Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.
If you've always wanted to know how to change your brain so that it can help you get what you want,
holy cow, you are going to love our conversation today.
It's MIT meets manifestation. Law of attraction meets neuroscience.
Today's guest is Dr. Tara Swart-Biber. She earned her medical degree from Oxford and her PhD
in Neuro Pharmacology from Kings College, London. She's a neuroscientist and senior lecturer at MIT.
She teaches a course called the Science of Intuition and Dr. Tara says,
manifestation is real. It changes your brain and you need to know step-by-step how to do it the
right way. It's a tool for success, happiness, and better health. And she has so many specific
takeaways that are based on research that you're going to learn today. In fact, a major mistake
that Dr. Tara says you're making right now when it comes to trying to train your brain is you're
not using glue to make it stick. What does that mean? Oh, you're going to learn what it means in
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I'm thrilled that you are here because by the time you're done listening and learning from
our guests today, your brain is not going to be the same. You're going to learn today. How do you
science to rewire your brain so that it can help you get what you want? This is so freaking cool.
And before I introduce you to today's remarkable expert and we jump into the conversation,
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It's going to help you go even deeper into everything that you're going to learn today on the podcast.
So let's talk about the conversation we're going to have today because world-renowned Dr. Tara
Swart Bieber is in the house. Dr. Tara is a medical doctor, neuroscientist, psychiatrist and
senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and she runs the neuroscience for business
online program for MIT. She's also a best-selling author of the book The Source and the host of
the podcast reinvent yourself with Dr. Tara. I love her because she's a scientist who used to be
a skeptic when it comes to things like intuition and manifestation. But today she's here to teach you
that yes, you can change your brain. You can become the person that you want to become.
You can train your brain to help you spot opportunities. You can learn how to make your thinking
more positive. You can learn how to lead a company. You can become more agile and happy and successful
in life. And Dr. Tara is here to give you the very tactical things that you can start doing
immediately based on the best research in the world. We're going to cover how to change your
brain in three different ways. You'll learn the real science behind manifestation and the neuroscience
that explains intuition. Are you ready? I know I am. Please help me welcome Dr. Tara Swart Bieber
to the Melbourne's podcast. Oh, Mel, it's so amazing to finally be here in person with you. I've
been looking forward to this for so long. Well, thank you so much for jumping out of plane
and flying all the way from London and spending time with us in person. I am so excited and I
guess I want to start by having you speak directly to the person who is listening to us right now.
Could you share with them how their brain or their life might change based on what you are about
to teach them today? Yes. So one of the things we're going to be speaking about is neuroplasticity,
which is the fact that the brain can grow and change throughout life. Unlike the fact that we
used to think that by the time you physically stop growing around the age of 18 that your brain is fixed,
that your personality's fixed, your IQ is fixed, we now know that those things are very fluid
depending on what you do. But I want to bring that down to the here and now just to make it feel
really real, which is that by the end of our conversation, because the brain is being molded and shaped
constantly by what you're listening to, who you're meeting, what you're recalling in your memory,
the emotions that you're feeling. Our listeners' brains are actually going to be different at the
end of this podcast than they are right now. How does that happen? Well, so neuroplasticity means
that the brain is taking an information through the five senses. So everything we see here,
Smeltace, touch, and kind of in real time thinking, how do I need to be to survive in this world?
It usually comes down to survival. And what I think I'd love to do today is help people move from
the brain reacting for basic survival to what else can you make your brain do to thrive in this world?
I know we're going to go deep on this, but can you just at a high level tick off a couple things
that you can train your brain to do that you might not know that you can train your brain to do?
Yeah, so things like manifestation, visualization, looking at vision boards, which I actually
call action boards, but all come to that. Affirmations, these are all things that prime the brain
more towards thriving than just surviving, because if you leave your brain to its own devices,
all it wants you to do is live long enough to reproduce. So what's it going to do to make that
happen? Make sure you put food on the table. That means pretty much that you need to turn up to your
job daily and not get fired. So you need to keep a good relationship with your boss. You need to
keep a good relationship with the person that you'll potentially reproduce with. That's not
enough for most people. We want more than that out of life. So if your brain's taken care of that
anyway, what do you want to put front of mind to make your brain look out for opportunities for
the things that you dream of that you really, really want with what I call magnetic desire? Magnetic
desire. How do you define magnetic desire? Well, the way that neuroplasticity works in the brain
is through repetition and emotional intensity. So let me take it back to the survival things we
were just speaking about. If you think, you know, I want to get married and have a family because
that's what all my friends are doing, there may not be a huge emotional intensity behind that.
That may be more to do with societal, parental, peer group expectation. If when you're a kid,
you dreamt of being an actor. Yeah. Then if you actually try to start doing that, even if it's hard,
that was your dream. That was what you feel you were put on this earth to do. You will endure
barriers and obstacles and refusals and difficulty and keep going. Whereas for other things, you might
not, you know, we all, we know that idea of giving up just before you dig up the gold, right?
If you've got magnetic desire, you won't give up. That's where the motivation piece comes in.
And all of these are the science behind what contributes to manifesting what you want.
So let's talk about manifesting. Have you always believed in manifesting?
So looking back, I actually think I did it as a kid naturally. And it's so chicken and egg for
me, whether I got drawn to neuroscience and manifestation because that was innate in me from a
child or whether I now live my life in that way because I've done so much research on it. I honestly
don't know the answer to that. The more I do the research, the more I consciously bring these
things into my life. I look back and think that's what I was like as a kid. That's what I was
interested in as a kid. But I would say that once I studied the sciences in high school and then
went to medical school, you know, it works slightly differently in the UK and did my PhD in
D in neuroscience. And certainly by the time I got my faculty position at MIT, I was a complete
skeptic about manifestation. Those two things could not exist in the same world as far as I was
concerned. And that's partly down to how I had to live my life as a child because my parents were
first generation immigrants from India to the UK. And I went to school in London and I just wanted
to be like all my friends and do the same things as them. But I would come home. My mother would be
in a headstand and there would be incense in the house. And you know, there was meditation and
chanting and things like that. So I thought, okay, that happens at home. This happens at school
and I learned very well to separate those things. So then I became a medical doctor, specialising
in psychiatry. And you know, you were diagnosing people with magical thinking and delusions and
hallucinations. So you couldn't really say, oh, but I believe in manifestation, you know. So again,
I had to keep those things really separate. And it wasn't really until I started doing my research
to write the source that I realised how together these things could be. Was there a moment where you
remember going, oh my gosh, this is real? Yeah, there are a few because I think these things
sort of build up, don't they? So I was in 2017. I was the world's first neuroscientist in
residence at a five star hotel in London. So I was already doing quirky things with my career. And
because it was unusual, there was a lot of press and I was approached by Penguin Random House to write
a book. And they said we've had really amazing books on, you know, one on meditation, one on
diet, one on sleep, one on exercise. And we think as a neuroscientist, you could bring all of those
together. And without thinking, I said, I could do that, but I've got an idea about the cognitive
science behind manifestation of vision boards. And they just said, yes, straight away. So I think
their response made me think that could be a thing, but I wasn't convinced myself. So
before I started writing, I went on a summer vacation with my laptop, which is unusual for me.
