Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Brain Expert: 2 Signs Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Did you know planning a holiday may give you more dopamine than actually going on one?This is for the girls who want to understand their brains, reduce stress, and create routines that work with their brains, not against them.Anne-Sophie is a leading voice in neuroscience and a global speaker, and in this episode, she shares simple, science-backed ways to look after your brain and slow cognitive decline.Correction at 22:58:Aromatherapy can boost memory by 226%, not 94%, for specific demographics at night.https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2023.1200448/fullWhat you’ll learn:Why a £2 tea beats £100 elixirsTop tips to protect your brainWhy we need to stop glorifying 5 AM wake-ups2 signs your nervous system is offWhy you should know your rug’s colourHow keeping your shoes on can boost productivityThe truth about meditation (it’s not meant to make you relaxed)Resources & links mentioned:Anne-Sophie: @coochiebygucciLinks to subscribe / follow:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/her-discussions-by-dr-faye/id1835829612Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5viLYizHD4Zy6J42iqtPRoCan I ask you a BIG favour? 💙Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.Share with someone who needs this; it might help them live a happier, healthier life.Follow us on social media or join the broadcast channel to send us your questions for our guests. I'll leave the link here: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==🛑 Disclaimers & legal:This podcast is for educational / informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. All opinions are those of the speaker(s).

We used to think that the brain was just as it is, and that's not the case. You can't generalize, and that's the issue with science. One of the big things that I talk about, a lot of people don't love to hear it. And Sophie Flurry is one of the leading voices in neuroscience, featured in Vogue and The Times. We think that science is the ultimate truth. People come to meditation because they are stressed. These are not practices that are just going to make you relaxed. What do you think the role is that phones in the digital landscape,

play in our brain health. In this little box on my phone, there's never-ending supply of dopamine hits. She is on this podcast discussing practical ways to support a dysregulated nervous system, how to manage stress effectively, and even look after your brain health in later life. The concept about the brain I really, really, really wish more people do about.

If not everyone should know about it is... If you haven't already, please could you just take one moment to leave a five-star review if you're listening on Spotify or subscribing if you are watching on YouTube. It is a huge, huge, huge help to the podcast and means that we can keep going, bringing you more and more guests that can help you live a happier, healthier life. Thank you. We have had so many community questions about looking after your brain, resilience, anxiety, burnout, all of that wonderful stuff. And I cannot wait to come on to all of the actionable tips that you can give

the audience. But the first thing I want to talk about is, and I haven't seen you speak much about this online, is I believe you grew up in Switzerland. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that was like for Young and Sophie and how on earth you then ended up being a neuroscientist in London? Yeah, I was wondering what you were going to say because I was like, oh God, what I have I not spoken about online? I feel like it's really not that fascinating. Switzerland is a very calm, quiet, safe place. I grew up there until I was around 14 that I left. So I went to boarding school for a year when I was 14 and then lived on my own by the time that I was 15, 16, 17, finished school and then came to London. And I, yes, I mean, Switzerland was, I can't complain. It's

really beautiful. And everywhere I go, like now it doesn't really, I don't feel like it really compares. London is, yeah, quite different, especially this time of year. I'm from North Wales and I was just home last week and my lungs were extremely grateful to be home. And I'd imagine Switzerland is similar in terms of, well, Switzerland, very clean. Yeah, very clean. Trains on time. I'm a very scientific person. But then there's some, especially with the kind of topics that I talk about, so like meditation and all of that,

there is a side that you can get to, which is like quite spiritual. Yeah. So I, you know, sometimes like dab in and out of those things, but I don't know if you hear people talk about that they get different kinds of energy from some of the different like elements. So people really like thrive when they're by the ocean or in the mountains. I really get that sense with the mountains in Switzerland. As soon as I'm there, like I just, I don't know, it's like this life force, but then also like a very calm, strong energy. And I just, I really miss that. I completely, because I grew. up by the sea and the mountains and I completely get that. It's that sense of calm. It's interesting you say about being a woman of science, but having those elements of woo-woo, because I can completely relate to that. And I think I maybe always felt a little bit guilty

about those elements of woo-woo. I love to keep in my life, the energies, the manifestation. Until I met this professor who I really, really, really, really admire, and she's super critical about women's health information online. she's a really, really, really vocal critic, but she is obsessed with the benefits of drumming for women on women's health. And she openly says there's not much evidence to back that, but from a really, from a really spiritual, you know, sense,

actually that really validated, I don't know, will come on to how you navigate the world of social media and science and those spiritual elements of brain health. But it's just a really interesting, point to come on to you that it took the guilt away for me. It's something that I come back to quite a lot because I try to when I give advice or when people come to me and they they want to know actionable steps, like I keep it very much to what's been scientifically proven and what the data shows. But then on a personal level, of course there are things that, you know, aren't necessarily

scientifically valid or maybe they just haven't been tested rigorously yet. But if they make somebody feel good. Just, you know, why not indulge in that? And also, we think that science is the ultimate truth, and that's not the case. You're still looking at averages. You're still looking at a small group or a subset of people. And then the, like, what you find is based on the median or the average, right? So there are people that fall outside of that spectrum of results. And that doesn't mean that it's not valid for them, but, you know, a scientific paper might prove. that you need to do, for example, two minutes of ice bathing at minus whatever degrees. Some podcasters like the Andrew Hubermans of the world, they love to put everything into

scientific protocols so that you can take what the science says and then you can follow the specific protocol. And then people follow that because this is based on the average. And they don't realize that there will probably be a whole group of people who didn't perform well at all with that same protocol where it would actually give them negative effects or no effects at all whatsoever. And they might physiologically or on a biological level represent that demographic more. So I think you need to take everything with a bit of a grain of salt and remember that,

yeah, just because it's been published in a scientific paper, it doesn't mean it's a good study, it doesn't mean that it'll apply to you. And I think that with everything. And then of course, like placebo is a thing, right? So one of the things that I also talk about a lot is supplementation, especially for things like sleep. And some of the science on that is that people think that magnesium is like the best supplement for sleep. And some of the studies don't actually prove that. But I have a lot of friends who swear by magnesium.

And then they hear me talk on podcasts about what the science actually says about it. And they're like, well, like it really, you know, it really helps me. Like I sleep. Keep taking it then. Like if you can afford to take it, if it really helps you, like take it. who am I to tell you that you can't do something just because the science says that it's, you know, probably not. It's being really, really honest with people, which I don't think that podcasts like Huberman

often do because it's not sexy to be honest and caveat things, you know? Yeah. It's sexier to give an absolute truth than you wants to approach. And actually, as long as you're honest about this does or does not have strong scientific data and honest about the risks, then I think empowering people to make those decisions themselves is so, so, so important. I can already tell this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful chat, and there's so much that I really want to cover. But first, I really want to understand what it was that made you fascinated with the brain and led you,

and especially in this world where we all seem to be so much more stressed, we all seem to be a lot less focused, why you are so passionate about sharing that knowledge with people. Yeah, there are a number of reasons, but I think predominantly it's that I didn't, always take care of my brain in the best way. I definitely struggled with my mental health when I was younger. I very much felt like I am just at the mercy of my brain. Things are just going to keep happening to me. I'm just going to keep, you know, having to like trudge along in life and it'll be one thing after the next, after the next. It's just, you know, you overcome one thing and then it's the next obstacle. And that's kind of how I approached things for a long time. And it wasn't until a lot

later and by then I'd already studied psychology as an undergraduate. I'm well into my master's doing experimental neuroscience. So I have quite a good understanding of the brain at this point. And I still didn't realize that I am actually in charge of how my brain thinks and how I feel and how I emotionally relate to the things that happen to me. We stop learning about the brain at a very early age. Even in school, you don't really learn too much. You'd learn a bit about neurons and different parts of the brain and different structures and different functions, but it's very limited. So for me to go into higher education and have, you know, starting my third degree about the brain, still not understanding that I can actually do something to change how my brain is wired, how, like,

just change the structure, change how I think, how I feel, how I approach life. Like, I just, I just didn't, I don't know, I did, I, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you're never told. None of my professors, none of my supervisors. And so I feel like, you know, with that level of knowledge, still being so blind to that, yeah, I felt like this is something that people should probably be a little bit more aware of. The concept about the brain, I really, really, really wish most people, more people knew about. If not everyone should know about it is neuroplasticity, because I think that that is just, you know, such an incredible, powerful tool that could be used to our advantage, but also used to our detriment that people

just don't understand. And as someone who's not a neuroscientist, whenever I try and explain it, I probably butcher it. So I'm going to ask you to try and explain it and the powers that it can give people. But first, we had so many community questions about how we can regulate stress and anxiety and also how to know if you have irregular levels of stress and anxiety. That's quite a big question any tips that you've got one of the big things that I talk about and a lot of people don't love to hear it is mindfulness and I think that's because mindfulness seems like a bit of this woo-woo spiritual practice or it has religious ties or spiritual ties or whatever but it it's really just a simple thing it's just becoming a bit more mindful of how you feel how your body feels

how it responds to different situations, stressors, triggers. You can't change anything without first being aware that something's happening. The signs of a dysregulated nervous system, which is essentially what all of this is, like stress, burnout. There are very simple physiological things that you can look out for, but most of the time we're too distracted to be aware of them. It could be that your heart rate is up a little bit. It could be that your pupils are dilated or there's just a change in the way that you're breathing,

