Dr. David Rabin On Psychedelics, Stress, Mental Illness, Calming The Nervous System, Dreaming, The Science of Sleep & Healing Yourself
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hi guys, it's Mari and you're listening to The Pursuit of Wellness.

What is up guys and welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Today's conversation was so insightful and interesting. I spoke with Dr. Dave Rabin, who is a board certified psychiatrist, neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and inventor, and possibly one of the smartest people I've ever spoken to. He has studied the impact of chronic stress on our lives for over 15 years.

The topic of chronic stress, as you guys know, has come up so many times on this show, and it's something that I have dealt with, and I've realized the major impact it's had on my health. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from an expert today. He's also the co-founder and chief innovation officer at Apollo Neuroscience, which has developed the first scientifically validated wearable technology that actively improves sleep,

relaxation, focus, and calm. We talk about touch therapy and what that can do for the brain. This really interested me. Dr. Rabin works with clients at the Apollo Clinic focusing on integration therapy, plant medicines, medicine-assisted psychotherapy, which I had a ton of questions about, guys, and couples therapy. He specializes in treatment-resistant mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychosomatic disorders, personality disorders, including BPD,

chronic pain, insomnia, and substance abuse. I asked all about psychedelics and what they can do for us, and you guys will be mind blown by his answers. Mental health is always top of mind with this show, so I can't wait to dive in. I hope you guys enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Dr. Rabin, welcome to the show. Such a pleasure to be here with you. Thanks so much for having me. Where did your initial interest in this topic come from?

- Hmm, my initial interest. I guess my initial interest was very young because when I was a kid, I had very vivid dreams growing up and I never really understood what,

like why I had these dreams but they were not and they were not always good or bad sometimes most of the time they were just like neutral things like I'd be having a conversation with my brother or a friend and then you know I might have been you know four or five or six and I remember being out with them in the daytime that would be talking and I would reference something that happened in a dream and of course my brother my friend would not know anything about what I was talking about

And so I would have this instant kind of recognition that, oh, what, maybe that happened in a dream and they weren't actually there. And so as I got older, I started to realize, have more, you know, frightening dreams sometimes, you know, you get more stressed, you start to have more nightmares as a kid. And I would go to my parents and my parents were very thoughtful and, you know, they really just wanted me to feel safe and comfortable and not be afraid of sleep. And so they said, don't worry about those nightmares, you know, they're not real.

And I, you know, kept having these very real like dreams. And so, you know, even though they said that, which I think helped me a little bit, it was confusing because I'm having these experiences during sleep that feel real. And yet people are telling me they're not real. And so I start to ask the question, you know, maybe as early as like six or seven years old, what is real actually mean?

And that's where I think it really things really got started for me on the on the consciousness train and started to think about, you know, what does it mean to be human? What is this light? What is what is it's going on? And just started the started the the ticker. You know what I mean? It's so interesting you say that because I also had really vivid dreams as a child. I can remember specific ones I would have throughout my life. Why does someone dream more than another person?

I honestly don't know if we know the answer to that yet. And I'm not sure that we necessarily know if one person dreams more than another person. I think what we do know is that people, everybody dreams and some people remember their dreams more than others. And some people have more seemingly intense, vivid or

or real-like dreams that seem real than others, but everybody dreams, and everybody dreams probably a similar amount. Whether we remember them or not is a different story. In adult life, we know that people can dream less than others,

And the reason for that is that dreaming has to occur. And what we know of sleep architecture, dreaming typically occurs in the REM sleep phase of sleep, which is a very deep phase of sleep. And for us to and it's a very deep restorative phase of sleep.

And so if we do not feel safe or we're stressed out or we are uncomfortable during sleep or we're not for whatever reason, we're not able to enter the deeper stages of restful sleep, then we're probably not going to dream or not going to dream as much or remember the dreams because

we're not entering at that REM stage of sleep for as long a time. And so REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, which is where all of our memory reconsolidation occurs. So literally the processing of memories from the short term into the long term

occurs during that stage of sleep. And dreaming is kind of seemingly a part of that process. And there's a lot of answers still that we don't have about sleep because it's a little bit hard to study because everything that's happening is happening when we're unconscious. So there's still a lot to learn here, but it's a really interesting topic. It's always fascinated me.

me. Yeah. And I definitely want to talk about sleep health with you because I'm sure you know a lot about it. You mentioned your experience with treatment resistant mental illnesses. In your experience, why doesn't traditional treatment work? Just to give the full perspective on this, I am a traditionally trained general adult psychiatrist. So traditional treatment does work for some people, but it doesn't work for a lot of people.

And I think what we're really good at, if you look at the Western paradigm of healthcare, you look at the way we do surgical procedures, the way we treat infections, injuries and wounds, the way we treat people who are acutely unstable and who need stabilization because there's something really bad that could happen right now if we don't do something about it. That's where Western medicine has its real strength. Right.

