Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #58 How to Open Your Mind and Change Your Life with Dr Tara Swart

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

Whether it's a dream job, a successful relationship, losing weight or running a marathon, you have the power to accomplish anything you set your mind to. Yet for most of us, life just passes us by. In this week’s episode, neuroscientist and executive coach, Dr Tara Swart, explains how we can all take back control of our lives by training our brains to create the life we want to live. She explains the science behind ‘the law of attraction’ and talks about how what we think and feel are so intimately connected with what goes on in our bodies. We discuss the power of journaling and how creating a vision board – a collage that represents everything you aspire to – can be a surprising way to focus your intentions and construct a life that’s true to your innermost wishes. Dr Swart also talks about the concept of value tagging – placing a new idea at the front of your mind by thinking about it often. Finally, she gives her top tips for getting the most out of life. This conversation could change your life for the better – I hope it does! Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/58 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let's say you and I want to go on a journey. Would you rather be sitting in the passenger seat and I choose where we go and the route that we take, or would you rather be driving and choosing the destination? It's kind of like that in life. It's very easy to go through the motions every day and let life happen to you. But if you think about it, if we stop and step back, we have a lot more choice in what we tolerate and what happens to us and the choices that we make than we necessarily think. It's easy to just sort of go on autopilot.

Hi, my name is Rangan Chastji, GP, television presenter and author of the best-selling books The Stress Solution and The Four Pillar Plan. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do, but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people, both within as well as outside the health space, to hopefully inspire you, as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel.

I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. Hello and welcome to episode 58 of my Feel Better, Live More podcast. My name is Rangan Chastity and I am your host. Before we get into today's episode, I wonder if I could ask you a really quick favour. At the moment, there is something going on called the British Podcast Awards, and there is something called the Listener's Choice Award, which is basically voted for by the public. If you like my podcast, if you listen each week, if you think it provides you value to help improve the quality of your life, I would be so grateful if you would go and vote for me and this podcast on there. It literally takes under 10 seconds to do. All you have to do is go to britishpodcastawards.com,

type in the name of this podcast, which is Feel Better Live More in the vote section and pop in your name. I really would appreciate any of you who can spare 10 seconds to go and do this. Basically, the more votes this podcast gets, the more reach the podcast will get, which means that the information in each episode can go out and help more people. Now, today's new episode. What do you want out of life that you currently do not have? Is it your dream job, a successful relationship, losing weight, or even running a marathon? Well, in today's episode, you are going to learn that you may well have the power to accomplish anything you set your mind to.

In this week's episode, I talk to medical doctor, neuroscientist, and executive coach, Dr. Tara Swart, who explains how we can all take back control of our lives by training our brains to grab the life-changing opportunities that otherwise pass us by. She explains the science behind the law of attraction and talks about how what we think and feel are so intimately connected with what goes on in our bodies. We discuss the power of journaling and how creating a vision board, which is a collage that represents everything you aspire to, can be a surprising way to focus your intentions and construct a life that's true to your innermost wishes. Tara also talks about the concept of value tagging, placing a new idea at the front of your mind by thinking about it often. Tara's credentials are second to none, and this episode is full of really practical and

actionable tips to help you get the most out of life. This conversation really could change your life for the better. I hope it does. Now before we get started I do need to give a very quick shout out to our sponsors who are essential in order for me to be able to put out weekly episodes like this one. Athletic Greens are a long-term supporter of my podcast. And as you know, I do prefer that people get their nutrition from foods. But I recognize that for some of us, particularly for those of us who live busy, stressful lives, this is not always possible. For me, Athletic Greens is one of the most nutrient-dense whole food supplements that I've come across and contains vitamins, minerals, prebiotics and digestive enzymes.

So if you're looking to take something each morning as an insurance policy to make sure that you are meeting your nutritional needs, I can highly recommend it. podcast. If you go to athleticgreens.com forward slash live more, you will be able to access a special offer where you get a free travel pack box containing 20 servings of Athletic Greens, which is worth around £70 with your first order. You can check it out at athleticgreens.com forward slash live more. Now, on to today's conversation. So Tara, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. This is on my vision board. Oh my God, fantastic. Well, that's something we're going to talk about, no doubt, during the course of this conversation. But look, I've got my copy of The Source here. As you can see, there's lots of, you know, I've sort of folded over loads of pages.

I hope you don't feel I've destroyed your book. But that's a sign of a well-used book. There's lots in this I like. And you've got very unique qualifications. You used to be a medical doctor. Well, I guess you still are technically a medical doctor. You're a neuroscientist. You're an author. But you also teach at a business school in MIT. That is quite a variety of different things you do. Can you tell me how you got to this point in your life? So I went to medical school when I was 18 and I thought I wanted to be a neurologist. So I went off and did a PhD in neuroscience between the preclinical and the clinical. When I came back and went to the clinical school, I found that psychiatry was just much more interesting to me. It was about how people think, how their moods change, how our brains can trick us into

thinking we're hearing voices when they're not there. So I decided to specialize as a psychiatrist. I did that for seven years. And then 10 years ago, I had made a decision over a few years to move across to executive coaching. So I started up my little consultancy, which is based on neuroscience. So it's helping people to use their brain better to get more out of themselves and other people in business. Wow, some journey. I have been, you know, literally absorbed in your book, The Source since, well, I was going to say since it came out, but actually I was very lucky to be sent an advanced copy.

Um, and there's so many things that I like about it. So I talk a lot about health and wellbeing and, you know, we often talk about food and exercise and sleep, uh, and stress, which of course are all very, very important. But what I really like about your approach is that you talk a lot about how important our thoughts are, how important our mind is. And I don't feel that that gets enough airtime. When we talk about health and well-being, why is it that our thoughts are so important? So I actually think that the pillars that you talk about, like sleep, diet, exercise, mindfulness, they're important to improve the quality of our thoughts. Because if you actually think about it, why are you doing those things? You're not just doing it so that

your body is in good shape. You're doing it so that you can think more clearly, you can do your job better, you can have better relationships. And all of that really boils down to how you think. So all the physical factors put your brain in good condition and then it's what you do with it that really counts. Yeah, I guess it works both ways, doesn't it? Because I guess paying attention to these physical factors helps your brain function, helps you think more clearly. But at the same time, I guess if you change your mindset and you work on your thoughts, it can make it easier to actually do a lot of these physical things we're talking about. Absolutely. I mean, one of the chapters in the book is about that brain-body connection.

