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Arrived at midlife with more questions than answers? Not sure whether to laugh or cry? Do both as I seek advice on all things midlife. Join us at minutestomidlife.com for more.
So, Doctor. Ali. So many of us arrive at midlife and we look in the mirror and, you know, we think, what the hell happened here? Right?
Johnny:Well, I do anyways.
Dr. Ali:Yeah.
Johnny:I'm calling this moment the Dreaming Error. I picked that because I thought it would be clickable, but I also picked it because, you know, I think it aptly describes that gut punch moment when you realize that the life I'm living is not the life I dreamt of. So I guess my two questions for you are, why does this seem to be so common amongst men in midlife? And two, psychologically, what's happening to us when we realize the path we're on is so far off the path we had imagined?
Dr. Ali:So much stuff is happening inside of us. So much stuff is happening outside of us. And I honestly hope people have that moment where they look in the mirror and they think, what's going on? How did I get here? Because I think for a lot of people, they might not experience it in that way.
Dr. Ali:It might be the slow creep of small actions, small decisions, and then you slowly find yourself in this place. But I actually hope people have more of this moment where is this stark reflection that kind of forces you to reevaluate. Because I think for especially for a lot of men, the urge is to dismiss those feelings. The urge is to push them away. The urge is to try to not think about it, to not talk about it.
Dr. Ali:And, boy, is that a lost opportunity. So I know that probably makes no sense.
Johnny:No. It it absolutely does. That's why it's such a gut punch. It sneaks up on you, and then at that point, don't know where to turn either. Yeah.
Johnny:You feel alone.
Dr. Ali:You know, when you first reach out to me, Johnny, and you're like, hey. Do you want to do this this episode? I'm starting this new show. At first, I was thinking, gosh. I don't know.
Dr. Ali:Midlife midlife crisis. I don't know. And the thing that was happening right there and why I'm so happy that you're doing this show and why I want to to have this conversation with you is people have this idea of what a, quote, unquote, midlife crisis looks like. And then there's a reality of what we all are experiencing. And I think we kinda have to unpack that to really answer the question you have here.
Dr. Ali:Because the the standard idea of a midlife crisis coming from, you know, eighties and nineties is you got this man. It it was almost exclusively men. The stereotype of a midlife crisis. They are going out and buying a Porsche or something like that.
Johnny:Yeah.
Dr. Ali:Nice problem if you can afford it.
Johnny:Yeah. That that's it. Right? I'd like to have that kind of crisis.
Dr. Ali:Right. Right. I'm gonna you know, more likely, I'm gonna buy a new phone or something, I guess. But they're making some kind of rash, impulsive, big decision that can kind of blow up their life in some way, or they're having some kind of affair, or they've made some kind of emotional dumb decision that is showing their lack of confidence or wanting to appear younger and trying to make up for some kind of other failure in life or trying to make themselves seem stronger, more macho, more attractive. Right?
Dr. Ali:That classic stereotype, which some of us still carry, really doesn't happen for most men.
Johnny:Yeah. It's nonsense.
Dr. Ali:It's nonsense. Some people, not just men, but people from all backgrounds, some people do experience that type of crisis, but it it's a small minority. Some estimates are around eight to ten percent of people. And usually, if they experience that type of crisis, it's brought on by some kind of event. Maybe a loss that's occurred, maybe the end of a relationship, a divorce, maybe some type of big setback in life.
Dr. Ali:You started a company, it's not working out, a major layoff, a major career change. So usually if that happens, it's a small percentage of people, and it is started by some type of crisis. Right? So let's get that out of the way, that stereotype. That's a relic of the past.
Dr. Ali:However, what you described, waking up and being like, oh my gosh. What's going on here? That, I think, is very common with midlife. If we're looking at between your forties, fifties, and sixties. Right?
Dr. Ali:And even the definition of midlife has changed. People are aging better now than they did a few decades ago. Right? Like, let's go back a few hundred years and midlife was your twenties.
Johnny:Yes. Exactly.
Dr. Ali:Right? And now twenties, your twenties is more like continued adolescence. So as things change, our definitions of development and aging, they change. So people are aging better now than they did before. And if we're looking at midlife now as your forties, fifties, and sixties, what's happening?
Dr. Ali:To to finally answer your question, this is something I'm known for. It takes me a while to get to the answer.
Johnny:That's okay. I I'm just thrilled you're here.
Dr. Ali:Oh, Johnny. I'm just thrilled to be anywhere nowadays. It feels like that sometimes. But to answer your question, there's a lot there's a lot happening. So inside, what we know is your hormones change during this time frame.
Dr. Ali:For men, testosterone begins to drop. We know for women, estrogen begins to drop. As you get into perimenopause, the years before menopause, things start to change. There's also very new research that shows we don't age linearly. It's not that every year you're getting older and things are kinda slowing down.
Dr. Ali:There are periods where we might age faster. Those periods happen in midlife. You're probably in your mid forties and probably in your mid sixties. These are periods where you're vulnerable to faster aging. We also know that stress can be particularly high during these decades, and and stress can impact aging and all that sort of stuff.
Dr. Ali:We know that sleep is also not so good during these ages. And so there's all this stuff internally that's happening, and that happens to everyone to some degree or another. And then we also need to look at externally what's happening. And this is where I'm really, really, really glad you're doing this show because a lot a lot has changed and a lot continues to change for people in midlife. During these core decades of your working life and you're moving into periods of higher stress with work, some people might have children.
