Tim Ferriss
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2018–2023
2:23:45 · 7M views · Mar 7, 2018
A long Tim Ferriss podcast interview with physician Gabor Mate on trauma, addiction, depression, ADHD and ayahuasca. Mate explains how childhood stress and emotional pain underlie many addictions and illnesses.
HN recommends it as a thoughtful, honest look at the causes of addiction and depression, and as a deeper Mate interview than most.
7 comments from Hacker News
I've recently watched Tim Ferris's pod-cast with Dr. Gabor Mate who is well known for his work with people who suffer from ADHD (including himself), Depression and various types of addiction: this video . It's rather a long interview (2h 23') that touches on many topics (Depression, ADHD, Ayahuasca), but IMO well worth time invested. Very insightful as to the ways one might take when it comes to improving his/her own wellbeing. I had a rather milder form of depression few years ago (with symptoms such as low-self esteem, loss of motivation to work, eat, exercise and pretty much all standard symptoms except suicidal thoughts). One thing that helped a lot to break negative thought patters and to start pro-actively coping with my own issues was attending few Ayahuasca sessions. I'd recommend it only if you find really experienced, trustworthy, practitioner such as Dr. Gabor Mate and if you are healthy enough (health heart, you cannot use antidepressants and other, prescribed or not, psychoactive drugs and you should do specific diet few week prior to it). Some claim that it's worth 10 years of psychoanalysis. I don't not know how much truth is in that claim, but in my case it really gave me immediate relief, sense of a fresh start and valuable insights about why I'm the way I'm. Of course, a real work starts after it when it takes time and effort to integrate these insights into your everyday life (but I felt motivated to do so).
[UPDATED] A fulltime father of a 2yr old. Few bullet points on what I wish I had from the beginning. 1. <5mons tons of skin to skin, lotsa of low calming talk to your baby, soothing music w/o words like works from Claude Debussy, smile/laugh at every chance. 2. <9mons while baby on their back, move their legs like army crawling, lotsa of stomach time. 3. >10mons 2 individuals who seem to contradict, but same messages: (just a few quick potent sound bites) - Jordan Peterson : [LINK] - *Gabor Mate\ : [LINK] this video 4. Your child will mimic your every move, talk, and reactions. They basically are your mini me. When they say, the are reflections of you they aren't kidding. The few times I talked aspirated or over excited happy or angry, I witnessed my child re-enacting it later including the few words he remembers. Kinda scary. So point #4: you need to change who you are completely. If you want to raise a calm, gentle, compassionate, humble, caring, empathetic child. You need to show that in every thing you do. If your child acts out or "misbehaves" or something you don't approve of. It's not them, it's you they are reflecting. Again, you need to show not tell. At this age and reasoning level, they have ZERO comprehension of your words, only your tone and body language. 5. Join a dad's group. Even if you don't receive "support" or advice, just by listening to others who will have gone through the same you have helps. 6. Although your child nor mine isn't quite that age yet, Super
I highly recommend Hungry Ghosts for anyone that wants to understand addiction (it’s an escape from pain that probably started in childhood ). You could also go straight to The Myth of Normal which has some of this information from his other works. The Joe Rogan interview was one of Rogans worst jobs interviewing- there’s a lot more depth that Mate has to give and some of it comes out in other interviews he has given. There’s a few on YouTube this video
An excellent way to push against addiction is to address the reasons for addiction. As Dr. Gabor Mate, who has spent a decade working with addiction and written extensively about it says: don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. Alcohol and other drugs are the means of addiction and in no way the cause of it. I recommend Tim Ferris’ interview with Gabor Mate for a great honest look into the causes and mechanisms of addiction. this video
"of all time" is often too strong of a qualifier for me. I would say "talks that I want to rewatch the moment they come to mind." Charlie Kaufman's Bafta Lecture [LINK] Gabor Mate, Prisoners of Childhood this video I consider Bret Victor's inventing on principle a non-technical talk, so yeah that. [LINK] Quel Solaar, on creativity [LINK]