Transcript

Dr. K: [00:00:00] Knock, knock, hi! Knock,

Will: knock, hi!

Hello and welcome to Knock, Knock, Hi! with the Glockenfleckens! I am Dr. Glockenflecken, also known as Will Flannery. I am 

Kristin: Lady Glockenflecken, also known as Kristen Flannery. And we 

Will: are happy to have you here today! I’m full of energy. I’ve, I’m caffeinated and I am ready to go. You sure are. Uh, and we have a very fun, very fascinating guest today, Dr.

K. His full name is Dr. Alok Kanojia, and he is the co founder of Healthy Gamer. I’ve seen him on YouTube, on TikTok, Twitter, he’s got, uh, he’s got like 

Kristin: a Twitch, 

Will: Discord. He’s got an interesting story, which he gets into, um, on his path to helping, you know, shed light on, [00:01:00] you know, gaming addiction. He has lots of, of thoughts just about technology in general, how to navigate the Techno world that we live in, especially for those of us with kids.

Kristin: Yes. And I think there’s not enough of that in the medical space of like. Yes. What do you do? Right? Because, and we get into this in the episode a bit, but you know, the, the medical industry is, is about, um, you know, disease and pathology for the most part, but here’s an issue that is affecting a whole generation of kids that it’s not, I mean, it can be a pathology, but for just the general person, it’s, it’s more just like, how do we navigate this?

It’s a new thing in our, in our parenting. Experience as a society. And 

Will: we have one little correction that we will address now. During our interview we mentioned AAP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, I believe that’s AAP. We mentioned a two hour per day limit on screen 

Kristin: time. That was [00:02:00] their guideline.

That was their guideline. When our kids were very 

Will: young. Yeah. That’s pre 2016 though. So we got on our research horse and we, we looked it up after we finished recording and the, in 2016, they got rid of that guideline because it was not evidence based enough to be able to put a limit on screen time, like a hard limit.

So anyway, it’s the guidelines now more of like, Oh, just be careful with what they’re watching. And 

Kristin: I feel like it’s not really even a guideline anymore. Like that’s not helpful. 

Dr. K: There’s not 

Will: much out there, which is. Yeah. Which is why it’s so valuable, things that Dr. K is doing, uh, to, to try to just help us navigate that world.

Kristin: He’s got an approach that feels really tapped into the actual real world and like things you can do on a, on a practical basis, which I really like. And 

Will: he’s a, uh, a smart guy, a Harvard trained psychiatrist. Uh, he’s the co founder of Healthy Gamer. Uh, he’s, they’ve, they’ve, you know, his programs, the things he does has helped thousands of [00:03:00] people.

Um, and he’s worked with, uh, from the United Nations to the U. S. Surgeon General and just really kind of clued into this area. Yeah. And it made me think of, uh, about our own, Video game experiences. Yeah, you like video games. I do. I have you got me a PS5. He did Well, you tried to get me one 

Kristin: like two years ago I tried for the I was checking for that entire time every once in a while eventually 

Will: we did end up getting it But hey, I grew up with them.

And what was the last video game you played consistently Super Mario Brothers? I 

Kristin: probably yeah, maybe that was the only that one was kind of fun. Yeah, I think it was Super Nintendo That was the one that I 

Will: grew up on. Super Nintendo, okay. Yeah. Zelda Nah. A little mind 

Kristin: sweeper. I was around video games a lot because my my brothers really liked video games Yeah, and then even my parents we talked about that in the interview a little bit But but no, I don’t I don’t connect with them in any way.

I don’t know why. I love them Yes, and our 

Will: [00:04:00] kids love them. I have fond memories of video games. And I 

Kristin: like seeing you guys play together, right? Like as a thing that they that they do with their dad You know, I think that’s valuable. Got lots 

Will: of Mario going on in our house Oh, yeah. A lot of switch playing.

Anyway, should 

Kristin: we get to it? A lot of Roblox, too, which 

Will: I’m not in. I don’t have a Roblox account. It’s, it’s a black box to me. I don’t know. You know, 

Kristin: that’s what I don’t like about it. Like, I feel like anytime there’s a black box about, about what our kids are doing as a parent, that makes me very 

Will: nervous.

You can tell Roblox has been on our mind because I come in hot with a little Roblox there at the beginning of the interview. So should we get to it? Let’s do it. Here we go. Here’s Dr. K.

Today’s episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience, or DAX for short. This AI powered ambient technology is helping you, physicians, be more efficient and reduce clinical documentation burdens that cause us to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. To learn more about how DAX can help [00:05:00] reduce burnout, and restore that joy of practicing medicine.

Kristen, you got to have that joy. You got to have it. Stick around after the episode or visit nuance. com slash discover dax. That’s n u a n c e dot com slash discover d a x.

We are here with Dr. K. Thank you so much for joining us. It really is a pleasure to have you on here. 

Dr. K: Thank you so much for having us. 

Will: I guess, yeah. You have other people. I don’t see anybody back there on 

Kristin: the couch. Yeah. 

Dr. K: You’re psychiatrist. Is there something we should know? Me the people. Me and the people in my head.

Yeah. . 

Will: Um, uh, so I, I, I wanna start off here with a, a question that’s very personal to Kristen and I. What are your, what is your opinion on Roblox? Oh, are you familiar with Roblox? Do you have an opinion on Roblox? I’m just gonna jump into this now 

Dr. K: What about Roblox? So I see that this is personal to you and Kristen just gave a 

Kristin: We have an [00:06:00] 11 year old and an 8 year old.

Okay, so we’re coming at it from that 

Will: context. And they love it. Um, and I feel 

Kristin: like I’m just like out of my depth anytime they, I was never a video game person to begin with. I mean, I grew up around it cause I had brothers who were really into it and even my parents were really into it, which is a whole thing.

Um, but I never went. And so like they are really getting into games and specifically Roblox right now. Uh, and, and so I just don’t know how to parent in a world where I don’t understand any of this, right? Like they’ll come and they’ll want to buy little pets and adopt me and things like that. And it’s, it’s like, how do you know how any of this works?

It all just sounds like, how do you keep it safe? Like monopoly money. And yeah. How do you keep them safe? How do you keep your, your credit card information safe? 

Dr. K: Yeah. So I think, you know, y’all are not the only one. So this is like a generational problem. Yeah. [00:07:00] Every. Basically every adult that I’ve talked to who’s kind of in our age range, which I assume we’re somewhere in the same ballpark We’re like, yeah talking like probably like who have young kids even like one or two year olds and people like how often do we?

Give them a tablet to older older parents or with parents of older kids or even older like teenage kids and stuff like that Who you know, they come home from school one day and they say I want to be a pro Gamer, I want to play Fortnite or I want to start streaming or whatever. How do you navigate that?

It’s really hard, right? So I I think the first thing to understand is I don’t think the problem is in the game I think the problem is usually the way that we teach our children to relate to technology and the reason it’s so hard is I’m sure y’all know some of this stuff, but You know, like, how do we learn how to parent, right?

By watching our parents. Absolutely. Yeah. So this generation of parents has a unique problem, which is that we have to parent [00:08:00] for technology which, in the thousands or millions of years that we’ve been human beings, no parents have ever had to deal with. We’re dealing with a new problem. Right. And so I don’t know that Roblox is good or bad, because Roblox in and of itself, it’s a platform, right?

So there’s like tons of different games inside of it. Um, but I, I think it’s really about talking to your kids about what does this mean to you when you want to spend this money? Like what is the value of that money over time? So right now you want to buy this cosmetic or whatever, but are you going to enjoy the cosmetic a month from now, two months from now, four months from now?

And I think it’s really about, because our approach, and this is what I do with my kids, I have a six year old and an eight year old, it’s about increasing their awareness of what technology does. And once they understand it, like if you say, like, okay, fine, we’re going to buy this thing, but let’s see how long this 15 makes you happy.