Dr. Ali:And if you have children, you're in the throes of it. You either have young children, in which case you're very physically tired, or you might have older children, teenagers, in which case you're probably emotionally exhausted. And a big change now for people in midlife is we're a bit of this bridge generation where we're caring for young. Even if you don't have children, you're probably interacting with nieces, nephews, things like that. And we have aging parents who are living longer and have more needs later in life.
Dr. Ali:So we're this bridge in between these different generations. And we also are living in a time of massive chaos, whether it's technology and changes brought up by AI that no one really knows where this is taking us. It's politics and reshuffling of global power, of political polarization, of growing xenophobia. And a lot of that political change is also driven by climate driven change that's happening, migrations that are happening in the world. There's environmental chaos, political chaos, technological change.
Johnny:It's all speeding up.
Dr. Ali:It's all speeding up. It's all speeding up. I look at my life, and I look at history, and something's happening now that we haven't seen since the industrial revolution, since electrification, since the internet revolution. Elements of all of those things are happening right now. We also have a lot of the political change that you saw in in the political upheaval that we saw in the nineteen sixties and the global upheaval that happened there, that's happening now.
Dr. Ali:We're seeing a lot of the political reshuffling that happened post World War two, that's happening right now. All of these things are happening right now as we speak. So if you are in midlife, there's a lot of external pressure. There's a lot of internal change. And I think depending on where in the world you live, a lot of the social supports, the systems, the safety nets, they seem to have eroded.
Dr. Ali:You know, in in The United States, a lot of the safety nets that were out there that supported a robust middle class, those seem to have gone away. And so if you're thinking about, you know, the r word, if I can evoke it here, retirement, it's a pretty stressful, uncertain
Johnny:Yeah. Proposition.
Dr. Ali:Proposition. Yeah. You know, Johnny, to to make it very blunt, my wife and I, we both work full time. We have two kids. We make so much more money than my dad did or than my wife's parents did.
Dr. Ali:My dad, with probably a third the income we have, was able to have such a better quality of life for us and such less financial stress than we have, where my father was the only one earning the income for our family. My mom was primarily raising us, and he bought a home about thirty minutes away from where I live now, much lower cost of living back then based upon the income he had. He was able to afford such a better quality of life for all of us. And here, my wife and I were both earning income. We have the same size family that I had growing up, two kids.
Dr. Ali:My dad had two kids. My mom had two kids. And life feels so much harder. Why? What's going on?
Dr. Ali:What's changed? A lot of external change, same internal pressures. It's not that we are weaker, it's that there's a collision of so many more forces. And as a psychologist, I worry about the depression, the anxiety, the sleep problems, the stress, the risk of suicide, the existential crisis, the overwhelm that so many of us are feeling at this age. So to answer your question, you know, what happens?
Dr. Ali:You look in the mirror and you're like, what's happened to me? It's all of these things coming together, and hopefully, you have a moment of reflection and an opportunity to think, what do I do with this? Hopefully, you have that moment because that moment is an opportunity for navigating this crisis in a new way.
Johnny:So as you said, these triggers happen, and then we do kind of have a moment of reevaluation. But during this time, we're really in the thick of a storm, so to speak. I can only speak for myself. I think back on some of the wasted opportunities that I had, I start feeling a real deep sense of shame. And to compound that, it's at that very moment where that negative voice in my head starts barking, basically saying, well, no, you know what?
Johnny:What you have now is exactly what you deserve and any hardship that comes with it. So I'm just sort of curious to hear your thoughts on how do we sort of weather that storm? And you had brought up a good point during our pre interview chat. You know, God help me if I try to distract myself by going on social media. That seems to have just amplified our sense of shame or lack or however you wanna put it.
Johnny:So maybe could you speak to that a little bit?
Dr. Ali:Oh my gosh. How much time you got, Johnny?
Dr. Ali:How much time have you got for me.
Johnny:As much as you would like to give me. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:There there's so much here that is happening.
Dr. Ali:You mentioned shame. And last week, I was in New York City. I was there for a mental health summit, and two things happened that I'm having a hard time shaking. The biggest theme that came out of that day where there was clinicians, there was researchers, there was nonprofit people, there were content creators, a lot of people gathered for this summit. And the theme, Johnny, was everyone seems to be struggling and everyone seems to feel shame for their struggles and they don't want to burden other people because they know other people are also struggling so we keep our struggles silent.
Dr. Ali:We keep them to ourselves. So what has happened? This psychologist stood up and literally said, what has happened over the last ten years where we feel so much shame for how we are feeling, and we feel like such a burden, and we feel like we cannot share our struggles with other people because we might be further burdening them. So we just keep suffering in silence. This is a massive problem.
Dr. Ali:I I think a few different things have happened. Number one, monoculture is gone. Monoculture has evaporated. You and I, chances are ten, fifteen years ago, we probably watched some of the same shows on the same days. And then, you know, Monday morning comes around, and I might be like, yo, Johnny, did you catch that episode of Mad Men last night?
Dr. Ali:Oh my gosh. You know, I'm thinking about what Don Draper was saying and what did you think? So what happens there is we're built to operate in tribes, in small communities. The big evolutionary advantage that humans have over every other species is our ability to unite around shared stories. Now I don't care if those shared stories come from the bible, the Koran, the Torah, or if they come from movies, TV shows.
