This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg

Extreme athlete Wim Hof has set records for immersion in icy water, and he recommends it for physical and mental health. Find out why his wife's suicide drove Hof to master controlled hyperventilation -- in breathtaking cold -- to become happy, strong, and healthy. (Everything else, he'll tell you, is BS!) Surprisingly, heart and brain science just may support the Wim Hof Method. Plus... contrasting Ice with Fire. http://www.wimhofmethod.com/

With each of us receiving more than 30,000 messages a day - everything from news headlines to print, TV, radio, and online advertising - how do today's marketing professionals have a chance of getting a product or service to stand out? Dr. Christophe Morin is a "neuromarketer," combining his expertise in neuroscience with his passion for understanding how to persuade people to do or buy almost anything. This week, Dr. Morin talks about the "emotional cocktail" that is our response to advertising messages, and why appeals to the rational brain don't work. Hit the primal brain using these six strategies, he says, and you'll get the emotional brain to respond every time. Plus... did subliminal advertising ever work?

Your brain, your heart -- in fact, every cell in your body -- has its own clock telling you when to be alert and when to pack it in. You probably know that jet lag and daylight savings time affect that clock, but did you know that the food you eat (and when you eat it) as well as your activity level can also wreak havoc on it? Emily Manoogian, PhD, chronobiologist and clinical researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, explains how shift work, long flights, eating at the wrong times, and even staying up too late on weekends all affect health, mood, and emotional regulation. Plus - what happens when animals are thrown off their rhythm?

Magicians and illusionists rely on our brains' tendency to predict what comes next—and the surprise we feel when we're wrong. Dr. Luis Martinez, a neuroscientist at the Spanish National Research Council at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, explains how card tricks, illusions, and other sleight of hand is all about the brain's interpretation of reality. Hint: your reality is different from the magician's. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691208442/the-illusionist-brain

The human brain did not evolve to read -- but reading makes us more fully human as it opens up new worlds of understanding and empathy. Today, as we read so much by "skimming" on phones and tablets, we're missing out on the sophisticated thought processes that deep reading provides. Dr. Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA and the author of several books on literacy, joins us this week to discuss how reading in a digital era affects our critical thinking and leaves us vulnerable to misinformation. Plus... is dyslexia actually a superpower? https://www.maryannewolf.com/

New parents - especially moms - experience profound changes in the brain when they are expecting and welcoming a new baby. Health journalist Chelsea Conaboy explains how the caricature of "mommy brain" and its cognitive fog has it all wrong - parenthood actually has a neuroprotective effect, as the brain adapts to meeting the needs of children. It happens to all parents, not just mothers, but it's most dramatic in gestating parents. Plus... how it takes a troop to raise a monkey. https://www.chelseaconaboy.com/

Teen brains are uniquely primed for addiction -- that age is all about novelty seeking, risk taking, and impulsivity, a developmental stage with strong drives and little inhibition -- and they "learn" the pleasures of alcohol and drugs a little too well. Judith Grisel, PhD, a behavioral neuroscientist at Bucknell University who has written widely (and from personal experience) about the brain chemistry of addiction, explains why the urge to feel good "on demand" is so difficult to resist, and how the brain adapts to highs and lows. Fortunately, she also explains the path to life after addiction. Plus... why smelling weed on every street corner these days makes recovery much harder. https://www.bucknell.edu/fac-staff/judy-grisel

You know what you have to do to tighten your abs (whether or not you actually do it), but do you know how to awaken your brain? Lisa Miller, professor of psychology at Columbia University, explains how we humans are hard-wired for spirituality, but we've lost the connection. Faith-based traditions once connected most of us to something larger than ourselves, and without that we've entered a self-centered age of widespread depression, addiction, and suicide. Dr. Miller has insight into how to awaken our brains and reconnect to the deeper force in life, even if you don't believe in a god. For episode transcripts and more information: www.thisisyourbrain.com Dr. Miller's book "The Awakened Brain": https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/608347/

Have you ever felt a "presence" - someone next to you, even speaking to you, when no one is there? Dr. Ben Alderson-Day, a psychologist at Durham University in the UK, studies the phenomena of felt presences, or what he calls "the unseen other." These experiences are not always symptoms of mental illness - these are universally reported and not always distressing. Learn what's happening in the brain during these hallucinations - or should we call them visitations? Plus... how the Internet brings together groups of people who can conjure up invisible friends, seemingly on command. Full transcripts and additional resources available at: www.thisisyourbrain.com For more about Dr. Alderson-Day's book, "Presence; The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other" https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250278265/presence

Temple Grandin, PhD, wants kids -- especially those on the autism spectrum -- to start using their hands again. The woman Oliver Sacks called "the anthropologist on Mars" explains how our brains may be naturally wired to think in words, mathematics, or visuals, and there's nothing disordered about any of them. Dr. Grandin urges us to respect our young visual thinkers and celebrate their strengths instead of labelling them disabilities. https://www.templegrandin.com/