connection. So I think because psychology was around for a long time before we could scan brains and bodies, it left us with this sort of idea that there's a cut off at the neck and that what you think and feel isn't connected to what goes on in your body and vice versa. But absolutely, if you're cold or hungry or tired, it affects the quality of thinking. And if you're confident or anxious, it affects the nerves and hormones in your body yeah absolutely and i think this whole brain body connection that you do beautifully talk about in the book um is so important and i guess for me it's something that's really been missing in my medical training it's something that i think has been missing for a long time in medicine particularly 20th century medicine the way we've you know the way really, really evolved to do so many great things. But I

think we've lost the idea that really, I guess, people have known for donkey's years. Was that one of your frustrations with medicine? I heard you speaking about that on another one of your podcasts, and it absolutely resonated with me. I was almost relieved to hear you say it, to feel like I'm not the only one. And you'll notice that I sort of started the book by talking about how we evolved and the fact that once we developed this cortex, which is much more, you know, a modern part of the brain that we use for articulated speech and for predicting and planning for the future, the part of the brain that had got us to that point, the intuitive, emotional part of the brain, sort of seemed to be downgraded

by society, you know, like logic and being able to speak suddenly became important and gut feeling and emotions just became less important. Yeah, I totally agree that there is that societal narrative, isn't there? That logic is key and intuition sort of gets marginalized and feelings get marginalized. What I think you've done so well, and obviously you're very well trained, huge scientific backgrounds. huge scientific backgrounds. You have brought some of these ideas that have been there before to life, but you've got some scientific grounding in them now. And one of your, you know, I guess one of your core concepts is how do we create the life that we want? How do we be in charge of what happens to, you know, what happens to our life rather than let life sort of happen to us. Is that something you feel you've always had an inkling towards? Or is this something that has really evolved in your

thinking in the past few years? It's funny you should say that because as I look back now, it feels like a lot of the concepts in the book were always there in the way that I lived my life. But even since writing the book, I've come up with this new analogy, which is, let's say you and I want to go on a journey. Would you rather be sitting in the passenger seat and I choose where we go and the route that we take? Or would you rather be driving and choosing the destination? It's kind of like that in life. It's very easy to go through the motions every day and let life happen to you. But if you think about it, if we stop and step back, we have a lot more choice in what we

tolerate and what happens to us and the choices that we make than we necessarily think. It's easy to just sort of go on autopilot. And I think that's something that really does happen these days, doesn't it? Many people are living life on a treadmill day to day, week to week before, you know, another year's gone by. And I think one of the issues is that people don't have time. They don't feel that they can actually, you know, separate off some time where they reflect internally. They reflect on their own life and their journey. it's just sort of something i know um i've talked about this a little bit before i've certainly written about it that um i mean we're recording this podcast just yesterday was six years um to the day since

my dad passed away and um you know that that was a because i used to care for my dad um for a long period of time that's why i moved back to the Northwest to help my mum and my brother care for dad. And what's really interesting is since my dad died, I suddenly had a lot of time. All that time that I would spend caring and trying to look after the family, I would think, I would reflect. I would reflect on his life. I would reflect on my upbringing. And it really helped me understand, wait a minute, you know, am I living the life that I want to live? And actually, you can literally mirror

my happiness, the things that have gone well in my career, literally since the moment my dad died. And it's a real clash for me. On one hand, I wish my dad was still here. But on the other hand, if dad was still here, I don't think I'd be doing any of the things I'm doing currently, because I would be too busy. I don't know how that sounds to you at all so that sounds to me like you know he he lives on through having given you this gift which is the new life that you've chosen for yourself and I feel exactly the same that you know I wish I'd never got divorced but it was at that exact time that I thought okay something's happened to me that I hadn't factored in. Now, what do I do with my life? And it was the absolute turning point of then choosing my career,

where I lived, what I wanted to do, who I wanted in my life. And, you know, it's ended up with me writing this book. Yeah, well, I guess that's, that's quite empowering for people, isn't it? Instead of looking at something, you know, and maybe if we've got time, we'll explore, you know, how the divorce changed you. But, you know, being, you know, getting divorced for many is, you know, it's clearly can be a very traumatic episode in one's life. It can cause a lot of negative feelings, a lot of frustration, lots of kind of things can happen that can actually, unless they're turned into being a positive, unless that is used as a sign to say, hey, look, what can I learn about this? How can I move on from this? Often people can go in a downward spiral. So there's so much we can talk about. I want to really get into the meat of this book, which is really good. It's called

The Source. What is The Source? Okay,? The Source is your fully integrated brainpower. We've touched on it by saying logic is really key in society and emotions and intuition maybe are less valued. emotions, knowing your body and listening to messages from your body, trusting your gut, which is your intuition, making good decisions, which is your logic, which is super important, staying motivated and resilient to achieve your goals, and then really taking on that ownership of creating your life. So it's six ways of thinking. And it's about doing all of those, not sort of, you know, thinking, well, I'm very logical, so I'll mostly rely on just making good decisions and I'll neglect the fact that I may get burnt out or that I may lose sight of what I really want in life. It's about keeping all six of those sort of fires burning at the same time. It sounds wonderful. Is it achievable for people? is it achievable for people?

I think that if you don't know that those are the key six ways of thinking, then you're unlikely to sort of suddenly find out and create this idea for yourself. But I've laid it out almost like a map. And so now I think people can sit down and think, okay, how much do I listen to my body? How much do I trust my intuition? Do I sometimes, you know, lose it with my emotions? And what could I do about that? And sort of just work through the six.

And I've worked successfully with business people over the last 10 years going through those six ways of thinking. And of course, I've done it myself. And, you know, literally, if I have a sort of an acute problem at hand, I think, OK, what's going on emotionally? What's my body telling me? And I work through the six and now it's become more natural. Yeah, absolutely. Right at the start of the book, there was this section where you outline a series of questions. If you find yourself nodding your head, this book is for you. And I thought it was brilliant. I won't read them all out. But some of these statements are, for example, I feel stuck in an unhappy long term relationship and can't see a way out. That's something very, very common that I see in my practice. I feel desperate to meet someone so that I'm not the last childless person in my group of friends. God, I've got so many people I know who feel like that. in my group of friends. God, I've got so many people I know who feel like that. I agonize over what decisions to make. I've never asked for a pay rise or promotion.

My work bores me, but it pays the bills. You could be describing maybe 80% of the people that walk through my door as a GP. So I think in many ways, what you're saying is if you resonate with those statements, which I think many people will, the book is for them. So if someone has nodded their head to one of those statements, they think, okay, fine, I'm interested. You know, what are the practical steps that they can take? How do they start doing this? Okay, so the book is really practical. In fact, the last four chapters are all totally practical exercises. They involve some meditations and sort of visualizations. But throughout the book, I asked people to start journaling. So you know how you talked about that time to step back and reflect? It can seem like a really big sacrifice to think, okay, I'll take a weekend or a week or a month to reflect on my life.

