Did you know there's a really

fascinating experiment done on

weightlifters? They lifted no weights

for 2 weeks. They just sat there and

they visualized themselves lifting

weights.

They had a 13% increase in muscle mass.

People should realize how much potential

they have in their brains. Dr. Tara

Swart. She's a neuroscientist, medical

doctor, executive advisor, and

best-selling author. She's here to teach

us on how to build mental resilience to

overcome our biggest challenges.

Is stress contagious?

Mhm. So, cortisol is the main stress

hormone and it will leak out of our

sweat about this far around us, go into

the skin of everybody else, and it's

going to impact them.

And as a survival mechanism, it will

help you to store fat around your

abdomen. So, stress causes belly fat?

Belly fat that's really hard to shift.

There's another rabbit hole you could go

down about social contagion. So, there

are statistics that show that you meet

people who are to similar psychological

level to you. For example, if someone

gets divorced, you're more likely to get

divorced in the next year. Your brain

brain can play tricks on you. So, what

can I do about that?

The brain is actively growing and

changing till we're about 25.

But from 25 to 65, if you do things that

are intense enough to force your brain

to change, you will actually improve the

highest functions of the brain. Things

like regulate your emotions better,

solve complex problems, think flexibly,

override any unconscious biases that you

may have. It begs the question then,

where do I start?

Dr. Tara Swart.

What are the

sort of existing ideas that your work

and what you speak about

is confronting, the like unhelpful

existing preconceptions

about the brain, human potential that

your work is confronting head-on? So,

the first thing I came up against, cuz

this was around the time of the

financial crisis,

was the lack of understanding of the

brain-body connection.

So,

these high-performing executives were

kind of acting like

their body was just the vehicle that was

moving their brain around from meeting

to meeting.

And both

disrespecting their

their physical health, but also not

understanding that what they were

actually really being paid for was to

use their brain, and they weren't

creating the best conditions for that

brain to operate in.

Um and I'm talking about really basic

things like sleep and a good diet and

hydration and not being sedentary,

managing your stress, etc.

So, you know, this tiny organ,

if it's not in an environment that is

giving it the best chance of doing its

job, it's not going to and a crack's

going to appear somewhere.

Um

and the first time I really

kind of

had a big confrontation with a bank was

when

people were dropping dead on the trading

floor of heart attacks.

And they

asked me to work more in my capacity as

a former medical doctor to help with the

physical stuff.

And I said I can't do that if we don't

address the mental and emotional piece

because that's what's causing this.

And they just could could not get that.

What did you want to do with those

people in a specific and practical

sense? What if you could have,

you know, been in charge of

preventing them from dropping dead on

the trading floor,

Mhm. where would you have started?

The understanding that stress,

so everything that you're experiencing

mentally and emotionally that's

challenging, and things like a lot of

travel, which is challenging for your

body,

that that raises levels of the hormone

cortisol, which comes from your adrenal

glands.

And that cortisol courses around your

blood through your entire body and

brain.

And the brain has receptors

for understanding what's going on in

terms of threat to your survival.

So, in a 24-hour cycle, depending on

your age and your gender, there's a

normal range for cortisol. So, it can go

up and down like this. You know, if

something challenging happens, we need

to adapt and rise to meet that

challenge. But when that level is above

the top range all the time, these

receptors in your brain

basically think that there's an imminent

threat to your survival.

So, there's this whole cascade of

hormones,

and they basically cortisol causes

inflammation in the body. Mhm. So,

inflammation of your vascular system,

inflammation around your heart,

and everything else, gut and, you know,

other things. But

particularly around that time we were

seeing a lot of heart attacks caused by

stress. This was in the absence of high

blood pressure, high cholesterol,

smoking. It was all stress.

I read a I read a study and I was

watching a TED Talk that seemed to make

the case that stress was

somewhat subjective. I It's an

interpretation of of events. Mhm. So,

one can be in a situation where they

feel very stressed. You can put a

different person in that situation and

they wouldn't experience it as stress.

Also, there is I think there's quite a

famous TED Talk that makes the case that

stress only has physiological

consequences in the form of disease and

inflammation and the heart attacks

you're describing,

if we believe

that stress is going to have that effect

on us. If we believe stress is bad.

yeah. I get that.

Is that true? Um

So, I would define stress as when the

load that you perceive on you

physically, mentally, emotionally, or

spiritually is too much for you to bear.

So, yes, it is subjective.

Um when I moved into business and

leadership, people would use the terms

good stress and bad stress, and I found

that really difficult having been a

psychiatrist and seeing people actually

break down

to think that there's any such thing as

good stress. But what I have, you know,

the way that I've adapted that over the

last 10 or 15 years is that there's an

adaptive response, which is a healthy

response to a challenge, and we have

that for a reason. We need that, and

that can be a good thing, but that

should be a spike. It should go up, and

it should go back down again. If it

stays high all the time,

that's not good.

My second question now is about the

contagion of stress. Once upon a time I

Googled, um cuz I had a thesis, I

Googled is stress contagious?

Mhm.

And it came up, and it said it was

contagious.

Is it contagious? In what circumstances

do we need to be aware of that

contagion? And more importantly, how and

why is it contagious? Okay, I will tell

you the answer to that, but I'm going to

ask you a question first.

Have you ever walked into a room with

someone, and by the time you've left

that meeting with them, you just feel so

drained?

Okay, so you

yeah. Yeah, you know so you know the

feeling. So, I'll tell I'll tell you how

it works physiologically.

Um I'm going to start with something

else to like build you up to this story.

So, did you know that women who live

together or work closely together will

synchronize their menstrual periods

within two or three months?

Yeah, I found this out many years ago,

and it has completely changed my

perception on so many things.

So many things because

I have to be honest, I'm I'm a very sort

of logical, I need like science and

evidence, and so I always thought about

I don't know, physical physical things.

Like, if I can't see it, it doesn't

exist. Yeah. It's kind of been my my

like framework for thinking about life.

And when I heard about that, I checked

it was true, found out it was true, and

it broke the frame in which I think,

because if if there are invi- if if it's

possible that invisible forces now

between me and you are interacting with

our bodies. Okay, what what else is

possible?

I'm already using a certain form of eye

contact with you to create emotional

resonance. Uh-oh. What have you done to

me?

We're going to get sidetracked. Do you

want to go back to the whole thing?

of eye contact are you using with me?

Tell me. So, basically

We'll go back to the whole money thing.

We'll just park that.

park that. It's it's related. Um

so,

when a baby is born,

one of the ways that it learns what

emotion the mom's experiencing, how it

understands its own emotions, and you

everything that grows over childhood and

teenage and to,

you know, prosocial behavior,

starts off mostly with eye contact with

the mom.

