The Ins & Outs - The Science Behind Interior & Exterior Design

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

In this episode we interview world leading Neuroscientist, Best Selling Author and Podcaster Dr Tara Swart.Dr Tara educates us on why our surroundings are so important and how they directly impact our health and wellbeing.We discuss Neuroplasticity, Neurasthenics, Imposter Syndrome, how Manifestation and Visualisation works in the real world.We also discuss what trees boost your immunity!This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor B&Q, go and check them out on the link below!SponsorsB&Q - https://www.diy.com/InstagramDr Tara Swart - @drtaraswartPodcast - @the_insandouts_Jojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonProducer Andy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Let's see, one, two, three. Green, the color of true elation. Pond on a summer's day. See, I've been waiting for you, waiting for you. Hello and welcome to episode nine of The Ins and Outs, sponsored by B&Q. I am Jojo Barr. And I am Polly Wilkinson.

Today we have an extra special episode for you, as we have a very special guest with us today. Dr Tara Swart is a leading neuroscientist, podcaster and author of bestselling book, The Source. We have invited her here today to talk to us about neuroplasticity, neuroaesthetics and how our surroundings can directly affect our wellbeing. We will also be talking about vision boards, imposter syndrome, how trees can boost your immunity and how to live our very best lives after 40, as well as lots, lots more. Dr. Tara Swart, thank you so much for coming in and letting us talk to you today. It's so exciting to have you here because we've been swatting up on everything that you do. And I've got friends that have listened to your podcast

and read your book. And I'm just so fascinated to hear what you've got friends that have listened to your podcast and read your book. And I'm just so fascinated to hear what you've got to say today. So thank you for coming. Well, thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be your first actual guest. Oh, my goodness. I know. So exciting.

In the Spotify studios, I might add, which is even more. Really exciting. Really, really exciting. So thank you so much. Absolutely. We have lived and breathed you this week listening to the amazing podcast you've been on. So thank you so much. Absolutely. We have lived and breathed you this week listening to the amazing podcast you've been on. So thank you so much for joining us. I am actually about halfway through your book, The Source, which is just incredible.

And would you mind just giving us a little bit of background on yourself and telling us about neuroscience and neuroplasticity and the things that you are so expert at? Sure. So I started off as a medical student and in the middle of medical school, I had an opportunity to do a PhD and all the special topics I'd chosen were neuroscience and neuroanatomy and neuropharmacology and neurophysiology. Went and did the PhD thinking I'd become a neurologist. But then when I came back to medical school, decided that I preferred psychiatry because it was interesting to see how people think and how their thoughts change and their mood changes and things like that. So I was a psychiatrist for seven years. And then I guess I had had a bit of a spiritual revolution going on in the background, you know, just thinking about what I really wanted to do. And, well, there is, you know, I sort of look at what you two do. And I just feel like, just so proud of you,

but kind of envious as well. Because I was told at school that I wasn't creative, because I wasn't good at art. So I felt like I had to, you know, I was good at science, and I had to go to medical school and do that kind of thing. But I think it'd been kind of eating away at me. And I just thought, you know, everyone said, you're so smart, you should go to medical school and do that kind of thing. But I think it had been kind of eating away at me. And I just thought, you know, everyone said, you're so smart, you should go to medical school, you're so smart, you should do a PhD. And I thought, if I'm that smart, I should be able to do whatever I want. But I have never even thought about what that is. So I spent about two years thinking about it. And then coaching came up as something that was psychological and Zen, but also very goal orientated and you know

driven and it kind of suited my personality and my transferable skills so then I changed over to becoming a coach and at this point I mean when I chose to do a PhD in neuroscience it was not a cool topic at all and it still didn't exist in business and leadership when I changed over about 15 years ago but then it sort of came I mean it makes sense you use you're getting paid to use your brain when you're a business leader but it became a topic and so I started speaking about it as well and that really opened up what I could do and then of course I wrote a few books um the source is about science and spirituality so I went from kind of playing it safe in a new career to then thinking, well, what can I do that's a bit more creative or more spiritual and different? So I was the world's first neuroscientist in residence at a five star hotel, which is actually just around the corner. Amazing.

