorado’s grow-gift-share model, and the psychedelic tourism they’ve produced. Guest: Heather A. Lee, LCSW, LNMCF — one of the nation’s first licensed psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists (Licensed Natural Medicine Clinical Facilitator, Colorado); 30+ years in clinical practice; trained at the Harvard Mind/Body Medical Institute; former Coordinator of Women’s Mind/Body Wellness Education at UVA Medical Center’s Midlife Women’s Health Center; featured in Lisa Ling’s CBS special The Psychedelic Renaissance. Author of The Psilocybin Sessions: Real-Life Stories of Women’s Wisdom Awakening with Psychedelic Medicine (Modern Wisdom Press, 2025). heatheralee.com · Azores retreats Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: “all the other plants have something to say” 00:55 — Welcome: living in community, and Peaks Island’s 900 people 02:41 — Breakfast, intermittent fasting, and watching your protein 04:28 — Fuel: air, water, and ingestibles 05:48 — The Psilocybin Sessions, and what’s new 06:31 — The mushrooms’ message: listen to the other plants 07:28 — The Azores: a retreat that sold out in two weeks 09:21 — Living on the planet vs. living as part of it 10:23 — Selling Boulder, buying Peaks Island 11:33 — The legend of the Azores: the healers being called back 13:49 — Psilocybin for women 60 and over: cumulative grief, reinvention, resilience 17:02 — Hero’s dose vs. heroine’s dose 19:27 — What a microdose actually is 19:58 — How do you know what’s in the mushroom? Testing and strains 22:19 — Colorado’s two models: unregulated (grow, gift, share) and regulated 24:23 — Psychedelic tourism: flying to Colorado to do it legally 27:31 — Many paths: the jungle, the hospital, or “a psychedelic broad like me” 29:02 — Will psychedelics change the culture? 30:54 — Forest bathing and clinical ecotherapy 31:53 — Adverse effects: screening, and the three who went silent 35:09 — The container: 12 to 15 hours of prep, journey, and integration 36:19 — Who Heather turns away 38:04 — The break, and the open-source archive 40:28 — Imagine the mossy forest: magnifying glasses, black sand, breath work to the surf 44:01 — Close: heatheralee.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Five minutes on sun exposure and skin cancer — three diagnoses, one melanoma that nearly didn’t end well, and the one habit that changes the odds. Chapters 0:01 — Another entry in his “raining on your parade” series: this one’s about the sun 0:27 — The sun is fantastic, and it comes with adverse effects 0:56 — Hanging out in the sun through his teens, twenties, and thirties 1:24 — A teenage sunburn with his girlfriend Marguerite Davis, at a lake near Champaign, Illinois, that ended in the hospital 1:52 — Decades later, the first skin cancers: basal and squamous cell 2:19 — Five years ago: a nodular melanoma diagnosis 2:47 — How his immune system bought him the time to get it cut out 3:15 — The real tradeoff: sun now, or the dermatologist later 3:42 — Why SPF 50+ sunscreen is the compromise he’s landed on 4:11 — Closing thought and sign-off This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Fertility specialist Gabriela Rosa joins to talk about couples the healthcare system has given up on: two-plus years trying with multiple failed IVF cycles. They cover her seven-year study of 544 patients (78.8% took home a healthy baby), why infertility gets diagnosed by a stopwatch instead of an investigation, the real success rates behind IVF and egg freezing, and why male fertility is half the equation. Guest: Gabriela Rosa, DrPH, MPH (Clinical Effectiveness, Harvard T.H. Chan School), MScM (Reproductive Medicine & Human Genetics, University of Sydney), BHSc (ND) — fertility specialist; founder and clinical director of The Rosa Institute; author of Fertility Breakthrough: Overcoming Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage When Other Treatments Have Failed (2019) and Eat Your Way to Parenthood. @gabrielarosafertility on Instagram. Chapters 00:00 — Who fertility treatment is really for (cold open) 01:11 — Welcome and introduction 02:47 — Gabriela’s path into fertility 07:00 — Two patients who changed everything 12:32 — The cohort study: 544 patients, seven years 17:17 — Trying, perseverance, and pleasure 19:08 — When trying to conceive kills your sex life 23:06 — Reframing the fertility timeline 24:16 — Population fertility and the egg-freezing pitch 29:11 — IVF’s real success rate 31:56 — Male fertility and age 38:30 — Sperm banking, and why men don’t think about it 40:08 — Life expectancy and deferred maintenance 42:01 — “What is new under the sun? Nothing.” 45:34 — Unexplained infertility: a diagnosis based on time 48:18 — The leaking toilet 52:19 — Richard’s hospital story 54:19 — Existence vs. non-existence 56:08 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

