Sense of Mind

Overthinking can feel productive. But in most cases, it traps us in repetitive loops that make us feel more anxious, uncertain, and mentally exhausted. In this video, we'll explore why the brain gets stuck in these patterns, what neuroscience and psychology have discovered about repetitive negative thinking, and what we can do to break free. Support future videos: Patreon If you enjoyed this v...

You know what you want, but somehow, you still can’t make yourself begin. Why does motivation disappear even when the goal still matters? In this video, we explore the neuroscience and psychology of motivation: how the brain weighs effort against reward, dopamine’s role in motivated behavior, how chronic stress can produce learned helplessness, and why exhaustion may signal a genuine need for reco...

Who are you? Most of us carry around a story about who we are: What we're capable of, what we deserve, and where our limits lie. But what if that story isn't entirely true? In this video, we explore the brain's Default Mode Network (DMN) and its role in shaping our sense of self, identity, and inner narrative. If the story your brain tells about you is flawed, you may be far more capab...

Free will is one of the most important topics we can discuss. If every thought, decision, and action is ultimately the product of biology and physics, then are we really making choices? Or are we simply witnessing events unfold inside our own minds? Is free will important for human flourishing, motivation, and resilience? In this livestream, we'll explore the neuroscience and philosophy of fre...

Distraction isn’t just bad for productivity. It also degrades our happiness, attention, mental health, and the ability to engage deeply with life. In this video, we’ll look at what psychology and neuroscience suggest about social media, short-form video, dopamine, flow states, and why sustained attention may be essential to the good life. This is not an anti-technology video. It’s about agency: ho...

When you lose focus, you lose the ability to achieve your goals. And, unfortunately, we live in a world of endless distractions. Yet, by understanding the neuroscience of attention, you can train your brain to focus on what matters. -- Please support this channel by signing up for Sense of Mind's Patreon and get bonus content every month: https://www.patreon.com/senseofmind You'll get: - Exclusive...

You are a living organism. That’s obvious, but this simple fact helps explain one of the most profoundly important aspects of your life: your emotions. In fact, it teaches you how to control your emotions. -- Please support this channel by signing up for Sense of Mind's Patreon and get bonus content every month: https://www.patreon.com/senseofmind You'll get: - Exclusive videos only for Pa...

Happiness is not always easy. Yet, there are tangible skills we can build that will make it easier. If we give some time to fostering awareness, focus, and our capacity for connection, it is likely that our lives will get better. This livestream was originally aired live only for Patreon supporters of Sense of Mind. Patreon supporters also get access to an exclusive written blog post version of th...

Something fascinating is happening as you listen to this episode. You are effortlessly converting a series of sounds into meaningful thoughts. To do that, your brain has to take a sound wave and somehow extract from it a specific message that I’m trying to convey to you right now. We rarely stop to think about how weird language is. It’s even rarer that we ask ourselves how our brains do any of th...

What makes life good or bad? One answer to that question is that positive and negative feelings are at the core of happiness and its opposite. That leads to the question of what feelings are and how the brain produces them. In this video, I’m going to discuss a fascinating paper published in February 2024 about the neuroscience of bodily and emotional feelings. The paper is called “The Neurobiolog...

In this episode, we discuss the neuroscience of time, music, free will, emotions, memory, the self, and what we've learned from our research on these topics. If you’re reading this, then you’re watching the public version of this video, so if you want to watch the second half, go to https://www.patreon.com/thesocialbrain and sign up for the “Premium” tier. You’ll get access to every exclusive...

Many of us take evolution for granted, but over the years I've received many comments from people who doubt whether it's true. In this episode, I'll describe the logic of and major evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection. 📖 Get 20% off your annual Shortform subscription by using this link: https://www.shortform.com/senseofmind This livestream was originally aired liv...

Music is clearly an important aspect of what it means to be human. It seems to have deep evolutionary roots, possibly even being the precursor to language. It seems to bond us together with other people, which may have conferred survival benefits to our prehistoric ancestors. And it impacts our brain like nothing else. For example, music has been shown to evoke emotions through unique neural pathw...

