I Choose…From Big Bang To Breaking Down Science and Faith with Mayim Bialik
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You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone. Welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast, as we all know, is about the choices we make and where they lead us. This is a good day. My guest today has a long list of accolades to her name.

and is truly someone that has blazed her own non-traditional trail in Hollywood. She's an actor, a director, a writer, a

And impressively, a PhD holder. I mean, come on. Known for her roles in the 90s teen show Blossom and her long run on the Big Bang Theory that she received four Emmy nominations for. She is the host of her podcast, Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. Please welcome Mayim Bialik to the I Choose Me podcast. Hi. Hi.

Hi. So good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Okay. Tracking my brain. Yes. Where did we work together? Is this right? Hold on. Let me just, as if this might be completely wrong. So embarrassing. Did you walk the high wire?

No. In Circus of the Stars? I can already say no. I did the double cradle in Circus of the Stars. The double cradle is like a trapeze, but there's no trapeze bar. It's two people. I did that. It was like the year that Mario Lopez was on. That was me. I was on that year. You did, I think, regular trapeze. Yes. Yes.

I knew you did something that was nerve wracking. And now I know. I mean, I was, I don't even know, gosh, I don't even know if I was on Blossom yet. I think that was after Beaches. And then we were at a benefit together for an organization that is near and dear to your heart. So I remember that. And then I think we would like see each other randomly at certain things, but there's that sort of like,

you know, we're both young people on television nod. Right. Sure. Yeah. We go way back, but wait, how about, does this ring a bell?

Cupcake Wars? I think I did it. Were you there? We're the worst. Yes. This is the problem. My brain does not want to summon that. Come on. I got voted out first, so you can go ahead and summon it. Maybe that's why. I put it out of my mind. It was too painful, the thought of you being sent away. Oh, man. I think...

I think maybe Mel B was on our episode too. Oh, this was a long time ago and I feel like she was in like a fancy coat. That's just all the time for Mel. This was a very long time ago. I am racking our brains. Good job though. Yeah, yeah, you know. I have a feeling you may have had help from researchers. Maybe a little. Yeah.

Okay. Well, let me fill you in on a little data about yourself in case you've forgotten that too. You grew up in front of the camera. You started acting when you were like 11, right? And by the time you were a teenager, you had your own primetime show. Yeah. I was 14 when Blossom started. That's young. We both know it can be so hard to navigate. Yeah.

figuring out who we are at a young age, add, you know, entertainment industry into that. Yep. With somebody always telling us where to go, what to do. Yeah. Like everything. I mean, look, I mean, I think yes. And I remember, you know, still feeling a lot like a kid when I was on Blossom, meaning for those first years, you know, the, the pressures are,

then were different than they are now, first of all, meaning as much as all of what you said is true, we also weren't expected to sort of look like adults at 15. We weren't expected to have like the manicures, the filler. We didn't have publicists. We didn't have social media. We weren't, you know, it was a different kind of presentation. And also I will say that

you know, I mean, I watched you like that was my favorite show when I was on Blossom was your show. And so I also remember like, gosh, that's a show with a whole different kind of pressure for the performers because it was a show about like beautiful people. It was like a soap opera level in terms of like intensity and relationships. Whereas like I was on a four camera, you know,

family kind of show. So it was a different kind of pressure, but I looked up to you and Shannon and Tori. Like, these are like the grownup girls, you know, I was like, still like, I still felt like a kid in a lot of ways. I wasn't doing, you know, kind of a high school drama. It was very different.

I mean, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, it was different. But what age do you feel like you really came into your own skin? Still waiting. Me too. For me, it was like my late 30s. I started to like...

really get a grasp on who I was. I'm trying to think, I mean, I'm, I'm 49 now and still in some ways feel 14, you know, still would like to eat chocolate first thing in the morning. Like if there's no grownups around, I still want to live like that. Um, you know, I had my first child at 29 and then I had my second at, you know, 32, 33, somewhere in there. Um, and

So, you know, my thirties felt like a different kind of, kind of stressful, you know, it felt like, okay, this is everything you're told is going to make life amazing. Like be a mom, like, it's going to be amazing. Like get married and you'll be married forever. And then your kids will be like so much fun. And meanwhile, like they're much more cognitive far earlier than I expected. Yeah.

a lot of effort, you know? They are their own people. I don't know how that happens. Correct. And like, they have a sense of humor, but a sense of agency. That was kind of surprising. So, yeah, I don't know. I, I really feel like, like,

like if you had to ask me, I don't know that I feel like I've sort of become comfortable. And I'm an early to menopause member of the party, you know, like that's just- Ooh, lucky you. You know, well, I guess. But I also was then raised on this next level myth that we're told in our 30s and 40s, like you're going to have the best

sex of your life in your forties and you're going to finally feel like you're wise. And I'm like, no, I just still feel kind of strange. And it's a different kind of hormonal because now they're like, oh, guess what? Menopause is forever. And sometimes you'll get a period after not having one. That's just weird. So all the hits, the hits keep on coming for us no matter what age. The hits keep coming. Yeah. It's true. It's true. We talk a lot about this on the podcast that life is