Right. Versus if we get a toy or a book, which one is a better use of your money? [00:09:00] Yeah. And, and so I think this, these are the skills that we really need to teach our kids is awareness around what technology does to them. Right. 

Kristin: Speaking of what technology does, like our 11 year old’s pretty good, but the eight year old has a real hard time with.

the transition out of screen time, you know, out of the video games in particular. She can watch TV and we can turn the TV off and she’s fine, but something about the games really, and YouTube videos, it’s kind of the same thing, you know, like, it’s just, we call it a screen monster. She just turns into a screen monster after that.

I don’t know what’s going on there. 

Dr. K: Yeah, I mean, so if we look at the brain, right, so basically all, not all technology, like not like alarm clocks, but if we look at the, what we refer to as technology, so anything you can find on a tablet, like YouTube, TikTok, video games, Netflix, take your choice of whatever, social media, all of it suppresses the amygdala system.

So when we’re watching something, all of our negative emotions are [00:10:00] basically like shut off. And so the second that we stop, there is, there’s almost like a withdrawal period in our brain where there’s like a bounce back. So if you think about mostly like medical people that listen to this podcast. Yes.

Okay. 

Will: Right. I’d hope so. I think so. I don’t know why non medical people, I hope, I hope non medical people watch it, but yeah, you can, you can use all your fancy scientific words, Mr. Psychiatrist. 

Dr. K: So if we, if we look at like benzodiazepine withdrawal or alcohol withdrawal, there’s like, you know, the second you take it away, there is a.

kind of like a bounce back, right? We get hyperactivity of some parts of our brain, that can be lethal. But anytime we’re talking about technology, when you take that technology away, that artificial regulation of our emotions goes away. So then there’s like this torrent of hyperactivation, which then naturally will equilibrate.

And depending on the kid, what their, you know, if they’ve got ADHD or other kinds, it depends on their frontal lobe function and all kinds of other stuff, right? The time it takes for them to equilibrate is different. [00:11:00] 

Kristin: Interesting. What, what helps them equilibrate? Like, is there something you can do to facilitate that or support them while they’re doing that?

Dr. K: Yeah, so I think, so let me ask you, when, when you say, when you stop with the 8 year old, what does the process of stopping look like? 

Kristin: Uh, it depends on which parent is doing it. When I, I’ll just speak for my own self, when I’m doing it, I try to give her like, like a 5 10 minute warning, maybe both, right? So she knows it’s coming, and then she’s reminded it’s coming, and then it comes, um.

Will: I have learned to do that over time, because it does work better to give like a warning, saying like, hey, this is This is gonna happen here pretty soon, and then sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Yeah, 

Kristin: um, and then, and then it’s just, okay, we have to turn it off and, and let’s find something else to do, is usually how it goes.

Dr. K: Yeah. Let’s, okay, and then she protests. Mm hmm. Sometimes. 

Kristin: Well, sometimes. Sometimes she’ll turn it off, she’ll do that part fine, but then [00:12:00] she’s just a nightmare after that, right? Then it’s like, uh, there’s nothing to do, and she’s, she’s, uh, you know, throwing kind of temper tantrums about just being 

Will: bored.

And then I recommend to her that she just instead watch my videos on TikTok, and that makes her cry even more. That’s great. Like she really is upset by that point, but anyway, I don’t know. 

Dr. K: No. Yeah, I, I think that’s, so when we said that, that, you know, social media and, and content on the internet suppresses the limbic system, that’s all the content except for yours.

Yours, that’s it. I appreciate that. Especially your stuff on the American healthcare system, which is absolutely rage inducing. 

Kristin: Yeah, for real. 

Will: Is it? Yeah, that’s 

Dr. K: true. But kind of going back to your kid, so I think a couple of things. One is that, you know, a five or ten minute warning works well, but I think even like a 15 minute warning works really well.

Setting expectations before they start. Yeah, 

Kristin: sometimes I will do that if there’s like, if it, it doesn’t always work out that way in the real world is the problem. But yeah, when I can, I try to say, okay, what’s your [00:13:00] strategy for when it’s time to turn it off? How are you gonna? Basically regulate your emotions, you know, and she talks about taking deep breaths or 

Dr. K: whatever.

Yeah, and I, so I think just sort of letting them know, like, what is the role of technology in the day? Because I think the broader problem that a lot of parents run into is kind of like what y’all are running into, which is that there isn’t a clear replacement once it ends. And if we look at sort of the dopamine release of technology, it does all the work for you, right?

You don’t have to start playing anything. You just like literally click a button and then you’re engaged. Whereas what kids have to do, especially at the age of eight, is they have to kind of ramp up towards a particular activity. You know, that creative play doesn’t engage you the way that technology does.

Right. So I think really sort of thinking about when are we gonna stop and what is the process of stopping like? What’s the point of, of watching and playing? Like I know that you want to do it. Um, and I think really raising that awareness like matters a lot. So even with my six year old and eight year old, we’ll talk about, Okay, we’re gonna [00:14:00] watch for an hour.

How long do y’all want to watch? Half an hour or one hour? And then they’ll say, let’s watch for an hour. And then I’ll go in at the half hour mark and I’ll say, we said an hour, y’all still having fun? Do you want to watch another 30 minutes? And then even at the end of the hour, I’ll ask, okay, do you guys want to extend?

Like, you want to watch more? And how much fun are you going to have over this next half hour? And even they’re able to understand, and there will be some days where I’ll say, okay, like we’re turning it off and we’re going to go to the playground. I’m going to ask you an hour from now, whether that was the right choice.

Are y’all glad that we stopped? So I think it’s like a lot more about the before and after, which a lot of parents, we weren’t taught this stuff, right? Cause our parents, my parents never had a thought in the morning about what my experience was going to be like an hour and a half and two and a half hours.

There was no like randomized controlled trial in terms of happiness and contentment and how we feel emotionally throughout our day. But that’s really what parents have to do. We have to set up our own RCTs and have the child be a part of it and look at and analyze the results. [00:15:00] Yeah, 

Will: that is interesting.

I never thought of, like, having our kid talk about their own fulfillment in their activity. Like, is this enjoyable to you? Like, I just kind of assume it is, but maybe it’s not. 

Kristin: Well, I think even adults experience it, right? When you’re scrolling on your phone and at some point you’re like, ugh, why am I, I’ve just wasted an hour just scrolling.

I’m not even, this doesn’t even feel good anymore. Like, why am I doing this? But kids might need a little more help, 

Dr. K: you know, with that process. Kids will recognize. You’d be, you’d be amazed at like what they can pick up. And that’s where if we like, so I sort of think about what’s the goal of a parent. So I think our goal as parents is to prepare our kids, right?

And if you were thinking about preparing your child 10 years from now. Technology is just going to be more addictive. So we can’t really protect them from technology. We have to prepare them. And I think the most fundamental preparation we can make is having them develop an awareness of what technology is doing to them, what parts they like, what parts they don’t like.[00:16:00] 

Um, and it really goes a long way. 

Kristin: That gets to, I’ve always kind of, the, the recommendations from the AAP of two hours of screen time a day, right? Like that’s always not quite sat well with me because it doesn’t feel It feels removed from reality a little bit. Like, yes, sure, that would be the ideal. That would be great.

Good luck having any family do that though, right? Like, it’s very hard to be able to, screens are everywhere. Like, even to do your homework, you need to be on a screen. And, you know, it’s, it just doesn’t feel realistic to me to think. Our kids are not going to interact with screens more than two hours a day, and to your point, to prepare them for the world they’re going to be adults in, they’re going to be on screens much more than two.

I’m on a screen way more than two hours a day already. So, what are your thoughts on those recommendations, and like, what do you 

Dr. K: recommend? I think they’re framed in a very challenging way. So, my reflexive reaction, I didn’t realize that AAP had a two hour a day limit [00:17:00] recommendation, but I could 

Kristin: be outdated by now, I mean, I looked at 

Will: that a long time ago.

