Beat Your Genes Podcast - podcast cover

Beat Your Genes Podcast

BeatYourGenesbeatyourgenes.org
Evolutionary psychology with Dr. Doug Lisle, PhD and Nathan Gershfeld, D.C. Most psychology advice treats your brain like a broken machine. Beat Your Genes starts somewhere different: your instincts aren't broken. They're just optimized for a Stone Age environment that no longer exists. Dr. Lisle - Evolutionary psychologist, former Stanford lecturer, and co-author of The Pleasure Trap - has spent decades developing frameworks that explain human behavior from the ground up. Nathan Gershfeld, D.C. - trained first as an electrical engineer and then spent 14 years as a Doctor of Chiropractic. He brings a systems thinker's curiosity to every conversation. He mostly lets Dr. Lisle talk. Topics include relationships and attraction, self-esteem, personality, depression and anxiety, willpower, the ego trap, and how pushy people exploit agreeable ones. 380+ episodes. New episodes every other week. New here? Start at beatyourgenes.org/start-here
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Episodes

97: On-air session - Daughter is having health problems, what do we do?

A mother named Tracy calls in after Chef AJ told her she was out of her league and sent her to Dr. Lisle. Tracy's 12-year-old daughter Emily has daily bowel and bladder accidents, a diagnosis of encopresis and enuresis, and a decade of failed interventions ranging from polyethylene glycol drinks to a one-hour bathroom protocol to now, at last, a recommendation for psychiatric medication. Dr. Lisle listens, asks three questions, and reframes the entire 12-year ordeal in a single sentence. In this...

Dec 28, 201733 minSeason 1Ep. 97

94: Dating on a diet, Painful memories, jealousy, working long hours

Continuing on with the questions from last week's show. 5. Is orthorexia real? Does it apply to an actually health-promoting diet & lifestyle? 6. Dating while on a diet: How to bring it up without scaring your date away 7. Painful memories: Why do they replay? Why do they come up? 8. Do women naturally attempt to dominate men in long term relationships? 9. Jealousy 10. How much abuse can our bodies take from working long hours all our lives?

Dec 07, 201758 minSeason 1Ep. 94

93: Relocating, Sexual Harassment current events, Dating on a diet, and more...

Tonight's questions will be: 1. Follow up question for what the future will look like 2. What to consider when relocating your life: Near family, low cost of living, wild experiences, etc.. 3. Sexual harassment allegations in the current news 4. Anxiety about transitioning to a healthy diet 5. Is orthorexia real? Does it apply to an actually health-promoting diet & lifestyle? 6. Dating while on a diet: How to bring it up without scaring your date away 7. Painful memories: Why do they replay?...

Nov 30, 20171 hr 4 minSeason 1Ep. 93

91: Live Callers: The Hill Climbing Trap, the Ego Trap, and What Your 20s Are Actually For

Most ambitious people assume that the point of life is to accomplish something great enough that the world remembers your name. Dr. Lisle calls this the hill climbing trap, and in this episode he argues it is one of the most consequential mistakes a creative person can make. The statue in the park 200 years from now? Birds will be crapping on it, and nobody you care about will ever see it. In this live caller episode, Dr. Doug Lisle walks two listeners through some of the most practical applicat...

Nov 09, 201748 minSeason 1Ep. 91

83: Q &A

Ep 83

Sep 14, 201748 minSeason 1Ep. 83

80: On-Air Session: Road Rage, Flaky Clients, and the Neighbor Who Scammed You

Most people assume altruism is selfless and that anonymous donors exist. Dr. Lisle says neither is true. Every act of giving, from the mother scrubbing floors for her son's tuition to the stranger picking up trash before dawn, is a gene-level calculation with a hidden audience. Once you see the logic, a lot of human behavior stops being mysterious. In this on-air session with longtime listener David, Dr. Lisle works through four live questions covering low conscientiousness trading partners, a n...

Aug 24, 201757 minSeason 1Ep. 80

78: Google's memo controversy

A google engineer wrote a memo explaining biological differences between men and women.

Aug 10, 20171 hr 2 minSeason 1Ep. 78

71: Hard-wired: Nature vs. Nurture

Tonight's episode: - Two recent studies - Listener emails - A very funny caller with a great question

Jun 22, 201759 minSeason 1Ep. 71

70: How to Discover Who You Are: An On-Air Session

Most people assume finding yourself is a spiritual or therapeutic journey. Dr. Lisle says it is something much more mechanical. Your identity is just the set of conditional relationships between you and the world, and the only way to map it is to go have experiences and watch your own nervous system react. In this live on-air session, a longtime listener named Dan brings Dr. Lisle a full picture of his life. He is 35, finishing a divorce, sharing custody of a young daughter, caught between tradi...

Jun 15, 201748 minSeason 1Ep. 70

69: Animal haters, Porn in LTR, Being a nicer person, Decision fatigue & Netflix

1. If evolutionary psychology considers parental investment theory and the investment in kin as essential why do so many people in the West keep animals. 2. I used to get really upset when my partner watched . I have relaxed and now feel like it's not the worst thing he can do and will not end my relationship so I shouldn't get upset. What do you think? 3. Can a person's placing on the agreeability continuum be situational? I believe I am more or less disagreeable depending on the dynamics of di...

Jun 08, 201757 minSeason 1Ep. 69
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