164. Health Hijacked: Insurance Greed, Therapy Culture, and Alarmist Health Experts

Welcome to Medicine Redefined, a podcast focusing on helping you reclaim ownership of your health. I'm Dr. Darsha, and I'm Dr. Altamash Raja, where your hosts, hair to challenge conventional practices and uncover the stories behind pioneers shaping the future of medicine. Our conversations not only focus on the individual level to dissect common practices for health optimization, but also zoom out to enhance systemic change. Join us as we look to break the status quo, move the needle forward, and put the help back in healthcare. Our guests today are us. Yep, that's right. Another progress note for you where Darsha and I catch up on current events and hopefully give you our unfiltered and nuanced thoughts. On the docket for today's discussion, we get into the recent issues that have been at the forefront of the medical insurance industry, specifically the death of Brian Thompson, which was quite disheartening, particularly the response from the public at large, and so you'll hear Darsha and I talk about why we think that might have happened, and you know, a lot of people have opined on the different perspectives, but I think what's discouraging and concerning for us is the response on social media, with respect to specifically the amount of people that put vitriol and hatred and lack of empathy, I'll leave the rest for the actual episode. We also talk about Blue Cross Blue Shields asinine policies and just insurance companies and large and how they have predatory behaviors, and then we talk about something that's been bugging us a little bit, particularly Darsha and, you know, him and I go back and forth at this and this is a conversation we had about therapy culture and medicalizing or pathologizing just normal everyday life versus building some resilience and how that's turning out to be more negative on a large scale. And lastly, as always, after the elections, a couple of new nominations that came out, particularly in the health sector, and so we wanted to revisit this resurgence of social media health experts, or if you can even call them health experts, that may or may not be favorable for us as a society, as we aim to, quote, make America healthy again, unquote, hope you enjoy. All right, we're back at it, progress note, I believe this is 20, man, we've done 20 progress on this now. This is great. It might be 21. Is it 21? It might be 21. I remember everybody, we don't even know. It's a big round. But it's time to get a little further down. We've done quite a few. So let's, so what's the, what is the progress? Should we up to people to what we're going to be doing on this? Oh, to for our lives, you obviously you you've been traveling a little bit. So how was Morocco? It was good. It was good. It was good. It was interesting. I didn't plan it as well as I should have. Well, I did, but then you know, plans changed the middle and I think I did end up doing a lot of inner city travel and didn't account for for that. And so exhausted, a lot of traveling actually back and forth came back three days later and back to California and stuff. And so taking a little break, I know you're going to Europe. I'm actually, I booked my ticket for London. I'll be going to London in February to, but just need to chill for two months. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome, man. But dude, card events, man, life's been crazy. So let's maybe let's start about that. Let's talk about the insurance able doors. We like, we love to bash insurance companies here and I know we just talked to a guest about this. That'll be released in the future. But at this point, I'm sure everybody or most people who are at least tuned into social media has heard about what happened to the CEO for United healthcare, tragic, Blue Cross Blue Shield. Try to put out this asinine policy that we're just going to stop paying for anesthesia in the middle of surgeries. I don't really understand who, like, what was the person who proposed that? Like, what, how do they think that that was going to come across, you know, I'm speechless man. I don't know. Yeah. And you and I were talking about this offline earlier, man. You know, I think I was just disappointed. I was taken back by the response from the general public about that individual who got killed in the, I guess the middle of the Manhattan, is that yeah, yeah, like five, six a.m. coming out of his luxury hotel, the quote unquote assassin, what's his name? Luigi, something 26 year old. Yeah, just 3D printed gun, by the way, you know, and the bullet had the inscription of like certain words that were actually used by the United healthcare. So this was well thought out of bland, seemed like he had a personal history of like chronic pain too. And then he lost his grandmother and grandfather within the last 10 years. And so I think he was very frustrated with the healthcare system and losing loved ones. And he's always kind of believed in anti-capitalism, even though he was a tech ways. He had his own app that he was creating after you went to you pen, but he's just very frustrated with kind of the sentiment around how these insurance companies, like you talked about, can just dictate certain policies and rules where lives get affected. You know, it's again scary. And we are, you and I are faced with interaction with the healthcare system on a daily basis, just by the nature of what we do. And we look at it, we sit behind a different seat. And again, both you and I have been touched by cancer in our lives with somebody who's really close to us. And so we've also experienced it from the other side. And you get a sense of how frustrating can be. And so we've seen both sides of it, I think, but I just imagine how bad must have it been for a 26 year old to have gotten somebody who's seemingly high intellectual to be able to get that far. And that piece that I sent you from Tangle, we should plug that for the listeners here. I think that's like the one scary part where they talk about how long it's going to be. If we tolerate this type of behavior, how long it's going to be before providers, both you and I, often by the nature of what we do, end up prescribing opioid medication. We know what that can be like in somebody who's drug seeking and whatnot. In fact, actually, one of my co-residents, who he was a couple years ahead of me, but he had talked about an orthopedic surgeon. I think this was in Tennessee, no, actually it was a Ohio area. But it was somebody that he had known, had practiced in that area previously, who a clinician orthopedic surgeon was leaving a practice and a post-op patient while he was going home at the end of the day at the clinic came back and killed him, broad daylight. And it was an issue with not providing sufficient medication and that kind of stuff. And so the scary thing that I take away from that is like, okay, we can't condone this type of stuff. And I don't think the majority of the people are, like the negative always outweighs that. But you know, you just go back to it's like, how bad does it have to get where we've come to this type of stuff happening? No, absolutely. It's been interesting. I mean, the actual app threads, where people have written now about the ethical dilemma of a CEO getting shot and kind of the response to why people are brooding for the killing of this man, the murder of this man. And a lot of it has to do with the sentiment of that we're out, people feel like we're out war with insurance companies. And we have now taken out one of the leaders of that, right, almost if