Dr. Ali:It might be a inciting thing to say. But I I think the same forces that bring us together around religion are the same forces that bring us together around novels and books and the campfire and also are the same forces that drive us to the movie theater and are now the same forces that drive us into TikTok. We are so wired for shared stories, and it used to be that there was more of a monoculture. We'd watch and listen and understand the same stories, and those would be ways of bringing us together and ways of sparking dialogue and conversation. Particularly for men, this is this is so critical to have some kind of shared experience.
Dr. Ali:Men so much connect over experiences.
Johnny:Right. Shoulder to shoulder.
Dr. Ali:Shoulder to shoulder?
Johnny:Shoulder to shoulder experiences. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Doing something together. Playing a video game together. Going out for a walk together, going to play basketball together, going fishing together, doing something where you're in the same time, same space. Right?
Dr. Ali:Not necessarily looking at each other, but shoulder to shoulder as you say. Right? So that monoculture is gone. Sure, we've got streaming, but most of us are consuming our own individualized, personalized algorithms on our own terms. We're not watching, we're not talking about the same thing.
Dr. Ali:Similarly, the forces of community are eroding. So many of us are very connected to these peripheral connections we have online. We're intimately connected to Instagram connections, TikTok connections, Facebook, all the social media stuff. But our connections to the people that we live near have completely withered away.
Johnny:Yeah. We we see everything, but we feel nothing or Yeah. Nothing positive.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Yeah. If you look at the common social media experience now, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, whatever you are swiping, it's a mixture of everyone who seems to be doing it right. That's most of LinkedIn, like, proud to announce I've got this marginal promotion that is not a salary raise, but it sounds really nice. And what you don't realize is I'm completely burnt out and I hate my job.
Dr. Ali:And I can't share that because that's not how LinkedIn works. And I'd love to tell someone about this in real life, but when do I even see my friends? And how can I share some of this? I'm gonna bury that shame, but broadcast this thing that's gonna get some validation in the algorithm. Right?
Dr. Ali:That's like what LinkedIn feels like to me. So when you're browsing, you see all these highlights, or you see the other stuff that resonates well on social media, which is intense emotions. It's outrage. If you swipe on Instagram, you're gonna see maybe some cute baby pictures from a friend, maybe a dog picture, maybe some cat content, and then maybe some war and horrific catastrophes that are happening, and then some weird political is this AI slop? Is this even real content?
Dr. Ali:I don't know. It's a very discombobulating experience to be on social media now. It's very chaotic, this experience. It's not very grounding. It doesn't feel very social.
Dr. Ali:The monoculture's gone. Social media has really become enshitified. This is a term from a great Canadian, Cory Doctorow, where he talks about how the forces of technology as they shift from what's best for the consumer to what's best for profit, these experiences become corrupted and they become less good. So whether you're talking about going on a flight and how terrible the experience of flying is now compared to ten, fifteen years ago, or you just compare the experience of of being on Facebook, of being on Instagram, of being on TikTok, these experiences have become compromised because of the forces of revenue and profit. So it's very hard to connect with each other on anything that we share and have in common.
Dr. Ali:And the stuff that we see makes us feel so ashamed, like we're behind, we're not working hard enough. And so because of all of these losses, where Johnny, where can we talk in a casual way about what is on our mind? We don't have the stories to tell, like, oh my gosh, I really connected with what Don Draper's going through.
Johnny:Yeah. Yeah. We're a bunch of lone wolves.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. We're a bunch of lone and and no one, no man, no one, no person is a lone wolf. That is not what humans are built for. We're built to operate in small groups and small communities. We're built to support each other.
Dr. Ali:No one is built to raise kids by themselves. No one is built to have a career by themselves. Every great human achievement, whether small in a family or large in a civilization. And I don't care if you're talking about raising a kid and raising a kid to be a good person, or if you're talking about landing a man on the moon. All these great achievements happen in cooperation, in collaboration with other people.
Dr. Ali:All of them. All of them. And it's getting harder and harder to do that.
Johnny:That's the thing. We're sitting there struggling alone, and we just don't have the social networks, especially amongst men, to share the struggles with.
Dr. Ali:Something I hope we all can do is just talk about these experiences with one other person that you feel comfortable sharing this with. Whether it's a coworker, a friend, a partner, you are not alone in this. We're all feeling this crunch, and the best way through is is sharing this with someone. You can't think your way out of your worries. That just does not work.
Dr. Ali:You get lost in them. You will ruminate in them, and they're just gonna simmer and cook until they kind of explode out of that pot. You need to get some context, get some understanding, and the way through that is is by talking and sharing with someone else. It doesn't have to be this deep conversation about your feelings, but find a way to spend some time with someone and drop a little bit of this. Gosh.
Dr. Ali:I didn't think it was gonna be this way, and here I am. And then see where that conversation goes, I guarantee you, you are not the only one who is feeling this way. Johnny, as a kid, man, I thought technology was only gonna make our lives better and more optimistic. Right. Right.
Dr. Ali:Yeah.
Johnny:Yeah. This replicator has gone off the rails. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:Right. Right. Gosh, man. I and and you know what I grew up with? As as a back to the future kid, I thought we were gonna have hoverboards and flying cars and all that sort of stuff, and that is not the way things have panned out.