And I just started looking into the laws of attraction and trying to figure out,
is there cognitive science that can explain these things? And for somebody listening who does not
know what the law of attraction or manifestation is, could you give us your definition?
They're basically all about the fact that if there's something that you really want in life,
then if you think positively about it, or you believe in certain vibrations of attraction
in the universe, then you can bring that thing into your life. And manifestation is
bringing into reality something that you want. But until I started looking into the cognitive
science behind it, all the explanations so far had been to do with quantum physics. And for me,
as an empirical scientist, that wasn't enough for me to believe in those things. And equally,
I felt very disempowered by the fact that it was happening because of something outside of me.
I wanted to feel like it was happening because of my brain power and that I had some autonomy
over it. And do you believe based on the research that you've done, that you attract things into
your life because of your brain power? I believe at 100%. When the book came out, people that I knew
personally who were not scientists at all said, I've always been interested in this. But I've never
actually acted upon it because I couldn't understand how it worked. But now that you've explained
science, I'm actually doing the steps that, you know, I've heard of before, actually, but that you've
repeated in your book. So the writing process did bring it together for me quite a lot, but it was
actually the response from other people. So it started with people I knew. And then it started on
social media just being thousands of people that I will probably never meet in my life, saying
because you've put the science to it, it's completely changed my view of these topics. So what are
the steps to manifesting based on the research so you attract what you want life? So it starts with
abundance. Now in the brain, we have the strongest gearing that we have in our brain is called loss
aversion or loss avoidance. And that was the survival mechanism from when we lived in the cave,
which was that if you saw, you know, a juicy apple on a tree and you really wanted it, but you
ignored the fact that there was a sabre-toothed tiger standing next to you, you would die. So we have
to want to avoid loss more than we wanted to get rewalled. So you've got to avoid the tiger more
than wanting the apple. Exactly. And so we're wired toward, as you mentioned earlier, survival.
Absolutely. And through manifesting your about the teachers, how to rewire our brain and train it
toward abundance? Yes, right. I'm not going to completely wire it the other way, because there
we still need to be safe. Yes. Even in the modern world where the threats aren't so much physical
predators, there are psychological threats to our safety, like job loss, relationship loss, etc.
But it doesn't serve us to be that strongly geared to loss avoidance. So what we want to do is
balance that out a bit more or in a safe situation, understand that we absolutely can take healthy
risks and, you know, believe that there's enough for everyone and not kind of live from that
scarcity mindset. So that's the first piece. The second piece is magnetic desire, which we've
already somewhat discussed. But once you're feeling abundant, then if you can be really aligned in
your head, your heart, and your gut about what it is that you want, then that desire, that motivation
will keep you going and help you get the things that you want that you might have given up on.
So there is an element of patience required, because this process of neuroplasticity
involves neurons wiring together to form new strong pathways that are stronger than the pathways
that you had before. And so that means that it feels like a lot of hard work is going on. Psychological
work is physical work going on in the pathways in your brain, but that nothing's changing in the
real world. And there's a real tipping point where there's enough neurons in a pathway that
certain new habits and behaviors or, you know, being patient becomes easier. And it kind of feels
like nothing, nothing, nothing. And then suddenly, oh, you know, things are happening, things are
changing. I'm getting the things that I want. So if you put those three behind manifestation,
then that is about priming your brain to notice and grasp opportunities in the real world that can
bring you closer to the things that you want. It's exactly the same process as if you buy a new car,
you suddenly notice that car all over, you know, it's the same. So it's a brain priming process.
Oh, well, that makes sense. It's why you suddenly see jeeps everywhere when you are looking at buying
a jeep. Yeah. Can you explain to the person listening? The kind of neuro scientific,
I don't even know what the right word is. What is the scientific explanation for why you see cars
when you're interested in buying a car or how the new neuropath ways are changing your brain in
real time? What is actually happening when you tap into magnetic desire? So basically, we're overloaded
with information constantly. And the brain has a natural filtering mechanism called selective
filtering. And this relates back to what I was saying about if you leave your brain to its job of
just, you know, making sure you survive, it will filter out all those other things that you
actually really want, but they're not essential to your survival. So that's why you have to make a
list or make the vision board or, you know, remind yourself every day of what it is that you truly,
you know, magnetically desire to put that to the top of the list for your brain. Because after
selective filtering, it does selective attention. And that is noticing the red car or the Tesla or
whatever it is that you know, you're noticing. So once you filtered out the things that you don't
want to notice, then you, you know, you narrow it down to the things that you do want to notice.
And then the third part is called value tagging, which is the brain actually tags those things in
order of importance. And it does that in two lists. So it does it in a logical list, and it does
it in an emotional list. And that's where the magnetic desire is important. That's where you say,
no brain, I don't want it in that logical order. I want it in this order. This is what is really
important to me. This is what makes me feel alive. This is what makes me like understand that I
have a purpose for my life. And it's not just put food on the table, stay in your job, stay in
your relationship. It's so much more than that. So a classic example is I really want to find a
partner and settle down and get pregnant. Yes. How could you go through the steps of manifestation
to help you achieve that? I would explain the process of manifestation that's underpinned by
neuroplasticity, which is a four step process. Okay. The practical steps are raise your awareness,
focus your attention, do deliberate practice, and hold yourself accountable. And it starts with
raised awareness. I always say that's 50% of the battle because sometimes we don't really know
why we're not doing the things we know we should be doing, or why we're potentially with self-sabotaging
post-behaviors. But instead of taking the supplements that would set my body up for good fertility,
I'm going out partying because that's the way I think I'll meet a new partner. So the awareness
piece comes very much from journaling or not so much speaking with friends sometimes because
if they're on, you know, in the same place or everyone has an agenda for, you know, your single
friends might want you to say single, that kind of thing. But maybe talking to a therapist or a coach,
or doing some proper soul searching and trying to understand why you're not doing the things
that you could be doing, why some of the things that, you know, you're doing really easily, why are
they so easy, how do they fit into your lifestyle so well? And really what it is that you actually
want and a wonderful exercise for that is to place your hands on your forehead and ask yourself
logically, is this what I really want and why? And then write that down. And then take five deep breaths
and put your hands on your heart and ask yourself emotionally, why do I really want this?
And then write down the answers. Another five deep breaths and then hands on your belly,
intuitively, do I really want this? And again, write the answers down. And, you know, if they're all
aligned, happy days, if they're not, we might have a little bit of rethinking to do. When I've done
this with clients, one of the things that's come up is I really, really want a baby, but actually,
I don't really need a partner to get there. So, you know, that could change the, I need to meet
someone and be in a loving relationship and have a baby, could just be actually what I always really
wanted as a child. I'm getting to a certain age where waiting to have a partner be part of that
might mean that I don't end up with what I really want. Got it. So, you know, that's the most
important step. Okay, so let's say you've gone through step one and your mind, your heart,
and your kind of gut, your soul, your intuition is all aligned. Yes, I want this.
The second step is focused attention. So, that is at least a month of just noticing what you're
doing, what you're not doing in regards to moving in that direction. What are you noticing?
