The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 205: Neuroscientist Reveals 4 Hacks to Rewire Your Brain For Growth & Success! - Dr Tara Swart

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Your thoughts are more powerful than you think! Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart reveals how positive language, visualisation, and certain foods and exercises can supercharge neuroplasticity, rewiring your brain for growth and success. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify - https://g2ul0.app.link/GRR8PSOdTRb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/lY2wnQVdTRb Watch the Episodes On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Dr. Tara Swart - https://www.taraswart.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In your book, you talk about the mechanisms of neuroplasticity. What are the mechanisms of neuroplasticity and the three factors that have the biggest impact on changes in the brain? So the first one is myelination and anyone who does a lot of sport, who repeats a certain weight training will understand that that's what's happening in their muscles. You know when I said, you come here pretty much every day and you sit with someone and you interview them and you're really great at asking questions? That's like something you're super good at, that because you repeat it, it becomes like

a superpower. And that means that what's happening there is myelination. So myelin is a fatty substance that coats some neural pathways, and those pathways become fast pathways. Now there's a reason from evolution why we have some fast pathways and some slow pathways. And the reason is that if you put your hand in the fire, your reflex to snatch your hand out is a fast pathway, but your pain reflex is a slow pathway because if you were incapacitated by pain the minute you put your hand in the

fire you wouldn't be able to get away from it. One of the mechanisms of neuroplasticity is becoming even better at something that you're really good at and that happens through myelination. The most common one, which is something that you're quite good at but if you had loads of time you could become really good at it but you maybe don't have loads of time, happens through synaptic connection. So that's the one that can feel like quite hard work. But if you put in the effort, then you can change your brain. So that means that neurons that already exist in the brain, connect up with each other and start to form new pathways. And the third

mechanism, which doesn't happen a lot in the adult brain, but it does happen around the hippocampus, because we do lay down new memories in life happens a lot in children's brains, is called neurogenesis. And that is little embryonic nerve cells that float around in the brain actually becoming fully formed nerve cells, neurons, and connecting up through synaptic connection and maybe getting myelinated. And there's a factor, a growth factor that's involved in that, the embryonic cell becoming an adult cell, which is called BDNF or brain derived neurotrophic factor. And trophic means growth.

So neurotrophic is growth of neurons. And the things that contribute mostly to that are aerobic exercise and eating dark skinned foods. Yeah. Dark skinned foods. Yeah. Dark skinned foods? Yeah. So let me just cover the exercise one first,

because this is one of my fun facts, which is that if you are regularly doing aerobic exercise, the turnover of those cells in your brain is about 13, 14%. So like the amount and the speed in which they like die off? No, the speed in which they go from embryonic to full grown cell. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. So because we want neurogenesis to happen. Okay. If you haven't been doing exercise for a while and then you start,

the rate of cell turnover is like 30%. So it increases after a period of inactivity with new aerobic exercise. So that's my excuse for like being a couch potato half the time and then starting up again. Oh yeah. Who are you kidding? Okay, so it will accelerate the speed in which you're making those connections. Yeah, making the embryonic cells grow into new cells and then connect up with existing ones.

So I want to make sure I'm super clear on this. So if I'm trying to develop, if I'm trying to speak a different language by doing exercise that has an impact on Oh, help you learn and retain memories. Yeah. So in, in simple language, if I'm doing aerobic exercise, my ability to accelerate my neuroplasticity will increase. What if it's like not aerobic exercise? What if I'm just lifting big weights? There are benefits to your brain of other types of exercise, but weight training doesn't relate

to neurogenesis as much. This isn't so much about language, but it's another example of mind over matter. So this was an experiment done on two groups of weightlifters. Thought you might like this one. That's a big compliment. Thank you so much. You think I'm a weightlifter? You can identify as a weightlifter. You looked at me and thought weightlifter. Thank you so much. This was finger and elbow weights though, so maybe not so glamorous in this experiment. Okay. So one group lifted finger or elbow weights.