Dr. Ali:And the more I share about those those beliefs I had about the future and about what the world actually is, the more I'm realizing other people feel exactly the same way, and that helps me. And once you start to realize you're not alone in this, then not only do you stop that blame and that shame and that guilt, but then you can also find ways through through this overwhelm and uncertainty and this this mess that we're all in.
Johnny:There's no shame in opening up to others and sharing a little bit of your vulnerability. And like you said, often we'll find that we're all on the same boat.
Dr. Ali:This is another reason why I'm so excited for your show and to see where this goes because we need more conversations around what does it mean to be a good man now. The definitions of being a good father, a good man, a strong man for my dad, very different for me. You know, my dad tried changing my diaper one time when I was a baby.
Johnny:Right?
Dr. Ali:He tells me the story. He's seen me as a father, and he was so struck by me changing diapers. And he said, Ali, I tried changing your diaper one time. I put it on backwards or inside out, and your mom yelled at me. She's like, you don't know what you're doing.
Dr. Ali:You know, she didn't say you're such a dumb man, but she said, you know, like, get out of here. Like, you know, fathers, they don't know anything. And after that moment, I felt like this is not a thing I can do. It's not a thing I know how to do, and I just never did that. And I look at you, you're changing diapers, you're doing all this sort of stuff, you're feeding your babies with a bottle, you're doing all this stuff, and I think like, how is that even possible?
Dr. Ali:How can you do that? And so social expectations around men have changed, and they are changing. And yet, when we try to talk about masculinity, it defaults to this
Johnny:Red pill, blue pill.
Dr. Ali:Red pill, blue pill. It defaults to these nasty places. And, unfortunately, I think the only people who are really leading the conversation are people who have much more conservative traditional ideas of masculinity. So there's this push pull. And even in progressive circles, when we talk about masculinity, the conversation seems to be shut down.
Dr. Ali:That, oh, fragile masculinity, men are so, you know, this, that. I think it's very hard for men to talk about, like, I I wanna be a good man. What does that look like? You know? And my own personal belief is I think a strong man shows up for their community, shows up for each other.
Dr. Ali:And that can mean different things in different parts of the world. But I think at the end of the day, men have a responsibility and a privilege to show up and to help other people. That's a definition I go by. But, gosh, we need to be talking about these things because especially men in midlife, we have seen these shifts. We saw our parents' generation, what it meant to be a strong man then.
Dr. Ali:What are these ideals of masculinity now? What do we wanna hold on to? What do we wanna reject? What do we wanna take with us? All of this stuff is in flux.
Dr. Ali:It's overwhelming, and we're crunched.
Johnny:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. As you said, I think it's important we have shows and conversations where we show a little vulnerability instead of these false narratives of, you know, machismo or however you wanna say it.
Dr. Ali:Can I share a secret here? So when you reached out, the thing that stuck out to me is you've got a quotation from Captain Jean Luc Picard of Star Trek The Next Generation in your email. And I saw that and I was like, there's no way I'm gonna say no to someone who's got a who's got a quote Right. From from Captain Picard. And the reason for that is a guiding force of what it means to be a strong man, for me, has been Captain Picard and Sir Patrick Stewart in both ways.
Dr. Ali:Someone who's defined by constantly learning in the humility of being wrong and picking yourself up and continuing to move forward with a strong moral compass, that is Captain Picard. And Patrick Stewart, he redefined his whole career in midlife.
Johnny:Yes. Yep.
Dr. Ali:This guy was a Shakespearean actor who didn't get cast in Star Trek until he was in midlife and completely changed his career as a TV star, and then later did it again as Professor X in the X Men movie. So, you know
Johnny:And has shown great humility at every step of the way.
Dr. Ali:And shown great humility. So we need people like that. We need heroes to look up to of what kind of man do I wanna be, particularly in midlife. I know I'm bouncing around a lot here, but there's gosh. There's a lot to talk about.
Johnny:I do wanna bring it a little bit back because you had brought something up during our pre chat convo that I found fascinating. Many of us, when we find ourselves in the throes of shame and lack and negativity, a lot of us feel utterly exhausted. Right? Quite frankly, a lot of us get depressed. You had a fascinating concept I want everyone to hear that depression, if I'm getting it right, it can have a utility.
Johnny:Depression may actually have a purpose that it it's a bit of a biological stop signal for us. Can you explain what you meant by that a little bit?
Dr. Ali:Yeah. So for a long time, I've wondered what's the purpose of depression. So if we think about our emotions, they all exist for a reason. They very quickly change what is happening inside of us to respond to what's happening outside of us. So fear is an easy one to understand.
Dr. Ali:You see some danger, or if it's anxiety, you're imagining some kind of danger in the future. So you get scared, and that fear that you're experiencing is designed to help you to stay safe or to be prepared, ready to take on whatever that threat might be. Fear makes a lot of sense. Embarrassment, shame, joy, all of these things have some kind of function that exists to repair relationships, keep us safe, all that kind of stuff. So then the question is, well, what about this weird thing of depression?
Dr. Ali:Because the defining trait of depression is you stop experiencing joy in the things that used to bring you joy. It feels like you're you're kinda numb, that you might be going through the motions of stuff that you used to like, but you're not feeling anything anymore. Depression just evaporates joy, and that's different than sadness. Sadness as emotion is it's telling you a loss is coming or a loss has occurred for you to reflect on it, for you to move closer to someone, closer to the people that you care about, to work through what this means. But depression goes way beyond that.