It was at one point. Two hours? But, yeah, but it might, it might be different now, so just 

Dr. K: FYI for everyone listening. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest problem is like, even the fundamental framing, that sounds to me like the hardest thing to implement. Because when you have two hours a day, that means they’re getting something every day, and two hours is just enough to like reinforce the addictive nature.

So what I actually find is way better. So people will ask me like, what is the hourly limit that you recommend? I don’t recommend an hourly limit. I don’t think it should be used in an entertaining way on a daily basis. So what all, what I kind of do with, with my kids and what we advocate for parents to do is once again awareness.

So even it’s asking. Okay, so like we work with a lot of teenagers who are like addicted, right? And then parents are like, I don’t know how to get them to stop. All they want to do is play as much as they want to. And so then I’ll sort of ask the parents, okay, like you give your kid two scenarios. You can stay up as late as you want, you can game all day Friday, or you can game all day [00:18:00] Saturday, you can have a binge, I’ll order you pizza, you can get Mountain Dew, you can play from the moment that you wake up till the moment you want to go to sleep, but no gaming during the week, or you can play for like an hour and a half or two hours a day.

You tell me what’s more fun for you. So this is the problem, is that parents run into so much resistance because we set these arbitrary limits, but it’s not clear to the kid, like, the kid may be fine actually not playing every day if they get something that they want. Right. It’s just like implementing diet recommendations for your spouse, where it’s like, I’m going to say you got to eat brussel sprouts every single day.

And it’s like, okay, what’s the goal here? The goal is like, let’s increase our fiber intake and reduce our risk of colon cancer. I think the 

Will: goals that make you hate Brussels sprouts, that’s, that’s, that’s the, 

Dr. K: yeah. And I think the, the two hours a day sounds really challenging because like at one hour, they’re going to start to get really grumpy and they’re not going to want to leave.

Like at the second hour, you’re way past the dopaminergic enjoyment point. [00:19:00] Now it’s just like, it’s going to be way more like addictive and emotional regulation and stuff like that. I think it’s. I would not recommend even daily usage. Yeah. 

Kristin: What do you do with your kids? What does it look like at your house?

If you don’t mind 

Dr. K: sharing. Yeah, so, I mean, I think, uh, we’ve been at it for a little while, but I would say they don’t see it, they don’t touch a screen, I would say, five days a week. Usually, um, that’s changed a little bit right now because we’re actually like playing a particular Switch game like in the evenings, two or three days a week, but that’s like something that we’re doing now.

Like family activity. That’s like an event. Yeah. And it’s not like a permanent thing. It’s like, hey, we got this new game, so while we’re playing, let’s like relax the guidelines a little bit. And that too is really important for kids to understand that you’re not set in stone and we can do this sometimes.

It’s just, it has to have the right reason to do it this way. And then we’re, we’re somewhat liberal, um, in the, on the weekends and stuff. So we’ll kind of say like, you know, if you want to watch a movie in the afternoon, but I would say total screen time is [00:20:00] less than four hours a week. And a huge part of that is engaging in this, like, what do y’all want to do?

And then I think this, this problem, I think the biggest, uh, challenge, the friction is that when you guys stop, there isn’t something else there. Right, so really showing kids, okay, like, because now what’s her experience? Every time I stop the game, she suffers for 45 minutes. Right. So from a Pavlovian perspective, you’re actually teaching her that when you take the game away, you’re in for suffering for 45 minutes.

Oh, super. Oh, man. Right? That’s why, and this is a crazy thing. It’s a good point. Parents don’t realize that a lot of what we do, which instinctually used to work, is actually reinforcing the wrong behaviors. Yeah. And so there are other uphill battles like stopping during meals and in the car and stuff like that.

Will: Yeah. I think I’ve just gotten more like parenting advice in like, what, eight minutes we’ve been doing this? I know, I didn’t 

Kristin: realize we were going to have a therapy session this 

Will: morning, but I’m here for it. I did. I was planning for it. I was like, let’s, we gotta, we gotta figure this out right now. 

Kristin: Um, [00:21:00] I have a feeling we’re going to be digging into your work a lot more, sir.

Will: Well, I want to, I want to get into, you’ve mentioned addiction a couple of times, and you’ve been obviously very open with your own, you know, path to, to the healthy gamer, uh, you know, platform that you have, uh, and the work that you do. So can you talk a little bit about your origin story into this area?

And, uh, what addiction, gaming addiction, looks like? 

Dr. K: Yeah, so, uh, my origin story is, first of all, I, I skipped a grade. And I think that’s actually quite significant, because when I was Five years old, I was competing against seven year olds in sports. So early on, the first thing that happened is I had this idea that I was not athletic.

So I stepped away from a lot of like physical things. And like when you’re in elementary school, or at least when I was, a lot of your social status is also tied to your athleticism. So I was like the last kid to get picked on the team because I was playing basketball and I was playing against people who were like a foot taller than me.

And right. And [00:22:00] so, so the first thing that happened is that I could only compete. on a video game with my peers. That’s the only place where the playing field was level. The other problem that I had in school was that, um, school was boring. So there’s a predilection towards people who are bored at school and getting addicted to video games.

And the problem there is that school moves at the pace of the slowest kid. Right. And if you’re like, if you figured out, you know, how to do your worksheet in 10 or 15 minutes, you just get bored for the rest of the school. Whereas if you look at a video game, it’s really alluring for a kid who’s smart, because when you beat level one, level two is waiting for you.

And if you don’t beat level one, you get to try again. Right, whereas in school, it’s like, if you fail, you get an F on your transcript, and then it’s kind of fixed, like, you’re, you’re done, you’re GG. Um, so I grew up playing a lot of video games, and then it really became a problem starting in high school and then college, like, I just straight up failed my first year, was on academic probation, and my parents tried everything.

They tried, [00:23:00] like, tough love, they tried They tried encouragement and, you know, like help and support and punishments and yelling. And they tried everything for a couple of years and they just didn’t know what they were dealing with. And I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Right. Um, so failed out of basically two years of college.

And then my dad was like, you need, you need to go to India. And I was like, I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but he didn’t really know what he meant. He just knew that. Everything we had tried was not working. Maybe something over there will fix it. Yeah. So, and it did. So, that was pretty cool. So, like, I went over there and I spent three months at an ashram and I learned, like, yoga and meditation.

I decided to become a monk. I was like, this stuff is amazing. Wow. 

Kristin: Wow. What was it doing for you? Like, I would have thought, if somebody puts that on paper, I would say, okay, kid addicted to video games. failing out of school goes to do yoga and meditation. Like, if you think school moves slow and is boring, like, you know, how, what was [00:24:00] it that that was tapping into for you that, that made you want to 

Dr. K: do it?

Yeah. So I think the way we teach yoga and meditation here is like a fraction of how fun it can be. So we have a really watered down version. I’ll just share with y’all kind of what I mean. So the first thing to understand is like, I was incredibly frustrated with myself. There were some days where I would sleep through my 8am class.

So here’s the sequence of events. I don’t wake up on time. So then what I do is I’m like, okay, let me sign up for an 8am class. That way I have to wake up on time, right? I’m going to create an environmental thing to force me to wake up. But then what I found is I just sleep through the class, like my alarm would go off, I’d hit the snooze button a couple times, and I’d just turn it off.

Some days I would wake up, some days I wouldn’t. And on the days that I did wake up, I wasn’t really proud of myself, because I was like, my circadian rhythm is all messed up. But on the days that I didn’t go to class, I was really frustrated with myself. And I just didn’t understand why I could not do, like, I know I’m failing out of college, I know that’s a bad idea.

I was pre med at the time, and, [00:25:00] and, you know, was like, this is bad, like, I’m not going to get to do medical school, oh my god, like, you know, one F on a transcript basically ruins it, and I’ve got one whole year of them. So I was really frustrated, because I didn’t understand, like, how to wake up. I didn’t understand how to stop playing, even though I knew I should stop.