I think this was a two week study and they showed, I think it was about a 40% increase in muscle mass of the targeted muscle group for those weights. Their counterparts only imagined lifting weights for two weeks. They lifted no weights for two weeks. They just sat there and they visualized themselves lifting weights. And they had a 13% increase in muscle mass. Interesting.

So we can tell our brain to grow muscle. Have you been secretly doing that? No, but I could be doing that instead. I've been going to the gym. It would be much easier if I could just watch the football and tell myself that I'm lifting weights. Well, I don't think you can watch the football. I think the whole like visualization and, you know, intention and attention stuff was an important part of it. I mean, that speaks to the power of our thoughts again, doesn't it really? If our thoughts can tell our brain to grow muscles. Has that been is that?

It's in the book. But is it like, is it? Is that widely accepted as the truth? I'm surprised there's not like personal trainers that just sit you down in an empty room and just go right. Well, think about the number of athletes that use visualization as part of their training. Of course they do the exercise and the practice and everything but that's hugely used in sports. Interesting. It's obviously not a case that I would just then go home and start imagining working out but it does again remind me of the importance of just

thinking about positive things that are in line with my goals. Yeah. I mean, what's the harm in imagining yourself more muscular or more youthful alongside eating the dark foods and getting enough sleep? You know, it's like it's part of the package. Do you want to know what you should eat so that you can? Please. What is this dark skinned foods? So basically, you know, at the basic level we want people to have a healthy balanced diet, mostly plant-based, but where you can choose a darker version of a food, the pigment in the skin of that food has higher levels of antioxidants called anthocyanins and they also contribute to neurogenesis. So it's basically like eating black beans instead

of white beans or eating blueberries instead of strawberries, dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, purple sprouting broccoli instead of green broccoli and good quality coffee counts as well. Yeah so you know I try to vary what I eat but also always choose the darker option if I can. Okay, so is there anything else that one needs to know about the process of neuroplasticity? From what I've ascertained so far, it's about understanding the patterns we have in our brain, understanding the consequences of them. Repetition is key to establishing new pathways. Is there anything else that I need to be really aware of? Because I do want to grow my brain and change my brain.

Yeah. So the accountability piece, which we discussed, but also creating the conditions in your body for your brain to be able to do all of that stuff. And so, you know, this is a bit of repetition, but sleeping roughly eight hours a night, having regular sleep and wake times seems to have an additional benefit. we don't know why. So within an hour, so go to sleep between 10 and 11, wake up whenever. Not being sedentary, so being physically active doesn't necessarily mean you have to pound it at the gym.

To be honest, in terms of neuroplasticity, you don't want to do too much high intensity exercise because it spikes your cortisol levels. So it's better to do too much high intensity exercise because it spikes your cortisol levels. So it's better to do kind of quite gentle exercise. Eating 30 different plant products a week and varying the color as much as possible. You know, managing your stress, whether it's through meditation or just like removing the causes of stress. If you're doing and being hydrated, if you are doing all of those things and you want to play at level two of the game, you could start doing time restricted eating. So only eating between, I only eat between 12 noon and 8 p.m.

But you could do 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So that kind of fasting is very beneficial for your brain as well. But only if you've got the foundations right. It's not going to help you if you don't. What does it do for the brain? Fasting, intermittent fasting? Well, it helps to regulate your blood sugar levels. So, you know, spiking blood sugar levels aren't good for your body or your brain. And fasting and calorie restriction, they do have like brain health and longevity benefits. But that, you know, only if your foundations are right, you know, somebody who's stressed or eats badly or doesn't sleep enough will

not benefit from time restricted eating or intermittent fasting. Because it is a form of stress on your body, but it's a form of stress that your body can take and use to build resilience if the baseline level of stuff is good. And for neuroplasticity to happen, we need to be taking on big cognitive challenges, challenges that kind of break existing pathways. So I want to learn to DJ. I've been learning for about 12 months now. That feels like a big cognitive challenge for me. Yeah, that's great.