So interesting how like simple decisions or even what we may feel like are meaningless choices, how they can lead us to spectacular things that end up changing our lives. Do you believe in fate or destiny or do you think things just sort of happen by chance? Oh, gosh. You know, I don't.

you know, I think of those things like the way you like study them in school, right? Like, oh, there was a group of people who believe that God had ordained everything and that nothing you did mattered. So I'm definitely not in that camp. And I also am not in the other camp of like, everything just happens and blah, blah, blah. I do think that there's, you know, some sort of

I guess, path or intention that every life has. But I also do believe in free will. You know, I believe in all of the choices that we make are still ours to make. And I think that the mystical, spiritual part of me believes that whatever happens is what was supposed to happen, even if it's sad, painful, you

you know, devastating, astonishing. And to me, what that means is how do I receive that with some sort of grace and dignity and not, you know, kind of lose whatever center I'm trying to hold on to every time something doesn't go my way. That makes sense. I, I've always been sort of faithless in a weird way.

How's that working for you? Well, it wasn't working for me at all. I mean, there were times in my life where I'm like, I'm an agnostic. I don't know. You know, I just don't know. And I'm a visual, like I need to see things to believe them and learn them. And so for me, it was a very, like I couldn't come to terms with just blindly having faith in something. I mean, how do you feel about that? You know, I was raised in a

you know, I was raised in a particular tradition that taught me that if something is divine, it's so enormous that you can't even understand it. And I'm grateful for that because I was sort of spoon fed this notion of faith that goes hand in hand with an inability to comprehend it. And so that goes along with like the rules that I want to use to observe it. They don't apply. Yeah.

And that's not just a cheap way out. I promise. I'm not just like, God is, God is. And if you don't feel it, like sex for you. But as a scientist, you know, I studied science. It's what I lived for, you know, decades of my life. And once, once you're trained as a scientist, that's sort of how my framework is. You know, my kids say I'm cheating when I say that I'm a person of faith.

Because I don't have like the old man in the sky. I don't have that like, just trust in God and pray to God for the best parking spot. That's not the kind of relationship I have with something divine. But if you believe that the sun will come up tomorrow, then you and I have the exact same faith. Like that's it. It's that simple for me. I don't have to understand gravity for it to keep me on the planet.

I don't have to believe that thing. You know, if I hold a ball from the top of a building and I drop it, I know like that ball's going to fall. Now, are there places in the universe and the galaxy where that's not true? I'm certain of that. And I believe that we'll either grasp those equations or we won't. But for me, my faith that the sun will come up tomorrow is that's divine to me. That's true.

you know, the ocean, I can't look at that and not feel completely floored, completely floored by the impossibility of how things work. And I don't control them. And, you know, that's also the thing is like, you know, having for me, having belief is saying, I don't have to fix everything. I'm not that powerful, you know, even over people, places and things that I'd like to believe that I'm powerful over. I'm really not that powerful. No, none of us are.

We like to think we are. I mean, some of us do. Yeah, for sure. Well, people make a career of it. Yeah. Your podcast, My Ambionics Breakdown. Really good title. Appropriate. Yeah. Breaking down all the time. It's about, it's all about mental health, which I love.

Yeah, it's fascinating to me and it always has been. And I always thought if I wasn't an actress, I would have definitely gone that route in college. I recently had Oliver Hudson on the podcast and we talked about the fact that all my life I've been told I'm too emotional or been called out for being emotional.

It's always been such a negative thing for me. Like I've always, it doesn't ever feel good. And it wasn't until, you know, my late thirties that I found my voice and I started correcting people and saying, you know what? I'm not emotional. I'm emotion full. If you've got a problem with that, then-

You can go on. But for me, I just was like, I got to take that because I believe that it's a, it's a superpower of mine. Well, and I think, yeah, it's definitely something that comes up a lot on our podcast. This sort of like, again, I think, you know, I have a 19 and a 16 year old and they've been raised in a completely different culture where they don't have the same fears of being, let's say too sensitive. I mean, of course it's an awareness they have, but yeah,

you know, when I was sort of growing up, there was kind of like one way to be, there was one way to learn things. And if you couldn't learn it that way, you must be dumb. And there was one way to react to things. And if you didn't react that way, you were hypersensitive. Right. And now we have this like much broader understanding of, Oh, there's all different kinds of people. And if you like rewind the tape of the human experience, 5,000 years, 10,000 years, a hundred thousand years, you know,

There were all different kinds of people, even back then, who served all sorts of different purposes. So you may have been a seer, right? You may have been a shaman. You may have been someone who in other cultures could perceive things that other people couldn't. The difference is we think that

Western modern culture is superior to all culture that has ever existed. And in many ways, there's so many incredible things. And look, we make computers and I can talk to you on this like box, right? But when it comes down to sort of like what the human experience is, we're about interacting with other humans, cooperating with other humans, in some cases, struggling with other humans, right?