we're looking at a terrorist organization and how we celebrated the killing of Saddam Hussein, for example. And so people have this riled up, you know, revolution being on the good side going against the bad side and forgetting about the fact that, yeah, this man had kids and he was married and he had loved ones that has left behind now. And so it's been very interesting, some of these threads talking about how in New York City alone, you have maybe 300 murders, 30,000 murders a year, but yet this one is the one highlighted. And if we're going to talk about this being a life just like everyone else isn't that we should care, well, we also need a step back and care about all those other lives that have been lost. And if we're going to offer a $50,000 reward for catching whoever killed Brian Thompson, then why are we not offering rewards, you know, to the others? And so, you know, you can see it. It's a very gray back and forth kind of how what theme and what lens do you want to see it in? And that's definitely going to change. I feel like the perspective of how we view what's going on and what the future of that means. Yeah, that's interesting and a really good point that you make coming back to it's like, okay, well, we should appreciate the human behind whatever the policies, you know, you might have that you might disagree with and this is not necessarily the way to handle conflict. But you know, what's interesting about that, that seems to be the case in terms of any public facing conflict that's handled. I mean, let's just take the whole election cycle over the last four or the last eight years, right? I think I had shared a clip with you where it was John McCain with some of his own party where somebody had gone after Obama and that was in 2012 and John McCain quickly stopped them and said, nope, he's a good man. He's not this. We're not going to belittle the other party. We're not going to, you know, attack the other person's character. And that's changed very, very drastically over the next decade, you know, 2020 election was completely different in 2016. And so, you know, it might be easy to say, okay, you can blame a certain individual, certain individuals who've made people feel like that is an appropriate way to handle conflict. But I think that would be just too simple to say that. And I'm curious what you think that, what do you attribute that to, that more and more people are comfortable condoning and even saying that that is an appropriate way to handle discourse? Yeah, I think it's really just the fact that everyone's writing this behind a curtain, right? I mean, we don't know who's writing this. We're never going to see these people in our lives and everyone can now voice an opinion without any fault. You go to a town hall, no one's going to speak up besides one or two of those people who are really, really, really believe it, you know? And I think it's almost like comedy, right, where comedians have the ability to say what we're all thinking and not get in trouble for it. And so I think, yeah, this is kind of the sentiment of what people are feeling. And I think what we do as humans is that we test the boundary, right? We put out these feelings and we want to see how it feels to ourselves, but to wait is everyone else feeling the same thing? And so you kind of rally the troops without knowing that you are. And then once everyone kind of sees this domino effect of, oh, a lot of people are saying, yes, this is great. This is what we should be doing and all the other CEO should be afraid. Hopefully this leads to change. It's like the common psyche of a revolution that people think is going to happen without realizing that, hey, these are just words that you're spewing off a keyboard and not actually taking action in real life, going to actual meetings and actually going to Congress and talking about these issues with real solutions. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough, man. I mean, definitely condolences to that person and to those who don't know, glad coming back to Blue Cross, glad that they reversed that policy again, just absolutely wild. And what was interesting, I told you about Dr. Glockenflokken talking about the power of social media for advocacy and he made a video about that as well, which was timely, but I think just the uproar in the general community in the general public where Blue Cross rolled out the policy and then pretty quickly was like, okay, this is not going to work and then rolled that back. So I think there is something to be said about advocacy through social media and speaking up, but to your point about, you know, people are lack of accountability and sitting behind a screen and being able to say this and that, whereas in their town hall, you wouldn't do that. And for I think there's something to be said about that for sure. For those that don't know, can you just explain in detail what the policy was about anesthesia and surgery? Yeah, crazy. So Blue Cross, so Anthem, which is Blue Cross, it's a, you know, maybe a subsidiary of Blue Cross and I guess a certain state's Anthem is going to be the one. So like if we're in New Jersey, it's horizon and, you know, pencil, I mean, it's different, but Blue Cross Blue Shield has multiple different versions of that. So Anthem came out with a policy that they are basically going to look at all the surgery procedures that happen, anything that requires general anesthesia. And this is when you get intubated and you're completely out, I think it was only for general anesthesia. It could be wrong. It could be for just like twilight sleep as well that they're going to, they're going to come up with essentially a template that suggests that, okay, this type of procedure is supposed to take this much time, right? So laparoscopic cold to stuck me where they take your gallbladder out should take 60 minutes no more. And so we're only going to pay for anesthesia for whatever that pre-determined time is that somewhat arbitrary that they're going to determine. And any time after that, if a surgery goes beyond that, the surgeons will not begin paid, but they're not going to pay for the anesthesia. So the anesthesia does not again pay, so that cost is going to come back onto the patient. And it's absolutely crazy to think that they were going to do that because I mean, now you can imagine, like, you know, when you're a procedureist and I, from time to time, use anesthesia for my procedures, things go wrong. Sometimes you have complications. Sometimes you get into a procedure and ends up being tricky. Sometimes there's an equipment issue and so things get delayed. And so a lot of surgeons actually came back. I think the lady Spindock was talking about this, you know, is like, surgeons are going to feel pressured and pressed for time. Well, how likely are they going to be to make more medical error? So absolutely crazy thought can't believe it actually, like, even was proposed. I'm so glad that it's been reversed. But you know what's crazy about that, dude? I'm not going to be surprised until the next ridiculous policy comes out like it's going to happen. It wouldn't be surprised. Like if this was, if they've secretly passed on their absurd policy quietly under the table, as they've like done a little like an illusionist thing with everybody, like, so we should probably look into that, like, this is, this is my faith in the, in the interest system. Like, that they probably does. It just, I just, it makes zero sense to me. I just, I'm like stuttering here because I don't even know what to say. Like, how do they not think like, yeah, have you