That's the type of thing that would establish a new pathway in my brain. Absolutely. Someone's just looking to build their self-esteem and their confidence. What does the brain tell us about the process of doing that? Does it go back again to what we said about awareness, about understanding the feelings and the consequences and about setting goals and repetition and accountability? It will get to that but there's actually a little bit of a jump start to that which is really helpful particularly in terms of confidence and self-esteem which is that usually there's a particular recurring negative thought that's

associated with feelings of lack of confidence. So if you can identify what that is and create a positive affirmation that's like the opposite of it or something that counteracts it, then that can be a great way to get started. My phrase would have been it has to be perfect and it's not going to be perfect. I wouldn't have been able to say this last year but now I would I would probably be able to say it is going to be better be perfect and it's not going to be perfect. I wouldn't have been able to say this last year, but now I would probably be able to say, it is going to be better than perfect. It is going to be amazing.

Like I know it. But to get myself there, I could have said, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it's going to be great. Or I could have said, maybe it will be perfect. Sometimes the question I ask myself is, what's the best possible outcome that could happen here? So it's changing your language in your mind about the things that you think. So that's basically metacognition, which is that you can, you can understand your own thinking

and then reversing that narrative quite strongly, even if it doesn't feel like it's totally true and just repeating that so much that you start to wear down that other pathway. Does language really matter? The language we say to ourselves? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it really matters. Yeah, how we speak about ourselves. How do we know that matters? I mean it's neuroplasticity. If you're repeating something in your mind or out loud, then if that's being repeated more than another statement, it's the one that your brain's going to believe.

So we can trick our brains effectively by saying something else to ourselves repeatedly. Because there's this whole movement in the personal development community which says you just kind of look in the mirror and you say to yourself, like, I'm beautiful, I'm attractive, everyone's going to love me, I I'm gonna be rich. And I've found it hard to get on board with that train. Yeah. That one... Because I know I'm bullshitting myself. You know, in my subconscious or whatever, I just know if I said those things, I'm not saying about myself, but saying those very, very

far away things, I just think my brain is smart enough to know that I'm bullshitting myself. Yeah, I think there's an element of reality to it. So there's a few things there, which is those particular things that you said are very shallow. They are not really the things that people should need to be saying to themselves. What I find, and I picked this up from the podcast with Lewis, is he said that sometimes he would just say to himself, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm okay. And actually just sometimes saying to myself, I'm safe. I'm safe. I'm okay. And actually just sometimes saying to myself I'm safe is that's what I need to hear not I'm beautiful and I'm amazing that that does feel like a

It's kind of thing that everybody probably wants to say be It's not addressing the underlying. Yeah, it's not addressing and I'm gonna be rich I mean, that's the worst one because you actually have to do stuff to make that happen. You know, you can't just say that. So I think finding the stuff that you need to say to yourself that is not to do with social expectation or parental expectation or, you know, social group,

what everybody else is doing, like what you really want to know for yourself, that's gonna set you up to be able to go out into the real world and do the, that's going to set you up to be able to go out into the real world and do the stuff that you need to do to get the other things that you want. There you said, you can't just say it, you have to go out and do it. Now, when people hear this term manifestation, it's highly associated with just kind of saying stuff or thinking stuff. And it's less associated with actually going out and doing it. So a

lot of people just turn off when someone talks about manifestation because it sounds kind of woo woo, put it on the vision board and it will happen. And in fact, I think I've said this a few times, but I had to, I wouldn't say it was an argument, but a disagreement which resulted in the person I was speaking to literally getting out of a taxi in the middle of New York city and walking off. I was on a date many years ago and the girl was saying to me that she goes, you can just manifest anything into your life. So you can just think about it and then it will happen. So I said to her, you think you could just like think about becoming a millionaire and then it will happen. And she goes, yeah. And I go, and you wouldn't

even have to like do all the stuff. And she was like, no, you could just like think about it and the universe will attract it into your life. Do you believe in manifestation? And if so, what form of manifestation and how is that supported with neuroscience? So I believe in manifestation based on your brain. So your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions. So where I've called my book, The Source, I have said your brain is the source of you being able to attract everything that you want into your life. So I sat down one summer and I like researched the laws of attraction and just looked at

whether I could explain them through cognitive science, which is psychology and neuroscience, and I could. So I was kind of like, oh, I'm onto something here. And the first stage for me was understanding that it is absolutely to do with the way that you think, but then it's not magically like attracting something in the atmosphere, it's to do with the changes that you make based on your thought process.

