Dr Rupy: Thanks so much for sending the book, first off. I'd love to get into this. I just love your writing style and you know, it's almost like you you sort of tease us into the the world of woo woo, which we'll want to get to the the definition of in a second. But you sort of tease us in. I think everyone can sort of understand meditation, mind over matter, all these different elements. And it gets like increasingly, increasingly like more uncomfortable, I think, for the sceptical reader. And like my woo woo detector is going as soon as I go like through the book, but it's it's brilliant. It's absolutely fascinating. So why don't we start off with woo woo? What what do we mean by woo woo?
Dr David Hamilton: Woo woo has been defined as unconventional beliefs regarded as having little or no scientific basis, especially those relating to spirituality, mysticism and alternative medicine.
Dr Rupy: And and so what you you've been studying these different sort of modalities of of healing for for a while now. You know, we spoke about it on on the pod last time, but what was your entry point into this sort of I I want to call it a way of thinking, a way of sort of having a nuanced appreciation of the of the science that we have available to us. What what was your what was your entry point into this?
Dr David Hamilton: To be honest, I I had two entry points, one more scientific than the other. The first one for me was my mum had postnatal partum depression after my youngest sister was born in the mid-seventies. And I remember finding a book at the library in the school when I'd just started high school. I'd never been in a library before. And you know, I I bumped a shelf or something and the book just it was it fell off, it was The Magic Power of Your Mind by a gentleman called Walter Germain. And I remember thinking, I bet that could help my mum. And I didn't know you're supposed to join a library. You know, you get your little yellow card and stamp it. I thought you borrow books. I've never been in a library. So I just put it in my bag and took it away. We still have the book. I was eleven years old. But you know, it it didn't cure depression in a day, but you know what it did do, Rupy, is it gave my mum tools, insights and strategies that helped her to navigate a course through some of the difficult times, through those difficult days. One of the things my mum learned was positive affirmations and another thing that she learned was meditation. Although back then, most people called it relaxation. Nowadays, we we mostly refer to it as meditation or mindfulness, that style. But I remember it was so helpful to my mum, mostly for helping to calm her nerves because my mum was struggling with depression and anxiety. And and these things were immensely helpful. I remember my mum walking through the house sometimes when she was maybe feeling a bit kind of anxious and she was going, I can do it, I can do it. And she was pumping her fist and she would say to me, every day and every way I'm getting better and better, which was my first introduction to the affirmations of Émile Coué, who who you created that one over a hundred and twenty years ago. And so that was an entry point for me that was just through observation and experience. But you know, maybe fifteen years or so later, after my PhD and working in, you know, AstraZeneca actually, and I'm helping develop drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. And it was observation of the placebo effect. It was looking at trial data and then going into the library and further researching it myself. And this was an entry point for me about the mind-body connection because I remember I was so captivated by the placebo effect that, you know, patients, half the patients on a trial get the actual drug, half get a sugar pill. And I I would ask my colleagues and nobody understood the placebo effect. This was the late nineties. And even in a professional science environment, no one understood it. And if I said, you know, isn't that amazing? They would say, oh, they're not really getting better, they just think they're getting better. And it was just kind of dismissed, not in an unkind way, not in a, you know, people who believe in it are idiots kind of thing. It was just like nobody understood it. And it wasn't that the research wasn't available because it was, but it just never occurred to anyone that there could be research because who would in a professional science environment, who would imagine that believing something could fiddle around with your brain chemistry? So I did exactly that. I went into the library and I started looking into it and discovering that research had already been done showing that when you believe something, it's not just all in the mind. The belief itself actually to an extent fiddles around with your brain chemistry. So for example, a person who takes a placebo believing it to be a painkiller, the belief itself or the expectation that the pain will go away triggers a change in the brain, causing the brain to produce its own painkillers, endogenous opiates, you know, the natural, the brain's natural version of morphine. And that substance then delivers the reduction in pain. So it's not an imaginary reduction in pain, it's a real reduction in pain produced by real substances in the brain which are triggered by expectation or belief. And that was mind-blowing to me. And I was telling all my colleagues and and some of them I think tolerated me. You know, we were all friends, we drunk pints in the bar, but no one really was interested in understanding it. It was just a wee quirk, you know, the placebo effect was a nuisance. It wasn't something that you would be interested in and in developing and and somehow using for the benefit of someone. In our professional environment, it was a nuisance. It was something, you know, how do we get rid of it kind of thing, because you want to see how well a medicine is working. So it's really not something anyone had any interest in except for me.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I think most people have have come across the at least the idea that the placebo or the placebo effect can be seen in pain where you're given an inert substance or a substance that, you know, doesn't have a an analgesic in it, and told that it is a powerful painkiller. And that elicits that literal response in the brain, which has the pain-relieving effect. But where else do we see this placebo effect? Because I think what I certainly came came across from the book is just the wide variety and application of elements that do have placebo, but as we'll discuss a little bit further, some some other explanations behind. But but where else do we see the placebo effect?
