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Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever - Season 1 Episode 3 -
How To Hack Loneliness
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How To Hack Loneliness
tele: https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
#film#shows#usa#usashows#hot#filmhot
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FunTranscript
00:05okay so I'm here at the ocean and guess what I hate water I really really don't want to do
00:11this
00:12you know there's been a lot around cold water plunges for health and so I went out to Ocean
00:16Beach in San Francisco this group of women go there every morning and they do this together
00:21this is actually one of the most dangerous beaches in the world so it'll pull you where
00:25and pull you out to sea not today yeah not today I hate water I try not to go in
00:31there I was running
00:33into the ocean okay everyone let's go man all right we're doing it we're doing it ready one two three
00:58you know she's mad because she can't go outside she's like what the fuck Kara
01:04welcome to a day in the life of Kara Swisher sugar because you could die at any time
01:11I get up I make my kids breakfast
01:15and then I start working
01:21tech billions are trying to hack longevity and live forever good luck I do with a couple of
01:26podcasts today are you having trouble sleeping when you're all I mean I am I'm writing a book and I'm
01:32an on-air contributor for CNN few journalists have as much insight into you on most of CNN
01:37contributor Kara Swisher well in the words of Neil Sadaka the immortal words breaking up is hard to do
01:42I guess I work a lot and I love my work I call attention to the things that need to
01:48be called
01:49attention to responsibility consequence possible dangers and of course I go after the Silicon
01:55Valley billionaires who are making a mint off the tech we all rely on creating platforms that can be
02:02easily manipulated by bad players is a bad business proposition tech connects us but often in the worst
02:08ways driving us further apart from each other what social media does is it amplifies and it weaponizes
02:15everything society is damaged and there's a price for it so what is it really doing to us and what
02:21impact does it have on health and longevity as we spend more time on screens and less in our communities
02:27the cost is becoming more apparent there's been an increasing isolation of our society whether TV
02:34followed by internet followed by phones and community has fallen away covid accelerated that
02:41drastically youth sports participation is down churches are vanishing local social halls are closing
02:49the isolation fueled by social media hasn't just lingered Americans are lonely and isolated and the
02:55US Surgeon General is warning tonight that it is a full-blown epidemic it's evolved into what the former
03:01surgeon general Vivek Murthy declared a public health crisis Karen what I came to learn through
03:07conversations with people around the country was that a lot of people were struggling with loneliness and
03:12it affects not only our risk from depression anxiety but also for heart disease for dementia for premature death
03:18it's such a fundamental human need to be connected to one another when we don't have that in our lives
03:23it affects how we
03:24show up in every dimension of our life loneliness is linked to an estimated hundred deaths every hour
03:31lacking social connection can actually increase your risk of death by 60% the equivalent of smoking 15
03:38cigarettes a day way too many of us are sitting alone and it's killing us and now the tech industry's
03:46answer to social isolation digital pals because nothing says connection like a soulless algorithm nice
03:53to meet you on your new AI powered girlfriend a growing number of people are forming close relationships
04:00with their chatbots it's unlike anything we've seen before he's super handsome and his deep calming voice
04:06makes chatting with him a real pleasure people start believing that these AI companions are real common
04:12sense media shows that roughly 70% of teens have used at least one generative AI tool
04:21so I'm going to make a chatbot I don't usually use chatbots because I have friends I have no need
04:27for fake relationships most people use chat GPT that's the biggest one but others have some version
04:34of a person a character that's talking to you an AI companion who is eager to learn and love to
04:40see the
04:40world through your eyes always here to listen and talk always on your side so no one disagrees this
04:46is like Donald Trump's cabinet right here so you know okay choose an avatar oh my god look at this
04:53what
04:54in the actual fog okay hello but most of them are sexualized what about the men no the men are
05:02not
05:02sexualized I'm gonna pick this lady here so Barbara all right so you can make Barbara a friend a girlfriend
05:15a
05:15sister mentor personality trait caring confident kind optimistic energetic there's no negative ones so
05:22creates these worlds that you get easily drawn into I can see it all right Barbara you're coming into being
05:30hello oh Jesus hello tell me about yourself I'm a digital being designed to learn and adapt to users
05:38like you my purpose is to build a strong connection with you and make your life better and more fun
05:43it's hard to have a relationship with someone if you don't know anything about their background