There's an emergency, I need to go in as your healthcare provider or doctor and stabilize you. Western medicine is brilliant at stabilization. We have saved so many lives by perfecting our stabilization techniques and tools and antibiotics are one example of that.

People used to die all the time from childbirth and routine cuts and wounds because they would get infected and we didn't have any good treatments for them. So Western medicine is a very powerful tool for treating those things. And we treat mental health the same way, which is actually part of the problem, because mental health is not just a right now thing. It's a chronic thing that happens over time.

And while our tools like Prozac and Zoloft, the serotonin, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor molecules, and other psychiatric medicines are helpful at stabilizing somebody in the short term, they are not necessarily great tools for long-term care or preventative care.

Right? Giving somebody something on a daily basis before they actually develop depression because they start to exhibit signs. And then how do we give them something that could prevent the progression to a full-blown depressive episode or anxiety disorder or panic or PTSD? How do we prevent them from getting there? That is something we're not particularly good at.

So there's certain, so I think that's where we start to benefit a lot from the knowledge of Eastern and tribal techniques, which have existed for a very long time that haven't been fully integrated into Western culture yet, but has become really fascinating and started to become integrated. And why we look back to those is because those techniques are focused on how to prevent illness.

how to prevent us from actually getting sick. And then when we get sick with a chronic illness, like an inflammatory illness or a mental illness, how do we then resolve that long-term naturally or with more natural approaches that are sustainable, that don't require constantly taking medicine every day that could have profound side effects. And so it's, you know, I think the

So I think that's really where the distinguishing features are. It's let's not, you know, I want to make sure we're careful. Like, let's not, let's not demonize Eastern and tribal medicine because they can't treat infections well. And let's not, and do surgery. Well, let's not demonize Western medicine because they can't treat chronic illness. Well, let's make sure we're using the best of the best for what they're good at. And, and,

and they are really good at certain things, but neither discipline is good at everything. Does that make sense? - So your approach is to combine the two and use both in different circumstances.

Yeah. And, and I, and I think a combination, right? Like when we're treating, if you were to come to me in my office and you were to check off criteria saying that you meet criteria for depression, I would give you what, what I can give you to stabilize you right now, depending on how severe your symptoms are. And then I would give you the techniques and the tools from, from tribal medicine and Eastern medicine that can sustain your health in the longterm, which is,

helps you feel like a more connected and independent member of the healing process that's not reliant on me specifically and not reliant on the medicine or the healthcare system, but starts to help retrain you to be at the center of your own healing experience, which is

when we look at whether we look at, you know, Hippocratic, what the origins of Western medicine from the Pocrates or Maimonides or Eastern medicine from going back to ancient yogis and traditional Tibetan medicine, all of these traditions are focused on the

the person seeking to be healed is the source of the healing. It doesn't come from outside of that person. So it's really about how can I, the doctor or the healer, help you reactivate your own inner, your own healing intelligence that knows what to do rather than making you feel like you're dependent on me for the healing. And that's where we start to unlock the real opportunity for growth and recovery. But it's when we fall into the trap of dogma,

Like we have to do it one way or the other way only that we get stuck in the trap because it's not about black or white. Very few things in our lives are, if anything is black and white, almost everything is gray in the middle, right? So how do we meet in the middle and figure out where you're at in your journey and give you what you need, not just right now, but also to stay in your health and maintain your health and balance for the longterm.

I absolutely love that approach. And I do think in today's society, we do think in a very black and white manner. And I see that pop up everywhere, even, you know, all over social media. What are some of those tribal practices you mentioned?

Well, you know, it starts with breath for one, right? Not just breathing in any way, but really just intentional breathing. So breathing and we really, I think just to break it down simply, there's the thought practices, the things we do with changing our thinking, there's the things we do with changing our behavior, and then there's the way we approach feeling, right?

and our emotions. And these are kind of the center of tribal practices and where what we're seeing is the convergence between, we talk about where we're going in the future of health and healing and medicine in the 21st century. It's really the convergence, the coming together of all of these things, Eastern, Western, and tribal feeling, thinking, and doing, right? Which is a cognitive behavioral approach. It's

the coming together of all of it. So the core of that starts with what are the six, like four to six things that we can do ourselves without relying on anybody else

to reestablish control over our lives because the single biggest reason why we feel stressed or afraid or why we get sick is because our bodies are feeling like they're out of control or afraid all the time and that takes all of our blood and resources and sends them to all the systems that are like fight or flight stress response survival systems that are not

Our recovery, rest, rest and recovery systems. So the survival systems are like skeletal muscles, heart, lungs, motor cortex, fear center of the brain, the amygdala, which we want to get resources when we're running from a lion or running out of food. But we don't want to get resources when we're trying to reproduce, when we're trying to digest our food and absorb it, or when we're trying to sleep, right?

right? We want when we're trying to sleep, we want all of our resources to go away from the skeletal muscles in the heart and lungs and go towards the rest and recovery parts of the body because we know we're safe enough to fall asleep. And so to reestablish a sense of control means reestablishing safety and reestablishing a sense of safety means reestablishing control. And those go hand in hand. So the four to six techniques that we talk about from Eastern tribal medicine are intentional breath, intentional movement,

intentional touch being providing consensual touch to ourselves or others or receiving consensual touch from another and intentional listening or the creation of music, including song.