Dr David Hamilton: You know, most of the research has been done on pain, even Parkinson's disease, depression, anxiety, these sorts of things. But some of the the really amazing research on placebo on Parkinson's showed that over a period of five days, a researcher, this was led by a professor Fabrizio Benedetti at the University of Turin, one of the the top placebo researchers in the world. And they were able to actually phase out an anti-Parkinson's drug, apomorphine, over five days by dropping the dose while incrementally increasing placebo. And over five days, dropping apomorphine, increasing placebo, you know, 75%, 50, 25 apomorphine, 25, 50, 75% placebo, swapping them around. And after five days, getting a full placebo response from saline that you got from apomorphine. So a lot of research has been done on Parkinson's, a lot of it on depression. I mean, there's limitations to the placebo effect. You wouldn't say, someone says, if you take this pill, you'll grow an extra arm. You know, it's you know, there's there's limits to how we understand it and there's limits to what the brain is capable of producing. But but to an extent, there is a heck of a lot of of breadth in there. There's a lot of conditions that the placebo effect impacts to an extent. You know, it's not necessarily a curative thing. It might not cure someone of arthritis, but there's a lot of research that shows that people who believe they actually had an incision, they actually had surgery for arthritis, but it was really called sham, it was a it was a fake surgery. They go on to run and do everything as they would normally do. It didn't mean that the arthritis wasn't there, but somehow their brain and body was doing what it had to do to nullify the the seeming symptoms of it. So I think there's so much in it that's yet to be tapped into and and used that could be of of really fantastic benefit to people.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, one thing that stood out for me in you put so many studies in this book as well. It's fascinating. I've got like a long list of of references that I need to check up on and and and read myself because they're absolutely fascinating. One of them that stood out for me was the the differences in consultation styles between general practitioners. And you have some who have a positive sort of way of discussing topics and treatments with their patients and others who are sort of unsure or maybe a little bit on the pessimistic side. And the results of those and the outcomes actually being a lot more positive if they had a positive consultation style. So that certainly like speaks to me about what we should be teaching general practitioners given that we see 20, 30, 40 patients every day. But I I guess my question is, sort of similar to what you just alluded to there with the impact of the placebo effect, where is the line and how far can we go when it comes to harnessing the placebo effect? And how do we use this almost in conjunction with all the other elements that we have within medicine as well? I mean, you just mentioned the the sort of PCDR, I think it's called, the placebo-controlled dose response and and how you can use it. So yeah, where is the line and how do we actually how do we how do we go about determining where the line is?
Dr David Hamilton: You know, I I actually don't think there's a solid line. I think there's, you know, there's a space and it's it varies from condition to condition and from person to person. And it it depends really on on a number of factors. It depends on, as you've said, the consultation style, the personality of a doctor. It would depend also on the condition. Like you could get a placebo effect from almost anything, really, that would impact a condition to an extent, maybe not the hard end of it, some severe conditions, but it might impact the softer end of it, you know, some of the actual symptoms that are that are manifesting. So so rather than there being an actual line, there's probably a a space in there that could well be tapped into for a number of of different things. You know, and it's just some of it comes down to not just even the consultation style, but empathy. You know, a lot of research shows that, in fact, here here's a a study, 178 men with prostate cancer. And those who had been treated by a what was called the high empathy doctor, and this is how the scientists, by by studying their consultation style, they were able to determine who's a high empathy doctor and who's a low empathy doctor. And they found that even three months later, those treated with the high empathy doctor had far higher natural killer cells in the bloodstream. And it happened for a number of reasons, partly, and this is all part of the, this can all be part of the placebo response. Part of it is a high empathy doctor is more reassuring. So what happens is the person comes away thinking, you know, I'm going to the doctor said, you know, if I do all these things, I should be okay. You know, I've got this kind of thing and they're reassuring me. So that belief itself encourage actually causes physical effects in the body. But secondly, it encourages the patient to do more of what's good for them. The patient's more likely then to adopt a healthier diet and lifestyle because they've been reassured. So they're more likely to do things without realizing even that they're suddenly changing their diet. They have a wee bit more hope, kind of thing. And and so plus empathy itself relaxes the nervous system. So treated by a high empathy doctor, then they come away, the nervous system is more relaxed because they've been reassured. And that then allows the body's natural regenerative systems, healing systems to work more optimally, like the immune system, for example, pain management systems. So so there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of parts to the placebo effect. It's not just that that was fit within that, that's why I was meaning it's very broad. It's not a single line because there's lots of different parts that that fit into it. But certainly empathy and reassurance is is very significant and there's a lot of research that looks at the the importance of empathy and and how it can affect really the outcome for people.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I I totally agree and I think that the empathetic approach is is healing in itself. And I think this is almost why you have a lot of grounds for sceptics to be sceptical because everything that we we discuss in this sort of realm is it just seems very messy and it's not a a very clear-cut way of testing these specific interventions. Like placebo can also be visualization, affirmations, positive energy, the the niceties of the consultation practice itself, even concepts that you go into later on in the book with regards to telepathy and, you know, positive energy that you're giving to the person in front of you. All these different elements that almost provide the entourage effect of of of all these different sort of like ways in which to to deal with with patients. So this is why I think it's quite hard when you compare it to the kind of trials that you've been involved in in the early part of your career when you give one substance and you test it in a randomized control manner and you put that against something else that you know not to have the same analogue or compound in. What what are your thoughts on that?