Dr. Ali:Why would depression completely stop you from enjoying things that you used to enjoy in life? And so people who develop this treatment called behavioral activation, they've come up with this idea that depression might exist to be a stop sign, to tell you that hey, things are not going in the direction you want them to, things are not going in the direction you thought they would go into, stop moving forward, take a look. Take a look at what's happening, let's see if we need to do something about this. Now I don't want to belittle other forms of depression, there are things like bipolar disorder where people, because of their biology, they're they're moving through these periods of depression and moving through periods of very high energy hypomania or or mania as we we call it. That's more of a biologically based problem.
Dr. Ali:But for a lot of people who experience depression, there might have been something that started it, and depression in small doses might exist to help you stop, look, and try to reevaluate things. And I think especially for those of us who are experiencing any of these kind of things, depression can be an opportunity to think about where am I and is this where I wanna be. Let me give you a short story here. I'm not I'm not depressed right now, but the last time I experienced this was after my son was born. My daughter's eight years old, and my experience with becoming a father from my daughter was just, I don't wanna say magical, but it was pretty close to that.
Dr. Ali:It was pretty ideal. She was born. I felt incredibly close to her right from the get go. I loved being her father, and I thought I would experience the same thing when my son was born. My son was my son is three years old.
Dr. Ali:When my son was born, I didn't really feel anything for him when he was first born. And when my daughter was born, everything was healthy, it was great. When my son was born, my wife never saw this, which thank goodness she didn't, but his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he came out and I thought he was stillborn. Now, that moment only lasted a few seconds, maybe even one second since the doctors, nurses unwrapped him. Life came back to him.
Dr. Ali:He looked he looked healthy and amazing, but I couldn't shake that image in my head of what he looked like when he was born. That's strike one. Strike two was the sleep disruption I experienced with my son was so much more profound than the sleep disruption I experienced with my daughter. And the difference for that is I still had to be a parent to my daughter when we're going through the chaos of having a newborn. Whereas with my daughter, when she was asleep, we could sleep.
Dr. Ali:I didn't have to parent when she was asleep. But when my newborn son was asleep, I still had to be dad for my daughter. So I was far more exhausted, and my sleep was far more disrupted, and that was leading to a lot of irritability. And then strike three, we were bottle feeding my daughter for a variety of reasons when she was young. She never latched on.
Dr. Ali:She didn't really nurse. My son, the good news is he nursed and my wife was completely attached to him because of that. But it meant the only thing I was doing with my son was changing his poopy diapers. So Right. Literally, Johnny, that was pretty much the only thing I did with him because he just wanted to be with my wife.
Dr. Ali:So I had this stress sort of trauma idea image that I couldn't get out of my head of my son came very close to not being alive. Number two, so much more sleep disruption. Number three, I didn't feel very attached to him. I didn't feel like I had much purpose there. And so I went through this postpartum depression period that lasted a very long time after my son was born.
Dr. Ali:And depression, it doesn't necessarily feel like, oh, woe is me. Life sucks. It can also feel like anger. It can feel like irritability. You're set off very easily.
Dr. Ali:It can feel like these bursts of emotions. I remember my best friend asked me if I wanna go see Top Gun Maverick a few weeks after my son was born. I got this text from him and I started crying, Johnny. And I started crying and I'm like, why am I crying? What's wrong with me?
Dr. Ali:It's just a stupid movie. Oh, no. I wanna see it. I just wanna get out of here. I just want you know?
Dr. Ali:Oh, my life is over. I'm never gonna be able to do these things. Right?
Johnny:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:And what's wrong with you? Shut those emotions down. Why are you so weak? Right? Don't let anyone see you like this.
Dr. Ali:It was all that stuff.
Johnny:Tom Cruise would understand.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Yeah. Tom Cruise. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Tom Cruise is out there trying to save Hollywood, right, after COVID. So right there, that depression that I was feeling, it was really about your life has changed. You thought it was gonna be like it was with your daughter. It's not.
Dr. Ali:You need help. You need support. You can't handle this. You need sleep. You need to talk about what happened.
Dr. Ali:And, fortunately, my two close friends, they started to notice on the text messages I was very different, and they started coming over a lot more and started to just wanting to spend time with me. And one of my my my friend who invited me to go see Top Gun, he said, I really think I need to just treat you he said this in the nicest way possible because I always take care of his dogs when he's away. And he said, I feel like I need to take you out for a walk, Ali. Just
Johnny:He didn't have a collar, did he?
Dr. Ali:No, no.
Johnny:Okay, okay.
Dr. Ali:I wouldn't have minded it though. Could I could've have really benefited from just someone leading me somewhere.
Johnny:Right. Right.
Dr. Ali:But he said, I think I need to take you out for a walk and just get you outside. I think you've been cooped up here for too long, and he was totally right about that. And that's where things started to change actually, where I started to get more connection with the outside world. Things now with my son are great. I love this kid.
Dr. Ali:We've bonded
Johnny:That'll change again, you'll see.
Dr. Ali:It'll always keep changing. But, I mean, this is the stuff we need to talk about. Depression can serve a purpose, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have to completely understand every aspect of it, but we need to honor it. We need to honor, hey. Something's not fitting with what you thought things would be, so let's take this as an opportunity to refocus.
