The Power of Emotional Intelligence | Travis Bradberry | TEDxUCIrvine

Summary

This TED Talk explores the transformative power of emotional intelligence (EQ), distinguishing it from IQ and personality. It delves into the brain's role in emotional responses, using Phineas Gage's case to illustrate the impact of brain damage on emotional regulation. The speaker emphasizes EQ's significance in personal and social competence, backed by research showing its correlation with top workplace performance. Practical advice on managing stress, sleep, and caffeine intake is offered as strategies to enhance EQ, ultimately affecting one's success and well-being.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a critical skill that can transform your self-perception, interactions, and goal pursuit, with over 400 emotional experiences daily influencing behavior.
• 🧐 Understanding and effectively responding to emotions is at the core of EQ, which is distinct from IQ and personality, the latter being more fixed traits.
• 🛠 The story of Phineas Gage illustrates the importance of the brain's left orbital frontal cortex in managing emotions, showing how damage can lead to uncontrolled emotional responses.
• 🌐 Emotional responses are generated in the limbic system but require the rational brain to interpret and respond appropriately, highlighting the interplay between emotional and rational intelligence.
• 🌟 EQ is not innate but can be developed and improved, as it involves a highly plastic pathway in the brain that can adapt and change with practice.
• 🔢 Research indicates that EQ plays a significant role in job performance, with top performers often having high EQs, although societal and organizational trends may not always promote this.
• 🤔 The development of EQ involves personal competence, self-awareness, and social competence, affecting how individuals manage stress, present, work in teams, and make decisions.
• 👥 Mirror neurons allow us to unconsciously mimic and react to the emotions of others, an aspect that can be leveraged to enhance social competence.
• 📉 High stress levels, if not managed, can negatively impact the brain's ability to control behavior and memory, underlining the importance of stress management for EQ.
• 💤 Improving sleep hygiene is crucial for cognitive function and self-control, as proper sleep helps the brain clear out toxic proteins that accumulate during wakefulness.
• ☕️ Controlling caffeine intake, especially in the afternoon, can aid in better sleep quality and, by extension, support the development of EQ by ensuring the brain's health.

Q & A

What is emotional intelligence and why is it important?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and respond to one's emotions effectively to produce desired behavior. It's important because it influences how we interact with ourselves and others, affecting our daily experiences and long-term goals.

Who was Phineas Gage and what can his story teach us about emotional intelligence?

Phineas Gage was a railroad foreman in the 1840s who survived a severe accident that damaged his left orbital frontal cortex. His story illustrates the importance of the brain's emotional and rational centers in emotional intelligence, as his ability to respond to emotions was compromised despite retaining his intelligence and memory.

How does the brain process emotional experiences?

Emotional experiences begin at the base of the brain, where sensory information enters. It then travels through the limbic system, where emotions are generated, and finally reaches the rational brain for processing and response.

What are the differences between emotional intelligence, IQ, and personality?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage emotions effectively and is separate from IQ, which measures cognitive abilities. Personality refers to stable preferences and tendencies, whereas emotional intelligence is flexible and can be developed over time.

What are the two main components of emotional intelligence?

The two main components are personal competence, which involves self-awareness and emotion management, and social competence, which involves understanding and responding to others' emotions.

How do mirror neurons relate to emotional intelligence?

Mirror neurons in the brain cause us to unconsciously mimic and react to the emotions of others, contributing to our emotional intelligence by allowing us to empathize and respond appropriately to social cues.

What impact does stress have on emotional intelligence and how can it be managed?

Stress can impair emotional intelligence by affecting the brain's ability to control behavior and emotions. Managing stress through activities like walking, reading, or exercising can help maintain emotional intelligence.

Why is sleep hygiene important for emotional intelligence?

Sleep hygiene is crucial because during sleep, the brain clears toxic proteins that build up during wakefulness. Poor sleep can hinder cognitive function and self-control, negatively affecting emotional intelligence.