maybe you're breathing a little bit more into your chest versus your belly. That can be a sign that something's up. We often don't really notice it until it's gotten to a point where there's almost like a physical ailment, like where we're almost sick or it's so disruptive that, you know, our heart rate's fluttering so much that you can't breathe or you have to sit down or you just, you feel a bit dizzy. And these are all things that happen at a much lower level at the beginning of, you know, when you're feeling stressed, the more that you can train yourself to just check in with your body, the more you'll be able to notice it at the lower level and then kind of do something about it so that you're not getting to the point where your life is now disrupted or you can't leave the house because

you're so anxious or because you're so stressed or because you've lost your keys and you're, you know, freaking out about everything. So it's just just moments of checking in how am I breathing, maybe I need to take a little deep breath, where am I in my space, like what's around me, even just becoming aware of your surroundings, just like take a moment to notice the quality of the light in the room today. Just taking a few moments to ground yourself, I think, is it's mindfulness. It doesn't, you know, mindfulness isn't always like this meditation or thing where you need to sit cross-legged in your yoga clothes or whatever. It's just noticing what's happening in your body and then just taking a moment to like reset. literally as soon as you said oh maybe you're breathing a little bit more into your chest i literally

felt myself take a big breath from my you know into my tummy yeah and immediately felt myself calm down like we're we're recording for eight hours here and like it is really today and it's go go go go go go go and it's such a simple thing that's so so cheap like anyone can do it you don't anyone is able to just take that moment it can feel quite alien in this world that is so go, go, go. So someone who has never, who has never practiced mindfulness before and maybe feels like they don't quite understand it, what would you suggest as the first step that they take? I think the easiest thing to tell people is to check in with their senses. So obviously the biggest, the most overwhelming sense that we have is the sense of sight.

It kind of, it governs everything. So just take a moment to look around you, especially if you're in a place that you're, you know, you're always in, you're always working for the same. You don't actually take time to notice anything new around you in your space, in your environment. And I find that often I was doing this, I was on the plane yesterday. And instead of putting on a movie or just like listening to music, I just took a moment to sit down and just look around the plane and notice the quality of the light, the way that the light was reflecting on this, like a blue sticker and that made the blue look really, like really vivid. And then I was. looking at how the lights had been installed in the plane, just like almost like critically

analyzing your space. What I always think about is I want to take in as much visual information and really pay attention to little details so that if I close my eyes and I was asked to draw the scene that I had things that I could remember because I think a lot of the time we just move through life and we're not really paying attention to those things. So if I, you know, if I'm here for the first time now, you ask me to close my eyes and tell you what's in the room. Like it would be, it would kind of be quite difficult, actually. I would just be like, okay, I know that there's two chairs and there's two microphones and there's some plants, but I don't know what color the rug is. I don't know the pattern of the rug because I

haven't registered it. I haven't taken that moment to just pay a little bit of attention. And so mindfulness is really just the act of paying attention. So you can do that, yeah, of course, with your vision. You can do that then with the sounds around you. I think that's also a really nice that nobody does is take a moment, close your eyes. And maybe the listeners can do this just for a second. Close your eyes. Pause the podcast for just half a minute or so and see what you can hear in your surroundings. And you can start from anything, any sounds that you hear really close to you and then slowly start to move out and see, can you actually hear anything in the rooms next door? Can you hear anything from outside the window? And how far can you extend your awareness of the

sounds that are in your space. Because again, we don't, we don't really pay attention to those things. But you might notice that you can hear the humming of your radiator. You might notice that you can hear children playing outside. And it just gives you a sense of knowing where you are and what's happening. When you start doing that regularly, it's really, like, it just also makes you a little bit of a happier person because the things that you're paying attention to are the things that are happening in your immediate environment. As long as you're focused on those things, you're not then thinking about all the things that you still need to do on your to-do list, things that you're anxious about from your future, from your past, right? You're not lost in thoughts in your head.

You're just very present and just trying to become aware of what's going on in your surroundings. That's really, really interesting because I think the only time I think I do that is on the tube when there is no signal. And I, when you say, you know, pick going through everything, because I'm so bored. Yeah. And I'm, you know, those adverts on the tube,

I know all of them, word by word, because I'm so bored. And I've got this, you know, quite a hyperactive mind. And I will literally go through every word on each ad, go through every station on the tube map. And then I saw that they're bringing 5G onto the tube. And my first thought was,

okay, in my initial thought was, that is the only time I cannot go on my phone or my phone is more boring than the world around me. The only time. And now I'm thinking, now I think, God, that'll be so handy because I can work on the tube. But that initial reaction was, I'm really going to miss out on that me time, you know? Yeah, because we don't do it unless we're forced to. Exactly. What do you think the role is that phones and the digital landscape play in our brain health? And how, what tips would you give for people to navigate that and get themselves, you know, have that moment of mindfulness when there's a whole world that exists on their phone that is ready to entertain them and stop you from ever possibly being bored? One of the things that I think about is that on my phone, in this little box on my phone, there's a never-ending supply of dopamine hits and people waiting to entertain me or to teach me something.

You know, I can read an article. I can watch TikToks. I can like see all the trends. Like I, that's all there. That will always be there. And I will never get through all of it. And I think sometimes we like, we used to have a feed that you could get to the end of, right?

On Instagram, you used to like go to the end. You've seen all your friends' pictures and like that's it. And that's just not the case anymore. It will, you will never be done with the internet. You will never, you will never have seen everything that's on the internet. And so I do try to remind myself of that when I, I'm in a place where I could easily just go on my phone and get lost in all the reels and all the content. And I just remind myself, yeah, that's always going to be there. I don't need to use up

all the time that I have now if I'm waiting 20 minutes for my friend to arrive to dinner. I don't need to use those 20 minutes to catch up on everything. I'm never going to be caught up to anything. So I just, yeah, make an effort to just look around me and, you know, I'm. I think part of the problem is that people hate to look like they have nothing to do. Yeah. So you hate to like be sitting around. That's also why I started smoking at an early age. So you have something like, I'm busy.

Like I'm smoking. I'm at the bus stop. Like I'm not waiting for the bus like a loser. Like I'm just smoking my cigarette. Like I'm cool. Yeah. And I think there's something there's something even cooler about just reclaiming the fact that I can happily just exist in the world with nothing to do. just twiddling my thumbs and I'll be perfectly happy. There's always something to look at,

always something to contemplate. And actually, when you create that space in your mind to just look around and see what's around you, wait for your friend and not be caught up in your phone, not be doing emails, not be doing whatever, just using that time to be present, it also allows so much room for new thoughts and feelings and emotions and ideas to come up. Because when you're in your algorithm and you're scrolling like yeah maybe something somebody says might give you an idea for your next real or your next piece of content or something that you'd like to write about or a piece of art that you want to create but your best ideas and your most original ideas will come from within you and you need that time for those to to come up and for you to contemplate them even for you to have the idea

and then develop it and you just you can't do that while you're also scrolling on your phone. No, no. And I remember quite vividly when I was like 15 or 14, I went on a family holiday. And I, for that family holiday, I didn't have the 3G on my phone. Yeah.

Awful. And I was so not used to it at that point. And I remember I got to the end of the family holiday and I realized that my thinking had gone from being surface level thinking where if I came up against something, an obstacle where I didn't, in my thought process, I would just go on my phone because that was the lazy thing to do. I was like, oh, I'll just go on my phone.

Where I didn't have that option. My thinking just became so much more deeper and like complex. And I, like I had that realization when I was 15. Did it stop me going on my phone? No. I'm going to ask you to explain neuroplasticity after this next section, which we have called buy or buy by bye. Basically, I'm going to show you some products.

Okay, I love this. I'm going to show you some products and you can say whether you would buy it or buy-bye. Okay. You wouldn't buy it. First, we have a stress ball. Okay. What, buy or bye-bye?

Let's see. I would say, I would say, yeah, bye. Bye. Because sometimes you do just need to, like, fidget around a little bit. And I would rather somebody fidget around with this and contemplate ideas in their head. Or if they're stressed, yeah, play around with something. have something tactile to focus on versus trying to find a supplement that's going to like boost your memory and your brain health or scroll on your phone, right?

Like I think, yeah, I think anything that you can touch with your hands, this could be a mindful practice, you know? Like, yeah. Even as I have it here, like the first thing I noticed was like the exact color of blue I was trying to figure out is this from a specific like football club. Then I noticed the weight and when you threw it over, I was kind of predictive. I was like, how heavy is it going to be? How squishy is it going to be? And like, those are really nice, boring, mindful thoughts to have. Those are thoughts where I'm not stressing about something.

I'm just contemplating the object in front of me. I think it's a good thing. Bye. Nice. Love that. I'm glad you mentioned supplements because I'm going to add on an extra by or buy by that we don't actually have, but I'm going to add it on until the end. At the end. Next. No. Next. Aroma. Can I? Yeah. A romotherapy.

Do you know what? I would say bye. Nice. I have one as well. I think anything that you can do to change your environment, like if you're, let's say you're stressed, one thing that you can do is like switch off the big lights,

turn on the little lights, make it cozy, change the environment in whatever ways that you can. Again, this is something where you can really rely on your senses so you can put on a scent that you really like that's going to make you feel calm and relax. It's kind of like, there's a reason why spas do all of this stuff, right? And I'm not saying it's going to cure you or if you're burnt out because your job is too demanding and you don't get any time off.