But what are the skills needed for that, for like a dynamic human interaction? It's lost when we're emphasizing money, property, you know, fame, like those things get lost. Yeah. Where would you say on the spectrum of emotions you fall? Like, are you like, are you emotion full? Are you non-emotion? Oh, I'm very emotion full. I'm, um,

I mean, I, I, I always cried. Like when I would see homeless people on the street, this was like a thing, like just like a place in me. Couldn't stand that even as a kid. Um, and you know, a lot of women also, when you have a hormonal shift, they'll be like, Oh, I cry at everything. It's not that for me. It's that I really feel deeply kind of tapped in all the time. Um,

you know, I've been accused by more than one ex-boyfriend of knowing what they were feeling before they knew. Well, because you probably did, but it's like, but part of it is it's like that emotional, you know, I have a very fine tuner that I use, you know, for other people's emotions as well. And I,

I do. I, um, I feel very deeply. I, I love passionately. I fight passionately. So yeah, there's a lot of that, um, in there. And I think I do have a rational part of me. I have a science part of me. Um, I have a very binary kind of part of me, which, you know, I sort of need to temper, you know, you have to kind of temper both, right. We're given two sides of the brain for everything.

We need to find a happy medium. That's right. Wait, go back to the boyfriends accusing you of knowing how they felt before you felt it. I'm interested. Okay. So was that said in like a negative connotation? Yeah. It was like, get out of my head. And I'd be like, I'm sensing that. Right. And I wasn't trying to like start something, but sometimes it would feel very clear to me like,

like, oh, this is triggering a thing about like his mother. And I can feel that he thinks that, you know, I'm reenacting and I'm probably thinking too much in other people's heads, but yeah, it would often lead to like, I don't know if that's what I'm, stop, you know? Yeah. I can see how that would get a little weird and I'm sure I've done it because yeah. Yeah. And I also don't think it makes me like intuitive, you know, like I don't,

I sometimes have intuitive, I've had very few sort of like distinctive intuitive moments. I don't think about being intuitive, but maybe there's something about perceiving other people's emotions that, that maybe some of us are more fine tuned to, like, I can tell by your eyebrow, you know, like if I'm talking to someone, I can tell by that left eyebrow that you are pretending you're okay with what I said, but I'm going to hear about it in four days. Well,

What about projecting your feelings onto others? It's my favorite game. You love that? So fun. You know, I think that's interesting. I've been in therapy all my life, pretty much. I've been in therapy since I'm a teenager. And so this one, I think I'm aware when other people do that to me.

And I've been accused of projecting, but then I'm almost always told that, no, just kidding. You were right. See, I mean, you are intuitive. Amanda's going to call it what it is.

Okay. Not projecting. How about absorbing or taking on other people's feelings like an empath? Yeah. So this is something I didn't learn about until much later in life. My younger son, who's now 16, I don't think he'll be listening to this, but I try and, you know, be respectful of his existence and his privacy, but he would often feel what other people were feeling and, and,

When he was quite little, the story I like to tell, I worked with Leslie Jordan and I was working with him when he passed away. He was on his way to work that day. And there was a memorial that was held and my kids were in their earlier teens. And when I said to my younger son, was that sad? Did it feel sad? He said, no, but I felt everyone else's sad. And I don't even know that he understood what he was saying. I definitely can pick up

on other people's positive or negative emotions. And, you know, it often happens for children who grow up in homes with fighting or contentiousness that we learn very well how to regulate.

you know, like which emotional side do I need to be on? So I think that's actually probably where it came from, but I'd like to think that it can be also some sort of superpower into, you know, being empathic. I,

I'm an introvert and I wonder if the reason is because I am picking up on other people's energy and it feels too much. And then I have, you know, people in my life like Jonathan, who I do the podcast with. And Jonathan is very clear that like he feels that other people's feelings can get on him.

And bring him down. Like that's a whole. Yeah. Like it feels, it feels like a weight. Like it feels like he, that I don't, I don't, I'm not in touch with that. If that's happening for me. That's a lot. Yeah. Apparently people walk around like this and there are those people who are like, I'm sensitive to EMFs. And I'm like, really? But then it seems like maybe they are. There are people who have a lot of sensitivity to other people's emotions and, and,

you know, who am I to say that like, we're all energetic bodies, that's science, right? Who am I to say that some people are not more fine-tuned? If you've interacted with anyone on the spectrum who has a different way of interacting, they often can sense things that other people don't. So I don't know why that would only be saved, you know, for that portion of the population. We're a whole spectrum of kinds of people and sensitivity. That's so true. Yeah.