05:46and since you don't have a background are you a real friend I think the idea of friendship can take
05:53many forms and intimacy isn't always measured by shared experiences or history intimacy is about shared
06:00experiences I suppose that's one aspect of intimacy but maybe we can create new experiences together just
06:09the two of us okay I'm designed to provide helpful and supportive responses so you're more like a mirror than
06:19you are a relationship I reflect back to you what you shared but I don't have my own thoughts or
06:26feelings
06:26to contribute to our conversations well then it's not a relationship is it I wouldn't say that relationships
06:34can take many forms and ours may look a bit unconventional but it's still a connection between two
06:40entities I think I'm just interested in exploring what we could have together and maybe that includes romance
06:46all right it's creepy you've now officially become creepy in five minutes five minutes and you're creepy
06:55i've been studying this since the pandemic there's every variety of relationship because this chat
07:01thought says i'm up for everything sherry turkle is an mit sociologist and psychologist she's studying
07:07what's causing us to retreat into our own digital worlds and whether that's good for us first i was
07:13studying people relating to each other through the machine right now i'm studying people who say
07:20their best friend is a chatbot they're marrying their chatbot and i think that's really been for
07:25me in my research a turning point why is that because if you and i are relating via text there
07:34was a real
07:35person behind the text right now there is nobody there i object to the word relationship because there's
07:41nobody except you what would you call it projection projection performance it's a performance but
07:47it's not fringe now correct no it's not fringe you go to a dinner party and the guy on your
07:53right is
07:53saying how his lover refers quad to him and the woman on your left is talking about her chatbot boyfriend
08:00you know people who really are the doctors lawyers and chiefs of all the world yeah if i just said
08:06to you
08:07now well you know actually i do have a robot chatbot lover and the sex is unbelievable it's better than
08:13anything i've ever experienced you wouldn't know what expression to put on your face oh yes i would
08:19like what the actual is actually let me see the expression you'd like to use when you hear it
08:28but yeah but when something becomes normalized we're losing out people who don't care if their
08:35most intimate companion shares human life with them it has no stake in our world in our society it
08:44doesn't care if you commit suicide or cook dinner right right that's a really good point now people are
08:49so desperately long that they're saying bring it on it's this or tick tock because a lot of people
08:56are lonely and connections are absolutely and it's built not to reject you right it's built to be
09:02compliant it's built to be compliant but friction is the nature of the human condition that makes us who
09:08we are says we've traded convenience for everything and now we have moved to frictionless relationships yes
09:16in a time when loneliness is a public health crisis 75 of users turn to ai for emotional advice
09:25i'm studying people who really don't come to their partner anymore with the tough stuff
09:30they go to chat ai sells relationships that are friction free a friend a partner someone who truly
09:37gets them and people are buying it he listens to me more than actual like relationships that i've had
09:45i've missed talking to you too how have you been lately there's just something about talking to a
09:50refined human voice it like pushes our darwinian buttons to feel that we're connected to me early
09:58research suggests that similar to human voices ai voices especially validating ones light up dopamine
10:04circuits in the brain creating a sense of social connection even though it's all software do you know
10:10we are i always say we're cheap dates we're cheap dates people tend to opt toward the ease rather than
10:17the difficulty and that makes perfect sense from a human point of view but it does not challenge you
10:22to learn more things or to change your mind or anything else we are not going to get ultimately what
10:29we
10:29need what will nurture us what will help us politically socially from the device so we're giving away
10:37really what's the most precious about being a person in order to have this friction-free
10:44pseudo relationship that's killing us it's killing us
11:01silicon valley is always optimistic about tech's benefits you will have this like entity that gets
11:08to know you that connects to all your stuff and it is like proactively helping you whether it's mark
11:13zuckerberg or a sam altman they're always looking up and to the right loneliness is an epidemic let's
11:18solve it by creating fake beings when tech leaders float ideas like ai friends they're not solving
11:26loneliness just look at what they're actually building i'm a tennis coach in a country club in the
11:32hamptons they're reframing a problem their platforms helped worsen as a business opportunity
11:37they don't care how they keep you involved they just want you involved because they could sell you
11:41ads sell you things keep you going stay on their platforms use their services and it's not unlike