Dr. Richard Louis Miller discusses the causes of social isolation, alienation, and loneliness, especially in the context of socioeconomic stratification and the COVID pandemic. He offers practical solutions to foster human connection and combat these issues. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: The epidemic of loneliness and its causes 02:10 The importance of human contact and the effects of social distancing 02:40 Solutions overview: universal access to anti-loneliness tools 03:05 Tool 1: Making weekly phone calls to friends and family 04:04 Tool 2: Initiating small contact in daily life with strangers 05:56 Closing remarks: collective action to rebuild connection This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Stem cell biologist Bruce Lipton, who brought the word “epigenetics” into the mainstream, returns for a second conversation with Richard. They open on a warning about civilizational collapse, then work through how the first seven years of life program roughly 95% of adult behavior — including the program for how you’re “supposed” to age, which is why Richard says “acting your age is dangerous.” They close on the argument at the heart of Bruce’s forthcoming book, Beyond Darwin — that cooperation, not competition, is evolution’s real survival strategy. Guest: Bruce H. Lipton, PhD—stem cell biologist; author of The Biology of Belief (Hay House, 10th Anniversary Edition) and the forthcoming Beyond Darwin: How Epigenetics, Quantum Science, and Cooperation Shape Humanity’s Future (BenBella Books, August 2026, co-written with Patricia King). Chapters 00:00 — The ten-to-twenty-year collapse warning 00:42 — Welcome back, and how “epigenetics” went mainstream 04:04 — What epigenetics actually means 06:53 — The mind as architect: thought into chemistry into genes 11:13 — The subconscious computer: programmed before birth through age seven 15:38 — Why the conscious mind loses the wheel 19:59 — “We are all Bill”: the programs you can’t see in yourself 24:43 — Two terminal diagnoses, five years later 27:05 — Bruce’s tongue cancer, and the book he’d been avoiding 31:59 — Beyond Darwin: what Darwin missed 34:53 — Placebo, belief, and Ellen Langer’s counterclockwise study 36:34 — Why acting your age is dangerous 40:44 — From the caves to civilization: how domination got wired in 50:16 — The garden is not a battleground 56:31 — Did humanity inherit a dysfunctional childhood? 59:12 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

Diana Richardson, who has studied human sexuality, intimacy, and couples’ relationships with sex for fifty years, returns to the program (her first appearance, “The Power of Slow Sex,” aired March 2022). She and Richard trace how sexual mores have shifted over the last century — more premarital sex, then a modern pullback into isolation, pornography, and falling fertility rates — and why Diana thinks the real problem isn’t how much sex people are having but the mechanical, goal-driven way we’ve been taught to have it. They get into the language attached to sex (“achieving” an orgasm, “premature” orgasm) and what it does to performance pressure, especially for men, and Diana answers Richard’s question about pleasure and connection without an erection. Guest: Diana Richardson — researcher and teacher of conscious sexuality; author of eight books including Tantric Sex for Lovers (the Slow Sex / Tantric Sex for Men / Tantric Orgasm for Women collection, Destiny Books) and The Heart of Tantric Sex (John Hunt Publishing/O Books, 2003). With her partner Michael Richardson, she has run the week-long Making Love Retreat in Europe for over 30 years, with more than 15,000 couples attending. Site and online course: rekindle.love. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: sensitivity vs. sensation 00:39 — Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics 01:30 — Welcome back: Diana Richardson 02:17 — Fifty years of change in the sexual field 06:33 — A hundred years of premarital sex, and the 60s revolution 07:48 — Pizza, porn, and the retreat from dating 08:29 — The epidemic of isolation, alienation, and loneliness 09:42 — It’s not the amount of sex, it’s the how 11:23 — Falling fertility rates 12:55 — Writing The Heart of Tantric Sex 14:06 — What “tantra” actually means 15:03 — Conventional sex vs. tantric sex 19:40 — Words that hurt: “achieving” an orgasm 23:38 — Eight books, and how the Making Love Retreat began 26:11 — Thirty years, fifteen thousand couples 28:06 — Bringing the retreat online 28:44 — Pleasure and connection without an erection 32:34 — What could bring young people back to each other 33:34 — Where to find Diana: rekindle.love This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

