Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Caroline Leaf on Parenting for a Healthy and Strong Mind EP 329

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on Passion Struct. You can't look to what our generations are facing as the cause of something, because social media is good, so is radio, so is television, so is AI. So they're not the problem, the problem is what are we doing with them? The problem is how we manage them. Instead of looking to an external cause as the cause of something like mental health, external causes do impact mental health, but it's blaming something without looking at the benefits of it,

Starting point is 00:00:27 so it's about management of it. So social media is not bad, it's how we're managing it. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeils, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best

Starting point is 00:00:52 version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 329 of PassionStruck. Ranked by Apple is one of the top 10 most popular health podcasts and the number one alternative health podcast. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. PassionStruck is now on syndicated radio on the AMFM247 National Broadcast.

Starting point is 00:01:33 Patches on your evening commute Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 pm Eastern time. Links will be in the show notes. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member. We now have episodes stutterpacks packs which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or PassionStruck.com slash starter packs to get started.

Starting point is 00:01:57 In case you missed it last week, I interviewed Dr. Hatendra Wadwa, author of the groundbreaking book, Inner Mastery Outer Impact, how Your Five Core Energy Hold the Key to Success. Dr. Wadwai introduces a powerful framework for achieving success that starts from within, specifically focusing on what he calls one's inner core. I also interviewed Nurse Practitioner and Intermittent Fasting Experts Cynthia Thurlow. In her groundbreaking book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation Cynthia unveils gain-changing approach to intermittent fasting designed specifically for women, but it's also applicable to the men and our audience as well.

Starting point is 00:02:29 I also wanted to say thank you so much for your ratings and review. If you love today's episode or either of the others that I mentioned, we would so appreciate you giving us a five-star rating and review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Today we have an amazing interview where we delve into a critical topic that affects the lives of children everywhere, their mental health. As a parent of two children myself, I know firsthand that kids are facing unprecedented challenges with rising levels of anxiety and depression impacting their well-being.

Starting point is 00:02:59 As caretakers, educators, and concerned individuals, it's our responsibility to equip our young ones with the tools that they need to navigate their emotional landscape and build resilience. And who better to guide us on this journey than the esteemed Dr. Carolyn Leif, a renowned neuroscientist, communication pathologist, audiologist, and the host of the award-winning podcast, Cleaning Up the Mental Mass. Dr. Leif has dedicated her career to understanding the complexities of the the human brain and her groundbreaking research has paved the way for a deeper understanding of mental health and wellness. I am absolutely thrilled to have her on PassionStruck to discuss her latest book, How to Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mass, A Guide to

Starting point is 00:03:36 Building Resilience in Managing Mental Health. In this empowering episode, Dr. Leaf will share scientifically proven steps to empower children aged 3-10, to overcome unhealthy thinking habits and foster emotional well-being. Her five-step plan is backed by cutting-edge clinical research in her woven, with relatable stories and case studies, making it accessible and effective for caretakers like you and me. Together, we will explore vital insights including warning signals to watch out for. The revolutionary neuropsycho method, the impact of different parenting styles, the significance of thought trees,

Starting point is 00:04:07 and the fascinating workings of our children's brains during various activities. This episode promises to be a complete game changer for all of us who care deeply about the well-being of our children. So let's dive into this enriching conversation and discover how we can equip our young ones with the resilience and strength they need to survive. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin. I am so excited today to welcome Dr. Caroline Leif on PassionStruck, someone who I've actually wanted to have on this podcast for a very long time.

Starting point is 00:04:46 Welcome, Caroline. Thank you so much, John. It's so great to meet you. And I love your podcast. I think the concept that you know you cover is so aligned with what I believe in and do as well. So it's very exciting to talk to you. I'm excited to get into your brand new book,

Starting point is 00:05:00 which releases today, which is, how to help your child clean up their mental mess, a guide to building resilience and managing mental health. Congratulations on its release. Thank you so much. We're very excited about it. It's been a big project, writing books is a big project, but I just think what's even more important is just to help people feeling powered when it comes to mental health and helping the children with all the crisis at the moment. Since we're going to be talking about children, children with all the crisis at the moment. Well, since we're gonna be talking about children, I thought I would start at a point where I was a child. And I spent years growing up going

Starting point is 00:05:34 through speech-language pathology. It's still something that I honestly struggle with, as you might have just hurt me to in the introduction. And I have to be very intentional about how I choose my words and thoughts. What led you to study logopetics? I initially was going to do neurosurgery in medicine and that kind of line of direction,

Starting point is 00:05:55 but then I was very interested in the whole neuroscience side. So there was an opportunity to do a degree that was a combination of medicine, communication, pathology, related elements of audiology, psychology, neuroscience, and also a really interesting degree, and that just launched me into going further and further with my research. So there was a passion for the mind and understanding how the mind works

Starting point is 00:06:18 and how to understand the brain, and it just drove me, and I started researching very early on. In 38 years, later I'm still in research. I've practiced clinically for 25 years. I've had the privilege of working with such a cross section of different communication issues, so things like autism, dementia, severe trauma and how that impacts our life, learning issues, all these things that are just the day-to-day struggles of humanity. So the up-and-coming scope has been pretty broad. Over the years, I started focusing in on the sacro-neurobiological aspects.

