Final Thoughts on Longevity and Health

On Booking.com, it's easy to book your holiday home. And thanks to flexible cancellation, there's no more. Lodge is all booked, folks. Oh, Cas and Rob are coming now. With Booking.com, you're free to be flexible. Oh, easy. So you can go from home to holiday home with no dramas. Bigger place booked. On booking.com, finding a holiday home is easy. And rela x . Booking.com, booking D.oc Yeah Turn supply available on selected properties. Switch to Plusnet's award-winning full fiber from just $22.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast and reliable broadband with no activation fee. With speeds up to 900 megabits. Feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer end 6th of May. 24 months. 26, 99 from the 31st of March 2027, 3099 from the 31st of March 2028. New customers only, 62% UK availability, terms apply. What's on TV? The answer is a lot. There's never been more choice over what to put on the box with an abundance of great new shows, but you can miss them all if you don't know where to look. And that's where the Pilot TV podcast comes in, your essential guide to every show that matters. Each week we sift through the very best in Prestige TV to help you decide what's worth spending your time on and what isn't. So join me, James Dyer, as well as venerable TV critics Boyd Hilton and Kay Rivero, and let us help take the stress out of your downtime, the pilot TV Podcast. Because you can't watch everything . You can't do much in under five minutes. Boil an egg? Sure. Cook a roast dinner? No chance. But comparing car insurance prices with mustard.co.uk? Easy. See what you could save in just a few minutes. Click mustard. co.uk. Authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. See website for details. Arrayo Original Podcast . RubyWax. You took your blood. And the people at Glycan Age tested it. And we are now joined by Dr. Nicola Conlin to reveal your biological age. It'll be 70. Well, we'll never know your chronological age until you open the cake tin. Your biological age. It's if I have mental illness, is that a good number? This is What's My Age Again, the podcast where we test your biological age against the number on your driving license. Do you hold a valid UK driving license, Ruby Wax? I don't know. Okay . Our guest today has built a career on asking other people the hardest questions. She has grilled presidents, pop stars, and power players. But behind the comedy and confrontation was something much quieter, a lifelong battle with depression. Ruby Wax has spoken openly about hospitalization, relapse, medication, mindfulness, and the mechanics of the mind. Plus, she has studied neuroscience at Oxford. She meditates every day. She spent decades trying to understand what's happening inside her own brilliant head. But today we are not just talking about the mind. We're asking a very different question. What has all of that, the stress, the fame, the fear, the work, the recovery done to her body? This is what's my age again. And today we're finding out how old Ruby Wax really is. Dun dun dun You'll never know. You can pull my teeth out. I will never say. Well, you've given us your actual blood, so we can find out No, no, but it if it's really old, I'm gone. Fine. Okay, 'cause I don't want to hear that. Okay. My mother also used to say she was really old and she th took her to the doctor and she said, Mrs. Wex, how old are you? And she was losing her mind so she was smoking a pen. Because she forgot, you know, that it that she smoked. Right. So she went, I may be off by a few years, 53. And he went, your mother's not a valid historian. So she went straight to a home. Oh no. And they sprinkled Prozac in her food and she became a delight. What's the address of this home? It's in Florida. I'd love to visit. Yeah. Well we're going there. I think it's a shame actually that your mother, my mother, although my mother's like healing, um, they're from a generation where getting older was so shameful for women and they would reject it. Well, especially when my mother was a beauty and they can't take the aging. You know, when the men aren't looking at them anymore, they become insane. Yeah. Because they want the attention. Well, it must be very isolating to be the subject of the male gaze when during such a toxic time, though like a world of white vans and objectification, and then all of a sudden you feel invisible. I know that. Thank you for pushing that one that button. Not you. No, I am invisible. Can I tell you, Ruby? Oh, don't tell me anything. Look at he's not even looking at me and he's the cameraman . We'll move him to sound. Okay. You've been demoted. Um, well, th they didn't even film podcasts for a number of years. And now we've got lights, camera, a set, everything. When you walked in the room, you do have a very strong vibrational star No, you say that to all the girls. I don't. Oh well, there you go. What is it about me? You really do. Well, your skin is glowing. Oh, moisture. Moisturized. What do you moisturize with, please? Oh, it's very expensive. Some makeup artist told me about it and I think it uses baby stem cells. Probably. Probably. I have to wait by the birthrooms and then just whip out the placenta and wipe it on. This is it. I've had a bunch of kids recently. Recently? What like a litter? Yes. Genuinely that. Um and I feel that I am in it for the stem cells, the cord blood, the vampire facials. It's like a pyramid scheme. Use them for um uh firmer skin? I have ingested two placentas. No out of four. Are you kidding me? No. What do they taste like? Um pills. Right. Do you know what I mean they feel? Little chunks or the full m monty down the throat. Just like a fistful of pills. A fistful of placenta. Freeze-dried placenta. Nice. What is the craziest beauty hack that you have done or have heard about and would be interested in doing. Oh, the beauty hack. Well, I've had some surgery. Me too. Don't tell. What did you have done? Two months ago I had a facelift. No. Yes. I also had upper blefs and stuff. The full face liftft? Full face li. Who was the doctor? He was um well I spoke. He's good. Thank you. You could see like there, if you looked back here, you'd see some. I mean, if I cut the ears, you would fall forward like an accordion. Yeah. Younger women are having facelifts now. Yeah. It used to be like a 50s, 60s game. Now it's a 30s, 40s game. I think a lot of Hollywood actresses who are younger. Before my ass even hit the sofa, I'd say who did it? Yeah. So I had a huge list of names. Okay. Yeah. And went to the mall. They said do it young. Yep. Right. So you you're ready for it. And you have um you have bone density, so it's easier to have Yeah, they've told me now it wouldn't really I want another one. But I didn't