Your Nervous System Syncs With Everyone Around You — Whether You Want It To or Not | Kate Murphy

Key Takeaway

When you meet someone and instantly 'click,' your brain waves, heart rate, and even hormones literally sync up with theirs. This interpersonal synchrony is your superpower for connection—but you need to be present to activate it. Put down your phone, ask genuine questions, and focus entirely on the person in front of you. The quality of your attention determines the depth of your connection, and those micro-moments of synchrony throughout your day are as essential to your wellbeing as food and water.

Episode Overview

Journalist Kate Murphy explores interpersonal synchrony—the scientifically documented phenomenon where our brain waves, heart rates, and hormones mirror those around us. She discusses how to harness this natural human ability to connect more deeply with others, the dangers of emotional fusion, and practical techniques for both strengthening connections and protecting yourself from absorbing others' negative energy.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Your Nervous System Syncs With Everyone Around You — Whether You Want It To or Not | Kate Murphy from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing? Do you ever wonder why you click with some people and not others? or why some people are attractive to you either romantically or as a colleague or as a friend and other people just are kind of repellent and similarly why some people just don't seem to like you. The answer to all of these questions has to do with a concept called interpersonal synchrony which is basically the mind-blowing fact that we are constantly and subconsciously mirroring the people around us syncing with the people around us.

Our brain waves our heart rates our hormones. It's wild. Today, we've got a fascinating and very practical conversation about how you can harness interpersonal synchrony to your advantage at work, in your romantic life, with your friends, etc. And specifically, we talk a lot about a very common pain point, which is how to stop absorbing other people's bad energy. My guest has a lot of tips for avoiding that problem. Sad guest is the journalist Kate Murphy, author of a book called Why We Click. In this conversation, we talk about how individualism and technology are working against our need to connect, our deeply evolutionarily wired need to connect with other human beings, how much you can actually change your vibe, how to read the room like a trial lawyer, the secret to bonding with other people, and uh and I love this as somebody who hates Zoom, why audio only calls are much better if you actually want to connect with the other person.

Speaking of audio only, this podcast is usually available on video, but this time we did it audio only specifically because Kate wanted to connect better with me via audio and instead of having to stare at each other through a screen. Before we dive in, just a quick plug for my newsletter. I think many of you know that I've got this weekly newsletter, but if you don't know, or if you're not signed up, I want to encourage you to do so. Every Monday, I send out a very quick newsletter that has some bite-sized wisdom that you can put to work in your life immediately.

It's just a nice thing to land in your inbox at the beginning of a week. Plus, it's also the place to stay a breast of all the doings in the 10% Happier Cinematic Universe, including upcoming live events that I'm doing and also the everexpanding library of amazing content over on my newish meditation app. You can sign up for the newsletter at danharris.com. Kate Murphy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. pleasure. pleasure. It's a pleasure to have you here. I'm going to start with a super obvious basic question, which is what is interpersonal synchrony?

Interpersonal synchrony is the what I consider magical but now scientifically documented tendency of human beings to sync or mirror one another. And not only do we tend to mirror one another's gestures and facial expressions and postures, recent advances in technology have shown that we actually also sync up our heart rates, our respiration, our neural patterns, meaning our brain waves, our hormonal activity, and all these other neurohysiological neurohysiological neurohysiological processes within us. So we're actually embodying the other person. And the reason why we do that is for empathy and to understand the other person.

You actually become the other person in that moment. It's kind of like your Spidey sense that helps you immediately get a sense of the other person to tell whether they're friend or foe, not to mention sexually compatible. I'm going to read a very beautiful passage from you back to you and then maybe you can elaborate on it on the other side. That okay? Yeah, please do. Okay. Synchry, this is you. Synchrony between humans is nothing short of a superpower. Compared to other species, we are not imposing in size or strength.

We are not terribly fast or nimble. Our senses are pretty feeble, and our brains, while capable of astounding feats of cognition and imagination, are nevertheless limited and subject to all kinds of processing errors. But thanks to interpersonal synchrony, we can marshall and coordinate our bodies and brains to communicate, innovate, create, build, sustain, and succeed in ways that far exceed what we could accomplish alone. We are all tuning forks, and I love that we're all tuning forks roaming the planet, picking up vibes and finding resonance with those we encounter.

Yeah. So, I just love to hear you just elaborate on that a little bit. Well, another way to think about another analogy is to think of yourself as like a radio receiver where when you meet someone, it's like you're tuning into their frequency. their frequency. their frequency. And some people you may pick up a little bit more static. Other people, they may be broadcasting some music that you don't particularly care for. But when you meet someone and instantly click with them, it's like they're playing music, a really groovy beat that makes you want to turn up the volume.

And we've all had those moments where we've met someone and felt like we instantly were this term, all these terms of phrase that we've said for eons, things like resonating, being in step, in tune, on the same wavelength, they're actually true. Now the technology shows that we actually are resonating with them on all these neurohysiological levels. It's highly adaptive. It is how we have adapted to be social beings. And the thing that's so interesting about it and also really wondrous about it is when you do have that moment of clicking or connecting and really having that resonance with another person, you're flooded with all of these feel-good neurochemicals that makes you want to continue the association.

And the opposite, of course, is where you get you're not clicking and you're not connecting and not sinking in that way. And that's the type of person where you're like, whoa. And want to move away from them. Just have that feeling that, okay, we're not connecting. One of the many things I find interesting about this is this idea of interpersonal synchrony. It kind of cuts against against against the cult of individualism that we're seeing in our society. And you know, individualism has been around for a while, but it is now in a toxic partnership with technology, which drives us further and further into our own heads and into our own little information silos.

And it seems to me that ignoring interpersonal synchrony really just comes at our own peril. Oh, it absolutely does because of that sense of individualism and that you determine your own fate and also you determine how you feel about other people or how they feel about you. It's really this communication, this balance, this syncing up with another person which really requires you to attend to them, to be present for them. And I love that you brought up technology because you can't achieve it remotely. This really suggests that there are more senses than the five we take for granted and you just cannot achieve it in the two-dimensional or three-dimensional if you're doing some type of virtual reality types of interactions.