Yeah. And I've co-written a song and I've got my own podcast. So yeah, I'm definitely on that creative journey. I'm going to jump straight in with a question, if you don't mind. You said that you didn't think you were creative at that age. Do you think being creative or intellectual, let's say, would you say that that's since birth? Do you think it's almost how you're brought up, how you're raised to believe that you're one or the other or is it what your parents might put in front of you that makes you one or the other so well first of all you don't have to be one or the other i think all three of us are great examples of being both um and so you asked about neuroplasticity earlier and basically your it plastic just means very flexible and the brain

is being molded and shaped by everything that it experiences even at our age um every memory that you recall every emotion you experience every new person you meet it has an impact on your brain but as kids you know the brain is so malleable so you know if you're in, so I've got a friend who is an art curator. And when she was a child, she took a marker pen and drew onto one of her parents really expensive pieces of art. And they said, that's wonderful because you're so creative. And my parents would not have said anything like that if I had done that. You know, it's just a very different sort of experience. And all of those experiences shape you and shape how you view the world and what you you know feel that you have to offer and I think it's often quite later that you really

start to think about purpose um you know what what were you put on this planet to do the real big question because actually you you did a podcast I can't remember was it called the art of living it's your podcast and you were interviewed to a female remember, was it called The Art of Living? It was your podcast and you were interviewed two female writers. Was it called The Art of Living? The episode is called The Art of Living and their book is called Your Brain on Art. That's right. And I think one of the questions was really interesting. This was fascinating. And I think you were talking about how when you're born, if you are a boy or a girl, you're immediately treated differently. So that experiment is where they took babies, you know, that were still so young that it's

difficult to tell what gender they are anyway. And they, regardless of their gender, dress them either in blue or pink, and allowed them to crawl up a ramp. And people who didn't know them, basically were told, like, you know, you're in charge of the safety of this child. And they stopped the children dressed in this child and they stopped the children dressed in pink earlier than they stopped the children dressed in blue to keep them safe but you know what signal is that giving to the brain of the child dressed in pink you know aka a girl obviously the brains of of children are very malleable is there there a cut off? Like most of our listeners are probably I don't know, in their 30s, 40s, 50s. Are we too late? Are we still malleable?

We're still malleable. So if you think about children from zero to two, they go from literally being completely helpless and vulnerable to walking, talking, you know, they can learn up to five languages at the same time and you know the first few years of their life being able to control their bladder and bowel so it's a massive you know they're like sponges it's just so much learning going on um and then the brain is actively growing and shaping and changing till we're about 25 and we used to think that was 18 like when you physically stopped growing that your that your brain would also be the same as the rest of your body and therefore that your personality and your IQ and your creativity levels would be fixed by that age so we know it's actually much more active now till

we're 25 and then from 25 you know into retirement you have to work a bit harder to keep your brain flexible but you can so you know you can still learn a language in your 40s or 50s but it might feel harder than it would for a kid to pick up another language i mean i've been plugging away on duolingo it's it's slow it's a slow burn well isn't it right that learning a language can be one of the things that can actually hold back dementia yeah it's the number one thing to stop you getting dementia or a musical instrument and it's basically learning that is intense enough attention intense enough to change your brain and when you do an activity like that you don't just get the benefits of the language which

language are you learning italian okay badly um well i'll tell you a story about different ways to learn but if you when you learn ital Italian sufficiently to go on holiday to Italy, that won't be the only benefit that your brain will have had. You'll have had what's called global benefits around the brain. And they're mostly in the executive functions, which are the highest functions of the brain. So like our ability to regulate our emotions, solve complex problems, think flexibly.

You know, I'm already starting to think as a garden designer, like I'm profiling your brain thinking what's going to get boosted and you know, what maybe you don't use as often that maybe you'll feel more comfortable with. But the thing about language is because I've learned quite a few languages, because I do a neuroplasticity learning every year. And I've learned languages by being in the country and picking it up or I've learned one at school, I've learned two at home. And then so I decided to take on a really intense challenge and to learn Danish.

But I had lessons. So I had 90-minute lessons once a week. And I would get so tired and so hungry because people don't realize that psychological change is actually physical change going on in your brain so it's the same as like working out at the gym with weights for weeks um at about a one at the one hour point I was just taking junk food with me because I just like my brain was like give me sugar you're like you know asking me to do so much and then I'd done about eight weeks of lessons, gone to Denmark over the summer,

came back and had my next lesson. And then before I knew it, she said, okay, well, we're done for today and I'll see you next week. And I couldn't believe that 90 minutes had passed. So I realized that I'd passed that tipping point in my brain where the pathway was sufficiently developed that it wasn't an effort anymore wow and you do that every year a new language or a new something that's amazing such as what if not a language what else is on your list in the lockdowns I did tennis one year and I got the flow key app and taught myself the piano keyboard one year. Oh my God. Wow. This is so impressive. And do you actually still play now? No.