have the face. No. I had the neck, which now I now wears a turtleneck. Well you don't need the face. Yeah. No, the neck has to go. Anyway, let's stop talking shallow. Let's get deep. Okay. Before we begin, actually, my makeup artist Fiona, who's largely responsible for my face, um, she's been to so many of your shows. She'll be going to your new tour soon . She's brought an old book and I opened it. She wanted you to sign it. I opened it. I think it's been stolen from the library. I think thank you. That's And that's the kind of girl she is. That's a little less money than I was expecting. Sorry. Okay. I'll get her to slip you some cash. You know what? I'm gonna get somebody else to sign it since she didn't buy it. Okay. You sign it. I'll write love. All right. All right, here love it. I'll sign it, RubyWax. And then you sign it. Tell her to buy the fucking book next time. I'm so excited, so excited for the tour. Absolutely famous. Oh right. Um you first came into like my periphery front and center doing all of these. Thank you . I came to this country late, and when I came, you were doing I'm gonna sign Ruby Wax now. Okay. You I think I can do like m multiple things at once, but I can't. Ruby Wax XX . Okay . Thank you. Back to the library she goes. There we are. Back on the shelf. No, she it's stolen. That book is from 2014. Really? The library fees. If you can get a piece of the library late fees through the roof. Um, so when I came to this country, I was not here for girls on top. So I got to know you as a documentarian , as an interviewer, and you've interviewed obviously some of the biggest players in the world. Yeah. Madonna, Donald Trump, O.J. Simpson, and more. Yeah. Was there a lot of pressure to be thrust into situations like that. Well, I'd already been thrust into documentaries, which is where I wanted to stay. But they pushed me out and pushed in Louis Thereu. But I forgive him. He interviewed me and and he was a nice person. He's a nice guy. But he was my nemesis for twelve years. The word l wouldn't even be allowed in my house. But I used to do, you know, um in Appalachia in a fundamentalist church that So a lot of and they'd sing bluegrass and it was magnificent. So I'd film weird stuff in America. And that was my favorite. And then they said, Would you do celebrities? And I said, Oh no. But I said for one year, and then one year went into ten. And then I was squeezed out and all celebrities, they look the same when you flip them over. Eventually I got bored, except for Carrie Fisher, who became my friend. Oh yeah. She became my friend. You seem like kindred spirits, the two of you. Well I played her ashtray because she's so funny. Yeah. That I just lobber a line and then she'd vomit thousands of them back. Oh my gosh. What do you think it was about Louis Thoreau in that space that was like safer, more palatable. I think I played a character, which my guests did. In the beginning, I was trying to get who they were under the persona. That was my remit. And I would spend a week with them sometimes just digging and in a half an hour it looked like I was really pushy. But you watched, you know, a relationship unfold and eventually they trust you. Yeah. And usually I found gold. You know, some people were assholes. But um Mr. Trump was not the most palatable thing I've ever met. But um and Bill Cosby tried to kill me. On opening he'd grab me around the neck and drag me across the room. All these people I could have told you were would eventually be criminals. Yeah. I wanted to find the person at the re the real person. And then I realized I created a persona too. But I was stuck in it. I couldn't start like talking like this and so I think people got really sick of it because I had this shit eating grin on my face the whole time. So Louie played Louie and that's had I done that and was a man, I'd still be on TV I wonder if women do that more than men do. I do this little laugh and be like, then . Yeah. And it's like what you do to Be cutesy. Be cutesy and be in those spaces ultimately ends up putting people off. Uh ultimately, yeah. I think people are now so attracted to authenticity. Yeah, I agree with you. Which you have so much of. Well now I do. I train myself because this little creature at this age would be revolting. You know what I mean? Those women that hold it like even in their late fifties and they're still smiling and it doesn't the lines look really awful because it doesn't reflect who they are. Everyone in Malibu? Yeah, really smiley. Yes. Yeah. So I had to stop smiling and but when I started my career, Alan Rickman was my mentor, and he said, get that stupid grin off your face. I go, I'm not. Alan, he said, you look desperate. Um, and I and I th thought I didn't. He said, You have, you know, those eyes that go, love me, love me that a lot of comics have yeah and so finally 35 years later I've stopped smiling. Good. Yeah. There's something just so attractive about authenticity and I think that's why people are coming to see your shows and they're reading your books and they want to know all about like what got you to this place, especially having been through so much. So we'll get back to the celebrity interviews later. But I think a lot of us who love you, we know about the depression and we know about the very traumatic childhood. What impact do you think that's going to have on your biological age today? I think it'll make me very old. Yeah. I think the word 80 is going to come out of somebody's mouth. My sphinctus is gonna shut and never open again. Never. Do you believe in ancestral trauma? Oh yeah. I mean epigenetics. I h still hear the screams of my parents when they were children. And so I can't watch films about German. No. Um, because they passed that fear to me. Though I love German people, and I speak German first before English, but they did pass it. They never mentioned it until I did who do you think you are? And then they said your mother's mother was insane, her mother was insane, insanity went all the way back. And I was in interested in mental illness since I was eight. I stole a book from my Evanston High School library when I was about thirteen. So imagine how much I owe. So I do believe that the parents passed the trauma. Absolutely. And the Jewish experience right now is just absolutely full of trauma. Your parents escaped the Nazis. Yeah. And you hear when you say you hear the screams, you mean you can actually hear it? Well, in my dreams I can. God. They never told me that they were even in Germany. So I suspected it because my mother spoke like this. Yeah. I thought what kind of a voice you know what is it? What am I looking for? The word um impediment. What kind of thing is but then I realized it was Austrian. They never mentioned anything. My