How does caffeine intake affect emotional intelligence and what is the recommended approach?

Caffeine intake can disrupt sleep quality due to its long half-life, affecting the brain's ability to rest and clear toxic proteins. It's recommended to avoid caffeine after noon to ensure proper sleep and support emotional intelligence.

What is the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance according to the research mentioned in the script?

Research indicates that emotional intelligence accounts for about 60% of job performance, with 90% of top performers having high EQ. However, the script also notes a paradox where CEOs, despite being top performers, tend to have lower emotional intelligence scores.

What are the three 'silver bullets' for increasing emotional intelligence as suggested in the script?

The three 'silver bullets' are: 1) Getting stress under control through activities that provide breaks from stress, 2) Cleaning up sleep hygiene by avoiding sleep aids and blue light exposure, and 3) Controlling caffeine intake to ensure quality sleep.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Emotional Intelligence and the Brain

The speaker introduces emotional intelligence (EQ) as a critical skill that can transform personal and professional life by managing emotions effectively. EQ is distinguished from IQ and personality, with the latter being fixed traits, while EQ is flexible and can be improved. The story of Phineas Gage illustrates the brain's emotional and rational functions, showing how damage to the left orbital frontal cortex affected his emotional responses, highlighting the importance of the brain's emotional regulation areas.

05:02

📺 The Miseducation of Emotional Intelligence

This section critiques societal messages that often mislead people about health and well-being, using vintage advertisements as examples that promote unhealthy habits. It emphasizes the lack of education on emotional leadership and the importance of EQ, which is distinct from IQ and personality. The speaker clarifies misconceptions about EQ's relationship with IQ and personality, and introduces the concept of EQ as a malleable skill that can be enhanced, contrary to fixed traits like IQ.

10:03

🧐 The Science of Emotional Intelligence

The speaker delves into the neuroscience behind emotional intelligence, explaining how emotions are processed in the brain and the role of the limbic system. They discuss the impact of awareness and management of emotions on behavior, using the mirror neuron system as an example of how we unconsciously react to others' emotions. The importance of emotional signals in social interactions is underscored, with highly emotionally intelligent individuals being more attuned to these signals.

15:06

📊 Emotional Intelligence and Success

The speaker presents research indicating that emotional intelligence is a foundational skill for behavior and success, affecting areas such as stress management, presentations, teamwork, and decision-making. They discuss the correlation between high EQ and top performance at work, with 90% of top performers having high EQ. However, there's a paradox where CEOs, despite being top performers, tend to have lower EQ scores, suggesting a disconnect in how organizations promote individuals based on criteria other than emotional intelligence.

🛡️ Strategies for Enhancing Emotional Intelligence

The speaker offers practical advice on improving emotional intelligence, starting with managing stress through intermittent mild stress that can enhance memory and cognitive function. They recommend cultivating an attitude of gratitude to reduce cortisol levels and improve stress response. Additionally, they emphasize the importance of sleep hygiene for clearing toxic proteins from the brain and suggest avoiding sleep aids and blue light exposure to ensure quality sleep. Lastly, they advise controlling caffeine intake to prevent interference with sleep and emotional regulation.

Keywords

💡Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify, understand, and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others. It is the central theme of the video, emphasizing its importance in personal and professional life. The script explains that emotional intelligence can change the way we perceive ourselves and interact with the world, affecting our behavior and the way we pursue our goals.

💡Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage is a historical figure used in the script to illustrate the impact of brain injury on emotional regulation. After surviving a severe accident that damaged his left orbital frontal cortex, Gage's case became a pivotal study in neurology, showing how this part of the brain is linked to emotional control and social behavior, thus connecting to the video's theme of emotional intelligence.

💡Limbic System

The limbic system is a set of brain structures involved in情绪情感的 generation. It is mentioned in the script to explain the physiological basis of emotions and how they are processed in the brain. The limbic system's role is crucial for emotional intelligence because it is where emotions are created, which individuals with high EQ can understand and manage effectively.