Starting point is 00:06:48 So now, in the field of sacro-neurobiology, which is the mind-brain body connection. Yeah, it's interesting how you made that leap because you went back and you got a master's in a PhD in communication pathology. What caused that shift for you? I never really was, I wasn't trained as a speech therapist. I was trained at communication pathologists. It's a little bit different. It's, we don't work directly on speech issues.

Starting point is 00:07:11 You're working on a person's overall communication and then you're tracking back to, and you get the whole person in context of how they're functioning and all the different from the emotional, linguistic, everything, all the different aspects. And then you track back to what could be going on inside the mind-vanguadi connection and then how can you help the person in the whole context? I was in it immediately. As I said, I did quite a unique approach. I don't even have that degree any more the combination that I did. We got all the different aspects. So the interest was launched from day one and we were doing hospital rounds and we were working with people in a very holistic way, literally from day one observation, but then once we were working in clinic. So I

Starting point is 00:07:49 just continued in my studies in the same sort of line of direction, working with, working, moving more into the neuroscientific aspect. So it wasn't really a change. It was more a continuation of what I had been exposed to. And I was really prompted to dive deeper with a neuroscience professor of ours that was telling us about how the brain can change. So back in the 80s, they didn't believe that the brain could change. That was the going wisdom at that stage.

Starting point is 00:08:15 In the 80s, what they did to the teacher and talk about was that the mind and the brain were separate. But once the brain was damaged, it was considered, well, that's it. So we were very trained to try and compensate for damage with our patients. And that, for me, sounded wrong. And I remember in that lecture thinking, there's something's wrong and putting up my hand and asking this professor,

Starting point is 00:08:35 why if we are constantly changing as humans, every day something needs, every moment we're changing, the brain is what the mind uses, it's the organ that the mind works with. So the brain must change. And he basically said to me, quite a snorkewe, we'll go do research. So I said, okay, so what area? And he said, well, too many brain injury,

Starting point is 00:08:53 which used to be called closed head injury. And I said, sure, why specifically that area? And he said, because there's very little research on it, because there's no point in researching the fact that the brain coin changed. And that was all unmeted to stimulate interest. And I did some of the first prompting for that professor actually went into and did some of the first neuroplasticity research back in the late 80s and early 90s.

Starting point is 00:09:15 And that's when my interest was sparked that you're working with someone with a traumatic brain injury or a trauma from life and they may not necessarily have damaged their brain, but they've had damage in the experiences of their life which they've processed through. It's going to affect how you function and show up. So immediately I'd expanded my research into incorporating and seeing where I can apply this in different areas. And as I said today, I'm still doing the research. Unfortunately, I've had a number of them both in sports where I played rugby collegently and then following that combat trauma. And I know for a long time the doctors were telling me that some of the ramifications of this

Starting point is 00:09:56 were going to be permanent, but I have ended up finding ways through my own research to basically rewire my brain to get it back to almost where it was pre-hanger. You know, when I hear that I just get goosebumps and I get so excited and want to just say thank you, it's a congratulations and thank you for sharing your bliss to the world because this is you and exactly the kind of person that I've been a large part of my career working with because a lot of people had exactly the same kind of situation as you where people were told, well there's not much you can do, and so if you had a traumatic brain injury from all chronic traumatic and cephalopathy from sports injuries, plus as you say, combat, which have been TBI combination, you literally would have been written off years ago, which is what happened with a lot of my patients that

Starting point is 00:10:43 came into my studies. They were often told by the parents or the patients that this is a lifelong thing, you're not going to ever change and you just got to learn to deal with it and that's not true. You've shown that yourself and I've shown that with my research and so many patients over the years and people over the years and with your mind you actually rewire the brain. The brain listens to the mind. So if you know how to manage your mind, you can changewire the brain, the brain listens to the mind, so if you know how to manage your mind, you can change those psychonure biological networks. Now, it doesn't mean everything's perfect and doesn't mean everything goes away, and it's a constant battle as you've experienced, and it's an ongoing process,

Starting point is 00:11:17 but there's so much hope in that. So, I'm really very excited that you shared that with me, it's fantastic, because I know exactly what you're saying. I've worked with so many people that have pushed through, So I really am very excited that you shared that with me. It's fantastic. I know exactly what you're saying. I've worked with so many people that have pushed through and that you can change how you function and the evidence is in your life. It's fantastic. Yeah, it is an interesting process though,

Starting point is 00:11:34 because I started on the outside being told time and time again that the issues I was experiencing didn't have anything to do with the terratic brain injuries because they couldn't find it on a typical MRI or CT scan, but as you are well aware, it rarely shows up over a long period of time on those unless it's an acute injury at the time. I remember going to the VA and talking to their head of traumatic brain injury who said the TBI is aren't long lasting. And then I started doing my extensive research to find that concussion syndrome is a real thing, and especially in the special operators community and with athletes.