It's just impossible. And that's why people leave virtual interactions feeling somewhat empty. It's not as satisfying. I want to ask you later about Zoom, but let's put a pin in that for a second. On a very basic level, if we all emit a distinct vibe, is there anything we can do to change our vibe so that we click more successfully with more of our fellow humans and I guess animals too? Well, the thing you have to remember is there is sort of a basic vibe they call in the scientific literature effective presence.

Whereas personality is how you generally feel, effective presence is how you make other people feel generally. But we all have moods. We all have changes where our vibe can kind of change throughout the day or throughout seasons and just because of things that have happened to us. But nevertheless, there is an overriding effective presence that we have that you can't really change, just like you can't necessarily change your personality. But the thing that's so wonderful about interpersonal synchrony is that you can never tell how your vibe is going to interact with another person's vibe.

And that can be a totally different alchemy than with somebody else. So, it's really hard to predict. But in terms of what you can do about it, you can be really mindful of how you're showing up. For example, if you're running late for a meeting and you arrive and you're sort of dramatic and say, "Oh, I can't believe the traffic." You're coming in and you're bringing that energy with you and that energy is contagious versus when you arrive and you say something like, "I am so glad I finally made it." there's a big difference.

And so being mindful of the energy you're bringing with you into the room because as we've discussed, people pick that up. They embody that. And this is mostly subconscious, but you can really set the tone and the tenor of your interactions. your interactions. your interactions. And so that would be a way that I would say that you could really be mindful of how you're impacting other people and whether they connect with you or not. All right. All right. So, I just want to double click on that a little bit.

So, you I think you're saying is like I cannot necessarily control my baseline a effective presence or vibe. It kind of is what it is to a certain extent. However, I do have agency in at least a small band of it. like I can be aware of the energy I'm bringing into a room, what kind of comments I'm making, what kind of exhales I'm doing, whether I'm making eye contact, that kind of stuff. That's where I do have some agency. Absolutely. You also have agency in whether or not you connect with somebody and whether you're even paying attention to them, whether you're inside your own head head head and you're not attending to the other person.

Because synchrony is very much a dynamic process. It's a dance. And if you're not paying attention to the other person's move, you can't sync up with them. So part of it is just really number one being aware that we even do this with another person on all these subconscious levels, but also really paying attention to people. Actually, how I got this idea for this book or what was the seed is my first book was about listening and I was talking with a neuroscientist and he showed me how when the listener and speaker were really understanding one another and having a sense of connection, their neural patterns, their brain waves actually synced up.

It blew my mind. First you would see these two people come together and you would see the different trends in the scanners and you would see the lines going all over the place and then at that moment of connection they totally synced up. It was a total mirror image and that is something that you really do have agency about that when you do really listen to someone that when you pay attention to them when you're aware of them and you're not in your own head thinking about what you're going to say next or waiting for their lips to stop moving.

So you can start talking. You're really letting the person in to even sync up with you that you do have agency in that way where you really are attending, listening, building, nurturing, kind of bringing this about between you and the other person. It doesn't happen if you're looking at your phone, if you're looking at the other way, or importantly if you're inside yourself. So, just to reemphasize this, while we can't necessarily like change our whole vibe, there really is a lot you can do to tune in to other people and to take advantage of this law of the universe, interpersonal synchrony, which seems to be a fundamental reality just kind of the way gravity is.

Yeah, absolutely. This is a complicated topic and it's hard to talk about because there is this sense that you do just like you have your personality that you do have this basic effective presence but again it's like tuning a radio. There's a difference between whether or not you will pick up somebody's station and really know what they're playing and understand them and whether or not you really feel like you are totally connected with that person and that's the person that you want to have spend your holidays with.

Do you know what I mean? There's sort of a different of whether or not they're playing this, you know, wonderful song and whether or not you are really understanding them and can have a working productive relationship with that person. Does that make sense? It does. Given that, and this is an overlooked fact, given that other people are so important to our well-being, it's overlooked in, as we've said, a techdrenched and individualistic culture. And I think it's also overlooked because we are aware of the downside of human interaction.

Other people can be a giant pain in the ass. Yes, they can. There's a reason why Jean Paul Sartra said that hell is other people. So all of that's true, but it is also true that hell is not not only other people, but it's the lack of other people. And so we really do need, as difficult as other humans are, I think some poet called us the glory and scum of the universe. As difficult as other human beings are, we need human interaction. And so given that that's true, we really can use the concept of interpersonal synchrony and tune into our ability to harness it as a way to make ourselves happier.

Exactly. And to really be mindful of when you're talking about this sense of health, it is as crucial to have these moments of synchrony all through the day as it is to eat and drink. It is something that is so essential to our well-being. And if you think of the your social life, your social world, the people that you interact with during the day, and it doesn't matter if it's the checker at the grocery store or your spouse, it's all a part of your social diet.

And you really want to have those moments of synchrony, even if they're fleeting, even if they aren't like this deep cosmic connection that you might have where you really have this resonance on all these different levels. It's really the people that become your intimates in your life are where you have it's this sense of degree and duration of synchrony that the people who become your intimates are people that just really profoundly you sync with on all these different levels. Whereas you might sync with somebody else on I like to think of it as an orchestra like each of us is this walking symphony orchestra and some you might only sync with their horn section.

Some people the only the string but nevertheless each moment of synchrony connection on whatever level is part of that basic diet of social interactions that keep you healthy. And yes, you can. You can foster that by being aware of other people, not being so absorbed in your technology that you don't even notice who is in front of you, asking questions when you are talking with someone, and not just spouting off about yourself, giving yourself a chance to really connect with them on a deeper level. level.

level. these techniques you're talking about and some of which we're going to go much deeper on these techniques for harnessing interpersonal synchrony. I kind of think of them and I want to gauge your reaction to this term, but I kind of think of them as like benevolent manipulation. How does that go down with you? you? you? I don't know. You're going to have to expand about that a little bit. Well, I mean, I'm use I'm being tongue and cheek, but like there are ways to learn how to get along better with everybody who crosses your path.