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, you know, I I I'm glad you asked that question because I think of when I was trained in, you know, pharmaceutical sciences, I guess if you think of it broadly in that way, what's ingrained in us, you know, when in fact the first my first introduction to that was when I before I did my PhD, my degree specialized in biological and medicinal chemistry. And that was when I first heard the concept of an active ingredient. And when you're an organic chemist, which ultimately is where I was trained in, the goal is to build a physical substance, a drug. And that involves assembling atoms in a particular way into a very unique shape that's been figured out in one way or another that this is what does it. And this is called the active ingredient. It's ingrained on us that when a person takes a medicine, the only thing that matters is the active ingredient. So in a paracetamol, there's paracetamol is the active ingredient, but there's a there's half a dozen other things there as well. Otherwise, because you've only got a tiny amount of paracetamol, the rest of it is stuff that bulks it up, helps it to dissolve differently and so, you know, there's a range of things called excipients. But it was ingrained in us there's a single active ingredient. But when you start looking into the broader placebo effect and empathy, the mind-body connection, all these things, you realize there's actually a lot of active ingredients and all of them contribute. And not just in a, you know, we we sometimes think of, you know, the importance of empathy and even the the environment, we sometimes think of it in as part of a holistic thing and not in a doctor's surgery, but it matters in a doctor's surgery as well. We just didn't realize to what extent it matters. We're now realizing empathy, for example, is huge. It does actually matter quite a lot. So there's a lot of active ingredients. And I would say it becomes then more tricky, especially if you're not testing a drug. If you're looking at the benefits of, let's say, an alternative practice, then more of these active ingredients are present in the alternative practice because they don't have the acute effect of a drug because the drug effect itself is acute, but you've got other active ingredients like empathy, setting, even whether the environment, the room has plants in it. I mean, research shows, for example, you put two identical rooms, hospital or clinical rooms, and give and subject people as part of a study to pain, right, just a simple pain test. Pain thresholds are higher and recovery faster if a if the identical rooms, one has plants in it. And isn't that amazing? And that's because plants, green, nature itself is recognized by by humans over, it's ingrained over eons to to cause a calming effect. But that's an active ingredient as well. But these subtler active ingredients become more important when you have a therapy that lasts longer than a ten-minute consultation. And so it becomes more difficult to to measure just the impact of one acute substance versus nothing at all. And now you've got to, it is tricky to build it all in. So what what sometimes what you have to do is say, let's take all of this together, combined with the therapy and see if it helps someone, rather than just measuring the impact of an individual little thing. Let's all of these things are helpful, so let's use all of them.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, now you mention the plants in hospital rooms, I did want to talk about that because I I love this sort of the concept of how we have a natural affinity to fractals. And there there are some really interesting studies that you talked about in the book where, you know, people who had the same intervention, i.e. a cholecystectomy, removal of the gallbladder, for example, some had a brick wall to look at, and then some people had a park to look at. And they measured their responses to pain afterwards and they found the park viewers had a had a better pain response. And you you talk about fractals in the environment and how, you know, we've we've developed over eons to sort of have that sort of um that the affinity to them. I I wonder if you could go into that a bit more because I found that element absolutely fascinating.