Starting point is 00:12:16 And it is long lasting. And there were in fact, to five to seven million people who had it in the United States. What I would encourage listeners, if you have experienced any of this, is don't listen to people who had it in the United States. What I would encourage listeners if you have experienced any of this is don't listen to people who tell you that this information isn't accurate because you can find help whether it's hormonal treatment or rewiring your mind to get back to where you once were. And I'm using that to lead into, I think a lot of people think that the

Starting point is 00:12:45 brain and the mind are one and the same. However, I like to think of it using this analogy. I have a background in information technology. So I think of the brain as hardware. And I think of the mind as software. Is that an appropriate way to think about it? – John, that's a very common way that people explain the mind and the brain difference. But it's not totally accurate. It's a basic good analogy, it's an idea, but a better way of thinking of it in my opinion from what I know, all these years of being in the field,

Starting point is 00:13:18 is a computer doesn't even closely simulate, for example, the brain. A computer can't even do what one year on in the brain can do. And even AI still stuck around that very basic level. So the complexity of the human brain, just the power of life, for example, the connection between two neurons externally through the electromagnetic forces of the connections

Starting point is 00:13:37 is totally different to one neuron. So it's just infinite sort of power that we can't really capture inside a computer. And that's not even going inside the neuron. When you go inside the neuron, there's a whole different world of quantum physics and things that we deal with there and permutations are infinite. So it's a very, very complex mechanism. And that's way beyond any computer's thing.

Starting point is 00:13:57 But it's not a bad analogy to try and understand the difference. What I would think software for me is still part of the physical because it will look very still very much part of the physical because we're still very much part of the brain because if you think about software on a computer, you still need the human to create the software and you still need the human to actually operate the computer. So there's something over and above the software and the computer and it's at a much more complex level.

Starting point is 00:14:20 So the mind would be that much more complex element that's driving the creation of the software, the creation of the complexity of the computer and driving the computer. So another way that you could look at it is to think of the mind as your aliveness, your ability to think and feel and choose and respond from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, even at night when you're sleeping, your mind is still active, working out your experiences during the day. And your brain is being the organ that the mind uses to basically store the information and then instruct the body because everything goes into the brain and the body in different ways and also into the mind. So the mind can also have a physics, it has a physics component, its gravitational fields, electromagnetic light forces, the quantum properties of vibrations,

Starting point is 00:15:04 that we have a biofield, a very simple way of understanding this is if you put a QEG, which is a system that I use in my research cap on someone's head, and link that to a QEG machine, we are reading the brain's response. If it's a dead person and you put a QEG on that dead person, there will be no response. So the response that we see in the brain

Starting point is 00:15:24 is because that person's alive and thinking, well, that purge is on their head, you put an EKG on someone's heart, even when they're alive, there's a reading, when they're not alive, there's no reading. So the things that make our body work and respond, that's mind. And also the mind is also our ability to actually process this conversation and have relationships, be a human alive and experiencing the world. So it's like our aliveness and then brain and the body are this incredible complex, the way beyond what computers can do at the moment that have to be complex because the minds are complex and in the interrelationship of the three creates the magic that we see in humanity showing up.

Starting point is 00:16:03 I'm just blown away by that explanation. And I think you just did probably the best job I've heard on this podcast to describe the difference. So thank you for sharing that. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that that's been my fascination for 30 years. So hopefully I can explain it.

Starting point is 00:16:19 I understand one of the things that you were working on right now is some research around habits. And it just turns out that I released a solo episode on habit stacking. And speaking of the mind, I understand that our minds are wired in a way that makes micro habits or habit stacking a genius strategy for behavior change. And you discuss what your research is about and maybe go into synaptic pruning and some of the other aspects of habit formation. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:16:54 It's myself, my team. We are basically psychonure biologists. So we're looking at psychomine brain, physical brain and body, mind brain body, psychonure biology. When we do studies, we'll take a whole complex behaviors and people are battling with. It's not a simple thing like learning to clean your teeth on time or wash your hands off the a meal where they will work with very complex like what is your story? What is you've been through combat? You're going to have a whole lot of traumatic stories. We look at you as a holistic

Starting point is 00:17:22 you and your whole story, your whole narrative. So we'll look at the story, we'll look at the psychological elements like self-regulation, because self-regulation is so linked to how I'm managing my mind. If I can self-regulate it means I can observe and I can manage how I'm reacting in situations. By management, I recognize the support I need, the changes I need to make, what I need to improve on, etc, etc, etc habits I need to build, etc, etc. That's all the psychological side. When we look at the brain and we want to see how the brain is responding and the reason I use QEG and not MRI and if you're more, although they fantastic tools as well, is because I want to see the energy response in pretty much real time and as accurately as possible. So you can't read, they don't tell you your