dad said he was an aerobics teacher. Well he was in jail and he would scream at people to get up and you know, hide. Yeah. So that wasn't aerobics. Then when they got there they, showed me the jail where he was in. They lied about everything. But there was insanity five generations back Do you think that these women because I remember your episode of Who Do you think you are? And it was a formidable episode . Do you think they were just really clever and that was misconstrued and labeled as insanity? Or do you think they were just too clever for where they were? No, I think they were insane. Okay. Yeah, and they didn't It that they called it agitation at the time. And they did things like um put women in cold water, and it's really ironic. I have a cold water bath. Yeah. So you there you go. It's been passed to me. There's loads of ancestral trauma, but cold water swimming is good for biological age, so hopefully supposedly, but I still get depression. I'm sorry about that. That's okay. I haven't had it for a while. I know. And when you're not sick, you're not sick. Like people go, how could you have depression? That's why there's a stigma. Because I'm me now. And then when me leaves and is replaced by Satan, then you go, Well, this is what it looks like. Yeah. Um, your childhood was really difficult. I read about you being watched all the time, not let out. You still prefer small rooms where you can see the door? Yeah. If I can see the door I'm okay, but um they locked me in the house. I didn't realize that and that's what I put in my last show is because I I get a shrink and we get down to it as to what the problem was. And I realized I never saw night outside my house. You know, I'd see it through the glass window where they stuffed me and my dog, so we'd see life outside the window. But then I realized I didn't see the dark in real per in person. Yeah. Now they didn't lock me with a key the way you know you read about it. But they'd go, where are you going? This is insane. Who leaves the house? Yeah. Yeah, so I I would never left the house. I went they let me go to school and I had a couple friends, but other people were forbidden. Yeah. And then at what age did you leave I left left when I hitchhiked to Austria, back to Austria, and Europe, when I was about 18. I sold like a little bit of marijuana. Yeah. So I'd get some money. And Girl Scout cookies. It was a little bit of a meshing area. Mix the two. Yeah, mix the two. Got a great business. And then I got enough money to go to Europe. Oh my gosh. I'll be busted as soon as I leave this place. First I hitchhiked through Europe. Yes. Jump got in, tried to get into eleven drama schools. Nobody took me. And I did a fabulous interview um audition feast when I got a wimple that I made out of cardboard. Right? Try walking through a doorway with that sucker on your head. Your neck is ripped. So I'd get on stage and I knew Julia was upset, but I wanted to get in the role, so I'd stand on stage going, My dog is dead. My dog is dead. My dog is dead. And that would start the tears. But I'd say it out loud. Oh. So they thought, does Juliet have a dog? Yeah. And I didn't get in any of them. No. So you knew from a very young age that you wanted to act. No. Yeah. Well I couldn't act. I even got in the Royal Shakespeare Company and they used to throw little spitballs, little notes at me saying find another career. They did not. Yeah, because I was so bad. But I knew how to audition. I mean I was good at um when I left drama school, finally I went in Glasgow where nobody wanted to go. Uh and I left, but I could do play crazy people like nobody's business. Yeah. I did want to be an actress, but I was an ugly kid. I know that's hard to believe. But uh and I had didn't have a lot of talent. But then Rickman saw me and said you should write the way you speak. And he said, Write. And so I did. And he directed it all. That is so true too. Even today, for a lot of actors, you're just at the mercy of someone else's script. You're just waiting to be chosen or not chosen. But if you really get behind your own vehicle and start writing, you do waiting. And I don't say that to any other woman. Oh. No one gets away with it. Except for Jennifer Saunders. Yeah. Yeah. Great. You and Jennifer. Well. And Tina Faye. Tina Faye is so brilliant. That's so those lines. You must have met absolutely every famous person that any of us admire, you're friends with Carrie Fisher, or you were. Yeah. God rest her soul. Tina Faye, have you met Tina Faye? No, I never did. No. No. Who have you not interviewed that you would love to either interview or just sit down with? You couldn't interview the way I did because I got a week with them. So I'm not Graham. I can't do ten minutes. So you don't think you could do just a ten minute quick interview? No, I couldn't because you really have to be an authentic. You'd have to get the jokes out of 'em because that's what people are expecting . Whereas I started off jokey, that's how I got the ten minutes into sometimes ten days. Because you got a tap dance. You can't just, you know , the energy that it would take to do that. But I only did it once. You know what I mean? It would be a month apart. So I wasn't I wasn't going from one to the next. Because by the time we got the next guest, it was a little bit later. So then I'd keep him up all night. And I, you know, I did O J and I kept him up for 17 hours. And by the end, he was so nuts that he tried to stab me with a banana. That was a classic show. That's a good show. How did you keep him up for 17 hours? Well, I just, you know, if you keep them talking, they want to have the last line. And if you're having the last line, they'll compete with you. He wanted to finish it. Were you ever fear th fearful in his company? No, because I had a camera crew and they would die first. That's true. Do you know what I mean? The sound guy would go first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so brave. And some a producer actually used that series of interviews as an example. I was interviewing some rich people for a show called How Do You Get So Rich? So they weren't famous. They were people who maybe wanted to be famous, couldn't buy famous, totally different vibe. But everyone would always say, look, look at Ruby Wax, look what she was able to do, look at how she was able to connect with people and disarm people. Do you think that that is like a survival mechanism ? Uh well, I studied psychology before you know later on in life. Yeah. And I I wanted to study neuroscience, but you couldn't cut into somebody's head who was alive. So I didn't want to look at a dead person. So I waited till you could look in a brain of somebody alive. So I did study psychology and I was interested again, it was like a Rubik's