But if you start journaling for a few minutes each day, I found that looking back over that and reading it was just so insightful. I could see where I was repeating the same patterns. I could see what happened when I was feeling really confident and happy and how different that was to when I was feeling a bit down and uncertain of the future. And that helped me massively. So I think if people read the book, start the journaling, absolutely do a vision board, and we can talk about the science. We're definitely going to talk about the vision board, for sure. With things like that, you know, it was really important for me to make the science around it

really clear so that it's not just another nice thing to do. It's you understand why you're doing it and how it can change your life. Um, and then, as I said, there are four chapters of exercises, which you could complete in four weeks or four months or as long as you like. But I think that by the time people get to the end of having done those, I'll be amazed if you are nodding at any of those statements that, you know, happen at the beginning. Yeah. I mean, that's very powerful and seductive self for people. It really, um, but I would absolutely absolutely agree i think there are some really powerful tools in your approach i just want to touch on journaling um so i'm aware that you know journaling i know what journaling is but some people listening to this may have heard that term but may not really

understand what what is it how do i journal you know, if someone has never done this before and they want to, how might they start? So you literally get a blank sort of diary and you can start by just saying what happened to you today. So, you know, I could literally say I woke up earlier than usual, feeling a bit grumpy, went to, you know, meet Rangan and do this podcast, immediately cheered up. And even just in that little snippet, what you've realized is maybe if I don't get enough sleep that it affects my mood. Maybe if I'm with somebody who I really respect and have fun with, that improves my mood. You've learned something already just by recording that. Over time, you can get down to talking about things like emotions and intuition. You're basically talking to yourself. You're recording it to look at later. So you might say, you know, I had an argument with this person and this is how it left me feeling.

I wish I hadn't said X. If something like this happened again, this is what I'd choose to do in future. So you basically use the journal as a way to sort out your thoughts, to get them out of your head and sort of be able to look at them more objectively and create a narrative that you can look back at and make certain different decisions about your future. I mean, some people who recommend journaling say that they do it, but they never look back on what they've written down. Yet you're saying you do actually go back and look. Is there merit to different approaches there? I'm sure it's very individual and I never intended to go back and look. Is there merit to different approaches there? I'm sure it's very individual. And I never

intended to go back and look. But I do these two trips to America twice a year. And just out of curiosity, I read back over the trip from six months ago when I was there. And I'd been having these little sort of muscular twitches. And to my surprise, I saw that I'd recorded that in my journal six months ago. And so I basically worked out that the travel, the jet lag, the sort of stress of being away meant that I needed to take more of my magnesium supplements. And it was just a real eye opener. And then I thought, well, what would happen if I looked at the more emotional stuff that I've written down? What could I discover? And to me now, I would say that reading back over your

journal is actually more helpful than just writing it. Yeah, wow, incredible. I do journal from time to time, I haven't made it a, like a constant daily practice. But I go through periods of time in my life where for a few days, a few weeks, I will journal and I personally like doing it first thing in the morning as part of my morning routine. And, you know, I wonder if you know about this as a neuroscientist, but I'm not entirely sure. But sometimes I feel, you know, you've been in a deep seat, you've woken up, there's so much going around in your subconscious. And when you just start writing first thing in the morning, I sort of feel that what I'm doing is I'm just helping to process my subconscious mind and get it out onto paper.

So as you say, it's getting out of my head and onto paper. And one of the big problems I see these days is that people are living in their heads. They've got all kinds of anxieties, fears, insecurities rushing around their brain. But the simple act of writing it out in some way, quite literally, takes it from your brain and out you know onto paper well i fully believe that um just like doing aerobic exercise can help you to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol that speaking out loud or writing down these thoughts that are racing round and round in your head instead of suppressing them or just letting them build up you know till it feels like your head's going to explode is a way of reducing stress so actually if you've got anxieties or negative thoughts and you write them down or you have somebody that you trust that you

can talk to it gets it out of your brain body system just exactly like exercising can release stress hormones from your brain body system. Yeah, very, very powerful, isn't it journaling? I want to move to another tool that you have, which you touched on, which is the vision boards. Now, this was amazing for me to see. I've not actually created my own yet. Although when I was rereading it this morning, when I was re-flicking through your book this morning, I thought, I really must do this, actually. I really must make some time maybe this weekend or next weekend and actually do it. There's something intuitively that really resonates with me about it. But you know, what is a vision board and why is it so powerful? Okay, so I'm going to start off by saying that this year mine is actually on my phone on Pinterest, which is not the ideal that I

recommend. But I just couldn't find the images I wanted in magazines. But your ideal vision board is a collage that you make by hand. So it's visual. It's you've been tactile with it whilst you've created it. So you've already created sort of, you know, a bond with it in a way. And I just would get a variety of magazines. So, you know, maybe travel, lifestyle, food and look for images that represent things that I want in my life that year. Sometimes you see an image and it's not something you thought about that you wanted, but you just really love that image. You can pick images like that. I try not to use words or numbers, but if you specifically had a goal of earning a certain amount of money this year, let's say if you run your own business, you could put that number on there.

And it's really important to think about things like if you don't want your life to be too crammed full, that you actually have a board with some space on it that you don't fill it up. So the whole look and feel of it should represent how you want your life to be. And then it's the visual images, they sort of, they track to parts of your brain that resonate deeper down. So if you write out a list of what you want in your life, that won't have the same impact. But if you repeatedly see these images of what you want, then when you're going around your daily life you're more likely to notice opportunities to do or get things that you want in your life i mean this is the nub of of your approach where he isn't set this whole idea of um you know people are familiar with the law of attraction um but you've really got a lot of

science to back that up so what is it is it that by making our brain aware of what we want like actually having some sort of you know acts full of intention where we're actually stating uh whether it's in journaling whether it's in affirmations whether it's on the vision board we're actually visualizing what we want out of life does is it that the brain is what more more aware to seeing those opportunities i mean what happens yeah so journaling and affirmations are still words right so this is adding in another level which is the visual one and the way it works is through two main mechanisms in the brain called selective attention or selective filtering and value tagging so because we're bombarded with so

much information all the time, everything that we see, everything that we hear, everything that we feel, our brain naturally has to filter most of that out. And so there's a natural mechanism for understanding what's important to our survival, to us doing well in life. And anything that's not totally relevant to that will get filtered out. By creating a vision board, you're priming your brain and telling it what's important to you. So it's more likely to notice those things. So, you know, if I said to you today, notice everything that's red, you will notice more London buses and post boxes and, you know, telephone boxes than you do normally. And this is a more sophisticated version of doing that. Also, the value tagging is that what the brain does decide to keep as