💡Personal Competence

Personal competence, as discussed in the script, pertains to self-awareness and the management of one's emotions. It is one of the two main categories of emotional intelligence skills highlighted in the video. Personal competence is integral to the video's message, as it underpins how individuals can understand and respond to their emotions to produce desired behaviors.

💡Social Competence

Social competence involves the ability to read, understand, and respond to other people's emotions effectively. It is the other main category of emotional intelligence skills discussed in the video. The script illustrates that social competence is vital for building relationships and navigating social interactions, which is a key aspect of emotional intelligence.

💡Stress

Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from demanding circumstances. The script discusses the impact of stress on emotional intelligence, noting that controlled stress can be beneficial, while severe or prolonged stress can impair self-control and emotional regulation, which are essential components of emotional intelligence.

💡Attitude of Gratitude

An attitude of gratitude is a positive approach to life where individuals focus on what they are thankful for. The script presents it as a strategy to reduce stress and improve emotional intelligence. By cultivating gratitude, individuals can lower their stress hormone cortisol levels, enhancing their ability to manage emotions effectively.

💡Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene refers to the practices and habits that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis. The script emphasizes the importance of good sleep hygiene for emotional intelligence, explaining that proper sleep helps the brain cleanse itself of toxic proteins, which is essential for maintaining cognitive functions and self-control.

💡Caffeine

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant that can affect sleep patterns and emotional regulation. The script advises controlling caffeine intake, particularly in the afternoon, to ensure better sleep quality and emotional intelligence. Caffeine's effects on sleep are directly related to the video's theme, as poor sleep can hinder the brain's ability to manage emotions.

💡Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else performing the same action. The script uses the concept of mirror neurons to explain how we empathize with others' emotions, which is a component of social competence in emotional intelligence.

💡Top Performers

Top performers are individuals who excel in their respective fields or roles. The script cites research indicating that 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence (EQ), demonstrating the correlation between EQ and high performance in various professional contexts, which underscores the video's emphasis on the value of emotional intelligence.

Highlights

Emotional intelligence can transform self-perception and interactions with the world and others, influencing goal pursuit.

Emotional intelligence is critical, with over 400 daily emotional experiences shaping behavior if not managed effectively.

Phineas Gage's case study illustrates the impact of brain damage on emotional response and behavior, highlighting the importance of the left orbital frontal cortex.

Emotional intelligence combines emotional awareness with rational response, a skill distinct from IQ and personality.

The brain processes sensory input through the limbic system for emotion generation and the rational brain for response, showing the biological basis for emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is not innate but can be developed, with the brain's neural pathways being highly plastic and responsive to change.

Personal and social competence form the core of emotional intelligence, with self-awareness and social awareness being key components.

A study from the Netherlands demonstrates 'mirror neurons' and the automatic emotional reactions to others' expressions, even in those with cortical blindness.

High emotional intelligence is linked to better performance at work, explaining 60% of job success and being prevalent among top performers.

Middle management tends to have the highest emotional intelligence scores, with a decline as one ascends to higher positions like CEOs.

Organizational promotion practices often overlook emotional intelligence, focusing instead on tenure and financial performance.

Three key strategies to improve emotional intelligence include managing stress, improving sleep hygiene, and controlling caffeine intake.

Stress management can enhance brain function and memory, but prolonged or severe stress can degrade self-control areas of the brain.

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude has been shown to reduce cortisol levels and the body's stress response.

Sleep hygiene is crucial for brain health, with proper sleep stages necessary for clearing toxic proteins that accumulate during wakefulness.

Avoiding sleep aids and blue light exposure in the evening can significantly improve sleep quality and emotional intelligence.

Caffeine intake should be monitored and limited, especially in the afternoon, to prevent interference with sleep and brain detoxification processes.