So I understood intellectually what to do, but I did not understand how the body and mind work so that I can actually, like, point in a direction and have the mind go in that direction. That’s what I learned in India, is how does a human being, so we studied formally, like, so we’ll study, like, pathology, right?

Or even psychology or psychiatry. If you take a psychology class, they’ll teach you experiments about general human behavior. They don’t teach you how to wake up on time or how to eat healthy or anything like that. You don’t learn that in the psych major. So we don’t have any class that teaches us about ourselves.

and how we work. Where do desires come from? How do you conquer a desire? Where do emotions come from? How do you manage your emotions? What is the relationship between emotion, [00:26:00] identity, ego, desire, wants, needs, duty, should? All of these different things in the mind we don’t learn about. So I learned that and I was like, this is amazing.

Now I understand where my desires come from and I can actually control them and I can understand, you know, what decisions are being driven by ego. And then as I started like decreasing my ego and stuff like that, like I started doing way better. So I fell in love with that because it was like, this is what I’ve been looking for.

I’ve been going through life and I don’t understand how to control me. And I learned how to control me. So I decided to become a monk. 

Kristin: When are you going to write that book? Because I would like to read it. 

Dr. K: So it’s funny you guys met. So I wrote my first book, which is coming out in March, which is a parenting book.

Yeah, 

Kristin: totally gonna preorder that after we’re done here. 

Dr. K: Yeah, so it’s actually available for preorder, but um, so it’s about how to raise a healthy gamer. So what I kind of realized is I’m helping all these gamers and then I was like, the best way to fix this is actually like from a public health perspective.

We have to equip [00:27:00] parents to prevent these kids for, from ending up with our audience, which is like these 25 year old people who have fallen behind in life and video games have really like messed things up for them. But yeah, that that’s gonna be probably book number three is my guess. I’m working on it.

Kristin: Well, I will be impatiently waiting well 

Will: Impatiently waiting in India. I think you’re gonna be going. Yeah 

Kristin: Send you out there. Maybe all of us family family yoga Meditation training. 

Dr. K: It sounds amazing. So you’re paying me and I’ll send y’all Rex. There you 

Will: go Yeah, so so you’re at some point you went from wanting to be a Buddhist monk.

You said Hindu but Hindu Hindu Hindu monk very similar to to going Coming back and doing medical school. So so what happened there? Well, 

Dr. K: um, I met my wife and That was also kind of interesting because I had two years of just abysmal Dating [00:28:00] experience like just really unhealthy relationships and stuff while I was, you know in college and black good stuff And then once I decided to become celibate, I found that it really freed up my interactions with women There was no pressure and I could just be me and I wasn’t looking for anything and it turns out that it’s way more attractive to women when you’re just like a regular human being.

Um, and so I, I started dating my wife and cause, cause I, I tried to take my vows when I was 21 and my teacher said, you can’t yet. They were smart. And they realized that this was like, kind of temporary. And so they’re like, okay, so I spent three months there and then I came back. And then for the next seven years, I spent summers and usually December.

So four months a year in India for about seven years. So I’d always go back and kind of do advanced stuff. But I basically met my wife and then decided I didn’t need to become a monk. Um, and that she also wanted to be married to a physician and we’re, we’re both Indian and it’s a big [00:29:00] part of what we do.

Sure. Yeah. And actually my teachers told me they’re like, you need to get a doctoral degree and then at 30, if you want to. Take vows, you can. So my teachers didn’t explain explicitly, but they were like, I’m like, I’m ready to forsake my life and give everything up. And they were like, At 21 years old. Yeah, they’re like, bro, like, you don’t have anything giving, you’re not giving anything, you have nothing worth giving up.

So like, go get something first, and then give it up. Because that’s really what it takes. So like, build something up and then get ready to throw it away nine years from now. And if you still want to do that, and you’re that committed, then we’ll take you. Yeah. 

Will: In the back of their mind, you think they were thinking, nah, he’s, I mean, he’s never gonna, no.

Dr. K: That’s not gonna happen. I think so. I think they understood that my motivations were really from escapism as opposed to, you know. So then I was like, okay, I have to get a doctoral degree. That’s what my guru told me. And she wants me to go to med school, so I might as well. Honestly, that’s was a big part of it.

Um, and then the other piece was I, I really wanted to [00:30:00] understand people. So like, I had understood this kind of yogic meditation sort of side. And then I wanted to understand, I was like, okay, like, if I really want to understand every aspect of a human being, like, let me go to med school. So the big irony is that I ended up working way harder.

So one side sort of like given up on my ego. And I was like, this is a temporary thing. But I learned how to just put forth effort where I wanted to. So if I told my mind, Hey, we’re gonna do this, that it would actually listen, which is super cool. So then ended up applying to med school 120 times, got accepted on application 120.

I was gonna say 

Will: you must have had a hell of a personal statement, man. Like, yeah. 

Dr. K: Yeah, I mean, I, I guess I, it’s, it’s an interesting 

Will: path, right? It’s, it’s really, it, I mean, I think it shows, ’cause obviously you had to come back and you had all these bad grades on your transcript. Right? So you had to overcome that, which is the, the, the emphasis we put on, on grades.

Yeah. Is, is, I mean, that, that’s a whole nother conversation. What, what the emphasis [00:31:00] should be on. But you still had to overcome 

Dr. K: that, right? Yeah. So I ended up getting three. So I, I graduated with like a 2.5 GPA, so that was hard. And then I ended up. ultimately getting like one interview a year because there was enough stuff.

So I, and then thankfully in the third year of applying to med school, I got one interview and got accepted. So it just, you know, took a couple of, I 

Will: mean, that’s, that’s, that’s a lot. It’s three, three years of, I mean, that’s, uh, that’s a success story right there. 

Kristin: Right. I mean, that shows a lot of persistence and dedication to this goal.

And I think, you know, all of your, obviously all of the work you were doing in India, would serve you well during medical school and in your 

Dr. K: career. So I think that’s certainly one way to look at it, but I think the other side is a lot of stubbornness and stupidity. So sometimes they’re very related. They are right.

So what’s the difference between perseverance and stubbornness? It’s just. If you win at the end, they call you [00:32:00] perseverant, and if you lose at the end, they call you stubborn. 

Will: That’s a good point. Now, were you, were you, uh, psychiatry all the way? 

Dr. K: No, so I was gonna do, like, holistic oncology. That was the plan.

So I, I geared up and, and done some neuroscience research and stuff and was working on, like, a tai chi and immunology lab and all that kind of good stuff. And so that was a thing. Yeah. So, so it was, it was doing like evidence based complementary and alternative medicine, but mostly for physical illnesses.

And then it was actually in my psychiatry rotation, which was just mind blowing, like, and it took me a long time. So I did it early, right, because in med school, you want to do like your week rotations first before you do like internal medicine and surgery and the stuff you want to get honors in. So psych was my second rotation, and I really loved it.

I didn’t, I had trouble coming to terms with the fact that I loved it, um, but it was so much fun and, and, uh, and then it took me a little while and then I ended up. [00:33:00] sort of doing a sub I in internal medicine and psych in my fourth year. So one of my mentors was like, I was having trouble deciding. And so fourth year rolled around and I was like, I may seriously want to do psych.

So I was like 90 90 percent internal medicine, 5 percent psych and 5% Surgery, going into my fourth year. Oh, you had a little surgery in there, huh? Yeah, SICU. So I didn’t like the O. R., but I thought that a surgical ICU was like very engaging. You liked that part, yeah, 

Will: yeah, gotcha. That’s still an area that I have no idea, even though I’m a surgeon, but I have no idea how things work in the SICU.

Dr. K: I don’t even know what kind of, what kind of, what flavor of doctors 

Will: I am. I’m an ophthalmologist. Okay. So, you know, 

Kristin: kinda. 