And I guess you could broadly and kind of darkly characterize that as a kind of manipulation, you know, getting other people to kind of get on your program. But of course, I think it's is a benevolent manipulation where you're just learning how to be a better listener and make eye contact and tune in with people in ways that boost your happiness and theirs. And of course, those two things are interm. I'm not sure I would go with manipulation because it's like diving in. It's swimming with the current or getting into the, you know, mosh pit and dancing with people and really allowing yourself not to be separate and not think of yourself as this individualist and to really acknowledge which I think a lot of people don't that we are so profoundly affected by one another that it's almost impossible for us to pull the strings on another person because the only way to connect is if you both enter into it and reach a groove together.

groove together. groove together. So, you're not manipulating them. You're not getting them onto your team and onto your wavelength as a way to get them to do what you want. You're just getting into the dance of human interaction and who knows what's going to happen, but most likely it will lead to more thriving. thriving. thriving. I think absolutely. I read your book, by the way, in preparation. There was a moment in it where you talked about interviewing the Daly Lama and you were talking about how during the course of the interview that you started to lean forward and you started to acquire as you put it the most beatotific expression that you could achieve.

And that's a lot of what happens with synchrony cuz he was participating in that and you were participating in that. It wasn't that one of you was trying to manipulate one another, but he is so charismatic that's, you know, some people are able to sort of move you more towards their wavelength than others. But I don't think it's necessarily conscious. I think part of it, particularly with him, he radiates something, but part of it is because he becomes so focused. And you talked about also how a signal of him not being engaged is leaning back.

And we all sort of have these signals or these ways of engaging our fostering synchrony and cutting it off by either our movement, our attention, really our interests and also really crucially how much we are within ourselves, how distracted are we and how concerned are we are what we're going to say next and is this person liking me? And then you can see you've lost it. It's almost like when you're engaging with another person, you're becoming totally tuned into that person like you would if you were watching a movie and you were totally engrossed and you lost everything else around you.

And that's wonderful when you can achieve it, but you know it doesn't always happen because you know there is stuff going on in our head. It's kind of like meditation when you're engaging with another person to acknowledge you have these distractions but then bring yourself back to the focus which instead of being breathing or some type of chant or something your focus is returning to the individual and to this interaction between the two of you and trying to maintain or build that sync with the other person.

other person. other person. I love that. Can you say a little bit more about how you stay in sync in the face of like the chaos of your own mind and all the random thoughts that come up or the urge to leave the room or check your phone or whatever? Like how do you come back to the interaction you're in given the hurly burly of your own mind? Well, I'm pathologically curious. So, I mean, I am so interested in other people. That's probably why I became a journalist.

But, you know, in times when maybe I am distracted and I'm thinking about something else, I think really the best way to stay in it is ask questions. Be curious. Ask questions. Let anything about the other person that you're curious about, ask that question. Ask that question because people, I'm telling you, you know this as well as I do, I'm sure, being a journalist, is people want to tell you. They're looking for an opening to share with you. And when you ask a question, you're kind of invested in the answer because you've asked it.

And you also have to pay attention to come up with a question in the first place. So it kind of gets rid of the extra distractions in your head if you start focusing on that. Everybody is interesting and absorbing if you ask the right questions. I do think asking questions and also just developing that curious inner toddler mindset that is so focused on the other person and has no fear of asking a question and wanting to get to know that person. And I think that's a real way to stay in the interaction instead of being inside your head.

head. head. That makes a lot of sense. Let me go back to something you said right before that, which is like these aren't the exact words you use, but I believe it's an argument in your book that you you really can't learn how to read other people and connect with other people if you're disconnected from yourself. And I think the word for this um and it's come up a lot in the 10 years I've been hosting the show is introsception. Like the ability to like get a sense of your own body states.

So in your view, how do we develop that skill of introsception? I'm glad you brought that up because it is very important. You cannot tune in to another person if you're not tuned into yourself. And interception, as you've accurately described it, is how well you read what's going on within your own body. Whereas perception is how you perceive what's going on outside of your body. and to develop interception. There are a lot of people that are trying to help people improve their interception with things like float therapy where you kind of neutralize outside stimulus and you're submerged in water which makes you much more aware of what's going on inside your body.

But meditation is an excellent way to get more in tune with yourself. I was reading a study actually as relatively recently that showed that meditation helped you not only become aware of your own physical signals but you start your heart rate and your brain waves start to sync up. Actually they've measured the EEG and the EKG of people who meditate and those start to sync up. So you've developed this sort of feedback loop within yourself where you are more in touch with yourself because you're focusing on your heart rate, you're focusing on your breathing and your neural patterns apparently according to the study start to fall into sync with that as well.

And then they did another study that showed that people who were meditating together that all of their heart rates and respiration and neural patterns started to sync up in the room together. So there were no individuals anymore. They were part of a larger organism. And another piece of that is when these people left the meditation space, people stayed in synchrony. when they measured them later, they were still synced up in their heart rate and their neural patterns. So that just shows you that when people get together in social situations, and I use social situations meaning when people are just together in a room, what they're doing.

But that's another piece of it is we started out talking about how you can build better interosception. interosception. interosception. But also when you do communal activities, you tend to sync up with the people who you're with, whether it's meditation or dancing or biking or whatever. But to rewind back to how to develop interception, I people who are athletes now, that's something that you can really build your interception if you're not hooked up to a fitness tracker or if you're not listening to earbuds or listening to a book or something while you're running and you're really paying attention or walking or whatever you're doing for fitness to really pay attention to your breath, to really pay attention to what your body's feeling like.