Transcripts

Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner

Well, I'm really excited to be here today

to introduce you to a skill that can change the way you see yourself,

it can change the way you see the world around you and everyone around you,

and it can absolutely change the way

you go about reaching your goals in life or pursuing your goals.

And emotional intelligence is an absolutely critical skill

because we have more than 400 emotional experiences every single day.

Whether you're aware of these experiences or not,

they can really drive the bus if you let them do that,

and emotional intelligence is your ability to understand your emotions

and to respond to them effectively to produce the behavior that you want.

Now, to help you understand

how emotional intelligence operates in the brain,

I need to introduce you to a guy named Phineas Gage.

It's going to be a bit of a challenge with this mike.

Phineas was a guy who was building the Burlington Railroad in Vermont

in the 1840s.

And he was not just any railroad foreman,

he was considered to be the most capable foreman in the business.

Phineas was very intelligent.

He knew how to cut through the rocky terrain

to lay the tracks on time,

but he also had that extra something that made people want to work for him.

He was polite, he was calm and cool under pressure

and he was great with people.

Well, on this one day in particular,

Phineas, being the hands-on manager that he was,

was working with an item called a tamping iron,

about the length of this cane that I'm holding here,

made out of really dense metal like a crow bar.

And what Phineas would do -

The way they'd use the tamping iron is they'd cut a hole in the rock,

they'd pour blasting powder in there,

and then they would pour sand on top.

They would take the tamping iron, and they would tamp down the sand.

What this did is it gave them a very precise blast.

So on this day in particular,

Phineas was waiting for his assistant to pour sand in the hole,

and his men overloaded a train car behind him,

just overloaded it with boulders -

you can imagine the noise that it made -

and it distracted Phineas.

It also distracted his assistant, who didn't pour sand in the hole.

So when Phineas went and he rammed the rod into the hole,

it ignited the gunpowder

and launched the rod through his head, like a rocket.

It actually landed 100 feet behind him in the bushes.

And it entered right below his left eye.

This is his skull,

which is on display at the medical library at the Harvard Medical School.

Let's say goodbye to the cane.

Now I can handle this microphone.

So, the area of the brain that it removed is your left orbital frontal cortex,

and this wouldn't be much of a story to tell you,

except Phineas survived this accident without his left orbital -

his left orbital frontal cortex

was probably in the bushes back there with the rod.

And he was sitting up under his own power

within five minutes of the rod traveling through his head.

He logged his exit from the job site in the logbook,

and he told the town doctor what had happened to him.

It took about six months for his physical wounds to heal.

Once they healed, Phineas was ready to go back to work.

He was still every bit as intelligent as he had been before;

he still had interest in building the railroad;

his personality was the same.

But there was something very, very key missing,

and it was how he responded to his emotions.

What happened is,

every emotion that Phineas had exploded unfettered into action.

So he was angry, he was impulsive, he was unreliable.

Suddenly, he was showing up late.

So here was this guy who so much of him was the same,

yet something else was fundamentally different.

Let me show you how that works in the brain.

Everything you experience in the world around you

must enter at the base of your brain.

So if you're listening to me speak,

the signal travels from ear to the base of the brain.

If someone bumps into you, you feel that sensation;

it goes to the base of your brain.

Then it travels across your brain.

And once it does so, it travels through the limbic system.

This is where emotions are generated.

In Phineas' case, this part of the brain was still intact.

His brain was producing emotions like normal,

but he lost his rational brain.

He lost the area of the brain

where he was able to read and respond to these emotions.

Emotional intelligence combines the two.

It's your ability to understand these emotions that you're having.

We're hardwired to be emotional creatures.

So these emotions happen in a split second,

before we're able to think rationally about them.

What we do in response to our emotions dictates -

that's really what emotional intelligence is about.

Now, if you're like me, you're probably saying,

"Well, why do we -

If this is hardwired in our brain

and we've had ideas about this since the 1850s with Phineas Gage,

why is this a TED idea?

