What if the real reason you feel stuck, anxious, or unfulfilled has nothing to do with your biohacking stack and everything to do with which half of your brain you're actually using? In this episode, Host Dave Asprey sits down with Harvard professor and bestselling author Arthur Brooks to reveal the neuroscience of meaning, consciousness, and why your left brain's obsession with optimization is quietly destroying your happiness and human performance. 

-Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience: https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR 

- Buy Arthur’s new book “The Meaning Of Your Life” at: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724315/the-meaning-of-your-life-by-arthur-c-brooks/ 

Arthur Brooks is a professor at both the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, where he teaches leadership and happiness. He writes the wildly popular "How to Build a Life" column at The Atlantic, hosts the weekly podcast "Office Hours with Arthur Brooks," and has authored 15 books, including two number one New York Times bestsellers: Build the Life You Want with Oprah Winfrey, and From Strength to Strength. His new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, releases March 31, 2026. Brooks is one of the world's foremost experts on the science of human happiness. 

Dave and Arthur go deep on hemispheric lateralization, the rediscovered neuroscience showing your right brain holds everything that makes life worth living: meaning, mystery, consciousness, and the ineffable experiences that no AI, no nootropic, and no amount of fasting or sleep optimization can manufacture for you. They break down why the depression and anxiety epidemic is really a right-brain deficiency crisis, and why all the supplements, ketosis protocols, and functional medicine hacks in the world won't fix it if you're living entirely in your left hemisphere. 

This is a rare episode that bridges hard neuroscience with the deepest questions of human existence. Whether you're deep into anti-aging, neuroplasticity training, or Smarter Not Harder living, this conversation will change how you think about what you're actually optimizing for. 

You'll Learn: 

• Why the mental health crisis is fundamentally a meaning crisis, and what your brain hemispheres have to do with it 

• How technology, AI, and screen culture are suppressing the right hemisphere and wiring you for anxiety 

• The six scientifically backed ways to open your right brain and unlock experiences of real meaning 

• Why self-improvement fails without first understanding the neuroscience of how ideas inst