You know, depending on what your goal is, it might be yourself, it might be your interaction
with others, it might be feedback from others, but it's kind of a data collection period because what
we won't work very well in manifestation underpinned by neuroplasticity is just jumping into doing
without being first. Okay. So, you know, raising that awareness might have brought up things that
you've never consciously known in the past. So, you can't suddenly then say, okay, I'm like on all
the dating apps, you need to look, you know, sit back and see what is it, are there patterns of
behavior that I'm doing that are leading to a bad result? Is there something that's holding me back
from taking the first step that I really need to take? So, taking, you know, and longer than a month
if you need to get to the point where you feel like I have enough data about myself that when I act
now, I'll be able to give myself really good feedback. So, the third part is deliberate practice,
and that is doing the things that you know you need to do to bring the goal into your life.
So, whether that's taking certain supplements, whether that's going to sleep earlier than you usually
do, whether it's being more socially active than you used to be, and then practicing it, and that's
an experimental phase, you might still make mistakes in that phase, but course correcting as you go on.
Because at this third stage, this is where people could give up. Yes. And so, the fourth part isn't
really a stage. It's something like a theme or an umbrella overall of this, which is accountability.
So, how are you going to hold yourself accountable that you will actually see this through?
Now, the easiest way to do that is with an external party like a coach or a therapist,
but ways to do that yourself are by recording it in your journal and reading back over your journal,
and you know, continually reinforcing why I did this, why I didn't do it, what happened when it
went wrong. I use an app called Habit Share because what I learned for myself, and this won't be for
everyone, but it's quite a good one for a lot of people, is that it's easier to build up microhabits
than to start the year or, you know, your birthday or whatever it is with one big this year,
I'm going to meet the person that I'm going to get married to. So, I set out 12 microhabits at the
beginning of the year, and I pick three to focus on for the first quarter of the year.
Okay, and I track them on this app until they become like so habitual that I don't need them on
the app anymore, and then I move to the next three. When I've done that instead of setting big goals
at the start of the year, I've come to the end of the year and found that I have 10 habits that I'm
no longer even conscious of that I'm doing all the time that are leading me towards that bigger
goal or those bigger goals that I really want. Why are there only 10 if you start with 12?
Well, they don't all stick, you know, I find that kind of along the way, I just didn't actually make one
or two of them into habit, it's still a bit of a struggle, and I either decide that I'm going to drop it,
or I'll carry on into next year. How would you recommend you kind of like make microhabits,
or where would you start, because I know we're going to flood it with questions about this?
So, I'm going to talk really directly to you like I would as if you were my client.
Great. Which is that the habit that you're working on is not the other person and the
relationship, it's yourself. So, if the goal is a partnership with someone else, the habits are
all around your self-worth, your deservingness, what you have to offer in a relationship,
what boundaries you will have about somebody treating you in a certain way,
and I'm sure a lot more, but those are the first ones, you know, that come to mind.
So, for example, a lot of people cast a list of what they want in a partner,
and there's two things around that. One is, make a list of what you have to offer in a relationship,
compare it to the list of what you want in a partner, and where all the gaps are,
make those your microhabits.
Okay, we got to stop right here and highlight, because we've all been in that situation,
where we have a friend, and we keep seeing this person that we love, dating people that we do
not believe are up to their level. And you do make the list of what you want in somebody else.
I've never made a list of what I have to offer.
No, neither did I, till someone told me about that.
And it doesn't even occur to me that I would make a list about what I have to offer.
How does just making the list of what you have to offer change the way you view yourself?
So, there's two things. One is, it might highlight gaps between what you think, you know,
what you want, but if you're not there, why would that person want you?
So, if you've got self work to do, let's start with that, you know, that's why I said,
I will speak to you really directly like I would to a client, which is that we need to start here,
if you want to get there.
The other one is that the focus can be so outward and external that you actually are, you know,
not always aware of how much you have to offer. And that's why when, unfortunately, in this day and
age, the sort of behaviors that I'm hearing about on the dating apps, you could succumb to those.
But if you have a very strong idea of what you have to offer, you're more likely to say no to
bad behavior, right? Yes, it's true. I just think about this for my own life, that in periods of
my life where I was in distress or disassociated or in peak toxic mel mode in the past, college and
law school come to mind, I had no clue what I had to offer, which is why I kept finding myself
engaged in toxic behavior patterns and with people that I was perpetuating them with. And so it
makes a lot of sense that if you're not even aware of what your value is, how could you possibly
attract something that's of a higher value? Or equal value. Or equal value. You know, one of the
things you speak about mel is the fact that we love our friends and family and children and pets
more than we show that same care to ourselves. And so, you know, if I have it that you have with
your partner is writing them a little post-it note of 10 things I love about you. Well, obviously if
you're in partnership and they're doing that, that's great. But if you're single, write down 10
things that you love about yourself or say to a friend, I'm going to send you a list of 10 things
I love about you. Could you please send me a list so I can see how I'm viewed by another person
that I know cares for me? So obviously there are affirmations, but you can also bring your tribe
into, you know, saying, don't forget this is what you have to offer. This is how lucky someone's
going to be to get you. And I don't think we do that enough either. I'm just starting to think
about this because it's kind of sad that we don't do this. And how common is it that you're working
with somebody in your practice and you ask them to make the list of 10 things and they can't do it?
I feel like we all have some kind of like angel inside us. And if you start, you'll be surprised
that things will come out and that is such a good feeling. And they, you know, they can be
really tiny things and they can be physical attributes or they can be like your kindness and
your creativity, but they can also be like your vulnerability or, you know, the fact that
you maybe like didn't used to be good at asking for help, but that's something that you've learned
to do. There's so many things it can be. So yeah, I would love to think that people would go and do it.
And I'd love to think that people would be pleasantly surprised. And if not then reach out to your
tribe because I'm sure you know you'll get in and day to do it with things that people could say about you.
So whether you're going to use manifesting to look for a job or look for a committed partnership
or to, I guess I shouldn't even say look for whether you're going to use manifest
saying to land a job or to land funding or to fall in love and be in a committed partnership
or to achieve a health goal. Step one is the self-awareness that comes from you doing the work to
get very clear about what you want. And you gave us that beautiful meditation of going from your
head to your heart to your gut and asking yourself if you really want this. And you say we should
saturate ourselves in the self-awareness of it, right? By journaling and talking to a therapist
or a coach or a friend that you trust about it. And then the second one was noticing yourself.
Are you acting consistently? What is happening? What's appearing around you? The third one is take
actions that are consistent with somebody who is landing their dream job or who is attracting
a committed relationship or becoming a parent. And then the fourth is patience.
Is that, did I get it? The fourth is accountability. Accountability. That's right. I don't want that one.
That's why I forgot it. I wanted to just have it like magic. So accountability meaning what?
Accountability meaning that you don't give up, that you are still doing the consistent
behaviors that you need to to bring the thing that you want into your life. And that either you
find a way of doing that yourself with technology or your journaling or an external party,
you know that they'll be asking you in a month's time. Did you go on the number of dates that you
said you were or did you send your resume out to as many places as you said you were? And
you know, in my work I always say if not why not? If you didn't, there's a learning opportunity
there. But if you did, great. What else can we do in the next month kind of thing?