Aromatherapy is not going to fix that. But it can help you create a divide in your day to day and create some mindful moments, some stillness, just a change of scenery. I think with these things, people say like, oh, this study showed that you can boost your memory by 94% by using aromatherapy diffusers at night. It was in a demographic of older individuals who are experiencing memory problems already in cognitive decline. And that's, again, not to extrapolate and say that if you diffuse sense while you sleep, your memory is going to be superhuman. It's just on a certain number of cognitive tests that they were doing. They were better able to memorize it if they had aromatherapy on at night. And then if they smelled that scent again, that could trigger a certain memory so that they could recall the information that they learned faster.

And that's actually quite interesting because the olfactory bulb where you process smell and your brain is very close to the memory centers, which is why a memory can just take you back. Like I always have this if I smell the perfume of my boyfriend when I was 15 years old. Like I'm back in that memory. like it's I mean it's just a thing it's that you smell something and immediately like the the memories of that person or that place or that experience just rush back and and that's because of the proximity to yeah smell and memory centers in your brain so yeah would buy nice I get that with LRille Lviv hairspray for like done shows that I used to do and every time I smell it I'm like whoa that takes me right back but and obviously these studies

you're right, you know, and they don't do that on the human. They don't give you the caveats if this was done on a cognitively. But it's not like, it's not a great sound bite, you know, because the sound bites that you would actually hear then is it depends. And then you would say like, does this boost memory? It depends. Does it do this? Like it really depends. Like it, everything depends. You can't generalize. And that's the issue with science and that's the issue with, you know, people who are giving you protocols. Like, it really depends. And this is why mindfulness is so important because, yes, do the protocol. If you're looking. looking for something to help you, but then also rely on your own knowledge and understanding of

yourself and your awareness of yourself to see if this is actually helping you or if you're just trying to do the most and actually you're not improving anything. So mindfulness is really important. Be if, you know, by all means, like if you want, if you want to sleep better and you've tried everything, you want to take some supplements, try the supplements, but actually take a moment to notice if you have slept better, right? Treating yourself, you know, like your own experiment basically is I think a really really powerful message. Also what I was going to say is that study even though that study was in an older population with some cognitive decline, it could, you know, if you're a student and you want to try study with like your aromatherapy on and you

don't find the noise distracting, then you know, try it out. See how it goes. If you do find it helps then good for you. It's probably not going to do any damage. Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, And it doesn't have to be like, oh, I found this protocol that's going to help me, you know, excel in all of my exams. But if it's helpful for you, for whatever reason, even if it's just that it's helping you get into a relaxed state. And so you're more like receptive to the information that you're learning because you're not like thinking about a hundred million different things. You're able to focus. You're stressed about an exam. You need something to de-stress.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I would buy. And with anything like any gadgets, any devices, I would say like if you have the money, and if you do think that it does help you, then, you know, go for it. Nice. Okay. Next, we have earplugs.

What do you think about earplugs? It depends for what? Give me a scenario. Scenario, maybe studying as a scenario. So for focus. Let's say for focus. So I would say I use earplugs that if I'm sleeping and somebody's snoring. Yeah.

there's like a lot of noise like sure I will use earplugs but it's the same thing with like with meditation people it's easy to meditate when you're in a yoga studio there's calm music the lights are dim there's aromatherapy and there are no auditory distractions there's no noise in your surroundings but in real life you're not always going to have the perfect situation there will be distractions in the form of noise, especially if you live in London, like it's very noisy. You're always going to hear traffic or people walking around. Like, we don't really have the luxury of quiet so much in big cities. And I think there is something really powerful about being able to train your focus so much

that you are able to drown out the distractions and the noise and the sounds. If you're hanging on to your earplugs because it's a bit of a crutch for you, I would say like it's, I mean, it's fine to use and I'm happy for anybody to use them if it feels like it helps you. But also just test yourself a little bit and try to be able to live with the noise and use that as a bit of a meditation where it's really noisy. It's really annoying. Maybe the table next to you is talking really loudly and it's like really getting to you. try to practice non-judgment with that. Try to understand that there are noises.

I can't always control my environment. I have the power, though, to feel how I want to feel and to focus on what I want to focus on. Because if you're always at the mercy of all the distractions and you get annoyed at the littlest thing, you're not always going to have your earplugs with you. You're not always going to be able to, like, change the volume of something.

But then again, there are people with misophonia who are very sensitive to different sounds, and it can, it's something that you can't necessarily approach in the most rational way. Yeah. It's more of a reactive thing in the brain where certain sounds really upset you and can really trigger you. And for people like that, yeah, earplugs are a great solution. I have it sometimes with like people eating and chewing. It really winds me up.

Yeah. I think that's a really, really interesting point and actually reminded me of periods of my life where I found noise really difficult and how actually that links to my own nervous system regulation. So when I was in medical school, I went the whole four years and I could study with my friends chatting next to me and it wouldn't necessarily distract me. Then in my final year,

when my nervous system was all over the shop because I was stressed. And it was the first time I had to put on white noise whilst I was studying. Because I physically, the moment someone said anything around me, that was me gone, focus gone. I couldn't handle it. And I don't know if you agree, but I really think that was related.

When your nervous system is dysregulated, it's like you're, you know, it's, it's that fight or flight mode. It's your body is on, when you're stressed, your body is on high alert. Yeah. You're so much more sensitive to any little trigger. Yeah. And I think actually if you get to a point where you cannot focus without maybe having all sound removed, it's maybe a point where you should, if you agree. It's, everything is a sign. Yeah.

In that sense. I actually don't love the idea. of the noise cancellation because like we rely on our senses for so many different reasons. And if I'm walking through or like I'm cycling and I have my noise cancelling headphones on and I'm listening to music, there are a lot of auditory cues in my environment that I need to be paying attention to where it's quite dangerous actually if you like cancel those out. We are supposed to be alert to certain sounds in our environments to keep us safe and protected. I understand that especially if somebody is like really stressed, they just want to reduce all noise and all stress and all triggers

all the time, but sometimes it is important to still be aware and, you know, try to function in the world that we live in. So earplugs, I would say bye. Okay. By overall, like, good, you know. I think after this section, I'm also going to need to you to give advice to the girlie who is trying to be mindful, trying to meditate and just feel like her mind is going off track. And also we're going to have to come on to some actionable tips about focus as well. Yes. We've only got a couple more items left. Next, anti-stress tea. So this is piece tea. It's got chamomile, vanilla, and warming cinnamon.

Okay, go on. So, tea, I would say bye. Nice. Because I think having a cup of tea can be such a mindful experience. I mean, everything can be a mindful experience. But, yeah, I'd rather people drink this than some, like, elixir that's overpriced and targeted at, like, making you more focused and more mentally agile and whatever. Like, it's just good old tea, right? Like, have a warm cup of tea.

Take a moment to notice, you know, the mug in your hands and like how warm it is and the sense that are emanating from it just, you know, before and like enjoy it while you drink it. And that can be a mindful experience and at a good price. Anything that's like a good price that can give you a bit of a bit of mindfulness in your day I'm all for. Nice. Yeah.

Easy win, basically. Okay. next we've only got two more okay puzzles oh I love this um puzzles uh buy nice I think oh you've been doing these or I do love us to do cute though yeah Tesco puzzles yeah lovely probably very good price keeps you busy especially if you have a little booklet like this and you're not on your phone you can just sit around and like have something to do that engages your brain. And I think, you know, we should, we should never really stop doing puzzles or doing like a bit of something that's like a little bit challenging for the brain. It's very mentally stimulating. It's fun. It keeps

you alert. It keeps your mind sharp. It's not going to, you know, solve memory problems with old age. If genetically that's, you know, what you're prone to or for whatever reasons. But it's, it's a really good way to be in the present moment because if you're trying to figure out a puzzle, again, that's, that's time where your brain is engaged and you're not thinking about the past or worrying about the future. So easy win I would buy. Nice. We're going to have to come on to ways that you can protect your brain for old age a little bit later.

The last buy or buy that I wanted to come on to is you've mentioned brain supplements a couple of times. Would you buy or say bye-bye to Lions May? This is a good one because I feel like there is so much promise with adaptogens, all the different like mushroom blends and all of this stuff. but the science so far is mixed, I should say. Like I wouldn't say that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence where it's like, this is going to fix you. Lions mane is a type of mushroom that people say it helps you with focus and it helps people

with ADHD. I feel like I feel a certain way about claims like this. Okay. But again, this is where I would say like you have to be mindful and understand that not everything because it's like proven by science or not proven by science is like the right way or the wrong way. I've tried Lionsmane to manage my ADHD and it's helped me. So that could be placebo. It could be whatever. I do feel sharper and more alert. Sometimes when I take my lines main, like there was a period of my life where I took it, had my little mushroom coffee. I really liked it.

