Do you feel like your brain is constantly running on empty, yet you’re still pushing for more? High-performers often fall into a dangerous trap: believing that solving complex problems requires even more focus, more time, and more grit. But what if the secret to your next breakthrough isn’t doing more—it’s learning how to think less?
In this episode, we sit down with Harvard-trained psychiatrist and brain imaging expert, Dr. Srini Pillay. Dr. Pillay challenges the “summit syndrome” that plagues today’s top professionals and reveals the neuroscience behind why strategic unfocusing is the ultimate productivity hack.
From the “default mode network” to the dangers of prefrontal cortex depletion, we break down why your best ideas often come in the shower—and how you can intentionally engineer those moments to solve your most complex problems. Whether you’re feeling trapped by your own success or struggling to manage anxiety, this conversation will change how you view your brain’s architecture.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- The Power of Strategic Unfocus: Why switching off your “focus” network is actually the key to complex problem-solving.
- Brain Fuel 101: Why focusing too hard without breaks doesn’t just drain you—it actually makes your anxiety worse.
- Breaking the Cycle: How to move past limiting beliefs and “reprogram” your reality to unlock greater potential.
- Beyond the Standard of Care: Why mindset and social connection are just as critical to your longevity as medical biomarkers.
Stop treating your brain like a trash can for stress. It’s time to unlock your full intelligence by learning the art of the “unfocused” mind.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Why Thinking Less Might Be The Answer To Everything With Dr. Srini Pillay
On this show, we have Harvard-trained Dr. Pillay talking about why thinking less might be the answer to everything.
Dr. Pillay, it is so great to have you on the show.
Thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this conversation.
Where are you in the world?
I’m in New Jersey. I’ve moved between New York and New Jersey.
You’re a Harvard-trained professor. Why don’t you give a little intro on your story and how you got into this particular field or specialty?
The Intersection Of Medicine, Science, And Creativity
My background is in medicine. I trained in psychiatry at Harvard. I also trained in brain imaging. I ran the Anxiety Disorder Service and also ran a part of the Brain Imaging Center. While I was doing this, I was also working in biotechnology, looking at drugs in early-stage development for cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative disease. My real interest is in what I call psychogenic longevity, which is the psychological factors and mindsets that can help you live more healthily into old age and that can also help you live longer.
This is no drugs. This is what you can do for yourself without drugs.
That’s exactly right. In addition to that, I’m an executive coach. I work with organizations globally, helping them build more resilient, agile, and creative teams. Organizations are asking me to help them think more complexly because so many things are changing. I’m in a think tank at McKinsey. I taught at Harvard Business School as well.
I’m also a musician. I finished writing a musical. I started an AI music company. I’ve co-founded a few technology companies that are related to enhancing psychogenic longevity. One of them is Reulay, where I’m Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder. The other has to do with a platform, which is a more extensive platform, where I’m building a platform to track and understand linear and nonlinear variables related to psychological health and the way it impacts your physical well-being as well.
It’s fair to say that you’re a smart guy.
I don’t know. Credentials are one thing. I don’t think they correlate with being a smart guy.
You’re an intelligent man. Let’s jump into the brain here. What’s one thing you believe about the brain that most high-performing men get completely wrong?
The Trap Of Excessive Focus And Problem Solving
When people are trying to solve problems, whether it’s related to their personal lives, their professional lives, or if they’re sports people. They tend to focus on what they need to solve, and then they tend to problem solve. The problem is that if you only focus, you are using a part of the thinking brain that we call the prefrontal cortex, which is connected to the parietal lobe. That gives you a certain amount of access to your intelligence, but to solve complex problems, you need to unfocused.
In my book, Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind, I talk about ways in which you can strategically unfocused to turn on the unfocused network in the brain, which is the default mode network. You might say, “Come on. I already don’t focus well enough. Now, I’ve got to unfocused strategically?” The answer is yes, because when you focus, you turn off the part of your brain that can solve complex problems. You have to unfocused to turn on the brain that can integrate information. People sometimes say they have their best ideas on a walk or in the shower. That’s because they’re not sitting down looking at something specifically.