Dr. Ali:You know, a a question I love to ask people, let's think about one month down the road. If we could wave a magic wand, how would things be different? Let's just walk through the day. What would you want life to look like if your problems disappeared overnight? And then let's start working towards that.
Dr. Ali:What are the small, tiny things we can do right now to get you moving in that direction. Not six months down the road, Johnny. Not nine months down the road. Not a year. Not five years.
Dr. Ali:Forget those five year plans. Like, we don't even know what the world is gonna look like in five years. Right?
Johnny:And they're anxiety inducing.
Dr. Ali:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And anxiety is the right word because there's massive uncertainty. But you know what? We can work towards a better future in one month.
Dr. Ali:And sometimes it's as simple as your friend taking you out for a walk.
Johnny:Yeah. Well, there you have it. So if I'm understanding you right, you know, which is a big if with me. Well, I'm gonna be honest. The silver lining to this crisis is that despite the the chaos of these feelings that we're having, it is a chance to reevaluate or redefine ourselves.
Johnny:At some level, we're acknowledging our dissatisfaction with the status quo. Where do we head from here?
Dr. Ali:So the first thing I think to acknowledge here is this question of what is life asking of me right now? And this is a question from the great Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor psychologist who wrote this fantastic book called Man's Search for Meaning. It's a slim, easy read. I mean, some of the content is heavy and important, but it's it's a easy read in terms of it's a very short
Dr. Ali:book. But one of the questions he asks is or one of the questions he encourages us to ask is what is life asking of us right now? Is it asking you to endure? Is it asking you to show up? Is it asking you to experiment?
Dr. Ali:Is it asking you to share with others? What is life asking of us? And I think for for better or worse, we didn't ask for this. But what I think the world is asking of Millennials, Gen Z, elder millennials, and Gen X, I should say, not Gen Z. Forget those Gen Z. They'll deal with this in a few decades.
Johnny:There's some comments.
Dr. Ali:What life is asking of Gen X and Millennials is to serve as this bridge. We are a bridge between so many things. We're a bridge between the analog and the digital. You know, I had to learn the Dewey Decimal System for how libraries are organized and how to find information, and I had to learn how to read a TV guide and find programs instead of VCR to record.
Johnny:Yeah. The VCR.
Dr. Ali:Right. Like and I also had to learn how to Google, and I also had to learn how to use social media, and I had to learn how to have a professional reputation online while also having a professional relationship off like, I've had to learn all of these things. I've had to bridge these worlds. Similarly, I am trying very hard to bridge these worlds of being my own person, being a parent, being a son to aging parents. You know, one of the the biggest stressors for me right now is showing up for myself, showing up for my wife, showing up for my son, showing up for my daughter, and then showing up for my parents who have no one else, you know, showing up for nieces and nephews that are struggling themselves and trying to be some kind of stable figure for all of these people.
Dr. Ali:That's a lot. It's a lot. And other community support that used to be there for me, coaches and, you know, religious figures, religious leaders, and the guy at the comic book store down the street that used to be so nice to me. Like, the brick and mortar stuff, that's gone. Things have changed.
Dr. Ali:Right? So there's a lot of pressure. And for better or worse, life is asking us to be a bridge between so much, between the way things were and the way things are becoming, Between the generation that's rising and struggling in their own ways, you know, highest levels of stress are among Gen Z, highest.
Johnny:I believe it.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Yeah. And so how can we show up for those young people? And then also, baby boomers are living longer than previous generations. How do we show up for them?
Dr. Ali:So number one, you know, the greatest generation had their struggles. They saved us from Nazis. We're dealing with other stuff, but we have to be this bridge. So to acknowledge that, this is what life is asking of our generations, of Millennials and Gen X right now. And then how do we start moving forward when there's so much anxiety, there's so much chaos, when our bodies are changing, and when external forces feel so insurmountable and uncertain?
Dr. Ali:It's really about finding and experimenting with some control in your life. I'm gonna give you some examples here. A year and a half ago, my mom had a stroke. There's a lot of diabetes on my mom's side of the family, and I'd always known what the experience of living with diabetes is like because my mom was diagnosed with diabetes somewhere in her midlife. In in my experience, I was like, okay.
Dr. Ali:This is a chronic thing. It's a treatable thing. It's something you can manage. It doesn't necessarily disappear, but you can learn how to manage it. And I wasn't too scared of it.
Dr. Ali:But after she had a stroke, what I noticed is as the doctors were trying to treat her stroke and improve the recovery, the diabetes got worse. And as they're trying to manage diabetes, the cardiovascular stuff was getting worse. And so that was a side of her health I had never seen before, and it really scared me. And I came back and I had a physical with my doctor, routine physical. I've been seeing this doctor for a long time.
Dr. Ali:And she said, Ali, something is going on. Your cholesterol skyrocketed. Your A1C, your risk of diabetes, you've been normal, but now you're in the prediabetic range. Your weight's gone up. Your labs are out of whack.
Dr. Ali:What's going on? I said, I don't know. I was under a lot of stress. Coming out of the pandemic, I had gained a lot of weight. I developed a lot of unhealthy habits.
Dr. Ali:And so my doctor said, I'm gonna give you six months to fix everything as much as you can. And if you can't, I need to start you on some medications. Because given your family history, you know, I learned not only did my mom have a stroke, but I learned we've got a big family history of strokes, that my grandma had multiple multiple strokes. That's what she died of. When I was a kid, they told me my grandma died of a broken heart because my grandfather had died six months before her.