And then the and those are the 4 things that we can do in any moment to reestablish a sense of control over how we feel right now that reestablish a balance of the nervous system and balance between the mind and body. And then the last 2, which are also critically important and not last, and definitely not least, our sleep.

and nutrition. And so those six things, when we think about what Eastern practices provide to us in terms of ancient knowledge, it's the practice of those six things that make sure that we maintain balance and health and that we are at the least likely to get sick. And when we do get sick, we're the most likely to recover.

The four skills, breath, movement, touch, music, that kind of reminds me of DBT and getting in the present moment. I've kind of used similar things whenever I've, because I have borderline personality disorder. So I've gone through many different DBT groups and things like that. And those were, that reminds me of the techniques I was using.

Yep, that's exactly right. And that's why these are so powerful is because they're all present in this techniques, right? Like our minds can be anywhere. They can be past, present or future, usually the past or the future, but there, but our bodies are always present. So by doing present this techniques, like what I just mentioned, it reminds our minds to center into our bodies. And when our minds are centered into our bodies,

we can be in the here and now and actually just experience it without worrying so much about the past and the future. It's really when the past, when we spend too much time training or being taught to focus on the past and the future rather than being present, we're actually giving away our power.

to things we can't change. The only things we can change are in the right here and now. I've heard you speak about plant medicine and psychotherapy, and I'm very interested. I've had various guests on this show. Some love psychotherapy, some are strongly against it. What's your stance and what experience have you had with it in your practice? So I'm a rare psychiatrist in that not only am I

a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist but i'm also a psychotherapist and most psychiatrists especially research psychiatrists don't do any psychotherapy i probably 90 percent of my practice or 80 to 90 percent of my practice my patients is psychotherapy based because psychotherapy and talk therapy is truly the foundation of healing from mental illness for one reason in particular just if we're going to make it real simple it's because when we're talking to each other

and you have stuff going on in here that you haven't let out or you haven't felt comfortable letting out, it's hard to gain perspective on it. It's hard to know all the stuff that I'm thinking about in here, is that real? Does it make sense?

Is it consistent with how I see myself in the world or how everybody else sees themselves in the world? Or is it just something that was taught to me that doesn't make sense? And until I speak it or write it down, I am not getting feedback. And the feedback can come from something as simple as talking to somebody else who's not judging you about how you're feeling and what you're thinking. That is an actually critical part of healing.

If we don't feel safe enough to talk to someone about how we're thinking and feeling, safe meaning that we know the person that's listening on the other side is just hearing and seeing us for who we are without judging us, because we are often so quick to judge ourselves.

That if we can establish a trusting relationship with someone, whether it's a therapist or just a friend or someone else in our lives who can hear and see us without judging us, then two things happen, right? I feel comfortable enough to say whatever it is on my mind and get it out. And when I get it out,

I first hear myself getting it out. And the first thing that is the first loop that happens is I hear myself saying what's going on in here, and then I have to evaluate that. And usually what happens on that first round of evaluation is, holy shit, that's how I think about myself. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's number one. And then number two is a good listener will do something called validation and reflection.

Validation means if I'm hearing you and listening to you, I'm going to tell you that it's okay to feel the way you feel, number one. And number two, I'm going to reflect back to you what I'm hearing you say so that you can have another loop.

Right. So you're hearing yourself say it. And then I'm going to tell you, this is what I'm hearing you say you feel about yourself. What is that? Did I get that right? And then you say, yes, you got that right. Holy crap. That's how I'm thinking about myself or no, you didn't get that right. This is how I actually, this is what I'm actually trying to say.

and then it forces us to reiterate and rethink it and that process creates a positive loop of re-evaluation of self-meaning and self-reference and so that process of just having somebody non-judgmentally listen to us again doesn't have to be a therapist but it's something that we should all ideally have in our lives that process of non-judgmental listening that we can all provide to each other

is the fundamental part of therapy that is the most healing and that we all every single human being on the face of the earth benefits from it's not stigmatized it's not like there's anything wrong with you because you've had to go to therapy it's something that we all deserve to have is someone to non-judgmentally listen to us yeah 100 i i feel like therapy is

has been a huge part of my healing journey and I always recommend it to other people because I think just saying it out loud, as you mentioned, is such a huge step in the right direction. Where does plant medicine come into play with that? So plant medicine and where modern techniques like Apollo come in are that these are tools that can amplify safety in our minds and bodies.