No? But you could. Yeah, I could if I wanted to, but I don't. I mean, for me, it is those, you know, the skills, but it's getting myself to the point where it's not effort anymore, which means I've achieved neuroplasticity. Okay. And then, you know, I did a much more intangible one year,

which was just to focus on being happier all the time because actually it's almost when we start something new it feels very overwhelming and almost quite daunting so the thought of picking up a book and starting a language it's like oh god where do i start and if the road feels so long before you're actually gonna be standing in a restaurant and ordering your food you know in in the native language so i think it's is there a point at which so say when you first start learning a language when you that suddenly it hits and you think okay I'm in I'm in the flow now I get it is there a particular amount of hours or days of studying that you have to do before you sort of finally

get it so two things I don't know if you've got to this point in the book yet but when you do choose something you have to have what I call magnetic desire you have to want to do it so much that you will keep going when you feel like I'm never going to be able to you know go to Italy and speak you know have a whole conversation in Italian and is it really worth it maybe I shouldn't just not do Italian you know that you have no, there, I remember the reason that I really, really wanted to do this. Because there is a tipping point where the neural pathway becomes sufficient that it's not difficult for you anymore. And it's a natural, you know, you can start to recall the words quite easily. And so that takes patience. So those are two of the six kind of, you know,

what I distilled the laws of attraction down to being that was backed by cognitive science. So you have to have that very strong desire. And I always say it has to be head, heart and gut. So it's got to be logically, this is the reason I want to. Emotionally, this is why I really, you know, desire it. And intuitively, this is the right thing for me to be doing just to pull it out a bit you said that you do something every year for your neuroplasticity

what's the benefit why so one of the things that Jojo mentioned is you know it does it can stave off the onset of symptoms of dementia that's not the reason that I do it but the level of your higher education I mean let's say you have a university degree and I've got a PhD. If we have exactly the same brain profile for by a certain age, we would start to get degenerative, you know, dementia in the brain. If I've got a higher level of education than you, the symptoms won't show up for longer. So you might get to 75, I might get to 78 before we have the same level of symptoms. So if you know, the audience is in their 40s and 50s, then the structured educational system is behind them, but they can still learn new things. And at that age, you're kind of

squeezed between young kids and aging parents. So the thought of dementia is like looming on people's minds. so taking on a new learning to prevent something in the future is a good idea but also those global benefits I mentioned so just generally being better able to regulate your emotions being able to override your biases being able to think outside the box you know these are things that we'd all like a bit more of but it's very hard to train for those things. But if you just take on new learning, then you boost those things too. So that's really interesting, because I don't know if you've heard this, I've got quite a few people in the slightly older generation who try and do a Sudoku every day, because they say that's

going to stave off dementia. But surely, if you do that every day, you're going to reach a tipping point where the benefit is no longer there. Is that right? Yeah. So both Sudoku and crosswords, which is what people say, they're not attention intense enough to change your brain. And if you just do a similar activity every day and people will choose what they like. So if you like words, you're going to choose crosswords. If you like numbers, you're going to choose Sudoku. You should actually do the opposite, the one that's harder for you. Okay. So you're almost seeking out brain discomfort for growth. And it's a muscle, so it's almost lifting heavy weights. And the heavier you get, the bigger the muscle's going to get.

Yeah. It's a bit like that. It's like when I avoid lunges. I hate lunges. Oh, I love a lunge. So I should be doing them and you shouldn't. lunges. Oh, I love a lunge. I don't like it. So I should be doing them and you shouldn't. Shouldn't. Oh, I don't do them. What's the one, the squat where you jump up and that's my burpees?

Well, that's what you need to do. Not for me. I have a question for you about our surroundings. So how important are our surroundings for our overall health and well-being? Obviously, we create spaces for people, you know, our tagline is to create livable, timeless interiors for people and for them to walk through the door and feel like their home. It's so important. I think we all know that intuitively. And, you know, let's say in the last 5, 10, 15 years, I've always mentioned things like, you know,