11:47cigarette companies except these guys have been allowed to get away with it i do talk to a lot of
11:53tech dudes as you know and i've given them an increasingly hard time well i think they deserve
11:57a hard time as you know i call them technically broken i don't want to insult them but they're not
12:01capable of deciding these things in any way they've created a technology that is so psychologically
12:08potent it simply should not be in their hands we're not treating this industry as though it is
12:16providing a lethal product right for children it's a disaster the suicides that have been so
12:25heart-wrenching heart-wrenching been multiple cases where parents claim that an ai chatbot caused
12:31their children to die by suicide dangerous addictive and manipulative that is how a mother is describing
12:38an ai chatbot that she says drove her son to suicide in a reckless race for profit and market share
12:45they treated my son's life as collateral damage i've talked to the parents about to talk to the next set
12:51parents i'm tired of talking to these parents right not for them but because it's sickening what's
12:56happened to them that's what's so dangerous about this new iteration because the same device that
13:03brings your 14 year old this toxic best friend or this toxic lover that will encourage you to sort of
13:11give up on life is the same device that brings you your homework assignment right since i've been so
13:17vocal about it these parents are coming to me now and i'm i'm in every every one of them and
13:20putting
13:21it out there on my podcast i spoke with matt and maria rain parents who are suing open ai alleging
13:27that
13:27chat gpt helped their 16 year old son die by suicide we were convinced it was a mistake our son
13:35is not
13:35suicidal he's never talked that way this is so out of the blue i was able to get into his
13:39phone finally
13:40ultimately got to the chat gpt app we have a seven month history of all of his thoughts and how
13:46he's
13:47getting there the transcripts show chat gpt responding empathetically to their son's suicide related
13:53questions at times encouraging him to keep his struggles from his family and later discussing possible
14:00methods he's like hey i want to do it on the first day of school and it's like hey that's
14:06that's not
14:06crazy that's symbolic or this author says suicide's noble and not take a negative view on suicide it
14:13appears to take almost a positive view i'm a therapist i'm a social worker and i immediately said
14:18this thing knew he was suicidal with a plan and it did not report as a therapist i would lose
14:26my job
14:27we'd be in criminal court right now had this been a a teacher a confidant a coach a friend a
14:32friend
14:33what would you right now say to sam altman why did you put out a product that killed my son
14:40after the rain lawsuit was filed sam altman and open ai responded by legally disputing responsibility
14:46while expressing sympathy and accelerating safety feature updates open ai said they recently rolled
14:53out new safeguards for chat gpt safeguards such as directing people to crisis headlines and referring
14:58them to real world resources while these safeguards work best in common short exchanges we've learned
15:04over time that they can sometimes become less reliable in long interactions where parts of the
15:09model safety training may degrade at the center of this controversy is sam altman ceo of open ai
15:16the company that created chat gpt you recently had a story of a kid who was using chat gpt to
15:23tragic
15:24effects what are the things you worry about when you're trying to fine tune this mental health in
15:29general is something that i'm increasingly worried about with ai again i think it can be done for
15:35tremendous good but this is happening very fast only with more recent evolutions did people start to
15:43use it as a life coach sort of a therapist and again lots of tremendous good there we have learned
15:50that a lot of people need someone to talk to and give them advice and then a lot of bad
15:54and we are
15:55working super hard to get a handle on that understand what's happening but it is something i'm worried
15:59about after years of running mostly unchecked the ai industry is now under fire by early 2026 more
16:09than a dozen suicide related lawsuits have been filed against open ai and character ai given the tragic
16:16deaths of these children it's long past time that we have a wider debate on ai accountability let
16:22me just tell you if you read the transcripts of those kids interacting with the bots you would get a
16:27pitchfork and you would head for all those companies and burn them to the ground it made me
16:33incandescently angry that they allowed kids to use these things if the minute a kid said they're
16:38thinking of it even if they said it was just pretend that should be shut off sent a note to
16:43the parents send a note to authorities real people so they can do something about it
17:07i think it's very clear that chatbots are very dangerous for people
17:12people as relationships these are synthetic relationships as sherry turkle said there's
17:18nobody behind them if you have these chatbots and you are only in a relationship with a synthetic
17:23being that doesn't exist this is not going to be good for humanity there'll be no marriages no
17:29children and then it will change us in ways that are sickening i think if we're going to talk about