Why am I learning about this now?"

Well, we live in a world

that doesn't necessarily teach us what's good for us.

This Cola ad from the '50s is a great example.

It says, "For a better start in life, start Cola earlier!

How soon is too soon? Not soon enough!"

"Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies

who start drinking soda during that early formative period

have a much higher chance of fitting in and gaining acceptance

during those awkward preteen and teen years."

"So do yourself a favor. Do your child a favor.

Start them on a strict regimen

of sodas and other sugary carbonated beverages

right now,

for a lifetime of guaranteed happiness."

(Laughter)

Now, this is actually a satire, this ad,

but let me show you a couple that aren't.

These are real ads, and they send the same kind of message.

Here's one that's saying that sugar is a great way to diet

and curb food cravings.

Here we have doctors who are telling us how healthy it is to smoke,

and then my favorite,

"DDT is good for me."

These are real ads of random publications.

It's a sign of the world we grow up in.

We're taught the three Rs in school, but we're not taught how to lead.

We're not taught all the capacities that we possess

that we can utilize to make the most of life.

And emotional intelligence is absolutely one of these.

Now, here's what most people don't know as a result of this.

Emotional intelligence is absolutely distinct from your IQ.

You can be high in emotional intelligence and have also a really high IQ.

You can be low in one and not the other, low in both.

They don't occur together in any meaningful way,

despite the stereotype that people with high IQs have low EQs.

Right?

That's a stereotype because those folks stick out like a sore thumb.

Another thing that people confuse with emotional intelligence is personality.

Personality is a stable set of preferences and tendencies

through which you approach the world.

It's fixed at an early age, just like your IQ.

So if you're a hopeless extrovert at age 17,

you can't expect that to change at age 40.

And personality, it occurs in a part of the brain

that's what neurologists call crystallized.

It's fixed; it's not responsive to change,

just like IQ.

Emotional intelligence, on the other hand,

is an area of the brain -

This pathway between your emotional and rational brains is highly plastic.

What that means is it's flexible and responsive to change,

and when you work on your emotional intelligence,

your neurons will actually branch out to each other

and increase the flow of information between the rational and emotional brains.

This is the essence of emotional intelligence.

There are four emotional intelligence skills,

but the thing you need to know is that, statistically,

it really comes down to what you see as personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence is about you,

awareness of your own emotions and how you manage them.

Social competence is about you with other people.

It's how you're reading and responding to other people and what you do with that.

The reason, statistically, there aren't really four skills,

it's just kind of two,

is because once you become aware of your emotions,

once you take the blinders off,

it's really hard not to do something productive with them.

And there's a lot of things that operate beneath our awareness.

I'd like to show you one example.

This is from a study that was conducted at a university of The Netherlands.

In this study, they took people who had cortical lesions.

So, these folks, their eyes worked perfectly,

the optic nerves worked perfectly,

they sent the signals back to the base of the brain to be processed,

and the problem's there - they had cortical lesions.

The brain didn't know what it saw although the eyes physically saw it,

so they're blind.

What they did is they put these people in front of computer screens,

and they flashed images of people expressing strong emotions.

When you do that with people with sight,

there's "mirror neurons" in your brain

that mirror the emotional state of other people,

and you can't help but have a very small emotional reaction.

So if I put an image of someone smiling really big,

you'll crack a smile.

If it's someone really angry, you'll furrow your brow a bit.

You can't control it.

The thing that really freaked these researchers out

is that these blind people were having the same reaction as people with sight.

The exact same reaction.

And it really left them scratching their heads: "How can this be?

The brain cannot process what their eyes are seeing."

They went back and they further analysed the MRIs,

and what they found is that there's an alternate pathway in the brain.

They found that as the signals traveled down the optic nerve,

they were actually branching out and sending signals to the limbic system.

So these people didn't even know what they were seeing.

They said to them, "Why did you crack a smile?"

"I don't know. It was a hunch."