if your desktop is really cluttered, then you might not be able to think as clearly as you'd like to. You know, when you rewrite your to do list or your mind map, you always feel a bit more like, okay, I can see what I need to get done now. What is a mind map? So this is how I do my to do list, even though so I started doing this, because it's, it was a bit more contrary to what I would do as a scientist so instead of writing a to-do list I get a piece of paper and have a little theme in a circle in the middle and then I draw branches out so it'll be like work stuff stuff I've got to do at home maybe something travel related and then you know more branches come off them and it will say you know prepare for the ins and outs podcast today or then you know record for my podcast tomorrow and just tick those things off but for me that wasn't intuitive

but I do it because it makes me think differently. Okay so I leapt in there so tidy desk that's really helpful. Are there other sort of quick wins that we can do in the house which are going to physically impact our well-being yeah i mean and i was going to going to come to the fact that more recently this field of neuroaesthetics or neuro arts um speaks about the impact of our environment on our mental health our health and our longevity and we can you know delve into that but um i'll give you an example of when i was writing the source i was still working full time as well. And I had to signal to my brain to go into a different mode.

So what I used to do is have one place that I would sit for writing my book and a different place I would sit for doing other work. So I just would take my laptop to a different place. I would have music on for work, but silence for writing the book. And, you know, I did think about things like having the best natural light and stuff like that. So all of those things that you do and, you know, you can use aromas in the home to signal different things to you as well. There's some new research that shows that the more different aromas you smell around your house that can also stave off the um starting start of dementia so you're stimulating your olfactory nerve yeah and that

nerve goes directly from the top of your nose in and it associates with the part of the brain that's just behind your nose whereas your optic nerve goes all the way around your skull because your visual cortex is at the lower bottom of your skull so so go light some candles in my innies yeah but don't keep the same ones all the time yeah variety is the spice of life and the answer to a healthy longevity healthy longevity and then i'm desperate to talk about outside yeah of course um are you an innie or an outie yes are you more of an innie or an outie are Yes, choose. Are you more of an innie or an outie? Are you into your interiors and your outieriers? Outieriers.

Outieriers. Come on, darling. I would have said I was more of an innie, but since I've had a garden designed and it's like, you know, in the pandemic, spending more time in nature, I probably would say I'm now more of an outie. you go it says it's um to give you some context so I worked in the city and then I trained to be a councillor um for three years while still um doing a city job because I really craved that sort of more personable creative path and I absolutely loved it um but sort of

realized it was actually more beneficial for me as a life skill than necessarily a career but it really ignited my passion for mental health and then when I did finally figure out where I wanted to end up which is garden design mental health has always stayed with me as a very important part of creating gardens in terms of seeing the benefits to people and not just designing a garden but then actually being in it. So I'd love to hear from you the benefits of being outdoors and nature and how that can impact your overall mental health. Yeah so in the research on neuroaesthetics they state that both making and beholding beauty are beneficial for your health and your mental health and you and you know the three of us might have different taste in art or

music but nature is the one palette that we've existed in since the beginning of humanity so it has a beneficial effect on our blood pressure and our heart rate and our you know mood um because it's obviously there were predators and things but it's a beauty that we've always you know beholden as as humans um and did you know that trees and plants and some trees more than others and i think some of them are cypresses cedars and limes but there are others you can look up secrete chemicals called phytoncides that trigger the release of natural killer cells in your immune system and boost your immunity wow oh my god so we need to go and cuddle some cedars and that's why you're told to walk outside

of nature 20 minutes a day isn't it yeah and having but having plants in your house also has a beneficial effect not Not dead ones. No. Like, damn, got lots of those. No dead houseplants. That's probably kind of like signaling some negativity to your brain. And your hands in the soil as well. It's meant to boost your mood, just physically getting in.

So it's not enough to have a beautiful garden. You also need to interact with it. And that's something which I think a lot of people don't do yeah is look at it from inside their house you actually have to go into the garden and be in it yeah and you know having contact with soil there's a bacteria I think it's called Saccharomyces vaccii and that also has beneficial effects on your health and your immunity. So, you know, I love to grow my own vegetables, like in a greenhouse in a vegetable patch and have a compost heap and stuff like that. But if you don't have access to that, then when I get my farm box once a week and the vegetables come covered in mud, I actually like wash them by hand so that I have contact with with that soil as well and of course I guess one

of the major differences between interiors and and exteriors is that the garden is a vibrant living thing that's changing all the time whereas you know unless you're I mean I re-hang my art quite frequently but you can't be doing that all the time no but actually interestingly and I even encourage it even just change of seasons change up things like your cushion cases and the throws we change the flowers that we put inside for the different seasons because they make you feel a certain way i think if you walked into the same room every day every day everything gets a bit sort of lifeless you need you need i think we need change as humans don't we we want to feel like our interiors are sort of slightly evolving