So, at first they can hardly see

anything. They can just kind of see two

blobs, and then they start to understand

more about like micro facial expression

changes and stuff. But, eye contact with

the mom is hugely important.

So, most people are right-handed. So,

they'll be holding their baby in their

left arm, so they can still use their

dominant hand do stuff.

And that means that when you gaze at

your baby,

your right eye is looking into their

left eye.

And then that interaction that from the

optic nerve

is

going around the brain. It's impacting

the um amygdala, where emotions come

from.

And it's creating this emotional

resonance loop that's part of how the

mother and the baby bond.

So, that right eye to left eye eye

contact is the most bonding eye contact

that you can have with someone. Now, you

could say, "Oh, but my mom was

left-handed." Or you could be

left-handed, but, you know, if I'm

taking a chance on trying to build that

bond with someone, that's the

statistically most likely one to create

good resonance between you. So, you

walked in here and you started looking

in my left eye. I waited till we sat

down.

I gave you a hug. You gave me a hug, you

know. So, all of these little things,

they start to

And, you know, we've laughed about a few

things before we've come on air. Those

are the sorts of things that create like

um

higher levels of the bonding hormone

oxytocin. So, you're more likely to

lower your guard, trust the person, take

a healthy risk. Um

So, yeah. I mean,

like I said, I know that stuff. So, I

live my life like that.

Just want to get get make sure I've got

that clearly in my mind so I could

repeat that to someone else

later. Good for dating. Yeah, of course

it is. I think we might go down that

that down that path a little bit, but

the reason that works is because there's

an association in our brains that if

someone is looking into your left eye,

it kind of triggers something a bonding

response that is quite innate in us.

Yeah. Is that the TLDR of it? Okay.

Super interesting. What else?

What else? If I'm trying to bond with

someone. So, everybody listening to this

right now, whether they're in work,

they're in sales, they they're looking

for a partner, whatever. It's a nice

little trick

Mhm. to look into someone's left eye.

I'm going to only look into your left

eye for the rest with your right eye.

How do I I'm just looking with both.

Yeah, you feel like that, but once you

start doing this, I promise you, you

will notice a difference. Okay.

Um what else? What are the tricks to

make to encourage bonding?

Encourage bonding. So, physical

interaction. So, um

you know, depending on the

appropriateness of it, minimum

handshake,

maybe a hug, maybe a kiss on the cheek,

you know, depending on what um situation

you're in. I do this handshake where I

we hug so we don't handshake. I many

many years ago I read an article that if

when you

shake someone's hand, you put the other

hand over the top of it, it creates a

sense of warmth and trust. So, I've been

doing that for 10 years now. Give them

my left hand or my right hand, and then

the other hand goes over the top of it.

Yeah. It's definitely extra, and you see

this in a lot of um kind of more ancient

cultures that there is like more of a

handshake than what we do, which seems

it's just one hand, and it's quite brief

and stuff. So, yeah, the more of that

kind of physical touch that you can get,

the the better. So, you know, everyone

that I've met since I've come in this

morning, I've either shaken hands with

them or hugged them, and I would not not

do that. Mhm.

Is there anything else in terms of

encouraging the release of oxytocin

that you're aware of? What are the

behaviors that increase that bonding

chemical in our brains?

Um eye contact and touch are the main

ones. Okay. Laughing together is another

one. Um

and then

not to do with another person, but if

you take a bath rather than a shower,

then you'll release more oxytocin.

Massage helps. Well, you're immersed in

warm water, so it feels like a hug.

So, you you'd theoretically get out of

the bath and be kinder and happier and

more people would want to bond with you

more. Well, you'll be more in the mode

of bonding. doing that, yeah.

So interesting. What about um

vulnerability?

Cuz I I I heard shared struggle is one

of the things that releases oxytocin.

Yeah, so um yeah, going through

something not necessarily traumatic, but

that's highly emotional, that is very

bonding as well.

So, we see this a lot on the reality

shows where people are like, "Oh, we're

going to be friends for life." You know,

if you do something like a skydive or a

bungee jump in a group, then you know,

you do feel more bonded to those people.

Um but they're not as practical as the

just the little things that you can do

every day.

Okay, so let's go back to this hormone

conversation. We'll take that off the

shelf. So, we're talking about stress

and the contagion of stress.

So, you started by setting the scene

with the fact that women who interact

with each other physically closely, they

synchronize their menstrual cycles.

And so, whenever I

want to explain something that's complex

or I don't actually know the current

neuroscience, I always take it back to

what happened in ancient times.

So, when we were living in the cave,

the men hunted and gathered and lived

quite nomadically. So, sometimes they

would go away for months at a time. And

actually, if they went far enough away

and were closer to another cave of the

same tribe, they would actually just

stay there and never return to the

original tribe original cave. But

mostly, they would leave for weeks or

months and then return to the original

cave.

And in those days, the most fundamental

important thing for the survival of the

human species was that the alpha male

must pass on his genes.

So, if he was going to be away for

months and he couldn't, you know, that

there weren't men there to defend the

women from predators, maybe there was

going to be a spell of the ice age and

they would all freeze to death or

they wouldn't have food.

Um

he needed to make sure that at least

five women were impregnated with his

sperm at the same time. So, that if

there was a food shortage or there was

like stillbirth or miscarriage or

whatever, at least one out of five would

survive.

So, to be able to do that, they had to

be fertile at the same time. So, that's

why that mechanism exists.

Now, we don't need that mechanism now,

but it's still wired into the way that

we operate. So, those sex steroid

hormones like estrogen and progesterone,

they leak out of our sweat about this

far around us. And that's why if you're

living with another woman or if, you

know, you're sitting across the desk

every day,

then particles of hormone from my sweat

would go into the

through the skin of the other woman. If

she's within what distance? I mean, it's

not you wouldn't have to be sitting next

to each other. If you live together,

then that means you're interacting

enough that it would happen.

Okay.

So, particles

not if you work together. If you work

together and you sit right next to each

other every day, then it does happen,

too. So, you know, in a a small office

that's got like six girls in it, that

that the menstrual synchronization will

happen.

Interestingly, it's led by the alpha

female. So, yeah.

So, you can you can work out if you

don't know already who the alpha female

it well, if you you know, basically,

let's say my cycles don't change and

everyone says, "Oh, I got my period

early or I haven't had my period yet,

but now it's started." Then that would

mean that I probably I was the alpha

female.

How does the body know who the alpha

female is?

