Can political disagreement make you happier?
- Jul 17
- 56 min read
Updated: Jul 20
"Happiness" is the last thing many of us expect to find on a call with a stranger from the opposite political side. But when Axel Bouchon and his team placed one very unusual phone booth in deeply liberal San Francisco, California, and another in deeply conservative Abilene, Texas, that was exactly what they were hoping to spark.
Bouchon, a neuroscientist driven to understand our strongest emotions, joins Moni to expose their power in our politics and beyond. Together they explore how emotions are far more infectious than viruses, how we humans can avoid reacting from the most primitive parts of our brains, and how disagreeing can be better for us than we think.
Credits
Host & Executive Producer: Mónica Guzmán
Guest: Axel Bouchon: Co-founder & CEO Matter Neuroscience, Arch Venture Partner, Author of "The Capitalism of Happiness"
Senior Producer: Tracy Egbas
Producer: Jessica Jones
Associate Producer & Graphic Designer: Fredo Viola
Contributors: April Lawson & Travis Tripodi
Artist in Residence: Gangstagrass
A production of Reclaim Curiosity
Distribution Partners: KUOW, Braver Angels, and Deseret News
Financial Supporter: M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Key Topics & Quotes
1. The viral phone booth experiment
Mónica opens by describing how a video of the "party line" phone booths — one in San Francisco labeled "Call a Republican," the other in Abilene, Texas labeled "Call a Democrat" — went viral. Axel explains that the experiment grew out of five years of neuroscience research at his company, Matter Neuroscience, and that the goal was simple: start strangers on a positive note and see if human wiring does the rest. Out of nearly 400 recorded conversations, fewer than 5% had any negative connotation.
Axel:
If we start them on a positive note because positive infects the other person with something positive, we should actually overcome all the negativity that, with all respect, all media start with because they want to grab attention.
Axel:
Out of the whole conversations, 80% of the conversations were positive. Then 15–20% were basically neutral, and only less than 5% had like a negative connotation.
2. The need to study happiness — and why prevention beats treatment
Axel describes the scale of the problem that launched Matter Neuroscience: 1 billion people are clinically diagnosed with a mood disorder, and another 5 billion show pre-disease behaviors. He and Mónica explore why the pharmaceutical industry's tools fall short — antidepressants don't restore happiness, they only reduce the worst symptoms — and why building resilience before people fall sick is biologically more promising. Once the brain has seen darkness, it doesn't forget; getting someone out is far harder than keeping them in.
Axel:
It is much more likely to be successful if you prevent people to fall sick, like keeping people happy, instead of trying to treat them when they're sick already. The reason is a biological one — you can imagine your brain is the organ for memory. So once you have seen darkness in the form of anxiety, depression, drug addiction, your brain will not forget.
Mónica:
So that's the theory of the company — help people build up that resilience.
3. Axel's personal journey through depression
Axel shares the pivotal moment that turned research into lived experience: a separation from his wife that triggered anxiety so severe he lost count of sleepless nights. He describes how certain brain regions become so "locked down" that the door to positivity feels sealed. What broke the pattern wasn't medication or therapy — it was an unannounced visit from a friend who sensed something was wrong, invited Axel for a long walk, and in doing so showed him that the world was not a bad place. Axel ties the story back to science: surprise boosts positive emotions by 10 to 100 times.
Axel:
The understanding that there is someone else unsolicited reaching out, putting himself in my shoes, was a fundamental belief coming back that the world is actually not a bad place.
Axel:
Surprise, as we have also seen in the study data, boosts your positive emotions by 10 to a hundred fold.
4. Mapping happiness in the brain — the biomarker discovery
Axel walks Mónica through four years of failed experiments — EEG waves, near-infrared spectroscopy, three-Tesla MRI — before a breakthrough: a seven-Tesla MRI combined with a decision to ask people only about the nine known human emotions. For the first time, his team could literally map which specific region of the brain lights up for excitement, family love, friendship love, amusement, gratitude, and more. The regions can be measured for "plasticity" — essentially, how well-trained each emotional muscle is — turning happiness into something trainable, not just hoped for.
Axel:
We could literally find a map for human happiness. And not only that, we now know exactly which areas in your brain are responsible for excitement, for sexual desire, for recognition, for family love, for friendship love, for amusement, for contentment, and for gratitude.
Axel:
It literally works like our physical fitness. If I train the biceps and not training my glutes — so in other words, we have areas in our brain that we can selectively train if we have a problem or if we are not strong enough.
5. Primitive emotions, media, and the hijacked brain
Axel and Mónica dig into why negative news dominates: the oldest emotions — aggression, fear, and sexual desire — fire fastest and drown out everything else. In two seconds, the only feelings that can grab a human being's attention are aggression and anxiety. And crucially, when those emotions switch on, they actively silence the younger, more human ones like gratitude and contentment. Axel makes the point starkly: by optimizing for clicks, media and social platforms are systematically degrading us to "very primitive animals."
Axel:
In the moment where these rudimentary emotions are switched on, they actively silence the rest. And now you can understand — if I am outraged by news, I cannot have a conversation like in our phone booth.
Axel:
What we are systematically doing by portraying certain stereotypes in the media is that we silence our human emotions by drilling down and activating our rudimentary. That is simply an animal.
6. Emotions are more contagious than viruses
Drawing on his PhD in immunology, Axel makes a surprising case: nothing on earth is as contagious as an emotion. A virus needs proximity and air. An emotion can travel through voice, through a screen, from Texas to San Francisco. Smiles carry molecular signatures — serotonin, cannabinoids, opioids — that the observer's brain reads and mirrors. This is why the phone booth worked, and why a smile shared with a stranger during COVID still lands years later, as Mónica's own story about a stranger noticing her smile illustrated.
Axel:
Nothing is as contagious as an emotion. The viruses lose out big time against any emotion infection. The two of us, we can infect each other even though we are not in the same room. No chance for a bacterium or a virus.
Mónica:
More infectious than a virus is an emotion.
7. The diversity of emotions — and why disagreement is good for your brain
Axel introduces the concept of "emotional diversity" — the idea that just as your body needs a full-body workout, your brain needs exposure to all nine emotions. Spending time only with family trains oxytocin and dopamine; only doing work trains different circuits; never talking to people who disagree with you starves the rest. Mónica asks if Axel would add "be a good person to disagree with" to his list of what makes a good life. Axel says disagreement is already on the positive emotion side — it's only when the primitive brain takes over that it becomes fighting.
Axel:
I almost hesitate to say the term, but diversity of emotions — that's the key thing. Life is a decathlon. It is not only about being good in business, it's not only being a good mom or good dad. It is literally being a good partner, a good lover, a good friend, a good son, a good father, a good mother, a good daughter, a good business person.
Axel:
If my friend doesn't disagree with me on certain topics, then yeah. On something. The disagreement I think is super vital, because otherwise, how can I learn?
8. Practical habits for a healthier mind — and why connection is a win-win
Axel offers a set of concrete, molecule-level techniques anyone can use: 20 push-ups before sending an angry post (dopamine blocks cortisol), calling a sibling who makes you laugh (oxytocin + cannabinoids + opioids), doing something creative to trigger pride (serotonin), and curating the top three memories per emotion as a "perfect drug box" to pull from on hard days. The deeper point is that making someone else happy is not altruism — it's a guaranteed return on investment, because the smile you send is the smile you receive.
Axel:
Record the top three of your memories, the best memories of your life for the nine emotions — excitement, recognition, family love, friendship love, contentment, amusement, pleasure, gratitude, and sexual desire. Because these 27 memories is basically your perfect drug box to be happy.
Axel:
The idea, the system of making others happy, has at least as big of a benefit to yourself. That's the key thing.
Links & References
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Transcript
Axel Bouchon:
Gratitude, the, and contentment, the youngest of our emotions are really in the youngest structures.
Mónica Guzmán:
That's among the youngest of our emotions I had. I just had no idea. Wow.
Axel:
Yeah. And anxiety. Aggression is, I would say the oldest anxiety. Fear is the second oldest. And then sexual desires basically kind of, these are the three oldest. They're deep inside
Mónica:
Hi everyone, and welcome to A Braver Way. I'm Mónica Guzmán, your guide across the divide, and you know what I love? I love surprises. You can tell when I'm surprised by what I learn in the conversation you're gonna hear today. You can see it in the way I interrupt our guest over and over to share a kind of shock at something. But before I tell you about our guest, I wanna tell you about why he's here. Several months ago, an experiment went viral on social media. Someone had set up a phone booth in very liberal San Francisco, California, that said, "Call a Republican." And they also set up a phone booth in very conservative Abilene, Texas, that said, "Call a Democrat." If you pick up the phone in one place, it will ring in the other and vice versa.