Joshua White left a decade-long career as a San Francisco city attorney to found Fireside Project, a free, anonymous peer-support line for anyone in a psychedelic crisis or working through one from the past. He and Richard, an advisor to Fireside Project, talk about the four gaps Joshua set out to close in the field, what it takes to be a “loving rock” for a stranger mid-trip, reframing the bad trip as a challenging one, the burnout that nearly broke him, and Lucy, a training simulator built from tens of thousands of anonymized calls now used at Mount Sinai and in a New Mexico psilocybin study. Guest: Joshua White — founder and executive director of Fireside Project; former Deputy City Attorney, San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Volunteer alumnus of the Zendo Project and Safe & Sound’s parental stress line before founding Fireside in 2021. Fireside’s free peer-support app is available on iOS and Google Play; the training tool Lucy is at fireside.training; donate at firesideproject.org/donate. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: reach out and call somebody 02:25 — Welcome: Joshua White 02:48 — Green smoothies and egg whites 03:41 — From city attorney to psychedelic support 04:42 — Psychedelics, therapy, and the decision to leave the law 07:04 — Testing the waters: the Zendo Project and a parental stress line 08:01 — The four gaps in psychedelic support 10:10 — Fireside Project launches, April 2021 10:22 — Anonymity, legality, and why people call 12:43 — Who answers the phone: the “loving rock” question 17:20 — Reframing the bad trip 18:55 — From bad trip to challenging trip 20:34 — Finding volunteers, finding the public 22:43 — The nonprofit fundraising treadmill 25:34 — Burnout, Ibogaine, and “ten out of ten” 26:37 — Richard’s advisor disclosure: take a vacation 27:28 — The patient who taught Richard about self-care 30:31 — Introducing Lucy and how she trains therapists 35:08 — Forty thousand calls and counting 36:24 — Why there’s no AI avatar yet 37:40 — An ethical data model, by contrast 41:04 — The pitch: why Fireside needs your support 41:35 — How to donate, volunteer, and spread the word 41:55 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

British historian Charlie Harris spent years living with his sources in Mendocino County to write Mendo, the first full history of how a logged-out fishing-and-timber county became the cannabis capital of the Americas. He and Richard — a Mendocino resident since 1975 who watched much of it happen — trace the whole arc: the Back to the Land migration, weed as currency, the homestead wars that united hippies and loggers against the government, Reagan’s helicopter raids and the invention of asset forfeiture, the genetics that made California weed famous, and what legalization actually did to prices, potency, and the people who built the industry. Guest: Charlie Harris — historian and writer; eight years with Oxford University’s Global History of Capitalism Project; author of Mendo: How an Unlikely Group of Rebels Turned Cannabis into California’s Cash Crop (Counterpoint Press, June 2026). Available from Counterpoint, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore — Charlie asks you to try the indie first. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: stories that were never written down 00:31 — Welcome: what happened in Mendocino County 02:24 — Picked up hitchhiking, dropped on a pot farm 06:33 — From trimmer to Oxford historian 08:47 — “Get these stories written down before they disappear” 11:42 — Logging, fishing, and the collapse that emptied the land 14:28 — Back to the Land: the largest urban-to-rural migration in history 17:47 — “We couldn’t grow gasoline”: weed becomes currency 20:21 — The homesteading wars: red tags and a common enemy 22:47 — Hippies, rednecks, and the hipnecks 27:46 — Reagan sends in the helicopters: CAMP, 1983 30:40 — Asset forfeiture is invented in Mendocino County 32:01 — “The campaign to aid marijuana prices” 33:19 — Indica genetics: California weed gets good 35:30 — Traffic reports for police convoys 37:30 — Medical marijuana, 1996: everything changes 40:27 — Overproduction and the price collapse 44:24 — Hedge funds, Flow Kana, and the economics of legalization 48:36 — “Nobody wants stronger weed”: the THC arms race 53:04 — What they smoke in England 56:44 — The book: Mendo 58:07 — “I have a lot of hope for America”: gratitude and close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