I haven't taken it for a while now. But yeah, I know I know a lot of people who love it. I know a lot of people who think it doesn't do anything. Again, if it's not costing you an arm and a leg, if you actually feel like it helps you, like, you know, go for it. And I think we've also got to acknowledge that there's different cohorts of people who respond differently to different chemicals. Like, we know there's cohorts of people who have a completely opposite reaction to benzodiazepines. They have the reaction where it makes them, instead of having a sedative response,

it makes them anxious and on edge. Women with ADHD more likely to have PNsopausep, they have. MDD, PMS, there are different compounds that affect people with ADHD differently. There are different compounds that affect. So I think that's important to consider. Yeah, for sure. And then anything, like, you have to also remember that any studies that are done in food supplements, just even diet and nutrition, like, it's notoriously a really difficult area to study

because there are so many confounding factors. If you're just giving people supplements and, like, tracking them over a period of time, First of all, do you actually know that they've taken the supplement? You have to rely on the trust of the participant. Then in an ideal world, and this doesn't really happen, like the people who are making these mushroom blends aren't doing these kind of studies where they're also monitoring everything that that person is eating and making sure that all the participants are following the same exact diet.

The only difference is that they are taking a supplement or not taking a supplement. Then it has to be double blind, And so everybody actually has to take a supplement. Some people get the active ingredient, the lion's main. Other people will be taking a supplement and it could be like a placebo. And then you have to also account for some people are going to be taking a placebo supplement and they're going to report improved metrics or like they feel better. But that's just because they think that they're doing something that's beneficial to them.

Yeah. Then you have to see, you know, are there in all of these people's lives over all of these weeks? Is there any other stress that's happening to them? Maybe people are going through breakups. Maybe they're going through job situations. Maybe some people are exercising. Some people are not exercising. Maybe somebody is somewhere in their cycle and then somebody is, you know,

somebody is somewhere else in their cycle. And there are so many confounding variables that is incredibly difficult to say definitively that X, Y, Z supplement has X, Y, Z effect. Yeah. And I think you touched on something really important when you were speaking about the T. It also relates to how you feel and what price you're paying because some of these brain supplement are just and I really so as a fellow ADHD girly which we'll have to come on to the focus things as people who are you know inherently struggle to focus I enjoy my line I have lines

may match her every so often and whether it is a placebo or whether it actually helps me I enjoy it it's nice I'm not paying yeah like I'm not putting I'm not paying an extortionate amount of money with the promise that this is going to make my brain 10 times better you know yeah yeah And that's the thing is that a lot of the things in the wellness world and especially supplements, they come at a very high price point already. Even higher now because supplements used to be this like something and like now it's part of like wellness and elevated lifestyle. So there is a huge upmark like in the pricing. And it's sold to you as if you're not doing this, then you are not living a healthy, balanced lifestyle. So I feel like a lot of people that what I always think about is single moms who are just trying to, you know, feed their children, you know, put food on the table, get to their jobs, do good work, make sure that the kids are okay.

They don't need to be worried about paying what some supplements, you know, like athletic greens, for example. It's like an extra £100 a month for one person. you don't like and and it's marketed to you as as this is going to fix all of the like all of the things that you're not getting originally from your diet like this is this is going to supplement that it's going to like boost this and you're going to be healthy because you're taking this i don't like the way that it's marketed and i don't like the way that it makes us think that we have to be spending money on these things if you have the extra income you have disposable income you want to do something um you have other areas like everything in your life is taken care of and you have time to think about what supplement should I take? Fine. But don't, you know, if you're if you're down in the dumps and you're hardly getting by with your job and your money is not really stretching, you don't need to think about what else should I be taking in order to be healthy and like how much money do I have to spend on this. It's just not where your mind should be and your focus should be. That's such an incredible point and in the cost of living crisis as well. Like it's not just an anomaly

for people to be really struggling months to month. Like it's a really, really, really, really common issue and I think that you know wellness is not wellness financial wellness is so key to wellness yeah yeah yeah you know if you do not we know the implications that you know your socioeconomic background has on health outcomes if you are spending money and putting yourself out of pocket to spend on wellness products that is not healthy no that is not healthy it's not and speaking to those women who are listening who are just getting by months from month, what are your top low cost, actionable tips that they can take to look after their brain? Yeah. This is, and I love this because like, everything that I see is like, start your day with

drinking this bone broth. And then I look at the biggest bone broth company that's, you know, marketed at our demographic right now. And it's like, it is a higher price point than other bone broth that you could just get from Tesco or whatever, because it's supposed to be clean. And then it's drink your electrolytes. And every single day have this little. sash of like a single waste product that's again more expensive than if you just like sprinkle a bit of table salt into your water if you want electrolyse you can do that don't get me started on electrolysis swires of God it's every single episode I'm electroise but it's just like it's just product like it's it's capitalism right it's consumerism it's like buy this product and

and this one here and you need five different supplements and five different products before it's even nine a.m. right in order for you to be healthy we used to get by on nothing, you know, like why all of a sudden in order to be healthy, do we need a hundred different products and supplements and like powders and and all of that stuff? So I, yeah, I would say, I have so many thoughts about this, but I would say the most effective low cost things that you can do, they're free. You know, they don't, it's not something that you can go and buy at an online health store. It's, you know, just the way that you structure your day, getting good sleep, having time away from your screens where you're in nature and you're walking,

you're moving your body, you're eating a very diet. And I would rather somebody spend more of their money on buying a lot of different, like, plant-based items and a variety of different groceries and make a home-cooked meal, then eating, I don't want to say badly, because I don't want to say like it's good or bad, but eating a certain way and then thinking that they can solve all of their dietary requirements still with greens powders and other supplements, because it's just not cost-effective in that way. And most of the time the supplements are just going to run straight through you, you're going to be in a lot better shape if you actually eat your supplements, I guess. Yeah, no, 100%.

What does your daily routine look like as a neuroscientist? I love this question. I love this question because people think, especially in the world of the Hubermans, that I have a protocol because I know what the science says and I know what's the best way to structure and set up your day. It depends. It really depends.

There are some, and it depends on what season it is or how I feel or where I am in my cycle or what I've been doing. generally I know from being mindful of how I feel that I feel a lot better mentally in my head when I exercise. Yeah. And when I eat regular meals and plant-based diet, that's how I feel the best. So I just make sure that those things that I'm hitting those things. And also knowing myself, knowing my chronotype and when I feel the most alert and when I start to feel tired in the day, I know how I should structure my day in terms of when I should be doing creative tasks or when I should

should be doing more of the mundane things that I need to get done. For those who aren't scientific, do you might explain in what you mean by chronotype? So chronotype is, so it is your internal biological clock and everybody has a slightly different chronotype. So this is what would make somebody a morning person versus an evening person. You can. I was so shocked when I found out that that is genetically, you know, can be genetically predetermined. You can do a genetic test. I wouldn't recommend it because you can just do an online test or if you're mindful, like if you know yourself, you probably know if you're more of a morning person.

Yeah, you just think about it. I mean, there is like a blood test for everything these days. That's another thing that I like get really annoyed about. It's like you don't need to be doing blood tests for everything. So your chronotype, it's genetic. There are some people who are like these middle types. They can be morning people or evening people. I kind of fall into that depending on what routine I'm in. Sometimes I'm like up super early. And then sometimes like my, it's like shifts later on in the day. but also your chronotype can be affected by if you have ADHD, for example. So ADHD people typically have like a bedtime that's around two hours later than the average person, I would say, or they have more creative thoughts in the evening time. I hate that. It's like 10pm and I'm like, I need to script a video.

Yeah, but like that's why it's not fair to have, you know, a societal structure where it's like, there are so many people who think you're morally superior if you wake up or. early and you get all your stuff done and you go to bed at this time and whatever. I think, I think we need to kind of move away from that a little bit. People just need to be acting in alignment with their chronotype. And a lot of a lot of the research now on depression actually shows that people who are living a life that is out of sync with their chronotype. So if they're waking up because of their jobs really early, but their chronotype is more of the late type, that discrepancy can have this, it's almost like a permanent feeling of jet lag in your body because you're not living on the internal biological clock that your body wants to live in. And so that's where some people can

start to get feelings of depression, anxiety, which I think is so fascinating because typically we've always thought that that's just to do with serotonin or there's a chemical imbalance in the brain. But it can also really just be that you are living out of alignment with your biological clock. That's incredible. And I feel like I can relate to that a lot as someone who I've never felt more now that I'm essentially self-employed, completely self-employed, not working in a hospital, completely the only person determining what I am doing with my time. And I've never felt better. Yeah, exactly. Because, and, you know, me and my brother both have ADHD, big genetic component. My mum is mad as a hatter. And like he is working a nine to five Monday to Friday right now. I'm hearing we are oh I'm not going to say my brother's name like I have tries to say to him we're not this is not how we will feel fulfilled but I think it's and I think it's so regardless whether you have ADHD or not just being able to tune in to the way that you work best yeah yeah so my my routine also like completely depends on on that and and I'm able to to shift I just I just know that I the first things to fall by the way. side if I'm not in a good place is like I try to get more work done. And so that means that I'm not going to go to the gym because I'm trying to like buy time. And that's an hour out of my day that I could be finishing work. And then the next thing is like the same with cooking and eating. And and it does happen.