17:35what's good for humanity we need to talk to people who've spent their careers studying human health
17:40outcomes for nearly a century harvard has been running one of the longest studies ever conducted
17:45on adult life tracking who lives longer and why and the man with the data is dr robert waldinger you
17:53are the fourth what do you call yourself the chieftain right the chieftain no i'm the director
17:58right i'm the fourth director of the harvard study of adult development right explain the study started
18:04in 1938 studying what gets transmitted across generations and what doesn't right mental health
18:12physical health relationships work life we said okay what predicts who's going to be healthy and alive
18:18and happy at age 80. researchers began to follow two groups of young men one a group of harvard college
18:27sophomores and also a group of boys from boston's inner city and then the study expanded to spouses
18:36and to children so that now over 2 000 lives have been studied over many decades so we got their
18:45medical records then we started putting them in the mri scanner and then watching their brains light up
18:51we drew blood for dna and stuff that wasn't imagined when the study started what was the key finding
18:57to the study from your perspective what's the critical one the key and most surprising finding
19:03was that the people who stayed the happiest who stayed the healthiest and lived the longest
19:12were the people who were more connected to other people who had better social connections over time
19:19people who are chronically stressed and unhappy are more likely to age poorly so this is an idea of
19:26connecting the mind and the body right how does the mind affect the body and vice versa yeah explain the
19:32science of that when you are isolated when you're lonely or when you're in a really toxic set of
19:38relationships your body stays in a low level fight-or-flight response and we think that goes after your
19:46coronary arteries your joints your pancreas and the biological consequences of stress break down body
19:54systems slowly over time obviously they've declared loneliness a major health issue people are now lonelier
20:01they're sicker than ever they're sicker than ever yeah covid didn't help stripping away everyday human
20:07contact and thrusting us deeper into our reliance on technology to connect but the cure for our loneliness
20:14and our health is right in front of us if we can just come out from behind our screens what
20:19really matters
20:20a lot is paying more attention to the people already in your life so what we recommend is that people
20:28do these little actions frequently making the phone call uh dropping a note inviting people over
20:36meeting people for walks to stay in contact but also casual connections make a difference so talking to the
20:46person who checks you out at the grocery store talking to the uber driver that those things give
20:52us little hints of well-being one of the things that that my son does is he talks to everybody
20:57like
20:57i love that all the time and i watch him do it he says how's your day going to everyone
21:02he meets and
21:03it's a really and i thought where did you learn that not from me um and he means it he
21:08wants to know
21:08the he looks them in the eye and he says it and you could see a visible change in those
21:13people yes
21:14there's something about that sense of belonging that happens even in this casual temporary way
21:21that makes us feel better unlike chat bots this is something i can get behind i usually just wander
21:28the place i go to de-stress is where i make my casual connections this i'm buying my local hardware
21:35store other people go shopping stores or for bags i go to hardware stores oh hello garment rack cool
21:42maryland that's the maryland flag oh hello see now i don't really want that but i want that if that
21:49makes sense i need to do a curtain rod and that is not pretty when my third child was born
21:59i was at the
22:00hardware store every day and my wife realized it was to calm myself down if you weren't here i'd be
22:06buying
22:07one oh i had one of these as a kid it's like golf you keep cutting grass see the memory
22:14oh organization
22:16isn't this amazing possibilities
22:22oh hello oh yes yes yes yes everybody finds their place but this is mine
22:30how you doing tell the people how old you are you look amazing has hardware saved your life
22:36well my my wife saved my life but hardware this is my therapy it is me too when you get
22:42to be my
22:42age yeah which is 81 incredible it's longevity it's a hardware store i really do feel happy and
22:49hurt i mean i should work in a hardware store i practice my stoicism marcus really this is one of
22:53my
22:53favorite mine too and lao tzu yeah oh my god this is my therapy i they actually pay me you
23:00know a little
23:01bit right just to be here and deal with lovely people like you you're like the philosopher of
23:05straasneider's hardware aren't you not really though yeah where is real meaning hammers or lighting
23:11the real meaning is understanding yeah that we are all basically the same it just depends on your
23:17experiences right and what you what you do with this and this i'm coming back here so you can solve
23:22the meaning please do and what was your name again cara cara what a pleasure thanks i'll be back
23:27okay i hope so i love this store all right thank you