That will be to do with levels of

testosterone. Why why did the body Why

does that matter who the alpha female

is? Why does it matter that they sync up

with her? I I don't I don't know if it

really matters. I think it's just a case

of physiology. So, it's a little bit

like in the um

troops of gorillas,

the

stress levels of the silverback gorilla

affect the other gorillas more than

gorillas who are peers to each other.

So, there is we have a natural

hierarchy. I mean, it must be related to

survival as well.

So, she was

probably the person who the alpha male

was going to impregnate first.

Probably. So, everyone needs to kind of

fall in line cuz when she starts having

sex, they need to be ready.

Yeah. Okay. And also, it'll probably be

to do with things like, you know,

survival genes. So, it'll be the people

with the hardiest genes cuz that's what

you'll want to pass on as well. Mhm.

Okay, makes sense. Most resilient. Okay.

Okay, so where were we?

Stress and contagion.

We've done all the hormones and the

menstrual cycle stuff.

So, basically, cortisol is the hormone

that works in that same way. So,

cortisol is the main stress hormone.

And this one doesn't matter if you're

male or female, but it does matter where

you are in the hierarchy of the

organization as I just mentioned.

So,

usually in that conversation I mentioned

to you where you go into a room and you

just feel completely drained afterwards,

usually the person that comes out

feeling drained is less senior than the

person that's had that effect on them.

And that's why this is so crucial to

leadership.

Because your stress levels as a leader,

as a CEO, are going to have more impact

on everybody else

than the rest of the people um put

together, basically. So, managing your

stress is obviously important for you,

but it's important in terms of what

happens to other people. And the first

issue I came up against was

CEOs and CFOs that said, "Well,

I won't show them that I'm stressed.

I won't I won't tell them what's

happening with the numbers. I won't

display emotions in front of them." And

I said, "They're still going to know

physiologically. It's going to impact

them."

So, now you really have to do something

about it.

Um

and the other thing about cortisol,

which is quite funny,

well,

one of the side effects is quite funny,

is that as a survival mechanism, it will

help you to store fat around your

abdomen.

So, you know, again in the cave, if you

were potentially going to like not find

food for a month, then if you had extra

fat around your abdomen, you could

digest that and survive till you could

find food.

So, with my clients in financial

services, it got to a point where as

soon as I walked into the room, they'd

just lift their t-shirts up and say,

"Now you know how I've been in the last

month."

And then I had a really, really funny

incident when I was speaking at a bank,

and the CEO's

PA was there in the audience.

And I was explaining that, you know,

leadership stress leaks down, that that

stress can lead to abdominal fat that

you can't shift. And she shouted out,

"So, he's the reason that I'm fat."

But, Steve, no one laughed.

Really?

Yeah.

And that's when I knew that, okay, he

obviously is like really stressing

everyone out.

Oh gosh, no one laughed.

No.

Through fear or something or just cuz

they all just thought it was true? It

wasn't funny. It was the truth. Jesus.

So, stress causes belly fat? Mhm. Mhm.

Belly fat that's really hard to shift.

So, again, what I would see with people

is that they would say, "Oh, I put on a

bit of weight around the middle, you

know, had to loosen the belt a bit. So,

I've started eating less. I've started

like exercising more and I still can't

shift it." And again, that's when I

would explain this is the impact of

cortisol. As long as you're still

leaking out extra cortisol, nothing's

going to change. So,

uh uh and like I said, even exercising

more or eating better,

less or differently, whatever it is,

wouldn't shift that fat. You had to get

to the root cause. You had to reduce the

cortisol.

It also made me think about when you

consider promoting someone in your

organization, Mhm. you have to be very

careful that if you put a

particularly stressed

cortisol leaking individual high in the

organization, there's going to be

a significant impact for everyone below

them. Yeah.

Is that accurate? Is that an accurate

observation?

no, that's a really good way of putting

it. I mean, I always think of that

phrase, "What got you here won't get you

there," which is more about the fact

that people get promoted cuz they're

good at what they do, but they don't

really get taught all the, you know,

best management and leadership skills.

But that's a really pertinent point. If

there are

a person who is stressed particularly,

who suppresses stress,

um which some of these, you know,

successful people do,

then it would have an impact down the

organization. It begs the question then.

So, if if someone's listening to this

and they go, "Do you know what? I'm a

leaky cortisol person. I'm highly

stressed and it's probably getting to

people around me.

What can I do about that?" So, first of

all, if someone's saying that, half the

battle is won. The problem is when

people are not aware of that.

Um but let's say you are. So, let's say

that

I give you that list of signs and

symptoms that you've got high levels of

cortisol, which include things like

sleep disruption because cortisol's part

of the 24-hour clock.

Melatonin helps us to wake up. Cortisol

helps

Melatonin helps us to fall asleep.

Cortisol helps us to wake up.

Um maybe you've noticed the belly fat.

Um because of the really strong

connection between the brain and the

gut, any sort of reflux or indigestion

symptoms are often signs that you've got

high levels of cortisol, too. And of

course, things like irritability and

mood changes.

What I mostly would hear people say is

that I can just about keep it together

when I'm at work, but when I get home,

if my kids are, you know, annoying or my

partner's asking for too much, I just

snap. So, that means you're like one

step away from snapping at work if

somebody like pushes you too far. So,

that's not good. Because cortisol is

pro-inflammatory, it's very drying of

the system, as well. So, you might

notice

that your skin's really dry or you've

got skin problems. Your skin isn't just

the physical border of your body, it's

the psychological boundary of your body,

too. So, often stress shows up in the

skin.

Then

there are two main things that you can

do.

One is physical exercise cuz you can

literally sweat cortisol out of your

body. So, you can sweat excel excess

cortisol out of your body by doing

aerobic exercise.

Um the other one is journaling, so

writing out what's on your mind rather

than just let it be in there and keep

going round and round.

Or if you've got a therapist or a

trusted friend, speaking it out loud.

So, it's

getting cortisol

and or

the negative thoughts that are

associated with your stress out of your

brain body system.

I think this is fascinating. I looked at

the back end of our YouTube channel, and

it says that since this channel started,

69.9%

of you that watch it frequently haven't

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button. Do we have a deal?

I've had a real revelation in my life

over the last um

hm

maybe 6 months about sleep. Mhm. Again,

it's why I said I think before we start

recording that I don't have any meetings

scheduled before 11:00 a.m. and I sleep

with my eye mask on and I just wake up

when I wake up.

Yeah, me too. Oh, really?

Yeah.