Phonebooth Caller 3:
Hello. Hello. How you doing?
Phonebooth Caller 1:
Well, this says Call a Republican. Are you a Republican?
Phonebooth Caller 2:
Yes, I am.
Phonebooth Caller 1:
You are?
Mónica:
And they recorded hundreds of conversations that passersby had in these places with each other, total strangers.
Phonebooth Caller 1:
Do you see the world as crazy as I do?
Phonebooth Caller 2:
Yes, I do.
Phonebooth Caller 1:
You do?
Phonebooth Caller 2:
I see it's getting worse and worse every day.
Phonebooth Caller 1:
It's getting worse every day. See, we have so much in common.
Phonebooth Caller 3:
I already feel the cortisol, kinda draining, so this was very nice. All right.
Mónica:
Speaking of cortisol, that stress hormone that no doubt gets activated often when we reach across big, tough divides, one of the people behind this experiment is a neuroscientist. His name is Dr. Axel Bouchon. He is a biochemist, an author, and an entrepreneur. He's the CEO and co-founder of a company called Matter Neuroscience, which is out to help people build emotional fitness, of all things. Axel has been through a lot in his life. He's come up close and personal with depression, anxiety, and it's led him to be personally obsessed with what it takes to be truly happy And I have to tell you, after this conversation, I'm not going to look at my brain, our emotions, or my agency around those things the same way ever again. How in the world can conversations with different opinions and emotions make us happier? Axel has some surprising answers... We're gonna learn a lot from you today, Axel. So thank you so much for joining us. So the phone booth project, the party line, your company Matter, neuroscience is all about happiness for the collective good, which I love. Someone's thinking about, you know, more than just the individual happiness for the collective good. And this project went to politics, the political divide in America to try to dig up some of the things behind. Wellbeing and happiness. Why? Politics of all things seems like the hardest possible place to find anything remotely resembling joy. Tell us, tell us about that.
Axel:
There's a more challenging one religion, but we come to that later, I guess so. But I think before I can properly explain why it went to the phone booth, I may have to explain a little bit what the company actually does and why it took us actually five years to come to the phone booth. That's basically, so we are, we are not a young company.
Mónica:
Yes. The backstory. Let's hear the backstory.
Axel:
In essence, it is important to understand how our world looks like. So we have on this planet 8 billion people. 1 billion is diagnosed, clinically diagnosed with a mood disorder.
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
That is already a lot. But actually what is even more concerning is that 5 billion people show behaviors that clearly indicate like a Pred disease state.
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
So, that is, for instance, over consumption, right? Overshopping working too much, and
Mónica:
That one.
Axel:
In, yeah. And then of course, like you have, unfortunately pretty large group of people who are victims of abuse, where, a traumatic Im impact of their lives has actually changed their experience to ex the experience to positive emotions. So when Meta started, we simply saw like some others, an absolutely disastrously burning platform, right? We have 6 billion people either already being sick
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
Or being at the cusp of getting sick. . Actually we have nothing that really works, right? Because, everything, whereas an antidepressant is not really getting you back to happiness, it gets you back to get a little bit better. So I've worked with in the pharmaceutical industry for 20 years and try to find antidepressants and have therefore seen a lot of stuff not working. And it became also clear that it is, it seemed to be much more likely to be successful if you prevent people to fall sick, like keeping people happy,
Axel:
Instead of trying to treat them when they're sick already. The reason is a biological one, you can imagine your brain is the organ for memory. So once you have seen darkness in the form of anxiety. Depression, drug addiction, your brain will not forget. So therefore, it is much tougher to get someone out of that black zone than actually trying to get people resilient to life and the implications of life.
Mónica:
So that's the theory of the company, help people build up that resilience.
Axel:
Yeah. And now comes the challenge of the company because we all agree. The people that are sick are handled by the doctors. Right.
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
It's interesting how we have split our
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
Economy, right. And the people who are still healthy are handled by marketing. Right.
Mónica:
By marketing. Oh, that's
Axel:
Yeah. Of course, of course. I mean, it's the consumer health, right? You are told what is good for you, and there are no limits of what you can say unless you are lying about your product. Hmm. So. To make our concept work. It became clear we have to be a biotech company on the rigor of the science. But our target group is actually healthy people based on the definition of medicine.
Mónica:
Interesting.
Axel:
So the first objective of the company was to find a biomarker for happiness.
Mónica:
A biomarker. What's a biomarker?
Axel:
A biomarker is basically something that you can objectively measure that gives you an, in an indication on where you stand in health and disease. Very simple idea.
Axel:
When you are overweight or underweight, you have a scale to stand on it, and you see, oh wait, this is a biomarker, right? It's a physical biomarker. Diabetic patients are checking their blood sugar, so the sugar in their blood represents
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
As a biomarker, how they're doing from a health perspective. We don't have anything like this in mood disorders at all,
Mónica:
Interesting.
Axel:
And that makes things so tricky because we don't even know, I mean, you have good days. I have good days, you have bad days. I have also bad days. However, on a bad day, I'm not automatically depressed, even though it may feel on that particular day as if I have a depressive episode. So something that could be objectively measured would be a huge help because remember, we wanted to prevent disease. So I have to, I have, I need some indicator on when are people, when are people getting sick, right?
Mónica:
Yeah. Yeah. And before.
Axel:
To intervene.
Mónica:
Okay, so before we get to the biomarkers themselves, you mentioned it's a lot harder to get out of a dark place then to try to build up the resilience to not go in as much. Can you talk about how you arrived at your confidence about that? I know that you yourself have had some experience with some dark places and obviously the whole world, certainly America is going through it.
Axel:
Yeah, I think first and foremost, this is not my knowledge, this is tons of knowledge from science. So it has been shown that people that are subjectively feeling happy are almost resistant against depression. So this is known for a very long time, but nobody really knew. How does this work? Now on myself, the, in a way like eyeopening moment was, I was in, theoretically in depression and anxiety for years,
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
But only when I kinda just like had a fundamental impact on my life. The family kind of broke my life, my wife separated and we had to kind of take care of that situation. I experienced like fundamental anxieties to a level I could have not even imagined. So in a way, I don't know how many nights I didn't sleep in a row, just because your brain cannot stop and you realize that you also have almost no active ability to intervene. It feels almost that the areas, and it's interesting to say that now that I know all the study data, that certain areas of your brain are just locked down, you cannot even open the door to positivity anymore. And over that anxiety, you get exhausted. And depression in my case, comes next. You're like just empty for energy by continuously worrying. In hindsight, what helped me was just specific for me. Some, there are various options, right? But what helped me was a very surprising visit by a Lou's friend who just kind of just felt, oh, this guy most probably feels not good. And he just visited me without warning. What is a very important thing
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
Because surprise, as we have also seen in the study, data boosts your positive emotions by 10 to a hundred fold.
Mónica:
So without your say so, without calling ahead, he would
Axel:
Yeah. Yeah. And that was actually the clue. And he simply said, Hey, I think you may need a long walk. And we just took a long walk. And not that it kinda just like cured the whole situation, but the understanding that there is someone else unsolicited reaching out. Putting himself in my shoes was a fundamental belief coming back that the world is actually not a bad place.
Mónica:
Amazing. Wow.
Axel:
And somehow that helped to kinda just like actively seek, more interaction with people that I avoided at the time. But that is, but that was a kind of just like the solution for me, and I think as we will realize later, I think when we talk is it's very individual what actually works
Mónica:
Yeah, of course. So you were talking about your company looking for the biomarker for happiness. This idea that to build up the resilience, and make a happier world that way, is might be at least an alternative to the kind of medicalization that we see out there. So what is, what could be the biomarker for happiness? What have you learned?
Axel:
The most important thing is actually all the failures, to be honest. So I was absolutely convinced that I could find a kind of biophysical signal through a variable, right? Kind of what all our fitness trackers, because emotions come with a, with a signal also on certain molecules in the periphery. Make this short. Dopamine gives us excitement emotionally, but also starts to increase our heartbeat so I could measure the heartbeat and interpret what I believe, what is wrong. Could interpret, oh, this person feels excitement.