Will: So, so yeah, I, I actually, there’s probably surgeons listening to this. They’re like rolling their eyes, like, but I do operate on and inside eyeballs, which is an organ. So, 

Kristin: I mean, technically you are a surgeon.

Will: That’s [00:34:00] correct. But the hospital medicine was, was never like my bag. So, um, you know, and I, I agree with you actually on the psychiatry rotation. It was just. Because, you know, I had a required psych rotation, and it was just so different than any other rotation you do. Uh, a total change of pace, uh, and What I found talking to my classmates is like, you either really liked it or you didn’t, uh, that seemed to be the case, you 

Dr. K: know?

I think there’s, there’s a few. And, and, uh, Kristen, I’m sorry, what, what flavor are you? I don’t even know. I am not a 

Kristin: physician actually. I’m, I’m here to provide the, the non medical questions, but, um, But I do relate to you a lot on this idea of, you know, being fascinated by people and, and how the body works and how the mind works.

And I studied kind of the interaction of that, how they affect each other. Um, I did my graduate work in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Um, and I was specifically looking at emotion. So. [00:35:00] So I’m with you on how interesting it all is, but yeah, I’m not a physician. But 

Will: I have a question about, so you’re in this world of, uh, of technology and, and interested in helping young people or anybody that, that is, you know, into gaming, but.

Is our, the way we approach mental health, is it, is it set up to help those people? Because it feels like 

Kristin: it’s a whole different world now, 

Will: right? Like is the way we approach like therapy and, and, and trying to, is it, I mean, 

Kristin: for, you know, Freud and Bowlby and all these people that we’ve based all of our, all of our, um, psychotherapy on.

And so 

Dr. K: what’s. So, so clarify your question for me. I 

Will: guess what I’m asking is Have you the platform you have in helping people in gaming? It seems very [00:36:00] unique in a way that that traditional therapy Right. It just fails to reach these types of people the young people people into gaming and so is I’m curious to hear your thoughts about How to reconcile, uh, society’s approach to mental health and the, the, the upcoming generation?

Dr. K: Yeah, so it’s, it’s a beautiful question and this is where I know y’all make a fair amount of public health content. So I also have an MPH and, and I think when I started HG, that was a very formative part of like how I approached it. So what I was seeing in the office is that, and this isn’t just about gaming, that, so if you look at our healthcare system in general, and this is true of mental health too, We’re really good at like certain things, so we’re really good at acute care, but we’re not very good at behavioral change.

We’re kind of okay at population based medicine that is like low touch. So we’re really [00:37:00] good at giving people SSRIs, cholesterol meds, you have an appointment once every six months, and 30 percent of the population will get 30 percent better from this kind of stuff. So very very low cost, really low lift, And you get some really good value out of that, right?

So we’ve got preventive medicine, you know, like metformin for diabetes, kind of stuff. SSRIs for anxiety or mood kind of stuff. And then we’re like good at hospitalization. So we can, you know, help people with ECT and acute stuff and give them, you know, 5 250 if they’re distressed or whatnot. But it’s really in this middle area that we fall short.

And then the second problem is that We’re really, so our, our system of psychiatry, I think, has evolved in the wrong direction. So the first is that it focuses on pathology, which is what it’s supposed to do. So this isn’t the fault of psychiatry, but if we look at behavioral change and understanding oneself.

This is actually not what psychiatrists are [00:38:00] trained to do. Uh, and this is why you see, like, this emergence of coaching. Which, like, a lot of therapists are like, what is this stuff? Like, and, and then I’ll see, you know, things on, on, in psychotherapy communities where someone will say, oh, their coach really helped them with this problem, and, like, we’ve been working on it for three years.

And then all the other therapists will say, like, oh, like, It’s not the coach, it’s you. You’ve been doing it. We’ll all be very supportive. But I don’t think as a field, therapists have asked why the field of coaching is exploding, right? So there’s a huge demand for it. Why is that? It’s because in therapy, we’re actually trained on a pathological model.

We’re not trained to help someone at baseline get better. We’re trained to help someone who has a pathology achieve baseline. So if we look at like, you know, addiction treatment, which makes sense, it’s like, how do we get you to stop being an addict and be like baseline normal human being? How do we get someone with depression to no longer be depressed and be able to go to work?

So I had one patient, for example, who was very formative for [00:39:00] me, where we worked together for a couple of years and then he said like, you know, Hey, I’m not getting better. Like, I still feel the same. And we’d seen a lot of functional improvement. So he was like going to work and like, was able to engage in relationships and stuff like that.

So he’d like, like move forward on a lot of like functional indicators. And then one day we had a conversation about, it’s not that you’re not depressed anymore. You’re not depressed. You’re unhappy. And there’s a big difference between those two. So I think the biggest mistake that we make in psychiatry is that we use all of our tools to fix broken people instead of taking normal people and helping them become healthy, helping them become happy.

And this is where the coaching stuff kind of grew up because the coaching was actually started by people who were experts in positive psychology. These are psychologists. Who then realized, okay, there’s this, like, performance based stuff where now you have all these coaches, like, that work at Google and places like that, places like that.

We have all these interventions that can help people improve their lives outside of pathology. So I think when it [00:40:00] comes to technology, yeah, go ahead, Will. No, go ahead, yeah. No, keep going. So when it comes to technology, I think this is the realm where it’s not sufficient because our standard models don’t work anymore.

So if we look at addictions, first of all, like 95 percent of addictions are substance use disorders. Okay, right. So very few people like treat porn addiction or like sex and love addiction or whatever So if you think about the training that that y’all got right chances are it’s on substance use and you didn’t spend you know I would be surprised if if we’ll have a single patient Who is addicted to sex?

No, 

Will: no, I can’t say 

Dr. K: I have. Yeah, right. So, so now what’s going on is we’ve got a whole system that is designed on substance use disorders and the goal of substance use disorders is sobriety. So all of our addiction research and our infrastructure is based on sobriety. But when it comes to technology, that’s not an option.

So this is a huge gap in the field of psychiatry that the problem that we’re facing is fundamentally different. And so what we try to do is help [00:41:00] people build a life that is worth living. That’s the ultimate antidote to a technology addiction, is when your psychological needs can be met in a more healthy way in the external world as opposed to the virtual world.

That is when the natural desire to play video games will disappear. And that’s kind of what we shoot for, which is not usually what psychiatry focuses on. Right. 

Kristin: So what is your approach? How do you shoot for that? 

Dr. K: So I think we teach a lot of this Eastern stuff, so it starts with really simple stuff, like, okay, like, what does a game do to you, and what are your goals, like, what kind of life do you want, and how can you go about building that life, so we offer a lot of, like, kind of behavioral based interventions too.

Where we’ll teach people like, okay, like what’s something that you can do that will help you feel better about yourself and stuff like that. Why is it hard for you to do that, right? So this is the other problem we have in medicine is that we’ll make, we’ll have these studies that will say, okay, exercise helps reduce video [00:42:00] game or this kind of intervention, these cross sectional studies that show eating fiber, pooping properly, exercise, getting hugged, having a cat, all of these things will improve your mental health outcomes.

But in our system of research, we don’t help people how, to do the how. So how do I avoid eating crap? Like, we don’t teach people that. So what we really try to do at HG is kind of the same stuff I was telling y’all about parenting, is inviting people to observe themselves and become aware. And this is what’s really fascinating is that people think, so people don’t understand neuroscientifically what willpower is.

The circuit in our brain that gives us awareness, Is the same circuit as willpower. Willpower is not actually separate from awareness. They’re the same. And so all you have to do is increase awareness. And that gets kind of confusing, but I can explain into more detail if you want. But it’s kind of weird because we think about willpower as a separate thing from awareness, but they’re actually not in the brain.

Same part of the brain. Which part [00:43:00] is it? I’m curious. Um, I think it’s the frontal medial gyrus. 