Starting point is 00:18:05 thoughts, brain scans and things on showing you what your brain is like in a fixed way. It's showing you how your brain is responding in the moment. So an FMRI, now and then in two hours time, is going to change and QEG, now and in two hours time is going to change even in 10 minutes later. So we must always have caution when we talk about measuring the brain because we are looking at the brain's response in real time and then we're predicting from that. And then we'll also look at the biological impact. So because an experience like this conversation, or any experience you have is being processed by the mind, this aliveness, this thing feels choose energy, fantastic and brilliant ongoing, phenomenally fast fast beyond space and time concept our

Starting point is 00:18:45 aliveness. It's capturing that information and putting that into the brain as a thought tree. So it changes the neuroplasticity of the brain. The brain can't change itself, the brain has to be changed. So the mind is doing the work of changing. So you with your mind take the information and put it into your brain and your brain grows the information this conversation, for example, basically it causes an energy flow that collapses and that makes it all amino acids that group together to form proteins.

Starting point is 00:19:13 And those proteins capture the information as vibrations. So literally as I'm talking, my words or conversation are becoming tiny vibrations inside proteins and are growing into branch lack structures. The words we saying are the roots, if you think of a tree, it's a tree lack structure. We the source of this conversation, so it's the source of the experience and then the listeners and the viewers, they've got the roots part what we saying, but the branches are how they interpret what we are talking about in terms of their own life experiences.

Starting point is 00:19:42 So the trunk is the unique processing and the branches are how they understand this and how that's going to show up in their life. So just to give you that visual, so literally we build trees, thought trees made of data and the data is the memories. So everything I'm saying to you and everything you say to me, that's data points and that's which are memories

Starting point is 00:20:01 and they're clustering together to grow tree and the trees is this conversation between John and Caroline whatever they've called it in them whatever the person who's listening is called it whatever the title of your podcast will be generally the name of that cluster as soon as that happens happens really fast 400 billion actions plus per second your brain then instructs the body and every cell of the body and we have 37 to 100 trillion cells in our brain in our body, they then capture the sort as well, but in a slightly different way in terms of in this, in every cell there's like a skeleton and that then it's made of also made of a protein. So there's a representation of the memory forming in your brain in this tree-like structure,

Starting point is 00:20:39 which is the neuroplasticity thing, the brain growing, that is also represented in every cell as a change in the little protein structures in the skeleton of the cell. And why am I saying all of that? That's because our experiences become embodied. And you know yourself from being a vet that PTSD, you'll eat a higher body response. It's such as your brain making you do something. It's actually an experience that's been embodied, mind-brained, and body is real, and it's never going to go away.

Starting point is 00:21:05 But what we can do is we can change what it looks like inside of the mind, brain, body, network. So we can change the trees, we can change the representation in our body, we can change the biofield of that memory. So if you think of a memory in three places, you can actually change it in three places. So the work that I do,

Starting point is 00:21:23 looking at the psychology, the brain, and then also what's going on in the body in response. And there's many ways you can look in the body. You can look at hormones, you can look at different chemical reactions and so on. So we've selected some of the ones that are very established in the science literature in terms of being linked to how a person's managing chronic stress,

Starting point is 00:21:40 whether they're a child or an adult. And that's things like prolactin and emails and females are very closely associated with how we're managing and dealing with stuff that we've gone through and are going through, whether it's day-to-day struggles or whether it's really big stuff like convex trauma and so on. And then we also look at things like telomeres,

Starting point is 00:21:57 which are the ends of chromosomes. And chromosomes are in your DNA and telomeres if I cross my fingers, they look like little X's and my nails would represent telomeres. And they're very important because we are making new cells every second, somewhere between 800,000 and a million every second. And those cells basically are making our body. The telomeres influence that process and telomeres are driven by our mind. So if we have a messy mind, it damages the telomeres, which means the cells on our health is they could be. And over time, it's cumulative,

Starting point is 00:22:26 and then our body's not as strong as it could be, and we become more vulnerable to disease. And this is why we see in the literature of Anion, real life, very strong link between chronic unmanaged toxic stress and physical issues. Trauma from childhood, trauma from combat, trauma from any kind of situation that's not fully managed, will show up in physical ailments in the brain and the body different for every person. from child to trauma, from combat, trauma, from any kind of situation that's not fully managed or show up in physical ailments in the brain and the body different for every person. So we look at that link and look to see if we can help a person manage their mind and how does that change?

Starting point is 00:22:55 And how does that link to change in terms of habits? Because as you from your work and the podcast you've just done, a habit doesn't form in 21 days, doesn't form in one day or seven or 14. It forms in cycles of 21 days. And what we've shown with the literature, which is what scientists have been showing for a while now, but we've done a lot of extensive research in this area. It takes between 18 and 60 days, somewhere in that region, for us to start changing a behaviour. 18 days is not enough of its complex. 18 days would be something like for something simpler, want to make sure that I get up every

Starting point is 00:23:29 day and go to the gym. So I want to train myself to go to the gym every day. So it's that little routine you want to put in place. But something complex like you've got a relationship issue with someone at work or you're dealing with the the trauma of going through combat, that's not going to go away in 18 days. It's not even going to go away in around 60 days. It's going to take multiple cycles of 60 days. So what we see is that behavior simple is around about 18 days to create change in the psychological networks. And more complex is the minimum of an region of 59 to 66 days.