I do believe in vision boards, but I call them action boards because I see them as a representation of what I want, but I still have to go out there and make those things happen. I think it's also much more empowering to believe that it's your brain that's making that stuff happen and not some external force that you're not really sure what it is. This point about aging generally, longevity and aging, one of the really interesting things you talk about in the book is this idea of psychological priming and psychological priming of aging. And that psychological priming is the effect that the mindset of aging has on our physical

body. How our thoughts about aging affect our physical abilities. What I interpreted from that is our thoughts about aging have an impact on our aging. Yeah. So actually there's a really fascinating study. It's one of my favourite ones to talk about, which was three groups of octogenarians. Octogenarians? People in their 80s. And one group was the control group, so they just lived like normal for a week. One group had to reminisce about being in their 60s for most of the week, whenever they had an opportunity to.

And one group were actually driven to retrofitted versions of their homes that looked like what their house looked like 20 years ago. They were given newspapers dated from 20 years ago. They had photos of themselves in that house when they were in their 60s. And, and one of the things was they got there and they were, they were sort of like, okay, you know, who's going to carry our suitcase up to the bedroom or whatever? And they were like, no, you're 60 now, you carry your own suitcase. So it literally started from the minute they got there and these little old ladies had to, and gentlemen had to carry their cases up. After one week, the people in that group were taller because their posture improved.

They had better musculoskeletal coordination than they had a week before. In before and after photos that were shown to people that didn't know them, they were rated as younger in the one week after photos and the photos from arriving at that place. And the reminiscing group also had some improvements, but not as much as a group that lived like they were in their sixties. And so there was three groups. Yeah, the ones that went back and relived their life, the ones that reminisced and the ones that did nothing at all. Wow. And that really goes to show the impact of what we think about ourselves and then all of the physiological consequences of that. You talk about this, your eyes as well.

That you're going to get, was it like laser eye surgery? No, no, it's just like- People told you you needed glasses. Well, my optician told me so he's of Indian origin same age as me and He said, oh, I think you know, you're probably gonna need reading glasses next year And I was like, no, I do not want reading glasses that makes you look really old and he was like, yeah I know I know we both look younger than we are but you know Your eyes are gonna age just like anybody else's and I was like no they are not

So I left came back a year later. He said like, no, they are not. So I left, came back a year later. He said, how's it going with the reading? So it's fine. He sort of went, okay Tara. So he's doing my eye test. He spins around on his little chair halfway through and says, your eyes haven't got worse. They haven't even stayed the same. They've got better. And I said, I know. And he said, what have you been doing? And I said, well, I just said no to you when you said, I'm going to have to get reading glasses. And when I'm like looking at my phone or a book, and it feels like it would be a bit easier if I moved it further away, I just don't. And what's that doing in the brain? Why is that? Why did that improve your reading?

Well, I hadn't experienced a problem with my reading but he was obviously seeing the numbers slightly change. I really didn't do much more than what I've just said so it was like not accepting the limitation and then not changing my behaviour and I think that's what you see from the third group of people which is that they had to change their behaviour to live like without any help and in a way that they had to when they were younger. So that essentially removed the limitations that we impose on ourselves, which is that if I'm X age, it must mean that I need reading glasses or I need a walking stick or whatever it is. There's a kind of opposite experiment to that too, which was done with young medical

students in Florida. And they had to walk between five rooms. And on the table were five pieces of paper with a word on it and you had to string a sentence out of it. And but that wasn't the real experiment. They thought that was the experiment. The real experiment was that in one of the rooms, the words that were on the table were Florida, beach, sunshine, walk, bungalow. And all of them walked more slowly out of that room than any of the other rooms because those words are associated with retirement.