When you focus, you quiet the part of your brain that solves complex problems. To integrate information and unlock breakthroughs, you have to unfocus. Share on XThis is so I understand. You’re going, “Here’s the problem. Let’s focus on solving this problem.” When you’re consciously focusing on the problem, that unlocks a certain capacity to solve a problem. You’re suggesting, so I understand, that to solve a very complex problem, like putting rockets into space, for example. You need to unfocused first, switch off the mechanism that does the focusing in your brain, and unlock a different part of your brain that is able to do complex problem-solving. Is it in the front lobe as well?
Unlocking The Default Mode Network For Complex Problems
It’s called the default mode network. It’s a number of different parts of the brain, like the middle of the frontal cortex and parts of the parietal lobe. It’s a different circuit altogether. I remember listening to an interview with Elon Musk, for example. You were talking about launching rockets into space.
That’s what I was thinking about. Someone like that, who has clearly solved some very complicated problems, would have only been able to do that if he had the ability to unlock that default mode network.
He has said in an interview that some of his best ideas come in the shower. Jeff Bezos, for example, has said he likes to begin his morning reading the newspaper, but puttering before he takes on his high-intensity meetings. All of these people focus intensely as well. What I’m saying is that rather than focus fatigue, you have to refuel your brain.
Focus, and then unfocused, so that you can give your brain a chance to put together complex variables to problem-solve. High-performers know this. High-performers know that if they stay in lockdown mode all the time, they’re not going to be able to do well. They have to take their minds off to be able to unlock their greatest performance.
When did you realize that your brain doesn’t work the way that people think the brain should work? You went deep into this domain. When did you realize that?
Intuitively, in myself, growing up, before I even got exposed to medicine, I recognized that I loved mathematics as much as I loved music. I was training in music, but I also liked physics. I liked a lot of logic, but I also liked the arts. People would often say things like, “You’ve got to choose.” I was like, “Maybe to a certain extent.”
When the time came to choose a career, and I had to choose between being a professional musician and going into medicine, the reason I chose medicine was not that scientific. It’s because I was motivated to understand the human body. There was something in me that was like, “I don’t think I want to go through the rest of my life without spending some amount of time understanding the human body.”
I also found out at medical school that there was a time in my second year when I was focusing intensely, and I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted. In my third year, my brother said to me, “You should practice this thing called transcendental meditation.” I said, “That sounds dumb.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “That is stupid. I’m not going to sit in a chair and say a mantra over and over again. That sounds absurd.” He said, “You’re a scientist. Why don’t you try it out for a few months and see if it changes?” and so I did. I built in these regular periods where I would meditate. All of a sudden, I shot to the top of my class. I was like, “Wait a minute. All this time, I was doing okay, but by building focus, it’s changing my actual performance.”
Did you connect those dots?
Yes, because it was the one material change that I made. As I began to learn more about the brain and see more about how things are solved, I realized that logical solutions are only the stories that we come up with. Something is happening in the unconscious brain, and what people generally call the subconscious, something is happening that is directing things completely differently.
I started to understand as I read more and more about the brain. There was a guy named Libet who discovered that you can see an intention in the brain before you realize you have an intention. That means your brain has already decided what you want to do before you realize what you said. Not long ago, Lisa Feldman Barrett published a study in which she said that categories are already baked into the brain. Meaning, a lot of times we think we’re making a decision, but the decision has already been made because we’ve fed our brain about it.
Can you give me a small example of that?
Challenging The Idea Of Conscious Decision Making
Let’s say you say, “Do I want to stay with this person, or do I want to not stay with this person?” You might say, “I thought about it deeply, and I realized I’m compatible with them, or I’m not compatible with them,” but your brain often has already decided. It will only look for evidence to support the decision that’s already been made, which is why you have to take a step back.
Your brain often makes a decision first, then looks for evidence to justify it. That's why stepping back is so powerful. Share on XIt’s the same thing with life. Let’s say you want to make more money. A lot of people say, “I hit a ceiling.” They use that limit as a way to define what’s possible for them. If you reconfigure your prediction brain and say, “Wait a minute. I got to change some things here. Limits are not my thing. I need to start increasing possibilities. I need to entertain the idea that maybe I will be happier with that. I need to entertain the idea that I’m not at some specific disadvantage,” then your brain starts working with you to confirm that reality.