Starting point is 00:23:59 And then complex behaviors, it's going to be multiple of that. So very often we'll see extreme trauma and if you think of a scale of 1 to 10, extreme childhood abuse or combat, that kind of thing would be on the 8, 9, 10 of the scale. And then a day irritation in traffic or a minor irritation with someone at work would be like a 1 to 2. So daily struggles around the 1 to region, the big stuff that's 8's 8, 19 and the middle of the stuff are potentially bad habits and patterns we potentially getting into that or disruptive to our lifestyle. So they all of them need attention.

Starting point is 00:24:33 And how do we pay attention? We pay attention to our mind management, we manage our mind. And when we manage our mind, we actually change the second urobiological network. So when we manage our mind and we change the second urobiological network in the right time frames, that's when behavior change will happen. So something like habit stacking, it depends on what you're trying to change. If you've got a complex bit of issue that you're dealing with in 819, even something in the 567 region, habit stacking is more like a technique to support once you've actually resolved the issue. And then it's supporting what I would call the step five of the process that I've researched

Starting point is 00:25:10 and developed that helps you to change your networks and to plan and guided process that you do daily over these cycles of 63 days. Five to 15 minutes, you can go a little longer if you want to, but essentially the key was making any kind of change, any kind of habit you to, but essentially the key was making any kind of change, any kind of habit you age, the change that becomes a habit that is useful to you, is a very planned and guided process over time. So that's the science of habit formation that we're also doing in the psychonobiological research. And so what we see is that if you do bits and pieces in the wrong time frame, you will have change, but it won't be sustainable. And let's say there's something that is very traumatic that you've gone through and certain situations trigger you,

Starting point is 00:25:49 building and to deal with that, we have to completely rewire that network. You can't get rid of what's happened, as I mentioned, but you can change what it looks like in the mind-blowing body connection, which then changes how it plays out into the future. But that sentence I've just said has to be broken down into planned and guided process over time. Otherwise it won't be a useful change. So we make changes as humans with all these wonderful self-help things that are out there and all the meditation, all these things, they're all good. But if you don't put them into the right sucka, neurobiological framework, you grow a lot

Starting point is 00:26:21 of little trees in your brain brain and those trees are little. And if they little, they don't have enough energy to impact change. So when you are triggered, you work on it, but because you didn't build up enough energy, that old way of reacting with still equally strong and maybe still stronger, that was how you then responded based on that thought. That thought came into your conscious mind and that drove your action because our thought trees in our network drive how we respond. And if you haven't booked a good habit, we're going to respond in that way.

Starting point is 00:26:51 So the work that I do is to try and help people in the second year of biological research is to understand how to do the steady practice in the correct time frames to rewire. But before you can even start that, you have to actually be able to recognize the impact that your patterns are having in your life or even to observe them in the first place because that's kind of a hard part is you feel maybe depression or anxiety or frustration or whatever but what does it actually look like? How can we sort of capture that concept and breaking it down to the thought and going through that process? Otherwise we all over the place and little changes are happening.

Starting point is 00:27:25 They do build up an overtime and then move towards in the right direction. But if you truly want change, that's sustainable. We can not pathologize or medicalize misery, but actually accept the pain we've gone through and use that in the right way. That's going to take a lot of organized effort. If it makes sense,

Starting point is 00:27:42 long on so that it's because you're the bird's-up view of the work I do. I think that's going to be very helpful for the remainder of the episode because I want to take what you just discussed and now apply it to your new book and I'll just say the title again, how to help your child clean up their mental mess. And on the show, I have had many psychologists and psychotherapists who have talked about the rise of mental illness across the board, but especially in children and adolescents. However, you start out the book by saying that we don't have a mental health crisis.

Starting point is 00:28:16 We have a mind management crisis. Can you explain the difference? Thank you for highlighting that because it's very helpful and empowering when they understand what I mean by that. So I'm not denying that there's a problem. The implication of a mental health crisis is a very disempowering concept because we think, what's going on? How come suddenly all of our brains are messed up and our kids' brains are messed up?

Starting point is 00:28:36 And what's the cause? It makes people very panicky and people then generally say, oh, it's social media or it's AI coming up or COVID. And those are all contributing factors. But if you think about a joint, every generation's face something. There's been wars and plagues before. It's not like this is the first plague we've had or the first the fat television we've had radio, but those are radical changes equally as radical in the time as what social media is. So yes, those are contributing factors. What I'm saying is that we can't look

Starting point is 00:29:03 to what our generations are facing as the cause of something. Social media is good, so is radio, so is television, so is AI. They're not the problem. The problem is what are we doing with them? The problem is how we're managing them. So that's one aspect. Instead of looking to an external cause as the cause of a something like mental health, external causes do impact mental health, blaming something without looking at the benefits of it. So it's about management of it. So social media is not bad, it's how we're managing it. That's the one aspect.

