[Applause]
the dashing chap you see pictured here
briefing his men before a mission
as my grandfather he was a Wing
Commander in the Royal Air Force sadly
he was killed in action early in the
Second World War he left behind his wife
my grandmother with very little money no
college education no career and two
small girls to raise one in the Middle’s
my mom knowing that she needed an income
my grandmother
scraped together what little money she
could and she bought a fruit farm the
reason that the fruit farm was so cheap
location location location it was right
on the main route that the German
bombers took to raid London every night
between dodging bombs
my grandmother group plums and apples to
sell in the city during the growing
season but because the school fees and
the bills didn’t stop in the wintertime
she needed to find a source of revenue
then remember she didn’t have a college
degree or anything she took out a pad of
rationed paper sat by the fireplace and
churned out a series of wartime
bestselling novels under a pen name so I
think we can agree we’re talking about a
determined and pragmatic woman why then
did all of my breakfast with her
involved splashing myself with sour milk
well this was the milk delivery system
that my grandmother was used to pretty
simple glass bottle pretty intuitive
foil pop this was the milk delivery
system that came about in the 1970s when
I was living with her
the full force of the German air force
couldn’t defeat my grandmother this
carton did to the end of her days she
could never figure out how it worked she
would get frustrated take out a big pair
of kitchen shears and chop the top off
spills and spoilage for the result
my grandmother was not demonstrating
what’s known as mechanical sympathy now
mechanical sympathy is a wonderfully
elegant term that refers to using an
object a designed object in the way that
it was intended and if we use a designed
object in the way that was intended
we’re likely to get the best performance
out of it and we’re likely to get it to
last a long time now I’m sure like many
of us I I know I have I’ve tried to
force something to get it to work in a
way that it wasn’t designed only to
break it when if I just spent a little
bit more time figuring out what the
designer intended might have saved
myself a lot of grief now I think that
mechanical sympathy is a wonderful tool
to help us make decisions about the most
important mechanism of all ourselves our
bodies and our minds and I think that if
we do that we might be able to get the
best performance out of this mechanism
and get it to last – its design
specification or at least as close to it
as possible
it took an ear to home personal human
tragedy for me to really grasp this
concept closely
I watched my mother-in-law who is a very
intelligent very accomplished person but
one who had the standard American diet
and was
sedentary I watched her spiral from
obesity to diabetes to heart disease to
dementia to cancer and ultimately death
and I watched her not be able to fully
enjoy her grandchildren and I watched
the strain and the effort that this
placed on my wife as her primary
caregiver and I said to myself this is
not gonna happen to me I am going to
understand this mechanism and treat it
with sympathy in order that I can enjoy
my grandkids and that I won’t be a
burden to my wife or my daughter or
anybody else who might have to look
after me now before I grasped this
concept I was more inclined to go with
the popular theory of the day so let’s
take my approach to exercise
I joined every sweaty boot camp class
you can imagine I haunted the Pilates
halls of Chicago I was a yoga stood out
mile after mile on hard concrete what it
got me
or quite a lot of dirty laundry
hours and hours spent in the gym and a
painful trip to the knee surgeon I
hadn’t done my research on the science
of exercise and I certainly wasn’t being
sympathetic to myself so let’s say we
decide we’re going to go on this journey
together of really understanding the
mechanism well the good news is there’s
tons of information out there the bad
news is there’s tons of information out
there and a lot of it is biased or
uncreated and you’re gonna have to do a
bit of work to read the fine print
this is particularly true in the field
of nutrition are we super surprised when
we read the fine print and we see that
the study were reading was commissioned
by a major cereal manufacturer that
their conclusion is breakfast is the
most important meal of the day it’s not
and their product should play a central
part so understand the mechanics broadly
is a good idea how about more
specifically how about testing ourselves
to get a baseline good idea what what
kind of test and how are we going to
think about it I’m gonna guess that a
large number of women in the audience
have with breast cancer concerns in mind
have gone for a mammogram but I wonder
how many of those same women have had
the special kind of blood test that
tells you what the particle count and
particle size of your low-density
lipoproteins are it’s not your typical
LDL test it’s it’s it’s a special one
why is that important well according to
the Center for Disease Control women are
four times more likely to die of a
cardiac event than they are from breast
cancer so getting that testing element
right is super important so let’s talk
about how do we apply this in our daily
lives let’s start with eating so my
contention is that we’ve got to get our
information on something as important as
what we’re putting into ourselves from
sources that have really done the
research and the science and who only
have our best interest at heart not some
ulterior profit motive so here are three
books taken from my library that I think
get to that end I’ve learned an awful
lot about the biomechanics of how my
body processes food
and some great information about what we
should and shouldn’t be eating from dr.