ever worked with a surgeon that's like, you know what? Let me just take an extra four hours, you know, because that's, that's healthy to give more energy. Like, what, like, what do they think that obviously these people are trying to be efficient and safe at the same time? I mean, that's what improves outcomes overall, like, yeah, I don't know. Sorry. Yeah. So let's share from that, right? So you talked about people being anti-capitalists and, and I wanted to talk to you about this last time, about anti-establishment content creators. We see a lot of that. We see so much of that and, and, and I get it, right, the algorithm feeds that. Hence, I mean, our, our podcast, our logo, everything about our mission in some sense has been about that too, right, that we've talked about. But you, you've seen a lot of that lately, and I really want to reference back to that health summit that Senator Johnson had where I think it was in September of this year, in 2024, where he had, you know, all these experts, some I'll put in quote experts, health experts come in front of Congress and present the argument of how America is unhealthy and our food and this and that, and the system is really corrupt in many ways and, and how they, all these people, with their, their respective specialties and what they were passionate about talked about, you know, how they're going to make the system better. What was interesting about that situation in particular, and we talked about this with Heather Hammer said as well, that, you know, you had individuals who were perceived experts and maybe not necessarily true experts, right, and so you have people with a journal and media background sitting up there in front of Congress talking about our foods, right, you had people actually had multiple journalists up there. You had some physicians, but maybe didn't even complete their training out there, you know, talking about metabolic health and that kind of stuff again, so food, you know, you had some really credible sources as well, Dr. Martin McCarrie, we highlighted him a couple of times, who I think has been nominated for the head of the FDA now, I'm also talking about just the corruption of the healthcare system, and so that just got me to thinking in terms of how these people communicate, and now we've done an episode on this or how to find a medical, like a true expert on social media, Ray Layne Norton had this really great framework of thinking about that, but I was just thinking about like these people and I've been listening to them on social media, you know, particularly Casey and Kelly means. They have a book called Good Energy Out There. They're doing a lot of great work, but they have interesting phrasing when they communicate health information, and so before I go any further, I kind of just want to get your take in terms of as you've ingested some of this information over the last couple of months, what's been the feel that you've gotten? I think it's made me change my definition, or made I change, but think deeply about what an expert is, and so my framework at least for that is we're all experts in something. What do I mean by that? We're all experts in the realm of what we pushed that we know, so ultimately you're an expert in your life, right? No one else will understand that, because you have experience of things that you have. I'm an expert in my understanding of the way the world works based off my understanding. Now when you take that notch further to looking at, or the medical experts, or the experts in nutrition and diets, the way I look at that is one, do you have an understanding of the past, present, and possible future of the data of the research and the overall trends of what has happened? Two, are you keeping up with what the current data is, and are you able to speak on it? And number three, are you able to have positive discussions about it? Are you willing to change your mind? Are you willing to have some sort of an opinion on what it's showing? But are you also not completely one-sided? And so that's kind of the way I look at what an expert is now. And for instance, I look at Peter Rittia as an expert. I think he does a really good job on all three of those things. He looks at where we were in the past with medicine. He talks about medicine 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 in the future. He is always staying up to date with the latest research, reads it himself, tries to break it down, has a team, and then lastly is willing to change his opinion, which he also talks about too. And so for me, he's somebody that I quote unquote trust because I know he's done the work. And it doesn't seem like he has a lopsided agenda besides which I think one can all agree upon is trying to make people healthier and make people understand their own bodies and understand what they can take away from the current treatments. So that's kind of at least how I felt about it. Yeah, I love that. I think that's really important to, for people to take away, I think, yes, you are an expert in your life. You are an expert, an expert in your domain of what it is that you do. But don't misconstrue that for thinking that you are or somebody else is an expert in something you're interested in. Those are two different things, right? So nutrition is the big one that people always references. We all feel like we can give nutrition advice because we engage in it so much multiple times throughout the day. We feel like we have opinions on it. And we have an experience that's resonating in our life. Something's worked for me, therefore it must work. And physiology is complicated, human beings are complicated. And so just because something's worked for you, it doesn't mean that you're, you know, that's going to work for other people. And there's a lot of nuance to this, right? I mean, so even as clinicians, and we go to you at this point, we've seen thousands of patients. And, you know, on a monthly basis, probably see a few hundred, and we still are just like learning. And we like every single day, I'm learning from patients. And so I think that's the one challenge when it comes to giving out health information. It's very complex. The body's very complex. Our understanding of it is actually quite limited. And together, that's a recipe for disaster. And if you especially cannot piece out and like, you know, tear apart information and be able to actually acquire knowledge and then distribute knowledge in a responsible way, like maybe you shouldn't necessarily have a platform. And I think about this. I want to go back to Peter Ortea, though, like again, I agree with you, big fan of him, but there are people that I respect that I listen to who will also say that maybe some of his science communication is a little bit too far and it's actually harmful, right? For instance, you know, he, I think in one of his AMAs, and now this is a couple of years ago, he had talked about the use of GLP1 agonists and really looking forward to hopefully getting an expert on here. So we talk about that and his concern with that raising heart rate. And we know that anytime you raise somebody's resting heart rate, that most likely, I mean, I cannot think of a physiological response where you raise somebody's heart rate aside from like true Brady Cardia, but, you know, with your physical, where that's going to be good for mortality. It just can't possibly be true, right? And so he has expressed some concerns about that. But then there are other people who are big proponents of GLP1 and these anti-BCD medications, obesity docs, some of whom we're hoping to get on here. Who