Like I'm aware of these things and I know better than like a lot of my friends how this could affect me and still I'm you know I fall into those those traps a little bit trying to get more work done trying to buy time not going to the gym not taking care of myself not going for for my regular walks not spending time with friends just just trying to get everything done and that's not good my best routine is to actually just stick to the things that I know will support me both in terms of my mental and my physical health but I'm not rigid on when that needs to happen like what time of day and how do you navigate that as someone who maybe like i struggle with procrastination a lot um and i find that sometimes being strict on myself i mean it doesn't actually

really work it's quite hard but how do you navigate having flexibility and being in tune with your body with also needing to get stuff done yeah that's a good question i wish i had the answer the last relationship that I was in, I was with somebody who's very regimental, wakes up at the same time, goes to the gym, eats this, does this, goes to bed at this time, and also had a nine to five. So it was like, we're having lunch here, we're going for a walk then. And for a few years, I mean, it was fantastic for me because I just assimilated to that routine. Yeah. And it was really good in terms of getting work done because like there was only like this is when I have to do my work and this is when I have to go to the gym because we're going to the gym now, we're doing this now

and the rest of the time I'm like, okay, now I can take all the things off of my to-do list. Now living by myself again and being fully in charge of my daily structure and my routine, like it does shift and it does fluctuate and I do notice that there are some days where I just don't have the energy to do a especially the really boring, mundane things that I just want to put aside. For me, what works is, like, I put things into my calendar and I block out time. And of course, I have ADHD, I have time blindness. I don't know how long it takes me to do a thing. Well, this is when you say, like, oh, I just kind of go with the flow. Like, my time blindness would mean that I would go for my walk at 6pm. Like, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. So, so the things that I do, and I have dogs, so I have, it's, sometimes it's a lot easier when you have

responsibility for other things than just yourself. Yeah. So for me, I know I have to wake up and take the dogs out. They need that and I need to feed them. And so I try to habit stack on top of the habits that I need to maintain for the health and safety of my dogs. Yeah. Because it's easier for me to take care of somebody else than it is to take care of myself sometimes because I just don't have the motivation always. So the dogs have really helped me. I wake up. They need to go out. That's my walk. That's great for me as well. And then they get fed. And as they get fed, like, I will try to also have breakfast, you know? Good. Good. There are certain things that I know if I get the gym out of the way first thing in the

morning, then I feel free to go about the rest of my day. If I wait to go to the gym in the evening, then things will just start falling on top of me. So there are certain things, and I think being mindful is, because there's no scientific protocol that's going to work for everyone and anyone, just being mindful about, like, what works for you or what mood you're in. If you've eaten a certain way if you've done this, if you spent time with these people, I think that can give you so much of an indication of how to set yourself up for success. And the thing that I will say also about scheduling things, if you do have timeliness, I schedule things into my calendar in the form of a to-do list and I'll block out like an hour to do some of the mundane things. I will do it and I will

try really hard to just focus on that one task. But then once I've done it, I will update the calendar slot to reflect the amount of time that it's actually taken me to do that thing. And so now I have a bit of an indication of like, oh, if I need to like run through my emails or do this and this, it usually takes me this amount of time. Oh, that's something really, really useful that I will take away because I have no concept of how long tasks actually take. Even like to get ready, I don't know how long it takes me to get ready. Yeah.

Depends. But now I put it in my calendar. I'll just block out some time to get ready. And I'll block out everything that I have to do. because like those little things add up. Yeah. And sometimes I even have just like a bit of time where it's just like dilly dallying, right? That's incredible.

And I'm going to take that away tomorrow. Habit stacking, which is something that's completely changed my life in terms of building positive habits. But first, I do need to get you to explain neuroplasticity because I promised I did. Yes. So we used to think that the brain was just as it is. Like your brain can't change. And there are certain structures in your brain, like your prefrontal cortex, the most recently developed part of the brain, that those structures were related to certain functions. And generally, like, the front of your brain most recently developed part would be executive functioning, like things that we didn't really have to do in the past.

And I always used to get confused by what executive functioning is. I kind of explain that sometimes is like the part of your brain that stops you from doing silly stuff. The part of your brain. Thinking ahead in the future, being able to predict is something going to like, what is that? outcome going to be. It's like if you're starting a ice cream company, it is the ability to, without having to actually physically do it, know that the fried onion flavored ice cream is not going to be a good idea. Yeah. You know, like that. I love that example. I love that example. Thinking strategically, planning ahead, which is the most recently developed part of the brain,

because typically we used to just do what we needed to do and react to a certain situation. Like the typical examples and I need to find new examples because I don't love whenever I hear this, it's like, oh, you're being chased by a lion. Yeah, exactly, the classics. I wonder how many people 2,000 years ago actually had to run away from the lion, you know. People in 2000 is 25 to be using that as every example of the primitive part of our brain. Exactly, exactly. But then, but then of course, like when we settled,

And we're like, yeah, hunting and gathering and like planning food reserves, I guess for the future. Like that's where that kind of starts to come in is like being able to estimate and plan and predict or like rainy seasons coming. Like maybe we should gather X, Y, Z now so that we have enough to like cover us over over this period. So yeah, just like strategic kind of thinking. But we used to think that the brain had all these different areas, one related. to sounds, one related to sides, one related to movement, and that they all functioned independently. Obviously, now we learn that the brain is, we like to say the brain is plastic. Obviously, it's not made out of plastic, just that it's malleable, that you can mold and shape it. I think that's a

really interesting thing for people to just be aware of is that the things that you do day in, day out, it's just the process of learning new things. I mean, if you, I don't know, let's say you want to learn Swedish, do you speak Swedish? No, exactly. So like, so there is no part of your brain that's, that has any representation for the Swedish language, maybe even the Swedish alphabet. But as soon as you start to, to learn Swedish, and you start going to classes and you start to practice it, those neurons that are firing together, they start wiring together. And the more that you practice, the stronger that wiring becomes. I think a really good explanation I've heard before is like meeting up for a friend with a friend for the first time that you've never met. And then you meet up with

them for a second time and actually in most friendships the more you meet up with someone that bond gets like stronger yeah and it's like those connections and the communication is faster and easier and quicker and like you know each other yeah um yeah whereas like the first time you meet up it's like oh like how do we talk about yeah it's like a bit weird a bit awkward but um basically what happens with connections that you then use a lot is a process called myelination which is there's like a fatty layer that starts to form around the neurons, which means that instead of the electrical signal traveling through the neuron to the next one, it now jumps from one to the next. So the communication just happens that much quicker. Yeah, this is the process by which your brain

learns new things and changes. And so you can create now, because you've practiced, you've gone to a lot of Swedish lessons, you've been to Sweden, you've been like speaking the language, writing the language, that now happens fast and before you know it you speak Swedish. And that was an area of your brain or those were connections that previously weren't there. So you've changed your brain. Equally, things that you stop doing will those connections because they're not in use will start dying. And that's just because the brain is, it wants to be really efficient. So anything that's not in use, slowly those connections, yeah, they just start dying down and like the friends you haven't WhatsApped back. The friend that you have in WhatsApp, like the fizzler, right? And also the language that

you learn as a kid that you now haven't spoken in 15 years. You try to speak it again. You're like, oh, it's not there the way that it used to be. The wonderful thing is that this works also for meditation. And one of the big things that I hear is meditation. It just doesn't work. My brain is too distracted. I can't do it. Yeah, because it's a new skill. You've never done it before. But the more that you practice, the easier it will get. And all of a sudden, after a sudden, after a certain amount of time and some of the studies will say that these structural changes in the brain occur after around eight weeks of 20 minutes of meditation every day. And again, that's not to say that that should be your protocol. That's just because the workshops that you do like mindfulness-based

cognitive therapy, which is a program, is a program that takes eight weeks and that's what it kind of requires you to do. And they did studies within this and they did show that, yeah, after the end of that, you've actually changed the shape of your brain. There are now new areas. that have been formed, there's new connections between areas. One of the main thing that you see is better connectivity between the emotional reactive part of the brain and your prefrontal cortex, like the thinking, planning ahead part of your brain. And that's so important because what that means is that something happens that you usually would have an immediate emotional trigger to and you would react in a negative way. You would shout at somebody or do something that you might

later regret now because you've meditated, you have more connections between that reactive part and the part of your brain which is like, oh, should I? Like, this is obviously telling me something. It doesn't feel good. But like maybe the best thing is not to like hit someone. Yeah, yeah. Maybe the best thing is to just think about what is this emotion telling me? How do I like, why do I feel sad?

Okay, because this person has crossed a boundary. This person has upset me. And now I can say to that person, hey, like, that wasn't really cool when you did that. But in a rational way. In a rational way. And so you're improving communication. you're also being able to regulate your cortisol because you're not just at the mercy of everything that happens to you. You're able to just think and reflect and have better relationships with people, understand people better, understand yourself better.

Sometimes things happen and you have an emotional response and it doesn't, it's not because something bad has happened. It's just because you're triggered for whatever reason and now you're like, I'm triggered and like, I don't know. And now it's information. It's telling me something. It's telling me that I don't like being around people who speak this. way. I don't like being in scenarios where I feel on edge. Like you can then, you know, from that, change the way that you live your life, change the people that you surround yourself with, change the way that you communicate with people, also set the standard for how

somebody communicates with you. Everything just gets better. But like, again, that is, that is a change that you need to make in your brain. And that doesn't happen immediately. You touched on one of the most common complaints I hear a lot when people try meditation. And that was me included. that they just get bored, they just get distracted. And also I think when we think about meditation, too often we focus on the immediate outcome. Like with everything in this world, we're focused on what can I get immediately.