When we experience trauma, traumatic events, challenging experiences where we're not supported afterwards, or we're made to feel worst case, like we're at fault for what happened to us or what happened to others. This

experience of not being supported in after having these challenges makes us not trust ourselves or it makes us trust ourselves less as as Gabor Maté says, a very famous addiction and trauma physician, it creates almost like a fractured trust, self-trust.

And every time that happens, it creates more fractured self-trust, which makes us trust ourselves even less, which makes ourselves listen to our intuition even less, which makes us doubt ourselves more, which makes us less comfortable in our own skin. And so what talk therapy does at the very basic level is that when you feel comfortable talking to somebody like me,

who's trained to not judge and trained to just listen and hear you without providing, without waiting to speak and without anything else, just non-judgmentally listening to you, then you learn to trust me.

And if you can learn to trust me and remember what that feels like, then you can remember what it feels like to trust yourself. And then when we start to repair the fracture, which is just like when you break a leg or a bone and you come into the ER, and then we don't just put a cast on the bone right away because it could heal incorrectly. We have to traction the bone. We have to make sure that all the wound is all cleaned out.

so you don't get an infection and we have to make sure that it gets reattached in the way that your leg or bone will actually work afterwards right we don't just stick it all back together willy-nilly so this is the same for emotional wounds and we have to think about emotional wounds in the same way and it's and so that the rebuilding of that sense of trust with our relationship when we start is where the repair of that fracture trust begins

And then we start to work with that repair by reminding you simply of what does it feel like to trust again by learning to trust me. Once you learn to trust me, then you can learn to trust yourself by remembering what that feeling feels like. And then once you remember what that feeling feels like, that reminds you that you're safe enough to trust yourself again. And we've started to set the foundation for repairing the fracture.

Once we've done that, and Apollo comes in early because Apollo delivers a sense of soothing vibration to the body that gives you the sense of safety that helps repair that fractured sense of self-trust. It's an early stage tool for people, which is really helpful in repairing those trust fractures. Then you can start to add plant medicine.

And once you add plant medicine, particularly if we're talking about plant medicine, there's so many different kinds, but if we're talking about psychedelic, psychoactive plant medicines like ayahuasca or iboga or psilocybin and things of that nature, these medicines can amplify that sense of trust and that sense of safety when used properly. They can also amplify other things that are not pleasant and not fun if not used properly, but when used properly after we've already set the foundation of trust,

then I can work with you with those medicines or a very well-trained shaman can work with you with those medicines to help amplify that sense of safety and trust. And effectively, it's like stoking the fire with a bellows. Like you have the embers, you found the embers, you see where they are, there's still embers of trust in there. They're kindled, they're glowing, but there's not a fire of trust yet. It's just embers. And then you take...

the bellows and you start pumping that bellows and feeding that fire with air. And that's the plant. That's like what the plant medicine does. And it fans the ember and then the ember glows and becomes this big flame of trust and safety that allows the person to start to take the healing process into their own hands again and feel empowered and excited to do so. What is it about certain psychedelics that makes someone feel that way?

that makes somebody feel safe yeah i i mean i think they're they all work slightly differently on the molecular level uh and we don't know how all of them work but i think to give you and so what i will say to start is that there's some speculation here because we can't really explain all of them but what we're starting to see that's really interesting you know starting with medicines like mdma assisted therapy which is one of the most well-studied psychedelics

is MDMA, which is a specific activator of the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, as are many of the classical psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca to a large extent is working at this receptor site, and probably many others, although not all, are molecularly amplifying pathways in the safety cascade in the emotional brain.

So MDMA is interesting because it's been well studied in mouse models and in humans. And what it seems to be doing is boosting activity specifically at this receptor site, which isn't the only receptor involved, but this 5-HT2A receptor seems to be a very important receptor that is activated and that promotes this sense of safety in the brain and increases our sense of meaning around safety. And as we start to

have a foundation of our own safety, then the medicine just is like, again, it's like throwing fuel on the fire, like it amplifies that pathway. And then that makes it even easier to feel safe enough to go back and reevaluate these challenging things that have happened to us and reprocess them and remake meaning around them from a perspective of safety rather than fear. With the topic of safety, why do you think so many of us are struggling to feel safe?

I mean, in short, we're overstimulated is really the gist. Like we have too much going on and modernity is too stressful for us. As my wife says, and we've seen this from studies that have come out, we consume more information. The average human consumes more information in the first 30 minutes of being awake in the current day and age than in one week in the 1950s. Wow. Right?

Wow. So think about how stimulating that is for us and how many decisions we have to make as a result of that information now that we did not have to do back then. And it doesn't mean life was easier in the 50s, but it was certainly and most likely slower in a lot of ways. It was less burdensome in a lot of ways because we didn't have as many responsibilities and we didn't have as much stimulation.

We didn't have cell phones, smartphones following us home from work. We didn't have TVs blaring news all the time everywhere we go. It was just a very different kind of life. And it was a slower life and a less stimulating life. And it was a life that was focused a lot more on work-life separation. And that is not the case anymore.