You know, it's so interesting that you say that because I personally have benefited profoundly
from having a coach. In fact, I spoke to the coach that I used for my business just yesterday.
And I love having the accountability and the structure that coaching provides because I
personally find it challenging to hold myself accountable at times even though I know how.
So Dr Tara, I love this topic so much. I could just keep on going on and on and on. But I want
to take a quick pause here a word from our sponsors. We have so much more to cover. Don't you dare
go anywhere because when we come back we're digging deeper into manifestation. And of course,
you're going to learn the mistake that you're making. It has to do with vision boards and using glue.
All of that and so much more coming up when we return. Stay with us.
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Welcome back I'm Mel Robbins I'm thrilled that you're here today we're learning all about the
science of manifestation and intuition and how to wire your brain to thrive and be more successful
with neuroscientist doctor Tara Swart Bieber so what are the three ways that this changes your
brain or you can change your brain. So the three mechanisms for neuroplasticity are myelination
synaptic connection and neurogenesis now myelination people who do sort of like repeated weight
training will be quite familiar with that it's myelene is a fatty substance that coats some
neural pathways making them fast conducting pathways and there's a reason that we have fast
conducting pathways and slow conducting pathways so for instance if there was a fire on the table
here between us and you put your hand into the fire your reflex to physically snatch your hand
out of the fire is a fast pathway for obvious reasons so you don't burn but your pain pathways
are slow pathways because if you became so incapacitated by the pain of the fire that you
couldn't move you wouldn't survive and that works for many different types of pathways as well
but to make a pathway more efficient we want it to be myelinated so if we're working on a
manifestation obviously we want the pathways for the behavior that will lead us to that goal
to be more efficient so just basically repetitive practice leads to more myelination of pathways
okay so that's relatively easy to do the the middle one in terms of difficulty is
synaptic connection so that's where neurons that we already have in our brain but that aren't
necessarily connected to each other at the end of every neuron there's a bulb called a sign-ups
and neurons communicate with each other because chemicals flow in the gap between those bulbs
and form new pathways so making new synaptic connections is a step up in terms of difficulty
my favorite analogy for this is learning a language so when we talk about manifestation or other
you know psychological behaviors it feels very intangible but the process is exactly the same
as learning a language so you go from not being able to speak this language at all to picking up
the basics to becoming semi-fluent to potentially becoming you know completely fluent in a language
and everything that we have spoken about so far it's exactly the same process in the brain so
the myelination is when you start listening and you pick up you know the alphabet or a basic you know
very basic vocabulary like my name is and then the synaptic connection is when you can say some
sentences that's maybe enough for you to travel to that country on vacation and you know at least make
an effort yep and then the hardest one in the adult brain is neurogenesis and that's because
genesis means growth so this is growth of baby nerve cells into fully formed nerve cells that
then have to make synaptic connection with other nerve cells and potentially those pathways get
myelinated so you can see how it's a building up process yeah and you had said magnetic energy
magnetic design magnetic desire is one of the fastest ways to change the brain or it's a required
way talked to me about how that stimulates one of these processes happening yeah okay let me put
it like this if you and I both wanted to learn Spanish yes and you wanted to learn it because you
were planning a vacation to Mexico mm-hmm but I wanted to learn it because I had a Spanish boyfriend
and who do you think's likely to learn it more or better you yeah magnetic desire a real you know
deep reason for wanting to be able to speak that language what I love about this example is that
I now understand why manifestation works good so magnetic desire which you are helping us tap into
by asking ourselves by putting our hands on our head and our heart and our gut what do I really want
you're tapping into the deep seated magnetic desire behind any change that you want and with that
you are fueling the change in your brain to help you both see more opportunities around you
mm-hmm and also to help you stay motivated to do the actions yeah so it's like training for your brain
to be doing the work to make something happen in the future and to help you do it all of that
and I would just add even when if you feel like giving up even when it feels like it's not going to
happen that's the difference between someone that will manifest and someone that will continue
take it this far but never actually manifest is there a trick that you teach people that are
very negative or resigned or have a you know difficult background where they just have a very
hard time believing things are going to work out is there something that added that you would suggest
to somebody who's like well that's never going to work for me I've tried that you know that your
resignation stands in your way of the patience yeah you know I actually always struggled with that
because I felt like it was such a privilege and a luxury to be manifesting in your life
the first time I was challenged on that I genuinely from my heart said to this person
there must be one or two really tiny tweaks that you could make that could just make your life
a little bit better in your children's life a little bit better and you know we work together to
find that and it was when I had my friend Chanel Haynes on season one of my podcast she played
Tina Turner in London's West End and that's a incredible manifestation story right there but I
asked her the same question and she said manifestation isn't a luxury it's an essential and you know she
came from parts of New Orleans that people would be scared to go to and she built herself up through
manifestation to having the career that she had and being the oldest person that ever played Tina
Turner in London so I think finding success stories like that there's another piece of science
that says if you are trying to achieve something that you've never achieved before
sorry if you're trying to achieve something then the first step is if you've done something
similar before remind yourself of that right if you've never done it before find an example of a
person that you resonate with who's achieved the thing that you're trying to achieve so you know
anything from playing Tina Turner in the West End all the way down to where you were saying somebody
who's got a lot of adversity who's had difficulty in their life breaking out of that like there are
examples of that in the world of course and interestingly because you've already mentioned
this the third part of that is changing your negative self-talk how do you do that when that is
part of the wiring in your brain you cannot undo wiring that's already in the brain before we
understood about neuroplasticity say that once your brain was in adulthood and certain pathways
were set up as they were like things about low self-esteem or you know things never working out for
you that that it was impossible to change it because like it's impossible to change your height
once you've stopped growing right but we know that's not true in the brain anymore so we know that
there's an opportunity for rewiring but it's not through undoing wiring that's already in the brain
it's through overwriting it which means repeating a new thought or behavior so many times with such
emotional intensity that it becomes a more energy efficient pathway for your brain than the one
that you've had until now how do you do that so one of the ways of doing it is through positive
affirmations okay it can't just be a random one that you make up okay so the way that I help
people to find their affirmation is if you have a recurring negative thought it's not your thought
that is wired into your neural pathways it's the belief that underlies that thought can you give
us an example that's never going to happen for me that's a classic one things like that don't
happen to people like me so and the answer to this will be different for different people it could
be different for you and I and you know anyone who's listening but you need to either through therapy
or you know by sitting down really meditating on it say what is the evidence that things like
this do not happen to people like me and keep asking yourself that question until you come up with
the answer and if the answer is because I'm a woman or because I come from a low associate
economic background or because I'm a person of color or because it's never happened to anyone
in my family before let's say going to college no one in my family's ever been to college before
so what are the chances that I'm going to go um so once you've understood that it's because it's
never happened to anyone in my family then what you need to do is is create a mantra or an affirmation