And this idea that we meditate and it just makes us calmer. Yes. Like, yeah. Yeah, but that's like the worst. That was like the worst marketing for meditation is that it is something just to make you relaxed and calm. And I think it's the same for yoga. These are not practices that are just going to make you relax.

that could be a side effect, but there are so many other benefits to meditation. And most likely people, I mean, and I know this because I've worked in startups to do with meditation. So like we have the data on this. It's like people come to meditation because they are stressed and they want a way to relax or shut off their brain or they want to sleep better. So that is the entry point. But actually the first time that you meditate, like the first time that you might go to a Swedish lesson, you're not going to learn Swedish. Yeah. You're not going to have you're not going to be able to understand what people.

people are telling you all of a sudden. And the first time that you do a meditation, you might not actually be relaxed because you're, for the first time, you're so aware of just how clouded your brain is, just how distracted you are. And it's going to be frustrating and it's going to be annoying and you're going to want to give up and you're going to have the reaction that everybody has. It's like, this just doesn't work for me. I just can't do it. And like, I hate this and I don't feel relaxed and I feel frustrated and I'm annoyed at myself and everything sucks. I'm so glad you've set up because I think that that is, that was exactly my experience. The first time I meditated. hated, I was like, what the fuck is this?

This is supposed to make me feel calm. I am left alone with my thoughts for the first time. This is horrific. And especially at the point when I started meditating, I was not in a good place emotionally. That's also the thing is that you come to these things when it's too late. You come to, like, you find these techniques and these methods. People go to therapy when they're in the middle of something. People go to meditation when they're like in the middle of a burnout or like a breakdown.

and like, yeah, I'm glad that you found it, but it would have been a lot better for you if you could have developed that skill, formed those new connections in your brain, created those pathways that now if something happens, you can already rely on it versus having to build it at the same time as you're already struggling through something else in your life.

It's like eating an apple the day after you've had a heart attack. Yeah, exactly. The apple would have been great 20 years ago, you know? What is your personal meditation routine? and what would you recommend would be the meditation routine for someone who is new to meditation? Because I think, you know, like a 40 minute complete silence might be a bit, bit much. Bit much, yeah. Definitely a bit much. Again, this is difficult because I love to give like personal advice to people depending on, you know, what I know about them.

But I think the most general thing that should help most people is just relying on your senses. Okay. because that's something that everybody can understand. Yeah, first, like, look around to see, is there something that you can see in your environment? If you're in an environment that you're in a lot of the time, like your house or your bedroom, see if you can find something new or something interesting, then again with the sounds, close your eyes, notice a sound in your environment. And it could be the sound of your breathing, potentially.

It could be the sound of the close, like as you're moving, like the sound that you're, clothes are making, then you're relying on your sense of touch, like even just picking up like the stress ball that you had and just touching it and just paying attention like of the weight of the object or how it feels like what the material feels like. And if you have nothing to hand, just touch your jeans or become aware of the sense of your weight in the chair and all of the parts of your body that are in contact with the chair. And I think touch is a great one as well because it's one of the most omnipresent senses that we drown out the most. Because if you're always aware of everything that's touching you, you get so overwhelmed

and overstimulated. Smell is a great one. That's why I think aromatherapy is great. Having a tea, just paying attention to the smells in your environment when you're cooking, just taking a moment to smell the food, just letting that just bring you a little bit closer to the present moment. And the hardest one is taste. If you're just here now and you're trying to think about like what does my mouth taste like it's kind of difficult because again we're just used to the taste of our mouth.

But if you eat food, just taking a moment to really pay attention to the taste and the texture of the food. And the reason why I think that these kind of practices are so great is because it doesn't ask you to take any time out of your day to meditate. You don't need to sit down and set a timer for 20 minutes. minutes, you're just paying more attention to the things that you are already doing. And I think we're already so overwhelmed with like all of these things that we need to do and exercise and cook and eat and this and that. You don't want to add another thing to somebody's list of things that they need to do or like wake up in the morning and set your time over 20 minutes and do a meditation. Like people are not going to stick to that. So I feel like mindfulness is a great entryway to

meditation. And just for those who aren't aware, I would say the distinction is meditation is more of the pure skill of, yes, sitting down and closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing and seeing it as more of this practice where you're really honing in your focus and noticing distractions and then coming back to paying attention to your breath or whatever your meditation is. And mindfulness is the skill that you develop, I think, alongside meditation. So somebody who meditates a lot, strict meditation, will become more mindful in their everyday life because they'll just be a little bit more present and be able to eliminate distractions because they've already trained their brains to do that. But I think for somebody starting out, just practicing mindfulness is a really

great way to slowly slow down the brain and just spend a little bit more time in the here and now. we've still got to come on to habit stacking some tips to protect your brain for old age but first we've got a section called is it real or real as in like Instagram real where I'm going to show you a short piece of social media content and I just want to hear your thoughts okay because there tends to be a lot of noise on social media and it's nice to be able to get some expert voices to give their opinions you're addicted to cheap dopamine and it's killing your motivation welcome back to anti-brain-wad, the series where I break down psychological and philosophical facts so you can be hot and educated instead of having your brain fried. Dopamine is the chemical in your brain that makes you seek rewards, but here's the thing. It doesn't give you motivation, it gives you cravings. Scrolling, binge watching, checking your notifications, each of these things gives you dopamine hits without actual effort and that's what we call cheap dopamine. And why is that a a problem? Over time your brain will get so used to these instant hits of pleasure with

zero effort that it will stop caring about actual hard stuff. And that's why things like reading, working out or learning something can feel like too much for you and it's hard for you to focus. Because your brain is fried. So maybe today do one thing that gives you a delayed reward. Go for a walk, write something or clean your space. It will feel uncomfortable at first, maybe very slow because you don't get these instant hits of pleasure, but keep doing it to get used to it again. I will see you in the next episode. I love you so much. Bye. Delayed reward is definitely like a core concept in psychology and it's something that you learn about. There are even studies that show that children who are able to delay rewards perform

better in IQ tests later on in life. So one of the famous studies is this like mushroom experiment. Not a marshmallow experiment. You've heard of this. Yes. Yeah. So you have you have marshmallows in the room and like the kids come in. The guy's like, okay, I'm going to leave the room. If you don't eat the marshmallow in the time that I'm gone, I'll give you two by the time that I come back. Yeah. And obviously like at different ages, like kids aren't really able. Like they just want the reward immediately. So then you have, it's really cute when you watch the videos. You have kids who go in and as soon as the adult leaves the room, they eat the marshmallow. But then you have kids who are eight. And then you have kids who are. able to delay the reward and not seek that instant gratification because they know that when the person comes back, when the adult comes back, they'll get double the marshmallows. And so a psychologist in the past, I really love this concept of delayed gratification. And I think it is a really good skill to learn because not everything will come easily to you. And being able to know that you just really have to push and persevere. You might not see the rewards immediately, but that's not a sign to stop and give up.

is a really good life lesson in general. But separately, I think one of the things that I always hear on social media is that these instant dopamine hits, they deplete your dopamine. I find the conversations around dopamine on social media really interesting because a lot of them are not scientifically. No, it's not, right? It's like thought science. Yeah.

And on one hand, I'm like, okay, you're making it more easily digestible. I understand, but it's kind of wrong. Yeah. Because it's not that the dopamine is depleted. It's just that you're used to it. And so like the trigger is just always kind of going off. And it does become harder for you to be to have that trigger by something new. And so this is, it's the whole principle on like from from gambling and things like that.

It's just, yeah, your sensitivity to to the dopamine hit just is a little bit lower, I would say. I think in general, yes, it is a good idea to practice delayed gratification, to not always. is like be looking for the next thing, which is something that mindfulness, of course, like, helps you with. It's just being able to be happy and comfortable in the present moment and not judging something as good or bad. And just letting things be, I think it's, it's, that it's, it's a really good skill because you're just able to regulate your emotion and just make sure that you're not having these like highs and lows throughout the day or that you're seeking for the next thing. You're just a lot more comfortable just being. And that's, that is a sign of a very stable.

regulated person. Yeah. The last thing that I would say, like a misconception that I hear is that people say that the dopamine is like the reward. Yeah. But dopamine is actually released in anticipation of a reward versus when you get the reward itself. So there are studies that show that, um, it was a really cool study that they did where planning a holiday gave people a lot more joy and dopamine than actually going on the holiday. Yeah. So it's you're you planning and, predicting and anticipating a future reward. That's where the dopamine is released. And that's a good thing because it means that you don't have to like do the thing, get the next hit, whatever. Just pay more attention to the excitement that the imminent reward is bringing you. And one thing that

that that you can do if, you know, if you want to have that like fun, eager excitement in your day is to just make a list like some people do this in the morning. You can you can wake up and look out for things that you are looking forward to in your day. So that can give you a bit of a dopamine release that's not this like excessive like constant because the issue is really just having it like constantly. But being a little bit more intentional with it, I think is a good thing. I also think it's what the dopamine is attached to right. Yeah. So it's like when it's attached to looking forward to things in your day. Yeah. It's what makes you happy. Whereas when it's attached to social media where sometimes on social media, there are some messages about the way you look that may not be positive or some

messages, there might be misinformation, there might be, you know, there's things on social media that might be doing damaging other ways that isn't dopamine related, but the dopamine is sort of attached, which keeps you coming back. Yeah. Whereas when like what I kind of, I kind of don't like about the narrative about dopamine on social media is dopamine is this big, bad monster. Yeah. When like dopamine is a good thing. Yeah, yeah, it's our motivation. It gets your motivation. It makes you like it gets you up and gets you motivated and gets you like to do the thing that you need to do. There is a purpose for all of these things.