Axel:
The point is, with everything we tried, even when we started trying to measure EEG waves, that's kinda just like the brainwaves that you can measure externally. And we used other means, like fne is what is another spectrometry method to measure blood flow. We could not find a way to detect emotions properly.
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
Then we went into MRI imaging, right? Like when you, when you kind of go to magnetic resonance imaging, you can kind of just like lie silent in the tube and they kind of can assess what your brain does if you watch certain memories. But even that one with, at the time the highest resolutions was a so-called three Tesla functional MRI. We were not able to really find something and then after four years you just, I have to admit, it's, it's a, it's a lot is just. Lucky, honestly, we, there were like three things coming together and number one was, Siemens, one of the big providers kind of just opened their network for the idea. And we connected to, I think one of the best persons in the research areas of functional MRI, professor Gerbil, who kinda just like was excited about that. The second thing is Siemens by itself increased the sensitivity with a new release of a so-called seven Tesla MRI.
Mónica:
Ah, so a more sensitive piece of equipment. And what did you learn through that?
Axel:
Yeah. In essence, that together with one additional piece that we kinda just like didn't ask people randomly about their emotions, but we decided maybe we give, take guidance from evolution and we only ask people based on the known nine emotions that humans have,
Mónica:
Huh.
Axel:
And all of a sudden, a. We had like the most clean and best experiment that I've ever done, and we could literally find a map for human happiness. And not only that, we now know exactly which areas in your brain are responsible for excitement, for sexual desire, for recognition, for family love, for friendship, love for amusement, for contentment, and for gratitude. So not only we have, a general activity in our brains, we know exactly at which location it happens. So if you think about that, it's literally works like our physical fitness if I train the biceps and not training my glutes
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
So in other words,
Mónica:
You can train your
Axel:
Basically the fundamental finding of this. We have areas in our brain that we can selectively train if we have a problem or if we are not strong enough.
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
The beauty of these experiments were we also can now find these areas, how well have they been trained? 'cause if an area is well-trained, it has a very high plasticity. So in other words, plasticity is kind of just like the density of neuronal interactions. Hmm. Like almost the muscle, right? If you have more muscle fibers because you train more or thicker ones, we could see the same thing in these regions. So I can literally can tell how good you are in friendship, love experiencing it
Mónica:
If you take a look at my brain, is that what
Axel:
Just on your brain. That's enough. So,
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
And that you see now you have the biomarker, you have something that is representing an emotion in quality and quantity. And with that, I can basically train you when I put you in the MRII can train you to get, become better to activate these regions.
Mónica:
Amazing. How do we go from here to the party line? So you said five years of work, you find the biomarker you are working on, probably getting people's awareness up around this work. I saw your social media channel where this kind of blew up the party line. You had done other kinds of things like go to a bus stop and make it cheerful. Put a nice, you know, carpet and a bright chair and some nice lights. You're, you're trying to kind of disrupt certain expectations, certain parts of the world. We talked about surprise being something that releases some of these things. So yes, wa walk us to the party line from
Axel:
From there. .
Mónica:
Did that happen?
Axel:
So you can imagine the participants in these studies brought their own best memories as our kind of just kid to find their regions. So in other words, you would come with a hopefully positive photo of your mother. I would come with a positive photo of my mother. Right. And we would both experience family love in the MRI, even though our pictures are completely different, it would, the exact same area would light up.
Mónica:
Oh, so you're talking about the studies that you did?
Axel:
The study, it's important for the translation, right? However, what has, what we saw over thousands of best and good memories from people is that conversations with strangers that were perceived positive always created a good memory.
Mónica:
Oh, interesting. Okay. With strangers in particular. With
Axel:
Why, coming back to the surprise, we are a little bit hesitant because of strangers, right? In a way, when it's positive, we are surprised and now comes because we are all humans and we have all the same neurotransmitters, the same areas, right? We have a so-called mirror system. If I get something positive, I experienced the same positive thing than my counterpart and I sent back something positive. This is also not meta neuroscience science that is known for a long time, but now we know exactly the regions that are talking when you are positively talking to another person.
Axel:
So the experiment was in that sense, very simple, right? We said, Hey, whoever is out there, if we start them on a positive note because positive infects the other person with something positive, we should actually overcome all the negativity that. With all respect, all media start with because they want to grab attention. So therefore, when you see our flyer, it's very interesting that we had like a hidden prompt that says, Hey, please have a good conversation. But we just added a starting point and
Mónica:
And was that on the phone booths themselves? Is that what you
Axel:
It was just like one sentence that says, Hey, just in, I can't remember what it exactly was, but hey, have a good time. Right? So something positive. So
Mónica:
A little prompt.
Axel:
Interesting thing is when we looked at all the interactions that were close to 400 conversations, right?
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
None started. I think it's not, none is not true. Lemme just quickly check. I think only three or four started with something negative
Mónica:
Out of
Axel:
The others had. Exactly. And you see it was equally balanced. Both sides were calling each other almost equally.
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
That was enough to create. Out of the whole conversations, 80, eight zero, 80% of the conversations were positive. Then 20%, 15 to 20% percent were basically neutral, and only less than 5% had like a negative connotation.
Mónica:
Mm, did that include all the ones, the three that started in the negative way? Were all those, did all those end up negative?
Axel:
Interestingly not, that would've been very interesting. And I think it's not the case. But the fact is indeed, that we actually just wanted to make a very transparent experiment to all of us Hmm. Triggered by our study that we have seen from all the good memories we have seen in all these participants of our MRI study, that we can literally use that every day to have a better life. Hmm. Because if we start a conversation on the positive and try to switch off all the negative news. Before we go into a conversation with someone we may not agree to, we have a, if I take the brutal numbers, we have an 80% probability of having actually a good time.
Mónica:
Okay. That's amazing. So it looks like surprise is a key ingredient here. The phone booth said, call a Democrat and the other place it said call a Republican. So already people are coming up to that going, Ugh, I do not expect to have something pleasant happen here, but okay, it's ringing, I'll pick it up or, okay, I'll just pick it up and see what happens. So I guess there had to be some curiosity there, but I'm, I guess I'm trying to get at what piece of this experiment is essential in the fact that it's people who disagree about politics. Does that deepen the surprise? Does that. Deliver. Yeah. Ki almost like a more unexpected pleasantness. Once they realize that, wow. For the most part, we can have a okay conversation. People are just being people. Like what, why the political divide in particular? Why did that seem like the right context?
Axel:
I am not even sure whether the political, context is a key thing here. I have, I actually, when I just, I look at the data first and then try to give you a conclusion on this
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
In a way, in a way, there were like six findings if you listen to all the conversations. One is the politics was just a hook, right?
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
But just imagine if you are, if you are in the conversation. It was interesting that after 15 to 20 seconds, everything changed already to human conversation. Weather. How is the food? What are you doing this afternoon? How is the family? So politics was hardly a position. The second thing was interesting that nobody liked to be stereotyped. So the most, the frequent, the most frequent asked question was, Hey, are you a Republican? Are you a Democrat? And the response was always, yes, but I agree with certain things, but not with everything. And I think that was for me, the most important learning for hopefully everyone who reads this,
Axel:
We are confronted nonstop with black against white. Because on the media attention, this is the only thing that works. Just imagine, I'm talking now already 20 minutes. There isn't two seconds. Time to grab the attention of a human being in media. In news media even clearer. So the only thing, the only emotions that can grab that attention in two seconds is aggression,
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
Anxiety, and sexual desire. That's it. You have no chance, your brain cannot react to anything else in two seconds. So that's it. That's it. It's the most rudimentary. The oldest? No, the oldest. The oldest emotions are the ones that react the fastest and the most unreasonable. Hmm.
Mónica:
So anxiety, I guess that's close to fear, outrage, these kinds of things that we see
Axel:
Yeah. No, so outrage, I would say is on the, on the more aggressive fear is really passive. But I, but I think the very clear thing is the metrics to optimize news channels and social channels is. Click rates, right? That means I need very quick attention. You have no time to actually really get a full transparent view on what people respond to if they are already aggressive. That's a second key finding from our study. Not only from others have done similar things. You have to, I imagine our brain being like a little bit like a tree. Things that are very old, very established, are very deep in our brain, and the younger kind of later developed areas are at the outer surface. Like gratitude, the, and contentment, the youngest of our emotions are really in the youngest structures.