that says I could be the first that's just one that came into my mind but into my heart actually
I really felt it there but you know it'll be very different for different people that's why I can't
give the answer to you because it has to be your answer when you said could I deeply felt that
because for me it allowed the possibility that it might not but there was something about the
possibility of I could be the first two that opens the door to then wanting to try trying yeah
yeah wanting to try and then trying and then if you keep saying something that has that magnetic
desire mm-hmm that's how you start to read what did you call it reprogram re re re via or just
you know overwrite overwrite yeah I love this affirmation I could be the first because it
makes me believe that it's possible because it's core of course it's possible of course it's
possible and I'll just share quickly like I delayed starting this podcast for so long because I
just felt like there were already so many out there if I had had this affirmation but I could be
the first or I could be successful even though there's already all these podcasts if I had had
that I probably would have started this sooner so what do you do once you create this affirmation
for yourself mm-hmm and let's just run with this one I could be and then fill in the blank what's
the last one for you that tell me really like came off in my mind that you could have had which was
I could create a unique niche mm-hmm because even though there was so many out there I think your
affirmation would have been I could create something that's not out there yet for a woman you're just
such an icon in this space so anyway regardless of what it is I love that because I also do think my
husband right now is finishing a master's and working on his first book and what he battles every
day is this has already been written this has already been written and so many of you listening
have something that you want to do and you're like but there's already a bakery yeah but there's
so many real estate agents but but but there's YouTube there's this that if you start to take this one
I could do something unique I could fill a gap I could do something different I you know like I
love this so how do what do we do once we have something that feels like oh yeah that's it I could be
say remember we based this on an underlying belief that you know to do a sort of lack of
deservingness every time you have the thought that that belief underlies so I shouldn't bother
applying for that job or that's not going to happen for me or that's already been done every time
you have a thought like that you replace it with your affirmation and you just say it to yourself
you can say it in your head you can say out loud you can write it out and have it on your bathroom
mirror the the one time I remember it got like quite I was glad I'd been practicing it was someone
openly verbally challenged me and I actually burst into tears but then I said I think I can
wow that makes a lot of sense and I want that for everybody like I want I want you listening to
us to believe that you could be the first whatever or that you could do whatever and so I think
it is really important that you tap into and find the right sentence that kind of has that door
open for you when you say it so for season two of my podcast reinvent yourself with Dr Tara
I've actually focused on the new science of ancient wisdom so what's interesting to me about
this one is that Buddhists have known forever replace every negative thought with a positive thought
that is part of Buddhism now fast forward tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years
neuroscience says you can override to negative thought or believe for the positive affirmation I mean
hello as long as you have magnetic desire attached to it yeah yeah and I think that's the piece
that is really important here that there's this charge in the feeling around it that is really
important for you to do the work to figure out for yourself you just have this way of explaining
very dense things and a really inspiring and accessible way and I just love that about you Dr Tara
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Expedia made to travel welcome back I'm so glad that you're still here with us I'm Mel Robbins we're
learning all about the science of intuition with the amazing neuroscientist and senior lecture at
MIT doctor Taurus work Bieber so as a PhD MD what's the first thing you do when you wake up
so I literally do live my life and in the way of everything that we've been discussing so I'm
just going to tell you the truth as soon as I am aware that I'm awake I snuggle my face against
myself pillowcase and I say I love myself pillowcase and then I say and I love my side sleeping pillow
and I love my wall mattress topper and I love my I've created a bit of a haven in my bedroom
I I love that so I'm like I'm right there with you so I'm so grateful for myself dove
I'm grateful for my mattress I'm grateful for my bedding you know usually that's the minimum I
might do the temperature in the room or how quiet it is do you say it out loud or do you say it to
say it in my mind okay then I just do some deep breathing you know in kind of every direction of
my chest like it's a barrel and just have a feel for if there's any areas of tension
then to actually get out of bed I start thinking about how much I'm going to save on my cup of tea
and then I go downstairs and I take my probiotic and then I because I have to wait 10 minutes
until I have my cup of tea I do my oil pulling and then I make my cup of English breakfast tea
or matcha like a complete ritual and sit and really save for it and enjoy it and then I pick up
my phone and look at my messages how does this help you and how does this help your brain
so I think the thing about this gratitude practice that's to do with the tangible things that
around me is that it stops what usually happens to people is that you start thinking what do I have
to do today what time is it you know what kind of what we're going to wear today and because I
obviously I don't keep my phone in my bedroom I can't reach for that and start like getting bombarded
by the outside world before I've had a chance to to set myself up how I want to there's a lot of
scientific evidence for the benefits on your mental health and your health and your longevity
of gratitude so basically I'm not letting my my brain kick in I'm just doing I'm going straight
to the gratitude so I can't even think about anything else and of course then that makes me feel
good already what are other key habits that you have as a neuroscientist throughout the day
that continue to help your brain to thrive like this I'm going to be really honest with you and say
I'd prefer to start by going to the end of the day because those are the real key anchors for me and
and I just want to keep it really real and say that there are days where I don't do anything
else consciously in the rest of the day and I just like live like you know just do my day um but I
will come back to there are some things I will come back to them but I would say second and
importance is the fact that I have my vision board next to my bed so it's the last thing I look
at at night let's talk about the vision board because you called it an action board yeah does a
vision board work I've been doing them 15 years and I've manifested a lot of things through my
vision board like what what have you manifested through a vision board doctor Tara um so I started
when I quit my job as a medical doctor and I started my coaching practice so I literally had
no money no clients um got to the point where I wouldn't be able to pay my rent in my bills so
at that stage I did include an actual amount of money that I needed to earn and so for the first
three years of running my business I doubled that figure um each year and then after that I just
put symbols of abundance because I didn't like need it to be a specific amount I've manifested a
lot of travel but sometimes spooky so I saw a picture of a tanned girl snorkeling and I love snorkeling
so I put her on my vision board just to have like a vacation that was that kind of vacation
and um at this point I was single and I used to go on like Christmas vacation or the holidays with
my best friend who lived in Australia and we would often choose where to go because I would see
how many air miles I had and say oh I can get a flight to this place so so the year that we decided
we would meet in Rio to to January I was because that was the only flight that I could get with my
points and I suddenly had this inkling that I hadn't been aware of and I went and looked at my
vision board and in tiny writing under the snorkeling girl it said Rio to January.
I have so many more examples of things like that as well um what what I also love about this
is that you take it a step further and you don't say what a cool accident you say I manifested that
and how does a vision board which you call an action board?
Program your brain for thriving. So um it is a vision board in the sense that most people
know what a vision board is but the difference is like I said about kind of you know
quantum physics before I wrote it through cognitive science did give an idea that you should
create this vision either in your mind or on a board often it was quite fantastical compared to what
the person's life was actually like and I do believe it's got to be somewhat realistic.