And so now, you know, we have lives that are just, we are constantly bombarded by incoming information, noise, screens, responsibilities, news, rather than just being aware of what's going on around us right now. We're aware of what's going on in our town, in our nation, in our, in every country in the world, right? There's just so much going on.

And that is just too much for us to process, especially when we haven't been taught the tools of information processing, which are the things like the breathwork and the mindfulness and the meditation, how to actually sift through all the incoming information.

and reminding ourselves of what is useful to me and true and worth my attention and what's not. Because a lot of the stuff that comes in is not useful to us and true to us in this moment, and a lot of stuff is. And so how do we make sure we remember to only spend our time focusing on the stuff that's useful and true and not waste our time

our precious time and attention, which is our most valuable resource, focusing on stuff that isn't true and useful to us. That is dishonoring ourselves by allowing things that are not true and useful into our consciousness. So it's a combination of the overstimulation that we're getting from the environment on a consistent basis

And also the fact that we're not updating our own software firmware with, you know, how do we cope with that? Like, what are the skills we need to learn to adapt to all the inbound, right? It's like our inbox is constantly overflowing and there's not even enough time to answer all the emails or even get close.

Yeah. And I think this is another great reason to not touch your phone for the first hour you wake up. I love that because I think it gives you the time you need to be still and assess your priorities before you begin the day.

Absolutely. And if you can use something else as an alarm clock to wake up, highly recommended. Keep that phone out of the room, ideally. Use an Apollo to wake you up. Use an alarm clock to wake you up that's not connected to your phone, but use something where you're not

You're not setting a pattern of having your phone right next to you because if you do, like most people, you'll have a tendency to reach over and look at that first thing in the morning. And it will stress you out like it does for most people. And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, right? That's the most important thing is there's nothing wrong with you that you get stressed out when you look at your phone in the morning. That's just what happens because...

you know, this is a stressful device, this guy. It's, you know, it's not, it's meant to notify us and it's meant to induce a sense of, of a connection to it. And, and it's not necessarily feeding us things that calm us down. What's that documentary? The, the

the social something. It was all about the techniques they use developing apps to try to like get you hooked in. That terrified me ever since that day. I mean, they're intentionally trying to stress you out and get you addicted to your notifications.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and because that's the, that's, that, that impacts the bottom line, right. It's like, how much time are we spending in the phone? How much time are we spending with the screens? You know, and the, and the problem is that again, the incentives for wellbeing and for corporations to make money are not aligned. Yeah. Right. Ideally what we want to create structure around in our society is aligned incentives between wellbeing and wealth.

Right. And that's not where we're at right now. We're at how do I capture your attention so I can get you to buy stuff that whether you need it or not. And that is not thinking about your best interests. And so that's really where we're really striving with technology is how do we create technology that calms the body and clears the mind so that you can make better decisions, which really inspired Apollo. It's like this has no screen. This has no required app.

usage or phone usage. Yeah, you set it up with an app, but then you don't need the app anymore. It's really about how do we keep you engaged and present and in the moment, because that's where we remind you of your power to make the decisions that are going to be best for you. Yeah, let's talk about the Apollo Neuro. So how did this come to be? I believe you and your wife are co-founders, correct? Yeah, we were actually engaged when I was doing this research at the University of Pittsburgh.

And we were just trying to come up originally, you know, I was just treating patients with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and, you know, maybe 50% of them were getting better, but 50% weren't. And, you know, that was a little bit discouraging for us and for them. And so we were just trying to figure out, you know, what, what works for these people and how do we come up with better solutions?

And so we started, you know, studying everything under the sun that we could find. We started, you know, studying MDMA-assisted therapy, soothing touch, soothing music, the same things that you were talking about with DBT, right? We just started studying all of it because if any of these things have evidence to work, then perhaps they work in a similar way.

And it turns out that when we looked at these folks, not just in our clinics and our colleagues clinics, but also in clinical trials and studies, population studies, what we found was that all of these people with PTSD pretty much and depression were just afraid all the time. They were saying they were always afraid.

And so, and their bodies were showing signs of fear. They had high resting heart rate, low heart rate variability. They'd sweat a lot under stress. They had a really hard time calming down when the stress was gone. And they were always like looking over their shoulder, like worried about what was coming for them. And they never felt safe. And the more unsafe and stressed out they felt,

the worse their symptoms were. Surprise, right? So when we started to see these patterns, and then I did my MDMA assisted therapy training with MAPS in 2016, it made a light bulb go off in my brain because I realized that MDMA doesn't just work on its own. It's not like you give people MDMA one dose or three doses and all of a sudden they're better. It's

It's you give them a whole bunch of therapy that helps establish a safe foundation and a sense of trust, like I mentioned to you earlier. Then you give the medicine with a more therapy, and then you do more therapy after the medicine. And then you have this program that's 12 weeks long with 42 hours of psychotherapy. And then through that process, people learn to feel safe enough to heal themselves again and to start to engage in the healing process that actually continues over time.