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, me me too. In fact, you know, I I stumbled upon that accidentally. You know, my my my partner is doing an Open University degree in philosophy and psychology. And it was one of her, you know, one of her modules I had to study was an entire textbook on the effect of nature. And I I I couldn't I couldn't believe it. I'd never come across this. And really what what happens is for eons of evolution, for eons, our ancient ancestors lived in, you know, natural settings. You know, in fact, we we we emerged out of what is now Botswana. So for eons, our ancestors lived in areas that are green, you know, green grass, green trees with the sound of bird song and the sound of crickets and stuff at nighttime with blue sky. And so what happened is, if you compare the general stress levels of us in modern humans to them, you'll find that they were pretty much chilled out most of the time. Yeah, we sometimes think, oh, what a hostile environment they lived in. From time to time, they're not being threatened with sabre-toothed tigers every day. You know, for the most part, our ancient ancestors sat about twiddling their thumbs, pretty much just sleeping and not doing very much. Their nervous system was very relaxed, very chilled. The modern humans, you know, we're we're highly strung all the time because you're thinking, you know, I finish this podcast, I need to go to Tesco and I need to get this and oh God, I I forgot that email yesterday. And most humans are on edge all the time. The nervous system is spiked all the time. But for our ancestors, for eons, they're pretty chilled out. And what happened is a connection, a correlation began to form over a long time between the state of the nervous system and the physical, the the perception of the environment at that time. So what our ancestors were experiencing in the environment, what was what was connected to this calm nervous system. So over eons, that correlation occurred. And so nowadays, for us modern humans, the moment you see a green space, you know, blue sky, trees, grass, the tweeting of birds, even the the noise of crickets at nighttime, that ancient effect kicks in and the human nervous system tends towards relaxation. And the longer you're in nature, the more it the more we begin to relax. And that's and that's what gave birth to some of these scientific studies, even some of them that stimulate the nervous system and measure exactly how long it takes to calm. And if people are can even see a green space or even listen to bird song, the nervous system recovers faster. And that's why some studies find that hospital patients recover faster if their window offers them a view of nature rather than a brick wall or a hospital car park, for example. It's incredible, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that is absolutely incredible. And uh, you know, I think about this through the lens of cost-effective interventions that may have a significant impact, you know, whether it's someone in hospital or someone who's trying to help themselves uh in in the community environment. Um and you have this line in the book that I had to write down. Uh it's called, it goes, humans have become like tuning forks that vibrate sweetly to the sounds of nature. That resonated with me so much because every day I've got a little dog and I have to take her outside and stuff and um I've I've tried to uh reduce the use of my AirPods just so I can listen to the swaying of the trees and and you know, the the sights and actually put more of my attention into the natural surroundings that I'm very privileged to have quite close to me. Um and that just sort of brought it all home for me and and learning a bit about how we've we've been attuned and we've, you know, evolved alongside nature just just put everything in into context. So, yeah, I I I think it's um it it's absolutely fascinating.
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah. And and actually what you what you said a moment ago about fractals. I've got I've got a wee dog as well and I I live in Dunblane in Central Scotland and there's lots of green space. It's actually a green belt where I live. So it's absolutely brilliant for that. But you know, what you said about fractals, it reminded me when you said you look you look at the trees and stuff. The human nervous system even can spot the difference between real and fake. And and that's where fractals come in because some scientists investigating, you know, why is this that we are attuned to nature? And it's because most of nature is fractal. You know, like trees, you know, a tree grows like that and then it branches off. And then the branches branch off, and then those branches branch off. And it's like the growth rules say, okay, the tree's got a wee rule somewhere in its genes that say, okay, now we need to branch. And the wee rule runs again and it branches again. And so most of nature is fractal. And so our brains and nervous systems have become attuned, if you will, to recognizing something natural by its fractal component. And that's why if you give something that's real versus something that's a fake version, the human nervous system reacts better to something that's real because our brains actually recognize the fractal component, which is something inherent to nature itself. Isn't that? That blows me away actually.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, that that that is yeah, that really does blow me away. And it kind of explains some other studies that I've come across. I'm not too sure if you mentioned this in your book or not, um or maybe it was someone another one, but uh if people are exposed to urbanized environments, uh either in a video or they they watch something and then they do a test that tests their cognitive ability, those are significantly hindered compared to if they were exposed to green environments or natural environments. And I I remember looking at that, I was like, wow, that's that's incredible. It just means that the cogs in our brain are just sort of uh oiled by by looking at natural environments and you know, it it just it enhances everything else, whether it be our ability to cope with pain or ability to think clearly, all those different elements. So yeah, nature is uh is is certainly a drug.
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, certainly. I I mentioned that study along with even studies that were looking at the the the crime rates in areas and they put in some trees into an area and just because the trees themselves and the bushes and flowers had a calming effect, it was incredible that there was less the crime rate was lower. But another study similar, all part of that same chapter actually, scientists got people to do a walk around a historic city in the Czech Republic. And and they timed them and they were listening to one group was listening to bird songs, one was listening to urban sounds like traffic and all that kind of stuff. And they found that those who were listening to traffic sounds walked significantly faster and completed a one-kilometre circuit through the city much faster than those who were listening to bird song, who actually found themselves, the whole body was just slowing down and relaxing. And the only difference, they walked the exact same route around this historic city. The only difference was what did they hear in their in their heads? Was urban environment or bird song? And I thought, amazing, you know.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Dr David Hamilton: Ever since, you know, ever since I came across that research, when I'm working, I actually have on my phone natural sounds playing. And I wrote half of this book while listening to natural sounds.