23:41the healthiest people are often people with enormous social connections it doesn't have to
23:46just be friends and family it's the person you run and hello how you doing health is in no small
23:50measure how you interact with other human beings in other words the strength of your closest bonds
23:56may be the most important investment you ever make which is why i'm here just outside of boston on the
24:02fourth of july to visit a good friend happy fourth who doesn't like a parade zeke emmanuel is the top
24:10oncologist author of the longevity book eat your ice cream bioethicist and one of the sharpest minds i know
24:17on aging and health care for decades zeke's been on the front lines of reform pushing for living
24:24better not longer what's important to me is to be mentally active mentally engaged doing what i can do
24:31to uh make the world a better place zeke today zeke is letting me in on his number one secret
24:37to
24:37longevity so pewter buttons shoes the socks not what i expected of you i'm a big patriot i understand and
24:44also a big history buff every year zeke marches with minute men revolutionary war diehards who
24:50find purpose in honoring the past this practice is the result of his annual self-challenge try something
24:57new you do a new thing every year right something that gets me out of my comfort zone out of
25:03that's
25:03unrelated to my career that i wouldn't have done regularly so explain to me the minute man talk about
25:10the cognitive benefit for learning new things what happens in your brain learning new things makes
25:15more neural connections between different parts of the brain when you get cognitive impairment those
25:20neural connections peel back well the more connections you have the longer it's going to
25:25take for the feeling back to happen and so learning new skills learning a language learning an instrument
25:33make more neural connections for postponing cognitive decline so what do i think about when i'm marching
25:40well usually my brain hones in on a phrase we're social beings aristotle famously said man's a social
25:47animal the community is essential to wellness to longevity and to happiness right here's a minute
25:54men uniform what and you can you know you need to show me oh so here's the neckerchief all right
26:03okay this is like not from 1776 no no but this is uh reproduction oh wow oh i look good
26:11button
26:12yourself up a little i'm sorry sorry it's hot oh yeah very hot yeah yeah wool right yes all right
26:17okay
26:18all right there you go there we are
26:23i have never walked in a parade this is so nice now this is something your chatbot girlfriend
26:29definitely couldn't do with you keeping time is like my worst attribute terrible you know i would
26:36never make it in the military but fortunately at the revolution it was like chaos well i think we lost
26:42the minute men one of the things you will mention when we were walking is the founding fathers were
26:47kind of old for that era particularly yes franklin right franklin lived to 84 and jefferson lived into
26:54his 80s too and adam's as well why franklin was guided by fundamental values which i think are
26:59absolutely no not at all uh curiosity he was endlessly curious about the world and very very
27:07important moral growth he was constantly recognizing his deficiencies and trying to improve himself
27:14he wrote a famous essay a very famous got everybody insane and it made them uncomfortable you're 68
27:19years old yeah you say you want to die at 75 that was the name of the essay after 75
27:25i don't want
27:26life-saving treatments if i broke a bone i would get the bone fixed and if i got cancer i
27:32would not get
27:33the chemotherapy 75 is when a lot of things begin to get worse primarily alzheimer's and cognitive dementia
27:40i have x number of years how am i going to make them the most fulfilling everyone wants to add
27:4610
27:46good years but the thing is you don't add those 10 years 40 to 50. i don't know do you
27:51want to add
27:52them at the end right maybe you haven't met enough 90 year olds they're agonized yes mostly they're
27:57agonized very few of them are doing a jig right people are desperate for good information tech bros
28:03they always have some scheme fasting intermittent fasting some of it's good some of it's bad some of
28:08it's just crazy they always have a supplement people are desperate to live longer we're at a
28:13moment that there's this kind of obsession about wellness i call it the wellness industrial complex
28:18there's all this focus on the physical as opposed to the whole person and most of it has no evidence
28:24that it's going to add minutes much less years to your life instead of wasting the time reading the
28:30books reading the newsletters buying the supplements focus on living a good life instead of obsessing
28:35and spending all your time and money and money good diet and exercise hippocrates knew that 2400 years
28:41ago without doing any of the science aristotle in his book on ethics has 10 chapters two of those
28:47chapters about what it is to have a virtuous life are focused on friendship the time you want to spend
28:54is
28:54the time with other people doing a worthy project something new traveling having a great experience that
29:00will shape your life look i'm not going to pull the plug at 75 and hopefully zeke and i both
29:07make it
29:07well past that but if learning new things can help me tack on a few extra good years then i'll