but it's all it's all part of the cycle isn't't it? And it's changed. So I guess in the garden, you get the benefit of never ending change, really. Whereas in the interiors, perhaps it's something you have to be more proactive about. Yeah, I mean, obviously, we clean our homes. So we're naturally always cleaning and going around things and puffing things up and making them sort of look, constantly sprucing up our homes a little bit. But your garden, you almost have't you are those you're just going to get left with nothing whereas in your home we sort of take it slightly for granted that it still looks okay but just got to keep it a bit fresh and clean i find this wildly vindicating as well because i think in previous relationships i've

always wanted to change up a room i'm more like your friend i like to move things what are we going to do now which room are we changing and it's oh gosh you know you've done you've done up the house leave and you're like well actually there is a mental benefit I'm going to hop into a careers question actually because our very first episode Polly and I divulged a little bit about our upbringing and about our career journeys and interestingly both of us and I think this is the this is the case for so many is that we are sort of we go to, we learn what we learn. Our parents tend to sort of push us in a certain direction. And then we hop on that sort of wheel of life, that little mouse wheel, and we just start going.

And it's only at some point, and I don't know when that is, that we sometimes go, I don't want to be on this wheel anymore. I like what that person's doing. And then you sort of hop off. I guess, is there a time in life, is there a reason that that sort of happens at a particular point in our lives? And I guess why we sort of take, why some people sort of end up taking that plunge and why people don't? Yeah, that's such a good question. And I think that that can happen a few times in someone's life or career as well. So I remember when I changed career, I thought, you know, that basically, I'd got the seven year itch with with medicine. And I thought, is that going to happen again? And I was a bit

afraid of it, even though, you know, I did manage to go from a job with a regular salary to a business that was, you know, successful enough. I sort of thought, oh, you know, would I have to start all over again. So what I managed to do was sufficiently make enough changes each year or few years that I wasn't doing the same, exactly the same thing as I was three years ago. So, you know, at the beginning, I was only coaching, then I was coaching and speaking and writing books. And now, you know, I'm doing the podcast. And so, you know, it's varied enough that it's definitely kept my interest. But I did think, you know, if I had to start over over again at least I know I can do it this time so I think I felt like that might make it a bit easier but just going back to something that you said Polly I think a lot of people they go

into a job or a career for the wrong reasons they didn't have fully aligned magnetic desire yeah um and there's nothing wrong with that you know you have to be able to support yourself and your family or you may have a lot of parental or societal or school you know um expectation on you but if you do have this longing and i think in the financial crisis was the first time that i really noticed a lot of because i was coaching a lot of people in the city saying i actually always wanted to be a journalist or i actually always wanted to be a journalist, or I actually always wanted to be a teacher, but that was never going to earn me the same amount of money that I'm earning now. In psychology, there are versions of what we would call a midlife crisis. And what happens most often is that something disrupts your life. And that's when you start to rethink things. So you know know divorce is a common example you get

divorced and you think actually this is not what I always wanted to be doing so now I'm going to think about whether I can start doing something else um if you don't have a disruption then by a certain age and we always need to say 35 but in Jungian psychology the age from 40 to 42 is the midlife stage. And psychologically, it's very important because you non-consciously realize that you've had half of your life and that you're going into the second half of your life and that you're going towards an end. And that may be where if you haven't achieved your purpose, that you start to think, what will I think of myself on my deathbed what you know will I look back and regret that I didn't do the thing that I really wanted to gosh that's so true so we're right in the middle of it my friend I'm right in it and you and I've had a divorce and I'm in the middle of that right now I'm 41 and I'm right there and I'm like I can see the end of my life whereas when I was 37 I was just out there living the dream not really thinking about that and it's almost like it's like penny drops.

You're like, oh, my gosh, I'm halfway. But that's just so fascinating. And I guess, again, it comes back to unconscious bias, doesn't it? It's about the things that we believe we are. About ourselves. About ourselves. And the advice I always give people in their early 30s or even in their 20s is just – because we always look at ourselves in decades, don't we? Your 20s is your fun, your sort of free, 30s you start sort of getting serious jobs and thinking about kids.