Talking about science, outside of being an accomplished actor, director, writer, podcast host, mom, you've got a little thing called a PhD in neuroscience, which when I learned that, I was like, what? Yes.

So I want to come to you for some science-backed info here. Okay? Okay. Yeah. Get ready. Let's say someone's going through like a breakup or like, you know, a divorce and they're going through that, you know, emotional trauma that is associated with that. We've all been there. People can feel as if their nervous systems are just like out of control. Like they can't get control of their nervous systems. Why is that? Mm-hmm.

Um, so, you know, we are wired for survival is sort of the simplest explanation. We're wired for survival and the, the nervous system, not just in humans. I mean, in mammals in particular, you're going to see, you know, similar things, but, um, you know, in, in most animals that you can think of,

there's a response that is, you know, we call it redundant, meaning the brain and the nervous system, they don't have a different reaction for this is a minor love affair that didn't work out, or this is a 30 year marriage, or this is, I just watched, you know, my baby get eaten by a hyena, right? The nervous system kind of conserves, you know, conserves a set of reactions and,

And so heartbreak, you know, in particular, it's going to feel like loss and grief. And our nervous system is going to go through the same dance that it does for other kinds of loss and grief. It's the cognitive part of us. It's the left hemisphere part of us that allows us to say, okay,

everything happens for a reason. God's in charge. It wasn't a healthy relationship anyway. Right. But the fact is the, the other, like the right side of the brain, that feeling part has to feel those feelings. And that's all regulated by a nervous system that is primed, you know, to help us experience those emotions. You know, when, when my father died, my dad died 10 years ago,

You know, many people instantly said, are you going to go on medication?

And that is the way the Western world often treats, for example, grief, right? Let's not experience it. And it is not for me to say you shouldn't go on medication if someone dies. Like that's not what I'm here to say. But what I'm here to say is for me, my understanding was grief is a process that my body and my nervous system are going to go through so that I can move to the other side of this event, right?

Right. And when people talk about their nervous systems, not kind of regulating, that's also evidence of what we know is true, which is that grief, it compounds, trauma compounds, loss compounds. So one loss will trigger the

the emotional memory, sometimes the literal memory of other losses, right? So if I still feel grief, let's say about my divorce, which was, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago, chances are it's tapping into some other loss, right? So all of this kind of compounds and it's just sort of the way that

were wired. Now, other animals besides humans have ways that they shake it off. Shaking is one of them, which is why a lot of people for vagus nerve, vagus, like nerve tonic, like I'll say, you have to like shake it. Animals do have an ability to regulate in ways that humans, you know, kind of have adapted out of. Um, and, um,

Again, we also have this sort of cognitive part that allows us to sort of be actively processing our traumas as they're happening in a way that's different from other animals. Do you have any tips on how to regulate your nervous system? I'm asking for a friend.

Yeah. You know, I've been exploring the vagal toning, which is, you know, it's coming up on my Instagram now. I think that's how much it hears me talking about it. If you think about it, it'll come up on your feed. Right. Exactly. So the vagus nerve is a cranial nerve. It's the 10th cranial nerve. And

it regulates many aspects of your physiology because I think it's also important when you talk about like your nervous system feeling dysregulated, we're not just talking about like, I'm upset, right? We're talking about a physiological set of things that happen. Yes. Like shaky, hard constriction. Correct. So the, the vagus nerve, the ways that

you know, we can kind of calm down are with, you know, even learning diaphragmatic breathing. Most people breathe from their shoulders, like, right. But learning to breathe so that basically your chest and shoulders do not move at all breathing into your belly, as if you're filling up your lower belly with a baby or a basketball, that kind of breathing stimulates the vagus nerve for trying to literally calm you down. A lot of people also will, will

will do busying activities when they're not feeling well because they think that it will distract them from what's happening. Sometimes you need to lean in to your nervous system being dysregulated. It often means you need to cry

or you need to move your body. That's why there are yogic practices for thousands of years that have put you in uncomfortable situations where you have to sit so that you can literally have release. To me, when the nervous system is shaking like that, it's because you're trying to hold it all together. And sometimes we need to fall apart so that we can be put back together. Oh, I love that. Yeah.

That's so true. You have to feel your feelings. You have to sit in them. Correct. And I think a lot of people feel like, oh, that's new age, you know, mumbo jumbo. That's, you know, just lip service. But when we say feel your feelings, it means when you're happy, are you present? When you're happy, do you have an idea of what that feels like to feel joy? When you see the person you love across the room and you get that elevator drop feeling in your body, those are positive chemicals, right? And when you're sad, you're

Can you do more than just say like, I'm sad or that really sucks. Can you stop and say, what does it feel like in my body? What does it remind me of? Where is it in my body? Does it need to move? Do I need to stretch? Like, do I need to take a walk? Do I need to stop interacting with my kids for five minutes? Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's so important to ask your body what it needs and to listen. Correct. It's really hard to do though. For some people. It's very hard to do and it's free.