A lot of people live in an already pre-programmed reality where, passively, life has taught them to do things. What I often do when I’m working with people is help them reprogram their reality, so that the brain will direct them toward this new vision that they have rather than the preconceived notion that they’ve been conditioned to believe.
What you’re suggesting is that there are those segments of society that might feel like they’re less advantaged, have fewer opportunities, etc. What you’re suggesting is that if you are able to teach them some of the techniques that you teach relative to their situation, you could improve it by working with them to help them change their mindset. That’s your thesis, right?
Yes, and there’s a lot of research to support that. For example, a growth mindset. Carol Dweck has studied this intensely. She has found that a growth mindset, where you believe that even if you get something wrong. You can pick yourself up again and get better at something, allows people to have superior academic performance.
A long time ago, people would say men are good at math, and women would do poorly at math. When they did an experiment where they primed the woman to say that they could be as good as anyone, they started to do as well. A lot of times, we don’t realize that the way we view the world is creating the world that we encounter.
A lot of men fall into the trap of what we kicked off with, which is that solving a problem means you have to work harder, focus harder, put more time in, etc. What you’re highlighting is that isn’t the way, but men fall into that particular trap. When they do that, why does focusing harder make anxiety in your body worse?
Focusing harder can make anxiety worse for a couple of different reasons. One is what we call prefrontal cortex depletion. If you overly focus without taking those breaks, you are draining your energy. The brain is a very energy-intensive organ. Not taking those breaks means you don’t have the energy. Something in you knows that your energy is waning. It’s getting less and less.
All of a sudden, you start feeling anxious because you realize you don’t have the fuel you need, and you might be running on empty. Focus, on the one hand, can also improve anxiety. There’s no one-way relationship here. If you are using only pragmatism, you are not allowing yourself to understand your full intelligence. If you stick to this focused routine, you also don’t have the energy to change your mental set to solve problems.
Psychological Halloweenism And Rigid Thinking
There’s a term that I’ve come up with called psychological Halloween-ism. It is a term that is based on a study that showed that if you give someone a creative problem to solve, they are statistically significantly less likely to solve that problem if they act like a rigid librarian rather than an eccentric poet. The same person, if they act like an eccentric poet, somehow, the brain starts looking for more creative solutions. If they act like a rigid librarian, then the brain is like, “Let me be more closed-minded about what I’m doing to follow that stereotype.”
When you are overly focused and you don’t have the energy to switch cognitive sets, it’s going to make you anxious because you’re going to realize the likelihood of solving that problem is less. The thinking brain and the feeling brain are connected. A lot of times, when you’re anxious, or when the first anxiety sets in.
You get these earthquakes in the emotional center of the brain and these aftershocks in the thinking brain. The anxiety makes the decision-making and the thinking even more difficult. It becomes a vicious cycle. Focus can improve anxiety, or it can make anxiety worse when it drains the brain. When the anxiety is worse, it makes the focus even more difficult.
I’m going to speak from my own personal experience. I want to reframe it back to a question about men. It is that I am able to learn the skill or the ability to practice dolce far niente, which means the sweetness of doing nothing. It took me a little bit to learn how to do that. Firstly, I’m fortunate enough career-wise to not have to be too stressed about my life and my family’s life. That takes some stress and anxiety off the plate. It gave me some capacity to experiment with this.
What you did with the transcendental, I call it learning to do nothing. For me, it’s not trying to achieve happiness. I am shooting for what I call POM or Peace Of Mind. I’m shooting for quiet. You talk about the focus and unfocused. Unfocused is turning off the mind. I’ve realized, in doing that, how much less anxiety and stress you experience and the retention of energy. My question is, if I tell mates or men that, they think I’m a little bit cuckoo. Why do men find it so hard to resist completely unfocused?
The wandering mind can be very helpful in improving complex problem-solving. It can be helpful in creating the sense of relaxation you’re talking about. That’s why this book is about strategic unfocused. It’s not sitting down, daydreaming, and doing whatever. It’s because studies show that mind wandering can increase depression and anxiety.
A lot of times, when your mind is in a wandering state, it naturally goes to all the negative stuff. “Did I mess up my life? Is this relationship the right relationship for me? Why am I sticking to this job that I don’t love? Do I have enough friends?” Suddenly, you become more anxious. Men don’t want to experience that negative state. They’d rather be distracted by TV or a sport that they’re watching. The mind left on its own can be unruly. That’s not just for men. It’s for women as well.
