- 1 hour 8 minutesTraining for Brain Health: Mental Clarity, Focus, Strength and Recovery. With Chris Aimone.
Today’s encore episode is with Chris Aimone, the cofounder of Muse, the brain sensing technology dedicated to enhancing mental fitness, focus and clarity. He’s a bit of an expert when it comes to the intersection of technology, mindfulness and the brain.
Our discussion delves into the importance of attention training, and why our emotional reactions play such a big role when it comes to maintaining focus and to overall brain health. Chris discusses the impact of distraction on our ability to connect with the present moment and shares how Muse’s Athena technology, with its eeg and Fnirs technology helps us train for mental clarity and focus, mental strength and endurance and for our ability to recover and recharge. continuous learning, he says, is essential for cognitive health. We also discuss how AI is used to personalize brain training exercises. If you’ve ever wondered about brain health and what it takes stay mentally fit, you’ll find this fascinating.
And, we’re playing a bit with AI as well. At the end of this interview, we’ve added a 14 minute AI podcast all about Athena. See what you think!
As always, we’re untangle, the podcast from Muse. Use promo code untangle 15 at choosemuse.com for your 15% discount.
Thanks, as always, to our sponsors. Quince, Jones Road Beauty, Vinted, Berkeley Life, Warby Parker.
NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
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20 October 2026, 11:00 am - 7 minutes 5 secondsMeditation Monday. Moments of Joy. With Chrissy Carter. 7 minutes.
Welcome to a special edition of Untangle, Meditation Mondays. We’re taking this time to share meditations from our sister app, Meditation Studio. We know that life gets messy and, when it does, Meditation is here to help us find a sense of calm and inner peace. Whether you’re facing daily work or relationships stress, unexpected challenges, or just want to improve focus, we hope meditation Monday’s will be your go to for a weekly guided meditation treat. And if you’re craving more…which I always do…the Meditation Studio app offers over 800 expert-guided meditations from over 75 of the world’s top meditation experts.And best of all…get 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio.
Resource: Unlock 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio
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19 October 2026, 11:00 am - 48 minutes 32 secondsThe Vanishing Family: Your Brain, Dementia, Genetic Risk and the Question...Would You Want to Know? With Robert Kolker
What would you do if you had a 50 percent chance of developing a devastating genetic form of dementia—and you could take a test to find out whether you carried the mutation?
In this episode, Journalist and Bestselling Author Robert Kolker joins me to talk about his newest book The Vanishing Family, Love, Fate and the Quest to End Dementia and the extraordinary family at the center of his story.
The family lives with an inherited form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a disease that can dramatically alter personality and behavior while leaving memory relatively intact in the early stages. Their experience raises enormous questions—not only about dementia and medical research, but about identity, family, parenting, caregiving, and how we choose to live when we cannot know what the future holds.
In this conversation, we explore:
- Why Bob Kolker became fascinated with this family's story
- The family's rare genetic form of frontotemporal dementia
- What it means to face a 50 percent chance of inheriting a disease-causing mutation
- The agonizing decision of whether—or whether not—to undergo genetic testing
- Why some family members chose to know their genetic status while others chose not to
- How the younger generation faces questions about marriage, children, IVF, and genetic risk
- Why frontotemporal dementia can look so different from the dementia most people associate with Alzheimer’s
- How personality, behavior, and social awareness can change while memory remains intact
- The question of whether a person with advanced dementia has truly “vanished”
- What Bob learned about the personalities and skills that can make someone an effective caregiver
- Why caregiving can become isolating—and why caregivers may need far more support
- The challenge of developing treatments for rare diseases when there aren't enough patients to make traditional drug development financially attractive
- Why rare genetic diseases may offer important clues for understanding more common neurological diseases
- The emerging scientific interest in tau and its potential connection to future dementia treatments
- The complicated question of whether having more genetic information actually gives us more control
- And what Bob learned from this family about living in the present and spending our energy on what really matters
One of the most powerful ideas in our conversation is that dementia isn't necessarily an on/off switch—and that a person doesn't simply “vanish” when their memory or personality changes. Bob talks about the possibility of recognizing the person who remains, even amid profound neurological change.
He also reflects on how the experience changed his own life: he plans less, lives more in the present, and tries not to waste energy on things that ultimately don't matter.