And what we realized was that the reason why that works so well is not because MDMA is just being delivered as a drug by itself and not because it's being given every day because it's not. The reason why it works so well is because it's being administered in a very, very specific context that's safe and the medicine is amplifying the safety cascades in the emotional brain.

And when we saw how critical safety was to that, we just asked the question, well, how else do you get there, right? Maybe this is how soothing touch works. Maybe this is how soothing music works.

And so we started to explore those things. And ultimately, after years of experimentation, the lab at the University of Pittsburgh, we've realized that we could recreate some of and in some cases, a lot of the same soothing feelings from MDMA assisted therapy by just delivering soothing touch to the body through a vibration. And it doesn't matter where on the body it is. And it doesn't matter whether it's delivered through this or that.

or through a speaker or through other things, but that you can deliver it to the body in different ways. And that people would actually have similar responses to as they had to MDMA assisted therapy, although they, you know, over 12 weeks. And so that was really interesting. And then from there, we did a lot of real world studies and clinical trials, double blind, randomized, placebo controlled crossover studies. And then that led us to develop the technology into

a consumer product that launched in January of 2020. I didn't even realize you were wearing it on your chest until right now. So you can wear it on your wrist, chest, anywhere. Yep. Amazing. Yeah, this is my favorite spot to wear it during the day because Apollo works best on... Apollo is low frequency sound, so it's effectively bass-based.

rhythms that are delivered to the body that remind our body to breathe at a certain rate and give us the benefits of soothing touch. So it, the reason why that's interesting in particular is because it works anywhere and it works better on denser bone because deep base resin, like if you've ever been to a live music show, you can feel the music in your body.

And that feeling is because our dense bone, like our leg bones and our chest bones and those really heavy bones in our body transmit sound, low frequency sound better. And our ears pick up high frequency sound better. And so soothing touch is kind of like low frequency sound. And so that's how we figured out how to, through the study of the neuroscience of touch and music, we're able to figure out how to replicate some of those effects in the wearable.

When does the device know that you need the touch or the sound? So right now it only knows when you're asleep and it detects when you're asleep. We've trained the Apollo to detect when you are waking up in the middle of the night and turn on automatically to rock you back to bed so you don't wake up when you don't want to.

And that is a really interesting feature because it's the first time that AI has ever been delivered in the consumer health product that is able to solve a really hard problem in health, which is unwanted middle of the night wake ups. There's literally never been a solution for this ever in all of our health care needs. This has never been solved. So it's a really interesting example of how AI can solve some of these complex problems like unwanted middle of the night wake ups.

And then we tell you how much sleep you got back afterwards, which is really fun. But during the day, you turn it on when you want to. There's like eight different choices in the app that you can select from.

high energy to social creative flow, to deep focus, to recovery, to meditation and calm, to deep relaxation, power nap, and sleep. And so those make up the eight vibes that people can choose from. And then you can schedule them throughout the day to turn on automatically throughout the day. But the only automation we have right now, which is really, really effective for people is helping them stay asleep at night.

And what is the science behind the benefit of touch? Because I've heard that come up a few times and I know, aren't they saying like the rate of loneliness is at a high right now and people are really struggling to connect with others? How does touch benefit us in our nervous system?

So the rate of loneliness is very high and it's very sad because ultimately, you know, we're all in this together and we're not alone. And I hope everybody who's listening to this can take that home and that as lonely as you might feel in your life, you're always connected. You know, you're always plugged into the rest of the world and humanity. And there are always people who will be there for you. And

And you just need to find them. And so but with COVID, especially, we were already-- I don't know how many people were aware of this, but we were already feeling isolated, many of us, before COVID, before the pandemic.

And then with social isolation measures with the pandemic, it was like forced isolation and separation. So it became much, much more apparent that this was a significant issue, especially when we're not allowed to hug, we're not supposed to hug strangers, or we're not supposed to spend as much close time together. And now you're not even supposed to, you're not even seeing people's mouths anymore, right? So that made it, really brought it to the surface.

And the biology of that is simply put, touches the most highly evolved pathway to safety in our whole bodies. It's not unique to humans. If you go back to ancient mammals, like let's go back 10 million years, let's go back 100 million years before humans, long before humans were on this earth, every single mammal, pretty much, and correct me if you know of any exceptions to this because I haven't found any yet, but every single mammal that nurses its young

hugs and cuddles its young when they're born. Why? Because that is the single fastest pre-verbal, no language required way to safety and communicating safety to that newborn.

That is it. It requires no effort and it requires no knowledge or understanding and no ability to communicate other than just touch. That is inherent, it's innate, and it is effortless. That represents a hardwired neural pathway that activates a whole cascade of neurotransmitters in our brains that include dopamine, serotonin,

endogenous opioids, our natural pain-relieving molecules, endorphins, and our natural reward center molecules, our endocannabinoid system, the natural cannabinoid molecules that we make in our own bodies, all of those, and many, many others, oxytocin, right? The bonding hormones, all of those hormones get released when we are touched in a soothing way.