Dr Rupy: That's brilliant. I you know what, I uh when I read that in the book, I told my partner straight away because we have this like ongoing uh uh argument about how I walk really, really slow whenever in the park. And she's like walking, you know, at least like five miles more than me, like up up ahead of me when we're walking the dog. And she's like, you walk like a pensioner, you walk so slow. I'm like, sweetie, I'm just like really attuned to the environment. This study shows when they they walk people around this historic environment, they were just like just really taking everything in. So you just need to take in more of the nature. This is on you, it's not on me. Um I wanted to uh I want I wanted to talk about um one of the other studies that you mentioned here uh from from close to home, Lincolnshire NHS Hospital and the just the visualization techniques they taught patients who were um uh undergoing chemotherapy, um imagining things like the macrophages, the the some some of the immune cells as part of our immune system, gobbling up cancer cells and increasing their immune response. And that was actually measured to have a significant response. And they did some other sort of visualization techniques that were pretty incredible. So like what what what's going on there?
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, so so in that particular study, it was women who had breast cancer and they were all going through, you know, the same treatment. So surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy. And so they all had exactly the same treatment. But half of them, in addition to that treatment, not instead of, but in addition to, they were also taught visualization practices where, as I say, they imagine, you know, macrophages gobbling up things or many of them visualized the immune cells as piranha fish or Pac-Man destroying cancer cells. But for each person, vision was some in their own way, visualized the immune system destroying the cancer cells. And and what you found is, you know, their immune system was heightened. In one study, their immune system was significantly heightened. In other studies, there was a real positive effect. And what happens is, in some ways, when you imagine something, there's a fine line between real and imaginary as far as your brain's concerned. And lots of research is now weighing into this and saying, in many ways, your brain doesn't distinguish all that much between real and imaginary. So when you imagine something or do it, to your brain, it's very similar. And and I think in the last podcast, I gave an example of people, a seminal Harvard research study where volunteers played piano notes each day for five days and another set of volunteers imagined playing the same notes each day for five days. And the changes in the brain were identical. And you couldn't tell the difference. And now other research has done something similar and they've got people to eat cubes of cheese or imagine eating cubes of cheese. And the overall impact on appetite was exactly the same. In other words, even imaginary, imagining eating, providing you imagine eating, you know, bite for bite, chew for chew for the same duration, was actually having the same impact on the brain to an extent as actually eating itself. And other studies, there's several studies, even people get physically stronger by imagining working out at the gym. And even people who have injuries, one one study even had people who weren't injured, but they were immobilized with a plaster cast for a month. And the scientists measured the reduction in strength. And most people lost, you know, 45% strength. But half of them, in addition to having the plaster cast, they were to imagine pushing their hand against the cast. So imagine strengthening their wrist. They only lost 23% strength. They lost half the strength. And all they did was visualize. And so, but what this study did is show maybe the same principles apply to the immune system. When you're when you're visualizing the immune system doing something, then it it maybe it seems to be that in some way, the immune system is responding to what you're imagining and beginning to work in the way according to what you're what you're actually imagining. And it's astonishing because other research shows the immune system is actually quite sensitive to how you feel. And it's also quite sensitive to psychological states, but it's also sensitive, we now we know, to imagery. So that study was born out of a conglomeration of all of these observations. And someone, a hospital thought, let's see then, that there is previous research showing that visualizing secretory immunoglobulin A or SIGA, it's a wee, it's a double Y-shaped antibody, you know, antibodies kind of Y-shaped, it's a double Y-shaped, and it's the first part of your immune system that responds if you say drop a piece of food and you pick it up, it's contaminated. SIGA is the first part of the immune system that responds to that. And people visualizing multiplying it were actually able to increase the amount of SIGA in their saliva compared to people just doing a relaxation technique. So all of these studies together weighed into that and scientists thought, let's see then that there seems to be evidence that visualizing the immune system can impact it. So let's test it with people who've got cancer, but make sure all everyone's getting treatment, not instead of. And I make that point really strong because sometimes people get who are sceptical of these kind of things, assume that what you're saying is visualize instead of medicine, but never saying that. We're always saying, do whatever intervention is necessary, but visualize as well. Because you, you know, you don't meditate instead of sleeping. You sleep and you meditate. You know, you don't go for a run and stuff instead of eating. You know, you do all of these good things together. So what I'm I'm suggesting and I've made that point all the way through the book really, is, you know, alternative practices aren't instead of doing mainstream practices, they're stuff that we can do in addition to them to get an overall maybe an enhanced effect. And this visualization study was a very clear demonstration. The immune response to cancer was far higher in those who visualized versus those who just had had the treatment itself.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. That it it marries quite nicely with actually the a topic that you bring up uh a lot later on in the book, the law of attraction, which um I mean, I've been fascinated with it. I obviously I've read The Secret, I've spoken to Tara Swart on the podcast here about manifestation. Um and you have some interesting insights into the law of attraction. It's it's not just visualizing it blankly, it's also uh where you're focusing your attention and also uh combined with actions. You use the example of uh David Beckham, for example, or I think it was Sally Gunnell earlier on in the in the book as well, you know, who who visualized uh the the winning the the sort of um uh the actions that have taken them and and combined with the action. I I wonder if you could talk to me a bit about the law of attraction and how you advise people utilize this this tool because um I'm personally fascinated with it and I I'll give you an example of like how I'm putting it into practice myself.
