How Your Biology Dictates Choices Like Behavior and Interests
Nuerophilosopher and author Patricia Churchland is part philosopher and part neuroscientist.
In Episode 34 of the Optimal Performance Podcast, we explore the brain and how our identity, morality, social behaviors and interests all originate in our biology.
Patricia Churchland has compiled an impressive career as a neuroscientist and philospher.
As she explains to us in Episode #34 of the Optimal Performance Podcast, her secret to success lies in asking the right questions in the right way.
Her discoveries on brain health and optimization are complex, yet her advice to us is simple - but profound.
In a day where information overload is increasingly prevalent, we need to step away in order to allow our brains to assimilate the information we've taken in.
The secret to long-term memory storage, optimal mental performance, and productivity lie in finding balance through proper sleep, recreational play, and meditation!
As for our identity, morality, and social behaviors - those depend on the density of oxytocin receptors in our brains - but you'll have to listen to Pat on this episode of the OPP for the details!
What You'll Learn from Neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland in this episode:
- Why asking the right question in the right way is "the most beautiful thing in science"
- Pat's biggest takeaway's from her extensive career in neuroscience
- Electrical stimulation, memory recall and neural communication
- Sleep's CRUCIAL impact on learning and memory & why you should take naps and breaks often!
- Gene expression and the structural process of creating memories
- How too much information increases stress hormones in your brain
- The importance of play for optimal health and brain function
- What makes us who we are?
- Meditation and it's ability to help us change habitual behaviors
- Morality rooted in density of oxytocin receptors
- The great conflict: orienting to self vs. orienting to others
- What is morality - and the age old question of nature vs. nurture
- Get more of Pat & her work
- Patricia Churchland's Top 3 tips to #LiveOptimal
Links & Resources
Pat's Books: (Pat suggests starting with Touching A Nerve)
Touching A Nerve: Our Brains, Our Selves
Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality
Larry Young at Emory Univeristy
Video of Pat on the Colbert Report:
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