really just bashed him for that observation in his own patient population. But I think that's another important thing to us. Like when we get behind this mic, when we get behind a platform and you are sharing your experiences versus being pedantic about what you think people should be doing, those are two different things, right? So if you and I have a conversation and you say, Hey, here's what I found in my experience and this concerns me about patients in this specific medications. That's very different than people shouldn't be on this because this is bad for your heart rate and therefore it's going to lead to. Because there's no wants to this, right? There's benefits and risks. And the thing that concerns me in particular is when people use a lot of hyperbole for things. And I can't why. I mean, this is why we haven't gotten viral yet, you and I, Darsha, because we tend not to do this as much and maybe this is our downfall. And when I think about, you know, Casey means, you know, she's the, she doctor, she graduated from Stanford, poor Stanford, like the amount of times she's bashed Stanford medical school for not teaching her nutrition, which is probably true. Right? No medical school is really giving good quality nutrition advice. Most of the advice that we're getting nutritionally is like from a biochemistry lens. But the amount of time Stanford medical school's gotten bashed, it's just, it's, they probably hate it, right? So that was the first topic, you know, but, you know, I hear her using words like, you know, these foods, the things that we're consuming are weapons of mass destruction. Right? That's a very powerful, you know, and it's great for clicks, that phrase, and it's great to be able to capture your attention. Weapons of mass destruction, we're talking about nuclear weapons, like that's how potent this thing is. Right. And I'm not sure Kit Kat is the same as weapons of mass destruction. Damn, I just had a Kit Kat today. Kit Kat. Love it. Snickers. Better Snickers. I had the UK version, by the way. So it's a little different. Oh. Oh, that's not a show. Yeah. Right, right, right. No red 40 in that. No red 40, that's right. That's right. That's a true weapon of mass destruction. Yeah. But things like that, right? And so her brother, Kali, means who he's got actually an amazing website, which tries to get you reimbursed through your FSA or an HSA for healthcare services. So we'll plug that. I'm not sure if you're trying to get involved in that or see if I can get a true med, right? That's right. Yeah. You're eight sleep or whatever. You can get your FSA stuff for that. I think that's phenomenal. I think he's a lawyer by background. I'm not mistaken. By being. Yeah. I think he might be an attorney for background. But he's got this amazing company and they're trying to do that. Then you should be able to invest in your health. And if you can use FSA for those who don't know FSA, it's called a flexible spending account or healthcare savings account, flexible savings account. I'm not sure what that's got to be. But basically you can use these funds. These are pre-tax funds and you can use it towards healthcare expenses. In most of the time, people can use it for doctors, payments, for copays, medication, et cetera, et cetera, for healthcare expenses. The argument that these guys make with true med their company is that, well, your gym membership is a healthcare expense. Your eight sleep tech device is a healthcare expense, right? It's going to promote a good quality sleep, et cetera. I love that. You love that. I think that is a phenomenal idea. I wish we came up with it. But the same token, like, you know, he gets on, I think, maybe Chris Williams podcast or maybe the CEO and talking about how big pharma controls literally everything that we do, right? And it's just like making big pharma out to be this evil doing. It's like, okay, I see what you're talking about. I see the whole capitalistic thing. That's what make America America. You know, yeah, the healthcare system is bad. But all reference people to Peter T.S. episode where he had some, I forgot the guy's name, who talked about how, yes, our system is a problematic, but UK is not much better. And I can say this, I have family who practices in UK, and I family practices in Canada. And it's not, you know, that you can be careful what you wish for. And I don't go a little bit around here, but he talks about like that. And just making up out to be such a bad thing, whereas if it wasn't for big pharma heart disease, people would be dying from heart disease at 50 still cancer. People wouldn't be living in action 20 years with cancer. Like big pharma has done a lot of great things for us, you know? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think I'll add one more mental model here when I think about experts. And that's looking way into the future and way into the past, right? So I don't think any of us can name an expert from 300 years ago that you would relate to today. You know, I mean, like we're all experts in the current present moment. But if we look in the next 7500 years, a lot of what we think right now that is true, is going to be not true in 70 years. So all we're doing is the best that we can. So when people are listening to certain influencers and certain advisors and scientific thought leaders, keep in mind that, you know, these are just judgments. This is what we think is true. This is what we have right now. But by no means does it mean that is quote unquote the truth. And that is what's going to hold the test of time, you know, in the near future. Yeah. The challenge is, and I go, I think this is maybe a little bit of my intention. But this is a bit of a PSA for people. It's just be careful when you are consuming this stuff on social media, on just regular media, you know, TV and news and that kind of stuff. Because even when you're not trying to, it has a significant impact, even passively, like how much information we absorb. And not only, you know, you're talking about what we think we know is, you know, so a lot of these experts, they might know more than you, but they might not be necessarily like an expert in that specific domain. So we talked about some of those journalists who were up there who are, you know, I don't want to necessarily say masquerading because they are quite knowledgeable. Right. I don't think you need to have a necessarily a degree to be savvy and expert in something, right? Sure. I think particularly with information that is successful, it is is like, you know, if you have access to studies, you have access to that. Although treating patients, there is something to be learned from that. And if you're not doing that, then maybe you should be cautious. How they communicate. So what they'll say is like, okay, you know, 40% of people who do this, like this is what happens to their hormones. And that might be coming from one study. It might be a human study. It might not be an individual study and a preacher dish. It might actually be a human study. It might not be an animal study, but it might be one study. It might be an observation study in eight human beings. We talked about this. Most people are not necessarily too lazy to just don't have the time to fact check every single thing that they hear when they're listening to a podcast, when they're listening to something on YouTube. I remember Lane Orren talking about this when Paul Saladino went on some show, Joe Rogan talking about the carnivore diet. And 41 hours to dissect every single thing. There's no, you couldn't pay me enough money to be able to spend more. I