Starting point is 00:29:33 If a child's constantly scrolling through looking at body images and the contagion aspect, what if you think about the most is growing? So that if you spend hours just looking at how I think I should look to be accepted and my value is looking that way and therefore I need to account get that way so then there's cutting and then there's this we we see that a lot with social media and that's why it's got such bad price and that is a problem because that's not managed. If we can sit down as parents with our kids and teachers and adults caregivers whatever and explain that isn't actually the ideal way that person. And you are you and your conversations and explain

Starting point is 00:30:10 how as you're looking at that, you're growing it like a tree is growing and it's growing fast and fast and then it consumes you. And you've got all these ways of looking at the world and all these experiences. But if you think of it in a forest, you just send that there's one big toxic tree that I'm not worth anything unless I look like that. And your whole life is viewed through that. You're missing everything else out there. So in order for us to re-engage with what's out there, we needed cut back on our social media time and grow some healthy stuff to balance that.

Starting point is 00:30:37 And that's the idea of my management. So that's the one aspect of the mind management. And I can apply to anything, that concept that I've just explained, whether, AI, whether it's in relationships dealing with bullying, all kinds of stuff. The other side of the coin is that about 40, 50 years ago we shifted how we viewed mental health and managed mental health and it moved from being something where we saw the person in the environment. So a child whose social media was around then, but it's like your example, someone who's been in a combat zone, that's a traumatic experience. So we've got to look at

Starting point is 00:31:10 John in John's life and the experiences that you've had. And we used to do that, and we used to look at all the potential impact and understand that anxiety, depression, panic attacks, all these things, the PTSD, all these words that are not illnesses, they're actually descriptions that are giving us information because PTSD for you is different to PTSD for someone else because you all experience as you need to use. So we can't silo or invalidate or decrease the hugeness of your experience to just the label. But 40 years ago, that's what we started doing. A drive was identified around 50 years ago, a could premise in its very difficult word to say. And it's an anaesthetic, basically,

Starting point is 00:31:49 and it calmed down people that were really in extreme states of mental challenge. And that started a whole industry of drugs for that have psychoactive effects as ways of treating mental health, because it seemed to change people's behaviors. So it seemed like a good thing, but then it got out of hand, because they psychoactive and anything psychoactive changes the brain so there's withdrawal and they're not fixing the problem. They're simply tamping

Starting point is 00:32:12 down the intensity for a moment, but you can't just tamp down the intensity and do nothing else. You tamp down the intensity, then you have to actually tamp up the intensity and work through the issue because otherwise you don't solve the problem. But that logical stuff that I've just said now, that started going away. The model subsumed mental health into the medical model and the bio-medical model quite simply looks at a symptom and with the objective of finding the source of the symptom to eliminate the symptom so that you can function. That works for diabetes type 1, type 2, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune, these lifestyle diseases. It works for that to deal with that consequence. A lot of lifestyle

Starting point is 00:32:50 diseases also have these sorts in mind because mind is driving the body as I spoke about earlier with telomeres. But if you take that model and we take someone like your experience and we say, okay, John, you've got a TBI from playing rugby, and I work with so many rugby players in my practice. I just have to tell you inside Africa, so many rugby players, goodness, so I can relate. And I just say, okay, John, you have TBI, you have PTSD, here's some medication, here's a few TBT techniques, and goodbye. That's not enough of that. All people say, look, just live with it.

Starting point is 00:33:20 You intensively worked to grow your brain and change your networks, literally redraw your mind, brain body connection. A biomedical model would just look at the symptoms that you described, give you the label, give you the medications, potentially multiple, that she drugs, they're not medications, anything that psychoactive is considered to be a drug, a medication is something that fixes a problem like insulin for diabetes, but you would have been given that diagnosis potentially and the drugs and sent your way. And that's what's happening in the model.

Starting point is 00:33:49 So for 40 years, you get asked questions. The focus is find the symptom, track it to the underlying biological cause, and then give a medication that treats underlying biological cause. Beautiful, as I said, for basic brain and body stuff. But when it comes to mind, that's too simplistic. It's invalidating. It doesn't consider the whole story. And maybe you track the impact of that plus billions of euros and dollars have been spent on this methodology. If you track the impact, what we should be seeing is improvement. Like we saw when you got the measles vaccine, people improve or understanding of heart surgery and could do heart transplant, people live longer.