important in front of mind, it then tags in order of importance. So importance in terms of things like our personal identity, our work identity, our feeling of belonging in society, and then things that I need to be successful. So again, if you repeatedly look at these images, they're much more front of mind, they're higher up in your value tagging system. And do you remember, did you play Tetris? I did play Tetris. Yeah. So do you remember if you played it till last thing at night when you fell, when you were falling asleep and you shut your eyes, you could see the little blocks falling in front of your eyes. So that's a phenomenon that's now called the tetris

effect so if you keep your vision board by your bed then in those states of waking and falling asleep the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states your brain is more impressionable so if you see that image last thing at night you close your eyes you go to sleep it is going to make a stronger impression on your subconscious and then the next day day, you know, like you said, this morning, you read the book and you decided to go to the gym. This weekend, you're thinking of doing the vision board. You're much more likely to actually act on that if there's a trigger that reminds you to do it at the time. Yeah. And for people who haven't heard that, there's a couple things I want to touch on. Tara mentioned that I went to the gym this morning. And just before we started recording, I was telling Tara this,

literally what happened this morning. So I've, I was at an event in London yesterday. I stayed in a hotel last night here. And I was, I do tend to get up at five o'clock anyway. So I was up at five, but I was feeling quite tired, you know, out of my home, out of my usual routine, you know, where I normally meditate. And I, you know, I did what I know I arguably shouldn't do. I went onto my computer because I thought, oh, I'm interviewing Tara in a couple of hours. I need to make sure, you know, have a flick through the book again, get some ideas for the conversation. And as I was looking you up online, there's quite a few videos you've made, which are really good, actually. I'm going to link to all of those

online resources in the show notes page, which going to be drchastity.com the source so you can see all those videos i'm talking about but one of them uh was i think three tips on how to make your brain function better i think it was something like that it was about drinking water it's about how you gave a stat about if you do how much aerobic exercise in the morning i don't know if you remember you some sort of aerobic exercise in the morning. I don't know if you remember, some sort of aerobic exercise in the morning, how it improves your brain function a certain percent. Yeah, it's 30 minutes improves your productivity for the rest of that day by 15%.

Yeah, now look, I'm all about health and wellbeing. I've written two books on health and wellbeing. And I thought, you know what? I'm not going to do that now. So I actually shut the computer, put my gym stuff on. I went downstairs to the hotel gym for half an hour. And I was down to watching that video from you because even though I know it, I needed that reminder. So I think that is quite powerful that we all might know what we need to do because

clearly a lot of society knows what we should be doing, but we don't do it. So we do need these triggers. The other thing that really fascinates me, and I read about the Tetris effect in your book, and you've talked about all the science, which is really, really fascinating. It's that period just before we go to bed. Yes, you can do it with a vision board. But if we look at what a lot of people in society are doing, they're on their phones in the evening, they're scrolling through the news, let's say. At the moment, we've got all this, you know, I don't know when the podcast is going to come out. But, you know, there's lots going on about Brexit and all kinds of stuff, you know, quite toxic, emotive viewpoints online. If we're looking at that, just before we go to bed,

as opposed to these beautiful images of how we want our life to be, that's going to have quite a different impact on our subconscious, isn't it? Absolutely. And that's, you know, one of the things about being conscious and not being on autopilot is basically controlling what you expose your brain to. Because the more you expose it to bad news, the more you're likely to live life through fear. We know, for example, that people who repeatedly looked at images of the Twin Towers going down, know, for example, that people who repeatedly looked at images of the Twin Towers going down, who had no personal connection to New York, could get PTSD. I mean, it's incredible that just exposing yourself repeatedly to bad news, especially with visual imagery, can actually traumatize you in a way that you can't easily get over. So I'm very, very careful

about what I look at, what I read. My social media feeds are carefully controlled to be as positive as possible. You're absolutely right that if you don't think about it and you look at bad news just before you go to sleep, then think about young children. You've got young children. Even if they read a book that's not that scary, but maybe has some monsters in it, then they can have nightmares, they can feel frightened. So, yeah, everything that we expose our brain to has an impact and we need to be much more mindful of that, especially because the gearing of the brain, it's two to two and a half times more likely to focus on negatives and positives so we need to be feeding our brain more positive things to keep ourselves confident um and you know moving forward positively yeah i think i think what you're saying is so profound because it's it's the missing piece for me in health and well-being it's yes the physical stuff's important. Working out more is important,

moving more, sleeping more. Of course, these things are more important, but what we are exposing our vision, you know, our visual field to what we're exposing our brains to is something that I don't think gets spoken about enough. And I think it's super, super important. So, um, a few weeks ago on the podcast, I spoke to Johan Hari. Um, yeah. And if people haven't heard that, I highly encourage you. I think it's probably one of the most impactful conversations I've had so far on the podcast. And he talked about this study, I believe, in the 1970s, where they exposed kids to adverts. So basically, in a nutshell, my recollection of the story is that one group of kids got to see an advert with the equivalent of what Dora the Explorer is today back then, right? And the other group did not see the advert. And then the kids were asked, would they like to play with a nasty child who has, you know,

the equivalent of Dora the Explorer, or would they like to play with a nice child? And, you know, a huge amount of the kids who've been exposed to the advert were happy to play with a nice child. And, you know, a huge amount of the kids who've been exposed to the advert were happy to play with a nasty child just so they could play with the Dora the Explorer. And it just showed me how incredibly powerful what we're exposing ourselves to. That's a child and adverts. And I'm pretty militant at home in terms of, you know, technology with kids, but also adverts in particular. I really don't like them. And I have to drill it into the kids' grandparents that I don't want them watching telly where they can see adverts. I think adverts, you know, like my daughter last year at Christmas,

no word of a lie, she, we asked her what she wanted and she didn't really know. Right. And I think that's because in many reasons because she doesn't see adverts so she doesn't know what she should be asking for Christmas I mean you know sorry to go on about this but it is so so important you know maybe we should you know I don't have a news app on my phone anymore I barely watch the news and I'm happier when I don't do. I really actually want to make you take back that apology because I think this is a really important thing to talk about. So I hardly watch the news. People say, how do you know what's going on? Well, when something really important happens, people tell me. It's not like I don't know what's going on, but there's a flip side to this I'm

seeing in my clients. And I think that the listeners and viewers will resonate with this because I'm just seeing it so much, which is your social media feeds, they produce this feeling of discontent that you don't have this amazing lifestyle, the things that other people have that you don't look like these people on social media. And it's causing serious mental health issues. I mean, we know that in teenage girls, the more times a day you look at social media, the more likely you are to have an eating disorder or a body dysmorphic disorder.