About Bob Kolker
Bob Kolker is an award-winning journalist and author whose work often explores families confronting extraordinary circumstances. In this conversation, he brings together deeply reported family stories with questions about genetics, neuroscience, dementia, caregiving, and the future of medical research.
Resource: Robertkolker.com
Gratitude to our amazing sponsors: Quince, Berkeley Life, Vinted, Jones Road Beauty, Warby Parker
As Always, Untangle is the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband. Go to choosemuse.com/untangle and use code untangle15 for your discount.
NEW: NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
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13 October 2026, 10:30 am - 56 minutes 28 secondsIs it Possible to Age-Proof your Brain and Slow Cognitive Decline? With Dr. Majid Fotuhi
Encore: Today I sit down with neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Majid Fotuhi to unpack the science of neuroplasticity — the brain’s remarkable ability to change, rewire, and grow at any age. He’s adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins and author of the book The Invincible Brain: The Clinically Proven Plan to Age-Proof Your Brain and Stay Sharp for Life. We discuss many things related to his book, from building new connections to strengthening memory-related regions of the brain, to the five pillars of brain health…fitness, sleep, nutrition, mindset and brain training. , Dr. Fotuhi explains why “age-related cognitive decline” and even Alzheimers isn’t as inevitable as we’ve been led to believe. I was particularly intrigued with his concept of "the soup of abnormalities." There’s lot’s of great stuff here.
NEW: You can pre-order the book The Questions That Make A Life, featuring the best of our Untangle guests, by Patricia Karpas.
Resource:
https://neurogrow.com/
https://drfotuhi.com/
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6 October 2026, 10:30 am - 56 minutes 15 secondsWhat Does it Mean to Live a Good, Meaningful Life? Despite the (really) Hard Stuff. With Kieran Setiya.
A wonderful encore episode. I loved talking to today’s guest, Kieran Setiya, an Author and Professor of philosophy at MIT. I’ve always loved philosophy, but I was especially taken with the way Kieran applies it to our most challenging events, as well as to our day to day lives. In his book Life Is Hard, How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way — he offers us a roadmap for navigating rough terrain, from personal trauma to loneliness to grief to failure and the myth of the ideal life to injustice and even the absurdity of the world. It’s hard to summarize this discussion because there’s so much here, but his wisdom is rich with guidance on how we can face suffering and life’s inevitable hardships. He’s so eloquent in how he shares his insights on life >> from his rich archive of philosophy to his own personal journey. Life is a collection of small successes and small failures. And A good life, he says, is a way of living every day, DESPITE the hard stuff. He inspired me to reflect on quite a bit here. How do I live well, what makes a life meaningful, how do I face regret, aging, uncertainty…even what should I hope for given where I am in my own life.
He was originally inspired to philosophy by his own sense of wonder and undertow of worry at 7 yrs old. I love that…a blend of worry and wonder, anxiety and awe. How perfectly true!!
Kieran is also the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times,the Boston Review,the London Review of Books, The Atlantic, and The Yale Review.
As always, we’re Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain sensing headband dedicated to unlocking your brains potential. Check out choosemuse.com and use code untangle15 for your discount.
Resource: ksetiya.net
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29 September 2026, 6:00 am - 4 minutes 6 secondsConnect To What Matters Most Meditation. With Melli O'brien
Today's meditation is by Melli O'Brien and was created to inspire you to connect with what matters most. It can also be found on the Muse and Meditation Studio apps.
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28 September 2026, 11:52 am - 45 minutes 17 secondsThe Freedom to Be Exactly Who You Are: The New Science of Self Esteem and Secure Attachment. With Marisa G. Franco PhD
Today, we’re exploring this question…What does it mean to feel truly worthy? Our guest is Psychologist, relationship expert and best selling author Dr. Marisa G. Franco. You may know her from her previous book, Platonic, which completely transformed how we think about friendship. In this discussion, We explore her groundbreaking new book, Worth, The New Science of Self Esteem and Secure Attachment. She begins by sharing her own vulnerable personal story of how her relationship's collapse revealed what she calls a "secure facade"—a protective play-acting of security that masked deep unworthiness and self-abandonment.