Cube that you would predict. So it was more like a thesis on fame, how it affected them, rather than I give a shit about your next film. Did you walk away from those interviews like really pleasantly surprised about anyone? Yeah, Sharon Stone. She's cool. And um Bet Midler and Goldie Hawn, really smart cookies under and Pamela Anderson , very smart. She knew exactly what she was doing. But she had this thing on her, you know, this rocket ship. And I think use it, use it. But she was ready for old age at that point. She'd over the right. And look at her. She yeah. Now she's in her element. Aaron Ross Powell She has embraced it. She has embraced it. Are you tired of being asked about the more explosive interviews where the the subjects have turned out to be really controversial figures like Bill Cosby and like Donald Trump. Are you tired of those clips resurfacing and you being dragged into conversations like that? Or would you talk about them a bit more today Well, I'm going on tour with my show. Yeah. And I'm talking about them then. Did you have to pull back any of the classic clips? Because I know the show is some of your most iconic interviews and We always let them cut them cut. Yeah. So when I did Sarah Ferguson, we said you can cut anything. She said nothing. Even though she had like yellow post its on her underpants drawer and you know, told her what was in there 'cause she couldn't open a drawer. So I said, Cut what you want. 'Cause you don't wanna you can't have a long career if you screw them. Mhm. So anybody could cut anything. Yeah. Yeah. And they chose not to. They chose well, we did cut out stuff that they didn't want said. Okay. Yeah. But I'll have to work on it the next three weeks. I'm gonna watch some of my shows. But the stuff that is included is incredibly revealing. Do you think that a lot of these celebrities are just not self-aware? They aren't after a week. So they start off doing their normal you know, pattern like Jim Carrey had done so many junket things in the day and then I just got on my hands and knees and said, My children will not eat if you're not funny. And so he turned it on like a it was like a faucet. Did you see it when he puss said I can do this trick, pull the tablecloth out with all this china at the Dorchester? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do that. I knew he couldn't. Yeah. But I said go ahead. And it ended up on the ceiling, 10,000 pounds worth of damage . But it was so worth it. It's really funny. Yeah. There's something about Jim Carrey, because I suppose I think that having lived an incredible life, met so many people, and now you've gone on to study this mindfulness and neuroscience. Like you must really know about people. Like you must be able to get them almost straight away. There's something about Jim Carrey that I don't get. Is he just like a beautiful genius, or is there something about meditation. I think he does the David Lynch kind of medica meditation, which I don't do. But um I think, you know, at a certain point you can't act like that anymore. And you either have a nervous breakdown or you get into something like gold ie Hawn created Mind Up, which teaches meditation in schools. Yeah. So if they have something like that, they're grounded. Otherwise you could flip out because nothing's worse than not being in the eye of the beholder anymore. Yeah. Is it important to you to be well liked? So it's like heroine. Okay. Yeah. And that's from childhood. No, it's from being famous. Yeah, but did did it start in childhood that you had this appetite for like look at me, seeing me and my parents said I was a loser all the time going, Boy are you a sad sec I if I hear that expression, I will seriously have a um a psychotic breakdown, so don't say it. Would not. But he always said that over and over, that I was an idiot and that my mother thought something happened during the war that affected my brain. So they thought I was um literally mentally ill. They were right . God bless them . This episode of What's My Age Again is sponsored by MedExpress, the UK online pharmacy. If you've been trying to manage your weight but feel like nothing's really working, MedExpress connects you with UK registered clinicians who assess your situation and create a treatment plan to support your weight management goals. With over 1.5 million customers, MedExpress is one of the country's leading online pharmacies, and they offer access to licensed evidence-based treatment under medical supervision. And the whole process happens from your laptop or phone. They'll post your approved treatment to your door each month. You don't have to worry about getting locked into a contract or subscription either. You can cancel anytime. Your relationship with your body can change over the years, but MedExpress is there to offer you discrete and convenient professional guidance supporting your weight management journey. Visit Medexpress.co.uk to check your eligibility and get 40 pounds off with code WMAA . On booking.com, it's easy to book your holiday home. And thanks to flexible cancellation, there's no more Lodge is all booked, folks. Oh, Cas and Rob are coming now. With Booking.com, you're free to be flexible. Oh, easy. So you can go from home to holiday home with no dramas. Bigger place booked. On Booking.com, finding a holiday home is easy. And relax . Booking.com. Booking Doc? Yeah. Turn supply. Available on selected properties. Switch to Plusnet's award-winning full fiber from just $22.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast and reliable broadband with no activation fee. With speeds up to 900 megabits. Whoop! Feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer end 6th of May. 24 months.. 2699 from the 31st of March 2027. 30.99 from the 31st of March 2028. New customers only. 62% UK availability. Terms apply. At Tesco, we know the beans. Mains hides. And you love to ask, have you had yours? All of you. Love it. Hater. And because I'm worth it. When you need low prices on brands you love, like 150 grams of Heinz beans, 12 pack of Wheatbicks, 250 grams of marmite, or 700 milliliters of L'Oreal Elvive colour Protect shampoo, look out for the Everyday Low Prices logo in store and online. Tesco. Every little helps. Everyday low prices includes thousands of products across the majority of larger stores and online prices held until the 10th of May. Selected branded products only. You said that Donald Trump reminded you of your dad? Oh he did. He had the hatred and he had the evil. I, the way my dad would look at me, d m dismissing, and so I became the idiot. I became what he looked at. And I started asking stupid questions about did he would like to date women? I asked dumb dumbass questions, which I don't blame him and started laughing when