Journalist Abbie Rosner spent several years interviewing thirty-six older adults, most in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, about psychedelic experiences they had quietly, outside the clinic. She and Richard talk about elderhood, conscious aging, what changes when these medicines meet a long life rather than a young one, a disagreement over when "elder" begins, and her pilot vision for small, committed cohorts of older adults growing old together on purpose. Guest: Abbie Rosner, journalist. Author of Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging (Park Street Press, 2026, foreword by Dr. Julie Holland). Writes The ELDEREVOLUTION on Substack and a Next Avenue column. abbierosner.com 00:00 The epidemic of isolation 01:45 Conscious aging, what's on Abbie's mind 05:28 What aging actually is, body vs. spirit 10:14 The opportunity of older life, going inward 12:24 The fragility question, screening older adults 15:34 How older adults approach psychedelics today 20:00 Who is drawn to this work, seekers 21:20 Am I an elder at 60, the Julie Holland exchange 27:04 Inside the book, 36 interviews and a book tour 33:11 Elder Vision Circles 38:44 Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

Dr. Jud Brewer, a Brown University neuroscientist and Yale-trained addiction psychiatrist, joins Richard to lay out a habit-loop model of anxiety. From his own residency panic attacks to the smoking-cessation work that produced five times the standard quit rate, to a randomized trial of his anxiety program, the throughline is one mechanism: pay attention to what a behavior actually does, and the brain stops finding it rewarding. We close on a thirty-second practice for the next time anxiety shows up. Guest: Dr. Jud Brewer, Director of Research and Innovation at the Brown University Mindfulness Center. Author of The Craving Mind (2017), Unwinding Anxiety (2021, NYT bestseller), and The Hunger Habit (2024). drjud.com 00:00 Opening, the epidemic of anxiety and depression 01:56 Jud's own anxiety story 06:46 Choosing mindfulness as a career in 2006 11:38 Coke Enders and the academic hazing pattern 15:10 Reinforcement learning, pay attention as you smoke 20:28 The anxiety habit loop 23:28 The default mode network and the posterior cingulate cortex 25:49 The mind is a tool, not the boss 29:46 Richard's Vipassana origin with Goldstein and Kornfield 31:07 Conscious breathing and five-finger breathing 32:42 Anxiety travels in clusters 34:40 If these tools work, why are we prescribing 36:42 Could this be taught in high schools 38:19 Going Beyond Anxiety, the AI-paired digital therapeutic 41:52 Mid-episode break 43:32 Curiosity will conquer fear, flip the NO to WHAT 45:27 Feelings are just feelings 47:15 Off-air closing This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

In this episode — Carl Honoré, the journalist whose 2004 book In Praise of Slow named the global Slow Movement, returns with the thesis sharpened. He and Richard work through what “slow” actually means, why busyness has become a measurable chemical addiction, the myth of multitasking, loneliness as a mortality risk, the acceleration that precedes burnout, and the four prescriptions any of us can start today. Guest: Carl Honoré — journalist and author of In Praise of Slow (2004), Under Pressure (2008), The Slow Fix (2013), and Bolder (2018). His TED talk has more than 3 million views. He writes Tempo on Substack. More at carlhonore.com. Chapters [00:00] The case for connection [02:34] What slow is, and what it isn’t [04:28] The cost of a speed-driven culture [07:31] Where the drive to speed comes from [12:29] Busyness as addiction [15:59] The digital detox [19:12] What young people are getting right [27:21] The multitasking myth [30:09] Loneliness, longevity, and connection [34:22] Burnout and the last burst of speed [42:20] Carl’s four prescriptions [51:58] Two quotes to close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe