The Living Experiment: Rethink Your Choices. Reclaim Your Life.

This week we're talking about vulnerability – the experience of being susceptible to wounding, and the value of embracing that capacity as a strength rather than as a weakness. We talk about both the risks and rewards of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable – to injury, criticism, embarrassment, and more. We explore the potential of moving beyond a state of armored self-protection in the service of forging deeper, more satisfying connections with others, with ourselves, and with the experience of being alive. Finally, we offer some simple experiments to help you explore the potential gifts of vulnerability in your own world. "Vulnerability" Episode Highlights The difference between "elective" vulnerability (risking being hurt by people we know or whose approval we seek) and exposing ourselves to dangerous situations The physical manifestations of always being armored against vulnerability, as well as the stress state and health implications that result The deep human need to be accepted – how our fear of publ

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about one of Pilar's all-time favorite topics: Healthy Deviance. It's a favorite because it's the subject of the book she's writing, and also an idea at the core of the work she's been doing for the past 15 years or so — including this podcast! So, what does it mean to be a healthy person in an unhealthy culture? What's required of us, and what's available to us, when we choose to reject the norms of a society that's making a lot of us sick and unhappy a lot of the time? And how the heck can you even hope to do that when there seems to be so much working against you? These are questions that both of us are fascinated by, and that we each explore in our own work in different ways. So here, we journey together into The Way of the Healthy Deviant, and we offer you some fun opportunities to experiment with Healthy Deviance in your own life. "Healthy Deviance" Episode Highlights Pilar's personal health journey and how it led her to become a rebellious health exper

This week we're talking about fasting, the power of periodically foregoing food, and the significant health benefits that can proceed from doing it intelligently. Pilar shares what led her to embark on a seven day, medically-supervised water fast (yes, she consumed nothing but water for seven days, and lived to tell about it!). And Dallas shares what he knows about the increasingly popular intermittent fasting phenomenon. We talk about the potential pros and cons of fasting, and why it's not for everybody. We wind up with fasting experiments and suggestions you can try on your own, and offer up resources for further study. Finally, Pilar comes back to report on how her week-long fasting experiment went, and why, even though it wasn't all roses and rainbows, she's likely to do it again. "Fasting" Episode Highlights The history and ancient wisdom of fasting, and its potential dark side (e.g., eating disorders and orthorexia) The difference between fasting (long-term and intermittent) vs. restricted diets and d

This week we're talking about the fine art of being nourished. By that, we mean not just being adequately fed or fueled, but being amply supplied with all the subtle nutritive and sensory properties that our bodies and minds require for optimal function and satisfaction. We look at the epidemic of chronic undernourishment — driven both by under- and over-feeding — and we explore the strategies that most reliably lead to a happy nutritional balance. Finally, we suggest some experiments to help you fine-tune your self-nourishing strategies in ways that work for you. "Nourished" Episode Highlights The advantages of getting your nourishment from whole, unprocessed, nutrient-dense plants and animals vs. processed foods + nutritional supplements Moving beyond nutritional reductionism The common "overfed/undernourished" and "underfed/undernourished" phenomena associated with standard American diets Why "well-nourished and overfed" is not a common scenario (thanks to the leptin signaling and hunger/energy regulation

This week on The Living Experiment, in what Dallas calls our "most terrifying episode" to date, we're talking about the qualities of masculinity and femininity. What does it mean to be masculine or feminine, and how do these traits both limit and empower us? We wade into this delicate topic in an effort to explore the rich territory of gender-associated characteristics and the complex relationships between them. We share our own experiences with masculine/feminine dynamics and we offer you some trait-related experiments to help you explore them in your own life. "Masculine and Feminine" Episode Highlights The nature of feminine (yin) and masculine (yang) traits, and how we experience them in ourselves and others How entrenched chauvinism has caused us to undervalue the feminine, and contributed to patriarchal societal imbalances that don't really serve any of us The complex spectrum of masculinity and femininity, and how to best honor the full range of these traits in ourselves and each other Our culture's a

Busy is the new black — and none of us are wearing it well. We're all over-scheduled, under-rested, rushing and running on empty most of the time. It's costing us in ways most of us don't even recognize. So this week on The Living Experiment, we talk about the epic burdens of busyness, and how we can get out from under them. We offer suggestions for reclaiming your margins and for managing your energy (rather hyper-controlling every last minute of your time). And we suggest some experiments to help you restore spaciousness and sanity in your life. "Busy" Episode Highlights The cult of "busy" The nature of the stress that busyness produces — and why, on some level, we like it How work hours have increased over the past 50 years Why most of our "leisure" activities aren't really helping us relax Our culture's glorification of the busy lifestyle, and the consumer machine that has us in its grip Dealing with the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that arise when we aren't stimulated How to become comfortable wi

The start of a new year is a great time to re-evaluate and adjust the way you are spending your time and energy. So this week on The Living Experiment, we pull back the curtain on how we are doing that with one project in particular: the podcast itself. As a way of modeling a reflective and strategic process you can use in your own life, we discuss our original goals and intentions in doing the show, where we feel like we're on course, and where we feel we're losing steam or burning valuable time and energy (mostly with the copious amounts of behind-the-scenes work). We also invite input from you on our initial ideas for making pragmatic adjustments in ways that won't undermine the value of the podcast for us and our listeners. "What Now?" Episode Highlights Dallas and Pilar share what's going on in their lives, the big changes they made in 2016, and what they're re-assessing (3:10) Reflections on creating and producing a podcast (7:55) Positive feedback from listeners that confirms the podcast is achieving

For many of us, the New Year is a fresh start, an opportunity to get a new outlook on life. This week on The Living Experiment, we talk about the nature of the New Year experience, from the "New You!" media frenzy to the tradition of setting goals and resolutions, to the value of investigating the motivation behind those desires. We share our favorite approaches for pursuing change in our own lives, and explore expert theories about why your goals may be eluding you. "New Year" Episode Highlights The New Year holiday as the caboose on the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas marketing train (2:10) Arguments against January 1 as a hard date for making big changes (4:00) Pilar's Goal Flower model for setting and achieving goals (7:10) Accomplishing less instead of more (10:30) Why uncovering the belief systems that are holding you back may be more effective than simply addressing surface problems like excess weight, disorganization, and debt (12:15) Dallas's approach to goal setting (and the holidays) (13:30) Making reso

It's hard to know what to believe. Online, in print, via TV and radio broadcast, the health media delivers a lot of mixed messages and downright confusing data. And as corporate interests increasingly shape and influence content streams, the more challenging it becomes to discern fact from profit-driven fiction. This week on The Living Experiment, we explore some of the dynamics that undermine accurate health-media coverage, and offer suggestions on how to navigate this often disorienting territory. We also suggest some experiments to help you become a better informed and more empowered media consumer. "Health Media" Episode Highlights The barrage of confusing and conflicting headlines, especially about food and nutrition (4:20) The problem of health experts who resist admitting they got things wrong and refuse to update their conclusions (6:10) The corporate influences at work in scientific research and health media (8:05) How research published in respected medical journals is steered by funders with profi

Eating out offers many potential benefits – tasty food, fun with friends, and a break from cooking – but it can also lead to pitfalls for your well-being. This week on The Living Experiment we unpack the challenges of eating out, including the hidden world of food suppliers, cuisines built for profit rather than health, and misconceptions about gluten-free menus. We provide suggestions for taking command in making educated food choices – how to identify restaurants that value good food sourcing and think outside the box when ordering from a menu. To make eating out a life-giving experience, we offer experiments that encourage exploration and creativity in your dining adventures. "Eating Out" Episode Highlights Getting past "I can't eat anything" and "I must eat everything" mindsets, and making empowered food choices instead (3:30) Embracing dining as a pleasurable experience vs. an exercise in self-denial and "nutritionism" (6:30) Scoping out and supporting places that make healthy food from good sources (8:

This week on The Living Experiment, we're talking about "mansplaining" — that dynamic where men sometimes explain things to women in condescending, clueless, or less-than-respectful ways. Perhaps a man persists in explaining something that a woman already knows. Perhaps he talks over her attempts to express her own point of view. Or perhaps he holds forth in some way that generally does not honor his listener as an equal. Mansplaining has become a popular term and a hot topic over the past few years, and because it's such an common source of stress and strife in our world, we also see it as an important and under-recognized health issue. So in this episode, we talk about the origins of the word "mansplaining." We share our personal experiences with it and discuss how increasing our awareness of it can help men and women communicate in more constructive, mutually satisfying ways. Finally, we serve up some experiments to help you notice how mansplaining might be showing up in your life — and what you can do abo

We are big fans of coffee. We dig its flavor, its aroma, its health benefits, its feel-good buzz. We also know it's easy to overdo, particularly when we're rushed, stressed and depleted — which is precisely when all that caffeine is most apt to do us biochemical harm. In this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we look at both the upsides and downsides of coffee, explaining how it affects both your body and brain from the moment you take a sip. We suggest ways to fine tune your coffee selection and habits, and offer our thoughts on the pros and cons of the burgeoning “butter coffee” trend. Finally, we present some experiments to help you make more conscious coffee decisions in your own life. "Coffee" Episode Highlights How caffeine is metabolized by your body (and a tip for enhancing the duration of its effects) (5:05) Why coffee has the title of “single greatest source of antioxidants in the American diet” (7:55) Research that links coffee with reduced risk (or delayed onset) of Alzheimer’s disease and

Every season has its gifts, but we live in a culture that prefers to celebrate the bright, “go-go” energy of summer. Without the haven of a winter recovery cycle to replenish us, though, we get depleted, overstimulated, and overwhelmed. So in this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we talk about the important and under-appreciated aspects of the winter season. We explain how you can observe its traditions by strategically adjusting your mindset, sleep schedule, food, fitness activity, and more. Drawing on ancient wisdom and modern-day science, we suggest some experiments to help you make the most of winter in your own world.  “Winter” Episode Highlights An overview of where winter fits into Chinese Five-Element Theory – associating everything in nature and our lives with a season and element, each with its own implications (6:00) Fall associations: Metal (element), grief (emotion), and the experience of emptiness – a big, metal bowl with receptive space (7:00) Winter: Water (element); fear (emotion); t

Shame is universal. It touches every age, gender, and ethnicity — from a child who wets the bed to a presidential candidate who is caught off guard in a debate. Shame operates at your core, often playing out in a debilitating combination of aggression, withdrawal, and perfectionism. But how can you address shame if you have difficulty acknowledging or talking about it? In this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we discuss shame openly, flushing it out of hiding and into the light of day. We talk about where shame comes from, how men and women feel it differently, and how it impacts relationship dynamics. We also suggest steps to shift from shame toward self-acceptance and insight. "Shame" Episode Highlights The life-long and inescapable human condition of shame (3:25) Defining (and differentiating) shame and guilt (6:30) The three primary behavioral expressions of shame (7:25) Secondary and tertiary consequences, including communication problems (7:50) The subtle differences between imposing shame and

Sitting on our butts — it's something most of us do for hours on end. We sit at our desks and in meetings. We sit while parked in front of screens at home. We sit while eating, drinking and socializing. We sit while driving cars and riding in planes and trains and — well, pretty much everywhere, most of the time. Given how much of our lives we spend sitting, it’s worth knowing how it affects our bodily systems — not just our musculoskeletal health, but our metabolism, biochemistry, and more. One expert quoted in The Washington Post asserts that after 30 minutes of sitting, your metabolism can slow by as much 90 percent, and that after two hours, the good cholesterol in your blood stream can drop 20 percent. Yikes! So in this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we offer insights into the damage done by prolonged sitting, plus an explanation for why simply swapping sitting for standing isn’t an ideal solution, and some simple, doable ways to keep your body in motion at healthy intervals throughout the day.