We become so divorced from our bodies by things like fitness trackers and oral rings and all of these things where you're almost relying on technology to tell you how you're doing versus how you yourself feel and doing this internal survey or surveillance of yourself of how you're feeling and also getting in touch with how your emotions feel within your body. A lot of people have a really hard time connecting because every emotion comes from a physical signature that your brain then interprets as that emotion. The way that you feel fear, Dan, is probably different and where I put my fear in my body.

And to really think about when you're feeling this these different emotions of where am I putting this? Where does this go? Do I feel it in my neck? Do I have muscle tension in my back? Does it make me feel cold? Does it make me feel hot? To really get to know yourself and those different emotions. And once you become conscious of that, you're able to when you're interacting with another person, when you are embodying those signals that are coming from them, you're able to then interpret that within your own body, which in turn helps you interpret the other person, how they're feeling and what they're doing.

We do this all subconsciously, but again, as you rightly point out, it breaks down if you're divorced from your own body and your own sensations. You can't pick up the other person if your receivers's down. If you're like me and you've got a lot going on and there are demands coming at you from every direction and you've got big goals, you need one thing, energy. And that is where one of our sponsors today, Spark, comes in. Their product gives you energy and mental sharpness without trade-offs.

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But of course, it can be a bad thing when you're around somebody who is imposing their bad vibes on you. So, I want to talk about how we can avoid what I think you call emotional fusion, but like maybe just start by talking about the downsides of interpersonal synchrony. Well, I think we can all relate to um I talk about this in the book, the bad apple effect where you've got like one person, whether it's in a work team or a social group or a volunteer organization that tends to really drag everyone down with that person, whether it's through their anger or complaining or being very depressed, that kind of thing.

And so the moods and attitudes and beliefs and behaviors are all very contagious because of this sinking instinct that we have. Psychologists call it emotional fusion or a meshment. It can happen in couples where they can be very much in love and a very in sync couple. But it can work against them where like one of them gets stressed and then the other one gets stressed which boomerangs back on the first one. And so you have this climbing the ladder of escalation of arousal till there's like a big blow up and the two of them don't even really know where it came from when it was really this magnified reaction of these physiological states that both of them were in.

So a way to deal with that which I have found this incredibly helpful in my own life is first of all being aware that this has happened that you take on other people's emotions, feelings and that physiological aspect. All these terms of phrase like getting under your skin, a pain in the neck, all of these things are really true or they've really gotten in my head. Yes, that's all very true. And there's first of all the awareness piece, but then also when you're in those moments where you feel like you're ricocheting whether it's anxiety or anger back and forth off of one another in these particularly fraught conversations.

fraught conversations. fraught conversations. One technique that a clinical psychologist who specializes in these being synced or over synced relationships is he says to imagine there's a mute button on the other person at that moment and really think about their level of arousal versus what they're actually saying and how you might be unwittingly matching that level of arousal and to try and pull back from that and to really be aware what you're taking on from the other person and recognizing, okay, this isn't mine. I'm going to let you have your feelings.

Empathy is great, but we can take it too far when it drags us both into a place where neither of us want to be. So, it's not so much that you stop listening to them. It's kind of like you're still there, but you're not you're kind of dialing down your own level of synchrony in that moment in some way. some way. some way. Yes. And I'm talking about particularly fraught situations. I'm not saying, okay, just totally stop listening to the other person, but when things are getting really out of control to really start to think more about, okay, let me see how I might be matching the other person in their arousal level.

And yes, pull back and think, okay, what am I taking into myself that is not mine? This is their arousal. This is their anger. This is their stress. this is their anxiety and I'm sympathetic to that, but I'm going to let them have that. And it's a way of again doing that survey of the body. Am I getting really tense? Is this getting behind my solar plexus? Do I have an angry expression on my face? Am I mirroring the other person and try in that moment to break the sink to actually step back?

Because all of us, we move into and out of synchrony all the time throughout the day. The relationships that last are the ones that you're in sync more than you're not. But to really maintain our own sense of emotional regulation and just sense of self, you cannot be and do not want to be totally in sync with another person all the time. It's unhealthy. Just like, you know, having too much food's unhealthy or too much water is unhealthy. Too much sinking is unhealthy as well. You have this concept I believe like mentally returning borrowed emotions.

emotions. emotions. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Say more about that. It's this sense of couples talk about it but you can it can happen with friends. It can happen with colleagues where you take on their stress or their sadness or their anxiety and you're almost not aware of it. You can go back. You can even be separated from that person and just start feeling off and not really be aware where it's coming from. Because again when we embody someone else it feels like it's coming from within us.

So you have to be vigilant of okay why am I feeling this way? Where is this coming from? And to be able to say okay this is hers or this is his and I'm going to again let you have your feelings and I'm going to maintain where I am because I can be much more helpful to you if I'm outside of that than if I'm in it. What does it mean to practice energy hygiene? energy hygiene? energy hygiene? That's really to think about it on the other side.

What am I transmitting to other people? other people? other people? Oh, okay. So, this is like it's related. it's related. it's related. Uh yes, it's related, but it's not self-protective. It's more like uh community service. community service. community service. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like wearing your mask or you whatever. It's realizing, okay, what am I bringing to this interaction? Am I showing up angry because of a fight I had with somebody before? Is it that I'm worried about my kids and I'm bringing that anxiety into this work meeting?

It's kind of like essentially erasing your emotional whiteboard before you go into the next interaction and really doing a survey of how am I feeling? How am I presenting? What is going on in my body right now? and how am I going to release that, refresh, reboot, whether it's a few moments of meditation, going for a walk, trying to just get in a different rhythm because you're still carrying the rhythm of the encounter that you just had. One of your other recommendations along those lines is to the extent that we can control our own calendars and we we all have varying degrees of agency on this score but if we can control our own calendars to schedule 45minute meetings instead of 60-minute meetings as a way to have some time to uh erase the whiteboard or to recover from somebody with whom we were overly inshed.

overly inshed. overly inshed. Yeah, absolutely. And I actually um I stole that idea or you know gave him credit in the book but this was someone in senior management in the seauite and he was telling me that that was one of his hacks to maintain his emotional hygiene cuz you know he was in backtoback meetings all day long and he was realizing he was bringing the emotions from the previous meeting to the next meeting and he really felt people deserve to have him fresh. Another thing that he said that he did that I think is a good idea myself that I don't think people take advantage of is those first few minutes of a call just that opener that icebreaker where people are just not diving right into the agenda where there's just a little bit of social talk in the beginning to really lean into that to reset yourself to reboot to ease into the next interaction and get rid of the residue of the one that was before.