And I think so often we're just like, oh, this is so bad. I need to do a dopamine detox. No, you don't. No, like you don't need to just be this like passive person in order to be like holier than God. You just need to, you know, manage the things that you're paying attention to. Yeah. And that should be your own life. Yeah.

Looking forward to things in your own life. and getting, yeah. Things that are meaningful to you. Yeah, I love that. The next thing I want to come on to is habit stacking. Yeah. It kind of sort of maybe kind of leads on from dopamine-ish, I guess. What is habit stacking?

How do you implement it? And what is habit stacking and what are maybe how does it relate to that? What happens in the brain when you habit stack? How do you implement habit stacking in your own life? Okay. So habit stacking is like this big concept that a lot of the people who are like trying to help you get better and do more on social media will be like habit stack this habit stack that like it's I wouldn't say that it's something that I rely on like super heavily habit stacking is basically just

if there's a habit of something that you do stacking something on top of that that you have to do doing those two things together so that it's not as hard for you to do the thing that you have to do because it's now linked with the thing that you're already doing it's more of just a question of effort, like mental effort. And I think with people with ADHD, like there are some things that really shouldn't require so much effort, but for some reason, like, they're just tedious and you don't want to do them. And so stacking them on top of something that you already do in your day is a good way to just like get that out the way. But it could be if you get out of bed and for me, the first thing that I do is like I go and I brush my teeth. Yeah. But as I brush my teeth,

I might do something like boil a kettle and like have a tea. The thing that I'm already doing, doing something else that I need to do. So maybe while I'm brushing my teeth, I'll also like scroll through and like check my emails because that's something that sometimes I avoid doing because I'm like a bit avoided in that sense. Like if I'm expecting an email that isn't not really looking forward to. Yeah. I kind of get that out the way because I'm brushing my teeth and I'm already in that moment.

I'm focusing on brushing my teeth. So I don't know if this is a good example, but it takes that emotional, like that negative emotion out of it for me because I'm checking to see if this email has come through, if it's good news or bad news. But I'm also like brushing my teeth and I know that when I brush my teeth,

like I can, those two things are done. Yeah, yeah. I don't now have to like brush my teeth and like set myself up and go to my computer and sit down and pay like full attention. to this thing that's going to stress me out. People do it with, I mean, the most popular thing that I see is like people doing this with supplements and things like that.

They're like, okay, first thing in the morning, drink a glass of water, but then habit stack it with loading your water with electrolytes and taking this supplement. And so it's kind of a way in which to, you know, take all the hundred supplements that I'm telling you to take. but it's not like an extra task because you're doing it while you're drinking your water. So people use it in different ways. I would just say if there's something that you're avoiding that you don't like to do. Yeah.

Try to stick it on to something that you already do. Yeah. And then that can be like your main focus. The two main ones that I can spring to mind when I think... Yeah, you probably have a better example. Like I... The two main ones that come to my mind is like ADHD life. like to sit down every morning at my desk,

the first thing I do is not sit down at my desk because I do not want to sit down at my desk and stop working. The first thing I do is I make myself a hot drink. I have my mindful moment. I feel I take pleasure in making my hot drink. I'm looking forward to my first coffee of the morning. I cannot bloody wait.

My first matcher of the morning, I'm so excited. I make my milk all nice and creamy. I'm so looking forward to that cup of tea, coffee, macho, whatever. And then my muscle memory, because I've stacked it, so many times with the good thing of making my hot drink with sitting down to my desk. Yeah, okay, so because I thought probably like my emails is a bad example because like do people really get anxious to get their emails? Like I do.

Yeah, but I think I think that is the thing. I think it is. Yeah, okay, so that's a good example. Like the pleasure to the pain, I guess, like of getting started with working. The other example that springs to my mind is the tube one. Yeah. Like the being on the tube and I'm bored. So how do I feel that boredom, being mindful. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm something that I struggle to be mindful a lot of the time. And it's paired with that action of being on the tube. And suddenly, you know, that neuroplasticity, those connections get stronger.

Yeah, because so you definitely, you notice the benefits of being mindful. Yeah. Yet you wouldn't necessarily want to take out 20 minutes of your day to sit at home and practice mindfulness. So you're habit stacking that onto like the journey that you're already taking where you already don't have Wi-Fi. Yeah. So now I'm going to use those 20 minutes to be mindful and that's the habit that I know is good for me and like this is a time where I can like I can do that. Yeah. And if this is your day, then you're not using up, you know, you're not adding, like what you said, it's, it's so

much more difficult when you think I've got to add on an extra 20 minutes into my already yeah, already busy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The last thing that I want to speak about is so this is a community question that we got. What are the most damaging long term habits or lifestyle factors that harm the brain and increase the risk of diseases like Alzheimer's. And then my added thing on would be, okay, that's the bad things that we can do. What are the good things that we can do? I feel like we're in England, people aren't going to love this? Oh, no. You're going to say booze, aren't you? Yeah. How did I know? But you know, we had Millie Gooch on. Yes, I love Millie. She's brilliant. And you know what? Like, I actually think the audience is primed to be told, cut down your booze.

Yeah, and I wouldn't say like, oh my God, it's the worst thing ever, but during my master's, I was working with this amazing, fantastic neuropsychopharmacologist, Professor David Nutt, he is incredible. And his work looks at the effect of different substances on the brain. And so I don't know if this is still relevant because that was years ago, but he would always say that if alcohol were to be discovered today, the legal amount that we would be able to have, this is based on how we measure like toxicology of certain substances, would be the accrual. would be the equivalent of half a glass of wine per year. Oh my gosh. That is how detrimental it is to the brain and body. And there used to be a lot of science that's like there are certain things that are in red wine, like from the grape or whatever. I say it wrong.

It's not reservatrol, but that's how I say it. But there are certain things that are actually, it's got a lot of antioxidants and da-da-da-da. And so there was a bit of that kind of messaging back in the day, like boomer generation. The one glass of red wine a day is good for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good for your health. It's good for your heart. And that's all bullshit. Like that's it's not like that's all been debunked. And then there's people who love to say like everything in moderation. But like, okay. Like I think when you know the effects of certain substances like on your brain, I would say like drugs and alcohol. Yeah. It's it's very detrimental to the brain. But then again, it depends. Like there are some people. who are very resistant to certain things. And that's just, that could be genetic. That could be whatever. Like there are people who drink their whole lives and like never develop any neurodegenerative diseases, you know? And I think the issue is to like my nana is my nana has smoked silly amounts of cigarettes her entire life. She has, I went around to my nana's house before I was going around to

her friends for drinks and she said you want a coffee and my nana does an Irish coffee. So me and my boyfriend, My boyfriend's a big, big man. And me and my boyfriend said, oh yeah, we'll have an Irish coffee before we go and meet our friends for drinks. My nana pours this, makes us this Irish coffee. We didn't see how much whiskey she put in it.

Me and my boyfriend, we drink our Irish coffee and we're walking to my friend's house. And I look at my boyfriend, I'm like, are you drunk? And he was like, I'm drunk. And I was like, yeah, I'm drunk as well. From my nana's little Irish coffee, my nana gets through,

my nana is a function of alcoholic. She gets through half a bottle of whiskey every two days. Yeah. She's in her 80s. She lives alone. Yeah. And I think the issue is, is these people who are freaks of nature, to be completely honest. They're the issue.

Yeah, but they are put on a pedestal. It's like, oh, well, they smoked all their life. Yeah. They are fine. They drank all their life. They are fine. I have seen people have limbs amputated because of their smoking. Do not use these people as an example.

And this is where like the wellness, Instagram and TikTok really get you because you will change your mind because of somebody else's sob story. or somebody else's story of success. And they're like, well, I was drinking. Like, well, I know this person who took this like experimental mushroom and like healed and reversed their cancer. Even if you see all of the studies that show like that can't happen. Yeah.

That one story is going to like pull at your heartstrings. And it's going to make you think, especially if you're in a space where you're desperate for a solution, why not just try it? And then you're going to go and buy all the supplements that they, that they're selling on their page with all of their discount codes and they're profiting off of you and you're going to feel like you're doing something good because you're finally taking control of your health and because like the medical system doesn't know what they're doing and they haven't even tried these supplements and that is the loophole that you cannot get yourself in so like one thing that I would say to everybody who

does get a little bit caught up in the world of wellness and like looking for like what ways can I have a healthier brain healthier body a healthier life boost my memory boost my cognitive abilities is if somebody is telling you a story and it is a personal anecdote of somebody that you don't know and it hasn't been scientifically tested and the scientific consensus goes against what this person is saying and they're like science doesn't want you to know this big pharma doesn't want you to know this that is probably a red flag yeah but it's so powerful because we don't connect with facts we connect with emotions yeah yeah human beings like you say five in 10 two in this this percent we don't connect with that you say that this this supplement has changed my life as one person.