But I'm seeing now with very well-educated, intelligent, successful adults, this feeling of discontent by looking at social media. And, you know, I sort of think, I remember saying to one of my clients, it doesn't have that effect on me because I work so hard on staying grounded. But I think if you if you're not conscious about working hard on staying grounded, keeping your kids grounded, it would be so easy to think, well, I want that. Why don't I have that?

Why doesn't my life look like that? And you can imagine the chain of negative thoughts that that kicks off yeah one of my um one of my friends is going through a really tough time at the moment and um his mum's um you know comes towards the end of her life and I was I saw him a couple of weeks ago and he said to me he's normally very active on Instagram and Facebook and he said you know what I've actually We were out together and he said, look, I've come off everything. I've taken them all off my phone temporarily. I said, why? He said, because I've realized I'm not in a good emotional state at the moment. And so when

my friends were posting about really cool stuff that they're doing, I started to get really resentful, really jealous. And I didn't like the way it was making me feel. So I thought, you know what? These guys are having fun. I shouldn't be resenting them. So I'm just going to not look at the moments. And I think it affects everyone to a certain degree. So is there, you mentioned something, and I think you talk about this in the book around the sectional vision boards about why images are so powerful.

You know, they bypass something in the brain. Is that right, images? Well, I think we're very visual creatures. So, you know, vision is the primary sense for most people. And we're bombarded with images that we don't necessarily curate. So that's an important part, you know, a segue from what we were just saying. But yeah, visual sort of, you know, tracks more strongly to the subconscious than when you read something. It sort of travels around the brain in

a way that gets picked up by logic, by emotion, by intuition. Whereas this kind of bypasses the logic and just gets straight to the core of us. It resonates with us. So using images to make your life feel more positive is really important. So it bypasses a lot of those systems. It made me think of like sub sublingual b12 you know b12 you need um you know you need good stomach acid you need a well-functioning digestive tract to absorb it whereas you know for people and many people struggle with that these days they can't even if they're taking b12 they can't really absorb it very well so you take sublingual b12 so actually it just bypasses the gut and goes straight into your body and it sounds like the

same thing happens on one level with images. So that's the case. If images are so powerful, is that one of the reasons then why Instagram has been so successful because it is image-based? But also is that one of the reasons why Instagram can be in many ways uniquely toxic? So I love that analogy and I i'm gonna steal that one for myself yeah so i think you're right that image you know whether it's instagram facebook whatever it is the images can be so impactful but in a positive or a negative way and that's what we need to be aware of um so yeah i think the sort of the issues with comparison, with discontentment, with resentment, they are magnified by imagery rather than writing or listening.

So we've covered social media quite a bit on this podcast before. And so for people who are, you know, is there a happy medium? guess I guess the point I'm trying to make is can you still engage in social media and get the positives of it of which there are many without the negatives and if so how do people do that? So I think that you need to be really careful about what you're looking at and so I tend to follow people that I know people who are you know real people who are either imparting knowledge or sharing sort of positive, joyful imagery and not focusing on things that are either really materialistic or, you know, aspirational should be a good word, but I think it's become a bad word in a way, which is, you know, I want things that I can't have.

I sort of focus on wanting things that I can make possible. And that's really the key difference between vision boards, as they've been described before. And what I talk about is I actually call it an action board, because what I say is you can't just make this collage and then sit at home waiting for checks to come in the post. You need to be doing things every day to try to make your dreams come true. And so, you know, spending some time on social media is great. come true. And so, you know, spending some time on social media is great. It's fun. But spending too much time on it could actually be taking you away from doing the things that you can do to make your life the life that you really want, rather than looking at other people's lives. I love it that you call it an action board, because one of the critiques that is often leveled at,

you know, ideas like the law of attraction, certainly from my understanding, is that what you just think about this stuff, and it just happens. And I don't quite think that's what they're saying anyway. But I think that's one of the negative, you know, things that I've heard against it. But you're not really saying that, you're saying create that, but use it as a way to imprint what you want in your brain and then create action. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's quite a big difference and a very important difference. I think you're right. I think that there's been a bit of an unfair, bad reputation of things like the law of attraction

and vision boards with this idea that you just expect it to come true. I don't think that's what it ever was either, but I've made a much more strong case saying that you need to do the things that make it come true. And I think that's what makes your book so unique is that it really has got a lot of these ideas and that are grounded in science, which is, you know, which is great, actually, it's really great. And I think, I think it's likely to, you know, inspire people who may be may have been a bit sceptical of these ideas in the past might might go, oh, that's really interesting. There really is science behind this. Now I'm going to do it, sort of thing.

And not everyone needs science, but some people do. A lot of people have said to me that the science has really compelled them to do the exercises and take action. And I've actually been amazed by the fact that everyone from my stepson's friends, who are in their 20s, to my friends and people in the generation above are reading the book and doing vision boards. And I didn't expect it to have such broad and wide appeal. But some people find the particularly sciencey chapter maybe a little bit hard to get through. You don't have to read that chapter if you don't want to. But the practical

chapters, the chapters about the laws of attraction and vision boards everybody seems to be really enjoying and i think it's got just the right amount of science to make you feel like okay i understand why this works but you know not so much that you think it's a neuroscience book because it's not it's really not it doesn't read that back at all it reads brilliantly and um i actually as i was rereading it this morning want to um i want to do it with my kids actually because i think you may you say collages that's what they do sometimes at weekends for their homework and i think actually wouldn't it be fun if my wife me my kids we all made our own vision board and actually i'm a big fan of i know many parents listen to this podcast

and i think we can maybe explore this whole idea of negativity and how and how our brain is programmed to actually I think you said two two and a half times more likely to focus on the negative which is which is incredible but um I play a gratitude game with my with my family every evening um you know we all go around the table saying what have I done to make someone else happy what has somebody else done to make me happy and And what have I learned today? And, you know, I won't reiterate the story in case people have heard it before, but what I really feel I'm doing, although, yes, it was for my kids, but I'm getting huge benefit from doing the game myself, I must be honest. I really feel that, you know, it's helping to really instill in my kids from a young age how to reflect on the positive that has happened

in their everyday life and i think arguably as as the world is becoming more and more stressy more busy more toxic i actually think those are the skills that are going to be necessary in the future to to be happy and you know and so i well, maybe an extension of that is to maybe once a year, we create a vision board together. And then I don't know, I mean, I mean, what do you think? Have you have you had experience with people and if your clients doing it with their children? Absolutely. And I think I think each person does need to do their own one. I don't recommend doing a family one. Okay. But all of you doing is great. And the thing I love about children is that, so you know how you were saying earlier, we all kind of know what we should be doing, but we don't always do it. I feel like we put more effort into making sure our children are eating right, sleeping right, you know, and even into looking after our pets more than we do ourselves. Children still have that wonderful self love that I think adults tend to lose. wonderful self-love that I think adults tend to lose. So try this experiment with your kids.