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, I I find it fascinating as well. And what I I I always say is sometimes when people think of what is generally called the law of attraction, you assume that I just have to close my eyes and meditate on picturing something and it will just materialize out of thin air and land on my lap. And that is cannon fodder for people who are sceptical. You know, and what what I often say is you can combine mindset and what you're visualizing with taking physical action. You know, one thing I wrote in the book, it was I remember when I got my, after I've had a few books published, and I remember someone, one of my friends said to me, look how you manifested that, you know, you had a goal to get a book published and wow, look at you now. But what they didn't see was the blood, sweat and tears of actions. You know, I wrote most of that book in the middle of the night because I was I was teaching, I was a chemistry lecturer, which I a job I did for a year not long after I left the pharmaceutical industry. And so the only time I could find was the middle of the night. So I actually wrote three or four days a week from midnight to 3:30 in the morning if I didn't have a class to teach until the afternoon. And so there's a lot of action. And I find if you combine willingness to take action and the pictures you're making in your head, then sometimes really amazing things can happen. But one of the points I did make about the law of attraction is that some research has looked at, you know, is consciousness produced by the brain or is the brain and the entire world an experience of consciousness? And there is a growing body of evidence to suggest it's the latter, despite how much our ingrained assumptions are it's the former. And and some research found that by by studying people who had frontal lobe damage in the brain, which created an automatic sense of what's called absorption. In other words, they feel, with particular frontal lobe damage, and this was study was done by a neurologist, particular frontal lobe damage, it makes them feel absorbed, at one with with nature, with with whatever, whether they're even looking at a computer screen, they actually feel somehow you and I look at a computer screen and it's clearly detached from you. But to them, people with particular frontal lobe damage, the line between you and reality is ever so blurred and there's a feeling of connectedness with everything. And they found that those people could actually subtly influence physical states in the world. I mean, I'm not talking they just imagine something and someone's going to levitate up off the ground. Not nothing like that, but very, very subtle things they could cause impact in their immediate physical environment. Again, I'm not talking about levitating pens rolling across tables like you see in the movies, but very, very subtle things. If you know what to look for, what to test for, very, very subtle things. And it occurred predominantly with people with particular frontal lobe damage because previous research had suggested that if and as well as visualizing an action, you actually can try to feel as if it's really there, like bring all of your sensory, your your sensory modalities and feel like what you're imagining to be true really is true and put yourself in it so that you emotionally feel it. Then lots of books like The Secret and other books have been written suggesting that ingredient matters quite a lot. So when I was researching through the book on other subjects, actually, prayer, ESP, telepathy, that kind of stuff, that seemed to be a very important ingredient was felt connection with things. And I think the frontal lobe damage study was a real pivotal, a pivotal study. It's something that stands as a bridge that begins to say, oh, I can actually see now how these kind of things work because here's a really solid piece of research done by a neurologist who was sceptical of this kind of stuff, demonstrating and say, predicting that, well, if it's true that feeling connected with something should have an is an ingredient for this, then let's pick people who that is already a given. They have frontal lobe damage, so they already feel connected. And let's see if we can take them with other people and see anything that's different in how they affect their environment. And there was a very clear difference in that study.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's incredible that. And so are there similarities within our brains? Do we have magnetite or certain other elements in our in our brains that we've we've discovered?