And I think, you know, a lot of people feel like, okay, I'm on a schedule here. Let's just dive right in and let's just start. And that's a temptation. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm as guilty as anybody else. You know, I got other things to do. I got a busy day. But to really lean into that and give yourself, it's almost like taking a deep breath and really focusing on that person. This is who's in front of me right now. give your chance, give yourself a chance to sync with that person and and have a better interaction and not mingle it with the energy that you're bringing from the previous interaction.

previous interaction. previous interaction. I like that. One other thing you talk about when it comes to preventing emotional fusion, protecting ourselves from other people's bad vibes, is to break physical sync, like to somehow not be so physically imshed with the other person. What does that mean? Does that mean just like leaving the room? Well, it could be that. It could be leaving the room, but that's the thing is to become aware subconsciously. I mean, it is crazy when you look at the research that when people come together, they really do.

They mimic each other's facial expressions. Have you ever been to a movie and seen somebody's face like mimics whatever the actors and actresses are doing on on the screen? You ever seen people do that? I'm I'm not looking at other people in the movies. the movies. the movies. Okay. Well, I told you I'm pathologically curious, but people do do that and they do that with one another. And you may not be able to see it as clearly as sometimes you do in a movie, but it's all these micro expressions, but it's also your physiology.

People start to they touch their hair at the same time, they touch their face at the same time, they cross their legs, they lean forward, they lean back. People are really in this subconscious physical dance with one another and also within them as well. their heart rate, their respiration, all these, you know, hormonal activity, pupil dilation, all of that is starting to sink up. So if you can think about when you are in an interaction with another person and things are not going well or you are interpreting because you've improved your interception that you're getting really tense to just do things as simple as take a deep breath, cross your legs the other direction, lean back, relax your shoulders, even look away for a moment.

Break that rhythm with the other person. I'll give you a good example. When I first started working on this and I was reading all this research and didn't even quite know I was writing a book yet, but it just every day I researched this, I was like, "No way." You just don't realize how much you are sinking with another person in spite of yourself. We all like to think we're not unduly influenced by other people. But that's just a myth. You know, if you look at this research and also just notice your own behavior.

But the example I want to give you is I was asked to speak at and I won't say which university but I was invited to speak at this university and one of the deans asked me out to lunch beforehand. So I went out to lunch with this guy and he was just a socially awkward person. He was very nervous and I was getting really nervous too. And I don't think had I done this research I would have really known what was going on in my body.

But I was exactly mirroring him. I was really closed off. I had, you know, my arms were crossed, my legs were crossed really close together. I was tense in my shoulders. And I was talking really fast. I was just uncomfortable. And then I realized, oh my god, I'm becoming him. becoming him. becoming him. Exactly what I described. I realized, okay, my shoulders are really up around my ears, you know? I mean, not that far. It's really subtle, but I realized I have a lot of muscle tension right now.

You know, I uncrossed my legs. I sat back. I took a deep breath. And I slowed the cadence of my speech. And the thing that's so miraculous is not only did I feel better because I had broken away from whatever internally was going on with him, but he started to sink to me. He started to relax. So the whole encounter you can really have a lot of agency over how things go just by how you react. Do you get swept up in the other person's energy or do you allow them to have it and sort of release it and they really most of the time will come and meet where you are and start to relax as well.

Yeah, that's a really empowering thing. one other piece of advice that you have in terms of like gauging whether you really sync with somebody and whether this is somebody you want to like keep in your life and I think this is probably particularly useful when it comes to dating is to pay attention to how you feel after you're with the person to do a little audit after you've parted ways like you know a little intraception interception after the encounter can you say a little bit more about that.

about that. about that. Yeah. And you can even go through your contact list. It isn't just, you know, who you're dating. It's does this person make me feel better or worse. Do I feel energized or drained? Do I like myself when I'm with this person? Or do I become somebody I don't recognize with that person or somebody that I don't want to be with that person? I think those are real important questions to ask because if you think about your social interactions as your daily diet, what are you feeding yourself?

And also turn it the other way. What are you feeding other people? Really think about, am I leaving this person better or worse than I found them? them? them? Because it goes both ways. It is a dance. Sinking is something that is going back and forth. You know that's why I think I resisted the manipulation. It is this mutual thing that happens between two people that is really beautiful and magical and it can last a moment like when you have that moment of connection with somebody like when you're checking out of the grocery store and you just have that moment of connection.

Again, it's not like you're going to end up spending all your holidays with them, but you had that moment, that little surge of neurochemicals where you felt better and you felt connected to the world and the other person did too. And when you're talking about dating, that's what people really I'd be really careful about trying to date online because an algorithm can tell you who your perfect match is. Somebody can seem like your perfect match online, but again, as we talked earlier, you're not going to get the full complement of these neuroysiological signals from the other person.

That's why they can look like the perfect match online, but then when you finally meet them in person, all you can think about is what you'd rather be watching on Netflix. It's not there. And you can't make yourself be attracted to someone any more than you can make yourself not be attracted to someone. And so there's still some magic to all of this, which is wonderful. I mean, anyone who's fallen in love with somebody, there is a mystery. It isn't, you know, where you can check these boxes or lean in just the right way or do this and the other person will fall in love with you or you will fall in love with them.

But you can miss that person because you weren't paying attention. you weren't engaged. You were too much in your own head and you didn't allow yourself to sync with that person to dance with that person in this special neuroysiological way. And I do fear with technology just even looking at a phone they've shown that when people are not paying attention when they're not looking at each other and significantly when they're looking at their phone it breaks the sync. It keeps you from developing these wonderful synchronies with other people that not only feel good in the moment, but make you healthier and make you feel more secure in the world.