This is a generalization. It takes a while for men to be open to understanding the complexity of who they are. There are extremes in the world. There are these male stereotypes. If you scroll on Instagram, you’ll see every person with huge muscles and eating this, taking this latest peptide, and having this beautiful partner. You have this idea that somehow, you don’t fall within that. You compare yourself to other people.
People who are caught in the stereotype have more psychiatric disorders. They have more depression and more anxiety because they’re constantly comparing themselves with other people. When men begin to understand their complexity and begin to accept that you can still be masculine and still have lots of grey areas that you can’t quite define, it makes them super anxious.
I’ve had some decent successes in terms of people meeting their goals. In the last few years, three of the people I’ve worked with have ended up selling their companies for $100 million. All three of those people are such atypical men on the inside. On the outside, they look like regular dudes. They carry themselves like that.
One of them loved his wife more than anyone and wanted to have an affair with the woman he was with at work. He didn’t know how to reconcile those feelings. When he came to that realization, he was like, “How am I even saying this out loud? What is happening here?” I know most people would say, “Make up your mind. If you want to stay with your wife, stay with your wife. If you want to have an affair, have an affair.”
He was like, “I think I want to have an affair while I’m with my wife. I feel bad about it, but I also feel bad if I don’t have that.” I could see how, when he was saying that, he was beginning to own himself, and his thought processes about his business changed. There was something about relaxing into the fact that maybe his brain does work in this impossible-to-understand way.
There was another person that I worked with who was a very eccentric dresser and who was someone who had all these habits that he had been criticized for early on in his life. Even his kids would be like, “Dad, stop doing this goofy thing in public.” We met online. He would feel this connection, and he understood what that acceptance was. That released him to think more freely about other things in his life.
Oftentimes, people feel like you’ve got to resolve something. The guy with the affair has to decide. Does he want his wife, or does he want the affair? The person is acting in a childish way. Should he stop doing that, or should he start doing that? Neither of them resolved anything. They were constantly in a state of ecstasy and turmoil. They started to understand that the state released them more to the authenticity of who they were. It’s not for everyone. A lot of people would be like, “I don’t want that chaos in my life. I don’t want to examine myself in this way.” At a deeper level, men are reticent to examine their own complexities because their complexities don’t necessarily match the stereotype or the social norm.
Many men hesitate to explore their inner complexity because it doesn't fit society's expectations of what a man should be. Share on XWhy do high-performers often feel the most trapped?
Overcoming The Crisis At The Summit
Let’s take examples of people. If you think about most people who have been successful in their lives, there’s always been some kind of complexity in their lives. You never know the truth of what’s being reported online, so anything that I’m saying about what’s online is not necessarily a fact. If you think about the ten richest people in the world, you go through that, and a fair number of them have been divorced because they had to leave a state of safety and had to be in some other place.
For high-performers, there is a call to consistency. You have to be conscientious. You have to make sure you stay at that level. They have what we call the summit syndrome. In the world of business coaching, there’s a summit syndrome. They’re always pushing on the gas to get higher. They suddenly realize at a certain point in their careers that they’re pushing the gas and nothing’s happening. They’re like, “I’ve reached my plateau. There’s nothing more personally and nothing more professionally,” and that makes them freak out.
People have written about this in the business literature. There’s a great article about it in Harvard Business Review. They end up disabling themselves and their organizations because they’ve reached the summit. They call this a crisis at the summit. What you have to do is recognize that you have to figure out at those points how you want to reinvent yourself.
Kazimierz Dobrowski, who’s a Polish psychiatrist and psychologist, found that gifted students are constantly reinventing themselves. When they reinvent themselves, they use what he calls positive disintegration. Positive disintegration is essentially coming to terms with yourself, saying, “I’ve got to reinvent myself in some way because life’s not working out.”
Dabrowski believed that at the lowest level, most people live there. They eat, sleep, and reproduce. That’s their lives. There’s not a whole lot of anything going on. At the second level, there may be a little bit of anxiety, but then they push that down and go, “I’m too busy to be anxious. I have to move on.” At the third level, they realize that who they are and who they want to be are completely different people. That’s where they realize, “Now I have to figure out how to change that.”