Dr. Ali:So in my head, you know, I'm a middle aged man, and I kept believing that my grandma died of a broken heart. That that's that's just what
Johnny:You're you're you're oh, kudos to your grandfather, legendary man. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:Right. Right. And the other thing I learned is my mom had a smaller stroke ten years ago that my parents never told me about. Right? So I'm finding all this.
Dr. Ali:I'm learning all this. Am I I'm telling my doctor all of this, and my doctor's saying, gotta take this stuff real seriously now. And so that was the moment for me, Johnny, where I looked in the mirror, and I thought, my doctor is telling me I need to do something about this. And I really felt out of control. I felt like I've got these kids.
Dr. Ali:I've got these parents, and I have an opportunity now to do something And this is something I hope people can really take from our episode together, our time together in this conversation. It's this. Please take this. It is never too late to make changes that set you up for a better future. Never too late.
Dr. Ali:I don't care if you're in your sixties, your fifties, your forties. The wonderful thing about our minds and our bodies is they're incredibly plastic. What that means from a psychological sense I don't mean there's microplastics in your body, although there are problems.
Johnny:That's another issue.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. That's another issue. Plastic really means malleable, open to change. The materials of plastic, we call them plastic because it can be molded and shaped in into different objects. We are very much malleable.
Dr. Ali:That's a beautiful thing about the human body is you can start making changes at any age, changes to stress, to sleep, your muscles and strength, changes to your social relationships and your ability to reach out. You can make changes at any point in your life, and they have tremendous impacts on your future. Small habits can have a massive impact. So I tried to make those changes, Johnny. I didn't know what it would entail, but I got a personal trainer.
Dr. Ali:And he asked me, what do you wanna do? And I said, I wanna be healthy. And he said, okay. We're gonna start weight training. And I said, hold on.
Dr. Ali:Hold on. Hold on. I don't wanna be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, I don't wanna be big and buff. And I had no idea I think the entire marketing around weightlifting is completely wrong.
Dr. Ali:All the marketing around weightlifting is about getting big and bolf, buck, bulk, buck. What does that have now?
Johnny:Buck. Buff.
Dr. Ali:Buff. That's thank you.
Johnny:Buff, bro.
Dr. Ali:Buff, bro. There we go. That's the word I was looking for. I have now been weightlifting for a year and a half, and what I have learned is the biggest benefit of it is you have less injuries in your daily life. It used to be that I got to this age where if I step on the sidewalk wrong, my knees would hurt for a few days, you know.
Dr. Ali:Or if I help someone lift boxes, I'd have back pain for a few days. What weight lifting has done for me is giving me the strength to reduce injuries in my day to day life. That is fantastic. I changed my diet, and I realized that the way I was eating as a teenager and in my twenties doesn't really work for me
Johnny:Yeah. Right.
Dr. Ali:Anymore.
Johnny:Or anyone.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Yeah. You know, our bodies need different things in different times of our lives. And when you're a kid and a teenager and going into your twenties, your body is still growing. And in your twenties, your brain continues to grow into your mid twenties.
Dr. Ali:You need a lot of energy. Your metabolism is high because your body is growing. But as you get into your thirties, your forties, your fifties, metabolism slows down. You're not really growing anymore. You don't need as much food and you need different things.
Dr. Ali:You need a lot more fiber. You need some good fats in you. You can't handle sugar and and and that kind of stuff as well. So I changed all of that sort of stuff. And the other big thing that I think all of us really need is to prioritize sleep.
Dr. Ali:It's the best thing for your productivity. It's the best thing for your emotional health, for your physical health. So all of us can make very small changes that have a tremendous impact on improving the way we age. It's never too late. It's never too late to start becoming stronger, healthier, and more connected.
Dr. Ali:And the other thing, it it would be a mistake for me not to mention the opening question you had, which was about this dream of what we thought our life would look like and what it is now. Because there are still ways you can experiment with that dream in very small ways, whether you wanted to become a photographer or a author or whatever it might be. The cool thing about the world now is we have access to information on YouTube. There are Internet communities around every single type of hobby or interest you might have. You can go on Reddit.
Dr. Ali:You can find groups dedicated to all of these things. If you wanna become a cook, whatever you wanna do, you don't have to blow up your entire life to pursue that dream. I'm a big fan of micro micro micro micro changes.
Johnny:Doesn't have to be all or nothing. No.
Dr. Ali:No. No. The wisdom is in the middle path. It's not this or that. It's both and.
Dr. Ali:It's trying a little bit, seeing what it's like. You know, there's so many things I thought I would like doing in my life, and then I try them and I realize I hate them.
Johnny:Same here.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. That's great. That's great. You learn something about yourself and then try something else. It's so common for us to feel like it's okay to experiment with your identity as a teenager or even in your twenties.
Dr. Ali:And then we get older and we think it's about settling into your life. No. That is not the way middle age work. This is a time when you can continue experimenting in small ways and see, alright. Where in my life do I wanna pivot?
Dr. Ali:What are some new things I wanna take on? What are some things I can discharge and just no longer fit? You can teach an old dog new tricks, and I'm a living example of that. There's so many things I've jettisoned from my life because they no longer fit. Relationships I've ended, other relationships I've strengthened, and new things I keep trying to learn.