Ask them who they love. Kids tend to say, mommy, daddy, the sibling, and myself. We never say, I love myself, do we? Not in the UK, we don't. No. But in the book, it's a lot about self-love and self-care. So I think, you know, doing that vision board, each of you, but as a family, it's kind of saying, I'm on my own journey. There are things that I want. We're in this together. But, you know, I'm focusing on loving myself and creating what I want in my life, as long as that doesn't clash with the family. That's great. That's okay. And then you kind of know what each other's vision boards are, you can help each other to get them. Yeah, no, I love it. I am going to try that. I think this whole idea of self-love, loving yourself is something that I think as Brits, we have struggled with for a period of time. I think maybe I could be wrong. My perception is in America, they're sort of more open about this. I certainly think in the UK, we can't really say that. Although I think it's really, really important. This idea of negativity and fear, you have a very powerful line in the book where I can't remember exactly word for word, but you talk about how many

of us actually use fear as a way of making decisions. And that can be problematic. Can you explain what you mean by that? That's actually a natural default. So you have to make a lot of effort to override that because to help us to survive, fear is actually our strongest emotion. So we're hardwired for that. Yeah. Right. And you can see why, because when we lived in the cave, you had to be afraid of saber-toothed tigers and run away from them. Otherwise you die. You had to feel disgusted by food that

was turning on the turn because otherwise you could become sick and die. So basically these sort of negative emotions like fear, anger, disgust, shame and sadness, they have a much more powerful effect on our brain than positive emotions like love and trust and joy and excitement. than positive emotions like love and trust and joy and excitement. And there's a survival advantage to that. But once you know that, you've raised it in your awareness, you can take steps to say, I choose to make my decisions from abundance,

which is a phrase that I use a lot in the book. So, of course, we don't want bad things to happen to us. We don't want to lose our jobs. We don't want to end our relationships. We don't want to lose friends. We don't want to lose our jobs. We don't want to end our relationships. We don't want to lose friends. We don't want to be in debt. Everybody will be saying, yes, of course, I don't want those things. But instead of making your life decisions based on avoiding those bad things, just choose to make your life decisions based on things like building up a little nest egg in the bank, having your relationship evolve and improve more than it even is at the moment, making new friends. So those things all seem to involve a bit of risk.

And like you said, as Brits, we don't really like to say, I'm going to try to earn more and get a pay rise and put some money away. It's embarrassing. We don't talk about things like that. But you can put that on your vision board. You can promise it to yourself. You don't have to sort of brag about it. You can make a real effort to understand the psyche of your partner more and improve your relationship. You can try to go out and meet new and different people that will broaden your horizons. And actually, meeting new people, having new experiences, traveling if you're able to, and if not, just reading books on topics that are really different to what you normally do. They're all activities that make your brain more open and flexible. And once you learn to

try new things and you get a positive benefit from that, then if something bad happens to you, like you've mentioned a bereavement, I've mentioned a divorce, you will just feel that little bit more able to deal with a change because you've been willingly bringing changes into your life, which seems like a risk at times, but it's actually a really good thing to do. So I guess in many ways, the inspiring take home for me is that, look, we are programmed to look at the negative. So we absolutely, if we want to get the most out of our life, we need a strategy. If we leave it up to the default, if we leave it up to, oh, if I feel like it, I'll do it, it ain't going to happen because we're hardwired to think this way.

And I think many people are starting to realize this. That's why I think so many people in the health and well-being sector are talking about gratitude now, because yes, there's science behind gratitude, but it's great to have so many people talking about it and saying, hey, it's okay to say that I'm grateful for things and have a daily practice. And I sort of feel, and I have written about this before, but I kind of feel that a lot of religions have had for years these sort of practices instilled within them. And often I think that religion's actual role really was to help create some sort of good living rules for society, wherever those societies were. And, you know, as we're getting more secular as a society now, I think we're losing some of those good practice rules. And I think a lot of them really aren't to do with religion. They're just good practices for how to feel well. So if we talk about gratitude, and gratitude is something you talk about,

your own practice of gratitude has evolved somewhat over the years, hasn't it? Yeah, I love the way you put that question, because in the book, I have drawn on lots of ancient practices and then backed them up by science. So you're right. Gratitude is, I'm sure it features in many religions, but famously, research has been done on the practice of gratitude in the Buddhist religion. And so what I found with my own practice was that it started off as, you know, I'm grateful for the things in my life, like my family, my friends, my ability to travel. And over time, it evolved into more intrinsic qualities and resources that I felt that I had. Like, I'm grateful that I'm creative. I'm grateful that I'm resilient. my gratitude list started to become about things like that, it made me feel like if something unexpected or bad happens to me in future, I have the tools within me to deal with that. And that was a breakthrough for me. That was really, really empowering. And it led me to add

into the book that it shouldn't just be about gratitude. I would say that's the minimum, you know, most important one to do. But I've also introduced an idea of accomplishments or achievement lists. So sometimes instead of doing 10 things I'm grateful for, I do 10 things I'm really proud of that I've achieved. Because again, I think being Brits, we don't really acknowledge that and we don't talk about it enough. So, you know, I'll just write down some things that I've done academically or in my career. But again, this evolved into things like, you know, how important it's been for me to become a stepmom and that that's a real achievement. It's, you know, it's an easy thing to say, well,

you know, well, you are one, but actually I've made a real effort at it. My stepson's made a real effort and we built this amazing relationship that I didn't expect. And so I consider that a big achievement, not just the medical degree or the neuroscience PhD. And so that again builds up your image of yourself as a person. I'm someone that learned to play a role that I hadn't expected to play. Yeah, that's a great example because society would probably applaud you for your medical degree, for your neuroscience qualifications, for the fact that you are a teacher at such an esteemed business school, MIT. And, you know, sometimes that societal view of us doesn't really,

it doesn't really match what we're feeling about ourselves. And that sort of mismatch is often at the root and heart of so much discontentment and so I think that's really powerful that how you've actually had to create I mean in some ways it's unfair to say create a story but in many ways you've had to create that narrative in your own head that you know I have I'm a really good stepmom and I've worked really hard at it and I think I think that'll be very helpful for people to think about things like that. Yeah, I think, you know, I was sort of programmed by society to focus on those outward demonstrations of achievement, like going to medical school and, you know, getting certain

jobs and things like that. And it's really taken me through, you know, the process that I've described in the book, to get to the point where I actually feel like it's okay to say that I'm more proud of some of those personal things. I mean, I think it's up to my stepson to say whether I'm a really good stepmom or not. Yes, it is. But also, it's up to you, I guess, in one level to say how your perception is of your role as a stepmom. because ultimately you know you can't really control what your stepson would say about you but you can control you know your view of that I guess and of course you know the efforts that I make to yeah to work on that relationship but yeah I think you know particularly as a woman that it it's actually taken me some courage actually to say that I am proud of those things that are

traditionally seen as you know softer female attributes where I've had to like work so hard to get the sort of you know more masculine logical attributes and that's really what the source is it's about being at peace with and integrating all those different aspects of yourself. Yeah you mentioned as a woman and I'm really interested in your experience because you do a lot of executive coaching, you help a lot of people get more out of their lives. Is there a difference between the way women view some of these ideas and the way men do? So in my executive coaching work, 90% of my clients are male. And because at the level that I'm coaching at the leadership level, that's, that's how it is. So you know,

that says something already. You know, obviously, I am a woman and my closest friends are more women than men. So when I was writing the book, I was definitely feeling, you know, for some of these stories of women that I know that have been through relationship breakups. That was a big part of, you know, what's been written about in the book. And then things like deciding to start up your own business or go for promotion. I think men and women's experiences of these things are different. But any science that I've mentioned is always based on population norm studies. So it's not all men and all women.

I always say if you had a room full of 100 people and you asked them to line up in order of height, it wouldn't be 50 men on the tall side and 50 women on the short side. There'd be some mixture. So everything about gender has to be taken in that sort of way. But I think experiences of emotions, of relationships, of parenting, even, they are different experiences. I think that's the key, isn't it? We, you know, as a rule, and I guess, obviously, there are individual cases which don't follow these sort of rules. But men and women probably, by and large, experience things a little bit differently. Our perception of things might be

a little bit different, certainly for some of us. But as I read through your book, and I think about my own patients, of which there are men and women, I don't see anything in there that would not be applicable to one sex over another. I think it's absolutely applicable to everybody, really. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, if everyone was to read this and apply the tools in your book, they would probably feel that they're getting more out of their life, which is a huge compliment to what's in it. I think there's a lot there that really just doesn't get spoken about in the health and wellbeing sector, which is why I'm so pleased to be able to have this conversation with you. You do talk about something that does get spoken about a lot, which is meditation.

do talk about something that does get spoken about a lot which is meditation but what fascinates me is I've read that you do your meditation for 12 minutes on the tube yeah so tell me about that um so you know we all lead very busy lives as you often say um so I was struggling to to fit in that extra 12 minutes I mean that sounds so pathetic because it's only 12 minutes, but I was sort of like, okay, I could either do it first thing in the morning, which I know you do, which is great, but I wake up in the morning and I just feel like I have to get ready and get out of the house. And to take an extra 12 minutes, which to me would mean 12 minutes less of sleep is just not a deal that I've made with myself. So then I would often go through the day and think, well, I'll do it after work or I'll do it before bed. And you're just too tired, aren't you?

You don't really want to do that. So I started realizing that I was spending time on the tube that was essentially sort of dead time. And I discovered all these great apps like Headspace, Calm, Budify, put my earphones in. If I got a seat, then I would, you know, close my eyes, listen to the voice for 10, 12, 15 minutes, and my meditation was done. I had been practicing yoga for many years before that. So it took me nine or 10 months to be able

to achieve the same without the earphones and the app. That's fascinating. So you started off doing it with an app, which is pretty much accessible to everybody listening to this podcast. Everyone's got a phone pretty much. Everyone can download some of these apps. So I get that. I get in a busy tube with noise and hustle around you, you can sort of close off and meditate. But you've built up to the point where can you still meditate without your earphones and without using an app yeah so like i said it took me nine or ten months and that was somebody who'd been doing yoga for you know 10 years by then so it may not be right for for everyone to do that but

one of the things that you can do in meditation is to focus just on one sound and in the plethora of sounds that are around you. So as long, you know, as long as I get a seat, I did try it once standing up. That was really stupid because when you close your eyes, you lose balance. I sit down, I make sure that my arms and legs aren't crossed. I close my eyes and I focus on breathing and I do a body scan. And then I'll just focus on a positive image, you know, either one that I've just used before that I really like or something that I want for that day. Do you close your eyes?

Yeah, I close my eyes. You close your eyes. You're just sitting there for 10-12 minutes, closing your eyes. And do you use a timer? No, because I know that six tube stops is 12 minutes. Yeah, brilliant. You know, what I love about this, Tara, is that whether it's in your meditation practice, whether it's the way you've evolved your gratitude practice, that you started off doing things which you knew were going to help you. And as you got to know yourself better, as you got to know your life better and your routines better, you evolve them,

you progress them, you've progressed your gratitude practice so it serves you probably in an even better way than your your your initial one did you're now able to meditate you know without using external help which you know obviously that doesn't have to be the goal for people but for me you know i would love to be able to be i you know i would love to be able to meditate more without using an app if i could and sometimes i can and it's something that i'm working towards so i just want people listening to to really understand that actually you just need to get started. You need to hear some of these practices, you need to look at the chapters in your book where there are some really practical tips, and just start doing some of these exercises. And you know what, do them in whatever way you want to initially, but it may evolve. Is that what you've seen in

your coaching practice as well? Absolutely. The experience of it changes things for people. So when I teach at MIT, I do a guided meditation at the end of the day. And I believe that for many people, that's their first experience of meditation, that then they will go and get the app. If I just give you all the science about why meditation is so great and then say, go and get an app, but you've never experienced it, I think there'll be a massive percentage difference in the number of people that would actually action that yeah so it's it's that whole idea that you know we respond as humans don't we to feelings to

experiences not necessarily to that logical right at the start we were talking about this you know we we think logic is king but but maybe it's feelings and intuition and experiences that are king absolutely yeah and i think that's that's that's quite a paradigm shift for many of us i must ask you why 12 minutes so there's this amazing study by amishi jar in new york um she worked with the u.s marines and she showed that marines who did 12 minutes of mindfulness meditation every day had increased resilience on the battlefield compared to Marines that did less than 12 minutes or nothing. So I think 12 minutes is the absolute minimum and basically most of us are quite lazy. Our brains are quite lazy so I do the absolute minimum. I think 15 minutes would probably be better. But you know, I've got that study in my brain. I've expanded on it in

the book and given references. So it is obviously better to do more. But that's the minimum that will have a positive impact on your brain over time. So that's what I do. Fantastic. So I want to start bringing this to a close now I've really enjoyed the conversation we've had today uh really has left me feeling quite inspired to change a few things in my life and I will I will I will let you know and what I'm going to do is do you is it okay for me to do my own action board and send it to you in a text or something absolutely yeah I love that yeah I think that's that's uh I'm saying it on air so it's it's almost a good accountability thing for me to do. So I will aim to do that within the next few weeks.