Yeah. And there's all this data about even just having a phone on the table can things up in this regard. Correct. Correct. Correct. I guess a question, this is a little bit random that's popping into my head that came up especially around romantic relationships. To what extent is scent engaged when we talk about interpersonal synchrony? synchrony? synchrony? Oh, I love that you asked that question. The research isn't totally clear, but they think it's very significant. I don't know if you know this, but a lot of women know this, but when you're around other women for a significant amount of time, you sink your menstrual cycle.

You all start having your period at the same time. and they think that's related to olfactory sensory those pherommones and that's why that happens. So if that happens in that way you can imagine all these other things that might cause you to be in sync with people and there's a ton of research about how women will smell sweaty t-shirts of a and that that person ends up being the person that the ones that's the sweaty t-shirts that they like the best. I you know I haven't participated in that study but I find it interesting.

Those are the people that they end up being the most attracted to and significantly that they are the most genetically compatible genetically compatible genetically compatible in terms of having children that would be the most genetically healthy. Isn't that interesting? that interesting? that interesting? It's really interesting. And like the body is sending you so many signals that your prefrontal cortex or rational contentoriented brain just doesn't pick up. up. up. Absolutely. Something that I hope people will take away from reading the book is we sort of been fed the steady diet that you should be able to like everyone and that everyone should like you and if you just did these things or the other person just did these things then you all would like each other.

And the research shows that that's not necessarily the case. Now, we can all get along and certainly should all be kind, but it's really a kinder way to think of this is that sometimes you're just not a good fit with the other person. And it's no harm, no foul. It's not a default in you or the other person. I think when people don't click, when people don't connect, they either have two reactions. One is what's wrong with that person? And the other is what's wrong with me?

And the kinder and more accurate way to think about it is we just not sinking. We haven't developed interpersonal synchrony. And that could change tomorrow. But in this moment, because it's a very much momentto moment thing in this moment, we're not. So it doesn't do any good to, you know, wag my tail all the harder and try and get this person to like me or be hostile because this other person does not like me or I don't like them. is to just realize, you know, shrug your shoulders.

Hm. Not sinking at this moment and be okay with that. that. that. But you're saying that that if we're not sinking at this moment doesn't mean we couldn't have a flourishing relationship, relationship, relationship, romantic, professional, whatever at some point in the future. Like the opportunity for synchrony isn't deleted. No, it is not deleted. We move into and out of sync with other people all the time. I do think that there is sort of this basic baseline attraction not attraction. Like I said, you can't make yourself be attracted to somebody.

And this may be more in the sexual realm, but you can't make yourself be attracted to someone any more than you can make yourself not be attracted to someone. And so there can be something chemical. I mean, you know, in the past we called it chemistry, but it's really synchrony. And if you don't have it on some baseline level, you may never. But that's not to say you will never. Let me go back to the technology. You said earlier like beware of, you know, or at least be wary of online dating.

You also early on said something about like virtual meetings, Zoom, etc., etc. What can we do about this practically? What should our attitudes be in this era of remote work specifically about these interactions that we I think most of us need to have virtually? Yeah. Well, you know, to the degree you can meet with other people and prioritize meeting people or at least have a regular meeting with the people that you work with, that of course is best. The research is pretty clear about Zoom, about video interaction, that it actually causes people to be less in sync.

They've done some really interesting studies about people who just did audio only versus video, were more in sync neurohysiologically, did better on common task, interrupted less, were more in sync in their communication, that kind of thing. I mean, if you think about it, the way video conferencing and video technology is done really to preserve bandwidth, the way it's coded and patched and synthesized, it introduces all these artifacts that like freezing, blocking, out of sync video, out of sync audio, that kind of thing, which really scramles our ability to sync with one another.

cuz we're looking at this person who looks like they're on a security camera at a convenience store essentially. Sort of that sort of blocky. They're not looking at you. You can't have eye contact and how they look depends on the camera angle. So I would recommend you know people I mean certainly show a PowerPoint, you know, say hello in the beginning. If you have product developments you want to show by video, great. But if you're really trying to have a meaningful conversation and have that sense of connection and intimacy over the phone, I I mean over a communication system, I would use the phone audio only.

I think that that is a better way to go. Certainly research supports that. And you know, Zoom fatigue is real. It's because you're scrambling to try and sync up with the other person and you have all this faulty information that's being transmitted to you like you you can't make eye contact. you can't really read those subtle facial expressions. So, your brain is just scrambling to find it and can't find it. And that's what makes you feel tired. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is mental health awareness month and a reminder that whatever you're dealing with, you do not have to deal with it alone.

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That's betterhp.com/happier. Okay, I have a bunch of more practical questions for you about harnessing interpersonal synchrony to our advantage. There's another term proximics. What does that mean? Yes, that is the spatial dimension of communication and that was actually developed, this idea is developed back in the 1960s by an anthropologist. But it's essentially it's sort of like the volume control on your your ability to synchronize with another person because the closer you are to another person, the more of these signals you're going to pick up from the other person.

And the farther you get away, the signal starts to diminish. Sort of like Wi-Fi. But sometimes if someone's too close to you, and I think we've all had that experience where somebody stands too close to you at a party, and that's too much signaling. It's sort of like the person's too loud, you're getting too many of those signals from them, and so you step back. And we do this all the time to encourage or discourage our interactions with other people. And there's these different space circles that you can think about.

There's intimate space, personal space, and social space, and public space where we kind of it's sort of again like our volume control where we're turning it way loud if we want to be in the intimate space, which is like no space at all. Like if you're, you know, kissing the other person to 1.5 and that personal space is more like 1.5 to about 4T. So if you think about it, you can make someone uncomfortable by getting too much in their space and giving them too loud a signal.