Does that happen at a particular age range or time in life?
It’s different for different people. Commonly, people would say somewhere between 45 and 55 is where a lot of people start having that.
You’re talking about the midlife crisis here, effectively.
Age expectations have changed. For myself, I’ve had the midlife crisis forever.
What does that mean? In all seriousness, have you not ever been in a crisis where you are mega depressed, where you don’t want to socialize with anyone, or where you can’t sleep well? You must have had periods like that in your life, no?
No. My personality is such that I’m pretty upbeat. My crises come in the form of internal turmoil and stress, but not in the form of depression.
What does that mean, internal turmoil and distress? How does that practically present itself? How do you behave any differently when you’re in that state?
I’m usually aware of it, so I tend to contemplate it quite deeply. I might think to myself, “Write. Take a course. Make a course. Get productive in a particular way,” to manage those feelings of myself. When I’m in that distressed state, when I do some kind of creative work, it alleviates what that is. I’ve learned over time that being creative can help me feel very different. I’m in a similar state, so I could speak to it more immediately. I feel like the world is changing so much. AI has taken over what’s going on. The online conversations are mostly completely nonsensical, in my opinion, as it relates to health.
When you say that, do you mean stuff that’s getting posted on social media related to health is pretty much nonsense? Is that what you’re saying?
Even in the scientific literature. If you look at what if you look at the studies in the scientific literature, the number of incorrect citations in scientific articles has catapulted in the last couple of years. The number of fake papers has also catapulted. One of the reasons with regard to fake papers is that they found that over 40% of medical students in China are using paper mills to publish because of the pressure to publish. They’re getting these papers put together. Sometimes, they were able to find diagrams that were not even real diagrams or pictures of scans that were taken from other papers. It’s hard enough to track what’s going on in the scientific literature.
Marcia Angell has spoken about that. She was the Editor of the New England Medical Journal, which is a very well-established medical journal. She was at Harvard for a while. She said, “Honestly, I don’t know whether a trusted physician exists.” People live by the standards that are related to what’s published, and what’s published is so complex that it never makes it into the complexity of the standards. I’ll give you a good example of this from my perspective.
People live by published standards, but those standards rarely capture the complexity of real life. Share on XFor bad cholesterol, you go to your doctor, and your doctor will tell you to lower your bad cholesterol. That sounds like a good idea if it is, in fact, bad. However, there’s a large body of studies that show that when you lower bad cholesterol, you have a greater chance of dying. When I called my brother, who’s a physician, he said, “I’m thinking I should be on a statin.” I was like, “Why?”
I know this very argument.
He was like, “My cholesterol’s high.” I said, “I’m going to share two papers with you from the American Journal of Cardiology and the British Medical Journal,” which are very prestigious journals. He reads them and goes, “These people died faster when they lowered their cholesterol.” I said, “Yes. What are you going to do?” He goes, “I’m still going to take the statin.” I said, “What is going on in your head?” He said, “Honestly, I’m reading this, but it’s not the standard of care. I’m going to follow the standard of care.”
I’ve had these same arguments with different people who are close to me, one of whom has decided to throw out all the pills, hasn’t told his doctor, and the doctor thinks he’s doing a great job. He’s like, “I’m not going to upset the relationship. What he’ll give me, I’ll put in the bin. I don’t care.” I’ve got another close person in my life. You can show him what you were talking about, but he’ll go, “It’s the standard practice.”
We live at a time of incredible complexity. Also, this thing about separating out the brain from other parts of your body is so insane to me on so many levels. Many platforms are measuring biomarkers. They’re not paying attention to anything in what we call the exposome, the outer environment, and how it impacts health. They’re not paying attention to mindset because mindset’s not like that much of a business. Maybe a little bit in psychiatry, but it’s not a business like churning out drugs.
Telling someone they should go do some transcendental meditations is not exactly going to pay the bills.
I believe in taking drugs if they can be helpful. I don’t think you should not take them. Let’s take one risk factor. Look at hypertension. High blood pressure confers a 25% higher risk of mortality. Poor social relationships confer a 50% higher risk of mortality. Why is nobody addressing the importance of social relationships at the same level as blood pressure?
No money in it.