he told me he wanted to be the next president of the United States. I laughed in his face thinking this guy's hilarious and then uh he said, that's it, I've had enough. He said, but you're angry with a smile and I thought he nailed me. Angry with a smile. Well, he was he was he has gutter instincts. What does that mean to you? Angry with a smile? I was angry. You know, but with that stuff grin, but he could feel the rage. Yeah. Angry, just generally or about the how the interview was going? How the interview was going. And in general. You know, I was sitting on the loud I'm very addic I was addicted to rage. Mm-hmm. I'm over it now. Because of the backwash. You know what I mean? It feels so good to throw out adrenaline. You know, and just nail I you know, I do it with traffic wardens. Great. Yeah, because they wouldn't well, they've already reported me, so what the hell. But I know how to deal with them now. You you the traffic wardens have reported you for like traffic, you know, things assault? No. Yeah. They could have. in my crotch area and I say any three letters. Like I'll go, I have to get to the hospital because I've just had a BLT. Any three letters. And they go, keep driving, keep going, because they don't want to know what's coming out. Fine. BBC I've had, just put your hands by the vaginal area and they will not let they won't stop you. They want you out of there. They don't want to know. The canteen is grim. You've got to get to the hospital full speed. And so you'll just give them hell. You won't accept admonish. I don't do it anymore. I'm adorable now to them. At what age or how long ago rather, because we don't know your age. No. It's mystical, it's magical. How long ago did you transition from being rage filled to adorable? And was it a conscious choice? Yeah, it was a conscious choice because the stress was mounting. That'll probably be my age is ninety . Because it would I you know, the thing about adrenaline is you get the backwash the next day, it's like you've been drinking. Yeah. You know, and then you call your friends and go, you know what that fucker did so that you can feel it again and again. Because you'll you'll go back to the memory. And I always say, you know, it these things aren't good for you. And but the things that are good for you, I mean nobody gets addicted to kale. You know. So the rage was del icious. So then um I thought I that's gotta stop. So I that's not the only reason I studied meditation. Is that I really checked out all I became a therapist. Um I went to school and I you studied all of them, all of the the path the approaches. And then I studied mindfulness. And A you do it, it's for free. And B you're your own therapist. Yeah. You know, that you're doing what a therapist does except in your mind. And I looked I studied the neuroscience of it and it had the the most empirical evidence that it was better than almost at the same level as medit as medication. Yeah. Yeah. Which I revere. Do they the medication? I doubted down to the feet of Lamat ra gene. Yeah. Can we talk about supplements, medication, anything that you're on now that might impact your biolog ical age. Oh I I'm sure these antidepressants aren't good for me. Great. But the I I take a lot of medication and I have done for thirty years. Mm-hmm. And what about HRT? Yeah, I'm on that too. That's great. I've heard great things about that. Yeah. Well, I I put testosterone on and I have a beard on my stomach. Lovely. It's great. So um yeah, I'm on all that . And um because I want to keep my bones subtle subtle. And then um uh that's about it. But there's a lot of medication involved. I crunch when I walk. Um when you studied neuroscience , do they talk about mental health and stress and trauma and the impact of that on your body at a cellular level? Like do they believe in a connection? Oh yeah, totally. Because the release of cortisol. And the thing that mindfulness does the way I was taught. And there's even everybody guesses what it is. It's like a masseuse that just rubs some lotion on you. There's there's a there's a method to it. And there's a method to doing meditation, which I teach. You know, what goes on in your brain and the real exercise. You don't just listen to Tink Tink music and sing a sit on, you know, some gluten-free cushion. You can do it walking, moving, you know, singing, whatever. There's a way you're doing an exercise in your brain, just the way you do when you're at the gym and you get a six pack. So there's still exercises that you're doing and it ain't sedugo . So with these exercises, certain areas get buffed up that are in charge of lower lowering the cortisol so you can self-regulate. So before I give somebody hell, I can pull it down. Not every time, because if you're mugged, you better get out, you know, the club and beat him to death. But you know, if a traffic warden, I can pull it down. So I can decide what stresses me out and what doesn't and that's not bully f I wasn't born like that no or you can um uh you have a few seconds to decide how am I going to express this and in those seconds they're crucial and you break the habit because the neurons start to unwire when you do mindfulness and they can rewire in a much more flexible way. Your brain is still plastic at any age. I mean if you get a disease, there's not hing to be done. Well there still is, but it's always it's like a movable feast. It's eighty-six billion neurons are moving around in a in what how you think, how you act, and how you feel. Yeah. And if you keep repeat ing the same pattern over and over again, like I see a tr you know, I I see there's my trigger, they hardwire, and then you're stuck in that behavior. I can see why it is not as deeply explored, I think, in Western culture. Like maybe other cultures do this more naturally than we do. I know you were recently teaching this in Costa Rica. Like there are places in the world. And here in the UK and here Yeah. But do you think we are younger with this sort of Oh I think mindfulness has really taken off in the last seventy years. I mean it's going the way of yoga. Good. The but not yoga still can be told by somebody who's crap, so can mindfulness. Okay. And it's an unfortunate word. It's more like m the my you know mind gym or something. It's exercising s specific areas and it's neuroplasticity that you can enhance. Yeah. But uh it's it the word mindfulness is too gushy. Unless we accept it as normal. Or call it meditation or something. But then I'm not a Buddhist because certain people in the sixties brought it over and turned it Western instead of Eastern. But then so did Jung, you know, he used the East. And did all all of this come about after you had a relapse in your mental health? Um I was in the hospital. Yeah. You know, I was in an institution. And Ed got me and took me to a mindfulness class. I was still in my pajamas. And so they started to teach it. And I said, this is really interesting, but I want to know what happens in the brain. And then he'd bring me back to the institution. Everybody clap and say how brave it was that I left with my li pstick on my forehead. And then Ed uh so I said I want to know the neuroscience. And so I hunted down the guy who invented it. He did it for emotions. Yeah. How to do mindfulness for depression and anxiety. And I found him at Oxford and I said, Tell me how to do this, what happens in the brain, because I got no time, you know. And if I did, I'd learn salsa. I don't have time for sitting around. And he said you'd have to get into Oxford. And if somebody does that to me, like you have to get in the RSC, I'm like a Rottweiler. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody was as surprised as that man. Yeah. Like leg ally blonde. Yeah. But brunette. But brunette and like wet like it's hard. Yeah. I got into Oxford wet like it's hard. No, but I've failed in Busy Beaver Nursery School. So revenge. Well, you had a lot going on back then . Yeah. Like trying to pee in a toilet. I think it's an incredible level of self-awareness. And this is again what I've always loved about your authenticity and your disclosure and how honest you are. Especially in this country, it's very brave to be honest, because a lot of people are not. But to know yourself that well, because all of this meditation and mindfulness that you talk about, it does sound like a lot of work. And there aren't more people, there are more people than Yeah, I mean you but you learn everything by road, you know, every from standing up to to any sport. So you've got to do maybe two minutes a day in the beginning. But you can do it anywhere. Like if you're waiting for a bus, you can do it. Or there's always two minutes when you're not doing anything important, which I know is hard to believe. But the point is if you look at what happens in the br in the brain, I don't know if you have a scanner at home, but that to me is so , you know, why go lie down and get up, lie down and get up, because you're gonna see a six pack. So the same thing. You watch the brain change slowly, slowly, but eventually I can hold focus longer than most people. How long would you say it took before you started to see Well, it's like getting a muscle. You know, it's like how many sit ups or how many bicep curls you have to do before something shows up. So they say in the first eight weeks it already starts to you feel it. You can feel it. You can pull down that rage. I mean a lot of me is plastic. I don't know if my brain is that plastic. Your brain is plastic. Even after this conversation, it's change. It changes every second. I mean you might have a a feeling about me or whatever, and then it's chang you're rejudging and recalibrating the whole time. It's just getting stronger, my love for you. And meat for you. So do they talk about the vagus nerve at all? Yeah. I'm really interested in the vagus nerve. Well it wasn't a hot topic when I went to school. Okay. It is a hot topic now. But we talked about the sympathetic and you know, parasympathetic system. Yeah. And the mindfulness does reduce, you know, your heartbeat, reduces high blood pressure. And cortisol isn't in your brain. It it signals all the organs in your body and it can take them out like a pinball machine. And then you squirt that cortisol and then you're open season for if people think mental is m imagined, physically you open for certain cancers, diabetes too, probably lupus , um infertility, obesity, premature aging, all of that is from stress. Do you think you're family? Because I think you can hold multiple truths at once. I think you're obviously weirdly, incredibly brilliantly intelligent, and all of the women in your family would have been the same. They probably also had mental illness. So juggling those two things, do you think that maybe you have a familial cortisol response that is just wired differently? Like you get you get more of this stress hormone than other people? Is that a possibility? Well, I think the mental illness, you know, if you don't have the genes, you're not gonna get depression. But if you have the genes, you still might not get the depression. Yeah. But if you have the genes and you have experiences as a child. So I won the con I got bingo. Right. Um so I was born with that proclivity. Okay. But the reason I study m mindfulness, and it's not a surefire, and it's not for everybody. We're all different fingerprints. If it's not for you, walk away. Go do Tai Chi or something, if you care. But if you don't care, then go on with the stress. I've spoken to some comedians who have neuroplasty of like different, you know, varying categories. And a lot of them worry that if they get well from whatever, then they won't be funny anymore. Do you ever worry about that? Well uh when I used to dry, you know, m I couldn't think what was next and I'd feel my heartbeat go up. The audience would turn on me like animals. Like they don't want to see you fuck up. And you know how they get it's like we're out the watering hole and there's one of them that's sick. Yeah, yeah. One of the animals they'll turn around and eat it. So that's the feel ing when they do. But because I practice mindfulness, I'll send focus to something in my body, inside, because the minute you go internally or a sense, the the cortisol stops. So you're tricking your brain. And then I can feel them lighten up and start I see the whites of their eyes. So it it makes me clearer rather than the neurosis and the line reading will always be the same. Like Jennifer Saunders isn't crazy at all. No. And she's a genius. So I don't think you need the madness. All right. I think for painting or something it might be helpful to be bipolar. Yeah. Because you're just squirting it all over the place. But I think for comedy or for writing, it could get in the way. It does. If I have depression, you can't even say the word and no. Yeah. Do you think that you would return to doing docuseries and celebrity interviews? No, because they wouldn't let me do it the way I did it. Because there'd be a PR person saying, You're done now. And in the old days they'd say, fuck off. I want to be with her. Where are those PR people from that? Like they were fired . My gosh. Yeah. And we paid off some people, like for Pamela, we had to pay 50,000 to the PR person. And then we got to Pamela because we had money. Nice. Yeah. Are you ever worried about Donald Trump specifically? You mean he's gonna care about me? Yeah, like suing you, those clips getting big I don't think he gives a shit. No. I might not get into America, but otherwise I'm