Mónica:
That's among the youngest of our emotions I had. I just had no idea. Wow.
Axel:
Yeah. And anxiety. Aggression is, I would say the oldest anxiety. Fear is the second oldest. And then sexual desires basically kind of, these are the three oldest. They're deep inside
Mónica:
They're primitive.
Axel:
The primitive ones, right. But to be honest, they also made us successful, otherwise they would We need them. Clearly we need them. The point is, in the moment where these rudimentary emotions are switched on, they actively silence the rest.
Mónica:
Mm
Axel:
And now you can understand if I am outraged by news, I cannot have a conversation like in our phone booth. Right. Because I would've
Mónica:
And it's more likely that you're going to, you're gonna glom onto the categories, you know, Democrat, Republican, I know what that means. I'm going to put you in a bucket that includes all these other people in that one category. And my anxiety and my aggression is activated, and therefore it's really difficult for me to question those things and reach for maybe who you really are.
Axel:
Exactly. So if I compare the situation of someone sitting in front of the computer, in front of the television, reacting through digital media in an. In a response to something what made them angry or anxious. The phone booth experiment is, was trying to give actually a real picture on what is important to people. And I think that is what is, to my big surprise actually, it has just produced so cleanly when the conversation between two completely opposed opinion is started neutral or positive. The conversation, even though they are disagreeing with things, never gets aggressive. It is literally how humans have been wired by evolution
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
In particular the last 5 million years to actually collaborate.
Mónica:
Yes. I
Axel:
So the point is, what we are systematically doing by portraying certain stereotypes in the, in the primarily media is that we silence our human or most human emotions by drilling down and activating our rudimentary. That is simply an animal. Right? Let's be honest.
Mónica:
You know, one of the things I hear when I, when I do my work, trying to help people bridge political divides and other challenging divides in their lives through getting curious and building the capacity for these sorts of things. I often hear people basically say, but we're wired to divide. You know, look at us, look at the way we're behaving, look at everything online. Look at what's going on in our politics and the flavor of the discourse. Like, it's just so terrible. And then I, sometimes I have folks that I work with do this workshop. And in the workshop I will have them pair off and get into conversations where they have to ask questions and only listen, you know, take turns, only listening. And I tell them, you're not allowed to smile, to nod, to acknowledge the other person at all while you're listening. And at the end I ask how many people were actually able to do that? None of them were able to actually do that. They all had to acknowledge and nod and listen. And I make the point, we may be wired to divide. We're also wired to connect. It is very unnatural to be in person with someone who is telling you something meaningful and not want to receive that well, not want to smile, not want to connect. So I don't know. It's one kind of vector for a little bit of hope. You know, that we may, it may be very easy in the climate we're in to forget, that we do have, you know, the way you let you look at it. We do have these emotions, these other emotions also developed. You know, they may need time, they may need interaction, but they're very important and we are also wired to connect,
Axel:
Well, I, if you allow, I would, I would even put it really to the extreme because I think it is, it's, it's actually completely misunderstood. If you look at all animal species, including humans, right? Have shown, we live in cities, we live together with millions of other people. We connect with billions of other people, right? We are the complete outlier compared to even our kind of higher apes anca. They live maximumly in a, in a group of our, in a small group of a, of a tribe or bigger family, right? So in other words, the success of humans is based on their ability to collaborate. The argument that you hear, hey, we are built to compete and to be aggressive is actually just wrong. The point is, if we use our entire brain, it's always the human emotions that drive this collaboration and drive the so social intelligence are on, and we are not aggressive. What we are doing to ourselves is we systematically degrade ourselves to very primitive animals.
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
Why?
Mónica:
What a harsh way to put it. Really?
Axel:
It is. It's so, yeah. But actually, isn't it amazing? So therefore, when you feel aggressive, for instance, I hope an alarm bell goes off and says, Hey, I'm just a primitive animal. Maybe I take a little guidance before you immediately respond to a text or to a WhatsApp or to an email. Take five deep breath. Why is that? It increases your opioids. It's one molecule on the positive side
Mónica:
Just the breath increases your opioids, just the
Axel:
That's it. That's it.
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
That decreases your cortisol that blocks all the molecules involved with the positive side.
Mónica:
And cortisol is the stress hormone. That's how I know it
Axel:
It's a stress hormone, but it's also the negative emotion hormone. Right? So it's, it's kind of just like in the brain. It acts as a very negative promotion of aggression and anxiety. So. Then you look at the situation again, and if it still doesn't feel good, do it again. Just take a couple of deep breath. Just that you switch on your human brain completely before you respond.
Mónica:
Wow. So you're
Axel:
You can
Mónica:
Between the animal brain and the human brain, and you're saying, don't be the
Axel:
So there's no excuse. In a way, there is no excuse to us humans because we have the full ownership and responsibility not to behave like animals. I cannot, I cannot finger point to anyone. We all know that media have to deliver certain numbers on engagement. We know that. So don't fall into the trap if you kind of just sharing aggression because you are fully. Educated. I think that's a little bit where I would love to change the perspective
Axel:
In this experiment. With the phone booth, we could really show that if you starve on the right foot, you have full control over being a human and behaving like a human. Even though we had fundamental disagreements on political topics in the conversations,
Mónica:
Yeah. Yeah.
Axel:
But the point is to let go. The control of you being human is in your ownership and your full responsibility. It doesn't matter whether you are highly educated, not educated, rich or poor, where you are playing on which side, this is your responsibility as a human.
Mónica:
Hmm
Axel:
And I think that's the, that's I think the, somehow the essence, because in our studies we train people to activate consciously these areas again. So, to give you an example, we currently do a study with depressed patients at Stanford because depressive patients have difficulties to experience positive emotions. Literally, the areas are completely silenced.
Mónica:
It's like you were saying. Yeah. It suddenly becomes kind of, it just harder to even hear those positive emotions if you've
Axel:
Exactly. So the point is because we know which areas in the brain are kind of responsible for different emotions, we can now use the old good memories of these people to re kind of initiate a spark of activity in these areas. So in other words, it's literally like after you have broken your arm and you cannot move it anymore, you slowly try to train people to learn amusement again, to learn recognition again.
Mónica:
Wow.
Axel:
And you see, what that shows me is that. We on the healthy side, should be able to control the negative emotions as well, because I've seen it in patients that are really sick that they can manage this. So that's a little bit, I think the essence of almost like the entire thing is all humans, we all, we have much more power to control ourself, to collaborate instead of to be aggressive. And it's an excuse to be very clear. It's an excuse to say, oh, I can't do differently. That's not true. If you allow yourself to be immersed in your ancient animal brain, it's difficult. But you have to control over this.
Mónica:
It sounds like that, it sounds like what you're talking about takes a certain level of self-awareness that you have to be, you have to have enough wherewithal to even notice what's going on with you as you interact with the world to notice when a negative emotion is almost like hijacking you for a moment so that you can take that breath. And, you know, to have the kind of openness and curiosity, I would suppose that when you're walking down a street in Texas or in San Francisco and you see a phone that says, call a Republican, or call a Democrat. Something in you goes, I wonder what would happen. I wonder what I would find. So did you worry with this experiment that things could go south given the tenor of political conversations in the United States? Or did you know all along something that most of the rest of us don't?
Axel:
No, I actually was super resistant to do it. It was only my team who convinced me to try. I was, I was, really concerned given on one area. All our experiments have shown that it doesn't matter whether you're democrat, a republican, a far right or a far left person, you are designed to be happy. So for me, the signs of happiness applies to everyone. There's no
Mónica:
That again? 'cause I feel like that's a very hopeful statement. Can you just repeat that
Axel:
Yeah. So,
Mónica:
To our cross partisan audience?
Axel:
Exact, exactly. So based on the science of our studies, Republicans or Democrats, far left or far right, are all designed to be happy. So the point was to kind of just like use that statement, and therefore I cannot get actually involved in politics at all as a scientist. But what you just said is, I don't believe really in self-awareness in the first step because that's a lot. But I believe in education. I really believe once you know that, once you know, oh, I have the potential, then that is okay. There's a second thing that might sound provocative, but it actually is true. It is totally okay to be happy. When you're kind of just, hanging out with your family like, and it's totally happy to hang in, to hang out with only your friends because you don't have a family. So in other words, what makes the whole thing inflammatory in the current conversation is that we try to tell someone else what makes him happy or her happy. That is the mistake. Shooting a gun on a range might really be the best for certain person and he has the right of enjoying that.