For me, the crisis is that it’s impossible to feel included in what’s going on online because I’m seeing so much nonsense. A part of me is like, “If I say what I’m saying, people are going to be like, ‘That Harvard guy has all these odd ideas.’” I have to figure out how to commercialize what I’m doing because I do want to make more money, but I want to do it in a way that is ethical, recognizes the nonlinear complexity of human physiology, and recognizes that mindset is not the only factor, but it is an important factor as it relates to the rest of your health.
When I’m in that state, when you were asking if I ever feel stressed, I feel stressed, and then I think, “I’ve got to figure out how to reinvent myself using this positive disintegration principle.” One way in which this can be helpful is that I have a free download of an Ideal Self Guide on NAS.com. If someone looks it up, they will be able to see an Ideal Self Guide. There, I walk you through questions. What are your values? What are your values at work?
It’s an intensive thing. At the end, I say, “Take the PDF, feed it into ChatGPT or whatever large language model you’re using, get a summary, and then use that as your compass.” This ideal self is what you want to guide you. This is a mistake a lot of men make. They problem-solve. There’s the problem, and they have to solve it. If you look in the brain, what you see is that people who are putting out fires are creating brain conflicts rather than putting out fires. You can put out the fires, but first, understand who your ideal self is. What is the gap?
When we go back to the skill or the ability to unfocused, given how important it can be and how much value it can add, maybe you could give a high-level daily protocol that you would suggest to men who are tuning in to this, or all readers. They’re like, “I’m a father with kids in school. I’m running a business, and I am very time-poor. There’s a lot going on. I’m capping out my capacity to deal with a lot of these things because I’m not applying the unfocused protocol.” In that circumstance, what would be a good protocol to start with or experiment with?
I have the highest-level protocol, and then I would have a more detailed protocol. For example, when I trained at Harvard, it was the old style of training. One of the goals was that by the time you get to your final year, if you have not learned how to create a life where you do not have to work on Mondays and Fridays, you get marked down. When we graded people who were junior to us, if they were like, “I’ve got this scheduled on Monday and Friday,” we’d be like, “No.”
A smart person must prioritize having these large chunks of time to do nothing so they have the flexibility to do something. The first high-level thing I would say to anybody is to try this out. Maybe it’s impossible for you to imagine taking out two entire days, but take one half day and say, “In this half day, I’m going to figure out a way to carve out these 2 to 3 hours for myself.” That’s the high-level thing. Then, build it up to making Mondays and Fridays flexible.
Smart people prioritize large blocks of unstructured time because doing nothing creates the space to do something extraordinary. Share on XThe second thing is that on any particular day, start out with creating one twenty-minute period in the morning, and then one twenty-minute period in the afternoon for strategic unfocused, during which you do one of the following. You either doodle for twenty minutes on a piece of paper, go on a brisk walk, or use what we call positive constructive daydreaming. Positive constructive daydreaming was discovered by Jerome Singer. What you do with this is you have to be doing something lowkey, something that you can do, like knitting, gardening, walking.
The whole day, we’re looking outwards. You walk in a safe area, but you turn your attention inward. You imagine something wishful or joyful, like lying on a yacht or running through the woods with your dog. Allow your mind to do that and then come back to the focused world. I would recommend that you start by doing this once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and build it up to at least twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.
Are you taking a quiet space to do this? Where are you doing this?
Wherever you feel comfortable. It could be walking in the woods or a room in your house that’s dedicated to this. The reality is that I find people will never take this time if they don’t schedule it. You have to schedule the unfocused time the way you schedule an appointment. In the same way that, ideally, there should be no compromise for gym time, there should be no compromise for this unfocused time. It’s a necessary requirement for your brain to function optimally.
Leading on from that, why do you believe that this all leads to longevity, longer lifespan, and more positive life experience? Explain the neurological benefits. What’s going on inside that is resulting in that longer lifespan?
Mindset Shifts As A Key To Physical Longevity
I want to emphasize. I think focus is important.
It’s not a mutually exclusive situation. You’re saying that most of the time, we’re doing the focus bit, but we should be allocating some of that time to introduce the unfocused because that will help to unleash the capacity you have in other parts of your brain, which are able to solve more complex problems. Unleashing a superpower you don’t realize you have by the unfocused bit is the only way you can do that. You’re saying don’t eliminate that. It’s got to be part of your portfolio or the whole menu.