okay. And I'm so curious about the Bill Cosby one. I I didn't actually see that one. Did they include it Yeah, well he he comes over and he puts his elbow around my neck and drags me across the room and then makes me kneel on the floor and call him Dr. Cosby and keeps using an imaginary phone and saying, Yeah, I want her outta here. She's not interesting. And then hangs up and made me call him Dr. Cosby. And you were with And gave me tests. I had sweat running down my face. You know, when you know you're it's it's you're flopping. Yeah. And had to keep a shit eating grin. Now if that's not stress. Nothing is. And you were with him for how many days? Oh him? A half an hour. Oh. Because he wanted me out of there. And Donald Trump kicked you off the private plane? Yeah. The private plane. And then I found him again. And Roger Stone said she's funny and then he sort of got into he liked me. So I'm for better aware like funny opened a lot of doors for you. Funny opens doors. You know that. Yeah. I don't think not for men who you're interested in. They feel threatened. Yeah. Yeah. Now you couldn't be funny for sex . Lucky for you. And what about you? Otherwise, Donald Trump and Bill Cosby would have been impregnated me. All over you. Yeah. Okay. Did you like Madonna? No. Okay . Um you do mindfulness 45 minutes every day. No, no, maybe a half an hour. But you you can do two-minute segments, like if I'm in the back of a car. Yeah. You know, nothing else is happening. So you do the exercise. Well, I feel like I'm gonna book one of your retreats. I'm gonna go to rubywax.net to find out when they are. Right. Hopefully the faraway ones, like Costa Rica or maybe just the UK. They're in the UK. So I can be available to my family. Okay. Um what would a two-minute meditation look like? Well I'd have to explain what you know it looks like nothing. But then you know what is an uh you know if I if I had a weight and I did this, you'd just think I'm wanking, you know, I wouldn't look I was lifting a weight. I've been wanking wrong. Yeah. That's how you do it. With an elephant . Just a few more hours , babe . I have not went I'd have never um masturbated someone to complet ion. Ever. Really? Never. And I don't know what they were doing What what did you finish stop halfway? Like I would use my mouth because What? I d I can't do it. I can't either. Really? I don't know what you're supposed to do. I've never done it right. We have so much in common. I know. And is this I don't know what you're supposed to do. And they always get angry. They get angry. They're not allowed to get angry anymore. Yeah, well, they get angry. They did with me. God . And I look and you know, I what am I doing wrong? Also, it's tiring. And pointless. And pointless. When you know there are quicker ways boyfriend. And believe me, I have more muscle in my right arm. I think a gay boyfriend would be really, really tough to have you. I did have one for a long time. Yeah. And then I found magazines under our mattress. Oh. Yeah. Well, I'm finding out on my tours that they're all gay. Really? Yes. A lot of straight presenting husbands are having gay sex. Wow. And they don't think it's gay somehow. This What about women? Women know. Women, you know, smart women choose to die alone. And I hope I'm lucky enough to experience that one day. Are you in a romantic relationship now? With my husband? Yeah. No . There's some things that don't need an answer. Okay . Um I love your business acumen. You're not giving anything away for free. But for our listeners, you know, they want to come see your show , absolutely famous. They want to come on your retreats. What is like one little takeaway that they could have to be more connected to their mindfulness today? Well, you know, top tips has never been my thing. Yeah. Um, just smile and the world will smile with it doesn't work like that. It's like how do I get uh you know, um yeah whatever physically. There's no top go to the gym. If you want to have a very subtle mind and that you can self-regulate, you know, pull down the cortisol, be more um in in get in sight, be more compassionate , you have to do this exercise. But if you don't want to, then anytime you're in your body, but you're aware of you're in your body, like you're swimming, go in instead of thinking about when you're gonna have your next cigarette, you know, whatever. And have that gabbling brain, it's one or the other. But you know, feel your ass on the chair, feel your feet on the ground, get worry beads, whatever. The minute you're connected to a sense, you're present because you can't feel something tomorrow or last week. It's right then. Where in your body do you think you were holding most of your trauma? I don't know if I believe that, you know, the cells, the trillions of cells are holding trauma, but it sure holds stress. Yeah. And trauma's a different thing. It's where the right brain doesn't know what the left you know what I mean, you froze in time. This is getting too oxford for me. Okay, sorry. I'm just gonna have to go on the retreat. Go on the retreat. I love you. Does uh connection excite or exhaust you? W in what sense? Like you're a social butterfly. Oh yeah, I'm a people pleaser. Yeah. You know, I'm nicest to people I don't this isn't you. No, no. I but I'm nice to people. It's called fawning. Yes. You know? Yeah. And it means the people you really dislike, you're the most, you know, you ask them on holiday and over for dinner. Yeah. Yeah. Do you do that? I do that when I'm drunk. Right. I'm just really nice to everyone. That I don't. Yeah. Okay. Do you think your biological age is going to be higher or lower? Higher, but I won't tell you what age I am. No, you I can't because I'll have a meltdown. Okay. It's gonna be higher than no matter what. Yeah. Um you've had obviously obstacles in your life and then you have battled do you like the word battle? It's okay. Some people don't like it. No, it's I didn't know. You have navigated mental health? Yeah. I had a car accident with mental health. You had a car accident with mental health. And you've come out the other side. No, not necessarily. Call me when I'm depressed again. Okay. Yeah. Um you've got new tour, Ruby Wax, absolutely famous, with loads of your most incredible celebrity interview clips and discussions on stage with Clive Tillow. Yeah. Tell me about Clive. Clive was my producer for 25 years. And he's hilarious. He's funnier than I am. But I'm gonna have to get a, you know, a little set of clippers and just snap his penis if he's too funny . Got it. Yeah. Well, I will get a ticket just to see that. Um, and I think now we can take all of what we've learned and ask our good friend, resident scientist, Dr. Nicola Conlin, to come join us as we interpret the impact is winning an award or yeah. Well it's under there as well. Yeah . At Tesco, we know that be ans means Heinz. And you love to ask. Have you had yours? All of you. Love it. Hater. And because I'm worth it. When you need low prices on brands you love, like 150 grams of Heinz beans, 12 pack of Wheatbicks, two hundred and fifty grams of marmite, or seven hundred milliliters of L'Oreal Lvive colour protect shampoo. Look out for the everyday low prices logo in store and online. Tesco. Every little helps. 