Starting point is 00:34:26 So if something's good, people live longer, people are better. If something's not good, you stop doing it. In medicine, if a drug comes out and causes problems, they stop using it. But in the world of psychiatry and in mental health, there's been so much evidence that model has not worked. So a big contribution to the mental health crisis, why say it's a mind management crisis, is because we've removed the ability of that. We've removed the sort of viewpoint that a person who's battling,

Starting point is 00:34:58 is battling because of, and let's dig into the story, and let's support them in multiple different ways and let's give them tools to be able to find the source of the issue and reconceptualise and rewire the networks and give them whatever therapeutic support needed and if they're in a really bad state in a moment maybe a bit of the psychoactive drugs for a day or 24 hours or 48 hours or as needed if they're having a really bad episode or something like that just to help them cope. But that takes time, takes a lot of money, takes a lot of effort,

Starting point is 00:35:31 and does it really take a lot of money? That's been my question that I've asked because you can empower a person to actually manage a lot of the same selves, which is why I went in the direction I did 38 years ago because I saw this happening and I said no, I need to come to this and see if I can give an alternative. So the reason I said that is because the shift in the model, when you look at people differently and you see them as mechanistic broken brains that you just want to put apart back, that's missing and you forget the whole story. You don't adjust this to the whole story. That will create a crisis. So, the last thing I'll say around that is that federal data was released that tracked studies

Starting point is 00:36:05 from 1996 through the 2014-2015 and carried on. And what they showed is that people are dying eight to 25 years younger from preventable lifestyle issues. And they tracking that back to the time and we started changing how we, instead of looking at the whole human life, I've been describing, it's become what are the symptoms of the broken brain. And that's not enough. And even though we know there's life,

Starting point is 00:36:25 through circumstances, the factors, we understand that. Somehow we just don't apply that. So that's been a bit of an issue. And that contributes to this problem. Because if that makes sense. It makes sense. And it's crazy how, by the time people are 60, 2 thirds of the population is experiencing

Starting point is 00:36:41 one, if not two, chronic diseases. And it all comes back to the way that we're living, the choices that we're making, and how we are incorporating that into our life over a period of time, which then leads so many of us to living the last 20, 25% of our years with a poor health span, which is exactly what you're referring to.

Starting point is 00:37:04 So I was hoping we could discuss with a poor health span, which is exactly what you're referring to. So I was hoping we could discuss a couple of the core things that you bring up in the book. You brought up the thought trees, which I love. The other person who's brought up this tree analogy on the show was Cynthia Lee, who's a functional medicine doctor, and she uses it to subscribe. The current medical system and how with the protocols, we're dealing with branches on the trees or even leaves, but we're not really looking at the core system, which is what you're describing as well as we're looking at our mind. But when parents are thinking about warning signals, which is something you discuss in part one of the book, what are some of the key warning signals, which is something you discuss in part one of the book.

Starting point is 00:37:50 What are some of the key warning signals that they should watch out for in their children's behavior that might indicate the potential for mental health challenges? So there's four categories of warning signals and the first one is emotions, the second one's behavior is the third one is bodily sensations and the fourth is perspective. Now those are big words for kids. What I've done in the book is I've made them, I've created a character called Braini and here's a little toy and a coloring book and you would have seen throughout the book. Braini is the character, Braini, the idea is I can change my brain. I'm helping Braini. So it's the whole ability that I have as a human to change my brain. So there's a lot of little nuances going on there with the Braini character. Kids also relate to the cartoon, they relate to toys. So in the book, I do explain these concepts in a very simple way and give you ways to equations to

Starting point is 00:38:33 our store child, whether they're two years of age or whether they're ten years of age, in my other box deal with eleven and onwards. I break that down very simple way. It's for example, the four warning signals, I have pictures of brainy, first warning signal to represent each of these signals. So you can put, show that to a child and you can find other pictures similar, that kind of thing. A warning signal gives us information. They talk about the words signal. They give us information about what's going on. So instead of seeing depression, love concentrating at school, a lot of sore tummies, not sleeping at night, and not wanting to play, and in a repeated pattern over two weeks as being, oh my gosh, my child's

Starting point is 00:39:11 got some kind of mental health issue, there's a mental health crisis, you go to the psychiatrist, you list the symptoms, you have a diagnosis, probably depression, and probably given a medication, or if that's the concentration ADHD, instead of seeing those as labels or diagnoses or illnesses or disorders, throw those scary words out and see the four signals as messengers information, telling you something that's going on in the child's life. In other words, there's a big cause of behind it. So emotions would be depression, anxiety, frustration, fear, all the whatever emotions they are, behaviors would be what you say, what you do, how you say, and how you do it. Body sensation, where am I feeding that in my body,

Starting point is 00:39:50 perspective, how I'm looking at life. So the child is very sad, it's the emotion, crying a lot, behavior, the sore stomachs a lot and doesn't want to go and play with their friends that they used to play with. There's something going on. As you identify those signals, that's going to then literally pull the protein tree like structure that literally looks like a protein tree like structure and I have pictures of that in the book as well of what they look like really and then the imagery for the kids. It pulls it into the conscious mind and as soon as you're consciously aware of it, it becomes weakened and now you can model and help the child to say, I wonder why and you start

