Fathers Lose Testosterone When They Raise Their Kids | Aldrich Chan, Psy.D.

Aldrich Chan (0:00)

Intelligence doesn't need to be conscious. Sixty to eighty percent of the information that's ongoing in our brains is actually completely unrelated to perceiving the world around us. It's about 46.9 percent of the time that our mind wanders, unintentionally.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (0:17)

Most of the time that our mind is wandering, it's not as we think that we're thinking all the time, but it's kind of running underneath.

Aldrich Chan (0:29)

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (0:30)

Outside of our conscious awareness, it takes some of the mysticism away from intuition. If we think about it as this idea and capacity to process complex information that might be outside of our conscious awareness.

Aldrich Chan (0:43)

Lots of people unfortunately cling to their old identities, or they cling onto resentments and they are unable to let go.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (0:52)

If they were paralyzed by this idea of all the things that could happen versus, okay, how can we explore this? It's going to work out, regardless of how it works out, there's going to be opportunities for growth.

Aldrich Chan (1:04)

One of the biggest fears that I tend to see in my clinic quite a bit is the fear of uncertainty. When we don't know again, it's can we be happily not knowing? Can we be okay in this unknowing?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:15)

I know it's totally complicated and individualized. How long does it take for someone to transform?

Aldrich Chan (1:22)

Transformation is really now about embodied transformation. And what prevents transformation is usually...

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:38)

Dr. Aldrich Chan, welcome to the show.

Aldrich Chan (1:40)

Thank you so much. It's an honor being here.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (1:42)

Now, I actually found you because I was looking online about consciousness, which in my line of work, we really think about hard science. And I can't help but experience many of the high performers that I work with. You would think that they would feel amazing and that they are conquering life, but I don't find that to be the case. I think that people really struggle, and that's how I actually found your work. And you're a neuropsychologist, and you work, and you test people's brains. And I just thought you had some great theories.

Aldrich Chan (2:21)

Well, excellent. Thank you. Happy to come here and share whatever wisdom and knowledge I have.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (2:26)

Tell me about what you're seeing, and what you're doing in your clinic, and how that can help just people in general.

Aldrich Chan (2:34)

So a neuropsychologist is somebody who assesses brain functioning, to put it very simply. So it begins with the research side of things. So imagine you're in a brain scanner, and I am asking you questions in relation to your memory. Maybe I'm reading out a list of 15 words, and having you try and remember them.

While that's going on, we're looking at how blood is flowing within your brain. We know what areas are most active, what areas might not be as active. And then we can compare that data, how your performance is, and how that relates to your brain functioning with thousands of other brains that we've looked at, and performances that we've looked at.

And once we have all that normative data that we can compare, then it goes to the clinical side of things, where I can now test people without the use of a brain scanner. And so, someone comes in, and I give you that same memory test. I give them other tests that look at executive functioning, look at attention, people, for example, concern that they might have ADHD. Well, the question becomes, for example, what type of attention is impacted? There's simple attention, there's selective attention, there's sustained attention for a duration of time, there's alternating attention, and then there's divided attention, paying attention to two different things at once. And sometimes people come in thinking they have an attention issue, and really it's a memory problem, and vice versa. And so, you know, what the profession and what the work really does is it really helps clarify and pinpoint what specific cognitive challenges someone might have, and by knowing what those might be, what they can do to remedy them, right? So it informs the recommendations. And it also highlights the strengths, of course, which is just as important.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (4:11)

When I was at WashU, we ran, as part of our fellowship, we ran a memory and aging clinic. And there was a neuropsychologist that went in before us and would spend 45 minutes to an hour with a patient for that baseline assessment. And it just makes me think, so by that time they came to the clinic, they were having memory impairment.