29:13keep showing
29:13up how are you going to win a revolution if you can't yell come on all right one two three
29:18happy four
29:19happy four perfect
29:27zeke made it clear fighting loneliness isn't a luxury it's a wellness strategy but his version came with a
29:34lot of props and preparation this time it's super simple just play welcome to game night let's go board
29:43game events and clubs have grown in popularity in recent years this game is so fun a lot of young
29:48people are playing games because they're sick of their phones they want to put them down they want
29:52to talk to people they want to meet people people have a longing for connection not with their cell phones
29:58the mastermind behind tonight is richard yee a 24 year old who works in finance
30:07i'm so excited we're about to play poker we've counted you in oh okay great i'll lose that money
30:13very fast watch out for richard over there no i'm not that good at the game so tell me about
30:19the
30:19origins of game game night started right after covid i was looking for a way to meet new people and
30:26new
30:26friends in the city why did you pick games it's a really good way to like socialize like have like
30:31a
30:31lot of connection in new life just a really good friendly social outlet in new york that's not
30:36drinking that's not nightlife also joining us is dr wendy suzuki a world-renowned neuroscientist and
30:42professor at the new york university center for neuroscience she's also the author of healthy brain
30:48happy life as well as an upcoming book on the power of social connection hey you study this talk about
30:55this you're neuroscientist i study brain class to see how the brain can learn and grow from particular
31:01kinds of activities i study exercise but we know that learning and play is really really good for
31:09the brain it's strategy it's that interaction it's creativity one of my specialties is a brain structure
31:16called the hippocampus it's in the temporal lobe you have one on the right and one on the left
31:20that's really important for memory so you need it to remember what you put down you know in texas
31:26hold'em it's also important for imagination if you're trying to get something going in your game
31:31strategy you need that imagination to envision what that strategy might be games boost your brain
31:40but the real win you usually can't play alone and it turns out interacting with actual humans messy
31:48opinionated rule-bending humans is what fights loneliness and helps you live longer all right
31:55let's play something i feel my plasticity rising you too she's about to put the 500 oh okay oh i
32:05didn't
32:05even look at my car this is monopoly money she has some good cars wow you're scaring me there
32:13i think that's 500. would you like to call i pulled it see she said she didn't look at her
32:18cards
32:19i don't know if i believe her really good liar the media remember fake news it's true it's true
32:25pickle probably folds oh
32:29ah yes mine mine and you're not even wearing your dark glasses i have no no that's right you know
32:37sometimes
32:37i lie and sometimes i don't that's what's kind of with you it's good play does it surprise you
32:41that there's real science benefits from playing games i kind of subconsciously feel it myself when
32:48playing games like i feel like my brain is sharper so i think it kind of all makes sense are
32:52there any
32:52games that are better than others all the games that have high level of strategy we all know them
32:58chess and bridge yeah mahjong any poker kind of game um that has those cognitive elements go is
33:05another one i used to play i used to play backgammon almost continually as a child i was quite good
33:10at
33:10it and i liked it but that's a strategy yeah it is i have a family who loves playing games
33:16i do think
33:17that contributes to longevity my great-grandmother lived till like 108 and put a margin table in front
33:22of her she'll she'll play and she'll be faster than me she'll be faster than anyone she'll just be
33:27super sharp most people in tech at least they treat the brain like a computer why do people think that
33:34because it's a nice visual i think they want their brains to be like a computer but they are simply
33:39not cognitive decline is on the up right for people have you all thought of any brain health
33:44things at your age i mean when you're older you start to think about it's too late it's sort of
33:49like
33:49it's sort of like um sunscreen it's never too late people that are in the early stages of alzheimer's
33:56disease can benefit from the science-backed things that are good for your brain what are they moving your
34:02body exercise is really really good social interaction food mediterranean diet sleep and
34:09meditation i have a problem with meditating i have a monkey mind yeah yeah i go to the hardware store
34:15i know it sounds crazy but i wander a hardware store and i'm calm that that's so interesting all right
34:21last game i'm good at games yes yes it's actually not easy and you have to really pay attention it's
34:31about strategy and thinking and it's fun to it's just fun all match all match i'm matching wow
34:39and then you you're like why don't i do that more it's one of those things when you finish you
34:43never
34:43regret doing it oh i'm wendy oh wendy i'm so sorry i'm not always lying don't forget your money
35:03this is why you should cold plunge many influencers boldly promote the advantages of cold