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
Not doing that is also a right
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
Right? The point is that we really have to understand that what you do to be happy is completely what you should proceed unless you harm someone.
Mónica:
Well, that's what I was gonna say. What if, you know, what if that person's happiness is my, you know, suffering or oppression,
Axel:
But we are, we are linking, we are linking a lot of arguments from a scientific perspective. I think these are the three arguments that are really important. Number one, we are all wired for happiness. Number two, the machine we have is identical. That's why I can feel how you feel when you smile, because I feel the same if your smile is infecting me and I feel the same. And if you smile differently, I have a different interpretation of your smile and I feel something different.
Mónica:
Mm Oh, can I tell you a quick
Axel:
What makes me
Mónica:
Back during COVID?
Axel:
Yeah.
Mónica:
Sorry, lemme tell you a quick story. So back during COVI, right, when people were starting to take their masks off here in Seattle, so it was, you know, in the middle of the whole thing in Seattle, certainly very democrat, feeling very liberal. We had a lot of folks wearing masks and, you know, not as controversial as it was in other places. I go to pick up my daughter, and it was one of the first days that I didn't, didn't wear a mask, and somebody across the street, a total stranger that I don't know, looked at me, had a huge smile on her face because I had just been smiling with my husband and she said, oh my gosh, you have a beautiful smile. I so missed smiles, and I just smiled back at her and I was like, whoa, I just thought of that when you talked about the way we infect each other with positivity.
Axel:
I can on the, on the infection. It has a very important element also on our societal debates, to be honest, and only to close it. The third thing is. You have to find out what makes you happy to follow other people's guidance is to a very high probability wrong.
Mónica:
Mm
Axel:
Is our responsibility in life. It is real to find out what is our way. So therefore, you can imagine me of someone who has lived in various countries, also in the us but currently being in Germany, I'm not a supporter of these general concepts that make you happy. I think it's just marketing.
Mónica:
Mm
Axel:
Says it tells a completely different story. And, that's actually what we just try and matter to cultivate that you, we tell you how it works, but you have to drive your car, right? It's like
Mónica:
So how do
Axel:
Is important.
Mónica:
How do you go on that, discovery? How do you figure it out? Like, do you, do you start to break down that method because you do get lots of messages of what you're supposed to want to do happy? I, you know, I, the good thing is I know that what we do works extremely well because we have done all the studies. So I'm very strong believer the right science will prevail throughout all the marketing. If I see how much we improve people who just try to make one or two good memories a day versus any other approach, I'm just smiling because our method is so good.
Axel:
So in a way that the embracing your positive emotion and training them is so powerful that I was really surprised to see that. .
Mónica:
Mm, .
Axel:
Maybe one comment on the infectivity or the contagion of emotion, because it, this is, this actually works, unfortunately, extremely strongly on the negative side as well.
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
So just to, I have a PhD in immunology, so I have worked in infectious diseases for. A very long time.
Mónica:
So you said infected with positivity for a reason? Yeah.
Axel:
Exactly, yeah. The point is, nothing is as contagious as an emotion. The viruses lose out big time against any emotion, infect, infection. And the reason is so interesting because just imagine the two of us, we can infect each other even though we are not in the same room. No chance for bacterium or a virus.
Mónica:
Whoa. I never thought of it that way, Axel. That's super fascinating Yeah. So, More infectious than a virus is an emotion. Much more. It can travel without air. It can travel through media. There's no point. And through voice from Texas to San Francisco.
Axel:
It's difficult with voice, but it works a little bit. But what it does is the same molecules that make our certain areas in the brain light up stimulate the contraction of our muscles in our faces. So in other words,
Mónica:
Hmm
Axel:
The way you smile. Tells me what is happening in your brain. If I'm trained to read a little bit the muscles, and so for instance, serotonin muscle is the one that you just showed me, right? The Duchenne muscles here, this is serotonin, right? Then, cannabinoids was more belonging is like open mouth and really cheeks. Then closing our eyes and smiling is opioids. So I can somehow read, and that has made a lot of sense, right? Why? Because I want to have other humans participate in my emotions because then I get the joint effect, right? I get like a synergy that springs
Mónica:
A dark side, right? 'cause if you're angry, if you're afraid, same thing.
Axel:
And that's, that's the key thing, right? If you remember the starting point, we have 1 billion who are clinically sick and 5 billion people who are already pred disease. So we have a lot of power. For negative infection. Hmm. It's a massive, it is really a very dangerous situation because these 6 billion have very big difficulties to infect with positivity. So after the biomarker as the first objective, the second objective of the company was, and actually is create a system where we reward people to make other people happy. And now you understand the whole social concept. The social concept was starting way before we have done the studies we have, we have started to build the app and the club and all that stuff. It was just meant to share positive moments because we know when I trigger a smile soc on social, I send, I have the potential to create a positive memory. What gives like a behavior drug to people.
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
So therefore, our entire social idea is not about. Educating, making you proud or anything. It's actually primarily to give you a smile, because we know smiles are the most contagious agent biologically on our planet. So, and that brings the whole concept together, right? So with the Booth experiment, we just wanted to make it in a very tense, collab tense situation between two groups. We wanted to make it obvious that if you start correctly, that your brain is not biased and everything is lightening up. We don't have a problem in the US guys.
Mónica:
Whoa,
Axel:
We are. Yeah, we don't, if we would be able to activate our brain properly, we would come back to the level, to be honest, where I always looked up to the u to the United States. I mean, you can imagine my story. I'm, I'm 50 something, 53. Without the us I would not be standing here
Mónica:
Say more about that.
Axel:
Me personally, I would not be standing here if after the second World War, the United States would've not followed the Marshall Plan to kind of just like. Develop Europe afterwards. Hmm. That thing was so huge in terms of collaboration. If you think about it, your big enemy and you don't kinda just like destroy that respective entire, group of people
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
Was just, was just phenomenal. I'm just grateful for that and I feel that is currently we in the debate is only going more ancient, animalistic every time. Instead of simply saying, Hey look guys, look at what we can do right along the entire spectrum, right? Not only the Republican spectrum and the Democrat spectrum, but just if we identify ourselves as humans or more simple as US Americans, there should be really, we should give credit for the whole spectrum. And I'm not saying that this is easy. I'm not even saying, well, this is possible, but what I'm saying is there is only a chance if we use our entire brain.
Mónica:
Fascinating. Well, this, I gotta tell you, this is a fresh angle on an old problem that I've been looking at for a while. I think this is the first time that I've heard, oh no, we got this. As long as we better understand our brain, get some, you know, education about how we can activate some of the positive emotions, understand that when the negative emotions are triggered, we can take steps. We can, we can interrupt whatever is gonna happen next, whatever reactions are gonna flow out of us, if we're not paying some attention to that. I gotta tell you, I maybe you already know about this study, but it was by Nicholas Epley and I believe Juliana Schroeder from 2014. I love it. The first time I stumbled on it, they talked about how, what they concluded. They had people talk to strangers on public transportation and beforehand tell, you know, how pleasant they thought it was gonna be. They all thought it was gonna kind of gonna suck. Not really, but a lot of them thought it was gonna be negative. And kind of like with the party line, with your experiment, it turned out that people thought that others weren't gonna wanna talk to them, strangers on a bus. They called it the mistaken preference for solitude. And the very last sentence of their abstract, I think is beautiful. And it says this, those who misunderstand the consequences of social interactions may not in at least some contexts be social enough for their own wellbeing.
Axel:
It's in a way, so it's a hundred percent correct that sentence. And if you, if you look at. What we just observe around us. It's exactly what happens, right? If I'm only in connection with a very small group of people, I get only infected with these opinion, with these emotions, right? I miss the, almost hesitate to say the term, but diversity of emotions, right? That's, that's the key. That's the key thing, right?
Mónica:
I've thought about diversity of opinions, but I hadn't thought about missing the diversity of emotions. That's fascinating.