Kate Shanahan I’ve learned an awful lot
about the evolutionary design history of
our whole mechanism from Nora gate
goddess and I’ve had the curtain pulled
back on a lot of the shoddy science and
manipulative work for profit that Nina
tae Colts who’s an investigative
journalist writes about when she
describes how a lot of the information
sources that we’ve relied on for dietary
advice things like that food pyramid
have been badly distorted now if you’re
more of an auditory learner try
listening to some of the interviews done
by dr. Rhonda Patrick
by the way proof positive that you can’t
have style and be a science geek or
listen to some of the talks given by the
equally stylish dr. Sara Hallberg who in
a super energetic but understandable way
walks you through some of the wonderful
hard science that she and some of her
colleagues have been doing to prove what
we should be eating spoiler alert
processed carbohydrates and sugars are
not the fuel that we’re designed to run
on so make your dinner plans and your
lack of dessert plans accordingly all
right how about exercise we talked about
that a little bit before do you need to
be a marathon runner or spend hours and
hours in the gym to be fit well the good
news is if we actually study the
mechanics of exercise we can figure out
that with just 15 to 20 minutes of
exercise once or twice a week we can
build strong bones and functionally
strong muscles the good news is it
it doesn’t take a lot of time the bad
news is it’s actually a pretty hard 20
minutes but it’s worth it alright how
about that most complicated tool of all
our brains we have a brain that’s
evolved over hundreds of thousands of
years to give us warning and advice and
guidance in an environment that no
longer exists the modern world throws an
entirely new level of stresses and
problems at our poor old ancient brain
and many of us walk around absolutely
absorbed by our thoughts either regrets
about the past or anxiety about the
future
breaking this mechanical connection
between thoughts generated at random by
our brains and ourselves is the key to
ending a lot of our suffering and it’s
the key to being able to enjoy the
present moment if we need to understand
this from mechanical perspective and to
get some tips on how to do it why not
listen to people like Claire people like
Sharon Salzberg Tara brach or Pema
Chodron I think this is a wonderful base
from which to operate when you have that
lack of suffering in your life
let’s close on a quick look at the other
part of our equation which is sympathy
many of the women in my life show a
frightening ability to ignore their own
well-being when they’re looking after
other people a close family member was
recently diagnosed with a nasty form of
cancer she had seen the symptoms a year
ago but had pushed them off because she
was so busy helping someone else in the
family who was sick cancer is not a
problem that does well being ignored no
matter how noble the cause
Airlines I think provide a nice little
thing that we can remember you’ve all
seen the seatback pocket thing and
you’ve all had the airplane flight
attendants show you how to use the
oxygen mask then they say put your mask
on first before helping others perhaps
we should really know what our
figurative how our figurative oxygen
mask works and let’s put ours on first
because then I think we’ll be in the
best position to show up for those
around us
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] you
the dashing chap you see pictured here
briefing his men before a mission
as my grandfather he was a Wing
Commander in the Royal Air Force sadly
he was killed in action early in the
Second World War he left behind his wife
my grandmother with very little money no
college education no career and two
small girls to raise one in the Middle’s
my mom knowing that she needed an income
my grandmother
scraped together what little money she
could and she bought a fruit farm the
reason that the fruit farm was so cheap
location location location it was right
on the main route that the German
bombers took to raid London every night
between dodging bombs
my grandmother group plums and apples to
sell in the city during the growing
season but because the school fees and
the bills didn’t stop in the wintertime
she needed to find a source of revenue
then remember she didn’t have a college
degree or anything she took out a pad of
rationed paper sat by the fireplace and
churned out a series of wartime
bestselling novels under a pen name so I
think we can agree we’re talking about a
determined and pragmatic woman why then
did all of my breakfast with her
involved splashing myself with sour milk
well this was the milk delivery system
that my grandmother was used to pretty
simple glass bottle pretty intuitive
foil pop this was the milk delivery
system that came about in the 1970s when
I was living with her
the full force of the German air force
couldn’t defeat my grandmother this
carton did to the end of her days she
could never figure out how it worked she
would get frustrated take out a big pair
of kitchen shears and chop the top off
spills and spoilage for the result
my grandmother was not demonstrating
what’s known as mechanical sympathy now
mechanical sympathy is a wonderfully
elegant term that refers to using an
object a designed object in the way that
it was intended and if we use a designed
object in the way that was intended
we’re likely to get the best performance
out of it and we’re likely to get it to
last a long time now I’m sure like many
of us I I know I have I’ve tried to
force something to get it to work in a
way that it wasn’t designed only to
break it when if I just spent a little
bit more time figuring out what the
designer intended might have saved
myself a lot of grief now I think that
mechanical sympathy is a wonderful tool
to help us make decisions about the most
important mechanism of all ourselves our
bodies and our minds and I think that if
we do that we might be able to get the
best performance out of this mechanism
and get it to last – its design
specification or at least as close to it
as possible
it took an ear to home personal human
tragedy for me to really grasp this
concept closely
I watched my mother-in-law who is a very
intelligent very accomplished person but
one who had the standard American diet
and was
sedentary I watched her spiral from
obesity to diabetes to heart disease to
dementia to cancer and ultimately death