Dr. Ali:The next time we talk, maybe we'll be doing your new show in twenty years about aging into your twilight years. Is a help?
Johnny:I I hope so.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. When we talk then, I hope I will know how to play guitar and to be a great cook. They're not dreams I can completely invest in right now, so I'm pursuing other things. I'm trying to get back into my love of photography, something that has been there in my life and disappeared and come back and disappeared. So you're never too late.
Dr. Ali:It's never too late. Small, small, small changes. Small changes to sleep, small changes to your health. Just focus on one little thing, and it's gonna pay off so much.
Johnny:It's been great. I wanna thank you. This has been fantastic. But as I talked to you before, I would like to do a little fun segment if you're up for it.
Dr. Ali:Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do it.
Johnny:Basically, what we're going to do here is, in order to get to know you, Doctor. Ali, a little bit better, You've graciously and maybe foolishly agreed to do a little game of this or that.
Dr. Ali:Okay.
Johnny:So that's what we're gonna do here. Are you ready for that?
Dr. Ali:I'm always ready for a dance.
Johnny:Light roast or dark roast?
Dr. Ali:Dark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like a I like a strong coffee.
Dr. Ali:I'm having some dark roast right now.
Johnny:Early bird or night owl?
Dr. Ali:Night owl. I do not I do not like waking up in the mornings. I've tried to shift that. It's never worked.
Johnny:Novel or play?
Dr. Ali:I'd rather go see a play. I I don't yeah. What happened?
Johnny:The community aspect of it again?
Dr. Ali:Oh, it's probably that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're probably right.
Dr. Ali:I like shared experiences. And actually, one of the best plays I saw was Waiting for Godot with Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen.
Johnny:Fantastic. Oh, legendary.
Dr. Ali:I know.
Dr. Ali:I know. They love each other so much. It was great to see.
Johnny:Mario Kart or Smash?
Dr. Ali:I suck at Smash Brothers, so 100% Mario Kart.
Johnny:Predator or Xenomorph?
Dr. Ali:Xenomorph, far more interesting. I think Alien is the best of the series, and I actually think Aliens is overrated. But Alien is you do not get better in terms of terror than the Xenomorph.
Johnny:Yes, absolutely. BSG Viper or Tie Fighter?
Dr. Ali:Oh, Tie Fighter's far more iconic than the Battlestar Viper. Although I like Battlestar Galactica better, the the Tie Fighter's iconic.
Johnny:Holodeck or Shore leave?
Dr. Ali:My gut tells me Holodeck because it's safer. But how many times have those safeties been off? Maybe maybe Shore leave is the better. I mean, are we going to Risa? I'd love to go to Risa if we could.
Dr. Ali:I'll I'll say Shore leave going to Risa.
Johnny:Solo or Starbuck?
Dr. Ali:Solo or Starbuck? I'll take the new Starbuck from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica over Solo, and and people will hate you for it, but that's okay.
Johnny:Vader or Voldemort?
Dr. Ali:Vader. Come on. Who cares about Harry Potter?
Johnny:Spock or Data?
Dr. Ali:Spock. Come on. Come on. Let's go.
Johnny:I don't know. I've got a lot of love for Data.
Dr. Ali:I love Data too, but come on. Spock is one of the most iconic science fiction characters out there.
Johnny:Okay. So let's run through the captain's gauntlet now.
Dr. Ali:Oh, man.
Johnny:Here we go. Kirk or Janeway?
Dr. Ali:Kirk between the two. Yeah.
Johnny:Kirk or Cisco?
Dr. Ali:That is really hard for me. I lean Cisco because we see a father figure, we see a friend, we see a husband, we see a religious leader, we see a captain, we see a commander. We see so much in Cisco. We see a lot more from Cisco than I think we saw from any other captain.
Johnny:So Cisco or Picard?
Dr. Ali:Cis Cis Cis
Johnny:Close. Oh, and apologies to Captain Archer. I meant to throw him in the beginning, but I didn't think he'd make it to the end anyways.
Dr. Ali:Archer, I've got a lot of love for Enterprise. People deserve to give it another another look. They had some great stuff to do with Vulcans.
Johnny:That's it. You got through it. No problem.
Dr. Ali:I passed. I survived.
Johnny:You've survived. It didn't get too intense. Listen, because there's no such thing as too much Doctor Ali, if we wanna get a little more of your wisdom, I know we can go to your YouTube channel, Doctor Ali. You have your educational videos there and your livestream, Cozy Brain Hour.
Dr. Ali:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:So I've been trying to show up more in in genuine ways for my whole community, so I've been experimenting with a lot of live streams. Right now, Friday Pacific time mornings, eastern early afternoon. But I want to experiment with some daily live streams, at least for a week or two and see what that's like.
Johnny:Again, small experiments.
Dr. Ali:Small experiment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ali:People can check out the YouTube channel. If you just look up Doctor Ali about two, you'll find me. And then I post also short clips from those livestreams on Instagram and on TikTok. So those spaces are are there too.
Johnny:Yeah. And there's your website, Braver With Anxiety?
Dr. Ali:Yeah. So I have a free anxiety course available at braverwithanxiety.com, and I just wanted to give out the best ideas that I've accumulated from all my years of being a clinical psychologist, so you can go there and check out that if you wanna learn more about that.
Johnny:Thanks very much for doing this, and I hope later on down the road we can do another episode.
Dr. Ali:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope so too.