Axel:
Yeah. I mean, just, Ima make an example for this, right? If you only hang out with your family,
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
What may be possible because you only work and you or your single mom, single dad, right? You are flooded with oxytocin. One of the six neurotransmitters that compiles our nine emotions, but oxytocin and it gives me some excitement. So oxytocin and dopamine. So I have two of the six molecules giving me two to three of the nine emotions. But remember, every muscle is different. That means I train three muscles, but I completely starve. And the other muscles, it is almost like if I'm only doing family life, I'm only training my biceps, right? If I only do party life, I only training my glutes. If I only do work, I only train my kind of just like whatever, la lats, right? So in a
Mónica:
It's the idea of a full body workout. It's like a full
Axel:
It is exactly this. And in a way, what it, what I what we learn from all the study data is life is not a specialist. Sports like only throwing the devil in only doing pool Vaulting life is a decathlon. It is not only about being good in business, it's not only being a good mom or good dad. It is literally being. A good partner, a good lover, a good friend, a good son, a good father, a good mother, a good daughter, a good kind of just like business person. Make sure that you look good because that's important for you. Feeling proud. Right? So that is, I think, the most important kind of take home message from our studies have a good brain, like in the terms of a good looking body. If you wanna have a good looking brain, you have to just accept that you have to train a lot of different things instead of only one piece. What is only going to work a hundred dollars a week? Hmm.
Mónica:
Would you add to that list, you know, being a good friend, a good family member, would you add, be a good person to disagree with?
Axel:
For me, that's a good friend, to be honest. Hmm. I think if my friend doesn't disagree with me, then on certain topics, then yeah. On something. And, the disagreement I think is super vital, because otherwise, how can I learn? I would be just a group of people being identical, totally boring. The point is, if I disagree, it doesn't mean that I have to kind of just like hit the other person or battle that person. That's a different thing, right? Disagreement is on the positive emotion side. Fighting killing is on the negative side, right? So you still have to remember, you still, you can disagree when your brain is completely on. You cannot disagree anymore when you only have three choices. Aggression, anxiety, forget about a sexual desire for a second. Right. But you only have these two options. You don't have the option of being grateful that someone disagrees. Being Yeah, kind of just like being excited that there's a kind of an interesting conversation.
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
The fundamental kind of block of everything. What is happening right now is that we are already so reduced to areas of our brain that are not human anymore,
Mónica:
Mm.
Axel:
That we have to address every single person for him or herself.
Mónica:
Wow. There was a teacher that I was with. On a two week trip to South Africa in February, and we were there with high school juniors, a bunch of them. And they're having this incredible experience where they're learning about South Africa's history and apartheid, or meeting people who have been through some horrible things. And it was really affecting the students. And there was this incredible moment where, his name is Mike Edman and he had them all in a circle. And he said, you know what? I think we need a shift. So I want everyone to go around and name one thing. They're really grateful for this trip. And one by one, they all went around and I just, it was, it landed with me because I had not noticed such an intentional shift from the negative to the positive. Now, the negative in this case though, was a negative that was flowing from exposure to human truth. And one of the, one of the pushbacks, I guess I would give to some of what you're saying is do positive emotions, sometimes hide truth. We need to see,
Axel:
I, so first of all, I think these are two entirely different concepts, right? Emotion is an experience, something that we can feel. So just in the example of gratitude, what we know from our studies now is gratitude is an area that sits on the outer area right here. Very
Mónica:
My gosh, wait, so I can point to the part of my
Axel:
I exactly here on the
Mónica:
Right here.
Axel:
That's kind of just one area. And the point is it has a huge power because it adds dopamine, serotonin, and cannabinoids. For something serotonin means I'm actually have self-esteem, so I'm fine with myself. And the last thing is cannabinoids. I feel belonging beyond myself. Okay. So in your example, the gratitude experience was overcoming because it's the youngest and strongest positive emotion was overcoming all the negativity. So now comes the question to truth. Hmm. It is very important to understand that every emotion we feel is for the person experience it. A hundred percent true.
Mónica:
Mm,
Axel:
Okay. So there is nothing like an a untrue emotion and that is the source for all the war, for all the issues
Mónica:
Mm. There's no such thing as a nont true emotion. Oof.
Axel:
And now the point is we have on the one side, someone who feels something and is absolutely convinced that he or she's correct. And on the other side the same thing, even though it's exactly the opposite. So the first, the first thing is. Emotions are always true. That's a very important fundamental understanding everybody has to have. However, I can feel what the other persons feel in that same truth because I feel the same. Remember, the machine is the same. So now the question, the debate about what is true or not right, is kind of, has to go from the emotional to the factual. We have to put it into context and then we can say something is true. If you as like a
Mónica:
Yeah. Okay.
Axel:
Extreme example, if you ask someone who is under certain substance addiction, let's say cocaine, crystal meth, right? What is a dopamine substance that kind of hammers dopamine on you? You can not convince that person that he's not unbeatable because he feels he has the emotions, absolutely convinced that he's the strongest and feels very confident.
Mónica:
Right,
Axel:
So you see. You can only convince that person when you show facts to that person. Say, Hey, look, you have not done anything productive in the last four weeks than just hunting for your drug.
Mónica:
Enough emotion keep people from looking at facts that could disprove a belief that they're attached to. You know, like we run into that all the time.
Axel:
A hundred percent. But now the point is in that belief that something is true, the most important thing is if you are, if your entire brain is open, right? With all your emotions and anxiety doesn't play a role. And now comes the point. If I am, if only my anxiety and aggression brain is actively firing, then of course I cannot accept any truth.
Mónica:
Dang.
Axel:
Can only escape into, oh, I get excited if that is not true. Hmm. If I'm completely holistic with my human brain, I can actually read things. So that's actually true. What he says is not wrong. Hmm. So you see our younger human emotions give us the ability. To understand truth for ourselves and for others, even though we feel an emotion being entirely true.
Mónica:
Amazing. So, I was gonna ask you, but I think I already know the answer. I still wanna hear you say it though. I was gonna ask you what we miss or fail to see, that might be essentially human when we optimize too. Too hard for feeling good.
Mónica:
I can, I can
Axel:
Have to add the
Mónica:
Can, right? Like I can hear people listening to this saying, no, I am angry and I'm anxious about the world for a reason. Those feelings are true, and I need that anxiety to spread. I need that anger to spread and I'm gonna spread it because that's the way I change my world. Right? And I think that's, I think that's got a lot to it. So how does that run up against what you're telling us about, you know, the whole brain, but also working out these positive emotions?
Axel:
The, rather trivial answer is it depends on what life do I want to live. If I want to live not accusing anyone, if I want to live in full consciousness on whenever I feel anxiety and aggression, I know my most smallest, rudimentary area of the brain is only active. So I have a very good indicator that I'm actually not in my full capacity of as a human, so therefore nobody can excuse me, that they are not knowing that they are running only on anxiety and aggression. That's number one, because we have just agreed emotions are always true. So the question is, do I want to, now comes the decision, do I want to manage this first for myself? Do I not want to manage it if I don't wanna manage it? It's my full conscious decision to spread anxiety and aggression.
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
That's a free choice, to be honest.
Mónica:
Lots of people are making that choice.
Axel:
I of people are making that choice right now. Here almost. Right? That's why I'm
Mónica:
Yeah.
Axel:
Because what I'm saying is makes if you follow that, it's like they're kind of just not raising Tide. You are going down with the society. You will you may think right, you may think it's good for the world and for you. Are literally bringing us all down systematically. Hmm. And that means you will, you will definitely be more angry tomorrow. More anxious tomorrow. And if you're chronically anxious or chronically aggressive, this is a clinical case and you end up in a hospital like some of the patients we currently handle.
Mónica:
Right. So
Axel:
So the point is that there's a moment of choice and that ownership, we have to take every single one.
Mónica:
Mm. So I wonder how we can square the circle for everyone who's feeling, like we said earlier, we need anxiety, we need anger. There's, there's a place for them. But it sounds like what you're saying is it's, it's, it's about turning on the whole brain of emotions. So, you know, see your anger, visit your anger. Te listen to what your anxiety's telling you. Learn from that, but then be able to tap another resource in you as well. Right? So channel your anger where it's productive, channel your anxiety into an action. You know, you're preoccupied, you're gonna, you're gonna act great. Act. We need to actors right to make the world what it needs to be. Right? Okay. So am I, am I getting there? Like,
Axel:
Yeah, a hundred percent. So let me, let me try kind of, what are the easy tricks. Now these are universal tricks, right? So everybody can
Mónica:
Okay. Everyone take notes. Here we go.