I've never really met anybody that has

that. It's It is a privilege. I have to

acknowledge that that not everyone can

do because of work circumstances or

whatever else, but um the importance of

sleep

You're a neuroscientist.

Yeah.

Um there's a lot of people who have

dysfunctional sleep. We live in a world

where it's I feel like it's increasingly

difficult to have

you know, great sleep. Mhm. Um how

important is that for the brain and also

you know, you know, we were talking

about stress there, but for Yeah.

con- containing our stress levels?

It's so important. I can't stop going on

about it and I do understand that for

some people it's not a choice that they

just don't sleep well or they their

sleep gets interrupted cuz they've got

young kids

or they do shift work. So,

I'm not particularly talking about the

people where

there's a reason that you can't sleep in

this way. I I'm mostly directing it this

out if you have a choice,

this is the way that you need to sleep

and this is why. If you don't have a

choice, there are some things that you

can do to mitigate it as well. I mean,

obviously I

have done shift work as a junior doctor

in the NHS and I travel a lot, so I'm

like jet lagged half the time, Mhm. but

I try to do everything I can

to make that as as good as possible and

the reason is

we've always known that when you sleep,

you lay down your memories and new

learning, you process your emotions. The

cells in the body regenerate themselves.

We've We've known that for a long time.

That's never really been enough for

these very driven C level people to want

to give up 8 hours a night to sleep, you

know, it's

if they feel they can get by on 4 or 5

then they'll rather do that because

they've got so much to do.

The ideal is 8 hours and 15 minutes in

population norm studies. So, that

doesn't mean it's for everyone, but for

most people that's the ideal. Actually,

sleeping more than that can be

depressogenic, so it can start to lower

your mood. So, you don't want to really

be sleeping for 9 plus hours, but you

ideally need to be in bed for 9 hours to

get that amount of sleep.

And so, there was some

award-winning research around 2012 to

2014 when we were beginning to

understand how important the cleaning of

the brain is overnight.

So, this entirely new system that we

didn't know existed, which is called the

glymphatic system, it's like the

lymphatic system in your body, but it's

to do with glial cells, so it was named

the glymphatic system.

That system

is a very active

kind of waterway channel cleansing

system of the brain. We used to think

that the fluid around the brain and

there's ventricles, which are like

lakes, and then there's just like

trickling areas that

that sort of passively drip through the

brain overnight.

We did not expect to see like jets of

fluid

flushing out toxins from the brain.

So, the exact things that we see in the

pathology of dementing diseases, like

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, like tau

proteins and amyloid plaques and

neurofibrillary tangles.

Um How do you say that in English?

Those things are being

flushed out of the brain very actively

overnight. And that process takes 7 to 8

hours to complete the cleaning.

That's why you need to be in bed for 8

to 9 hours.

So, it takes 7 or 8 hours to of

restorative sleep or just being in bed?

Just sleep. Not in bed. If you're in bed

awake,

you're not asleep. You know, you have to

be asleep, but you'll go through the

different sleep cycles every 90 minutes.

This isn't in time with that. This is

just taking 7 or 8 hours to flush the

stuff out of your brain. So, one of the

things I do say to people who who don't

sleep well is if you find yourself awake

at night and you're not lying on your

side, turn yourself onto your side cuz

that's the best position for this

cleansing process.

I actually have a special pillow that

makes me sleep on my side

cuz I wasn't naturally a side sleeper.

So, doesn't matter if it's the left or

the right, but that is a better position

in terms of the veins in your neck um

than sleeping on your back or your

front. So, that's one thing you can do.

Oh, you woke up, you know, your sleep

was disturbed, at least turn yourself

onto your side.

What is the special pillow?

Just you just bragged about it then

moved on, I feel like. It's it's a

memory foam pillow. Am I allowed to

mention the brand?

yeah, yeah. We'll we'll make sure they

sponsor it before we

It's a memory foam pillow. This my one

is by Tempur UK.

Um

and they actually they gifted it to me

because I was talking about side

sleeping. Yeah, it's great. Okay. I'm a

side sleeper. My girlfriend's a back

sleeper,

but I can't sleep on my back. It's funny

cuz I started on my front. That lasts

for 15 minutes cuz I get bad back at the

bottom of my back. I roll onto my side.

But I I've always wondered if there was

um

when you look at tribes and our

ancestors, how they would sleep. Would

they sleep in groups? Would they sleep

alone? Would they sleep on their side,

their back?

Do you know the answers to any of that?

Um I know that co-sleeping is definitely

how we evolved from co-sleeping, so in

groups.

And

what was what I find interesting is that

you needed to huddle together like that

for physical warmth in the cave,

but it also because of that proximity

and and and interaction, you got more of

the bonding hormone oxytocin, so you

also experience the warmth of being part

of a tribe. Um and I think they slept on

their side because they would have to be

ready for an attack

from a predator, so you'd need to keep

your dominant arm um

ready to, you know, grab something. And

most likely they slept on their left

because they would have been protecting

their most vital organs, the heart.

Um

Just thinking then about this bonding

chemical and how it comes out when we're

in close proximity. A lot of couples,

lot of people, me sometimes as well,

sleep in the spare room

because

I have work commitments, but that'll

mean that I'm up early or my partner has

work commitments that means she's up

early, but even some of my friends who

are in the early stages of parenthood

Mhm. have separated and have a sleep

divorce situation.

When you talked about the bonding in the

oxytocin being released when we're in

closer proximity, and obviously at night

time is when we're literally touching

each other.

Is it conceivable that by separating

rooms and by doing a sleep divorce,

we're actually eroding our bonding?

I would never do it. You would never

sleep in a different room from your

partner?

Never.

Apart from maybe if there was a young

baby and one person had to go to work

and one person didn't.

That I get,

but that's temporary.

And

ideally people would find ways to make

up for that. I mean, I guess you're in a

bit of a love bubble with the oxytocin

from the baby at that time, so that is

quite neuroprotective.

But

co-sleeping is it's it's fundamental to

our survival. It was physically when we

were in the cave, but now I would say

emotionally, spiritually, it's

fundamental to our survival. I mean What

do you mean by co-sleeping? Just to

clarify.

Sleeping together.

So, mostly in, you know, in our society

that's as a couple, but a lot of

other cultures, the whole family sleeps

together. Why would you never do it? You

seemed quite passionate about that.

Because I it's so good for you.

The bonding, the physical warmth, the

skin-to-skin contact, the

love, the trust, you know. I mean, I'll

put up if some if somebody's waking up

early and I don't have to wake up at

that time, I'll I'll even put up with

that.