I’ll answer your question about why I think mindset shifts have something to do with health span and longevity. At a high level, it’s very curious that when you look at the default mode network, which comes on when you unfocused, it’s interesting that poor regulation of that network is associated with higher states of inflammation, cardiac disease, and a lot of illnesses. Poor regulation in that network is associated with depression, anxiety, and psychotic states. Clearly, at a high level, this unfocused interaction with the unfocused network is important.
At a very fundamental level, it goes back to what you were saying about peace of mind. When you have that peace of mind, you’re more likely to feel optimistic. Optimists have an 11% to 15% longer lifespan. You’re more likely to feel confident. Uncertainty and anxiety are associated with heightened mortality. You are more likely to experience states of awe. When you have states of awe, it protects you at the level of inflammation. You are more likely to feel socially connected. Social connection confers 50% protection against mortality.
When you feel this peace of mind, you’re more likely to feel autonomy. You’re like, “I’m my own person. I run my own life.” When you feel that, there was a nun study that showed that there’s a much higher chance of living longer. You become more resilient and more empowered. Each of those mindsets I mentioned is associated with greater health span and, in some instances, longevity. Paying attention to what’s going on in how you view the world matters not because you’re going to feel better, but because feeling better correlates with better physical health in the instances that I mentioned.
Peace of mind creates autonomy—the feeling that you are in charge of your own life. That mindset builds resilience, empowerment, and may even help you live longer. Share on XThis is for the younger generation. Given the world we live in and the people that surround us on a daily basis. Getting on TikTok, Instagram, or any of these platforms where people seem to be switching off in a way and death scrolling, does that fall into the bucket of unfocusing?
In any of these techniques, there’s a whole lot of subtleties built into them. The answer to that question is maybe. The reason I say maybe is that some studies have shown that the use of social media is associated with the brain getting more tired, having a difficult time focusing, and your attention gets consumed. Some studies have shown that creativity can be enhanced. Part of it is when you’re scrolling, are you staying away from comparing yourself with other people? Are you aware of your state? Do you stop when you start feeling on edge? Some people get addicted to the feeling of being on edge.
That’s so true. When people see violence, sex, rage-baiting, or all that stuff, that’s where people get a bit more addicted. It’s like, “What’s going on?”
I’m human, so I understand that people do that from time to time. It’s whether you get caught in that. You also have to ask yourself how you want to live your life. I was once very inspired by the fact that Coca-Cola, and I don’t know if they’re still doing this, had implemented this new rule, which is that there was going to be no phone call. Phones were going to be no longer part of the conversation. I thought, “That’s a great idea.”
What do you mean?
People used to communicate via everything, like text, email, or phone. Calling someone, they closed off that portal. You could no longer contact anybody. I was like, “This is cool. I want to do that.” If you call my phone, my phone will say, “This is me. Please do not leave a message. I do not check my messages, nor do I answer my phone.” I will only answer my phone if I know who it is. If I see a random number, I will never answer my phone.
The short-term memory bank in the brain, which is part of the brain we call the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is like a cup. You can’t be pouring in things from email, text, phone calls, and personal conversations. It keeps on getting displaced. I told myself, “If I can cut off one form of communication, I think my life will be significantly better.” It has.
I did email. I cut off email. I got thousands of unread emails. I say to people, “If you’re going to email me, WhatsApp me first and say, ‘I’ve sent you an email. Can you check?’”
That is such a healthy idea. Do you know why I think that? I would love to get to the stage where I can do that, but right now, it’s not possible. I think of email like Russian roulette.
I feel like email is the same thing we had before, which is a post box full of junk mail. There might be $1 billion there from the electricity company, but you’ve got to sift through all the other crap that they’ve shoved into your box. Why would I do that? Cut it out so there’s no junk mail. The problem is you can’t stop people from sending you junk.
I always tell people that from a brain perspective, the one thing that should always help you, whether you’re having a fight with someone or you’re having difficulty at your job, is that your brain is not a trash can. Do not accept trash into your brain.