Starting point is 00:40:22 finding, tracking, helping to find the source, and then helping them to reconcept your limits. And so the fact, I don't have time to go to the five steps, but it's from the four-sick gathering awareness of the four signals is the first step of the system that up develop called the Neurocycle. So the tool of mind management is the Neurocycle. The identification of the signals is the first step, and then there's four other steps. And you do those steps, they're very simplistic, you explain in the book with lots of little things you can do for young children, and the books for ages 2-3-10. And then also what's really important, John, is for the parents to do the best way to help your child is for you to learn the system and do it for yourself. Children of respect with the intensity and respond really well to modeling. We all have issues, we're all in me, so it's okay to be a mess. So the best way to help a child recognise these signals is for you to maybe you come to a home from school or work or whatever and you've had a tough day

Starting point is 00:41:13 and you just yell at the kids or whatever or you just feel sad just to run and say I'm just feeling really sad and I've got kind of tension in my shoulders and my shoulders a bit sore and I may be a bit snappy and today is just a hard day for me. I feel like this because of these things going on at work and I'm worried about my mom or if you go through the process then you engage the child, you're tuning into the child, you're helping them to see that you don't have to pathologize in misery, you can actually, it's okay as an adult you still battle it and challenges come and that's okay and you embrace those to reconceptualise them so that would my management really

Starting point is 00:41:47 is and it starts with the signals with helping a child to stand back and observe. Why am I feeling like this? Do you be curious? It gets a whole process going. So when I spoke about the 63 days, the neuropsychus that plan a guide process, you can put any system, so you can put any technique into that in the right place. All the great stuff that's out there breathing and meditation and visualization and affirmations and lots of great stuff.

Starting point is 00:42:10 But as long as you put them in the right order, the five steps will then change the networks over time to bring the changes that are needed and it starts with gathering awareness of the signals. Thank you for that explanation, and I wish we could have gone into more detail on the Neurocycle because it is a great systematic and deliberate process designed to help you put that mind management system into place. So something that the listeners will definitely have to check out in this book, but you've also covered it in your previous books, depending on what age bracket you're in. So one of the last questions I wanted to ask is you have been doing this now, as you said, for 38 years. And as a bestselling author and renowned neuroscientist, what message do you hope readers and listeners take away from your book and our conversation today? John, I think the most important thing is to realize that you can't change what's happened to you, but you can change what it looks like inside of you. Your mind, brain, body, network, and therefore heart plays out into your future.

Starting point is 00:43:08 That's the one thing and the other thing is okay to be a mess. We all amest. There's no normal brain. Great study came out of Yale talking about that. There's no normal brain. There's only unique brains. Life is messy and it's okay to be a mess. We just need to know that we need to manage that mess. Those are the two key things I would say. Okay, and then Caroline, can you just give a shout out for your podcast? We just need to know that we need to manage that mess. Those will be two key things, I would say. Okay, and then Caroline, can you just give a shout out for your podcast and where the listeners can go

Starting point is 00:43:30 to if they want to learn more about you? Absolutely. My podcast is called Cleaning up the Mental Messe and can find me on social media, Dr. Caroline Leith, my web page is DrLeith.com. Caroline, thank you so much for joining us today on PassionStrike. I definitely am going to have you come on again

Starting point is 00:43:48 because there were so many more questions I wanted to ask you. I was really enjoying talking to you and I was thinking the same thing. I need to have you on my podcast. So we can continue the discussion, so it would be wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Caroline Leif. And I wanted to thank Caroline, Baker Books, and Mallory Kimpolly for the honor and privilege of having her appear today on the show.

Starting point is 00:44:09 Links to all things Caroline will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show. Videos will be on YouTube at both John Armyles and Passionstruck Clips. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we are now on the AMFM247 National Broadcast. Catch us on your evening commute from 5 to 6 p.m. Eastern time Monday and Friday. Links will also be in the show notes. As will, a link to my new book, which is now available for pre-order, titled Passion Struct. I can't wait to discuss more about this in the upcoming months, but I'm so glad that I can introduce it already to the world. Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one

Starting point is 00:44:46 community at place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn, where you can sign up for my newsletter, or you can catch me on all the other social platforms at John Aramiles, where I post daily. You're about to hear a preview of the Passionstruck podcast I did with social psychologist and Stanford professor, Brian Lowry. In our interview, we discussed Brian's new book,

Starting point is 00:45:04 titled, Selfless, the Social Creation of You. In our discussion, we delve into the depths of introspection. We peel back the layers of conditioning, social expectation, and self-imposed limitations, allowing ourselves to emerge from the shadows. We make decisions not just how we interact with people, but who we interact with at all,

Starting point is 00:45:24 based on these superficial cues. And so we don't really have the opportunity to engage with as many people in this deep away as we might for those reasons and that's really a hard thing to overcome because all the evidence points to just the strong tribal nature of human beings. human beings. The nature of the groups shift around all the time. There's nothing inherent, and the groups is just that we tend to think in terms of groups and behave accordingly. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who is looking to understand more about mental health of their children, then definitely turn them on to Caroline's episode today. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, go out there and become Ash and Struck.

Starting point is 00:46:23 you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Caroline Leaf on Parenting for a Healthy and Strong Mind EP 329

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