So, you'll have less quality sleep. It

won't be less quality sleep. I've worn

HRV monitors and shown that even at the

time

if

my husband woke up at 5:00 and I

wouldn't wake up any at all before 8:00,

and he gave me a kiss goodbye, I got a

spike of resilience at that time.

Resilience? Yeah.

How How do you measure that? So, I was

using that Finnish technology, um where

you wear the

HRV monitor with a gel pad on your

chest. Um and so, it's color-coded for

whether you're doing light exercise,

heavy exercise, whether you're stressed,

or whether you're recouping resilience.

And mostly people recoup resilience

overnight.

But, um you know, you could clearly see

with people with young children, you

could see when they were woken up

overnight cuz it would go into stress.

Some people recoup resilience during the

day

if, you know, let's say you're like with

your partner or your sibling and you're

just sitting together and it's super

relaxed. Or if you love your job, you

know, that you can see that happening

during the day as well.

But, because I am so

obsessed with my sleep,

I wouldn't normally welcome any sleep

disturbance.

But, the power of sleeping together and

cuddling all night

is so neuroprotective

that

I would encourage everybody to do it if

they can. I also know some people who

say, "Oh, I sleep better if I sleep on

my own."

Um

but we we're not meant to survive on our

own. We are meant to survive as part of

a tribe. And

I think now, you know, since the

pandemic,

people are more lost and lonely and

disconnected than ever. If you've got

somebody that you can actually sleep

with overnight, I strongly suggest that

you do it.

So, I want to go in that direction

because I'm super compelled by that. The

the change in the world and the lost,

the lonely, the disconnected. But, just

to pause for a second on this word

resilience you're using linked to heart

rate variability. You're You're talking

about like a physiological resilience,

like a the body being more resilient

versus the kind of When we talk about

resilience, we we we say it in more of a

psychological context of like I can

withstand

greater stress or pressure. But, you're

You used a heart rate variability

monitor that measures the

distance between heartbeats

and saw that when your husband gave you

a kiss, your heart rate variability

increased,

which means that your body was more

physiologically resilient. It actually

measures both because it compares your

heart rate variability to your heart

rate. Okay. So, it knows if you're

exercising because your heart rate has

gone up. But, if your heart rate is at

like base level,

then

the So, the then then the very the

change in variability can either mean

that you're stressed or you're recouping

resilience. If your heart rate is high,

then it's obviously

physical. Um

but

it

it's a it's a factor of both. So, it's

not just looking at

physical resilience. It is looking When

When it's in this turquoise zone,

that is actually more about recouping

psychological resilience. But, those two

things, you know, they feed into each

other, but it can tell the difference

because of your heart rate. So,

obviously I was asleep, so my heart rate

was low. And you saw what on the monitor

when he gave you a kiss?

saw it, but cuz it can does it by every

15 minutes as well. And I saw the

highest spike of turquoise at that exact

time.

It's funny cuz my girlfriend a couple

about a month ago or 2 months ago, I

left the house quite early in the

morning, maybe about the similar time

6:00 a.m. in the morning when she was

still in bed and I came up to her and

gave her like a big kiss. I basically

kissed all around her. This is so

sloppy.

I kissed all around her face and on her

nose and just gave her a big big hug and

stuff and I walked away, like got in the

got in the got in the taxi and left,

whatever.

And she said to me the same day or the

day after she went "I don't know what

happened there, but it unlocked

something in me." And

you know, then my girlfriend went on to

say she had um had some challenges with

her menstrual cycle and it and she

came on her period.

That's amazing. I love that.

right. Like when she says things to me

and she knows this, but I give her a

credit. I'm always skeptical cuz we

think differently. She's quite

spiritual. I'm very like I need some

science.

Mhm. And um

she said that to me and I just thought a

kiss and a hug in the morning it hasn't

couldn't have had any physiological

impact on her.

But um now I'm starting to question

whether once again I was wrong.

That's amazing. I mean, you know,

some of these things can't necessarily

immediately be explained by science, but

if you use your intuition, then

you have to ask yourself and I feel like

you are coming around to thinking that

could be true. When I'm when I'm given a

reason, I accept things. If you know, if

there's even

even a slither of science that could

justify it, then I I come around to

ideas, but I do need the science. Do you

think that men and women are different

in terms of their intuition and their

their ability to want you to smile.

Their ability to kind of understand some

of these forces that exist in the air.

Because my girlfriend it seems to be so

attuned to feelings and intuition and

and I'm less so.

Yeah, so if let's let's put it like

this. If you had a hundred people in a

room, 50 men and 50 women,

and you asked them to line up in order

of height,

not all the men would be taller than all

the women. In the middle there'd be a

bit of a mixture.

And it's like that with the brain and

intuition and everything else. So,

yeah, there are

some

there's some disparity. So, I think most

people would agree that it feels like

more women are in touch with their

intuition than men, but it's absolutely

not all women

versus all men.

Do you believe women are more in touch

with their intuition?

I think they're more open to accepting

that it's a thing. And

I believe that the more men need the

science to explain how intuition works.

Interesting. I wondered if there was

like a brain

neurological reason for that.

I think there'd be more women and men

that believed in

intuition and those like

feelings that are hard to explain and

the you know.

That's changed a lot. I mean, I remember

when I was teaching at MIT about 7 years

ago and I was teaching the science of

intuition. Someone actually stood that

you know, it's all senior leaders in the

classroom. It's executive education.

Um someone stood up and said, "Well, I'm

not going to make a really important

decision like hire or fire based on my

gut feeling, am I?"

And

he was quite young and quite a few of

the older guys turned around and were

like, "That's absolutely how I would

make my decision and my most important

decisions." But at that time, it was

still kind of like

not everybody was really sure that

that's like your superpower, but I think

people are beginning to understand more

that with age and experience and wisdom,

you do understand that intuition is

actually your strongest should be your

strongest decision-making modality. What

is intuition?

So,

because you can't remember everything

that you've experienced in your whole

life,

but you know, somewhere in the neural

architecture and and you know,

in the gut neurons as well,

that information is stored cuz you have

experienced it.

So,

maybe you would say that you understand

that wisdom and experience is the

product of patterns that you've seen

repeating in your life that are

conscious to you.

Intuition is

the lessons that you picked up along the

way that you're not conscious of, but

they're still stored in your nervous

system.

And so, the less conscious you are of

them, the deeper they're pushed into the

nervous system. So, there's a process

called Hebbian learning, named after the

neuroscientist Donald Hebb,

and that is

is basically, you know, neurons that

fire together wire together, but it's

that the things that you've learned

today, like things that you've learned

by speaking with me, that's going to be

very front of mind and kind of just in

like little pathways that are just kind

of connecting up with each other. But

stuff that you learned when you were

five, like when you put your hand in a

fire and it burnt you and you never ever

want to do that again, that's deep down.

