FLAME with Brad Hook

Does your immune system have more say over your thoughts than you realize? Dr. Aoife O’Donovan, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF and director of the THRIVE Lab, has spent nearly two decades studying how psychological stress gets under the skin and into the brain. In this conversation, she explains why humans mount a full stress response to events that are long past or may never happen, how inflammation sharpens the brain’s threat detector while loosening its brakes, and why trauma can leave the body on alert for years. She also shares early findings from the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program, where psilocybin therapy was linked to lower inflammation and mitochondrial stress in patients with Parkinson’s disease, and research showing that biological aging in immune cells can move in reverse. A candid, hopeful guide to working with a nervous system that evolved for short-term survival rather than long-term flourishing.
In this episode:
Why the stress response protects you today at the expense of your long-term health, and why that isn’t your fault
Inflammation and threat sensitivity feed each other: what happens between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex under stress
Pessimism and perceived threat predict shorter telomeres, yet immune cell aging turns out to be reversible
“Figure out what kind of nervous system you have, then build your environment around it,” plus why starting absurdly small works

Aoife’s lab (THRIVE Lab, UCSF): https://odonovanlab.ucsf.edu
Aoife’s UCSF profile: https://profiles.ucsf.edu/aoife.odonovan

Connect with Brad:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
Attend a live experience: https://flame.live
Discover Brad’s work: https://bradleyhook.com
Values Institute: https://values.institute

Dr. Chloe West is a psychedelic neuroscientist who studies how psychedelics change the way the brain processes information and updates its beliefs about the world. Her path began at age ten, when her family moved from a small town in Georgia's Bible Belt to Kawakawa in New Zealand's Northland, and she encountered atheism, evolution and ayahuasca in the same disorienting year. Brad and Chloe explore why beliefs absorbed in childhood are so hard to shift, how psychedelics raise neural entropy and soften the brain's certainty in its own predictions, and why the weeks after an experience matter as much as the experience itself. They also consider mystical states reached without substances, the risks of a challenging trip, and whether psychedelics helped shape the world's religions.
Psychedelics act like fresh snow on a sledding hill, letting the mind carve new paths beyond the rigid grooves of PTSD, depression and addiction.
Perception is a "controlled hallucination," and psychedelics temporarily loosen the brain's predictions so old beliefs can update.
Chloe's research suggests a window of openness in the weeks after an experience, when setting and support shape what takes hold.
Breathwork, meditation and flicker light can open similar states without any substance at all.

Dr. Chloe's Links
Born Again Again (Substack): https://drchloewest.substack.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chloewestjacobs
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HGfgbJMAAAAJ&hl=en

Brad's Links
Brad Hook on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
Brad Hook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
Attend a live experience: https://flame.live
Discover Brad's work: https://bradleyhook.com
Values Institute: https://values.institute

Don Mann spent 21 years in the Navy SEAL Teams, retiring from SEAL Team Six, then another 25 as a CIA contractor. He is a New York Times bestselling author, host of the TV series Surviving Mann, and a veteran of more than 1,000 endurance events, including a double Ironman he finished after passing out at mile 32 of the run. In this conversation with Brad Hook, he describes the combat mindset that got him through a night dive with no oxygen, the leaders who taught him to leave ego at the door, and the four daily habits from his new book, Navy SEAL Playbook, that he offers to anyone who wants more from their life. He is also frank about what twenty years of continuous war has done to the people who fought it, why the wars being fought today keep him up at night, and why he now puts being a good person ahead of being a warrior.
Why most people set their goals too low, and how to choose a macro goal and micro-goal your way up
Four daily rules: get stronger, get faster, get smarter, and do something good for somebody
Leading without ego, from the SEAL Team Six leader who made every man on the team feel needed
Visualize it worse than it will be: the mental practice that got Don through BUD/S

Get the book: https://navysealplaybook.com/the-navy-seal-playbook-don-mann
Connect with Don:
https://www.usfrogmann.com

Connect with Brad:
https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
https://flame.live
https://bradleyhook.com
https://values.institute

What happens when the striving that built your career stops working? Fabrice Desmarescaux, McKinsey partner, leader of Aberkyn in Southeast Asia and author of The Art of Retreats, joins Brad to explore the "second adulthood": the unnamed life stage that begins around 45, when raw problem-solving gives way to wisdom, judgment and the ability to hold paradox. Drawing on decades of coaching CEOs and C-suite teams, Fabrice explains why control doesn't scale, why midlife is an awakening rather than a crisis, and why silence, solitude and stillness are the most underrated leadership tools of all. A warm, quietly radical conversation about presence, letting go, and finding your new game.
In this episode:
Fluid intelligence peaks in your 30s, but crystallized intelligence keeps growing into your 70s and 80s
Why senior leadership is an adaptive challenge: influence, nudging and holding space instead of control
The lost rites of passage, and why we need elders to guide life's biggest transitions
How to build a retreat into a busy day through silence, solitude and disconnection

Get The Art of Retreats: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Retreats-Leaders-Journey-Clarity/dp/1544526369Fabrice's website: https://www.desmarescaux.comFabrice on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrice-desmarescaux
Connect with Brad:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhookLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhookAttend a live experience: https://flame.liveDiscover Brad's work: https://bradleyhook.comValues Institute: https://values.institute

Ellen Hunter Gans is a writer, 41-time marathoner, Ironman triathlete, and the first person with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. In this conversation she takes us inside the Great World Race — from a packed-snow course in Antarctica's White Desert to a heat-index scorcher in Cartagena — complete with a venomous spider bite, a stolen wallet, and a plane once used by the Rolling Stones.
Along the way she shares the stories behind her new book, Seven Marathons: lung cancer survivors running with one lung, a Welsh firefighter racing in full kit, and elite women choosing collaboration over world records. It's a warm, funny, and quietly profound look at resilience, shared purpose, and why the time to chase your big goals is now.
Camaraderie is a performance tool: research shows shared struggle literally reduces the experience of pain
Treat big goals as commitments, not options — sign up first, then figure out how
Rest matters: Ellen qualified for Boston by running less, not more (three focused runs a week)
If not now, when? Don't wait for a diagnosis or a deadline to do the thing

Get the book: https://sevenmarathonsbook.com
Connect with Brad Hook:
https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
Explore more:
https://flame.live
https://bradleyhook.com
https://values.institute