We've all experienced the exhaustion of mental fatigue. If you work long enough and hard enough on a cognitively demanding task, you'll eventually lose motivation and focus. Worse yet, burnout is right around the corner. This video is a deep dive into the neuroscience of mental fatigue and how to stay motivated. If you value my work, please support it by going to https://www.patreon.com/se...

Time is a limited resource and, in some ways, it’s our only resource in life. But what is time and why does it seem to flow at the rate it does? Why is it that our subjective sense of time can change so dramatically depending on the situation and our state of mind? How does the brain measure and experience time? In this episode, we will explore these questions from a neuroscientific angle and come...

Thoughts may be the most important content of our mental lives. Thoughts are unobservable and seemingly intangible, yet they determine what we do and therefore how our lives go. In this episode, I explore the neuroscience of human thinking. This livestream was originally aired live only for Patreon supporters of Sense of Mind. If you'd like to get access to future livestreams as well as exclus...

In this episode of The Social Brain, we discuss human brain evolution and development, and what we've learned from our research into these topics. The first half of this episode is available for everyone, but if you want to see the whole episode, sign up for The Social Brain's Patreon page at the Premium tier: https://www.patreon.com/thesocialbrain (Please note that this is separate from S...

Resilience is not just about how your brain withstands adversity, but also how it becomes stronger as a result. This is a deep dive into the neuroscience of resilience and science-based strategies for how to build resilience. If you want to get exclusive videos, blog posts, and livestreams AND help me keep creating videos like this one, please sign up for Sense of Mind's Patreon: https://www.p...

The adolescent brain is often characterized as an imbalanced, hormone-charged, and broken version of an adult brain. The reality, however, is much more nuanced and interesting. Adolescence is a critically important period of brain development that allows for rapid learning, social affiliation, and exploration. It's found in many species across the animal kingdom and it serves an extremely impo...

Right now, you are in possession of the most complex thing in the known universe: Your brain. The question is, how could this amazingly advanced biological computer have come about through natural forces? In this episode of The Social Brain, we’re traveling hundreds of millions of years into the past to answer that question. We’ll describe in broad strokes the evolution of single celled organisms...

In this livestream, I discuss the science of habits. Habits are automatic behaviors formed through repetition, shifting from conscious actions mediated by the frontal cortex to automatic processes controlled by the basal ganglia, with minimal cognitive effort. Initially requiring deliberate thought, actions become habitual through a cue-behavior-reward loop, significantly influenced by dopamine&#3...

In this episode, we discuss the serotonin system, its role in depression, psychedelic drugs, SSRIs, growth mindset, and what we've learned from our research on these topics. If you’re reading this, then you’re watching the public version of this video, so if you want to watch the second half, go to https://www.patreon.com/thesocialbrain and sign up for the “Premium” tier. You’ll get access to...

To form good habits and break bad ones, you have to rewire your brain’s dopamine system. In this episode, I'll explain how to do that by talking about how you can create healthier habits around sleep. 00:00 Step 1 03:00 Step 2 04:26 Step 3 07:00 How to ACTUALLY change your habits -- Please support this channel by signing up for Sense of Mind's Patreon and get bonus content every month: htt...

The dramatic increase in depression diagnoses has led millions to use antidepressants, based on the theory that a chemical imbalance--namely low serotonin levels--in the brain is to blame. However, recent studies suggest the cause of depression is more complex, challenging the simplicity of this theory. While antidepressants are crucial for many, viewing depression solely as a chemical issue overs...

Psychedelics powerfully alter the brain by tapping into the serotonin system. And while these drugs can have lasting negative effects, in clinical studies they’ve been shown to alleviate depression faster than any existing treatment. In this episode, we’ll discuss how psychedelics affect the brain and what the existing literature suggests about their therapeutic potential. ⏬ ⏬ ⏬ Help us keep th...