And then actually when you sort of bypass those things which you think you're supposed to do in life, you get to this like, oh God, who gives a shit? I actually don't, I'm not doing this for anyone else now. I actually am just doing what I want to be doing. That word should is a really interesting one. One friends she said you're too old now to be saying should about anything wow um oh that is a fantastic affirmation yeah yeah so if you're at that fulcrum point which we both are yeah is there anything that we should be asking ourselves um it's actually the first thing to say is that

it's an amazing time to be in it is a time full of potential so where it can feel quite like it's a transition and transition is hard and there's um a word I love called liminality which is when you're standing on a threshold and you you are no longer what you were but you don't yet know what you're going to be and I had you know when I had my midlife crisis I remember I was working in the city doing my coaching course crossing the road and in my mind thinking well I'm not a doctor anymore but I'm not a coach yet so what am I and then actually having a word with myself and being like what am I like what are you okay you know yeah it's quite a scary time but you know looking back I feel that those times of flux

are actually really exciting and we're old enough now that we can we have more agency over you know what the outcome could be so I think again in Jungian psychology he talks about individuation or self-actualization. So this is your time to become the best version of yourself, you know, the person that you've always wanted to be and that you'll be proud of. Your authentic self. Yeah. I think that'll be so reassuring, actually, this whole conversation for so many listeners, because when we did do this first episode, this was such a hot topic of our career changes and how many people reached out to say that they really connected with that conversation yeah and I

think also just feeling like there's an answer for why you're feeling like that because so many people are like why do I suddenly feel like I don't want to do my job and I want to do something that's completely I don't have any training for I've never thought about it before and suddenly I have this deep desire to do something creative and it's really nice to feel like there's an explanation there's always nice when you can pinpoint almost like a reasoning in the brain blame it on the brain there are two things I really want to dive into which are one sort of manifestation and visualization which I know you're an absolute pro on and I really want to dive into that and separately stress because I think both these things are things we talked about as well in that episode which um I think we all experience so a lot of what we've talked about with the people

have been listening is sort of that imposter syndrome or feeling yeah sort of scared of running their own business or being successful in their work whether it's theirs or not um I do you have any tips in terms of visualizations, manifestation? I know it's something you've shared a lot about and I know nothing. Yeah. So in the first year when I changed career, I went away for a weekend with another coach who was about 10 years more experienced than me. And she said, let's make vision boards. And I was in that very early stage where I, you know, I could, couldn't really like pay my bills and rent and things like that. So I said, I need to put an amount of money on there

because if that doesn't work out, then, you know, I'm going to have to give up on this. So she said, okay, how much do you want to put on there? So I worked, I said, I'd worked out how much I needed to live. And so I told her that that was the amount that I was going to put on. And she said, well, you shouldn't do that. You should put don't you want to and I said well I can't put double that's just not going to be possible and she said but don't you want to earn more than you need to live so I was reluctant but I put the double figure because she really persuaded me and I can't remember what else was on that board but it would have been mostly to do with business and I had it up in my bathroom um and I was living in a one-bedroom flat at the time so

if somebody came to my house and used the loo they would see it and I think as Brits we're not very comfortable talking about how much money we want to earn so holds you very accountable I suppose held me very that's part of making an action board is that it does hold you accountable as well and at the end of a year I'd made that sum wow and I remember just thinking this is a bit crazy so I'm going to double it again and see what happens yeah um and and and it worked so and there's all sorts of other things on there about travel and companies I wanted to work with and book I wanted to write

and relationship stuff and health stuff as well, which, you know, these things are very powerful. So I'm a big advocate of what other people call vision boards, but I call them action boards because it's not enough to create a fantasy and then just do nothing and hope that it's not enough to create a fantasy and then just do nothing and hope that it's going to come true you know you have to work really hard you have to grab opportunities you have to put yourself out there um and I've kind of honed it

down over the years so this is my advice so make a an action board okay look at it can I just interrupt that when you say make an action board do you tend to suggest a physical one? Or do you think online, doing it on your laptop, do you prefer when you physically cut something out and stick it on a board? I do have one on Pinterest now. And I'm not saying don't do that. But the problem with that is that you know what you're looking for. If you're online, which means you're actually limiting yourself to what you believe you can get. So I leave quite a lot of space on mine because I call it leaving room for magic. And I look through images, obviously with an idea of what I want but then if I get really drawn to something but I can't even explain why I'll put it onto my board and it usually makes sense later so yeah so make make an action board put it somewhere that's visible at least to you even if you don't want it like openly visible so you could have it by your bed then you naturally see

it twice a day at least um look at it and visualize everything on it being true okay and really immerse yourself in that like what it feels like what it smells like who's around you the you know the feeling it's it's bringing up in you and then give gratitude for that all being true that that's my like process i've honed it even though it's not true yet do the visualization and in your brain there's not that much difference between something that you visualize and something that you've actually achieved so you're kind of training your brain to achieve it but by really immersing yourself in that experience you will feel good and then like just remember to give gratitude for it and then and then in terms of deep diving in here, time wise, should it just be the next year?