And then you can also keep yourself from really connecting with them because you're too far away. A lot of interior designers now are paying attention to proxmics and really designing spaces, whether they're public spaces or personal spaces where people can gather and have their personal space, but keep other people that they don't know in that social space that's farther away. farther away. farther away. Is this why you were so in favor of booths at restaurants? Yes, exactly. And it's amazing, you know, once you learn about it, it's amazing how many stores or coffee shops or restaurants or fitness facilities are not paying attention to proxmics.

And people don't know why the space makes them uncomfortable. They just don't go and that's why they don't survive. You can be at a restaurant where the tables are really too far apart and you don't get that vibe. you don't get that feeling of being in a social space or they can be too close together and you feel like you're really crowded and so you won't go back. So both of them there's a sweet spot that we all want and so yeah but it all has to do with this ability to sync up with another person and whether the signal is too strong or too faint.

Super interesting. Okay, another practical thing I wanted to ask you about is greeting a room or working a room. This gets back into the neighborhood of manipulation but not not in the pajorative. What are your thoughts on how we can use everything we've been talking about to like be the most effective in a room? Okay. There is this concept known as emotional aperture. And people who have really excellent emotional aperture are people who are really good at reading the room. The people who can come in and get a sense of okay this is going well.

You know whether it's a performance or a speech can come in. They don't have to talk to anyone. They don't even have to look at particular faces. They can just read the energy in the room. And people who are really good at that are um people who become really terrific, let's say, evangelical pastors, politicians, generals, you know, and armies who are trying to rally the troops. They're the people that really can read that by by I use the example of auctioneers in the book, but there's also again, you know, reading people versus reading the room.

And there's a lot of research that shows that people who are really good at one are not so good at the other. But there are people who kind of like trial lawyers, for example, who are really good at reading the room, how the arguments going over, but also looking at an individual jurors and really building a connection or a synchrony with them. So, it's sort of syncing with the energy in the room versus syncing to the individual. There is some research about how to improve your emotional aperture, being able to read a room better.

And they do that by showing people videos where they flash slides of different images. And the first slide, it shows a whole bunch of people with a neutral facial expression and then another slide with a whole bunch of people, but they're sort of varying expressions. And you're supposed to tell them immediately, I've done this. It's interesting. And it gets almost like a pointless painting. If you think about it, you realize you can't look at individual faces. You have to almost look at it like a pointless painting and then you see the image.

I think anyone who's done public speaking, I think some people will say, "Oh, you need to focus on one person in the room." That probably isn't the best idea. You probably if you want to read the entire room is to look more towards the back. But I think you really hit on something when we were focusing on the interosception is to really try and get out of your own head and just experience what are you experiencing and your body will tell you. But most of us know that when we've walked into a party that's not going well.

Like maybe we're late. Walk into a dinner party and you know somebody's just you know the dog's just thrown up on the floor but you don't know that. But you can walk in and like oh my god what just happened. You don't know what happened, but you know something happened. something happened. something happened. But there are some more affirmative actions we can take like maintaining eye contact or using expressive storytelling where we're making either small or large gestures. Can you say just a little bit more about those practices?

Oh, absolutely. In terms of getting people to sync with you when, and this could be somebody before an audience are just with someone individually, the people that tend to foster the most synchrony with other people are people who are more expressive. And if you think about it, it's sort of like turning up the volume a little bit, kind of like being closer to somebody because you're giving them more to work with. You have your gestures, you have this facial expressions, and if you think about the people that are the best storytellers, they're the people that kind of do someone else's voices when they're talking and they reenact a scene for you.

And you don't realize that. I mean, now that I'm bringing up, you will notice it in so many conversations where somebody will they'll mimic their boss and then my boss said, you know, and get a deeper voice when they're marrying their boss if their boss is, you know, has a deeper voice or, you know, they it's this mimicry and it puts people in the scene. And because we sync with another person in their expressions, in the feedback that they're giving us that if you make it more pronounced, people are more likely to pick up on it and sink to you.

Say a little bit more about eye contact specifically because I can see how maintaining eye contact can be effective, but it also can be a little creepy if overused. Absolutely. And particularly in a manipulative way. That's the thing about synchrony is we have a really good detector when people are just doing the same thing as we are trying to develop synchrony in ways that are trying to get them to be on the same wavelength but they're really it's just more of a mimicry rather than an actual sinking.

But yeah, I do think that people can develop a sense of synchrony with another person by maintaining eye contact. But if you do it too long or you're doing it with an intent to unsettle the other person, somebody at one of the events that I've done was talking about a boss who would just stare at people and make them uncomfortable. And I think, you know, if you've read Walter Isacson's book about Steve Jobs, that was something he did where it just made them really uncomfortable. So there's a soft looking at the other person and there's a hard looking at the other person.

And so if you're looking with curiosity and mirroring the other person and really focusing on the other person, that natural pupil synchrony, a pupil dilation where people sync that up will occur. But yeah, I do think you really you need to look at people and if you notice they're getting uncomfortable and looking away, then that'll be some good feedback that maybe you are boring into them rather than having a soft glance at them. them. them. Last thing I wanted to ask you about is you write about the overlap between synchrony and synchronicity.

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So maybe define synchronicity as in contrast to synchrony and like say a little bit about what the overlap might be. A synchronicity is a union concept where it talks about meaningful coincidences coincidences coincidences where something happens that seems like for example I was in Amsterdam recently and I ran into somebody I hadn't seen in a very long time who is from Texas but somehow we both ended up there at the same time on the same street in Amsterdam. And Jung would say that that was because there was something meaningful about that that we were thinking about each other.

And I and I think people have that experience where someone calls you that you were just thinking about. thinking about. thinking about. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And the thinking about and you know again this is not proven but that because we sync with one another and we develop these resonances with one another and we carry those resonance with us after the encounter. that that is why you may start to think like the other person. And they've shown this in studies that people's neural patterns of close friends of family are more similar than those of strangers.