"Why did you furrow your brow?"

"I don't know."

"Did you see something?"

"No, dude, I'm blind. I didn't see anything."

How many of you have walked into a room full of people

and you can just feel a mood in the room

even though you can't put your finger on it?

These are the kind of emotional signals driving your brain.

People who are highly emotionally intelligent

are very tuned into them.

And once you're tuned into them,

they tend to produce the behavior that you want.

Now, I'm going to show you some stats around emotional intelligence

and why it's so important to success,

and I want you to understand why these statistics are so powerful.

It's because emotional intelligence is a foundational skill.

Emotions are the primary driver of our behavior.

Think about that picture of the limbic system.

It's at the base of the brain; everything is traveling through it.

It's emotions first, emotions first.

So when you master your emotions,

when you become aware of them and are able to manage them effectively,

it trickles into everything you do.

It trickles into how you manage stress, how you get presentations,

how you work in a team, how you make decisions -

it's a foundational skill.

Here's another bit of research.

We found that emotional intelligence, when it comes to work,

explains about 60% of how you do.

If you look at the percentage of top performers,

what percentage of them are high in EQ,

it's 90%.

And the skeptics in the room, I happen to be one.

I'd say, "What percentage of low performers are high in EQ?"

Well, you can have a high EQ and be a bottom performer -

there's other factors at play -

but emotional intelligence is a very, very direct route

to producing the behavior that you want because of how your brain is wired.

Here's research we published in the Harvard Business Review,

and this is looking at emotional intelligence scores by job title.

You have individual contributor first.

These are people who don't supervise anyone.

Then you have your supervisor, you know, first time managers.

And then middle management.

This is where emotional intelligence scores peak.

Because above middle management,

it is a ski slope all the way down to CEOs,

who have the lowest emotional intelligence scores in the workplace.

Now, I just told you that 90% of top performers have high EQs.

So shouldn't CEOs be the top performers?

Well, the trick is, for each of these job categories,

emotional intelligence is a big predictor of performance;

those with the highest EQs also tend to be the top performers.

But what organizations do -

if you think back to the wonderful ads that send us the wrong messages,

our society that sends us the wrong messages -

organizations perpetuate this,

and they promote people above -

Okay, why do you get promoted to be a manager?

Because you're good with people.

But how do you move above management?

How do you become a director, a senior exec, CEO?

It's increasingly focused on tenure,

on short-term financial gains,

on industry knowledge.

These things matter,

but it's the really well-rounded people -

people who are able to achieve that

and also have high emotional intelligence -

that really, really flourish.

And that's the challenge: it's for organizations to buck this trend,

and it's for individuals to become that well-rounded person

that's going to achieve the highest level of success,

whatever job you're in.

Okay, now, people always want to know

how you can go about increasing your emotional intelligence.

And I absolutely recommend that you test yourself

and you find what your low areas are.

For one person, it may be social awareness.

For another, it may be self-awareness.

That's a really great starting point.

But I do have three silver bullets for increasing your EQ to share with you.

And these apply to a lot of people -

I guarantee you the majority of the people in this room.

The first thing is to get your stress under control.

We all know that stress is bad news, right?

It compromises your immune system,

it's linked to heart disease, depression, obesity.

The trick is, intermittent, mild stress -

that is stress you keep under control -

actually entices the brain

to produce cells that are responsible for improved memory.

So good things happen when you start to feel some stress,

and you actually climb up this performance curve.

But what they found at UC Berkeley

is that when the stress becomes severe or becomes prolonged,

you move down the backside of the curve.

And it actually causes degeneration

in the areas of the brain responsible for self-control.

So when you keep your stress under control,

good things are happening in your brain.

And when this stress starts to take you too far,

you actually are diminishing your capacity to control your behavior,

including control your ability to control your stress.

So it's kind of this vicious cycle.

The key here, like I said, is keeping that stress intermittent

and having intervention strategies that you can employ

to give yourself a break from stress.