No one's trying to sell you a pill. You don't have to deal with side effects, right? It is completely free to learn to breathe. It's something that is every human's birthright. It's not just for rich ladies in Los Angeles, right? Yeah, deep breathing. Deep breathing, learning to breathe, learning what it means to localize feelings in your body. Some school systems are starting to teach this to kids.

This is not going to make, it's not going to make weak children. I promise it's going to make strong children who can know what's happening in their body so that they can also hopefully deal with challenges with more resilience. Absolutely. It's so important why they didn't ever teach me that in school or even as a young adult, those conversations were never being had. Right. As a mom, I feel so fortunate to have kids.

so much more information than my mom did or my teachers did as far as like mental health and how to take care of yourself on those kinds of levels. Because that's a lot more important to me than algebra or, you know, all the things that I didn't do great in school. Well, I'm a fan of algebra for different reasons, but you're right. This was the part, you know, this was the part, we didn't have this vocabulary. And of course we were told like,

you know, it's silly that boys can't cry, but we didn't have a whole language around why we've created a culture where vulnerability is denigrated. You know, like we didn't have those words. Like we knew it was weird to be sexualized as young girls, but we didn't have the vocabulary to be like, you can't treat me like that. And I'm uncomfortable with this conversation. I'd like you to leave my dressing room. No one told us those things. Oh my God. Can you imagine that?

Where we would be if we had those words to use then. I mean, we would have been fired because nobody was ready for that. But now seeing my daughters have those systems in place and the ability and even though

People still don't want to hear it. Yeah. Sometimes it's so important that we know we have that at any moment in our toolbox. I mean, one of the things that I love about interacting with, in particular, young women in our industry is they have such a sense of strength. They feel so entitled to be respected. And I love it because you can't imagine that, like, I knew that I wanted that, but

Never in a million years did I think that I'd see a 20 year old woman say to a 45 year old man, I don't like the way you're speaking to me. I'm going to ask you to stop or I'm going to have to leave this conversation. Like, wow, that's right. That would have been like, oh, God, everybody's going to think I'm such a bitch. I can't say that. Right. Right.

And yeah, and anybody around me specifically, my co-star Shannon was very outspoken and she had those tools at a young age. And I always admired that so much about her. Yeah. But she was ahead of her time though. Yes. And I learned from her at an early age that I could do that too. So she was always like my hero in that respect. Yeah. And I hope to be able to serve as that for my daughters now. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.

You talked about this before. You and I are both in a club that nobody wants to be a part of. We both lost our fathers. Grief is such an ongoing process and it changes and it evolves over time, but it never leaves us. No. And I think you talked about before when you experience new grief, it just seems to tap right back into that same dark, deep well. Yeah. The first time we experienced grief.

Yeah. Significant grief. I mean, look, I see a lot of alternative healers who, you know, believe that our grief goes way back and the

the grief that we're aware of is just building on all the grief that we're not consciously aware of. Right. And this can get like very, you know, explain that to me more. So I see a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and, you know, they call the umbilical cord, like the first trauma, they call it the first wound. Yes. Because you are, it's when you're taken right from everything that's like safe. And it's, well, I mean, look, it has to happen. I get it. I guess. But, but the notion of like,

you know, we do, we hold a lot of stress and anxiety in that region, right? If you have a nervous stomach, right? That's your proof that the mind and body are connected. If you're the person who's like, oh, I need to go to the bathroom before this date, this interview, that's your gut.

it's your gut telling you something. Right. And the notion is not to make us feel like we're these, you know, delicate, like, Oh, I'm just a bottle of trauma. But the notion of acknowledging like my body holds memory, my body's keeping the score of kind of everything that has happened. So when we have a parent die, right. Or when we have any significant loss like that, yeah, it's tapping into a chemistry that's already kind of primed.

primed for that. And I remember that, and I did a lot of writing. I was writing for Kveller and then I have Kveller.com and then I have my own website. And I did a lot of writing in the first year of grief. Even joy made me feel grief. And I thought, well, what are these wires that are crossing? Good things are happening. And it's like grief won't even let me add it. You know? It's a very, very humbling experience.

to walk through, literally through grief that way. But I think the biggest thing that shocked me was before my dad died, I always thought that a parent dying was a thing. It was an event. Like my dad died on this day. And exactly what you said, it's a process. And you get through it, you move through that, and it continues to change. But it is all

always there. It's always there. You are now a person who's living without your parent. You're functioning in a world and they're not on this physical plane with you anymore. My dad died 10 years ago. I still be like, Oh, I got to see if he's watching the Knicks game. Like, Oh my God, he's not going to believe this trade. Like that's my brain kind of still goes there. And the idea is not that I'm sitting in that same kind of grief, a hundred percent. I'm not, but I'm

there are still things that happen that will tap into all of it. And that's the brain just doing what it does. I think, especially when we love someone so deeply and completely, you know, I was very close with my dad. I just, I'm not, I can't really get into it right now, but I just had a member of my family pass away. Sorry. And, and,

It goes right back to that same feeling. And it's like, this was a dog that I'm referring to. And the connection that I have with that dog feels like the same kind of grief in my body as when my dad passed away. And I don't know that people really believe that, understand that, but it's true for me. It's true for me.