Axel:
Yeah. Yeah. So. I have to go a little bit into chemistry to understand this, these balances, right? On the negative side, we have a very strong activity of cortisol in your brain, right? That's a molecule that literally shuts down all the positive molecules in my brain.
Mónica:
Okay.
Axel:
So the most important thing to do is reduce the cortisol, not for inflammation, not for body weight, for your brain, right? I explained quickly how that works on a short term and a long term base. Number one is physical activity.
Mónica:
Hmm
Axel:
In other words, I, we have this kind of funny slogan in our social team. Before you send out any post that is angry, make 20 pushups.
Mónica:
Ha.
Axel:
The reason is very simple. Pushups drive dopamine. Dopamine is an active blocker of cortisol, and I see the world already a little bit with more energy. That's number one. The second thing is dopamine is the cofactor for all other emotions in our brain. It says without dopamine, I cofactor means I need dopamine to be excited, but I need dopamine and testosterone to feel sexual desire. I need dopamine and serotonin to feel pride. I need dopamine and oxytocin to
Mónica:
But it's always there. Dopamine is always
Axel:
Dopamine is always, you can imagine, if you're not excited to see your mother-in-law on the weekend, you will not have family love, right? So you need a motivation. So therefore that is the first thing you have to get dopamine in a positive sense back. The second thing is you can system it systematically, work yourself through the molecules and do a few activities that you know are triggering these molecules for you.
Mónica:
Hmm,
Axel:
Example, I like to talk to my sister. It's a, it's an oxytocin producing thing. I just call my sister and I know my oxytocin levels will be full. And the beauty is. We will have a big laugh and laughing gives you on top of the oxytocin, cannabinoids, and opioids. So I have already tricked the dopamine because I'm excited to talk to her, the oxytocin, because she's my sister and we laugh. So I have already four outta the six. I have already elevated. That means two third of my areas in the brain have received an activation. So I'm less aggressive after that. A hundred percent. Unless we are only talking about aggressive stuff,
Mónica:
Right,
Axel:
Each other on the negative. Huh? So take the next one. If you kind of just like now, so what is missing? We miss, being proud on ourselves, right? So whatever I have that. I can be creative, I can do a drawing. 'cause I like what I draw. I can create something. What I want to do, I can even just have a creative conversation with a friend. Hmm. Wherever I get some serotonin, my mood is lifted up and that area is also activated. And then comes, I think the most powerful one. There's the so-called cannabinoids, that is our friendship bucket, right? Because cannabinoids are our natural anti-anxiety drugs. Basically I can trigger, I can reduce my anxiety by talking to a friend or to a family member. So another human, because you can imagine the brain understands their safety because I have belonging, I have people around me. So that alone is kinda just like, unless you're kind of now spiraling with your friend into more anxiety. But the point is.
Mónica:
Hmm.
Axel:
So you see it's like very simple activities because we know which molecules are the activities triggering these molecules trigger the certain areas. Remember our fitness club in our brain, right? The different muscles, and then I, my brain is active again, so I can really judge as a human on things that make me anxious. All things that make me aggressive. Hm.
Mónica:
I, there's another study that maybe you know of, I'm being very sciencey today, but Peter Coleman, the difficult conversations lab at Columbia, a few years back, studied more than 500 contentious conversations, and they learned that there's a magic ratio for conversations that people did enjoy even though they were contentious and that seemed productive. And then the people didn't regret have three positive moments for every one negative moment. That was their magic ratio. So if you end up, you know, laughing to release the tension while you're disagreeing about. Something, you know, intense. Yeah. It turns out people think, you know, the authors have written, people think that, a conversation that is, that is gonna be about disagreement, better be, you know, really gentle and all positive for it to be tolerable. But it turns out that's not the case. That a conversation can survive negative moments. It just needs to also have these positive moments. And in a lot of the conversations of disagreement I'm in, I see people smile. And in the videos, of the phone booth experiment, you know, you could see people are smiling, who is this? Hi, where are you? Are you really a Republican?
Axel:
Yeah.
Mónica:
So it just kind of goes back to what you were saying about Yeah, we, it's a whole brain thing. It's not about kicking out the negative emotions forever and ever. It's not about trying to avoid all the negative moments forever and ever. They're gonna happen.
Axel:
A hundred percent correct. And I think just also there is a huge benefit that goes beyond feeling better if it's, if there's less negative emotions, and that is, brains from people with an aggression disorder, for example. This is like a very extreme format of diving into aggression. Or people with anxiety disorders have from the brain, kinda just like functionality in a way, like really sick brains, right? So in a way, if you want to do something for your, not only brain health, but for your entire body health, it's like, just try to find means to kind of just like not embrace the aggression, right? It's, it's, it's very important, right? Anxiety by definition doesn't feel good. Aggression, if you think about it has. Enough energy. So you are feeling at least in control even though you are aggressive. Interestingly, on our brains, it has a pretty deter, deteriorating effect, right? So being aggressive might be, might be kind of just like feeling energetic in the moment you are in, but actually the tall it takes on your brain. Health is massive. So all this, I mean all these kind of just components if you think about it right? Is we have to, I think step number one, we have to take ownership by ourselves because we cannot blame the media to show us negative news.
Mónica:
But it's so fun to blame the media axel. It's so
Axel:
We, yeah, exactly. But I mean we have set them up that they have to, that they make us click, right? They're not even, they're not even wrong. I mean, they have to show click rates, right? That's the system we have given to them to performance. So.
Mónica:
Right, and they're using the emotions that deliver the results if
Axel:
Exactly. So therefore, I think all this is not a blame game. It's, it's actually more a
Mónica:
Own it.
Axel:
Take own control game.
Mónica:
Responsibility game. So there's a lot of folks who you know say, oh, okay. If it's about being happy, if it's about finding oxytocin and serotonin and things like this, I know how to do that. I do that by never talking about politics. I do that by avo, avoiding disagreement. I do that by, if I'm around the, you know, dinner table and I know that there's a lot of disagreement in my family about this or that, it matters a lot to me. I wish I could talk about it with them, but I can't because I'm at least telling myself a story, or I've experienced in the past that if I do things go south too quickly, maybe it goes to aggression, maybe it goes to negative emotions, nothing happens. So then my solution for being happy is. I'm never going to disagree about these things ever, and that's the rule I'm gonna set for myself and that's the way to be happy and for my brain to be healthy. What do you say to that?
Axel:
So I think that the, I think also there, I think is no right or wrong answer. So the first thing is, if you feel really that you can take these negative discussions, right? You are doing the, actually you are following your brain is the right thing. Why shall I kind of load myself with negativity and getting all that rage? So that makes sense. However, it actually just shows that we are already just taking this example in a completely sick community and society, right? Because the ultimate, the ultimate element that gives us gratitude is that we are free, right? So. By not talking freely, we are, we may kinda just like avoid the aggression and anxiety, but we are not getting into contentment and gratitude. What are the most empowering emotions on the positive side? So we settle for a suboptimal repertoire. Again, by not speaking up. But I think you see here, it's like, it's, it's, it's almost like impossible to answer. What? Because if it's like, yeah,
Mónica:
It's personal. It's moment. My moment I have to say. As you talk about gratitude, and you mentioned earlier, you know, you're in Germany and the gratitude that you feel toward the United States. I'm an immigrant from Mexico and I it is, it is something that helps me to remember that I'm in a country where, compared to many countries in the world, we still are free. To speak our minds and Okay. Yes. Asterisk, you know, concerning things. Sure. Lots of people see concerning things, but here we are. And I see that too with a lot of the conversations of political disagreement that I see. You mentioned surprise. When people get together and realize that somebody who matches the profile of a stereotype they had, but turns out to violate that profile and surprises them, right? They crack open. Or when the two people are joined together in gratitude for. For something for anything, you know, for the development of something over here, the common ground there, or, you know, we would all like this particular war to end, even though we have different ideas of like the value of it for now. It's like, it's like people get to little base camps up a mountain and they acclimate to each other, then they can go farther. What I see is, as a lot of folks who are giving up and are resigned, but I also do see a lot of folks who can taste some of that gratitude and taste some of the contentment or taste some of the belonging that they find in surprising places with people who disagree with them. And then look at the world with new eyes.
Axel:
That's it. And I think what we should just be honest to everyone is, remember the beginning, 1 billion plus 5 billion, right? So we are on an uphill battle. So whoever is healthy, use your healthy full human brain, right? Because there are too many people who cannot anymore. So in a way that is, if you remember, the other objective that we always had is, try to kind of help to build a system that is really taking care of, giving other people a good time. I think that is the fundamental, because that always works, right?