You're not really conscious of that, but

you know, and and other things maybe

that you don't recall.

So, we believe that your

that wisdom

gets pushed from the outer cortex

into the limbic system, which is the

emotional system of the brain, into the

brainstem, into the spinal cord,

and into the gut neurons.

And that's why they sometimes call it

gut instinct because it's that feeling

of knowing something but not knowing why

you know it.

Um but it's actually to do with the fact

that you have wisdom and experience

that is

it's in it's it's embodied in you,

but you're not conscious of it

necessarily.

It's quite surprising to hear that

those memories, that wisdom could be

in the gut.

People think of

you know, I think I'm certainly someone

who always thought that my cognition, my

memories, and my all of the intelligence

exists just in my brain.

Your memories and your cognition

and your IQ

are in your brain,

but your Your

is in your brain and your gut.

This sounds super stupid, but I don't

care. I should just be I should just be

honest about my stupidity.

Where in my gut? I'm like

I thought that was like my stomach.

It's where I put the food.

Yeah. So, you know, you've got your

stomach, you've got your small

intestine, you've got your large

intestine. You have other organs, your

liver, your spleen,

your kidneys. And they're all

innervated, which means they've all got

nerves going into them. So does your

heart.

So, you know, we could we could have a

similar conversation like this about

your heart as well, because your heart

only knows how to be because of the

nerves that that penetrate it.

So,

you know, this round brain in here in

the spinal cord that goes down the

center of your back, that gives rise to

all of the neurons that go out to your

arms, your legs, all of your organs,

your skin, which is your largest organ.

And

so that's that's how that works because

every single part of your body has nerve

nerve cells or, you know, nerve

pathways in them. So, that's the

connection.

That's brings us back to what, you know,

what what I was saying about the

brain-body connection. They're they're

intimately connected and it's a

bidirectional thing. It's they can't

exist without each other.

And the more you understand that there's

that constant feedback going back and

forth, the more you can tap into that

kind of thing. The more you can

know days before you're going to get

sick. I bet your girlfriend knows days

before she's going to get a cold or flu.

Yes, she does.

Yeah. All the time. And my clients

never know. And as soon as they go on

holiday, they're sick the whole week.

Why Why when they go on holiday?

Because they suppress it to be able to

do their job.

And you can suppress illness or you can

just not not not acknowledge it.

It's not it's it's not necessarily that

they had a cold virus that they

suppressed, but it's that their body is,

you know, the immune system is being run

down by the cortisol. And so as soon as

it gets a break,

that's when it kind of succumbs. Um

and there was a time after the financial

crisis when

I had people saying, "I've had the you

know, I've had this cold for like 4

weeks now or 6 weeks, but everybody's

got it." And I was like,

"I'm sorry, but do you actually think

that's normal? Do you think it's normal

to have a cold for more than a week?"

And you know, then it it's takes a

challenge like that because also the

other thing that happens in you know,

with group think whether it's at work or

in your social circle is

that we don't challenge each other

enough on those sort of things. So,

if a friend said, "Oh, I've had this

cold for 6 weeks."

I might say, "Oh, poor you." But

if I I wouldn't, but someone might. But

um

you know, it's also about saying, "Is

there something else wrong?" cuz that's

not that's not usual. Um and for me,

that would absolutely lead back to

cortisol.

Second ago, we were going to go down the

pathway of the looming crisis

that you speak about.

What is the looming crisis that you're

concerned about?

Stephen, I

I saw this looming at the beginning of

the pandemic. It's not looming anymore.

It is We are in crisis.

So,

you know, all of the

health anxiety and the uncertainty and

the fear

and the loss that we experienced

um during the pandemic

was bad enough, you know, it caused a a

level of stress that no one who's alive

today has experienced before.

Um

but we've come out of it,

you know, we're relatively

I don't know if I could say back to

normal or in the new normal.

And we have not paid any attention to

the consequences of what happened to us.

And when I say us, I mean everyone from

the babies that were born at that time

that never saw anyone but their

immediate family,

the teenagers that interestingly boys

did better than girls because they play

video games on the internet, so they

stayed connected.

You know, the older people, the isolated

the people that like lost loved ones,

etc. Like there's so many things. I

could say more things than that.

We we haven't really acknowledged that

that's what happened and what we went

through.

We

most people are not really

understanding what's changed for them or

what's going on for them at the moment

as a result of that and we certainly

haven't made any plan for the future.

Um

you know, I'm really into like

indigenous wisdom at the moment and one

of the things I've learned about the

first Americans is that when they make a

big decision for their community, they

imagine the impact of that decision

seven generations into the future. We

don't even think about one generation

into the future.

We just think about

like what's going on right now. We We We

don't even really think about our own

future like some of the time.

I remember thinking like literally in

March of 2020,

this is going to be a mental health

crisis. Like whatever happens

physically,

and as time went on, more so I thought,

mental health crisis, mental health

crisis.

And then I started to think, okay,

what else could it be?

And

I had time, of course, to

indulge in some of the other areas of

interest that I couldn't when I was like

traveling and working for Lonza. So I

you know, started reading more about

spirituality and ancient cultures and

stuff.

And I thought this could be a spiritual

revolution. When you say spiritual

revolution,

it's a very big, broad

term. Mhm.

What do you mean?

If I look back and and you've you know,

you've led a very nice story of of my my

journey since I changed career is that

it started off with that physical piece,

you know, for me where I was working,

there was stress, but people were having

heart attacks.

Then, I spent many years working on

mental resilience with people.

Um

and emotional regulation was part of

that, and that became important again in

the pandemic because we were in like

close quarters with people and

you know, and it was just very

different, and it was hard, and there

was homeschooling and working and

everything.

Um what I've seen as a some of the good

things I've seen as a result of the

pandemic is that we've definitely

appreciated again the importance of our

time in nature.

Um so, I think most of us felt that,

that, you know, being able to get out

and be somewhere green was really

important. And because there was like no

planes and no traffic, you know, we

could see the stars in the sky again. We

saw amazing sunsets. We people began to

appreciate birdsong.

And now the studies are showing that

time spent in nature actually has a

really positive impact on your physical

health, your mental health, and your

longevity.