And then sit at home on the couch and wait for it to come true wait for the check to come in the
post wait for you know the dream partner to bang your door down I just don't believe that that's
possible I believe that you have to be out there doing things to move yourself towards those goals
so that the board is simply a reminder to do the selective filtering selective attention and
value tagging to your brain to keep those things at the front of your mind and not let life get in
the way because it's so easy to you know just get busy with kids and work and um forget you know
not every day remember what's what's what's what are the things that you want but if you're seeing the
board every day then it does just help to bring it back to the front of your mind and also some
people can't do visualization so especially for them actually having the visual images like ready to
look at allows you to get into that next step which is visualize it being true so close your eyes
after looking at the board and immerse yourself in the feeling of those things actually being true
like you're in Rio de Janeiro where you're with your loving partner you're doing really well at work
like feel that through your five senses and then give gratitude for the fact for that feeling
of like wow you know with my eyes closed I can feel that I'm holding my partner's hand and
our feature in the sand in Rio and we could afford this vacation because we're both doing really
well at work because what you're really summoning is that magnetic energy that you talked about
what's actually happening in your body and in your mind when you go through this process of creating
a vision board and then visualizing it and allowing the wave of gratitude associated with that
happening to fill your body what happens in your brain so when you visualize something really
strongly and you integrate your senses your brain can hardly tell the difference between that being
true and that being a created feeling by you and because anything new is the biggest threat to the
brain uncertainty and novelty are the biggest threats to the brain the more you visualize and embody
the thing that you want the more likely you are to take healthy risks to get it when it appears
around you in the real world so when you're feeling fear or shame or sadness your blood is circulating
a lot more of the stress hormone cortisol when you're feeling love and trust and gratitude you're
circulating a lot more of the bonding hormone oxytocin and those hormones are kind of on a seasaw
so if you're giving gratitude then you're improving the release of oxytocin and that's relatively
reducing the stress hormone so basically love or gratitude trust those sorts of things can't
coexist with fear and shame and sadness so the more you push your brain into those emotions which
correlate with that hormone the less you're living in that state of fright flight and scarcity
so simply visualizing and feeling that wave of emotion that comes from being grateful
for the visualization of something that hasn't happened yet coming true changes the chemical
balance in your body when you are immersed in that feeling yeah and and think of a couple of
the things that you'd like to happen right now and how good it would feel if they were true you'll
release dopamine the reward chemical so that's very that has a you know really strong impact on your
body then when you move it into and now I'm giving gratitude for that then you're also releasing
oxytocin um so you've got this cocktail of like really feel good hormones what is one mistake
that people make when they are making a vision board I have now learned to leave a lot of space on
my board because I don't believe that my brain is capable of knowing how much I could manifest in
this world so I love to leave a bit of room for magic in the book where I do the chapter on
actually how to make the board I say you know get the board lay the images onto it um really ask
yourself do I want everything that's an image on there and if there's something that you thought
you wanted but it doesn't resonate remove it have another flick through the magazines and if there's
an image that isn't something that you thought you wanted but it really speaks to you try fitting
that in leave it overnight and I specifically said in the windproof child proof that proof place
um and then come back the next day after having slept on it and if you're sure that it's correct
then glue it into place and then I start speaking to people who say to me yeah I've done all that
but I just haven't glued it yet and and so I said oh you know did you do it yesterday
no months ago and I just can't bring myself to glue it down I don't understand why and I had
you know having been an experienced coach now for 15 years I just hadn't the answer to that just
came into my mind through my garden and it was you don't want to glue it down because you don't
really believe that you deserve it and the tears just came you know and it was it was the truth so it
was these are the things that I want but if I glue them down I'm saying that I actually think I
should get them and deep down I don't believe that and that's why I haven't glued them down so
you might be listening now and think oh yeah I've done that too but I don't really know why so
hopefully you'll help what is the act of gluing signal to your brain in terms about what you want
and would you do that gratitude wash as you're doing it is a way to tap into magnetic energy
because that's probably very thick old wiring I actually said that to somebody recently where I was
like I don't even want to tell you that because I feel like I'm like a scared to say I want that
yeah yeah yeah I feel like if you're gluing it down you really mean it right and so if there's
hesitation that could be hard I have never thought of this before but your idea is brilliant if you
do it whilst giving gratitude it will probably make it feel much easier it's a bit more like I'll
just be so grateful if this comes true and I'm you know I'm happy to partially put it out there
and partially make the effort to do it when I had my first one you know when I was really broke
um it was in I was living in a studio apartment and it was in the bathroom which meant that anyone
that came to my studio would see it and it had a specific amount of money on it and it's very
un-british to talk about money and it ran much money was on it 35,000 pounds so really not very much
um and so I thought okay this is a bit embarrassing but then I thought well anyone that I actually
invite into my you know apartment who who then uses my bathroom has got to be a close friend so
so that just has to be okay and I got so much positive feedback from people saying oh yeah I
looked at your vision board and you know um I can help you with that thing that I saw and it's it was
so sweet I can hear everybody now moving their vision boards from their bedside table to the bathroom
okay we're gonna put this right in the bathroom um what are some of the other habits that you
have every day that keep you resilient that keep your brain wired for thriving okay so I would say
my next one which is sort of like a ritual too but also very good for your stress levels
is that I bathe in magnesium flakes huh why is that good for stress because when you're stressed your
body leaches itself of magnesium so magnesium helps you deal with stress but it also gets used up
in stress and the best way to take magnesium is through your skin rather than through a capsule
or a tablet really and so I find the easiest way you know with English weather is to bathe
there are also gels and sprays and lotions that you can use but I like the ritual of bathing
um the best way to check if you need more magnesium is if you ever get that twitchy eyelid
yes I've had that yeah well some people get tiny twitches in their fingers or their toes as well
but the eyelid is quite a good sign that you probably need to top up with magnesium because
it's a sign that you stressed well the twitching is an actual sign of magnesium deficiency but the
reason you would be deficient is probably stress wow nobody's ever told me that before
no and it happens quite a lot let's try try the baby you can do a foot bath if you don't like a bar
oh I I take a bath every now okay yes I love a bath but I've never done the magnesium flakes
I am doing it so you take a bath with magnesium with something else that you do um so so by this time
it's getting close to the time that I would eat because I do time restricted eating so I only
eat between 12 noon and 8 p.m. um so you know I would obviously deal with any work admin or home
admin that I have to but then I would I would cook while we're on the topic of food what are the
four foods that you eat for better brain health yeah so the first thing I would say is that I
make all of my dietary choices based on brain health um and if you think about it people choose
what they might eat based on you know it's delicious or I'm trying to lose weight or I'm trying
to build muscle but I feel quite strongly that if you make your choices based on brain health then
it's actually good for your skin your hair your gut the rest of your body so um on that I
would say the dark skinned foods I've already mentioned hydrating foods because you actually
keep in more hydration from food than you do from drinking water so you know your leafy greens
and your salads kind of thing um and maybe like fruits like melon and then the good fats this is
probably the largest part of my dietary intake so oily fish eggs avocado nuts seeds and the
fourth category is fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, kife and kombucha what I love is that
at the very beginning of a conversation you talked about the fact that our brain really was wired
for survival and mating and that you are teaching us strategies based on cognitive science based
on neuroscience based on all of this research about how to program your mind for thriving for
longevity for happiness and every one of these examples whether you're talking about the ways
in which you can use this magnetic energy and these deliberate practices to wire your mind for
thriving and attracting and spotting what you want or whether you're now talking about the
deliberate things you say to yourself and the deliberate practices and actions that you are
creating in the morning you are showing us exactly what you're doing to make your brain
function in a way that helps you thrive I would love to talk to you about intuition I mean you
teach a course at MIT called the Science of Intuition what do we need to know about intuition?