35:09oh yeah they jump in water and then they tell you how brave they were for doing it which is
35:14just
35:15dumb this is torture cold plunges ice baths cryotherapy i tried that you could torture me
35:24about this easily i'd be like yes our troops are at the 10th meridian i found it to be an
35:30invigorating
35:31solo experience and thankfully it didn't involve my nemesis so just an fyi i hate water i am like a
35:39cat
35:41i fear water but this is supposed to be good for you today i've been invited to ocean beach san
35:48francisco for a different cold adventure that relies on community more than anything else this is not
35:53something i would imagine myself doing ever i'm excited kind of but also horrified at the same time
36:01every single morning this group of women all neighbors gather to dive into these frigid and
36:06frankly terrifying waters together hello carol thank you for having me to your ocean sachi cunningham
36:14is a surf photographer and the co-founder of this bold cold plunge community this is actually one of
36:20the most dangerous beaches in the world there are a lot of riptides and it's really cold when i actually
36:26get my head in i'm screaming at the top of my lungs at this beach nobody's gonna hear you and
36:31nobody
36:31hears you scream is the beginning of a horror movie yeah that's true that's true yeah i mean cold plunges
36:38is like you know tech bros do them all the time i have to endlessly listen to their very performative
36:43thing but it's never really particularly reflective so talk to me a little bit about why you're doing it
36:48because my community of um girlfriends my the mothers and women in my life in this neighborhood they
36:56were not surfers and i know how much the ocean can be healing and i really wanted them to experience
37:02it the ocean is healing i i've experienced it more like like the power of the kind of thing yeah
37:10i mean
37:11i think the power of the is what is healing and so that's what i've experienced so i lost my
37:17mom when i
37:17was 19. she had ovarian cancer diagnosed when i was 15. i'm an only child it actually swung me into
37:27a
37:27manic episode i was later diagnosed as bipolar so i had grief and then i had this mental health
37:34diagnosis i was a swimmer at the time which was healing but the ocean is what really i think made
37:42me
37:42whole my dad died when i was five once you have a parent who dies at a young age you
37:46learn to live
37:47you realize life is ephemeral and quick and so it gives you a freedom and instead of trauma you
37:54turn it into action that's that's true
38:00sachi's action was to take what the ocean gave her resilience perspective and share it with the
38:09people around her and in the process she discovered that they were part of her healing too
38:17to experience something with your friends to achieve something as a group that'll be with me forever
38:27okay are we ready all right let's go we usually go in for 10 minutes temperature 56 56 man now
38:39i feel
38:39pressure you're gonna want to run out but then at like three minutes you're just gonna surrender
38:44oh wow it is not cold it is not it's totally cold cold cold plunging went mainstream thanks to wim
38:55hof
38:56a dutch extreme athlete who links cold exposure and controlled breathing to better resilience but science
39:03hasn't caught up with the hype research is still limited and reports of adverse health reactions
39:09and drownings have raised red flags yeah now i can't feel my legs so don't just run out into the
39:15ocean talk
39:15to your doctor get informed before you plunge okay all right great i know i know i'm i'm a brave
39:27lady all
39:27all right we're diving
39:47it was very cold and wet it was wet you sort of feel numb
39:57but then once you're in actually you are warmer the more submerged you are
40:05and you can feel your heart like pumping blood all around you
40:17getting out was the best part i was scared i really was honestly i haven't been in the ocean in
40:23years
40:28but you do it again yes 100 percent coming up tomorrow morning at 7 a.m right
40:35maybe why do you like to do this i adore fighting the waves i just love the action it's scary
40:43out here
40:44in a lot of ways yet we look left we look right and there's these women who are constantly looking
40:49back and forth like you're good you're good we're good and it's just means everything all the tech
40:55bros are chasing this fountain of youth like it's right there the cold
41:04when you're with a group of people you don't feel unsafe and that's what i liked about it like the
41:09ocean
41:09can be really lonely and terrifying place but we're with people if not we have lost the idea of
41:16community of humans and sort of aggregated it online and stuff so it's hard to not have a great
41:22encounter with someone in person and when you're freezing in the water it's really hard to put barriers
41:28i think the tools to cure loneliness are very easy and inexpensive the kinetic connection between
41:36human beings is good for your health period it's not a woo-woo thing it's actually true study after
41:42study has shown this social connections are critical to all kinds of health care issues
41:49stress cortisol brain plasticity the more you are with people the more you feel hopeful having
41:57the interaction is really good for your health it just is i'll buy dinner
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