So, you know, that's one good thing

that's come out of it, but

are we all still, you know, making time

for that, or are we just going back to

kind of our old ways? The other thing

things of interest that have come out is

that having a purpose that transcends

yourself

is really important

to your

um mental health particularly, but it

will have knock-on effects. So,

you know, you could say

well, I do my podcast, and I love doing

my podcast, and I get to meet

interesting people, and I you know, I

share that knowledge with others.

A lot of that is still to do with

self-satisfaction.

So, having something that doesn't

necessarily do anything for you,

but gives you purpose in life is really

important. And what could that be? That

could be

That could be volunteering. It could be

um

you know, for you know, for me, like I I

give out a lot of free information on

Instagram that and and not for to try to

get work or anything like that.

Um

it could be so, you know, when I say

volunteering that sounds quite big, but

it could be like asking your elderly

neighbor if you can do their groceries

for them when you go to the supermarket.

Um it could be

calling up a friend and checking that

they're okay.

Just something that makes you feel like

life is worth living.

But it doesn't necessarily earn you

money or directly improve your life.

I've spoken to a lot of therapists who

talk about

the fact that we two of the things we

never want to feel is like we're A

different and B we're not enough.

And I was thinking about that through

the lens of our tribes. In a In the

context of a tribe, if I was different,

there was a risk of me being kicked off

the tribe. And if I would didn't feel

like I was enough, I I

again would have a risk of being kicked

out of the tribe because I'm not

valuable to the tribe. And in the

context of what you were saying about

serving others, is that again sort of

like a prehistoric desire to

um feel like we're adding value and we

are of use to the tribe by serving

the greater good of the of our tribe. Is

that where that instinct comes from in

us? I love what you've done, which is

exactly what I said, which is when I

when I'm not sure of the answer, I'll go

back to evolution. Mhm. I always do that

in therapy, yeah. I love that. I think

I hadn't thought of it like that exactly

like that before, but I think it's true.

You know, a tribe sadly could not afford

to carry dead weight.

So, if you weren't enough, you know, if

you were injured, if you were

immobile, if you were elderly,

if you weren't contributing,

then you might get left behind.

And then there's this um really

interesting new area of research called

neuroaesthetics or neuroarts,

which is about having some kind of

creative activity in your regular

schedule.

So, um there's there's lots of research

that shows that if you're not doing

something creative once a week,

and that could be dance, music,

painting, drawing, going to the theater,

reading a novel. So, really quite broad.

Time in nature actually is included in

it.

Then, because nature is the palette that

we all love. You know, you could have

different taste in art or music to me,

but all humans love nature cuz we've

always been in that that beauty. So, the

impact of that on your mental health and

your physical health and your longevity

is huge as well.

But, even just like every morning, I

actually thought of this this morning

cuz I I wanted to mention this, but I

had zested a lemon last night when I was

cooking.

And so, this morning when I went to get

the milk out of the fridge, I I smelled

it cuz it was in the fridge and I just

thought that is so beautiful.

And so, they say things like, you know,

if you've put like

a bunch of flowers on your bedside table

and it smells nice and that's the first

thing you smell in the morning and then

you like look at the beautiful flowers.

If you've

got objects of beauty in your house, if

you listen to birdsong in the morning,

that that's all neuroesthetics. It's

living a life that is aesthetically

pleasing to your brain.

And that's good for your health. Why?

Um

Should we go back to evolution? Should I

make a guess with Please, that's my

favorite thing to do.

I think it's to do with safety. So,

if you were able to spare your mental

resources to appreciate beauty,

that must mean that you're safe. That

must mean that you're not just trying to

survive.

So, it's actually

I mean, we do appreciate beauty. So,

seeing, smelling, you know, hearing,

tasting nice things, it's going to make

us feel better. But, also,

we're only going to be doing that if

we have the luxury of being able to do

that. Then, it can be such small things.

But, also, what it signals to your brain

is I'm safe

because I have time to read a novel or

I have time to crank the music up and

dance around my living room.

Through the frame of this idea that

pathways that fire together wire

together,

I was also thinking about every time

I've seen a tree, I've been safe. So, is

there an association that trees are

safety? You know what I mean? Every time

I've been out in nature, I've been

physiologically, psychologically safe.

So, is it now the case that because

there's that neurological association,

the pathways have widened fired

together, if I, you know, do you talk

about the brain-body response, if I put

myself in that situation again, it will

signal to my body that I'm safe. Yeah,

it will that's neuroplasticity. It's the

It's repeating that and giving yourself

the message that every time I'm around

trees, I'm safe. I feel safe. It won't

be the same for everyone. I would

imagine that again, when we lived in the

cave, that

we naturally did things like looked at

the stars in the sky at night, danced

around the fire, did cave paintings.

Um so, that's very wired into our our

psyche as well. Um

you know, they would adorn themselves a

lot more than we do.

So, that appreciation of aesthetics

has always been there not and not just

from nature, from some of our rituals

and ceremonies as well. And really the

conclusion that I've come to with this

whole spiritual crisis and and then the

potential revolution is that

all the things that we need

to go through that revolution have

always been in the world as long as

we've existed.

And that to me is beautiful because

it's not like we have to do some crazy

new different things that we've never

thought of before.

We can

The way that I put it is we know about

generational trauma and

intergenerational trauma and epigenetics

and how all these bad things can like

come down the line, but there's also a

lot of beauty and wisdom that's there

that we can have access to. It's it's

don't have to like reinvent the wheel at

all. We can just go back to doing the

things that we did

when

we were at peace.

It's interesting, but it but that's not

going to that's not easy to do in the

world we live in cuz we've built a

society in a world where

Yeah.

We live in these like white four white

walls in cities alone. We're more lonely

than ever before. We order our food

using glass screens. We use pornography

as a replacement for intimacy and and

connection.

We use social networks instead of

socializing.

Internet connection has reduced real

connection.

How you'd have to like completely

redesign society, it seems.

You can start with yourself.

So,

I completely agree with what all those

things that you've just said. It's how

most people live.

But I don't live like that.

How do you live, doctor?

Um

I I actively try to spend as much time

in nature as I can, and I have like

a lot of like plants and flowers in and

around my house.

I am very very careful about who's in my

tribe. So, it's positive, meaningful,

deep, spiritual relationships.

Um

I

don't use pornography or dating apps.

I just go through your legs.

Um

Yeah, and I you know, I try What do you

think of pornography on the brain?

I mean,

the two most basic drives in the brain

are sex and food.

So,

the potential impact is is huge.

Um

I agree with you that increasingly it

has created a big disconnect between men

and women in real life, which is really

sad.

What What is that disconnect?

Um I think that

the ideal of what a woman has to be or

can be is very distorted by pornography.

Mhm.