So it's so interesting because I've been teaching at MIT Sloan for 10 years now and 10 years ago
people would stand up in the class and say okay this is really interesting but I'm obviously not
going to make an important decision like fire or hire based on intuition and what I did see was
that the older people would say well actually that's exactly how I would make that decision
and I've seen that change over time which is so nice which is now that more people get it and it's
just because I've just explained the simple simple science so there's a process in the brain called
Hebbian learning it's named after the neuroscientist Donald Hebb and it's basically neurons that
fire together wire together and so the things that we need what we call our working memory to live
every day are kind of like held at the top of our mind the things that have become
like habits and behavior patterns they've been pushed deeper into the sort of the limbic system
of the brain which is the size of your face and it's in the center surrounded by the cortex but also
apart from formal learning you pick up life lessons you picked them up throughout your whole life
right wisdom but you can't remember everything that you've experienced in your whole life
but that learning has been pushed deeper into your brainstem your spinal cord and your gut neurons
and there is a massive connection between your gut neurons and your limbic system which is where
your intuition and your wisdom you know arises from in the brain and so that's basically how
intuition works so you're tapping into your lifetime of wisdom knowledge that has been
pushed down from your conscious mind all the way through your brain down through the neurons
or connect the brain and the gut into your gut so it's basically like tapping the iCloud
of your body and your history yeah how does somebody learn how to trust their gut
for me journaling was the absolute key to that so journaling and reading back over your entries
so you know every time you make a decision whether you made it by logic or intuition whether
they aligned or not recording that but then also seeing the patterns over the last three months
the last six months so that's how how I honed my intuition but I think people remember this more
when you're stressed when you're bloated when you've got like indigestion symptoms
isn't it true that you find it harder to access your intuition that's how connected the brain
and the gut are wow can you talk about how high levels of stress impact the functioning of your
body and your brain so cortisol is known as the stress hormone and it absolutely correlates with
emotions such as fear anger disgust shame and sadness cortisol isn't all bad you know we need
it to wake up in the morning we need it to have an adaptive stress response to you know a car
driving too fast on the street that we're trying to cross so as long as it stays within that range
that's fine but when something super stressful happens like the saber-tooth tiger you know
that we spoke about earlier the cortisol levels spike and that enables us to run away to warn our
tribe and it should go back to normal levels you know quite quickly because cortisol is carried
in the blood supply around the body and it crosses the blood brain barrier there are receptors in
the brain that monitor the levels of cortisol in a way to sense threat in our environment
when those levels are high most of the time or all the time or higher than the you know higher end
of the threshold the brain immediately thinks I'm about to die what is the biggest threat to my
survival and in some ways because it's from so long ago we're wired in such a you know cave person
way the first threat that the brain will consider is starvation even though that's for most of us
thank goodness not the biggest threat to our survival in fact quite the opposite so to try to
protect us from dying of starvation one of the things that cortisol does is lay down extra fat
in the abdominal fat cells so that if we are unable to hunt or gather for some time we can digest
that fat and stay alive until a food source becomes available wait so are you saying that
stress is causing belly fat yeah it's not just causing fat it's specifically causing belly fat so
you may not have changed your shape and the rest of your body but if you're noticing that your
belt has become tighter that's the sign that you could have chronic cortisol and the other thing
is that it's fat that's particularly stubborn so if you do notice that the belt is tighter and you
think okay I definitely need to move a bit more or eat a bit less and you actually start doing one
or both of those things but the belly fat doesn't change because the cortisol is driving the fat
there regardless of your behavior in the physical world and that's all initiated in the brain because
the brain is picking up on higher levels of cortisol yeah how does high levels of stress impact
the functioning of your brain so I'm going to do brain and body if that's okay yeah so this
think of this cortisol as a corrosive agent that's literally flowing through your entire brain and
body so in the body it starts to erode your immunity so you might notice more colds and flus
more often or ones that last for weeks and weeks I mean I certainly remember during the financial
crisis when I worked with a lot of banks and hedge funds people saying yeah I've had this cold
for four six eight weeks but for everybody has it and I had to say to them do you hear what you're
saying that that it's not normal to have a cold for six weeks and this is cortisol and at the
extreme end of that people were dropping dead of heart attacks on trading floors so you know lowering
your immunity and corroding your body that much can cause everything from colds and flus to heart
attacks and cancers in the brain what happens is what I call low power mode like on your phone
so once those receptors know there's an imminent threat to our survival think of the highest
functions of the brain thinking creatively thinking flexibly solving complex problems overriding
our biases regulating our emotions how are those going to serve us now that we're just just trying
to survive physically we don't need those things don't send any blood supply to those higher functions
bring it right down to get up in the morning go and sit at your desk look like you're doing your job
even if you actually can't really do it this is the reason that presenteism costs businesses
more than double what absenteeism does in that low power mode it'll be better to stay at home
for two days and recover and then come back to work and actually function and you know work with
your team because stress empowers the higher functioning of the brain it just moves the blood
supply away from it because you're not going to give up your precious resources for functions like
that and and just to put that into context for you male the brain is a tiny organ it's you know
it's a tiny percentage of your whole body like maybe two or three percent but it's it uses up 20
to 30 percent of the breakdown products of what you eat wow yeah that's how hard it's working
it's using up 20 percent of what you ate that day when you're asleep it's using up 25 percent of
what you eat when you're working managing leading running your family um you know just thinking like
right now we're probably both using 25 percent but if you're stressed it's using 30 percent
what uh dr. Tara is stress contagion so let's take this back to you a couple of
evolutionary mechanisms okay so when we lived in the cave we lived in tribes and we were either
really quite nomadic or at least the men would go after hunt for a few days and then you know
return to the cave but at the more extreme end of being nomadic if the men went off hunting
and they went so far that they came to another cave of the same tribe they would actually just stay
there and never return to the original cave um so think back to what I mentioned about survival
and reproduction in those days that was it that was the only important you know they were the only
important things so before leaving a cave the alpha male had to make sure that his genes would
survive in that cave in case he never came back and in those days with predators and hypothermia and
you know obviously like miscarriage and stillbirth and stuff like that he really had to impregnate
five women to make sure that at least one of the babies would survive so to be able to make sure
that five women would get pregnant at the same time they had to be fertile at the same time
and that's why we had menstrual synchronization and obviously we don't need that there's an
evolutionary reason for sinking up your menstrual cycle yeah wow so let's just start with how we
synchronize first okay so that is because steroid hormones such as the sex steroid hormones
estrogen and progesterone okay leak out of your skin through your sweat wait what estrogen
leaks out of your skin through your sweat yeah the way that it works is through physical proximity
so obviously in the cave we slept in a huddle so if you live with your daughters or you work in a
you know office was a lot of other women and you're in close proximity with each other then
then because you're you know sweat leaks out around you about this far around your body
then hold on a second for people on YouTube they saw about a foot oh yeah sweat leaks out a foot
from your body well okay try not wearing antiperspirant and smelling how far you can smell