And that made them slow down. You asked me, is language important enough to our brain? That's how important it is. So just saying words can change our behaviour so quickly. That's what the experiment showed. I've been thinking a lot, you know, I said I've got this vlog on YouTube called Behind the Diary and in two of the episodes I've caught myself out while I'm filming because I said words that I thought would be unhelpful.

I think people, someone in the comments actually challenged me because there's one day when I'm filming Dragon's Den and I'm filming myself, I'm just talking about what's going on. I go, oh, I really need a coffee this morning. And I stop myself and say, I shouldn't say need. And then I go, there's something about this casual use of the word need throughout our lives that is disempowering me. It's making me a slave to the coffee. So I make this point, which I'm sure people think I'm a little bit,

but with making that I should, I really need to not say the word need associated with things because I will then probably develop a psychological and maybe a physical, like a somewhat of a physical need for that, for that thing. And it just, it's, it's also just bringing that word need into your life. Like you don't have enough, like that you need something. I'm constantly changing my words, like, you know, tweaking them like that. So I would say, oh, I'm going to treat myself to a coffee. And that was your decision. You were powerful there. Yeah. That's a choice you made. Yeah. There's an overarching point here about personal responsibility as well. When people talk about, I can't exercise, I don't have any time. It feels like a really disempowering frame versus I've got other priorities, which feels empowering. And I think about this all the time, because if you ask them why they don't exercise, they'll

typically blame it on some force. The frame makes it seem like there's a force that's controlling their life for them, that has not given them the time or that they could not. Whereas really, it's just a typically case of priorities and your child or your job that pays your mortgage can be your priority. But I think it's important. I've always felt it's important to acknowledge the fact that you made the choice to take care of your child or to go to your mortgage paying job versus I didn't, you know, I didn't have any time. Yeah. This is what I think about language so much and the language that I use and how that's dominating my life, even constantly telling myself that I'm unorganized, like messy. So how that's probably making me a messy person. So, how that's probably making me a messy person. What have we talked about that we probably should have talked about?

Is there anything at all, any studies or any insights into the brain and how we change habits that are stubborn? Or anything else at all that you've learned from the ancient wisdom? I know that we've talked like very broadly on lots of different things, but I hope that with for me, my intention with every sentence that I've said to you is that people should realise how much potential they have in their brains, like how capable they are of having an even more amazing life than they have already.

of having an even more amazing life than they have already. I think I accept that now more than I ever have before, because I've had this conversation with you. I think I accept that there's so much untapped potential in me and that I'm not this kind of fully formed rigid lump of cells. I can change fundamentally. I think a lot of people probably, if they've gotten to this point in the conversation, will also accept that. If you were to close with I guess the step one, like the thing that I should immediately do as I move forward in my life from here, that would help me to start moving towards that person that I want to become the organized,

great partner, successful in his business, great with his podcast, all of those things. What is that first step? And you know what's funny is because my brain keeps thinking about the taxi driver that I met on the way here, who said he'd listen to the podcast and he told, gave me a little bit of a window into his world. So he's driving the cab every day. And I meet a lot of cab drivers that listen to the podcast and we chat. And oftentimes they, sometimes they have dreams of doing other things. So they might say to me, John, I want to start my own business one day. And I'm just looking, I'm looking for the first couple of steps. But I, I reflect on what you said and go, they're going to be so hardwired into their patterns and their jobs and their habits and their routines that

it's very hard to make that jump. Yeah. So if I could give people a takeaway to start with, that's really simple, but it doesn't mean there isn't a lot of hard work at the other end of it. It would be be very clear on what it is that you want. So you've mentioned a few things. Spend five minutes sitting down and visualizing those things being true and then give gratitude for that. That would be my first step. Give gratitude for? Those things being true. Just five minutes, I'm a great partner, I'm not messy, my podcast is super successful. Like see it, feel it in your body, taste it in your mouth,

hear it in your ears. Completely immerse yourself in that for five minutes, longer if you can. And then just be so grateful for all of that. Essentially what you're doing is moving your brain from a fear state to a trust state, and that is the gateway to making these changes.