This podcast was so good that I had to split it into 2 parts!

My guest today is Dr. Austin Perlmutter, who is a board-certified internal medicine physician and New York Times bestselling author. 

His research interests are the factors that impact our decision-making and helping others to improve their decision-making and quality of life. 

He is the co-author of the outstanding book Brain Wash and writes for Psychology Today on his blog, The Modern Brain.

In today’s session, we do a deep dive into what Austin terms Disconnection Syndrome and how the modern environment hijacks our brains and negatively impact our ability to make good future-focused decisions, thus negatively impacting our health.

Make sure you buy his book that he wrote with his dad, as it's truly brilliant - here is the link

Here's what we discuss in today's podcast:

Start:  How did we get here?

4:08 - Austin's lightbulb moments in medical training

7:30 - Disconnection Syndrome - the key issue of our time

10:08 - The role of social media in Disconnection Syndrome

15:23 - The importance of exposure to nature

18:28 - Ancient genes in a modern world

21:04 - How Temporal Discounting affects your decisions

24:36 - Dopamine, donuts and wine o'clock

30:05 - How our environment impacts our ability to make good future-focused decisions

35:08 - How stress re-wires our brains