Will: Frontal medial gyrus. That means nothing to 

Dr. K: me. 

Kristin: It means something to me, but not a lot anymore. It’s been a long 

Will: time. Yeah. Gotta refresh my neuroanatomy. Yeah. Let’s, let’s take a quick break and then we’ll come back with Dr.

K.

Hey Kristen, what do you know about hearts? Well, I know they need to beat. That’s true. And you’re really good at making them do that. Yeah. I did that one. You helped me with mine. I did. I still appreciate that, by the way. Oh, well, you’re welcome. You know what would help you learn even more about hearts?

What? The ECHO Core 500 digital stethoscope with three lead ECG. Nice. This thing is awesome. How do I look? You look so 

Kristin: fancy. 

Will: Doesn’t that look nice? Yeah. It’s like anybody who listens to hearts in your job could benefit from one of these. That’s right. It’s got 40 times noise amplification, noise cancellation, three audio filter modes.

And a full color display. 

Kristin: [00:44:00] Yeah. So you can listen and see the ECG. It’s 

Will: really cool. I mean, what stethoscope allows you to do that? I know we live in the future. It’s incredible. It’s also the best sounding digital stethoscope that you’re going to find out there. Trust me on that. We have a special offer for our U S listeners.

Visit echohealth. com slash KKH and use code knock. to experience ECHO’s Core 500 Digital Stethoscope Technology. That’s E K O Health slash K K H and use NOC 50 to get a 75 day risk free trial and a free case and free shipping with this exclusive offer. Hey Kristen, do you mind if this little guy stares at you while you 

Kristin: talk?

Well, you know, they’re kind of growing on me. I mean, hopefully not literally, but, but these cute little guys. You know what they are, 

Will: right? Yeah. Demodex mites. That’s right. They cause itchy, red, scaly skin on the eyelids because they live on the eyelash follicles. 

Kristin: Yeah, just eating up all your dirts and oils.

Will: That’s why it’s important to get your eyelids checked out if [00:45:00] you have those types of symptoms. Don’t freak out, get checked out. To find out more, go to eyelidcheck. com that’s E Y E L I D check. com to get more information about demodex leviritis. All right. We are back with Dr. K and I just have, uh, one more follow up question.

I have a little, a fun activity for us to play. I think it’ll be fun. Uh, I personally think it’ll be fun. I don’t know if you guys will think it’s fun, but that’s not what matters. You gotta have content. 

Kristin: You gotta just sell it. You gotta convince us it’ll 

Will: be fun. That’s right. First, uh, Dr. Kaye, I want to just, uh, one more follow up question you’ve mentioned.

gaps in medical training and psychiatry. What, what do you think we can do to, to bridge this gap? And is it possible? Because it sounds like psychiatry, you’re right, is geared toward pathology and that’s important, right? We still have to, to do [00:46:00] that, to, to educate, you know, physicians about that, but what can we do to kind of bridge this gap?

Dr. K: So I think a couple of things. Um, the first is, I think, like you said, we have to, first of all, acknowledge that psychiatry is The goals are, generally speaking, a little bit more acute, a little bit more pathological. But I think what we’re starting to understand is that the mind as an organ is, like, different from all the other organs.

So it’s the only organ of the body that requires, for example, social interaction to be healthy. It’s the only organ that, you know, the baseline level of health, if we look at what makes people’s minds healthy, it’s not necessarily stuff that is done in an office. So this is what’s so tricky, right? So we can look at something like exercise, where exercise has good outcomes for endocrinology, for cardiology, for pulmonology, every organ system of the body, but we don’t teach people how to exercise.

That’s not what physicians do. But if you look at like, you know, the single, I think the single most effective thing that you can ever do as a doctor is help your patient quit [00:47:00] smoking in terms of outcomes. And so in psychiatry, we sort of have to acknowledge that this is a problem and we have to train people to deal with acute stuff.

But I think it would be helpful if we really helped, at least psychiatrists, be a little bit more aware of technology’s impact. So I think that’s the first thing that has to happen, is we really have to teach more about technology, the neuroscience of it, the psychology of it, because I think technology addiction is growing very rapidly.

I mean, the highest prevalence is like 22 percent in some countries, like in the Middle East, which is staggering. Like, alcohol is like 6%. Wow. 

Will: Is the research there? I mean, I assume there’s a lot of work being done to, you know, quantify and kind of try to figure out the underlying pathophysiologic 

Dr. K: issues here.

Yeah, so I think that there’s a lot of research, and it’s not quite there, and I think this is where the second thing that we need to do is change the way that we adapt to medical problems. So right now, we’ve got a system that’s just [00:48:00] way too slow. So what happens is we do a bunch of studies, right? So each study, like, you’re one year in IRB, you recruit human subjects, the trial lasts three years, you do data analysis, and then, so four years after you start the study, you have a publication.

We wait for 20 to 25 publications. Then we develop a guideline, then the guideline gets taught to medical students, who then eight years later become psychiatrists, and then enter clinical practice. 

Kristin: Meanwhile, that technology is now 

Dr. K: obsolete. Exactly. So that’s the key thing. You hit the nail on the head there, Kristen.

Because we have studies coming out about how to deal with Facebook. And like, Facebook usage has already declined so much. So the pace at which technology is advancing, medicine can’t keep up. And it, I mean, it takes a worldwide effort to get something like a COVID vaccine in one year, right? Which is the fastest medicine has ever moved.

Right. And so I think we need to change the way [00:49:00] that we sort of do training a little bit. And I think sort of like more like CME kind of stuff. Um, where, where we really need to, we need people to understand that, especially when we’re dealing with technology, that it’s going to be changing every six months.

And we need some way to keep up with that. The closest thing in medicine I can think of is almost something like an antibiogram where, you know, the, the, each thing is unique. Each bacteria is unique and has unique resistances. Let’s develop a system to create a personalized. rapid approach that can target this very specific thing.

What we’ve sort of found in, in, with video game addiction and technology addiction is that there’s a subset of all these different disorders. So even the reason someone gets addicted to Instagram, as opposed to Facebook, as opposed to TikTok, as opposed to a video game, there are different fundamental psychological things going on and understanding those things, I think is really important, but I think we need to move faster.

And we need to have a slightly better emphasis on [00:50:00] behavioral addictions and teach a little bit more beyond sobriety is the only answer. Right. 

Will: Do you, do you still game? Absolutely. Do you, what do you, I’m curious, what do you play? Uh, 

Dr. K: so right now I’m playing Elden Ring, if y’all are familiar with it, and I’m playing Mario with my kids.

Will: We just, we bought Mario as well. 

Dr. K: And then 

Kristin: you say we as if I’m involved. 

Will: I love video games. I grew up on video games. I love playing. And so we, we bought the Mario game and it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a fun, I’ve underestimated how much fun it can be like to do that as a family. Yeah. Like to, it’s, you know, it’s just a way to connect with the kids.

Kristin: Well, what is, this might, this is a weird question given the topic of addiction, but like, I think I’m broken in the other way. Like, it does not, I just can’t get into it. It does nothing for me. 

Will: I’m bored. Okay, but also you do have a pathological [00:51:00] lack of competitiveness. Yeah, 

Kristin: that’s true. It just, there’s no point, I guess I’m a very practical person and to me it’s like, what is the point of this?

There’s no practical I’m not getting anything by doing this. Stars and noises and stuff aren’t doing it 

Dr. K: for me. Yeah, so we know that, uh, there are different personality characteristics that make people addicted to different kinds of games. So, not, I mean, I have no idea, but my guess is that there are games, and we know that a lot of the normal games are masculine focused, so they’re like made for men, designed by men.

Right. And that there are a lot of games out there like Animal Crossing or whatever that like sometimes women will enjoy more, but my wife hates that stuff too because she’s like, this stuff feels like chores, like I hate this. Yeah, 

Kristin: exactly, what, women want to 

Dr. K: farm? Yeah, exactly, it’s like, and so she’s kind of that way, and gaming isn’t for everyone.