and I watched her not be able to fully
enjoy her grandchildren and I watched
the strain and the effort that this
placed on my wife as her primary
caregiver and I said to myself this is
not gonna happen to me I am going to
understand this mechanism and treat it
with sympathy in order that I can enjoy
my grandkids and that I won’t be a
burden to my wife or my daughter or
anybody else who might have to look
after me now before I grasped this
concept I was more inclined to go with
the popular theory of the day so let’s
take my approach to exercise
I joined every sweaty boot camp class
you can imagine I haunted the Pilates
halls of Chicago I was a yoga stood out
mile after mile on hard concrete what it
got me
or quite a lot of dirty laundry
hours and hours spent in the gym and a
painful trip to the knee surgeon I
hadn’t done my research on the science
of exercise and I certainly wasn’t being
sympathetic to myself so let’s say we
decide we’re going to go on this journey
together of really understanding the
mechanism well the good news is there’s
tons of information out there the bad
news is there’s tons of information out
there and a lot of it is biased or
uncreated and you’re gonna have to do a
bit of work to read the fine print
this is particularly true in the field
of nutrition are we super surprised when
we read the fine print and we see that
the study were reading was commissioned
by a major cereal manufacturer that
their conclusion is breakfast is the
most important meal of the day it’s not
and their product should play a central
part so understand the mechanics broadly
is a good idea how about more
specifically how about testing ourselves
to get a baseline good idea what what
kind of test and how are we going to
think about it I’m gonna guess that a
large number of women in the audience
have with breast cancer concerns in mind
have gone for a mammogram but I wonder
how many of those same women have had
the special kind of blood test that
tells you what the particle count and
particle size of your low-density
lipoproteins are it’s not your typical
LDL test it’s it’s it’s a special one
why is that important well according to
the Center for Disease Control women are
four times more likely to die of a
cardiac event than they are from breast
cancer so getting that testing element
right is super important so let’s talk
about how do we apply this in our daily
lives let’s start with eating so my
contention is that we’ve got to get our
information on something as important as
what we’re putting into ourselves from
sources that have really done the
research and the science and who only
have our best interest at heart not some
ulterior profit motive so here are three
books taken from my library that I think
get to that end I’ve learned an awful
lot about the biomechanics of how my
body processes food
and some great information about what we
should and shouldn’t be eating from dr.
Kate Shanahan I’ve learned an awful lot
about the evolutionary design history of
our whole mechanism from Nora gate
goddess and I’ve had the curtain pulled
back on a lot of the shoddy science and
manipulative work for profit that Nina
tae Colts who’s an investigative
journalist writes about when she
describes how a lot of the information
sources that we’ve relied on for dietary
advice things like that food pyramid
have been badly distorted now if you’re
more of an auditory learner try
listening to some of the interviews done
by dr. Rhonda Patrick
by the way proof positive that you can’t
have style and be a science geek or
listen to some of the talks given by the
equally stylish dr. Sara Hallberg who in
a super energetic but understandable way
walks you through some of the wonderful
hard science that she and some of her
colleagues have been doing to prove what
we should be eating spoiler alert
processed carbohydrates and sugars are
not the fuel that we’re designed to run
on so make your dinner plans and your
lack of dessert plans accordingly all
right how about exercise we talked about
that a little bit before do you need to
be a marathon runner or spend hours and
hours in the gym to be fit well the good
news is if we actually study the
mechanics of exercise we can figure out
that with just 15 to 20 minutes of
exercise once or twice a week we can
build strong bones and functionally
strong muscles the good news is it
it doesn’t take a lot of time the bad
news is it’s actually a pretty hard 20
minutes but it’s worth it alright how
about that most complicated tool of all
our brains we have a brain that’s
evolved over hundreds of thousands of
years to give us warning and advice and
guidance in an environment that no
longer exists the modern world throws an
entirely new level of stresses and
problems at our poor old ancient brain
and many of us walk around absolutely
absorbed by our thoughts either regrets
about the past or anxiety about the
future
breaking this mechanical connection
between thoughts generated at random by
our brains and ourselves is the key to
ending a lot of our suffering and it’s
the key to being able to enjoy the
present moment if we need to understand
this from mechanical perspective and to
get some tips on how to do it why not
listen to people like Claire people like
Sharon Salzberg Tara brach or Pema
Chodron I think this is a wonderful base
from which to operate when you have that
lack of suffering in your life
let’s close on a quick look at the other
part of our equation which is sympathy
many of the women in my life show a
frightening ability to ignore their own
well-being when they’re looking after
other people a close family member was
recently diagnosed with a nasty form of
cancer she had seen the symptoms a year
ago but had pushed them off because she
was so busy helping someone else in the
family who was sick cancer is not a
problem that does well being ignored no
matter how noble the cause
Airlines I think provide a nice little
thing that we can remember you’ve all
seen the seatback pocket thing and
you’ve all had the airplane flight
attendants show you how to use the
oxygen mask then they say put your mask
on first before helping others perhaps
we should really know what our
figurative how our figurative oxygen
mask works and let’s put ours on first
because then I think we’ll be in the
best position to show up for those
around us
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] you
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