Or are you looking big picture decade? I do the next year because for me, I've always found it very difficult to visualize when people say a five year plan or a 10 year plan. I just, I don't know if it's my brain, but I just can't, I've never been able to see that. But what I've learned retrospectively is that things happen in life that you could not predict. You know, things change. And I don't actually see the point of having such a long-term plan because I feel it's better to be a bit more nimble. Yes. But that won't be the case for everyone.

I also think there's probably a lot to be said for not wanting to live in the future. You need to live for every day. That's so far. Even sort of planning a year ahead you still want to be enjoying the journey to get there don't you right yeah and the nice thing about a vision board is that there should be some quick wins on it so there should be some things on there that like on pinterest i have a sub board called manifested and i'd move things across once it's come true so that's kind of motivating me and love that system yeah um know what we're doing

this afternoon so you mentioned accountability and you know when um know what we're doing this afternoon so you mentioned accountability and you know when we're when we're doing manifestation or visualization and there's actually a four-step process that's underpinned by neuroplasticity so the fact that your brain can change and change habits or like work towards achieving goals which is um starts with raised awareness so that's you know understanding if you've got a negative thought pattern or if you've got a, you know, a bad relationship history that you keep repeating or just, you know, the fact that you don't want to be in your job and you want to run your own business, like really knowing what it is that you want. Then there's focused attention, which is

things like looking at your action board or just noticing that somebody else made a career change or somebody else got divorced and then met a really nice person and got married again. And just gathering data to support the fact that the thing that you've decided you want is doable and like how it's been done. Then deliberate practice is actually taking the actions in the real world. So that's whether that's going on dates or applying for a different job. And then there's the accountability piece. So that's either your action board or another person or you journaling, but making sure that you are, you know, even if it's a little step each day that you're moving towards that. And the science behind that is three mechanisms in the brain called selective filtering, selective attention and value tagging.

So because we're bombarded with so much information all the time, the brain naturally filters out things that it doesn't think are that important to our survival. By looking at a vision board every day, you're bringing to the front of your mind, these are the things I want, you know, to like see opportunities for. And then that's the selective attention. So you're priming your brain to notice things that are related to things that you want, even if you're busy and you know, wouldn't normally have too much time to devote to that. And then the value tagging is the system in the brain that tags those things in order of importance. And there's a logical system and an emotional system. But the logical system is geared to your actual survival to me like I want you to tag this higher up so you're conscious about it then it will be tagged and you will notice things that you wouldn't have noticed before and the classic examples are things like when you buy a new car suddenly you see it everywhere so imposter syndrome that's something which I think everyone that listens to can relate to everybody can can. Everyone. Yeah, I think so. Can you speak to that? Yeah, so when, again, when I changed career, I had a lot of imposter syndrome.

It wasn't, I don't know, it was worse than imposter syndrome. I don't even know what the word is. So what I, at that stage, I was reading a lot of Jungian psychology and Buddhist philosophy. And Buddhist philosophy says, replace every negative thought with a positive thought. And neuroplasticity backs that up because you're overwriting pathways in the brain with new desired habits and behaviors. And so I was going for an interview and I kept having this repeated negative thought, which was, why would they give the job to me that, you know, they're not going

to think I'm good enough. And you have to dig down underneath that thought, understand what the belief is that's driving that thought. And usually whatever, you know, our thoughts are, it comes down to something about not being worthy or lovable or deserving of something. And then you create a positive affirmation that is the opposite of that belief. And just like we were saying about the boards just now, it has to be bold. It doesn't have to be true right now, but it has to be something that your most confident self could believe is true. And so every time you think, oh, you know, they're not going to give that job to me, you have to say something like, I'm the best candidate for this job for reasons

that they haven't realized yet, but they will see, you know, something like that. So it's overriding a sort of fear. It's fear, isn't it? It's almost like the thing that holds us back usually is fear of rejection or the fear of failure. So it's almost flipping that and telling it, I'm not fearful. I'm really confident that I'm going to get this or I'm confident that I'm going to be able to go where I want to go yeah and even if you say something like I'll get that job if it's the

right job for me and if I don't get it it wasn't for me and that will make sense later you know that's all the path of kind of navigating this midlife time midlife crisis and also uncertainty is the most frightening thing for the brain yes so when you let yourself stay in that limbo it can become really paralyzing so just taking any step forward even if it's going for a job interview that you know you're not going to get but then you got the experience of going to an interview and you met some new people is actually less scary than worrying about whether you should try or not i've got one more question, which is what are some of the really obvious things that we can do indoors and outdoors to improve on your aesthetics?