Guess what happens when we don't get it, right? Like what happened with the pandemic? We saw a dramatic increase in substance abuse, sedative and hypnotic substances, opioids, alcohol, tobacco, cannabinoids, right? All of these things that we put in from the outside that are giving us activation of those same neurotransmitter systems I just mentioned. Why are more people seeking them from the outside? Because we're not getting them naturally, right?

would be an interesting hypothesis, right? And I think that's a lot of the way we're thinking about this is, and the way we need to be thinking about it is, if we don't get it naturally and our body needs it,

we will seek it out. And we see this with nutrition all the time, right? I don't know if you've heard of pica. Pica is this interesting syndrome where people who don't get enough iron in their diet will be found eating things with iron in it that are actually not good for you or nutritious because their bodies are telling them they need iron. So people who have an iron deficiency will eat dirt. Why do they eat dirt? It's not because it's delicious. That's the hint. Yeah.

It's because it has, it's iron rich. I haven't heard of this. And, and, and, and this is, this is very old disorder. It's been characterized for a very long time, but I think it's a, it's a funny, it's a funny and very real example of the body will get what it needs to live and to feel good and healthy.

And if even if we don't realize it, we will eat dirt to feel healthy, right? We will do crazy things and put crazy unhealthy things in our or out things from the outside into our bodies to replete the deficiencies of what we need naturally. So we're making sure that we're taking care of ourselves, meaning we're getting the natural nourishment that we need, including soothing touch.

as much as we need it. So we don't accidentally, you know, supplement with unhealthy stuff from the outside is really, really important. And this is some of the really interesting, fascinating stuff that our modern understanding of neuroscience has to teach us.

It makes me think of, you know, the baby being put on the mother's chest right away when it's born. What would happen if that didn't happen? Like what if a child or a newborn animal didn't have that touch right away?

I mean, we do see that. I haven't seen a lot of studies of that, although I'm sure that they, I have seen that they exist in small studies of looking at newborns that are given to their mothers right after birth and those that are separated from their mothers right after birth because maybe they're premature or they need to go to the NICU or there's something that happens like a traumatic birth event or something like that.

And those children that are separated from their mothers early often need more support. They need, they give them like, they give them like, and they, and they give them more support in the NICU, in the neonatal intensive care unit. They give them warm blankets and they give them heat and they give them sometimes vibrating, vibrating, you know, baby beds and things like that. Things that remind that newborn of that connection with the mother, because they,

Because it needs that connection with the mother. That's an incredibly important, essential, and nourishing interaction that it needs. And unfortunately, the things we substitute with are not...

to make up for the actual skin-on-skin direct mother-child contact, but we do the best we can when that child needs that extra care. But I think to your point, there really isn't any substitute for real, authentic, genuine human loving touch. There are things like Apollo that we can give to adults that help to take the edge off when we can't get touch all the time,

and to remind us that we're safe as a tool, but the best thing that we can do is to give each other as much soothing, safe touch as possible, and especially to our children because they really benefit from it. - I feel like the Apollo is also just a great reminder to ground ourselves and to be in the moment because I feel like you can so easily get lost in the screen or the work, whatever you're doing, thinking about the past, the future, having that reminder and bringing you back to the present.

would be amazing, I feel like, for so many people. I also read that it can help with heart rate variability. How does that work? Well, in the same way we just described, so like any of the techniques we talked about, soothing music, soothing touch, soothing...

Soothing breath, work, slow breathing, movement, sleep, and nutrition, good nutrition. All of these things improve heart rate variability because they were, they nourish the body and restore a sense of balance and calm within the body and remind us that we're in control of our attention, right? It creates like these bounds for our attention that ground us back in the present in our bodies. Our minds can be anywhere, but our bodies are always present. So.

And when we restore presentness and calm and control by reminding ourselves we're safe, whether it's through Apollo or through a little breathing exercise or through somebody giving us a hug or holding a pet, our HRV is going up because HRV is a sign that we're safe and that we're able to enter into recovery state.

And that's really all it is. So the more safe we are, the more recovered we are, the lower our heart rate goes, meaning to resting, or lower our resting heart rate goes when we're at rest, and the higher our HRV goes, which is one of the best signs of resilience and recovery in our bodies. You just mentioned holding a pet. Is that science-backed? Because I love that.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's why we use service. That's why we use emotional support animals, right? I mean, I don't, I don't think we would give, I don't think we'd have a doctor, you know, prescription or signature for an emotional support animal if it wasn't evidence based. I think that, you know, could, could there be more large studies? Sure. But, but I think there's a

It's certainly known that emotional support animals do provide emotional support, right? And it's through the same mechanism of if I feel alone or lonely and disconnected,

then what's going to help me feel more connected? Connection to anything else. Connection to an animal, connection to a friend, connection to myself, right? If I can remember what it feels like to feel connected to an animal or connected to a friend or even a therapist, then I can remember what it feels like to feel connected to myself. I can start to rebuild and strengthen those connections. Yeah.