guess you could pay me enough money. But you know, like who's doing that? Right. So you just, you take, you take their word for what it is. But the other interesting thing that I find is how they communicate the message. So coming back to Casey me and she's phenomenal at this. So we were talking about Vanessa Van Edwards. She was talking about like your, your cues that you give with your voice, right? So there's a story voice. Let me tell you about a time or there's the numbers voice, you know, 47% of people blah, blah, blah, this and that. And how excellent Ted speakers, you are one of them are able to do different things and how they cue you and how that makes you believe a certain thing. And there is something to be said. If you listen to how these people communicate, you'll find that it actually is raising your anxiety level. Right. Going back to what you were spoken about earlier is like, you gotta trust that a little bit. If all your hearing is fear, world is ending, doom, doom, doom. Maybe just questioned like, is it really that bad? Like, am I going to die right now? As I inhale this air quality? Is it going to be really that bad? Right. Because you talked about Morocco coming from, I've been to third world countries. Have you ever been India? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different world. Like so it's not that bad. Yeah. Sweet. Anything else to add to that? We didn't even touch on RFK, Jr. And his role. Oh. Did you have anything on that? We can. Yeah. I think he's interesting, right? I mean, we talk about this all the time. Polarization, putting people, putting words in people's mouths. You know, right now, the biggest thing about him is, is you're going to make a difference, right? His policy and trying to open the rug to see what everything has been swept under. He wants to make vaccines a little bit more researchable, rather than kind of just putting it out. But a lot of people think of that as an anti-bax statement, right? And then I guess he's been on podcasts where he's had those statements and maybe that hyperbole. And so again, I think when we see hyperbole, we need to judge people based off, what's their end goal? And is that why they're saying that hyperbole and is that what they actually mean? So personally, I'm a big fan of actually having RFK in there. Do I agree with everything that he stands for no? But I think we do need to shaped up at least in regards to health and policy and whatever it is. Because again, like you said, is the world going to end with him being, you know, by Trump side? No. But hey, maybe it's the start of something where people can get inspired. Where maybe farm companies or whoever might be, you know, in bed with policymakers might be shaking in their boots a little. So, you know, let's let's see what happens. But I think it'll be interesting. It's funny how this cycle I've really gotten more into politics. Yeah. Yeah, you seem to be much more knowledgeable about it than I do. I also find it interesting that because everything is timestamped and everything is always accessible. Like if you say something on a podcast on YouTube channel. And then maybe if five times after that, you say something that directly opposes that or you've changed your mind. You know, people will find that first clip. Not the other five to be able to defame you in some manner to be able to say that. And maybe that that's happened with him. Maybe it's not. I'm not necessarily saying in his case. But I do find there's somebody that you and I are thinking about that's just going after all these people. We're just vitriol and we find it to be comical. Um, you know, so again, I think look at the another one. I guess I said this is like, you know, I think one of the things I also just speak for myself. And one of the things that I tried to do because I'm also a human. And I ingest this is just as much the next person. And I find myself having even from some of this fear based response. I find myself having a little bit of anxiety. And so what I try to do is. You know, I try to look at the body of the work of that person. What if they communicated consistently? And what does they believe? Um, and you try to look at the most up the day thing. Because if you're not developing your opinions, if you're not seeing what you thought five years ago. Um, was wrong or at the very least you've added some nuance to that. And I'm not really sure that you're a person who I want to continue listening to. So, um, that's, that's all I said to that to put a bowl on it unless you got anything else. No, I think I want one of my biggest pet peeves again. We're talking about people who changed their minds. Um, I know a couple of people in real life who are quick to say something because they know they can apologize about it later. Right. And I don't think that's the right way of doing something. I don't think you can have a strong opinion just to say it. So that later on you can be like, we'll see at least I apologize or like see at least I changed my mind. Like you don't get a reward for changing your mind. You get a reward for trying to be authentic and then going through a discussion and explain that journey of how you change your mind. You know, I mean, I think that is important to see. It's just tough to see in social media. Because we, you know, we, we get glimpses of our, we get glimpses of these politicians and people, but we don't get to see their actual journey. And so that's why I love, you know, like Joe Rogan's podcast, these long form podcasts, because you really get the time to sit down and actually understand what's going on through this person's mind to see how they got to their opinion. Well, yeah, I really love that. I think, yeah, a lot of respect for the person where you ask them, hey, here's something that I came across. What do you think about this? And their initial response might be, I don't know enough about that yet to comment on it, you know, like I'm going to be thoughtful about what opinion that I share. And rather than just quickly respond, oh my God, blah, blah, blah, this, this, and then come back like, wait a second, I got to have all the facts. Because even when you're hearing stories from somebody else, you're getting it from a different lens, right? You talked about this and you and I look at things differently all the time. And so it's always interesting. You know, do your own research and arrive your own conclusions. Don't let people per se, persuade you into thinking one way or another. So, anyways, interesting stuff. I'm sure you talk about therapy culture. I'm not sure how we translate it, but I think that's important. Something you and I have been talking about. I think really important. I think this is one of those areas you might, you and I might have a little bit of a difference at opinion. So interested to kind of talk about it with you. So maybe, maybe, you know, lay down the foundation in terms of how we arrived. It's conversation that the podcast that you share with Mark Manson and that kind of stuff. Yeah, so it's funny how these topics kind of just come up in our lives through multiple streams, right? And that's what I love about listening to these like philosophical growth mindset. Just learning about general knowledge podcast. So this topic therapy and therapy culture, right? So we know that there's been a big rise in mental health issues and there's also been a big rise in people seeking out therapy and therapists. I've come to this topic through a podcast with Chris William sent on modern wisdom where he talked about the greatest philosopher all time