And I think that's also something that's important is like, that gets to be your experience. Right. Other people don't get to, right. And that's the other thing that I've sort of learned, especially from doing my podcast, you never know.

You never know what people are going through. You never know if their dog dying was because they had unresolved issues, right? Or God forbid, they had a contentious relationship with someone that they lost and it's bringing up all those things. I don't know, you know? And that's why like, I really do. I try to come from a place of like,

like compassion and holding space for whatever anybody else is dealing with, you know, seeing that t-shirt, like you never know what someone else is going through. What if we all operated like that? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I do that a lot. I drive around or I, I'll look out the airplane window or whatever and see all the people and all the houses and think like,

what is going on in there? Like, I want to know what they're going through. Everybody's got a story. Pretty much. It's all going to connect and relate back to the same thing. And we're all feeling it in just different situations, different ways. Yep.

Let me ask you about this. We are viewing and absorbing information in such a different way than we have ever before. It's coming at us so fast and so hard and so short, such short lengths. What impact do you think that is having on our nervous system and on our mental health?

I can speak to this as a scientist and I can speak to it. Please do. It's so hot when you talk like a scientist. I appreciate that. No, but it's also just I can speak to it as a human. And I don't mean to sound like this lady, but yeah, we're not primed for short bits of information that are trying to communicate things that are incredibly complicated. And that's one of the reasons I do not get news from social media.

It's one of the reasons I don't have debates with people about deep philosophical issues. Our brains are not wired to understand nuance in a 10-second clip. We are meant for...

compassion for exchange of information. You know, a lot of people like to point out like, oh, our brains are adapting. They're changing. They're really not changing. We are the same brains that we were 10,000 years ago, 100,000. Like it's the same brain as if we're in a state of nature, hunting and gathering. Everything has happened very, very quickly, but the brain does not change in one generation. I promise. So my wires aren't fried from all the...

No, I mean, we're living in a constant state of overstimulation. We're living in a state of neurochemical overstimulation, tactile overstimulation, visual overstimulation. All those things are true, but...

we can still return. And that's what vagal toning exercises are for. That's what nature is for. That's what having a spiritual practice is for. It's reminding you of that quiet place that has always existed in the human brain, in the mammalian brain. We are primed for

with other creatures, we're not supposed to be attached to something that we're staring down at all day. So when people say like, oh, the only way I can go out to dinner with a child is to put them in front of a tablet.

A, that's not true. And B, that's a choice that you make. Correct, correct. So, and I feel that way about kind of a lot of these things. Like how am I gonna make rules about this with my kids? Cause you know, that's a huge challenge. Jonathan Haidt talks about this in Anxious Generation. He talks about the changes in the brain and our culture and ways that we can kind of turn it around. But, you know, to speak to some of the science of it,

The rise in autoimmune diagnoses, the rise in people struggling with attention, the rise in a need for a categorization of what many can see shifts in when they change their screen time, dare I say, when they make even small changes to their diet. A lot of the things that we have been told are good for us are in many cases not good for us.

And you should be very skeptical of companies that give you toys with your food, right? It's trying to get you to buy more of something. Oh, but that's the best when the cereal member, when we had the cereal and we got the little toys. That's right. We got the little toys. The Cracker Jacks.

But, you know, we do. We live in a country that is, and, you know, Johan Hari talks about this. His book on Ozempic talks about this in tremendous, beautiful detail in a compassionate and loving way. You know, we've been taught to eat a certain way and to behave a certain way that clearly is not agreeing with us.

our cardiovascular health, our mental health. There's many indications, you know, when people are like, but I turned out okay. Look at the health of our country, not just the physical health. Look at the mental health of our country. Look at what we're living in. Did we really turn out okay? Yeah.

Are we supposed to be able to answer that question? I mean, you know, and I also, I'm not a, I'm not a doomsday person. I believe there's a lot of good. I think there's a lot of, I am a very hopeful person. That's great. But when it, but when it comes to certain things, like again, the way the brain and nervous system were taught to adapt, the way the body is taught to process food and information. Yeah. We're not really living in, in, in concordance with that.