We could do it a few ways. We could either walk through a day and we could also like look at the five senses. So obviously the colours that you're seeing, the textures that you're feeling, the aromas that you're smelling, the sounds that you're hearing, and taste is okay, like the food that you're eating in your house, you know, so that so the five senses are being stimulated in in your home. But to lead a neuro aesthetic day, you would basically, well, how I start my day is, as soon as I realized I'm awake, I give gratitude for my bedding. So I'll say like, I love my silk pillowcase. And I love my so I'll say like I love my silk pillowcase and I love my side sleeping pillow and I love my mattress topper and you know so that you're

priming the day already to be good because otherwise naturally you can start thinking oh god you know I've got to get to this thing in time and so before I even can start thinking about that stuff I do the little gratitude thing and you know so smell is an important one so you could have like a you know little vase of flowers by your bed or a diffuser or something you know you could like bathe or shower with some you know nice smelling oils or products even coffee in the morning the smell of coffee yeah so yeah yeah the smell of it for me like the ritual of making the cup of tea and everything as well yeah so and just making sure that you have these points of beauty in your home like one of the things i've ordered recently is a few like pumpkins and squashes and i've actually put them out as like

objects of beauty in that yeah they are they're gorgeous they are beautiful they are so that's my little season change there you go yeah so whether it's the smells during the day, or you light a candle, or you, you know, look outside at the sky for a bit, what you choose to wear as well, like the colour, the texture, just making all of those choices and kind of being conscious that beauty is part of it, that beholding beauty is one of the reasons that you're doing those things. And what does, what will that do? Well, it's got untold benefits on your mental health. So your mood, your physical health through your immunity and your longevity, because by doing all of those things, and also like where you were talking earlier about fear, you're reducing levels of your stress hormone, and you're inducing more oxytocin. So I love textures. I have all sorts of weird things in my house, just because it was a texture that interested me. You know, that makes me either like have a memory or a smile. So that's going to move my brain from fear to love and trust and joy and excitement.

And that's the state of oxytocin, which is a hormone that makes you lower your guard and more likely to take a healthy risk and trust others and collaborate. So you're basically creating an environment to have your brain in its optimal mode oxytocin presumably so when i talk about rearranging your home i do think that's something about when someone's been living in their surroundings for a long time and interesting we run a virtual design service and so it's great to be able to solve people's problems quite quickly over just one room what should i do this room i don't know and and they look at it every single day they're looking at the same room every day so they don't know what to change but they know that something doesn't feel right and then we get the image through and get the photos and

instantly we know oh well that's the wrong color you need to change that that's and do this this this and you we give them this list of everything to do and it's like this absolute wave of happiness that they get in this one I know it sounds mad but the fact that you can change a room to to have and it has such a profound effect on your well-being and happiness because you're spending so much time in there so that's oxytocin right yeah but I was just I got a bit distracted there because I was thinking, I really want you to come to my house. That was a sale pitch, Tara.

It did feel like a plug. It was. It absolutely was. Tara's slipping my card across the table. You mentioned your garden's already designed? It's done. Sorry. She's an innie, not an outie.

So Tara, obviously Jojo and I are now completely obsessed with you, but for everyone else, how can they find out more about you? Well, the place where I'm most active is Instagram, where I'm DrTaraSwartDR, and then my name. And I'm also on Twitter as Tara Swart. Amazing. Tara, thank you so much for coming in. We could have sat here for, honestly, hours.

I could too. And talked to you. Thank you. Honestly, thank you so much. Please do go and check out dr tara swartz her book is the source it's fascinating your mind will be blown numerous times and her podcast reinvent yourself with dr tara yay thank you thank you so much thank you so much and i can't wait to design your house thank you i'll be doing the action board you You will. I'll do that as well. We'll go off and find a coffee shop

and start that together. To where you were like, thank you. She definitely thinks she's sold. I am in there. It was the baskets. I had you at baskets, I'm sure.