Socrates. And how the Socratic method and Socrates viewed therapy and viewed discourse and viewed mental health issues. And then there was a second podcast, the subtle art of not giving an F by Mark Manson, you know, book with the same title, who talks about therapy culture as a whole. And is it actually doing a disservice in today's world by how scalable it's gotten is the word he uses. What I loved about that first podcast with Socrates is, you know, I really resonate with the idea of having an intellectual sparring partner, right, which is you for me and me for you. We've kind of come to this conclusion before we revamp this podcast was like, hey, we need to be in each other's lives like soulmates because we can bounce ideas off each other when sometimes it shouldn't be our media family members or shouldn't be, you know, some of our other friends. But it should just be each other who are on the same wavelength and are okay with disagreeing okay with building up on agree ideas that we agree on. And so to me that discourse itself is therapy because I can listen to a podcast I can formulate my thoughts and then I can come to you and say, hey, what do you think about this is how I think about it. And that immediately offers another perspective no matter what you're never going to have 100% the same perspective as me. So that feedback itself is therapy right and so what happens is in ancient Greece the reason why Socrates was supposed to be this great philosopher is because he was questioning everyone and Socrates never thought he knew all the answers. And so I don't think mental health for him quote unquote existed because he was able to see everyone's perspectives in light from children to adults to the elderly. And I think what we're missing in today's world is that ability to have your friends over, you know, four or five people and just chat about what you're going through. What your perspectives are on life what you thought about X and Y and Z and how you should maybe reframe that and what other people are going through. And so I think when you have the understanding of other people's lives it puts yours into perspective as not the only one that's quote unquote right. And so that is kind of at least my thought process behind this and I'll let you explain yours and then we can kind of you know go back and forth to as far as what we think. I know I think when you when you painted that way, I generally agree with that we've talked about about the power of and the importance of social connection multiple times and we're talking about just necessarily one other person but a community a tribe not not being tribal but a tribe and how critical that is I love that the one to one perspective is really important. We have that because we we do this behind the mic we do this off the mic you and I basically talk on a daily basis we're sharing some multiple mediums that we're communicating about this. Therapy culture pieces is really interesting because you know I see this especially in Gen Z and I guess what what's after Gen Z Gen alpha. Yeah, you know it's this increasing societal emphasis on therapy as the default response to just emotional and psychological challenges just normal everyday life. Did I ever read that piece to you from Hormosi talking about like living daily life and not being a challenging. I wrote this down because I thought it was interesting he was talking about his his grandfather and being a physician and then maybe his parents were physicians to what he was complaining a little bit about was like he hated. The over prescription of medication and whatnot but I think in this part of it that he says he's I hate what it does to people and more than more the underlying thing is that they reject being human and they think there's something wrong with them and so many people waste all their time trying to solve a problem that is life rather than living it and it drives me nuts like the search for medication rather confronting the problem like you don't have an anxiety problem you need to deal with whatever the thing that you're worried about is. Yeah really really important you know I on social media fall these like millennial pages and whatnot and they're always making fun of the Gen Z talking about how I can't I can't come into work because like. You're toxic energy. That's obviously it's obviously a little bit of a joke you know and taking shots at different generations but but I do think that that is something that has gone a little overboard and the other thing is like publicizing personal issues I get where it comes from right so this it's a this this sociological critique on the idea that you know let's let's cultivate being vulnerable and let's make that more more and more. More and more and more acceptable and and the reduction on self-reliance as a hey i'm going to grind this up by myself again we talked about the importance of community but that can be taken a little bit too far right just normally saying oh man i'm just like i've been dealing with this anxiety because it almost at that point becomes a crutch that oh sorry like there's a here's a hard challenge like i'm depressed right now right as like you know you you and I kind of grew up again i'm an immigrant so we raised it a little bit differently by my parents and stuff like that where. Depression wasn't even like what is that it's not a thing and so if you now you have meant to help being able to recognize the importance on how it was under recognized for so long now if you publicize it like i'm depressed it's almost like you sometimes can maybe take it too far. i'm going to get i'm going to shit for this for sure but it's okay yeah and the people can almost say okay now that person's untouchable you know what i'm saying like yeah yeah if you if you're like a boss or something like that and that that scares me. No i agree it gives you a card not only to the employer but also to your followers right it lets them know like i'm being super authentic with you and and it's almost like we're chasing that title we're chasing that hey we're feeling depressed let's advertise it let's let people know because. It allows other people to you know one we think relatable like sure everyone goes to shit moods but you don't need to label yourself as as as a quote unquote victim now yes there are people who are severely depressed and i wonder honestly what their thoughts are on this because there there's levels to that i mean there's levels to anxiety there's levels to depression. And so i wonder those who are actually severely depressed who have gone through medications and who actually have this like imbalance of the new transmitters and whatnot and just this life that is colorless in a way what they think about these people who advertise the way they feel constantly. I was laughing have you seen the thing on social media about herpes influencers. Maybe i don't know i don't think so i have to send this to you and if i can find a link in the social there's this guy i think he's a man he's like in his late 30s or early 40s and he's talking about is like i never thought the day would come where people would be using herpes yes to monetize like the actual general herpes and stuff and like you know using some some young person who was saying i struck with herpes and was selling a course and how to cope and live life. With herpes and he was like what are we doing i like to be really funny i'm a little bit of a transition but i think it applies here and i think but but but to come back on a serious note i know i do find this trend um of just you know diagnosing normal emotional