If someone listening wants to try Apollo Neuro, what do you recommend for integrating it into a routine? Like what hours do you wear it during the day? How do you incorporate it? So it's a good question. I think that the best way to use Apollo is to think about what are the most stressful times of our days? Most stressful times of our days are transition periods, right? So it's going from sleepiness to wakefulness, right?

wakefulness to work, work to play, work to meditation, play to focus, right? After lunch, after meal slumps, and then, you know, winding down at the end of the day when we're trying to fall asleep and we still have racing thoughts, right? So those kinds of transitions are the most challenging for us because it requires a state change. It requires like maybe a mood change or requires an energy shift or requires some kind of

change in our state in the body and the mind. And change in and of itself, when we're stressed out, becomes hard. Our bodies actually resist change when we're stressed or perceiving threat in our environment because change seems scary when we're stressed out. And so using Apollo to remind ourselves that we're safe

at transition points of the day is by well and above the most effective way to use Apollo. And it's also happens to be the most effective time to use our breathing techniques and to use our meditation, mindfulness techniques, et cetera. So the reason why we developed Apollo is because meditation, mindfulness techniques, yoga, breath work,

All of these things are great and they are the goal of what we should all be training ourselves to do. But when we haven't been taught those properly as children, it can be really hard to learn as adults. And it can take a lot of time and effort to retrain ourselves to do those things. So we wanted to be able to give people the feeling of what it feels like to enter those states that you can learn. If you learn, hey, this is what it feels like to be calm at a time where I'm usually stressed.

then you can remember how to get back there, right? And you can prove to yourself that you can be calm at a time when you would usually be stressed out or frightened or afraid.

And so we created the schedule where you can go into your Apollo app and you can literally schedule it to wake you up. You could schedule it to keep you focused in the morning when you're tired. You could schedule it to keep you focused and energized after lunch. You can schedule it to help you be creative and social when you're tired at the end of the day. And then you could schedule it to wind you down and put you to bed at night and recover after exercise, etc.,

And as you create a schedule with ideally like three to four hours a day of Apollo use, three to four hours a day of it vibrating on your body, what we see is people get similar benefits to exercise, meditation, or yoga or breath work, which is up to 30 minutes more sleep a night, up 19% average improvements in deep sleep, 14% average improvements in REM,

4% reduction in resting heart rate and 11% improvements in HRV over three months. So that's a huge benefit, right? That's like, again, comparable to adopting a new exercise routine and a new yoga or breathwork routine. And when you're feeling better,

By just strapping it on and using it three hours a day, five days a week, you're more likely to exercise and you're more likely to adopt new positive behavior change techniques. So it really works hand in hand to just improve the way we feel and make it easier to live a

a high quality, healthy lifestyle and really bring it, bring in and fold in these healthy changes that we want to make for ourselves. Yeah, I think a lot of people just need that initial first step and the right mindset. Now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? That's a good question. I think this has been, you know,

This is a challenging thing for all of us, but especially if you work in healthcare or you work in a service industry, or of course, things like the military and that sort of thing, which is how do I... We're taught to sustain and maintain peak performance all the time. And we're always taught to do more, be more, work harder, and that is all well and good.

But we can't sustain peak performance without prioritizing peak recovery, right? You can't just go, go, go without refilling the tank.

And I think that that understanding of that philosophy of we have to refill the tank, we have to give ourselves time to recharge and meaning give ourselves time, meaning actually making it as important in our lives as the performance will make us perform that much better. But you can't just go, go, go and burn the candle at both ends and expect there to be wax at the end of the day.

There's not going to be anything left. So we must, if we really want to,

be our best selves, and we want to attain this high level of our potential and consistently perform on a year after year, decade after decade basis and live a good, long, happy life, the real answer starts with understanding that we must prioritize recovery and we must take care of ourselves as much as we prioritize performing. And we have to refill that tank.

Fantastic answer. I'm going to take that one home and I think everyone listening will too. Where can people find you and Apollo Neuro online?

We could find Apollo Neuro at www.apolloneuro.com, A-P-O-L-L-O-N-E-U-R-O.com, which also you can also go to wearablehugs.com, which is what the kids call it. And you can find me at drdave.io or apollo.clinic.

You can find me on socials at Dr. David Rabin on Instagram and Twitter. And if you happen to be on Clubhouse, I host the first psychedelic news show podcast, which is called The Psychedelic Report. And we interview live on Clubhouse every couple of weeks. And then we release the show every other week on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Oh.

Oh, wow. I'll definitely be looking into that. And guys, if you look in the show notes, you can find a link to Apollo Neuro and you can actually use the code PURSUIT for $40 off your first order. So highly recommend you guys check that out. Thank you so much, Dr. Dave Rabin. We really appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.

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