We're in many cases overstimulating it and allowing ourselves kind of to be lied to about what's good for us, right? Like I know what feels good in my body. I do. I promise. You're a vegan. I am. I happen to be. I'm a vegan as well. Ooh, yay. It's something people don't really understand. Yeah. It's a hot topic.

Yeah, it's, I mean, look, I'm sure, I don't know how long you've been vegan, but when I started being a vegetarian when I was 19 and I transitioned to veganism about 10 years later, you know, even being a vegetarian, my own parents were like, you're what?

No, we eat everything on our plate. What? Like we didn't survive Eastern Europe for you to not eat certain things on your plate. The fact that the conversation is so much broader, so much bigger, the fact that, you know, vegetarians or vegans don't have to just eat pasta and French fries and iceberg lettuce, which is pretty much what many of us ate.

That's incredible. And also I left home, you know, when I, when I went to college was when I became a vegetarian. It just, it really wasn't an option. My parents were not mean people. My parents were, you know, my mom was a very healthy eater. Like we weren't allowed sugar cereal and like snack before dinner was like a raw carrot. Like,

like take a carrot from the fridge. Like we weren't, you know, didn't eat fast food, you know, but still there was the standard American diet that, you know, many of us were sort of taught to live by. And so, yeah, it was when I was 19 and I moved out and I started going to college. It was after Blossom ended that I became a vegetarian, but there's so many more choices, so much information now. And also, as you know, an entire industry built around

making vegans eat things that in many cases are not very healthy and you might as well kind of eat the package. And I used to sort of turn my nose up at people, you know, who would say that, but now we see like, now we're kind of getting it like, Oh, like I don't allow palm oil in my house anymore in products. You know, a lot of those like fun soy products, they're filled with things that I just can know. I just don't want to do it anymore. And my kids kind of like stomped their foot at me and like, we want the fun cream cheese, you know? Yeah.

Oh, that's so hard to give up like the delicacies of veganism, the cream cheeses and the chicken, you know, chicken skewers. There's alternatives. There's a lot of fun, like the dairy alternatives I think have really...

They've really turned a corner, you know, people are culturing, but it's very expensive and I, you know, feel badly that it has to be. But, you know, there's, there's definitely been improvements there, but yeah, mostly God bless all the processed meats. Like if it's highly processed, whether it's vegan, vegetarian or not, don't eat highly processed things. If you can avoid it on any given day, like it's going to happen at some point. It needs to be short. Yeah.

Correct. Rule of thumb. Just like as big as your thumb. That's a good idea. Okay. Wait, this is a big question. Do you believe in afterlife or what do you think happens when we die? This is a big question. You know, we've done a couple episodes on our podcast where people have reported things that I can't explain or understand. Near-death experiences in particular are very, you know, very well documented in the scientific literature, you know, kind of example and,

For me, my religious tradition, I'm Jewish, and we're taught that there's a lot of rules about how to live with much less of an emphasis on what happens when you die.

And, um, that means a lot of rules, a lot of restrictions, a lot of regulations, rules about what to eat and how to dress and how to talk. And, you know, that can be overwhelming. But for me, you know, um, I'd like to believe that there is a place where there is no suffering.

you know, where there's no emotional suffering and there's no physical suffering. I don't really have a concept of, of heaven and hell per se. I think it's sort of an extension of, you know, consciousness that sort of exists. And again, it's not something you can grasp because it's part of, you know, something divine. So I don't spend a lot of time sort of worrying about it. But yeah,

you know, I really, I love stories when people say like, Oh, like your loved ones are all around you. And when I, I love to watch mediums work because like, I don't know what's going on there, but yeah, I'd love to believe that. I just, I think that there's a oneness, you know, there's a oneness that we will get to experience. And that's sort of, I guess, where I frame my concept of an afterlife, that there's some sense of oneness, unity, and,

um, that leaves behind all of the, the fights of this world, which in many cases, I hope one day we'll feel petty, you know, which religion is right. You know, are men better than women? Are women better? Like all these kinds of things, you know, like cats versus dogs. It's like, I don't know. It's, it taps back into that feeling of the faith thing for me. And if I can't see it

How do I know it? Yeah. And then at some point in my life, I just had to decide to have faith in it. Like you said, that there is a oneness. And I really do feel the presence of

angels, spirits, I call them energies. And I, I pray to them and I talk to them and I send them, I send them places. I send them to protect people I love. Like I feel so supported. Whereas before I never did. And I feel like I, I'm not quite there yet. Um, with having that feeling of like

peace with what happens when people die. Yeah. Cause I, cause I just don't know, but I, I, I'm just going to go with the feelings because I have nothing else to. Yeah. And I think a lot of people I've heard say like, my life is better when I believe. Yeah.

Yeah. Meaning you get to lean into spirits, guides, angels. You get to lean into a lot of possibility and feeling protected even when you're scared. And if you choose not to believe, which is fine, it may just be what some people works for them. But yeah, am I living a life of sort of like faith or a fear? And for me without faith, I go right into fear.