That’s how I look at social media. You’re effectively accepting trash into the can. One last question. You’ve suggested all the things that we should do. If we had to tell the audience one thing that they should stop immediately because it’s not giving them the benefits that they could be getting otherwise, what is something you would tell them to stop doing? You’re saying to focus on a point, learn to unfocused, unlock, etc. Is there anything that we do that you think is negatively affecting lifespan, mindset, etc.?
The Harm Of Negative Framing In Self-Talk
From a purely technical standpoint, the way you talk to yourself matters. If you tell yourself, “I must not spend money. I must not eat food,” there’s a thing called ironic process theory, which Daniel Wegner discovered. He found that under stress, when you tell your brain not to do something, it does the exact opposite. Rather than saying, “I must not spend money,” say, “I must save money.” Rather than saying, “I must not eat this unhealthy food,” say, “I must eat this healthy food.”
You’re saying negative framing is something that has a negative impact on your mind. That’s interesting. All in all, it sounds like the answer isn’t doing more. Maybe it’s thinking differently and less.
When you told me about the dolce far niente, I was thinking of my book Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. When the Italian publishers wrote to me, they were like, “We don’t want to offend you, but we think we have a catchier title that we’d like to translate into.” I said, “Sure. Tell me what it is.” They said, “It’s Il Potere del Cazzeggio.” Il Potere del Cazzeggio means the power of effing around.
That’s cool.
I was like, “That’s good.” They said, “We don’t mean any disrespect.” I said, “If you think it’ll sell books and people will want to read about this, let’s do it.”
I think that it is a very undervalued activity, speaking from experience. I close off every interview with five rapid questions. I’m going to ask you, and give me whatever comes to mind first. Who would you like to say sorry to, given the chance?
Probably my father, for not understanding until later in life that he gave me everything that he had.
What are you proud of being or doing in your life?
Loving. I have access to loving people in a way that I find very satisfying.
When did you receive kindness while needing it most and expecting it least?
The first thing that comes to my mind is at my mother’s funeral. I had not seen two of my cousins for the longest time. When I was there, and they knew how upset I was going to be as the proceedings went on, they both happened to be female cousins, but they came up to me and, without looking at me, tried to comfort me. They put their arms around me. Having that tenderness was something that made me understand that we grew up together, and that even though I hadn’t seen them for so long, they were there for me.
Speaking about your mother, what did your mother or father teach you that you frequently remind yourself of?
My mother was a big believer in a single god. When I went to school, I came back and said, “Mom, you told me I was Hindu, but how come we eat steak? How come we eat pork? My friend said, “You’re not Hindu. You’re a fake Hindu.’ Is that okay?” She said, “Do you like bacon?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Do you like steak?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “You think there’s a God up there saying, “You can eat bacon, but you can’t eat bacon. You can eat steak, but you can’t eat steak.” I said, “No, probably not.” She said, “I want you to realize that whatever people choose in their religions, value that and respect it, but don’t feel like you have to take direction from anyone else about what you choose in life.”
Finally, what is Dr. Pillay’s superpower?
Love.
A good one.
Love and having a lot of fun. I was in France not long ago. I was in my own hotel. There were all these things closed off because of the Cannes Film Festival. One evening, I went to the bar and started dancing by myself. Her manager came up to me, and she said, “Excuse me.” I said, “Yeah?” She said, “You can come back here anytime.”
Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. It was a fascinating discussion. I took a lot away from it. I appreciate the work you’re doing. Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Important Links
- Srini Pillay on LinkedIn
- Reulay
- Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind
- Ideal Self Guide
- Nas.io
About Dr. Srini Pillay
Dr. Srini Pillay is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author specializing in the intersection of brain science, wellbeing, leadership, and human potential. He graduated at the top of his medical school class in South Africa before completing his psychiatry residency at McLean Hospital through Harvard Medical School, where he became the most awarded resident in the institution’s history. He later directed anxiety and brain imaging research programs at McLean Hospital and spent 17 years conducting federally funded neuroscience research while serving as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Today, Srini is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of Reulay, an AI-driven digital therapeutics company, and Co-Founder of MindForm Sanctuaries, which integrates neuroscience-informed digital art into healing environments. He is the author of three books, including Tinker Dabble Doodle Try, and advises organizations, investors, and leaders on resilience, creativity, performance, and innovation. His work focuses on helping individuals and organizations thrive through evidence-based insights into the brain and human behavior.