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have magnetite in the human brain. In fact, MRI scans recently mapped it and found it's very extensive with heightened concentrations in the pineal gland, but it's very extensive in in the human brain. And that was that research was was connected to a an extension of the Caltech research that showed that we are magnetically sensitive to the a change in the Earth's magnetic field. And so scientists decided to see if we can map it, the the magnetite using MRI and absolutely found concentrations all the way all throughout the brain. So we are magnetically sensitive, but the people who did some of that research wrote that we've just learned to not use it because we use our other senses. But it's not that we can't. It's back it's there, but we just it's not a predominant thing for us. We drive our cars and use road signs. You know, we don't walk along and go, I feel that's north. You know, whereas a bird does because birds don't have cars and road signs. So we've just learned over X what X amount of time, I don't know how long, but we've learned to use different ways to navigate, but that system is still there. We just don't use it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like me uh adopting Google Maps uh so much so that I probably wouldn't be able to direct myself around London now. I've sort of like, you know, just completely uh handed over my my compass skills to to the app on my phone. And you know, this sort of speaks to uh the the the lack of uh of of practice around intuition. Like I I you know, I I I always talk about, you know, mindfully eating, making sure that you're aware of every single bite and you're chewing properly and you're not distracted and how this can have benefits in terms of your digestive process and reducing bloating and all that kind of stuff. But I feel that we need to be a lot more intuitive just in general because we have a lot of artificial environments around us and so it's one of those practices that we should we should definitely uh be leaning into. And on that note of um perception, one of the things that I was absolutely fascinated to hear about was how my dog has a completely different visual system and they don't see, she doesn't see as many colours as me, or she sees things that I see as green as as like beige or or brown or whatever it might be. And there are other uh uh animals, there are other beings that have heightened vision and can see even more colours. So I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about that and how that might sort of um uh conjure up ideas of like whether we can see auras and and energy fields and and all that kind of stuff.
Dr David Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah, so so humans are are called trichromats and that means three colours. We have three types of photoreceptors or cones in in our eyes that allow us to see the range of colours that we see. You know, so the RGB that that's that reflects the cone, the photoreceptors we have. But dogs only have two. Dogs are called dichromats. And if if a dog looks at grass, like you say, it looks beige to a dog. And a dog sees a rainbow is kind of grey, dark blue, light blue, beige into a wee bit deeper shade of beige brown. And a dog has never seen a rainbow that we see. So the question is, you know, who sees correctly? And the answer is nobody sees correctly because nobody actually sees reality as it is. All we see is a representation of reality that's dependent upon our perceptual process or perceptual abilities. So some species, like foraging insects, for example, they have four, some of them have five and six cones or photoreceptors, meaning they see an alien landscape that's completely invisible. In fact, many those species see ultraviolet. And right into the ultraviolet. In other words, when you look at a flower, you just see the outline of the flower, but they see ultraviolet plumes that are even related to how the Earth's magnetic field is interacting because there's a thing called, again, it used to be it used to be considered woo woo, but it's true woo, plant magneto reception. You know, plants are very and the reason why scientists are studying the sensitivity of plants to the Earth's magnetic field is because they're they're everyone knows we're looking at maybe in 50 years, could we create a colony on the moon or on Mars? Now, despite differences in soil, you have differences in magnetic field. So it's called plant magneto reception, the research into can plants sustain themselves not just in soils, but in a different strength of of magnetic field. And so and so some foraging insects actually see not only the magnetic field, fish, the the zebrafish, for example, they actually see the Earth's magnetic field and the interaction with the ultraviolet. So to a no human's ever seen that, that kind of stuff. So who sees correctly? And again, no one sees correctly. We just see the the limits of our perceptual abilities. And so I think it's absolutely fascinating. And coming back to what you said about even psychic auras, a neuroscientist called Ramachandran demonstrated that there was a an autistic child who his mother thought there must be a way of helping my child to understand people because he wasn't able to understand or relate to people. So his mum taught him a colour emotion code that if he saw someone smiling, he was to give that a colour. And if he saw someone frowning, he was to give that a colour. If he saw someone with facial expressions of anger, he would give that a colour. And they worked out a code for every facial expression, what that means, and here is the colour. And he was to picture the colour in his mind. And it just allowed him to understand people a bit better because kids like colours, you know, rather than intellectually saying, that means angry, it was easier for the child to picture it. But what was amazing is the brain is so neuroplastic that Ramachandran did a study and he proved that this child, what happened to the child at a certain age is the colour, and this is what Ramachandran found, the colour processing region called V4 had actually integrated into part of what's called the mirror neuron system that allows us to understand people's facial expression so that the boy actually physically now saw an aura, an envelope of colour that that appeared around anyone whose colour actually reflected the person's emotional state because the person's emotional state is always reflected in our facial expressions. It's why you smile when you're happy, you frown when you're sad. You know, so what he actually saw was a visual representation of people's states. So he could actually tell you how a person's feeling by the envelope of colour. And as woo woo as it sounds, Ramachandran started to study it and he found that this overlap had occurred in the brain. And he said everyone's brain's capable of that, but it's just such a woo woo concept that no one's willing to investigate it and see if we could train ourselves. And all it is was training ourselves to perceive something in a way the brain is capable of doing, but we've just not trained ourselves to do that because it sounds too woo woo and out there. But but he said it might actually help children on the autism spectrum to better understand their world and better learn to interact because it gives them a way of perceiving in a way that's more friendly to them.