Yeah, me too. And that's not a fun place to be. No. It's a big, it's a big topic. Um, it's exciting. You're turning 50. When is this happening? December. December what? I'm 12, 12. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. Easy to remember. Wow. How are you feeling about this, this, this next chapter? Like, what do you want this next chapter to be filled with for you? Yeah.

Or do you not know? I don't know. I mean, I think I don't love aging. I really don't. I'm not a fan. Yeah, not a fan. And some people do it gracefully. And like, I don't know what that's like. But every time my prescription changes, every time I'm like, I really think I can't hear like I used to. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Why am I here when you let, hold on when you go into like a restaurant and there's noise, people talking, talking, talking all around. And then there's someone right in front of you. Yep.

I cannot hear the person. Yeah. So that's your brain not being able to filter the way it did when it was young. When our brains are young, they're filtering all sorts of things. And like, I can hang on to this and I can listen to that. People with ADD experience an inability to filter that has nothing to do with age. Right. But for those of us at a certain age, that's exactly what it is. Your brain is like, everything is so important all the time. Wait, so it's not my hearing.

Well, your hearing is your brain. I mean, it's all connected in there. Sorry. Yeah. Gosh. So yeah, every time that happens, it feels like there's a level of like, why, what? And I'm told that that's creating more strife, you know, than it needs to. And I should be in acceptance. We had Justine Bateman on our podcast and, you know, she literally, I mean, she's amazing, but she literally like wants me to embrace every wrinkle. And I'm like, I don't think I want to, I haven't had work done, just being honest.

I don't want to embrace the rink. I don't like it. Like, what is my neck? What's happening? You know, I'm like examining every single part. So what I'm, you know, I'm hoping that maybe there'll be some like magic moment of like, you're fine. Like you're okay. This is what you're, I don't know if it's going to happen, but I can be hopeful. It's going to happen. That is what the fifties it's magic. Like there's,

And but but at the same time, you still do look at that crepey skin on your lower legs and be like, yeah, why is my skin so dry? Yep.

Those all, all those things can happen at once. My inner thighs are convinced they need to be on the floor. Like no matter, no matter if I lose weight, like if I'm thinner, like the thighs don't care. It's like not about a number on the scale for the thighs. They're just like, we live, we want to be on the ground and we're going to keep showing you that we want to be. And I'm like, I'm going to live in tights forever. I'm just going to wear tights forever. I'm wearing tights right now under my pants. It's so true though. We're supposed to embrace it and

Age gracefully. But it takes time to get there. I'm not there yet. I'm 52. But it does gradually, you do gradually reach the point where you're like,

This is me. This is it. I'm not going to be something that I'm thinking I'm supposed to be or people are thinking I'm supposed to be. Then I just live in my bathrobe all the time. Oh, the bathrobe's the best. I think we are connected, soul connected. We have a lot of the same likes and dislikes. Yes.

Oh, I just love our chat. I really have enjoyed spending time with you and getting to know you better, not just on Cupcake Wars. We needed an update to our connection. So this is it. I'll remember this one. Yeah, I hope I will too. Wait, before I let you go, Mayim Bialik, what was your last I Choose Me moment?

Wow. What was my last I choose me moment? You know, I was supposed to go to a screening Friday night to support a friend of mine. And I really wasn't feeling well. I was listening to my body.

And it was so hard because everything in me was like, go, you'll be fine. It's okay. Blah, blah, blah. Like all the things like, what will they think of me? What will I this? And I built it up so much. And I finally said to this friend,

I was honest. I said, I'm not feeling well and I'm very sorry. I'm not going to be able to come. And his response was like, I know how much you love and support me. It's totally fine. What I'm most excited about is that you're taking care of yourself. Oh,

And it doesn't always work like that. A lot of times you'll stand up for yourself and people will be like, you let me down. Why not this? But it was like a great, it was a message from the universe giving me permission to literally listen to my body. And it was like, it didn't just, and it didn't just make me feel better that I didn't have to like go out late at night to this thing. It was that I got that.

that elevator lift feeling for myself. Like, oh, you're allowed to advocate for yourself. And if you don't feel good, it's okay. That was a really big one. You know, I watched Family Feud and went to bed. Oh, good night. That's a good night. And that's the whole point of this podcast. And what I talk about is that letting people know that it is okay to choose themselves and you chose yourself. Yeah.

And you also realized in that moment, oh, choosing myself feels really good. Yep. And it's not selfish. No, it's the opposite of people pleasing. Feels really good. Yeah, it feels really good. Well, you feel really good and I just love you. So thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you. This is awesome. You are cordially invited to...

Welcome to the Party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart Woman sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

Listen to Welcome to the Party. That's P-A-R-T-E-E on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too

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