Immediately as a human being, we're like, yeah, it could change my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and there's always going to be people who are freaks of nature, and there's always going to be the opposite. My granddad died from lung cancer, and he went for walks every day, never drank, never smoke, super healthy life.

And then there's people that I know who are like chain smoking for years and years and years and they're healthy. My nana. And she's not even near, like, you know, she's kicking away. But I think you're so right, we need to move away from these one individual stories. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart every single time in a hospital when you see people who've lived perfectly rightly their entire lives. And it feels so unfair.

But we have to just, we have to get away from that and focus on what the scientific consensus is. And I guess scientific consensus, alcohol. And the reason that I would say alcohol as opposed to like other things, because there's other things that can that can obviously affect. your brain health, but it's, but alcohol is something that is socially acceptable. Yeah. And it's very culturally relevant. Yeah. And it is more relatable to, than, than other things. Like, I could talk about head trauma, right? Like, I could talk about so many different things, but alcohol is just something that we've all, for the most part, dealt with in ways. And so limiting that, I think, is a really great start. Would you let, if you were to have a certain, would you let them

play rugby or American football? It's difficult because, um, I like I would that is I guess that's like a parenting thing like I would want I would want them to do whatever makes them happy I would be very wary of anything where there is a high chance of of head trauma and stuff like that but then again who am I to say that you can't play rugby or American football but now you can like you could go for a walk and hit your head and like yeah have a have a head like you can't protect someone against yeah against everything and I guess balancing the benefits of exercise. Yeah. On your brain health. It is like what risk are you willing, are you also willing to take? Yeah. Anything else bad, bad, bad habit, damaging habits for long-term

brain health. Again, this is also why I say alcohol is because alcohol really affects your sleep and your ability to get deep sleep. But in general, sleep as a whole is just so important because as you're sleeping, your lymphatic system, which is like the lymphatic system, but for your brain is clearing out any waste products and it's cleaning your brain. That is really important for for brain health and function you need to sleep you need to get good sleep that's it's going to control everything from how much how many calories you consume the types of food that you're drawn to you're more drawn to fatty fatty foods and high sugar if you are sleep deprived even the the hormones in your body will like it will just change depending on if you've slept

or if you haven't slept your relationships and the way that you are emotionally reactive like that changes. Everybody knows the feeling of not getting adequate sleep and then somebody says something and then you react in a really negative way or you're just grumpy or moody or you're not thinking properly and you make more mistakes the next day. And for me, I just, I really notice it when I don't sleep well. That affects me wanting to go to the gym in the morning. Yeah. Then that affects me on so many other levels afterwards. It affects the quality of the work that I do. I'm more prone to making mistakes. Yeah. I'm more emotionally reactive. I'm more upset. if something doesn't pan out the way that I want it to pan out. And then it's harder for me to just power through and overcome and like continue, uh, tackling this project. Instead, I might feel like, oh, I'm just going to give up and like give myself a day off or,

or whatever. So I feel like sleep. Yeah, sleep is like up there for me. Nice. And then conversely, we've spoken about sleep. We've spoken about mindfulness. Are that any other tips that you'd recommend to good tips to reduce someone's risk.

Exercise. Exercise. Exercise is a big one. Exercise and diet. Just making sure that you're eating a very, and again, like the same point applies to like diet. It's very difficult to draw super rigorous conclusions from a lot of the studies that are done in the dietary field because there are so many confounding variables. Like omega-3s, fatty acids, a varied diet, more plant forward is going to be really good for your brain health. Nice. Fab. This is another community question which draws on from our, which draws on your expertise, lived expertise.

Unpopular but effective ways to help ADHD and the impact of ADHD on brain health. Yeah. Yeah. So with stuff like that, I'm not well versed in the research and also the research is emerging, especially differences for women. Most research is still emerging. Yeah, ADHD and women is just a whole kettle of fish in itself. For me, it's all like personal experience. Yeah. And it's something that I'm very much learning as I go. I definitely notice that my symptoms at certain stages in my cycle are like really bad.

Vastly grossly different. Yeah, yeah, incredibly different. I think having been able to practice, mindfulness and meditation, I have more of an awareness of how I am and what I need during different stages. And I know that there are times where I need to withdraw and remove myself from social situations and really fill up my cup by like spending a lot of time alone and being able to think and focus on the things that I want to think about. Then there are other times where I know that I could use a bit of motivation from from other people. So sometimes if I have a lot of work that I need to do,

that I'm really avoiding. Yeah. I have an accountability partner to do those things with. So just sometimes, like, I have, like, if I need to clean, if I need to clean the house, like there's two ways, mostly that that gets done. Yeah. The first way is somebody's coming over for dinner. Yes.

Yes. I'm, like, I'm quite a tidy person, but, like, the level of, like, cleanliness that I want or just, like, getting a kick up of butt to, like, be a little bit more tidy is somebody coming into my space. I hate the idea of somebody, like, seeing my space lived. in. I just can't. Like, I just feel so uncomfortable. I would say having somebody on the phone that I'm FaceTiming and like doing things around the house, it's more just like putting clothes away. Yeah. Or like folding laundry. Yeah. No, like that's body doubling is me and my best friend's got ADHD as well.

Shock. Every time I go home, we do our errands together because these are these errands that we've just been piling up until we see each other and we're like, right, we're having an errand day. where because it's the only time we can we do it is where we are accountable to each other. Yeah. So I think having like a body double, having an accountability partner. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then sometimes like if I just know that it's one of those days where like hours could just pass by and I'm not really staying on top of the things that I need to do. I do just go down to the co-working space.

Yeah. Just seeing other people doing stuff. I'm like, I should probably do stuff. You're in that environment. Yeah, exactly. But there are some like smaller things that I've that I've really noticed for me. I like to be at home. I feel very happy and comfortable at home, nobody in my space. It's almost like if I need to leave the house multiple times in a day, like it really bugs me. I like to go out one time, do all the things that I need to do and then come back and then feel like, okay, like that was the outside world. Like I'm back here now. But if I ever do need to come back home and then go out again, especially if I have to go out to do something that I don't want to do, I like I'll come home, maybe keep my shoes on. Just like the little step that you have to take or like not put my jacket away because the idea of going home taking my shoes off

like putting everything away and then getting ready to go out there's such a big barrier to that I know it sounds ridiculous to people who don't relate to this but it's there's a too imprints putting my shoes back on yeah after I've just untied them like tying my shoes again I like yeah that or I do a lot of stuff in flip flops or my broken stocks nice yeah hard relate and it is called like context for switching. Like I think people with, you know, people with ADHD, they do struggle with that changing environments. And I can, oh my God, it's the, when I get in, if I need to do something, I'm not sitting down on the sofa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And nothing's going to happen. No, it's, it's chill time from now. Yeah. And that's like, that's like, that's kind of like

how my brain works as well. It's like, either I do something now or never. Yeah. Yeah. Hard relate on that one, unfortunately. Okay. So we've been asking every guest, this question. It's a very important question. And Sophie, what? do you wish every woman knew by the time she was 25? If I could shake a woman and tell her, and I think we're moving away from this a little bit already. Like I can see it in the younger generations, like their priorities have changed and shifted. But like, for any woman who is still like at that stage, focus on yourself. Yeah.

Like you don't, you just need to get your life in order and like, you. you don't need to be the perfect girlfriend for a guy. You don't need to like be kind and sweet and do everything for somebody else. Do those things for you. I want more women to be useless to guys. Like if you're in a heterosexual relationship, I think there is so much messaging around, yeah, being the caretaker and and women being socialized to do everything and take care of a thing. and like in a lot of situations like parent their partners.

And yes, it's very heteronormative, but like I'm talking about like those kind of relationships. So much power and freedom and joy and happiness comes when you're able to let go of that messaging and understand that you have so much more to give and to offer and you are so much more attractive to everyone and valuable in life when you're. are focused on yourself. And that's not in a not in a selfish or individualistic way, but every person has something special and unique to give. And it is your job to nurture that and figure out what that is because then you will come from a place of being able to share that wisdom, that knowledge and that unique ability or talent that you have. But you won't ever discover that

if you're not nurturing that and if you're looking to take care of everybody else around you first. And that's not to say that taking care of other people is not good. I think it's a beautiful thing. It's honorable. I think you definitely should always make sure that you're giving your extra time and energy to those around you and nurturing your friendships and your relationships and your family. But you can't pour from an empty cup and you have to really make sure that you're okay first because nobody else is going to make sure that you're okay. So once you have yourself sorted, then, you know, whatever is extra, that is yours to give, to gift other people. I love that. And I also think so much of what you've touched on is tuning into yourself.

And actually as women, we're so often taught to tune into everyone else around us. Everyone else, yeah. The emotions of partners, the emotions of family, like we are taught to be these caregivers and we tune out our own what we need. Yeah. So I think it's a really, really, really powerful lesson. And I just want to say a huge, huge, huge, thank you for coming. on. There's so many really important lessons I think everyone will be able to take away and implement in their own life today. So if there's one thing, all the gilies listening, if they do one thing,

it's have that mindful moment. Yeah. And that's something, yeah, you can literally do so from starting from today. So thank you so so much. Thank you so much for having me. This was really wonderful. Thank you. Yay.