I'll aim to do that. Okay, that's all right. But I want to finish on two questions, really. The first one is, and this probably leads into the second question, but in your evolution, it sounds like you've been on quite a journey over the last 10, 15 years, and personal life and professional life. What are the things that you think you have changed in your life that have had the most impact on your wellbeing? Great question. I'm going to start with sleep. When I wrote my previous book, the research came out about the glymphatic system that flushes

toxins out of the brain. The same toxins, if they build up, lead to dementing diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. So like you, I was a junior doctor working crazy hours and not sleeping. Now I travel around the world a lot, so I'm often jet lagged. So basically, I try to get eight hours of good quality sleep as often as I can. If I'm restless because of jet lag, then I will take the opportunity to turn myself onto my side, which is the best position for flushing toxins out of the brain. What side is that? Either side is fine, as opposed to front or back. So sleeping on your side helps the lymphatic

system to work more efficiently. So basically the message there is I try to do the right things about sleep and everything else, but I don't get stressed about it if I can't. So that's a really big thing for me. I try to eat right. I try to remember to take my supplements. I journal when I can. I meditate when I can.

But if I don't do it, then I don't get stressed. I would say that is a really big learning for me. So that's the biggest tip, basically. I think that that's a really big tip. I would also say it's better to change 10 things by 1% than try to change one thing by 10%. So work on micro tweaks to your routine, like go to bed half an hour earlier, do a digital detox over one weekend drink a bit more water than you normally do try to increase your steps by one to two thousand per day for a week and see what happens so for small things like that build up because you start to feel better your brain becomes more powerful and then you're able to do you know some of the bigger goals that you may have been saving up man i, I love that. I absolutely love that. That whole idea that, you know, I've never heard it

put like that before. Try and change 10 things by 1% rather than one thing by 10%. I think, you know, we often try and bite off more than we can chew. Very, very common. I've done, I've made that mistake in my own life and trying to make wellbeing changes. And I've realized that it may work for a few weeks. It just doesn't tend to be sustainable. So that's what you have done differently. And I guess this probably would be a similar answer, but you know, it's called Feel Better Live More, this podcast. It's to try and inspire people to get the most out of their lives and inspire people to sort of believe that they can be the architects of their own health. So can you leave my listeners with some, you know, short snappy tips that they can do immediately that's going to improve the

quality of their life? I would say go to bed half an hour earlier from tonight. Start journaling from tomorrow morning. Download a meditation app and just listen to it and think about starting to bring that into your practice. Don't drink caffeine after 12 o'clock. Love it. And longer term, make a vision board. Brilliant. I think those are some great tips. I hope that's inspired people to actually go and hopefully engage in all five, but certainly do some of them. Tara, thank you for your time today.

I know you've been really busy since the books come out it's been a huge success um if people want to contact you on social media is that something that you are you publicly available on social media yes i absolutely love social media um you know like i say i use it as a force for good um i don't get obsessed with it but i you know put lots of written information out on twitter at tara swart and lots of written information out on Twitter at Tara Swart and lots of visual information on Instagram at DrTaraSwart, D-R Tara Swart. Fantastic and guys everything we spoke about today everything that you know the articles and the links to some of the videos that Tara's made I'm going to put all of those online in the show notes page which is

drchastity.com forward slash the source. So you can actually continue your learning experience now that the podcast has come to a conclusion. Tara, thank you for your time today. And I hope we get a chance to do this again in the near future. Thank you so much. Like I said, this is a dream come true. Thank you so much.

Thanks for making time today. That concludes this week's episode of the Feel Better Live More podcast. I really hope you enjoyed the conversation and that you enjoyed Tara's insights and her expertise. I thought her tips were brilliant and I hope that you feel inspired to take a few of them on board immediately. In fact, I would probably recommend that you choose one thing from this podcast that really spoke to you and commit to introducing it into your life. I have actually started my own vision board. I'm not completed it yet, but at least it is underway. As always, please do let Tara and I know what you thought of today's show on social

media. You can see everything that we discussed on the show notes page for this episode, where there are some really great links to some articles that Tara has written online and some videos that she has made, as well as her TED Talk. You can see all of this at drchastity.com forward slash 58, which is just the numbers 58. Just a quick reminder, if you can spare 10 seconds to vote for my podcast in the British Podcast Awards. You can do this by going to britishpodcastawards.com forward slash vote and typing in feel better live more. For those of you who can spare the time I genuinely do appreciate it. Now this podcast is attracting new listeners every single week which is really inspiring and motivating for me. In fact list of numbers have doubled in just the last few months. And many of you who are new to the podcast and my work have asked me on social media

about the books that I have written. So far, I have written two books. The first one is called The Four Pillar Plan and really is my blueprint and philosophy on how to live well in the modern world. It is full of really practical tips and has been an international bestseller all over the world. Importantly, for those of you who live in the US and Canada, the book is available there, but it has a different title. It is called their How to Make Disease Disappear. My most recent book is called The Stress Solution and aims to deal with what the World Health Organization call the health epidemic of the 21st century, stress. It is full of practical and accessible tips to help you live a happier and calmer life. So you can pick up a

copy now if you feel that that might apply to you and if you need some help managing mental health or managing your stress levels or the busyness of your life. You can see all the links to my books on the show notes page again for this podcast, which is drchastity.com forward slash five eight. But if you enjoy my weekly podcasts, one of the best ways that you can support them is by leaving a review. Whichever platform you listen to podcasts on, you can also help me spread the word by taking a screenshot right now and sharing with your friends and family on your social media channels. Or you can do it the good old-fashioned way and simply tell your friends about the show. I really do appreciate your support. A big thank you to Richard Hughes for

editing the podcast and to my friends Ali Ferguson and Liam Saunders for the theme tune. That is it for today. I hope you have a fabulous week. Make sure that you hit press subscribe and I'll be back in one week's time with my latest episode. Remember, you are the architects of your own health, making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.