Right. And that’s what I kind of mean is that social media can sometimes scratch that itch for [00:52:00] different people. Yeah. Yeah. 

Will: Or podcasting. I don’t know. Here you go. 

Kristin: I joke around too much. Maybe I’m ADHD. I don’t know. Maybe I’m undiagnosed. I can’t, I can’t sit and do 

Will: something that long. Well, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna make Dr.

Kate diagnose us anymore or provide any other advice for us. Uh, he’s already done plenty, but what I wanted to do before we wrap up here is, um, I have a game that Kristen, you’re going to play. Okay. And Dr. K is going to help us with. Okay. Awesome. Um, so I, I try to come up with some kind of activity that’s related to the topic that we’re discussing.

And so obviously it’s gaming today. Um, and so, uh, you have to guess which that, so I’m going to give you a name and you have to guess, is this, is this the name of a, of a medication or is it a character in a video game? 

Kristin: Two things I know nothing about. 

Will: Alright. Alright. Here we go. Oh boy. 

Kristin: This is going 

Will: to be interesting.

Now we’re going to start off, because I know that you’re not into gaming at all, um, uh, we’re going to start with an easy [00:53:00] one. Zelda. 

Kristin: Okay. That’s a game. Everyone knows that 

Will: one. Very good. Alright. Okay. How about, um, Lumicrous? Lumicrous. 

Kristin: That sounds like a 

Will: medication. It is. It’s a medication used to treat lung cancer.

Okay. Alright. How about Dragonbloom? Well, that’s gotta be a game. That’s, that’s a video game. Uh, it’s a, uh, name from, uh, Monster Hunter. Have you ever played Monster Hunter? I have. Yeah. So anyway, I, I’ve never played that one actually. Here’s one that might be kind of tough. Oblivon. Oblivon. Oblivon. 

Kristin: I’m gonna go Medication.

Will: Are you familiar with that 

Dr. K: one? Oblivion or Oblivion? 

Kristin: That’s a good question. 

Will: This is a brand name medication. I would go with medication. This is actually a sedative that was launched in 1953. That 

Kristin: sounds terrifying now that I know that. Oblivion, like, like Oblivion and it’s a [00:54:00] sedative from the 50’s. I think you’re not coming back 

Will: from that one.

Exactly. Time Magazine described Oblivion as Just taking the fear out of visits to the dentist. Because 

Kristin: you are completely dead. That’s right. 

Will: It was only available on prescription and was completely withdrawn in 1967. What 

Dr. K: happened 

Will: to Rob Goldman? I actually don’t know the answer to that. I feel like it 

Kristin: might be obvious reasons, but I 

Will: don’t know.

People were going unconscious at the dentist and they didn’t like that. I don’t know. Okay. Here’s, here’s, here’s one. Okay. Here’s one. Okay. Stellara. 

Kristin: Oh, that’s a medication. I’ve 

Will: heard commercials. Oh, you’ve heard that. Okay. I thought I was going to get you on Stellara. Okay. All right. 

Dr. K: There’s a game called Stellaris.

Ooh. Very close. What kind of game is that? It’s a turn based strategy game in space. Oh, gotcha. 

Will: Okay. All right. Here’s one. Um. Zyaflex. 

Dr. K: That’s 

Kristin: gotta be a 

Will: medication. Okay, alright, here’s one. I’m better at this than 

Kristin: I thought I would be. [00:55:00] They just kind of, they have a sound 

Will: to them. They do, but some of them are, alright, alright, 

Dr. K: here’s one.

Also sounds kind of like a Pokemon, like some of these like medications I think would be like 

Will: Pokemon names. Like Snorlax. Snorlax could be like some kind of laxative. I don’t know. To help 

Kristin: you stop snoring? 

Will: I don’t know, you can snore more when you’re not having diarrhea. With Snorlax. 

Dr. K: Or something with the soft palate.

There we go. Okay. You gotta relax. Snorlax I think sounds like a good medication. I think most Pokemon. 

Will: Right? You’re right. Yeah. Pikachu? Pikachu. 

Kristin: Sounds like a sneeze medication. Slipping Dope, 

Will: you stop sneezing. Beautiful. 

Dr. K: Allergy medicine. Pikachu. 

Will: There you go. Alright, um, a couple more. Kael’thas. Game. Yes.

That is a name from Warcraft 3, the Frozen Throne. 

Dr. K: Kael’thas is a blood mage. Not to be 

Will: trifled with. Okay, you’re familiar with Kael’thas? 

Dr. K: Absolutely. What is it? Sounds 

Kristin: like [00:56:00] the vegetable to me, but 

Dr. K: yeah. 

Will: Um, okay. Also from, uh, World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and Shadowlands. Anyway, um, all 

Kristin: right. World of Warcraft.

I don’t know all the twos and threes and whatnot, but that was the one that my parents. 

Will: Yeah, your parents were big into 

Kristin: World of Warcraft. I was in high school, it was a very cool time. My parents, yes. My parents. 

Will: Oh yeah, they’re playing into their, probably their 40s. I think they 

Dr. K: still have 

Kristin: accounts. 50s.

So they’re into it. 

Will: Um, alright, uh, let’s see, how about Electo? 

Dr. K: That’s a tough one. That, that’s, 

Kristin: I’m going to go game. 

Will: Ah, you got it. Nicely done. That’s actually from a game I play. It’s probably, that character’s probably from, it’s like a Greek, uh, like a mythology. I think it’s a, one of the Furies, I believe.

Electo. Um. Uh, it’s in, uh, Hades, Hades, yeah, I love that game. [00:57:00] Oh, that game is so fun. Fantastic game. Is that the shooter one you do? Yeah, the one where I’m just, yeah, it’s just chaotic and, yeah, it’s good stuff. It’s great. It’s fantastic. 

Dr. K: It’s basically like a video game about being in the emergency room. Oh, yeah.

I can see that. It’s just people come at you, spitting stuff, vomiting stuff, shitting stuff all over you. 

Will: You have to dodge everything. I never made that connection, but you’re absolutely right. Alright, last one. Um, question. Medication. 

Kristin: Yeah. All right. I don’t know what it is, but they do they they each have their own sound to them 

Will: They do.

All right. I’ve got it. I got it. I could have done better with 

Dr. K: this Kristen’s really good. I don’t think I would have I mean, I know half the characters Right, right. Medications. And I don’t think I would’ve gotten she, her success rate. She’s a hundred percent right so far. I know. Yeah. Yeah. 

Will: Crushed it. I 

Kristin: was a straight A student.

Will: Yeah. The last one I had, which is probably too easy, is Raptor gaze. 

Kristin: Oh, that’s a game. 

Will: Yeah. from a game called Guild Wars two. Mm. Anyway, [00:58:00] um, I think it’s more, it’s 

Kristin: something from like the reading, writing language. Yeah, I guess so. Pieces that, that give it away from me. But, 

Will: um, all right, so that was name, that name.

I think. Right. Yeah. Nicely done. Um, all right. So Dr. K, we want to make sure we, uh, you know, give you a chance to talk about some of the things that you’re working on. 

Kristin: Yeah. Tell us where everyone can find all of your things because I’m going to go look because I need to know how to 

Dr. K: fix. So I think if y’all are like interested in, you know, most of the stuff that we’re known for is our YouTube channel.

So we’ve got a YouTube channel that’s HealthyGamer underscore GG, where we make. Just YouTube videos about all kinds of like applicable mental health stuff. So sometimes we’ll go into deep dives of trauma and stuff like that. Um, but oftentimes it’s more practical stuff like, you know, how do I better understand my emotions?