She unpacks why our culture’s obsession with secure attachment has turned it into an exhausting status symbol. Marisa explains why the path to genuine healing isn't pretending we are perfectly secure, but embracing a "secure-ish" life where we acknowledge our anxieties and avoidances instead of shaming them. From the neuroscience of repressed emotions to practical exercises like memory reconsolidation, tapping, and present-moment reparenting, this conversation offers a powerful, science-backed roadmap to restoring your attachment to yourself. This is an episode about, letting go of the need to prove ourselves, and finding the freedom to to be exactly who you need to be.
Resources: drmarisagfranco.com
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22 September 2026, 10:30 am - 25 minutes 44 secondsMeditation Monday. Effortless Sleep. With Lisa Wimberger.
Welcome to a special edition of Untangle, Meditation Mondays. We’re taking this time to share meditations from our sister app, Meditation Studio. We know that life gets messy and, when it does, Meditation is here to help us find a sense of calm and inner peace. Whether you’re facing daily work or relationships stress, unexpected challenges, or just want to improve focus, we hope meditation Monday’s will be your go to for a weekly guided meditation treat. And if you’re craving more…which I always do…the Meditation Studio app offers over 800 expert-guided meditations from over 75 of the world’s top meditation experts.
And best of all…Unlock 30 days of Meditation Studio for free at choosemuse.com/meditationstudio.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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21 September 2026, 11:00 am - 49 minutes 50 secondsExcellent Endings: A Field Guide to Grief, Curiosity, and What Comes Next. With Anese Cavanaugh.
Today we have the absolute joy of welcoming back a very dear friend and brilliant author, Anese Cavanaugh.
We all experience endings—relationships, jobs, friendships, identities, and chapters of life we never expected to leave behind. But what if the way we navigate an ending can truly shape the quality of what comes next? Can help us become more of who we were always meant to be.
Today we discuss her newest book, Excellent Endings. Anese shares how her own divorce—an experience she describes as the “completion” of a chapter—inspired a guide to moving through life’s hardest transitions with greater intention, self-compassion, and care.
We talk about her Intentional Energetic Presence methodology which you may recall from her previous interview, why confidence is an inside job, and how to stay aligned with yourself when emotions are running high. Anese also explains why gratitude isn’t about pretending everything is fine, how to recognize when you’re holding on too tightly, and why moving from grief to curiosity can open the door to learning and renewal.
This is a compassionate, honest conversation about giving yourself permission to pause, honor what hurts, and become more fully yourself through every ending and new beginning.
Resource: Anesecavanaugh.com
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15 September 2026, 10:30 am - 8 minutes 3 secondsMagic Carpet Sleep Meditation. With Chodo Campbell
A Soothing meditation to guide you to a peaceful sleep.
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14 September 2026, 2:13 pm - 46 minutes 26 secondsLearning to Cultivate Joy (and Resilience) inside of Grief. An Inspiring, Personal Story. With Marisa Renee Lee.
Everyone once in a while…life changes. Unexpectedly. One day you’re going about your business as if things will always be as they are, and the next, it feels like the furniture of your future has been completely rearranged.
In this deeply moving conversation, bestselling author and Obama White House alum, Marisa Renee Lee shares how a devastating battle with long COVID, layered on top of profound family loss and caregiving, transformed her understanding of grief, identity, resilience, and hope. Marisa is known for her groundbreaking books, Waiting For Dawn, Living with Uncertainty and Grief Is Love, She shares some of the unexpected lessons from living with chronic illness and why joy isn't something we find after suffering—it's something we can intentionally cultivate alongside it.
She also shares her coping strategies to help us stay connected to joy.
Together, we explore self-compassion, the courage to accept help, resilience, and the small moments that can sustain us through life's darkest seasons.
And…one of her biggest joys at the moment is her 4 month old Portuguese water dog Luna…and you will hear her little squeals in the background. She clearly wanted to play while we were chatting. it made me smile.
Resource: marisareneelee.com
Check out the Muse Brain Sensing Headband at choosemuse.com and use code Untangle15 for your discount.
A giant thank you to our amazing sponsors: Quince, Berkeley Life, Jones Road and Vinted.
Use code UNTANGLE at jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Gift with your first purchase!
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