There's a great study conducted at UC Davis

where they taught people a simple strategy.

And that was to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

So every time these people felt stress,

the experimental group was instructed to stop

and think about something they were grateful for - that's it.

It sounds a little hokey,

but in these individuals that did this,

it actually lowered the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

So cultivating an attitude of gratitude

physically, physiologically lowered their body's response to stress.

So getting stress under control,

doing all the stuff you know you should be doing -

taking a walk, reading a book, exercising -

all these things that give you breaks are key to getting stress under control.

The next thing, silver bullet number two for increasing your EQ,

is to clean up your sleep hygiene.

More sleep would be great,

but for a lot of people that isn't going to happen.

And cleaning up your sleep hygiene is the next best route.

Now, the reason is because when you're awake,

toxic proteins build up in the neurons in your brain.

This is a byproduct of normal neuronal activity;

it's just a part of being awake.

And when you sleep, if you get the right amount of sleep,

your neurons actually clean themselves up

and they remove these toxic proteins.

When that doesn't happen,

you actually - they hinder your capacity to think.

They make you groggy, they diminish your self control,

and that's why you feel like crud

when you get three hours of sleep when you know you really need seven.

So for most of us,

the trick here is you need to clean up your sleep hygiene

because your body moves through a very elaborate series of stages when you sleep.

And if you're not getting sleep of sufficient quality,

you won't remove these toxic proteins

from your brain.

What do a lot of us do to diminish the quality of our sleep?

Well, the worst thing, the number one offender,

is taking things that "help you sleep."

Anything that helps you sleep -

a Benadryl, three glasses of wine, an Ambien, a Nyquil, melatonin -

if it helps you sleep,

it is impairing your body's ability

to go through the necessary sleep stages to remove these toxic proteins.

And that's why you feel groggy the next day when you take a sleep aid.

So the number one way to clean up your sleep hygiene

is to not take something that makes you sleep.

And, actually, there's kind of a co-title for poor sleep hygiene

because the other thing a lot of us do

is we expose ourselves to blue light in the evening.

And here's how this works:

In the morning, sunlight is very high in blue wavelength light.

Blue wavelength light halts melatonin production

and it tells your body: "Be awake. It's morning time."

After noon, sunlight is increasingly orange and red in wavelength.

That allows your body to start producing melatonin,

which prepares you for sleep.

All well and good, but what do we do after dinner?

We sit in front of our massive Mac monitor and just bathe ourselves in blue light,

or read on our iPad.

You know, when you bathe yourself in blue light,

you're confusing the heck out of your brain

and you're halting melatonin production,

and it will often keep you from going to sleep,

but even if you can go to sleep when you do this,

your body doesn't get the quality of sleep

that it needs to remove these toxic proteins.

So, silver bullet number two for increasing your EQ

is to clean up your sleep hygiene.

No blue light, don't take anything that helps you sleep,

wake up at the same time in the morning -

these are all things that can help you to get your self-control under control.

Now, the third one is the one that people really hate me for.

Get your caffeine intake under control.

And caffeine really links back to this same cycle

because caffeine has a very long half-life.

It's six hours.

So when you're feeling tired in the afternoon

because you took seven Benadryl the night before to go to sleep,

and you have a triple espresso,

by nine or ten PM, half of that is still metabolically active in your body.

It's still there, doing it's thing.

So it makes it hard to go to sleep,

and even if you can go to sleep,

again, you're not getting the quality of sleep that you need

to remove these toxic proteins from your brain.

So, my recommendation here

is just to not drink any caffeine after noon

and know how it affects your body.

Some people can tolerate more caffeine,

but if you pay attention to it,

you can see how it's affecting your sleep.

So, those three silver bullets will help you get where you need to be

on the road to improving your emotional intelligence,

and I hope that some of the things that I taught you today

prove useful as you pursue your goals in life.

Thanks so much.

(Applause)