How do I, where does emotion come from? Um, where does willpower come from? What’s going on in my brain when I’m unmotivated? Things like that. [00:59:00] Uh, yeah, go ahead. No, 

Kristin: I just, uh, 

Dr. K: that’s what I want to know. Yeah. So I, I, I, I think we try really hard to sort of combine like neuroscience and, and clinical medicine with like some of these Eastern concepts.

So like sort of combining East and West. So subjectively, what, what’s the meditation exercise and then what happens in your brain when you do it? Kind of thing. Um, we also have a, a guide to mental health, which is for people that are interested in kind of like my approach to particular diagnoses, like ADHD, depression, anxiety.

Um, I also have a meditation guide. And then we have a book coming out, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer, in March. And you can get it anywhere you can pre order stuff. 

Kristin: And is that book one or two? Because I’m waiting for three. So I need to know 

Dr. K: where we are. So, first book is actually a parenting book, which is kind of interesting because that’s not really our target audience.

But I think just in terms of how to Do that have the biggest impact on video game addiction? I think we’ve got to equip parents because just like y’all like parents don’t know exactly what to do 

Will: Well, that was the first thing we wanted to talk to you about [01:00:00] Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a lot of people that could really appreciate some guidance on this 

Dr. K: And I think parents don’t I think this may be the early time in history Maybe not the first time where now y’all have an industry like a multi billion or even trillion dollar industry That is, like, invested in keeping your kid glued to the screen.

Right. And so, I think it’s really hard to parent when you’ve got someone who’s like, you know, in the past we’ve had problems with, like, nicotine and stuff like that, where there’s, like, industries that are trying to addict your kids. But gaming is just so much more prevalent, it’s so much more accepted. It starts at one year old or two years old.

Right. And so it’s really challenging for parents. 

Kristin: Well, I’m gonna go subscribe to everything and purchase 

Will: everything. And you’re on. It looks like you have accounts on most of the major platforms here. YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Healthy Gamer, and the book How to Raise a Healthy Gamer coming out in March.

So fantastic stuff, enlightening, very [01:01:00] interesting talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on, Dr. K. 

Dr. K: Thanks for having us. For me. Thank y’all for having me. Full circle. There we are again. 

Will: Alright, take care.

Kristin: Personal. I 

Will: feel like, I feel like maybe I came a little hot out of the gate with the Roblox. You might have. I’ve been thinking, I was like, but we’ve talked about it before. It’s like, like, what is going on with this thing? It’s, it seems very addictive and I feel like I’m gonna have my identity stolen. 

Kristin: I know, I know.

It’s really 

Will: sketchy sometimes. They want the money with the, to buy things. The real 

Kristin: money to buy the fake money to buy the things. Pixels, 

Will: but is it such good advice though on like, I’ve learned, I, I think I have some ideas of how we 

Kristin: can like help art, right. Even just what he said in this episode. And then I’m, I’m really excited to get his book and see what else is in there.

Will: Let [01:02:00] us know what you guys think. Um, if you have also any ideas for guests, anybody you want to hear on our show, we’d love to get some feedback. There’s lots of ways to hit us up. You can email us knock, knock high at human dash content. com. Uh, visit us on all the social media platforms. You can hang out with us and the Human Content Podcast family.

We’re a growing family. We’ve had, we’ve had children, um, uh, some adopted kids. Uh, we’re just, we’re really, just really, it’s, it’s, it’s 

Kristin: Your mind is a strange place. It sure 

Will: where you’re going with that. Anyway, Human Content Podcast family on Instagram and TikTok at humancontentpod. Thanks to all the wonderful listeners leaving feedback and reviews.

We love those reviews. If you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube, we can give you a shout out. Like today Lorelai on Apple said eyes are gross. 

Kristin: Thank you, Lorelai. I agree 

Will: nasty little face spheres By the way, that was a five star review. Perfect. 

Kristin: Oh, I love it. [01:03:00] That one is right up my alley.

Will: Oh, that’s she’s not Wrong. 

Kristin: Nasty little face spears. 

Will: I love that. I might actually have to use that. That’s pretty good. Also, full episodes of this podcast are up on my YouTube channel every week at DGlockenflecken. We also have a Patreon. Lots of fun perks, bonus episodes, or react to medical shows and movies.

Hang out with other members of the Knock Knock High community. It’s another family that’s growing. 

Kristin: Yeah. Lots of children over there. Yep. That’s true. Maybe 

Will: some grandchildren. 

Kristin: Could be. Great, great grandchildren. Not real sure of the demographics. 

Will: We’re there. We are the patriarch and matriarch of the Patreon.

So we’re there. Early ad free episode access, interactive Q& A, live stream events, and much more, patreon. com slash glockandfleckin or go to glockandfleckin. com. Speaking of Patreon community perks, new member shout out Bella E, Marie H, Parker, and Kuma and Piotr. Peter. [01:04:00] Welcome! Welcome everyone, and as always, shout out to the Jonathans, a virtual head nod to you all.

Patrick, Lucia C, Sharon S, Omar, Edward K, Steven G, Jonathan F, Marion W, Mr. Grindaddy, Caitlin C, Brianna L, Dr. J, Ross Fox, Taver W, Leah D, Kay L, Rachel L, Ann P, Keith G, JJ H, Abby H, Derek N, Jonathan A, Mark, Mary H, Susannah F, Mohamed K, Aviga, Parker. Bubble of salt and pink. Macho. Macho. Thank you all for being Jonathans.

We can never have too many Jonathans. I know. I love it. They’re growing. 

Kristin: They can never have too many. They’re multiplying. 

Will: Patreon, roulette time. Random. Shout out to someone on the Emergency Medicine tier. Shout out to Tika for being a Patreon. Thank you Tika, and thank you all for listening. We’re your hosts, will and Kristen Planary, also known as the Glock and PLNs.

Special thanks to our guest today, Dr. Alo Kenia. A. K. A. The Healthy Gamer. Our executive producers are Will Flannery, Kristen Flannery, Aron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke. I feel like I barely said [01:05:00] Aron Korney’s name right. Yeah, you might have said Korney. Korney. Maybe I said Korney. Korney? Korney.

What did I say? I said it wrong. Anyway. He knows who he is. Our editor in engineer is Jason Portiz, our music is by Omer Ben Zvi. To learn about Knock Knock High’s program, disclaimer, ethics, policy, submission, verification, licensing, terms, hyper release terms! You can go to Glockenflanko. com or reach out to us at knock, knock, hi, human content.

com with any questions, concerns, or fun medical puns. Or limericks. We got a limerick once. We did. 

Kristin: It was an AI generated 

Will: limerick. Yeah, that’s right. Mm hmm. That’s right. And I didn’t realize that. AI still has a ways to go. Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, I, I think my job as a, a comedian ophthalmologist is secure.

I think so, for the time being. This is a human content production. Hey,

Kristen, you ready for the holidays? I 

Kristin: am. I’m excited, but I’m also a little nervous because it’s a really busy time of [01:06:00] year. 

Will: We don’t have time to do anything. I know. And it’s really hard for physicians around the holidays. Yeah, 

Kristin: everybody trying to sneak in before January. 

Will: Everybody, everybody wants an appointment.

And so you’re just, you’re pressed for time. You have to multitask and just try to get it, fit it all in. That’s right. You know, with work and with home life and everything, but you know what helps? What’s that? DAX. 

Kristin: Oh, yeah. Saves you some time. The 

Will: Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience, or DAX for short. It’s great.

It sits in the room with you and helps you with the documentation burden. So it’s like one less thing you have to think about. Yeah. And it 

Kristin: helps you connect with your patients better, which is always really important, especially around the 

Will: holidays. Absolutely. We need to turn attention back to the patient physician relationship.

And you should ask for it. Ask your company for DAX. Like who wouldn’t want a little DAX? Like a little Jonathan, just hanging out with you around the holidays. It’s fantastic. To learn more about the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience or DAX, visit Nuance. com slash discover DAX. That’s N U A N C E dot com [01:07:00] slash discover D A X.