responses to be. depression and anxiety and and maybe that's not the case maybe and i'm very careful when people talk about it i'm like okay you're in a depressed mood this is not the same as depression you're anxious which is not the same thing anxiety which is actually a medical condition right like and it's really important because we don't want to make over diagnosis and that i mean not only can that lead to unnecessary treatments but it can. We talked to dr robin tiger about this right it can create this self labeling which can have this vicious perpetual negative feedback move and make you more depressed making you a sad person and i'm tying it all in with Vanessa when I'm in a verse if you have that all of a sudden your cues are dying down and you suddenly become less likeable in terms of what energy you're putting out to the world and so you know it gets to be really really interesting. um and i want to i want to actually tie that in with something else that i think is really interesting you know some of the the words that people use specifically like gaslighting right i don't think i'm actually like legitimately ever use that word because i never really like understood what that meant but but i heard. forget who i heard talking about this is people throw that word around like it i don't think people truly understand what that means and so so maybe i think maybe to define it for those who are not familiar with gaslighting would be you know when you have interaction with somebody and you might say something to that person and the person will respond but you'll make that person feel like that this interaction isn't actually happening. i hope that yeah yeah it's like make it it's invalidating their thoughts about your response right yeah. right yes some version of that and the people can feel free to look that up but what's interesting is you know people will start using that term in just normal conflict right and i think i had heard this on diary of ceo where some of these divorce experts had come on and they talked about people just think that like. like you and i can have a different perspective with something right so we might look at this problem and like okay so let's you i think there's the the famous thing about um address looks gold some people blue to some people you know i'm talking about yep yep and i might put that picture up and i might say dars like. what color is this and i see blue and you're like that's golden like are you gaslighting me yeah exactly it's like no that's you're not right you just have a different perspective and how you're looking at and i don't i don't remember the exact physiology of that color stuff that right there but this happens in things all the time yeah right so again we can have a a conflict we can have interaction a week later if let's say you and i didn't speak to each other we come back and we revisit with like hey let's figure out this let's talk about this you share your perspective and i share my perspective and our perspective is a completely different and we're like wait you're gaslighting me because that's not what happened. but that's how you saw it happen that's a story that you told yourself that your mind created yeah and memories really really fungible and and my mind i remember the events in a different way and again it's not gaslighting it's just different perspectives different lenses looking at the same problem in a different way i always find that to be so fascinating when people throw that term around and i'm like no it's just how i remember and you remember it completely differently and that's fascinating i totally agree there's like people like manipulation gaslighting is a form of manipulation in no way if i try to do it. to manipulate your reality i'm just telling you my reality but the problem is that you know we're getting softer and softer because of this whole advertisement of mental health and that it's okay to feel a certain way that you should yes as a human you should have low moods that that's part of it right that's how you see the other spectrum of happiness but just because you have those low moves doesn't mean that you now have to fall into that trap of living there so that you feel like you can feel better because you live there you know it's it's very meta concept but it's just like you know i don't know i don't know where else to go with that it's just uh it's funny because we're not manipulating it's it's not a manipulation tactic i'm just showing telling you my reality and what and and what i think about your reality right like if i if i try to rephrase or say that's what i think about what you're saying i'm not trying to manipulate i'm not trying to influence you yeah you know so i think to bring it back and it kind of the things that i talked about in terms of like all right so therapy you know i think it helps people skill up right i think the most powerful skill that we potentially could have depending on what profession you're in but probably for all people is to interact with their human beings and then we've recognized that that's what makes us more special than other animal in terms of how we interact how we're able to communicate at a deeper level and you can't connect if you can't have conflict i feel like that all right i should i should i should trademark that somehow i like that you know i might i might i might i might put it on that conflict yeah yeah we might have to yeah um that conflict yeah so you you got you got to have that dude um and so you know if but the problem is because of how we've been going right one social media you talked about people not being in town hold so you're not face-to-face with somebody so you can get on social media you can say something you don't have a necessarily respond you can run away from it you don't have to look somebody dead in the eyes and say something you're not you're not accustomed to that you don't know how to one say things in a in a fashion that won't get you punched in the face right or receive something and not completely lose it and be able to come back and so i think when somebody does that hard work with therapists as long as it's a good fit where somebody helps you level up those skills you can be able to discern okay what is truly gaslighting where there's a manipulation happening what some our relationship that's not serving me a relationship that needs to be completed right or what is something that oh no this is just a different perspective and i need to learn how to appreciate it i need to reflect back and why am i feeling a certain way i think that's that's lense when i was coming at but you know i think you you make this amazing point in terms of yeah i guess maybe 50 years ago like when we were we were a community you know you had group therapy with your closest loved ones and that kind of stuff well i think i think had both right you had a load time 50 years ago naturally and you had a community time and now we're lacking both of those things so on one end you weren't you're not able to think through problems think through your life and then too you're not able to share and listen other from other people in an authentic true body language way everything is social media curated so right right you're never truly alone because when you are alone you're on social media and you're connected to everybody right yeah and and when you are with somebody you're maybe not them because you're connected to social media or you're elsewhere and you're working or something like that nailed it um it's like that was it the thing that I sent you on social media is like yeah you