People literally do shape our thinking. And so that would explain these synchronistic moments, these synchronicity type of moments that Jung described that you do run into somebody you had just been thinking about or who was calling you because of that similarity and neural patterns that were developed by intense and connected interactions. interactions. interactions. On some level, I'm open to that. You know, I've certainly had it happen where I'm thinking about actually happened this morning. My wife was texting me about a third person and that that third person emailed both of us during the text exchange.

So, oh wow, oh wow, oh wow, I've definitely had that experience. However, I mean, my more clinical skeptical lens would argue that it's just a coincidence. Like, how many times are you thinking of people and they don't text you at that moment or they don't call you at that moment? We don't really pay attention to all of those. we do pay attention to the ones where it seems like a synchronicity. Well, I I agree with you. I think there are a lot of people who will say that it it is just chance.

But, you know, because of these advances in technology where you're actually seeing that people's neural patterns, they carry them away with one another and the people that you spend your time with shape you neurohysiologically. It does stand a reason that it's sort of like this idea of quantum entanglement. I agree with you. It does. And I I hesitate to even put this in the book, but they are actually physicists are studying this studying this studying this to me. I would not be doing a service to readers by not pointing all of this out because, you know, I don't know and I don't think other people do either.

But I'm certainly not willing to say it's not true in the same way I'm not willing to say it is true. But the research is really pretty compelling that your neuropatterns and your wife's neuropatterns and probably this friend have become very similar because of your engagement with one another and you sinking in the moments that you're together and you carry that synchrony away with you. I mean, we really are a composite of our social interactions, these synchronies, these vibrations that occur within our bodies. I mean, it it does I agree with you.

It does sort of sound like, well, this is getting kind of woo woo. And it does, but unless you start looking at all of these studies and looking at the actual clinical science where they have people hooked up to all these machines and you're like, "Oh my god, their brain waves are exactly the same right now. How did that happen? We don't know, but it's happening." happening." happening." Well, I agree with you that we don't know. you know, on the synchronicity tip specifically, like we don't know and that's the only I believe the only honest answer.

honest answer. honest answer. I agree with you because I'm not advocating one way or another, but I it's fascinating to contemplate. Mhm. Indeed, Kate, anything you were hoping we would get to that we didn't? Yes. Actually, we did not talk about how when people do synchronized activities, behaviors, behaviors, behaviors, how it builds these feelings of affinity and rapport, people are more likely to share information. They're more likely to be helpful and kind. There's abundant research showing that. And if you think about it, just going back historically, how people bonded, how people came together was by doing synchronized activities.

And that would be religion where people bow, sing, pray, recite prayers at the same time. Think about the military, people marching in sync. And it develops this sense of camaraderie that's built in. Again, you know, the researchers, you know, well, why is that? don't really know. But the thinking is that because our brains are metabolically expensive, they're only 2% of our body weight, but consume 20% of the calories. And just like we tend to be lazy physically, we like to conserve our energy intellectually, cognitively that when you're around a lot of people doing the same thing you are, it kind of puts us in our happy place.

we relax because we don't need to predict what people are going to do next. Your brain is a prediction machine. And when we don't have to predict because when we're in sync, what are they going to do? The same thing you're doing. So, there's something about synchronized behavior. And when you're talking about dating, if you're thinking about what to do on a date, of course, you know, dancing has been a part of the courtship ritual for forever for good reason, cuz that's something that actually fosters this feeling of connection.

But it could also be going for a walk with somebody, going for a run, rowing, and if you want to connect with other people, try and think of things like that. even volunteering maybe at a food pantry where you're boxing things or putting cans on a shelf at the same time. These synchronized activities, even housework with your spouse, if you're doing it together at the same time is thought to make for a happier marriage. There's been some research on that, too. But yes, that was the only thing I can think of that we didn't cover.

didn't cover. didn't cover. It's super helpful. Like what about for me as a business owner and trying to get my team my team my team bonded? I know historically companies have done all sorts of goofy things like trust falls or whatever. What could I do? And I don't want to get everybody roller skating. I'm I'm not, you know, like like like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How can I take advantage of this without, you know, forcing people into awkward situations? Actually a lot of eastern companies I mean we all know about doing the calisthenics or maybe we don't but in Japan and China a lot of companies have exercise programs where people do like just maybe 15 minutes and some it's only four minutes of stretching stretching stretching or um doing a light exercise in the morning.

You could also, you know, crank up some music in the afternoon where everybody's hearing the same beat in the afternoon, which, you know, people just unconsciously start to tap their foot at the same time. That'll sort of get you in sync. But if you think of some of the like really business people who they would have walking meetings, you know, if you think back to the parapotetics walking around the lysum, but also, you know, look at Steve Jobs, people he wanted to influence, he would take on walks with him.

I also read Lauren Michael's biography and he takes people that he's working with on long walks around New York City. So, you know, you could arrange walks, but also if you just arrange to have a meal together because, you know, that in its way is a synchronized behavior. synchronized behavior. synchronized behavior. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're all sitting down together. You're having a meal together, you know. So, it doesn't have to be military marching around or doing dance steps, though. The research has shown that really helps.

There was a publishing company in Germany that had their employees do a nine-week exercise program and it showed that absenteeism went down, feelings of morale went up and it wasn't just the exercise because they also had a control group that did the exercise but separately. So there was something about doing it in a synchronized way that built this rapport and built cohesion. Yep. That makes complete sense to me and I've done workouts with colleagues before and I found it to be really helpful and of course my wife.

Golf. I mean, you know, that's probably why golf is such a thing. You know, you're walking together and you're spending all that time together, but it's in a synchronized activity. Yep. Kate, thank you so much. Everybody, I just want to remind you of Kate's books. the most recent one which we've been discussing why we click the emerging science of interpersonal synchrony her book before that which we touched on a little bit you're not listening what you're missing and why it matters Kate Murphy again total pleasure this was super interesting and helpful thank you thank you Dan thanks again to Kate awesome to talk to her don't forget to head on over to danharris.com to sign up for my newish meditation app we've got a growing library of meditations from amazing teachers, all my friends.

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