oh I guess that's right because I'm not thinking about the fact that the odor is actually you
emitting something yeah oh does that happen with stress okay so yeah so let's say cycle thinking
I'm sorry I'm so fascinated by this I think we've kind of done that we've said that we recognize
it as a phenomenon I've given you the evolutionary reason yes we've talked about the physiological
mechanism of it so what I want to do now is bring that same physiological mechanism to regardless
of gender cortisol is also a steroid hormone oh and but there's so there's no gender issue here
but there is a hierarchical issue so the silverback gorillas stress levels affect the other gorillas
more than gorillas of the same status and so it happens in business and so it happens in the home
the leader in quote marks of the entity their stress levels will impact other people more than the
other way around or people of equal status so you know the highly stressed boss as an example
the the highly stressed parent interesting yeah well it makes sense because if you think about
it whether it's in the example of the silverback or you take a family system or you take a work
system that if the person in charge of your paycheck is stressed out that that their stress is a
direct threat to your financial survival and that's why it triggers you like that and so that
makes a lot of sense that stress would be contagious and affect everybody around you yeah so if
stress is contagious how do you protect yourself from other people's stuff um well I think the odds
of that is both how do you reduce your own stress if you're the stress person and how do you
protect yourself from other people's stress it's mostly through mindfulness activities so
activities that connect the brain and the body because like I said the the glands and the brain
are talking to the adrenal glands and creating this stress situation so the way to decrease their
activity is through activities like meditation yoga time in nature um journaling gratitude all
of those things that reduce levels of cortisol move your autonomic nervous system which is a
nervous system in your body rather than your brain from sympathetic which is right flight
to parasympathetic which is rest and recover um and you know lower your heart beat lower your
blood pressure so simply lowering your own stress insulates you from other people's stress
yes but with both versions of it whether it's your own or others addressing the root cause is
important because what you don't want to be doing is just continually shielding yourself from
something that's not changing and the reason why this is important if we bring it back to the
brain and your ability to keep your brain in a mode for thriving and helping you attract what you
want is because when stress levels are crazy high it impairs your brain's ability to do the higher
functioning because the blood goes somewhere else yeah so interesting yeah what impact do your
friends have on your brain so have you heard that phrase you're the sum of the five people you spend
most time with yes so we do believe from a neuroscience perspective that you have a tribe that
influences your behaviors so for instance if your you know immediate friend group is overweight
then you're more likely to be overweight and this is not because it's contagious in the sense of
what we've discussed before but because of what becomes socially acceptable so again like if most
of your friends are really into exercise and healthy eating then it's more likely that you're going
to be like that as well but there are some stats on social contagion that for example things like
if someone in your social circle gets divorced you're more likely to get divorced now again it's not
because it's contagious but it's because if your relationship was already struggling but everybody
else in your group was married and it felt shameful to be you know the one to break that then if
someone else does it's almost like you then have a choice of either staying in a relationship that's
not working or deciding that actually it's okay to to end up. There's work in the positive
me. Yeah, absolutely. So because I tend to hear the examples of the negative right that if you are
around smokers you'll smoke if you're on drinkers you drink but it works in the positive ways too.
Yeah. As a neuroscientist MD PhD is absolutely anyone capable of changing? Yes. Any age, any stage,
any mindset and I get a lot of questions from people who are neurodivergent and neuroplasticity
literally is hope for people. And what is the biggest barrier to somebody changing? Not wanting to.
So when people come to you with excuses and time and self-doubt and past stuff and neurodiver,
we'd like every excuse in the book right? For you as a neuroscientist it still comes down to
not wanting to. Well, you know, I'm not sounded very negative. So I'll give you like that. I actually
don't think it did because I believe you're saying something extremely profound and way deeper
than a desire to change at the surface level. Yeah. Because you have very clearly stated Dr.
Tara that from a from a neuroscience standpoint, absolutely any human being can change your brain
structure can change in three different ways that your brain can be rewired to align with the person
that you want to become, the behaviors you want to exhibit, the mindset that you want to have.
It is scientifically proven. It is possible. We have the evidence. There's no debate here.
When you say the word whether or not somebody wants to, can we go about seven layers deeper?
Yeah. Can you explain what you're talking about? And that was very much the answer to
you know, the biggest barrier. So they're obviously other things as well. But it's easy to say
not wanting to, but it's that there's a reason that deep down they believe that they shouldn't
be doing this thing. And the cutest reason I can think of is when I was working with a dad
who was a banker and he had become quite overweight as well. And he wanted to get back to his running
which was like three times a week, half an hour. And he said to me, but you know, Tara,
I got married later in life and we had a child later in life. And I feel terribly guilty about
not spending all my spare time with my child. I work long hours already. And so I said, you know
what? I completely get it. You would have to think that taking one and a half hours a week out of
away from your son is going to make you a better dad. Otherwise, you're never going to do it. And
I'm not even going to try and help you to do that if that's what you believe. And he just suddenly
said, of course, it's going to make me a better dad because it's going to make me live longer.
Because right now in my state of health, I don't know if I'm even going to see him turn 18.
And it was just like that. And I'm not saying I make that kind of change with my clients all the
time. But I just knew there was no point trying anything else. If he thought it was going to make him
a worse dad, he just was not going to do it. But when he had that insight himself, he started
running and kept it up for a long time and lost all that weight. And it was really lovely.
What you're basically talking about is having it tied to your deepest value in life. And that's a
super clear example. What final words do you have for the person listening?
I really want people to realize how amazing their brains are and how much potential they still
have in their brain, regardless of the age they're at or the job they're in. I think for me,
the thing I'm most passionate about is helping people get unstuck. And so a new way that I've
got people to ask themselves the question that gets them unstuck is when was the last time you
were really seen for being who you want to be? And what's the first small step that you can take
to get back to that? Beautiful. Well, Dr. Tara, thank you so much for being here for giving us such
specific actionable strategies that we can use in our life. Starting right now, tonight,
tomorrow, I'm grabbing my glue gun. I'm making another fish and board. It is time. But I just want to
thank you with all of my heart. It was just absolutely fantastic to finally meet you in person and to
learn from you and to be in your spirit and in your presence. And I just love everything we learned
today. So thank you. Like I said to you offline, I admire you so much and I'm so grateful that I got
to be interviewed for you. Oh, well, we're the benefit share of that. And I want to be sure that
you know as you're listening to us. In case nobody else tells you, I wanted to tell you that I love
you. I believe in you and I believe in your ability to take everything that you learn today and get
serious about training and wiring your mind for abundance, for thriving, for success, for happiness.
You now have the strategies, the tools, things you need to eat to do that. So go do it. And I'll talk
you in a few days. Is this thing on? Okay, good. Because instead of bloopers, I'm going to use this
time to tell you about a free two-part training that I just created for you. It's called Make It
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I want to prove it to you by giving you more structured support as a thank you for supporting
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Sign up, share the link with everyone you know and love and I can't wait to welcome you to this
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