Andrew Huberman· PhD
oftentimes, it's very useful to focus outward on some other common narrative, a movie, oftentimes people will watch a game together. Actually there's a lot of critique that people or families will focus outward too much on external events, but these external events can be observing the grandchild and how wonderful they are, or observing the meal and how wonderful it is. Or as we commonly see in various traditions, there's a story that's repeated each year, certainly in the upcoming holidays, there's Christmas stories, there are themes and traditions, and those themes and traditions anchor a number of different aspects of our psychology. They're really wonderful, they thread through the ages really, and allow us to link our own experiences up with previous generations and experiences. But in addition to that, they synchronize our physiologies. And so sometimes it can be useful rather than expecting others to shift our physiology in the way that we wish, or us shifting their physiologies in the way that we wish, and then expecting some bond to mushroom out of that in some beautiful way, to focus on some external stimulus, to focus on something that will synchronize the physiologies of both people, that can act as a bridge in order to establish social bonds.