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Try Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc, a vibrant New Zealand wine that's perfect for every occasion. Available at all good wine retailers . RubyWax, we took your blood. And the people at Glycan Age tested it, and we are now joined by Dr. Nicola Conlin to reveal your biological age. Nicola has dedicated her career to human longevity, and she has over a decade of research in cellular aging, so there's no one better to interpret these results. RubyWax. We will never know. It'll be 70. Well we'll never know your chronological age. Until you open the cake tin. Your biological age. It's sixty . Very good. No, I'm not that happy. No? Well, I'm seventeen years younger than you. Yes. That makes me feel good. You're seventeen years younger than me. Yeah. That is great. Nicola, with that much to overcome in one's life And different patterns like inflammatory signatures that we're looking at in this specific test. And in your result, we didn't see those typical signatures that we'd see in someone that was highly stressed or you know, had any sort of issues surrounding trauma or or anything like that, it your results were, you know, really good actually. So I think the mindfulness, the meditation, everything that you' dore in is is definitely having that effect of bringing down in the cells all of those things like you were talking about cortisol being switched on. We know that has an impact on our cellular health. We know that in people that are highly stressed and they have cortisol, you know, raging all day that their biological age is higher and for you we don't see those specific type of signatures that we'd usually see. So there you go. Yeah. So I think and it's really interesting that you mentioned earlier that you f you you thought you although were studies saying that after eight weeks people can feel a difference. And in some of the studies where they've looked at what happens to the cells when people meditate, it's it's exactly the same. After eight weeks you can start to see a reduction in inflammation. And also another thing directly linked to aging is something called um atelomies. Yeah, I know those babies. Exactly. So they're really important when it comes to age and they're like little protective caps on the end of our chromosomes. Um they mean that our cells can continue to divide and repair and replenish things in our bodies, but they get shorter as we get ol der and meditations being shown to lengthen them. Yeah. It's really and really interesting studies looking at the power of your mind and how that actually influences your body. Okay, well there you go. There you go. So I'll live how long? Can't say how long that you're gonna live. Right. But what we do know is that from your results, you look to have l a low inflammatory profile. It certainly doesn't look anything untoward in terms of anything that we're seeing. It looks it looks positive. It looks like the things that you are doing are certainly helping. Okay. So yeah, very positive. And I I think it's it's really interesting because you know, like you say, it's it's something like meditation is something that is often forgotten uh and actually it's a very powerful tool mm for people. But a lot of us just don't you know just yeah, don't have the time. But you say that ha you know you do about thirty minutes, but for somebody starting off maybe the consistency is better than nothing. And if you' forveget a day or whatever, then just you know, forgive yourself. But skiing ain't too much fun to learn either you know, or tennis or piano or anything is not fun. But living longer is fun. Yeah, good and healthy. Living longer, healthy, and happy. Yeah. Yeah. So the traffic warden is approaching my window. Mm-hmm. And I feel like giving him hell. Just put your hands in the vaginal area and say CBS. That's not mindfulness, Ruby Wax. Sure it is. It's you thought of it, you're not getting angry, and everybody goes home happy. Okay. He's home worried, right? Because he's asking his wife, can you have a BLT? And she's laughing, so he's upset. But you're already out of range. Okay . Okay. When's the last time you felt rage? I I paid twenty dollars to go to a class and I didn't get and the woman didn't show up and I tried to get my money back. Yeah. That killed me. It wasn't I called him the C word. Really loud. It wasn't a meditation class, wasn't it? Not at all. No, it was yoga yoga. Even worse. Yoga. Even worse. But I got over it quicker. You know what I mean? I didn't call my friends and guess say, guess what I did? It so it settled. Sure. Yeah. Quickly. Do you practice breathwork alongside the meditation? Well you are breathing. Yeah. So um but to take in this is really bad for you. Yeah. So it's a sham, but yeah. This is bad ? Yeah. There's some breath work in in terms that can switch on the vagus nerve. Yeah, like if you slow you're breathing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's just wondering 'cause a lot of people will put meditation alongside some of the breath work with the I think you are do I I put that in. Yeah. Just naturally it comes out for eight or blowout for six. Yeah. Because that can be really powerful for the vagus nerve, putting your body in that parasympathetic and what's I think what's interesting is like the comparison and I I guess you studied a lot about this is you know, d when we sleep, if we have good quality sleep, we go into that parasympathetic mod e. And you can often see people when they're really in deep meditation drop into that same state that you would get in that restorative sleeping state. Right. That rest and repair. So it's it's essentially your body is flipping on the switch that's going, I'm safe. I don't need to be in go mode. I can just do the report. Unless you're being chased by a bear. Or Bill Cosby. Or Bill Cosby. Very good. What would you say about Ruby's questionnaire, the rest of it, with sleep and diet and exercise? How was that profile? Yeah, I mean I think Do I sleep? Do you sleep? Yeah. A lot . Which helps. And I think from what I remember your diet was pretty good. You don't really drink. Um I can do. You can. But not yeah. When I drink I drink. But not all the time. No. Yeah, okay, yes. I think that's what the question I said