Axel:
Even the anxious or angry person, if surprised, positively, will get the positive.
Mónica:
Right.
Axel:
It will get that feeling. We know it because we are built the same way. So that is a positive surprise. Always works. It doesn't matter who is that.
Mónica:
Yeah. You can disrupt the patterns. So I, so I guess what you're saying is if you have the capacity, to. To reach for that surprise or to find, you know, these positive emotions in places people don't expect. You can, you can try to share something into your community, into your conversation. And even if there are folks who are drowning in anxiety and aggression, there's, there's a chance that they might see it. There's a chance that you've put something into the water that starts to detoxify. But I also hear you saying it's not for everybody. Right? You don't, you don't do it if it's not for you. Right. Now, if you're, I always say that if you are, if you're really afraid, you can't be curious. You can't, your brain is locked down into the trauma responses and curiosity becomes very hard. Right. So, okay. Step out of that moment and there might be other ways to build up your capacity, but that's okay.
Axel:
It's okay as long as you trust that you can also enjoy the rest. Right. So giving up is unfortunately not an option. So it's fine
Mónica:
More about that. Yeah. This
Axel:
Act. Yeah, it's, it's fine to be in a certain situation that I cannot take more negativity. But the fact is, you are equipped completely like everyone around you, like all of us, to actually live that good life and experience it. The other thing that's very important, I don't want to bring across the message that, oh, do something. Good to someone else because it's only about them making something good for them. It's actually the other way around, right? If you do something good to the other person, remember the smile is the infection, right? You get a return in the smile of that person. So it's literally a win-win multiplier, right? So even though it's an effort for you initially to kind of spend a smile, you will get it back. That means it's like a win-win. And I think that is what in today's world, it is very busy. It's just the point. We don't have the, we don't literally have to focus on the time to actually get our good field drugs that we have built in active enough because we are just not using the exchange enough. So I think that's, that's the whole thing. So kind of the idea, the system of making others happy is actually has at least as big of a benefit to yourself. That's the key thing.
Mónica:
Okay. So the, your company, after doing the party line in San Francisco and Abilene, Texas, you started one that connects a boomer and a zoomer, Boston and Reno, Nevada. And so this is the
Axel:
That's it.
Mónica:
Divide. So first off, you know, are you said that you had to be talked into doing the party line by your team. Sounds like you don't regret it, but tell us.
Axel:
No, that was, I think I can give all the credits to that team. I think it was just phenomenally smart and brave. Also kinda just like setting it up, kind of building the phone and all this was really a big effort. The Boomer to Zoom or Gen Z thing is kinda just like, I think of. A less inflamed situation, but actually reflected in two populations that are seen as the loneliest in our society. So, and therefore here was the idea, almost like, not saying therapeutic, but it was just less kind of against aggression, but kind of against the anxiety of loneliness just to see, hey, there are other peoples I can talk to. And the interesting thing is here, I think we have already now over 800 kind of just attempts to call. We have I think a hundred or a hundred, of conversations roughly a little bit lower. So it, so there is need on both sides as well. And the key question is, it's always difficult in the middle of an experiment to say, what did they talk about? But you can imagine that the starting point here is not, let's say aggression starting point. It was here more like the anxiety of being lonely ankle. What if the science is right should be very strongly addressed with a good conversation. Right. Because if you're alone and you can talk, I think it could be, could be a very interesting
Mónica:
It is so true. And so much research is showing us that being heard, somebody hearing you out, just witnessing you, gosh, it's transformative, you know, it transforms conversations across disagreement, but it transforms everything. Just connections and relationships. It's, it's amazing. So, will, can we expect, many more phone booths out there
Axel:
We have, yeah, we have, we have a couple of discussions actually on the, on the, on the, very controversial side. I'm not stuff where I'm saying, guys, you are cra you're just too crazy. We will see whether we can, whether we pull one or two off from
Mónica:
Oh, but you're not gonna give us a heads up. Tell us what it
Axel:
One is literally a religious topic, right? That we're, we're kind of two religious group we would like to bring together. The point here, it's kinda just like, it is, it is just so difficult at the moment, right? Kinda just what's happening and there is so serious deep aggression, right? Like physical aggression that I'm, I'm just not sure whether it
Mónica:
I'm, assuming that you didn't do this in person for a reason. Phones at least keep a bit of safety if things go wrong.
Axel:
Actually the . I interestingly, we didn't ex actually, it would've been the easy experiment to do it in person because it's even softer when you meet someone. It's almost no chance that there's anything, so the here, the point was that we needed, like, the, you see, the a college campus in Boston is not an elderly home, right? So we need the separation because it's just like, we don't find these groups
Mónica:
They're not next to each other. Right.
Axel:
Albert Aberdeen and kinda just like San Francisco, just we needed the enrichment of the two groups in these places. So, yeah, so therefore, I think we will continue on that. I think there is, the currently the more important. Kind of focus that we have is literally to kind of just send exactly The message that I kind of try to educate or explain to you is like, guys, we have the same system and we have the ability to control it to a certain extent.
Mónica:
Wow. Yeah.
Axel:
That, and that is, I think, is so empowering. It's hugely empowering. If you see that someone who is really severely sick or has a really kind of just like, is aggressive. We have, we are doing these experiments that we trigger aggression and anxiety in the MRI and then we try the participant to switch into a positive emotion and you can train that. It's literally like you can train this muscle and you can train this muscle. You can base literally, there are antagonists and if you are getting into this, you have, I'm not saying emotional control because you're not manipulating, but you have a way out if you kind of just. Feel on the negative side, really kind of just imprisoned that. That's, I think, is the key thing.
Mónica:
Well, I've downloaded the matter neuroscience app. I have added a couple of memories since one of the techniques is, you know, have a, find memories that really make you happy and have them there when you need 'em. And I was like, oh, that's a really interesting thought. And by the way, that works for me and my parents are politically divided. And a lot of times when we're in the middle of talking about something really contentious politically, you know, someone will just bring up, oh yeah, it's like that time that so and so and so and so, and we're like, yeah. And we share a memory. It's very powerful. So I wanna thank you actual, thank you for taking risks. I certainly hope that you lean into some of the bolder possibilities coming up now that you know that the party line ended up not only working, but you know, drawing a lot of attention to what you're doing in the work. But drawing attention without outrage and aggression and anxiety isn't that novel. Isn't that great? Don't we want more of that? So thanks again for what you're doing. Thank you so much for joining us. Any last, any last
Axel:
Yeah. I have, I have actually, I have your next exercise. And that is, yeah. Yeah. Because that is the best repertoire that you need. And it's actually,
Mónica:
Got my pen out. I'm ready.
Axel:
Yeah. Record the top three of your memories, the best memories of your life for the nine emotions, excitement,
Mónica:
Okay.
Axel:
Recognition, family, love, friendship, love, contentment, amusement pleasure, gratitude, and sexual desire because these 27, 9 times three, these 27 memories is basically your perfect drug box to be happy.
Mónica:
And so what I, what do I
Axel:
Are really your best. Yep. You, whenever you need them, you just click on the so-called recall button and they will randomly play what you need the most. That's the algorithm that is in the app.
Mónica:
Wow. Cool.
Axel:
Yeah. No, that's, that's kind of, that's the treatment. That's the entire treatment that everybody goes through. It's literally find the best memories of your life and use them for the bad moments.
Mónica:
Dang. Okay. Awesome. Well, all
Axel:
Good. And make we've got our workouts. Yes. Good. You have to workouts.
Mónica:
We got the workouts. Thank you Axel, so much for your work. Really appreciate it. All right. Bye.
Axel:
Take good care. Bye. Bye.
Mónica:
A Braver way is produced by reclaim curiosity and distributed in partnership with Braver Angels, KUOW, and Deseret News. Our theme music is by the fantastic number one billboard, bluegrass charting, hip hop band, gangster grass. You can subscribe to a braver way on YouTube and follow us on your favorite podcast app. Wanna chat, You can join our listener text line by texting the word Brave to 2 0 6 9 2 6 9 5, or email us anytime with anything at a braver way@reclaimcuriosity.com. I'm your host and guide across the divide, Mónica Guzmán, take heart, everyone. Till next time