can do the baths you can do this stuff but can you sit with yourself yeah that alone time with just your thoughts no stimulation um and just be okay yeah yeah it is scary too for those that aren't used to it right i mean we we've grown up accustomed to 365 days a year getting stimulation right but you look at the greatest inventors the greatest thought leaders the greatest authors they all you know go on these retreats go to cabin sit by themselves and just think right and go through those problems that they're encountering and what humanity is i think uh out of that comes yeah that that level up you know i think about this Andy Galpin and we'll all talk about this when when he's um on podcast and he'll tell him people about you know when those high performers and one of the things he always talks about when you're training he always wants to have something parasympathetic built in at the end of a workout to tone down that regulation um and if you are that individual who's go go go hi hi all the time during the workout um maybe huberman asks there's something during the workout he doesn't even want to have input right so no music like i'm sometimes listening to a podcast or a book is like none of that and you know i've tried to do that um i know your psychopath if you're not listening to something and you're working out right nowadays um the problem is like when you're at the gym like you have that music and so like for me i'm almost trying to drown that out yeah but i i would encourage i don't have you ever tried that and have you ever trained in just silence yeah i'll do it sometimes um with like there's crappy music and i'm just like i don't you know i'm not trying to lift me i'm not trying to PR there's no podcasts on my phone but then yeah there's times where i'm just like i'm just gonna lift like usually actually at the end of my workout i don't listen to anything like my last two because i just get sick of it i get sick of input it's weird like in the beginning but yeah but there is music in the gym yeah yeah but it's like yeah there is it's like eighties music kind of like what is this yeah it's like i just want to turn this off this is terrible music for the gym i don't know why they play but yeah i know i i mean like just nothing yeah yeah like nothing like if you ever train at home yeah i encourage you to do that i think you're gonna find that to be almost like a thardic experience i got i mean when i train in my garage i'll try not to listen to anything yeah it's just me and the only sounds you're hearing is you know if it's the bar racking that's it um i mean we know and i was i was reading this something about this is like every time you're somebody call these hope molecules every time you contract your muscles your uh maybe they're talking about my accounts i don't think so but your muscles release these molecules that they're called hope molecules i'm actually looking to the bloody of this statement that is actively fighting against those depressed moods the down moods i mean we know the endods endorphin release that you have is phenomenal for uplifting your mood your brain health being enough all those types of things but again to be able to sit in silence like we talked about um and if you struggle to do that okay go and engage in activity i think maybe heberman and peter to talk about when they go on their six hour rock no music no input just nature yeah right Melissa said i've been talked about this as well you're just intaking nature um yeah i don't know do you give it a try let me know what you think we'll do and i'm talking nothing just i'm trying to think i've done it here reading yeah that's it yeah i don't think i've ever done a hard workout where like i'm you know i'm trying to like legitimately push weight but definitely like hotel workouts and things like that where it's kind of basic yeah i would say i do my best processing of stuff through that time oh yeah yeah hundred percent that's like me like when you're driving in the morning sometimes it's just like no music no podcast just hour long yes you know me myself and i yeah anything else to add on to that i hope i think and i don't i don't want people to to take away like i don't i don't think that you and i are suggesting even for a second that you know these things such as people struggling with mental health issues anxiety ADHD um depression like that is unwarranted certainly if you feel like you need the help you need the help please go and get the help but i think that this piece was really interesting in terms of talking about therapy culture and the normalization of sharing personal mental health struggles and it should be creating vulnerability we talk about the concept toxic toxic masculinity in the past uh but you know it gets to be a really fine line and people often blur the lines between normal distress states again normal life as hermosis says is versus true clinical conditions leading to overdiagnosis over patholog pathologization over medicalization um and creating a less resilient person i think in general right yeah and i would encourage listeners to listen to the markmanson episode on it because i think they do a really good job breaking down the scalability of therapy right like we're seeing therapists in schools we're seeing there being churches and hospitals and it's just everywhere and when that happens you get a water down version of what it means to be resilient right now you're putting factions against each other right they're telling kids like oh you shouldn't listen to your parents you should listen to your teacher or vice versa and so what happens is you're actually destroying and dissolving community and the strong threads that actually combine perspectives and that's what children need growing up right they don't need a social media influencer they need the world around them and the input from around that well trauma come from that naturally yes of course i mean there's there's there's no going uh there's no bypassing that right and so i don't think the goal through therapy should be eliminate all trauma it should be how do we cope with the current world that you're in today not take it away from them and try to make them perfect children so right yeah i love it well all right man on that note um we'll uh we'll sign off here for uh if you don't until the next one then all right see you man thanks for listening to the other episode of medicine redefined if you enjoyed this episode please be sure to check out some of the additional resources in the show notes please also check out our social media platforms where you can find more content like this you can follow us on instagram twitter and tiktok at med redefined we also want to thank our team for the production of this podcast specifically ethanjoo on video harita je por your social media xenoblegmani on research and sarahan for newsletter oh and if you want to get similar bite-sized information delivered to your inbox every Sunday please be sure to sign up for our newsletter also if you enjoyed the show please be sure to subscribe review and share with anyone who you think will gain value from this as well now time for the ever so important disclaimer this podcast is intended for general public use and is for educational purposes only it does not constitute the practice of medicine nor should be construed as a medical advice no physician patient relationship is formed and anything discussed in this podcast does not represent the views of our employers we recommend that you seek the guidance of your personal physician regarding any specific health related issues