Um

I think, if I put together, you know,

what I hear from my friends about dating

apps with that, that

the way that people feel they can treat

others has really, really changed. And I

think this has accelerated since the

pandemic as well.

Um

so this real lack of empathy for

the consequences of your actions and

comments on other people.

And I think pornography contributes to

that because it

changes the way that men view women. Um

I think the impact on women in terms of

what you have to look like, like how

much plastic surgery you have to have,

what you've got to be prepared to, like,

do in an intimate relationship, or or

actually

the biggest issue I would have is what

you're expected to do when you're not

even in an intimate relationship, you

know, just when it becomes more of a

transaction, when the rules have changed

about

you know, again, what I hear now very

commonly is oh, we've been on three or

four or five dates or whatever it is,

that must mean,

you know,

move to the next level kind of thing.

So, I think that going back to

having like really respectful

relationships, having a lot of empathy

for other people, looking out for the

people in your life that might be

lonelier than you.

Um

when I say, you know, I I mean, I

absolutely do not have my phone in my

bedroom, but when I say limit screen

time, that is a difficult one because we

all use our screens for work and to

communicate with our friends, but there

are studies that show the amount of time

you spend

even communicating with friends online

versus face-to-face has all sorts of

impacts in terms of like

how

like socially comfortable you are, how

empathetic you are. It can even have on

teenagers a really big impact on body

dysmorphism.

So, it's fine to actually spend quite a

lot of time online as long as you are

also spending a lot of time with people

face-to-face.

One of the things you said there was

about limiting who's in your tribe. Mhm.

W-

Why is that important?

Why is it important to not hang around

with certain people and spend more time

with other people from like a

neurological perspective in terms of our

health and our outlooks and our outcomes

and neuroplasticity?

So, if we just like link this back a

little bit to the question that you

Googled, which is is stress contagious,

then there's another rabbit hole you

could go down, which would be about

social contagion.

So, there are statistics that show that

in your social group, if someone gets

divorced, you're more likely to get

divorced in the next year.

If someone in your social group is

obese, you're more likely to become

obese.

Now, I'm not absolutely not saying don't

be friends with someone cuz they got

divorced or they put on weight, but I'm

I'm talking more about the

attitudinal stuff.

So, the

you know, how you treat other people,

how kind you are, how generous you are,

how open you are to conversations about

intuition or spirituality. Basically,

you meet people who are at a similar

psychological level to you.

And

so,

we're always working on ourselves,

hopefully, and you want to be with

people if if you are, then you want to

be with people who are growing, too, who

are open to challenge, who are learning,

who

are interested in exploring

spirituality,

um who care about their mental health

and other people's mental health. So,

it's really

about, you know, having this this circle

of trust.

And knowing that you've got support, but

equally that if you do something that's

really not okay, that somebody's going

to tell you.

You mentioned the word earlier

neuroplasticity.

What is it? Why did it matter and

I think from looking at your work

previously, you had a bit of an epiphany

on this subject matter in your career.

Where you realized that, you know, I you

probably like most most people don't

even think it's a thing. They don't

think it's

They think that once you grow up, you're

set in your ways, but it sounds like

there was an epiphany at some point in

your career where you realize the

importance and the possibilities that

neuroplasticity presented. Well, we have

to start by saying that when I was at

medical school and doing my PhD in

neuroscience, we did not know about

neuroplasticity.

So, we absolutely thought that when you

physically stopped growing,

that everything in your brain was set

for the rest of your life. That you

couldn't change your intelligence, you

couldn't learn to manage your emotions

differently.

Um that it would be much harder to learn

new things.

What we know now is that the brain is

actively growing and changing till we're

about 25.

Oh,

I missed it.

No, you didn't you didn't miss it. You

didn't miss it.

I know I look 24, but

You didn't you didn't miss it. So, from

25 to 65 and I would say even beyond

now,

if you don't do anything to change your

brain, it will tend to plateau. So, you

know, if you're in a job where you do

the same thing every day and you're

pretty good at it,

you could stay like that for the rest of

your life. And that is fine for some

people.

If you do things to that are intense

enough

to force your brain to change, then you

can basically, you know, learn lots of

new things, but also get what we call

global benefits in your brain. So,

let's say you decided to learn a new

language.

Maybe you'd learn Portuguese or French.

Have you spoken to her?

Have you spoken to her? No.

That just felt very feels like you know

when someone says something to you and

it feels like they've already had a

conversation behind your back cuz it's

so

on the money. No, I actually have a deal

with her this year that I'd learn

Portuguese by the end of the year and

we're in September now. And I know six

words. So, that just felt a little bit

close to home. So,

let's move on. So, so that's great. So,

you have actually a reason to learn one

or two languages. If you do that

your brain will not only get the

benefits of being able to speak French

or Portuguese, but you will actually

improve your executive functions. Now,

these are the highest functions of the

brain. Things like um being able to

regulate your emotions better, solve

complex problems, think flexibly, think

creatively, override any conscious or

unconscious biases that you may have.

These are great benefits to get from

actually just doing something like

learning a language or a musical

instrument. Um and it can be smaller

things like

travel, interacting with people who've

had a different life to you, cooking

something new, taking a different route

to work, reading a

newspaper or a magazine that's very

different to what you normally read.

Doing a podcast. Well, you do this every

day. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so it's not inducing

neuroplasticity in your brain. Although

you're learning new things.

people.

Yeah, you're meeting different people.

You're learning new things.

But it's probably not what we would call

attention intense enough

to actually be shifting pathways in your

brain.

Wow.

So, having all these conversations isn't

like expanding my It is in terms of your

like the facts that you're learning.

Yeah. But your actual process of you

know, finding a person, doing a bit of

research into them, meeting them, having

a conversation with them, being good at

asking them certain questions.

That's a very natural pathway for you.

So,

you you know, you're getting better and

and at it. But that's not a new big

change in your brain.

So what Okay, right. So I think when

people hear about neuroplasticity, when

I first heard about that that it was

even a thing, it was a revelation that

we could do things to change our brains.

What is What is it that people typically

want from neuroplasticity? They want to

be someone else in other ways. They want

new habits. They want new ways of

thinking. They want to stop being a

negative thinker or an overthinker in

certain situations.

If I wanted to to to stop being an

overthinker or a negative thinker,

or if I wanted to um

you know, there's certain habits we all

have in that I have in my life that I'm

like

I just feel like it's me now.

Yeah, like procrastination.

Procrastination shows up sometimes.

I'm just saying that because I'm not

learning this.

to. I'm joking.

No, I don't I don't procrastinate too

much cuz I don't really have a choice