We live in a culture that encourages us to consume far more than we create. That's a dynamic that directly undermines both our health and happiness. Learn why, and how you can achieve a more empowering balance. Creativity — whether preparing a delicious meal or exchanging witty banter with an old friend — can bring deep satisfaction. Consumption — whether enjoying a fine wine or a riveting Game of Thrones episode — can also be a delightful experience. But when creativity- and consumption-based pleasures get out of balance in our lives, our health and happiness start to suffer. Giving without receiving can be exhausting, while consuming without producing can feel aimless. In this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we explore the dynamic relationship between creativity and consumption, the historic events that have led to our modern-day imbalance, and some strategies for establishing a healthier equilibrium. "Creativity vs. Consumption" Episode Highlights Defining, in thought-provoking terms, the key con

From a health perspective, what comes out of your body is every bit as important as what goes in. So we think it's high time we gave poo the respect it deserves. Look, we know, it's an awkward topic. And that's why it's so rarely discussed among friends, lovers and family members, or even with health care professionals. The problem is, when we don't talk about it, we don't learn about it. And when we don't learn about something as important as healthy digestion and elimination, we get into serious trouble. That's why more than 60 million Americans suffer from constipation, and far many too many endure oppressive bowel related discomfort, toxicity and related inflammatory diseases. So in this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we have a frank conversation about feces, defining what’s “normal” — in frequency, form, and yes, even aroma. We also offer some helpful counsel on identifying and resolving common poo problems, and more. Even if you're a little grossed out, you're not going to want to miss this es

Can you ever have “enough” — money, time, energy, love? Do you trust that you will have enough in the future? Do you believe you are enough, right now, just as you are? Your answers to those questions can have a profound influence on your health and happiness. In this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we examine the opposing mentalities of scarcity and abundance. We explore how they affect our experiences in the present moment, and how they can impact our future. Research suggests that worrying about "not enough" — or even focusing on on imaginary "not enough" scenarios — can reduce both our available IQ and our ability to respond to real-life challenges. As Pilar says, “scarcity mentality tends to produce scarcity results.” That's why we're excited to offer up insights and experiments to help you evolve your mindset in more rewarding directions. “Enough” Episode Highlights The scarcity-fear connection, and its hidden costs (2:45) Why scarcity thinking is almost always about the future (3:30) Research

In this week’s episode of The Living Experiment, we dig into the fundamentals of Paleo and Primal eating approaches — their origins, similarities, and differences, plus practical steps for integrating them into the way you eat today. We also examine the modern nutritional reductionism that led us to think about food as merely a sum of its parts (macronutrients, calories, and so on) rather than considering the value and integrity of whole foods in their natural state. In addition to evaluating the differences between Paleo and Primal dietary strategies, we explore their key principles in the context of the larger ancestral nutrition movement — arguably the most significant dietary trend of the past two decades. Contrasting the hunter-gatherer diets our ancestors consumed for most of human history (2.6 million years) with the more processed and grain-heavy diets we've embraced over the past 10,000 years, we offer up insights about why some foods seem to reliably produce health and vitality, while others consist

Wrapping up our successful first season, we offer a big picture view of what we see as the top 10 fundamentals of healthy, happy living, and how they fit into five key domains of wellbeing. We point out some of the essential connections between all these considerations, and we explain why each of them matters — especially those elements commonly overlooked or underemphasized by the conventional media. If you’re looking for a quick tour of what healthy living looks and feels like, you’ve come to the right place. Episode Highlights: Pilar outlines five dimensions of health and healthy living (4:40) Dallas and Pilar share their top 10 biggies (fundamentals for being the most vital human you can be), in no particular order (7:40) #1: Whole food nutrition and hydration (8:00) #2: Rest and recovery (10:20) #3: Healthy movement (12:00) #4: Face-to-face intimate social connection (16:25) #5: Empowered role in directing and managing your own healthcare (19:35) #6: Minimal exposure to toxic chemicals, environments and