Dr Rupy: Mmm. Mmm. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it it definitely makes a lot of sense to me. And I think on on that sort of note of of training one's brain, after listening to the book and and just sort of uh analysing my own behaviours, you know, walking around London, uh it's an urbanized environment, you you almost feel like um uh not not negative energy, but sort of uh sometimes abrasive energy to other people. And what I've been trying to do is practice a lot more sort of uh meta, like, you know, loving kindness and and trying to spread that. Just in my mind, not literally going up to people and and saying, I love you, like have a have a great day, but just in my mind uh and and and conjuring up sort of hero stories about other people. And I, you know, as I practice it, even after 24 hours, you know, I I just felt a lot better on myself and I'm training my brain to sort of be a lot more um uh pleasant uh and and and creating my own sort of positive mental environment. I I wonder what you practice every day, given that, you know, you've been in this for for so long and you know, you've written a book on kindness. What what are sort of like um your your tools uh in your toolbox when it comes to practicing this self-care uh yourself on a daily basis?
Dr David Hamilton: It's exactly that, meta. I I do exactly the same as you. You know, I I do meta meditation every day. You know, I think of people, may you be happy and well and safe and may you feel at ease. But I also do that in the street. Not not every day, not all the time, but if I'm aware that my state isn't how I'd like it to be, then my my go-to in my mind is meta. You know, may you be happy. And I see people looking stressed or upset or in a hurry and I say, may you be happy in my mind and well and safe and may you feel at ease. And and what happens, in fact, here's the reason why you can feel a bit kind of negative around negative people. It's called the emotional contagion. You know, and your brain, your you have a mirror neuron system in the brain, it's cells in the brain that mirror people's facial expressions. So because people's facial expressions and body language betrays how they feel, it's called emotional contagion, how we catch it. Because your mirror neuron system mirrors the expressions you see in people's faces. So if you walk by 25 people and 20 of them have angry faces, then the chances are by the time you get to the end of those 25 people, your mirror neuron system has distorted your facial expressions and you'll be frowning. Now, there's a correlation now between your facial expression and your brain chemistry. And very quickly, you will start to feel angry as well. You won't know understand why you feel angry, but in large part, it comes down to the mirror neuron. It's not the only reason why this happens. There are some more subtle things, but mostly it's the mirror neuron system. So what what you do with your meta and what I do is when you change your state, may you be happy and well and safe, you're no longer catching it from someone else. But what you start becoming is a projector. And you start projecting and their mirror neuron system will catch how you feel. And the more people you pass, you pass through by 25 people, at least some of those 25 people will capture and won't understand why, but they'll come away with a smile on their face. They won't understand why. And that smile on their face will actually change the thoughts that they're thinking because there's always a correlation between facial expressions and how you feel, your outer state and your inner state. And you actually affect people without realizing by doing meta. And it's it's partly how kindness is contagious. I do exactly the same thing on purpose because I know that's how it works. But my my my self-care as well is I I'm aware of how I feel and I try to take steps to do things in my life that increase that improve my state. And some of that for me is finding things in my life that have meaning and purpose and do more of them. Even if it means that I'm really, really busy, I don't have time to do that. But if I'm really, really busy and I choose the business over the things always that make me feel good, then I'll be less effective at doing the things that I'm doing. But if I can make the time for things, I play tennis most days. I live in Dunblane, it's kind of expected, the home of Andy and Jamie Murray. Uh but I get a lot of enjoyment out of that and playing it against other people in the leagues gives meaning, it's meaningful for me. And even though it takes time away from a busy working day, because I'm feeling better, that positive feeling state I have enhances everything I do. And there's lots of research that actually shows that exact thing. Do more of what makes you feel good on the inside and you'll find you'll be much more effective in everything you do on the outside as well. So, but I'm glad you mentioned meta because that's exactly what I do as well. I do it as a practice in the house, but I also do it out in the street if I feel I have to.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Uh I'm I'm definitely a fan and uh I'm a massive fan of you. I love the uh I love the book, I love your energy. Uh I just uh yeah, I'm in awe of the number of books that you've published as well. It's incredible. Well, I'm a fan of you. I I use your cookbooks. Brilliant. I love it. David, this is brilliant. I uh and look, we're not going to do any more podcasts until we can actually uh do it in person because I I feel like I'm missing out on uh the uh the energy uh of of of being in person, even though I know after reading your book that it can exist uh uh universally as well. So yeah, I really appreciate you you've taken the time and uh yeah, I can't can't wait to do this again at some point in the future.
Dr David Hamilton: My pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure again. So thanks very much for having me on. I've really enjoyed myself.
